“I will.” I stuffed the card in my shirt pocket.
Kanesha headed out the door, and I turned in my chair to regard my cat. “Well, boy, looks like we’re going home early today. Time to get your harness back on.”
Diesel meowed, then stood and stretched. He knew what home meant.
Five minutes later, we headed out the front door. I explained to Melba Gilley, the director’s secretary and an old friend, that I didn’t feel well and was going home for the day. I knew Melba was dying to quiz me over what had happened at the gala, and I promised to tell her all about it later.
On the brief walk home, I pondered where to talk to Azalea. I figured the kitchen might be best, because I tended to think of it as her domain. I was pretty sure she did, too.
The house was quiet when Diesel and I entered through the back door. I hoped everyone besides Azalea was out, because it could be awkward if someone walked in on us.
“Hello, anyone home?” I released Diesel from his harness, and off he trotted to the utility room.
When there was no response to my question, I walked into the front hall and repeated it, aiming my voice up the stairs. About ten seconds passed, and Azalea appeared at the top of the stairs, dust cloth and furniture polish in hand.
“You need something, Mr. Charlie?” She frowned. “You sick? What you doing home so early?”
“I came home early because I need to discuss something with you. Would you mind coming downstairs? It’s important,” I added when she hesitated.
Her frown deepened, but she came down the stairs and followed me into the kitchen.
“Want some coffee?” she asked as she laid the dust rag and polish on the counter. “They’s still some left from the pot Miss Laura made a while ago.”
“No, thank you,” I said. Diesel wandered into the kitchen. He paused to warble at Azalea, and she gazed at him blankly. “Please, Azalea, sit down. I really need to talk to you.”
She complied, but her expression threatened mutiny, to judge by the set of her lips. “What is it?”
“It’s about last night,” I said. I held up a hand as she started to rise, mutiny turning swiftly to outrage. “Azalea, please. I’m serious. For your own sake, sit down and talk to me. You’re in trouble, whether you want to believe it or not.” She hesitated, and I played what I considered my trump card. “Aunt Dottie will haunt me to the end of my days if I don’t do everything I can to help you. She might just haunt you, too, if you don’t listen to reason.”
I braced myself for the lightning strike that I figured was about to hit, but to my great surprise, Azalea burst into tears instead.
EIGHTEEN
I froze. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned Aunt Dottie. I’d never expected Azalea to react like this. What should I do?
Diesel acted while I hesitated. He went to my housekeeper and placed a paw on her thigh. Startled, she glanced down at him, still sobbing. “What’s he doing?” she finally managed to choke out.
“He’s showing you that he’s concerned. He knows you’re upset, and I’m sorry about that. The last thing I meant to do was upset you.” I started to get up, but she indicated that I should stay where I was.
“I be okay in a minute, Mr. Charlie.” Azalea blew her nose into a handkerchief that suddenly appeared in her right hand. She looked at Diesel again, still sitting beside her and watching her closely. “Don’t you worry no more, cat.”
Diesel meowed twice before he left Azalea and came to sit next to my chair. I rubbed his head, and he butted against my hand.
“Are you sure I can’t get you something? Water, iced tea?”
She shook her head. “No, thank you. Guess I’m just tired. Can’t remember when I slept so bad. Hardly closed my eyes all night.”
Thinking guiltily of how soundly I had slept, I nodded. “It’s no wonder you couldn’t sleep. After everything that happened last night.”
Azalea regarded me warily, her momentary breakdown finished. “What you want to talk about?”
“Last night,” I said. “But first I need to tell you something. Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce came to see me at the library this morning. They’re concerned about you, too, and they want me to help make sure the real killer is identified. They know you couldn’t have had anything to do with Mrs. Cassity’s death.”
“That’s mighty nice of them, to be concerned like that.” Her expression hadn’t changed.
I decided I’d better not mention that Kanesha also wanted me to help. That would put her back up straightaway.
“Now, about last night,” I said. “I know it’s not pleasant, but I need you to tell me about everything that happened in that stairway. Let’s start with how you came to be there.”
From the set of her mouth—I knew that stubborn line from compressed lips all too well—I thought she was going to balk. I decided that starting with a specific question would probably work better.
“It was strange about the door at the bottom of the stairs being blocked that way. Do you know if it was blocked earlier in the evening?”
“Expect it was,” Azalea said after a moment’s thought. “Think they keeps it like that. Them stairs is old and in bad shape. It’s real dark in there, too. That light don’t do much good.”
“Where did you enter the staircase? On the second floor or the third?”
“Second. Ain’t much call to go up to the third floor, and them stairs even worse than the ones down from the second floor.”
This reminded me of questioning my children during their teenage years—not much volunteered, so I had to keep coming up with the right things to ask. “Why did you come down those stairs? Why not use the main staircase at the front of the house?”
“Back stairs was closer,” Azalea said. She paused, then all at once the floodgates burst. “Reason I went upstairs, some lady come in the kitchen with her skirt about falling off. Needed it sewn up or she was gonna be parading around showing what the good Lord never intended the rest of the world to see. I said I’d sew it up for her, and Clementine said to go up to the second floor. They’s a little room at the back, right across from them stairs. Miss Dickce turned it into a sewing room.”
That spate of information ceased as suddenly as it started.
“You went up by the front stairs, surely?”
Azalea nodded.
“How long were you in the sewing room with the lady and her skirt?”
“Ten minutes, maybe. Lady got dressed again and went back downstairs.” She glanced down at her hands, pleating and unpleating her handkerchief. She’d been doing it for several minutes.
“But you stayed up there. Why?”
“Had some personal business to take care of.”
It took me a moment, but I suddenly realized what she meant and was evidently too embarrassed to say openly. She’d needed to use the bathroom.
I nodded. “Okay. What happened after you took care of your personal business?” I was getting a headache from the tension I felt. I wasn’t enjoying this, and I’m sure Azalea wasn’t, either.
“I’s about to go back downstairs, but when I opened the door I heard some people arguing right there in the hall. So I stayed where I was. Hoping they’d go away.”
“Could you tell who the people were? And how many?”
Azalea grimaced. “I could tell just fine. They was two of them, Mr. Cassity and Miz Cassity. They wasn’t yelling or anything, but you could tell they wasn’t happy with each other.”
An argument between Vera and her husband—could it be as simple as that? Morty pushed Vera down the stairs in a fit of anger?
But then I realized at this point in Azalea’s story, she was still in the bathroom, and the Cassitys were out in the hall.
“How long did this go on?” I asked.
Azalea considered that. “Few minutes, I reckon. Kept opening the door just enough to peek out, but there they was, still fussing.”