Free False Pretenses by Kathy Herman

“Have you noticed anything that suggests this intruder might have come back?”
    “I haven’t gone inside the house since your deputies did the trespassing report. Something did happen yesterday morning that didn’t feel right, but I almost feel foolish mentioning it.”
    Vanessa told the sheriff and the deputy about hearing a twig crack while she sat in the car, outside the house.
    “It could have been a stranger lurking about,” Vanessa said. “Or it could’ve been a deer or something. But I didn’t imagine it. I felt as if someone were watching me. It was creepy. I finally left.”
    “Gave you the freesôns , did it?” Jude seemed to read her blank look, then quickly added. “That’s what folks around here call the goose bumps. What time was that?”
    “Around ten o’clock.”
    Stone wrote something on his tablet. “Why didn’t you report it?”
    “Report what—that I heard a twig snap? I didn’t actually see anything. And it’s not like I knew there was going to be a lynching next door.”
    “Of course you didn’t, ma’am. Just don’t hesitate to call next time something doesn’t feel right. It could be important.”
    Vanessa moved her gaze to the sheriff, who looked to her like an older version of Matt Damon. “So do hate crimes happen often around here?”
    Jude pursed his lips. “There hasn’t been a lynching in this parish since 1975. And as far as I know, it’s never happened to a white man.”
    “But you do have racial problems.”
    “Some racial tension , I suppose. But problems?” Jude shook his head. “Not that I can see. Whites and blacks have learned to respect each other, including in the workplace. Just haven’t had problems on my watch.”
    Vanessa looked at Stone and then at Jude. “I keep wondering what it is you’re not saying.”
    “Excuse me?” Jude shifted in his chair and scratched his ear.
    “Look,” Vanessa said, “my mother was on the Memphis police force the whole time I was growing up, and now she’s the police chief in Sophie Trace. I know that authorities typically withhold something vital to a case, something only the guilty person could know. Since I’m in the middle of this, Sheriff, I think I have a right to know if my family is in some sort of danger.”
    “If we thought you were”—Jude’s round, hazel eyes were truthful—“we would say so. We released all the information the public needs to know.”
    “Do you have any suspects?”
    “Not yet. But after what you just told me, I’d like to go back to the manor house and inspect the grounds and the closet for trace evidence. If anything matches what we found at the murder scene, then we can assume your intruder was involved. And if he’s in the system, we’ll know who he is.”
    Vanessa nodded and rose to her feet. “I’ll get you the key.”

    Zoe walked across rue Madeline and down a block to Cypress Park. She sat by herself on a wrought-iron bench, her body finally thawing out from the air-conditioning. Would they ever be able to regulate the temperature in their building so that the office wasn’t freezing?
    She set her gaze on a Louisiana heron that high-stepped ever so slowly in the shallow water along the bank of the pond, watching for an unsuspecting minnow. Some of its blue-gray plumage had a peachy cast and looked almost iridescent in the bright sunlight.
    A flock of white ibis squawked overhead and then landed on the grassy terrain on the other side of the pond and began the dinner march across the grounds, foraging for insects or frogs or whatever else could be stirred up.
    The bells of Saint Catherine’s started to toll. Zoe glanced at her watch and smiled. Five o’clock straight up. She closed her eyes, the resonant sound still stirring her soul after all these years. How she loved Les Barbes! It was here, as a young entrepreneur, that she finally tasted the American dream—so palatable after the bland years that were seasoned only with the salt of her own tears.