Scandal in Copper Lake (2 page)

She backtracked the few feet to the bathroom: sink, toilet, tub, leaky shower. The last room was Mama’s bedroom. Three windows each on the outside walls. Iron bed frame, walnut veneer dresser, oak veneer night table. Faded paint. Empty closet.

After Mama Odette had moved Anamaria to her house in Savannah, Auntie Lueena and her daughters had packed up only the personal belongings from this house—the clothing, the toys, the mementos. The furniture, lacking value, had stayed. Lueena had broached the subject of selling the place, but Mama Odette had refused. It wasn’t theirs to sell; it belonged to Anamaria.

She smiled thinly. A shabby old house on Easy Street. A few good memories, one truly horrific one. Not much of a legacy for Glory.

No, she corrected herself as she lifted one suitcase onto the dresser top and opened it. Glory’s legacy was her children: Lillie, who’d gone to live with her father’s people when she was a baby. Jass, who’d done the same three years later. Anamaria, whose father remained a mystery.

And the newborn infant who’d died when her mother had.

She unpacked everything she’d brought—clothing, toiletries, dishes, groceries—then made the bed, changed into a nightgown and sat cross-legged on the bed with an ancient wooden chest in front of her.

The box was built of tropical wood, heavily carved with
symbols and words in another language. Duquesne women loved unhampered by taboos. Race had never mattered to them; the blood and beliefs of Anamaria’s male ancestors ran far and wide.

Love was all that mattered to Duquesne women. Hot, passionate, greedy, breath-stealing love.

Glory had excelled at that kind of love. Lillie’s father had been the first true love of her life, followed by Jass’s father.
Did Mama love my daddy?
Anamaria had once asked, and Mama Odette had assured her she did.
But she didn’t even know who he was,
Anamaria had protested.

But she loved him, chile. Your mama loved every man in her life just like he was the onliest one.

Nerves dancing on edge, Anamaria rubbed her fingers over the carved lid. Family history said the chest had been a wedding gift to Lucia Duquesne, filled with gems and gold coins by her lover. Come the wedding day, though, Lucia had disappeared, the chest with her. Now it held part of Anamaria’s family history. Mementos of the years she’d lived in this house with Mama. Memories she couldn’t retrieve from their hiding places in her head.

She opened the filigreed gold latch, hesitated, then folded it back into place. She would delve into the chest’s mysteries, but not tonight. She was too unsettled. She needed to locate her center of peace before she lifted the lid on her greatest love, her greatest loss.

Rising, she placed the chest in the darkest corner of the closet. For good measure, she pulled an empty suitcase over to block it from sight, then returned to the bed.

It was early for sleep, but she’d begun a long journey that day, longer than the one hundred and twenty-five miles between Savannah and Copper Lake suggested. She had an even longer road ahead of her.

She was going to find out everything she could about her mother’s life in this town.

And her death.

Office hours at Robbie Calloway’s law practice were nine to five for his secretary, one to five for his paralegal and pretty much whenever he couldn’t avoid showing up for him. On the second Tuesday in April, that was eleven o’clock, and then only because he had a last-minute appointment.

Ursula Benton, his second cousin’s mother-in-law, looked up when he walked in at five till. With glasses perched on the end of her nose and her fingertips on the computer keyboard, it appeared she was hard at work. But Robbie knew it was more likely that she was chatting online about her passion in life, cross-stitching, than doing anything work-related.

“He’s in your office,” she said. “Here are your messages.”

He accepted a handful of yellow slips. Except for a call from his mother, Sara, the rest were from attorneys or clients. He tried to keep his client load to the bare minimum needed to justify an office and two employees. Law wasn’t a career for him; it was an interesting diversion. Thanks to a family who’d always had good fortune, he didn’t need the income. And unlike his brothers, Rick, Mitch and Russ, he wasn’t all that enamored with real work.

However, Harrison Kennedy, who was waiting in the office, did require real work of Robbie from time to time. After the Calloways, the Kennedys were the wealthiest and most influential family in this part of Georgia. Harrison had been friends with Robbie’s father, Gerald, until his death, and his wife, Lydia, remained Sara’s closest friend.

Harrison was standing at the window, gazing out over the Gullah River, a glass of whiskey in hand. Robbie glanced at the brownish liquid, his mouth watering, before helping
himself to a bottle of water and going to stand at the opposite end of the window.

“A good day to be out there with a fishing pole and a cooler of beer.” Harrison stared out the window a moment longer before turning to face him. “I didn’t get you out of bed too early, did I?”

Robbie ignored the sarcasm. “Nah, I’m always up in time for lunch.”

Harrison believed in long hours and hard work. It was how he made his fortune, he often declared. Truth was, he’d inherited his fortune, just like Gerald, and he’d added to it by marrying into an even bigger one. Granted, he’d probably doubled it since then, but making more money wasn’t so hard when he already had plenty.

“What can I do for you?” Robbie asked.

Harrison picked up a folder from the credenza, removed a page and slapped it down between them. “I want to know everything you can find out about her.”

It wasn’t a great photo, taken by the security camera at the gate to the Kennedy property and printed on plain white paper, but it was enough to make any red-blooded man take a second look. The woman was beautiful, exotic. Eyes the color of cocoa; skin the color of cocoa in milk; lush lips; a long, lovely throat; sleek black hair. She wore an orange top, chunky earrings and an air of self-assurance.

Underneath the photo, someone had scrawled a few bits of information:
Anamaria Duquesne. Glory Duquesne.
There was a date and a time—yesterday afternoon—and a description of a car, along with the tag number.

“Who is she?”

Harrison pointed at the page. “Anamaria Duquesne. Glory Duquesne’s daughter.”

There was something about the way his eyes were moving,
the way he suddenly shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He thrust his hands into his pants pockets, a habit he deplored—
Ruins the line of a good suit
—then pulled them out again.

Robbie waited. He was very good at doing nothing while seconds ticked past.

Harrison tugged at his tie, then exhaled. “You know Liddy is a smart woman. A sensible one, most of the time.”

Robbie nodded.

Harrison tugged at his tie again. “She has a thing for…an interest in…you know. Weird stuff. Psychics. Talking to the dead. Fortune-telling.”

Though he hid it, Robbie couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d said pornography or drugs. Lydia wasn’t just sensible; she was about as no-nonsense as they came. She had an abiding faith in God, country and family, right and wrong, good and evil, logic and bunk. She didn’t trifle with anything the least bit, well, trifling. And she was into what Robbie’s last ex fondly called “woo-woo”?

“It started when the baby died,” Harrison went on. “She was so down. Everything had gone so well—the pregnancy, the labor, the delivery. And three hours later…She blamed herself. She didn’t cry. She didn’t let go. She just sort of disappeared inside herself. Then she started seeing that woman—Glory Duquesne.

“Your uncle Cyrus checked her out for me at the time. She’d never been married. She had three children by three men. She didn’t have custody of the older two girls, just that one.” Harrison gestured toward the photo. “She lived on the wrong side of town and made a living taking money from people who were vulnerable. She was a con artist, preying on the weak, and after the baby died, God, was Liddy weak.”

Lydia and Harrison had lost their only child over twenty years ago, which would explain why Robbie had never heard
of the Duquesnes. A lot of people came and went in twenty years, and in the Copper Lake of that era, they kept to their proper places while they were there. It was doubtful that he’d ever crossed paths with either Glory Duquesne or her daughter.

Harrison’s hand shook as he drained the whiskey, then set the glass down with a thud. “I knew the woman was a phony, but she wasn’t charging any more than the doctor whose best idea was to medicate Liddy into a fog. And she seemed to help Liddy find some peace, so I was more than happy to pay for their once-a-week sessions. And then, about a year after Liddy started seeing her, the woman…”

His jaw tightened, and he bit out the last words. “She died.”

“How?” Robbie asked, gazing again at the photograph. Anamaria Duquesne couldn’t have been more than six, maybe seven years old at the time, a little older than he’d been when his father died. He’d hardly known his old man, though, and Sara had made sure he’d never missed him. Had there been a father to take in Anamaria? Family somewhere who wanted her?

“Accident, the police said. She went for a walk along the river at night, fell and hit her head. They found her body, snagged on some branches, half in the water.” Harrison reached for the glass again and looked surprised that it was empty. His tone turned grimmer. “She was nine months pregnant. Coroner said the fall caused her to go into labor and that the baby…His best guess was that the baby was washed away by the river. It was never found.”

“God.” No wonder Robbie hadn’t heard the story before. He’d been a typical kid, outside running wild most of the time, and his only use for the Copper Lake
Clarion
or a news broadcast had been the scores for his favorite teams. A pregnant mother dying alone in the night, with her newborn baby swept away to drown in the river, was definitely something his mother wouldn’t have discussed in front of him.

But all that was history. “What’s happening now?”

“Liddy got a call yesterday from the girl. Said she was in town and had a message for Liddy and could she come over to deliver it. It was some mumbo jumbo—something about a white-haired man and flowers.”

“Did she ask for money?”

“No. And Liddy didn’t offer her any.” Harrison’s mouth took on a pinched look. “That time. But she’s got an appointment to see her tomorrow morning. The girl’s promised another message.”

Like mother, like daughter. Anamaria had been just a child when her mother died. Had she observed that much of Glory’s scams in that short time, or had someone else taken over her education after Glory’s death?

Robbie moved to sit on the edge of his desk. “I can recommend a good private investigator.”

“What can a private investigator do that you can’t?”

Nothing, as far as gathering information went. Robbie had access to the same databases, and while he wasn’t the most Internet-savvy person around, his paralegal was. And he had an in that most PIs didn’t: Tommy Maricci, his best bud since they’d given each other black eyes on the first day of kindergarten, was a detective with the Copper Lake Police Department. Granted, Tommy’s help would be bending the law more than a little, but it was for a good cause.

“I’ve never had any experience at surveilling or following anyone. I’m not exactly covert when I go out.”

“I don’t want you to be subtle,” Harrison said. “I want her to know she’s being watched. I want her to understand that if she says one thing to upset Liddy, she’ll pay dearly. Find out who she is, what she’s up to, why she’s here…and then put the fear of God into her so that she goes away.”

Robbie smiled thinly. He could do that. He might be only
a part-time lawyer, but he gave his all to every case. There was nothing sweeter than that moment when he knew he’d prevailed, except the moment when his opponent knew it, too.

“Can I talk to Lydia?”

Harrison didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“But—”

“No. Leave her out of this.”

That might be hard to do, considering that without Lydia, there was no
this.
But Robbie nodded in agreement. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

Harrison nodded, slapped him on the back affectionately then left the office.

Robbie sat down at his desk, sliding the computer keyboard closer, then braced the phone between his ear and shoulder while he signed online.

A few hours later, he leaned back in the chair and watched a boat pass on the river. It hadn’t taken long in this computer-centric age to learn pretty much all there was to know about Anamaria Duquesne. She was twenty-eight years old. Lived on Queen Street in Savannah. Had been raised by her grandmother, Odette Duquesne, after her mother’s death. Worked part-time at her aunt Lueena Duquesne’s restaurant a few blocks from her home. Also worked part-time telling fortunes.

She had two credit cards, paid in full every month, and had earned enough points to buy herself a round-trip flight to anywhere in the world. She was down to the last four payments on her car. She’d taken a few classes at the local community college—nothing toward a degree, just Spanish, art, cooking. She’d been arrested a few times for her phony-seer act, but the charges had been dropped. She’d never been sued, gotten a traffic ticket or applied for a passport. She had never been married, had no children, and her father was listed on her birth certificate as Unknown.

He knew a lot, but he’d learned nothing, really. The important questions—why she’d come to Copper Lake, what she wanted with Liddy Kennedy—could be answered only by her.

He had her phone number, but he didn’t bother calling. He also had her local address. The only property she owned besides her car was a sixty-five-year-old house at the end of Easy Street.

He said goodbye to Ursula, then took the stairs to the garage below. He’d bought the building in part for its location on River Road—Copper Lake’s main drag—and in part for its view of the Gullah River, but mostly for the private garage on the ground level. He’d put too damn many hours and too damn much money into restoring his ’57 Vette to mint condition to park it just anywhere. The engine gave a finely tuned roar as he backed out of the space, then turned onto River Road.