Cyrus would have volunteered to go to Guy’s place if the Impala hadn’t been out of commission. Gator Hibbs had shown up at the accident scene and left Cyrus with a small, rusty pickup. It ran. That was about the best you could say about it. The lights dimmed without warning and Cyrus didn’t want to drive the vehicle at night, or in isolated places like the location of Guy’s house. Cyrus was still grateful for Gator’s kindness.
Madge’s keyboard stopped clicking and she put on one of the hundred or so zydeco CDs she owned.
The wallpaper in the hall and up the stairs, “ducks in flight” folks called it, had finally turned yellow, mostly along the seams. He’d like to strip it and paint instead, only the place was so old Cyrus feared he’d be knee-deep in crumbling plaster if he tried.
The doorbell rang. Cyrus saw a tall man’s shadow through a pebble-glass panel in the front door.
“Coming,” Madge called, and shot from her office to let the visitor in, noticing Cyrus as she took off the bolt. “I didn’t know you were there.” She smiled with her dark eyes. So much warmth came from the way she looked at him.
“I’m expectin’ Guy Gautreaux.”
She opened the door and Guy stood there, hat in hands, around a foot taller than Madge. “Come on in,” Cyrus told him.
“I’ll get you something to drink,” Madge said. “What would you like? I’ll bring it up to the sittin’ room. Are you hungry?”
“There’s no need, ma’am,” Guy said. “Thank you.”
“There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen,” Cyrus said. “Okay with you if we sit out there?”
“Like your taste in a tune, ma’am,” Guy said with a nod at Madge. He set off down the hall toward the kitchen and Cyrus followed him.
Guy made straight for the big oak table in the window that overlooked the yard and Bayou Teche. “No coffee for me,” he said. “Madge is dedicated to you. She’s here late and she’s still got quite a drive getting home to Rosebank.”
Madge rented rooms from Vivian Devol at Rosebank Resort. A floor in one wing of the hotel was dedicated to long-stay guests. Cyrus did his best not to show how much he worried about Madge making that drive alone. “I don’t know what I’d do without her. I’m going to have a glass of wine, how about one for you?”
“Red?”
“It can be.”
“Thank you, then.”
The man looked even more buttoned-up than usual. Cyrus glanced at him between pouring glasses of wine. Guy’s palms were pressed together and he tapped his joined small fingers on the table. Right about now Cyrus would guess Guy had forgotten where he was.
Carrying the wine, and with a can of nuts clamped beneath one arm, Cyrus approached, and Guy went right on staring straight ahead. “Something on your mind?” Cyrus asked quietly.
“Nope.” Sometimes you had to lie. Guy focused his eyes on his host and rested his hands on the table. “You called and asked me to come here.”
“I know. I’d have come to you, but—”
“The Impala’s in the shop and you’re waiting for the verdict,” Guy finished for him. “Don’t worry about it, I like a drive at night.” A drive with Goldilocks, who had followed him down the lane to the Pontiac and jumped in as if she belonged there. All the better to get you to Jilly’s house. Shoot, that was the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.
Cyrus sat at the end of the table and put down the wineglasses. “I stopped to see Jilly on my way home. I’m concerned about her.” He took the lid off the nuts, searched for a pecan, and put it in his mouth.
Guy paused with a glass in midair. “Why?” She’d looked collected the last time he’d seen her—mussed, pink and tight-lipped, but in control. In fact, truth was she’d been the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
His physical reaction was predictable. Everything constricted.
“She never came back to answer any questions the deputy had,” Cyrus said. “Not that it matters as long as she called her insurance company.”
Jilly had said she was going back to Cyrus and the deputy, and to tell Laura Preston to get lost. There had also been mention of nosy reporters.
“You’re closer to her than anyone,” Cyrus said. “She and Joe have always stuck together, but his marriage had to change that some and he isn’t here, anyway.”
Guy wanted to get up and go to her at once. “The accident shook her up, but she should have answered any questions the officer had.” This was his fault. Not because of what they’d done in the afternoon, although the circumstances should have been so different, but because he’d sent her mixed messages for the better part of a year. Right after Billie’s murder he hadn’t wanted anyone else, then he met Jilly and got scared spitless of falling for her on the rebound. He still wasn’t sure he was ready to be what she needed. But he’d driven her to act the way she had and now she would be embarrassed.
“She didn’t answer her door until she figured I’d keep on ringing the bell. I saw her shadow move in the upstairs window.”
Still nervous at the possibility that some goon had followed her home last night, Guy thought. “It’s good for a woman alone to be cautious, but I’m glad you didn’t give up,” he finished hurriedly.
“Yes,” Cyrus said. He fell silent and drank some of his wine.
A round clock ticked on one of the white walls. The room smelled of homemade bread and Guy saw loaves on a wood cutting board with a red-and-white cloth over them. He doubted there had been any changes made around this place for years, but he felt comfortable surrounded by the ceiling-high cabinets with thick glass fronts.
On his own minute back porch, a turquoise refrigerator shaped like a capsule of some kind crowded most of the space. The refrigerator came from the same era as the mottled-gray appliances in the rectory kitchen, and they didn’t make their kind anymore.
“I’ve never seen Jilly the way she was when I went to her house. First she tried to be all buttoned-up. She said she forgot to go back and talk to the deputy. Then she cried, and Jilly should never feel so badly she cries like that. She said she was all muddled up. Those were her words. I asked what she meant, but all she could say was that caring too much could mess you up.”
Guy was well aware of Cyrus’s hard stare. He was watching for reactions. “I don’t like to think of Jilly being upset,” he said, and felt lame. Caring too much? Did she care more than he did? “What do you think she meant?” He knew the question could be dangerous.
Cyrus didn’t hesitate to say, “You. What else could she be talkin’ about? There’s no one else she cares a lot about who treats her badly.”
“Damn it.” Guy shot to his feet. “You may be a priest, but that doesn’t give you the right to make guesses like that. I wouldn’t treat Jilly badly.” But he hadn’t treated her as well as he should have.
“I didn’t mean you abuse her.” Cyrus scooped out a handful of nuts and started popping them. “You asked a question. I gave my
