Marisa Carroll - Hotel Marchand 09 (3 page)

“Alain, it’s you. I thought I heard a car drive up.” His ex-mother-in-law appeared in his line of sight. She carried a spray bottle of bathroom cleaner and a couple of cleaning rags. As usual she was dressed too young for her age in tight jeans and a tank top, her makeup too bright, her improbably black hair curled and fluffed within an inch of its life.

“Hello, Marie. If everything’s under control here, I’ll get back to my patrol.”

“Don’t run off, Alain. I want to talk to you.” Marie turned to Yvonne. “The bathroom’s finished. Where do you want this stuff?”

“I’ll put it away.” Cecily took the cleaning supplies and disappeared into the utility room at the far side of the kitchen.

“How about if I stop by your place after supper?” He knew he was going to have to hear Marie out sooner or later. But he preferred later.

Marie dismissed his suggestion with a wave of her hand. “I’ve got a date for supper,” she said with a lift of her penciled eyebrows. “This won’t take long. I talked to Casey Jo last night. She told me she’s been leaving messages for you all week.”

“I haven’t had a chance to get back to her. Hank Lassiter’s off with a bad back. I’ve been pulling double shifts, you know that.”

“I also know my daughter. When she’s got a bee in her bonnet, it’s hard to get her mind on something else.”

“What is it this time?” he asked wearily. If it involved money he was going to say no. Casey Jo didn’t contribute one red cent to raising their kids. She spent everything she made on herself, a habit she’d learned at her mama’s knee, but it didn’t stop her from trying to get money out of him whenever she ran short.

“She wants to take Guy and Dana to Disney World on their semester break.”

“Disney World? That’s a pretty pricey trip.”

“She wants to make it up to them for not being able to get them much for Christmas,” Marie said, biting her lower lip.

“She didn’t get them much for Christmas because she spent all her money on botox injections.” He did his best to keep the disgust he felt at that particular episode from his voice. Marie did what she could for him and the kids. She tended bar at a place out on the highway called the Ragin’ Cajun most nights, but she was always there if he needed her to take the kids to school, or drop off forgotten homework or lunch boxes when his mom was working as a nurse at the hospital in Lafayette.

“You know how badly she wanted that spot on
American Idol
. Her agent told her—”

“She’s thirty-four years old, Marie. Long past time to give up on big dreams and settle down to real life.”

“But she’s got talent—”

“So do thousands of other women.”

Marie veered away from any more comments about Casey Jo’s lifestyle. “I told her not to breathe a word to the kids until she’d okayed the trip with you.”

Once more Alain swallowed his irritation. His mother-in-law was awkwardly placed, caught in the middle of a bad situation. She loved Guy and Dana, but she loved her daughter, too. “Thanks, Marie. I appreciate you not saying anything until after you’d talked to me. I don’t want to get their hopes up again. Especially Dana’s. Casey Jo’s disappointed her too many times.”

“I told her Guy probably wouldn’t go,” Yvonne broke in, having kept her silence as long as she cared to. “He is too important to the basketball team for the coach to allow him to take a week off in the middle of the season.”

“I’ll call her as soon as I get a minute,” Alain promised, forestalling his grandmother’s next remark before her sharp tongue reduced Marie to tears.

Cecily walked back into the room, shrugging into a heavy cotton sweater as she spoke. She was wearing jeans and a turtleneck that were nowhere near as tight or low-cut as Marie’s clothes, and in Alain’s opinion she looked about ten years younger than the other woman. “Sophie Clarkson phoned an hour or so ago. She’s driving in from Houston and should arrive around two o’clock tomorrow. That’s when the wake will start.”

“I imagine she’s never attended a wake,” Marie muttered. “I mean, her not being Catholic and all.”

“I have no idea if she’s been to a wake or not.” Alain picked up his Stetson and set it on his head. No way was he going to let his ex-mother-in-law draw him into a conversation about the woman Casey Jo insisted had broken up their marriage. “I’ve got to get back on patrol.”

“I’ve got a roast in the oven for supper,” his mother reminded him.

“Keep a plate warm for me, will you? I’ve got a ton of paperwork to fill out before I call it a day.”

“Try not to be too late.”

“I’ll do my best. Tell Dana I’ll be home in time to tuck her in.” At seven, his daughter was at the age where she was growing up in a lot of ways, but still, he thought thankfully, she was daddy’s little girl in others. Tucking her in at night was one of the high points of his day. Which went a long way in explaining why he didn’t have much of a social life.

He started toward the front door but stopped at the sound of his grandmother’s voice. “Alain. We’ve done the best we can with this place but it still needs a lot of work. Do you know where Maude’s keys might be? If we have them we could come back and finish up tomorrow.”

He heard his mother suck in her breath and turned to look at her. Her eyes slid past his and she whirled around to wipe an already spotless sink.

“The door was open when I found her, but I imagine the keys are in her purse. That’s one of the things I have to do this afternoon—inventory Maude’s effects.” He glanced around. His mother and grandmother and the others had been working for most of the day to make Maude’s house welcoming for a woman who hadn’t spent more than ten days in Indigo in the last five years. That was enough as far as he was concerned. “The house looks fine.” He cleared his throat of the residue of old anger that had roughened his words. “I don’t think you need to do anything else. With an upscale place like La Petite Maison right down the road. I’d be surprised if Sophie Clarkson spends a single night under this roof.”

“I
WANT TO EXTEND
my most sincere sympathy, Miss Sophie,” the stooped, white-haired man said, taking Sophie’s hand between his knobby, arthritic fingers. “I’m Maurice Renaurd. I owned the hardware here for many years. Maude and I served on the library board together. She was a good woman. She’ll be missed.”

“Thank you,” Sophie said, smiling. “I’ll miss her, too.” She spoke with sincerity and an underlying remorse. She was overwhelmed by the number of people who had already filed through the viewing room of the Savoy Funeral Home, and it was barely six o’clock in the evening. The wake had only just begun.

She had neglected her godmother these past few years and she was sorry for it. But she had been so busy, and Maude had kept insisting that she was fine, that there was no reason to come more often than her usual summer weekend and Christmas week visit. But obviously there had been reason and Sophie knew she would always regret that she hadn’t spent that extra time with her godmother.

She sighed. It seemed the older she got, the more things there were to regret in her life. She looked around, wondering when one of her earliest and most costly mistakes, at least in terms of heartache, would walk through the door. She hadn’t seen Alain Boudreaux in several years. It had been almost twice that long since she’d exchanged private words with him.

“Do you have everything you need?” Marjolaine Savoy’s smile was practiced but genuine as she came to stand beside Sophie near the casket. She was a tall woman with a head of dark brown hair that she wore in a French braid down her back. Marjolaine was the director of the Savoy Funeral Home, the third generation of her family to be involved in the business, according to the brochure Sophie had glanced through during a lull in the visitation.

“I’m fine, thanks. A little thirsty, though.” Sophie couldn’t help letting her gaze wander to the dozen or so people grouped around a big marble-topped table drinking punch and sweet tea and eating cookies. She’d driven all the way from Houston, almost five hours, with only one stop for gas and no food, and she was beginning to feel the effects of the long day.

“You need a break,” Marjolaine urged. “It’s my job to make sure the mourners don’t overdo. Come along with me. There’s no one in line to pay their respects at the moment, and if someone does come in, you can see them through the doorway.” She was already leading Sophie into the smaller room with a firm but gentle hand under her elbow. “There’re cookies on the table but I can get you a sandwich if you need something a little more substantial.”

“Could you?” Sophie asked, giving up the pretense of not needing a break. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I have the terrible feeling if I don’t get something inside me soon, my stomach is going to start protesting long and loud.” She managed a smile of her own. “I don’t want to offend any of Aunt Maude’s friends.”

“It’ll only take a moment. Is ham and cheese okay?”

“Ham and cheese sounds wonderful. Are you sure it isn’t a problem?”

“No problem. It’s going to be a long night. But a sandwich should hold you over until they set out the buffet around midnight.”

Sophie opened her eyes a little wider. “I’d forgotten a wake lasts all night. I…I’ve never been to one before.” She’d never had to spend much time in funeral homes, but she knew from the rare occasions she’d accompanied her grandmother to pay her respects to friends and business acquaintances, the sedate viewings lasted only until nine or so in the evening. They didn’t go on all night with friends bringing in food and drinks, music playing and talk of happier times, as they often did in Cajun country.

“You don’t have to stay all night if you don’t want to,” Marjolaine assured her, her blue eyes fixed on Sophie’s face. “One or another of the Lagniappe Ladies will always be here. It will be a quiet one, I imagine, since there’s no family but yourself.”

“My parents are flying in for the funeral tomorrow, and my grandmother would have come with me but she’s in Australia,” Sophie explained. “My grandfather gave her the trip as a gift for her eightieth birthday, and she feels very badly that she can’t be here.” Darlene Clarkson and Maude Picard had been friends from the first day they met at college at the end of the Second World War. It was Darlene who had prevailed on Sophie’s parents to allow Maude to be her godmother. Sophie’s mother had been particularly pleased she’d acceded to her mother’s request when Maude made Sophie her heir on her twenty-first birthday.

“You can go to Maude’s house to rest if you get too tired,” Marjolaine said.

“No. I’ll stay. Besides, I don’t have a key to the house. You don’t know who took charge of her things, do you?”

“We have nothing here, if that’s what you’re asking. Alain Boudreaux found her body. He’s probably taken custody of her personal possessions for you. He’s Chief of Police now, you know.”

Sophie felt her facial muscles tense slightly but hoped it didn’t show in her expression. “I’d forgotten,” she fibbed. “But now that you mention it, I recall
Nanan
Maude telling me about his promotion to chief.”

Marjolaine’s eyes narrowed slightly. Sophie could almost see her mind sifting through her memories, sorting out the bits and pieces that pertained to Sophie and Alain Boudreaux. “He’s been back in Indigo for three—no, four years. Since right after his divorce from Casey Jo became final.”

“I know about the divorce.” Sophie hoped her voice sounded normal, interested but not
too
interested. Marjolaine might not even remember she and Alain had been an item the summer after her high-school graduation. Fifteen years was a long time, after all. And she prayed that for both their sakes, but mostly for Alain’s, no one had learned about the other short, but intense relationship they’d shared after she’d run to Maude for comfort when her marriage collapsed. It was a reconciliation that had ended almost before it began, when Casey Jo had found Sophie in Alain’s arms,

Sophie still burned with embarrassment whenever she thought of that horrible scene. She and Alain hadn’t committed adultery as Casey Jo accused, not physically, but they might as well have. Since then they had never been alone, had barely spoken to each other, and, over the last few years, she hadn’t done much more than catch a glimpse of him across the town square during her infrequent visits.

“Divorced. Going on five years now. Casey Jo, she’s off dealing blackjack in a Mississippi casino and trying out for
American Idol
. Can you believe that?” Marjolaine grinned.

“I remember she was very pretty.” Night-black hair, long, long legs and model-thin. No wonder Alain had fallen so hard for her after he and Sophie broke up. And he’d gotten her pregnant almost the first time he went out with her, if the gossip one of her old summer friends had passed along to her was right. And it must have been, because Alain and Casey Jo’s son, Guy, was fifteen years old and the star center on the high-school basketball team. Another small fact of Alain’s life that her traitorous mind had filed away and refused to forget. Her stomach growled loudly enough for Marjolaine to hear.

“I’ll get you that sandwich,” she said. She walked to the back of the room and disappeared through a set of swinging doors into what Sophie supposed was the kitchen.

She turned toward one of the small round tables set up in the room, but before she could take a seat, another elderly man approached her. “Miss Sophie, I’m Hugh Prejean. I’m the town librarian. Maude was on the library board. She was one of our staunchest supporters. She will be missed.” The man, dressed in an old-fashioned white linen suit, holding a white fedora in his hands, looked like something out of a Faulkner novel. He sounded like one of Faulkner’s characters, too, his vowels soft and rounded, his words and gestures as formal as their surroundings.

Sophie set her punch cup down on the table and shook his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Prejean. I know how much Maude loved books. She was very proud of Indigo’s library.”

“She also worked with me on the history of the Valois Opera House, did you know that?”

“Yes, I do.”

He angled his body so that he could see the flower-bedecked walnut casket from where they stood. “We spent many hours researching the history of the building. The town is looking to restore it to its former glory, you know, Miss Sophie. That is, if we can get title to the building.”

“I do know the owner is Canadian,” Sophie said. Everyone who had any connection at all to Indigo knew that much about the opera house. It had been built originally by an aristocratic—and distant—ancestor of Alain Boudreaux’s, on his mother’s side, for his talented and beautiful young Cajun bride, then passed to Canadian relatives after her death. Maude had leased the building for her business for years, always dealing with a lawyer from New Orleans when negotiations or repairs were necessary.

“Do you anticipate reopening Past Perfect anytime soon, Miss Sophie?” Hugh asked. “Meaning no disrespect to her memory, but Maude and I were in the middle of authenticating an early twentieth-century appearance here of Miss Lillian Russell. It would be a draw for tourists, you know. And it would also be beneficial in our quest to get the opera house listed on the state registry of historical sites. All our research material is filed away in her office, not to mention the old records themselves, still up in the attic.” He looked out the window behind them, although Sophie knew he could see nothing but their reflections. He shook his head, making little tsking noises with his tongue. “All this rain. The roof isn’t in good repair although we do our best. Maude intended to speak to the lawyer about it again right soon.”

“I don’t know about reopening the business, Mr. Prejean,” Sophie said honestly. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. After all, her godmother had been dead less than two days. “I…I know very little about antiques.” It was true she had loved working for Maude during her teenage years, and had learned to appreciate the quality of the craftsmanship and artistry of the pieces Maude treasured and hated to part with; as well as the whimsy and appeal of the not-so-valuable collectibles that Maude confessed formed a bigger percentage of her yearly profits than one would suspect. But her parents hadn’t raised Sophie to run a small-town antique shop, and when she graduated from Bard College, her mother’s alma mater, she had returned to Houston and entered the family business as a fund-raising consultant to several small universities and hospitals.

“Oh dear, but yes, I see that might be a problem.” Hugh’s long face drooped with disappointment.

“However, I’ll certainly inform you as soon as Chief Boudreaux turns Maude’s keys over to me so that you may retrieve your reference materials and take a look at the roof.” She smiled and lifted her hand palm up. “You see, I have no way to get into the opera house, or my godmother’s home for that matter, until he releases her effects to me. I hope you understand.”

His hangdog expression cleared. He gave her a thin-lipped but genuine smile that crinkled his eyes. “Of course, I should have realized that would be the case. I will wait to hear from you, then. And in the meantime, if there’s any way I can be of service to you, do not hesitate to call on me.”

“How kind of you,” Sophie said, and she meant it.

Marjolaine appeared at her elbow carrying a china plate with a ham and cheese sandwich and a sprig of green grapes as the old man walked away. “Here’s your sandwich.” Sophie took the plate with a grateful smile. “I see you met Hugh Prejean. He’s a dear old soul. Maude and I were helping him research the opera house records. We’re hoping we can come up with enough facts and figures to get it on the state historical register.”

“Mr. Prejean was just explaining all that to me.”

“I hope you’ll allow us to keep digging through the attic. Most of the old records are still stored up there and the roof is none too good. We’d like to get them someplace safer before they deteriorate any further.”

“I already promised him I would let him know as soon as I have possession of the keys to the opera house.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that, too.”

“No problem.” What she omitted telling Marjolaine was that while she certainly meant what she said, she also didn’t intend to confront Alain Boudreaux one minute sooner than she absolutely had to.

“T
HERE SHE IS
.” Marie looked though the narrow opening of the partially closed pocket doors that shielded Maude’s mourners from drafts of wet January air. “She’s sitting at that little table by the window talking to Marjolaine.”

They were huddled in the big, high-ceilinged foyer of the funeral home, Cecily, Yvonne and Marie, each holding a casserole dish and dripping water onto the polished wood floor. “Don’t trip, Mama,” Cecily cautioned. “This floor is like glass.”

“I wonder how Marjolaine gets it to shine like that?” Marie mused, sliding the open toe of her stiletto heels over the glossy wood. Cecily looked down at her own sensible black, two-inch pumps.

“I have no idea and I’m not asking her.”

“Good evening, ladies. You’ll be wanting to take those dishes into the kitchen, I imagine.” Henry Roy, the undertaker who worked for Marjolaine, glided through the pocket doors separating the foyer from the viewing room and slid them shut behind him with the ease of many years’ practice, shutting off their view of the principal mourner. “But first let me take your coats, won’t you.”

Once he’d divested the women of their coats and umbrellas, Henry opened a door beneath the sweep of the main staircase and ushered them down a narrow hallway to the kitchen. “
Merci,
Henry, we know our way around,” Yvonne said as the undertaker pushed open the swinging door into the kitchen. “You can go back to the front.” Henry and Yvonne were old allies in the rituals of small-town death. With a nod he retreated down the dark, narrow hall.

“This place always gives me the willies,” Marie complained when they were alone again.

“It’s just a kitchen,” Cecily sniffed.

“A funeral home kitchen.” She shuddered and folded her hands beneath her breasts. “The whole house is creepy.”