Keepsake Crimes (8 page)

“What are you going to cover in your connoisseurship class?” Carmela asked him.

“Oh . . . restorations, fakes and frauds, periods and styles,” answered Jekyl. “Same old same old, except for the fact that the ladies still lap it up.”

Carmela nodded. Jekyl Hardy had been blessed with an unerring eye for quality and a gift for imparting his knowledge in a nonthreatening, easy-to-digest sound-bite manner. He was expert in discussing oil paintings, old silver, porcelain, and even furniture.

“I take it this is your usual audience?” asked Carmela. Jekyl was wildly popular among the ladies who resided in the immense homes in New Orleans’s famed Garden District. Where
she
had lived not that many months ago.

“The usual,” agreed Jekyl. “Although most of them have major parties cooking over the next few days, so I don’t know how
they’re
going to find time, either. But I talked with Ruby Dumaine this afternoon,” he said, “and she assured me there’s still going to be at least a half-dozen ladies in attendance.”

Carmela suddenly perked up her ears. Ruby Dumaine was the wife of Jack Dumaine, the remaining senior partner in Clayton Crown Securities, now that Jimmy Earl Clayton was dead.

“Ruby mentioned that her husband, Jack, is going to deliver the eulogy tomorrow morning at Jimmy Earl’s funeral,” said Jekyl. He gave a practiced twist of his wrist and snapped the head off another crawfish. “Do
you
, by any chance, have plans to don a black shawl and be in attendance at Jimmy Earl’s funeral?” he asked.

Carmela tossed a handful of oyster crackers into her stew. “You know,” she mused, “I hadn’t really thought about it.” Truth be known, she
had
pondered the idea, she just didn’t care to admit her rather morbid curiosity to Jekyl.

“For the time being, your life seems to be inexplicably woven into this Jimmy Earl thing,” said Jekyl. “So I figured you’d want to be present for the final disposition.” His voice betrayed a somewhat sly tone.

Carmela gazed at Jekyl’s purposely bland expression across the table from her.
Attend Jimmy Earl’s funeral. Interesting idea.

Carmela tested the notion in her mind.

There was another reason Carmela was suddenly liking this idea quite a bit. Someone had brazenly offed poor Jimmy Earl Clayton the night of his big Mardi Gras parade. And though it was fairly doubtful the culprit had been Shamus, her ex-husband extraordinaire, it surely
had
to be someone fairly close to Jimmy Earl. Didn’t it?

Perhaps the perpetrator of the deadly deed would conduct himself in a highly suspicious manner. Or throw himself on poor Jimmy Earl’s coffin out of guilt or remorse. Carmela considered this for a scant moment.

Twenty minutes later, Carmela and Jekyl stood in line at the cash register to settle their tab. As she studied the collection of Mardi Gras paraphernalia that hung on the wall behind the cash register, Carmela heard her name called. A long, low, teasing call.

She whirled about, looking to see who had spoken. Searching the faces crowded around the various tables, she saw no one gazing in her direction. In fact, everyone seemed immersed in their own conversations or focused intently on chowing down. Frowning slightly, Carmela scanned the crowd again. Nope. Not a soul she recognized.

Turning back to Jekyl Hardy, accepting the couple dollars in change he stuffed in her hand, Carmela once again heard someone call to her.

Only this time it was a teasing, slightly more menacing threat.

Jekyl Hardy heard it, too, furrowed his brow. “Let it go,” he advised as he took Carmela’s elbow and steered her out the door. There was a sudden burst of laughter behind them and a loud hiss just as the door slammed shut.

“Neanderthals,” grumped Jekyl.

That’s it,
Carmela decided.
Pencil me in for that funeral tomorrow. In fact, I’m gonna try to get a front-row seat for Jimmy Earl’s big send-off!

A
jumble of white, sun-bleached aboveground tombs stretched as far as the eye could see. Some were simple rounded tombs that contained a single casket; others were elaborate mausoleums adorned with crosses, statues of saints, and wrought-iron embellishments, built to hold the remains of entire families. One of the strangest features of many of these older, ornate tombs was the one-way trap door built into the floor of the tomb. After a body had laid in state for a decent interval of time, that trap door could be flipped open, and the bones of the deceased could be discreetly disposed down a chute, where they would mingle with all the former relations who’d been buried there.

A block away, at the far end of Saint Cyril’s Cemetery, a jazz combo played a mournful tune, while a tight clutch of mourners swayed rhythmically. Such was the business of funerals and burials in New Orleans’s old cemeteries.

“Get up here,” whispered Tandy. Dressed in a black suit with a vintage black pillbox hat perched atop her tight curls, Tandy had been discreetly worming her way to the front of the group, with Carmela in tow, for the past twenty minutes.

A minister had opened the services for Jimmy Earl with somber prayers and a rousing oratory. Now he had succeeded in coaxing most of the mourners into joining him in a fairly dismal and off-key rendition of
“Nearer My God to Thee,”
the song most noted for having been played by the
Titanic
’s shipboard orchestra as the ill-fated luxury liner headed for the briny depths of the Atlantic.

Carmela tuned out the awful singing and turned her thoughts to the vicious innuendos that had appeared in this morning’s
Times-Picayune
.

True to the anonymous heckler’s promise of last evening, Shamus had indeed been mentioned.

Not by name, of course. Bufford Maple, the opinionated boor of a columnist who had penned the piece, was much too smart for that. Bufford Maple had been a columnist at the
Picayune
for as long as anyone could remember, although calling him a columnist was putting a pretty glossy spin on things. Rather, Bufford Maple was a nasty viper who liked nothing better than to pontificate, spout off, and launch personal attacks against selected targets.

It had also been suggested more than once that an under-the-table agreement could often be struck with Bufford Maple whereby, for the right amount of money, he would launch an all-out public attack on one’s enemy.

When Bufford Maple penned this morning’s vitriolic piece, he must have been as elated as a pig in mud.

While not naming names per se, Bufford Maple had managed to insinuate and imply that a certain
“banker turned swamp rat”
had a very nasty bone to pick with a certain “
well-heeled businessman
.” Bufford Maple went on to write that this
“cowardly swamp rat”
had plotted and schemed and finally brought about this “
poor businessman’s death
.”

The rest of the column had been a diatribe about
“swift apprehension”
and
“just punishment.”

Even though Carmela was still hopping mad at Shamus, she had been stung mightily by the nasty innuendos that Bufford Maple had flung. As she glanced about the group of at least a hundred mourners, she wondered if they had all read the article, too. And judging by the pairs of eyes that had flicked across at her, then looked quickly away, she guessed most of them had.

 

 

THE OFF-KEY HYMN DREW TO A CONCLUSION,
and Jack Dumaine, Jimmy Earl Clayton’s business partner, proceeded to take his place front and center of the group. Gazing tearfully down at Jimmy Earl’s deluxe mahogany coffin, Jack Dumaine let fly with his eulogy.

Tuning out Jack Dumaine’s quavering voice as it seemed to rise and fall like a politician’s speech, Carmela focused her gaze squarely on Jimmy Earl’s coffin. With the morning sun glinting off its shined-up facade, it looked a bit like an old Lincoln Continental that had been tricked out with all the options money could buy. Ivory handles, engraved brass name plate, carved geegaws and knobs. She guessed that no expense had been spared for Jimmy Earl’s final send-off.

Fixing her gaze on Jack Dumaine, Carmela decided he looked exactly like the exceedingly prosperous businessman that he was. Jack Dumaine’s stomach protruded like a dirigible from between the lapels of his sedate black suit coat. His pants seemed to be held up by industrial-strength suspenders. Jack Dumaine was obviously a man who loved New Orleans and indulged freely in its rich bounty. He was a hale-and-hearty good old boy and a world-class gourmand.

Jack’s trio of chins wobbled, and his head seesawed like a bobble-head doll as he addressed the group of mourners.

“Jimmy Earl was my best friend,” Jack declared with heartfelt zeal, his voice climbing with trembling fervor. Reverently, he placed his chubby right hand over the broad expanse of his chest to emphasize this point. “In the sixteen years we-all were together in business at Clayton Crown, Jack and I might have had ourselves a few rough moments, but we never disagreed on the fine points.”

“Like making a shitload of money,” Tandy whispered in Carmela’s ear. Carmela had to agree with her. Ensconced in huge Garden District mansions, the Claytons and the Dumaines had never seemed to want for anything.

Jack Dumaine continued with his eulogy. “Jimmy Earl was an entrepreneur and a community benefactor,” he intoned as he grabbed his lapels and scanned the faces in the crowd. “He was a good father, beloved husband, and a damn fine bass fisherman.”

Standing at her husband’s side, Ruby Dumaine nodded her punctuation at the tail end of every line Jack Dumaine delivered. Ruby was fifty-something, with a mass of reddish blond curls pulled into a flouncy pompadour atop her head. Poured into a black jersey wrap dress, Ruby didn’t look all that bad from a distance. It was only up close and personal that you noticed the slightly wonky eye job.

Easing her digital camera out of her purse, Carmela snapped a couple shots of Jack Dumaine in all his oratorical splendor. Then Carmela aimed her little camera at the crowd that spread out on either side of Jack and clicked off a few more shots. Glancing at the digital counter, she saw that her memory card would easily hold another forty or so shots. Gabby had obviously not taken all that many shots the other night when she borrowed the camera.

As Carmela continued to shoot, ostensibly for a
Funerals Then and Now
section in the Saint Cyril’s scrapbook, nobody seemed to notice, since the camera was far smaller in size than her usual Leica. Or better yet, nobody seemed to care.

Of course, funerals in New Orleans were unlike funerals anywhere else. Carmela knew that you could probably haul a Hollywood movie crew in and film the whole shebang for posterity, and nobody would seriously bat an eyelash. Plus, New Orleans funerals were notoriously quirky. Dogs, cats, horses, mistresses, illegitimate children, obscure heirs—you name it—he/she/it had all been in attendance at various New Orleans funerals.

As Carmela continued taking pictures with her digital camera, she scanned the crowd. Mostly Garden District folk, businessmen and their wives. The Taylors, the Coulters, the Reads. Baby was there, too, looking very cool and blond, a little Grace Kellyish, on the arm of her swarthy husband, Del. Two rumpled-looking men who looked like they might be reporters, perhaps sent by Bufford Maple, hung out on the sidelines.

Sitting at the head of the casket, perched on black metal folding chairs, were Rhonda Lee, Jimmy Earl’s widow, and her daughter, Shelby.

Carmela’s heart especially went out to the girl. Shelby was a beautiful young woman: tall, coltish, with beautiful olive skin and long, tawny blond hair. She was perhaps eighteen at best, a freshman at Tulane. Carmela knew it wasn’t easy to lose your father at such a young age. God knows, she’d lost her dad when she was just ten.

A couple days ago, Baby had informed them all that Shelby was one of the finalists for queen of the Pluvius Ball. In light of all that had happened, Carmela wondered if Jimmy Earl’s only daughter would still grace the lineup of queen candidates next Tuesday. She thought probably not.

As Carmela continued to gaze at Shelby, Rhonda Lee suddenly shifted her gaze toward Carmela. Rhonda Lee Clayton was short, puffy-faced, with a sleek helmet of brown hair. Hate filled her eyes.

Stung for a moment by the overt hostility she saw there, Carmela quickly lowered her camera and looked away.

Was it possible Rhonda Lee actually
believed
the terrible rumors that seemed to be circulating? That Rhonda Lee actually thought Shamus had been responsible for her husband’s death? Carmela sighed. Of course, it was possible. Anything was possible.

 

 

SURPRISINGLY, AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE
graveside service, Jack Dumaine and his wife Ruby came crunching across the gravel to speak with Carmela and Tandy. Carmela had met the Dumaines over the last couple years at various social and business functions that Shamus had dragged her to. And, of course, they were members of the Pluvius krewe. A somewhat enigmatic couple, they had a peculiar tendency to jump in and finish each other’s sentences.