27
HAMILTON HAD BUSINESS IN BATON ROUGE FOR THE DAY, AND though he left me with the tenderest of kisses, I could tell something was up with his work. There were the finest worry lines around his eyes. I held his strong shoulders and kissed his face, wishing to make the worry go away. If only we could stay within the walls of his apartment for two or three days, without interruption. We’d moved to a plane where there were real possibilities for us, not just midnight fantasies. We needed time together, but we didn’t have that luxury. Lives hung in the balance for him, and Doreen’s future hung in mine. His last look was one of longing as he closed the door.
Tinkie answered her phone in a lazy purr. Oscar was having room service send up breakfast. Though Tinkie volunteered to do whatever I needed, I urged her to relax, sample the pleasures of breakfast in bed, and wait until noon before worrying about anything.
I had two choices before me on this Tuesday morning: LeMont or taking care of Cece’s errand. I chose the latter. I still wasn’t certain what game LeMont was playing with me, but my intuition told me to avoid him.
The tattoo shop was exactly where Cece said it would be, and it looked just as she’d described it. It was a shotgun-style structure that used to be someone’s home. Now, like the houses around it, it was zoned commercial.
The front door opened on a living room that fed into what had once been a dining room that led to one or two bedrooms and then on to the kitchen. The bathroom would be an add-on, the caboose of indoor plumbing.
The bell jangled over the door as I walked in, aware immediately that the first two rooms were empty. I kept walking, but I had the feeling that someone was waiting to pounce on me.
The tattoos were colorful, and I remembered my high school desire for one. I was glad Aunt LouLane had forbidden it. I’d wanted a butterfly on my shoulder. Chances are, it would still look good enough—my skin wasn’t sagging yet—but it would certainly detract from such a dress as the one Mollie had created for me. Tattoos, after the age of thirty, become a symbol of foolish youth rather than cool.
Beyond the tattoos was a room full of selections for body piercing. Kiley’s navel came to mind, and I wondered why she’d done it. Lots of kids in the French Quarter, with their multihued hair, had pierced eyebrows, cheeks, nostrils, chins, belly buttons, and tongues. I didn’t care to take an inventory of what lower extremities sported gold studs or chains. It was all just a little too sadomasochistic for me.
“Ah, a virgin,” a big, bald man said as he walked through the door. His smile revealed striking white teeth and intelligent eyes in a face crinkled with laugh lines. “Let me see. You’ve never had anything except your ears pierced, but you have a new lover who’s a little more adventurous.” His brow furrowed. “Hmmm. You look like the type who wants a nipple ring.”
He laughed aloud at my expression.
“How about an eyebrow? Not quite as sensitive as a nipple, but a bit daring.”
“Actually, I’m not in the mood for piercing anything, but I do have some questions.”
He immediately grew wary. “Are you a cop?”
I shook my head. “But what would it matter? What you do is legal.”
“Legal don’t mean squat if the NOPD is breathing down my neck. Now, who are you and why are you asking questions?”
With his corded arms and strong chest, he could have worked as a bouncer in a tough bar. No point in pissing him off. “I’m a private investigator from Zinnia, Mississippi. I’m here in town on a case where an infant was killed. I’m helping the accused murderer. She didn’t do it.” All of this pointed in exactly the opposite direction that Cece was interested in. Maybe he would relax and talk.
His eyebrows rose, and I counted seven studs in the right one. “So what is it you want to know?”
“Is there any symbolism attached to body piercings?”
He thought a moment. “Body piercing is a sort of language. Piercings talk about lifestyle choices, and what a person may do in the pursuit of pleasure.” He raised one eyebrow. “The line between pain and pleasure is a thin one.”
So I’d been told. Maybe I just didn’t want to take a walk on that dark side. I preferred my pleasure to be totally pleasurable. “Do you have to have any medical training to be a body piercer?”
“Not by law. I mean, they’ve been piercing ears in hair salons for years. Every beautician in New Orleans has a gun to do ears.”
“An ear is a little different than a tongue.”
“Yeah, an ear’s tougher. You really have to punch it through. A tongue, now, that’s easy work.”
He was jacking with me, but not in an unfriendly way. Just teasing.
“It would seem, though, that some state laws would dictate a certain degree of medical knowledge. You know, what if a person was on a blood thinner or what if you hit an artery?” In some of the places people got pierced there was a tremendous blood flow.
“I can’t speak for the other shops, but I’ve had training. I was a surgical nurse. Trust me, I ask about medications and things like that before I even consider a client. There’s a lot of bad stuff out there. Hepatitis C or HIV. Man, I don’t need that shit in my life.”
“You left the paycheck a surgical nurse makes for a tattoo parlor?”
“I make a lot more here, plus I work for myself. I don’t have to take orders from some jerk-off doctor who makes bad decisions and then blames the nursing staff.”
I could understand that. I’d been around enough doctors with a God complex to understand how wearing such an attitude could be on a nurse. Of course, there was no telling what one of his current clients might do if they didn’t care for his handiwork.
“May I look around your shop?”
“Everything except where I do the work,” he said. “You’ve seen most of it. There’s one more room with some leather and stuff. Knock yourself out.” He left the room and disappeared into the back portion of the house, the area he’d told me not to go into.
I wandered around, checking out the tattoo and piercing selections, which did make me wince. I’d hoped to find some reason that this guy would have been uncomfortable around Cece. But I didn’t see anything that I hadn’t seen in other tattoo shops in the French Quarter.
“See anything you like?” he asked when he returned.
“Do you ever do things like permanent eyeliner or lipstick?” I wondered if that was what Ellisea Clay had come to this shop for.
“Sure. That’s very popular with some of the local entertainers. We do some nipple enhancement, too. You know, so the rosy areolas show up through a gauzy outfit. It’s hot down here. Makeup tends to sweat off, but what I put on stays. Forever.”
I was getting nowhere fast. We could swap fashion tips all day, and I’d be no closer to finding out what I’d come for. “Has Ellisea Clay had that kind of work done here?” I asked.
That was all it took. He was on me like white on rice, and I was sitting in the dirt in front of the tattoo parlor before I knew what hit me.
“Stay out of here,” he said. Like Cece had pointed out, he seemed more afraid than angry. “Don’t ever come back here if you know what’s good for you.”
“When you talk to Ellisea, tell her Sarah Booth Delaney was asking after her,” I said as I dusted off my bottom and started toward my car.
AS I DROVE back to the Quarter, I dialed Tinkie again. She was eager for me to meet her at Madame Rochelle’s Tearoom. She wanted her future read. I found my resistance interesting. In Zinnia, Tammy Odom was often a great help to me. She saw things in the future, and I had no doubt of her psychic gift. Here in New Orleans, I was suspicious of everyone. My first reaction was that such people were charlatans with some angle to play.
I reluctantly agreed to meet Tinkie, hung up, and called Cece to report my trip to the tattoo parlor. She was disappointed that I hadn’t found out anything else.
“That man knows Ellisea and he’s afraid of something,” I said. “Other than that, I can’t tell you anythin
g.”
“Beans,” Cece said. “I’m sure there’s something there. Maybe you could follow that guy.”
“I seriously doubt he has a lot of personal contact with Ellisea. I’m sure he called her, but I doubt I could convince the NOPD of my need for a wiretap, and that’s the only way I’m going to get anything from that guy unless it’s at gunpoint.”
“Maybe she’ll show up there?”
“Doubtful. Especially not if she knows I know about the place. She’ll make a point of staying away. And what would I do if she walked up? Demand to know what’s going on? Like she’d just tell me.”
“Too bad kidnapping and torture are punishable offenses.”
I told her about my visit to the Clay house and the vandalization of Ellisea’s car.
“They wrote something?” she asked, interested.
“They tried to write some word. I don’t think they could spell.” I gave her the letters the best I could remember.
Cece was quiet. “Something just doesn’t ring true here.”
“Can you say the word obsessed? Cece, you’re taking this just a little too far.”
“Dahling, obsession is one of the elements of genius, or haven’t you heard. And if you want to play tit for tat”—she laughed softly—“I heard you were fairly obsessed with Hamilton.”
Obsessed was the wrong word. In the past, I’d been obsessed by the fantasy of him. But now that he was a real person to me, I wasn’t obsessed. I was delighted. “He’s invited me to Paris.”
“When?” Cece squealed.
“When my case is over.”
“And you’re going?”
I only hesitated a split second, but it was enough.
“You are going, aren’t you?” There was a warning in her tone.
“I told him yes. Please don’t talk about this to Coleman.” I didn’t want to ask that, but I had to. If anyone was going to tell Coleman, it should be me.
“What is it you owe Coleman?” she asked.
“Only the same treatment I’d expect from him if the shoe were on the other foot.”
“I don’t recall that he told you last summer when he and Connie took that cruise.”
There was truth in Cece’s statement, but issues around Coleman weren’t black and white. I had the power to hurt him, and I didn’t want to do it.
“Cece, I know you understand this. If I tell him, then I treat him with the respect he deserves because of our long-standing friendship.”
“Don’t screw this thing with Hamilton up,” she cautioned.
“What? Are you and Tinkie double-teaming me?”
“Dahling, we’re on your team and we just passed you the touchdown opportunity of the century. Now we intend to do a little blocking for you. All you have to do is run, baby, run.”
DOREEN WAS LEADING a class on meditation at the Center when I got there. I had a little while before I was due to meet Tinkie, so I found a space on the floor at the back of the room. Golden sunlight filtered in through the large windows of the room. Outside, the patio bloomed with exotics. It was a lovely space, and many of the people in the class were focusing out the window as they sat cross-legged and listened to Celtic harp music.
I found myself adrift in my own thoughts, even as Doreen’s melodic voice urged her class to let go of thought, to move toward an image of white light entering their bodies as they breathed in, of all negative energy departing as they exhaled.
She began a soft chant that was the most peaceful sound in the world. It wrapped itself around me and held me safely.
When Doreen spoke again, I was floating in a pool of golden light. I opened my eyes and looked at the people in the class. They were all ages, all types. Yet it seemed the sunshine outside the window had penetrated them. For that one moment, they looked blissful.
Doreen thanked the class and dismissed them. I waited for her at the back door. “Did you meditate?” she asked.
“I did. It was strangely . . . peaceful.”
“I could recommend some books.”
“Yours?”
“No, actually there are plenty of people who’ve done a lot of research into meditation and the connection between mind, body, and spirit. That isn’t my field. I just like to meditate.”
“It’s a little passive.”
She laughed out loud. “Sarah Booth, you have the most peculiar ideas sometimes.”
“Doreen, have you talked with your lawyer lately?”
She looked up at the skylight as we walked through the Center. “He says he’s won cases with less to work with.”
He probably had, but he wasn’t telling her about the ones he’d lost. “I haven’t found anything really helpful to you.”
“You have to keep looking, Sarah Booth. You and Tinkie. No one else really cares whether I’m innocent or not. No one else cares who killed my baby.”
“I really had my hopes pinned on Pearline, but she didn’t kill Rebekah.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Is it possible the medication could have been put in the formula accidentally?”
“No, I was careful about Rebekah’s medications. So was Pearline. Besides, we didn’t have any barbiturates in the apartment. I don’t use prescription drugs.”
I nodded. “You told me that none of the men suspected they could be the father.”
“That’s right. I never let on to any of them when I got pregnant. And I made it clear to all that I was sleeping with other people.”
“And none of the three had access to your apartment?”
“I never gave anyone a key.”
I nodded. “We’re going to have to narrow this field. We need that DNA test and we need it now.”
“I’ll call LeMont and see what he says,” she volunteered.
“It’s a start.”
“What’s a start?” Michael asked, coming around a corner. He wore a dove-gray suit with a black tie and white shirt. He managed to look both conservative and individual. It was a neat trick.
“The work on the archetype tapes,” Doreen answered smoothly. “I was telling Sarah Booth that I had another taping session this afternoon.”
“Is there a conflict?” Michael asked.
Doreen had always been so open with Michael, I couldn’t help but wonder why she’d chosen not to discuss the DNA with him. But I was glad. It was awkward for a suspect to know every move we made.
“No conflict,” I said, smiling. “Tinkie and I are having our tea leaves read.”
Michael laughed. “You want to dabble but you’re afraid of the real thing, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why not just ask Doreen to read your tarot cards?” he suggested.
Doreen shook her head. “Don’t push so hard, Michael. The tearoom is perfect for what Tinkie needs.” She walked away.
“I’m concerned,” Michael said when she was out of earshot. “Have you found anything to help her case?”
“As a matter of fact, we have,” I said, deciding on the big bluff. It was sometimes effective in poker. “I’m just not at liberty to discuss it with you now.”
I turned and began to walk away when I felt his hand on my shoulder.
“Doreen is the heart of this operation. Can you clear her?” There was something close to anger in his eyes.
“I can’t make any promises. I can only tell you that Tinkie and I are on top of things.”
28
MADAME ROCHELLE’S TEAROOM WAS A QUAINT LITTLE PLACE WITH half a dozen dainty tables and a warren of back rooms where various psychics foretold the future with cards, palm reading, and patterns of tea leaves.
Tinkie and I ordered some green tea and sipped while we waited our turn.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I said for the third time. “When we get home, we can go see Tammy.” I pressed a little harder. “Remember, we have to be home Thursday for your doctor’s appointment.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Tinkie said, her smile patient. “D
r. Graham is far too handsome to disappoint.”
I could only admire her courage. I knew how upset and frightened she’d been only a few days before. Now she was able to kid around about her fetish for handsome doctors.
“You promised me,” I reminded her.
“I’ll make my appointment,” she said. She touched my hand on the table. “Only good friends care enough to bully like you do, Sarah Booth.”
“I don’t care if you call it manipulation, bullying, or mothering, as long as you make that appointment.” I sipped the hot tea, knowing exactly why coffee had become the traditional drink in my household. I didn’t know anyone who drank tea on a daily basis, and couldn’t imagine why anyone would.
A slender woman with dark eyes came over to our table. “Gwendolyn will see you,” she said to Tinkie. Tinkie had picked her because the name had appealed to her love of Arthurian legend.
“Come on, Sarah Booth,” she said. “You have to go with me.” We followed our guide back through several narrow hallways to a curtained cubicle. She drew aside the orange cloth and ushered us in.
My first glimpse of Gwendolyn made me stop in my tracks. She had hair that must have been five feet long. It hung in a braid that fell over one shoulder and swept the floor by her feet. She wore purple, layers of fabric that held no discernible shape, but beneath it all she was slender. Her blue eyes were oddly shaped, almost like teardrops, and she didn’t blink as she waited for us to sit.
“What is it you wish to know?” she asked with a hint of an accent.
“Are you from Germany?” I asked.
“You can remain with your friend but you must be quiet,” she said firmly.
Tinkie put a finger to her lips and winked at me. “I want to know about my future,” she said. “Am I going to have a child?”
Gwendolyn assessed Tinkie’s slim figure, her perfect hair and makeup. She reached across her small table and picked up Tinkie’s hand. Instead of reading it, she held it.
“I see a girl,” she said. “Blonde, with a big smile.”
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