Fairbanks, Nancy

by Crime Brulee (lit)

  "Oh, he's so grumpy and gloomy. You know?"

  Well, that wasn't news. No one in the family had ever said so, but as I grew older, I'd begun to suspect that Philippe was subject to bouts of depression.

  "He's decided—you won't believe this." She giggled. "He's decided that the laws of primogeniture entitle him to all of Gram's estate, instead of the half he got. Primogeni­ture? How screwy is that?"

  I wanted to tell her what a difference primogeniture had made in the history of Europe, but I managed to restrain my­self. As interesting a topic as it was (the accrual of land and power in fewer hands when only elder sons inherited), it didn't really relate to the disappearance of my friend in any way, aside from the effect it might have had on her brother's thinking. Because now I remembered how cavalierly I had dismissed the identification by the silver-statue man of Philippe as Julienne's companion on a street in the Quarter and his description of Philippe pushing him off the curb. Was that the action of someone who was depressed? I had no idea, since I'm not given to depression. And what was that fancy school teaching Diane if not the importance of primogeniture in the history of Western Europe?

  "My nutty uncle has decided that Mom should just hand over everything she inherited from Gram. Can you imag­ine?"

  I sighed. Julienne's mother had died just this year in an automobile accident—a matter of a pickup truck running a stop sign on a rural road. It was the second such death in the family, although Mr. Delacroix's accident, which occurred years ago, had involved only his car and been virtually in­explicable. The police had finally decided that he must have fallen asleep at the wheel. Both deaths had hit Julienne hard, and I, too, found her mother's death devastating.

  When I went home to visit my father, I'd always ended up spending most of my time with Julienne's mother, even when my friend wasn't in town, although often she was. Such lovely visits those had been. I'd learned to love New Orleans cooking before I ever visited the city because Fan­nie Delacroix was a wonderful cook and showed off her tal­ents when either of her "sweet girls," as she called us, came back.

  "I told Uncle Philippe she was in New Orleans, and he'd have to take it up with her. Like she'd give him the money or Gram's silver or any of that stuff. No way. She's already promised a lot of it to me. Of course, I didn't say that to my uncle because I didn't want to send him into a funk. Any­way, he said he was heading straight for New Orleans to talk to Mom. Can you imagine? It's the middle of the semester, and he's not invited to the ACS meeting, I shouldn't think."

  Probably not. Philippe was on the faculty at a medical school.

  "So I gave him her address, and I left a message at her hotel warning her that he might show up. Or then again, he might take whatever medication he's supposed to take and get sensible. You never know with him."

  And if he hadn't taken his medication and gotten sensi­ble? Had he flown to New Orleans? Was Julienne with him? Maybe he'd arrived, met her, gone completely to pieces, and she'd had to commit him. It had happened before, at least I suspected as much. Her parents had never talked about Philippe's moods. But that scenario didn't explain why Juli­enne hadn't been in touch with me. It might be an embar­rassing situation if her colleagues knew about it, but surely she wouldn't try to hide Philippe's problems from me if they had become her responsibility after her mother's death.

  "Aunt Carolyn, you're not saying much." For the first time I heard a note of worry in Diane's voice. "Is something wrong?"

  What could I tell her? That her mother was missing and I now had to try to find her uncle to see if he was involved? Or her father? Or her mother's alleged lover? This was not a situation one wanted to explain to a teenage girl. "Diane," I said, rather cunningly I thought, "Diane, I think your mother has skipped town."

  "Skipped town?"

  "Absolutely. She must have got your message and headed for the hills." Could that be true? I suppose there would be times when one got tired of dealing with the se­verely depressed, especially when everything else was going wrong.

  Diane had started to giggle, which was better than panic.

  "Thanks for the information, dear. I'll keep in touch, and you study hard, you hear?" I gave it my best Southern ac­cent, which all Delacroix family members agree is ludi­crous.

  Diane certainly found it so, for she replied, "Oh, Aunt Carolyn, you don't sound anything like my mother or Gram either. You'll just never make it as a Southern belle."

  "I am deeply hurt," I retorted. "I thought I was improv­ing."

  I finished my chocolate Eclair as I considered my next move. M-m-m. The stiffly whipped cream was delicious, and wasn't there a hint of vanilla? Or were my taste buds re­membering the way my mother whipped cream before she became ill? With a little vanilla and sugar. Oh, those straw­berry shortcakes she made! With wild strawberries we picked ourselves, laughing and eating as many as we picked, each of us in wide-brimmed straw hats to protect our fair skin. Mother had been blonde, too.

  Had she used a biweekly rinse on her hair? I didn't know. That was something I'd probably have found out had she lived into my teens and beyond. Well, enough of that, I told myself sternly as I popped the last bit of chocolate 6clair into my mouth. But still, I thought I'd ask at La Madeleine how they doctored their cream—if at all.

  19

  Missing Siblings

  Having finished my chocolate eclair and dropped the doily and bag into a flowered wastebasket by the French provincial desk, I returned to the bed to think about Philippe and Julienne. If he hadn't come to New Orleans, it didn't much matter whether Julienne had picked up the message from her daughter. Or did it? On the off chance that he might make the trip, had Julienne disappeared in order to avoid an unpleasant interview with her brother? It was possible. I sel­dom saw Philippe these days, and Julienne didn't talk about him much, but when she did, it was with a sort of weary for­bearance. She certainly didn't laugh about her brother as Diane had. But was she afraid of him?

  After dialing the long-distance information operator, I asked for the number of the medical school where Philippe taught. Would Julienne skip her convention obligations to avoid a confrontation with her brother? I asked myself. For that matter, were depressed people dangerous? Logic told me that the only danger they posed would be to themselves.

  Having obtained the number, I then called the medical school and asked to be connected to Dr. Delacroix's office. Three rings. Four. Soon I'd be transferred to an answering machine, and what would I say? Philippe's failure to answer his phone at the office didn't mean mat he'd gone to New Orleans. He could be teaching a class, supervising students, taking a coffee break, gone home for the day. Should I try to get his home number?

  "Dr. Delacroix appears to be out of his office," said a pleasant voice, surely the operator who had answered origi­nally, not some recording. "Would you like to leave a mes­sage? Or be transferred to the chairman of his department?" the real female person asked.

  I made a snap decision and opted to talk to the chair. If Philippe had left town, I'd find out. If he was at home, I could get a number, unless the number was unlisted. Maybe I'd use Julienne's name if the chairman proved unwilling to give me a home number. Maybe I'd even claim to be Juli­enne. At this point, I was prepared to be shameless in my quest.

  "Who's this?" a male voice demanded. "Is that you, Delacroix?"

  "No," I replied, taken aback. "I'm Carolyn Blue, but I— I'm looking for Dr. Delacroix," I stammered. So much for impersonating Julienne. I'd never be a successful liar. "I'm a friend of his sister."

  "Well, I'm looking for Dr. Delacroix myself," snapped the chairman, or so I presumed him to be.

  "He's missing?" I asked, astounded. Both of them were missing? What in the world did that mean?

  "As far as I can tell. The man's not in his office, not at home, and not showing up for his classes, his appointments, or his meetings."

  "For how long?" I asked.

  "Devil if I know. He didn't appear for his Monday class. You say hi
s sister's looking for him, too?"

  "Well, I—" Would the chairman be interested if I told him Julienne was missing and that I was looking for both of them?

  "If she finds him, have her tell him for me that tenure isn't the guarantee of lifelong employment it once was."

  That was definitely a threat. "Philippe didn't mention that he would be absent?" I asked.

  "Not a word. To anyone. And he'd damn well better have a good excuse. Just because he's brilliant but too weird to practice medicine doesn't mean we'll put up with this kind of behavior on the teaching end. What kind of example does this set for the students? They'll think they can just take off and leave their patients in the lurch."

  I'd known a few doctors who obviously thought that anyway. A case in point was a pediatrician who had moved his office halfway across town without warning me. I dis­covered his defection when I rushed Chris in one day with his thumb, so I thought, half severed, and found a locked door from which the name had been removed. A janitor, ex­iting the men's room with mop and bucket, told me that my pediatrician had decamped, although he didn't know to what new address.

  At that point I was so terrified that I took Chris to the emergency room—at considerably more expense, I might add, than it would have cost to visit his doctor, had the doc­tor been considerate enough to tell us he was moving. "Well, good luck trying to teach consideration and responsibility to a group of medical students," I said, an unfortunate remark that just slipped out on the heels of my angry recollections.

  "What was that?" demanded the chairman. "Are you one of these ungrateful patients who think they should get un­limited time with their doctors for no money? Well, I can tell you what's going to come of that attitude. No doctors. Or only doctors who can't speak English. Maybe we real Amer­ican doctors should go on strike. Close up the medical schools. Let disease ..."

  Pity the poor patient who looked to this man for sympa­thy and a kindly bedside manner, I thought. He had the per­sonality of a porcupine. "If I can find Dr. Delacroix, I'll pass on your message about tenure," I said loudly enough to in­terrupt his tirade. "Do you have any suggestions about where he might be?"

  "None," snapped the angry chairman. "If I knew, I'd have tracked him down myself."

  And that was the end of our conversation. What had I learned? That Philippe might be in New Orleans. Now I needed to know if Julienne had received her daughter's mes­sage about Philippe when she came back Saturday night to pick up her camera. Could Philippe have been in New Or­leans even then? I called the front desk and explained that Mrs. Magnussen's daughter wanted to know if Mrs. Mag-nussen had received the telephone message left Saturday night. The clerk, somewhat dubious over the propriety of re­leasing such information, finally agreed to check when I as­sured her that I didn't want to know what the message was, just whether my friend had received it. Having decided to be helpful, the desk clerk informed me that Mrs. Magnussen had actually retrieved two voice-mail messages Saturday evening and made one phone call. The call had been made around nine o'clock.

  Was the call she made local? I asked. The clerk didn't feel free to discuss that but suggested that Dr. Magnussen could look at the billing himself and tell me.

  Given Nils's attitude toward any queries about his miss­ing wife, I doubted that he would. In fact, it occurred to me that the desk clerk, looking at telephone records, would have no way of knowing which Magnussen had heard the mes­sages and made the call. Still, nine o'clock, she'd said. It had to be Julienne. Nils was still at die restaurant at nine. Then I was reminded of all the calls I myself had made that evening, none of which Julienne had responded to. Oh well. I had to admit that I hadn't left messages. While tapping the telephone impatiently, thinking, I noticed that my index fin­gernail on the left hand needed filing.

  So what did this information mean? I wondered as I fished a nail file from my toiletry bag. Two messages? Well, one was obviously the call from Diane. But who had left the second message? Philippe? Or Linus Torelli? And whom had Julienne called?

  She could have ignored a message from her brother and fled to Torelli, arranging the safe harbor by phone. Or perhaps she had called Philippe and agreed to meet him the next day, then set out for Torelli's hotel. Her colleague hadn't mentioned whether her appearance that night was expected, and now I couldn't ask him. So if she had an appointment to meet her brother, it would have been sometime after she waited for me at Cafe du Monde. Of course, having left Eti-enne's before the plans were made, she didn't know that I would be preparing for the Gospel Brunch, not cafe au lait and beignets on Jackson Square with her. Had she been planning to tell me about Philippe's imminent arrival? She might even have been angry when I didn't show up. That would explain why she'd never contacted me. Well, not re­ally. Even angry, Julienne was a considerate friend, no mat­ter what Nils said about her.

  I shook off these speculations and returned to my plans. Torelli was gone. I knew that. But I could call around town trying to locate Philippe or at least find out if he had been here. A new telephone search was obviously my next move. I began calling New Orleans hotels, asking for Dr. Philippe Delacroix. Many hotels later and having exhausted French Quarter listings, I found him registered at the Superior Inn. My guidebook said it was "inexpensive" and "five minutes from the central business district."

  The more-or-less helpful desk clerk told me that Dr. Delacroix had checked in Sunday at noon and was still reg­istered. In answer to my question about a possible visit from his sister, she remembered a woman, wearing tight jeans, a form-fitting, low-necked knit top, and high heels. "She didn't look like a doctor's sister to me, honey," said the Su­perior Inn desk clerk. "Showed up Sunday night. I was thinkin' of callin' the house detective when the doctor fella came downstairs to meet her.

  Jeans? Well that fit the other sightings, but high heels? Absolutely not. Julienne would never wear jeans and high heels or, for that matter, look like the kind of woman who would inspire a call to the house detective. Had Philippe called a prostitute? What a muddle! "Have you seen the woman since Sunday night?" I asked.

  "No, Ah haven't, honey, but Ah'm not on duty all the time, you know. They went out together. Ah remember that. They were arguin'. An' he came back sometime aftah mid­night."

  "But she wasn't with him?"

  "Well, honey, Ah just don't know. Man shift was ovah at midnight, but mah guess would be she came back with him. She looked the type. He showed her a good time in the Quartan an' she showed him a good time in the room. Know what Ah mean?"

  "They were planning to visit the French Quarter?" I asked.

  "Where else would anyone go in N'Awlins?" the clerk asked, aggrieved. "We got us free shuttle service to the Quartan 'cause that's where folks want ta go of an evenin'."

  "And they took the shuttle?"

  "Now Ah wouldn't know that, would Ah?"

  "Thank you," I said politely. "You've been very helpful." Actually, she'd been downright forthcoming. It's a wonder she managed to keep her job if she always talked so freely about the establishment's guests.

  "Why don' you try callin' him, honey. He's bound to an­swer if he's in, an' Ah haven't seen him leave today."

  That would depend on whether he was taking his med­ication, I thought. A depressed person might not answer his phone.

  "Want me to try his room, honey?'

  "Yes, please." Could Julienne be staying with him? Or somewhere else under an assumed name? At least she'd been all right Sunday evening, if peculiarly dressed. That is, if the woman in the jeans and high heels had been her, which I doubted. The only person who had ever accused Julienne of looking like a call girl had been her husband.

  "Ah'm not getting' an answer, honey. Wanna leave him a message?"

  "Yes, please. Ask him to call Carolyn Blue at the Hotel de la Poste." I gave her the number.

  Well, it was back to the Po'Boy Computer Cafe". Even if they were, as Lieutenant Boudreaux had suggested, manu­facturing cocaine on the premises, I needed an updated phot
o of Philippe, which I could print out from the web site of his university. If offered drugs, I would simply say, "No, thank you," as Nancy Reagan had advocated in her Just Say No campaign.

  On the other hand, I'd just as soon not associate with drug dealers. What if the place was raided while I was there? Would the police arrest an innocent, semi-computer literate professor's wife? Would Lieutenant Boudreaux rescue me? If only Jason and I had a portable printer with us. Our room had a data port and Jason's computer had a modem, but no printer between us. We just weren't as up to date technolog­ically as we liked to think.

  Well, I would have to soothe my fears of drug dealers and raids with another sumptuous, flaming cafe brulot while I was surfing the net for Philippe's photograph. I would forgo another of their tasty po'boys, however, since Jason would undoubtedly want to eat dinner out.

  20

  Pralines

  Happily, I managed to make the trip to Po'Boy without incident. No New Orleans criminal so much as looked my way. Perhaps my crooked umbrella emitted an aura of men­ace. I obtained a printout of Philippe's university web site picture, plus copies of the pictures of Julienne, Linus, and Nils. The originals had become soggy along with the other contents of my purse during my recent fall into the bayou.

  Fortunately, I had a backup handbag packed, although it did not match my walking shoes, but then they were too soggy for use, either. I had to wear the shoes I had brought for evening wear, which are not as comfortable as they might have been, and the matching bag, which doesn't hold as much. Still, I couldn't be fussy under the circumstances. I was lucky to have something in which to carry those things we females find necessary to keep at hand. Of course, some of my purse contents were still damp and had to be put in Baggies, of which I always carry a supply when traveling.