Campari Crimson

by Traci Andrighetti

  I’d about had it with the sanguine scares. Nevertheless, it was good to be prepared. “Could you elaborate?”

  “It’s a red eclipse that causes blood moon fever in vampires.”

  I went to the couch and lay down. “I’m going to need you to tell me what that is first.”

  “It coincides with the eclipse, so it lasts up to three days and increases vampires’ lust for blood.” She lowered her brow and scrunched her face, like a killer Kewpie doll. “They’ll hunt you with a ferocious intensity, and if you try to escape, they’ll become enraged and plunge their fangs into your veins and suck you drier than a mummy.”

  On second thought, it wouldn’t hurt to hear Gregg out. “What did the spirit say, exactly?”

  Chandra crossed her legs and bounced a boot. “Well, he’s beside himself, as you can imagine, so I didn’t get every word. But there was one thing he said over and over again.”

  I waited, but apparently Gregg’s message had fallen into a void in space. “And that is?”

  Her eyes grew as big as Jupiter. “Bros before hos.”

  My lips curled, and I considered pulling the saturnine belt from her waist and strangling her with it. The phrase was something a frat guy would say, but it also smacked of someone jerking my crucifix chain. “Why are the spirits you talk to always so vague about the details of their deaths? I mean, how come Gregg didn’t just tell you who killed him instead of stringing us along?”

  “He’s trying to protect his fraternity brothers.” She fluffed her hair in a huff. “There’s a real vampire out there who could seek revenge on them.”

  “Drop the supernatural shmatter, okay?” I sat up, annoyed. “Even you know vampires aren’t real.”

  “That’s what they call themselves, ‘real vampires,’ as in flesh and blood.”

  That left a bad taste in my mouth. “Yeah, theirs and other people’s.”

  She pointed at me, producing an ominous jingle. “You joke, but there’s a huge community in New Orleans. And in Buffalo.”

  Hollywood, sure. But Buffalo?

  “And they’re very active.”

  I cringed. “You say that like they’re community-oriented or something.”

  “They are.” She pulled a phone from her Chanel bag. “If you don’t believe me, look up the New Orleans Vampire Association. They do lots of charity work, like feeding the homeless.”

  That sounded all kinds of wrong. But Anthony was kind of a charity case, so it was possible that this crowd would latch on to him—with their teeth.

  “And they have annual vampire balls during Halloween,” she said, “similar to the one Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat Fan Club puts on.”

  Certainly not my scene, but a gathering of vampires could be useful for identifying suspects. “Do you know any of the names?”

  “Endless Night is a big one, and there’s the Blood Lust Vampire Ball.”

  After learning about blood moon fever, I planned to pass on the latter.

  “Oh, and…what’s it called?” Chandra did a search on her phone and held up the display. “Here you go. The Crimson Cotillion.”

  The crimson hit me like a meteor.

  Was there a connection between the cotillion and Gregg’s dying message?

  “Sure you don’t want the vampire experience?” The sixty-something owner of Where Dat Tours pushed a brochure through the slot beneath the ticket booth window. “You can spend twenty-four hours living like one of the bloodsuckers, including sleeping in a real coffin.”

  From my position on the river walk, I saw a steamboat sailing up the Mississippi, and I was tempted to dive into the water and swim after it. “Just the names and addresses of the people who took the Saturday night tour.”

  “Your loss.” He took a bite of a chicken parmesan po’ boy glistening with grease, like his skin, and tossed it onto the wrapper. “Our intensive tour might help you solve your case.”

  His comment reminded me of Sullivan’s recommendation that I study local vampire legends—and of how important it was not to talk with your mouth full. “What time does the next Vampires and Victims group leave?”

  “At midnight.” He sucked tomato sauce from his thumb.

  “I’ll take a ticket.” I pulled a couple of twenties from my wallet. “But that’s awfully late.”

  He took the bills and pocketed one of them for the information I’d requested. “We have to wait till the vampires come out.”

  Normally, I would’ve smirked at the line, but evidently it was true for New Orleans. And Buffalo.

  “Give me a minute to get you those names.” He passed me a ticket. “In the meantime, meet your tour guide.” He cast a leery look over my shoulder. “And keep her outta my hair.”

  That would be easy since he hardly had any. I looked behind me and did a double take. The head hippie from the sit-in, Pam, was strolling up the river walk with her dachshund, Benny. She wore a macramé halter-top, striped hip-huggers, and daisy sunglasses, while Benny sported Pam’s peace-sign shades—and a rainbow headband.

  I turned to the owner. “You do have me down for the vampire tour, right?”

  He gave a tired nod. “Looks like a bad flashback to Haight-Ashbury, don’t she? But she ain’t from San Francisco. More like Mars.”

  Pam cut in front of me and put Benny and an old pair of loafers on the counter. “You got my scratch, Marv? I need to get my Earth shoes resoled.”

  I assumed scratch was money, but I was confused about the Earth shoes. They looked like they should’ve been buried, not given new life.

  “You gotta get in line. I’m helping this PI.” He jerked a thumb in my direction. “She’s investigating that guy from your tour who got his blood drained.”

  Pam lowered her daisies. “A brunch eater, crawdad killer, and PI? Karma’s gonna sock it to you.”

  “It just did.” I locked my eyes on her like a laser pointer. “Anyway, I came to ask you a few questions.”

  “I talked to the fuzz last night.” She leaned against the counter. “And I was working when the stiff took my tour, so you’ll have to talk to Benny about what went down.”

  My gaze dropped to the dog and back to her. “Come again?”

  She patted Benny’s head-banded head. “This boy doesn’t miss a beat. Problem is, he only speaks Bulgarian.”

  Marv was right about the Mars thing. This woman was far out, as in spacey. “That’s okay. I prefer the human perspective, anyway.”

  “Whatever bakes your brownies.” She pushed up her daisies.

  “Here’s your list, lady,” a Scooby Doo voice said.

  I jumped and stared at Benny, whose paw rested on a sauce-stained sheet of paper.

  Marv rose from below the counter with a grin. “Like how I did that?”

  I replied with a side-eye and then scanned the names. Besides Gregg, Craig, and Domenic, I didn’t recognize any of them. “What can you tell me about the victim and his two frat brothers?”

  Pam picked up Benny and sat sit-in style on the grass. “They were crooked.”

  So she’d noticed something suspicious too. “How so?”

  “They couldn’t stand up straight.”

  I cocked my head and scrutinized her face. Either this chick was way-out or I was way-off. “Why’s that?”

  “Because they were crooked.” She waved her arms like she was doing the Hippy Hippy Shake. “You know, stoned? Blitzed? Drunk?”

  I joined her on the ground. Our rap sessions were exhausting. “What about the others?”

  She took the list. “Drea and Dale Bacigalupi spent the whole time hassling with their kids. And this Raven Smith chick came alone. So did Thomas Van Scyoc, but the dude was a total loner. Every time I looked at him, he was checking out my neck.”

  That got my attention. “Were you wearing a necklace?”

  “My Why-be-rude-when-you-can-be-nude charm. It’s battery operated, so it blinks.”

  Nothing eye-catching about that. “Who else took the tour?”

&n
bsp; “The only other one was Linda West. I really dug her. She’s a manager at Pharmanew, but she’s got a groovy plan to take it in a holistic, anti-aging direction.”

  I knew the company. It was a leader in the pharmaceutical industry in the central business district downtown.

  “Anyway, a girlfriend canceled on her, but Linda was rip city.”

  I imagined teeth tearing into flesh. “What do you mean by rip?”

  She gave a sad headshake. “I mean she’s a gas, man. Like ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’?”

  I sighed. If I questioned Pam again, I was going to need an interpreter fluent in hippie. Or Bulgarian. “Let’s go back to Mr. Van Scyoc. Anything else you can tell me about him?”

  She handed me the list. “When he introduced himself, he mentioned that he runs Belleville House, the old fogies’ home on Royal.”

  “Good to know.” Bayou Cuisine was on the same street, so I could stop by before cooking class. “Hey, does the phrase Campari Crimson mean anything to you?”

  “Reminds me of Mellow Yellow or Kozmic Blue.”

  I was pretty sure those shades hadn’t made the color wheel. “Great. Well, I’m coming on your midnight tour, so if you remember anything else, you can tell me tonight.” I stretched out my legs. “Oh, and before I forget, do you cover the story of the Compte de Saint Germain?”

  Pam leaned back on her hands. “All the way to 1983.”

  “Do you mean 1903? When he showed up in New Orleans?”

  “I’m talking about the count’s last-known alias, Richard Chanfray. He supposedly committed suicide in St. Tropez in 1983.”

  Josh hadn’t mentioned that part of the de Saint Germain story. “But if he died, then obviously he was a mere mortal and not a centuries-old vampire.”

  “Who said he croaked? They never found his body, just a suicide note.” She plucked a wildflower and slipped it into her hair. “I figure the count pulled another one of his disappearing acts and is still out there doing his blood-sucking thing, maybe even here in New Orleans.”

  I gave her a get-real look.

  “If you don’t believe me, look Chanfray up.” Pam stood and brushed off her hip-huggers, and Benny stood and shook. “I gotta bug out.”

  You already have.

  After she’d split, so to speak, I crossed the train tracks that ran along the river and entered the French Quarter. As I made my way to Royal Street, I googled the counterfeit count. A 1970s photograph of Chanfray popped up juxtaposed with a painting of the real count from the court of Versailles.

  And my blood ran as cold as the waters of the Mississippi.

  Chanfray was the Compte de Saint Germain’s doppelgänger.

  But he was also a dead ringer for Josh Santo.

  A petite middle-aged nurse entered the lobby of Belleville House in a uniform eerily similar to Nurse Ratched’s in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “Mr. Van Scyoc is ready for you.”

  The “ready for you” was unsettling, especially considering that the name Belleville and its sterile, rundown atmosphere evoked New York’s infamous Bellevue psych ward. Nevertheless, I suppressed my lobotomy fears and followed her down a hallway. Both the wallpaper and the laminate floor were yellow—not mellow, but medicinal. And the nostril-stinging odor of ammonia didn’t help the ambience.

  The nurse opened an unmarked door that made an ominous creak. She gestured for me to enter. “Ms. Amato.”

  “Thank you, Sylvia.” The thirty-something male behind the desk spoke in a subdued, lugubrious tone as though we were in a funeral home rather than a retirement home. Adding to the macabre mood, he was thin and deathly pale. “Come in. And close the door.”

  I hesitated because it seemed like a setup. The walls were bare, and the only thing on the desk was a large computer monitor, making the office seem staged.

  Reluctantly, I shut the door, and it creaked a final warning. I took a seat in a folding metal chair, but I kept my feet planted firmly on the dingy tile floor in case I needed to bolt. “As we discussed on the phone, I’m here to ask you about the vampire tour you took on Saturday night. But first, I was wondering whether the police have questioned you about the death of Mr. Charalambous?”

  He flipped his dishwater-blond bangs to one side and folded his hands on the desk. “Yes.”

  I waited for him to continue, but he appeared to be waiting for me. “Well, could you tell me if you noticed anything unusual about anyone on the tour, including Mr. Charalambous?”

  “I did.”

  Had working with the elderly slowed this guy down? I scooted my chair closer to his desk, trying to instill a little life into him. “How about I run through the list of attendees, and you give me your impressions?”

  “No need. We had name tags.” He fixed his slanted blue eyes on me and sat motionless, so much so that he didn’t blink.

  Irritation invaded my chest. Why couldn’t I catch a break on just one of these interrogations? “What can you tell me about the victim and his fraternity brothers?”

  His smile was cordial, like I’d inquired about his relatives or friends. “They were fine.”

  “And the Bacigalupi family from Utah?”

  He smacked his lips and nodded. “Them too.”

  An alarm went off on his watch.

  He reached into a desk drawer and produced a plastic container. “Would you like half a peanut butter sandwich or some mashed potatoes?”

  “Oh, I already ate.” I was ravenous, but I’d have sooner taken meds from the man than eat his peanut butter and potatoes.

  Thomas pulled out his sandwich. “Can I ask you something?”

  “That would be terrific,” I gushed, overexcited about the prospect of a two-sided conversation.

  “If Gregg had his blood drained through holes on his wrist, why are you questioning me and not that woman with the Mardi Gras boa he was talking to?”

  How he’d made the connection between blood loss and a feather boa I did not know. “I plan to meet with everyone from the tour. But are you talking about Linda or Raven?”

  “Raven.” He popped a piece of bread crust into his mouth.

  “What about her?”

  He chewed and studied his sandwich. “She had white-blue eyes with pinpoint pupils. And fangs.”

  I stared at him, thinking I hadn’t heard correctly. “Like, prominent canine teeth?”

  “No, I have those.” His gaze rose to meet mine. “What I mean is, why is everyone asking me what happened to Gregg when you guys could ask the vampire?”

  I felt faint, like I’d been drained of blood, and questions hung over me like dark shadows.

  How many vampires were involved in the case?

  And would someone else die during the blood moon?

  If so, was it Anthony?

  Or, despite Veronica’s guarantee, could it be me?

  7

  “But I taught-a you how to cook-a.” The outrage in my nonna’s voice threatened to reach through the phone and shake some sense into me. “Why you wanna take a class-a?”

  Since I was standing in the kitchen classroom at Bayou Cuisine with Lou and two female students, I couldn’t tell her I was on a case. “I thought I’d learn how to make something besides Italian.”

  Silence. Like the calm before the sirocco that scorched Sicily in summer.

  The receiver struck a hard surface.

  She’d either dropped it in dismay or thrown it in disgust. To Italian grandmothers, eating other ethnic foods was the culinary equivalent of attending a non-Catholic service, and that was a sin more serious than blasphemy. “Everything okay, Nonna?”

  “I smack-a the phone because I can’t-a smack-a you. You’re throwing your life in-a the trash.”

  I grimaced and glanced at the salvaged ingredients next to my mini stovetop. She didn’t know how right she was.

  A middle-aged male entered in a toque blanche and white double-breasted jacket. He took his place at the kitchen counter facing the class and checked his utensils.

&
nbsp; “The chef’s here. I’ve gotta go.”

  “I save-a some arancini for you. You’re gonna need-a real food.”

  She was right about that too. I might’ve been throwing my life in the trash, but that didn’t mean I had to eat it. “Don’t bother. You should invite Santina over because I won’t be home until after midnight.”

  “No! You got a date-a?”

  I didn’t appreciate the implication that I would cheat on Bradley, much less her shock at the idea that someone might have asked me out. “Obviously, I meant work.”

  “All work and-a no play make-a Franki a zitella.” She spewed sarcasm like water from a spaghetti strainer.

  And her use of the Italian word for old maid rubbed me raw like a parmesan cheese grater. “Um, zitella is not part of the expression. You’re supposed to say I’m ‘a dull girl.’”

  “That goes without-a sayin’.”

  A lot of things went without-a sayin’, but that had never stopped the woman before. “See you tomorrow, Nonna.”

  I ended the call and shoved the phone into my bib apron pocket. The talk about work reminded me that I had to do some, i.e., size up the sabotage suspects. I’d positioned myself between Lou and Michele Guffey, a short brunette with blue Manga-girl-sized eyes. Next to Michele was Sara Pizzochero, who was blonde, blue-eyed, and lean, not like a bimbo but a black belt. The competitive type.

  “Bonsoir, new student.” The chef approached my station and took a long, loud slurp from a CC’s Coffee go-cup. “I’m Chef Guenat, but everyone calls me Chef Mel.” He flashed an LA smile—Los Angeles, not Louisiana—to match his accent. “I’ve been here for twenty years, except for a brief layoff, so it would be silly to call me by my last name. And Mel is swell.”

  Great. Instead of the Crazy Cajun, I get the Kooky Californian. “Uh, yeah.”

  He returned to the front of the room. “Tonight the menu is red beans and rice and cornbread with honey. By the way, Mel is like miel, which is French for honey, so it’s like you’re adding me to the recipe.” He gave a happy laugh.

  No one laughed with him.

  “Now let’s get cooking.” He chuckled, pleased with the pun. “Speaking of cooking, it’s a science, and precision is key to flavor.”