Thoughts of trying to understand why Chloe, Sandra, Fara and Opal all did counterproductive things to try and get what they really wanted swirled around in the back of my mind.
Chapter Twenty
When Jiff dropped me home on Sunday afternoon and picked up Isabella, there was a note taped on my front door and I recognized Dante’s handwriting. There was another note on the windshield of my car—same handwriting. When I got inside there was a note taped on the door to my room in Suzanne’s handwriting asking me to read the notes on my car and front door.
Suzanne’s note said everyone (everyone meaning Dante) left messages on our home phone until the voicemail was full and then he started calling Suzanne’s cell phone. Suzanne’s note went on to add, Apparently, you turned off your cell phone and Dante started calling me looking for you. He thought something happened to you. I told him I didn’t think so or you would call him to save you. Don’t bother to thank me.
The word apparently was underlined, and it was signed with a smiley face. She added a P.S., The dogs were good and Jesus is coming out of his shell. They were fun to take care of. I let all three sleep with me!
Out of all the notes, the P.S. was the only information I wanted to read.
Dante’s notes all had the same, brief message, “Call me.” The one on my car said, “Call me asap.” This only made me procrastinate more.
When I saw it was Dante calling, I had turned off the phone on Friday right after we drove away from my house for the weekend. Now I was in too good a mood after my weekend with Jiff, and no doubt he wanted to rag on me because the Sandra interview went exactly like he assumed it would. I hadn’t thought of Dante, Sandra, Hanky or the bar after Jiff and I stopped talking about the CluckIt events. I was in no hurry to have Dante be my buzzkill.
As I scrolled through my messages I saw one from an unrecognized number. I listened to that one. It was a man’s voice saying he was interested in adopting the rescue schnauzer. Well, maybe Jesus had a forever home in his very near future. The guy didn’t leave his name but he did leave a number.
When I called the number, the voice of an older woman answered. I told her who I was and I was returning a call from this number to someone who did not leave his name. She said that would be her son, Junior. On the other end of the phone I could hear a man or a child, repeating as fast as he could, “Is that the lady? Is that the lady? Is that the lady?” as if he was standing right next to her waiting for the woman to hand him the phone. The woman, in the same voice she spoke to me, said, “Yes, Junior, it is,” and to me she said, “Hold on a second.”
It sounded like someone knocking over boxes and furniture and trampling things in his way to get to the phone. It was only about three seconds before he came on the line which I thought odd because it sounded like he was out of breath from running a marathon when he said, “Hello. This is Junior. I want that dog you have.”
Junior had a very country accent and pronounced dog like dawg.
I explained, briefly, how rescue and adoptions work and that he would have to fill out an application. After he told me he had never had a pet before, I asked him why did he want a dog?
“I just got dee-vorced, and my Momma said to me, ‘Junior, what’s wrong with you? You can’t be sitting on that sofa all day.’ And I said to my Momma, ‘Momma, I ain’t got nothing to love.’ So, my Momma said to me, ‘Junior, you just got to find something to love’. So, I said to my Momma, ‘Momma, I want a dawg and when I get that dawg I’m gonna name it Happy Valentine, so every time I say that name, Happy Valentine, it will make me happy’. And my Momma said to me, ‘Junior, that’s a good idea. Find yourself a dawg to love and make you happy.”
“Well, there’s one problem, Junior,” I said. “This is a male dog. I don’t think Happy Valentine is a boy dog’s name, but I have your number so I’ll call you when I get a girl dog, OK?” I couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. I couldn’t see Jesus as Junior’s Happy Valentine.
OK, now I thought I would read the notes Dante left on my car. How could his notes be any crazier? And yet life is full of surprises.
I started with the note on the bottom figuring it was the first note he left and taped the rest on top of one another. The first note simply said Call me. Dante.
The next note said, Call me ASAP. D
The next note said, You’re not answering your phone. Call me. This one wasn’t signed so he probably assumed I knew who it was by now since all the notes were taped on top of one another.
I went back to listening to my voice messages. The next one was from Silas.
“Hey, Brandy, I thought I had a line on the phone number you wanted, but when I called to see who answered, it had been disconnected. I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.”
My cell phone rang and I almost didn’t take it until I saw it was Jiff calling.
“Hello handsome,” I said.
“Look, I had a great weekend with you and I think it’s time you meet my family,” he said as soon as I answered. A warm rush moved through my body as soon as I heard his voice.
Wait. What? Things were so good, euphoric, uncomplicated. Just hearing his voice had me feeling warm and fuzzy.
“So, we’re having dinner at my parents’ home this Friday, Okay? I’ll pick you up at six o’clock. My mother instructed me to tell you it’s casual so dress comfortably, but you will be a knockout in whatever you wear,” he said. There was a pause and he added, “I miss you.”
My body started to ache for him as soon as I heard him say he missed me. I answered, “I miss you, too,” and I did. Then I realized I wasn’t so nervous about meeting his family.
Chapter Twenty-One
Later Sunday evening after my Jiff weekend, I ran an errand to get some dog food, and Dante’s squad car was waiting for me when I got back home.
“You stop answering your phone?” He asked as he got out of his car and hurried to follow me up the steps when I walked right past him.
“Hello Dante. What can I do for you?” I answered him but didn’t stop on my way to my front door.
“For starters, you can tell me where you were all weekend. I’ve been looking for you.” He followed me up to my porch and stood with his hands on his hips watching me go through my keys looking for the one for the front door.
“I can’t see where that’s any of your business.” I stopped after I unlocked the door but did not go in. “Why are you here? I found all your notes and messages and was going to call you tomorrow.”
“Can I come in? I need to ask you some questions about the CluckIt murder.”
“Now? Now you want to ask me about the murder? Almost two weeks since it happened? Police business? That’s what this is?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” He followed me inside and he wasn’t too comfortable standing in the middle of my living room, so I indicated he could have a seat on the sofa while I went to let the dogs out into the backyard. When I returned, he stood up, so I asked if he would like something to drink. He declined and waited for me to sit on the chair opposite before he sat back down. Dante didn’t have bad manners, but he wasn’t usually this formal either.
“You remember last Friday when I came here to talk to Sandra?” he asked.
“Yes, how could I forget? It was my first cat fight. Having to help you pull it apart was an added bonus which will remain etched in my mind forever.”
“The car Hanky was ticketing, remember that? That’s the car that was stolen and used at CluckIt.”
“You found the car used in the kidnapping?” I asked.
“Yes. We got a positive ID on that victim. It was Charles Ballon found floating in the lake tied to a boat slip so someone would find him,” Dante said.
I recalled something Sandra was screaming at Hanky about the car having been loaned to her. “Didn’t Sandra say that a friend loaned her that car?” I asked him.
“Yes, she did. When Hanky ran the plates, they had been changed and the ones on that black SUV belonge
d to a white van. So, she started to check further. Hanky went back and got the VIN number, which turned out to be the SUV reported stolen the night of the murders. They had swapped the plates. When Hanky got a BMW off the number on the SUV she figured something was off.”
“That means Sandra knows the murderer?” I asked, stunned.
“Or is the murderer.”
“No, she wasn’t the one who climbed in that CluckIt window. That was a man, and even Sandra on a good day would not pass for a man, or be able pull someone that big out of that window back into that SUV with her,” I said shaking my head.
Dante stood up. “I need to find her. After we left here Friday, no one has seen her, or you, until now.”
“I went out of town, and I wasn’t with Sandra,” I said.
“I didn’t think you were with her,” he said. There was a very long, uncomfortable pause before Dante said, “I think you were with Jiff.”
I stood up. “Yes, I was.” I walked over to him and gave Dante a big kiss on the mouth and said, “You and I want different things. I’ll always love you, but I’m moving forward in my life. We’ll always be friends, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, but I want someone in my life that wants and needs me in his more than just snippets between radio static.”
“Look, if it’s about what you asked me on Freret Street before I got called out on this triple homicide, I don’t want to rush this right now, but after this case…”
I held both hands up to stop him. “It’s always going to be after this case, after this homicide, or after something else. My life with you would need to happen between other people’s murders. I know it will always be that way with you and I don’t want that.”
“Just wait til….” he started to say and I cut him off.
“I’m meeting Jiff’s family this week.”
Dante took a step back as he said, “Oh.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor. I walked to the front door but Dante didn’t move. He said, “Look, I don’t think you’re safe here by yourself. I came over here to see if you want me to stay here tonight. I’ll sleep on the sofa. Whoever loaned Sandra that car is dangerous and now they probably know you’re the one that brought over the police to talk to her.”
“You don’t need to stay here. I’ll call someone,” I said. “But, thanks for the offer.”
“If you see Sandra don’t talk to her, call me and let me know where she is,” Dante said and still didn’t move for the door.
“Okay.” I held the door open.
“Promise me.”
I told him I would.
He walked out the front door onto my porch, turned and said, “I’m going to sit in my car until Jiff comes here, or I follow you to his house.”
Dante could do whatever he wanted even if that meant he could sit out there all night. I was over him telling me what to do.
About an hour later there was a knock on my door and when I opened it, Hanky’s unsmiling face was standing on the other side of it. A second police car was parked behind Dante’s and I saw him driving off over Hanky’s head as she marched in and sat on my sofa.
“Please come in,” I added with a dramatic sweep of my arm inviting her in after she was already seated. “What are you doing here?”
“Dante said it didn’t look like you were going to get anyone over here tonight so I volunteered for this detail. Why was he sitting out there? You two fighting?”
Okay, now I was a detail to Dante and probably an insignificant one at that. “No, we’re not fighting even though that’s none of your business.” Hanky knew I didn’t like her and I knew she didn’t like me. We weren’t rude to each other, but rather hovered around a civil baseline. “Excuse me, but I have to let the dogs in.”
At first, I couldn’t find the dogs anywhere in the backyard. I started to panic, calling for Meaux and thinking someone took them or they got out. Every bad scenario flashed through my mind. Then, I saw a little head stick out from under the mobile shed that was sitting up on cinder blocks in the backyard. It was Meaux and I figured that’s where they had been digging, under the shed. No wonder Suzanne couldn’t find a hole by the fence. I tricked Meaux into coming inside by asking who wanted a cookie. When they arrived at the back door I had to clean mud off eight dirty paws.
Then Jesus and Meaux went barreling through the kitchen and jumped on the sofa next to Hanky. Jesus jumped right in her lap and was giving Hanky doggie kisses all over her face. She hadn’t gone for her gun to shoot him or me for releasing them on her. Oddly—the dogs seemed to like her. Maybe if I didn’t call them off she would leave.
“What’s his name?” Hanky asked as she allowed Jesus to doggie kiss her all over her face.
“Jesus.” I pronounced it in Spanish.
“You gave a dog Jesus’ name in Spanish? That’s sacrilegious. You’re gonna be struck by lighting.” Hanky looked at me with her face all screwed up like I was the devil incarnate.
“Dante named him that and it stuck, but you should have heard what one guy who wanted to adopt him was going to name him.”
“I could think of a million good names for you,” Hanky said to Jesus. “What was the guy going to name him?” she asked me. I proceeded to tell her the Happy Valentine story.
“You’re up for adoption you cute little thing, you?” Hanky was asking me via directing the equivalent of baby talk to Jesus, “Aren’t you just the sweetest puppy dog ever.” She started to rub Meaux’s head and said to him, “You are too.”
As she rubbed Meaux, he started doing the back foot thumping thing like a rabbit. I was feeling betrayed by Meaux as he lapped up Hanky’s attention. I had fantasized he would hate Hanky and bite her on sight, preferably on the hand she used to shoot her gun.
“Yeah. I’m the breed rescue for Schnauzers in New Orleans, and probably the whole state.”
“He needs a home?”
“Yes. The other one is my dog,” I said.
“Good, I’ll take him home with me.” Hanky said.
“No. It doesn’t work that way,” I said.
“Why?” Hanky’s head snapped up and her demeanor went into cop overdrive. She started to stand up. “What’s wrong with me adopting one of your rescues? You don’t think I’d be a good pet owner?”
Her hand moved toward her gun. She reached under her gun into a pocket and took out a Milk Bone. She broke it in two giving each dog half. She noticed me stiffen and relax and added, “What did you think? I was gonna shoot you or the dog?” She laughed.
When she noticed I wasn’t amused, she continued, “I keep a couple in my pocket in case we have to go in somewhere there’s a dog. If it’s a big dog, I keep pill pockets in the squad car with Benadryl liquid in them. It takes a few minutes to work, but I won’t have to shoot one if we’re going in somewhere with dogs looking to tear into us.”
And there was the number one reason I didn’t want to adopt to her as if I needed any others. I took great care answering her how I handled the application process and selected forever homes even though I could have spent the rest of the night giving her a list of reasons why I didn’t think she’d make a good pet owner.
Instead, I said, “Let me get you an application to start the process.” I figured she’d put something down that would make it easy for me to reject her as a candidate. Jesus never left her lap, but Meaux jumped down to follow me to my computer to print out an application. Oh, yes, Meaux knows who controls the good treats.
While she filled in the application, I tried to bring up the CluckIt murders. She held up one finger indicating I should hold that thought while she finished her application. Then she handed it to me, and when I looked over it I saw that Hanky had the same vet I used so I could get the skinny on how she treated her previous dog.
Wow! She claimed she had had a Schnauzer for eighteen years and had to euthanize him when the cancer treatments no longer worked. Maybe there was a humanoid under that much polyester and gun belt after all.
&nb
sp; I looked up from the application and asked, “Do you have any idea who the guy Charles was calling, or getting calls from while he worked his shifts?”
Hanky looked up from petting Jesus and gave me a puzzled look and said, “Go back to what you were saying about the kidnapped vic at CluckIt. You were saying something about him getting calls or making calls?” Hanky was back to being Hanky.
“Yeah, Lionel and Earline who work there told me that the one kidnapped was stepping out on the one who was shot at the scene. They were an item. You know? A couple.”
Hanky was giving me a blank expression. “I know what you meant by an item.”
“You didn’t look like it registered,” I said.
“That’s my police face. They teach us not to show emotion while listening to a statement.”
Her police face. Right. I continued, “Well, that’s what Earline said the dead victim told her. Both were men and dressed as women, but the guy kidnapped didn’t always dress like a woman. He only dressed like a woman when he worked with the one that was shot and left in CluckIt.”
“You’re kidding, right? You’re saying the one kidnapped was a part-time trannie?”
“I don’t know if they call themselves trannies, or whether he was part time, full time or spare time,” I said. “I only know what Earline and Lionel told me and now I’m telling it to you. I think a bigger piece of the puzzle, or a clue as to who the killer is, has to do with calls Charles Ballon made and received during work. They said he was told not to make any personal calls, or he would be fired. The personal calls he made were to an adult sex phone line and lasted over an hour. Apparently, there were at least five of them.”
“Well, that needs to be checked out,” Hanky said making a call on her cell phone. “I’m going to see if I can get a phone dump on calls in and out of that location over the week before the murders.”
“The other thing has to do with my neighbor across the street, remember her? She’s the one who went nuclear on you over ticketing her car. She has something to do with all of this. I don’t know how, but she knows the bartender at the bar a couple of blocks from here who uses her on a lottery he calls the hedge fund. It’s like a football pool and those betting take squares to see how many times she’ll come home bombed and fall in those hedges.”
Drive Thru Murder Page 17