Amaretto Amber (Franki Amato Mysteries Book 3) (2 page)

Her smirk softened as she brought me the box. "I'm sorry you're having such a bad birthday. I don't know why you didn't take the day off."

"I could use the overtime pay, for one thing," I said, glancing pointedly at the lone dollar that hung from my shirt before taking the creamless croissant. "And I had to get out of that apartment. The baroque brothel décor was starting to remind me of an old funeral parlor, and with that creepy cemetery across the street, I felt like I was sitting around waiting to go to my grave."

Veronica rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on," she said, taking a seat on the opposite couch. "Turning thirty's not that bad. I did it six months ago, and I lived to tell about it."

"I know." I picked at the plain pastry. "Honestly, it's not the age that bothers me as much as the familial fallout from it."

"Well, look at the bright side," she said, pulling a vanilla cream napoleon from the box. "Now that your nonna has taken a vow of silence, you're going to get a much-needed break."

I shot her a skeptical look. With that delicious pastry in hand, she could afford to be optimistic.

The door swung open, and David Savoie, our part-time research assistant, entered, carrying two grocery bags. A junior at Tulane University, David could really put away the grub, but you'd never know it from his lanky frame.

"What've you got there, your lunch?" Veronica joked.

He flipped his brown bangs to one side. "Nah, Rouses Market donated this stuff for the food drive. It's mostly potato chips, pretzels, and pralines."

After swearing off sweets, I was so sick of savory snacks that I could just spit—except that I didn't have any saliva left because of all the salt. But my interest perked up at the mention of pralines. "What food drive?"

David placed the bag on his desk in the far left corner behind the couches. "My fraternity is collecting food for the poor for St. Joseph's Day."

I looked at Veronica to see whether she was as confused as I was. "Why is your computer science frat participating in a Catholic festival?"

"St. Joseph's Day isn't just a religious tradition in New Orleans, Franki," Veronica explained. "It's like St. Patrick's Day—the whole city celebrates it."

This was news to me. As far as I was aware, only Italian-American Catholics observed the day. "Okay, but why bring the food here?"

David sat on the back of the couch. "Veronica's letting me keep the donations in the conference room because my frat brothers keep eating them all."

"That's terrible," I said, resolving to slip across the hall to that conference room. I had no intention of stealing food from the poor, mind you. I just wanted to check those pralines—you know, to make sure they hadn't gone bad.

Veronica swallowed a bite of her pastry. "It's predictable behavior from a house full of hungry young men. That reminds me, David," she began, turning to hand him the open box, "I got you a little surprise from the bakery."

"A shoe sole! Dude, thanks," he exclaimed before shoving the sole-shaped pastry into his mouth. Then he retrieved the grocery bag, grabbed the conference room key from the reception desk drawer, and headed across the hall.

"Speaking of surprises, tell me what Glenda has planned for me," I ordered, giving Veronica my sincerest spill-it stare.

She licked cream from her finger in a ploy to avoid my gaze.

But I wasn't fooled. I was positive that she knew the score because she lived in Glenda's fourplex too. In fact, Veronica was the one who'd convinced me to rent the ground-floor apartment across from hers, sight (and cemetery) unseen. And despite the world of differences between her and Glenda, they were as tight as Gwyneth and Madonna—before their unfortunate split. "I'm serious. Out with it."

She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. "You know I'm no spoiler—"

"Just say it," I commanded through clenched teeth.

"Glenda hired you a male stripper," she gushed.

I dropped the croissant. "Why in the hell would she do that?"

She shrugged. "She thought you needed a little cheering up. And in Glenda's world, that can only mean one thing."

Yeah, nude, hard-bodied men slathered in oil. Of course, there was a time and a place for that sort of thing, but not on the day that I had plans with Bradley. "Please tell me that the stripper isn't going to show up during my date. I'm finally getting to go to the Sazerac Bar, and I don't want to get escorted out."

Veronica shook her head. "I'm sure he'll come before then. Glenda would want you to enjoy him all on your own."

"What'd she get me?" I asked—just so I could be prepared, of course. "A carpenter? A fireman?"

She averted her eyes. "A cop."

"What?" Before joining Private Chicks, I'd worked as a rookie police officer in Austin, Texas, and I hadn't stood a fighting chance at that job. "How does she not know that I'd rather have any profession than a cop? Even a Wall Street executive."

"I told her that," Veronica replied, smoothing her blue Versace skirt. "But she said that you needed the authoritative type to bring you out of your funk."

I chewed my thumbnail. "Well, I hope this guy shows up soon. Because from the way things are going, that date is going to be the only bright spot of my day."
In addition to the Bloody Mary and the dollar.

"Maybe this will help make your day a little brighter," she said, pulling an envelope from her purse. "It's a half day at the spa. I went by there on my way to the bakery, and they agreed to work you in at noon."

"You're the best, Veronica," I exclaimed as I jumped up from my sofa sickbed and wrapped my arms around her—bending my 5' 10" frame at the waist. "That's almost better than a pastry."

She laughed and shook her head. "Only you would prefer a pastry to pampering. Now, I have plans tonight, but I want to hear all the details in the morning—about the spa and the dinner."

"You got it." For the first time today, I was starting to think that I might have something good to recount.

*   *   *

"What kind of moron would leave their car running in the middle of the street?" I exclaimed to myself. I'd been standing outside Private Chicks for ten minutes, waiting for the owner of the neon orange Nissan Cube that was blocking my 1965 Mustang convertible. Because the firm was located on Decatur Street in the French Quarter, traffic was always an issue. And it didn't help that an Italian restaurant occupied the first two floors of the three-story brick building we were located in. I liked their pizza and pasta but not their patrons, who were prone to parking their cars in the street while picking up to-go orders.

I looked at the time on my phone as I paced the sidewalk. It was twenty till noon. If I didn't leave soon, I could kiss my spa appointment
arrivederci
.

A thirty-something guy holding a green beer and wearing a matching T-shirt that read, "The leprechauns made me do it," approached from the other side of the street. "Hey, uh, is this the parade route?"

"Parade?" I repeated.

"Yeah." He wiped his nose with his wrist. "The parades for St. Patrick's Day and St. Joseph's Day start today at one o'clock."

I blinked. "They do?"

He took a swig of his beer. "They're always the Saturday before so everyone can get in on the action."

"You don't say," I said, narrowing my eyes at the Nissan. If a bunch of floats came down Decatur, I'd miss my massage for sure.

"Sorry to have bothered you," he said.

"No problem," I replied as I zeroed in on the real bother.

Without further ado, I marched to the driver's side of the Nissan and yanked open the door. As I settled into the seat and released the parking brake, I noticed an open box marked "Erzulie's Authentic Voodoo." Curious, not to mention a little concerned, I peered inside and saw around twenty see-through fabric bags containing incense sticks, candles, packets of white crystals, and little vials of liquid. The bags were marked "3-day ritual spell kits," and they were for everything from gaining wealth to garnering protection.

"What a wack job," I whispered as I pressed the gas pedal and pulled the car forward.

"That's my car," a gruff female voice cried.

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the Nissan's middle-aged owner. How did I know it was her? My first clue was the teased, tangerine hair that was strikingly reminiscent of Endora from
Bewitched
.

"Help! Police!" She waved her purple-caftaned arms. "Stop that thief!"

I pulled up the parking brake and got out of the car just in time to see a thirty-something cop rounding the corner—and buttoning his shirt?

"Officer," she huffed, grasping his forearm, "this young woman was trying to steal my car."

His ice blue eyes looked through me as he fastened his top button. "Is this true, ma'am?"

I hesitated for a moment, not because I was guilty as accused but because a) I was annoyed by that "ma'am," and b) there was something weird about this cop. No officer I knew got dressed on duty, and he seemed uneasy in the uniform, maybe because it didn't fit him. His biceps were straining against the sleeves, and his pecs looked like they were going to pop out of his shirt.

Then it hit me. This was no street cop—this was the stripper cop.

Instantly annoyed, I shifted my weight to one leg and turned to the witchy woman. "Look, I'm late for an appointment, and your car was blocking mine. So I moved it, okay?"

The counterfeit cop cleared his throat. "Actually, it's not okay."

I gave a surly sigh. "I know, I know. I've been a very bad girl, and I need to be punished. But that's not gonna happen, because I'm going to the spa."

I opened the door of my Mustang and flopped into the seat.

"Ma'am," he began in a terse tone, "I need you to exit the vehicle."

I arched a brow. "Or what? You'll cuff me and teach me a lesson?"

He reached into his back pocket and flipped open his wallet.

My stomach tried to take off running as I stared at the New Orleans PD badge, which was as real as the regulation baton on his hip.

"You're under arrest for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle."

As he proceeded to read me my rights, my brain began to process the situation. To celebrate my thirtieth birthday, I wasn't going to the spa or to the Sazerac. I was going to the slammer.

"I'm taking you to the office so you can pick up your
own
car," Veronica quipped as we exited New Orleans's notorious Central Lockup at eight a.m. the next morning.

I clenched my jaw. She was clearly referring to my "unauthorized use" of the neon Nissan, but after spending the last twenty hours in a cold, cramped cell, I was in no mood for her sarcasm. "If you're thinking about a career in stand-up, forget it. You've got no comic timing."

She gave me a haughty look. "I wasn't trying to be funny, Franki."

We climbed into her white Audi in silence and fastened our seat belts.

"And I still don't understand how you, of all people, could've mistaken a real police officer for a stripper," she continued.

"I had a lot on my mind, okay?" I said as I rummaged through my bag for my sunglasses to shield my eyes from the harsh glare of the sunlight and the harsh reality of Central Lockup. "Besides, someone—and I'm not naming names—told me to be on the watch for a stripper cop."

She started the engine. "You're blaming me for this mess?"

I slid the sunglasses onto my nose. "There's plenty of blame to go around, starting with Glenda."

"She was just trying to do something nice for you," Veronica said as she peeled out of the parking lot. "There's no way she could've known that it would backfire like this."

I crossed my arms. "Maybe not, but she knew that I went to jail."

"What?" she exclaimed, hitting the gas so hard that both of our heads snapped backwards. "How?"

"After I called you and got your voice mail," I began, lowering my eyelids into a cold stare, "the officer agreed to let me try someone else. So, I called Glenda. When I told her where I was, she goes, 'I paid the young man extra for
hard time
, sugar. Enjoy the strip search,' and hung up the phone."

Veronica started to laugh but quickly turned the sound into a fake cough. "Well, look on the bright side. The woman whose car you moved dropped the charges. If I were you, I'd pay her a visit and thank her."

"I'm pretty sure 'that woman,' as you call her, is a witch—in both senses of the word. And because of her, I stood up my boyfriend and spent my birthday in the clink where a six-foot-five woman with a severe skin-peeling condition used my stomach for a pillow."

She put her hand over her mouth. "Oh my God, really?"

I nodded, as serious as a death sentence. "And to top it all off, this old prostitute ripped the dollar Glenda gave me right off my shirt."

Her eyes widened. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. She was a spitter." I searched my bag for my phone. "Now, I'd better call Bradley."

"Don't worry, Franki," Veronica said as she hooked a hard left onto South Rampart Street. "I explained everything to him after I got your message this morning."

I spun around in my seat so fast that my purse flew to the floor, and it wasn't because of that left turn. "You told him I was in jail?"

"He called me, frantic," she said, waving her hands in the air when she should have been steering. "What was I supposed to tell him?"

Now I was the frantic one. "Uh, not the truth!"

Veronica groaned and collapsed onto the steering wheel. "Here we go."

I glanced around the car. "Where? Off the road?"

She glared at me and straightened in her seat. "On a wild ride through your trust issues."

It was a well-known fact that I was kind of cagey where men were concerned. The problem was that I'd kissed more than my share of philandering frogs before meeting my persevering prince. But Veronica was wrong if she thought that I didn't believe in my boyfriend. "I already told you—I trust Bradley. I just haven't always felt the same about some of the people around him, like his snobby ex-wife and scheming ex-secretary."

"Uh-huh," she said, monotone. "If you trust him so much, then why didn't you want him to know that you spent the night in jail?"

I snorted in disbelief. "That has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with image. Bradley is a bank president. He needs a suitable woman by his side, e.g., one in a black cocktail dress, not an orange jumpsuit."

Veronica twisted her mouth to the side. "Are you saying that if you don't present the right image, you're afraid that he'll break up with you?"

"Not at all." I pulled off my sunglasses so that she could see my piercing look. "I'm saying that I need to be suitable, which I can't be if I'm behind bars. So, there's no way I'm thanking 'that woman' when she's the reason I got locked up in the first place."

"You're the reason you got locked up," she said, taking another sharp turn. "As an ex-cop, you knew that driving her car without her permission was a felony, so you need to thank her for saving you from a much lengthier stay in jail."

"All right, sure. I knew it was wrong," I admitted as I checked my seatbelt to make sure that it was securely fastened. "But in my defense, she started this whole fiasco by illegally parking her car."

"And if you'd simply reported her as opposed to moving the car, then she would've been the one in trouble with the law."

Of course, I realized that there was a grain of truth in what Veronica was saying—okay, a kernel. But the way I saw it, the woman should have apologized for blocking my Mustang instead of pressing charges and condemning me to spending the night with a skin-slougher.

I stared out the passenger window at a stretch of strip clubs on Bourbon Street. A platinum blonde in a gold lamé minidress and purple platform heels was pulling a small suitcase on wheels from the side door of Madame Moiselle's. I knew from Glenda that the club closed at four a.m., so the investigator in me wondered why a stripper would be leaving work so late.

Then a thought occurred to me. Veronica always worked late and was meticulous about checking her email and voice mail before going to bed. And yet, she didn't get my message until this morning. "Where were you last night, anyway?"

"I had a date with Dirk," she said in a quiet voice.

Veronica was famously private when it came to her personal life, so all I knew about her new boyfriend was that he was a gemologist, which made him a perfect match for my bedazzled bestie, and that his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bogart, had made the surprising decision to name him "Dirk" after the late actor, Dirk Bogarde, rather than the obvious "Humphrey." "Wow, this is like your fifth date. Is it serious?"

The corners of her mouth tilted upward. "He's a keeper, like Bradley."

"Speaking of keeping Bradley, I'd better make that call." I retrieved my bag from the floor and resumed the search for my phone to no avail. I thought for a moment and remembered that the last time I'd used it was to check the time before moving the Nissan. "Oh, man."

She looked at me from the corners of her eyes. "What's the matter?"

I put my head in my hands. "I left my phone on the seat of that wacko witch's car."

"Looks like you're going to have to apologize to her now," she intoned as she pulled to a stop in front of 1200 Decatur Street.

I gave her my best stabby stare before exiting the Audi.

"And if I were you," she continued, "I would avoid calling her both wacko and witch. An officer at the lockup told me that her first name is Theodora, but that's all I know."

So, "Endora" hadn't been far off the mark. "She's either a customer or an employee of Erzulie's down on Royal Street, but since it's Sunday, they probably don't open for a few hours."

"Then you have plenty of time to shower off the jail germs," Veronica said as cheerful as a cheerleader. "You smell like a urinal."

I slammed the car door.

As I climbed into my Mustang, I wondered what in the hell I was going to say to the witch and what in heaven I was going to tell Bradley.

*   *   *

When I stepped inside Erzulie's at eleven fifteen, over-caffeinated and under-rested, I thought that I'd entered the Age of Aquarius. Unlike the other voodoo and witchcraft shops in the French Quarter, which were fittingly dark and creepy, the shotgun-style store was a psychedelic mind trip of color. The walls were orange with purple trim, and pink paper lanterns dangled from the ceiling. Various tables and shelves were draped with turquoise and fuchsia glitter organza, and blue beaded curtains obscured a room in the back. Even the products on the shelves were colorful—yellow gris-gris bags, green spell candles, red voodoo dolls. The place looked like an LSD flashback to the 1960s, and thanks to the patchouli incense, it smelled like one too.

As I looked around the room for a sales clerk, my eyes were drawn to a portrait of a woman hanging above a purple mantel serving as an altar. She had a short, orange and green Afro, which matched her striped, strapless dress, and her right hand was placed in the middle of her chest. A lavender snake was coiled around her left arm, and a large, red heart was suspended from her right earlobe.

"That's Erzulie Freda, the Haitian Vodou goddess of love, sensuality, passion, pleasure, and prosperity," a regal female voice said.

I turned to see an attractive thirtyish brunette in a teal silk Mandarin dress. "Sounds like someone I need to meet." But then I remembered learning about a vindictive voodoo goddess with a similar name during my first murder case. "She's not any relation to Erzulie D'en Tort, is she?"

She smiled. "Erzulie D'en Tort is the Petro manifestation of Erzulie Freda. The Petro gods came from the New World and the West and are more aggressive than their benevolent Haitian counterparts." She gestured toward the altar. "If you like, you can get acquainted with Lady Erzulie by making her an offering. She prefers gifts of jewelry, perfume, flowers, cakes, and liqueurs."

"What a coincidence," I said in a joking tone. "So do I."

A corner of her mouth turned up. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"I'm looking for someone named Theodora," I replied, approaching the cash register.

With a nod, the woman walked to the back of the room and slipped through the beaded curtain.

While I waited, I wandered around the store. Erzulie's didn't sell any of the typical voodoo and witchcraft wares, like severed gator heads and chicken feet. Instead, the merchandise consisted of more upscale items, such as goat milk spiritual soaps and jewel-encrusted skulls.

There were so many bright, sparkly items that I couldn't resist the urge to touch something. So I picked up a black-stained glass pentagram. Curious to see whether light would shine through the dark glass, I opened the door and held the pentagram up to the sun.

"You're not thinking about taking off with that too, are you?" a familiar voice asked.

I turned to face Theodora. She was wearing a yellow caftan with a necklace and earring set of green cat's eyes complete with slit pupil. Between her attire and her orange hair, purple eye shadow, and pink lipstick, she really blended in with the shop. "Don't worry," I said, returning the stained glass window to the display. "Pentagrams aren't my thing."

"I actually like them, and I'm not even a Wiccan." She leaned forward and shielded her mouth with her hand. "Nothing against the Wiccans," she whispered, "but I don't believe in organized religion."

"Ah ha," I said, taking a step backwards. "So, listen. I'm Franki and—"

"Theodora," she interrupted, grabbing my hand and giving it a shake. "How'd you find me? Are you clairvoyant?"

"Uh, no," I replied, suppressing a sigh. "I saw the box of spells from Erzulie's on your front seat and figured that you must be an employee."

"Oh, I don't work here. I'm a freelancer." She pulled a business card from a pocket in her caftan and pressed it into my palm.

I reluctantly read the card and saw that she was a "witchcraft consultant." Of course, I opted to ignore that little tidbit and focus on her lack of a last name. "Just Theodora, huh? Like Cher and Madonna?"

"No, they have surnames," she replied, toying with her necklace. "When I was born we didn't have last names."

I assumed a standoffish stance. I was a magnet for all the nutcases in New Orleans, and the last time I'd exchanged business cards with one of them, I'd ended up with a psycho psychic as my sidekick during a multiple homicide investigation at a plantation. "That's super interesting, but—"

"Aren't you going to ask how old I am?" she interrupted, blinking.

"U-um," I began, momentarily distracted by the discovery that her eyes were glowing green like her pendant, "my mother taught me never to ask a witch, er,
a woman
, her age."

"Well, I don't mind telling you that I had a milestone birthday last week." She raised her chin, striking a pose. "I turned three hundred."

And to think that I'd felt bad about turning thirty.
"Wow," I exclaimed, searching for something sane to say. "You don't look a day over fifty-five."

She touched her teased hair. "That's what I hear."

I stared at the floor while I tried to wipe the stupor from my face. "So, aaanyway, I dropped by because—"

"I know." She held up a hand. "We got off on the wrong foot yesterday—your foot on my gas pedal, to be precise—and you want to make amends."