“What’s this all about?” Parry demanded as he took a seat beside Georgette.
“Yes, dear boy, please tell us what’s going on.” Sitting together on the sofa, Clarice placed her hand in Nowell’s. She had insisted her fiancé stay, since he would soon be a member of the family.
Max had tensed at the mention of marriage between Clarice and Nowell, but when Jolie had given him a warning glance, he’d kept quiet. One problem at a time was all they could handle.
Mallory sneered at Jolie. “Since Aunt Clarice is planning on marrying her overaged hippy, I suppose you two are fixing to announce that y’all want to make it a double wedding.”
“Shut up, Mallory,” Max said. “Sit down and keep quiet.”
“Yes, sir!” Mallory saluted him, then flopped down on the huge velvet ottoman in front of Georgette’s chair.
“Hush, dear.” Georgette leaned over just enough to pat Mallory’s back several times.
Max glanced around the room before his gaze settled on Jolie. “As y’all know, Theron Carter and Jolie decided to try to have the Belle Rose massacre case reopened and—”
“And Theron wound up in the hospital and Jolie nearly got herself killed,” Parry stated the facts quite adamantly.
“And don’t forget that Max got shot,” Clarice added.
“The point is that by this time y’all have to realize that someone is trying to prevent any further investigation into the old double murder case. Which, I would think, means that someone other than Lemar Fuqua murdered Audrey Royale and Lisette Desmond.”
“I’ve always believed Lemar was innocent,” Clarice said.
“What Max and I want from y’all is any information you can give us about that day.” Jolie purposefully avoided looking at her stepmother.
“I can’t see where that could help y’all…” Georgette glanced pleadingly at Parry.
“Georgie’s right.” Parry frowned, his gaze directed at Max. “What good’s it going to do to rehash everything?”
“I—I don’t want to remember.” Clarice shook her head. Nowell draped his arm around her shoulders protectively.
“Please, Aunt Clarice,” Jolie said. “If I’m willing to try to recall all the details of what happened to me that day, then surely you can. If only I had even a vague memory of who shot me.”
Clarice whimpered. “Blood. So much blood. I parked in the back, where I always did, and came in through the kitchen.” Clarice’s eyes grew wide, a trancelike expression glazing them. “I saw Audrey’s body. She was dead. And then I saw Jolie. At first, I thought she was dead, too. But thank the Lord, she was still alive. I suppose I called the police. I don’t remember exactly. I sat down in the floor and held Jolie in my arms.” Clarice sighed heavily. “The next thing I remember clearly, it was weeks later.”
“Then you never saw Aunt Lisette or Lemar?” Jolie asked.
Clarice shook her head. “I never went beyond the kitchen.”
“Aunt Clarice, there wasn’t any truth to the rumors that Lisette and Lemar were having an affair, was there?” Max asked.
“Mercy no. Lemar was our brother, you know. Our half brother.”
A hushed silence fell over the room. An eerily comforting atmosphere of wonder and relief that the truth had finally been brought out into the light of day.
“Lemar and Yvonne were Granddaddy’s children?” Jolie asked, surprised, but not shocked. It was as if on some level she had always known and yet never consciously suspected.
“Oh, my, yes.” Clarice’s lips curved into a fragile smile. “So, you see, there was no love affair. Only a family attachment.”
“Then what would Lemar’s motive have been to kill his two half sisters?” Max asked. “If not jealousy, then what? Hatred?”
“No, no, no,” Clarice insisted. “Lemar didn’t hate anyone, least of all Lisette. And everyone who knew Lemar knew he couldn’t hurt a fly. He was such a kind and gentle man.”
Max turned to Parry. “Did you suspect Lisette of having an affair?”
“Huh?” Parry seemed taken aback by the question. “I…er…of course not. We were engaged to be married. We loved each other and were planning a future together.”
“I’m sorry to speak ill of the dead,” Jolie said. “But I’ve been led to believe that my aunt Lisette was rather promiscuous, that she’d had numerous lovers before you two became engaged.”
“Lisette was a wild carefree spirit,” Parry said. “And I loved that about her. She wasn’t some straightlaced Goody-Two-shoes.”
“I see.” Jolie looked point-blank at Parry. “So, you had no reason to be jealous?”
“I wish you wouldn’t say such hateful things about Lisette.” Clarice’s thin shoulders tensed, even under Nowell’s comforting caress.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Clarice.” Jolie took a tentative step in her aunt’s direction, then paused, and said, “But we have to figure out who might have had a motive to kill Mama and Aunt Lisette.”
“Well, I resent the fact that you’ve practically implied I might have had a motive,” Parry huffed, his cheeks swelling like a bullfrog’s.
Max came up beside Jolie and for a split second she thought he was going to place his hand on her shoulder, but he didn’t. “We aren’t accusing anyone of anything. But Jolie’s right. The more we know about what was going on back then, the better our odds of finding out who the real killer was and stopping him before he tries to stop us a second time.”
“Oh, dear,” Georgette gasped. “Why must we go through that nightmare all over again? My poor Louis was devastated.” She looked at Jolie. “He wouldn’t leave the hospital for days. He stayed there, waiting and praying that you would live. And I couldn’t be with him, couldn’t comfort him. I had to stay away.”
Jolie hated hearing the love and caring in Georgette’s voice, hated having to admit the possibility that her stepmother had truly loved her father. “What we need to know is if any of you can think of something—anything—that might cast suspicion on someone other than Lemar.”
“Someone besides Max?” Parry asked.
“What do you mean by that?” Silent for quite some time, Mallory demanded an explanation for her uncle’s comment.
Parry shrugged. A rather wicked grin played across his face. “There were rumors, lots of rumors. People thought maybe Max killed off Audrey Desmond to clear the way for Georgie to marry Louis.”
“That’s a dirty, filthy lie!” Mallory screamed. “Max would never—”
“No, of course he wouldn’t,” Jolie agreed. “Someone, perhaps the real killer, started that vicious lie, just as someone started the lie about Lisette and Lemar being lovers.”
Staring at Jolie, a startled expression on her face, Mallory quieted. “Then maybe you’d better find out who started the rumors.”
Georgette rose from the sofa. Wringing her hands anxiously, she walked toward Jolie. “Your father believed Lemar was innocent. He spoke to Sheriff Bendall about it, but the sheriff assured Louis that no one else could have committed the murders. For years afterward, Louis would occasionally get in an odd mood, worrying about Lemar’s innocence. And I’m afraid I’m guilty of having persuaded him, more than once, to let the matter drop. I couldn’t bear to see Louis hurting the way he did every time he relived that day.
“We both felt so terribly guilty.” Georgette came right up to Jolie and looked directly at her. “All these years I’ve wanted to tell you…to say that I’m so terribly sorry about what happened to your mother. Louis and I…we loved each other and wanted to be together, but not that way, not at the expense of Audrey’s life.”
Jolie stiffened, every muscle in her body rigidly taut. Emotions overwhelmed her, but she fought them, momentarily conquering the tears threatening to weaken her resolve to hate Georgette until her dying day.
“Mother…” Max spoke softly, comfort and concern in his voice.
“It’s my fault that Louis didn’t pursue the matter, that he never insisted on reopening the case, in proving to himself Lemar murdered Audrey and Lisette.” Georgette held out her hands to Jolie. “Please, forgive me. And forgive your father. He never stopped loving you. Never stopped hoping you would come home.”
Tears gathered in Jolie’s eyes, tears she could no longer control.
God, make the pain stop. Make it go away
. She couldn’t bear hearing the truth and knowing in her heart that she had wronged her father.
“No…no…” Jolie turned and ran from the room. Blinded by her tears, she could hardly see where she was going but somehow managed to make it outside onto the front veranda. Feelings long suppressed broke free.
“Jolie!” Max called.
She leaned her forehead against the porch column, then clutched it with trembling hands. Max came up behind her, turned her around and enfolded her in his embrace. She clung to him, weeping uncontrollably.
“Ah,
chère
.”
He held her fiercely, protectively. Clinging to him with all her might, Jolie hoped that Max would never let her go.
Chapter 21
Over the past eight days, Jolie and Max had instigated a full-fledged investigation, with the unofficial help of SheriffIke Denton. Chief Harper simply looked the other way, neither assisting nor hindering their efforts. At first, people in Sumarville, both black and white, had been reluctant to talk about the murders that had rocked the small town twenty years ago. But a few people had been persuaded to recount those unsettling days when the town had divided bitterly along racial lines. The blacks believed Lemar to be innocent; most whites still believed him to be guilty. But not one person of either race had known one bad thing about Lemar.
The residents of Belle Rose had cooperated with Max and Jolie by recalling the events of that long-ago day and sharing their memories of the people and the events prior to and after the murders. Jolie felt almost guilty that she couldn’t remember seeing the killer, that she had no memory of a face that should have haunted her to this day.
But I didn’t see him; I only heard his footsteps
.
And as much as she hated to admit it, Jolie came to realize the extent of Georgette’s love for her father. The look in her eyes, the expression on her face, the tone of her voice when she spoke of Louis Royale revealed the depth of her feelings for him. Of course, that didn’t lessen the crime of their affair or change the fact that her father had married Georgette so soon after her mother’s death.
And as poor Aunt Clarice wept while recounting the events of a day almost too painful to remember, Nowell Landers had remained at her side, caring, supportive, and protective. Jolie’s instincts told her that this man loved her aunt, that he had no ulterior motives for wanting to marry her. Max disagreed. But then Max was a pessimist by nature.
Parry had been reticent at first to discuss his relationship with Lisette, but after coaxing from Max, he had opened up, even admitting that because of her promiscuity, more than one man in Sumarville might have wanted to kill the youngest Desmond sister.
“We were two of a kind,” Parry had said. “But I think we could have made a marriage between us work, if—if she hadn’t been killed.”
After all was said and done, they weren’t any closer to proving Lemar Fuqua innocent than they’d been in the beginning. But she would not give up. And neither would Max. They hadn’t discussed his motives, not since he had implied that his possessive feelings for her were why he had made her quest his own. In all honesty, she would prefer not to look too closely at Max’s motivation.
Jolie thought it rather interesting, perhaps even revealing, how well Max and she worked together, how in tune with each other’s moods they were. She had never felt such a strong physical and mental connection to another person. But she kept an emotional distance between them, allowing herself only an occasional glance and an infrequent touch. She didn’t dare let herself give in to the longing seething just below the surface. No matter what happened in the days and weeks ahead, when all this was over, they would go their separate ways. When she left Sumarville for good, she wanted to make sure she walked away with her heart and her pride intact.
Theron’s condition had improved and the doctors ordered him moved into a private room. Jolie gave him daily updates on the investigation and could tell how much he wished he could be directly involved. Yvonne returned to her position at Belle Rose, with the stipulation that she be allowed to go into town to visit Theron twice every day. The bodyguards Max had hired continued their around-the-clock duties. And Yvonne, too, had gone over her memories of that long-ago day and had given them a sister’s insight into the kind of man her twin had been.
Despite their determination to come up with enough evidence to warrant reopening the Belle Rose massacre case, so far, no other incidents of violence had occurred, no major roadblocks had been put in their path. But Jolie knew that Max felt a certain amount of anxiety, just as she did. While they kept digging for information, they waited and wondered when and where the next strike would occur.
Two days earlier, Jolie had flown to Atlanta to take care of a work-related emergency and to make arrangements with her attorney for Cheryl to sign checks and make decisions in her absence. In only a few weeks’ time, the focus of her life had changed from her present to her past. There was no way she could go back to her life and career in Atlanta until she discovered the truth about the Belle Rose massacre—and, once and for all, laid the past to rest.
On the flight back to Sumarville, all she’d thought about was seeing Max again; so it was no surprise that when she stepped off the plane at the Sumarville airport, Max Devereaux’s face was the only one she saw in the small crowd awaiting the incoming passengers. As she approached him, she walked faster. When he caught sight of her, he all but ran toward her. As they came together, each had to screech to a jerky halt to keep from colliding.
“Good flight?” he asked.
“As good as you get on one of those”—she inclined her head toward the twin-engine airplane sitting on the runway—“crop dusters that fly between here and Atlanta.”
He took her small vinyl bag, slung it up on his shoulder, then slipped his arm around her waist. “Come on. We have an early dinner date.”
“We?”
“The two of us are meeting Sandy and Gar Wells for supper at the Sumarville Inn restaurant.”
“We are?”
They exited the small airport terminal and walked out into the oppressive heat of a summertime afternoon in the Delta.
“Since we’ve ruled out questioning Roscoe. Wells directly—”
“You ruled out questioning him directly.” Jolie kept pace with Max as he headed toward the parking lot.
“Whatever.” Max opened the Porsche’s trunk and dumped Jolie’s bag inside. “The point is that Sandy adamantly opposes everything her father has ever believed in and even Gar disapproves of his father’s history.”
“Your point?” When Max opened the passenger door, Jolie slid in and then looked up at him. “How does the fact that Roscoe’s children have different moral and political views than their father affect our investigation?”
Max got in on the driver’s side, started the engine, and glanced over his shoulder before backing out of the parking place. “If we question Sandy and Gar about the possibility that Roscoe might somehow have been involved in a cover-up twenty years ago and might be connected to the attacks on Theron and you, I believe they’ll be honest with us and tell us if they know anything.”
As the hot breeze whipped the flyaway strands of Jolie’s hair about her face, she stole a glance at Max. Gorgeous, sexy Max, who had become far too important to her in a very short period of time.
“Okay, I agree that Sandy will be up front with us,” Jolie said. “But are you sure Gar won’t go straight to Roscoe and tell him that we suspect him?”
“If I ask Gar to keep the conversation in confidence, I’m reasonably sure—”
“You should question Sandy,” Jolie interrupted. “And I should question Gar.”
“What?” Max snapped around and glared at her for a millisecond, then returned his gaze to the road.
“I’m sure it’s no secret, not even from you, that Sandy would walk over hot coals for you, so it stands to reason that she’ll tell you if she knows anything.”
“Sandy’s a fine woman, but…There’s never been anything between us other than friendship.” Max paused, apparently waiting for her response, but when she didn’t comment, he went on. “I hadn’t realized that you’d picked up on the fact that Gar is interested in you.”
“He is?”
“Yes, he is. The evening after Louis’s funeral, right after the reading of the will, he asked if I’d mind if he invited you out, once our legal problems were settled.”
“That’s nice. I like Gar, but I didn’t have any idea that he…well, that he’s interested in me personally. I just thought that because we were childhood friends, he might—”
“Don’t flirt with Gar.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said do not flirt with Gar tonight.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because I don’t want him taking you seriously. He might wind up getting hurt if you have to reject him.”
“Maybe I won’t reject him.”
“Don’t try to use him to make me jealous. It wouldn’t be fair to Gar. Besides, he’d have no idea how to handle a woman like you.”
Of all the nerve! To imply that the only reason she’d flirt with Gar would be to make Max jealous. “He wouldn’t know how to handle me, but you would. Is that it?” She glowered at Max.
A quirky grin lifted the corners of his lips, but he didn’t even glance her way when he said, “I believe the answer to that question is obvious.”
Jolie huffed loudly, then kept quiet. Something told her that she couldn’t win this argument with Max.
As the sun hovered on the western horizon, a vivid yellow-orange ball of flame, Yvonne and Clarice sat on the side porch in the big white rockers, each sipping lemonade that Yvonne had prepared fresh that afternoon. This was truly the first day in nearly two weeks that Yvonne had allowed herself to relax, to forgo worry and concern about Theron and what the future held for all of them. God only knew what ugly truths were on the verge of being discovered.
“Sure been hot today,” Clarice said, fanning herself with the antique lace fan that had once belonged to her mother.
“Likely to be the same tomorrow,” Yvonne replied.
Clarice took another sip of lemonade, then placed the nearly empty glass on the table between the rockers. “Maybe they’ll let you bring Theron home tomorrow.”
“Could be. Dr. Bainbridge said tomorrow or the next day.”
“I thought Theron took it pretty well, learning about our being kinfolk and all.”
Clarice’s gaze met Yvonne’s and the two women smiled at each other. Loving, bittersweet smiles that encompassed more than friendship—even more than sisterhood.
“Much better than I thought he would,” Yvonne said. “Of course once he’s had time to think about it more, he might—”
“He can’t deny his heritage anymore than the rest of us can.”
“Guess not.”
Sitting there quietly for several minutes, they continued rocking. The humid evening breeze began to cool ever so slightly.
“That wind’s getting up.” Yvonne sniffed the air. “And it’s cooling off some. Must be coming off a rain close by.”
“Yvonne?”
“Hmmm?”
“I’m sure Jolie and Max think Roscoe’s involved.”
Yvonne’s heart lurched as if it would burst right through her chest. Just the mention of that man’s name had a way of reminding her of things she’d rather forget.
“I hope they can prove it,” Yvonne said. “I’d like to see his lily-white hide nailed to the barn wall. I’d even doing the nailing myself.”
“Guess you would.” Clarice kept fanning. “And I’d help you.”
“A man like Roscoe would be capable of just about anything, even murder. Somebody needs to expose him and show the world that he’s the same racist hatemonger he was forty years ago. He needs to be punished for…” Yvonne wrung her hands. If Jolie and Max could somehow prove that Roscoe was involved in manipulating the investigation of the Belle Rose massacre, then maybe that heartless monster would finally be punished. It really didn’t matter to her which of his many sins he would have to pay for, just as long as he paid. Preferably with his life. There had been a time when she’d considered killing him herself.
Yvonne sighed. “I’ve often wondered if we did the right thing. If we’d told Mr. Sam about what—”
“We swore that we’d never tell anyone, that it would be our secret forever. We made a pact.”
“Times have changed. People might believe us now. We could—”
“No!”
Yvonne nodded. “You’re probably right. Best we keep it to ourselves. Besides, our telling about one crime Roscoe committed wouldn’t prove he took part in another. We’ll just have to let Jolie and Max dig up the evidence against him.”
While Theron had hovered between life and death, Yvonne hadn’t had time to think of anything except her son. Her days and nights had been spent praying and waiting. But now that Theron was recovering, she had begun thinking about who had paid those men to kill Theron. Only one name came to mind. Even Jolie and Max thought there was a good possibility Roscoe Wells was somehow involved.
Maybe times had changed; maybe people would believe them if they chose to tell their story now. Even if it would be her word and Clarice’s against Roscoe’s, proclaiming the truth to the world would probably end the bastard’s political career. Maybe she needed to remind Roscoe, even threaten him. She wouldn’t go see him, wouldn’t put herself inside his home, but she could telephone him. She could make him squirm.
Yvonne and Clarice sat together in silence for a good fifteen minutes before the roar of Nowell Landers’s Harley shattered the stillness.
Clarice jumped up from her rocker and rushed to the edge of the porch, then grasped the banister railing and looked down the road.