by Ellen Byron
Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Really.”
“It was a second marriage for both Gerard and Constance. Gerard’s first wife decamped rather quickly, and he was single for years. Constance shared his passion for history and tradition, but I always got the sense that was all they had in common. Also, genealogically, Constance was a bit of a mutt in Gerard’s eyes. One side of her family is from a northern state. And they’ve only been in Louisiana since the 1920s.”
“Only?”
“Yes, ‘only’ to someone obsessed with lineage like Gerard. He often implied Constance married up when she married a Damboise, and I think she grew to resent it.”
“I’m impressed she had any patience to begin with. I would have resented it the minute he opened his mouth.”
“Because you’re from another generation, chére, one that puts far less stock in frivolities like an outdated class system. But many older than you still cling to the old social order. Like that Philip Charbonnet.”
Maggie shuddered. “Ugh, don’t remind me.” Only months before, the repugnant Charbonnet had proposed to Maggie for no other reason than her family’s Louisiana lineage. The last she’d heard of the slimy operator, he was working in a menial capacity at a New Orleans assisted living facility, trying to find a moneyed senior who’d lost enough of her wits to marry him. “I’m curious about Gerard. Was there anything to him besides his obsession with old-timey lineage?”
“Not really, sad to say. I know he worked for years in some capacity at the state library in Baton Rouge. I could never pinpoint exactly what he did there; he was vague when you asked him. He made himself sound important, but it came across as someone trying very hard to inflate a small balloon. Gerard Damboise struck me as an undistinguished man looking for a way to distinguish himself. And he found it when he got the job of running the Historical Society.”
Gran polished off her croissant, and Maggie picked up the breakfast tray. “Thanks for the intel. I need to get going. I have to buy a new cell phone.”
She shared the story of her phone’s demise with Gran, who looked perturbed. “Well, things have taken an ugly turn, haven’t they?”
“Yes,” Maggie said, her tone grim. “I think whoever killed my phone also murdered Gerard. And possibly our John Doe. Hopefully, they’ll assume any incriminating evidence I might have is gone with my cell. But still, I’ll have to keep my nosing around on the down low. And I will be nosing around. Gerard Damboise practically begged me to with his last dying breath.”
“A normal grandmother would say, ‘No nosing around, for heaven’s sake! Stay out of this.’”
Maggie smiled affectionately at Gran. “But you’re far from normal.”
“And proud of it,” Gran’ said with a wink.
* * *
An hour after her conversation with Gran, Maggie emerged from the Pelican phone outlet with a new cell, although thanks to the salesman’s rapid-fire loop-de-loop of a pitch, she had to take it on faith she’d signed up for the best data plan. She arrived at work and joined Ione in the staff room to change into their antebellum ball gowns. “Do you know anything about art restoration?” the general manager asked.
The question came out of the blue, but Maggie answered, “As a matter of fact, I do. I minored in it at art school. It was a way of studying the materials artists used in past centuries.”
“Good.” Ione said. “Meet me in the nursery in fifteen minutes.”
Ione finished putting on her own costume, a camel-colored day gown that complemented her dark brown skin tone, and left the staff room to open the plantation for business. Maggie put her thick chestnut hair into a ponytail she stuffed under a banana-curled wig, lifted up her hoop skirt to make walking easier, and beelined to the nursery, which was housed on the second floor of the manor house. The room, still painted in its original pale yellow, featured a beautiful cypress cradle, where generations of Maggie’s ancestors on her mother’s side had been rocked to sleep. Antique toys that hadn’t been broken in play lined the walls. The air, like that of so many centuries-old homes, was perfumed with mildew, and Maggie noticed a green stain dripping down the wall above the fireplace.
Ione was already there. She pointed to a painting hanging above the fireplace mantel. It was a primitive rendering of a toddler on a rocking horse still sitting in a corner of the nursery. Below the image were the words Grata sit calidum, et de fisco. “We had flood damage from the rains in this room. The moisture must have affected the painting, because pieces of it are coming off. I know it’s not one of the best pieces of artwork in the plantation’s collection, but it’s sweet, and I’m sure the little boy is one of your ancestors. I wondered if you’d be interested in restoring it instead of leading tours.”
“Absolutely. I’d love to.”
“Great. I thought I’d set you up in one of the rooms off the gift shop so visitors can watch your progress, like they do with Gaynell. They’re loving that. Oh, and I want to give you a new title: Doucet Art Collection Specialist.”
Maggie bit her lip, trying to control her excitement. “It would be unprofessional to jump up and down.”
“Go for it.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Maggie said, jumping up and down. She hugged Ione, who laughed and hugged her back. Then Maggie reached for the painting and gently touched a corner. Flakes of paint clung to her fingers. She stepped back and studied the artwork from a distance. “I’ve always been curious about this particular painting. It’s unsigned and there’s something about the strokes that indicates it was painted in a hurry. Was that the artist’s style? Or was there another reason for the rush?”
Ione smiled. “I knew you were my girl. If there’s a mystery to this painting, you’re the one to solve it.”
“It’ll also take my mind off the mysteries I can’t solve. Like the murders of John Doe and Gerard Damboise.”
* * *
Ione and Maggie agreed her new job would begin the next day. After her last tour, Maggie retreated to the staff lounge and changed into her street clothes, reveling in the fact that her days of stuffing herself into a polyester nightmare of a knockoff antebellum ball gown were over, at least temporarily. She checked her phone and saw texts from fellow judges Mo and Robbie confirming the meeting with Constance. Her new phone also showed Maggie she was already five minutes late, so she hopped in the Falcon and drove the short distance to the Damboise home.
The home of Constance and the late Gerard was a white raised Creole cottage on a side street not far from Pelican’s village center. Magnolia trees flanked the four steps leading to the home’s front door. Maggie parked and hurried up the stairs. The door swung open before she could knock. “We heard you parking that old beater of yours,” Mo said. She gestured for Maggie to follow her inside.
The living room was an immaculate shrine to Damboise genealogy. Oil portraits of ancestors graced the walls, each frame boasting a nameplate identifying the subject. Old black-and-white photographs crowded the cypress mantle of the fireplace. Maggie searched for an image of Constance in the collection, but found none. She did, however, spot several photos of Gerard posing with men and women Maggie recognized as being members of Louisiana’s aristocracy.
“Maggie.” Mo nudged her in the ribs.
“Sorry. I was admiring your home, Constance. So much history.”
“Yes.” Constance didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it. “Why don’t we get started? And please help yourself to some snacks.” She gestured to a spread of desserts on the antique coffee table. “People have been so generous.”
Maggie ID’d a plate of pecan sticky buns as a donation from her cousin Lia’s bakery, Fais Dough Dough, and helped herself to one. She sat down between Robbie and Mo on the Damboises’ Victorian settee, which, judging from the itchy texture, was still covered in its original horsehair. “History sure ain’t comfortable,” Mo said under her breath.
“I’d like to go over the pageant schedule,” Constance said, popping open her l
aptop. “I want to make a few adjustments to Gerard’s original plans. Maggie, I don’t see your notepad.”
“I forgot one,” Maggie said meekly. “I’ll have to take notes on my phone. But Constance, are you sure you still want to be a judge? You’ve suffered a great loss.”
“I can’t imagine not being a judge,” Constance said, affronted. “Dropping out would be an insult to my late husband. He lived for the Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen Pageant and wouldn’t dream of letting the young ladies down. I can assure you, if the roles were reversed, Gerard would insist the contest not be affected in the slightest bit.”
“No argument there,” Mo said.
“Now to the schedule,” Constance said. “I want to flip it around so that the evening gown contest comes after the talent portion of the competition, not before it. This will give the girls more time to get dressed in their evening wear, something Gerard didn’t consider when he mapped out the events.”
Maggie swallowed her opposition to judging teen girls, never the most confident, on their looks and clothing choices. Her primary concern remained the newly widowed Constance. “Um…”
“Yes, dear?” Constance said, striving to be patient.
“Even given your admirable devotion to the contest”—Maggie decided to lay it on thick—“it might be a good idea if we took a day off from pageant events. For one thing, I think you need a little downtime.” Constance opened her mouth to respond, but Maggie rushed on. “Plus, it would be the appearance of propriety. People might think we were insensitive if we kept plowing ahead.”
Constance considered this. “That’s a legitimate point. We’ll take tomorrow off. Then the contest will resume as normal. In honor of my late husband. But there will continue to be changes now that I’ve taken over for him.”
Maggie, disquieted by the hint of vitriol in Constance’s voice, simply nodded. “I had an idea, Constance,” Robbie said, sounding like an eager student. “I thought we could turn the essay portion of the contest into the Gerard Damboise Memorial Award, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. Since Gerard was such a nut—expert—about local history, we would make that the essay’s theme. Whichever finalist writes the best piece about Pelican’s past wins a two-hundred-dollar scholarship.”
“That’s a wonderful idea, Robbie. I love it.”
“Suck up,” Mo muttered.
Robbie ignored her. “Glad you like it,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “I’ll notify the contestants right now.” He pulled out his cell phone and began texting.
“Alright then.” Constance said. “I think we accomplished quite a bit. I’ll type up notes from the meeting and email them to you, along with a few other thoughts.”
Maggie and Mo stood up. Robbie hit “Send” on his phone and joined them. “We’ll see you day after tomorrow,” Maggie said to Constance. “But if you need anything before then, please let us know.”
“There is one thing you could do for me, dear. My purse pistol has gone missing. Would you mind checking around Crozat for it? It may have dropped out of my purse during our meeting.”
Maggie wanted to say, A loaded gun may be lying around our home, and you’re saying it as casually as if an eyeglass case fell out of your purse?! Instead, she politely responded, “Of course.” And planned to let Bo know of this new development as quickly as possible.
Chapter 8
Maggie texted Bo about the missing purse pistol the instant she, Mo, and Robbie stepped out of the Damboise home. Then she alerted her father, who responded with a promise to hunt for it, laced with expletives about people who were careless with their firearms.
Maggie put away her phone and focused on Mo and Robbie, who were in mid-conversation. “I’m telling you, that woman only has one oar in the water,” Mo was insisting to the convenience store owner. “What do you think, Maggie?”
Maggie was about to respond when Little Earlie Waddell—the Pelican Penny Clipper’s publisher, editor-in-chief, reporter, and occasional maintenance man—zoomed into a parking spot in front of the Damboise home and practically fell out of his PT Cruiser. “I heard y’all were meeting for the first time since the murder, and raced over to get some quotes,” he gasped, out of breath.
“Murder?” Robbie was dumbfounded.
“My sources tell me Gerard Damboise was found shot to death by a certain Magnolia Marie Crozat.”
Robbie, Mo, and Earlie all turned to Maggie. “Your ‘source’ is a police scanner, Little Earlie,” she said, fuming. “And my comment is ‘no comment.’”
“How could you not tell your fellow judges this?” Robbie demanded of Maggie while Mo nodded vigorously.
“For two good reasons. One, it hasn’t been confirmed, has it?” Maggie glared at Little Earlie, who had the decency to look uncomfortable. “And two, it’s up to Constance whether or not that information is shared. Would either of you want me shooting my mouth off if something like this happened to one of your loved ones?” Robbie and Mo sheepishly shook their heads. “Now that we’ve settled this, Little E, I like you, and you’ve done some good reporting in the past, but it’s time to go away.”
“I got what I need,” Little Earlie said. “But y’all will be hearing from me.” The Penny Clipper jack-of-all-trades hopped into his car and peeled out.
Robbie smoothed the sides of his hair, something Maggie deemed a nervous habit. “I signed on to this judging gig because I felt it was my duty as president of the Chamber of Commerce. But it’s getting scary-crazy.”
“It’s very stress inducing,” Mo said. “Thank goodness Veevay Beauty makes an anti-stress balm with all-natural ingredients. I’ll make sure you get a sample when you come to my party, Maggie.”
Maggie marveled at Mo’s slick sales tactics. “Wow, no wonder you score that purple Mitsubishi every year.”
Mo pumped her arms up and down in a “raise the roof” gesture. “Veevay all the way, baby!”
The judges headed off in different directions. Maggie was about to get in her car when a late-nineties pickup truck stopped mid-street. Gin Bertrand leaned out of the driver’s window. “Hey, Maggie, what’s the deal with this essay? How’s Kaity gonna write about this dang town’s history? We’ve only been here but a few weeks.”
“It’s a way of memorializing Gerard Damboise,” Maggie explained. Ugh, I sound like I’m parroting some party line. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll help Kaity find a topic. And I’ll make the same offer to all three finalists so no one can complain about favoritism.”
“I appreciate that. Glad you’re on our side.”
“I just said—” Maggie Gin’s truck screeched off before Maggie could finish the sentence. She took a deep breath to quell her increasing annoyance with Gin, then texted her offer of help to both Pauline and Denise. Her phone pinged. She was relieved to see it was a non–Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen–related message from her cousin Lia Tienne Bruner, who was pregnant with triplets and currently on bed rest: “You around? Need a small favor.”
Moments later, Maggie was on her way to Grove Hall, the Durand family ancestral plantation home now owned and being restored by Lia and her husband, Kyle. Maggie parked in front of the classic example of Greek Revival architecture, which gleamed with a coat of fresh white paint after decades of neglect. She maneuvered around stacks of lumber and construction equipment, and then dashed up the front steps into the house. Kyle, who Lia affectionately liked to call her “tall drink of Texas water,” turned off the floor sander he was operating and came over to give Maggie a hug. “We lost a lot of our crew to flood repair, so I’m taking on some of the work myself,” he explained, lifting up his safety goggles so they sat on top of his head.
“You’re doing a great job. This floor will be gorgeous. Lia asked me to pick up a book of wallpaper samples for the babies’ room.”
“Yeah, she texted me you’d be by. The sample book’s by the front door. But first, I have to show you something.”
Kyle led Maggie up the home’s curved
oak staircase and took a right at the second-floor landing. They walked into a large, empty room facing a thicket of woods behind the house. “Pauline, our decorator, and I were looking at the house from the back, and she noticed something interesting. How many windows do you see in this room?”
“Three.”
“Yes. But when you look at the house from outside, there’s a fourth window. It doesn’t belong to this room, or the one next to it. So, we did some exploring…” Kyle motioned to the wall next to him, which was still covered with century-old, peacock feather–patterned wallpaper. He placed his hand on a spot and pressed. A door hidden in the wall opened. Kyle gestured for Maggie to follow him, and they stepped inside a small, shadowed room. “A secret space,” Kyle said. “Pauline told me these were built into homes for a couple of reasons. Sometimes it was for safety, sort of an early panic room. And sometimes it was to hide a family member from society. A relative with mental or physical issues they didn’t want the world to know about.”
“That’s awful.” Maggie glanced around the spare room. The walls of the secret room, originally white, had grayed with time. Paint flaked and bubbled where water had seeped in. The air was stultifying despite the cool mid-winter temperature outside. Maggie could only imagine how miserable the space, with no cross breeze, was during summer months, especially in the days before central air conditioning. “It’s like a family’s own personal insane asylum.”
“We don’t know it was used for that, although given the number of reprobates on the Durand family tree, it wouldn’t surprise me. But I bet it made a great hiding place during the Civil War. No one would ever know you were here.”
Despite the room’s oppressive heat, Maggie shivered. “I get a bad feeling from this place. Are you going to keep it as a secret room?”
“For now. I hate to mess with the architectural integrity of the house. But if we do keep it, we’ll have to have some sort of cleansing ceremony.”
“Amen to that.”