Chapter 10
MILD temperatures and a
mass of warm air billowing up from the Gulf of Mexico had rushed
smack-dab into a degenerating yet static cool front. And now fog, a
vaporous haze that cast a scrim over the entire French Quarter and
put everything into soft focus, had seeped in. In this strange
atmosphere flickering gas lamps looked even more romantic. Old
weathered wooden buildings, painted shades of bottle green and
indigo blue like so many Caribbean cottages, took on a misty feel.
Curlicued wrought-iron balustrades that topped the second stories
of so many French Quarter buildings virtually disappeared. Even the
clip-clop of the horse’s hooves that pulled the jitneys filled with
tourists down Bourbon Street sounded muffled tonight. Redolent with
atmosphere, the area suddenly felt very much like the Vieux Carré,
or French Quarter, of a century ago.
As Carmela turned down the arched walkway that led
to her courtyard apartment, she could hear Boo’s insistent,
high-pitched bark.
“What’s going on?” she asked the little dog as she
stuck her key in the rusty old gate that cordoned her courtyard off
from the walkway.
Boo’s inquisitive little shar-pei face pushed up at
her. Carmela could see a torrent of shredded paper in the dog’s
wake.
At the same moment Carmela entered her courtyard,
Ava Grieux peeked out the French double doors at the back of her
voodoo shop and gestured at Carmela through the glass. Holding up
one finger, she mouthed, Be right there.
Then, moments later, Ava shut off her shop lights and let herself
out the back door.
“How long has she been outside?” Carmela asked,
surveying the damage.
“I let her out maybe ten minutes ago,” said Ava.
“Fifteen at the most.” She grinned and shook her head at Boo.
“Amazing, isn’t it? You’d swear a team from the FBI had swooped in
here and gone through your garbage.”
“Maybe they did,” said Carmela. “Or at least a few
spies from the New Orleans Police Department.”
“Uh-oh,” said Ava, “have you been having problems
with Granger Rathbone again?”
“You might call it that,” replied Carmela. “The
little slug accosted me at Jimmy Earl Clayton’s funeral this
morning.”
Ava fixed Carmela with a level stare. “You showed
your sweet little innocent face at Jimmy Earl’s final send-off?
Girl, you are seriously endowed with chutzpah.”
Carmela tried to gather up the worst of the
shredded paper while Boo followed behind her at a safe distance.
The little dog was looking decidedly guilty. A shred of green
plastic clung to her lower lip, snippets of newspaper were caught
between her toes.
“That little dog works so fast I bet she could get
a job shredding documents at a Swiss bank,” volunteered Ava,
determined to cheer Carmela up.
Carmela didn’t answer.
“Look,” said Ava, snatching up some of the shredded
paper, “I think Boo might have even torn up Bufford Maple’s
column.” Ava put her hand atop Boo’s furry brow and petted her
gently. “Good girl, you still love your daddy lots, don’t
you?”
“Don’t,” Carmela warned.
“Carmela,” said Ava, finally, “you need to
seriously chill out. Stay home, put your feet up, have a glass of
wine. Good wine. Maybe even get a little
snockered if you feel like it. And try to forget about all this
stuff, because it’s not worth worrying your head over. You know as
well as I do that excessive worry only leads to crow’s-feet. And
you are far too young to begin a costly and somewhat tedious
regimen of Botox or laser resurfacing.”
“Ava,” said Carmela, turning to face her. “I’m at
the point where I’m not so sure Shamus is innocent anymore.” There
was a note of desperation in her voice. “I want to believe he is, but there is some very negative
energy swirling around.”
“Mn-hm,” agreed Ava. “That there is. And you are
certainly in need of a walloping dose of gris
gris.” Gris gris was the term for good
luck. “But I don’t think white candles and herbs in velvet bags are
gonna do it, chérie.”
“Neither do I,” said Carmela. She paused dejectedly
and thought for a moment. “Ava, you know as well as I do that
Shamus is hotheaded as all get out. And he was seen arguing with
Jimmy Earl Clayton. Seen, apparently, by a lot of people. What
would that suggest to you?”
“That Shamus is hotheaded and ill-tempered?” said
Ava. She sauntered over to the trash can, lifted the lid, and
stuffed a glut of papers inside. “No surprises there. You knew all that when you married the man, right? Now
what you really got to figure out is
why somebody wanted Jimmy Earl Clayton out
of the way. You’ve got to look for motive.” Ava paused. “Did Shamus
have motive?”
Carmela gave serious consideration to Ava’s
question. “I really don’t think so.”
Ava threw her hands in the air. “There you go. Then
he’s probably innocent.”
“Right,” said Carmela, grabbing Boo’s collar and
giving her a tug. “But who’s the nasty fruitcake who did away with
Jimmy Earl?”
“That, my dear,” said Ava, “is the
sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”
ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR
THEORIES HOLDS that Jambalaya is directly descended from the
rice dish, paella , which was brought to
New Orleans by the Spanish. Over the years, Cajuns, Creoles,
African Americans, Haitians, French, and just about everyone else
in and around New Orleans fell in love with and adopted that
steamy, spicy rice dish. They improved it, fiddled with it, and
created endless varieties of rice until it finally evolved into the
unique delta staple that’s known today as jambalaya.
As a rule, jambalaya contains a savory mixture of
andouille sausage, crawfish, shrimp, and chicken. But jambalaya can
actually be made from any combination of the aforementioned
ingredients. What’s really indispensable,
of course, are spices. Tabasco sauce, pepper, garlic, fresh
parsley, thyme, and chili powder are de
rigueur, with liberal amounts of onions and bell peppers tossed
in as well.
For the last forty minutes Carmela had been dancing
around her kitchen, chopping, blanching, peeling, coring, seeding,
and dicing. She was bound and determined to give her mind a rest
from the debacle of Jimmy Earl Clayton’s murder and the nasty
accusations that seemed to be piling up against Shamus. Cooking
seemed as good a refuge as any.
Now she was ready to simmer most of her ingredients
atop the stove in a large pan for an hour or so. Then, once
everything was tender and aromatic, she’d toss in the seafood and
sausage and finish the whole dish off for another thirty minutes.
And, per her momma’s stern advice, she would scrupulously avoid
stirring the rice dish toward the end of
the cooking process so it for sure wouldn’t lump up.
As the big blue enamel kettle hissed and burped
atop the stove, Carmela did help herself to
a glass of wine. She yanked the cork from a nice crisp bottle of
Chardonnay she’d lifted from Shamus’s private stash before she
left.
Grasping her glass of wine, Carmela poured out a
cup of dry dog food for Boo, topped it with a dollop of cottage
cheese, then finally settled into her wicker easy chair. Even
though she’d vowed not to let herself get overwrought about this
whole mess, she found her thoughts once again turning toward the
man who had once made her life seem joyful and rich, then had
haphazardly turned everything ass over teakettle: Shamus Allan
Meechum.
Good lord but the man was maddening! And to skip
out on her as he had. What had been his plan, anyway? Keep your
fingers crossed behind your back when you mumble the old marriage
vows, then hit the fast-forward button? Hold everything, whatever
happened to the pause button?
Maybe she should be glad Shamus was up to his
arm-pits in trouble. Glad he was getting some form of comeuppance
for his reckless ways.
Am I glad?
No, not really.
And did she honestly believe that Shamus was
involved in Jimmy Earl Clayton’s demise? Well, she’d be the first
to admit it didn’t look good. Shamus did
have a famously hot temper, that was for sure. And certain events
in his life had proved that Shamus wasn’t
always a colossally clear-headed thinker or was immune from acting
the fool.
There had been that silly business about stashing a
goat in the dean’s office when he was a senior at Tulane. In
addition to consuming a perfectly good leather couch, the goat had
committed a nasty indiscretion on the dean’s Aubusson carpet.
Besides rating a couple inches in the newspaper, that goat incident
had almost kept Shamus from being admitted to graduate school. But
then his family had stepped in. God forbid the pride of the Meechum
clan didn’t continue on and earn his MBA.
There had also been some problem with a belly
dancer from Meterie that Shamus had hired for Joe Bud Kerney’s
bachelor party. Besides her penchant for Casbah-style dancing, Miss
Meterie also had a nasty little habit of picking pockets. So, while
she’d been charming her audience with the dance of the seven veils,
she’d also been pocketing Rolexes and pinching Diners Club
cards.
Shamus had also been involved in something a few
months ago, just before he’d walked out on her. Carmela recalled
hearing Shamus on the telephone, angry and insistent, telling Seth
Barstow, one of Crescent City Bank’s corporate lawyers, to
handle it. It being something that had to
do with construction loans and land zoning. She’d asked Shamus what
the heck was going on, but he’d never made her privy to any of the
details. Again, his family had swooped in and supposedly taken care
of things. The big fix, as he always called it.
Will they be able to fix things
this time? Carmela wondered.
That would remain to be seen.
THUMBING THROUGH A CATALOG OF
RUBBER stamp art, enjoying her steaming bowl of jambalaya,
Carmela had finally been able to calm down. In fact, she was
determined to look ahead and plan for the future, especially when
it came to her little store, Memory Mine. She was particularly
excited by the variety of decorative rubber stamps that were
available: fanciful stamps depicting trailing vines, elegant
picture frames, fans, filmy summer dresses blowing on hangers, tiny
ballet slippers, filigree designs, and teacups.
All would lend delightful extra touches to wedding
and anniversary scrapbooks and would also be perfect should her
customers decide to create invitations for engagement parties, baby
showers, and such.
Just as Carmela was imagining how a pair of doves
would work on a sheet of soft blue-flecked paper with a deckled
edge, the phone rang.
She kicked the footstool out of the way, hoping for
a telemarketer to take her excess energy out on.
“Carmela,” came a rough purr.
Oh shit. It’s Shamus.
“Where are you?” asked Carmela.
“Can’t say, darlin’.”
“You mean you can’t say
because you’ve somehow lost your memory and are wandering around
the parishes of Louisiana in a delirium, or you won’t say?”
There was quiet laughter. “Your phone could be
tapped.”
Darn Shamus, Carmela
thought to herself, why does he have to go and
act all spooky and mysterious? Like he’s playing Mission Impossible
or something.
“This isn’t a game, Shamus. And my phone isn’t
tapped. Where are you?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Why?” said Carmela, feeling her blood pressure
begin to inch up. “Because I just won the lottery, Shamus. A
hundred million dollars. And I want to give you half. Helloooo. Why do you think I
want to know?” Carmela hissed. “Because last time I looked, I was
still your wife, that’s why. Even though
half of my queen-sized bed is decidedly unoccupied.” She paused.
“And because, Shamus, whether you want to admit it or not, you’re
in deep doo-doo.”
“I know, darlin,’ that’s why I called. I don’t want
you to worry.”
“Worry?” said Carmela. She suddenly shifted the
tone of her voice. “Why would I worry?”
“Because you worry about everything,” laughed
Shamus.
“I do not,” said Carmela, indignant now.
“Of course you do. You used to worry about the baby
birds that fell out of their nests in the oak tree out back. I came
home once and you were using this teeny tiny little eyedropper
to—”
“That’s different,” said Carmela. “Those were
creatures.”
“Listen, honey,” said Shamus. “If you need to get
in touch with me, you just get a message to a guy named Ned Toler.
He owns a boat place out in the Barataria Bayou, in a little
village called Baptiste Creek. If you bring him a six-pack of Dixie
Beer, he’ll know it’s really you.”
“Where are you going to be?” asked Carmela.
“Around,” said Shamus. “But don’t worry.” There was
a sharp click, and the line went
dead.
Damn. He hung up on me
again.
Sprinting across the room, Carmela grabbed for her
purse, then threw herself back in her easy chair. She dug for her
address book, fumbled for the phone number of his family’s camp
house, then punched the number into the phone, determined to call
him back, finish this conversation once and
for all.
But the phone out there just rang and rang. She
could picture it, an old black enamel wall phone, hanging on the
wooden wall of the two-room camp house that sat on stilts above
sluggish brown green water.
Probably Shamus wasn’t staying there anymore,
Carmela decided.
Then where is he? And why has
he gone into hiding?
Because he’s guilty?
Oh please. Say it ain’t
so.