“You’re the investigator?” Julia’s tone questioned not only his title, but also his ability and qualifications. He smiled by way of an answer.
After the handshake I asked, “So, how long have you been working as an investigator?”
His posture straightened and it seemed the wrinkles in his pants disappeared. The languid speech changed and stated with a no-nonsense abruptness. “I usually work undercover around the universities, let’s just say monitoring illegal activity, and leave it at that. I’ve been in law enforcement for fifteen years. Mr. Heinkel asked me to personally handle this one.” His answer lost all the southern charm and had a hard edge to let us know he was all business. His demeanor changed with the accent and it looked like someone more formidable appeared in his place.
He was more cop now and showing his true age. It worked for me. He stated we should go inside and he wanted Julia to show him where she’d found the body. Inside there was no sign of Frank, even though he was supposed to be at the reception desk answering the phone.
The guest room still had crime scene tape over the door, which Julia had covered with a curtain on a spring rod across the doorframe.
“Nice touch,” Ernest said looking amused.
“Well, I can’t have guests thinking this guest house might be their last stop before the cemetery next door,” Julia said.
Ernest entered first lifting the crime scene tape with one hand for us to duck under, and pointing with his other for us to stand just inside the doorway.
“Are we allowed past the crime scene tape?” I asked.
“I’m an investigator for the defense,” he said pulling out his wallet and flipping it open to show me his credentials. “But not really, so don’t touch anything. I want to see if I spot something the crime scene photos missed.” He walked around the room, asking questions, and I busied myself looking out the window. I realized the big oak’s massive limbs totally hid the wrap around veranda from the street, including the two front windows and the side window overlooking the cemetery next door. Anyone who was just a tad bit nimble could have climbed the tree to take a look into the room, walked out on the good sized limb closest to the handrail and stepped onto the porch. They could have left the same way. No one would see them from the street and no one in the cemetery next door was going to leap from a grave to call in a 9-1-1.
“Ernest, I told the police I remembered the window being open when I got here and found Julia in this room. It was open when we came up with the police.”
“I keep the windows closed and locked. I can’t remember if Gervais opened it when we were in here or if it was even open when I left in the morning. I was pretty out of it. I had a monster hangover even though I’d only had a couple of glasses of wine,” Julia said.
“Maybe someone came in that way,” I said.
“It looks like the police dusted for prints. I’ll see if I can get their report,” Ernest said to no one in particular while he snapped a bunch of photos with the cell phone he pulled out of his shirt pocket. Julia and I looked at each other and shrugged.
“Julia was hauled off to the pokey, and I was detained downstairs and questioned. I was released from here when the crime team showed up. I stopped at my office to pick up messages and say I’d be out the rest of the day, and then I went to Central Lockup to get Julia out where I waited until 11:00 p.m.,” I said.
“Well, I’m sure your prints will be everywhere since you own the place. Who works for you cleaning or doing turn downs?” Ernest asked Julia.
“It’s only me here now. Frank came to work here after the incident but no one has been in here except the police, me and…” her voice trailed off. Ernest and I didn’t make her say his name. I was afraid she would call him Guitarzan again.
“Oh, Julia, tell him about the phone calls before the guy checked in and after,” I said.
“Right. There was one call that was date and time stamped the same night Gervais checked in. He asked me out for drinks. That call came in while we were out. After that one, there were a couple of messages with only heavy breathing. All the other calls left messages or were about making reservations. There were no more weird calls after, after…” Julia drifted off.
“Who was the caller? Do you still have that? Did you give it to the police?” asked Ernest.
“It was a woman’s voice and she asked if Gervais St. Germain was a guest, waited for someone to pick up and then said she’d call back. It was like she didn’t know she was speaking to an answering machine. I think she left a number but I don’t remember where I put it,” Julia said. Then we all headed downstairs to the hall where my big deal with Dante happened. Frank was nowhere to be found. I thought he might have left for the day without advising of his departure.
We searched and there was no piece of paper with a number and the message machine had been erased. Ernest asked if Julia might remember the name. Julia said she didn’t leave a name only the number.
The detective gave us each his card and said if she did remember or thought of anything else, to call him.
As soon as he got into the BMW to drive away Julia said, “I’m screwed. Why didn’t I keep a copy of that number from the caller ID?”
“Why did you erase it?” I asked.
Chapter Six
I knocked once and opened the unlocked front door of my parents’ house. It seemed like I was walking into a burglary or a stick up. Everyone was screaming because our Italian neighbors were visiting. I was about to back out quietly so I wouldn’t be noticed when my dad spotted me.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in!” His rosy cheeks gave off the same hue as the red wine he was sloshing around in his glass. “C’mon in, we’re celebrating Little Angela getting married to Angelo Tuddo.” My dad loved any excuse to celebrate, since living with my mother, a teetotaler, paid his penance forward in life.
The Fortunatas, Angelo Tuddo and my family were all there. Little Tony, Little Angela’s twin brother was named after Big Tony, their Grandfather. Angela’s parents were Mr. Donnato and Miss Angela Fortunata. My dad grew up with Donnato at his house listening to Louis Prima’s music. Good New Orleans manners allow children to address adults they know or are familiar with as Mr. and Mrs. First Name. We use Mr. and Mrs. Last Name, even as adults, to address strangers or people older than us unless instructed otherwise and that still feels awkward.
Mr. Donnato would say, “Your dad was the only mick in a room full of us dagos right off the boat. He called my dad ‘mick’ so much a lot of people thought it was his name. Mr. Donnato called me Little Mickey when I went to their house to play after school. He said I looked more like my dad than my mother and I should have been named after him. I liked Mr. Donnato.
Little Tony grabbed me before I could out maneuver him, giving me an all too friendly kiss on the lips. He was squeezing my shoulders so tightly my ears could almost touch them. “Can you believe my hook-nose sister got some dago to marry her?” he yelled with my ear too close to his face. The entire family needed to practice volume control.
“Oh, my God, don’t talk stupid, Little To-o-o-ny. How many times I gotta tell you, she has the big nose but, thank God, it doesn’t have a hook in it.” Miss Angela stood up wringing her hands, and crossing herself every time she said ‘God’ which sounded like ‘Gawd’ while reprimanding Little Tony. She crossed herself a lot when talking because she said ‘God’ a lot. She had the same speech pattern as Little Angela. I looked at Little Angela, wondering if she had gone deaf and then I realized she was on her best behavior in front of her fiancé. She could very well hear everyone and take up for herself since we were all in the same room and she had given Little Tony a black eye or two when we were kids for a lot less.
“Hook nose,” he called Little Angela again after his mother sat back down. He continued talking to me, holding his hand on one side of his mouth as if this broadcast was meant for my ears only and the rest of the room was not tuned in. “Yeah, so anyway, Angela hooked a whale, in all sen
ses of the word, to marry her soon to be knocked up ass.”
“Dat’s enough.” Mr. Donnato, Little Tony’s dad, put down his glass of wine and started to hoist his largeness off one of my mother’s dining room chairs screaming under his weight. Little Tony got the message, let me go, and scampered to stand behind his mother.
“You remember Little Angela, right Brandy?” my mother asked. How could I not remember her, or this circus scene I’d seen every time I went to play at her house after school. We went to the same grade school every day on the same school bus and sat next to each other every grade until we left to go to high school. Angela and her family lived around the corner from us, less than a one minute walk from door to door, and had relatives living on their block much like our relatives living around us on our block. Little Angela’s mother and my mother became friends when they were our Brownie Scout Troop leaders together and worked out the carpool schedule taking turns as our chauffeurs. My Dad never met anyone he didn’t like, with the exception of all the boys who came to our house calling on either my sister or me. When my mother liked someone enough to socialize with them, which was not often, Dad had no problem having a good time.
I could see Little Angela taking in a large breath to say something in her nasal whine. “Br-a-a-a-n-dy, I want you to be my bri-i-i-i-desma-a-a-id,” she said taking forever to drag out this request. I was already worn out from this five-minute visit so I knew I couldn’t listen to this for an entire wedding and they hadn’t even started all screaming at once.
Right after Mardi Gras I moved out of my parents’ home and into one side of a double shotgun I share with my roommate Suzanne and the Schnauzers I rescued in Mid City. My parents’ house is in the Irish Channel about a fifteen-minute drive from Julia’s guest house and my new apartment. I now had living expenses and quite frankly, I’d rather spend bridesmaid dress money on the dogs I rescue.
“As much as I would love to, Angela, I just moved out on my own and really don’t have much money to buy the dress, shoes, and all that’s required to be in a wedding party. How many bridesmaids are you having?” I started walking backwards toward the front door so I could make a fast exit before they could object. I wanted out of there before I got snagged by my mother into giving Little Angela a bridal shower. I’d rather poke myself in the eye with a pencil
“Little A-A-An-gelo has five brothers and ten re-e-e-ally close cousins so we are gonna have fifte-e-e-e-n gr-o-o-o-msmen and thr-e-e-e- ushers.” This took another two minutes off my life waiting for the total wedding party tally. There were going to be eighteen groomsmen, eighteen bridesmaids, both sets of parents, a couple of flower girls, a ring bearer, a maid of honor, and a matron (Angela’s married cousin, Sofia). So far, I counted forty-five in the immediate wedding party before dates, husbands, wives or spouses with children and they all had children. The rehearsal party was going to look like a state dinner. I wondered how many photographers had wide-angle lens to accommodate a bridal army of this magnitude. I couldn’t live through an entire wedding plan as Angela whined out every detail. I could always use the excuse I had to go home to walk the dogs if my visit spiraled much further into the dysfunctional realm of the usual family encounters. This conversation seemed like a one-way ticket headed there.
Angela was marrying a guy that weighed three hundred pounds and popped cannoli like breath mints. His head bubbled up from this great mass while his feet were stuck on short, massive legs that looked like they were holding up a ship in dry dock. His legs were perpetually on an angle under the great weight much like the Eiffel Tower’s legs holding up the wide part of the iconic structure. His movements required great effort to hoist himself up, and put one thundering leg in front of the other. Often this effort was only employed to reach another plate of cannoli. Little Angela had been dating Little Angelo Tuddo since we all were in high school. Unlike men only being a junior, she was also a junior in the Italian sense, both named for a parent. He weighed the same then as he does now and would probably gain rather than lose weight for their wedding. In high school, Angela’s twin brother started calling him Jabba the Hut, from Star Wars, because Angelo looked just like him. Little Tony said if Angela married him she would have little Jabba Hutt-ettes. Little Angela cried all through high school. What in the name of God could provoke anyone to date Jabba the Hut—let alone marry him? Big Angelo Tuddo, Little Angelo’s dad, had ten car dealerships from the metro New Orleans area to Houston and Little Angela saw no limits on the American Express card he promised her as a wedding gift.
“Brandy, you have to stand for Little Angela. You two have been friends since grade school.” My mother said, the recollection of my lifelong friendship with Angela returning. She gave me an eye-piercing stare over her half eyeglasses as if to exert mind control over my answer.
Every big, ugly, expensive bridesmaid dress flashed before my eyes. “I’ll have to get back to you, Angela and right now I have to run home and let the dogs out. They’ve been cooped up all day! I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know.” I had reached the front door walking backwards.
“Brandy, you know, you gotta dance with me at the big Tuddo-rama wedding Angela’s gonna have at The Veranda,” yelled Little Tony in my ear as he ran up and grabbed me by the arm forcing me to stay. I could just picture dancing with Little Tony, since I was five foot eight and he was five foot five. He would have to put his head on my shoulder.
Miss Angela was yelling at Mr. Donnato asking how six hundred guests were going to all fit into the room at The Veranda when their maximum was four hundred fifty people.
My dad poured himself and Mr. Donnato another glass of wine from a bottle of Chianti. Then he walked over to me where I was struggling to get out of Little Tony’s grip, raised his glass and announced, “Brandy’s mother and I will gladly cover the cost for our daughter to stand in my friend Donnato’s daughter’s wedding.”
Wait. What?
Little Tony added, “I guess that means you’re in. I’m the best man but we won’t be standing together, because you’re too tall and I gotta take care of Nana getting in and outta the pew so you’ll be standing with Angelo’s friend from the neighborhood, your old squeeze, Dante.”
Wait. What?
“Little Mickey, you’ll be Angela’s maid of honor,” Mr. Donnato said. Angela and her mom beamed at me. Thank God she didn’t say anything. My mother was smiling, something that didn’t happen often. “You gonna have a hundred boys wanna dance with you – a hundred Italian boys!”
This was moving way too fast. I had gone from graciously declining to now being the maid of honor?
Back slapping ensued among the men and hugging among the women. I was hugged into Miss Angela’s huge bosoms while Mr. Donnato hoisted himself to his feet and stood in place while everyone came to him to slap him on the back or hug. I stood in disbelief that now there was no way out of this mega wedding fiasco and Little Tony said I would be standing with Dante. It never occurred to me that Dante was friends with Angelo from school and might be at the wedding, let alone in the wedding party and I would be standing with him. This would make it interesting if I wanted to bring Jiff as my date. I left to go home, feed my dogs and tried not to imagine what fashion atrocity the bridesmaid dress had in store for me and seventeen of Little Angela’s closest friends. Instead I decided to look forward to my date with Jiff on the first day of Jazz Fest tomorrow.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Little Italy’s wedding of the year was the last thing on my mind as I dressed for the day at Jazz Fest. It was a beautiful day with clear blue sky and already hot. It was sure to feel like one hundred degrees in the shade so I wore a cotton gauze off-the-shoulder sundress to avoid tan lines. I brought my wide rimmed straw hat and put on my hammered gold earrings and bracelets. I dolled up just enough to look good spending the day with Jiff but still dressed casual and cool so I didn’t melt in the African heat wave the Jazz Fest brought with it. I didn’t mind the heat. I minded when it rained out the Fe
st and it turned into a mud wrestlers dream date. I’d rather be hot than muddy. Today was a cloudless, sweltering day – just the way I liked it.
Jiff had the pricey VIP package, so we drove right onto the Fairgrounds, parked and breezed through the line that normally took thirty minutes to get through. I could get used to this preferred treatment. To meet two of his friends, Jiff and I made our way through the crowd to the flagpole, which was centrally located inside the racetrack. The problem was all twenty thousand people had the same meeting place. This was the predetermined meeting place for everyone who attended the Jazz Fest and planned to hook up inside. We picked a place and one of us would walk around and see if we could find our friends. We'd wait ten minutes and if they didn’t show we’d try again in two hours. This was our agreed-to plan. So far, they were a no show and it was no surprise. It was a record-breaking crowd for Friday, and Jimmy Buffet was the closing act this evening.
On top of the crowds, it was blistering hot. Jiff bought me water in a bottle so I could refill it and splash myself from time to time. We strolled around the fest grabbing a beer and treating ourselves to Crawfish Monica, my favorite fest food. We meandered over to stake out our special spot to catch Jimmy along the racetrack’s inside rail, about two hundred feet from the stage on a sloping incline of ground that gave us an advantage looking over the sea of people waiting for our favorite parrot head.
My other favorite, Irma Thomas, was about to start her performance so I could stand here for the remainder of the day and catch the two performers I came to see. Jiff and I had the same taste in local music and performers. We often went to the French Quarter to hear an artist or band we liked and would spent a large part of the night dancing.
“Wait here, I’m going to get another beer. You want anything?” he said into my ear over the music starting up.
Dead and Breakfast (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 2) Page 5
