Franki Amato Mysteries Box Set

by Traci Andrighetti

  Napoleon! I peered over the edge of the glass.

  He was staring up at me with narrowed eyes. Clearly he hadn't enjoyed his stay in the pirate den.

  "I'll be right down, boy," I fibbed. I didn't know how I'd gotten into the glass, much less how I was going to get out. And I didn't want to disturb Glenda, because if I recalled correctly, she had a gentleman pirate caller—or two. Best to let sleeping sea dogs lie.

  Realizing that the only way to get out of the glass was to jump, I stood up with the precision of a surfer on a surfboard and threw myself onto a pile of pillows below. When I landed, the whole house shook. And then it kept shaking. I was well aware that I was no petite flower, but this was just insulting.

  "Bury your treasure deeper, Quartermaster!" Glenda shouted from her boudoir.

  Oh, I thought wryly. So that's the cause of the quake.

  I scooped up my belongings and dashed downstairs with Napoleon. I cautiously entered the apartment, and we checked each room—me with my Ruger, Napoleon with his food bowl.

  "All clear," I said, removing the bowl from his mouth. "Let's get some grub."

  I grabbed my laptop from the living room and headed for the kitchen where I was relieved to discover that it was only eight a.m. I needed time to pull myself together before facing Veronica at the office.

  I fed Napoleon and then looked in the pantry. I was craving Cap'n Crunch but had to settle for cold pizza from the fridge. As I chewed my pepperoni and sausage slice, I wondered whether Pauline had been right about me being a guidette. In less than twenty-four hours, I'd gotten into a cat fight (or, at least my dress had), partied with pirates, and woken up in a champagne glass. And now I was eating Italian food for breakfast.

  "Better a guidette than a thief," I muttered as I opened my computer. I checked my LinkedIn page, but none of the Brehman Bank managers had responded to my InMail. Of course, it was just after nine in New York, but I couldn't wait any longer. Pauline had already stolen Bradley—I would be damned if I was going to let her steal more money from Corinne.

  I went to the bank's home page and dialed the main number, setting the call to speaker.

  "Brehman Bank," a youthful-sounding male answered. "How may I direct your call?"

  Reading the first name from the LinkedIn list, I replied, "Steve MacDonell, please."

  "One moment."

  I picked at my purple nail polish as I waited for Mr. MacDonell's secretary to answer.

  "This is Steve," a tired voice replied.

  I wasn't prepared to get him on the first try. "Uh, my name is Franki Amato."

  "How can I help you, Ms. Amato?"

  Now what? For lack of a better plan, I went with honesty. "I'm calling about a woman who used to work for your bank. Her name is Pauline Violette."

  There was silence on the other end of the line, which told me that he recognized the name.

  "If this is regarding a reference check," he began in a stiff tone, "you'll have to contact our Human Resources department."

  "It has nothing to do with a reference," I said. "I'm a private investigator, and I've been contracted to look into whether she's embezzling money from a bank in Louisiana."

  He snorted. "I can't—"

  "She may be stealing from a charity for children," I interrupted. "So if you know anything that could help—"

  "Good day, Ms. Amato."

  The line went dead.

  "Mannaggia," I cursed. "Damn" indeed. I was sure he knew something about Pauline, and now I was going to have to call all the managers on LinkedIn.

  I decided to target the women first since they might be more empathetic to a case involving theft from children. As I was scanning the list, my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but I knew the 212 area code was from New York. "Hello?"

  "Franki, this is Steve MacDonell," he said in a low voice. "I'm calling from my personal cell. I could lose my job for this, so I need to make it quick."

  My stomach was in knots. "I'm listening."

  "The woman you mentioned, Pauline Violette? Well, her full name is Pauline Violette Malaspina, and she was terminated in December of 2012."

  I was stunned. That explained why she had a nonna and why she'd been such a pain in my behind—her last name was Italian for bad thorn. "Why was she fired?"

  "She was the assistant of a manager who's serving time for embezzling from a charity our bank was representing. She was in on his scheme, but she got total immunity in exchange for information. I can't tell you any more."

  "I really appreciate you sticking your neck out to help me."

  "Yeah, well, I've got kids, so it's the least I could do," he grumbled. "Don't call again, though."

  "I won't," I said. But he'd already hung up.

  So, I was right. Pauline had a past and probably a present. Of course, embezzling from a Brehman Bank charity didn't prove that she was stealing from Corinne, but it sure made her a suspect. It also raised serious concerns about her involvement in the Shoot for the Moon charity event. The only problem was that I didn't know what to do with the information. I couldn't go to the police because I didn't have any evidence against her. The main person this news would be of interest to would be the president of Pontchartrain Bank. One Bradley Hartmann. But chances weren't good that he'd listen to me, not now that he was Pauline's prey. Nevertheless, I had to tell him. Somehow.

  As I climbed the stairs to Private Chicks an hour and a half later, I felt like I had a marching band in my head and a majorette in my stomach. The four aspirin I'd taken had done nothing for my hangover, and I was nervous about facing Veronica after our fight. I knew she'd be upset that I'd cut her off on the phone, so I had no idea what she'd do when I asked her for advice on how to handle the latest Pauline bombshell.

  I entered the lobby and stopped short.

  Veronica was sitting on the couch across from an elegant older male with a full head of gray hair and an expensive-looking black suit. She rose to her feet. "Franki Amato, this is Dr. Liam Jones, Ivanna's father.

  My stomach felt like the majorette had just dropped her baton. "Pleased to meet you." I reached over the coffee table to shake his hand as he rose. "I guess Dr. Geyer told you we wanted to talk to you?"

  "No, that was Mrs. Dupré," he replied, settling back in his seat. "I went to the plantation yesterday to speak with her and see the crime scene."

  I noticed that he avoided referring to the plantation as the site of Ivanna's death. And despite his serene demeanor, the sadness in his deep blue eyes told me that he was grieving.

  Veronica cleared her throat. "Liam was just saying that the police have given him permission to bury Ivanna."

  I was so surprised to find him at the office that I'd forgotten my manners. "I'm sorry for your loss. You must have been so proud of your daughter. She was obviously a smart, successful, and beautiful woman."

  He smiled. "I like to think that she got her mother's good looks and my head for business," he said. Then he looked down at his hands. "Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for her."

  I cocked my head. "What do you mean?"

  "Ivanna lost her mother, Rosa, when she was sixteen. And she was never the same after that."

  "That's terrible," Veronica said. "How did Rosa die?"

  "Heart failure," he replied in a quiet tone. "But Ivanna was convinced that she'd died of a broken heart, and she blamed me."

  Veronica and I remained silent.

  He sighed. "You see, because of the nature of my work I was away for long periods. And I worked very closely with another doctor. A woman," he stressed as his neck flushed from embarrassment. "Rosa found out about us. She didn't want a divorce because of her Catholic faith, but she returned to her hometown in Italy and took Ivanna with her. She died a short time later."

  His story left a bad taste in my mouth. And I couldn't help but wonder whether this woman had seduced him like Pauline had Bradley.

  Veronica glanced at me, no doubt sensing my discomfort. "Where was Rosa from?"
r />   "Treviso, in the Veneto region."

  The same region my mother is from, I thought. "How did Ivanna change after Rosa died?"

  "I was getting to that." He grimaced. "Her opinion of me and all men, I'm afraid, changed."

  Understandable, I almost said under my breath.

  "From that point on, men were just a means to an end for Ivanna. And I played along by trying to buy back her affection. So when she approached me about starting her cosmetics company, I was all too happy to fund it. She'd always been obsessed with makeup." He looked down and laughed. "When she was a little girl, she used to crush up berries and flowers from our yard and make her own. Rosa and I were afraid she was going to poison herself."

  A heavy silence fell over the room.

  "Do you think she did?" Veronica ventured. "Poison herself, I mean?"

  "Impossible," he said with a wave of his hand. "I don't know how the belladonna got into her system, but I can assure you she wasn't responsible. Ivanna loved life, and she knew all about the potential hazards of cosmetics. She wouldn't have poisoned herself on purpose or by accident."

  "But there was oleander in the lip gloss she was holding," I said. "So, either she was making poison lip gloss or someone gave it to her."

  "I don't know anything about that lip gloss," he said. "But I know it wasn't the reason she was at Oleander Place."

  I glanced at Veronica. "Go on."

  He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "As I said, she changed after her mother's death, but it wasn't just in her attitude about men." His eyes opened. "She also became more focused, driven. But not for the right reasons. She was determined to right past wrongs, particularly those that pertained to her mother. And as far as she was concerned, Oleander Place had wronged Rosa."

  I leaned forward in my seat. "What did her mother have to do with the plantation?"

  "Well, Rosa must have sensed her health was failing, because right before she died she started telling Ivanna her family history. And, she told her that she was a descendent of Danielle Benazet."

  Veronica wrinkled her brow. "I'm sorry, but I don't recognize the name."

  "Right, forgive me," he said, holding up his hand. "Benazet was Danielle's married name. Her maiden name was Lacour, and she was Evangeline Lacour's paternal aunt."

  The silence was so thick that you could have heard a pink diamond drop.

  "So, she was looking for the diamond," I said.

  He nodded. "I'm sure of it. She would've wanted to find the diamond to honor her mother's memory. Apparently, Rosa had written to Mrs. Dupré some years before, asserting a claim to the diamond if it were ever found."

  I flashed back to my conversation with Kristy Patterson about Delta's protectiveness of her plantation. "How did Delta respond?"

  "She didn't. When I spoke to her about it yesterday, she said she'd never received the letter."

  A convenient excuse, I thought. "Then, Delta didn't know that Ivanna was related to Evangeline?"

  "She said she had no idea."

  I had my doubts about that. Delta was too shrewd not to suspect a link between Evangeline and a modern-day look-alike who was poking around her plantation.

  Liam rubbed his forehead and rose to stand. "Please don't think I'm being rude, but it was a long, difficult trip, and I still have to make arrangements for Ivanna's burial."

  "Of course," Veronica said as she escorted him to the door.

  He handed her his card. "If you have more questions, please call. I'm so grateful for your efforts on behalf of my daughter."

  "Thank you," Veronica said, putting a hand on his arm. "We'll do everything in our power to find the killer." She closed the door behind him and turned to me. "Can you believe Ivanna is a Lacour?"

  "No, and yet it was staring us right in the face." I crossed my arms and kicked my feet up on the coffee table. "How crazy is it that she looked just like Evangeline after who knows how many generations?"

  "It's pretty bizarre," Veronica said, sitting on the arm of the couch. "But at least one mystery is solved."

  "Yeah, but so many remain."

  She patted my shoulder and stood up. "You'll figure it all out. I know it."

  "I hope so," I muttered as she headed back to her office. But I wasn't too confident. Because I had the funny feeling that there was something about Liam's conversation that I was missing—some detail, some connection. I just couldn't put my finger on what that was.

  I added the last of Liam's information to the Jones case file and leaned back in my desk chair. I kept thinking about his recollection of a young Ivanna mixing makeup with plants from their yard. If she'd used flowers to produce makeup before, then there was every reason to believe she'd done it again with flowers from Oleander Place.

  I quickly formulated a plan and then located Adam Geyer in my phone contact list. I pressed his name and waited.

  "Yes," he answered.

  He sounded annoyed. And based on our previous phone history, I was surprised he bothered to answer at all. "I met with Ivanna's father today."

  "Oh?" His voice oozed sarcasm. "And how is the good doctor?"

  I could tell he'd been drinking for a while, and it was only ten thirty in the morning. "As well as can be expected under the circumstances. He did lose his only child."

  "I'm well aware of that, thank you," he growled.

  I sighed. "Listen, I didn't call to upset you. I have a cosmetics question related to something Dr. Jones said."

  "All right," he said warily.

  "Would crushed pink oleander flowers turn a clear lip gloss solution pink?"

  He paused. "It would turn the color of the flowers, yes."

  Time to go in for the kill, I thought. "So, when you made the lip gloss Ivanna was holding, you used crushed flowers from Oleander Place."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," he spat.

  "Actually, you do," I insisted. "And it would behoove you to tell me where you got those flowers. Because if I tell the police that you got them from Oleander Place, then that puts you at the plantation, and hence, at the scene of the crime."

  It was silent on the line except for the sound of his jagged breathing.

  "It's time to tell the truth, Adam," I pressed. "It will help you in the long run, trust me."

  "Ivanna gave me powdered oleander," he said.

  I bowed my head into my hand.

  "But I didn't think anything of it. The plan was to use the flowers to produce a prototype. We would have never sold a toxic lip gloss to the public. You have to believe me."

  "I do," I said, moved by the desperation in his voice. "I just wish you would've told me this sooner."

  "I didn't kill her, Franki." He choked back a sob. "I loved Ivanna, and I'm going to find out who did this to her."

  I started to reply, but the line went dead.

  I stared at the phone as I tried to sort through my muddled thoughts. This was a side of Adam I hadn't seen before. There was so much conviction in his voice. I wanted to believe him, but he'd lied on so many occasions. I couldn't be sure he was telling the truth now.

  "Did I hear you talking to Adam?" Veronica asked, appearing in the doorway. She was balancing her compact mirror and blush in one hand as she stroked her blush brush across her cheek with the other.

  "He just admitted that he and Ivanna made the lip gloss with flowers from Oleander Place."

  Veronica's head jerked up from her compact. "He did?" she asked as her blush fell to the floor. She knelt down. "Oh, darn it."

  I looked at the pile of pink powder on my floor and said, "I'll go get the vacuum." I headed for the door and stopped. "Oh my God. Miles!"

  "What about him?" she asked, rising to her feet.

  "That day we went to question him," I gushed. "He was vacuuming up pink powder in the sugar mill!"

  "So?"

  "He told me it was rat poison, but it wasn't. Adam said Ivanna gave him powdered oleander. Don't you see? Miles was in on it! He dried the flowers
and ground them into a powder for Ivanna."

  Veronica put her hand to her mouth. "Oh, Franki. Are you sure?"

  "Yes! It explains why he was so nervous that day, and why he was so upset when I asked whether any of the oleander bushes had been tampered with." I grabbed my phone from my desk and dialed the plantation. "Plus, it fits with Liam's remark that Ivanna used men for her own purposes."

  She took a seat in front of my desk. "Are you calling him now?"

  I shook my head. "Delta."

  The phone went to voice mail, but I hung up and tried again. I certainly couldn't leave this kind of information in a message.

  "Oleander Place," Delta answered.

  "Delta, this is Franki," I replied. "I just figured out that Miles knew Ivanna."

  "We just figured that out too," she snapped.

  Something was wrong—I could feel it. I collapsed into my desk chair. "You knew he was helping her make that lip gloss?"

  "All I know is that this morning Troy found Miles inside one of the sugar cane kettles." She paused. "He's been murdered."

  20

  Hoping to stay below Delta's radar, I drove past the plantation and parked at the swamp. The second I got out of the car, the sight and smell of the fetid water brought me back to that fateful day with Bradley and Pauline. If I'd known then what I know now, I thought, kicking my car door closed, I might've let those gators gobble them up.

  I still couldn't believe Bradley had left me for Pauline. It seemed so out of character for him, and yet I'd seen them together with my own two eyes. He was a lying cheat like all the other men I'd dated, a true truffatore.

  I shook my head in an attempt to force him from my thoughts. Now wasn't the time to lament another lousy love. I had to keep my mind on the Jones case. My life literally depended on it.

  As I made my way along the shore to Oleander Place, I almost wished a gator would pull a Jaws and swallow me whole. At least then I could be sure that I wouldn't run into Delta. Because, at this point, I figured she was either going to fire me or kill me. And the latter option seemed particularly likely given that the suspects in the Jones case were dropping like characters in an Agatha Christie novel—specifically, And Then There Were None.