Hall, Jessica (24 page)

Was he stalling her from going inside, or did he really want her
to get all jazzed about an old house? "Wow. Some guy."

"He brought the city into the mainstream of American design.
Marc thought the renovation was important; he considered it giving a piece of
history back to
the district." Now he looked at her. "He and his wife
were both active in several charities devoted to architectural
preservation."

"Fascinating stuff." She liked the great rounded porch
that wrapped around the first floor, but thought the multipaned stained-glass
windows were a bit much. It was a house, not a church—and for all their money,
the LeClares were just people. "How do you know all this?"

He glared at her. "I grew up here. Everyone knows this
stuff."

"Uh-huh. This wouldn't happen to be your way of telling me to
keep my common little mouth shut and let you talk to the lady, would it? You
being a family friend and an authority on her genteel shack o' Sully
here?"

"God, you are an obnoxious woman." He got out of the car
and slammed the door.

"That's what I thought." She took her keys out of the
ignition and thrust them into her pocket. "I can tell already that this is
going to be a laugh a minute."

A maid complete with an apron answered the front door and ushered
them into a sitting room. On the way, Terri noted the ornate ceiling
medallions, heart-of-pine floors, and huge curving staircase. Paintings of
important-looking but not very attractive people marched up the walls in
irregular columns all the way to the fourteen-foot-high covered ceilings. There
were so many valuable antiques around that one room probably cost more to
furnish than what she had socked away in her pension fund for the last six
years.

The message was beautiful, elegant, but still rather pointed:
We
have money. You don't. Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.

The sitting room—or the morning room, as the
maid
had called it—was decorated in a thousand shades of pale yellow, white, and
ivory. Terri assumed it was supposed to give the impression of sunshine and
happiness, but it made her feel like she'd walked into a bowl of movie theater
popcorn. She had an urge to look for a tin shaker of salt and a wad of paper
napkins.

Straighten up, Vincent—the woman just lost her husband.

Marc LeClare's widow appeared in the doorway a few minutes later.
She was wearing a dark charcoal gray dress with soft lace cuffs and a marcasite
and diamond brooch shaped like a Mardi Gras mask.

"Detective Vincent." She came forward slowly, as if
unsure of her ability to reach her destination. "Thank you for
coming." She turned to Cort. "Cortland, how kind of you to
call."

"I wanted to make sure you were all right, Laure." He
took her into a gentle embrace.

Terri waited until Cort finished hugging the woman, then offered
her hand. Laure's fingers felt like thin, frozen sticks. "I'm so sorry for
your loss, Mrs. LeClare."

"Thank you." She gestured to a daffodil yellow settee.
"Won't you please sit down? Can I offer you something to drink? Tea,
coffee, or perhaps something cold?"

"No, ma'am, but thank you." Terri took out her notebook
and pen. "We won't take up any more of your time than we have to, but we
do have some questions."

Cort sat down beside Laure and took her hand in his. "If
you're not up to this, we can come back another time."

Terri gritted her teeth. "Of course we can."

"No, I'd rather... get it over with." Laure grimaced
slightly. "Please, how can I help you?"

"Did you see your husband yesterday morning, before he left
the house?" Terri asked.

"Yes, we had breakfast together as we always did, and went
over the campaign schedule for the week." Laure frowned. "He
mentioned he was stopping by one of the properties we have downtown before he
went to his campaign headquarters. Then the police called, and..." She
made another of her delicate gestures.

Terri made a note to check into Marc's scheduled appearances, but
before she could move to the next question, Cort asked, "Laure, did Marc
say he was meeting Ms. Duchesne?"

"He mentioned her to me, and that he was making a
contribution to a community project she was involved in. I believe he meant to
lend her the property for some office and storage space." Laure looked
over her shoulder as the door opened and Moriah Navarre came in.

"Cortland?" The petite blond woman looked from him to
Terri, and scowled. "What are you doing here?"

The Deb, naturally. Now my morning is complete.
"It's
official business, Ms. Navarre, if you wouldn't mind—"

"I do mind. Mrs. LeClare is a friend of my family, and she is
in no condition to answer any questions." Her eyes shifted to the man
sitting next to Laure. "I thought you were out of town."

Here we go with the helpless Southern-flower act,
Terri
thought, barely restraining herself from rolling her eyes.
She'll whimper
something like, "Oh, Cort, you big strong hunk of testosterone you, I'm so
relieved you're here. I can hardly stand upright without manly
support...."

"I came back early." Surprisingly, Cort didn't look
very
interested in Moriah. "We need to talk to Mrs. LeClare now, Moriah, so
give us a few minutes."

His dismissal seemed to annoy her more than Terri's presence did.
"Laure?"

Marc's widow nodded quickly. "I'll be just fine, my dear.
Would you check on how things are progressing with lunch?"

"Sure. Call me if you need anything." With one last
steamed look at Terri, Moriah departed.

"Moriah is a little overprotective," Laure said.

Moriah is a little over-Guccied.
"No
problem, ma'am." Terri felt sorry for the widow, but she had to shake her
out of her fog of devastation. "Mrs. LeClare, were you aware of the
relationship between your husband and Ms. Duchesne?"

Laure's forehead wrinkled. "Relationship? I'm sorry, I
don't..." She looked at Cort.

Cort reacted as if Terri had slapped the older woman. "What
relationship would that be, Detective Vincent?" Terri ignored him.
"Mrs. LeClare, did your husband tell you that Isabel Duchesne is his
natural daughter?"

"Daughter?" Laure paled, then lifted a trembling hand to
her throat. "No. My God. He never said a word to me. All these
years..." She covered her face and began to weep.

Her shock seemed pretty real. "According to my information,
your husband only recently discovered that Sable was his daughter," Terri
told her quickly. "But if he had known about her, would there be any
reason he would conceal this from you? Any payments he might have made to the
mother for her support, for example?"

Cort made a low, harsh sound. "That's enough, Terri."

The widow recovered quickly. "No, Cortland, I want to know
about this," she said, wiping at her eyes with her fingertips.
"Detective, Marc couldn't have known he had a daughter. He would have told
me."

"And why is that, Mrs. LeClare?"

Incredibly, the older woman blushed. "We were never able to
have children," she said, her voice low. "Marc and I tried
everything—even fertility treatments—but nothing worked. I could get pregnant
but I couldn't carry a child to term."

That must have sucked. "I'm sorry."

"The damage from all the miscarriages forced me to have a
complete hysterectomy seven years ago." She sat up straighter, visibly
gathering herself. "I know this is more information than you need, but let
me assure you, my husband and I would have been overjoyed to welcome a daughter
into our lives."

"Sable Duchesne's mother was a Cajun," Terri said
softly. "Would you have welcomed her, knowing that?"

Rather than showing offense, Laure smiled a little. "I know
what you're thinking, Detective, but I'm no snob. She could have been purple
with pink polka dots and we still would have loved her." She sighed.
"I don't understand. If she is Marc's daughter, why weren't we told? Did
her mother keep her from us? Can I speak to the girl?"

"We don't have all the facts yet, Laure. Ms. Duchesne is
presently in protective custody." Cort gave Terri a hard look. "It's
possible someone was blackmailing Marc. Revealing her existence could have
seriously damaged his election campaign."

Laure shook her head. "Marc wouldn't have cared about that.
If she or her mother needed money, he
would have given it to
them. We would have done anything to help them."

Terri's brows rose. "He wouldn't have cared about his
election being wrecked?"

"You didn't know my husband, Detective, and that's a pity. If
you had, you would know what a wonderfully generous man he was."

Terri asked a few more questions, but Laure was unable to give
them many details about that day other than her brief conversation with Marc at
breakfast.

As she walked them out to the drive, Laure touched Cort's arm.
"This poor girl—Isabel—is there any way I can help her? Does she need a
place to stay?"

Now that's something you don't see every day,
Terri
thought.
The widow of an unfaithful husband offering to put up his
illegitimate daughter.
"No, ma'am, but thank you for the offer."

Cort kissed her brow. "I'll keep in touch and let you know.
You take care, now."

Terri expected Cort to chew her ear off as soon as they got to her
car, but he said nothing. "Where to, Marshal?"

"You can drop me back at the station."

She wasn't going to let him shut her out just because she'd sprung
a little surprise on him. Not without a fight. "I had to see how she'd
react. You know the scenario: She's trying to get him elected as governor; he
tells her he's been hiding an illegitimate kid; maybe she goes a little
crazy."

"Laure LeClare is not crazy, or jealous, or a killer. She's a
decent woman who has had her entire world destroyed, and you just shoved her
face in the rubble." He turned fierce green eyes on her. "Who told
you Sable Duchesne is Marc's daughter?"

"Your brother, the fugitive from work."

His cell phone rang, and he swore under his breath as he flipped
it open to answer it. "Gamble." He listened for a moment. "I'll
take care of it. Thanks." To Terri, he said, "You said you questioned
Caine Gantry. Where do I find him?"

"Why?"

"Your cousin didn't want to leave." From the window, J.
D. watched Hilaire's boat speed back across the lake toward the river.

"She's worried about me." Sable took one of the last
grocery bags he'd brought down from the pier from him. "And she doesn't
like you."

"Yeah, I picked up on that." He followed her into the
kitchen. "Is it because we dropped in on her grandparents last
night?"

"No." She opened the first bag and looked inside.
"She just doesn't like you in general."

"Right." He noted the tension in her shoulders and the
flat line of her mouth, and wondered what had happened while he had been gone.
"The newspapers are having a field day. Election's shot all to hell,
politicians scrambling to replace Marc." He'd decided not to tell her about
the APB; it would only worry her more. "Mardi Gras is going well,
though."

She began unloading the bags and sorting through the groceries
he'd bought. "Uh-huh."

He decided to prod her a little. "They're running photos of
you and him on the front page. I never noticed the resemblance before I saw
them side by side. You have the same eyes."

"That's all we shared." She shoved a head of lettuce
into the refrigerator.

"Maybe not." J. D. had never thought of Marc as the type
of man who kept secrets, but Sable's existence proved that he had. Now what J.
D. needed to find out was what she was hiding from him.

"He was running for governor and a millionaire; I'm a social
worker who makes twenty-five thousand a year if I'm lucky." She slammed
the fridge shut. "We came from completely different worlds."

"Not really." When she gave him a slightly incredulous
look, he decided to change the subject. "What did you do while I was
gone?"

"I watched the lake and prayed you wouldn't steal my cousin's
boat. Hilaire snooped around the place. She thinks your friend has a nice
bathtub." She folded one empty bag and went on to the next. "We
listened to the radio, too. Evidently I'm now a suspect in your
disappearance." She tossed a bag of rice in the cabinet. "Just in
case you were wondering."

So she knew—no wonder Hilaire had looked at him like he was scum
and Sable acted like she wanted to tear his head off. "I heard. I'll take
care of it."

"I can't believe this." She slammed a can of coffee on
the counter.
"I
didn't ask you to come after me.
You
decided
to disappear all on your own. Why don't you report in or whatever it is you
cops do when you're out chasing people?"