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Even as she made that mental note, her phone pinged with a text from him.
FYI: RF seen at Monster Bash talking to a BBPD uni.
Annie texted back:
Any idea who?
No. Check any CCTV cameras near Rotary Club booth.
The Rotary Club booth was always set up for festivals in the parking lot of Evangeline Bank and Trust. The bank’s cameras would be good, if the subjects had been standing in the right spot. If not, there was a camera across the street on the post office and one on the side entrance of the hardware store. She would start with the bank, but not until after she’d seen B’Lynn Fontenot.
The Fontenot family home was located on Belle Terre Drive, Annie’s favorite street in town, lined on both sides with live oak trees that created a thick green canopy over the broad street. The homes were old and gracious with dense, fragrant gardens all around. There was an air of quiet gentility about the place, as if no one who lived there could possibly have any cares at all. But of course they did. A big house did nothing to ward off the same kindof problems any family might have. Old money was the same as any when it came to buying trouble like drug addiction. Money didn’t prevent lives or families from being torn apart. It just made the trouble look better from a distance.
She had passed by the Fontenot house many times in her life, always enchanted by the wraparound porch, the steep roofs and gables that gave it a fairy-tale quality. The color scheme of pumpkin and cream with cranberry trim only added to the charm. Many times she had imagined sitting on that front porch swing, rocking the day away, sipping on a sweet tea, listening to the songbirds in the thicket of laurel trees that ran down the side yard. She had never imagined the lives of the people inside that house being anything other than perfect.
B’Lynn answered the door looking like she hadn’t slept, her dark hair swept back into a messy ponytail. The delicate skin beneath her eyes was purple, matching a bruise rising on her cheek.
“Are you all right?” Annie asked. “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”
“I’m fine,” B’Lynn said, stepping back and holding the door. “I turned my ankle and took a fall last night. Just clumsiness on my part. I was half awake. Come in, Detective. I’ve made coffee. I certainly need it. I imagine you could use a cup yourself.”
“I won’t say no.”
“Do you have any news?” she asked, leading the way down the hall. She walked gingerly, like she was trying valiantly not to limp, her left arm cradled carefully against her side.
“Not to speak of, no. Are you sure you’re all right? I can run you to the ER if you need.”
“I don’t think they have a cure for clumsiness. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”
“How’d that happen again?” Annie asked.
“I missed the bottom step coming down the stairs. There’s no one here to beat me up, Detective, if that’s what you’re thinking. I do a good enough job of that all by myself.”
Annie made no comment. Her encounter with Tulsie Parcelle was making her paranoid.
“Have you found out who that body is?” B’Lynn asked. “That’s all they’re talking about on the news today. That body and is it Marc Mercier. Is it?”
“We don’t know,” Annie said. “We’re hoping to match or rule out Mr. Mercier with dental records today.”
“His people can’t identify him?”
“Like I told you yesterday, the injuries are pretty devasting.”
“God help me, I’m just relieved it’s not Robbie,” B’Lynn said, going into the large, bright, butter-yellow kitchen. “I saw Marc’s mother all but attack that detective outside the hospital. I know that feeling—just wanting to shake an answer out of somebody. I’m sorry for her. Have a seat, Detective.”
“Please, call me Annie. Can I help with something?”
“No, I’ve got it,” she said, lifting the old-fashioned percolator coffeepot from the stove and bringing it to the table. The aroma of rich, dark Community Coffee scented the air like perfume as she poured it into the waiting mugs.
“Just like home,” Annie said. “MytanteFanchon, she won’t ever give up her percolator. Best coffee there is.”
“I find some comfort in clinging to old ways,” B’Lynn said, settling into a chair. She looked small and fragile, swallowed up in an old blue plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. “Feels like family even though they’re long gone. This was my grandmother’s coffeepot. This was my grandmother’s house. She’s still with me that way. It helps.”
“You live here alone?”
“Mostly. My daughter’s away at college. LSU. She’ll be home for the holidays.”
“I imagine it’s been hard for her,” Annie said. “Everything your family’s been through.”
