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

  I made my way back to the porch and sat in the empty rocking chair, using my box like an ottoman.

  “Oh, Abolina I forgot to tell Clem that Rivet left a full crawfish trap down at the house. Those little guys have been in there a long time, and I couldn’t get them out. Can you tell Clem to empty it? And he’s gonna need a knife.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” she said. “What do you have planned for the rest of your day?”

  “I got a lead on somebody who might know where my birth parents are. I found out their names are Marlene and Edward Baxter. All of my Internet searching was useless. Their names turned up at a few society functions around Louisiana, but I could find no information on where they live. The police still had their old address in the system, which they said was very unusual. Typically people get driver’s licenses and register cars in their name, and have to get new I.D.s but the Baxters haven’t done that. Anyway, Beau gave me the idea to try their old neighbors to see if any of them know where they went. I’m going to try that today on my way back to the city.”

  Abolina sat up in her chair and gave me an intense stare. “How are you handling all this information about your childhood?”

  She was referring to the recently acquired knowledge that Rivet and Paulina had kidnapped me when I was a young child. They had killed their own daughter, the real Fanchon, and instead of burying her properly, they put her in the river by the Baxter property. They took me from my family and told me my name was Fanchon Deveroux. I did not know until recently that I was really Helene Baxter and that the police mistook the decomposed little girl they found in the river for me.

  “I am doing as well with the news as can be,” I said.

  “Are you going to go by Helene?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe if I meet them and remember them it might feel natural to go by my birth name.”

  “If you find them I hope that your memories come back,” she said. “And I hope those memories are kinder than the ones you have now.”

  She started to speak again and stopped, leaning back in her chair.

  “What is it Abolina?”

  “Well, you just be careful when looking for that family of yours, cher. If you ever find them, you call me and I’ll make sure Beau goes with you to meet them.” Beau was Josephine’s cute but dimwitted cousin, who was content to follow me around like a lost puppy.

  “Taking Beau is a little bit much,” I replied.

  Her tone became sharp and she said, “Don’t you forget girl, that a man who worked for that family was hired to find you. Don’t you forget that right after he found you he wound up dead and especially don’t forget that nobody ever reported him missing.”

  “I’m not going to jump to conclusions.”

  “I will for you. That man wasn’t reported missing because nobody wanted the police looking into what he was supposed to do with you once he found you.”

  “Or maybe they thought he ran off,” I said.

  “Your police friend Banyan told me that nobody called that phone again after the man went missing. He made one call after he got your picture and your name from Lisette and nobody called him ever again. I can’t think of any Christian reason that man was looking for you.”

  “There is no way to know that.”

  “Yes there is,” she said seriously. “I’ve lost two daughters and if somebody told me they found a hair of evidence that one of them was still on this earth I would have called them again and again. I would have told every policeman I could find to look for them. I would not stop until they were found and in my arms again. If somebody in your family learned you was alive and didn’t run to your side, they had no interest in meeting you, ever.”

  I dared not respond given Abolina’s tone. She stopped talking for a moment to catch her breath.

  “You do what you have to do to find yourself,” she said. “We will be here for you if you need us. We will be here for you even if you don’t.”

  I reached across the door and put my hand on hers. She patted it for a moment. Then I brought up another subject, that I had been dying to talk to somebody about.

  “Banyan went back to New York last week,” I told her, referring to the police officer, whom I met while he was assigned to investigate Josephine’s murder.

  “Oh, he was a nice man,” she said. “Does he still talk to you?”

  “I have called him once or twice,” I said, which was a lie as I called him almost every night.

  She gave me a knowing look and said, “I have been wondering if you two are an item. He spent an awful lot of time here on a case he wasn’t assigned to.”

  “I know he did. I thought we might be an item one day, but he always seems to be busy with something.”

  “If he’s too busy for you, then he’s not the one for you,” Abolina said.

  “He really is busy,” I said. Banyan told me he was still trying to piece together all of the crimes committed by the man who murdered Josephine and kidnapped me, Jason Stepwald. “Remember how I told you Jason kept that box with Josephine’s nail polish in it?”

  She nodded.

  “The police said it’s a trophy box. Banyan told me murderers like Stepwald keep things from people they killed. There was other stuff in the box; a set of keys, a heart charm and a necklace. Banyan said is trying to sort out who they belonged to.”

  “Have they tried asking him?”

  “Banyan told me he hasn’t talked since the accident. His face was almost burned off. They say he barely looks like a man anymore.”

  I felt a little guilty about his disfigurement. Much of it came from his confrontation with me. When he tried to take me down all I had to defend myself with was hot sauce, and I used it to the best of my ability.

  Shortly after our confrontation he tried to leave and crashed his truck.

  “How you took down that evil man by yourself still amazes all of us,” she said.

  I smiled. “How you managed to shoot Paulina from a moving boat still amazes me.” I smiled, and I noticed a hint of a grin cross her face too.

  “The lord was with me on that day,” she said.

  She rocked in her chair for a moment as if lost in thought and then said, “Well, if you insist on meeting that family of yours you better get to it.” She stood, hugged me and I left with my little box of possessions.

  Hadley House

  The Hadley House was a beautiful example of southern architecture from days gone by. It was a three story former plantation with beautiful white washed wood siding, surrounded by pecan trees. I could see my childhood home, Belle Blue, across the street. It was similar in size but brick instead of wood. Belle Blue did not stir up any recognition in me. I thought when I saw it I would have some feeling of familiarity, but it just wasn’t there. I turned my attention to the Hadley home, but I could only admire it from a distance. I was stuck at the gate, waiting to be let in.

  I had pushed the buzzer several times and walked back and forth along the gate, but there was no answer and no way in. I finally decided to lay my finger on the button until I had an answer.

  At long last I heard a beep and let my finger up. A mousey voice on the other end of the line said, “Who is it?”

  I answered, “Fanchon Deveroux.”

  I might have gotten farther with my birth name, Helene Baxter, though I wasn’t ready to explain my situation to strangers before my family even knew I was alive.

  She held on the line for a moment, came back and asked, “What you want?”

  “I am here to speak with the lady of the house.”

  I heard the speaker cut out and was left with my skirt blowing in the breeze while I waited. I heard static followed by, “No soliciting. Go away.”

  I had no intention of leaving. I stood at the gate with my hands on my hips thinking on the next steps I should take. I wouldn’t be able to jump the fence; it was too high. I walked to the meeting point of the gate and pulled back on the iron bars. They were sturdy, but the hinges were not. I
stepped over to my car and popped the trunk. I pulled up the grey carpeting from the floor of the trunk, reached beside the spare tire and removed my jack.

  I positioned the front of my jack under the gate, leaving the handle at the back for myself. I pumped the handle and without much fuss the gate began to squeak. With just a few more pumps the half I had my jack under gave way and fell forward. I felt slightly bad about damaging property, but I had a good amount of money socked away and would pay for repairs. I put my jack back in the trunk and examined the half-ruined gate. With only one side of it down I did not have enough space to get my car through.

  I continued on foot. Loose gravel crunched under foot as I made my way up the driveway. I admired the shady trees and gardens that surrounded the path. At the end of the lane was a driveway roundabout that encircled a fountain with no water in it. I made my way up the entryway steps and pounded on the heavy black doors.

  There was shuffling on the other side of the door, and I shouted, “Y’all open this door. I got a bum leg, and I can’t make the walk back on my own anyway.”

  It was mostly true that I had a bad leg, though it looked worse than it felt these days. I had suffered an open fracture in shin courtesy of Jason Stepwald. I had surgery to replace the skin over the wound, but it could not conceal all that was missing underneath. There were chunks of flesh missing, and valleys existed where there was once smooth skin. I didn’t mind the symmetrical scars that looked like caterpillars or even the discolored bit of flesh from my rear end that covered my shin, but the missing hunks of my muscles bothered me. The skin I was born with, but the muscle I had earned.

  The door cracked open, and I saw the woman that possessed that mousey voice. She looked like she sounded, tiny with delicate features. She was wearing a bona fide maid’s uniform, which took me by surprise because I didn’t think maids actually wore uniforms anymore.

  She pleaded with me, “You gonna get me in trouble. You need to git’ on out of here.”

  I showed her my leg, which was a terrible sight. “I wasn’t lying about the leg ma’am. I really can’t get back without a little help.”

  She looked back into the house and put her hands on her hips, “Look, I can’t leave, but I will ask the gardener to get you a hand out. You can’t come in.”

  “Could you do me one little favor and tell the lady or man of the house that I am a friend of the Baxter family?” I saw her eyebrows go up when I said Baxter and continued. “And I urgently need to speak with them about the Baxters.”

  “Well, just a moment now. Can you tell me your concern with the Baxter family?”

  I responded, “Tell them I have news about that family’s hired man.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me and said, “Just a minute.”

  She closed the door and after a short time came back, this time leaving the door wide open. “Follow me, miss.”

  I walked behind her into the Hadley House foyer. It was the type of old house that was once grand, but had long since lost its shine. The décor was worn around the edges. Every surface that was painted had a chip or two, and there were water stains in the corners of the ceiling. The floors had kept up with time as they were a hard stone like marble or granite, but the dark paneled walls and floral wallpaper were dark and out of date.

  I noticed how the small woman’s heels clicked as she made her way to the end of the hall. I felt very bad for her, a maid’s uniform and heeled shoes for doing housework. It set a poor opinion of the Hadleys in my mind.

  “Right this way miss,” She opened a dark oak door for me and motioned for me to follow her.

  A thin, elegantly dressed woman wearing a green dress acknowledged my entrance. Her hair was in a grey bun pulled so tightly that it stretched the corners of her eyes up. She stood by the fireplace eyeing me. There was an older man, who looked far less elegant, sitting in a wingback chair by the window. Neither of them smiled at me or said anything. They looked me over but said nothing.

  “This is Ms. Fanchon Deveroux and Ms. Deveroux this is Mr. and Mrs. Aldus Hadley,” the maid said. She curtseyed and backed out of the room, facing them as she left.

  After she closed the door, the room was silent except for the clicking of a clock on the mantel. I walked briskly to the woman and held out my hand. She did not return the gesture, but instead backed away.

  Mr. Hadley said, “We heard a crash outside. Was that you?”

  I shifted my attention to him, “Yes sir, but I will pay for any damages. It’s urgent that I speak with you. I am looking for the Baxters. They used to live across the street.”

  “What did you break?” the man asked ignoring the rest of what I had said.

  “The gate. I pried it open and it fell down, but you say the word and I will write you a check for the damages.”

  The woman finally spoke, her voice was sharp. “That gate was built especially for this property, and the scroll work across the top was completed by the artist Camille Delacroix and cost in excess of fifteen thousand per gate.”

  That was a bit pricier than I had expected and much more than I was willing to write a check for. I responded, “I will buy you new hinges. Your gate is just fine but you had crap hinges on your masterpiece gate. I think twenty dollars will set you up with double the security you had before.”

  The woman flared her nostrils at me. She looked like she was going to order the maid to toss me out. Mr. Hadley let out a chuckle, breaking the tension created by the death stare Mrs. Hadley had been giving me.

  She calmed herself and walked over to the window.

  “What did you say you need now?” the man asked.

  “I’m looking for the Baxters,” I reminded him.

  “That’s not the sort of information I should be giving out to just anybody. They went to a lot of trouble to keep their privacy. What do you want with them?”

  “I knew them very well when I was young. I used to play on their property at Belle Bleu. Recently, their hired man was found murdered in a cemetery near Lafourche. I am trying to find them to tell them what happened.”

  The woman snapped her head in my direction and looked angrily at me. “Are you a police officer, madam?”

  “I’m not. Though the police are looking for them as well.”

  “Why aren’t the police here asking us about this?”

  “The police are going through official channels. They don’t have the same sense of urgency that I do about solving an old murder.”

  Mr. Hadley coughed, and said, “I thought you said it was a recent murder.”

  “They found the body recently but the man was long since dead.”

  The woman nodded her head at me, “I see.” She walked closer to me. She got much too close for my comfort. Something in her manner led me to believe that this woman was challenging me and I shouldn’t back down. She reached forward and grabbed my chin forcing me to look up at her. She stared as if she saw something familiar and backed away. I suspected she might have seen the resemblance in me that got the hired man killed. I let it go on for a moment and then I grabbed her hand and pulled it back from my face.

  “Who did you say you are again?” she asked.

  “Fanchon Deveroux,” I replied. “And I would thank you kindly to keep your hands off my face.”

  “Hmm,” the woman said. “I have nothing to share with you about the Baxters. I think it the epitome of rudeness that you would show up at my door asking about that family. If the police wish to speak to me they can come with a court order.”

  I looked to Mr. Hadley for something, but he was now looking down at the ground.

  “Thanks for nothing,” I said and reached into my pocket. I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and sat it on the mantle in front of the woman. “Get some decent hinges. They sell them at a place called The Home Depot. I am sure your help will know where that is.”

  I stomped out of the room and into the hall. I found the maid from before scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees. I stopped and thanked he
r for helping me and told her I hoped that she didn’t get into too much trouble.

  She stopped scrubbing and set her brush on the floor

  “Nah it wasn’t no trouble,” she said. “Don’t worry. Dat one always got something stuck in her craw.”

  “Can you help me find that gardener?” I asked.

  She took a deep breath and stood up. We walked to the back of the house through the kitchen, which looked like it hadn’t been updated in over 20 years. The cabinets were once stylish, white with wood trim, but the white had faded to an uneven yellow, the wood was splintering, and the finish had rubbed off. The kitchen would once have been at the height of fashion, especially with the teal countertops and peach floral accents in the room. It was truly hideous. It told me either the Hadleys never spent any time in their kitchen or they didn’t have the money for a proper renovation.

  We walked out the back door together and down a stone walkway to a garage. I asked the woman her name and she replied, “Abolina Massey.” And I immediately liked her for sharing Josephine’s mother’s name.

  New Abolina saw the smile cross my face and said, “I’m Creole if that’s what you’re wondering about.”

  “That’s not what I was wondering. I was thinking that Abolina is about my favorite name in the whole world.”

  She smiled back at me and said, “Abolina is my Christian name but people in my parish call me by my family name Massey. You can do likewise.”

  “Thank you for your kindness, Massey.”

  Before we walked into the garage she stopped me. “What is it you needed from the Hadleys, Fanchon?”

  “I need to find the Baxters. They used to live across the street at Belle Bleu. I hear they moved away about twenty years ago, back when that little girl was found in the river.”

  She searched her mind for a moment then said, “I remember when that little girl died. It was a tragedy. It hurt us all something fierce. That mess just about ruined the Baxter family.” She looked around and leaned in closer to me. “Now I can’t help you, but there are people who have been around longer than me who might know a thing or two.”