The Undoing of Saint Silvanus Read online

  “Get some hair on your chest and run, boy!” Adella shouted.

  In the furor, Olivia had gone purely manic on them. One second she’d try her sweetest cat-speak to coax her companion gently into outstretched arms and the next second she’d threaten something like, “I’ll have you stuffed like a Christmas hen!” and “Get over here before I get the weed-eater out after you, you glorified possum!”

  Caryn flew around the house to guard the camellia bush in the formal garden and broke the necks of a whole patch of daylilies en route. She slid nearly flat to the concrete in the water feature and sent the box turtle that lived in it flying like a torpedo into the chrysanthemums. The rest of the crew darted through the gate to follow the escapee as she showed clear intent to break for the front yard and, no doubt in their frazzled minds, to bag up some fresh baby bird. By the time they got to her, she’d be stretching in the sun and picking her teeth clean with a feather.

  For the briefest moment, they had her cornered in a crape myrtle by the carport, but she outsmarted them again. Instead of jumping down, shooting through the driveway, and risking a tag, Clementine shimmied up a limb, ran right over the roof, and headed straight for the garden on the opposite side of the house.

  “Caryn, catch!” Mrs. Winsee hurled a small rake at the med student, who caught it like an Olympian and waved it wildly at the eave of the house where the cat was arched up and hissing.

  The nest was no longer oblivious to the clatter. Both hatchlings’ necks were stretched as thin as shoestrings and their beaks were wide-open, crying foul with all they could rally. The bright-red daddy was darting in and out of the scene, forsaking his usual purdy for a hoarse caw. And all this fuss over one confounded twelve-pound cat. Instead of heading back over the roof, Clementine launched onto the grass and streaked like lightning out of the formal garden, through the legs of her pursuers, and up the soaring oak in the front yard.

  As the whole lot of them gathered at the trunk of the tree, staring up at a limb two stories high with a wild-eyed cat glued to it, Jillian noticed a patrol car pulling up and parallel parking in front of the house. It was one of the officers who had been there before—Officer La Bauve, she thought his name was.

  “Well, if it isn’t an angel unawares,” Adella called out to him. “I am assuming policemen can still get cats out of trees or can’t they, Officer La Bauve?”

  “Pardon, ma’am?”

  “You heard me. Can you get that cat out of the tree?”

  “With all due respect, are you thinking of a fireman, ma’am?”

  “Well, since I’m looking at you, I’m talking about you. Fireman, policeman, what’s the difference? Public servants, aren’t you? Well, we’re public and we need some service.”

  David jumped in. “I think that cat-out-of-a-tree thing might be what they call an urban legend. But the technical difference is, a fireman has a ladder and a tree is tall. That’s why I think you mean a—”

  “David,” Olivia interrupted, “would you be so kind as to go to the garage and get the ladder? Jillian, why don’t you help him steer it around the house so he doesn’t take out a window.”

  Before Jillian could respond, Caryn spoke up. “That’s okay, Mrs. Fontaine. I’ll help him.”

  “Officer La Bauve, I realize you’re here to see me, but I can’t concentrate until that cat is out of that tree overlooking that nest.” Olivia punctuated every that with the directive point of her finger. “Comprenez-vous? Once you’ve gotten her down, tap on the front door. We’ll wait for you inside.” She called out behind her, “David, you better get him that thick pair of gardening gloves while you’re at it lest she draw blood a second time today.”

  Officer La Bauve winced.

  “Vida, come on with me. Let’s get you out of this sun. You were brilliant today. All are safe and well, thanks to you.” Olivia took Mrs. Winsee’s arm in a rare physical gesture and escorted her toward the front door. Mrs. Winsee smiled and nodded and mumbled. Jillian had begun to suspect that Mrs. Winsee brought out the best in Olivia, almost like she owed the old woman something.

  “The rest of you, come on inside. Let’s leave the apprehending to the officer. It’s his job to keep the neighborhood safe. And, Officer La Bauve, although I am admittedly a bit perturbed at Clementine, to be certain it will be short-lived. She is my closest companion. See to it that you do not hurt her.”

  Officer La Bauve seemed transfixed, staring up into the tree. Jillian and the others made it inside as far as the nearest window. “Olivia,” Adella said without ever turning around, “if it’s been too long since you’ve seen a rerun of The Three Stooges, you might want to get over here without meandering. Caryn must not have believed David could handle it by himself, so there she is, all eighty pounds of her, holding down one side of the ladder.”

  After a good bit of lengthening and posturing, head-shaking and nodding, Officer La Bauve began climbing the aluminum ladder. Since the three had no choice but to straddle the ladder over a massive tree root, Officer La Bauve’s knee knocking proved only to reiterate the rocking. David was on the far side of the tree, leaving Caryn and the officer by themselves in eyeshot of the great room window.

  “Now, this is a sight you don’t see every day. Come look, Olivia. It’s an elephant balancing on the nose of a mouse.” Adella threw back her head and howled. By the time she collected herself and turned to see why Olivia hadn’t joined them, there came a tap-tap-tap at the door. “Well, I’m sure they’ve gone and lost her.”

  Jillian opened the door to find Clementine, practically purring in Officer La Bauve’s big arms, and him without a drop of blood to show for it. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Adella said when she took in the sight.

  When Olivia and Officer La Bauve stepped out on the back porch to talk privately, Adella cornered David for an interrogation. “How’d he do it? That’s what I’d like to know. If I’d been a bettin’ woman, I’d’ve put my money on Clementine, not the scaredy-cat.”

  “You wouldn’t have believed the man’s skill, would she, Caryn?”

  “Not in a million years!” his cohort chimed in.

  “Skill?” Adella exclaimed, making the word two syllables. “He looked to have all the cat skill of an overgrown puppy. I know!” Adella started guessing. “He offered her some food. I’ve got it! I bet he held out the end of a Slim Jim. Cops love Slim Jims, don’t they? I bet it was stuck right in his shirt pocket like a ballpoint.”

  “That wasn’t it,” David said, clearly baiting her.

  “Well, for crying out loud, what was it?”

  “Big Boy got about two rungs from the top, steadied himself right good, held out both his arms, and, Adella Atwater, if I’m lying I’m dying—”

  “Get at it before I land you on that limb by your drawers, David Jacobs.”

  “Well—” the story picked back up—“he held out both his arms and he said . . .” David left Adella hanging right there long enough to clear his throat for a key change and take it up a good octave and a half. “‘Heeyah, kitty, kitty! Heeyah, heeyah, kitty, kitty! Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kit-tee.’ And lo and behold, here she came like she was running into the arms of her long-lost love.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “PSSSSST. Adella! Come in here!” Adella heard Jillian whisper through a crack in the door as she neared the mouth of the hall. The young woman looked like she’d seen a pair of ghosts. She’d slipped away to her room as soon as Olivia had stepped outside.

  “Girl, make it fast. There is no telling what on earth is happening out there on the porch between the officer and your grandmother and I’ve got to get someplace where I can spy on them. On second thought, maybe this is just the spot. I bet we could hear them through your window.” Adella made a beeline to the plantation shutters in Jillian’s room.

  “I know what’s happening out there, but I can’t figure out how they know! How did they find out?” The girl was in an obvious panic.

  “What are you talking about? Did
Olivia tell you something I don’t know?”

  “No, she couldn’t have known! I think the cop is telling her right now! The woman already hates me. She just started acknowledging that I’m even in the room. This is it. I’m going to be put out on the streets.”

  “Wait. I’m not getting this. Have you got some information on Rafe? Something the officer is telling her right now? But how did you—?”

  “Adella, stop talking and listen to me! This isn’t about Rafe. The police must have found out about the money. Oh, my gosh, I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Save your throwing up and start explaining, and I don’t mean maybe. What money?”

  “I borrowed it from Vince when I left.”

  “I’ve got so much spinning in my head right now, it’s about to hurl my wig into the neighbor’s yard like a Frisbee. Let me see if I can change tracks here and follow. You borrowed some money from what’s-his-name. So what?” Adella was confused and a little perturbed over the timing. “But I’m trying to picture you borrowing money from the man right after he betrayed you. I’m assuming this happened before your last day of work.”

  “No, it actually happened that day. And, well, that’s the thing. I didn’t exactly borrow it. I took it. I sort of—”

  “Whoa, Nellie, sister. You stole it? You stole money from your boyfriend?” She took Jillian by the arm and sat her down on the bed, positioning herself in front of her like a nose tackle across from a center. She bent over and looked into her eyes for a few seconds. When she knew she had the young woman’s attention, she took the classic Adella stance: hands on hips, feet about twelve inches apart, and heels sunk into the floor like they were melded an inch deep into concrete.

  The tissue woven between the toes on Adella’s newly pedicured left foot hadn’t survived Clementine’s hegira, but the one on her right foot wasn’t liable to go anywhere soon. One end was adhered to the fresh nail polish on her big toe, and as she patted her foot impatiently, the rest of it dangled like a slightly crumpled white streamer. “Do you think I’m standing here for my circulation, child?”

  “I was so mad. I wasn’t thinking. I knew where he kept cash in his office drawer because I’d seen him pull out small stacks so many times. I also knew where he hid a key to it.” Jillian’s tanned neck was beginning to splotch with crimson.

  “Okay, now, let’s think really straight here.” Adella puckered her lips and shoved them to the right for a few seconds to help her concentrate. “So that means you didn’t just take money from your boyfriend. Technically, you took it from your boss. How much did you take, Jillian? It couldn’t have been that much.”

  “All that was in there.”

  “And how much was that?”

  “A thousand dollars.”

  Adella dropped onto the side of the bed. “Keep going.”

  “I was so upset, I couldn’t even think. I mean, he’d been locked away in that very office with my friend not ten minutes earlier where they were—”

  Adella waved her hand quickly. “I do not care to know what they were doing. And you don’t know for certain either, so let’s just move on with the story and invite all our vain imaginations right on out of this.”

  “After he sped off, I was stunned. And I felt stupid. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to get back at him. But you can’t go head-to-head with Vince. He’s scary and cold when he’s mad. That stack of cash I’d seen in there just dropped into my head and it seemed like the next move. Even before I could think of where I’d go, I knew it would take some money. I didn’t have any money of my own since Vince was taking care of my finances.”

  Adella didn’t know what to say. She had a pretty good idea of how that snake might have been “taking care of” this poor girl’s finances, but that didn’t justify her stealing from him.

  Jillian kept plowing through the story. “I don’t know why, but right after he left, I just thought money.” Jillian cupped her face with both hands and looked at Adella with an expression that morphed from anxiety into anger. “He’s such a jerk! He deserved it! He owed it to me! But I don’t get how the cops found out! Do you think he called them or something?”

  “Okay, now, you calm down and pull yourself together. I can tell you with near certainty that Officer La Bauve’s arrival here today had absolutely nothing to do with you. That’s just your guilt arresting you. You are over twenty-one, and he wouldn’t have bothered going through your grandmother. He’d have come asking for you. Anyway, your crime was in California. Not Louisiana.”

  With that, Jillian threw herself back on the bed and exclaimed, “I’m a criminal!”

  “Get back here.” Adella took her by the arm and pulled her up. “We’ve got to think with a pair of level heads. Has Vince tried to call you about it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have guts enough to turn on my phone. But I had to take the money. How else was I supposed to get out of there? There’s hardly any money in my bank account. He has all my account numbers and my passwords.”

  Adella blew out a puff of air. Not bothering to hide her exasperation, she asked, “Jillian, why does a man you’re not married to have all your passwords?”

  “He asked for them.”

  “He asked for them, did he? And did it ever occur to you to tell him they were none of his business? Now, what on earth did Mr. Bidness need with your passwords?”

  Jillian dropped her chin and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Control. That’s what.” Adella answered her own question because she’d lived long enough and hard enough to know.

  Jillian blurted out, “I’m a fugitive!”

  “No, you’re not. But I don’t mind telling you what you are. Because you’re what I used to be. You’re what Paul called a weak-willed woman, laden down with—” Adella stopped herself from finishing the sentence, knowing it was too much.

  Jillian took offense anyway. “I don’t care what Paul said! And anyway, he doesn’t even know me! Is he your oldest one or the one that stunk? Didn’t you say they liked me?”

  Adella hadn’t had to think this hard since the Great Divulgence. “What are you—?” Then she caught on. “Child, I am not talking about my sons. I was talking about . . . Oh, for heaven’s sake. Never mind that. Does AJ ring a bell? That’s the oldest one’s name, and the one that stunk is Trevor Don. And yes, I’d say they both liked you aplenty, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry here. Jillian, tell me something. You had a full-time job and you were living with Vince, I assume at his expense. Where did the money from your paychecks go?”

  “I don’t know. Vince told me not to worry about finances. He was good at that kind of stuff, and it was a relief to let somebody else take care of things for a change. I know some of it went to pay for putting my stuff in storage, because none of it went with his stuff. And I needed nice clothes to go out in public with him and, gosh, to even get out of his car. And I’d also finally lost some weight and needed a smaller size, and—” Jillian’s eyes narrowed. “It costs a fortune to live there! Don’t you get it?”

  “Okay, okay, I get the picture. You need to get busy changing your passwords and I’ve got to talk to Emmett. He’s real wise about stuff like this and he wasn’t raised under a rock. Neither was I, for that matter. And we need to pray about it.”

  “I don’t want you and Emmett to ‘pray about it.’ I want you to tell me what to do to get out of this mess! Knowing Vince, he has a hidden camera somewhere in that office and I’m probably viral on the Web by now, stealing that money.” Jillian fell back on the bed again, flopped over on her side, and pulled up her knees. “Oh, my God.” She lay there long enough to picture the whole thing. “Oh, my God! I’m on the Web. I just know it.”

  “Girl, I’m going to jerk a knot in you if you take the Lord’s name in vain one more time. Now, sit up here with me and take some ownership. Think with your head instead of your fear.” This time Adella sat Jillian up like she meant for her to stay. “The first thing we need to clear up is why the po
lice dropped by here today.”

  Adella got up and walked over to the blinds and peeked through them. “Well, that’s just dandy. They’re not even out there on the porch anymore. Now I’ve gone and missed the whole conversation. A lot of good that’s gonna do us. Now I’m going to have to sink to the straightforward approach, and that’s about as effective with your grandmother as a foot with no toes in a jumpin’ contest.”

  They heard someone walking down the hall outside Jillian’s room. Jillian grabbed Adella’s arm and held it in a vise grip. “See? They’re coming to arrest me.”

  “Young lady, you better brew you some of that loose tea of yours and get ahold of yourself while I go out in that hall and find out how much it’s gonna cost us to bail you out.” Jillian looked at her with horror. Adella came close to smiling as she patted Jillian’s leg. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t crawl through a window or anything. You’ve done right to tell me. It all starts with the truth. Hold on here. And blow your nose. That whistling it’s doing is gonna call every dog on the block.” She reached for the doorknob.

  “Adella? One more thing.”

  She looked back at the frazzled young woman with bright-green eyes rimmed by this time in a ribbon of red. “What, sister girl? You know I need to get out there and get in on all the goods between your grandmother and Officer Big Boy.”

  “I think I’m pregnant.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “I CALLED THE OFFICER myself and asked him to come by when he could.”

  Olivia’s words left Adella slack-jawed. To Olivia, the system was something to be tolerated more than respected, let alone requested. For starters, her late husband and his associates had a checkered history with law enforcement. Accusations had usually evaporated for lack of solid evidence, but rumors flew nonetheless in a town where all things underground added depth to the mystique.