Dead and Breakfast (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 2) (20 page)

I sat up and then tried to get off the bed. “I’m OK, I think, just a little shaky. Little Tony, right?” I said.

“Yes.” Dante said. He helped me stand and inspected me up and down to make sure I could stay up on my own. Then he continued, “We had a partial print from the wine bottle found in the dumpster but his prints weren’t in the system. The back label on the wine bottle was destroyed and illegible when forensics got it so all we had to go on was the front label. It only had the wine’s name on it, none of the information on the vineyard or where it came from. When your dad showed it to me tonight I realized how it all connected. We had Little Tony in our sights for a while waiting to make an arrest on drug charges. We had him figured for roofies and cocaine. We just couldn’t tie him to Violet and St. Germain.”

“When you were dancing, Maurice showed me a photo he took when y’all came in from the limos,” Jiff said. “He took one of Little Tony because he recognized him as the guy who followed Violet around. I asked Julia to look at it and she remembered seeing him at Pancake Paddy’s when she went there for coffee. I sent it to Ernest and got him to go there and verify it with the manager.”

“Jiff came over and told me when I was looking at the label your dad was showing me. We both saw you go upstairs,” Dante said while Jiff nodded his head.

“Oh, my God, I think Little Tony has been following me,” I sat back down. “The wine he gave me had Rohypnol in it. He tried to force me to drink all of it.”

“I sent it to the lab for evidence,” Dante said. “I don’t need it tested to know it’s going to be a match.”

“You could have been shot coming in there like that,” I said.

“No, I wasn’t going to let him kill me because I still have unfinished business with you.” He looked right at Jiff when he said it. He looked back at me and said, “Little Tony had been drinking and he was also high so I knew his reaction time was going to be off. Besides, shooting a cop is big a deal, even to a loser like him. They all figure they will get away with shooting someone but the whole police force comes after you when you shoot a cop. Even the worse criminals think twice,” Dante said.

“He said he was going to get to know me better before he killed me,” I said.

“That little weirdo has been a freakazoid since we were kids. He thinks he’s a tough guy? Well, I’m going to make him sorry he ever even said that to you.” Dante’s vein was starting to pump and I grabbed his hand.

“Thank you for saving me. It’s hard to imagine someone I’ve known since we were kids could be such a, such a…” I said.

“Psycho,” Jiff finished. “You hit call back when you picked up your phone. I’m guessing it was right before Little Tony knocked it away from you, so when I heard what was going on, I hit record. We have everything he said to you recorded. You got him.”

“So, the three of us all left together?” I asked rubbing my temples with my fingers.

Dante reached over and extended his hand to Jiff and said, “Thanks for your help.”

Jiff said, “I’ll go get the car and meet you out front. Dante, can you walk her out?”

“Of course.” Hanky appeared in the doorway and Dante told her he’d be with her in a minute.

“She’s a good dance instructor,” I said, “but I still don’t like her.”

“She took Jiff’s statement while I waited here with you. Jiff gave us the recording. Little Tony is toast. Hanky will wait and take Maurice’s statement and any of the band members after they finish playing tonight. I told them I didn’t want to make a scene at the wedding for Angela or her parents. After Jiff showed me the cell photo Maurice took of Little Tony and said he’s the one who followed St. Germain and Violet around, we saw you going upstairs alone and I realized I hadn’t seen Little Tony since we got to the reception. I figured he might still be up here waiting on you. He’s good at waiting.”

Dante told me he carried me down the back stairway and had the uniformed police haul Little Tony discreetly down the same way through the kitchen. Jiff met us in the back of the building and took us to the police station in his Mercedes. We left unnoticed and without making a scene except to the kitchen staff.

“C’mon,” Dante said. “Jiff needs to take you home.”

Dante walked me out to Jiff’s car. As it pulled up he said, “I’ll be awhile. Will you wait up for me?”

I’m just a sucker for a man in a tuxedo with a loosened bow tie at his neck. Dante looked handsome in the tuxedo he was wearing in spite of it being rumpled a bit with a dusty mark on the pants where he had slid across the floor with Little Tony. His jacket had a ripped pocket so he wasn’t going to get his deposit back.

“I’ll be up,” I said.

He took my hand and kissed it walking away from me backwards and then he left to finish his paperwork and book Little Tony as Jiff got out his car and came around to open my door.

***

At my front door Jiff hugged me and said he was so glad I wasn’t hurt. He said he was sorry he wasn’t more help to me. I told him, I was sorry
I
wasn’t more help to me. I told him it took a few minutes before I realized Little Tony was the bad guy and he was going to hurt me. I had a couple of sips of the wine before I realized it had the drug in it.

Jiff said Dante told him the police had held out releasing what the wine label looked like because they couldn’t find anyone who imported it. They wanted to question the importer but were running into dead ends. The wine bottle from the dumpster did have Rohypnol traces, the same chemical makeup as what was found in St. Germain and Julia’s tox screens. The police were convinced it was the bottle from the room and the one that drugged Julia and St. Germain. Dante told Jiff he never thought Julia was guilty even though so much pointed in her direction. Dante thought once they could tie the wine bottle to someone they would have the killer and they did.

“We both have had a long day, especially you. Dante is going to recommend dropping all charges against Julia,” Jiff said.

“’Don’t you mean Detective Deedler when you are referring to Dante?” I joked.

“He said I could call him Dante at the police station. I’m surprised you didn’t hear that? He actually thanked me for my help with the photo.”

“Really?” I must have been more drugged than I thought. “Can we talk tomorrow? I’m really tired,” I said.

Jiff hugged me, kissed my forehead and said, “We’ve both had a long, stressful night.” Then his voice got a little shaky and he hugged me tighter saying, “I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you…if you had been hurt. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Then he left me alone wanting a whole lot more physical comfort.

It was an hour later when Dante called. He told me over the phone Little Tony confessed he had given Violet the wine spiked with Rohypnol to finally put the moves on her. When he went to her place that night to open the bottle she told him she had given it to Gervais St. Germain because that afternoon Gervais had told her he loved her. Violet was angry with St. Germain once she realized he wasn’t going to celebrate his profession of love with her so she followed him when he left her. She discovered he was staying in a hotel and saw him go out with Julia. Trouble follows trouble and Little Tony followed Violet. When he found where Gervais was staying he wanted that wine back before he was implicated in Gervais drugging someone and it all came back on him since the family name was plastered all over the bottle. Little Tony followed Violet, Julia and St. Germain back to the hotel after watching them at the Napoleon House. We know Violet went to meet the friend at a bar to drink and was there when the murder took place. Little Tony knew who Julia was from hanging out at Pancake Paddy. He climbed the tree to get a better look and saw a way to gain entry so he waited to make his move. When he saw them drinking the wine he knew it was just a matter of time before they passed out. This was his opportunity to get rid of his nemesis, have Violet to himself and frame someone else for killing Gervais. He picked up Julia’s dress, covered the statute in it and bashed in St. Germain’s head. He said he rinsed out the glasses thinking he eliminated the drug and took the wine bottle. He said he left the hotel about 1:45 am and went looking for Violet. The time he left the hotel tracks with the coroner’s time of death. His mistake was to dump the items together so close to the hotel. He figured the police would find the dress and statue and tie them to Julia without looking any further. When Julia’s attorney proclaimed there was a missing wine bottle possibly laced with Rohypnol, the police looked closer at the one found in the dumpster with the dress and statue.

Tony spilled it all thinking he might get himself a lighter sentence. He told Dante he got antsy and started following me to see if I could tie him to the murder. He worried I might remember seeing that wine bottle at my Dad’s house the night they were there announcing Angela’s upcoming marriage.

“You know if you talk to someone five minutes you will know someone they know or grew up with here in New Orleans. Imagine what you’ll find out if you sit and watch them everyday,” Dante said.

“Really. And here’s Julia thinking she didn’t know anyone other than St. Germain and she’d seen both Violet and Little Tony at the coffee house,” I said.

“I’m leaving the station now. I know it’s late, but I have something of yours that I’d like to return personally.”

“I’m still up,” I said. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

Watch for more with Brandy Alexander in…

Drive-Thru Murder

Book 3 of the New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles

Coming in 2016

About the Author

Colleen Mooney has owned and driven motorcycles, raced her sailboat on Lake Pontchartrain and in long distance competition across the Gulf of Mexico, crewed on super yachts racing in Key West and has been scuba diving from Florida’s panhandle to the Maldives. Her love of snow skiing has taken her to slopes from New York to Colorado and the Alps. She loves to relive and write about these adventures, the people she meets and her beloved hometown of New Orleans.

Her first career was 20+ years in sales and marketing with AT&T. Colleen has lived in Birmingham, AL, Morristown, NJ, New York City and Atlanta, GA.  Her second career is in real estate but she will tell you the work that makes her heart sing is animal rescue.  Schnauzer Rescue of Louisiana is a breed rescue Colleen directs. Her love of dogs and her keen observations of her fellow New Orleanians and their antics inspired her to write her first book, ‘Rescued By A Kiss.’ (2014)

When Colleen isn’t writing, diving or picking up abandoned dogs, she likes to spend time with friends and family enjoying favorite local restaurants and food.

You can take the girl out of New Orleans, but you can’t take the New Orleans out of the girl!

You can contact Colleen at [email protected], or visit her online to stay informed on upcoming books, contests or just see what Colleen is up to with the following:

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