by Ellen Byron
“Yes. I’d like that,” Bea said. She then went to the ballet barre and did a few stretches, one of which involved an arabesque that would have been at home in any professional dance company. Her boarding school education must have included a heavy dose of dance training, Maggie thought as she did a few desultory stretches herself, including a halfhearted attempt to touch her toes.
The class flew by, and after freshening up, Maggie and Bea walked over to Junie’s. JJ, clad in Christmas-green sequins, greeted them both with hugs and insisted on comping their first round of drinks.
“So,” Maggie began as they sipped their glasses of Chardonnay, “that scene between Harrison and his dad was disturbing.” Lead with innocuous gossip.
“Harrison was devoted to Mr. Harmon, who took it upon himself to be a father figure to the boy after his actual father went to jail.” Bea ran a finger through the moisture that had collected on the outside of her glass. “Normally an employee of Harrison’s caliber wouldn’t last very long, but his uncle had his back, as the expression goes.”
“That surprises me. From my experience with Mr. Harmon, he was very tough on people. He certainly was on us.”
“Mr. Harmon was the kind of man who needed fans more than friends or even family. And Harrison was nothing if not a fan.” Bea didn’t bother to hide her disdain for the idea. Wow, she really can’t stand Harrison, Maggie thought.
JJ appeared with two steaming bowls of jambalaya. “Here you go, lovely ladies. If you need them, there are three levels of hot sauce on the table: medium, hot, and sound an alarm because your mouth is on fire!” He winked and walked away.
Bea lifted a small forkful to her lips. “It’s delicious. And exactly the right level of spice.” She began to eat the jambalaya with a gusto belying her slim frame.
“It’s a misconception that Cajun food has to be spicy,” Maggie said. “It’s supposed to be flavorful, but not superhot. In fact, there are jambalaya cook-offs where contestants are disqualified if their dish is too spicy.”
“That would have made Steve happy. He forbade spicy entrées on the menus of any properties where he had a say. He once accidentally bit into a hot pepper on vacation in Puerto Vallarta. I’ll never forget the look on his face.”
Bea chuckled, and Maggie smiled to indicate an appreciation of the story. But her acute visual sense had picked up a look on Bea’s face when she shared it. This was a memory of a shared, special moment. And Bea called him Steve. Not “Mr. Harmon.” Maggie was more convinced than ever that Bea Boxler had had a clandestine relationship with her late boss. And she was determined to uncover exactly what that relationship was.
Chapter Twenty
Maggie had to put snooping on hold when she received panicked texts from both Nessa and Ione. A swarm of holiday shoppers had descended on Lia’s stores, and the women were desperate for help.
Maggie spent the rest of the day and late into the evening running between Bon Bon and Fais Dough Dough, and by the time she returned home, she was bleary-eyed with fatigue. She decided delving into Bea’s past could wait until the morning and fell into bed. Sleep came easily—and with it a dream. Magnolia Marie Doucet sat in the front parlor of a post–Civil War Doucet Plantation, embroidering a sampler as her husband tried to teach his stepson, Georges, his sums. General Cabot showed extraordinary patience with the boy, whose temper flared until it exploded. Georges shouted curse words, threw over the table, and stomped out of the room. “The son is not the father,” his mother, her face creased with sadness, said to a woman sitting next to her with a sigh.
The woman was Maggie.
The dream was fresh on Maggie’s mind when she woke in the morning. “I’ve been having weird dreams,” she told her grand-mère after pouring a bowl of cereal and sitting down at the shotgun cottage’s small café table in the kitchen. “The same person keeps showing up in them: Magnolia Marie Doucet.”
“I was wondering when you’d hear from her,” Gran’ said. She pulled off a small piece of her chocolate muffin. “Eventually most Doucet and even a few of us Crozat women do, because our families are so intertwined.”
“Really?” Maggie frowned at her grandmother. “You never thought to mention this before?”
Gran’ shrugged. “It’s not my business to interfere.”
“That’s a nice, cryptic answer,” Maggie said. “I feel like she’s trying to tell me something.”
“I’ve found that she leads more than tells.”
“Hmm. Anything else you want to share? So I can maybe be prepared?”
“For what? There’s no saying we’d have the same experience. Everyone’s journey is their own.” Gran’ finished the last bite of her muffin and put the plate in the sink. “I’m going for a brisk walk. I need to get my endorphins going if I have to face another day of trying to reach an actual human being at Trippee.com. I’m determined to make them remove those awful reviews. Mr. O’Day tried to delete them but was unsuccessful.”
Gran’ left, and Maggie pulled out her tablet and typed “Bea Boxler” into a search engine. The first item on the list was the general manager’s Belle Vista bio. Bea wasn’t lying about her background. She’d been raised in Switzerland and had attended the kind of European boarding school that served as a way station for überwealthy girls marking time until they were old enough to marry men equally moneyed. Bea’s rich-working-girl path wasn’t completely illogical. Managing luxury hostelries was a good way to meet the elite.
So far the search only confirmed what Maggie already knew. She tried another tack and tapped on “images,” hoping it might yield a visual clue. The screen filled with photos of Bea at a variety of ages in the company of a stunning blonde woman. Maggie clicked on an image and read the caption below it. “German supermodel Sayfrid Gerner is in Paris for Fashion Week, along with look-alike daughter, Bea Boxler.” Gerner, Gerner, she thought. Why does that name sound so familiar?
Maggie replaced her search with a new one for “Sayfrid Gerner” and was rewarded with page after page of hits. Sayfrid ticked off all the lifestyle boxes of the supermodels that Maggie read about in tabloids during her visits to the Bayou Beauty Hair Salon: rock star boyfriends, short-lived marriages, and more than one rehab stint. No wonder poor Bea was shunted off to boarding school, Maggie mused. Her mother was a dysfunctional narcissist. She called up a tabloid headline that screamed, “Supermodel Dies of Overdose!” Sayfrid Gerner’s dramatic life had an equally dramatic ending, leaving behind a lonely teenaged daughter. Maggie had a sudden inspiration. What if Bea wasn’t Harmon’s mistress? What if she was actually his daughter? She perused links to Sayfrid’s life and found articles detailing her tumultuous relationship with Tor Boxler, the bass player in a British rock group who was supposedly Bea’s father. Maggie wondered if “supposedly” was the operative word.
She continued scrolling through the decades-old images, which included the last known photo of druggy rocker Tor before he plummeted to his death trying to jump into a pool from the roof of a two-story house. She stopped at an old black-and-white shot from the New York Post’s page-six gossip column. Sayfrid was emerging from a club with a man. The caption read, “Supermodel Sayfrid Gerner and unidentified companion visit Danceteria.” Maggie enlarged the photo to confirm her suspicion: the “unidentified companion” was a much younger Steve Harmon. And suddenly Maggie realized why the name “Gerner” sounded so familiar. She shuffled through a stack of papers on her desk and found an article her friend Lulu had printed out for her. It was the puff piece announcing Belle Vista had been folded into one of Steve Harmon’s many companies: the Gerner Group.
Maggie was distracted from her Internet detecting by her mother’s appearance at the door. “Sorry to bother you, chère, but it’s your turn to man the stand,” Ninette said. “I’ve got baskets of treats all ready for you to sell, including little bags of white chocolate candy cane bark that I decorated with red and green ribbons. I also put together a basket for Lia and Kyle that I want to run over to the
m.”
Maggie put her tablet on sleep mode. “My bad; I lost track of time,” she said, giving Ninette a kiss on the cheek. “I’m obsessed with trying to figure out who killed our guest.”
“No apologies needed, darlin’ daughter,” Ninette said. She wrapped an arm round Maggie’s waist. “We certainly don’t want to be known as the B and B where guests come to an untimely end. We’ll either attract no guests or ghouls.”
“I think we’ve come up with this year’s Halloween weekend special. ‘The Macabre Murders of Crozat Plantation.’”
“Your grand-mère’s already got a whole weekend planned around that exact theme.”
“No! I was totally kidding.”
“Talk to her. I’m not in a position to rule out any idea that might bring in business.”
Maggie followed her mother back to the manor house kitchen, where she collected the day’s assortment of pastries and treats to sell. She wheeled them over to the levee stand along with a carafe of coffee and set up shop. The bonfires were almost completed, their shapes stark against the backdrop of levee and sky. Maggie gazed across the road to Crozat and noticed a gaudy addition to the plantation’s refined holiday decorations. On the roof of the manor house, Santa led a team of glowing red crawfish pulling his sleigh. Instead of toys, Santa’s sleigh was filled with a variety of neon-sculptured liquor bottles. Maggie smiled. Saucy Santa making an appearance meant Tug was back to his old self.
A Pelican PD patrol car pulled up to the stand and parked. Rufus and Bo got out. Bo was in uniform; Rufus was not. “Perske still has you on desk duty?” Maggie asked her boyfriend, who gave a tightlipped nod. His cousin slapped him on the back.
“Ain’t so bad,” Rufus said. “I hear the ladies think there’s nothing like a man in uniform. Right, Magnolia?” He once again raised his eyebrows up and down like a vaudeville comedian, and Bo punched him in the arm, which led to a good-natured tussle.
“If you kids are done, I have some interesting information,” Maggie said.
“I’m listening,” Bo said, and he released Rufus from a headlock.
“Bea Boxler wasn’t just Steve Harmon’s employee. They shared a past.” Maggie detailed what she had uncovered. “I thought they might have had an affair, but now I think there’s a chance that she’s his daughter. She was born around the time he was beginning his career, which was built on seducing investors into entrusting him with their fortunes. You can see how he’d want to cover up an indiscretion that resulted in an illegitimate child.”
“Nice work. She’s on the list.” Rufus helped himself to a muffin. “Let’s recap our suspects. We got this Bea chick. Then there’s the Charbonnet-Harmon clan, which would be Emme, the dead guy’s widow, and his brother-in-law, Philip. There’s that Tannis chick and your guests, the O’Days.”
“I notice Sandy’s not on the list,” Maggie pointed out.
“I got a feeling about her. Like you do with this doof.” He poked Bo, who grabbed his arm and held it behind his back. “Ow! Uncle.”
Bo laughed and released him. Then he grew serious. “You did leave out one name. Chris Harper.”
“Maggie’s ex?” Ru said. “Interesting. Why do you think he’d kill his employer?”
“You’ve got a feeling about Sandy? I’ve got one about that guy. A bad one. And it doesn’t have anything to do with him being your ex, Maggie.”
She wasn’t sure about that but chose not to voice her doubts. “I’m not defending him because he’s my ex,” Maggie said, “but the feeling I get is that Chris desperately needs this job, so I can’t imagine he’d kill Harmon. Especially since the job has a clock on it now that his patron is gone.” She told the men about her exchange with Emme at Bon Bon and the woman’s dismissive attitude toward the art adviser. “So if there’s anyone who wanted Steve Harmon alive, it’s Chris.”
“Ooo, your girlfriend’s making excuses for her ex, cuz.” Ru poked Bo again and then jumped out of the way. “I’d be worried.”
“I’m not.”
“And you shouldn’t be.” But seeing a hint of worry in her boyfriend’s eyes, Maggie grabbed Bo and kissed him hard to prove her point.
Ru gave a wolf whistle. “You know, the Belle Vista bonfire’s big enough to fit two if y’all wanna get busy. Just make sure you finish before they torch the thing.”
Bo reluctantly separated from Maggie. “We gotta get to the station. I’ll call you later. Ru’ll check into Bea Boxler’s history with Harmon. I don’t have to tell you not to mention this to anyone.”
“You sure don’t.” Maggie had learned through experience that there was no one more dangerous than a killer driven to hide a crime.
Bo and Rufus took off, and Maggie poured herself a cup of coffee. Morning fog, so common to winter in south Louisiana, lay low over the river. The chill it usually brought was tempered by unseasonably warm temperatures, so Maggie shed her hoodie. A nondescript sedan sporting magnets that advertised Belle Vista pulled up to the stand, and Harrison got out. He was dressed in a suit but looked tired and slightly disheveled. Mud stained the bottom of his pants. Maggie poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him. “Hey, there. I’m guessing you need this. It’s on the house.”
“I do. Thanks.” Harrison took a few swigs of the coffee. “I was at my uncle’s funeral this morning. I didn’t want to stick around for the stupid socializing part.” Harrison took another gulp of coffee. He picked up a coconut pecan bar, and Maggie waved away his money. “I’m sorry for how I behaved at BV. It’s just that . . . my father spent four years in jail when I was in high school. Great ammunition for bullies.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “My mom divorced him and moved to California with my brother and sister. Uncle Steve said I could stay with him and Aunt Emme, so I did. He’s, like, my real father. Was like. I keep forgetting and doing that.”
“It’s natural.” There was silence as Maggie debated what direction to take with the conversation. “I get that your father very much wants a relationship with you, Harrison. And I did read somewhere he wasn’t really guilty. He went to jail to protect other people. Like your uncle.”
“Yeah, right,” Harrison scoffed. “That’s total BS his lawyer made up to try to get him off. It didn’t work. Uncle Steve was amazing. He taught me the business. He was grooming me to take it over someday. I wanted to change my last name to Harmon, but Aunt Emme thought it would be, I don’t know, weird. So I took my mom’s name. Anyone but my father’s.” He practically spit the last sentence.
“I hate to speak ill of the dead.” But I’m going to, so good luck to me, Maggie thought to herself. “Harrison, your uncle was hardly perfect. Even we had some issues with him.” To put it so very mildly.
“Oh, he was a psychopath.” The young man’s tone was almost blithe. “But so’s half of Wall Street. I worked for Uncle Steve’s hedge fund company until he wanted me down here at BV, and I saw it for myself with those guys. They say you find the most psychopaths in two places: jail and the Street.”
Maggie had run into enough wizards of Wall Street during her years in New York to know that what Harrison said was probably true. She decided to steer the conversation in another direction. “Was Bea at the funeral? I mean, she must have been, considering he was her boss.”
Harrison stiffened. He unwrapped his pecan bar but stared at it instead of taking a bite. Maggie sensed it was a way of avoiding eye contact with her. “Yeah. She was there.”
“Is it me,” Maggie said, affecting the gossipy tone she used when she was digging for information, “or did she not like your uncle very much?”
This got Harrison to look up from his pastry. “I think she hated him.” Harrison spoke in a whisper, although the two-lane road was empty and the hum of ships on the river prevented any sound from traveling to the top of the levee, where a few locals continued to work on their bonfires. “And not the ‘I hate my boss’ kind of hate. There was something else going on. Something superdark.” Harrison paused. He looked young and vulnerable. “Somet
imes it scared me.”
Despite the warm air, Maggie got a chill. She feared for Harrison . . . and for the Charbonnets as well, if Bea had some kind of vendetta against the family.
Maggie’s phone pinged a text. “Sorry, I’ll be quick,” she said and took out her phone to read a message from Gaynell: “Get to DanceBod. King Cake kidnapped. Might be by murderer.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Maggie explained the situation to Harrison, who wished her luck finding the dog and left with three more coconut pecan bars. She called her mother, and Ninette took over the stand so Maggie could get to DanceBod as fast as possible.
All the regulars were at the studio, including Ione and Gaynell. Rufus held the sobbing Sandy in his arms, and for a brief minute, Maggie wondered if the police officer had set the whole thing up as a way to worm himself into the dance instructor’s heart. She dismissed the thought, reminding herself that Rufus had changed. “They found a note that the kidnapper left,” Gaynell told Maggie.
“It was nasty,” Ione said. “It said something like, ‘Your dog’s alive, but you have to find him. Consider this a warning to stop spreading stories about Steve Harmon.’”
“Any clues about where King Cake might be?”
Both women shook their heads. “We’ve looked all over town,” Gaynell said. “Nuthin’. I feel terrible for Sandy. She’s so attached to him.”
“She tried to keep the story quiet,” Maggie said. “One of the dancers from Classy Lady must have heard about Harmon’s death and started blabbing about what happened between him and Sandy.”
“I heard about it when I was getting my hair cut,” Gaynell shared.
“And people were gossiping about it in the checkout line at the grocery,” Ione said. “There are no secrets in a small town.”