Fairbanks, Nancy

by Crime Brulee (lit)

  Midway through the meal, someone from Julienne's de­partment, evidently someone who disliked Nils, stopped to tell him the latest news. "Just got a call from home," he said. "The dean is in a real snit. In fact, our chair is pissed off, too, because your wife's using departmental funds to attend this meeting and then isn't—"

  "Oh, Brad," said his wife, tugging on his arm, "do be quiet and come on. They're holding our table."

  "How did the dean hear about Julienne not showing up for her meetings?" Nils asked. When the young professor shrugged, Nils said, "Won't do you any good, Forrester." His tone was just as nasty as Brad's had been. "She's the one with tenure. You're the one who hasn't got it yet, and she'll still have a vote on yours, no matter how many papers she does or doesn't present at national meetings."

  "Brad," hissed his wife.

  Brad yanked his arm loose from the cautioning marital hand, shook a hank of dishwater blond hair away from his eyeglasses, and continued, "You haven't heard the best of it, Magnussen. Torelli took off for Sweden today or last night. No one's sure exactly when. Didn't even get administrative permission. Makes you wonder what's going on, doesn't it?" The young assistant professor then scuttled away with his wife talking to him angrily all the way from our table to theirs, which was back near the stairs and not at all conve­nient for visiting us. Nils had turned red, then pale.

  "Whatever you're thinking, Nils," I said hastily, "Juli­enne has not run off to Sweden with Linus Torelli."

  "You don't know what I'm thinking," he responded.

  "You should be worried about her safety. Why is Torelli fleeing the country? That's the question we should be ask­ing. Does he have tenure? Can he afford to—"

  "He doesn't," said Nils.

  "There. So the question is, what's he done to Julienne that he has to run away?"

  "Really, Carolyn, don't you think you're letting your imagination run wild?" cautioned Broder. "Professors don't murder one another and then skip the country."

  "Murder?" Nils's voice was faint, his lips trembling. "Is that what you think, Carolyn? That someone murdered her? Did you think I had? Before you heard this latest news about Torelli?"

  "I don't know what to think," I admitted. "I'm scared to death. And why shouldn't I be? You've been acting as if Julienne has been unfaithful to you. Torelli's denying any relationship with her and starting rumors about them at the same time."

  "What rumors?" Nils demanded.

  "And suddenly he's left the country under suspicious cir­cumstances when Julienne's been missing since Sunday, and he's probably the last person we know to see her."

  "When was this?" Nils practically shouted his last ques­tion at me.

  Carlene said, "Sh-sh-sh, Nils."

  The waiter came rushing over to ask if there was a prob­lem.

  "No problem," Nils snarled. "Go away." Then he turned back to me. "When did Torelli see her?"

  How I wish I hadn't said that! "And then there's Philippe," I responded hastily.

  "Good heavens," said Miranda. "I remember him. The world's glummest sibling."

  "Forget Philippe," said Nils. "When did Julienne see Torelli? Sunday? After she left me?"

  "Philippe is a professor in a medical school now," I said, choosing to respond to Miranda rather than Nils. "And he's decided that he should have the complete inheritance from their mother, both his portion and Julienne's."

  "So what? He's not here," said Nils. "I want to know—"

  "But he is," I interrupted. "He's been here since Sunday, and he won't answer his telephone at the hotel. For all I know, he's disappeared, too."

  "Good grief," said Carlene, "I don't like the sound of that at all. I always thought Philippe was somehow off kilter."

  "He's all right," said Nils, but he was beginning to look more worried than angry. "As long as he takes his meds, he's—"

  "But Diane said he sounded weird—her words—when she talked to him."

  "He went to see my daughter?" Now Nils looked thor­oughly upset.

  "No, he called to find out where Julienne was, and Diane told him. He's not in New Hampshire, he's here in New Or­leans, so Nils, you've got to report her appearance to the po­lice."

  "Jesus." Fingers clenched in thinning blond hair, Nils bowed his head over his empty plate.

  "Why is Philippe thinking about challenging his mother's will?" asked Miranda, ever the lawyer. "I wouldn't imagine that Julienne's mother was so wealthy it would be worth the expense."

  "Oh, the father made a lot of money on the stock ex­change. I remember that. It was when we were in college," said Carlene. "Maybe Mrs. Delacroix still had it when she died. Did Julienne inherit a lot of money, Nils?"

  "It's none of your business," he muttered.

  Carlene looked highly offended. Some people didn't like to talk about money, but Carlene obviously wasn't one of them.

  "When did Julienne's father make all this money?" Lester asked. "I thought he killed himself."

  "I don't know why you'd think that," I replied. "He did die not too long after his big bonanza on the stock exchange, but his death was an accident."

  "Still, it's peculiar when you think about it," said Mi­randa. "If they were rich, I mean. Both of them dying in car accidents."

  All of us stared at our bread pudding. Were the deaths of Julienne's parents connected to the money? I wondered, then decided that was a silly idea. Mr. Delacroix had gone to sleep at the wheel. No problems had been found with his car and no indication that anyone had run him off the road. And Mrs. Delacroix had been killed by that pickup truck. The driver was in jail for vehicular manslaughter. So whether or not they still had the money* it hadn't killed them.

  But what about Julienne? If she inherited a lot, had she died because of it? I thought about Philippe, who allegedly wanted her share. Killing her wouldn't get it for him. Nils would be her heir, Nils and Diane. I looked at Nils, who was still looking stricken. He hadn't eaten a bite of his white chocolate bread pudding, which had been served during our discussion.

  We'd all ordered the same dessert, for which the Palace Cafe was famous, and it was excellent. Had you asked me a month ago if it was likely that I'd order bread pudding twice in one week, I'd have laughed, but both the banana rum and the white chocolate bread puddings were amazingly good. Only in New Orleans, I thought as I scooped up another bite.

  "I'll go to the police tomorrow," said Nils.

  His sudden acquiescence only increased my confusion. And fear. Did he think that Philippe was a threat to Julienne? Or had he realized that Torelli, having fled the country, might be implicated in her disappearance? Or was he now worrying that by refusing to report her missing after all this time, he himself would look that much more guilty of what­ever had happened to his wife? "I'll go with you," I an­nounced.

  The group broke up on a glum note. Jason and I thanked the others for the lovely meal to which they had treated us, and then we lost sight of them when the maitre d' stopped me to inquire about, first, whether I had enjoyed my dinner, and, second, the nature of the book I was writing. Having re­assured him on both counts and now being free of the rest of the group, I talked Jason into paying a visit to Philippe at the Superior Inn.

  Once there, we had the desk call his room, but no one an­swered. Then—and it embarrasses me to say what I did next—I asked the desk clerk to try one more time in case Dr. Delacroix had been in the bathroom. While she was punch­ing in the numbers, I craned my neck to make them out: 214.

  "Why don't we have a drink, Jason?" I said when the clerk had announced, rather brusquely, that the room still did not answer.

  Jason looked puzzled but allowed me to drag him out of the clerk's view and then over to the elevator. "Where are we going?" he asked as I rushed inside.

  "To Philippe's room," I replied.

  "But she didn't tell us his room number."

  "It will be the same as the number she dialed," I ex­plained, exiting on the second floor.

  "Carolyn!" my husband e
xclaimed. But his disappoint­ment in me did not stop me from knocking at the door of room 214. And knocking. And knocking. No one answered.

  22

  Eggs Sardou

  I was a fetus in a womb of amniotic gumbo, my attempts to move thwarted by the murky soup that enclosed me. Blind to anything but brown swamp water, I could see no hint of light pointing the way up. If I lifted a hand to my eyes, the fingers and wrist were ghostly, and they trailed supple bonds that lapped around all my limbs and slid as sinuously as snakes into my mouth and around my neck. My frenzied mind told me I was being sucked down, but that nowhere would my feet touch a firm surface against which I could push off toward safety. All was mud, above and below, and my lungs burned for lack of air. The muscles of my chest trembled with the desire to suck in something. I was dying.

  "Carolyn! Carolyn!" I felt a hand clutching mine and heard a voice, so muffled that I couldn't recognize it. The hand drew me upward as, trailing the clutching fronds, I sought to help in my own rescue. When I burst at last into the air, I saw Julienne leaning over the low edge of a boat. She was smiling at me, camera dangling from her neck. Happiness exploded like light in my heart because she was safe.

  Then I opened my eyes, and Jason said, "That must have been one hell of a nightmare, Caro." I looked around for Julienne, but I was in my bed at the Hotel de la Poste. Only Jason and I were in the room, and I was trembling, he patting my arm consolingly in the way of men, who never know quite what to do with their wives' tears or terrors.

  "It was just a nightmare," he murmured.

  A nightmare? Perhaps. But Julienne had been alive. And in the swamp. I hoped it was an omen. Illogically perhaps, I determined right then that the next search I made would in­clude the people who rented boats on the bayous, boats with sides that were low to the water and had motors in the back. I remembered the motor, although I had had only that one glimpse of Julienne and her boat as, in my dream, she saved me from drowning.

  I pictured her living in a wooden shack, raised above the mud on stilts. She would be fishing and taking photos, lounging and listening to music on a portable radio, enjoy­ing a respite from the pressures of her job and her husband's unconcealed enmity, thinking today might be the day she went back to it all, or maybe not. Maybe tomorrow. Cajun men in pirogues would stop by her retreat to drop off sup­plies and news of the world beyond the swamp. Or just to pass the time of day with a lovely woman who made friends wherever she went.

  And I would find her. I could almost hear her laughter as we talked of her latest escapade and compared it to the time she had taken her father's boat and set up camp on an island in the lake. From her hideout, she'd watched as summer neighbors rowed about and shouted her name. She'd lis­tened as her father promised at the top of his lungs to return her bicycle if she, in turn, promised not to hitch rides by hanging onto the back of the postman's truck and coasting with her feet stuck out. Her delighted laughter had given her away one afternoon when Postmaster Boggis stopped at a rural box to drop off newspapers, catalogues for winter woolens, and utility bills. How could I have forgotten that incident?

  "You'd better get up," my husband said. "Remember? You said you'd go to the police with Nils this morning."

  "Rats," I muttered, getting out of bed and reaching for my robe.

  "Rats?" Jason couldn't have looked more astonished. I'd been hounding Nils since Saturday night to report Julienne missing, and after all this time, he'd agreed. Under the cir­cumstances, I could hardly go running off to follow a clue that had come to me in a dream; I had to be on hand to in­troduce Nils to Lieutenant Boudreaux and to be sure that Nils actually filed the missing persons report.

  But Julienne had looked so real. I was now sure that she was alive. Should I tell the lieutenant where to look for her? Policemen probably didn't put much stock in dreams, al­though there was certainly a lot to be said for this one. It wasn't just an omen. It was my subconscious searching through the information I had and telling me what course to take.

  Hadn't I always found that, before an exam at college, a good review of the subject material and then a good night's sleep were the surest path to a high grade? I had always awakened with the subject much clearer in my mind and with new insights ready to pour out onto my blue-book pages. And that was just what had happened with this dream.

  "Seven-thirty," Jason prompted. He had come out of the bathroom to remind me, a bit of shaving cream still clinging to his throat where he had given his beard an edging. Jason always said that if he were rich, the first thing he'd do would be to find a beard barber and patronize him regularly. Which was a modest enough ambition, surely. Not that either of us expected to be rich. I tried to imagine sales of Eating Out in the Big Easy running into the millions, making us disgust­ingly affluent, but it didn't seem likely. How many people would want to read my opinions of New Orleans restaurants and try the recipes I included? Not millions, certainly.

  At eight-thirty Nils and I were waiting in line at Brennan's, although I had made a reservation. The restaurant was, conveniently, on Royal Street, a block from the police station. What culinary writer could justify missing breakfast at an establishment that reputedly sells 750,000 poached eggs a year? From their menu I chose eggs Sardou, that delicious dish that nests artichoke bottoms topped by poached eggs on a bed of creamed spinach and bathes the whole in hol-landaise sauce. The anchovies are optional, and I opted out.

  In 1908, Victorien Sardou, the renowned French drama­tist, had breakfast at Antoine's, where the owner, Antoine Alciatore, created this dish in his honor. Since Sardou wrote La Tosca, whose operatic embodiment I adore, I naturally ordered Sardou's eggs.

  As I savored my choice—sometimes I think I could eat a poached Gila monster if it was served in hollandaise sauce—I worried because I would not be returning that morning to Cafe du Monde, but that was silly. Julienne wasn't going to return from the swamp for beignets and cafS au lait. It was much too far. In fact, I would probably have to rent a car to begin my canvass of boat rental facilities.

  I told Nils about my dream and my plans, suggesting that he might come with me. Truthfully, I don't like driving around strange cities, much less backcountry swamp areas. I was hoping that Nils would drive. Also I've found, al­though it is a situation I deplore, that men respond more readily to questions from other men. Oops! I was assuming that most of the boat owners would be men. For all our ef­forts to effect equality between the sexes in fact and in atti­tude, I was making sexist assumptions. And I had only caught myself as an afterthought. Progress certainly wasn't impinging much on my thinking.

  "You want to rent a car and have me drive you around asking questions on the basis of a dream?" Nils demanded in response to my story and suggestion. "I thought that's why we were going to the police—to get professionals hunt­ing for Julienne and Torelli."

  "You still think she's with Linus Torelli?" I couldn't believe my ears. "You were told last night that he's gone to Sweden."

  Nils shrugged. "Maybe she went with him. Maybe he's lying, and he hasn't gone to Sweden at all. The police can find out. Then you can stop worrying. You'll know she's run away."

  I glared at him. There are some men whose opinions can't be changed with a large rock to the back of the head, much less a combination of fact and logic.

  "Obviously, it's going to take a professional to track her down," Nils continued. "You certainly haven't accom­plished anything."

  "At least I tried," I retorted.

  "Well, shortly we'll know the truth. Then you can stop nagging me, and I'll have grounds to file for divorce."

  Having revealed his plans, he didn't look very happy about them, and I was furious. Of all the cold-hearted, scheming ... I forked up my last bite and ate it. Then I waved imperiously to the waiter. The sooner we made our visit to Lieutenant Boudreaux, the better. I didn't think I could stomach much more of Nils's company.

  It was raining again as we set out for the Vieux Carre sta­tion, not a sheeting rain, but still,
this obviously wasn't the most pleasant season in New Orleans unless you lived in the desert and craved the blessing of moisture. Nils complained about the weather every step of the way, but underneath the ill temper, I detected a certain unease. In his place, I would have felt uneasy. His wife had been missing since Saturday, and he had waited until Thursday to report it. If he was to be believed, his only reason for doing so today was to get me off his back and obtain grounds for divorce on the basis of desertion.

  We were both scowling by the time we reached the sta­tion. There, to my dismay, we found that Lieutenant Boudreaux was away on official police business. The cyni­cal sergeant took our information on Julienne—description, age, profession, social security number, home address and phone number, local address and phone number. He didn't seem much interested.

  "Dr. Magnussen has been gone since Saturday," I finally interrupted with ill-concealed desperation, "and not seen since Sunday."

  "Who saw her?" the sergeant asked.

  Nils turned to look at me challengingly, and I hated to an­swer, knowing that any mention of Linus Torelli would set Nils off. "A waitperson—"

  "A what?" The sergeant stopped writing and frowned at me.

  "She's trying to be politically correct," said Nils sarcasti­cally. "She means a waiter or waitress."

  "—at Cafe" du Monde Sunday morning, a bartender at the Absinthe House—"

  "Don't sound to me like she's gone missin'," the sergeant interrupted. "Sounds like she's out on the town."

  "—maybe someone at the voodoo museum, a street per­former that evening—"

  "Her lover, Linus Torelli." Nils added to the end of my list the name that my tongue just didn't want to voice. The sergeant stopped writing again and looked up with sharp­ened interest.