“Of course you do. Come on in.”
The stranger waved me in, which caused a tangle of bracelets on her wrist to jingle like wind chimes. “Sorry again about Ruby.”
The sting of the slight faded, though, the minute I walked through the front door. Hardwood floors glimmered beneath my feet like still water on a bayou and the walls wore rich panels of striated mahogany. A needlepoint tapestry of herons two-stepping somewhere in the Gulf covered an entire wall, the gentle S curve of the birds’ necks like a wavy line of sea foam.
“It’s so beautiful!” I said.
“The house was built in 1850. That’s before the Civil War.”
Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the dim light. “I know all about these old mansions.”
I’d been hired to work for a bride at one of them some six months back. Unfortunately, I ended up smack-dab in the middle of a crime-scene investigation before everything got put to rights again, but I ended up loving the mansion even so.
Now small details began to emerge from the furnishings around me. Bits of silk dangled from the tapestry’s hem like marsh grass, the baseboards beneath it wore decades of scuff marks, and even the front door didn’t quite meet up with its frame. No matter.
“A wedding planner hired me for a ceremony at Morningside Plantation,” I said. “Course this mansion’s a lot smaller, but that’s just as well. I never thought people actually sold these old houses.”
“Well, you’re lucky. This one’s owned by a trust and they’re in a hurry to get rid of it. Are you interested? I’m the Realtor here. Name’s Mellette. Mellette Babineaux.”
She thrust out her hand, which set off the bracelets again and also called up the smell of menthol cigarettes.
“Why . . . I know you.” I shook her hand, amazed to meet someone from my past right here in Louisiana. “I’m Missy DuBois. You went to Vanderbilt, right?”
“I did indeed. Thank goodness for those academic scholarships.”
“But you were in a sorority too,” I said. “Weren’t you the chapter president of Pi Phi? I was a coupla years behind you.”
She seemed pleased to be recognized. “Ain’t that the berries! We’re sorority sisters. My godmother paid for that, hallelujah.”
“Do you ever get back to Nashville?” I asked.
“ ’Fraid not. Work keeps me too busy. You?”
“The same. I still have T-shirts from the parties, though. Boxes and boxes of them. Can’t quite make myself toss ’em in the garbage.”
She smiled wistfully. “I only bought a few. What did you say your name is again?”
“Missy. Missy DuBois. I moved to town about a year and a half ago.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you the gal who opened a hat shop in town? People told me that store wouldn’t last more than six months, but look at you! It’s been a sight longer and it seems to be going great guns. Amazing we haven’t met up before now.”
“Well, not to brag, but Crowning Glory turned a year old at Christmas.” Which felt wonderful to be able to say. When I found out Southern plantations all along the Great River Road attracted brides like flies to honey, I set myself up making hats, veils, and whatnot for wedding parties. Ambrose owned a shop next to mine, only he made custom gowns for brides and their maids.
“You’re gonna make us all proud,” she said. “Maybe you could speak to our alumnae group sometime. We meet once a month at the Junior League.”
I was about to respond when the older woman who’d been so rude to me earlier emerged from the shadows.
“There you are,” Mellette said. “Ruby here is the caretaker. Unfortunately, today’s Monday. You know what that means, don’t you?”
I racked my brain, but came up empty. “Can’t say that I do.”
“It’s bad luck to be visited by a woman first thing on Monday morning,” she said. “In some parts of the bayou, that is. Silly superstition, if you ask me. As if that would make a difference.”
Ruby quickly cut her eyes at Mellette. “Ya bes’ not be sayin’ dat, madam.”
Why, I’d know a Cajun accent anywhere. I’d met a gardener at that wedding a few months back who stretched out his vowels like this old gal.
“You must be Cajun,” I said. “French Creole, right?”
“Born in des parish.”
Before I could speak again, Mellette turned.
“Where are my manners? Ruby, go get our guest some sweet tea. This humidity is going to be the death of us all. Guess we should expect as much come August.”
When Ruby didn’t hop to it, Mellette’s smile hardened. “Today, preferably.”
That made the old woman finally back away, but not before she scowled at the Realtor.
“That one’s a pill,” Mellette said, once Ruby was gone. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she’s got a voodoo doll back at her house that looks exactly like me. Bless her heart. Now, let’s start in the drawing room and we’ll work our way up.”
I followed along as the Realtor led me from one room to the next. The rooms were small by today’s standards and desperate for some fresh paint and spackle, but other than that, I couldn’t see any major flaws. And thick crown molding covered the walls, not to mention cut-crystal wall sconces reflected light onto them like dusty diamonds.
“I have to ask.” I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “Why the low price? It should go for double or triple that amount.”
“There’s a bit of work to be done.” Mellette shrugged. “And there’s been some talk about voodoo ceremonies or some such. Not that this particular mansion had slaves, mind you, because it didn’t.”
Funny she felt the need to answer a question I hadn’t even asked. After a bit, we wandered back to the staircase, where Ruby stood with a tumbler of sweet tea.
“That voodoo’s all nonsense. Right, Ruby?” she asked.
“If’n ya say so.” Ruby handed me the sweating tumbler. “Nobody be doin’ dat stuff ’round here no more.”
“Well, that’s good.” I accepted the tumbler and took a sip. Just the way I liked it . . . sweet as honeysuckle. “Although it’s hard to imagine why they’d pick somewhere so pretty to do it in the first place.”
“Da place don’ much matter, missus. It’s all in da charms. Wot ya can do wit’ da amulets an such.”
“Ruby, you know that’s a bunch of hooey,” Mellette said. “Let’s not give Missy here any crazy ideas, okay?”
It’s a little too late for that. “So, when’s the last time they had one of those voodoo things around here?” I asked.
“Years. Decades.” Mellette tried to sound nonchalant, but her pinched face gave her away. “The house has been vacant for many years now. That’s why the trust is selling it. They know it needs work, but the heirs don’t want to keep it, so it’s ripe for the picking. Did I mention there’s even a studio out back?”
“You don’t say.” I followed her gaze to the window. “What kind of studio?”
“Look.” She pointed to a whitewashed cottage that lay just beyond the glass. Pink swamp roses ambled over a pitched roofline and purple verbena ran wild through an abandoned vegetable bed meant to hold carrots or cabbage. I fully expected seven dwarfs to emerge from the bottom of the Dutch door with pickaxes slung over their shoulders.
“It’s a great place for someone to work on projects,” Mellette said. “There are sweet little hidey-holes like that all over this place.”
My heavenly days. The cottage would be perfect for a design studio! Even though the roof sagged some and the door was all catawampus, I could block and stitch and steam hats out there to my heart’s content.
“Yep, imagine all the privacy you’d have,” she added.
“You can say that again! But I need to talk to my best friend first. Maybe bring him out here for a tour. I trust his opinion on everything.”
“Fine by me,” she said. “But I suggest you get a move on if you want this place. Someone’s bound to come along and scoop it up.”
No doubt she was r
ight. Places like this only came along but once in a blue moon. Maybe I could convince Ambrose to come over and tour the house with me and then I could bend his ear about all the wonderful ways we’d renovate it.
Although the morning had gotten off to a sour start, something great might come of it yet.
Chapter 2
If the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, then everything I needed were in a greasy bag of beignets I’d placed on the car seat next to me. One taste of that powdered sugar and choux paste and Ambrose would say yes to anything I proposed. Even to buying a derelict mansion so we could renovate it side by side.
My VW pitched and rumbled on the journey home, the sack of beignets bouncing along. Compared to Sweetwater, the little rent house we shared up ahead looked tiny.
Tiny, but quaint. It had bubblegum-pink walls and a used brick fireplace, and it reminded me of something Barbie would own if she and Ken ever settled in the deep South. Best of all, I’d planted bee balm next to the front gate when we first moved in, and now hummingbirds and butterflies flitted around the place in abundance. I passed several as I made my way through the gate and into the house.
I slowed as I approached the kitchen. Here sunshine warmed the buttercream yellow walls and splashed across a farmhouse table that went back two generations. That was where I found Ambrose, hunched over a plate of scrambled eggs and Jimmy Dean sausage.
“Look at you,” I said. “And here I thought you’d starve to death.”
His knife clattered onto the plate. “Hey, there. Where’ve you been? I thought we’d meet up an hour ago.”
Today he wore my favorite polo; the lapis one that brought out his eyes. As we said down South, “I can’t-never-could resist a man with long eyelashes,” and his reminded me of Bambi’s.
“Here’s the thing,” I said. Our farmhouse table had benches instead of chairs, so I plopped down next to him and laid the beignets between us. “I got to tour the Sweetwater mansion with a Realtor. Boy, did I learn a thing or two.”
“That so?” To be honest, his beautiful eyes kept leaving my face to scope out the oily sack on the table.
“It goes all the way back before the Civil War,” I said. “Turns out a trust owns it, and they’re looking to sell cheap. Do you know they only want two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it? Never in my life did I think a house like that could be so inexpensive.”
“Does it have a roof?”
I shot him a look. “Of course it has a roof. You’ve seen it. And real hardwood floors on the inside. Looked like mahogany to me. Point is, someone could fix up that place like nobody’s business if they had half a mind to do it.”
“So it’s falling down, right? Maybe that’s why they don’t want very much for it. Sounds like a lot of maintenance to me.”
If there was one thing my Ambrose was allergic to, it was maintenance. Didn’t much matter if it involved our shops back in town, this old rent house, or his brand-new Audi Quattro. He had a hard time looking beyond the elbow grease. Whereas I was the exact opposite. Give me a paint brush, a rotary sander, and a crescent wrench, and I was happier than a dead pig in the sunshine.
“But you’ve always told me it’s good to have a hobby,” I said. “This is something we can do together, now that our businesses have taken off.”
What a relief to be able to say that. Ambrose and I had both arrived in Bleu Bayou with nothing more than our designer look-books and our desire to bring high fashion down to the South. Course, Ambrose also needed a fresh start, since his college sweetheart, a pretty catalogue model, had passed away from breast cancer a few years before.
Now we owned side-by-side design studios, where a stream of brides kept us up to our elbows in netting, silk flowers and, thankfully, sales receipts.
“Yeah,” he said, “but I was thinking maybe we could try line dancing or fly-fishing. Or go off-roading in the bayous. Not renovate an old mansion. I thought those stayed in families, anyway. Why’d this one come up on the market?”
“Beats me. But it’s owned by a trust and they want to sell it right quick. That’s what the Realtor told me. We could do it together. C’mon, Bo.”
He didn’t look convinced, so I reached into the sack and pulled out a doughnut. “Beignet?”
He finally smiled. “Now, don’t think I’m gonna agree with you because you brought home-fried fritters.” He accepted the powdery offering. “I have half a mind to tell you no.”
Hallelujah. That meant the other half was as good as mine. “It couldn’t hurt to look around the place,” I said. “I even know the Realtor. Turns out she went to Vanderbilt too. We can head on over there, poke around, and maybe test the plumbing. Aren’t you curious to see what it looks like on the inside?”
“Well, now that you mention it—”
He never could tell me no. I planted a big, wet kiss on his cheek to show my gratitude. “I’ll grab the car keys while you finish up here. You’re gonna love it. I know you will.”
The road to Sweetwater seemed busier now. Contractor pickups, windowless work vans, and Marathon Oil tanker trucks cruised alongside us. Once I spied the old Sweetwater mansion, I pulled over nice and easy, so as not to scatter the pea gravel.
Ambrose’s eyes widened when he realized where we were.
“This is the place you’re talking about?” he asked. “It’s enormous! But I have to hand it to you, it’s a good-looking house.”
“I knew you’d think that. And it’s not so big when you get inside. It’s the columns make it look that way. C’mon.”
I hopped out of the VW. Now that we’d hit August, humidity settled over me like a wet bedsheet, so I twisted my long hair into a bun and poked the stray ends in nice and tight.
My plan had been to march straightaway up the lawn and rap on the door—hang the chances of running into that Ruby again—but something looked different.
An expensive sedan sat near the kitchen now. The car’s enormous hood fanned across the space and a gleaming chrome bumper shielded its tires. Oddly enough, I’d seen it somewhere before.
“Wonder who’s here?” Ambrose asked. “The owner?”
“I told you, it’s owned by a trust, and I don’t think the heirs live here. But I’ve seen that car before.” A pair of interlocking R’s on the hood jogged my memory. “Why, it’s Mr. Solomon’s Rolls-Royce. Wonder what he’s doing here?”
Herbert Solomon had hired Ambrose and me back in May to design his daughter’s wedding apparel. He’d booked Morningside Plantation down the road—now a gorgeous hotel—and even commissioned the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra to play “Here Comes the Bride” on the front lawn.
Unfortunately, his daughter was murdered right before the big event. People still bragged on me for helping the Louisiana State Police solve that crime, although any law-abiding citizen would have done the same.
“C’mon, Bo. Let’s go say hello to him.”
The front door blew open the minute we started up the lawn. Herbert Solomon barreled through the entry, looking the same as always: a deep scowl, a bulging briefcase, and an expensive business suit, even on a warm day like today.
I panicked and hopped in front of the For Sale sign. The last thing I needed was to enter a bidding war with Herbert Solomon over this property. He’d already bought Morningside Plantation and everyone knew he could afford to buy this place with his pocket change.
He began to trek down the lawn, the designer briefcase slapping his leg with each step, until he reached me. “Well, well. This is a surprise, Miss DuBois.” He nodded at Ambrose. “Mr. Jackson.”
“I could say the same.” Although I hadn’t seen him since his daughter’s wedding, I’d often thought about his wife, Ivy. While Herbert Solomon was brash and overbearing, Ivy was sweeter than the tea I’d had earlier. Shame on me for not paying her a visit before this. “How’s Ivy doing?”
“She’s holding up,” he said. “Some weeks are better than others.”
“Please tell her I’m t
hinking about her. I’ll have to pay her a visit soon.”
He grimaced. “It might not be easy. She spends all of her time at the Mall of Louisiana, I’m afraid. But I’ll tell her. Hello, Ambrose.”
“Nice to see you, Mr. Solomon.”
“Whatever brings you out here this morning?” I asked. The briefcase in his hand seemed obvious enough, but I hoped I was wrong.
“Business, same as always.”
“You’re not thinking of buying this dinky place, are you?” My heart stilled at the very thought.
“Haven’t decided,” he said. “My other property’s working out pretty good. It’s booked all summer, as a matter of fact. Thought I might be able to work out a deal here.”
“But this one’s so much smaller than Morningside.” I tried to keep my voice level. “And not nearly as grand. Don’t those brides expect the world these days?”
He shot me a funny look. “I guess so. What are you doing here?”
“Nothing. Curious, more than anything else.”
“You’re wasting your time,” he said. “I couldn’t find the Realtor. That person should be fired, if you ask me.”
“That’s too bad. But I think we’ll poke around anyway. Ambrose has never seen the inside.”
“I told you, you’re wasting your time. But suit yourself.” He gave a brusque wave. “Good day, Miss DuBois. Mr. Jackson.”
He strode over to the Rolls while I hovered protectively by the For Sale sign. I stayed there until he fired up the car and drove off the property.
“That’s not good,” Ambrose said, once he’d left.
“Tell me about it. If he wants to turn this place into another hotel, we’re doomed.”
“Don’t jump the gun, Missy. I haven’t even seen the inside of it yet.”
Which was true enough. I finally abandoned my post and headed for the front door. Apparently, Mr. Solomon hadn’t bothered to shut the thing properly, and it stood open a half inch.
I shouldn’t, should I? Somehow I never could resist the lure of an open door, and my eyes widened at the thought of all those secrets begging to be discovered. Begging, I tell you. My hand reached for the doorknob.
Murder at Morningside Page 20