Dead and Breakfast (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 2) (14 page)

“Oh yeah, well I would also like for you to come meet my family next weekend. We’re having a family birthday dinner for my sister at my parents’ house.”

Wait. What? I felt our little love aura exploding.

“Your parents’ house? On Audubon Place? Meet your family? Before we go on our trip? What if they don’t like me, or what if we don’t get along over that weekend trip? Isn’t this out of order? Shouldn’t we do that weekend trip first?” I was flummoxed. His dad’s house was a mansion on a private street with a guard shack that was bigger than my apartment. His family was old money and had lots of it.

I could call and meet CEOs and boardrooms full of people, but meeting someone’s family—their parents—was alien to me. I’d grown up next door to Dante and his family. I never had to meet anyone. I just had to put up with them sticking their nose in all of my business. Jiff had five brothers and a sister. Sisters hate girlfriends. Jiff’s parents were a power couple. His Mom was a judge, and his Dad was a very wealthy trial attorney, a take-no-prisoners, scorched-earth sort of practitioner. He was often on the news. Dante’s mother was a housewife who used to scream at her five boys until she passed out. His dad was in construction and was always trying to figure out how to add another room onto their home. Jiff’s family had staff to help run their offices and lives.

And then what? He would want to meet my family
. This had to be postponed…indefinitely. The Alexander clan got A+ in dysfunction and God help me if my crazy uncle or any of my relatives were visiting when this happened. What if it was a holiday and my dad pulled out that carving knife? I was way out in front of my headlights on this one.

The waiter brought over two cups with saucers and a pot of freshly brewed coffee and chicory. He poured the coffee into my cup and it smelled just like the coffee Miss Ruth—Dante’s mother—dripped every morning. The first whiff reminded me of all those early mornings Dante and I used to sit on my porch drinking his mother’s coffee together.

“OK, take a deep breath and let’s just finish our wonderful meal,” Jiff said bringing me back to the present. “Forget about my family and dinner for now. I can see this was a little too much to spring on you all at once. You look a little overwhelmed with the vacation and now my folks. They are very nice people, by the way, and they are anxious to meet you. But, let’s just have dessert. I asked them to make your favorite thing in the whole world…king cake,” he said giving me his adoring smile—the smile that made me go find him at the end of a parade—the smile that melted me to my core while pushing thoughts of Dante, and Jiff’s family, out of my head.

Chapter Fourteen

Two days after our dinner at Feelings, Jiff called a status meeting in his office with Julia for 9:00 a.m. to go over everything he knew and didn’t know.

I agreed to pick her up and go with her to the meeting. When I arrived she was dressed and waiting in the foyer checking herself out front and back in the gold leaf, Louis XIV floor to ceiling mirror at the front door.

“Good morning,” I said trying to sound upbeat and not like a cheerleader. “You look nice today. That’s a beautiful suit, is it new?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s new. Frank made it for me,” she said while she picked imaginary lint off her jacket and then leaned in to check her teeth making sure she didn’t have anything stuck in them.

She was partially her old self. The suit was tailored to fit her perfectly and well made. I thought I might have to hire Frank as my wardrobe consultant.

“Where’s your purse?” I asked.

“Frank’s bringing it. He’ll be down in a minute. We can wait in the car.”

“What do you mean, Frank’s bringing it? Is he coming with us?” I asked.

“Yes, I need him for moral support.” Julia said.

“I thought you had me for moral support,” I said.

Woozie appeared and gave us each a cup of coffee in a go cup. “Take this. Where Frank at? He gonna make you late. I bet he putting on lip gloss. That only gonna get him in trouble, that lady makeup.” She turned to the stairwell and yelled, “FRANK!”

“Lip gloss?” I asked.

“I told you, he’s a metrosexual,” Julia said still looking in the mirror now fluffing her hair.

“I think you confusing the ‘o’ in metrosexual with the ‘o’ in homosexual.” Woozie said looking at Julia and putting a big emphasis on the ‘o’ in both words.

“Julia, a metrosexual is someone you would date and you both would be happy comparing your wardrobes but not your makeup.” She looked at me as if I had two heads. “If Frank is coming he has to get down here, now. We’ll wait in the car.” I thanked Woozie for the coffee, kissed her hello and goodbye, and headed outside to my BMW. I unlocked my doors with the electronic key and both clicked open. Julia got in on the passenger side without a rebuttal.

Frank appeared running down the front steps with his jacket and Julia’s purse fluttering around him.

“He’s like having your own personal Sherpa,” I said to Julia before he got in the car. She acted like she didn’t hear me.

“OK, I have your purse, hand cream, tissues, makeup, hairspray…I think I have everything,” Frank said out of breath as he tried to squeeze into the back seat behind Julia. He was carrying Julia’s purse along with a satchel of his own that he wore with the strap across his chest—New York style.

“We’re meeting her attorney, not auditioning for a lead role with Hollywood South,” I said, checking him out in the rear view mirror. He had on a lot of eyeliner and eyebrow pencil, but no lipstick, thank God.

Julia had become so distraught and preoccupied over the last few weeks that I’d asked Frank to move into the bed and breakfast and stay with her 24/7. I instructed him to help her keep appointments and make sure she looked presentable when she had to go somewhere. Between Frank and Woozie, they kept an eye on Julia when I couldn’t be there and they reported to me if she looked like she was starting a meltdown. Woozie kept both Frank and Julia on a tight schedule and Julia from feeling sorry for herself. Frank was her wardrobe consultant and hairdresser. He kept her from showing up in a bathrobe—her outfit of choice lately. She was convinced she was going to be found guilty of murder and could think of nothing else, therefore, decision-making went out the window.

Woozie had called about a week ago to tell me Julia had started drinking her breakfast so she hid all the liquor. I told Woozie to make her breakfast and make the orange juice look like a Mimosa by watering down the juice with Perrier water. I said put a little umbrella in it to make it look like one. If Julia wanted coffee with a hit of whisky, I suggested Woozie rub the Jameson’s around the rim of the cup but don’t put any in it. If this didn’t work, I thought I might have to get Julia medicated. I thought I remembered seeing a few Valium in my mother’s medicine cabinet. Woozie reported that it seemed to be working because Julia wasn’t complaining.

Ernest and Michelle were waiting at Jiff’s office when I arrived with Julia and Frank. The receptionist stood and said she would show us to the conference room. I asked Frank to wait in the reception area. He didn’t say a word but stiffened his posture, did a little fast shake of his head as if being excluded didn’t bother him. He sat down and we left him busying himself looking for something in his satchel.

The conference room had floor to ceiling windows with the same spectacular view of the bends in the river that Jiff’s office had. There was coffee, juice and croissants on the credenza at one end of the room and the receptionist said we should help ourselves. Ernest and I went straight for the coffee. When Jiff came in with his stenographer, they each took a seat at one end of the table. She sat away from the conference table behind Jiff but in our view so we could all see her and be reminded that this was being documented. We all took a seat, Julia closest to Jiff with me next to her on one side of the table and Ernest sat next to Michelle on the other side, opposite us. Jiff thanked us all for coming, advised us he was documenting the meeting and began.

“Julia we want to update you on where we are and if there is anything new you have recalled since our last meeting. Please feel free to speak openly in here. I think you know Ernest and this is Michelle, his assistant, also on my team,” Jiff nodded at Ernest and Michelle. Julia and Michelle nodded hello at the introductions.

“Yes, I know everyone now,” Julia answered.

“If there is anything of a confidential nature I will ask the others to leave the room because they don’t have attorney-client privilege. Understand.”

“Yes. Can I ask a question?” Julia said.

“Of course, go right ahead,” Jiff answered.

“What can be done about the media?” she asked. She went on to say every few days another newsworthy update on Violet’s disappearance would interrupt normal broadcasting with breaking news of a body found in some desolate spot off the Chef Menteur Highway. Then the film crew would zoom in on crime-scene officials pulling the body out of the marsh. The news would then break into normal programming at a later time and advise, “The body recovered on the Chef Menteur was identified and it is not Violet Fornet. Violet Fornet is still missing.”

“Yes, something can be done. Stop watching the news.” Jiff answered her. “You are their subject of interest du jour and watching the news is going to be depressing until this turns around or until the press find something or someone more interesting to report on.”

“Of course, they never updated the viewing public as to the identity of the person. They just reported a body even if they knew early on it wasn’t even a woman,” Julia said.

We all had been seeing the photos of Violet as a happy child playing with friends or in school on the media updates. Interruptions into the normal programming would be repeated during the scheduled news broadcast advising viewers that an exhaustive search of the parks in the city turned up nothing.

A few days later the news, with another smiling, happy photo of Violet, would advise that the Coast Guard helicopters had done a grid search over Lake Pontchartrain that produced nothing. Then the NOPD brought out the search and rescue dogs to canvass along the I-10 in New Orleans East trying to ascertain if she’d been dumped there. Of course, as soon as the media showed the latest citywide attempt to find Violet, they would cut to the grieving family, crying and holding another vigil. This went on until the end of the month when the national news had picked it up. For every flattering photo of Violet as a cute, happy, person with a full life ahead of her flashed on screen, there was a driver’s license type photo of Julia as the person of interest in her disappearance as well as the accused in the upcoming St. Germain murder trial. Sometimes the news would focus on the St. Germain murder, and show a photo of Violet and her loving finance’ whose future had been dashed by a character like Julia. The media would take a photo of the bed and breakfast and portray Julia as a wealthy interloper who dashed the happiness of Violet Fornet and Gervais St. Germain. The press portrayed Julia in a series of unflattering photos—how did they even find these? —Murdering Gervais in a jealous rage and as a person of interest in the abduction/disappearance of Violet Fornet.

“The fact that Violet is missing and there was no proof of abduction does not thwart the media speculation. It’s just speculation at this point, so stop watching the news,” Jiff stated. We all nodded in agreement. Jiff went on to say, “The bigger issue which does not bode well for you, Julia is that the police have proof that you did know Violet. This is the fodder the press, not to mention the prosecution, is eating up.”

“What can we do about it?” I asked.

“Find Violet and prove Julia had nothing to do with her disappearance,” Ernest said.

“There’s still the matter of Gervais St. Germain, and the media is using Violet to push that agenda. The family keeps poking the news reporters with a stick to keep it stirred up and they are seen as sympathetic. We all feel sorry for them. Her family doesn’t know Violet was a skank,” Michelle added.

“We have no control over what they report. We can only give friendly reporter information to help us. Ernest? You have something?” Jiff asked.

Ernest began, “Someone in the NOPD finally thought to check the crime cameras.”

He went to the DVD player in the room, popped in a disc and hit play. “It’ll come up here in a second.”

“Yes, these are the crime cameras originally deployed to catch criminals but since catching criminals cost money, the cameras had been repurposed in order to pay for themselves. Now, the crime cameras were being used to fund the city coffers under the guise of digitally ticketing drivers with speeding violations. I suspect this was the underlying motive to get the public to embrace them in the first place,” Jiff said.

“Well, lo and behold, there’s Violet’s clunker of a car, an old Dodge, with a shark’s open mouth painted on the trunk and BITE ME under it for all to see, cruising down Harrison Avenue toward the park at exactly 4:45 a.m. on the day Gervais was murdered,” Ernest said. The time stamped video showed a night view on Harrison Avenue of her car. You could see only one person in the car driving—Violet. She wasn’t driving fast or in a straight line, but she was driving.

Michelle said, “She didn’t sleep it off for very long if that’s what she told her friend when they left that bar.”

“The media and the family have already seen this footage. I know why it didn’t air. My friend in the department who gave me this copy said they could not conclusively ascertain whether or not there was another person in the vehicle. The family is keeping pressure on the department to follow up on the abduction angle,” Ernest said.

Jiff said, “This is the break we were looking for.”

“How?” Julia and I asked simultaneously.

“Well, there is no one following her. Watch the tape. The time lapses for five minutes before you see another car, and it’s a police car, not Julia’s vehicle,” Jiff answered.

Michelle said, “No wonder the police weren’t in a hurry to cough this up. Violet’s family is keeping the pressure on the NOPD and the media to find Violet. They were in the area and they look bad if foul play was afoot and they missed it.”

“I’ll do a search from this last known point in the direction she’s driving,” Ernest said, “and see if we can’t locate that car. She had a lot to drink, and if the time is correct, 4:45 a.m., then she got into the car and started driving. I’ll check with the banks along Harrison, maybe they have cameras that could add to this footage and we’ll see if she stopped or turned. They might have a better photo shot that will tell if anyone else was in the car, even though I doubt there was.”

“Well, that direction means she drove into City Park through the golf course,” said Jiff.

“Yes, but there are several places where she could have gone off the road and no one would have spotted her car,” Michelle added.

Jiff said, “Get right on this, Ernest, I want to find her before the police do.”

Ernest was busy pulling out a map of New Orleans and putting a red dot on the site where Violet was last seen on the camera. “This is the path she was moving. There’s a couple of canals and Bayou St. John along Harrison. If she turned off Harrison, that’s all residential and someone would have noticed her or picked her up on their security cameras. I’ll reach out to the area’s crime prevention network. I’ll ask them to send out an email blast to see if anyone has footage of car burglaries or home invasions, etc. They can let us know if she did turn off before she hit the park. If she drove and turned on to Marconi, that will be harder. She could have gone in anywhere along there. Maybe we get a diver or two in the water and take a look. I’m sure there might be a few cars at the bottom from Katrina so let’s see if her car is in there too.”

“Good plan. Make it happen,” Jiff said.

“I’m on it,” Ernest answered.