Out of Circulation (CAT IN THE STACKS MYSTERY)

EIGHT

Helen Louise sank into the chair Sean pulled out for her. Diesel put a paw on her leg and laid his head beside it. He warbled for her, and she sighed and rubbed his head. “Oh, you sweet boy. You’re just what I needed.” She glanced at me and then at the other two faces regarding her with concern. “All of you.”

“How is the Wicked Witch of North Mississippi trying to run you out of business?” Laura handed Helen Louise a glass of iced tea.

Helen Louise took a quick sip before she responded. “Delicious. Vera had the gall to come into the bakery around four thirty this afternoon and inform me—in a voice loud enough for everyone within five miles to hear—that the Friends board was canceling its order for the gala. Do you know how much money I spent on the ingredients for all those pastries and cakes?”

“Why on earth would they cancel? The gala’s only a few days away.” Laura frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “Did Vera give you a reason?”

“She certainly did. She had the colossal nerve to say someone on the board had heard that several people came down with food poisoning after eating some of my food.” Helen Louise drained the rest of her tea. “That was an out-and-out lie.”

“Of course it was.” I squeezed her shoulder, and she put a hand over mine as she smiled up at me.

“How about a refill?” Sean reached for Helen Louise’s glass.

“Definitely,” she said. “Slip a little bourbon in it while you’re at it.”

Sean grinned. “If that’s what you want, I think Dad’s got some stashed away somewhere.”

Helen Louise laughed. “No, only kidding. If I start on the bourbon, I’ll just get maudlin, and none of you needs to see that.”

“What did you say to Mrs. Cassity about the food poisoning?” Laura asked. She bent to peek in the oven. “Time to get this out.”

“I lit into her like a wild dog after Jezebel.” Helen Louise offered a grim smile. “I told her exactly what I thought of her, and I also told her my lawyer would call her first thing tomorrow and she’d better be prepared for the biggest lawsuit for slander the great state of Mississippi has ever seen.”

Sean whistled as he handed her a fresh glass of tea. “I bet you were terrifying. What did Mrs. Cassity have to say then?”

“Not a blessed thing. She turned white as the proverbial driven snow—which she sure isn’t—and almost ran out of there.” Helen Louise swigged down half her glass with evident satisfaction.

“I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself like that.” I bent to drop a kiss on her cheek. “Vera is a nasty piece of work, that’s for sure.”

Helen Louise frowned. “She did say something odd, though, in the midst of all those lies about the food poisoning. Now, what was it? Oh, I know, she said I ought to be more careful about the company I keep. What do you think she meant by that?”

I felt my blood pressure start to rise, and if Vera had been anywhere near, I think I would have set aside the manners of a lifetime and slapped the pee wadden out of her. It took me a moment to calm myself enough to speak.

“I know exactly what she meant, that vicious harpy. She’s angry with me because I wouldn’t let her snoop around in the Ducote family papers. She threatened me, but Miss An’gel thwarted her, so she decided to get at me through you.”

Helen Louise used a word I had never heard her speak, disconcerting me. Diesel drew back in alarm at her tone, however, and Helen Louise hastened to reassure him. He calmed under her touch.

Laura said, “Amen to that. That woman ought to be put away somewhere. Who does she think she is, anyway?”

“Evidently she thinks she can run roughshod over everyone in town.” Sean shoved his hands in his pants pockets as he leaned back against the counter. I could see his hands ball up inside the fabric as his face darkened in anger. “Dad, we can’t let her get away with this.”

“She won’t, I can promise you that,” Helen Louise said. “The minute Vera was out the door I got on the phone and called Miss An’gel to tell her about it. She advised me to call my lawyer, as I threatened Vera I’d do. She also said she had plans to give Vera the comeuppance she so richly deserves.” She laughed. “She wouldn’t tell me what she meant. All she’d say was that I would enjoy this year’s gala more than ever and to go ahead and proceed as we’d planned with the pastries.”

That must have been the phone call Miss An’gel had to take as I was leaving River Hill, I realized.

“Who is your lawyer, by the way?” Sean asked as he set the heaping bowl of salad on the table.

Helen Louise’s expression turned impish. “Why, your future father-in-law, of course. I deal only with the best.”

Sean turned bright red, and Laura and I exchanged amused glances. Sean had been remarkably close-mouthed about his relationship with Alexandra Pendergrast since he’d begun working for her father. I could understand his reticence. His abrupt departure from Houston and his job there was connected to a prior romantic relationship.

“How is Alexandra? I haven’t talked to her in ages.” Laura couldn’t resist twisting the knife. She loved to rag her big brother; after all, turnabout was fair play when it came to sibling annoyance.

Sean shot a dark look at his sister. I read it easily. Payback would be no fun for Laura.

“If you must know, Alexandra is fine. We are fine, but we are not talking about marriage.” Sean’s icy tone boded ill for dinner conversation.

Helen Louise looked contrite. “All in good time. I’m sorry, Sean, sometimes I let my mouth run away from me. Forgive me, please?”

Sean glared for a moment, but his essential good humor quickly reasserted itself. But I didn’t trust that glint in his eye as he bent to kiss Helen Louise’s cheek. “I’ll talk about weddings when I hear you and Dad talking about one, how’s that?”

Now it was my turn to blush furiously, and Helen Louise ducked her head, obviously trying not to laugh. “Enough of that,” I finally managed to say. “I think it’s time we ate dinner.”

The quicker we got away from the subject of weddings, the better. Helen Louise and I hadn’t looked that far ahead, and frankly, I wasn’t ready to just yet. Sean and I were alike in that respect.

At the mention of dinner Diesel meowed loudly and glanced from me to Laura and back again. His expression was so hopeful, and so funny, that we all started laughing, and the tension dissipated.

We busied ourselves with plates and bowls of salad, and the conversation shifted to other topics as we ate. Diesel sat first by Helen Louise, then by Laura, knowing full well they were easier touches than Sean. I would of course be his last resort.

“Where’s Stewart tonight?” Sean asked. “Isn’t this his lasagna?”

“It is,” Laura said. “He has a date tonight, and he was all atwitter.” She grinned. “Either it’s a first date or the guy must be pretty special. Stewart changed his clothes about seven times before he finally settled on something.”

While the others chatted about Stewart and the possible identity of his new flame, I found myself unable to shake Vera Cassity from my thoughts. Her attempts to cause trouble infuriated me, and I wondered what I could possibly do to put a stop to it.

The obvious answer to that was to let her have access to the Ducote archives. But there was no way I was going to compromise my professional ethics and allow that. I’d never be able to look Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce in the face again if I did.

Thoughts of the Ducote sisters reminded me of what Helen Louise had told us earlier—and of my own conversation that afternoon with the sisters. The warlike gleam in Miss An’gel’s eyes meant trouble for Vera, but I had no idea what the Ducotes planned to do to neutralize her. Things might come to a head at the gala, according to Helen Louise. I was nervous enough already about that, and the thought of histrionics on a grand, public scale made me push my lasagna away, half eaten.

The biblical adage went around and around in my head: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” The language of the King James Version—almost always misquoted, which annoyed me—made it sound more doom laden than the modernized revisions of more recent years.

If anyone seemed hell-bent on destruction, it was Vera Cassity.