What JoJo saw in that loser was beyond Rosaleeâor any of the folks over at Junior's Bar and Grille or at the barbershop.
As she moved toward the empty chair next to Clayton's gorgeous man, Archer, Rosalee greeted the room.
“Hey, everybody.”
Clayton nodded at her. Delcine didn't even look in her direction, and Rosalee couldn't be sure if Reverend Toussaint had even heard her.
“Hi, Rosalee,” JoJo said.
Archer smiled at her and rose. He pulled the chair out for Rosalee and got her settled.
“Thank you,” she said, a little surprised and flattered at the attention from such a good-looking man, even if he was a blond-haired, blue-eyed white boy.
Before Rosalee could spend any more time thinking about Archer, Everett Rollings came in.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “Thank you all for gathering on such short notice.”
His assistant, the ever-efficient and mostly silent Maria, came in, handed Rollings a manila file and a remote control, and then slipped out just as quietly. Rollings pulled out the chair at the head of the table near the quilt stand.
“Mr. Coston, if you'd have a seat, please, we can begin.”
For just a moment, it seemed Lester might protest. Apparently deciding to keep it cool, he headed around the table toward a seat near his wife. A glance at JoJo quelled that notion, though. He took the chair across from Delcine and between the Reverend and Clayton.
“I understand that you have succeeded in your quest,” Rollings said.
“What we have succeeded in,” Delcine said, as usual taking the role of spokeswoman for the family, “is deciding to end this little farce. We have spent the better part of a week running around this godforsaken town talking to people who knew Ana Mae. What that exercise has gotten us is precious little except wasted time.”
“On the contrary, Delcine,” Clayton said, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on the table, his hands clasped. “I've learned more about Ana Mae this week since she's been gone than I ever did while she was alive.”
“I did, too,” JoJo said quietly. “I met and talked to a lot of her friends.”
Delcine's brows knit. “Friends? When?”
JoJo glanced at Reverend Toussaint, whose attention was on Clayton. “What I learned,” she said, “is that she lived her life with honor and integrity. That's something we should all try to do.”
She directed the word
all
specifically toward her husband, who frowned at her.
“What?” Lester said.
“Shut up, Lester.” The simultaneous exclamations came from JoJo and Delcine.
“Now you two wait just one . . .”
Rollings held up a hand. “That's enough,” he said. “Mr. Coston, Mr. Futrell-Dahlgren, and Mrs. Jenkins, you are here as guests of the four principal heirs. You can be uninvited as easily as you were invited.”
Lester sat back in a huff. He wasn't happy, but he also wasn't going to let his mouth . . . or his wife . . . cheat him out of his share of three point eight mil.
Rollings nodded toward Clayton. “Dr. Futrell, you were saying?”
Clay let his hands drop to the top of the table. “My sister was a remarkable woman, Mr. Rollings. That's something I believe you already knew. She possessed a generous spirit and a grace that is uncommon today.”
“That's true,” JoJo said. “Reverend le Baptiste will probably know where the Scripture is in the Bible, but Ana Mae was just like the virtuous woman.”
“The virgin woman? Wasn't that Jesus' mother or wife or something?”
Five sets of eyes turned Lester's way, each gaze displaying varying degrees of incredulity and contempt.
Lester held up both of his hands in surrender, then ran his fingers across his mouth in his familiar zipping-it-shut motion.
“Thank you,” JoJo muttered, with a glare across the table at her husband. She then turned her attention back to Rollings, while also glancing at the minister for confirmation. “The virtuous woman was worth more than rubies. Isn't that right, Reverend le Baptiste?”
He nodded. “You're correct, Sister Josephine.” He opened his Bible and was flipping through to the citation even as he told them the Scripture reference. “In the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament is where you'll find it,” he said. “Proverbs 31, starting with the tenth verse and going to the thirty-first. Who can find a
virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.”
JoJo nodded. “That's it,” she said. “That was Ana Mae. It goes on and on listing all of the things a virtuous woman does for her family and for her friends. Ana Mae was just like it's described in the Bible. That's what I found out about our sister this week.”
“Strength and honor are her clothing,”
Reverend Toussaint said, still reading from his Bible.
“And she shall rejoice in time to come
.
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
That's from verses twenty-five and twenty-six.”
“Amen,” JoJo intoned.
Archer looked at Clayton with a raised eyebrow but, apparently remembering Mr. Rollings's admonition, refrained from saying anything.
Reverend Toussaint, his head still in his Bible, kept reading, “A little later on is something else you should hear.
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
May the Lord add a special blessing to the hearers of his word.”
Lester rolled his eyes.
Rollings nodded as if he were a college professor eliciting responses to a query from a less-than-enthusiastic hall of undergraduates. “Anything else, Mrs. Coston?”
JoJo nodded. “I just wanted to thank Reverend le Baptiste for yesterday.”
That got Lester stirring again. “Yesterday? What happened with her yesterday?” His suspicious gaze flicked over the preacher.
“He showed me around the school at the church and I met some of the . . . ,” she paused, and then JoJo smiled. “I met some of Ana Mae's good friends.”
“Was there anything else you would like to add, Mrs. Coston or Dr. Futrell?”
They both shook their heads.
“Mrs. Foster?”
“I think this week was an enormous waste of time and energy,” Delcine said.
Rollings neither agreed nor disagreed with the surly comment. “Reverend?”
Reverend Toussaint cleared his throat. He made a production of closing his Bible and then pushing it a few inches to the side. He rose then and walked from one side of the table to the other.
“In all my years in ministry,” he said, as if warming up for what could likely be a protracted sermon, “rarely have I come across a situation like this. I have counseled people from all walks of life. And I have performed many a wedding, baptism, and funeral. But never,” he said, moving toward Ana Mae's quilt at the head of the table, “never have I had the death of a church member affect me so profoundly.”
Rollings scooted his chair back to give Reverend Toussaint some room.
The minister stood in front of
The Legacy of Ana Mae Futrell
for a moment, as if mesmerized by the skill and creativity that the quilter put into the project.
“Ana Mae Futrell was a virtuous woman,” he said. “She was a good woman who always believed in doing the right thingâeven at her own personal cost, and even when doing the right thing may not have seemed at all like the right thing to do.”
He stared at the quilt, and then reached out a hand to trace the flowers and the leaves surrounding the big tree at the heart and center of the quilt block on the bottom row.
“I know what this quilt means, Mr. Rollings. Both Josephine and Clayton were right in what they said, but I know what Ana Mae was trying to especially say. I know what else she wanted conveyed to all of the people in this room.”
Rosalee held up her hand like a pupil in a classroom.
“Yes, Mrs. Jenkins?” Rollings said.
“Mr. Rollings, before this goes any further, I need to speak with the reverend. In private,” she added.
Reverend Toussaint turned from his study of the needlework to Rosalee. “You need to speak with me?”
“Yes, Reverend.” She looked toward Rollings for permission.
He nodded, and Rosalee scooted her chair back and hopped up before Archer could again play Sir Gallant.
Rosalee led Reverend Toussaint out of the conference room. When the door closed behind them, Delcine was the first to speak.
“Now that those two, neither of whom is any blood relation to Ana Mae, are gone, can you please tell us how her money is going to be divided?”
Impassive as always, Rollings looked at her. “The same way as was outlined following your sister's funeral, Mrs. Foster. Ana Mae decreed that the person who deciphers the meaning of her quilt will receive the inheritance she left.”
“I should have taken the ten grand,” JoJo said.
“That's crazy talk,” Lester said. He chanced a glance in Rollings's direction as if daring the man to try to keep him quiet again. “There's millions at stake for us.”
“Wrong, Lester. There's no us in this.”
He slammed a hand on the table. “Don't even try to cut me out now, Josephine. If it hadn't been for me a week ago saving your ass after you threw away that piece of whatever the hell it is,” he said indicating the quilt on the stand. “If it hadn't been for me bargaining us back into the game, you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.”
“This is not a game, Lester. It's about my sister.”
“JoJo?”
The quiet query came from Archer.
She glanced at her brother-in-law.
“If you need it,” Archer said, “you have representation.”
“Representation? What the hell does that mean?” Lester demanded.
He ran a hand through his hair, and then the light apparently dawned in his none-too-bright head.
“Don't even pull that shit on me!”
“Mr. Coston,” Rollings said.
“Don't you Mr. Coston me,” Lester said. “That fag over there is telling my wife to divorce me. Probably so he can get a hold of more of Annie Mae's money.”
“Her name was Ana Mae.” That deadly quiet clarification came from Delcine.
“And you, you're just a stuck-up bitch who wouldn't know . . .”
The door to the conference room opened then, and a man whose occupation could only be bouncer or bodyguard entered.
“Hello, Clyde. Mr. Coston, I warned you about your standing and presence here. You have violated the goodwill of this law firm. Please vacate the premises,” Rollings said quietly.
Getting red in the face, Lester stood his ground. “I'm not going any damn where as long as she thinks she's gonna take my money.”
Rollings nodded toward his employee standing near the open door. The bodyguard-cum-bouncer took two steps forward and toward Lester.
Sizing up the man, Lester took a step back. Six feet eight or so inches of muscle and sinew demanded some respect.
“This isn't over, JoJo,” Lester bellowed. “You are not cheating me out of that money. It's mine. You hear that, you fat cow. It's mine!”
The bodyguard grabbed for his arm, but Lester yanked away, stomping out of the office. “You'll be hearing from my fucking lawyer. That's for damn sure, JoJo.”
“Go to hell, Lester.” JoJo didn't even sound weary.
“I'll see you there, you bitch. Get off of me, you son of a . . .”
In the conference room, they heard the word
bitch,
but it was muffled, as if Lester suddenly needed air to breathe rather than to hurl empty threats and insults.
“I think I'll be needing that representation, Archer.”
“You've got it, sis. Pro bono.”
She smiled at him, then ducked her head and swiped at a tear she hoped no one saw.
A moment later, though, Delcine pressed a tissue into her hand while exchanging places with the purses that had been in the chair between them. Delcine remained seated next to JoJo.
By the time Reverend Toussaint and Rosalee returned, the atmosphere in the conference room had lost much of its toxicity.
Clayton had taken the position before the quilt, studying Ana Mae's needlework. JoJo and Delcine sat together in a position that indicated they were or had been either crying together or comforting each other. And Archer hovered over the back of their chairs as if protecting them from some unseen harm.
“What happened to Lester?” Rosalee asked.
“He's departed,” Mr. Rollings said.
He did not elaborate.
Instead, Rollings looked up at Reverend Toussaint. “Are the two of you prepared to continue?”
The minister eyed Rollings, the look not as benevolent as one might expect, but Reverend Toussaint only nodded.
Rosalee and Reverend Toussaint took their seats, along with Archer, who remained on the side of the table with the sisters.
“I was just reiterating to Mrs. Foster and the others that the terms of Ana Mae's last will and testament have not in any way changed since last week. The person who will ultimately claim Miss Futrell's estate is the one who . . .”
Reverend Toussaint interrupted him.
“As I said, Mr. Rollings, I know what message Ana Mae was conveying to us all. And I would like, at this time, to assign any and all portion coming to me for solving the clues of the quilt to Dr. Clayton Futrell.”
“What?” from Delcine.
“Huh?” from JoJo.
“What the hell?” from Clayton.