A Cajun Christmas Killing

by Ellen Byron

  “Fine,” Little Earlie said. He reluctantly pulled a reporter’s notebook out of the pocket of his ersatz nineteenth-century jacket. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I got it all up here.” Little Earlie tapped his head.

  “Lord knows what you got up there, but it better not be anything you heard in this room,” Artie said.

  Artie opened the door, and Little Earlie started out, almost colliding with Chris. He and Maggie exchanged quick greetings. “Artie,” she said, “this is . . . an old friend of mine from New York, Chris Harper. He worked for Steve Harmon.”

  “Really?” Artie eyed him. “You got any contact information? We might need to have a conversation.”

  “Um, sure. Here’s my card.” Chris, perplexed, pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to Artie, who placed it in his wallet.

  “Thanks. Maggie, I’ll be in touch if I need to ask you any more questions. I might have to go over a few things. Might be best to do it at Crozat next time.”

  “Around dinnertime?”

  “Or breakfast. Maybe lunch. Any meal’s good with me. I better get over to Cal before all of Lia’s treats are gone.”

  “And to interview guests and staff.”

  “Right. That too.”

  Chris watched Artie go and then turned to Maggie. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  She debated how to break the bad news to Chris and decided blunt was the way to go. “Chris, I’m so sorry, but Steve Harmon is dead.”

  He stared at her. “What?”

  “I found him this morning in the men’s parlor. And there’s a good chance—well, not good, poor choice of words, sorry about that—there’s a strong chance he was murdered.”

  “Oh, my God.” Chris collapsed onto one of the lounge’s beat-up plastic folding chairs. “This is unreal. It can’t be happening.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair over and over again, and Maggie got a catch in her throat. She remembered the anxious gesture so well from their years together. “Let me get you some water,” she said, pulling herself together.

  “No.” Chris jumped up. “Thanks, but I need to make some calls. I have to let his wife, Emme, know. And Dan. And—”

  “Whoa. Wife? He was married?”

  “Yes, for years.”

  Maggie sighed. “Oh, boy. I have more bad news. I’m pretty sure he was having an affair with my boss.”

  To Maggie’s surprise, Chris shrugged and said, “Yeah, well, that’s Steve.” He paced for a minute and then said, “Before I call anyone, I should talk to the police. Who’s the head guy?”

  “Hank Perske. You can’t miss him. He’s about six foot six and built like a five-hundred-year-old oak tree.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be back. Wait for me.”

  Chris hurried out the door. For the first time all day, Maggie was alone. Exhausted, she yanked off her wig, folded her arms on the lounge’s old card table, and rested her head on them. The image of Steve Harmon’s lifeless body haunted her. His death may not have occurred at Crozat, but he had been the family’s guest. Our B and B is starting to feel like a roach motel, Maggie thought glumly as she recalled an old commercial Tug once dug up on the Internet and showed her. Guests check in, but they don’t check out.

  “Maggie?”

  She lifted up her head as the lounge door opened partway. “There you are,” Bo said. He came into the room and pulled a folding chair next to her.

  “Do they know how he died?” she asked.

  “Ferdie Chauvin took a look at him,” Bo responded, referencing the Pelican coroner. “He won’t commit to anything until he does an autopsy, but he’s fairly certain Harmon was stabbed in the chest, most likely with a long, thin blade.”

  Maggie shuddered. “That’s so gruesome.”

  “Even though the cause of death hasn’t been confirmed, Perske asked me to start compiling a list of possible suspects.”

  Bo pulled out a piece of paper and placed it in front of Maggie. When she read it, she suddenly felt sick to her stomach. “No. I refuse to believe it.”

  “I started with the most likely one.”

  There was a single name on the page: Bo Durand.

  Chapter Eight

  Maggie pushed the paper across the card table back to Bo. “That’s ridiculous. You’re being dramatic.”

  Bo shook his head. “Harmon was taking advantage of my son. I went after him on the street. I threatened him. Any decent detective would consider me a ‘person of interest,’ and I happen to be better than decent at my job. So . . .” He pointed at his name on the paper.

  “Fine, if you’re going to be stubborn about it. But there are plenty of other names you can add to that list, like my boss, Tannis, who had a thing for him, and probably with him. And there’s—” Maggie stopped.

  “What?”

  Maggie sighed and then said, “There’s my entire family. Harmon wanted to put us out of business. I know why my father almost had a stroke.” She filled Bo in on Steve Harmon’s campaign against her uncle. “If he managed to push Tig out, we’d be collateral damage. Harmon would control Crozat and get rid of us faster than green grass through a goose.”

  Maggie noticed a pen on the lounge’s old wooden floor. She picked it up, took Bo’s piece of paper, wrote on it, and then handed it back to him. “Maggie Crozat, Ninette Crozat, Tug Crozat, and Charlotte Crozat,” Bo read. He looked up at her with skepticism. “You put your grand-mère on this list?”

  Maggie nodded. “I’m trying to do like you did and be honest about how we all hated him. And we’re people who’ve only known him a few days. Considering the range of his business activities, that list could go international.”

  This brought a rueful smile to Bo’s handsome face. “Good point.” He waved the sheet of paper. “I think we’re going to have a lot of company here.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I better check in with Perske. I’ll see you in a bit.” Bo gently kissed the top of Maggie’s head, which sent a charge surging down to her toes. “By the way, as long as we’re all about honesty here, that dress is butt-effin’-ugly.”

  *

  Maggie spent the next several hours helping Ione and Gaynell entertain Doucet’s visitors as they waited to be interviewed and released by Pelican PD. She drummed up stories about Doucet’s past from the family vault of anecdotes. When she finally ran dry, Gaynell pulled out her guitar and did an acoustic set of original tunes to the toe-tapping delight of the guests. A few even danced to the Cajun-inspired ditties and bought CDs from the tour guide-musician. The atmosphere was more like a party than a death investigation, and Maggie heard a few disappointed groans when Chief Perske sent the message that guests and staff were free to go.

  Maggie, Gaynell, and Ione retreated to the employee lounge to change into their street clothes and grab a late lunch. Ione noticed Maggie was toying with her food rather than eating it. “What’s wrong? I’ve had your mother’s oyster stew, and it’s as good on day two as day one.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  Gaynell, whose guileless looks belied a sharp intellect, eyed her. “How exactly did this man die?”

  “We won’t know for sure until the coroner does an autopsy.” This was true but skirted the question that Maggie knew her friend was really asking.

  Gaynell, however, had no intention of letting Maggie off the hook. “You think he was killed, don’t you?”

  Instead of responding, Maggie speared an oyster and lifted it to her mouth. Then her mind flashed back to Bo’s list of suspects, and she let the oyster fall back into her lunch container. “It’s looking that way,” she said. She fastened the container’s lid and then stood up. “I can’t eat right now. I want to see what’s going on out there.”

  “Okay, hon,” Ione said. “We’re here if you need us.”

  Gaynell nodded. “What she said.”

  Maggie managed a smile for her friends, and then she headed outside. While the coroner’s van was long gone, the number of law enforcement vehicles seemed to have gr
own, and Maggie noted the all-too-familiar Pelican PD mobile evidence van had made an appearance. She scanned the scene for Bo but didn’t see him. She did, however, see Chris and turned away, not in the mood to negotiate their weird dynamic. But it was too late. Chris waved and jogged over. “Hey,” he said, panting slightly. He’d never been a particular fan of exercise in any form. “How crazy is this whole thing?”

  “Pretty crazy,” Maggie acknowledged.

  “Steve’s people are on their way up from New Orleans.”

  “Aren’t you his people too?”

  “I was. I don’t know now.” Chris once again ran his hands through his hair. “Man, I wasn’t prepared for this. I mean, it’s such a freaky situation.”

  “A very freaky situation,” Maggie said, sticking to an inane mimicking of Chris’s comments.

  “The police won’t tell me squat. If you hear anything, being a local and all, can you let me know? Please?”

  Chris’s plea was tinged with vulnerability. His boyish take-care-of-me vibe had seduced Maggie in the past, but now it only annoyed her. “I’m sure Pelican PD will share the details they feel are relevant when the time is right,” she said, not caring how stiff she sounded. The last thing Maggie wanted was to be a conduit of information for her ex, and she hoped that a side benefit of Steve Harmon’s unexpected demise would be Chris’s quick return to New York.

  “I know you have to say that, but if you do hear something, I’m staying at Belle Vista.” Chris made a rote move to kiss Maggie on the cheek and then stopped himself. Instead he took off for the Doucet parking lot.

  Maggie heard weeping and looked across Doucet’s wide verdant lawn to where Cal Vichet was escorting Tannis from the manor house. The young woman had fallen apart since learning of her lover’s death. Her usually slick blonde ponytail was in disarray, and tears turned her mascara into black rivulets that dribbled down her cheeks onto her navy suit. “I swear, I didn’t care that he was married,” she sobbed to the officer. “He was going to leave his wife for me.” Cal snorted. “Stop that, it’s true,” Tannis yelled at him. “And I’m not the only one around here who had a key to the manor house. She did too.”

  Maggie assumed Tannis was pointing at her. Then she realized her boss was pointing behind her and turned to see Ione leaving the overseer’s cottage, followed by Gaynell. “Ione has a key,” Tannis said as she continued to point an accusing finger at Maggie’s friend. “And she hates me. I took over her job, and she was ticked off about all the changes I was making to improve Doucet. She was giving me a terrible time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she killed Steve and tried to frame me because I fired her.”

  “What?!” Maggie yelped. “That’s slander.”

  “Yeah!” Gaynell chimed in.

  “She’s only here because y’all forced me to keep her on. Curse my kindness; it led to murder,” Tannis exclaimed, her voice a screech by the time she hit the word “murder.”

  Gaynell, Maggie, and Ione let loose a chorus of protests. Cal held his hand up in the air. “Ms. Greer, you’re free to go,” he said to Tannis, adding, “for now. We’ll be in touch.” The officer crooked his finger and beckoned to Ione. “We need to talk.”

  “We already talked, Cal,” she responded.

  “We need to talk more,” he said. Cal started toward the gift shop and motioned for Ione to follow him. As Maggie watched her friend take dejected steps after the officer, she feared someone else she cared about would soon be added to Bo’s suspect list.

  *

  With Tannis a hot mess and both she and Ione targets of suspicion, it fell on Maggie to inform the Doucet staff that the plantation would be closed for at least the next day and possibly longer. She asked them not to speak to reporters about what had happened and assured them they would be compensated for any length of closure, knowing full well that Tannis would flip her associate-business-degree lid when she heard about it. Too late, Maggie thought, smug with satisfaction. It was her holiday present to Doucet’s hardworking employees. Gaynell then helped her rebook scheduled tours to Burnside Plantation, which was starting to view Doucet’s woes as their holiday present.

  By the time the two women were done, the early night of winter had fallen. Gaynell threaded her fingers together and stretched her arms above her head. “I could use something to wash down the day,” she said. “Junie’s?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I should go home and check in with my folks.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, text me. And if you need anything, anything at all . . .”

  Maggie smiled at her friend. “Thanks, Gay.”

  Gaynell took off. Maggie turned off the computer and locked up the gift shop. She stepped outside and slipped on her hoodie as she walked to her car. With the sun down, the air was chilly. She would have felt alone and a bit spooked had it not been for the bright lights and murmur of conversation emanating from the evidence van.

  As Maggie drove down the road that snaked along the west bank of the Mississippi, it occurred to her that there was another possible murder suspect in Pelican, someone who was hiding a painful secret. She crossed the river, noting the shadows of partially built bonfires that lined both the west and east levees. A few miles after crossing, instead of heading home to Crozat, she made a left onto Main Street and followed it into town. The Pelican Chamber of Commerce had okayed additional holiday decorations, and now giant snowflakes lit by white LED lights hung over every intersection. They reminded Maggie of the festive, giant snowflake-slash-star that hung over the Manhattan intersection of Fifty-Seventh Street and Fifth Avenue every Christmas, and she got a brief pang of nostalgia.

  Maggie parked near the village green’s bandstand, which served as Papa Noel’s Cajun home prior to Christmas. The role of Papa Noel was usually played by Father Prit, the resident priest of Saint Theresa, Pelican’s Roman Catholic Church. His Indian accent betrayed him to even the youngest child, but they adored his enthusiastic embrace of the local custom. However, this holiday season, Father Prit was in Rome to participate in the Vatican’s Christmas Eve Mass, led by his idol, Pope Francis. Local men who took turns filling in for the priest had to endure the complaints of children who missed “Papa Prit.”

  She strode across the green to DanceBod. The studio space was dark, but Maggie could see a light shining from Sandy’s office. She gave the door a hard knock and waited. Sandy peeked through the studio’s window and then opened the door. King Cake yipped a greeting. “Hey,” Sandy said. “I finished my last class about twenty minutes ago.”

  “I actually didn’t come by to dance. I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Oh,” Sandy said. “All right. Come on in. I’ll get us some coffee.”

  Maggie followed Sandy and King Cake through the studio into the DanceBod owner’s office. Sandy had brought a homey look to the old room. Staple-gunned Indian fabric covered its worn walls, and teal ottomans served as seating. A small carved desk hosted a laptop computer and coffeemaker. On the opposite wall was a door that led to Sandy’s living quarters. DanceBod was both business and home to her.

  Sandy poured coffee into two paper cups and offered one to Maggie, then took a seat next to her on an ottoman. “So,” she said, “what’s up?”

  It had been a long, difficult day, and Maggie didn’t have the energy to tiptoe around the topic. “Why were you so alarmed to see Steve Harmon?” she asked Sandy.

  Maggie noticed Sandy’s body tense up under her purple leggings and exercise tank top that read, “BeLIeVE.” King Cake jumped into her lap and snuggled protectively. “Has he left Crozat?” she asked, a tremor to her voice. “Is he gone?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said, adding to herself, in a manner of speaking.

  Sandy closed her eyes, sucked in air through a long inhale, and then slowly blew it out. She didn’t open her eyes. “When I was dancing at the Cajun Classy Lady,” she said, referring to the strip club outside Baton Rouge that was her former workplace, “Steve Harmon was a regular whenever he was in town. And
there was an incident.” The dancer paused. “One night about a year ago, he was waiting by my car when I got done with work. At first he was all flirty, and I tried to fend him off in a polite way. But then it got physical. He tried to kiss me, and when I wouldn’t let him, he grabbed me. I tried fighting him off but ended up falling and banging my head so hard on the ground that I passed out, which probably saved me from something worse happening.”

  Sandy opened her eyes. Maggie sensed she was relieved to have shared her story. “In a way, I owe him. I’d saved enough by then to get this place started, so after my run-in with him, I quit the Lady and came here. Sometimes when I’m low on cash, I think maybe I should go back and pick up a few shifts to bring in some tip money. But then I look at this.” Sandy pulled the hair back from her right temple to reveal a jagged scar. “It’s where my head hit when I fell. I needed almost twenty stitches. It reminds me that I can never go back. Instead, I make myself work double hard here.”

  Maggie took Sandy’s hand and held it between hers. “I am so sorry. And so glad you chose Pelican as your new home. I think this town’s collective cholesterol level is going to drop a lot thanks to DanceBod.”

  The dance instructor managed a small smile. “Thanks, Maggie.”

  “You need to know something,” Maggie said. “Steve Harmon is dead.”

  Sandy’s eyes widened in shock. “Oh, my God.”

  “And there’s a chance that he may not have died of natural causes.”

  “Oh, my God,” Sandy said again, shock turning to fear.

  “The police will be talking to a lot of people, including my own family. There’s a good chance they’ll want to talk to you too.”

  Sandy picked up King Cake and held him to her chest. The pup rested his head on her shoulder. Maggie noticed the dance instructor was shaking. “Do I need a lawyer?” Sandy asked.

  “No. Well . . . not yet. Someone will. Hopefully it won’t be you or me.”

  “If he was killed, it wasn’t me. I swear.”

  Sandy’s teeth were chattering. Maggie felt for the woman. “I can’t imagine you killing anyone,” she said. It was the semitruth. She had learned over the last few months that pretty much anyone was capable of murder. Yet watching the vulnerable woman in front of her, she genuinely doubted Sandy could stick a knife in Steve Harmon and then sashay back to DanceBod to teach locals how to salsa. “I thought you should know.”