Plantation Shudders (14 page)

Maggie stared at the picture. She knew Kyle had lost his wife in a car accident. Was she the beautiful bride standing next to him, or had he been married previously? Either way, why had he never mentioned that he’d stayed at Crozat before? That he’d been
married
there?

Kyle was keeping secrets. And in a place where a murder occurred, secrets could be dangerous.

Maggie knew this was something that she couldn’t withhold from Bo. But she had to talk to Lia first. She pulled her cell out of the back pocket of her jeans and texted her cousin to meet at the bandstand and then ran to the kitchen and extricated a reusable grocery bag from a pile stashed under the sink. She returned to the Event Hall of Fame, removed the photo from the wall, and stuck it in the bag. Then Maggie raced out of the house and hopped into the Falcon, whose top
was down. As she drove, her heart thumped unpleasantly. She hated to think that Kyle wasn’t the sweet, considerate guy that he appeared to be. But every psychopath she’d read about or seen in movies seemed to present a perfectly amenable façade.

As soon as she reached Pelican’s historic business district, she parked and jumped out of the car. Lia was already waiting for her at the bandstand. Maggie grabbed the bag with the photo and ran to her cousin.

“Lia, I wish there was an easy way to say this, but there’s not,” Maggie said. She was out of breath from running, so her words came out in puffs. “Kyle lied to us. Well, technically, he didn’t tell us something, but it’s the same thing. Anyway, I found something at Crozat and I have to show it to you because I’m scared for you. Here.” With that, she pulled out the photo and handed to Lia. Lia gave the picture a cursory glance and handed it back to her.

“I know.”

“You
know?
What do you mean, you know?”

“I know about the photo. I know about the wedding at Crozat. I know why Kyle is really here.”

Maggie stared at her cousin, annoyed and confused. “Well if you
know
all this, do you mind sharing it with me?”

Lia shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Oh, come on, Lia—”

“I can’t because it’s not my place to tell his story. Come.”

Lia motioned for Maggie to follow her, and the two women walked through the park across the street to Fais Dough Dough. Lia led Maggie to the back room, where Kyle was alone, once
again hunched over the computer as he processed an online order. Lia laid a hand on his shoulder, and he started.

“Maggie knows about your wedding and Crozat,” Lia said.

Kyle froze for a moment. The room was silent. Maggie felt her chest contract and realized that she’d been holding her breath. She released it slowly.

Kyle spoke. “It was only a matter of time until someone noticed that picture. We were just playing a waiting game.”

“I think you better tell her everything,” Lia said.

Kyle nodded, his lips pursed. He turned his back to the computer and faced Maggie. “Beverly Clabber killed my wife.”

“But . . . I thought she died in a car accident.”

“She did. And Beverly Clabber was behind the wheel of the car that broadsided Sara.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

“Mrs. Clabber ran a stop sign. She claimed it was because the rental car she was driving had an acceleration problem. Not only that, but she sued the rental company, which didn’t want the publicity of a lawsuit and settled with her out of court. So she actually made money off my wife’s death.”

“That is unbelievably horrible. But why did you follow her to Crozat? Actually, how did you even know she was staying with us?”

Kyle smiled grimly. “I wish I could say that I used my expert abilities as a computer programmer to ferret out that information, but Beverly, like a lot of seniors, has a passing interest in social media with no idea how to use it properly. She posted on a couple of sites where she hadn’t activated any privacy settings. She and Hal were supposed to spend their
honeymoon visiting several Louisiana plantation B and Bs. When I saw Crozat was one of them, I had to come here. I wanted to confront her where Sara and I got married, to make her see and feel what she took from me. I wanted to show her that wedding picture on your wall, and then I was going to show her this.”

Kyle took a wallet out of his pants pocket. Maggie noticed that his hands were shaking slightly. He extracted a square of paper and handed it to her. She stared at the blurry black-and-white image.

“It’s a sonogram,” Kyle said. “Sara was two months pregnant. When I got the strength to go through her purse after the accident, I found it. She was going to surprise me.”

“Kyle, I feel for your loss—really I do—but you’ve been lying to us.”

“Not lying,” Lia said, jumping to his defense. “Call it a sin of omission. When Beverly was murdered, Kyle told me everything and swore he had nothing to do with her death. I asked him not to go to the police. Knowing Ru, he would have been all over Kyle and done nothing to find the real murderer.”

Maggie shrugged. “I’m not surprised Rufus never put you and Beverly together,” she said to Kyle, “but I am surprised Bo Durand didn’t find the connection.”

“She was using her original given name and the surname of one of her husbands, so anything on the Internet about the accident would have listed her as Fran Walker. She hadn’t married Hal Clabber yet.”

“Man, that woman had more husbands than an old-time movie star.”

“I also went on this jag where I cleaned the Internet of everything about the accident,” Kyle continued. “I couldn’t stand it out there, where anyone could read about it. I didn’t want to just wipe it from my memory, I wanted to wipe it from everyone’s memory.”

Maggie grimaced and rubbed her forehead. She turned to her cousin. “Can I talk to you in private?”

Maggie and Lia walked into the Fais Dough Dough storefront, where Maggie confronted her cousin. “How could you not tell me any of this?”

“I had to protect Kyle.”

“Who you’ve known for what, a week? How do you know he’s even telling the truth and not some psychopath? Because let me tell you, his behavior is kind of psychopath-y.”

“I just know, Maggie. The way we all know when we clear our minds like Gran’ taught us, to give space for the answer and let our instincts take over.”

“I’m beginning to see that there’s a big difference between intuition and wishful thinking.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you or make things any harder on the family,” Lia said. She squeezed her hands together and held them in front of her as if begging Maggie to understand. “I didn’t know what else to do. I guess I just hoped that the police would find the real murderer, and no one would ever have to know anything about Kyle and his connection to Beverly Clabber. I was afraid if they heard about it, they’d stop looking for anyone else.”

Intellectually, Maggie understood Lia’s dilemma, but she still felt angry and betrayed by her. “Either Kyle goes to Bo
and tells him everything, or I do,” she declared. “You may feel the need to protect Kyle, but I sure don’t. I feel terrible for his loss, but he is not my family, and I will not risk being accused of obstructing justice for him.”

Lia nodded. “I’d never expect you to do that. Now that you know his story, of course Kyle has to tell it to the police. God knows what Rufus will do when he finds out.”

“Yeah, well, your instincts were right about that,” Maggie said, softening a touch. “Rufus would have slapped the cuffs on him and thrown him in jail and said, ‘Case closed.’ He’ll probably do that now. But if you truly, truly believe he’s innocent, at least we have Bo to pursue other suspects behind Ru’s back.”

“Do you really think he’d do that for us?”

Lia looked so desperately hopeful that Maggie could only say yes and pray that she was right.

“Okay, then,” Lia said. “I’ll talk to Kyle.”

Lia turned out the store’s lights and the two women returned to the back room. Kyle was no longer at the computer. “Kyle?” Lia called. “Kyle?” But there was no answer.

Kyle was gone.

“His car’s gone, too,” Maggie said, panting after a sprint to the parking lot and back.

“I know he didn’t run away,” Lia insisted. “That’s not who he is.”

“Agh!” Maggie groaned in frustration. “Again, Lia, a week. Seven days. If I could multiply seven times twenty-four in my head, I’d tell you how many hours. Okay, now I have to do that just to prove I can.” She closed her eyes and did the math. “A hundred and sixty-eight hours. Not much time to ‘know who he is.’ I’m calling Bo.” She took out her cell and dialed the police station. “Hi, Artie, it’s Maggie Crozat. I need to talk to Bo, it’s urgent . . . Thanks.”

Maggie paced while a prerecorded message from the PPD warned her never to leave a purse in the car or her home unlocked. She let out another groan of frustration when the
phone went to Bo’s voicemail. “Great, he’s away from his desk.” She tapped her foot impatiently until she could leave a message. “Hey, it’s me, Maggie. You need to put out an APB or whatever you call them to stop Kyle Bruner. I have really important information for you. Lia and I are on our way over now.”

Maggie ended the call. “Close up the stores and come with me,” she told her cousin. Lia nodded and quickly locked up Fais Dough Dough and then did the same to Bon Bon. She turned off the lights as the two women headed out of the store. “We’ll take my car,” Maggie said. “We can make tracks in it. Thank you, Grand-père Crozat, for springing for the V8 engine.”

The two women jumped into the Falcon, Maggie gunned its engine, and they sped off to the Pelican police station. She pulled into the only spot available, hoping that the handicapped would forgive her, and then ran into the building, followed closely by Lia. Artie was on duty again, only this time his food companion was a bag of pork rinds.

“We have to see Bo,” Maggie told him.

“Sorry, but he’s interrogating a person of interest,” Artie said. “I believe it’s the guy you’ve been hanging with, Lia.”

“Kyle?” Lia ran to the front door, threw it open, scanned the parking lot, and pointed to a vehicle. “There. That’s his car. He turned himself in without us.” She turned to Maggie. “I told you I knew him,” she said, with a note of triumph that she instantly retreated from. “Wait, no, he’s just made himself a suspect.”

Lia collapsed on a metal bench. Maggie sat down next to Lia and hugged her. “Kyle knew what he had to do and did
it,” she said. “He came here on his own. That says something about his character.”

“The police don’t care about character. They just want a suspect, and right now, Kyle is the only one they have. He’s doomed.”

Maggie wished that she could argue her cousin’s point, but she couldn’t. Kyle was the PPD’s primary suspect, and Maggie blamed herself. If she’d never seen that picture, if she’d never confronted Kyle about it, she wouldn’t be sitting on a cold, hard bench comforting Lia as she was about to lose another love, this time to the brutal Louisiana penal system. “This is all my fault.”

“No it’s not. Kyle wanted to go to the police right away and share his connection with that woman, but I begged him not to. And now everything just looks worse because he withheld information. It’s my fault if he goes to jail.”

“If it makes you feel any better, there’s a real good chance you could go to jail with him,” a male voice said.

The women looked up to see Rufus Durand looming over them. Occasionally, Rufus transformed from a lazy sack of cow manure into a genuinely dark presence. This was one of those times. “You withheld evidence,” he told Lia, his tone hard and angry. “That’s a crime. A jailable crime.”

“There’s no such word as ‘jailable,’” Maggie blurted without thinking.

“Lock this one up for contempt,” Rufus told Artie, who looked confused.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said. “That just came out.”

“Cuff her,” Rufus ordered Artie, who shrugged and came around the entry desk, cuffs in hand.

“Oh, come on.” Maggie gave the officer a look. “Artie, really?”

“You wanna add resisting arrest to the charges?” Rufus asked.

Maggie knew by his tone that Rufus was serious. She shot him a venomous look and placed her hands behind her back. Just as Artie was about to slap handcuffs on her, Bo appeared from the hallway. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Your girlfriend here has been mouthing off to law enforcement,” Ru said.

“I’m not his girlfriend, and if I offended law enforcement in any way, I am truly sorry.” Keeping her apology generic and not specific to Rufus somehow made the whole nauseating business more bearable for Maggie. She could see in Bo’s eyes how much he despised his cousin and admired him for keeping his tone polite when he spoke.

“She apologized, Ru. You really want to waste your time on this? That’s giving her the power, man.”

Ru contemplated this new angle and then nodded curtly to Artie. “Let her go. But take this as a warning, Magnolia. You better show me and my boys respect every time you see us or you’ll be making your home in the cell next to Kyle Bruner.”

“He’s in jail?” Lia cried out.

“I’m sorry, Lia,” Bo said. “Between the strong circumstantial evidence and the fact that he has no alibi, we had enough to charge him with first-degree murder.”

Lia grew so pale that Maggie was afraid she might faint. “He needs a lawyer.”

“He has one. I recommended Quentin MacIlhoney. He’s on his way down from Baton Rouge. He’s one of the best in the state.”

“Hey, whose side are you on?” Rufus demanded.

“I’m on the side of what’s fair, Cousin. That’s it.”

“Can I see him?” Lia asked. “Please, even just for a minute?”

Bo shook his head. “Look, the most important thing he needs to do right now is to meet with his lawyer. Why don’t you two grab some coffee and come back in an hour? MacIlhoney should be here by then.”

Maggie held a hand out to Lia. “Coffee nuthin’. We’re going to Junie’s. Come on.”

Lia took Maggie’s hand and allowed her cousin to lead her out of the police station. The women climbed into the Falcon and drove to Junie’s.

“I was right,” Lia said, her voice dull. “The police are going to stop looking for other suspects and just lay this on Kyle.”

“I can’t argue with you. But what I can say is that they would really need to find some actual evidence to get him convicted of first-degree murder. And if he didn’t do it, there won’t be any.”

“‘If.’ You said ‘if.’ Even you think he might have done it.”

“You’re right. My bad. What we need to do is focus on other suspects. If you have faith in him, I do too. And he certainly scored points by turning himself in.”

*

Since it was Friday night, the New Orleans crowd had come upriver for a little local color, and it took longer than usual to find a parking space. Maggie and Lia walked into Junie’s just as Gaynell and the Gator Girls were ending a set, and they were jostled by a throng of people abandoning the dance floor for the bar. But when JJ saw them, he shooed away a too-cool-for-school city couple and claimed their stools for the women. JJ was clad in an elegant sleeveless black linen caftan over white slacks. But even with the ceiling fans going full blast, the place was sticky with heat, and JJ’s mascara dripped down from the corners of his eyes, giving him the look of a mournful clown.

“What can I get for my two favorite dollies?” he asked Maggie and Lia.

“Two Jim Beams, neat.”

JJ eyed them curiously. “It’s a hard liquor night, huh? Something must be up. Talk to me.”

Before either woman could say anything, Gaynell joined them at the bar. Her Zachary Richard concert T-shirt was so drenched with perspiration that she looked like she’d run through a sprinkler, but she had the afterglow that came with a great performance.

“Hey,” she greeted the others, who responded in kind.

“Dolly, I order you to stop being so good,” JJ mock-scolded Gaynell as he pulled her a beer from the tap. “I do not want to see you lured away from me to some hot club in New Orleans.” He turned to Maggie and Lia. “Now, back to you two.”

“Kyle . . .” Lia stopped, too emotional to continue.

“PPD arrested him for Beverly Clabber’s murder,” Maggie said, stepping in for her cousin. The others reacted with shock.
“We’re sure he didn’t do it,” she continued, emphasizing the “we” for Lia’s sake, “but it turns out he did have an incriminating history with Mrs. Clabber.”

Maggie brought JJ and Gaynell up to speed on Kyle and then started listing other potential suspects. “Of anyone local, Gran’ really had the most reason to kill off Beverly/Francine, but Bo agreed that we can basically rule her out. The Georgia boys are up to something, but I haven’t figured out what yet. At first I thought there was something hinky about Suzy, but turns out she’s okay. But her fellow board member, Debbie Stern, is planning a coup d’ Cutie, so covering that up gives her a motive. Then there are the Butlers, who spend
way
too much time in their room for a couple on a vacation. Nobody has that much sex.”

“Except maybe a couple that’s hot for each other and is on vacation,” Gaynell said with an impish smile. Maggie snorted dismissively.

“Oooh, jealous much?” JJ teased her.

“Uh, noooo.” The others cast skeptical looks at Maggie, and she caved. “Okay, fine, a little. Anyway, back to suspects. There’s also whoever’s been digging for treasure. I’m sure it’s one of our guests, but which one I don’t know. Could be the Butlers, the Rykers, even the Georgia boys. If they did actually find something, covering
that
up gives them a motive.”

“Hmm,” JJ said as he dabbed his shiny forehead with a cocktail napkin. “First off, you need to find out what those college kids are doing and who’s diggin’ up the pea patch.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried. I took over housekeeping to do some snooping, but it’s hard, because I actually do have to clean,
which eats up a lot of time. Curse my parents for maintaining such a high standard.”

“I’ll help,” Gaynell volunteered, much to Maggie’s surprise.

“Really?”

“Sure. It’ll make cleaning
and
snooping go faster.”

“If you’re sure . . .”

“I am. I used to help my Gran’ clean the Cavalier Motel off I-10, so I pretty much know the drill.”

“That makes one of us,” Maggie smiled at Gaynell. “Okay then, thanks.”

Lia checked her phone. “It’s been almost an hour. We should go back. Hopefully the lawyer has gotten there by now.”

After confirming a meeting time with Gaynell and arguing with JJ, who refused to accept money for their drinks, Maggie and Lia drove back to the police station. There was a new car in the parking lot—a bright purple Bentley with a vanity plate that read, “LWYR UP.”

“I’m guessing Quentin MacIlhoney’s here,” Maggie said as she eyed the car. “He must be pretty good at his job if he can afford this.”

“Maggie . . .” Lia said, then hesitated. Maggie put a comforting hand on her cousin’s shoulder. “Can I see the picture again?”

“Sure.”

Maggie reached into her grocery bag and pulled out the photo. She handed it to Lia, who stared at it for a moment. There was no gray in Kyle’s hair, no sadness in his smile. Sarah, his new bride, had her arm entwined with his and leaned against him slightly, a lock of curled red hair resting on his shoulders.

“She was beautiful,” Lia finally said.

Maggie gently extricated the picture from Lia’s hands and placed it back in the bag. “Let’s go inside,” she said softly. “Kyle needs you.”

As they walked into the station, they were greeted by an unexpected sound—roars of laughter. A middle-aged man in pressed designer jeans and a yellow sport coat was in the middle of telling a story to a small circle of officers. He was trim and of average height with white hair and a beard that made him look like Father Christmas after a weight-loss program. His sockless feet were clad in soft, expensive-looking Italian loafers, and a top-of-the-line Rolex watch peeked out from under the French cuffs of what looked to Maggie like a bespoke cotton shirt. His gold cufflinks glittered under the florescent lights of the police station lobby, as did a medallion shaped like a Mardi Gras coin that rested on a bed of white chest hairs made visible by the fact that he left open the three top buttons of his shirt.

“So the guy says to his lawyer, ‘Lady, that’s not what I meant by ‘get me off,’ but I sure do appreciate it,” the man said to another round of laughter from the officers.

Lia stepped forward tentatively. “Excuse me, are you Mr. MacIlhoney?”

“It’s Mac, honey, which answers your question. You must be my client’s beloved.” Quentin “Mac” MacIlhoney gave Lia’s hand a hard shake. He turned to Maggie. “And you are?”

“Maggie Crozat, Lia’s cousin. My family owns Crozat, where the murder happened, and none of us believe for a minute that Kyle did it.”

“Neither do I, dear,” Mac said, then gestured to the officers. “We just have to convince these doubters here.”

“And a judge and a jury,” Artie Belloise, who was food-free for a change, retorted.

“A hundred bucks says it don’t even get that far.” Mac pulled a bill out of his blazer breast pocket—a hundred dollar bill. “Tell you what: none of you even have to put up the money.” Quentin brandished the bill and the officers gaped, as did Maggie. “I lose, this goes to your Boys and Girls Club, along with a crawfish boil on me. If I win . . .” Mac took a sharp pencil out of the same pocket, stuck the bill on it, and then flung the pencil and money up to the ceiling, where it lodged in a soft acoustic tile. “I take back my bill. Deal, boys?”

Impressed, the cops nodded. Mac walked to the door and held it open for Lia and Maggie. “Ladies, if you will,” he said with a gallant wave. As they left, he winked at Pelican’s men in blue and then followed the women out the door. The minute they cleared the officers’ eye line, Mac’s demeanor changed. “Your boyfriend is in some serious trouble,” he said to Lia tersely. Even the timbre of his voice was different—low and rough. “There are no other viable suspects and enough circumstantial evidence for the DA to build a case. I’ll talk to the judge first thing in the morning about posting bail, but around here, it’s a tough sell on a murder one charge.”

Lia, shocked into silence, simply nodded. But Maggie had to know. “Mr. MacIlhoney—Mac—what was all that?” she said as she gestured toward the police station.