Louisiana Lament

by Julie Smith

  The house was a monster—a double-balconied Greek Revival classic with a garden Martha Stewart would have loved. Either the Montjoys had a gardener or Lynne, a successful interior designer, had exterior skills as well. Talba couldn’t picture Bubba-the-poet pruning roses.

  Lynne, whom she recognized from Allyson’s party, answered the door herself, looking at Talba as if trying to figure out what the maid’s daughter was doing on her porch. “Mrs. Montjoy? Hi, I’m Talba Wallis, a friend of Allyson Brower.”

  Lynne was still in her robe, but her blond hair was combed. The robe was cut so low that Talba could see collarbone. This was a very thin woman. “Omigod!” she said. “Poor Allyson.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Terrible.”

  “We’re destroyed about it. Is there something I can do?”

  “I was wondering if I could talk to you about her. I’m, well, I’m looking for Rashad…” she fumbled for Rashad’s last name, but evidently she didn’t need it.

  “Rashad? Is he all right?”

  “Actually, we’re very worried about him. A friend of his asked me to try to find him and I thought I could talk to you about the situation.”

  “Oh.” She hesitated, but in the end didn’t want to be seen as not doing the right thing. “Well, come in. Do you mind waiting while I get dressed?”

  “I’d be happy to.” Talba followed her through a period living room that showed little imagination but a lot of money, into a less formal room with windows on a side garden.

  “I’ll just be a moment.”

  Talba surveyed her surroundings and saw that the room—quite a pleasant one, painted coral with white trim—doubled as a semi-library, though Talba was willing to bet there was a real library somewhere in the house. This was just a sitting room with a wall of bookshelves. The furniture was covered with chintz, the antiques good (to Talba’s unpracticed eye), and orchids bloomed on a huge coffee table as well as on some of the bookshelves. It was probably the place where the Montjoys had cocktails at night, perhaps read the paper on Sunday, and it made Talba thaw a little. Surely people who spent time in such a pretty room had something to recommend them. Having nothing better to do, Talba went to the bookshelves and began reading titles. There were a lot of gardening books, many on orchids, and the kind of oversized coffee-table books picturing gorgeous homes you’d expect a designer to have. There was popular fiction, too, including quite a few mysteries, but no poetry that she could see and none of the weighty authors she imagined Hunt Montjoy reading. So maybe this was mostly Lynne’s room.

  Lynne Montjoy reappeared, dressed in flowered capris and a brown tank top, her makeup freshly applied. Seeing her visitor examining her books, she started, making Talba feel guilty.

  “Sorry.” Talba gave her an apologetic grin. “I’m a big reader.”

  “Would you like to sit down?” Lynne’s tone was glacial. Talba wondered if she had something to hide, or just felt invaded.

  “Thank you.” She lowered herself onto the flowered sofa; Lynne took a chair, and Talba noticed it wasn’t a wing-backed chair. There wasn’t a single one in the room, which might make it unique in the Garden District. “I think we met at your husband’s birthday party.”

  Lynne remained expressionless. Her face looked slightly pinched, her body a little undernourished. Talba wondered if she drank. “I’m a poet,” she continued, “but my day job’s this.” She produced her PI license, nestled in its own leather case with a badge offered for eighty dollars from the state board. Eddie had scoffed, but Talba’d had to have it. She loved the badge for itself alone, and also because she had a theory that it would make people talk—they’d look at it quickly and think she was more official than she was. “Rashad’s family and friends hired us because they’re nervous. They think that because he’s black, and he was there alone with Allyson….”

  Lynne looked embarrassed. “I understand.”

  “The problem is, no one can find him right now.”

  “Oh, no. First Cassie and…”

  “Yes, it’s scary. Have you heard from him in the last couple of days?”

  “Well, no, I don’t think so. I mean, he’s really my husband’s friend, but he hasn’t been around.”

  It was the opening Talba wanted. “Is there any chance I could talk to your husband as well?”

  Lynne shifted her body; Talba wondered if the mere mention of her husband made her nervous. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Morning’s his writing time. Hunt always says if you can’t say it by eleven A.M., you had nothing to say, anyway.”

  “Oh, really?” Talba asked, trying to sound innocent. “You mean, night people can’t be writers?” Forgive me, Eddie, she thought, knowing it was unprofessional; she just couldn’t resist.

  Somehow the question seemed to increase the woman’s nervousness. “I… well, I never thought about that.”

  Talba had brought up the subject for no other reason than to be impertinent, but Lynne’s reaction had actually told her something—that either she had no sense of humor and no imagination or she was so thoroughly dominated by her husband she never questioned him.

  Talba went back into detective mode. “Well, if he could spare a moment I’d appreciate it. You’re really the perfect people to talk to because you were friends with both Rashad and Allyson—Cassie, too, I gather.”

  Lynne brought her index finger to her mouth, bit down on a fingernail, and finally seemed to realize what she was doing. She withdrew the finger and stared at it. “Not Allyson so much,” she said. “We’ve always been a little puzzled by her. She hired me to help her with her house. Did you know I’m a designer?”

  Talba nodded.

  Lynne shook her head a little, looking as if she didn’t know how much to say. “I can’t say that I… really got along with her. I know Hunt thought the world of her—in the abstract, I mean. She did a lot for young writers, but…” she paused. “…she kept telling me what to do.”

  “She was a woman who knew what she wanted,” Talba prompted.

  “No. No, it wasn’t that. It was her style, if you will. She treated me… well, rather like a servant.”

  And I’ll just bet you weren’t used to that, Talba thought.

  “I really didn’t know what to think.”

  “Did she treat everyone like that?”

  The question seemed to take Lynne aback. While she considered it, Talba said, “I was thinking of Cassie.”

  Lynne looked relieved. “Cassie. Yes. I think it would be safe to say she was quite downtrodden by her mother. Cassie was the kind of girl who lights up a room. You never saw such a beautiful girl, and her mother just… I don’t know, Cassie was the one who got lost.”

  Talba felt lost herself. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I mean, within the family. Every now and then, one child just seems to get lost. Do you know what I mean?”

  Talba was pondering the question when Hunt Montjoy lumbered unannounced into the peaceful room. “Who is this, Lynne? Why do we have a visitor before eleven-thirty?”

  The great man wore a pair of faded black sweats with a new-looking Auburn sweatshirt. His brown hair was disheveled and dirty; his craggy face heavy and jowly, covered with stubble. Talba thought him one of the most repellent individuals she’d ever seen—yet apparently women fell down and worshipped him. White ones, she supposed, wondering what on earth they were thinking.

  Talba remembered what Lynne had said about his writing schedule. She stood and offered her hand. “I’m terribly sorry if I’ve disturbed you, Mr. Montjoy. I’m Talba Wallis.” She waited a moment. She’d met the man at least five times, but she saw not a spark of recognition. Reluctantly, he took her hand, but released it almost immediately, as if it disgusted him. She went through her whole PI speech again, even showing her badge, but leaving out the poet part this time. It was too embarrassing under the circumstances—she’d been at the man’s birthday party, for heaven’s sake.

  Nervously, Lynne tried to fill in what
they’d already covered. As she talked, Hunt threw himself into one of the non-winged chairs, so Talba sat back down as well. Not waiting for his wife to finish, he said, “It’s obvious what happened, idn’t it? Ought to be obvious to anybody. Bitch killed Cassie. They argued, she killed her, killed herself. Open and shut. Good little book for my buddy Wayne—’cept maybe too simple-minded even for him.”

  “Why do you think that, Mr. Montjoy?” Everyone else called him “Hunt,” but something told Talba he’d respond better if she feigned a little hero worship.

  “They were always arguing, that’s why. Allyson wouldn’t leave the poor girl alone.”

  “Arguing about what?”

  “What the hell does it matter, anyway?” he exploded. “Thought you were here about Rashad.”

  “We’re worried about him. The police think he might have killed them both.”

  “Rashad wouldn’t hurt a fly. Doesn’t have a lick of talent, God help him, but he’s harmless as a newborn chick. And you can quote me on that.”

  It occurred to Talba suddenly that he had been drinking, despite the early hour. How else to explain the fact that she’d just become a reporter in his eyes? She tried throwing him off balance. “Was Rashad involved with Cassie?”

  “Cassie? That little… pissant involved with Cassie?” Talba had the distinct impression he’d been about to say “nigger” or perhaps, given the way the two words started, “pickaninny,” and then thought better of it. He was so offensive in any case she wondered why he bothered to censor himself.

  “The police think he might have been,” she said calmly. “Well, he wasn’t. No way, José.”

  No way, José. Terrific phrase for a Pulitzer Prize winner. “Do you know Janessa? Might he have been involved with her?”

  “Janessa? Who the hell’s Janessa?”

  “You remember, Hunt,” Lynne said. “The painter. The talented girl who took over when Doug quit.”

  “You mean the black chick with the big ass? Uh-uh. Rashad wouldn’t look at a girl like that. No way, José. Now, how do I know? Because he had a crush on Cassie the size of a mule’s hard-on. Any idiot could see it from two miles away. Allyson was probably jealous as hell. Bitch!”

  Talba was wondering if it was time to leave when he said, “You know she owed Lynne money? Lots of money.”

  His wife said, “Hunt. Please.”

  “Stupid phony bitch. Acted like she owned the city. Nobody in New Orleans ever saw her until a year and a half ago—she just blew into town and—”

  “Like Gatsby,” his wife said. She turned to Talba. “You know the novel? The Great Gatsby?”

  Talba decided not to be offended—another of Eddie’s lessons. “Indeed I do,” she said, and then to needle her host, she added, “but I never saw what was so great about him.”

  “Gatsby is the quintessential twentieth-century American,” Hunt said dreamily, as if he were lecturing a class. “The American dream personified. Gatsby is who we are and who we deserve to be. God help us.”

  “In the end, he turned out all right,” Talba countered, paraphrasing the book itself, again to annoy him, but she kept talking to prevent further literary exegesis. “I never made the Gatsby connection with Allyson.” She was surprised that she hadn’t.

  “Didn’t you?” Lynne asked. “Oh, yes, Allyson was the female version. The mansion, the parties, the way she thought she could buy anything…”

  “Lynne, for Christ’s sake,” her husband said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Lynne looked hurt. “But I thought—”

  “Lynne, shut up.”

  Talba changed the subject quickly. “How about the rest of the family? Did either of you know the other two children?”

  “Not Arnelle,” Lynne said. “She wasn’t around much. But Austin…”

  “Now I like Austin,” her husband said. “Redneck through and through.”

  “Apparently Allyson threatened to disinherit him.”

  “Hmph. No surprise there. She was probably ashamed of him.”

  “Well? Would he kill her?” Might as well go for broke. “Is he the type who’d kill his mother?”

  “Never know what a redneck’ll do,” Hunt said. “I oughta know.”

  “Well, let’s get back to that Gatsby thing.”

  “Let’s don’t.”

  “I was just wondering how Allyson did it—I mean how does someone go about something like that?”

  Both Montjoys looked blank.

  “She collected celebrities, that’s obvious—I was at the party she gave for you and it looked like a literary festival.”

  “You!” Hunt didn’t even try to keep the derision out of his voice. “Hey! You’re that poet gal.”

  Normally, Talba would have done her stage trick—“I am the Baroness de Pontalba”—with emphasis on the “I”. But she was too intimidated to do it now—and it took a lot to intimidate her. She only nodded and moved on. “What I was wondering—how did you meet Allyson? She had to have had an introduction.”

  The Montjoys looked at each other. “Through Rosemary McLeod,” Lynne said finally. “They were in business together when Allyson first came to town. Don’t know how they knew each other—I hear they were girlhood friends, but poor Rosemary’s… well, at any rate, they had this little catalogue thing. They were trying to sell New Orleans art and they wanted to offer my candelabra.”

  “Your candelabra,” Talba said.

  “I’m a metal worker, you know—you’ve never seen my candelabra?” She looked around, as if scanning for an example. “I must have rearranged things—I used to have some in here. At any rate, they’re my trademark. I didn’t want to sell them that way, of course, but we got to talking—Allyson was a big talker—and she invited us to a party.” She sighed helplessly. “So we went. And then we were obligated to her.”

  “Ensnared,” Hunt said.

  “Then I ended up working with her, and we couldn’t seem to get away. But it wasn’t all bad. I found her fascinating, frankly.”

  “Why the hell would you say that?” her husband demanded.

  “That Gatsby thing. I mean she really had no pride. I’ve even heard she—”

  “Lynne, please!”

  Talba could have killed him. She had the feeling she’d just missed out on something juicy.

  “What about Rosemary? I’d like to talk to her.”

  “Oh, she’s very ill now,” Lynne said quickly, but Hunt roared, “What is this, anyhow? I thought you were here about Rashad.”

  Talba was a bit undone. “I am,” she said simply. “Do either of you see him as a murderer?”

  “Absolutely not. He’s a dear, sweet, sensitive child.”

  “No way, José. Doesn’t have the balls.”

  “I read the poem he wrote about his mother.”

  Neither one of the others spoke. Talba wondered if they’d even read it. “Might he be with her?”

  Hunt shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? I’m going to Pete’s.” And he got up and strode out of the room.

  As if nothing had happened, Talba turned to Lynne. “When you were talking about Allyson-as-Gatsby, you were about to say something…”

  “I was?”

  “Something you’d heard.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have the slightest recollection what it was.”

  “Because I heard something about her, too. I heard she paid to get people to come to her parties.”

  “Well, she certainly never paid us!”

  “No, you misunderstand. I meant that she hired someone to get the guests there.” It wasn’t exactly a shot in the dark—it was based on the mysterious phone call she’d gotten from Burford Hale after the literary lion party.

  “Oh, really? I think I have heard something of the sort. But what kind of person would do a thing like that?”

  At the moment, Talba thought, a dead one.

  “Do you know Burford Hale?” she asked.

  “I’ve met him a few time
s, at Allyson’s—he was close to her, I think.”

  “Her boyfriend?”

  “Don’t know. I don’t know anything about her personal life.”

  Talba sighed. “Hale was arranging for the pictures at your husband’s party.”

  Lynne only shrugged.

  Talba had a strong urge to leave the woman’s company. “Well, thanks for your time,” she said, too abruptly. “Here’s my card. Feel free to call if you think of anything that could help Rashad.”

  Chapter Seven

  Eddie hated to admit it, but he knew he couldn’t blame his daughter for this one—or his wife, or even Ms. Wallis (whom he preferred to blame for everything). Janessa had done it to him. He had a weakness for kids in trouble, and this one was such a deer in the headlights he didn’t even care if she was guilty, he felt like helping her. Besides which, he was going to in the long run anyhow—Ms. Wallis was going to make his life miserable until he gave in, so he might as well save them both some trouble. Furthermore, Janessa was going to give Angie a ration of trouble, and that ought to be fun to watch.

  Then there was the case itself—something was very rotten in Denmark, and he was intrigued. Whatever had happened here, it wasn’t your average everyday street corner shooting. The connections he had in New Orleans, one phone call would probably tell him whether the thing was really worth pursuing. He looked up the number for an old buddy, Mike LaBauve, who was on Major Case Homicide, out of headquarters. All the homicide cops were pals; LaBauve ought to be able to find out what was going on and LaBauve owed him for keeping quiet in a little matter involving LaBauve’s son a few years back. That one had worked out—the kid had straightened out and become a lawyer. If you could call that straightening out.

  He placed his call, asked his questions, hung up, and waited. LaBauve called back within the hour. “EdDEE! LaBauve here. I got what you need. First, of all, Allyson’s kids all had different names from hers—got it from the maid, Carmen Sandoval, who Crockett located from a phone number on the refrigerator.”

  Eddie interrupted. “Where was Sandoval yesterday?”

  “Day off because of the hurricane. She’s worked for Brower for a year or so, no record, looks clean. She left at three p.m. Monday—didn’t see that scene ya client described.”