Emma got out before he could reach her and make a fuss over opening her door. She hit the lock button on her keychain and met him a few feet away.
“Thank you for comin’,” he said in the same earnest but troubled voice she’d heard on the phone earlier. “Let’s make this look natural.” He glanced all around.
“No problem,” Emma said, less secure than ever. He’d invited her for lunch and been insistent when she tried to get out of it. Carl had also made a point of mentioning that Orville would not be at the club.
He took her by the hand, which she disliked, and led her inside the building. Instantly the scent of well-polished wood took over. Dark paneling covered the walls of the entry hall, and wide stairs rose from one side.
Carl nodded in the direction of a man in a green uniform who stood behind the reception desk. Overall, subdued lighting and a hushed atmosphere added to the impression that she’d just entered a gentlemen’s club from another era.
“I’ve got us set up in my rooms,” he said. “More private that way. You’ve eaten at Patrick’s, haven’t you?”
“Yes. But you go directly into the restaurant through a separate entrance. I’ve never been in here before.”
Carl gave a discreet cough. “I doubt there’s a club to duplicate this outside New Orleans. It does very, very well.”
She couldn’t imagine there were enough wealthy men in Pointe Judah to account for its success. “Some of the clientele must come a distance,” she said.
“You have no idea,” Carl said with a confidential little grin. “Let’s walk up. The place is worth seeing.”
But Orville had never thought to take her there. “I didn’t know anyone had rooms here until last night,” she said, and narrowed her eyes, facing an instant picture of Holly dead and defiled. “When Orville said he had a place here, I was shocked.” Or she would have been if other things hadn’t been so much more shocking.
“Horrible experience last night,” Carl said, jogging up the curving staircase beside her. Deep-piled green carpet swallowed any sound of feet. “Poor Holly Chandall. I didn’t know her, but she was good at what she did, and no one deserves that.”
“No.” This morning she’d eventually taken the phone off the hook rather than take more calls from people wanting to go over what had happened because they needed to talk about it, not to mention those who were merely fishing for salacious details.
“One more flight,” Carl said, when they reached an expansive landing where two corridors forked away. Emma could see doors along the walls. “I would have preferred this floor, but there wasn’t anythin’ available,” he said.
She wanted to ask where Orville’s rooms were but contained herself.
Carl’s home away from home reeked of cigar smoke. Emma didn’t mind an occasional whiff, but the smell in the enclosed space stifled her.
In front of a window overlooking more topiary, this at the back of the house, a table had been set with linen, crystal and silver.
“I told the waiter I’d take care of us myself,” Carl said. “I hope you don’t mind, but that way we won’t be interrupted.”
“What’s this all about?” she asked him. The secrecy had gotten to her. “We could just have talked on the phone.”
“No!” He shook his head. “No, that’s not safe. Sit down here.” He held a chair for her and leaned over to kiss her cheek when she was settled. “Relax. I’m goin’ to make sure everything’s okay. You are never goin’ to have a thing to worry about.”
Except whatever you’re hinting at.
“There’s potted shrimp,” he said, producing little white crocks from storage beneath the table.
Emma looked at the shrimp and toast points with complete disinterest.
Carl took a bottle from a silver bucket and poured white wine into their glasses. He had set quite a scene for this “essential” meeting he’d insisted on.
He sat and dug into the shrimp.
Emma sipped wine.
“Eat,” he said, pointing to her plate with the tip of his knife. “You’re too thin.”
The Viators had heard Orville tell her she was too heavy on a number of occasions. Carl calling her thin now sounded forced and ingratiating.
“It’s comfortable in here,” she said. Overstuffed furniture upholstered in red-and-gold stripes, an Asian rug that all but covered the shining oak floor and Audubon prints on more paneled walls were almost too selfconsciously tasteful.
Emma itched. Her teeth itched. The skin between her fingers itched. She had to get out of there.
Carl looked up at her and set down his knife. He shifted back in his chair. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry to have put you to unnecessary trouble.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t worry about it. Okay, we might as well get to it. I’m not lookin’ forward to this.”
“I don’t know what ‘this’ is, but I’m dreadin’ it.”
He tipped his lips up at her. “Whatever happens, I’ll make sure you’re okay.”
“You already said somethin’ like that.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m doing the best I can. Emma, this mornin’ I got somethin’ that destroyed me. A delivery addressed to me and left on my doorstep at the house.”
She’d spoken to Sandy at the shop, and she hadn’t mentioned any delivery that upset Carl.
“I’m not sure why this was sent to me, but better me than someone else.”
Emma fiddled with a fork beside her plate. She gave him a quizzical glance and found herself skewered by his watchfulness. Her tummy flipped. Carl was easy to feel comfortable with, but not when he behaved as if he expected his companion to shed her skin at any moment.
“Did you get anythin’ delivered to you recently?” he asked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t want to talk about it—or if you tried to forget it—but did you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Carl. Give me a break, huh, and tell me quickly. You’re scarin’ me.”
“Oh, baby girl.” He leaped up and went to Emma’s side, where he knelt and put an arm around her shoulders. Gently, he turned her toward him and pressed her face onto his shoulder. “You are never to be afraid. Understand me? Look up, look me right in the eye, and promise you’re going to relax, because you’ve got me, and I won’t let you get hurt.”
When Emma was able to raise her head, Carl’s face was closer than she found comfortable. He was closer than she cared for.
“Promise,” he repeated.
She nodded, but she straightened her back. “Stop this, Carl. You aren’t yourself. Why would I promise you somethin’ when I don’t know why?”
He stood up and looked down at her, suddenly disarmingly uncertain of himself. “I’ve never had to do anythin’ like this before, and I hope I never do again. I got some pictures. Photographs. They’re of Orville with a woman.” Distaste crossed his features.
Emma composed her face into neutral. He would be expecting her to cry out or faint or something. She couldn’t pull either of those off, but she could buy time by pretending she didn’t understand.
Carl went back to his seat. “I’ve admired him for so long. I still believe he’s a good man, but somethin’s gone wrong. He’s on a power trip or somethin’.”
As if Orville hadn’t been on a power trip for years, Emma thought. “I don’t know why someone would bring pictures like that to you, either,” she said.
“They’re incriminatin’,” he said. “I think they’re a threat.”
“What kind of threat?”
“I’m not sure. You don’t seem shaken up. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you don’t care.”
“I care,” she said.
From a briefcase beside his chair, he pulled out photos, and she didn’t have to see them any closer to know they were the same ones she already had.
“This isn’t the kind of stuff we can have floatin’ around when Orville’s about to throw hi
s hat in the ring for governor. Men, a lot of men, will laugh and talk about how boys will be boys. Women don’t like it—unless they’re the ones havin’ the good time.” He turned pink. “Forgive me. I spend a lot more time talkin’ to men than women. Sometimes I forget myself.”
“What should we do about it?”
“Don’t you want to see them?”
“I already have.” Emma wished she could avoid it, but she had to come clean. “Please put them away. I was disgusted enough already.”
“You didn’t say anythin’.”
“I’m dealing with this my way,” Emma said. “And I’m not talkin’ about it.”
“If you’ve got copies and I’ve got copies, they came from somewhere.”
“True.”
“What’s to stop whoever took these from usin’ them elsewhere?”
“Perhaps they’re going to blackmail us, although I’d think it would be Orville they’d go to.” She hadn’t thought of any of this. That was what happened when you got tunnel vision. All she’d been thinking about was what the photos meant to her marriage.
Carl considered. “You’re right. I was caught so off guard, I’m not sure I’ve been thinkin’ straight at all.” He paused and frowned at her. “You must be devastated.”
“I’m disappointed in Orville.”
“Disappointed? You’re not really upset? I don’t understand you. He stands to throw away everythin’ we’ve worked for, and all you can manage is disappointed?”
He had, she realized again, expected her to cry, to be destroyed by her husband’s betrayal. “There’s somethin’ you need to know. We had decided to keep it quiet, hopefully until the election process is further along, but you deserve to know. Orville and I are gettin’ a divorce. It’s already bein’ processed. That shouldn’t be a big surprise to you.”
“Divorced?” He dropped back in his chair. “You were already gettin’ a divorce?”
“The photos cinched it.”
“Orville never said a word to me.” Anger didn’t suit him. “I’m his right hand, and he didn’t let me know the kind of obstacle we’d be facin’.”
So much for his concern about her marital bliss. “We’ve talked,” she told him. “We haven’t been happy together for a long time. I suggest you get rid of those photos and pretend you never saw them. They don’t make a difference to you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, pushing back his jacket and hooking his thumbs under his belt. “He’s a liability. Mud sticks. If those photos got to you and me, someone intends to get somethin’ out of them.”
“Like money,” Emma said.
“Or political advantage. He can’t run when somethin’ like this is bound to come out.”
“If necessary, he can tell people he made a mistake. Isn’t that what happens? As long as the candidate throws himself on the mercy of the constituents, or would-be constituents, everyone forgets what he did?”
“That might happen if he was already in office. He’s not. Opponents will take this to the bank.”
Emma got up. She was too tired and too sad to hash this out now—if ever. “I don’t intend to make those photos public,” she said. “I’m sure you don’t, either. Why don’t we hold on and see if this goes away? If we’ve got a blackmailer out there, we’ll know soon enough.”
He snorted. “I’ll be damned. You’re a lot stronger than I thought you were, and a lot more savvy. He never was good enough for you.”
“I thought he was your best friend?”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t be objective. You’re special, too special for him. Okay, let’s see what happens.” He got up. “You haven’t eaten a thing.”
She shrugged and said, “Somehow I’m not very hungry. I think it’s seein’ a dear friend laid out like a fruit flan that may have taken my appetite away.”
He looked stricken. “You must think I’m callous. I’m not. And I’m sure you’re scared, just like the rest of the women in town. I suppose your group will quit meetin’.”
Emma blinked. “Why would we do that? Right when we need each other most?”
“Emma. Stay away, I tell you. I won’t let Sandy go there. Two members murdered. It’s obvious there’s a connection to the club. You girls need guidance. You need your eyes opened. What do you do at that place?”
“What…? We give each other support. We laugh. We cry. We share.”
“And you talk about the one thing women always talk about, losin’ weight. Food. What you should and shouldn’t eat. The diet of the week.”
“We do some of that. It’s kind of funny.”
“A woman who looks the way you do might think so. I doubt if Suky-Jo thinks it’s a big laugh.”
This was an extraordinary conversation. “You don’t know her. She doesn’t take these things seriously.”
“Whatever. Some husband or boyfriend isn’t amused by all this shared support. It makes you woman too independent. So these deaths have been a warnin’ to stop. You and Sandy don’t need to be told again.”
He sounded more like Orville by the moment. “I appreciate your concern. Really I do. I’m just going to let all this play out—with Orville, I mean. I intend to make a new life.”
“You sound cool about this. Maybe you already have plans.”
Let him think whatever he wanted to. “School, for one thing. Just as soon as I can get established.”
He joined her near the door. “I know about the money situation,” he said.
“I thought Orville would have told you. He’s pretty proud of it, I think.”
“He should be ashamed,” Carl said. “Just let me know when you need my help, and I’ll work on him to change things.”
“I don’t think he’d do that for anyone.”
“He’ll do it for me if I threaten to make the story public. Not that I think he can hide it for long anyway.”
She raised her chin and looked directly into his face. “So you think if these photos get out it’ll be the end of his political career? You’ll pack up your tents and go home? Concentrate on business?”
“It’s Orville who pissed in his chili, not me. My party’s going to need me more than ever.”
Emma had no doubt she could be losing her objectivity, but Carl didn’t sound sorry about a thing. He sounded as if he thought he might get handed an opportunity—like stepping into Orville’s political shoes.
“I’d better get back to the shop,” she said. “Business is quite good these days.”
He chuckled. “The more guys who find out you’re there, the more business you’ll get, gorgeous. Just keep ’em in their places.”
Carl stepped into her, framed her face with his hands and brought his mouth down on hers. She stood there, her lips pressed tightly shut, until he made a frustrated sound and stepped back, holding her shoulders as he did so.
“It’s sweet of you to care,” she said, just as if she’d received a brotherly peck. “You can count on me to do the right thing.”
33
“The big bass drum led the big parade,” Finn sang under his breath while he beat out the rhythm with the tips of his fingers, “All on a Mardi Gras day. Oh, yeah, the big bass—”
“D’you mind?” Billy said, glaring over his coffee mug.
“Just singin’ along with the music.”
Billy peered around his office. “What music?”
“In my head,” Finn said, completely honest. “We gonna start whatever you got me here for? It’s late.” And after not seeing Emma since early the day before, he intended to drag his sorry butt up there and apologize to her for being a boor.
“I’m waitin’ till everyone’s here,” Billy said. “You doin’ okay with…you know?”
Finn slid to the front of his chair and stretched out his legs. “Just great, Billy. Instant recovery, that’s me.”
“You gotta let it go.”
“Maybe I will one day—when I find out the truth.”
“Shee-it.” Billy slam
med down the mug, spraying the usual drops everywhere. “You are just like your old man. Instincts of a bulldog.”
Finn showed his teeth.
“I’ve got some interestin’ stuff here,” Billy said, tapping a couple of folders in front of him. “I probably shouldn’t share any of it with you. Maybe I won’t.”
“Suit yourself.” Finn shrugged.
“On the other hand, you might be useful to me, on account of I think you’ve been pokin’ your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“Me?” Finn opened his eyes wide.
“You and the mayor’s lady get along real well, don’t you?” Billy said.
Scrambling, Finn collected his wits. “Well now, that was a swift change of subject.”
“You like her, and she likes you.”
“What’s not to like?”
Billy’s grin was too satisfied. “I may not be Sherlock Holmes, but I notice things. Somethin’s been sparkin’ between the two of you since that first day you sat in here together. You want to be a home breaker? Your daddy wouldn’t have approved.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Finn said. “My father believed in the sanctity of marriage, just like I do. Only sometimes a marriage is in name only and there’s nothin’ to keep sacred. I had one of those myself, remember?”
“Yeah. And I’m sorry about that. What about Mrs. Lachance? Is she in an unholy alliance?”
Finn laughed shortly. “So to speak. And that’s all I’m say-in’ on the subject. It’s already a whole lot more than I should say. I’ll be more careful in future—I don’t want rumors, and neither would she.” If they ever crossed paths again. Ah, hell, he was dramatizing. Of course they would cross paths—and more, if he had his way. He lowered his eyelids and relived a little of the previous early-morning drive. Emma had been mighty enthusiastic herself.
A patrolman let the lady in, and Finn sat upright. “Emma? Is somethin’ wrong?”
In a red dress with a deep vee neck and narrow skirt, she looked good enough to eat, and Finn had become very hungry after almost two days of starvation.
“Billy said he wanted to see me,” she said. “So here I am.”
Body of Evidence Page 30