Mardi Gras Mambo (23 page)

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Authors: Gred Herren

BOOK: Mardi Gras Mambo
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“You don't really think—” I stopped myself. I couldn't even bring myself to say it out loud.
Someone in the family could have done this. Why hadn't that occurred to me before?
But then, of course, Sasha had thought
I
had killed Pasha. . . .
He glared at me. “I don't know what to fucking believe anymore. Come on, let's wrap this up so we can get the fuck over to Maman's.”
To say that Venus wasn't happy to find out that it was actually triplets as opposed to twins would probably be an understatement. It looked like steam was going to start coming out of her ears, and, for a minute, I thought she was going to punch me really hard.
Actually, she was so mad she couldn't speak for a few minutes. She got up, paced around, and spluttered every time she opened her mouth. She even scared Blaine a bit. Finally, after smoking a cigarette and grinding it out under her shoe like she was pretending it was me, she calmed down enough to sit back down and smile at me. “Were you planning on reporting this triplet thing at any time, say, in the near future?”
“Well—” I stopped talking because I knew she was right.
Her eyes glittered dangerously. A vein in her forehead was pulsing. “So, let me get this straight. Pasha Saltikov was the one shot Saturday night. Misha Saltikov was the one who was just shot here. And the final triplet is Sasha?”
“Yeah.” I thought for a minute, sorting them all out in my head. “Yeah, that's right. At least I think so.”
“And where can I find this Sasha?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Storm give his head an almost imperceptible sideways shake. “Um, in all the excitement last night, he just kind of took off.” I shrugged. “I'll tell him to call you if I see him again.”
“Great. Just great.” Venus stood up. “Come on, Blaine.” They started down the stairs. “I need you to stop by the station to give a statement. Feel free to bring the shyster with you.” She turned back to me and got right in my face, jabbing me in the chest with a well-manicured nail. “And don't get any funny ideas, Scotty. I'm not convinced you're telling me the truth. I ought to run your ass in.”
“On what charge?” Storm challenged her.
“Annoying the hell out of me.” She turned on her heel and stormed off down the walk.
“Okay,” I called lamely after her. I turned to Storm once they were safely in the SUV and on their way. “Any particular reason you had me lie to her about where Sasha is?”
Storm already had his cell phone out and up to his ear. He held up a hand to shut me up. “Hello, Mother, dear. Can you, Dad, and dear, dear
Uncle
Sasha meet Scotty and me over at Maman's? We're heading over there right now.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. He clicked the phone off. Almost immediately it started ringing. He glanced at the caller ID and grinned before turning the phone off completely. “They'll be there.” He turned it off.
We ran through the rain to his car, and he turned the heater on full blast. “We're going to Maman's?” I asked, through chattering teeth. I still had the police blanket but it was wet. Shivering, I tossed it behind the seat and turned the vents so they blew hot air right at me. I wasn't looking forward to this.
“Oh, hell, yeah.” Storm made a U-turn and floored the accelerator, spinning the tires on the wet pavement. “Time for a fucking family meeting.”
I chose not to point out that Rain wouldn't be there, so technically it wasn't a real family meeting.
Maman and Papa Diderot lived on Third Street in the Garden District. The house had belonged to the Diderots since they built it just before the Civil War, with what my mother always disdainfully referred to as “slave money.” It was gorgeous, a raised three-story Greek Revival American “cottage” with a wide front porch, set back behind a circular drive with lush bushes surrounding the house on every side. Huge old swamp oaks shaded the big expanse of lush green grass to its left. The entire yard was closed in with a black wrought iron fence that tilted and leaned in some places. The house itself was painted white, with window shutters a dark emerald green. There was a brass plaque mounted in the fence next to the front gate, describing the original owners and naming the architect who built it. The plaque, from the National Historic Society, honored the house as a historic landmark. I've loved the old house, with its high ceilings and hardwood floors and massive rooms, since I was a little boy, even though it was always dark inside. The thick, heavily brocaded curtains were always drawn, shutting out the light. We weren't allowed to act like kids inside the house; all the furniture was old and valuable and Maman was deathly afraid we'd break something. We also weren't allowed to play in the side yard where anyone could see us; we were only allowed in the backyard, with its high bushes shielding us from the view of any wide-eyed tourist driving past. The house always seemed to me to cry out to be allowed to live again—for the rooms to be filled with the light the windows were designed to let in. It always kind of seemed like a museum inside. If I lived there I would open all the windows and let in the light and fresh air.
The round drive at Maman's house was practically empty of cars when Storm made the turn into it almost on two wheels. But I recognized Rain's Range Rover parked under the awning, and Storm almost hit it from behind when he slammed the car into park. He was out of the car and climbing the steps two at a time before I could get my seat belt off. He unlocked the front door and left it open for me as I scrambled to catch up. I could hear voices coming from the ladies' sitting room, as Maman liked to call it, up ahead and down the hall to the left.
“I should have gone with her,” I heard Maman say as Storm and I walked through the door. She was holding a highball glass in her hand, and she finished the amber liquid in it with a skilled toss of her head. She was wearing a gray silk dress, pearls at her throat. Her face was perfectly made up, every white hair in place on her head. Rain was sitting, her legs curled underneath her, on the green and gold brocade couch.
“Hey guys,” Rain said, a strange look on her face. “You wouldn't believe what just happened—”
“Aunt Sylvia's husband was shot and killed, and she's on her way to the morgue to identify the body.” Storm's voice was harsh. He jerked a thumb at me. “Guess who was there when he was shot?”
Maman's glass dropped, shattering on the floor. Her hand went to her throat and her face went pale. “Scotty, darling, are you all right?”
“A little shaky, but okay.” I sat down in a wingback chair.
“Storm, what the hell—” Rain started, but Maman interrupted her.
“Language, young lady.” She pressed the buzzer on her desk that summoned Helga, the housekeeper. “Do you need a drink, darling? Storm?”
“Bourbon, please,” Storm replied, and when she turned to me, I nodded. She filled two glasses with ice and bourbon just as Helga walked in. She handed us our glasses and she turned to Helga. “Helga, dear, I broke a glass. Would you be an angel and take care of it?”
Helga had worked for my grandparents as long as I could remember. She was originally from Sweden, and she was a little shy of her heavily accented English, so she didn't speak much. When we were little, she used to take us in the kitchen and give us chocolate milk and sugar cookies. She looked pretty much the same as she had when I was a kid, except for the gray in her hair and the telltale wrinkles and the thickening of her waist and hips. She glanced at me and gave me a little smile before nodding and silently disappearing back down the hall. We sat there in silence until she returned, swept up the wreckage, and vanished again.
“Now,” Maman said, sitting down next to Rain on the couch, “what is all this about?”
But before Storm could say anything, my parents stormed into the room. “Storm, I did not raise you to be rude to your mother!” Mom snapped. “I—”
“Where's Sasha?” he interrupted her.
My mother is seldom at a loss for words. I've seen her debate Christian protestors on the spot, scream at cops, and argue with politicians—and they always come off the worse for wear. There's never been any doubt in my mind where Storm's arguing skills came from. But this time, her mouth opened and closed, as her eyes went from me to Maman to Rain to Storm and, finally, Dad.
“He went out a little while ago. We were just starting to get a little worried about him when you called, son,” Dad said, putting his arm protectively around Mom. She leaned into him. They were both wearing jeans and T-shirts.
“You just let him walk out?” I said. “Knowing full well there are people out there trying to kill him—”
“Enough!!!”
Maman roared.
We all turned to look at her. In all of my twenty-nine, almost thirty years, I have never once heard Maman raise her voice. In fact, I've never seen her anything but calm and gracious. But now, her face was mottled red with fury, her eyes shooting flames. Her hands on her hips, she stalked over to my mother. “Cecile, sit down and shut up. You, too, Douglas.” Meekly, my parents sat on the sofa facing the one Rain was on. She turned to me. “And you, young man, you do not talk to your parents that way in
my
house as long as there is breath in my body.” She glared at each of us and then added, in her usual pleasant speaking voice, “When you say
Sasha
, do you mean Alexander?”
We all just stared at her in shock.
She waved her manicured hand. “Listen, it's bad enough that Mikhail was killed this morning—I am still reeling from that news—but now you say someone is trying to kill Alexander as well?” She turned to my mother. “And he was at your home, Cecile?”
Mom nodded numbly. I've never seen her eyes that wide open before in my life. Well, I've never really seen her speechless before, for that matter.
“This is terrible, just terrible.” She shook her head. “This is going to kill your father. Just kill him.”
“Maman—” I cleared my throat. “Maman, you mean you know there were three of them?”
“Unlike what some people think, I'm not some stupid old woman who can't handle the truth.” She shot a glance at my mother. “Nor am I going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“But Maman,” my mother finally said, “you did have a breakdown.”
Maman rolled her eyes. “I was
upset,
Cecile, when I found out about Mikhail. Who wouldn't be? To find out that my husband had a child with another woman? I just needed to get away for a while, get my head together, figure out what to do next. Obviously, divorce was out of the question.” She sat down in the matching chair to the one I was in. “What would be the point of throwing all these years of marriage down the drain because the affair I forgave him for years ago produced a child he had no knowledge of? That ‘sanitarium' I went to, Cecile, was actually a very nice spa. While I was there, I hired a private eye to find out if this Mikhail was indeed my stepson. Sylvia helped me.”
“Aunt Sylvia?” Rain replied. She looked over at me for help. I just shrugged.
“Yes, Aunt Sylvia,” Maman snapped. “Anyway, to make a long story short, I contacted Mikhail and arranged to meet him in Munich. He seemed like a nice enough young man, and the story was true—my investigator turned up the birth certificate.”
“So that's how you knew there were triplets,” Storm said.
“I already said I knew there were triplets!” She waved a hand. “Honestly, does
everyone
in my family think I'm a
moron
?” She sighed. “Of course, I tried to find the other boys. But I had no luck. It was like they had just disappeared into thin air. Mikhail claimed they were into drugs, pornography. You name it, Mikhail said they were into it. He obviously loved the idea that they were gone. I never pursued it with him much, but I tried to find them . . . for your father's sake. And then Sylvia fell in love with Mikhail. Of course, he was after a marriage visa and her money, but he's been good to her.” A tear escaped her eye. “She's going to be devastated, just devastated.”
“For my father's sake?” Mom choked the words out. “What are you saying?”
“They're his
sons,
Cecile.” Maman stared at her. “Of course, he'd be delighted to know about them, to find them, to welcome them into the family. Do you really think your father is such a monster that he—that
we—
would turn our backs on family?”
“I—” Mom choked, “I was just trying to protect you.”
“That's very very kind of you, Cecile, but I don't need protection.” Maman got up, walked over to Mom, and gave her a big hug and kiss. “You have no idea how much it means to me.” Her voice was heavy with emotion.
“But Papa didn't know about Mikhail?” This was from Storm. He looked completely bewildered—pretty much how I was feeling.
“I didn't—oh, God forgive me—I didn't tell him Mikhail was his son. I wanted to find the other two boys first.” She wiped tears away. “He'll never forgive me . . . all this time he could have had with his son, and now it's too late. Secrets, secrets and lies, this is what comes from not telling the truth. You say two of them are dead?”

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