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“That’s good,” Jacqueline said, “though I wish someone had thought to call them earlier.”

“Hello, my dear,” An’gel said. She nodded to Horace. “Are you feeling any better?”

“A little,” Jacqueline said. She still appeared drawn and tired to An’gel, but perhaps the nap had helped.

“Miss An’gel, I’ll have to be heading back to town in a few,” Horace said, “and Jackie’s got things to do. I got a crew coming to do the cleanup upstairs. Would you mind showing them where to go when they get here?”

“I’ll be happy to,” An’gel said. “Anything to help.”

“Thank you,
Tante
An’gel.” Jacqueline smiled briefly. “I’d rather not be here while they’re up there.” Her voice faltered on the last two words, and for a moment An’gel thought her goddaughter was going to break down. Jacqueline rallied, however, and asked An’gel to have a seat. “Estelle won’t have lunch ready for another ten minutes or so.”

An’gel chose a seat on the sofa near Jacqueline. She
wished Horace would depart because she was eager to question her goddaughter about the dress.

“I’ll grab something in town.” Horace moved close to his wife, leaned down, and kissed her cheek. “You take it easy, sweetheart, and I’ll see you later.” He ducked his head in An’gel’s direction. “Miss An’gel.” Then he strode from the room, pulling his cell phone loose from its holster as he walked.

Jacqueline stared after him with what An’gel thought was a curious expression. Affection, An’gel decided, but laced with doubt. Did Jacqueline suspect her husband was responsible for Sondra’s death?

“I’m glad we have a few minutes alone together,” An’gel said, gently claiming her goddaughter’s attention. “I have something to tell you, and I’m afraid it’s a bit startling.”

Jacqueline appeared alarmed. “It’s nothing to do with Tippy, I hope.”

An’gel shook her head. “No, Tippy is fine. Dickce and Benjy are taking turns looking after her. She’ll be safe with them.”

Jacqueline sighed. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am. There’s so much to do, but I can’t take her with me. I haven’t even explained to her about Sondra.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “How do I tell her she’ll never see her mother again?”

“Oh, my dear.” An’gel got up from the sofa and went to her goddaughter. She bent down and wrapped her arms around Jacqueline, who leaned against her. An’gel rocked her goddaughter gently.

Jacqueline sighed. “Thank you. I’ll be okay.” She gently
loosed herself from An’gel’s grasp, and An’gel resumed her seat.

“If you’d like one of us with you when you tell her, all you have to do is say so,” An’gel said.

“I’ll think about it,” Jacqueline replied. “Now, what is this startling news you have?”

An’gel pulled the scrap of fabric from her sleeve and leaned forward to hand it to Jacqueline, who looked at it blankly.

“What is this?” she said.

“I thought it was a piece of cloth from the antique wedding dress,” An’gel said. “I found it in the hall under a table. When I examined it more closely, however, I realized the fabric wasn’t old enough, nor is it satin.”

“I don’t understand,” Jacqueline said. “If it didn’t come from the dress, what is it?”

“I don’t know,” An’gel said, “but I aim to find out. Once I realized it wasn’t from the dress, I wondered if the dress was still intact. I suspected, you see, that Sondra might have cut something else up. I confess I went snooping in your mother’s room, and I found the dress, unharmed, in the bottom drawer of the chifforobe.”

To her surprise, Jacqueline laughed. She stopped abruptly, however, and dropped the scrap onto the coffee table.

“Do you know what it came from?” An’gel asked.

Jacqueline nodded. “It must be from the replica
Maman
had made of the gown a few years ago. The last time I saw it, it was hanging in her closet.” She shook her head. “I suppose when Sondra went looking for the gown, she must
have found the replica instead. Probably didn’t realize it was not the original.” Her eyes filled suddenly with tears.

An’gel started to get up, but Jacqueline waved her back. “I’m all right. I’m happy the gown wasn’t harmed, for
Maman’
s sake. She’ll—” Jacqueline halted abruptly.

“Yes, I know,” An’gel said. “It’s hard to realize she’s gone.”

“I still don’t understand why Sondra would do such a thing.” Jacqueline picked up the scrap of fabric and stared at it. “It wasn’t like her to do something so cruel.”

An’gel was taken aback. From her own assessment of Sondra’s character, the girl’s act of destruction wasn’t all that surprising. She decided not to say this to her goddaughter. Instead she settled for a blander statement. “She was terribly angry over Mireille’s refusal to deal with Estelle. Perhaps she was so enraged she acted out of character.”

Jacqueline shook her head. “She was angry, certainly, but I’ve seen her that angry numerous times, and she never did anything like this.” She brandished the scrap. “I’d almost swear someone put her up to it, but I can’t imagine who would.”

An’gel could imagine it. The person who killed Sondra might have incited the act for reasons of his own. Then Sondra might have repented of it in the wake of her grandmother’s collapse and threatened to confess. There was a twisted mind at work here, whatever the answer.

“If someone talked Sondra into doing it,” An’gel said, “it would seem to me that person wanted to hurt Mireille. Perhaps not to the extent of having her collapse, but to upset her if nothing else.”

Jacqueline must already have come to that conclusion,
An’gel thought, because she didn’t appear at all surprised by the idea.

“I think you may be right.” Jacqueline looked troubled as she deposited the fabric once again on the coffee table. She took a deep breath and faced An’gel squarely. “There’s something neither
Maman
nor I told you and
Tante
Dickce. We probably should have, but
Maman
didn’t want to worry you.” She smiled briefly.

An’gel decided to let that statement pass. Mireille should have confided in them, and perhaps all this could have been averted. She didn’t want to upset her goddaughter by telling her that. Instead she said, “What didn’t you tell us?”

“There were a few other little incidents that upset
Maman
,” Jacqueline said. “At first we thought they were just coincidences, but then they got a bit ugly.”

“Tell me about these incidents,” An’gel said.

Jacqueline leaned back in her chair, her eyes closed. “A set of Dresden figurines that Papa gave her on their tenth wedding anniversary were broken.
Maman
thought either Estelle or Jackson had done it and were too embarrassed to admit it. She didn’t want a confrontation, so she said nothing about it to either of them. Especially because Jackson is rather shaky sometimes, and
Maman
didn’t want to upset him.”

An’gel nodded. Typical of Mireille, she thought, to refuse to confront someone.

“A couple of other small, treasured possessions got broken,” Jacqueline said. “
Maman
still refused to say anything, and she wouldn’t allow me to. I was surprised,
frankly, that nobody owned up to it. Jackson, in particular, because he’s always been so honest. Because of that, I decided it had to be Estelle. She can be spiteful sometimes, and she’s angry whenever
Maman
doesn’t give in to her and do things her way.”

“I think I would have said something to Estelle anyway, no matter what your mother wanted,” An’gel said. “That kind of behavior can’t be allowed to go on unchecked.”
Because it may have escalated into something far worse
.

“I argued with
Maman
about it, but she wouldn’t listen. She said she would handle it in her own way. The incidents stopped for a few weeks, and then a couple of days before you arrived, the worst one happened.” Jacqueline shuddered.

“What was it this time?” An’gel asked.

“One of Papa’s gifts to
Maman
,” Jacqueline said. “Probably the one she valued above all, a beautiful seventeenth-century French prayer book, still in its original binding.
Maman
found it cut loose from the binding, and the binding destroyed. I swear I thought she might have a heart attack then.”

An’gel felt sick to her stomach. “That was wicked. Mireille should have called the police.”

“I tried to get her to,” Jacqueline said. “Nothing I said could convince her. She kept insisting she would take care of it. I asked her point-blank if she thought Estelle was the culprit, but she just shook her head.” She paused. “I knew it couldn’t be Jackson, because he’s as devout a Catholic as
Maman
. Estelle isn’t devout by any means.”

“I agree with you about Jackson,” An’gel said. “He would
never do something he would consider blasphemous. If it wasn’t Estelle, however, then who do
you
think it was?”

Jacqueline looked ready to burst into tears again. “I don’t want to think it, but I’m afraid Horace did it. He was trying to talk
Maman
into lending him money, but she refused. He wasn’t happy about it.”

CHAPTER 27

A
n’gel’s heart went out to her goddaughter because she could see how troubled Jacqueline was and how much it cost her to admit that she suspected her husband of such a vile act.

“Horace has always seemed like such a confident, successful businessman,” An’gel said. “Has he been having financial problems recently?” She began to suspect that this was more than a minor cash-flow issue.

“Horace has been very successful,” Jacqueline said, a note of pride in her voice, but it quickly turned bitter. “Horace also likes to gamble. Not at the casinos, mind you, or card games. He gambles with the stock market and investments in business ventures.” She looked angry now, An’gel thought.

“And lately those haven’t been going too well.” An’gel knew from her own experience as an investor that things
could quickly turn against a person. She and Dickce, however, always exercised caution when considering any kind of new venture.

“He’s never had such a string of back luck,” Jacqueline said. “It’s like he’s lost his touch somehow. He’s also lost his confidence, and I hate seeing him this way.”

“Why did he approach Mireille for a loan?” An’gel asked. “Couldn’t you help him from your own income?”

Jacqueline shook her head. “Not without the permission of the trustees, one of whom is Richmond Thurston. The other is a cranky old stuffy banker in St. Ignatiusville who has turned down every request I’ve ever made. Both trustees have to agree. Rich would probably say yes, but old fussy pants won’t.”

“I see,” An’gel said. “Mireille obviously turned Horace down. Did she give a reason?”

“No, she didn’t,” Jacqueline said. “
Maman
has always been secretive about her affairs. She seems to be comfortably off, and I know she and Estelle have made good money from the bed-and-breakfast scheme, but other than that, I don’t have a clue what her financial situation is. Daddy left her a fair amount of money, but Willowbank is expensive to maintain.”

An’gel certainly understood that last bit. She and Dickce spent a considerable sum every year keeping their own antebellum home in tip-top condition.

Jacqueline went on, “I know how important Willowbank is, er, was, to
Maman
, and I love it, too. But at the end of the day, it’s a house, and there are times when people are more important than houses. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, my dear, I do,” An’gel said gently. “I understand
your mother’s feelings for her home, though. When you get to be our age, you often look back into your past, and there you see all the people you love who are no longer with you. People who lived, loved, and perhaps died in the house, and you want to cherish that house because it holds the memories of those loved ones. The house connects you to so much that makes you who you are.”

Jacqueline looked a little teary-eyed by the time An’gel finished, and An’gel felt slightly choked up herself. She always thought of her beloved parents whenever she talked about her home. In every room in Riverhill, she heard echoes of the past, of a time when she and Dickce were children and her parents were young and full of love for each other and for their daughters.

She rarely revealed her feelings to this extent to anyone other than her sister, and she was momentarily embarrassed that she had let her guard down, even to a loved one like her goddaughter.

“I understand,” Jacqueline said softly. “Thank you for sharing that with me. You’ve helped me understand
Maman
even better, and I can’t blame her for not wanting to put her home at risk for one of Horace’s uncertain ventures.”

An’gel smiled. She waited a moment, then she asked the question that had to be asked.

“Other than the fact that he needs money pretty desperately,” she said, “why do you think Horace could be behind these nasty incidents? Has he ever done anything of this sort before?”

Jacqueline shook her head. “No, and that’s the one thing that makes me a bit doubtful. He can be really hard when it comes to business. He’s hard on Trey and makes him toe
the line, even when Trey tries to get around him on something. But I’ve never seen him be vicious or vindictive.”

An’gel believed her. Jacqueline and Horace had been married for nearly fifteen years, and surely in that time, if Horace were capable of such revolting behavior, Jacqueline would have seen some evidence of it.

“In that case,” An’gel said, “I think Horace is probably not the culprit. With him off the list, along with Jackson, whom does that leave us with?”

“Estelle,” Jacqueline said promptly. “There’s always been something about her that I’ve never trusted. She’s sly, and that is a quality in a person that I simply can’t stand.”

An’gel found it hard to disagree with her goddaughter.
Sly
was a good word for Estelle. An’gel would also have added
passive-aggressive
because she thought Estelle was manipulative, particularly when it came to Mireille.

“Estelle, certainly,” An’gel said. “But we have to consider others as well.” She hesitated a moment. “I hate to ask this, but what about Sondra?”