Our host appeared as if reading our minds when we were ready to move to our table.
It was also quiet in the main dining room with a modest crowd all-talking nose to nose. We were seated in a corner near French doors that opened to the street. We told the waiter we were in no particular hurry for our meal so he left the menus. Jiff asked to see the wine list and he returned a few minutes later with it and also an appetizer of Oysters En Brochette saying it was on the house and to take as much time as we needed. He’d check on us in a few minutes.
“Do you come here a lot?” I asked. “They seem to know you.”
“My parents come here with my family often. My mother loves this place and plans, at a minimum, weekly dinners for her and my dad here, and a private party for every anniversary, every birthday or event—even for her adult children—here. I’m sure they recognized my name since my mother makes a lot of reservations. Parties of more than four people are held in the upstairs private room where my rowdy family is usually sequestered. It keeps the bar and dining room intimate, so other diners do not have to endure our liquored up voices slurring or singing ‘Happy Birthday’,” he smiled.
I didn’t want to tell him our family dinners brought to mind the year I was eight and my sister was five years old and my dad gave my mother the electric carving knife—something he wanted—as a Christmas gift. She was disappointed, to say the least, since she had dropped a million hints for diamond earrings. To let him know the level of her disappointment she swore she’d cut his heart out with said knife. Both my sister and I shudder, even now, when we recall that Christmas dinner with all our relatives. My dad uses that electric carving knife every holiday so it’s unlikely that memory will ever fade since it’s revisited yearly.
“I want you to know you are the first date I’ve ever brought here.”
“Why, Mr. Heinkel, I think you’re flirting with me,” I said in my most charming southern drawl.
“I am, and I want you to know I think about you all the time,” he said as he picked up an oyster wrapped in bacon with his fork and fed it to me.
“Wow, these are to die for,” I said after tasting one.
“I’m glad you like them. They are my mother’s favorite and she orders them for all our dinner parties,” he said. “She swears the oysters keep the magic alive in their marriage,” he added. He took one of my hands in his across the table. He touched all the rings I was wearing and asked me why I wore each one. He asked about my childhood and since I wanted to keep the relationship alive, I didn’t tell him much. He asked how I knew Julia. Julia and I had met when we both worked at the Telecom Company. I left out that when she was laid off she went to work in the French Quarter as an exotic dancer, more accurately a pole dancer. I could also feel he was going to quiz me on my relationship with Dante and I definitely didn’t want to go there.
The maître d’ appeared at our table so suddenly we stopped our discussion.
“I don’t mean to interrupt your conversation but you two are the most romantic couple in the room. I would like to send you a bottle of champagne compliments of the house. Please advise your waiter when you are ready after you finish your cocktails,” he said.
Jiff thanked him and we looked at each other when he left. The waiter appeared as if summoned telepathically with the ice bucket and popped the cork. He poured the golden hue of bubbles in two flutes. Jiff and I toasted to a lovely evening in spite of the conversation. It’s hard not to smile at a handsome man across the table from you who hangs onto your every word while drinking expensive champagne. Jiff’s face was easy to look at and his dimples simply added to the boyish charm. But it was his jet black eyes that pierced my soul. It was that intensity, along with him looking like James Bond in the tuxedo he was wearing, that made me walk out into the street and kiss him at a Mardi Gras parade even though I had never met him. The kiss we shared had sent a lightning bolt into my world and woke up my sleeping hormones. When he whispered to meet him at the end of the parade, I did. Of course he was shot at, taken to Charity Hospital and then we were both kidnapped, but all relationships have their challenges. It was working fine now.
“This is very nice champagne,” I said after the waiter left and I saw the name on the bottle.
“It’s my mother’s favorite,” Jiff said.
I wondered if his mother was sitting somewhere in the restaurant watching us. It almost felt like she was there having dinner and I waited for the surprise appearance asking to join them at their table. My worries were for naught.
Even in this romantic setting, our thoughts quickly returned to all the trouble with Julia. Discussion turned to all we’d learned. We recounted what we knew and didn’t know:
Julia knew Gervais in the biblical sense, and knew Violet from delivering coffee and food from Pancake Paddy.
We still didn’t know who roofied Julia and Gervais. This was the biggest question along with, where was Violet?
After an extensive police search, the wine bottle Julia said was in the room wasn’t found anywhere in the hotel. If we could get prints off the bottle from the dumpster, assuming it was the wine bottle from the room, we might get a line on a credible suspect.
Someone must have given the wine to Gervais spiked and he didn’t know it. We thought it unlikely he knowingly did it to himself but stranger things have been known to happen. His blood alcohol levels may have contributed to spiking his own glass by accident. He didn’t have any history with Rohypnol according to the band but there’s always a first time. Violet had experience with Rohypnol and pets, so we suspected her of spiking the wine and giving it to Gervais. That would explain why he drank it, but now Violet was missing and St. Germain was dead so we couldn’t ask them.
The wine bottle in the dumpster was, for all we knew, just a wine bottle and not the one from the room. Jiff was still waiting on the report from the police department to verify whether or not it was the bottle from the room and if there were traces of Rohypnol on the glass recovered. It was a long shot, but we hoped a fingerprint other than Julia’s or St. Germain’s was on it too.
“How much Rohypnol has to be in a glass or how much of the glass do you have to partake to have the desired effect?” I asked as I took a sip of my champagne.
“Very little. One milligram in a glass would do the trick. Just sipping some from that flute of champagne you’re drinking would have the desired effect,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have to drink the whole glass?” I asked, surprised at the minuscule amount needed to render someone incapable of moving or defending themselves.
“No, but the more you drink the longer the effect it has is what I was told by Ernest. He’s the expert right now on roofies. I’ll have to be by the time we go to trial,” Jiff said. When he noticed a slight panic look start to cross my face, he changed his comment to, “if we go to trial. Don’t worry about that now.”
Violet went missing the same night Gervais was killed. What happened that day to cause the orbits of Julia, Violet and Gervais to collide? Julia couldn’t be in two places at the same time drugged on roofies and neither could Violet, given the timeline or as intoxicated as the bartender and her friend made her out to be.
My theory had a nagging flaw that kept me coming back to the open window. At first I’d thought Violet followed Gervais and seeing him with someone else in a bed & breakfast, while she was sleeping in her car could have pushed her over the edge. That was the night she was last seen. Maybe she killed Gervais then took off back to Chicago. As much as I wanted the killer to be Violet, this meant she would have had to enter their room shortly after they were in it—around midnight—so she could have gotten to the bar to meet her friend. My theory had two flaws. One was St. Germain’s time of death. It was very unlikely the Coroner, who had been the Coroner for umpteen years, had the time wrong. The second was someone had to be pretty strong to climb that tree and wait there until the time was right. That person might have waited a couple of hours and Violet was in the bar all
that time.
Jiff’s theory was Violet manipulated Gervais with cocaine. She had a habit, she had a supplier and a constant money source. Jiff doubted she would kill him. Why would she murder her future husband? She wanted Gervais to marry her, or so she told her family. She had gone back and forth before, so he thought after her hangover, she would go back with him again.
He agreed, this left a third person who had to have killed St. Germain and tried to frame Julia, but who and why?
“Hmmm, the plot thickens,” Jiff mimicked in a Sherlock Holmes quip as he topped off our champagne glasses.
Michelle, Jiff’s other investigator, had reported to him that the members of the band close to St. Germain swore Gervais didn’t plan on marrying Violet. They did weigh in on the pregnancy saying “maybe a baby” since she went back and forth with Gervais on a regular basis, but Gervais never mentioned any paternal problems or obligations.
“Here’s another fly in the ointment,” Jiff said. “Michelle’s report also said that Maurice had had enough of Gervais’ drug use and had a lead guitar player lined up to play with them for Jazz Fest since St. Germain was often a no show for gigs or arrived wasted when he did show up. Maurice had already contracted his replacement for Jazz Fest and hadn’t told Gervais yet.”
“That must have been the guy we saw tuning up. I wonder why Maurice didn’t mention this when we first spoke with him. Maurice had to know Gervais was supposed to be staying at Julia’s B&B with them, or did he?” I said.
“One of the band members told Michele they were surprised when they heard Gervais was in New Orleans since he had not contacted them in a couple of months. If he thought he could waltz in and have his spot back whenever he wanted it, this might have caused a fight within the band. Maybe several band members were worried he’d cause problems once he found out he was being replaced. Maybe someone in the band wanted him gone badly enough to kill him and eliminate the potential problem,” Jiff said.
Violet and her car had disappeared. She could have gone missing days later, but the last time Jiff’s detective, Ernest could validate anyone seeing her was the night of the murder. The family began to speculate someone had abducted her.
The police maintained Julia was a good suspect for Violet’s disappearance as the third person in the lovers’ triangle. It didn’t help Julia that it played out in the media this way with the help of Violet’s parents.
“Violet’s parents said in an interview on the air, that Violet came to New Orleans a year ago during a Jazz Fest weekend and met Gervais St. Germain. She fell in love with him and stayed,” I said. “Violet could have wanted to kill Gervais because she discovered him sleeping with someone else. The band said she usually followed him around to thwart his attentions with other women. Maybe she felt she was losing control and if she was pregnant, and her hormones were raging, seeing him sleeping with someone else might have pushed her to kill him. It wouldn’t be the first crime of passion nor the last.”
“You’re right. Given the right circumstances and we don’t know much about Violet, she could have been pushed over the edge seeing him with someone else,” Jiff said. “How would you feel if you saw me with someone else?”
“I don’t know. I’ve really never thought about that until just now,” I said. He smiled at me and poured more champagne in our glasses.
I had to wonder, did she drive off that night leaving New Orleans and a lot of memories that weren’t working out the way she wanted them to? It would be the irresponsible thing Violet was known to do or was Violet a woman drowning her guilt for killing her lover, or mourning the end of their relationship? Had she met with foul play, or orchestrated her own disappearance? Jiff and I both thought if we found her car, then we might find her. This would help Julia by casting doubt she had anything to do with Violet’s disappearance.
Of course, it might not if Violet was found murdered.
The waiter came back to take our order and I wanted another plate of the oysters but was afraid I’d be sending the wrong message to Jiff right about now. I asked the waiter for a recommendation and I went with his suggestion of Steamed Mussels and French Onion Soup.
Jiff ordered Duck Confit, the French Onion Soup also and a Poached Scallop small plate for us to share.
“My mother loves the oysters but the scallops are my favorite and I want you to try them.”
“OK, they sound wonderful, but I don’t know if they can top the oysters. That is about the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I just don’t think I can eat all this,” I said.
“Just taste it. If you like it, you can order it next time,” he said. “But, really, save space for the dessert. I asked the chef to make something special just for you.”
“We have more questions than answers,” I said, turning the conversation back around while we waited for our dinner. “I’m really afraid if we find Violet, she might be the final piece of evidence the police will use in Julia’s conviction. I haven’t said this to anyone but Julia told me she didn’t tell the sequence of events that morning exactly like they happened. Has she told you that?”
“Like what different sequence of events?” Jiff stopped smiling at me and put his glass down on the table, giving me his undivided attention.
I explained what Julia had told me about showering and getting dressed before the police showed up. She didn’t remember the dress she wore that night was missing from the room.
“How long have you known this?” he asked.
“She told me this the day she came back after the police questioned her regarding Violet gone missing. She did say when she woke up she wasn’t wearing the dress and she didn’t take it with her when she left the room. She also said she saw blood when she showered but thought she cut herself. She didn’t realize he was dead until she went back up to the room after she dressed and made them some breakfast. I think she was drugged and her accounting of that morning is very foggy.”
“I know that and you know that, but now Julia’s facts are changing and the police have her in a lie about knowing Violet. This is going to be brutal if we don’t find Violet and who killed Gervais.”
The waiter brought us a basket of warm French bread, which Jiff handed to me and said, “You have to take a piece. It’s baked fresh here.”
I picked up and buttered the soft, warm bread. I tasted the way it smelled before ever putting a piece in my mouth. Nothing smells as good as freshly baked bread and when bakeries in New Orleans fire up the ovens the most heavenly aromas are unsuspectingly encountered while driving on the interstate or in certain neighborhoods. This French bread was distracting me from worrying over Julia’s lapse in judgment. I took a bite and sat there savoring the melted butter and crusty piece in my mouth.
“I know she should have told you all this and I advised her she needed to update you on everything now. When she told me the morning events weren’t exactly like she first said they happened I got a tight feeling in my chest. I’m not ready to believe she did it, but I’m starting to wonder what really happened in that room. I can’t even believe I’m saying this.” I put another piece of buttered bread on my plate and let it sit there working it’s magic of warming me with the baked fragrance I could taste without taking a bite.
Jiff paused and looked very pensive before he said, “It’s still a little early to make that conclusion,” Jiff said, “even though everything keeps coming back to Julia. We need to find Violet and put that piece of the puzzle in place and see where that leads us. This seems like a bunch of disassociated facts or situations that culminated the night Julia decided to live a little,” Jiff said.
“I realize her fling with St. Germain moved her from a business relationship to a personal one with him. I can see the police thinking Julia knew Violet, or knew of her,” I said.
“Brandy, I’ve had clients with a lot less evidence against them and they were found guilty. I don’t believe she did it but things look bad for Julia.”
“Why Jiff, I think you almost like Julia,�
�� I smiled.
“You know the hotel business is tough and a lot of work. I admire her for taking it on.”
“Yes, she’s decided to open her own business so she wouldn’t have to answer to anyone ever again after her husband died. Now, she has had to answer to everybody for everything. This isn’t fair because she has to work harder and pay to prove she didn’t do it,” I said.
Our meal came and one thing was better than the next but my favorite was still the oysters. Jiff took a fork full of the scallop dish and fed it to me. It was wonderful, and having a handsome man feed me was intoxicating along with the champagne.
He topped off my glass of champagne and looked serious. “I want to talk to you about something else.”
“Sure, what is it?” I reached for my glass.
“I’d like to take our relationship to the next step.”
Uh oh, the next step in the relationship discussion. I’m glad I didn’t order the oysters.
I think my champagne glass stopped midway from the table to my lips when he said this.
“What I mean is, I’d like for us to spend more time together, maybe go somewhere for a weekend. You know, like a vacation, four or five days. I was thinking Cozumel, Mexico. I love Mexico.” Then he stopped talking and waited for my response. I knew I was in trouble.
I started thinking of my sales training. Sales taught that when you were selling something, ask for the sale, and then stop talking. The next person who talked lost. I didn’t feel like I was going to lose but I did feel like I was going to relinquish some control depending how I responded. So ask for more info on the deal, see if it’s what you really want. This was in sales, of course.
“Really? A weekend trip? When?” I asked.
Dead and Breakfast (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 2) Page 12