Free Plantation Shudders by Ellen Byron Page A

you.”
    “Really. I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted that you thought I could fit under there.”
    “Well, I mean, I was going to look for you.”
    “After you finished unlawfully entering this room?”
    Maggie bounced up to her feet. “Look, Mr. Big Shreveport Detective, you don’t know anything about us or how this town works. Cal and Art are great guys and decent police officers, but in addition to the fact they’ve never actually searched a murder scene before, they, like all of Rufus’s hires, are good old boys who couldn’t be less interested in trying to think how a woman thinks and letting that steer their search. So I was actually trying to help you.”
    “Which is why you entered this room without first requesting permission.”
    “My grandma made me,” Maggie said a little sullenly as she resorted to her last defense. This elicited a burst of laughter from Bo. “It’s true.”
    “Oh, I don’t doubt that at all. I met your grandma.”
    “I did find out something. Not here, but in the plantation store.”
    Maggie filled Bo in on her memory of where she’d seen arsenic and the empty space where it no longer sat.
    “Good lead.”
    “Uh, you’re welcome,” Maggie said. She decided to dial back the sarcasm and be honest with Bo. “I know your cousin would love to see us fail with Crozat, but it’s not just our home and our business—which my family desperately needs to survive, by the way—it’s also a landmark, something for Pelican to be proud of. Between hurricanes and oil spills and a crappy economy, this state and this town have had such a rough time, and Crozat’s survival is a tiny triumph. When we make visitors happy, they go home and tell their friends, and then more visitors come, which is good for everyone. I’m not naïve enough to ask you to help us. All I’m asking, I guess, is that you not hurt us.”
    Bo looked at her thoughtfully. As she waited for his response, Maggie’s mind drifted to wondering how she’d blend colors to create the rich, dark-chocolate hue of his eyes. Then, annoyed at herself, she forced her attention back to the moment at hand.
    “Go out the way you came in,” Bo said. “I’ll pretend this didn’t happen. But if I ever catch you contaminating a crime scene again, I will instantly haul your ass to jail.”
    Bo’s harsh words wiped out her dreamy reverie. She left without a word through the room’s French doors, glad that she hadn’t shared the envelope from the chest of drawers with him—or the gold-and-diamond ring that she’d found hidden under the bed between the mattress and the spring coils.

Chapter Nine
    Later, back at the shotgun house, Maggie sat on her bed and pondered the brochures in her lap. After Bo booted her out of the Rose Room, she’d stepped onto the veranda and found Gran’ fast asleep. So much for standing guard, Maggie thought. She didn’t have the heart to wake her grandmother, so she returned home alone, put on a pair of gloves, and carefully opened the envelope she’d found in Beverly Clabber’s drawer.
    Unfortunately, the only gloves available were Gran’s elbow-length black evening gloves, which were warm on a ninety-degrees-plus day. But the last thing Maggie needed was to be busted for tampering with evidence, so damp hands were a small price to pay if it meant she wouldn’t leave fingerprints on anything. Her plan was to make copies of both the envelope’s contents and the ring, and then replace everything once the Rose Room was reopened, trusting that the Shexnayders would uncover the items during one of their meticulous cleaning rounds and turn them over to the police.
    The envelope contained two brochures. One was for McDonough Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, and the other was for a quasi castle—technically a “country home,” the brochure explained—in the Gloucestershire county of England. Both had been kitted out as luxury hotels. Nice life where you can afford these places,