A Cajun Christmas Killing

by Ellen Byron

  “I’ll call him. But I don’t think they were ever really foes. They were more like hostages of Harmon’s brutal style of doing business.” Maggie took a last swig of her coffee. “Oh, I almost forgot. We had a delicious dish this morning at the hotel that would be a great addition to our brunch menu, Mom.”

  “Really? What?”

  Maggie was amused by the edge in her sweet mother’s voice. Cooking always sparked a competitive streak in Ninette. “Muffaletta frittata. I’ll see if I can get the recipe from Lulu.”

  “No need,” Ninette said. “I can figure out my own take on the dish. Tug, I’ll be putting together a shopping list for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” her husband responded with a smile and a wink at his daughter.

  Maggie left the kitchen, happy to see her parents engaged in something besides worrying about Crozat’s future. She went into the office and placed a Skype call to her uncle. His face soon filled the screen. “Buongiorno, cara mia,” Tig greeted his niece.

  “I’m assuming you’re still in Italy.”

  “Si. I found un bello villagio tucked away in the Abruzzo region. It’s pretty much abandoned, but with some TLC, it’ll make a great destination hotel.”

  “Bene. Anyway, I have something positive to report for a change.” Maggie filled him in on the situation with the O’Days.

  “Bravissima,” Tig responded with a dimpled smile. “I’m impressed by your crafty thinking.”

  “Just trying to help save the family biz, mio zio.”

  Tig laughed. “Hey, Marco’s still there, right? Tell him I say hi.”

  “I’ll do better than that. I’ll tell him you send your love.”

  “Maggie—”

  She disconnected the call before her uncle could protest. “Crafty me,” she murmured with a sly grin. Then she pulled out her cell phone and texted Bea Boxler, the Belle Vista general manager she’d met at DanceBod. Bea immediately texted back an invitation to stop by the plantation cum resort. Maggie returned to the shotgun cottage, showered, and picked out an outfit that was professional without being dowdy. She paired the black skirt she’d worn to the Charbonnets with a teal-green blouse, black pumps, and no stockings. She ringed her hazel eyes with teal liner and added black mascara. A swipe of coral lipstick, and she was done. She grabbed her leather jacket from the small front closet and headed for Belle Vista’s stately digs.

  *

  “And last but not least, this is the White Ballroom, where all six of the Tucker daughters enjoyed lavish weddings prior to the Civil War.”

  Bea Boxler led Maggie into a spectacular room, white from floor to ceiling with white velvet drapes and ottomans upholstered in a matching white silk. Maggie’s appreciation of the view was dimmed by it coming at the end of a two-hour tour of Belle Vista’s rooms, gardens, and outbuildings. Her feet were killing her, and much as she hated stockings, she wished she had worn them since they might have prevented the nascent blisters on her feet. She prayed the final stop on the tour would be the Belle Vista Café, where she could finally sit down and subtly steer Bea into a conversation about her late boss. She’d also worked up an appetite traipsing around Belle Vista’s hallowed grounds, and the food at the upscale planation resort was rumored to be five-star.

  “This ballroom is like walking into a cloud, isn’t it?” Bea said, her undefinable accent giving the sentence a singsongy lilt.

  “Yes,” Maggie said, forcing herself back into the moment. “I wonder if any of the grooms had trouble finding their brides in here. With their white wedding dresses, they would have blended right in.”

  Bea gave a thoughtful nod, and Maggie got the impression she’d taken the wisecrack seriously. It occurred to her the general manager might have been raised in another country and didn’t quite get Maggie’s style of humor.

  “You don’t have a ballroom at Crozat, do you?”

  “I’m afraid not. But we have a party tent.” Maggie cringed as she thought to herself, Could that sound any tackier?

  “Yes, we have one as well. They do come in handy.” Bea might as well have been talking about a pocket wrench. “Our business increased by a good thirty percent after we added the spa facilities. Do you have a building on the property you could renovate?”

  “Well, there is the garage,” Maggie said. “It’s from the 1920s, so it’s not architecturally distinct.” She began warming to the idea. “But it’s got good bones and lots of space.”

  “It sounds perfect. Let’s talk more about this over lunch. I can give you lots of tips. It will be so much fun to have another friend here in the hotel business.”

  Maggie appreciated Bea’s enthusiasm and was happy to make a new friend, but having the second person in two days assume she was in the hotel business pushed a button. While it was a logical assumption to make, it highlighted how much Maggie’s world had changed since she’d moved back to Pelican. The life she knew as an artist seemed to be fading away. She was starting to miss who she was and wasn’t sure who she was becoming. Maggie wondered if thirty-two was too young for a midlife crisis. Stop it, she then admonished herself. These are high-class problems.

  “Let’s go to the café,” Bea said. “I had the chef prepare a salad of our homegrown lettuce and fresh crab. You’ll have to accept my apologies. The lobster that was supposed to be flown in from Maine this morning was delayed by weather.”

  Now that, Maggie thought to herself, is really a high-class problem.

  Maggie followed Bea out of the mansion, resisting the urge to remove the shoes from her sore feet and walk barefoot. Belle Vista Café was lodged in the plantation’s former conservatory, a glass confection resembling a large music box. Tables had replaced plants, but the chintz linens bloomed with fat magnolia and gardenia blossoms. The maître d’ greeted Bea with subservience and sat the two women at a table impeccably set with silver, fine china, and crystal. Bowls brimming with salad and large chunks of crab were placed in front of them, and steam rose from a basket of fresh bread. Maggie was particularly happy to see a full champagne glass next to each place. She picked hers up. “To new friends,” she said.

  Bea smiled. “How lovely.” She picked up her own glass. “To new friends. Cheers.”

  The women toasted and then began eating. The rumors about the café’s cuisine were true. In fact, if restaurant ratings offered a sixth star, Maggie would have awarded it to the crab currently melting in her mouth. She showered compliments on the food and atmosphere and then steered the conversation toward Steve Harmon. “What happened to your boss was awful,” Maggie said. “What a traumatic event for everyone here.”

  “Yes, it’s been difficult. But we’ve managed to keep up the high standard people expect from BV.”

  Wow, right to business. “Do you know what’s going to happen to the resort without Mr. Harmon?”

  “As opposed to many of his other properties, Mr. Harmon owns—owned—BV outright. His wife inherited it, and she’s been very receptive to my ideas and generous with the staff. It’s sad, of course, but I think we’ll be fine. Perhaps even better.”

  File that under motive. For Emme and Bea. As well as anyone else who might be in Harmon’s will.

  Maggie decided it was time to kick into gossip mode. It wasn’t an approach she was fond of, but it got results. “I heard from a friend that Mr. Harmon had a bad reputation with women.” Maggie lowered her voice. “Like, sexual harassment bad.”

  Bea looked perturbed. “Really? I know nothing about that.” She pursed her lips. “I think it’s terrible when people feel the need to say scurrilous things about a person who has departed, especially under such tragic circumstances. Mr. Harmon was always a gentleman with me.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that.” But Maggie didn’t believe it. Bea was a stunning woman with a model’s body. Given Steve Harmon’s predatory nature, it was hard to imagine him passing up a chance to hit on his lovely underling. Maggie had also noticed Bea’s eyelid flicker slightly when she defended her boss. She wa
s either lying or there was more to the story than she was willing to share.

  Sensing a slight chill coming from Bea, Maggie decided to broach a new topic. “I hope I’m not being rude, but I noticed you have a slight accent.”

  “Oh. Yes.” Bea smiled and the chill evaporated. “I was raised in Europe and attended boarding school in Switzerland. Then I worked in London for a number of years until I came here, so my accent is what you might call a mishmash. But we must stop talking about me. I want to hear about Crozat Plantation. How have you managed to keep it in your family for all these years?”

  Maggie recognized the question for what it was: an attempt to change the subject. She responded with a rote history of her family’s home that Bea seemed to find fascinating. Or perhaps she was faking interest. Maggie couldn’t tell. One thing Maggie found interesting was the fact that Bea never asked her about finding Steve Harmon’s body. The death of Bea’s boss seemed the equivalent of a clogged toilet in a guest room: unpleasant but easily handled.

  A young man in a business suit approached the table. He looked familiar to Maggie, but she couldn’t place him. “Hey, Bea, we lost our Santa for the Christmas Eve brunch. He decided to spend the holidays with his daughter’s family in Alexandria.”

  “Then you need to find another Santa.” Bea’s tone was polite but annoyed.

  “I know,” he responded defensively. “But I thought I should tell you.”

  “Thank you, Harrison. But next time, let the conversation be, ‘We lost our Santa but I replaced him.’”

  Harrison. “Sweet potato pralines,” Maggie blurted.

  The others looked at Maggie as if she’d lost her mind, but then Harrison gave a nod of recognition. “Right. The Crozat food stand by the bonfires. Those pralines are awesome. Nice to see you.”

  “You too.”

  There was an awkward silence. “Okay then,” Harrison finally said. “Guess I better find a new Santa.”

  Harrison plodded off, and Bea sighed. “He’s rather hopeless. But then again, he was deeply affected by Mr. Harmon’s death. He seemed to see him as some sort of mentor.” The concept of the financier mentoring the awkward twentysomething seemed as ludicrous to Bea as an elephant tap-dancing. But at least there was someone besides Dan Levy who grieved the loss of Harmon.

  The lunch finished with a delectable vanilla mousse topped with a spun sugar garnish in the shape of the plantation’s initials. After cups of French press coffee, Bea led Maggie back to the plantation’s manor house, where they walked through Belle Vista’s hallway, which doubled as an art gallery, on their way to the exit. Maggie noticed Emme at the far end of the gallery, listening to a man as he pointed to one of the many paintings lining the walls. The man pointed out another painting, and Maggie saw that it was Chris. “Maggie?” he said, as startled to see her as she was to see him.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m here touring Belle Vista. Bea was nice enough to show me around.”

  “Ah,” he said, nodding. “Emme’s asked me to appraise Belle Vista’s artwork and see if there are any hidden masterpieces in the collection. But so far it seems the Tuckers were more interested in their own portraits than any artists of note.”

  “Typical of new money, which is what they were in their day,” Emme said. Maggie noted the statement would have been laced with derision had Emme’s snob of a mother spouted it. But coming from Emme, it simply sounded like a historical fact.

  “But you do have an Audubon print.” Maggie pointed to an exquisitely detailed rendering of a pelican. “That’s certainly valuable.”

  “It’s a copy,” Chris said. “Worth fifty dollars at most.”

  “Oh. I just thought because of its unique size and the fact that the print looks hand-colored . . . I guess my art history is a little rusty.”

  “No worries; it happens all the time with Audubon prints and knock-offs, especially good ones like this,” Chris assured her. Maggie knew he was trying to make her feel better, but she still felt mortified by her mistake.

  “Oh, this reminds me of something I wanted to ask you,” Bea said to Maggie. “I’ve noticed some souvenirs at other plantations feature unique renderings of their buildings. Have you seen those? Do you know where I can get them?”

  “From me,” Maggie said. “They’re my paintings. I reproduce them on souvenirs to sell at local historical sites.”

  “What a nice hobby,” Bea said.

  Maggie felt a flush of humiliation. To Bea, and probably to many others, that’s what her passion had devolved to—a hobby. She was formulating a response when Chris jumped to her defense. “It’s not a hobby. Maggie’s an artist, and a terrific one.” Maggie flashed him a grateful smile.

  “Really?” Emme sounded impressed. “I’d like to see your work sometime. I wouldn’t mind replacing some of these dead white people with more contemporary paintings.”

  She gestured toward the gallery’s artwork and then suddenly tensed up. Maggie saw Harrison heading in their direction. “Hey, Bea, wanted to let you know I think I scared up another Santa,” he called to his boss. He froze when he saw Emme. “What are you doing here?”

  “I own Belle Vista now, Harrison,” Emme said, her tone measured. “You know that.”

  “Is he here?” Harrison demanded. Maggie saw a vein pulsing on his forehead. “What am I saying? Where else would he be except following you around?”

  “Harrison, don’t,” Dan said, startling Maggie, who hadn’t seen him come in.

  “Get out of here,” Harrison yelled at Dan. “Now.”

  “Son, please . . .”

  “Wait, what?” Maggie was confused by this unexpected twist. “Son?”

  The others ignored her. Emme took a step toward the young man. “Don’t you dare talk to your father that way.”

  “Can you please take this somewhere less public?” Bea said, exasperated with the family drama.

  “Dan is Harrison’s father?” Again, the others ignored Maggie. She caught Chris’s eye, and he gave a helpless shrug. Maggie hovered between feeling trapped by and absorbed in the family’s dysfunction.

  “Shut up, shut up!” Harrison choked out the words as he fought off tears. “The murderer got the wrong person,” he shouted at the man Maggie now knew as his father. “He should never have killed Uncle Steve. He should have killed you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Even the reserved Bea Boxler gasped at Harrison’s outburst. Emme pulled her hand back as if she was going to slap the young man but restrained herself. “Your father is a thousand times the man your uncle was,” she said through clenched teeth. “And if you continue to abuse him and hold him in less regard than the vicious SOB that was my late husband, you can forget about family loyalty and find a job somewhere else.”

  “Emme, it’s okay,” Dan said. “Let him be. He’s grieving. He was very close to Steve.” He turned to his son, who looked away, refusing to give his father the satisfaction of eye contact. Maggie felt for Dan. He looked drained and near tears himself. “We’re leaving, Harry. But please . . . if you need me, I’ll always be there for you.”

  Dan laid a hand on Emme’s shoulder and guided her down the hallway. “I’ll text you later,” Chris muttered to Maggie, and then he followed his patron out the door.

  “Hey, Bea, is it okay if I take a break for a few hours?” Harrison said, his eyes cast down at the floor.

  “Take as much time as you need.”

  Maggie felt a need to speak. She was uncomfortable being a mute observer. “Harrison, I’m so sorry about your uncle.”

  Harrison stared at her. She’d finally gotten somebody’s attention. “You’re the one who found him, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. Do you want to talk about it?”

  The young hotelier shook his head. “No. Not now. I’m not ready. But someday.”

  “Well, when you are, I’m there for you. And know that the police are doing everything possible to identify Mr. Harmon’s killer.”

  “You’re good at so
lving murders, aren’t you? I read about what happened at Crozat and how you worked with the police to nail the killers.”

  “I don’t know if I’ve got any special gift for it. But since your uncle was our guest, I’m very invested in the case, and I promise I’ll do everything I can to help the police find who killed him.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.” Harrison gave Maggie the faintest glimmer of a grateful smile, then took off in the opposite direction from his father.

  Bea sighed. “Well, that was unpleasant. I don’t know about you, but I could use another glass of champagne.”

  Maggie released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “I could use a whole dang bottle.”

  *

  A bride-to-be calling about the possibility of renting the White Ballroom for her wedding forced Bea to pass on a second round of champagne. She and Maggie agreed to find a time to meet at Junie’s, and Maggie took off. She called Rufus as soon as she got in her car. “I’m curious. Did y’all get a copy of Steve Harmon’s will?”

  “Yeah, after a few threats to go all Louisiana law enforcement on his team o’ New York lawyers’ backsides. I had to plow through a lotta legalese and some small bequests to household staff and business employees, but basically the bulk of his estate was split between his wife and some foundation he probably set up for tax reasons. He also left a nice chunk of change to his stepbrother, Dan Levy, whose alibi checked out. One of the Charbonnet-Harmon’s live-in housekeepers . . . yeah, I said ‘one of.’ Like they say, it’s good to be the king. Bottom line, the housekeeper verified in seriously unpleasant detail that Levy was laid up with a stomach virus the night of Harmon’s murder. Anyway, I gotta go. I’m taking Charli to a Mommy and Me class.”

  “Rufus, that is so adorable.”

  “A daddy’s gotta do what a daddy’s gotta do. Which sometimes means going to a class called Mommy and Me.”

  Rufus signed off, having revealed nothing that Maggie didn’t already assume. As she drove toward Pelican, she mulled over what she’d witnessed at Belle Vista. The Harmon-Levy-Charbonnet dynamic felt straight out of a telenovela. She found it exhausting and a little depressing. But Maggie knew what would lift her spirits: sugar.