The witching hour

“Well, that’s the damnedest thing I ever heard,” Rita Mae whispered. “Especially in those days, Jerry.”

“That’s the way it was, honey. And it wasn’t just from Daddy I heard about some of those things either. Lionel shot Stella in the head, and everybody in the house went just plain wild, breaking out the windows to the porches to get out of there. Regular panic. And don’t you know that little Antha was upstairs, and she came down during all that commotion, and seen her mother lying there dead on the living room floor.”

Rita shook her head. What had Deirdre said on that long-ago afternoon? And they said her mother died when she was young, too, but they never talk about her.

“Lionel ended up in a straitjacket after he shot Stella. Daddy always said the guilt drove him out of his mind. He kept screaming the devil wouldn’t leave him alone, that his sister had been a witch and she’d sent the devil after him. Finally died in a fit, swallowed his own tongue, and no one there to help him. They opened up the padded cell and there he was, dead, and turning black already. But at least that time the corpse came all neatly sewn up from the coroner. It was the scratches on Antha’s face twelve years later that always haunted Daddy.”

“Poor Dee Dee. She must have known some of it.”

“Yeah,” Jerry said, “even a little baby knows things. You know they do! And when Daddy and I went to get Antha’s body out of that yard, we could hear little Deirdre just wailing away in there as if she could feel it that her mother was dead. And nobody picking up that child, nobody comforting her. I tell you, that little girl was born under a curse. Never had a chance with all the goings-on in that family. That’s why they sent her baby daughter out west, to get her away from all that, and if I were you, honey, I wouldn’t meddle in it.”

Rita thought of Ellie Mayfair, so pretty. Probably on a plane right this minute for San Francisco.

“They say those California people are rich,” Jerry said. “Deirdre’s nurse told me that. That girl’s got her own private yacht out there on San Francisco Bay, tied right up to the front porch of her house on the water. Father’s a big lawyer out there, a real mean son-of-a-bitch, but he makes plenty. If there’s a curse on the Mayfairs, that girl got away from it.”

“Jerry, you don’t believe in curses,” Rita said, “and you know it.”

“Honey, think about the emerald necklace just for a minute. Two times Daddy cleaned the blood off it. And it always sounded to me like Miss Carlotta herself thought there was a curse on it. First time Daddy cleaned it up- when Stella got shot, you know what Miss Carlotta wanted Daddy to do? Put the necklace in the coffin with Stella. Daddy told me that. I know that for a fact. And Daddy refused to do it.”

“Well, maybe it’s not real, Jerry.”

“Hell, Rita Mae, you could buy a block of downtown Canal Street with that emerald. Daddy had Hershman from Magazine Street appraise it. I mean here he was with Miss Carlotta telling him things like ‘It is my express wish that you put it in the coffin with my sister.’ So he calls Hershman, I mean he and Hershman were always good friends, and Hershman said it was real, all right, the finest emerald he’d ever laid eyes on. Wouldn’t even know how to put a price on it. He’d have to take a jewel like that to New York for a real evaluation. He said it was the same with all the Mayfair jewels. He’d cleaned them once for Miss Mary Beth before she even passed them on to Stella. He said jewels like that ended up on display in a museum.”

“Well, what did Red say to Miss Carlotta?”

“Told Miss Carlotta no, he wasn’t putting any million-dollar emerald in a casket. He cleaned it all off with rubbing alcohol and got a velvet case for it from Hershman and then he took it over to her. Same as we did together years later when Antha fell from the window. Miss Carl didn’t ask us to bury it that time. And she didn’t demand to have the funeral in the parlor neither.”

“In the parlor!”

“Well, that’s where Stella was laid out, Rita Mae, right there in that house. They always did that in the old days. Old Julien Mayfair was buried from the parlor and so was Miss Mary Beth and that was 1925. And that’s the way that Stella had said it was to be done. She’d left that word in her will, and so they did it. But with Antha nothing like that happened. We brought that necklace back, Daddy and me together. I came in with Daddy and there Miss Carl was in that double parlor with no lights on and it being so dark in there with the porches and the trees and all, and there she was just sitting there, rocking little Deirdre in the cradle beside her. I went in with Daddy and he put the necklace in her hand. And you know what she did? She said, ‘Thank you, Red Lonigan.’ And she turned and put that jewel case in the cradle with the baby.”

“But why did she do that?”

“ ’Cause it was Deirdre’s, that’s why. Miss Carl never had no right to any of those jewels. Miss Mary Beth left them to Stella, and Stella named Antha to get them, and Antha’s only daughter was Deirdre. It’s always been that way, they all pass to one daughter.”

“Well, what if the necklace is cursed,” Rita said. Lord, to think of it around Deirdre’s neck and Deirdre the way she was now. Oh, Rita could hardly stand to think of it.

“Well, if it’s cursed, maybe the house is too,” Jerry said, “because the jewels go with the house, and lots of other money.”

“You mean to tell me, Jerry Lonigan, that house belongs to Deirdre?”

“Rita, everybody knows that. How come you don’t know that?”

“You’re telling me that house is hers, and those women lived in it all those years when she was locked up and then they brought her home like that, and she sits there and-”

“Now, don’t get hysterical, Rita Mae. But that’s what I’m telling you. It’s Deirdre’s, same as it was Antha’s and Stella’s. And it will pass to that California daughter when Deirdre dies, unless somebody managed to change all those old papers and I don’t think you can change a thing like that. It goes way back, the will-back to times when they had the plantation, and times before that, when they were in the islands, you know, in Haiti, before they ever came here. A legacy is what they call it. And I remember Hershman used to say that Miss Carl started law school when she was a girl just to learn how to crack the legacy. But she never could. Even before Miss Mary Beth died, everybody knew Stella was the heiress.”

“But what if that California girl doesn’t know about it?”

“It’s the law, honey. And Miss Carlotta, no matter whatever else she is, is a good lawyer. Besides, it’s tied with the name, Mayfair. You have to go by the name or you can’t inherit anything from the legacy. And that girl goes by the name of Mayfair. I heard that when she was born. So does her adopted mother, Ellie Mayfair, the one that came today and signed the register. They know. People always know when they’re coming into money. And besides, the other Mayfairs would tell her. Ryan Mayfair would tell her. He’s Cortland’s grandson and Cortland loved Deirdre; he really did. He was real old by the time Deirdre had to give up the baby, and the way I heard it, he was against it all the way, lot of good it did. I heard he really took on Miss Carlotta about that baby, said it would drive Deirdre crazy to give it up, and Miss Carlotta said Deirdre was already crazy. A lot of good it did.”

Jerry finished his bourbon. He poured another glass.

“But Jerry, what if there are other things that Deirdre’s daughter doesn’t know?” Rita asked. “Why didn’t she come down here today? Why didn’t she want to see her mother?”

Rita Mae, they’re going to take my baby!

Jerry didn’t answer. His eyes were bloodshot. He was over the hill with the bourbon.

“Daddy knew a lot more about those people,” he said, his words slurred now. “More than he ever told me. One thing Daddy did say, though, that they were right to take Deirdre’s baby away from her and give it to Ellie Mayfair, for the baby’s sake. And Daddy told me something else too. Daddy told me Ellie Mayfair couldn’t have babies of her own, and her husband was real disappointed over that, and about to leave her when Miss Carl rang her up long distance and asked if they wanted to have Deirdre’s baby. ‘Don’t tell Rita Mae all that,’ Daddy said, ‘but for everybody it was a blessing. And old Mr. Cortland, God rest his soul, he was wrong.’ ”

Rita Mae knew what she was going to do. She had never lied to Jerry Lonigan in her life. She just didn’t tell him. The next afternoon, she called the Monteleone Hotel. The Englishman had just checked out! But they thought he might still be in the lobby.

Rita Mae’s heart was pounding as she waited.

“This is Aaron Lightner. Yes, Mrs. Lonigan. Please take a taxi down and I shall pay the fare. I’ll be waiting.”

It made her so nervous she was stumbling over her words, forgetting things as she rushed out of the house and having to go back for them. But she was glad she was doing this! Even if Jerry had caught her then, she would have gone on with it.

The Englishman took her round the corner to the Desire Oyster Bar, a pretty place with ceiling fans and big