The Undoing of Saint Silvanus Read online

  At the next dead silence, she jumped in, hoping everyone would mind themselves. “Olivia, look who’s here! Say hello to Jillian! How long’s it been since you two . . . ?”

  Jillian looked at Olivia, but Olivia’s gaze never wavered from her employee’s face. “Adella?” she posed again with the same unsettling, upturned pitch, each syllable distinct.

  Some folks had a knack for making people nervous. An uncanny gift for running every perfectly reasonable explanation out of another person’s head. In one fell swoop, yesterday’s inspiration had become today’s perspiration and Adella, for one, didn’t appreciate it. She couldn’t think of a single thing she liked less than sweating, and here this blouse was, fresh from the cleaners. Olivia owed her three dollars and fifty cents and she was lucky Adella had more manners than to tell her so.

  CHAPTER 4

  ADELLA WOULD HAVE FELT BETTER if Olivia had bitten her head off. But she just stood there stoically, black eyes boring a hole through her, letting Adella dig herself a grave. She knew the dirt was about to fly when Olivia refused to acknowledge Jillian and said instead, “Adella, may I see you in my quarters, please?” She’d followed her with the enthusiasm of a woman walking off a diving board into a drained pool.

  David had thrown his Korean stir-fry on the kitchen counter and run for his life. The man had the sense to recognize the primal danger of placing himself between two unhappy women. They were like the blades of a pair of scissors, getting sharper by the rub, held together by the tight screw of territorialism.

  After ten of the longest minutes known to man, Olivia uttered her first words. “What hotel did you put her in? We’re at full capacity.”

  Adella tilted her head and looked at Olivia, pleading wordlessly for her to be reasonable. “We have the guest room, Olivia. Let her stay in it.”

  The discourse didn’t get loud, exactly, but what it lacked in volume, it made up for in tension. Olivia was the kind who yelled the loudest when she got the quietest. She carried an authority that was a little undoing if she wasn’t on your side. And really, she didn’t seem to often be on anyone’s side.

  “You had no right.” Still, she never raised the volume, but Adella could hear Olivia breathing deep and hard and she could almost feel the reverb of her employer’s heart through the hardwood floor. “You know it’s impossible for her to stay in there. You had no right. You have overstepped your bounds, and I . . .” Olivia let the last word hang in the air.

  As Adella steadied herself to accept the loss of her job, Olivia turned around, walked into her bathroom, and closed the door behind her.

  Adella found Jillian in the front yard on the concrete bench. In this temperature, its surface had to be almost as hot as an iron. Even under the shade of that monstrous live oak, the young woman was sweltering, her carry-on bag still clutched in her lap.

  Jillian didn’t give her time to utter a word. “You lied.”

  Adella was taken aback. In this part of the world they tended to beat around the bush before they plowed it up by the roots. “I prefer to think I helped.”

  “Helped?” Jillian raised her voice. “What part of manipulating me here without her even knowing I was coming is helping? Did you see the look on her face? She’s a witch!”

  Adella gasped. “Young lady, don’t you talk about your grandmother that way. Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “What grandmother? Did that look like a grandmother to you? Don’t you dare shame me. Shame her! She’s a hateful old stone. She doesn’t even want me here.”

  “Yes, she does. She . . . just doesn’t know it yet.” After the face-off she’d gotten in the house, Adella figured she’d probably lied again and guessed God could as easily forgive two fibs as one.

  For the first time she realized how much the child favored her estranged grandmother in both looks and temperament. She couldn’t charge Jillian with silent stoicism, however.

  “I’m calling a cab,” the young woman stated. “And I’m going to stay in one of those dives by the airport. You couldn’t pay me a thousand dollars to stay in this . . . house.”

  The magnitude of what Adella had done was settling in on her, and she felt fresh out of remedies and twice her age. All the progress she’d made with Olivia in the last six months had sprouted wings and flown like a hawk. “I can’t let you do that. After the mess I’ve made, the least I can do is offer you a room at my house. You can catch a flight out tomorrow. I’ll cover the costs of the ticket change. We have a comfortable home and you’ll look a mighty long way to find a man as fine as my Emmett.”

  “I’m not staying at your house. I’m staying by myself.”

  “Jillian, I’m asking you nicely. Please don’t do that. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way in a strange city.”

  “Strange is right. That may be the first truthful thing you’ve had to say to me. I’m an adult. I can take care of myself.”

  Adella blew out a long sigh. “Let me go get my keys and I’ll take you wherever you want to go. But Mrs. Fontaine will have my hide if I don’t pay to put you somewhere decent.”

  “I bet,” Jillian quipped with a disrespect Adella didn’t run into every day.

  Adella had retrieved her purse and was heading back toward Jillian with her keys dangling from her hand when two police cars pulled up to the curb, one in front and the other behind her vehicle. The back one blocked the driveway. “What on earth? Officers, can I help you?”

  There were four of them. Two men had gotten out of the first car, and another man and a woman crawled out of the second.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m Sergeant Cal DaCosta. This is Officer Frank Lamonte.”

  “Good afternoon, ma’am.”

  “And Officers Bill La Bauve and Carla Sanchez.”

  Officer Sanchez reached out to shake Adella’s hand. She responded in kind, though she didn’t want to. She preferred knowing their business to holding their hands.

  “We need to see a family member of Mr. Raphael Fontaine. This is the address we tracked down for nearest of kin when he was found deceased,” Sergeant DaCosta explained.

  “We already know he is deceased, officers. Two others brought us the news several days ago. So unless you have further business here, I’ll need you to move your cars from right in front of Saint Sans. You’re illegally parked.” Adella knew she’d lost her mind to talk in such a way, particularly since hers was the car between theirs. But she was at least a decade older than all four, and the last half hour had frayed her nerves to threads.

  “Yes, we are aware that there’s already been a visit to this address, ma’am, by patrolmen from this district.” Officer La Bauve was talking now. He sounded like a man who was used to defusing tense situations. “We’re awful sorry for the difficult circumstances. We’re from the Eighth, where the body was found. We’re only over here now because we have additional information. What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t say. My name is Adella Atwater. I manage this place of business. I feel certain the owner would have me serve as a go-between.” Her heart started pounding. She wasn’t sure how much more turbulence this day could take. “What is the news?”

  Sergeant DaCosta was kind but insistent. “Are you a relative of Mr. Fontaine’s, Mrs. Atwater?”

  “No, technically I am not, but I can relay any pertinent information to his kin. Surely you would spare her further indignity.”

  “I’m afraid we need to see a family member if at all possible.”

  Jillian stayed put on the concrete bench but Adella could clearly see in her peripheral vision that she’d shifted her position enough to catch every word of the interchange.

  Officer Sanchez spoke up. “Mrs. Atwater, the officers talked with a Mrs. Olivia Fontaine. I understand that she is the mother of the deceased. Is she in?”

  Adella realized there was no deflecting. Whatever news they had, Olivia was going to have to hear it. “Officer Sanchez, you can come in the house with me. Gentlemen, you can pull your
cars into the driveway around back and we’ll meet you at that door.”

  “Come on, boss.” Officer Lamonte put his arm on Sergeant DaCosta’s shoulder, and after a slight hesitation, the sergeant turned and walked with the other men toward the cars.

  As Adella walked to the front door with Officer Sanchez, she said to Jillian without glancing her direction, “Miss Slater, I’m sure you heard all that. You may as well come in the house and rest a minute. That ride to a hotel will have to wait.”

  Out of curiosity more than anything, Adella supposed, Jillian followed them. She went straight to a barstool at the kitchen counter and sat down, holding on to that same tired piece of luggage.

  After letting the other officers in, Adella tapped on the door to Olivia’s suite and soon Olivia appeared, looking as inconvenienced as possible. When her eyes met Jillian’s, the young woman turned her head and stared coldly out the window.

  “Officers, this is Mrs. Fontaine,” Adella said, gluing herself to Olivia’s side.

  All four greeted her as cordially as they could, apologizing for the intrusion. She nodded at them but said nothing.

  Sergeant DaCosta took the lead. “Mrs. Fontaine, Mr. Raphael Fontaine is your son, correct?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was low. She spoke as if each word would take a year off her life.

  “We have learned that your son died as a result of a stab wound rather than natural causes.”

  Olivia looked directly into his eyes. She’d never been much on making anything less difficult.

  Adella jumped in, horrified. “What are you saying, Officer? Are you saying that Rafe was killed?” She could hardly force herself to say the right word. “Murdered?” Her voice cracked as she reached over and held Olivia’s wrist.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m afraid so.”

  “How could you not have known this when you found him?” Adella was incensed.

  “That’s why we asked to be the ones to come today. We felt we owed it to you for the oversight.”

  “Oversight? Did you say oversight? How could you not have known?” One tear slid down Adella’s cheek and then another. Her voice quivered but she intended to hold them accountable and to say everything Olivia couldn’t.

  “Not our oversight. Our mistake, Mrs. Fontaine. We missed it. Everything about the condition of his body looked textbook for natural causes that typically claim lives on the streets. The abdominal wound was several days old, so there wasn’t the bleeding that—”

  “Oh, my Lord in heaven, help us.” Adella was still doing all the talking. Olivia had yet to add another word but she was no longer looking in Sergeant DaCosta’s eyes. She stared blankly toward the wall.

  “Mrs. Fontaine, we won’t pretend we know how hard this is. Within only a few hours, we were able to identify him by his fingerprints and the officers were dispatched to inform the nearest of kin. Your name appeared on a court record for paying his bail a couple of times. There was a mix-up between the district and the morgue over a second John Doe. A drug overdose that took priority. Word didn’t get to us about the stab wound until today. He might have had some chance of making it—” the sergeant paused and took a deep breath—“had he reached out for help. Probably not much chance, I’ll admit, but he wouldn’t have died on the concrete. At some point after the stabbing, he must have been sober enough to change clothes, unless someone else changed him. We deeply regret the delay on this information reaching you.”

  Hardly above a whisper, Olivia asked, “Who?”

  The sergeant looked at Officer Sanchez like he could use some help, and she stepped up instantly. “Mrs. Fontaine, perhaps you could sit down.”

  “I’ll stand. I trust you won’t be staying long. Is that all?”

  “Ma’am, in answer to your question, no, we don’t know who the perpetrator was.” Sergeant DaCosta looked at the floor and then once again met Olivia’s cold glare.

  Adella never had more trouble buttoning her lip than when she got a verifiable invitation to bear some indignation. “Well, are you even going to bother to find out?”

  Officer Lamonte put his hand on his boss’s shoulder and took up the charge. “Mrs. Atwater, you know that’s exactly why we’re here. We fully intend to get to the bottom of it, but we have to start right here. At this point, we suspect it wasn’t personal. He might have had some money on him or—”

  “A bottle.” Olivia finished his sentence for him.

  “Maybe. Yes. Sad things happen out there on the streets. Desperate things. We’d all seen him around, ma’am. Some of us for years.”

  At that, Olivia turned and walked back to her room without another word.

  “I’ll need to see to Mrs. Fontaine, Officers.” Adella grabbed a piece of paper from a kitchen drawer and scratched her cell number and the main number for Saint Sans on it. Noticing the unoccupied stool at the end of the kitchen counter, she realized Jillian was gone. “Here’s our contact information. I don’t live on the premises, but I’m here Monday through Thursday during normal business hours and half a day Friday and occasional Saturdays.”

  As the officers let themselves out the back door, Adella rushed to the front in time to see Jillian climbing into a cab. “Jillian, wait! Don’t go yet!” The door slammed and the driver pulled onto St. Charles and, seconds later, out of sight.

  Adella realized Officer Sanchez had followed her when the woman spoke.

  “Mrs. Atwater, I saw that young woman when we drove up and then again inside. Is she a resident here?”

  “No, Officer. That was your dead man’s daughter.”

  CHAPTER 5

  THICK HOT AIR CLUNG TO ADELLA like a wool coat in late summer. Not a whiff of wind. Tears and sweat ran together in thin streams down her neck. She could feel the layer of hair closest to her head frizzing by the minute and resisted the urge to smooth it down, rubbing her hands together instead.

  She’d have known better what to say to Olivia a few years ago. The lines had been clearer. More formal. There was something to be said for formal. She hadn’t thought so then, but she did now. The woman was Mrs. Fontaine then, her employer, and using words like condolences would have been sufficient. The sparing of words would have been the sparing of a woman who saw transparency as debility. But this side of the Great Divulgence, the awkwardness was as heavy as the casket in front of them.

  Just the two of them stood beside it, facing the funeral director on the opposite side. Others would have been there in a heartbeat if they’d been permitted. Emmett had insisted, “Honey, let me come. She could use a safe man to lean on. I’ve still got a pair of shoulders on me, don’t I?”

  “Don’t you think I want you there, Emmett Atwater?” Adella had said. “She won’t have it.”

  David had begged Adella to let him attend, but Olivia wouldn’t consider it, especially after the unfortunate way Jillian had let the cat out of the bag. Adella was sure that one of the five flower arrangements at the interment was from him and, knowing his taste, expected it to be the one splashing with white roses and amaryllises. The bright, multicolored one was probably from her and Emmett but it didn’t look like what she’d ordered. She wasn’t sure who might have sent the other arrangements. Adella made a mental note to gather up the cards on the way out if Olivia made no move toward the flowers. They weren’t likely from Mrs. Winsee or Caryn, the residents of 1A and 3A respectively. Not because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t know. Had they been told, both of them would have wanted to take their places at the graveside today too.

  Of course, whether or not Mrs. Winsee would actually know she was there was a toss-up, or whether she’d come without Mr. Winsee, who’d been dead for a decade. She missed most events, waiting for him to get showered and readied. She rarely lost her cheerfulness no matter how long she waited in the den with her purse in hand. “He’s always had an allergy to timeliness,” she’d explain with a chuckle. “Sometimes I wait all day.” And they all knew she did. They’d given up trying to gently remind her that he
was gone because she’d grieve his loss again with such fresh, raw emotion, such wails of soul, that they could not bear it. By the next day, she would have forgotten all over again.

  Curiously, some things Mrs. Winsee never forgot. At the top of that short list was her weekly hair appointment Wednesdays at straight-up noon. Sometimes she couldn’t remember the way to her room at Saint Sans, but not once had she forgotten how to get to the salon and back on the trolley. Of course, every conductor knew her name because Adella had made certain of it. Olivia told her to. Mrs. Winsee thought they were all familiar with her because they’d seen her perform in community theater. Never mind that she hadn’t darkened a stage in twenty-five years. In Adella’s book it went without saying that good hair improved mental health, so they’d dared not tempt fate by trying to change Mrs. Winsee’s routine. That’s not to say it was without challenges.

  Just last week Mrs. Winsee had emerged from her room like clockwork at exactly a quarter till with her purse over her forearm and her lime-green coat on. It was hot as blazes outside, so Adella had done the only responsible thing she could do. And as it turned out, somebody should have thanked her. “Oh, now, Mrs. Winsee,” she’d said. “As fetching as you look, I can’t help feeling you’ll be too warm out there in that lovely coat. Let me help you take that off. I’ll go hang it up and you head on out to your appointment.”

  “You think?” the old woman asked, chipper as a woodpecker. “Maybe you’re right.” Mrs. Winsee flung the coat onto the floor and headed for the front door like greased lightning in nothing but her longline bra and girdle. That half of Orleans Parish hadn’t been privy to the sight was, in Adella’s opinion, a testimony to her new supplements. She’d landed on that woman like a duck on a june bug.