Death Comes to Dogwood Manor Page 17

  “Not everything,” she said. “I left something behind in our bedroom.”

  I blanched, since the mere thought of Herbert Solomon in bed gave me the heebie-jeebies. It was hard to believe that this woman—or any woman—would want to be intimate with him, especially since Evangeline was twice as attractive as him and only half his age.

  “Well, you’ll just have to tell the police about it,” I said.

  “Speaking of which”—Ambrose lowered his phone to his side—“they should be here any minute. I called Lance and told him about the Rolls-Royce.”

  Sure enough, the dusty hood of a police cruiser pulled onto the property a few moments later. I’d have to compliment Ambrose on his speed-dialing as soon as the dust settled.

  “Thank goodness,” I whispered, as the cruiser pulled up to the Rolls.

  Instead of parking beside the sedan, though, Lance reversed course and fishtailed the back end of his cruiser to block the Silver Shadow from leaving. He quickly popped out from behind the wheel and marched over to us.

  “Are you Evangeline Roy?” he asked, once he’d arrived.

  It was an accusation, not a question, and the woman meekly nodded.

  “We’ve been looking for you,” he said. “You’ll have to come with me.”

  “Do…do you have a warrant?” she stammered, as if cowed by the police uniform and the gun at Lance’s side. “I thought you had to have a warrant before you could take me anywhere.”

  “Nice try, but you’re wrong.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “I got one anyway, though, just to be safe. The magistrate judge signed it this morning.”

  She glumly read the sheet he passed to her. “All right, I’ll go with you. But I forgot something in the mansion and I’m going to need it. Can I please run inside for a minute? Please.”

  “What is it?” Lance asked.

  “My credit card. Herbert threatened to cut it up, because he thought I spent too much money on clothes. He wanted to ‘set a good example’.” She quickly flicked her first and second fingers up and down to indicate quote marks. “I told him I already threw the card away, but I really hid it in the bedroom.”

  “We’ll probably need that for evidence,” Lance said. “So, the answer’s no.”

  “But it’s mine.” She sounded desperate now. “It’s my personal property. You can’t keep it for no reason.”

  “Look…I’m investigating a possible felony, so I can keep anything I want. Especially if it pertains to the case.”

  “But Herbert never used the card, and he didn’t even know I had it anymore.” Her gaze dropped to the ground. “I don’t have a penny on me. What if I need to hire an attorney?”

  Lance thought it over. “Okay. I’m going to let you retrieve it, but you can only keep it if it’s in your name. If it belongs to Herbert Solomon, it goes straight to the evidence room.”

  “It was mine. I promise.” She brought her gaze back to his face, her eyes suddenly hopeful. “An Amex. I got it for my hair salon, but I kinda used it for other stuff.”

  “I’ll tell you what.” Lance spoke to me and Ambrose now. “I’ll go inside and look for the lady’s card. You two watch her out here.” He reached for a pair of shiny handcuffs that were tucked into the waistband of his slacks. “She won’t be able to go anywhere with these on.”

  “You don’t have to handcuff me,” Evangeline said.

  “Let’s just call it extra insurance.” Lance quickly wrapped the cuffs around her wrists and snapped the lock closed. “You said your card’s in the bedroom?”

  “That’s right. Near the library. I hid it under the mattress when he wasn’t looking.”

  “Back in a minute.”

  Lance quickly headed up the stairs, then disappeared under the blue tarp. No one spoke for the longest time, and when we did, we all asked the same question: What was taking Lance so long?

  CHAPTER 20

  An uncomfortable silence fell over us. Part of me felt sorry for Evangeline Roy, since sweat trickled down her cheeks unchecked, but another part felt irritated, since she’d put us all at risk when she careened down Church Street. Not to mention, she’d run a red light when I’d tried to follow her the day before.

  And last but not least, she’d taken up with a married man, although I’d vowed not to judge her about her personal life.

  The judgment would come later, when people in town got wind of her affair with Herbert Solomon. He wasn’t well-liked to begin with, and this would put everyone over the top. Since they couldn’t ostracize him anymore, they’d probably turn on his girlfriend instead.

  The silence continued. When a good five minutes had come and gone, and Lance still wasn’t back, I turned to Ambrose. “What do you think happened to him?”

  “Give him some time. Maybe he ran across something else he needs to take back to the police station.”

  “Maybe.” I began to chew my lower lip. “He could’ve called me, you know. He doesn’t usually disappear like this.”

  “If he doesn’t come out soon, we’ll go in after him.”

  The next five minutes dragged on and on. Although Evangeline finally wiped her sweaty cheeks on the sleeve of her blouse, we all felt miserable. Ambrose shifted from one foot to the next, while I tried—unsuccessfully—to work up a breeze by fanning my face with my hand.

  “What about now?” I asked, when another few minutes had passed.

  “Okay,” he said. “But I want Evangeline to go in first.”

  She motioned to the uneven walkway with her shackled wrists. “But what if I fall?”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll steady you. C’mon.”

  He took hold of her shoulder and nudged her forward. She took one tentative step, then another.

  By the time she disappeared under the blue tarp, I was right behind the two of them. While everything in the shadowy foyer looked the same—a brass chandelier still dangled from the domed ceiling, smooth plaster covered the walls, and mahogany stairs curved to the second floor—small differences soon appeared.

  The light switch by the front door looked dirtier now. Something black had smudged the plastic plate, as if inky fingers had rubbed against the surface. When I did a double take, I realized the “grime” was really carbon powder, designed to highlight fingerprints on a white surface.

  A different powder dusted the wood stair rail. Here, an investigator used white powder—probably a mix of titanium and oxide—to contrast with the deep red wood.

  I’d learned about fingerprint powders when I’d helped Lance solve Trinity Solomon’s murder. He’d allowed me to analyze her bedroom, which was dusted with several different powders, depending on the color and texture of the object in question. The white wooden door to her bedroom required a black powder, for instance, while the iron doorknob on it called for a neutral coat of silver.

  Speaking of which…even the ground of the foyer looked different now. When I’d first arrived at the mansion Monday, a thin layer of sawdust had coated the floor. Since that time, someone had swirled a circular pattern in the dust.

  Curious, I slid over to the staircase and climbed a few steps to get a bird’s-eye view.

  Someone had created a pattern in the sawdust. It looked like “the wheel” Lance had told me about. He’d said investigators paced in ever-widening circles when they wanted to study a room. The result was a swirling pattern that looked like something a monk would rake in the pebbles of a Zen garden.

  I shook my head, and the image vanished.

  “Are you coming, Missy?” Ambrose stood to one side of the foyer, as if deciding which hall to enter.

  “Just a second!” I hopped to the floor and hurried to catch up with him. “We need to go down the east hall. That’s where Solomon’s bedroom was.”

  There was still no sign of Lance. As we made our wa
y down the windowless hall, our path brightened by a few wall sconces placed here and there, I noticed the closed doors on either side. Every door was shut tight, except for the last door on the left, where a dull, yellow glow spilled onto the drop cloth.

  “There it is,” I said. “The last room before the library. That’s where I found Mr. Solomon’s body on Monday.”

  Ambrose stepped in front of Evangeline. The doorway was crisscrossed with crime-scene tape, just like the front entrance. I glanced over his shoulder to peer into the murky room.

  The saw-toothed outline of packing boxes appeared first, minus the dusty sheets that had covered them earlier. The cardboard boxes wore shipping labels filled with black ink in spidery handwriting. Now that I had time to study the words, the handwriting looked like it belonged to Mr. Solomon, judging by the purchase order I’d watched him sign for Erika Daniels in the library earlier.

  Behind the boxes lay the piece of furniture I’d wondered about. It was a dresser, after all, and it matched the ornately carved canopy bed.

  “I don’t know if I can go in there again,” I whispered to Ambrose. “It feels so strange to be back in his bedroom.”

  “It’s okay,” Ambrose said. “You don’t have to go inside. Wait here.”

  He reached for the crime-scene tape and pulled it from the doorjamb. Once the plastic fell free, he stepped into the room.

  “Wait a second.” I gently nudged Evangeline forward, and then I followed her into the room. I had no intention of leaving her in the hall by herself, just as I had no intention of being away from Ambrose. “I’d rather be in here with you.”

  “Atta girl,” Ambrose said.

  I cautiously approached the canopied bed. The Bleu Bayou Impartial Reporter was gone, as was the glass finial I’d knocked from the headboard. Someone had removed the bedsheets from the mattress, too, which exposed a blue-ticked surface.

  Unlike the elegant bedroom upstairs, this room was cramped and musty. Maybe Mr. Solomon never noticed it, since everyone told me he worked twenty-four hours a day. And Evangeline probably didn’t care, as long as he’d gifted her with a Rolls-Royce and who knew what else.

  At that moment, something sounded behind me, and I nearly tripped onto the bed.

  “There you are,” a voice called out.

  I swirled around to see Lance, his navy uniform a dark blot against the hall light.

  “Lance!” I almost crumbled onto the bed anyway, before I thought better of it. No need to mess up a crime scene that was part of an active investigation. “Where the heck did you go? You had us worried sick.”

  “Sorry about that.” He nodded at something over his shoulder. “I found someone else walking around the property, so I had to take care of first things first. It looks like I caught myself a trespasser.”

  When he stepped aside, another figure appeared in the doorway, only this one wasn’t nearly as tall, or as wide, as Lance. It was Waunzy Boudin, and her bright yellow sundress practically glowed in the gloomy hall.

  “Dear me,” she said. “Am I in trouble?”

  I gawked at the newest addition to our party. “What in the world are you doing here, Miss Boudin?”

  When she didn’t respond, I turned to Lance for an explanation. “She wasn’t really trespassing, was she?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He stepped into the room. “She was in the kitchen with some cans of paint. Caught her using a paper towel to wipe some on the wall.”

  Waunzy shrugged, as if she didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “I didn’t mean any harm. I thought I’d have a little fun with the colors in the kitchen. I wanted to see what the different shades looked like on the wall. Just in case, you know.”

  “That’s no excuse,” I said. “You know better than to come inside an active crime scene.”

  “I honestly didn’t think anyone would mind,” she said. “It’s not like I planned to steal anything. I just wanted to see whether my hunch about the colors was right.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lance said. “You’ll have to leave now.”

  “Of course, Officer. Whatever you say.” Waunzy turned to go. Before she got very far, though, something else caught her attention. “What in the world…”

  She stepped forward before anyone else could move. When she reached the dresser, she leaned over it to study the wall.

  “Miss Boudin!” Lance tried to follow her, but too many people stood in his way.

  Waunzy didn’t appear to hear him. She was too busy studying the wall in front of her.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She didn’t respond to me, either, so I followed her gaze to the wall. It was papered in an emerald pattern of vines and leaves that grew toward the ceiling. Granted, the green color was awfully vibrant, considering the background had faded to mush. Waunzy studied the paper for a good minute, as if the leaves were made of actual emeralds.

  “This is amazing,” she said.

  “What is?” Lance asked.

  “I haven’t seen this in years. Years. The last time I did, it was in a museum.”

  Evangeline sighed heavily. “Look, this is interesting and all, but I really need that credit card. Can’t we just get it and go?”

  “Shhhh.” Lance made a slashing motion with his hand. “Let the lady speak. What did you see in a museum, Miss Boudin?”

  “This.” She pointed to a green vine, her finger trembling. “This is antique wallpaper. It dates back to the eighteen fifties, at least.”

  “Again, this is interesting and all,” Evangeline began, “but I don’t see...”

  “Shhh!” This time, we all turned to silence her.

  Once I’d helped shush Evangeline, I returned my gaze to the wallpaper. Small gaps appeared between the brightly colored panels, and the upper edge curled away from the crown molding like a tiny wave. Every so often, a water stain appeared in the background. It looked like every other wallpaper I’d seen in the antebellum homes around here, although none of the others boasted a green that was quite so vibrant.

  Usually, the papers featured flowers—everyday ones, like sunflowers or daisies, in the casual rooms, and fancier varieties, like roses or lilies, in formal spaces—and the primary colors ran to pinks, reds, and yellows.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Several things in the bedroom—including the canopy bed and brass gasolier—were antiques, but no one had questioned them. “Why does that make a difference?”

  “You don’t know, do you?” Waunzy’s voice was soft. “For a while, this green color was all the rage in Victorian England. They used it to dye their paints, their wallpapers…even their ballgowns, for goodness sakes. They called it Scheel’s Green, or sometimes Paris Green. No one thought twice about it, until people started to get sick.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lance said. “If it was made in England, how did it end up here, in Bleu Bayou?”

  “Even I know that one,” I said. “The man who built this house came from London. Miss Boudin told me he brought over cargo boxes filled with fabrics and accessories to decorate his beautiful new mansion.”

  “That’s right.” She seemed pleased to know I’d been listening. “He probably thought this wallpaper would impress everyone, because he didn’t know what the paper was made of.”

  “Well, what is it made of?” Ambrose asked.

  “Arsenic.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “The manufacturer called it Paris Green. All the rich people had to have it. But eventually people started to notice something strange. Their children got sick first, and then their servants, because their workers couldn’t afford a healthy diet and their immune systems were compromised.”

  I gawked at her. “That makes perfect sense! Cole Truitt told me all about Mr. Solomon’s junk-food diet during the renovation. He said the old man lived on Totino’s Pizza Rolls and Diet Coke!�
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  Lance looked confused, so I quickly explained. “You remember Cole…his dad was the construction foreman at Dogwood Manor. He said Mr. Solomon wouldn’t eat anything healthy while he lived here.” I returned my gaze to Waunzy. “Do you think that’s what made him get sick. The wallpaper?”

  “Probably,” she said. “Since it was right by his bed, he would inhale the chemical every night.”

  “But what about Evangeline?” Ambrose turned to her. “Did you notice anything strange about this room?”

  “Please.” She rolled her eyes. “I told Herbert I’d spend as little time here as possible. I mean, look at this place. We would meet over at Morningside Plantation.”

  I groaned when she mentioned the other mansion. Unfortunately, Ivy Solomon, Herbert’s widow, had taken up residence there once she came to Bleu Bayou to plan the man’s funeral. Heaven only knows how Ivy would feel when she found out her husband had used the property for his tête-à-têtes.

  “I’m afraid our Mr. Solomon was in good company.” Waunzy once more studied the paper as she spoke. “Not a lot of people know this, but Napoleon probably died from arsenic poisoning, too, thanks to some wallpaper. He lived in a house on St. Helena—once the French banished him to the island—which was full of wallpaper made with Paris Green. The sicker he got, the more time he spent indoors. They used to think he died of stomach cancer, but now we know that arsenic probably killed him.”

  “So, let me get this straight.” Lance gestured at the wallpaper. “This paper could’ve made Herbert Solomon sick enough to die from arsenic poisoning?”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Waunzy admitted, “but yes. If someone inhales the chemical night after night, it builds up in their bloodstream. The lungs and kidneys go first. We know enough today to remove the paper, thank goodness. It’s usually the first thing a decorator will do when she’s working on a historic property.”