Red Beans and Vice (28 page)

“So when Durant said to me they were gone for good, he didn’t kill them?”

Sam chuckled. “No, tonight was their last shipment, I reckon. They planned this big shindig as their going-away party, not Truely’s. They were taking off for Brazil, as it turns out. I bet we’ll find out Mary, with her international law background, stashed some assets in those off-shore banking countries.”

“How will we find out? Isn’t Brazil one of those places without extradition?”

“Well, it used to be. The laws are a little different now. But it don’t make any difference ‘cause the plane they chartered had to stop in Miami. A little trouble with one of the ailerons sticking. Otherwise I guess they’d be in the Cayman Islands by now, picking up some cash. My friends at NOPD alerted all the airport police in coastal towns. Mr. Tibbets and Ms. Whitten are in Dade County lockup.”

“Can they be charged with Truely’s murder?” All of a sudden, Heaven wanted blood. She had been so flimflammed by those two!

Sam ducked his head. “Be hard to do that. The boy you thought was Mr. Whitten’s killer is dead, of course.
Person who did him seemed like a professional, what with the two shots at the base of the brain like that. The cops have no clues on that. My idea is that Mr. Tibbetts and, uh, Miz Whitten kept the kid somewhere, told him they would get him out of town soon if he would just lay low. They probably took him to another rental property that Mr. Tibbetts owned. It was easy to send a second guy, probably from out of town, to clean up the loose ends.”

Heaven felt her face turn hot. She knew she was blushing from the embarrassment of being so fooled. “So what can they be charged with?”

“Conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, which is a pretty good federal rap. Hard to beat, under the circumstances. Even if la Pointe doesn’t testify against them, the other workers didn’t make enough to lay down for Tibbets and, eh, your friend.”

Heaven sat up on the side of the table, her legs dangling over the side. “Some friend.” She gingerly felt the back of her head and her knees, which were a mess, skinned and caked with dried blood. “I have two more questions, then I have to go home, I mean to Truely’s. After Truely was killed, why did you stay on the case and what were you doing trying to break into Truely’s house?”

“Well, Truely had given me a big retainer when I started working on this. He still had five K credit and in my book, he still needed my help, even if it was posthumously. I never thought anyone would be downstairs that night after Truely died. I was just going to take a look in his library. Didn’t really know what I was looking for. You were there, asleep on the porch. I didn’t spot you until you screamed.”

All of a sudden Heaven felt dizzy. She ached all over.
“Sam, I have my car here but would you follow me home? Back to Truely’s, I mean, not Kansas City.”

Sam held her arm. “Why don’t you let me drive you? You’re not in such good shape.”

“Because tomorrow I don’t want to have to come back here for that rental car. I want to drive it right to the airport and go home, where I belong.”

Nancy Blair and Amelia Hart were standing in the doorway. Heaven didn’t know how long they’d been there.

“Heaven, honey. You go with this nice investigator,” Nancy ordered. “Amelia and I will see to your car and bring it to you in the morning. But not too early. You go rest now, you hear?”

Heaven wanted to argue but she still had a few things to clear up with those two, so she smiled wanly. “Deal. See you around ten or eleven?”

“Deal,” Amelia Hart said.

Heaven saw the television cameraman behind Amelia in the hall. She supposed she’d been photographed, out like a light and wet as a river rat. She didn’t care at this point. “Sam, take me home,” she said and walked barefoot on his arm out into a party that was still going strong, Kermit Ruffin and his band wailing in the background.

A little attempted murder and drug trafficking wasn’t going to stop Truely’s wake.

H
eaven was almost packed. She’d slept like a rock until eight, then woke up with only one desire: to get out of that house and New Orleans as soon as possible. All kinds of scenarios went through her mind as she showered and packed. She saw Mary and Will escaping from
jail and driving cross-country in a stolen SUV to get her. She worried about Durant still on the loose, although for the life of her she couldn’t imagine why he’d hang around New Orleans just to torture her under the present circumstances.

It was a beautiful day and, after closing her suitcase and putting it outside by the front door, Heaven began to feel better. She’d be out of here soon. She went into the kitchen and made coffee, read the
Times-Picayune
that she found on the porch, checked her watch for the tenth time. It was almost ten. If Nancy and Amelia didn’t show up soon, she’d call Amelia’s cell phone.

In the meantime, she’d find her plane ticket, down at the bottom of the big purse somewhere. She rummaged around and pulled out the list of property owners that had been part of the investigation of the nuns’ problems. As she started to throw it in the trash, she glanced at the names again. She really hadn’t looked at it after Amelia had given her the information and she’d realized no one company or person owned all or most of the property around the convent. Now the names had some meaning to her. But why? She stared hard at them for a while. Then it clicked, just about the same time the front doorbell rang.

Amelia Hart and Nancy Blair let themselves in. Heaven had set her suitcase out on the porch and kept the door ajar for them. “Yoo-hoo,” Nancy yelled.

“Come on back here. You want some coffee?” Heaven asked.

“Sure,” Amelia said, “we brought beignets.” Nancy nodded yes as well. Soon the three of them were laughing around the table, eating and drinking, as Heaven tried to recount her trip in the river for them. “And I’d decided that Big Man, as I called Sam Delgado, was
some kind of a crook. I’d seen him at Truely’s office and he’d been hanging around here. So when I saw who had rescued me, I thought I’d just gone from the frying pan into the fire. That and the river water I’d swallowed sent me right out.”

“To use a cook’s term,” Amelia observed.

“Speaking of going from the frying pan to the fire, what in the world made you wear that pin that Truely gave you to the wake? Did you want to rub Mary’s nose in it or did you not know it was her pin?” Heaven asked Amelia.

Amelia’s face was blank. “Heaven, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nancy and I went to the party together last night. When I got to her house, she said my costume needed that Uptown wives’ touch. She went and got that pin for me to wear. It doesn’t belong to me.”

Heaven was floored. She turned to Nancy. “I know that pin was given to Mary by Truely’s mother because I saw a Polaroid of it here just the other day and asked about it. How did it get to your jewelry drawer, Nancy?”

Nancy Blair laughed heartily, seemingly cool as usual. “Why, it was just a small token of affection, from Mary to me. I found someone who knew someone who was in a position to get Mary something she wanted. I’d always loved that pin when Truely’s mother wore it. You might call it my finder’s fee.”

“You set her up with a supplier of pseudoephedrine is my guess,” Heaven said heavily. “Aren’t you worried about the news that Mary and Will were caught?”

“I don’t know anyone in the pharmaceutical industry, my dear.”

“Oh, I’m sure you covered your ass,” Heaven said as she tossed the paper with the names of the property
holders toward Nancy. “Just like you covered your ass when you bought up all the property around the Sisters of the Holy Trinity convent. What did you want to build there, Nancy? A casino is my bet.”

Amelia pulled the paper over toward her and looked puzzled again. “This is the list of owners around the convent. What makes you think Nancy owns any of this property?”

“I took a look at this list again today. When Nancy and I had lunch the other day, we talked about her husbands.” Heaven pointed down at the paper. “Wayne Bernard was your fifth husband, wasn’t he, Nancy? Charles McCoy was the cop, number three or four as I remember. And Jimmy Stouffert is the last one, the one that you say you can’t find. Did you pay all of them to hold these properties?”

“All but Sam, who is deceased,” Nancy said, her eyes narrowed.

Heaven wagged her finger at Nancy. “This conversion to religion didn’t take very well on you, did it? You’re the one behind all the vandalism. Trying to scare those poor little nuns into selling you their property. When were you going to set it up? Tell them you could stop the problems if they would just sell the convent to a friend of yours.” Heaven looked down at the list. “Let’s see, which ex-husband is left? I suppose you’d use your first husbands name, Andy Blair, since it’s the same as your own.”

Cool as a cucumber, Nancy Blair sipped her coffee. ‘You sure have a good memory for names, Heaven. You can’t trace any of the poor sisters’ vandalism to me, of course.”

“The thing I really wonder about is how you sent all those poison-pen letters to all the various cities. Those
letters show your true colors, Nancy. Only a really bad person would have thought of that. And me, what a chump. I thought we were getting to be friends. Did you pay someone to rough me up?”

“Amelia was correct. They have mailing services for that. And as for your problems, Heaven, just the one time was from me, when you were warned up on the Moonwalk. The other times, out on Highway 90, that must have been your friend Mary. Her husband fell victim to their greed. Poor thing. I always liked Truely.”

“Of course, that’s what Durant was trying to tell me. I was being chased and suffocated and run off the road and shot at and dumped in the river by two distinct and different groups of criminals,” Heaven said with a smile. For some sick reason, she was enjoying this. “I’m glad you told me about the finder’s fee that you got from Mary. Now I want a finder’s fee from you.”

“And what for, Heaven? What can you do for me?”

Heaven got up and stood behind Amelia’s chair. “I’ll need Amelia’s help for this one. But the favor I’m going to do you is see to it that Amelia doesn’t do a fun little report about how the cross you gave back to the nuns was a brand-new copy and the true cross somehow just happened to get sent to New York to an auction house.”

Amelia turned sharply in her chair and glared at Nancy. “Is that for real?”

Heaven circled the table. “Nancy, I think you’ll want to cancel your trip to New York. I called Sotheby’s and told them I thought there was a mistake because the cross they had looked just like one that had been stolen in New Orleans. And I also called the nuns and told them they might look at the back of their cross, where that tiny little scratch was, where the metal looked brand-new. But so far your name hasn’t been mentioned.
I’m sure the two parties can work out a reasonable way to return the cross to its rightful owners without naming names. Or maybe not.”

The old lady looked from Heaven to Amelia nervously. She wasn’t quite as cool now. “You can’t prove a thing.”

Amelia nodded. “No, but I could remind the whole city that you were the one that found the so-called original cross under mysterious circumstances. You’re too old to relocate, Nancy. You have that nice house on Governor Nicholls.”

“It would be a shame if you couldn’t show your face at Antoine’s anymore. They like you so much there,” Heaven threw in.

Nancy Blair shrugged. She knew when she was beaten. “I guess this is where I ask what your finder’s fee is, Heaven.”

Heaven leaned down and took one of Nancy’s hands in hers. Then she whacked it hard with her other hand, twice. Nancy winced in spite of herself. “You are so naughty. If I ever hear of anything happening to the Sisters of the Holy Trinity again, I’ll consider this deal broken. If they sell their convent for a casino, I’ll be on a plane down here so fast it’ll make your head spin. If you ever try to scare someone by threatening them with bodily harm like you did me, I’ll consider the deal broken, even if it’s not about the sisters. And that filth you wrote about all of our restaurants. I will keep asking my friends and if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll lie to get you put in jail if I have to. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what you put us through. Amelia, are you with me on this? I know you’re not fond of the nuns.”

“I think it evens up the odds for the sisters to have
you and me keeping an eye on Miss Nancy Blair,” she said. “I’m in. But I may have to do a story about the fake cross. It’s news.”

“Fair enough. Just keep something for us to use to keep this one in line. Nancy, I’m going to start taking the
Times-Picayune
just so I can keep tabs on you. And remember, I’ll lie and cheat if I have to. Now let’s get out of this place. Poor Truely. He didn’t deserve a two-timing wife and a two-timing best friend,” Heaven said as they walked toward the front door.

“It’s the South,” Nancy Blair said, looking no worse for the negotiations that had just taken place.

“No, it’s New Orleans,” Amelia Hart pointed out as they closed the door.

H
eaven stepped out of the shower. She could hear Bob Dylan playing in the bedroom. Hank was much too young to like Dylan. He must be playing it for her. She slipped into a big terry cloth robe and toweled her hair.

“Thank you for picking me up at the airport,” she said as she went out into the big bedroom/study. Hank had a bottle of Veuve Cliquot in a wine bucket and two champagne flutes by the bed. “I’ve never been so glad to be home in my life.”

“You’ll be even happier in an hour. I guarantee it or your money back,” Hank joked as he popped the cork on the champagne. “But before we get to that, call your daughter. She’s in some town called Buzios, Brazil. She said call day or night. She’s worried about you. Here’s her number.”

Heaven jumped on the bed and adjusted several pillows behind her. She pulled the phone in bed with her
and received a glass of Veuve from Hank, who slipped in bed beside her as she dialed.

When Iris answered, Heaven’s face broke into a smile. “Hi, honey. Happy Sunday. Now don’t start yelling at your mother like that. I’m just fine. But wait till I tell you what happened. Someone threw me in the Mississippi River. It was my first time.”