Darryl extended his shaking hand to Wesley’s body and placed two fingers against the groom’s neck. When he quickly withdrew his hand, I knew there was no hope.
“Dead?” I asked.
“Yep. Cold as ice.”
“What should we do?” The moment I said it, though, I knew the answer. It was time to call Lance LaPorte, one of my oldest and dearest friends, who served as a detective with the Louisiana State Police Department. Lance would know what to do.
Once again, he’d innocently take my call and breezily ask about my morning, never once imagining I was about to report a dead body. It had happened time and time again. And every time I thought I had found the last one, I’d stumble across another victim.
I wouldn’t blame Lance if he blocked my calls permanently and “unfriended” me from his life.
Chapter 3
Contrary to my opinion, Lance answered my phone call right away, and he sounded pleased as punch to hear from me. “Hey, there. How’re you doing?”
“I’ve been better, to be honest. Lots better.”
“Uh-oh. I don’t like that tone. What’s up?”
“I’ll tell you, but you have to promise a few things.” I quickly composed a mental list of all the worst-case scenarios. “Number one: you can’t hang up. I don’t think I could take that this morning. Number two: you can’t think I’m cursed or anything.”
“I really don’t like where this is heading.” His voice sounded wary, although I couldn’t blame him.
“Okay, here goes.” I took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “I may have found another dead body.”
“What do you mean…may? Either you did, or you didn’t. Which is it?”
“The first. I’m here at Honeycutt Hall. Hey…you’ll never guess who works here now. It’s—”
“Uh, Missy? First things first. Tell me about your discovery.” Like always, Lance switched into cop mode the instant I mentioned a dead body.
“It’s the groom for a wedding here today. His name is Wesley Carmichael.”
“Any trauma you can see?”
“I didn’t really look.” While I didn’t want to sound abrupt, my tone was totally understandable. I had no intention of getting any closer to a corpse than absolutely necessary.
“Is anyone else with you?” Lance had obviously switched tacks.
“As a matter of fact, there is. It’s that employee I started to tell you about. Only you wouldn’t let me finish. Now would you?”
Luckily, Lance and I treated each other like family, and neither of us took offense when the other one became snippy. Although now wasn’t the time, nor the place, for family bickering.
“So, who’s there with you?” he repeated.
“It’s Darryl. Darryl Tibodeaux. Remember him? He was the groundskeeper at Morningside Plantation.” I glanced at Darryl, who stood stock still next to me.
Apparently, Darryl had no intention of moving closer to the corpse, either.
“Of course I remember him,” Lance said. “Could you please put him on the phone?”
I silently handed Darryl the cell. “It’s Lance LaPorte on the phone,” I whispered. “He’s that detective with the Louisiana State Police Department.”
Darryl nodded and took the cell in his left hand. He seemed resigned to answering the questions I couldn’t field.
“Hello?” Darryl waited a moment, and then he glanced over his shoulder at the body. “No signs a’ trauma. Looks like he’s been sleepin.’ Like he come in here ta take da nap.”
Another moment passed as Lance asked him more questions.
“Yes, sir,” Darryl answered. “I felt his neck. Da skin is cold and stiff. Like it’s frozen or sumptin’.”
Apparently, that description told Lance everything he needed to know, because Darryl silently passed the phone back to me.
“Well?” I asked Lance. “Are you coming out here or not? By the way, we’re in one of the water towers by the main house. The one on the right if you’re facing the front door.”
“I’ll be there in about twenty minutes,” Lance said. “Stay put, okay?”
Although the idea didn’t thrill me, I knew it was for the best. Better to stay near a body than tramp around the scene and mess up the evidence. There’d be time enough to tell Lorelei and her mother about our discovery once Lance arrived at the house.
“Please hurry up. There’s supposed to be this big wedding here today and everyone’s already worried because they can’t find the groom.”
“I’m on my way.” With that, Lance clicked off the line, leaving me to answer Darryl’s questioning looks as best I could.
“Looks like we need to stay here until Lance arrives. But, for goodness’ sake, at least let’s move outside the tower. This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.”
With that, Darryl and I carefully picked our way back through the doorway and stepped into daylight. It looked like it was going to be a very long day, and neither of us looked forward to it.
* * * *
Twenty minutes later, Lance’s Buick Oldsmobile pulled up to the mansion, the removable lightbar on its roof twirling silently in the morning light. As always, the car wore a coat of red mud on the undercarriage that extended from one wheel well to the other. One of these days I’d convince Lance to visit the Sparkle N’ Shine car wash in town, but not today.
By the time he arrived, I’d already called Ambrose at his design studio and filled him in on the morning’s events. My fiancé offered to drop everything and race out to Honeycutt Hall to be with me, but I talked him out of it. There was nothing he could do. Plus, he needed time at his studio to catch up on all his wedding orders, since we were smack-dab in the middle of the wedding season and Saturday was the busiest day of the week.
Once I calmed Ambrose, I hung up the phone and rehearsed what I could possibly say to Lance. By now, the detective knew me as the girl with the uncanny ability to find dead bodies. It was a reputation I didn’t ask for, and I surely didn’t want.
He appeared on the scene in his casual clothes, which included a pair of khakis and a navy polo. He strode across the browned grass, to where Darryl and I stood.
“Lance.” I nodded stiffly, since I knew my role by now.
While Lance and I normally joked about everything and anything, that changed the minute a police investigation commenced. Now, I was a witness and he was my interrogator, and I learned a long time ago not to take his strict tone personally.
“Missy.” He returned the nod. “And Darryl. I haven’t seen you in a long time. How’ve you been?”
“Good,” Darryl said. “Until today, dat is.”
“I understand. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll ask you a few questions.”
Lance led Darryl over to a patch of grass just out of earshot. I knew he’d separate us when he arrived, since that was the first thing a detective did when he or she came across multiple witnesses. That way, my recollection wouldn’t interfere with Darryl’s memories, and his memories wouldn’t color my statement.
The two men returned a few minutes later.
“Your turn.” Lance led me to the same spot where he had questioned Darryl.
“This is something, isn’t it?” I said. “I never dreamed I’d find another dead body when I came out here today.”
He nodded. “You have quite the talent for it. Why did you come out here today?”
“Lorelei Honeycutt is one of my clients. I made her veil for the ceremony today. She invited me to come out early, and I took her up on it. I wanted to tweak the bridesmaids’ hats and steam Lorelei’s veil before the ceremony. Guess that’s not going to happen now.”
Lance watched my face as he scribbled something onto a small notepad. He told me something a long time ago I’d never forgotten: a detective will study the face of a witness to determine whether she�
�s lying or not. If the person glances right, it means she’s pulling something from her memory. But if she glances left, it means she’s lying. Although I didn’t think Lance would question my truthfulness, he must’ve gotten so used to watching a witness that he did it as a matter of course now.
“I feel just awful about this,” I said. “Lorelei Honeycutt is such a sweet girl, and her mother is precious.”
“Hmmm. I’ve never dealt with them before.”
That didn’t surprise me. Like me, Lance originally hailed from Texas, and he’d only been working as a police detective for three years or so.
“What do you think happened to the groom?” I asked.
“I’ll know more once I examine the body. To the best of your knowledge, did anyone come or go from the water tower this morning?”
“Not that I know of. The door was shut tight, and nothing looked out of place. At first, I thought Wesley’s body was only a puddle of clothes. One of Darryl’s coveralls, to be exact. I have no idea how he ended up there, Lance.”
Lance flipped the notepad closed. Once he shoved it back in his pocket, he started to return to Darryl.
The houseman was still waiting for us by the tower, and he seemed relieved when Lance told him he could leave the scene.
“But please don’t mention this to anyone yet,” Lance said. “I want to be the one to break the news to the family.”
That was another tidbit I’d learned from Lance about police investigations. A detective assigned to a case normally told the family about someone’s death, so he or she could study the reactions of the next of kin. Some people were incredible actors, and they faked grief at the drop of a hat, while other people were unable to hide their emotions. Lance once apprehended a woman who murdered her husband, and she implicated herself when she couldn’t stop giggling during the interview. While that was an extreme case, it encouraged Lance to take the lead and announce a death himself.
Once Darryl walked away, I turned to him. “You know, this is going to devastate the bride. Even though…”
Lance watched me carefully. “Even though what?”
“Well, it’s probably nothing.” I was unable to shake the memory of Lorelei and Wesley arguing behind the hedge. “But I overhead the bride and groom fighting yesterday.” Far be it from me to keep any information I had from Lance. He trusted me to be as forthright as possible, and it was one of the reasons he’d include me in these investigations.
“What were they fighting about?”
“Apparently, Wesley felt sick, and he didn’t think he could make it to the rehearsal last night.”
“Did he?”
“No, he didn’t. Lorelei’s dad had to stand in for him. I thought he would stay in bed this morning to recuperate. I think that’s what a lot of people expected.”
“Interesting.” Lance whipped out his notepad again and wrote something else down. “I think it’s time we headed for the house.”
I didn’t look back as we walked across the grass. I knew the next time I saw the area, yellow caution tape would separate it from the rest of the property. To be honest, I wanted to forget the view of Wesley lying face-down in a half-inch of water, his body twisted around the base of the ladder like a wadded-up blanket.
So I remained silent as we made our way to the house. Halfway there, something else caught my attention. The stairwell that led to the wine cellar—the same stairwell I took yesterday to avoid the rain—was now blocked by a small statue. A winged statue of an angel about to take flight. Like the rest of the property, the statue looked expensive but timeworn.
“Well, that’s weird.” I paused by the stairwell, my thoughts retreating to last night’s thunderstorm. I definitely didn’t run across a blockade when I ducked down the stairs and ran into the wine cellar. Someone purposefully blocked the path now. But, why?
“What’s weird?” Lance asked.
“That statue wasn’t here last night. The staircase leads to a wine cellar, and I went downstairs when it started to pour.”
“That is strange.” Lance didn’t hesitate. He automatically bent to move the statue out of the way. Although it didn’t look heavy, his shoulders strained with the effort.
“Here, let me help you.” I placed both hands on the wings and gave a hearty push.
Once the statue ended up on the grass, Lance hopped ahead of me and went down the steps. I followed him, and my eyesight automatically dimmed as I entered the shadowy cellar.
There, across the room, hulked the long bar I’d spied earlier, with the initials HH carved into the wood. Across from it was the display of casks that stairstepped up the wall. Everything looked the same. Everything, that was, except for two of the barstools, which had been moved to a side table by the wall. The monogrammed stools sat cheek by jowl in a shadowy corner of the room.
“I’ll hit the lights.” I reached for the switch I found yesterday and fired up the chandeliers behind the bar. Sure enough, the barstools had been moved to a high-top table that sat by the casks.
“That’s different.” I made my way over there. The table was dented and nicked, an obvious antique, and the legs didn’t quite match up, so it leaned forward a bit.
“What’s different about it?” Lance joined me by the table and placed his hands on his hips. He’d already given the room a brief once-over. Knowing him, nothing escaped his notice, and he’d probably observed several things I hadn’t even seen.
“It’s just that someone moved the chairs.” I pointed to the monogrammed seats. “And it had to happen after I left the room. I think it was about nine by the time the rain stopped and I finally went inside the house.”
“Wasn’t there a wedding rehearsal last night?’ Lance asked. “I always thought they hold those things earlier in the evening, because the minister has to come out, too.”
“Usually, yes. But this one didn’t start until later. And it didn’t get over until midnight. I remember that because the bride’s father gave a toast, and he talked about the late hour.”
“Maybe some of the wedding party came back here after the rehearsal.” Lance seemed to be talking more to himself than me, because he spoke softly as he appraised the chairs.
“Could be, but most people were talking about going straight to bed after the toast. We were all pretty tired by that point.”
Lance bent to inspect the table more closely. Just when I thought he was about to touch it, his gaze darted sideways, to a ledge built into the stone wall. I glanced at it as well, and spied two wineglasses tucked on the wood outcropping. Something watery and red colored the bowls of the wineglasses, and ruby liquid dribbled down the sides.
We both moved closer to a get a better look. Sure enough, the remnants of a merlot, cabernet, or some other crimson wine stained the glasses.
“What do you make of that?” I didn’t recall seeing the glasses the night before. I remembered seeing the shelves, which staggered up the stone walls, but I didn’t remember them holding anything.
“I’d say someone had a little party here.” Lance didn’t touch the glasses. Instead, he removed his cell from his pocket and snapped several pictures. “I need to get my investigator in here to take some measurements before I move these. You said you didn’t notice them last night?”
“No, I didn’t. I remember liking the shelves because they added character, but I don’t remember seeing anything on them.”
“Okay, then.” Once he reappraised the barstools and table, Lance suddenly squatted.
“What’s wrong?”
He must’ve spotted something on the ground.
With a quick motion, Lance withdrew some latex gloves from the pocket of his khakis. Once he put them on, he picked up something small, white, and rectangular from the floor. It looked like a piece of paper, or perhaps a wrapper of some sort.
He studied it, too, before he placed it in a pl
astic evidence bag he kept in the same pocket as the gloves. When he finally zippered the bag shut, he turned to me. “It’s a paper someone would use to roll a cigarette. But someone must’ve dropped it under the barstool.”
“I don’t smell smoke. Wouldn’t you think we’d have noticed that?”
“Maybe it wasn’t tobacco.” Lance shoved the evidence bag into the pocket of his khakis and turned to leave. “No one said it had to be a regular cigarette. Plus, we don’t know what time someone dropped the paper. Maybe the smell had a chance to dissolve.”
“Hmmm.”
Once again, Lance had managed to think of things I hadn’t even considered.
He continued to walk. “C’mon, Missy,” he said over his shoulder. “I think it’s time to go tell the family what’s happened. I’m going to come back here afterward and seal up the room. You’re free to go if you want, though. I know it’s been a trying morning.”
“Oh, no. I’m going with you.” To be honest, I didn’t relish the thought of going home to an empty house, since Ambrose planned to work at his studio all day. If anything, I wanted to help the family at Honeycutt Hall. In a few minutes, Lorelei would hear the worst news of her life, and I wanted to be there to help her family pick up the pieces.
Chapter 4
Once Lance closed up the wine cellar and returned the statue to its place at the head of the stairs, we headed over to the house.
Just as we were about to ascend the grand staircase, my cell phone buzzed in my pocket, and I quickly withdrew it.
“Hello?” The number on the screen looked vaguely familiar, although I couldn’t quite place it.
“Uh, is this Missy DuBois?” The caller swallowed her words, the way Lorelei and the other Cajuns around here did.
I didn’t recognize the voice, though. “It is. I’m afraid this isn’t a good time—”
What the Hatmaker Heard Page 3