by ML Gamble
“Her father?” India Heywood asked nervously.
“Judge Monette. Baylor Monette,” the woman replied.
“You know Elizabeth’s family, Mother,” Rosellen said hurriedly, taken aback by her mother’s rudeness.
Elizabeth wondered suddenly if India Heywood might be drunk; she looked flushed and sounded so tipsy. “Well, we really have to go,” Elizabeth said. “Thanks for your help,” she added to the receptionist as she and Tommy Lee entered the elevator.
“Of course,” the woman said. “What brings you here, Paul?”
“I’m looking for my dad. Mrs. Heywood wants to discuss something with him about the ball.”
“He’s at Luvey Rose’s. For cocktails,” the woman replied.
“He’s where?” the young man asked. “You must be mistaken, Bev. He was to meet Rosellen and her mother and me at the Saint James for a drink.”
“Sorry, Paul. He told me he was going over at 3:00 p.m.”
As the elevator doors closed, Elizabeth and Tommy Lee exchanged a glance. From his tone, it was clear Paul deAngelis didn’t like the fact that his father was at Tommy Lee’s ex-wife’s house. “We can’t seem to get away from your ex today,” she said softly.
Tommy Lee sighed and stared at his boots. He had been thinking the same thing, and trying unsuccessfully not to jump to conclusions about why that was.
ELIZABETH WAS STILL feeling a bit guilty about misleading Paul deAngelis’s secretary when Tommy Lee passed the last half of the last stack of dusty manila folders across to her.
“Here you go,” he offered. Then sneezed.
“Bless you,” she replied, taking the folders and placing them on her lap. They had gone through three years of cases, but not come across anything to reward their efforts. Elizabeth felt gritty and sweaty and cold all at once. “Do you think Beverly Woods is going to mention to Mr. deAngelis that we came in?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think will happen then?”
Tommy Lee shrugged, which caused the file folder he was looking at to slide off his knees and dump all its contents onto the concrete floor. He leaned over to retrieve the papers and felt a pain in the muscle under his shoulder blade. Carefully he sat up. “He might call the judge.”
“Or the cops?”
“Why us? Them, I mean,” he corrected.
Elizabeth glanced through the small pane in the upper part of the door. Stenciled on the frosted glass was Research Carrel 2. “What we’re doing here now is probably against the law, don’t you think? Both the clerk at the courthouse, when I picked up my birth certificate, and your sister, explained there are strict confidentiality laws protecting the people who put children up for adoption.”
“If your birth mother is dead, I don’t think she has any rights.”
“But what about my father?”
Tommy Lee piled the folders and rested his elbows on the small table. “We’re just looking around for information. Don’t worry about any laws being broken. Let’s just try to get to the bottom of one piece of this puzzle.”
“Nice way for a cop to talk,” Elizabeth joked.
“Accent on the ‘ex,’” he retorted, but smiled.
She turned to the file at hand, full, like the rest, of correspondence and documents. Most had cover letters and billing records stapled inside the front cover. All had Mr. Peach’s robust, rounded handwritten signature and were neatly typed with the initials EAP/emg at the bottom. Suddenly Elizabeth stopped and stared at the letter stapled to the next-to-last folder in her lap.
It bore a handwritten note that read, “Mr. Peach, I’ll never be able to thank you enough for handling the probate and insurance reports for me. My daughter, Marylynn, and I will be forever in your debt, and I will always remember the years I worked for you with fondness. Very truly yours, Elaine Gibbs.”
So “emg” was Elaine Gibbs. Another thought struck Elizabeth and she gasped.
“What did you find?” Tommy Lee asked, coming to stand behind her.
She motioned toward the file. “Didn’t you say Mr. Peach mentioned the name ‘Marylynn’?”
He looked at her, his forehead wrinkled. He hadn’t told her that ‘Marylynn’ might be her name, but he had to bring it up now. “Actually, I wasn’t sure if he was talking about your mother, or you, frankly. Did the judge or Miss Lou ever mention that they had changed your name?”
She looked shocked. “They specifically said they had not, that I was presented to them as Elizabeth ‘Doe.’ And they gave me the middle name Anne for Miss Lou’s mother.”
“What’s it say on your birth certificate?” Tommy Lee asked softly.
“That my name is Elizabeth Anne Monette, my parents are Luisa and Baylor, my date of birth is May 4, 1972. Which proves nothing, by the way.”
“What?”
“When you’re adopted, the government issues you phony paper. It’s like you are in the witness protection program, or in the Orwellian future where no written document is trustworthy.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize they actually changed your birth certificate.” He stood and stretched, then looked at his watch. “I need to call New Orleans. My contact in Firearms Tracing said I should call back at five-thirty tonight and he might have more info on whether that gun that killed those two men matches any past crime.”
“Go ahead. I’ll just look through the rest of this. Marylynn is kind of an unusual name. Maybe I’m on to something here.”
“Hey, Newt Gingrich and Strom Thurmond are unusual names, but this is the South, honey, where weird is the norm.”
“You’re right, there.” She met his gaze and wondered if it was her imagination or if Tommy Lee looked paler. He seemed to be moving slower today than yesterday. Which might be typical of some injuries. “If you’re going to make a call, I’d try the lobby. I think I saw a pay phone.” Elizabeth waved a folder at him. “I’ve only got a couple more after this one.”
“I’ll be back,” Tommy Lee said, and left her amid the crisis mementos of a hundred people’s lives.
Elizabeth thumbed through the file that was labeled “Gibbs, H. and Gibbs, E.” There were two news clippings, faded brown-yellow and curling around the edges, describing a grand-jury investigation into one Jefferson Randolph’s part in the death of a local man, Harold Gibbs. She scanned them quickly.
The story was common—and tragic. Jefferson Randolph had evidently been having an affair with Mrs. Elaine Gibbs; or her husband, Mr. Harold Gibbs, thought they were having one, at least. Harold confronted the two in a Belle Fleur parking lot one night, drunk and waving a gun. Jefferson Randolph subdued him, and in the struggle, Harold Gibbs was killed.
The grand jury issued a “no indictment” verdict, the smaller article reported, then noted that Jefferson Randolph and his family wished no further inquiries from the press.
The rest of the file consisted of an insurance policy in the amount of six thousand dollars on the life of Harold Gibbs, a photocopy of a canceled check in that amount from American Banner Insurance, and an “In Memoriam” folder.
The letter was from Sacred Heart Chapel, for a service held thirty years before for Harold Gibbs. “Beloved husband of Elaine, father of Marylynn, son of Edith and Clayton.” Burial was at Cedar Pines, a small cemetery on the other side Fairbreeze, not far from the Monette home.
Elizabeth stared at the name Marylynn. This Marylynn couldn’t be her, then, for Marylynn Gibbs was a teenager, alive at her father’s funeral thirty years ago.
She frowned and made a last note of the name Jefferson Randolph. It sounded familiar, but she didn’t know from where. Miss Lou would know, however, she was sure. Though Miss Lou seldom gossiped, she seemed to know everyone’s family tree in the area, back a hundred years.
Elizabeth opened the last file, labeled “Gibbs, M./minor child.” She was expecting it to be linked to the case she had just examined, assuming it would be the child of E. and H. Gibbs.
It was, but it was not connected with the in
heritance or wrongful death of a father, though a death certificate was inside. It was for a white female, one Marylynn Elaine Gibbs, age twenty-five. Cause of death was clearly delineated on the Belle Fleur city police report as a homicide.
With her heart racing, Elizabeth read the report. Police had been called to a small home near the marina in the early hours of the morning and found “victim, white female, approximately twenty-five years old, dead from two shotgun blasts at close proximity.”
One witness was found on the scene the night of December 19, twenty years ago. It was a five-year-old girl, identified as the woman’s child. “Child appears traumatized and unable to talk. Will interview at later date,” a policeman had written, but no other report was attached.
Elizabeth’s mouth was hot and dry. Angry tears filled her eyes. She picked up the last piece of documentation in the file. It was addressed to Emmett Peach from someone named Nan, written on a pink While You Were Out phone-message form dated February 19, 1978. It read, “Elaine Gibbs called re: adoption. Have you interviewed the couple? Please call. Urgent!” It was dated two months to the day after the death of Elaine’s daughter, Marylynn.
Elizabeth returned all the documents to the file and hugged the folder to her chest Her brain felt empty of all thought. She rocked back and forth in the chair, a ringing sound in her ears. At that moment Tommy Lee came through the door.
“Hey, I’ve got news about the gun and—” He stopped in his tracks and pulled the door shut behind him. “What’s wrong, kid? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I haven’t yet.” she said, her voice shaking like a leaf. “But I’d like you to take me out to Cedar Pines Cemetery. Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah. But why?”
Two beats of silence passed. “I want to introduce you to my mother, Marylynn Gibbs.”
PETEY CONNOR WAS QUITE pleased with how he was looking. Twenty-four hours ago he wouldn’t have given himself better than a fifty-fifty chance of living till the weekend, but now he was feeling pretty good.
He had broken into a Cal 33 sailboat in dry dock about fifty feet from where his van was hidden, and had found some great clothes, blankets, enough bottled water to bathe in, as well as several tins of tuna fish and other goodies. Now, cleaned up and shaven, sporting the absent captain’s navy blue cashmere turtleneck and slacks, he was looking pretty natty.
The sweater hid the wound on his neck, and the food quieted the ache in his gut. He jumped down from the boat, looked around, and headed for the restaurant at the end of the marina.
The telephone inside the men’s room was a step-in model with a door. Petey settled himself and pulled out the two pieces of paper he’d fished out of Cracker Jackson’s pocket. The first was a disappointment.
“Belle Fleur Hospital. Surgery department,” a young female voice answered. Damned if he was going back there after that mess Ray got into, no matter what, he thought. Petey hung up and dialed the next. Bingo. The maid announced that he had reached one of the ritzier households in Belle Fleur.
Petey asked to speak to a member of the family and chuckled when the voice explained that the lady in question was out. “Tell her a friend of Cracker’s called,” he said, hardly able to control his mirth, “and ask her to give me a call at his number.” He sauntered out of the booth, deciding he would celebrate with a couple of beers. He would bet with his little message, she’d call the cell-phone he had taken from Cracker Jackson’s dead body, pronto. And if not, he’d just pop around for a visit, he decided, stepping into the restaurant where he could see the rich man’s boat he had just plundered. That was what he’d do. He would just cab it over to Kings Landing Road and make his pitch face-to-face. Petey grinned and followed the smell of food into the dining room, liking the way the evening was going just fine.
TOMMY LEE STOOD a few feet away from Elizabeth as she stared at the neat row of tombstones.
He couldn’t imagine her thoughts. She looked stricken, as if a bolt of lightning had whacked her and left her bereft of hope or breath or spirit.
She just stood silent and pale, her gray coat loose around her, her hair matted and blowing in the wet wind while she stared down at the granite markers. There were three.
Harold Gibbs, dead thirty years, husband of Elaine, beloved father of Marylynn.
In the cruelest act of fate, the daughter lay beside the father, gone after only twenty-five years on earth. A weeping angel was carved into the tombstone, hands folded, eyes to God. The words Mom and Dad Will See Our Little Angel In Heaven were carved into the stone.
Six months after the death of the daughter, the mother joined her family. Died Of A Broken Heart was etched on Elaine Gibbs’s headstone in script, above a biblical verse about suffering on earth and the rewards waiting in heaven.
Elizabeth had found her mother, grandmother, and grandfather, Tommy Lee realized. Two died violent deaths, the third followed from grief. He wanted to take her into his arms and crush her against his heart and tell her it was okay, but he couldn’t imagine that it was.
During the last few months he had felt adrift, without a future, the past only a painful memory. So he understood having no place to turn, feeling a part of nothing.
He ached for Elizabeth and knew that nothing he could say would help.
“Elizabeth,” he murmured minutes later, the fog turning to rain all around them. “Let’s go get dinner. Then I’ll take you home. You’ve got a lot to tell the judge and Miss Lou about all this.”
She didn’t move, and for a moment Tommy Lee had the insane thought that she, too, had turned to granite and joined the rest of the ill-fated Gibbs clan.
But then she moved.
Slowly she turned to face him, giving him the saddest look he’d ever seen. “I’ll buy you some soup,” Elizabeth said as she walked by him to the truck, her back straight, her eyes focused on something he couldn’t see.
He didn’t reach out to stop her.
THEY DIDN’T STOP TO EAT, after all. They drove in silence across the bridge. When Elizabeth saw the turnoff for her home, she touched his arm with a cold hand and said, “I’d like a rain check on the dinner, Tommy Lee. Can you just drop me off?”
“Of course.”
He didn’t go in with her. “I’ll call you in the morning,” he offered, holding the truck’s door open for her.
“Fine.” She hesitated for a moment, inches from him, but totally alone. “I need to ask you a favor.”
“Anything,” he said, fully aware that he had never said a single word that he meant more than that one.
“Would you be my date tomorrow at the Parade of Lights dinner? I’m sure there will be a lot of questions about the past few days, and now the murders…” Elizabeth looked away, toward the window where Miss Lou was standing and watching them from her kitchen. “I know you hate all this Queen of Midnight stuff, but I’d really appreciate it. Maybe we can do a little sleuthing.”
“Such as?”
“I told you I recognized the name Jefferson Randolph. A couple of minutes ago, I remembered who he is.” Her blue eyes were cool and direct, as if lit by a faraway light. “He was India Heywood’s father.”
Tommy Lee blinked and shook his head, trying to fit that fact into the scattershot chunks of information swirling around them. “India Heywood’s father, Bennett Heywood’s father-in-law, killed your…” He couldn’t finish it; felt embarrassed for some reason.
“Yes, if Marylynn Gibbs was my mother, then India’s father killed my grandfather.”
“What does that tell us, Elizabeth?” Tommy Lee asked, his voice almost a whisper.
“It tells us two current electees for Queen of Midnight have some very bitter shared history.”
“You and Rosellen Heywood.”
“Exactly.”
Tommy Lee whistled. “Wow, I don’t know what this all means.” He shook his head. His thoughts were humming like a telegraph line in an old Western, but the signals were garbled. He couldn’t see a co
nclusion. “Why would the Heywoods hate you, though? Their family member killed yours, not vice versa.”
“Mayor Prince told me at the luncheon the other day that India was everyone’s choice to be Queen of Midnight when she was eighteen, but some nasty business with her father came up. He didn’t elaborate, because I had to leave to meet you, but I’m sure that with a little prompting, he’ll explain the scandal in all its gory detail. I’m sure if it was because her father was having an affair with my grandmother, and because her father killed my grandfather, she would have plenty of reasons to hate me.”
Elizabeth blinked. “If I think like a cop, your dotto-dot logic points to India Heywood as someone who might want me dead.”
“Well, with that as an incentive, of course I’ll escort you to the dinner party. I’d be honored,” he added, hoping his tone was light.
Elizabeth smiled wanly, her mouth beautiful though it was wind-chapped and naked of lipstick. “Thank you, Tommy Lee. I think we might be able to dig up some information, now that we have my mother’s name—though what we really need now is one thing.”
He leaned closer, fighting himself to keep from touching her. “What’s that?”
“To find out who my father was. That’s the key, Tommy Lee.”
His cop instincts told him she was right. “Okay, it’s a good plan.” He glanced down at his boots. “Is this thing black-tie?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“No problem. I used to have one of those monkey suits. It’s at my sister’s. This will give me an excuse to check in on Dottie’s family, make sure they are all holding up, with her in the hospital.”
“Thank you,” she said, then kissed him lightly on the cheek.
He didn’t touch his face where her cold lips had left an icy burning against his skin. He drove back down the gravel road toward the highway, thinking way too much about that kiss.
When Tommy Lee got near the highway, he saw a slim, gaunt man behind the wheel of an old pickup turn onto the road to the Monette property.
The man nodded and kept driving on. Tommy Lee watched in the rearview mirror as the man parked the truck, its rear bumper wired on with some rope and chains, behind the caretaker’s cottage. The fellow came around to the main house and knocked. He must be Clay Willow. Tommy Lee had the thought to go back and question the man, see if he had seen anything the night before, warn him to keep an eye peeled, but decided against it. Willow had already entered the house.