“Okay, sweetheart,” Jacqueline said in a lackluster tone. “I’ll fix a plate for you and one for Lance.”
“Why don’t you sit and let me do that?” An’gel asked. She wanted to wrap her arms around Jacqueline and hold her close, but she feared that they would both dissolve into helpless tears.
“Thank you,” Jacqueline said. She slid into a chair and leaned back. “I’m exhausted, but there’s so much to do.” She glanced at Tippy and then back at An’gel. “I would like to talk to you in a little while about a few things.”
“Yes, of course,” An’gel replied as she prepared a plate for Tippy. Jacqueline obviously didn’t want to discuss the deaths in front of her granddaughter. An’gel took the plate with eggs, a couple of slices of bacon, and one biscuit to the table and set it in front of Tippy.
“Thank you,” Tippy said. “Wance wants his bweakfast, too.”
“Here it is, dear.” Dickce set an identical serving in front of the teddy bear.
Tippy beamed up at her. “Wance says ‘thank you.’”
“He’s welcome,” Dickce replied with a smile. She went back to the sideboard for a second helping.
In the meanwhile An’gel had poured small glasses of milk for Tippy and her bear. After depositing those on the table, she fixed a plate for Jacqueline and one for herself. Seated, she covertly watched her goddaughter across the table as Jacqueline toyed with her food, taking an occasional bite, but mostly pushing the eggs around on the plate.
An’gel, usually capable in any situation, felt uncertain at the moment. There were things she wanted to discuss with Jacqueline but she couldn’t until Tippy was out of earshot. She concentrated on her food.
Benjy entered the room moments later alone. At An’gel’s look of inquiry, he said, “I thought it would be better if they stayed upstairs while I ate. I’ll take them down to the cottage in a little while and see if the lights are back on yet.”
“Good plan,” An’gel said.
Jacqueline acknowledged Benjy’s presence with a wan smile. Tippy stared at the young man as if fascinated.
An’gel realized Benjy was a stranger to the little girl. “Tippy, dear, this is Benjy.” She paused. “Benjy, this is Tippy, Jacqueline’s granddaughter.”
Benjy approached Tippy and held out his hand. “Good morning, Tippy. How are you?”
The child smiled shyly at Benjy as she took his hand. “Wance and I are eating bweakfuss, but then we want to pway. Will you pway with us?”
Benjy looked startled but quickly smiled. “I’d love to play with you and, uh, Wance.” He reached over and patted the bear’s head.
Tippy giggled and ducked her head. Benjy smiled again as he went to the sideboard to fill a plate. That task done, he came back and sat next to the bear. Tippy watched him covertly while he ate, An’gel was amused to note. The child seemed smitten with Benjy.
That was good. She hoped Benjy wouldn’t mind looking after Tippy while she and Dickce talked with Jacqueline. He really was a good-natured and kind young man.
“Where are Horace and Trey this morning?” Dickce asked.
Jacqueline stared blankly at her, and Dickce repeated the question. Jacqueline shrugged. “Horace had business in town, and I think Trey went with him.” She lapsed into silence and stared again at her plate.
An’gel finished her breakfast, and when Dickce did also, she rose from the table. “Jacqueline, why don’t we go into the parlor?” Her goddaughter obviously wasn’t going to eat the rest of her food, and they might as well talk. “Benjy will be happy to stay with Tippy.”
Jacqueline glanced at her granddaughter and Benjy and nodded. “Okay.” She stood and followed the sisters out of the room.
In the parlor An’gel took a seat on the sofa and patted the space beside her. Jacqueline did as she was bidden, and Dickce sat on the other side of her. Jacqueline leaned back, her eyes closed, and An’gel shared a glance with her sister.
“How are you doing?” An’gel asked. She knew the query was banal under the circumstances, but she had to start somewhere.
Jacqueline shrugged. Her eyes remained shut. “Okay, I guess. Mostly numb.”
“We are here to do whatever we can,” An’gel said. “This is a terrible time for you, and if we can ease your burdens in any way, please let us.”
“We’re so sorry,” Dickce said. “I know the words are inadequate, but we love you and want to support you.”
Jacqueline’s eyes opened, and An’gel was struck by her goddaughter’s bleak expression.
“Thank you,” Jacqueline said. “I keep thinking it’s a nightmare, and I’ll wake up any minute and Sondra will still be here with me.” Tears began to stream down.
An’gel moved closer and slipped an arm around her goddaughter’s shoulder. Jacqueline laid her head against An’gel’s shoulder and wept. Dickce clasped one of Jacqueline’s hands and stroked it.
An’gel did her best to choke back her own tears. Breaking down now would be of no help to Jacqueline. She and Dickce had to remain strong and contain their own sorrow in order to support Jacqueline and Tippy. An’gel wondered if Jacqueline had tried to explain the deaths of her mother and great-grandmother to the child.
Soon Jacqueline’s tears ended, and she straightened. An’gel released her and squeezed her shoulder. Jacqueline smiled weakly and fumbled in the pocket of her slacks for a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose delicately.
“How about some hot coffee?” An’gel said. “I think we could all use a little pick-me-up right about now.”
“Yes, thank you,” Jacqueline replied. “I’ll be all right. Caffeine will help.”
An’gel rose from the couch. “I’ll see if there’s enough in the pot in the dining room. If not, I’ll go ask Estelle for a fresh one.”
Jacqueline rose as well. “I think I’ll go wash my face in the powder room. I’ll be right back.” She hurried from the room.
“The poor child.” Dickce frowned. “Sister, do you think it’s odd that she hasn’t mentioned Mireille? She said she keeps thinking she’ll wake up and Sondra will be here. But what about her mother?”
“Yes, I noticed that,” An’gel said. “I wouldn’t reflect too much on it. She’s been hit so hard by all this I doubt she realized what she said. I’ll be back soon.”
She strode from the room and crossed the hall to the dining room. Benjy and Tippy were gone, probably upstairs so that Benjy could introduce Peanut and Endora to the child. Playing with the dog and cat ought to keep Tippy occupied for a while. She checked the coffeepot, found it cold and nearly empty. Then she noticed that nothing had been cleared from the table. She left the room and walked down the hall to the kitchen.
As she neared a large marble-top table along the wall, An’gel glanced down and spotted a small piece of something white. She stooped to retrieve it. About the size of three quarters, it was a jagged-edge piece of satin. An’gel frowned. A piece of the wedding gown that Sondra had ripped apart.
She heard the door to the powder room open, and she thrust the scrap of fabric into the sleeve of her dress. She didn’t want Jacqueline to see it and be distressed at the reminder of the incident that had brought on her mother’s collapse.
“No coffee in the dining room,” An’gel said as her goddaughter approached her. “I’ll check with Estelle and be back soon.”
Jacqueline nodded and walked past her, shoulders slumped and head at a dejected angle.
An’gel trod on to the kitchen. She found it deserted, but there was a full pot of coffee in the coffeemaker. She quickly prepared a tray and filled a carafe with coffee. She carried the tray to the front parlor. As she stepped inside the room, she heard the trill of a cell phone.
Jacqueline fumbled in her slacks pocket and extracted a phone. An’gel noticed that her goddaughter’s hands trembled as she stared at the screen. After a moment of seeming indecision, Jacqueline answered the call.
An’gel set the tray on the table in front of the sofa and bega
n to pour coffee into the three mugs.
“I see. You’re absolutely sure?” Jacqueline said after a moment. “Yes, thank you. Don’t do anything until you hear from me.” She thanked the caller again and ended the conversation. Her hand trembled even more noticeably as she set her phone down on the table next to the tray.
“What’s the matter?” An’gel was alarmed by Jacqueline’s expression. Her goddaughter looked ill.
“That was the mechanic about Sondra’s car,” Jacqueline said, her voice shrill. “He says the brake line was deliberately cut.”
CHAPTER 21
An’gel added sugar and milk to one of the mugs while Dickce grasped Jacqueline’s hands and held them. An’gel resumed her seat beside Jacqueline and held the mug out. “Drink this, my dear.”
Jacqueline loosed her hands from Dickce’s and accepted the coffee. She took several sips, and An’gel was glad to see the color slowly returning to her goddaughter’s face.
“That’s better,” An’gel said. She judged by Dickce’s expression that her sister found the news about Sondra’s brakes every bit as disquieting as she did. The connection between that incident and Sondra’s death remained to be seen. An’gel, however, was more convinced than ever that Sondra’s death was no freak accident.
“The mechanic was sure that the brake line was deliberately cut?” An’gel asked, even though she had heard Jacqueline ask the same question. She had to be sure.
Jacqueline nodded, her hands clasped tightly around her mug. “I can’t believe it. Who would do such a dangerous thing?” She drank more coffee. Her next words stunned An’gel. “Maman was supposed to be in the car with her.”
Dickce gasped. “Oh my lord, that’s horrible.”
“Why wasn’t she in the car?” An’gel asked. Her stomach felt queasy. What kind of evil was at work in this house?
Jacqueline stared into her mug. “Estelle said she needed Maman for something, I can’t remember what now, and Maman told Sondra to go on without her.”
An’gel exchanged a glance with her sister. Had Mireille gone with Sondra, she would have been on the side of the car that struck the tree. Of course, whoever cut the brake lines had no way of knowing Sondra would stop the car in that manner. But it didn’t really matter. Both Sondra and Mireille could have been badly injured, or killed, in an accident.
Now they were both dead.
An’gel felt chilled to the bone. She reached for her own coffee. She needed warmth, and she watched her sister drink as well.
An’gel again thought of evil. There was something—someone—sick at work in this house, evidently intent on destroying both Mireille and Sondra. He or she had succeeded, An’gel acknowledged grimly.
The question remained: Why?
She hated to do it when her goddaughter was in such a vulnerable state, but An’gel felt impelled to question Jacqueline.
“My dear,” she said gently, “I hate to but I really must ask you something.”
Jacqueline stared at her, then nodded. “Go ahead.”
“How did Mireille leave everything?” An’gel asked.
“To me,” Jacqueline said. “There are legacies for Jackson and Estelle, of course, but the house, its contents, and the bulk of Maman’s estate all come to me.”
“What about Sondra’s estate?” Dickce asked. “Is it all controlled by the terms of Terence’s will?”
Jacqueline turned to Dickce with a frown. “Yes, Terence laid everything out. Sondra gained control of her money when she married or turned twenty-five, whichever came first.”
An’gel asked the next question as gently as she could. “And if she died before either of those events took place?”
Jacqueline shuddered. “It all comes to me.” She burst into tears and dropped the mug, now empty, into her lap. It rolled off and dropped to the floor, making a soft thud on the old carpet.
Dickce bent to retrieve the mug while An’gel attempted to calm her goddaughter.
“I’m sorry, my dear, if all this has upset you even further, but I had to ask.” An’gel looked sadly at Jacqueline.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Jacqueline said suddenly. “I wouldn’t harm either my mother or my daughter for money. You have to believe me.”
“Of course we believe you,” An’gel said, though a faint whisper of doubt assailed her. If Horace needed money really badly, would Jacqueline do something desperate to get it for him?
She tried to shake the doubt away. She had known this woman since she was a baby. Jacqueline would never kill anyone for gain.
“Somebody did attempt to harm them,” Dickce said in a calm tone. “And now they’re both gone. We have to know the truth about what happened.”
An’gel nodded. “We have to call the police and tell them about the damage to Sondra’s car. They need to know.”
“Sondra’s death wasn’t an accident.” Jacqueline looked suddenly calm and determined as she turned to An’gel. “She did like watching storms and sometimes she took foolish risks.” She smiled faintly. “But my daughter loved her clothes almost more than anything. There is no way she would walk out onto the gallery in the middle of a violent storm wearing the dress she planned to walk down the aisle in.”
“Sister and I have been thinking the so-called freak accident was nothing but a clumsy attempt to hide a murder,” Dickce said.
An’gel nodded, glad that one of them had the nerve to finally said the words aloud to Jacqueline.
“Would you make the call for me?” Jacqueline asked and picked her phone up from the table. “I’ll put in the number, but you do the talking. I think I’d throw up if I did it.” Once she punched in the number, she passed the phone to An’gel.
The conversation was brief. Officer Bugg was not at the police department, but the dispatcher assured An’gel he would get the word to call as soon as possible. An’gel gave the man her number rather than Jacqueline’s. She ended the call and replaced the phone on the table.
“He’ll call soon, I’m sure,” An’gel said after she explained that Bugg wasn’t available at the moment.
Jacqueline rubbed her bare arms with shaky hands. “I’m terrified. What if I’m next on the list?”
An’gel had been hoping that Jacqueline wouldn’t hit on this frightening possibility for a while yet. But now that she had, the situation had to be acknowledged.
“Do you have a will?” she asked.
“Yes,” her goddaughter whispered. “I had Rich Thurston draw it up a couple of years ago, when Tippy turned two.”
“What are the terms?” Dickce asked. “We hate to pry, but we need to know.”
“Terence left me a lot of money,” Jacqueline said, apparently ignoring Dickce’s question. “He didn’t expect to die so young, and part of me never got over his death.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t realize how wealthy he was until he died. He left most of it to Sondra, of course, but he made sure I was well provided for.”
An’gel wanted to ask how much Terence had left her. She had never heard an amount mentioned in connection with Jacqueline’s portion, but it had no doubt been substantial. With Sondra’s share now hers, Jacqueline was a wealthy woman indeed.
“Your will?” Dickce prompted Jacqueline again.
This time she answered. “It’s split into thirds. One third to Horace, another to Sondra, and the last one to Tippy.” She shuddered. “Tippy would get Sondra’s third if she died before Tippy and me. Horace’s third is his to dispose of however he wants.”
An’gel felt the cold creep over her skin. She stared over Jacqueline’s bowed head at Dickce. She knew they shared the same thought.
Was Tippy now in danger from the killer?
Upstairs, Benjy shifted from his cramped position on the floor of Tippy’s bedroom and tried to ease the strain in his back. He couldn’t remember ever having a make-believe tea party with a little girl, but Tippy was enjoying it so much he couldn’t begrudge her.
He marveled at how patient both
Peanut and Endora were being with the little girl. Peanut looked funny with the bows on his ears, and Endora kept losing her hat, but they didn’t shy away from the small hands that wanted to dress them. He was sure they sensed the child meant them no harm and went along with the play. The teddy bear, whose name Benjy finally realized was Lance, rather than Wance, watched over all the activities with a benignly vacant gaze and bedraggled smile.
Tippy chattered to the animals and occasionally to Benjy, and Benjy, realizing that she didn’t require a response, let his mind drift. He felt sorry for the kid. He knew what it was like to lose a mother, and he had to make an effort not to let grief overwhelm him. He didn’t want to have to explain to Tippy why he was so sad.
Then Benjy wondered whether anyone had told her about the deaths of her mother and great-grandmother. He wished he’d thought to ask before he started babysitting. The last thing he wanted to do was upset the kid by saying something out of turn.
Tippy chattered on, telling Peanut how much he would like the cake she had made and then insisting to Endora that she have another sip of tea. He smiled, and Tippy glanced at him and giggled.
“Peanut and Endora sure are enjoying their tea party,” Benjy said. “Thank you again for inviting us.”
“I wuv tea pawties,” Tippy said. She ducked her head and began cutting invisible slices of cake to dole out to the animals for a third or fourth helping.
Benjy thought the lisp was pretty cute, though it brought back uncomfortable memories. He’d had one when he was her age and hoped she would grow out of it sooner than he had. He remembered the teasing in kindergarten and first grade because he had trouble with l and r sounds.
He heard the word mommy suddenly and focused on what Tippy was saying.
“Mommy doesn’t wike the bad man,” she told Peanut solemnly. “He doesn’t wike her either and yewws at her.”
“When did you hear the bad man yelling at your mommy, Tippy?” Benjy knew he had to tread carefully. He thought this could be important, but he didn’t want to upset Tippy.
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