Red Beans and Vice

by Lou Jane Temple

  Heaven had one more thing to do while she was in the Quarter. She walked over to the convent, trying to sort out what Amelia had said and done. Did Amelia have enough of a dark mind, or a broken heart, that she could be behind all this mayhem after all?

  Heaven felt betrayed. She thought she was making friends with Amelia, but it only went so far. Then the lying started. It was true that it would have been difficult for Amelia to bring up her affair with Truely to Heaven. Amelia knew Heaven only as a friend of Mary’s. But Heaven was sure Amelia wasn’t telling her everything about her relationship with Truely. She was sick at heart because now she’d have to lie, too. Mary didn’t need to hear this.

  Heaven slipped into the convent at the Chartres Street entrance. She passed the bookstore quickly while the volunteer who worked there was selling some tour tickets to a couple.

  She had an idea. It had hatched when Nancy Blair mentioned her interest in religious art. It would only take a minute to eliminate a nasty possibility that was bothering her. She hoped it would be eliminated, that is.

  Heaven walked over to the side of the courtyard where the cross had been reinstalled on a raised brick dais. It looked like this time they had sunk it in concrete. Heaven kneeled in front of it, hoping lightning wouldn’t strike her down. She bowed her head and dug around in her purse at the same time to find the key to the rental car, then she leaned forward, threw her arms around the cross and kissed it, while scratching the back side of it near the base with her car key. She peeked around at the tiny gash she’d made. Under the rust and patina there was something wrong. Bright, shiny, new metal sparkled at her. She got up quickly and made a little curtsy at the cross, then went out the way she’d come.

  The volunteer was standing in the door, smiling approvingly at Heaven for her piousness. “Yes, we’re all so glad to have the sisters’ cross back where it belongs.”

  When Heaven got to Mary’s house, she saw Will’s car in the driveway. She parked on the street so he could get out, relieved he was there. She wouldn’t want to be weak and spill the beans about Amelia. With Will around there was no chance she’d bring up that subject to Mary. Of course, there was the possibility that Will knew about the affair. After all, he was Truely’s best friend.

  “Yoo-hoo,” she yelled inside the big front hallway. “Where are you two?”

  “Heaven, we’re in the library,” Mary called.

  When Heaven entered the lovely old paneled room, Mary was sitting at Truely’s desk and Will was on the floor with one of the desk drawers in front of him, carefully taking out papers and reading them. “What are you two up to?” she asked.

  Will smiled. “Pardon me if I don’t get up. Mary has a bottle of Sancerre open over on the bar.”

  “I asked Will if he’d help me go through Truely’s desk. I think he’s almost ready to believe you, Heaven.”

  Heaven felt her heart beating faster. On the way home she’d made plans to go through that desk after Mary went to bed, looking for incriminating photos of Amelia, and anything else she could find. Now they’d beaten her to the punch. Damn.

  “Believe me about what?” Heaven glanced at her watch. It was almost seven, certainly in the right time zone for a glass of wine. The day had flown by and she hadn’t gone to the library. That would have to be on the list for tomorrow. She went over and poured herself a glass of wine.

  Mary’s voice sounded tense as she talked to Heaven. She must have not taken her Xanax or whatever she’d been on. “Yesterday, during the funeral when no one was around, someone broke into the warehouse.”

  Heaven caught her breath and looked concerned. “Oh, no. Did they take anything?”

  Mary shook her head. “Not that I could tell. They opened some bags of coffee beans and the warehouse manager thought they’d searched Truely’s office. I went down there and I thought the office looked like it always did. But the manager knows the place better than I do. He said the desk was a mess. I could have left it that way because I wasn’t tracking very clearly when I went down there with you. I really couldn’t tell if anything was missing. The safe hadn’t been opened.”

  “So I’ll concede Truely may have something somebody is wantin’ to get back,” Will said without looking up from the pile of papers on his lap. Heaven walked over to where he was sitting and saw a folder marked household insurance that Will was working from. There were a couple of photos lying on the floor but they looked like pieces of jewelry that probably had an additional insurance rider on them. Thank goodness, no near-naked Amelia. She reached down and picked up a photo of a diamond pin in the shape of a bouquet of flowers.

  “What a beautiful pin,” she said.

  Mary looked up and Heaven flashed the snapshot in her direction. “That was Truely’s mother’s and she gave it to me before she died, the old bag.”

  Will chuckled and Mary even grinned a little.

  “I thought it was too big, too showy. I hardly ever took it out of the safety-deposit box,” Mary continued. “Of course, it may have to do with the fact that Truely’s mother always treated me like I was a carpetbagger. Any pin she’d give me, I guess I felt wasn’t worth much.”

  “Now, Mary Beth, that pin is worth fifty thousand dollars if it’s worth a nickel. That old lady liked you.”

  “She sure had a strange way of showing it,” Mary said stubbornly.

  The maid, the regular one on staff, came to the door of the library and announced dinner was ready.

  As Will got up off the floor he snapped his fingers. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Amelia Hart called for you.”

  “Great,” Heaven answered shortly.

  “Aren’t you going to call her back?” he asked.

  “Not now. We’re going to eat.” Heaven had no intention of talking to Amelia tonight. Let her stew over whether I’m telling Mary about her and Truely. She deserves to be miserable for a while.

  Will and Mary gave up their search and the three of them went to sit at the big table in the dining room. It was rather dreary, Heaven thought. “Why don’t we eat in the kitchen instead. It’s just us, isn’t it? This seems too formal.”

  Mary brightened. “Better yet, let’s fill our plates in the kitchen and take them out to the porch. There’s a bridge table out there and we can eat on that.”

  When they were settled, Heaven tried to figure out what she could tell them about her day and realized she hadn’t told them everything about the day before the funeral. “I have lots of news. Do you remember the day I went out on Highway 90 again and someone took a shot at me or maybe at an endangered bird?”

  Mary and Will nodded, their mouths full of very dry roast beef.

  “Well, because that was so sensational and because the next day was the funeral, I never got around to telling you that I had this idea that somehow maybe the real estate that the sisters owned was what someone was after. That’s why I had you draw me a map and I went up there.”

  “And?” Mary asked.

  “And I had Amelia Hart check it out through her sources at city hall. There wasn’t one person that owned a bunch of property up there. No big dummy corporation. I’ve got the names of the owners. You two might know some of them. Can I show you?” She looked at Mary out of the corner of her eye to see if she reacted to Amelia’s name. Now that Heaven knew about Truely and Amelia, she couldn’t imagine she didn’t say the name like it was spelled, “Adulteress.” But Mary remained the same.

  “I know everyone in the real estate biz, Heaven, remember?” Will said, as if Heaven had forgotten he did real estate transactions. She had. Quickly, she ran to the library to get her purse with the list.

  Mary and Will scanned the list of property owners together while Heaven choked down some of the overcooked roast, carrots and potatoes. It reminded her of Midwestern cooking. She looked at their faces for some sign of recognition.

  Will handed the list back to Heaven and she stuck it back in her purse. “I’m amazed I don’t know one soul on that list. They must be speculator
s from out of town.”

  “Me either. Sorry,” Mary said.

  “So do you want to hear what I did today?”

  Will reached over and patted Heaven’s arm. “This is just like having a teenager around. What trouble did you get in today, sugar?”

  “Don’t be condescending,” Heaven snapped, jerking her arm away from his touch. “I tracked down the company that provided the labor for the benefit at the convent. It’s a company that provides temps for caterers and special events. I thought maybe there would be someone who had only worked for them the one time, who just happened to show up at that gig to kill Truely. Sorry, Mary.”

  “But how would you know whether they were a regular or not?” Will asked in his usual skeptical manner.

  “I wouldn’t, but for a small bribe, the guy at the employment agency shared what he knew. Don’t doubt me, Mr. Smarty Pants.”

  Will threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Well, what did you find?”

  “There were several people that didn’t usually work for the agency but one in particular got my attention. He had a real bogus name, something like John Doe, and he worked at Verti Mart only he hasn’t been at work since the benefit. I think he’s a hit man from New Jersey.”

  Heaven could tell both Mary and Will were intrigued, but the hit man from New Jersey was a little hard for them to take. They looked at each other and back to Heaven, almost rolling their eyes.

  “Oh, come on Heaven,” Mary said. “That makes no sense. Why would someone from New Jersey come down here to kill Truely?”

  “I think Heaven was just using New Jersey as shorthand for someone from organized crime, Mary. The coffee Cosa Nostra,” Will said with a smirk.

  “Well, I went to the police station and mentioned all this to them and they weren’t so cavalier.”

  Now Will’s smirk disappeared. “What did they say?”

  “You mean after they asked me if I had any more dead pelicans with me? They insisted on calling the egret a pelican,” Heaven said huffily. “They said that they had also been trying to locate that person, James Smith, it was. So, I think I’m on to something.”

  “According to your theory, James Smith is back in Hoboken by now,” Will reminded her.

  “They have phones and faxes in Hoboken. The world is a small place now, Will. You have to go farther than the East Coast to get away with anything.”

  Mary took a sip of wine. “Why is it that you think organized crime might be, might have been, after Truely?”

  Heaven smiled faintly at her friend. “Now, this is not a reflection on you, or Truely for that matter. I’m in business and I know how rough it can get. What if Truely was smuggling something into the country in the coffee beans?”

  “Like what?” Will asked, smirking again.

  “Drugs, diamonds, emeralds. I don’t know. Stuff they have in those coffee-growing countries that people in the United States want.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Mary said. “The customs people here in New Orleans are the best in the country. Because I deal with international clients, I know about customs. Truely wouldn’t take that kind of a chance with his business. He could have lost everything.”

  Heaven got up. “I hate to remind you, but he did lose everything, his life. Someone killed Truely and I still don’t think it was because he was at the benefit for the Sisters of the Holy Trinity. I’m beat. I’ll see you in the morning.” Heaven was too weary to tell them about the cross tonight, and she sure wasn’t going to talk about Truely’s affair. Let them live in ignorance a while longer, or maybe forever.

  When she got to her room, she used her cell phone to call Iris’s number in England. She wrote down the phone number in Brazil that was on Iris’s machine, then held the phone close to her face without hanging up for a minute. Hearing her daughter’s voice helped. She was feeling increasingly disconnected, from Kansas City and her life. She had to get out of here soon. When she called the number in Brazil, the hotel operator told her Iris McGuinne was out and did she want to leave a message.

  “Tell her her mother called and F m still in New Orleans.”

  Fried Green Tomatoes with Shrimp Rémoulade

  For the tomatoes:

  beer

  all-purpose flour

  1 tsp. ground cumin

  canola oil for frying

  green tomatoes

  Green tomatoes are easy to find from July to October in many places where you have access to a famer’s market. Just ask one of the farmers to bring them to you green. You can also ask your produce man at the grocery store, as often the commercial tomatoes are shipped unripe and then ripened at a wholesale produce place.

  Make a batter with equal parts beer and flour, say 1 cup to 1 cup. How much you need will depend on how many tomatoes you are fixing. Add a little ground cumin to the batter but I normally don’t add salt. Let your batter sit at least an hour at room temperature, then heat about an inch of oil in a cast iron or other heavy pan and slice your tomatoes in 1/2 inch slices. When the oil is medium hot, dip the tomatoes in the batter and fry, draining on a paper towel and sprinkling with kosher salt. At Uglesich’s they serve about three tomatoes topped with a mound of shrimp per serving.

  For the Shrimp Rémoulade:

  2 lbs. large shrimp, cooked, cleaned, and chopped

  1 cup green olives, chopped

  2 each red and yellow peppers, roasted and diced

  ½-1 cup mayonnaise

  ¼cup Creole style or spicy mustard

  ¼Dijon mustard

  2 T. horseradish

  1 bunch green onions, sliced just into the greens

  juice of a lemon

  paprika and cayenne to taste

  kosher salt

  black pepper

  To roast the peppers: Seed and quarter the peppers. Put in a shallow baking dish and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with kosher salt as this draws out the sugars and really changes the flavor. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, checking once and turning the peppers.

  To make the rémoulade salad, combine all ingredients and mix well; chill for at least an hour. Serve a scoop of salad with a serving of fried green tomatoes.

  In New Orleans, you would never find olives and peppers in a rémoulade salad. They are my addition and I love the sweetness of the peppers with the mustard and horseradish spice. This is a good lunch salad with or without the tomatoes. You can serve it on fresh spinach, as I have, or chopped iceberg lettuce or those ever popular field greens.

  Ten

  Before she left the house the next morining, Heaven wanted to see if her hunch about the location of the real cross was correct.

  Mary was already leaving, out to run errands for the party.

  Heaven first dialed information and then Sotheby’s the minute Mary’s car pulled out of the drive. “I’m interested in your sale next week of religious artifacts,” she said when her call was answered. “Yes, I’d love for you to send me the catalog, but specifically I collect crosses, and I heard you might have one from the eighteenth century. Is it large? Twelve feet? Could you do something for me? I just can’t wait for that silly catalog to get here to see that cross. It sounds luscious. Is it… oh, French, well, I do love the Spanish ones but would you mind faxing me a photo of the cross right away?”

  Heaven was in the library and she found the number of the fax machine on its keyboard. Then she gave Mary’s name and address and asked them to overnight the catalog.

  It was only a few minutes until the fax machine began its familiar hum of transmission.

  She grabbed the paper and, even through the grainy reproduction of the catalog photograph, she could see it was the cross of the Sisters of the Holy Trinity. She sat down to think, rubbing her temples. She suddenly had a headache. It was one of those times when she wished she’d been wrong. It would make things so much simpler.

  Heaven supposed there were dozens of explanations. But two seemed the most probable.

 
When Nancy Blair had let it be known she was interested in the stolen cross, some of her antique dealer friends could have tricked her, creating an imitation cross to sell to Nancy. Then they’d placed the real cross in the auction in New York, confident that no one in New Orleans would be the wiser.

  But why would they encourage Nancy Blair to go to New York and attend the very auction the real cross would be sold in?

  That led to the second explanation: that Nancy Blair herself had paid to have an imitation made, knowing the nuns would be so glad to get their cross back they wouldn’t check its authenticity. Then she’d made plans to sell the authentic cross in New York. If that was the case, did she have it stolen in the first place, or was she just capitalizing on the hand that came her way when she was able to retrieve the real cross? Heaven picked up the fax of the cross and stuffed it in her handbag.

  She was going to have to think about this.

  In the meantime she dialed Amelia Hart’s cell phone. “Amelia, now listen to me,” she started. “I didn’t tell Mary so don’t worry about that. But I still could. And the best way for you to convince me you’re not Truely’s murderer is for you to help me find the person who is.”

  Heaven started shaking her head at the phone. “I don’t want to hear about it. Tell me sometime over lots of cocktails at Lafitte’s. Right now I want you to check the morgue for any John Does. One of the people who worked the party Saturday night has been missing since then. This one has a tattoo around his upper arm. That’s all I know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him. Call me back on my cell phone if you find anything.” Heaven gave Amelia her cell phone number, clicked off and headed out the door to visit the French Quarter once more.

  In a few minutes she was standing out in front of the apartments where the explosion had taken place on Saturday night. It wasn’t easy to figure out these New Orleans dwellings, where one ended and the next began. It looked to her like there were two buildings facing each other with a courtyard in between and enough room for cars to be parked inside. The garage door flush to the sidewalk was closed. Up above that door was a balcony with ferns hanging and a table and four chairs. No damage showed on the street side. If windows had been broken, they were replaced. There were no black fire marks on the brick.