Darby sucked in her breath and squirmed in her seat. “Really, Ben?”
Ben grinned. “Yeah, really.”
“The aunts will be so happy.”
“What about you, Darby? Will you be happy if I stay?”
He sounded like he cared about her opinion, and she knew this was no time to be coy. “Yes, Ben, I’d be happy if you stay on. We all need you.”
Ben squeezed her shoulder. It felt so right. Or was it just wishful thinking on her part?
The slices of sun disappeared leaving them in eerie semidarkness as the paddle boat churned forward. “There’s old Sebastian. They say that old gator is over fifty years old,” Jethro said, pointing to a monster alligator that slid into the water.
Ben started to laugh. “Ducky used to threaten us when we were bad. She’d say she was going to bring us down here so Sebastian could get a look at us. Just a look. It scared the hell out of me and Russ. I can’t believe that old gator is still in these waters.”
The boat suddenly swung around and headed back to the shoreline. Ten minutes later they stood watching Jethro tether his paddle boat. Ben paid for the ride and off they went.
“Now what?” Darby asked.
Ben craned his neck to see if Bella was still sitting with the garden ladies. She was nowhere to be seen. “We can go see my father now if you like. Just don’t get your hopes up that he can help us.”
“We won’t know if we don’t try, but since Bella seems to have left, maybe we should wait until tomorrow morning. We certainly don’t want to run into her. Dodo said she goes to the Foundation offices every morning around eleven or so and doesn’t go back to the house till around two-thirty. We could show up right after she leaves. Morning might be better for your father, too. Sick people always seem more alert in the early-morning hours. What do you think, Ben?”
“I think you’re right. Let’s go back to the shoe and talk. We have a lot of catching up to do. You want to tell the aunts about the Preservation seat, don’t you?”
“I sure do. I don’t know, though, Ben. I think Bella might have beat us to the punch. She was at both booths. That has to mean something. An inside track, so to speak. Right now that awful woman is a celebrity. All because of Russ. Somehow or other, she’s managed to bamboozle all those ladies and Simon. Well, not Simon but the rest of them.”
“Think positive. The aunts might have some ideas.”
“Let’s hope so. I don’t feel good about this, Ben.”
“Only positive thoughts, Darby.”
6
A mile away from the shoe, as the crow flies, a building sat among a stand of scraggly trees. It was a house more than just a building, really, a house that defied architectural description. Most inhabitants of Baton Rouge simply called it “the monstrosity.” To tourists who asked about what sites they should visit, they were always told, “the Horseshoe and the monstrosity.” When the tourists arrived at the house on Gunn Court, they stood back, craning their necks, as they tried to figure out if the house was a Tudor, a Georgian, antebellum, or modern McMansion. They usually walked away shaking their heads in disbelief, asking one another if the housereally was crooked. Most took pictures knowing they could never describe the house with any accuracy to their friends back home. Nor could they believe the marble plaque stuck in the ground by the ornate iron gates that opened to a code and password. The plaque was simple really, with just a few words:DESIGNED BY BELLA GUNN . The tourists always took a picture of the plaque, too, wondering who in the name of God Bella Gunn was.
The Gunn house, as it was known, was all peaks, sharp angles, sprawling add-ons, gingerbread and curlicues for trim. The windows were tall and angled, coming to a sharp point at their tops like those in a Colorado ski chalet. Skylights could be seen on every section of the roofline. A bright yellow double door completed the Gunn house. It was ugliness personified. And it really was crooked.
The ugliness didn’t stop with the exterior but carried inside with a checkerboard floor in the foyer that was bigger than most people’s living rooms. Dark burgundy settees, artificial trees, and bamboo tables greeted any guests who cared enough to visit. The rest of the house was a mishmash of odd pieces of furniture, from Western to Chippendale. All reproductions, of course. As were the pictures in ornate gold frames, most gotten from discount stores.
The Gunn house wasnot on the Christmas Candlelight Tour, nor was it on the Spring Tour, an acknowledgment Bella Gunn hungered and coveted. It was said that Bella would gladly give up her oversize porcelain veneers for just one shot at either tour.
“Not in this lifetime,” Diddy Lane said.
“Over my dead body,” Ducky Lane said.
“I’ll kill her first,” Dodo Lane said.
Sentiments echoed by mostRougies. Most, because there were some who simply didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered even to discuss such silly things.
Bella Gunn checked her appearance in the long pier glass standing in the corner of her bedroom suite. A suite she shared with no one. She considered it lavish as well as elegant, certainly worthy of a spread inSouthern Living.
Satisfied with her appearance, Bella minced her way across the thick carpeting to the dresser, where she picked up the jewelry she was going to wear. Two diamond rings, three carats each. Earrings, three carats each; diamond bracelet, twenty-seven carats; Rolex watch studded with diamonds on the bezel. Diamond choker whose carat weight was thirty. A woman could never have enough diamonds. Never, ever.
She was dressed today in a yellow Chanel suit. Yellow was her favorite color because it made her think of warm, golden sunshine. Yellow linen shoes graced her big feet, size twelve. She hated her feet, but it was the only thing she hated about herself.
In the beginning, right after she’d married Marcus Gunn, and the town chose up sides, she’d read an article in theBaton Rouge Advocate about herself. The article said she haddyed, big hair, the kind you could see through. They’d described her smile as tight, then went on to explain it was probably because she was self-conscious about her oversize teeth. It said other things, cruel things she didn’t want to remember. She’d canceled her subscription to the paper and forbade her husband ever to advertise in it again.
Bella surveyed her suite the way she did every morning as she prepared to start her day. She’d decorated the rooms herself and was proud of the job she’d done. In the whole of her life she’d never expected to sleep on silk sheets with cashmere blankets. Everything was a light shade of yellow, even the carpet. Life was good. If there were moments late at night when memories of her past rose to the surface and prevented sleep, no one knew about them but she.
Now it was time to visit her husband’s suite of rooms like the dutiful wife she pretended to be and silently thank him for giving her the life she was now used to. She usually stayed ten minutes, cooing and gurgling, kissing his cheek and patting his hand for the nurse’s benefit.
She walked downstairs to the formal dining room, where she breakfasted on a muffin, half a grapefruit with a ton of sugar on top, and three cups of black coffee. Everything served on Crate and Barrel linen and crockery. Everything was yellow.
She rang the little silver bell next to her plate. One of the three kitchen maids scurried through the door. “Yes, ma’am?”
“I think I’d like a rack of lamb for dinner.” A long, lacquered nail tapped at her chin. “No, on second thought, let’s have sloppy joes. Marcus loves sloppy joes. A peach cobbler will do nicely. Make sure the vanilla ice cream is fresh. I don’t like those little crystals that form on the top. Be sure the Jamaican coffee is freshly ground. Ican tell the difference. I saw dust on the stairway. I certainly hope it isn’t there when I get home. That will be all for now.” The little maid scurried back through the open door, trembling.
On her way to the front door, Bella stopped at the downstairs lavatory to check her teeth. The one thing she hated about the porcelain caps was that food stuck in the cracks. She grimaced in the mirror. Sure enough, part
of a raisin was stuck between her upper-front teeth. She picked at it with one of her long nails.The price of beauty, she thought.
Now she had to go to the Gunn Building to see what it was that had Eric Bodene in such a snit. Like she had nothing else to do but stroke his ruffled feathers.
Outside, under the portico that resembled the portico at the White House, a chauffeur held open the door of Marcus Gunn’s Bentley. She climbed inside and settled herself before she fired up a cigarette, her first of the day. “Take me to the offices, Arnold,” she said imperiously.
“Yes, ma’am. Be sure to buckle up, ma’am.”
“Shut up, Arnold. Don’t tell me what to do.”
The chauffeur tipped his cap before he slid behind the wheel. Every morning it was the same unpleasantness. He thought of it as a ritual.
As she puffed on her cigarette, Bella thought about the perfect day she’d had yesterday down at the bayou. She was almost certain she was finally going to be accepted by theRougies. Almost. That old twit Simon wasn’t going to win this round of votes. As far as she could tell, and she’d always prided herself on reading people, she had the other members in the palm of her hand.
How they’d gushed over her yesterday, saying how wonderful she was, how compassionate, how caring to think of others even while she was grieving over the loss of her stepson.
Acceptance was in the palm of her hand. She had felt it, sensed it in every pore of her body, then that snip of a girl and Ben Gunn showed up. In a matter of minutes that acceptance had dwindled to doubt when she was told that the seat vacated by Russell’s death was going to be filled by Darby Lane.
She’d been shocked to her very being to know her stepson had left his entire estate to that little snip. Marcus had assured her years ago that his son had changed his will and left everything to his brother Ben. A bold-faced lie. But then, Marcus had never told her the truth about anything, and that’s why he was in the condition he was in these days. Suddenly there was a new player in the game. A game the Lane sisters had organized years ago to keep her out of everything she coveted. Obviously she was going to have to resort to other measures. The two ramshackle Gunn houses in the shoe would do the trick. They were her ace in the hole. All she had to do was stop by the Preservation offices, pick up her provisional license, and take it over to the contractor she’d hired to dismantle the houses. At the moment the provisional license only allowed her to move equipment to the site. The bulldozers, the wrecking ball, the bush hog, and the huge dump trucks. The minute she had the conditional license in her hands those two buildings were going to come down at the speed of light. Before the hateful Lane sisters could blink.
Ben Gunn leaned back in the booth, looking at the empty breakfast plates in front of him. He told Darby he couldn’t remember when he’d eaten so much food at one sitting.
“I don’t know, Ben. You did okay with Diddy’s pancakes yesterday morning,” Darby replied, laughing as she pushed her own plates away. “Well, I’m ready if you are. Are you sure you want to do this, Ben?”
Ben threw his hands into the air. “Today might be one of Dad’s good days. If not, oh, well. It’s Bella I don’t want to see. Every time I see her, I want to strangle her. I will never understand why Dad married her. Someday I want someone to explain it all to me.”
Darby reached across the table and held Ben’s hand. “Look at it this way, Ben. You might not be the person you are today if things hadn’t happened the way they did. I, for one, think you turned into a pretty nice person.”
A pretty nice person.Ben’s chest puffed out. “Thanks.” He rummaged in his pocket for some bills. “Okay. I’m ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, and Darby’s heart broke a little at the sadness she heard in Ben’s voice.
Twenty minutes later, Ben parked his car behind “the monstrosity.” He grimaced as he always did at the sight of the house. He could see Darby struggling not to laugh.
“I think I’d go out of my mind if I had to live here,” Darby said.
“See! You get it! That woman is out of her mind. But that doesn’t explain my father living here.”
Darby poked Ben on the arm. “Sure it does. He married her. Married couples live together in the same house. Dodo always says, you make your bed, you lie in it. End of story.”
Ben rang the doorbell. When strains of “Dixie” resonated throughout the house, Darby started to giggle and couldn’t stop. She pretended to cough just as the door opened.
“I’m Ben Gunn. I’m here to see my father,” Ben said to the maid who opened the door.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Gunn is not receiving visitors. Mrs. Gunn handles all the appointments, and you’re not in the book for today. Perhaps you can call back or call the offices to make an appointment.”
Ben’s cheeks reddened, but whether it was from anger or embarassment, Darby couldn’t tell. She guessed a little bit of both. “But…he’s my father. I shouldn’t need an appointment to see my father. Please, step aside. You can tell Mrs. Gunn I forced my way in here. Or, you can call the police. Take your pick, but I’m going to see my father.” Not bothering to wait for the maid’s reaction, Ben took hold of the door with one hand to prevent it from being closed in his face while his other hand reached for Darby. “Come on, Darby.”
Together, the duo raced through the tacky foyer, through a room that had a jungle motif and was probably supposed to be a solarium, and up the wide circular staircase and down the hall, past the startled maids who were vacuuming and dusting.
A formidable-looking nurse in starched white spread her arms across the open doorway. Darby ducked underneath while Ben tried to cajole the nurse into allowing him to pass.
Marcus Gunn looked up from his chair, clearly startled by the commotion. He’d been staring out one of the ugly windows at the tree line. On the table next to his chair was a prepared hypodermic needle. He looked down at it, then at Darby. He tilted his head to the side. Darby immediately understood his meaning. She deftly snatched it up, removed the tip. She walked back to the doorway where Ben was still cajoling the nurse. She took careful aim and jabbed the woman in the buttocks. The nurse whirled around, then she swayed from side to side, her arms flapping as Ben caught her.
“Damn. That took guts, Darby,” Ben marveled, a look of admiration on his face. “Help me get her over to the bed.”
Funny sounds were coming from the man in the chair. It took only a few seconds for Darby to realize Ben’s father was laughing.
“Hi, Dad!” Ben said.
Darby took several steps backward to give Ben personal time with his father. She eyed the drugged nurse on the bed, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully. She wondered what kind of drug she’d jabbed her with. Always a creature of impulse, she was suddenly concerned at what she had done. She moved closer to the bed to check the woman’s pulse. Steady and slow. That had to be good.
Darby looked around, stunned at the array of pill bottles sitting on the dresser. Syringes, already prepared, were on a tray along with alcohol and cotton balls. A chart hung off one of the dresser-drawer pulls. She was tempted to read it but wasn’t sure if she should or not. But she’d just pumped the nurse full ofsomething, and the chart was her best bet at figuring out just what was in that syringe.
Darby risked a glance at Ben and his father. They appeared to be in earnest conversation, at least Ben was. The elder Gunn seemed to be listening. Her gaze swept the room, bathroom on the left, study or another room of some kind on the right. Maybe a dressing room. She inched forward. A small office with desk, chair, computer, telephone, fax machine, and a photocopier. In the blink of an eye she had the chart in her hands. She removed the thick wad of daily reports, put them into the automatic feed of the copier. The pages spit out quickly. In seconds she had the chart back where it belonged and the copies folded and in her purse.
This was a man’s room, Darby decided, decorated tastefully in rich colors of brown and harvest gold. Obviously Bella’s hand had not stretched this far. What wer
e father and son talking about?
Suddenly Ben stood up, his expression furious. He was almost shouting when he said, “You let it happen, that’s how you’re to blame. You married her, that was your first mistake. You just threw us away, is what you damn well did. If it wasn’t for the Lanes, God only knows what would have happened to us. Yeah, you are to blame. Mary won’t forgive you, Russell’s dead, and I’m standing here reaming you out. What’s wrong with this picture? Where are those Gunn guts you always used to tell us about? Where?”
Ben was about to continue his tirade when Darby, who was standing by the window, hissed, “I just heard a car, Ben. I think Bella’s home.”
“That’s nice. Did you hear that,Dad? Your loving wife is home. I think I’ll just wait till she gets here so I can say hello and good-bye all at the same time. By the way, excuse my terrible manners. This lovely woman is little Darby Lane, all grown-up. She was Russell’s best friend. Bet you didn’t even know that. She’s also the beneficiary of Russell’s estate.”
Darby thought she saw a tear in the old man’s eyes. How strange. She did her best to smile, and said, “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Gunn.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought his eyes were pleading with her. Out of her depth, she moved away just as Bella Gunn walked into the room.
“If I had known you were coming by, Benjamin, I would have stayed home. Unfortunately, I had a meeting with the Preservation Society. They granted me a provisional license to bring in the equipment to the shoe. Of course, there has to be a formal vote at the meeting next week to grant me a conditional license, but in the meantime, the equipment will be delivered and be ready to go when the conditional license is issued. The next time you want to see your father, call first. Today isn’t one of his better days. Where’s the nurse?” she asked coldly.
Ben pointed to the bed. “I’d fire her if I were you. Sleeping on the job. Tsk, tsk,” he said, clucking his tongue. “It was a spur-of-the-moment visit. So, we’ll just say hello and good-bye.” He placed his hand on Darby’s elbow to usher her from the room. The funny sound she’d attributed to laughter from the old man followed them from the room.
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