As soon as I could pull free I excused myself to go find my date. Dante didn’t break from the wine bottle discussion but had a severe look on his face while the vein in his neck started to pump. Odd, I thought, over wine.
After the full court press from Miss Ruth, I needed a few quiet moments upstairs in the private bridal party room to fix my hair and freshen up. I’m sure I had her lipstick kiss still on my cheek. I needed a minute to decide how to handle Dante’s weird behavior and how to leave with only one man. I was hoping I could get Julia to distract Dante while I left with Jiff. I didn’t want a scene.
As I walked up the steps, I looked over my shoulder and saw Dante, Jiff and Julia conferring over Jiff’s cell phone. I needed to take a few minutes by myself. I wanted this wedding over and my life back to normal, even if normal meant I’d be worrying about Julia and her murder investigation. At least, Dante and Jiff would not be in the same room.
When I came out of the powder room up in the bridal room, Little Tony was sitting at a table.
“I came up here to find you,” he said.
“Well, I’ve been downstairs dancing this entire time. I can see why you missed me since the wedding party is so large,” I said.
“We haven’t had a drink or a dance all night.” Little Tony’s eyes had that drug glazed over look compared to his usual darting eye movements.
“Sure. Let’s go downstairs and dance now.” I tried to walk toward the reception room stairway. He grabbed me by my arm and swung me around away from the stairs and pushed me toward one of the small bistro tables.
“No, let’s have a drink up here. Sit down.” He picked up a wine glass from a set up on a nearby table and pulled a flask from his pocket. He poured red wine from the flask into the glass.
“Oh, is this your family’s wine?” I asked him. “You know my dad really likes that stuff.”
“Yeah, this is it. Drink up.” He pushed the glass into my hand.
I didn’t like the way he was acting but I figured he was under the influence of God knows what by now making him more obnoxious than usual. I decided to sit and have a couple of sips then excuse myself saying I had to get back to my date.
“I’m more of a champagne drinker but this is really good wine. I see why my dad likes it,” I said. I took another sip and set the wine glass down on the table. Little Tony picked up the glass and handed it back to me. “This is a great wedding and Angela made a beautiful bride, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, Angela finally got what she wanted,” he said.
“What about you? Any wedding bells in your future?” I asked him trying to steer him away from the wine. I really didn’t care for Chianti.
“No. Why make one woman miserable when I can make them all happy?” he said, laughing at his own joke.
“Aren’t you drinking with me?” I asked, taking another small sip and setting the glass down on the edge of the table so I could fumble around in my basket for my purse and cell phone. Making small talk with Little Tony was starting to become a chore.
“I can drink this stuff anytime I want too,” he said. “I think you need to drink your wine so you don’t hurt our feelings.” Little Tony had a menacing look on his face.
“Yes, I’ll have a little more. You know I’d never do anything to insult your family, Tony. I’ve known you and Angela since grade school.” I looked into my purse and saw I had a missed call and text from Jiff on my cell.
Then I looked closer at the message from Jiff. “You mind? I have a message and I’m guessing it’s from my date wondering where I am.” As I removed my cell phone from my bag and read the screen, Maurice says Little Tony is the guy who was following V. Little Tony knocked the phone out of my hand and it went shooting across the floor.
“You’re not talking with nobody,” he said.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “If you broke my phone, you will be buying me a new one. What is wrong with you?”
“Finish your wine,” he said.
Tony’s actions sent a cold shiver down my spine. I started to feel a little dizzy from the wine at the same time. Jiff was trying to text me it was Little Tony who followed Violet around and probably supplied her with the drugs. He knew the band and he knew Maurice could identify him as having been seen with Violet. I was glad I was sitting down when I had this realization or I might have hit the floor on weak knees. He fit the description of the sleazy guy everyone said had been giving Violet the roofies. Why didn’t I see it before now? How much of the wine did I drink? I wondered if it was enough to render me helpless.
“Drink your wine,” he said again, “and then we’re gonna go for a little ride. We’re going out the back elevator, you and me.” He grabbed my arm.
“Look Tony, you don’t have to be so rough. Let’s go downstairs and join the party, we’ll dance…but I can’t go for a ride. My date is downstairs waiting on me. He’ll be up here looking for me any minute.” I fought to keep my voice steady.
“Yeah, right.”
I tried to get up again, and he slapped my face and pushed me back in the chair. I rubbed my face where it stung and I picked up the glass as if to take another sip of the wine.
“You had to stick your nose where it didn’t belong. You had to keep snooping with your attorney boyfriend downstairs about St. Germain and give your dad a bottle of our wine. You had to make sure everyone saw it.” He pulled a gun out of his jacket and aimed it at me.
“Put that gun away, what’s wrong with you? This is your sister’s wedding. Your father, your father…he’s going to be really ticked off at you if he finds out you have a gun here and you’re aiming it at people.” I thought I might be slurring my words because I really had to concentrate to speak. I looked to the stairway entrance to see if anyone was coming up who could help me.
“He ain’t finding out. You ain’t telling him cuz we gonna be long gone in a few minutes. Now you are gonna finish your wine and take a little ride with me. When I get back, the party will still be going and no one is gonna miss you. You think you’re too good for me…. well after we get to know each other a little better I’m gonna make sure you never open that big mouth of yours again.” He stepped in closer pushing the gun into my chest. It was one of those small, silver Saturday night specials that if you were shot with it, it wouldn’t kill you but it could tear up your insides bouncing all over the place. This was what I recalled from Dante’s Gun Lesson 101.
“Tony, anyone can walk in here right now. My parents and my date are waiting for me downstairs. Did you forget Dante’s here?” I was feeling the effect of the drug from just a couple of sips. I really had to focus on the wine glass and act like I was going to pick it up. I wanted to throw it on Little Tony but I was having trouble making myself do what I was thinking about. I wasn’t sure I could throw it let alone hit him.
“Dante don’t know nothing and he won’t come looking for you until that boyfriend of yours figures out you’re missing. Maybe he’ll think you left with Dante and Dante will think you left with him. Either way, I have plenty of time to get you outta here,” he said pushing his face into mine.
Instead of drinking from the glass I dropped it. Everything looked like it was moving in slow motion. The glass shattered on the floor; Little Tony jumped back to avoid the spill and held his arms out in an effort not to get wine on his suit. I lunged toward the stairway leading downstairs and screamed. I couldn’t tell if the music was playing too loud for anyone to hear me.
Then I was on the floor and Little Tony was trying to get me to my feet. He held the gun in one hand while dragging me with his other hand away from the stairway. When he couldn’t get me to stand, he pulled me by the arm across the floor toward the freight elevator. If he got me into the freight elevator that opened out onto the loading dock, no one would see us leave. I tried screaming again. Maybe there was someone in the kitchen who might hear me down the back stairway.
The freight elevator opened and Dante was standing in it. Little Tony aimed the
gun at him while still holding my arm he was dragging me by.
“You really want to shoot a cop?” Dante asked him. He was standing perfectly still with his arms to his side, no weapon drawn and he sounded very calm.
Little Tony looked like he might be trying to decide if that was a good idea or not when I bit him on the leg. He jumped and looked down at me pointing the gun at me. Dante body slammed into him and they both slid across the floor with Dante on top. When they came to a stop, Little Tony tried to wrestle Dante off but Dante outweighed him by a lot. He knocked the gun out of Little Tony’s hand, lifted him off the floor then cold cocked him. Tony hit the floor like a rag doll.
Dante called toward the kitchen back stairs and two uniform police came into the room with their guns drawn. They took over hauling Little Tony away. Dante knelt down and asked me if I was hurt. I shook my head no, but I was drowsy from the drug and just wanted to close my eyes.
The last thing I remember was Dante picking me up in his arms and carrying me down the back catering stairs. I put my head on his shoulder and passed out.
***
I woke up and found myself in a very uncomfortable bed that looked like it was in a hospital room in a prison. The windows were all barred and there was a set of handcuffs dangling off the headboard above my head. Dante and Jiff were standing on either side of me. After looking back and forth from one to the other I said, “If I didn’t already have this killer headache, seeing you two like this would definitely give me one. Where am I and how long have I been here?”
“We’re at the police station,” Jiff said. “We’ve been here about two hours. I don’t think you ingested that much. I wanted to take you to a hospital.” He looked at Dante.
“How do you feel?” Dante asked me. He shot a look at Jiff and added, “I had the coroner come in and take a look at you. He said you’d be all right.”
“The coroner said I’d be all right? Well, that’s reassuring. Am I in the morgue?”
“No, you’re in a medical room used by the police medical staff,” Dante answered.
I sat up and then tried to get off the bed. “I’m OK, I think, just a little shaky. Little Tony, right?” I said.
“Yes.” Dante said. He helped me stand and inspected me up and down to make sure I could stay up on my own. Then he continued, “We had a partial print from the wine bottle found in the dumpster but his prints weren’t in the system. The back label on the wine bottle was destroyed and illegible when forensics got it so all we had to go on was the front label. It only had the wine’s name on it, none of the information on the vineyard or where it came from. When your dad showed it to me tonight I realized how it all connected. We had Little Tony in our sights for a while waiting to make an arrest on drug charges. We had him figured for roofies and cocaine. We just couldn’t tie him to Violet and St. Germain.”
“When you were dancing, Maurice showed me a photo he took when y’all came in from the limos,” Jiff said. “He took one of Little Tony because he recognized him as the guy who followed Violet around. I asked Julia to look at it and she remembered seeing him at Pancake Paddy’s when she went there for coffee. I sent it to Ernest and got him to go there and verify it with the manager.”
“Jiff came over and told me when I was looking at the label your dad was showing me. We both saw you go upstairs,” Dante said while Jiff nodded his head.
“Oh, my God, I think Little Tony has been following me,” I sat back down. “The wine he gave me had Rohypnol in it. He tried to force me to drink all of it.”
“I sent it to the lab for evidence,” Dante said. “I don’t need it tested to know it’s going to be a match.”
“You could have been shot coming in there like that,” I said.
“No, I wasn’t going to let him kill me because I still have unfinished business with you.” He looked right at Jiff when he said it. He looked back at me and said, “Little Tony had been drinking and he was also high so I knew his reaction time was going to be off. Besides, shooting a cop is big a deal, even to a loser like him. They all figure they will get away with shooting someone but the whole police force comes after you when you shoot a cop. Even the worse criminals think twice,” Dante said.
“He said he was going to get to know me better before he killed me,” I said.
“That little weirdo has been a freakazoid since we were kids. He thinks he’s a tough guy? Well, I’m going to make him sorry he ever even said that to you.” Dante’s vein was starting to pump and I grabbed his hand.
“Thank you for saving me. It’s hard to imagine someone I’ve known since we were kids could be such a, such a…” I said.
“Psycho,” Jiff finished. “You hit call back when you picked up your phone. I’m guessing it was right before Little Tony knocked it away from you, so when I heard what was going on, I hit record. We have everything he said to you recorded. You got him.”
“So, the three of us all left together?” I asked rubbing my temples with my fingers.
Dante reached over and extended his hand to Jiff and said, “Thanks for your help.”
Jiff said, “I’ll go get the car and meet you out front. Dante, can you walk her out?”
“Of course.” Hanky appeared in the doorway and Dante told her he’d be with her in a minute.
“She’s a good dance instructor,” I said, “but I still don’t like her.”
“She took Jiff’s statement while I waited here with you. Jiff gave us the recording. Little Tony is toast. Hanky will wait and take Maurice’s statement and any of the band members after they finish playing tonight. I told them I didn’t want to make a scene at the wedding for Angela or her parents. After Jiff showed me the cell photo Maurice took of Little Tony and said he’s the one who followed St. Germain and Violet around, we saw you going upstairs alone and I realized I hadn’t seen Little Tony since we got to the reception. I figured he might still be up here waiting on you. He’s good at waiting.”
Dante told me he carried me down the back stairway and had the uniformed police haul Little Tony discreetly down the same way through the kitchen. Jiff met us in the back of the building and took us to the police station in his Mercedes. We left unnoticed and without making a scene except to the kitchen staff.
“C’mon,” Dante said. “Jiff needs to take you home.”
Dante walked me out to Jiff’s car. As it pulled up he said, “I’ll be awhile. Will you wait up for me?”
I’m just a sucker for a man in a tuxedo with a loosened bow tie at his neck. Dante looked handsome in the tuxedo he was wearing in spite of it being rumpled a bit with a dusty mark on the pants where he had slid across the floor with Little Tony. His jacket had a ripped pocket so he wasn’t going to get his deposit back.
“I’ll be up,” I said.
He took my hand and kissed it walking away from me backwards and then he left to finish his paperwork and book Little Tony as Jiff got out his car and came around to open my door.
***
At my front door Jiff hugged me and said he was so glad I wasn’t hurt. He said he was sorry he wasn’t more help to me. I told him, I was sorry I wasn’t more help to me. I told him it took a few minutes before I realized Little Tony was the bad guy and he was going to hurt me. I had a couple of sips of the wine before I realized it had the drug in it.
Jiff said Dante told him the police had held out releasing what the wine label looked like because they couldn’t find anyone who imported it. They wanted to question the importer but were running into dead ends. The wine bottle from the dumpster did have Rohypnol traces, the same chemical makeup as what was found in St. Germain and Julia’s tox screens. The police were convinced it was the bottle from the room and the one that drugged Julia and St. Germain. Dante told Jiff he never thought Julia was guilty even though so much pointed in her direction. Dante thought once they could tie the wine bottle to someone they would have the killer and they did.
“We both have had a long day, especially you. Dante is going to r
ecommend dropping all charges against Julia,” Jiff said.
“’Don’t you mean Detective Deedler when you are referring to Dante?” I joked.
“He said I could call him Dante at the police station. I’m surprised you didn’t hear that? He actually thanked me for my help with the photo.”
“Really?” I must have been more drugged than I thought. “Can we talk tomorrow? I’m really tired,” I said.
Jiff hugged me, kissed my forehead and said, “We’ve both had a long, stressful night.” Then his voice got a little shaky and he hugged me tighter saying, “I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you…if you had been hurt. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Then he left me alone wanting a whole lot more physical comfort.
It was an hour later when Dante called. He told me over the phone Little Tony confessed he had given Violet the wine spiked with Rohypnol to finally put the moves on her. When he went to her place that night to open the bottle she told him she had given it to Gervais St. Germain because that afternoon Gervais had told her he loved her. Violet was angry with St. Germain once she realized he wasn’t going to celebrate his profession of love with her so she followed him when he left her. She discovered he was staying in a hotel and saw him go out with Julia. Trouble follows trouble and Little Tony followed Violet. When he found where Gervais was staying he wanted that wine back before he was implicated in Gervais drugging someone and it all came back on him since the family name was plastered all over the bottle. Little Tony followed Violet, Julia and St. Germain back to the hotel after watching them at the Napoleon House. We know Violet went to meet the friend at a bar to drink and was there when the murder took place. Little Tony knew who Julia was from hanging out at Pancake Paddy. He climbed the tree to get a better look and saw a way to gain entry so he waited to make his move. When he saw them drinking the wine he knew it was just a matter of time before they passed out. This was his opportunity to get rid of his nemesis, have Violet to himself and frame someone else for killing Gervais. He picked up Julia’s dress, covered the statute in it and bashed in St. Germain’s head. He said he rinsed out the glasses thinking he eliminated the drug and took the wine bottle. He said he left the hotel about 1:45 am and went looking for Violet. The time he left the hotel tracks with the coroner’s time of death. His mistake was to dump the items together so close to the hotel. He figured the police would find the dress and statue and tie them to Julia without looking any further. When Julia’s attorney proclaimed there was a missing wine bottle possibly laced with Rohypnol, the police looked closer at the one found in the dumpster with the dress and statue.
Dead and Breakfast (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 2) Page 18