No wonder Stella had such a crush on him. College-age and fifty years her junior or not, as she'd said, he was a total fox.
I looked up and saw my own client, Chance Walker, stopped in the lobby, surrounded by half a dozen fawning women.
I turned and hurried into my own space and got ready for him, turning off the sanitizer I always left on overnight, booting the computer so I could show him the sketch, and pulling ink colors. I hoped he liked it.
This would be the second time I'd ink Chance Walker. He was a recently career-resurrected actor, having made a complete and utter comeback after years of drug abuse and rehab. This last one finally took, and he was on the comeback trail. His current series filming across the river in New Orleans was a smash hit. His reborn celebrity was what had given me the extra few minutes of fan chat I needed to get ready for him. It was also what had motivated him to ask me to design a tattoo that would celebrate the resurgence of his acting career—thus the golden phoenix rising from red and purple flames I'd be inking over his right upper arm and spreading its wings over the front and back of his shoulder.
He walked in, grinning, and I giggled like a kid, but not because I was star struck. Because I was psyched about my beautiful design.
"Hey, Chance," I said. "Say w'at?"
"Say w'at?" he said back to me. He'd told me he loved it when locals talked the talk with him, since he was still "studying the lingo."
I had him strip off his shirt and plopped him down in my chair, pretty much oblivious to his half-naked status.
Apparently, I was the only one because when I turned around to get my ink gun, there were over a half dozen women and girls standing in the open doorway, all breathing hard.
Behind them stood Jack Stockton, and he wasn't looking nearly as impressed with Chance's muscles as the others standing in my doorway.
CHAPTER SIX
Chance seemed to love his rising phoenix so far, but he'd turned out to be less of a tough guy than he'd originally figured. Sweat had beaded his brow at the sight of the needle, and when blood started to ooze in spots, he'd clenched his teeth and begged me to stop and let him take a break from what he called "the agony and ecstasy of it all."
We'd only been at it about forty minutes at that point, but I understood. Some people just had that reaction. He promised to come back in a half hour.
"Sure," I said, "but don't forget to stay away from the alcohol, aspirin, and ibuprofen until after we're done. That'll just make it worse in the long run."
I walked out onto the veranda, and the mournful tones of the funeral dirge set me to humming. Personally, I wished they'd have left the dang thing turned off, but now that the police and other first responders had quit wandering in and out, the guests probably expected it. Lurch was in the process of loading luggage into the trunk of a car for departing guests and posing with a family for a selfie, a child hanging off each arm like little monkeys. Lurch wasn't smiling, but I happened to know he probably loved it. The man had more selfies than all the Kardashians put together.
It was a beautiful day weatherwise, clear skies, clean air, temps around sixty. On the surface everything looked like a normal December day at The Mansion, festive decorations, excited families, and regulars who thought spending time with mediums, fortunetellers, and magicians was the perfect way to spend the holidays.
But most of the guests were unaware of the tragedy that had occurred the night before, and just under the surface crept an unsettling vibe among those of us who did know. Slim Conner had died in a cruel and violent way, and the evidence pointed at someone who worked here. Someone I knew? I shuddered.
Just inside, the double doors to the main salon opened, and Cat walked out, or rather stomped out, which was pretty hard to do in her costume slippers. I heard her footfalls all the way across the hardwood to the front doors as she came up to me on the veranda.
"Quincy wasn't just kidding when he said they figured it was one of us who killed Slim," she said, her cheeks flushed, nostrils flared, and her eyes bright. "Everybody's getting fingerprinted, including me."
"And me?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah." I could tell by the tone of her voice she was hurt and angry. "Wouldn't you think a man might be sensitive enough not to haul his girlfriend in and fingerprint her in front of God and everyone?"
"Well, he has to—"
"Oh, no you don't, Mel," she warned, a slim index finger and red-polished nail pointing in my direction. "Don't you go trying to soothe me. I'm enjoying this hissy fit way too much. Let it flow."
"I'm so sorry, darlin'." It was Quincy. "Sheriff Dickerson wouldn't let me get by with lettin' you slide. I gotta do my job f'sure."
He put his hand on the back of her neck and rubbed. When she looked into his big brown eyes, I could tell she wasn't angry any longer, but her folded arms stayed where they were, and her pouting lower lip stayed where it was too. "Oh," she said, sighing. "I know."
"You need me in there too?" I asked.
He didn't take his eyes off Cat's face but nodded. "Pretty soon."
It was then that a female deputy I'd met the last time there was a death at The Mansion came up the porch stairs and laid her hand on Quincy's arm. It was hard to miss the flare in Cat's eyes and the resultant smoke coming out of her ears.
"Q?" The deputy's voice was soft, sweet, and seductive as a siren's call. "We found something in the employees' area. You better come and have a look."
Quincy didn't seem to notice that she'd all but invited him to her place for the evening and maybe even breakfast the following morning with that sugary tone of voice, but I did, and I was pretty darn sure Cat did too.
Quincy, who hadn't yet taken his hand from the back of Cat's neck, gave one more small rub before asking Cat, "You taking a lunch break, sweet?"
Cat nodded.
"Want to join me after I see what Sergeant Mackelroy here needs from me?"
Cat's eyes narrowed as she looked at the diminutive, uniformed brunette with the big blue eyes. "By all means, Quincy…" She dragged out his name. "See what Sergeant Mackelroy needs from you." As the two officers headed back down the steps and veered toward the side of the main building, she turned back to me. "That one's been sniffing around him for I don't know how long. I may have to do something about it fairly soon now."
Jack's voice came from behind us. "Yeah, sure." I turned around. He was on his cell phone and had stopped dead just inside the door setting off multiple rounds of the funeral dirge. He just stood there, listening to what was being said on the other end of the conversation. After the fourth time of hearing Chopin's "Funeral March," I went inside a couple of steps, took hold of his hand, and pulled him out onto the veranda. A girl can only take so many times hearing that in a row.
He went on. "All right, please tell Mrs. Richards I'll be right there." He ended the call and sighed. I knew him well enough to be able to tell that something was bothering him.
"What's wrong? Want to talk about it?" I snuck a peek at my watch. There were still about ten minutes before I had to head back to Dragons and Deities and face Chance's hemophobia and fear of needles—there's a big word for that too, but I never could remember what it was.
Jack ran his hand through his dark hair, took a deep breath, and let it out. I loved the way his hair looked when he did that. It made him appear as if he'd been outside in the wind. But one of the things I loved most about Jack was his smile—big and wide, it creased his face like the sun splitting open the morning sky at dawn. There was no smile this morning.
"There's been another theft." His frustration was evident. "The Richards in the Magnolia Suite upstairs in the main building called the front desk about half an hour ago and reported Mr. Richards' camera bag was missing from their room when they came back from breakfast."
"Again?" I asked. "Oh, Jack, just what you need. Like you don't have enough to do."
"Mmm," he mumbled. "Yeah, well, it comes with the territory. She told the front desk that the cameras and lenses were
worth several thousand dollars. Her husband's a professional photographer." He looked out past the front lawn where the police units were parked. "Shouldn't have to go too far to find a cop to report it to." He surprised me by dropping a light kiss on my lips before turning and going back inside. Jack never kissed me at The Mansion, at least not where we could be seen—he must have been really preoccupied to have done it. And it was understandable.
Over the last few weeks, there had been a series of thefts from guests' rooms, one almost each and every day. Camera bags, like the one just reported, but mostly expensive jewelry people were careless enough to leave in their rooms. Some other odd items had gone missing as well but on a smaller scale.
No leads had turned up, and both Jack and Harry Villars were stumped, as were the deputies investigating the thefts.
I could tell it had been bothering Jack a lot.
"I thought you had a full day with the actor," Cat said, pulling me back from my thoughts.
"Oh, geez!" I checked my watch again. Five minutes past the time I was supposed to be back at the tattoo parlor to meet Chance. "I'm late. Gotta go. Have a nice lunch with Quincy."
I turned and rushed back through the main lobby and took the hallway that led to the auxiliary wing where my little corner of the world was located. Sure enough Chance was standing outside the door. He looked up when I approached, and I could have sworn I saw him swallow hard and blanche.
Poor guy. Maybe this was something he should have thought about before he commissioned the tattoo. But he was too far into it to stop now. Half a bird wouldn't fly.
"Ha!" I made myself laugh, but Chance looked so pitiful I sobered up immediately, took him by the hand, and led him back into Dragons and Deities like an executioner leading a condemned man to the gallows.
At the rate Chance's tattoo was going, I'd still be on it after the new year had rolled over. He'd only lasted twenty minutes the second go-around and had asked me to hold off a couple of hours this time to let him "get my feet back under me."
I agreed. He'd turned so green while I was working on him I was afraid he was going to upchuck, and that was never a pleasant proposition.
At least I was now done with inking the golden part of the phoenix and only had a few more hours' work on the layers of other colors and the flames.
I had two hours to kill, so I thought about heading over to the Presto-Change-o Room for some lunch but then changed my mind. The fact that Slim wasn't there working would just have depressed me, so I stopped at the coffee bar, snagged a cappuccino and a croissant, and headed in the direction of the employees' lunch room.
I sat down at a table across from Aaron. A yummy-looking fried shrimp po'boy sandwich was on a wax paper wrapper in front of him with a side of Valentine's famous Cajun coleslaw and a glass of lemonade.
It made my lunch look pitiful.
He was reading something on his phone but looked up as I sat down. "Hi, Melanie," he said.
"Hi. It's just Mel."
He looked at my croissant and coffee. "I have half this sandwich I haven't even touched yet."
I smiled. "Oh, thanks, but I'm not all that hungry. Been thinkin' about Slim and what happened, you know."
"You sure?" He held up the half sandwich he was working on. "Pretty good stuff."
"I'm sure."
"So, Mel," he said. "You're a tattoo artist?"
"Mmm, that would be me."
"You like it?"
"I do. Art of any kind gets me going."
"Is that right?"
I told him about my degree in fine art and how I painted when I had time.
"You sell any?"
"Some."
And then I told him about the hours I spent at Jackson Square with other artists when I had a day off from The Mansion or from donating my time at St. Antoine's.
He leaned his chin on one hand and seemed to be giving me his full attention. It was sort of flattering that he was so interested.
But when Valentine Cantrell walked into the kitchen, all that changed. Heck, his eyes even lit up. He jumped up and pulled out a chair.
She gave him a special Valentine smile before she sat down with her The Mansion at Mystic Isle coffee mug. It was one of those benevolent smiles that made a person feel like they'd been blessed by the Pope or something.
"Thank you, Aaron. You're always such a gentleman." She winked. "And good-looking too. We need to find you a good woman. One that can cook and make you happy."
He blushed. "Aw, who'd want me?"
Okay—so like I'd said before—he was good-looking, thoughtful, and now humble too? Valentine was right—we needed to get this guy hooked up with one of our friends. He seemed too good to let languish away dating someone like the Barbie doll he'd been with at the company dinner last night.
We sat and talked awhile, and I complimented her on last night's menu. She talked about how determined she was to somehow come up with the $65,000.00 she needed for Benjy's first full year at the music academy.
Aaron stayed quiet, seeming to hang on Valentine's every word.
After only a few minutes, Quincy and Sergeant Mackelroy came in, Quincy carrying a pair of yellow rain boots in a plastic bag.
All three of us turned to face the two cops.
"Valentine?" Quincy began, nodding first at me, then Aaron. He walked up to Valentine and held up the bag. "You recognize these?"
She leaned down and peered at the plastic bag before nodding slowly. "Those are my rain boots," she said. "Why are they so muddy, young deputy?"
"That's funny," Quincy said. "I was just 'bout to ask you that same thing, Valentine. If these are your boots, these same boots with your name written inside in permanent marker, then why is the mud caked on them mixed with blood?"
Her mouth dropped open, and she looked up at him, gasping. "Caked with…?" Her voice trailed off.
"And, why," Quincy went on, "did we find the keys to a resort utility van inside them? The same utility van that was used to run down Slim Conner last night?"
Valentine began to shake her head. "I don't—"
"And why, Valentine, were your fingerprints found inside the same utility van?"
She found her voice. "I drove that van yesterday morning to help Odeo Fournet get some of my big catering pans out of storage and bring them over to the kitchen."
Quincy's face was troubled. He was a fan of Valentine's, as star struck by her as any of us, and this was probably bothering him a great deal. "Valentine, please tell me you have an explanation for the blood on the boots and the keys to the van being tucked inside them. Please tell me your desperation didn't send you out into the night to run down Papa Noël and take his bag with all dat money just so's your boy can go to that fancy music school across the river."
"Have you lost your ever-lovin' mind, Quincy Boudreaux? Of course I didn't kill Slim. He was my friend."
"We heard he was your friend," Sergeant Mackelroy spoke up, her tone self-satisfied and a little bitchy. "Slim's wife, Diane, she said you and Slim had been spending a lot of time together, and—"
"How would she know that?" Valentine said. And I could only reach across and lay my hand on hers, shaking my head in a signal she shouldn't address anything they had to say. Things weren't looking good for my friend. Not good at all.
Mackelroy went on. "Mrs. Conner said her husband told her he'd been visiting you at your home in the evenings but that he wasn't going to be making that trek anymore. Was that something else you were having trouble with, Chef Cantrell? Were you angry he'd told you the affair was over?"
"Affair?" Valentine's voice shook. "What affair? Slim had come to me for advice. And that. Is. All."
"Advice?" Quincy said, his voice hopeful. "What kind of advice would that be?"
Valentine shook her head. "I can't say. It was confidential, and Slim wouldn't want me to talk about it."
Quincy snorted. "Confidential? Woman, the man, he dead."
Valentine shot a withering look. "But I'm not. Not y
et anyway."
Two more sheriff's deputies walked into the lunchroom and stopped six or so feet behind Quincy and the female deputy.
My heart began to beat fast and hard. I didn't like the way this was shaping up at all. What the heck was the matter with them? They couldn't seriously believe that Valentine, the essence of Mother Nature with a dose of Creole spice thrown in, had it in her to harm someone with anything more deadly than her sharp tongue, much less slam over someone with a van then go back for a second run at him.
"Quincy?"
He looked over at me.
I went on. "You're just covering your bases, right? You can't really believe Valentine had anything at all to do with poor Slim's death."
He didn't answer at first, but regret clouded his eyes, and then he said, "It don't matter what I believe. The evidence is what matters. We have Valentine's muddy boots with what maybe will turn out to be the victim's blood on them, the keys to the vehicle that ran over him hidden inside dem boots, her fingerprints and nobody else's inside the van that was used as the murder weapon—that's evidence. The victim's wife? She said Slim, he was seeing Valentine on the sly but that he was done with all dat and called it off, and Valentine herself, she said she needed some big money to get her boy into that music program—and that's motive." He turned once again to Valentine. "Sorry, but I need to know where you were last evenin' between five o'clock and seven o'clock?"
She put her hands to her face. "I was here until Benjy finished. Then I took him home. Well…" She raised her gaze to his. "…not home. I took him to my sister's place for the night. And then I was heading back here for the dinner."
Aaron and I looked at each other, and it was like we could read each other's mind. Valentine had never shown up at the Christmas party. Her chair had remained empty all night.
Valentine went on, her voice, normally husky and whiskey smooth, was squeaky. "But I never made it back here. I went through a dip in the road where the rainwaters had risen, and my car flooded out. By the time I got it started up again, I'd missed dinner, so I just went home."
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