Plantation Shudders (6 page)

Maggie stared at the empty spot on the shelf. All of Crozat’s guests except for the Clabbers had accompanied her on the plantation tour. Any one of them—including the Ryker kids—could have easily slipped back into the old store and taken the poison. Then again, so could anyone who lived in Pelican—or who knew the area. It was like looking at one of those online maps that started in tight on a location and then widened out to Planet Earth.

A bead of sweat dripped from Maggie’s forehead into her eye, stinging it. The room’s air was so oppressive that it had actual weight, and she needed to escape. As she closed the door, Maggie checked to make sure no one had seen her and then headed into the woods. She kept walking until she came to an old tree stump, where she rested and contemplated her next move.

Maggie knew that she was bound by law to share this information with Bo. But he owed his job to Rufus, who could use the discovery against the Crozats. The store
was
on their
property, and the Clabbers were incredibly annoying guests—Hal in action, Beverly by association. She could just see Ru trying to twist that into a motivation for murder, painting it as a crazy, last-ditch effort on the family’s part to get rid of an unwanted guest. On the other hand, there was something about Bo that read, “I’m my own man.” Maybe she should trust him and avoid the possibility of going to jail for withholding evidence. She’d seen enough television lawyers use this threat against suspects to assume it happened in real life.

Maggie groaned. She desperately needed to get advice from someone. Her parents would insist on following the proper procedure, as would Lia. Why was she surrounded by such decent people? Maggie got up from the stump and made her way out of the woods. She needed someone who was comfortable occasionally making a dodgy moral choice.

*

“Hmmm,” Gran’ said after Maggie finished filling her in a half hour later. The two sat in the shotgun’s living room, where a ceiling fan above them whirred at top speed, decapitating any hapless mosquito that wandered into its blades. “Hmmm,” Gran’ said again.

“What do I do, Gran’? Do I tell, don’t I tell? What do you think?”

“I think we need to clear out our minds and give space for the answer.”

Gran’ closed her eyes, as did Maggie. Both sat quietly as the fan’s hum provided a lulling white noise. While no Crozat or Doucet ever claimed to be clairvoyant, the family did boast
well-developed intuition, a sort of sixth sense that they could tap into, given some intense focus.

After a moment, both women opened their eyes. Gran’ spoke first. “I believe we can trust Bo.”

“I got the same sense.”

“I believe he will share the information with Rufus because he has to. But I think he’s clever and fair and won’t be swayed by personal obligations. If he feels he owes Ru, he can pay off the debt with a case of cheap beer. But that does not mean he’ll do us any favors, especially since at the end of the day, Ru is still family and we are not.”

“Yes,” said Maggie. She hesitated. “My intuition is telling me that Beverly Clabber’s murderer isn’t some stranger who snuck in off the road.”

Gran’ nodded. “Mine is telling me the exact same thing. Someone at this plantation or in this town knew that woman well enough to want her dead.”

“Exactly. But who? And why? She seemed like a harmless old lady.”

“Well, you know, the thing about us ‘old ladies,’ dear, is that we’ve put in a lot of miles on this God-given ground, and there are sometimes events in our past that we hope time will render a distant memory at worst, or at best, erase completely. Unfortunately, there are times when that simply doesn’t happen.”

“We need to know more about Beverly Clabber. And you know what that means.”

“Indeed I do,” Gran’ said gleefully. She got up, walked over to a small rococo desk, and pulled her iPad out of a drawer. “An Internet search.”

“Exactly,” Maggie said, pulling her own tablet out of a tote bag.

The two sat in silence, conducting separate searches for any and all information pertaining to Beverly Clabber. “I’ve come up with plenty of references to Harold Clabber, Conway professor, but only one mentions his wife, Beverly,” Maggie said.

“That stands to reason; they were newlyweds, after all. What we need is her maiden name.”

“I’ll search for ‘Beverly Clabber, the former . . .” Maggie typed it into her tablet. “A post or two on a couple of social media sites and that’s it. This woman had a low online profile.”

“By choice or not? That’s the question.”

“She didn’t seem the type to put effort into cleansing her Internet presence. We need her maiden name.”

“And other married names,” Gran’ added. “Mrs. Clabber also didn’t seem the type who’d stay single for eighty years. I doubt Hal was the first man to put a ring on it.”

Maggie laughed. “Gran’, listen to you.”

“I’ve got a radio in my car,” Gran’ said. “I’ve heard that Beyoncé. She’s good. I keep up with the kids.”

“I haven’t found anything remotely useful, have you?”

“I’m afraid not. I wonder if Mrs. Clabber left any clues in the Rose Room,” Gran’ mused.

“The police went through it pretty carefully.”

Gran’ waved her hand dismissively. “That would be Cal Vichet and Buster’s son, Artie Belloise. And I believe the last time they CSI’d a murder scene would be never. Now if we were looking for a lost pet or someone to supervise a crew
completing their court-ordered community service, they’d be our go-to fellows.”

Gran’ was right. Pelican PD was the kind of small-town department where all the officers did a little bit of everything, calling to mind the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” It didn’t help that Chief Rufus set the bar low when it came to overachieving. An enthusiastic rookie was more likely to be chastised for making his fellow officers look bad than lauded for putting in extra effort. Given their inexperience with murder scenes and the culture of indolence endemic to PPD, there was a strong possibility that Cal and Artie had missed a vital clue.

“Plus,” Gran’ pointed out, “neither of those boys knows how to think like an old lady.”

“And how would an old lady think? Hypothetically speaking.”

Gran’ leaned back in her chair, iPad on her lap. “I will do my best to tap into the mind-set of a female senior citizen.”

“I know it’s hard, Gran’, but I have faith in you.”

“If that was sarcasm, it was not appreciated. Now, when a senior woman travels, it’s pretty much a given that she unpacks her belongings. We are not a people who live out of our suitcase like some grad student at a youth hostel. A senior woman also tends to bring her valuables with her, not trusting them to be left at home. This can be jewels, papers, meaningful mementos. Anything important to her.”

“If she decides to hide these valuables somewhere in her hotel—or B and B—room, what would she consider a great hiding place?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Gran’ said. “Her ‘unmentionables’ drawer.”

“Okay, Gran’, this
is
the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth—which may be the last time anyone referred to bras and underwear as ‘unmentionables.’”

“Still, I would guess Beverly would consider that drawer inviolate. And I would also guess that neither Cal nor Artie would feel particularly comfortable pawing through her undergarments during their search, so they might speed through that particular task.”

“Interesting.”

“I’d love to see if my theory is right.”

“Of course, there’s no way of telling without taking a look at the room. Which is locked and off limits.”

“True,” Gran’ stretched, then put her iPad on the desk and stood up. “I could use a little air. Why don’t you keep me company? But you might want to change out of your church clothes.”

Maggie went into her bedroom and changed from her skirt and clingy top into shorts and a T-shirt sporting the colorful Cooper Union logo. Then she followed Gran’ outside and onto the wraparound ground-floor veranda of the main house. The older woman stopped at the French doors that allowed access into the Rose Room from the outside. Gran’ glanced around to make sure she and Maggie were alone and then jiggled the door handle. It was locked, but after a few hard jiggles, the ancient latch popped open.

“Rufus wasn’t wrong when he mentioned we have terrible security,” Maggie said. “I think some upgrades may be in order.”

“Put them on the list.”

“That list is a study in deferred maintenance.” Maggie pulled the doors open a few inches and peeked inside the room, which showed no sign of being a crime scene. “I wish I could take a look in those drawers. I wonder when the police will allow us to go back in.”

“Why wait?” Gran’ said. She gave her granddaughter a hard shove, and Maggie tumbled into the Rose Room.

“Gran’, what are you doing?”

“You’re in now, and if anyone asks, you can blame it on me,” Gran’ stage-whispered into the room, making sure to look in the opposite direction. “If you work quickly, no one will even know. I’ll make myself comfortable here on the veranda so that it looks like I’m just relaxing, but I’ll be on guard for you. Remember how I used to love bird watching? It made me quite good at keeping an eye out.”

“But what if someone uses the inside entrance to the room instead of this one?”

Gran’ gestured toward Crozat’s front lawn. “I saw the police all head into that mobile van of theirs, probably for some kind of confab. I can see it from here, so if I notice anyone head into the house, I’ll give you a sign. I know—I’ll say, ‘Go away, you awful mosquitoes.’ Oh my goodness, that works on two levels, because mosquitoes are annoying and these police officers are as annoying as mosquitoes. Quite clever by accident, if I do say so—”

“Excuse me, but I’ve just broken into a crime scene. Can we move this along?”

“Fine. Go spy.”

Maggie was dubious about following a plan concocted by a woman whose only knowledge of detection work came from 1960s
Pink Panther
movies. But given that she was already in the room, she decided to grab the chance to take a pass at it.

A quick glance around showed Cal and Art had been respectful during their search. Everything was in order and the only evidence of their presence was dust from where they’d lifted fingerprints.

Well aware of how squeaky Crozat’s old floors were, Maggie tiptoed over to the room’s beautifully carved walnut chest of drawers and slowly opened the top one. Since all the Clabbers’ personal items had been removed as potential evidence, the drawer was empty and its lining lay flat against the bottom. She felt safe in assuming that like most women, Beverly would only have used one of the top two drawers for her undergarments. She ran her hand along the bottom of the drawer but felt nothing unusual. She closed it and opened the second drawer, which was also empty. Maggie ran her hand along its bottom and felt a slight, almost undetectable rise in the back right corner. She lifted up the lining and found a thin envelope taped to the bottom of it.

Maggie removed the envelope but resisted the urge to tear it open, knowing that her time was better spent searching the room for other clues. She didn’t debate long where to look next. Maggie knew from past guests that seniors often still naïvely believed there was no better hiding place than under the bed.

She got on the floor and shimmied her way under the heavily canopied nineteenth-century bed whose intricate design matched the room’s chest of drawers. She was relieved to find
the area spotless.
If we survive this nightmare and ever have any extra income, Marie and Bud are getting a bonus
, she thought as she ran her hands along the ancient springs that held up the mattress, feeling for anything unusual.

“Hello.”

Maggie froze, heart in her mouth. The voice was male and she knew exactly who it belonged to. She hid the envelope in the back pocket of her shorts and pulled her shirt down to cover it. Then she slowly wiggled out from under the bed and found herself staring up at Bo Durand, who was standing in the inside doorway. Maggie wondered how he’d escaped Gran’s professed skill at sentry duty.

“Oh, hey,” she responded as casually as possible for a woman caught on the floor of a room where she’d just conducted an illegal search. “I’m glad you’re here, I was looking for you.”

“Really. I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted that you thought I could fit under there.”

“Well, I mean, I was
going
to look for you.”

“After you finished unlawfully entering this room?”

Maggie bounced up to her feet. “Look, Mr. Big Shreveport Detective, you don’t know anything about us or how this town works. Cal and Art are great guys and decent police officers, but in addition to the fact they’ve never actually searched a murder scene before, they, like all of Rufus’s hires, are good old boys who couldn’t be less interested in trying to think how a woman thinks and letting that steer their search. So I was actually trying to help you.”

“Which is why you entered this room without first requesting permission.”

“My grandma made me,” Maggie said a little sullenly as she resorted to her last defense. This elicited a burst of laughter from Bo. “It’s true.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that at all. I met your grandma.”

“I did find out something. Not here, but in the plantation store.”

Maggie filled Bo in on her memory of where she’d seen arsenic and the empty space where it no longer sat.

“Good lead.”

“Uh, you’re welcome,” Maggie said. She decided to dial back the sarcasm and be honest with Bo. “I know your cousin would love to see us fail with Crozat, but it’s not just our home and our business—which my family desperately needs to survive, by the way—it’s also a landmark, something for Pelican to be proud of. Between hurricanes and oil spills and a crappy economy, this state and this town have had such a rough time, and Crozat’s survival is a tiny triumph. When we make visitors happy, they go home and tell their friends, and then more visitors come, which is good for everyone. I’m not naïve enough to ask you to help us. All I’m asking, I guess, is that you not hurt us.”

Bo looked at her thoughtfully. As she waited for his response, Maggie’s mind drifted to wondering how she’d blend colors to create the rich, dark-chocolate hue of his eyes. Then, annoyed at herself, she forced her attention back to the moment at hand.