Photo Finished

by Laura Childs

  “That’s gorgeous,” said Dawn. “Very rich looking. But what about the Eiffel Tower image?”

  “I’m getting to that,” said Carmela. “Now we take our deckle-edged Eiffel Tower square and paste it on. Not quite centered… maybe a little to the right.” The Eiffel Tower image went on, then Carmela picked up a calligraphy pen.

  “To add a finishing touch to our cover, I’m going to do some hand-lettering across the cream and gold paper.” She uncapped a bronze-colored pen, paused for a moment, then bent over the album and began to write in a long, looping script.

  Baby watched her closely. “ ‘ Paris, City of Light.’ Beautiful. Now it’s the perfect album for preserving memories of Dawn and Buddy’s Paris trip.” Baby’s fingers touched the edge of Dawn’s sleeve; she was clearly proud of her daughter.

  “Do you think I could do something similar using heart images?” asked Dawn. “For an anniversary album?”

  “I think hearts would be adorable,” said Carmela. “We could even add some heart-shaped charms for a dimensional effect.”

  “Could you attach charms to this?” asked Baby, indicating the album cover Carmela had just completed.

  “Oh, absolutely,” said Carmela. “Tiny charms, stickers, gold tassels, a wax seal… the more layers you put on, the more depth you achieve.”

  “Here are some rubber stamps with heart images,” said Gabby, passing a half-dozen rubber stamps to Dawn. “And this handmade mulberry paper has tiny rosebud petals imbedded in it.”

  “Wow,” said Dawn, clearly impressed.

  “That paper comes in cream, white, and pink,” said Carmela. “And I think we also have some pretty gold paper with poetry verses etched in the background. That would certainly go well with your romantic theme.” Carmela rose from her chair and headed for the front of the shop. “Let me take a look.”

  As Carmela was searching through her stock of special papers, the phone rang. She grabbed the handset.

  “Hello,” she said, fully expecting to hear Tandy once again.

  But it wasn’t Tandy. It was Lt. Edgar Babcock of the New Orleans Police Department. Asking Carmela if she would kindly put together a list of customers who’d attended her scrapbook crop this past Saturday night.

  “Sure I will, of course I will,” Carmela replied into the phone. God, am I babbling? Sure sounds like it. Why am I suddenly nervous?

  “Today, if possible?” asked Lieutenant Babcock.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Carmela told him. She glanced toward the back of the shop. Everybody seemed involved in their own projects and she was pretty sure Gabby had kept that reservation list. Positive they had it, in fact.

  Lieutenant Babcock’s request had also made Carmela suddenly hopeful.

  If the police are looking at other people, surely that means they’re not entirely focused on Billy Cobb. On the other hand, they’re starting to look at my customers…

  “Shall I e-mail you the list or…?”

  “I’d like to stop by and pick it up if I could,” said Lieutenant Babcock.

  “I’ll have it ready,” Carmela promised him.

  “Problems?” asked Gabby as Carmela hung up the phone.

  Carmela pulled the gold paper from the front display and hurried back to her friends.

  “Not a problem per se,” Carmela answered slowly. “That was a police detective. He’s asking for a list of Saturday night’s customers.”

  “Do they suspect someone?” asked Gabby, suddenly looking worried again.

  “No, I don’t think that’s it at all,” said Carmela. “I think this is more routine than anything.”

  “Oh,” said Gabby, not terribly convinced.

  Uh-oh, thought Carmela. I hope Gabby doesn’t get Stuart all upset about this.

  “You know,” said Baby, when there was a lull in the conversation, “there is someone who’s royally pissed at Barty Hayward.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Carmela. And why am I not surprised?

  “Dove Duval,” said Baby as she carefully traced out a heart-shaped photo frame for Dawn.

  “Dove was here Saturday night!” gasped Gabby.

  “And, as I recall, she left rather early,” continued Baby, lifting an elegant hand and pushing a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Before Gabby went out the back door and rather unceremoniously stumbled upon Bartholomew Hayward’s bleeding body.”

  Gabby turned to Carmela. “That’s right, she did. Remember? She and Mignon. They were the ones who bought a bunch of those new rubber stamps. I think they’re planning to make holiday invitations or something.”

  “Will someone please tell me who Dove Duval is?” demanded Dawn. “And is this woman related to the Duvals who live over in St. Landry Parish?”

  “She is,” said Baby. “Sort of.” Baby gazed around the table, her bright blue eyes lighting up as she told her story. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Dove Duval is what you’d call a faux Southerner. Originally, she was the Mrs. of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Fleckstein of Montclair, New Jersey. Marvin Fleckstein being a self-proclaimed orthodontia king. But, times being what they are, and marriages not always that permanent, Dove and the dentist decided to divorce a year or so ago. On a trip to New Orleans, where Dove came to heal her wounded psyche and dip her beak into what was supposedly a pleasingly plump settlement, Dove met up with a certain Taurean Duval. The husband market being as precarious as the stock market, Dove wasted no time. She pounced quickly and is now Mrs. Taurean Duval.”

  “What does Taurean Duval do?” asked Byrle.

  “Owns the Dydee-doo Diaper Service,” said Baby.

  “This is all very interesting,” said Gabby, a frown creasing her normally placid face, “but why on earth would Dove Duval have it in for Bartholomew Hayward?”

  “I was getting to that,” said Baby. “Apparently, in her headlong rush to become an instant Southern lady and receive friends and visitors in her newly acquired Garden District home, Dove Duval nee Fleckstein purchased an entire truckload of what was touted to be genuine Southern plantation antiques.”

  “Let me guess,” said Carmela, “some of them turned out to be fakes.”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Baby. “How did you know?” Carmela shrugged. She’d seen the trucks pulling up late at night to Barty’s back door. She knew he’d been doing some heavy-duty distressing and refinishing in his back room. Many of the pieces Barty sold were genuine, but there couldn’t be that much old pecan and cypress left on the face of the earth.

  “So Dove Duval could have been more than just a little upset with Bartholomew Hayward,” said Gabby. “She could have been furious.”

  “Why didn’t she just sue him?” asked Byrle.

  “She was probably too embarrassed,” said Baby.

  “Wouldn’t you be? After being flimflammed?”

  “Then the question remains,” said Byrle. “Was Dove furious enough to kill him? To stab him with a scissors?”

  The women all paused and looked at each other. In Louisiana, men had been known to kill each other in disputes over prized coon hounds. In many ways there was still a “shoot first, ask questions later” kind of mentality in the South. But did the transplanted Dove possess that same kind of hair trigger? That was the unanswered issue that seemed to perch like a giant question mark on the table.

  “So tell me,” said Dawn, breaking the tension of the moment, “did Dove Duval finally get rid of all the fakes Barty unloaded on her?”

  “Yes, she did, honey,” replied Baby. “Dove unloaded them at a flea market over in Baton Rouge. She has since hired a professional decorator in her quest to have her home featured in Southern Living.” Baby paused. “I understand her new decor is quite eclectic.”

  “Define eclectic,” said Byrle as she cropped a large photo into quarters, then prepared to edge each piece with gold foil tape.

  Baby’s face assumed an impish grin. “It means nothin’ really goes together!”

  “She should hire Jekyl Hardy,” suggested Gabby. �
�He could get her home straightened out in no time.” Jekyl Hardy was a design consultant and one of New Orleans ’s premier Mardi Gras float designers. He was also a dear friend of Carmela’s and sole proprietor of Hardy Art & Antique Consultants. Besides having a real knack for design, Jekyl Hardy periodically gave seminars on art collecting and connoiseurship.

  Carmela had remained silent yet highly attentive throughout Baby’s story. Now she wondered if this might be the moment to tell everyone about the heelprint she’d found.

  Tell them? Not tell them? What should I do?

  It was a bit of a dilemma. Then again, there was the off chance someone might recognize the heelprint and shed some light on this whole thing.

  Silently, Carmela slid a laser print onto the table. It was an enlarged printout of the enhanced heelprint that had been squashed into her medallion. Only she’d flopped the image so the initials, which had originally looked like interlocking G’s, now clearly read GC. The same way you’d see them if you looked at the bottom of the shoe.

  “What’s this?” asked Byrle, turning the sheet toward her. “Another cover idea?”

  “Better than that,” said Carmela.

  The women listened with rapt attention as Carmela told them how she’d found the little medallion halfway down the alley. And how she’d noticed the heelprint, thought it might be significant, and enhanced the slightly smudged image by sprinkling it with embossing powder.

  “Wow,” said Gabby, impressed. “You pulled a print. Just like on CSI!”

  “Not exactly,” said Carmela. “You make it sound like I followed crime scene protocol. Instead, it was more like stumbling upon the little clay medallion, then noticing the smudgy heelprint.”

  “You gonna show us the real forensic evidence, honey?” asked Baby, clearly fascinated by all of this.

  “You really want to see it?” asked Carmela. She had initially thought the ladies might be a little put off by her amateur sleuthing. Quite the contrary. They seemed mesmerized by the idea of trying to track down Barty’s killer.

  Carmela placed the actual medallion in the center of the table while Gabby slipped into the back office and retrieved a magnifying glass.

  “Let me take a peek,” said Baby, reaching out a hand to Gabby.

  Gabby handed her the glass.

  Baby peered forward, studying the medallion with the heelprint. “This is the medallion you crafted from clay,” she said. “And you think you dropped it when you got out of your car.”

  Carmela nodded. “I’m pretty sure I did.”

  “You’re right,” said Baby finally. “This definitely looks like it’s been stepped on and kind of ground in by-what… maybe a lady’s heel?”

  “What are those, entwined G’s?” asked Byrle. “Maybe a Gucci logo?”

  Baby picked up a pencil, tapped at the page Carmela had printed out. “Not Gucci,” said Baby. “The initials read GC. And see here, there’s a little crosshatch pattern in the background.”

  Gabby took the magnifying glass back from Baby, stared at the now-squished medallion, then at Carmela’s printout. Finally, she straightened up and looked around the table.

  “Anybody ever hear of a designer with the initials GC?”

  “No designer I know of,” said Baby, her hands unconsciously patting the gold and rust Versace scarf draped about her patrician neck.

  “What about a local store?” asked Carmela. “It could be a private label thing.”

  But nobody could think of a store or clothing shop that had the initials GC.

  “Y’all are completely forgetting about Jade Ella,” said Byrle. “From what I hear, she and Barty were locked in the throes of a very nasty divorce.”

  “That’s what Shamus said, too,” said Carmela.

  Gabby flashed Carmela an approving glance. “You’re seeing Shamus again?” she asked hopefully.

  “No,” said Carmela. “Shamus just sort of… dropped in on me last night.”

  “Sounds romantic,” said Gabby, ever hopeful that the couple’s marriage would rebound.

  “It wasn’t particularly,” Carmela told her. She looked around into the hopeful faces of her friends. “Don’t hold your breath concerning Shamus and me.”

  “Well, this information about Jade Ella and Dove is certainly intriguing,” declared Baby, getting back to the main thread of their conversation. “It seems that both women had a serious ax to grind with Bartholomew Hayward.”

  Dawn nodded excitedly. “They really did, didn’t they!” “And both ladies generally wear high heels,” said Baby, ever the fashion maven.

  Gabby looked around the room, wide eyed. “I swear, it did kind of sound like someone in high heels taking off down the alley.”

  “So either Dove Duval or Jade Ella Hayward could be considered a suspect,” said Baby.

  “Or Chef Ricardo,” said Carmela. “But only if he wears Cuban heels.”

  This new entry, tossed so casually into the pot, brought a stunned silence to the table.

  Finally, Byrle spoke up. “Who on earth is Chef Ricardo?” Carmela quickly related her brunch experience from the day before and explained about the withdrawal of financing from Chef Ricardo’s ill-fated Scaloppina Restaurant.

  Baby nodded. “That’s right. I heard about that. In fact, I think Del ’s firm might have represented one of the parties in a lawsuit. Turned out to be a real mess.”

  “Buddy and I dined at Scaloppina once,” volunteered Dawn. “They served the best crab risotto I ever tasted.” She looked thoughtful. “Sad that the place had to close.”

  “And under unfortunate circumstances, it would appear,” said Byrle.

  “Sounds like Bartholomew Hayward might have had a few enemies,” said Gabby.

  There were nods all around.

  “Since this appears to be a crime of passion,” said Carmela, “what we need to do is try and figure out who hated Barty the most.” She gazed about the table, studying the troubled faces of her friends. “Anybody got any bright ideas?”

  No lightbulbs clicked on.

  Chapter 6

  TANDY came steamrolling in just as Carmela, Gabby, and Baby were eating salads that had been delivered a few minutes earlier by the French Quarter Deli. Dawn and Byrle had packed up their craft bags and left an hour earlier.

  “You poor thing,” said Carmela, jumping up from the craft table to greet Tandy. “Come on back here and tell us what’s going on. You want part of my salad?” she asked as she led Tandy toward the back. “Baby field greens with smoked turkey?”

  Gabby and Baby focused looks of concern on Tandy. She seemed tired and distracted. Her usual tight mop of curls was frowsled. Already skinny to begin with, Tandy looked wan bordering on frail.

  “Nothing to eat, no, thanks,” said Tandy as she collapsed into the wooden chair Carmela pulled out for her.

  Carmela stared pointedly at Tandy. “Things aren’t going well,” she said as she sat down next to her. It was a statement rather than a question.

  “You wouldn’t believe it,” said Tandy. “This has turned into the worst possible nightmare.” She leaned across the table and grasped Baby’s hand. “Thank goodness Del agreed to represent Billy. He’s the only bright spot in all of this.”

  “He’s happy to help,” Baby told her. “We all are.”

  “If there’s anything I can do…” began Gabby.

  Tandy flashed Gabby a sad smile. “You’re a sweetheart, but… well, we’re all just in a hold pattern for now. As you might expect, Donny and Lenore are absolutely hysterical.” Donny and Lenore were Billy’s parents, Donny being Tandy’s younger brother.

  “What news is there, if any?” Carmela asked, trying to steer Tandy away from the emotionalism of the issue and more toward actual facts.

  Tandy leaned back and sighed. “Billy hasn’t been formally charged with anything yet, but the police are completely hung up on those latex gloves.”

  “I can’t see where the gloves are all that relevant,” said Carmela. “Esp
ecially since Billy and Bartholomew Hayward and whoever else helped out in the back room wore them whenever they were doing furniture stripping or refinishing.”

  Tandy grimaced. “There’s another little wrinkle.”

  “What’s that?” asked Carmela, her ears perking up.

  Tandy shifted uneasily in her chair. “The scissors that were found in Barty Hayward’s neck?”

  “Yes?” said Carmela. Come on, Tandy, spit it out.

  “The police found a couple flecks of gold paint on them. Similar to the gilding used to touch up frames in Barty’s workshop.”

  “Ouch,” said Gabby.

  “That’s not so good,” said Baby, commiserating.

  “Still,” said Tandy. “The gold paint can be explained. And the scissors could still have come from Bartholomew Hayward’s workshop.”

  “Did Billy have any flecks of this gilt paint on his hands?” asked Carmela.

  “No,” said Tandy. “Which is why, I suppose, the police are looking at the latex gloves so hard.”

  “What possible motive do the police think Billy had?” asked Carmela.

  “Oh, honey,” said Tandy, “they’d sooner grill someone to death and figure all that out later. I tell you, it’s a travesty of justice.”

  Baby nudged a sharp elbow into Carmela’s side. “Tell Tandy about the heelprint,” she said in a low voice.

  “What heelprint?” asked Tandy.

  Pulling out her medallion and her printout, Carmela quickly related her story of finding the wayward little medallion in the back alley, noticing the heelprint, then enhancing the heelprint via embossing powder and her computer.

  Tandy was stunned. “This is fabulous, Carmela!” She leaned forward and planted a grateful smooch on Carmela’s cheek. “This almost proves there was someone else in the alley that night.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” said Carmela.

  “Hallelujah,” sang Tandy, grinning ear to ear. “I’m going to tell Billy all about this wonderful Exhibit A.” She smiled over at Baby. “And Del, too. In fact, I see it as a major break in the case!”