Ciji Ware (56 page)

By this time Grover Jeffries’s complexion had turned a livid shade of puce. He savagely elbowed his way through the group near the podium and shoved King to one side. Then he grabbed possession of the microphone.

“You’d damn well better have
proof
of
what you’re sayin’, Mr. Duvallon!” Jeffries shouted above the fracas. “ ’Cause I’m gonna sue your ass from here to Natchez, and so is the Del Mar Corporation! Yes, I own the Selwyn buildings, fair and legal, and if I want to keep that information private, that is my right! And yes, I participate in the political process, just like you and your preservation creeps. But y’all have gone too far this time, young man! You are interfering with free enterprise—and every other goddamn thing Americans stand for in this country. And if you don’t shut up, I’m gonna—”

Lafayette Marchand finally managed to catch up with his volatile client. He made a grab for Grover’s arm and bodily pushed the furious developer away from the podium, back up the aisle, and out of the hearing room door. All the while Edgar Dumas continued to pound his gavel, until finally, there was some semblance of order.

“Security!” he exclaimed, pointing his finger at King, who remained standing at the public microphone. “Arrest Mr. Duvallon, and remove him from this chamber for disturbin’ the peace!”

Chapter 24

May 19

Two uniformed guards of generous girth elbowed their way toward King through the crowds that clogged the city council chambers. Without hesitation, they roughly yanked his arms behind his back and clapped handcuffs around his wrists. While the officers hustled their prisoner up the aisle and through the doors that Jeffries and Marchand had just exited, Roscoe Bordeleon leaned toward his microphone for the second time, and in his distinctive, gravel-voiced fashion, suggested calmly, “I move we table this discussion until staff can review the pertinent information that’s been presented here today… and can report back to us as a body.”

One of the two female council members quickly seconded the proposal. From her colleagues’ expressions, all appeared profoundly relieved to have found a way to put an end to the turbulent meeting. The majority on the board swiftly concurred with the motion to table, and then the council voted to adjourn. The mass of reporters headed for the exits, rudely jostling one another in a rush to meet their evening deadlines.

Corlis, however, could only stare as King was hustled out the door. Next to her, Virgil and Manny quickly stowed their gear and prepared to race back to WJAZ with the tumultuous footage for the evening news. As she turned to follow in their wake, she felt a viselike grip take hold of her arm. Jack Ebert was glaring at her with a look of pure hatred.

“You stole my invoice that night, didn’t you, bitch? That’s how you and King knew I was workin’ for Jeffries!”

Corlis reacted with shock, her mind racing to make sense of what he was saying. Invoice? What invoice?

“Jack, what are you talking about? I didn’t steal any invoice. I’ve never even been
in
the offices of
Arts This Week
!”

“You and King were both right there in Grover’s office the night of the ball,” he growled. He tightened the grip on her arm. “I’m warning you! You
still
don’t understand how this town works—”

“Well, I know how
I
work!” she interrupted. She yanked her arm away. “I
didn’t
steal any invoice, and I
don’t
hand over information to sources—even ones I
like
—or to competing journalists, for that matter, though I suspect no one, even in New Orleans, will consider you a member of our fraternity anymore, you pimp. Now, get lost, will you?”

And before Jack Ebert could say another word, she strode up the aisle without looking back. She did, however, wonder how King Duvallon had obtained the incriminating invoice that proved Jack had been in Grover Jeffries’s employ all this time.

***

It was nearly eight o’clock before Corlis finished editing her expanded piece for the ten o’clock news and pulled her Lexus out of the parking lot at WJAZ. She was mentally and emotionally exhausted and fully intended to head directly home. Why, then, she wondered, was she now on the ramp that led to Interstate 10?

Because Central Lockup was off I-10, that’s why, she answered herself silently. She had to talk to King. It was for the story.

It’s not just the story, you nit!

Well, it was for the story
as well as
for personal reasons, she reassured herself. Something in her solar plexus had gone haywire when those cops hauled King off in handcuffs—a situation she realized, suddenly, that she simply could not tolerate as long as she had the means to do something about it.

Fifteen minutes later she pulled her car in front of the jail. The street was deserted, except for a battered pickup truck and a fire-engine-red Mustang convertible that looked as if it might belong to a convicted drug lord. Corlis locked her own vehicle and headed for the glass doors.

As she walked through the front entrance, she began rooting around in her shoulder bag for her trusty wad of WJAZ cash. Her head down in concentration, she heard King’s deep, distinctive voice before she saw him standing near the bail bond window.

“Let me take you to dinner. It’s the least I can do for coming all this way to rescue me.”

Startled, Corlis halted, a broad smile beginning to unleash itself across her face when suddenly she became conscious that a second voice had begun to speak.

“Why King, darlin’, I’d
love
to! Can we go to Galatoire’s?” Cindy Lou Mallory begged with a coquettish smile.

Tonight the maid of honor of the short-circuited Duvallon-Ebert nuptials wore a stunning imperial-blue jacket and matching skirt that showed plenty of leg. It was the perfect outfit for a woman who assumed she’d be taken to dinner because of her good deeds.

For the second time in her entire life, Corlis literally wanted to scratch a woman’s eyes out. Instead, she swiftly reversed direction and headed for the exit.

“Corlis!”

Oddly, King’s exclamation had the force of a command. Corlis stopped midstep and reluctantly turned around. Blood pounded in her temples; it seemed her heart would leap out of her chest.

Talk about déjà vu all over again!

She stared at the sight of King and Cindy Lou standing side by side and felt as if she were the victim of an emotional hijacking. In two strides, King was by her side.

“What are
you
doing here?” he demanded.

“I… ah… I…”

Corlis held up her left hand in the stance of a school crossing guard forbidding a pedestrian to step off the curb. She shifted her gaze to the perfectly made-up countenance of Cindy Lou Mallory. She was bearing down on them with a determined look in her eye. Corlis turned to face King.

“Well?” King pressed. Then his face softened and he added, “It’s nice to see you in person again, Ace. I was planning to watch you on the late news tonight from my cell.”

“I-I just wanted to talk to you about what happened at today’s city council hearing… and I had a few… questions to ask about the revelations concerning Jack Ebert. But I see now’s obviously not a good time.”
Why in the world would King offer to take this woman out to dinner?
she fumed.
Why would he even speak
to Cindy Lou Mallory again?

Rather than voice this question, however, she thrust out her hand in Cindy Lou’s direction. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Corlis McCullough. WJAZ.”

“Oh… everybody in New Orleans knows who
you
are,” Cindy Lou retorted archly. “And anyway, how could
I
forget?”

So much for that supposed Louisiana politesse that King had once described as being the hallmark of a magnolia in the Bayou State!

Cindy was gazing at King with a forgiving smile. “It’s
so
sweet of you, darlin’ to offer to take me to dinner,” she purred. “I accept.” She smiled with a dismissive air in Corlis’s direction. “ ’Bye, now. Nice meetin’ you.” The former Mardi Gras Queen tucked her well-manicured hand through King’s arm. “Shall we get you out of this horrible ol’ place, sugar? Daddy said he’d talk to Judge Bouchet in the mornin’.”

“You hungry, McCullough?” King inquired abruptly.

Corlis was starving.

“Thanks, but I have a dinner date.”

She turned on her heel and marched on ahead of the happy couple. She was already nosing her car out of her parking place by the time King gallantly opened the driver’s door of the fire-engine-red, seduce-me Mustang.

Double merde!
Corlis cursed under her breath.

***

King shifted in his chair outside the dean’s office and glanced at his watch. He’d been a free man since nine thirty that morning, and as of this moment, he’d been waiting forty-five minutes beyond the time he’d been requested to appear before an interdisciplinary committee of the university’s architecture and history departments.

“Mr. Duvallon?” said a neatly dressed woman who stuck her head through the door and was smiling nervously. “Please come in. The committee’s waiting for you.”

Dean Avery Labonniere, along with his colleagues, sat in a small sterile conference room that had been designed some five years earlier by a flunky in the employ of Grover Jeffries. A woman whom King didn’t recognize—attired in a female version of a pinstripe suit—sat perched in an uncomfortable chrome-and-Naugahyde chair positioned against the wall.

A lawyer, he surmised. Present so that she could make this all nice and legal.

“How y’all doing?” King asked pleasantly, wondering if they could really toss him out of his department two months before he was due to be granted tenure.

The missing person in the room was Grover Jeffries, of course. Grover and his henchman, Lafayette Marchand. Their names were never mentioned, but everyone present knew what this meeting was all about.

The dean cleared his throat. “I am sorry to have to say this, Mr. Duvallon, but this committee has determined that you have behaved in a manner that brings dishonor to this institution and the alumni who support it.”

“For acting on my conscience as an architectural historian to try to save the Selwyn buildings?” King inquired evenly.

“Your conscience is not at issue in this situation,” the dean replied sharply. “You’ve been arrested twice and had your name in every newspaper and magazine in this state. You’ve publicly accused one of this university’s staunchest supporters of—”

“Ah… Mr. Jeffries is upset with me. But what about my rights of free speech and assembly?” he asked, casting a faint smile in the direction of the lady lawyer.

“The issue here is what’s in the best interest of this institution,” Dean Labonniere countered, tight-lipped. “I must have your word that you will not in the future do anything that will heap ridicule on your colleagues in this department or the university in general.”

King heaved a silent sigh of relief. As with Judge Bouchet’s earlier pronouncements from the bench that morning, he was being let off again with only another warning. Well, he would allow them to have their pound of flesh today, he thought, lowering his eyes in a false show of respect. He knew the drill. He would simply appear sufficiently chastened so as to allow himself the time he needed to nail that son of a bitch Grover Jeffries! After that, whatever happened to him regarding tenure at the university was up for grabs.

Smiling faintly, King said, “Of
course
I don’t want to embarrass anybody. And certainly, I agree never to do anything that compromises the School of Architecture’s commitment to saving worthy historic structures or the university’s solemn pledge to uphold that ideal.”

The committee members exchanged confused looks. Dean Labonniere glanced at his watch.

“Well… ah… that’s good to hear, son,” the dean replied. “I shall hold you to your word.” He gazed at his fellow committee members, who nodded their agreement. “I think that about winds up our business here today. And please, King, do give my regards to your sweet mama. I shall never forget serving with Lafayette Marchand in her court that year!” He smiled broadly at the other two male professors. “I do declare that Antoinette Kingsbury was the prettiest Mardi Gras queen New Orleans has—or will ever—see.”

King shook hands with his superiors and hurried out of the conference room.

He would have to move mighty fast if he was to stop the demolition of the Selwyn buildings
and
gain tenure as a professor at this goddamned incestuous university, he thought grimly.

***

The phone next to Corlis’s bed rang in the darkness. However, it was the motion of Cagney Cat’s twenty-three pounds leaping off the mattress that roused her to full consciousness. She made a grab for the receiver, her heart pounding. Had something happened to Aunt Marge?