“Do you mind?” I said. “I might as well introduce you around.”
“Not at all. Anything to take our minds off Morningside Plantation.”
As soon as Ambrose parked, I swung open the car door. It was too early in the day for humidity, praise the Lord, so the air was cool and dry. The smell of car exhaust and rubber tires drifted over on it.
The man who spoke at church the day before and had pinked up like a rosebush when I spoke to him worked alongside the deacon.
“There’s the guy I talked to yesterday. C’mon, Bo.”
I walked over to him. He clutched a paper towel and seemed to be struggling with a particularly stubborn crayon mark stretching from one corner of a folding table to another.
“Morning,” I said.
Sure enough, he blushed the minute he glanced away from his work and saw me. “You came!”
“Of course we came. I told you yesterday at church that we would.” I motioned back to Ambrose. “This is the friend I told you about. Ambrose Jackson.”
The man’s cheeks reddened even more. Quickly, he brushed his hand on the leg of his trousers and held it out to Ambrose. “It’s an honor. A real honor. When Melissa here told us you used to be on a reality television show, I went home and found it on the Internet. Can’t believe I’m talking to you.”
Ambrose looked genuinely pleased to be recognized. “Glad to be here. Looks like you’ve got everything under control.”
“My mama and me both watched it. She even ran out and bought a new dress for tonight. On a Sunday! Course I told her she should have waited until after the Lord’s day, but she was so excited she couldn’t help herself.”
As usual, seeing someone like Ambrose transformed from pixels on a television screen to actual flesh and blood had flummoxed the man. Something about the transition always made people lose their heads.
“It’s all about the cause, right?” Ambrose said. “Here, let me help you clean that.”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t ask you to do that.” The guy looked mortified at the very thought of Ambrose Jackson—television star—cleaning crayon marks from a folding table. “There’s coffee in the social hall. Please help yourself.”
“Maybe later.” I swiped the paper towel from him and began to scrub at the marks. “Here, you need to put your back into it. Is everyone excited for tonight?”
“It’s all anyone’s talking about.”
“Ambrose here has done dozens of these things. You have nothing to worry about.” The harder I scrubbed at the mark, the less luck I seemed to have with it. “Here, Bo. Spit on this.” I handed over the paper towel.
That gave me a moment to survey the parking lot. A line of men were hard at work next to us. The ones in front held a thick velvet rope, like in movie-theater lobbies, while the men in back toted shiny steel posts that reached waist-high. They were building a barrier to keep people in a straight line. A lot of people.
“Here you go, Missy.”
“What?” I tore my eyes away from the men and their work. “Just what kind of a crowd are you expecting here tonight?”
“Hard to say. Course we did an e-mail blast to all the churches, so that’ll bring in more people too.”
One of the men jerked extra-hard on the rope and a steel post crashed to the ground. By this time the line of poles snaked from the social hall to the middle of the parking lot.
“So, do you think you might get a couple of hundred people tonight?” From what I could see of the social hall, it seemed a tad small for that.
“Pardon me?”
“Some of my best shows have happened in little places like this,” Ambrose said. “Makes people want to sit in the front row. I like it because I can read their eyes.”
The man with the fallen pole had lifted it back in place.
“We’re hoping you get a big turnout. But even if you don’t, we’ll give it our best shot.”
“Excuse me,” he said. “But we’re not going to have a few hundred people here tonight.”
“We told you. It doesn’t matter to us,” I said. “It’ll be amazing just the same.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m guessing we’ll get a thousand.”
My jaw dropped. Of course. The men with the rope. The trail of posts that snaked from the social hall to the parking lot. A pile of folding chairs ready to be cleaned. “I had no idea.”
“Hope that’s okay, Mr. Jackson,” the man said.
“How in the world can you fit a thousand people in that little social hall?” Ambrose asked.
“We’re not. We’re opening up the whole parking lot. We’ll put big screens everywhere and then put more in the basketball gym.”
It took me a moment to recover. That would account for the army of people swarming the parking lot. “I had no idea, Ambrose.”
To my surprise, he began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“That’s fantastic! The more the merrier.”
“We were hoping you’d say that,” the man said.
Ambrose’s eyes danced. “Like I said, the more the merrier.”
Lord love him. There was no telling what could happen at the show tonight.
Once we introduced ourselves around, it was time to find our new hotel and dig out the notes for tonight’s show. Ambrose and I threaded our way through the parking lot, working our way through a rope that zigged and zagged through most of it.
I didn’t speak until we’d driven down the road for a while and a sign appeared for our motel. Our new accommodations had seen better days. The neon sign was missing half its bulbs, and a yellow palm tree leaned against it. The only other vehicle in the parking lot was a Mack truck with silhouettes of naked girls on the mud flaps.
“You still want to stay here?” Ambrose drove us onto the parking lot. “We can always go home, you know.”
“I know. But it’ll be so much easier to stage the show if we’re close by.” And so much easier to help Ivy; although I didn’t tell him that.
Once Ambrose parked, we both got out of the car and made our way to the manager’s office. The room was little more than four cinder-block walls and a roof.
A tinny bell jangled when we opened the plate-glass door.
“Hello there.” A redhead stood behind the counter. She’d been reading a copy of Cosmo, and she slapped it closed when we approached. “Y’all checking in for a few days?”
“Oh, no.” I glanced at Ambrose. “I mean, yes, we’re checking in. But not for a few days. Just for one night. Right, Bo?”
“Of course. Two rooms, please. I’m Ambrose Jackson and this is Missy DuBois. The plantation’s paying for our stay here.”
“Nice to meet you folks.” Languidly, the woman reached for a Sharpie lying next to a legal pad on the counter. “You’re my first customers today.”
Ambrose and I exchanged quick looks, which she must have noticed. “’Cept for old Clyde out there and his truck. But they don’t count for much.”
“Gotcha.” Ambrose took the pen and began to scrawl our names onto the makeshift guest registry.
“Course we’ll probably be full up by nighttime. I heard tell there’s a big fashion show goin’ on around here.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Ambrose said. He continued to write, which gave me a moment to look around.
I’d never seen a woman quite as suntanned as the one behind the counter. Her face was the color of wheat berries and her teeth as white as porcelain. When she smiled, tiny wrinkles appeared from her nose to her chin and then disappeared again, like ripples on a pond.
“Do ya want some extra towels?” Maybe it was my imagination, but she seemed to be smiling extra big for Ambrose’s sake.
“That would be nice,” I said. “Two, please.”
Once he finished with the guest book, Ambrose laid the Sharpie on the counter. “We’re the ones staging the show at the Rising Tide Baptist Church tonight. You ought to think about going, if you have a chance. Starts at dusk.”
That perked the lady up and her face rippled like crazy. “Why, I just might do that. Nice of you to invite me along.”
“He invites everyone,” I said. “His favorite saying is the more, the merrier. That’s my Ambrose.”
“Oh.” That took a little wind out of her sails, but she slid a room key across the counter to me nicely enough. “I’ll bring the towels by later. Y’all are upstairs by the Coke machine.”
“Thank you.” I hadn’t meant to be rude, but the day had been so confusing. Who knew we’d be evicted from Morningside Plantation? That we’d be forced to up and leave like common criminals, without even a moment to say good-bye to the staff? It didn’t seem fair, or very polite, and I made a mental note not to recommend the plantation to my family and friends any time soon.
On top of everything, we learned our fashion show would be seen by a thousand people, instead of the hundred I expected. What a strange and wondrous day, and lunchtime was still hours away.
Once the woman passed Ambrose his room key, we left the office. He went to park the car, while I climbed a flight of chipped concrete steps to the second floor. A laminate door greeted me when I got to my room, along with a rusty air-conditioner vent popping out from the wall like a dirty flower box. A blinking Coke machine flanked the far side of the fly-specked window.
I cautiously opened my room door. It was only for one night. If Mary could lay her newborn in a feeding trough, I could put up with cinder-block walls, chipped stairways, and a noisy vending machine.
At least the room wasn’t a total pigsty. A poster of a magnolia bush hung over the cheap headboard, and the flower reminded me of my plants back home. Truth be told, I was beginning to feel homesick. But we’d agreed to stay the night and there wasn’t much sense in turning back.
Ambrose walked up behind me. “See, this isn’t so bad.” He began to lay my suitcase on the bedspread.
“You’re right.” I didn’t move. Heaven only knew the carpet was a bit worn, and I didn’t plan to walk on it barefoot any time soon. “So, do you want to head back to the church?”
He chuckled. “That didn’t take long. Sure, why not.”
There wasn’t much more to see, though. Every roadside motel seemed the same: a yellowed telephone directory on a wobbly nightstand, a faded plaid bedspread on a thin mattress, and a battered captain’s chair by the door. No more, no less, and it would have to do.
We returned to the car and I stared out the window to clear my mind. After several miles, a white police cruiser pulled up alongside us. Darn if the thing didn’t need a good scrubbing. Well, pick my peas! It was Lance LaPorte. I lowered my window. “Yoo-hoo!”
He glanced up.
“Pull over,” I said to Ambrose. “I need to speak to Lance.”
Ambrose did as I asked—bless his heart—and pulled in front of the police cruiser. Then he gently guided the car onto the shoulder of the road.
When Lance saw Ambrose and me, he followed. I bolted from our car as soon as possible and approached his side of the squad car.
“Good morning,” I said. “What a coincidence! Didn’t expect to see you out on the streets this morning.”
“Morning, Missy.” He slid a pair of aviator sunglasses down his nose. My, but he looked like his mama when he did that. “Where are you headed so early?”
“Ambrose and I are helping out the Baptists. We’re using some of his gowns for a fashion show, and I’m helping to set up shop. And where might you be going?”
Lance pointed to a notebook on the seat beside him. “Got a lab analysis this morning on the Solomon case. Usually it takes ’em weeks, but we put a rush on it. Thought I’d check in with the funeral director and see what’s going on with the family.”
“Gah-lee. That is something. And such a coincidence.” I eyed the notebook greedily. “Looks like we’re going to the same place, since the church is right next door to the funeral home. How about if we meet up? They’ve probably got a big pot of coffee on and it’s too early in the week to be rushing around like a crazy person.”
Lance pursed his lips, but I knew he’d play along. It was amazing how much power one could wield on account of knowing someone’s mama, and I had every intention of pumping that well until it ran dry.
“Maybe for a little bit,” he said. “But I can’t stay long. I told headquarters I’d be back soon.”
“Now you’re talking. You might want to bring along that notebook of yours. Wouldn’t want it to get all hot and sticky sitting in the squad car.”
The minute I got back to the car, I shared my plan with Ambrose.
“And he agreed to that?” Ambrose asked.
“Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? I’ve known him forever.”
“I know you too. And I know this isn’t about getting Lance a cup of coffee and maybe a beignet.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I turned my head toward the window. “Honestly, you think I’m a busybody, don’t you?”
“Your words, not mine.”
We’d arrived at the Rising Tide Baptist Church, and Ambrose once more pulled into the parking lot. People milled around the property like dandelions blown about by a headwind. Some, including the elderly deacon in the LSU ball cap, had moved from cleaning chairs to wrangling thick extension cords. Others, like the guy I’d seen in the service the day before, held onto empty spools for the electric lines. Everyone seemed calm, with not a flustered face in the bunch. Which meant I could spend some quality time with Lance and that precious pathologist’s report.
“Do you mind if I speak with Lance for a few minutes, Bo? I promise it won’t take long, and then I’ll run right back to you.”
“No problem. Just make it quick, okay?”
I nodded to Ambrose and hopped out of the car. Lance had wrangled a parking space right behind ours. He was tucking his glasses under the car’s sun visor when I approached the police cruiser.
“Let’s get you some coffee,” I said. “I don’t have long, though.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really. I heard there’s a pot of coffee in the social hall.”
I waited for Lance, and then we walked through the crowd. I acknowledged some of the people I recognized with a nod, so as not to appear uppity, until we came to the social hall. I didn’t see any coffee there, but then I checked a side room tucked next to it.
The room was empty, praise the Lord, except for a clean folding table with an industrial coffeepot, two cartons of nondairy creamer, and a stack of Styrofoam cups. The perfect spot. I pulled a cup from the top and handed it to Lance, since I couldn’t pretend to know how he liked his coffee.
“What can I do for you today, Missy?”
“I think you know what I want. Don’t make me beg.”
“That’s the thing.” He filled his cup and added a drop of cream. “I can’t figure out why this report is so important to you.”
“Turns out the Solomons are practically family.” Casually, I leaned against the folding table, even though it creaked something awful. Maybe if I acted nonchalant he might be more willing to part with his treasure. “Ivy Solomon is a Girard. You know the Girards out of Bleu Bayou, don’t you? They’re the most generous people who ever walked God’s green earth.”
“I didn’t know she was a Girard. Wonder if she’s Ben’s aunt?”
“Probably. You know how big that family is. That would mean she’s directly related to sweet Miss Maribelle. How can I turn my back on the Girards—or the Solomons—if I can help them out in their time of need?”
He pursed his lips. “I guess you can’t. Family’s family. But if I show this to you, you can’t tell anyone about it. Okay?” Slowly, he pulled some pages out of his notebook and handed them to me. “It’s highly irregular, and I’m sure my sergeant wouldn’t be too happy with me.”
“You won’t be sorry, Lance. Mum’s the word.” I gently accepted the treasure. I had an excellent reason for asking to see the report, and
I’d practically made Lance show it to me, so it wasn’t his fault. There’d be time later to sort out right and wrong.
The first page listed Trinity’s name, age—only twenty-four—and her marital status. Sad to think she’d remain single for all eternity now, and sadder still to consider the baby who would never be born.
The next page was a document from the Riversbend Parish Medical Center, which the pathologist had prepared the night before. It listed the approximate time of death as 23:00, or about 11:00 p.m. A few facts about Trinity followed: date of birth, medications she was taking, that kind of thing. Honestly, I couldn’t make heads or tails of a list of numbers and initials that came next. “What’s this here: WNL?”
“Within normal limits. This is the important stuff.” Lance leaned over my shoulder and stabbed at a paragraph near the top. “They ran several lab tests since the girl didn’t have a history of heart problems. She didn’t die of natural causes, Missy. They found traces of cyanide.”
“Cyanide? How in the world would cyanide end up in little Riversbend, Louisiana?”
“That’s exactly what they found,” he said. “Roughly two hundred milligrams of the stuff. Whoever poisoned her knew what they were doing.”
“That’s horrible. Who would do something like that?”
“We’re gonna find out. I’m only thankful they ran the lab analysis so quick. Knowing what killed someone is half the battle.”
“But you still don’t know who did it, or why.”
He was about to say more, when darn if someone didn’t walk through the door and head our way. It was the lion-like deacon from outside, wearing his LSU ball cap and a determined look.
“There you are! Your friend’s been asking about you, Miss DuBois. Said something about needing those notes from the show.”
I gritted my teeth.
“Sorry for the interruption.”
“That’s okay,” I said.
Lance quickly took the report back. “I’ve got to get to work anyway. We’re burning daylight.”
“Let me know what you find out, you hear?” Not that I wanted to boss him, but I might not get Lance’s ear like this for a while.
Murder at Morningside Page 14
