Hot Blooded Murder (20 page)

“But–do you
think
he might have accidentally overlooked something? I mean, it was a harrowing day. He ran out when the horse fell down in the trailer, remember? That was a big distraction for everyone. If you were to go and take a look through her file cabinets, who knows what might turn up?”

“Well. I might swing by.”

My only new worry now was what would he think of finding Delon’s check stubs in Marcie’s files? Yikes. I must have been very tired last night to overlook that.

“Speaking of swinging by,” I answered, “I was going to go and see Theo Goodall himself in the city today. Should I ask him about the horse? Since they weren’t really divorced, maybe he’s the owner.”

“We’ll do it. But you can ask away if you choose. You probably will any way.”

“I will.”

“Okay, but Bryn, I’m worried about you. You take too many chances.”

“What else is there to do? Marcie–”

“Let MacWain and company do their job.”

“Tuan, I’ll be dangerously honest with you. I saw how upset MacWain was that the judge stopped the execution of Once. I get scared that the case will slip through the cracks. You said yourself how busy you are. And for some odd reason, even though it goes against everything in my chicken-yellow-cowardly-scairdy-cat personality, working on these cases is maybe my true mission in life. I don’t want to mess anything up for you-all, Tuan,” I continued. “I want to complement your efforts. Help. Genuinely. For some baffling reason I can’t stop getting involved, and you know that a few times my involvement has helped.”

He sighed. It was true. “Just–just–be careful. And I mean be careful you don’t break the law. Just because you help, Bryn, doesn’t mean you are immune to being arrested.” A chill of fear shivered through me. I pictured giant Tuan behind me, bulky as Big Daddy Anton, and now just as scary because he had my hands behind my back, slapping on handcuffs.

“Guess I’m kinda grim this morning,” I said. I took a sip of my coffee. It tasted as cold as I felt.

“We’re at that difficult point in the case, Bryn. Just had our main suspect cleared. Everyone looks guilty. No one clearly is. They all could be.”

“Whom do you consider ‘all?’”

“Theodore Goodall. Cade Pritchard. Now, I suppose, since you mentioned him, that Filmore Takeur.”

“Have you learned anything about Anton Delon, the mortgage broker?”

“No. Why? You know something?”

“I met him and his son yesterday.”

“And…?”

“Mr. Delon is the one who was supposedly helping Marcie sell her place. He’s a scary guy, Tuan. He’s older but he’s a big guy and he has a very big son, Anton the Third.”

“You think this son did it?”

I recalled Anton III’s shaking hands. “I think we can take Anton III off that list.”

“Why?”

“He’s real goosey. Saw both of them in Anton’s office. He acted like he knew things he did not want to know. He was a nervous wreck. Big Daddy though, he was calm as a robot.”

“I know of Anton Delon, Bryn. He’s a philanthropist and a sort of Old South aristocrat.”

“He has a dark side, Tuan, and I saw it yesterday. Something is really off with him and his company regarding Marcie.”

“I actually met the guy once, at a law enforcement ball, a big fancy-dress fundraiser. Shook his hand. I can’t get it through my head that Mr. Delon is the opposite of my previous impression of him.”

“Why don’t you go check out the file cabinet at Marcie’s? Then talk to me about Mr. Delon.” When Tuan finds the check stubs maybe he’ll be grateful, and then find a way to manufacture some pretext, legal of course, for searching Delon Mortgage Company. I could hope.

“Right.”

“And you might change your mind about Big Daddy Delon. Something else though, Tuan, can you do a search for a lady named Kitty Z. Abeletti?”

“And she is…?”

“The assumer of Marcie Goodall’s farm.”

“You don’t say,” he said.

“I say. But I am not saying how I found that out.”

“Of course not.”

“Maybe later today we could have a coffee at Lila’s if you’re not too busy.”

“Maybe we can.”

I pressed Off and slowly got up from my emerald velvet loveseat. Now I’d have to go back across the lake, into the city.

I drove past Anne Rice’s mansion on the corner of First and Chestnut in the Garden District. It was lavender gray stucco with a columned front; its depth required an entire block. Mysteriously, a statue of a German Shepherd stood on guard on the front balcony. A green fringe of small trees showed above a grey masonry wall that ran down the Chestnut Street side.

I turned and parked halfway down a shaded block of Southern mansions. Nice neighborhood, I thought, disembarking.

I walked down the street until I found the right house. I knew it was a slave quarter, which would put it behind the huge pink house I stood before. I headed along a ligustrum hedge, down a driveway to a yard bordered with gold daylilies. A brick walk led to a matching pink cottage at the rear. Ivy clambered prettily over it. The slave quarter, fixed up as a rental unit, was common in the Garden District. Although some folks kept them, renovated enormously of course, as homes for their cooks or maids, others rented them out. Artists and struggling writers favored them. Odd, as Theo didn’t seem the type. The place was about the size of a four-car garage. I knocked on a shiny black door. Theo opened it.

“Mz Bryn. Howdy. Come in.” Domino was at his side, wagging his tail at me.

“Hello, Theo.” He ushered me into his home. I petted Domino and then noticed a long table under the front windows, scattered with shards of colored glass.

I asked, “Stained glass?”

“Yep,” answered Theo. “It’s what I do.”

“You make stained glass windows?”

“Yep. Churches, a course, but now a lot of business is comin’ to me from private homes, even office buildin’s.”

A panel, easily eight feet high, rested on the floor against the opposite wall. It showed a blue heron in the water, cypress trees behind. The style was evocative of John James Audubon’s. The heron’s neck swirled down romantically.

I spoke. “Beautiful work, Theo. Ever do horses?”

“Not so far.”

“Perhaps someday you might.”

I suddenly felt some awe for Theo. I’d heard his country accent, observed his scrawny self and fallen into the judging-book-cover trap.

“Off the shrimp season I worked on this, till finally I was able to sell the boat. Make it a full-time career.”

“Impressive,” I nodded, looking around.

“Thank you and please Mz Bryn, set.”

“Thanks and please call me Bryn.”

Chintzy chairs and a sofa ranged around a fireplace. An abstract stained glass piece in orange, red, and yellow hung over the mantel.

I sank into the sofa. Theo took a chair.

“Howzit comin? Any closer to findin out who killed Marcie?” he asked. “I was relieved the judge cleared Once.” Of course, Theo had been at the inquest.

“Since the judge let him off it’s gotten even more nebulous,” I said.

He dropped his head. Soon, I realized he was weeping. I waited. He raised his pale face, tears streaming from over-sized eyes, now red. “I need you to know I loved Marcie. The whole thing fell apart ‘cause I thought she loved her horses more’n me. Drugs dint help, either. And no. I don’t think she did. Love horses more’n me. I think it was my craziness made that up.” His skinny cheeks were shiny wet.

“Can I get you something?” I asked.

“No–no. I seem to do this all the time. Cain’t seem to stop it.” He plucked tissues from a box on an end table, blew his nose loudly and then wiped his face.

“Pardon.”

“Theo. It’s okay. I do understand. I’m hoping you can help me. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

He mopped his face. “Shoot.”

“First, back when you bought the farm, where did the money for that huge down payment come from? I know you inherited money and sold off some houses. Did all the payment come from those sources?”

“Most of it. But now that I think, we got twenty thousand in the weirdest way. Marcie won it downtown at that new casino on Canal Street. Harrah’s?”

“She
won
it?”

“Yeah. Can you believe it?”

“She was a gambler.”

“Nope. She just got a funny urge one night. Said she wanted to see what it was like. So we went, ate the buffet–tons a’ shrimp!–and I put a hundred on a roulette wheel. Lost it. But she hit a big jackpot. As soon as she got over the shock and we cashed in her chips, she said, ‘Now we have enough to buy a farm.’ I was happy for her.” He paused, smiling, recollecting the moment. “That was a big night. Met Cade Pritchard too. He was at the same table. Congratulated us. Asked, ‘Watcha gonna do with all your winnin’s?’ Marcie said, ‘look to buy a horse farm.’ He says, ‘I have just the place.’” Theo raised buglike wondering eyes to me. “Marcie always said there are no coincidences. I just now realize it. She won the last of the money we needed right in front of a man with the perfect place for sale. Next day we drove out. The only thing I didn’t like was that dang cemetery right in our front yard. Marcie took one look though and she didn’t care. Said we’ll just plant trees. Screen it off more. She loved the place instantly. So we did the deal. Happened fast.”

“That’s amazing, Theo,” I said. “I’ve also heard you and Marcie weren’t divorced.” I tried to raise a Sean Connery eyebrow. Furrowed my entire forehead.

“Nope. Never got aroun to it.”

“Excuse me for prying, but it seems strange you’d have a property settlement and no divorce. Is there any explanation for that?”

“Nuthin to explain. We filed the property agreement, were all set to do the final paperwork on the divorce, then we got so dang broke we couldn’t afford to pay the lawyer to finalize the divorce. Not that I wanted it anyway.”

“Wow. Never thought of something so simple! But wouldn’t that invalidate the property settlement? I’m not up to speed on divorce law.”

“Nope.”

“Does she have any other relatives?”

“Nope. Marcie’s an orphan.”

“Okay. You know then,” I continued, “since you’re not divorced, you might be Marcie’s heir?”

“Guess so. But she
gave
the farm back to that viper Cade, I unnerstan. She shoulda called me! I’m back on my feet agin. She lost hundreds of thousands–”

“Not if we can prove that the assumption by a Ms. Kitty Z. Abeletti was contrived in some fashion.”

“Kitty who?”

“So you’ve never heard of this woman either?”

“Only Kitty I ever knew was that woman in that ole TeeVee show Gunsmoke. Who is she?”

“She is the new owner of your farm, via an assumption. Marcie signed the place over to her, I guess to avoid Cade foreclosing on her. Why her, I don’t understand.”

“Gawd. Dang it! Why didn’t those danged Takeurs just go on and buy the place? They led Marcie down the garden path for months. Every week she thought she’d had it sold but then it wasn’t. I know she kept making changes, making changes, trying to please them, trying to git them to buy. She did tell me she was going to git a real small place an’ just keep Once an’ one of the mares.” Theo started to weep again and I had to blink hard not to join him. I felt all his angst, and Marcie’s panic as she slid down the greased slope of financial ruin further and further from safety for herself and her horses.

When Theo wiped his eyes once again, I wiped mine too, just the corners. I felt fairly confident I wasn’t all smeary. I wore Maybelline’s waterproof mascara.

I resumed. “I did some research last night and found that through Anton Delon, Marcie had had two appraisals performed on the farm. One was for a decent amount, the other for a ridiculously small amount. I think the smaller one was jiggered and that Delon paid off the appraiser to come in with a low-ball figure. For whatever reason. And I seriously wonder if perhaps Fil Takeur lied about losing his job. Because now with proof there was a false appraisal, one that was maybe used along with the job loss excuse, so he could legally invalidate the Agreement to Purchase Marcie had with them. If the appraisal and the job loss story aren’t true, the assumption could be invalid and you’d be the inheritor. You’d have to get those monthly mortgage payments caught up, of course. “I could do that, but you say there’s a false appraisal?”

“I found one. Recently,” I said, but wondered,
could Theo in any way be behind this?
Did he actually know who Kitty was? How would I find this mystery woman?

“Watcha gonna do with it?” Theo kept on.

“Hopefully Deputy Tuan Scott and Sheriff MacWain will figure it out.”

“I have an attorney, Bryn. Could I get a copy for him?”

“I don’t see why not. I have to admit I’m confused about some of the legalistic shenanigans that are going on now regarding all this. Maybe your lawyer can help sort things out. Let me know who he is before I leave here. I’ll fax a copy to him.” I paused to take a deep breath. Think for a sec.

“And, Theo, I have to say because you’re a possible inheritor, and the farm was maybe taken from Marcie by fraud, there’s a downside for you from these facts.”

He nodded, exophthalmic eyes bulging to a frightening degree. “Makes me a suspect.” He spread shaking hands. I noticed how enormous they were. Why hadn’t I seen this before? Skinny, but hard arms. Huge hands. “Anythin I can do to help y’all. Anythin. I don’t care about inheritin the damn farm. Only caused me and Marcie grief. Now the horses. I want to see them well looked after. You think?–No…”

“What?” I asked.

“Think the sheriff’d let me stay out there for now? Take care a them till we get this whole mess sorted out?”

“I dunno, Theo. Good idea, though. Ask him. Tuan wondered if you might want to take care of the stallion. I talked him out of letting that Tammi Takeur board him! But he can’t stay at the pound anymore.”