Charlotte shook her head, no. Vivian didn’t press her, she didn’t say anything. Instead she sat quietly in the other chaise.
I knew I probably didn’t have a chance with you, but I thought if David looked bad enough for you to want comfort, I could be that comfort.
Charlotte grasped at the neck of her dress as if she’d breathe more easily somehow. Why hadn’t David come to her and explained? They’d always shared everything.
I thought when David told you what he’d done, you’d leave him. What I couldn’t stand was to think of him with you, and deceiving you when you should have had everything.
David came to me and I dealt with his debts. He had to be real careful but he started inching back very slowly.
That’s when I called in the loan. I went to Chez Charlotte on that night he died. It was after everything had closed. He invited me over himself. Said he’d made you go home to get some sleep but he was staying to get a jump on a catering job for the following day. He wanted to thank me for all I’d done for him. So I said I thought I’d stop by and have a drink with him.
He was the one who did the drinking. I talked and apologized and said how I had to have the money back. David just drank and said he understood.
When I left he was still drinking and I’d told him he should come clean to you. He said he would. Even when I was walking away I hated what I’d done and knew I’d most likely never have a chance with you. I could have helped him without any strings. He’d have paid me back in the end and I didn’t need the money.
David was distraught, confused, and he was drunk. They said the fire was an accident and probably happened because David was drinking and passed out. But you know that.
I fell in love with you the day you first walked into my office. You never gave me any reason to hope and I never gave you a hint of what I felt. You don’t deserve what I’ve done to you.
You and Vivian can’t put what I’ve left you back into the corporation, I’ve made sure of that. So please admit that I owe you both more than money can pay for and do what would make David happy, make a new life.
With respect and love, neither of which you want from me,
Louis Martin
Charlotte cried and found she didn’t want to stop. She sobbed. Poor, dear, foolish David.
“Mama, don’t,” Vivian said. “Whatever it says there, it’s all in the past because the man’s dead. If he was carrying rying some sort of torch for you then got murdered, it’s so sad, but you mustn’t think you’re responsible for not being able to make him happier when he was alive.”
Vivian, the logical one, only this time she had no idea what she was talking about. “I don’t care anything for Louis Martin and I’m glad he’s dead.” She looked at Vivian and regretted shocking her. “I’ve got to think about it, but I think I should probably let you read this.”
“Whatever you want,” Vivian said while the sound of heavy feet got their attention.
Errol Bonine and Frank Wiley walked along the terrace toward them.
“I can’t talk to them now,” Charlotte said, desperate to get away.
“Good afternoon,” Bonine said, and actually smiled. “We won’t keep you long but there are one or two questions we’d like to ask.”
Frank Wiley just smiled and said nothing. Despite the smile, Charlotte didn’t think he was a happy man.
“This isn’t a good time,” Vivian said.
“You know what’s going on around here as well as I do,” Bonine said. “We can do this nicely, or we’ll do it any way that gets the job done.”
“How dare you,” Vivian said with feeling.
“Hush,” Charlotte told Vivian gently. “I’m fine. I’m feelin’ better already.” She wondered if she’d ever feel better.
“What made you feel bad, Miz Patin?” Bonine asked.
“Nothing,” she said and knew the answer was lame.
“We could come back, Errol,” Frank Wiley said. “There’s no—”
“I make those decisions. We got an anonymous tip today, about a woman called Ellie Byron. You know her?”
Vivian said “Yes” before Charlotte even remembered where she’d seen Ellie Byron.
“Right answer,” Bonine said. “We don’t have a lot to say about her, in fact we don’t have anything. Just wanted you to know we got the tip. You might want to stay away from that one because it sounds like she’s sayin’ things that don’t make for no friend of yours.”
Charlotte looked at Vivian who showed no more understanding of Bonine’s comments than Charlotte had.
“Um, you don’t need to worry your heads about that though,” Wiley said, ignoring the fury in his partner’s eyes. “Just something we’re following up. These tips are a dime a dozen and the caller is probably someone with a grudge against Miz Patin.”
“You heard what I told you,” Bonine said directly to Charlotte and Vivian. “Now, when did Louis Martin tell you what he intended to do in his will?”
“He didn’t.” Charlotte sat up and put her feet on the ground. “What do you mean?”
Bonine held up both palms as if he was trying to calm her down. “Now, now, no need to overreact. We just wondered when you first found out that you were a major beneficiary of Mr. Martin’s will. Must have been a great comfort to you, what with all your money troubles.”
Vivian was on her feet. “I suppose if we were that kind of opportunistic people, and we’d known Louis was going to die, we might have been comforted. We aren’t that kind of people and we had no way of knowing Louis would be murdered.”
“You knew he was coming here that day.” Bonine looked suddenly startled. “Frank, what are you thinking of? Take Miz Vivian away, please. I want to talk to her mother alone.”
The sound of Vivian’s cold laughter hurt Charlotte. “Why?” Vivian said. “Because you’re hopin’ we’ll tell different stories if you separate us? Do you think there’s anybody who doesn’t know that’s routine procedure? Except you, evidently.”
Bonine’s face turned its angry red.
“Seems like you have all kinds of mythical sources,” Vivian continued. “And so-called tips that make no sense. And how do you know about Louis’s will? Tell me that. You weren’t there when it was read.”
“We weren’t, but others were,” Bonine said with a sneer. “And you’d better hope we don’t find out you did know about the provisions before the murder. Gary Legrain may have big problems, too.”
My blackmailer is a moron. Yet again he is on the phone, ordering me about.
“Something has changed everything,” he says.
I have no patience left. I shall tell him the complete truth. “Perhaps the picture has changed for you. For me it is the same. How do you stop a freight train with no brakes on a steep slope? If it’s going downhill, with difficulty, friend. If it’s already at the bottom, forget it.”
He is crying in my ear, this man who ordered death to suit his plans. Crying because “something has changed everything.”
“What changes,” I say to him, “is that I can’t take the time I prefer to take. Playing, planning the end, these are my pleasures, but you’ve taken them away from me. Not your fault, you say? It was your fault from the first words you spoke to me. Kill, you said, or else. So I killed and must kill again.”
He still hopes to change my mind.
“Stop arguing, friend. Suffering takes all of your energy and you are going to suffer. You will pay for what I’ve done.”
Chapter 34
Homer, Wendy and Vivian, clustered on the old dock looking down, Spike assumed, at his boat. The boat he’d had four years and barely got to use himself. Homer took it around to make bayou deliveries.
He guessed this was just about the least likely scene he’d expected to walk in on today. Although, given that everything else that had come his way lately had knocked him off his horse, why should he be surprised at anything?
Wendy held Vivian’s hand and bounced from foot to foot like she did
when she was happy, and she looked up into Vivian’s face as if she’d seen the sun.
Huh, well, he could relate to that feeling, but he’d be lying to himself if he pretended it didn’t scare him to death to think of his little girl getting her heart all wrapped around a new mother figure, only to have it cut away if things didn’t work out.
Homer separated himself from the woman and the little girl, touching the brim of his hat with that old-world courtliness of his, before turning to head for the house.
Spike stepped back from the kitchen window. He’d expected to walk in and find Homer and Wendy having an early dinner like they usually did when he wasn’t going to be home. He’d even looked forward to having some of whatever they were eating. There were no signs that food had been cooked or eaten recently.
By the time Homer opened the screen door and walked in, Spike nestled a cold beer in his hand on top of the table, while he pored over the town’s only newspaper.
“Hey, there, boy,” Homer said, but as cheerful as it sounded on the surface, Spike sensed a touch of caution in his father’s voice. “Thought you was on duty all evenin’. Oh, good, you got the books. We can finish Claude’s order. I’m thinkin’ of takin’ a box of these along when I do the deliveries. See if I can work up a few impulse buys.” He looked pleased with the idea.
“Sounds good.” Spike rustled today’s copy of the single section Toussaint Trumpet. “Things are quiet at the station. I decided to come home and look in on the two of you. Damn paper. Last week’s news. Who gives a rat’s ass if Ozaire Dupre catered the barbecue at the VFW.”
“You do,” Homer said. “Not that you’ve got time to be messin’ with that stuff now. But you’re right. That’s old news. And you’d think that thing would be full of speculation about the murders.”
“In the Toussaint Trumpet? Homer, you are losin’ it. News, pure and simple, is what they advertise and the pure means purely Toussaint.”
Homer shrugged. “Maybe that’s as it should be.”
“Yeah.” Spike’s mouth might be at work inside the house but three-quarters of his mind hovered around Vivian and Wendy. “I see we’ve got company.”
Homer’s head was in the refrigerator and he took his time pulling out eggs, sausage and a bunch of greens. “You talkin’ about Miz Vivian?”
“Don’t try the vague number on me, Homer. When did Vivian get here?”
“Hour or so ago.”
“An hour or so? She must have come lookin’ for me. Why didn’t you get in touch?”
“We were talkin’. I was about to make contact when I walked in and found you here—pretendin’ you was readin’ the paper and drinkin’ a beer, and not givin’ a damn, when you’re so doggone muddled up and mad you don’t know which end is up.”
Spike scooted his chair back and propped his feet on the table. His father gave them a meaningful stare, which Spike ignored. “Ever think you’re gettin’ too smart for your own good?” he said. “For your information I was reading the paper and drinkin’ a beer, and I don’t give a damn about anything.”
“If you was a boy, I’d take the soap to your mouth.” Homer snapped the words out. “You know I hate lyin’, ’specially when there ain’t no reason for it. You’re in love with that girl out there and scared sick about it. What I don’t understand is why. Sure, I’ve had my doubts, but only because I thought people might say you were a gold digger, but since the lady don’t have no gold, just the prospects, I’m over it. You’d better get over it before you do something real dumb and lose her.”
Spike let his head hang back and closed his eyes. “You’ve said more in a few minutes than I’ve heard you say in a decade. I thought you weren’t keen on the idea of me havin’ Vivian in my life. Now it’s all the other way, but I guess women shouldn’t be the only ones who can change their minds.”
What would Homer have to say if he found out about the will reading that morning? Spike figured the answer could go either way because the old man had fallen under Vivian’s spell. He liked her and it was written all over him. Too bad it couldn’t be as simple as liking someone. They’d have to see.
“You do love her, don’t you?” Homer said, breaking eggs in a bowl and taking up a wire whisk.
“That’s personal.”
“So you don’t. Just as well. She’s too much of a lady for you. Pity though when our little Wendy’s taken a shine to her and they’re getting along so well.” He inclined his head to the windows. “They all right out there.”
Spike welcomed the excuse to look and jumped when he did. Instead of being on the dock, Vivian and Wendy had walked most of the way back to the house and sat on a picnic table with their feet on a bench. They faced the bayou.
“Well?” Homer said.
“They look just fine to me.” His belly contracted, and so did muscles in his throat. Close, side-by-side, Vivian and Wendy chattered; he could hear the faint murmur of it through the windows. And he hadn’t seen Wendy alone and at ease with a woman since…it hadn’t happened with her mother, who left when Wendy was a baby, so he guessed he’d never really seen it. She leaned against Vivian and he saw the child’s back move when she giggled. Vivian reached across to anchor the rubber band more securely around one of Wendy’s braids.
“You don’t look fine,” Homer said.
Spike turned to him. “You’re readin’ too much into every word I say.”
“You’re probably right. And I’m probably readin’ too much into all the words you’re not sayin’, too. Boy, I’ve spent some time around Vivian and Miz Charlotte and they don’t come any better than those two women.”
Rather than agree, which was all he could do with any honesty, Spike let his eyes wander past his father and bought time.
“What d’you think?” Homer said. “Should I make enough of this for four?”
“Hold dinner up for a bit,” Spike told him and managed a smile. “Until I find out if Vivian wants to stay.”
Homer cracked a rare grin.
Opening and closing the screen quietly, Spike stepped out onto the gallery. He regretted the idea of interrupting the intimacy between Vivian and Wendy, but his own selfish need to be with Vivian would win out and he knew it. Slowly, still stepping quietly, he walked toward the picnic table.
“Maybe she needs a baby brother,” he heard Vivian say, and couldn’t make himself keep on walking. “Children get lonely on their own sometimes.”
“I know,” Wendy said.
He couldn’t believe Vivian would say something like that to Wendy.
“Well, I’ll just have to talk to the right people about it and see what we can do.”
Spike ran a hand under the back of his collar and his fingers came away damp. He wasn’t hot, or he hadn’t been. She meant she’d talk to him about having children? He didn’t just smile, he grinned so wide his eyes began to close. He guessed he had nothing to worry about after all. Coming into all that money wasn’t going to change her. In fact, it might be making her more sure of what she really wanted and if that was him, he might be able to stop being scared he’d lose her.
He went closer and said, “Hi, ladies. Nice afternoon.”
Wendy swung around to look at him, and so did Vivian.
And his blood stopped moving through his veins, or so it felt. They were both so startlingly lovely with the sun at their backs and shining on their hair and lightly tanned skin.
Vivian said, “Hi,” and smiled softly.
“Hi, Daddy,” Wendy said, grinning and squirming around until her legs were all the way on the top of the table. “Look what Vivian brought for me.”
He took a closer look. Wendy held the kind of doll he’d looked at in some New Orleans stores but never felt right about spending the money to buy. Golden curls, a sweet, pouty face, perfect hands and feet and covered up in frills and soft blankets. Now that he was near the table, he could see a wicker doll buggy, also decked out with ribbons and bows, standing on the other side.
“Isn’
t she a sweetie?” Wendy said, rocking the doll. “Vivian said it’s a good thing I have trucks and trains and a two-wheeler bike, and that I play soccer and softball, but she says it’s okay if I have general—gener—”
“Gender,” Vivian said with a laugh.
“Yes.” Wendy nodded seriously. “Gender toys.”
“Gender-specific toys,” Vivian suggested.
“Yep, those. It’s all right if I have those, too, because boys and girls play with all kinds of toys now. I’m calling her Rosebud. Will you come see what Boa did while we weren’t lookin’?”
God help him, he was freezing up again and there was no reason. It was stupid to resent someone doing a nice thing for your kid. He followed Wendy’s instructions and the direction in which she pointed until he could look down on Boa who had curled herself at the bottom of the buggy and appeared fast asleep.
“Look,” Wendy said, leaping down and sliding her Rosebud under the covers in the buggy. “Boa likes this.” She pushed the buggy over the grass, looking back every few seconds to make sure he was watching.
“You’re furious,” Vivian muttered. “It’s written all over you. Oh, Spike, please don’t spoil this for her. She’s so happy and it made me happy to do it.”
“I would never do anything to hurt her,” he said and heard how stiff he sounded. “When she smiles like that I almost want to cry. It’s a blessing and a curse to love so deeply.” Let her wonder if he was only referring to his feelings for the child. A glance into her face let him know that’s exactly what she was wondering about.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Vivian said. “Mama and I have had some strange dealings since we left you in Toussaint. I need to talk to you about them but only when we can be alone. But when I had Mama settled in bed and resting, I wanted to see you more than anything else in the world so I set off. Then I thought about Wendy and I felt like I got bigger inside, like I wanted to show her I care about her and to make her happy.”
Kiss Them Goodbye Page 30