LITMIR.BIZ

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said gently. “I really understand. Your mother has—er—she has problems.”

      Jeanne grimaced and sat down hard in the nearest chair. “Oh, Charlotte, what am I going to do about her? What Mother has is more than just problems. She’s going senile and seems to be getting worse with each passing day.”

      Charlotte’s heart went out to the younger woman. “Sometimes simply talking about a situation helps,” she suggested. “At least talking seems to work for me.”

      Jeanne placed her arms on the tabletop and leaned forward. “You’re right, I’m sure. With Anna-Maria off at school and Jackson gone most of the time, I don’t have a chance to talk to anyone much.”

      Charlotte reached over and patted Jeanne’s hand. How sad, she thought. She couldn’t begin to imagine leading such an insular, lonely life. “Well, I’m here now,” Charlotte told her, “and my middle name is discretion, so you just talk all you want to.”

      Jeanne seemed to hesitate, but only for a moment. “She’s always making accusations about someone or something,” she blurted out. “Take for instance that stuff she was saying this morning about Jackson. Why, Jackson isn’t even home half the time, what with all of the late nights he’s been keeping at the office lately. When he is home, he stays holed up in the library. And who could blame him?”

      How convenient for him, thought Charlotte. And how totally selfish. Charlotte didn’t really know Jackson Dubuisson that well, since most of the time he was at work when she cleaned. But from the different things that Jeanne had let slip over the years, Charlotte’s opinion of the man was zero on a scale of one to ten. She had often wondered how such a warm, loving woman like Jeanne could have ever married someone like him.

      But if, as Jeanne pointed out, Jackson was never around, why would Clarice choose to pick on him? she wondered. Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire. The old saying played through Charlotte’s mind. Over the years, Charlotte had seen the truth in the cliché more than once. “Why do you think your mother is so fixated on maligning your husband?”

      Again Jeanne hesitated as a myriad of emotions played across her face. After a moment, she seemed to compose herself. “For one thing, when Jackson and I married, Father made him a full partner in the firm. Ever since, Mother has always claimed Jackson only married me to get control of the firm. She says all he cares about is money, specifically my money. But even worse, she still blames Jackson for Father’s death. Never mind that it’s been fifteen years since Father was murdered. Mother simply won’t stop harping on it.”

      Murdered. Charlotte’s stomach turned queasy. “Oh, goodness, I’d forgotten that your father had been murdered.”

      Even now, Charlotte only vaguely recalled the incident. At the time, though, she hadn’t paid much attention to the story or the gossip. She’d been too caught up in her own tragedy, that of trying to console her son after his wife had purposely aborted their child, her grandchild, a child Hank had wanted badly. “The murder of someone close leaves its mark on the whole family,” she murmured, still thinking about the loss she and her son had suffered. “It’s a terrible thing.”

      Jeanne nodded and lowered her gaze to the tabletop. “It was terrible,” she whispered. “A burglar broke into the house, robbed the safe, then killed Father.”

      Charlotte reached out and squeezed Jeanne’s arm. “Oh, you poor thing. I’m so sorry.”

      Jeanne suddenly laughed, but it was a bitter sound filled with irony. “Don’t be too sorry. My father would never have won any Father of the Year Awards, and he had a cruel streak.” She shrugged. “But my mother loved him just the same, something I never understood.”

      Charlotte immediately thought about Nadia’s situation with Ricco. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said, “but I’ve never understood how a woman could stay with a man who was cruel or abusive. I guess love takes on many forms, but I sometimes think women confuse love with other things, things like security, or they feel trapped or feel there’s no other choice.” She shrugged. “For whatever reason,” she added.

      “Yes . . . well, I figure that Mother felt she had no other choice, since my father controlled the money. Even so, she just couldn’t accept that he was gone, and she went a little crazy at the time. As if Father being murdered wasn’t enough, she made terrible accusations about Jackson to the police. You see, Jackson and Father had argued the night before. . . something about some investments Father had made using the firm’s money. But of course Jackson had an alibi the night of the murder. As usual, he was working late on an upcoming court case with his secretary. But not even that seemed to convince Mother he was innocent. Never mind that it completely satisfied the police.”

      “Was the murderer ever caught?”

      Jeanne shook her head. “No—No, he wasn’t. And after a while, I think the police gave up.”

      Jeanne’s next words chilled Charlotte to the bone.

      “My father’s murderer is still out there,” she said. “Somewhere . . .”

      Chapter Two

      Not even the overhang of the lower gallery was protection against the humid heat of the afternoon sun. Charlotte wiped perspiration from her brow and upper lip, then resumed sweeping away the trail of leaves, grass, and dirt that littered the ten-foot-wide porch. But the one thing she couldn’t seem to wipe away or sweep from her thoughts was Jeanne’s unsettling statement.

      My father murderer is still out there.

      Even now, despite the heat and the sweat soaking the back of her blouse, Charlotte still felt a chill, the kind that went clear to the bone. Though she knew intellectually that it was possible a person could get away with murder, she didn’t like to think that it could really happen, at least not in her safe, secure world.

      Before long, however, the oppressive heat of the afternoon began to take its toll, and a cool, cleansing shower and a large glass of iced tea were all that Charlotte could think about. She should have swept the gallery earlier, when it was cooler, instead of saving it for last.

      “Almost done,” she muttered as she turned the corner leading to the side gallery.

      The side gallery fronted two rooms of the bottom story of the house—the front parlor and the library. Three sets of double French doors opened out onto the gallery—two sets for the parlor and one set for the library. In the days before air-conditioning, the doors were thrown open to create a draft inside the old house.

      Just outside the doors of the library was a white three-piece bistro set, each piece composed of an intricately designed pattern made of cast iron. Though the table and chairs were perfectly situated for an early-morning first cup of coffee, Charlotte knew for a fact that the set was mostly for decoration.

      So why had one of the chairs been moved deeper into the shade of the gallery, closer to the French doors?

      Charlotte stepped closer, and for several moments she stared at the lone chair sitting sideways. How strange, she thought.

      At that moment, the phone inside the library rang, and Charlotte went very still. After only two rings, someone within the house must have picked up one of the extensions, because the phone suddenly was silent again.

      Growing more intrigued by the minute, Charlotte couldn’t resist the temptation to try out the chair. Once seated, she found herself privy to a perfect view of the library inside through the panes of the French door. She could see in, but she noted that because of the position of the desk inside, if someone were sitting at it, that person wouldn’t be able to see her. Not only could a person sitting in the chair hear whatever was going on inside, but that person could also see what was happening there.

      What if someone was sneaking around outside on the gallery specifically for that purpose?

      “Yeah, right,” she muttered, then grimaced. She was doing it again, letting her sometimes overactive imagination get the best of

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