A Grave Mistake

by Stella Cameron

  “She’s always been his sidekick,” Spike said of his daughter by a short first marriage. “I don’t know what Vivian and I would do without her. Hey, Reb.” He walked away.

  “Shit,” Marc said. “I mess up every time.”

  “No, you don’t,” Guy said, and liked it too much when Jilly arrived at his side. “He took it in stride. Speakin’ of kids, who’s with your boy?”

  “Amy.” Marc closed his mouth and appeared so startled Guy knew something was odd. He didn’t say anything.

  Marc caught his arm. “I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t mention that to anyone. I wasn’t thinking. Amy’s my sister. She’s been gone for years and there’s too much history for right now. She isn’t ready to deal with people in Toussaint, yet.”

  Guy said, “You’ve got it.”

  “Does Wazoo know Amy’s here?” Jilly asked. “They were close, weren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Marc agreed. “She’ll have to know soon, but we’re letting Amy make her own moves. You know what she went through.”

  Very few people in Toussaint didn’t know how the wife of a local businessman had set out to kill Amy Girard several years back. “I do know. It was horrible.” Jilly dug her fingers into Guy’s arm and felt him stare at her. “Excuse us, please,” she said to Marc, and walked Guy away.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “You made a big deal out of wantin’ me to lock the back of this place.” Her spine prickled. “Like you knew this was going to happen.”

  “Whoa!” Guy swung her in front of him and backed her even farther away from the others. “You’re absolutely right. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t make that connection, but you’re also absolutely wrong. I had no idea what might happen here—or if anything would happen at all.”

  “It looks suspicious to me.” She put trembling fingers to her lips. “I don’t mean it like that.”

  “Yes, you do. And it does. But I give you my word I had no idea someone would be murdered here tonight.” With his hands on his hips, he bowed his head and tried to think of a way to convince her Rathburn’s death was as much a shock to him as it was to her. “Would I have said anythin’ to you if I thought it could incriminate me?”

  “Incriminate? Hoo, you can make me steam, Guy Gautreaux. Did I say anythin’ about incriminating you—you dingbat? What I meant was that you might have known somethin’ was going to happen for sure and you wanted to take care of me. I don’t think you killed someone.”

  He had to smile. “Dingbat, hmm? I admit I’ve been called worse. I didn’t know, but I was told somethin’ that makes this death even more significant.” He put his own fingers on her mouth. “I will try to keep you in the loop, okay?”

  Condescending as usual. “Okay,” she said.

  “Turner called in,” Spike said, joining them. “Living room window ajar in front. No prints except a dog’s.” He smiled. “You sure you closed that window?”

  Jilly grimaced. “I did, but the lock doesn’t work right. You can still open it.”

  “Well, someone did,” Spike said. “Doesn’t look as if he went in the house, just let the dog out for some reason.”

  “To bring her over here and make me nervous,” Jilly said. “Weird.”

  Guy’s expression was grim. “Why didn’t you say the latch was broken? I’d have fixed it.”

  “Spike!” a member of the forensics team shouted. “Get over here.”

  The man faced a woman with a camera—the one who had passed with the body bag, Guy thought. She was the only member of the team in a skullcap.

  “Yo,” Spike called back, and left Guy and Jilly to join the couple.

  “What’s that about?” Guy said. He and Jilly moved a little closer, but not close enough to be too obvious.

  “Now what?” Spike said.

  “She doesn’t belong here,” the technician said, indicating the woman. “I don’t know who she is but she isn’t one of ours.”

  Marc groaned and hurried forward to help Reb to her feet. “Hold it,” Reb said. “No harm’s been done.” She sounded tired and edgy.

  The tech looked furious. “Someone wanders in off the street and takes pictures of a crime scene and no harm’s been done? God knows what she’s messed up around here. Gimme the camera.”

  Spike let out a big breath. “Lee, you know you can’t do this.”

  “The press has a right to be here,” Lee O’Brien said, whipping off her green skullcap and revealing her long blond ponytail. “You people are too used to running things around Toussaint and it’s not going to work anymore. The people of this town have a right to know.”

  “Know what?” Spike asked, bending and bringing his face close to Lee’s.

  She waved her free hand—the other protected the camera she held to her chest—and said, “Everything.”

  11

  “I can’t see where a shop would have to close for a whole day just because some man got himself shot out back,” Doll Hibbs, Wally’s mom, said.

  Madge Pollard concentrated on stirring her coffee and shifted uncomfortably. While Doll gave vent to her disapproval because All Tarted Up hadn’t opened yesterday, Jilly marched around behind the counters wearing a cold and closed expression. Laura Preston seemed out of place, leaning against the tall cupboard where glasses and tableware were kept. She slouched there, all dressed in turquoise Lycra with a matching baseball cap pulled over her red curls, following Jilly’s every move.

  “The authorities had things to do around here, I expect,” Madge said. Her tummy turned over. “It’s a real serious thing. They have to look for any clues they can find.”

  “We know,” Lil Dupre chimed in. “You aren’t the only one who watches TV. And that man was shot in the head, not the back, Doll.”

  Doll glared at her. “I said he was shot out back, not in the back. ”

  “I don’t often watch TV, me,” Madge said mildly.

  Lil was Ozaire’s wife. She was also Cyrus’s housekeeper, but that had never deterred her from speaking her mind. The woman also leaked any snippet of gossip she could—preferably from the rectory.

  The three of them sat at the same table.

  Wazoo popped in and out of the kitchens, making Madge wonder who was looking after Hungry Eyes for Ellie Gable today. She spoke up. “Wazoo, is the bookshop closed today?”

  “My, no,” Wazoo said. “I’m spending a few nights with Jilly at her place. I come here after and Missy Durand, she lookin’ after the other place.”

  Madge didn’t miss the significant look Wazoo sent her way, and frowned. A lot was going on and she decided she was being kept on the outside. She glanced out at the street, at the big pink vehicle parked there. “I like your new, er, car, Jilly,” she said, smiling so widely her jaw ached.

  “It’s not my car,” Jilly said, turning her back and slamming a coffeepot back on its burner. “I am so sick of all this messin’ about. That thing’s got to get moved and I don’t care where just so long as I can’t see it.”

  Madge smarted. It wasn’t like Jilly to snap.

  “You’ll make Edith sad if you give back Daddy’s present,” Laura said. “Are you going to talk to me, by the way?”

  Jilly faced her. “I’m all stretched out,” she said. “It’s been too much and I can feel there’re things happenin’ around here, only I’m not being told what. Will you please take the keys to the Hummer back to Edwards Place? Tell Mr. Preston he’s real kind but I can’t take a gift like that.”

  “He’s not there,” Laura said, snapping her fingers to the blues Jilly chose to play this morning. “He took Edith to the hospital in New Orleans, just to be safe.”

  “Safe from what?” Doll Hibbs asked. “She don’t need to be kept safe from whatever killed that man out back of here. They’ll have moved on by now. There’s nothin’ unsafe about Toussaint.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Wazoo said, wiggling her way from the kitchens, stamping her feet and moving to the music. “There never was a smarter woman than
you, Doll Hibbs. You got a way of just nailin’ things.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Wazoo stopped behind Doll and tapped out the rhythm on the woman’s shoulder. “Nuthin’, or it could mean I thought one or two folks might already have figured that out.”

  “I wasn’t talking about whether or not the town’s safe,” Laura said, shrugging away from the cupboard. “Daddy’s takin’ Edith for a checkup just to be sure she’s gettin’ better is all. She hasn’t been well.”

  With their usual shy smiles, Ken and Jolene Pratt edged inside the shop.

  “Will you look at that,” Lil said, not quite softly enough. “Those two comin’ in here like they belong.”

  “Hush,” Madge said. “They do belong.”

  “You ask Wazoo about ’em,” Lil said. “Ask her who goes into the graveyard at night and who you can’t find there even if you go in right after ’em. You know all about it, don’t you, Wazoo?”

  “I got nuthin’ to say, me.” But Wazoo watched the newcomers through narrowed eyes.

  “Stop it,” Madge said, embarrassed. “People are free to do as they please. If you don’t believe me, ask Cyrus.”

  “He’s too gentle,” Lil said, but her expression softened. “The Lord should have put a suspicious bone or two in that man’s body.”

  Madge didn’t agree. “A person can’t be too gentle.” She didn’t even try not to think about Cyrus the man anymore. They had their friendship with its pleasure and pain, and Madge knew she was maid of honor to the church. Being the bridesmaid rather than the bride didn’t stop her from loving Cyrus.

  “Mornin’ to you,” Jilly said to the Pratts. “It’s good to see you.”

  The couple smiled and took a table as far as possible from Madge’s group. Ken said, “How’s Mrs. Edith?” to Laura.

  “Still weak,” Laura said. “But gettin’ better, thank you. I think that tonic of yours helped.”

  “Tonic,” Doll muttered. “They let a sick woman take somethin’ from a pair of—you know what I mean.”

  “Will you have coffee?” Jilly asked the Pratts, going to their table with a carafe. “What can I get you to eat?”

  “Father Cyrus likes the Pratts,” Madge said quietly. “If you can’t hold your tongues and quit insultin’ people, I’ll be leavin’.”

  Doll and Lil stared at Madge, then looked at each other with the kind of knowing little smirks guaranteed to suggest they knew too much. Or that they were coming to conclusions they had no business to concoct.

  Reb O’Brien Girard came in with Vivian Devol. “Hey, y’all,” Reb said. “Guess the town’s takin’ a day off. Everybody’s here.”

  “Almost everybody,” Jilly said darkly. She stopped to take a mug from the cupboard and pour coffee for Laura. “Will you settle somewhere, please?”

  “Hey, Reb, Vivian,” Madge said. How easy could it be for Vivian, having lost a baby not so long ago, to be with very pregnant Reb?

  The women pulled chairs from another table and joined Madge’s party. “I met Reb on the way over here,” Vivian said. “We figured we’d find sympathizers here. You know what I mean, Madge?”

  She surely did. “Maybe. Absent friends of the male variety?”

  “You’ve got it,” Madge said. “Yesterday Cyrus was busy counsellin’ people who were upset about the killin’ the night before. Today he’s gone on important business. ”

  Madge wished she hadn’t allowed her tongue to flap. “He’s always busy. Just doesn’t usually get going so early is all—unless Joe Gable’s in town and they go runnin’.”

  Jilly couldn’t contain herself a moment longer. “Can y’all believe this? A bunch of men who should know better, behavin’ like silly boys playin’ a game? Where were they yesterday? Someone tell me that.”

  Silence met her questions and she felt her face redden. She should have continued to keep her mouth shut. She still smarted from Guy’s failure to as much as call about the breakfast they’d been supposed to have at the shop.

  Vivian Devol tucked one side of her short black hair behind an ear. “You never saw such a scurry. I didn’t see Spike from the night before last until late yesterday. There was so much goin’ on. Other agencies came in and you know what that means around here.”

  “Spike’s good about that,” Jilly said. “He doesn’t mess around before callin’ in help.”

  “No, he surely doesn’t, but it still makes for a lot of stress,” Vivian said. “Makes the local guys feel like they’re under microscopes. Same story today. Spike’s up to his eyeballs in this case and holed up in that disgustin’ office of his this time.”

  She should go in the kitchen and stay there, Jilly thought. “I was told to stay at home yesterday, and wait until I wouldn’t be in the way around here. My own place, mind you. In the way. ” Now she’d started talking and letting her anger out, she couldn’t seem to stop. She had really expected to hear from Guy long before this.

  “Marc got all involved yesterday,” Reb said, easing herself into a more comfortable position. She didn’t meet Jilly’s eyes.

  “So,” Jilly said, feeling foolish, “they were just millin’ around the place? Where? They wouldn’t all be messin’ with things here. Except for those who had a right to.”

  “I’m sure that’s how it was,” Reb agreed. “But they were all at the rectory with Cyrus for hours, too. In the afternoon. Isn’t that right, Madge?”

  Squirm. That was the only word for what Madge did. She squirmed and looked as if she’d like to disappear. “Yes,” she said finally. “Shut away up there in Cyrus’s room.”

  “You mean in his sitting room?” Jilly said. She’d never heard of anyone being invited into what she liked to think of as Cyrus’s cell, up high beneath the eaves at the rectory.

  “No siree,” Lil said, her voice high and scraping. She could be having more fun than she’d had since they discovered someone was stealing bingo boards from the church hall and she set herself up as head detective. “They was in the Upper Room.” She chuckled and tears gathered in the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes.

  “Lil,” Madge said sharply. “You know Cyrus doesn’t like you calling it that. He feels like you’re makin’ fun of the Last Supper.”

  Lil never had discovered who absconded with the bingo boards, and when Ozaire turned them up in one of the church’s outbuildings, more than one person suggested Lil had put them there herself.

  “They were in Father’s own room,” Lil said, all proper but not one bit apologetic. “You should be around that Nat Archer. The mouth he’s got on him? Whooee, liquid silk with a sandpaper lining, and as cheeky as you like. I’m glad Guy Gautreaux thinks he’s wonderful because I think he’s the only one…’cept Wazoo.” Lil crossed her arms and the smug expression was back.

  Wazoo hugged herself, threw back her amazing hair and closed her eyes. “He’s one killer man. And silk ain’t the way I’d describe his voice, no way. More like rough tweed—or burlap. So-o sexy. Thank goodness I’m the only woman around here who can judge a man by the way he feels. Not that he isn’t a wicked good-looker.”

  “What d’you mean?” Doll asked. “The way he feels? You not supposed to be feelin’ no strangers, Wazoo. I don’t know how Vivian and Spike put up with you, to say nothin’ of Charlotte.” Charlotte was Vivian’s mother and part-owner in Rosebank.

  Vivian only chuckled and wrinkled her nose at Wazoo, who gave her a sidelong glance that spelled nothing good. “You know what feel means,” she said, stroking her upper arms with her crossed hands. “Feel, oh, yeah. Dancin’ in the dark, skin to skin, nipple to nipple, hips locked together, all the hot fluids runnin’, sweet, slick bodies slidin’ and rockin’.”

  The laughter began. Laura Preston fell into a chair at an unoccupied table and held her stomach.

  “Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Wazoo at her bad best was something. “Oh, yeah, I got to get me more of that sweetness.” She looked at Vivian with completely clear eyes. “I still think you’re missin�
� a bet not providing some special extras for unaccompanied females at Rosebank. Remember the stuff I suggested with fans coolin’ moist skin, and massage—and feathers, some of that tasty lube in kinky tubes and a dinky diggle thing. Whoo! You’d have those ladies linin’ up to be repeat customers.”

  “Dinky diggle thing?” Madge said, leaving her lips parted.

  “You ain’t got a dinky diggle, Madge? Well I’m just goin’ to have to fix that. You want yellow—like a banana, or plum-purple? They taste to match the color.”

  Reb rubbed her face with both hands but Jilly saw how she smiled. Jilly wasn’t sure what this diggle was but she had a good idea. She took two plates of beignets, fresh from the fryer, and put one on Madge’s table and another in front of the Pratts, who were obviously listening but not saying a thing.

  “A beignet, Miss Laura?” Jolene asked Laura, offering the plate.

  Jilly expected Laura to refuse, but she took one immediately and smiled her thanks. She set the roll on a napkin, then took a bite and closed her eyes in ecstasy. Powdered sugar flew in all directions.

  “Café au lait,” she whispered as if in a trance. “I’m comin’ back there to make some for everyone. On me all around.”

  “Ooh, fancy that,” said Lil, who enjoyed anything free.

  Instead of letting fly with her instinct to tell Laura she didn’t have to make anything around here, Jilly smiled at her and let her get to work. The atmosphere in the shop grew almost jolly. Jilly wished she could put aside her own concerns and join in.

  “Laura,” she said quietly. “I’m goin’ into New Orleans to see Edith tomorrow.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Laura said, adding hot milk to coffee. “Daddy’s angry about everything at the moment so it’s best not to get around him.”

  “That’s nothing to me,” Jilly told her sharply. “It’s Edith I intend to visit. Which hospital is she in?”

  The jug Laura held wobbled and milk splashed on the counter. She grabbed a cloth and wiped it up. “I don’t think for a moment she’ll be in a hospital tomorrow,” she said. “She was just going to be checked over then go home.”