Poppy gave the bartender a high sign and pointed to Wazoo’s mug, signaling for a second serving. She slid in beside the other woman who was as darkly dramatic today as yesterday.
Wazoo looked into Poppy’s face. “You are gorgeous, girl. But you know that.”
Poppy started to return the compliment but Wazoo cut her off. “I’m gorgeous, too, I know. We gorgeous girls got to make the best of ourselves—and the best use of ourselves, if you know what I mean.” She winked.
Laughing, Poppy nodded to the barman, Otis, who delivered a second mug and topped up Wazoo’s.
“They’re making beignets in the kitchen,” Otis said. “You tempted?”
Before Poppy could comment, Wazoo said, “Hoo mama, I could eat a hundred of those babies for a starter.”
Otis left with a big smile on his face, and Poppy caught a flash of light from Wazoo’s lap. She took a better look and jumped. “You’ve got a dog there!” What she had seen were bright eyes staring at her.
“I’m watching him for Nat,” Wazoo said.
Poppy said, “Oh,” and decided a dog was just fine in the club if it was with a cop—maybe.
“I don’t know if I’m going to tell Nat this, but the poor little thing has far too much on his mind.”
Not a single word of response came to Poppy.
“He’s a master at covering up his feelings.” Wazoo stroked the dog’s wiry fur, and Poppy heard him sigh. “He looks so relaxed, but inside he’s like a jumble of overstretched rubber bands. I just don’t know how much more he can take.”
Still nothing came to Poppy.
“Oh.” Wazoo patted Poppy’s shoulder. “You are lookin’ at me like I’ve got horns.” She laughed. “I probably do only you can’t see them. I’m an animal psychologist, among other things. I feel what they feel and see what they see—and I know when they are distressed. This is one distressed dog.”
Poppy found her voice. “And you don’t think Nat ought to know this?” She had forgotten the animal-psychologist bit.
Wazoo stretched the dog up until he stood with his back feet on her lap and his front feet on her neck. “We will make sure he gets whatever he needs. Are you gettin’ what you need, Poppy?”
She had another jaw-dropping instant.
“With Nat and me it’s interesting. Who would have thought he’d ever take a second look at me?” The dog curled up on her lap again.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Poppy said. “As you’ve already admitted, you’re gorgeous.”
“Surely, but I am not, well, I’m not the woman a man waits for because she’s the right one to take home to his mama.”
Poppy had coffee in her mouth and she burned her throat when she swallowed and laughed at the same time.
“I haven’t met Nat’s mama,” Wazoo said, looking pleased with Poppy’s reaction. “I’m not sure he has a mama. But if he does she has got to be some good-looking woman. One look at that man and all those important parts of me do the two-step—fast.”
Getting the rhythm of this conversation, Poppy said, “Sounds to me like you’ve made up your mind where you belong. Must be time to stop torturing Nat and tell him you’re his.”
Beignets arrived on an oval platter big enough for the Thanksgiving turkey—for twenty-four people—and Wazoo promptly took a large, sugary bite out of the closest one before tearing off a piece for the dog.
“I see things,” she said when she could speak again. “That worries some folks. They don’t like it.”
“What kind of things?” Poppy turned sideways on the seat to look directly at Wazoo.
She got just as straight a return stare. “Things. I don’t talk about them unless I think I ought to. Usually because I like someone. I don’t know you well but Nat says you’re good people, so that makes you okay with me.”
Poppy ran a forefinger through powdered sugar on the edge of the platter and put the finger in her mouth.
“Sometimes we women keep things private,” Wazoo said. “You know what I mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Men are special. I’m real glad we’ve got them around, but they don’t think the same as we do.”
“Mmm.” Poppy screwed up her eyes. “I’ll give you that.”
“I’ll give it to you straight. If Nat finds out I talked to you about things I’m not about to discuss with him, I may never meet his mama—if he’s got one.”
Poppy gave a little smile. “We can talk between the two of us. As long as you haven’t robbed a bank or something.”
When Wazoo smiled she looked like a teenager—a beautiful teenager. “Not yet, ma’am. It’s you I need to say somethin’ about. You and the men in your life. I thought a long time before I came with Nat today. And I had to do some persuading to get him to let me come at all. You and I hit it off yesterday, that’s what I reminded him. And he thought it was a good idea for the two of us to get together again.”
“Nat’s crazy about you,” Poppy said. Why not toss some of her own reserve to the winds? “I think he’d forgive you anything, if he thought there was anything to forgive.”
Wazoo’s smile was secretive. Coy wasn’t something she could ever be. “I’d say that’s the way your sexy Sykes feels about you.”
Sometimes Poppy thought she needed help speeding up the way she thought. Almost everything that came out of Wazoo’s mouth didn’t have an obvious response.
“He is drop-dead fabulous,” Wazoo said. “He’s the kind of man makes a woman want to turn herself inside out for him. I bet he’s some kind of wonderful in bed. Probably leaves you feelin’ he’s stripped off your skin and you’d give him your flesh and bones to go with it.”
“Um.” Poppy looked around. She had done that a lot this morning.
“I’m not asking you to give away any details. I can’t help it when I see a man and a woman made to get joined up together as often as possible. It makes me happy.” She lowered her voice. “Makes me feel sexy, too. But don’t you ever tell Nat that.”
“No.”
“You need to work hard to snap up that man of yours. Don’t let anything get in your way. Do it fast. There’s trouble coming and if you—” she paused and looked into the distance, absently stroking the dog. “If you don’t keep your eyes wide open and stay close to Sykes, you could be in deep shit.”
Poppy cleared her throat. The way the hairs on her spine rose was more than nasty. It would be easier on her to write Wazoo off as weird, but Nat Archer wouldn’t be so close to someone who was weird.
“Nat looks like a movie star,” Poppy said but her heart wasn’t in it. “Denzel Washington move over.”
“He doesn’t look anything like Denzel Washington. Not that Denzel isn’t a peach. No one looks like Nat. The first time I saw him in Toussaint, I said to myself, ‘That is the sexiest man you ever saw, Wazoo. Maybe you got to do something about that.’ So I did. The problem is …” She frowned. “We’re talking about you and the blue-eyed raven. How is it to have his arms wrapped around you and that luscious mouth doin’ some of the things it can do to you?”
Poppy felt almost weak. She was grateful when Otis came by to fill their coffee mugs.
“You can tell me all about that later,” Wazoo said, tucking into another beignet. “Let’s get to the other one. I don’t have anything on him yet, or not much, but from what Nat said, I’m not inclined to approve of him.”
“Other one?”
“The man who wants to run Louisiana.”
“You mean Ward?” Poppy said. She drank more coffee. “Ward is a nice man. He’s probably going to run for the senate—if they don’t stick him with a murder rap.”
“Murder?” Wazoo whispered, her eyes huge. “Huh, that wouldn’t be so good, would it? I mean if he wanted to be a senator.”
Poppy wrinkled her nose. “You’d think. Could be it wouldn’t matter at all.”
“You listen to me, Poppy Fortune. Is this other man real interested in you like I think he is?”
&n
bsp; “Who told you that?”
Wazoo looked blank. She cleared her throat and said, “Nat.”
“He thinks he is. He started coming here and decided I was something special, probably because I didn’t show any interest in him.”
Wazoo’s fist came down on the table and she laughed, showing all of her perfect teeth. “Isn’t that the way with them. They want most what they think they might not get. Good, ’cause you belong with Sykes.”
Do I? Poppy wondered.
“There’s been a lot of parties for this—what’s his name?”
“Ward Bienville.”
“Sounds like a money name,” Wazoo remarked. “Parties to raise interest and money? Is that right?”
“Absolutely.”
Wazoo got her distant look again. “What else are those parties for?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.”
“We’ll see,” Wazoo said. She held the dog close and it didn’t seem to mind being squeezed. “We’ll have lunch today.”
“That would be great,” Poppy said without thinking about it.
“It won’t be till after, though.”
“After what?” Poppy asked.
Wazoo shrugged and signaled to Otis.
19
Waiting for Nat’s attention had started to grate on Sykes. He wanted to get to Royal Street, but not until he had made sure Liam or Ethan understood the importance of keeping tabs on Poppy.
Nat had been on the phone ever since they had joined him in Poppy’s office and since he might as well have been talking in code, even that didn’t ease the irritation.
Poppy’s office didn’t contain anything blue that Sykes could see. The room was as spare as he liked to keep his own spaces. Nat sat at her glass-topped desk. Liam and Sykes used two cube-shaped gray leather armchairs a shade or two lighter than the wall-to-wall carpet. The walls were an even paler shade of gray.
Nat got up and turned his back on them. “Rotary?” he said. “Corkscrew? What the hell does that mean?”
Sykes leaned closer to Liam. “Poppy must not be allowed to go off on her own. And she can’t be with Ward Bienville unless we keep an eye on them.” He raised his brows at Liam. “I’m sure you know what I mean.”
“We’re going to spy on my sister if she’s alone with him. No problem. I’m with you all the way.” Liam studied Nat’s broad back to make sure the policeman was still engrossed in his conversation. “Anything else on your mind?” he asked, when he was satisfied they wouldn’t be overheard.
“A suggestion was made that I should ask you a question.”
Liam cocked his head. “Ask.”
“What do you know about changes in the situation with the Embran?”
This time Liam wasn’t so quick to answer. He raised his shoulders. “Nothing. At least, I don’t think I do. All the information I get comes from you and your family. We’re ready to be of assistance when you give us the word.”
“You can’t think of anything you’ve heard or seen that might be a clue to what they’re planning?”
“No.”
Sykes changed the subject. “Did Ben say anything to you about finding some really small gold keys?”
“When?”
“Right before he Bonded with Willow and they took off for Kauai.”
Liam shook his head slowly. “No, he didn’t. Are you going to fill me in?”
“Probably,” Sykes told him, “but…” He didn’t finish because Nat cut off his cell phone connection and turned toward them.
“Is Poppy out there, I hope?” he said.
“Uh-huh,” Sykes said. “What’s this about…separating us for questioning?”
Nat gave his charming white smile. “Well now, am I separating you from Poppy, or Liam from Poppy? Or Poppy from both of you?”
“Things have been tense around here,” Liam told him. “Not much is amusing me right now.”
Liam said aloud what Sykes was thinking. And Sykes was grateful.
“Poppy could just as well have been in here. I wanted to give her some time with Wazoo. Wazoo likes her and I can use all the persuasion I can get to convince that woman she needs to move from Toussaint to New Orleans.”
The argument didn’t convince Sykes, but he let it go.
“You and Poppy arrived together this morning?” Nat asked Sykes. “Her brothers hadn’t seen her since yesterday. Was she with you all that time.”
“Am I providing Poppy with an alibi?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Liam sputtered.
“Just pulling his chain,” Sykes said. “Yes, Poppy was with me. All except for when she took a little nap at my sister Marley’s place. Marley was there. So I can account for her every minute of the time.”
“All night long?” Nat said. He returned to the black leather chair behind Poppy’s heavy glass desk and jotted on a notepad. “Until you got here?”
Sykes peered sideways at Liam. “Yes.” He would rather Poppy had been there to speak for herself.
Liam drummed his fingers on his thighs.
“How about you?” Nat asked Liam. “Anyone who’ll admit to spending the night with you?”
Liam smiled. “Unfortunately not. I slept in my cold little bed alone.”
“But you didn’t get there until pretty late, hmm?”
Sykes glanced at Liam who frowned and wrinkled his nose.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Just trying to put everyone somewhere last night. Someone was pretty busy. We’ve got another body. Male this time, but there are some similarities to Sonia Gardner’s death.”
“What kind of similarities?” Sykes asked bluntly. “Was this guy wearing a silver dress, too?”
“Ha, ha, ha.” Nat leaned forward and rested his elbows. “You were at some sort of high-price-ticket event last night, Liam?”
“It could be as high priced as you wanted it to be, depending on whether you felt like giving a lot of money away. I didn’t. I was there because I’m a curious man. It was possible I could learn something that would be interesting to a member of my family, so I went.”
“But you were invited?”
“Yeah. I imagine everyone will be eventually. It was here in the Quarter. A fundraiser for Ward Bienville’s potential senate run. I guess you’d call it a name-gathering event to draw in would-be contributors. I went because Ward has a thing for Poppy and I’d like to know more about him.”
“You didn’t mention any invitation when I was here yesterday,” Nat pointed out.
“I would have preferred it if no one knew I went. It wasn’t my kind of thing. And Poppy would be furious if she knew. She considers Ward a friend.”
“Was the new body found wherever the party was?” Sykes said.
“That’s not public information.” Nat looked at Sykes. “But, yes, the body was found at the party.”
He got the stunned silence he must have expected.
“That makes two nights, two fundraisers or whatever and one person from each event murdered. You and Poppy both attended the first event, Sykes. Liam was at the second one.”
“Lucky us,” Sykes said, meeting Liam’s eyes.
“I don’t know how long I can keep the powers that be from turning all their attention on you and the rest of the…the rest of your close friends,” Nat said. “Bad news follows you around.”
“You’ve seen enough to know what we’ve been up against,” Sykes said, and stood up. “You were there the last time. You saw those things at work trying to kill us—or kidnap us, if they could. We’re the good guys, remember?”
Nat nodded. He breathed deeply and let his head hang back. “Liam, did you see or hear anything unusual last night? Nothing is too insignificant to repeat.”
“He’s got that right,” Sykes muttered. “Why did they have the party without the party boy?”
“A woman and three men who said they were Ward’s advisors did the honors. And they didn’t say Ward had been taken in by the police, if that’s what you
’re looking for. They just kept repeating that he’d gotten held up by someone very influential.”
“I guess I just got more important,” Nat said. He didn’t smile. “Nothing else you can tell me?”
Liam shifted in his chair. “Just the weirdo in the bathroom.”
He crossed his arms and met Nat’s eyes.
“And?” Nat said.
“Followed me in as if he didn’t know it was a one-customer-at-a-time variety, and shut the door.”
That got Sykes’s full attention, too. “You’re kidding.”
“Stood there staring at me as if I ought to know him. Kind of a smile on his face. When he moved I thought he was leaving. I expected him to apologize. When he didn’t, I made kind of, ‘after you’ motions and started to get out of there. Only he blocked my way.”
Nat threw down his pen and gave Liam his full attention.
“Look,” Liam said, “this is going to sound off the wall. He walked straight at me until he slammed into me.” Turning his face, he pointed to a red mark on his jaw.
“Right into you?” Sykes said. “Deliberately?”
“The real kicker was that he looked more puzzled about it than I did. He kept looking into my eyes like he was trying to see inside my head. His eyes were too big or something. Then he backed up a couple of steps and did it again. Wham.”
Nat squinched up his eyes. “Had to be drunk or something.”
“I don’t think so,” Liam said. “He turned away and left, shut the door hard enough to make the thing rattle.”
“You didn’t go after—”
“Sure I went after him. The bathroom was in a kind of curved corridor. I must have chosen the wrong direction. I ran back toward the party and he hadn’t gone that way. By the time I went the other way there was no sign of him.”
20
Every few seconds Poppy glanced at her office, expecting to see the men coming out.
“They won’t be much longer,” Wazoo said.
“Good.” Poppy looked quickly at her companion. “How do you know?”
Out of Sight Page 13