Lies Agreed Upon (41 page)

Tess suddenly interrupted. “What about the garden?”

Tony and Dreux looked at her blankly for a moment. Then Dreux answered, “Well, I don’t think Gulf Coast Refining intends to maintain it, if that is what you’re asking.”

“So you knew about the garden, too,” said Tess with disgusted shake of her head. “I guess it was just another mystery you
wanted me to solve for myself. Well, I’ve decided to keep the portion of the property with the garden and the road access to it,” she declared.

She
shocked herself with this announcement. Until that instant, she had been convinced she should sell the property lock, stock and barrel. “Where did that decision come from?” she wondered, amazed by both her about-face and her unalterable conviction in its rightness.

“What garden are we talking about?” asked Tony
with raised eyebrows and an annoyed expression.

Tess
flushed and apologized, “I’m sorry, Tony. I should have decided on this earlier and told you. There’s an ornamental garden from the old Cabrera estate on the property. It’s been remarkably well-maintained at my family’s expense over the years. I thought I wouldn’t mind getting rid of it, but I guess I do. I somehow feel I should preserve it. It’s illogical, but I’m going to do it.”

“Well, I suppose Gulf Coast Refining can accept a small reduction in the total property acreage and still accomplish its goals,” said Dreux with a magnanimous wave of his hand. He gave his fellow lawyer a sympathetic smile. “Never ignore the power of sentimentality, especially for the ladies, eh. However, I think we will need to be specific on the garden plot coordinates, and it will be only fair to reflect the reduced land area in a reduced price.”

Tony gave Tess an exasperated look. “OK, I’ll amend the contract on that point after we re-measure the property to take this garden into account. I had no idea it even existed, much less that it was a factor in the bargaining.”

Dreux and Tony
haggled a bit more over semantics and set a date for another meeting to finalize property parameters and price. Dreux then rose and went to signal to Mrs. Blaise that her luncheon service could begin.

He
sat back down opposite Tess and busied himself in fussily positioning his napkin on his lap. He remarked without looking up at her, “I understand you are leaving on Thursday for Los Angeles, Miss Parnell. We can send you everything electronically for sign-off, or you can come back to handle it in person.” He glanced up at last to train his sharp blue eyes on her face. “I would recommend a personal visit since you are retaining property and need to decide its future management. I would suggest that, given Mr. Beauvoir’s age, you make other long-term arrangements,” he advised.

“I’ll certainly need to think about
what I intend to do for the future of the garden,” Tess replied. “I plan to come back here at the end of June and then return to L.A. for the July 4 holiday. I promised friends that I’d spend my fireworks-watching with them.”

“Of course, all should be ready for your approval by then. Correct, Mr. Mizzi?” said Dreux with a polite tilt of his head toward Tony, who nodded rather
sourly.

Mrs. Blaise unobtrusively served a
n overwhelming stream of dishes—salad, fresh-baked rolls, Creole-stuffed beef tenderloin, sweet potato soufflé, buttered snap beans, and pecan pie—while Dreux and Tony discovered mutual legal acquaintances and chatted. Once they were sipping coffee at the end of the meal, the housekeeper appeared and hovered, plump hands clasped anxiously over her frilled floral apron. Dreux finally noticed her and rose with a long-suffering air.

“An outstanding meal, Vera,” he announced. “When it comes to cuisine, this lonely old bachelor is the envy of all friends and acquaintances.” Mrs. Blaise fled in rosy joy, and Dreux calmly resumed his seat and his chat with Tony.

Lifting her empty dessert plate and coffee cup, Tess headed to the kitchen, ignoring Dreux’s protests that Mrs. Blaise would clean up later.

Vera Blaise was busy stowing dishes in her spanking-new dishwasher and looked up with a start. Tess explained reassuringly that she just wanted to ask for the recipe for that “delicious pecan pie.” She was becoming adept at dissembling, she thought without even a blush of guilt. The recipe request was not a lie, but she also hoped to use it to disarm the housekeeper
in order to probe for more information.

The uncomplicated Mrs. Blaise immediately beamed and pulled a blank index card from an old-fashioned recipe-card box to begin writing out ingredients and amounts. “How long have you worked for Mr. Dreux?” Tess asked as the woman carefully penned her recipe instructions.

“Oh, it must be 30 years,” beamed Mrs. Blaise. “I started workin’ for him before he even moved here. He’s a lovely gentleman, but the number of visitors has dwindled away. I hardly have anythin’ to do anymore, just a bit of dustin’ and simple meals. So it’s so nice to have a chance to entertain. And it’s so nice you’ve come. That old family matter is a loose end he wants to tie up before it’s too late. At his age, you never know, do you?”

“Family matter? Is that how Mr. Dreux described the Cabrera property and G
ulf Coast Refining’s interest in purchase?” Tess was careful to keep her tone neutral.

“I don’t know about
the refinery,” the woman hastened to add. “I know your mother called him last year, and he was quite upset. He told me it involved unfinished business for the Donovan family. They used to live here, and Mr. Dreux was close to them. I think he did mention some property the Donovans had always wanted to purchase.”

Dreux seemed to have taken over the Donovan obsession with Cabrera property along with their house, Tess noted in bemusement; perhaps Gulf Coast Refining’s interest was just serendipitous.

“I don’t think he was able to close a deal with my mother,” remarked Tess.

“No, I don’t think the meetin
’ went well. He was still very tense when he came back. And then he got hold of you, and he came back much happier,” smiled Mrs. Blaise and patted Tess’s hand in approval for her acquiescence to Dreux’s desires. She handed Tess the note card with the recipe.

Tess stood staring down at the card in her hand. “Um, well, thank you so much, Mrs. Blaise,” she mumbled. So her mother had initiated the contact and something
had happened at their meeting that upset Dreux. Tess did not think it was a good sign that she had made Dreux “much happier.” She hurried back to the dining room, almost bumping into Dreux as he came to fetch her.

“I was just inviting Tony on a quick tour of the upstairs of the house. I thought you might be especially interested since it was the scene of many important events in your family history,” smiled Dreux. “You can see furniture from the Chastant estate and Confederate art
ifacts belonging to Ben Cabrera.”

“Oh, yes, that would be very interesting. Is the library the same, I mean the way it was when Desm
ond…when that tragedy happened?” Tess struggled to express her curiosity in a way that did not seem ghoulish.

Dreux’s smile vanished, and he nodded soberly. “It’s mostly the same
. The carpet and some upholstery were replaced, of course, because of, um, the incident. But the books, the desk, Ben’s war paraphernalia—all that is unchanged. Shall we go up?”

The trio headed up the narrow staircase, its wooden banister shiny with almost 200 years of human grasping. The stairs to the upper floor led to a general landing area, incongr
uously furnished with a large flat screen television and a modern armchair. Dreux asked their forbearance for the modern anachronisms. “Even an old fossil like me needs to escape the nineteenth century now and then,” he chuckled.

He briefly pointed out a renovated upstairs bathroom to their rear, and Tess glimpsed Travertine marble and a gleaming white pedestal sink. A door next to the bathroom was an exit to the balcony and two bedrooms converted from former slave quarters, Dreux explained. Desmond and Dylan had once used these rooms, creating a sort of garçonniere in the old Creole style of independen
tly accessed bachelor quarters.

In the landing area was a small space in which the elevator had been inserted, and direc
tly opposite their entry up the stairs were two side-by-side doors, one to the master bedroom and the other to the library. Dreux explained that the library had originally been a children’s bedroom, with access to a small room, or “cabinet,” for use as a dressing area or sick room. The children’s room had been converted to a library by the bachelor Ben Cabrera, and the elevator had gone into the “cabinet.”

Dreux led the way into the master bedroom, which was dominated by an Empire bald
achin bed. Heavy deep-green draperies dropped from an ebony wood ring gleaming with ormolu in an Egyptian motif. Beneath the drapery crouched a square thronelike bed on thick legs fashioned as gilded sphinxes. The bed was covered by a silk coverlet of green and white stripes and hosted a pair of striped bolsters with dark green piping and gold tassels at either end. Opposite the regal bed, a massive dresser in high-sheen ebony wood was so heavily ornamented with gilded metal lotus, papyrus, ibis and lion images that it seemed to test the carrying capacity of the heavy footed sphinxes at its corners. It was a masculine, imperial room. It did not suit Dreux’s effete, fussy personality in the least, Tess thought.

As if reading her expression, Dreux remarked, “It’s not really my taste. Most of the furn
iture pieces in this room were imported from France by Josephine Chastant. Ben Cabrera brought his mother’s furniture here when he established the townhouse as his main residence. In fact, these pieces, and two desks in the library, are all that is left of the furnishings of the Chastant plantation – and, of course, there’s Josephine’s portrait in the 1850 House and some knick-knacks in Lillian Vanderveld’s attic. You get a sense of Josephine’s imperial personality in this place, don’t you? Green was her favorite color, as you may have guessed. Ben Cabrera had enough male self-confidence to feel at home in this Napoleonic fantasy.

“
I admit that I found the décor of this room off-putting at first, but it’s grown on me over the years. When I get tired of regal living, I slip into my little adjoining salon. It was once another bedroom, but I’ve turned it into a sort of personal retreat and reading room, combined with a closet area. The original closet space in here was quite minimal. People did not own many clothes in days of yore, and certainly not as many shoes as I do!” Dreux shook his head ruefully.

Their next stop was the fateful library. Tess paused in the doorway, but no negative vibes or cold spots assaulted her, just the odor of old books and dust in a sun-filled space. The wi
ndowless wall to the right of the door was covered by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The upper shelves were lined with the spines of old-fashioned, leather-bound books. Most of them looked dustily untouched since Ben Cabrera’s demise in 1930. The lower shelves held newer hardback editions, including one whole section of law books that had doubtless been added by Dreux.

Between the two tall windows sat a large kneehole desk in warm walnut. Its enclosed sides and back descended to only an inch from the floor and were highlighted with scrollwork carving in light relief. Tess tried to imagine how a little girl, curled up between the drawer pe
destals, might go undetected by two men sitting a few feet away in front of the wide marble-faced fireplace. Even now, two armchairs looked ready to welcome a comradely conversation in front of the hearth. Tess assumed they were replacements of the chairs that must have been distressingly spattered with Desmond’s blood. Her stomach jolted at the image, and she turned her attention back to the big desk.

“Your mother liked to sit under that big desk and read or play,” Dreux commented to Tess as he noted her troubled gaze. “It once belonged to Josephine’s father and is the oldest piece in the house.”

“Don’t you think it’s time we discussed what happened the day Desmond died, Mr. Dreux? I know from Sam Beauvoir that both my mother and you were here in the library when it happened. You’re the only first-hand witness, so I think you owe me your version of events,” said Tess. She spoke quietly, but she trained a determined gaze on the old man to let him know she would not be put off.

Dreux looked at her intently and then
turned his gaze to stare broodingly at the desk. “I have no idea why Desmond and I did not notice little Joanne that day,” he finally said. “Of course, she hadn’t left a single hint that she might be nearby. No crayons or storybooks or discarded dolls. She must have frozen like a little rabbit when we entered—not even a rustle to give her away. I guess we were focused too intently on our adult problems to sense her presence.

“
I had left and started down the stairs when I heard Desmond’s angry voice. I ran back. Desmond had gone to the desk to get his gun because we were going out. He often took a gun with him for defense because he was a wealthy and easily recognized target, and I’m afraid he felt more vulnerable after his maiming. Of course, he discovered the child and pulled her out. He was scolding her. I think he forgot he had the gun in his hand. The child was frightened by the sight of the weapon and his angry words.

“
As I rushed to intervene, she suddenly shoved the gun away and into Desmond’s chest, and her little hands pushed his finger on the trigger. The barrel had lodged under his chin for just a moment when the weapon accidentally fired.” Dreux looked down at the floor as if once more seeing the bloody aftermath there and shook his head mournfully.