A Masquerade of Saints (Saints Mystery Series Book 3) Read online

  He parked and walked towards Maurice. Beau and I were within a few feet of him when he took notice and said, “Hell, no.”

  He reached in his pocket, presumably for a cell phone and came up empty.

  “Please, Remy,” I said. “I need your help.”

  “You need my help,” he said shouting. “If you want my help then why don’t you tell me what you done did with Curly?”

  “I don’t know where he is,” I pleaded. “I came to town looking for him almost as soon as I left the Hadley’s, and he was gone by the time I got his address.”

  “The police say you stole the poison from his garage. Used it on those Baxter kids, and ran out of town.”

  “That’s not what happened,” I said, and he turned towards his truck waving me off.

  I was about to give in to defeat when Maurice chimed in. “She’s tellin’ the truth. She came to me asking bout Curly just a few days ago. Before I got the address I heard that Curly had been missing.”

  Remy stopped and turned back to me, examining my face. “Well, shit den. What happened?”

  “That’s where I need you. I did go to Curly’s house to try to figure out where the Baxters lived, and Carmen kicked me out before I learned anything. I came back later and took a book from his house to get the address. That’s it.”

  “Why you so interested in finding those folks? The police won’t tell me anything.”

  “I am Helene Baxter. I’m that girl everybody thought drowned in the river. I didn’t tell you sooner because I didn’t think you would believe me. When I went to the Hadley's house I lied, too. I told them I was looking for the Baxters because their hired man had been murdered.”

  Remy looked at me for a moment then walked back towards his truck. I thought he was aiming for the front to get in and leave, but he turned and went to the bed of the truck. He pulled down the tailgate and pulled himself up to sit on it.

  “I need a minute here,” he said.

  “I know it’s shocking. There is a long story behind what happened to me, and if you give me time I will tell you about it.”

  “That’s shocking as hell. It makes some things make more sense. You gonna want to sit down to hear what I have to say.”

  I pulled myself up to the tailgate to set beside him, Beau followed me.

  “Are you talkin’ about the Baxter’s hired man who used to wear those ugly tweed suits?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “I knew there was something wrong with that man,” he said. “Some years back, when the Baxters moved to the city, they let all they country staff go; me and that tweed wearing son-of-a-bitch included. I just moved across the street you know and took over grounds wit the Hadleys, but lots of people had a tough time finding a place to land. I worked there for almost a year before that tweed wearin’ so and so came around. He came up to the door one day carrying an envelope, and Ms. Massey turned him away. But he pushed past her to the lady of the house. Massey said he jumped in front of Ms. Hadley and showed her something from the envelope, and she told him to come on in.

  From that day on the Tweed man stopped by the house every week or so, dropped off an envelope and left. We all wondered what he was doing for her, but now I think I know.”

  I was glad I was sitting down. My heart was racing.

  “Do you think she hired him to kill me?” I asked.

  “There is only one reason Mrs. Hadley gets off her ass to do anything, and that’s money,” said Remy. “And I got one guess as to how you, money and the Hadleys fit together.”

  “I am Mr. Hadley’s daughter,” I said.

  Remy touched his nose.

  “So she was trying to kill me, but got George and Elaine instead. How did she do it?” I asked looking at him.

  Beau said, “Did they have drinks or anything the rest of y’all didn’t have?”

  “Martinis,” I said. “But, why would she poison that? It’s a long shot that I would drink a martini. And she would have had to hire somebody in the house to help her. Do you know any of the people who work in her house?” I said looking at Remy.

  “A couple of good ole southern girls, but nobody I know would be willing to do work like that. You’re lookin’ for somebody more along the lines of the tweed man. You’re lookin’ for somebody with a little money that is hungry for a lot more.”

  “I suppose it could have been Mrs. Hadley. But I don’t know. I still think it might have been Elaine. She hated me from the minute she saw me. What if she poisoned herself a little and George a lot.”

  Remy said, "I’ve been wondering about the poison a lot, Fanchon. The police asked me where Curly got it. It was an old slug repellent laced with a high dose of tobacco. You can’t get it nowadays, been outlawed, but we had a few cans lying around from back when. Nothing works as good as that old stuff, and I save a few cans for when I got a bad problem in a flower bed. Tobacco works great on slugs, but it wouldn't be a natural choice to poison a person. A body can take in a whole lot of it before it does any damage. The only thing you gotta be careful about with tobacco is vapors. I always wore a mask, because the vapors are more dangerous than the fluid."

  "George smoked!" I yelled. "What if he drank the poison and smoked a cigarette right after he drank it, while the poison was still in his mouth?"

  Remy looked at me. "That could kill a man."

  "If the person who used the poison knew that ingesting tobacco wasn’t that dangerous then they probably weren’t trying to kill anybody. See Beau, it was probably my sister trying to get me out of the picture. I need proof, Remy. Can you see if anybody in the kitchen saw anything?"

  "How I get a hold of you if I find out?” Remy said.

  I turned to Maurice and pointed. “I’ll check in with him.”

  “Do me a favor please, cher,” he said. “If you hear anything about Curly you let me know. Same way.” He pointed to Maurice.

  I nodded.

  High society

  Beau and I walked back to the car, and I called Banyan, planning to tell him all that I had learned and suspected.

  After he said hello I asked him if he had picked up the package from the voodoo shop.

  "Fanchon, I did get it," he said. "But I need you to come in now.”

  “We’ve been over this, Banyan. I’m not coming in until I have a solid…”

  He cut me off. “George just died."

  My jaw went slack and felt a pain grow in my chest as I took in the information. Beau leaned over and said, “What’s wrong?”

  “George died,” I said shakily and put my head down on the dashboard, covering my head with my arms.

  “Fanchon,” Banyan said, but by then I had slid down into the seat and was crying.

  Beau took the phone and told Banyan we were on our way. He hung up the phone and set it on the dash. He tried to start the car but the engine whined before completely puttering out. Beau looked down at the gauges and saw that the interior lights had been left on and the battery had died.

  He gave me the rest of the money out of my bag and told me to take a cab to the police station. He planned to go back to Maurice for a jump and said he would meet me there.

  I walked into the station alone and was immediately escorted to an interrogation room. I was given a stack of papers on which to write a statement. I was left with them for over an hour and recounted all that had happened at the party and in the days afterwards. Just as I laid down the pen Banyan walked in, followed closely by Lieutenant Portvliet. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she sashayed her hips as she walked past me. Banyan sat across from me. His eyes were soft and he was leaning forward with his arms spread out. The lieutenant sat behind him and narrowed her eyes so much I could see the wrinkles forming around her eyes.

  "Why did you run from the police the night they came to your house?" he asked.

  "Because I had broken into Curly's house to take an address book, and I thought it would make me look guilty."

  "Did you get the addre
ss book?" he asked.

  "No, I found a different book. A calendar, but it didn’t have the address I was looking for in it."

  "Where’s this book?"

  I told him I thought it was with Beau in my backpack. Lieutenant Portvliet stood behind him looking at me with angry disbelief every time I opened my mouth. I told him all that I had learned from the Madame, Massey and Remy. He diligently wrote it all down, but his face did not give any indication of whether or not he believed me.

  "Did you go anywhere else today?" he asked.

  “No,” I said. Then I remembered visiting Jason Stepwald in the hospital.

  “Yes. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this. I saw Jason Stepwald this morning, and he told me he was paid to kill me back in New York. He readily admitted it. He said he knew who it was, but he didn’t get a chance to tell me. Go ask him."

  Banyan looked down at his piece of paper. "He might talk if he were still alive."

  "What?" I said.

  He turned around to look at the lieutenant. She stepped forward, grabbed my arms and turned them over. She seemed to deflate after examining my arms. Apparently she didn’t find what she was looking for.

  Banyan turned to her and said, "See?"

  "What?" I asked.

  "Jason took the skin off of whomever it was that smothered him and the nails on his good hand were nice and long. Somebody’s walking around with an arm that should look like it was shredded by a cougar."

  I thought that Jason must have done that on purpose. He was in no shape to fight, but he knew somebody's DNA under his nails would exonerate me. Banyan said they saw me visit Jason when they played the hospital’s surveillance tapes at the precinct.

  “Everybody thought it was you,” he said. “There was a pool on it.”

  “There was a man in a trench coat and glasses who came in after me,” I said.

  Lt. Portvliet rolled her eyes, “That’s about the most clichéd criminal description I have ever heard in my life. You know what I think, Fanchon…”

  She was cut off when the door to the room swung open and a tall man wearing an expensive looking three-piece suit walked in holding a briefcase. He claimed to be my lawyer. There was an important looking man wearing a tie with a badge on his hip standing next to him who called Lt. Portvliet out of the room. She looked like she wanted to stomp her feet, but instead she shot me a look of death on her way out of the room.

  The lawyer looked at Banyan and told him I was free to go.

  We walked out of the interrogation room and down the hall as if nothing had just happened. I tried to thank him but he said he was not there for me. He said Marlene needed me. She was running out of time for a transplant.

  We walked out of the station and found a limousine waiting for us at the curb. The lawyer opened the door, and I saw Marlene slumped over with her head against the window. I stepped in beside her, and she opened her eyes to look at me.

  "Marlene, I am so sorry about everything."

  She nodded. The lawyer said, "Marlene's doctor is waiting for us at the hospital for pre-testing. They won't be able to perform the transplant for at least a week, but we need to see if you are compatible before we even talk about it."

  We rode together to the hospital in silence. I tried to touch her shoulder once, but she very subtly flinched away. I thought Marlene must believe I killed George, but she had no choice other than to help me out of it because she was dying. I had a feeling once she had my kidney she would turn me loose.

  Just before we arrived I felt I had to ask something that had been bothering me.

  "Why do you go to the free hospital for treatment, Marlene?"

  She sat up to talk, and the lawyer chimed in for her. "Marlene had her children at that hospital, and her family set up a trust which helps fund the hospital. Marlene has always felt that she should patronize the services of the hospital her family has supported for the underprivileged."

  She nodded her head in agreement and closed her eyes.

  We pulled right up to the doors of the hospital, and she was whisked away to the dialysis center. The lawyer escorted me to the doctor’s offices on the other side of the hospital.

  I underwent a lengthy physical exam and gave a urine sample. The doctor started to talk to me about the different tests to be conducted with my blood when a nurse walked in and whispered something in his ear.

  He excused himself, came back and asked me to wait to have my blood drawn by the nurse.

  "Is everything okay?" I asked.

  "There has been a development. We may not need your donation after all."

  I tried to ask more, but he left without referring to me again. The nurse he was talking to ran beside him, and I was left standing in the hall by myself.

  I walked down the corridor back to reception and told the receptionist that nobody took my sample. She had me wait for a nurse from another department.

  I sat in the waiting room watching Judge Judy until my old pal nurse Hattie walked in.

  "Oh my sweet lord, what a day!" she shouted when she saw me. "Get on up Fanchon. Let's get this blood flowing."

  "What's goin' on?" I asked.

  "Oh, such a blessing. A man just died," she said and caught her breath at an inopportune moment. "He was an organ donor, and his blood type was just the same as your friend Marlene."

  "Marlene is not my friend Hattie. She's my mother."

  "She's not your mother," Hattie said. "I delivered both of her babies, Elaine and George, and you are not them."

  "I was her first child, Helene."

  "No Helene died, and she was the daughter of Lene Bowman and Marsha Vaillancourt."

  "What?" I shouted.

  "Helene was Marlene's sister, though she was young enough to be her daughter. I think she raised her as a daughter after Lene died. Now there was a real tragedy. Not like the man who just died. He was a murderer, you know."

  I blinked at Hattie in disbelief then my mind went racing. Marlene had never even so much as hinted that she was not my mother. I started to question everything about Marlene. "Hattie, did Marlene ever tell you to find me and introduce me to her?"

  "No," she said.

  “On the day I was here playing the piano with the choir, did Marlene tell you to come listen to me play?"

  She took the tourniquet off my arm and placed a cotton ball over the spot where she had drawn blood and looked up at the ceiling apparently lost in thought, "I don't remember."

  "Where's that nurse that follows you around, the one with the gray hair?" I asked.

  "That's Ms. Agatha. She's working with those little babies in the maternity ward."

  “Let's go see her,” I said, stomping down the hallway. We saw Ms. Agatha sitting at the station where I first met her and Hattie, when I came to the hospital to get physical therapy for my leg. I walked up to her and said, "Agatha, did Marlene Baxter tell you to listen to me at the piano the night I played with the choir?"

  "Well," she said, looking first at the ceiling, then back to Hattie. "I think she did. She said, ‘There's a concert in the atrium.’ She said if she missed the show to come and tell her when it was over so she could talk to her friend, Donna."

  "That's right," Hattie said. "Fanchon's been asking about Helene again."

  "Oh, is that right?" she said. "Why?"

  "Because I am Helene Baxter, and I think Marlene’s been trying to chase down my damn kidney without me knowing about it, and I want to know why she did all these tricks to try to get my kidney out of me and why she tried to convince me that I was her daughter and I want to know why she didn't just ask for it in the first place."

  The two of them said, "Oh my" in unison. For the first time I had a flicker of hope that they might have heard what I said and understood it.

  "That would explain why she started coming here for her treatments," Hattie said.

  "She said the machine at her home broke," Agatha said, looking back at Hattie. "She had enough money to buy a new one."


  "That's what the doctor suggested."

  I left the two of them in conversation and walked out to the lobby. I found the lawyer sitting in a chair by the door.

  "What's going on?" I said to him.

  "Marlene found a donor. She is going in for pre-op testing."

  "No, what's going on between Marlene and me? Why did she lie to me and tell me she was my mother, and why has she been trying to trick me out of a kidney?"

  "Whoa," he said. "Did she ever tell you that she was your mother?"

  I searched my memories for any mention of it, but could not remember any particular instance where she said she was my mother.

  "Well, she told me Edward was not my father. That would have been a good time to mention that she was not my mother, either."

  "From what I hear she always treated you like a daughter. When her father died she took over your care like you were her own. She never even told Elaine or George you weren't her daughter. Why would she tell you? She only just met you, and the DNA testing had not come back yet. She has no confirmation that you are Helene."

  "I just..." I paced around the lobby. "Well then why was she so quick to take my kidney if she was not sure of who I was?"

  "She didn't have time to wait around, Fanchon. She is in stage four renal failure. She would have taken a chance on just about anybody.”

  "Well, then why was she getting her treatments here?"

  "I told you why she comes here."

  "What about the dialysis machine she has at home?" I asked.

  "It broke," he said. "So she came here until her new one could come in. She always said this is the hospital where she felt most safe."

  I sat in one of the lobby seats and stared forward for a minute, deciding what to do next. I wanted to tell somebody what I just learned because I was now sure there was something more to Marlene’s story. I asked the lawyer for his phone, which he reluctantly gave to me. I dialed Banyan, but it went to voicemail. I was going to tell him to call me then I realized I didn’t have a phone. I didn’t have anything except the money Beau gave me before I got in the cab, which amounted to less than $200.