When we reached the bar, an elegant blonde with aristocratic features turned and looked at Bradley, "Why, look what the cat dragged in!" She threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek.
Bradley stiffened as he returned the woman's embrace. "I didn't realize you were in town, Sheilah."
"Oh, you know how dull Boston society is during the winter months, darling," she replied, still standing way too close to him. "But then again, you haven't been home in so long. Maybe you've forgotten."
Darling? Home? What's going on here? I took a step closer to Bradley to make it clear that we were together.
Sheilah turned to look at me and frowned. "Who's this?"
"This is Franki Amato," Bradley said. "She just moved here from Austin."
I couldn't help but notice that he hadn't introduced me as his date, nor had he mentioned precisely who this woman was. I didn't need to be a PI to know these two had a history.
Just then the bartender looked at Bradley. "What can I get you, sir?"
"A white wine and a Sam Adams."
While Bradley was tipping the bartender, Sheilah looked me up and down and said under her breath, "What an interesting outfit to wear to a crawdad boil."
I looked disparagingly at her white capri pants. "Well, you know what they say. It's better to be overdressed than underdressed."
She scowled and opened her mouth to reply but quickly closed it when Bradley approached with my wine.
Bradley handed me the glass. "Franki, why don't we go find a quiet table somewhere?"
By now it was clear that he wanted to keep me away from Sheilah, and I intended to find out why.
"Brad the Bad!" a male voice boomed behind me.
I gave a start, and my heels immediately sank deep into the dirt. I lurched backward, spilling my glass of wine on my chest.
"Damsel in distress!" the man yelled and grabbed me from behind, awkwardly wrapping his arms around my upper chest as I fell into his soft belly.
"Let me help you, Franki." Bradley took the glass from my hand and placed it on the bar.
Sheilah snorted. "That's what happens when you wear high heels to a backyard party."
I shot her a look of death. Whoever this woman was, she was no friend of mine.
"I'll hold 'er steady, Brad, and you yank her feet out of the dirt," the man said.
"Oh, I can manage," I protested, but Bradley was already kneeling down and helping me to step out of my shoes. I cringed as I remembered that I hadn't had time to do my toes before we left.
"Franki, meet Craig," Bradley said from below as he pulled my shoes one by one from the earth.
"You ready to suck some mudbug heads, Franki?" Craig bellowed, releasing me from his clutches.
"I'm sorry, what?" I was certain that I'd misunderstood him.
"That's what we call crawdads in these parts," Craig explained as Bradley handed my shoes to me.
"Oh, Craig," Sheilah purred. "Franki's new to New Orleans. She probably doesn't know about the local traditions."
"Actually, I've been dying to try mudbugs," I fibbed and quickly slipped my shoes back on my feet. As much as I wanted to keep them off, I didn't dare give Society Sheilah the opportunity to point out that my unpedigreed feet were unpedicured.
"Let's show her how to eat a mudbug, Brad." Craig led me by the arm to the nearest table and picked up a tiny crawdad with his huge hand. "You grab the little guy by the torso, see, and you yank off his tail. Then you peel off the shell and eat the meat. Right after that, you suck the head to get the fatty brains and the juice. It's dee-licious!"
"Sounds great," I fibbed.
"Here, try it." He peeled the tail and then handed me the meat with his bare hands.
I hesitated before taking the meat and then, not wanting to look like a germaphobe, popped it into my mouth. "It's good."
He handed me the crawdad's head. "Okay now, pucker up and suck."
I reluctantly placed my lips around the crawdad head, and as Craig, Bradley and the ever-present Sheilah looked on. I inhaled sharply.
"What do you think, Franki?" Bradley asked.
"It's delicious," I said, surprised. "I really like the spicy flavor."
"I told you she'd like 'em!" Craig exclaimed. He gave my back a hearty slap. "I know a mudbug sucker when I see one!"
I jerked forward but managed to maintain my balance and smile, even though I was unsure whether to be flattered or upset by the remark, especially after I saw Sheilah smirking at me.
"I'll make us a couple of plates, Franki," Bradley said.
I suddenly felt a serious need for alcohol. "Okay. I'm going to get another glass of wine. Can I get you anything?"
"Sure, I'll take another beer."
"Be right back." I smiled and then trudged over to the bar.
The bartender looked up from a glass he was drying with a towel. "What can I get you?"
"A glass of Pinot Grigio and a Sam Adams, please." I licked my lips, which were really starting to tingle from the spicy Cajun seasoning, and opened my handbag. I needed to touch up my lip gloss after sucking that crawdad head. I rummaged around in the bottom of my bag and felt the cylindrical-shaped object. But it wasn't lip gloss that I found. It was the bottle of Love Potion #9.
"Here's the Sam Adams." The bartender placed the beer on the bar. "I need to run into the house to get another bottle of Pinot."
"No problem." I stared at Bradley's open bottle of beer. I grasped the potion tightly in my hand and wondered, Should I? In that moment, I heard Sheilah's flirtatious laugh. I turned and felt a pang of jealousy when I saw her sitting right next to Bradley at a patio table. I must. I opened the potion and glanced from side to side. No one was looking, so I poured the entire bottle into his beer. I mean, it's probably just water, right? Then I slipped the empty vial back into my bag.
As I approached the table, I was annoyed to see that Sheilah and Bradley were huddled together in conversation. "Here you go," I said, slamming the beer loudly on the table.
Bradley and Sheilah jumped like two necking teens who'd been caught by the cops.
"Be right back," I continued. And, looking right at Bradley, I added, "Don't forget about me while I'm gone."
I rushed back over to the bar. I couldn't leave those two alone for another minute.
The bartender had just extracted the cork from the Pinot Grigio. He poured a glassful and handed it to me.
"Thanks." I pulled a dollar from my wallet and put it in his tip jar.
He looked at me wide-eyed. "Sure."
I wasn't sure why he would look so surprised by a dollar tip, but I just assumed that most people didn't tip at backyard parties.
I turned and headed back toward the table. My feet were aching from the high heels and from having to walk on the balls of my feet. And my mouth was feeling strangely numb. I briefly wondered what kind of spices were in Cajun seasoning and then made a mental note to lay off the mudbug heads and stick to the tails.
This time, I snuck up behind Bradley and Sheilah to do a little eavesdropping, which was more than justifiable given their suspicious behavior.
Bradley took a sip of his beer and muttered something incomprehensible to Sheilah.
"Now Bradley," she protested, giving him a playful shove, "is that any way to talk to your wife?"
Wife? The wine glass slipped from my hands and shattered on the tiled patio.
Bradley spun around and gave a start, and Sheilah spit out the sip of wine she had just taken.
Craig, clearly not one for discretion, stood up from a nearby table. "Ho-ly smokes, Franki! Your lips are all fat!"
"Bwhat?" No sooner than I had uttered the word than my hand went to my mouth. My lips felt unusually full, which would have been great if it weren't for the speech impediment.
Everyone at the party stopped what they were doing and stared at me.
Bradley turned to Craig. "She's having an allergic reaction. I need to get her to the hospital."
"Let's give her s
ome Benadryl first so her throat doesn't close up," Craig replied not-so-soothingly. "I've got some in the bathroom next to the kitchen."
Bradley rushed me into the house with Craig close behind.
I wanted to confront him about Sheilah's stunning revelation, but my tongue had gone completely numb.
Taking me by the arm, Bradley led me to a small room off the kitchen. "There's the bathroom, Franki."
I entered the bathroom first and turned on the light. As Craig searched a cabinet for the Benadryl, I looked into the mirror. But instead of my regular semi-full lips, I saw inflated pillow lips—almost twice the size of those of Angelina Jolie.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Oh, Franki! You can't be serious!" Veronica stood, hands on her hips, in front of my desk.
"I told you, I'm convinced," I said through still semi-swollen lips. "Mambo Odette told me to stay away from the bayou. I didn't, and look what happened. I ended up on a date with a married man. And to punish me, some voodoo loa puffed me up like a blowfish."
Veronica rolled her eyes. "I told you before, I'm sorry about Bradley. But really! You're as superstitious as your nonna. Deep down, you know this whole lip thing has nothing to do with voodoo. It's just a coincidence."
"Here's what I know." I snapped the cover of my laptop shut for dramatic effect. "I've been eating shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico all my life, and I've never had a problem. I suck the head of one lousy mudbug, or crawfish, or whatever they call the stupid things down here, and my lips plump up like two Ball Park Franks."
"So what? Crawfish are more closely related to lobster than shrimp. Just because you can eat one doesn't mean you can eat the other."
"I don't need a lecture in marine biology to know what's going on here, Veronica! Don't you see? Mambo Odette has some kind of psychic voodoo power. She knew that the bayou and I wouldn't mix. So now I need to find her and ask her about Bradley."
Veronica furrowed her brow. "Why? You're not thinking about seeing him again, are you?"
"Certainly not," I huffed. "It's just that Odette told me he was a 'good man,' and now I want to know why she would say that if she knew he was married."
"Maybe she didn't know."
"Oh, she knows, Veronica. She knows," I said with a nod. "In fact, I think we should consult with her on the Evans case."
She folded her arms across her chest. "You've got to be kidding."
"No, I'm not. Odette's omniscient, and my lips are the proof." I puckered the evidence dramatically.
At that moment, the main door of the office slammed loudly, and Veronica jumped. "David's here." She sighed as we listened to his footsteps bounding down the hallway toward my office.
"G'day, la—" David began in a faux Australian accent as he popped his head into the doorway. He recoiled like a turtle pulling its head back into its shell when he caught sight of my mouth. "Whoa, Franki! Did you get into a throw down or somethin'?"
"Yeah, with an overzealous crawfish," I mumbled through my aching lips.
David shot Veronica a questioning look.
"Don't ask," she said under her breath.
David looked at me then back at Veronica. "That's cool." Then he stood silently, looking at the floor.
Veronica was the first to speak. "David, I'm about to call Ryan Hunter with a case update. Were you able to find out anything about Bill or Barbara Evangelista?"
"Oh." He stood up straight and pulled back his shoulders to assume his professional stance. "So, I couldn't find any record of the Evangelistas owning the house in Slidell, but I did find an obituary for Barbara. The problem is that it doesn't tell us anything we don't already know."
"What about Bill?" I asked. "Did you find anything on him?"
"Nope, not yet." David was staring somewhere to the left of me, apparently to avoid looking at my lips.
"Keep digging," I instructed. "And don't forget about his wife and child. They could factor into this case too."
Veronica nodded. "And while you're working on that, I need you to run background checks on the Di Salvos: Maria, Concetta, and Domenica."
I shivered at the mention of Domenica's name and then noticed that my phone had begun to vibrate. I looked at the display and saw the number of my parents' deli.
"Sorry guys. I need to take this call. It could be important."
As Veronica and David filed out of my office, I answered the call in speakerphone mode. "Hello?"
"Francesca?" my mother asked shrilly, as though she were unsure whether she was speaking to me or to some random woman who sounded exactly like me and had my same phone number.
"Yes, Mom, it's me. Is something wrong?"
"Why would something be wrong, dear?" she asked in a bewildered tone.
"Because you don't normally call me from work." I was already irritated with this call.
"Well, your date with Bradley is a special occasion."
I put my face in my hands. This wasn't going to go well.
"And your nonna and I are calling to find out how it went," she continued.
"Nonna? What's she doing at the deli?" My nonna never left the house, not even for mandatory hurricane evacuations.
"Well, your father and I made her promise not to call you to ask about your date until we came home tonight. She refused to keep that promise, dear, so your father made her come to work with us."
"Wait. Dad's in on this call too?" Now I was really surprised.
"Yes, dear, we've all been talking about it this morning: Rosalie Artusi, Larry from the drycleaner's, Mr. Giangiulio from the bakery, Marjorie—"
"Mom," I interrupted through clenched teeth. "I've asked you a thousand times not to discuss my personal life with the customers."
"But you know we've always thought of our customers as family, Francesca, so it wouldn't be right not to share good news about our children. Besides, everyone has been worried about your problem with long-term relationships."
As she spoke, I focused on resisting the overwhelming urge to curl up in the fetal position under my desk. Then I inhaled deeply. "Mom, about that good news…"
"Yes?"
"Let's just say that the date didn't go perfectly," I replied in my best vague speak.
My mother slammed the phone receiver down on the counter. "Joe! The date was a disaster!"
I gasped. "Mom!"
Then I heard my dad groan. "Not again, Brenda!"
My mother put the receiver back to her ear. "Yes, dear?"
"I didn't say it was a disaster!"
"Well, then what happened, Francesca?"
"Bradley took me to a party, but after we got there my lips began to swell because—"
The phone slammed to the counter again. "Her lips swelled up during the date!"
"Oh, Lord!" a customer exclaimed. "Franki's got herpes!"
"Lip swelling's also a sign of hand, foot, and mouth disease!" another bellowed.
I cringed as I listened helplessly to the comments of the customers, who continued to theorize about the source of my unfortunate lip mishap.
My mother returned to the phone. "Francesca, was it herpes? Or foot and mouth? Or something even more terrible?"
I mentally counted to ten before I spoke. "Mom, I don't have a disease. I went to the hospital, and the doctor said it was just an allergic reaction to crawfish."
Down went the receiver. "She's allergic to crawfish, Rosalie!" my mother wailed, as though my chances of ever finding another man were now even further diminished in light of my new shellfish affliction.
Suddenly, I heard what sounded like the phone hitting the floor followed by a scuffle, and then my nonna proclaimed somberly on the other end, "It's-a not-a the crawfish-a, Franki! It's-a Bradley. I told-a you that you should-a go out-a with only Italian boys! But don't-a you worry! I find a nice-a Sicilian boy for you."
Oh, sweet Gesù, no! "Nonna, it's not possible to be allergic to a person. And besides," I added in a desperate attempt to discourage a second round of the Sicilian Dating Game, "I re
ally don't have time to go out with anyone right now. After all, I've got a killer to track down."
"If-a you got-a the time to find a killer, you got-a the time to find a husband." And then in a shocking tactical maneuver, my nonna hung up the phone on me.
* * *
To keep my mind off the whole Bradley affair, so to speak, I buried myself in work. After spending several hours sifting through British and American websites for details about the Di Salvo murder trial, I pondered a disturbing picture of Stewart Preston. It was taken on the steps of the courthouse after he'd been acquitted for murder. In the photo, he was sneering defiantly with his fist raised in a sign of victory. Everything about the guy oozed sleaze, from his distasteful gesture to the gold chain link necklace and dark chunky watchband he'd selected to accessorize his designer suit. And to think that this is how he looked and behaved after his attorneys had undoubtedly worked overtime to get him to clean up his image.
The image of an arrogant Stewart was doing nothing to calm my already upset stomach. I pulled the seventh or eighth Tums tablet from the roll in my desk drawer and put it reluctantly into my mouth. What is wrong with me? I wondered as I pressed my right hand to my burning belly. Of course, my heartburn could have had something to do with the four slices of sausage and garlic pizza I'd eaten for lunch at Nizza. It also might have been caused by the threat of a renewed surge of Sicilian suitors looming on the horizon. But the most likely culprit was the fact that I'd fallen yet again for a cheater, and a married one to boot.
Luckily, the sound of the lobby bell interrupted what was about to become my personal pity party. I stood up unwillingly from my desk and headed down the hallway. As I approached the waiting area, I saw a young, dark-haired woman standing in the middle of the room with her right hand on a large crucifix necklace hanging from her neck. She was wearing sensible black shoes and a plain white cotton shirt with a full, ankle-length gray skirt, which accentuated her thick waist and chubby thighs.
"May I help you?"
"Yes," she said in a soft, soothing voice. "I'm here about the Jessica Evans case. I'm Concetta Di Salvo." As soon as she said it, I realized that I recognized her from the photos I'd seen at her mother's house.
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