pass. “I think I’ll wait for my friend. He said he’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“Suit yourself. I’d stay out of the way, though. They’re gonna need all the room they can get in this hallway.”
Which was true, but it also was beside the point. Only Lance could tell me where I should and shouldn’t go, and even he had a hard time trying to control me.
Cole didn’t budge from his spot. He gave me the strangest feeling, and no amount of water was going to be able to wash it away.
CHAPTER 4
True to his word, Lance arrived at the mansion in under ten minutes. The moment he entered the hall, a stately African American in a crisp navy police uniform, the crowd reverently parted to let him through.
He quickly made his way toward me and offered me his hand.
“Hey there.” He pulled me to my feet.
“Hi, Lance.”
“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this, Missy. People are gonna talk.”
“Let ’em. I’ve been accused of worse things.”
He led me down the hall to the empty foyer. Once there, he withdrew a notebook from the pocket of his uniform, while I tossed the empty water bottle into a trash can.
I proceeded to tell him every detail about the morning. How I’d tried to find Herbert Solomon in the library…the box from Olde Time Books of New Orleans that sat on the floor…even the way Cole Truitt spoke about his boss’ death.
By the time I finished, at least four pages’ worth of notes spooled through Lance’s notebook. He flipped it closed, then checked his watch. “Is that everything?”
“’Fraid so.” I swallowed, annoyed to feel the tickle return. “That’s all I can remember anyway. You’ve got your hands full here, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll call you later.” He gazed over my shoulder. “I need to go inspect the bedroom and establish a chain of command. Don’t forget to come over to the station later so I can videotape your statement.”
“I know, I know.” I didn’t mean to sound flippant, but I’d been through the drill many times before. “I’ll head over there after my eleven o’clock appointment.”
“Sounds good. And you might want to take it easy today.” He frowned. “Don’t roll your eyes at me… I mean it. Sometimes shock doesn’t set in for several hours. And I know how you get. You’ll tell everyone you’re ‘fine,’ and then you’ll fall apart in private.”
He knows me too well. “Okay. I’ll take it easy.”
“I’ll call Ambrose for you, so he knows what’s going on.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “We’re right in the middle of the wedding season. He’s got a thousand things on his mind, and he doesn’t need something else to worry about. I promise I’ll tell him tonight. Just as soon as I get home.”
While Ambrose and I had started out as friends, we were now roommates in a bubblegum-pink cottage that sat on the outskirts of Bleu Bayou.
“Good,” Lance said. “He should know what’s going on with you.”
Once our interview was over, Lance turned and began to walk toward the bedroom. Unlike before, when construction workers gathered in tight clumps to gossip, hard hats in hand, now the hall stood empty.
I turned the other way and left the foyer. It felt surreal to dart under the tarp and emerge in bright sunshine. Everything looked so normal outside the mansion.
Over there was the rosebush, where a lone cicada had serenaded me earlier. Beyond it were the marble steps, which led to an ornate gate with a useless lock that dangled from a length of chain. It felt like days had passed—not just minutes—since I’d arrived on the property, and I was surprised to see the sun wasn’t higher in the sky.
Once again, the hammering, sanding, and scraping were silenced, replaced by the cccrrruuunnnccchhh of pea gravel under my feet. Once I reached Ringo, I started the car’s engine and began to drive down LA-18, my thoughts a million miles away. I barely noticed the sugarcane fields, which looked brown in the summer sun, or my favorite restaurant, Miss Odilia’s Southern Eatery.
I only snapped to attention when I entered the parking lot at the Factory and spotted cars crammed cheek by jowl. It’ll take a miracle to find a parking spot this time of the morning.
Unfortunately, arriving at the Factory at eleven was as bad as getting to work at three. No one would leave until lunch, and then they rushed out en masse, leaving the whole lot wide open.
In between, the stragglers—like me—cruised around and around, until the patron saint of parking blessed us with an empty spot.
This time, the saint heard my prayers on the third go-round, and a gap appeared between a tiny MINI Cooper and a white-paneled van in the last row. No doubt the oversized van, splashed with the colorful logo for Flowers by Dana, had shielded the spot from other drivers.
I breathed my thanks as I pulled into the parking space. Once I threw Ringo’s door open, I gingerly stepped onto the asphalt. Heat radiated off the pavement in waves as I barreled across the lot and moved through the door of Crowning Glory.
Beatrice stood behind the cash register. While she should’ve looked rested after taking the morning off, she looked even more strained than usual.
“Hi, Bea.” I longed to blurt out the news of my discovery, but I didn’t want to work us both into a panic. Better to give her the news in little dibs and dabs. “It’s been a crazy morning, but I came back for our eleven o’clock appointment. Where is she?”
“Thank God you’re here!” Beatrice blew out a puff of air, which ruffled her brown bangs. “I was worried about you.”
I started toward the counter but became distracted by a feathered fascinator someone had knocked to the ground. I gingerly picked it up and fluffed the smashed hat before I returned it to its spot on a display table that looked surprisingly bare. “What happened to all the other stuff that normally goes here?”
“It’s a funny story.” Somehow, she did not look amused. “And I heard about what happened to you this morning. Everyone’s talking about it.”
No doubt. “Okay, but first things first. What’s been going on around here?”
I gingerly approached the cash register, wary of the changes in both my store and my assistant. While Beatrice normally wore wonderful costume jewelry made with enormous rhinestones, today her ears and neck were bare. The gemstones usually matched her apparel—a man’s dress shirt, which she tucked into a pencil skirt, for a fun, funky vibe—but now her shirt billowed over the skirt haphazardly.
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” I said. A mound of sparkly jewelry greeted me when I reached the counter. “Let me guess…you got stuck holding a baby this morning, and it didn’t go well.”
“Bingo.” She swept out from behind the counter and wearily plopped onto a bar stool. “We had a second-time bride come in. With her whole
