Thigh High (24 page)

Inside the courtroom, Nessa watched as Mac MacNaught strode in, surrounded by obsequious lawyers dressed in the corporate uniform of dark suits and white shirts. The only way to tell them apart was that MacNaught towered above the little worms he hired to do his bidding. Obviously, the man always got his way.

Well. He was in for a surprise today.

He located her with his gaze. Looked steadily at her.

She held his gaze for a second. Smiled coldly. Smiled wider at his one unguarded, startled response. And turned to face the front.

Thanks to Pootie, she could post bail.

Last night, Pootie had showed Nessa the paperwork, explained that ten years ago, when Pootie moved in, the aunts had agreed to let her invest their precious savings. Pootie had taken the money, tended it, made sure it grew. At first, she'd tried to show the aunts the annual reports, but the aunts patted her hand and told her not to worry. “Like they figured I had lost it all or somethin',” Pootie had said hoarsely. “So I stopped showin' them and they never asked. I mean, I figured, What the hell? I lived here. When they needed the money, I'd get it for them. I just never figured 'em for bank robbers.”

“You and me both,” Nessa had said, right before asking for that job with Pootie's firm.

They'd immediately started training.

Now Mac seated himself across the aisle.

Nessa didn't need to look to know that. All the attention, all the bitter ire in the courtroom was focused on him.

And he was focused on her.

She didn't need to see him to know that, either. She could feel his brooding gaze.

The aunts came in, looking rested.

They'd been in their own cell, separate from the drunks and criminals, and obviously everyone in the jail had made sure they were well cared for.

The judge came in.

The courtroom rose.

The judge seated himself.

The courtroom sat.

The lawyers moved into position.

The court's prosecuting attorney argued that, considering the long-term series of crimes the Dahl sisters had committed and the large amount taken and vicious threats uttered the day before during the robbery, and the money that remained unrecovered, a significant bail be set.

Mr. Calhoun, one of the Calhouns, who had been the Dahls' attorneys for more than a hundred years, argued that the Dahl sisters were beloved throughout the city for their good deeds before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina, had lived here their whole lives, and were not a flight risk.

The judge concurred and set the bail at one hundred dollars.

Nessa fought a grin at Mac's Yankee lawyers' outrage. Had they really imagined they could whip in here, fling their weight around, and change the way New Orleans felt about the Dahl sisters?

She stood up to go hug her great-aunts and take them home, but first she paused beside the row where Mr. MacNaught sat, stony-faced and cold. She dropped a ring box in his lap. “There's the ring you gave me.” She smiled contemptuously into his face. “Thanks to Pootie and the investments she made, we can pay for my aunts' defense.”

He reached out so swiftly, she didn't know he had her until he'd caught her hand.

“I'm not done with you.”

“But I
am
done with you.” She tugged at her hand. “You don't get it. I didn't do anything wrong except love my aunts.”

“They're thieves. Everyone knows it.”

“No one cares whether they are or they aren't…except you. Everyone here understands they're old and fragile and lack for excitement and want to make someone's life better, but they've got no money with which to do it. Everyone here in the city—in
America
—is rooting for them because they're doing something to make their own life better, and making someone else's life better in the process.” She was saying too much, confessing her aunts' guilt, but what did it matter? Yesterday, they had confessed it themselves. “Don't you understand? They're Robin Hood…. And you're the Sheriff of Nottingham, only without Alan Rickman's evil charm.” She jerked hard enough to free herself—or maybe he let go. But she stumbled backward, hit the bench across the way, and caught herself before she hit the floor.

He didn't move, but watched with cool satisfaction.

People were listening. People were watching. She couldn't wind up and hit him. Not like she wanted to. So she straightened the sleeves on her jacket.

“I have the lawyers, I have the money, I have the power.” He listed his advantages, more sure of himself than any mere man had the right to be. “If necessary, I'll get this case moved to another venue to ensure a fair trial.”

He would. “You are a loathsome pimple on the face of this fair earth.”

“That's not what you said in the vault.”

She heard the gasps and the murmurs.

The bastard had started the rumors circulating once again, and this time she'd be lucky if she didn't headline prominently in the
National Enquirer
—and her great-aunts in
Prisoner Weekly.

He leaned forward, his voice pitched at a mere whisper. But she heard him. “When you're ready to admit defeat, come to me and we'll talk terms. And don't make me wait too long, Ionessa, for the longer I wait, the less lenient I will be.”

“I wouldn't come to you if my aunts were sentenced to hang by their necks.” She leaned forward, looked right into his eyes. “I would do what Dahl women have been doing for two hundred years—find me a rich old guy with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Then I'd take his money, pull some strings, get my aunts out, and
kill
the bastard who tried to make them pay.”

Mac stared back at her, his face intent…. And openly, savagely hungry. In a low, dark tone, he said, “This is between you and me, and I warn you, Ionessa—don't go to another man.”

For the first time, she saw through his eyes and into his soul.

Mac MacNaught was ruthless. He was dangerous. And he would keep what he believed was his.

Her heart pulsed hard in her chest and thundered in her ears.

She
was his. She had given herself to him, and no matter how hard she tried, she still loved—

With a bang that made her jump, the doors of the courtroom slammed open.

Disheveled, wild-eyed, Rav Woodland ran in and shouted, “Premier Central Bank on Clairbourne Avenue has been robbed. A chase is in progress.” He grinned right at Nessa, and flung his fists in the air in triumph. “Miss Calista and Miss Hestia are innocent!”

It took two hours to sign the release papers, have Chief Cutter assure Hestia and Calista—in front of the TV cameras—that he would do everything in his power to make sure they were exonerated of all charges, and get in the limousine, a luxury for which Chief Cutter personally paid.

The people around the courthouse cheered as the limo slowly inched away from the curb, and the crowd grew thicker as the driver painfully maneuvered them up the street to avoid the worst of the Mardi Gras revelers. The tourists and locals pressed close to the car, screaming their approval at the aunts.

Nessa sat in the middle between her two aunts, and as they rolled down the windows, stuck their heads out, and waved at the crowd, Nessa met the driver's dark eyes in the rearview mirror.

He was big and dark-skinned, dressed in a formal suit with a bow tie, and his smile flashed as he said, “I tell you, ma'am, this is like drivin' the senior citizen prom limo.”

“And I'm the prom chaperone.” But Nessa couldn't stop beaming. She would never, as long as she lived, forget the expression on Mac MacNaught's face when Rav ran in with the news and the courtroom burst into cheers. “Did you see the look on his face?”

“The judge, you mean?” Aunt Calista nodded. “Yes, he was absolutely astonished, and who knew getting the bail reversed involved so many details?”

Nessa could have cared less about the expression on the judge's face. It was the memory of Jeremiah's cool irritation that she hugged to her bosom, enjoying every moment of the mental replay: his astonishment, his frustration, and the low curse he muttered.

The jerk had enjoyed, wanted to hold her in his power.

Aunt Calista pulled her head in, her hands full of purple, gold, and green. “Look! Lagniappe!” As she draped beads around Nessa's neck, she caught a glimpse of Nessa's face. “Chère, are you all right? You look so fierce!”

“I'm just enjoying myself.” Nessa smiled with all her teeth.

Hestia pulled her head in the window. Confetti showered from her hair, and she held two red plastic go cups in her hands. “That vendor gave me free hurricanes.” She handed them to Nessa and Calista, then reached out again. Another was thrust at her, and she leaned back with a satisfied sigh. “I love New Orleans. There's no city like it.”

“I love it, too.” Nessa smiled as the heartbreaking notes of the blues drifted into the car. Yesterday morning, she'd been ready to leave her home and follow her man to Philadelphia. She'd never lived in the North. It would have been a whole new world, but for those few moments, she'd looked forward to it. Lately, she'd begun to feel claustrophobic in her home….

She glanced at her great-aunts.

But if she left, who knew what Hestia and Calista would get up to?

Not that she'd had a clue what they were up to, anyway.

Yet it had seemed for a single, bright moment as if the whole world was opening before her, and she would share it with a guy she admired, liked, and loved. Which made the loneliness today so much more bittersweet…

Hestia asked, “Can we drive past that bitch Linda Blanc's house so she can see us?”

“Aunt Hestia!” Nessa was appalled at the language. Apparently, the copious amounts of alcohol in the hurricanes had relaxed her aunts. Relaxed her, too.

“Well, she is a bitch,” Hestia said sulkily. “She told Betsy McBrien, who told Teresa Harper, who told me, that she thought we were guilty all along.”

“You
were
guilty,” Nessa said.

Calista took up the cudgels for her sister. “Yes, but our friends aren't supposed to say so!”

“And they are not supposed to use the word
felon
to describe us!”

The aunts had a point. But Nessa felt compelled to say, “Chief Cutter rented the limo for an hour. It took that long to work our way through the crowds, and we don't want to abuse his generosity.”

The aunts' faces fell.

Yet Nessa couldn't stand to see their happiness diminished. Not today. “You've been through an ordeal, so I'll pay the extra. You deserve a treat.” She hadn't yet told them about their newly acquired fortune. She thought Pootie deserved that privilege.

So the chauffeur drove into the Garden District and past the house where the bitch Linda Blanc resided. The neighbors gawked. Kids ran beside the car.

“Look, there's Linda!” Hestia pointed out a middle-aged woman wearing a floppy straw hat and gardening gloves, and using a shovel.

“She's working in the yard. Bless her heart, she looks sweaty and dirty and
awful
!” Calista crowed.

With as much astonishment as any of the neighbors, Linda stared at the limo, and when she recognized the aunts, she lifted her chin and turned her back.

The aunts kept their heads inside and waved as if the queen of England had trained them.

Then, as they headed toward the Dahl House, the aunts' dignity collapsed and they giggled like girls.

“That was so much fun!” Hestia said.

“Can we drive up our street, turn around, and drive back down, before we stop at the Dahl House?” Calista begged the driver.

“Yes, ma'am, I would be glad to do that for the Beaded Bandits,” he said.

“Have you heard?” Calista chirped. “That nice boy Chief Cutter dropped all charges of larceny.”

“Yes, ma'am, I did hear that.” The driver grinned.

There was not one person in New Orleans, Nessa realized, who didn't believe the Dahl girls were the Beaded Bandits, and approved with all their hearts.

Well, except for Linda Blanc.

And Mac MacNaught.

They drove up their street. They made the turn to go back to the Dahl House.

And Hestia said, “I hear sirens.”

“Really? I don't hear them.” Calista stuck her head out the window again.

“But you know you need a hearing aid,” Hestia said. “You're just too vain to get one.”

“There is nothing wrong with my hearing, I just don't…oh, there they are.”

The sirens were coming closer.

The aunts exchanged glances.

“You don't suppose they changed their minds?” Calista quavered.

“No, they didn't. For one thing, Chief Cutter can't afford that kind of negative publicity again,” Nessa assured them. But inside, she cursed the phony thieves for bringing this fear on her aunts, and cursed Mac MacNaught even more on general principles.

As they drove back toward the Dahl House, three police cars went screaming past them and stopped at the curb by their walk. Officers leaped out of the cars. Nessa recognized Santino Leroy and her best friend, Georgia, as they raced toward the house, pistols drawn.

“They
did
change their minds,” Hestia quavered.

“No, ma'am,” the driver said. “They know where you are. They're looking for somebody else.”

“A bad guy? In our house? Maybe one of the real thieves?” Calista craned her neck, then sat back, her hand to her mouth. “Maddy!”

“What?” Hestia grabbed Calista's wrist. “You don't think someone would hurt Maddy?”

Three of the officers fanned out. The other three walked toward the front porch.

Neighbors were pouring out of their houses, blocking their view.

“Let me out,” Nessa commanded.

The driver stopped the car.

She jumped out and ran up the street. “What's going on?” she shouted to Georgia.

“Miss Maddy called and said one of the fake robbers was holed up in your house,” Georgia shouted back. “This time, when I tell you to stay back, Nessa, stay back. This is dangerous.”

“I'll show you dangerous. My aunts will be dangerous if you let somebody shoot Miss Maddy!” Nessa warned.

Georgia nodded grimly and prepared to circle the house, when the front screen door slammed open and a man dressed in a feather-trimmed ball gown stumbled out. He looked like a pudgy, bedraggled Ginger Rogers, dodging Miss Maddy as she followed.

One officer vaulted up onto the porch from one side; Georgia vaulted from the other. They aimed their pistols and shouted, “Halt!”

Another police car screeched to a stop in front of the house. Chief Cutter leaped out and ran across the lawn.

Miss Maddy waved her cane and slammed it against Ginger's broad behind. “I have never”—
whack!
—“seen the likes of you”—
whack!
—“in such a getup. What do you think”—
whack!
—“your mama's going to say”—
whack!
—“when she finds out what you've been up to?”

The officers kept their weapons pointed at the suspect, but stayed well away from that cane.

The guy hooked the heel of his pump in one of the loose boards, and fell over hard enough to make the porch shake.

As he fell, Nessa caught a glimpse of his anguished face, with its smeared makeup and incongruously short hair.
“Skeeter?”

Skeeter, big, dumb, breakfast-gobbling, bass-playing Skeeter, was…was one of the fake robbers?

Chief Cutter stood beside her. “You know him?”

“I sure do.” She climbed the steps.

Chief Cutter drew his weapon and followed.

Miss Maddy stood over Skeeter, pressing the rubber tip of her cane into his chest. “Tell me the truth, boy. It's that wicked saxophone player who told you to do this, didn't he?”

Of course. For Nessa, the pieces fell into place. “Ryan Wright? That sleaze bucket set you up to this?”

Skeeter cowered from the two women and scooted backward. “Yes, ma'am. He wanted to rob banks like the Beaded Bandits. Said it would be easy if we pretended to be them, lived here, and used the clothes out of the attic.”

“You stole Miss Calista's and Miss Hestia's clothes?” To Maddy, this was clearly the biggest sin.

“It seemed like a good idea. We planned it really carefully, and yesterday it went good. We got a lot of money, and no one got hurt bad. But today…” The big guy started hyperventilating.

Nessa and Georgia exchanged wry glances.

“We weren't supposed to do it again today,” Skeeter whined, “but Ryan said it went so well, we should. On account of he has a real case of the ass toward the rich asshole who owns the banks. But he hadn't scoped out that bank or something, because right away stuff went wrong. There was this guy there, Gabriel Somebody, he had a gun and he shot Ryan, knocked his leg right out from under him. So Ryan shot back, but he hit the glass and shit went everywhere.”

The women stopped advancing.

“Was anybody hurt?” Nessa asked.

Skeeter propped himself against the porch rails. “There was blood all over the place. One lady had a big piece of glass in her shoulder. There was this guy with blood on his face.”

Nessa lifted an eyebrow at Georgia.

Georgia shook her head. “No one hurt seriously, but a lot of minor injuries.”

Skeeter continued, “People were screaming, and Ryan ran out into the street. When I got out there, he was gone.”

“Do you know where?” Chief Cutter asked.

“No! He left me there.” Skeeter stuck out his lower lip, nursing a sense of ill use.

“Where's the money from the first robbery?” Chief Cutter's gaze swept Skeeter. “I'm going to guess you didn't spend it on clothes.”

“It's all in Debbie Voytilla's bottom dresser drawer, under her vibrator collection,” Skeeter said. “We figured Miss Maddy wouldn't bother to clean in there.”

“That's the truth.” Maddy shook her head. “I stay away from those private matters.”

Georgia raised her hand. “I'll go check. It's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it.” She headed into the house.

“Skeeter, what were you thinking, trusting Ryan?” Nessa asked.

“This whole thing serves you right, too.” Maddy pointed her cane at him.

“I guess.” Skeeter hung his head. “Once I got out on the street, nobody was paying attention to me, so I caught a cab and came here, but then Miss Maddy spied me and right away she figured out what I'd done.”

Maddy's wave of the arm encompassed his whole, quivering, stupid disguise. “I'm not senile yet.”

Hestia and Calista struggled through the gathering crowd.

“When Miss Maddy saw you, what did she do to you?” As if Nessa didn't know, growing up in that household.

“She looked at me so mean-like, and told me to sit down and not move.” Skeeter's teeth chattered as he remembered. “So I did it, and she called the police, and then I asked for a drink of water, and when she went to get it for me, I tried to sneak away, and she hit me with her cane.” He rubbed his bottom.

“All right.” Chief Cutter signaled his officers. “That should do it. Arrest him. Read him his rights. Take him away, and put out a bulletin for Ryan Wright.” He turned to Calista and Hestia. “Can you provide a description? Is there perhaps a photo somewhere?”

“I don't know that I ever took a picture of that boy, but I certainly can tell you what he looks like,” Hestia said.

“To show our gratitude, let us get your men a tall drink of iced tea before they go back to work,” Calista said.

“Miss Hestia, Miss Calista, can we take a rain check?” Chief Cutter spoke toward the cameras that had gathered below the porch. “It's obvious now that these two men committed all the robberies and have always been the Beaded Bandits, and the NOPD will do everything in their power to capture and punish the remaining bandit.” He tipped his hat to Nessa and the aunts. “Now, excuse me, but we've got a bank robber to catch.”