Prosecco Pink (15 page)

"Uh-huh, and she was calm this time," Chandra said, flopping down beside me. "Maybe it was because Lou and I were in our yard, enjoying nature. It's planting season, you know, and he just installed a sprinkler system in my flowerbeds." She stared at her chubby flip-flopped feet, which were dangling over the edge of the sofa. "Being married to a plumber certainly has its advantages."

"I'm sure." There was something to be said for a lifetime of good water pressure and unclogged toilets. "But what about the spirit?"

"Well, this year I wanted to plant moonflowers and starflowers, but they're both white. So Lou insisted we add a touch of color. He just loves bright things, that one. He picks out all my outfits," she said, gesturing toward her yellow sunburst-themed T-shirt and bright orange short shorts.

"How romantic," I said, picturing a stocky, balding man with a closet full of Hawaiian shirts. "But what does any of this have to do with the spirit?"

She put a hand on my arm. "I'm getting there. Be patient."

Patient?
I thought.
Who has time for that?

"Anyway, Lou went to the nursery to get the plants. And I had him get some extra mulch and fertilizer too."

I was seriously starting to worry that planting season would be over by the time she finished this story.

"And do you know what he came back with?"

"Um, the stuff you asked for?"

"Impatiens."

Go figure
. "I still don't see what this has to do with the spirit."

Chandra sighed. "They were pink, exactly like the flowers at Oleander Place."

I placed my mug on the coffee table.
Now we were getting somewhere
.

"I didn't notice the similarity of the pink, but the spirit sure did. She came to me on the spot and told me to warn you about Oleander Place. She said that it may seem like a welcoming place, but it's downright inhospitable. Dangerous even."

"Yeah, I've gotten that message," I said, thinking of the pineapple package.

Thunder rumbled in the sky, as though underscoring my precarious position.

"She also said not to be fooled by the oleander flowers."

I leaned forward. "What did she mean by that?"

"How should I know?" Chandra pulled a family-sized bag of Zapp's New Orleans Kettle-Style Voodoo chips from her Chanel bag.

"Um, because you're the medium who talked to her?" I suggested, observing the bag with a certain interest—the Zapp's, not the Chanel.

"It's not my job to interpret messages. I'm only supposed to relay them. That's what 'medium' means."

She had me there. It was up to me to decipher the meaning. But was the spirit telling me that oleander had nothing to do with the case? There was only one way to find out. "Listen, I wish you would reconsider coming out to the plantation."

Chandra nibbled on a chip. "I have."

"Really?" My stomach rumbled as I watched her chew. I wanted some chips. With a ham po' boy. And a slice of bourbon pecan pie. Or just the bourbon.

"After the spirit came to me in the flowerbed I said to myself, 'Now Chandra, it's just plain silly to be scared of spirits. You came to The Crescent City to serve them. They're your cosmic clients.'" She bit into another chip.

I licked my lips. "That's so true."

"Then I said, 'Chandra, the spirits will keep you safe. The only one in danger here is Franki.' And that made me feel better about everything."

Gee, me too
. "So, can you go to Oleander Place with me later this afternoon?"

"With the lunar eclipse coming, I've got clients practically beating down my door."

I imagined a pack of half-men, half-werewolves trying to claw their way into her tiny office.

"But I suppose I can make some time tomorrow before noon." She rose to her feet and gathered her bags. "I never do business during lunchtime."

"That's a good policy," I said, consulting the lobby clock. I had just enough time to run over to Tracey's bar in the Irish Channel for that po' boy. And some gravy cheese fries. I ushered her to the door and said, "I'll pick you up at your office at ten."

"Okay." She stepped into the stairwell. "But make sure you bring a hundred bucks. Cash."

As the door closed behind her, lightening lit up the room like a kind of meteorological exclamation point.

I collapsed onto the couch, certain that the weather—or maybe the spirit—was mocking me. One hundred dollars was a lot to pay for something as unscientific as a psychic reading. But I told myself it was worth the price to see what Chandra would discover at the plantation—provided that she wasn't a fraud, of course. I wanted to find out the identity of the spirit that was contacting her and that of the blonde in the pink crinoline dress she'd seen in her crystal ball. It had to be either Evangeline or Ivanna, and I needed to know which.

First, however, I needed lunch. I hurried to my office to grab my bag, hoping that Veronica would let me bill Delta for Chandra's services. Otherwise, after today, there would be no more po' boys for me.

The lobby bell sounded.

"
Porca miseria
," I cursed in Italian. And I was in "pig misery" because something or someone out there didn't want me to have my pork po' boy.

When I returned to the lobby, I gave a start. I saw what looked like a werewolf in transition—human flesh and patches of gray fur with two ears and a long tail—holding a cardboard box about the size of the pineapple package. But then I saw the cigarette holder between its teeth and realized that it was just Glenda.

"That wasn't left outside the door, was it?" I asked, eyeing the box with concern.

Glenda placed the container on the coffee table and removed the cigarette holder from her mouth. "Nah, these are a little something I made for you girls."

"How nice," Veronica said as she entered the lobby.

I relaxed and went back to my spot on the couch.

"I just finished teaching my stripper boot camp class, so I thought I'd run them by."

"How's that going?" Veronica asked.

Glenda sighed and sat down beside me, crossing her fur-leg-warmer-clad calves and adjusting her matching loincloth. "I tell you, those girls are gonna drive me to drinkin'. Today they had to present a three-minute routine in costume. I went first to show them how it's done."

"What are you supposed to be?" I asked, scrutinizing her fur wrist warmers.

Glenda batted her inch-long orange eyelashes. "Why, I'm sexy Big Bad Wolf."

"Gah, Franki," Veronica chided, as though sexy Big Bad Wolf costumes were as common as blue jeans.

"Sorry," I muttered. "But why not sexy Little Red Riding Hood?"

Glenda exhaled two lungsful of smoke. "Sugar, do I look like a sexual victim to you? No self-respecting woman would play the part of that red-hooded idiot."

"Definitely not," Veronica huffed.

"Wow," I said, reeling from the red-riding-hood revelation. "I just thought it was a children's story about stranger danger."

Veronica and Glenda stared at me like I was the red-hooded idiot, even though my hoodie was purple.

"Anyway," Glenda said with a flip of her platinum hair, "this one girl put together a sexy maid routine. Not very original, but hey, she's a beginner so I kept an open mind."

"Good for you," Veronica said.

"But then what does the fool go and do? She sashays onto the stage in three-inch heels."

Veronica gasped and put her hand on her heart.

I looked from Veronica to Glenda, unsure of "the fool's" faux pas.

"Once I recovered from the shock," Glenda continued, "I said, 'Sugar, are those tap dancing shoes?' To which she replied, 'They're my strippin' shoes.' So I went, 'Child, anything less than six inches is just plain sad. And that goes for the boudoir too."

Veronica nodded.

"And do you know what she proceeded to inform me?" Glenda asked, waving her cigarette dangerously close to my cheek. "That platform heels hurt her feet, so she needed a
sensible
stripper shoe. Can you imagine such a thing?"

I shook my head. In all honesty, I really couldn't.

"So, I told her, 'Well, if you want to sell sensible, sugar, go get yourself a job at the Naturalizer store, because here we sell sex.'"

Veronica patted Glenda's bare thigh. "Those girls are so lucky to have you as their teacher."

"Thank you, Miss Ronnie." Glenda stood up and took another drag off her cigarette. "But this younger generation just isn't willing to suffer for their art. And if that doesn't change, I'm afraid they're going to cheapen the whole stripping profession."

"We can't have that," I said.

"Speaking of stripper shoes," Glenda began, reaching into the box, "I made this for you, Miss Franki." She handed me a white, ceramic stripper-shoe planter with a prickly pear.

I stared speechless at the item.
Was everyone in New Orleans planting but me?

"And this is for you, Miss Ronnie." She handed Veronica a cute little pink handbag planter with sweet-smelling white jasmine.

Veronica squealed. "It's adorable!"

I looked at her planter with envy. Why did she get the precious purse while I got the slut shoe? With a cactus, to boot.

 "Anyway, girls," Glenda said, picking up the box, "I don't want to keep you from your work, especially since it involves a pink diamond."

As Veronica walked Glenda to the door, I thought about Glenda's comment. Could the diamond be the key to this case and not the oleander? That would certainly fit with the spirit's warning not to be fooled by the flowers—that is,
if
I wasn't being duped by Chandra.

"Bye Miss Franki," Glenda said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I turned as she opened the door and saw Delta standing on the other side in a dramatic floor-length black mink. If there were ever two personalities destined to clash it was the proper southerner and the promiscuous stripper. I held my breath and watched the standoff with a mixture of fascination and fear.

Glenda made the first move. She narrowed her eyes and took a deep drag off her cigarette.

In reply, Delta grasped her pearls and raised her chin.

Given their attire, I felt like I was watching a Louisiana-style territory-marking ritual on Animal Planet.

Glenda exhaled. "Nice fur."

"Likewise," Delta said, jerking her head backward to avoid the fumes.

Seizing upon Delta's submissive posture, Glenda nodded and—with her cigarette holder in one hand and her tail draped over the other—made a triumphant exit.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I thanked heaven for their mutual fur fetishes.

"Hello, Delta," Veronica said, closing the door behind her.

I rose to my feet. "I didn't realize we had a meeting."

"I didn't realize I had to set up a meeting to talk to you," she said, waltzing into the room and taking a seat on the couch.

"Oh, you don't," Veronica hurried to add.

I really wished Veronica hadn't said that. Something told me that being at Delta's beck and call could be brutal. I sunk down onto the couch beside her. "So what brings you away from the plantation again?"

"Again?" she repeated.

"Yeah, yesterday I went out there to talk to Scarlett, but it was closed."

She touched her Baron Samedi brooch. "Why would you need to talk to her? Is something wrong?"

"That's what we're hoping Scarlett can tell us," Veronica said.

"We think she has information about the case," I explained. "She was acting strange when we were at the plantation."

"Strange?" Delta threw her head back and laughed. "That's because the girl's as dumb as a stump. But if you think it's worth your time to question her again, her last tour ends at three o'clock today."

Sidestepping the stump issue, I asked, "So, the plantation is open?"

"Yes, I closed early yesterday because we didn't have a single tour booked for the afternoon, and I had to meet with my informant about the coroner's report. Naturally, he can't discuss the investigation over the phone."

I nodded.

"Anyway, there's been a development in the case. The test results came back on the lip gloss. It contains a significant amount of oleander."

Veronica gasped. "So, Ivanna might have been poisoned just like Evangeline?"

"It looks that way," Delta replied.

I was almost inclined to agree. But I reflected on the spirit's warning, and a thought occurred to me. Ivanna wasn't wearing the pink lip gloss—she was wearing red. So, unless she ingested the lip gloss as a taste test or something, it couldn't have caused her death. If that was the case, then why was the lip gloss poisoned? And what killed Ivanna?

"Anyhow," Delta said as she rose and made her way to the door, "I've got to get over to Arnaud's for a luncheon." She flashed her yellowed teeth in something that resembled a smile. "I just adore their Filet Mignon Charlemond."

My stomach growled at the mention of meat. "Before you go, has your informant said anything about the results of the mass spectrometry?"

"The mass what?" she asked, drawling the word
what
for a good three syllables.

"It's a type of test done in forensic toxicology for cases of possible drug overdose or poisoning."

"Those must be the results we're still waiting for," she said, pulling her Cadillac keys from her Louis Vuitton. "I assume they'll show that Miss Jones died of oleander poisoning."

"Yeah," I said despite my doubts. "I'd like to see them, just the same."

As Delta reached for the doorknob, the vassal entered with two carryout bags.

My stomach instantly recognized the Johnny's Po-Boys logo on the bags and let out a mighty roar—more from outrage than hunger.

"Well, excuse you, young man," Delta huffed.

The vassal looked at her with his coke-bottle-lens-enlarged eyes and stepped to the side, leaning against the door to hold it open.

"Greetings, good ladies," David bellowed as he strode big-man-on-campus-style into the room. His strut went straight to slump when he caught sight of Delta.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust and looked from David to the vassal. "What
is
that ghastly odor?"