A Grave Mistake

by Stella Cameron

  “Cross your fingers they didn’t get their fingers on the stuff we don’t want broadcast yet,” Nat said.

  Guy grunted. He always got a sense of unreality looking at a familiar scene on television. The police tape flapped and people milled around St. Ann Street. A cameraman managed to get himself into the building courtyard and a voice, deliberately low, gave a monotone commentary. “First the daughter, then the husband, now the wife,” the reporter droned. “Somewhere out there is someone who can help the police. This city is used to horror, but if you know anything, call NOPD at the number on your screen. We can’t know who this freak’s next victim will be.”

  Nat rolled his eyes. “If the publicity works, fine, but that boy surely wants to be on the stage.”

  “He is,” Oliphant pointed out.

  “Apparently the police were already expecting trouble,” the reporter continued. “They may even have been on the premises when the killing occurred.”

  “Oh, bloody wonderful,” Guy said. “That’s something we wanted the world to know.”

  “Looks like they’re bringing out evidence.” Members of the forensics and evidence teams carried brown paper sacks down the stairs from Zinnia’s boutique and put them into a white van backed into the courtyard. Uniforms were everywhere.

  “That’s Detective Nat Archer,” the reporter said. “He was one of the first on the scene. The tall man is Detective Guy Gautreaux and the woman beside him with her back to us is Jilly Gable of Toussaint. There are rumors of a tie to Toussaint. Evidently a man was shot to death there recently.” A heavy pause set Guy’s heart pounding.

  “Shit,” Nat muttered. “Did they show this yesterday, too?”

  “The victim’s name was Caruthers Rathburn and he was killed in the yard behind Jilly Gable’s café and bakery—All Tarted Up—on Main Street. The victim might have been linked to Pip Sedge, Zinnia Sedge’s ex-husband. Attempts are being made to contact Miz Gable for an interview.”

  Guy leaped to his feet. “Why not just paint a target on Jilly’s back? Where did he get all that—he couldn’t have had time to do all the research?”

  “Does Lee O’Brien ring a bell?” Nat asked through his teeth. “She’ll be furious she didn’t get a mention, not that it matters because I’m goin’ to wring her neck when I catch up with her.”

  “Lee O’Brien of the Toussaint Trumpet said the folks in the town are pretty shaken up,” the TV reporter said.

  Oliphant snickered and Guy bowed his head. “It’s the little things you can’t control that get you every time,” he said.

  The phone on Oliphant’s desk rang and he snatched it up. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell him. Anything else? Okay. Do something for us, will you? Keep the woman’s mouth shut until we tell you otherwise. Yeah. Well, regard that as a suggestion not an order.” He hung up. “A Simon something. The lady reporter’s partner? He managed to track you down, Guy, and wanted to apologize if Lee O’Brien’s comments may have caused any problems. He saw the reports on TV same as we did. Reckon he’s in Nashville.”

  “Nashville?” Guy groaned. “Damn, that woman’s determined to get the name of her paper out.”

  Nat laughed. “Can you blame her? Think about it. She and Simon bought a defunct rag and they’re already turning it into something people want to read.”

  “Shouldn’t be at someone else’s expense,” Guy said.

  “It’s the nature of the media to peddle trouble. People want to know about it,” Nat said. He got up to turn off the box but paused and glanced at Guy over his shoulder. “Nice shot of Jilly.”

  Guy looked at a close-up of Jilly on the steps from Zinnia’s place and cursed. “I’ve got to get her off the street.”

  35

  Cyrus approached Edwards Place but pulled the Impala up short of the security gate.

  “Are you havin’ second thoughts?” Madge asked. She sounded nervous.

  “In a way. What right do I have to call on a woman who hasn’t asked me to come? My excuse for droppin’ in here is that I thought I’d make sure she’s doin’ well—since we haven’t seen her lately—and offer her the sacraments, of course, but it’s only an excuse.”

  Madge sat straighter. “You wouldn’t come if you didn’t want to do the right thing,” she said.

  He smiled. Madge would probably back him up if he decided to rob a bank. “That’s true.” More or less. He had something quite different on his mind and it seemed important enough to follow up, even if through subterfuge.

  When the Impala was close enough he rolled down his window and waited until a sensor produced a voice on the intercom. “Yes?” Rain slashed into the car.

  “Father Cyrus Payne and Madge Pollard to see Mrs. Edith Preston.”

  There was a pause before the voice said, “Please come in,” and the gate swung inward.

  “I don’t like this place,” Madge said when the gate closed behind the car. “I know they’ve done all sorts of things to make it beautiful again but it still feels unused.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” Cyrus told her. He absolutely did know and he might also have said there was an unhealthy feeling about Edwards Place. “I guess the chopper’s in use,” he said, driving up the winding driveway. The empty pad sat at a distance and a man mowed the grass there—even though the rain still hadn’t let up and the sky had only grown darker.

  “They could all be out,” Madge said, with more than a little hope in her voice. She touched Cyrus’s arm and smiled at him. “It wouldn’t matter, we could come back another time.”

  “Someone answered the intercom,” Cyrus pointed out.

  “Did I tell you Lil’s been fishin’ because she thinks we’re not tellin’ her about something?” Madge said.

  “Like Miz Trudy-Evangeline?”

  Madge bent forward and chuckled. “Lil said she was certain she saw someone at one of the upstairs windows at the rectory. She said the person stepped away quickly.”

  “Lil is supposed to be on that vacation I gave her,” Cyrus said, grinning. “That woman is incorrigible.”

  “Cyrus.” Madge looked at him with tears of laughter in her eyes. “Lil said she went to look up from under the window—just doin’ her duty, she said—and she found cigarette butts.” Madge’s body quaked as she tried to control herself. “I said she must have imagined it but…but, she had the butts! She collected them and…showed them to me. She’s going to show you. Talked about a ghost but I told her ghosts don’t smoke—as far as I know.”

  “As far as you know,” Cyrus said. “What if it’s a ghost posin’ as Miz Trudy-Evangeline?” Cyrus pulled up before the front door, which opened at once. Edith herself appeared looking chic in narrow turquoise silk pants and a matching short top with buttons of knotted silk down one side. Her heavy hair looked much as Jilly’s did sometimes; drawn back and tied with a length of ribbon. The difference was that rather than blond streaks, gray showed in Edith’s. Madge thought the gray was dramatic.

  “She’s good-looking,” Madge said, collecting herself, “and so much like Jilly.”

  Cyrus got out of the station wagon. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Preston,” he called. “Get in out of the rain.” He ran around to open Madge’s door and she popped out at once, raising an umbrella as she did so. She stretched an arm to hold it over Cyrus, too, and they hurried together into the house.

  “My, it’s a wild day,” Edith said when they were all inside. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. I was feelin’ a little lonely.”

  Thunder hammered through the heavens, beating on and on while the three of them stood still. Lightning followed, the kind that lit up the sky in bursts. Cyrus could see it through the fanlight above the front door.

  The blond man Cyrus had seen the last time he came emerged from the back of the house. As before he wore light, well-pressed blue jeans and a white V-neck sweater. “Let me take your umbrella,” he said, and also waited for Madge’s red windbreaker. “Will your guests be having lunch, Mrs. Preston?�
��

  “Of course, Michael,” Edith said.

  “I don’t think so,” Cyrus said quickly. Then, when he saw Edith’s disappointment, added, “But Madge and I would enjoy something to drink, wouldn’t we? I think I’d like coffee.”

  “So would I,” Madge said, smiling at Edith. The blond man moved smoothly away on almost silent white tennis shoes.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Edith asked. She gave an impish smile. “I don’t like that big old salon. You just about need megaphones to talk to one another in there. There’s a sweet little sitting room back this way and it’s much more comfortable. Would that suit, d’you think?”

  “It sounds lovely,” Madge said. “This is an interestin’ house.”

  “I suppose it is,” Edith says. “I’m still not used to it but I do love bein’ close to my Jilly. I’m not fond of bein’ here on my own, though.”

  Madge turned up the corners of her mouth politely. She doubted there was anyone in Toussaint who didn’t know Edith Preston had left her baby girl with a difficult father in order to find herself a more interesting life.

  “Are you all alone here, Mrs. Preston?” Cyrus asked, feeling edgy and dishonest.

  “Jilly couldn’t come over like she was supposed to,” Edith said. “Wes doesn’t really like it here so he spreads out his visits, and Laura went into New Orleans with Daddy. I don’t know what I’d do without Laura but that girl does like to shop.” She giggled. “Of course she does, what pretty woman doesn’t? Anyway, I like to see her and Daddy getting along so well. Daddy said the biggest canary diamond you ever saw came in with a lot for auction. You’ll have to visit the shop sometime. Anyway, Daddy said the stone is perfect—set in a ring. Of course, Laura’s eyes lit up so she’s going to see it.”

  Madge made an agreeable noise. They followed her along a corridor to a pretty room done in shades of daffodil yellow and cream. Cyrus wondered how Mr. Preston felt about such a cozy, unpretentious room.

  Edith looked girlish when she said, “I’ll expect to see that ring when Laura comes back.” She laughed. “One of the benefits of the antiques business is that the most beautiful jewelry passes through our hands and Daddy likes to decorate his ladies. Come on, make yourselves comfortable. Michael will find us with the coffee. He knows I like it in here.”

  Cyrus frowned. “I wonder if you’d mind if I used a bathroom?” he said, not daring to look at Madge, who would know he was up to something.

  “Please,” Edith said. “It’s probably quickest to return to the hall. Take the corridor toward the salon. Second door on your right.

  Cyrus muttered his thanks and moved with unseemly haste in the direction he’d been told to go. Fortunately it was the way he needed to take, anyway.

  In the hall he looked around and upward, making sure no one watched him from above. He didn’t see anyone and moved swiftly to the beautiful Dresden vase he remembered from the evening he visited Edith—after her accident.

  His heart met his throat and he felt almost weak.

  He scarcely believed his good fortune. At the bottom of the vase lay a ball of paper. Cyrus held the vase steady and shot in his hand. His fingers closed on the now-solid gum in its paper wrapper. He’d forgotten about Wes Preston coming in that night and tossing his gum into the vase—until he’d gone over the events of the evening just that morning, trying to think of something useful to the case. He hadn’t met Wes until later and by then he’d been thinking of other things.

  With the gum in his pocket, he carried on to the bathroom, waited a reasonable time and returned to the sitting room. He had looked at the little wad of paper but hadn’t attempted to unwrap it. That was something the police needed to do, not that it was likely to be anything other than Wes’s discarded gum. He did note that the paper wasn’t a gum wrapper but rather white with green lines on it.

  Coffee had arrived in the sitting room and Michael had poured. He gave Cyrus a sidelong stare as he left the room. Apparently he didn’t appreciate waiting on impoverished clergymen.

  “I thought everyone was staying in Toussaint today, but they left,” Edith said, sounding petulant. “We have so much to celebrate, and I’m going to tell you all about it just as soon as I can.”

  “That’ll be very nice.” Cyrus ached to get off the premises and bear his little and probably useless package to Spike.

  “There’s a question I’ve got to ask you,” Edith said, raising her shoulders girlishly. “I think there’s somethin’ deep between Jilly and that nice Guy Gautreaux, don’t you?”

  Madge bit her lip and seemed disinclined to help Cyrus out.

  “Well—” He wished Jilly and Guy would give him some idea whether they planned a future together. “Well, I do think they like each other considerably,” he said, and felt like a wimp.

  Edith shook a finger at him. “You, Father, are bein’ evasive. Shame on you, but I understand. Eat one of Cook’s pear fritters. They are her pride and joy and she’ll be offended if we don’t have any of them.”

  “Pear fritters?” Cyrus said. He picked one up at once and bit into a tender, brown-sugar-coated crust. Sweet, fresh pear, thinly sliced in its own thickened juice, filled his mouth and he closed his eyes. The rest of the fritter disappeared down his throat and he reached for another from the plate. “Madge, you’ve got to have one of these,” he said.

  “I’ve had two,” she told him. “The deep-fried biscuits on the other plate have lime custard in the middle.”

  He winked at her. She knew very well that sweets, especially beautifully made sweet desserts, were his downfall.

  “Oh dear,” Cyrus said, dusting sugar from his hands and wiping his mouth on a napkin. “I came to bring you communion. Since you haven’t been well enough to get to mass.”

  Edith smiled and bowed her head. “You are the sweetest man to think of me,” she said. “I’d like to receive, Father.”

  “Perhaps you’d wait outside, Madge,” he said, and she withdrew. “Now, is there anythin’ you’d like to tell me about, dear lady?”

  Edith frowned. She sat on a couch and Cyrus sat down there, too, turning to face her. “I get jealous, Father. Of my daughter-in-law, Laura. Sometimes I think she and my husband are too close. It’s just silliness, I know it is, but I can’t seem to help it. Then there’re all the thoughts I had about my accident. It’s wrong but I think about it when I lie down to sleep. Dear Caruthers rescued me, you know.”

  “He was a good man,” Cyrus said. “You must miss him. Don’t worry about a little jealousy. Remember how you said you liked Laura being close to your husband? You’re a generous woman.”

  She leaned close to Cyrus and whispered, “That night. I don’t remember much, but I get these sort of dreams. Shapes moving around me. One shape. A voice muttering. And I was pushed—manhandled. Then I think I fell.” Edith looked directly at him. “I didn’t have an accident tryin’ to shave my legs.” She colored.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I get my legs waxed at the spa. I didn’t try to take my life, either, Father. I’m sure folks have wondered. Please believe me. I didn’t do that. I value life.”

  “But you were depressed?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes. But I didn’t try to take my own life.”

  He leaned close. “What then, Edith? Your wrist was cut.”

  “I think someone wanted me dead.”

  So did Cyrus but he wouldn’t speak of that to Edith. “You’re going to be all right,” he told her. “I’ll tell everyone how well you’re doing here, how good it is for you. But there’s work to be done. You can’t live like this.”

  “In a gilded cage, you mean?”

  Why lie? “Yes, a gilded cage. Shut away and a bit frightened, I think.”

  “I do get frightened,” she whispered.

  “You aren’t the mistress here. The staff don’t treat you well. Neither do some members of your family. Do you want to do something about that?”

  She nodded slowly. After giving
Edith communion and a few thoughtful moments, Cyrus went to bring Madge back in and she sat to listen to what they had to say.

  Cyrus knew he had to get to Spike now. “I’ve got to run an errand. Could I leave you two ladies here to visit? I’ll be back shortly, Madge.”

  She didn’t look happy, but immediately said it was fine with her if it was fine with Edith.

  Almost as quickly as he’d hoped, Cyrus was on the road and headed for the sheriff’s offices. The windshield wipers hadn’t been replaced and he was forced to lean forward and peer through a more-or-less clear arc on the steamy windshield. Lightning shot earthward and seemed to hit the road in front of his vehicle.

  In minutes he arrived and parked under the sycamore tree in front of the dilapidated building. Thoughts of Madge made him hesitate to get out of the Impala. Every day he prayed she would find a man she really loved—and he, Cyrus, would give her the most beautiful wedding ever. He thought about her too much but he guessed love was like that. Instantly he got a headache. The sooner Madge was involved with another man, the better, as long as he was worthy of her.

  Out he hopped, not bothering to lock the vehicle, and he ran with his head down.

  The parking lot was fuller than usual and people came and went from the building. Inside he stood in a line, dripping, and waiting to ask a clerk for Spike, but Deputy Lori spied him and hurried to take him aside.

  “Is Spike in?” he asked.

  “He sure is. You know you don’t have to stand there like that and wait.” She smiled at him. “Go on back. He’ll be glad to see you.”

  “How’s that sweet babe of yours?” Cyrus asked.

  “Just beautiful,” Lori said, beaming. “We’ll be along to talk about baptizing her soon.”

  Cyrus accepted and returned Lori’s impulsive hug and set off to find Spike.

  His office resembled command central for some battle. It also wasn’t a place Cyrus would want someone squeamish to wander into without warning.

  Photographs of Caruthers Rathburn, alive and dead, decorated one wall together with shots of objects Cyrus presumed were evidence, charts and lists of measurements—at least, he thought they were measurements. Several flip charts, scribbled on in a variety of colors, stood on easels. Pieces of paper were pinned on boards. Chairs stood at odd angles where people had come and gone. And Spike sat behind his desk with his hand driven, very Spike-like, into his hair.