Roots of Murder (26 page)

“Very good point. Yes, I will write in, probably the best way to handle it. Tell the people myself just what they should think about these things.”

The mayor doth protest too much, Nell thought as he was claimed by other partygoers. She would certainly be “fair” enough to print whatever he might send in—she was a cynical enough journalist to know there was no better way to keep a story going than to have someone deny it.

She noted he left his conversation with her to parley with several of the aldermen. Alfonse Gautier was the oldest one, so senile he barely made it to meetings, kept on more because he was a reliable vote for whoever talked to him last. Festus Higgins, one of the newest aldermen, seemed to be doing most of the talking. Nell wondered if he was the brains behind the mayor. Higgins had done well, owning most dry cleaners in this part of the coast. Her guess on him was he'd finally made enough money and now wanted power to go with it, but she'd only seen him a few times.

Nell wandered around, admiring the paintings and the way the mansion had been redone. She came in and out of conversations, mostly the usual on the weather, the home, safe subjects like the need to preserve historical sites without getting into the hard details of who would pay for it and who decided just what historical was.

She was surprised to see Desiree Hunter sipping champagne in front of a large brick fireplace. “I thought I had your ticket,” Nell said as she approached.

“You do.” Desiree immediately picked up on her underlying question. “It's not what it looks like. I didn't want to come and wasn't going to, with my kids as an excuse, but my mother thwarted my carefully laid plans. She hired a babysitter and had my dress laid out when I got home. She thinks I should get out more, her way of saying I'm a woman without a man and I need to make every effort to change that.”

“And how do you feel about changing that?”

“I would have been happy to stay home, spend time with my two kids, put them to bed, and read a book.”

“But you're here,” Nell noted.

“Yes. Mother is good at getting what she wants. I'm living with her at her house. So … I have to balance between her wants and mine.” Desiree sighed. Then, with the barest shrug of her shoulders, she added, “I'm working out of the house. Everything for Aaron's campaign is on the computer Mother bought for me, so I'm there enough in any case. She might have a point that it's good to get out. Just not solely on a man hunt.”

“Your mother should know that brothers are the best chaperones. No one is ever good enough for a younger sister.”

“You were the younger sister?” Desiree queried.

“The youngest. I'd still be a virgin if it were left up to my brothers.”

“I hope Aaron's not that restrictive, but he's going to make sure I don't end up with someone like Frank again.”

“Your
ex-husband
?”

“Yes,” she answered, then was silent, looking into the fire as if deciding whether to say more or move on to safer topics. She turned back to Nell. “Aaron blames Frank, but I blame myself. I knew who he was when I married him. I was young enough to think I could change him. Enough love … a child, then another child, a boy this time … ” She trailed off.

“But he didn't change.”

“No, he didn't. I got old enough and wise enough to know he wouldn't.”

“You divorced him?”

“Got the best lawyer my parents' money could buy and had enough sense to know coming home with my tail between my legs was better than another day with him.” She paused again as if realizing they were at a party, not two women talking in front of a fireplace. She added in a lighter tone, “Now I just have to find the perfect Mr. Right who can take me away from home.”

“Mr. Right of Pelican Bay,” Nell said, matching her tone.

“Not too many of them, are there?” Desiree replied.

“I just want the one I had back,” Nell said, but her tone wasn't light.

Before Desiree could make a reply, they were joined by three other people, all friends of the Duprees, all brimming with party banter. Nell nodded politely and slipped away. As she did, Desiree reached out and took her hand, a brief press.

Nell headed for the nearest waiter with a tray of champagne. Maybe that would get her back into the party mood. As she finished that glass and took another, she wondered if her comment would get back to Aaron. But it didn't matter, she decided. It was true; she wanted the one she had back. It was also true that was the one she couldn't have.

She occasionally ran into Aaron and they compared notes for a bit before he or she was claimed by someone else. He apologized on one of these occasions, but he did seem to know everyone in the room, and, save for Mayor Hubert Pickings, seemed determined to get their vote.

I like him, she decided after their third encounter. He was funny and smart and seemed able and willing to let her go her own way. He also seemed to understand she didn't want to be clearly marked as his date, and so he was attentive, but not overtly more so than to any of the other women who surrounded him. I also like his sister, Nell realized.

She made a bathroom run. She was suitably impressed with the massive marble tub, separate shower, and the
black-and
-silver design up to and including the toothbrush holder.

On opening the door, she was surprised to find Sheriff Hickson in the hallway. They were alone in this part of the house. Nell stepped aside to let him through.

But he didn't step aside, instead blocking her way. Either his cologne or his breath had a distinctively
gin-ish
smell. Nell wondered if he was going to make a pass at her in this empty hallway. He can't be that stupid, she told herself; he knows I'll put it on the front page. Drunken Law Officer Mashes Editor at Preservation Society Fund Raiser.

“Can we talk somewhere in private?” he asked her.

“There doesn't seem to be anyone around,” Nell pointed out. Next to the bathroom was as private as she was going to get.

Sheriff Hickson looked over both shoulders to verify no one else was making a privy foray. “About that story and all them pictures you took today,” he said in a soft voice. “You know some folks just read the headlines and they get the wrong ideas.”

Who knew that the paper had such clout, Nell thought, as she could see where this conversation was going—I could topple the entire power structure of Pelican Bay with a few lines of type.

He continued. “Miz Carver is a fine lady and all that, but we're not really cousins, and I don't want people to get the idea there's a whole line of colored Hicksons somewhere on the wrong side of the track.”

“So you're telling me not to run the story?” Nell queried. She almost added “until after the election,” to save him the trouble.

“They might even think I've been playing around. Me, a nice proper married man and all. Some of my deputies have been ribbing me about stepping out for some brown sugar.”

That he was drunk did little to ameliorate his crude remark. He moved in closer, and the gin smell was more obvious on every exhale.

“Not that I never did nothin' like that,” he quickly said, seeing the cold look on Nell's face. “But you know how people talk, how they just got to believe the most bad about people.”

“Like someone being so racist it changes everything when they find the color of someone's skin is different from their own?” After Nell said it, she wished they were less alone. By now someone else should have downed enough punch to feel the call of nature, but the hall remained empty.

“Like what?” he fumbled.

“Like when you thought Beatrice Carver was white you were doing everything you could to get me to give the story major play. Change the color of her skin and now you're begging me to not run it at all. Like that.”

“Now, Miz McGraw, I know you're a Yankee and all that and maybe you just don't understand how things are down here—”

“I understand perfectly well, Sheriff,” she cut in. Racism wasn't limited to the South; Nell could remember some of her mother's ugly comments. “You'd prefer people know you to be a bigot than risk they might have a clue white plantation owners were in the habit of raping their slaves.”

“You're going to run the story, aren't you?” he said, his voice hard.

“Front page,” Nell retorted. “And I don't remember you taking this conversation off the record.”

There was a long, strained silence until finally the sheriff blustered, “Of course this is off the record. Can't come in here to some party and be a snoop reporter. That ain't fair.”

“And accosting me at a party like this is fair? You'd be much better off sobering up and talking to me at the office.”

Again, the sheriff was silent, his eyes cold and hard. Then suddenly he reared his head back and guffawed. “Damn, lady, pardon my French, but you got balls. No one, man or woman, has dared talk to me like this in about twenty years. Let's do the old back room deal. You can run the story, but take it off the front page and make sure you get in there real prominent this family connection is real old, going back 'bout a hundred years. I don't want no one thinking my Pappy was a fence jumper. My end of the deal is the Jones boys. It'd be real easy to keep them revolving through the door in traffic court. They could get tickets if they forget to use a turn signal. Every once in a while, just for fun, I might have one of my deputies follow them for a spell. That sound like a deal you can live with?”

“I certainly don't object to the Jones brothers realizing that the law does apply to them. I will print the genealogy chart as part of the article and make mention in the first paragraph or so that you're cousins many times removed.” More for Beatrice Carver's sake than yours, Nell added silently. “Is that a deal you can live with?”

“That'll do. First thing Monday morning, the boys get the word about those Joneses and their traffic violations.”

“First thing Monday morning, I'll write the article.”

“Don't suppose I could get a look at that article?”

“Of course you can. On Friday when the paper comes out.”

He gave her another stare before saying, “Okay, that's our deal. And Miz McGraw, add a little sugar to that vinegar. It'll go a long way.” With that he brushed past her to the bathroom.

Nell stood in the hallway, knowing she'd made a deal with the devil. On principle, she should be appalled at what the sheriff was offering to do to the Jones brothers. If he could do it to them, he can do it to you, she told herself. Then she heard Thom's voice reminding her the difference was that the Jones boys had played fast and loose with legal niceties whereas Nell McGraw had never even shoplifted gum as a teenager. Plus they had threatened her and assaulted Josh. The principle was still shaky, but a good argument could be made for them deserving extra attention from the law in a way that would be egregious if applied to her.

Fearing she would still be in the hall when the sheriff emerged, Nell hastened back to the more peopled area.

She looked for Aaron, but he was in the center of an animated group, no doubt winning votes and, given the look on the face of a blond at his elbow, hearts. This didn't seem the time to pull him away to vent about the assumption that if you were white you “understood” about racial matters, about how things were done. Nell was also relieved she didn't have to confess to the deal she'd made with the sheriff—a little extra harassment for her least favorite criminals in exchange for writing the story she intended to write anyway. She now wished her car was parked at the servants' entrance and she could slip away into the night.

Nell grabbed another glass of champagne—after all, she wasn't driving—and let herself follow another hallway into what had once been a grand ballroom. A DJ took the spot that once might have held a chamber orchestra. Not only did she recognize all the music being played, but Nell was chagrined to realize she'd danced much of her adolescence away to these songs. They were considered rebellious at the time; now they were suitable for the Preservation Society.

She danced for a while, including one whirl around the floor with Marion Nash, the librarian, until an older gentleman tapped her shoulder, obviously feeling that it was too feminist for women to dance without a man. The gin on his breath reminded Nell of her encounter with the sheriff and she quickly pleaded breathlessness, content to watch the gyrations from the wallflower position.

That was where Aaron found her. He bowed, then asked, “May I have this dance?” Nell felt a slight thrill of anticipation as he led her out to the dance floor. The song was a slow one, and he took her hand and placed his other arm around her waist.

It's been a long time, Nell thought, since I danced with a man; last time was with Thom at a Mardi Gras party.

Aaron's cologne was subtle and his breath had not a single hint of gin. She enjoyed being in a man's embrace, but then the small things crept it. How different his hands were from Thom's; the height of his shoulder where her hand rested felt odd, out of place. Even the champagne couldn't cause Nell to relax into this dance. She felt too aware of all the ways he wasn't Thom.

I'm not ready for this, Nell knew with a heavy certainty. Even if love comes, it can't replace what has been. The clarity overcame the false giddiness from the sparkling wine. I wish I'd known this yesterday, she thought. She could have been upfront with Aaron, stated plainly that at least for a while, she could offer nothing beyond friendship. But his arms around her spelled out he wanted more than six months of handshakes good night.

“I'm sorry,” Nell said as the music ended, “it's been a long time since I danced with anyone other than my husband, and I'm just not coordinated with anyone else.” That wasn't true; she'd certainly danced with other men—and a few women—but always Thom was in the background, and always that last dance was with him.