Blessed Assurance

by Lyn Cote

  “To question Delman Dubois, who’d worked for Kennedy.”

  “And what did you find there?”

  “We found Delman—sound asleep. We found over two hundred dollars under the mattress—the amount of money subsequently reported stolen from Penny Candy’s office—and a gun under his pillow.” Rooney spoke as though he’d memorized his testimony.

  Who coached you, Rooney? I didn’t. Gabe grimaced. For the gun and money, Gabe followed the appropriate procedures for identifying and admitting evidence. “What did you do next?”

  “We arrested Delman for robbing and murdering his boss. I called it a neat arrest and a good night.” Rooney grinned.

  “This is no occasion for levity, Mr. Rooney.” Judge LeGrand glared at the deputy.

  “Sorry, Your Honor.” Rooney looked unrepentant.

  Judge LeGrand gave Gabe a brooding look as though he found him wanting, too. “Is that all for this witness, Gabriel?”

  The door at the back of the courtroom opened, the barest swish of air alerting Gabe. He glanced over his shoulder and observed Meg and—his mother? She walked in beside Meg and sat down on the defendant side of the courtroom. What is my mother doing in a courtroom?

  “Gabriel, is that all the questions you have for this witness?” the judge asked in an aggrieved tone.

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Gabe sat down.

  His father rolled around his table and approached the witness stand. “You found money and a gun in Mr. Dubois’s room?”

  “Yes,” Rooney sneered.

  “How do you know this gun belonged to my client?”

  “It was in his room, under his pillow,” Rooney declared. “If it wasn’t his gun, why’d he have it?”

  “Did Mr. Dubois claim ownership?”

  “No.” Rooney gave a look of disgust.

  “How did you connect the gun to this murder?” Sands asked.

  “It’s the right caliber,” Rooney snapped. “Everybody knew this Negro had it in for—”

  Father cut him off, “By that you mean, it matched the bullets found in the deceased man’s body?”

  “Yeah.” Rooney’s eyes bulged.

  Unperturbed, Sands rolled his chair over to the evidence table. “How about the money? Had there been any record of serial numbers kept by Mr. Kennedy by which we can connect this cash to him?”

  “No, nightclub owners don’t keep lists like bankers.”

  “So what you’re really saying is this: Mr. Kennedy was shot two times with a gun of the same caliber as this gun found in Mr. Dubois’s room?”

  “Yeah,” Rooney growled.

  Sands nodded. “And some money was missing from Mr. Kennedy’s office and that you found some money in Dubois’s room? That is your evidence?”

  Rooney glared at Gabe’s father. “It’s enough. Down in Storyville some colors will kill you for two bits—”

  “Some maybe. But not Delman Caleb Dubois—a graduate of Howard University. And a man who served his country bravely in France. Do you expect this jury to believe that Delman Dubois—who has enjoyed the patronage of the multimillionaire family who raised him—would kill a man for a few hundred dollars? Why would my client—who has several thousands of dollars of his own in a San Francisco bank account—commit murder for two hundred dollars?”

  Every word his father leveled at Rooney stung Gabe like a lash. But each word also slit the veil that had separated Gabe from the truth. He’d been blinded by prejudice. A black jazz musician in Storyville—that’s how he’d seen Del. He’d spent no time checking into the facts of the case, even when he knew the kind of man Rooney was. God forgive me. What can I do now?

  Judge LeGrand stung Gabe with a contemptuous glance.

  Gabe couldn’t disagree. His witness, this entire case, was worthy of contempt. Why had the chief of police chosen someone so biased, so inept, as Rooney for his deputy, and who had really killed Mitch Kennedy?

  Dinner that evening at home was agony for Gabe. Belle had invited three friends, Nadine, Maisy, and Portia, over for dinner and an evening of…giggling. And Meg remained aloof from him. After dinner, Gabe escaped with his parents into his father’s snug office. Finally he had a moment to tell his parents about Marie. His father sat behind his orderly desk, his mother on the chair, and Gabe on the old sofa opposite. Gabe fleetingly recalled the intoxicating sensation of holding Meg in his arms on the sofa two nights ago. He rubbed his forehead trying to erase that thought. The time had come for truth telling regardless of the cost. Marie was counting on him, her “Papa.”

  “This isn’t about Del’s case, is it?” his father asked.

  Gabe folded his hands and looked down. “No, it’s about France…about the war.”

  His parents’ combined attention daunted Gabe, but he took a deep breath. “Things happened in the war that I never wrote you about.” His father nodded. His mother sat like carved marble. Gabe continued, “I regret keeping them from you.”

  “What things, son?” Sands folded his hands under his chin.

  “I married a French woman.” I married for love, passion in the midst of carnage.

  His mother gasped. “Where is she?”

  “She was killed in a bombardment near the end of the war.” His heart twisted. A gale of giggling filtered in from the other room making his grief more stark.

  “Why didn’t you tell us? I knew something horrible had hurt you.” His mother’s voice resonated with pain.

  “She was Lenore Moreau, a nurse at the hospital I was taken to when I was shot down.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, drawing out the one small photograph Lenore had given him. “She was a widow. With a small daughter.” Gabe handed his mother the picture.

  Jazz music from the Victrola tinkled in the background. A girl began singing along. His mother stared at the photograph, then up at him. “The child—you didn’t leave her in France, did you?”

  “I was told she was killed with her mother.”

  “But she wasn’t,” his father concluded.

  “I’ve received a telegram from Marie’s uncle in Paris that he had continued to search for Lenore’s daughter just in case she’d escaped.” Gabe turned to his mother. “So many children just got lost or misplaced. And Marie’s body was never found—”

  “So the uncle found her? Is it what you’re telling us?” Father received the photograph and studied it.

  Gabe lowered his eyes. “Marie never knew her father. He died before she was born, so I adopted her. Four days ago, her uncle put Marie on a boat with a nurse. She’s only four and due here within three weeks.”

  “Oh, a child. My first grandchild.” His mother popped up from her seat.

  Gabe stared at her. “You’re not upset?”

  “I’m sad you didn’t tell us about Lenore.” Mother sat down beside him on the sofa and touched his arm. “Gabriel, I didn’t know how to help you. I could see you were grieving, but I didn’t know over what, over whom…dear, did you really think you couldn’t tell us?”

  Why didn’t I trust them? “I couldn’t seem to put the news of my marriage into a letter. Then Lenore died, and telling you seemed futile. I thought it best to close the book and spare you my grief.” Both his parents gazed at him with sad faces. It cut Gabe to his heart.

  “But you didn’t.” Father spoke at last. “Both your mother and I sensed your sorrow and didn’t know how to comfort you. Don’t do this again. This is what your family is for. You are a grown man. You don’t need us for everyday things, but for matters like this, you do.”

  Gabe nodded gravely. “It won’t happen again.”

  Mother sprang up again. “Let’s tell Belle. She’ll be thrilled.” The jazz song had ended, but no more giggling could be heard.

  Gabe objected, “But she has friends over—”

  “Excellent,” his father observed. “That will save us deciding who to tell about Marie first. We’ll let the grapevine take care of that.”

  Gabe appreciated his grim humor. His
parents led him down the hall toward the parlor where the four debs and Meg had been chatting. Before his mother preceded them into the suddenly quiet room, Nadine’s hesitant voice stopped them, “But I don’t understand, Miss Wagstaff. Why do you interest yourself so deeply with the son of a servant? I mean, we’ve all heard that the colored accused of murder was the grandson of your old nurse, but—”

  “Ordinarily I wouldn’t try to explain because you may not understand even after I do, but in these circumstances, in light of what you’ve heard, I’ll try.” Meg paused. “Del and I were children when we moved to San Francisco only a few months before the nineteen-o-six earthquake. My father had gone away that horrible day, so I was home alone with Del and his grandmother Susan.”

  Meg’s voice took on a distant quality as though she were removed from them. “The quake hit at sunrise and Susan got us out of the house. She started to take us to the Golden Gate Park. On the way, she had a heart attack and died. No one would stop to help us,” Meg’s voice faltered. “No one acted normally.”

  Gabe watched Meg, his heart touched by her lost expression.

  “An aftershock hit us. I thought we were going to die. When it finally ended, we promised to stick together. And we always have.” She looked up at them and her voice hardened. “Is that a good enough explanation of why I will stick with Del no matter what? Do you choose to believe that nasty gossip or me?”

  “What gossip?” Gabe demanded.

  Chapter 16

  Meg watched Gabe as Nadine, who obviously had a taste for melodrama, said in a hushed tone, “Someone started a rumor that Miss Wagstaff isn’t a friend to Del, but his…his paramour.” The girl blushed a fiery red.

  “I pay no attention to rumors.” Meg forced a relaxed smile. “My family has never lived like everyone else and this isn’t the first rumor—”

  Mrs. St. Clair spoke up, “Gossip is the hallmark of small minds. That’s what my grandmother always said.”

  “When did you first hear this rumor?” Gabriel’s question sounded as though Nadine sat in the witness chair.

  Nadine frowned. “The first time I heard it was at the celebration for the new mayor.”

  Meg watched the wheels turn in Gabriel’s head. She had a suspicion of who had started this rumor, but it didn’t really matter. She would be in New Orleans only as long as it took to get Del out of jail. Somehow this thought didn’t relieve her as much as it had previously. She found herself studying Gabriel’s stern profile. She shook herself mentally. “Don’t let it worry you—”

  Belle declared, “If anyone says it within my hearing, they’ll get a piece of my mind.”

  “That is very loyal of you,” Sands said, “but remember Shakespeare, ‘Methinks thou dost protest too much.’”

  “Exactly so.” Mrs. St. Clair sniffed. “Treat it with sublime contempt.”

  Sands nodded. “Exactly so, my dear.”

  Meg read the ill-concealed worry in Gabriel and his parents’ expressions. She knew just what kind of reaction this rumor could bring. The KKK held sway in the South and was spreading north. Whoever had begun this rumor had done it to drive her from the state. But Del stood in the greatest peril. A black man accused of killing a white man stood almost no chance of acquittal. If the jury heard of this rumor and believed it, Del was a dead man. Shaken, she stood up.

  Gabriel moved to her side.

  Nadine glanced at the clock. “Oh, it’s eight! Time for us to get on our costumes for the Momus Parade.”

  While the girls hurried out giggling, Belle paused at the door. “You’ll still go see us in the parade?”

  Meg nodded. “We wouldn’t miss it,” Gabe added.

  Belle grinned, then hurried out with Mrs. St. Clair close at her heels. Sands looked at them. “I’ll be in my office. Gabe, if you don’t want to escort the ladies, I’m sure we could manage to get me through the crowd some way—”

  “Leave it to me,” Gabe insisted. Sands nodded once, then left. Gabe looked down at Meg. “Tomorrow is Mardi Gras. I’ll have to take you to the French Quarter.” Trying to speak normally, he said, “How are you? I was worried when you didn’t come to court….” He stopped.

  “I wanted to be on time, but it took me so long to fall asleep after…” Meg braced herself. “Your mother didn’t want to disturb me. You and Sands were long gone before I woke.”

  “I was surprised that my mother accompanied you to court.”

  “She insisted. She said she’d never had time to attend court to see your father represent a client and she wanted to see you at work as well.”

  Meg’s explanation sounded like pure fiction to Gabe, but he’d seen his mother in court—with his own eyes and for the first time in her life. Had his mother come to court to see his father or was it out of concern for Meg?

  Meg asked, “You told your parents tonight?”

  He nodded, his eyes devouring her, always elegant, always in black. Now he understood. She was in mourning for Colin. But her black silk dress with its sleek lines—he couldn’t look away.

  “How did they take it?”

  Belle’s small Victrola upstairs began with a sudden burst of song, “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.”

  Gabe concentrated on Meg despite the loud music. “Mother is excited over Marie—her first grandchild.” He forced a wry grin. “I felt guilty for not telling them sooner.”

  Recalling her own father’s drawn expression the morning she’d left San Francisco for New Orleans, Meg wrapped her arms around herself, wishing Gabe would draw nearer. Father, why didn’t I tell you about France?

  Gabe shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t feel like the same man who traveled home from France over four months ago.”

  “I know. I lost Colin in September. I came home for Thanksgiving. I wanted to tell my parents, but I felt like I was drowning in sensations and images from the trenches—”

  He looked into Meg’s warm brown eyes. “I took the job as parish attorney to give me a life, a reason to get up in the morning and get dressed. I thought I could forget by keeping busy.” His voice came out rough.

  “I was so frightened. I thought I’d never feel like myself again,” Meg said.

  Am I falling in love with this woman? Is that why I can’t hold back? Or is this just shared experience and sorrow? “I know. But I don’t think we’ll ever be exactly as we were.”

  “If I were, it would mean that Colin had no effect on me.” She lowered her eyes. “My poor father—he has me to worry about, my stepmother’s difficult pregnancy, and Del being arrested…” Meg didn’t raise her gaze. “Did it feel peculiar to face your father in court?”

  Gabe took her gloveless hand in his. In his pocket, he held information…possibly helpful information. Should he give it to her? Would it help her? He kissed her hand and wished circumstances were different. They couldn’t talk about what separated them, but the barriers between them had tumbled down two nights ago in his father’s study. He shuddered with awareness of her.

  Meg spoke in a low, desperate tone, “What are we going to do? I can’t discuss Del’s case with you. But something dreadful is happening in this city.”

  The four girls clattered down the stairs and burst in on Meg and Gabe. Meg pulled away from him again. Gabe’s frustration level spiked. We need to be alone. He swallowed his anger.

  The girls posed in the doorway. “How do we look?” they chorused, then giggled at themselves.

  Meg made herself smile though the muscles of her face and neck were taut like steel cords.

  Belle was dressed as the Statue of Liberty—the other three were a black cat, a veiled harem girl, and a Japanese geisha with a powdered white face.

  Meg kept her smiled in place. “What inventive costumes.”

  “You girls, get your wraps now. The cars are in the porte cochere,” Mrs. St. Clair instructed from the hall.

  Soon they all crowded into two cars. Mrs. St. Clair and three debutantes in the family sedan and Belle in the
backseat of the Franklin behind Meg and Gabe.

  In the darkness, Gabe slid his hand over the front seat till he touched Meg’s hand. He clasped it in his. The agony of their situation twisted his gut.

  What am I going to do? Gabe asked himself. I care about Meg. How can I prosecute her dearest friend with a flawed case? What did a prosecutor do if he became convinced that the defendant was not guilty? It was the kind of question he would automatically want to put to his father, but how could he? His father was the defense lawyer.

  The chauffeur drove to the corner of Canal and Rampart streets near the edge of the Quarter. The debs flocked out of the family car into the throng. “The parade is gathering here,” Gabe explained to Meg.

  She nodded.

  Squeezing out of the sedan, his mother pushed her way back through the crowd to Gabe’s window. She had to shout to be heard over the noise of the crowd. “A spot has been reserved for you on Felicity Street, you remember where?”

  Gabe nodded.

  His mother motioned broadly. “Our place in the pied-a-terre is on Rampart right over there!”

  “I remember,” Gabe shouted back. “Meg and I will walk back and join you!” His mother nodded and turned away to push her way to the nearby pied-a-terre.

  Gabe threaded the Franklin through the packed streets and found his spot at a friend’s home and parked. He helped Meg out of the car. Only blocks separated them from the riotous celebration in the Quarter. But Felicity Street looked deserted. The night breeze rustled through the tall live oaks, the Spanish moss fluttering over their heads like tattered sleeves on an ancient shroud.

  Meg looked up at him, her eyes pleading for…what? What could he give her? The piece of paper in his pocket weighed him down. It might put her in danger.

  “I want you to hold me,” she murmured into his ear.

  Pulling her against him, he closed his arms around her. With his forefinger, he tilted her quivering chin up. He kissed her. Again, the pain of the past fell away in the joy of Meg’s kiss, the coming together of their lips.

  Meg swayed in his arms. Gabriel’s kiss shoved back the pain of losing Colin, the horror that she might lose Del. She pushed away from him. “We must go. Your mother will worry if we don’t come soon.”