Body on the Bayou (3 page)

“Sorry,” Ginger said. She pulled her headphones off her ears. “I was in the zone.”

“No problem,” Maggie replied. Ginger’s workout top and leggings were the same shade of winter white that she’d worn the night before. The woman was certainly committed to her fashion theme.

“My favorite time to run is sunset,” Ginger said. “I have to really ramp up to get into a morning run groove like this.” She gestured to her headphones almost apologetically. “It just fits better with my schedule on this trip.”

“I get it. My friends and I have been power walking lately, and sunset is definitely our favorite time, too,” Maggie said. “We’re training for a cancer fundraising 10K that my mom’s sponsoring. We’d love to have you join us while you’re here.”

“That would be great. But I have to keep a certain pace, and it can be tricky for other people to get in the rhythm of it.” Ginger shrugged her shoulders. “You know what I mean?”

“Sure. Got it.” In the light of day, Ginger’s age was more apparent; she looked like a woman in her early forties who’d had some work done. The taut skin around her eyes and a lack of mobility in her upper lip area indicated a few Botox shots. Maggie berated herself for being so shallow.
The designer worked in a highly competitive business. She wouldn’t be the first woman who felt the need to smooth a few years off her face.

Ginger checked her fitness watch. “I better go. I’m only up to four thousand steps.”

Ginger took off down the service road that ran alongside the plantation and then made a left onto an old, abandoned road that disappeared into the dense woods. It was eight thirty in the morning. Maggie did a little math regarding her own activity thus far. She guessed that if she counted looking for her sunglasses, she might have hit four hundred steps. She wondered if Ginger was a woman who inadvertently set the bar very high for herself and others.
Or was it inadvertent?
Maggie chastised herself for being so suspicious.
That dream messed me up,
she thought.
Shake it off.

*

Maggie’s sessions with Vanessa and Rufus followed a pattern—an hour of the couple bickering with each other followed by a few minutes of criticizing whatever Maggie had created. She’d positioned them so that they were bathed in the sunlight flooding through the large windows of the old schoolhouse. Vanessa sat in a chair and Rufus sat on a stool slightly above her, with an arm draped around his bride-to-be’s shoulder. “This stool always digs into my butt,” he said as he pulled at his slacks.

“That’s because all your pants are getting tighter,” Vanessa snapped at him. “Ow! You just yanked my hair.”

“It was an accident.”

Vanessa squinted and looked at him with suspicion. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Hey, you lovebirds,” Maggie intervened. “Time’s up for today. I’ve decided to take some photos so that I can alternate between them and actual sittings. It’ll make your lives easier.”
And mine,
she thought. She snapped a dozen photos with her digital camera. “Alrighty, we’re done for today.”

“Good, cuz I gotta get to my anger management class,” Rufus said, throwing air quotes around the “anger management” part of the sentence.

“Not sure what you need the air quotes for, Rufus,” Maggie said as she screwed tops onto her tubes of oil paint. “Nothing ironic about you taking that workshop.”

Rufus snorted. “I’m only there cuz the acting chief wants to bust my hump. He’s making all these changes so that he looks like some kind of management genius and takes my job. I know the boys on the force, and all I can say is, it ain’t gonna happen.” Rufus gave Vanessa a desultory kiss on the top of her head and then glanced at Maggie’s canvas. “You gave me jowls.”

“You have jowls.”

“Doesn’t mean I want ’em in my portrait.”

Rufus headed off, but Vanessa lingered. She made sure her fiancé was gone and then turned to Maggie. “Can I talk to you?” she asked.

“Sure,” Maggie said. “What’s up?”

“I’ve got a big problem with Ginger, and Rufus can’t know about it,” Vanessa confided, kneading her hands
anxiously. “You know how she’s an interior designer and all? Last month she gave me some advice for decorating La Plus Belle. She did a couple of computer drawings and said they were a wedding present. But then she just sent me this ginormous bill for a ‘consulting fee.’ I reminded her how she said it was a present, but now she’s saying that she never said that, and if I don’t give her the money, she’ll sue us. I can’t say anything to Rufus because he’d be so mad at me for getting involved with Ginger in the first place. He hates her. Says he’s put people in jail who were less sneaky and underhanded than she is. I don’t know what to do. It ain’t like she needs my money. Her husband, Fox, is an oil exec and makes a bundle.”

Beads of sweat on Vanessa’s forehead combined with her makeup and dripped beige blobs onto the white caftan she wore. “Here,” Maggie said, handing her a hand towel. Vanessa took it and dabbed her face. Maggie was discomfited by Van’s story. “This has to be some kind of misunderstanding. Why don’t you try talking to Ginger again? Worse comes to worse, you can play the premature labor card and see if she caves. It works with me.”

Vanessa managed a weak smile. “It does, dudn’t it? But I don’t think Ginger would fall for it. She’s not as nice as you.” Maggie couldn’t help but be touched by Vanessa’s backhanded compliment. “Can I have a piece of paper?” the bride-to-be asked.

“Sure.” Maggie ripped a sheet from a drawing pad and handed it to her. Vanessa pulled a pen out of her fake Louis Vuitton purse. She scribbled some words on the page and
handed it back to Maggie, who read it aloud. “‘Talk to Ginger for me.’”

“It’s now one of your maid of honor duties,” Vanessa said. “Maybe the most important one.”

Maggie was about to protest but changed her mind when she saw the look of desperation on Vanessa’s face. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, thank you! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.” Vanessa hoisted herself up from her chair and hugged Maggie. “I gotta get to my gyno appointment. He’s on my case about gaining too much weight. That’s the problem with a male doctor. They’ve never been pregnant, so they don’t understand how it makes you crave donuts and fried food all the time.” Vanessa picked up her purse, walked over to Maggie’s canvas, and grimaced. “I look superpregnant.”

“Van, you’re due in three weeks.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have to look like that. You need to thin me out.”

Vanessa left, and Maggie squelched the urge to paint horns and mustaches on the portrait’s subjects. She reminded herself that despite Van’s blunderings, she was a good person at heart and desperately wanted friends but had no idea how to make them. And the problems piling up on the bride-to-be certainly weren’t helping her mood or behavior.

Maggie dunked her paintbrushes into a can of turpentine and wiped them off with a damp cloth. As she cleaned each brush, she thought about Vanessa’s dilemma with Ginger. There was probably a simple explanation. Still, Maggie couldn’t shake her sense of foreboding.

Her cell phone rang. She pressed “Accept” when she saw the call was from Tug. “Hey, Dad.”

“Can you come over to the main house?” Tug’s voice sounded grim.

“Sure. Is everything okay?”

There was a pause. Then Tug spoke, clearly choosing his words carefully. “We have a situation.”

Maggie found her father in the guest parking area with Ginger, Trent, and Bibi. All four were staring at Ginger’s Mercedes. Maggie noticed a pool of dark liquid underneath the car.

“Hey, chère,” Tug greeted his daughter. “Ginger’s car seems to have sprung a leak.”

“I ran over a rock in your driveway,” Ginger said. She was dressed in a cotton top and pants, both in her signature soft white. “It’s very upsetting. The car was in perfectly good shape until we got here, wasn’t it, Trent? Bibi?”

“Yup,” Trent seconded.

“I wouldn’t know,” Bibi said. “I drove here in my beater.”

Tug rubbed his forehead. “I’ll call Bertrand’s garage for a tow. I’m waiting on a delivery of feed for our chickens. Maggie, could you drive Ginger over to Bertrand’s so she can hear his diagnosis?”

“Of course.”

Tug smiled reassuringly at Ginger and her employees. “Not to worry, we’ll make sure everything’s taken care of. And we’ll take responsibility for any damage.”

Tug turned away. As soon as his back was to the visitors, Maggie saw his smile fade. She headed back to the manor house with her father. As they walked, she noted the pristine, decomposed granite drive, packed hard as cement, under their feet. There wasn’t a loose stone anywhere to be seen.

“Oh, one other thing,” Ginger called to them. “I noticed that one of your back steps is loose. I thought I should tell you. You certainly wouldn’t want guests to fall and hurt themselves.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Tug called back, then muttered to Maggie, “I rebuilt those steps right before you came home. They’re tight as a tick.”

Maggie nodded but said nothing. All she could think about was Vanessa’s ominous text warning: “Watch Ginger on stairs.”

*

Bertrand’s tow truck arrived within half an hour and carted the SUV off to the repair shop. Maggie chauffeured Ginger and Trent over to the shop; Bibi chose to stay behind. By the time they reached Bertrand’s Gas and Auto Repair, the owner, Leontel “Lee” Bertrand, already had the car up on a lift. Lee was a tough ex-Marine in his mideighties whose energy defied his age. He and a sandy-haired man in his early twenties, whom Maggie didn’t recognize, were examining the car’s undercarriage. Maggie and Lee exchanged hellos.
“I don’t think you’ve met my great-nephew, Chretien,” Lee said. “Chret for short.”

Chret moved forward to shake Maggie’s hand. She noticed that he walked with a limp. “Hello, ma’am,” he said shyly. As he took her hand, she felt a tremor in his.

“Chret’s back from a couple of tours in Afghanistan,” his uncle said with pride. “He’s a Marine. Took some shrapnel in the leg, so he got an honorable discharge. Since none of my kids or grandkids is interested, I’m teaching him the business.”

“Nice to meet you, Chret,” Maggie said with a warm smile. “Welcome to town.”

Chret gave a small nod, then returned to work. Maggie saw Ginger and Trent staring at the young war vet and whispering to each other. She glared at them, and they looked away. “So what’s going on with the car, Lee?”

“There’s a crack in the oil pan.” Lee pointed to it. “That’s where the leak is.”

“Oh. I guess Ginger was right. She must have driven over something in our driveway.”

Lee shook his head. “No one drove over nuthin’,” he said, keeping his voice low so Ginger and Trent wouldn’t hear. “This car sits too high up. And see that? It’s epoxy. This pan’s been damaged before and someone tried a cheap fix.”

Maggie examined the oil pan and saw that Lee was right. “We can’t confront Ginger about this,” she said, her voice equally low. “For one thing, she’s our guest, and it would be bad form to accuse her of scamming us. But also, and I
hate to say this, I don’t really trust her. I feel like she might get back at us some way.”

Lee nodded. “Revenge reviews. As a businessman, I can tell you that there’s few things worse than a customer posting nasty comments on some dang online site.”

Maggie nodded. While Crozat had managed to stay on the positive side of Internet travel sites, she’d heard horror stories from other hoteliers forced to mop up the online mess created by a terrible review. “We have to pick up the tab for Ginger’s car repairs,” she told Lee.

“I’ll give you the best price I can, but parts for this make and model are expensive. At best, we’re looking at a grand, easy.”

“What?” Maggie yelped. “A
grand?
”

“I should be charging twice that. That’s just for parts. I’m waiving the labor charge. Anyway, should be ready in a day or two.”

“Thanks, Lee. I really appreciate your generosity.” Maggie strode over to Ginger and Trent, who were standing behind a metal rack filled with oil cans, still whispering as they watched Chret, albeit more discreetly. Maggie suppressed the urge to grab Ginger by her off-white shirt and call her a scam artist. Instead, she mustered up a polite tone and said, “Excuse me.” Trent turned to her, but Ginger’s attention remained focused on Chret. “Excuse me,” Maggie said, louder and much less politely. Ginger tore herself away from gazing at the handsome young repairman and focused her pale-grey eyes on Maggie. “Lee can fix the car,” Maggie told her, “but it may take a couple of days.”

Ginger shrugged helplessly. “I can’t be without a car.”

Maggie gritted her teeth. “Well then, we’ll just have to rent you one.”

Fortunately, Lee always had a few rudimentary cars on hand for clients. He insisted on loaning one to Ginger for free. Maggie was grateful but figured Lee’s generosity was based on the whopping repair bill the Crozats faced.

“Thanks for the help, Maggie,” Ginger said as she took a set of car keys from Lee. “I am
so
sorry about all this.”

No you’re not, you manipulative witch,
Maggie thought but managed not to say. Instead, she decided to grab the moment of fake goodwill to plead Vanessa’s case. “We’re the ones who should be sorry for putting you through this,” Maggie said, matching Ginger’s fake sincerity beat for beat. “There is something else I wanted to talk to you about.” She shared Vanessa’s concern about Ginger’s decorating bill.

“Oh dear,” Ginger said, scrunching her face in a performance of discomfort. “Poor Vanessa really messed up. I told her our phone consult was free, but I’d have to charge her for any actual drawings. If I did everything for free for my family and friends, I’d go broke.” Ginger gave one of her trademark helpless shrugs.

Yeah, but working Bibi like a dray horse for free doesn’t seem to bother you,
was Maggie’s acidic thought.

“By the way,” Ginger continued, “Trent and I won’t be having lunch at Crozat.”

“Yeah,” Trent said. He grimaced. “That turkey thing your mother made did a number on my system, if you catch my drift.”

Maggie burned with anger. “I have an IQ over fifty, so yes, I catch your drift,” she shot back at Ginger’s snarky second-in-command. “Whatever’s going on with your ‘system,’ I would not lay it on my mother. She happens to be one of best cooks in Pelican. One of the best in the whole parish.”

“Trent didn’t mean to insult anyone,” Ginger said. Her tone, meant to be soothing, came off as patronizing. “I’m sure your mother’s a fabulous cook. But everyone has an off day, don’t they? Anyway, if you don’t mind, would you tell Vanessa that I’m so sorry about the mix-up, but I need payment ASAP? Thanks so much.”

With that, Ginger and Trent folded themselves into the subcompact loaner and took off.

“She’s not very nice, is she?” Chret said, rolling himself out from under a car. He’d obviously heard Maggie and Ginger’s conversation.

“No,” Maggie said grimly. “She is not. But she’s smart. She’s got a way of putting things that makes it hard to argue with her.”

*

Since one of Maggie’s many maid of honor obligations was throwing Vanessa’s bridal shower, she put Ginger out of her mind and focused on organizing the party, which was scheduled for the next evening. Crozat Plantation, a popular location for weddings, featured a permanent tent and all the equipment necessary for event planning. Unfortunately, hosting this particular event also meant picking up the cost of the food. Rather than the simple girls-only shower that
Maggie originally envisioned, Vanessa had blown it out to the point where the party might rival her wedding as a Pelican social extravaganza. To save money, the Crozats planned a menu featuring ingredients from the family’s organic garden. Pelican attendees would ingest more fiber in a night than they usually did in a month.

Sunday dawned clear and dry—perfect weather for the shower, much to Maggie’s relief. As she left for church, she saw Ginger running her usual route down the plantation’s side road, with a left turn down the ancient, abandoned dirt road. After Mass at St. Theresa’s—Saint Tee’s to locals—Maggie hurried home to set up for the event. She headed into the main house and heard an “Ow!” come from the front parlor, uttered by her father. It was followed by a few expletives. Maggie, Gran’, and Ninette all hurried into the room. As they did, they bumped into furniture, letting loose with a few “ows” and expletives themselves.

“What the hey?” Tug said as he and the others examined the room, which looked the same yet completely different. Every piece of furniture had been rearranged.

Maggie noticed a note card on the table and tore open the envelope. “‘The arrangement of this room had negative chi, so I took the liberty of applying fêng shui as a thank-you for fixing my car. Best always, Ginger Fleer-Starke.’”

“Fêng what?” a frustrated Tug said as he rubbed his bruised shins.

“Fêng shui,” Maggie repeated. “It’s a Chinese philosophy for finding harmony in your environment. Although right now, all I’m finding is bruises on my shins.”

“Either Ginger is well-intentioned,” Ninette said as she tended to her own bruises, “or this is some kind of passive-aggressive act. For what, I don’t know.”

“Oh, I think it’s definitely the latter,” Maggie said.

“That woman is the worst kind of Glossie,” Gran’ declared, using an acronym she’d invented that stood for “gracious ladies of the South.” “She’s a . . . a . . . Flossie—a fake lady of the South.” Gran’ crossed her arms and looked pleased with herself.

“I’m going to find that woman and tell her to put the room back exactly the way it was,” Maggie declared. She marched upstairs and knocked on Ginger’s door, ready to let loose with a few “fêng yous.” There was no answer. She left the house and scoured the grounds, but there was no sign of the interior designer. Maggie found Bibi struggling under a load of carpet samples. “A delivery for the new place in Baton Rouge,” she explained as she piled them into her car. When Maggie asked after Ginger, Bibi pointed toward the bayou behind the plantation. “Last I saw, she went that way.”

Maggie made her way through the woods and was within reach of the bayou when she heard the murmur of voices. She froze. The murmurs turned into giggles. Maggie peeked through some branches and saw that a couple had rendezvoused in a small clearing. Maggie caught a glint of platinum hair, then a brief flash of blonde. The couple was Ginger and Trent. And the embrace they were locked in made it clear that this was no business meeting.