LeOmi's Solitude (7 page)

“If I am going to be honest with you, don’t
you need to be honest with me?”

“As you probably know, from your research on
the internet in there, I am a detective from Philadelphia. We had a
rash of killings that we couldn’t solve. With money being tight
they shelved the case. I fought with them to reopen it and then
finally I took a leave of absence to come here.”

“You must have had some reason for leaving
your home and coming here other that what you are telling me.”

“I had my reasons.”

“Hey. If I have to be honest with you …?”

“I had my reasons.”

“So I am working on a need to know
basis.”

“We all are working on a need to know
basis.”

“You told me that I only had more questions
for your questions, so let’s just think of what the true questions
are that we need to answer.”

“Well I think that your grandmother has some
knowledge on the signet. I believe that your father truly doesn’t
know anything about it.”

“My father could never kill anyone.”

“Well you can’t convince me of that. It seems
to me that the people that spend all their time in church do that
for a reason. Guilt from deeds so bad that they do not trust
themselves outside in the real world. It has been my experience
that these congregations, these flocks are there because they are
capable of so much more than we could ever guess. I was a choir boy
once.”

She looked at him in disbelief.

“Yeah I was, and I was involved in a big
church. Then one day, one of the deacons announced he was divorcing
his wife. Then about a month later, he was arrested for abusing his
wife and children. Then by the time all the gossip had reached
every last cubbyhole in the church, it was known that he was a
member of a cult that had been sent to infiltrate our church and to
input mistrust and all sorts of things to pull people from the
paths that they should be taking. This is when I knew that I could
love God and not attend a church. Any church.”

She took a deep breath in protest.

“Yeah, it’s true that I am not perfect—I
never said I was. But do you know the heart of the person sitting
beside you on that pew?” He shook his head back and forth to make
his point, “No more so than you know the heart of the person who is
your usual cashier at the Quick Mart, or the produce stand.” He
stopped and stepped back as if she had used a can opener to pull
those things from him. “I can’t believe I have told you this. I
haven’t spoken of this in a few decades.”

“Well Sergeant, I don’t know what to
say.”

His cigar had an extension of ash almost up
to where his fingers held it. He flicked them towards the
squirrels.

“As long as I can remember, my dad has always
been the preacher in a church so we always went to all the
scheduled activities. I don’t know about the other people, but I
could always tell when my mom was getting restless. Don’t get me
wrong, we used to be happy. My mom was different when I was young.
When I reached an age that I didn’t need her as much, she would go
off into her own world, but still in the same house. I often
wondered if I said something to her, if I was mean and told her
that I didn’t need her, and she just turned away from me and my
dad.”

“It is normal to think that.”

“You know we went through all that counseling
and church sponsored stuff, sort-of like talk-ins where we would
complain about how she wasn’t there anymore. After the third time,
I guess they were listening to most of the same things over and
over again so there was a time where they let me just stop going.
But my dad is probably going through counseling now.”

The Sergeant said, “My mom died when I was
young so I never got to know her, I guess I had it easy in some
ways and some ways not so easy.”

The squirrels watched and waited, like they
were spectators at a tennis match.

“You know more about Julian Compton than you
are telling me, don’t you?”

“I told you already about the Turkish Prince
thing. I told you about him being some kind of financial wizard.
You know that he lives here in New Orleans. You know that I suspect
that he knows something about the signet.”

He folded his arms, tucking the folder under
his arm and crumpling his jacket even more and revealing a huge
coffee stain down the front of his white shirt. He paced a little
then stopped.

“I think the signet is a key to the murders
in Philly and some other places too. The Turkish Prince has friends
and enemies almost everywhere. There are some twenty-six murders
that we have attributed to people who have something to do with
that signet. I have traced them by their money trail. From there I
found out about his relationship with your mother, some of the
money was connected to the Journal purchase, which I assume is the
reason she is dead. I suspect that she wanted the Journal and she
didn’t want Compton to have it.”

He started pacing again, “You understand this
is all just a theory. I only have a few facts where your mother is
concerned.”

“You have more than I have. When my mother
went away the second time, I was very surprised when she came back
again—but always the trusting and forgiving husband, he let her
come back, but this time she remained distant, not even trying to
come back to a life with her family. Then, Compton came for her. He
just pulled-up out front in his shiny car; she came out of the
house almost immediately, dressed in fancy expensive clothes and
designer shoes. I watched her leave.”

The squirrels were like statues, waiting.

“Compton killed her, didn’t he?”

“I only have intuition, I don’t have
proof.”

“Proof, then the Journal is what we should
focus on. Either he sent her for it, or she used his money to buy
it. It must be connected to her murder. What surprises me is that
she apparently willingly met him there at The Celtic Wheel. Did she
trust him enough to meet him at a place like that? Or did he lure
her there with the promise of something else or did he just betray
and murder her without another thought?”

She pulled out a handful of nuts and tossed
them on the ground, five squirrels sat around the pile,
munching.

“I have done some research on the Journal,
but it is very slim. I have some printouts of the front and back
but no reference to the Sumerian text. Do you have more information
than that?”

“I have some of the history of who has owned
it and where it has been stored, apparently the owners have been
very cautious and kept it hidden away for the last ninety years,
then the estate was passed on to the descendants and lo and behold;
it was for sale to the highest bidder, which in this case was your
mom: one point five million dollars. I think she got the money from
Compton, or maybe Compton didn’t want to be the registered owner,
and when she was supposed to report back to his mansion with the
little trinket, well, she just took it on her merry little way.
Imagine that. How dare she? I guess he got angry.”

“What did she do with the Journal?”

“Now there is the big question. That and,
what did she want with it in the first place? All questions and no
answers. There must be some clue that will make everything start
falling into place. Something I’m missing.” He turned quickly and
the squirrels scurried.

“What about you, do you have any ideas?”

“Well whatever is going on has been going on
since the first time my mother left. I was six years old when she
left the first time, just after Ruby left to start school and it
could have started before then. That was just when I was old enough
to know that something was going on. But now that I look at the
whole picture, she may have married my dad to leave this other life
behind, and then maybe she missed it.”

“So you think that your grandmother is the
one with the answers, and she is the one who has said the
least.”

He started packing things away in the car,
stopped and turned to her, “You don’t think that much about your
grandmother do you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well let’s just say it is that intuition
thing again?”

“I have never met anyone like Grand-Mère. She
has a lot of...inconsistencies...and things are not what they
seem.”

“You’re right, that little old lady wields a
lot of power in this town. Someday, I will let you read the folder
I have on her.”

“What? Are you saying that my grandmother has
been an object of an investigation other than her involvement with
my mother?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Well, let’s just say…you remember what I
said about being surprised at what people are capable of?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, your Grand-Mère didn’t just come by
all her power and influence by chance. She built that up over time
and your mother knew all about it.”

“What?”

He shook his head back and forth, “No. There
are some things, that it is best for your loved ones to tell you
about. If you still get the cold shoulder from your Grand-Mère, try
your dad. I am sure he can fill you in on a few things.”

“Secrets, Sergeant?”

“If I told you, it will not make a difference
between you and me and what we need to do, but it would make a
difference to your family. Some family secrets are best left in the
family.”

“But I’m leaving soon.”

“Oh really!”

“At the end of August, I start school, a
private school—not here in New Orleans. Before I leave, I want to
find out what happened to my mother.”

He turned to leave and abruptly stopped and
faced her. He took the last good inhale off of his cigar and then
he stopped, threw it down on the ground rolling his heel back and
forth—always the showman.

“Don’t want them squirrels picking up any bad
habits.” He picked-up the crumpled remains of his cigar and stowed
it in a wad of paper. “Tomorrow, same time.”

She nodded.

He smiled and said, “I think we will make a
good team, don’t you?”

She nodded again. “No doubt, dinner will be
interesting tonight.”

He turned and started walking towards his
car, in that bowlegged gait which was becoming a familiar
sight.

Dinner would be at eight, as usual. LeOmi
felt that she had several options. First Hannah, second Grand-Mère
and third was the house itself. “I’m sure it holds all types of
secrets.”

Three months wasn’t a lot of time.

* * *

Hannah had her routine for every day of the
week. Mondays were changing the sheets, laundry, ironing and
vacuuming. Tuesday was scouring the kitchen. Wednesday was grocery
day. Thursday was baking day, dusting and mopping. But today was
Friday and Friday was the fish market day, fish brought home and
prepared fresh. Grand-Mère would be with her and then they would
return in time for Grand-Mère’s nap, in the heat of the day and
before dinner. So that left the third option, the one that LeOmi
felt would be the least productive because she couldn’t invade
Grand-Mère’s privacy. So, she would wander around, but stay away
from locked rooms.

The house and grounds were huge. Combined,
they took up a whole block.

LeOmi knew every flagstone in the garden,
every nook in the garage and old stables. Everything was neat and
tidy, with nothing out of place. It was the same with the house,
except that it was dusty and dark. All the windows were battened
down for the hurricanes that would devastate New Orleans from time
to time.

It was obvious that Hannah would make the
rounds and make sure that everything was all right. The hall tables
were dusted but the floors were not vacuumed. Hallway runners were
probably replaced periodically. Every door was locked.

The huge ballroom on the first floor was the
room that Hannah had caught Ruby and LeOmi in when they were nosy
youngsters. Beyond that room was unseen territory for LeOmi, except
for the view of the closed shutters. She had longed to go up those
stairs and now was the time.

The stairway went up between the ballroom and
the unused formal greeting room. All the shutters were secured and
the light filtered through the closed blinds. The ceiling in the
ballroom was the entire three stories with huge covered chandeliers
suspended from chains and cables. The ballroom was located in the
south east corner of the house and there was an overhanging terrace
that jutted out over the ball room dance floor on the second floor,
level with the huge chandeliers. There were doors to rooms all
along these terraces, six on one side and six on the other. There
were also double doors that went to the house’s outside balconies
at each end of the terraces.

Every one of the terrace doors were locked so
she walked down the hallway at the top of the stairs. It looked
like a boarding house on the second floor, although neat and
tidy.

LeOmi saw the olive branch lying at a door on
the other end of the hall. She ran and picked it up. She turned the
doorknob and the door opened.

It was dark. No light came in whatsoever from
anywhere. There was a lamp just inside the door. A large leather
chair stood by the table with the lamp.

With the click of the lamp, the room was
revealed as a huge library. There were light switches on the
wall.

LeOmi couldn’t believe how many books were
there. There were rows upon rows of books all around the room and
this room seemed even bigger than the ballroom. The soft ceiling
light gave the room a closeted feel.

“All this treasure, behind closed doors where
no one can enjoy it.”

The shelves went along the walls leaving
about two feet of wall to ceiling space. On the table beside the
door were two books and another olive sprig. The books were old.
The first was titled
Interactions between Earth, Wood, Fire,
Metal and Water
. The second was
A Study in Sumerian
Cuneiform
.