He sniff-laughed. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.” He bowed his head for a moment and then met my gaze with laser focus. “I stopped by your apartment to check on Luigi, and he mentioned that Alfredo Scalino runs the kitchen. Why didn’t you tell me that when we talked about the winepress this morning?”
“I—”
Ruth entered the galley in a classic case of bad timing.
Bradley’s brow bolted at the sight of his ex-assistant. “You’re here too?”
“Veronica got me this gig.” Ruth gave me the side-eye. “Didn’t Franki tell you?”
He stared at me, his face expressionless. “No. She didn’t.”
She grunted. “She didn’t tell me either, even though she knew I needed a job after you quit the bank.”
I rued the day I met Ruth again, and I promised myself that I’d leave her on the steamboat with the ghosts and the killer. “Bradley, so much is going on, that I was too overwhelmed to tell you about it. Look what we just found in the walk-in.” I thrust a package of the gold bars into his hand. “They’re trafficking drugs on the Galliano. This is what got Nick killed.”
He turned the package over. “Everything was so perfect.”
My heart fell to the floor and split like that crate. He’d was talking about our relationship, not Nick or the drugs, and in the past tense.
“Is there anything else you were too overwhelmed to tell me?”
I looked away, and a cold river of fear as powerful as the Mississippi coursed through my veins. And it wasn’t because I hadn’t told him about Detective Sullivan.
“Bradley, old boy.” Sullivan crowed from the galley doorway. “Franki didn’t tell me you were still in the picture.”
I went limp, but Bradley went as rigid as I had when Ruth had hit me with the oar. He turned to face his nemesis. “She didn’t mention you were still around either. But then, she keeps a lot of things to herself.”
Everyone stopped and stared at me.
“Bradley—” I stopped short as Sullivan’s gaze zeroed in on the drugs I’d put in Bradley’s hand.
“Well, well, well.” A sour smile settled on the detective’s lips. He ambled over to Bradley, never taking his eyes off the bag. “I heard you’d quit your job, but I never thought you’d stoop to this.”
“You can’t be freakin’ serious.” Bradley was deathly calm.
But the river in my veins was raging. I knew the detective, and he was capable of anything. “Slow down, Sullivan. You’re rushing to judgement, which isn’t befitting a police officer.”
“Here’s a judgement for you,” he drawled with delight. “Bradley Hartmann, you’re under arrest for drug trafficking.”
I was silent, but my head was burning like Agnes Frump’s. And inside I was screaming like that sailor when he went overboard.
11
“Franki, if you don’t stop crying, you’ll fill up that glass and drown yourself.” Veronica stood in Glenda’s all-white living room at the base of the giant champagne flute where I’d taken refuge from the world, and especially from Ruth.
As usual, my best friend was the voice of reason—although anyone hearing her statement out of context wouldn’t agree. And at that moment I didn’t agree either. I was too drained and depressed to think logically. So I stayed in the glass in a fetal position and continued to sob.
“Do you want to hear what I learned at the police station, or not?”
I did, but I didn’t want to look over the glass rim. It wasn’t the despair that stopped me as much as the pain in my back from the oar whack—and the floor-to-ceiling stripper action shots of Glenda.
Nevertheless, I pulled myself to a sitting position.
Veronica lowered her chin. “Brace yourself, okay?”
“Oh no.” I extended my arms to either side of the glass. “How bad is it?”
“Keep in mind that Bradley hasn’t gone before the judge yet, but I know the man who’ll preside over his case, and he’s really harsh when it comes to drug crimes. Also, he’ll take his previous arrest into account when setting bail.”
I exhaled at the memory of Bradley being loaded into a squad car outside Madame Moiselle’s the year before, after he’d punched Sullivan for tipping me when I’d stripped to try to solve a homicide. “How much do you think it’ll be? And don’t hold back. God knows Ruth didn’t.”
She didn’t smirk. “It could be as high as a million dollars.”
A pain struck my chest like I’d been stabbed by a life-sized cocktail sword. I slid down the side of the glass and hit bottom.
Bradley would never get out of jail.
And he would never forgive me for it.
Veronica paced on the white shag carpet. “I know it sounds bad, but I’m going to do everything I can to get his bail lowered. The judge is a notorious womanizer, so I’ll resort to flirting if I have to.”
At that amount, it would take a lot more than her famous eyelash batting and hair twirling to get the judge to show any mercy. Tears flowed from my eyes like the Mississippi River. “I want to go to the police station.”
“You know you can’t do that. Reporters are sniffing around, and they could connect you to the case. Plus, Wesley could always change his mind and arrest you too.”
My tears dried up at the mention of the detective, and so did my empathy. “That bastard knew those drugs didn’t belong to Bradley. He did this to get even with me, just like he said he was going to do.”
“I know.” She stopped pacing. “I knew Wesley had a dark side, but this is beyond dark.”
I thought of the Civil War cannon and sat up. “And this is beyond war.”
“Good.” She punched the air. “I’m glad you’re getting into combat mode. Now if you’re going to wage a ‘beyond war,’ you need to get out of that glass and eat something. I have breakfast for you in Glenda’s kitchen.”
“How could I even think of food at a time like this?”
“Because you’re a stress eater. I got you king cake French toast with king cake syrup.”
My logical thinking returned, and so did my appetite. After all, fighting a dirty detective required sustenance, and king cake products were only available during Mardi Gras.
I wiped my eyes, grabbed my phone, and gingerly climbed from the glass. Pain wracked my back with every movement, and I vowed to wrack Ruth when I got the chance.
As I touched down on the carpet, the phone beeped in my hand. The identity of the texter made my back stiffen. “It’s Ruth. She says the Galliano is closed until tomorrow at noon, so I don’t have to go work. I guess the captain must’ve called her.”
“No, when I came back from the police station, she was getting into a cab to go to the boat. That reminds me, why did you sleep here and not at my place with Ruth?”
“Because that nut case, or maybe I should call her a court case, blasts Hulu reruns of Judge Judy to go to sleep. Every time I heard the gavel, I thought about Bradley getting sentenced.”
Veronica entered the adjoining kitchen. “She talks in her sleep too. I know because I came home to get my briefcase before I went to the police station.”
“What did she say?”
She opened a takeout container. “That you and Bradley got what you deserved for costing her a job.”
“That woman put the ruth in ruthless.” I tossed my phone on the table and flopped into a chair. “Bradley’s lucky she’s not his judge.”
My message tone beeped again.
“Oh, so now she wants a place to crash tonight. Hell…to…the…no.” I typed the message as I spoke and hit the send arrow.
Veronica shot me a look under her lashes. “Text her back and tell her she can stay at my apartment again.”
“Not even if my life depended on it, and that phrase literally applies. Because justice isn’t blind, Veronica. She wears a pair of horned rims and swings an oar instead of a gavel.”
Glenda entered the kitchen in a robe so sheer that only the hems were clearly visible—and a
few unmentionables. She struck a saucy pose with her cigarette holder. “Can I offer you something to drink, Miss Franki?”
“What have you got?”
“Champagne.”
It was tempting, but I needed my wits about me to wage a war. “Just water, thanks.”
“Would you like some lemon with that?”
Bitter tears sprung to my eyes, and I cried like I was being juiced.
Glenda put a hand to her all-too-visible bosom. “Oh, I’m sorry, sugar. I should’ve realized that lemons were a sour subject.”
Veronica sat across from me and took my hands. “We’re going to fix this, Franki.”
I choked back a sob and some snot. “Nonna was right to be worried. Not even the lemon tradition could save me. I’m going to die a zitella.”
“That tradition is an old wives’ tale, and you know it. You also know you’re a fighter, so get back into ‘beyond war’ mode and get your man back.”
I wiped my eyes and got a good look at Veronica. She had bags under her eyes, and I felt bad for getting her up in the middle of the night to help Bradley. “I’m sorry for ruining your special evening with Dirk.”
“You didn’t. We were asleep when you called.”
“Then I’m sorry for waking you up.”
She reached across the table and squeezed my arm. “You’re my best friend. You know I’d do anything to help you.”
Tears rolled anew, and so did the snot. “I don’t need help, but Bradley sure does.”
“And you’re just the person to help him.” She handed me a napkin, and I wiped my face.
“I’m pretty sure he never wants to see me again.”
Glenda delivered the water in a champagne flute, the only glassware she owned. “You show up on release day in a little number I’ve got in my costume closet, and I guarantee your ex-banker beau will want to see all of you.” She gave a too-sheer shimmy. “I call it my get-out-of-jail-see card. I wore it every time I had to get one of my fiancés out of jail.”
I should’ve focused on the last word of that statement, by my mind went back to the plural noun. “You were engaged, and multiple times?”
“Twelve, to be exact, and every one of them went to jail. I’m dedicating an entire chapter to them in my memoir.”
“Why didn’t you ever marry one of them? Because of the crimes?”
“Oh, I was just in it for the rings, sugar.” She squeezed her Mardi Gras decorations and shook her money maker. “I couldn’t possibly give all of this to one man. It wouldn’t be fair to the others.”
Tears teetered on my eyelid rims. I couldn’t even get engaged once. But I hadn’t tried a criminal—maybe that was the key.
Veronica cleared her throat. “Glenda might be right. For all we know, Bradley blames Sullivan and not you. So, you’ve got to prove he’s innocent, and you can start by finding out how those gold bars got onboard the Galliano. An officer told me that they’re a type of Ecstasy from the UK.”
I didn’t believe that Bradley blamed Sullivan, but it was easier to focus on the case than on my failed relationship and the predicament Bradley was in. “Those drugs belong to the Scalinos, and I’ll bet they were planning to use the overnight gambling excursions to distribute them.”
Glenda took a seat. “To the gamblers?”
“Or to drug dealers, if we docked somewhere. There are Mississippi river cruises that stop in major cities like Memphis, St. Louis, even Minneapolis, so the captain could be planning to do that too.”
Veronica stared at the table. “Do you think Captain Vandergrift was in on the trafficking?”
Glenda lit her cigarette and exhaled a puff of smoke. “I’d be shocked by that, Miss Ronnie. Old Rex is a gambler, not a drug dealer.”
“I agree. And I don’t think he would do anything to jeopardize his dream of piloting a steamboat like his hero, Mark Twain.”
Veronica shook her head. “His fight with Nick suggests otherwise, and so does his ‘cold shivers’ threat. He could’ve killed him when he threw him overboard.”
“Yes, but if Nick survived the fall then the Scalinos could’ve put him in the freezer with the playing card to frame the captain and take control of the boat. Don’t forget that Marian Guidry, the gift shop clerk, told me Alfredo was onboard that night for the employee meeting.”
“Then I just have one question.” Veronica crossed her arms. “What prompted Sullivan to go to the steamboat at one a.m. this morning?”
“There’s no question there.” I cut into my French toast so aggressively that I sliced through the Styrofoam container. “He was staking it out, waiting for the chance to set me up, which is why he begged the captain to give him the case—and why he wanted me to stay on it.”
Her blonde brow went dark. “Are you saying he planted those gold bars to get even with you?”
“What I’m saying is that Sullivan knew, just like I did, that Alfredo Scalino wasn’t on the Galliano to cook. I mean, his mob boss brother could’ve set him up in his own fancy restaurant in the city, but instead Alfredo wants to work on a ramshackle steamboat on the Mississippi?” I shook my fork. “No, it was obvious to Sullivan that something was going down on the Galliano—and that it was just a matter of time before I found out what it was. So, he waited like a snake in the river reeds to catch me, and then he doubled his prey by arresting Bradley.”
Glenda pulled the lapels of her robe to get air to her chest. “I don’t know about you girls, but I’m getting aroused by all this sexy man talk.”
“It isn’t sexy. It’s just shady.”
“That’s your opinion, sugar.” She blew a smoke heart and stuck out her chest. “I like a down-and-dirty competition between men, particularly when I’m the prize. As the old cliché goes, all’s fair in love and war.”
I speared a double bite of king cake French toast. “All’s fair in war and war too. And if I’m going to die a zitella because of Sullivan, then I’ll make sure his inevitable third marriage takes place behind bars.”
My hand inched toward my front doorknob but returned to my side. Veronica had informed Luigi of the gold bars and Bradley’s arrest, which meant that my mom, nonna, and all the nonne holding vigil for Nick knew too. And in my mourning state, I wasn’t ready to go inside and face more mourning, especially when I’d joined Nick as the subject of it.
I turned to the street. Even the atmosphere seemed to know about Bradley. It was almost seven thirty, and yet the day still struggled to break, as though it couldn’t drag itself from bed—or from a giant champagne flute. There was also a chill in the air and scattered rain drops, like a broken-hearted sky was crying.
My eyes shifted left. I’d tried to stop them, keep them directed straight ahead at Thibodeaux’s Tavern, but I couldn’t. They looked at the creepy cemetery—
—and saw my relationship entombed in a mausoleum.
What about Bradley’s future? Was it dead and buried?
I shook the horrible thought from my head. No. I wouldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t control how Bradley felt about me, but I could control the outcome of the investigation. And I wouldn’t stop until he was released from jail—and Sullivan was locked up.
Ready to battle the Scalinos, the police, and the nonne, I grasped the door handle and charged into my apartment. The place reeked of ragù and regret. Undaunted, I stormed the living room. What I saw whacked the warrior spirit from me like Ruth’s oar.
My mom and nonna sat side by side at the kitchen table surrounded by fretting nonne. I wasn’t surprised that Nonna had shed the gray shades and gone back to basic black. What took my breath away was my mother’s elaborate and antiquated outfit. If Captain Vandergrift had been present, he would have banned me from saying it, but the dress resembled something from a Dickens novel—like a black version of Miss Havisham’s wedding gown.
In a stunning role reversal, Luigi poured her a glass of wine and murmured words of reassurance. But my mother stared unseeing through her veil.
She lo
oked like a woman who’d lost a husband.
And she had.
Mine.
A nonna with a dowager’s hump and a dude’s mustache thrust a bundle of fabric into my hands.
I looked down. A black sack dress with ample space for pendulous breasts and a veil so large it could function as a shroud.
Standard zitella issue.
My face prickled, probably because it was preparing to sprout little-old-Italian-lady whiskers.
Nonna shuffled from the kitchen. “Franki, it’s-a time to get-a dressed.”
“I have over a week left on the lemon tradition,” I said, shaking the black bundle. “You’d think a bunch of such devout Catholics would have some damn faith.”
The nonne stopped fussing over my mom and the ragù and crossed themselves.
“Who’s-a talking about-a the limone? We have-a to be at-a Nick’s memorial at-a nine o’clock.”
A nonna wailed an obligatory Cremato! And the nonne began working their rosary beads.
I lowered the bundle and my head. The prickling on my face had turned to burning shame. I’d been so focused on the case and my own problems that I hadn’t asked the date and time of Nick’s service.
“Since-a you brought up-a the tradition, where is-a the lemon?” Nonna waved her arm at my kitchen window, and a nano nonna drew back the drapes in a move reminiscent of a dramatic curtain reveal.
I couldn’t fathom what a window had to do with the lemon I’d stolen. “Well, you could hardly expect me to keep a lemon for a whole year. It would rot.”
My mother let out a scream more bone-splitting than an oar whacking.
The nonne sputtered and clutched at one other as they struggled to kneel.
“La Bibbia!” The nano nonna shuffle-ran for a Bible on the counter and rifled through the pages.
Nonna collapsed into the purple armchair and pressed her palms to her cheeks. “O mamma mia. Che faccio? CHE FACCIO?”
“What do you mean, ‘What am I going to do’?” I shouted the words half annoyed and half afraid, trying to figure out what kind of non-fresh hell I’d created for myself.
She clasped her hands in prayer. “After you steal-a the lemon, you gotta put it on-a the kitchen windowsill. If-a you don’t, it’s-a not gonna work.”
Galliano Gold (Franki Amato Mysteries Book 5) Page 13