Wait. What?
“If he’s staying here why aren’t they staying in the same room?” I asked and started going through the pantry looking to see what snacks were to be had before dinner.
“Cuz dat ain’t respectable,” Woozie said with a big eye roll. “What going on wit you? You actin’ like you ain’t ate for a month.”
“I’m a little nervous tonight, and if you said we have King Cake for dessert I think it would settle me down. King Cake and your meat loaf are wonder foods that outrank comfort food.” Mardi Gras wasn’t for another few months and King Cakes were my serious go-to comfort food. I could always special order one but even that took at least a day. Normal family matters could make me eat a whole one by myself and tonight’s fiasco might make me eat two.
“No King Cake tonight. I get one next time you here for dinner,” Woozie said.
“I have a lot going on and I need to get back to it, but when Dad called and asked me to come over, I can’t tell him no. Why am I here? Why did he want us all to have dinner tonight?”
“Cuz she told him to git you here. I have no idea. I know he misses you.” Woozie looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. “He ain’t got a sane person to talk to in dis here house since you left.”
“I think it would be more respectable if the twin lived in his own house, in his own room, with his own parents, which is right next door. That’s not close enough? Seems like it was close enough to get her pregnant.”
Woozie’s head reeled around to look at me like I had lost my mind speaking out loud in my parents’ house, even if it was what we were both thinking. I just smiled.
“What’s my mother afraid of? Sherry can’t get more pregnant. Does she think he’s gonna run off somewhere in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know; lately your momma be acting crazy and talking crazy. I think she sniffed too much of her ceramic paint. She worse now she’s been hiding all that ceramic stuff since the baby daddy moved in. She think he gonna care if her house is messy?”
“What’s Dad saying?” I asked.
“Your momma been going to crazy town all by herself. He fall asleep as soon as he sits in his chair, so he sleeping through most all of it and you can’t blame him.”
“I do blame him. He lets her do and say whatever she wants and that’s why she’s like she is.”
“Yeah, but she jump on him if he try to contradict her. The man just trying to stay alive. It’s like Beirut here when they go at it.”
I broke off another piece of French bread and stuffed it in my mouth as Woozie handed me the plate with the meatloaf.
“Here put this out there on the table and tell them dinner be ready. Tell them don’t go eating any until you all sits down. That twin been living with too many brothers. He got no manners. He eat like a Billy goat.”
Everyone headed to the dining room, like moths to a light, once I announced dinner was on the table. My mother and Sherry came downstairs together with my mother’s arm wrapped around Sherry’s waist. I didn’t have to wait long to hear the reason for my dinner party invitation.
As soon as the ‘Amen’ left my dad’s lips after he finished saying Grace, my mother launched her grand plan. I had started eating immediately hoping to eat and run. Having a mouthful of food would be reason enough not to participate in my mother’s conversation until I heard the lunacy she pitched.
“Brandy, I think we will have a double wedding with you and Dante, and Sherry and the twin. This would save your father some money and kill two birds with one stone,” she stated.
Wait. What? This was the big reason she wanted me here?
She was still talking. “So, we need to do this fast since we don’t want Sherry showing at her wedding.”
She didn’t want Sherry looking like a Mardi Gras float coming down the aisle on her wedding day, but I was the floozy!
I was supposed to be the wedding bonus round so my mother could plan the dream wedding those two always talked about. She could slip me under the radar and get me married off without costing her another cent.
I noticed she hadn’t committed to memory the name of the twin Sherry was marrying. I wondered if the invitations were going to read:
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander
Request the pleasure of your company
At the marriage of their daughter
Sherry
To
“the Twin”
one of the sons of
Mr. and Mrs. Deedler
(Our next-door neighbors)
A Saturday—soon—so she won’t be showing
This year of our Lord
At half past four in the afternoon
At St. Theresa’s Church across the
Street from the House where
The bride and groom currently cohabitate
Plan on more than an hour because we’re trying to pawn off
Brandy and Dante at the same wedding so we don’t have to pay for two.
When I tuned back in she was saying, “So, I’ve arranged St. Theresa’s church for two weeks from this Saturday. It’s right across the street, so make sure you and Dante are off, and at the church for ten thirty. The wedding will start promptly at eleven.”
My dad and the twin now had the same frozen look on their faces and only their eyes were moving back and forth between me and my mother.
“You will need a dress or some suit you want to wear, just don’t pick out anything tacky or too short,” she said without taking a breath. “And you probably shouldn’t wear white since you moved out and have been living—hopefully alone. Pick-up a bouquet of flowers you want to carry. Sherry will be carrying white roses, so pick something else.”
“That won’t work for me,” I said between bites.
I felt like a rubber band being stretched more and more with every word that left her lips. This was all nonsense compared to what really needed my undivided attention. No one can stress me out like my mother.
“You will just have to make it work. This is taking a lot of time and effort on my part to pull it all together on short notice, and we’re going to a lot of trouble to include you,” my mother said with the straightest face.
She went to a lot of trouble to include me? After I finished the bite of food I was chewing, I looked around the table. Everyone, with the exception of my mother, sat frozen with their fork suspended in air somewhere between their plates and their mouths looking at me.
“Dante and I are no longer dating. I have no plans on marrying him…ever. In fact, just yesterday, I told Dante that I’m no longer interested in dating, or waiting for him to ask me to marry him. Oh, and FYI—usually it’s the man who proposes to the woman. They aren’t ordered to appear, like in a court case. And, your floozy daughter—not Sherry, me—has moved on to date another man,” I said and took another big bite of Woozie’s meatloaf.
My dad blurted out, “You and Dante aren’t together?” He looked stricken as he broke the silence and everyone started moving again, even Woozie.
“Oh Lawd,” Woozie said as she put down another big bowl of mashed potatoes for the meatloaf as this exchange was taking place. She disappeared so fast it was as if the Star Trek Enterprise beamed her back to the kitchen.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” said my mother. “If you don’t care how you ruin your own life at least have the consideration not to ruin your sister’s only chance at happiness and a nice wedding.” She looked at me with contempt.
“I’m ruining her chance at happiness because I don’t have a groom to produce on command? Pardon me for not having Dante at the ready for your big, rushed, last minute—let’s get Sherry married before the baby’s due date—wedding plans. Oh, and throw in Brandy so we won’t have to spend any money on a wedding for her.”
I took another huge bite of food, knowing there wasn’t King Cake for dessert. The closest King Cake fix for my anxiety was twenty-four hours away at best.
“Honey, let’s talk about this later. I don’t think this
is a good idea to talk about now,” my dad said, trying to intervene and break the tension.
Woozie hustled back from the kitchen with a doggie bag and a plastic container. She began putting the remainder of my dinner in it to take home with me while I was still taking bites of food from my plate.
“Well, maybe I can find someone who wants to go through with this charade in two weeks so you and Sherry can have the big wedding you’ve always wanted. Don’t mind me if I don’t have someone to marry that day. If I can’t find someone, I’ll just show up with one of those life-size cardboard policemen with a photo of Dante’s face taped on it, or do you think a blow-up doll with a photo of his face on it would look more realistic?” I shoveled in another mouthful of meatloaf before Woozie scraped the last of it into the take home bag.
My mother grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes off her plate. I knew she was going to throw them at me, so I dove for the floor. She is such a terrible aim I probably didn’t even have to move. A big blob of white creamy mashed potatoes hit the wall behind my dad’s head. Good thing he ducked.
I took a bite of meatloaf with my fork right off the serving platter. I was glad she hadn’t put anything on her potatoes yet or we all would have been sprayed with brown gravy when the potatoes spiraled through the air. Everyone, my Dad included, turned to watch the mashed potatoes slide down the wall toward the floor.
Woozie stood frozen—hands in mid-food transfer. Sherry had started crying as soon as my mother started talking, but now she was doing the air sucking thing between sobs. The twin—the one my parents didn’t seem to know, or bother learning the name of, the baby-daddy their daughter was marrying—sat in his chair with the same expression he had on his face earlier when I told my dad he had pushed his recliner upright.
“Lawd have mercy!” Woozie repeated until she finished moving the food on my plate to the bag to take with me. She lifted me by the arm and moved me toward the front door.
“What, no dessert? I can’t wait to see what’s going to land on the walls next,” I yelled over my shoulder as Woozie pushed me out the front door and the food bag into my arms.
As I walked to my car I thought, I bet my mother changes the locks now.
Wait! Change the locks! I’ll bet our cheap landlord never changed the locks on our apartment. Mr. Chauvin said Fara returned her key. Sully said he lived there before we did and what if he had a key also? Maybe whoever else had a key was responsible for Suzanne being missing. I needed to reach Dante asap.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In hindsight, I could have handled the situation at my parents’ better. I really could have, but something snapped when my mother stepped so far over the line, she stepped off the map.
I lost my appetite for the food Woozie sent home with me when she pushed me out of my parents’ front door. I hoped Suzanne was home by now. Suzanne should’ve been home since she didn’t have work until Tuesday night.
If she was hungry maybe, we could sit and eat some of Woozie’s food like normal people.
The house was quiet when I walked in the front door. The dogs were out in the backyard. I called out to Suzanne, “Hey, I’m home.”
After a few seconds, I didn’t get a response. I thought maybe she was napping and left Meaux and Jesus outside. I went to Suzanne’s room to ask if she was hungry and found the room empty.
That’s odd, I thought. She knew I would never leave the dogs in the backyard while no one was home. I walked into her room and stood there with my hands on my hips looking around.
Her cell phone was on her nightstand next to her purse with her wallet in it. She never went anywhere without the cell. Nothing was out of order, except for the fact that all her stuff was here and Suzanne wasn’t.
My cell phone rang and it was Dante. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially Dante, but Sandra’s information was important. I knew I had to tell him about her, and now the hair on the back of my neck felt like it was standing straight up at the thought of Suzanne missing.
“Hanky said you called with something on your neighbor, Sandra. Whatcha got?” he asked. Then I heard him asking someone to hand him a stack of papers, but his voice was muffled, like he had pressed the phone against his shoulder so I wouldn’t hear him talking.
“Are you listening?” I said to him.
“Yes.” He was back because I could hear background noise in the station again, phones ringing, static from their radios, men’s voices talking or laughing.
“She knew the guy Charles Ballon from CluckIt. She knew him from that nutty bar in the neighborhood that has the lottery, or football-like pool you take chances on to see how many times she’ll fall into the hedges.”
“What lottery?” Dante asked, and it occurred to me he didn’t know the entire Sandra saga.
“I didn’t tell you about that. And on top of that I haven’t seen Suzanne since I got back from…since the weekend, but I talked to her yesterday,” I said. “I was on the phone with her when that creepy bartender came here saying he had her sweater she forgot at the bar, but she didn’t leave anything there. It wasn’t hers. She thought he was trying to scope her out, but I was on the phone with her and she told him it was her mother….”
“Wait. What has all of this got to do with the CluckIt murders?” he asked.
“I can’t explain it yet, but it all connects,” I said. There was a significant pause with a lot of dead air between us that the background noise tried to fill before I added, “I’m sure.”
“Are you sure like you were sure I should talk to the cat lady, only to have to break up a cat fight?”
“You found out something important about that car, didn’t you? It wasn’t a total bust.”
“Can’t you leave this to the police, to me? Don’t you have somebody’s family you need to go meet and impress?”
Since he never courteously ends a conversation, I wasn’t sure if he was hanging up so I blurted out, “Well, now I know you’re ticked off, because before that last comment, I was only guessing. Don’t you think I’d rather be doing that, and I would if Sandra hadn’t told me things this afternoon I believe you need to know and follow up on. When Hanky was here the other night, we went to that bar, the one with the lottery and heard Sully say….”
“You and Hanky went to a bar? Together? Like for a drink?” he asked cutting me off.
“Yes. I asked the bartender….”
“She went to a bar with you when she was on duty? She was drinking?” He sounded stunned, shocked or surprised. I couldn’t tell exactly.
“No, we weren’t drinking. It was more like undercover work. Anyway….”
“Undercover work? Is that why she’s wearing tops that look like she’s going to pop out of?” he asked me.
“Pop out of? You mean like they are too tight or too low cut?”
“Both. Half the guys here are walking into walls and desks trying to check her out. No one knew Hanky could look so good. It’s like she went to some make-up counter at Macy’s. She even has new hair,” Dante said.
Good for Hanky.
“That’s great, but can we get back to the bar? Sully told us he lived in this house with a roommate before we did. I think it was a woman whose rings I found hidden beneath the floor boards. Her name might be Fara Theriot or Opal something, but I can’t find any information….”
“What rings hidden beneath the floor boards? Who is Fara Theriot and what does she have to do with any of this? Brandy, you’re sounding a little,” he exhaled a big breath, “crazy.”
“Dante, listen to me, please. I think the bartender—the one Hanky and I talked to—used to live here and I think he still has a key to our house. I think the landlord never changed the locks because he told me the girl—Fara Theriot, the girl who moved out—mailed it back.”
“What does your landlord have to do with the CluckIt murders?”
“Look, nothing adds up, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Can you come here, or can I meet you somewhere? I can’t
find Suzanne either. I’m worried about her.”
While I was talking to him I walked to the back door to let the dogs in. I didn’t even have to call them. They came toward me as soon as I opened the door, side by side sharing a stick in their mouths. They were prancing, holding their heads high, noses in the air with the stick displayed between them, looking so proud to be bringing me a prize they had found. They dropped it at my feet.
Dante was saying something, but I stared at the stick. Only it wasn’t a stick.
“Oh, God!” I could barely get the words out. I started gasping for air while my knees buckled and I sank to the floor. “Dante, please, please come over here right now. The dogs just dug something up in my backyard and I think…I think… it looks like…a human bone…a human leg bone.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Lock your doors, call 9-1-1, and stay on the phone with them until I get there,” Dante said and hung up.
I sat frozen to the spot watching the two Schnauzers stand proudly over what they brought me, waiting for a reward. They looked triumphant after bringing in their big find from under the shed.
After my senses came back, I got the dogs a treat to take their attention off the bone and lured them into the downstairs bathroom right off the kitchen. I wanted them safe and out of the way from what might be about to unfold here. I moved their beds, water and food bowls in with them and went to wait for Dante. While I waited, I called Jiff.
“Dante’s coming over here with the entire New Orleans Police Department, because I think the dogs dug up what looks like a human bone in my backyard,” I said listening to my voice crack.
“I’m on my way, and don’t say anything to anybody, or answer any questions except to point them to where you found it,” he said. “It will be all right. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“Okay. I still have to call 9-1-1.”
As anticipated, Dante arrived before Jiff because he gets to use the siren and flashing lights. He showed up with his Captain and Hanky, and as soon as I opened my front door I noticed the vein on the side of his head was pumping overtime. He looked at me and said, “Show us what you found.”
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