Chloe Babineaux Private Investigator

by Lisa Clancey

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  I took a shower then drove to my office to write up my report. That took a lot longer than I anticipated. I felt like I was writing a book. So, of course, I was tired and went back to my apartment to take a nap.

  Right, that would have so happened if I would have turned off all phones in my apartment. All my friends called to ask me what happened last night. Apparently, they waited around for me to come home so we could talk. When I didn’t come home, they assumed correctly that I spent the night with Rick. One after the other they called. I didn’t go into detail. I don’t kiss and tell. I did explain to them that I slept very well last night. I also told them that it wouldn’t take me ten minutes to identify cloud formations.

  Rick’s friends were on some sort of training mission. I hope they had their head together more than my friends did. But then again, my friends would have their heads together if someone were shooting at them. Being shot at really makes you focus.

  The doorbell rang, and I looked through the peephole. A delivery woman was standing there with a bouquet of flowers.

  I opened the door. “Are you Chloe Babineaux?”

  “Yes.”

  “These are for you,” she said with a smile. I wondered if she knows these were after sex flowers.

  “Thanks.” She handed me the flowers and left without waiting for a tip. Worked for me.

  The card said, ‘The florist didn’t have sugar buns, Sugar buns.’ I couldn’t help but grin.

  Since I couldn’t sleep, I decided to visit the Tamereauxes. I arrived at their house around one. I hoped Suzanne’s blind date wasn’t a dud before it even got started. I should call Jesse later and find out. No, I probably won’t.

  I was daydreaming about blind dates and trying to waste as much time as possible before going inside. Rick and I didn’t have a real date. You know, going out to dinner, seeing a movie or even out to a nightclub to dance the night away. No. We just ate and then slept together. I did mean slept together because we weren’t sleeping together again. We skipped the how do you eat in public part.

  There was a car and two trucks in the driveway and a few trucks parked in front of the house on the street. I couldn’t tell which truck belonged to which house. There could be twenty people in that house as far as I knew and all ready to beat the crap out of me.

  Okay. I can do this. I took a deep breath and let it out shakily. Not good. I took several deep breaths until I was ready. I wasn’t nervous about someone whipping out a gun; I was nervous about meeting Jason’s family. I didn’t know what I was going to ask. I should have really thought about this a little more. Why should I have done that? That would have made too much sense. If I thought about it too much, I probably wouldn’t have come at all. No. I would have. I had to tell them how sorry I was for Jason.

  I walked up to the front door and rang the bell. I could hear a TV, people talking and a small dog barking. The barking either came from a TV show or from inside of the house and if that was the case, I was going to have to watch my ankles. Small dogs were better to watch dogs than big dogs if you didn’t count Sweet Pea and his vicious runt of an owner. Small dogs attack everything. I shouldn’t say all small dogs. The miniature poodle I had growing up was a demon dog, and I loved my dog so much. Cody thought his black lab was scary, but I knew my poodle could take his big-ass dog any day.

  The door was opened by a sixtyish man with a comb over. It was a comb-over only if you could say three hairs covering the large bald spot in the middle of his head was a comb-over.

  He looked me up and down, narrowed his eyes and asked, “How can I hep you?” At least I think that’s what he said. He sounded like he had a mouth full of marbles.

  “Hello, my name is Chloe Babineaux. May I speak to Mrs. Tamereaux?” I said smiling as sweetly as I could. See? I’m not a threat.

  “Which Mrs. Tamereaux?” He grunted, “There’s five of ‘em here.”

  It took a few seconds to translate before I answered, “Mrs. Jason Tamereaux Jr. Is she busy? If she is I can come back.”

  “Nah, come on in.” He backed up so I could enter the house.

  It was a nice comfortable house and much better than I had expected. There were, in fact, several women, men, teenagers and children inside staring me down. I was glad their hands were busy holding plates of food. No one looked as though they were reaching for a weapon, although a few had plastic knives in their hands. I bet if they tried hard enough they could put some hurt on me with those plastic utensils. Not that any of them looked particularly dangerous, but two or three of the women looked to be over two hundred pounds. But they didn’t look too terribly tall; I think I could outrun them.

  The living room had a nice but worn flower-print sofa and of course the ever present recliner. A rocking chair and several folding chairs were added to the mix. A few of the adults and all of the children were sitting on the floor.

  Mr. Comb-over introduced me, “This here is…what’s your name?”

  “Chloe Babineaux,” I smiled, “I should have called first. I apologize. I dropped by to speak to…I’m sorry, I don’t know your first name, Mrs. Tamereaux .”

  “Which one?” an elderly woman asked.

  “Uh…Jason…Jason Tamereaux Jr.” I was afraid to blink. The woman must have been four feet tall but with round beady eyes, long nose, white hair and a body shaped like a barrel. She scared the shit out of me.

  “That’s me,” said a younger woman rising from the sofa. “How can I help you?”

  Her face was pale, and her eyes were red. She was dressed in jeans and a faded red sweatshirt. I felt like I was going to lose it any minute.

  I swallowed, cleared my throat and asked, “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes, you’re the woman that saved my husband’s life,” she said blandly. Was she thankful or disappointed? I couldn’t tell from her expression. Everyone had gotten even quieter. This was not good. I felt myself break out in a sweat. Any minute now they were coming after me with those plastic knives.

  Then at a snap of a finger, everyone started talking at once. Questions were asked, but I couldn’t answer because I couldn’t tell who was asking the questions. It was making me a little queasy looking at them while they were talking because there were a few who didn’t believe in not talking with your mouth full. The dog was having a good time eating all the food that was either being spilled on the floor or flying out mouths.

  I put my hands up with palms out to hold them off, and that seemed to help. I looked at the woman and asked, “Could we go someplace more private?”

  She nodded and jerked her head toward the back of the house. I followed her to the back porch, and she motioned me to sit on the swing with her. We were quiet a minute or two, and she seemed to gather herself. It seemed deafening compared to the commotion we just left.

  “How’s your husband?” I asked to break the ice.

  “Better. Thanks.” She looked at me and smiled.

  “Good. That’s very good.” I smiled. “I’m sorry I don’t know your first name.”

  “Sandy.” She hesitated and then added, “I don’t know exactly why you were here when T-Jake was shot, but I’m glad you were.” She didn’t make eye contact and instead was studying the back yard, so I didn’t know if she was telling the truth. She had dark hair with brown eyes and a large nose. One of her front teeth were crooked, and she was slightly overweight but with a friendliness to her that I was drawn to.

  T-Jake is like saying Jake Jr. in other parts of the world. Not everyone in Louisiana says T for Jr., but some Cajuns still do. I like it. Maybe I’ll have a T-Chloe some day. Nah, people don’t add T in front of girls names just boys. People would call my daughter Little Chloe. Forget it; I couldn’t put a child through that.

  I took an interest in the back yard too. A couple of squirrels were running around a tree playing chase and chattering. “I came to ask about a missing painting. I was hired to locate.” It felt kind of wrong to ask about it now.

 
“Yeah, that’s what I had heard you were here for.” She shook her head, turned to me and asked, “Why would somebody kill my father-in-law and shoot T-Jake for a stupid picture?”

  “Good question. I wish I could answer that,” I said shaking my head.

  “My mother-in-law goes, ‘This is stupid. Why would some idiot be looking for that picture? It’s been missing for so long nobody cares anymore and it ain’t worth nothin’.”

  “Is Petunia being blamed for this?” I asked wide eyed and scared for Petunia.

  “No. No one is.” She twisted toward me, looked at me hard and asked, “You don’t know, do you?”

  Uh-oh. Words I didn’t like to hear. “Know what?” I asked in a quiet voice. I didn’t know if I wanted to know.

  “The reason Petunia got involved in this whole mess.” I knew Petunia was holding back.

  “No. Why don’t you enlighten me?” I wasn’t real thrilled that Petunia had withheld information from me.

  “Petunia,” she smiled slightly, “was threatened.” I can only assume her smile was for the tone and not for Petunia being threatened.

  “What?” I couldn’t believe it. Why didn’t she tell me this? I would’ve taken the case anyway, but I would’ve been more prepared.

  “Yeah. Somebody called her and told her that if she didn’t tell him where the picture was somebody was gonna get hurt.”

  “So, of course, Petunia was worried about her family,” I said more talking to myself than to Sandy. “Yeah, I would be too. But why didn’t she tell me?” I looked back at Sandy and asked, “Was anyone in her immediate family hurt?”

  “No. Not that I know of.” She said and shrugged.

  “So, why go after your family? I know Jason Sr. was her uncle, so T-Jake was her cousin. But if someone threatened her family wouldn’t they go after her immediate family? And why Petunia?” I was getting myself worked up, but I still had no answers.

  Sandy looked at me hard, studying my face with a bewildered expression. She finally shook her head and laughed her question to me. “You really don’t know do you?”

  “Petunia hasn’t told me anything. I thought she was straightforward with me, but obviously, she wasn’t. Please tell me why someone is willing to kill for this stupid painting.”

  Sandy took a deep breath, exhaled hard, shook her head and finally came to a decision. “You have a right to know. You’re risking your life too. Petunia’s mother’s family is supposed to know where this painting is. It’s said to be worth a ton of money. I’m sure you were told it was worthless, so you’d quit looking for it. Everyone in the family would love to find it.” She looked down to her lap where her fingers were laced together.

  I didn’t say anything. I wanted to give her time. She would finish telling me when she was ready. Besides, I couldn’t say anything. If I would have said something, I know it would have sounded cold and selfish.

  A few minutes later she continued, “The painting is said to be anywhere from Canada to Mexico. I have no idea where. I’m not even sure what’s in the painting.”

  “I was told everything from naked people to a farm scene.” I laughed. I really hoped the naked people had nothing to do with a farm scene.

  “Ooh, naked people.” She shuddered and then laughed, “I guess that depends on who the naked people are, huh?”

  “My thoughts exactly.” I laughed with her.

  We sat swinging looking out at the backyard where two squirrels were joined by two more squirrels and several birds. The yard wasn’t big, but it was someone’s home and looked cared for and loved with three big trees. Two were in the center of the yard, so it was well-shaded in the summer and one at the back and the whole yard surrounded by a chain linked fence. The trees had lost their leaves, so there was muted sunshine filling the back yard.

  “Do you think your family was targeted because they’re part of Petunia’s mother’s family? Do they think you’re lying about the location of it? This doesn’t make sense. Because if you knew where it was, wouldn’t you have sold it or have it hanging on your wall?”

  “Yes. I really think whoever it is, thinks we know something about it. And yes, we would have sold it by now if was worth anything.” She paused and then added, “But T-Jake might’ve been shot because he gambles.” She paused, “And he’s bad at it.”

   “Do you think it’s the same person?”

  Sandy jerked her head at me with wide eyes and asked, “What do you mean? How can that be?”

  “Do you think T-Jake mentioned the painting to someone he owes money to? You know, told this guy there’s a painting in the family, and it’s worth a fortune.” Yeah, this could be it, and I was really warming up to the idea. “Yeah, he tells him there’s a painting worth a lot of money, but someone is hiding it and not sharing the money with the rest of the family.”

  She nodded and looked at me unblinking, swallowed hard and said, “But before you ask me who T-Jake gambled with I have to tell you. I have no idea. I didn’t want to know, you know? I gave a list to the police who I think he gambles with. So, I’ll get another one for you.”

  “But is there anyone that would know who he gambled with? A brother or a friend maybe?”

  “Maybe, but T-Jake is an only child, so that’s no help. I’ll come up with a list of names and give it to you. Can you pick it up Monday? After church tomorrow, my sister is coming for a visit from Natchitoches. I really want to spend some time with her.” She gave me a pleading look. What could I do? Tell her, ‘No, I need it right now. Grab a piece of paper and a pen, and when you finish the list I’ll try to pry my fingers from the fried chicken, I saw on the kitchen table, and take the list with me.’

  “Yes. Monday‘s fine. I’m actually gonna be out of town tomorrow as well. I’ll call you before coming over if you can give me your number.” I smiled.

  She rattled off her number, and I put it in my cell phone.

  “I’ll call you Monday morning if that’s okay?”

  “That’s fine. I get up early. I don’t go to work until eight thirty, so you can just come over around eight if you want to,” she said smiling. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, but she had a great smile.

  “Sounds good. I’ll let you get back to your family. Can I get out by going out the gate around the side?” I asked standing and stretching.

  “Yes, just walk around that way,” she said pointing to the side of the house. She touched my arm so that I would turn toward her and said, “Thanks, for coming over. Believe it or not, you gave me a break from them in there, and I need to get back to the hospital.” She jerked her head to the side pointing toward the house and laughed. “I love ‘em, but there are times…”

  “Glad I could help.”

  I walked back to my truck and thought I noticed a light truck going down the street. I shook my head and blew out an exhale. Now I was getting paranoid. I didn’t want to sit in front of Sandy’s house looking like the stalker that I was. So I drove back to my apartment thinking about what she had just told me.

  The killer could have been someone T-Jake knew, so I was right about that. I couldn’t do anything about that without a list of names to interview. I thought of calling Rick or Cody or both but changed my mind. I wanted to see the list first, and if I told them what Sandy had just told me, they would be running full speed to ask Petunia questions. Okay, so they already had a list of names. Rick told me they knew he owed money. I think he did. I was pretty sure he did. I had to find out. Think about it, Chloe, they had a list, so they had already talked to T-Jake’s friends. Maybe the list wasn’t such a good idea after all. But, what if there was a name on there I recognized, and they didn’t?

  Jeeze Louise, my head was starting to spin. I had to wait for Monday for the list. In the meantime, I was going home for lunch.