by Lisa Clancey
Chapter Fourteen
I retrieved my .22 and my list of prospective shooters out of my safe. I could still get some work done if I tried hard enough. In other words, get off my butt and actually work. It was only one, too early to go home. I decided I would try some of the more influential names on my list. Yeah, like they wouldn’t take a shot at me too. They’d probably have better guns with better sights. I started thinking. I wondered if it was someone not part of the family. Someone that had heard about the painting from a family member. Well, that wouldn’t help me find the shooter. Pillow talk gone bad. If it was someone outside the family, I could find them but it would just take me more time. I had skills; all I had to do was use them. I mean, I’ve stayed alive this long. I’ve had some mad cheating spouses, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Ding! Could it be a mad cheating spouse? My last one wasn’t mad. How long can a spouse hold a grudge? I guess it depended on how much alimony he or she had to pay. No, my gut was telling me it was all about the painting.
The name on top of my list wasn’t familiar. This may come as a shock, but I didn’t know all the influential people in Alexandria. Mauve LeMoine, a woman that could be a hundred and one years old, the way my luck had been going she’d probably be twenty-five and married to a one hundred and one-year-old man. Mauve lived in a posh neighborhood; the homes were two stories and were listed around eight hundred thousand dollars. The less expensive homes were five hundred thousand, and the more expensive homes were a whole lot more than that. I was not going to be intimated, someone is shooting at me, and it could be Mauve.
I walked up the front path where it split around a fountain and then went back together. Lots of azalea bushes around a couple of trees in the front yard and around the front porch. I rang the doorbell, which had to be the longest doorbell ever invented. I could have read a chapter of the book I’d been reading by the time it was through chiming.
The door was opened by a small Hispanic woman, with a wonderful smile. Good, if the help were friendly maybe Mauve would be too. Then again, maybe Mauve wasn’t home, but Mr. LeMoine was, and that was why the help was smiling.
“Hello, I’m Chloe Babineaux. Is Mrs. LeMoine home and could I speak to her if she’s available?”
She looked me up and down, invited me inside, and I gave her my card. The smile didn’t leave her face, but she was probably afraid I might steal the family silver if she left me too long. I never steal anything that doesn’t help me with an investigation, and I didn’t think silver would help me. Make that borrow. I never borrow anything.
I was left in the foyer to spend time thinking about eating pizza when a tall, gray-haired, woman with piercing blue-eyes came sweeping into the room. Better to have had gray hair and blue eyes than blue hair and gray eyes. Her sneer wasn’t warming my insides, and I was starting to think I was wrong about Mauve being nice to her employees. Her employee was probably smiling because she was glad Mauve had someone else to harass.
Holding my out card, she growled, “Your card says you’re a private investigator. What are you investigating?” Evidently, the upper crust didn’t socialize with the lower crust.
I smiled my most persuasive smile and said, “I was hired to locate a missing painting that has been in the Foyt family for years.” Do you have it and are you shooting at me?
She rolled her eyes and said with exasperation, “That old thing? It’s been missing for years. Why is that family still looking for it? I don’t think it’s worth anything.” That family? Isn’t she part of the family?
“No, it probably isn’t.” I refused to call her ma’am; she reminded me of my ninth grade general science teacher. She’d rolled her eyes and was exasperated when she talked to me as well. “The dollar amount isn’t what is important to my client. She wants to make sure it’s safe and not in a mildewed corner of a shed corroding,” I said with unblinking eye contact.
“Oh…well,” she said, looking questioningly. Ha, I could intimidate just as well, Mrs. Upper-crust. “I really don’t know anything about it. Of course, I’ve heard of it. Everybody in the family has heard of it, but I don’t know where it is.” She admitted to being part of the family. She called for her door opener to open the door. I told her to call me if she could think of anything. I wasn’t going to hold my breath.
I sat in my truck crossed her name off and huffed. The next name wasn’t that far away, so I drove to it knowing full well she wasn’t going to tell me anything. Mauve might be on her phone now talking to the next person on my list, all the while standing over her maid making sure all signs of my being there were erased.
I turned my head to check for cars before pulling out and noticed a silver truck parked on the side of the road. It didn’t appear to have anyone in it or least driving my way, so I pulled out onto the road.
Claudia Juneau was next on my list. Hmm, I had to think. Have I ever heard of this woman? No, I haven’t. Good. She didn’t know me as well—unless Mauve just called her.
Claudia lived in a house that was a smaller version of Mauves. While Mauve’s home cost eight hundred grand, Claudia’s only cost six hundred thousand. As I said earlier, Alexandria wasn’t a huge Metropolis, in a bigger city like Las Angeles or New York those same homes would be about one million.
Claudia had the same kind of bushes and front walk minus the fountain. They both had two large columns guarding the front door with four dormer windows upstairs. I walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Jeeze Louise, where did they find those chimes?
I awoke from my nap by a young blond woman, this one didn’t look like the help, and she didn’t have a nice smile.
I smiled anyway. I figured it couldn’t hurt. “Hello, I’m…”
“I know who you are. Mother already called me.” Ah, Mother. That explains the pleasant, easy-going personality.
“Oh, okay…”
“I don’t know anything about some cheap painting,” she said, snarling at me. For someone who’s supposed to be foo-foo, she hadn’t learned it was impolite not to let someone finish a sentence.
I smiled sweetly, handed her my card and said, “It’s been so nice chatting with you.” I turned and walked back to my nice big red-neck truck. I could so imagine her shooting at me. More importantly, I could so see myself shooting her.
I sat in my truck looking at my list, picked out my next address, turned to Claudia and yelled ‘Bite me!’ Yeah, I knew, my window was rolled up, and she was already in the house calling Mother so that she couldn’t hear me, but it made me feel better. Especially, if she was looking at the window and saw me wave at her, minus four fingers.
I hit two more houses that didn’t cost as much as the first two homes I went to. The homeowners were nicer than the first two amiable women on my list, but they didn’t know anything either so, I didn’t tell them to bite me.
At three o’clock I was tired of having doors shut in my face, so I went to my parents’ house. My mother usually doesn’t fuss at me until after I had been there for awhile.
I had stopped by my apartment to pick up dirty clothes to wash while I visited. She expected it from me. I didn’t ask her to wash, so she didn’t mind. At least she said she didn’t mind. Could she be lying to me? Probably, but we lie to each other, so it was all good.