Kiss Them Goodbye. Stella Cameron

Gary Legrain’s presence as an afterthought. “You gonna let me get on with my business now?” he asked.

      Legrain levered himself out of his chair and commenced to take long, slow strides around the room. He made the mistake of pulling one of the orange velvet drapes aside to get a better view of the courtyard and stables. Vivian lost count of the number of times he sneezed amid clouds of pungent dust.

      “Are you done interruptin’ this interrogation?” Bo-nine asked when the sneezing stopped. He went on without waiting for a reply, “Ms. Patin, isn’t it true that you and your mama got money troubles?”

      Vivian’s temper rose. She looked at her lawyer but he continued his round of the room and didn’t seem interested in the question. “We do,” she said. Honesty paid in the end—or mostly it did—even if she was caught off balance by the question.

      Gary Legrain stopped his pacing and sat on the corner of the desk—on the same side as Bonine. Vivian figured he had to be close to seven feet tall and he looked in good shape. He wore his dishwater-blond hair short and was more tanned than any other lawyer she remembered. He appeared to stare into the distance, much to the detective’s ire.

      “You comfy enough, Legrain?” Bonine asked. “You through sneezin’ and tryin’ to mess with my train of thought, you?”

      “You’ve got the floor,” Legrain said.

      “So here you are with this place. It needs to be condemned or repaired—”

      “It does not need to be condemned,” Vivian told him, even though she knew she was being baited.

      “As I was sayin’,” Bonine continued, “you got a notion to do this place up and run some sort of rooming house.”

      Either he was trying to make her angry or he was operating with minus gray cells. Neither possibility encouraged Vivian. She didn’t need a mean-spirited troublemaker or a mental midget with power.

      “A hotel,” she told him, turning up the corners of her mouth. “My parents were in the restaurant business and I’ve been in hotel management for—”

      “I didn’t ask for a life history,” Bonine said. “I know all that. You wanna open a hotel then.” A sneer didn’t improve the arrangement of his belligerent features.

      “We’ll start small,” she said, as if she hadn’t picked up on his attitude. “A few rooms and a restaurant.”

      Bonine pushed back in his chair and hauled his feet onto the desk. “This whole place needs work.”

      “Don’t I know it?” Vivian actually enjoyed hiding behind her innocent eyes.

      “You got the money?”

      Legrain said, “Where are you going with this?”

      “You’ll see, you,” the detective said. “You got the money, Ms. Patin?”

      She shook her head and managed to find bubbles of tears.

      “Yeah,” Bonine said with satisfaction. “I’d say you were in a big bind. How long have you known Devol?”

      “Are you going to make some connections anytime soon, Detective?” Legrain’s profile had turned hard. He narrowed his eyes.

      Bonine ignored him. “How long?”

      “We met a couple of years back, maybe longer,” Vivian said. “We used to talk whenever I was here visiting my uncle.” And this morning we did more than talk.

      “We’ll come back to that. You told me Louis Martin was bringin’ good news. You told me what he said, but I don’t necessarily read it the way you did. Maybe it was bad news. Perhaps there was something in the briefcase you didn’t want anyone to see—some question about the ownership of Rosebank, maybe. Did he threaten you, want money or something?”

      “The detective is way out of line,” Legrain said. He snapped out his words and stood up. “I suggest you back off and rethink how you want to pursue this, Bonine.”

      “Save it for the prosecutor, Legrain. You don’t get to make suggestions to me. Devol would do anything to get back at me for whatever he’s decided I’ve done to him. He’d be on the front line to help someone make a fool of me.” He creaked sideways in the chair to peer at the recorder. “Will you look at that? Damn cheap equipment quit.” One heavy finger plunked down on a button and Vivian realized he was turning it on, not off. When had it stopped recording?

      Confused, she lost her battle to keep on seeming unfazed. “Spike had nothing to do with any of this. He didn’t know you’d be the one to come.”

      “He knew,” Bonine declared.

      “Are you suggesting Devol’s an accessory?” Legrain asked. “If so, that’s a pretty flamboyant accusation.”

      Bonine gave a smile that flared his nostrils. “I’m not suggestin’ anythin’, me. Just doin’ my job.”

      “Apparently the priest saw—”

      “What he does or doesn’t say he saw is between him and me at this point. I’m an analytical man, me. Time of death doesn’t have to mean a thing in a case like this.”

      Tapping at the door startled Vivian. Legrain raised his eyebrows. Bonine’s frown wiped out his eyelids.

      Vivian said, “Come in.”

      Madge Pollard, Cyrus’s right hand, she who kept St. Cécil’s—and Cyrus—running, trotted into the room with four cups on a tray, and a guileless smile on her lips. “Break time,” she said, or just about sang. “From what Cyrus, and now Charlotte have told me, not one of you is taking care of yourself. How will you think your way through this tragedy if you don’t give your brains a good slap now and then.”

      Bonine was exercising male viewing rights. Madge’s cream shirt and tan pants were demure enough, but she had the kind of figure that would turn a Kevlar jumpsuit into sexy gear.

      “Put it there,” Bonine said, referring to the tray and pointing at the desk. He actually tilted his head to watch Madge do as he asked.

      “Cream and sugar?” Madge asked. “I’ll be mother.”

      Vivian clamped her lips together. Nothing Madge did would surprise her, but the ditzy brunette act could become a party piece.

      “Cream, no sugar, please,” Legrain said and his interested grin let Vivian know he hadn’t missed Madge’s charms, either.

      Black curly hair, chin length, bounced with each move of Madge’s head and the deep intelligence in her dark eyes made them even more appealing. Vivian didn’t think an interruption by Gil the gardener would have been as well received.

      Once the men held their coffee, Madge handed a cup to Vivian and picked up one for herself. “We’ve got tea.” She smiled all around. “Hot tea. Cools you down. Isn’t that what we say, Vivian? Stops you from feeling wiggly.” Another innocent grin. “I hate it when the heat makes you wiggly, don’t you?”

      Affirmative mumbles followed, and the clearing of throats, and a certain gleam in eyes that probably envisioned Madge feeling “wiggly.”

      Vivian stared at Madge in disbelief. Who would have expected someone else to spout Mama’s tea and body temperature wisdom?

      Madge had burst into the room to be a Good Samaritan and try to spring Vivian, but Madge was also having a great time with her act.

      “I heard that about hot tea,” Bonine said. He’d gotten up. “I need coffee for that brain slap you talked about. Very apt. But I’ll remember to try the tea later.”

      What was she, Vivian wondered, yesterday’s grits? Her own appeal had been remarked on more than a time or two, yet Bonine treated her like a cottonmouth. Spike, he was the reason. Bonine really hated him. She thought of the detective’s earlier insinuations and pressed