“Now that, young man, is entirely appropriate.” Mom pointed a finger at him with a smile on her face. “But let’s continue our toast to my lovely and determined daughter, Liana Margaret Alvarez. To Liana.”
Mom lifted her glass in my direction. Everyone followed suit with murmurs and exclamations of ‘to Lee’ or ‘to Liana’ with the exception of Reed.
“Who’s this Liana Margaret?” No one answered.
I smiled and swallowed down the apple juice. In no way is apple juice a replacement for a good glass of champagne. Just sayin’.
“Speech, speech,” yelled out Richard.
“Si,” Tío, said, applauding again. Everyone took up clapping. Embarrassed, I stood and cleared my throat.
“Well, gosh. Thanks a lot. I have no idea what I should say, other than that’s the last time I get on a boat, if I have anything to say about it.”
Everyone laughed and I warmed to the subject. I do have the touch of the orator about me, especially with a trapped audience.
“This time I was rescued by Gurn.” I turned and looked at him. “Thank you, sweetie.”
“My pleasure,” he said in a serious tone.
“But before that and not so long ago, I was knocked out and taken aboard a boat off the coast of Princeton-By-The-Sea. That go-round I was rescued by my mother – thank you, Mom - who lost a favorite pair of stilettos in the process. She still mourns the loss of those shoes.”
“Liana, I do not mourn their loss,” Mom said, correcting me. “Although I have yet to be able to replace them.”
She gave everyone a look that said she was making one of her rare jokes. We all laughed. Rustling occurred and I suspected I was losing my audience, but pressed on, anyway.
“Suffice it to say, water and I don’t seem to get along. We may have a short history, but it’s a damp one. So it’s the terra firma for me from now on. On dry land I seem to be able to take care of myself and I like being self-sufficient. Yes, yes. I know what you’re thinking, no man is an island. Or woman, either. Ha ha.”
I laughed. No one else did. I looked around at faces that had no idea what I was talking about. I sort of lost track of it, myself. I cleared my throat.
“But please let me say, I only did what had to be done. I’m no hero. As the great poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said --”
“Yes, yes. Thank you, Liana.” Mom stood, interrupting me. “You’re still recuperating, dear, and we don’t want you to use up all your strength. Why don’t you sit down?”
And taking the hint, I did. Mom smiled and became the ever-gracious lady once more.
“The Alvarez family welcomes Leticia Biggs and her grand-nephew, Jasper, to help celebrate this occasion. I believe Leticia also has something she would like to say.”
Mom took her chair again, gesturing to Mama Biggs. I might have known Mom would find out Barefoot Mama Biggs and Reed’s given names and blurt them out to the masses. She has a knack for that sort of thing.
Mama Biggs stood up, dressed for the occasion in a floor-length yellow and green dashiki embroidered in golden threads. It was exquisite. She was even wearing shoes on her feet, gold open-toed sandals in honor of the occasion.
“Thank you Lila, honey.”
Mom blanched but smiled. I don’t think my mother has ever been called ‘honey’ in her life, and certainly not when she was in the room. But it might have been payback time for Barefoot Mama Leticia Biggs. That would have been my call.
“I want to thank all of you for inviting Reed and me here today to help celebrate with your family.” She turned and addressed me. “If it wasn’t for you, Lee, my boy wouldn’t be with me. You saved my boy.”
She wiped a tear from her eye and brought up from under the table a beautifully wrapped box in a vibrant dashiki cloth in hues of purple and blue. A silken blue bow topped off the wrapping. She reached across the table, and handed it to me.
“This is for you.”
I took the box from her, and pulled at the luscious ribbon, thinking I would never part with it, maybe using it only on holidays as a collar for Tugger. The lid to the box came off easily, as it had been wrapped separately from the bottom. Beneath the soft, white tissue paper was the gorgeous Voodoo doll, complete with stand, from Marie Laveau’s collection.
“Mama Biggs! I thought you had a buyer for the doll. Why, this is a priceless heirloom.”
“Not as priceless as my boy, Missy.” She sat down and wrapped an arm around a grinning Reed. “And you close your pretty mouth now, except to say thank you, and take the gift like you should.”
I held the doll up, displaying it before the assembled. Ohs and Ahs filled the room.
“Thank you. I’ll treasure this forever, Mama Biggs.”
“You just keep those two cats of yours from eating it, that’s all.” The tone of her voice changed and became similar to the one she used to make sure Reed was practicing his music and not goofing off behind the palm trees. “I heard about them. Your own mama says they are as spoiled as they come.”
“They’re not spoiled, Mama Biggs,” I said with a big smile on my face. “They’re not spoiled, Mom,” I said as an aside to my mother.
“Yes, they are,” Mom said. “I found them on the kitchen table when we arrived at the safe house and they chased the dog into a closet.”
I leaned down and whispered, “That means nothing, Mom, nothing.” I straightened up and added in a louder voice, “Don’t you worry, Mama Biggs, I’ll put this beautiful reminder of New Orleans on a top shelf they can’t reach.”
“There is no shelf they can’t reach,” said Gurn, with a laugh.
“You’re not helping, sport,” I said.
“I think it would be much safer in the family home, Liana,” Mom said, “enclosed behind the glass doors of the dining room breakfront. I said as much to Mama Biggs earlier today when she showed me the remarkable piece of American heritage she insisted on giving you.”
“Oh, you did, did you? So that’s where this chitchat is going. Well, fat chance. You just want to have it at your place. And it’s not American heritage, for your information. It comes from the Caribbean. Ha ha. And the doll stays with me.”
I could have saved my breath. This is probably one of the reasons I am not a great orator or even a mediocre one. Nobody seems to listen to me for longer than ten seconds at a clip. Any further protestations I might have had were drowned out by Vicki’s off the charts cooing in appreciation of the doll.
“Oh, Lee! That is the more gorgeous thing I’ve seen in years. And the clothes! They’re so authentic. May I look at it more closely?” She reached over Richard and took it from my hands.
“Well, sure,” I said, “but I want to make it clear that this doll is not going….”
No one was paying attention to my feeble power play, so I shut up. Vicki examined the doll thoroughly then gave it to Richard. The doll got passed around to everyone at the table, with conversations, exclamations, and compliments bouncing off the rafters.
I was losing the battle to have it in my own apartment instead of the family digs, with each minute that ticked by. Sure enough, at Mom’s turn to hold and admire the doll, she slipped it into its box and set it by her side. My doll had been commandeered. The end.
I decided to be philosophical about it. Tugger doesn’t really eat stuff he shouldn’t and neither does Baba. Both are very culinary in their tastes. But they have been known to bat things around the apartment, especially things of interest. I’ve learned to keep my collection of handbags behind closed doors ever since I found my Judith Leiber Minaudier clutch in their litter pan. I don’t care to think about why they put it there.
While everyone was laughing and chatting, Reed got up, and came by my side, blushing. He was smartly dressed in a grey three-piece suit, the vest even holding a pocket watch. A perfectly tied, blue paisley bowtie completed the picture, showing a portent of the handsome man he would someday become.
After the doctors talked with and examined hi
m, they determined nothing happened other than what Reed had told me. Another few weeks of therapy and talking it out, they said, and he probably wouldn’t even need a nightlight in his room anymore.
Mama Biggs was another story. There’s no nightlight for the cuts and bruises on a parent or guardian’s heart. She said she’d stop walking him to and from school when he was about twenty-five. Sounded about right to me.
He stood at my side and I could tell Reed wanted to say something to me privately. I turned away from the table and gave him my full attention. Reed was hesitant at first, and then his words spilled out like water over a dam.
“I really am grateful you came after me and all. But I have to say, and I hope you don’t mind me saying this, what you do for a living is dangerous. At first I thought it was exciting, and I wanted to be a detective just like you. But I don’t think so now, when I look back on it. Why, we could have been killed.”
“Yes, we could have. This is why you have to stick to your clarinet lessons, study hard, and get a college degree, so you don’t have to do what I do.”
“But you went to college. You graduated from Stanford.”
“Yes, but there were extenuating…don’t pay any attention to what I…what I’m saying is….ah….don’t you want to eat your soup while it’s hot?” I pointed to the steaming soup tureens being set in the middle of the table. “Looks yummy.”
“Yes, ma’am, I do. And thanks again for saving my life, Lee.”
“Anytime. Don’t mention it.”
“Okay.” He scampered away.
The first course, wild snapping turtle soup, was being ladled into individual soup bowls with great showmanship by a very efficient older man who seemed to have done this sort of ladling out thing for much of his life. At that point, very little else was said and we concentrated on feasting.
Following the turtle soup, huge plates of the Commander’s Salad were placed before us with flourish. Hearts of romaine, slivers of parmesan, house made bacon, French bread croutons, grated Gruyère, smothered in a creamy black pepper dressing.
Undaunted, we moved on to the main course, Chicory Coffee Lacquered Quail with Fire roasted chili and cochon de lait boudin over smoky bacon wilted greens with Tabasco pepper jelly & sticky coffee syrup. Had I saved enough room for dessert? You betcha.
But before the dessert showed up, a waiter entered, came silently to my side, and thrust a folded note into my right hand. With a nod, he glided out of the room before I was hardly able to acknowledge him, let alone give him a reply. I read the hand-printed note with no signature.
Dear Ms. Alvarez, I would like to see you about the Rottweiler in your care. I’m sorry to disrupt you party, but I’m waiting out in the hallway.
Having watched this brief exchange, Gurn gave me a questioning look. I shook my head, kissed him on the cheek, and rose.
“Forgive me, I’ll be right back, everyone. I need to see a man about a dog.”
“Liana,” Mom said, in her best chiding voice. “You needn’t be quite so explicit as to why you are leaving the table. In particular --”
“No, really, Mom,” I interrupted. “I have to literally see a man about a dog. Someone is here to claim Manning’s Rottweiler. Tío, do you want to come with me?” I looked down at my uncle, whose expression of surprise matched my mother’s.
“Si, si.” Tío stood up and dropped his napkin to the seat of the chair. He continued talking as he came by my side. “I will not turn over the animal to just anyone. They will have to prove to me they have the right to have the dog returned to them. Leaving the pobre animal in a garage during a hurricane is not being a responsible pet owner.”
Drawing himself up to his full six feet tall, he took me by my good arm and we left together. I leaned into him.
“True, true, Tío, but were you planning on bringing Rocco back to Palo Alto with you?”
“Es posible. He is a good dog. I will not abandon him.”
“And no one wants you to. But what say we see what this is all about?”
Chapter Thirty-one
Some Things Come out In The End
We stepped into the hallway, where I found Detective Devereux waiting for us. Dressed in a dark blue suit and wearing a red tie, I’d never seen him look so well kempt. And he seemed nervous. This surprised me. Something was up. I noticed at his side, he held a faded, but thick parcel. There was a moment of silence. I was the first to break it.
“Is this your note? Why didn’t you sign it?” I waved the small paper in the air.
He gave me a hesitant grin. “Didn’t I? An oversight. Or maybe I didn’t because I wasn’t sure you would come once you knew it was me.”
“So the dog is just a ruse?”
He gave me a shrug before he said, “No. I’m here about the dog. But there is another thing that can’t wait. Not any longer.”
He hesitated again, this time on the word ‘another’. What the hey? I forged ahead. After all, dessert was waiting.
“Okay, you’ve piqued my curiosity. But Rocco is in the protective custody of my uncle, not me. He’s the one you need to speak with about the dog.” I turned to Tío.
“Si, I do not understand why someone is coming forward now to claim him, señor.”
Tío stood tall and unyielding. I suspected an unworthy claimant would have to pry the dog’s leash from his unconscious hands.
“Actually, nobody’s come forward for the dog, except me. Otherwise, he would go to the pound. I had a Rottweiler when I was a kid. They’re a great dog, gentle and kind. My kids - my boy, Donald, in particular - want a dog and I thought we could save this one. But of course, if you are going to put in a claim for the dog, that’s another thing.”
“Your son wants a pet? He is how old?” Tío started the grilling process.
“Donald is eleven, going on thirty. He plans to be a vet when he’s older; a big animal vet, horses, cows, you know. Right now he’s got six rabbits, a squirrel he’s nursing back to health, two parakeets and a cat. But he wants a dog. But look, Mr. Alvarez, if you plan on taking the dog with you to California, I won’t fight you on it.”
“Your Donald, he sounds like a good boy.”
“He is. He loves every four-footed creature on earth. Takes after his mother like that. She’s the same way. Last year we had a baby goat for a while. The mother refused to nurse him so my wife and Donald bottle-fed him every four hours for a month. Our backyard looks like a barnyard most of the time. But like I say --”
“You give me your address, Detective. I will bring Rocco by later this afternoon. If he likes Donald and Donald likes him, then the dog you may have.”
They both beamed at one another.
“That’s great.” Devereux reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out a card with his free hand. “Here’s my home number and address. We’ll be there the rest of the day.”
Tío took the card and extended his hand. The men shook on it. I stared at Devereux, waiting.
“Time for this other thing, Detective?”
“Yes, but I need to speak to you alone.” Devereux looked from Tío to me. “Please.”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s all right, Tío. I’ll be there in a minute.”
With a small look of concern crossing his face, my uncle walked down the hallway toward the dining room. I turned back to the detective.
“What’s up? And what’s with the good will and manners all of a sudden? You have yourself cloned or something?”
“Look, you’ve got a right to be on your guard a little --”
“A little?”
“But can we drop the tough act for just a minute? I’m here to set something right.”
“Should I alert the press?”
His lips tightened a bit. Whether it was my unyielding attitude or something else, I couldn’t tell. Nonetheless, he looked at me with what passed for sincerity. I decided to do as he asked.
“Okay. Tough act tabled for a minute. What’s on your mind?”
“First of all, there aren’t going to be any charges brought against your sister-in-law. I thought you’d like to know. Not by the FBI or New Orleans Police Department.”
“That means the nonsense about Vicki killing Bernie Gold has officially come to a close?”
He nodded. “I found out today there was a partial print of Manning’s on the wrench that killed Gold.”
“So the Powers That Be knew all along it had been Manning.”
“The FBI knew. We were never given that information. They were putting pressure on your family, hoping you would back off. Give them some time to find him themselves.”
“It didn’t work. What about my role in all this? You think I might be arrested somewhere down the line?”
Devereux shrugged, but took a step back. I took one back as well. The void between us increased.
“No body, no gun, Miss Alvarez. Very hard to prove you shot somebody. Especially, as the boy only heard one shot and saw Manning shoot you. He never saw or heard you fire. All Reed can remember was the man fell over the railing and tried to pull him overboard. You saved the child, with a bullet in your arm. You’re a heroine, even though some might say there are holes in your story big enough to drive a truck through.”
“Are you driving a truck, Detective Devereux?”
The detective shook his head. “Not me. I’m a sedan man, myself.”
He smiled at me. I smiled back. Some sort of truce happened, or maybe we lowered the sabers midway.
“Here’s something I thought was interesting.” His eyes narrowed in on me, even though his smile stayed in place. “Laura’s Folly washed ashore near Destin, Florida, day before yesterday. It was in pretty bad shape, but the Coast Guard says the boat is still worth a couple of mil, even in its current condition. It’s going up for auction in a week or two.”
“No kidding.”
“No kidding. The rest of Manning’s estate has been confiscated by the government, but according to my sources, the boat has some kind of deal connected to it. I understand Discretionary Inquiries was instrumental in its undertaking. All I know is the proceeds from the sale of the boat goes to the Manning children. Care to enlighten me as to how you pulled that one off?”
DEAD....If Only (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries Book 4) Page 25
