Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO KEPT HER QUIET
Nell did not speak for nearly a minute.
The tape machine clicked softly.
Static whispered from the speakers.
Carmine rewound the final section.
He did not play it again.
He didn't need to.
You already buried one family for us.
Nell stood.
“What did he mean?”
“I don't know.”
“Your father knew exactly what happened to mine.”
“Yes.”
“And March said he'd already buried a family for them.”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“I don't know.”
Nell laughed bitterly.
“That answer seems very convenient in this house.”
Carmine absorbed the insult.
He deserved part of it.
Maybe more than part.
Palmira entered from the adjoining study.
She had heard the tape.
Carmine could tell from her face.
“Grandmother.”
“Don't.”
Palmira lowered herself into a chair.
“Not until I remember properly.”
Carmine's patience thinned.
“Remember what?”
“Something Salvatore told me the winter before the bakery fire.”
Nell remained standing.
Palmira looked at her.
“There was another family.”
Carmine's jaw tightened.
“Who?”
“The Ledets.”
Nell frowned.
“From the Ninth Ward?”
Palmira nodded.
“The father owned a trucking yard.”
Carmine knew the name vaguely.
“March bought that land.”
“After the father disappeared.”
Palmira looked toward the window.
“His wife took the children to Texas. Salvatore suspected March had arranged the disappearance, but he couldn't prove it.”
“Why would Edwin say Father buried them?”
“Because Salvatore helped the wife leave Louisiana.”
Carmine understood.
“He faked records.”
“Yes.”
“To make March believe they were dead?”
“Yes.”
Palmira's expression hardened.
“Salvatore did many terrible things in his life. That wasn't one of them.”
Nell slowly sat.
Some of the fury left her face.
Not all.
Carmine looked at the second ledger.
Unlike Emmett's first notebook, this one contained copies of bank transfers.
Payments from March Development to shell corporations.
Payments from those shell corporations to police officers, inspectors and one assistant district attorney.
The evidence was powerful.
But nearly a decade old.
Several people were dead.
Others would claim fraud.
They needed something current.
Someone alive.
Someone willing to speak.
Benny entered.
“I found something.”
He looked toward Nell, clearly uncertain whether to continue.
Carmine said, “She's part of this.”
Benny nodded.
“Caleb March has been sending money every month to someone connected with this house.”
Nell's face changed.
Carmine became perfectly still.
“Who?”
Benny placed a bank record on the desk.
Odette Pruitt.
The housekeeper who had managed the Orsini household for twenty-two years.
The woman who had interrupted Carmine the night he asked who baked the pie.
The woman who had spent three years making sure Nell remained housekeeping staff.
Nell whispered, “No.”
Benny's voice remained quiet.
“Twenty-five hundred a month. It started two years and eleven months ago.”
One month after Nell began working at the Orsini estate.
Carmine stood.
“Bring her.”
Odette did not deny it.
That surprised everyone.
She entered the library wearing her dark housekeeper's dress, looked at the bank statements, then slowly sat.
“I wondered when someone would find them.”
Carmine stayed behind the desk.
“You've been taking money from Caleb March.”
“Yes.”
Nell looked like she had been struck.
“Why?”
Odette looked at her.
The severity Carmine had seen for years was gone.
She simply looked tired.
“My husband was Warren Pruitt.”
Nell frowned.
“The insurance adjuster.”
“Yes.”
Warren Pruitt had signed the denial of Fontaine Bakery's insurance claim.
Nell stood.
“You knew.”
“I knew your name the moment Palmira hired you.”
“And you never said anything.”
“No.”
“You made me clean toilets.”
Odette flinched.
Nell continued.
“You wrote me up for being eight minutes late when my father had a seizure.”
“I know.”
“You stopped me from helping in the kitchen.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Odette's eyes filled.
“Because Caleb told me if you ever became visible in this house, he would finish what he started.”
Silence.
Nell stared at her.
Odette opened her handbag.
She removed a small envelope.
Inside were photographs.
Nell walking to the bus stop.
Nell entering the rehabilitation center.
Nell buying groceries.
One photograph showed Emmett in the garden at Saint Agnes.
“I received one every few months.”
Odette's voice cracked.
“Caleb wanted to know whether you had spoken to Carmine. Whether you were cooking. Whether anyone had discovered who you were.”
“Why cooking?”
Carmine asked.
Odette looked at the recipe tin.
“Because Caleb knew Emmett hid information in recipes.”
Nell's breath caught.
“So you kept me invisible.”
“I thought I was keeping you alive.”
“You humiliated me.”
“I know.”
“You could have told me.”
“I was afraid.”
Nell looked away.
Odette wiped her eyes.
“My husband helped destroy your family.”
Nell turned back.
Odette continued.
“Warren knew the fire was arson. March paid him to deny the insurance claim. He spent the rest of his life drinking because of it.”
“That's supposed to make me feel sorry for him?”
“No.”
Odette shook her head.
“It shouldn't.”
She reached into her bag again.
This time she removed a flash drive.
“Before Warren died, he recorded everything he remembered.”
Carmine looked at it.
“Why didn't you give this to police?”
Odette laughed bitterly.
“Which police?”
Fair question.
“What is on it?”
“Names. Dates. Payments.”
She looked at Nell.
“And one detail nobody else knows.”
Nell waited.
“The fire didn't begin in the oven.”
Nell's eyes narrowed.
Odette continued.
“Warren inspected the kitchen the afternoon after the fire. The oven wiring wasn't damaged enough to be the ignition source.”
“Then where?”
“The rear office.”
Nell frowned.
“There was nothing flammable there.”
“Yes, there was.”
“What?”
Odette looked at Carmine.
“Someone poured accelerant into Emmett Fontaine's filing cabinet.”
Carmine understood.
“They were looking for the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“They started the fire in the office because they thought the book was there.”
“Yes.”
Nell sat down slowly.
Odette's next words were almost a whisper.
“And Warren saw Caleb March leaving the alley eleven minutes before the first emergency call.”
The room became silent.
Carmine held out his hand.
“Give me the drive.”
Odette did.
Then she looked at Nell.
“I know saying I'm sorry does nothing.”
Nell's face remained unreadable.
“No.”
“I thought keeping you small would keep you safe.”
Nell stared at the older woman.
“People kept deciding my life for me because they were afraid.”
Odette lowered her eyes.
Nell continued.
“My father decided I shouldn't know about the ledger.”
She looked at Palmira.
“You decided I should work here without knowing why.”
Then Odette.
“You decided I should stay invisible.”
Finally Carmine.
“And you've been deciding where I can go since you found that photograph.”
Carmine did not defend himself.
Nell stood.
“I am done being protected by people who never ask what protection costs me.”
She walked toward the door.
Carmine said, “What do you want?”
Nell stopped.
He repeated the question.
Not as an order.
“What do you want, Nell?”
She turned.
For the first time, everyone in the room waited for her answer.
“I want my father's name cleared.”
Carmine nodded.
“I want the civil judgment against me overturned.”
“Yes.”
“I want everyone who helped Caleb March exposed publicly.”
“Yes.”
“And I don't want him disappearing into one of your warehouses.”
Benny coughed.
Carmine glanced at him.
Nell's expression didn't change.
“I mean it.”
Carmine looked back at her.
“You want law.”
“I want everyone in New Orleans to know what he did.”
“Law can fail.”
“So can fear.”
That landed harder than she probably intended.
Carmine slowly nodded.
“Then we do it your way.”
Nell stared at him.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
Palmira smiled faintly.
Carmine ignored her.
Nell walked back toward the table.
“All right.”
She sat.
“What do we do first?”
Carmine pushed the second ledger toward her.
“We make Caleb March believe the original evidence is still missing.”
Benny smiled.
Nell frowned.
“And then?”
“We let him try to find it.”
Carmine looked at the bank records.
“When he does, he'll create new evidence for us.”
Nell studied him.
“That's your plan?”
“No.”
May you like
A faint, dangerous smile appeared.
“That's the first seven minutes.”
