“Oh, yeah,” said Quigg. “Easy. Pick your area. Kitchen, prep area, pantry, or cooler. Cripes, it’s always bedlam back there, and most restaurants have huge turnovers so there’s always some new guy lurking about.”
Damn,
thought Carmela.
“That poor woman,” said Quigg, obviously referring to Wren. “I felt so helpless. She seemed inconsolable. If only there was something I could have done!”
“Refunding the money was a nice gesture,” said Carmela. Quigg had been so upset last night, he’d written a check on the spot, refunding all the money for the bar tab and dinner. Carmela had the check in her handbag.
“It was nothing,” said Quigg, who sounded anguished. “I just wish we could have gotten to Jamie Redmond sooner. Maybe the outcome would have been different.”
“Maybe,” said Carmela. “You did a lot, though. You were very take-charge.”
“The police kept my entire staff until three o’clock this morning. Three bus boys and my damn
sous
-chef put in for overtime, can you believe it?”
She did, and told him so.
“On the plus side,” continued Quigg, not sounding one bit happy, “business is suddenly booming.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Carmela.
“I never kid about business, dawlin’. It seems everyone and his brother-in-law is burning with curiosity. I guess they want to enjoy a cup of
court bouillon
and bask in the midst of a real-life crime scene.” Quigg pronounced it
coo-bee-yon,
which was, of course, the New Orleans pronunciation for that type of spicy fish stew. “Forensics a la carte,” continued Quigg. “Sick, no?”
“Sick yes,” murmured Carmela, knowing full well that the average citizen seemed utterly fascinated with crime scenes and forensic evidence these days. Case in point, just take a gander at what was being spewed out on TV.
“You’ve got to keep in mind,” said Quigg, “that this is fairly typical for New Orleans. I mean, we’re the Roswell, New Mexico, of the macabre. We’ve got more voodoo shops, ghost tours, haunted buildings, above ground cemeteries, and amateur vampires per capita than any other place in the world!”
“Good point,” agreed Carmela. Visitors to the French Quarter were forever wandering into her shop and asking if there were any haunted houses or hotels in the area. Lately she’d been sending them down the street to Amour’s Restaurant, a so-so brasserie that had been particularly snippy and pretentious to Gabby and her when they’d tried to order take-away.
“Listen,” said Quigg, “I don’t know if this is the right time to tell you this, but I’m opening a new restaurant in a couple months. Already leased space over on Bienville Street in a building that used to be an art gallery. Gonna call the place Mumbo Gumbo. Any chance I could talk you into designing the menus? I want the typography and overall look to have a kind of jumbled scrapbook feel.”
“Sounds like something I could handle,” replied Carmela. She’d turned him down on designing the new menus for Bon Tiempe and he’d ended up with heavy leather menus and old English type so ponderous looking it rivaled the Magna Carta.
So maybe, yeah.
Carmela set the receiver back in its cradle just as Gabby came scuttling through the front door, carrying a cardboard tray filled with steaming cups of
cafe au lait
. She trundled the coffee back to the big square table and began passing out cups while everyone murmured thank-yous.
“Got one for you, too, Carmela,” Gabby called.
“Be right there,” said Carmela. She grabbed her paper filled with symbols and shoved it into the bottom drawer. She didn’t want Gabby to know what she’d been up to. After all, the symbols or words or whatever they were could be nothing at all.
Jumping up, Carmela was eager to accept the little cardboard cup from Gabby. But as she held out her hand, she also stared in amazement at the person pushing her way through the front door.
“Carmela?” said Gabby. At first she thought Carmela didn’t want the coffee. Then, suddenly catching on, Gabby quickly turned and followed Carmela’s surprised gaze.
“Wren?” cried Gabby, utterly stunned by her cousin’s unexpected appearance at the little scrapbook shop. “What . . . what are you doing here?”
As if on cue, Baby, Tandy, and Byrle all swiveled their heads to stare at Wren West, who was hesitantly making her way toward them.
Gabby hurried to meet Wren halfway. “Why honey?” she asked. “What possessed you to come here today?”
Wren looked subdued yet nervous. “I was just over at Jamie’s store, a couple blocks away,” she explained. “And it was like I could feel his presence.”
That was enough for Tandy. She leaped from her chair, bounded over to Wren, and swept her up in her skinny arms. “Oh honey,” she urged, “come over here and sit with us. Take a load off.”
“You should be at home,” murmured Baby, as Tandy hurriedly made room for Wren at their table. “You poor thing.”
Like mother hens, they began clucking and cooing over Wren, offering their sympathy, their best wishes, and their assistance, should she need it.
“I really think you should just go home,” worried Gabby.
Wren shook her head, looking miserable. “That’s Jamie’s place, too,” she said.
“Oh my,” said Tandy, looking perplexed.
“Blaine said he’d help me figure out what to do about the property,” said Wren, sipping at the
cafe au lait
Carmela had given her.
Tandy’s brows shot up in a question mark.
“Blaine Taylor,” explained Carmela. “He was Jamie’s business partner. Jamie invented a software program and Blaine was helping him market it.”
“I didn’t know Jamie had another business besides the bookstore,” said Baby. “How nice.”
“Ya’ll are treating me like one of those poor sick kids they send to Disneyworld,” said Wren. “Please don’t.”
“My sincere condolences,” said Byrle, reaching over and gently touching Wren’s sleeve. “Have you thought about funeral arrangements yet? I know we’d all like to attend.”
Wren bit her bottom lip and shook her head. This was obviously a painful subject for her to talk about. “Not really,” she said. “Jamie didn’t attend one particular church or anything, so I guess I’m just going to have him cremated.”
“Cremation is very dignified,” said Baby, looking a trifle askance that there didn’t seem to be a formal service looming on the horizon.
“Then what?” asked Tandy, handing Wren a Kleenex. “Maybe just have a private burial?”
Wren accepted the Kleenex and gave a defeated shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe . . . lay him to rest with his parents?”
“They’ve both passed on?” asked Byrle.
Wren nodded and daubed at her eyes. “Oh yeah, long time now. Almost fifteen years. Jamie was adopted, and his parents were older.” Wren was grasping the Kleenex with both hands now, twisting and turning it like a lifeline. “I mean, Jamie was just six or seven when he came to live with them, and they were both in their mid-forties by then.”
“They lived here?” asked Baby, who was always interested in all aspects of parentage and lineage.
“No,” said Wren. “Jamie grew up down in Boothville, where his dad ran a small printing shop. His parents were both killed in a car crash, and he doesn’t have any other relatives.” Wren blinked furiously. You know, my parents are both dead, too. We called ourselves the two orphans,” she told them, tears welling in her eyes.
“Where are Jamie’s parents buried, honey?” asked Baby in her gentlest voice.
Wren’s lower lip quivered and giant tears slid down her cheeks. “I have no idea!”
Chapter 3
G
OLD charms tumbled onto the table as Carmela ripped open a little cellophane package. Wren, who’d been sitting at Tandy’s elbow for the past hour or so, watching her create a page to showcase her granddaughter’s birthday party, looked over with interest. Baby and Byrle had gone off to run errands, but Tandy, determined to add an overlay of sparkling confetti, soldiered on.
“What are those for?” asked Wren.
The wire cords that felt like they’d been stretched tight around Carmela’s heart loosened a notch. Wren seemed to have gotten hold of her initial grief, the hard grief that psychologists say can be horribly debilitating. After this morning’s tearful revelation that Wren had no idea where Jamie’s parents were buried, Carmela had stepped in and offered to help. Born and bred in the New Orleans area, Carmela knew her way around fairly well. She also understood that a few well-placed phone calls could sometimes short-circuit the ponderous beauracratic system that seemed to run rampant in Louisiana’s cities and parishes.
“I put my foot in the glue again and volunteered to make two scrapbooks for Gilt Trip,” Carmela told Wren.
Gilt Trip was the brainchild of a group of wealthy, good-hearted Garden District ladies who wanted to help raise funds for a new crisis nursery at a women’s shelter. They’d decided that every year three or four of them would select an interior designer to completely renovate one room in their home. Once completed, these newly refurbished and hopefully splendiferous rooms would be thrown open to the public for their amazement, enjoyment, and possible envy. Hence the name Gilt Trip.
Tickets would be sold, of course, at ten dollars a pop and all money raised would be donated to the crisis nursery.
As a former Garden District resident, Carmela had been asked to create a scrapbook that highlighted the redone music room at the Lonsdale home. The scrapbook was supposed to showcase the step-by-step transformation of the room and include a few touchy-feely items like wallpaper samples, drapery fabric, and paint chips. It was also supposed to feature selling points about the interior designer and crafts people who completed all the glitzy renovations.
Carmela thought the cause highly worthwhile and the project not too difficult, so she’d gladly said yes. But somewhere along the line, a scrapbook-making volunteer had dropped away and Carmela’s one scrapbook project had suddenly morphed into two scrapbooks. Now Carmela knew she really had to hustle to complete both books in time for the start of Gilt Trip next week.
“What I did,” said Carmela by way of explanation to Wren, “was create my own album cover.”
“Pretty,” said Wren, admiring the deep plum-colored velvet that Carmela had stretched over and glued to what had been an ordinary brown vinyl album.
“Then, to sort of set the stage, I’m going to add this free-form piece of gold paper,” said Carmela. “You see? I just tore away the edges until I had a sort of circle.”
“Then you added that smaller piece of wine-colored organza on top of it,” said Wren, watching Carmela work.
“Right,” said Carmela. “Those are the redone music room’s primary colors. Plum and wine, very deep and rich looking.”
“I’ve made little boxes that were decorated and dimensional,” said Wren, “but I’ve never tried my hand at something like this.”
“It’s really not that different,” said Carmela. “You just build up a few layers until you have a rich, tactile piece.”
“So now what?” asked Wren.
Carmela picked up a two-by-three-inch piece of sheet music that had been torn into another free-form design. “Now I glue this on top, but slightly off center.”
“Neat,” said Wren.
“And for the
piece de resistance,
I’ll daub a little blue and green paint onto these gold charms to give them some instant age. Then I’ll string them on gold wire and anchor them on top of everything.” The charms Carmela had selected were a violin, a baby grand piano, and a treble clef, motifs very much in keeping with the theme of the redone music room.
And now,
thought Carmela,
if Margot Butler would just stop by with the before and after photos, I’d really be in business.
“Carmela,” called Gabby from where she was perched on a high stool behind the front counter. “Could you come up here a minute?”
“Sure,” said Carmela, sliding the album and charms over toward Wren. “You’d be doing me a big favor if you fastened those charms on,” she told Wren.
“You trust me?” asked Wren, blinking.
“Absolutely,” said Carmela, thinking
This girl needs some TLC and a lot of confidence-building to boot.
“CARMELA,” SAID GABBY IN A LOW VOICE, “I’VE been thinking.”
“About . . .” said Carmela, although she had an inkling of what might be on Gabby’s mind.
“About poor Jamie, of course,” said Gabby, her face reflecting her anguish. “Do you really believe that story the police seem to be proposing of a burglary gone awry? That it was completely random?”
“Not sure,” said Carmela. The police, the two detectives, and the crime scene team had seemed awfully hasty in their assessment. Then again, they had loads of experience in this arena. She remembered a news story from not too long ago about how a gang of kids sent an old rusty bicycle crashing through the windshield of a car at a stop-light, then murdered the two passengers for a take of less than twenty dollars. So . . . yeah, it was possible. Anything was possible.
“On the other hand,” said Carmela, “Baby wangled that little write-up in the
Times-Picayune
. So anyone who had it in for Jamie would have known where to find him last night.”
“True,” said Gabby, furrowing her brow. “I hadn’t thought about that.” She was silent for a moment. “But do you
really
think a man like Jamie Redmond had an emeny? He sold books, for goodness sake. And old maps.”
“Maybe there’s a lot of money in that,” said Carmela. “Or there’s more to Jamie than meets the eye.”
“Maybe,” said Gabby, sounding unconvinced. “But if the assault on Jamie
wasn’t
random . . .” She gazed at Carmela with a growing look of horror.
“Then it could have been someone who was a guest last night,” finished Carmela. “Yes, I have considered that.”
“You have? Really?” asked Gabby. She seemed relieved. “I thought maybe I just had a suspicious nature.”