Now Let's Talk of Graves

by Sarah Shankman

  “That’s all it was, a joke. Church—well, one of the things he liked best about being an eye surgeon was it meant that he didn’t have to depend on family money to be comfortable. Which is just as well, considering that the Lee fortune is sort of petering out.”

  Sam gazed out at three gardeners puttering on the immaculate grounds. Then she looked back at Kitty. Oh yeah?

  “Don’t judge by them. You know we still pay slave wages down here. Ain’t nothing ever what it seems.”

  Sam smiled. In her business, she had reason to know that more than most. “And how about his practice? Must have been a slowdown after the business with Mr. Leander.”

  “I don’t think so. But then, Church would never say if there was.”

  “Do you mind if I talk to his lawyer about this?”

  “Be my guest. Though I doubt you’ll get very far with him. Preston Peacock’s about as closemouthed a member of that particular species as I’ve ever seen.”

  “Peacocks?”

  “No. Lawyers.”

  Then another notion bubbled to the surface. “Kit, do Nadine and Church’s ex, Madeline, have anything in common?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. It just occurred to me to ask.”

  Kitty shook her head slowly, then reached for another cigarette. “No, I can’t think that they would.”

  Kitty had hesitated just a tad too long—like she always did when she was lying. Or avoiding the truth. But it would do Sam no good to call her hand. She’d simply have to be more creative. Then she remembered that Kitty had still said nothing about Leander’s canceling the malpractice suit against Church’s estate. She asked if Kitty had returned Leander’s call.

  “I haven’t. I hate that old bastard.”

  “Better talk to him, girl. He’s got something mighty interesting to say to you.”

  “I could learn to hate you too.”

  “Not a chance. Listen, now, before I forget about it, I think you ought to have some kind of surveillance put on the house and a tail on Zoe.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I’m not. She said this Billy Jack is a wacko. I’d believe it after what I saw last night. I’d hate for us to be sorry we didn’t later.”

  “Jesus. Do you really think it’s that serious?”

  “I’m telling you, Yes. Listen, I’ll call Harry—no, I guess I won’t. You know anybody does this sort of thing?”

  Kitty blinked her big blue eyes.

  “Okay. Don’t worry. I’ll call around. I’ll handle it.”

  “What am I going to tell Ma Elise?”

  “Tell her the truth,” said the old lady as she stepped onto the brick patio with her cane.

  Twenty-Three

  MARIETTA DUCHAMPS DUPREE leaned back in her chair under a yellow-and-white umbrella, signaled to Howard for another couple of glasses of iced tea, ran her tongue across her top lip, tasting the sweat, and grinned across the table at Chéri.

  Lordy, lordy, her life was good.

  And here she was scandalizing the Club—one of her very favorite things to do.

  Just a couple of minutes ago Bunny Crabtree and Sugar Rockwell had strolled by on their way out to the courts, where Marietta and Chéri had just finished a ferocious match—with protracted volleys so long and low and carefully placed that when one of them finally came to the net, the other moaned softly.

  Now, damp and exhausted, they sprawled in chairs at the side of the pool. Bunny and Sugar had stopped for a minute.

  “I see you’ve brought your guest again, Marietta,” Bunny had purred, then turned to Chéri. “I’m sorry, darlin’, I don’t remember your name.”

  “Nor I yours.” Chéri grinned, taking that opportunity to reach for a towel and blot beads of perspiration on her chest—her beautiful, freckle-strewn chest, the sight of which made Bunny feel like a boy.

  Chéri knew that.

  Chéri knew everything there was to know about both female and male psychology and any combination you could imagine thereof. Chéri may not have darkened the door of a classroom after she’d finished high school over in Thibodeaux, where her father, when he wasn’t shrimping, was a volunteer fireman, but where human nature was concerned, she had a Ph.D.

  “Now, I think you hurt that girl’s feelings,” Marietta said after Bunny and Sugar flounced off. “She’s not gonna speak to me at the Orleans Club luncheon next week.”

  Chéri grinned again. Fiddled with the straw in her iced tea. Made her mouth a pretty pout around it. She knew Marietta loved her little pout, especially when she was just playing.

  “Now tell me what it was you were so excited about on the phone when I couldn’t talk,” Chéri said.

  Marietta sat up straight, took a quick peek around. This goddamn club had such ears, it might as well be wired for sound. “Sally Jean called me, she was just all to pieces. She said this gangster had come into Maynard’s office, threatening him.”

  “Gangster? Honey, what you think she meant, gangster? That Sally Jean, she’s an old lady, she don’t know what the word means.”

  “She does too. Sally Jean is very smart. She’s a little flighty, but you would be, too, if you had to put up with what she—”

  “Yeah? Then how come half the time she’s got her wig on sideways like it was a doily she just stuck up there on top of her head?”

  “Chéri, you’re making me mad, honey.”

  “Good. I like it when you’re mad. You wanta go home, get in bed, talk about it?”

  Marietta paused for a minute, as if she were considering it. But she wasn’t really—not till after they’d spent some time in the steam bath. Watching the ladies slide glances at Chéri naked and glistening like a freshly washed nectarine was her all-time favorite brand of foreplay, and she wouldn’t be rushed.

  “Now, you want to hear what Sally Jean said or not?”

  “Of course I do. Thank you, Howard.” Chéri smiled.

  Howard nodded as he dropped off another couple of glasses of iced tea. He shook his head, kept his grin to himself. That Miz Dupree knew how to tell a whole club Go fuck yourself without saying a word. Wuddn’t she something?

  “What I really want to know, May-retta”—which was how Chéri said her girlfriend’s name when she was being silly, which was the way most people pronounced it anyway—“is if you’re saying Joey went and hit on Maynard?”

  “Honey baby, that is not what I’m saying. I know it wasn’t Joey, not unless he’s taken to wearing cowboy boots.”

  Chéri hooted. And once she got started, she couldn’t stop, peals of laughter bursting out of her like Marietta had goosed her. “Can you see Joey in cowboy boots?”

  “Not hardly. Not less Gucci’s doing ’em.”

  “Oh, God.” Wiping her eyes. “So what did this cowboy gangster want?”

  “Sally Jean said it sounded like he was torturing Maynard’s tailor. The little man was screaming to beat the band. Said he was a real redneck.”

  “The gangster.”

  “Yes, darlin’. Not the tailor. Said his name was Jimbo.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “You know this boy?” Marietta’s eyes narrowed. “Honey, what you holding out on me?”

  “Not a damn thing. Is he tall? Got long legs?”

  “Sounds right. Sally Jean was so hysterical—”

  “I bet it’s that sucker I saw in the Pelican that afternoon with Maynard—he was flirting with me. You ’member me telling you about that?”

  “Mardi Gras afternoon?”

  “Day before, I think. That’s it. This Jimbo and Maynard were real palsy-walsy. Maynard buying him drinks.”

  “Honey, Maynard would buy a golf cart a drink, once he’s got going.”

  “You know what I mean. They were cozied up to each other. Could that have anything to do with what you think Maynard’s up to? His little Wednesday meetings over to the cemetery?”

  “Lordy, honey, I don’t know. Wouldn’t it just be th
e living end if Maynard had turned queer too?”

  Chéri shook her head. “I don’t think Maynard’s the type.”

  “Why not? He gave up screwing me long time ago—must be screwing something.”

  “Maynard’s not cute enough to be queer.”

  “Not all gayboys are cute, Chéri. Child, where have you been?”

  “Not cute as you, that’s for sure.”

  Marietta squinched up her shoulders, pushing out her own pretty chest. “I’m no homosexual, darlin’.”

  “Unh-uh, girl. You sure ain’t. You just like to—”

  Howard couldn’t help himself, leaned over to catch the rest of that as he was passing by with a club sandwich heavy on the mayo for fat ol’ Miss Boudrant, who couldn’t even wait till lunch.

  “—be with me.” Chéri fluttered her eyelashes at Howard, then winked.

  “Well, whatever it is, I think we ought to check up on it,” Marietta said. “I think the time to divorce that silly son of a bitch is drawing nigh. And God knows, I want to do it to him. Put it to him. He’s gonna have every divorce lawyer in the state of Louisiana on his side.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. But like I told you, Joey’s got lawyers’ll make them little boy attorneys cry out in the night. Scream for their mamas.”

  “I know you keep saying that, darlin’. But I can’t believe mob lawyers do divorces. Nobody Italian ever gets a divorce. Especially your type of Italian. They just make people disappear.”

  Chéri’s eyes were as clear and blue as the sky out over the Gulf right after a big blow. She looked dead at Marietta. Smiled. Blinked once. Twice.

  Twenty-Four

  SAM, WEARING HER new Reeboks, turned smartly out of Ma Elise’s gate onto the sidewalk. That’s what her body needed—to clear her brain—a good shaking up. Eight glasses of water a day, seven hours’ sleep, forty-five minutes of sweat.

  What she’d had here in the past few days had been more like coffee, coffee, and more coffee. Last night she’d tossed and turned, dreaming about Harry holding out a french-fried rat, saying, You’re so smart, Ms. Know-It-All, howsa-bout this? Rich sauces and fat, fat, fat were marshaling forces to set up camp in her thighs, not to mention her brain.

  Exercise. Exercise. Watch me do my exercise.

  And a meeting wouldn’t hurt a-tall. She’d call AA and find one.

  Picking up speed, she swung her arms race-walking fashion as she headed toward St. Charles.

  Who the hell did Church’s ridiculous attorney Preston Peacock think he was? It truly was a wonder more lawyers weren’t assassinated.

  Oh, no, Miss Adams, darlin’, darlin’, he’d said on the phone, there was no point in her comin’ in. He was far too busy, goin’ to spend the whole week in court, she’d just caught him by his coattails runnin’ out the door, but he couldn’t tell her a thing about Church, his finances? Oh, no, that was privileged info, but his client was dead, well, that made it even more privileged, didn’t it? And questions were, well out of the question, didn’t matter that she was a friend of the Lees, no, no, no, no, no.

  She wanted to rip out Mr. Peacock’s tailfeathers.

  She hit St. Charles at a fast clip, turned left, heading Uptown.

  She waved at an ancient lady all in violet who had just stepped out on the front porch of a particularly splendiferous mansion. The woman stonily stared down her salute.

  Quite likely she was one of those grandes dames Ma Elise had been telling her about—who never shopped, had everything sent. After all, it was common to go out in the street. You’d run into people you didn’t know.

  Like, she thought, picking up speed, heading toward General Taylor Street, Jimbo King.

  The streets flew by: Washington Avenue, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Pleasant, Toledano, Louisiana, Delachaise, Aline, Foucher, Antonine, Amelia, Peniston. General Taylor was next.

  And Jimbo King—who lived next door to G.T. on that very street.

  Jimbo’s name had popped to the top of her list of must-sees after she’d slammed down the phone on Preston Peacock. Now she remembered that she’d made that list of people to see talking with Harry in the Royal O.

  Harry. She shoved him right out of her mind.

  But then his pretty face popped right back up. She ran faster, working up a sweat now. Harry would go away. But wouldn’t it be great to have him around now—to follow up on Billy Jack while she went after Maynard Dupree? Maynard was next, right after Jimbo King.

  She and Harry could have danced through this investigation together, if only Harry hadn’t wanted to lead.

  Who wanted to lead, Samantha? a little voice inside asked.

  Okay, okay, so I was a little controlling, I’ll give you—kersplat.

  Sam sprawled on the sidewalk, done in by a live oak tree whose roots had made cookie crumbs of the concrete. “Owh!” she cried, afraid to touch her scraped knees.

  “Help you, ma’am?” A yardman was coming toward her, holding a bunch of red-hearted caladium in one hand. He turned off his Walkman and said, “You best come with me up on the porch.”

  “No, I’m fine really.” Except her knees hadn’t hurt this much since she was five and bounced off her bike in the middle of Peachtree.

  The old man paid no attention to her, taking her arm, pulling her up, leading her to the porch. He settled her into one of a pair of rocking chairs.

  “You stay.” He pointed a finger, talking to her just like she did to her Shih Tzu, Harpo, who was back in Atlanta pouting right this minute.

  “Here you be.” The yardman was back, handing her a wet washdoth. “You dab that off good. Then we put some peroxide on it.” He pulled a brown bottle out of his khaki pants pocket.

  “Thanks.” Sam smiled. “You make me feel like a little girl again.”

  “What you look like, too, running around in your bitty shorts.” The old man laughed, his face crinkling up—the same color as a pecan pie. “Ought to be staying out of the sun, anyway. Or carry you a parasol like Miz Villère.” He jerked a thumb toward the mansion’s front door.

  Sam couldn’t believe her luck. Church’s wife had been a Villère before she’d married.

  “Madeline Villère live here once?”

  “Nun-unh. She be gone a long time.”

  “But she lived here?”

  He pointed his chin downtown. “No, ma’am. She growed up down the street. Other side. This here’s her cousin’s house.”

  “But you remember Madeline?”

  “Shore do. Pretty girl.”

  “You know what happened to her?”

  The old man scratched his head. “Nawh. I shore don’t.”

  “Didn’t she marry Church Lee?”

  “Unh-huh. She liked shoes.”

  “What?”

  “Lots of shoes, I ’member that. Like that Imelder. Imelder Marcos. You know her?”

  “Sure, I know who you’re talking about.”

  “She made a record album. You know that?”

  “Imelda Marcos made a record album?”

  “Shore did. My grandbaby played it for me. I tole him ought not to spend money on trash like that. Woman ought to be strung up.”

  “Imelda Marcos, you mean?”

  He gave her a look. “’Course. You think I mean Miz Madeline? Nawh.” He shifted what looked like a wad of chewing tobacco. “Miz Madeline be an angel.”

  “What else do you remember about her?”

  “Liked black brassieres. ’Course, I always did think those was kind of nice myself.” The old man tee-heed.

  He couldn’t fool her with that one. “Imelda, you mean.”

  “Shore. You know, there’s another woman on that album named Imelder too. Guess that’s a popular name over in the Philippines. My son was over there in the war. Shore was. Left a hand. Guess it’s buried there somewheres. Mine blew it clean off.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you know if Mad—”

  “That Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan did that too, you know.”

 
“What?”

  “Made an album together. My grandbaby played that one for me. He shore keeps up on white folks’ music.” The old man laughed, showing a full set of brilliantly white teeth. “Excuse me.” He spit off the porch into the camellias. It was chewing tobacco all right. “I saw him last night. He tole me he was moving up to Virginia. I said, Sweet baby, I don’t unnerstan’ why you want to be moving out of the South. He said it still was.”

  “Said Virginia’s the South?” Sam laughed. “Well, we know it’s not.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Atlanta.”

  “Yep.” The old man nodded. “That’s the South.”

  She couldn’t resist. “Where do you think it stops?”

  Old man scratched his head under his straw hat. “Well, Texas ain’t the South. On the left side.”

  “Right.”

  “And Arkansas is. ’Cept that part up there in the left-hand corner got mountains. I been up there onct. Visited a cousin in Little Rock. We drove up in them mountains. That ain’t the South. People’s different in the mountains. And there ain’t no black peoples, so how could it be the South?”

  “Mississippi?”

  “Shore. ’Bama, Georgia, South Carolina.”

  “Florida?”

  “Well, I ain’t ever been there, but they tell me it’s a lot like New York.”

  “The southern part is, around Miami. What about Tennessee?”

  The old man shrugged. “Yeah. Mostly. But—” He shook his head. “You know they got mountains too, I hear. I ain’t never been there either. ’Cept to Memphis.”

  “And that was sure Southern.”

  “Graceland.” The old man spread his hands, pale palms up. Need he say more?

  “What about North Carolina? Kentucky? West Virginia?”

  “Prob’ly North Carolina, but not them others. I think you stop at South Carolina, you got it. What you think?”

  “I think you ought to go on TV in New York. On the ‘Today Show.’ Explain it to folks.”

  That tickled the old man. He bent over, raised a knee like a little old flamingo, slapped himself on the rear right near the white handkerchief hanging out of his pocket. “Wouldn’t that be something? Shore would.”

  “Would.” It was hard not to copy his style.