back in order. “Guess leopards can’t change their spots after all,” she whispered.
The detective frowned. “Excuse me? What was that?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Nothing important.” She sighed heavily. “I guess you’re here to talk about Joyce Thibodeaux.”
Though the detective didn’t verbally confirm her suspicions, he jotted something down in the notebook, then said, “And what about Ms. Thibodeaux?”
“Well, for one, she’s a very troubled woman.” Charlotte motioned toward Louis’s side of the double. “You see, she’s my tenant’s ex-wife. You might have heard of him,” she quickly added. “His name is Louis—Louis Thibodeaux. He’s a retired detective with the NOPD.”
Noticing the blank look on the detective’s face, Charlotte waved her hand. “Never mind. Anyway, it’s a long story, and to make a long story short, Louis works for Lagniappe Security, and after one of his trips to California, he brought Joyce home with him. He’d gone looking for Joyce to tell her about their new grandchild, but when he found her in a homeless shelter, she claimed that she was dying from cirrhosis of the liver. Feeling sorry for her, he persuaded her to come back to New Orleans. Then, a few weeks later, Louis learned that all that was wrong with Joyce was that she was an alcoholic. After that, he had her committed to a substance abuse program. And now she’s out.”
“Do you know where she’s staying?”
For reasons Charlotte wasn’t sure of, she found herself reluctant to tell the detective that Joyce was staying with her. Instead of answering his question, she hedged. “Not with Louis, that’s for sure. He said that he was done with her. And besides, he’s out of town at the moment, anyway.”
Suddenly, it occurred to Charlotte that Joyce could show up at any minute, and if Joyce did happen to show up, then the detective would know that she hadn’t been completely truthful about Joyce’s whereabouts. Of course Joyce had said that she would be gone most of the day, but Joyce said a lot of things that weren’t true. Time to end the interview and get rid of the detective.
“I’ve told you everything I know.” Charlotte stood, hoping that the detective would cooperate. Liar, liar, pants on fire… Ignoring the voice of her conscience, Charlotte continued, “So—if you don’t mind, I have some chores I have to get done and some errands to run.”
The detective hesitated, then finally nodded. “You’ve been very helpful, ma’am, and I appreciate the information,” he said as he pocketed the pen and notebook and stood.
As he turned and started down the steps, it suddenly occurred to Charlotte that in every episode of Law & Order that she’d watched, the detective always offered his business card to the person he was interviewing, just in case they thought of something to tell him later. Come to think of it, he never had even told her his name.
“Ah, excuse me,” she called out. “Do you have a card? You know—in case I think of something else to tell you?”
He stopped and threw her an amused look over his shoulder. “Sorry, I’m all out of cards, but I’ll be back in touch again.”
Unsure whether it was his smug tone of voice or the look on his face, Charlotte felt her temper spike. “Well, do you at least have a name?” she called out.
That brought him up short. A second later, when he turned to face her, his expression was tight with strain. “Yes, I have a name,” he said impatiently. “Name’s Aubrey Hamilton. Now, is there anything else?”
“No, nothing else,” she answered, taken aback by his tone.
Once inside her house, Charlotte went straight to her desk and wrote down the name Aubrey Hamilton on the desk pad. Beside the name, she wrote police detective, followed by several question marks. Maybe she’d give Judith a call about Mr. Aubrey Hamilton. Having a niece who was an NOPD detective had its advantages. If Judith didn’t know him, she had ways of finding out about him.
Thoughts of her niece reminded Charlotte of one of the errands she needed to run that afternoon, and she needed to get it done before the evening workday traffic.
It wasn’t that often that Charlotte went down into the French Quarter. For one thing, finding a parking spot could be a real pain, depending on what event was going on or what convention happened to be in town at the time. Besides which, Charlotte considered the parking-lot fees to be outrageous.
But Madeline’s birthday was coming up, and Charlotte had learned through Judith that there was a particular earring-and-necklace set that Madeline had admired in a small jewelry shop on St. Peter Street. Judith had already bought the necklace for her mother and had suggested that Charlotte might want to buy the earrings to match. Madeline could be picky and was hard to buy for, and for once, Charlotte was relieved to be able to get her sister something she knew Madeline really wanted.
Since the shop wasn’t but a few blocks down St. Peter, Charlotte decided to park in a parking lot near Jackson Brewery and walk from there. As she walked along the sidewalk that ran in front of the huge Jackson Brewery mall, she eyed the window displays from the shops inside.
When she passed a particular display, her footsteps slowed, and she stopped to stare wistfully at one of the mannequins that was decked out in a beautiful sky blue sweater and matching slacks.
Sighing longingly, she shook her head. “Yeah, right,” she murmured, and regretfully turned away and crossed over to St. Peter Street. There were only a few weeks year-round in New Orleans when the temperature got low enough to even wear a sweater, and since she already had a drawer full of nice sweaters, buying yet another one wasn’t the least bit practical.
Glancing around as she walked along Jackson Square, she was glad to see that the artists were back at their usual spots along the fence surrounding the Square. It was also good to see that the mimes and the ragtag street musicians had finally returned as well. Everything seemed almost normal again.
She chuckled beneath her breath when she passed a mime standing statue still, his face painted to look like a clown’s. Every time she saw a mime, the urge to stick out her tongue or make faces at him—anything to make him smile or laugh—would come over her.
“You’re weird, Charlotte,” she murmured to herself, and kept walking. The farther she walked up St. Peter, the more she began to notice that something was different. For one, the streets were fairly clean, cleaner than she’d ever seen them. Even before Hurricane Katrina, the Quarter had never been all that clean, and afterward, it was worse…until now.
She’d heard talk about the cleanup in the Quarter, and she’d read an article about it in the Times-Picayune, but this was one case where seeing was believing. The TP article had given most of the credit to a new French Quarter cleanup company, SDT Waste and Debris Services, and to its company president, a young entrepreneur who also owned a couple of hotels in the French Quarter as well.
Charlotte smiled. One thing she definitely remembered about the article was how handsome the young man was. Why, people, mostly women, even vied for his autograph. Even his own mother was amazed at all the attention her good-looking son the garbageman was receiving.
By the time that Charlotte finally reached the quaint jewelry shop, she was out of breath, a harsh reminder that she’d been neglecting her daily walking routine of late.
It took a few minutes of searching through the enclosed glass jewelry case, but Charlotte finally
