Keepsake Crimes (11 page)

Carmela tried to gather up the worst of the shredded paper while Boo followed behind her at a safe distance. The little dog was looking decidedly guilty. A shred of green plastic clung to her lower lip, snippets of newspaper were caught between her toes.

“That little dog works so fast I bet she could get a job shredding documents at a Swiss bank,” volunteered Ava, determined to cheer Carmela up.

Carmela didn’t answer.

“Look,” said Ava, snatching up some of the shredded paper, “I think Boo might have even torn up Bufford Maple’s column.” Ava put her hand atop Boo’s furry brow and petted her gently. “Good girl, you still love your daddy lots, don’t you?”

“Don’t,” Carmela warned.

“Carmela,” said Ava, finally, “you need to seriously chill out. Stay home, put your feet up, have a glass of wine.
Good
wine. Maybe even get a little snockered if you feel like it. And try to forget about all this stuff, because it’s not worth worrying your head over. You know as well as I do that excessive worry only leads to crow’s-feet. And you are far too young to begin a costly and somewhat tedious regimen of Botox or laser resurfacing.”

“Ava,” said Carmela, turning to face her. “I’m at the point where I’m not so sure Shamus is innocent anymore.” There was a note of desperation in her voice. “I want to
believe
he is, but there is some very negative energy swirling around.”

“Mn-hm,” agreed Ava. “That there is. And you are certainly in need of a walloping dose of
gris gris
.”
Gris gris
was the term for good luck. “But I don’t think white candles and herbs in velvet bags are gonna do it,
chérie
.”

“Neither do I,” said Carmela. She paused dejectedly and thought for a moment. “Ava, you know as well as I do that Shamus is hotheaded as all get out. And he was seen arguing with Jimmy Earl Clayton. Seen, apparently, by a lot of people. What would that suggest to you?”

“That Shamus is hotheaded and ill-tempered?” said Ava. She sauntered over to the trash can, lifted the lid, and stuffed a glut of papers inside. “No surprises there. You
knew
all that when you married the man, right? Now what you
really
got to figure out is
why
somebody wanted Jimmy Earl Clayton out of the way. You’ve got to look for motive.” Ava paused. “Did Shamus have motive?”

Carmela gave serious consideration to Ava’s question. “I really don’t think so.”

Ava threw her hands in the air. “There you go. Then he’s probably innocent.”

“Right,” said Carmela, grabbing Boo’s collar and giving her a tug. “But who’s the nasty fruitcake who did away with Jimmy Earl?”

“That, my dear,” said Ava, “is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

 

 

ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR THEORIES HOLDS
that Jambalaya is directly descended from the rice dish,
paella
, which was brought to New Orleans by the Spanish. Over the years, Cajuns, Creoles, African Americans, Haitians, French, and just about everyone else in and around New Orleans fell in love with and adopted that steamy, spicy rice dish. They improved it, fiddled with it, and created endless varieties of rice until it finally evolved into the unique delta staple that’s known today as jambalaya.

As a rule, jambalaya contains a savory mixture of andouille sausage, crawfish, shrimp, and chicken. But jambalaya can actually be made from any combination of the aforementioned ingredients. What’s
really
indispensable, of course, are spices. Tabasco sauce, pepper, garlic, fresh parsley, thyme, and chili powder are
de rigueur
, with liberal amounts of onions and bell peppers tossed in as well.

For the last forty minutes Carmela had been dancing around her kitchen, chopping, blanching, peeling, coring, seeding, and dicing. She was bound and determined to give her mind a rest from the debacle of Jimmy Earl Clayton’s murder and the nasty accusations that seemed to be piling up against Shamus. Cooking seemed as good a refuge as any.

Now she was ready to simmer most of her ingredients atop the stove in a large pan for an hour or so. Then, once everything was tender and aromatic, she’d toss in the seafood and sausage and finish the whole dish off for another thirty minutes. And, per her momma’s stern advice, she would scrupulously avoid
stirring
the rice dish toward the end of the cooking process so it for sure wouldn’t lump up.

As the big blue enamel kettle hissed and burped atop the stove, Carmela
did
help herself to a glass of wine. She yanked the cork from a nice crisp bottle of Chardonnay she’d lifted from Shamus’s private stash before she left.

Grasping her glass of wine, Carmela poured out a cup of dry dog food for Boo, topped it with a dollop of cottage cheese, then finally settled into her wicker easy chair. Even though she’d vowed not to let herself get overwrought about this whole mess, she found her thoughts once again turning toward the man who had once made her life seem joyful and rich, then had haphazardly turned everything ass over teakettle: Shamus Allan Meechum.

Good lord but the man was maddening! And to skip out on her as he had. What had been his plan, anyway? Keep your fingers crossed behind your back when you mumble the old marriage vows, then hit the fast-forward button? Hold everything, whatever happened to the pause button?

Maybe she should be glad Shamus was up to his arm-pits in trouble. Glad he was getting some form of comeuppance for his reckless ways.

And did she honestly believe that Shamus was involved in Jimmy Earl Clayton’s demise? Well, she’d be the first to admit it didn’t look good. Shamus
did
have a famously hot temper, that was for sure. And certain events in his life
had
proved that Shamus wasn’t always a colossally clear-headed thinker or was immune from acting the fool.

There had been that silly business about stashing a goat in the dean’s office when he was a senior at Tulane. In addition to consuming a perfectly good leather couch, the goat had committed a nasty indiscretion on the dean’s Aubusson carpet. Besides rating a couple inches in the newspaper, that goat incident had almost kept Shamus from being admitted to graduate school. But then his family had stepped in. God forbid the pride of the Meechum clan didn’t continue on and earn his MBA.

There had also been some problem with a belly dancer from Meterie that Shamus had hired for Joe Bud Kerney’s bachelor party. Besides her penchant for Casbah-style dancing, Miss Meterie also had a nasty little habit of picking pockets. So, while she’d been charming her audience with the dance of the seven veils, she’d also been pocketing Rolexes and pinching Diners Club cards.

Shamus had also been involved in something a few months ago, just before he’d walked out on her. Carmela recalled hearing Shamus on the telephone, angry and insistent, telling Seth Barstow, one of Crescent City Bank’s corporate lawyers, to
handle it. It
being something that had to do with construction loans and land zoning. She’d asked Shamus what the heck was going on, but he’d never made her privy to any of the details. Again, his family had swooped in and supposedly taken care of things. The big fix, as he always called it.

Will they be able to fix things this time?
Carmela wondered.

That would remain to be seen.

 

 

THUMBING THROUGH A CATALOG OF RUBBER
stamp art, enjoying her steaming bowl of jambalaya, Carmela had finally been able to calm down. In fact, she was determined to look ahead and plan for the future, especially when it came to her little store, Memory Mine. She was particularly excited by the variety of decorative rubber stamps that were available: fanciful stamps depicting trailing vines, elegant picture frames, fans, filmy summer dresses blowing on hangers, tiny ballet slippers, filigree designs, and teacups.

All would lend delightful extra touches to wedding and anniversary scrapbooks and would also be perfect should her customers decide to create invitations for engagement parties, baby showers, and such.

Just as Carmela was imagining how a pair of doves would work on a sheet of soft blue-flecked paper with a deckled edge, the phone rang.

She kicked the footstool out of the way, hoping for a telemarketer to take her excess energy out on.

“Carmela,” came a rough purr.

“Where are you?” asked Carmela.

“Can’t say, darlin’.”

“You mean you
can’t
say because you’ve somehow lost your memory and are wandering around the parishes of Louisiana in a delirium, or you
won’t
say?”

There was quiet laughter. “Your phone could be tapped.”

Darn Shamus,
Carmela thought to herself,
why does he have to go and act all spooky and mysterious? Like he’s playing Mission Impossible or something.

“This isn’t a game, Shamus. And my phone isn’t tapped. Where are you?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Why?” said Carmela, feeling her blood pressure begin to inch up. “Because I just won the lottery, Shamus. A hundred million dollars. And I want to give you half.
Helloooo
. Why do you
think
I want to know?” Carmela hissed. “Because last time I looked, I was still your
wife,
that’s why. Even though half of my queen-sized bed is decidedly unoccupied.” She paused. “And because, Shamus, whether you want to admit it or not, you’re in deep doo-doo.”

“I know, darlin,’ that’s why I called. I don’t want you to worry.”

“Worry?” said Carmela. She suddenly shifted the tone of her voice. “Why would I worry?”

“Because you worry about everything,” laughed Shamus.

“I do not,” said Carmela, indignant now.

“Of course you do. You used to worry about the baby birds that fell out of their nests in the oak tree out back. I came home once and you were using this teeny tiny little eyedropper to—”

“That’s different,” said Carmela. “Those were creatures.”

“Listen, honey,” said Shamus. “If you need to get in touch with me, you just get a message to a guy named Ned Toler. He owns a boat place out in the Barataria Bayou, in a little village called Baptiste Creek. If you bring him a six-pack of Dixie Beer, he’ll know it’s really you.”

“Where are you going to be?” asked Carmela.

“Around,” said Shamus. “But don’t worry.” There was a sharp
click
, and the line went dead.

Sprinting across the room, Carmela grabbed for her purse, then threw herself back in her easy chair. She dug for her address book, fumbled for the phone number of his family’s camp house, then punched the number into the phone, determined to call him back,
finish
this conversation once and for all.

But the phone out there just rang and rang. She could picture it, an old black enamel wall phone, hanging on the wooden wall of the two-room camp house that sat on stilts above sluggish brown green water.

Probably Shamus wasn’t staying there anymore, Carmela decided.

G
LORY Meechum was a woman who still put a great deal of faith in girdles. Nice, durable, reinforced panty girdles designed to smooth out unsightly blips and bulges and carefully encase both thighs.

Glory Meechum also had a penchant for floral-print dresses. Not demure daisies or elegant roses but big, splotchy prints of indeterminate floral and fauna origin. Certainly not as nature had intended.

When Carmela looked out the window Friday morning and saw Glory Meechum steamrolling down Governor Nicholls Street, headed straight for Memory Mine, her first thought was that Shamus’s older sister looked like an overstuffed parlor chair.

Then the door flew open, and Glory Meechum exploded inward. Plunking her sturdy black leather Queen-of-England-style purse on the front counter, Glory planted chubby hands on Lycra-encased hips.

“You’ve got to help me!” she wailed loudly at Carmela.

Keenly aware that both Baby and Tandy were sitting at the back table and that Gabby was close by in the storeroom, Carmela willed herself to stifle any unseemly urge to giggle. The idea of Glory Meechum coming to
her
for help was over-the-top ridiculous. Glory had barely even been present at their wedding ceremony and her thinly veiled dislike for Carmela had always hung between them.

Carmela also made up her mind to handle Glory with a fair amount of decorum and try her very best to forestall any shouting match that might threaten to erupt. On Glory’s part, not hers.

“Glory, what’s wrong?” Carmela asked with as much civility as she could muster.

Glory fixed beady, bright eyes on Carmela. “That nasty little Granger Rathbone came looking for Shamus yesterday. Poking his nose into things over at the house.”

The
house
Glory was referring to was one of three elegant manses in the Garden District that were owned by the Meechum family. According to the Meechum family’s whims, these houses were allowed to be occupied by whomever was most recently married in the family or needed a place to live. Not necessarily in that order and certainly not a family dictum that had ever applied to Carmela.

“Well, have you seen him?” Glory demanded.

Carmela shook her head regretfully. “No. Sorry.”

“Have you
talked
to him?”

Carmela hesitated. “No,” she said finally.
If Shamus wants to talk to his sister, he’ll call her, right?

Glory Meechum threw her hands up in the air, exhaled a gush of air through her nostrils. Her sigh emerged as a distinct snort. “Then, where in heaven’s name
is
he?” Glory demanded.