Red Beans and Vice (19 page)

“I’m sure I wasn’t out the front door before the poor bird was in the Dumpster,” Heaven said. “I tried to tell
them there was probably a law against killing wildlife in a preserve like that. They said it was against the law to kill wildlife in the projects, too, but that never stopped anyone. They got a big kick out of that.”

“Heaven, I wouldn’t usually suggest a retreat, but after what you’ve just told me, the bump and run on Sunday and this thing today, why don’t you go back to Kansas City while you still can?”

Heaven sighed and wondered why Amelia wanted to get rid of her. “I plan to do that soon. But the funeral is tomorrow…” She took a long drink. “Anyway, did your researcher have any luck finding out who owned those condos around the convent?”

Amelia nodded. “Of course, honey. We know how to get information out of the city.” She held out a list of names. “But I have to tell you, none of these names rang a bell with me.”

Heaven looked at the printout. “I was hoping they were all owned by the same person or corporation. Damn.” She folded up the sheet of paper and stuck it in her purse. “Well, thank you anyway.”

“I know where you were going. Greedy real estate developers. But why would they pick on the old convent if they wanted the newer one?” Amelia asked.

“Good question, but one that isn’t pertinent if there isn’t an owner in common to some of this real estate. I’m just trying to do some busywork to keep Mary satisfied. She thinks that Truely was killed as part of the plot against the nuns, that he was just unlucky, that the bad guys would have taken anyone.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think that’s possible. I also think it’s possible that someone wanted to kill Truely, staged that explosion
down the street so there would be confusion and slipped my Global in between his ribs when the rest of us were out on the sidewalk.”

“On purpose,” Amelia said quietly as she thought over the two possibilities.

“Very much on purpose,” Heaven said. “Enough. Do you want to split a muffalata?”

“I’d like that,” Amelia replied.

A
hand shot out of the crowd and touched Heaven’s arm. “I hear this is one of your concoctions.” It was Nancy Blair. “It sure is good. What’s it called?”

“Nancy, I bet you’ve had this before. It’s an Italian dessert called Tiramisu, which means ‘lift me up.’ The caffeine in the coffee and the chocolate does the lifting, I guess. I thought we needed a dish made with coffee, in honor of Truely.”

“Poor old Truely. You don’t believe that crap about Truely being just a random victim of whoever was harassing the nuns, do you?”

Heaven’s heart leaped. “No, I don’t. Do you know something I don’t?”

“I know bullshit when I hear it. I don’t for a minute think someone just picked Truely out of the crowd. In fact, whatever is going on with the sisters, it hasn’t been violent if we don’t count Truely, and I don’t.”

Heaven looked around at the crowded room. They were back at the Whittens’ for the after-funeral meal.
“Two things. It may not have been violence per se, but whoever wrote all those hate letters just to shake up the chefs was a very sick individual. I think a person like that could kill someone. Second thing: I agree with you. I don’t think Truely’s murder had anything to do with the place he was killed.”

Nancy Blair shook her head. “You’re wrong there, Heaven. I think the culprit did kill Truely at that party on purpose because they knew it would be ascribed to whoever was causing the trouble for the nuns.”

Heaven smiled. “Good point. But why are we the only ones that seem to be tracking with this thing?”

Nancy looked around the room nonchalantly as she talked, her eyes darting from group to group. “The police department is made up mostly of men, even today. It was always a great boon to my business that my customers were men because it’s so much easier to hoodwink them than women. And the police have had several murders since Truely’s on Saturday night. We only have to think about this one.”

“I’d love to talk to you about this some more,” Heaven said.

“Lunch tomorrow at Commander’s Palace. Shall we say one?” Nancy Blair glided on to the next collection of well-coiffed, well-lit, mourners.

The funeral had been grand and long. Heaven had excused herself from the chore of going to the cemetery by volunteering to come back to the house and make sure everything was ready for the hordes, that they had plenty of booze available and the food out on the table. She was getting the idea that in New Orleans, funerals and all the events surrounding them were perfectly legitimate social occasions. St. Louis Cathedral had been
full of people dressed to the nines. Now the house was vibrating with only slightly subdued voices telling tales about Truely and gossip about each other.

Heaven was impressed with the generosity of Truely and Mary’s friends. The food had started pouring in the day before the funeral. A whole country ham would just appear on the porch with a note. Turkeys and briskets, the linchpin of Midwestern funeral meals, were nowhere to be found on the long dining room table. In their place were big platters of Jambalaya and crawfish. Shrimp créole, a dish that Heaven had almost forgotten about, was emitting a wonderful aroma from a big silver chafing dish. A bowl of South Carolina rice sat beside it, each kernel separated perfectly from the next. Stacks of muffalata sandwiches had been delivered from Central Grocery early that morning. The entire sideboard was filled with sweet things: pralines and sweet potato pie and chocolate cake and Heaven’s Tiramisu. Elegant china and heavy silver flatware had been laid out. It was no wonder they’d needed extra staff to get ready. Everything sparkled. Heaven had to remind herself that someone had been killed to bring all these party lovers together.

All of a sudden, Will Tibbets had Heaven by the elbow and was steering her out the open French doors onto the gallery. There were plenty of people out there as well, sitting on all the beautiful wicker furniture, eating and drinking. Will slipped his arm around Heaven’s waist and squeezed her. “Thank you.”

Heaven rested her hand on Will’s shoulder for a minute. When she realized what she was doing she jerked her hand quickly away, like she’d been burned. “For what?”

“For being here for Mary Beth, or Mary as you like to call her. As long as she’s been living here, I think she still feels like the outsider.”

Heaven stepped back and found a chair to sink into. Will sat down effortlessly on the porch beside her, crossing his legs and not spilling a drop of his drink. “Will, you all think folks who came here way before the Civil War are newcomers to the area. Of course Mary would feel like an outsider after a mere eighteen or twenty years,” Heaven said. “By the way, now that Truely is buried, we have to talk.”

“I can feel another attack of the detective coming on,” Will said, pulling at the edge of Heaven’s very short black skirt. “Can’t you take some thin’ for this problem of yours?”

“What problem is that, wanting to find out the truth about Truely’s death?” Heaven pulled his hand away from her skirt.

Will grinned and wrapped his arm around Heaven’s leg. “I sure do love these black stockings you got on today. You have good legs, sugar.”

Heaven pushed his hand off. “Go ahead. Change the subject. But you must have some ideas about who killed your friend.”

Will stood up just as gracefully as he’d gotten down. “When I say that Truely had no known enemies, I really mean it. That’s why I keep thinking it had something to do with the sisters. I’m not talking that way just to make you irritated, sugar.”

Heaven waved her hands at him dismissively. “Oh, you know you love irritating me. Now go away. I need to think.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Will said as he patted Heaven’s head and went back through the French doors.

Heaven sat and listened to snatches of conversation swirling from each side of the open doors. Laughter sounded on the other side of the porch. A fork clanged, falling on the wooden floor in the dining room. You would have thought Truely had passed quietly in his sleep for all the concern she heard about his violent end from this crowd. The benefit for the art museum next week was much more of a topic of conversation. Did these people have no interest in finding out what had happened? Perhaps there was some unwritten code that murder was not to be discussed until after the victim had been interred twenty-four hours. There certainly was plenty of codified behavior in the South, and New Orleans was so special, so unique, it wouldn’t surprise Heaven at all if everyone in there drinking Truely’s booze already knew who did it and they were just waiting until the “correct” moment to clue in the police and maybe, if she was good, Heaven, too.

The only problem was that Heaven just couldn’t wait. She got up and ran up the stairs to her room, grabbed her purse, her raincoat, and her cell phone, and slipped out without saying anything to Mary.

In just a few minutes she was standing by the fence that surrounded the outdoor loading area of the Pan-American Coffee Company. The warehouse and the plant were closed today to honor Truely. On her visit here the day before with Mary, Heaven had noticed a loose piece of fencing when she’d been talking to the man taking the samples from the bags of coffee. The chain link wasn’t connected properly down at the bottom where the fence turned a corner. She’d meant to tell Mary to have it repaired, and she would, after she was done using it.

Heaven took one more look around. The warehouse
next to Truely’s was facing the opposite direction. The parking lot of that warehouse was on the other side of the building as well, so without the coffee employees around, there was no one in sight, except people on ships on the river and they surely wouldn’t be paying attention to her. She put on the raincoat, lay down on the ground, pushed the loose metal fencing up, threw her purse through the opening, and rolled herself under in an almost neat, fluid movement. One of her high heels got caught in the holes of the fence but it was easily retrieved, and she got a hole in her dark stockings, thigh high, but it didn’t seem to be spreading. Heaven took off the raincoat and shook it. She hadn’t changed out of her funeral clothes for fear of attracting attention leaving the house in tights and a tee shirt. She was in a short black skirt, black knit top, black leather jacket and the opaque black stockings and Italian high heels. It was more of a New York outfit than a New Orleans one, but it was all the black clothes she had with her and she had stupidly thought black would be the dress of the day. Little did she know that the locals wear their pastels to a funeral. She dusted herself off, put her shoe back on, and headed inside with the coat over her shoulder; if she was lucky that is, and could get inside.

Heaven had briefly considered going into Mary’s purse and stealing her keys. But who knew if she was carrying around the keys to Truely’s business? She might have stuck them in a drawer somewhere. They could still be on Truely’s dresser. Mix all those possibilities with the fact that Heaven wouldn’t know the keys to the warehouse from a hole in the ground, and she’d decided to wing it.

Beside the large sliding doors that were usually open to the inside of the warehouse, there was a standard sized
door for use going in and out during inclement weather, when the big doors were closed. Heaven thought there was a chance that smaller door might be unlocked. It wasn’t. She stood and jiggled it for a minute.

She and Mary had talked about the fact that the place didn’t have an alarm system, that they left big piles of coffee beans out in the yard, as they called this covered outdoor wharf area. Theft had never been a problem for Truely as the burglars of New Orleans didn’t seem to be into roasting their own coffee beans. Now Heaven was sorry she’d fussed at Mary about tighter security. Mary must have said something to the work crew about locking the place up tight.

Heaven dug around in her purse. She knew there was a bent paper clip down in the bottom somewhere that she used on her computer when it froze up. She found it, and also a credit card and a hairpin. She fiddled around and discovered, to her delight, that picking a simple lock like this one wasn’t so hard. It wasn’t a dead bolt. Heaven stepped inside the warehouse and dropped her coat by the door.

She had no idea why she’d been compelled to come here today or what exactly she was looking for. But she’d been thinking about what people killed for and it was money and hurt feelings most of the time. What combination of those two had done Truely in?

She now had a half-baked theory. After all, coffee beans came from exotic places that also grew other more illegal plants. Although she couldn’t imagine that the United States Customs Service wasn’t totally hip to the geographical relationship between Colombian coffee and Colombian cocaine, maybe there was something else that could be smuggled in that wouldn’t be quite
so obvious. She knew they had lots of emeralds in Columbia. Maybe Truely was involved in the gem smuggling game.