Миранда Джеймс - Dead With The Wind

Horace made a gesture with his right hand, as if telling Bugg to get on with it. The policeman sobered. “Well, anyways, Horace, Miz Perigord is threatening to press charges against Trey for assault.”

Horace uttered a string of obscenities, and An’gel said, “Come along, Benjy.” She wasn’t going to stay and listen to any more of that kind of vulgar talk. She thought it served Trey right and hoped that Mrs. Perigord followed through on her threat. That young man had to learn to control his temper, and this might teach him a lesson. Unless he killed Sondra, and then he’ll have a much worse lesson to learn . Her thoughts were bleak as she climbed the stairs with Benjy.

“Miss An’gel,” Benjy said, “when we get upstairs, I need to talk to you and Miss Dickce. It’s about something I heard Tippy say while she was playing a little while ago.”

Benjy sounded concerned, An’gel thought. “Okay. It’s time the three of us had a talk and shared whatever information we’ve been able to pick up.”

By the time they reached the third floor, An’gel was wishing—and not for the first time—that Mireille had installed an elevator. One long flight of stairs was bad enough, but two were a bit wearisome.

An’gel and Benjy walked down the hall toward Tippy’s room. Dickce stepped out when they were a few feet away and pulled the door halfway closed. She held a finger to her lips, then beckoned them with the same finger to follow her across the hall to the bedroom where she spent the night.

“Where are Peanut and Endora?” Benjy asked in an undertone as he followed the sisters.

Dickce whispered back, “Sound asleep on the bed with Tippy.” She grinned. “She wore them and herself out, and I didn’t think anyone would mind if they napped with her.” She ushered An’gel and Benjy into the room and left her door half open.

Dickce sat on the bed, feet dangling slightly. An’gel took the chair in front of the vanity and Benjy the armchair in the corner.

“I can’t believe how much energy a four-year-old has,” Dickce said. “I swear I could take a nap myself right about now.”

“Better you than me,” An’gel said. “Benjy has something to tell us.”

“I think I know what it is,” Dickce said, “but go ahead, Benjy.”

Benjy replied, “While I was watching Tippy earlier, she was talking a mile a minute. I tuned out some of it, but I heard her say something a man yelling at her mother.” He related the rest of Tippy’s story.

Dickce nodded. “She told me pretty much the same story.”

“Did either of you ask her whether she recognized the man?”

Benjy shook his head, but Dickce said, “I did, in a roundabout way. But it was no use. The voices were too far away, even though they were loud. And when the storm hit, Tippy was too frightened and got under the covers and hid there till she fell asleep.” Dickce frowned. “Poor little thing. She shouldn’t have been on her own during a storm like that.”

“No, she shouldn’t,” An’gel said. “Her mother should have been looking after her.” She paused. “But of course, Sondra could have been killed soon after Tippy overheard the argument. Thank the Lord the child hid under the covers, or she might have been killed as well.”

“The storm was the perfect cover for the killer,” Dickce said. “Especially if everyone else was hunkered down somewhere in the house until it passed.”

“We really don’t know where anyone was, besides ourselves, Tippy, and Sondra,” Benjy pointed out. “What would happen if we asked everybody?”

“It would arouse suspicion pretty quickly,” An’gel said. “We can’t do it directly. We’ll have to get them all to tell us some other way.”

“The killer will lie,” Benjy said.

“True.” An’gel nodded. “But he might give himself away somehow. We just have to be cleverer than he is.”

“Do you think the killer is a man?” Dickce asked.

“I do,” Benjy said. “It had to be somebody pretty strong to lift Sondra up and throw her over the railing into the yard.”

“Exactly,” An’gel said. “Estelle is wiry, but Sondra was bigger than she is. And Jacqueline was in town at the hospital with her mother.”

“So that leaves us with Horace, Trey, Richmond Thurston, and Jackson,” Dickce said.

“ Jackson? ” An’gel said. “That’s utterly ridiculous. The poor man can hardly get himself around, much less pick up a woman and throw her over a railing. I say we rule him out.”

Dickce’s mouth set in a stern line, and An’gel recognized this sign of her sister’s stubbornness. “No, think about it. Jackson adored Mireille, and he knew what Sondra had done. If he was truly furious at Sondra, the adrenaline might have been enough to make it possible for him to do it.”

“She’s got a point,” Benjy said. “Although I’d hate to think it of him. He’s such a sweet old man.”

An’gel sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But by the same token, we can’t rule out Estelle either. She was devoted to Mireille, and I know she loathed Sondra.” She told them about her conversation a little earlier with the housekeeper.

“I vote for her, then,” Benjy said. “She creeps me out anyway. Reminds me of that old lady on The Addams Family . You know, the grandmother, although the lady on the show wears her hair down, and Estelle doesn’t.”

An’gel dimly remembered the character to whom Benjy referred, and she had to admit a certain resemblance between the fictional grandma and Estelle.

Dickce giggled. “I see what you mean, Benjy. I hadn’t thought about it before, but Estelle could be a character right out of that show.”

“Be serious.” An’gel frowned. She herself had a rather dark sense of humor on occasion, but this was not one of them.

“What about the man Tippy heard yelling at her mother?” Benjy said. “What about Lance Perigord? Wasn’t he in the house last night, too?”

“Why do I keep forgetting that young man?” An’gel shook her head. “Yes, he was here, too. Although I really can’t see him harming Sondra. She was his ticket out of St. Ignatiusville.”

“He’s not exactly a deep thinker,” Dickce said in a wry tone. “If Sondra made him angry, he might not stop to think about lashing out at her.”

“She falls and hits her head on a sharp corner or something in her room.” Benjy nodded. “Then he panics, the storm hits, and he drags her out to the gallery and tosses her over the railing.”

An’gel could envision the scene all too easily. She wondered if that was what really happened. Whether it was Lance who was responsible or someone else remained to be determined, but it seemed like a plausible scenario.

The quiet was shattered a moment later by the sound of Peanut barking frantically across the hall.

CHAPTER 25

Benjy shot up from his chair, out the door, and into the hall before either An’gel or Dickce rose from their respective perches. Peanut kept up the barking until the sisters reached the hall. Then the dog fell silent.

The door to Tippy’s room stood wide open, and An’gel and Dickce hurried inside. They found Benjy rubbing the dog’s head and talking to a small mound under the bed covers.

“It’s okay, Tippy, it’s gone. Peanut didn’t mean to scare you.”

The mound moved, and a small face peeked out from beneath the cover. “You pwomise?” Tippy said solemnly.

“I promise,” Benjy said. “That old spider won’t scare you or Peanut anymore.”

Tippy remained still a moment longer, then evidently decided to take Benjy at his word. She crawled out completely from under the covers and slid to the floor beside her bed.

An’gel felt weak in the knees. Her heart was still racing, and she was annoyed with Peanut. A spider, of all things! A moment later she saw the humorous side of it as she pictured the dog and a spider confronting each other, and neither of them being happy about it. She started laughing.