“Go on,” Frank urged. “I want to hear everything.”
“Well, there’s not too much more to tell. My grandmother died a few years ago. I ran the Flamingo Arms alone for a while. Then when I decided to get married, I sold the old place, thinking I’d soon be moving into my own home.”
Frank gave her an odd look. “Jesse didn’t tell me you were married.”
“I’m not,” she replied stiffly. “The plans fell through.”
“Sorry,” Frank murmured.
“Don’t be. It would have been a huge mistake. Funny, my psychic powers give me no help at all where romance is concerned. Too bad! I think I could use some insight into matters of the heart. But then, I’m not sure I’m the marrying kind, and my former fiancé certainly wasn’t. I realized that when I found him with his lover.”
“Oh!” Frank nodded knowingly. “Another woman.”
“Another man,” Carol corrected.
She felt Frank stiffen beside her, obviously embarrassed. Carol quickly changed the subject.
“Anyway,” she went on, “since I’d already found a buyer for the hotel, I decided to move up to the mountain cabin my parents had used as a vacation getaway, at least until I could decide where I wanted to live permanently. I guess you could say I’ve become a happy hermit. I love living up there all alone. I plan to stay right there on my mountaintop forever.”
“What do you do up there? I mean, your psychic stuff can’t keep you busy all the time.” He glanced over at her, a quizzical look in his almost-black eyes. “Or does it?”
She laughed softly, picturing Frank imagining her on top of some far-off mountain, curled up in the lotus position, muttering mantras from dawn till dusk.
“No, I don’t just hang around my cabin playing with crystals and mixing foul-smelling potions,” Carol said with another chuckle. “Actually, most of the time, Frank, I’m quite normal in spite of what Jesse might have told you. You’re right, I had to find something to do. I’ve always had an interest in antiques; the old hotel was filled with them. So, I decided to open a shop in the village at the foot of my mountain.”
He glanced over at her, his dark brows drawn low. “I’m real sorry, ma’am. I was so anxious to get you on out to N’Awlins I never thought about you having any other business to tend to.”
Carol brushed aside his apology. “It was no problem really. We get a big tourist rush in the fall—leaf-peepers, you know—but things slow down to a snail’s crawl after Christmas. I close for a couple of months after the holidays. That gives me time to tidy up the place, bring my records up to date, and do some buying.” She grinned at him. “Sometimes I even manage to sneak a vacation into my schedule.”
“If you have a mind to buy some old stuff, this is sure the place for it. I’ll take you around to some of the shops,” Frank offered. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
“I specialize in Victorian jewelry. I’m curious to see the necklace you said the woman was wearing.”
A dark cloud seemed to descend over Frank’s features at her mention of the case.
“You’ll see everything soon enough,” he replied. “Tell me about these powers of yours. I’ve never met anyone who could see things or hear things or whatever it is you do.”
Here it was! The old skepticism rearing its ugly head. She always had to prove her credentials to these guys. Even Jesse had doubted her in the beginning. She took a deep breath, then plunged in.
“I see and hear things, and somehow I just know things. Where the powers come from, I can’t tell you. My first experience was the night my parents were killed. My mother was afraid that night. I knew it; I felt it. Maybe she was the one who passed her psychic knowledge on to me.” Carol paused and shook her head. “I don’t know. All I understand is that whatever talent I have is meant to be used helping people. I’ve never tried and never would, but I know I can’t use my powers for evil or for personal gain. At times, I’ve thought of this gift as a curse, but I guess it really is a blessing.”
“But how does it work?” Frank said. “Do you ask yourself questions about something, then get answers out of thin air?”
Carol concentrated hard, trying to think how to explain. “No, it’s not like that at all. Visions come to me mostly. For instance, when we were talking on the phone, I saw a number of things that I feel are connected to your case.”
“Like what?” Excitement was evident in his voice.
“Fog… a swampy area.”
“That would be where the corpse was found. What else?”
“A snake.” She shivered, remembering.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.” She shivered again. “I don’t do snakes.”
“Anything else?”
“A man and a woman embracing—maybe dancing.”
“You’ve actually seen her? What did she look like? Could you tell where she was?”
Frank’s urgent questions tumbled out in a rush. Carol felt almost as if she were a suspect in his interrogation cell.
“Slow down, Frank. Let me think about it for a minute.”
He stayed quiet while she closed her eyes, clasped her hands, and concentrated with all her might.
“Yes, I can see the couple again,” Carol said at length. “She has long, blond hair. He’s holding her and, yes, they do seem to be dancing. They’re at a fancy ball. I can see other couples—blurred figures in the background.”
“Her face! Can you see her face?”
Carol shook her head. “No. She’s wearing a mask. It’s really a lovely thing—made of peacock feathers and shiny stones. She has something around her neck. Maybe the necklace you found? Yes, I see it clearly now. It’s a cameo fastened to a green ribbon. The woman carved into the cameo is also wearing a necklace set with a single diamond chip.”
Frank asked no further questions. In fact, he lapsed into such a deep silence that Carol could actually feel his gloom, a tangible force in the car.
“Did I say something wrong?” she ventured, disturbed by the sudden strained silence.
“You’ve just described my wife, Eileen, at the Mardi Gras ball shortly after we were married. The cameo with the diamond was an antique—my wedding gift to her. And I bought that mask for her myself at a little shop on Decatur Street. She was so happy that night. You see, Eileen was from Tennessee and that was her first Mardi Gras ball. Her only Mardi Gras ball,” he added under his breath.
“Oh,” Carol said, feeling a flush of embarrassment. “I was so sure this had something to do with the case.”
“It doesn’t.” His tone was hard and flat. The silence that followed warned her she had rubbed a sore spot.
Carol wanted to squirm through her seat. She almost wished that Jesse hadn’t told her about this great tragedy in Frank’s life. Finally, she decided that the best thing to do was try to clear the air.
“Frank, I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I know about your wife.”
“Jesse, huh?”
“Yes. He told me because he didn’t want me to say the wrong thing and upset you. Now I’ve gone and done it anyway.”
He glanced her way and forced a smile. “Hey, don’t worry about it. That’s all in the past.”
Is it, Frank? She wanted so badly to ask the question aloud, but she didn’t dare. Somehow she knew that if he would open up to her, she could help ease his pain. Maybe she could even uncover some clues that would lead him to his wife. But there was no way she could force him to talk about Eileen. She would simply have to be patient and concentrate all her energies on the case of the unidentified mummy.
They rode on in silence for a time. Then Frank turned off the expressway and into the French Quarter. Carol almost gasped aloud. It was as if they had driven right into one of her visions of the past. The narrow streets, the quaint buildings, the wrought-iron balconies, and, in the distance, the spires of St. Louis Cathedral.
Frank pulled the car up to the curb outside the Hotel Dalpeche on Chartres Stree
t. It was obviously one of the French Quarter’s old private townhouses.
“I live here, in one of the apartments,” he explained. “I figured it would be convenient to have you here, too. I hope you don’t mind staying at an older place instead of one of the swank hotels over on Canal.”
The small hotel delighted Carol, with its quaint wrought-iron balconies, flickering gaslights, and cobbled drive that led to an interior court.
“Every room’s furnished with period antiques,” Frank said, smiling at her. “Wait till you see the one I picked out for you. It’s something special.”
“Special how?”
“You’ll see,” he answered mysteriously. “But right now we’ll just drop your bags off at the front desk and head down to Bourbon Street for something to eat, if that’s all right with you.”
Carol took a deep breath and flattened a palm against her belly. “Has my stomach been growling that loud? I never eat much when I fly.”
Frank laughed. “Who does? Those little plastic dishes with the plastic food on them. We’ll get you a real meal.”
The Hotel Dalpeche was only a few blocks from Bourbon Street. Frank parked his car off the street, checked Carol in, then took her arm and headed back out.
“Don’t I even get to see this special room before we go?” she asked.
“Plenty of time for that later. First, we feast!”
As they strolled along the banquette, Carol found the whole Vieux Carré a feast for the senses. Music drifted from the open doors of small, smoky clubs. In the cool twilight air, the moldy, earthy smells of antiquated buildings and the distant river mingled with the delicious aromas of food—blackened red-fish, fresh-baked French bread, and the fragrance of steaming hotdogs as they passed a street vendor.
“Hey, you know what I’d love?” Carol asked.
“Name it!”
“A hotdog with the works.”
“Make that two,” Frank told the vendor.
All conversation ceased as they wolfed down their spicy, juicy dogs.
“Another?” Frank asked.
Wiping dribbles of mustard from her chin, Carol grinned. “That’ll do me for now, thanks.”
They wandered on, watching twilight turn to darkness over the old city. In a short while, they arrived at the very heart and soul of New Orleans.
They found Bourbon Street alive with tourists and Carnival revellers—a collection of people who looked like the misfits of the whole world gathered in one raucous spot. Strolling about were couples in fashionable evening clothes, bums in rags, and tourists in tee-shirts advertising their hometowns or their favorite ball clubs.
Flashing neon striped the crowded, cluttered pavement of the roped-off street in rainbow hues, tinting the shop windows with a haze of garish colors. Carol window-shopped, enthralled by all the glittery junk, until she noticed that several of the stores displayed ties depicting a certain portion of the male anatomy in rather shocking detail. She averted her gaze, for fear Frank might catch her staring.
Music blasted them from all sides. Everything from Irish ditties to country to cool jazz and hot rock blared, almost overpowering the cries of pitchmen trying to lure customers in to see assorted exotic shows.
“Well, what do you think?” Frank asked, spreading his arms to indicate the whole expanse of the fabled street of sin.
“I’m overwhelmed,” Carol admitted. “I don’t suppose we could find a quiet place to talk.”
“I know the very spot, ma’am. Come on with me.”
Frank took Carol’s arm. She knew the gesture was simply to keep them from getting separated by the surging mass of humanity; still, it was nice feeling protected. She glanced up. This man was nice, too, she decided.
“Where are we going?” she asked. They had worked their way out of the mad chaos into a darker, quieter block of Bourbon Street.
“Just down there.” Frank pointed toward a small building that obviously dated far back in New Orleans’s history, judging by its briquette-entre-poteaux construction exposed through bare spots in the exterior stucco finish. “Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. It’s dark, it’s quiet, and you could drown in the atmosphere. Besides, they have a roaring fire and a piano player named Miss Lilly who’ll put you right in the mood.”
Carol glanced up at Frank, not certain how to take his last comment. “The mood for what?”
He laughed at her wary tone. “For discussing business with a cop, of course. What’d you think I meant, ma’am?”
Carol decided to consider that a rhetorical question. She merely smiled in response.
Frank was right; the place was perfect. A dark, intimate atmosphere, with smoky rafters overhead, small tables, candles in wine bottles, and a lady at the piano who played numbers so smooth and mellow that the music might have come straight from the harp inside Carol’s head.
“This place really was Jean Lafitte’s blacksmith shop,” Frank explained once they were seated at a table in a corner near the fireplace. “He and his brothers ran it, although I doubt they shoed many horses here. They were into freebooting, and this was their sales outlet for a time. I’ve heard many a high stakes poker game went on here, too. One tale says that ole Jean, ‘the gentleman smuggler,’ actually won a man’s wife from him in this very room.”
The story both amused and horrified Carol. “I wonder what the lady thought of that. I can’t say I’d be pleased at being part of the ante.”
“The tale goes that she was delighted,” Frank assured her. “Lafitte was quite a ladies’ man, while her husband was a low-life—a mean, sadistic bastard. I don’t know if she ever married Lafitte, but legend says she went away with him when he left New Orleans for Galveston. She was supposed to have been the great love of his life—a Creole beauty named Nicolette.”
A waiter interrupted to ask if they would like to order drinks. Remembering Jesse’s story of Frank’s drinking problem, Carol looked at her companion uncertainly. He returned a confident stare, then said, “A glass of Fumé Blanc for the lady. I’ll have branch water with a twist of lime.”
Carol smiled. “How did you guess? Or have you been digging deeper into my personal tastes and habits?”
Frank shrugged. “You look like smoky white wine. Pale skin, hazy eyes. What color are they? Brown, gray, green?”
She laughed softly. “You’re in trouble if they look green. Everyone tells me my eyes turn green when I’m angry. They’re mosdy brown, I’d say, but with a touch of gold and gray mixed in.”
It was Frank’s turn to laugh. “I’ll have to see if I can’t cross you somewhere along the line. I’m fond of green-eyed beauties.”
Carol felt herself blushing. Frank’s lazy, Southern charm was making inroads. Jesse had been correct when he predicted they would get on well.
Time to change the subject, she decided. “Tell me about the case. What exactly have you found out about this woman from the swamp?”
“Almost nothing,” Frank admitted, shaking his head slowly. “There’s just nowhere to start without a positive identification, and she goes way back before fingerprints or social security numbers. There is the necklace, though.”
Carol leaned closer, all attention. “Tell me about it.”
“It’s a gold coin—an old Spanish doubloon. What we call ‘pirate gold’ around here.”
The old woman at the airport flashed back into Carol’s thoughts. Even now, she was carrying a similar coin in her purse. She should show it to Frank; she knew she should. But something stopped her.
“Do you think she was murdered, Frank? Is there any sign of foul play?”
Again, he shook his head. “No. My guess would be that she got lost in the swamp and either drowned or died of exposure. But the big question is, what was she doing there in the first place? Why would a woman go in there alone, knowing the dangers?” He looked up at Carol, the candlelight reflecting in his dark eyes. “I’m hoping you can supply me with some answers.”
“I hope so, too,” Carol answered wi
th a sigh.
Silence stretched on between them for several minutes. Carol toyed with her napkin while Frank adjusted his tie.
Finally, Frank spoke. It seemed to Carol that he had been priming himself to say, “There are some other answers I wish you could give me, too. I know it has nothing to do with the case, but I’d give my soul to find out what happened to my wife.” He stared at Carol, a look of such deep pain on his face that she suddenly reached out to touch the back of his hand with her fingertips.
“You know I’ll help if I can, Frank. Maybe that mystery is even more important than the identity of the woman from the swamp. After all, even if I do learn who she was and what happened to her, who will be left to care? But with Eileen…”
Frank had been staring into Carol’s face. At the mention of his wife’s name, he looked away.
“If anything comes to you, Carol, anything at all…”
“Of course, Frank.” A silent alarm went off in Carol’s heart. She truly ached to help Frank, but she knew from what Jesse had told her, that she had to be careful with any information she uncovered about Eileen.
Frank’s eyes held almost pathetic gratitude. Carol found herself biting her lip to keep from crying. She could feel his pain that deeply.
They talked on for a time, until Frank saw Carol try to hide a yawn behind her hand. “You must be bushed,” he said. “Why don’t we go get some real food, then I’ll take you back to the hotel?”
She waved off his suggestion. “Oh, no! I couldn’t eat anything else tonight—travel jitters, I guess. I think I am ready to hit the sack, though. It’s been a long day.”
The old city was quieter as they strolled back toward the hotel. The farther they got from Bourbon Street, the deeper New Orleans slept. They walked along shoulder-to-shoulder. Once again, Carol felt the pleasure of having a man so near. Very simply, she liked Frank Longpre. They seemed wonderfully comfortable together.
Carol paused at the hotel entrance and closed her eyes for a moment, drinking in all the impressions that were bombarding her mind—her very heart and soul. The harp music played very faintly somewhere off in the distance. The weeping child, she was happy to note, was silent now. She realized suddenly that the keenest sense of all was the warmth of not being alone. Until now, she hadn’t realized how hungry for companionship she’d been over the last months. Suddenly, she had a sense of belonging—of needing and being needed. It felt good!
Whispers in Time Page 4
