Authors: Barbara Colley

Maid for Murder (17 page)

BOOK: Maid for Murder

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“Aunt Charley. Surely Jeanne Dubuisson mentioned her husband to you once in a while.”

“She never actually complained, mind you. All she ever said was that he worked a lot even when he was home.”

Judith made a sound of frustration. “This is getting us nowhere fast. Okay, forget her for now. What about the old lady?”

“What about her?” Charlotte hedged.

“Did she get along with her son-in-law? Did she like him, hate him? What?”

“She’s an old lady,” Charlotte answered. “She has her good days and bad days.”

“That’s not what I’m asking, and you know it. Please, Aunt Charley, don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

Charlotte stared at her niece. “You’re right. It’s just that—I—I—” She shrugged away the explanation. “Never mind.” She lifted her chin. “Miss Clarice was very vocal in her opinions about Jackson. She didn’t like him or respect him. But like I said, she’s an old lady ... maybe even a bit senile at times.” And that was all Charlotte intended to say on the matter.

“The girl ...” Judith checked her notes. “I believe Anna-Maria is her name. How did she get along with her father?”

When Charlotte glared at her niece, Judith held up her hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. Forget the daughter. But Aunt Charley, is there anything—anything at all—that you can tell me about the Dubuisson family or their friends that might help?”

Charlotte thought about Brian O’Connor and what Clarice had said about him. Still she hesitated. But which would be worse? To maintain her loyalty and keep what Clarice had told her to herself or breach that loyalty in hopes of protecting the family from further allegations?

In an attempt to stretch the tense muscles in her neck, she tilted her head first to one side and then the other. Maybe, she thought, just maybe, there might be a way she could tell what she knew without compromising her principles.

“There might be another suspect,” she finally said. “Mind you, I said might,” she emphasized when she saw Judith’s eyes brighten with interest. “But I won’t tell you how I know, so don’t ask.”

“Okay, Aunt Charley. Fair enough ... for now. So—who is this suspect?”

“There’s a man named Brian O’Connor who my source claims is the murderer,” Charlotte began, and as she repeated what she’d been told by Clarice, Judith jotted down notes, only interrupting Charlotte’s story to clarify a couple of the facts.

“And you’re sure you can’t tell me who gave you this information?” she asked when Charlotte had finished.

“I’d rather not,” she answered. “I can’t see what purpose it would serve at this stage.”

“Hmm ...” Judith tapped the notebook with the pen. “I suppose you’re right, but I might have to insist that you do so at some point if any of what you’ve told me about this Brian O’Connor turns out to be true. But even if it’s true, even if he is Anna-Maria Dubuisson’s real father, that’s not much of a motive for murder.” She paused. “And another thing. Why now? Why would he have waited so long to get his revenge?”

Judith’s questions weren’t really directed at Charlotte and didn’t require a response, but sharp pangs of guilt nagged at her. “If it helps,” she said, “I can’t see how it’s much of a motive, either. And to be honest, I don’t consider the information that reliable, considering the person who told me. But be that as it may, I still felt obligated to pass it along.”

Judith shoved her fingers through her hair and flounced around to a different position on the sofa. “Don’t worry about it, Aunt Charley. You did the right thing by telling me, and I’ll check it out. Discreetly, of course,” she added. “But at this rate, this case is going nowhere fast. And frankly, right now, I’m at a dead end—Oops! Sorry, Aunt Charley, no pun intended. All I meant was that both the primary suspects have alibis.”

Hoping that Judith would tell her more about the alibis, Charlotte raised one eyebrow and directed a pointed look at her.

“Okay, okay. I really shouldn’t,” she said, “but I don’t guess it would hurt to tell you. None of it is a big, dark secret, anyway. Tony Marriott claims he and his wife were on their sailboat in the middle of Lake Pontchartrain at the time. And of course, his wife corroborates the story.”

“Well, I can’t imagine Tony would be stupid enough to murder Jackson, anyway,” Charlotte exclaimed, “especially not after what happened on Friday night. As a lawyer, surely he would realize that there were too many witnesses to his altercation with Jackson.”

Judith nodded. “Exactly my conclusions, too.”

“And Jeanne?”

“Mrs. Dubuisson’s mother swears that she and her daughter were watching a late-night television movie together. Says she wasn’t feeling well and Jeanne didn’t want to leave her alone.”

“Sounds like something Jeanne would do,” Charlotte said. “She’s very devoted to her mother.”

“Yes, well, at first I thought it was a little strange that neither of the women heard anything.” She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “But the way that house is built, and if they were both upstairs with a television set going, it’s possible, I suppose.”

Judith paused and stared with unseeing eyes at a point just beyond Charlotte’s head. “The case is young yet, but the whole thing has me stumped. Brick-wall time,” she said, unable to mask her frustration. “I’ll check around about this Brian O’Connor person. But unless we can come up with a murder weapon or discredit either Jeanne Dubuisson’s or Tony Marriott’s alibis, I’m afraid this is going to be just one more of those lovely unsolved cases that already clutter my files.”

Chapter Thirteen

N
ormally, Charlotte tried to keep Thursdays free from commitments so she could catch up on paperwork or do whatever was needed to keep her service running smoothly as well as take care of personal errands. But with the two unexpected days off on Monday and Tuesday, she’d already done everything. Thursday loomed before her like a vast wasteland of unending time.

“And Hank wants me to retire,” she muttered as she pulled on her walking shoes. Without her work, what would she do all day long?

Go crazy,
she thought as she tied the laces into double knots, then headed for the front door. “Absolutely crazy, crazy, crazy,” she told Sweety Boy as she paused in front of his cage.

But Charlotte knew there was more to her restlessness than having nothing to do. She could always find
something
to do if she really wanted to. And if all else failed, she could always catch up on the latest movies she hadn’t seen in the theater. It had been a long time since she’d indulged in one of her afternoon movie marathons.

The trouble was, she didn’t want to do anything. After Judith had left, she’d tried watching television, but even with eighty-some-odd cable stations to choose from, nothing had held her interest for very long. She’d finally selected a book from the fresh batch Bitsy had given her and tried reading for a while.

But nothing had worked, and she’d spent a restless night tossing and turning and replaying in her mind the conversation she’d had with her niece about the relationships between the members of the Dubuisson family.

“One thing I can do, though,” she told the little parakeet. She poked her finger into the cage and wiggled it. “I can clean out that nasty cage of yours.” As if agreeing, the little bird nodded his head up and down and made chirping noises; then he hopped closer to her finger.

Charlotte rubbed the back of his head. “Now say, ‘Bye-bye, Charlotte,’ ” she instructed. The parakeet pushed against her finger with his head and made a gurgling noise. “Come on, boy, you can do it. Say it. Say, ‘Bye-bye, Charlotte.’ ”

“Crazy.”

Charlotte froze when she heard the garbled sound. “Did you just say, ‘Crazy’?” She stared at the little bird and narrowed her eyes. The parakeet cocked his head and stared back. “No way,” she whispered, pulling her finger out of the cage. “Bad enough I talk to myself. Now I’m hearing things as well.”

Outside, the sky was overcast, and the warm air was heavy and humid, a sure sign of rain. The narrow street was quiet, with little traffic, since most of Charlotte’s neighbors had either already left for work or hadn’t ventured out yet.

Across the street, her neighbor’s black-and-tan Doberman suddenly spotted her. He bared his teeth and, with a low warning growl, strained against the leash that kept him tied to the front porch. Then he began to bark.

Charlotte glared at the Doberman. “Be quiet, Prince,” she commanded in a firm, loud voice. “It’s just me, you silly mutt.”

Prince immediately stopped barking and began to whine instead. Ignoring the dog, Charlotte took a few minutes to do some warm-up stretches, then she struck out down the sidewalk and headed toward the intersection of Milan and Magazine.

But with every step, no matter how hard she tried to clear her mind and concentrate on coordinating the swinging of her arms and her breathing with her pace, nagging thoughts of Jackson Dubuisson’s murder kept interfering.

Judith had said she would have the results of the autopsy today. Charlotte wondered what, if anything, the report would turn up. She also wondered if Judith would share what the report said if she called and asked.

Half a block from home, a sudden prickly uneasiness came over her. At first, she ignored the feeling, telling herself that she was being silly. Milan Street was a perfectly safe street, one that she knew like the back of her hand. But with each step she took, the uneasy feeling persisted and grew worse.

Someone was watching her.

Without breaking stride, and trying not to be too obvious, she casually glanced around, her gaze taking in both sides of the street within her view.

Nothing. There was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing more sinister or threatening than the roots of the oak trees protruding through the cracked sidewalk.

When she chanced a quick look over her shoulder, however, she immediately spotted the source of her discomfort.

A blue Ford Taurus was cruising slowly behind her. The car was just far enough back so that the noise of the vehicle had blended in with the sound of traffic passing on Magazine Street.

Because of the distance and the car’s tinted windows, she didn’t recognize the driver right away. But something about the outline of the driver made her suspect that the person behind the wheel was male.

The minute the driver realized she’d spotted him, he gunned the engine and drove past her. Though the side windows of the car were even more darkly tinted than the windshield, Charlotte got a good glimpse of the driver.

Detective Louis Thibodeaux.

Maybe he wouldn’t stop, she prayed, and held her breath.

When he pulled the vehicle over to the curb, just ahead of her, then stopped, her nerves tightened like the strings of a violin. Charlotte released her pent-up breath and slowed her pace. He was waiting for her, she suddenly realized, waiting for her to come to him. Why, the man didn’t even have the decency to get out of his car. He was sitting there, waiting, as if she were some street hooker.

Charlotte felt her temper flare. It would serve him right if she ignored him and just kept on walking. Or even better, she could pull an about-face and head the other way. That would show him.

In the end, she did neither. Still fuming, and ignoring the tiny voice inside her head that said she was overreacting, out of sheer stubbornness she stopped several feet behind the detective’s car. If he wanted to talk, he’d have to come to her, she decided.

With her hands on her hips, she glared at the parked vehicle and tapped her foot impatiently while she waited. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the car door swung open, and the detective climbed out.

Louis Thibodeaux was dressed in neatly pressed khaki pants and a solid brown shirt with a buttoned-down collar, the sleeves rolled halfway to his elbows. Though he wasn’t a tall man, there was something about his stocky appearance that made him seem large and intimidating, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d harangued and bullied Jeanne when he’d questioned her.

“I hope I didn’t scare you,” he said. “I spotted you walking down the street right after I pulled up to your house.”

Charlotte chose to say nothing, for she wasn’t about to admit that he had frightened her.

“I wanted to apologize about missing our meeting yesterday.”

Charlotte wasn’t sure exactly what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t an apology.

“I’d still like to ask you a few questions,” he continued.

“What kind of questions?” she blurted out. “I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t already told my niece. And now isn’t really a good time for me,” she quickly added. Of course, no time would be good for her as long as he was asking the questions, but she couldn’t say that.

“There are just a couple of points I want to clarify.”

Charlotte tilted her head and raised one eyebrow as if to say, So go ahead.

“Could I buy you a cup of coffee while we talk? There’s a coffeehouse not far on Magazine.”

BOOK: Maid for Murder

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