Deadly Night (10 page)

“Sure. And it’s three for one tonight. I just thought I’d keep your other two beers cold,” she said pleasantly. She was no kid but an attractive woman of about thirty. She wasn’t spilling out of her outfit, either. Some people just worked, and worked hard, on Bourbon Street, he thought.

“Do you remember seeing this girl in here?” he asked her.

“Sure,” she said, after examining the picture closely for a minute. “A few months ago. She was a sweet kid.”

“Was she alone?”

“Wow, that’s hard to say. She was friendly. I think she talked to half the people in here that night, including the guys in the band. They might be able to help you.”

“Do you remember if she left here with anyone?” Aidan asked.

“You might want to ask the guys about
that,
too,” the waitress said, and laughed. “Especially Vinnie. He’s always such a flirt. He was taking her requests all night, I remember.”

“Thanks,” Aidan said.

A minute later, his brother sat down across from him. He indicated the departing waitress and asked, “She remember seeing Jenny?”

Aidan looked at his watch. Time to go. “Yeah. Hey, I’ll be back in here about ten. Keep an eye on your buddy until then, huh? And I guess it wouldn’t be a bad thing to take note of some of the other clientele, as well.”

“You got it,” Jeremy told him, and shrugged. “At least the music is good.”

Aidan grinned. The work they had chosen was often deadly dull, watching someone or, worse, some
place
for hours on end. Good music was definitely a plus.

The Stakes’s official hours at the bar seemed to be from six to one o’clock in the morning, Aidan noticed on the billboard out front. He had plenty of time.

He headed back to his hotel for his car.

Kendall had never intended to treat her dinner with Aidan Flynn like a date. She had planned to do a little light housekeeping, catch some news or just chill out while she waited for him to come by for her.

But she had been keyed up and nervous all day, though at least there’d been no repeat of the incident with Ann. Her psychology courses weren’t helping a bit. Maybe she needed to see a shrink. Tarot cards did not come to life. She tried to tell herself that she was simply playing her role too well. Act like Marie Laveau long enough and it was natural that you would begin to imagine things.

It had been easy to explain away her intuition about Ady Murphy. The woman was old, and she herself was very wary of cancer now, after Amelia’s death.

But today…

She poured herself a glass of wine and walked out to her courtyard. To her amazement and distress, she felt uneasy outside, almost exposed. She walked back into the apartment and locked the French doors.

She turned on the evening news. The screen blurred, and her thoughts took control again.

When had the tarot cards seemed…strange before?

The first time, it had been with a stranger. A young woman from Louisiana, but not New Orleans. She was getting ready to go on vacation….

The second time, it had been with her friend Sheila Anderson, who was also planning a vacation. She’d freely admitted to Sheila that she was really a fraud, that reading cards was just learning which interpretations went with which card, what all the possibilities were. It was kind of like being a therapist or a bartender—listening to what people said—or didn’t say. Skeptics were easy to spot, and it didn’t pay to try to convince them that anything was possible. It was better to deal with them subtly and let them draw their own conclusions. It was amazing to see the biggest doubters begin to read what they wanted to see into the cards.

She felt her hands trembling and forced herself to keep a grip on her wineglass.

Sheila…

She found that she was suddenly afraid for Sheila.

She told herself that was ridiculous. Sheila was off having the time of her life, and she would be back soon. Safe and sound.

Kendall wished her friend were home already, though. She wished that she could just pick up the phone and call her.

She wished that she didn’t feel such a dull sense of fear in her heart. A sense of…

Fatality?

Now that was
truly
absurd.

She looked at her wineglass and realized she had drained it. She was tempted to refill it, but she didn’t want to start out an evening with Aidan Flynn half soused. But she needed to do something to distract herself, so she quickly hopped into the shower, then went through her wardrobe, even her jewelry. The clock seemed to crawl.

To her amazement, she couldn’t wait for him to come to her door, even though he was the biggest skeptic in history and able to rouse her temper without even trying.

Something brushed against her ankle, and she almost shrieked out loud. She looked down, and managed to laugh, then stooped to pick up Jezebel. The massive Persian snuggled against her. “Sorry, baby. I forgot to feed you,” she said.

More busy work. She fed the cat. And then she looked at the clock again, hoping Aidan would be on time.

Jeremy nursed his beer slowly, though he knew the waitress was anxious to bring him another. He would have to go through his brother’s extra two and then his own before he needed to order again, and he knew as well that the woman was working for tips. He motioned to her and asked for one of the cold ones, so he could give her a few dollars, even though he was sure his brother had tipped her well. It wouldn’t hurt to have the waitstaff on their side.

Without being obvious, he kept track of who was coming into the bar. An attractive black woman of an indeterminate age was there with an Asian woman of about thirty and a brunette Caucasian who looked to be about twenty-five, and the whole group greeted the cops when they arrived, then took a table on the opposite side of the room. He walked over on the pretext of inspecting a poster advertising the upcoming Halloween festivities to listen in. The women turned out to be lab techs from the coroner’s office, so it was natural that they were buddies with the cops.

He walked back to his own table and took his seat again, aware that he was being followed. He turned and was surprised to see Jonas Burningham’s wife, Matty. She smiled at him. “Mind if I join you?”

“Please do,” he told her politely, rising to pull out a chair for her.

She joined him, looking around.

“You out by yourself?” he asked her.

“I…I thought I might find Jonas here,” she admitted.

“I guess he comes here a lot after work,” Jeremy said.

“I guess,” she agreed. She flipped her hair back and looked over at the band. She waved. He wondered who would wave back.

He wasn’t surprised to see that it was Vinnie. Good old Vinnie. He knew everyone.

“Do you come here a lot?” Jeremy asked her.

“Now and then,” she said. The waitress came over and Matty ordered the house drink, which combined two kinds of rum and three kinds of fruit juice.

The place was filling up. There seemed to be a lot of young people tonight. He heard one girl asking anxiously if she had arrived in time for the three-for-one special. He turned slightly, glad of the table Aidan had chosen, and knowing exactly why he had chosen it. He could easily see the band, the room and the door from here. Someone came in just then to join the party from the coroner’s office. None other than Jon Abel.

“Oh, there’s Jonas!” Matty said, and smiled, when she saw her husband enter a moment later. She half rose, and her smile faded when she saw Jonas head straight for the bar and immediately start talking to several of the women congregated there.

Jeremy rose. “I’ll let him know that you’re here,” he said. He strode to the bar, easily elbowing his way in next to Jonas.

“So what time does the ship leave in the morning?” Jonas was asking a blonde.

“Early.” The girl laughed. “But we’re partying it up tonight. You can sleep when you’re dead, right?” she added.

“Your wife is here,” Jeremy said flatly, without looking at Jonas.

He felt the other man stiffen. “Thanks,” he said curtly.

When Jeremy turned to watch, he saw Jonas slick his hair back and smile. “Matty!” he called, as if thrilled beyond measure to see her there.

Jeremy stayed where he was for a moment. Then he looked around curiously, feeling a prickle at his nape telling him that he was being watched. He looked down the bar. The elderly black man with the dignified face was watching him. The other man gave Jeremy a nod of approval, then shook his head with a look of disgust—for men who cheated on their wives, Jeremy assumed. Jeremy smiled in return and decided to go meet the guy. He looked away for a moment to see Jonas sitting with Matty, and when he looked over again, the man was gone.

Jeremy headed back to the table. Not only was Jonas there, but Jon Abel had also come over. He also noticed that during the few minutes when he’d been at the bar, more people he knew had arrived, as well.

Mason Adler, who saw him, grinned and waved.

And Hal Vincent, homicide cop, who was walking over to join the other cops in the room.

Jeremy caught Hal staring at him. The man didn’t seem happy to see him there. Jeremy stared back, but the cop didn’t wave at him or otherwise acknowledge that he was there. The guy was probably just tired and feeling harassed by the Flynns.

Mason, however, called out to him. “Hey, you going to go up and play something with the group tonight?”

“Not tonight, I’m just hanging out,” Jeremy called back.

Vinnie was watching him from the stage. Jeremy felt it. When he turned to look toward the band, he found that he was right.

“You should join us, man,” Vinnie called.

“Maybe later.”

As he moved on toward his table, he saw that Matty was gazing lovingly at Jonas, who was still acting like the perfect husband.

Sorry, Matty, your husband is an ass, he thought.

But could he be something worse?

A
idan was outside Kendall’s door at exactly seven-thirty. She answered the door in a light blue denim dress. Her hair was especially sleek—freshly washed, he thought—and shimmering down around her shoulders. He was actually pleasantly surprised that she had bothered to shower and change for his benefit. He might have told her that it wouldn’t have mattered what she was wearing, that she could wear a garbage bag as an outfit and make it look good, that she had the kind of natural beauty that shone through with or without makeup, and that her hair looked good wound up on her head or flowing free. He refrained.

In her heeled sandals, she was only a few inches shorter than he was. She was regal, even in denim. Her scent was delicate, not the kind that slammed you in the face. It was merely a hint, the kind that lingered in memory, like a haunting refrain.

“I’m just going to grab a jacket,” she told him. “It’s finally beginning to cool down.”

“Fall,” he responded.

When she came out, he indicated his car, which was—miraculously—parked at a nearby meter.

“We’re driving?”

“I thought you wanted out of the immediate area for the evening,” he told her.

“Sounds good,” she admitted.

She was beautiful, the perfect date. Except, of course, that this wasn’t a date. She had simply agreed to go to dinner because he’d said he wanted information. She was polite, but he thought that might be due to the fact that she also seemed distracted.

So was he. He needed to take everything about this—about
her
—slowly and carefully.

“Any suggestions?” he asked her. “I didn’t get a chance to make a reservation.”

She looked at him, giving him both a frown and her full attention. “Do you eat sushi?” she asked doubtfully.

He smiled. She was probably imagining that he wanted nothing less than a full side of beef. “I eat anything,” he told her.

She smiled at that. “Okay, sorry, do you
like
sushi? Or Japanese, I guess. The place I’m thinking of grills your food right at the table. Although, if you want to talk, it’s a little difficult, since they seat eight to a table, if you want your food cooked in front of you.”

“Sushi at a table for two will be fine,” he assured her.

She directed him onto I-10 and down to an exit in Metairie. The restaurant parking lot was nearly full. He wondered if they should have called ahead, but since they just wanted a small table, they were quickly led to the left side of the restaurant, where the booths were private and a wall separated them from the area where chefs were busy showing off their knife skills: slicing vegetables, meat and fish at tables with built-in grills.

They politely asked one another’s likes and dislikes, and found several rolls they would both enjoy but differed on their sashimi choices. Miso soup was followed by ginger-dressed salads, and they kept their conversation light until the rolls and sashimi came, and they’d had iced teas refilled, and it seemed as if they wouldn’t be interrupted again for a while.

She looked at him, as if on cue, and told him, “I honestly don’t know what you want me to say. I think I’ve told you everything.”

He offered her a half-grin and admitted, “I’m not even sure myself. Maybe I’m just looking for the history of the area and the plantation.” Which was true, as far as it went.

It was also true that he wanted to know how come a woman who had disappeared had been a customer at her shop
and
had spent the evening hanging out where Vinnie played.

Of course, her other employee, Mason, also hung out at the same bar.

As did half of Louisiana,
he reminded himself. Or so it seemed.

But as far as he knew, cops and medical examiners and their lab techs didn’t go into Kendall’s shop for psychic readings.

“You know this area—and the plantation—well, so why don’t we just start there?” he suggested.

Kendall paused, adding a touch of spicy mayonnaise to a piece of dragon roll. “I know about the Civil War, of course. Or the War of Northern Aggression, as people down here still like to call it.” He noticed that she had a single dimple, in her left cheek when she smiled. “I actually had one teacher who refused to refer to it any other way. The heir to your property, a man named Sloan Flynn, wound up in Lee’s army. He had been a captain in the Louisiana militia, but after the first year and a half of the war, more and more of the troops were called out to help Lee. The truth is, the North had more men. The South had some of the most talented generals, but when a man went down, he wasn’t easy to replace, while the North was bringing in immigrants who landed on their shores daily, and then there was conscription and so on. Anyway, Sloan was off with the army when New Orleans and most of the surrounding area came under Union control in 1862. Supposedly Sloan’s cousin—who had joined the Union army—was trying to keep an eye on the Flynn plantation, and his cousin’s secret wife, Fiona, who he’d married on the sly because of the war and Sloan being a Reb. Anyway, Sloan made a detour down to the old homestead, and his cousin was there, along with several other Union soldiers. The cousins shot each other, and according to official reports, Fiona threw herself over the balcony in despair. So naturally a beautiful woman in a white gown can be seen screaming and running across the upstairs balcony, and both Union and Confederate soldiers can be seen on the grounds. By those looking for ghosts, of course.”

“Of course,” he said, staring at her.

He felt a strange trickle of unease. Hadn’t he thought he’d seen a woman in white on the upper level?

But that had been Kendall Montgomery. It had to have been.

At least he hadn’t seen any soldiers marching around.

“What else—historically?” he asked.

She was thoughtful for a moment. “Well, there’s the story that came along later. I told you about it at the house. The one about the beautiful servant who supposedly had the affair with the master. She was hanged, and the wife fell down the stairway. You know, I have a friend who’s with the historical society. She’s on vacation right now, but she’s due back this weekend. I can introduce you to her. She’d love to tell you all she knows.”

“That would be great, thanks,” he said. He picked up a piece of salmon roll, studying her as he did so. She looked more than gorgeous every minute, her perfume was a truly intoxicating scent, and she seemed completely focused on him.

She wasn’t, though. He was sure of it. She was distracted. Something was bothering her.

Well, something was bothering
him,
too.

“May I ask you a personal question?” he said.

She stared at him, features betraying wry amusement. “Can I stop you?”

“You can refuse to answer me. I’m just trying to figure out how you came to be so close to Amelia.”

“Really? I’m trying to figure out how you never knew she existed.”

“That’s easy enough. My father was an only child. His father was killed during World War II. I guess my great-grandfather was the first to settle in the Gainesville area, and that was pretty much all we knew about his family. My mother was first generation Irish, and her folks died when I was young. And that was that.”

She reached over to try the salmon roll, but before she popped it into her mouth, she said casually, “I wonder how Amelia knew you all were out there, then. I mean, I could see it if the property had gone to your father. But all three of your names were listed in the will.” She stared at him, and smiled. “You know, the lawyer said she wrote that will right before the end of her life.”

“Your turn. Should she have left the property to you?”

“Probably not. I couldn’t have kept up with the insurance and the taxes.”

He was good at reading people, and she seemed to be speaking honestly and without rancor.

“Amelia might have thought she would just have been leaving a giant burden tied around my neck,” she went on. “She might have thought I would try to carry it and fall down with the effort.” She took a drink of tea. “I guess your business does fairly well.”

He shrugged. “Well enough. Just when we were getting started, Zachary pulled in a gig from a certain rock star I can’t mention. His daughter had disappeared in Brazil. We found her, managed to get her back. Her father wanted to pay us a fortune in gratitude, so we let him. It set the agency up well.”

“Do you only work for rich people?” she asked him.

He felt himself tense. There was a definite edge to that question.
What the hell did it matter what she thought?
he asked himself. It wasn’t as if she was some selfless dogooder. In his opinion, any psychic reader was just playing off the hopes, dreams and pain of others.

“Actually, at the moment, I’ve taken on a case for a dollar,” he told her. She looked up at him, clearly curious, so to get off that subject, he quickly asked, “So what was the story between you and Amelia?”

“She rescued me,” Kendall told him.

“From what?”

“When I was sixteen, my folks were killed in an automobile accident,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact. “They left nothing. I mean nothing. They were musicians, more in love with playing than making a living. I didn’t blame them—they did well enough, and we had a nice little house close to Rampart Street. I was put in foster care. I met Amelia when she hosted some of us kids out at the plantation for a field trip. She heard about what had happened. I actually ended up moving in with Vinnie’s folks, but they had a hard enough time making ends meet without me there, so Amelia helped them feed another mouth. I started spending weekends with her, helping her with the house—she still had a caretaker and a maid back then, but she always found something interesting for me to do. I managed to get a scholarship to Loyola, and once I was out of school, I started working. Nothing exciting, just a job to pay the bills. When the shop on Royal came up for lease, Amelia and I took a plunge together, because she liked my idea for what to do with it. So she took out a small mortgage to give me some start-up capital, and thank God, I was able to pay it back quickly. I believed I could make a go of it, and Amelia believed in me. So you can understand why, when she got sick, I was determined to help her.”

A simple enough story, he thought. Too simple, maybe, given that a lot more had certainly happened over the ten or twelve years since her parents had died.

“What about
your
family?” she asked, staring straight at him.

Her eyes were like emeralds, he thought. Emeralds glittering with amber lights. The flame of the candle on the table was reflected in them, constantly changing the color.

“Similar story, actually,” he said. “My parents died my senior year of high school. My mother caught a flu they couldn’t stop, and I think the pain of losing her made my dad’s heart give out. They left enough for me to hang on to the house until we could all graduate. Zachary was just a sophomore at the time, and Jeremy was a junior. I figured the only chance we really had was for me to join the navy, so I did. I could go to college while my brothers finished high school, then do my basic training after. A legal aide attorney helped get me custody of Jeremy and Zach until they reached eighteen themselves.”

“Very admirable,” she told him.

He shook his head. “The two of them picked up the pieces. They learned to cook and clean, and they both got into local bands that made money playing for weddings, graduations, that kind of thing. When I got out of the service, I studied graphics first. I almost started into architecture. But I’d been on a few covert missions in the service, so when Jeremy went into criminology, and then Zach, I found myself following. The next thing I knew, there was an FBI guy trying to recruit me, and I was intrigued. Jeremy wound up becoming a police diver, and Zachary headed down to the Miami area to work forensics.” He shrugged. “I guess you can only go so long in that line of work before you have to make a change. You just hit a breaking point.”

She looked at him. “And yours was?” she asked softly.

“My breaking point wasn’t professional,” he said.

“Your wife?”

He never talked about Serena. Never. And he didn’t want to start talking about her now.

Maybe not talking was worse.

“Car accident,” he said briefly.

He was startled when he felt her hand on his. Warm. And her eyes startled him even more. There was an empathy in them that touched him as no other attempt to comfort him had done before.

He was tempted to jerk his hand away. The feeling of warmth was too gentle. Lulling. It was the kind of thing that could take him off guard.

“Well, we’re a pair, aren’t we?” he said abruptly.

“Not that bad,” she told him, pulling her hand back and flushing slightly, telling him that she had never meant to touch him. “Vinnie is like a brother to me. Mason is the world’s greatest employee as well as a friend. I’m from here, so I have a lot of good friends, really. But…”

“But now you’ve lost Amelia. Followed by a good kick in the face—my brothers and me.”

She laughed. “I honestly don’t dislike you for that.”

“So why
do
you dislike me?”

“Well, you walk around like a thundercloud, and you’re…you’re rude.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s all right. You’re kind of like a neighbor’s cranky dog. After a while you get accustomed to the growling.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” he assured her. They were both smiling. It was almost an awkward moment.

“Another personal question,” he said.

“I’ll answer if I choose.”

“Vinnie has been your best friend forever, but you two were never romantically involved?”

“Vinnie and me? Good God, no!”

He wasn’t sure she’d wanted to be quite so honest with him; his question had obviously taken her by surprise.

“Sorry.” He laughed. “It just seems like the guy has more than his fair share of admirers.”

“Oh, he does. No, it’s just that…we were kids together. Like I said, he’s as close to me as a brother, really. He was a geeky kid, small and thin. He’s tall now, and he’s found a way to make those dark eyes and the long hair pay, plus he’s a respected guitarist. He’s come into his own. I’m really happy for him. But as to ever having any kind of romantic feelings for him…” She trailed off, her smile broad. “He’s a friend. A really good friend.”