Skeleton Letters

by Laura Childs

  He grabbed her hand. “I’d miss your little pied-à-terre right here.”

  “So would I,” agreed Carmela, scrunching down next to him. “No, we were over there because Baby asked me to decorate the place for the Holidazzle Tour.”

  “Seriously?”

  Carmela nodded.

  Now Babcock threw her a questioning look. “I thought you didn’t go in for all that Garden District society stuff.”

  “I usually don’t,” said Carmela. “But we’re talking about Baby, one of my dearest friends. She asked for a favor and I said yes. Simple as that.”

  “Mmm,” said Babcock. He hunched his shoulders forward, suddenly looking like he was drained of energy.

  “Hard day at the office, dear?”

  Babcock offered a halfhearted wave. “Eeh.”

  “That’s an mmm and an eeh,” said Carmela. “You’re just bubbling with conversation.”

  “Hungry,” said Babcock, stretching out his long legs and dangling his left hand over the edge of the chair. Boo promptly sniffed it, then positioned herself beneath his splayed-out fingers, the better to catch a good ear scratch.

  “I’ll fix you something to eat,” said Carmela. “What would you like?” She quickly ran through her list of leftovers in her head, then said, “Jambalaya? Maybe a sandwich?”

  “Sandwich would be great,” murmured Babcock.

  “Done,” said Carmela.

  She puttered in her kitchen for eight minutes tops and came up with a sort of Big Easy Reuben—corned beef, Swiss cheese, horseradish, and Thousand Island dressing on rye. She plated it, added a dill pickle spear as well as a pickled onion from a jar she’d picked up at the farmers’ market last week, and carried it all over to Babcock.

  He seemed surprised. “Oh man,” he said, as he pulled himself up. “I didn’t expect you’d go to so much trouble.” He swiped the sandwich off its plate and propelled it toward his mouth in one swift move.

  “No trouble,” said Carmela. She sat at his feet, watching him eat for a couple of minutes, passing him a paper napkin when Thousand Island dressing threatened to drip onto her leather chair.

  “Good,” said Babcock, as he chewed. “What is it exactly?”

  “Big Easy Reuben,” Carmela told him.

  Babcock looked puzzled, though he continued to munch with gusto. “Never heard of that. Where’d you get the recipe? Which restaurant?”

  “I made it up myself,” said Carmela.

  “Just now?”

  “Well . . . ten minutes ago.”

  “Good,” Babcock said again, as he continued to eat.

  “So,” Carmela said, when the lines that were etched into his face seemed to finally relax, when he began to lose his hungry, haunted look. “How goes the investigation?”

  Babcock finished a last little bit of crust, then fastidiously wiped his mouth with the napkin. “We made some progress.”

  “Really?” This was the kind of news she wanted to hear.

  “We picked up that delivery guy, Johnny Otis, today and are holding him for questioning.”

  “Can you do that? I mean, just hold him, without any concrete evidence?”

  Babcock gave a thin smile. “I can do anything I want.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Carmela studied him carefully. Was he a tougher, flintier guy than she’d ever imagined? Maybe so. Just because she’d never seen the full-court-press law enforcement side of him didn’t mean it wasn’t there. “Why did you single out Johnny Otis?”

  Babcock put one arm behind his head and wriggled his shoulders. “Proximity, mostly. Otis was in the area and he gave a fair amount of back talk to the officers who questioned him.” He let loose a discreet burp. “Plus Otis has a record.”

  “You mentioned that before.”

  “Nothing dramatic. Mostly breaking and entering.”

  “Not murder,” said Carmela.

  “For your information,” said Babcock, “Mrs. Coopersmith wasn’t murdered. At least I don’t believe it was premeditated.”

  “So her death was technically a homicide?”

  Babcock’s nod was imperceptible.

  “But your hunch about Otis is based on the fact that he’s a burglary guy.”

  “Right.”

  “The thing is,” said Carmela, “nobody broke into St. Tristan’s. The church was already open.”

  “A B&E generally involves burglary. Stolen goods.”

  “Ah, there was that,” said Carmela. “Père Etienne’s crucifix is definitely missing.” She waited a couple of beats, then said, “Have you come up with anything on that yet?”

  “No,” said Babcock. Now he was the one who waited a couple of beats before he asked, “Have you?”

  Chapter 12

  TANDY flashed a broad grin at Carmela as she cruised into Memory Mine. “We wanted to get here early,” she explained.

  “This one called me at six thirty this morning!” exclaimed Baby, jerking her thumb at Tandy. “I was like . . . still in REM sleep.”

  “Too excited,” said Tandy. “I just couldn’t wait.”

  “To do calligraphy?” asked Carmela. Her class didn’t kick off until nine o’clock and here were Baby, Tandy, and two other women already seated at the big craft table, a half hour early, with Gabby hovering nearby.

  “That and I thought there might be an update,” said Tandy, peering at Carmela sharply. “On . . . you know.”

  “We should really discuss that later,” Baby said, in a quiet tone. Then she smiled serenely and seemed to refocus. “Can you believe it? Tandy even made early-morning forays to both Café du Monde and Duvall’s Bakery.”

  “And look at the goodies I brought back!” Tandy exclaimed. She jumped up from her chair, almost knocking it over, and thrust a take-out cup of café au lait into Carmela’s hand. Then she reached out and pushed an enormous white bakery box across the table. “Surprise!”

  “French almond croissants,” said Gabby. “As well as those delightful little Doberge bites and date bars.” She seemed as excited about the eats as she was about today’s class.

  “Wow,” said Carmela, taking a sip of her coffee.

  “Dig in,” enthused Tandy.

  Baby lifted her Gucci tote bag onto the table and pulled out a plastic storage container. “And just in case we don’t have enough of the sweet stuff, I brought along some freshbaked chocolate streusel bars.”

  “We have enough bakery for twenty people,” Gabby laughed.

  “So what?” said Tandy, slyly dipping her hand into the container and pulling out a chocolate streusel bar. “A person can never ingest too much sugar.”

  “Or chocolate,” said Baby.

  “You think?” said Carmela. “Then how come nutritionists always caution against eating sugar? It’s always held up as something that’s positively toxic.”

  Tandy wrinkled her nose in dismay. “That’s because they’re wet blankets. Honestly, a day without sugar is like a day without . . .”

  “Scrapbooking!” cried Baby.

  “Exactly,” said Tandy. Plunking her skinny bottom down on the chair next to Baby, she placed her elbows solidly on the table and proceeded to munch her bar.

  Fifteen minutes later the table was completely filled with a dozen paying customers. An electric buzz filled the air as scrappers and would-be calligraphers waited with anticipation. Although when Carmela and Gabby conferred at the flat file, Gabby whispered to Carmela that it seemed more like a sugar buzz.

  “Okay,” said Carmela, raising her voice as she stepped to the head of the table. “Time to kick this class into high gear. Let’s clear off the food debris and make our worktable as tidy as possible. Tandy, can you gather up the used coffee cups?”

  Tandy nodded as she sprang from her chair, definitely a little sugar-buzzed.

  “Thank you,” said Carmela. “And Gabby, you go ahead and pass out the pens and graph paper.”

  There was an urgen
t scuffle then, as everyone seemed to shift into serious craft mode.

  “First things first,” said Carmela, as all eyes turned toward her. “We’re not going to take up pen and ink today, because that’s awfully tricky and messy for beginners.”

  There were audible sighs of relief.

  “The fact is,” said Carmela, “there are lots of great calligraphy pens readily available. Sharpie, Speedball, and Bic Sheaffer all make excellent calligraphy pens. We stock them all, so be sure to try out the various brands to find the one that’s most comfortable for you.” She lifted a large cardboard poster that displayed basic alphabet letters onto the table. “And these are the letters we’ll be practicing. The skeleton letters.”

  “So they’re like writing architecture?” asked Tandy, squinting at the poster.

  “Very close to it,” said Carmela. “These letters appear fairly simple and pretty much are. They’re the basic forms you need to master for calligraphy. Then, once you feel comfortable rendering rudimentary skeleton letters, we’ll move on to more complex forms of calligraphy. Depending on how it goes, we might try copperplate, rustica, or even Carolingian.”

  One of the women raised a tentative hand. “So how do we begin? Just practice our ABCs?”

  “You can do that,” said Carmela, as she walked around the table passing out mini versions of her alphabet template to everyone, “or you can get creative and start thinking about some of the ways you might actually use calligraphy.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Baby.

  “Once you master the basic skeleton letters,” said Carmela, “and are able to enhance them with a few swirls and flourishes, you can incorporate calligraphy into all sorts of things. Think about lettering on a scrapbook page or making your own greeting cards, maps, or place cards. When your lettering gets good enough, you can move on to certificates and awards, or even make your own gift wrap.”

  Gabby grabbed a sample of Carmela’s work and popped it down in the center of the table. “This is a little placard that Carmela created last week. It’s a verse from a Shakespeare sonnet, hand-lettered onto bamboo paper, then mounted on chipboard. You can see she deckled the edges, then smoothed on a little gold leaf.”

  The sample was met with murmurs of “Fantastic” and “Beautiful.”

  “Oof,” said Tandy, scowling down at her paper, “I think I already made a mess.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Carmela. “Your first couple of attempts are going to be a little shaky, but keep practicing. Keep your letters within the grid lines on the paper and try to master the basic skeleton formation. Then you can move on and enhance it.”

  “My pen’s not doing what I want it to,” complained one woman.

  “Okay,” said Carmela, “here’s an important trick. For thick strokes, apply pressure to the tip of your pen. For thin strokes, simply ease up and go lightly.”

  “Good advice,” said Baby, as she rendered a lovely letter B.

  “Also,” said Carmela, “it’s better to draw thick strokes with a downward motion of your pen and thin strokes by moving your pen upward.”

  “Now I get it,” said Tandy, looking pleased.

  “And don’t expect to make a letter all in one single stroke,” said Carmela. “In fact, it’s better to go slowly and even lift your pen a couple of times.”

  Carmela and Gabby went around the table, giving pointers here, encouragement there. When all her crafters were working away diligently, Carmela slipped into her back office. She had a small project she wanted to finish up, an example of one of the projects she was going to have her crafters work on.

  Last week she’d decoupaged a few images of roses, ballerinas, and a piece of opera music onto a small, round cardboard box. When the glue had dried, she’d shellacked the sides and top and glued a string of pearls around the top edge. Now she was hard at work, lettering the phrase You are the wind beneath my wings onto parchment paper. This would be artfully torn out, then decoupaged onto the cover of the box. And she’d probably line it with a crumpled piece of silk. Hopefully, the little jewel box would serve as inspiration for her class today.

  “Carmela,” said Gabby. She was standing in the doorway, looking pleased.

  Carmela finished the final letter on her verse and lifted her head. “Yes?”

  “They’re all doing rather brilliantly.”

  “You think they’re ready to tackle a project?”

  Gabby gave an emphatic nod. “I think they are.”

  Carmela grabbed her decoupaged box and lettered phrase and headed back out to the table, eager to see how the class had done.

  “Look what we’ve been busy doing!” boasted Tandy, holding up a sheet of beautifully rendered letters.

  “Perfect,” said Carmela. She circled the table, checking everyone’s progress.

  “Did we do good?” asked one of the women.

  “Better than good,” Carmela told her. “You’re ready to integrate your calligraphy into a real live project.”

  “Oh goody,” said Tandy. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Let’s start with something fairly simple,” suggested Carmela. “Maybe a hand-lettered quote or poem, some lettering on a picture frame, or a sentiment lettered and decoupaged onto a small wooden box.” She set her little box on the table, showed them what she’d done so far, and explained exactly how she’d finish it up.

  “That’s what I want to make,” declared Tandy.

  “Me, too,” came a chorus of enthusiastic voices.

  “It just so happens,” said Gabby, stepping in, “that we have a baker’s dozen of small boxes.” She scattered them on the table—square boxes, round boxes, even a couple of hexshaped boxes—and let each woman choose her favorite.

  “If you want to wander through the shop and select paper, charms, beads, fibers, or whatever,” said Carmela, “please help yourself. And whatever items you choose today for your jewel box project, remember, it’s all included in the price of today’s seminar.”

  That brought another round of smiles, and a gaggle of women suddenly leaped to their feet and began combing through the shop like they were on a treasure hunt, searching for the perfect paper, ribbon, charms, and adornments.

  “What are you two going to do?” Carmela asked Baby and Tandy. They’d remained seated at the table.

  “We were thinking of making a shadow box in memory of Byrle,” said Tandy. She squinted at Carmela. “What do you think of that?”

  “I think it’s a lovely sentiment,” said Carmela. She reached up and grabbed a twelve-by-fourteen-inch shadow box from a top shelf. “Will this one work?”

  “Perfect,” said Baby, accepting it gingerly. “Oh, and it’s even got a glass front.”

  “Have you thought about what you’d put in it?” asked Carmela.

  Tandy nodded. “Baby’s going to select an appropriate poem and do the calligraphy and I’m going to gather up some dried flowers, a bit of lace, velvet paper for a backdrop, and a crucifix.”

  “We thought we might put in a string of pearls, too,” said Baby. “Byrle always loved her pearls.”

  “If you want,” said Carmela, “I could help you ghost some sort of image onto a piece of vellum.”

  “I like that,” said Baby.

  “Were you going to, um, display it tomorrow at the funeral?” asked Carmela. Byrle’s funeral was scheduled for ten o’clock tomorrow at St. Tristan’s.

  “I don’t know,” said Baby. “Maybe. If we get it done today.”

  “Know what I think?” said Tandy. “I think it’s kind of creepy that Byrle’s funeral is being held in the same place she was murdered.”

  “It’s where she went to church,” Baby said in a quiet voice. “Where her family still attends church.”

  “Still,” said Tandy, pushing her red half-glasses up onto her nose and giving a shudder, “I think it’s weird.”

  “Think of it as being appropriate,” said Baby, “in a dust-to-dust sort of way.”

  “May
be,” said a still skeptical Tandy.

  “I understand you’re going to do a reading at the funeral tomorrow?” Carmela asked Baby.

  Baby bit her lip and nodded, as tears sprang to her eyes. “A poem by Emily Dickinson.”

  “And there’ll be others, too?” asked Carmela. “People who’ll do testimonials or readings?”

  “That’s right,” said Baby, “two other folks are lined up to give tributes. One is her sister, Stella Marie Deveroux from Baton Rouge, and the other is a cousin, I think.”

  “I could design a program if you’d like,” Carmela offered.

  Baby looked sad but thrilled. “Would you really do that?”

  “Of course,” said Carmela. “You know I’d be happy to. Well, not happy, because she’s . . .”

  Baby reached for Carmela’s hand and gripped it. “I know, dear,” she said, in a mournful voice. “I know.”

  Carmela cruised her shop then, helping customers select paper and various items to decorate their jewel boxes. One woman, Sylvie Webber, seemed to be stuck.

  “Do you think I could use this Japanese wrapping paper?” Sylvie asked. She held a rolled sheet of burnished brown paper covered with cream-colored Japanese kanji in her hand.

  “I think it would make a lovely background,” Carmela told her.

  But Sylvie was still undecided. “But then what? How do I carry out the Asian theme?”

  “How about adding stickers or stamps with cranes on them?” Carmela suggested. “Cranes being an auspicious symbol in Japan.”

  “Perfect,” said Sylvie. “And maybe some beads?”

  “I have some gold lantern beads,” said Carmela, “as well as some lovely silk tassels.”

  “Do you think I could try doing some Japanese calligraphy?” asked Sylvie.

  “I don’t see why not,” said Carmela. “You might find out you’re very good at it!”

  Carmela moved to the front counter, where she sifted through a basket filled with beads and charms, looking for something else Sylvie could use. When she glanced up, Baby was staring at her, an inquisitive look on her face.

  “Do you know?” Baby asked in hushed tones, “is there anything new on the investigation?”