French Silk(138)

"What do you mean?"

"You guessed how I got into Jackson Wilde's room. Remember when we walked through the French Quarter, retracing the route I took the night of the murder?"

"You're about to tell me that that was an exercise in futility."

"Actually I did go for a walk that night. Afterward. It was when I returned to French Silk from my walk that I discovered Mama was gone."

"By a bizarre coincidence, she had wandered to the Fairmont Hotel that night."

"Yes."

"That's quite a hike for her."

"She might have taken a bus."

Cassidy declined to comment. "Go on," he said. "You were about to tell me how you got into Wilde's suite. Andre to the rescue?"

"No. Never," she said with an adamant shake of her head. "He's entirely innocent. I never lied about that. No one knew what I intended to do."

"Yasmine?"

"Not even her. I did this on my own. I would never compromise a friend."

"Heaven forbid. But you'd murder a man in cold blood."

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

Cassidy shot from his chair, rattling teacups. "What the hell do you think? Hell no, I don't want to hear it," he shouted. "And if you had an ounce of sense, you would call an attorney, who would insist that you not say "God bless" if I sneezed."

He had removed his suit jacket when they came into the house, before the windows they'd opened had had a chance to air it out and cool it down. Gray suspenders criss-crossed his back. His shirtsleeves had been rolled to his elbows. Now, he loosened his tie.

Claire watched his nimble fingers working at the Windsor knot, knowing that she would never feel his touch on her skin again. The reminder created an ache in her lower body, a painful, gaping void. Rather than dwell on that yearning, she focused on his anger and used it to make him her adversary.

"While we were at Café du Monde," she said, "you guessed that the killer was waiting for Wilde when he returned to his suite. You were right."

"Don't tell me this, Claire."

Disregarding his advice, she continued. "I waited in an adjacent hallway. When the maid went in to turn down the beds, I sneaked into Wilde's suite and hid in a closet. I was there almost an hour before he came in.

"Alone?"

"Without Ariel, yes. He watched TV for a while. I could hear it from the closet. He showered, then went to bed. When I heard him snoring, I crept out and tiptoed into his bedroom. I shot him three times."

"Did you ever speak to him?"

"No. I was tempted to wake him. I wanted to see fear in his eyes. I would have liked him to know that he was going to die at the hand of his own child. I would have liked to speak Mama's name to see if it would elicit any response from him, trigger any memory at all. But he was a large man. I was afraid to wake him up. He could have overpowered me and taken the gun.

"But I stood at the foot of his bed for a long time. I stared down at him, hating him, hating the abuse he had inflicted on people who had loved him. Mama. Josh. Ariel. I did it for all of us.

"He lay there, sleeping so complacently, in a luxurious suite paid for by people who couldn't afford to send him offerings, but did so because they believed in him. There was a Rolex wristwatch lying on top of his Bible on the nightstand. The symbolism of that made me sick to my stomach. He profited from what martyrs through the centuries had died for, what they're still dying for."

Cassidy eagerly returned to his seat across from her. "You shot him three times. Why, Claire? Why three?"

"In the head for the way he deliberately distorted Christianity to serve his own purposes. In the heart to atone for all those he'd broken. In his manhood for the unconscionable way he seduced and then deserted a wholesome young woman who deserved to be loved."

"You blew him away, Claire."

"Yes." She swallowed hard. "It was messy. I didn't expect… When I saw all the blood, I ran."

"How'd you get out of the hotel?"

"The same way I got in. No one saw me on that floor because the only people registered to the rooms there were the Wildes. I took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out the University Street exit." She moistened her lips and glanced at him nervously. "And to help conceal my identity, in case I'd left clues, I dressed like Mama."

"You did what?"

"I wore one of her dresses, and her elopement hat, and carried her suitcase."

"Very clever. Later if a witness was asked who they'd seen in the hotel at that time of night, they would describe Mary Catherine. Then she would be immediately dismissed because she's known to behave strangely, and the hotel staff is accustomed to seeing her wandering through there, dressed that way, carrying a suitcase."

"Precisely. What I didn't count on was Mama actually going there that night."

"Without her hat and suitcase?"

The question threw her off for a moment. "Naturally she had them."

"I thought you said you had them."

"I did. But I returned home and changed clothes before going on my walk. That's when she went out."

"I'm not sure al that corresponds with the time of Wilde's death," Cassidy said, frowning. "If I were your defense attorney, I'd use those time discrepancies to establish reasonable doubt with the jury."