Parchment and Old Lace

by Laura Childs

  She stooped down and picked up a soft black cloth. Or was it a cloth?

  Turning it over in her hands, there was just enough faint light so she could see it was a mourning veil.

  Who on earth would want to scare her that way? Was it Oliver Slade? Or Julian Drake? Could it have been Vesper or Edward?

  Who indeed?

  * * *

  “You look a little discombobulated,” Babcock said as they pulled away from the curb.

  “No,” Carmela said in a small voice. “I’m okay.” But she was really thinking, Should I tell him? Because if I do and he freaks out, he’s going to want to keep me under lock and key like one of those poor ladies in mourning. I’d be a prisoner in my own house.

  Carmela pondered this just as the radio in Babcock’s car erupted with static.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “This is dispatch,” came a voice. “We just got a call from Bobby Prejean that he was involved in a hit-and-run accident.”

  “Where?” Babcock asked.

  “I wouldna called you,” the dispatcher continued, “if he wasn’t the district attorney.”

  “Just tell me where,” Babcock said in a terse voice.

  “Intersection of Rousseau and Felicity,” said the dispatcher. “That five corner mash-up near the river.”

  “On my way,” Babcock said. “Send a squad.”

  “Already did.”

  Babcock reached down, grabbed a light, and stuck it on his dashboard. “Hang on,” he said as the red light began to pulse. Then he punched it hard and his car careened down Magazine Street. They flew past Archwood Antiques, the Latest Wrinkle, and H. Galvez Oyster House. Hooking a right at Philip Street, they careened the six blocks to Rousseau and turned left. Then it was just another few blocks to the intersection of Rousseau and Felicity.

  Bobby Prejean’s dark blue Audi was parked way up on the curb, and a squad car had already arrived. Two uniformed officers were standing with Prejean, talking to him as he made jerky, animated gestures.

  Babcock was out of his car in a flash, Carmela scrambling to keep up with him. “What happened?” he called out. “Anybody hurt?”

  “He’s okay,” one of the officers said. “Just shaken up.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Prejean sputtered. He looked pale and nervous. “I was just entering the intersection . . .” He made a vague directional gesture with one hand. “And this black SUV came flying out of nowhere. Suddenly I heard gunshots.” He put both hands on top of his head as if to try to calm his jumbled thoughts. “I think they were shooting at me!”

  “Slugs recovered? Casings?” Babcock asked the officers.

  “We just gave a cursory look,” said the officer whose name tag read Bailey. “Nothing yet.”

  “Bring in the crime-scene guys. Lock down this area,” Babcock said. He turned back to Prejean. “Then what happened?”

  “They tried to run me off the road,” Prejean said. “It was bizarre. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

  “Did they sideswipe your car?”

  “No, thank goodness. Probably because I ran it right up onto the sidewalk. Didn’t even think what I was doing. And then I guess they just got nervous and took off.” He touched a hand to his chest. “I was scared, that’s for sure.”

  “But you did good,” Babcock said. “It sounds like you kept your wits about you.”

  Carmela stepped forward and gently touched Prejean’s arm. “Was it one person in the car or two?”

  Prejean shook his head. “I don’t know. It was so dark I couldn’t tell.”

  Carmela thought again. “Was the person who shot at you sitting in the driver’s seat or the passenger seat?”

  “Um . . . maybe the driver’s seat?” Prejean said.

  “So maybe just one person,” Babcock said.

  “But like I said, it happened so fast, I’m not one hundred percent sure of anything,” Prejean stammered out. He shook his head. “You always expect crime victims to be more aware. Until it happens to you.”

  “So you weren’t able to get a plate number?” Babcock asked.

  “No,” Prejean said. “Sorry.”

  Carmela looked east where large warehouses blocked a view of the river. “Do you think someone might have followed you from the Art Institute?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s possible,” Prejean said. Then, “You don’t think this has anything to do with Isabelle’s murder, do you?”

  “You never know,” Babcock said. He was bent down, inspecting the side of the Audi.

  Prejean turned to Carmela. “Because if it does, it could mean the killer is after me.”

  Carmela didn’t say anything, but she thought to herself, Yes, there’s a good chance he is.

  Chapter 21

  FIRST thing Friday morning Carmela was back at Vesper’s house, pounding on her front door.

  Bam, bam, bam.

  She was feeling angry and out of sorts, and ready to demand some answers. After all, when she’d stopped by yesterday to retrieve the veil, Vesper hadn’t mentioned a doggone thing about having a collection of antique clothing and fabrics.

  And if I hadn’t gone to the Mourning Cloak Show last night, I would never have known.

  In Carmela’s book that meant Vesper must be hiding something.

  “Who is it?” came a mumbled voice.

  “It’s me. Carmela. Open up, please.”

  The door creaked open a half inch and Vesper peered out. She was wearing a quilted robe, and her hair stuck up in goofy clumps. Pink fuzzy slippers encased her feet. She was bleary-eyed and had obviously just gotten out of bed without the benefit of morning coffee.

  “What are you doing here?” Vesper asked. She sounded both hostile and a little shocked that Carmela had dared make a return trip.

  “When I was here yesterday you didn’t say one word to me about your antique fabric and costume collection. I had to learn about it last night. Reading a lousy placard at the museum.”

  Vesper glared at her. “And that is your business . . . why?” Then she yawned and said, “Oh, wait a minute, it isn’t your business.”

  Carmela wasn’t about to take any crap or back down from this hostile, aggressive woman. “You should have told me. It’s important.”

  “I never said anything because you never asked. And, frankly, my private collection and what I choose to do with it is certainly nothing that concerns you. Now good day to you and please leave.”

  Vesper tried to close the door but Carmela stuck out her foot and stopped it.

  “I need some answers.”

  Vesper gave a tired nod. “Ah yes. I think I know where your annoying little mind is going. You are an amateur sleuth who is under the delusion that the lace that strangled Isabelle came from my collection.”

  “Did it?” Carmela said.

  “You’re so misguided it’s ridiculous. I may not have liked Isabelle, and I certainly didn’t think she was a suitable match for Edward, but I would never murder her!”

  “Somehow I’m not totally convinced.”

  “Talk to Edward,” Vesper said. “He’ll tell you how very tolerant I really was.”

  “In other words,” Carmela said, taking a step back, “he’ll cover for you.”

  This time Vesper really did slam the door in her face.

  * * *

  Still feeling out of sorts after her nasty encounter with Vesper, Carmela nevertheless headed for the crime lab. She’d promised Babcock she’d drop the veil off and she intended to do exactly that. Of course, she was also hoping that by committing to this good deed she might cadge a bit of inside information from him, too.

  Carmela drove back through the French Quarter and threaded her way along North Peters Street, passing the Café du Monde, the French Market, and the flea market. Tourists were floc
king everywhere as music plinkety-plinked and the sweet smell of beignets hung in the air. Then she left it all behind and took a left, driving straight toward Lake Pontchartrain via Elysian Fields Avenue.

  Twenty minutes later, Carmela arrived at the UNO Research and Technology Park where the NOPD’s Crime Lab and Evidence Division was located. Pulling into their parking lot, she decided the place looked more like a cool high-tech company. The sleek building gave the impression of a business that manufactured hubs and routers, not a crime lab that conducted autopsies and investigated strange pieces of evidence using electron microscopes and mass spectrographs.

  Still . . . this was where the magic and the breakthroughs happened, so she grabbed the box with the veil in it and carried it inside.

  “May I help you?” said the young woman at the front desk. She looked like a pleasant receptionist, trim with a shock of reddish-brown hair, but Carmela had the impression that she’d probably achieved the fitness level of a marine sergeant.

  “I’m delivering a piece of evidence for Detective Edgar Babcock,” Carmela said.

  “Oh yes,” the receptionist said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  “He called?”

  “First thing this morning.” She slid a sheet of paper across the desk and said, “If you could just write a general description of your item and then sign and date it?” When Carmela hesitated, she added, “It’s our standard operating procedure for chain of custody.”

  “Of course,” Carmela said. She tapped her pencil. “By any chance is Charlie Preston around?” Charlie was one of the crime-scene techs that she’d gotten to know fairly well. In fact, this particular tech had once had the hots for Ava. If she could talk to Charlie, then maybe she could get a handle on what was going on with the lace that had been used to strangle Isabelle . . .

  “Sorry, no,” said the receptionist. “Mr. Preston is not here. It’s been a very busy day.”

  * * *

  Carmela was headed to Memory Mine when she started thinking about the bit of parchment she’d picked up in the cemetery. She hadn’t turned it over to Babcock—and she definitely hadn’t left it at the crime lab—because she wanted to check it out herself. If she had turned it over, Carmela was pretty sure it would have disappeared into a black hole and Babcock would have frozen her out of any and all information.

  But Carmela had a germ of an idea, which was why she swung by Cavalier Printing. Cavalier was one of the smaller but higher quality print shops she often used for posters, brochures, and invitations. And, just her luck, Jimmy Bowen, the foreman, was standing at the front desk when she walked in.

  “Just the man I wanted to see,” Carmela said.

  Jimmy turned, recognized her, and smiled. “Uh-oh, we didn’t screw up one of your orders, did we?” Jimmy was a chubby African American teddy bear who always wore cool glasses with different colored plastic frames. Today his glasses were teal blue.

  “No, but I do have a question for you about paper stock.”

  “Then come on back to my office,” Jimmy said. He led her into the back of the print shop where two small offset presses were humming away like crazy. Sheets of colorful paper flew into metal trays every few seconds, ready to be stacked and boxed. There were bundles of paper stock wedged everywhere, and the place smelled pleasantly of ink and warm paper.

  Carmela pulled out her scrap of parchment paper and showed it to Jimmy. “Are you familiar with this particular paper stock?”

  Jimmy took it gently in his hands and studied it. “Parchment. Maybe a sixty-five pound cover weight. Good soft feel, fast drying surface. We use a lot of this type of stock.”

  “I know you do.”

  “It’s especially popular this time of year when people tend to request a nicer stock for invitations and announcements. For holiday menus, too, at some of the fancier restaurants.”

  Carmela took a deep breath. “I was wondering if this snippet matched up with any of the jobs you might have run recently?”

  Jimmy considered her request for a moment and then said, “Well, let me see about that.” He went to a large flat file and pulled open the top drawer. The file drawers contained samples of all the jobs he’d run recently.

  “I really appreciate this,” Carmela said.

  Jimmy pulled out four different sample pieces that were printed on a similar type of paper. In fact, to Carmela’s eye, they all looked like a perfect match.

  “These are some of the more recent pieces we printed on parchment.” Jimmy showed her two invitations, a citation, and a small poster. “The parchment that comes closest to your sample, that is.”

  “This is great,” Carmela said. “Any way I could take a few of these samples with me?”

  “No problem,” Jimmy said. “Knock yourself out.”

  * * *

  “What on earth have you got there?” Gabby asked. Carmela was back at Memory Mine and had her four print samples spread out on the back table.

  “I’m trying to see if I can match that scrap of parchment I found,” Carmela said. “So I stopped at Cavalier Printing and these were four pieces they’ve printed lately on that same type of parchment.”

  Intrigued, Gabby moved closer. “Cavalier Printing is also one of the more upscale printers,” she said. “Plus they’re right in our area.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what have you got? Oh, this big one is a poster for an opening at Click! Gallery.”

  “A place we know well,” Carmela said. The gallery was just a few blocks away from Memory Mine and specialized in photography as well as contemporary prints and paintings. In fact, Shamus had once had a photo exhibit there. His so-so nature photos had consisted of egrets and herons dipping down to grab fish, some turtles sunning themselves on logs, and alligators lurking in dank swamps. In her estimation it was Photography 101, but Shamus represented Crescent City Bank, and Click! Gallery was one of their clients. So the old boy network’s quid pro quo had surely been at work.

  “Show me that scrap of paper again,” Gabby said.

  Carmela pulled it from her wallet and handed it to Gabby.

  Gabby held the snippet up against all four samples. “They’re all close. In fact, they’re almost all a perfect match.”

  “That’s what I thought. Only I don’t know where any of this leads.”

  “Let’s see,” Gabby said. “This piece, this citation, is for someone named Earl Zander. You know who he is?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Well, it says here he showed great dedication and zeal in service to the Jaycees.”

  “Good for him,” Carmela said. “But I don’t seem him connecting to the Baudettes in any way. Or to Isabelle and Edward’s wedding.”

  “Neither do I,” Gabby said. “What about these two invitations? They’re for real estate open houses.”

  “Pretty fancy invites for an open house.”

  “That’s because they’re probably fancy houses,” Gabby said. She turned her attention to the large poster. “And this one’s for a concert of Baroque music at the Old Town Repertory Theatre.”

  “That doesn’t trip anything for me, either,” Carmela said. “In fact, nothing seems to relate to my hot list of suspects.”

  “So maybe the bit of parchment is unrelated?”

  “Maybe. Still, I found it lying right there by that mausoleum. It just feels like it should mean something.”

  “Maybe you should be checking obituaries,” Gabby said. “Maybe the parchment came from a funeral program for someone who was recently buried nearby.”

  “Maybe,” Carmela said. “Or it could just be a dead end.”

  * * *

  Carmela got busy with a customer then, helping a woman named Gail with her newest project.

  “Are you going to make another one of your salt box shrines?” Carmela asked her. Gail was famous for tak
ing empty Morton salt boxes, slicing the cylinder open to form a doorway, covering and lining it with pretty paper, and then creating little scenes inside them.

  “Yes, I am,” Gail said. “I’m focusing on perfume bottles and butterflies for my latest salt box project. I want to cover one with some sort of filmy paper, add an arrangement of paper butterflies and silk flowers, and then put a cluster of three vintage perfume bottles inside.”

  “That sounds fantastic,” Carmela said. “I’ve also got some small brass bees that might work with your design.”

  “And I’ll need some bits of lace.”

  “For some reason,” Carmela said, “lace has been very popular lately.”

  Carmela pulled some sheets of floral paper that reminded her of vintage wallpaper, then found some paper that actually had designs of miniature French perfume bottles on them. She was about to grab a butterfly stamp and some embossing ink when the phone rang. Because Gabby was busy helping two other customers, Carmela dipped into her office and grabbed the phone.

  “Memory Mine.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Babcock?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “You were expecting another me?”

  “No . . . I . . . well, hello.” She figured he was calling to check on her, to see if she’d dropped off the veil like she promised. “I dropped off that veil like I promised.”

  “Good,” Babcock said. “Thank you for doing that.”

  “You’re welcome. Have you spoken to Vesper yet? About her costume collection?” She wasn’t about to tell him that she’d stopped by Vesper’s house herself to give the old bat a piece of her mind.

  “Not yet, because something else has come up.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re going to pick up Chef Oliver Slade and bring him in for questioning.”

  “What! Why?” This wasn’t what she’d expected. “What’s going on? You found some sort of evidence against him? Or a witness finally came forward?”

  “Nothing that concrete, I’m afraid. But Edward Baudette did come in this morning to hand over Isabelle’s cell phone.”