Franki Amato Mysteries Box Set

by Traci Andrighetti

  I slammed the car door.

  As I climbed into my Mustang, I wondered what in the hell I was going to say to the witch and what in heaven I was going to tell Bradley.

  When I stepped inside Erzulie's at eleven fifteen, over-caffeinated and under-rested, I thought that I'd entered the Age of Aquarius. Unlike the other voodoo and witchcraft shops in the French Quarter, which were fittingly dark and creepy, the shotgun-style store was a psychedelic mind trip of color. The walls were orange with purple trim, and pink paper lanterns dangled from the ceiling. Various tables and shelves were draped with turquoise and fuchsia glitter organza, and blue beaded curtains obscured a room in the back. Even the products on the shelves were colorful—yellow gris-gris bags, green spell candles, red voodoo dolls. The place looked like an LSD flashback to the 1960s, and thanks to the patchouli incense, it smelled like one too.

  As I looked around the room for a sales clerk, my eyes were drawn to a portrait of a woman hanging above a purple mantel serving as an altar. She had a short, orange and green Afro, which matched her striped, strapless dress, and her right hand was placed in the middle of her chest. A lavender snake was coiled around her left arm, and a large, red heart was suspended from her right earlobe.

  "That's Erzulie Freda, the Haitian Vodou goddess of love, sensuality, passion, pleasure, and prosperity," a regal female voice said.

  I turned to see an attractive thirtyish brunette in a teal silk Mandarin dress. "Sounds like someone I need to meet." But then I remembered learning about a vindictive voodoo goddess with a similar name during my first murder case. "She's not any relation to Erzulie D'en Tort, is she?"

  She smiled. "Erzulie D'en Tort is the Petro manifestation of Erzulie Freda. The Petro gods came from the New World and the West and are more aggressive than their benevolent Haitian counterparts." She gestured toward the altar. "If you like, you can get acquainted with Lady Erzulie by making her an offering. She prefers gifts of jewelry, perfume, flowers, cakes, and liqueurs."

  "What a coincidence," I said in a joking tone. "So do I."

  A corner of her mouth turned up. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

  "I'm looking for someone named Theodora," I replied, approaching the cash register.

  With a nod, the woman walked to the back of the room and slipped through the beaded curtain.

  While I waited, I wandered around the store. Erzulie's didn't sell any of the typical voodoo and witchcraft wares, like severed gator heads and chicken feet. Instead, the merchandise consisted of more upscale items, such as goat milk spiritual soaps and jewel-encrusted skulls.

  There were so many bright, sparkly items that I couldn't resist the urge to touch something. So I picked up a black-stained glass pentagram. Curious to see whether light would shine through the dark glass, I opened the door and held the pentagram up to the sun.

  "You're not thinking about taking off with that too, are you?" a familiar voice asked.

  I turned to face Theodora. She was wearing a yellow caftan with a necklace and earring set of green cat's eyes complete with slit pupil. Between her attire and her orange hair, purple eye shadow, and pink lipstick, she really blended in with the shop. "Don't worry," I said, returning the stained glass window to the display. "Pentagrams aren't my thing."

  "I actually like them, and I'm not even a Wiccan." She leaned forward and shielded her mouth with her hand. "Nothing against the Wiccans," she whispered, "but I don't believe in organized religion."

  "Ah ha," I said, taking a step backwards. "So, listen. I'm Franki and—"

  "Theodora," she interrupted, grabbing my hand and giving it a shake. "How'd you find me? Are you clairvoyant?"

  "Uh, no," I replied, suppressing a sigh. "I saw the box of spells from Erzulie's on your front seat and figured that you must be an employee."

  "Oh, I don't work here. I'm a freelancer." She pulled a business card from a pocket in her caftan and pressed it into my palm.

  I reluctantly read the card and saw that she was a "witchcraft consultant." Of course, I opted to ignore that little tidbit and focus on her lack of a last name. "Just Theodora, huh? Like Cher and Madonna?"

  "No, they have surnames," she replied, toying with her necklace. "When I was born we didn't have last names."

  I assumed a standoffish stance. I was a magnet for all the nutcases in New Orleans, and the last time I'd exchanged business cards with one of them, I'd ended up with a psycho psychic as my sidekick during a multiple homicide investigation at a plantation. "That's super interesting, but—"

  "Aren't you going to ask how old I am?" she interrupted, blinking.

  "U-um," I began, momentarily distracted by the discovery that her eyes were glowing green like her pendant, "my mother taught me never to ask a witch, er, a woman, her age."

  "Well, I don't mind telling you that I had a milestone birthday last week." She raised her chin, striking a pose. "I turned three hundred."

  And to think that I'd felt bad about turning thirty. "Wow," I exclaimed, searching for something sane to say. "You don't look a day over fifty-five."

  She touched her teased hair. "That's what I hear."

  I stared at the floor while I tried to wipe the stupor from my face. "So, aaanyway, I dropped by because—"

  "I know." She held up a hand. "We got off on the wrong foot yesterday–your foot on my gas pedal, to be precise—and you want to make amends."

  I scratched the back of my head. "Uh, about that—"

  "No need to apologize," she said, giving my forearm a squeeze.

  "Honestly, I wasn't—"

  "Shht!" She flapped her caftaned arms like yellow wings.

  I was starting to get annoyed. This witch wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.

  "The truth is, yesterday I was having a down day. I have SAD. You know, Seasonal Affective Disorder? And with spring around the corner, I'm prone to severe highs and lows."

  Awesome. Of all the witches I could've run into, I had to go and meet the one with serious mood swings. "Hey, no need to explain," I said, trying to keep her spirits on the upswing. "I just came to get—"

  "Help with the curse?"

  I cocked my head to one side. "No, my phone."

  "Well, why didn't you say so?" she asked, pulling my cell from her pocket.

  I swallowed bile as I took the phone and shoved it into my bag. This witch was not only a wacko, she was also just plain willful. I knew that I should have left right then and there, but my curiosity got the best of me. "What did you mean by that curse comment?"

  "It's obvious that someone has put a hex on you."

  Even if you knew nothing about my life, the events of the past twenty-four hours were compelling enough evidence to support her argument, no matter how deranged it may have sounded. "It is?" I asked against my better judgment. "How do you know?"

  She looked me up and down like I was the lunatic. "I'm something of an expert in these matters."

  I shook my head, trying to knock some sense into it. "No offense or anything, but I don't believe in curses or witchcraft."

  "If a witch had sent me to jail," she began in a droll tone, "I'd reconsider that position."

  I shot her a steely stare. "I think we both know that had nothing to do with a curse. And besides, it's not like I have any witch enemies. The people I know are more the malocchio, or evil eye, types."

  Her purple eyelids lowered. "You can put a curse on yourself, you know. If you wish someone harm, gossip about them, or call them names, those are curses that can boomerang back on you."

  I'm not going to lie—I felt a stab of panic upon hearing this news. But then I got hold of myself. "If that's the case then I'm cursed for life, and no witch in the world will be able to undo it."

  She crossed her arms, and her pupils turned to slits like the ones on her jewelry. "Try me."

  I pulled my bag in front of my chest in a defensive posture. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Or were hers? "Let me think on it," I gushed, making for the exit. "Now that
I have my phone back, I need to make a long-overdue call to my boyfriend."

  "Then know this," she said, pointing a yellow-lacquered fingernail at my forehead like a wand. "You'll never be able to have a healthy relationship until that curse is lifted."

  I started to tell her that if she knew my family then she'd realize that I could never have a healthy relationship anyway—curse or no. But I didn't want to provoke her. Her mood had taken a turn for the worse, and I wasn't sure what this witch was capable of. "I'll take my chances," I said as I pushed open the door. "Thanks for returning my phone, though."

  I hurried from the shop and turned down St. Ann where I'd parked my car, thinking about Theodora's eyes. That pupil thing had to be some kind of magic trick. I mean, what kind of sucker did that witch take me for? And as for the curse, the only thing to blame for my current wretched state was good old-fashioned bad luck—and my family and friends.

  I pulled out my cell to call Bradley. The screen was black, so I pressed the power button. Nothing. The battery was dead.

  Again, regular old bad luck. Right?

  I shoved my phone back into my bag and proceeded down the street. Then an eerie sensation came over me. It wasn't an I've-been-cursed feeling, because I knew that was nonsense. It was more of an I'm-being-followed feeling. I glanced over my shoulder, but all I saw were a few tourists. Still, something didn't seem right. So, when I reached my car, I wasted no time getting inside.

  And I told myself that the culprit was probably just the usual dark cloud hanging over me.

  3

  "Mannaggia a me," I muttered as I plugged my cell phone into the car charger and contemplated how to explain my stint in the slammer to Bradley. Then a stunning realization hit me—I'd just said "damn me" in Italian, which qualified as cursing myself. I resolved to stop doing that stat.

  The phone display lit up, and I scrolled through the list of missed calls. As I'd expected, most of them were from Bradley, and several were from my mother who was undoubtedly dying to find out whether I was engaged. But there were also a couple from Bradley's secretary, Ruth Walker.

  It wasn't unusual for Ruth to call since our relationship pre-dated her position with Bradley. We met while I was investigating the murder of her previous employer, Ivanna Jones, and it was instant, well, appreciation. She had an abrupt, judgmental demeanor, but she had an eye for detail and a mind like a Rolodex, which made her an ideal assistant. She was also approaching sixty and quite plain, which made her an ideal assistant for Bradley.

  Because I'd helped Ruth to get a job at Pontchartrain Bank, she'd taken it upon herself to keep me informed of certain goings on, and I didn't object. It wasn't spying—it was more like safekeeping. And if you knew even half the stunts Bradley's last secretary, Pauline Violette, had pulled, you wouldn't blame me one bit.

  My instincts told me to skip my messages and call Ruth ASAP. I slowed to a stop at the intersection of Dauphine and St. Peter and tapped her number. As a steady stream of tourists passed, I put the phone to my ear and spotted a salon called Vaxing for Vomen. Someone had obviously scratched off the first half of both w's from the glass door. But still. The sign made the services sound more than a little harsh, especially for something like a bikini wax.

  The phone rang once, and then someone picked up.

  "I heard you went to the cooler," Ruth boomed without bothering to say hello.

  "The cooler?" I repeated, imagining myself pulling a beer from an ice chest. Make that a bottle of Prosecco.

  "You know, the dungeon? The hole?"

  Now I knew what she meant. Unfortunately. "Why don't you just say 'jail'?"

  She snorted. "I pretty much did."

  I started to say something snarky but bit my tongue, because now I was more worried about whether word of my arrest was out at the bank. "Who told you I went to jail?"

  "Who do you think?" she barked. "After you no-showed at The Sazerac, Bradley panicked and asked me to help him call the hospitals."

  "Really?" Despite my guilt for making him worry, my heart swelled at the news of his concern. "That's so sweet."

  "Well, Lord knows it's not like you to miss a drink."

  That heart swell I mentioned? Shriveled right up.

  "Anyhoo," she continued, "he called me this morning and said you were in the pokey. Of course, I told him last night that we should've been calling the jails," she added in a lo-and-behold-I-was-right tone.

  I floored the gas and sped around some tourists. Not only was I sorry that I'd phoned Ruth, I was also regretting ever recommending her for the job. "Is this what you were calling on a weekend to tell me?"

  "Hell no. My weekends are too precious," she said as though mine weren't. "But there's some ugly business going on at the bank that we need to chat about away from the prying eyes and inquiring minds."

  I heard the sound of ice clinking in a glass, and I wondered whether she was drinking. Ruth never touched alcohol—that is, unless you counted digestives (she didn't). "What's the ugly business?"

  "You."

  "Me?" I glared at the phone. She'd better hope that she'd been hitting the bottle. "I don't even work there."

  "No, but your bank president beau does. And that new manager they transferred here from headquarters—Jeff Payne?" She gave a humorless chuckle. "Mark my words, he came to The Big Easy looking for more than a managerial position."

  I gasped. "You mean, he's after Bradley's job?"

  "Darn tootin'." She crunched a piece of ice.

  "That weasel!" I exclaimed. "But what does this have to do with me? It's not like I have a say in the hiring."

  "You could play a role in the firing, though."

  "How about you dispense with the riddles, Ruth?" I flipped on my turn signal and mentally flipped her the bird. "Then maybe I can take part in this conversation."

  She made a slurping sound followed by a sonorous swallow. "Do you even know what a bank president does?"

  "Yeah, he…presides." Okay, so I didn't know the specifics of what Bradley did for a living, but in my defense, we didn't see each other very often because of our work schedules. And when we did get together, we had better things to do than discuss his job duties.

  "There's a little more to it than that," she said as sarcastic as a classroom teacher at a home-schooling seminar. "The president is responsible for the financial well being of the bank and for its credibility with the community, staff, and board of directors."

  "And Pontchartrain Bank couldn't have a more honest, upstanding president than Bradley Hartmann," I said, pulling up to a red light.

  "I agree," she intoned. "It's his girlfriend that everyone is worried about."

  My heart sank. "Why? What have I done?"

  "Oh, I don't know...investigating the internal affairs of the bank, assaulting a bank employee, breaking and entering into the bank's security room, stealing bank information."

  By this point, my heart had sunk so low that it was sitting on my stomach. "But, I did all those things to protect Bradley," I protested. "And the bank."

  "The problem is that no one from the bank asked you to," she said, and I could practically hear the frown lines around her mouth permeating her pronunciation. "To make matters worse, Bradley didn't press charges that time he and the cop found you in the security room after hours. So now his credibility is in question."

  A car horn sounded behind me, startling me from my shock. I took a quick left and asked, "How do you know all of this?"

  She drained the rest of her drink with a loud straw-sucking sound. "I might have read a file on Jeff's desktop."

  "Does Bradley know?" I whispered.

  "He doesn't know that Jeff has a file about him on his desktop, but he's gotten the idea that you're a professional problem."

  My heart stopped.

  "Oh, blast and damnation," Ruth bellowed out of nowhere. "It's a quarter after twelve. I've got to get my popcorn popped and my Pimm's poured before the Judge Judy marathon starts. Meanwhile, you lay low, missy. B
ecause if you get in trouble again, you could cost Bradley and me both our jobs. And if that happens," she began, lowering her voice like a guillotine, "Central Lockup's going to seem like a sanctuary."

  The line went dead.

  I dropped the phone and gripped the steering wheel. My worst fear was coming true, but it was even worse than I'd thought. Someone was trying to prove that I was unsuitable for Bradley, so much so that he could lose his job over me (as for Ruth, she could fend for herself).

  Explaining my jaunt to jail suddenly got a whole lot harder.

  As I pondered my predicament, I merged onto I-10 West. A green Nissan Cube cut me off, and Theodora's pupils popped into my mind.

  And I started to wonder whether a person could actually be cursed.

  Napoleon pawed at the pillow covering my face.

  "All right, I'll call him," I huffed. "Can't a girl take an afternoon nap in peace?" I felt around for my phone on the nightstand.

  Of course, I knew my dog had no conception of the fact that I was stalling on calling my boyfriend. But Napoleon could sense when something was bothering me, and recently he'd taken to hounding me, so to speak, until I started acting normally again. Like a total cairn terror.

  After knocking the lamp and the alarm clock off my nightstand, I was able to find my phone. I pulled off the pillow and tapped Bradley's number.

  The call went straight to voice mail.

  I tossed the phone onto my hot pink duvet and stared at the matching canopy. My first thought was that the black, French bordello-style bed Glenda had picked out for my "boudoir" was so ugly that I seriously doubted whether a prostitute could get any action in it. And my next thought was that Bradley was so mad he was probably avoiding me.

  The phone rang, and I rushed to answer.

  "Before you say anything, Bradley, I want to apologize for—"

  "Francesca Lucia Amato," my mother's shrill voice scolded from the other end of the line. "What did you do to Bradley this time?"

  I pulled the pillow back over my face. Ever since the age of seven when I'd whacked my older brother Anthony over the head with his light saber for cutting my Totally Hair Barbie's long brunette locks, my mother had treated me like a delinquent. I'll admit that I could be combative, but it wasn't like I was a criminal—yesterday notwithstanding. "I didn't do anything to him, Mom." And that was the truth, but what I was about to say certainly wasn't. "Everything's fine."