Detective Defender

by Marilyn Pappano

  Instead, she fell back on her number two energy-eater: she went back to the shop. Ramona had left for the day, Niles was out for lunch—literally this time, as well as figuratively—and Anise was ringing up a customer’s selection of candles, oils and charms. Martine gave her own charm a gentle touch as she greeted both women with a nod, then went into the storeroom.

  She was checking inventory when the clerk came into the room. “Is he gone?”

  He... “Detective DiBiase? Yes.” Martine didn’t point out that he obviously wasn’t in the shop, and she wouldn’t have left him alone in her apartment. She loved her employees and counted on them quite a lot, but all of them were a little oblivious. Evie said the customers liked it, that it was part of the shop’s mysterious, illusive air that some tourists expected.

  “He got shocked both times he closed the front door.” Anise’s tone was distant, dreamy. “When he came in and when he left. Like static electricity, only not. That wasn’t what I expected from the spell, but it’s a start.”

  “Spell? What—” Oh, yeah, the comment Martine had made earlier about banishing him from the premises. Now who was being oblivious? Then she suppressed a shudder. The thought that Anise might actually have some power rather than mere interest in the paranormal was a little bit scary.

  The clerk perched on the edge of the counter. “Why is he coming around anyway? Are you in trouble?”

  Martine wished she could truthfully answer no to the question, but wishes were nothing more than hopes sent up into the ether. Some came true, but the rest evaporated into the mist, breaking into a thousand wistful pieces that never fit back together again.

  “An old friend of mine from back home was murdered last night,” she finally said. “I was apparently the last person to see her.” She failed at suppressing this shudder. How sad for Paulina that her last conversation in life with a friend was the unsatisfying, borderline hostile exchange they’d shared.

  “Wow. I’ve never known anyone who was murdered.”

  Martine had known Paulina. And Callie. And Fletcher the Letcher. What kind of normal law-abiding citizen knew three murder victims? Dear God, she hoped the list ended there. She wasn’t afraid of death for herself. It was part of the cycle of life. But she wanted to go peacefully, naturally, not in a fit of someone else’s rage.

  “Evie’s here,” Anise announced, hopping to the floor a moment before the usual wiggle-rattle started at the front door. Again Martine wondered if her assistant truly might have power, but then she realized Anise could actually see the front door from where she’d sat.

  Giving herself a figurative eye roll, Martine made a note to call a carpenter to repair the door. Some of the old building’s quirks were charming. Her customers and friends having to wrestle the door to get inside wasn’t one of them.

  “I’ll finish the inventory,” Anise offered. “Or at least work on it until Niles gets back.”

  Thanking her, Martine walked through the bead curtain and met her best friend at the checkout. As was normal on Evie’s visits, she laid a bag of baked goodies on the counter. Outside of normal was the big embrace she gave Martine. They were besties, but not usually the touchy-feely kind. Even so, the only thing that could have possibly felt better at that moment would have been a hug from her mom.

  “I’m so sorry about Paulina,” Evie murmured, squeezing extra tightly before releasing her. “And I’m sorry Jack sent Jimmy over in his place.”

  “It’s okay.” Martine sat on a stool next to the counter and watched Evie do the same. She’d been working today—she wore her fortune-teller look, with its long flowing skirt, snug shirt, lots of jewelry and mystique. Today it was part of her shtick, but truth was, she’d always loved long flowy clothes and scarves and wearing her weight in silver.

  “Where are the kids?”

  Evie replied cheerfully, “Nursery school, preschool and school. I know they’re on their way home when I feel the shock waves disturbing the atmosphere.”

  “And Jack? Did he really go out of town?”

  “Really. He called a few hours ago, asked me to pack a bag and picked it up on his way to the airport. How was Jimmy?”

  Martine considered it. “Surprisingly not-Jimmy for the most part.”

  “You didn’t think he had a mode that wasn’t arrogant bastard? Come on, Martine, NOPD wouldn’t keep him on nearly twenty years if he wasn’t good at what he does.”

  “I knew. I just thought being charming and obnoxious and smarmy were the only things he was good at.”

  “Well, yeah, there’s that, too. He’s multitalented.” Evie reached inside her bag and pulled out two bottles of water from an insulated bag, then set a small plastic dish between them, filling it with fresh raisin oatmeal cookies from the bag. “You haven’t eaten lunch, have you?”

  “I’m not hungry.” That was a hard thing to say when Evie’s cookies were sitting inches away. To appease the sudden gnawing in her stomach, Martine broke off a tiny piece, mostly raisin, and ate it. “I’m sorry I wasn’t very cooperative with Jack.”

  “Ooh, he didn’t tell me that.” Evie smiled. “You know Jack. After our case, he doesn’t tell me much about the job, and frankly I don’t usually want to know much. The only way he would have brought me into this would have been so I could give you a smack or two and make you tell him everything.”

  Martine snorted. “Like you could make me do anything.”

  “Ha, I am so much more persuasive than you are. Remember my job—I talk money out of customers’ hands every day.”

  She snorted again. Evie was an honest-to-God psychic who pretended to be a fraud. She gave the casual tourists value for their money, scattering tidbits of truth in the generic readings. Her serious talents, though, were saved for her serious customers.

  Suddenly morose, Martine asked, “If I ask you a question, will you give me the truth?”

  “You know I don’t read you well, but yes. Of course I’ll tell you if I know it.”

  “Don’t you want to know the question first?”

  “I know the question. You want to ask if you’re going to die. And the answer is yes.”

  Martine’s nerves tightened and her breath caught raggedly in her chest in the half instant it took Evie to go on.

  “We’re all going to die, sweetie. The only variables are when and how. But are you going to die now, the same way your friend did? No. And you know why? Because I don’t even have to know Paulina to know that you’re not like her. You won’t run away. You won’t try to deal with it on your own. You’re wise enough to know when you need help and to accept it when it’s offered.”

  “I’m not feeling very wise today,” Martine murmured. Hadn’t she just apologized for not cooperating with Jack? Hadn’t she kept back important information during her interview with him and DiBiase this morning? Hadn’t she wasted precious breaths wishing she could make this whole awful situation go away so she wouldn’t have to deal with it?

  “Eat another cookie,” Evie said, pushing the plate closer. “I have it on good authority that cookies make everything better.”

  Realizing she’d consumed one cookie bits at a time, Martine picked up another. “Whose authority? Jackson or Jack?”

  “Both, and Isabella and Evangelina.” Evie’s smile was a glorious thing to see. They made up the perfect happy family: handsome dad, beautiful mom, three gorgeous, smart, funny kids. No one would ever guess by looking at them the trouble she and Jack had gone through to get where they were. They deserved every bit of the light in their lives.

  Martine rarely envied anyone anything. She loved her shop, her home, her family and her friends. She didn’t earn a fortune, but she met all her needs and most of her wants and still had money in the bank. While there was no great love in her life, there’d been more than one or two men who’d been great for those moments in
time. As far as kids, she’d never known if she’d truly wanted to be a mother. For a long time, she’d expected it to just happen. It was how things worked in her experience: a woman fell in love, got married, had kids and lived out the rest of her life. She’d done the falling in love, the getting married, but kids/no kids had been an issue for them.

  She loved Evie’s kids. She loved their friend Reece’s kids, too, but as for children in general, not so much. At some point, she’d accepted they weren’t part of the plan for her, and she was all right with that.

  She’d also mostly accepted that a good man wasn’t part of her plan, either. But when she saw Evie’s expression while talking about Jack, or Reece whenever she talked about Jones, she felt a little bit of jealousy. A whole lot of loneliness. Just not enough to settle for less than perfect.

  How fitting that when she thought those last three words, it was Jimmy DiBiase’s image that came to mind. If any man she’d ever met was so perfectly less than perfect, it was him.

  “What are you thinking about?” Evie asked.

  Because her friend really, truly liked DiBiase, Martine fudged her answer. “Just wondering how you got so lucky in the It’s-a-Wonderful-Life jackpot.”

  Evie dithered over picking a cookie as if it were the most momentous decision of her day before sneaking a glance to Martine. “Do you still have dreams about Jake?”

  The question startled her. She could honestly say Jake Lassiter had popped into her mind only twice in the last four or five years, both times in the past minute. He was another blast from the past, even more unwelcome than Paulina had been. When she and Jake had married about a million years ago, she’d believed she’d won the jackpot, but her ambitious politician husband had been even less a believer of things that went bump in the night than Jack had started out, and he’d been entirely too convinced of his abilities to manage, maneuver and manipulate things—namely, Martine and the shop—to his advantage.

  They’d had two good years together, then three stormy years followed by a divorce. So quick that by the time he’d informed Martine about it, it was all over but the signing of the papers. He’d agreed that she should keep everything she’d brought into the marriage, and she’d agreed that if she couldn’t have him, she sure as hell didn’t want anything of his, and bang, they were done. He’d remarried, this time a suitable up-and-coming politician’s wife, before Martine had even caught her breath.

  “I haven’t thought of Jake in years,” she said honestly. “It’s funny. He was such a huge deal in my life for so long, and then suddenly he wasn’t. Probably the last time his name crossed my mind was when he last ran for reelection. Wow.” She sighed easily. “I tried so hard to forget him—”

  “After you put a dozen curses on him.”

  “Two dozen, at least. And then I forgot him so completely that I forgot I was even trying.”

  “Hmm, if you can pinpoint exactly when you put him out of your head, and whatever else was going on in your life at the time, you could make a fortune in forgetting candles. They could be shaped like the groom half of the cake toppers people use at weddings, and they could melt down to nothing by the time the conscribed burning period is over.”

  “I like that. Just a goop of black wax, with the face the last part to melt, of course. In a grisly, eyes-wide-open scream.” Behind Martine, the front door banged and rattled, then the bell announced a visitor.

  “Just me,” Tee, the mail carrier, called before she could rise from the stool. He wore the bulky slicker that covered the mailbags he carried, a knitted cap under the hood and navy blue shorts that reached his knees, with black socks and walking shoes. He joined them at the counter and counted out a half-dozen pieces for the shop: a utility bill, an invoice, three catalogs and a manila envelope.

  “Have a cookie, Tee,” Evie offered. “Take two or three.”

  The young man flashed her a grin. “Thanks, Miss Evie.”

  “And for heaven’s sake, get some long pants,” Martine added. “Your legs are turning blue.”

  “You know my motto. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can make me give up my shorts.” He kept one cookie to eat, wrapped the others in a paper towel Evie provided from beneath the counter and left again, as quickly and as noisily as he’d come.

  Evie stood and stretched. “I guess I should head out, too. The kids will be home soon. The other day they locked Anna Maria in the reading room but forgot about the door leading into the house, so they were wildly disappointed when she got out that way and sneaked up behind them. I fully expect them to keep trying until they succeed, and then heaven knows what they’ll try for an encore.”

  Yeah, loving her godchildren was best done from a safe distance. Though she wouldn’t have to worry about a similar fate. Anna Maria’s mistake was letting them know she was an instantly forgiving pushover. Martine kept them guessing about just how many lines they could cross before suffering the consequences.

  “Thank you for the cookies and the conversation.” Martine pushed the plate of cookies toward Evie, but Evie pushed them right back.

  “Keep them. Give them to Jimmy next time you see him.” Oh, she said it so casually, as if it happened all the time and was a choice on both their parts, but the look in her eyes was wickedly teasing.

  A shudder ricocheted through Martine, one she greatly exaggerated to express her displeasure. “I should have just shot him at that party. I blame you, you know, for inviting me and Jack for inviting him and for not warning me in advance.”

  “Sweetie, you’d been married to a politician. I figured you’d recognize a good-for-nothing, sweet-talking charmer from a mile away with a blindfold on. Besides, Alia’s forgiven him for all that. Why can’t you?”

  “She’s a better woman than me. Besides, when Alia looks at Jimmy, then at Landry, she gets on her knees and thanks God for kicking Jimmy to the curb for her so she would be free for Landry.”

  Again, uncharacteristically, Evie hugged her. “No one’s better than you. That’s why I love you.” Weaving around the counter, then the displays, she called back, “If you don’t have anything to cook tonight, order in. Don’t go out by yourself. Better yet, don’t go out at all. Don’t answer your door without your baseball bat, and don’t take any calls from numbers you don’t know.”

  “What? Did DiBiase think I need reminding?”

  “Oh, no. That’s what Jack tells me every single time he has to work late. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.” Martine watched Evie go, feeling a bit lost as she disappeared down the street. She delivered the bills to the desk where Anise was still working and left the rest of the mail in a basket on a shelf behind the front door to go through when she got home.

  With even more on her mind than before Evie had come, she got cleaning supplies from beneath the counter and went to the front plate-glass windows. When she’d gone home for a visit one fall weekend during her parents’ divorce, she’d found her mother cleaning with a vengeance. You can never start spring cleaning too early, Bette had said in what she’d obviously thought was a cheery manner that had struck Martine as far more manic than happy. Like a good daughter, she hadn’t pointed it out, or mentioned that the only things she was cleaning belonged to Mark, or that her notion of cleaning was swiping with a cloth, then tossing the item into one box for trash, one for giveaway or one to return to him. Virtually everything had gone into the trash box.

  Other than her small bin of high school memories, Martine didn’t have anything to dispose of to clear her mind, but she could throw her energy into cleaning. Spring was the season of promise. When spring came, this week would be a distant memory and getting more so every day. The sun would be shining, the tourists would be happy, business would be booming and her life would be back to normal.

  She would make it so.

  Chapter 4

  B
y the time Jimmy left his desk, the sun had already set, though it hadn’t been visible to anyone within a hundred-mile radius of New Orleans. He thought about dinner, well aware that the refrigerator, cupboards and pantry in his new place were as empty as the day they’d arrived for installation. Some of his buddies had gone to a bar they favored that served damn good greasy hamburgers and crispy fries, but while the food sounded good, the company didn’t. He’d left the station; he hadn’t left work. There were things he wanted to read, notes to organize, thoughts to get down in some rational form.

  He settled for picking up a pizza and going home. The apartment had a mostly open layout: living room, dining room, kitchen, office and gym sharing one large space, each area designated by its own carpet laid over black tiles and/or ceiling-to-floor drapes that opened and closed soundlessly at a push of a button. The bedroom and bathrooms actually had four walls and doors, so he didn’t care much about the rest of it.

  He changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from his long-ago college days, set his paperwork on one end of the island, the pizza on the other, and picked a stool in the middle. For the worst part of the eating, he would thumb through Martine’s yearbook, which he could do with one-handed ease. With a small memo pad and a handful of paper clips, he opened the book.

  He’d gathered recent photos of four of the five women. Robin Railey had been living in Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, the last time she’d renewed her driver’s license. That had been the middle of last summer, but in early November, she’d moved from her condo, quit her job and apparently fled. No cell phone records, no credit card use, no social media activity, nothing going on with her social security number. She was like an illusion: here, then gone. The coworkers and friends he’d spoken to had worried about her for a while, but her absence from their lives meant she’d eventually faded from their thoughts.