1 Bless Her Dead Little Heart (16 page)

“M
iss An’gel.”

Kanesha’s voice brought An’gel out of her reverie. She looked up to see the deputy approaching her. She knew at once the news was not good by the set of Kanesha’s tense jaw.

“She’s dead,” An’gel said.

Kanesha nodded. “Heart attack probably.”

“She was terrified of spiders.” An’gel felt sick to her stomach as the mental image of Maudine, lying on the bathroom floor, returned.

“They’re rubber,” Kanesha said. “Do you have any idea where they came from?”

“One of my guests must have brought them. Dickce and I wouldn’t have such things in the house, not even for Halloween.”

“That’s what I figured, but I had to check. They must have been in a bag or a container of some kind. My guys are upstairs searching now, trying to find it.”

“How was it done?” An’gel asked. “Are there any indications? All I can think is that someone walked in and threw them on her while she was in the tub or when she was getting out.”

“I’m pretty sure they were inside the towel she picked up to dry herself with,” Kanesha said. “I found a couple on top of the table next to the tub and a couple in the towel itself. Looks like she picked up the towel, stepped out, opened the towel, and the spiders fell out and scared her so bad she had a heart attack.”

“Sickening,” An’gel said. “What kind of twisted mind comes up with a wicked trick like that?”

“It’s diabolical,” Kanesha said. “Whoever did it could have prepared the towel several hours in advance. When was the bathroom cleaned? There weren’t any towels in the laundry basket.”

An’gel’s mind focused on the ordinary detail, pushing away the sad vision of Maudine. “Antoinette cleaned up there today. I’m sure she brought down any soiled linens and put out fresh ones.”

Kanesha nodded. “I’ll check with her, plus I’ll have to find out when your guests took their baths.”

“They probably spaced them out to make sure they each had enough hot water,” An’gel said. “The guest bathroom has a separate tank from the one that serves my bathroom and my sister’s. The guest bath on the third floor also has its own small tank.”

“The only ones using the second-floor bathroom, then, would be Mrs. Sultan, her daughters, and her granddaughter, correct?”

An’gel nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“I’m going to talk to Antoinette first and find out about the towels,” Kanesha said. “Then I want to come and talk to everyone. Will you ask them all to remain in the parlor? I won’t be long.”

“Certainly,” An’gel said. “Benjy is probably also in the kitchen with Antoinette and Clementine, if you need him for anything. I asked him to keep an eye on Diesel.”

“Thanks,” Kanesha said. “I’ll be back soon.” She headed for the kitchen.

An’gel took a moment for a couple of deep, steadying breaths before she was ready to face Rosabelle and her family once again.

Bernice and Juanita occupied one sofa, with Junior between them. An’gel’s heart went out to the young man, who was obviously distraught over his mother’s death. He stared vacantly into space, but he held tightly to Juanita’s hand.

Rosabelle didn’t appear to have moved since An’gel left the room a few minutes ago. She still had her head buried in Antonio’s shoulder, and he still had his arms around her. He rocked her slowly and murmured to her. An’gel could hear the soothing tone but not the words. Wade lounged near the liquor cabinet with a large glass of what looked like whiskey in his hand.

Dickce sat several feet away from the family, her chair in the front half of the large parlor. She glanced up when An’gel entered the room, her look one of inquiry. An’gel shook her head, and Dickce frowned.

An’gel faced the family. “Deputy Berry will be along in a few minutes to talk to all of us. She asked that we all remain here until she comes.”

Wade and Juanita nodded. Junior and his grandmother did not seem to have heard. Antonio inclined his head once, but his attention otherwise appeared totally focused on his wife.

An’gel sat near Dickce and regarded Antonio thoughtfully. He was the picture of devotion, but she couldn’t forget the conversation Dickce had overheard. Was he really planning to divorce Rosabelle? Could his intention to divorce his wife or his winning back of his inheritance have anything to do with the two murders?

Perhaps there was no connection at all.

She surely didn’t envy Kanesha the task of sorting out this twisted mess. Her head ached as she tried to make sense of it all.

An’gel sensed the tension in the room like a palpable force. There was also fear. She herself was afraid, not so much for herself or Dickce, but for the lives of her guests. One of them—minus Junior, who had an alibi for the first death—had murdered two people with heartless calculation, yet the obvious target for the cold-blooded campaign remained alive. Though not untouched, An’gel thought. The death of her daughter had truly shaken Rosabelle. An’gel couldn’t imagine what it must be like to outlive one’s own child, even if the relationship was stormy at best.

Kanesha returned a few minutes later. She walked to the fireplace, then turned to face everyone.

“I’m sorry for your loss, and I assure you my deputies and I will do everything in our power to resolve this situation.” She paused for a moment to look at each person in turn. “Two women have been murdered in this house in the past twenty-four hours. One of you committed both these acts, and I’m not going to stop until I have you behind bars. I want you all to think clearly about what is going on here. I want you to think about everything you have heard and seen since you arrived yesterday. Everything you did. Even the smallest detail could help. I’m going to question each of you in turn like I did yesterday, and I want to hear about anything you think might have a bearing on these two murders.”

While Kanesha had talked, An’gel’s eyes had scanned each face in turn, over and over, in an attempt to discern any hint of emotion that could help identify the killer. Rosabelle had gently disengaged herself from her husband’s arms to listen to the deputy. Her expression revealed little, An’gel thought, other than grief. Wade simply looked bored as he sipped away at his drink. Bernice, Juanita, and Junior appeared as sorrowful as Rosabelle. Antonio’s blank expression revealed nothing to An’gel.

Rosabelle’s trembling voice broke the uneasy silence that ensued after Kanesha’s speech. “Deputy, could I say something?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kanesha said.

“I know that I am the target of all this hate,” Rosabelle said. “I was the one who was supposed to fall down those stairs. But Marla happened to get there before me, so she was the one to die. I am almost as terrified of spiders as my poor Maudine was. I was the one who was supposed to find them and be frightened into a heart attack. But instead it was my oldest child.” Her voice broke on the last three words. She took a moment to compose herself before she continued. “I don’t know which of you is doing this, but I beg of you, confess and stop these acts of wickedness. I will do whatever you want, but just stop this.” She burst into tears, and Antonio once again enfolded her in his arms.

An’gel realized she was gripping the arms of her chair tightly enough that her hands ached. She willed her body to relax, and her fingers eased their grip. She wondered whether Kanesha had deliberately tried to evoke a response like this. Rosabelle had risen to the bait, but would her impassioned plea have any effect whatsoever?

Wade moved away from the liquor cabinet and into his mother’s line of sight. “Nicely done, Mother. You really missed your calling, you know. Dad really should have used his connections to get you in front of the camera. You’d have given Bette Davis and Joan Crawford a run for their money.” He laughed, and An’gel wondered how much whiskey he’d had.

Rosabelle’s face whitened as she pulled away from Antonio. “How dare you say such things to me? Have you no decency?”

“There’s nothing decent about
you
,” Wade said in a sneering tone. “Or about what’s going on here. I think you’re the one who needs to confess, Mother dearest. You hated Marla, so you figured out how to get rid of her and make it look like you were the intended victim. So convenient.” He shook his head. “And poor Maudie, always asking you for money. That’s a cardinal sin where you’re concerned. You love money too much to want to share it with anyone, especially with your children, who deserve it every bit as much as you do.”

An’gel marveled that none of the others had jumped to Rosabelle’s defense, even her supposedly besotted husband.

“Deputy, I’m sure there’s something you don’t know about the terms of my mother’s first husband’s will. Did you know that, if Maudine and Bernice die before Mother does, their portions of the estate revert to Mother? They have to outlive her if they want to inherit anything to leave to their own children or a surviving spouse. My father’s will is the same. That’s why my wife and my sister had to die, and my mother killed them both.”

D
ickce had never in her life heard such a vicious attack as the one Wade launched against Rosabelle. She had been watching him steadily work his way down to the bottom of a nearly full bottle of whiskey. She was amazed he was still upright, much less able to articulate his hatred of his mother so forcefully.

She could tell that An’gel was distressed by the nasty scene. She was, too, but part of her was curious to see how Rosabelle would react. Her own cynicism sometimes startled her, but with Rosabelle, she had decided over the past two days, every display of emotion was suspect.

Dickce had only seconds to wait. Rosabelle’s expression changed from disbelief, to horror, and finally to outrage as Wade spoke. When he concluded, she rose from the sofa on unsteady legs, and Dickce thought Rosabelle was going to attack her son physically. Instead she stood in place and launched a verbal assault.

“Your father knew how weak his son was and always would be. He made me promise on his deathbed that I would do my best to keep you from sheer destitution. He knew you were completely incapable of managing money, and he arranged things so that you would always have something. You ought to be grateful to me that you weren’t out on the streets foraging through garbage cans years ago. Instead you live in a beautiful home with plenty of food and a generous allowance. Right now if I could, I would throw every last cent of your inheritance in your face and tell you to go to the devil.”

Wade shrank back from the furious onslaught of his mother’s words. Dickce felt sorry for him, though he really had brought it on himself. Rosabelle was a vicious opponent, and surely he ought to have known that by now. She gave no quarter. Evisceration seemed to be a skill she had mastered long ago.

Dickce glanced at Kanesha. Would she put a stop to this? Or was she deliberately letting it go on in hopes of forcing the killer’s hand? Dickce wasn’t sure how that would work. If Rosabelle was the killer, as Wade had claimed, she seemed proof against this particular ploy.

Dickce glanced at Bernice, Junior, and Juanita. All three looked shell-shocked, as well they might.

“Excuse me, Deputy Berry. I need to speak with you.”

Startled, Dickce turned to see one of the male deputies in the doorway. He took a couple of steps into the room. The chief deputy didn’t appear to be all that happy about the interruption. Things had hit a boiling point, and now the heat dissipated.

Kanesha left her spot by the fireplace to confer in an undertone with her subordinate. “You’ll have to excuse me for moment,” she said to everyone before she followed him out of the room.

Rosabelle remained on her feet, her gaze locked upon her son. She seemed not to have heard Kanesha. Wade appeared thoroughly cowed now. He stared at the glass in his hands and shifted his weight back and forth from one leg to another. The air of tension in the room began to increase again, and Dickce wished suddenly that she could simply get up and walk out. She had had enough of the drama.

Kanesha carried a purse encased in a large plastic bag with her when she returned about two minutes later. Dickce stared at it. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was the handbag Rosabelle had had with her when she arrived yesterday.

The chief deputy walked back to the area in front of the fireplace. She held the plastic bag up so that everyone could see its contents. “Can anyone identify this purse?”

“It’s mine.” Rosabelle stepped forward to claim it but faltered when Kanesha shook her head.

“Thank you for the identification,” Kanesha said. “I’m sorry, but I need to hold on to it for a little while.”

“That’s outrageous,” Rosabelle said. “What do you need with my handbag? You have no right to be going through my things without my permission. I demand that you show me your search warrant. Do you have one?”

Kanesha regarded her coolly. “No, ma’am, I do not. I don’t need one in this situation. I am investigating a crime scene, and I’m within my rights to search wherever I think it’s necessary. In this case, the crime scene involves the whole house.”

Dickce thought Rosabelle might protest further. She was so riled up now, she might do anything. To Dickce’s surprise, however, Rosabelle stepped back and resumed her place on the sofa beside Antonio without another word. She continued to glare at Kanesha.

“In the course of the search for evidence,” the chief deputy said, “one of the deputies came across this handbag. Inside it he discovered a plastic bag that contained one rubber spider. The spider in that bag matched those that we found in the bathroom with Mrs. Pittman.”

Rosabelle gasped. “I don’t believe this. Someone else put that in my handbag. I can’t stand to be anywhere near a spider. There’s no way I would ever carry even fake ones around with me.”

“When was the last time you looked in this bag, ma’am?” Kanesha asked.

“I’m not sure.” Rosabelle frowned. “Probably last night before I went to bed. I didn’t need it for anything today. I left it sitting on the dressing table. Anyone could have come in the room while I was out and put that plastic bag inside.”

Kanesha regarded her for a moment before she turned to Juanita. “Miss Cameron, you are sharing the room with your grandmother. Correct?”

“Yes,” Juanita said. “And if you mean by that, did I have an opportunity to put the bag of spiders in Grandmother’s purse? Well, I did. Have the opportunity, I mean.” She grimaced. “I’m not fond of crawly things either. I don’t even like to touch fake ones.”

“There’s one person who doesn’t mind crawly things like spiders,” Wade said. “My stepson Benjy has two tarantulas he keeps in his room at home. You ought to be questioning him. Somebody put him up to playing a prank with those spiders, I’ll bet.” He laughed, the sound harsh and disturbing.

Dickce wanted to leap out of her chair and slap the man. How dare he try to involve poor innocent Benjy in this horrible mess? She forced herself to take a deep breath before she spoke.

“I think you’ll find, Deputy Berry, that Benjy had no opportunity to do that. He hasn’t been up to the second floor of the house at all. He was with me most of the morning, and if you’ll recall, we were out of the house. Since we returned, he has been with other people the entire time, I believe.” That ought to put an end to that, Dickce thought with satisfaction. She wasn’t going to sit idly by and let someone try to make Benjy out to be a malicious prankster.

She noticed An’gel looking at her rather oddly. She shook her head slightly to indicate that she would talk to her sister later. An’gel frowned but turned her gaze back to Kanesha as she responded to Dickce.

“Thank you. Your statement is helpful. However, from my discussion with Miss Buford, the housekeeper’s granddaughter, I know that Mr. Stephens had an opportunity to be alone with the towels for at least a minute before she took them upstairs and put them in the guest bathroom.”

Dickce knew Kanesha had to consider every angle, every possibility, but still it disconcerted her to hear the deputy speak so coolly about Benjy. She had to concede that he might have had the opportunity to put the rubber spiders in a towel, but she couldn’t see that he had a probable motive. As soon as she had the opportunity to speak to Kanesha on her own, she would give the deputy the benefit of her opinion of Benjy’s character.

“I have to consider the possibility that every one of you had an opportunity to put the spiders in the towel and then put the plastic bag into this handbag.” Kanesha held it up again. “I will be asking you all more about this during our one-on-one interviews. Mr. Pittman, I would like to start with you. Will you come with me now?”

At first Junior didn’t seem to have heard Kanesha. Dickce thought he looked completely forlorn. She felt sorry for him, as she did for Benjy. Both of them had lost their mothers in the space of a day.

Juanita patted Junior’s hand. “Sweetie, the deputy wants you to go with her now, okay?”

Dully Junior looked at his cousin, then nodded. With what looked like great effort, he pushed himself up from the sofa and stood, blinking, at Kanesha. Then he moved slowly toward the door into the hall.

“Please remain here until I call for you,” Kanesha said. “One of my men will remain in the room with you, and as before, if you need anything, please speak to him. This may take some time.”

Dickce rose. “Deputy, would it be okay for me to go to the kitchen and see that coffee is prepared for everyone?” She figured Antoinette and Clementine had already made it, but someone would have to fetch it. Besides, it would give her a chance to speak to Benjy.

“That’s fine,” Kanesha said. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” She departed the room.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Dickce said to the room at large. She did not look at her sister before she made a beeline for the door.

She almost ran into Kanesha’s deputy as he exited the room. He managed to sidestep her as she hurried past, and she flashed him an apologetic smile.

Calm down
, she told herself,
there’s nothing on fire
. She slowed her pace. She remembered something she had completely forgotten earlier—the water pistol. The killer had taken it from Benjy’s room back in California and used it to cause a fatal fall in her home.

What if the rubber spiders belonged to Benjy as well?