French Quarter

by Stella Cameron

  He put a finger to his lips.

  She pulled herself to sit up and nodded, her face too pale, and her eyes too dark. His T-shirt—that fell off one slender shoulder—didn’t help the waiflike impression.

  The phone bell went off again, and he answered this time. “This is Jack Charbonnet.”

  “Is Celina Payne with you?”

  He gritted his teeth. Now was not the time to lose his temper. “If you want anything out of me, friend, you’ll identify yourself.”

  “I‘m calling on behalf of Mr. Wilson Lamar.”

  “I don’t care if you’re calling on behalf of the President. Who the…who are you?”

  “Who I am doesn’t matter. I’m Mr. Lamar’s employee. He’s too upset to make his own calls, but he thought he should try to get a message to Miss Payne. Since she and her family may be drawn into what’s going on.”

  “You could be talkin’ another language. I’ll give you one more chance. Keep it simple, sweetheart, or I’m hangin’ up and unplugging this phone.”

  “Because of something that happened last night, Miss Payne’s brother is bound to be taken in for questioning by the police. Her parents have already been contacted and they aren’t taking it well. Mr. Lamar asked me to let her know that. She isn’t at her Royal Street address, so I was instructed to see if you can get a message to her.”

  Celina bent forward. Her head rested on her knees. Jack stroked her back and rubbed her neck. “I can do that for you.”

  “Thanks. Mr. Lamar’s wife went to meet with Father Cyrus Payne this evening. Shortly afterward she was found stabbed to death beside her car.”

  Thirty-seven

  How much had the bitch told Cyrus Payne? Wilson wasn’t a praying man, but he decided he’d pray now that Father Cyrus would feel he had to keep whatever Sally had said to himself.

  He’d unplugged the phone in his suite, but he could hear the intermittent drone of ringing elsewhere in the house. Wilson intended to use his “bereavement” to best advantage for as long as possible. After all, a man distraught over the violent killing of his wife couldn’t be expected to attend to business too soon after the event. And while he was in seclusion, he’d be thinking his way through the maze his life had become. Or he would when he was finally in seclusion.

  Charmain came out of the bathroom nude. He watched her with a mixture of irritation and arousal. They had been sleeping together for years, but this was the first time in this house. He’d never planned for them to do so, ever, but she’d arrived around midnight, minutes after the police had delivered their bombshell about Sally and then left. Charmain had intercepted police radio messages and was, as ever, ready to offer Wilson “comfort.”

  “I’d better blow,” she said, putting on her diamond watch before grinning at him. “Of course, there’s more than one way to blow, isn’t there, lover? I’m ready, willin’, and available. Might cheer you up.

  “Thank you,” he said tightly. “But I think you about wore us both out for now. You’d better go out down the back stairs.” A horrifying thought struck him. “Where did you leave your car?”

  She giggled and ran her hands through her short hair, still spiky and wet from the shower. “On a side street, silly. Would I park in the driveway at a time like this?”

  Very slowly, too slowly to please Wilson, she stepped into a lavender-colored satin teddy and pulled it up her long, lithe body and over hard little breasts that came to sharp points. Every inch of Charmain was erogenous, and she moaned softly even at her own touch.

  Wilson knew better than to hurry her. Rather he watched and offered the appreciative smile he knew she craved.

  “You always did enjoy a little reverse striptease, Wilson,” she said. “You should have taught Sally more about how to turn you on. She never did get it. She was too obvious.”

  His stomach turned. “Let’s leave Sally out of this.”

  “Oh, my”—she pulled on black stockings with lace tops and slipped a little black dress over her head—”you’ll have to forgive me for forgetting the niceties. Respect for the dead, here I come.”

  Affecting a deeply serious expression, he levered himself off the bed, where he’d been stretched out fully dressed, and went to her. He kissed her the way she liked it, hard, biting her lips, then picked up her purse and handed it to her. “Thank you, darlin’. You were a lifesaver. But then, you always have been. I’ll make sure it’s okay, then you go out down the back stairs and through the garden. It’s quiet there. Everyone’s watching the front. This is the first time I haven’t entertained any member of the press who showed.”

  Charmain pushed a hand between his legs. “That’s because you were entertainin’ this member of the press, sweetie.”

  Wilson removed her hand and cautiously opened the door. The balcony was empty, and he waved Charmain forward. She gave his rear a last sharp pinch and tripped away toward the back of the house with her high-heeled sandals trailing from one hand.

  The instant she was out of sight, Wilson closed himself in and leaned on the door. He and Charmain went back a long way—it could be that it was too long.

  When he’d been to a window that allowed him to see Charmain disappear from the property, he called for Ben Angel and started mulling over the next moves that needed to be made.

  He couldn’t pretend he mourned Sally’s death, but he had to be certain there was nothing about it that could affect him negatively.

  Ben came into the room carrying a tray of coffee and some sandwiches. Wilson motioned for the door to be closed. “I’m not going to be able to put the police off much longer,” he said. “Somethin’ tells me there may be a few things you’d like to talk to me about first.”

  Ben slid the tray on top of the dresser and turned to his boss. He didn’t waste valuable time on innocent shock. “I didn’t have anything to do with your wife’s death, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Murder,” Wilson said. “It was murder, Ben. Let’s not invent pretty words for ugly things.”

  “I didn’t murder Mrs. Lamar,” Ben said, his face devoid of expression now. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do. That wasn’t one of them.”

  “Very admirable,” Wilson told him. “And you weren’t startin’ to feel a little nervous after the pretty picture appeared in the paper—and your honest little quote about the lady of the house expectin’ sexual favors from members of the staff? You didn’t worry that she might try to defend herself and raise some questions about you, implicate you in some things that could get you into serious trouble? The big question is who gave the picture to the paper? It wasn’t supposed to be for anythin’ but scarin’ Sally, was it?”

  Ben swallowed loudly. “All I did was what I was told to do. I sure did not give that photo to anyone, did I? Why would I. Never saw it till it was in print.”

  “Well, somebody gave it to somebody, Ben. If it wasn’t you—and like you say, that wouldn’t make any sense—well then, I can’t think who it would be other than the photographer. I was the photographer, so I know it wasn’t me. The idea of setting up that little tableau was to scare the shit out of Sally and make it easier to get rid of her, nothin’ more. Things are plain out of hand now.”

  “Where’s the film?”

  For an instant Wilson’s mind went blank. Then he went into the closet and tore aside suits hanging along one bar. “Sheeit, where is my mind? Of course I should have checked the goddamn film. I should have destroyed it—only I thought it might be useful for somethin’ sometime.” Like making sure Ben Angel stayed in line. Wilson dragged out a sport bag, unzipped it, and took out a camera.

  “That shoots my last hope,” Wilson said, holding the empty film compartment open. “Someone else could have been taking shots too—only they weren’t. Who the fuck would know anything about it in the first place?”

  “As soon as you saw the paper you must have known the film was gone…sir. You—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t thinking straight. This has be
en a difficult time.” He didn’t meet Ben’s eyes. Then an ugly realization dawned. “Someone in this house. Someone else in this house knows what we’ve been doing. They’re going to hold me up for megabucks.” He narrowed his eyes at Ben. “You little bastard. It was you, wasn’t it? You think you’re going to get even more out of me.”

  Ben’s dark blue eyes flashed. “Have you heard me askin’ you for money?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not going to, me. And I didn’t have nothing to do with what happened to your wife last night.”

  “That isn’t going to be easy to convince the police of—not after you set yourself up as a suspect by talkin’ too much.”

  “What about you? You think I would be silent, me. You think I stay silent about you if the police come for me?”

  Wilson grew still. The kid had balls. “Maybe we’d better do some talking about the questions the police might ask, and what kind of answers they ought to get.”

  “The only talkin’ we need to do is to agree that we don’t know anythin’ about takin’ photographs. The end.”

  Wilson snorted. “You blew that when you gave your sob story about Sally’s unquenchable appetites.”

  “There’s no proof of anythin’ else, not about me.” Ben squared his stance. “But there’s proof about you. There’s the negative for that photograph, and there’s whoever got their hands on it and knows where they found it.”

  A gentle tap on the door jarred Wilson to his feet. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Opi, sir.”

  “Whatever it is can wait. I’m not up to talkin’ right now.” Wilson waited for sounds that the man was leaving. They didn’t come. Another tap did.

  “Go away!” Panic welled within him. He stared at Ben and quaked at what he saw in the younger man’s demeanor. Ben Angel, upstart and opportunist, pitied Wilson Lamar. He took a calming breath and said, “Come in, Opi.”

  The door opened slowly and Opi’s bald head appeared. He glanced at Wilson, but turned his full attention on Ben. “I don’t know what’s happenin’ around here, no, I surely don’t. You got to go down to the police, Ben Angel. Someone want to see you down there.”

  Wilson stepped forward and beckoned Opi into the room. “Don’t talk loud, man. We aren’t all friends here.”

  Opi looked behind him, but showed no anxiety. He did do as Wilson asked. “You got parents?” he said to Ben.

  Ben’s supercilious assurance had fled. He bounced on his toes. “Most people have parents, old man.”

  “They come here, right? Mr. and Mrs. Reed. They come to a party, right? And they come to see Mr. Lamar another time.”

  “Will you get to the point?” Ben balled and flexed his hands, then pounded a fist into a palm.

  “They your parents?”

  “She’s my mother. He’s my stepfather. What of it?”

  “They been taken in for questionin’ and they askin’ for you. They call for you, not a lawyer. They say you gonna take care of things for them.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Ben yelled.

  Opi backed away and reached behind him for the door handle. “They bein’ asked questions about the mistress’s death. Mrs. Lamar’s death. The police think your mama and stepdaddy killed her.

  Thirty-eight

  “You never asked me why I did it, Celina.”

  She finished taking her shoes from their box and gave Cyrus her complete attention. “Do you mean why you went into the priesthood? I assumed you had a calling—whatever that is. Sometimes I’ve envied you because you’ve seemed so sure of the decision you made.”

  With his hands in the pockets of his black suit trousers, he braced his feet apart on the rug in Jack’s bedroom and fixed his eyes on something only he saw. “Most of the time, I’m sure. I’m always sure I’ve got a job to do for God, and most of the time I like doing it.”

  “You make it sound a bit like making circuit boards.”

  He continued to stare into the distance, but smiled faintly. “Not such a bad analogy. Maybe like making sure all the parts are there. For me it’s always been that faith had to be part of the equation or the whole didn’t work. But that doesn’t mean every day is easy, or that I don’t struggle with being a man.”

  She looked at him curiously. Cyrus had never talked about himself this way. “It’s because of Sally, isn’t it? The shock’s making you question everything. It’s very raw, it’s bound to be.”

  “What happened to her wasn’t God’s doing. You can’t believe in free will and still blame some higher being for the terrible things men do to each other.”

  These were waters that threatened to rise over her head very quickly. “Did you hear they’ve got the Reeds in custody?”

  He lowered his heavy lashes. “Yes. Because their car was seen parked on the street where Sally died.”

  “More than that, Cyrus. Someone looking out a window saw a man leaning over something. Then he ran to a car. He was leaning over Sally. Walt Reed doesn’t deny it was him, but he insists he and his wife saw Sally fall, but nothing else.”

  “Poor Sally. Maybe if she’d married someone other than Wilson she’d have had a chance.”

  Celina gave him a long look. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head faintly.

  Today was her wedding day. Because this was the date that had been set and the appointed hour approached, they would go ahead with the ceremony, but it felt wrong to celebrate anything with Sally Lamar lying dead. And it was even harder while Errol’s murder went unsolved.

  Cyrus was beside her before Celina was aware he’d moved. “Don’t think about it anymore now. You look so beautiful. A really beautiful bride.” He kissed her brow and looked at her tummy. “I must be a most unconventional priest, but there’s something even more beautiful about the presence of the child. Innocent creature. Love him or her well—I know you will, and I believe Jack will, too. I look forward to being an uncle.”

  On cue, tears blurred her vision. “I’d better do some fast talking or I’ll mess up my makeup.” She gave a watery laugh. “I’ll ask the question. Why did you become a priest, Cyrus?”

  “To escape,” he said promptly, and half turned from her. His throat moved sharply. “Now I’d better talk fast—and not to save my makeup.”

  She punched him playfully.

  “I wish she’d asked for absolution.”

  Celina inclined her head and frowned in question.

  Cyrus glanced at her. “Sally. I asked her if she wanted reconciliation, but she refused. Maybe if I’d pressed a little. she’d have changed her mind. Celina, I struggle with my sexuality. I don’t mean I’m not sure of my sexuality. I…you don’t want to listen to this.”

  “I want to know everything about you. And I’m honored if you want to tell me.” Her heart beat fast. There had always been a chasm between them. Cyrus’s goodness had been there, a presence she felt but didn’t dare approach or try to breach.

  “When Sally Lamar came to me…Just the night before last—I can’t believe she’s dead. She was so alive. She…she wanted me to react to her. I…oh, God help me, but I wanted her. I’d wanted her that night when we were teenagers too, and… I wanted her then, but the two things were at war inside me. The desire to serve God and the desire to be fully a man with a woman. Then there was a recoiling from the world the way it is. It made me feel helpless, and desperate to feel less vulnerable.”

  Celina went to her brother and took him in her arms. At first he held his body rigid, but then he embraced her convulsively, held her close, and rubbed her back. The baby chose that moment to make the strongest shift Celina had felt so far, but she doubted Cyrus would notice.

  He stood quite still except for stroking her back and shoulders very slowly. “That is really somethin’,” he said. “The baby. How does that feel inside you?”

  She pressed her lips together for an instant, then said, “Incredible. I love it.”

  “Does it make you feel closer to God?”

 
; For a moment she didn’t understand, then she realized that he would wonder exactly that. “Because a baby is such a miracle? No. But it is a lovely idea. Cyrus, are you trying to tell me you might be changing your mind about the priesthood?”

  “No. No. I’m just trying to make you understand a little more about me. I’m not holy. I’m just a man who struggles with his humanness and sometimes wishes he didn’t have to win or quit, that’s all. Enough of that.” He put her at arms’ length and said, “This is your day. And I should be counseling you, but I don’t quite feel up to it. I’m just going to tell you to be happy, and to love a lot—love as much as you can.”

  Without warning the door swung open and their mother came in. She ignored Cyrus and glared at Celina. “I can’t believe you’d even consider going ahead with this marriage. Neither can your daddy.”

  “If you’d rather not be here, I understand,” Celina told Bitsy.

  “You do not look good in that color. It washes you out. What is it? Bisque?”

  “Mama,” Cyrus said, but Celina shook her head at him.

  She gave a disinterested downward glance at the calf-length gown Dwayne had finally chosen when she’d refused to choose anything herself. “Dwayne says it’s called candlelight. And I like it.” Tier upon tier of lace dipped to points tipped by a single pearl drop. It was a spectacular thing. She would do her best to be happy wearing it while she did what she wanted to do very much: become Jack’s wife.

  “We both know about it, Celina.” Bitsy, in beige shantung with matching hat, dabbed a handkerchief to the corner of each eye. “Did you think you could keep it a secret forever?”

  Her pregnancy. “The only thing that surprises me is that you haven’t mentioned the baby before this afternoon.”

  “Hush!” Glancing behind her, then at Cyrus, Bitsy turned very red. “How can you speak of such things aloud like that. Someone might hear.”

  “It’s about time,” Celina said, slipping on her low-heeled pumps and checking her makeup and hair.