Death Tidies Up

by Barbara Colley

  Hank glanced over at Charlotte. “Mom?”

  “That would be just fine.” She turned to Louis. “Thank you for offering.”

  “Well, let’s get those gifts packed up and hit the road then.”

  Louis was quiet during the short drive home, and after all the noise and chatter of the party, the silence was a welcome relief for Charlotte.

  Then, just as they turned down Milan Street, he cleared his throat, a gesture that Charlotte had learned usually indicated he was about to say something that he felt was important.

  “You know, Charlotte, turning sixty is really not all that bad.”

  Of all the things Louis could have said, that was the last thing she’d expected to hear from him.

  He cleared his throat again. “I’ve been sixty now for a couple of years, and other than all the jokes about being an old man that I’ve had to put up with, not much else has changed.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she muttered. “I think turning sixty’s the pits. It just sounds so—so old. Besides, it’s easier for men. Men only grow more distinguished looking the older they get, while women just grow older and more wrinkled.”

  “Now that’s a bunch of hogwash if I ever heard it,” he argued as he turned into the driveway. He shoved the gear into park, switched off the engine, then shifted in the seat to face her. “You’d easily pass for a woman ten years younger any day. Besides, it’s what’s in here—” With his forefinger, he tapped his head near the temple. “And in here—” With his fist he thumped the center of his chest. “That’s all that really counts anyway.”

  Charlotte was speechless. Louis was lots of things, some of them she liked, some of them she didn’t, but she’d never thought of him as a philosopher, and it wasn’t that often that he handed out compliments so freely.

  When she finally found her voice, all she could think to say was a simple “Thank you.” And before the already awkward moment grew even more awkward, she gave him a quick smile. “And thanks for giving me a ride home.” With that, she pulled on the door handle, pushed open the door, and climbed out of the car.

  Following her lead, Louis got out too. “Why don’t you unlock the front door, and I’ll start unloading the gifts.”

  The moment Charlotte entered the living room, Sweety Boy chirped out a greeting from beneath the cage cover. Just to be safe, Charlotte decided to move him out of the room temporarily, at least until Louis left. “No use in you getting all upset this late at night,” she crooned to him as she gently set his cage down on a chair in the bedroom.

  Charlotte directed Louis to stack the gifts on the sofa in the living room for the time being. It took three trips back and forth before everything had been unloaded.

  “That’s the last of them,” he told her, motioning toward the packages he’d just deposited onto the sofa, as he strolled to the front door.

  “Thanks again,” she said, following him.

  At the door he paused, and when he turned to face her, suddenly she felt as if a thousand butterflies had taken wing inside her stomach. Would he kiss her again? But more to the point, did she want him to kiss her again?

  “Charlotte, I—” He glanced down, then shifted from one foot to the other. “About last Friday night—when you came over to eat.” He lifted his head and looked her straight in the eye. “I was pretty damn rude, and I never did apologize. Tonight—seeing how all those people showed up in your honor and listening to Hank’s toast really made me stop and think. You’re a nice lady, and you didn’t deserve me taking my anger out on you.”

  The butterflies settled down, and compassion welled up within her. Charlotte reached out and squeezed his arm. “Was it anger or was it grief, Louis?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “A little of both I guess.”

  She smiled sympathetically. “The offer still stands, you know,” she said softly. “Any time you want to talk about it, I’ll be glad to listen.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I appreciate the offer—I really do.” He shrugged. “Maybe one of these days…”

  Then, once again, before Charlotte realized his intentions, he leaned over and kissed her, full on the lips. Almost before the kiss had begun, though, it was over and he pulled away.

  “Good night, Charlotte, and happy birthday,” he whispered.

  Long after Louis had left and Charlotte had climbed into her bed, she could still taste his kiss. As she stared up at the dark ceiling in her bedroom, she couldn’t stop thinking about him, his apology, or the dance they’d shared…or anything else about the Cinderella night she’d had, including the other kiss he had given her as well.

  Even though she was tired, she kept reliving the entire evening over and over, from beginning to end…the sights and sounds, the food, all of the guests who had been there, the gifts…the music box from B.J. and Aaron…

  Charlotte groaned. Turning over onto her side, she curled up in a fetal position.

  B.J., again.

  What was she going to do about that boy? Was he guilty of committing murder? Had he killed Drew Bergeron? Guilty…innocent until proven guilty…

  Suddenly, she sat straight up in bed. “Shame on you, Charlotte LaRue,” she muttered. All this time, all weekend long, despite her gut feelings to the contrary, she’d been condemning the teenager. Without even the benefit of a fair trial, she’d played prosecutor, judge, and jury and had condemned him, had spent hours worrying about who to tell or if she should tell anyone, and all without even giving the teenager a chance to defend himself or to explain.

  Like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s night, relief spread through her, and she snuggled back down beneath the covers.

  “Monday,” she whispered. On Monday, she would simply confront B.J. with what she’d found and see what he had to say for himself. Then she’d decide what to do about it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Charlotte hated confrontations of any kind, but she also hated the indecision that had plagued her over the past three days. Given a choice, she’d rather deal with neither, but Charlotte knew that there were some things in life, certain circumstances, where a person had no choice but to react.

  A cold knot formed in her stomach as she glanced at the dashboard clock, then turned the van off of St. Charles onto Jefferson Avenue where B.J.’s school was located. Charlotte was well acquainted with the history of the private school B.J. attended, since Hank had also gone there during his high school days. Isodore Newman had been founded in 1903, and the exclusive school had been educating children for almost a century.

  Normal time for dismissal was three-thirty, but Charlotte knew that once a week, on Mondays, B.J. stayed an extra hour for math tutoring. According to Marian, the teenager was highly intelligent and had always made top grades until recently. But since his father’s death, his grades had taken a nosedive, enough so that she’d determined he needed the extra help.

  After his tutoring session, if the weather was pleasant, he would walk the two blocks to St. Charles Avenue, catch a streetcar to the stop nearest his home, then walk the remaining distance.

  Since it was only four-fifteen, Charlotte was a bit early, but she’d wanted to make sure she didn’t miss B.J.

  Jefferson Avenue wasn’t a wide street, but not many were in New Orleans. Jefferson was a two-way street, though, divided by what natives of New Orleans referred to as the neutral ground. As in the Garden District, the Uptown area was shaded from the harsh glare of the afternoon sun by the many trees growing along the Avenue.

  As Charlotte slowly approached the sprawling light-tan brick building trimmed in white, she spotted a perfect place to park, a place where she could remain in the van but still have a good view of the entrance to the school. Since the parking place was on the opposite side of the neutral ground, she had to continue past the school and make a U-turn farther up the street to get back to where she wanted to park.

  Once she’d parked and switched off the engine, for a few moments, she sat and watched as small groups of laugh
ing, loud-talking teenagers walked past the school.

  Luckily for her, Marian had left that morning almost as soon as Charlotte had arrived to clean, saving Charlotte from having to wrestle with her conscience because she hadn’t told Marian about B.J.

  Charlotte suddenly sat up straight when she recognized B.J. emerging from the main entrance, a huge bulky knapsack strapped to his back. Unlike the other students who were paired off or part of a group, B.J. was all alone.

  As she crossed the busy street, B.J. noticed her almost immediately, and the surprised look on his face would have been comical if not for the seriousness of the reason she was there.

  “Hey, Ms. LaRue, what are you doing here?”

  “Hey, yourself, B.J. Actually, I’ve been waiting for you.”

  The boy stared at her for several moments, then suddenly a cloud of worry tinged with fright came over his face. “Everyone’s okay, aren’t they? My mom, my little brother?”

  “Oh, hon—” Charlotte reached out and squeezed his arm. “Of course they’re okay. They’re just fine. The reason I’m here has nothing to do with your family—not exactly, anyway.” She motioned toward a concrete bench set against the backdrop of a row of hedges. “Let’s sit over here.”

  The instant relief evident on his face gave Charlotte a pang of guilt. The last thing she wanted was to cause him more stress or pain than he’d already endured. But if her suspicions were right, and she prayed they weren’t, then the teenager was in for more stress than he’d ever dreamed possible.

  After they had settled on the bench, she turned toward him. “Thank you for my lovely birthday gift.”

  The teenager shrugged. “You’re welcome.” Then he frowned. “You came all the way over here just to thank me?”

  Charlotte slowly shook her head. “No, hon. Not really.” She swallowed hard. “B.J., you know I care about you, don’t you—care about your welfare?” she qualified.

  He shrugged. “Yeah—sure. So?”

  “The first thing I want you to know is that I never snoop or pry into my client’s personal belongings. But while I was cleaning your room last Friday, I found something that really disturbed me. Before I go to your mother or the authorities about what I found, I wanted to give you a chance to explain.”

  B.J. frowned. “Explain what?”

  “Explain why you would have a shoe box full of cigars and clippings about Drew Bergeron’s murder beneath your bed.”

  The boy’s expression grew wary, then turned belligerent. He narrowed his eyes and glared at her. “You had no right to look through my stuff.”

  “Whoa, whoa.” Charlotte held up a hand in a defensive gesture. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I was cleaning out from beneath your bed and the box spilled open.”

  “Well you didn’t have to look, and I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  Charlotte sighed. “No—no you don’t have to tell me anything, but I was at the Devilier house when Mr. Bergeron’s body was discovered, and I saw a cigar ground out on the floor just outside the closet where he was found. And guess what? It looked just like the ones under your bed.”

  “So what! Could have been anyone’s cigar,” he retorted, his tone harsh and belligerent. “And why wouldn’t I be interested in Mr. Drew’s murder? He and my dad were friends, and my dad worked for him.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Yes, I suppose that sounds logical enough, but—” She crossed her arms, tilted up her chin, and peered down her nose at him. “You and I both know it’s not the truth. So why don’t you try again?”

  His answer was an insolent glare.

  After a moment, Charlotte simply shook her head. “Look, B.J.,” she warned, “it’s no secret that you’ve been in trouble lately. Failing grades, curfew violations, fighting at school, and getting suspended. With all of that, how do you think it’s going to look to the police if they find out what’s beneath your bed, especially given your family’s connection to Drew Bergeron? Now, you can either tell me the truth or I’ll have no choice but to go to your mom or to the police.”

  For what seemed like an eternity, the teenager simply glared at Charlotte, his jaw clenched while the muscles in his cheeks tightened, then loosened, then tightened again. The expression on his face was a picture of anguish, indecision, and something else that she could only guess was fear.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he suddenly blurted. His eyes filled with tears, and he blinked them back viciously. “The only reason I collected those newspaper articles was because I kept hoping the cops would find the killer. And I don’t smoke! Not since I got suspended.” He hesitated; then, in a choked voice, he said, “Those cigars belonged to my dad. When Mom cleaned out his stuff after he—he—after he was gone, I took some of his things to keep so I wouldn’t forget him. I’ve got one of his T-shirts too, but Mom doesn’t know and please don’t tell her. She gets too upset, and when she gets all uptight, she drinks.”

  Charlotte had to fight against giving in to the sympathy tugging at her heart. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, then why so defensive?”

  With a shudder, B.J. dropped his head. “Okay, okay,” he finally choked out. “I was there, but I—” He scrubbed his face with the back of his hand, then looked up. “I—I didn’t do it, Ms. LaRue. I swear I didn’t kill him. I’ve never even fired a gun.”

  And she believed him. “Why don’t you start from the beginning, hon, and tell me what happened?”

  Nodding slowly, he cleared his throat. “Last Thursday, my mom needed me to deliver some papers to Ms. Bergeron, and when I was leaving her house, I noticed there was a man hanging around near the side fence. I thought it was kinda weird that he was taking pictures of Katie—that’s Ms. Bergeron’s little girl. You see, Katie was playing just on the other side of the fence.”

  Charlotte went still. The photos. Of course. That was why the pictures she’d seen scattered on top of the sleeping bag had looked so familiar. She hadn’t recognized the little girl because she’d hadn’t seen her since she was born, but her subconscious had recognized the place where the pictures had been taken, had recognized that the house and grounds belonged to Katherine Bergeron.

  “Anyway,” B.J. continued, “I had to walk past the man to get to the bus stop, and when I got closer, I realized that he looked just like Mr. Drew. I didn’t believe it at first, and it really freaked me out. Mr. Drew was dead, but that man looked so much like him that I decided to hang around just to see what he was up to.” B.J. paused, made a face, then shook his head. “You know—he never said a word to Katie. Just took the pictures and left.”

  “And you followed him,” Charlotte offered.

  “Yes, ma’am. It was just too weird, so I followed him down to that house.”

  “The Devilier house?”

  He nodded. “That’s when I figured out that maybe the man really was Mr. Drew and that he was hiding out there. You see, I’d heard my mom talk about the place, and I knew no one was renting it yet. So he had to be hiding out there.”

  Charlotte frowned. “But that was on Thursday, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you tell someone—tell your mom?”

  “I was going to, but by the time I got home, Mom was in a hurry to leave to meet a client, and I didn’t get the chance.”

  “What about Friday?” Charlotte asked him. “Why didn’t you tell her then?”

  B.J. gave her a sheepish look. “After what I pulled Thursday night, she wasn’t in any mood to listen to anything from me.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She nodded sagely. “That was the night you sneaked out after curfew, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So what about Friday afternoon—after school?”

  “She was gone to take Aaron to the doctor.” He hesitated. “But I almost told Ms. Bergeron,” he added. “While Mom was gone, she came by to pick up a set of keys.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “I—I just couldn�
��t—you know—find the right way to tell her. But after she left, I finally decided to call Sam. Since my dad died, Sam is the only one who really listens to me anyway, and I knew he’d know what to do.”

  “And what did Sam tell you?”

  “Sam said that I’d better make sure that the man was Mr. Drew before I go around telling anyone. He said if I was wrong and told someone, and Ms. Bergeron or my mom got all upset, then I would be in big trouble for sure.”

  “So…Let me guess. You decided to go the Devilier house that night and make sure.”

  “Well, how else was I gonna know?”

  “Oh, B.J., B.J.” She shook her head. B.J. ignored her. “All I wanted was to find something that would prove the man really was Mr. Drew. I figured I could maybe sneak in and find something in his stuff—you know, like a driver’s license or something.”

  “Did it ever once occur to you that whoever the man was, he might be dangerous?”

  “Oh, sure. That’s why I waited till I saw him leave.”

  “And did you find anything?”

  “Uh-uh. Just about the time I finally got inside, I heard someone else come in and I had to hide in a closet.”

  “Someone else?”

  “Ms. Bergeron and some man I didn’t know. They were looking at the apartments, I guess—you know, to rent?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Well, anyway, they finally left, and I had just started looking through the man’s stuff when I heard someone else come in. So I hid again. I figured if he’d come back, then I could sneak out after he went to sleep, and if it was someone else—” He shrugged. “Then I would just wait until they left.

  “I hid in a hallway closet just outside of the room where he had all his stuff and waited. It had to be him, though, because I heard him go straight to the room where his junk was and I could hear him fooling around in the bathroom—brushing his teeth and stuff.

  “Just about the time that I thought he was settling down for the night, I heard the stairs creak, and then I heard voices. At first I couldn’t hear what was being said ’cause they were talking kinda low. Then, the man—Mr. Drew—started yelling at whoever was there, and that’s when I knew it really was him ’cause I recognized his voice. He kept saying ‘Don’t! Don’t do it! No, please don’t.’” B.J. abruptly paused and swallowed hard. “I heard it but didn’t know what it was until later. All I could think about at the time was getting out of there as soon as I could.”