Plantation Shudders (17 page)

“I would never do such a thing without telling you. Why, are they important?”

“They’re what I found hidden in the Clabbers’ room. A signet initial ring and brochures from a Scottish castle and English country manor.”

“And they’re missing?”

Maggie hesitated, hating to admit it. “Yes.”

“Oh, dear.” Gran’ sat on the couch. “That’s not good at all, is it?”

“No. It is not good.”

Neither of them voiced it, but the same thought was in both of their minds. Someone had come into their home with the express purpose of finding what the Clabbers had hidden and Maggie had rehidden.

And the odds were pretty good that the evidence thief was Beverly Clabber’s killer.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Gran’ cautioned. “It could be a common burglar. I’ll see if my jewelry is gone and you do the same.”

“I don’t have anything worth stealing.”

“Well, the burglars don’t know that.”

The women went into their bedrooms and checked on their valuables, which in Maggie’s case meant sentimental costume jewelry like a charm bracelet she’d received for her seventh birthday featuring images of the Spice Girls, a pop group she’d idolized at the time. She and Gran’ then reconvened in the living room.

“Nothing’s missing,” Maggie reported.

“Nothing of mine either.” Gran’ said. “I never thought I’d be disappointed
not
to be robbed.”

“So all they wanted was Beverly Clabber’s things. How did they even know I had them? Or that
she
had them?”

“I think if we knew that, we’d know who killed the poor woman. By the way, hiding the copies in that ‘Receipts’ folder was very clever of you. At least you still have something to work from.”

“To be honest,” Maggie confessed, “I didn’t do it on purpose. I just grabbed the nearest empty folder.”

“My dear, learn to take a compliment.” Gran’ stood and stretched. “I’m going back to bed.”

Maggie stared at her grandmother. “You can sleep now?”

“Well, I don’t see any use in the alternative. I’d much rather be killed in my sleep than lie awake waiting for it.”

“Gran’, that’s so brutal.”

“I prefer to think of it as practical. Good-night.” Gran’ walked to her room but stopped in the doorway. “Although do throw the deadbolt tonight for a bit of extra insurance.”

Gran’ disappeared into her room and Maggie stared at the mess on the floor. No ring or brochures magically materialized, so she put everything back in the drawer, which she then maneuvered into place. The only item she kept out was the folder with the copies.

She got up, threw the deadbolt, then returned to the desk and turned on the desk lamp. Unlike Gran’, there was no way she could sleep. Instead, she pulled out the copy of the McDonough Castle brochure and powered up her tablet. An Internet search yielded the website for the castle, and Maggie studied it carefully. The “About” tab took her to a chatty page that shared the castle’s history as the ancestral home of the
Murrays, Scottish-landed gentries who could trace their peerage back to the late seventeenth century. The eldest Murray laid claim to the title Duke of Dundess.

At the bottom of the page was a crest, and under that a monogram. Maggie pulled out the copy of Beverly’s ring; the florid script on it was an exact match to the McDonough Castle monogram’s calligraphy. Clearly, Beverly had some connection to the place. Was she just a McDonough Castle fangirl? Maggie knew the obsessive love people developed for a certain part of the world. The Cuties were the perfect case in point. Maybe Beverly was a British Castle Cutie. If Maggie was going to discover whatever it was that motivated Beverly to ape the monogram’s calligraphy, she needed to learn more about the castle, which meant going beyond the first page of the search.

But first, she stared at the crest. She could swear she’d seen it before but couldn’t place where. She closed her eyes, took some meditative breaths, and tried clearing her mind.

*

The next thing Maggie knew, sunshine was streaming through the windows and Gran’ was gently shaking her. “Wake up, darlin’. You fell asleep right on top of your computer.”

Maggie roused herself and looked at the computer screen. Her castle search was gone, replaced by gobbledygook. At some point, she must have passed out with her head resting on the keyboard and hit a bunch of keys.

“Jan is back,” Gran’ said as she adjusted the tie on her bathrobe. “The police can’t charge her with anything until they get
the results from the DNA test. Heavens, listen to me. In my life, I never thought I’d sound like some character from a TV police show. Back to business; the Cuties are staying here with her, but our other guests are preparing to check out.”

“No,” Maggie said, frowning. “I need more time.”

Gran’ went into her room to dress for the day and Maggie retyped her Internet search, this time listing it as “information on McDonough Castle and Cobs Manor.” On the second page, she found the connection between the two historic sites featured on Beverly’s brochures. Cobs Manor was also an ancestral home of the Murrays, sort of a summer place.

She canceled her search and entered “Duke of Dundess—McDonough Hall.” An obituary for Hamish Murray, a.k.a. Lord Livingston, Duke of Dundess, filled her screen. A solitary sort, he had passed away only a few months ago at the age of ninety-two, survived by no one. She entered another search specifically for the late duke, and a brief article from one of Scotland’s leading newspapers,
The Herald,
popped up. It was titled “American Royalty?” and explained that because Hamish left no heirs in the British Isles, his attorneys had to cast a wide net. They managed to track down a very distant relative in the United States, guaranteeing that the dukedom wouldn’t go extinct.

Maggie sat back and digested this information. Was horrible Hal Clabber slated to be the next Duke of Dundess? She had read enough Jane Austen to know that inherited titles only passed to sons, not daughters—at least in the nineteenth century. Maybe things had changed in the last two hundred years. She searched “inherited peerages” and was disappointed to see
a long list of articles about an ongoing battle in Britain to allow daughters to inherit when no son was in the picture. Apparently, things hadn’t changed, which pointed to Hal Clabber, which made no sense since he had died of natural causes while his wife was the murder victim.

Maggie groaned. Then a sentence under the title of one article caught her eye: “Most Scottish peerages, like the ancient English baronies, allow the peerage to pass to the ‘heirs general,’ so females can inherit them.”

“Oh my God,” she said. It was all starting to make sense.

Gran’ came out of her bedroom, dressed in a pale blue linen sheath with matching sandals. “I heard that,” she said. “Are you onto something?”

“I think so.” Maggie filled Gran’ in on what she’d learned so far. “What if Beverly, not Hal, was next of kin to Hamish Murray?”

“That would certainly explain the signet ring. Beverly Clabber, Duchess of Dundess. It would also explain why she bragged to Yvonne about having something to lord over me. At the end of my time on this earth, I will have been many things, but a duchess is not one of them.”

“What it doesn’t explain is why she was murdered.”

“Well, why do people kill?” Gran’ mused. “There’s jealousy. And please rule me out on that score. Then there’s money. Lots of people kill for that. I adored your grandfather, but believe me, there was the occasional time when I understood why someone would do in their spouse for the insurance payout.”

“Gran’!” Maggie admonished.

“I’m sorry, but the man did have his days.”

Maggie picked up where Gran’ had left off. “There’s fear, there’s feeling threatened. There’s revenge. And then there are sickos who just kill for fun.”

“My goodness, there are so many reasons to murder that it’s a wonder any of us live to see another day.”

Maggie tabbed back to the McDonough Castle homepage and stared at it. “I
know
I’ve seen that crest before. This is making me nuts.”

“You know what you need to do, dear.”

“Yes.” Maggie repeated by rote, “Clear my mind and give space for the answer.”

“Exactly. I’ll see you at breakfast. I believe we’re having pecan pancakes. At least Mr. Clabber isn’t around to complain that we’re predictable.” With that, Gran’ sauntered out.

As soon as she was gone, Maggie closed her eyes and willed her mind to sift through its memories. Pictures floated through her recollections, some lovely, some not. While she quickly shook off the image of Debbie’s lifeless body, she was tempted to linger at the memory of Bo’s kindness during her dark moments the night before. Instead, she concentrated all her energy on the image of the crest. And suddenly she remembered. She knew where she’d seen it. Then she finally landed on the significant snippet of conversation from the Clabbers’ funeral.

One by one, images clicked into place until they formed a clear picture of Beverly Clabber and Debbie Stern’s murderer.

Maggie threw on a clean T-shirt and jean shorts. She ran out the front door of the shotgun and past Gran’, who was chatting with the Butlers and Carrie and Lachlan Ryker.
“Gran’, have they hauled away the garbage yet?” she called to her.

“No, dear. Late as usual. Someone really should complain to—”

Maggie didn’t stop to hear the rest of the sentence. She just ran, ignoring the glances that the Butlers exchanged with the Rykers. She reached the back of the Crozat property, where unsightly items like the B and B’s dumpsters were housed, and noticed a log cut from the stump of an old cypress tree. It took all her strength to push it next to the dumpsters, but she managed to maneuver it into place. She then climbed on it, threw one leg over the edge of a dumpster, and jumped in. Fortunately, the Crozats composted as much solid waste as possible, but given the effect of Louisiana’s humidity on garbage, the dumpster still smelled wretched. For once, it didn’t bother Maggie, which she credited to her olfactory glands having been beaten down by the stench of the Georgia boys’ room.

Raccoons had gotten into the trash. Bags were ripped open and stuff was strewn about. Maggie hoped that even given the wide debris field, garbage was still generally grouped together. She wandered through the dumpster until she found an item that narrowed her search. She planted herself in the northwest corner of the dumpster, pawed through god-knows-what, and finally found the crumpled sheet of paper that she was looking for.

“Yes,” she cried out triumphantly. “I was right.”

“Uh, are you okay?”

A male voice startled her. She looked to see Shane Butler and Lachlan Ryker staring at her with odd expressions.

“I . . . I accidentally threw out something I needed, but I just found it.”

“Oh,” Shane said. “That’s good. Need any help getting out of there?”

“No thanks. I’m fine.” Maggie willed them to leave. She desperately needed to get in touch with Bo and didn’t want any guests around when she made the call.

For a moment, there was an awkward standoff. Then Lachlan shrugged. “Right then. No worries.”

The two men walked off, much too slowly for her taste. She took out her cell phone, but it rang before she could call Bo and alert him to the evidence she’d dug out of the dumpster. The screen flashed “Gaynell.” Maggie answered the call with a quick “Hey.”

“I have info for you,” Gaynell said. “About Pi Pi Iota. I think I know why the Georgia boys are at Crozat.” Gaynell filled her in and by the time she reached the end of her story, Maggie was furious.

“Those
creeps.
I’m booting them out right now. Look, Gaynell, do me a favor. I think I know who killed Beverly Clabber. Call Bo and tell him this.”

Maggie shared her theory. When she was done, Gaynell was silent for a minute. “It’s so hard to believe that anyone would be that demented,” she finally said. “But I guess it does make a very sick kind of sense. I’ll call Bo, but be careful, Maggie. This is dangerous stuff.”

“Don’t worry. I’m never without my gris-gris bag.” Maggie patted the waist of her jeans, where she thought she had pinned the protection bag Lia had made for her. It was gone. “Great.
It must have fallen off somewhere in here. I don’t have time to look for it now. I promise I won’t do anything until Bo gets here. I have to go.”

“Maggie—” Gaynell said, but Maggie ended the call. She climbed out of the dumpster, hopped to the ground, and took off for the Georgia boys’ room. The boys were packing and the door was wide open. She ran in and slammed the door behind her.

“Jesus,” Georgia One said. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Two words,” Maggie said through clenched teeth. “Southern Glory.”

Georgia One’s face relaxed into a smile. “Aw, dang, you found out. We wanted to surprise y’all.”

“I’m chapter president, so I get to tell her,” Georgia Three said. He then adopted the voice of a documentary narrator. “Every year, the Beta Chapter of Pi Pi Iota hosts a celebration of our beloved Deep South’s glorious history. We rent out a plantation and assume the ranks of Confederate soldiers, from officers on down. We stay in tents on the property and our dates stay in the plantation’s housing. We rent uniforms and wear them the entire time and on a Saturday night host the Robert E. Lee Memorial Ball, where our dates get to wear the kind of ball gowns ladies wore back then.”

“At the ball, we pretend that the Confederate Army won the War of Northern Aggression,” Georgia Three threw in. “It’s totes awesome.”

“We’ve spent a lot of time this summer checking out different plantations. And congratulations. We’ve chosen Crozat as this year’s location for our Southern Glory Weekend.”

Maggie was so filled with anger that for a moment, she couldn’t speak. She felt like she might explode and hoped she was too young to stroke out. “Get. Out.”

“Huh?” Georgia Three looked confused.

“Get out now or I swear to God, I will have the police run you out of here. And don’t
ever
come back to Crozat.”

“Hey, if we leave, we take our business with us,” Georgia One said, insulted. “And after what’s gone on here, you guys should be thanking us for even still thinking about renting this place.”

“Yeah,” Georgia Two chimed in. “You’re lucky we think a place where there’s been murders is cool.”

Maggie’s face twitched as she tried to calm down. “Let me try to explain this to you,” she said working to keep her tone even, despite the rage she felt. “Obviously we celebrate aspects of our Southern heritage here in Pelican, and especially here at Crozat. But there are many aspects of our history that we’re not proud of. There’s a saying, ‘To forget is to condone.’ We can’t acknowledge the good without paying homage to the bad—something your incredibly superficial event ignores. So we would never sanction it, no less let it happen on our property. Have I made myself clear?”