by JOAN HESSS
“Those unschooled in regional history assume cotton was the major crop,” Phoebe inserted, apparently on automatic pilot. “However, indigo was the major crop for export until the market declined at the end of the eighteenth century. After that, sugarcane dominated the area.”
“Really,” I murmured, wondering how much sugar it might take to counter the bitterness of the coffee, or if there were a handy cane with which to stir it.
“Very interesting, dear.” Maxie frowned at me. “The police officers came last night. They were less than impressed with your theory that the decanter has significance, but they agreed to have it tested. I took it upon myself to assure them none of us will be surprised when the mysterious substance is determined to be dirt.”
Caron’s white shirt was dirty, the brandy decanter was dirty, and so was something else. A pair of something elses, to be precise. I ordered myself to take a swallow of coffee, then put down the cup and said, “Your bedroom slippers are dirty.”
“No, they aren’t,” Phoebe said promptly. “We went over this Friday night, Cousin Claire. You were wiggling your toes at the time. Surely you remember that; heaven knows it’s indelibly etched in my mind.”
“Not your slippers. Your mother’s.”
Maxie solidified as if the temperature had plunged. After what Caron would describe as a Distant Lull, she said, “It’s possible they’re a bit dusty, but the floors are not cleaned on a regular basis, or on any basis whatsoever that I’ve thus far noticed.”
“I’m talking about grass stains,” I said.
My comment did not generate any explanations, much less any confessions. The two exchanged quick looks, then stared at me. The temperature had indeed plunged, and we were approaching absolute zero.
“Give me a minute to think,” I said, forcing down more coffee. “Let’s try this: When we went outside Friday night to search for Miss Justicia, Phoebe returned to change into shoes and told you what was happening. You decided to avail yourself of the fortuitous opportunity to search her room.”
“I went to her room in hopes she had returned. I was worried about her.”
“If you truly were worried about her, why did you first go outside and peek through the window to make sure she was still in the yard?”
She plucked a cigarette from her case and lit it. “If Miss Justicia had returned, I did not wish to disturb her further by entering her room.”
I refused to wince as smoke wafted into my face. “That was very thoughtful of you, Maxie. Did you step on something hard while in the process of being so very thoughtful?”
“I assumed it was a rock. And I didn’t find a will, so you can save yourself the necessity of further innuendos.”
“But you were outside during the pertinent time, and by yourself. Someone who frolicked in the yard as a child should know the quickest path to the bayou.”
“One would think so.” She jabbed out the cigarette and rose. “Come along, Phoebe, and bring your tape measure. There is a secretary in the parlor that warrants a second scrutiny. It might have a secret drawer.”
I let them reach the doorway before I said, “I discovered Miller’s big secret, by the way. Baa, baa, black sheep…”
“Who’s Miller?” asked Phoebe.
Maxie’s hand tightened on the cigarette pack until it crinkled, but her voice remained cool. “He is no one worthy of your attention, Phoebe, or yours, Cousin Claire. Miss Justicia made it clear a long time ago that his name was not to be said aloud in Malloy Manor. Even though she has passed away, we owe her the respect of obeying her wishes in this matter.”
“Because he got a girl pregnant?” I said. “Isn’t that an overreaction?”
“It was not a topic of debate then, nor is it to become one today.” Maxie took Phoebe’s arm and led her down the hall.
The coffee wasn’t any worse cold, and I sipped it as I inserted Maxie into the night’s activities. Like Stanford, Phoebe, and Pauline, she had been alone outside. She was strong enough to shove the wheelchair into the water, and she’d admitted she was in the precise spot where the decanter had been found. But why would she risk killing Miss Justicia until the will—any will—had been perused in private?
I was beginning to regret the decanter had been found. I was regretting quite a bit more than that, such as fishing the invitation out of Caron’s waste basket in the first place. Borrowing Ellie’s car was high on the list, along with allowing myself to become obsessed with Miller, which was what I’d done and for no reason beyond curiosity.
Also high on the list, and in contention for first place, was taking the yellow taxi from the airport when we arrived. The conversation in the backseat had been lively but had contained nothing to merit the man’s continued attacks on me. He’d been agreeable during the drive; now he had an attitude I did not appreciate.
And he’d been following me, I realized. He hadn’t shown up at the cemetery by coincidence, and he surely hadn’t been cruising the highway at the exact time I was returning from D’Armand’s office. This newest idea turned the coffee in my stomach to burning, churning acid.
The gloom in the dining room deepened. It was probable that a cloud had blocked the sun, but I became uneasily aware of the water-stained ceiling, peeling wallpaper, depictions of raw meat on the walls, and droopy, dusty cobwebs. I could hear no one, not even Maxie and Phoebe in the parlor. The only other person I’d encountered was Caron, and she was likely to be upstairs pondering her chances of getting in the witness-relocation program. I would have welcomed any company, including Stanford, his offspring, or Pauline. I listened, but all I heard were creaks and wheezes, as if the house had developed a malevolent personality.
It seemed we’d moved from gothic to horror, I thought as I pushed aside the coffee, told myself I was losing my few remaining vestiges of sanity, and went down the hall to the parlor.
Maxie and Phoebe were examining the suspicious secretary. “Where is everybody?” I asked.
“Stanford and Ellie are at the funeral home,” Maxie said. “The cook doesn’t come in until noon. Pauline has not yet appeared for breakfast, which is for the best. I have no idea of Keith’s whereabouts, nor do I have any interest in them. Forty-three inches.”
“Forty-three inches,” Phoebe echoed. She recorded the figure in her notebook, then kneeled and stretched the tape along the base. “If you’re that desperate for company, Cousin Claire, try the opium den under the stairs. Forty-eight and one-half inches.”
“Forty-eight and one-half inches.” This time, Maxie recorded the figure. “There is a discrepancy. This is ever so promising. If you’ll be so kind as to excuse us, Cousin Claire, we must concentrate on our calculations. Malloy Manor is at stake.”
I returned to the foyer, a now-familiar home base, and frowned at the little doorway. Since I wasn’t anywhere near that desperate, I went outside.
Ellie’s sports car and Stanford’s Mercedes were gone, thus depriving me of both transportation and the means by which to commit additional felonies. Then again, grand theft auto hadn’t been all that entertaining, and the mini grand prix to the airport had been downright grim.
The door behind me opened, and Caron came out to the veranda. “I cannot believe we’re stuck here an entire extra day,” she muttered, her hands in the pockets of her white shorts. They went nicely with my blue shirt.
“Your father was stuck here for eighteen years,” I said. I stared at the undergrowth beyond the driveway, but I could see no jarring patch of yellow in the muddy-colored shadows. “Let’s take a walk, dear. This house is beginning to get to me, perhaps even more so than its occupants.”
“Did one of them murder Miss Justicia?” asked Caron as she and I went down the steps and started along the nearest path.
“I don’t know if anyone murdered her. If the lab reports blood on the decanter, we’ll have to assume it was used for something more sinister than a nightcap.” I hesitated for a minute. “The wheelchair’s on the back porch. I wonder if the polic
e checked its back for traces of blood…?”
“You are disgusting, Mother. Once I get my driver’s license, I won’t mind being an orphan. In the meantime, stop poking your nose in this before you get it—and other things—blown to smithereens.”
I headed for the back of the house. “That’s what Peter said last night, and not nearly as politely. I really must discourage him from that sort of thing.”
“You don’t want him to worry about you?”
I faltered, then resumed my pace. “I suppose I do want him to worry about me, in the sense he’s showing concern. I don’t like this paternalism, however.”
“You just don’t want to share the closet space,” Caron said under her breath.
“Maybe not,” I said under mine.
We came around the corner of the house. The wheelchair was on the porch, folded and propped against the wall. With stern encouragement from me, Caron helped me drag it out to the grass. As Stanford had said, it seemed heavier than a refrigerator and it took us several minutes of struggling to pull the arms apart and open it. The seat was muddy, and bits of slinky green weeds were entwined in the spokes of the wheels.
“Look at this control panel,” Caron said, awed.
I chose to look at the back braces. If there had been blood, the water had washed it away. I stepped back and regarded what might have been an instrument of death, rather awed myself by the elaborate controls and sense of massiveness and power. “It must have cost a fortune,” I said.
“I hope the water didn’t rust the controls,” Caron said as she sat down in the seat. “I’ll bet this was fun to ride around in. Look, here’s the brake, and the joystick to steer it, and the lever to change gears. It goes in reverse, too.”
“No headlights?” I said dryly.
“Maybe it still works.” Her finger touched a button, and the motor began to drone. “This is neat, Mother. If Rhonda was to step out from behind that bush, I could flatten her. Inez could write it up for the school newspaper, with the headline ‘Rhonda Maguire: Miss RoadKill of Farberville High.’”
“And you accused me of being disgusting?” I said, laughing. “Remember, dear, you only have a learner’s permit, and it’s not valid in this state. We’d better put the wheelchair back on the porch before…”
Mother’s little darling smiled sweetly. “In a minute.”
The drone intensified, and before I could shriek out an order to the contrary, the wheelchair shot across the grass and disappeared around an azalea. There was no cackle, but I swore I heard a howl of delight.
Feeling a surge of empathy with Pauline, I lowered my head and took off down the path. I soon realized why she’d worn jogging shoes for such occasions. The path was slippery and uneven, and vines and branches grabbed at my ankles. And there were many paths as I went farther from the house, I discovered. Periodically, I could hear the wheelchair, but paths that pretended to go one way took turns that led in the opposite direction.
I finally abandoned the paths and pushed through the bushes to the bayou. I saw nothing, but I heard the wheelchair behind me and well back in the yard. I couldn’t blame her too much for wanting to test-drive the chair. On the other hand, I could lecture her at length about ignoring my directives, and I most definitely would.
I headed back into the wasteland, trying to progress in the direction of the sound and feeling a vague kinship with blood-lusting hunters who tracked down animals. I came around a neglected magnolia tree with branches nearly brushing the ground, and caught sight of the barn.
I also caught sight of the runaway, who came speeding out of a path into the cleared area.
“Watch this!” she shrieked as she began to zigzag through the weeds, turning neatly each time.
Images of broken bones invaded my mind. “Stop right this minute!”
She looked back at me and yelled, “Hey, this is Really, Really fun!”
And crashed into the door of the barn.
I ran toward her, alternately cursing and offering sympathy. The chair was on its side, and all I could see were feet and one hand fumbling on the control panel. The motor went dead. Before I could get there to pull the twisted, battered body of my only child from the wreckage, she stood up.
“Wow,” she said as I stumbled to a halt. “That was quite a ride. You wouldn’t believe how fast this thing will go on a straightaway. I mean, like wow.”
“Are you okay?” I gasped.
“I’m fine, but you don’t look so good, Mother. Why don’t you sit down for a moment?”
“If I sat down, I couldn’t wring your neck.” I forced myself to take a few breaths. I was calmer but no less angry as I continued. “I have been thrashing through this—this jungle to find you before you killed yourself. Why on earth did you race away like that when I’d just told you we were going to put it back on the porch? You may think joyriding among the trees is perfectly safe, but what would have happened if you—”
“Mother,” she said solemnly, “look.”
I stopped sputtering and looked where she was pointing. The crash had knocked open the barn door. Less than ten feet from us was the yellow taxi, partially covered by a canvas tarp.
“What’s it doing in here?” Caron said, moving toward the door. “It looks like someone tried to hide it. Do you think the driver’s here?”
I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back. “Let’s hope not. Come on, we’ve got to get back to the house to call the police.”
She gave me a blank look, and I realized she’d missed the updates on the identity of the driver and his recent antics. I explained as curtly as I could.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, refusing to be dragged any farther. “At least let’s see if he’s in there. He knows we’re out here. I didn’t exactly tap on the door, and you were ululating like an coyote.”
“Claire!” Ellie called. She came down the path, with Keith slouching behind her. “The lawyer called, and he’s coming back to talk to everybody.”
“Safety in numbers,” Caron said. She freed her arm, went to the door of the barn, and timidly said, “Hello? Is anybody in there?”
“What’s the taxi doing in there?” asked Ellie.
“And the wheelchair out here?” added Keith, although with less interest.
I shook my head. “I have no idea about the taxi. Caron was riding in the wheelchair and ran into the door.”
“But why would it be in the barn…?” Ellie murmured as she joined Caron in the doorway. “Is he in there? I thought he left the other night…?”
“I don’t think he’s in here.” Caron went into the barn and lifted the tarp. “He’s not in the cab, and there’s not anyplace else to hide.”
“Unless you’re a rat,” Keith remarked to no one in particular.
Gritting my teeth, I went into the building. Calling it a barn was an exaggeration. It was simply a storehouse with four rough walls and a roof through which sunlight slanted. The walls were substantial enough to muffle the sound of the birds outside; the only thing I heard was heavy breathing, some of it (a good deal of it) my own. There were a few boxes, a shelf holding plastic flowerpots, and a lumpy discarded bag of Pritty Kitty Kibble.
Ellie and Caron pulled off the tarp. The driver wasn’t crouched on the backseat, nor was a gun lying on the same. The keys were in the ignition.
“So where is he?” demanded Ellie, her eyes round and her chin quivering. “Why is this here?”
I looked at Keith, who was sitting on a carton, and, from all appearances, admiring his hangnails. “Was the taxi here yesterday afternoon?”
“No way. Even I would have noticed it.”
“Mother,” Caron said, wrinkling her nose as she moved around the taxi, “something smells bad. I think it’s coming from the trunk.”
My mouth turned sour. “We’re all going back to the house to call the police. All of us, now.”
“Cousin Caron’s right,” Ellie said as she approached the trunk, making an increasingly carkin
g series of faces. “Something in there smells worse than any meal I’ve ever had in Malloy Manor. Do you think the driver forgot about his creel?”
“We’re going to the house,” I said, trying to swallow.
“Don’t be a wimp, Auntie Claire. We have to look.”
“No, we don’t.”
Ellie took the keys from the ignition and unlocked the trunk. As it rose, a stench flooded the barn. It was a mixture of sweetness and acridity, strong enough to have color and form and texture, vile enough to be the embodiment of the manor’s malevolent personality.
Gagging, Caron stumbled out of the barn. Her hands on her mouth, Ellie backed away from the taxi, tripped over the doorsill, and fell on the ground. She scuttled away from the door, coughing. I managed a quick look in the trunk as I headed for the door, and what I saw was enough to eject the meager contents of my stomach.
The driver lay as if in a coffin, his hands folded across his chest and his eyes wide in a final, frenzied appeal. His mouth was covered with a piece of silver tape. His skin had been pasty; now it had a bluish tint.
Caron grabbed me and put her head on my shoulder, her body shaking violently. I held her tightly. Ellie was kneeling on the grass. Her hair shrouded her face but did nothing to soften her sobs. Keith came out of the barn, the visible areas of his face a pale shade of green, and said, “Nasty, nasty, nasty.”
“Nasty?” Ellie cried. “Oh, my God, how can you say that?”
“Well, it is nasty,” he said as he braced himself against the side of the building and doubled over as he retched.
I caught Caron’s shoulders and steadied her. “Just don’t think about it,” I said firmly. “Think about something else.”
“What?” she said, tears snaking down her cheeks.
“A swimming pool.” I gave her an encouraging smile, and then put my arm around her and nudged her into motion. After a minute, Ellie stood up and took Keith’s arm. They followed us toward the house.
14
Officers Dewberry and Puccoon came almost immediately. I went outside and explained what we’d found, and agreed to escort them to the scene. As we walked along the path, they asked for details, but this time there were no smirks or derisive remarks. Not until I’d finished, that is.
