Red Beans and Vice (13 page)

Heaven retrieved the rest of the ingredients. It was the job of the lead chef on every course to make the first plate so everyone had a pattern to follow. In the empty crust, Heaven placed some pieces of broken up pralines. She had ordered them from one of the local praline makers, the one at the French Market, and asked them to break the large rounds in small pieces just before they delivered them to the site so the sugar wouldn’t have time to crystallize. Heaven was afraid the smaller pieces would crystallize faster than a whole praline. Sugar was so tricky. She bit into one and it was still creamy, not grainy.

After the praline bits, Heaven spooned in some Louisiana strawberries that had been sliced and macerated in just a little sugar and Grand Marnier. In Peristyle’s kitchen, Heaven had baked custard in hotel pans and burned sugar on the top to create pans of crème brûlée. A volunteer had taken one of the biscuit cutters and cut rounds out of the custard in the afternoon, before the sugar was burned on it. Heaven carefully slid a spatula under one of the custard rounds and set it on top of the strawberries. “It’s all right if the surface of the brûlée is cracked. It can’t be helped.”

Then she opened a big cake box full of cookies from Crossaint D’Or. Pauline had wanted to do these but, because of her bad wrist, Heaven had enlisted the French Quarter’s favorite pastry bakery. Now Heaven placed a dab of strawberry puree on the plate in front of the tart, and on it placed a cookie in the shape of the sisters’ lost cross, a cookie that had been decorated with the appropriate curlicues so it looked authentic.

“The puree should fix the cookie on the plate, but the servers need to be careful so the whole thing doesn’t shift,” she said to the assembly around her. Appreciative murmurs followed. It was a very New Orleans dessert and the cross made it right for the occasion. Heaven picked up the bowl of praline bits. “Thanks, but this was a team effort since several of the parts were produced right here in the Quarter. I just thought it up. I’m on praline. Let’s go,” she said, and started down the line of plates.

O
nly the sorbet course remained. Heaven took a long drink of Veuve and smiled to herself, relieved. The last tart had just gone out of the tent. She took a deep
breath and walked into the narrow area behind the kitchen tent and in front of the dish-washing tent. The kitchen tent only had its canvas walls down on the side facing the diners. The back side was open so the chefs could get some air. The side facing the river was also open, and was the location of the grill and the propane tanks with their iron tripods and pots of grease. Heaven could see six or seven people in chefs’ coats coming up the drive lugging coolers filled with various flavors of sorbet they had just retrieved from the freezer at Bayona.

It was almost over. A jazz band had played during dinner and there was a dance floor set up on the flat part of the courtyard that was usually a parking lot. A Cajun band was going to play soon and Heaven saw someone with an accordion walking up the drive behind the sorbet. She turned toward the dining area and spotted Truely and Mary and Will. There was a beautiful blonde beside Will, obviously his date for the night. Good, Heaven said to herself. The four of us were getting too cozy. On Monday I’ll be gone back to Kansas City and all of us will go on with our lives. And whatever damage the nun-hater was after will be history, except for losing the cross.

All of a sudden, a roar, then a whoosh of air, broke through the festive party sounds, followed by an explosion. It seemed to be coming from Chartres Street, right in front of the convent. The whole crew in the kitchen tent started down the driveway to the street, including their guard. When Heaven got to Chartres, she saw flames shooting out of a location about a half block away on Ursulines.

Everyone in the French Quarter lives in fear of fire. Fire had decimated this part of the city several times
over its long history. The closeness of the buildings to each other meant a whole block could burn quickly.

People were running from all directions toward the flames. Heaven and most of the chefs stood on the corner by the convent, not walking any closer. The fire department trucks were winding through the narrow streets honking horns, with firefighters already off the trucks securing hoses to fire hydrants. A pumper truck backed into place and the chef’s guard, who was an off-duty policeman, helped with traffic control.

Heaven was relieved that whatever blew up down the street wasn’t meant for the party. So was everyone else. Giddy with excitement and champagne and the knowledge that they were on the last course, the cooks headed back up the drive. As Heaven turned she saw Will Tibbetts come to the convent entrance and look intently in the direction of the fire. Heaven thought he must have been in a pretty hot conversation with the blonde if he was just now getting up to see what the hell was going on.

As Heaven reached the kitchen tent a great hue and cry came from the opposite direction, the dishwashing tent.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Who is it?”

Heaven pushed up to the front of the crowd. There, wedged in one of the tubs for rinsing dishes, his legs dangling over the side, was Truely Whitten with a Global knife stuck in his chest, a hose running water into the tub and washing away any evidence. Placed between Truely’s legs so it was resting on his torso, was the stolen cross of the Sisters of the Holy Trinity.

Heaven couldn’t believe her eyes. “I bet that’s my
knife,” she said without thinking of the consequences of that admission.

Suddenly Nancy Blair was standing right beside Heaven. “And that’s my cross,” she said to everyone’s surprise.

Heaven looked up from the body just in time to see Will catch Mary as she fainted.

H
eaven never would have believed an hour earlier that the night would end like this, sitting in Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop having a drink with Nancy Blair and Amelia Hart, of all unlikely people. She felt she should be with Mary, but she and Will and Will’s date, who turned out to be named Charlynn, had gone to the police station to give their statements. They didn’t know how long it would be, so Heaven promised to see Mary the next day.

Lafitte’s was famous for being one of the oldest buildings still standing in New Orleans and the darkest bar in a city full of dark bars. A plaque by the door said it was built in 1780. Since then, pirates had sold their treasures in the back rooms and slaves were bought and sold there long after the practice had been legally abolished by the European government of Louisiana territory.

Tonight, the piano player at the piano bar in the corner of the back room was entertaining a group of conventioneers with Louis Armstrong imitations.

Heaven and the other women were sitting in the front at a table by the open windows, the night life of lower Bourbon on parade not three feet away, music in the air. Heaven felt strangely comfortable. The vibe of the bar, welcoming and dangerous at the same time, was appropriate for this particular night. Murders had no doubt been plotted inside these walls. Tennessee Williams had done some drinking in Lafitte’s. Had he ever sat where she was sitting now, Heaven wondered. Did he look out this window with unseeing alcoholic eyes at his neighborhood? She glanced around at the dilapidated room. Was a slave bought and sold right here, like a sack of cotton seed?

Heaven tried to focus on the two women at her table and snap herself back to the present, realizing she had a bone to pick with Amelia. In all the excitement, she’d not asked about Amelia’s source of information for the poison-pen letters. “Amelia, before you start in on Nancy, how did you find out about the letters to the chefs?”

“I could say I don’t have to reveal sources but after tonight I don’t feel like playing cat and mouse. I got a copy of every letter in the mail. Plain envelope, New Orleans postmark.”

“And ours were all postmarked with the city the chef lived in. I wonder how the creep accomplished that,” Heaven mused.

“Mailing service,” Amelia said impatiently. “Now, can I conduct a little interview here, please?” Amelia turned her attention to Nancy. “Nancy, let me get this straight. You found the cross through the antique underground and were going to return it to the sisters.”

“And paid a pretty penny for it, too. I have connections in those circles, as I’ve always loved beautiful
things. My houses were full of antiques. I asked some old friends, they came through.” There was no apology in her voice, only pride.

“Who did you call to find the cross?”

Nancy snorted. “When I told you I’d be interviewed only if we went for a drink, I didn’t say I was going to run my mouth like a fool. I wouldn’t tell the police, told them they could haul an old lady off to jail if they wanted to. I’m sure not going to tell you, Ms. Hart.”

“Tonight why don’t you call me Amelia?”

Their cognac arrived in real glasses. The first time it had been served in plastic cups and Nancy sent it back. The three women held up their glasses for a toast. “Salud,” Heaven said solemnly.

“Okay, somehow you got the cross. Why didn’t you call up the sisters and simply return it then?” Amelia asked.

Nancy snorted dismissively. “A woman has to use her strength for her own advantage. I’ll put this question on the table and then you two tell me which sounds better. I return the cross and it’s back in its rightful place at the dinner. The sisters thank me and everyone yawns. Or, I bring the cross with me, stash it in the storage shed until the speeches start and then stop the whole proceedings by walking up with the cross in my hands, triumphant.”

Amelia and Heaven looked at each other. “Excellent point,” Heaven said.

“How was I to know someone would stab ol’ Truely with your knife and then set the damn cross on him like a dead pope?” Nancy said, irritated. No diva liked to have her plans ruined.

“So, now that we have that out of the way, what do you two think?” Heaven asked.

Amelia turned to Heaven. “What do we think about what?”

“Who killed Truely, of course,” Heaven said impatiently. “Do either one of you know any dirt on him?”

“You’re the one who stayed at their house,” Nancy pointed out. “You’re closer to them than we are.”

“Yes, but I don’t know the big picture. I only saw them every few years. What I can tell you is Mary and Truely seemed like a regular married couple around the house. I never saw them fight.”

“And you call that regular?” Amelia asked with sarcasm.

Nancy Blair got up. “It’s almost three in the morning, ladies. I think I’d better turn in. Would you two do me the honor of walking me home? Its not far, that big house back from the sidewalk up on Governor Nicholls.”

“You live there?” Amelia Hart was impressed. “I always wondered who lived there.” She threw down some money. “This is on the station. After all, I was conducting an interview.”

The three woman joined the street traffic on lower Bourbon. Nancy put an arm through each of theirs, walking in the middle and limping slightly. “If you play your cards right,” she said, “you can both have a tour. But not tonight. I’m pooped.”

“How about if I come over about ten in the morning with a camera to get a little sound bite? You can say just what you said to me tonight,” Amelia propositioned, not done working her angle yet.

“All right. Now hush,” Nancy barked. They walked along in silence, each of them trying to make sense out of what had happened, letting the disco beat fight with the zydeco rhythms of Bourbon Street. The music propelled them in the night.