by Ellen Byron
“Maggie? Oh, thank God.”
The caller was a woman; she sounded hysterical. “I’m sorry, who is this?”
“It’s me. Valeria.”
The singer began weeping. Maggie’s heart raced. “Valeria, you sound terrible. What’s wrong?”
“Someone attacked Bokie.” For a moment, Maggie heard nothing but gulping sobs. Then Valeria said, “He’s in a coma. The doctors think he may die.”
Chapter 14
Maggie raced to St. Pierre Parish Hospital. She found Valeria in the ICU waiting room. The singer paced by herself, away from East, Uffen, and The Sound, who huddled together in a corner of the room. Relief replaced anxiety when Valeria saw Maggie. “Thank you so much for coming.” She hugged her.
Maggie returned the hug, then pulled Valeria further away from the others. “What happened?” she asked in a low voice.
“It was awful. We were at the pool. I said I was going inside to take a nap. Bokie said he was going to come by later with some dirt for my book. Really good stuff. Someone must have heard him. Poor baby doesn’t know how loud he is because of his hearing loss. He never showed, so I just did my thing, hung out, had dinner. And on the way back …” Valeria’s lower lip quivered. “I saw him lying in the bushes on the side of the building where my room is. Blood was on the back of his head, all in his hair.” Tears began rolling down her cheeks. “He cared about me. More than anyone. And now I almost got him killed.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Right after I called 911. The police came and talked to all of us already. I waited until they were gone to call you. I needed a friend, and you’re as close to one as I have here.” Maggie would have found this surprising if she hadn’t picked up on the negative undercurrent infecting Tammy’s entourage.
“What in the name of the Almighty is going on around here?” The angry voice belonged to the star herself, who marched into the room flanked by her shadows, Gigi and Narcisse. Manager Sara brought up the rear.
The musicians all exchanged looks but none responded, so Maggie spoke up. “Bokie’s been seriously injured. And it doesn’t appear to be an accident.”
This news evoked a torrent of foul language from Tammy. “Let’s find Bokie’s doctor,” Sara interjected. “He can tell us what’s really going on. The rest of you should go back to the resort.”
“You’re high if you think I’m leaving,” Valeria declared. “I’m not going nowhere. I’m quitting the tour and staying right here with Bokie. If you got problems with that, feel free to sue me.” She put her hands on her hips and took a defiant stance.
Tammy threw her hands up in the air. “Great. I don’t have a manager, a drummer, and now a backup singer.” She waved a fist at the other musicians. “If anyone else gets attacked or murdered on this tour, I’m firing all of you!”
She turned and stormed out of the room, Gigi and Narcisse on her heels. Sara ran behind them. “I’ll make some calls to LA. We should be able to get replacements at least in time for the Jazz Fest set.” Her voice faded as the foursome disappeared down the hospital hall.
East and The Sound glared at Valeria. Uffen hung back but didn’t look much happier. The expression on Toulouse’s face, sadness with a hint of empathy, was what Maggie expected from the kindhearted Cajun.
“You and that stupid book of yours,” The Sound spat at Valeria.
East jumped in. “Really. You think your effing memoir’s some big secret, Val? It ain’t. Everyone knows about it. And nobody cares.”
Uffen spoke up. “Not true. Somebody cared enough to try and kill Bokie, possibly the only decent human being in this nauseating business.”
“No one has to worry about my book anymore,” Valeria said, her voice quiet, the defiant attitude gone. “I deleted the file. Emptied the trash bin. It’s gone.”
“Too little, too late, love,” Uffen said. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I could use a stiff, strong shot of something. Anyone not in recovery or interested in falling off the wagon, come with me.”
Uffen left by himself. Toulouse took Valeria’s hands in his own. “I’m praying on Bokie. Isaiah 41:10. ‘Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’ ”
“Amen,” Valeria responded.
East put a hand on Toulouse’s shoulder. “We best get going, brother.”
“Let us know if there’s any change,” The Sound said to Valeria.
She nodded, and the three men left. A thought occurred to Maggie. “It’s interesting. If whoever attacked Bokie was worried he’d reveal something damaging for your book, the most logical suspect would be someone in the business. And on this tour. But I don’t get that any of them suspect each other.”
Valeria snorted. “Because they’re all part of an elitists’ boys club. Yeah, even in the music business, there’s rank. These guys probably think some crazy roadie went after Bokie, because anyone on their level is way too cool to be bothered by some dirt in my book. They’re all angry at me now, but if my book ever got published, they’d be way madder if they weren’t in it.”
“That book is dangerous. You could have been next on the killer’s list. I think you were smart to delete it.”
“The thing is …” Valeria poked her head out the waiting room door, looking in both directions to make sure she and Maggie were alone. “I kept one copy.” She dug through her large black leather purse and pulled out a flash drive. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the guys when the police were here, but the file’s on this. It’s just called STUFF, in case anyone found the drive. They wouldn’t think it was important.” Valeria pressed the drive into Maggie’s hand. “Give this to your ex, the detective. See if he can find anything on it that could help find whoever tried to kill Bokie. And probably killed Pony. Let’s get the sucker.”
Only Valeria used a much more colorful word than sucker.
* * *
Maggie sat by the edge of Bayou Beurre behind Crozat. The water was still as always; the only sound came from a great horned owl perched somewhere in a nearby tree. A full moon reflected in the slow-moving stream, the image occasionally disrupted by bubbles from the bayou’s fish. Maggie closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of moss and banana shrubs.
She heard the sound of twigs cracking under the pressure of footsteps. The branches of a sweet olive tree parted, and Bo emerged. Maggie stood up and they went to each other. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Took us forever to interview everyone who was at Belle Vista when Tammy’s drummer was attacked. The place is sold out, thanks to the festival.”
“I’ll tell Gran. She feels responsible for the whole thing, so she’ll take some comfort from that. She was worried that this second attack would drive people away for sure. There’s a little positive news about Bokie. Valeria texted me that she talked to his doctor and he’s more optimistic about his recovery.”
“Glad to hear it. So, what’s going on? Or is this a booty call? I don’t see an open spot of land that could hide us, though.”
“I wish.” Maggie gave Bo the flash drive. “Valeria’s been writing a tell-all book. The file’s on here under STUFF. She wants you to take a look and see if any clues jump out at you.”
“Got it. Thanks.” Bo pocketed the drive.
“But this is good for Gaynell. There’s no way she’d be fodder for this book.”
“And lucky for Gay, we’ve yet to come up with any physical evidence tying her to Pony’s murder. Or tie anyone else to it, which is frustrating.”
“Do you have any leads on the weapon Bokie’s attacker used to knock him out?”
“We found fragments of cement on the ground. Kaity Bertrand said a statue of a small cherub was missing from the grounds near his room. Cal and Artie are on the hunt for it, but most likely it’s in the bayou along with Pony’s electronics. I did dig up a little on that Narcisse nimrod. Arrested twice, once for a DUI, once for a fight
over a girl. Not his wife, someone before her.”
“Yeah, I don’t get that he’d clock anyone over Gigi. You know, I remember Pony wasn’t at all happy when Tammy said she was hiring Narcisse. He threatened to ax him. Maybe Narcisse got rid of Pony before Pony could get rid of him. Or Gigi. She’s on a mission to follow Tammy back to Los Angeles and knew Pony was an obstacle to that. They both had motives. It might even have been a joint effort.”
“Who knew I’d find a murder theory so sexy?” Bo pulled Maggie toward him. After a moment, they broke apart. “I really can’t wait until our little scam’s over. I don’t like thinking about you and those musicians. I can tell that skinny Brit’s got an eye on you.”
Maggie shuddered. “So not my type. None of them are. They pretty much all look like they could use a shower, and I’m guessing more than one of them has a venereal disease.”
Bo laughed. “One thing I’ve learned is that I would’ve been hard up for dates in this town if I hadn’t met you. Not one woman who’s come on to me has been my type.”
Maggie frowned and pulled away. “Exactly how many women would that be?”
“Who cares? It could be a thousand. None of them is you.”
Feeling a little better, Maggie responded when Bo bent his head down to kiss her. They were interrupted by excited dog barks. Gopher and Jolie came bounding through the brush toward the couple. Both dogs leapt on Bo, yapping for joy. “I’m not the only one who’s glad to see you,” she said.
“Hey, little buddies.” Bo fake-tussled with both dogs. “I better go before they give me away. ’Night, chère.”
“’Night.”
Bo left the way he’d come, and Maggie followed the path from the bayou back home to the shotgun cottage.
Maggie got a decent night’s sleep, the first in a few days. She decided to put murder out of her mind and start the morning with a run. She pulled on black bicycle shorts and a patterned purple top that wicked moisture, then headed out. Her route went up a dirt road, past the old lodge that Chret Bertrand and his crew of veterans were rehabbing into housing for servicemen and servicewomen. The vets who were there working on the place waved and shouted greetings to her, which she returned. The restoration of the stone-and-log lodge was almost complete, and Maggie looked forward to her new neighbors.
She jogged along the River Road, where only a few cars passed by, then down the decomposed granite driveway that ended at the Crozat manor house, eventually completing her run by circling back to the shotgun. Maggie went inside, making sure to pull the screen door shut behind her as an extra precaution against a spring swarm of mosquitoes. She got a towel from the bathroom, a bottle of water from the kitchen, and then took a seat on the living room couch next to Grand-mère. Maggie motioned to a bundle of old letters her grandmother was sorting through. “More love letters from Grand-père?”
“Yes, the last batch. They’re quite powerful. Listen.” Gran picked one out of the bundle. A corner of the brittle paper disintegrated, sending small flakes to the floor. “ ‘Every minute I don’t see you feels like an hour, every hour a day, every week a month,’ ” she read. “ ‘Try as I might, I cannot find words that express the depth of my love for you.’ ”
“That’s so beautiful,” Maggie said, touched by her grandfather’s passion.
“It is, isn’t? Except that your grandfather didn’t write it to me.” The letter fell from Gran’s hands into her lap. “He wrote it to another woman.”
Chapter 15
Maggie stared at her grandmother, not comprehending. “What do you mean, he wrote it to another woman? He only loved you.”
“Apparently not. According to this particular batch of letters, he was also crazy about this Carina person.”
“That’s so weird.” Maggie tried to process the unexpected development. “Grand-père always told me you were the love of his life. He talked about sneaking out of his dorm room at Tulane to visit you at Newcomb after curfew.”
“Those were fun times.” Gran held up a letter. “But apparently not as fun as the time he had with Carina at Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park.”
“Was he … could he have been … having an affair?”
Gran shook her head. “The letters are dated during the summer months of 1954. We met in fall of that year.”
“Oh.” Maggie’s brow cleared. “He had a girlfriend before you. That’s not so bad.”
“Not just ‘a girlfriend,’ Magnolia. Someone who was his ‘whole world, whole universe,’ quote, unquote. And why does he have the letters he sent to her along with her letters to him?”
“She must have returned them to him.”
“Which means I was his rebound relationship.” Gran tugged at a rare errant curl. “Not exactly flattering.” She frowned. “I know the past is the past, but what upsets me is that your grand-père never said a word about this girl to me. If I wasn’t Döstädning-ing, I would have gone to my deathbed never knowing about her.”
“I’m begging now, you have to stop using the word death in any form or language. You know, you’re assuming she broke up with him. Maybe she did something terrible and Grand-père broke up with her and demanded she return his letters.”
Gran brightened. “Well, that paints a much better picture. I need to find out more about this …” Gran looked down at an envelope. “Carina Albieri.”
“Are you going to do a search?”
“Yes. If the Internet can steal our private information and throw it all over the place willy-nilly, I might as well take advantage of that. But first I’ll finish reading all these letters.” She picked up another and skimmed it. “How lovely,” she said, her tone sarcastic. “Now they’re tasting each other’s ice cream cones at Brocato’s in the Quarter.”
“If you need any help—or a dish of self-soothing ice cream for yourself—let me know.”
Maggie kissed Grand-mère on her soft, pale cheek. She retreated to the bathroom for a shower and then dressed for a humid day under the hot spring sun.
She left the cottage for the manor house, where she was surprised to see a group of extremely fit young women in leotards and dance skirts hanging out on Crozat’s veranda. Some were lazily stretching, contorting their bodies into positions Maggie couldn’t have dreamt of achieving at her youngest and slimmest. A few others smoked and chatted with each other.
Maggie circled around the house, entering the kitchen through the back door. Ninette was there, the tiny woman almost lost behind piles of vegetables, fruits, and meats crowding the table. “What’s going on, Mom?” Maggie asked, helping herself to an apple from a bucket of them. “Who are those girls outside?”
“Dancers. Tammy imported them from New Orleans and Houston. She also ordered a wooden floor for the party tent so they can practice there. They’re all staying with us because everywhere else in town is booked.” Ninette held up a printout. “They also came with more dietary requests. Lots of them. When one girl said, ‘Don’t worry about me, I don’t eat, I just smoke,’ I was actually grateful.”
Loud pop music blasted from outside the house, then stopped. This happened three times in short succession. Maggie flinched. “I better check that out.”
“Thank you. I don’t have time. I need to figure out the difference between vegan, vegetarian, and raw food.”
Maggie left for the B and B’s party tent, located in its large side yard. The dancers she’d seen on the veranda had moved their stretching into the tent, adding a few leaps and pirouettes along with hip-hop moves. “Front and center, ladies,” an androgynous-looking man wearing a headset barked at them. “We’re running the routine again.”
The women took their positions as Tammy sashayed to a spot in front of them. Maggie almost jumped out of her skin as the music she’d heard before came blasting out of a speaker behind her. Tammy sang as she and her dancers launched into a complex dance number. They finished, and Narcisse, who was lolling around, applauded. So did Tammy’s manager, Sara, who was operating the sound system. �
��Wasn’t that awesome?” Sara said to Maggie, her enthusiasm indicating it was a rhetorical question.
“It’s certainly different from Tammy’s usual music.” Maggie, unimpressed, chose her words carefully.
“That’s the whole point,” Sara said, impatience in her voice. “Tammy’s crossing over into pop. Pony didn’t want her to; he said the field was too competitive and she risked losing her base, but I totally support her.”
“I guess Tammy’s lucky you’re running the show now,” Maggie said. She indicated the performers. “Literally.”
“Yup, so lucky. She’s going to debut the new material at Jazz Fest. Captive audience, big press buzz. Tammy’s gonna kill it.” Realizing her poor choice of words, Sara hastened to add, “Of course, Pony was the master of what he did, and I’ll always be grateful to him. Sorry, I need to get back to work. We’re paying these dancers by the hour.” She turned away and manipulated a lever on the system, then pressed a button. The music roared on. “Let’s run it again,” she called to the performers.
Having been dismissed by Sara, Maggie left Tammy and her dancers to their gyrations. She walked back to the shotgun cottage, where Gran was still ensconced on the couch, reading a letter from the shrinking packet on her lap. “Have you moved since I left here?” Maggie asked.
“No. I can’t put these letters down.”
Maggie went into the kitchen and came out with two bottles of sparkling water. She handed one to Gran. “Did you discover anything else about the mysterious Carina?”
“She had flowing black hair and olive skin that made her blue eyes stand out like”—Gran read from the letter—“the Star of India sapphire.”