“I owe you for today,” Maggie told her friend as the two walked to Gaynell’s car.
“No you don’t,” Gaynell. “It was fun. Well, as fun as trying to prevent a man from being wrongfully accused of murder can be.”
“I’ll let you know the minute I hear anything from Lia.”
“That would be great,” Gaynell said. She got into her Mini Cooper and began backing out of the gravel lot. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Suddenly there was a loud scream, a woman’s scream. Gaynell braked hard and threw her car into park. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. The scream came again and didn’t stop. Maggie took off running toward the sound of it, which came from the parterre. Gaynell jumped out of the car and ran behind her. Maggie reached the parterre at the same time as Tug and Ninette. They all found Emily Butler standing over what appeared to be a bundle of clothes, screaming her head off. Maggie grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “Emily, what is it, what’s wrong?”
Emily didn’t form words. She just continued to scream as she pointed to the bundle in front of her.
It was then that Maggie realized the bundle was a very dead Debbie Stern.
Chapter Twenty-Two
What followed the discovery of Debbie’s body felt unpleasantly familiar to Maggie: the 911 call, the scream of sirens, Pelican PD descending on Crozat. Once again, the coroner’s van carted away a body. Once again, an evidence van decorated the front lawn. And once again, Rufus Durand couldn’t keep himself from pointing out the tragedy’s potential negative impact on Crozat’s fortunes.
Only this time, there was Bo Durand.
Maggie knew that Bo’s loyalty to his profession came first, but she finally trusted that he’d be about as fair as she could expect from any PPD law enforcement official. She even let herself hope that he’d be more than fair, that he’d show her family some clandestine partiality.
Bo screeched up to the plantation, the light flashing on top of his unmarked sedan. He walked over to where officers had sealed off the crime scene and was about to say something to Maggie but saw Ru and decided against it. She made eye contact with Bo, and his brow furrowed as if to ask, “Are you okay?” Maggie gave a tiny shrug that he acknowledged with an equally easy-to-miss sympathetic head nod. Then he conferred with the officers, instructed the crime scene investigators, and huddled with Ru, sending the message that whatever had transpired in the past, he was now the consummate team player.
“Everyone who’s here is waiting for you in the parlor ’cept for the kids,” Rufus told Bo.
“Cause of death?”
“Strangulation.”
“Weapon?”
“From the size of the marks, the best guess of our guys is some piece of fabric with a little width to it.”
Bo took this in and then started toward the house. Maggie and Gaynell followed. “I can’t believe we’re going through this again,” Maggie said. “Ugh, that sounded really callous. Poor Debbie.”
“Fill me in on how the body was discovered.”
Maggie gave Bo details of how she and Gaynell heard Emily screaming and, in rushing to her aid, discovered Debbie. Then something dawned on her. “Kyle wasn’t here. He couldn’t have murdered her. So that proves he’s innocent.”
“That proves he’s innocent regarding Debbie’s death.”
“Are you telling us that you don’t think Beverly and Debbie’s deaths are connected?” Gaynell asked, her tone skeptical.
“At this point, there’s no evidence to support that. Much as I hate to say it, because I do like the guy, there is evidence to support a claim that Kyle held a grudge that could have led to him taking revenge on Beverly. And Maggie herself handed over the evidence that could implicate Jan Robbins, if she knew about Debbie’s plot to oust her.”
Maggie groaned. In trying to help nail a murder suspect, she had inadvertently put another nail in Kyle’s potential coffin, and the first one in Jan’s. She was starting to feel like living proof of the old adage “No good deed goes unpunished.”
“You haven’t talked to Lia, have you?” Bo asked her after a moment of silence as they walked.
“No. Why?” Maggie felt a knot of dread in her stomach.
“The judge denied bail.”
“What? Oh, no. I swear, I can’t stand it anymore. When will this end?”
Bo instinctively reached out to comfort Maggie and then just as quickly pulled away. When they reached the Crozat front parlor, they found Artie keeping an eye on Tug, Ninette, Gran’, and the B and B’s guests. As soon as Bo, Maggie, and Gaynell entered, the guests converged on Bo.
“What the hell’s going on here?”
“You’re not gonna hold us again, are you? We’ve got classes in a couple of days, man.”
“Is there a serial killer on the loose?”
“For God’s sake, a woman is dead,” Jan yelled at the others. Maggie could see that she, as well as the other Cuties, had been crying. “Get over yourselves and show her some respect. She was a good person.”
“A very good person,” Angela parroted while Suzy nodded vigorously in agreement. Maggie knew otherwise. She felt sorry for Jan, who was in for a shock as great as the one of her supposed friend’s death—that is, if Jan herself wasn’t the murderer and faking her grief. Or was it “murderess” if the killer was a woman? Maggie wondered but then forced herself to focus.
“You’ll be free to go as soon as we verify contact information and conduct a thorough search of the area,” Bo told the guests. “Right now, I need to interview you individually, like I did when Mrs. Clabber expired. And to answer another question, no, I don’t believe that there’s a serial killer targeting Crozat.”
“We can’t apologize enough to all of you for what’s happened here,” Tug told the group in somber tones. “We’ll make calls and see if any of the nearby B and Bs or inns or motels have rooms available. It may be tough since people who came for Fet Let tend to stick around for a couple of the other local end-of-summer festivals in the area this week. But if we can’t find accommodations and you choose to continue your stay with us, we will comp you again.”
“Comp” is officially my least-favorite word, Maggie thought. She clutched Ninette’s hand and sneaked a look to see how this new disaster was affecting her mother. Ninette seemed stoic. The hospital visit appeared to have done her so much good that Maggie pondered a stay there herself.
She turned her attention back to the conversation. “We’re going to post a twenty-four-hour guard to ensure your safety,” Bo was saying.
“I’d like to volunteer for the first shift, sir,” Artie said, mindful that a Crozat dinner would soon be placed on the table.
“Great, we get Officer Hollow Leg,” Maggie muttered to her father, who put his fingers to his lips to shush her.
“I’m going to ask you to wait on the veranda while I conduct my interviews,” Bo told everyone. “Please don’t talk about Ms. Stern. I don’t want you coloring each other’s recollections. Artie, stay with them.”
“Yessir.”
Artie led everyone out except Maggie. “Do you need me to do anything?” she asked Bo.
“Yes. I’m going to interview the Cuties simultaneously. I don’t want to give them a chance to communicate among themselves. I could use another pair of eyes to check out their instant reactions to the news about Debbie’s planned coup. For all we know, one of them might have been in on it with her. Or found out and killed her to protect Jan.”
“Rufus won’t be happy if he sees me in here with you.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll take that chance. It beats whatever lackey of his he’d send in to ‘help’ me. Plus, you know these women better than any of us, so you’re more likely to pick up on anything unusual.”