Trula bit back a smile. “I’m making coffee. Would you care for a cup?”
“Thank you kindly, Miz Trula. Coffee sounds mighty good.”
Trula waved toward the table. “Please, have a seat.” She filled a small pitcher with fresh cream, located two spoons, two mismatched cups, and a heaping sugar bowl decorated with delicate flowers. It was chipped, relegated from the dining room to the kitchen. Hoping her guest wouldn’t be offended by the hodgepodge of china, she carried it all to the table where Joe waited for her.
Trula poured two cups of coffee and offered him one. He added spoonful after spoonful of sugar to his cup then a generous tot of cream.
“Earleen is at the market,” she said. “She should be back soon.”
He favored her with an amused grin. “I ain’t come to see Earleen. I come to see you.”
Trula blinked in surprise. “Oh?”
“You’re standing at a crossroads, Miz Trula, and I know a little somethin’ about crossroads.” He held up his hands, fingers spread wide, as if sensing Trula meant to tell him her life was none of his concern. “I ain’t called Corner Joe for nothin’. As I see it, you can continue straight ahead, same as always, or you can take a turn.” His left hand crossed his chest and pointed to the right. “You can solve that Yankee policeman’s murders for him and see where that road takes you. Or” —his right hand crossed his body and pointed to the left— “you can forgive your daddy and sail on back to England with him and your brother.”
Trula’s jaw dropped. While her visit to Robertson Street with Zeke might suggest to a district on edge that she was helping with the investigation, there was simply no way Corner Joe could know Edward St. John was her father. Unless…had Hattie told him? Her eyes narrowed.
“Don’t be gettin’ riled with Miz Hattie. She ain’t told me nothin. You’re a fine woman, Miz Trula. You ain’t too high and mighty to reach out a hand to those who need it. How many white women would serve me in their kitchens? You’re the only one. I reckon you need a speck of advice is all.” He lifted the cup of coffee-flavored sugar to his mouth, tasted, then smacked his lips together.
Trula sat back, too stunned to form words.
“This here district ain’t gonna last forever. If you’re thinkin’ of stayin’ on your same course, you oughta know that.” Joe shook his head. “I don’t reckon you wanna be doin’ this ten years from now.”
Ten more years of refereeing arguments over dresses and hair pins and perfume? Ten more years of smiling at the leering men in her parlors? Trula closed her eyes. A man who spent his days sweeping corners needn’t see their bleak expression.
“I didn’t figure you did. Like I said, you could go with your daddy. I reckon you’d be a fine lady. You could sit in a parlor and pour tea for other fine ladies. I bet your daddy has himself a mighty fine silver teapot.”
Corner Joe spoke in riddles but even in her addled state she understood what he meant. If she returned to England, she’d be bound by the duke’s expectations. She knew herself, she’d try to win her father’s approval, even if it meant trading her independence for a Georgian silver service.
As a girl, if someone had told her she’d grow up to become a madam, she’d have been horrified. Yet as a madam she took care of Hattie and her family, she sent young girls to school, and protected the women in her house from the worst vagaries of the district. In a quiet way, she was proud of what she’d accomplished. No. Going to England wasn’t a choice. She wouldn’t sacrifice the woman she’d become so she could pretend to be a lady.
“This sure is tasty coffee, Miz Trula.” He put his empty cup on the table.
She poured him more.
“Thank you kindly.” Joe shoveled another mountain of sugar into his cup. The spoon scraped across the bottom of the near-empty bowl. “You still got one more way to go.” He pointed across his body with the sugar spoon. “You can solve those murders with Mr. Barnes.”
Trula found her voice. “Even if I did, it wouldn’t change my path. When the murders are solved, Zeke Barnes will disappear and I won’t.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He poured a generous dot of cream into his cup. “Ain’t no one knows for sure what the road ahead holds. I reckon as you gotta pick a road an’ follow it.”
“But…” Trula bit her lip. There had to be a sure path.
“I got a question for you. Why’d you stay in New Orleans after John Dupree passed on?”
A familiar tightening gripped her stomach. She’d been asked that question before. Often. Usually she patted her hair and professed an abiding love of heat and humidity. That was easier than explaining she preferred the width of the Atlantic Ocean stretching between her and her interfering mother and grandmother. Although she supposed that, too, was a lie.
The man across the table leaned back in his chair, sipped his coffee, obviously willing to wait for her answer. Could she tell him the truth? She clutched her cup, stared into its milky depths. “I…well…” Why was it so hard to admit? She met Joe’s gaze. Swallowed. “Hattie, Gumbo, Ada, and Diddy are my family. I didn’t want to leave them.” She waited for Joe’s guffaw.
It didn’t come. Joe added more sugar to his cup, rubbed his chin, and said, “I reckon you got a fine family.”
She did. They prevented the empty hole under her left breast from swallowing her.
Corner Joe grinned at her and shook his head before gulping his coffee. “I got one last piece of advice for you. If you decide to solve those murders, you stay away from Desdemona. That witchy woman is mean as a snake and twice as poisonous. She’ll put a hex on you just for askin’ a question. Besides, she ain’t got nothin’ to do with them.”
Trula closed her eyes again. How had he known about her suspect list? Had Bony LeMoyne told him? The shopkeeper would sell his own mother if the price was right. He might have even told Joe all he’d told Trula. For a price. Despite the faded elegance of his top hat, Trula doubted Corner Joe could afford the prices Bony charged for information. “How…?” She opened her eyes to an empty table. An untouched cup of black coffee sat across from her.
The world stopped. Outside, the warm raindrops froze mid-air. The distant, comforting sounds of the house fell silent. She could no longer feel the texture of the table’s surface beneath her numb fingers. Her heart lodged itself in her throat. Her hands shook as she pulled the sugar bowl toward her. It was full. She dropped it. The bowl hit the table and shattered. In the quiet kitchen, the noise resounded like a cannon.
Trula rose, stumbled to the back door. The screen was latched from the inside. The alley was deserted. The strength went out of her knees and she slid to the floor.
Trula stared at the locked door. It simply wasn’t possible. She’d been working too hard. She hadn’t had enough sleep. Her heart resumed beating. It thudded painfully against her chest. Her hands clutched her skirts, showing white at the knuckles. Corner Joe spent his days sweeping at corners and intersections. Papa Legba stood at a different crossroads, one where human paths crossed spiritual ones. Could they be one and the same? She glanced at the broken sugar bowl, the full cup of coffee, and a turkey feather. Either she was losing her mind, or she’d received an earful of advice from Papa Legba, one of the most powerful voodoo loas of all.
She was losing her mind. Except…where had the wet turkey feather lying on his empty chair come from?
She needed a drink, one stronger than coffee. Trula pulled herself off the floor and set her steps to her rooms and a snifter of brandy. It was unfortunate she had to cross in front of the dining room to get there. The doors stood open and Gilcie called to her. “Is that man coming back tonight?”
Trula’s heart stuttered. Please, no. One visit from a loa could last her a lifetime. Her hand rose to cover her heart, but Gilcie couldn’t know she’d taken coffee with Papa Legba. “Which one?” she asked, pausing in the doorway.
Gilcie, her pansy eyes open wide with suspicious innocence, grinned. “The one you tossed out, the blond, who else
?”
Trula’s left eye twitched. She smoothed the lines furrowing her forehead then answered in an even tone. “I don’t think he’ll be back. Are you ready to go see the children? The carriage will be here at two.”
Gilcie gasped then dashed from the room in a swirl of floating satin, flowery perfume, and forgotten bobby pins.
Trula followed her into the hallway.
An insistent rap on the front door interrupted her reverie. The way her day was going, she fully expected Zeke in all his manly, mind-numbing glory on the other side. Instead Ned stood on her stoop, hat in hand.
“Trula, I need your help.”
She stepped back and opened the door wider, allowing her brother to step into the foyer. “What’s happened?”
Ned gulped. “I need you to find us a hotel.”
“Why?” Her father and brother rejected hotels at quite a clip. “What happened at the Monteleone?”
“Our father can be…a little high-handed.”
Trula just stopped herself from snickering. “Really?”
“They served him chicory.” From the flush on Ned’s cheeks, Trula could imagine the scene. Had her outraged father swallowed it or spit it into his saucer?
“Oh?”
“He refuses to stay at a hotel that serves weeds.”
“Everyone in New Orleans drinks chicory.”
“Dukes don’t.”
A giggle rose in the throat. “No, of course not. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding a place to stay. There are other lovely hotels and I’m sure there are any number of hostesses who would like nothing better than to claim a duke and a marquess as houseguests.”
Ned’s eyes narrowed. “Would any of them receive you? Father refuses to stay any place that won’t welcome you.”
The best hotels and the St. Charles Street hostesses would never receive her.
The elevator ground to a stop behind her. She held her finger to her lips for silence. The door slid open and John Gibbons, a prominent banker, stepped into her foyer.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Gibbons. Did you enjoy your lunch?”
Gibbons smoothed his coat over the beginnings of a paunch and chuckled. “Always do. See you next Tuesday, Trula.” He settled his hat onto his bald head and swaggered out the front door.
Ned’s eyes rounded. “Are you open twenty-four hours a day?”
“We’re open during the daytime by appointment. He visits every Tuesday and Thursday for lunch.”
“Lunch?” From the tilt of his head to the set of his eyebrows, Ned clearly didn’t believe her.
“Lunch. We usually serve cold roast chicken and a salad. Bella was dessert.”
Ned made a grab for her hand. “Trula, come back to England with us. It’s your home. You can leave this behind. Father will recognize you as his daughter. You’ll be received everywhere…” His voice trailed off as Adele, Ginger, Gilcie, and Josette giggled their way down the stairs.
With a sharp tug, Trula pulled her hand free. Not soon enough. She distinctly heard Gilcie’s whisper. “I told you. I’d take the blond, too.”
“Ned, we were just leaving. Where is His Grace?”
“Café du Monde. He has a weakness for the beignets.”
“You do know they put chicory in their coffee?”
Ned’s response was an ungentlemanly snort.
“The carriages are here, Miz Trula,” Josette cried from the window of the parlor.
“I need my hat. Ned, we’ll give you a ride back to the Quarter. Girls, behave.” She tried one of Hattie’s gimlet stares before leaving her brother alone with four flirtatious doves.
The only sound in the carriage was the gentle patter of raindrops on the roof. Ned and Gilcie were too busy making cows’ eyes at each other to say much. The relative silence gave Trula a few moments to think. Papa Legba had been right, her father did want to take her back to England. She could have a family. So what if she had to be who her father wanted? She shook her head. She’d have a father…and a brother. But she’d lose herself.
“Gilcie, shall we take his Lordship with us to Ursuline Street?” Trula asked.
Enormous pansy eyes stared back at her.
“Didn’t he tell you? He’s the Marquess of Huntdale and he should join us.”
Ned regarded her with his usual sunny grin. “Where are we going?”
“I own two houses in New Orleans,” she said.
Ned’s brows rose.
Trula didn’t bother explaining. Instead, she let him stare at Gilcie like a love-struck school boy until the carriage halted in front of her second home. Impish faces peered down at them from the covered balcony. Gilcie abruptly abandoned Ned and his besotted expression, dashed through the rain, and disappeared through the open front door. The girls in the second carriage did the same.
Trula waited for the driver to appear with an umbrella.
“Who lives here?” Ned asked.
A grin stretched Trula’s face. “You’ll see. In fact, if you’d like, you and the Duke can stay here until you find a hotel.” If her father truly wanted to know her, he’d be willing to put up with a few children.
Chapter Eighteen
This trip to Big Daddy Boog’s with Zeke Barnes counted as her worst idea ever. The phaeton was far too small and Trula was far too aware of Zeke’s broad shoulders and muscled thighs. Their legs rubbed against each other with each bump on the cobblestones and the resulting heat baked her veins, every bit as scorching as a sunny afternoon in August. “Go straight down St. Charles for a piece.” She shifted her leg away from his sizzling warmth.
“Where exactly are we going?” he asked.
“Back of Town.” It would be better if they didn’t talk, if they listened to the cicadas drone instead. She needed the quiet to focus on keeping her leg far from his.
“Where?” His eyebrows rose into perfect triangles and her heart skipped a beat. Trula dragged her gaze away from his face and developed a sudden interest in local architecture.
“Up river. It’s where Big Daddy Boog lives.”
“It’s safe for you to go there?”
Trula rolled her eyes. “Safer for me than for you.” No one would bother a madam whose client list included every politician and most of the judges in New Orleans.
“What’s he like?” His dark eyes sought hers.
“I don’t know. I’ve never met him.” She resumed her study of local homes. The houses on St. Charles Street really were quite elegant. A southern version of an English manor nestled next to a Greek revival mansion. A bougainvillea-covered wall separated an Italian villa from a townhome better suited to the Marais district in Paris.
“You’ve never met him? How do you even know he’ll see you?”
Trula sniffed. “I have an appointment.” Was Zeke nervous? He was fidgeting, and no matter how small she made herself, his leg kept brushing against hers. His touch was driving her to distraction and she needed all her wits for her meeting with the voodoo doctor.
“How do you know he’ll tell us anything?”
“Us? I know for certain he’ll tell you nothing.”
Zeke shifted his gaze from the road to her.
She lifted her hand and ticked off on her fingers. “Stranger. Yankee. Policeman.”
“Government agent,” he said. His thigh brushed against hers again.
She shifted away from him. Too bad there was no room left to scooch. She barely clung to the edge of the seat as it was. “Be that as it may, he won’t talk to you. Turn here.”
Zeke huffed. The breadth of his shoulders cast her in shadow and his brow quirked in a deliciously appealing triangle. She swallowed and moved farther away. Except there was no space left. Zeke claimed it. If she let him, he’d claim her.
He cleared his throat and Trula hoped he’d say something to fill the silence. Not talking allowed too much time to think about the heat of his leg and how she tingled at its touch.
The houses lining the streets grew smaller and shabbier. Two story h
omes shrank to one, broad verandas and centered doorways gave way to shotgun shacks. They passed them without a word. She had to introduce a topic. The alternative was to contemplate what his bare skin would feel like against hers. “How do you catch a ghost?” she blurted.
“Pardon?” An eyebrow rose.
“Ghosts. If they’re the source of the crime you’re investigating, how do you catch them? They don’t have bodies.” She closed her mouth before any more asinine comments slipped through her lips.
“I have a knife.”
“They’re already dead.”
“It’s a special knife.” His mouth thinned. “It cuts through the veil between the living and the dead. It sends ghosts to the other side.”
“Where do you get a knife like that?”
The grin that flitted across his face was as sharp as a blade. “Government issue.” His thigh was against hers again. She shivered in the heat and shifted away from him. A half-inch at best.
“There. That’s it.” Could he hear the relief in her voice? She pointed to a camelback, a shotgun house with a second story in the rear. It was painted a soft yellow and Paris green shutters flanked its windows. Rain lilies rioted in the tiny yard and lavender clematis choked the white columns supporting the tin roof of the front porch. A live oak did its best to provide shade. The house was clean and neat and totally at odds with Trula’s expectations.
A wicker chair on the front porch struggled to hold a huge black man. Despite yesterday’s rain, it was still hot and he fanned himself with a folded newspaper.
Trula swallowed hard and adjusted the tilt of her hat.
Zeke’s hand closed around her elbow. “You’re sure about this?”
“I am. Stay here.” She descended from the carriage, glad to escape his eyes and his warmth and the way he made her heart race.
With a swish of her skirts, she climbed the stairs to the porch. “Good morning, Big Daddy, I’m Trula Boudreaux.”
A Haunting Desire Page 17