Prosecco Pink (17 page)

As I crept down the hallway toward the parlor, I considered going back to the car to retrieve my gun. After all, someone had warned me to stay away from Oleander Place, and that someone might be a plantation employee. But then I told myself to get a grip. I was fairly certain that the noises I was hearing had something to do with Delta or Scarlett, and I definitely didn't believe that the infamous plantation ghosts were responsible. And even if I did, my gun certainly wouldn't stop them.

When I entered the parlor, I gave a start. Beneath the painting of Evangeline, the courter's candle was flickering.
Was this a sign that Evangeline was alive and waiting for her flame?
I shook the thought from my head. No, a spirit hadn't lit that candle, a real live person had. And it looked like they'd done so recently because it was barely burned.

Now that I thought about it, Delta had complained that Scarlett was always lighting the candle. So I assumed that she was in the house somewhere, avoiding me. "Scarlett? It's me, Franki. I have a quick question for you."

I waited for her to reply and heard a loud thump from above. Something had fallen, like a piece of furniture—or a body. Thinking that Scarlett might be hurt, I rushed up the stairs to the second floor. "Scarlett? Are you okay?"

When I reached the landing, there was another thump followed by a scraping noise. It sounded like something was being dragged across the floor above.
Or was it "someone?"
I swallowed nervously as I tried to decide whether to proceed without my weapon. But then I remembered that the third floor was a storage area. Relief flooded through my body when I realized that Delta was probably up there moving things around.

"Delta. I'm here to question Scarlett," I called as I climbed the stairs.

It was noticeably darker on the top floor, but there was a light shining from the doorway on my right. As I approached, I caught a glimpse of a shadow on the wall to my left. It took a moment for my eyes to make out the shape, but when they did, my heart skipped a beat—or several. The shape was that of a man wearing a long coat and a tricorne, the triangular-shaped hat worn by eighteenth-century soldiers and pirates. My mind flashed, terrified, to Beau the Black.

This time, instead of thumping or dragging, I heard the unmistakable metallic sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath.

I took a step backward.
Was it? Could it be?

"Avast!" a craggy male voice cried. "Or I'll cleave ye to the brisket, I will!"

As a Texas girl, I knew darn good and well what a brisket was. I shielded my chest with my arms and screamed bloody murder.

The sword clattered to the floor as the pirate ghost let out a distinctly unpirate-like—and unghost-like—shriek. I cut my screaming short and peered through the crack between the door and the doorjamb. I saw a nice-looking guy, around twenty-six or so, with sandy blond hair and twinkling blue eyes. Beau the Black he was not.

He stepped into the hallway with his hat in his hands. "Sorry about all of that. I was goofing around with the clothes, and I didn't realize anyone else was in the house." He grinned sheepishly. "We're all kind of jumpy around here these days."

I laughed. "I can understand why. I'm Franki Amato, the PI Delta hired to investigate the murder of Ivanna Jones."

"Troy Wilson," he said as we shook hands. "I'm the Oleander Place historian."

"Great! You're the last staff member I need to interview."

He looked thoughtfully at me. "You know, Delta said she'd hired a private investigator, but…"

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

His face flushed with embarrassment. "It's just that she described you a little differently."

Now my face flushed—with anger. I was sure that Delta's description of me had been less than flattering. "Oh she did, did she? Care to elaborate?"

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki-colored Dockers. "Uh, she made it sound like you were a lot taller." He paused. "And dark."

My lips curled. I was fair-skinned, but because I was Italian, Delta was stereotyping me. "You mean swarthy?"

He smiled. "Delta isn't all bad. She's just a little high strung, as we say down here in the South."

"That's one way to describe her," I said through gritted teeth.

"Do you mind if I put these clothes away?" he asked, gesturing toward the storage room.

"Not at all," I replied. I followed him to the doorway and shivered when I looked inside. It was straight out of a haunted house, with dusty antiques, boxes, clothing dress forms, and porcelain dolls strewn about. 

Troy knelt and placed the tricorne into a hatbox inside an old trunk. "So, are you Italian on both sides of your family?"

"Yeah, my mom's maiden name was Pavan."

He rose to his feet and dusted off his pants. "That's from the Veneto region, right?"

I nodded, impressed. Unlike other Italian surnames, those from the Veneto were often missing a final vowel. "How'd you know?"

"I specialized in the Italian Renaissance for my Masters, so I had to study the Venetian Republic. But then I switched to American history."

"What made you change from the Venetian Republic to the Early American Republic?"

He smirked. "The language requirement. To study European History, you have to know two foreign languages, and I only know Greek."

"Greek?" I repeated, surprised. "I thought you'd say Italian."

"My mother is from Greece. Can't you tell?" he asked, shaking his blond hair.

"Honestly, I would have said you were a California beach boy, except for your pirate clothes. Do you always wear a waistcoat?"

"This old thing?" Troy joked as he removed the coat. "It's just a little something I threw on."

I laughed. It was nice to finally meet someone at Oleander Place I could relate to—except for the part about the graduate degree in history, of course.

He wrapped the waistcoat in tissue paper and placed it into the trunk with the hat. "Seriously, though," he continued, "I was doing research for my dissertation."

"Delta said I should ask you about that." I leaned against the doorjamb and crossed my arms. "What are you studying?"

He smiled. "Plantation chic."

I blinked. "You mean, plantation fashion?"

"That's right. What we wear influences the way we perceive ourselves, so it says a lot about who we are and what we value. You know the old saying "Clothes make the man"? And Oleander Place is a veritable treasure trove of information. Or should I say 'treasure chest'?"

I smiled. "Definitely the latter."

Troy locked the trunk and dragged it to the back wall. Then he hoisted it onto another trunk.

That explains the thump and the dragging sounds
, I thought.

"Shall we go downstairs?" he asked as he brushed off his shirt.

"Please," I replied. "It's creepy up here."

"This whole place is creepy," he began with an exaggerated shudder, "especially now that there's been a murder in the pink room."

I followed Troy downstairs to the first floor.

"Let's go into the dining room," he said, ushering me into an elegant, marble-floored space. "Would you like something to drink?"

What I wanted was a shot of Pepto-Bismol to counteract the effects of those po' boys. But instead I said, "A glass of water would be nice."

I took a seat at the mahogany table. While I waited, I counted fourteen place settings with polished silverware, cornflower blue and white china, and fluted crystal goblets. On one side of the table, a rope was hanging. I looked up and saw that it was connected to a contraption that was shaped like an upside down lyre and had a panel of rich red velvet trimmed in gold fringe attached.

"That's a fan," Troy said, handing me my water. "While the family and guests dined, a slave would pull the cord to make the fan sway back and forth for the duration of the dinner. Wretched life, eh?"

I nodded. "Speaking of wretched lives, what can you tell me about the murder victim, Ivanna Jones?"

"Not much," he replied, taking a seat beside me. "I was at a graduate student conference in Nashville that day."

I took a sip of water. "When did you get back?"

"I drove home on Saturday night, and I got in around ten thirty. So I missed all the drama. But Delta showed me her photos of the crime scene when I came to work on Monday."

"Had you ever seen Ivanna before?"

"Based on the photos, it's hard to say." He straightened the silverware at his place setting. "She might have taken one of my tours of the grounds, but I can't be sure. Up until the time of the murder, we had as many as three hundred visitors per day."

I thought about Troy's expertise as a historian and wondered whether he had any special insight about the crime scene. "Did anything about the pictures strike you?"

"There were so many similarities to the death of Evangeline Lacour, the room, the dress, the bed, the position of the body. Even Ivanna's hair was the arranged the same way. The only thing we don't know is whether she was poisoned by oleander."

I couldn't disclose the presence of the oleander in the lip gloss because the police hadn't released that information. But I needed to know whether the poison had come from the plantation. "During your ground tours, did you happen to notice whether any of the oleander bushes had been tampered with?"

He shook his head. "I only focus on the lives of the slaves, so I don't really pay attention to the plants. Our groundskeeper, Miles McCarthy, would be the one to ask about that, but he's already left for the day."

"That reminds me, do you know where Scarlett is? Delta said that her last tour would end at three o'clock."

Troy furrowed his brow. "That's weird. Scarlett told me her last tour ended at noon."

"
Cavolo
," I muttered.

"Pardon?"

"Oh, it means 'cabbage.'" I gave a wry smile. "Italians use it like we use 'crap' or 'dang.'"

"If it's any consolation," he began, leaning back in his chair, "I don't think you would have gotten much out of Scarlett today. She was really upset about something."

I leaned forward. "Do you know why?"

"I asked, but she wouldn't say." He shrugged. "She was on edge the whole morning, though. It was like she couldn't wait to get out of here. But who can blame her after everything that's happened?"

I nodded, but I wondered whether her behavior had anything to do with Miles or her warning to me.

Troy glanced at his watch. "Listen, if you don't have any other questions, I need to get back to my research." He sighed. "Unfortunately, that dissertation isn't going to write itself."

I smiled. "Thanks for your help. I'll let you know if I need anything else."

After Troy left, I debated whether to phone Scarlett. But I decided she would be more likely to cooperate if I respected her request not to call her. I would just have to try to talk to her the following morning when I returned with Chandra.

As I stood up to leave, I remembered the courter's candle. I went into the parlor and saw that it had been extinguished. I assumed that Troy had put it out moments before, but something prompted me to touch the wick. It was cold, as was the wax. Someone had put out the flame while we were upstairs. But who?

*  *  *

I reclined on the chaise lounge in my living room and counted the shiny gold
fleurs-de-lis
on my fuzzy, blood-red wallpaper while I waited for Adam to answer the phone. It was the second time I'd tried to call since leaving Oleander Place an hour and a half before, but not even his voice mail was responding. I pressed
end
and tossed my phone to my side, narrowly missing Napoleon.

He leapt to the floor as though I'd thrown it straight at him.

"Napoleon, I did
not
try to hit you with my phone," I chided. "I'm the one who just came home early to let you out, remember?"

He shot me a "whatever" look before settling on the bearskin rug and resting his chin on his front paws. That was his pensive pose.

"So that's the thanks I get? For the record, I should be on my way to Lickalicious Lips right now trying to locate a possible lip gloss poisoner."

Napoleon sighed through his nose.

"And you're not the only one who feels like they're under attack, you know. A psycho-killer sent me a death threat yesterday—okay, so they didn't threaten to
kill
me, but that's beside the point. Meanwhile, Nonna is threatening to send invitations to my non-engagement to Bradley, and Pauline is threatening to tell him about it so she can steal him from me."

Wait. Bradley!
I bolted upright.
Was tonight the night we were having dinner?

I sent a quick text to his cell and then stared at my jagged fingernails and hairy legs. With Pauline lurking in the periphery, I had to go big—not broken and bushy—or go home.

My text tone sounded.
Late meeting. See you at Antoine's in the Quarter at 7? xoxo, B

I looked at the time—five o'clock. I fired off a confirmation reply and fled to my bathroom in a panic.

Two hours and a flurry of plucking, polishing, painting, preening, and perfuming later, I exited my apartment in a fitted (read
unintentionally tight
) red dress and turned to lock the front door.

"Va-va-voom!" Glenda shouted from behind me. "That's some get-up you've got on there, Miss Franki."

I turned and saw Glenda and Veronica walking up the sidewalk. "Speaking of get-ups," I began, noticing that they were both wearing yellow, "you two look like twins."
Albeit in a Danny DeVito-Arnold Schwarzenegger way.

Veronica was beaming with a post-shopping-spree glow. "To celebrate spring, we bought matching sundresses."

"Um, yeah," I said as I tried but failed to see the similarities between the two dresses beyond their color. Veronica's was a sleeveless Diane von Fürstenberg, while Glenda's was more like a crotchless Dita Von Teese. And there was no way to compare the plunging neckline of Glenda's dress to Veronica's V-neck, unless the
v
stood for "vagina."