“Creepy in what way?”
“Saying how he loved her lips and her hair and . . . sick stuff like that.”
He said nothing, digesting the information. Over the weekend he had visited her website. The photos were stunning: Belinda posed with her flute in a low-cut gown, lips parted seductively. Sexy. The Internet was great for some things, not so good for others. Lots of weirdoes out there.
Beside him, Whitworth slammed down the phone and muttered, “Useless.” Whitworth looked over and shook his head. “Nobody’s talking.”
“Par for the course,” Frank said. Except for Ziegler. Ziegler wanted to tell him Belinda’s life story. He wanted to go talk to Chantelle.
“When did the notes start, Mr. Ziegler?”
“A few years ago when we were in Boston. In one note, he asked her to meet him outside the stage door entrance to Symphony Hall. It’s on—”
“I know where it is, I used to work that district. Were they signed?”
“Yes.
Your adoring fan, B
. Just the initial.”
“I need to see them. When can you bring them in?”
A flush rose on Ziegler’s cheeks. “I threw them away.” He spread his hands in supplication. “I didn’t want Belinda to see them. It would have been too upsetting, you know? Like, B is for Blaine.”
Maybe. Or maybe Boyfriend was a conspiracy nut.
“She got a note last week postmarked New Orleans.”
“Did you throw that one away too?”
“Yes.” A muscle worked in Ziegler’s jaw. “A week before the anniversary? It would have put Belinda over the edge! She’s a high-strung soloist. Under enormous pressure.”
Frank wanted to smack him. “Tell me what it said.”
“
You know how much I love you, Belinda. Soon we’ll be together. Love, B,
”
Ziegler said. “Postmarked New Orleans, a week before the anniversary. And the night of the anniversary a car comes out of nowhere and almost hits Belinda. Someone tried to kill her!”
Whitworth looked over, cocked an eyebrow that said:
You got a problem
?
Frank waved him off and gave Ziegler a hard stare. “You seem ultra-protective of Belinda. Is she your girlfriend?”
Ziegler blinked rapidly and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “No. More like a sister. We met when I was a grad student at New England Conservatory. Belinda was studying flute there. We met in the hall one day, got talking and became friends. After her family was killed in the accident, Belinda was terribly distraught. She poured her heart out to me.”
He tried to make sense of the blitzkrieg of information. Was someone stalking Belinda? Or did Ziegler have an overactive imagination? He didn’t buy the
like-a-sister
disclaimer. He studied Ziegler’s well-groomed mustache and beard, the long slender fingers, the dark sorrowful eyes. Maybe Ziegler was gay. That would explain the odd interactions he had observed: tension between them, but no sexual vibes, none of the usual touching by lovers.
Ziegler leaned back, looking relieved, as though he’d gotten a ten-ton truck off his chest. Maybe he had. Or maybe the notes were a fairytale.
“I want you to tell her about the notes.”
“Now?” Ziegler gasped. “She’s got a huge performance in London this weekend!”
“Listen,” he said, leaning on the word. “If someone is stalking her, she may be in danger. I'd like to see
all
the notes to determine if they came from the same person, but you threw them away. Tell her about the notes.
Today.
If she gets any more, bring them to me.
Right away
.”
His cell phone chimed. He checked the ID and answered.
“Detective Frank?” Mama LeBlanc said in her something’s-wrong voice. “I know you not gonna like this, but Chantelle? She’s gone.”
“Gone?” A sick feeling invaded his gut. “When?”
“She was here for bed check at midnight, but my security alarm went off at three this morning. When I roust the girls outta bed, Chantelle’s gone.”
He didn’t want to think about where she’d gone or what she was doing. If Chantelle was mixed up in the Lakeview robbery, she was running with some bad hombres, a fifteen-year-old girl on her own in a city full of thugs, with no one to protect her.
“Okay, Mama. I’ll be right over.” He punched off, silently cursing.
Whitworth looked over. “The girl split?”
“Looks like it.” To Ziegler he said, “I’ve got to deal with an emergency. When I get back, I’ll write an Incident Report on what you’ve told me.”
Ziegler gnawed his thumbnail. Worrying about how to tell Belinda about the notes, he assumed. If they even existed. He had worse things to worry about. He handed two business cards to Ziegler.
“Give one to Belinda. If she gets any more notes, I want to see them. Tell her to call me if anything unusual happens. Anything at all.”
_____
“Someone’s been sending you weird notes,” Jake said in his doom-and-gloom voice, his dark eyes somber.
She stared at him, horrified. First the note on her doorstep, then an ugly voicemail message, now weird notes? Had that awful man revealed her secret to Jake? “Why didn’t you show them to me? What did they say?”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Tell me what they
said
!”
“They were nice enough at first, typical fan mail, raving about what a great flutist you are. Then he started saying how much he loved your eyes and your hair and your . . . lips.”
A sick feeling cramped her stomach and her palms grew sweaty. Thunder rumbled in the distance as she sank onto her mother’s rocking chair. Afternoon thunderstorms were frequent in New Orleans. She hated rainy weather. Nothing good ever happened when it rained. Thirteen years ago her family had died on a rain-slicked highway.
“Show them to me.”
Jake cleared his throat. “I can’t. I threw them away.”
“You threw them
away
? Why?”
“That’s why I screen your mail, remember? To weed out the crazies and send form letters to your fans. I was just doing my job!”
Gooseflesh crawled down her arms. “How many were there?”
“Fifteen or twenty, I guess, over the past four or five years.”
“Four or five
years
?”
Jake nodded.
“And you threw them away. And told me nothing.”
“Belinda, I stood by you when your family died, and when you begged me to work for you, I chucked my own career to be your assistant or whatever the hell it is that I am. Tour manager, publicist and chief cook and bottle washer!”
His anguished expression made her melt. “Please, Jake, I can’t stand it when you get upset. I’m making a fuss because, well, it
does
upset me if someone’s sending me notes and—”
“The last one was different. The others were mailed in Boston. The one last week—”
“On the anniversary?” Her heart slammed her chest, vicious hammer-strokes pounding her ribs.
“No, the week before. Postmarked New Orleans. It said
You know how much I love you, Belinda. Soon we’ll be together. Love, B.
Just the initial.”
She felt like a horse had kicked her. Impossible. How could it be?
“I know this is upsetting but—”
“Upsetting! It’s fucking unbelievable! Did you throw that one away too?”
Jake ducked his head, avoiding her gaze. “Yes. Detective Renzi wasn’t happy about it, either.”
Aghast, she said, “You told Detective Renzi? Why?”
“Bee, you don’t get it. At the restaurant some maniac tried to kill you.”
She clenched her hands around the arms of the chair and rocked harder. How could this happen right before the biggest concert of her life?
“Jake, you really let me down.”
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. “I let you down? When have I ever let you down? I sacrifice my own happiness for you all the time. You call me at home anytime of the day or night. You did it on Saturday. Dean and I can’t even eat dinner together in peace.”
She stared at him. Really, did she make that many demands?
“Ten years ago I had a good job in New York, organist and choir master at a cathedral. I’ve got a Masters degree from New England Conservatory. Maybe it’s time I pursued other options.”
Pursued other options
. A Titanic-sized iceberg lodged in her stomach.
Jake would never leave her, would he?
“Detective Renzi said to call if anything unusual happens.” Jake handed her a business card. “We’re both upset right now. Finish practicing. Let’s talk later when we’ve calmed down.” He turned and left the studio.
Finish practicing? How could she practice with all these hideous distractions? Voicemail threats. A note on her doorstep. Weird fan mail, signed with Blaine’s initial. And now Jake, her oldest and dearest friend, her only friend, was threatening to abandon her.
Her throat closed up and tears fogged her vision. She blinked them back and studied the card Jake had given her. Frank’s card.
She pictured him seated at his desk. His craggy features, rock-solid jaw and penetrating eyes gave him an aura of strength. Always a turn-on. If Jake told him about the notes, he must have told him about her family, too. The thought galled her. Maybe she should talk to Frank herself, and tell him about the note and the voicemail threat. But not until she returned from London.
London was crucial, the biggest concert of her career.
If she gave a perfect performance—and she had no doubt that she would—it was sure to win her a fabulous recording contract and the international fame that went with it.
CHAPTER 6
Mama LeBlanc had a nasty gleam in her eye when she waved him into the tidy kitchen of her Creole cottage. A big stainless-steel pot on the stove gave off a delectable spicy odor, whirled through the room by a ceiling fan. Barely five feet tall, Mama had a big heart, sixty years old and still a bundle of energy, nary a wrinkle on her milk-chocolate skin.
It never ceased to amaze him how a woman so tiny could manage four delinquent teens at once, as she often had. But not this time.
“Chantelle ran away,” Mama said, frowning up at him, her hands on her hips. “Stole my cell phone, too. Brand new one I got last month, left it on the counter overnight to charge.”
“That might be a break. Can you write down the number and provider for me?”
“Sure can.” Mama gestured at a wooden stool by the door to the dining room. “Take a load off, Detective Frank. Want coffee? I made a fresh pot.”
“No thanks, but you go ahead.” On the wall above the stool, a cork bulletin board held a list of emergency numbers, his included. Tacked beside it was a chore schedule—Take out trash, Clean bathrooms, Do laundry—mapped out in a time-grid with penciled-in names.
“What about the other girls? Do they know anything?”
“They do, they ain’t telling me.” She came over and gave him a slip of paper with her cell phone information, then leaned against the counter and sipped from a mug of coffee. “Ramona might give you something. She’s young, pregnant and scared. The other two girls got, you know, at-ti-tude.”
“Tell me about Chantelle. How did she act while she was here?”
“That’s the thing, Detective Frank. I thought we were gettin’ on okay. Chantelle seemed like a nice girl. Polite, you know, please and thank you, no backtalk like some of ‘em. When I asked about her family, she said her moms was in Houston, last she heard.”
“Last she heard. Sad.”
“You got no idea the sad stories I hear.” She went to the stove and lifted the lid on the big pot, releasing a steamy aroma. After stirring the contents with a wooden spoon, she replaced the lid.
“Something smells good,” he said.
“Creole gumbo. Want some?” Mama grinned. “Nah, you’re too busy. The attitude twins are in their room watching TV or listening to the crap that passes for music these days. Ramona was bunking with Chantelle in the back bedroom. Come on, I’ll take you.”
As they walked down the hall he heard television voices. Mama stopped at the first door on the left and opened it without knocking. “Shut off the TV, girls. Detective Renzi wants to talk to you, so be polite and speak up.”
He stepped into a large square room with two neatly-made twin beds, the corners of their blue bedspreads squarely tucked. The whole room was shipshape, no clutter on the dresser, no dust on the mirror above it. An older-model TV sat on a metal stand. Slouched on blue-plastic armchairs facing the now-dark television screen were two girls, one dark-skinned, the other lighter. Neither looked happy to see him.
He gave them a reassuring smile. “Hello, ladies. Let’s start with names.”
“Tameka,” said the dark-skinned girl with the dreadlocks and the round chubby face.
“Linyatta,” said the other, gazing at him with mistrustful eyes.
“What time was lights out last night?”
“Midnight,” Tameka said. “Mama came in and tol’ us shut off the TV and go to sleep.”
“Uh-huh. Did you?”
An insolent smile appeared on Linyatta’s face, quickly suppressed.
“What’d you do, hit the mute button and stay up all night watching a silent movie?”
“Not all night,” Linyatta said. “Just till the movie was over.”
“What time was that?”
“Around one-thirty,” Tameka said.
“What happened after that? Did you hear anything?”
“We went to sleep, woke up when the alarm went off.”
“Did Chantelle talk to you about running away?”
“Didn’t talk to us ‘bout nuthin,” Linyatta said. “Snotty bitch.”
He believed it. These girls had rap sheets. Chantelle wasn’t likely to have confided in them. “Thank you, ladies,” he said. “Don’t get any ideas about going AWOL like Chantelle.”
Linyatta waved the TV remote at him. “Can we watch TV now?”
“Sure.” He left the room, depressed beyond measure. Both girls were high-school dropouts, nothing to look forward to but lives of crime and dope and making babies with gangbangers.