“Don’t be silly, child,” Calista said. “Once we point out the differences between our robberies and this one, that will clarify matters for the police.”
In the distance, Nessa heard the sound of a siren. She jerked her gaze up to Maddy’s dismayed face.
“The police will be able to focus on the real thieves,” Calista continued. “Let’s face it, those scallywags copied our well-thought-out operation, so they can’t be too bright.”
The sirens grew louder.
The sun disappeared behind a wisp of cloud, then came out again, then disappeared again.
“How do you figure?” Nessa asked through lips numb with fear. “You’ve been successful for years, and if these other thieves get caught, they can establish alibis for the times when you were robbing the banks instead of them. Copying your operation seems brilliant to me.”
“If these thieves can’t even make up their own scheme, they have no pride in their work. Mere dabblers, and easy to catch,” Hestia said dismissively.
Two police cars, sirens screaming, lights flashing, came around one corner. Another came around the other corner. They met in the street, nose to nose.
Nessa fought the urge to grab the aunts and tell them to run.
Neighbors came spilling out of their houses.
But Hestia placidly folded her hands before her apron. “Look, Calista, the police have come to us.”
Nessa faced the street.
Two patrolmen jumped out of one car and pointed their pistols at the little clump of women in front of the Dahl House.
The cab driver got out of his cab, talking fast and furiously. “What you boys doin’ to these nice ladies? Stop that!”
The patrolmen ignored him.
Looking wide-eyed and rebellious, Rav Woodland got out of the second car. He loosened his service pistol, but he didn’t draw it.
Chief Cutter got out of the driver’s seat of the third car…. And Jeremiah got out of the passenger’s seat.
The sight of him, of his tall figure, held in stiff formality, of his stony expression, of his cool eyes, raking the four of them, passing over Nessa with exquisite indifference…she whispered, “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
He knew.
Chief Cutter strode toward them, arms swinging, trying hard to smile reassuringly and instead grimacing as if he were in pain. And perhaps he was.
Nessa focused on him, focused to the exclusion of anything else, to the exclusion of Jeremiah Mac. In a tone that splashed him with acid scorn, she said, “Cutter, I’m surprised you’ve got the guts to come yourself. After all, you are an elected official.”
“What do you mean?” Chief Cutter blustered, but he looked shamefaced.
Nessa leaned toward him, furious at the guns pointed their way. “You know good and well that the next cars to arrive will be the press, and they’ll take photos of the police chief putting handcuffs on two old ladies and carting them away to jail.”
Just as she predicted, a car pulled up and a guy with a camera leaped out, slammed the door, aimed a long lens, and started snapping photos.
The neighbors murmured and moved closer.
Chief Cutter’s eyes shifted to her aunts. “Is that what I’m going to do? Am I going to arrest you ladies? Miss Calista? Miss Hestia?”
Jeremiah walked up behind him. “Of course you are.”
“Shut up, Mac. Let the ladies answer.” Chief Cutter never removed his gaze from the aunts.
Hestia moved forward and patted his arm. “I’m afraid so, Chief, but the important thing you have to know is—it wasn’t us today.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake.” Jeremiah walked away as if he couldn’t stand to listen. Couldn’t stand to look at them.
Hestia trotted after him. “Now, Jeremiah, I know you’re disappointed in us. Nessa was disappointed, too, but we had good reason for stealing from Mr. MacNaught’s banks.”
Chief Cutter swiftly interrupted. “Ma’am, perhaps it would be best if you refrained from further comments until you’ve had counsel from a lawyer.”
Hestia sailed on without pause. “Mr. MacNaught’s banks not only have the highest profit margin and so are best able to take the hits, but Mr. MacNaught doesn’t give to charity. We were helping him.”
“By stealing the money and keeping it?” Jeremiah asked in steely disdain.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“We give the money away to the needy so Mr. MacNaught could receive a credit on his miserable, miserly soul.” Calista caught sight of a reporter she recognized, realized she was wearing an apron, took it off, and handed it to Nessa. Fluffing her hair, she smiled at the cameras.
“That, and the fact we don’t like the man because he has been so awful to our Ionessa,” Hestia reminded her.
The Channel 26 News van pulled up and parked.
Jeremiah ignored that as if Hestia had never spoken. “Twenty thousand dollars is going to take care of a lot of needy.”
“We told you, we didn’t steal the money today,” Hestia said impatiently.
Thunder rumbled again. The sun appeared, then blinked out again. From the west, Nessa could see a curtain of rain falling from a tall, gray cumulus cloud.
“Miss Calista, do you have an alibi?” Chief Cutter asked.
“Maddy was here with us,” Hestia said.
Chief Cutter glanced at the tiny black woman and shook his head.
Maddy stomped her foot, and the loose boards on the porch rattled. “What, boy? You don’t believe me because I’m old? Or because I’m a woman? Or because I’m black?”
In a pleading tone, Chief Cutter said, “Miss Maddy, you know none of that’s true. You know why you’re not a reliable witness.”
Maddy challenged him. “Why?”
“Because you were employed by the family since before Miss Calista and Miss Hestia were born, and you’ve lived in the house since the hurricane.” Chief Cutter shook his head again. “No one’s going to believe you won’t lie for them.”
“You already have lied for them, by not telling what you knew of the previous crimes,” Jeremiah said.
Maddy rounded on him. “Mr. Mac, you must have a lot of sin on your soul to have such a nasty opinion of me. And of them.”
The neighbors nodded, and the local juvenile delinquent from down the street, Daniel Noel, lifted his fist over his head. “You tell ’em, Miss Maddy!”
The screen door slammed, and Pootie clomped out of the house, her short hair standing on end and the marks of her pillow on her cheek. She surveyed the turmoil with displeasure. “What the hell is going on here?”
“They’re arresting Miss Calista and Miss Hestia for robbing the banks,” Maddy told her.
Pootie turned on her like an irate wolverine. “Pull the other leg.”
Maddy scrutinized their first, most reclusive boarder. “Look around.”
Pootie’s gaze swept the crowd and landed on Chief Cutter. “You’re shittin’ me. Have you lost what few feeble brain cells your wife hasn’t knocked out of you?”
Chief Cutter’s cheeks turned a mottled red. “She doesn’t beat me.”
“She oughta.” Pootie saw Jeremiah next, and something shifted in her face, a comprehension. “Ohh.”
With an authority he seldom flaunted, Chief Cutter asked, “Miss DiStefano, have you been here all day? Can you provide Miss Calista and Miss Hestia with an alibi?”
“Look at her,” Jeremiah said. “She’s been asleep.”
“I’m afraid so.” Pootie didn’t bother to run her fingers through her wild hair. “Can’t help you.”
“Pootie stays up all hours of the night,” Hestia told him. “It’s part of her work.”
“What does she do?” Jeremiah watched Pootie, but asked Hestia.
“We think it has something to do with the Internet.” Hestia anxiously watched Pootie. “She has promised us it’s not illegal.”
Jeremiah snorted loudly.
Nessa wanted to smack him. He wasn’t her dream man. He was he
r nightmare.
“We were on our way to the police station to confess, because whoever has done this, they’ve done a terrible wrong.” Calista waved at the cab.
Jeremiah’s lip curled. It was written all over his face—he thought they’d called it to help them get away. “Arrest them all.” Now his gaze settled on Nessa, and the man who had held her this morning, who had given her a ring, who had clumsily confessed his love…had vanished as if he had never been. This man was hard and cruel and cold, a man whose only interest in her was that of prosecutor for his foe. “Arrest them all,” he said again.
“You can arrest Hestia and me. That makes sense,” Calista said. “But why would you arrest Nessa and Maddy? They had nothing to do with the robberies.”
“Accessories to the crime,” Jeremiah said.
Hestia laughed lightly. “Don’t be ridiculous! Maddy and Nessa are innocent. Do you really think Calista and I couldn’t figure out how to rob a bank on our own? Why, we were collecting mice for months before this last robbery!”
“Please don’t say anything else!” Chief Cutter was in agony.
“Hey!” Their next-door neighbor stood with her toes just over the property line and shouted. “What are you punks doing with Miss Calista and Miss Hestia?”
“That’s Mrs. King,” Hestia confided. “She’s such a nasty old biddy—I hope she doesn’t come over. She could make this very unpleasant.”
“No, we wouldn’t want this to be unpleasant,” Maddy said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
Nessa wanted to cry. The street continued filling with cars, reporters, neighbors running up from blocks away. The whole scene resembled a circus, and her aunts were the main attraction.
Yet the humiliation was nothing compared to the chill that Jeremiah’s immovable presence created.
Nessa had to talk to him. Beg him…she’d done a lot of difficult things in her life. She’d kowtowed to Stephabeast. She’d placated furious customers. She’d faced the consequences when she let that teller steal the money. But nothing compared to the thick dread that filled her as she put one foot in front of the other and walked toward Jeremiah Mac.
He watched her come, his lids heavy over his green eyes.
She would have felt better if he showed emotion, any emotion, but there was nothing—no hate, no contempt, no lingering remnant of passion or love. “Jeremiah, please. They’re old. They’re eccentric. They didn’t mean any harm.”
“I’d have to disagree. It sounds as if they meant to teach MacNaught a lesson.”
She bit her lip. “Yes, but it really wasn’t much of a lesson, and it’s nothing compared to what their suffering will be in jail. They don’t understand what it’s like in there—the drunks, the mentally ill, the lifelong criminals who will enjoy hurting them.”
“They should have thought of that before they started on their crusade to discipline MacNaught.” Jeremiah folded his arms over his chest.
“He’s a rich man. A powerful man. He’ll gain nothing from this prosecution. You know him. Intercede for them.”
Jeremiah’s mouth twisted in a nasty way, as if he’d bit into a rotten tomato. “You dated me to spy on my investigation, to mislead me when you could. You slept with me to distract me so they could rob the bank today.”
“They didn’t rob the bank today.”
His voice was slow, low, and intense. “Lady, you have guts.” Turning on his heel, he walked away, down the street, around the corner, and out of sight.
Nessa stared after him, stared at the place where he’d disappeared, her eyes and cheeks burning with humiliation.
A little more than an hour ago, she’d believed she would marry him, bask in his love, love him in return. Then she’d seen the news, he’d seen the news, and their brief chance at happiness had evaporated.
Worst of all, he had tried to make her believe he was indifferent to her. But he wasn’t indifferent at all.
He believed the worst of her. He despised her, hated her.
In the background of her consciousness, Nessa heard Chief Cutter say, “All right, Miss Calista, Miss Hestia. I’m sorry, but I have to arrest you.”
The sun disappeared completely now. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed.
“Do you know what that is?” Nessa pointed at the sky and shouted to Chief Cutter. “That’s heaven protesting the arrest of two of its kindest citizens.”
“Chère, there’s no reason to yell at Chief Cutter. He’s only doing his job!” Hestia turned to the chief. “Will we get to ride in the patrol car with the lights flashing and the siren on?”
“There’s no need for that.” Chief Cutter got out a pair of metal handcuffs.
“But that would be so exciting!” Calista said.
“Sure. What the…heck. I’ll turn on the siren and the lights.” Chief Cutter sounded choked and hopeless. “Miss Hestia, I need your wrists.”
Nessa kept her back turned. She couldn’t stand to observe as Chief Cutter placed handcuffs on her sweet, eccentric, slightly mad and totally loveable old aunts. She heard the click of the metal as they shut—and a hard thunk.
She swung around and saw Chief Cutter standing, slack-jawed, while Hestia looked down at the handcuffs at her feet.
Calista hid a smile.
The crowd laughed jeeringly.
The cameras clicked and whirled.
“Chief, I’m so sorry.” Leaning down, Hestia picked up the handcuffs and handed them to Cutter. “Calista has always given me such a bad time about my skinny wrists and narrow hands—I play the piano, you know, and was quite good in my youth. Put them on me again, and I promise they won’t fall off.”
Nessa put her hand on the jut of her hip. “Yeah, Chief Cutter, just in case anybody in the crowd didn’t get a picture of you putting the handcuffs on one of the sweetest women in New Orleans, do it again.”
“Nessa, there’s no need to use that tone,” Hestia said.
Chief Cutter signaled for Rav Woodland, and when Rav had loped over, he tried to give him the handcuffs. “You do it.”
“No, sir!” Rav backed away, hands in the air. “My mama would slap me upside the head if she found out I put cuffs on Miss Hestia or Miss Calista.”
“What do you think my wife’s going to do to me?” Chief Cutter muttered. Then he raised his voice. “You’re going to lose your job if you don’t follow orders.”
“I don’t care, sir. I can’t do it, and I won’t do it.” Rav backed farther away.
As Chief Cutter looked around in frustration, Nessa watched her aunts put the handcuffs on each other.
It was funny, in a horrible way, to see them catch Chief Cutter’s attention and to see his reaction: the horrified start, the guilty glance around the hostile, grimly amused neighborhood.
“We’re ready,” Hestia chirped.
Calista proudly displayed the handcuffs to Nessa. “We’ve never been arrested before.”
In a silence interrupted only by the wind-blown rustle of leaves in the trees, Chief Cutter took an arm for each of them. “We’ll set bail as soon as possible, within twenty-four hours for sure.”
“Bail,” Nessa whispered.
How was she going to make bail for her aunts? She didn’t have any extra cash stashed away for possible arrests!
Chief Cutter marched them toward his patrol car.
Hestia held her arms crooked so the handcuffs didn’t fall off again.
Calista waved and made little chirping noises of encouragement at her friends.
And Nessa’s heart sank with each step they walked away from her.
Finally, with the wail of child who had been abandoned once too often, she ran after her great-aunts and sobbed on their shoulders.
“It’s all right, Nessa,” they murmured in unison, patting her back. “It’s all right.”
A big raindrop splashed on the back of her neck. Another hit her cheek.
She grabbed for control. “You’ve got to go before you get wet.” She kissed first one aunt, then the oth
er, and helped them into the barred backseat of the police car.
As promised, Chief Cutter turned on the lights and the siren, and the aunts waved from the back window as they drove off.
Peripherally, Nessa knew the press had filmed the farewell, and now they rushed toward her, microphones extended.
But the rain was coming down in earnest. The lightning flashed. The thunder boomed. And she couldn’t talk. She could barely hold on to her bit of composure long enough to run toward the house. Toward Maddy. Toward safety.
She gained the porch, realized Maddy held the screen door open for her, and blundered through, feeling foolish, out of control…. And lost. So lost.
Her aunts, her security since she was barely five, were gone, in jail, and she didn’t know how she would get them out.
Jeremiah, her lover, the man whose ring she wore, despised her.
She managed to get a few steps into the entry, braced her hand against the wall, and wept as if her heart would break.
She heard Maddy shut the front door against the tumult of rain and reporters outside. She heard Pootie clear her throat repeatedly. And still she couldn’t rise from the morass of despair into which she had sunk.
Until she heard Pootie say, “I’ve got to go upstairs to check on a few things, but before I do, I think you ought to know—that man you think is Jeremiah Mac…”
Nessa caught her breath. Looked up. Saw the bitterly amused, twisted and dismayed expression on Pootie’s face. “I think is Jeremiah Mac?” she choked.
“He’s misrepresenting himself. He’s the CEO of Premier Central Banks.” Pootie clomped toward the stairway. “That guy is Mac MacNaught.”
Thirty-two
That night, Stephanie Decker stood in her bathroom, creaming the make-up off her face and listening with half her attention to the local news, when a single phrase caught her attention.
“…Arrested Calista and Hestia Dahl in their own home today for the robberies at Premier Central Banks.”
Stephanie looked in the mirror, her eyes wide in her white, smeared face. “What?” She ran into the bedroom, tripped on the hem of her robe, caught the footboard with one slick hand, and hit the floor with a thud.