Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) (24 page)

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me…before we call Gertie and Ida Belle?”

Marie looked at me, trying for a casual expression and failing. “No. Why would there be?”

“Because you have this look like something is wrong besides the obvious.”

“Well, there’s an awful lot wrong. It would be strange if I didn’t look worried.”

I dumped grounds into the coffeemaker, poured in water and flipped the switch, then grabbed plates and forks and put them on the table next to what was left of the chocolate pie. At the rate it was going, it had been a good decision to buy three.

I studied Marie for a couple of seconds, and she shifted uncomfortably under my scrutiny. Finally, I took a seat across from her.
 

“It’s not worry that I see. It’s guilt.”

Marie’s eyes widened. “I don’t have anything I should feel guilty about.”

I smiled at her words. “I didn’t say you
should
feel guilty. I said you do. But nice work dancing around that statement.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

I cut off a slice of chocolate pie and placed it in front of Marie. “You didn’t kill your husband, did you?”

“No.”

“But you know who did.”

She sighed. “Not at first, I swear. But as time passed, I began to wonder.”

I got up from the table to pour us both coffee, then slid a cup in front of Marie. I sat down again and cut myself a big slice of pie. I’d earned it.
 

“Did you ever get proof?”

“No, and I never asked. I didn’t want to know for sure.”

I took a big bite of pie, then washed it down with some coffee. “But you’re sure, anyway.”

She looked down at her plate and nodded.

“It was Marge, wasn’t it?”

“I think so,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m so sorry to have to say that to you.”

The sadness in her voice confused me. I dropped my fork on the plate and studied her. “I don’t understand. I mean, I get that Harvey was no prize and your life is better with him gone, but I thought Marge was a friend of yours. She was in love with your husband and resented him for marrying you. That doesn’t make you just a little angry?”

Marie looked up at me, clearly shocked. “That…I don’t…Why in the world would you say that?”

“I found letters in the attic. Marge wrote them to Harvey while she was in Vietnam, but never mailed them. Tonight, I read one that referred to Harvey by name. I didn’t know who she’d written them to before then.”
 

I ran upstairs and grabbed the stack of letters from the desk in my bedroom, then hurried back downstairs and pulled out the last one I’d read and showed it to Marie as I stood beside her chair.

“See here,” I said, pointing to the only passage I’d found in the letters that identified the object of her affection.

I got the news today that you are to be married. I knew someone like you would not live their life out alone, but it is like a knife through my heart. Why, Harvey? The pain I feel is almost unbearable..
 

“She’s asking him why he married you,” I said. “Even if you never loved the man, it’s got to be insulting on some level that your friend wanted him for herself.”

Marie read the letter and her expression changed from shocked to sad again. “I guess the truth can’t hurt anyone now. All this time I spent hiding and worrying…”

I slid into the chair across from her. “What truth?”

She pointed to the passage I’d identified. “That isn’t a comma after ‘why.’ It’s just a mark on the page from age or an accidental pen stroke.” Marie laid the letter on the table and looked over at me.
 

“She wasn’t asking Harvey why he’d married me,” she said quietly. “She was asking me why I’d married Harvey.”

“Oh.” I stared at Marie. “Oh!”

Marie nodded. “I know. That sort of thing wasn’t acceptable back then.”

“But did you feel…did you…”

“No. I loved Marge as a friend, but I don’t have those kinds of feelings for her. She knew that and accepted that we’d only ever be friends. I think if I would have married a good man—a kind man—she wouldn’t have been so upset. But Harvey, well…”

“He didn’t treat you well. And that made her mad.”

“Yes. She tried to get me to leave him, even offered me a place to live and money, but she didn’t have enough to cover Charlie’s expenses. And besides, I couldn’t take from her, knowing how she felt. It wouldn’t have been right.”

I tried to imagine how Marie felt, trapped with a mean man, dependent on him to take care of her only immediate family, but I couldn’t begin to understand the depth of her despair. I was too independent—too self-sufficient—and it just couldn’t compute.
 

No more than I could understand how Marge must have felt, loving someone all those years, knowing she was being mistreated, and unable to do anything about the love or the mistreatment. Although, I guess ultimately she did do something about the mistreatment, which is why we were all in this mess now.

“Okay, I get that Marge wouldn’t have liked how you were treated, but she sat and watched it for a lot of years. What makes you think she finally killed him?”

“I’d been down with the flu for a couple of days. Marge was bringing me over a casserole so that Harvey would have his dinner on time. She wasn’t the best cook, but Harvey had no taste anyway. He didn’t care as long as food was on the table. But then Bones had an accident and broke his leg, and she had to rush him to the vet before she could deliver the food.”

“And Harvey got mad?”

Marie nodded. “Harvey expected things to be as he wanted them all of the time. I could have been dead and he would have still expected dinner at five o’clock.” She cocked her head to the side and scrunched her brow. “You know, since Harvey disappeared, I haven’t eaten supper at five? Not one single day. I either eat early or much later. I never thought about it until now, but I suppose my subconscious did.”

“Makes sense. So what happened?”

Marie frowned and looked down again. “He hit me, like he always did when he thought I’d screwed up. But this time, he hit me across the face. He usually only left marks on my body so I could hide them. Marge had walked across the backyards and was standing at the screen door in the kitchen when he did it. She saw it all.”

“Did she kill him in your house?”

“No. She burst into the kitchen and threw the casserole in his face. Then she yelled at him to get out before she called the police. I knew she wouldn’t because it would only makes things worse for me, but Harvey believed her. He stomped out, threatening to kill me and her.”

A rush of anger washed over me. Beaten over a casserole being late? I probably would have killed him myself if I’d been there. “So, what happened next?”

“Marge helped me clean the cut. He’d split the skin at my eyebrow. I had a black eye for a while, but since I was sick, I’d managed to avoid most people for a couple of days. Gertie and Ida Belle helped me cover it with makeup after that, enough so I could go to church on Sunday.”

“Is church that important around here?”

Marie looked up at me. “It was then. You see, Harvey had already disappeared, and Ida Belle and Gertie were afraid if people knew he’d hit me that I would have been suspected of killing him. They also set up a bank account in the Bahamas and had me use Harvey’s password to transfer money there so people would think he’d run off with one of his whores.”

“Really?”

Ida Belle and Gertie had left out quite a bit of their part in the Harvey-disappearing story. No wonder they were so desperate to find another suspect. They knew if everyone found out Harvey had beaten Marie right before he disappeared that she’d be convicted before she was even tried. And since part of his body had turned up, it wasn’t likely that Harvey had been the one moving money around, which left only Marie, with Gertie and Ida Belle in it up to their necks.

“So you’ve left the money sitting there all this time?” I asked.

“No. Ida Belle said we had to make it look like Harvey moved the money somewhere else, but do it in a way where it couldn’t be traced. There was some complicated maneuvering from country to country, and a couple of those sketchy-looking lawyers got involved, but eventually, I used the money to buy a beach house in Tahiti.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all. Gertie, Ida Belle, and I go there every year for a month. We tell everyone else we’re doing missions work in South America. We needed a reason to explain the tans.”

“Of course.”

Marie gave me a sheepish look. “I guess they didn’t tell you all this.”

“No. They left a couple of things out. Mostly, all the things that make them look bad.”

Huge! They owed me huge for all the underhandedness. I started making a mental list. Gertie would owe me a pound cake every other day for my entire stay. Ida Belle was going to let me borrow her car.

“So, I take it the police bought off on Harvey running?” I asked, something about the entire thing still not making sense to me.

Marie nodded.

All of a sudden, it hit me. “Did you tell Ida Belle and Gertie about what Marge saw?”

“No. She asked me not to, and until today, I’ve kept her secret.”

I stared, the entire mess starting to click together. “So all this time, Gertie and Ida Belle have really thought you killed Harvey?”

“Yes, but I didn’t want to betray Marge. After a while, the whole thing became old news and there wasn’t any reason to revisit it. Besides, Marge was protecting me. I couldn’t put her at risk.”

“Until now. You know the truth is going to have to come out.”

“I know, but I’m afraid after all the lies, no one’s going to believe me.”

I blew out a breath. “Me, too.”

Chapter Eighteen

Despite being roused out of bed, Gertie and Ida Belle made it to my house within minutes of my phone call. They both wore bathrobes and slippers, and Ida Belle had a head full of rollers, but they were wide awake and clearly stunned at the turn of events.

It took a bit to explain everything to Gertie and Ida Belle, who flopped back and forth between being thrilled Marie was all right, shocked that she hadn’t actually killed Harvey, and nonplussed that Marge had been in love with Marie and apparently done the deed.

“It all makes sense now,” Ida Belle said, “but who would have figured?”

Gertie shook her head. “I am so sorry, Marie. All these years, we’ve thought you were the one that killed him.”

“It’s all right. I knew that’s what you thought when you helped me with the offshore bank.”

“But why didn’t you tell us?” Gertie asked.

“She was protecting Marge,” I said.

Marie nodded. “She killed Harvey to protect me. How could I let her take the fall for something I should have handled years ago myself? Especially knowing how she felt about me. It would have been a knife in her heart and her back.”

“It was a big risk,” Ida Belle said. “If Harvey’s body had turned up before Marge died, you would have had to choose.”

“I doubt it,” I said. “My guess is that if Marge were still alive, she would have confessed. She’d never have let Marie go to prison. In fact, from Marie’s standpoint, she’d be much better off if Marge were still here to confess. Given all the subterfuge, it’s going to be hard to get people to buy off on this.”

“You’re probably right.” Ida Belle sighed. “If only we had a way to prove all of it. Proof that a jury couldn’t overlook.”

Suddenly, a thought flashed through my mind. I jumped up from my chair, startling the three of them.

“Marge’s estate attorney called me earlier this week. He said he had a letter that was to be delivered to me on Marge’s death.” I clenched Gertie’s shoulder. “What if she left a confession, just in case the whole thing blew up after she died?”

Three hopeful expressions stared back at me.

“It would be just like Marge to do something like that,” Gertie said. “Honor was a way of life with her.”

Ida Belle nodded. “So, when can you get this letter?”

I checked my watch. “Their office opens in a couple of hours. I figure we have time to get dressed, grab some breakfast and haul butt to New Orleans to be there when it does.”

Ida Belle and Gertie jumped up from their chairs.

“It’s a plan,” Gertie said. “We can take my car now that it’s been fumigating for a day.”

 
Ida Belle nodded. “Marie, you better stick around here. No one’s caught on to your hiding place yet.” She shot me a derisive look. “Including the person living in the house. You should be safe here as long as you stay out of sight. Melvin already has some misconceptions about Fortune’s role here. I don’t want him to catch a glimpse of you when he’s sneaking around.”

“I’ll be back in the attic before daylight,” Marie promised. “I’m just going to get a quick shower and change clothes. It will be nice to take my time in the bathroom. I’ve been rushing down when you left, hoping you wouldn’t catch me.”

Gertie frowned. “She doesn’t need to hide in the attic any longer, does she?”