Courir De Mardi Gras (22 page)

“You won’t be any worse off than before the theft. I’ll say I hadn’t reported my discovery to you yet, or you could just keep quiet, take back the silver, and return the money.”

“You’d lie for me?”

“I already have by keeping quiet this long.”

“Would you marry a man deeply in debt?”

“I’m not sure. That would all depend on how well he made love with his mask off.” She’d done it, truly done it, fallen in love with a nice guy—who was great in bed.

Isolated from the world, they had time for all the sex they wanted. The morning passed swiftly. Covered with only the black cape, they recuperating from trying out a new position fondly named “The Horseman’s Bridle” when they heard the motorboat.

“Oh, shit,” George said. “We’re being rescued.

Chapter Fifteen

Suzanne’s story

Suzanne finally got to meet the famous Linc St. Julien. Feeling “kind of responsible” for their predicament, he’d come to their rescue in his Uncle Jack’s bass boat. She liked him immediately even if he did keep grinning and glancing at the stained gold satin sheet pulled half off the mattress. At least, he refrained from any wisecracks about George’s half-buttoned pants or her ensemble of peach nightie and black satin cloak. She expected to endure locker room humor from the former jock and teammate, but Linc seemed so genuinely happy for George, she put aside preconceived notions about a man who would instigate stunts like these.

Linc smuggled them home with a minimum of fanfare. George and Suzanne sat together in the back of Linc’s pickup along with the cooler, deflated air mattress, and the ball of badly stained satin sheets. He signaled them once to lie flat when a patrol car came up the road. She snuggled against George’s chest in the bed of the truck and remained in that position until they came to the Hill.

Suzanne expected the interlude at the lake to change things entirely, but George became George again as soon as Linc disappeared from the scene. He went upstairs to put on jeans and a shirt while she, still clad in her best sexy nightgown, made coffee and sandwiches. George brought her robe from upstairs and very sensibly suggested they discuss the problem of the silver over lunch.

While she studied his body with a new appreciation and regretted the return of those black-framed glasses that made gazing into his plain gray eyes nearly impossible, George outlined the presentation of their suspicions to Sheriff Duval and his fiscal responsibilities to Mutual Trust. She ran her fingertips up and down his muscular arm until he moved out of reach, so she let him finish uninterrupted. Then, they argued.

“Let me try my plan first, George,” Suzanne said, standing on tiptoes to rub his shoulders. He flicked her off.

“Tomorrow after I’ve thought out all of the financial implications, I’ll share your ideas with Sheriff Duval.” His tone implied “crazy ideas.”

“No, George! Let me get the goods on Randy Royal first. Real evidence.”

She liked the idea of trapping Royal single-handedly. All those Nancy Drew novels read in the sixth grade came to mind. She visualized the title on the spine of the book,
The Case of the Stolen Sterling,
starring that resourceful, honey-blonde antiques detective, Suzanne Hudson. George obliterated her fantasy.

“That is both dangerous and foolish. Let Duval do his job and search the shop.”

Funny, he had not used the word “foolish” earlier that morning when they made love like the last two survivors of the Great Flood ready to repopulate the earth again. And she said so. George stomped out of the house and splashed down the lane. She watched him from the window, then went to change into something severe. Perhaps, the Nancy Drew novels had no sex in them because Nancy had to deal with stubborn, unimaginative idiots like George St. Julien.

When he returned carrying a damp Sunday paper and a mass of Saturday’s forgotten mail, mostly flyers that went instantly into the trash, George tried to make up to her by putting a protective arm around her shoulders. This time, she shrugged
him
off. She went to work on her paper. George left for Linc’s house, she supposed, but her mind continued to wonder how to confront Randy Royal in the morning. The various scenarios kept her company that night, too, because George did not come to her bed.

****

Miffed, Suzanne stayed aloof at breakfast. Whenever George reached across the little kitchen table, she managed to have her hands occupied with a knife and fork cutting into one of Birdie’s superlative waffles or holding a scalding hot cup of coffee. Birdie had prepared a strangely lavish breakfast, which kept George at the table longer than usual. The housekeeper hummed “Strangers in the Night” as she waddled over to force more waffles on the couple, winked at George, and murmured scoobey-doobey-do in his ear. Suzanne wondered if Birdie had been talking to Linc’s mama after services at the Pilgrim Baptist Church. At five to eight, Birdie made herself conspicuously absent by announcing she was taking out the garbage, an event usually done without fanfare. That gave George his chance.

He stood behind Suzanne’s chair and whispered, “I want you to stay out of this mess, Suzanne. I want you to be safe.” George bent and kissed her cheek gently because she would not turn her head to accept a kiss on the lips.

“I’ll call you this morning,” he said and hustled off to the office. All the tenderness welling up with his kiss and his concern, she tamped down again, knowing he would be checking on her. Well, that’s what cell phones were for—to be in contact anywhere a person happened to be—working on a paper at home or shopping for antiques in Opelousas.

Suzanne went about her job in the upstairs rooms and waited for his call. It came around ten on the Magnolia Hill land line. Perfectly cordial to George, she asked if he had seen Sheriff Duval. No, he said, the sheriff was late coming in this morning, having put in a long day Sunday checking the roads for accidents and helping out after the storm.

“Oh, when I see you later, you can tell me all about it,” she replied innocently. “And, George, I may check out the attic today, so call me on my cell if you need to get in touch again. I don’t want to drag dust and cobwebs through Birdie’s clean house.”

After he hung up, she called a number scribbled on a piece of paper the previous night. Then, she told Birdie she was going out to check the mail.

“Won’t be here yet,” she yelled over the roar of the vacuum cleaner she plied in the front parlor.

“I’ll wait. I’m expecting some important papers for my project,” Suzanne lied. By the time she reached the end of the drive, she could hear Willie’s cab clattering up the hill.

“Business has sho’ picked up since you been here, Miss Suzanne. Up this hill an’ down this hill. I got me a new carburetor and a pillow for the back seat wit’ the proceeds.

Considering she wore a dark skirt, she decided to avoid the chenille pillow covering the bare springs. The fuzzy fabric looked like a heavily shedding variety.

“To Opelousas, Willie. Royal Antiques.” She flashed the address on Randy Royal’s card at the driver and settled back to mentally rehearse her confrontation with the thief, a waste of practice as it turned out.

She asked Willie to wait for her, confident that it would only take a few minutes to wheedle a piece of stolen silver out of Mr. Royal with her clever ruse.

“Hello, it’s me again,” Suzanne warbled pleasantly, entering the shop. “Just on my way back home. I thought perhaps you found a few small treasures to sell me in the interval, Mr. Royal. You were quite right about there being nothing in Port Jefferson.”

Randy Royal, sipping tea from a wonderfully translucent Limoges cup and paging through a copy of
Antiques
magazine at his sales counter, glared at her.

“You may drop the pretense, Miss Hudson, not Mrs. Hudson, formerly of Philadelphia, now of Magnolia Hill, Miss Know-It-All antiques expert. I have a few friends left in Port Jefferson, you know.”

The memory of George and Bobby Sonnier exchanging words at the Roadhouse restaurant suddenly came back to her. The resourceful, blonde detective had just botched the job.

“Bobby told me all about the lovely girl staying with George St. Julien, what you wore, what you looked like. He thought we could all have lunch together one day and talk antiques. Bob is so naïve. He thought you were too fine for George. I set him straight on that. I told Bobby how you came here pretending to be someone else, snooping after the St. Julien silver. So you think you know something about Victorian teapots and candelabrum? I’m surprised you didn’t bring the police right along and accuse me here in my own shop. I’m astounded you don’t have a search warrant to tear the place apart. Maybe there’s a punch bowl hidden in the rocking horse!”

Randy took a gulp of tea and replaced the cup against the saucer with a crack that made her eyes blink.

“You think I’m a thief. Well, I’m not. But I will tell you what I was—hagridden. Yes, hagridden by that old lady at the Hill who knew I wanted out of Port Jefferson more than anything on earth. She lured me with a cut of the profits when I sold off that silver. She told me what pieces to fake, what to sell off and when. And you know something else? She planned this robbery. I’m sure of it. Virginia Lee died before she could find someone crooked enough to carry it off for her. Why else would she sell the stuff secretly and replace it with fakes? She wanted her precious son to know nothing about it. Now here’s the joke. You come along, and poof! The silver is gone on the eve of revelation.”

Royal waved the Limoges cup, sprinkling the remaining droplets of Earl Grey in the air. Suzanne wished she had brought a recorder. Nancy Drew would have thought of that, but then, Suzanne Hudson, antiques detective, expected to purchase stolen merchandise, not elicit a confession. Not that what Royal said
was
a confession. If Virginia Lee commissioned him to do the sales and execute the replicas, they had a business deal, not a con job as George claimed, a business deal just shady enough to keep Royal quiet when the robbery occurred. After all, Virginia committed no crime in selling her own silver and replacing it with cheaper goods if she needed money and wanted to save face in the community. Only the possibility of insurance fraud made the deal dodgy.

“If you ask me, George is the thief. Like mother, like son, a streak of cruelty in the both of them.” He thrust the cup at Suzanne and snatched it back.

“How could Bobby compete all those years with her son, tall, athletic, successful accountant? Bobby never had a chance with his own father. Either his medical practice or her up on the Hill took up all the doctor’s time. You don’t know how that hurt Bob.” Royal leaned over his teacup as if he were about to cry into it.

Time to go. She did not want to hear anymore. Suzanne started for the door, a failed sleuth, but then turned.

“Where were you on the afternoon of the day of the theft, Mr. Royal?” she interrogated. Maybe she expected the full confession to come pouring out into the teacup. It did not.

“Right here. This is a one man show, Miss Hudson. If I am ill, a big, red CLOSED sign hangs in the window. That day, the store was open. I lunched across the way, called a good friend in Port Jefferson. The telephone records will bear me out.”

“Your ‘good friend’ could have committed the robbery for you.”

“He dined with his parents and spent the rest of the afternoon at his place of business in full sight of several waitresses.”

“So you have discussed this case with your ‘friend’ and worked out your alibis,” she said, vaguely aware of having seen this episode acted out on a mediocre crime show.

“No alibis necessary, Miss Hudson, because we are not guilty.” Randy Royal drew himself up with dignity. “Please leave my establishment.” He must have seen the same show.

She had to write a check to pay Willie for the taxi ride. Only the tip came in the form of cash. The disappointment showed on the cabbie’s round, brown face.

“Checks. You got to pay on all them checks come tax time.”

“Sorry,” she apologized. “Drop me off at the front of the lane, will you?”

She did get the mail on the way up the drive. Birdie remarked her shoes must be soppy as a sponge by now if she had been standing in the wet grass all this time. Since Birdie could see her perfectly dry footwear, Suzanne did not bother to explain. She had bigger problems. Paul’s letter sat right on top of the mail. She shivered as if her feet really were wet. The crank notes seemed to be coming more frequently now that she’d blocked his e-mail addresses. They all said the same thing at the end. “I’m coming to get you.”

****

Suzanne stayed close to George that evening. He came home late and remained preoccupied while eating the meal she reheated for him. Quiet herself, and unnerved by Paul’s persistence, she remained unwilling to open the touchy subject of the stolen silver. George did that over the coffee and the slice of pecan pie he barely touched.

“Sheriff Duval never got in today.”

“So you didn’t present our theory to him?”

“No,” he said, mashing the thick bakery crust into crumbs with his fork.

“Good—because we are wrong.”

George gave her a grim look and speared a pecan, pushing it down into the gooey filling. He did not say a word.

“I went into Opelousas today and had a long talk with Randy Royal.”

“I knew you’d try that. Look, Suzanne, I’m trying to keep you clear of this mess.”

“That’s not possible,” she said, taking his fork and pushing the pie away. She held his hand to keep it still.

“Listen to me. Royal and his friend Bob both have alibis. In fact, Randy accused you. Like mother, like son, he said.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means your mother was not being deceived. She commissioned Royal to sell off her silver quietly and replace it with replicas. Royal assumed you knew, that you and your mother plotted this robbery before she died.”

“Do you believe that, Suzanne?”

From the intensity of his stare, she knew her answer meant more to him than the fact that she had defied him by going into town.