Free The Saint Louisans by Steven Clark

“I’m trying to help her cope, but she keeps wanting me to talk about my life.”
    â€œYou’ve led a pretty interesting life.”
    â€œHardly. At least not that interesting.” I ate a spoonful of the goat cheese and broccoli soup mixed with wild mushrooms. “She keeps watching me. ‘Drinking me in,’ as they say in old novels. When she’s like that, she seems so … mysterious. Mysterious and sad. I can’t figure out what’s bothering her.”
    Saul sipped his wine. “It’s probably Lucas. That suicide tore her up.”
    â€œI tried to broach it.”
    â€œMaybe you need to back off.”
    â€œLook, I’m not her therapist. I’m there to help her die. But she’s obsessing over me. I’m telling her my life’s story … the interesting parts, at least, and she just sits there watching me. It’s so sad. Like she’s lost something.”
    Saul offered one of his wise nods of a king in judgment, then spoke.
    â€œThe battle over the mansion bothers her more than she lets on. The kids—if you can call a couple of middle-aged twits who are determined to get rid of the mansion—are a great disappointment. To them it’s like the House of Usher, or some kind of Charles Addams spook house. They want it leveled.”
    â€œSuch a waste. The house is a work of art. I’ll try to talk to Pierre and Terri. From what I know, she’s still in Palm Beach—”
    â€œYeah, running up her bar tab,” Saul said with a smirk.
    â€œAnd Pierre is … isn’t he into Buddhism or something?” I kept up on whatever gossip was reported in the
Post-Dispatch
.
    â€œHe was in Japan, but it got vulgar. He’s traded in the far east for the Cascades. Searching for Nirvana and Bigfoot, I guess. Lee, her children are not going to cooperate.” Saul took a spoonful of my soup. “This stuff’s pretty good.”
    â€œIt’s the wild mushroom,” I smiled.
    â€œYeah, if you want tame ones, I guess you go to Schnucks.” He put down the spoon. “The kids aren’t tame either, and I think I know the reason. I’ve hired a detective.” His pause lingered.
    â€œWhy would you hire a detective?”
    â€œJust a feeling I’ve got. Margo keeps hinting at something, and it’s gotten under my skin.”
    â€œGo on,” I said.
    â€œBarrett. He’s an ex-copper who helped track that gang ripping off marble fireplaces. He’s monitoring the snooping Margot and the kids are doing on each other. It turns out, there’s a missing Desouche.”
    â€œIt sounds like a variation on the False Dimitry. What do you mean, ‘missing?’”
    Saul’s features darkened, like when he was ready to deliver a paper on a lost urban masterpiece, or, more subtly, when he talked about his divorce and the unmitigated hell his marriage had been.
    â€œIn 1951, Margot spent ten months in New Orleans.”
    â€œSo have I and millions of others. Jazz and Cajun are universal. And delicious.”
    â€œShe was in a hospital. Not because she was sick. Barrett cracked their files.”
    I raised my eyebrow at him. “Which means he bribed someone to peek into her medical records. Illegal but not impossible. And?”
    â€œMargot Desouche had a child before she married.”
    I ignored the soup. “Before Lucas?”
    Saul nodded. “Two years.”
    â€œAn out of wedlock child. Name? Sex? Whereabouts?”
    â€œNothing so far. Of course Margot has never mentioned this to me, but the kids are interested.” He gulped his wine. “Very interested, because a third heir means the estate could be a real clusterfuck. So far no one knows who or where the child is.”
    â€œOh, God,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “You know me. I’m not a big believer in adoptee’s rights. Margot and women like her have a right to privacy. The