“Why did you see Dante early in the morning? What was he doing at your house…early?” Julia asked, more suspicious of his visit than the actual reason he came by, i.e. the report in my hand.
“Let’s concentrate on this report. I know you didn’t kill that guy and while this confirms it to me, Jiff says it’s not conclusive. It also shows trace amounts of roofies in Gervais’ blood along with a ton of alcohol in both of your screens.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore. That night after we got back here is a blur to me. Maybe I did hit him if I thought he was trying to rape me. I don’t remember anything like that, but why else would I have hit him in the head? I remember I liked him and I thought he was good looking in that bohemian—musician—bad boy sort of way,” she said, then more sheepishly she added, “I was thinking of going to bed with him. He wouldn’t have had to force himself on me.”
“I told you, don’t say that again—ever—out loud in front of anyone. If we get called to testify and they ask us if you ever said you think you did it, we’d have to say yes. I think ole Guitarzan slipped you a Mickey,” I said.
“Well, he might have slipped himself one too since he poured himself a glass and drank along with me. I was fine and so was he until we got back here,” Julia said.
“You said he had the bottle in his room already that night? He didn’t buy it along the way?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I went to get two wine glasses and a corkscrew because he showed me the bottle…said a friend gave it to him. He said it was a really good bottle of red wine and he talked me into trying a glass with him. I really had had enough to drink that night, but he was right, it was very good, or at least what I remember of it.”
“Well, that makes me think he didn’t know what was in it if he drank it too. Did he say the name of this friend?” I asked.
“No, but when he told me I got the distinct impression it was an ex from the way he carefully spoke about seeing his friend that day, before he checked in, and he caught himself once referring to his friend as a ‘she’.”
“Are you sure it’s the same friend? The ex doesn’t sound like she’d give him a bottle of wine to enjoy with someone else. I hope you told all this to the attorney in Jiff’s office handling your case.”
“Yes, of course. I just feel so out on a limb here. Part of me wants to blame myself because it’s my place of business where it happened. The cops are doing a bang up job letting the media believe it too.”
“I don’t think Dante believes you did it,” I said. “And you know he would really like to.” I added smiling. We both knew Dante and Julia were not simpatico. Dante blamed Julia for being instrumental in our breakup and he hadn’t liked her much even before that.
“Dante just wants you back to the way things were. He could care less what happens to me and the only reason he appears to be helping is so he can get close to you. You’re not thinking of going back with him now that you see how the other half lives, are you? Your new guy adores you. I wish I had someone who looked at me the way he looks at you every time you walk in the room.”
“Julia, I’m not sure what I want.” I couldn’t believe what just came out of my mouth. I thought I was happy moving on, but the look on Dante’s face when he saw Jiff in my kitchen this morning touched me to my core and now it was playing over and over in my head. “Dante brought this to me without me asking him, and saw Jiff there making me breakfast. Your attorney would have gotten it anyway.”
“Whoa, Cowgirl. Back up to the part where Jiff was making you breakfast. So-o-o-o, things are moving along?” Julia’s big grin had me uncomfortable and I was trying to decide just how much to tell her.
Chapter Ten
I went into my office early Monday since I had a lot to catch up on after taking two days off last week, one getting Julia out of jail and Friday to go to The Fest with Jiff. My voicemail was full and not accepting any more messages so I set about clearing that up. The secretary informed me that two DEA guys were there and asked if I could meet with them. They had subpoenas for my office to pull the phone records of several people to see who called them on their birthdays. Even drug dealers call their mothers on Mother’s Day and birthdays. The subpoenas were for phone records of mothers and/or girlfriends of drug dealers and felony murder suspects. The DEA wanted to see if they could get a lead on where some of them might be located by investigating the calls made to their women on their birthdays.
When they left I called Dante and told him what the DEA wanted and asked him why didn’t the police get a subpoena for Julia’s phone records to see who made calls to her leading up to the murder. I told him about Julia remembering a woman calling without leaving her name. I said it might be a jilted girlfriend, or his ex-girlfriend who might know who he met up with when he came to town.
“Why isn’t Julia’s big attorney…” he paused and I knew he wanted to link Jiff to me but then thought better of it, “…asking for the phone records?”
“I don’t know and I guess I can call him and suggest it. I could pull them and look at them, but I don’t want my inappropriate discovery to negatively impact the results if this can help Julia, and I really think it would shed some light on who was calling and looking for him. Besides, I don’t want to lose my job. Who would feed my dogs?”
“I’ll pull them but you do know they go right into evidence no matter what?” There was a pause and then he sounded like the Dante I grew up with when he added, “I’d feed your dogs.”
“Yes, but I really believe there might be something there to help her or cast doubt. Thank you for feeding my dogs if I wind up in the pokey.” There were a few moments of awkward silence where I tried to figure out what to say next. Dante was the first to break it.
“If you meet me this evening for a drink, I’ll tell you what I find. I can’t give you anything written. Her attorney will have to subpoena the info or get it in discovery.” Then he paused again briefly before he added, “You’re probably busy tonight.”
“No, I’m not busy tonight. I was just trying to decide where to meet you and what time. I have to pick up a little rescue from the vet who is going to his new home tomorrow but I can meet you after I let the dogs out and feed them. Is 6:00 or 6:30 after work O.K. with you?”
“Make it 6:30 so you have enough time and I’ll meet you at Napoleon House.” Dante knew this was my favorite spot in the French Quarter to have a cocktail and dinner.
“O.K. I’ll see you there… and Dante, thanks.”
“Don’t thank me until you see what I find.” He hung up.
***
When I walked into the Napoleon House, Dante was sitting at the bar waiting. He stood up when he saw me and pulled the bar stool next to him out for me. He was drinking a beer and I was about to order, when a dark rum and tonic with three limes showed up before me. It always made me feel good when he anticipated exactly what I wanted. He wasn’t much of a talker, definitely more of a doer.
This felt so comfortable, the way we were before that parade kiss with Jiff, meeting after work to discuss our day. I’m sure neither of us knew what topics were off limits. Soon, we were laughing and smiling at each other. He pulled out his notebook and told me what he found out regarding the phone records.
“It seems the number that left the message was a local 504 number. I looked it up to see who it belonged to. The call was made from a pay phone inside Pancake Paddy about 6:00 p.m. the night St. Germain checked in. The other blocked calls were from a cell phone that originated in the same cell tower with the 225 area code. The lab said it would take a few days to see if they could ID that cell number.”
I said, “The dead guy was a band member in The Levee Men. His ex-girlfriend worked at Pancake Paddy right up the street from the Bed and Breakfast. It might be a good idea to talk to her. One of the band members said her name is Violet Fornet. I don’t know anymore about her but the band members who played with the dead guy might. I bumped into one of your fellow groomsmen in the weddi
ng at Jazz Fest, Little Tony, who told me The Levee Men were playing that day. I went to talk to them backstage.”
“Steer clear of that idiot. I’d like to strangle him.”
“Little Tony? He’s a goof, but harmless, besides you’re a fellow groomsman of his in the big wedding, aren’t you? It might not look good for you to kill him.”
“Yeah? Maybe they’ll kick me out and I won’t have to stand in it.”
“If that happens, tell them I helped you strangle him so I’ll get booted out too.” We both laughed, but I seemed more amused than Dante.
“Why are you and I standing together, if Little Tony is the Best Man?” Dante asked me.
“Have you met the grandmother with the permanent scowl on her face?” I asked him.
“No, why?”
“Angela said even though Little Tony is the best man, someone has to escort Nana up and down the aisle, and in and out of the pew. Angela’s mother, Miss Angela, decided Little Tony had to escort Nana around so she doesn’t fall and she can keep up with the rest of the wedding party. Since all the other groomsmen are Italian, and short, that leaves you as the only one tall enough to stand with me,” I said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I might have to like Nana because of this,” I said laughing.
We finished our drinks and he asked if I’d join him for dinner. There was a table for two waiting for us in the corner in the smaller dining room. There were no tables close to us and it felt very private. Dante sat with his back to the wall and I sat to his left, not across from him. We both had a phobia about sitting with our backs to the door, his probably from police training and I probably got mine from him. It did make us sit closer together rather than across from each other.
“This is very nice, us here having a drink and dinner. I miss catching up with you after our day,” I said. Dante had ordered a bottle of wine, which was waiting at the table for us.
“I miss you, us, too. I know I’m not very open with the way I’m feeling about things but we’ve known each other forever, Brandy.”
“Yes, we have. I’m afraid everyone, our parents—both sets—had such great expectations for us that we didn’t know if it was what we wanted.”
“I always knew I wanted you. Us.”
I’m not sure what I was expecting but I wasn’t expecting a new, romantic Dante to be wooing me on a date. I started to feel a little guilty like I was cheating on Jiff when Saturday morning I had felt like I was cheating on Dante when he came by my house to drop the report.
“I’m glad we got some things out in the open,” I said. “I don’t like not talking with you and not being nice to each other. No matter what happens we should always be friends.”
“I want more than nice, and I don’t want to be friends. I’m willing to work to get you back,” he said, taking my hands on the table.
“What about your partner, Hanky? I don’t want to mess up anything you might have going on there,” I said feeling rotten, like I was cheating with her boyfriend out to dinner.
“I don’t know what you heard about the two of us, but whatever it is, it’s probably not true,” Dante answered me and squeezed my hands. “Don’t worry about that.”
Great, for years I couldn’t get one guy to commit to me about anything and now I had two men who were professing their undying love.
Well, sort of.
We talked over the rest of the meal, about our families—who was doing what—he had more to tell me with all his brothers and their antics. He said his mother asked about me all the time. I asked him which one of the twins wanted to date my sister and he said, “They both do.” We laughed.
When I looked at my watch it was almost ten o’clock. Wow, we’d been talking for almost four hours. “I really enjoyed this but I have an early meeting tomorrow morning,” I said. I wanted to split the check. He insisted on paying it.
“Wait, I’ll walk you to your car.” He got up and pulled my chair out for me, left money for the bill on the table as we left.
We passed the bar and Dante asked the bartender if he needed to settle up when I noticed the bartender’s nametag said Andy.
“Andy, you’re friends with Julia, right? I’m her friend Brandy.”
“Hey…yeah. Nice to meet you,” Andy said. He stopped drying a glass and extended his hand across the bar to shake mine, then Dante’s. “She can use all the friends she can get right now after this mess she’s in.”
“No kidding. She said she came here that night with the guy. I don’t believe she did it. Do you remember anything about them that night?” I asked. Dante’s ears perked up.
“Well, the only thing sort of off was a girl came in and sat over there.” He pointed to the corner table that was partially obstructed from the bar by a wall. “I think she could see the bar but they couldn’t see her or they didn’t pay attention to her. She came in through the open doors that lead out to the street over there, not through the bar door. Julia and the guy were already here. I didn’t think much of it until she got up and left right after they did. That made me think she was following them.”
Dante showed Andy his shield and said he would try to come back with some photos to see if Andy could ID her.
“Sure, just call first and make sure I’m here. I work all kinds of crazy hours. I hope I can help,” Andy said.
Dante walked me to my car and I was excited, thinking of the hallway encounter, expecting him to kiss me. Instead, he took my keys, opened the door for me, thanked me for having dinner with him and said good night. As I drove home, I felt emotionally out of whack. At Julia’s I didn’t expect him to kiss me, and he did. Tonight, I wanted him to kiss me without all the family expectations dumped on us, and he didn’t. Then, I saw headlights pull out behind me when I left the parking lot and figured, he was going to follow me and make sure I got home safely. Maybe he’d walk me to my door and kiss me good night then.
Chapter Eleven
I was back in my office setting up appointments with clients to review their communication firewalls when Jiff’s number rang on my cell phone.
“Julia is going to be arrested and taken downtown for arraignment,” he said before I could even say hello.
“What? What’s going on?”
“I really wish I didn’t have to tell you this. The police found a bloody dress they believe Julia wore the night they went out and a bronze statute exactly like the ones she has in the other guest rooms with the victim’s bloody head matter all over it in a dumpster at the end of her street. They are sending both to forensics to run DNA and the prints,” he said.
“Oh my God. What can I do to help?”
“I’ll call you back when I get more info.” He hung up and I sat there holding the phone.
This didn’t make sense. I had to get to Julia and find out what happened. I called the bed and breakfast and Frank answered.
“Frank, stop crying. I know Julia didn’t do it. What happened?” I asked.
He sniffled. “About ten cops showed up here an hour ago and said she was being arrested for the murder of Gervais St. Germain and started reading her rights. She looked so stunned she just barely got out telling me to call Jiff Heinkel’s office, that’s your friend’s firm, right? His card is right here on the reception desk.”
“What else did they say? Did they say where they were taking her?” It felt like an enormous hand was squeezing my chest.
“No, they hauled her off in handcuffs, and wouldn’t say a thing to me. They would not answer one of my questions. I asked them where they were taking her but they just ignored me.” He started crying again.
“Pull yourself together. Julia needs our help, your help right now. You have to stay there and take care of the guests and the hotel. How many guests are checked in?” I asked him.
“Five, I think, maybe four, no five. There are five guests here right now.”
“Well, can you cook? Can you stay there and make them breakfast?” I asked him.
&n
bsp; “I just clean, I don’t know how to cook or serve food. I don’t know how to check anyone in or out. I don’t know how to run the credit card machine.” He started crying again.
“Just write everything down, credit cards, peoples names, how long they stayed, we’ll figure it out. I’ll see if I can get our housekeeper to come help you. She’s a good cook. Her name is Woozie… and Frank, just do your best in the meantime,” I said, and hung up.
I called my parents house and sure enough Woozie, our housekeeper since I could remember, answered the phone. “The Alexander residence.” She sounded like she was answering for the White House.
“Woozie, it’s me and I need your help.”
“Well, I don’t see you or hear from you since you moved out. You don’t call ole Woozie and tell me where you is living, what you is doing, who you is seeing and not seeing…nothing. Humph.”
“I know, I’m sorry but I’ve kinda had my hands full with uh, life.”
“Well, just so you know, I misses you and your daddy misses you. He can’t stop talking about you. He’s always saying, ‘this is Brandy’s favorite’, or ‘Brandy always takes seconds of that’ when I make dinner. Your momma misses you too, even though she don’t say it.”
“Yeah, she misses me like a toothache. I’m sorry I haven’t called you but I try to avoid my mother’s house because of all the hoopla with me and Dante.”
“Lawd, yes. Your momma can’t stop talking about the mess you started by kissing that fella at the parade. Then, you up and move out so I don’t hear or see you and I don’t know nothing ‘bout you and this new man except what your momma tells me. I know she goes and gets it all wrong. She won’t tell me the truth what goes on wit you, just what she wants me to know. Now, all she can talk about is that friend of yours who done murdered some man dead in her hotel after she sleep wit him. How’s your momma know that? She is calling her the Black Widow since her husband just died too. I saw that woman on the news. She’s not black, why is your momma calling this woman black? I gotta hear all that from her. I don’t hear from you to give me the real news. I don’t think your momma has got all the facts.”
Dead and Breakfast (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 2) Page 8
