Kiss

21

Melba’s Place in the French Quarter was on Dumaine, incongruously tucked between a musty-looking used-book store and an antiques shop. It wasn’t a jazz club, as Carver had been told; it was a narrow lounge with no room for a band to set up and play. There was a long bar running front to back along one wall, and space for only a single row of small tables opposite. Behind the bar and shelves of bottles on the wall was a mirror that extended to the ceiling. Carver guessed the idea was to make Melba’s Place seem more spacious. All of this he had to observe through the front window, because Melba’s Place was closed and the lettering on the door said it wouldn’t open until five that evening. The Vieux Carre, as the French Quarter was sometimes known, and Melba’s customers, thrived on night air.

There was shade on the narrow streets of the Quarter, providing a modicum of shelter from the glare and heat, so Carver walked around for a while, until he found a restaurant at the corner of Royal and Saint Philip.

He had an early lunch of blackened redfish and Dixie beer while he listened to a street musician play beautiful clarinet. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Maybe this was why they called New Orleans the Big Easy.

Finally the clarinet player moved on. Carver had a second cup of rich black coffee, then made his way back to the Belle Grande.

He was tired. He hadn’t walked all that far, but the cane had been tricky on the Quarter’s roughly paved streets and sidewalks, and the day was heating up fast.

When he reached his room, he lay down for a while on the bed, then he got restless and went into the bathroom and ran cold water over his wrists. The tanned face in the mirror above the basin looked back at him grimly and admonishingly, as if to say there was no point in wasting time until Melba’s Place opened; you’re a detective, so detect. Face had a point.

Carver rode one of the rickety elevators downstairs and walked through the lobby to the street, then down the block to where he’d parked the Ford.

He drove to the Williams house and limped up on the porch. No one objected but some crickets concealed in the weeds.

The house was in even worse shape than it had seemed from across the street. It probably hadn’t been painted in decades, and some of the planks in the porch floor were rotted all the way through. A fetid odor of decay lay in the shadows beneath the sagging roof. Carver watched a large black waterbug drag itself across the porch, seeking shelter and shadow, and disappear into the darkness of one of the rotted fissures.

Wanda Pichet’s name wasn’t on any of the mailboxes, but a painted wooden arrow read “Pichet Residence” and pointed toward the near side of the house.

Carver went back down the hollow-sounding porch steps, cut across the hard lawn, and found a stepping-stone path to a door beneath a rusted metal awning.

Wanda’s name was crudely printed with red marking pen on a black metal mailbox. Carver rang the doorbell but got no answer. He knocked loudly, waited almost five minutes, then knocked again.

He was sure he’d heard someone moving inside the house-a shuffling noise and the faint groan of a floorboard. Furtive sounds. Wanda Pichet was home but chose not to come to the door. Judicious noninvolvement was the only control she had in life.

Finally Carver decided there was nothing he could do about that, and he went back across the street to the Ford. As he was driving away he was sure he glimpsed a pinched, dark face at one of the upstairs windows.

He braked the car suddenly and looked more carefully, straining his neck to peer upward from the low seat.

The yellowed shade was back in place, though swaying ever so slightly. The face was gone. Wanda had said she was done talking about Kearny Williams and apparently she’d meant it. Everything about her suggested she always meant what she said.

Back in his room at the Belle Grande, Carver sat on the edge of the bed and dialed long-distance to Orlando. Desoto was in his office and got on the phone immediately.

Carver told him where he was and why.

“You learn anything other than Kearny Williams been put in the ground, amigo?”

“Above the ground,” Carver corrected. “They don’t bury people here.”

“Figure of speech. McGregor phoned me a couple hours ago.”

“Pissed off, I guess.”

“No, he was very friendly. Like a rattlesnake without a rattle. Said he’d keep me tapped in as he was informed. What a guy, eh?”

“Yeah, he’s sure to be governor one of these days.”

“ Sacro Dios, Carver!” They both knew it was impossible. McGregor had a nose for other people’s weaknesses and there was no ceiling on his ambition.

“There’s an old black woman here,” Carver said. “She was the daughter of the Williams’s maid and sort of grew up with Kearny. She could give me a better slant on the situation before Kearny’s death, only she won’t talk.”

“Maid? Kearny Williams drove a truck. Didn’t figure to be from the kinda family had a maid.”

“Old southern wealth,” Carver said. “The family lost most of it when Kearny was a kid, but the homestead’s still here in a prime area of New Orleans and worth a small fortune. Kearny was the owner of record, though he didn’t hold clear title. He’d borrowed against the place to foot the bill at Sunhaven, but the net value’s still up in six figures.”

“So what’s it all mean, amigo?”

“Can’t tell at this point. The money’ll go to Kearny’s two kids, a son and a daughter, who seem the kind that’ll diddle it away in no time.” Carver hesitated, then said, “Any family members profit big from Sam Cusanelli’s death?”

Desoto answered in his detached cop’s voice. “I don’t think so. It’s something I’ll check.”

“In a little while I’m going to a lounge owned by Kearny’s daughter and son-in-law; maybe I can get a better feel for things. Meantime, can you use your police contacts in Indianapolis and get me an address on a Linda Redmond? She was the social worker who handled Birdie Reeves’s case two years ago. Probably still with one of the agencies there.”

Desoto said he could do that, and Carver gave him the Belle Grande phone number and his room extension. Said he’d be there later that evening.

“This hotel where you’re staying-is it expensive?”

“Expense is relative.”

“You got a bathroom with running water?”

“Sure; place even has windows that go up and down.”

“I put a money order in the mail for you this morning.”

“Not necessary.”

“Tell ’em that at the desk when you go to check out, amigo. I hired you. You need anything, you let me know.”

Carver said, “Just Linda Redmond’s address,” and hung up.