Midnight Confessions

by Candice Proctor

  Zach shook his head. “Why are you telling me this?” La Touche let out a low half-laugh. “Oh, Major. Have we been so terribly uncooperative that when one of us decides to open up a bit, you don’t trust us?” Shifting his shoulders against the pillar behind him, he hitched himself up straighter on his crutch. “You might think I’m telling you because of Claire, and in a sense, you wouldn’t be wrong.”

  “It’s because of Madame de Beauvais, isn’t it?” Zach said softly. “Was she there, at this argument?”

  “Not at first. But she was there.”

  Zach felt the blood flow slow and cold through his veins. He heard his own voice, speaking as if from a long ways off. “Do you think she could be the one behind the killings?”

  “Emmanuelle?” The Creole’s laughter this time was loud and ringing. “You really don’t understand, do you, Major? If I thought that, I never would have mentioned any of this to you.” The laughter died as quickly as it had come, his face growing earnest, strained. “I told you because I’m afraid she might be next.”

  Night was falling by the time Zach reached the Hospital de Santerre. The upper floor lay dark, deserted, but he could see light leaching out through the slats of the shutters on some of the lower floor’s windows. Finding the door unlocked, he let himself in and followed the light to a small room near the stairs, where Dr. Charles Yardley sat in a straight-backed chair beside the bed of a sleeping black child. At the sound of Zach’s footsteps, the man looked up, and stiffened.

  “I didn’t expect to find you here,” Zach said, pausing in the doorway.

  Yardley blew out his breath in a tired sigh. “Typhus. This place is starting to resemble Charity Hospital. The mother died an hour ago, but I’m actually beginning to think the boy might make it.” He scrubbed one hand across his eyes, then stood up and came forward to where Zach stood in the doorway. “She’s not here, if you’re looking for Madame de Beauvais.”

  “As a matter of fact, I was looking for Hans Spears.”

  “It’s his night off. You can probably find him home with his Mutter and four brothers, if you’re desperate to talk to him. He’s not much for socializing. What little free time he has he seems to devote to that church the German immigrants are building Uptown.”

  “I’ll talk to you, then. If you have a minute.”

  “Dear me. This sounds ominous.” The Englishman glanced back at the sleeping child. “I suppose I could use a break. Although I really don’t know much about all this, believe me.”

  “You might know why a German emigrant who makes his living as a nurse would decide to take part in a desperate attempt to smuggle Confederate gold out of New Orleans.”

  “Why?” The Englishman curled his tongue against his upper teeth and screwed up his face, as if thinking. “Well, let’s see. How about a yearning for adventure? Or, no—let’s make it a desire to get away from Mutter and the boys.” He showed his teeth in a wide smile. “Am I being any help?” Walking over to the pitcher of water that rested on the shelf near the office, he poured himself a drink and threw it down. “Actually,” he said over his shoulder, “I don’t think desperate is quite the right word. Philippe grew up on Bayou Crevé. He should have made it to the Gulf Coast and Mobile easily.” His bony white fingers tightened around the glass, then pushed it away. “It was sheer bad luck some Union patrol stumbled across them.”

  “Not luck.”

  The Englishman swung around quickly, his eyebrows arching in surprise. “Really?”

  “Know who might have hated Philippe enough to want to see him dead?”

  “See Philippe dead? Well, that’s rather a stretch, isn’t it? Especially when you’re dealing with money. Where did it go, all that Confederate gold? If you think it went to Washington, you’re even more naive than I’d realized.”

  “Were you involved with Claire La Touche?”

  Yardley let out a quick laugh. “Me? You must be joking,” he said, then tilted his head in an exaggerated show of reappraisal as he searched Zach’s hard face. “But no. You don’t joke much, do you, Major?”

  “Not about a young woman’s murder.”

  “Perhaps that’s because you didn’t know the woman in question.” Again, the smile. “Oh, dear, under the circumstances that was probably a rather unwise thing to say, wasn’t it?”

  “I understand you had a spectacular argument with her, last spring.”

  “Now where did you hear that, I wonder?”

  Zach shook his head and let a tight smile curve his own lips. “What did you quarrel about?”

  Yardley leaned his shoulders against the wall behind him. “You mean your informant didn’t tell you?”

  “I’ll ask you one more time,” Zach said, keeping his voice low and even. “Were you involved with Claire La Touche?”

  A muscle ticked in the other man’s suddenly tight jaw. “If your informant told you that, Major, then I’m afraid he—or she—was sadly mistaken.”

  “But you know who Miss La Touche was seeing.” The Englishman pushed away from the wall. “I don’t know if seeing is the right word.”

  “What word would you use?”

  Yardley’s eyebrows rose in that way he had. “You did have a thorough postmortem performed, didn’t you? It’s rather difficult to establish eye contact in that position,” he said, and started to turn away.

  Zach’s hand caught him by the shoulder and swung him around to slam him back, hard, against the wall. “Who,” Zach said, his lips pulling away from his teeth as he shoved his forearm up under the other man’s chin, “who was the man?”

  The Englishman’s smile never slipped, but something flashed in his eyes, something that spoke of a deep and powerful anger. “You really haven’t figured it out yet, have you, Major? You want a name? How’s this one: Philippe. Philippe de Beauvais.”

  Zach let the man go and took a quick step back. He could be lying, of course. Hamish would probably assume the man was lying. But Zach knew, deep in his gut, that he was hearing the truth. “Did she know? Madame de Beauvais. Did she know?”

  Yardley smoothed his coat and swept his long, straight hair back from his face before answering. “That her good friend was fucking her husband?” He gave his lapels another twitch. “Not before Claire and I had our little shouting match.”

  “But she found out?”

  “Oh, yes. She found out. And then she went at Philippe with a scalpel.” The gray eyes widened as if in innocent amazement. “Didn’t your informant tell you that?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Why are they even having this wake?” Hamish demanded as he and Zach made their way through the narrow, lamplit streets of the old quarter, toward Esplanade Avenue and the mule car that would take them out to the La Touche city residence. “They must know she hated wakes. Even I know Claire La Touche hated wakes.”

  “It’s their custom.” Zach glanced up at the black sky. It was too dark now to see the clouds, but he could feel them there, hanging thick and heavy and threatening above the city.

  “And a mighty havey-cavey custom it is, too, if you ask me. Eating and drinking when a body’s not even decently laid in its grave.”

  Zach ducked his head to hide a smile. “Any luck finding those two black men from the cemetery?”

  Hamish made a rude noise. “Do you have any idea how many crypts there are in that cemetery? We don’t even know what kind of work those men were doing. For all we know, they could have been there simply to sweep the steps and change the flowers.”

  Zach shook his head. “That wouldn’t have taken long. According to Kessler, they arrived at least two hours before Santerre. And they must have left during all the commotion that followed his killing, because the gatekeeper can’t remember them leaving.”

  “Yeah? Even if they did see something, they wouldn’t tell. Slavery seems to hone the practice of being uncooperative down to a fine art.” They had reached Esplanade Avenue by now. Hamish’s eyes narrowed down to slits as he squinted toward the levee
, where the mule car was just pulling out. “The way I figure it, the widow is starting to look more and more like our best suspect. She gets rid of her unfaithful husband by betraying him to the Yanks—us. And then she poisons his mistress.”

  Zach bit down hard on a dangerous and unprofessional upsurge of anger. “It would help if we knew who actually did betray Philippe,” he said, watching the lantern-lit mule car rattle toward them, and somehow managing to keep his voice even.

  Hamish sniffed. “I’m working on it.”

  “Besides,” said Zach, his breath coming easier now, his gaze still carefully fixed on the mule car’s bobbing lantern, “Emmanuelle de Beauvais had no reason kill Santerre.”

  “Didn’t she? Think about it: Three men start a hospital together. Now they’re all dead, and the little lady is the new owner.”

  Zach shook his head. “She was telling the truth when she said the Hospital de Santerre is about to go under. I checked. The building is mortgaged, and she’s been having trouble making the note.”

  “Weeell . . .” Hamish smoothed his mustaches with a spread hand, his neck stretching as he lifted his chin. “I suppose it could have been Yardley. His debts don’t seem to be overwhelming, but they’re still bad. And from what I hear, he and Santerre had a few set-tos after de Beauvais got himself killed. It was Philippe de Beauvais who brought Yardley into the hospital in the first place, right? All that gambling and drinking and opium eating probably didn’t sit too well with the old man.” The mule snorted to a halt in front of them. “The way I see it,” said Hamish, dropping his voice as they boarded the car and took seats by themselves in the rear, “the crossbow and the poison are the keys. Yardley and Madame de Beauvais were both in a position to know about Philippe de Beauvais’s nasty little vampire-killing kit, and they both know enough about poisons to kill anyone off.”

  “So does Papa John.”

  “Yeah. But he’s got no motive that I can see.” Hamish pulled out his notebook and flipped through the pages. “I’ve also got this La Touche on my list. Antoine. He might not have much knowledge of poisons himself, but he could have got the tansy from Papa John, and it’d be easy for a brother to slip poison into his sister’s laudanum. The way I see it, he could have killed Claire for betraying the family honor, and Philippe de Beauvais for seducing her.”

  Zach stared out the open window at moss-draped live oaks and rusting iron fences and high, double gallery houses looming white and elegant out of the storm-charged darkness. “And Santerre?”

  “The old man let it all happen, didn’t he? Right there under his nose, at the hospital.” Hamish leaned forward, his voice dropping even lower. “And another thing: La Touche would have had a reason to use a crossbow—I mean, he’s crippled, right? And get this— he lost his leg at the Hospital de Santerre.” Hamish paused, his brows drawing together, his voice losing some of its enthusiasm. “The problem is, of course, how did he get over the cemetery wall with only one leg?”

  “We don’t know the murderer came over the wall.”

  Hamish let out a snort. “And how else do you think he got there? Just walked through the front gates as invisible as a ghost?”

  Zach leaned back in his seat, his arms coming up to cross at his chest. “If this is a list of suspects, you’re leaving out Hans Spears. He lost his foot because of what happened on the Bayou Crevé, remember? If it was Claire who betrayed Philippe, Hans would have a good reason to blame her for his being crippled, wouldn’t he?”

  Hamish stared at him. “And Santerre?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t aiming at Santerre. Maybe he meant to kill Emmanuelle de Beauvais and hit Santerre by accident. Maybe he didn’t know which of the two women had betrayed the mission, so he decided to kill them both.”

  There was a long pause. Then Hamish said, “You’re laughing at me. I’m trying to come up with plausible scenarios here, and you’re laughing at me.”

  Zach did laugh then, but sobered all too quickly. “You do realize there is one person we haven’t considered.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Philippe.”

  Hamish stared at him through wide, startled, golden brown eyes. “But . . . he’s dead.”

  “So everyone keeps saying.” Zach sat forward, his legs spread against the jolting rattle of the car, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. The motion of the car was stirring up a faint breeze that came through the open window beside him, but it was still hot. “Think about this,” he said quietly. “Crossbows aren’t easy weapons to use—not with any real accuracy. Philippe is the one person we know who had experience with them. As a doctor, he’d know exactly how much tansy was needed to kill a woman and, as Claire’s lover, he’d know she was a habitual laudanum user, and he’d be likely to know her usual supplier, too. Remember, it was a new bottle you found. The poison was probably in it when she bought it.”

  “But again,” said Hamish, reaching up to pull the cord, “if it was Philippe, why kill Santerre?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t aiming at Santerre. Maybe he was aiming at his wife.”

  “You keep circling around to that, don’t you?” said Hamish, lurching to his feet as the car swayed to a halt. “Are you sure it isn’t because you don’t want to come up with a real reason for Santerre’s murder, a reason that might point to Madame de Beauvais as the killer?”

  Zach stood slowly. He could feel the big Scotsman’s gaze on him, but he simply turned and made his way to the back platform. The street wasn’t paved here, its surface rutted, its gutter still dark and a bit slimy from the last rain. Zach leaped the distance to the boardwalk, then swore softly when he came down on his bad leg and felt the ripple of the impact all the way up to his bandaged side.

  “Hurt, did it?” said Hamish, landing heavily beside him.

  “You don’t need to sound so damn gleeful about it.”

  “I told you you needed to take a few days off and rest that wound.”

  Zach paused on the wooden sidewalk, Hamish falling silent beside him as he stared up at the crepe-draped, white facade of the neo-Grecian house before them. The La Touche house, like that of the de Beauvaises’ farther up the street, had been built high on piers that raised it above the ravages of insects and floods, and coaxed the cooling breezes from the distant river through its ten-foot-high guillotine windows and French doors. But unlike the de Beauvais family, the La Touches were obviously feeling the economic crunch of the war, Zach thought, as he took in the paint beginning to peel off the tall green shutters, the bushes looming overgrown and in need of a trim near the front gate.

  “It looks even worse in daylight,” said a tall, thin man leaning on crutches, who emerged from the shadows of the porch to thump his way slowly, painfully down the steps toward them. “But perhaps we should be grateful for our poverty.” La Touche paused to rest halfway down the walk. “I’ve noticed old ‘Spoons’ Butler only requisitions houses that are in the best of repair.”

  “I didn’t expect to find you here,” said Zach, his hand on the gate.

  The other man shrugged. He had shaved, Zach noticed, and cleaned up considerably. But he was still half-drunk. “I came for my mother.”

  “Then what are you doing lurking around outside?” said Hamish with something like a growl.

  The Creole glanced at him, once, then brought his gaze back to Zach’s face. “I was hoping you’d come.”

  “Why?” said Zach. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Emmanuelle—Madame de Beauvais. She’s gone to tend some sick old man on the rue Poulet, in the Faubourg Marigny, and if I know Emmanuelle, she’ll walk home. Alone.”

  Zach kept his gaze on the other man’s face. “You could have gone with her.”

  “I offered. She insisted my place was here, at Claire’s wake. I sent her in our carriage and told her to have the man wait, but she sent him back. Said she’d be too long and she was worried about the horses.” He let out a low laugh. “The horses.”

  Zach turned in a slow circle
, taking in the dark, deserted street, the lowering clouds, the distant rumble of thunder. “Where’s the best place to find a hack at this time of night?”

  “You’re not going after her?” said Hamish, the ends of his mustaches twitching as he scowled up at the wind-tossed sky above them. “It’s fixing to rain like the bejesus.”

  “It’s always raining around here,” Zach said just as the first drops began to hit the leaves of the oak tree overhead.

  A soft, fragrant rain was falling by the time Emmanuelle left the small cottage in the Faubourg Marigny and headed back toward the Vieux Carré. Lifting her face to stare up at the wind-tossed clouds, she considered, for a moment, trying to find a hack. But the streets were still far from deserted, and the family of the old man to whose sickbed she had been called had been unable to repay her with anything more than profound gratitude. She kept walking.

  She had covered some two blocks when the sky opened up and the rain came down harder, sluicing off the ends of the eaves and gurgling in the cisterns. She eyed the muddy water rushing in the gutters and beginning to spill up onto the rotting gunwale sidewalks, and sighed. Leaning against the iron fence of the house beside her, she stripped off her ankle boots and stockings. New shoes, like hacks, were a luxury she couldn’t afford.

  By the time she neared the canal that had been dug on the outskirts of the old city, the rain was a roaring curtain of water that bounced off the slanting roofs of the houses and pounded the sluggish channel into a froth. She became aware, suddenly, that the downpour had driven everyone else off the streets. She was alone with the wind and the rain and the darkness of the night, and at the thought, she felt a prickle of fear creep stealthily up her spine. She’d been a fool to send back Antoine’s carriage, she decided. There was a fine line between bravery and frugality, and stupidity, and she’d just crossed it.

  The sight of a black hack, its bay mule struggling head down and miserable toward her through the mud, made her pause, her breath coming in little pants as rain trickled down her face and into her mouth. The carriage drew opposite her and stopped. Blinking water from her eyes, she watched the door swing open and a man jump down, a familiar man in a dark blue uniform with a cape that swirled in the wind and cavalry boots that sent thick mud flying into the air as he hit the street.