Plantation Shudders (9 page)

Maggie slept on her theory about Suzy and in the morning decided that it would behoove her to do some digging into the woman’s past before sharing it with anyone. Besides, the Clabbers’ service loomed.

While the Clabbers’ lawyer provided Pelican PD with detailed instructions regarding Mrs. C’s postmortem journey, the couple’s will had no stipulations about what to do with Mr. C, who apparently considered himself immortal. The entire town was surprised to learn that Francine/Beverly owned an ornate tomb in the local cemetery where she was to be laid to rest. According to Vanessa Fleer, who was becoming a font of information, when Rufus cracked a joke about just tossing Hal into the tomb with Beverly/Francine, the late couple’s lawyer said, “Sounds like a plan.”

The day dawned gloriously. Sunny, but not too humid, made comfortable by a light breeze off the river. It was the perfect day for a fete—and a funeral. PPD officers Cal and Artie had finally shown up and were devouring plates of biscuits and
gravy before embarking on their search for the missing box of arsenic. Unlike Bo, they had no problem accepting free food, and as much of it as they could ingest without exploding their stomachs. It never seemed to affect Cal’s long, skinny frame. But even though Artie was only in his late twenties, he had inherited his father’s build, and his gut was already expanding with what locals called a “Pelican pouch.” He’d also inherited Buster’s sandy tight curls that tended toward thinning, and Maggie noticed an embryonic bald spot on his crown.

The Crozats and Crozat guests slowly assembled on the veranda. Everyone had dressed as appropriately as they could, given that the guests hadn’t figured a funeral into their vacation plans. The hipster Butlers, of course, had plenty of black in their wardrobe. Shane even lent a couple of tees to Georgias Two and Three, who may have been half a head taller than the compact New Yorker but managed to squeeze themselves into apparel from a trendy Manhattan men’s store. The general mood was one of awkward solemnity. Since everyone had only known the Clabbers an unpleasant day or two, there was little genuine emotion, just a general feeling that respect was owed to the late couple.

“It’s so strange that Mrs. Clabber never told anyone she had a crypt here,” Cutie Jan mused.

“I know,” Shane said. “Not even Mr. C.”

“Some people are just way weird,” Georgia One said solemnly. He yawned and stretched. It was a little early in the day for a frat boy on summer break. “This is an awesome shirt. It really moves with you, ya know?”

“You can have it,” Shane said. “I’ve got a ton of black shirts.”

Georgia One’s face lit up. “Seriously? Thanks, man. You rock.”

The group caravanned over to Pelican’s Assumption of Mary Memorial Park, where both Clabbers would now spend eternity together in the missus’s tomb. And what a tomb it was. Like its neighbors, the tomb was raised off the ground due to South Louisiana’s high water table. But unlike the others, which were modest in decoration, Beverly/Francine’s boasted ornate carvings and was topped by two statues of angels holding hands as they gazed upward to what they assumed was a welcoming heaven. Their cherubic faces bothered Maggie, but she couldn’t figure out why.

“I always wondered whose tomb this was,” Tug said as the group awaited the arrival of Father Prit, who had kindly agreed to lead the funeral service even though he’d never laid eyes on the Clabbers. “There was no name, no information on it. It was just sitting here . . . waiting.”

“I wonder why Mrs. Clabber didn’t tell us she’d lived here,” Ninette said. “That’s usually the first thing that guests who’ve moved away do. ‘I grew up on Richard Street, near the elementary school.’ It’s odd that she never said anything.”

“Maybe she was waiting, for some reason,” Maggie theorized. “She wanted to find just the right time to share that, but she died before she could.”

Ninette shuddered, and Tug put a protective arm around her shoulder. “You got a chill?”

Ninette shook her head no. “Just the shudders.”

“Well, if you’re gonna get them anywhere, you’re gonna get ’em here,” Gran’ said, gazing around the cemetery with
distaste. “That’s why I’m considering that thing where they float your head in space for a century or two after you kick the bucket.”

“Or,” Maggie teased her grandmother, “we could just have you stuffed, mounted, and put on display in the Cabildo down in New Orleans.”

“Oh, honey, that’s goin’ in my will.”

“Stop it, you two, you’re being ghoulish,” Ninette admonished them. “Good, Father Prit is here. Now we can get things moving. I want to get home; I have Crawfish Crozat to prepare.”

The group clustered around Father Prit as he led a brief service. “From I Corinthians 15:51 through 58,” he intoned in his thick Indian accent. “‘Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall all indeed rise again: but we shall not all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall rise again incorruptible. And we shall be changed.’”

As the priest continued with the reading, Maggie’s attention wandered back to the angels on the tomb. She gasped and then covered her mouth, but not before Gran’ jabbed a warning elbow in her ribs.

“Sorry,” Maggie whispered, “but I just got why those statues bother me so much. They have the same grins on their faces as Mrs. Clabber always had.”

Gran’ looked at the statues and also gasped. Ninette shot her mother-in-law a look. “Charlotte, please.”

“Sorry,” Gran’ said and then leaned toward Maggie. “You’re absolutely right.”

Maggie bit her lip to keep from giggling, as did Gran’, but a couple of chuckles sneaked out. Ninette glared at them. “You two need to walk over to another tomb until you get yourselves under control,” she whispered.

“Sorry, Mom, we’ll behave.”

Gran’ turned her attention back to the service, but Maggie’s mind was elsewhere. Ninette had a point when she questioned why Mrs. Clabber hadn’t brought up her past in Pelican. Was she killed to prevent her from revealing something? But what? She sighed in frustration. Debbie Stern, who was standing next to her, gave Maggie a sympathetic smile, mistaking the sigh for sadness.

“Death is so hard, isn’t it?” Debbie whispered. “No matter who the departed is or what our relationship with them was, it reminds us of our own mortality.”

Maggie nodded but didn’t speak, not wanting to risk another scolding from her mother. She focused on evaluating the differences between Debbie and Suzy. Suzy was by far the most stylish of the Cutie foursome. Her silver hair was cut in a perfect shoulder-length bob, and while the liver spots on her hands hinted that she was at least in her sixties, her face possessed only a smattering of lines. She’d obviously had some work done, but it was discreet and high end, as were her black linen slacks and top. If someone made Maggie sum up Suzy in one word, it would be “immaculate.” Which would be the last word she’d use to describe Debbie.

Debbie had yet to stray from her uniform of leggings and slightly worn oversized shirts that did a desultory job of hiding the weight that had settled in her middle. Everything from her
limp, dry hair to her makeup-free face sighed, “I give up.” If the dull look in Debbie’s eyes indicated her mental state, Suzy’s insistence on giving her a light volunteer load was not unreasonable. But at least Suzy offered the possibility of another suspect besides Gran’.

Father Prit finally launched into the Lord’s Prayer and concluded the service. The Crozat guests all took off in various directions dictated by their sightseeing plans for the day, and the family returned to the plantation to prepare for Fet Let. They were greeted by the now-familiar sight of Bo’s bland silver sedan parked in front of the main house. Its appearance was always a harbinger of some ominous development.

“Now what?” Maggie muttered.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” Ninette said, trying to sound as if she actually believed that. “I’m sure the detective is just here to supervise. If you don’t mind, sweetie, pull into the back so I can go straight into the kitchen. I’d rather not be distracted from my dish by the officers.”

Maggie parked the Falcon in the back motor court. Gran’ went off to the shotgun house to rest before the fete while Maggie, Tug, and Ninette headed for the kitchen, hoping to bypass any law enforcement representatives. But when they got there, they found it closed off with police tape. Cal and Artie, under Bo’s tutelage, were dusting one of the upper kitchen cabinets for fingerprints.

“Oh no,” Ninette murmured. “No, no, no.”

“What’s going on here?” Tug asked. “Why can’t we get into our kitchen?”

“We found the box of arsenic,” Bo said. He pointed to where Cal and Artie were toiling. “On the top shelf of that cabinet.”

Maggie, Ninette, and Tug stared at where Bo was pointing. It was the shelf equivalent of a junk drawer, packed with old pots and broken but not completely useless bowls and cups. And there, tucked between a chipped vase and dented saucepan, lay the dusty yet still lethal box of arsenic.

“But . . . I don’t understand,” Tug said. “We would never have arsenic, or any poison, in the kitchen. How did it get here?”

“It’s obvious, Dad,” Maggie said, trying to control the anger she felt welling up inside. “Whoever murdered Mrs. Clabber thought it would be a great place to hide the ‘weapon.’ It works on a couple of levels—it’s a shelf that hardly ever sees action, and if anyone does go up there and finds the arsenic, it incriminates our family. Am I right, Detective?”

“Ms. Crozat, can you identify this as the arsenic you saw in the plantation store?” Bo asked, ignoring Maggie’s combative tone. He motioned to Artie, who carefully removed the box with gloved hands and showed it to Maggie, who nodded curtly. Artie bagged the box and handed it to Bo.

“Okay, you’ve got what you need. Now can you get out of our kitchen so we can get into it?” she asked.

“Sorry, but we’re not done,” Bo said.

“Well, when
will
you be done?”

“Can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t count on getting in here until at least tomorrow.”

Ninette gave a small groan of despair. “No. My dish. How am I gonna make my dish?” She put a hand over her eyes and began to weep. Ninette, fragile ever since her bout with cancer, had shown unexpected strength during this stressful time, despite the worries of her family. It took the threat of no Crawfish Crozat to put her over the edge. And her mother’s tears worked Maggie’s last nerve.

“Look what you’ve done to my mother,” she yelled at Bo. “I’ve had it, with you, with all of this. Let us into our kitchen right now.”

She tried to shove Bo out of the way, breaking the police tape. Bo stumbled back a few steps and then regained his balance. He put out his hands and held her back. For a moment, she flailed helplessly like a cartoon character trying to battle a muscled bully, and then Tug pulled her off.

“Maggie! Enough.”

“They’re ruining our lives.” Maggie struggled to get out of her father’s grasp. Cal and Artie exchanged uncomfortable glances, while even the preternaturally nerveless Bo seemed thrown by her outburst.

“Um . . . should we arrest her?” Cal asked Bo, with a marked lack of commitment to the idea.

“No,” Bo said. “Not necessary.”

Ninette placed a hand on her daughter’s arm and the gentle gesture sent a message to Maggie, who forced herself to calm
down. “It’s my fault,” Ninette said. “I was just upset about not making my dish for the fete. But I was being selfish. I’m sorry if we caused you any trouble, Detective Durand.”

“It’s all right, ma’am. I wish things could be different.”

Tug glared at his daughter. “I think someone here needs to throw around a few ‘I’m sorrys.’”

As much as she hated to admit it, Maggie knew her father was right. She was embarrassed by her own behavior. She opened her mouth, but before she could get a word out, Bo held up his hand to stop her. “This is a very difficult situation for everyone. If someone made my mother cry, no telling what I’d do.”

This time Bo’s smile was real and warm, prompting Maggie to fight a sudden tickle of attraction, which felt highly unbefitting to the circumstances. Luckily for her, Cal chose that moment to join the conversation.

“You know, sir,” he said to Bo. “Ninette’s dish is pretty famous around here.”

“He’s right,” Artie chimed in. “People wait all year for it. When it comes to the Fet, there’s a real lack if there’s no Crawfish Crozat.”

“Nicely put, you almost got it to rhyme,” Cal congratulated his partner, who beamed. “We did finish the refrigerator and pantry areas,” Cal pointed out to Bo. “Maybe you could see your way to the Crozats at least retrieving their ingredients.”

“That would be great,” Maggie jumped in. “We could help you cook everything in the shotgun kitchen, Mom. It’s not big, but it’s functional.”

“That’s a very nice idea, but it’s up to the detective.” Ninette looked at Bo, eyes filled with hope. Bo turned to Cal and Artie.

“Give the Crozats what they need,” he directed.

“Thank you,” Maggie said, so grateful that she found herself tearing up. “We’ll get out of your way fast.”

Cal and Artie helped the Crozats cart ingredients, pots, and other essentials over to the shotgun. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this,” Ninette told the officers once the last of the necessary items had made the trek.

“The Fet ain’t where it’s at without Crawfish Crozat,” Artie said, adding a few beat box sounds for effect.

“Hah, look who’s a rapper.” Cal slapped his partner on the back. “We gotta give you a rapper name now.”

“His name is Artie so . . . how about R2DCool?” Maggie offered, happy to do anything, however inane, that would keep the cops on the Crozats’ good side. Cal and Artie both loudly approved the new moniker, and the atmosphere became close to pleasant.

“We gotta work a double shift tonight, Mrs. C.,” Artie told Ninette, “so if you could save us a couple’a bowls, that’d be great.”

“We’ll save you your own pot of it,” Tug assured the officers, who then headed back to the main house to complete their investigation. The Crozats got to work chopping, sautéing, and boiling. Gran’ wandered in, fresh from a nap, and Tug filled her in on what had happened. Gran’ turned to Maggie.

“You know what you have to do, Magnolia Marie.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Maggie slunk into the parlor, sat down at the rococo desk, and opened an elegant gray box. Inside lay note cards,
100 percent cotton and embossed with a monogram of her initials. The Brooklyn hipster in her bowed to the Southern manners ingrained since birth—which, she thought, may have been when Gran’ first gifted her with genteel personalized stationery. Civilization may have been two decades into a new millennium, but among Southern Louisiana gentry, a behavioral cow patty like the one she had just dropped still required a written note of apology. “All I’m missing is a quill pen,” Maggie muttered, annoyed that she felt obliged to follow social protocol. But she did, so she hunted around the desk, dug up a pen that sported the logo from Gout’s Beef Palace, and started writing a note to Bo Durand.

It began as a simple apology for her angry eruption. But for some reason Maggie couldn’t explain, she kept writing. She admitted that it wouldn’t be fair to blame her blow-up on the fallout from the Clabbers’ deaths. Her frustration had been building since her return to Pelican six months ago. She filled the inside of the card as she tried to explain how alien she often felt in her own hometown—only matched by how alien she’d sometimes felt in New York City, where her friends would respond with patronizing amusement whenever the Southerner in her slipped out.

Maggie turned the card over and continued on the back. She wrote about the heartbreak that still haunted her. She had given her longtime love, Chris, space to decide whether he was ready for marriage. He was—but not to her. After six years with Maggie, Chris met and married another woman within six months, and the couple now shared the home and business that he and Maggie had created together.

She then wrote about her fear that she would never achieve her dream of creating exceptional, evocative art—and if she didn’t do that, what was her future? Who would she be? She shared her worry that the strain of a murder investigation would cause her mother’s cancer to return. And finally, she revealed her deepest shame: there was a part of her that dreaded the possible loss of Ninette beyond the grief it would bring. Maggie knew that if her mother died, she would step into Ninette’s place as Crozat’s chatelaine, trading her own dreams for her parents’ because she loved them so dearly.

She signed her name in the only tiny blank space left on the card and then placed it in an envelope and addressed it to Bo. She thought for a moment and put the card next to a pile of books on the desk, knowing in her heart that it was something that you write but never send. Then she checked her phone. It was time to get ready for Fet Let. She’d reread the card later that night for her own catharsis and then tear it up and write the simple note to Bo that she intended to write in the first place.

*

The streets around Pelican’s town green were closed to traffic for the evening, so the Crozats parked behind Fais Dough Dough and shuttled tables and supplies to their spot next to Lia’s in front of her shops. The Butlers and the Georgia boys pitched in to help. All of Crozat’s guests were excited to be part of the town’s festival. It was a welcome distraction from the deaths of Crozat’s elderly duo. “I’m really starting to feel at home in Pelican,” Emily told Maggie as the two transported a
large table to the Crozats’ site. “Who knows, Shane and I may never leave.”

Maggie smiled. “That would be nice. I could use some new friends. Most of the ones I went to high school with are married and going on their second or even third kid, so they don’t have much time to get together. Or much interest, to be honest.”

“Ugh.” Emily made a face. “Can you imagine being around thirty and already having three kids? It seems so old-timey.”

“I know. But there’s a part of me that envies them. I wish I could want that. I mean, I know I want it someday, but I wish I wanted it now. I feel like it would make my life so much simpler.”

“That’s funny, thinking having kids would make your life simpler,” Emily said. “My parents always said that their lives were so much easier before I came along.” Emily tried to make this sound like a joke but couldn’t hide the hurt underneath.

Maggie felt for her. “What a crappy thing for parents to say. I’m sorry.” She hugged Emily, who brightened.

“I’m going to look for Shane. If you need us, text me.”

“Will do.”

Emily went to find her husband, and Maggie focused on setting up her family’s table. She waved to Lia and Kyle, who were bringing out baked goods and candies from Bon Bon and Fais Dough Dough for Lia’s Fet Let booth. Kyle waved back and Lia blew her a kiss. Maggie was happy to see Lia’s playful side reemerge after a long period of mourning.

An hour later, Fet Let was in full swing. Bunting in green, gold, and purple decorated the lacy iron balconies of Pelican’s
historic town center. A Cajun band followed a Zydeco group on the bandstand, and revelers two-stepped to the classic tunes. But traffic at the Crozat stand was surprisingly light. The band took a break and the dancers dispersed. Yet for the first time in the history of Ninette’s Crawfish Crozat, no long line of hungry patrons formed. A few out-of-towners browsed but didn’t buy. It was as if some kind of subliminal message had gone out to all Fet attendees. Maggie had heard actor and comedian friends in New York talk about “flop sweat,” the panic they felt when an audience wasn’t responding to their material. She was beginning to know how it felt. She smiled and tried making eye contact with some festivalgoers, friends and neighbors she’d known for years, but they looked away. She was horrified to realize that they were actively avoiding her.

The one person she had no interest in seeing, Rufus Durand, finished planting a sloppy kiss on girlfriend Vanessa and then wandered over to the Crozat table. His belly strained the buttons of the shirt he wore to the Fet every year, a purple polyester button-down with a pattern of yellow cocktail shakers.

“Hey there, Crozats.”

Ninette and Tug greeted Rufus politely, but Maggie chose to pass on the pleasantries. “Any updates for us, Ru? Did you get anything useful off the poison box, like prints or something?”

“I wish I had some news, but I’m afraid I don’t. These complex investigations take time, sorry to say.”

Maggie wanted to yell at Rufus that she knew he was dragging his feet because the sooner the case was solved, the sooner the Crozats’ lives could get back to normal, and that’s the last
thing he wanted. He was having way too much fun watching the family twist in the humid Louisiana wind. Instead, she dished out a bowl of crawfish and offered it to Ru with a smile. “Here you go. On the house.”

“That’s real generous,” Rufus said, “but I’ll pass. I know y’all are up to code and real thorough about everything. But still . . . we did find a box of poison in your kitchen today.”

Rufus strode off, and Maggie’s face flushed with humiliation. He had nailed the reason Ninette’s dish had no takers. People were afraid to eat it. She assumed local gossip had progressed to the point of pegging one of the Crozats as the murderer, but the locals actually fearing her family was a low that she hadn’t foreseen. Maggie debated how to break the news to her parents, but she didn’t have to. They’d overheard her conversation with Rufus.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed,” Ninette said, her voice quavering.

“I’m sure people are just being . . . you know . . . careful maybe . . . or busy.” Maggie hated how lame she sounded. She noticed that Ninette was stirring her pot as if she had a weird tic, tightly clutching the large wooden spoon and whipping it around the pot in repetitive circles. “Mom, let me do that. Please take a break, the stress isn’t good for you.”

She reached for the spoon, but Ninette refused to let go. “It’s my dish and my job.”

Tug, furious, balled his hands into fists and pounded them together, a substitute for actually pounding someone. “We’ve known these sonuvabitches all our lives,” he muttered. “Now I never want to see ’em or speak to any of ’em again. Ever.”

Emily and Shane bounded over, holding hands. They’d been dancing and both were damp with perspiration. “I’m starving,” Shane said. “Tell me you still have food left. I know how popular your dish is.”

“Oh, that’s so not a problem today.” Maggie filled the Butlers in on the crawfish debacle. The couple was incensed on the Crozats’ behalf.

“Unbelievable. Em, come with me.”

Shane marched off with his wife, and Maggie wondered what he might up to. She found out a few moments later when he returned with every Crozat guest—the Cuties, the Georgia boys, Kyle, even the Ryker family. They formed a line at the stand.

“I hear this is the best dish at Fet Let,” Shane announced loudly, for the benefit of passersby.

“As a guest of Crozat Plantation, I know what care they put into their delicious food and what fresh ingredients they use,” Jan said. She couldn’t have sounded more stilted, and Maggie couldn’t have been more grateful. Ninette and Tug happily dished out hearty bowls to all their guests, whose pleasure didn’t have to be faked.