Stop Me

by Brenda Novak

  Jasmine nearly burst into tears. This woman wasn’t dangerous. With her soft white hair and the chain attached to her glasses, she reminded Jasmine of the average American grandmother.

  “S-someone l-locked me in here,” Jasmine stammered.

  “Who?” A second woman came into view, much younger than her counterpart and quite attractive.

  “I d-don’t know.” It was difficult to quell the chattering of her teeth. “I d-didn’t see him.”

  “I told you I heard something, Beverly!” the younger woman exclaimed.

  So this was Mrs. Moreau. Jasmine had read her name in the papers as the witness that’d caused the case to be dropped.

  “It’s fortunate you called me,” Beverly said, but there was a hint of resentment in her voice that made Jasmine pay particular attention. Especially since the second woman seemed so oblivious to the older woman’s true feelings.

  “I hated to disturb you. I know you work at night and need your sleep during the day. But I didn’t want to intrude on your privacy by searching for the source of that noise without you.”

  “No one likes a nosy neighbor,” she agreed. “Now, where’s that little ladder of mine?”

  Jasmine hoped she could find it, and wasn’t disappointed. A moment later, both women handed the ladder down to her and, resisting a final glance at the grave in the corner, Jasmine climbed out.

  “Look at you. You’re covered in mud!” Mrs. Moreau said. “What have you been doing down there?”

  Jasmine had been about to sob out every gory detail and suggest they call the police. Surely these women had nothing to do with what lay buried in that cellar. Surely they didn’t even know it existed, would be as shocked as she was. But Mrs. Moreau’s question gave her pause. Wouldn’t the average person be more concerned with how Jasmine had come to be in the cellar in the first place?

  “I’ve been trying to get out.” She curled her fingers into her palms so they couldn’t see the dirt beneath her nails.

  “You poor thing!” It was the younger woman again. “What happened?”

  “I c-came to the house to speak with Mrs. Moreau and—”

  “Why would you want to talk to me?” Beverly demanded. “I’ve never even met you.”

  “We’ve never met. I’m Jasmine Stratford. I work for a victims’ charity. I wanted to ask if your son—”

  “Phillip’s out of town.”

  “He is?” The younger woman seemed surprised by this information. “I’m Tattie, by the way,” she said to Jasmine. “I live next door.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Jasmine mumbled, but Tattie wasn’t listening. “Where’s Phillip?” she asked Mrs. Moreau again.

  “He went to Lafayette to see that woman he met online.” She gave Jasmine a glass of water.

  Jasmine accepted the water, but she was too uneasy to drink, even though the house was neat as a pin. Scrubbed and polished—if a little cluttered—it was an extreme contrast to the pile of garbage sitting right outside the back door and the general sense of neglect in the yard. The kitchen smelled mildly of cats, which was no wonder because there were three in the kitchen alone, but everything was in its place. There wasn’t a dirty dish on the counter, a magazine or newspaper cast aside on the table, or a cupboard left standing open. “I was talking about Francis.”

  A slight tensing around the mouth contradicted Mrs. Moreau’s otherwise genial appearance. “Francis is dead.”

  Jasmine wondered if Mrs. Moreau blamed her son, society, herself or Fornier for that harsh reality. She definitely blamed someone. “I read about that.” Jasmine couldn’t bring herself to say she was sorry. Not after what she’d found in the cellar. “I was hoping you could tell me if he ever traveled to Cleveland.”

  “He traveled all over the place,” Tattie interrupted. “He was a truck driver and made deliveries for a lighting company. Didn’t he, Bev?”

  “Yes, just like his father used to.” A second later “Bev” turned back to close the cellar door and replace the things that’d been disarranged in the pantry.

  “How long ago did he start doing that?” Jasmine asked the neighbor.

  “Why do you care about the details of a man’s life when you didn’t even know him, a man who’s already dead?” Joining them again, Bev spoke before Tattie could answer. “Not after what you’ve just been through.”

  It was a smart dodge, if it was a dodge, because it got Tattie pressing Jasmine for details. “Why would anyone lock you in the cellar?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Should we call the police? Are you hurt? How do we find the person who did this to you?”

  These questions came from the neighbor and not Mrs. Moreau. Francis’s mother didn’t seem too concerned, which added to Jasmine’s discomfort. But she decided to untangle all of that later. For now, she wanted to get out of the house. “The police won’t be able to do anything.” They wouldn’t even be able to enter the cellar without a warrant, not unless Mrs. Moreau allowed them to search and, as cagey as she was, Jasmine knew she wasn’t likely to do that.

  “Are you sure?” Tattie asked.

  “I’m sure. It happened too fast. I didn’t even see his face.” Just his cigarette butts.

  Tattie shook her head. “That had to be terrifying.”

  “At least you weren’t hurt,” Mrs. Moreau inserted.

  Jasmine put her glass of water on the table as a way of breaking eye contact. Maybe Mrs. Moreau hadn’t been the one to lock Jasmine in—Jasmine already knew the older woman didn’t have the strength for it—but Francis’s mother had known about it. She hadn’t answered the front door when Jasmine had initially knocked, although she was apparently home at the time. And she hadn’t responded to Jasmine’s pleas for help from the cellar, although she must’ve heard them.

  It was the neighbor’s intervention that had, possibly, saved Jasmine’s life. “Yes, at least I’m not hurt,” she repeated. “But he got away with my purse.”

  “So it was a purse-snatching,” Tattie said. “Are you sure you don’t want to call the police? I know chances are slim that you’ll get your stuff back, but it’s worth reporting.”

  “I’ll do that later. The only thing I need right now is a ride to the car rental place so I can get a second set of keys.”

  “I’ll drive you wherever you need to go.” Mrs. Moreau patted her hand and it was all Jasmine could do not to flinch away from those hardworking, callused fingers. She was about to say she’d rather walk when Tattie came up with an alternate plan.

  “No, Bev. You stay here with Dustin.”

  Who was Dustin? Fortunately, Jasmine didn’t need to ask. Tattie barely took a breath before volunteering the information. “Beverly’s other son has special needs,” she explained. “I’ll take you.”

  Jasmine hadn’t heard about a third Moreau son. She wanted to ask what was wrong with him, but that was far too indelicate a question. “I hate to trouble you,” she told Tattie. “If you’d rather lend me forty dollars for a cab, I promise I’ll get it back to you as soon as I have access to my own money.”

  Tattie consulted her watch. “It’s no trouble. My youngest doesn’t have to be picked up from preschool for another hour. I’ve got time.” She stood. “Why don’t you call the car rental company and tell them what happened while I go grab my purse?”

  Jasmine was directly behind her. No way was she letting the neighbor leave without her. “I’ll talk to them when I get there.”

  Tattie shrugged. “If that’s how you want to do it.”

  It was exactly how Jasmine wanted to do it. “Thank you.”

  “I can’t believe someone stole your purse and locked you in a cellar,” Tattie said as they walked to the front door. “It’s broad daylight. You’d think you’d be safe. For the most part, this is a good neighborhood.”

  And yet, a man who was, at the very least, a child molester had once called this “good neighborhood” home. Jasmine wondered how long Tattie had lived next door, and if she knew
about Francis Moreau. But she didn’t comment. Tattie’s questions were mostly rhetorical, anyway.

  “It’s just as well I had to run to the library and happened to hear you,” she went on. “You could’ve been down there for hours! Maybe all night. Beverly couldn’t hear a thing above the TV. Isn’t it lucky I came out when I did, Bev?”

  Mrs. Moreau, who was following them to the door, said it was lucky indeed. But Jasmine doubted she truly felt that way. She was lying about the TV. Jasmine had knocked, gone around the house and spent the past hour or more in the cellar. If the TV was so loud, why hadn’t she heard it?

  What had this elderly woman planned for her? Was it Mrs. Moreau who’d killed the man buried in that muddy corner? Or was she covering up for the person who did?

  “Thank you for coming to my rescue,” Jasmine said to Beverly as she stepped outside. She knew Mrs. Moreau wouldn’t have done anything without Tattie’s interference, but she wanted to spark a reaction.

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” she said, her smile unwavering. “It could’ve ended so differently.”

  Like it had for the poor man wearing the white button-down shirt. “If not for Tattie,” Jasmine murmured.

  “If not for Tattie.” She nodded and held the door open for them. “You might want to be more careful in the future. I don’t think it’s safe to go poking around other people’s houses, do you?”

  Jasmine froze where she was. “I thought you didn’t know I was here.”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “That’s just general advice.”

  Tempted to pursue it, Jasmine hesitated. But someone shouted from upstairs, distracting everyone. “Mom? Are you coming? Mom? What’s going on?”

  Beverly’s eyebrows knotted in concern. “I’d better go,” she said abruptly and pulled the door shut.

  “That family’s gone through so much,” Tattie confided as they walked to the blue house next door.

  Jasmine was anxious to lead the police to the body in that cellar, to see what Mrs. Moreau had to say then. She could scarcely think of anything else. But she was also interested in what Tattie could tell her, so she forced herself to listen.

  “What’s wrong with Dustin?” she asked.

  “He has some neurological disorder. The doctors can’t figure out what it is. They thought it was multiple sclerosis, but he doesn’t have the telltale lesions on his brain. Then they thought it was lupus. Now I don’t know what they’re calling it.”

  “So he’s an invalid?”

  “Basically.”

  “And Phillip?”

  They passed two wire reindeer in the yard. “He’s fine, thank goodness. He’s actually the only normal boy of the three.”

  “Then you know about Francis.”

  “Of course. Thanks to the media, everyone does.”

  They’d reached Tattie’s porch. Jasmine held the screen while the other woman unlocked the front door. “Did you know him?”

  “Not very well.”

  “Do you think he killed Adele Fornier?”

  “Probably. On the surface, he was as mild-mannered as they come. But he wasn’t right in the head. You didn’t have to be around him very long to realize that.” Tattie motioned for Jasmine to precede her inside. “Can you imagine what it’d be like for a mother to have a child murderer for a son? That’s got to be harder than anything.”

  Under other circumstances, Jasmine would agree. But Beverly Moreau wasn’t an ordinary mother.

  * * *

  Beverly Moreau stood near the recently disturbed earth under her house and used her cell phone to call a man she’d been taught to call Peccavi. She knew the word was Latin, knew from past church attendance that it had something to do with sin, but she didn’t know the exact meaning. She’d asked him once and received no answer—just the barest hint of a smile.

  “I’m coming,” he snapped without a greeting. “Do you know how hard it was for me to get away this time of year? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Beverly examined the camera she’d discovered near the door. It was covered in mud but it still worked. “We’re in trouble,” she said as she went through the pictures Jasmine Stratford had taken.

  “Don’t panic. Everything will be fine.”

  As usual, impatience rang through his voice. “It’s not going to be fine!” she snapped, responding aggressively for a change. “She found Jack while she was here.” Beverly almost used Peccavi’s real name but caught herself at the last second. He’d decided it was safer if he went by a nickname. It wouldn’t have pleased him had she slipped up, especially on the phone. But it was difficult to remember such an odd name when she was this upset.

  His voice turned to a threatening growl. “What do you mean, ‘while she was here’? She’d better still be there.”

  Bev wiped some of the mud off the camera. “She’s not.”

  The foulness of the curses that streamed from his mouth made her wince. “What happened?”

  Anxiety gnawed at the ulcer she treated with handfuls of antacids every day. “My next-door neighbor heard the screams. With her standing in my kitchen, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear them, too.”

  More cursing. “That bitch neighbor is too nosy for her own good.”

  Beverly liked Tattie. She was a busybody, but she meant well. She was the only one in the neighborhood who’d shown any sympathy for her when Francis was shot. “So what are you going to do? Kill her?”

  “Shut up! We’re on the phone, for God’s sake. I’m just saying Phillip should’ve taken care of the problem before the neighbor got involved.”

  “He locked her in the cellar. That was the best he could do.”

  “The best he could do?”

  “Taking care of that kind of problem is your forte, not ours.”

  “It doesn’t require anything special. Only a club and the guts to use it.”

  “Phillip had other things to do.”

  “I bet he did.”

  She didn’t bother to argue. They both knew her son had left to escape the situation. He didn’t like the screaming, the knowledge that he was the reason Jasmine Stratford was trapped—and what might happen because of it. Bev was angry that he’d abandon her when she needed him so badly. But at least he possessed a conscience. If only Francis had been more like Phillip, maybe she’d still have him, too.

  “He’ll be back soon,” she said. At least she hoped he would. Phillip was becoming more and more unpredictable. Sometimes she feared he’d succumb to the depression that plagued him and kill himself—or turn them all in. But she wasn’t about to share her concerns with Peccavi. She knew what he’d do. No weak links. That was his motto. Jack had become a weak link, and Peccavi had shot him, just like that. Then he hadn’t wanted to risk anyone seeing them remove the body, so he’d buried him in her cellar.

  “Phillip’s a pussy! It’s his fault we’re in this mess!”

  “He’ll be back,” she said again.

  “So where’s the Stratford woman now?”

  After slipping the strap of the camera around her wrist, Beverly climbed the ladder she’d passed down to Jasmine. “She just drove off with my neighbor.”

  “Get hold of Phillip, and tell him to stay away from the house until after the police arrive.”

  “Stay away?” She closed the trapdoor. “Why?”

  “I want whoever shows up to be dealing with you.”

  Because no one would believe she could be dangerous. Beverly understood that. But she couldn’t understand Peccavi allowing the police to discover Jack’s body. “You don’t want to move…you know what?”

  “No. Don’t touch it. It happened before Francis got himself in trouble. We’ll make sure he gets stuck with the blame. Everyone knows what a sick bastard he was. And the police will be hoping for an easy answer. It’s Christmas Eve. No one wants to take on a cold case they’re unlikely to solve, especially on the biggest holiday of the year.”

  Her youngest son was already immortalized as a monster. Be
verly hated to add to that legacy. But she saw the brilliance of Peccavi’s plan. “What reason would Francis have had to…you know?” As much as it pained her to acknowledge it, Jack wasn’t Francis’s usual kind of victim.

  “There could be a million reasons. Jack and Francis both worked for the same delivery company, right? They were friends. Maybe he got too close, got suspicious of Francis’s activities. Or they had a disagreement over money. Just play dumb. Cry and mention Francis’s name. ‘How could he have done this? Not another innocent person…’ That sort of thing. There won’t be much of an investigation if the culprit is obvious—and he’s already dead.”

  Beverly was a little surprised by the risks Peccavi had taken in speaking so plainly, but she knew he had no choice. They had to get their story straight or they’d be sunk; the police could arrive at any moment. “Will Ms. Stratford buy that, too?” she asked as she shoved a sack of flour over the trapdoor.

  “No. She’ll keep poking around, searching for answers.”

  “How do you know?” Beverly removed her shoes, washed the mud off the rubber bottoms, then put them by the back door to dry. It’d be best if the police didn’t know she’d gone down to the cellar.

  “Because she’s stubborn. I’ve seen her on TV, heard the way she talks.”

  Definitely not what Beverly wanted to hear. “But she knows she got lucky today. I saw it in her eyes. Maybe this scared her enough that she’ll go back to wherever she came from and mind her own business.”

  “That isn’t gonna happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s been looking for her sister for years. If she was going to give up, she would’ve done it by now.”

  Beverly felt a trickle of guilt for all the innocent people who’d been hurt. But there was nothing she could do about it. She knew too much to change anything now. And she couldn’t pay Dustin’s staggering medical expenses any other way. “So what do we do?” she asked.

  “I’ll take care of Jasmine Stratford.”

  After cleaning the camera and hiding it in a drawer, Beverly went to the front of the house and peeked through the blinds. Jasmine’s rental car was still sitting at the curb, where she’d parked it. But the street remained as quiet as ever. No police yet. “Be careful.”