Rex made a smug face. “You gotta remember that what seems like a lot to a young kid like Milton may not be all that much in reality. Leave it up to your husband to handle it just the right way.”

  * * *

  Down at headquarters, Ross was finding Dora O’Rourke difficult to communicate with in the interrogation room. Agenda-driven and consumed with working Scripture into practically every sentence uttered, she was distracting in the extreme. So he decided he had nothing to lose by politely laying down the law.

  “Miz O’Rourke, I understand that you have strong religious views to which you are certainly entitled, but do you think you could refrain from trotting them out long enough to tell me what happened between you and Aurelia Spangler the evening you visited her at Overview? I am only interested in that and not what could happen to me at the end of my life.”

  Dora drew back with a look of surprise on her middle-aged, fleshy face, which featured no trace of makeup. Her lips were severely pursed, as she sucked air into her generous bosom; and with her hair fixed in a towering bun, she could not have looked more judgmental had she been delivering a sentence for a crime.

  “I thought I’d been cooperatin’ with you so far,” she said. “I did you the favor of comin’ here for all these questions, though I don’t know what good it’ll do you. I can’t help you where the woman’s death is concerned. She is beyond help.”

  “Yes, but please do me another favor and omit the Scriptures when you answer these questions. We’re not in church or Sunday school.” Ross was careful to keep his tone courteous and soft.

  Dora took her time considering his request and finally said, “As long as you understand that I am a godly woman.”

  “Yes, I do understand that, Miz O’Rourke. I have no intention of trampling on that. So please continue with what you were saying about your visit, and concentrate only on that.”

  Apparently satisfied that she was being afforded the proper respect, Dora continued where she had left off. “Well, as I said, I had introduced myself to that Miz Spangler as Sarah Ann’s mother who was very upset about her occupation, and then she led me into that cramped, little room with the Devil’s red on the walls. Believe me, I did not wanna go in there because I could sense the wickedness just waitin’ for me. Then she up and says to me, ‘What can I do for you right now?’ as if she hadn’t listened to anything I’d said to her before that. It only convinced me all the more that I was bein’ led into a chamber of Hell. I can sense when people disrespect what I stand for, and she had no respect, I can tell you for sure.”

  “I’m sure you can. Please go on.”

  “Anyway, I told her that I wanted her to stop fillin’ my daughter’s head with the Devil’s lies.” Dora paused to stick her nose in the air.

  “And what did she say to that?”

  “If you can believe it, she said that my daughter was a grown woman and had the right to live her life any way she wanted. She had the gall to tell me that there always comes a time in a child’s life when she has to break the tie that binds. Can you imagine? A stranger buttin’ into what’s rightfully between a mother and daughter. That’s just not the way it’s supposed to be.”

  Ross noted the intensity and decibel level of Dora’s voice. “That obviously angered you. Did you do anything about it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ross saw no point in holding back. “Did you threaten her in any way?”

  Dora’s look of disdain became even more pronounced. “Are you implyin’ that I took her life?”

  “No, not at all. I was just asking if there were any threatening words on your part in the heat of the moment.”

  “As I said, I just told her to stay away from my Sarah Ann. But she was smart-alecky about it all and said that she could not stop my daughter from comin’ to her place to seek her services.” Dora leaned in and made slits of her eyes. “The services of the Devil, I say. Conjurin’ up evil is what she did for a living. And it makes perfect sense to me that she couldn’t take it no more and ended it all the way she did. Just the definition of evil, I tell you. But justice was done.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”

  Ross decided to change tactics. “Miz O’Rourke, are you familiar with the drug cocaine?”

  Dora’s voice rose yet another decibel. “Not personally, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at. All I know is that it leads people astray and ruins their lives. I’ve had friends tell me about their children who’ve gotten hooked on these drugs, and I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone.”

  “I’m quite sure you wouldn’t, and neither would I, but I bring it up because Aurelia Spangler died of a cocaine overdose. At least, that’s what we think right now. She’s being autopsied down in Jackson by the state medical examiner as we speak to verify the cause of death. Sometimes, these autopsies can reveal surprises. We take nothing for granted.”

  “I’m sure that’s none a’ my business,” Dora said, bowing her bun slightly. “What she did to herself and how she pays for it in the end is up to her Maker and nobody else. That’s the truth of the matter.”

  “You are very consistent, if nothing else, Miz O’Rourke,” Ross told her. “You do stick to your guns.”

  “From your tone of voice, I’m not sure that was a compliment, Detective. But if it was meant to be, I thank you for it. I believe what I believe, and nobody can talk me out of it.”

  Dora struck a defiant pose there at the very end, and it flashed into Ross’s head just how formidable a woman she could be at times. He could also easily envision the tense showdowns that must be taking place constantly between herself and her daughter.

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” he said. “I’m quite sure they couldn’t move you with a crane.”

  There was the slightest hint of a smile from Dora, and she said in a more softened tone, “Let me tell you somethin’, Detective. I know that people make fun a’ me because of my beliefs. Even my own daughter does, and it hurts me. It really does. I’m not stupid, you know. It’s just that when my husband ran out on me and Sarah Ann when she was just a little girl, I had no place to turn to but my church. I was welcome there, and it’s what got me through those tough times. Now, make fun a’ that if you want, but I think we all need to believe in somethin’.”

  “You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Miz O’Rourke. As my wife says to me all the time, ‘We’re all on our different journeys.’ That’s for you and your daughter to iron out between you. Seems like that’s part of life for just about everybody. But I do need you to do one last thing for me, please. I’ll need a sample of your DNA and your fingerprints for our investigation.”

  “Is that where you do the Q-tip thing I’ve seen on those crime shows? I watch ’em ’cause I like to see justice done to bad people. There’s a lot a’ them in this world, you know, and you can’t tell just by lookin’ at ’em which side they’re on. Matter a’ fact, the face a’ evil often comes wrapped in pretty packages. You just think about that for a while.”

  Ross nodded as he pulled a swab from the pouch lying on the table. “I don’t have to. I see you keep up with the times.”

  “Yes, Detective,” Dora said. “I’m a lot more savvy about a lot a’ things than you and my daughter think. Everyone only thinks they know me.” Then she obediently opened her mouth wide.

  * * *

  The next day, it did not take long for the CID to verify the DNA and fingerprints of Wendy and her five bridge newbies at Overview, along with those of Dora O’Rourke and someone else who they could not identify. This biological evidence was found all over the parlor and in the reading room particularly, but that made perfect sense. Every one of those people had been there for bridge lessons, readings, or on another day for their private meetings as well, as in the case of Dora O’Rourke, Charlotte Ruth, and Vance Quimby.

  Ross and Bax were mulling over the report from the criminologists in his office, and Ross said, “Well, this really doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know, except for the unidentified prints and the wisps of African-American hair in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure we can zero in on who that was. Wendy spent some time out at Overview working with Miz Aurelia on the bridge lessons, and she mentioned to me once that there was a black housekeeper who came in once a week to straighten things up. Overview is an enormous place, you know. I’m sure Wendy knows her name, and we can get the woman to come down and give us her DNA. That’ll likely clear that up.”

  Bax was once again lounging with his feet up on the desk, and Ross had set up shop in the chair across from him. “I’m also assuming your interrogation of Milton Bagdad today turned up nothing new or you would have said so.”

  “Correct. When he showed up at Party Palooza, Rex and Merrie Boudreaux told him they’d filed a missing person report and to come down and check in with us right away. He explained that it was just a case of panicking that he left town, plain and simple. But he did hand in his notice to them. No more delivering singing telegrams for him, he said.”

  Bax sat up and rapped his knuckles on the desk a couple of times. “So at first glance, his going missing seems to have nothing to do with what happened to Miz Aurelia. If we are to believe him. What next?”

  “We do have to wait on the autopsy,” Ross began, “but the deeper we get into this, the more the case can continue to be made to keep suicide open as an option. The interviews with the three who admit to visiting with Miz Aurelia after the bridge lessons seem straightforward enough. Miz Dora just doesn’t seem like the type that would have the wherewithal to off anyone, what with her religious beliefs and all. Miz Charlotte was clearly ready to take the blame for the suicide, but she certainly didn’t come off as a killer, either. And then there’s Miz Aurelia’s brother.”

  Bax broke in. “Do you think there’s a possibility that Vance Quimby is playing us? That something happened between him and his sister that caused him to do away with her, and now he’s covering his tracks by making sure we know about the life insurance policy? Now that we know he was down here on false pretenses to start with, do we take everything he told us literally, even though we know they were definitely brother and sister?”

  Ross shot his father-in-law a skeptical glance, even though he loved these brainstorming sessions at the station. Both men had benefited from talking things out and sharing each other’s perspectives on more than one occasion. “Killing the goose that laid the golden egg for fifty thousand dollars seems a bit shortsighted to me. According to him, his sister was his livelihood. I totally believed him when he told me all about their plans to rig up Overview by exploiting that creaky old story about J. Lindford Calmes falling to his death on the staircase. It made sense to Wendy when Aurelia told her, too. You know as well as I do that Rosalie is tailor-made for those who believe in ghosts and strange voices and things that go bump in the night. They even have those tombstone tours of the Rosalie Cemetery, where the locals portray famous people buried there. They’re quite entertaining. Think of what all the antebellum attics, basements, and closets in this town have witnessed. Anyway, Vance and Miz Aurelia had a workable scheme in place, even if it wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up. But someone put an end to it before it even began. Why did that happen? What did they have to gain?”

  “Or lose,” Bax said. “Maybe the real motive for this is something completely unexpected.”

  “Money’s involved more often than not, as you well know. But there’s always the outlier—the wronged lover and the crime of passion, or the wrath of the self-righteous crusader.”

  Bax made an unintelligible noise under his breath, which was usually a prelude to choosing an option. “That last thought makes me go back to Dora O’Rourke. She was highly opinionated about the harm she thought Miz Aurelia was doing to her daughter—and surely others as well. And we have her DNA now to confirm that she was really there when she didn’t have any business being there at all. Her version of what happened between herself and Miz Aurelia may or may not be the truth. She may not be just quoting Scripture, she may be hiding behind it for her own self-serving reasons.”

  “On the other hand,” Ross countered, “it was Miz Dora’s daughter who put us on to her visit to Overview in the first place. Wendy found all that out when she interviewed Sarah Ann O’Rourke out at the college. There’s a lot of really bad feeling between mother and daughter. Still, it’s doubtful that it reached the level of Sarah Ann trying to frame or implicate her mother.”

  Bax was frowning now, but there was a measure of incredulity to it. “So you’re suggesting that Sarah Ann O’Rourke might have killed Miz Aurelia? That seems the unlikeliest explanation of them all, son.”

  “You know this business, Bax. We’ve both seen enough of those out-of-left-field solutions to last us a lifetime. I got the unshakeable feeling that this is gonna be one of ’em.”

  “Could be. Meanwhile, you get the name of Miz Aurelia’s housekeeper from Wendy, and we’ll see if that turns up anything helpful. But there’s something else we need to consider, and I’m surprised you haven’t brought it up yet.”

  Ross leaned forward in his chair, giving his full attention to his mentor. “And what’s that?”

  “There’s the matter of the cocaine. Vance Quimby claims that his sister had not relapsed into using it. What if he was wrong, and she had started snorting again behind his back and didn’t have the nerve to tell him? Where did she get it, then? A few years back, we shut down the two most notorious dealers in town and bundled them off to their sentences in Parchman. We know she couldn’t have gotten it from them. Or if she hadn’t started using again, and someone forced it on her, where did they get it? We need to go to our old reliable street informant, Earl Jay Doxey, and see if he knows anything about who’s still dealing in Rosalie. Whether Miz Aurelia committed suicide or was murdered, there could be a new player in this crazy old town, and Doxey might help us find out who it is.”

  * * *

  “Aurelia’s housekeeper’s name is Lula West,” Wendy was saying as she and Ross sat at the dining table that evening, munching on a dessert of fresh fudge she had bought that day from Darby’s on Main Street. It was always Wendy’s go-to when she needed to keep Ross’s sweet tooth satisfied. “My guess is that she’s probably in the phone book.”

  “We think the unidentified prints and DNA may belong to her, then,” Ross continued. “We’ll track her down and ask her to come in tomorrow.”

  Wendy took a sip of milk to balance the sweetness of the fudge. They were the perfect complement to each other. “If it’s hers, I doubt it’ll lead to anything. Aurelia told me that Lula had only been working there for a few weeks, but I had to blink when Aurelia told me how much she was paying her. I see no reason Lula would have wanted to do away with an employer who’d given her a job that lucrative.”

  Ross’s face was full of creases as she spoke. “Can it be possible that Miz Aurelia really did commit suicide? Don’t tell me you’ve fallen back on that again. Nothing has come to light to convince me that she did such a thing. I continue to believe that someone forced her hand and actually committed murder. I’ve had a very strong feeling about this since the very beginning.”

  Ross’s creases disappeared as he gazed at his wife with a smile. “You know I have all the respect in the world for your instincts. I just hope we can make some headway in this case. Your father and I were throwing everything we could against his office wall today to see if anything would stick. For every reason we had to suspect someone, there was an equal and opposite reason to dismiss them. Of course, we haven’t gotten the report yet from the ME. Maybe something will turn up there.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Wendy said, deciding to play devil’s advocate. “What if the autopsy reveals that Aurelia died of a cocaine overdose and nothing more? Do we have to accept Tommy Cantwell’s original call of suicide, barring any new evidence to the contrary?”

  “I guess it could come to that,” Ross said, looking down at the last bite of fudge on his plate. Then he caught Wendy’s gaze with a sheepish expression. “Do you think I should have another piece?”

  She snickered. “Only if your pants are still fitting, my dear, sweet husband. Are they?”

  He stood up quickly and pointed to his waist with a look of achievement on his face. “Haven’t had to go to another belt loop in years. I mean, not since just right after college. Belt loops don’t lie.”

  Wendy laughed and sauntered over to the large clear jar on the counter, where she kept all the sweet treats, pulled out one of the smaller pieces of fudge for him, and put it on his dessert plate.

  As he gleefully attacked it with his fork, she said, “I think it’s pretty obvious that the key to this case has to be Aurelia’s vision of the knife to the tuxedo shirt. It truly spooked Milton Bagdad, and from what you say he told you at the station today, it wasn’t business as usual for Aurelia, either. You said Milton told you he had quit his job at Party Palooza because he feared for his life, and that Rex Boudreaux was now delivering the telegrams. If there was any truth at all to Aurelia’s vision, shouldn’t Rex be in danger now? Isn’t that where you and Daddy and the force should concentrate before something else terrible happens?”

  Ross swallowed a bite of fudge and said, “But concentrate on what? How can we concentrate on something that hasn’t happened yet? Rex Boudreaux hasn’t asked for police protection, and frankly, we don’t have the manpower to follow him around all the time for something that might or might not happen. I really don’t think he’d go for that anyway. He’s a big physical specimen who can certainly take care of himself if the occasion arises.”

  Wendy’s expression remained skeptical. “I don’t think this is about Rex in that way. After all, he really wasn’t there to experience Aurelia’s vision.”

  “For that matter, neither was Milton if you think about it. He had to take Aurelia’s word about what she claimed to see. She either saw something terrifying, or she was lying.”