Crepe Factor

by Laura Childs

  “The sugar is probably good for you. Revs up your metabolism.”

  Gabby’s eyes fluttered as she bit into one of the beignets, sending a miniature avalanche of powdered sugar down the front of her navy blue sweater. “So good,” she gasped. Then she noticed the powdered sugar. “Uh-oh.” She brushed at her sweater, then snapped the lid off her coffee and took a sip. “What did I do to deserve such a great boss?”

  “Only about a million things,” Carmela told her. “Least of which is the fantastic job you did reorganizing our front window. I mean, who could walk by and not be lured in?”

  Gabby nodded appreciatively as she chewed. “Before I forget, Baby called bright and early. She’s bringing her daughter-in-law along to our handmade book class this afternoon. I told her it would be fine, that we always have room for one more.”

  “We do,” Carmela said. “Oh, and one thing we have to remember is to put out those miniature brass keys I picked up at the tag sale in Natchitoches. I’m positive we can do something fabulous with them. Maybe combine them with a few Czech crystal beads.”

  “Strung on silk cord or gossamer ribbon,” Gabby said. “To use as book binding.”

  Carmela carried her beignet and latte into her office, spread a napkin on the desk, and settled into her chair. She took another bite of beignet and munched thoughtfully. Although she knew she should be focused on work, on going through catalogs and ordering a treasure trove of new crafting supplies, her mind felt nervous and jumbled. Clearly, she was still preoccupied with Martin Lash’s murder.

  She sat back in her chair and thought about Lash. First Quigg had complained bitterly about Lash’s review of Mumbo Gumbo. And then, last night, she’d seen with her own eyes how deserted and desolate Fat Lorenzo’s was. Probably as the result of Lash’s brutal review.

  Martin Lash. The gift that keeps on giving.

  But as the caffeine kicked in and the sugar churned its way into her bloodstream, Carmela was blessed with a brainstorm. She set down her coffee and did a quick search for the Glutton for Punishment website. When it came up almost immediately on her screen, Carmela was impressed by the format. The colorful splash page was a montage of landmark New Orleans restaurant signs skillfully morphed with images of oyster platters, bowls of gumbo, and elegant entrées of trout amandine. And the site was well organized, too. You could click on Type of Food, Neighborhood, Price, and New in Town. Plus there were lots of feature stories and ads for restaurants and bars.

  As Carmela clicked around, going from page to page, she saw that Babcock had been right. He’d told her there wasn’t a single sentence left on the website that had been written by Martin Lash. And, sure enough, Lash’s restaurant reviews and columns seemed to have been completely expunged from the site. It was as if he had never existed.

  In Carmela’s mind, one of the places Babcock had made a wrong turn was in assuming Quigg was responsible for having all of Lash’s columns removed. She knew that Quigg was way too self-absorbed to care about bad reviews on restaurants other than his own.

  So . . . if he’d had the poisonous review of Mumbo Gumbo taken down, then who had removed the rest of Lash’s reviews and columns? And why?

  Carmela scoured the website, but still found no mention of Martin Lash. She couldn’t find so much as an obituary or a “farewell to our colleague” notice.

  Okay, so where does that leave me?

  Maybe the better question was, where did that take her? Looking at the website’s contact page, she saw that the Glutton for Punishment office was located on Frenchmen Street. That was just a few blocks away in the neighboring Faubourg Marigny. Carmela decided there was no time like the present for an informative little field trip.

  “Gabby, I’m running out for a little bit. Can you hold down the fort?”

  “No problem,” Gabby said. She was helping a customer select handmade paper embedded with flower petals. “As long as you’re back in time for our bookmaking class.” Then her face clouded and she stepped closer to Carmela and whispered, “Carmela, are you . . . investigating?”

  “Um, maybe,” Carmela hedged.

  “What do I do if Babcock drops in unannounced?”

  “Well, for one thing, don’t tell him I’m out there investigating.”

  Gabby looked nervous. “You want me to lie to him?”

  “Technically, no. I just want you to take evasive action. Besides, Babcock’s not going to ask you anything outright. He’s too clever for that. He’ll just casually fish around a little.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Just put your head down and act busy,” Carmela said. “Be busy.”

  “Okay, but be you careful, Carmela.”

  “No need to worry,” Carmela said, smiling. “I’m just going to take a short walk through the prettiest, most elegant city in the world.”

  * * *

  Carmela strode along the sidewalk, enjoying the thin sunlight that streamed down, feeling the pulse of the French Quarter all around her. Tourists were shopping and snapping pictures, consulting maps and clamoring over strings of purple and green beads. A large group of folks wandered past her, all wearing bright green MANNION FAMILY REUNION T-shirts. They carried cameras and were arguing about where to go for lunch. Johnny’s Po-Boys, Felix’s, K-Paul’s, or Napoleon House. Carmela could have told them that any one of those restaurants was an excellent choice.

  It was never too early for music in the Quarter and some of the bars were cranked up, too. Carmela dodged around two women, geaux cups in hand, who were dancing on the sidewalk to hundred-year-old ragtime piano music that poured out of a corner honky-tonk.

  When Carmela turned down Royal Street, she laughed out loud as she watched an antique-shop owner struggle to hang a wooden sign above his establishment. The words on the blue and gold sign said ANTIQUES MADE TO ORDER.

  There’s so much history here, Carmela thought as she strolled past the two-hundred-year-old Gallier House museum and the Old U.S. Mint. Then, skipping across Kerlerec Street, she wandered into what was the Faubourg Marigny. This neighborhood was ever expanding as a fun, funky area adjacent to the French Quarter. She turned onto Frenchmen Street, where the Creole cottages and three-story town houses had nearly all been turned into boutiques, galleries, restaurants, and bars. Word was even spreading that the music on Frenchmen Street was beginning to rival Bourbon Street.

  The website’s offices were located in a rehabbed yellow brick warehouse known as the Madeleine Building. The Bluebird Boutique was on the first floor and Glutton for Punishment had the second floor. They occupied a wide-open loft-type space complete with ancient hardwood floors and exposed brick walls. Gray contemporary furniture and a few pieces of artwork (mostly bright slashes of color) delineated the reception area from the actual workspace. People scurried to and fro while a bevy of writers (or maybe ad sales guys?) typed frantically on laptops at sleek gray desks without benefit of cubicle dividers. Everyone looked busy and productive although they could have been surfing the web, posting selfies, or checking out Tinder, for all she knew.

  Carmela approached the young man who sat at the reception desk.

  “Excuse me, I’d like to have a word with whoever’s in charge.”

  He barely looked up. “That would be our editor in chief.”

  “Fine. Is he available?”

  This time the young man did look up. “He’s a she. Helen McBride. But Ms. McBride is in a terrible mood right now. Maybe you’d like to come back later?”

  “Not really.” Carmela cleared her throat. “Actually, I’m here about Martin Lash.”

  That got the man’s attention. “I’m sorry, but that job has already been filled.”

  Carmela smiled. “I’m not interested in writing restaurant reviews. I want to talk to someone who can give me information about some of Lash’s old columns.”

  Now he grimaced. “If you’re looking fo
r a rave review on one of your favorite restaurants, you’re probably out of luck. Mr. Lash didn’t do raves. It wasn’t his thing.”

  “Perhaps I’d better speak with your editor in chief.”

  “Okay, but if she rips your head off, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  * * *

  Helen McBride sat in a smoke-filled office amidst a stack of papers, magazines, a set of ten-pound hand weights, an overflowing ashtray, and a tangle of purple elastic workout bands. Barefoot and dressed in black yoga pants and a black T-shirt, Helen looked like she could bench-press two hundred pounds without breaking a sweat or busting a bra strap.

  “Okay, sweetheart,” Helen said without looking up. “You’ve got thirty seconds. What’s your problem?”

  Carmela had a feeling this woman was one tough cookie. Still, she’d come this far.

  “I have a few questions about Martin Lash.”

  Helen McBride looked up. “Lash? What do you want to know about him? Besides the fact that I hated the little twerp?”

  “Obviously, you weren’t the only one,” Carmela said. “Since he went and got himself murdered.” She sat down in a chair across from Helen and smiled sweetly.

  “Who are you? What exactly is your interest in this?”

  “My name is Carmela Bertrand and I had the misfortune to be there when Lash was murdered. And also when my friend Quigg Brevard was unjustly accused by the police.”

  “Quigg, yeah,” Helen said. “I’m well acquainted with that rogue.” She leaned on one elbow and yawned. “I hear the police grilled him pretty hard.”

  “I’m curious. If you disliked Martin Lash so much—and it sounds like you did—then why was he working here?”

  “Because Lash was force-fed to me when I took this lousy job.” Helen’s eyes bored into Carmela. “What is it you want again?”

  “Just some basic information about Lash. The kind of stuff you’re giving me right now.”

  Helen blew out a plume of smoke and chuckled. “So I am.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Carmela said. “Lash was on staff here when you took this job . . .”

  “Three months ago,” Helen said. “Yeah, the powers that be wanted me to keep him on. Heck, Lash wanted me to keep him on. He loved eating in fancy restaurants for free and then writing nasty, snide reviews. He used to argue that his reviews were the heart and soul of Glutton for Punishment.” She shook her head. “That was so not true. In fact, he cost us money every time his greasy little fingers hit the keyboard.” Helen set her cigarette in the lip of a black triangle-shaped ashtray that sat at her elbow.

  “How is that possible?” Carmela asked.

  “If you’ve ever read his reviews . . . well, of course you have or you wouldn’t be here. His reviews were so poisonous, some so close to libelous, that we were turning off our advertisers. You realize, advertisers are our bread and butter. They’re how we make money here, not by posting reviews. You understand revenue producing?” Helen blew out another plume of smoke. “Revenue equals money and money is what fuels the engine.”

  “Okay, I get that,” Carmela said. “So why didn’t you just dump Lash if he was causing you so much trouble? I mean, he was basically a freelancer, right? He was running his little environmental nonprofit group while he was writing reviews on the side. Couldn’t you just work with some other restaurant critic who had a gentler touch?”

  Helen sighed and lit a second cigarette. Now she had two cigarettes burning in her ashtray but didn’t seem to notice. Or care.

  “The thing is, our owners, Corvallis Media, operate a number of foodie websites in different markets and they decided to keep Lash on. The powers that be thought he added a certain degree of spice. ‘Cachet,’ as they used to call it back in the good old days when we actually had printed magazines. Me, I saw what Lash’s toxic reviews were doing to us, so I wanted to lop his fool head off.”

  Carmela was temped to ask, “Did you?” But decided against it. Getting more information was her primary goal here. Instead she said, “Do you know if Martin Lash had enemies?”

  Helen offered a thin, lizard smile. “That’s what the police asked me, too.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That Lash was an insubordinate pig who didn’t get along with anyone. And that, yes, pretty much everyone hated him.”

  “Especially you?” Carmela asked

  Helen exhaled a huge glut of smoke. “Honey, I detested the guy. I can count a dozen times that Martin Lash put my head on the chopping block and almost cost me my job.” She venomously stubbed out a cigarette, spilling ashes all over the papers on her desk, then looked up at Carmela with a sly smile. “So you’re investigating, huh? You like to nose around and ask questions.”

  “I told you, I’m helping Quigg.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s too bad Lash got skewered the way he did—it must have been a hard way to go. But I’m not one bit sorry he’s gone.”

  “And his columns?” Carmela asked. “What happened to them?”

  Helen lit another cigarette. “I took great joy in personally deleting every single one of them from our server.” She grinned and her smile took on a dark, malevolent look. “Now it’s as if Martin Lash never existed!”

  Chapter 16

  CARMELA arrived back at Memory Mine in plenty of time for their handmade book class. As usual, Gabby had arranged a fabulous array of craft materials on the back table.

  “I put out an assortment of cardstock and decorative papers,” Gabby said. “Along with some of the twines and ribbons that work best for lacing pages together.”

  She’d also put out scissors, tape, glue guns, and an assortment of paints, rubber stamps, and charms.

  “How did your investigation go?” Gabby asked, trying to look offhanded, but clearly dying of curiosity.

  “I had an impromptu meeting with Helen McBride, the editor in chief at Glutton for Punishment,” Carmela said.

  “The website Martin Lash wrote for.” Gabby noodled this information around for a few moments. “Okay. So what did you find out? Anything?”

  “Basically, that everyone pretty much despised Martin Lash. Especially his editor.”

  “But you don’t think she killed him.” It was said as a statement.

  “I don’t know that at all,” Carmela said. “Helen McBride spewed out a ton of vitriol about Lash. I mean, she really hated the man. Plus, she looks strong and athletic enough to have shish-kebabed Lash with one hand tied behind her back.”

  “You see what I was talking about before?” Gabby asked. “This is veering into crazy-weird territory. I think you’d be better off sharing this kind of information with Babcock. Let him either discount her opinion as the snarkiness of a disgruntled boss, or follow up with hard questions if he deems this Helen person a legitimate suspect.”

  “You want me to share my information?” Carmela’s brows rose in twin arcs. “With a man who’s tried to remain totally mum with me?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’ll think about your suggestion, okay?”

  But this time Gabby was standing her ground. “Think hard, Carmela. For everyone’s sake.”

  * * *

  Baby Fontaine sailed into Memory Mine looking like she’d just stepped out of the pages of Town & Country magazine. Black-and-white tweed jacket, trim black slacks, supple black ankle boots. Her daughter-in-law, Priscilla, wearing a navy jacket, was almost Baby in miniature.

  “Carmela!” Baby cried. “Gabby!” She rushed up to both ladies and distributed copious air kisses as if she hadn’t seen them in weeks. “You remember Priscilla, don’t you? Percy, we call her for short.”

  “Of course,” Carmela said warmly, while Gabby just beamed.

  Baby glanced around the shop. “Where’s Tandy? She was supposed to be here, too. Especially after she made such a big stink about m
e being late.”

  The front door whapped open and they all four turned to look, but it was three more women rushing in for the class.

  “Maybe she got held up?” Gabby said.

  Five minutes later, with still no Tandy in sight, Carmela started the class.

  * * *

  “Handmade books,” Carmela said, standing at the head of the craft table, “are one of the hottest crafts today. Think about it—who wouldn’t love to have their very own one-of-a-kind journal, photo book, or notebook? And when you give one as a gift to someone, it tells them they’re special. That you took time out of your busy day to create a gorgeous, personal gift.”

  Carmela reached for a small book that sat in front of her and held it up.

  “This is just one example of a handmade book. The cover is cardstock, the inside pages are a crinkle paper that we carry right here in our shop, and the binding is hand sewn—really just eight running stitches—using white silk cord.”

  “It’s so gorgeous,” one of the women exclaimed. “Look at the cover, all that gold and glam. How on earth did you do that?”

  “I began making the cover by gluing some marbleized paper onto a piece of cardstock,” Carmela explained. “Then I dabbed a little gold paint over the marbleized paper and, using bronze ink, stamped on an image of a Renaissance lady.” She held up the actual rubber stamp. “From there I glued on some silk flower petals, a tiny gold bee charm, and a strip of gold gossamer ribbon. The inside pages are crinkle paper, about ten sheets. To finish everything off I made punches on the left side of the paper and cover, and bound it all together with the silk cord.”

  “It’s absolutely gorgeous,” Percy said.

  “The thing about a craft project—any craft project—is that the more layers you build up the better it becomes,” Carmela explained. “You start with a nice paper, add a few more paper bits or photos, sponge on some paint, and add a few stamped images or text. It’s like making a good gumbo, the richer the ingredients the better the flavor.”

  “And you also threaded on a little gold tassel,” Baby said.