Campari Crimson

by Traci Andrighetti

  I zombie-walked to the end of the yard.

  Bradley exited the car. And the style of his suit told me everything I needed to know.

  He was going back to work.

  I clenched my teeth and exhaled my contempt.

  “I don’t have long.” His tone was dead. “I’m on my way to the airport.”

  “From The Big Easy to The Big Apple so fast?” I quipped.

  His eyes went from brown to black, and he shoved fists into his pants pockets. “I just want to know why.”

  “Detective Sullivan and I weren’t on the balcony to make out, Bradley. That kiss was a complete surprise.”

  “Not to him it wasn’t.” His tone had come back to life, and it had a bite. “That bastard had it planned.”

  “Even if he did, he’s not the problem.”

  “And I am?”

  I looked at the grass. “You’re always at work.”

  “I’m trying to build a future for us.”

  “Meanwhile, I’m living in the present. And you’re not in it.”

  He pulled back as though he’d been punched. “Is that what you want? Me out of your life?”

  Outrage swelled my chest. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But it’s what you meant.” He turned and got into his car.

  “Oh, this is just perfect.” I marched in front of the hood. “You’re leaving. Like you always do.”

  He started the engine, backed up, and sped away.

  I watched his car disappear, maybe for the last time. I wanted to cry, but I was too incensed that he’d driven away.

  The sound of an engine made my heart accelerate.

  Had Bradley come back?

  A taxi pulled up with my brother in the back.

  In a way, I was relieved. I didn’t have anything left to say to Bradley. I’d told him the problem. It was up to him to respond, if he wanted to, of course. And I wasn’t sure he did.

  After paying the driver, Anthony exited the cab in a tight T-shirt and my Buffy the Vampire Slayer pants, which was fitting given that red was the only color I saw in that moment.

  “This is when you come home?” My pitch was shrill like my mother’s, and suddenly I understood her quite well. “Eleven a.m.?”

  “Eyyy, tone down the mom. I got a new lady, and I stayed at her place.” He strutted up the driveway toward the house.

  Anthony was the second man to blow me off in less than two minutes, and I was so done with that. “Don’t walk away from me. We need to talk.”

  “Yo, I ain’t got time. I’ve gotta crash before my shift tonight.”

  “I thought you stayed at a woman’s house?”

  “I did, but I wasn’t there to sleep, if you know what I’m sayin’.” He stepped onto the porch and kicked the piece of gutter he was supposed to have hung.

  If only the vampire protection kit contained a stake. “You need to hang that thing right now.”

  “I’ll get to it later, awright?”

  “It’s all right, not awright,” I shouted. “And no, it’s not all right.”

  He slammed the door.

  I strode to the gutter and, imagining it was both Anthony and Bradley, stomped it flat. Then I hurled it across the yard. And it hit the windshield of a black SUV that slammed on the brakes.

  Horrified, I rushed to the street to apologize and check for damage.

  The car was an unmarked police vehicle, and Sullivan was behind the wheel.

  He leaned across the passenger seat and pushed open the door.

  “Hey, I’m sorry—”

  “Get in.”

  There was a hard edge to his voice that matched his gaze. And I knew we weren’t going down lovers’ lane but on a highway to hell.

  I opened the door and climbed in.

  16

  Sullivan lowered his metallic shades. “Where’s your boy?”

  My behind had barely touched the passenger seat, so I wasn’t prepared for the question. “Bradley?”

  “I know he’s not around,” he drawled. “I was talking about your client, Josh Santo.”

  The comment struck me like a police baton, not only because Sullivan was spot on about Bradley’s absence, but also because I felt protective of him, regardless of our dating status. “Actually, you just missed him.”

  “Josh, right?”

  He exuded smugness, and I was determined not to let him win, even though I’d lost. “Wrong. Bradley.”

  “Well, from the way you launched that chunk of metal into the street, I’d say the two of you didn’t make up. Now what about your client?”

  Anger radiated from me like a heater, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that his kiss had been the breaking point in my relationship. “Josh called me an hour and a half ago, but he didn’t tell me where he was.”

  “So that was after he left his cell phone at home to evade arrest.”

  “You’re wrong about him. He didn’t do anything to Raven.”

  He removed his sunglasses. “Leave that to the police to decide.”

  I met his gaze. “Are you implying that I’m not smart enough to eliminate him as a suspect?”

  “I’m implying that we have information you don’t.”

  That wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear. “Can you clue me in on what it is?”

  “No, but I’ll clue you in on this. If I find out you’re hiding him, I’ll throw you in jail.”

  Despite the seductive scent of his cologne, the spell from the Bourbon Orleans balcony was broken, and so was my tolerance for his behavior. “Is this what you do after you make a pass at a woman? Pound your chest like a big ape?”

  “Exciting, isn’t it?”

  “Honestly, it’s appalling.” That was a partial lie. A certain amount of chest pounding could be appealing, especially if the chest being pounded was as ripped as the detective’s.

  “That’s because you’ve been ruined by that metrosexual boyfriend of yours.”

  “Bradley is not metrosexual.” I wished my high pitch didn’t make an interest in fashion sound negative. “He’s just…a bank manager.”

  He laughed through his nose. “Same thing. What you need is a touch of the Irish.”

  “Italian and Irish don’t mix.”

  “Sure we do.” He leaned close. “Like fire and fire.”

  I pressed myself against the door to escape his body heat. “You proved my point. That’s a combustive combination.”

  “It’s better than fire and water, which is what you’ve got now.”

  The analogy caught me off guard. I would have never admitted it to Sullivan, but that’s what Bradley had been lately—a splash of water, and a cold one. “Did you really come here to pry into my personal business when Craig and Raven are missing?”

  “That’s the difference between me and your boyfriend. No matter what’s going on in my professional life, I make time for the important things.”

  The implication that I was unimportant to Bradley hurt, and a veil of tears blurred my vision. I looked out the passenger window, and the veil began to lift.

  Because my nonna was on the porch, and she appeared to be aiming something at the car.

  I squinted. A tennis ball?

  Then I straightened and opened my eyes wide. That lunatic Sicilian was holding a lemon.

  The tears dried up, and so did my patience—for Nonna’s meddling, Bradley’s working, and Sullivan’s interfering. Oh, and my brother’s shirking. “Can I go now?”

  “You may not.”

  Stunned, I turned in my seat. “I must have misunderstood the stupid thing you just said.”

  “Nothing stupid about it. It’s called police work.” His stare was hard like his tone. “You’re going to stick with me until your boy calls again. And, obviously, I mean Josh.”

  I looked around, incredulous. “What if he doesn’t call? You expect me to sit in this car all day?”

  “Nah, we’ve got to drop by St. Cecilia Cemetery to see Phil Redman.”

>   “The caretaker? Uh-uh, no.” I shook my head hard. “That dude is weird.”

  “Maybe so. But the killer left us a message with the Greek Orthodox tomb, and we need to explore that further.”

  “What’s to explore?” I threw up my hands. “Gregg was Greek too. There’s your answer.”

  “We have to understand how it applies to the entire case.”

  “What we have to understand is the message with Todd Plank. Why was he left at the blood bank and not in a tomb?”

  “He could’ve been killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I tapped my fingers on my lips. “Or maybe there was bad blood between that vampire and Todd.”

  He gripped the steering wheel. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  “Not at all. I just don’t understand why the killer would knock off Todd when there were pints of blood waiting for the taking.”

  He shrugged. “Probably because Todd tried to stop the theft.”

  “Or it was a revenge killing.”

  “We’re looking into connections between the suspects and Todd, but so far we haven’t had any luck.”

  His phone rang, and he grabbed it as though it was a call from the Commissioner of Gotham City. “Sullivan.”

  I glanced at the porch.

  Nonna tossed the lemon into the air and caught it. And her smile told me there was some kind of Sicilian voodoo going down.

  I made a slicing motion, but not in reference to the citrus fruit.

  Then I looked across the street at Thibodeaux’s Tavern and longed to go in for a drink. And a charcuterie board with a cheese plank on the side.

  “That was the station.” Sullivan tossed the phone onto the console. “Raven hasn’t used her credit or ATM cards.”

  “She hasn’t been gone that long. Maybe she hasn’t spent any money. Or she used cash.”

  He slung me the side-eye. “With her purse and keys inside a ransacked apartment?”

  I didn’t respond. We both knew my hypothesis wouldn’t pan out.

  “Buckle up, Amato.” He slipped on his sunglasses and put the car in drive. “You and I have got a body to find.”

  “Phil’s around somewhere.” Sullivan stood hands on hips scanning the grounds of Saint Cecilia Cemetery. “Let’s check the back.”

  I followed him through the graves, and bits of rock and crumbling concrete crunched beneath my boots. But I refused to look down. I was too afraid those bits might be bones like the ones I’d seen the last time.

  I didn’t look up, either, because the giant tomb-top skeleton would be beckoning. Instead, I kept my eyes on Sullivan’s back and focused on not noticing how broad it was.

  And muscular.

  We snaked our way around a walk-in crypt, and I stopped, statue-like.

  Phil sat cross-legged with his back against the mausoleum wall, munching a turkey leg.

  And a shriveled mummy in a rotten suit stood next to him.

  “Got a lunch guest, Phil?” Sullivan asked.

  Phil patted the mummy, whose lack of lips made it appear that he was smiling from ear to ear. “Every so often one of our guests comes out and pays us a visit. Lying on one’s back for an eternity gets old, I would imagine. Perhaps that’s why Lionel Batiste, the jazz musician, asked to stand at his own wake.”

  I pulled the holy water gun from my purse and squeezed the trigger against my temple. To bless myself.

  “Detective, your friend looks a little peaked.”

  His friend? I thought. What about yours?

  “You all right, Amato?”

  “Mm-hm.” It wasn’t true, but I had to keep my mouth closed. The scent of decay was everywhere, and I didn’t want to swallow any dead guy spores.

  Sullivan flashed me a smile as wide as Phil’s lipless companion. Then he turned to our host. “We’ve got another missing person who might’ve met the same end as Gregg Charalambous.”

  Phil chewed a piece of turkey skin. “Unfortunate, that. But since his body was discovered, it’s been kind of dead around here.”

  I didn’t roll my eyes. I was too freaked out.

  “The name is Raven Smith.” Sullivan crossed his arms. “What does that tell you in terms of a tomb?”

  “Raven is from the Old English Hræfn,” Phil said, sounding like he was clearing his throat. “And of course Smith is also Old English. It comes from smitan, or smite, and refers to one who works in metal, such as a blacksmith. But I’m afraid we don’t have any Old English–style tombs in New Orleans.”

  Sullivan rubbed his chin. “I don’t have any information on her ethnic background, but I could get that for you.”

  Phil opened the mausoleum door next to him. Inside was a carboy for brewing beer that contained an ominous brown liquid. “Could I interest either of you in a pumpkin porter? I brewed it for the Halloween season.”

  Sullivan held up his hands. “On duty.”

  I shook my head, but it was to shake off the repressed scream that threatened to strangle me.

  “Shame you’re always working, Detective. Pardon the cliché, but you should live a little.”

  “I lived a little last night, in fact.” Sullivan cast me a knowing look.

  My face grew hot, and I avoided the mummy’s eye sockets. It wasn’t that I thought he was judging me, because he was way past deceased. I just thought the live a little comment was inconsiderate given the surroundings.

  Phil placed the turkey leg on his thigh and poured himself a beer. “Did Ms. Smith perhaps belong to any professional, religious, or social organizations? They have their own tombs all over the city. For instance, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 has The Italian Benevolent Society tomb and the Orleans Battalion of Artillery Tomb, but I don’t suppose either of those would fit.”

  I covered my mouth, still intent on not inhaling any dead guy. “She belongs to the New Orleans Vampire Organization where she works, but she used to be a nurse.”

  “You could try the Charity Hospital Cemetery, which now holds the Hurricane Katrina Memorial. But it was never intended for medical professionals, only for paupers and unclaimed bodies.”

  “That could be the place.” Sullivan turned to me. “Raven was an orphan.”

  Maybe that was why she’d joined NOVO. It had houses, which functioned like family.

  “There’s the Protestant Orphan’s Society tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2, but that’s for boys.” Phil pressed a finger to his glistening beard. “You might try the Poydras Tomb at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. It was for girls.”

  Sullivan nodded. “We’ll check it out.”

  Phil wiped his palm on his shorts and rose for a handshake, and I realized that he had a tattoo of bees on his knees to go with the cat in pajamas on his arm. It was beyond me how a crypt keeper could be so happy. Or a mummy, for that matter.

  “Let’s roll, Amato.”

  “Wait. What about Craig? Aren’t you going to ask about a tomb for him?”

  “Never mind that.” Sullivan pushed me toward the exit.

  “Drop by when you’re off duty, Detective,” Phil called. “I’m working on a French Morbier cheese that will go marvelously with this porter. It’s ash-ripened. Made with two batches of milk.”

  Ash-ripened? I picked up my pace. I had to escape the hellish cemetery deli before I got sick.

  A ring tone sounded, and Sullivan stopped behind me.

  I turned to wait. It was a different phone than the one he’d left on his console.

  “Excuse me a sec.” He stepped behind a mausoleum.

  I wasn’t sure whether it was his ex or another cop, but I wanted to find out. I crept to the grave and listened.

  “Rourke.” Sullivan’s voice was low, but Craig’s last name resounded in my ears.

  I walked around the side to confront him. “Why were you talking about Craig?”

  “I wasn’t.” He slipped the phone into his pocket.

  “You said Rourke.”

  “O’Rourke. He’s a colleague, and
we’re throwing him a retirement party.”

  I was dismayed by how easily he lied. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on with Craig.”

  “We’re not looking for him, remember? We’re looking for Raven on the off chance there’s still time to save her. Now come on.” He walked past me.

  I stayed behind. “I meant what I said. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where Craig is.”

  “You’re acting like a spoiled brat.” He moved toward me.

  I leapt backward into a crypt and jumped like I’d been scorched. It was one of those pizza-oven types Phil had told me about.

  Sullivan scooped me into his arms. “Gotcha.”

  I struggled. “If you want to live, you’ll put me down.”

  “I will when I put you in the car.”

  He strode through the cemetery as though my 170 or so pounds were a bag of raked leaves.

  His strength was surprising. And I stopped resisting. I’d been lonely, and a little human contact was nice at a cemetery, especially when it came from a strong manly chest.

  We arrived at the entrance, and he kicked the gate open.

  The squeaky slasher soundtrack sound shook me from the spell.

  Once again I was reminded of Dracula’s ability to seduce and enthrall his victims. Was Sullivan doing that intentionally to keep me from asking any more Craig questions?

  And is that what the killer had done? Seduce and enthrall the victims?

  Tachycardia wreaked havoc on my heart as I passed beneath the arched Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 sign. I’d been there for a previous case, and I didn’t relish being back to look for a vampire victim. “Do you know where this tomb is?”

  Sullivan closed the wrought-iron gate. “No idea. You want to split up?”

  “Leave me alone in this place, and I’ll bury you in it.”

  He chuckled, but I didn’t laugh. I was busy scouring the grounds. Although the cemetery was in the posh Garden District, it was no less eerie or unsafe than its poorer counterparts. Among its creepy credentials, Anne Rice had chosen it for Lestat and Louis’s roaming grounds, and she’d staged her own glass-coffined funeral there to publicize a book. Even more disturbing, it was the site of music videos by LeAnn Rimes and New Kids on the Block.