“Yeah?” It was his voice. She would have known it anywhere. “Who is it?”
She shivered. “It’s me, Lee. Open the door.”
He opened it quickly, and she stared up at him. He had changed since she’d last seen him. There was a tiny scar over his top lip, and his hair was cut shorter, and he seemed stronger, more muscular, as though he’d spent a lot of time working out.
She suddenly wondered at the wisdom in coming here.
“Celia?”
She took off her sunglasses and looked up at him, wanting him to look in her eyes and know for sure that it was she he was ruining—a flesh-and-blood human who didn’t deserve what was happening. “Why are you here?” she asked him through compressed lips. “Why did you tell the police all those lies about me?”
He leaned out the door and looked from side to side. “Come in,” he said.
She breathed a furious laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not coming in there. I want to know why you’re setting me up, Lee. I want to know why you would want my husband dead…what he ever did to you…and I need to know if you killed Nathan, and why…why you would let me take the heat for it, why you would hate me so much that—”
“You’re nuts,” he cut in. “I didn’t kill Nathan, and I didn’t poison this husband. And I’m the one being set up, not you! I’ll hand it to you, Celia. I didn’t know you had it in you. You’re smarter than I thought, but not smart enough to make me your patsy.”
Rage filled her, and it burst out as her hand swung up to slap his face. It surprised him, and he grabbed her arms and jerked her against him. She lurched free.
“Get your hands off of me!”
“Hey, you slapped me!” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Why did you send for me, Celia? Why me? Why not some other chump? I never did anything to you.”
“I didn’t!” she cried. “I didn’t send for you. I don’t even know who did. I don’t know where my checkbook is, and I don’t know who wrote those checks, and I don’t know who sent the letter, and I don’t know any Catholic priest, and I didn’t poison my husband!” She was weeping now, hating herself for it. She heard a door close downstairs and wondered if Marabeth had come back out.
She stepped back out of his reach and lowered her voice. “I just came here to tell you one thing,” she said. “If my husband dies, they can do whatever they want to with me. I won’t care. But I want you to know that I’ll move heaven and earth to make sure you pay. You won’t get away with it.”
He stared at her, and the confusion in his eyes registered in her heart. A long moment of electric silence screamed between them. “You really didn’t send the letter or the checks, did you?” he finally asked.
“No! Why would I do something so destructive? I love my husband!”
He looked down at his feet, working through the facts. And suddenly she understood. Lee Barnett was innocent, too. Could it be that they had both been framed?
“Celia, you’re in a lot of trouble. I guess I am, too.”
“Then why don’t you just leave? Get out of town? Why are you still here?”
“Because the cops told me that I couldn’t leave town until they’d finished investigating. I don’t want to do anything that’s gonna land me back in jail. And I’ve got this apartment paid for for a month…”
“But don’t you see? If you’re telling the truth, they want you to stay here. It was planned. Whoever it is, they want you here, because it makes people think all sorts of things about me. Can’t you stay in town but go to a hotel or something? Get another apartment?”
“Why?”
“Because a killer set you up in this one! So far he’s made you play into his hands. Don’t you worry about that?”
She could see that he hadn’t thought of that. “Well, maybe I could move. But I don’t have much money left, and no prospects for a job.”
She wiped her face again and shook her head with disbelief. She didn’t know why, but she believed him. She had known him well, years ago, and while he was on the wild side, he wasn’t conniving. She couldn’t imagine that he was lying to her now.
“What can I do, Celia?” he asked. “Tell me what to do. I could go to the police and tell them that I talked to you, that you told me you hadn’t sent the letter or the checks, but under the circumstances, they’d just think I was covering for you, that we had something going.”
“Don’t do anything,” she said. “Please, don’t do anything. Just stay out of it. Don’t make it worse.”
She was getting a headache and starting to feel nauseous again. She thought about the baby and touched her stomach. More tears pushed into her eyes. “I have to go,” she said.
“You believe me, don’t you?” he asked.
She dared not admit that she did. “I don’t know what to believe,” she said. “Just leave me alone, okay? Don’t come near me or my husband, and don’t ask about me or talk about me. Don’t even say my name.”
“What if I find something out? Can’t I call then?” “Call the police,” she said. “But you won’t find anything out. He’s too smart. He’s too good at what he does. He knows how to nail me. I just can’t figure out why someone who hated me so much wouldn’t want to kill me instead of my husband. But I guess that would be too kind. This way he can watch me suffer.” She looked up at Lee, her eyes intense. “I don’t know if you’re the guy, Lee, but so help me, if you are, may the wrath of God fall on you so hard that you never find a place to hide from it.” She turned and stumbled down the steps, back to her car.
Out in the parking lot, Vern Hargis, who had been assigned to watch Celia, saw Marabeth duck back into her apartment. He wondered what she had heard. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and fingered the camera in his lap, wondering why his heart felt as if it had been punctured. He’d had a remnant of doubt about her guilt, but this certainly changed his mind. From what he’d seen, it looked as if they’d had some kind of lover’s quarrel. Celia had slapped him, but the intimacy in their conversation had spoken volumes. It made him sick. Sid’s instincts were right, as usual. Celia was no good.
He watched her get into the BMW that must belong to her rich brother, and she sat there for a moment before cranking it up. As he waited for her to pull out, he opened the shutter door of the camera and pulled the film out. The thought of processing the pictures didn’t appeal to him. But it had to be done. Cops were about solving cases, and as far as he was concerned, this one was solved.
Poor Stan.
He wondered how he would take this.
He followed her at a distance and pulled his cell phone out of his glove box. Quickly, he dialed information and got Marabeth’s number. He hoped she had call-waiting.
“Hello?” she said, breathless. “Sue Ellen?”
“No, Marabeth. It’s Vern Hargis. You weren’t by chance on the other line, were you?” He smirked even as he asked.
“Well, yes, I was.”
“So what’s the scoop? I know you just overheard a private conversation.”
She hesitated. “Is this police business?”
“Well, yes, it is.” His tone was mocking, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, you’re just not gon’ believe who just paid a visit to Mr. Lee Barnett.”
“Marabeth, I already know. What did you hear?”
“Well, they were talkin’ in low voices, see, so I couldn’t hear too good.” She lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “But I heard her askin’ him to go to a hotel. Reckon she was gon’ meet him there?”
Vern frowned. “What else?”
“They were talkin’ about what to tell the cops. He said he was gon’ tell y’all that she didn’t send the check for the apartment. I’m almost sure that’s what he said. And he told her he’d cover for her, because they had somethin’ goin’.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be. Vern, why aren’t those two in jail? I’m not gon’ be able to sleep tonight, worryin’ that they’ll
find out I heard and come cut my throat.”
“Then you’d better keep quiet about it, hadn’t you?”
She didn’t reply, but he knew she was weighing the cost of a cut throat versus the satisfaction of spreading the gossip. He knew she would take the risk.
When he’d hung up, he called Sid and told him the news. He only hoped Celia would head home so he could get the film developed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The zydeco sounds of celebration grated over the speakers in the Midtown fire station kitchen, where Aunt Aggie served blackened pork chops so spicy that the men broke out in a sweat just biting into them. She’d missed cooking for them, even if she knew that half of them suspected her Celia of terrible things. She had decided that they’d never know better if she didn’t come down here to set them straight.
Ray Ford, the new fire chief, had even shown up to join them, as had some of the other firefighters who weren’t even on duty. Ray planted a kiss on Aunt Aggie’s cheek as she finished serving the plates. “I heard you been beatin’ up on my brother, Aunt Aggie.”
She didn’t find that amusing. “He needed more’n me beatin’ ’im. Needed a two-by-four right across the rump. Puttin’ T-Celia in jail.” She said it with such contempt that she fancied the bitterness dripped out of her mouth onto the food.
Slater Finch had already dug in, even before Nick Foster had blessed it. With his mouth full, he said, “How come Celia ain’t Cajun, Aunt Aggie, if y’all are relatives and all?”
“Celia’s mama is my baby bro’s girl. He went up to the college, you know, at LSU, and got ’im a education. Tried to pretend he warn’t one o’ us. Married a high-falutin’ gal that talked Jackie Kennedy, and he thought he was some-body. Celia’s mama never even knowed she was half Cajun, didn’t know a word o’ French.”
“And I thought Cajun was so genetic that the kids were born talking that way,” Slater said. “But let’s get real. It ain’t really French. I mean, nobody from over in Paree could understand it. Just the same, though, I didn’t know a body could choose.”
“Can’t choose,” she said. “My baby bro was born a Cajun and he died a Cajun, whe’er he liked it or not.”
Junior Reynolds took a bite of the pork and began to cough and grope for his glass. Everyone watched as he choked and teared up, his face reddening. Aunt Aggie reached for a glass of iced tea and hurried around the table to give it to him.
“Too hot for ya?” she asked, handing him the glass.
“What’d you do? Poison me, too?”
He reached for the glass, but instead of handing it to him, she turned it over and dumped it into his lap. He screamed out a curse and jumped out of his chair. “What’s a matter with you? Are you crazy?”
“I didn’t poison nobody, and didn’t nobody in my family poison nobody, and if you don’t want to eat my cookin”, then you get that little empty-headed wife of yours to start bringin’ you a samwich. In fact, maybe y’all want samwiches. Maybe y’all can make ’em yourselves!”
The others glowered at Junior as though they might lynch him on the spot.
Nick, ever the peacemaker, got up and went to Aunt Aggie’s side. “Now, Aunt Aggie. Junior was teasin’ you. He didn’t mean it, did you, Junior?”
Junior stood there in his wet pants, his hands innocently on his hips as he looked remorsefully at Aunt Aggie. “I got a big mouth, Aunt Aggie. I’m sorry. Please don’t make me eat my wife’s cookin’. And I like your pork chops. They grow hair on a man’s chest. We all like ’em.”
Still not amused, she marched back around the table and grabbed her purse. “Y’all can clean up after your own selves today. And I might not be back tonight, me.”
“Aunt Aggie!” It was a chorus of protests, but Aunt Aggie compressed her lips and hightailed it out to her Cadillac before they quit being sorry.
The Branning’s car was parked in the driveway when Aunt Aggie got home, and she figured they were inside talking to Celia. But then Celia pulled in, driving David’s car, just as she was getting out.
“Where you been?” she asked her niece as Celia slid out of the BMW.
“I had to run an errand,” she said. Her nose was red and her eyes glistened as if she’d just been crying.
“What errand? You shouldna been out by your lonesome, sha. Don’t you know?”
“I had to, Aunt Aggie.”
“Had to what? Where you went? Tell me, Celia.”
She sighed. “I went to see Lee Barnett.”
“Coo!” Aunt Aggie exclaimed. “He coulda hurt you. Coulda killed you! You crazy?”
“He didn’t hurt me at all,” she said. “I just had to confront him. Had to know what he’s trying to do, why he’s setting me up…”
“And what he say?”
“He said that he wasn’t.” She sighed. “Aunt Aggie, I think we’ve both been set up. I’m not sure that he’s anything more than just a pawn. But when I think how well this killer knows me, that he’d know about Lee and how we dated once, and that he was in prison, and time everything so it would look like I was poisoning Stan so I could be with Lee…What else might he do?”
“Nothin’!” Aunt Aggie said. “He ain’t gon’ do nothin’.” She looked up at the big house. “Reckon Allie’s here. David inside?”
“Yes. He let me drive his car.”
“We better go in, see if she knows somethin’ about Stan.”
Celia led the way into the house. There they found Allie, Mark, Dan Nichols, and David talking in the kitchen like old friends.
Aunt Aggie wished she’d made a pie this morning like she’d planned.
Celia was long past caring how she looked. She walked into the kitchen and saw Allie and Mark sitting with David at the table, Dan Nichols leaning against the counter. All eyes turned to her the moment she stepped into the room, and she met David’s eyes, wondering what he’d told them.
“Hey, Sis,” he said. “Did you have a good drive?”
She came in and set her purse down. “Yeah. I was feeling kind of cooped up. Has any of you seen Stan?”
“We have,” Mark and Allie said simultaneously, then Mark went on. “He’s not feeling too great, so his folks wouldn’t let us see him too long.”
“Is he okay?”
They exchanged looks. “Well, I don’t think he’s out of danger yet,” Allie said. “There was some talk about dialysis…apparently some of his organs may have been damaged. But he talked to us for a minute before his parents ran us out.”
Her face grew hot. “Damaged organs? How damaged? Can they be repaired? Could he die?”
Mark looked helpless. “We honestly don’t know, Celia. We didn’t get to talk to the doctors, and his parents weren’t real forthcoming. What we found out came from the people in the waiting room.”
“Did he know about me?” she asked, feeling as fragile as a crystal doll. “Had anyone told him why I wasn’t there?”
“Yeah, he knew.” Allie’s tone was heavy with apology. “He asked me about you, Celia. Wanted to know if you were all right. That’s when his parents ran us out.”
Celia turned away from them as her eyes filled with tears. “Did you tell him I didn’t do it, Allie? Did you tell him it’s all a mistake?”
Allie reached for her and pulled her into a hug. “He knows that, Celia. He loves you.”
Her face twisted and she wiped at her eyes. “But did you tell him?”
“Yes. But his parents got us out so fast I’m not sure he heard. Celia, don’t blame them. They’re exhausted. They’ve been with him since the beginning, and I doubt either of them has left the hospital. Now that he’s awake, they’re finally going home tonight to get a good night’s sleep. Maybe after that they’ll see things more clearly and realize you couldn’t have done this.”
She let that sink in for a moment, processing it. His parents were leaving. He wouldn’t have them hovering over him tonight.
Celia looked at Allie. “Allie, would you go back to see him tonight? Take
him a note from me? Maybe you could even call me from his room so I could talk to him.”
Allie glanced at Mark, then brought her apologetic eyes back to her. “Celia, I can’t. They’re not allowing visitors after his parents leave tonight.”
She sank back down and tried to think. “Is someone still guarding him?” she asked.
Mark spoke up. “If I’m not mistaken, several of the guys are taking turns guarding him. Three- or four-hour shifts each.”
“Who’s on tonight?” she asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” Allie said, and Celia could see the suspicion forming on her face. “Why?”
“Because…” She looked around at each of them. “I want to make sure he’s being carefully watched. I don’t want anyone sneaking in, especially if his parents won’t be there.”
“I know who’ll be there,” Mark said. “When I was up there, R.J. mentioned that Vern Hargis would be on the first shift tonight. I don’t know what they consider the first shift, and I don’t know who’s taking over for him, but I think he’ll be in good hands with Vern.”
Vern Hargis. A chain smoker. He would need to take smoking breaks.
She pulled out a chair and sat down next to her brother. Dan frowned at her, as if contemplating something, and she looked up at him. “What is it, Dan?”
“You don’t look so good, Celia. Are you feeling all right?”
“No, not really,” she said. “I think I’ve had a touch of a virus. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re pale,” Allie said. “Celia, we’ll go and let you lie down. We just wanted to tell you we had seen Stan, that he asked about you, that things are looking up.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“Are you gonna be all right?”
She nodded and wiped the tears beneath her eyes again. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be fine.”
“Celia, I’ll check in with you a little later,” Allie said. “You get some rest, okay? Jill’s working hard on this. It’ll be over soon.”