by Sandra Brown
Yasmine was trying to provoke her. Refusing to be baited, Claire stepped into her bedroom. “I thought you were in love.”
“I am. But I’m not blind. And I’m not dead.” Through Claire’s closed bedroom door, Yasmine added, “And even though you’d like for Mr. Cassidy and every other man to think your drawers could form icicles, neither are you, Claire Laurent.”
As she listened to Yasmine’s withdrawing footsteps, Claire glimpsed her reflection in the mirrored door of the armoire. Quite unlike herself, she looked agitated, confused, and afraid.
And Mr. Cassidy was the reason.
Chapter Six
Andre Philippi finished his dinner and neatly placed the silverware on the rim of his plate. He blotted his mouth on the stiff linen napkin, folded it, and laid it aside. He then rang for a room service waiter to retrieve his tray. The roast duck had been a trifle dry and the vinaigrette on the fresh, cold asparagus had had a trace too much tarragon. He would send a memo to the head chef.
As night manager of the Fairmont Hotel, New Orleans, Andre Philippi demanded optimum performance from everyone on staff. Mistakes simply weren’t tolerated. Insolence or slip-shod service was grounds for immediate dismissal. Andre believed that hotel patrons should be treated as pampered guests in the finest home.
In the small washroom adjacent to his private office, he washed his hands with French milled soap, gargled with mouthwash to guard against halitosis, and took pains to dry his pencil-thin mustache as well as his lips. He smoothed his hands over his oiled hair, which he wore combed straight back from his receding hairline, chiefly because that was the neatest style he could derive, but also to combat the natural tendency of his black hair to curl. He checked his nails. Tomorrow was his day to have them clipped, filed, and buffed. He had a standing, weekly manicure appointment, which he religiously kept.
Always with an eye on the hotel’s operating budget, he conscientiously switched off the light in the washroom and reentered his office. Ordinarily his position wouldn’t have warranted a private office, but Andre had more seniority than anyone else, including the upper-echelon executives.
And he knew how to keep a secret.
Over his tenure, he’d been granted many favors because often his discretion had been required by his superiors. He’d kept secrets about their vices ranging from one’s predilection for young boys to another’s heroin addiction. The private office was just one expression of appreciation that Andre’s confidence had earned him.
Other tokens of appreciation from hotel personnel, and from guests who had required his special services, were earning compound interest in several city banks, making Andre a wealthy man. He rarely had occasion to spend money on anything other than keeping his wardrobe up to snuff and buying flowers for his maman’s tomb. Elaborate bouquets of flowers as exotic as she were delivered to the cemetery twice weekly. The floral arrangements were more elaborate than the ones his papa had sent her when Andre was still a boy. That was important to him.
He wasn’t tall, but his rigid posture gave him presence. Although he wasn’t given to vanity, he was meticulous. He checked his appearance in the full-length mirror on the back of his bathroom door. His trousers still had a knife-blade crease. The red carnation in his lapel buttonhole was still fresh. The collar and cuffs of his starched white shirt were so stiff that a tennis ball would have bounced off them. He always dressed in an impeccably tailored dark suit, white shirt, and conservative necktie. He would have felt comfortable wearing a morning coat and spats, but that might have attracted his guests’ attention to him rather than to the excellent service they were receiving. And that would have been tantamount to failure. Andre Philippi considered himself a servant to the guests of the Fairmont Hotel, and he took his job seriously.
Following a knock on his office door, a young man in a room service waiter’s uniform stepped in. “Are you done with your tray?”
“I’m finished, yes.” Critically he assessed the young waiter’s appearance and technique as he replaced the lids on the serving dishes and loaded them onto the tray.
“Will that be all for you tonight, Mr. Philippi?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You bet.”
Andre frowned over the idiomatic parting words, but, generally speaking, the waiter had performed well. No doubt he would return to the kitchen and joke with his friends among the hotel’s staff until his next assignment. Andre didn’t have many friends.
He’d attended the finest private schools, including Loyola University. But because he could never claim his father, and vice versa, he’d always been a social outcast. He didn’t mind. The only world that existed for him was the hotel. What went on outside its walls was of only negligible interest or importance to him. He wasn’t ambitious. He didn’t have his eye on a corporate position. For him, heaven would be to die while on duty at the Fairmont. His cramped apartment was within walking distance of the hotel, but he actually resented the time he had to spend there. If it were allowed, he would never leave the Fairmont.
Andre had but one vice. He indulged it now, as a gourmand might savor an after-dinner liqueur. Opening the lap drawer of his desk, he gazed down at the framed, autographed picture. Ah, Yasmine. So exquisite. So beautiful. “To a hell of a guy,” she’d written before signing her name with a plethora of curlicues.
He was more than just an ardent fan. For years, he’d had an affection for her that bordered on obsession. It wasn’t a sexual attraction. That would have been profane. No, he worshipped her as an art enthusiast might covet an unattainable painting. He admired and adored her and yearned for her happiness, as he had yearned for his beautiful maman to be happy.
Eventually he shut the drawer, knowing that there would be other opportunities tonight for him to gaze at the breathtaking face that was never far from his mind. Now, however, it was time for his hourly inspection of the front desk. Things seemed to be running smoothly. He spotted a cigarette butt on the carpet in front of the elevators, but at a snap of his fingers a bellman rushed forward to dispose of it. He pinched a wilting rose off one of the floral arrangements and inquired courteously of returning guests if they were finding everything to their liking. They assured him that, as usual, everything was perfect.
As he traversed the lobby, he shuddered to recall that horrible morning following the Jackson Wilde murder. What an appalling incident to have happened in his hotel!
He didn’t regret that the televangelist was dead, particularly. The man had served his own needs before serving others’. His smile had camouflaged a nasty disposition. He had laughed too loudly, spoken too abrasively, shaken hands too heartily. Andre had extended the man and his family every courtesy, but his heart hadn’t been in it because he had a distinct personal dislike for Jackson Wilde.
Andre was still holding a grudge. Wilde’s murder had cast a pall over the hotel. No hotel could guarantee that such a thing would never occur in one of its rooms, no matter what security precautions were taken. Nevertheless, some local journalists had outrageously suggested that the hotel should share liability.
Well, the lawyers were handling that aspect of it. That was beyond Andre’s realm. But it made him queasy to remember the chaotic aftermath—this serene lobby crawling with policemen and reporters and rightfully disgruntled guests who had been interrogated like miscreants. It had been like witnessing a regal dowager being mauled by street thugs.
What should be obvious to the authorities was that someone had walked in off the street, taken an elevator up to the seventh floor, and been welcomed into Wilde’s room. After shooting him, and without attracting anyone’s attention, the killer had left the same way. Should all the guests in the hotel that night be treated as suspects? Were the police justified to suspect everyone? Andre didn’t think so. That’s why he had no qualms about protecting those who couldn’t possibly have had a quarrel with Jackson Wilde.
As a matter of routine, the policemen had questioned him, too. They seemed not to doubt h
is statements. Mr. Cassidy, however, was another matter. He had been more thorough and more dogged than that disheveled detective with two first names. Cassidy hadn’t outright accused Andre of lying, but the prosecutor seemed to know that he was concealing information.
“Look, Mr. Philippi,” he had said, scooting closer to Andre in a gesture designed to inspire confidence, “I don’t care what drug deals might have gone down in the rooms upstairs that night. Nobody’s going to get hauled in by vice if they were with a prostitute who handcuffed them to the furniture and took dirty pictures. I don’t care who was banging whose wife. What I do need to know is the identity of every person who came through the doors that night. I know you keep a tough vigil on the lobby area. You see a lot of people. Someone you consider insignificant might not be. Any scrap of information could be vital.”
“I understand, Mr. Cassidy,” Andre had replied, his face impassive. “But I’ve already listed everyone I saw that night. I’ve instructed the staff to give you their full cooperation. You have access to our computer.”
“Which you and I both know saves only what it’s told to save. Data can be deleted more easily than it’s entered.” Cassidy had raised his voice, demonstrating his impatience. When he realized this, he took another tack, assuming the tone of a caring parent about to administer punishment. “Why don’t you come clean with me, Andre? If you’re caught withholding information, you could be implicated. I’d hate for it to come to that, wouldn’t you?”
Cassidy could change tactics till his face turned blue and he wouldn’t prize anything out of Andre. He was resolved never to reveal information that would compromise individuals he respected. Facts that had absolutely no bearing on the murder of the Reverend Jackson Wilde were none of Mr. Cassidy’s business.
Mr. Cassidy wasn’t originally from New Orleans. He was under the misconception that the law was absolute, unbendable, and applicable to everyone. No doubt he thought that blanket rules covered everybody. Evidently he hadn’t yet learned the code of honor that governed the Crescent City. Outsiders might not understand and adhere to it, but Andre Philippi certainly did.
When Claire entered the kitchen area, her mother was sitting alone at the table in the breakfast nook. She was fully dressed and had applied makeup. Those were encouraging signs. There were days when Mary Catherine couldn’t leave her bed, imprisoned there by depression.
“Hmm. Coffee smells good, Mama,” Claire said as she clipped on her earrings.
“Good morning, dear. Sleep well?”
“Yes,” Claire lied. As she stirred cream into her coffee, she looked over her shoulder and smiled at her mother. Her smile congealed when she saw the familiar face that filled the screen of the portable TV in the étagère. It was tuned to a morning news program.
“She really shouldn’t shout like that,” Mary Catherine remarked. “It’s so unflattering. A lady should cultivate a soothing speaking voice.”
Ariel Wilde was ringed by reporters, all eager to broadcast her latest and most vicious criticisms of the city, parish, and state authorities that had thus far declined to release her husband’s body for transport to Nashville.
Claire gingerly sat down across from her mother. She watched Mary Catherine rather than the TV.
“Mrs. Wilde should be allowed to bury her husband as soon as possible,” Mary Catherine said, “but it’s hard to work up sympathy for people who are so unpleasant.”
“Why do you say they’re unpleasant, Mama?”
Mary Catherine looked at her with bald surprise. “Why, Claire, have you forgotten all the trouble this preacher caused you, all the horrible things he said? He was a detestable human being, and apparently so is his wife.”
This is one of her lucid days, Claire thought. They occurred rarely, but on such days Mary Catherine made perfect sense and was fully aware of what was taking place around her. When her eyes were clear and her voice was resonant with conviction, one could easily doubt that she was ever any other way. Claire, looking at her now, wondered what triggered these bouts of sanity and the all-too-frequent lapses. For decades doctors had tried and failed to diagnose and cure the problems.
“The things that man said about you were so hateful,” she was saying. “Why couldn’t he have minded his own business and left you alone?”
Claire was stunned by her mother’s vehemence. “I don’t have to worry about him anymore, Mama.”
Mary Catherine’s lips turned up into a beatific smile. “Oh yes, I know. He died of three gunshot wounds.” Abruptly changing the subject, she pushed a plate of croissants toward Claire. “Have one, dear. They’re wonderful.”
“Just coffee for now,” Claire said distractedly. “Mama, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something very important.”
“I love this weatherman, don’t you? He has such a nice, conversational manner.”
“Mama?” Claire waited until Mary Catherine’s attention was again focused on her. “Do you remember meeting Mr. Cassidy the other day?”
“Of course. Only a few minutes ago, they showed his picture and quoted him in a news story. I didn’t know when I met him that he’s so important. He’ll be prosecuting the Jackson Wilde case for the district attorney’s office.”
“That’s right. And because Reverend Wilde had been so hostile toward me, Mr. Cassidy wanted to meet me. He might be coming back.”
“Oh, how lovely. He was very nice.”
“Well, he… he’s not always nice. In his work, he often must ask people a lot of questions. Personal questions about their lives, their backgrounds. He must delve into their pasts and try to uncover things that they’d rather remain private.” She paused to let that sink in. Mary Catherine gazed back at her inquisitively. “If Mr. Cassidy should come back and start asking you about the years we lived with Aunt Laurel, what would you tell him?”
Mary Catherine was nonplussed. “I suppose I’d tell him how lovely it was.”
Claire, sighing with relief, took her mother’s hand and clasped it warmly. “It was, wasn’t it? We had some wonderful times in Aunt Laurel’s house.”
“I still miss her, you know. This Sunday after mass, let’s take some flowers to her tomb.” Mary Catherine stood up and moved toward the built-in desk. “Now, Claire, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got to make a shopping list before Harry gets here. She’s so forgetful, if I don’t write down everything we need at the market, she doesn’t remember a thing.”
Mary Catherine began adding items to her shopping list while Claire watched her, a disturbed frown on her face. It was inevitable that Cassidy would come back. She only hoped it wouldn’t be today. She was glad that Mary Catherine was enjoying a good day, but she’d just as soon Cassidy talk to her mother when she couldn’t converse so lucidly about Jackson Wilde and his murder.
The cold-water tap was on full blast, and it was still only lukewarm. Cassidy supposed he should be grateful that at least it was a powerful spray. As the water struck the back of his neck, it worked out some of the tension. But not all of it.
Eventually he soaped, shampooed, rinsed, and stepped out of the shower. By that time, his coffee had brewed. He followed the rich smell of New Orleans coffee and chicory into his postage-stamp-sized kitchen and poured a cup. Scalding and bitter, it gave him twin jolts of caffeine and optimism. Maybe today would produce something.
He padded to the front door of his Metairie condo and opened it to get his morning paper. The woman who lived across the narrow stone walkway was putting letters into her mailbox.
She looked him over and grinned with amusement. “Good morning, Cassidy.”
He gripped the knot of the towel wrapped around his waist. “Good morning.”
“I haven’t seen so much of you lately.”
Ignoring the double entendre, he said, “I’ve been busy.”
“So I’ve been reading.” She nodded toward the newspaper he’d tucked under his bare arm. From there her eyes ventured to the water-beaded hair on his lower belly. “Have yo
u had a chance to use that sample soap I gave you last week?”
She worked at Maison-Blanche, representing an international cosmetics line. She was constantly leaving samples from their men’s collection on his doorstep. Thanks to her, he had more cosmetics than the female impersonators who pranced in the clubs on Bourbon Street. He stuck to Dial and a splash of shaving lotion, but he hated to hurt her feelings. Feeling a tingle from every hair follicle that she was studying, he said, “Yeah, it was great.”
“Smell good?”
“Hmm.”
She looked into his face and her eyes lingered. They’d run out of things to say. He recognized her soft expression for what it was. He toyed with the idea of inviting himself into her condo for croissants and coziness, but dismissed the thought before it was fully formed. “Well, I’m running late. ’Bye.”
He closed the door seconds before the knotted towel slipped over his buns, then fell to the floor. His neighbor, Penny or Patty or Peggy or something like that, was pretty and available, as far as he knew. She’d made overtures before, which he’d ignored for one reason or another, chiefly due to lack of time and interest.
Maybe this morning he should accept her subtle invitation. Maybe getting laid was just what he needed to improve his outlook. “Hell, I doubt it,” he muttered. If it were that easy, he could have climbed out of this slump days ago. Women weren’t that hard to come by.
He kicked the wet towel out of his path and stalked naked into the kitchen. He sipped his coffee while waiting for his toaster to spring two slices of wheat bread. Opening his Times Picayune, he noted that the Wilde murder story had been demoted to page 4. But there in black and white was an article suggesting that the authorities were baffled. Incompetence was strongly suggested. For those who didn’t already know—and since the media had been saturated with reports, it seemed impossible that the facts weren’t known to everyone—the crime scene was restaged according to the press release Cassidy had helped compose.