by D. A. Bale
Which meant I was gonna be doing more than glistening by the time dinner was done. Most people simply don’t understand what it’s like when you have an oven burning inside all the time – twenty-four hours a day. Good thing Janine had opened the veranda doors to let the nighttime air flow through our rooms. Don’t worry. The screens kept the bugs out and my critter in.
“Janine, dear,” Addie started. “How are you and Victoria finding your accommodations?”
A genteel dab at her lips then Janine returned the napkin to her lap before she answered. “As always, very comfortable, Grandma-ma. Thank you for putting me in my old room.”
George interrupted with a haughty lift of his two chins. “And I’m enjoying the honor of sleeping in Grandfather’s room.”
The cup and saucer in Sibby’s hands clattered as she set up the coffee service on the sideboard for after dinner. I caught her fearful reflection in the mirror – and also George’s leering lust. At least it wasn’t directed at my assets this time.
I averted my gaze because if I looked at him one more time, I wasn’t gonna be able to hold onto what little I’d eaten thus far. Happy thoughts. Bland thoughts. Non-sexual thoughts. Cornflower-blue eyes and amber-colored hair fisting in my fingers as Radioman slid down, down…
I needed a drink – something stronger than tea. More in the range of the Long Island variety.
“The honor of the master suite should’ve gone to my granddaughter since she’s the birthday girl,” Addie returned with a barely concealed scowl George’s way before addressing Janine again. “But since you were bringing Victoria with you, I thought you’d both enjoy sharing the adjoining rooms instead.”
“A wise decision, Mother,” Charlotte said, patting George’s knuckles after one of his chins drooped.
“What would you know about wise decisions? You’ve made your share of unwise ones,” Addie huffed. “Speaking of which, where is that husband of yours? And Audra, I thought Franklin would be joining us as well.”
A wide-eyed stare crossed the table between my bestie and me before we both dug into our duck l’orange – minus the whiskey, of course.
If there’s one subject matter off limits in the De’Laruse household – besides booze – it’s the matter of one late night rendezvous with a preacher. You know, that time honored tradition of getting the parents off your back by running off and taking life by the horns – in this case, Charlotte and Thomas getting hitched, elopement style. After the deed was done, there wasn’t a lot the parents could do about it, ‘cause after sampling the forbidden fruit there’s no getting that cherry back.
As penance for ordering the fruit platter, Thomas relinquished his last name in favor of taking on the De’Laruse mantle then proved his commitment to the family name fifty billion times over.
“Frank and Tom had business in Houston,” my mom interceded. “My understanding is they will join us in a day…or two.”
“As long as they arrive before Thanksgiving dinner is served, I suppose that will have to suffice.”
“What time will that be?” George asked, shoveling another forkful into his pie hole.
“Thursday, six o’clock…sharp.”
As if we didn’t know the rigidly observed schedule by heart. Silence reigned for an awkward couple of minutes, save for the clinking of silver against china and the rigorous chewing coming from down the table. In George’s direction. Where I couldn’t look.
“Mrs. De’Laruse,” I said to move along conversation toward a less dangerous cliff. “Janine and I discovered an old book beneath the pillows in my room. Do you know why it was in there or should it be returned to the library?”
A sharp pain throbbed in my shin, and I bit down on the fork to avoid crying out. What the…? The old girl had a streak as mean as a fork-tongued viper, but she also had a lot more strength behind those pointy-toed kitten heels than your average almost ninety-year-old too. My shin vouched for that.
“It’s probably nothing,” Addie declared a little too quickly. “I’ll come up after dinner and you can show it to me.”
Janine’s brow arched toward her hairline and a smile edged her lips to proclaim better than words that her earlier assumptions were correct. An old book under my pillows? A kick to my shins? Yeah, we had a definite mystery on our hands – and it had more to do with odd behavior from a certain matriarch instead of the maid.
Damnit. Pass the bleach, please.
***
“No, no, and hell no. Huh-uh,” I announced, slinging my heels across the bed and picking up my furball as Janine and I entered my bedroom. “No way am I going to get involved in whatever scheme your grandmother has cooked up.”
“But why?” Janine whined, picking up the object of discussion and perusing the pages. “You love solving mysteries. Helping other people.”
“Helping other people hasn’t been conducive to my overall health, thank you very much.”
“You’re healthy as a well-bred filly.”
“Not into breeding,” I returned, then paused. “Though saddling has its merits.”
“Vicki!” Janine whacked me with a pillow then plopped onto my bed.
Okay, call me twisted and a little wicked, but I was proud to know sweet and virginal Janine got that joke. At least this time.
“Speaking of health, I really need a drink to maintain mine after today. Care to sneak off for some New Orleans adventures?”
“Tonight? We just arrived. Don’t you think that’s a little quick? I mean, we have a whole week for adventure.”
“No,” I corrected. “We have six days, four hours and eleven minutes left for adventure. And part of that will be taken up by token visits with who knows how many of your grandmother’s friends. Let’s get out of here while we can.”
“I don’t know,” Janine hesitated. “Isn’t that when all of the voodoo and witch doctors come out to play?”
I cocked a hip and gave her a good stare down. “Have you been watching my horror movies again?”
“No, thank you very much.” A noticeable shiver passed over Janine. “I’ve never understood how you could sleep so soundly after watching that stuff.”
A bug buzzing against the screened door caught Slinky’s attention, and I put him down before I suffered an assortment of scratches. Then I ripped off the sweat-stained blouse and dug through my drawers for a t-shirt and shorts.
A commanding voice echoed through the room. “I’ve never understood the need for such atrocious entertainments either.”
I whipped around with the t-shirt covering my upper assets and clung to the skirt I’d almost dropped to the floor to see Addie in the open doorway, Georgie slinking off down the hall rubbing his ear. The cherub moldings dotting the ceiling corners cowered behind their wings in abject fright.
I knew exactly how they felt.
“Mrs. De’Laruse,” I yelped as she closed the door behind her.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being around Addie over the years, it’s best to avoid her. In her world, children are to be seen and not heard. Husbands and wives should never associate with one another except at the dining table. And when she made the effort to seek you out – well, let’s just say it never boded well. I was pretty sure my earlier antics were about to get a good dressing down.
And I was already down to my underwear.
“I…uh, didn’t hear you knock.”
“That’s because I didn’t,” she replied.
“Or enter.”
“The door was…how shall I put it…ajar.”
“Ajar?” Janine questioned. “But I’m sure I heard it click shut.”
“George,” I cried, slipping the t-shirt over my head. “Why that little pervert. I’m gonna…”
“In future,” Addie interrupted, “remember that a lady must always take precautions around members of the opposite sex. That’s why God invented locks.”
“I thought that was Linus Yale,” Janine murmured.
“What…who…what?�
� I stuttered.
“Linus Yale. He invented the pin tumbler lock used for doors.”
I snorted. “How on earth do you know that?”
“It was in one of my undergrad history courses. I thought the accounts of various lock inventions was interesting. Did you know the concept of locks and keys dates all the way back to around four thousand B.C.?”
“And of course my dawlin’ granddaughter remembers everything she’s ever read,” Addie said, sitting down beside Janine on the end of my bed and stroking her blond hair.
Janine just gave me that Twilight Zone stare at the strange and unusual attention her grandmother bestowed. For the first time in as far back as I could remember, Addie acted – well – nice. Doting too. It frightened me more than all my horror movies combined.
And not in that good, goosepimply way.
I ventured into this strange and unusual territory like a bunny on the Serengeti. “Are you feeling okay, Mrs. De’Laruse?”
“I’m as fit as any eight-nine year-old could be, child. Why would you ask such an unusual question?”
“Um.” Janine hesitated. “You were rather subdued at dinner, Grandma-ma.”
“And my shin has an aching question,” I said with a rub to the offended leg.
“Which is?” Addie exchanged a look with her granddaughter before offering up a pointed stare my way.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Deep breath. Nope.
“Well?” Addie huffed. “What is your question?”
Now or never. “What is this book?” I spat out. “And why didn’t you want to talk about it at dinner?”
Addie smoothed the fine silk of her dinner dress. “It is not a book, but a journal.”
Janine cast a smirk my way. “Told you.”
“A journal about what?” I asked, ignoring my bestie.
“More like who,” Addie clarified with a tap on the cracked black leather. “This is the journal of John D. Bonafeld, a Union lieutenant from the Civil War. He was placed in charge of Hammond Crossing when the Yanks captured New Orleans and made their way up to Fort Pike before setting up camp at Heaven’s Gate.”
In twenty-six years, I think those were the most words she’d ever spoken to me. All together. In the same breath.
Talk about your miracles. Maybe there was something to the name of this place after all. I whistled as Janine silently turned tender pages.
“So this is kinda like contraband here in the south, huh?” I asked.
“Where did you find this, Grandma-ma?”
“Your grandfather found it…hidden under a false bottom in a secret drawer of that old roll top in his study. He never even told me about it until right before his passing, Lord rest his soul. It was almost as if he knew his time was short.”
Janine shook her head as if trying to loosen the hold of the ghosts of the manor. “Why’d he keep it a secret from you?”
“Shame, most likely.”
“Shame?” I repeated. “Of what?”
“That tiny journal has the potential to, shall we say, confirm a few things whispered about your great-great-great granddaddy.”
So in all likelihood triple-great grandpa De’Laruse did collude with the Union. Such information would bring Charlotte near the brink of a heart attack if the rumors rooting around the family tree were legitimized. But that begged another question. Why was Addie revealing this to us? And why now?
“Is that why you didn’t want to talk about it at dinner?” Janine asked.
“With your love of history, so much like your grandfather I must say, you are the only one I trust with this information before I pass through those pearly gates.”
“Grandma-ma, you’re not…”
“I’m fine, dawlin’,” Addie assured with a pat to Janine’s hands. “But with another milestone birthday looming before me, I happen to be one step closer to the veil. Someone has to care for the De’Laruse legacy, and it certainly isn’t going to be that grandson of mine.”
Well hallelujah and pass the sacramental wine bottle. It was about time someone in this family recognized my bestie’s brilliance. My respect for Addie just went – actually I had some for her now.
“But that doesn’t explain why you left it under my pillows,” I pressed.
Addie sighed. “In order to solve the mystery contained in those pages, younger minds and bodies must prevail. I’m not…how do you say…tech savvy, but I hear this World Wide Web has a great deal of research material these days. Janine mentioned once that you’re pretty good at figuring out things like that, Victoria.”
Why did she have to mention young minds and bodies? I fought to glom onto the figuring things out part before my brain bled out. “What other mystery is that?”
Old eyes sparkled with life and a devious smile crept through the wrinkles. “Why, the mystery of what happened to the Union gold.”
Chapter Seven
When sneaking out of the house for a late night rendezvous, is it safer to go out the door or a second-story window?
No need to answer that. Either way has its own merits, in my ample experience.
There are some things you learn early in life that stick with you no matter what transpires over the ensuing years. One, respect your elders – and if you can’t do that, avoid them at all costs. Two, when given a direct order from one Adelaide De’Laruse, never ever say the word no – or come up with a really good excuse if you can’t feign hearing loss fast enough.
Three, when sneaking out of the house, always wear grubby clothes and sturdy shoes – and pack a bag with proper clubbing attire to change into in the car.
“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Janine asked as I helped her over the veranda railing then dropped her onto the garage roof, a twentieth century addition to the mansion’s rear. “Pierre’s quarters are over the garage, you know. He might hear us.”
“Just steady my legs,” I called as I hauled myself over and dangled toward my doom. “And don’t slide off, or he’ll be hosing us off the pavement sooner rather than my overindulgence later.”
The moon shone bright through the trees and provided ample light without having to carry a flashlight for our midnight rendezvous with a New Orleans nightclub. Good thing too, because then our hands were free for the circus monkey balancing act. The roof of the six-car drive-thru garage had minimal slant, but I’m not known around these parts as being the most graceful.
Oh, shut up.
“You realize we’re not kids anymore,” Janine hissed through her teeth as my tennis shoe tread bit into her shoulders. “It would’ve been safer to sneak out the front door.”
“And have your light-sleeping grandmother hear us? Or worse, your brother and try to tag along?” I asked, my arms like stretched string cheese as I hesitated to let go. “No thanks.”
“Good point,” Janine grunted as I rested another foot on her other shoulder. “I’m worried about Grandma-ma.”
“You should be more worried about holding steady so we don’t fall off.”
“I’m serious. All that talk about mortality and the veil. She’s keeping something from us.”
“Besides why she wants us to waste our week searching for buried treasure?” I questioned as I grasped first one of Janine’s outstretched hands and released the railing to snatch her other. My bestie was like a rock. “She’s turning ninety this week, Janine.”
“True.” Janine sucked in a breath. “You don’t think she wants the gold because of money troubles, do you?”
“She’s a De’Laurse. About the only money troubles she has is deciding between the fifty-thousand dollar necklace and the hundred-thousand dollar one.”
After using my bestie as a stepladder, the rest of our nighttime adventure would be a piece of cake. Before the household had shut down and quieted for the night, we’d set up the ladder off of the far end of the garage where no one would notice. That way after we returned from the evening’s festivities, we’d scurry up the ladder in the morning’s wee ho
urs – or more like I’d stagger – and then pull it up on the roof where no one could see it.
Only problem – it wasn’t where we’d placed it earlier.
“Did it fall on the ground?” Janine whispered as we eyeballed the ground.
“I don’t see anything,” I returned.
“Maybe someone walked by, saw it out and put it away.”
Yeah, someone saw it alright – and that someone was George. His round white face grinned up at us and shown in the moonlight like a radioactive rat as he stepped from behind an oak tree.
“Looking for this?” he asked, the aluminum ladder rattling when he shook it.
If we were lucky, maybe he’d lose his grip and the ladder would fall on his head. “Put that back where you found it,” I commanded.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Georgie,” Janine called. “If you don’t put that back, I’ll…I’ll…I’ll tell Mother.”
The Cheshire cat grin almost sailed off the sides of his face. “Yeah, you do that, sis. Can I listen in and watch for her reaction?”
Janine practically shook with frustration. I patted her shoulder. “Well, you tried.” Then I whispered to George. “What’s the ransom for getting our ladder returned?”
“Take me clubbing with you.”
“Why do you think…?” Janine started.
I interrupted. “He overheard us talking in my room before your grandmother came in after dinner.”
Janine snorted like a bull and looked over her shoulder. “Do you think you could lift me up to the veranda, and we could try the front door?”
“Or you could drop me down and I could beat up your brother.”
“Hmm, tempting, but that’s almost two-stories down…and concrete. At best, you’d end up with a fractured wrist or ankle. Worst case scenario would be a broken back.”
