by Herren, Greg
She smiled bitterly. “Undoubtedly you’ve discovered that my alibi was worthless? That was Cordelia’s idea. I was supposed to be at that fundraiser. But that was the day I found out I was pregnant. I thought Roger would be happy. He came into my room to see what I was wearing. Roger always helped me dress—I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I told him my news. He just stared at me. I remember thinking he wasn’t taking it as I’d thought he would. And then he said, You can take the girl out of the West Bank, but apparently you can’t take the West Bank out of the girl.
“I asked him what he was talking about, and he started screaming at me, demanding to know who the father was. I was shocked. I had no idea what he meant. Apparently he’d had the mumps in his early twenties. I can see by your face you don’t know what that means. The mumps are a perfectly safe illness for a child—no lasting effects. But they can leave an adult male sterile.”
“It was Wendell’s child.”
She nodded.
What a nightmare that must have been.
“I’d never seen Roger so angry. He stormed out of my room. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know he had a temper he could lose. I could hear him screaming and breaking things. And then I did a really stupid thing. I called Wendell. He rushed to my rescue like some kind of chevalier. If only I’d known. I should have packed my things and left, let Roger divorce me. But I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Wendell killed Roger,” I said.
“He told me to lock myself in my room until he arrived. He said he’d talk to Roger, clear things up. I heard them yelling at each other—and fighting. Then Roger screamed. There was a crash, and silence. I came out of my room. Wendell was standing at the top of the stairs. Roger was at the bottom, dead.
“I panicked. Wendell was like in a trance, shock I guess. But when I went to call the police, he stopped me. He told me it had been an accident, but if we called the police, everything would come out—the affair, the baby. So he called Cordelia, and she told us what to do.
“We left the house, left Roger lying there. I went to the fundraiser, but I was so upset, I couldn’t go inside. I couldn’t let anyone see me. I thought people would look at me and know what had happened. Cordelia was furious with me later. You were supposed to be seen, you little fool. After all the trouble I’ve gone to in order to save your worthless West Bank hide, you couldn’t follow instructions? I should just let you go to jail, you stupid girl.”
Her mimicry of Cordelia was ruthless. Tears were running down her face, but she went on without a sob or a break.
“Archie Larousse was on the Sheehan payroll. He was crooked, but I never knew the extent of it. I know he doctored the evidence, and Cordelia pulled strings from the governor’s mansion to get the whole thing hushed up.”
“But if Wendell killed Roger, what hold did Cordelia have on you?”
“My daughter,” she whispered. “Cordelia threatened that if I ever told anyone the truth about that night, she’d take my daughter away. Larousse doctored the evidence, all right. Cordelia once showed me the file. His report made it look as though I had killed Roger. The payments she made to him? Somehow they finagled it so it appeared like I had paid him. And of course, Wendell’s alibi was perfect. She alibied him. Who would doubt the First Lady of Louisiana? She told me if I ever talked, Larousse would leave the country and she’d see to it that I spent the rest of my life behind bars.”
She wiped her cheeks, her hands still shaking.
“Of course, as Brenda got older, I never told her who her real father was. How could I? Cordelia used that against me, too.” Her voice hardened. “How would Brenda like it if she found out her mother was a whore and a murderess? It’s not too late to prove her true paternity. Do you want to do that to your daughter?”
My head was spinning. “My God,” was all I could say.
“How do you think I found out about Abby talking to Larousse, Chanse? He called Cordelia for instructions after Abby contacted him. Cordelia told him what to do, what to say. And then she called me, to twist the knife and renew her threats. She’ll stoop to anything, Chanse, to protect her family. Trust me, if I was going to kill a Sheehan, it wouldn’t have been Wendell. I would have killed that horrible old witch. I’ve been tempted to so many times. But what good would that have done anyone?”
“And all this time, you and Wendell…?”
“We never saw each other again, if I could help it. He stayed away from me, and stayed away from Brenda. I couldn’t be involved with him after that. I’ve spent the rest of my life terrified. Terrified that Brenda might find out, terrified that anyone would find out. When Charles was alive, she used it to get me to donate to her stupid foundation. I’d hate for that handsome young husband of yours to find out what you’re really like, Barbara. That would be a real tragedy, wouldn’t it?” She buried her face in her hands.
“Now that you know the truth, do you think I’m horrible, Chanse?” she asked in a small, sad voice.
“No, Barbara, I don’t. I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I never would have allowed Abby to—”
The Sheehans had done an excellent job of painting her into a corner—and then held it over her head for thirty years.
“How could you have known, dear? You were trying to help me. You have no idea how much I appreciate that. What are you going to do, now that you know?”
“What can I do? I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“I’ll deny it all if you repeat it. The irony is that Cordelia told me if I helped her this one last time, if I got you to take the case, she’d destroy the doctored evidence. I’d finally be free of her.”
“I’m not going to let Cordelia railroad you, Barbara.”
I knelt beside her. She took my hand and gave it a pat.
“Thank you for believing me, dear. You’ve always been good to me.”
My cell phone rang. I ignored it. I felt I should say something to Barbara, but I couldn’t think what.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” she asked. “Go ahead, we’re done here.”
She got up to leave the room. When she reached the door, she turned and gave me a shaky smile. “Thank you again, dear.”
I stared after her as I opened my phone.
“MacLeod.”
“This is Janna Sheehan. I need you to come to the house as soon as you can.” Her voice was trembling.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s my daughter, Alais. She’s not in her room or anywhere on the grounds. I think she may have run away.”
“I’m on my way.”
I felt incredibly tired, probably the aftereffects of this morning’s events. As I walked out the front gates of the Palmer House, I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked up and down the street. There was no one in sight. I looked at the house.
Barbara was at one of the upper windows, watching me. She was crying. I raised my hand and waved.
She put her hand against the glass for a moment, then retreated into the shadows. All I could see was the curtains moving as they settled back into place.
Chapter Seven
Janna Sheehan herself greeted me and led me to the library, a big room painted dark coral with white trim, across the hall from the drawing room, whose door was shut. The library walls were covered with built-in shelves packed with books. Janna looked like she’d been crying, and hadn’t slept. Her eyes were shot through with red. Her hair was slightly disheveled, and her face without makeup. She wore jeans and a shapeless blouse. Her feet were bare, and her fingernails looked chewed. A vein pulsed in her throat; her hands clenched and unclenched spasmodically. The slightly sad but together woman I’d met a few days earlier was gone—or at least, the iron control she’d exercised over herself had unraveled.
“You’ve got to find her,” she said, her lips a taut line in her face. Her voice had a note of rising hysteria.
“We’ll find her,” I said in my calmest voice, pulling my pad from my shoulder bag. “Start
at the beginning. When did you last see Alais?”
She swallowed, closed her eyes, and thought for a moment.
“Before I went to bed I checked in on her. She seemed fine. Well, no. She hasn’t been fine since she came home from school. But she didn’t seem any different last night, at least nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that I noticed. Maybe I should have paid closer attention. But all she does is stay in her room, on that damned computer. Sometimes she comes down for lunch or dinner, but she never goes outside. She used to love the pool. Last summer I couldn’t keep her inside.”
She ran her fingers through her hair.
“And this morning?” I said.
“She doesn’t come down for breakfast anymore. We used to have breakfast together all the time—Carey, Alais and myself. Wendell always left the house early. But since she came home in June, Alais never wanted to eat breakfast, so I got out of the habit of waking her up in the morning. I let her sleep in. It drove Wendell crazy. He thought I was coddling her. But she was so depressed.”
She cleared her throat.
“I came down to breakfast with Carey. I was going to look in on Alais afterward, but I didn’t. I had to run out to an appointment with my doctor. When I got back, Cordelia was calling, and I had to take her damned call before I could to check on Alais.”
“Cordelia isn’t here?”
I’d have thought the cops would have told her not to leave town, but then again, the rules didn’t seem to apply to the Sheehans.
“She had one of her fundraisers in Baton Rouge last night. We have a house up there. Cordelia called me about the storm. She’d been talking to some of her friends, and thought it might be a good idea for us to go there, if need be. She wasn’t sure if she should come back to New Orleans.”
“Ginevra? It’s coming here?”
Janna stared at me as though I were insane.
“Have you not been following it? We’re almost directly in the center of the projected path. The governor declared a state of emergency on Wednesday. They’re going to call for mandatory evacuation as early as Saturday.”
Just as Paige had predicted. I hadn’t wanted to think about it. It was too soon. I pushed down the rising panic. We had to find Alais, and fast.
“So, please continue,” I said.
“After I spoke to Cordelia I went upstairs to tell the kids about it. Alais wasn’t in her room. Her bed hadn’t been slept in. There was no note, nothing. I called Cordelia back. She told me to call you.”
Interesting that she didn’t tell you to call the police and report Alais missing.
“Is anything missing from her room? Clothes, toothbrush, the kind of things she’d take with her?”
“Her toothbrush is gone. So are her laptop and cell phone. She has a lot of clothes. I can’t tell if any of it is missing.”
“Did she take a suitcase?”
“I didn’t think to check.”
I wrote that off to natural panic. “You’ve tried her cell?”
“She isn’t answering it. Or she just isn’t taking my calls.”
“Does she have a car?”
“She didn’t take it. It’s still here.”
Either someone picked her up or she’d called a cab.
“Then most likely she’s in the city. Credit cards?”
She looked at me like I was crazy.
“She has a wallet full of them. American Express, department stores, Visa, several MasterCards. Wendell and Cordelia got them for her. I didn’t think she needed more than one. Not that anyone cared for my opinion.”
“Do you have a list of them?”
Credit card companies wouldn’t give the information to me, but Jephtha might be able to get it online.
“Wendell had a list of all our cards in his computer. I’ll print it out for you.”
“You need to call the police.”
“I can’t do that.” She looked away. “Cordelia said not to.”
I knew it was pointless, but I had to at least try to talk her into it.
“The police have resources I don’t have. They can get her cell phone service to pinpoint her location, pull her credit card records and track her down in a matter of hours.”
“Cordelia made it clear that the police are not to be contacted.”
“Why is that? If finding Alais is the most important thing—”
She met my gaze, lifting her chin defiantly.
“Cordelia doesn’t want them involved. That’s all you need to know.”
Just as I suspected—you’ll work with Cordelia when you need to.
“All right,” I said. “Tell me, what exactly was going on with Alais? You said she was depressed. Why?”
“Her boyfriend was murdered. Before she went away to school, we were close. I was more like an older sister than a stepmother. After the murder she changed.”
“It’s no wonder she was depressed.”
“The police said it was a robbery gone wrong, but it was a hate crime. What else can you expect from Mississippi cops?”
“Are you saying her boyfriend was black?” I kept my voice neutral, feigning ignorance.
She bristled. “Do you have a problem with that? I don’t tol’rate racism, Mr. MacLeod.”
“It just surprised me.” I gave her a reassuring smile. “Wendell and Cordelia didn’t have a problem with it?”
“Don’t be absurd. Wendell’s father fought for civil rights in this state, and Cordelia was right there by his side. That’s public record.”
I decided not to point out how frequently public positions contradicted private beliefs when it came to race, especially in the South.
“I tried to get Alais to talk to me, but she wouldn’t. We hired a therapist to treat her. He came here three times a week. And of course, he wouldn’t tell us a goddamn thing. His answer for everything was writing prescriptions. I don’t think it’s good for a girl her age to be taking so many pills. But no one listened to me.”
Once again, she was playing the Sheehan martyr. She was good at it, but it wasn’t going to help me find Alais.
“Did she take her prescriptions with her?”
“I didn’t think to check her medicine cabinet.”
I was tired of games. It was time to play hardball.
“She’s been depressed all summer, she had a lot of medication handy, she turns up missing and it didn’t occur to you she might try to kill herself?”
Her face drained of color. “Oh, God, no. I don’t believe that. Alais would never…no.”
“You searched the house and the grounds, right?”
“Of course we searched!” she snapped, her eyes flashing. “Carey and Vernita helped.”
“Vernita?”
“The housekeeper.”
“I’ll need to speak to her. Where is she, by the way?”
“I sent her home. It wouldn’t have been right to make her stay here. The hurricane? She has her own family, and she needed to get her house ready.”
That was why Janna had answered the door herself.
“I’ll need her address.”
Janna nodded.
“You searched the grounds thoroughly? The pool house? The carriage house?”
“There was no sign of her anywhere. I wouldn’t have called you if we’d found her.”
“You said she isn’t answering her cell phone?”
“I’ve called it every half hour. It goes straight to voice mail. I leave messages.”
“But she took it with her?”
“I didn’t see it in her room.”
“I’ll need to search it.”
“Follow me.”
Janna swept out of the library. At the bottom of the hanging staircase, she glanced at the closed door to the drawing room and turned to me as if to say something, then started up the stairs, holding on to the railing.
“Is this the staircase where Grace fell?” I asked.
“Yes it is,” she said tonelessly, not breaking stride. “She tripped.”<
br />
Just like Roger Palmer.
We reached the top.
“And that’s your room, right?” I indicated a closed door to the immediate right.
“Yes.”
“How did Cordelia manage to get downstairs before you did the night your husband died?”
She stopped and looked at me, obviously confused.
“I have no idea. I never thought about it. All I know is she was in the drawing room when I got there.” She looked at her door, then at the hallway. If this was an act, she was good. “But that doesn’t make sense.”
She proceeded along the hallway.
“The police never brought that up? Or Loren McKeithen?”
“Not to me.”
I followed her past several closed doors to an open one.
“This is Alais’s room. I’ll be down in the library if you need anything more.”
“About the night your husband was killed—”
She took another few steps before looking back at me, her face expressionless.
“I have nothing else to say to you about that night, Mr. MacLeod. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about Alais, but as far as that night is concerned, I’ve already told you everything.”
Does anyone in the house ever tell the truth? I wondered as I watched her walk away.
I don’t have a lot of experience with teenagers, so I couldn’t say whether Alais’s room was typical. It was painted pale blue, and everything in the room matched—the pillows, the comforter on the sleigh bed, the rugs. The big wrought iron bed was centered against the wall to my right, with a nightstand on either side. The table to the left had an iPod docking station on it, but the iPod itself was gone. The table to the right had a phone and a couple of romance novels with covers of bare-chested men clutching large-breasted women with long flowing hair and peasant blouses exposing their shoulders. The spines of both books were intact. I flipped through the pages. Nothing. I put them down. An open door led to a walk-in closet. I poked my head inside. Janna was right—there was no way to tell what Alais might have taken. The clothes were crammed together on three rods running parallel to each wall, and there wasn’t room for another hanger anywhere. Each rod had a shelf above it, running the full length of the wall. Boxes of shoes were neatly stacked along the right-hand shelf, with a description of each box’s contents neatly lettered in black on the front: red open-toe pumps, black stiletto closed-toe, etc. The shelf on the left held a complete set of Nancy Drew hardcovers, their shiny yellow spines facing out. They, too, looked like they’d never been read. Alongside the Nancy Drews were enough exercise shoes to stock a Foot Locker display. None of them looked worn. Some of them weren’t completely laced up.