Someone's Mad at the Hatter

by Sandra Bretting

  * * *

  He didn’t speak to me for the rest of the afternoon. I spent the hours holed up in the back half of the studio, where the fabric press, industrial sewing machine, and drafting table kept me company, while he commandeered the front half, with its cash register, pattern books, and client folders.

  Finally, the clock showed it was ten minutes until five. Close enough. “Guess I’ll be going.” I brushed some eraser shavings from the sketch pad I’d been working on and rose.

  Ambrose stood behind the counter, of course, speaking into his cell phone. Part of me wondered whether he was faking the conversation, though, because he gestured while he spoke, and he never did that otherwise. No doubt he only pretended to hold the conversation so he wouldn’t have to speak with me. The big phony.

  “I guess I’ll see you later.” I used a stage whisper as I crossed the room, doing my best to play along with him.

  “Hm, mmm.” He didn’t even bother to glance up.

  I mulled over his playacting—and everything else—on my drive back to the rent house. Why didn’t he stop me from going out on my date tonight? Was it pride? Maybe. Stubbornness? Probably. Or, maybe he thought I needed to work something out of my system.

  Whatever the reason, he was the world’s worst liar. He could claim he didn’t care all day long, but his wired jaw told me otherwise.

  Lost in thought, I almost missed the driveway that led to our rent house and wrenched the steering wheel at the last possible moment. Normally, everything about our cottage cheered me when I pulled up the drive at night: from the lush bee balm that arced over the garden gate to the Emperor butterflies that played tag around it. Even the Pepto-Bismol–pink walls lifted my spirits, although the color seemed better suited to a Mexican hacienda than a shingled cottage in southern Louisiana.

  Maybe it was the time of year, or, more likely, my foul mood, but tonight everything looked stark and gray as I parked and made my way up the walk. Bare vines straggled across the trellis and tapered out to withered points; the butterflies were gone, no doubt hiding in a nearby hackberry tree, and dusk muddied the home’s pink walls to beige.

  I slumped over the welcome mat and opened the door. By all rights, I should’ve dashed to the bathroom and spent some quality time with my makeup kit, since Grady would arrive in only a few minutes, but tonight my heart wasn’t in it.

  Maybe a snack will help. As I wandered through the living room on my way to the kitchen, I passed through a ghostly blue light that flickered over the walls. Ambrose must’ve come home at some point during the day and switched on the TV, only to forget about it on his way out the door. How hypocritical. Here he gave me a hard time for leaving the kitchen lights on the night before, when he couldn’t be bothered to shut off a television set that ended up playing to an empty house all afternoon.

  I reached for the remote, but a woman’s voice stopped me cold.

  “. . . standing in the parking lot of a local shopping center.”

  Why, I’d know that voice anywhere. I slowly sank to the couch, the remote all but forgotten. Stormie Lanai appeared on the screen above me, resplendent with her fuchsia lipstick and fluttering eyelashes.

  Over her shoulder lay the glass prism at the Factory, the clouds reflected in its shiny panes.

  “Police found the murder weapon nearby.” She gripped the mic tightly, doing her best to sound official. She even furrowed her brow for good measure. “According to a high-ranking detective, it belonged to a local shopkeeper by the name of Melissa DuBois.”

  A beat passed between my first and last names as she let the information sink in. She seemed proud to deliver the news, as if she were the one to break the story, when it was all over the Bleu Bayou Impartial Reporter the day before.

  “Is the shopkeeper a suspect?” the disembodied voice of a male news anchor rang out.

  She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she frowned and pushed in her earpiece, as if she couldn’t hear him. The question lingered in the air, hanging in the balance.

  “Of course I’m not a suspect!” I yelled to the empty room. Although no one could hear me, especially not Stormie, I needed to defend myself.

  “She’s not at this time,” Stormie finally said. Her eyes widened, as if she couldn’t believe the news, either. “The police don’t have a suspect, so the person is still at large. We need to take extra care over the next few days, folks. Don’t forget we have a murderer on the loose.”

  She played the moment for all it was worth, but I couldn’t even roll my eyes. She’d just linked my name to a murder, announcing to the world, or at least the good folks of Riversbend County, that I was the closest thing the police had to a suspect at this point.

  Oh, shine. If a bride didn’t doubt me before—and plenty did, judging by the number of canceled appointments—she would now. While Stormie claimed I wasn’t a suspect, her body language said otherwise. I silently willed her to take it all back, to insist I was never under suspicion, but she didn’t, which only encouraged viewers to jump to their own conclusions, no matter how misguided or uninformed.

  I clicked off the remote and threw it to the ground. Of all the bad things to happen to me today, this had to be the worst. Even lower than finding my front door smashed in, or getting a text that crowed about the crime or bearing Ambrose’s cold shoulder all afternoon.

  Head lowered, I shuffled into the hall, aiming for the bedroom. If my motivation to dress for the dinner date with Grady was weak before, now it was nonexistent. I paused in front of my closet only long enough to grab the first thing I saw: a pair of gray wool slacks, navy silk blouse, and blue matching cardigan.

  I threw on the clothes, remembering at the last moment how Grady mentioned my red sweater, but it puddled on the ground in a dirty heap, along with my blue jeans and a stained T-shirt. He’d have to be satisfied with the navy blouse and cardigan.

  Once dressed, I meandered to the bathroom, where I dashed on some blush and added eyeliner. I was just about to reach for a tube of Chanel Rouge lipstick, when a knock sounded at the front door.

  “Coming!” I slapped off the light and pasted a big, cheesy grin on my face. No doubt I looked like Tour Guide Barbie as I threw open the front door, but at this point I didn’t care.

  My mistake. Grady looked amazing. He wore a crisp periwinkle button-down, untucked, and a pair of tight True Religion blue jeans. Thick curls swept away from his face, finally free of the ever-present do-rag, and the porchlight cast gold highlights on the strands. Best of all, the smell of Armani’s Acqua di Gio cologne reached me. The jeans, hair, and cologne were perfect, and I couldn’t help but stare.

  “Uh, hi.’”

  Unlike me, Grady seemed perfectly at ease. “Hey, there.”

  “You look wonderful!”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” He bowed stiffly. “Missy, you look wonderful.” He did a double-take when he noticed what I was wearing. “Thought you were going to give the red sweater a try.”

  “I was, but it needs to be dry-cleaned. Hope this is okay.”

  “Not a problem . . . you look great. Are you ready to go?”

  Why didn’t I spend more time getting ready? “Yeah. I think so. But would you like to come in first? I have some cold PBRs in the fridge.”

  “That sounds great, but I wanted to get us to the restaurant by six-thirty. There’s something I want you to see.”

  “See?” I scrunched my nose. “Okay, then. Let me grab my purse.”

  I took my time sashaying to the kitchen, hoping he wouldn’t notice the spring in my step, and grabbed a navy clutch from the counter. The purse felt lighter than air without a cell phone inside. “All set.”

  Once I locked the front door, we both headed for the driveway, where his sports car waited. The shiny Ford Mustang hovered over the pea gravel like a red balloon. Streamlined vents dimpled the hood and sensuous grooves ran up and over the wheel wells. The first time Beatrice spied the fastback at the doughnut store, she’d called it
“sex on wheels” . . . and she was right.

  Grady held open the passenger door while I entered the car, doing my best to keep my distance, when I wanted to bury my nose in his neck and inhale for all I was worth.

  Once on Highway 18, we drove east, toward downtown. The large pin oaks alongside the freeway blotted out what was left of the afternoon sun. After a few awkward moments, when the only sound in the cab was the downshifting of gears, we began to chat about work, Bleu Bayou and, of course, the murder investigation.

  “So, what’s going on with it?” Grady shot me a glance as he drove.

  “Lance’s doing his best, but he doesn’t have any suspects yet. He brought in Bettina Leblanc last night as a person of interest, but only because she had a big fight with Charlotte on New Year’s Eve. He told me he wanted to re-create the murder scene today over at the parking lot.”

  “I was thinking about that.” Grady maneuvered the car around a curve while he spoke, and soon the old Sweetwater mansion appeared up ahead. Dusk faded the grand columns until they melded into the house behind them. “Seems to me you’d have to be pretty strong to get a body into a whiskey barrel like that.”

  “You know . . . you’re right. Then, again, maybe the person had help.”

  We both considered that as the car roared past Sweetwater and then approached Dippin’ Donuts. Like the mansion, the shop looked asleep, with dark windows and empty walkways. The only light came from a neon arrow that shot from the shop’s roof.

  “Come to think of it . . . someone probably did help the murderer.” I scrunched my nose again. “Even if I thought Bettina did it—which I don’t—she’d have a hard time lifting a body all by herself. And, Lance told me there weren’t any drag marks on the ground. I can’t imagine any of the ladies Charlotte worked with being strong enough to maneuver a body like that.”

  Then again, a big guy like Paxton Haney could lift Charlotte on his own. It was something to think about as we drove past Dippin’ Donuts and then zoomed past the Factory, the last vestiges of downtown disappearing in the side-view mirror.

  “By the way . . . where’re we going?” I finally asked.

  “You’ll see. Patience, young grasshopper.”

  I thought about swatting his arm, but didn’t. While I could swat and poke and pinch Ambrose to my heart’s content, I didn’t know Grady well enough. Not yet, anyway.

  Instead, I gazed at the landscape, which morphed from city to country with the arrival of sugarcane fields. Leftover stalks—remnants from the recent harvest—littered the ground around us like brown matchsticks drizzled from a giant box of Diamond wooden strikes.

  After a few more miles, the fields gave way to a petroleum plant. Here, shiny metal tubes crisscrossed overhead, glinting in the dusk like a jungle gym on an empty playground. Even though the plant was built in the 1950s, the facility looked abandoned, skeletal; as if no one ever completed it. On its far end sat a smokestack, the fire on its top no doubt started by those imaginary matches I’d pictured in the sugarcane fields.

  Finally, Grady made a hard right and we pulled off the road.

  My eyes widened when I spotted a sign for Antoine’s Country Kitchen. “Shut my mouth and call my Shirley!” Subtlety was not my strong suit.

  Chapter 19

  While Antoine’s Country Kitchen looked like a fish-camp bunkhouse—complete with corrugated tin roof, wraparound porch, and walls hewn from unvarnished planks—it was known far and wide for its food, not its ambience. Even the Food Network crowned it the best Cajun seafood in the South, which was like naming one small kitchen in Italy the best pizza place of all.

  “It gets better.” Grady spoke in a rush, as he switched off the engine and hopped from the car. “C’mon.” He quickly moved to the passenger side, where he opened the door for me and whisked me to my feet. “Let’s go.”

  We practically ran across the asphalt. When we reached the front porch, the hardwoods underneath vibrated from music that poured through gaps in the plain wood walls. It was the wheezy strains of an accordion, accompanied by the clack of a metal spoon hitting a rubboard.

  “They have live music on Wednesdays. It’s zydeco night.” Grady’s eyes were shining.

  He pulled me along as he made his way through the entrance, which fanned open to reveal a large dining room and dance hall. To our left sat a recessed stage, complete with wood-paneled walls, indoor-outdoor carpet, and a large Louisiana state flag stapled to the ceiling. Higher still was exposed ductwork that snaked in and out of the rafters, while below our feet lay acid-washed concrete.

  It felt like a warehouse, only countrified, with picnic tables for seating and posters of famous zydeco bands, like Buckwheat Zydeco, Dr. John, and Boozoo Chavis on the walls. I even spied a limp fishing net on one wall that was stuffed with fake blue crabs.

  Talk about kitschy. “This place sure is something,” I said vaguely.

  Grady chuckled as he led me to a picnic table by the stage. Apparently the Cajun Country Stomp Swampers—so named by a plastic banner that hung behind the band’s heads—featured an accordion, rubboard, fiddle, and singer. I didn’t see a guitar player until we sat down, since an old man with a rubboard blocked him from my view.

  “Jambalaya, des tartes d’ecreuvisse,” crooned the singer. He wore a red vest and flared blue jeans and his baritone was thick and murky, like a bowl of Cajun gumbo. “Par a soir moi . . .”

  Grady waited for the song to finish, and then he began to translate for me. “ ‘Jambalaya and a crawfish pie, ’cause tonight I’m gonna see my sweetest one. Pick guitar, fill fruit jar . . . son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.’ It doesn’t get much more Cajun than that, does it?” He laughed. “That’s why I love this place so much. By the way, I can’t believe you’ve never been here.”

  “I don’t get out much.” I stared straight ahead, overly conscious of his gaze.

  “That can’t be true. I’ll bet you head over to New Orleans and Baton Rouge all the time.”

  “Not when everything I want is right in Bleu Bayou.” I quickly swallowed. Where did that come from?

  “I know what you mean,” he said. “I went to high school there. Never really left, to tell you the truth.”

  “Jouer l’guitar . . .” Apparently the singer had moved beyond the chorus, and he practically kissed the microphone when he launched into another verse.

  “Um . . . I don’t see any menus.” Hopefully, my feeble attempt at conversation sounded more natural than it felt. How can I concentrate with Grady’s face so close to mine? “What do you think I should order?”

  He finally leaned back and pointed to a chalkboard under the picture of Buckwheat Zydeco. “The menu’s right there. I’ve only been here once. The shrimp étouffée’s pretty good, if you like your food spicy. ’Course, there’s always the fried frog legs.”

  I playfully swatted his arm. To heck with formalities. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Well, now. I’ll just have to order it.”

  Funny . . . I never noticed the way his eyes twinkled when he smiled. Or that his teeth were perfectly straight and beautifully white.

  I pretended to listen as he read aloud from the menu. He was definitely good-looking. Maybe not my type, since my type called to mind words like tall, dark, and handsome, but he had the blond, fair, and rugged thing down pat. And, although good looks weren’t the most important thing, it wouldn’t hurt to have such a nice view with dinner.

  As soon as he rose to place our order—two plates of shrimp étoufée with homemade potato salad—I tore my eyes away and finally glanced around the room.

  By now, several couples had abandoned their picnic tables for the dance floor. The men took hold of their partners’ waists and began to shuffle them back and forth, with an occasional twirl thrown in. Unlike other two-steps I’d seen, like the Texas two-step, this version required people to move in a tight square, always an arm’s-length apart.

  After a while, my gaze moved past the dancers to the rubboa
rd player behind them. The old man sat on a folding chair and the instrument covered his chest like a tin breastplate. He’d braided his nubby gray hair into dreadlocks that dipped and swayed as he strummed a spoon across the board’s ridges. At the same time, he thumped the surface with the knuckles of his left hand . . . so enthusiastically, I worried he’d scrape the skin right off his fingers.

  Clack, shuffle, scrape. Scrape, shuffle, clack. It sounded like a tap dancer on hardwoods. By the end of the song, he was still swaying, even though the singer had switched from Hank Williams to “My Girl Josephine,” and that’s when Grady reappeared at our table.

  “What’s so funny?” He held a laminated number, which he stuck in a metal holder attached to the table’s side.

  “Nothing . . . I’m just enjoying the band.” Truth be told, zydeco sounded an awful lot like an Irish jig. “What took you so long?’

  “I ran into an old friend from high school.” He pointed to the counter, where a balding man in a letterman’s jacket chatted with a waitress. “Believe it or not, that guy used to play receiver when I quarterbacked.”

  The man’s jacket—made of crackled white leather with faded orange felt sleeves—strained to close over his ample stomach.

  Grady scowled. “He was the reason we lost at State.”

  “You don’t say.” Compared to his classmate, Grady looked ten years younger. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him—at least that I could see—not to mention those beautiful, thick curls.

  I flinched. Shame on me for being so shallow. I didn’t know the stranger in the letterman’s jacket from Adam, and I had no right to compare him to Grady like that.

  “Missy?”

  “What? I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. You were saying?”

  “I went to high school with that guy. Kinda a loser.”

  My smile faded a bit. “Why would you say that?”

  “He never should’ve dropped that pass for the title. It was a rocket. Straight down the middle. I still get on him about it sometimes.”