I was shocked that a saint would be associated with voodoo. “The voodoo loa of death? What’s that?”
“A loa is a voodoo deity. And Baron Samedi is a shady voodoo god who wears a top hat and tails. Voodoo legend has it that when people die, he digs their graves, greets their souls, and leads them to the underworld. He’s also a sexual loa who loves to swear, smoke, drink rum, tell filthy jokes to the other spirits, and chase women.” Father John winked.
Awk-ward. My cheeks were as hot as Hades as I scratched my neck and looked for Veronica from the corners of my eyes. “I still don’t understand what Saint Expedite has to do with voodoo.”
“It works like this: Followers of New Orleans’ legendary voodoo queen Marie Laveau, who died in the late 1800s, visit her tomb in Saint Louis cemetery #1 to ask her for help with a problem. Since the cemetery is right behind the church on Basin Street, afterward they come into the church and leave a slice of pound cake for Saint Expedite so that he’ll fast track, or expedite, the favors asked of Marie Laveau. It’s really a fascinating mixture of religions.”
“So, voodoo’s a religion.” I scratched my head. “I thought it was just like dark magic or something.”
He smiled. “That’s how pop culture has painted it, but it’s centered around religious themes and a desire to do good in the world by channeling saints.” He paused. “Hey, do you like James Bond?”
I slowly shook my head, wondering whether God approved of priests watching James Bond movies.
“No?” He sounded shocked. “Too bad, because Baron Samedi is a character in Live and Let Die with Roger Moore.”
I spotted Veronica beckoning to me like a saving angel from near the altar. She stood next to what could only be described as the anti-Veronica—a young woman with short, dark hair tucked behind her ears, black rectangular glasses, a thin mouth, and no makeup. She resembled a real-life Velma from Scooby Doo.
Betty. I thanked heaven that I had finally found an avenue of escape. “Well, thank you for the information, Joh—, er, Father,” I faltered. It was hard for me to think of a good-looking young guy as a priest. “I need to join my friend.”
“Anytime. I hope you’ll join us for mass this Sunday.”
“Sure,” I said, knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d show up. Great, I just lied to a priest.
I turned and hurried up the aisle to the altar, almost at a run. Then I turned right and walked to the end of the first pew where Veronica and Betty were sitting. I extended my hand. “You must be Betty.”
She opted to pass on the handshake to take a moment to size me up. “Who are you?”
Veronica smiled. “Betty, this is Franki, my new partner I was telling you about. She’s a super smart ex-cop.”
“Right.” Betty pulled a large manila envelope from a worn, brown leather bag and handed it to Veronica. “So anyway, here’s the information you asked for. You won’t find much in the report that hasn’t already been leaked to the press, but the pictures should be useful.”
Veronica, in turn, produced Betty’s payoff, which she had disguised by placing it into a church-offering envelope. “Thank you so much. This is going to make a huge difference in our investigation.”
“No problem, V.” Betty stuffed the envelope into her briefcase. “I just hope you catch the sorry son of a bitch who committed this crime.”
“You know, it might’ve been committed by a woman,” I interjected, playing devil’s advocate.
“The odds are against it.” Betty spoke with a sneer. “Statistically speaking, this is likely an open-and-shut case of femicide—a man killing a woman just because she’s a female—and we women need to come together to prevent this type of thing from happening.” She stood and pushed up her glasses. “Let me know if you find the asshole who did this.”
I watched her walk away, clutching her leather briefcase to her chest. “Wow, that Betty’s a real charmer.”
Veronica rose to her feet. “She takes crime very seriously. Now let’s get going. I’m dying to look at the police report.”
As we walked out of the church, I saw Father John waving goodbye to me. Instead of waving back, I tried to duck all 5’ 10” of me behind Veronica’s tiny frame. I must have looked like I was having a seizure.
The second we got into the car, Veronica tore open the envelope and studied a photo of Jessica at the crime scene. “Look at this.”
It was a gruesome sight. Jessica was lying on her left side in the middle of four scarf racks that were situated in the shape of a square. Her face was directed toward the ceiling, and her eyes were open in a look of shock. She had been strangled with a black-and-white checked scarf with a bright yellow border.
Veronica, who owned a different scarf for every day of the year, was intently focused on the murder weapon. She pulled out the police report and quickly scanned the pages. “I knew it.”
“What?”
“The scarf used to strangle Jessica isn’t from LaMarca.” Her eyes danced with excitement.
“How do you know?”“It’s a cheap cotton-polyester blend. Everyone knows that LaMarca only sells silk scarves.”
I didn’t know that, but I did know that LaMarca’s signature scarves were the most sought after in the fashion industry. “So, the killer brought a scarf to a store that’s famous for selling scarves.”
But why?
Standing on Canal Street in front of Pontchartrain Bank, I leaned into the passenger window of Veronica’s Audi. “I’ll go straight to LaMarca after I get some cash. Anything in particular you want me to find out?”
Veronica lowered her sunglasses. “I trust your judgement. And if you have to buy something to keep up your cover as a customer, I’ll reimburse up to fifty dollars, so hang on to the receipt.”
I would. Because after my move to New Orleans, I was pretty sure that there wasn’t enough room left on my credit cards to shop at the Dollar Tree, much less LaMarca. Thankfully, my parents had made a deposit to my account as a belated Christmas gift to help cover my moving expenses.
I entered the lobby and rummaged in my knockoff Gucci hobo bag for a pen. I filled out a withdrawal slip and got in line.
“Next,” the teller called.
I approached the window. The teller, who couldn’t have been more than 4’ 10”, looked remarkably like Tinker Bell sans bun and wings.
“May I help you?” Her accent was thick.
I glanced at her nameplate—Corinne Mercier—to confirm my suspicion that she was French. New Orleans was a popular city among French immigrants because of its historical ties to France. “I’d like to make a withdrawal, please.” I slid my withdrawal slip toward her. “I haven’t gotten my ATM card yet.”
“Oh, mademoiselle, I am so sorry. Are you new to ze bank?” Her big blue eyes were rimmed with red like she’d been crying.
Guessing that she was having man trouble, I sympathized. “Yeah, I just moved here from Austin to take a job as a private investigator. Where are you from?”
“I come here from Toulouse to start a new life. My mother, she is américaine, but I was raised in France.”
“I moved here to start a new life too. Besides getting a new job, I wanted to get away from my cheating ex-boyfriend.”
“Ah. My boyfriend, Thierry, he cheat too. I come home yesterday, and I find him wis a woman.” She struggled to enter my transaction into the computer as her eyes welled up with tears.
“I’m really sorry to hear that. The same thing happened to me. I’m Franki, by the way. You’re Corinne, right?”
She nodded, wiping her nose with a tissue. “You too? Men! Zey are so…so…volages, non?” She blew her nose with a very un-Tinker Bell-like honk, and then handed me my money from the teller cash dispenser.
“Exactly.” I put the money into my wallet. I had no idea what she’d just said, but I agreed with the tone of her voice one hundred percent. “All they think about is sex. You know, I really believe the old saying that a man thinks with his penis is true.”
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Corinne’s big blue eyes got even bigger, and she fiddled with her pixie-style blonde hair.
I thought it was because I was coming on a little strong for a stranger and all, but then her eyes darted to something—or someone—over my shoulder. I turned and saw one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen in my life. He had dark brown hair, a chiseled jaw, and a sensuous mouth.
“Is this yours, miss?” He held up my birth control case—with a twinkle in his eye.
I must have dropped it when I was standing in line digging through my bag for the pen I’d used to fill out my withdrawal slip. My whole body burned from embarrassment. Not only had he probably heard my cutting remarks about men, but now he also knew I was having sex with at least one of them.
I realized that I’d been staring at him slack-jawed. I closed my mouth and swallowed hard. “Oh, gosh. Those? They belong to a friend. I’m just holding them for her.” I laughed, and it sounded hollow. “While she’s out of town.”
I’d never been one to stop while I was ahead.
The corners of his mouth curled into a devious smile. “I’d better check the pharmacy label on the back to be sure. It says they were prescribed to—”
“Don’t read that.” I snatched the package from his hand. “You wouldn’t want to violate the HIPAA Privacy Rule.”
“Certainly not. My apologies.” He gave a mock bow. “To your friend, of course.”
Clearly, he enjoyed my unease.
I pretended to check the label. “They’re hers, all right.” I shoved the pills into my bag. “Thank you, Mr.…?”
“Hartmann. Bradley Hartmann,” he replied—not unlike James Bond. My Bond-loving priest friend would no doubt be impressed. “I’m the president of the bank.” He reached out for a handshake. “Your name is Francesca, right?”
So he did read the back of my birth control case. Just what my life needed—more men who delighted in humiliating me. “Franki,” I replied through the heat in my cheeks. “Franki Amato.”
“I heard you tell Miss Mercier that you haven’t received your ATM card yet. Why don’t you let me look into that for you?” His devious smile turned dazzling.
To my dismay, my knees grew weak.
Corinne furrowed her brow. “Mais non, Mr. Hartmann. I will help Miss Amato.”
“That’s all right, Corinne.” He placed a hand firmly at the small of my back. “I’ll take care of Miss Amato.”
The way his eyes were twinkling, I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or mocking me.
“Call me Franki.”
“I’d like that.”
Yep, definitely flirting. And based on the way his thick-lashed blue eyes stared at me, I wasn’t sure I minded.
I attempted a little flirt-back of my own, doing a spontaneous Veronica-style bat of my eyelashes that promptly dislodged my right contact lens.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Your eye is tearing up.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” I tried to look composed as my lens sent little stabs of pain into my eye. “Just something in my contact.”
He nodded. “Okay, good. Well then, I’ll find out what’s going on with your ATM card and give you a call.”
“Great.” The pain from my contact was shooting straight into my brain. I flashed him a Julia Roberts smile that probably ended up looking more like that of The Joker.
As I turned to leave the bank, I worried that Bradley might be checking me out from behind. To cover my oversized backside, I slung my bag behind me and walked serpentine-style toward the door, stopping and turning to one side every so often to feign admiration for a plastic plant or an employee-of-the-month plaque on the wall.
Ironically, however, when I got outside in the bright sunshine and popped my contact lens from my eye, things came more into focus. Bradley was more than likely being friendly to me to get me out of the bank. After all, there probably weren’t too many bank presidents who would welcome clients who boomed about men, sex, and penises while leaving a trail of birth control behind them.
5
I walked the short distance down Canal Street from the bank to LaMarca, with its signature Italian white marble sign with the gold logo. Thanks to the police report, I had the name of the salesgirl who’d found Jessica Evans’ body—Annabella Stevens. But I knew that if I introduced myself as a private investigator, she wouldn’t give me the time of day.
A lot of people wouldn’t talk to PIs because they weren’t the police, which was ironic considering that a lot of people wouldn’t talk to the police either. And, in all probability, LaMarca management had advised its employees not to discuss the crime with its customers. So, the plan was to find out whether Annabella was still working for LaMarca and, if she was, to approach her on the pretense of needing assistance with selecting a scarf for my mom. With any luck, I would glean some information about the crime.
I grasped the handle of LaMarca’s tall glass door and discovered that my palms were sweating. This was my first real undercover assignment because rookie cops weren’t allowed anywhere near detective work, and I was nervous. So, I did what any female PI would do as I entered the elegant store—I summoned Nancy Drew’s cool-headed sleuthing techniques from the dark and murky depths of my adolescent reading memory.
Inside, I spotted the scarf department where Jessica’s body had been found. Four, long, shoulder-height scarf racks were positioned in the shape of a square in the center of the room. On all four sides of the racks, there were glass cases displaying jewelry, wallets, and other accessories, and the walls were lined all the way to the ceiling with multiple rows of handbags of varying colors and shades. The ceiling itself was covered with ornate gold decorative elements like those of a Catholic Church. For a moment, I was breathless with emotion—not because I was at the scene of the crime, mind you, but because I was busy worshipping all those glorious LaMarca bags.
“May I help you?”
The blonde Amazonian salesgirl’s booming voice startled me out of my fine leather-induced stupor. I glanced at her nametag. “No thanks, Svetlana. I’m just looking.”
Without giving her a chance to respond, I scurried to the scarf racks. Nancy Drew would have never acted so nervous. I took a deep breath and tried to focus. I knew I should be looking for clues related to the crime, but I had no idea what those might be.
As I gazed at the beautiful silk scarves, the image of a vibrant young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair lying strangled popped into my mind. Again I wondered why the killer had strangled her with a scarf from another store when there were so many scarves right at his or her fingertips. Maybe Ryan Hunter or another male admirer had brought the scarf to Jessica as a gift and then used it to strangle her during an argument. Or the scarf could have belonged to a woman who’d removed it from her own neck to strangle Jessica.
But was it mere happenstance that she’d been strangled with a cheap polyester scarf in a sea of expensive silk? Or was it some kind of message?
“Can I help you with something?” a chipper voice asked from behind me.
I turned to see a chubby young girl with hazel bug eyes and Shirley Temple curls in a Lucille Ball red straight from the bottle. She wore a white, short-sleeved angora sweater, a black poodle skirt, and a pink scarf knotted around her neck, which was an astonishingly 1950s look for someone who worked in contemporary fashion. Her nametag read Annabella.
It’s her.
“Yes, I’m trying to find a scarf for my mom, but I’m overwhelmed by all the options.” My words sounded fake and stilted to my ear, but the 1950s pinup girl didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh, I can totally help you with that. I just love scarves. What color did you have in mind?”
“Yellow.” I waited to see her reaction. Even though Annabella had an airtight alibi—she was in the emergency room with a nasty case of the hives at the time of the murder—my instincts told me that she knew more about the situation than she had shared with the police.
Annabella’s bulging eyes opene
d even wider for an instant, then she regained her composure. “What a lovely choice,” she said stiffly. She beckoned me to follow her to another rack.
As she sifted expertly through scarves in hues of amber, gold, and yellow, I came up with a casual segue into the crime. “I’m so glad your scarf area is open. I wasn’t sure it would be…after the murder.”
“LaMarca is open three hundred sixty-five days per year.” Annabella recited the hours like a slogan. Then she looked me in the eyes. “Actually,” her voice had lowered, “we were open for business later that same day.”
“Now that’s customer service.” It was the most innocuous thing I could think of to say. I sensed that she was the gossipy type, so I decided to try winning her trust with flattery. “By the way, I love your look. You should be on TV, you know that? You have that glamorous quality about you.”
Annabella blushed. “That’s what I think, but Svetlana is always telling me I look dowdy.”
“I can’t believe that,” I lied as I looked through the scarves. “So, um, did you know her? The woman who was strangled?”
“She was our manager,” she whispered, her eyes darting from side to side to make sure no one was in earshot. “Her name was Jessica Evans.” Annabella stopped searching through the scarves and draped her arm casually over one of the racks.
My compliments were taking effect—she was clearly in the mood to talk murder. “What was Jessica like? I mean, was she as stylish as you? I’m asking because I’m obsessed with true crime.”
She leaned forward. “Well, she was drop dead gorgeous for one thing. A lot of people said she looked like a young Kim Basinger. And she only wore the latest styles—LaMarca, Hermes, Gucci, Chanel, Armani. You name the brand, she had it. And she always accessorized with a scarf.”
Franki Amato Mysteries Box Set Page 6
