A Fatal Romance Page 6

  A few steps from my house, I experienced excitement creeping through my chest. Surely the detective had more information about the break-in at Eve’s.

  A sudden rush of uneasiness replaced my content. Someone just broke into her house on the next street. We resembled each other. I scanned my surroundings and found cars normally home at this time of day were parked where they belonged. The front of my house appeared normal. I pulled the key out of the pocket of my jeans, opened the door, and peeked in. Quiet descended. Was it quieter than usual?

  “Don’t be stupid, Sunny,” I told myself. Still, I wanted to get outside fast.

  Ripping off my wet garments, I tossed them in the tub and slipped into similar dry clothes. I grabbed the estimates and hurried back out. Scurrying to Eve’s house, I hoped my sudden fear diminished once we spoke to the detective. I rang the front doorbell to give her warning, let myself in with my key, and was struck with the urge to hug her. There couldn’t be a connection between the break-in here and Daria’s murder. I could never bear the thought of anyone trying to kill her, and I would do everything in my power to prevent that from happening.

  I hadn’t prevented one sister’s death. That couldn’t happen to my remaining one.

  Chapter 7

  “Why are you singing?” Concern tightened Eve’s lips when I joined her in the kitchen. “What happened?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “I fixed us sandwiches. Come on, what’s wrong?”

  I threw the papers down to the table and wrapped my arms around her. A second later, her arms came up around me. We gripped each other, listening to each other’s soft breathing. Feeling each other still able to do that.

  “Missing her again?” she whispered near my ear.

  I kept my head tight against hers. “I thought after time, pain is supposed to go away.”

  “That’s what they say.” She let me hold on a minute longer. When she let go, the expanding space between us felt safer. We ate without eye contact or words.

  “Do you have time to check this?” I gave her the papers I’d completed.

  She pulled a calculator from a drawer and worked with my figures. It didn’t take her long, yet time kept still, not letting my thoughts wander from the solemn place they’d submerged. Without glancing away from the numbers, she reached for my hand. “These are correct.” She tightened her fingers around mine. “Great job as always.”

  Gratitude for having her and for her normal attempt at making me feel intelligent made warmth heat the back of my eyes. But tears would never fall from them. “Thanks.”

  “Those notes about what we’ll need to do to change that window look easy. It’s pretty much what I’d figured.” She went off to check her makeup, and I phoned Anna to give her the final estimate. She sounded pleased. She was such a pleasant person that I was sure she wouldn’t complain unless our price sounded exorbitant. It was also okay with her that we couldn’t start the job right away because we had other projects scheduled, and the lumberyard needed to order her glass blocks.

  Hoping our larger ad in the parish paper brought us even more business soon, I called the lumberyard and ordered materials, charging them to Twin Sisters.

  Eve was down the hall coming out of her bedroom. “I want to ask you about an item I saw in your room,” I said. “Maybe it has something to do with the break-in.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  She returned to her room with me and watched me pull open a drawer from a bedside table, and I took out a tiger-eye ring. “This looks like it belongs to a man.”

  “It did.” She yanked the ring from my hand. “Why were you snooping around in here?”

  Her attitude surprised me. “I was skimming through things while your soul mate that you’re scared of went around outside checking the entrances to your house.”

  “And why did you do that?” She fisted her hands on both hips.

  “What is your problem? I thought I might see something you overlooked when you tried to figure out what somebody broke into your house to find. What is it with you? Who is this for?”

  “Me.” She thrust the ring back where I’d found it and slammed the drawer shut.

  “Eve?”

  She stayed silent, facing down. She inhaled deeply and looked at me. “It was Dad’s.” My sister stomped out of her bedroom. When I followed, she spun back and closed her bedroom door.

  I waited in the hall. “Why did you get such a personal item of his?” Our dad had died, and Mom lived in a retirement home. Men always gave Eve gifts. Dad did, too? An ache sat in my heart.

  She didn’t answer. I pulled on her arm, and she faced me. “I can’t give you an answer. You’ll need to ask Mom.” She proceeded to the den. “We need to get to the sheriff’s office.”

  Anger swirled with disappointment inside me. “I’ll go in my truck. I have other errands.” I scooted to my house, threw myself in my truck, and rolled onto the street. Huffing, I needed to remind myself my main concern was her safety. No matter how annoying she could sometimes be, I needed her to stay alive. She might make me furious, but I loved her and our mother more than anything else in the world.

  Detective Wilet was waiting. The smell of fired weapons caught on the back of my tongue. The odor of overheated coffee pots and worn-out leather assailed me before I spied new signs and yellowed diplomas on the walls. The detective sat us in two fairly comfortable blue foam chairs and took the swivel chair behind his desk cluttered with papers and pens.

  I leaned toward him. “Please don’t tell us you’ve found a connection between Daria’s murder and the break-in at my sister’s house.”

  He steepled his fingers. “I don’t know of any.”

  Eve and I sighed with relief.

  “What we have discovered is that you and Mrs. Snelling had an argument at her husband’s funeral.”

  Surprise at his words slapped me back. “We didn’t really argue.”

  His upper body shoved toward me. “Then what did y’all do?”

  I glanced at Eve for help. She lifted both eyebrows. Great help she was. And I had hung out with the possible bad guy at her house? I faced Wilet and considered each word. “I’m sure you know Mrs. Snelling fell, and then her husband’s ashes flew out of her urn. I just offered to help clean them up.”

  His bushy eyebrows squeezed closer together. “Why would offering to help make her yell at you?”

  “Because…”

  Eve placed her hand on mine. “Because Mrs. Snelling didn’t want you to use a vacuum cleaner, remember?”

  “Right.” Pleased with the answer she offered before I could think straight, I smiled at the detective.

  “I know she ordered you out of the church. That was only because you offered to use a vacuum?” His jaw tensed. A slight indention twitched along its right edge.

  “Not exactly.” I flipped thoughts back to that moment, recalling Eve’s words. “My twin here kind of suggested I could have been involved with Mrs. Snelling’s husband.”

  “I did not!” She straightened in her chair.

  “Were you?” Wilet asked me. “Were you having sexual relations with Zane Snelling?”

  I sang about Santa on his way and tried to quit, but considering sex with that man I’d only known from ashes in my pocket, couldn’t stop myself or slow down. I shook my head, wishing he’d understand.

  “Ma’am?” His black eyebrows became one thick line.

  I caught my breath, swallowed, and swallowed again to stop the song. “I’m not really into sex,” I explained.

  “The thought of it often makes her sing or hum,” Eve added. “She can’t help it. Sunny has an emotional problem.”

  I stared at her. Hearing those words made me cringe and want to curl into a ball.

  “Is there anything else?” The detective sounded annoyed, and I wasn’t certain he believed either of us. “Did you remember anything else? Is there anything else you want to tell me
about that incident?”

  We shook our heads. My mind blanked. Maybe Eve’s did, too.

  The detective stretched his upper body forward until he was halfway across the desk, eyes aimed at mine. “I might want to question you again.”

  “Me? Am I a suspect? What did I do? You think I killed her?” I asked, getting no response. I pointed at Eve. “Daria kicked her out of church, too.”

  Eve’s eyebrows shot up. “But that was because of you.”

  The detective stood, letting us know we should leave. Eve and I rose. The three of us were about the same height. My impulse was to argue with the man. Common sense said not to.

  We left his office, nodding at people working at desks. Some of them knew us. Did all of them know why the detective had us come here? Would word scatter through town, maybe making the parish newspaper and even New Orleans TV stations, warning people we might be killers? How great would that be for helping our business flourish?

  I gritted my teeth. Eve flicked me an angry look. It wasn’t my fault that Daria also threw her out of the church. I drove off in my truck, while she spun away in her Lexus. Seeing my gas tank read almost empty, I pulled into the station I knew to have the lowest prices and waited in line. Did those drivers who glanced at me know I could be suspect in a murder?

  I pumped gas, annoyed. Who did kill Daria? Had her husband accidentally drowned? And even if my sister and I often aggravated each other, I wanted her kept from harm. Not much I could do about us being murder suspects. The police needed to find out who killed Daria, which I hoped they’d do soon. I needed to visit my mother, a task I didn’t do often enough for her, although I made a number of stops a week to see her at the retirement home. Right now, I had a special family purpose for speaking to her.

  Besides, some of her friends were big gossips. They might help me learn what really happened to the deceased couple.

  Chapter 8

  Sugar Ledge Manor resembled an enticing vacation spot. Palm trees lent a warm greeting while crepe myrtles burst into clouds of pink near the pale blue stucco building sporting an archway with inviting benches and the sweet scent of roses growing nearby. I could imagine myself on a tropical island, the taste of Mai Tai in my mouth. A tall section in front led to suites and bedrooms on both sides. Cars belonging to residents, staff, and visitors rested in wide parking lots.

  My mother’s room was charming, as were the others I’d seen here. I wouldn’t see her room today since she sat on a sofa in the main area. Next to my sister.

  “Why are you here?” I nestled against our mother and held her twisted hand.

  Eve thrust her nose in the air.

  “It’s nice to see you, too,” Mom told me.

  “Sorry, Mom.” I kissed her cheek on the side opposite my twin. “I just didn’t expect to find her here.”

  “She visits fairly often, you know.”

  I exchanged tight-lipped smiles with Eve, then nodded to the ladies, most with white hair, gathered round. “Hello,” I said to include everyone on sofas and in wheelchairs in their regular snug semicircle for their afternoon Chat and Nap Group.

  Mom’s hair was snowy, even though she was one of the younger residents. She was soft and average size, not the parent Eve and I inherited our height from. She’d insisted on moving in here after a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis made her need help for everyday living. We’d each asked her to move in with us, but she deferred. She had made lots of friends here. A couple were snotty, but most were sweet.

  “It’s so nice to have both my daughters visit at the same time,” Mom said to her friends. “They always did seem to know what the other one was doing, like ESP between twins.”

  Some ladies smiled and made pleasant comments.

  “Mom, I’d like to talk to you. Could we go to your room?” I asked.

  “Sweetheart, unless you’re having severe physical or financial problems, you can speak in front of my friends. All of them care about us. Some of them can’t hear too well anyway.” She exchanged pleasant looks with the ladies.

  “Here’s the thing.” I pointed to Eve. “Why does she have Dad’s ring? I never saw it before, so I guess she hid it from me.” Good grief, I was sounding like a spoiled kid.

  Mom looked at Eve and then me. “It was the only jewelry he had, so I gave it to the oldest child.”

  “Just because she’s six minutes older than I am?” My voice went shrill.

  “Yes.” Mom spoke with a nod as though that explanation should make perfect sense.

  Eve gave me a smirk and cocky lift of her chin.

  “It was only an old tiger-eye ring,” Mom told me. “You’ll get my wedding ring.”

  Yes! I awarded my sister a smug look. Jewelry had little meaning to me, but an item of such importance in my parents’ lives gave that ring extra value.

  Mom held up her left hand, drawing oohs from a few of her cronies. Her fingers on that hand weren’t as twisted as the ones on her right, but most of her knuckles were large. A few tiny diamonds topped her ring.

  Mom’s friends compared their own rings or lack of them. I’d seen many of these ladies without their clothes while I’d worked at Fancy Ladies and wished I had not. They’d asked me to bring different size nightgowns, bras, and panties to their dressing rooms and were often naked when I returned. I tried to shove off images of sagging, wrinkled body parts. Probably because I feared mine might much too soon become that way.

  The plumpest woman, Ida, with a snug polyester dress matching her hair, more blue than white, sat on the sofa adjacent to Mom’s and pointed at a wheelchair-bound woman who was rubbing the thigh of a man asleep beside her in his wheelchair. “That is so sad.”

  Some other ladies nodded.

  “If she wants to fool around, she should get married,” Ida said. “Just like you, Eve. Why don’t you just marry more of those men and then fool around afterward?”

  Eve’s mouth fell open. I felt she was struggling between giving a smart reply or feeling embarrassed in the midst of all these elders.

  “What about you, Sunny? You still can’t get a man interested in you?” Ida asked.

  Heat flamed up my cheeks. “I don’t want another one.”

  Ida nodded. “After my husband died, I never wanted another one. I already had a dog that expelled gas and snored.”

  I snickered, as did some others.

  “But it’s strange, isn’t it,” Eve asked the group, “that a young woman like my sister wouldn’t want another man? You know what Sunny needs? An explosive romantic relationship.”

  “That would be nice,” the lady who always wore three strings of pearls said.

  “Yes, lovely,” another agreed with a big nod.

  I looked at our mom, who gazed at me wistfully. Maybe considering the grandchildren she’d wished I’d given her.

  “Yes, one husband was enough for me,” Ida said. “I loved my Oscar, bless his soul.”

  The tiniest woman spoke up. “But he kept running around with that hussy.”

  “Oh, I forgot. Then damn him.”

  Ida’s buddies agreed.

  “Ladies.” I lifted my hand to interrupt them. “Eve and I have another concern. Have any of you heard about what happened to Zane Snelling and his wife?”

  Puzzled expressions they gave each other answered my question.

  “They weren’t from down here,” I said. “They moved here within the last three years and lived along Felicity Bayou.”

  “Oh, that’s the woman who pushed her husband in their pond,” Ida said.

  My heartbeat raced. I was right. “How do you know that?”

  “Because how could a man just slip in a pond that’s been in his backyard?” Ida asked, dulling my enthusiasm.

  “Wait. I might have a picture of their house.” From her wheelchair, slender Grace, with thin orangey-dyed hair, shoved her hand down into the top of her floral print dress. Movement bouncing above her belt must have been her
fingers digging in her bra. She drew out a cell phone that looked moist. “This slipped under my breast. It’s damp down in there, but I imagine the thing still works.”

  While she tried to get to her photos, the newest woman to the group spoke up. “Well, people can drown in their yards. I almost drowned in a drainage ditch once.”

  “How can you drown?” asked another one who faced me and pointed toward the newcomer. “She’s too fat to drown.”

  As entertaining as these women were, nagging thoughts of a killing remained. I didn’t need to see a picture of the Snelling house since I’d seen it enough, but most of these ladies had lived in our community all their lives and heard rumors and truths. I raised my voice. “Did any of you actually know the Snellings?”

  “He had affairs,” Grace said.

  I gulped. Eve and I gawked at each other. The shock registering in her face surely matched mine. Some residents nodded like they’d heard this gossip.

  “Zane Snelling?” Eve asked. “The man who recently drowned in his yard?”

  “Yes, he had two women besides his wife. Can you imagine?” Grace said, and I wondered if she had total control of her mental facilities. I hoped so.

  “Do you know who they were?” I asked.

  She peered to the side. Maybe she couldn’t even hear well. Most of the ladies shook their heads no.

  I spoke louder. “What about his wife?”

  The ladies glanced at each other and shook their heads.

  “That poor woman was killed not long after he died, wasn’t she?” Mom asked.

  “Yes. I hate to admit it, but I thought she could have pushed him in their pond,” I said.

  Ida’s chins wobbled. “I think that, too. How could the man just slip in?”

  The ladies came to life. They didn’t wait for each other to finish telling stories of how they almost perished when they were little. It seemed almost every one of them had at one time or other fallen into a flooded ditch or bayou and almost lost their lives.

  “I need to go.” I kissed Mom’s cheek.