Bless Her Dead Little Heart

CHAPTER 10

Junior scrambled out of his chair to kneel by his mother. Maudine lay on her right side, moaning.

An’gel noted with relief that Maudine somehow managed to miss the low table with the Sèvres vase in front of the sofa. The vase was a souvenir of her grandmother’s honeymoon in Europe in 1900. Then she felt a bit ashamed of herself for worrying more about the vase than about Maudine—although she suspected Maudine of deliberately staging the incident. She was Rosabelle’s daughter, after all.

“Mother, are you okay?” Junior grabbed his mother’s left arm and began chafing her wrist.

As An’gel watched, Maudine’s eyelids fluttered, and she moaned yet again. Her eyes opened and focused on her son’s face. “What happened?”

Juanita appeared beside Maudine’s head. “You fainted, Aunt Maud. Come now, Junior and I will help you up, and you can sit on the sofa while someone brings you water.”

Kanesha’s young subordinate, whose name An’gel still didn’t know, responded to a signal from the chief deputy and came forward to assist. Juanita smiled and stood back. The deputy slipped his hands under Maudine’s right shoulder while Junior pulled his mother into a sitting position on the floor.

Taking the hint about the water, An’gel started toward the door, but Dickce darted out ahead of her. An’gel turned back in time to see Junior and the deputy lift Maudine and set her on the sofa.

Junior muttered “thank you” to the deputy, who stepped back. Junior continued to pat his mother’s hands and stare at her face. “Come on, Mother, everything will be okay. I didn’t mean to frighten you with what I said. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Do you think I should call a doctor?” An’gel asked Kanesha. She thought she spoke quietly enough that no one else could hear, but Juanita came over, evidently in response to her question.

“My aunt has these little spells occasionally. There’s no need to call a doctor. She’ll be right as rain in a few minutes.” Juanita winked. “I’ll keep an eye on her, of course.”

“Thank you, my dear,” An’gel said, relieved. “Deputy Berry, this is Rosabelle’s granddaughter, Juanita Cameron. Miss Cameron is a registered nurse.”

“It’s fortunate you’re here, then,” Kanesha said. “If you need any more medical assistance, though, just ask the deputy there to call.”

“Thank you, Deputy Berry. I’m sure it won’t be necessary, though,” Juanita said. She returned to stand by her mother. An’gel thought Bernice looked a bit peaky herself, but evidently she wasn’t the fainting type, unlike her sister.

“As I was saying earlier,” Kanesha said, claiming the attention of the group, “I’m going to need to meet with each one of you in turn. Please remain in this room until that time.”

An’gel was surprised there were no objections. She fully expected Rosabelle’s family to make a fuss, but perhaps they were all still subdued by the tragedy of the occasion.

Dickce returned with a glass of water and a wet cloth. She handed them over to Juanita, who began ministering to her aunt. Dickce went back to the window seat, where Benjy and Diesel sat. An’gel could tell from her sister’s actions that Dickce was concerned about the young man. She was pleased that someone was paying attention to the poor boy.

“Miss An’gel, I’d like to start with you, if you don’t mind,” Kanesha said.

“Certainly,” An’gel replied and preceded the deputy from the room.

Kanesha didn’t speak again until she and An’gel were alone in the front parlor. “I asked Mrs. Sultan to move to your study. One of my deputies is with her.”

“That’s fine.” An’gel went to the sofa and sat. Kanesha took a chair opposite.

“Two deputies are upstairs right now, searching for the source of the Vaseline. That’s why I want to keep everyone downstairs for a while.” Kanesha shook her head. “I sure am sorry to put you and Miss Dickce through all this, but it has to be done.”

“You’re not the reason behind what’s happened here,” An’gel said with a slight smile. “Rosabelle is. Of course you have to search. I expected it. I think you’ll find that the Vaseline came from either my bathroom or my sister’s. Unless the perpetrator is not too bright.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised either way. You wouldn’t believe some of the stupid things criminals do that make it easy to catch them.” Kanesha pulled out a notebook and pen. “Now, if you don’t mind, can you give me a rundown on what happened since Mrs. Sultan arrived this afternoon?”

Heavens, was it only this afternoon that they all descended upon us? An’gel took a moment to organize her thoughts before she launched into her summary of events. “Dickce and I were sitting here in the front parlor, enjoying the quiet, until I heard a car pull up out front . . .”

Kanesha occasionally jotted something down as An’gel talked but did not interrupt the narrative with questions. When An’gel finished, Kanesha thanked her and glanced over her notes.

“After Mrs. Sultan and her family members began arriving, neither you nor your sister went upstairs, except to show them to their rooms. Is that correct?”

An’gel thought for a moment. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“That means that Mrs. Sultan, her two daughters, her granddaughter, and her son and daughter-in-law were all upstairs for a period of time without you or Miss Dickce.” When An’gel nodded, Kanesha continued, “How long do you estimate they were upstairs on their own, so to speak?”

“Let me see.” An’gel frowned. “Fifteen or twenty minutes, I reckon. Rosabelle was up there longer, more like thirty to forty minutes.”

“Did Mr. Pittman or Benjy Stephens have an opportunity to go upstairs that you’re aware of?”

“No, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. Dickce took Mr. Pittman out to the garage apartment, where they found Benjy Stephens.” She paused as a thought struck her. “I suppose it’s possible that Benjy could have entered the house and then returned to the garage apartment before Dickce and Mr. Pittman found him there. I don’t think it’s likely, though.”

“Thanks,” Kanesha said. She consulted her notebook again. “I want to get another sequence fixed in my mind. When you came into the front parlor with the tea, you were accompanied by Mr. Pittman and Mr. Stephens. You found Mrs. Pittman and Mrs. Cameron already here. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” An’gel said. “I have no idea how long they’d been here, though. At least a couple of minutes, at a guess, because Mrs. Pittman was examining that vase and commenting on it to her sister.” She pointed to the Ming Dynasty piece. She didn’t think it necessary to repeat Maudine’s catty remark, nor her own comeback.

“How long was it after you came into the room that Mr. Thurmond joined you?”

“No more than five minutes,” An’gel said.

“That left Mrs. Sultan, Miss Cameron, and Ms. Stephens the only ones upstairs at that point.” Kanesha tapped the notebook with her pen.

“Then the question has to be, when did someone put water on the stairs and Vaseline on the banister?” An’gel said.

Kanesha nodded. “I’m thinking it was most likely done either before any of them came downstairs, or between the time Mrs. Pittman, Mrs. Cameron, and Mr. Thurmond came down and when Ms. Stephens fell.”

An’gel pondered that a moment. “I suppose Mr. Thurmond could have done it on his way downstairs.” She shrugged. “But he wouldn’t have had much time, unless his sisters had come down several minutes before him. He would have had to use a container for the water and then gotten rid of the Vaseline and cleaned off his hands before he came into the parlor.” She paused. “I think I would have noticed if he had been wiping his hands or if they had been visibly greasy.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.” Kanesha set her notebook and pen down on the table near her chair. “We really need to find that Vaseline and whatever was used to hold the water.”

“That latter bit may be tough,” An’gel said. “There are a number of vases upstairs in the hall and in the bedrooms, not to mention cups in the bathroom cabinets for guests to use. Dickce and I also have cups in our bathrooms.”

“Are they the disposable kind?”

“In the guest rooms, yes,” An’gel said. “Dickce and I have glasses, actually, not cups.”

“So we could be looking for a disposable cup,” Kanesha said. “Or possibly two, since the person responsible for this might have put the Vaseline into one, rather than take the entire container to the banister and then have to return it.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” An’gel said. Kanesha was so sharp, she thought. I’m sure she’ll get this sorted out as quickly as possible.

“How big are the cups?” Kanesha asked. “Would one of them hold enough water to make small puddles on a couple of stairs? If not, something larger would have been used.”

“They’re not that big,” An’gel said. “They’re about big enough for a mouthful of water, to rinse out toothpaste or take a pill. No more than that.”

“Not big enough then for the amount of water needed, I’m thinking. At least not without more than one trip, and I don’t think that’s likely.”

An’gel nodded. “Must be something else.” She thought for a moment. “There are no fresh flowers upstairs, so it wouldn’t be a vase with water already in it.”

Kanesha added that information to her notebook. Then she looked up and frowned. “This is highly irregular.”

“What do you mean?” The remark confused An’gel.

“Talking over the case with you like this.” Kanesha sighed. “By rights I should consider both you and Miss Dickce suspects, and I wouldn’t be talking like this with a suspect.” She shrugged. “No way in the world, though, that I’d ever think you and Miss Dickce deliberately injured a guest in your home.”

An’gel understood the chief deputy’s dilemma and appreciated the consideration for her and Dickce. She did not want Kanesha to get in any trouble, however, for not following proper procedure.

“Thank you for that,” she said lightly. “Dickce and I know you have a job to do, and it’s important to do it right. We’ll go along with whatever you need.”

“Thank you,” Kanesha said. “That brings me to one final question I have for you.” She paused. “Are you willing to let these people continue to stay with you and your sister until the investigation is complete?”