Ross nodded emphatically. “We’ll try to track him down and bring him in for questioning, if it comes to that. Then we go from there.”

  “Didn’t Patrice say he said he had a job over in Alexandria?”

  Ross wiped his mouth with his napkin and continued. “Yes, she did, and we got his driver’s license and license plate from the hotel register. You don’t need a warrant for that. His address checks out, and he doesn’t have a record of any kind, not even recent traffic tickets. Same for the PI guy. Without DNA evidence, we just can’t bring either of them in, so we have to wait. My sense is that this is a dead end—no more than a personal psychodrama for Patrice Leyton. The thing is, it’s not a crime to hire a PI. Discreet stalking is part of the job.”

  “You are very good at what you do, husband,” she told him, smiling affectionately his way. “I might just marry you.”

  “Ha, you already did.” He nudged her gently with his elbow. “I saw where one of those Thin Man movies you introduced me to was coming on Turner Classic Movies tomorrow night. Is it wrong of me to think that you and I are becoming the Nick and Nora Charles of Rosalie? Updated by many, many decades, of course.”

  “We do make a good team. Daddy swears by us, you know.”

  “Wanna stay up late and watch the movie with me tomorrow night? I’m off duty the next day.”

  “Sure. We’ll pop some popcorn.”

  When he had finished off his sandwich, Ross returned to the subject of evidence. “The crime lab should have a report on that glass from the hotel room by the time I get back. That could break the case wide open. If this Jimmers guy was in town when King was murdered, he could have gone over there and confronted King about Patrice and all that went down with their relationships with her. Maybe it got out of hand quickly, tempers flared, and Jimmers acted out of rage. It’s that rage angle I can’t dismiss, of course. Whoever it was went for the kill in no uncertain terms. The temple is one of the most vulnerable spots on the human body.”

  “I shudder to think,” Wendy said, closing her eyes briefly. “Such a horrible visual.”

  “You got that right. It was a gruesome sight.”

  They both rose from the bench and discarded their napkins and plastic water bottles in a nearby metal trash can. “Hey, I’ll text you yea or nay if the crime lab comes up with anything, and we can discuss it in detail tonight.”

  * * *

  Merleece was winding up her long day, cleaning the imposing Old Concord Manor on Minor Street for her primary employer, the widowed Miz Crystal Forrest from Al-benny, Georgia. Fortunately, Crystal had allowed her to clean for the Riersons and Bax Winchester once a week, as well. By now—after several years of priming the pump of recognition by donating to local charities with her considerable, inherited fortune—Crystal was thoroughly established as a Rosalie social fixture, like her or not. It was difficult to say what percentage regarded her as a paragon of virtue and which as a pain in the rear, but there was no one in Rosalie without an opinion. Some thought Divisive was Crystal’s middle name.

  “Don’t toodle off just yet, dahling,” Crystal said in that faux British accent of hers, just as Merleece was about to head out the kitchen door.

  Merleece turned on her heels and said, “Did I forget one a’ my jobs? I know it cain’t be those tiaras you got on display in the big secretary. I dusted erryone a’ them.”

  “Yes, I know you did. I saw you doing it. No, this has nothing to do with your work. No one in Rosalie cleans as well as you do.” Crystal gestured toward the small kitchen table near the window. “Have a seat and talk to me for a few minutes, won’t you?”

  Merleece did not welcome the invitation—not by a mile. Whenever Crystal Forrest wanted to “talk things over,” it invariably involved some social faux pas she had recently committed, and it meant that she, Merleece, would function as a sounding board until the issue was resolved in her employer’s cluttered, flighty head. At such times, Merleece felt she was earning every penny of her very generous salary.

  “What’d you do this time, Miz Crystal?” Merleece said, taking a seat while secretly enjoying the power she wielded in these situations. It was beyond amusing to her how Crystal almost viewed her as an oracle of some kind. Well, she was a Rosalie native, after all, and Crystal wasn’t. As a result, Merleece was a touchstone who knew plenty about people—good, bad, and indifferent.

  Across the table, Crystal settled in, arranging the décol-letage of her expensive, royal-blue blouse and then touching the tips of her fingers to the top of her poofy hairdo for a quick primp. “It’s Miz Helen Hope Williamson again. I always seem to be getting on her bad side. Honestly, I don’t think she has a good side. I think it left a long time ago with her figure. Now, she’s left with a good, big, back side.”

  Both women snickered. Then Merleece sighed, resigning herself to the long story that was sure to follow. “What about her and her big back side? I know you and her sit on erry committee in town together. What was the fight about this time? Flowers? Tiaras? What?”

  “Merleece, you are something else. Your first guess was the right one. It’s the Flowers-Under-the-Hill Committee that I just couldn’t resist joining. It’s brand-new, and I wanted to help beautify things for the tourists from the boats. After all, the first thing they see when they disembark is the riverbank. I wanted my gahdnuh to work the zinnia and poppy patches along Silver Street, using seeds from my gahduns, but Helen Hope won’t hear of it. She thinks her gahdnuh is better, so they all took a vote, and Helen’s man won out, even though he’s a thousand years old. My Arden Wilson’s in his prime, as you well know. I’m just beside myself, of course. She always wins in these situations, and you should have seen the smug look on her face after the tally. She acts like she rules the world, and I’m just a peasant in her eyes. Can you imagine? Me—a peasant?”

  “You gotta face it, though,” Merleece told her, pulling no punches. “Miz Helen Hope’ll always have the advantage here in Rosalie. She was born here. Her mother was born here. Her grandmother and great-grandmother, they all born here. And back and back further than that to slavery times they go. She got the old genes, you don’t. That’s just a fact that you gotta face, and they’s no way you can change it.”

  “Genes!” Crystal spat out. “No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy genes. I do realize that, no matter how much I try to do for this town. Restoring Old Concord Manor to its impeccable state, contributing to the food pantry to feed the poor, sending some children to college with the scholarship money I donate to civic clubs, whatever it is. I try to do good. Genuinely, I do. But some still hold the fact that I came from Al-benny against me. What’s an outsider to do? I think Miz Helen Hope just delights in putting me in my place. She’s made a hobby of it.”

  Merleece leaned in, catching Crystal’s gaze. “Lissen up, now, and lissen good. I know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. I really don’t see why you got to get so upset. Arden Wilson is doin’ a damn fine job with those gardens a’ yours. Now, you know I got my issues with him ’cause he really is a smartass and gets on my last nerve like he did when we both worked for Miz Liddie Langston Rose, but we both stay outta each other’s way. So, be happy with what you got. Don’t even worry ’bout who’s growin’ what up Under-the-Hill. You got the best-looking gardens in Rosalie, and well you know it.”

  “That’s true, of course,” Crystal said, brightening considerably. “My tours are the highlight of the Pilgrimage every spring. All the tourists who come through say so. They fill out my little comment cards, and not a one has had anything snippy to say yet. It always makes my day. I’ve decided to frame some of the best ones. Eventually, I’ll have an entire wall of them to look at whenever I please.”

  “There you go. That’s all you need. Frame ’em up.”

  “So, I shouldn’t look upon this as a slight of some kind?”

  “Hell to the no, you shouldn’t. I tell my boy, Hiram, the same thing. Try to be who you are and do good at the same time. He’s finally actin’ like a grownup man over there at the Rosalie Fire Department. I thank the Lord for that, because I never thought I’d see it. Hard as it may be, you just gotta ignore Miz Helen Hope. Wear earplugs around her if you got to.”

  Crystal rose from her chair and motioned to Merleece. “Come, give us a hug.”

  Merleece complied, drew back, and said, “Here’s my advice. Let Miz Helen Hope have her snooty genes. That’s all she got.”

  Finally, Merleece was able to escape and head home for rest and relaxation. But once she began driving through town, something akin to an aha! moment surfaced. She had told Wendy not that long ago that she would try to think of certain specifics in the conversation between them that Wendy believed might have some bearing on King’s murder. The session with Crystal Forrest had triggered it.

  Genes.

  But it wasn’t that simple. The gist of the conversation fell into place. It wasn’t just a matter of genes; it was bad genes that were the issue here. Merleece had told Wendy that if any family lasted long enough, that if there were enough generations to play genetic roulette with, that every once in a while, some truly bad genes creating toxic people would find their way into the DNA of individuals. Of course, Merleece realized that she hadn’t been quite that scientific about it. She was no doctor doing important research that got written up all over the world. She’d just seen plenty of examples of monstrous behavior, even among the best of families she knew from her church. Then she thought again about her theory of “a woman scorned,” and that rage she’d witnessed once between two women who seemed to have suddenly lost their minds over a man.

  Merleece knew that she must give Wendy a call as soon as she got home and refresh her friend’s memory about that particular conversation. “I gotta get home without runnin’ red lights,” she said out loud, sensing the importance of her recollection. But she was still alert enough to slow down and stop at the yellow light looming straight ahead of her. Traffic tickets were the worst.

  * * *

  Wendy and Ross had much to discuss over dinner that evening, so much so that her homemade andouille and sausage gumbo took a back seat for once. True, they downed delightful spoonful after spoonful, but the usual comments on its spiciness and great texture were missing, replaced by the developments that had taken place during the remainder of the day.

  “So, I guess the crime lab doesn’t make mistakes,” Wendy was saying after taking a sip of her Chardonnay. “As in never, ever?”

  “Nope.” Ross paused his spoonful of gumbo halfway to his mouth. “Well, every once in a great while, maybe. But it’s so rare, it’s statistically inconsequential. And those little glitches get worked out quickly. No harm is done. I can vouch for that. Our criminologists take great pride in their work.”

  “Then Patrice’s swiping of the glass was for naught.”

  “It appears so. We don’t really have anything to bring the guy in on for questioning. Unless Patrice wanted to press charges against him for assault, and she says she doesn’t. She just wants to forget all about it and move on with her life. But if he shows up again, she is serious about getting a restraining order. That’s where we do have jurisdiction. If Jimmers Tyson knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay away from Rosalie for good.”

  Wendy persisted, nonetheless. “But just because the guy’s prints didn’t match anything in the house doesn’t mean he couldn’t have confronted King, lost it, and pounded him to death anyway. The prints could have been removed.”

  “That was Patrice’s train of thought,” Ross added. “She made sure that we were aware of it. Offhand, I’d say that the three women who had some sort of relationship to or with King have all made sure that we were aware of certain things. Wyvonne has called all sorts of things to our attention from the very beginning; then, Bella was quite helpful in bringing forth that single hair of King’s to absolve herself, or so she thinks. And let’s not forget Patrice’s contributions from the abortion story to this latest tale of seduction and assault. It’s not provable so far, but the ringleader and group effort theory is still very much in play.”

  “Do you think Patrice could be playing you, playing all of us?”

  “Possibly. We haven’t ruled out the possibility.”

  “What about Ethel Kohl?”

  Ross broke a baguette in half and said, “What about her?”

  “She had a relationship with King. Kinda primal—mother and son.”

  “And?”

  “She kept stubbornly insisting that she had killed her own son, and then there was the suicide attempt. I guess we are to attribute all that to her medical condition and nothing else? It just seems so drastic if she, in fact, did nothing.”

  Ross dipped the baguette into his bowl, made a throaty sound of approval as he took a bite, and then said, “I’ve given that a lot of thought, and so has your daddy. We both think that if by some remote chance, she actually did kill King, she would not have been in her right mind. She would be declared by her lawyer as of diminished capacity. A trial would end in sending her to an institution, and that’s where she is now anyway. Well, not exactly an institution; it’s a memory-care facility. But it amounts to the same thing. Jackson has seen to that. I don’t think for a moment that he thinks his wife really did it. He just wants to protect her, as any good husband would, and I can’t say I blame him.”

  Wendy caught his gaze intensely. “But that still leaves the possibility that if she didn’t do it, then someone else may get away with murder. I know you and Daddy despise cold cases, and no one is comfortable with a murderer on the loose.”

  “Yes, we do hate our cold cases, but we do not consider this case closed by a long shot, regardless of Ethel Kohl’s situation.”

  “Good. Neither do I. I’m glad to hear you say that, because I just know we’re all missing something important.”

  “So, you told me you had some info to share with me? Something from Merleece, I believe you said?” He had a smug expression on his face, and Wendy called him out.

  “You know better than to look like that. You always think Merleece and I are just a couple of gossips when it comes to all this. It’s the closest you ever come to acting like a sexist, which you most definitely are not.”

  He immediately raised both hands in surrender. “Sorry. No offense intended. Proceed.”

  “Well, a conversation she and I had a little while ago came back to her, and I believe it may have some significance.” Wendy then explained to him the entire concept of bad genes erupting here and there in generational terms and that it was impossible to predict the consequences of such an occurrence. And the snake in the high grass might not be easy to identify.

  “Okay, that’s a very interesting thought,” he said in a serious tone. “It would seem to apply to the older families of Rosalie if you’re gonna put it in those terms. The ones that have been around a while, like the Kohls and the Comptons, and people like Miz Helen Hope Williamson, but certainly not people like Patrice Leyton or Marcus Silvertree. I don’t think Patrice’s folks go back a ways—she’s a recent comer, and I know Marcus is a transplant from the Delta. He’s already made a big fuss about wanting to go back there as soon as he can. Pike even caught him trying to leave for Chicago and then Canada, if you can believe his story. The key word here is trying. He didn’t even get to start up the car engine. Everything against Marcus Silvertree is still circumstantial, and then there’s your testimony about his rushing out the front door. That oughta tell you how much the department respects you and your opinions.”

  Wendy looked extremely pleased and said, “I doubt the established family concept would apply to this Jimmers Tyson guy. I’d never heard of him before all this happened. Of course, there are lots of people in Rosalie that I don’t know. But I am aware of all the families that have been here forever.”

  “I know you are.”

  After yet another sip of wine, Wendy said, “Suppose it was King who had the bad genes. That time running out revelation from Wyvonne Sidley implies something dark and mysterious going on in his life. We know it wasn’t of a medical nature. So, what was it he was referring to? And I still can’t get over the idea that he actually knew that someone was gunning for him, so to speak. There’s something about the whole thing that’s just not right. You know, even film noir-ish.”

  Ross looked bewildered. “I was hoping we’d gotten our hands on that ripple effect that would help us solve the case when we got that glass from Patrice, but no such luck. As much as I hate to say it, this case could go cold on us unless we get that real breakthrough.”

  Wendy couldn’t resist giving him a wink. “Don’t forget, you have me on your team. I may come through with one of my brilliant insights, and then we’re all home free.”

  “I no longer put anything past you, sweetheart. Even though you stubbornly continue to resist your daddy’s overtures to give up your journalism career and join the force, you might as well be on it with all you’ve done with some recent, thorny crimes.”

  She pursed her lips and wagged a finger playfully. “You know as well as I do that it’s the gun thing. I just don’t want to have to handle them. I will continue to solve crimes with my mind and the written word, not bullets flying through the air.”

  “You’re good as gold with me,” he said. “Besides, all three of us in law enforcement would be way too stressful.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Greta Compton was beside herself at her daughter’s unsettling news. What had come over her? The two of them were sitting in the parlor of Bella’s cottage, having cocktails in the midst of what Greta thought was going to be a normal, polite mother-daughter visit. There was no reason to think otherwise, since Bella had sounded perfectly composed over the phone issuing the invitation. But once they got settled in, the dam burst.

  “Your father, may he rest in peace, and I bought this house for you as a permanent home. We never dreamed you would ever think of selling it and moving away in some sort of conniption fit like you seem to be having right now. You need to give this second and third thoughts—or as many as it takes until you regain your senses. If you’re wise, you’ll listen to me.”