“Call me either Primrose or Alesha.” The medium smiled. “I answer to either. I’ve had enough to eat, thank you. Would you like me to help you finish clearing?”
Mary Turner shrugged. “Sure. Extra hands are always welcome.”
“Then I guess we will leave you to it,” An’gel said. “Come along, Dickce, Benjy.” She gave the other two women a smile before she headed for the door.
In the hallway, Benjy spoke before she started to mount the stairs. “Miss An’gel, if you don’t mind, I’ll take Peanut and Endora to our room and let them have a t-r-e-a-t. I want to get my laptop anyway so I can do a little more research.”
Peanut woofed, despite Benjy spelling the word treat.
“I believe he has learned how to spell.” Dickce laughed.
“He’s so smart,” An’gel said, and Benjy nodded.
“You go ahead, Benjy, and reward them for being so good. Dickce and I won’t start on the project I have in mind until you’re back. We’ll be in my room.” An’gel mounted the stairs slowly, bracing herself for the cold, but she never felt it. Halfway up the flight she paused and turned back to look at Dickce, three steps below her.
“I haven’t felt anything so far,” Dickce said. “Have you?”
“No,” An’gel said. “I suppose the spirit is taking a rest.” She began to climb again.
“Probably hiding because of all the strangers in the house today.” Dickce chuckled. “Can’t say as I blame her.”
“Nor I.” An’gel stepped on to the landing. “All those people in the house are exhausting.” She started to yawn and covered her mouth.
Dickce followed An’gel to her bedroom. “Are you sure you don’t want to lie down and have a short nap? I don’t know about you, but I feel like a little quiet time.”
“Go ahead and lie down if you want,” An’gel said. “I’m going to put my feet up until Benjy gets back. I’ll call you when we’re ready to see if my idea pans out.”
“What idea is that?” Dickce asked.
“I’ll tell you later.” An’gel opened her door and stepped into the room. “Go rest.” She closed the door on her sister. Seconds later she heard Dickce say, “You know I hate it when you do that.”
An’gel paid no attention to that. Instead she focused her attention on the disarray in the bedroom. The police hadn’t created a huge mess when they searched the house earlier, but her things were not as she had left them. She knew it was old-fashioned of her, but she hoped the female officer was the one who looked through her clothes. She abhorred the idea of strange men touching her things. Best not to know. She would have to push those thoughts completely out of her mind, or she would have to wash or dry-clean everything she had brought before she wore it again. She hoped that whoever had searched her things had worn those disposable gloves she saw on television cop shows.
She decided to leave the straightening up until later. Right now she wanted to relax in the quiet and aloneness. After all the clatter of voices, all the drama, the silence felt good. She made herself comfortable in the armchair and put her feet up on the small ottoman.
Slowly she let the tension drain from her body as she focused on relaxation. As eager as she was to search for a secret door into the French room, she hoped Benjy didn’t hurry back from feeding the pets and retrieving his laptop.
She let her gaze wander around the room again, and as she observed the areas that needed tidying, she thought again about strangers handling her things. She reminded herself about the disposable gloves and told herself to let it go.
Focus on where that door might be instead.
She could see herself and Benjy examining the wall between the bathroom and the French room, their hands feeling their way, looking for signs of a mechanism of some sort.
Hands feeling their way.
She sat up suddenly, her feet sliding off the ottoman. We might destroy fingerprints or other evidence by touching everything, An’gel realized. Steinberg would not be happy with her for doing so.
But if we have disposable gloves, it wouldn’t be that different from the police doing the same thing.
A knock at the door roused her, and she called out, “Come in.” She expected Benjy to walk in, but instead it was Marcelline.
“Miss An’gel, I need to talk to you about something.” The housekeeper hesitated in the doorway.
An’gel could see that Marcelline was worked up about something. “Please, come on in. Tell me what’s troubling you.”
Marcelline closed the door slowly behind her. An’gel indicated the room’s other chair, and Marcelline sat on the edge, back stiff, hands clasped together.
“Go ahead,” An’gel said. “I’m listening.” Marcelline seemed to be debating with herself over whether to confide in An’gel, or so the woman’s expression led An’gel to believe.
“I’ve got to tell someone,” Marcelline said, “and I don’t rightly know how to tell Miss Mary. I know who that woman is. At least, I think I do.”
“What woman?” An’gel asked. “Are you talking about Alesha Jackson?”
Marcelline nodded. “Yes, her.” She hesitated again. “I think she’s Miss Mary’s cousin.”
CHAPTER 28
Whatever An’gel might have expected Marcelline to tell her, it definitely wasn’t that Mary Turner and Alesha Jackson were related to each other. She quickly grasped the situation, however, because of her knowledge of the family history.
“Mary Turner’s grandfather, Marshall Turner, is also Alesha Jackson’s grandfather. Is that what you think?” An’gel asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” the housekeeper said. “You’ve been knowing this family a long time, Miss An’gel, and you know how Mr. Marshall was. Couldn’t keep his hands off a woman he wanted to get ahold of. Thank the Lord he died about nine or ten months after I started working here. By then he was getting sick, and he didn’t bother me.”
“I know all about Marshall Turner,” An’gel said wryly. She wasn’t going to tell Marcelline, but she’d had her own run-in with the lecher. He had never made that mistake again, An’gel recalled with great satisfaction. In fact, after she’d gotten through with him, he had stayed away from her like she had the plague. “Who was the woman involved?” An’gel asked.
“A real pretty black lady that worked for Mrs. Turner for a while. I didn’t know her because she must have left a couple years before I started working here. Anyway, she came up to the back door one day when I was just coming out to bring in the clothes from the line. She asked to speak to Mr. Marshall. Now, this was when I’d only been here maybe a couple of months, so Mr. Marshall was still around. I asked her into the kitchen, and I went to find him.”
“Did she tell you her name?” An’gel asked.
“Oh, yes,” Marcelline replied. “She told me she was Arletta Jackson. Mrs. Lonnie Jackson. She stressed that part, that she was married, I mean, but she said to tell Mr. Marshall it was Arletta Kemp asking for him.”
“Did Mr. Marshall talk to her?”
“He talked terrible when I told him, bad words I’d never even heard before. He was in the library by himself, and he swore me up and down that I wouldn’t tell Mrs. Turner about this. I promised, although I know Mrs. Turner got to know about it later. He wasn’t too good with hiding things from her.”
“Do you know what Mrs. Jackson wanted to talk to him about?” An’gel suspected she knew exactly what Mrs. Jackson and Marshall Turner talked about, but she needed to hear it from the housekeeper.
“I did, but I didn’t do it on purpose,” Marcelline said. “I wasn’t the type of girl who tried to find out everybody’s business, but when you overhear things, it’s not your fault.”
“No, I suppose not,” An’gel said. “Go on.”
“Mrs. Jackson had a little boy, she said, just turned two years old, and she was asking Mr. Marshall for the money he promis
ed her for their son. That’s exactly what she said, their son.” Marcelline shook her head. “That was the first I heard tell of Mr. Marshall getting his women pregnant, but I sure wouldn’t be surprised if there’s others out there besides that boy and Miss Mary’s poor dead father.”
An’gel wouldn’t be surprised either, although she figured it was more in the late Marshall Turner’s style to pay the woman in question to get rid of the baby. Lord, what a nasty man he had been, she thought in distaste.
“What happened after that?” An’gel asked.
“I reckon Mr. Marshall gave her some money,” Marcelline replied. “I never saw her again, not even after Mr. Marshall died. I’ve been trying to remember what she looked like. I kept getting a funny feeling I’d seen this Alesha Jackson somewhere before, and I finally figured it out. She must be that Arletta Jackson’s granddaughter. She’s not old enough to be her daughter.”
“Thank you for telling me about this,” An’gel said. “I won’t say anything to Mary Turner either. First, of course, the relationship would have to be proven, but a blood test can do that. Ms. Jackson may not want anyone to know she’s related. I don’t really think it would bother Mary Turner all that much, you know. She heard about her grandfather and his behavior, and she’s smart enough to know there could have been consequences, shall we say, of the old goat’s philandering.”
“Maybe so.” Marcelline looked doubtful. “But I had to tell you in case it was this Alesha Jackson who caused Nathan’s death.”
“At the moment I don’t know what her motive might be,” An’gel said. “But all the angles need to be considered. This is certainly an unexpected one.”
“I reckon her being that lady’s granddaughter might account for how she knew about me being married,” Marcelline said. “I was still wearing a ring back then, and I remember Mrs. Jackson saying something about it now. Something like it might not protect me. I knew what she meant, of course.”
“I wonder if Mrs. Jackson is still living,” An’gel said.
“Don’t see why not,” Marcelline said. “She wasn’t all that much older than me at the time. She’d be maybe seventy-five now.”
“I’m going to be talking to Alesha Jackson later, and I’ll see what I can find out about all this,” An’gel said. “You leave it to me.”
“Thank you, Miss An’gel.” Marcelline rose to go. “I won’t say anything to anybody about it.”
“Good. Now, I’ll have to tell my sister about it,” An’gel said. “She and I always discuss things like this.”
“Don’t matter to me,” Marcelline said. “I’ll be going now. Got to start working on something for dinner tonight.” She left the room, obviously relieved to have shared her burden with someone else.
An’gel was inclined to believe that Marcelline was right, that Alesha Jackson was Arletta Jackson’s granddaughter. That fact would certainly explain Alesha Jackson’s interest in Cliffwood. An’gel had never really bought into the idea that the so-called psychic had heard the spirit of Cliffwood calling to her. She didn’t believe the woman had a psychic bone in her body, now that Marcelline had exposed her. Her grandmother could easily have told her about the people at Cliffwood and about meeting the young Marcelline. It wouldn’t have taken much work for Alesha Jackson to find out details about the current inhabitants. The two maids who did most of the heavy cleaning could well be the source.
The forthcoming interview with Ms. Jackson promised to be interesting, and An’gel looked forward to it. She had the advantage now because Ms. Jackson would have no idea that An’gel knew who she really was. Would the woman admit it, though? Perhaps Benjy could dig up information on the family, now that An’gel had the putative grandparents’ names.
Benjy ought to be here soon. An’gel decided she had better rouse her sister and fill her in on the fascinating information from Marcelline. She met Benjy in the hall, laptop under his arm, Endora on his shoulder, and Peanut on the leash.
“Go on in,” An’gel said. “I’m going to get Dickce.”
A few minutes later, the group was comfortably situated in An’gel’s room. Dickce occupied the other armchair, Endora in her lap. Peanut lay stretched out beside Benjy, who was sitting on the floor, his computer open on his lap. An’gel related the story of Arletta Jackson, and both Dickce and Benjy were astonished.
Benjy started tapping the keys on the computer and was quickly engrossed in a search for details about the family of Alesha Jackson.
While he worked, An’gel and Dickce talked.
“If all this is true,” Dickce said, “what do you think her motive is in coming here? And why didn’t she just explain who she really is, do you think?”
“She might have been intending simply to scam Mary Turner for the money she was asking for ridding the house of its ghost,” An’gel said. “Or she might want more. If her father really was Marshall’s son, Alesha might feel that he should have part ownership in the house and in anything Marshall Junior inherited.”
“At the time Marshall Senior died, that would have been a significant amount,” Dickce said. “But by the time Marshall Junior and his wife died, basically all they had left was this house.”
“And the business they turned it into,” An’gel said. “It’s a pity that Marshall Junior didn’t inherit his father’s head for business or his knack for making money.”
“No, he was too much like his mother in that regard,” Dickce said. “They managed fine on what Marshall Senior left until Junior was grown, at least.”
“Alesha Jackson might think there’s money somewhere besides the house,” An’gel said.
“If Marshall Senior didn’t mention his other son in his will, I don’t see that Alesha has any legal claim, nor does her father. I wonder if he’s still living.”
“He isn’t,” Benjy said. “He died three months ago. I found an obituary, and it mentions the surviving family members. ‘Survived by his mother, Mrs. Arletta Jackson; his wife, Laura Ann; and his daughter, Alesha. Preceded in death by his father, Lonnie Jackson, and a sister, Aretha Jackson.’” He looked up from the computer. “They lived in a town called Port Gibson.”
“Not far from Natchez,” An’gel said.
“Maybe Alesha didn’t know about her grandfather until her father died,” Dickce said. “Do you think that’s possible? And maybe his death set her onto finding about her father’s other family?”
“That’s possible, I suppose,” An’gel said. “I intend to find out when we talk to Ms. Jackson later.”
“You think there might be another motive, besides money, I mean?” Benjy said. “Like revenge?”
“Possibly,” An’gel said. “I think her motives in coming here are complex. The desire for money, revenge, recognition maybe.”
“Would she have any reason to kill Nathan Gamble?” Benjy asked. “Maybe her coming here had nothing to do with him.”
“I can’t see a connection myself,” Dickce said. “Can you, Sister?”
An’gel shook her head. “No, there’s no immediate connection that I can see. Of course, Nathan and Serenity are her cousins, too. Same degree of relationship as they are to Mary Turner. Alesha Jackson could very well have known Nathan in another context, though she and Serenity don’t appear to know each other.”
“No, I don’t remember seeing any kind of sign that they knew each other,” Dickce said. “They could be pretending not to know each other.”
“I can’t imagine why, unless they’re involved in some sort of conspiracy,” An’gel said. “And frankly Serenity doesn’t impress me as intelligent enough to handle any kind of responsibility for some sort of undercover scheme.”
Dickce snorted with laughter. “No, she doesn’t me either.”
“I think I found the connection,” Benjy said. “The one between Alesha Jackson and Nathan Gamble, that is.”
“What is it?” An�
��gel and Dickce said in unison.
“Lonnie Jackson’s obituary says he was an employee of Gamble Construction Company at the time of his death,” Benjy said, his eyes focused on the screen of his laptop. He grimaced. “He apparently fell to his death on a construction site.”
CHAPTER 29
“There’s a potential motive right there,” An’gel said slowly. “If the family holds Nathan Gamble responsible for Lonnie Jackson’s death, Alesha Jackson could have killed him out of anger. A life for a life.”
“Benjy, see if you can find out anything about the accident,” Dickce said.
“Already on it,” Benjy said.
An’gel and Dickce waited in silence while Benjy searched. They knew it wouldn’t take long.
“Got it,” he said in obvious satisfaction a minute later. He scanned the article he’d found. After a moment, he raised his head to look at An’gel and Dickce.
“I can tell by your expression that it’s bad,” An’gel said.
Benjy nodded. “According to the article I found, there were complaints about safety violations on the site where it happened. Some equipment that wasn’t up to standard. Scaffolding, actually. Collapsed with Mr. Jackson, and he fell six stories and died instantly.”
“Sounds to me like Nathan Gamble’s company could be liable,” Dickce said. “There’s no excuse for putting workers’ lives in danger with shoddy equipment.”
“No, there isn’t,” An’gel said. “I wonder if Mrs. Jackson is planning to sue the company.”
“According to the article, the widow is considering a lawsuit,” Benjy said. “This is dated about two weeks after the accident. I haven’t found a follow-up to it.”
“Maybe Alesha Jackson didn’t want to wait for the outcome of a lawsuit,” Dickce said. “No telling how long it might drag out. Unless the company agreed to settle out of court.”
“Based on what we’ve heard about Nathan Gamble’s love of money,” An’gel said, “he might not have settled, unless it would be cheaper than going to court. Now that he’s out of the way, whoever will be running the company might be more amenable to a hefty settlement. Who knows?”
Fixing to Die Page 19
