1 Limoncello Yellow

by Traci Andrighetti

  "May I help you?" she asked in a heavy accent. I quickly glanced at the name on her nameplate—Corinne Mercier—to confirm my suspicion that she was French. New Orleans, I knew, was a popular city among French immigrants because of its historical ties to France.

  "Yes, I'd like to make a withdrawal, please." I slid my withdrawal slip toward her. "I haven't gotten my ATM card yet."

  She looked at me. "Oh, mademoiselle, I am so sorry. Are you new to the bank?"

  I noticed that her big blue eyes were rimmed with red like she'd been crying. Guessing that she was having man trouble, I sympathized. "Yeah, I just moved here from Austin to take a job as a private investigator. Where are you from?"

  "I come here from Toulouse to start a new life. My mother, she is américaine, but I was raised in France."

  "Really? I moved here to start a new life too. Besides getting a new job, I wanted to get away from my cheating ex-boyfriend."

  "Ah! My boyfriend, Thierry, he cheat too! I come home yesterday, and I find him wis a woman." She struggled to enter my transaction into the computer as her eyes welled up with tears.

  "I'm really sorry to hear that. The same thing happened to me. I'm Franki, by the way. You're Corinne, right?"

  She nodded, wiping her nose with a tissue. "You too? Men! Zey are so…so…volages, non?" She blew her nose with a very un-Tinker Bell-like honk, and then handed me my money from the teller cash dispenser.

  "Exactly." I put the money into my wallet. I had no idea what she'd just said, but I agreed with the tone of her voice one hundred percent. "All they think about is sex! You know, I really believe the old saying that a man thinks with his penis is true."

  As I was speaking, Corinne's big blue eyes suddenly got even bigger, and then she started fiddling with her pixie-style blonde hair. At first I thought it was because I was coming on a little strong for a stranger and all, but then her eyes darted to something—or someone—over my right shoulder. I turned around and saw one of the most handsome men I've ever seen in my life. He had dark brown hair, a chiseled jaw, and a sensuous mouth.

  "Is this yours, miss?" he asked.

  He was holding up my birth control case—with an annoying twinkle in his eye. I must have dropped it when I was standing in line digging through my bag for the pen I'd used to fill out my withdrawal slip. I felt like my whole body was turning red with embarrassment. Not only had he probably heard my cutting remarks about men, but now he also knew I was having sex with at least one of them.

  I realized that I'd been staring at him slack-jawed. I closed my mouth and swallowed hard. "Oh, gosh! Those? They belong to a friend. I'm just holding them for her." I laughed falsely and added, "While she's out of town." I'd never been one to stop while I was ahead.

  He flashed a devious smile. "I'd better check the pharmacy label on the back to be sure. It says they were prescribed to—"

  "Don't read that," I snapped, snatching the package from his hand. "You wouldn't want to violate the HIPAA Privacy Rule."

  "Certainly not. My apologies," he said with a mock bow. "To your friend, of course."

  Clearly, he was enjoying this.

  I pretended to check the label. "They're hers, all right," I said, shoving the pills into my bag. "Thank you, Mr.…?"

  "Hartmann. Bradley Hartmann," he replied—not unlike James Bond. My Bond-loving priest friend would no doubt be impressed. "I'm the president of the bank." He reached out for a handshake. "Your name is Francesca, right?"

  So he did read the back of my birth control case, I thought. Fab. Just what my life needed—more men who delighted in humiliating me. "Franki," I replied through the heat in my cheeks. "Franki Amato."

  "I heard you tell Miss Mercier that you haven't received your ATM card yet. Why don't you let me look into that for you?" He flashed a dazzling smile, and I felt my knees grow weak despite myself.

  "Mais non, Mr. Hartmann. I will help Miss Amato," Corinne said.

  That's all right, Corinne. I'll take care of Miss Amato," he said, placing a hand firmly at the small of my back.

  Hmm. The way his eyes were still twinkling, I couldn't tell if he was flirting with me or still mocking me.

  "Call me Franki," I said automatically.

  "Okay. Franki," he said, a smile curling at his lips.

  Yep, definitely flirting. Though the way those blue eyes framed in thick dark lashes were staring intently down at me, I wasn't sure I really minded.

  I attempted a little flirt-back of my own, doing a spontaneous Veronica-style bat of my eyelashes that promptly dislodged my right contact lens.

  "Are you okay?" he asked. "Your eye is tearing up."

  "Oh, it's nothing," I said, trying to look composed as my contact sent little stabs of pain into my eye. "Just something in my contact."

  He nodded. "Okay, good. Well then, I'll find out what's going on with your ATM card and give you a call."

  "Great." I flashed him a Julia Roberts smile that probably ended up looking more like that of The Joker. By this time the pain from my contact was shooting straight into my brain.

  As I turned to leave the bank, I worried that Bradley might be checking me out from behind. So, in a desperate attempt to cover my oversized backside, I slung my woefully small handbag behind me and walked serpentine-style toward the door, stopping and turning to one side every so often to feign admiration for a plastic plant or an employee-of-the-month plaque on the wall.

  Ironically, however, when I got outside in the bright sunshine and popped my contact lens out of my eye, things came more into focus. Bradley was more than likely just being friendly to me to get me out of the bank. I mean, there probably weren't too many bank presidents who would welcome clients who talk loudly about men, sex, and penises while leaving a trail of birth control behind them.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I walked the short distance down Canal Street from the bank to LaMarca, with its signature Italian white marble sign with the gold logo. Thanks to the police report, I had the name of the salesgirl who'd found Jessica Evans' body: Annabella Stevens. Veronica had told me that if I introduced myself to her as a private investigator, she probably wouldn't give me the time of day.

  Apparently, a lot of people won't talk to PIs because they're not the police, which is ironic when you consider that a lot of people won't talk to the police either. And, in all probability, LaMarca management had advised its employees not to discuss the crime with its customers. So, the plan was to find out whether Annabella was still working for LaMarca and, if she was, to approach her on the pretense of needing assistance with selecting a scarf for my mom. With any luck, I would be able to glean some information about the crime.

  When I grasped the handle of LaMarca's glamorously tall glass door, I realized that my palms were sweating. This was my first real undercover assignment—rookie cops weren't allowed anywhere near detective work—and I was nervous. So, I did what any female PI would do as I entered the elegant store: I summoned Nancy Drew's cool-headed sleuthing techniques from the dark and murky depths of my adolescent reading memory.

  Once inside, I immediately spotted the scarf department where Jessica's body had been found. Four, long, shoulder-height scarf racks were positioned in the shape of a square in the center of the room. On all four sides of the racks, there were glass cases displaying jewelry, wallets, and other accessories, and the walls were lined all the way to the ceiling with multiple rows of handbags of varying colors and shades. The ceiling itself was covered with ornate gold decorative elements like those of a Catholic Church. For a moment, I was breathless with emotion—not because I was at the scene of the crime, mind you, but because I was busy worshipping all those glorious LaMarca bags.

  "May I help you?" a blonde Amazonian salesgirl asked, her booming voice startling me out of my fine leather–induced stupor.

  I jumped like a jackrabbit and glanced frantically at her nametag. "No thanks, Svetlana. I'm just looking." Then, without giving her a chance to respond, I scurried to the scarf ra
cks. Nancy Drew, I realized, would have never acted so stupid.

  In the scarf department, I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the task at hand. I knew I should be looking for any clues related to the crime, but I had no idea what those might be. As I gazed at the beautiful silk scarves, the image of a vibrant young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair lying strangled to death popped into my mind. Again I wondered why the killer had strangled her with a scarf from another store when there were so many scarves right at his or her fingertips. Had Ryan Hunter or another male admirer brought the scarf to Jessica as a gift and then used it to strangle her during an argument? Or did the scarf belong to a woman who'd removed it from her own neck to strangle Jessica?

  And was it irony that she'd been strangled with a cheap polyester scarf in a sea of expensive silk? Or was it some kind of message?

  "Can I help you with something?" I heard an annoyingly chipper voice ask from behind me.

  I turned to see a chubby young girl with hazel bug eyes and Shirley Temple curls in a Lucille Ball red straight from the bottle. She was wearing a white, short-sleeved angora sweater, a black poodle skirt, and a pink scarf knotted around her neck: an astonishingly 1950s look for someone who worked in contemporary fashion. Her nametag told me her name was Annabella. Bingo, I thought. I willed myself to remain calm. "Yes, I'm trying to find a scarf for my mom, but I'm overwhelmed by all the options."

  My words sounded fake and stilted to my ear, but the 1950s pinup girl didn't seem to notice.

  "I can help you with that!" she replied overenthusiastically. "I just love scarves. What color did you have in mind?"

  "Yellow," I said firmly, waiting to see her reaction. Even though Annabella had an airtight alibi—she was in the emergency room with a nasty case of the hives at the time of the murder—my instincts told me that she knew more about the situation than she had shared with the police.

  Annabella's bulging eyes opened even wider for an instant, then she regained her composure. "What a lovely choice," she said stiffly. She beckoned me to follow her to another rack.

  As she sifted expertly through scarves in hues of amber, gold, and yellow, I not-so-casually remarked, "I'm so glad your scarf area is open. I wasn't sure it would be…after the murder."

  "LaMarca is open three hundred sixty-five days per year." Annabella chirped without missing a beat. Then she looked me in the eyes and added in a low voice, "Actually, we were open for business later that same day."

  "Wow, now that's customer service!" I exclaimed, searching for something innocuous to say. I sensed that she was the gossipy type, so I decided to try winning her trust with flattery. "By the way, I just love your look! You should be on TV, you know that? You just have that glamorous quality about you."

  Annabella blushed furiously. "That's what I'm always telling everyone, but Svetlana is always telling me I look dowdy!"

  "I can't believe that!" I lied as I began looking through the scarves. Then I asked, nonchalantly, "Did you know her? The woman who was strangled?"

  "She was our manager," she whispered, her eyes darting furtively from side to side to make sure no one was in earshot. "Her name was Jessica Evans."

  By this time, Annabella had stopped searching through the scarves and had draped her arm casually over one of the racks. My compliments seemed to be taking effect—she was clearly in the mood to talk murder, so I pressed on. "What was Jessica like? I mean, was she as stylish as you? I'm asking because I'm totally obsessed with true crime." Now I was thinking like good ol' Nancy Drew again.

  Annabella leaned forward. "Well, she was drop dead gorgeous for one thing. A lot of people said she looked like a young Kim Basinger. And she only wore the latest styles—LaMarca, Hermes, Gucci, Chanel, Armani. You name the brand, she had it. And she always accessorized with a scarf."

  "You don't say," I prompted her.

  "Yeah, she said that a scarf gives your outfit that touch of class, unless it's a cheap one, of course."

  One look at Annabella's scarf confirmed that she hadn't internalized that all-important accessory rule. But if Jessica had said that, what had it meant that she'd been strangled with a cheap scarf she would have detested? "Did she really say that? About cheap scarves, I mean?" I asked as I pretended to look through the scarves.

  "Yeah."

  "Was she a good manager?"

  "Well, she was cold as ice to her employees," Annabella said, a little huffily. "I mean, I know you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But for her, we were nobodies: lower than nobodies. But that's the way it is in fashion, and she knew this business like the back of her hand. She actually got to intern at the original LaMarca store in Milan's Via Monte Napoleone fashion district. I don't know how she did it, either, because they never give internships to foreigners."

  "How nice for her," I murmured as I considered the connections Jessica must have had to land that kind of opportunity.

  "I was hoping she would mentor me," Annabella continued. "You know, so I could work my way up? But she thought I was too unfashionable," she added, her double chin trembling with emotion from the perceived injustice of that last statement.

  "Well, that's just her opinion," I reassured, although I did think that the poodle skirt was killing her career chances. "I mean, you look like a 1950s version of Geri Halliwell—you know, Ginger Spice? So how in the world could you be unfashionable?"

  "I know, right?" She sniffled. "But Jessica was nothing if not brutally honest. Besides, she always said that emotion had no place in the business world and that we should leave our feelings at home—along with our personal lives."

  "Speaking of personal lives, the police think her boyfriend did it, right?" I pulled a hideous scarf from the rack and pretended to examine its bizarre horseshoe pattern.

  "Yeeeeeah," Annabella said with a tone of doubt, plucking a stray yellow thread from her white sleeve. "But I'm not so sure."

  "Why do you say that?" I watched as she began to twist the thread with her fingers.

  "Well, for starters, fashion is a cutthroat industry. If you've made it in this business, you've got enemies," she explained, giving me an extra wide-eyed and knowing look.

  "Gosh, I had no idea the business was like that," I lied as I put the ugly scarf back on its hanger. "Do you know if Jessica had any enemies?"

  "Maaaaaybe," Annabella said, suddenly vague and evasive. Then she batted her eyes at me oddly. "Oh, I guess I can tell you! You're not the police!" she exclaimed cheerfully. Then, again glancing from side to side and even taking a look behind her, she turned to me. "There was at least one guy who didn't like her. He came in here one night after we were closed. Jessica didn't know I was here because I had left for the night, but then I came back because I'd forgotten my purse. I went in through the back of the store, so I never saw him, but I heard him yelling at her."

  "What did he say?" I turned to look at her, completely abandoning all attempts to seem like a scarf shopper.

  "Well, I couldn't hear all of it, but I know he said she'd broken an agreement they had. And I think he warned her to stay away from New Orleans. He also said something about the London College of Fashion, and it almost sounded like Jessica had gone there. The weird thing is that Jessica never mentioned going to that school. It's not even on her company profile."

  I shared her confusion. Leaving a prestigious institution like the London College of Fashion off your famous design house company profile was like intentionally not telling your doctor that you had cancer. It just didn't make sense. "Maybe you misunderstood."

  "No." She broke the thread in half. "I'm positive that the guy said she was a student there. I mean, how could I mistake the London College of Fashion? Jimmy Choo went there!"

  "Of course," I said, as though I were an expert in Jimmy Choo's pedigree. "Did she say anything back to the guy?"

  "Just that LaMarca had offered her amaaaaazing incentives on the condition that she manage the New Orleans store for a year. Sales were down, so they wanted a Louisiana
native to try to turn it around. I heard her tell him that she wouldn't be in town for long, but he said he wanted her gone right away."

  "Maybe it was an ex-boyfriend. You know how demanding men can be."

  "I don't know."

  I followed her bulging gaze as she glanced at someone who appeared to be a manager and then quickly resumed the scarf search.

  "How long ago did this happen?" I asked.

  "A few months ago, so I doubt there's any connection to her death. Hey, do you like any of these?" Annabella shoved four yellow scarves at me.

  "I like that bright yellow one."

  "Great! Should I put this aside for you while you continue shopping, ma'am?"

  I could tell by her shift to a more professional tone that the gossip fest had come to an end. "No, I think that's it for today," I replied, noting the two hundred forty dollar price tag on the scarf with a sinking feeling. Well, if I go without food this month, I might finally lose that twenty pounds.

  As Annabella bounced off to the register in her pink bobby socks and dingy white Keds, I pulled my wallet from my bag and accidentally upended my coin purse in the process.

  "Mannaggia!" I muttered the Italian version of damn as my change spilled onto the gold, carpeted floor. As I bent down to retrieve a quarter that had rolled underneath the base of the first scarf rack on the right, I accidentally dislodged a small, hard object. I picked it up and saw that it was a brownish-white bead the size of a hazelnut. It was carved from ivory or some type of bone in the form of an eerie-looking skull. Could it have something to do with Jessica's death?

  I checked to make sure that no one was watching as I pocketed the bead and headed to the cash register.

  * * *

  "A skull bead? That's freakin' awesome!" David exclaimed as I pulled the bead from my pocket during an impromptu meeting in Veronica's office. He grabbed the bead with his long, skeletal fingers. "Hey! This looks exactly like one of those beads from Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo."

  "Marie Laveau?" I asked, confused. "The voodoo queen? I thought Father John told me she was dead."