Cecily could feel a headache starting to gather behind her eyes. She wanted to get this sad task over with so she could sit down and put her feet up for twenty minutes before Guy and Dana got home from school and started begging for snacks and whining about doing homework. She loved Alain and his children, loved having them live with her to keep her from rattling around in her big old house. But some days she just wanted to be alone for a while. “Outside of breaking and entering, I don’t know how we’ll manage to get our hands on them.”
Yvonne gave a short, sharp nod. “If that’s what it takes to get our property back without Alain knowing about it, then that’s what we’ll do.”
ALAIN BOUDREAUX cruised by Maude Picard’s place at a slow crawl. It was a few minutes past one o’clock and both his mother’s and ex-mother-in-law’s cars were still parked in the crushed-shell driveway that paralleled the long, narrow house. Tidying up, he supposed, cleaning perishables out of the fridge, laundering sheets for the guest room, sweeping, dusting a little. It was the kind of thing people did for each other in a place like Indigo. Especially when the dearly departed had no family of her own, as in Maude’s case. Except for her goddaughter, of course. Sophie Clarkson. Alain tried to remember the last time he’d seen her. Had to be four, maybe even five years back.
A fleeting image of a pretty young girl darted into his thoughts. Sophie as she’d been the summer he’d turned nineteen and she’d come to spend a few weeks with Maude: blue-gray eyes, softly curling blond hair, a smile that started out slow and sweet then turned into heat and flame. He’d fallen head over heels in love with her that summer but it hadn’t lasted. Couldn’t last. They were from two different worlds. His roots were planted deep in the rich bayou soil of Indigo Parish. She was Houston oil money, trust-fund/country-club rich. He’d broken their relationship off shortly after she went off to college, and though she’d been upset, he’d known it was the right thing to do. They’d hardly seen each other since, except for the summer before his daughter, Dana, was born. Then, for one short week, they’d been something more. And all hell had broken loose.
Dredging up memories of Sophie Clarkson wasn’t going to do anything but rile him up so he changed the focus of his thoughts. He’d better stop and see if everything was all right with the Lagniappe Ladies. Maude was the first of their group to die. It had to be upsetting for them, especially his mamère, who had been Maude’s best friend for as long as he could remember.
He pulled the three-year-old Ford Explorer to the curb in front of Maude’s house. The town council had scored the SUV from a federal grant that funneled drug dealers’ confiscated vehicles to rural police departments. It was a sweet ride, with all the bells and whistles, and sure beat the road-weary sedan he’d been driving for the past two years since he became Indigo’s Chief of Police, head of its eight-man department—three full-time officers and five part-timers who filled in on weekends and holidays.
Most of the time his small force was more than adequate for the problems he faced in a town the size of Indigo: animal calls, public intoxication, more domestic violence than he’d like and once in a while an old-timer out in the boonies selling a little too much moonshine from his homemade still. But not a lot of drugs, at least not any more than anywhere else these days, and damned near no violent crime at all. He liked that. Indigo was only a couple of hours’ driving time from New Orleans, but it was a world away from the nonstop crime and violence he’d experienced in his five years on the New Orleans PD, and he was glad of it.
Alain unfolded his six-foot frame from the driver’s seat and grabbed his Stetson, settling it on his head to keep off the rain. He wiped his feet on the mat on the narrow front porch, knocked, then opened the door and walked into the living room where he’d found Maude sitting peacefully in her favorite chair that morning, her handbag in her hands, her eyes closed as though she was just taking a bit of a catnap before leaving for work. But she hadn’t been napping. She was dead. He’d known it the moment he’d touched her hand.
Stroke, most likely, Dr. Landry had said when he arrived from his office three doors down from the Savoy Funeral Home on the other side of the main drag, known officially as the River Road. He’d been treating Maude for high blood pressure and diabetes for the past twenty-five years and warning her for nearly as long to quit smoking and start taking better care of herself. Good old Mick Landry, Alain thought gratefully. He’d been tending to the births and deaths, and all the aches and pains in between, of Indigo’s residents for more than half a century. He didn’t get up in the middle of the night to bring babies into the world anymore, the way he had in the old days, but he was there for the dying. He’d signed the death certificate on the spot, saving Alain a lot of headaches dealing with the parish coroner and all the extra paperwork an unattended death entailed.
“Mama, Mamère, are you still here?” he asked in Cajun.
“In the kitchen,” his mother called back. “We’re just finishing up.”
“The house is as ready for Sophie Clarkson as we can make it,” his grandmother said in lieu of a greeting, angling her cheek for a kiss. Her hair was soft and white as dandelion fluff, and her skin pale as cream. His mother and sisters had the same soft, white skin and dark abundant hair that would turn snow-white with age, acquired from their Acadian ancestors. He had the warmer skin tones and chestnut-colored hair of a hard-drinking, silver-tongued, Irish great-grandfather who had sweet-talked his way onto a branch of the Boudreaux family tree. “You’re all wet, cher,” Yvonne scolded, smiling to take the sting from her words.
“It’s raining, Mamère. And it’s cold. Big storm from up north coming this way.”
“I know. I feel it in my bones.”
His mother finished taking dishes from a rack and putting them in the old pine cabinets. She pushed back the heavy braid she’d worn her hair in for as long as he remembered, and closed the silverware drawer with a snap. “Fini,” she said with satisfaction, giving him a quick pat on the cheek. “Hello, cher.”
“Looks good, Mama.” He liked this house. He wondered what would happen to it now that Maude was gone. The shotgun style was eminently suitable for the hot Louisiana summers. It had a lot of potential and he was good with his hands. He’d been thinking about getting a house of his own lately. He and the kids had been living with his mom for going on four years now, ever since they’d moved back to Indigo, and he and Casey Jo had called it quits for good. It was time they had a place of their own.
He knew Cecily wouldn’t like the idea of rattling around in the big old two-story on Lafayette Street by herself, but it was time for a change. And maybe if he and the kids were gone, she’d find a man for herself. After all, his dad had died more than fifteen years ago. Dead in a logging accident at forty-five. The Valois were long-lived. His mother had too many good years ahead of her to spend them alone.
“Alain, it’s you. I thought I heard a car drive up.” His ex-mother-in-law appeared in his line of sight. She carried a spray bottle of bathroom cleaner and a couple of cleaning rags. As usual she was dressed too young for her age in tight jeans and a tank top, her makeup too bright, her improbably black hair curled and fluffed within an inch of its life.
“Hello, Marie. If everything’s under control here, I’ll get back to my patrol.”
“Don’t run off, Alain. I want to talk to you.” Marie turned to Yvonne. “The bathroom’s finished. Where do you want this stuff?”
“I’ll put it away.” Cecily took the cleaning supplies and disappeared into the utility room at the far side of the kitchen.
“How about if I stop by your place after supper?” He knew he was going to have to hear Marie out sooner or later. But he preferred later.
Marie dismissed his suggestion with a wave of her hand. “I’ve got a date for supper,” she said with a lift of her penciled eyebrows. “This won’t take long. I talked to Casey Jo last night. She told me she’s been leaving messages for you all week.”
“I haven’t had a
chance to get back to her. Hank Lassiter’s off with a bad back. I’ve been pulling double shifts, you know that.”
“I also know my daughter. When she’s got a bee in her bonnet, it’s hard to get her mind on something else.”
“What is it this time?” he asked wearily. If it involved money he was going to say no. Casey Jo didn’t contribute one red cent to raising their kids. She spent everything she made on herself, a habit she’d learned at her mama’s knee, but it didn’t stop her from trying to get money out of him whenever she ran short.
“She wants to take Guy and Dana to Disney World on their semester break.”
“Disney World? That’s a pretty pricey trip.”
“She wants to make it up to them for not being able to get them much for Christmas,” Marie said, biting her lower lip.
“She didn’t get them much for Christmas because she spent all her money on botox injections.” He did his best to keep the disgust he felt at that particular episode from his voice. Marie did what she could for him and the kids. She tended bar at a place out on the highway called the Ragin’ Cajun most nights, but she was always there if he needed her to take the kids to school, or drop off forgotten homework or lunch boxes when his mom was working as a nurse at the hospital in Lafayette.
“You know how badly she wanted that spot on American Idol. Her agent told her—”
“She’s thirty-four years old, Marie. Long past time to give up on big dreams and settle down to real life.”
“But she’s got talent—”
“So do thousands of other women.”
Marie veered away from any more comments about Casey Jo’s lifestyle. “I told her not to breathe a word to the kids until she’d okayed the trip with you.”
Once more Alain swallowed his irritation. His mother-in-law was awkwardly placed, caught in the middle of a bad situation. She loved Guy and Dana, but she loved her daughter, too. “Thanks, Marie. I appreciate you not saying anything until after you’d talked to me. I don’t want to get their hopes up again. Especially Dana’s. Casey Jo’s disappointed her too many times.”
“I told her Guy probably wouldn’t go,” Yvonne broke in, having kept her silence as long as she cared to. “He is too important to the basketball team for the coach to allow him to take a week off in the middle of the season.”
“I’ll call her as soon as I get a minute,” Alain promised, forestalling his grandmother’s next remark before her sharp tongue reduced Marie to tears.
Cecily walked back into the room, shrugging into a heavy cotton sweater as she spoke. She was wearing jeans and a turtleneck that were nowhere near as tight or low-cut as Marie’s clothes, and in Alain’s opinion she looked about ten years younger than the other woman. “Sophie Clarkson phoned an hour or so ago. She’s driving in from Houston and should arrive around two o’clock tomorrow. That’s when the wake will start.”
“I imagine she’s never attended a wake,” Marie muttered. “I mean, her not being Catholic and all.”
“I have no idea if she’s been to a wake or not.” Alain picked up his Stetson and set it on his head. No way was he going to let his ex-mother-in-law draw him into a conversation about the woman Casey Jo insisted had broken up their marriage. “I’ve got to get back on patrol.”
“I’ve got a roast in the oven for supper,” his mother reminded him.
“Keep a plate warm for me, will you? I’ve got a ton of paperwork to fill out before I call it a day.”
“Try not to be too late.”
“I’ll do my best. Tell Dana I’ll be home in time to tuck her in.” At seven, his daughter was at the age where she was growing up in a lot of ways, but still, he thought thankfully, she was daddy’s little girl in others. Tucking her in at night was one of the high points of his day. Which went a long way in explaining why he didn’t have much of a social life.
He started toward the front door but stopped at the sound of his grandmother’s voice. “Alain. We’ve done the best we can with this place but it still needs a lot of work. Do you know where Maude’s keys might be? If we have them we could come back and finish up tomorrow.”
He heard his mother suck in her breath and turned to look at her. Her eyes slid past his and she whirled around to wipe an already spotless sink.
“The door was open when I found her, but I imagine the keys are in her purse. That’s one of the things I have to do this afternoon—inventory Maude’s effects.” He glanced around. His mother and grandmother and the others had been working for most of the day to make Maude’s house welcoming for a woman who hadn’t spent more than ten days in Indigo in the last five years. That was enough as far as he was concerned. “The house looks fine.” He cleared his throat of the residue of old anger that had roughened his words. “I don’t think you need to do anything else. With an upscale place like La Petite Maison right down the road. I’d be surprised if Sophie Clarkson spends a single night under this roof.”
CHAPTER TWO
“I WANT TO EXTEND my most sincere sympathy, Miss Sophie,” the stooped, white-haired man said, taking Sophie’s hand between his knobby, arthritic fingers. “I’m Maurice Renaurd. I owned the hardware here for many years. Maude and I served on the library board together. She was a good woman. She’ll be missed.”
“Thank you,” Sophie said, smiling. “I’ll miss her, too.” She spoke with sincerity and an underlying remorse. She was overwhelmed by the number of people who had already filed through the viewing room of the Savoy Funeral Home, and it was barely six o’clock in the evening. The wake had only just begun.
She had neglected her godmother these past few years and she was sorry for it. But she had been so busy, and Maude had kept insisting that she was fine, that there was no reason to come more often than her usual summer weekend and Christmas week visit. But obviously there had been reason and Sophie knew she would always regret that she hadn’t spent that extra time with her godmother.
She sighed. It seemed the older she got, the more things there were to regret in her life. She looked around, wondering when one of her earliest and most costly mistakes, at least in terms of heartache, would walk through the door. She hadn’t seen Alain Boudreaux in several years. It had been almost twice that long since she’d exchanged private words with him.
“Do you have everything you need?” Marjolaine Savoy’s smile was practiced but genuine as she came to stand beside Sophie near the casket. She was a tall woman with a head of dark brown hair that she wore in a French braid down her back. Marjolaine was the director of the Savoy Funeral Home, the third generation of her family to be involved in the business, according to the brochure Sophie had glanced through during a lull in the visitation.
“I’m fine, thanks. A little thirsty, though.” Sophie couldn’t help letting her gaze wander to the dozen or so people grouped around a big marble-topped table drinking punch and sweet tea and eating cookies. She’d driven all the way from Houston, almost five hours, with only one stop for gas and no food, and she was beginning to feel the effects of the long day.
“You need a break,” Marjolaine urged. “It’s my job to make sure the mourners don’t overdo. Come along with me. There’s no one in line to pay their respects at the moment, and if someone does come in, you can see them through the doorway.” She was already leading Sophie into the smaller room with a firm but gentle hand under her elbow. “There’re cookies on the table but I can get you a sandwich if you need something a little more substantial.”
“Could you?” Sophie asked, giving up the pretense of not needing a break. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I have the terrible feeling if I don’t get something inside me soon, my stomach is going to start protesting long and loud.” She managed a smile of her own. “I don’t want to offend any of Aunt Maude’s friends.”
“It’ll only take a moment. Is ham and cheese okay?”
“Ham and cheese sounds wonderful. Are you sure it isn’t a problem?”
“No problem. It’s going to be a long
night. But a sandwich should hold you over until they set out the buffet around midnight.”
Sophie opened her eyes a little wider. “I’d forgotten a wake lasts all night. I…I’ve never been to one before.” She’d never had to spend much time in funeral homes, but she knew from the rare occasions she’d accompanied her grandmother to pay her respects to friends and business acquaintances, the sedate viewings lasted only until nine or so in the evening. They didn’t go on all night with friends bringing in food and drinks, music playing and talk of happier times, as they often did in Cajun country.
“You don’t have to stay all night if you don’t want to,” Marjolaine assured her, her blue eyes fixed on Sophie’s face. “One or another of the Lagniappe Ladies will always be here. It will be a quiet one, I imagine, since there’s no family but yourself.”
“My parents are flying in for the funeral tomorrow, and my grandmother would have come with me but she’s in Australia,” Sophie explained. “My grandfather gave her the trip as a gift for her eightieth birthday, and she feels very badly that she can’t be here.” Darlene Clarkson and Maude Picard had been friends from the first day they met at college at the end of the Second World War. It was Darlene who had prevailed on Sophie’s parents to allow Maude to be her godmother. Sophie’s mother had been particularly pleased she’d acceded to her mother’s request when Maude made Sophie her heir on her twenty-first birthday.
“You can go to Maude’s house to rest if you get too tired,” Marjolaine said.
“No. I’ll stay. Besides, I don’t have a key to the house. You don’t know who took charge of her things, do you?”
“We have nothing here, if that’s what you’re asking. Alain Boudreaux found her body. He’s probably taken custody of her personal possessions for you. He’s Chief of Police now, you know.”
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