Amaretto Amber (Franki Amato Mysteries Book 3) (23 page)

I curled my lips.
That explains why King has the Baron as his cane topper
.

The entry for La Sirène referred the reader to the entry for Erzulie. I scrolled up and discovered that the entity known as Erzulie was actually a family of voodoo goddesses divided into four categories, one of which caught my eye—Petro Manifestations. The woman at Erzulie's Authentic Voodoo had implied that Erzulie D'en Tort, who sought vengeance for wronged women and children, was Erzulie Freda's sole Petro aspect. But according to this article, there were three others—Erzulie Mapiangue, who protected newborn babies, Erzulie Toho, who aided those who were slighted in love, and Erzulie Yeux Rouges, who took revenge on unfaithful lovers.

The unfaithful lovers line got my attention. I'd suspected all along that love was a factor in Amber's murder given the bottle of Amaretto di Amore at the crime scene. I figured that either she had some boyfriend who'd found out about her sugar daddy, or she'd cheated on the sugar daddy with someone she really cared about. What I needed to know was whether Erzulie Yeux Rouges was so evil that her acts of revenge included cold-blooded murder.

As tension mounted in my gut, I performed a search on the vengeful Erzulie. And I discovered that when Erzulie Freda's desires as the goddess of love weren't met, she turned into the fierce and fearsome Erzulie Yeux Rouges, which was French for Red-Eyed Erzulie. Apparently, the red eyes referred to crying and anger. And not only was she merciless, but her wrath knew no bounds.

I chewed my thumbnail as I contemplated the reference to the color red. Was there a connection between Erzulie's eyes and the label on the Amaretto di Amore? It was tenuous, but I had to try.

With my heart in my throat, I typed
Erzulie
and
amaretto
into the browser. It took a few minutes, but I located a source in Italian, of all languages, that confirmed what I'd suspected.

Erzulie Yeux Rouges preferred gifts that were red in color, and like Erzulie Freda, she loved to drink amaretto.

"All right," Dr. Lessler said with a clap of his hands.

I jumped at the sound.

He laughed as he took a seat on his stool. "You know, I'm used to people being scared of me, but I've never had a patient jump when I entered the room."

"Oh, it wasn't you. I guess I got spooked by some information I came across." I put my phone beside my left leg and lay back in the chair. "Did you find a hygienist?"

"Ugh." He threw his head back. "The agency's sending someone over, but she won't be here for at least an hour. So, I'll have to go it alone with your crown. Speaking of which," he said, holding up a tooth with a gloved hand, "this is a porcelain-fused-to-metal crown. Pretty cool, huh?"

"I guess," I said, unaffected by his enthusiasm for a fake tooth. "What I'm really interested in is the shot situation."

He smirked and placed my crown on the tray. "Most patients are fine with a topical anesthetic, but if you experience any pain I can administer a local."

I hid my disappointment at the needle news as he placed a bib around my neck.

He pulled up his surgical mask and selected a tool from the tray. "Open, please."

I did as I was told and felt him prodding my gums.

"That was quite a funeral yesterday, wasn't it?" His eyes met mine as he sat up and reached for another tool.

"Uh-huh." I looked at the dolphin to avoid further eye contact.

"I'll tell you what," he said as he began working the tool between my gums and the crown, "the last thing I expected was to see the murderer arrested at the ceremony."

"I O," I replied, which was dentalese for, "I know." Of course, I didn't think that Eve was the killer, but I couldn't tell him that.

He snorted. "Did you believe all that stuff she was saying about loving Amber and Curaçao like they were her own children?"

"I O O," I said, which was the negative, "I
don't
know."

"If she did love them," he said as he tugged at the crown with his fingers, "she sure had a funny way of showing it."

My tooth felt cool, and I watched as he tossed the temporary crown onto the tray.

"Now I'm going to remove the cement." He picked up another instrument. "Let me know if this hurts, okay?"

I nodded and opened wide.

"The part that got me was when she said she had Amber do an anti-hex witchcraft spell," he said as he scraped the surface of my tooth. "What a psycho."

Prior to this case, I would've agreed with his assessment of Eve. But after my crazy encounters with Theodora, Eve just struck me as a sweet but naïve woman who grasped at whatever straws she could—namely, spells—to try to control the uncontrollable.

Dr. Lessler returned the tool to the tray and grabbed a Q-tip.

I focused on the dolphin as he dabbed the anesthetic on my tooth.

He gave a sardonic laugh. "Only in New Orleans."

"Ut?" I asked, the meaning of which was obvious.

"This is the only city I know of where even the witchcraft involves alcohol." He tossed the Q-tip into the trash. "Like the amaretto."

"Oh," I said.

Then my eyes dropped from the dolphin to the doctor.

And the room seemed to rock like I was seasick.

Because the only way Dr. Lessler could have known about the amaretto was if he'd been at the crime scene.

Dr. Lessler's bright blue eyes turned icy gray, like two frozen lakes. "You're going to need that shot now."

A chill spread through my veins like a lethal injection. He and I both knew that I wasn't in pain and that the shot would be my death sentence. "If I die in your office, it'll be obvious you killed me."

With his gaze glued to me, he reached for a packaged syringe. "Not if I make it look like an accident during oral surgery. Patients do occasionally die in the dental chair."

Something I'd suspected since I started going to the dentist
. "But I'm just here to get a crown."

He smirked as he removed the syringe from the plastic. "I'll say that I convinced you to let me remove your wisdom teeth too."

There was no point in protesting—Dr. Lessler was diabolical. My fingers felt for the phone I'd left by my leg, and I tried to buy some time. "Why'd you do it?"

He shrugged. "Simple. Amber had become an expensive nuisance, and I wanted out of the spit business."

The word expensive reminded me of the vassal's conversation with Sugar Cherie about Amber meeting a man she'd already known at the sugaring party. "You were her sugar daddy."

His full lips thinned. "Among other things."

I located the home button on my cell. "The two of you were emotionally involved?"

"Let's just say that I'd availed myself of her professional services and leave it at that," he replied drily.

"Okay." I needed to distract him, because I couldn't make a call without looking at my screen. "But why become her sugar daddy if all you wanted to do was steal the necklace?"

"She tried to sell it to me to cover the cost of school, and I told her I wasn't interested in buying stolen property, especially amber that belongs to Russia. Next thing you know, she came up with the idea of sugaring to pay her bills while she looked for a black market buyer." He grimaced and shook his head. "Amber was such a disappointment. She'd said she was going clean, but she was never going to be anything but a whore and a thief."

I didn't dare point out his hypocrisy. It would have been lost on him, and it might have accelerated his plan to kill me.

"I figured that if I set her up in an apartment for a month or two, I could find out where she was hiding the necklace." He picked up a small vial marked Ketamine HCI. "So I signed up with the Sugar Shack under an assumed name and went to a so-called sugar bowl party. The rest is history."

As he inserted the needle into the vial, I pressed the
Home
button.

"I don't understand," I said as I glanced at my cell screen to orient my fingers. "Why didn't you just steal the amber from the apartment, then?"

He thumped the side of the syringe and continued to extract the clear liquid. "Because I realized I could get the necklace and get rid of her when she told me about the witchcraft spell."

"How did that come about, exactly?" I tapped the Emergency icon.

"Curaçao told Amber that she'd put a hex on her back when they were working at Madame Moiselle's." He lowered his eyes from the syringe to me. "And Amber was stupid enough to believe in that witchcraft crap."

In light of that comment, I felt like a fool for thinking that I was cursed myself—although my present situation sure seemed to support the idea.

"Amber was convinced that the hex was the reason she hadn't been able to get her life together since she'd quit the club." He removed the needle and scrutinized the liquid in the barrel. "And she was afraid she never would—that is, until Eve recommended that she do an anti-hex spell on the spot where the hex had been placed."

My fingers froze when my eyes set sight on that syringe. "So, you snuck into the club while she was doing the spell and strangled her, but Curaçao came in before you could take the necklace."

"Right." The corners of his mouth turned down. "Somehow she found out when Amber was going to do the spell."

Based on what Carnie had told me, I guessed that Curaçao had been eavesdropping on Amber or Eve. "But why would Curaçao try to sell you the necklace after seeing you kill Amber?"

"She didn't see me," he replied like he was talking about spotting a friend at the cinema. "While I was choking Amber, I heard a sound and hid in the prop room. I watched through a crack in the door as she ripped the pendant from Amber's neck."

The casualness of his tone as he talked about killing gave me the mental kick in the rear I needed. As he returned the vial to the tray, I glanced at the numbers on my phone.

"And you didn't kill her and take the necklace?" I asked as I tapped 9-1-1.

"That was the plan." With the syringe in his hand, he smoothed his bangs. "But someone started unlocking the front door, so she ran to the back exit. Before I could do the same, the stripper mom came in."

My surprise at learning that Eve was at the crime scene made it easier to do what I had to do next. I sat up and started to cough to cover the sound of the 9-1-1 operator's voice.

He slammed me back into the chair with his left arm, and my cell hit the floor with a clatter. "Well, look at that—your phone." He stood up and pressed his left hand to my neck, and he kept it there as he walked around the back of the dental chair and smashed my phone with the heel of his shoe. "Try that again," he growled as he made his way back around, "and I'll make this as painful as possible."

I swallowed hard and wondered whether the call had made it through, although I wasn't holding out hope. I hadn't heard the 9-1-1 operator answer, and I wasn't even sure that I'd dialed the number correctly. "I-I wasn't trying anything," I lied. "I just didn't expect you to tell me that Eve was there."

The tension on his face relaxed as he released my neck and sat down. "That caught me off guard too. Until I saw her at Madame Moiselle's, I only knew her as the Texan lady that owned the sugaring company."

Now I understood why he'd said that a woman with a Texas accent had called his office about Amber, but I wanted to clarify that he was talking about Eve, and not Nadezhda. "You mean, Georgia."

He rolled his eyes. "Same thing."

Yeah, like honey and molasses
. "After you saw Eve there, you decided to frame her for Amber's murder."

A conceited smile spread across his lips. "Actually, you gave me that idea when you asked about her mother. If I would've mentioned Eve before, it would've been too obvious that I knew more about Amber's life than I wanted to let on."

"Why didn't Eve report you to the police?" I asked, keeping an eye on the syringe still in his right hand. "Even if she didn't know your real name, she must've recognized you from the sugar bowl party."

He leaned back on his stool and crossed his arms. "She never saw me. When she noticed Amber onstage, she dropped the grocery bags she was holding and started screaming, 'Curaçao, what have you done?'"

So Eve had covered for Curaçao even though she thought that she'd killed Amber. Protecting her girls no matter what.

His lips curled with contempt. "While she was in hysterics, I slipped out the back entrance too."

I realized that the morning Veronica drove me home from the police station, I'd probably missed seeing Dr. Lessler leave by mere seconds. "How did Curaçao come to contact you, of all people, about buying the necklace?"

"She was one of my patients," he said with a flick of his hand. "After she stole it, I had my secretary call and schedule a cleaning appointment. When she came in, I casually mentioned that I was looking for an exotic gift for my wife for her birthday, and she fell right into the trap."

My blood began to boil at the mention of his wife because it reminded me that he had a young daughter too. But I had to keep a lid on my anger. Otherwise, my goose was cooked.

"We met at her place when her roommate was out." He laughed and shook his head. "She tried to play me by telling me that she had other buyers—a couple of Russians who supposedly knew the value of the amber and were willing to pay big bucks."

Eugene and Nadezhda
.

"I pretended to go along with it, agreeing to beat the Russians' offer." He stopped and scowled. "But then she showed me a pendant that was obviously a fake, so I got pissed and offed her."

I squirmed in the chair. He was so cavalier about killing. "And you took her body to the club to make it look like Eve had killed her too."

He cocked a brow to match the cocky twist to his lips. "Pretty clever, huh?"

I didn't reply. We'd reached the end of his story, which meant that my story was about to end too.

He glanced at the clock, and the self-satisfied look left his face. "I've got to get a move on before that temp gets here and my next patient shows up."

"Wait," I breathed, winded from fear. "You don't know where the amber pendant is, and I do."

He slapped his knee. "As luck would have it," he said in a mocking tone, "Curaçao told me that she'd hidden it in that pigsty she called a house right before I wrung her naïve little neck."

For a moment, I thought that the dental chair had dropped a foot, but it was my stomach falling.

"I went there to get it, but her roommate was home, and then the cops started watching the place." He gave an apologetic smile. "Now that the killer has been arrested, though, you're the only thing standing in the way of me and that pendant."

Desperate for more time, I half-shouted, "Hold on. I still don't understand the Amaretto di Amore. Did you love Amber?"

He ran his hand over his lower face and jaw as though wiping a bad taste from his mouth. "I thought I did once. But after she left the club she cheated on me with one of her ex-johns."

Amber's death had been related to infidelity, after all.

"There's no such thing as love, anyway." He snorted. "It's like that bottle of amaretto."

"What do you mean?" I pressed, trying to keep him talking in case the police had gotten my call.

The corner of his mouth turned up, and he almost seemed sad. "You can give it a romantic name, but it's just plain old booze."

"Then why did you leave it at the crime scene?" I scanned the vicinity, looking for something I could use as a weapon.

"Lots of reasons." He sighed and rubbed his thighs. "For one thing, to remind Amber of what she'd thrown away."

I thought about the bottle Eve had seen Amber launch across the kitchen, and I knew it was from him too.

"And, you don't know this," he said, tilting his head toward me, "but my
grann
was Creole. She taught me to pay my respects to the voodoo
loa
, so I know better than to risk the wrath of Erzulie Yeux Rouges."

I marveled at the discovery that Dr. Lessler practiced voodoo, even though he'd said that witchcraft was "crap."
When was I going to learn that anything was possible in New Orleans?
"Were those your only reasons?"

"Not quite." He scooted his stool closer to my chair. "I knew that Amber's pimp had taught her voodoo, so I was trying to raise your suspicions about him too. The more suspects, the merrier, right?"

Slowly, I began to slide away from him. "That explains why you alluded to Amber's past as a prostitute and told me that she'd been wearing a mermaid
veve
."

"And it's the reason I left the rum and cigarettes for Baron Samedi, besides paying my respects, of course." He put his thumb on the end of the syringe. "But I'm going to have to skip the offerings this time since I have to kill you here in the office. I hope the loa don't mind."

I recoiled into the armrest. "If I were you, I wouldn't gamble on the gods."

His mouth turned down, as though annoyed by my impertinence. "You'd say anything to get out of a shot, wouldn't you?"

Especially one that was fatal.

He reached for my forearm. "As much as I hate to kill a fellow LSU fan—"

"A
what
?" Even on the brink of death, the Texas Longhorn in me was outraged.

"I was there when you stripped in those LSU tiger shoes, trying to lure the killer to the club." He sneered. "And now that I think about it, after that performance you deserve to die."

Since the day of my birthday, I'd endured countless injustices and humiliations—starting with turning thirty. But I was damned if I was going to continue to deal with the fallout from Glenda's stripping scheme.

Gripping the armrests, I kicked the dental tray as hard as I could, and it went flying into Dr. Lessler, instruments and all.

He shielded himself, giving me time to shove him away and leap from the chair. On the off chance that a patient had entered the lobby, I screamed, "Help!"

"Francesca?" My mother's voice was as shrill as a dental drill.

My head jerked toward the door from the shock of hearing my mom.

Dr. Lessler gripped my forearm with Superman-like strength and inserted the needle into my vein.

Stunned, I shot him a questioning look.

"Rock climber." He grinned.