Mischief in Mudbug (10 page)

“You’re afraid,” Helena said. “You’re afraid of letting him close to you because of the cancer.”

“Maybe. Yes. Well, wouldn’t you be?”

“Probably. The question is, are you scared for him or yourself?”

Sabine buried her head in her hands, her heartbeat pounding in her temples. “I wish I knew.”

“I know my opinion probably doesn’t count for anything, but I’m going to tell you like I told Maryse. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. I lived a pretty damned long life of nothing, hiding myself from people, afraid to make connections because I might get hurt. I married a man I knew I could never love, had a child that I never could connect with, and died without a single friend to my name.”

Sabine looked across the table at the empty space, wishing she could actually see the woman who was speaking. “You think the risk is worth it? To admit your feelings for someone who might not feel the same way? To share your darkest secret knowing it could be the one thing that drives them away? Or even worse, to have them stay and love you and in the end, lose it all to a dreadful disease?”

“But you’ll never ask yourself what if.”

Tears began to form in Sabine’s eyes. “I hate it when you’re right.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of
her hand, silently willing the unshed tears to disappear. “I met my family today.”

Her comment was met with dead silence and for a moment, Sabine wondered if Helena had left, but the seat cushion was still flattened. Finally, Helena spoke. “I didn’t realize. So what happened? I mean, if you feel like telling me that is…wow, I can’t even imagine…almost thirty years of not knowing, right?”

“Just about. They’re…different, I guess would be the polite way to describe them. Wealthy. Hey, maybe you could help me understand things along that line. I know people with money have a different set of rules, but I’m having trouble getting a handle on it. The meeting today was, well, I guess the best word is ‘weird.’ ”

“Wealth often comes with conditions. Most people don’t realize it because the wealthy keep everything hidden. But family structure is paramount. Keeping appearances is the second priority, right after keeping the money. It’s definitely a different world. And not often a pleasant one for children.”

“Yeah, I’m kinda getting that.”

“So who is the family? Anyone I would know of?”

“Maybe. They’re not that far from here. The family name is Fortescue.”

“Holy shit! The Fortescues? Jesus, no wonder you said they were weird. Hell, weird is polite. Nuts is a better description.”

Sabine felt her pulse quicken. “You know them?”

“As well as one half-ass recluse can know another. I never had much interaction with the whole family, but I did deal with Catherine before she married William. The family pretty much dropped out of sight during
Vietnam and never really emerged again except church events, and I always tried to avoid church events. My hypocrisy only extended to writing checks, not actually attending. The rumor mill was always running on about them though.”

“Really? About what, exactly?”

“Some said Frances went crazy, and that’s why they didn’t come out, but that never made sense to me. Frances was only a baby during Vietnam and attended the Catholic school in town for some time. Some said Catherine was the crazy one and she made Frances that way, since she dropped out of school her senior year. Some said William was never right after the war. No matter, most everyone assumed someone—or everyone—in the family was crazy. Then the son disappeared when he was a teenager—hey, that must have been your father. Damn, this is getting interesting. And seeing as how William’s brother had disappeared years before, everyone wondered what religion exactly was being practiced in that house. Last I checked, Christians didn’t make people disappear, but that family had more than their share of missing relatives and no answers for it, according to the local police.”

“So what did people think happened?”

“There was speculation that the family was hiding the wanted brother, Lloyd, during and after Vietnam, which is why they pulled back so much from society. But I figure there was probably all sorts of government agencies just itching to find Lloyd, so there was little chance they could have hidden him all those years, even in that monstrous house of theirs. More likely he died in Vietnam and was never recovered.”

Sabine nodded. “That seems to be the most likely.
And my father? Did you know anything of him besides his disappearance?”

“Seems the townspeople knew your father pretty well. Apparently he didn’t stick to the rest of his family’s rules about associating with the lower class. There was always rumors that he’d taken up with someone the family didn’t or wouldn’t approve of. Most thought he’d simply run away with the girl, even though he was giving up a fortune in inheritance to do it.”

“And when no one saw him again?”

“I don’t know. People speculated for a while, but I think they finally decided that the family must have given him some money to keep their secrets and stay away. After a while, no one spoke of him at all.”

Sabine considered this for a moment. “But if anyone knew anything, or even thought they knew anything, they might be willing to tell me now, right?”

“Possibly, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Some think the past is better left buried. Some just don’t want to get involved in other people’s business…not the serious kind anyway. General gossip over extramarital affairs and plastic surgery is one thing, speculating about the possibilities of bribery and murder is entirely different. And with Catherine and William still alive, it might not be the smartest thing to go speculating on.”

“But it’s possible someone would be willing to?”

Helena sighed. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? I suppose I could come up with a name or two for you to start with, but you have to promise me to be careful. Hell, Maryse got caught up in all that mess just by doing her job. You asking questions about things people might want to keep buried is a lot more risky.”

“I want the truth, Helena, but you’re right. I prom
ise to be careful, and if it starts to look dangerous at all, I’ll stop. Okay?”

“It’s already dangerous. The wealthy don’t like their secrets in the public eye, even if everyone else wouldn’t blink twice at them. Everything’s a possible embarrassment to them. Everything’s a possible slur to the family name. Whole lot of bullshit if you ask me, but then, I didn’t exactly play by the rules of money. Probably why I never got invited to those fancy parties. Ha.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess that part was intentional.”

“You’ve been hanging around me too long.”

“That is an overstatement.” Sabine rose from the table. “I’m going to take a hot bath and crawl in bed with a glass of wine.”

“Hmmmm, wine sounds good. Hey, I wonder if I can get drunk. What do you think?”

“I think we’re not going to try. Good night, Helena.”

“Wait a minute. If you have a phone book, I can probably jot down a couple of names for you. My memory’s not what it used to be, but the phone book should bring it back.”

Sabine pulled a thin local phone book from her kitchen drawer. She placed the directory, a pad of paper, and a pen on the table in front of Helena’s chair, then headed off to start her bath.

Twenty minutes later, she emerged from the steamy water feeling much more relaxed. Especially for someone whose life was falling apart at every end. She pulled on her pink cotton pajamas and headed into the kitchen to see what Helena had found. The ghost hadn’t made a noise the entire time Sabine was in the bath, which
meant she was either engrossed in her studies or all that food had put her in carb overload and she was asleep on the kitchen table.

“I came up with three names,” Helena said as Sabine entered the kitchen, “but I think one of them died a couple of years ago, so maybe only two. Hell, to be quite honest, the other two might be dead by now, too. These women were closer to my mom’s age than mine.”

Sabine leaned over and took a look at the list, but the names weren’t familiar to her. “Do they live in Mudbug?”

“No. The dead one was from Rabbit Island and the other two were up around Bayou Thibodeaux.”

“That’s close to my family, right?”

“Yeah, a couple of miles up the bayou from town, but they could be anywhere now. Still, if anyone’s going to know the local gossip, it would be these two. If they’re still alive.”

Sabine nodded. “I’ll check tomorrow.” She stepped into the kitchen, pulled a brand-new bottle of wine from her refrigerator, removed the cork, and poured herself a generous glass. Then she took a couple of sugar cookies from the cookie tin, since apparently Helena had helped herself to the ones on the table, and headed to the bedroom. “I’m off to bed, Helena. Turn off the kitchen light when you’re done, all right?”

“No problem,” Helena replied.

Sabine placed the glass of wine and cookies on her nightstand next to the latest thriller she was reading and climbed into bed. Between the hot bath, the wine, the sugar, and the book, she ought to be out like a light in no time. She took a nice, slow sip of the wine, a huge bite of a cookie, and opened the book to her marker.
She’d barely read the first two sentences when she realized something was wrong.

Her breathing constricted, like a whooping asthma attack, and she could feel her heart beating doubletime in her chest. She tried to sit up straight, hoping to expand her lungs a bit, but she seemed rooted in place, her limbs not responding at all. She tried to yell, but it came out not much more than a whisper. “Helena. Helena, help.”

She strained to hear something…anything moving in her apartment, but only the ticking of the kitchen clock met her ears.
This is it. I’m going to die.
Frantic, she struggled with her lifeless body, but couldn’t move her hand more than an inch. “Help. Helena, help.”

“What the hell are you whispering for?” Helena’s voice boomed next to her. “Speak up if you want something.”

Sabine opened her mouth, at least she thought she did, but no sound emerged. She looked at the side of the bed where she’d heard Helena’s voice, frightened beyond belief. Helena was her only chance. If the ghost couldn’t figure out what was going on, she was going to die right here in her bed.

“Holy shit!” Helena said, apparently realizing something was very wrong. “Just hang in there. I’ll dial 911.”

Sabine saw the cordless phone rise from her dresser and heard the numbers being depressed. Then the phone glided across the room and stopped with the mouthpiece at her lips. The operator answered and Sabine struggled to get out a word. “Help.” Her voice was so faint, she didn’t know if the operator had heard her at all. “Help,” she said again and slipped into unconsciousness.

Beau tossed Sabine’s file on the dresser with his gun and wallet and plopped back onto the worn-out recliner with a sigh. Another hour of reading over the same information and still he had nothing. He reached for the remote and turned on the television. He needed a distraction—one that didn’t have coal-black hair and a body that was an art form. He shook his head.
Stupid. That woman is nothing but trouble, yet you insist on humiliating yourself over her. Real smart, Villeneuve.
He jumped up from the chair and paced the length of the room, all three steps of it, then turned and paced it again.
The job is officially over, and it’s not your business to play bodyguard. Get back to New Orleans and forget your ever met Sabine LeVeche.

He sat on the end of the bed with a sigh. If only it was that easy.

It should have been easy. It should have been a piece of cake. It wasn’t like Sabine was the first woman he had ever been attracted to. But this woman…this woman with strange beliefs and a huge can of worms for a family had stopped him cold in his tracks.

It just didn’t make sense.

Sabine LeVeche was everything he didn’t want in his life. Her beliefs defied logic and science. She was smack in the middle of a huge family drama, and her
family was a nightmare of old-school beliefs and even older money. God only knew what they had been hiding behind those stone walls for all these years, and Beau didn’t want to know. But Sabine would, and that’s where his dilemma came in. Sabine LeVeche would look for answers until there were no questions left.

Beau knew all too well that those questions just might unleash a nightmare.

The family had been polite enough and had seemed as if they were glad to learn of Sabine, but they were still guarded in the information they dispensed. He wasn’t even going to launch into the weirdness factor. It went without saying. If Sabine veered off into the wrong line of questioning, they’d close ranks in a second, complete with the attorney to back them up. The attorney had hovered over the group the entire afternoon. Always standing and studying the room like he was getting ready for a major coup. If Beau had been a lesser man, he might have found it unnerving. Instead, he’d just found it annoying.

And none of it is your problem.

Mind made up, Beau leaned over to untie his tennis shoe. He was going to get a good night’s sleep and first thing in the morning he was going to head back to New Orleans, send an itemized bill to Sabine, and try to forget everything he knew about this case. He couldn’t afford to get involved on a personal level. Already the dreams were starting to return. It had taken him years to get a good night’s sleep again. He wasn’t about to jeopardize that for a stranger who’d repeatedly made it clear she had no interest in getting to know him better.

He pulled one shoe off and had just started on the second when he heard the sirens. His heart leapt to his
throat and the completely irrational feeling that something bad had happened to Sabine washed over him like rain. He jumped up from the bed and peered out the hotel window. The ambulance exited the highway and raced into town, sirens screaming. He hadn’t taken a breath since he’d leapt off the bed, but when the ambulance screeched to a stop in front of Sabine’s store, the air all came out in a whoosh. He didn’t even stop to grab his other shoe before he tore out of the hotel, almost knocking down the hotel owner as he ran across the street.

The paramedics had already burst in through the front door of the shop and Beau ran past the policeman standing at the door without bothering to identify himself. He dashed up the stairs, the policeman close behind him, yelling for him to stop. He ran into the apartment and, finding the front rooms empty, dashed into the bedroom. What he saw brought him up short.

The paramedics wheeled Sabine out on a gurney, an oxygen mask strapped to her pale face. She looked unconscious. “What’s wrong with her? What happened? Damn it, someone answer me!”

“We don’t know. You have to move, sir!” one of the paramedics yelled as they rushed past him with the gurney.

“Where are you taking her?” he called after them.

“Mudbug General,” the paramedic called back as they hurried down the stairs as fast as they could go.

Beau started to follow, but the policeman who had chased him upstairs hitched his pants up with one hand and put his other on Beau’s chest. “Buddy, you ain’t going nowhere until you tell me who the hell you are and how you know Sabine.”

Mildred, who had followed close on the heels of the
officer, rolled her eyes at Barney Fife, then fixed a hard stared on Beau. “I’d like an answer to that question myself.”

Beau reached into his pocket, then remembered he’d dashed out of the hotel without one of his shoes, much less his wallet. This wasn’t going to go near as quickly as he’d like. So far, he was as unimpressed with the Mudbug police as Sabine was, but he’d bet money that the hotel owner could take him down if he failed to satisfy the two of them. “I’m a private detective, former FBI. I was hired by Ms. LeVeche to find her family. I’m staying at the hotel across the street and ran over here when I saw the paramedics enter Sabine’s building. My wallet is in my hotel room.”

“I’ll be needing to see that before you can leave town.” The officer stared at him for a moment. “So I can assume that when Ms. LeVeche is able, she’ll verify your story?”

“Of course. Jesus, I just had dinner with her here, in this apartment. I only left a little over an hour ago, max. What the hell happened? Why did the paramedics come?”

“There was a 911 call from the phone here, but no one spoke. When that happens, the rulebook says we have to assume a crime is happening or someone’s croaking, so the police and the ambulance have to pay a visit.”

“And since there was no sign of forced entry, you assumed a medical emergency and the paramedics entered,” Beau said.

The officer narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t have time to check for ‘forced entry,’ as you call it. Damned medics had broke the door down before I got here.”

Mildred looked at the cop in disgust. “For Christ’s sake, Leroy, you’re a block away and the hospital is ten miles up the highway. If you’d stop wasting taxpayer money looking at internet porn, you might be able to do your job. Although I still have my doubts.”

Beau’s opinion of the hotel owner went up a notch.

“I’ll check out your story, Mr. Villeneuve. And assuming Ms. Mildred will vouch for you staying at her hotel, I guess I’ll let you drop by with that identification. In the meantime, I’d prefer it if you stuck around Mudbug. At least until Sabine can verify what you’ve said.”

“I’m only going as far as the hospital, as soon as someone tells me where it is exactly,” Beau assured the man, who gave him a brief nod and left.

“Good,” Mildred said, giving Beau a shrewd look. “I’ll give you directions and you can give me a ride. And since I’m ‘vouching’ for you, you can explain on the way why you’re staying in my hotel and requested a room that faced Sabine’s store. Sabine told me her family was located days ago, so why all this bull about having business with her now?”

Beau sighed and motioned Mildred down the stairs. “I’ll tell you, but you’re probably not going to believe me.”

“Try me,” Mildred said and headed down the stairs and out the door.

Beau made the fifteen-mile drive to Mudbug General in ten minutes flat, hoping like hell that the policeman was back at the station checking on his story or looking at some of that internet porn Mildred had mentioned and not pulling over speeders headed out of town. Mildred had left a message for someone, proba
bly Maryse, as soon as they got in the truck, then demanded he give her the details of his surveillance. He filled her in on the basic points of the situation and had just wrapped up when they reached the hospital. He tore into the parking lot and screeched to a halt in the closest parking space he could find to the emergency room. He jumped out of his truck and ran to the hospital. Mildred was hot on his heels, surprising him by how fast the large woman could move.

A nurse at the front desk gave them a dirty look when they burst into the lobby, but her expression shifted to concern when they asked for Sabine. “The doctors are working on her, but she’s stabilized,” the woman said. “I haven’t heard any details yet, but Dr. Mitchell will be out as soon as there’s something to tell.” She gave Mildred a sympathetic look. “I’m sure we’ll know more about your daughter soon. Is there anything I can get you while you wait?”

“No, thank you,” Mildred said, “we’ll just wait over here if that’s okay.” She pointed to a couple of chairs in the corner of the room with a clear view of the hallway to the emergency room.

“That’s fine,” the nurse said.

“Guess there’s nothing left but the waiting.” Mildred sat on the edge of one of the chairs, her hands clenched together in her lap.

Beau studied her for a moment. “You didn’t correct the nurse when she assumed you were Sabine’s mother.”

“No cause to correct the facts, is there?”

“I thought her aunt raised her.”

Mildred nodded. “She did, as best she could anyway. Margaret was no spring chicken when the state gave
her custody of Sabine, and she didn’t get any younger. Then Sabine met Maryse in elementary school and they were tied at the hip ever since. So you might say I got a double blessing.”

Beau stared at Mildred in surprise. “You’re Maryse’s mother? I thought Sabine told me her parents were dead.”

“They are. Her mother died shortly after Maryse’s birth and her father a couple of years ago. I helped with the baby after her mother died, and eventually her father and I started seeing each other on a personal basis. Did right up until the day he died.”

Beau nodded in understanding. “So you
are
their mother. In all the ways that count anyway.”

Mildred sniffed and looked down at the floor. “I like to think so. Those girls mean the world to me. All that business with Maryse last month damned near gave me a heart attack, and now this. You told me on the way over here that you stayed in the hotel to look out for Sabine because you had a bad feeling but no evidence. What is going on with my girls, Beau? You gave me the facts, but that doesn’t tell me anything. Tell me what you think—I don’t care if you can prove it or not.”

Beau took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. “I didn’t know anything about Maryse’s situation until Sabine mentioned it. Then I read up on it and I think it might have damned near given me a heart attack, too. She’s very lucky to be alive. But the man who was after her is dead, right? Probate is over and the father-in-law is setting up residence in a New Orleans jail awaiting trial.” He shook his head. “I can’t see where that has anything to do with whatever is going on with Sabine.”

“Just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“You’re right, of course. I’m just a little surprised to hear someone else try to make two and two equal five like I do.”

Mildred waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh heck, I’ve been doing the hotel accounting long enough to know that two and two equals whatever you want it to be. It’s simply a matter of perception and misdirection.”

Beau smiled. “Okay. So let’s say there’s a common factor, but we don’t know what it is. We also don’t know if the common factor is the cause of the problem or not. It could be something as simple as them being friends, or Maryse inheriting money, or it could be nothing at all.”

Mildred gave Beau a shrewd look. “Maryse isn’t the only one set to come into money now, right?”

“Yeah…I started worrying about that all of about two seconds after I found out who Sabine’s family was. Unless they’re putting up an awful good front, the Fortescues have more money than any family I’ve ever met.”

“I was gonna have breakfast with Sabine tomorrow morning and hear all about the meeting. Guess that might have to wait now. So did the Fortescues accept what you told them about her?”

“They seemed to take it all in stride. I’m sure when it comes down to the details, someone, most likely the attorney, will insist on a DNA test.”

“But you have no doubts?”

Beau shook his head. “No. Sabine is the spitting image of her father, and the grandfather, for that matter. If you could have seen those pictures of when he was
young…it was mighty convincing. By my estimate, Sabine is poised to inherit a fortune.”

“You really think they’ll just hand over a buttload of money to someone who is still essentially a stranger, DNA or no?”

Beau nodded. “Yeah, I do. Once word gets out that Adam had a daughter and she was found, the family will do everything they can to make up for lost time. Remember, appearances are the most important thing to the Fortescues. And what would people think if they didn’t bring Sabine into the fold and treat her as the grandchild she is?”

“And you think that might make someone unhappy?”

“Maybe. There’s only the aunt left in the house with the grandparents and they don’t associate with any extended family, but assuming no aunt and no Sabine, there’s any number of estranged cousins and such who would probably come into a tidy sum when the grandparents were gone. The aunt didn’t strike me as all that healthy looking, so she probably isn’t a huge concern. She seems emotionally unstable and it might be that she couldn’t even withstand her parents’ death.”

“Which leaves Sabine.”

“Exactly.”

Mildred sighed. “Does it strike you that all these problems seem to center on money, even though Maryse’s situation ultimately wasn’t about the money, per se?”

“Oh, yeah. If there’s one thing I learned in the FBI, it was that money is the greatest motivator of all. We had a saying there—’there’s three things you don’t
mess with, a man’s money, his wife, or his children—in that order.’ ”

Mildred gave him a knowing look. “Some days, it just pays to be poor, single, and childless.”

Sabine awoke with a series of wires attached to various parts of her body. She blinked, trying to clear her blurry vision, then blinked again. Her eyes were still watery, but she could make out a small hospital room, like the equipment hadn’t given that away. No separate bathroom, so she must be in the emergency room. Helena must have been able to make the call. Thank God. The last thing she remembered was calling to the ghost for help.