entry, like all the day-old bread you can carry.”
Jilly Gable and her brother Joe owned the bakery and café. They’d come up with the current name to “make the place more sexy,” poker-faced Jilly told anyone who asked.
“Sure,” she said from behind a counter. “Not much of a prize when everything gets sold the day it’s made, though. Maybe we could offer a tour of the Sheriff’s office instead. That should take five minutes. And you could throw in some of that mud you call coffee.”
Cyrus watched the two of them idly. For a while there it had seemed they might have something going, but whatever that was didn’t last long. They’d come out of it even stronger friends than they were before, though, which said a lot for their characters and made Cyrus feel good.
“Join me,” he said to Spike. “I had a nosy visitor a few hours ago. Our detective friend from last night. I’d decided the man didn’t do mornings but he fooled me.” Errol Bonine had turned up at the rectory at 8:30, to the consternation of Lil Dupre who didn’t take kindly to interruptions in her carefully crafted routine. Since Lil had moved into the housekeeper position, which she considered the most prized and important job around, Lil had turned from a whiner who did good work into a tyrant, who still did good work.
For Spike, mention of Cyrus being questioned again interfered with the good mood his encounter with Vivian had left behind.
“Go sit down,” Jilly said. “I’ll bring your coffee and a fresh one for Father. It’s comin’ up on lunchtime too so I’ll fix you something ahead of the rush.” Her startling hazel eyes made you take a second look every time. The eyes, the tawny skin and long, brown, blond-streaked hair.
She called to Samie Machin, the extra assistant who had been added in the past year since Joe Gable’s law practice had grown and made it impossible for him to help out at all. “Two extra specials for Father Cyrus and Spike, please Samie.”
Spike sat opposite Cyrus and said, “Ever feel like you’re waitin’ for the shit to hit the fan?”
Cyrus smiled faintly. “The way we’re feelin’ right now, you mean?”
“Yeah.” Spike tossed his hat on the seat of the chair beside him and ran a hand through his short hair. “So Errol dropped in at the rectory? Did you know him before last night?”
“Never set eyes on him. Looked him up. He was baptized at St. Cécil’s but he probably lives in Iberia now.”
Spike grunted. “I don’t see Errol Bonine as a churchgoing man.”
He realized his mistake before Cyrus said, “You being an expert on churchgoing men.”
Spike knew when to keep his mouth shut.
“He has pretty narrow interests,” Cyrus said. “Mostly you, then you and Vivian Patin. I had to be the one to talk about passing poor Louis Martin when I was leaving Rosebank earlier in the day. He seemed to have forgotten.”
If Errol didn’t get his act together this was going to be an unsolved crime. “But he talked about it once you raised the subject?” Spike said. “What theories does he have—if he told you?”
“He told me he didn’t think it made a whole lot of difference. In his words, ‘what happened, happened.’ The detective gets right to the point. He isn’t putting himself out to find every angle. Gives a whole new meanin’ to putting your trust in the Lord.”
Spike didn’t feel like laughing.
The shop bell rang again and kept on trembling. Doll Hibbs, who ran the Majestic Hotel, came in with Wazoo, their one permanent boarder, and Bill Green. Bill was Toussaint’s leading Realtor. He was Toussaint’s only Realtor.
Doll, whose moods were unpredictable, gave Spike an almost coy wave and said, “Good mornin’ to you, Father,” to Cyrus. Wazoo inclined her head at Spike but ignored Cyrus, and Bill Green joined the men while the two women claimed chairs at opposite ends of a table for eight near the windows.
“For a semi-wide spot in the road,” Bill said, “this place gets more than its share of trouble.” He raised his voice to say, “Hi, Jilly. Cup of coffee and one of those famous meat pies of yours, please.”
Fresh-faced Samie Machin hustled from the kitchen to put plates in front of Spike and Cyrus. The smell of fried onions caught Cyrus by surprise.
“Eat ’em and weep,” Jilly said, laughing. “We mixed cooked and uncooked to keep ’em crunchy. Jilly burgers. First time on the menu.”
“These are tortillas,” Cyrus said.
“You try saying Jilly quesadillas more’n a time or two.”
“I’ll stay with the meat pie,” Bill Green said, screwing up tearing eyes. “I deal with the public.”
“I don’t know how any of you can eat today,” Wazoo’s high voice cut across the café. “A man hardly cold in our own backyard. All that blood and cut-up flesh. I’d surely faint if a plate of meat was put in front of me.”
Cyrus’s mouth twitched. He laughed, grabbed his napkin and pretended to be coughing, then gave up and managed to subside into bursts of chuckles. Spike, with his back to the women, didn’t help a thing by rolling up his eyes in a parody of death.
“We’re gonna be sorry Guy Patin’s kin moved into Rosebank,” Doll said. Her sunny episodes had a habit of not staying around long. “See if I’m not right. Too bad that house isn’t a whole lot farther away. There’s talk about what happened there yesterday and none of it’s good.”
Spike turned sideways in his chair. Everything about Doll was unremarkable, except her gift for understatement and her mean spirit. Pale gray eyes, light brown hair—long, straight and secured at the nape with a rubber band—average height and weight.
“Generally there isn’t much good to say about murder,” Spike said. “Best not to listen to gossip though. Even better not to spread it.”
Bill said, “Amen,” and went to the counter to get his coffee and meat pie.
“It’s not gossip that it was those women’s lawyer got himself killed,” Doll said, sounding stubborn. “And that Vivian supposedly found him, or so she says.”
“How do you know…” Spike glanced into Wazoo’s smug face and shut his mouth.
Doll was undeterred. “Guy Patin was leavin’ the place to some sort of charity. We all knew that. So how come those women moved in and started changin’ things? Just maybe the lawyer—” she gave her attention to Jilly “—maybe he come to say they jumped the gun or some-thin’. Could be they just thought Rosebank was theirs, or wanted it to be, and the lawyer was bringin’ the will to prove they had no right.”
“Now, Doll,” Cyrus said in a more even voice than Spike could have mustered. “The dead lawyer didn’t represent Guy Patin as far as I know. Speculations can be dangerous.”
“Troublemaking can be dangerous, you mean,” Spike said under his breath.
“I don’t hold with speculatin’ myself,” Doll said. “I can’t reveal my sources but I trust ’em. You wouldn’t
