Franki Amato Mysteries Box Set

by Traci Andrighetti

  The mention of bribery jogged my memory. “Oh my gosh. I just remembered something.”

  “What?”

  “That day I ran into Bradley at Market Café, he told me that Jessica came to the bank to make a deposit every month. Do you think it could’ve been a payoff?”

  “Well, it might’ve been her paycheck. But we definitely need to look into that.”

  “I’ll text Corinne and ask if she’ll help.” I pulled my phone from the pocket of my jacket. “After all, I did find her dog.”

  “Great idea. I also think it’s time we paid Stewart Preston a visit.”

  “I doubt he’d talk to us.” I typed a message to Corinne. “I mean, it’s not like he’s going to want to associate himself with Jessica’s murder, especially not after he was lucky enough to get off for Immacolata’s.”

  “Oh, I know he won’t talk to us. We’ll have to go undercover.”

  I placed my phone on her desk. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Well, what do we know about Stewart?” Veronica had a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

  I shifted in my chair. I’d seen that look before, and it always spelled trouble—for me. “Besides the fact that he’s an acquitted murderer, you mean?”

  She cocked her head. “Yes, Franki. Besides that.”

  “He loves Mardi Gras and women?”

  Veronica picked up my phone. “Right. The Mardi Gras parades have started, but according to this year’s schedule, the Krewe de Eros parade isn’t until a week from tomorrow. So, we’ll have to go with women.” She gave me the once-over.

  “Oh no.” I jumped to my feet in alarm. “You’re the bat-and-twirl girl. And I already went undercover at LaMarca, so it’s your turn.”

  “If Immacolata is any indication, Stewart has a weakness for busty, dark-haired Italian girls. That would be you.” She nodded in the direction of my breasts.

  I shot her a look. It really was true that blondes had more fun, mainly because they left all the crap to us brunettes. “All right.” I sighed and flopped into my chair. “What do I have to do?”

  She grinned, triumphant. “First we have to contact Stewart. I’ve been doing some searching, but I can’t find a phone number or email address for him. His parents are listed in the phone book, though, so we’ll start with them.”

  “Do you just want me to pretend to be interested in him, or something?”

  “If you get one of his parents on the phone, yes. But if by some chance Stewart actually answers, then tell him you’re an old friend of Jessica’s and that you need to talk to him, urgently.”

  I again leapt from my seat. “Are you crazy? If he did have anything to do with Jessica’s murder that’ll make him think I want to blackmail him. You could get me strangled.”

  “You’ll be fine.” She leaned back and crossed her legs. “Besides, you know we’re going to have to play hardball to get a guy like Stewart’s attention. If you just pretend to be some floozy who wants to sleep with him, he’ll figure out that you’re a fraud the minute you ask a question about Jessica. This way, he’ll know you’re looking for information about her from the start.”

  “Yeah, and he’ll be suspicious of me from the start, too.” I rubbed my neck. “Maybe he’ll even bring a scarf to our meeting.”

  “We can worry about the meeting later. Right now, all you have to do is call him. I’ve already signed you up for a Google Voice number to conceal your identity.”

  “Veronica, a guy with Stewart’s financial means could find out the identity of the most protected person in the federal witness protection program. He’s not going to have any trouble figuring out who owns a Google phone number.”

  She leaned forward. “There’s a chance a master hacker could trace it, but it would take some time because I registered the number from a public computer. And besides, I used an old email address that can only be traced to me.”

  “I see that you’ve been thinking about this.” I glared at her as I returned to my seat. “Have you picked out a fake name for me too?”

  She repressed a smile. “I have.”

  “What is it?”

  “Gina Mazzucco.”

  “That sounds like one of the freakin’ Pink Ladies.” Veronica had always gotten to play Sandy in our college dorm Grease sing-alongs, while I’d been forced to play Rizzo. I had the sneaking suspicion that she was rubbing that in yet again.

  “I know.” She chuckled and dialed a number on my phone and then shoved it into my hand. “Here you go, Rizzo—I mean, Gina.”

  Suspicion confirmed. I scowled at her and gripped the device.

  “Preston residence,” an older woman’s velvety voice replied on speakerphone.

  Nerves pricked at my belly. “Uh, hi. May I speak to Stewart, please?”

  “The third or the fourth?” she drawled.

  “Pardon?”

  The woman gave a sigh that sounded more like a huff. “Are you looking for my son or his father?”

  “Oh.” My face grew warm. “Your son.”

  “He lives in New York.”

  Even though Stewart’s mom clearly wasn’t in the vicinity, she was pretty darn intimidating. “Um, would you mind giving me his number?”

  “Yes, I would mind.” Her tone had turned to steel. “Who is this?”

  “Gina Mazzucco.” I glared at Veronica. “I’m an old friend.”

  “Stewart has asked me not to give out his private number. Good day.”

  “Wait—”

  She hung up, and it was definitely a landline receiver because the sound punched my ears. “Nice manners.”

  Veronica shrugged. “She did say ‘Good day.’“

  I sigh-huffed like Stewart’s mother. “What now?”

  She drummed her manicured fingernails on her desk. “We’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe someone else will answer.”

  “And if not?”

  “Then we’ll just have to wait and pay a visit to the Krewe de Eros parade.”

  “Do you really think Stewart will come home for Mardi Gras? He might want to steer clear now that Jessica has turned up dead.”

  “Franki,” she gave a knowing tilt to her head, “it’s one of the biggest parties in the world, and one of the few where women flash their breasts unprompted.”

  I folded my arms across my chest to send her a don’t-look-at-me message. “You’re right. A scumbag like Stewart won’t be able to resist a powerful combination like that, not even under the threat of a murder investigation.”

  I looked at my phone—eight p.m.—and shoved it back into my bag. I’d been waiting for Odette Malveaux for two hours, but I was determined to stay at Marie Laveau’s until it closed. I’d been unable to find any link between Stewart Preston and voodoo on the Internet, so Mambo Odette was my best chance to establish a connection.

  I walked to the store entrance and looked out at the bawdy crowd on Bourbon Street. Then I turned and leaned against the cashier counter. Thankfully, the kid with the acne was back, so I didn’t have to endure the disapproving gaze of The Church Lady.

  To kill time, I glanced around the room at the merchandise, starting with the vials of potion right next to me on the counter. Heartburn crept up my throat. So much for Love Potion #9.

  My gaze moved to the necklaces on the other side of the cash register. I inspected the various charms, and a woman shoved her way into the store, thrusting me into the cash register.

  I turned to say something and stopped dead.

  Mambo Odette.

  With her graying black dreadlocks hidden by a crisp white tignon and matching dress, she seemed more approachable than the last time I’d seen her, despite the fact that she’d shoved me. So, I summoned up the courage to walk over to her. She was grabbing handfuls of chicken feet from a bin and throwing them into a burlap sack.

  I was so stressed that my heart did a voodoo dance. “I don’t know if you remember me, but you gave me some advice when I was here a few days ago.”

  Mambo Odette didn
’t respond. She kept her head down as she continued to put chicken feet into the sack.

  Nevertheless, I was undeterred. “I’m investigating the murder of Jessica Evans, and I’d like to ask you a few questions. I’m willing to pay you for your time.”

  She moved from the chicken feet to the alligator teeth without a word.

  I decided on the direct approach. “Do you know anything about Jessica Evans?”

  “I know she didn’ make no offerin’ ta Baron Samedi.”

  I jumped but tried to act cool. “Offering?”

  “He don’ have ta dig de grave fo’ Baron Kriminel if he don’ wan’ ta. But ya got to give ‘im rum soaked in twenty-one hot peppas an’ Pall Mall cigarettes.”

  “I-I’m sorry?” I got distracted by the mention of grave digging.

  Mambo Odette didn’t reply. She sifted through the alligator teeth as though looking for a specific one.

  Looks like I need to try another tack. “Can you tell me anything else about Jessica?”

  Again no response. Instead, she counted the items in her bag.

  Okay, I’ll take that as a no. “What about Stewart Preston, IV?”

  “Don’ know ‘im. But Erzulie D’en Tort do. And she goin’ ta deal wit ‘im.”

  I wondered whether this Erzulie was associated with Jessica or Imma. “Who?”

  She moved to another bin full of some shriveled items.

  I shrunk from the bin in case they were body parts or heads. “Can you tell me if Stewart Preston practices voodoo?”

  Mambo Odette stopped sifting and looked me in the eyes. “I tol’ ya, chile, I don’ know him.”

  I took a step back before I pressed on. “Can you tell me anything else about this case?”

  She looked down. “Watch out fo’ dem who take magic.”

  “Take magic? Do you mean drugs or something?”

  Without a word, she began selecting dried up items from the bin, sniffing them, and placing them into her bag.

  The conversation was going nowhere, and I was starting to think I’d been wrong about consulting Mambo Odette. So, I shifted the focus to Bradley.

  “You told me to stay away from the bayou—”

  “And ya didn’ do it,” she interrupted.

  I was struck yet again by the scope of her knowledge. “No, and now I’ve found out that the man I’m crazy about, the one you said was a ‘good man,’ is married.”

  “Thangs ain’t always the way they seem, chile.” Odette turned to a small display of gris-gris bags that promised everything from love to prosperity to the bearer. She selected a red bag and untied the yarn at the top. Then she rummaged around in the pocket of her white cotton dress and pulled out a dried root. She put it into the bag, retied the yarn, and pressed it into my palm. “Ya need ta go home.”

  I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with the gris-gris bag, but there was no point in asking. I pulled a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet and handed it to her. She slipped it into her pocket and returned to selecting items for her sack.

  I went to the kid at the cash register to pay for the gris-gris bag. “So, do you know who Erzulie Dentor is?”

  “D’en Tort. It’s French for ‘of the wrongs.’” He rung up the gris gris bag. “She’s a voodoo loa who protects women and children and takes revenge on people who do bad things to them.” He scratched his neck. “Five dollars and forty cents.”

  “You’ve been a big help.” I handed him the exact change, deposited the gris-gris bag in my purse, and exited the store.

  And I wondered whether Erzulie of The Wrongs should’ve been protecting me.

  On the drive home, I tried to crack Odette Malveaux’s enigmatic words. I had to figure out what she’d meant when she said that Erzulie was after Stewart. Based on Erzulie’s role in the voodoo world, it seemed like Mambo Odette was implying that Stewart had harmed a woman. But if so, who? Imma? Jessica too? I also needed to know if she was trying to tell me that Stewart wasn’t involved in voodoo when she said that she didn’t know him. As for the crazy warning about people who take magic, if she was referring to drugs, then it was possible that she was talking about Stewart.

  Of course, I knew it seemed insane to put so much stock in the bizarre ramblings of a voodoo queen, but New Orleans was like nowhere else in the world. If something was going down in The Big Easy, the voodoo world knew about it before anyone else. It was just a matter of figuring out how to speak their language.

  The worst part of all was that I was out twenty bucks plus the five for the gris-gris bag, and I hadn’t found out a thing about Bradley. I couldn’t imagine what Odette had meant when she’d said that things weren’t always the way they seemed, because it was painfully clear to me that Sheilah was Bradley’s wife. It was also glaringly apparent that he hadn’t tried to call me, maybe because he’d figured out that I’d overheard what Sheilah had said.

  I pulled up to my house and walked to my front door, debating whether to text Bradley and confront him about Sheilah. I inserted the key into the front door lock and froze.

  Someone was at my back.

  My police academy training kicked in—literally. I gave a few swift kicks to the genitals and a mighty karate chop on the back of the neck, and the perpetrator was in the grass, rolling in pain.

  As soon as I had a chance to look at his face, my body went cold. “Bradley!” I knelt. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

  “Yeah.” The word sounded like a grimace looked. “I got that.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, although a swift kick to the groin seemed appropriate for a cheater like him. “Can you stand up?”

  “Just…give me a minute.” He rolled onto his back and inhaled sharply.

  I waited at his side with a heavy feeling in my stomach. The heartburn was gone, but I had a lead weight in my gut. Seeing Bradley again made me realize how much I didn’t want him to be married.

  After a few minutes, he stood and brushed himself off. Then he bent over, still favoring his privates, to retrieve the dozen yellow roses he’d brought me. “I shouldn’t have come up behind you like that, Franki. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re right, you shouldn’t have.” My tone was more hostile than accusatory. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  He scrutinized my face and handed me the bouquet. “I came in hopes of giving you the goodnight kiss I wanted to give you last night.”

  I lowered my gaze. Bradley had no idea that I’d overheard him and Sheilah. Telling him to get lost was going to be so much harder than I’d thought.

  “Franki.” His voice was soft, sinuous, seductive.

  I looked up, and his fingers slid to the nape of my neck and wove into my hair. His other hand pressed the base of my back. He pulled me close, and his lips covered mine. He kissed me gently at first, and for a second I went rag doll. When he parted my lips with his tongue and kissed me more deeply, energy—not to mention heat—spread through my limbs.

  As I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, I wondered whether the magic between us was the work of Love Potion #9, the gris-gris bag, or something more primal than voodoo. Then Bradley pressed his body hard against mine, and I decided that I really didn’t give a damn what it was.

  When he released me, I gazed into his beautiful blue eyes. And I gave him a right hook to the cheek.

  Without so much as a glance back, I entered my apartment and closed the door. Serves him right for kissing me when he’s married.

  16

  “Thank you for meeting me at seven a.m., Corinne.”

  She took a seat in front of my desk. “You have been so kind to me and Bijou. I am happy to do it.”

  I wasn’t happy. I hadn’t slept a wink after punching Bradley, and my insomnia had nothing to do with the fact that he’d pounded on my door for twenty minutes demanding to know what was going on. It was because I’d wanted so badly to open the door and throw myself into his arms, even though I knew he was a cheating rat. “So, how is the little powder puff?”
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  “She is growing so fast. She look more like a little pillow now.” Corinne laughed, and then her face grew serious. “By ze way, I did not receive ze bill for your services.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t accept your money, especially not now that you’ve agreed to help us with the Evans case.”

  She hesitated. “Bien. If you insist.”

  “I do.” Catholic guilt panged my chest. “But are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you could lose your job for giving us client information.”

  She blinked her big blue eyes. “I did not know Jessica, but I sink it is so awful ze way she died. If I can help find who killed her, zen it is wors ze risk.”

  “That’s incredibly generous of you.” I double-clicked the Evans file on my laptop. “And just so you know, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that no one finds out you helped with the case.”

  She smiled. “What do you need for me to do?”

  I glanced at the file notes. “Well, we know that Jessica came to the bank to make monthly deposits. We need to find out whether she was depositing her paycheck from LaMarca. And if not, we’d like to know who the deposits were from.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Zat is easy to discover.”

  “I’m not so sure.” I closed my laptop. “I’m assuming that she made the monthly deposits in cash.”

  “Why do you say zat?”

  “Because we have reason to believe that the deposits were a payoff.”

  Corinne crinkled her Tinker Bell nose in confusion. “What is zis ‘payoff’?”

  “A bribe.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “Well, I don’t remember her bringing cash. I sink she always deposit a check, but I will find out.” She looked at her watch. “I must go. I have to be at ze bank before eight.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I rose to see her out. “And remember, if you change your mind about helping, I’ll understand.”

  “I know.” She grasped the doorknob and turned to face me. “But I will not change my mind.”

  After she left, I thanked my lucky stars that I’d met a nice woman like Corinne.