Death Tidies Up (22 page)

A
s soon as she got home, Charlotte slipped off her shoes and pulled on her moccasins. She immediately headed for the telephone, then abruptly stopped and did an about-face.

“First things first,” she murmured, eyeing Sweety Boy's cage. “Hey, there, Boy.” She approached the little bird's cage. “You took quite a spill this morning.” She poked her forefinger through the wires to gently stroke his head. “Guess that'll teach you that little birds don't belong in big, bad showers, huh? You feeling better? Huh, fellow? You look a bit perkier.”

Though the little bird rubbed against her finger and seemed alert enough, the fact that he'd yet to utter a sound since she'd come through the door was worrisome.

“Aren't you going to talk to me? Say, ‘Missed you, Charlotte. Missed you.'”

The little bird continued staring at her but remained silent. Not even a tiny chirp.

After weighing the pros and cons of letting him out of the cage, she decided that maybe it would be best for the remainder of the day if she continued to keep him confined, just until she was sure that he had fully recovered.

Had the shower incident traumatized him more than she'd thought? With a deep frown of concern and one last glance at him, she finally turned away and walked over to her desk. If he still wasn't talking by tomorrow, she supposed she'd have to consider taking him in to the vet.

At her desk, Charlotte flipped through her Rolodex until she found the name and phone number she was looking for; then she placed her call.

Mary Johnson was the daughter of a couple whom Charlotte had once worked for over the period of several years. But Mary just happened to be a managing editor for the
Times-Picayune
as well. If anyone knew where she could get more information on Professor Arthur Samuel, Charlotte figured that Mary would know.

When Mary answered the call on the fourth ring, Charlotte sat down at the desk and reached for a pen and notepad.

“Hi, Mary. This is Charlotte LaRue.”

“Oh, hey there, Charlotte. It's good to hear from you.” Then she laughed. “Please don't tell me you're calling to complain about another one of our reporters. And speaking of that particular rude and pesky man, you'll be happy to know that he's gone—moved to Houston last I heard.”

“No, hon, I'm not calling to complain. But I can't say I'm sorry that awful man moved on.” Charlotte shuddered, remembering how the freelance reporter had tried to chase her down after he'd found out that she worked for the Dubuissons. “So how are your folks? Still enjoying their retirement?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Mary told her. “What with me working all hours here at the paper and them traveling all over the country, I hardly ever see them anymore.”

“So what happened to the flea marketing and junk sales hobby they were into?”

“Well, to quote Dad, ‘It got to be too much like work.'”

Charlotte laughed. “Sounds like something he would say—but listen, I don't want to interfere with
your
work, but I was hoping you could help me out with something.”

“Now, Charlotte, you know I will if I can. So—what's up?”

Charlotte rolled the pen between her fingers. “I need to track down some background information on a man—something that happened, hmm—probably a good twenty years ago. This particular incident would have been written up in the newspaper.”

After several moments of silence, Mary answered. “Twenty years is a long time, certainly before I hired on. I'd say your best bet would be the public library. They keep stuff like past issues of newspapers on microfilm, but you need to narrow it down to a particular month or else you'll end up wasting a whole lot of time searching through old issues.”

Charlotte frowned. “There's no faster way?”

“Afraid not. Like I said, twenty years is a long time ago.”

 

Because it was fairly close to where she lived and because she really loved the historical significance of the old building, Charlotte decided to go to the Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue. During the short drive, she racked her brain, trying to think of some significant incident that might have happened around the time that the hit-and-run had occurred.

If only she could pinpoint the month…Maybe October, she finally decided, vaguely remembering something about a costume party she'd worked that particular night.

Luckily, Charlotte was able to find a parking spot on St. Charles Avenue in front of the library.

Each time she visited the Latter Library, she was conscious of its history. The turn-of-the-century house had once been the home of a wealthy New Orleans merchant, then later the home of a celebrated millionaire aviator as well as a retreat for the millionaire's wife, a famous silent screen star. But ultimately, the final owners were a couple who'd had a son die in Okinawa during World War II. As a memorial to their son, they had presented the old house to the New Orleans Public Library.

As Charlotte hurried to the entrance, she glanced at her watch. At best, she figured she only had a couple of hours before the library closed.

Once inside, she quickly explained to the librarian what she needed. To her disappointment, she was told that she would have to go to the main library headquarters located on Loyola Avenue to do research dating back twenty years.

Though not near as old or historic as the Latter Library, the main library had its own claim to fame and had once been presented the Design Award for Public Buildings in
Progressive Architecture
magazine.

Once again Charlotte explained what she needed.

The librarian she spoke to, a perky young woman, directed Charlotte to go to the Louisiana Division.

“You're in luck,” she told Charlotte with a smile. “If I'm not mistaken, we have copies of the
Times-Picayune
that date back as far as 1837—all on microfilm.”

After more than an hour of scanning files, Charlotte finally located the articles about the professor's arrest and trial. One of the articles included a head shot, and again, Charlotte was struck by the resemblance between the professor and Sam Roberts.

As she scanned through the articles, she began to notice a pattern. Time after time, during his arrest, and later, during his trial, the professor was persistent in proclaiming his innocence. But other than his avowal of innocence, Charlotte didn't learn anything that proved to be of much help.

By the time she left the library, most of the work traffic had thinned out. Her drive home was uneventful, but like a persistent itch that refused to be soothed, thoughts about the professor and Sam plagued her.

Were they the same man? Even if they were, what difference did it make in the grand scheme of things anyway? And why in the devil did the whole affair bother her so much?

B.J., she decided as she turned into her driveway. The only reason she cared at all was the friendship between Sam and the boy, and the influence that Sam seemed to wield over the teenager at such a vulnerable time in the boy's life. To Charlotte's way of thinking, that was more than enough reason to check up on Sam Roberts' background.

Even after Charlotte switched off the engine, she sat staring at the garage wall. Who else could she ask? she wondered, or where else could she find out information on Sam Roberts?

Under other circumstances, she could have asked Louis or Judith. Either of them could easily check into Sam's background. But then she'd have to tell them why she was asking, and that was something she couldn't do…not yet.

That left only one other person who might know something about Sam, hopefully something that would put her mind at rest. Unfortunately, that person was Marian Hebert.

Since Sam had worked for Marian's husband and now worked for Marian, Charlotte was sure that Marian would have to know something about Sam's background…where he came from, his marital status, all the things people normally made small talk about.

With a frustrated sigh, Charlotte gathered her keys and purse and headed inside. Brick wall time, she decided as she unlocked her front door. There was just no way of asking Marian about Sam Hebert's background without betraying B.J.'s confidence…Or was there?

 

On Wednesday morning, Charlotte awakened to the sounds of Sweety Boy chirping away in his cage. Though she was relieved to know that the little bird had found his voice again and a trip to the vet wouldn't be necessary after all, not even his squawks and chirps could cheer her up after the agonizing night she'd spent tossing and turning.

Off and on, during the seemingly endless night, she'd come up with, and discarded, several ideas on how to approach Marian about Sam Roberts without betraying B.J. The most obvious way was to pretend a personal, romantic interest in Sam. But the possibility that Marian might decide to play matchmaker and tell Sam that she'd been asking about him made Charlotte discard the idea immediately.

Then, just before dawn, Charlotte had finally settled on something that she felt might work.

The scheme she'd decided on was really pretty simplistic. What she needed was an innocuous way of introducing Sam into a conversation with Marian. Since Marian had attended Tulane University, Charlotte figured she'd simply mention the fact that Bitsy's granddaughter had just been in town for the Tulane homecoming. Then she could casually bring up the subject of the yearbook and the remarkable resemblance between Sam and the professor; thus Sam would be introduced into the conversation.

But plotting a scheme and actually implementing it were two different animals altogether. Charlotte never had been good at deception, and in fact, abhorred anything that even resembled it. She figured that just this one time, though, she had no choice. B.J. was in trouble, and his whole future might depend on what she could find out.

With a herculean effort, Charlotte finally forced herself to climb out of bed when all she wanted to do was burrow back beneath the covers and forget everything. When she reached for her housecoat, she hesitated before pulling it on. With a sigh, her gaze strayed to the closet, where she'd hung up the new one.

Fingering the worn cotton terry of the old housecoat, she frowned. Except when she'd tried on the new robe to see if it fit on the morning after her birthday party, she had yet to begin wearing it. But why?

“You know why,” she grumbled as she jerked on the old one. Silly as the notion seemed, just knowing that Louis had picked out the new one smacked of an intimacy that she wasn't yet comfortable with, nor sure she was ready for. Never mind that each time she looked at it, she was reminded of the two kisses they'd shared…well, not exactly shared.

Rolling her eyes toward the ceiling, and with a shake of her head, she stomped off toward the living room.

Most mornings, Charlotte made a point of letting Sweety Boy out of his cage for a few minutes while she dressed. Though he appeared to be back to normal, she decided that keeping him confined a little longer would be best, just until she was sure he was okay.

“If you're still doing okay, I promise I'll let you out when I get home this afternoon,” she told him as she refilled his feeder with birdseed.

But Sweety Boy wanted out now, and he quickly scooted toward the cage door when she opened it to replace his cuttle-bone. “Oh, no, you don't.” She blocked the opening with her hand. “Not this morning, fellow.” Using her forefinger, she nudged him back toward the far end of the cage. “Be a good little bird now, and I'll clean out that yucky cage Saturday.”

 

By the time Charlotte left for work, the sky had clouded over and a fine drizzle had set in, making the air chilly and dreary. As she backed her van out of the driveway, she glanced toward the other driveway and frowned. Louis' car was gone.

Thinking back, she didn't remember seeing it last night either. Nor did she remember hearing him come home during the night. So where was he? Had he come home?

Unease crept through her veins as she drove down Milan Street. Within reason, she knew there was probably a perfectly logical explanation for why he hadn't come home. After all, he hadn't retired yet. He still had two months left, and in his line of work, it seemed that the criminals never slept. But logic aside, she also knew that in his line of work, there was always the possibility of danger as well. Maybe she should call Judith, just to make sure he was okay, to make sure he hadn't been hurt or…

“And maybe you should mind your own business,” she muttered as she slowed for a traffic light. Louis was a grown man and could take care of himself just fine, thank you very much.

 

Most of the morning, Marian was in and out of the house on business, but when she'd come home after lunch, she'd told Charlotte, “Enough is enough for one day.”

Charlotte couldn't agree more, she finally decided an hour later as she finished up in the boys' bathroom.
Enough was enough.
No more procrastination.

Except for cleaning Marian's office, she'd almost finished for the day, and like it or not, she was running out of time.
So just do it and get it over with.

Inside Marian's office, she set her supply carrier down by the desk. Then, with deliberate steps, she marched out of the room. Once in the hallway, she paused and tilted her head, her ears tuned to any noise that might tell her in which room she'd find Marian.

The clinking of dishes led her to the kitchen, and when she entered, Marian was at the stove, pouring a jar of spaghetti sauce into a small saucepan to heat.

Marian glanced up and gave Charlotte a quick smile. “Finished already?”

Charlotte shook her head. “Almost. I still have your office to clean.” She walked to the cabinet. “I just need a drink of water.” She removed a glass from the bottom shelf. “I swear, it's like I've been thirsty all day long.” She shook her head. “It was like that yesterday too, at Miss Bitsy's house. I just couldn't seem to get enough to drink.” She walked over to the Kentwood water dispenser stand by the cabinet and filled her glass.