“That sounds good to me,” An’gel said. “I’ll go to the kitchen and see whether Estelle has done anything about lunch.”
She turned down the hall, and Benjy went out with the animals. An’gel listened as she neared the kitchen, but she didn’t hear any sounds of food preparation. With a sigh she walked through the open door, wondering what on earth she would find to prepare for lunch. She had not spent much time in the kitchen over a stove for years. Dickce was a better cook than she was, but both sisters had been spoiled for years by their housekeeper, Clementine, who was a very fine Southern cook. Just thinking of Clementine made An’gel hungry for one of the housekeeper’s amazing desserts. Her particular favorite was Clementine’s carrot cake.
Stop thinking about cake. That’s not going to get lunch ready for anybody. An’gel checked the refrigerator and found several pounds of ground beef. There was a bundle of asparagus in the crisper, a head of iceberg lettuce, and several tomatoes. Satisfied that she could cope with what she’d found, An’gel went to the sink to wash her hands.
When she pushed the sleeves of her dress up to keep from wetting them, the scrap of fabric she had found earlier fluttered to the floor. An’gel retrieved it and stood staring at it. The white satin brought the memory of that terrible scene, when Sondra stood upstairs, gleefully ripping the antique gown and throwing the swatches of fabric down to the first floor.
An’gel rubbed the scrap between her fingers. It was warm from having been tucked in the sleeve against her arm. It was also soft, but something about it didn’t feel quite right. She held it under the fluorescent light over the sink and examined it more carefully. She quickly came to the conclusion that the piece of fabric she held had not come from an antique wedding gown. The weave was not that of old satin. Instead, it looked like a blended material, perhaps silk and rayon, the kind used to make drapes.
Where had it come from? Had Sondra not destroyed the antique gown after all and instead cut up a piece of drapery?
An’gel shook her head as if to clear it. She tucked the scrap back into her sleeve. There were two answers to this particular puzzle, she decided. Either this was a random piece of material that had somehow found its way to the spot where An’gel discovered it, or Sondra had cut up something besides the dress.
The first answer seemed too bizarre a coincidence, like the freakish accident that supposedly claimed Sondra’s life. The second answer was just as bizarre, but for a different reason.
An’gel recalled what Jacqueline had told her and Dickce earlier, about Sondra’s care for clothing and how she wouldn’t have gone out onto the gallery during the storm wearing her blue gown. Had that care extended to the antique dress? Perhaps Sondra had wanted to punish her grandmother by cutting up fabric that only looked like it came from the dress.
There was one way to answer at least part of the question, An’gel realized. Look for the dress.
She was about to head out of the kitchen when she realized she had no time to hunt for the dress right now. Tippy would be downstairs soon asking for something to eat. She had better focus on putting together a meal for the child and for herself, Dickce, and Benjy.
Before she finished seasoning the ground beef, however, preparatory to forming it into patties, Estelle turned up and informed her that she would take care of lunch. “You can go back to whatever you were doing,” Estelle said. “I don’t need any help.”
“Very well,” An’gel said. She went to the sink to wash her hands. “Tippy will be down shortly. She’s hungry, and we promised her food.”
“I’ll see to it,” Estelle said. “She likes hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. I’ll have them ready for her in a few minutes.”
An’gel nodded and left the kitchen, relieved that she wouldn’t have to cook after all. Instead, she could go in search of the wedding dress. The likeliest place would be Mireille’s room, she decided, because her cousin would have wanted it to hand to prepare it for the wedding. Moreover, Mireille probably wouldn’t have trusted Sondra to handle it properly in her absence.
As she neared Mireille’s door, An’gel heard Dickce and Tippy on the stairs above her. She didn’t want to have to explain to her sister what she was doing and ducked quickly inside her cousin’s room and shut the door. She would share whatever she discovered later on.
She flipped the light switch but left the curtains closed. She stood by the door and surveyed the room to determine the likeliest place to look. Her eyes settled on the old chifforobe in the corner. Its doors were open, and An’gel noted the two long drawers at the bottom, under the compartment for hanging clothes.
She doubted her cousin would keep the dress on a hanger because of its age. The drawers were likelier. They were low, and An’gel had to squat to open them. She started with the bottom drawer, grasping the elderly drawer pulls and sliding the drawer gently out.
There it was. An’gel, even though she had halfway expected to find it, was still a bit surprised. She knew it was the wedding dress because she had seen both Mireille and Jacqueline walk down the aisle in it. The fabric looked fragile, and An’gel wondered why Mireille had been so insistent that Sondra wear it. Surely any damage would have been irreparable.
An’gel slid the drawer closed and slowly got to her feet. Her muscles protested, and she leaned against the chifforobe for a moment to rest.
Sondra had not destroyed the antique gown. So what had she destroyed instead?
CHAPTER 26
Other questions followed quickly. Did Jacqueline know the wedding dress was still intact? And who cleaned up the mess Sondra made?
The answer to that last question was Estelle, An’gel reasoned. Sondra wouldn’t have, and Jacqueline had gone with her mother to the hospital.
When Estelle picked up the scattered pieces of fabric, had she realized they did not come from the antique gown?
An’gel wanted to talk to Jacqueline first. Given the loss of her mother and her daughter, Jacqueline might not care in the least about the survival of a piece of clothing. Still, An’gel thought it better to tell her now than have her find it on her own and get a potentially unsettling surprise.
After she talked to Jacqueline, she would confront Estelle. This time she would demand some answers, even if Estelle tried to stonewall her with her usual rudeness.
Once lunch was over, An’gel decided. She left Mireille’s room, making sure the door was securely closed behind her. She walked downstairs. When she heard voices coming from the front parlor, she turned that way instead of toward the dining room.
Inside she found Horace and Jacqueline. Horace had his cell phone to his ear while Jacqueline watched him from her perch on one of the armchairs.
“That’ll be fine,” Horace said. “Soon as you can get somebody here.” He ended the call and snapped his phone into a holder attached to his belt. “They should be here in about an hour, Roy said.”
“That’s good,” Jacqueline said, “though I wish someone had thought to call them earlier.”
“Hello, my dear,” An’gel said. She nodded to Horace. “Are you feeling any better?”
“A little,” Jacqueline said. She still appeared drawn and tired to An’gel, but perhaps the nap had helped.
“Miss An’gel, I’ll have to be heading back to town in a few,” Horace said, “and Jackie’s got things to do. I got a crew coming to do the cleanup upstairs. Would you mind showing them where to go when they get here?”
“I’ll be happy to,” An’gel said. “Anything to help.”
“Thank you, Tante An’gel.” Jacqueline smiled briefly. “I’d rather not be here while they’re up there.” Her voice faltered on the last two words, and for a moment An’gel thought her goddaughter was going to break down. Jacqueline rallied, however, and asked An’gel to have a seat. “Estelle won’t have lunch ready for another ten minutes or so.”