Fixing to Die

by Miranda James

  Mary Turner smiled through her tears. “Miss An’gel, you truly are an angel. I don’t know how I’d ever repay you, but I’ll find a way if you can help me keep my home.”

  “Stop fretting about it.” An’gel checked her watch again. Time to meet Alesha Jackson. “You’ll have to excuse me, my dear. I have that appointment to talk to Alesha Jackson. We’ll talk more later about your situation.”

  “Thank you again,” Mary Turner said. “I can’t wait to tell Marcelline the news. She was as devastated as I was after Nathan dropped his bombshell last night.”

  An’gel nodded as she rose. “See you later.”

  During the brief walk to the parlor, An’gel thought about the implications of Nathan Gamble’s bombshell and Mary Turner’s parting words just now. Marcelline, of course, would have been devastated at the thought of losing her home of the last half century or more. She was a forceful woman in her way. What might she do to protect Mary Turner and Cliffwood? Would she resort to murder?

  On that disturbing thought, An’gel walked into the parlor, where she found Alesha Jackson again admiring the mantel. She turned at An’gel’s approach and nodded to acknowledge her.

  An’gel indicated one of the sofas. “Won’t you have a seat, Ms. Jackson? We might as well be comfortable while we talk.”

  “All right.” The erstwhile medium chose a spot at one end of the sofa and rested her right arm along its arm. She gazed expectantly at An’gel.

  Having taken a seat on the sofa opposite Alesha Jackson, An’gel regarded the woman for a moment. She still hadn’t figured out exactly what tack would get her the information she wanted. Might as well start with the business at Riverhill and see how she reacts to that, she decided.

  “My sister and I live in an antebellum house that dates from the 1830s,” An’gel said. “Six generations of our family have lived there. Some also have died there over the years.”

  “Not unusual in a house of that age,” Alesha replied.

  “Not at all,” An’gel said. “Over the years, my sister and I have observed odd things that we could never quite explain. Not things that happen frequently, or if they do happen frequently, we’ve not noticed. They are more random, I think, but I haven’t made a study of them, nor has my sister.”

  “What kind of odd things?” Alesha asked.

  An’gel shrugged. “Mostly an occasional cold spot in a room, sometimes an object is in a different place or position. A door closing on its own.” As she spoke the last words, she fought the urge to turn and look at the parlor door at her back.

  “Who lives in the house?” Alesha asked.

  “Only my sister and I,” An’gel said. “We have a housekeeper who comes daily through the week, but she has always lived in her own home, with her family.”

  “What about the young man—Benjy, isn’t it?—and the two animals?”

  “Benjy is a recent addition to the family,” An’gel said. “As are Peanut and Endora. Benjy has his own apartment in a remodeled outbuilding behind the house, and the animals generally spend the nights with him. All three of them are in and out of the house every day, though.”

  “How long has your housekeeper been with you?” Alesha asked.

  “Nearly fifty years,” An’gel said.

  “How long have these odd things been happening? Or rather, when did you first start noticing them?”

  “As long as I can remember,” An’gel said truthfully. As a child, she hadn’t thought much about things. Neither she nor Dickce ever talked to their mother about them, although they did talk to each other. Neither of them had ever really felt frightened.

  “Have these incidents been malicious in any way?” Alesha asked.

  “Not that I can recall,” An’gel said. “Neither my sister nor I have ever felt threatened or truly frightened.”

  “It sounds like this activity really doesn’t bother you,” Alesha said. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “You said that you can communicate with spirits,” An’gel said. “We’re curious to know who this spirit was. Dickce thinks it’s our paternal grandmother, but I’m not sure. She was a cranky old lady and not very nice to children.”

  An’gel hadn’t really meant to go into this much detail with the psychic but somehow she found herself telling the woman all these things. Perhaps the spirit’s activities had been weighing on her mind more than she realized. This was distracting her from the real purpose of this interview, however, and she needed to redirect the conversation soon.

  “I could come and attempt to communicate with this spirit,” Alesha Jackson said. “I would have to stay in the house, and I can’t say up front how long it might take. So much depends on the willingness of the spirit to communicate.”

  “I understand,” An’gel said, interested despite her determination to move on to other subjects. “What is your fee?”

  “Room and board, and five thousand dollars for up to a week. If it takes longer, then it’s twenty-five hundred a week after that.”

  An’gel was taken aback. Alesha Jackson had quoted Mary Turner a much lower price. For hourly work, however, it was far less than a lawyer’s fee, An’gel realized after a little mental arithmetic. Then she had to remind herself that the woman was most likely a con artist. An’gel wasn’t about to pay Alesha Jackson a nickel for her services, much less five thousand dollars plus.

  “I’ve been wondering about any references you might have,” An’gel said. “Benjy is talented when it comes to finding out things online, and he did a little research on Primrose Pace’s activities.” She deliberately used the pseudonym rather than the woman’s real name.

  Alesha Jackson tensed slightly, An’gel noticed. Her gaze, however, remained bland. “I know there are two or three things online that are pretty easy to find. About work I’ve done in missing persons cases in Louisiana.”

  “Yes,” An’gel said. “I suppose it was through communicating with the spirits of the dead in these cases that led you to the vicinity of where they’d been buried.”

  “To put it simply, yes, though the situations were all much more complicated than that,” Alesha said.

  An’gel wondered if Alesha really was Primrose Pace, or had she taken the other woman’s identity temporarily for purposes of her own. She realized that Alesha Jackson was intelligent and wouldn’t be easily trapped into betraying herself. The police would have to sort out the question of Primrose Pace.

  Time to push harder, An’gel thought.

  “I found out something else about you, Ms. Jackson,” An’gel said. “Marcelline told me that your grandmother once worked here. For Mary Turner’s grandmother, to be exact.”

  “Yes, my grandmother told me about that. It was a long time ago.” Alesha’s eyes narrowed briefly as she returned An’gel’s gaze.

  “I wondered if that had anything to do with your coming here,” An’gel said. “I’m sure there are other houses with spirits you could communicate with. How did you really happen to choose this one?”

  Alesha did not reply right away. Instead she stared at An’gel for a long moment. An’gel figured the woman might get up and walk out, but then Alesha surprised her by speaking.

  “Curiosity,” Alesha said. “My grandmother didn’t work here long, but she encountered the spirit that is in this house while she worked here. I got my abilities from my grandmother, you see. I was at loose ends, and I thought I might come here and see if I could communicate with the spirit. She never would talk to my grandmother.”

  “Interesting,” An’gel said. If it’s all true, she added to herself. “Is your grandmother still living?”

  “Yes,” Alesha said. “She’s in poor health, but she’s still with us, praise His mercy.”

  “I understand, however, that you recently lost your father,” An’gel said. “You have my sympathies on your loss.”

  “How
did . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Online, of course, because there have been articles about the accident.” Alesha looked disgusted. “Benjy found all that out for you. What business is it of yours? Why are you so interested in my life and my family’s lives?”

  “Because a man was murdered in this house,” An’gel said simply and waited for a reaction.

  “So?” Alesha responded. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “The murdered man owned the company your father worked for at the time of his death,” An’gel said. “The company your mother has been considering bringing a lawsuit against. For wrongful death, I imagine.”

  “You think I killed him because he was responsible for my father’s death?” Alesha asked.

  “I think it’s possible,” An’gel said. “It’s a powerful motive, don’t you think? Perhaps you thought that, with Nathan out of the way, it would be easier for your family to get his company to make a settlement of some sort. I’m sure that will occur to the police.”

  Alesha stared at An’gel, her expression now one of hatred. “You have a filthy mind, old woman.”

  “That may be,” An’gel replied, refusing to let the other woman rattle her. “I can’t abide murder, you see, and I can’t stand the thought of a killer getting away with it.”

  “So you think you’re going to try to pin this on me? You think that arrogant policeman is going to take your word for it?” Alesha laughed.

  “He might,” An’gel said. “I know he’ll be interested when he finds out about your connection to the deceased, if he hasn’t already.” She paused briefly. “Especially when he finds out it was your own cousin you might have murdered.”

  CHAPTER 33

  An’gel was surprised when Alesha Jackson reacted to her words by laughing. She laughed so hard, in fact, that it took at least a minute for her to stop.

  When she did finish, she shook her head at An’gel. “I think you need a serious reality check, lady. Where did you get the idea I’m related to Nathan Gamble? You’re out of your mind.”

  Perhaps her grandmother had never told her father about his true parentage. Or her father never told her, An’gel thought. Or maybe she’s simply bluffing. Should she tell Alesha Jackson what Marcelline had confided in her?

  “I’m serious, lady,” Alesha said, her tone becoming heated. “I want to know who’s spreading that kind of garbage about me and my family.”

  An’gel reckoned she had little choice now. She had started this, and now she had to finish it, within limits. “According to my source, when your grandmother worked here, she became pregnant with your father. My source says that Marshall Turner Senior was the father. He’s Mary Turner’s grandfather and related to the Gamble family.”

  “Your source is lying,” Alesha said. “I don’t know why this person made up such a story, but it’s absolutely not the truth. My grandparents were married two years before my father was born. That was after my grandmother worked here. I’ve seen their marriage certificate. No way was that old man my grandfather.”

  An’gel was shaken. If Alesha Jackson was telling the truth—and An’gel was beginning to believe she was—that meant what Marcelline had told her was a lie.

  “I apologize, Ms. Jackson,” An’gel said after she managed to gather her wits. “It’s beginning to sound like I was grossly misinformed.”

  “It was the housekeeper, wasn’t it?” Alesha asked. “She’s the only one old enough in this house to have known my grandmother when she worked here. You tell her from me she’d better shut her mouth and stop lying. I’m not going to put up with crap like this about my family.”

  “I certainly understand that,” An’gel said. “I will speak to her, I can promise you that.”

  “If it’s family you’re worried about killing Nathan Gamble,” Alesha said, “then maybe you should start with his sister. Ask her what she and her brother were arguing about around eleven thirty last night.”

  “Where was this?” An’gel asked sharply.

  “Upstairs, in his room,” Alesha said. “I’ll bet she hasn’t told the lieutenant about it. Well, I heard them, and I know what time it was. I’m a night owl, and I didn’t go to bed until after midnight. I heard people going up and down the hall several times last night.”

  “Do you remember the times?” An’gel asked.

  Alesha thought for a moment. “Once around eleven, I think. Someone came down the hall, and then maybe two minutes later went back toward the stairs. Then maybe twenty minutes later, I heard someone walking down the hall again. I heard this person knocking on a door, and a few minutes after that, the argument. I don’t think the door was entirely closed.”

  “How long did the argument last?” An’gel said.

  “Not long,” Alesha said. “Maybe five minutes. It stopped, that’s all I cared about. I had to go to the bathroom right after that, and that’s when I spotted Serenity Foster coming out of her brother’s room. I don’t think she saw me, though, because I was in the bathroom closing the door when she went by.”

  “Was that the last time you heard anyone in the hall?” An’gel asked.

  “No, I heard someone else coming down the hall around midnight when I was on the verge of sleep. I drifted off and didn’t hear anyone go back the other way.”

  “Did you tell Lieutenant Steinberg any of this?” An’gel asked.

  “Yes, I did, all of it,” Alesha said. “Now I think we’re done with this. You remember what I said about my family.” She stood up and walked out of the room, obviously still angry.

  An’gel couldn’t blame her. She herself felt horribly embarrassed now. The whole situation had woefully backfired, but she had only herself to blame. She should never have questioned Alesha Jackson about the story without having more information to back it up. Marcelline had seemed so sincere, so convincing, and An’gel had taken her at her word because she had known her for many years. But, she realized belatedly, not well enough.

  Alesha Jackson could be lying, An’gel knew. Alesha could still be guilty of murder. Her father’s death was due to Nathan Gamble’s negligence, allegedly. Whether Alesha Jackson was related to the Gambles through Marshall Turner didn’t affect the woman’s potential motive. Denying the relationship made no difference in that respect. So why deny it? Because it wasn’t true. Marcelline had lied.

  On the whole, An’gel believed Alesha’s denial of the relationship. If Alesha could prove that her grandmother had no contact with Marshall Turner after she left his employment and her son was born after her marriage to another man, that settled it.

  Maybe Marcelline had simply confused Alesha Jackson’s grandmother with someone else. An’gel found it all so easy to believe that Marshall Turner had impregnated a servant. She wouldn’t have put anything past the old goat. At the distance of over fifty years, Marcelline’s memory could have failed her and she only thought the woman from the past resembled Alesha.

  An’gel thought about it. Marcelline could have read about Alesha’s father’s death in the paper. She could have seen the obituary, and the name Arletta Jackson stuck in her mind, to be confused for that of another woman. That was too convoluted, An’gel decided. The simple answer was that Marcelline had lied.

  An’gel was left with the question of why. Had she made up the story out of whole cloth to point suspicion toward Alesha Jackson? Away from herself?

  Or away from someone she wanted to protect?

  The one person who Marcelline would like to protect was Mary Turner. That thought chilled An’gel. Did Marcelline think Mary Turner murdered her cousin?

  An’gel recalled how upset Mary Turner was earlier when she recounted her conversation with Serenity Foster and Serenity’s threat. If Mary Turner had really believed that Nathan Gamble meant to destroy her family, her whole birthright really, would she have been angry enough, desperate enough, to kill him?

  That d
idn’t jibe with the Mary Turner she thought she knew. She recalled Henry Howard’s deep frustration with his wife over her devotion to the house. He obviously felt it was a threat to their marriage. Why else would he have tried such a bizarre scheme to frighten Mary Turner? And me, An’gel thought. He did get under my skin a little, I have to admit that. But she had never been frightened to the point—and never would have been, she thought—that she would encourage Mary Turner to let go of the house.

  Had Henry Howard ever sat down with Mary Turner and shared all his frustration with her? Made her see clearly how it was affecting him, and thus their relationship? Henry Howard had never seemed the type to relish confrontation, in An’gel’s opinion, so it wouldn’t surprise her if he had been reluctant to force the point with Mary Turner.

  Even if he had, An’gel wondered, would Mary Turner have believed him? Or was she so blinded by her obsession with the house that it didn’t matter? Obsession was a strong word, An’gel knew, and perhaps it was inappropriate and simply wrong in this case, but it was sounding more and more like Mary Turner’s sense of proportion was a little out of whack at the very least.

  What about Serenity Foster? An’gel thought it was pretty certain what she and her brother had argued about. Money—the money Serenity evidently needed to help her in the custody battle. If Nathan continued to prove obdurate about helping her, Serenity might have decided that the only way to get the money was to get rid of her brother—permanently.

  That only worked, however, if Serenity was Nathan Gamble’s heir. There was no guarantee that she was. Nathan could have left everything to his partner, Truss Wilbanks. The lawyer was still rather a dark horse in this matter. He might have become so bitter and enraged against his lover for Nathan’s treatment of him that he killed him in a moment of anger. Based on what An’gel had seen of the man since yesterday, she somehow doubted the man had it in him to commit a crime of passion.

  An’gel ran through the list of suspects in her mind.

  Serenity Foster—desperate for money, and her brother refused to help her.