Mischief in Mudbug

by Jana DeLeon

  “Wait,” Sabine called after him, but he hurried down the stairs, never once looking back.

  Sabine waited until the door slammed shut, then trudged downstairs to lock the door. She peeked out the front window, but Beau’s truck was already gone. Frustrated with herself, she went back up to her apartment.

  The roast beef was still floating, but now a jar of mayonnaise was suspended along with it, the roast beef seeming to dip itself in the jar then disappear in pieces. “I don’t care if you’re dead—this is still breaking and entering, not to mention theft. And at the very least, it’s just plain rude, even for you.”

  The sandwich stopped moving and hung in midair. “Oh, please,” Helena said, “You were so wrapped up in that detective, I could have slaughtered a cow and started a barbeque right on your kitchen table and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

  “Oh really? So why is it that I sent him packing as soon as I saw you?”

  “Hmmmm, guess I didn’t exactly put that together.”

  “How could you? You were too busy robbing me of my leftovers.”

  “Next time I’ll be less obvious.”

  “Ha!” Sabine laughed. “You’re about as unobtrusive as a freight train running through here. Besides, I don’t want you sneaking, either.”

  “I can see why, if you’re going to act like a hooker at your front door. Although, there’s a huge advantage to you not being able to see me. That Beau is damned good looking…almost as good looking as Maryse’s man, but she always catches me. With you, I have a really good shot at seeing some prime male behind before I leave this earth.”

  An image of making love with Beau flashed through Sabine’s mind. Helena was right—his behind was grade-A prime beef. And the image would have been perfect, except for the floating buffet at the end of the bed. Sabine shuddered. No way. “From now on, you will announce yourself before you walk through the walls, do you understand me, Helena? I can still do that exorcism.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Jeez, you and Maryse are such bores. It’s a wonder men are interested in you at all.”

  Sabine thought about the look Beau had flashed her just before he practically ran out of her apartment. “I don’t think that’s something I have to consider any longer.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t write him off just yet…not with the way I’ve seen him look at you.” The roast beef began its journey into the mayonnaise again. “Damn! This is some of the best roast beef I’ve ever eaten. If you gave him some of this, he’ll definitely be back.”

  Sabine sighed and sank into a chair at the kitchen table. “What if I don’t want him to come back?”

  The sandwich stopped moving again and just hung there. Finally, it moved forward along with the mayonnaise jar and then they both came to rest on the kitchen table. The chair across from her slid backwards and the cushion flattened.

  “You’re afraid,” Helena said. “You’re afraid of letting him close to you because of the cancer.”

  “Maybe. Yes. Well, wouldn’t you be?”

  “Probably. The question is, are you scared for him or yourself?”

  Sabine buried her head in her hands, her heartbeat pounding in her temples. “I wish I knew.”

  “I know my opinion probably doesn’t count for anything, but I’m going to tell you like I told Maryse. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. I lived a pretty damned long life of nothing, hiding myself from people, afraid to make connections because I might get hurt. I married a man I knew I could never love, had a child that I never could connect with, and died without a single friend to my name.”

  Sabine looked across the table at the empty space, wishing she could actually see the woman who was speaking. “You think the risk is worth it? To admit your feelings for someone who might not feel the same way? To share your darkest secret knowing it could be the one thing that drives them away? Or even worse, to have them stay and love you and in the end, lose it all to a dreadful disease?”

  “But you’ll never ask yourself what if.”

  Tears began to form in Sabine’s eyes. “I hate it when you’re right.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, silently willing the unshed tears to disappear. “I met my family today.”

  Her comment was met with dead silence and for a moment, Sabine wondered if Helena had left, but the seat cushion was still flattened. Finally, Helena spoke. “I didn’t realize. So what happened? I mean, if you feel like telling me that is…wow, I can’t even imagine…almost thirty years of not knowing, right?”

  “Just about. They’re…different, I guess would be the polite way to describe them. Wealthy. Hey, maybe you could help me understand things along that line. I know people with money have a different set of rules, but I’m having trouble getting a handle on it. The meeting today was, well, I guess the best word is ‘weird.’ ”

  “Wealth often comes with conditions. Most people don’t realize it because the wealthy keep everything hidden. But family structure is paramount. Keeping appearances is the second priority, right after keeping the money. It’s definitely a different world. And not often a pleasant one for children.”

  “Yeah, I’m kinda getting that.”

  “So who is the family? Anyone I would know of?”

  “Maybe. They’re not that far from here. The family name is Fortescue.”

  “Holy shit! The Fortescues? Jesus, no wonder you said they were weird. Hell, weird is polite. Nuts is a better description.”

  Sabine felt her pulse quicken. “You know them?”

  “As well as one half-ass recluse can know another. I never had much interaction with the whole family, but I did deal with Catherine before she married William. The family pretty much dropped out of sight during Vietnam and never really emerged again except church events, and I always tried to avoid church events. My hypocrisy only extended to writing checks, not actually attending. The rumor mill was always running on about them though.”

  “Really? About what, exactly?”

  “Some said Frances went crazy, and that’s why they didn’t come out, but that never made sense to me. Frances was only a baby during Vietnam and attended the Catholic school in town for some time. Some said Catherine was the crazy one and she made Frances that way, since she dropped out of school her senior year. Some said William was never right after the war. No matter, most everyone assumed someone—or everyone—in the family was crazy. Then the son disappeared when he was a teenager—hey, that must have been your father. Damn, this is getting interesting. And seeing as how William’s brother had disappeared years before, everyone wondered what religion exactly was being practiced in that house. Last I checked, Christians didn’t make people disappear, but that family had more than their share of missing relatives and no answers for it, according to the local police.”

  “So what did people think happened?”

  “There was speculation that the family was hiding the wanted brother, Lloyd, during and after Vietnam, which is why they pulled back so much from society. But I figure there was probably all sorts of government agencies just itching to find Lloyd, so there was little chance they could have hidden him all those years, even in that monstrous house of theirs. More likely he died in Vietnam and was never recovered.”

  Sabine nodded. “That seems to be the most likely. And my father? Did you know anything of him besides his disappearance?”

  “Seems the townspeople knew your father pretty well. Apparently he didn’t stick to the rest of his family’s rules about associating with the lower class. There was always rumors that he’d taken up with someone the family didn’t or wouldn’t approve of. Most thought he’d simply run away with the girl, even though he was giving up a fortune in inheritance to do it.”

  “And when no one saw him again?”

  “I don’t know. People speculated for a while, but I think they finally decided that the family must have given him some money to keep their secrets and stay away. After a while, no one spoke of him at all.”

  Sabine considered this
for a moment. “But if anyone knew anything, or even thought they knew anything, they might be willing to tell me now, right?”

  “Possibly, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Some think the past is better left buried. Some just don’t want to get involved in other people’s business…not the serious kind anyway. General gossip over extramarital affairs and plastic surgery is one thing, speculating about the possibilities of bribery and murder is entirely different. And with Catherine and William still alive, it might not be the smartest thing to go speculating on.”

  “But it’s possible someone would be willing to?”

  Helena sighed. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? I suppose I could come up with a name or two for you to start with, but you have to promise me to be careful. Hell, Maryse got caught up in all that mess just by doing her job. You asking questions about things people might want to keep buried is a lot more risky.”

  “I want the truth, Helena, but you’re right. I promise to be careful, and if it starts to look dangerous at all, I’ll stop. Okay?”

  “It’s already dangerous. The wealthy don’t like their secrets in the public eye, even if everyone else wouldn’t blink twice at them. Everything’s a possible embarrassment to them. Everything’s a possible slur to the family name. Whole lot of bullshit if you ask me, but then, I didn’t exactly play by the rules of money. Probably why I never got invited to those fancy parties. Ha.”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess that part was intentional.”

  “You’ve been hanging around me too long.”

  “That is an overstatement.” Sabine rose from the table. “I’m going to take a hot bath and crawl in bed with a glass of wine.”

  “Hmmmm, wine sounds good. Hey, I wonder if I can get drunk. What do you think?”

  “I think we’re not going to try. Good night, Helena.”

  “Wait a minute. If you have a phone book, I can probably jot down a couple of names for you. My memory’s not what it used to be, but the phone book should bring it back.”

  Sabine pulled a thin local phone book from her kitchen drawer. She placed the directory, a pad of paper, and a pen on the table in front of Helena’s chair, then headed off to start her bath.

  Twenty minutes later, she emerged from the steamy water feeling much more relaxed. Especially for someone whose life was falling apart at every end. She pulled on her pink cotton pajamas and headed into the kitchen to see what Helena had found. The ghost hadn’t made a noise the entire time Sabine was in the bath, which meant she was either engrossed in her studies or all that food had put her in carb overload and she was asleep on the kitchen table.

  “I came up with three names,” Helena said as Sabine entered the kitchen, “but I think one of them died a couple of years ago, so maybe only two. Hell, to be quite honest, the other two might be dead by now, too. These women were closer to my mom’s age than mine.”

  Sabine leaned over and took a look at the list, but the names weren’t familiar to her. “Do they live in Mudbug?”

  “No. The dead one was from Rabbit Island and the other two were up around Bayou Thibodeaux.”

  “That’s close to my family, right?”

  “Yeah, a couple of miles up the bayou from town, but they could be anywhere now. Still, if anyone’s going to know the local gossip, it would be these two. If they’re still alive.”

  Sabine nodded. “I’ll check tomorrow.” She stepped into the kitchen, pulled a brand-new bottle of wine from her refrigerator, removed the cork, and poured herself a generous glass. Then she took a couple of sugar cookies from the cookie tin, since apparently Helena had helped herself to the ones on the table, and headed to the bedroom. “I’m off to bed, Helena. Turn off the kitchen light when you’re done, all right?”

  “No problem,” Helena replied.

  Sabine placed the glass of wine and cookies on her nightstand next to the latest thriller she was reading and climbed into bed. Between the hot bath, the wine, the sugar, and the book, she ought to be out like a light in no time. She took a nice, slow sip of the wine, a huge bite of a cookie, and opened the book to her marker. She’d barely read the first two sentences when she realized something was wrong.

  Her breathing constricted, like a whooping asthma attack, and she could feel her heart beating doubletime in her chest. She tried to sit up straight, hoping to expand her lungs a bit, but she seemed rooted in place, her limbs not responding at all. She tried to yell, but it came out not much more than a whisper. “Helena. Helena, help.”

  She strained to hear something…anything moving in her apartment, but only the ticking of the kitchen clock met her ears. This is it. I’m going to die. Frantic, she struggled with her lifeless body, but couldn’t move her hand more than an inch. “Help. Helena, help.”

  “What the hell are you whispering for?” Helena’s voice boomed next to her. “Speak up if you want something.”

  Sabine opened her mouth, at least she thought she did, but no sound emerged. She looked at the side of the bed where she’d heard Helena’s voice, frightened beyond belief. Helena was her only chance. If the ghost couldn’t figure out what was going on, she was going to die right here in her bed.

  “Holy shit!” Helena said, apparently realizing something was very wrong. “Just hang in there. I’ll dial 911.”

  Sabine saw the cordless phone rise from her dresser and heard the numbers being depressed. Then the phone glided across the room and stopped with the mouthpiece at her lips. The operator answered and Sabine struggled to get out a word. “Help.” Her voice was so faint, she didn’t know if the operator had heard her at all. “Help,” she said again and slipped into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Ten

  Beau tossed Sabine’s file on the dresser with his gun and wallet and plopped back onto the worn-out recliner with a sigh. Another hour of reading over the same information and still he had nothing. He reached for the remote and turned on the television. He needed a distraction—one that didn’t have coal-black hair and a body that was an art form. He shook his head. Stupid. That woman is nothing but trouble, yet you insist on humiliating yourself over her. Real smart, Villeneuve. He jumped up from the chair and paced the length of the room, all three steps of it, then turned and paced it again. The job is officially over, and it’s not your business to play bodyguard. Get back to New Orleans and forget your ever met Sabine LeVeche.

  He sat on the end of the bed with a sigh. If only it was that easy.

  It should have been easy. It should have been a piece of cake. It wasn’t like Sabine was the first woman he had ever been attracted to. But this woman…this woman with strange beliefs and a huge can of worms for a family had stopped him cold in his tracks.

  It just didn’t make sense.

  Sabine LeVeche was everything he didn’t want in his life. Her beliefs defied logic and science. She was smack in the middle of a huge family drama, and her family was a nightmare of old-school beliefs and even older money. God only knew what they had been hiding behind those stone walls for all these years, and Beau didn’t want to know. But Sabine would, and that’s where his dilemma came in. Sabine LeVeche would look for answers until there were no questions left.

  Beau knew all too well that those questions just might unleash a nightmare.

  The family had been polite enough and had seemed as if they were glad to learn of Sabine, but they were still guarded in the information they dispensed. He wasn’t even going to launch into the weirdness factor. It went without saying. If Sabine veered off into the wrong line of questioning, they’d close ranks in a second, complete with the attorney to back them up. The attorney had hovered over the group the entire afternoon. Always standing and studying the room like he was getting ready for a major coup. If Beau had been a lesser man, he might have found it unnerving. Instead, he’d just found it annoying.

  And none of it is your problem.

  Mind made up, Beau leaned over to untie his tennis shoe. He was going to get a good night’s sleep an
d first thing in the morning he was going to head back to New Orleans, send an itemized bill to Sabine, and try to forget everything he knew about this case. He couldn’t afford to get involved on a personal level. Already the dreams were starting to return. It had taken him years to get a good night’s sleep again. He wasn’t about to jeopardize that for a stranger who’d repeatedly made it clear she had no interest in getting to know him better.

  He pulled one shoe off and had just started on the second when he heard the sirens. His heart leapt to his throat and the completely irrational feeling that something bad had happened to Sabine washed over him like rain. He jumped up from the bed and peered out the hotel window. The ambulance exited the highway and raced into town, sirens screaming. He hadn’t taken a breath since he’d leapt off the bed, but when the ambulance screeched to a stop in front of Sabine’s store, the air all came out in a whoosh. He didn’t even stop to grab his other shoe before he tore out of the hotel, almost knocking down the hotel owner as he ran across the street.

  The paramedics had already burst in through the front door of the shop and Beau ran past the policeman standing at the door without bothering to identify himself. He dashed up the stairs, the policeman close behind him, yelling for him to stop. He ran into the apartment and, finding the front rooms empty, dashed into the bedroom. What he saw brought him up short.

  The paramedics wheeled Sabine out on a gurney, an oxygen mask strapped to her pale face. She looked unconscious. “What’s wrong with her? What happened? Damn it, someone answer me!”

  “We don’t know. You have to move, sir!” one of the paramedics yelled as they rushed past him with the gurney.

  “Where are you taking her?” he called after them.

  “Mudbug General,” the paramedic called back as they hurried down the stairs as fast as they could go.

  Beau started to follow, but the policeman who had chased him upstairs hitched his pants up with one hand and put his other on Beau’s chest. “Buddy, you ain’t going nowhere until you tell me who the hell you are and how you know Sabine.”