Bless Her Dead Little Heart

CHAPTER 28

“There’s no car,” An’gel said. She stared at the door as if she could see through it.

“Yes, there is,” Dickce replied, obviously puzzled. “Kanesha’s squad car is right there on the driveway.”

“Are you all right, Miss An’gel?” Kanesha asked. “Were you expecting another car?”

“There should be another car in the driveway,” An’gel said. “All our other guests have put their cars behind the house, near the garage. I should have realized it earlier, when he arrived.”

“What are you talking about, Sister?” Dickce said.

“Antonio,” An’gel replied. “There’s no car in the driveway, so how did he get here? He surely didn’t walk.”

“That’s definitely strange,” Kanesha said. “He could have taken a taxi from Athena.”

“Then how did he get to Athena? Surely he didn’t take a taxi all the way down from Memphis—assuming that he flew into Memphis, that is.” An’gel couldn’t make sense of it.

“We’ll just have to ask him,” Dickce said. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.” She chuckled. “Unless he got beamed down from the mother ship.”

An’gel threw her a sour look. She turned to Kanesha. “Let’s go into the library. Dickce and I have a few things to share with you before you talk to Rosabelle.”

An’gel resumed her seat at the desk, and Kanesha and Dickce took chairs near it. Diesel sat in front of the deputy and chirped.

“Yes, cat, I see you,” Kanesha said. Her hands remained on the arms of her chair. Diesel looked at her for a moment before turning and going to sit by An’gel’s chair.

“Dickce, tell Kanesha about the phone conversation you overheard,” An’gel said.

Dickce gave a quick summary of Antonio’s side of the conversation.

“You’re sure that he was talking to a man?” Kanesha asked when she finished.

“Yes,” Dickce replied. “We think it could have been his son in Italy, but the tone of the words sounded a bit, well, intimate, for the lack of any other word.”

“The main point is that he promised this person he was going to ask Rosabelle for a divorce,” An’gel said. “There was no hint of it otherwise in his demeanor toward Rosabelle.”

“That could be a side issue that has nothing to do with the murder,” Kanesha said. “The main point, it seems to me, is the plan to move to Italy and the effect that could have.” She frowned. “What should I call her? Sultan was her maiden name, wasn’t it?”

An’gel nodded. “We still think of her that way. Keeping track of the three husbands and their names seemed like too much trouble. Antonio’s surname is Mingione, but he also has a title, Conte di San Lorenzo.”

“That makes her the contessa, then?” Kanesha asked.

“Yes,” Dickce said. “Now that she wants to go live in Italy, you can bet she’s going to make the most of it, too.”

“Until we solve this case, I can’t allow her to leave the country,” Kanesha said. “She’s a suspect along with most of her family.”

“The only exceptions being Benjy and Junior, right?” Dickce said. “Because they had no opportunity to go upstairs and set the stage for the accident.”

Kanesha nodded. “I’ve ruled them out. I need to talk to the contessa and her husband now. I need to make sure she understands the situation.”

An’gel rose. “I’ll go up and let them know you want to talk to them.” She didn’t relish the prospect of interrupting whatever little tête-à-tête Rosabelle and Antonio might be having. She couldn’t put it off, however. When she arrived at Rosabelle’s room, she tapped lightly on the door. She heard nothing from inside the room. Were they asleep? She rapped soundly three times, and after a moment, Rosabelle opened the door. She was in her dressing gown, and An’gel felt a bit awkward.

She looked at the doorknob as she spoke. “Sorry to bother you, but Chief Deputy Berry is here. She needs to speak to you and to Antonio right away.”

“Now?” Rosabelle sounded peevish. “I suppose we might as well get it over with. Tell her we’ll be down in about ten minutes.”

The door shut in An’gel’s face. Rosabelle hadn’t even given her time to tell her where Kanesha was waiting for them. An’gel turned and went back downstairs.

“They’ll be down in ten minutes,” she reported to the deputy.

“Thank you, Miss An’gel,” Kanesha said.

“Have you made any progress with this case?” An’gel asked.

“Not really,” Kanesha replied. “I have gone over all the statements several times, and there isn’t anything in them that is all that helpful. No one saw anything. There were no fingerprints on either the tube of Vaseline or the water pistol.”

“So frustrating,” An’gel said. “At some point, if you can’t resolve this, you’ll have to let all of them leave, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Kanesha said. “I can’t keep them here indefinitely.”

An’gel wasn’t any happier about that prospect than Kanesha, but at the same time she was looking forward to the time when all the guests were out of the house.

They waited in silence for Rosabelle and Antonio. An’gel felt like she could use a nap. The unrelieved stress of the situation seemed to sap her energy more quickly than if she had been working hard at something all day long.

“Here we are, Deputy Berry,” Rosabelle announced from the doorway. She advanced into the room with Antonio by her side. “You wanted to talk to us, I hear.”

An’gel thought, a bit snidely, that Rosabelle entered like a contessa about to give audience to her peasants. An’gel took a bit of satisfaction from the knowledge that what Kanesha had to say would give her old friend a much-needed reacquaintance with reality.

“Dickce and I will leave you to it.” An’gel rose from her chair. “Come along, Diesel, you, too.”

Antonio stared at the cat. “What manner of creature is this? I have never seen a cat so big.”

Dickce quickly explained about Diesel’s breed and his size. Antonio moved close to the cat and extended a hand. Diesel sniffed once, then moved away. He passed by Rosabelle and out into the hall. An’gel and Dickce exchanged wry glances. The cat was definitely not impressed by the conte or his contessa.

“Thank you for coming down,” Kanesha said.

An’gel moved out of earshot, with Dickce ahead of her. When Dickce lingered in the hallway, An’gel grabbed her arm and pulled her along with her toward the parlor. “No more eavesdropping.”

“Spoilsport.” Dickce grinned and shook her arm loose from her sister’s grasp. “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough, because la contessa will have something to say. She always does.”

“No doubt about that.” An’gel snorted. “Rosabelle has never met a silence she couldn’t fill.”

Diesel climbed onto the sofa beside An’gel and lay his head and front legs across her lap. She rubbed his head, and he rewarded her with his rumbling purr. Dickce sat at the end of the sofa, with the cat’s tail in her lap.

“I could easily get used to this,” An’gel said. “I’m going to miss you, big boy, when your family gets home and you go back to them.”

She glanced at Dickce, who seemed to be considering something, to judge by her expression. She waited a moment, but Dickce didn’t speak. She could ask whether her sister had something on her mind, but she knew all too well that Dickce wouldn’t share whatever it was until she was ready. There was no point in prodding her.

Her mind returned to an unanswered question that still niggled at her. “When Kanesha is done with them, I want to ask Antonio how he got here. I still think it’s strange that there was no car in the driveway.”

“It is odd,” Dickce said, “but I’m sure there’s an innocent, logical explanation. You’re making too much out of it.”

Perhaps she was, An’gel thought. She simply didn’t like not being able to account for each and every detail.

“Thank goodness the deputy will be in the house again tonight,” Dickce said. “I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty nervous over what could happen. I wonder if the killer is going to make another attempt.”

“Surely if the killer has any brains at all, he or she won’t try again. Not with a deputy in the house and all of us on alert.” An’gel felt the tension increasing every hour. If only there were some way to bring the situation to a head, without anyone getting hurt or killed in the process. Could they possibly set a trap for the killer?

She considered that for a moment, then slowly an idea began to form in her mind.

A high-pitched scream interrupted her thoughts.