1 Limoncello Yellow

by Traci Andrighetti

  She repressed a smile. "I have."

  "What is it?"

  "Gina Mazzucco!"

  "That sounds like one of the freakin' Pink Ladies." Veronica had always gotten to play Sandy in our college dorm Grease sing-alongs, while I'd been forced to play Rizzo. I had the sneaking suspicion that she was rubbing that in right now.

  "I know." She chuckled as she began dialing a number on my phone and then shoved it into my hand. "Here you go, Rizzo—I mean, Gina!"

  Suspicion confirmed. I scowled at her as I grasped the phone.

  "Preston residence," an older woman's velvety voice replied on speakerphone.

  I fumbled for something to say. "Uh, hi. May I speak to Stewart, please?"

  "The third or the fourth?" she drawled.

  "Pardon?"

  The woman gave an exasperated sigh. "Are you looking for my son or for his father?"

  "Oh, for your son." I felt my face getting warm from embarrassment.

  "He lives in New York."

  "Would you mind giving me his number?" I asked somewhat timidly. Even though Stewart's mom clearly wasn't in the near vicinity, she was pretty darn intimidating nevertheless.

  "Yes, I would mind," she replied icily. "Who is this?"

  "Gina Mazzucco," I said while glaring at Veronica. "I'm an old friend."

  "Stewart has asked me not to give out his private number. Good day."

  "Wait—" I said, but she had already hung up the phone. "Nice manners!"

  Veronica shrugged. "She did say 'Good day,' Franki."

  I sighed. "What now?"

  "We'll try again tomorrow. Maybe someone else will answer."

  "And if not?"

  Veronica drummed her French-manicured fingernails on her desk. "Then we'll just have to wait and pay a visit to the Krewe de Eros parade."

  "Do you really think Stewart will come home for Mardi Gras? After all, he might want to steer clear now that Jessica has turned up dead."

  "It's one of the biggest parties in the world, and one of the few where women routinely flash their breasts, unprompted," Veronica said. "He won't be able to resist a powerful combination like that, not even under the threat of a murder investigation."

  * * *

  By eight o'clock that evening, I had already been waiting for Odette Malveaux for two hours. But I was determined to stay at Marie Laveau's for the long haul. I'd been unable to find any link between Stewart Preston and voodoo on the Internet, so Mambo Odette was my best chance to establish a connection.

  I walked over to the front door of the store and looked out at the bawdy crowd on Bourbon Street. Then I turned and leaned against the cashier counter. Thankfully, the kid with the acne was back at work, so I didn't have to endure the disapproving gaze of The Church Lady.

  While I waited, I glanced around the room at the merchandise, starting with the vials of potion right next to me on the counter. So much for Love Potion #9, I thought, just as another wave of heartburn rose in my chest.

  Next my eyes fell to the necklaces on the other side of the cash register. As I was looking at the various charms, a woman shoved her way into the store, thrusting me into the cash register in the process. I turned around and saw that it was Mambo Odette.

  With her graying black dreadlocks hidden by a crisp white tignon and matching dress, Mambo Odette seemed slightly more approachable than the last time I'd seen her, despite the fact that she'd just given me a shove. So, I summoned up the courage to walk over to her. She was busy grabbing handfuls of chicken feet from a bin and throwing them into a small burlap bag.

  "I don't know if you remember me," I said with my heart palpitating wildly in my chest, "but you gave me some advice when I was here a few days ago."

  Mambo Odette didn't respond. She kept her head down as she continued to put chicken feet into the sack.

  Undeterred by her lack of a reply, I continued, "I'm investigating the murder of Jessica Evans, and I'd like to ask you a few questions." Then, in the event that money was an issue, I added, "I'm willing to pay you for your time."

  She moved from the chicken feet to the alligator teeth without a word.

  I decided to try a more direct approach. "Do you know anything about Jessica Evans?"

  "I know she didn' make no offerin' ta Baron Samedi."

  "Offering?" I asked, startled by her sudden response.

  "He don' have ta dig de grave fo' Baron Kriminel if he don' wan' ta. But ya got to give 'im rum soaked in twenty-one hot peppas an' Pall Mall cigarettes."

  "I-I'm sorry?" I was a little caught off guard by her mention of grave digging.

  Mambo Odette didn't reply. She had begun carefully sifting through the alligator teeth as though looking for a specific one.

  Looks like I need to try another tack, I thought. "Can you tell me anything else about Jessica?"

  Again no response. Instead, she began to count the items in her bag.

  Okay, I'll take that as a "no." "What about Stewart Preston, IV?"

  "Don' know 'im," she replied. "But Erzulie D'en Tort do. And she goin' ta deal wit 'im."

  "Who?" I wondered whether this Erzulie was associated with Jessica or Imma.

  She said nothing as she moved to another bin full of some unidentifiable shriveled items.

  I tried another angle. "Can you tell me if Stewart Preston practices voodoo?"

  Mambo Odette stopped sifting and looked me in the eyes. "I tol' ya, chile, I don' know him."

  I took a step back from her, just in case, before I pressed on. "Can you tell me anything else about this case?"

  She looked down. "Watch out fo' dem who take magic."

  "Take magic?" I repeated. "Do you mean drugs or something?"

  Without a word, she began carefully selecting dried up items from the bin and placing them into her bag.

  By now it was clear that this conversation was going nowhere, and I was starting to think I'd been wrong about consulting Mambo Odette on the case. So, I shifted the focus to Bradley.

  "You told me to stay away from the bayou," I began.

  "And ya didn' do it," she said.

  Struck yet again by the knowledge this woman had, I gushed, "No, and now I've found out that the man I'm crazy about, the one that you said was a 'good man,' is married."

  "Thangs ain't always the way they seem, chile," Odette said as she turned to a small display of gris-gris bags that promised everything from love to prosperity to the bearer. After selecting a red bag, she untied the piece of yarn at the top. Then she rummaged around in the pocket of her white cotton dress and pulled out some sort of dried root. She put the item into the bag, tied it closed, and pressed it into the palm of my hand. "Ya need ta go home."

  I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with the gris-gris bag, but I could see that there was no point in asking. So I pulled a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet and handed it to her. She quickly slipped it into her pocket and then returned to the business of selecting items for her sack.

  I walked over to the cash register to pay for the gris-gris bag. On the off chance the kid with the acne knew something about voodoo, I asked, "So, do you know who Erzulie Dentor is?"

  "She's a voodoo loa. Her name means 'Erzulie of the Wrongs' because she protects women and children and takes revenge on people who do bad things to them." He scratched his neck. "Five dollars and forty cents."

  "Thanks. You've been a big help." I handed him the exact change, deposited the gris-gris bag in my purse, and exited the store.

  * * *

  On the drive home, I struggled to decipher Odette Malveaux's enigmatic words. I had to figure out what she'd meant when she said that Erzulie was after Stewart. Based on Erzulie's role in the voodoo world, it seemed like Mambo Odette was implying that Stewart had harmed a woman. But if so, who? Imma? Jessica too? I also needed to know if she was trying to tell me that Stewart wasn't involved in voodoo when she said that she didn't know him. As for the crazy warning about people who take magic, if she was referring to drugs, then it wa
s possible that she was talking about Stewart.

  Of course, I knew it seemed insane to put so much stock in the bizarre ramblings of a voodoo queen, but Nola was like nowhere else in the world. If something was going down here, the voodoo world knew about it before anyone else. It was just a matter of figuring out how to speak their language.

  The worst part of all was that I was out twenty bucks plus the five for the gris-gris bag, and I hadn't found out a thing about Bradley. I couldn't imagine what Odette had meant when she said that things weren't always the way they seemed, because it was painfully clear to me that Sheilah was Bradley's wife. It was also glaringly apparent that he hadn't tried to call me once the whole day, maybe because he'd figured out that I'd overheard what Sheilah had said.

  I pulled up to my house and walked to my front door, debating whether to text Bradley and confront him about Sheilah. And right when I inserted the key into the front door lock, I felt someone at my back. Then my police academy training took over. After a few swift kicks to the genitals and a mighty karate chop on the back of the neck, the perpetrator was down in the grass, rolling around in pain.

  As soon as I had a chance to get a look at his face, I felt my whole body go cold.

  "Bradley!" I knelt to the ground. "I didn't realize it was you!"

  "Yeah," he said breathlessly, grimacing in pain. "I got that."

  "I'm so sorry," I said, although I'll admit a swift kick to the groin did seem appropriate for a cheater like him. "Can you stand up?"

  "Just…give me a minute." He rolled onto his back and inhaled sharply.

  I waited at his side with a heavy feeling in my stomach. The heartburn was gone, but now I felt like I had a lead weight in my gut. Seeing Bradley again made me realize just how much I didn't want him to be married.

  After a few minutes, Bradley stood up slowly and began to brush himself off. Then he bent over, still favoring his privates, to retrieve the dozen yellow roses he'd brought me. "I shouldn't have come up behind you like that, Franki. I'm sorry."

  "You're right, you shouldn't have," I said in an accusing tone. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

  He scrutinized my face as he handed me the bouquet. "I came in hopes of giving you the goodnight kiss I'd wanted to give you last night."

  He had no idea that I'd overheard him and Sheilah. I lowered my gaze. Telling him to get lost was going to be so much harder than I would have thought.

  "Franki," he said softly.

  When I looked up at him, I felt his fingers slide to the nape of my neck and weave into my hair as his other hand pressed at the base of my back. He pulled me closer to him, and his lips covered mine. He kissed me gently at first, and for a second my whole body went weak. But when he parted my lips with his tongue and began to kiss me more deeply, I felt energy and heat spread throughout my limbs.

  As I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, I wondered whether this magic was the work of Love Potion #9, the gris-gris bag, or something more primal than voodoo. Then Bradley pressed his body hard against mine, and I decided that I really didn't give a damn what it was.

  When he finally released me, I gazed into his beautiful blue eyes. Then I gave him a swift right hook in the cheek. Without so much as a glance back, I entered my apartment and closed the door. Served him right for kissing me when he was married.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "Thank you for agreeing to meet me so early, Corinne," I said as she took a seat in my office. It was 7 a.m., and I hadn't slept a wink after punching Bradley the night before. My insomnia had nothing to do with the fact that he'd pounded on my door for a good twenty minutes demanding to know what was going on. It was because I'd wanted so badly to open the door and throw myself into his arms, even though I knew he was no good.

  "I am happy to do it, Franki," she said in her heavy accent. "You have been so kind to me and Bijou."

  "How is the little powder puff?"

  "She is growing so fast! She look more like a little pillow now." She laughed. Then she added in a serious tone. "You know, I did not receive ze bill for your services."

  I shook my head. "I can't accept your money, Corinne. Especially not now that you've agreed to help us with the Evans case."

  "Bien," she replied in a hesitant tone. "If you insist."

  "I do." Then I asked, not without a pang of Catholic guilt, "But are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you could lose your job for giving us client information."

  Corinne blinked her big blue eyes. "Franki, I did not know Jessica very well, but I sink it is so awful ze way she died. If I can help find who killed her, zen it is wors ze risk."

  "That's incredibly generous of you." I double-clicked the Evans case file on my laptop. "And just so you know, I'm going to do everything in my power to protect you and make sure that no one finds out you helped with the case."

  She smiled. "What do you need for me to do?"

  I glanced at the case notes. "Well, we know that Jessica came to the bank to make monthly deposits. We need to find out whether she was just depositing her paycheck from LaMarca. And if not, we'd like to know who the deposits were from."

  She shrugged her shoulders. "Zat is easy to find out."

  "I'm not so sure." I closed my laptop. "I'm assuming that Jessica made the monthly deposits in cash."

  "Why do you say zat?"

  "Because we have reason to believe that these deposits were a payoff."

  Corinne crinkled her Tinker Bell nose in confusion. "What is zis 'payoff'?"

  "A bribe," I clarified.

  "Ah." She nodded. "Well, I don't remember her bringing cash. I sink she always deposit a check, but I will make sure." Then she looked at her watch. "I must go. I have to be at ze bank before eight."

  "Okay. Thanks, Corinne." I stood up to see her out. "And remember, if you change your mind about helping, I will understand completely."

  "I know." She grasped the doorknob and turned to face me. "But I will not change my mind."

  After she left, I thanked my lucky stars that I'd met a nice girl like Corinne here in New Orleans. Then my thoughts inevitably turned to Bradley, but I was no longer thinking about last night. Instead, I was wondering how, precisely, he would react if he found out that I'd asked one of his employees to provide me with confidential bank information.

  * * *

  A few hours later, I stood up from my desk to stretch and caught a glimpse of something yellow outside the window. Directly across the street from our building, there was a plump, sixty-something woman standing on the sidewalk. She was wearing a vivid yellow sack dress with a white scarf tied over her coiffed silver hair. She looked like a giant lemon with bright pink lipstick.

  As I watched, I saw that the she-lemon was glancing furtively from side to side through huge white Jackie O–style sunglasses, as though she were afraid she was being followed. Then she lowered her sunglasses, looked up, and made direct eye contact with me. She lowered her head, shielded her face with her right hand, and began walking quickly toward the entrance to our building.

  "Looks like we have a reluctant visitor," I called to Veronica as I walked into the hallway.

  When I reached the lobby, the woman's white-scarfed head was peering around from the other side of the door. She spotted me immediately. "Private Chicks, Incorporated?" she asked in a Southern drawl.

  "Yes ma'am," I replied in Southern kind.

  The rest of her body entered the room. "Well, hiii. My name is Twyyyla. Twyla Upton." She extended a hand with yellow-lacquered fingernails. "I'm the wife of the Harold Upton?"

  "Oh, right." I shook her chubby, bejeweled hand. I had no idea who "the Harold Upton" was, but I could tell by the exquisite rings she was wearing that he must be a wealthy man. "I'm Franki Amato."

  Veronica came to my rescue as she entered the lobby. "Mrs. Upton!" she exclaimed. "Veronica Maggio. What a pleasure to meet you."

  Veronica turned to me. "Mrs. Upton is something of a local celebrity here in New Orleans because of her fabulou
s rose garden."

  Mrs. Upton removed her sunglasses and untied the scarf around her hair. "I have eighty-nine species of hybrid teas, miniatures, climbing roses, and floribundas. And please call me Twyla."

  "Wow," was all I could think of to say. I couldn't help but wonder if she'd tried to conceal her identity when entering our office to protect her rose-gardener reputation.

  "Why don't we chat in our conference room?" Veronica suggested.

  "That would be luuuvely," Twyla replied as Veronica ushered her across the hall. "I do love to chat."

  As soon as we sat down at the table, Twyla began to sniffle. She retrieved a lace handkerchief, also lemon yellow, from her vintage white beaded handbag and began dabbing at her eyes. "It may surprise you young ladies to know that I'm not here on a social call."

  I feigned surprise. "No?"

  "I was out shopping, you see, and I saw your sign out front. I came in because I simply have nowhere else to turn." Her sniffles momentarily turned into sobs. Then she began rummaging around in her bag and pulled out a glass vial, which she placed in front of me on the table.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "Smelling salts." She looked me in the eye. "I'm prone to fainting spells."

  "Good to know," I replied, passively accepting the responsibility of reviving her from a future faint.

  "Anyway," she began, resuming her sniffling, "I'm here because my Harry has been working late for the past several weeks, which is very unlike him. In the forty-eight years we've been married, why, he's never missed a dinner at home. That is…" She paused to dab at her eyes again. "…until recently."

  "I see." Veronica opened her laptop. "Have you asked him why he's been working late?"

  "Y-es," she replied—in two syllables. And with a dismissive wave of her hand, she added, "He says he's working on a big legal project. He's a highly respected patent attorney, you know."

  "Well, if he's an attorney, it wouldn't be unusual for him to work late, right?" I asked.

  "It is unusual because my Harry doesn't work," Twyla explained. "That's what his employees are for."