Next, Veronica turned the page to look for the Es and stopped abruptly. It wasn't hard to locate Angelica's picture—not only because she was a dead ringer for Jessica Evans—but also because there was a word scrawled across it in red ink: puttana, which is the Italian word for "whore." Whoever had written the word had gone over it several times with the pen, tearing the photo slightly.
An uncomfortable silence ensued as we all wrestled with what to say.
Maria was the first to speak. "I have another picture of her." She rose from her seat and walked into the adjoining kitchen.
She returned moments later with a brown billfold and opened it to reveal a small, black-and-white photo. "There, that's her." She pointed to a young blonde in a sundress standing beside Immacolata and Concetta. "It was taken at a family barbecue."
I was struck by the fact that even though Maria suspected Angelica of having information about Imma's death, she carried her picture in her wallet nevertheless. The thought occurred to me that instead of losing one daughter the night Imma was strangled, Maria Di Salvo had actually lost two.
"Barbara made that dress for her," Maria said softly. "She hated it."
I remembered Angelica's penchant for expensive designer clothes. "Why? Because it was homemade?"
"Most of her clothes were homemade, or they were purchased at yard sales," Maria replied. "And they were a constant reminder to her that she was poor. She always used to say that she was going to do whatever she had to do to make money when she grew up so that she could buy herself expensive clothes."
"And she did," I said.
"But that's not why she hated the dress," Maria continued.
"Oh?" Veronica asked.
"She hated it because it was yellow."
"Yellow?" I repeated. I glanced at Veronica who was studying Maria intently.
"Yes, when she was a little girl, her mother told her that yellow was her father Bill's favorite color. You see, Barbara still loved Bill even though he'd run out on her and Angelica. I know because Barbara used to tell me that Bill would come home to them one day, and when he did, she wanted them to look nice for him. So she made Jessica wear yellow, and often. But as the years passed and it become obvious that Bill wasn't coming back, Angelica began to despise yellow. She wore it to make her mother happy, but she always said it was the color of cowards."
Yellow is the color of cowards, I thought, my mind racing. All I could think of in that moment was the scarf that was wrapped around Angelica's neck in that horrible crime scene photo. Had the killer known of Angelica's feelings about the color yellow?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"What's taking so long?" I asked for the twentieth time since we'd arrived at Lenton's.
"Calm down, Franki," Veronica said from her seat directly across from me in the waiting room. "I'm sure Mr. Orlansky will meet with us soon."
"You said that thirty minutes ago!" I leaned forward in my chair. "Seriously, this guy had better hurry. Otherwise, I won't have time to get ready for my date. And if that happens, you'll have another murder to investigate!"
"You know," she began, studiously ignoring me as she rummaged around in her red Fendi bag for her compact, "I just can't stop thinking about Domenica's reaction to our visit."
I crossed my arms. "I still say we should have questioned her right there on the spot."
"No, we need to talk to her alone to avoid the mother-daughter dynamic." She powdered her nose. "That way we can find out if she meant the things she said, or if she was just trying to get a rise out of her mother."
"I'm not sure I want to be alone with The Dark One," I said. "There's something about the way that girl looked at me that made my skin crawl."
"She is awfully angry." Veronica was now fluffing her blonde mane. "I'm going to have David do a background check on all of them. If this business about Jessica hating the color yellow is relevant to the case, then every member of the Di Salvo family is a potential suspect."
It was my turn to ignore Veronica as I looked at my watch. "It's six o'clock!" I leapt from my seat. I began pacing the room like a caged animal and then promptly ran right into a stick-thin fifty-something administrative assistant as she walked through the doorway.
"I'm so sorry!" I exclaimed.
She straightened and pushed up her glasses with her left index finger. "Mr. Orlansky will see you now."
Veronica and I looked at one another before following the woman as she tottered awkwardly on scuffed beige heels down a long hallway and then stopped without a word beside an office doorway marked "Ed Orlansky."
I followed Veronica into a small, windowless room decorated in varying shades of drab brown. The balding middle-aged man sitting behind the desk was also wearing brown from head to toe, including the cigar in his mouth. I looked at the cigar to see whether it was lit, and then his eyes met mine.
"Don't worry, I don't smoke this thing," he said in a gruff voice. "I just like to chew on it."
"Oh. Right," I said, even though my stomach lurched at the thought of swallowing tobacco cud.
He rose to his feet and pulled up his pants, which were sagging below his protruding belly.
"Which one of you ladies is Veronica?"
"That's me," Veronica said, extending her hand. "Thank you for agreeing to see us about the Jessica Evans case."
"Happy to be of service." He shook her hand and stared deeply into her eyes. "Did you say that you and Miss—"
"Amato," I interjected. "But please call me Franki."
He nodded. "Franki. Are you with the New Orleans PD?"
"Actually," Veronica began, grasping a lock of her hair and giving it a twirl, "I own a private investigation firm called Private Chicks, Inc." She batted her long eyelashes at him.
"We don't normally give information to private investigators…" His voice trailed off. He was clearly bewitched by the effects of Veronica's bat-and-twirl offensive. Then with a sharp intake of breath, as though shaking off the effects of a spell, he added, "But, given the seriousness of this case, I suppose I could help you ladies out."
"Oh, that's wonderful, Mr. Orlansky!" Veronica clapped her hands and leaned closer to his desk.
"Please, call me Ed." He flashed her a mouthful of yellowing teeth. "Now why don't you ladies take a seat?"
I sat in one of the two chairs in front of his desk and immediately got down to brass tacks. I had a date to get ready for. "Were you able to look up the sales information for the Limoncello scarf?"
He looked startled, like he'd completely forgotten the reason for our visit. "Oh, yes. Well, the scarf belongs to an exclusive Lenton's line that's only sold in this store. And based on our inventory records, we received five in yellow and five in mauve."
"Can you tell us who you sold the five yellow scarves to?" Veronica asked, still twirling and batting.
He paused for a moment, undoubtedly mesmerized by her charms. "We have an electronic record of all purchases. But those would only tell you who bought the scarf if the customer used a credit card or check to pay."
"Is there any way to find out the identity of a customer who paid with cash?" I glanced anxiously at my watch.
Ed hesitated, as though internally debating something. Then he licked his dry lips. "You could get an image of the customer from the computer."
"Computer?" I repeated, meeting Veronica's baby blues straight on.
"Yeah, we have a camera on every cash register in the store, and the video from the cameras is stored on a computer hard drive. So we can search the electronic receipt files for the ID number of the scarf, and then check the computer video file for the day and time the scarf was sold."
"Would it be possible to check the video file for all the Limoncello scarves purchased with cash? We'd like to see those first." I pressed.
"It depends. If the scarf was sold more than thirty days ago, then the video would be backed up to DVD and stored at our headquarters in Baton Rouge."
"You could get the DVD from Baton Rouge, though,
right?" I asked with a nod of encouragement.
"Well yes, my secretary could have them mail a copy to us. But I'm not sure we have the resources to go through all that video right now. We're understaffed at the moment, and that kind of thing could take hours."
"I could help you go through it," Veronica said, twirling and batting away.
"In that case," he began, lighting up like a Christmas tree, "I'm sure we could work something out."
"Oh, Ed, you're the best!" Veronica gushed with a sensual flip of her hair.
Ed blushed. "Thank you, but it's going to take time," he said in a cautionary voice as he ogled Veronica. "We'll probably be working late for quite a few nights."
Veronica gave another sexy hair flip. "I'm available!"
I rose to my feet. "Well all righty then. We sure appreciate it, Ed. We'll check in with you in a day or two to see how the research is coming along, but right now we're late for another appointment."
I headed for the door and gestured to Veronica to follow suit.
"Yes, thank you, Ed." Veronica sprung from her seat. With a little wave she added, "I'll call you!"
"I'm looking forward to it," he breathed.
As we rushed from his office, I muttered to Veronica under my breath, "You have mad skills."
"Who, me?" She twirled a lock of her hair and batted her eyelashes.
"And while we're on the subject of your skills," I began, looking at my watch, "I'm gonna need you to kick that racecar driver thing into high gear. My date with Bradley is in forty-five minutes."
* * *
"Madonna santa," I whispered as we arrived at my apartment exactly forty-five minutes later thanks to the evening traffic.
"Holy mother of God, indeed," Veronica translated as we sat there stunned.
Not only was Bradley waiting in the driveway in his black BMW, but Glenda was leaning into his driver-side window in one of her lingerie loungewear ensembles: a black teddy and a fuchsia fur-lined robe with matching high-heeled slippers. Only she wasn't holding her customary cigarette lighter. Instead, she had a bottle of champagne in one hand and two long-stemmed champagne flutes in the other. And she was clearly in the mood to entertain.
Veronica was the first to react. "You get into the house and get your LBD on ASAP. I'll have Bradley help me walk Hercules and Napoleon around the neighborhood. That'll give you some time to get ready and get Glenda out of the picture. She won't be able to walk the dogs in those heels."
I stared at Veronica in disbelief. "Are you kidding? That woman has been performing in six-inch platform stripper shoes since the age of sixteen. Not only could she walk the neighborhood in those heels, she could run a marathon and then compete in the freakin' high jump."
"Don't worry," Veronica said, even though she looked rather concerned herself. "I'll think of something."
"You do that." I threw open the car door and made a mad dash for my front door.
After wasting precious seconds fumbling with the lock, I pushed open the door and started to run toward my bedroom. Unfortunately, Napoleon was dutifully waiting to greet me on the other side of the door, so I took an impromptu leap to avoid stepping on him. As I leapt forward, my foot caught the tooth of the bear head on the bearskin rug, and I went careening onto the floor, landing on both knees. I jumped up and limped to the bathroom, where I frantically threw off my clothes only to discover that both of my knees were bleeding.
While I was rubbing an antibiotic on my wounds, I calculated that I had about twenty minutes to get ready to avoid making us miss our dinner reservation at Le Bayou. There was no time to wash and dry my hair. Instead, I took a speed-of-light shower and then rapidly washed my face.
Just as I started to apply my make-up, I heard Veronica and Bradley returning with the dogs. To my dismay, I also heard Glenda's unmistakable smoker's cough laugh. I mentally willed Veronica to keep her in line, but I knew there was no use. Glenda was a force of nature, and she was more powerful and unpredictable than a hurricane.
I tried to hurry as I did my eyeliner, but my hands were shaking. When I stood back from the mirror, I saw that my signature Sophia Loren–style cat eye looked more like that of Cleopatra. There was no time to fix it. And after all, Cleopatra was one of the greatest seductresses in history, was she not?
I hurried to my closet, pulled my dress off the hanger and stepped into it. I wrestled briefly with the zipper and then slipped on my black slingbacks. I didn't even stop to look at my reflection in the mirror.
When I rushed into the living room, I saw the second most horrifying spectacle of the day: Glenda had propped one of her skinny white spider-veined legs on the chaise lounge and was doing her best to look sexy while extracting a card from her fuchsia garter belt.
"Here you go, sugar," she said to a grinning Bradley as Veronica looked on in what looked like a mix of astonishment and admiration. "My business card."
"Thank you, Miss Glenda," he said as he took the business card and raised her hand to his lips.
"If you ever need anything, darlin'," she purred, "and I do mean anything, you just call Miss Glenda."
The only thing I could think of to do in that moment was clear my throat. But thanks to my mold allergy, I sounded more like a cat hacking up a fur ball. The noise startled the unlikely trio, who turned simultaneously to look at me.
"Oh!" Veronica put her hand to her mouth and then headed toward the kitchen.
Glenda raised an eyebrow and then tossed back an entire glass of champagne.
So much for my grand entrance, I thought as I felt what must have been a trickle of blood run down my right knee.
"Jaclyn Smith with an Italian twist," Bradley said with a gleam in his eye.
"What?" I didn't have a clue what he was talking about.
"That's which Charlie's Angel you are," he replied.
"Oh." Of course, I would have preferred to be Farrah, but at least he hadn't compared me to Bosley.
"But…" Bradley began uncertainly.
But what? I wondered. Is it the blood? Or did I cough up some phlegm? I felt around my mouth to check.
"Didn't you get my message?" he asked.
"No," I said, confused, while Veronica dabbed at my knee with a paper towel. "What message?" And then I remembered: I had turned off my phone after Bruno called, but I had forgotten to turn it back on.
"Well, there's been a change of plans," he explained. "A client of the bank, Craig Burns, is having a crawdad boil, so I thought you might like to do that instead."
"Oh." I tried desperately to think of anything I could change into that was both cute and clean.
Glenda, seizing upon the momentary lapse in conversation, sidled up to Bradley. "The crawdad boil reminds me of a striptease I used to do—"
"You know what?" I practically shouted over Glenda as I hurriedly walked toward the door. "If it's all right with you, Bradley, I'll just go like this."
I simply could not allow her to subject him to one of her stripping stories, especially one that involved shellfish and boiling water.
"Sure." Bradley smiled as he followed me out of the apartment. "With you in that dress, I'll be the envy of every guy at the party."
I smiled up at him. Despite his obsession with Charley's Angels, Bradley Hartmann was starting to grow on me.
* * *
"Here we are." Bradley pulled in front of a stately Victorian home a half an hour later.
"What a gorgeous house." I admired the long white columns that lined the exterior.
"Yeah, Craig owns a major construction company here in New Orleans, so he's done quite well for himself."
"It must be wonderful to sit on that veranda and gaze at the river." I sighed as I stared at the serene-looking body of water directly across the street.
"The river?" He turned to look at me. "Oh, you mean Bayou St. John?"
I snapped my head in his direction. "Bayou?"
"Yes." He frowned. "Is something wrong?"
"No, no." I couldn't tell him a
bout Mambo Odette's warning, or he would think I was a flake. "I just thought I knew my bodies of water better than that."
"Well, if you're interested in bodies of water, Craig would be only too happy to tell you all about the history of this bayou. He's always going on about how this particular stretch in front of his house is where Marie Laveau used to practice some of her voodoo rituals."
"What? Right here?" I looked back at the bayou. Now that I examined it more closely, that water was definitely murky.
"So local legend would have it." He opened his car door. "One sec, I'll help you out of the car."
"Thanks." I smiled and then turned to scrutinize the bayou. I wondered why Marie Laveau had chosen that particular spot for her rituals.
He helped me out of the car and pulled me close. "Are you sure you're okay, Franki?"
"I'm terrific." I smiled, returning his sexy gaze. To hell with superstition, I thought.
We walked up the driveway and entered the backyard through an iron gate. There were about twenty people or so standing around two long tables in the center of the yard. Each was covered in newspaper and had piles of crawfish that had been boiled with corn on the cob, large chunks of onion and potato and spice bags full of Cajun seasonings. On the opposite side of the yard was an outdoor bar manned by a bartender.
Bradley took me by the hand. "Let's head over to the bar. Then I'll introduce you to some of the guests."
As soon as we stepped off the concrete walkway into the grass, my three-inch heels began sinking into the soft earth. I sighed and began walking on the balls of my feet like I had seen high-heeled Italian women in Rome do on the cobblestone streets. I imagined that I was taking the graceful strides of a runway model, but I suspected that I actually looked more like I was plodding along on a Stairmaster.
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