Murder at Morningside (3 page)

We stopped when Beatrice began to speak.

“We're going to start in a few minutes,” she said into the microphone. She'd apparently pulled herself together after the spat in the hall and placed the cloche back on her head, where it belonged. “First prize is a weekend in Charleston, so good luck to everyone.”

Not knowing what to expect, I glanced around the room at the others. Two dozen women sat at tables like mine, sipping from porcelain cups and nibbling on Walker shortbreads. Some wore parabuntal straws, the tightly-woven ones that were impossible to block, while others had on felt cloches, like Beatrice.

“Wherever can Trinity be?” Ivy glanced at her watch again. “She's not perfect, but she
is
punctual. Something must be wrong.”

“She'll be here, I'm sure. Cookie?” I passed her the plate of shortbreads in an attempt to take her mind off her troubles.

“You don't understand.” Ivy didn't even glance at the platter. “Ever since Trinity was little, I could set my clock by her. Ballet lessons, art classes, piano recitals . . . I can't tell you how many times I had to wait in the car with her because we were too early for something or other. I'd better go see what's keeping her.”

“But you'll miss the competition.” I lowered the plate only when it became obvious Ivy had no interest in anything but finding her stepdaughter.

“How is everyone this morning?” Beatrice approached our table, looking as sunny as the skies outside. “What beautiful hats! We'll have to take your picture for our web site. Promise you won't leave before we can do that.”

Quickly, Ivy reached out and grabbed Beatrice's wrist. “We can't start yet. My stepdaughter isn't here.”

Beatrice glanced at me helplessly as the skin above her wrist blanched white.

“I'm sure it's nothing,” I said. “She probably overslept, what with all the excitement.”

“But this isn't like her. I can't understand what's taking her so long.”

“What if I go check?” Beatrice managed to dislodge her wrist from Ivy's grasp. “We're not going to start for a few minutes. I can run upstairs. It'll only take me a second.”

“Would you?” Ivy asked. “She's in room two-fifteen. She's a light sleeper, so you won't have to knock very hard. Tell her I'm waiting.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Beatrice turned to leave, rubbing her wrist.

Now that everything was under control, I relaxed a bit. “Tell me about the wedding.” Anything to take her mind off her absent stepdaughter.

“First of all, the designer who made her gown told Trinity she should put the bridesmaids in black. Can you imagine? He said it's quite popular on the East Coast. I had to put my foot down on that one. Why would the bridesmaids wear black for a spring wedding?”

I tried not to smile. She had no way of knowing Ambrose and I were friends. “Hmm. What did he say when you told him no?”

“I imagine he took offense. That's the one good thing about hiring a wedding planner. She had to be the one to say that, not me.”

We chatted a bit more about the wedding colors—peach and cream won out—the flowers, the dance music, and whatnot. Turned out Mr. Solomon hired the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra to play “Here Comes the Bride” on the front lawn. Between that and a fireworks display set to explode at midnight, I got the feeling the bride could have bought a house in Bleu Bayou for the cost of this wedding.

Just then Beatrice dashed into the tearoom and made a beeline for our table.

“She's gone.”

Since the girl seemed to have a flair for melodrama, I didn't get too worked up. “Slow down. What do you mean, she's gone? Maybe she took a walk to get some fresh air.”

Beatrice shook her head. “The maid told me no one used her room last night. Said she left chocolates on the pillow, and they haven't been touched.”

I glanced at Ivy. While I did
not
want to be indelicate, there was one obvious explanation. “Could she be with her fiancé?” Odds were good she spent the night in his room if hers looked untouched.

“I was talking with him earlier in the hall,” Beatrice said. “He hasn't seen her. Not since last night.”

Well, now
. The handsome stranger whose eyes blazed like hellfire must have been the missing girl's fiancé. If only the mansion's walls could talk, I'd get an earful and then some.

“Wherever could she be?” Ivy asked. “This isn't like her.”

Of course, Trinity Solomon wouldn't be the first bride to up and run. But someone with a handsome catch like that, and carrying his offspring, no less, wasn't likely to hightail it out of town. “She's probably with her bridesmaids. You know, having fun while she still can.” That made perfect sense to me, and it seemed to calm Ivy down.

But only until Beatrice pointed to the opposite corner of the room.

Ivy and I turned at the same time. Five girls lounged around a table, wearing the peach-colored sunbonnets I'd designed. I hadn't noticed them with all the fuss.

“The tall one told me they figured they might as well come here and get some use out of their wedding clothes,” Beatrice said. “At least the hats.”

Ivy and I both stared at the table. Sure enough, the girls took turns splashing water into each other's glasses with lots of giggles all around.

“I'm going to find her,” Ivy finally said.

Maybe it was my Christian upbringing, but I couldn't bear to let her go alone. “I'll go with you.”

“Oh, no. You'll miss the competition. I can't let you do that.”

I tried to sound nonchalant. “It's not that important to me.” It'd be a shame to walk away now, but my new friend was about to panic.

Beatrice cleared her throat next to us. “I'm afraid I have to start the contest.”

“Of course,” I said. “You go right ahead. We'll slip out the back door.”

As Ivy and I left the room, I glanced back at the party of bridesmaids, who didn't seem to have a care in the world. One by one, they stacked packages of Earl Grey into a tower and then poked at it with a stir stick until the thing came tumbling down, which made them all squeal with laughter.

Even though Mr. Solomon had broken the bank for this wedding, it looked like the bridesmaids didn't notice the bride was gone. The squeals faded as Ivy and I made our way down the hall. She linked her arm in mine, which seemed to give her strength; though it made navigating the path a bit tricky.

Since no one had seen the missing girl
inside
the mansion, our best option was to explore the grounds
.
From what I remembered of our tour the day before, a pool and Jacuzzi lay on the south side, as well as a day spa. That was probably where I'd have gone on the morning of my wedding if I wanted to find a little peace and quiet.

We walked past a garden with a boxwood hedge first and then a brick fence that wrapped around the pool and hot tub. No one else was on the path.

The iron gate to the pool stood open. The pool was nice and broad, with more than enough room for a healthy workout. Problem was, the only people in the pool were a mother and her two small children.

Ivy glanced at me, crestfallen. “She's not here, either.”

“Don't be too hasty.” I'd seen a blur by the hot tub and thought maybe Trinity could be relaxing there instead. Even though a girl in her condition shouldn't submerge herself in scalding water, she might have decided to sunbathe there.

We ducked past the woman and her kids and then headed for the hot tub. No luck. Someone was lounging there, all right, but she'd tossed a chef's coat over one of the folding chairs.

“Hello,” I said.

The stranger next to the hot tub held a copy of
Gourmet
. Lo and behold, an inked serpent crept around her collarbone, slithered under both ears and ended just shy of her chin. The whole thing looked like frothy swirls on parchment, which would have been beautiful if the artist had drawn it on a piece of paper instead of the poor girl's neck.

She scrunched up her nose. She'd dyed the tips of her short blond hair red, like a book of matches set on fire. “Hello.”

“Have you seen anyone come by?” I asked.

“Mmm. Don't think so.” She tossed the magazine onto a tempered glass table, where it landed next to an open bottle of Coppertone.

“I'm Missy DuBois and this here is Ivy Solomon.”

“I'm Cat Antoine, the head chef.”

Which was all well and good, but we still had a bride to find. “Have you seen anyone come by this morning, Cat?”

The girl stared at Ivy. “I know you. You're married to the guy who owned that refinery my dad used to work at.”

“Excuse me?” Ivy seemed a little flustered to be recognized. “We're looking for someone—”

“That's it. I recognize you from the newspaper stories.” The two of them seemed to be having parallel conversations with neither one paying much attention to what the other said.

“—my stepdaughter is never late, you see.”

I
had
to intervene. “We're kind of in a hurry. Do you know if the spa's open?”

“Should be,” Cat said. “I've never used it, even though I live right there.” She gestured to a building behind the pool that looked exactly like the main house, only smaller. The employees' housing, apparently.

“We should probably try the spa next.”

Who wouldn't want a massage on the morning of her wedding? I was about to say good-bye to Cat when a high-pitched scream rent the air.

Mutely, we all turned toward the mansion. Ivy reached out and gripped my arm like she'd done with Beatrice earlier.

“Ow!” Instinctively, I pulled away. Mauling me wasn't going to help anyone. “My goodness.” I started toward the pool gate and Ivy followed, our heels tap dancing on the deck.

Someone had screamed near the main house. I was sure of it. Near the back, if I had to guess. We hurried there. A flurry of activity met us. A man wearing a tool belt blocked the mansion's back door, waving people away with a pair of garden clippers and shouting at everyone to stay back.

One of the waiters was there too, judging by a black apron he wore around his waist. He tried to comfort a shrieking woman in a maid's uniform, but her cries only amplified the chaos. By this time, several guests had joined the melee.

Ambrose was nowhere to be seen. That made my heart race, and I made a beeline over to the waiter and the distraught housekeeper.

“What is it?” Although I suspected a kitchen fire, there was no smoke or flames.

The waiter had his hands full with the crying woman and didn't answer. I moved on to the gardener, who was doing his best to keep everyone at bay.

“You, there!” I hoped he could hear me above the hubbub. “What's going on?”

The man stopped waving long enough to fix his pale aqua eyes on me. “Find da manager, quick.”

“Why? What's going on?”

“Da maid found a body in dere. Women's batroom.”

Ivy gasped behind me. It couldn't be, could it? I turned to gauge her reaction. She silently swooned, like an old-fashioned paper doll cut free of its pattern, and fell to the ground.

P
aramedics maneuvered the stretcher slowly—too slowly—out a side door and down the path. Ambrose had emerged from the main house safe and sound, and I was so happy I threw my arms around his neck to hug him for all I was worth.

We had to wait on the lawn until a Louisiana state trooper arrived to cordon off the area. A second officer accompanied him, and he gestured for Ivy to follow him into the house.

My heart hurt for her. Who could have guessed the morning would turn out so? Once she disappeared into the house, a man with a name tag identifying him as the general manager stepped out.

“Could I have your attention, please?” The general manager spoke loudly, as if to override the chaos. His bald head was smooth and as shiny as a new penny. “We don't have much information at this point, but I can tell y'all one of our housekeepers discovered a body in the restroom. She's been positively identified as Miss Trinity Solomon.”

No one stirred, out of respect for the deceased or perhaps just plain old curiosity.

“We're willing to give anyone their deposit back if they want to leave, but the police need to talk to you before you go. That is,
if
you go.”

The moment he hushed, whispers rose on the air like dandelions blown about by a headwind as people traded information back and forth. The overwhelming majority standing with me on the lawn seemed to be in town specifically for the wedding.

A lady to my left announced she'd write up a little something for the Baton Rouge Women's Club newsletter. A soft-spoken older gentleman wondered whether the flowers could be donated to a local hospital. And a young businesswoman questioned the fate of Mr. Solomon's oil company now his only child was gone. It was all very civilized, but also chilly, for such a sudden turn of events.

I glanced at my shoes. Ivy's beautiful hat lay in the grass.
Such a pity.
She never had a chance to wear it for the competition, and now it was ruined, or nearly so. If I brought it back to my room, there was a chance I could reshape its crown using my travel steam iron.

Since I didn't have any other way to help her, I scooped up the hat. We awkwardly stood there for a moment longer until Ambrose touched my arm and began to lead me away from the crowd.

“C'mon, Missy, let's get out of here.”

I studied the faces as we walked. Like it or not, a dead girl had been found in the hotel's bathroom, even though she appeared to be as right as rain during our tour yesterday. True, she was in a family way, but she'd been downright feisty with her daddy when he challenged her about the wedding.

Someone had wanted Trinity gone and, for all we knew, that someone could still be among us. A few weeks back I ran into our local police chief at the Food Faire. He told me about a thief he'd arrested who videotaped his victims when they returned home. Apparently the guy wanted to record their expressions when they noticed the smashed windows, broken locks, and scuff marks on the front door. Especially if they began to yell, shriek or argue with each other because they didn't know what else to do.

To sit back and enjoy human suffering was horrible, but that didn't mean those types of people didn't exist. While most sane folks would catch the first Jefferson Transit out of town, most wouldn't murder a young bride right before her wedding. I eyed all the spectators equally as we made our way to the front of the house and up the stairs. I collapsed into one of the rocking chairs on the porch, still clutching the crushed hat to my chest.

Ambrose followed suit and sat beside me. “Well, I didn't see that coming.”

“Ambrose! Don't be so flippant.”

“Of course, I feel awful for the girl's family.”

“That's better.” I started to fluff up the pheasant quills on Ivy's hat, but my heart wasn't in it. She and I had walked right by the restroom where the maid found Trinity. Heavy panel door, brass doorknob, leaded glass window. Nothing unusual about any of it. “Who do you think would do such a thing?”

“Now that's hard to say. No telling who had motive. Could've been anyone. Even someone they didn't know.”

I rolled my eyes. “It had to be someone they knew. Why would you even say that? It's not like a stranger would wander onto this plantation out of the clear blue.”

“You're only saying that because it makes you feel safer.”

No doubt he was right. The thought of a stranger killing someone two floors below my bedroom was enough to send me packing. But, if it was someone who was upset at the bride, or her family, that would be a whole 'nother story.

The waiter I'd seen earlier ambled up the stairs and joined us on the porch. “Maybe the ghost did it.” He was handsome, even with the prematurely gray hair, bless his heart.

“Now that'd be the day,” I said.

“People were talking about it this morning.” He leaned against the rail that separated us from the river beyond. “One guy told me he almost called the cops last night because he heard so much noise. People moving furniture around, banging walls, having a regular party.”

“Do tell,” Ambrose said. “I'd be mad too if someone kept me awake all night.”

The waiter crossed his arms. “Or some
thing
. By the way, I'm Charles. I'll probably be your server while you're here.”

“Nice to meet you, Charles. I'm Missy and this is my friend Ambrose.”

He looked doubtful when I said
friend
, but that was neither here nor there at this point.

“By any chance, did you hear anything last night?” I asked.

He shook his head. “There's too much stuff going on in the kitchen. The chef has to practically scream whenever my orders are up.”

“You mean Cat? I met her this morning by the Jacuzzi. So you didn't hear anything?”

Ambrose shot me a look because he knew full well my questions usually led someplace else.

“Not a thing,” Charles said. “If anything weird happened last night, I wouldn't know. Guess it's time to drive back to school.”

“Let me guess. LSU? I went to Vanderbilt and Ambrose here went to Auburn—”

Charles's eyes flitted away from my face and landed somewhere behind me. At that point, I could have been speaking Swahili, for all he knew, because he only had eyes for the front door, which had squeaked open.

I turned. Beatrice stepped onto the porch with her cell phone once again at her ear. There was definitely some history between those two.

“Charles?” I asked.

His head snapped 'round again. “Uh-huh. Auburn.”

“Never mind. It's not important.”

Ambrose chuckled at our exchange. “Girlfriend?”

“What, her? Oh, no. No.”

“Do tell.” Ambrose was toying with him now.

I was about to intervene when Beatrice finally lowered the cell. “Mr. Jackson, can you come with me?”

“Me? Is something wrong?”

With everything that had happened, it was anyone's guess what new crisis lurked around the corner. Maybe the police wanted to question Ambrose about what he'd seen while he was at the front desk. Or maybe they wanted to know if he'd heard anything the night before.

“You had a call,” Beatrice said. “She said you weren't answering your cell. Something about a problem at the store.”

“Criminy. My guess it's the Fitzgerald dress.” Ambrose grimaced. “I didn't do a very good job of training my assistant to handle things when I'm gone, now, did I?”

“Don't blame yourself, Ambrose. She should be able to figure it out, don't you think?” I said.

“I should tell
her
that.” Reluctantly, he rose from the rocker and motioned to Charles. “Want to hold my seat for me? Best view in the house.”

“No, that's okay. I have to get back to school pretty soon. Finals are coming up.”

Beatrice didn't even glance Charles's way, which seemed a trifle sad. “They have the number in the registration cottage,” she said to Ambrose, instead.

“Gotcha.” He lingered by the rocker, and neither he nor Charles seemed anxious to leave.

“Speaking of which,” I asked Beatrice, “did they ever tell you what happened to Trinity Solomon?”

“No. All I know is a maid went into the handicapped stall this morning to refill the toilet paper and there she was. Must have been an awful sight.”

“So there was lots of blood?” What a horrible fright to walk in on a crime scene—first thing in the morning, no less.

“No, there wasn't any blood.” Beatrice pursed her lips. “They didn't ask for a mop or anything. Just said we couldn't use the bathroom until a crime-scene investigator came by.”

“Well, they wouldn't use a mop, not until they'd had a chance to analyze the splatter pattern, if there was one.” Thank heavens I took a criminal-defense course at Vanderbilt when I thought about going to law school. Never imagined I'd use the information, though.

“But they wheeled the stretcher right by me and they didn't cover up the body very well. It looked like she was only sleeping.”

“Did her skin look gray or purple?” I asked.

“Now that you mention it, her skin
did
look purple. What does that mean?”

I shrugged. “Nothing.” No need to provide a police procedural out here on the front porch. Although it meant Trinity had been lying in the restroom for some time, at least a few hours.

“We should go see about that call,” she said to Ambrose.

“Are you going to be okay out here by yourself, Missy? This shouldn't take more than a minute or two.”

I waved away his concerns. “Fine and dandy.” With Ambrose gone, I could question Charles to my heart's content. “I need to catch my breath anyway.”

Before they left, Beatrice blessed Charles with a throwaway smile. The boy looked ready to melt into a puddle of happiness.

“Breathe,” I said, once they were gone. No need to have two bodies lying around the plantation.

“Excuse me?”

“You stopped breathing when she spoke. Sit.” I pointed to the chair Ambrose had recently vacated. Sometimes it was best to take the bull by the horns and lead him around the corral. “You were telling me about ghosts and such.”

Charles reluctantly sank into the rocker. “You hear things when you're waiting tables.”

“I imagine. If you were to gamble, who would do something like that to the Solomon family?”

He didn't hesitate. “There was a big accident at her father's oil refinery last year.”

“Really? I kinda remember reading about it in the newspaper. Baton Rouge, wasn't it?”

“Yep. A fuel stack exploded in the middle of the night.”

“Did a lot of people get injured?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, but it was more than that. There was the money too. Half of Baton Rouge had invested in the refinery and when it shut down, they got aced.”

“What do you mean, ‘aced'? Did Mr. Solomon lose everything?”

Now he looked disgusted, with his face all pinched up. “
He
didn't lose anything. But everyone else did. Even my dad had money in it.”

“Sometimes they'll sell off the assets if there's been an accident and give the money to the survivors. Why didn't they do that?”

“There wasn't anything left to sell. How much would someone pay for a burned-out fuel stack? 'Course, Mr. Solomon got off scot-free. Turns out he'd invested his money somewhere else. Didn't have a dime in his own property.”

Gracious light.
That would give a lot of people motive to get back at Mr. Solomon. But why go after his poor daughter? Why not the man himself?

Charles rose from the rocker and stretched. “I'd better head back. Time to hit the books.”

“Okay, then. I'll probably see you tonight.”

By the time he left, my thoughts were a million miles away. Not only did Mr. Solomon cause a lot of physical harm to people in this area, but it seemed he'd caused a lot of financial damage too. Hard to say which of the two would be a better reason for revenge.

No sooner had Charles started back down the stairs when the top of Ambrose's head appeared over the landing. He seemed a little winded from all the coming and going, so I motioned to the rocking chair, which had been getting more than its fair share of use that morning.

He shook his head. “Missy, I hate to do this, but I have to get back to the shop.”

“Really? If it's not one thing, it's another. Or as my granddaddy used to say, It's always somethin', never nothin.”

“The wedding next weekend is going to be a disaster if I don't take care of this. I need to come up with a whole new design or the mother will want my head on a platter.”

I sighed heavily. “Oh, Bo.” Ironically, one of the things I liked about Ambrose when I first met him was his passion for his work. But why did that passion have to interrupt the only weekend we'd had together in a month of Sundays?

“We're talking major disaster here. Now she wants her mermaid dress to be a ball gown. Trust me, there's not enough fabric for that.”

“I understand.”

Once he made up his mind, it was like trying to tame the wind to change it.

“I'll only be gone a few hours. Then I'll come right back. You probably won't even notice I'm gone.”

I worked up a respectable pout. “You know that's not true. Maybe I'll leave too and go back with you.”

“Now don't be silly. Didn't you want to go swimming? I'll tell you what: You go get some sun, and I'll be back as quick as anything. This place costs a lot of money, so you might as well enjoy it. Even with everything that happened this morning.”