Galliano Gold (Franki Amato Mysteries Book 5)

by Traci Andrighetti

  “No.” He dropped his arms. “He confessed to throwing Nick from the top deck of the Galliano the night he was killed, so his DNA might be on the body.”

  My hand went to my chest. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve sworn that my heart had gone overboard and smacked the paddlewheel.

  9

  Veronica’s eyes widened behind the slice of double-stuffed praline and cream cheese king cake I’d brought into the office for breakfast. She sunk onto the couch and swallowed her bite whole. “Did the captain say whether Nick survived the fall from the steamboat?”

  A huff escaped my lungs. “Bradley didn’t ask.” From my supine position on the opposite couch, I tore off a hunk of the cake I’d balanced on my chest and sipped from the king cake latte I’d nestled in my armpit. “I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned in all of this—Bradley could never go on Jeopardy. He wouldn’t know what questions to ask even with the answers in front of him.”

  “You should be happy about that, because if he knew what questions to ask, he’d ask you about Detective Sullivan.”

  If he knew what questions to ask, he would ask me to marry him.

  The thought took me by surprise. I looked at my king cake, and the purple, yellow, and green sparkles lost some of their luster. Because, evidently, my boyfriend was more concerned with celebrating Mardi Gras than me, my birthday, and our relationship. But I wasn’t ready to say that out loud. Instead, I shoved the hunk of cake into my mouth, chewed it, and gulped that thought down.

  Veronica cleared her throat. “Was it the cake that shut you up just now, or my question about Sullivan?”

  I sighed because I had to come clean. “Bradley doesn’t know he’s the detective on Nick’s case.”

  “Oh, Franki. You need to tell him today.”

  “I will, but he’s got nothing to worry about.” I nestled my head into the couch cushion and stared at the ceiling. “There won’t be a repeat of the so-called vampire kiss from six months ago. Apparently, the only advances I have to worry about from Sullivan are battle advances.”

  “Thus the ragtag army.”

  My head jerked toward her. “You jest, Veronica, but that guy’s gunning for me, and he’s got the entire police force behind him. And Sullivan’s not the only battle I’ve got to wage. That cocktail waitress, Kate, could be tracking me too, and don’t get me started on the Roulergirl and that damn Dancing Hand Grenade.”

  She tossed her plate onto the coffee table. “Do you think Kate and the Roulergirl are working together?”

  I tore off another cake hunk. “It’s too early to tell.”

  “Well, once you track down the Roulergirl, you’ve got to find out how she knew about the queen of spades card.”

  I chewed the hunk while I chewed over the possibilities. “She’s been one step ahead of me this entire time, which makes me think she’s a PI. And if she is, she could’ve found Nick’s body before I did.”

  “Or she has a police contact who tipped her off to the card.” Veronica kicked off her heels and pulled her feet onto the couch. “I’d love to know who she’s working for.”

  “It’s either someone who knew Nick, or someone related to the business partner the captain was accused of killing.”

  “I don’t know. Standish read somewhere that the man didn’t have any family.”

  I sat up and reached for my laptop. “Well, then I’ll pick up where I left off yesterday—calling local skating rinks to find out where the Roulergirls practice.” I opened the lid, and the screen blipped twice. “My computer’s acting weird.”

  “Oh, I had David install some software updates on it while you were on the steamboat yesterday. If it keeps acting up, let him know.”

  “I will.” I opened the browser and started typing. “And if he keeps acting up with my nonna, I’ll let him know about that too.”

  She snorted and shook her head.

  The lobby door opened, and The Vassal entered sporting Games of Thrones gear—a T-shirt covered in various types of swords, and a backpack shaped like a shield from one of the houses on the series.

  Veronica smiled, no doubt at his geek style. “I wasn’t expecting you today, Standish. Are you here to join Franki’s ragtag army?”

  I cast swords at her with my eyes.

  “That sounds like an intriguing enterprise,” The Vassal said in diplomatese, “but I’m here to help Miss Glenda with her memoir.”

  Veronica reached for the king cake box. “Has she thought of a title yet?”

  “I believe it’s Stripper Galore: The Glamorous Life and Times of Lorraine Lamour.”

  She cut a cake sliver. “I like the rhyme.”

  I didn’t. The play on Pussy Galore was closer to Tipper Gore, but I kept my mouth crammed with cake because I wanted to stay out of the memoir—in both senses of the phrase. “Hey, Vassal, could you try to find an address for me sometime before you leave? It’s for a Kate Wilson, and unfortunately all I can tell you is that she’s in her late twenties and looks kind of like Katy Perry.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He removed his back shield and went to the corner desk to his most prized weapon—the computer.

  Veronica rested her head on the back of the couch. “I really should get to work. I need to leave early today.”

  “How come?”

  She wiggled her brow. “Dirk’s making me dinner at his place.”

  Envy wormed into my chest. I took a sad sip of my king cake latte and yearned for king cake ice cream to go with my king cake. “If you don’t come home, I’ve got dibs on your bed. Otherwise, it’s back to the tub or Glenda’s giant champagne glass.”

  The lobby door opened, and the devil I’d been speaking of sashayed in like Mae West but dressed like a stripper Marie Antoinette.

  I eyed her telltale pouf wig and the pannier hoops on her hips and fervently wished she’d opted for more than a pink silk thong and white body makeup to complete the look. Her chest reminded me of the breast mold she had made for the Mardi Gras decorations on our house. “Uh, have you come to warn us that a French Revolution has broken out in the Quarter?”

  “C’est amusant, Miss Franki. I just came from a pre-parade with the Merry Antoinettes.”

  “That sounds decadently revelrous,” Veronica said. “Who are they?”

  “A Mardi Gras krewe of scandalous party queens who celebrate Marie Antoinette’s court. They’re known for drinking champagne and throwing cake.”

  Concerned, I glanced at my plate. “I get the champagne part, but what’s the deal with the cake?”

  “It’s their Mardi Gras throw, sugar. They took Marie Antoinette’s line, ‘Let them eat cake,’ and turned it into ‘Let them throw cake.’”

  Veronica beamed. “I love that. It’s cute and clever.”

  “It’s criminal.” I picked up my plate. “I don’t care if it is Mardi Gras. No one should throw cake. Ever.”

  The Vassal turned in his chair and went as white as Glenda when he saw her body-painted breasts. Ever the diplomat, he removed his glasses. “Throwing cake certainly didn’t go well for Agnes Frump.”

  Glenda jutted out a hoop-adorned hip. “Now who in the world is that?”

  I wrinkled my lips. “From the sound of her name, she’s not a Merry Antoinette.”

  Veronica snickered and slapped her knee, and Glenda and I joined in.

  The Vassal closed his slack jaw. “She was the female passenger who died in the 1922 fire on the Galliano.”

  Our merry revelry ceased.

  I turned to face him. “Why’d she throw cake?”

  “She and a few other guests were invited to Captain Galliano’s quarters for after-dinner drinks and dessert. A cook named Rose brought her a piece of cake, but Agnes said it was dry and demanded something else. Rose said that she had personally tasted the cake, and it was moist. Agnes didn’t like being contradicted by a cook, so she threw it in Rose’s face.”

  “Lovely table manners,” I quipped. “Did the captain stand up for Rose?
”

  “I don’t know. But she brought Agnes another dessert, and as she was leaving, somehow Agnes’s dress caught fire. A crewman tried to put it out, and he caught fire too. Both of them burned to death right there in the captain’s quarters.”

  Glenda shook her wig. “And all because of a lousy piece of cake.”

  I put my plate on the coffee table. The bite I’d taken no longer tasted quite as sweet. “What happened to Rose?”

  The Vassal pushed up his glasses. “She was hung in the Place d’Armes. That’s what Jackson Square was called before it was renamed after the Battle of New Orleans.”

  The name was French for Weapons Square, and it reminded me of my own battles. But they were nothing like those of the countless slaves and criminals who’d been executed there. “I thought they did away with public hangings in the nineteenth century.”

  “They did, but Rose was lynched. She was from Haiti, so people thought she’d killed Agnes with voodoo.”

  My mind dealt me the queen of spades card, but it seemed too big a leap to connect Nick’s death to that of Agnes. “You mean, because Agnes’s dress caught fire?”

  “That and because her face didn’t burn.” The Vassal’s naked eyes went Coke-bottle-lens magnified. “One newspaper account said Agnes looked shriveled and wrinkled like an apple-head doll, and the people thought it was Rose’s retribution for getting cake thrown in her face.”

  I touched my cheek. I needed to be better about applying moisturizer.

  “Then, shortly after the incident, passengers started reporting the crewman’s ghost wandering the Texas deck and a woman’s shriveled face surrounded by flames.”

  Veronica shivered and rubbed her arms. “Franki, didn’t you say that Marv at Where Dat Tours told you he’d heard the ghost of the sailor who fell into the paddlewheel?”

  I nodded. “Why do you ask?”

  “It is possible that the scream and smacking sound he heard was Nick falling from the boat?”

  I slouched into the couch cushions. “No, he would’ve told me if that had happened the night Nick was killed. Plus, he heard it two different times.”

  She leaned forward and slipped on her shoes. “Well, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for the sounds.”

  “Yeah. Scooby-Doo.”

  Her head retracted. “I think you need to lay off the king cake products. The food coloring has affected your brain.”

  “I’m not kidding, Veronica. In every episode, the villain staged a haunting to cover up some illegal activity.”

  The Vassal slipped on his glasses. “Like Old Man Simms’ pearl-poaching operation.”

  I unfurled my arm at him à la Vanna White. “See?”

  Glenda strutted to the couch and parked her panniers beside Veronica. “You think that’s what’s happening on the Galliano, sugar?”

  “Either that or ghosts are real, which they’re not.”

  “Well, I can’t believe old Rex Vandergrift is a murderer, Miss Franki.”

  “I don’t know about that, but he definitely doesn’t act like a man who wants to keep away passengers. Yesterday he told Ruth to book entertainment to bring in high-roller gamblers.”

  Glenda crossed her legs. “Interesting…”

  I shot her a look as pointed as her Rococo Baroque stripper shoes. “A jazz singer, not a jaded stripper.”

  She stiffened and stuck out her Mardi Gras decorations.

  Veronica tapped her chin. “I see where you’re going with this, Franki. Alfredo Scalino.”

  “Exactly. He could be running some illegal enterprise for his brother, which means he’d want to keep people off the boat.”

  “Could be. But if there’s no treasure onboard, then why would Nick have texted Luigi the phrase ‘Galliano Gold?’”

  “Maybe it’s code,” The Vassal said in keeping with his computer programming background.

  Glenda pointed her cigarette holder. “Like black gold from The Beverly Hillbillies. Rex was going to be king of the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival.”

  I kicked up my feet on the coffee table. “I seriously doubt there’s oil on the Galliano.”

  “All right, Miss PI Priss. You tell us what it is.”

  My gaze drifted to the king cake. I stared at the yellow sprinkles, which represented gold, one of the three Mardi Gras colors, and the answer came to me. “The lemon trees in the Bay of Palermo.”

  Everyone gaped like my face had shriveled and sprouted flames.

  “Think about it,” I said. “Even though they’re yellow, the city was nicknamed the Conca d’Oro, or Shell of Gold.”

  “Sounds like a luxury gas station,” Glenda said, sticking to her oil theory.

  Veronica gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m not following any of this.”

  I was—all the way to the steamboat’s walk-in refrigerator. “Galliano gold has something to do with Alfredo’s lemons.”

  Marv exited the Where Dat Tours ticket pavilion with a greasy takeout sack and the key to the Galliano. “It’s almost midnight. You sure you want to go on the old girl alone?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the steamboat. In the cloudy, moonless night, it looked especially eerie. “Actually, I’m quite sure I don’t. But this could be my last chance to look around before the captain moves onboard. Plus, Detective Sullivan found out I’m on the case, and the cocktail waitress might know I’m a PI. So either one of them could blow my cover, if they haven’t already.”

  “Kate hasn’t said nothing. I woulda heard since I hired you.”

  I took the key from his outstretched hand. “Did you hire her too?”

  “Nah, liquor servers have to be certified, so she and Wendell came from the Sazerac Event Staffing agency.”

  I sighed. A company would never give out Kate’s contact information.

  He looked at his watch. “Ooh, I gotta run. I’m covering the vampire tour for Pam while she’s at a Rainbow Gathering.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s when a bunch of hippies spread peace and love in a forest.”

  I didn’t know how that worked exactly, but it smacked of a bad trip.

  Marv’s gaze darted to the boat, and he grimaced. “Be careful in there. This is about the time I heard that ghost sailor.”

  “You didn’t hear him on the night Nick was killed, did you?”

  “I didn’t stay late that night.” He saluted me with his sack. “Anyways, I’m off to talk vampires while you hang with the ghosts.” He turned and headed for the French Quarter. “Creepy city we live in.”

  It was, but I didn’t appreciate the reminder.

  Reluctantly, I faced the Galliano. In the faint glow of a street lamp, the white steamboat loomed before me like a ghost woman with an enormous gold bustle. “The low lighting does nothing for this old girl.”

  I looked over my shoulder one last time and stepped onto the gangplank. Despite my timid steps, I bounced more than usual. I looked down and discovered the problem—my legs were shaking.

  Not an auspicious beginning.

  I crossed the gangplank and climbed aboard, so wobbly that I would’ve sworn the steamboat was sailing. I looked from side to side and behind me, and I inserted the key into the lock.

  The door creaked open—but I hadn’t turned the handle.

  Also not an awesome way to start.

  With my heart and my stomach in my throat, I entered the casino. The musty odor hit me like a phantom fist. I covered my nose and crept past the gambling tables, alert to every creak and groan, and kept my eyes peeled for lurking figures—or floating ones.

  Light flashed outside a window overlooking the river.

  I approached and peeked out.

  The light flashed again over the water. It had come from the rear of the boat on one of the upper decks.

  Was the captain onboard?

  Or was it the sailor ghost?

  “Not the time to freak yourself out, Franki,” I whispered. “Spirits don’t exist. But psychopaths do.” I
paused. “Okay, why’d you have to add that?”

  I shook my head to try to pull myself together.

  It didn’t work.

  Stress and fear swirled in my body like a typhoon as I climbed the grand staircase to the passenger deck. Careful to avoid Mark Twain’s dead stare, I went up the last set of stairs to the Texas deck.

  For the first time ever, I wished I’d followed Ruth’s advice. If I’d familiarized myself with the boat like she’d suggested, I’d know where to look for Scooby-Doo villains.

  And the killer who deep-froze a man to death.

  I made my way past the pilothouse and crew cabins to the rear of the boat. Off and on, I held my breath to reduce my noise factor—and to avoid the muddy tar smell of the river. Slowly, I peered around the corner. Besides the paddlewheel, the only thing I saw was a calliope.

  I exhaled, but I wasn’t relieved. I still had to check the other side of the boat, where the light had come from.

  As I approached the organ-like instrument, I felt like Don Knotts in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken when the organ’s blood-spattered keys played their skin-crawling song. Ironically, the only thing more terrifying to me was old-timey circus music that came from a calliope.

  I shot the evil instrument a don’t-you-dare stare and tiptoed to the corner. I leaned forward and stole a glance.

  No one.

  I tiptoed past a row of windows and came to a door marked Captain’s Quarters. I didn’t see any lights, so I pressed my ear to the wood.

  Silence.

  I stepped back and chewed my lower lip. It was possible that the captain was inside trying to sleep. But it was more likely that he was in Amelia, because Marv would’ve known if he’d been on the boat.

  I rested my forehead on the door and gripped the handle.

  It turned.

  Every cell in my body screamed Don’t go in! This is like one of those horror films where the woman goes back inside the isolated cabin in the woods instead of driving to the police station! And then she falls victim to a crazed hippie killer named Pam!

  The last part would’ve cracked me up if I hadn’t been so scared. Because I had to go in. It could’ve been my only chance to try to connect the captain to Nick’s death. And all I had to was find a deck of cards with the queen of spades missing.