Prosecco Pink (22 page)

"Look, I said I don't have an alibi, all right?" he yelled.

Adam was starting to try my patience. "Listen, we're just trying to get to the bottom of this case before anyone else is killed. Obviously, you don't have to talk to us because we're not the police. But I can tell you that refusal to cooperate only makes you look like a more appealing suspect."

"That's odd," he said in mock bemusement. "Because I have been cooperating, and yet I seem to be everyone's prime suspect." He yanked open his car door.

"Wait," Veronica said, making a clicking sound as she ran around his car in her heels.

He rested his arm on the car door. "I'm kind of in a hurry."

Using her signature manipulation move that I'd nicknamed the
bat and twirl,
Veronica immediately began batting her eyelashes and twisting a lock of her golden hair around her index finger. "Could we please just ask you one more question?" She stepped closer to him, opened her cornflower-blue eyes extra wide, and gave one last bat. "Pretty please?"

Adam softened like butter on a sweltering summer day. "What do you want to know?"

"Whether you've ever used oleander or belladonna in your products," she replied sweetly.

"Or elsewhere," I hurried to add.

He shook his head in frustration as he looked up at the sky. "They're highly toxic plants that have no use in cosmetics. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have somewhere to be."

Before Veronica or I could respond, Adam got into his Corvette and hit the gas. The car spun toward the curb and ran up on the sidewalk—narrowly missing a bodybuilder with a blond brush cut who was carrying a giant frozen margarita and wearing a wife beater that read "Keep Calm and Carry a Go-Cup"—before righting itself and speeding down St. Peter. The bodybuilder kept on walking, either too drunk or too calm to react.

Veronica removed her Gucci sunglasses. "What do you make of that exit?"

"Well, a) the Corvette is too much car for the chemist, and b) he didn't answer the question."

"He didn't, did he?" She rested the tip of her sunglasses on her lower lip. "Do you think he really had somewhere he needed to go?"

"He just wanted to get away from us," I said, as we began walking up St. Peter. "The question is why."

*  *  *

I looked at David out of the corner of my eye and smirked. He had a swagger in his step as he strutted down the musty corridor of Monroe Hall, presumably because he was a sophomore in a freshman dorm and because he had an older woman, i.e., me, at his side.

"Yo, Shor-tay!" David cried as he high-fived a skinny, five-foot-tall kid wearing orthodontic headgear.

I held my bag against my chest as we continued down the hall. "Is this the vassal's floor?"

"Someone's ready to party," he observed with a wink.

"Actually, I'm ready to have some answers about Corinne's case," I replied. But that was only partially true. The fact was that walking past the hormonal teenaged males milling in the hallway made me uneasy. Although I was modestly dressed in white Capri pants and a sleeveless turquoise shirt, you'd have thought I was wearing one of Glenda's stripper costumes. Every time I passed a boy, his beady, sex-starved eyes bore into my exposed flesh like lasers, or, given the context, like Star Trek phasers.

David stopped at an open doorway and gave a chivalrous bow. "After you, Ms. Amato."

When I entered the vassal's room, I expected to see a dorm-sized version of the set of "The Big Bang Theory." But the small space was so jam-packed with electronics that it looked more like the inside of a Best Buy, and it had that same plastic, new technology smell too. I glanced at a group of gamers gathered around a video console. "Where's the vassal?"

No sooner had I asked than the bathroom door opened and the vassal emerged. He was in full party mode—the top button of his plaid shirt was undone, and his bangs were hanging loose on his forehead. "Welcome," he said with a casual nod. "Can I get you a drink from the cooler?"

I eyed a nearby ice chest full of Mountain Dew Game Fuel. "Um, I really don't have much time. I'd rather just get to the video, if you don't mind."

"Not at all." He took a seat in the replica of Emperor Palpatine's throne that was facing his computer. "Give me a minute to pull it up."

While the vassal searched for the file, I studied a silver, crystal-studded sword mounted on the brick wall above his computer. "Is that from
Game of Thrones
?"

David's jaw dropped.

"Harry Potter," the vassal corrected in a hushed tone. "It's an authentic recreation of Godric Gryffindor's sword."

I rested my hand on his shoulder. "You
do
know that there was no Godric Gryffindor, don't you?"

The vassal scrutinized me with his slack-jawed stare. Then he turned away and cleared his throat. "So, both of the video files were altered."

I felt like I'd just won the lottery. "How do you know?"

He pointed to the bottom right on the screen. "You can tell by looking at the time stamp." He clicked the play arrow. "But first, just watch this clip from April 12th."

I leaned in and saw Corinne standing at her teller station. She handed a customer some cash and a receipt and then turned to look at the female teller at the next station, which was about three feet to her right. The teller said something, and Corinne walked over to her.

"Is there audio?" David asked.

The vassal shook his head. "But I think the woman is saying that something's wrong with her computer."

I watched as Corinne and the woman knelt down and pulled a tower computer from beneath the counter. Corinne jiggled one of the computer cables, and then she stood up and smiled before returning to her own station.

The vassal clicked pause.

I frowned. "I didn't see anything unusual in that clip."

"That's because whoever edited the video made clean cuts," he explained. "Now I'm going to slow it down, and I want you to watch the last two digits on the time stamp. They represent the seconds."

I nodded. The time stamp read 11:32:01 AM when the vassal clicked play. I kept my eyes glued to the
seconds
column.

"There!" David shouted. "Dude, it jumped by like thirty seconds."

"I saw it too," I said, struggling to contain my excitement. "At 11:32:19 AM, when Corinne was checking the cable, the time jumped to 11:32:49 AM."

"Right," the vassal said. "So your friend was probably at the woman's computer for another thirty seconds before she got up and walked back to her station."

"Which was enough time for someone to grab some cash from her drawer," I concluded. "What about the video from April 16th?"

"Same thing," the vassal replied. He opened the file and clicked play. "Someone edited out twenty-five seconds."

In the next clip, Corinne again went over to the teller station on her right, this time to see a customer's baby. I watched as she, the other teller, and the proud mother smiled and cooed at the infant. And then I saw another woman appear briefly in the bottom left corner of the screen. "Stop the video!"

The vassal jumped so high that his head hit the curved roof of his throne.

"What did you see?" David asked.

I motioned for him to wait. "Replay that, please, and slowly."

The vassal rubbed his head as he restarted the video.

I held my breath as I squinted at the screen. About thirty seconds into the clip, I saw Pauline's long, silky hair obscuring her face as she straightened some magazines in a waiting area near the teller stations. She glanced furtively through her hair toward Corinne and the others and then disappeared from view. "Did you see that woman?"

Both David and the vassal nodded, their tongues practically hanging out of their mouths.

"Never mind," I said with an eye roll. There was no point in discussing what I'd seen with the boys. I had what I needed, sort of. I could now go to Corinne and show her when the money was taken from her drawer, I just couldn't identify who did it.

Of course, I knew that Pauline was the culprit, especially after seeing her pretending to tidy up the waiting area in the second clip—something I was quite sure she would never lower herself to do without an ulterior motive. But there was no way I could prove it to anyone, and especially not to Bradley. He didn't want anything to do with me, much less with video I'd stolen from his bank. And even if I did summon up the courage to show him the clips, I wouldn't put it past Pauline to accuse Corinne of altering them to eliminate herself as a suspect.

The time had come to get someone at Brehman Bank to talk to me about Pauline, and by any means necessary. Because I was no longer dealing with a hard-hearted hussy—I had a cold-blooded criminal on my hands.

At four o'clock on the dot, I pushed open the door to Private Chicks and marched into my office. It was bad enough that I was working on a Saturday, but because David had driven me to the party, I'd lost precious Pauline investigation time while I waited for him and the vassal to finish a very un-rousing game of Scrabble—played entirely in Klingon, I might add. To add insult to injury, Bradley still hadn't returned my text. So, I was probably going to be working a lot more Saturdays unless I could prove that his super secretary was a stellar stealer, which is precisely what I was going to do.

I woke up my computer and set about tracking down a Brehman Bank manager. I couldn't find the name of a single employee on the website. Then I did a Google search and found several of the managers' profiles on LinkedIn. I wanted to send them an InMail, but I could hardly tell them that I was a PI investigating a possible embezzler. I tapped my Leaning Tower of Pisa necklace charm on my teeth as I pondered how to proceed.

My best option, I reasoned, was to make myself look like an enticing client. Because PIs were notoriously cash poor, I changed my LinkedIn job profile to
finance entrepreneur.
It wasn't a total lie since I was always trying to come up with creative ways to manage my money (around two hundred dollars) and my credit (ahem, debt). Then I sent each of the managers a message saying that I had questions about investment funds, omitting the minor detail that I wanted to know whether one of their former employees had ever stolen said funds.

Feeling rather pleased with my progress, I texted Corinne and asked her to call me when she had a minute.

Next, I switched gears and googled belladonna. A Wikipedia reference popped up first, but I wanted something academic. I scanned the search results and was surprised to see belladonna listed on a botany site, since the name had a synthetic ring to it, like
ecstasy
or
spice.
I clicked the link and saw an image of a plant with purple bell-shaped flowers and blueberry-like berries that was labeled
atropa belladonna
. According to the article, this plant was one of the most toxic in the world.

"Just like oleander," I observed.

I resumed reading and learned that belladonna was a shade plant native to parts of Europe, North Africa, and Asia, but it was naturalized to moist climates in North America.

"New Orleans is nothing if not moist," I muttered. And then I bolted upright in my chair. What if belladonna was being grown at Oleander Place? If so, that would point the finger away from Adam and squarely at Miles.

I was going to have to pay an early evening visit to the plantation to look for the plant away from Miles' prying eyes. But even if I did find it on the grounds, that wouldn't tell me why it was used to kill Ivanna. Oleander made a kind of sick sense given the killer's obvious obsession with Evangeline. But belladonna?

I looked back at the article, and a sentence got my attention.
Belladonna has a long history of use as a medicine, cosmetic, and poison
.

"A cosmetic," I breathed. The medical examiner had reported that Ivanna was healthy at the time of her death, so I could rule out the medicinal use of belladonna. And given Ivanna's education and line of work, I knew she wouldn't be caught dead—pardon the expression—using makeup that would kill her. But what if the killer had used a cosmetic to kill the cosmetics CEO? It would make sense, and it would also point the finger right at Adam.

Or maybe at Ruth? No, she was so blunt she would've called me and told me she'd murdered Ivanna. And then she would've called the police and demanded to know why they were taking so long to arrest her.

I rested my elbows on the desk and massaged my temples. Until I found the source of the belladonna, I was at a standstill in this case.

My "Baby Got Back" ringtone sounded from inside my bag. Hoping it was Bradley, I grabbed my phone and looked at the display. "Hey, Corinne," I answered, deflated. "Thanks for calling."

"But of course," she said. "I am on a break at work, so I do not have much time. Is everysing okay? I haven't seen you at ze bank in a few days."

I couldn't tell her I'd been banned from the premises, because I knew she'd feel responsible when she found out why. "Bradley and I had an argument," I fibbed. And then I added a flat out lie. "I'd rather not see him right now."

"I am sorry, Franki. But if you need to come in, he is not here at ze moment. He just left to take Pauline home."

I felt a pang of jealousy. "What happened to her car?"

"Oh, zey came to work togezer zis morning."

That pang turned into a stab.

"Because zey went to New York yesterday for a meeting," she hurried to add.

And spent the night
, I thought as
Psycho
-style stabs pierced my gut. I unclenched my teeth and asked in a forced casual tone, "So, where does Pauline live? I'm just curious."

"In Faubourg Marigny."

"That's the artsy neighborhood below the French Quarter, right?"

"
Oui
, ze locals call it ze Marigny Triangle."

The whooping of a battleship attack alarm sounded as the word
triangle
echoed in my brain. Whether it had anything to do with the Three of Cups card or not, that was one too many triangles for my liking. Pauline was clearly on the offensive. I needed to counterattack, and quick.