Out Оf Circulation

TWENTY-NINE

Slow down, Charlie, I told myself. Vera was the half sister of An’gel and Dickce, but only half, and it was because they shared the same mother. As far as I knew, Vera’s father was Jedediah Hobson, not Richard Ducote, and I couldn’t see Richard Ducote allowing a child of his to be passed off as the child of another man.

There was a simple way to settle this. I knew Richard Ducote died in an accident while Miss An’gel and Miss Dicke were very young. If his death occurred long enough before Vera was born, that would settle the issue. All I had to do was find out the exact dates of Richard Ducote’s death and Vera Hobson’s birth.

The former was simple enough. The archives kept a file of information about notable citizens of Athena, and the Ducote family figured prominently in it. Digitized a couple of years ago, it was accessible via computer.

In less than five minutes I had the information I needed. Richard Ducote died in a hunting accident seventy-five years ago, when Miss An’gel would have been about nine and Miss Dickce seven. I also checked Cecilia’s death date. She outlived Richard by nearly forty years. I recalled someone telling me that Vera’s mother died when Vera was about thirty, and that meant that Cecilia had outlived Essie Mae, more than likely.

Now to find out exactly when Vera was born. I checked an online genealogical database but that yielded no results.

That meant I would have to go to the courthouse and check the public records. As long as I was going to do that, I reckoned I might as well look up Richard Ducote’s will. It would be interesting to see whether there was any provision for Essie Mae. Come to think of it, I should also check for wills for Cecilia and Essie Mae. I remembered that Vera had inherited money from her mother, money that Essie Mae in her turn had allegedly inherited from a relative. Could the money have come from the Ducote estate?

My head ached from trying to sort out who died when and the possible implications of wills and inheritances. I’d better get down to the courthouse as soon as possible.

I checked the time. Too late to go today; it was already seventeen minutes after five. The courthouse would have to wait until tomorrow morning.

“Come on, Diesel, let’s go home.” I shut down the computer, put the journal away in my desk and locked it, thought about it a moment, unlocked the desk, and pulled the journal back out. Maybe I should take it home with me to finish reading tonight.

No, that wouldn’t be right. Materials from the Ducote Collection were not supposed to leave the archives. Back into the drawer went the journal again, and this time it stayed there.

Diesel, impatient to be on the way, meowed loudly at me. He was already by the door, and I didn’t linger.

On the walk home my head buzzed with questions. A new one that occurred to me was whether I should share the revelations from Cecilia Ducote’s journal with Kanesha. If one of the Ducote sisters did turn out to be the killer, then the information about the relationship with Vera would have to come out.

But if they were both innocent, there was no point in anyone else knowing the story. It was a private family matter, and I felt guilty enough as it was for having pried into it myself.

I couldn’t share this with Kanesha yet. If I found some proof that either Miss An’gel or Miss Dickce pushed Vera down those stairs, I would have to. But until then I would keep quiet about what I’d learned.

That one decision made, I felt better. Diesel and I turned into the driveway and headed for the back door. I let him open the door, and while he did, I pulled my ringing cell phone from my pocket.

Kanesha. That was eerie. I had just been thinking about her, and now she was calling. I stepped into the empty kitchen as I answered.

“I’m about five minutes away from there. Okay if I stop by?” she said after barely giving me time to say hello.

“Sure, come on by.”

I had just enough time to shed my coat and read a hastily scrawled note from Laura, informing me that everyone would be out for dinner tonight and I was on my own, when the doorbell rang.

“Thought it would be good to check in with you, share information,” Kanesha said without preamble the moment I opened the door.

I stood aside for her to enter and then followed her into the kitchen where Diesel was waiting. He meowed loudly three times, and I understood the message.

“Please have a seat, and I’ll be back in a minute,” I said with an apologetic smile. “His Majesty has informed me that the Royal Food Bowl is empty and in need of filling.”

Kanesha scowled as she pulled out a chair and sat.

I hurried into the utility room to take care of Diesel’s needs. He watched anxiously as I added fresh dry food to his bowl—not completely empty, by the way—then warbled to let me know I was dismissed now that I had fulfilled my duty.

Smiling, I went back to the kitchen to join Kanesha. “Can I offer you something to drink?” I asked. I went to the fridge to fetch a can of diet soda for myself.

“No, thank you. Have you turned up anything else?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute. First, how is your mother? She didn’t come to work today.” I explained about the note I’d found this morning.

Kanesha frowned. “When I talked to her, she was fine, or so she said. She didn’t say anything about not coming to work today. That’s how she is, though. She won’t ever tell me when she’s not feeling good, because she doesn’t want me to worry.”

“Aunt Dottie was the same way,” I said. “I hope Azalea got some rest.” I decided to start with the reenactment as I sat down across the table from her. She leaned forward in her chair as I told her what we’d done.

“That was a good idea,” she said when I finished. “Any conclusions?”

“Mostly that Azalea would have had a hard time seeing much. It was even darker in there than I realized.”

“Do you still think there’s something she’s holding back?”

I nodded. “It’s a feeling I can’t shake. I know it doesn’t sound rational, but there was simply something about her manner the first time I talked to her. And the second time as well. I want to talk to her again, and this time I’m determined to find out what she’s not telling us.”

“Good luck.” Kanesha leaned back in her chair. “Anything else you can tell me?”

“I went to visit Sissy and Hank Beauchamp today, too. Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce came by again this morning and asked me to go see the Beauchamps to collect the money they promised for the fund-raiser.”

“Did you actually get money from them?”

“A check from Sissy,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“I wish Miss An’gel luck in getting it cashed. I’ve been doing some checking into people’s money, trying to see what the financial angle could be in this case. The Beauchamps are in bad shape. There’s actually a mortgage on the house, and they’re behind three months already. Hank’s law practice isn’t doing well, and Sissy has never worked a day in her life.”

“Any idea why they’re so short of money?” I asked. “I thought the Beauchamps were wealthy.”

“They used to be,” Kanesha replied. “Their father was rich, left them a lot of money from his own law practice. But Sissy has expensive tastes, and so does Hank. He also has a gambling problem.”

I nodded, remembering again what Helen Louise had told me. That was a fast way to run through a fortune. I felt sorry for them, but I realized that, in terms of motive, they had to be considered prime suspects in Vera’s death.

“I thought the house looked rather sad, needs new paint, and there’s not a lot of furniture, at least in the hall and in the front parlor.”

Kanesha nodded. “Aunt Lily told me they had started selling the furniture. She said it like to have broke her heart, seeing all those family heirlooms go. Then they had to let her go, too. They couldn’t pay her, and she couldn’t work for free.”

“I didn’t know your aunt worked for the Beauchamps.”

“For nearly forty years.” Kanesha made a sour face. “And now she has to go out looking for a new job, at her age. She can’t afford to retire.”

“I’m sorry she’s lost her job.” I was about to add, If there’s anything I can do, let me know, but I realized in time that wouldn’t go over too well. Kanesha would bite my head off.

“What about Morty Cassity?” I asked. “Is his financial position solid?”

“From everything I can find out, he’s in excellent shape. Worth about twenty-five million or so.”

“Money that the Beauchamps could certainly use, and with Vera out of the way, Morty is free to marry Sissy.”

“That could wrap it up pretty neatly,” Kanesha said. “But there’s a matter of proof. Motive is there, but we still have to make sure one of the three of them had the opportunity.”

“Morty was upstairs with Vera,” I said. “We know that from Azalea’s evidence.”

“He was upstairs with her part of the time, but we don’t know for sure that he was still upstairs when she got pushed. Unless Mama can swear in court that she saw him do it, of course.”

Her cell phone rang as I was about to pose a question. Kanesha held up a hand to forestall me as she answered her phone. “Right,” she said. “On my way right now.” She ended the call and put the phone back in her pocket. “Three-car accident about three miles out of town. We’ll talk more later.”

That was fine with me. Maybe by the time we talked again, I would know enough to make a decision about sharing what I’d learned about Vera’s connection to the Ducote family. I showed Kanesha to the door, then wandered back to the kitchen to figure out what to have for dinner.

Diesel waited by the fridge and peered inside the moment I opened it. I never could figure out what it was he looked for, but he inevitably wanted to see inside whenever someone opened the door.

I found a casserole dish with a note on it. “Found this in the freezer, so I took it out to let it thaw for you. Love, Laura.” I pulled the casserole out and peeled off the foil and plastic wrap. It looked like one of Azalea’s chicken, broccoli, rice, and cheese casseroles. Good rib-sticking food. Not exactly healthy, but definitely tasty.

I put it in the oven to warm. While I waited for dinner to be ready, I went upstairs to wash up and fetch the book I was reading, the latest Ellery Adams Books by the Bay mystery. This was a relatively new series, but I loved the characters and the North Carolina setting.

Downstairs again, I checked the casserole, but it needed about another fifteen minutes. I tried to read, but I couldn’t block my worries about Vera Cassity’s murder from my mind. I put the book aside for now and focused instead on the thoughts that wouldn’t leave me alone.

I kept coming back to Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce. What if one of them had killed Vera? For the sake of the family honor. Would an eighty-year-old scandal be that much of a scandal now? All the principals involved were long dead.

Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce might be embarrassed by the revelation that Cecilia Ducote was not their birth mother. They might be even more embarrassed to have to acknowledge Vera Cassity as a half sister.

But I couldn’t see embarrassment as a compelling motive for murder.

Then again, my family had never been as prominent as the Ducotes, though they had been in Athena about as long. I was proud of my ancestors, and I knew of some skeletons in the family cupboards that were rather embarrassing, but still.

A lot would hinge on what I found out about the wills of the three principals, Richard, Cecilia, and Essie Mae. And whether Vera could possibly be a third daughter of Richard Ducote. I think if I could have broken into the courthouse right then and there to get to the information I wanted, I would have. Patience had never been one of my virtues, particularly when the stakes were this high.

The casserole was as delicious as I expected, and I ate rather more than I should have. That was what happened when I was anxious. I fetched Diesel some of the treats he liked rather than letting him have any of the casserole. There were also onions in it, I realized, and he didn’t need onions or cheese. He for once seemed satisfied with the treats, perhaps because I pretended they came from the casserole dish.

The Ducote sisters. I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Every which way I turned, there they were. They’d orchestrated Vera’s “retirement” from public life, and I had to wonder how much else they might have orchestrated. Now that I thought about it, they had certainly been directing my footsteps. First they asked me to involve myself in the case, then they sent me off to talk to Morty Cassity. This morning they had me going to talk to Hank and Sissy Beauchamp.

Were they purposely directing me so that I wouldn’t have time to think about them as possible prime suspects in Vera’s murder?