“I agree with you about Jackson,” An’gel said. “He would never do something he would consider blasphemous. If it wasn’t Estelle, however, then who do you think it was?”
Jacqueline looked ready to burst into tears again. “I don’t want to think it, but I’m afraid Horace did it. He was trying to talk Maman into lending him money, but she refused. He wasn’t happy about it.”
CHAPTER 27
An’gel’s heart went out to her goddaughter because she could see how troubled Jacqueline was and how much it cost her to admit that she suspected her husband of such a vile act.
“Horace has always seemed like such a confident, successful businessman,” An’gel said. “Has he been having financial problems recently?” She began to suspect that this was more than a minor cash-flow issue.
“Horace has been very successful,” Jacqueline said, a note of pride in her voice, but it quickly turned bitter. “Horace also likes to gamble. Not at the casinos, mind you, or card games. He gambles with the stock market and investments in business ventures.” She looked angry now, An’gel thought.
“And lately those haven’t been going too well.” An’gel knew from her own experience as an investor that things could quickly turn against a person. She and Dickce, however, always exercised caution when considering any kind of new venture.
“He’s never had such a string of back luck,” Jacqueline said. “It’s like he’s lost his touch somehow. He’s also lost his confidence, and I hate seeing him this way.”
“Why did he approach Mireille for a loan?” An’gel asked. “Couldn’t you help him from your own income?”
Jacqueline shook her head. “Not without the permission of the trustees, one of whom is Richmond Thurston. The other is a cranky old stuffy banker in St. Ignatiusville who has turned down every request I’ve ever made. Both trustees have to agree. Rich would probably say yes, but old fussy pants won’t.”
“I see,” An’gel said. “Mireille obviously turned Horace down. Did she give a reason?”
“No, she didn’t,” Jacqueline said. “Maman has always been secretive about her affairs. She seems to be comfortably off, and I know she and Estelle have made good money from the bed-and-breakfast scheme, but other than that, I don’t have a clue what her financial situation is. Daddy left her a fair amount of money, but Willowbank is expensive to maintain.”
An’gel certainly understood that last bit. She and Dickce spent a considerable sum every year keeping their own antebellum home in tip-top condition.
Jacqueline went on, “I know how important Willowbank is, er, was, to Maman, and I love it, too. But at the end of the day, it’s a house, and there are times when people are more important than houses. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, my dear, I do,” An’gel said gently. “I understand your mother’s feelings for her home, though. When you get to be our age, you often look back into your past, and there you see all the people you love who are no longer with you. People who lived, loved, and perhaps died in the house, and you want to cherish that house because it holds the memories of those loved ones. The house connects you to so much that makes you who you are.”
Jacqueline looked a little teary-eyed by the time An’gel finished, and An’gel felt slightly choked up herself. She always thought of her beloved parents whenever she talked about her home. In every room in Riverhill, she heard echoes of the past, of a time when she and Dickce were children and her parents were young and full of love for each other and for their daughters.
She rarely revealed her feelings to this extent to anyone other than her sister, and she was momentarily embarrassed that she had let her guard down, even to a loved one like her goddaughter.
“I understand,” Jacqueline said softly. “Thank you for sharing that with me. You’ve helped me understand Maman even better, and I can’t blame her for not wanting to put her home at risk for one of Horace’s uncertain ventures.”
An’gel smiled. She waited a moment, then she asked the question that had to be asked.
“Other than the fact that he needs money pretty desperately,” she said, “why do you think Horace could be behind these nasty incidents? Has he ever done anything of this sort before?”
Jacqueline shook her head. “No, and that’s the one thing that makes me a bit doubtful. He can be really hard when it comes to business. He’s hard on Trey and makes him toe the line, even when Trey tries to get around him on something. But I’ve never seen him be vicious or vindictive.”
An’gel believed her. Jacqueline and Horace had been married for nearly fifteen years, and surely in that time, if Horace were capable of such revolting behavior, Jacqueline would have seen some evidence of it.
“In that case,” An’gel said, “I think Horace is probably not the culprit. With him off the list, along with Jackson, whom does that leave us with?”
“Estelle,” Jacqueline said promptly. “There’s always been something about her that I’ve never trusted. She’s sly, and that is a quality in a person that I simply can’t stand.”
An’gel found it hard to disagree with her goddaughter. Sly was a good word for Estelle. An’gel would also have added passive-aggressive because she thought Estelle was manipulative, particularly when it came to Mireille.
“Estelle, certainly,” An’gel said. “But we have to consider others as well.” She hesitated a moment. “I hate to ask this, but what about Sondra?”
Jacqueline looked offended for a moment, but then appeared to consider the question seriously. She finally said, “I understand why you mention her, but I really don’t think she would have done those things. She might have broken the ornaments and not told Maman, but she wouldn’t have done it deliberately.” She smiled briefly. “I know she wouldn’t have dared touch the prayer book, because she was superstitious about anything religious like that.”
An’gel wasn’t totally convinced, but for the moment she simply nodded. With both Sondra and Mireille now dead, there was no way to know the truth.
“What about Trey?” she asked. “He doesn’t live here, does he?”
“No,” Jacqueline said. “He has a small house in St. Ignatiusville. Horace insisted he move out after he got Sondra pregnant.”
“Would he take it on himself to persecute Mireille to help his father?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Jacqueline said. “He always wants to please Horace and show his father that he can be every bit as astute a businessman as Horace. But I’ve never seen him be vicious either. He has a temper, I’ll admit that, but once he boils over, he usually calms down quickly.”
A person with a temperament like that was the opposite of one who would coldly carry out a campaign of vindictive acts against another, An’gel reasoned. She was inclined to believe Jacqueline, and that meant scratching another name off the list.
“All right then,” she said. “Who’s left, among persons who are regularly in the house?”
“Lance, of course,” Jacqueline said. “But I think we can discount him because, well, because he’s Lance. He’d never think up anything like that on his own, and he had no reason I can imagine to want to hurt Maman. She’s always been quite fond of him, and he of her, in his way.”
An’gel agreed that Lance wouldn’t have thought of harming Mireille through destruction of beloved possessions, but if another person talked him into it somehow? That was a possibility, even if only a small one. “Is he easily manipulated or suggestible?” An’gel asked.