Prosecco Pink (25 page)

I shoved my phone into my bra and realized that Captain Hook's real-life twin was checking me out, or rather, the burn in my skirt.

He gave me a lusty wink. "Mind if I fire me cannon through yer porthole?"

I arched a brow and considered pulling the cord. But instead I heaved my hulking skirt to one side, stepped around him, and then let it rip, so to speak. Next I heard the sounds of shattering glass and a table overturning.
Time to set sail
.

I scoured the motley crew for Glenda.

"Put me down!" Glenda mock-protested.

I looked up and saw her grinning from ear to ear as a brawny buccaneer hoisted her onto his shoulder. "Hey Glenda, we need to leave," I shouted. "Kristy's at another bar, and I might have just maimed a guy with your dress."

"Oh, sugar," she whined as she slid languidly down the length of the buccaneer's body to the floor. "It's just starting to get fun."

"Why don't you stay here?" I asked with a little too much hope in my voice. "I'll be back in an hour or so."

Glenda looked not-so-coyly at her boisterous buccaneer. "Wanna drop anchor in my lagoon?"

On that sour note, I hiked up my hoop skirt and fled. I took the exit at a run, so I was able to get out of Jean Lafitte's unassisted. Once outside, I tried to jog—okay, speed walk—the distance to Pirate's Alley, but my dress was literally dragging me down.

When I got to the café fifteen minutes later, I was out of steam and, I feared, out of time.

Grasping either side of the entrance doorjamb, I catapulted myself inside, knocking a woman flat on her back in the process. "Hey! Why don't you watch where you're going in that thing?"

"I'm so sorry," I said, reaching over my skirt to help her up. "This costume should be a registered weapon."

She picked up her tricorne and brushed her long brown hair from her eyes.

I recognized her face immediately—that and the coral-pink, emerald-cut diamond ring on her right hand. "Kristy Patterson?"

She jutted out her chin. "Who wants to know?"

Spoken like a true rogue
, I thought.
Or a New Yorker
. "I'm Franki Amato," I said, extracting a business card from my bra à la Chandra. "I'm investigating two murders that took place at the Oleander Place plantation, and I'd like to ask you some questions, if you don't mind."

"Dammit!" she yelled, kicking the wall. "I knew I shouldn't have come back to NOLA."

A thirty-something male in a velvet waistcoat and foppish feather hat walked up behind her. "What happened?"

Her face hardened. "Delta Dupré gave my name to the cops. You
know
she told them that I single-handedly killed those women."

"No," I objected, stunned to learn that Delta and Kristy had a history. "You're not a police suspect in the murders as far as I know. I just want to talk to you about the pink diamond that your ancestor Beau gave to Evangeline Lacour. I think it might be key to the investigation."

"All right," she began as she put her pirate hat on her head, "but let's grab a seat at the bar. I'm going to need another drink to rehash this sordid story."

"We need a round of absinthe over here," Kristy called, waving at a bartender.

My eyes zeroed in on the pink diamond as it reflected the lights that adorned the miniature pirate ship above the bar. "First I have to ask the obvious question—is that the Lacour diamond?"

She looked at her ring. "Don't I wish. Beau bought this to remember Evangeline by after she died."

That was quite a romantic gesture for a ruthless pirate. Maybe I had the swashbuckling types figured all wrong. "What do you think happened to the original?"

Kristy placed her tricorne on the counter. "My family and I are positive that it's still in Evangeline's hiding place, wherever that is."

I glanced at a skull perched on a wine rack. "What makes you so sure? A hundred seventy-seven years is a long time for a precious gem to stay hidden."

"Well," she began, crossing her black leather–clad legs, "we have Evangeline's last letter to Beau. She told him that she'd hidden the diamond in the house and that no one knew the location but her."

"I don't know," I said, rubbing my eye. "It just seems like someone would have found it by now, maybe even on accident."

"Some days, I'm inclined to agree with you. But if someone did find the diamond, I really think that we would have heard about it by now."

I wasn't convinced. There were too many cases of famous jewels and paintings that had been "missing" for decades, even centuries, only to turn up in the hands of private collectors.

"Here ye go, me hearties," the bartender boomed as he put two glasses of absinthe in front of Kristy and me.

I watched, fascinated as he placed a slotted spoon with a sugar cube on top over the mouth of each glass, set the cubes on fire, and opened the spigots of an antique water fountain that dripped water on the cubes until they dissolved into the green liquid below. "You know, I probably shouldn't drink on an empty stomach," I said, eyeing the now murky yellow contents of the glass with concern. "Could I get some rum cake to go with that?"

"Aye, aye." He brushed my cheek with his finger. "A wench after me own heart."

I blushed as red as the scarf knotted around his head and turned away to face Kristy. "Did your family ever try to look for the diamond?"

She took a long drink. "To my knowledge, not a one of Beau's descendants has ever made it past the front door of Oleander Place, except for my dad and me."

"Why not?" I asked, stirring the sugar granules in my drink.

She crossed her arms in a defensive posture. "Beau wasn't just the black sheep of his and Knox's family. He's the black sheep of the entire Patterson ancestral line. Knox's people didn't and don't want Beau's people to have anything to do with the plantation or its contents."

"So, how did you and your dad get in?"

"About five years ago, we went out to the plantation to ask Delta if we could help search for the diamond. We made it clear to her that we weren't trying to claim it. We just wanted it to be found for historical record."

"How did Delta react?" I took a swig of the absinthe and grimaced at the taste of anise.

"In a surprise move, she let us search the house. And then the next thing we knew, the police had arrived, and she fabricated this whole story saying that we'd stolen items from the house."

My eyes opened wide. That was a bold move, even for Delta.

"Then, out of nowhere, a cop produced a warrant to search my purse. And surprise, surprise, there were plantation knick knacks in there that I'd never even seen before, much less stolen."

I gasped. Until that moment I had no idea just how far Delta would go to protect her beloved Oleander Place.

"Just wait," Kristy said, touching my arm. "It gets worse."

I couldn't imagine how.

"Delta also claimed that my dad and I had threatened to hurt her if she reported us to the police for stealing. So, on top of two years of probation, we got restraining orders slapped on us."

"And the police never questioned any of it."

"Of course not." Kristy arched an eyebrow. "You know she has police connections through her late husband, right?"

"All too well." I took another sip of my drink, this time grimacing at the memory of Officer Quincy rather than the anise. "So, that's what you meant when you said you knew you shouldn't have come back here."

"Exactly." She tipped her head back and drank all but one sip of her absinthe.

The bartender placed my rum cake in front of me with a saucy wink.

I averted my eyes and cut into my dessert. "What's the Lacour family's involvement in all this? If anyone can claim ownership of that diamond, it's them."

"Well, Evangeline was an only child, and she never had children. So, she doesn't have any direct descendants. To my knowledge, no one from her family has ever come forward."

I swallowed a glob of gooey cake and cut myself another bite. "I wonder how many times Delta has searched the plantation for that diamond."

"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if she never has. Delta doesn't want the diamond to be found."

I stopped in mid-chew. "Why do you say that?"

Kristy shrugged. "Because it adds mystique to the plantation, and where there's mystique, there's money." She took the last gulp of her drink and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. "Delta herself said that a lot of tourists go out there hoping to find the diamond."

"That's interesting," I said, drumming my fingers on the bar. "She never mentioned that to me." I thought about Ivanna and wondered if she were one of those very tourists. "Did Delta happen to mention whether she'd ever caught a tourist looking for it?"

"Not to me, she didn't." She placed her tricorne on her head. "But I can tell you this—I wouldn't want to be that poor bastard."

"Neither would I." I drained the last of my drink. Maybe it was my conversation with Xavier the day before, or maybe it was the alleged mind-altering effect of the absinthe, but whatever it was, I realized that I needed to shift my focus. Instead of trying to verify that Ivanna was after the diamond, I started to consider how Delta would have reacted if she'd perceived Ivanna as a threat to her plantation's main attraction.

*  *  *

When I left Pirate's Alley Café for Jean Lafitte's, I decided to walk up Chartres Street to avoid the partying pirates on Bourbon. Even though it was only five o'clock, I was hoping to convince Glenda to leave soon. I wanted to get out of the Quarter before the marauding turned to mutiny.

After a couple of blocks, I ran into Blackbeard's Ghost and his pirate posse.

"Why look, mateys!" he exclaimed. "It's Gunpowder Glenda's fair friend, the plantation owner's daughter."

Jeez, these pirates are pests
, I thought as I gave a wan smile and walked past them.
If only I had some Britney Spears music to drive them away
.

"Would ye like to join me for a glass of rum, me beauty?" he boomed. "I'll show ye why me Roger is so Jolly!"

Resisting the urge to dust him with my dress, I shot him a shut-your-bung-hole look and crossed to the opposite side of the street.

There was a buzz inside my bodice. I pulled out my phone and looked at the display. Veronica.

"I see you found your phone," I answered. "Have you been sleeping all this time?"

Veronica yawned. "You make it sound like I've been asleep for hours."

"Well, I've been trying to get hold of you for forever," I said accusatorially.

"Um, we had brunch together yesterday."

"Well, a lot has happened since then," I chided.

"Are you actually mad at me for not calling you last night?" she asked in a bewildered tone.

I sniffed. "Kind of. I did get another death threat, after all."

"I can't believe this," she muttered under her breath. "How could I have known about the threat when I didn't have my cell?"

"This isn't just about last night," I snapped. "You've been late, distracted, or MIA for weeks."

Veronica said something, but I didn't hear her because a steaming plate of shrimp pistolettes was beckoning to me from a window at the Original Pierre Maspero's.

"Franki, are you even listening to me?" she demanded.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, tearing myself away from the savory beignets.

"I said," she began tersely, "you haven't been around much either, you know."

"Me?" I was taken aback. "I can't believe you would say that when I've been slaving away on the Jones case."

She snorted. "You mean, when you've been slaving away on the Pauline case."

I gasped. "Veronica, you know Corinne hired me to investigate the thefts at the bank."

"And I also know you've seized on that as an excuse to investigate the personal life of your romantic rival."

"Wait," I said, screeching to a halt in my skirt. "So, now you think that Pauline really is my competition?"

"Gah! You see?" she marveled. "In the middle of an argument, your insecurity about Pauline rears its ugly head. It's like you're obsessed with her or something."

"That's not true."
Somewhat preoccupied, maybe, but not obsessed.

"If you're not going to be honest about this, Franki, then I don't see how we can work through it."

I was stunned by that last remark. Was Veronica talking about our friendship or work or both?

As I stormed down the street searching for the right thing to say, the door of K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen swung closed and caught the back of my dress. I turned to free my skirt and saw Bradley sitting at a table. I couldn't make out who he was with, but I could see that he was gazing at his companion from beneath his brow. And he had a playful smile on his lips that I recognized all too well. I hurried to a window and peered inside. He was dining with Pauline.

I clenched my jaw, my fists, and anything else that would clench.
Working "twenty-four seven" at the bank, eh? "Can't just leave"' you say?

"Veronica, something's come up," I said, fuming like a downed ship. "I need to let you go."

"Hold on," she ordered. "I know that voice. What happened?"

Against my better judgment, I decided to tell her. I mean, Veronica is my best friend, right? I took a deep breath. "I'm at K-Paul's, and Bradley is here having dinner with Pauline."

She let out an incredulous laugh. "You're kidding me, right? I'm trying to talk to you about your problem with Pauline, and you tell me you've got to go because of Pauline."

I tried to put my hand on my hip, but I couldn't find it because of my skirt. I settled for my waist. "Do I need to remind you that I have a responsibility toward my client to investigate this situation?"

"Of course not," she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Because what Bradley is eating and who he's eating it with are completely relevant to Corinne's missing money."

"That was a low blow, Veronica," I said as I glanced into the window and saw Bradley hand the check to the waiter.