Sea Change (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 1)

by T'Gracie Reese

  “You aren’t that old.”

  “But I’m in this up to my neck now, Jackson. My house was vandalized; this woman stood in my living room no more than three hours ago, and told me I was responsible for everything that was happening around town.”

  “That’s not true, of course.”

  “Maybe not. But true or not, I have a right to know what’s happened.”

  He was silent for a time.

  In the distance, more sirens could be heard.

  “I guess,” he said, quietly, “you may be right. The two of you be in my office in five minutes.”

  Then he got in his car and pulled away.

  The rain had begun again shortly before one A.M. Nina could hear it softly pattering on the roof of Jackson’s office, and she could imagine in impinging with its little needle droplets on the December garden plots of Bay St. Lucy, readying them for spring plantings.

  It was, she found herself thinking, so strange, to be seated in this same chair, the one where she had received her ‘commission’ to fly over to New Orleans and perform the ‘easy’ task of listening to a non will.

  So much had happened since then—

  The small office then had been bathed in morning sunlight; now it glowed in what seemed almost like candle light, the green-shaded lamps humming along with a scarcely perceptible buzz of central heating.

  They were all seated; Tom beside her, Jackson, large and imposing, behind his desk.

  “What happened, Jackson?”

  “You must promise me, that you were never here tonight.”

  “All right.”

  “This will all come out. But it did not come out from this office.”

  “Go ahead, Jackson.”

  He took a deep breath, then launched forth.

  “Eve Ivory was murdered tonight, in her bedroom, at the Robinson mansion, at approximately eleven twenty two A.M.”

  “How?”

  “She was stabbed in the neck by a letter opener.”

  “By whom?”

  “Macy Peterson.”

  “What?”

  “Macy Peterson.”

  “That’s insane!”

  “No.”

  “Jackson, Macy Peterson couldn’t hurt a fly!”

  “Perhaps. But she stabbed Eve Ivory to death.”

  “This is—this is a mistake!”

  He shrugged:

  “I wish it was. I wish to heaven it was.”

  “How do you know this, Jackson?”

  “I’ve just been asked to defend her.”

  “Did you accept?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Then you must know she’s innocent!”

  “I can’t say, one way or another.”

  “What do you mean you can’t say? Jackson, Macy Peterson is the gentlest person in the world! What—what makes anybody think she could have done this thing?”

  “What makes people think she could have done this thing, Nina, is she was found there.”

  “Where?”

  “The woman’s bedroom.”

  “Okay, for some reason she was in Eve Ivory’s bedroom. But that doesn’t mean she killed her!”

  “Nina, two security men heard screams. They thought Ms. Ivory was screaming. They ran to the door, opened it—and saw Macy Peterson, kneeling beside Eve Ivory’s desk. Eve Ivory was dead. Blood was everywhere, still spouting from her neck—out of which Macy Peterson had just pulled a letter opener.”

  “It had,” Tom Broussard said quietly, “Macy’s fingerprints on it?”

  Jackson glowered at him:

  “It had her fingerprints on it,” he rumbled, “because she was holding it her hand! There was nobody else in the room! She couldn’t stop screaming—and she had just finished stabbing the woman repeatedly in her jugular vein.”

  There was nothing to say.

  The rain intensified, and began rattling on the window beside the desk.

  “She did it, Nina. Macy Peterson murdered Eve Ivory.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: RUMOR

  Rumour, compared with whom no other is as swift

  She flourishes by speed, and gains strength as she goes.

  She flies, screeching, by night through the shadows,

  Between earth and sky, never closing her eyelids.

  Virgil, The Aeneid

  A startlingly beautiful multi-millionairess who held the future of Bay St. Lucy in the palm of her hand had just been murdered by the town’s most popular young schoolteacher, stabbed repeatedly in the neck as an act of brutal vengeance for the fact that she, the dead woman, had been engaged in a torrid sexual affair with the fiancé of the murderess, the town’s most vaunted ex-quarterback and current director of schools.

  There was a chance, of course, that this would not be much talked about.

  There was a chance that at seven o’clock, at eight o’clock, and nine o’clock, etc., in shops such as Martel’s Beauty Supplies, Rosen’s By the Sea, Comeuax’s Bed and Breakfast, Claire’s Shell Designs, Amanda’s Pottery Creations, and Just Odds and Ends by Rosette—nothing would be discussed save the nation’s affairs at large, the danger of the fiscal cliff, the possible revolution in Syria, the problems involving drilling regulations in Alaska, and the always bothersome issue of global warming.

  What actually happened though was that none of these issues, pressing as they were (and continue to be), were talked about at all.

  So that, when Nina walked into Margot’s shop at 9:15 (She’d been driven back to her shack by Jackson at 2:30, paced until 4, read until 4:05, listened to sirens until 4:30, paced until 6, and blissfully, fallen asleep until 8:30—after which she’d taken a breakfast of sort, gotten dressed of sorts, and wandered like a zombie into town)—when she walked after all of this into Margot’s shop, she found herself confronted by a group of people, mostly women—well, actually, all women—who immediately stopped talking about the murder, which was all they had been talking about, looked at her, and asked, as one:

  “Did you hear what happened?”

  To which she, still somewhat stunned, replied:

  “Can I have a cup of coffee?”

  She was seated, brought coffee, and asked again:

  “Did you hear what happened?”

  And, before she could say she did know what happened; that Eve Ivory was murdered and that she knew who murdered Eve Ivory, and where, and what time, and with what instrument—

  ––she was told all of these things.

  But erroneously.

  Delia Comeaux, proprietor of Delia’s Treasures on the Beach, was the first to be wrong, though not, ultimately, the loudest.

  “Macy Peterson shot her.”

  “She—what?” asked Nina, instantly regretting having said anything at all and wishing for Furl.

  “What did she do?”

  “Shot her. Right through the heart!”

  There was no point in saying anything now. It was like she’d always imagined riding out a hurricane would be, say, from her own deck. There would be no point in speaking, one’s voice being both inaudible to the wind and not listened to anyway by the water.

  One would only be able to watch.

  But it would, at that, be quite interesting.

  False statements began to come now from people standing all over the shop, from the calendar area to the pottery area to the dishware area, and even from the “silly shirt” area.

  “I heard she shot her in the head!”

  “No. The heart. Direct hit. One shot.”

  “It was out in the garden, wasn’t it?”

  “I heard it was in the kitchen. And Eve Ivory shot first. It was her gun. Macy took it away from her in the struggle.”

  “Where is Macy now?”

  “In the hospital.”

  “In New Orleans, I heard.”

  “Yes. They care-flighted her out last night.”

  “Where was Paul during all this?”

  “Paul was in bed with Eve!”

  “Rea
lly?”

  “Of course! They were doing it when Macy walked in and surprised them!”

  “No wonder she murdered the woman!”

  “Except I heard she broke a bottle of champagne on the bedstead and cut Eve’s throat!”

  “That’s exactly the way I heard it!”

  “But what about the gun? She did shoot Eve, didn’t she?”

  “Only after Eve shot her first; but Eve was bleeding so bad, she couldn’t see.”

  “What did Paul do?”

  “He tried to get the knife away, or so I heard, and that’s when he got cut!”

  “So Paul is the one who’s in the hospital?”

  “No, Paul is the one who’s being care-flighted to New Orleans.”

  “Poor man.”

  “Poor man indeed! He’s the cause of it all!”

  “What about the dog?”

  “What?”

  “I heard there was a dog involved!”

  “Is that what you heard?”

  “Yes, it was on the news!”

  “What program did you hear it on?”

  “Morning Recipes.”

  “Well, they’re usually pretty good.”

  “I didn’t hear any of that about the gun and the knife and the champagne bottle and the naked Paul; I heard they fought in the kitchen and Macy killed her with a paring knife.”

  “Who told you that?”

  ‘My daughter. She got texted at three in the morning by her ex-boyfriend.”

  “I thought he was in New Orleans.”

  “No. Seattle.”

  “Did you hear about the fire?”

  ‘No, I hadn’t heard that!”

  “Half of the mansion burned down!”

  “How?”

  “Macy set the curtains on fire!”

  This went on for an interminable amount of time, or at least until Nina had finished one cup of coffee.

  Then, having satisfied herself that the people in the shop were no longer attempting to explain anything to her but simply writing their own romance novels and publishing them both orally and in a format that was, thankfully, instantaneously extinguishable and never to come again—she gestured to Margot.

  “Come here.”

  “Where?”

  “Come back into the garden.”

  “But it’s more fun here!”

  “Come back into the garden.”

  “But––”

  “Come.”

  She took her friend’s arm and led her back into the part of the shop where the two of them were used to sitting in the morning.

  In a second they were facing each other across the familiar wrought iron table.

  “Macy,” she said quietly, “did kill Eve Ivory. She did it with a letter opener. She stabbed her in the neck.”

  Margot stared at her:

  “Nina! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”

  “But I––”

  “Nina, you’ve got to stop spreading outlandish rumors like that!”

  “Margot, Tom and I––”

  “You’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble! That’s the way crazy stories get started you know!”

  She looked at Margot for a time, then nodded and said:

  “You’re right.”

  “Now. Promise you won’t go wandering around town talking about things you don’t understand!”

  “I promise.”

  “Good! Now come back into the shop and listen. Maybe you can learn something.”

  “No. I want to go home.”

  She rose, made her way across the garden, and was halfway out of the shop when the door opened before her, the little bell tinkled, and Moon Rivard walked in.

  It was certain, the first time he’d ever been in Margot’s Treasures by the Sea, and probably the first time he’d ever found himself encircled by thirty women, all of them speaking fluent fiction as fast as they could.

  He took two steps into the room, looked around, horrified, gained some sense of composure, and finally said to Nina:

  “Miz Nina, you need to come with me, ma cher. Macy’s asking for you.”

  Every eye in the store became riveted on her.

  She had immediately become the most admired woman in the village.

  From ten feet behind her, she heard a loud ‘crash’ that was the sound of Margot’s mouth falling open and her bottom lip falling on the floor.

  “All right,” she said, quietly. “I’m coming.”

  There was massive, intense, continuous, passionate, silent, applause as she made her way out of the store.

  Even as she got into the police car, her ears were ringing from the utter silence behind her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MACY’S STORY

  “The best thing about living in small towns is that, when you don’t know what you’re doing, someone else does.”

  Author Unknown

  The confusion concerning Macy Peterson’s whereabouts, though prevalent throughout Margot Gavin’s store, was not shared by all residents of Bay St. Lucy.

  Many of them—and the number was growing—knew exactly where she was.

  She was in the city jail.

  Around which a crowd of people was growing.

  It now numbered more than two hundred souls, who, fluxing and ebbing in an amoeba-like mass, were creating some consternation in the small line of local officers assigned to keep order.

  The officers, as it happened, needed not worry.

  For this was not an angry crowd.

  This was not a lynch mob, but more a PTA crowd; it was not a protest crowd but more a Methodist Church Fifth Sunday crowd.

  This was a crowd that had brought casseroles.

  For it was, incomprehensibly but undeniably, a fact that in many small villages grief demanded food. The ceremonies marking death, burial, and mourning were invariable accompanied by both soft music and deviled eggs.

  If the deceased did not have an appetite, the deeply aggrieved almost certainly did.

  So that pre- and post-burial get-togethers were held in small frame homes, the ante rooms, living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and screened in porches of which were cluttered with coffee tables, upon which were piled platters of:

  Deviled eggs.

  Ravioli Florentine.

  Buttered squash.

  Potato salad.

  Chicken salad.

  Mashed potatoes.

  Brown cream gravy.

  Eggplant au gratin.

  Fried Chicken.

  String Beans and rice casserole.

  Green Pea salad.

  Cucumber salad.

  Sliced turkey.

  Lasagna.

  Fried butterfly shrimp.

  Okra delight.

  Gumbo.

  Stroganoff.

  And various desserts.

  Along with iced tea, both sweetened (though not in The North) and unsweetened.

  This was the scene surrounding the Bay St. Lucy jail at ten P.M., as Moon Rivard and Nina arrived.

  It was a kind of festive atmosphere.

  Food was everywhere, and people were eating it.

  There were hand-painted placards held high, reading:

  WE LOVE YOU, MACY!

  And—

  WE’RE WITH YOU, MACY PETERSON!

  ––causing Nina to say:

  “What in God’s name is going on here?”

  Moon, leading her through the crowd, could only shake his head:

  “The woman she killed was not too popular.”

  Nina, turning down a paper cup filled with almond succotash, tried to focus on reality, and said:

  “Macy didn’t kill anybody. You know that.”

  “I’m not sure; to tell you the truth, it don’t look too good for her.”

  “Well,” she said, entering the building, “at least she won’t starve.”

  “No ma’am. That’s the truth.”

  The receiving area of Bay St. Lucy’s jail resembled all government offices a
nywhere in the world. There was a desk and, behind that desk, several tables with computers on top. The colors in the room were all not-quite gray, not-quite pink, or not-quite brown.

  It was, in short, like all other government offices, a horribly horribly horribly depressing place to be and it made Nina feel now, as at all other times in the past, that she would rather have been transported instantly to some gayer place, like the waiting room of an emergency ward.

  “Nina!”

  Edie Towler emerged from one of the back rooms, approached the counter, and extended a hand:

  “Nina, thank you for coming!”

  Edie led her into the bowels of the city jail, where Jackson was already waiting. Another officer was sitting at a side table, fiddling with a tape recorder.

  In what seemed no more than a minute later, Macy herself, still wearing an orange jump suit that made her look like a member of the County Road Crew, was brought in.

  She hurled herself into Nina’s arms, and for a time they simply stood in front of Edie’s desk, mutually sobbing. She looked terrible, thought Nina.

  Of course, what would she be expected to look like?

  Her hair was disheveled, her eyes sunken, the remnants of makeup smeared here and there—

  ––there was no way, thought Nina, she could make any kind of a statement.

  But at least Edie was thoughtful enough to let her sit there, composing herself as best she could.

  Finally, with an incredible display of effort, the poor woman managed to smile at Nina.

  “Sorry to make you come.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “I just—I just––”

  Then more sobbing.

  More patience from Edie, who, after a time, spoke over the gentle weeping sound to say to Nina:

  “Macy has been asking for you for some time now.”

  “I understand.”

  “Obviously she feels very close to you, Nina.”

  “I know.”

  Nina smiled at Macy, who did not see the gesture, since her face, quivering, was buried in her palms, which were also quivering.

  “We need to take your statement, Macy,” said Edie. “We just want your side of what happened. We’re going to read you your rights, and record your statement.” Macy glanced at Jackson, who nodded.

  The tape recorder was turned on, the rights were read, and Macy began to speak.