CHAPTER TEN
Jack knew the corpse wasn’t going anywhere this time. Dead bodies didn’t move of their own volition. He sure as hell, though, wanted to talk to Simon La Fontaine’s brother, Peter. First off, the man needed to know his brother was dead. Jack had a few other questions he wanted answered.
He stared unseeing at the words on the flickering computer screen in front of him. Why was he having problems locating this guy? He wasn’t at home. He wasn’t at his job in the French Market and he hadn’t called in. He wasn’t answering his cell phone. No one knew where he was.
When no one knew where you were, it meant one of two things. Either you didn’t want to be found or you were dead. Which also meant if this guy was alive, he probably knew something about his brother’s death and that was why he couldn’t be found.
Jack tried to put the facts together. Finn saw a dead body. The body disappeared. The guy Finn looked at in the morgue, Simon La Fontaine, was probably shot elsewhere and dumped in the Mississippi. Two men, other than the super, lived in the same building where Finn was knocked out. One was dead. One was missing. Were both of them dead?
Jack rubbed his aching head. Last night out on the town, drinking and chasing girls had seemed like a great idea. At the time. Now he wondered why. Sadly, he’d gone home alone, not quite drunk, not quite sober and not quite sure why he continued to punish his aging body.
Cordry said he was looking for something. Yeah, he was looking for something. He was looking to have a good time, then get laid. Not necessarily in that order.
It was past time he stopped acting like a horny teenager. The mornings came too early and the headaches lasted too long. Soon he’d have a beer belly and he’d be spending every night sitting in his recliner in front of the TV watching the golf channel. Alone.
The hell with it.
One problem at a time. If he could find Peter La Fontaine he’d be a happy man. He stood up and stretched his arms over his head. He couldn’t sit in this stuffy, airless office one minute longer. Grabbing Cordry by the arm, he said, “We’re outta here.”
Cordry got slowly to his feet. “What’s the plan?”
“We’re gonna find the other La Fontaine brother one way or the other.”
“Where we lookin’ first?”
Jack pulled his car keys out of his pants pocket. “We’re going to his place of business, a little fruit and vegetable stand down on Decatur in the French Market. Someone he works with has to know where he is.”
“Maybe he’s at one of the funeral homes planning his brother’s burial.”
“Possible, but if that’s the case why didn’t he tell someone at work?” Jack pushed through the doors and took a deep breath. He winced at the blinding sunshine, then put on his shades. “My head hurts like a bitch.”
“I suppose that means you’re not taking any crap from me today.”
“Got that right.” He started down the banquette. “And I’m going to find La Fontaine if it’s the last thing I do. He knows something about his brother’s death or my name’s not Jack Boyle.”
“My hero,” Cordry cooed.
“In your dreams.”
***
The noon sun shone brightly through the floor to ceiling windows reflecting off the stainless steel tables, the stainless steel kitchen equipment, even the stainless steel bowls. Finn turned away from the glare as she watched one of her fellow schoolmates bend over the table as he painstakingly slowly diced onions into tiny blocks the size of the tip of his pinky finger.
Finn had finished her fine dice of perfectly formed carrots and they lay in neat little squares in a bowl in front of her. She’d practiced on so many at home her skin had turned the same red as her hair.
Cynthia, a young woman who grew up in a backwater bayou and was a good seven years younger than Finn stood across the table. She frowned as she finished slicing and dicing her own green peppers.
The young man, Eli Southern, caught her staring. “What?”
“Nothing,” Cynthia drawled, trying, not terribly hard, to hide an obvious smirk.
Eli, a twenty-year-old with a baby face still blooming with acne, didn’t have a clue. About anything. Finn figured he’d been told his entire childhood how wonderful he was, how he could do no wrong. Now he believed it. He was, without question, the slowest guy in the class. It didn’t matter what they were doing. He was slow.
“Am I doing something wrong?” he asked, anger simmering below the surface of his blushing face.
“Not exactly wrong.” Finn eyed the angle of his chef hat, which was listing toward his left eye. She wasn’t about to stick her nose in this business. She appreciated where it was on her face too much, and wanted it to stay there with no change in its shape. Eli looked as if he could rearrange it without a thought.
“Excuse me?” He put his oh-so-sharp knife carefully on the table and stared daggers at her.
Oh, boy. She waited as Eli’s egotistic, self-important personality reared its ugly culinary head. When would Finn learn to keep her mouth shut?
“You slow,” offered Cynthia with a grin from the other side of the table. “An onyon shouldn’t take no ten minutes to slice up.”
“Yeah? You’re the expert now?” He glared at pint-sized Cynthia who, with her winsome brunette good looks and sparkling brown eyes reveled in her mile-long Cajun drawl. She looked and acted no older than Debbie but had twice the attitude. If such a thing was possible.
Finn felt about as old as Gert caught between the two of them and their ratcheting bickering. She hoped one of the instructors would walk in soon and straighten out this fiasco. Or, at least separate the combatants.
The other students had stopped what they were doing. They watched the drama unfold.
“It just so happens I’m taking my time to get it right.” Eli flung his thin shoulders back and looked down his pampered nose at Cynthia. “Something you would know nothing about, little girl.”
“Mo-ron,” she barked, sneering at him. Several more heads lifted and turned their way. “Admit it, junior. You is slow.”
Finn wisely clamped her mouth shut and kept both eyes on the various long-handled, sharp-bladed knives strewn about the table.
“What would you know?” Eli asked, his voice rising, his eyes slanted in anger. “You’re not even passing this class. Even Finn is better than you are.”
“Thanks,” Finn murmured.
Cynthia calmly lay down her knife and walked across the room to where both the red fire alarm lever and the fire- suppression system lever attached to the wall. One you pulled in case of an everyday fire and one you pulled in case of a grease fire. One would sprinkle water from the ceiling, the other a foam substance that worked to put out a grease fire. Finn swallowed hard, looking in all directions for help.
At the beginning of the term, one of the first classroom lessons had been to study the difference between the two fire suppression systems and when you needed to use one over the other. It was not an easy lesson, nor one easily forgotten. To pull either were serious matters in a culinary classroom and Cynthia, bent on mayhem, seemed on the verge of pulling either. Or both.
Finn heard several gasps as Cynthia raised her hand to within inches of the wall. Instead of touching either one, she turned off the lights casting the room in gray shadows.
“What’re you doing?” Eli asked, his face ashen, looking to Finn for help. He didn’t seem quite as confident as he had mere minutes ago.
“I expect you not to disrespect me. I’s not gonna sit back and let you go on like I’s some kind of cooyon.”
“Oh, hell,” Eli murmured, casting a fearful expression at Finn.
“Oh, hell,” Finn reiterated between clenched teeth. She edged across the room toward Cynthia with not a single clue about what she was going to do to prevent a disaster.
Thank God, a smiling Chef Shane chose that moment to walk into the classroom. He took a glimpse around the darkened room, sized up the volatile situation and his smile vanished. He flipped on the lights and then looked at Cynthia, hand raised, fingers outstretched. He calmly walked to her side, clasped his hand around her wrist and lowered her arm. She glared at him. Without a change in his expression, he asked, “What’s going on here, Miss Cynthia?”
Eli, of course, couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “She insulted me.”
“Oh, my,” Chef Shane said, placing his free hand over his heart. “Did she hurt your poor wittle feelings?”
Eli’s face reddened further.
“Back to work, class,” Chef Shane said as he maneuvered Cynthia back to her table. “The drama is over. Now let me see those sweet veggies you all have been attacking.”
Finn heaved a sigh of relief. Another disaster averted. If only her life were this simple.
After her early morning class, Finn headed for the Quarter and her first tour of the day. Although sunny and humid, Finn thought it would be a wonderful day to walk the streets of her beloved city since the temperature hadn’t reached eighty yet.
She’d woken this morning feeling wonderful and more relaxed than she had in a week. Why? She’d seen and done it all. After the little fiasco in class this morning, what was left? All the craziness was finished. Over and done with. Nothing could possibly happen today which could shock her, scare her or send her screaming into the bayou.
Debbie and her new boyfriend were going to the zoo where the most intrepid teenager would be hard pressed to find any more trouble than a melting ice cream cone.
The Barron woman was still out there but Jack promised Finn the FBI was on the case. Anyway, Finn would be surrounded by tourists and French Quarter residents alike. People she loved. Safety in numbers.
According to a phone text earlier, this morning’s tour group consisted of ten people. Finn had been pleasantly surprised. Groups of more than six had been few and far between since Katrina devastated the city.
After changing, she left the house with a smile on her face dressed in her tour uniform of pink cap and pink tee, khaki cargo shorts and packed-to-the-max backpack. Finn found herself grinning as she came around the fence in front of the police headquarters. Eight smiling, expectant faces stood waiting for her in front of the praline shop next door.
She hoisted her backpack in place and greeted everyone with a hello. She handed out strings of cheap gold, green and purple Mardi Gras beads. They draped them around their necks, the men somewhat reluctantly. After a bit, everyone loosened up.
Finn made small talk by asking them where they were from. She told a few jokes while they waited for the last two to show.
An older, overweight, bald gentleman dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and baggy black pants came waddling toward the group, followed by a medium-tall woman wearing dark glasses and an oversized straw sun hat which completely covered her hair and most of her face. A white tee stretched tight across her breasts. She sported black spandex biker shorts, and looked ready for the Tour de France. Interesting choices. Even for New Orleans.
“Is this the walking tour?” the gentleman asked.
She assured him it was, then handed him a string of beads, then one to his quiet companion who stood nearly hidden behind him.
Finn explained how long it would take for the tour, how to stay together, what she would be talking about and then began walking backward down the street, her face to her group. The woman with the hat stuck close.
She’d given this tour hundreds of times so she didn’t need to think about what she said or where they headed. She merely needed to watch where she was going, and avoid gawking tourists and crazy bicyclists. As she described the first brick building, she stopped and began her spiel. She couldn’t help noticing the last woman who’d joined the group. Instead of putting the beads around her neck, she seemed to be moving them in her hand like rosary beads. Finn couldn’t see much of her face beneath the wide brim of her hat and the black lenses of her sunglasses but something about her disturbed Finn. Her easy feelings of earlier in the day evaporated.
“Any questions?” Finn asked before she started along to the next stop.
“Yes,” the sun-hatted woman said. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Giving walking tours?” Finn asked. At her nod she said, “Five years.”
“And how many more years do you think you can do it without something happening to you?”
Okay, as questions went it was an odd one but Finn had heard worse. She was once asked how much she weighed by a boy of ten who actually had the temerity to pat her on the butt. Another time, someone asked why the city smelled bad. The topper was when a twenty-something girl asked when the Mardi Gras parade began. Since it had been July, Finn hated to inform her there was more than one parade—in March—and she’d missed all of them by approximately four months. The devastated girl actually broke down and cried.
“I’m going to school right now,” Finn said by way of explanation. “I expect if I ever graduate, I’ll get another job in the career field I’m studying. Right now I like doing the tours so you don’t have to worry I won’t be here the next time you’re in New Orleans.”
The last sentence produced a few smiles and easy laughter. The woman frowned. “We’ll see about that.”
Again, a peculiar thing to say but Finn didn’t let it keep her from smiling and continuing on down the block, talking and walking backward. It was then when she recognized her. Finn cleared her throat, not knowing where to look.
She stopped the group in front of the St. Louis Cathedral beside the iron fence surrounding Jackson Square. By rote but in a wavering voice, Finn explained about the history of the building, the oldest active cathedral in the United States, and the two buildings on either side of it, the Cabildo and the Presbytere. She kept one eye on her late arrival, who seemed to be doing the same to Finn. While she’d had men scrutinize her, she’d never had a woman do it. It was a bit unnerving since she was unsure what the Barron woman would do next.
Finn tried, without much luck, to concentrate on the job at hand. When they moved up Pirate’s Alley, Margaret caught up to Finn and walked along beside her.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
“Yes.” Finn hoped someone from her group would eavesdrop. “Where did you say you were from?”
“Tacoma, Washington.”
“Nice city?”
“You’ve never been there?”
“No,” Finn admitted, shaking her head. “Between school and work I don’t get the chance to go anywhere except run away from deranged kidnappers.”
She snorted. “It’s a good place to be from but I don’t ever plan to go back.”
“Going to stay here then and get arrested? Lots of people come to New Orleans and never go home. It's a great city to live in. We have great weather and the best people and I could collect that nice reward money.”
“Not likely, sister. Way too hot.”
Finn’s heart skipped a beat. She stared, slowing her pace. “You really are crazy if you’re still here when you know they’re after you.”
She had the audacity to smirk. She lifted her glasses to her forehead so Finn could look into her avaricious eyes. She leaned in close and whispered, “And yet here I am.”
Finn checked on her tourists. They were enjoying a juggling street entertainer and weren’t even looking her way, except to amble along behind.
“Haven’t you done enough?” Finn asked.
“I still don’t have my pictures and I don’t want you selling them to the highest bidder.”
“What? Like the FBI? I hate to tell you but they already have one shot, a pretty good likeness, too. Or haven’t you seen it on the post office wall? I guess the few I took don’t compare to the thousands already up.
“Besides,” Finn continued, “what are you going to do in front of all these people? You don’t have a car so you can’t kidnap me. I wonder if they’ve added that to your long list of crimes? In fact, without a car, what can you do? You can’t even harass an innocent teenage girl.”
“I could shoot you.”
“With your toy gun? But it wouldn’t get you your pictures, now, would it?”
“You sound pretty cocky.”
“After the few days you’ve given me, I figure I’m pretty safe surrounded by hundreds of tourists.”
Barron sighed. “I want the pictures. I’m not a bad person. I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. You’ve driven me to act this way.”
“Driven you to act crazy? Why don’t you leave? Forget the pictures. Forget New Orleans. Find a sunny beach on an island in the Caribbean somewhere and spend all your ill-gotten money.”
“You’re so righteous. You don’t even know me.”
“I know you embezzled someone else’s money. I know you scared Debbie and tried to kill me when I—”
“I never tried to kill you. Ever.” She stood with her legs spread wide, daring Finn to argue.
“Really? Call me doubtful. No matter what you’ve done to me, I’ll never forgive you for scaring my little sister.”
“Your little sister is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. I have the bruises to prove it.”
“Where are we headed next?” one of Finn’s tourists asked with a tap on her shoulder.
Finn had nearly forgotten about the rest of the tour group. “Our next stop is one of the most haunted buildings in the city with a spooky history I think you’ll like.”
“Cool,” came the reply.
“Cool,” mimicked the Barron woman.
Finn refused to acknowledge her. She had been a thorn in her backside long enough. She wished she could pull out her cell phone without her seeing. She’d have the FBI here in mere seconds and they would be all over her butt. It was a lovely thought and kept Finn on track with her tour.
After describing the horrors that took place in the haunted building, they had to walk another two blocks to get to Finn’s next stop.
Of course, then the wanted woman wanted to talk. Again.
“I understand your reluctance to hand over the pictures. I do. I’m a wanted fugitive. I’m forever in your rearview mirror.”
“Why do you keep coming after me? I’m a minion. I take pictures. I’m nothing. Just go away.” Finn swiped sweat from her forehead. She eyed the nearby streets, hoping to spot a cop. Of course, there wasn’t one anywhere around. Her tourists looked happy, taking in the sights, not the least suspicious of their conversation or the fact that a woman on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted was in their midst.
“Don’t even think about it. I can read your mind, you know,” Barron warned. “I’ve got a gun in my pocket.”
She wore a sleeveless filmy white tee that concealed nothing. The tip of an iridescent blue, tattooed butterfly wing peeked above the ruffled edge. She also wore those awful tight spandex running shorts. If she had a gun on her, it was inside a body cavity. There was no gun. She was harmless. At the moment.
To get rid of her, Finn lied. “I think Tommy gave the camera to the FBI since they seem rather interested in you. If I were in your shoes, I’d forget about the pictures and leave town.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t leave without them.”
“Why not?”
“Are we almost to the next building?” asked one of Finn’s tourists, interrupting their conversation.
“I’m sorry. This woman was asking me some questions about the history of New Orleans. We should have been sharing with the group. It’s in the next block. See the yellow awning up ahead? That’s where we’ll stop. In the shade.”
“Thanks.”
Barron grabbed Finn’s arm. Her eyes were frantic. “It’s Johnny. He has a terrible temper. He says he’ll kill someone if we don’t get the pictures.”
“Why? His wife already suspects he’s fooling around on him. What difference does it make? You’re the one in trouble.”
“He told me,” she said, lowering her voice so only Finn could hear, “he’s already killed someone over this.”
Finn snorted. “He’s bluffing. Why would he kill anyone? It doesn’t make sense.” She shook her head as she crossed the street checking behind her to make sure her group was still following. “Doesn’t make any more sense than the fact I’m having a conversation with a wanted woman who’s been trying to kill me.”
“Come on,” Barron whined. “I haven’t been trying to kill you. You should be more afraid of Johnny than me. He's a dangerous man.”
“You pointed a gun at Debbie.”
“It wasn’t even real.”
“Which is beside the point. It scared her to death and probably added another line to your FBI poster.”
“Give them to me. Please.”
“I don’t have ‘em.”
“I believe him when he said he had to kill someone over this affair.”
“All the more reason to go, leave New Orleans,” Finn said, “leave Franco and never look back.”
They’d come to Finn’s next building and her tourists were looking at her expectantly. She turned to them with a bright smile and spoke from memory. When she finished and turned to talk to Barron again, the woman was halfway down the block, the sway of her biker short-encased rear end disappearing around the corner. Finn should tell Jack about this conversation but she could already hear him.
Did Johnny Franco actually kill someone? Was it an idle threat? If he did, where’s the body? Where’s the evidence? And where is Barron now? What do you want me to do about it?
Jack was such a stickler for the facts. Along with Margaret Jane Barron, Finn put all thoughts of murder and mayhem away and concentrated on her paying customers. Except for Debbie and getting through school, they were more important than anything or anyone else right now.
***
When Finn tossed her backpack into the rear seat of her car to go home her cell phone chimed. She plucked it out as she climbed into the hot car.
“How’s it going with Debbie?”
A phone call from Dorie couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Finn really needed to talk to an adult and her mom would do fine. Jack was good up to a point. As was Tommy. Both were men, however. Testosterone-infused men in their prime. Not what a stressed-out, PMSing woman like Finn needed right now. What she needed was a best friend. Gert usually filled the role but she’d left the day before on one of her man-hunting cruises. Finn never talked to Emmy about girl things or—God forbid—feelings. She was as bad as men when it came to discussing emotions.
“Mom, good to hear from you. I’ve had a helluva week.”
“Debbie?” she asked. “It’s Debbie, isn’t it? I’m sorry she’s such a handful. A boy. Is it a boy? Sex with a boy?”
“No, it’s not Debbie or a boy.” She tried without success to get the image of Benjy’s teen-aged, decidedly under-aged, body out of her head. Debbie had explained about the strip poker and Finn believed her. Sort of. It would have led to sex and Debbie wasn’t afraid to admit it but fortunately, for everyone involved, Finn had walked in before anything happened. “It’s not Debbie. Much. She’s been fun to have around.”
“Honestly? I’m not sure I believe you.”
Finn adjusted the rearview mirror and looked at the lopsided hat on her head. She tossed it in the rear, then frowned at the way her curly hair looked now, crushed on one side and sticking out on the other. She ran her hand through the strands trying to make it presentable. “It’s true. She’s made friends with Benjy Arnaud from next door. He seems like a nice boy and they’re the same age.”
“A nice boy? They’re all nice. There’s the problem. They don’t know how to say no to Debbie. She’s quite persuasive.”
“I wouldn’t think she’d need much persuasion to convince a teenage boy to have sex with her.”
“That’s certainly true. I think she could talk a boy who has signed one of those purity contracts—”
“Purity contracts?” Finn had no clue what Dorie was talking about.
“You know. The kids sign a contract to wait until marriage to have sex. I think it’s through their church or something.”
“Seriously?”
“As a heart attack.”
“Wow.” She couldn’t even imagine how it would work.
“So, if it’s not Debbie who’s giving you fits, who is?”
“It’s a long and convoluted story you probably won’t even believe.”
“Try me.”
Finn took a deep breath and settled into her car wishing she had a glass of iced tea at hand. By the time she’d told Dorie about the dead body, how she got a lump on her head, the FBI’s Most Wanted woman chasing her all over town, Tommy’s broken leg, and how she got arrested for terrorizing a streetcar, the ice would have melted and the tea would have been the color of the underside of a dead mouse.
Silence met her on the other end of the phone.
“Mom? Dorie? You still there?” She hadn’t even told her about the ghost. Or Debbie’s own adventure with the Barron woman on Gert’s front lawn.
“Mom?”
“Finn, honey, maybe you’d better put Debbie on a bus and send her on home.”
“She’s fine.”
She waited through another silent pause while her Mom digested what Finn had told her. Maybe it was too much information long distance. Maybe she should have told her about the mundane. What mundane? She’d had the wildest week of her life barring the week Wesley stood her up at the altar. Maybe she should have waited for Gert to get back from her cruise and have her tell Dorie. Gert took everything in stride. Dorie tended to get a bit more excited.
“Are you telling me everything?”
“No, but I don’t think Debbie is in any real danger or I would send her home.”
“Any real danger?” she repeated, her voice rising again. “What do you mean? Like there’s such a thing as un-real danger.”
“I’m sorry if you think I’ve put Debbie in a position to get hurt. I don’t think I have. Debbie is a much more savvy girl than you probably think. She can handle herself.”
“Oh, she’s savvy, but not in a good way. She knows how to manipulate boys, your dad and me, too. I’m concerned about both of you. It sounds as if you have a criminal after you. How do you know she’s not dangerous?”
“I don’t. It’s a feeling I have about her. True, she’s embezzled money but I don’t think she’s capable of real harm. I wouldn’t want to go out and have a Hurricane with her, but I don’t think she’d shoot me or anything.”
“How comforting. So then why is she still chasing you?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. She says she only wants the photos but why does she want them? If she’d leave the country, it wouldn’t matter if every single person in the French Quarter had her picture and was handing it out on the corner with a free Lucky Dog. After all, it’s on the wall at the post office. It’s not like she isn’t already known.”
Dorie sighed. Finn heard her moving around. Maybe getting comfortable if such a thing was even possible with this convoluted conversation. “She may not seem like a dangerous person, Finn, but she’s a felon, she’s wanted by the FBI and she’s chasing you. Obviously, her situation is dicey. She’s not playing with all her marbles. She could do anything.”
“I’ve thought of that. I have. Jack has talked to the FBI so they know she’s here in New Orleans. They have a description of the car she’s been driving. It’s only a matter of time before they catch her. I’ll be careful in the meantime. Don’t you worry about Debbie. She’s good and she’s been fun to have around.”
“Fun?” Dorie snorted as if she didn’t believe her. “If you think she’s fun you can keep her until the first day of school but I don’t want to hear one more word about you confronting that awful thief.”
“I promise I will stay as far away from her as I can.” It was an easy promise to make since she’d left her not fifteen minutes ago on Royal Street. She had no more desire to be in her esteemed presence than she did to walk naked around Jackson Square.
“You take good care of yourself, Finn. Have you talked to Emmy since Debbie’s been there?”
“No.”
“Have they talked?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I’m going to give that girl a piece of my mind. There’s no way she can be so busy she can’t take time to talk to Debbie. Even if she is on vacation in the south of France with a race car driver.”
Ever the voice of reason—Not—and she had no idea why she was defending Emmy, Finn asked, “Does Emmy even know she’s here? Maybe she didn’t get the message.”
“She got the message. And, she’s going to get another one from her mother before this day is out. Maybe I’ll post a nasty comment about her on my Facebook page. Or unfriend her.”
“You have a Facebook page?” Her mother? Dorie? The queen of the cell phone but allergic to the Internet.
“All the people in our little senior community down here have them. It’s how we stay in touch. Need to with all the classes, lunches, golf dates, all the important stuff.”
“Really.”
“Swear to you, it’s God’s own truth.”
“Wow.” Finn was flabbergasted. She didn’t even have a Facebook page but she’d watched Debbie when she was on the computer for hours on end. Finn failed to see the humanity-robbing appeal of Facebook. She hardly had the time anyway. Wow. Her mother.
“Gotta go, Finn, and update my Facebook page. You take care and take good care of my baby. I’ll send more money. She can eat you out of house and home.”
“Not necessary. Debbie will be fine. I promise.”
She prayed it was a promise she could keep. As things stood right now, she wasn’t sure she could even keep herself safe.