Lies Agreed Upon (40 page)

“You mean
Bea and Cee and Dad Donovan?” interrupted Tess, her interest piqued. Louise was surely referring to the bayou house.

“Yeah, dey all used to come out for a get-away.
Da old man died in ’92, so da two ladies come out alone dat year,” said Louise. “In ‘92, we not only got Hurricane Andrew, but a bunch of tornadoes. One tornado went right t’rough dat bayou an’ hit deir house.”

“Oh, my God! That must be why
they all died in the same year,” Tess exclaimed.

“I read in da papers Cecilia Donovan and Beatrice Cabrera got
kilt, so I went over to see if it was time for Bea to pass on Noah’s necklace,” said Louise matter-of-factly.

Tess was repulsed by her vulturine willingness to peck the
jewelry from Bea’s dead body, but she schooled her features to blankness.

“When I
reached, I found out da Donovan woman died in hospital, but Bea Cabrera was missin’. I went over to deir house, but it was jus’ splinters—no use to look for dat cross and chain like a needle in a haystack. While I was standin’ an’ lookin’, a neighbor lady come up, an’ we got to talkin’.”

The neighbor told Louise that she had heard the tornado warning on the TV and hurried over to make sure the old ladies were aware since they had no
television or radio. She found them strangely unmoved by her news. She wasn’t even sure dull-eyed Cee Donovan understood what was happening. Bea Cabrera was looking out the back door toward the southwestern sky, where dark clouds were churning ominously. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked in the distance, but Bea Cabrera didn’t flinch, marveled the neighbor. In one blue-white burst, the neighbor was terrified to see a funnel cloud begin its deadly descent toward earth “like da finger of God.” She urged the two women to take cover.

The neighbor
said Bea just fingered a gold cross on a chain. “If a tornado is writing our death warrant, it’s only copying down what God’s ordained,” she told the neighbor. “If our time’s come, it’s come.” The stunned neighbor ran home and never saw the two women alive again.

After the storm, a dying Cee Donovan was found unconscious in the destroyed house, but there was no sign of Bea Cabrera, and her body was never found. Louise figured Bea had been sucked up and dropped somewhere in the labyrinth of bayous.

“Seems a fittin’ end for her, but I still regret losin’ Noah’s cross an’ chain,” concluded Louise.

“I don’t think anyone deserves to die that way,” protested Tess, eliciting a shrug from
the old woman. The cold animus in her face was so disturbing that Tess repeated her farewells and quickly exited.

“Wow, you look exhausted, and you stink of cigarette smoke,” said Remy as she slid into his car.

Tess grimaced. “It turns out that Louise is a chain smoker.”

“Smoke intolerance didn’t put that troubled look on your face. What’s up?” he frowned.

“First Sam Beauvoir and now Louise Gregory want me to somehow atone for old injustices by dead Cabreras. My inheritance seems to have all these invisible liens.” Tess sighed and told him the saga of Noah Cabirac, what she thought was probably the true scenario of the boat accident, and her promise to “right the wrong” of Noah’s treatment by the Cabreras.

“I a
dmit that I’m ashamed of the way my grandfather behaved,” she said. “He seems hot-headed, elitist and dishonest. I think he knew Noah was his half brother when he left to study in Texas. But he never did anything to acknowledge Noah or his claim on the family.”

“So what are you planning to do to ‘right the wrong’ as you promised?” Remy asked. “Did Louise mention any potential heirs?”

“Well, she did say Noah was married right before he died, but she didn’t mention any children,” answered Tess. “Still, she’s a strange woman. Her focus is all on Noah. She didn’t seem to like or care about Noah’s wife, so maybe she doesn’t care about any potential heirs—even if they exist. I don’t think it would matter anyway in terms of inheritance, since there’s no legal acknowledgement of Noah as Roman’s son.”

“No, it might not legally matter. But if Noah had descendants, could you ignore them
morally as your grandfather ignored Noah? There’s no point in criticizing old Guy if you’re going to follow in his footsteps,” said Remy quietly. He paused and seemed about to make another comment but then apparently changed his mind. “Now, I think it’s time to sweep you off your feet on the dance floor.”

Thibodeaux’s Café and Salle de Danse had an exterior that looked like a storage shed for Happy Cajun
s Swamp Adventures, but inside it delivered volume if not subtlety with a massive seafood platter—catfish, crab, shrimp, frog legs, oysters, crawfish, and French fries—and energetic fiddle whines and accordion warbles from a group called The Bayou Ramblers. Tess noticed that most of the couples on the little concrete dance floor were older, and she overheard a pair of teenagers at a neighboring table complain to their parents about having to “watch grammaws dance.”

Remy must have overheard the same remark because he stood abrup
tly and held out a hand to Tess. “Let’s see if young legs can keep up with the experts.”

Zydeco was basical
ly a repeated four-beat shuffle—slow, quick, quick—with little accent dips, kicks and turns. Tess quickly adjusted to Remy’s stepping. It was exhilarating to cede control to the pulse of the music and his confident hands.

Looking up at his sweat-shined face, she noticed that Remy seemed distracted, his eyes clouded. “Earth to Remy. A girl gets insulted when I guy fo
rgets she’s in his arms,” Tess teased.

Remy glanced down and apologized with a contrite
smile. “Sorry. There is something on my mind, but this isn’t the right moment to discuss it. We need to talk in a quieter place.”

Tess was tempted to probe further, but he had a tight-lipped look that discouraged questions.

They adjourned from the dance floor to share the huge seafood platter and several cups of coffee “to keep you awake on the drive home.” Then Remy drove to Café Vermilionville and escorted her to her parked car. Remy seemed preoccupied. He had said he wanted to talk, but he made no move to start a conversation as they walked.

“Well, good night and thanks for e
scorting me,” said Tess once they’d reached her car. She was turning to open her car door when Remy quickly put a restraining hand on her shoulder.

“
Look…” he started to say and paused. Tess looked at him expectantly, and her heart began to accelerate anxiously as she noted his troubled expression. “There’s something I really want to tell you. It’s been weighing on my mind,” he continued and frowned at his feet.

Concerned by his disturbed air and eager to
keep their growing camaraderie on track, she urged, “Then let me help. Problems often get lighter when you share.”

S
he impulsively stood on her toes to place a soft kiss on his taut cheek. She intended it to be a friendly and supportive gesture. But Remy looked startled, raised a defensive hand and took a quick step backward.

Seeing Tess’s dismayed blush at his reaction, Remy swiftly soothed, “Don’t take it the wrong way, Tess. There’s a good reason I want to tread carefully in getting to know you—and I do want to know you better—but I can’t get into it here and now. Plus, you surprised me. You’re basically so hands-off reserved, I didn’t expect that kiss.”

Tess was stunned. He thought she was reserved, aloof? She started to tell herself it was absurd, but she heard a soft
“of course”
from the back of her mind. She had been critical of Jon for his cool distance and of Mac for his lack of emotional support. She had been disappointed to find Tony guarded behind his surface charm, and she had assumed Joel was the one who preferred a relationship without emotional complications. But she realized suddenly that maybe the fault lay with her. Maybe she created that disconnection. Did she unknowingly project emotional unavailability to the men she met?

“I didn’t realize I gav
e you that impression,” Tess finally said. “I hope, when the timing is better, that we can be friends and mutually agree that I’m not reserved.”

“
There’s something we really need to discuss first. But let’s put off that chat to an earlier hour and a sunnier location,” agreed Remy. “Can we get together tomorrow in New Orleans?”

“I’m going to be really busy tomorrow,” said Tess, regretfully recalling her meeting with Dreux and Tony. “Why don’t you call me on Wednesday morning to set something up?”  Remy nodded.

“OK, I look forward to talking Wednesday,” concluded Tess with a warm smile, firmly suppressing an urge to push Remy for more information. His face had an unusually cool, closed look in the moonlight.

As Tess sped through the dark toward New Orleans, she felt beset by a growing
unease. Louise Gregory had led her down disturbing paths. Tess pictured her now in the lounger of the run-down trailer, silently and fiercely smoking a cigarette. Now that she had delivered her ultimatum to “make things right,” what was Louise thinking?

An image immediately materialized in Tess’s mind: Somewhere at the bottom of an unknown bayou, a gold cross gleamed among ta
nnin-stained bones.

16
d
éjà
vu

“What’s wrong?” whispered Tony in Tess’s ear. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“That’s more appropriate than you know,” murmured Tess, keeping her voice equally soft since Phil Dreux was only a few yards away and eying them curiously. They were standing in the inner courtyard of Phil Dreux’s French Quarter townhouse. It was a paved rectangle enclosed by the balconied walls of his two-story home. In the middle of the space was a large fountain with a stone basin supported by four eroded griffins.

Pretending to inspect some pots of red-flowering
impatiens on the far side of the fountain, Tess drew Tony further away from the old lawyer, who was standing in front of his home’s kitchen entrance into the courtyard. She whispered back, “I look at that fountain, and the hairs rise on the back of my neck. I have this sense of déjà vu. Whether in a nightmare or a bad day in a past life—I swear I’ve been here before.”

Only 10 minutes earlier, they had been waiting on the banquette in front of a typical Vieux Carré townhome. Tony had confidently
beaten a tattoo with the polished-brass knocker, and Dreux himself had opened the front door. He was dressed in what Tess supposed was his “at-home casual” attire: a maroon cashmere cardigan, immaculately pressed slacks and gleaming black loafers. Tess wondered idly if Phil Dreux even owned a pair of jeans.

The old man waved them in with happy bobs of his bald pate and introduced them i
mmediately to his housekeeper, who was hovering behind him with a shy, excited smile. Mrs. Vera Blaise was an overweight middle-aged lady with a lumpy flour-sack figure, yet she was not unattractive thanks to her warm raisin eyes, sweet smile and pink cheeks. After a round of handshakes, the housekeeper hurried off to finish preparing lunch, although it would not have surprised Tess to see old-fashioned curtsies to complement Dreux’s jovial lord-of-the-manor demeanor.

As soon as she disappeared from sight, Dreux clapped his bony hands together and asked them if they would like a quick tour of his “historic home.”  They gave him the polite nods he e
xpected, and Dreux promptly shuffled into the double parlor, a room that stretched from a pair of long windows overlooking the street to a pair of long windows overlooking the interior courtyard. It was divided in the middle by two white-painted Doric columns, and each section was graced by cypress-mantel fireplaces, which Dreux proudly informed them dated from 1824. The furniture consisted of nineteenth century antiques with the Victorian preference for carved wood, silk button-back upholstery and fringed chenille drapery.

“Wow, from the modern look of your law office, I never would have guessed you were a collector of antiques,” Tess commented as they passed through the parlor and dutifully admired an age-darkened oil painting of Jackson Square by some forgotten local artist.

“Oh, most of these furnishings came with the house and belonged to the original owners. I bought the whole place kit and caboodle back in 1990,” said Dreux with a modest smile, yet he clearly was pleased by their expressions of admiration.

He steered them back into the main hall, and Tess was surprised to glimpse a small el
evator opposite the staircase to the second floor. “Did you install the elevator?” Tess asked.

“The previous owners put that in for an invalid family member. I am quite capable of hauling myself up a flight of stairs
– but some days I do use it to spare my old knees,” chuckled Dreux. He then led them into the dining room. A long mahogany table was draped in white lace and linen. It stretched the length of the room, bracketed by lyre-back chairs. Three place settings were carefully arranged at one end. The imported floral-patterned Limoges china, the polished ornate silverware and the cut-crystal goblets hinted at the potential magnificence of a fully accoutered table.

“I think Mrs. Blaise has gone to a lot of trouble for a business lunch,” Tess
remarked. “And I see that she has only set three places. Won’t she be joining us?”

Dreux shook his head. “I told her that we were having a simple working luncheon, but the poor woman couldn’t resist going a little overboard. She so rarely gets to trot out the fine china or show off her culinary skills. I guarantee there is no intent on my part to i
ntimidate or obligate,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Tony, who was inspecting the elegant table dubiously. “And I have begged dear Vera to join us, but she has adamantly refused.”

Tess peered through the dining room window at the paved interior court. “I see you’re i
nterested in my courtyard,” said Dreux promptly. “Let’s just pop into the kitchen, and then I’ll take you out for a look. I promised Vera I’d show you the kitchen remodel. She oversaw most of the work and is very proud of it.”

“Another member of Mimi’s cult of the new kitchen.”

They obligingly trooped into the kitchen through an old-fashioned butler’s pantry. Vera Blaise beamed from behind a black granite-topped island atop immaculate, newly refurbished wood-plank flooring. Through a door in an end wall of raw brick, Tess saw a spacious storage room where shelves were lined with enough food to withstand a siege, or more probably a hurricane. Overall, the kitchen had an English country house’s cluttered, utilitarian warmth with artfully distressed maple cabinetry, mounted plates and ruffled floral valences. It was a very feminine kitchen for an old bachelor, but perhaps Dreux had given Vera a free hand in the décor, Tess thought.

“We’ll take a quick look outside, Vera,” smiled Dreux. “
Then we’ll be talking business, so there’s no rush. I only wanted to show them how nicely you’ve helped me update my kitchen.” Mrs. Blaise blushed happily as Tony and Tess took Dreux’s cue and lauded her domain.

It was once they stepped into the courtyard that Tess was overwhelmed by eerie recogn
ition.

A white jasmine vine climbed upward to twine around the ornate cast-iron supports and balustrade of the balcony off the upper rooms. The balcony draped permanent shade over the long black-shuttered windows and doors below. The large fountain sat in the center, resting on griffins whose fangs and claws had been tamed by time into worn and broken hints
of their original roaring vigor. What had once probably been an energetic spray of water had weakened into a feeble arc. The soft burble of its fall created barely enough sound to mask Tess’s and Tony’s conversation from the curious Dreux.

The window shutters were open, but Tess was sure they had been closed the last time she saw them.
She blinked at that thought, baffled by her unreasonable certainty that she had seen this place before. She rotated slowly, frowning and trying to capture some real memory.

Then an image popped into Tess’s mind. This was the same courtyard she had glimpsed on her walking tour of the Vieux Carré! “What are the odds?” Tess marveled aloud.

“Is there something troubling you, Miss Parnell?” Dreux immediately quizzed, with an intent and oddly knowing look on his face.

“It’s really weird, but when I first arrived
, I took a walking tour of the Quarter, and I happened to look through an open carriageway as we passed. It turns out it was your carriageway. I saw this courtyard. Of course, I had no way of knowing it was your house, Mr. Dreux. But, for some reason, the place fascinated me. It felt so familiar, as if I’d been here before,” she told the two men, turning her head and looking around curiously.

She frowned, “The sense of déjà vu is still so strong. That fountain, for example…” Tess stared at the water feature and probed
her memory. Never mind the tour, she had seen it somewhere else recently. She squeezed her eyes shut, and a black-and-white image flitted across her mental screen. No, it was not black-and-white. The image was sepia-toned like an old photograph.

“It’s the same fountain! It’s just like the one from the front courtyard of Alhambra. Gloria Donovan showed me a picture,” she exclaimed.

“Why, yes, you’re right,” nodded Dreux, bright-eyed. “This fountain was originally out at Alhambra, Antonio Cabrera’s mansion.”

“How’d it get here
,” puzzled Tess, “unless one of the Cabrera’s put it here or sold it to someone who put it here?” She looked sharply at Dreux and demanded, “Who originally owned this house?”

“Ah, now you’ve figured it out. I was going to let you know over lunch if you didn’t,” smirked Dreux. “This is Benjamin Cabrera’s house. Later, it belonged to Armand, then Roman, and then the Donovans. For
20 years, it has belonged to me.”

“How did you get this house?” Tess gaped. “And why didn’t you mention it before?”

“I bought the house at fair market value from Dad and Cee Donovan, of course,” said Dreux with a disingenuous smile. “After Desmond passed away, they lost interest in this place. Without their sons to inherit it, what was the point of keeping this house? Dad also had a stroke, and they needed to move him to a nursing home. They were delighted to sell to me. As Desmond’s dear friend, I was sort of an adopted son for them. I didn’t mention it to you because it doesn’t have anything to do with your inheritance now.”

“It had meaning to my family history, which you encouraged me to explore,” retorted Tess.

“This place would have meant nothing to you until you had explored that history, don’t you agree? I never intended to keep you unaware. Now it means something to you, and now I am showing it to you. I don’t think you really have any grievance with me, my dear Miss Parnell. With your own secretive family perhaps, but not with me.” Dreux regarded her with wide-eyed earnestness and placed a hand over his frail chest as if to shield his innocent heart from any further unfair attack.

Tess pressed her lips together to prevent an expression of skepticism. She was certain she had been manipulated by the old man, but
she was not sure to what end. Instead she asked the first thing that had popped into her mind when Dreux told her that he had purchased Desmond’s house. “Why would you want to own this place? After the violent death of your friend Desmond, doesn’t it bring back painful memories?”

“Of course, Desmond died here, but he also lived here,” responded the old lawyer promptly. “These rooms evoke many happy memories for me, too. I don’t believe that spirits li
nger on after death, but even if I did, I would be glad to meet my old friend again. For that matter, I’m not worried about bumping into Benjamin, Armand or Roman Cabrera, since they all died here. If you want to live in the historic Quarter, you’re going to have to accept reminders of departed lives.”

Tess stared at Dreux. The old man seemed subtly changed from their previous meetings. He was more confident, vigorous and focused, as if he sucked some kind of energy out of the very brick and mortar of Desmond’s house.

Tess strove to suppress any uneasiness from showing in her expression as she looked at the self-satisfied Dreux.

“
Admit that it’s creepy. He seems to have gone over the edge from adulation to possession.”

She returned to her more immediate anxiety
. “But why did this place seem so familiar from the first moment I saw it?” she muttered, scanning the courtyard once more. From his smug expression, she was certain Dreux had more to reveal, and after only a few heartbeats, he proved her right.

“Ah, yes, I do believe you may have seen this house long before you came on this trip. I think you may have been in this courtyard briefly when you were a child,” the old man nodded.

His cold-eyed, playful smile sent a prickle up her spine. “So you’re saying I came here as a kid. As far as I know, my grandmother and mother only brought me to Louisiana once when I was about 6 years old. But I only recall staying in a little house on some bayou with the Donovans and Bea Cabrera,” she asserted.

“But your grandmother and mother did stop by here at the start of your trip to th
e Donovans’ bayou cottage—at least that is what the Donovans told me later. Your mother, due to her bad memories, refused to enter the house. But she did come into this courtyard with you. The fountain’s strange beasts might impress a small child, so I think it sparks some recognition,” explained Dreux.

His words did
conjure up a vague recollection—a whiff of her mother’s floral perfume, a hand holding hers too tightly, tense voices and dark, gargoyle-ringed water. The memory was amorphous but disturbing, and Tess shook her head to clear it.

“Did I meet you, too, as a child?” she asked and eyed the little man suspiciously.

“No, I never met you—and I never saw your mother or even your grandmother here after Desmond died and they moved away. But enough of these lost memories. Let’s step back into the dining room so Mr. Mizzi and I can discuss your property.” He shuffled to the kitchen door and graciously but commandingly ushered them inside.

They adjourned to the long dining table, with Tony and Dreux side by side and Tess fa
cing them. The men began to go over the modified real estate sales contract, and although they haggled over language here and there, Tess got the impression Dreux was only going through the motions. He did not even balk at her retention of the mineral rights. Tony and Dreux sparred briefly over price, but Dreux was clearly going to agree to Tony’s request for twice the price originally offered.