Chapter 22 #3
I could hear Thibaut’s voice but couldn’t understand what he was saying, but the frown on Beau’s face made me worry that something bad was happening with my house again.
I never envisioned that I’d have such a love-hate relationship with an inanimate structure.
It had certainly chosen me, but sometimes I couldn’t help but feel as if it had a questionable sense of humor, combined with a mean streak.
To make me feel better after the recent roof fiasco, Jolene had started to use design software to plan the furnishing of the house.
I hadn’t even minded that she’d added labels like Jolene’s Kitchen, Mardi’s Wardrobe Closet, and Nola’s Beauty Space.
But now, listening to Beau and Thibaut on the phone, I began to wonder if any of it would ever become a reality.
When Beau ended the call, he wasn’t smiling.
I felt bile rise in the back of my throat. “What is it now? Did the foundation split? Chimney collapse? Roof catch fire?”
“Not at your house, if that’s any consolation.”
“Is it the house on Esplanade?” Mimi asked.
Beau nodded. “Yeah.”
I struggled to hide my relief. I had painstakingly reglazed each and every window in my Creole cottage, and my fingers almost bled from the memory. Not that I wanted anything to happen to the house on Esplanade, but we hadn’t even begun the renovation yet, so there was a lot less to lose.
Beau continued. “Apparently that da—that doll showed up on the porch this morning, and when Thibaut entered the front door, the windows in the upstairs camelback addition blew out like a freak tornado. Jorge was so scared he left his toolbox and drove off in his truck.”
My eyes met Sarah’s, and I knew we were both thinking about the doll and its hidden secret.
He walked over to where Mimi sat and took her hand. “Could you and Felicity meet with the funeral director without me? I need to find out what’s going on.”
“You can’t go alone, Beau.” I had managed to forget that I had a broken ankle and had made like I was going to stand before Sarah tugged on my arm to hold me back.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll take Sam.”
“But…” I’d been about to say But we’re a team, but I let the words dissolve on my tongue. Instead, I said, “Could you FaceTime with me when you get there? I need to assess how bad the damage is so I can tell Cooper.”
“Sure.” He looked uncomfortable, his eyes avoiding mine. “There’s one more thing he told me.”
I braced myself. “Yeah?”
“When they pulled up the rug in the upstairs room, it, um…” He scratched the back of his neck.
“It revealed a large rusty stain. It could be paint. Or it could be…something else. They’re going to get it analyzed.
I called Uncle Bernie to see if he could put a rush on it.
I know it’s a cold case, but what happened in your car makes it urgent.
Not that I can explain that to the police. ”
“Because it might affect your ability to sell the house to Cooper, or anyone else.”
He met my eyes briefly. “Of course. This is our first murder-house flip. It needs to be a success if we want to make it into a viable project for a TV series—or for Mimi to invest in another house.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped his motivation was, but his answer wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
“Right. So, the bloodstain on the floor was discovered upstairs, and not in the room where Sybil was found? According to Joan Wenzel, there was lots of blood in Sybil’s room.
She said they had to throw out the rug and bedclothes because there was so much.
But nobody said anything about the upstairs room. ”
“Which could be why the bloodstain upstairs was missed,” Beau said, his eyes serious. “The detectives at the time weren’t looking for it.”
Sarah’s phone, in her purse, began to ring with an old-fashioned landline ringtone. She gave me a panicked look before pulling it out and holding it to her ear.
I couldn’t hear a voice on the other end of the line, only a hollow whoosh sound like air moving through a pneumatic tube leading to nowhere.
Sarah’s eyes widened as she listened, sharp pops and crackles leaking from her phone along with what I had at first thought might be an errant wind.
The sound unwound itself, materializing note by note, until I recognized the song. “Rolling in the Deep.”
A thick leather-bound book flew off one of the shelves lining the wall, landing on its spine with its pages splayed like the wings of a felled bird. Sarah’s phone dropped the call, the eerie song silenced as we looked at each other.
Jolene picked up the book from the floor, carefully keeping it open to the page where it had landed.
“It’s the Holy Bible. Not sure how it could have fallen like that, but the binding isn’t broken, thank goodness—although the spine is creased, so it looks like someone really enjoys the book of Luke. ” She tried to smile.
Mimi took the Bible from Jolene and stared at the page as if waiting for it to speak to her.
After a long moment, she replaced the Bible on the shelf and turned toward us.
“I have a lot of details to take care of for the funeral and reception, so if you will excuse me…” On her way out of the room, she paused by the bed to kiss the top of my head.
“Maybe it’s a good thing that you’re going back to your apartment now. ”
I regarded her closely, waiting for an explanation, but she turned to go.
She’d barely made it out of the room when my phone began to vibrate and ring with “Rolling in the Deep.” Mimi kept going even when her own phone began to play the same tune.
I opened my mouth to call her back, only to become suddenly aware that the temperature in the room had plummeted, my breath swallowing the unspoken words in one single ghostly wisp.