Louisiana Lament

by Julie Smith

  She couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Angie might like you if you’d grow up a little bit.”

  “Angie? Oh, she likes me. Count on it.” He was smiling so broadly Talba could almost believe he knew something she didn’t.

  Except for the sparse turn-out, the gathering in some ways resembled the Leo party that had so amused her and Darryl before everyone died.

  Before everyone died.

  The phrase shocked her, came to her before she could choke it off. She felt a momentary eye-watering, tears more about the fleeting quality of life than any of the missing cast members. It had been a night of utter absurdity, a night to reflect on the follies of human nature, a silly time when death was something that happened to people who had fully lived their lives.

  Arnelle, who was fluttering about in a black cocktail dress, had evidently pulled out all the stops. A bar was set up along with a lavish buffet catered by Food for Thought, which gave Talba an idea. She asked a passing waitress if she’d been friends with Cassie. “No, actually.” The girl blushed. “I’m the one who was hired to replace her.”

  Talba tried again with a waiter, who smiled. “Yeah, I knew her. Great girl, shame.” He looked uneasy.

  “Were you close?”

  “No, uh…”

  “I’m looking for someone who really knew her well.”

  “Oh. Simon. The redhead. He’s probably around somewhere.” And he disappeared, looking glad to get away. Talba went in search of the redhead, whom she found arranging trays in the kitchen.

  “Hi, I’m told you were a good friend of Cassie’s.”

  “Yeah. God, I miss her!”

  “Could I ask you a personal question?”

  “Depends.”

  “I was just wondering… did she talk to you about her personal life?”

  He looked at her suspiciously. She wondered, too late, if he’d been involved with Cassie, or maybe wished he had. Perhaps a man wasn’t the best person to ask. This one was attractive, with curly auburn hair, but he gave off no signals that said overtly gay or straight. “Why do you want to know?” he asked.

  She opened her purse and pulled out her official-looking badge. “I’m an investigator looking into her death.”

  He barely glanced at the badge, just looked much relieved, and said, “I’ll do anything I can to help catch that bastard.” His square jaw set angrily.

  “Any particular bastard?” Talba said. “Are you saying you have some idea who it was?”

  “Jealous wife—that’d be my first thought. Cassie had a way of getting into situations that weren’t good for her.”

  Talba nodded. “So I hear. Do you happen to know who she was involved with?”

  He ground his teeth. “That bastard, Hunt Montjoy.” He was openly showing so much hatred Talba wondered if he even knew Montjoy was dead.

  “And you think Montjoy’s wife killed her?”

  “Naah, but she probably should have. You know what I really think? I think he got drunk, had a fight with her, and things got out of hand.” He shrugged. “I think that’s why he killed himself.”

  “I just wonder, though… if they fought, it must have been over something. Was she seeing anyone else?” Like you?

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Well, how about the guy she dumped for Hunt?”

  “No idea who that was.” Simon shook his head. “Wasn’t me, that’s all I can tell you. She never gave me a look—just wanted me for a pal. You had to be married or violent or both to get her attention. God, she was self-destructive!”

  “That’s what I hear. But Hunt’s is the only name I’ve got.”

  “Maybe that’s because he did it.”

  Talba thanked him and went back to the public rooms. Everybody’d had a drink by now, and the place was buzzing. The size of the crowd had more than doubled, and most of the people looked young. They were probably mostly Cassie’s friends, as Rashad had predicted. Since Talba recognized hardly anyone, she was reluctant to go around asking about Cassie’s exes.

  She ran into Austin again, even now relishing his bad-boy role. “Arnelle wants to start the speeches,” he said. “But I said no. I’m still trying to think of something good to say about Mother.”

  “Austin, listen, didn’t you tell me Cassie had a habit of dating married men?”

  “I wouldn’t call it dating, exactly.”

  “Can you give me names?”

  “She didn’t share that stuff with me. I just know what Arnelle told me. Why don’t you ask her? Hey, Arnelle!” He called so loudly that a few people stared. Arnelle, twenty feet away, whirled around looking furious. It probably cost her, but she joined them to avoid a scene. “What is it?” she hissed.

  Talba decided not to pussyfoot. “Do you know the names of any of Cassie’s ex-boyfriends?”

  “That bastard Hunt Montjoy.”

  Funny, everybody had the same opinion of him. Talba wodered what his memorial service was going to be like.

  “Anybody else?”

  “No.” She whirled again, and left them.

  This was going nowhere. Maybe it was best just to leave it alone. The good news was that Janessa and Rashad weren’t in jail—maybe she’d gone far enough; maybe there was no need to pursue the thing any further.

  She saw Burford Hale in the crowd, and decided he must have come for Cassie, not Allyson. She noticed an older woman she was sure she knew, but couldn’t place—a very chic woman in slate blue silk that was fabulous with chestnut hair that must at her age, have cost a mint to keep up. Wayne Taylor was talking to her, his back to Talba. She was weighing the pros and cons of confronting him directly when a plump, round-faced woman touched her on the shoulder. She was holding a baby.

  “Aren’t you the Baroness Pontalba? I’m Janet Taylor. Wayne was thrilled you caught his Frankenstein class the other day.”

  Oops, Talba thought, abort mission. She was thoroughly disconcerted. “Hi. Cute baby,” she said, aware that she was so nervous she was more or less chirping.

  Janet held the kid up to be admired. “This is Georgia. Isn’t she adorable? Is she not the cutest baby you ever saw?”

  Talba laughed. She liked this woman, liked her pretty, wholesome face, liked her enthusiasm for her child, liked her general exuberance. She was a model of positive energy whereas Cassie, by all accounts, had been lovely, but wildly neurotic. Interesting contrast, Talba mused, reflecting that poor mental health often seemed, for a certain kind of man, a prerequisite to romance.

  Janet was still talking. “We couldn’t get a baby-sitter, and we adored Cassie so much we really really had to come say goodbye to her. I figured, what the hell, Georgia has to learn about death sometime and she’ll be among friends. She’s not going to be warped, do you think?”

  Talba laughed again. Coming from another woman, Janet’s words might have seemed ditsy, but Janet spoke them with a certain irony—you could tell there was a piece of her that really did worry that her daughter would pick up the sadness in the room, yet another that told her not to be an idiot.

  Talba touched the infant’s face. “Hi, Georgia. You’re just gonna sleep through this, aren’t you? You wouldn’t dream of being warped.”

  “Wayne is inordinately proud of that Frankenstein routine, you know. He’s always doing something off the wall, but that’s really one of his favorites. And he’s such a fan of yours! He was so pleased you caught his act.”

  “It was a kick,” Talba said, but the conversation, under the circumstances, was starting to make her decidedly uncomfortable. Fortunately, she was saved by Austin, banging a gong for attention.

  To Talba’s surprise, he delivered a moving, near-tearful eulogy to both his mother and Cassie. So much for the bad boy.

  Eight or nine people spoke about Cassie, including Burford Hale, which she suspected was his revenge on Allyson—death by snubbing. And Rashad read two new poems—one for Cassie and one for Allyson.

  After that, one other person spoke for Allyson—the
older woman in the slate blue dress, whose gorgeous hair proved to be a wig. She introduced herself as Allyson’s oldest friend, Rosemary McLeod, and proceeded to paint her friend as a saint, exactly as she had in private. Talba was so uncomfortable with the naked naiveté of it—which more or less convicted Allyson while purporting to praise her—that she distracted herself by looking around again, and saw that she wasn’t the only one. People were shifting their weight and changing position, in that way they do when they smell something wrong. She did notice one thing—Wayne’s face was bruised and swollen. She wondered vaguely if Janet had found out about his affair and beaten him up.

  More and more people contributed a story or two about Cassie, here a tear, there a laugh, but no one else rose to say how much they’d miss Allyson—not one single person—until it was clear the ceremony was winding down. Austin as master of ceremonies called one last time for speakers, and Janessa, looking like she might cry, came to the microphone. Her hands were shaking.

  “I didn’t know Miz Allyson well,” she said. “But what I did know, she was good to me, and she was good to my friend. And I think she was good to some of y’all, too. Y’all came here and you ate her food and ya drank her liquor, and now ya just doin’ the same thing all over again. Shame on y’all. Shame on ya!” And she stumbled back out of sight, crying.

  Talba found her and tried to touch her, but the girl shook her off. Rashad was standing nearby, the picture of helpless distress.

  “Janessa, I’m proud of you,” Talba managed. “That was really a brave thing to do.” Janessa turned her back and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “World’s biggest anticlimax,” she reported in the morning. “Couldn’t even find out if it’s true about Cassie and Taylor, although Rashad’s prediction came true—it was mostly Cassie’s friends. Not a soul spoke for Allyson except Austin, the big hypocrite, and her friend, Rosemary McLeod, and Rashad, who wrote her a poem. Oh, yeah, and Janessa. But there was a guest book—I could check out the Cassie thing that way.”

  Eddie shook his head. “Not worth it. And don’t even mess with Rashad’s bartenders. We found the cops two witnesses, our client’s still out of jail, and so’s her boyfriend—let’s give the damn thing a rest. I got an insurance case to do, and the Lord only knows what you got on ya plate.”

  “Fine with me,” Talba said. “I’ve got plenty to do.” Not only that, she was heartily sick of the case. She did have a couple of regrets, but they weren’t big enough to make her argue. One thing, she still felt bad about Cassie. Another, she didn’t want to take Janessa home to Mama till she was sure the girl wasn’t a murderer.

  And there was one other thing—the Hunt Montjoy connection. She’d sure like to know what had happened there. Something told her he could have killed both the other victims, but he’d had far too high an opinion of himself to nip such greatness in the bud.

  Still, life went on, and one way or another, Janessa had to grow up. Talba applied herself to other cases and probably would never have given Montjoy another thought if Mimi Dirr, in her role as designated gossip for the literary set, hadn’t called to find out if Talba’d turned up anything on Cassie and Wayne Taylor.

  “Naah,” she said. “It’s probably just one of those rumors.”

  “Oh. Well. Never say I don’t check out my rumors. Are you going to Hunt Montjoy’s memorial service?”

  Talba leaned back in her chair, shoulders aching from hours bending over her computer. “Hadn’t planned on it. When is it?”

  “Tonight. Why aren’t you going?”

  “Couldn’t stand the man, for one thing.”

  Mimi giggled. “Well, who could? But listen, this is the literary event of the decade. Wayne Taylor and some of his buds have booked Cafe Brasil.”

  “Cafe Brasil? Isn’t that a little funky for a memorial service?” It was a dance club.

  “You know, celebration-of-his-life kind of thing. There’s a bar, and a microphone there—that’s half the battle. The Praline Connection’s doing the food.”

  “That’s convenient.” The Praline Connection was right across the street.

  “It isn’t that. It’s because they have fried chicken livers and fried dill pickles—his two favorite foods.”

  “Oh my God. Lynne can’t be in on this.” Talba couldn’t see the elegant designer ordering up a mess of fried pickles.

  “No, there’s a family funeral for him next week in Alabama—or wherever he’s from. This is just his writing pals.”

  “God, he would have hated that! So far as I could tell he prided himself on not being friends with writers. Unless you count Wayne, of course.”

  “Listen, you’ve really got to pop in, check out hypocrisy in action.”

  She still wouldn’t have gone if Austin hadn’t called and asked her to be his date, a proposition that caused her to laugh in his face. “Are you kidding? I’ve got a boyfriend. Take Angie.”

  “I hate to insult you, Baroness, but I’m only trying to make her jealous. She won’t go with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Thinks I killed Hunt.”

  “And did you?”

  “Well, I tried. You saw me. Pick you up at six-thirty?”

  “Forget it. I’ll meet you there.” That way she could just not show up if she so decided. But the more she thought about it, the more she thought she couldn’t afford to miss it. She and Eddie might have suspended the case, but you never knew when it was going to come back and bite them in the butt. Besides, Austin didn’t need a date—he could go alone. She wanted to find out why he’d bothered to call her.

  The minute she walked in, she was struck by the sense of celebration in the air. She thought that if it had been her own memorial service she might have preferred people to treat it slightly more seriously. A bluegrass band was playing, something Talba had never in her life heard in New Orleans. Leave it to the redneck poet crowd to come up with one.

  Her “date” found her mulling over the question of turnip greens versus crowder peas. “Like the band? I found ’em myself.”

  “Austin, you’re full of surprises. Why’d you want me to come to this?”

  “Baroness, I didn’t give a rat’s ass if you came to this or not. I just wanted to see you.”

  She decided on turnip greens, but no rice; cornbread on the side. She placed her order and turned back to him. “Why’s that?”

  “Angie tells me you’ve stopped your investigation.”

  “We thought the police could take it from here. We found you and Rashad for them—they might as well earn their salaries somehow.” Accepting a plate, she said, “This is great cornbread—have you tried it?”

  “How about if I hire you to continue?”

  She almost choked on her greens. “What for?”

  “I need to know who killed Cassie.”

  She studied him, trying to figure out what the hell was up.

  The look on his face was serious enough, but this was one volatile guy. She had no idea how trustworthy he was—or how deep the animosity ran between him and his older sister. “Are you trying to nail Arnelle?” She gave him the helpless sign. “Because I can’t do it. I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to. I don’t see a shred of evidence that she did it.”

  He grinned. “Arnie? No, we’re bonding.” Seeing her skeptical look, he said, “Seriously. She’s in it with me. We both want to hire you.”

  “Arnie. That does it, I’m not buying a word of this.”

  “I swear. Well, technically, I’d be paying, but she’s all for it. Listen, I’ll prove she knew I’d be talking to you.”

  “How?”

  “She asked me not to forget to ask you which cat you want—Koko or Blanche.”

  Talba still wasn’t buying it. “Austin, what’s behind this?”

  He stared at the band as if he’d never seen a banjo in his life, and he just had to memorize what it looked like. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand this. But something happens to you
when someone dies like this.” He paused, his jaw set hard. “When someone is murdered. You know how they talk about ‘closure’? God, I hate that word! But I get it now. I completely get it. Sure my mother was difficult, but she was still my mother. No way she deserved to die like that.” Tears weren’t exactly flowing, but his jaw was working now and his brow was furrowed. He wasn’t finished. “And Cassie was my baby sister.” He gasped the words, barely able to talk.

  Talba decided, for the moment, to take him at face value. The world was full of great actors, even fuller of gifted liars, but maybe he wasn’t one. “Okay, okay. But I’ve got to run it by Eddie—I’m not sure we don’t have a conflict. I told Arnelle that.”

  “Yeah, but that was when you had another client. Now you don’t.”

  “Technically, we do, but—”

  She was interrupted by Peter James, the distinguished and much honored writer of humor who’d apparently been chosen to serve as master of ceremonies. The band had lapsed into respectful silence.

  James was from South Carolina, but she’d met him a number of times at the local literary festival. He was a member in very good standing—if not the acknowledged leader—of the good ol’ boy literary network. So he and Montjoy had been friends, that went without saying.

  James was something of a poet himself, though his poetic bailiwick was self-acknowledged doggerel. Still, it was extremely witty doggerel. He began the evening with a poem to his old buddy, Hunt, whom, one line went, “We won’t forget, no matter how much he might wish we would.” And which went on from there to describe a few choice moments from the great man’s life that might have been better off forgotten.

  Just when Talba thought the event was beginning to resemble a roast more than a wake, James got to the “but seriously” part of the speech, which he then turned into a graceful tribute to Montjoy’s literary achievements. As he spoke, the band struck up “Amazing Grace,” and played it very softly under his voice. When he was finished, there was barely a dry eye in the house, certainly not in Austin’s head. Talba was stunned to see him weeping, as he hadn’t at his own family’s service.