Chapter 8 of Creme de Cassis and Murder. Mint Juleps Trilogy by Sharman Jean Burson
Chapter Eight
We’d just left the Madison Parrish Sheriff’s Department and were heading once again down Causeway when Julio announced, “Miss Dabney, it’s nearly six thirty.”
God has a devilish sense of humor, I thought. I had just settled back feeling real smug about Sophie and her juices when Julio had to remind me about our supper with the anesthesiologist. Now Sophie was looking at me like the cat that swallowed the canary.
“I guess we can’t call and cancel,” I said.
“The poor man is probably already standing in the heat outside the Monteleone waiting for us to pick him up. You know about the crime in the French Quarter. And he’s probably starving.”
Sister was enjoying this way too much.
“Wipe that smile off your face,” I said to Julio smirking at me in the rear view mirror. Never taking my eyes off of Julio in the mirror, I felt around for my purse and pulled out my makeup kit. My attempt at surreptitiousness failed completely and I finally gave up and applied my lipstick, eyeliner and mascara openly while Sister and Julio grinned like a pair of mules. I told them they were grinning like a pair of mules.
“Hee Haw,” Sister said.
I take it back if I ever said she was witty.
“Tell me about this man that actually has you blushing,” she said.
“You’ll see soon enough,” I said. She wouldn’t believe me if I told her about him. Why a man with Mel Gibson eyes, Richard Gere buns and a Johnny Cash voice would be interested in a fluffy nearly sixty year old woman who knew the Latin names of common flowers, especially after he had participated in her colonoscopy was more than I could comprehend. He could be some kind of pervert or something. I reached for my purse and the hormones when I realized I was flashing like crazy.
We pulled up to the Monteleone just as I choked on the hormone pill I took for hot flashes. I tried to swallow it with no liquid and started coughing. Sister beat me on the back and said, “Could that gorgeous Richard Gere look alike that all those women are stumbling over their feet staring at be your doctor?”
“He’s not my doctor!” I objected.
I looked. It was. I had thought he looked good in jeans. All dressed up in a light charcoal pin stripe with crisp white shirt and matching gray tie standing in the pool of light from the sign and streetlights, the man looked like he came straight out of GQ. All I could do was nod. We pulled up directly in front of the hotel and Dr. Gavin Crenshaw. He looked over the limo, behind the limo and in front of the limo, but never at the stretch 1979 maroon limo blocking the street directly in front of him.
I finally had to put down the window and beat on the side of the car to attract his attention. Then he put his hands on his hips and just stared. Of course, I blushed and opened the door.
“Get in or we’re leaving,” I said huffily as I scooted over to the middle of the seat.
“A bit tetchy, are we?” he said as he arranged his long perfectly formed legs against short well padded ones in the back seat.
“I’m Sophie,” Sophie said, introducing herself since I was too flustered to do so.
“Dr. Crenshaw meet Dr. Ransom. Gavin…Sophie,” I said realizing my faux pas.
Sister extended her hand and said, “I am delighted to meet you.” I did not think she needed to grin quite so big. She was supposed to be in mourning, for goodness sake.
“She’s in mourning,” I said.
“Let’s have a drink,” she said and opened the bar.
“Indeed,” said Gavin.
“Where to?” asked Julio.
“Gavin, that’s Julio, our new found cousin,” I said.
“A pleasure,” Gavin said, his eyebrow going higher.
“Great peace necklace,” Gavin said looking at the necklace dangling between my ample breasts with a look more personal than I would have preferred with two pair of eyes taking in every nuance of intonation and look. Somehow I had the feeling this man would pass the melon test in the produce department.
“God, it is so hot in here,” I said fanning myself and pulling the supposedly summer weight brown cowl-necked sweater away from my sticky body. I was having one of those flashes that made me think about stripping every item of clothing from my body and jumping into the fountain in Jackson Square--all the while knowing, like every other woman in the grips of a similar hot flash, that would actually be a very sane thing to do. Sister dropped an ice cube down my sweater and passed the flute of champagne with Crème de Cassis that she called a “Gone Slumming Kir Royale” to Gavin.
“Thank you Jesus,” I said as the ice water melted and dripped down my back.
“Nope, just me, Sophie,” replied my smart aleck sister.
Julio adjusted the air to the speed of a small hurricane and I took control of the vent letting the air travel straight up my skirt. I mopped the sweat from my face with the Kleenex Sophie passed me and looked at the cool, collected physicians seated on the back seat I had just vacated. Do they teach them that in medical school?
My hair blew wildly in the wind of the vent. I lifted my newly dyed (thank you God) light brown, shoulder length hair from the back of my neck and sister passed me another ice cube that I held there. Gavin lifted the flute in a toast.
“My late wife went through that,” he said with that kind, compassionate rumble that made my heart go pitter-patter. I looked helplessly at Sister. I was way out of my league here. It had been almost forty years since I had been on a date. But, this wasn’t really a date. Just a friend who came into the same town I happened to be in with my sister. I took a deep breath. Just a friend.
I made the mistake of looking into his Mel Gibson eyes.
So! Not!
“I’m driving around and around,” Julio said. “I cannot find a parking place and before we try to go anywhere else, we’re going to have to gas this baby up.”
Sister was still playing with her new toy…the bar. She handed me a flute of the Crème de Cassis. Potent concentrated anti-depressant. “Then find a gas station,” she commanded regally.
We pulled up to the pumps at a gas station on Rampart Street. Julio took the credit card Sister handed him and got out to pump the gas.
Several minutes passed while we made small talk in the limo -- mainly Sister and Gavin talking about the schools they attended and doctors they knew in common. I chugged the liquid courage and felt doubts and inhibitions slip away.
Then Julio ducked down beside the limo and opened the back door. “There’s Estrellita and Juan!” he exclaimed. “Why would they be running through the French Quarter?”
I looked behind the vehicle to where Julio had spotted his brother and cousin in the light of a streetlight. His eyes were better than mine, but impulsively I grabbed Gavin’s hand and pulled him out of the limo.
“We’re following,” I said and took off at a high-speed walk down the dark street in the middle of the French Quarter. I do not run. Besides, running would be too obvious, especially since I would be gasping for breath within a block. In addition to the fact that the sidewalk was shadowed with pools of light from the street lamps and it would not do to trip on the uneven stones.
I looked back at Sister who stood beside the limo looking totally exasperated with me for doing what I knew she wanted to do.
“Don’t lose sight of those two,” I said to Gavin, wishing I had not hidden my trifocals in my purse back in the limo.
“Could you tell me why we are chasing those two young people in the dark on a street in the Middle of the French Quarter? In the dark?” He repeated with emphasis. He made sense seeing as how I had just had that very same thought flit through my mind. But I was committed now.
“They’re Julio’s cousin and adopted brother. We think they may have poisoned Julio’s parents with mercury and may have tried to kill Julio.”
Gavin stopped so suddenly he almost jerked my arm out of socket. “We’re chasing suspected murderersdown Rampart Street in the French Quarter…after dark? Is this safe?” Just to make sure I got the point he had repeated the pertinent facts. French Quarter. Dark. Murderers. He had a point there.
What came out of my mouth was totally unexpected.
“I gave up safe when I got out of that Tahoe and had a hot dog with you at Home Depot.”
Gavin laughed and took me by the arms, pulling me closer, and said. “So you think I’m dangerous?”
I nodded and looked up at him looking down at me.
“I think you’re right,” he said in a husky voice. He looked down the street. “They’re headed into that bar…Voodoo at Congo Square.”
Oh, shit, I thought. Voodoo. They would run into someplace named voodoo. It was dark, and the fog had followed us from our breaking and entering over in Algiers. Although since technically Julio lived there and he was with us we were not actually breaking and entering.
I started mumbling about voodoo and a priest’s bed, but the only word Gavin caught was the word bed and he pulled me to a stop once again. “Bed?”
“My sister has a voodoo priest’s bed at Waverly she tries to get me to sleep in. But I won’t. And now I have to go into a voodoo bar. There really are times I wish I was Catholic and had some rosary beads, because now is the time for a ‘Hail Mary’ if ever there was one.” I pulled away and started down the street.
“Bed?” repeated the male with a one-track mind. “Maybe you’ll show me that bed sometime,” he said with a grin. “I’m an antique collector.”
Too many ways to take that statement. But from the way his attention kept being drawn to peace necklace bouncing up and down on my chest as I speed walked down the sidewalk, I didn’t think he was referring to me as an antique. Really, I thought. All men are the same. No matter how old they are. You have to work hard at keeping them focused.
“We’re on a chase here,” I reminded him as we reached the door to the Voodoo.
Unfortunately, the door was unlocked, so we would have to go in
I pretended courage I did not have and said, “We’ll pretend to be tourists who have heard of this place and wanted to check it out.” That ploy had plenty of holes since the place was totally immersed in darkness and we could see absolutely nothing.
Gavin nodded. He was just humoring me, I knew. We crept along the wall with the tiny bit of light playing through the windows casting sinister shadows about us. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as we passed shrunken heads and cemetery headstones left from the time when the bar was open. The shadows became more pronounced as we proceeded through.
It was as dark as a crypt in there! My heart pounded ninety to nothing. Gavin was an anesthesiologist and I had left my cardiologist at the gas pump. Gavin stayed so close I could feel the heat from his body…something I became more and more aware of as we progressed. I just might have a heart attack here, but whether from the chase, the place or my increasing awareness of the man, I wasn’t really sure. I’ll bet he could do pretty good CPR, however. The electricity I felt when he was near was probably better than a defibrillator. Maybe he would have to do mouth to mouth resuscitation.
Focus girl. I told myself. You’re chasing potential murders through the black dark of the Voodoo in New Orleans on a fog-shrouded night. Darren McGavin as Kolchak: the Night Stalker would have come prepared with a cross and a stake. All you have is a peace symbol and Papa’s antique gun and that would never placate any self-respecting vampire…or Mafia drug lord. Keep your wits about you.
Wits? What bird wit would do this? Who was I to think I was up to an episode of CSI New Orleans?
I almost stopped short to see what would happen if Gavin “accidentally” bumped into me like happened in one of Julie Garwood’s romance novels. I would have my face upturned. His would descend slowly and…
… And then … I shrieked when I kicked something that felt like a human leg.
Gavin pulled me toward him and I cried, “There’s something there! On the floor!” Gavin knelt down to feel what I had felt.
“It’s a mop,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me along behind him towards the door through which we had seen the Estrellita and Juan exit.
“Oh,” I said wondering why a mop had made the man suddenly get so energized.
We made our way to the back of the bar with me shaking all the way. Gavin threw open the back door and we catapulted out into the alley just in time to see Juan and Estrellita get into a waiting BMW and drive off, shrouded by the murky mist. In the time it had taken for us to make our way through the Voodoo, the fog that had settled on Algiers had thickened on its way across the River into the French Quarter. As if this were some French Art film, the red lights gleaming like vampire eyes on the rear of the BMW disappeared in the fog.
At the same time, from the other end of the alley two lights lurched into the alley glowing fiendishly. I was forced to cling to my gallant anesthesiologist in the dark because there was nowhere to run in that narrow alley. We pressed back against the door through which we had just exited.
It was then I heard the voice of doom breaking through the fog. It was Sister saying, “Don’t. You. Ever. Run off. Like that. Again.” The lights of the limo’s open door revealed that piercing look that made you feel like the butterfly being stuck with the pin on a display.
Her eyebrow lifted as she took note of the fact that I clung to my hero like Saran Wrap, a position I was loathe give up.
For once, I was unphased by that look. I was too shaken by our chase, the unnerving place we had just run through, the fog shrouded atmosphere that almost invited one of the undead to appear, and the comfort of that wonderful man whose mere presence activated butterflies in the depth of my stomach.
If ever there was a need for fortification …
“Sit down, Sister. And pour me a drink,” I commanded, trying hard to hold onto whatever composure I had left.
We all settled in the back of the limo.
“Estrellita and Juan went off with someone in a light colored BMW, Julio. Does that ring a bell?” Gavin said. I was still too nervous to put words together. This place gave me the willies. I held onto Gavin’s hand as if he was a lifeboat from the Titanic. Sister had not let that fact escape her, either, I could tell.
Julio shook his head, and then looked up as if a light bulb had turned on in his head.
“A light colored BMW attempted to run me down the night I left New Orleans to find Dr…Sophie.”
“What about this place they came through? The Voodoo?” asked Gavin. I shivered remembering that place.
“I’ve never been here before,” Julio said. “But, I think I remember Estrellita listing this once as a place for me to apply for a job.”
Gavin watched me take a big slug of the drink Sister fixed for me. Then he surprised me by reaching out and taking the glass from my hand. He turned the glass up and finished it off. He let the fortifying liquid settle. Then he looked at me as if assessing my emotional barometer before speaking to Sister.
“You said your husband had connections with the police force?” Gavin asked Sister.
“He was with the Sheriff’s Department for thirty-five years.”
“Well, I think you need to give them a call and report a body in the Voodoo.”
I started hyperventilating. “You lied to me.”
“I was afraid you’d freak out.”
“Oh. My. God. You found a body in there?”
“Yes. And I touched the body to make sure whoever it was…was dead. So we’d better wait here.”
“Put your head between your legs and breathe deeply,” Gavin commanded, rubbing my back comfortingly as I obeyed.
Sister called her friend Warren who appeared right on the heels of the appropriate authorities for the French Quarter.
“So, why are you in a foggy alley in the in the middle of the night in the French Quarter behind a closed bar the day after you buried your husband?” he asked Sister.
“We’re all asking ourselves the same thing,” Sister replied. “Julio thought he saw his cousin and brother down the street and since he was pumping the gas I was paying for, Dabney and Gavin went after them. They followed them through the bar where Dabney tripped over something Gavin told her was a mop until they got out here in the alley.”
“It was a body,” Gavin said.
Warren indicated to the police who had gathered that they should go into the building.
“The two Julio thought were his cousin and brother got in a BMW and drove away,” Gavin added.
Soon, the back door to the bar opened. The paramedics brought the body out in a bag on a stretcher. I turned around on my knees and watched out the back window. I refused to leave the safety of that limousine or release Gavin’s hand.
The New Orleans police officer pulled Julio aside. “Anybody you know,” he said as he unzipped the body bag.
Julio turned white. “It’s one of the men who have been coming into the nightclubs to watch me perform. One of the men who Orlando at the Oasis told me had great interest in my career and implied had paid him money.”
The officer nodded. “This guy is well known to have Mafia connections. Anything you know about?”
Julio shook his head emphatically. “No, officer. I just play the guitar. I was helping my Mom and Dad pay the bills playing some gigs. But they’re dead now.”
Sister and Warren walked over. Warren took the policeman by the arm and guided him away. “I’ll fill you in,” he said. Julio looked like he was about to pass out.
“We all need food. I’ll drive,” Sister said. “We’re headed to Antoine’s she said to Warren’s retreating back and then pushed Julio into the passenger’s seat. She was in the driver’s seat before I could object.
“Buckle up,” I said. Whoever coined the phrase “Hell on wheels” had ridden with my sister.
Sister had the nerve of a drag racer. She dared the rest of the traffic to run into that big maroon Mother. After one close call she said, “We’re bigger than them. They’d better give way,” she said eyeballing the on-comer that didn’t seem to have received her telepathic intimidation.
I closed my eyes until we screeched to a halt in front of Antoine’s on Rue St. Luis where she double parked the car and stalked inside. I got out on wobbly legs and nearly kissed the sidewalk.
Sister called the maître d’ “Reggie” and gave him a tip to find someone to park the car somewhere and then be ready to bring it back when we were through. Usually I would argue with her about throwing her money around, but tonight my nerves were too shot to care. If we hadn’t been shaken up about the body in the bar, Sister’s driving would have been disturbing enough.
“We want the Tobasco Room,” Sister told Reggie, obviously someone she knew well. The man gathered the menus smiling and bowing us along and led the way to the red painted room with a mirrored wall without a question.
“I did a stent for his Dad,” she explained. “Saved his life.”
Warren came in the front door about then. “You might as well join us,” Sister said, in a matter of fact business voice. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, but Warren smiled confidently. I hoped he was a patient man. I really thought he had a chance if he was patient and played his cards right.
Fortunately, the waiter took our drink order immediately and brought me my Jack Daniels and ginger ale pretty quickly. I downed that one appreciating the calming influence of the alcohol as it coursed through my veins and ordered another. Gavin turned out to be a Scotch and water man just like his suit indicated. Sister ordered some exotic wine and Warren said he’d better stay sober to get the rest of us home. Julio didn’t look like his nerves were any better than mine. He was ordered a Corona.
Finally, the chill started to leave my body. Gavin had been watching me so closely I guessed he thought I was about to go into shock.
It does not take liquor long to loosen me up. I looked at Gavin and said the thing I’d been wondering all night. And no, it had nothing to do with the body or the mystery.
“Why me?” I asked. My tongue had gotten a little bit thick as I relaxed and truly felt no pain.
“You can have any nubile young nurse at the hospital…and I know they’re chasing you so don’t pretend they aren’t…and yet you are pursuing me. Why?”
He took my hand and hung his head as if he were embarrassed. Then, looking at me with his bone-melting Mel Gibson blue eyes, he admitted, “They scare me.”
That gorgeous hunk of seriously hot male actually blushed.
I sat still and said nothing. It was the trick I’d learned from Sophie. It worked. He struggled for the words.
“I cannot help the way I look. I seem to attract women who have the attitude that they are so superior they should be wined and dined and then entertained with sex you’d have to train for a Triathlon to be able to perform.”
“I want what I had with my wife. She just loved me. Sex was loving not performing. She loved to cook and she loved to eat and she took care of me. Our home was a haven and our children adored her. So did I.” His glorious eyes misted. “I want that again.”
He swallowed hard to compose himself. All the time I’m thinking, this man who looks like he has it all together, has been so lonely since his wife died. He’s afraid to trust his heart to anyone after loving her so much. I understood completely.
“I didn’t think there was that kind of woman left. Until you kept all of us in stitches as you talked about flowers with Latin names and told jokes while you were unconscious and let everyone in that room know you appreciated what they were doing for you. And then you cried because you missed your husband.”
I let the words sink in and the silence lingered lightly upon us while I thought of an appropriate response. The silence finally prompted me to say the first thing that jumped into my head.
“So it’s not just because I’m beautiful and you want to get your hands under my shirt,” I finally said. The tension was broken.
He threw his head back and laughed and then took both of my hands in his and looked straight in my eyes and said, “There is that.”
Sister and Julio had obviously told Warren everything because the conversation at that end of the table had quit just long enough for her to hear what I said to Gavin. Her eyebrows were so high if her hair hadn’t caught them they’d have done a tilt-a-whirl around her head. Warren turned his back so I wouldn’t see him laughing, but I did anyway because I was facing the mirror and nothing escaped me.
Reggie came in then apologizing profusely. “We are all out of the Crawfish Etouffe. You will never guess who has come to Antoine’s tonight!” He did not wait for a response. “The Dishing It Network is having a convention here and the CEO and his staff are in Antoine’s 1840 Room for supper tonight!”
I’ve already admitted to being tipsy. One drink is usually my limit, but I had already had two, three, but who’s counting?
“Fantastic,” I said. “Now is the time to pitch our show.”
I took Reggie by the arm and said, “Lead the way, Reg. Sister and I are going to be stars.”
I heard Sister cry out for Gavin to stop me. But, I was already out the door. Before Sister could come around the table I had made it to the 1840 Room and had gotten directions to the head honcho.
“Meet your new stars for the Dishing It Network,” I said introducing myself. “I am Dabney Palmer Rankin and this is my sister, Dr. Sophia Palmer Ransom.” Sophie was apologizing right and left, interrupting my sales pitch. I grabbed her and put my hand over her mouth.
“Sister and I want to do a show on your network at our family’s old plantation home in Alabama-- Waverly. We’d call it Partying on the Plantation…much like the Shoeless Shaman. But, instead of dishes of cactus and scorpions, we’d be cookin’ up real Southern food and throwing parties with guest cooks and visitors we’d invite out to the plantation. We’ll just hope the ghosts don’t decide to join us,” I said, thoroughly enjoying myself.
That was the part I remembered. Fortunately, I woke up in Sister’s bed in her three-story house on Lake Pontchartrain. My head pounded, but I forced my eyes open. I quickly covered my eyes from the light that struck like a shard of glass through my eyes to my brain. I took a deep breath to settle my stomach.
“Why am I in your bed?” I asked Sister whom I heard breathing in the bed next to me.
“So you wouldn’t be in anybody else’s,” she responded. “Besides, I was worried that you’d get sick during the night and throw up and choke,” she said. I could tell she really had worried about that. I was actually worried about that at the moment. I took a very deep breath.
“I didn’t tell the joke about the man taking the chicken to the movie theater, did I?” I mumbled, keeping the pillow over my eyes because the bright sun streaming through Sister’s windows in her bedroom of the house on Lake Pontchartrain was piercing through my eyeballs.
The way I remembered it the bunch of Yankee stuffed shirts had been only going through the motions of folks out on the town until we got there. At first they thought we were just pulling their legs. But then Sister recommended Antoine’s best wine and before long the creative juices were flowing. Everyone got to kicking ideas around and laughing and having a good time. We all got fonder and fonder of each other and I think I remember telling the joke about the guy that took the chicken to the movie theater with him.
Sister reached over to her bed stand and shook a bottle. I held my head with the sound that echoed through my brain like maracas shaken right next to my ear. She handed me a couple of Extra Strength Advil and a sip of water. Then she got up and pulled the blinds before she crawled back in the bed. Only then did she answer me.
“Yep,” she said. “And then they told us to come see them today and sign a contract.”
“Sure,” I said and rolled over.
