Photo Finished

Chapter 5

GABBY, I’m so sorry about Saturday night,” Carmela apologized for about the twentieth time. “I should never have let you go out back by yourself.”

“Carmela, it’s okay, really,” said Gabby. “I’ll get over it. I am over it.”

It was Monday morning. Gabby had shown up on time at nine o’clock, looking slightly subdued, but certainly no less enthusiastic about her job as Carmela’s assistant.

“I was afraid Stuart wouldn’t let you come back to work,” said Carmela. Gabby’s husband of barely two years was a combination worrywart and hard-ass. Stuart was also, as Tandy whispered when Gabby was absent from the shop, a male chauvinist pig. Only Tandy never actually said the word, she just spelled it out: p-i-g.

“My coming back to work here was an issue,” Gabby admitted. “But I promised Stuart I’d never venture into the back alley again, even during daytime hours.” Gabby grimaced. “Stuart’s not particularly happy making that concession, but I wasn’t about to give up a job I love.” Gabby adjusted her black velvet headband and nervously picked at a mythical speck of lint on her camel-colored sweater. “Besides, it’s not as though murder was a rare occurrence around here.”

Gabby was right. New Orleans was infamous for its nasty murder rate, and the French Quarter had always been a hotbed of trouble. Hot music, hot women, hot tempers.

Gabby smiled broadly. For her the issue was closed. “Okay to put the OPEN sign on the front door?” she asked Carmela as the phone on the front counter shrilled.

“Please,” said Carmela.

Gabby flipped over the sign, then swiped at the telephone. “Hello.” She listened for a few seconds, then held it out to Carmela. “It’s Tandy and she’s super upset!”

“Tandy,” said Carmela, taking the phone.

“The police kept him until five in the morning and now they’ve called him in again,” said the tearful voice on the other end of the phone.

“You mean Billy?” Carmela gasped. Of course Billy. Who else?

“It’s downright crazy,” shrilled Tandy. “Insane. Billy had absolutely nothing to do with Bartholomew Hayward’s death! You know that and so do I!”

“Of course he didn’t,” said Carmela. “The police are probably just trying to put together a possible timeline or something. Or they’re quizzing Billy about acquaintances of Barty’s, fishing around for possible suspects.”

“No, they’re not,” blubbered Tandy. “They keep asking Billy about the latex gloves.”

“What about latex gloves?” asked Carmela.

“The police found a box of them in Barty’s workroom.” Tandy paused and there was a loud honk as she blew her nose. “Carmela, this is awful!” she cried. “The police think that, just because they couldn’t find any fingerprints, Billy might be involved!”

Billy Cobb involved? No way. Billy was a good kid. Bright, polite, upstanding. Right?

“Has Billy got an attorney?” asked Carmela. She knew that even if you were totally innocent, it was always smart to be represented by a crackerjack attorney. A lot of people learn that one the hard way.

“I already called Baby,” sniffled Tandy. “And Del ’s agreed to represent Billy.” Baby’s husband, Del Fontaine, was a high-powered attorney and senior partner with the law firm Jackson, Fontaine & DeWitt.

“Okay, honey,” said Carmela. “Let us know if you hear anything.”

“I might be coming in later,” said Tandy.

“Really?” said Carmela, surprised by Tandy’s remark.

“There’s nothing else to do right now,” said Tandy, her voice quavering wildly.

Twenty minutes later, Baby Fontaine and her daughter Dawn Bodine, who’d married into the Brewton Creek Bod-ines, pushed their way through the door. Shortly after that, Byrle Coopersmith, another of Carmela’s staunch regulars, also arrived. They were all shocked to hear that the police were now eyeing Billy Cobb as a possible suspect.

“But those latex gloves were used for stripping and shellacking,” argued Gabby. “Everybody knows that.”

“Sure,” said Carmela. “Even I keep a box of latex gloves in the store. For when I work with glass paints and things. It doesn’t make me a murderer.”

“Didn’t you try to take over part of Barty’s space a few months ago?” asked Baby.

“I did,” said Carmela.

Baby put a finger to her mouth. “Ssshhh.”

“All this talk about murder is making me very jumpy,” said Byrle. “Can’t we just work on our projects for a while?”

“I’m making a vacation scrapbook,” piped up Dawn. She was the youngest of Baby’s daughters, youthful and vivacious, recently married and just back from a trip to Paris. Dawn was also the spitting image of her mother, only twenty-six years younger.

“What kind of album are you using?” Carmela asked Dawn.

Dawn held up a large square album with a plain cream-colored cover. “This one. Momma got it for me.” She smiled at Baby, who was sitting next to her.

“How would you ladies like a few ideas on how to create your own album covers?” asked Carmela.

“What fun!” exclaimed Baby, pulling out an album of her own. “We design all these wonderful scrapbook pages and sometimes forget that our album covers can be personalized, too.”

“Let me show you one quick idea,” said Carmela. “And then you can improvise and do your own versions.”

“Freestyle,” joked Byrle.

“Exactly,” replied Carmela as she pulled open cupboard doors, gathering the materials she needed.

“Okay, then,” said Carmela, spreading everything out around her. “I’m going to start with this Eiffel Tower rubber stamp. Using gold ink, I’m going to stamp an Eiffel Tower image onto a three-by-three-inch square of light blue card stock.”

“You need the colored oil crayons, too?” asked Gabby, hovering nearby.

“Please,” said Carmela. She took the box of crayons from Gabby and pulled out a dark blue and a purple crayon. As an afterthought she grabbed a pink oil crayon, too. “Now I’m just going to color in a little bit of the Eiffel Tower,” said Carmela, rubbing the oil crayons on the inside and around the outer edges of the Eiffel Tower image.

“Pretty,” said Byrle. “Now what? You smudge it?”

“Carefully smudge it,” said Carmela. “A controlled smudge, like doing your eye shadow. To achieve a soft, almost pastel look. Then we trim the square with a deckle-edged scissors to get a nice torn-edge effect.” Carmela trimmed the image, then carefully set it down on the table. It shone like an oversized French postage stamp.

“Now,” said Carmela, “we’ll take our album cover and adhere this dark blue and purple paisley paper to the right side. On the left side we’ll use this light-colored cream and gold paisley paper.” Carmela’s hands worked swiftly with the papers and adhesive and, in a few minutes, the album cover had assumed a whole new look.

“That’s gorgeous,” said Dawn. “Very rich looking. But what about the Eiffel Tower image?”

“I’m getting to that,” said Carmela. “Now we take our deckle-edged Eiffel Tower square and paste it on. Not quite centered… maybe a little to the right.” The Eiffel Tower image went on, then Carmela picked up a calligraphy pen.

“To add a finishing touch to our cover, I’m going to do some hand-lettering across the cream and gold paper.” She uncapped a bronze-colored pen, paused for a moment, then bent over the album and began to write in a long, looping script.

Baby watched her closely. “ ‘ Paris, City of Light.’ Beautiful. Now it’s the perfect album for preserving memories of Dawn and Buddy’s Paris trip.” Baby’s fingers touched the edge of Dawn’s sleeve; she was clearly proud of her daughter.

“Do you think I could do something similar using heart images?” asked Dawn. “For an anniversary album?”

“I think hearts would be adorable,” said Carmela. “We could even add some heart-shaped charms for a dimensional effect.”

“Could you attach charms to this?” asked Baby, indicating the album cover Carmela had just completed.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Carmela. “Tiny charms, stickers, gold tassels, a wax seal… the more layers you put on, the more depth you achieve.”

“Here are some rubber stamps with heart images,” said Gabby, passing a half-dozen rubber stamps to Dawn. “And this handmade mulberry paper has tiny rosebud petals imbedded in it.”

“Wow,” said Dawn, clearly impressed.

“That paper comes in cream, white, and pink,” said Carmela. “And I think we also have some pretty gold paper with poetry verses etched in the background. That would certainly go well with your romantic theme.” Carmela rose from her chair and headed for the front of the shop. “Let me take a look.”

As Carmela was searching through her stock of special papers, the phone rang. She grabbed the handset.

“Hello,” she said, fully expecting to hear Tandy once again.

But it wasn’t Tandy. It was Lt. Edgar Babcock of the New Orleans Police Department. Asking Carmela if she would kindly put together a list of customers who’d attended her scrapbook crop this past Saturday night.

“Sure I will, of course I will,” Carmela replied into the phone. God, am I babbling? Sure sounds like it. Why am I suddenly nervous?

“Today, if possible?” asked Lieutenant Babcock.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Carmela told him. She glanced toward the back of the shop. Everybody seemed involved in their own projects and she was pretty sure Gabby had kept that reservation list. Positive they had it, in fact.

Lieutenant Babcock’s request had also made Carmela suddenly hopeful.

If the police are looking at other people, surely that means they’re not entirely focused on Billy Cobb. On the other hand, they’re starting to look at my customers…

“Shall I e-mail you the list or…?”

“I’d like to stop by and pick it up if I could,” said Lieutenant Babcock.

“I’ll have it ready,” Carmela promised him.

“Problems?” asked Gabby as Carmela hung up the phone.

Carmela pulled the gold paper from the front display and hurried back to her friends.

“Not a problem per se,” Carmela answered slowly. “That was a police detective. He’s asking for a list of Saturday night’s customers.”

“Do they suspect someone?” asked Gabby, suddenly looking worried again.

“No, I don’t think that’s it at all,” said Carmela. “I think this is more routine than anything.”

“Oh,” said Gabby, not terribly convinced.

Uh-oh, thought Carmela. I hope Gabby doesn’t get Stuart all upset about this.

“You know,” said Baby, when there was a lull in the conversation, “there is someone who’s royally pissed at Barty Hayward.”

“Who’s that?” asked Carmela. And why am I not surprised?

“Dove Duval,” said Baby as she carefully traced out a heart-shaped photo frame for Dawn.

“Dove was here Saturday night!” gasped Gabby.

“And, as I recall, she left rather early,” continued Baby, lifting an elegant hand and pushing a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Before Gabby went out the back door and rather unceremoniously stumbled upon Bartholomew Hayward’s bleeding body.”

Gabby turned to Carmela. “That’s right, she did. Remember? She and Mignon. They were the ones who bought a bunch of those new rubber stamps. I think they’re planning to make holiday invitations or something.”

“Will someone please tell me who Dove Duval is?” demanded Dawn. “And is this woman related to the Duvals who live over in St. Landry Parish?”

“She is,” said Baby. “Sort of.” Baby gazed around the table, her bright blue eyes lighting up as she told her story. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Dove Duval is what you’d call a faux Southerner. Originally, she was the Mrs. of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Fleckstein of Montclair, New Jersey. Marvin Fleckstein being a self-proclaimed orthodontia king. But, times being what they are, and marriages not always that permanent, Dove and the dentist decided to divorce a year or so ago. On a trip to New Orleans, where Dove came to heal her wounded psyche and dip her beak into what was supposedly a pleasingly plump settlement, Dove met up with a certain Taurean Duval. The husband market being as precarious as the stock market, Dove wasted no time. She pounced quickly and is now Mrs. Taurean Duval.”

“What does Taurean Duval do?” asked Byrle.

“Owns the Dydee-doo Diaper Service,” said Baby.

“This is all very interesting,” said Gabby, a frown creasing her normally placid face, “but why on earth would Dove Duval have it in for Bartholomew Hayward?”

“I was getting to that,” said Baby. “Apparently, in her headlong rush to become an instant Southern lady and receive friends and visitors in her newly acquired Garden District home, Dove Duval nee Fleckstein purchased an entire truckload of what was touted to be genuine Southern plantation antiques.”

“Let me guess,” said Carmela, “some of them turned out to be fakes.”

“Yes!” exclaimed Baby. “How did you know?” Carmela shrugged. She’d seen the trucks pulling up late at night to Barty’s back door. She knew he’d been doing some heavy-duty distressing and refinishing in his back room. Many of the pieces Barty sold were genuine, but there couldn’t be that much old pecan and cypress left on the face of the earth.

“So Dove Duval could have been more than just a little upset with Bartholomew Hayward,” said Gabby. “She could have been furious.”

“Why didn’t she just sue him?” asked Byrle.

“She was probably too embarrassed,” said Baby.

“Wouldn’t you be? After being flimflammed?”

“Then the question remains,” said Byrle. “Was Dove furious enough to kill him? To stab him with a scissors?”

The women all paused and looked at each other. In Louisiana, men had been known to kill each other in disputes over prized coon hounds. In many ways there was still a “shoot first, ask questions later” kind of mentality in the South. But did the transplanted Dove possess that same kind of hair trigger? That was the unanswered issue that seemed to perch like a giant question mark on the table.

“So tell me,” said Dawn, breaking the tension of the moment, “did Dove Duval finally get rid of all the fakes Barty unloaded on her?”

“Yes, she did, honey,” replied Baby. “Dove unloaded them at a flea market over in Baton Rouge. She has since hired a professional decorator in her quest to have her home featured in Southern Living.” Baby paused. “I understand her new decor is quite eclectic.”

“Define eclectic,” said Byrle as she cropped a large photo into quarters, then prepared to edge each piece with gold foil tape.

Baby’s face assumed an impish grin. “It means nothin’ really goes together!”

“She should hire Jekyl Hardy,” suggested Gabby. “He could get her home straightened out in no time.” Jekyl Hardy was a design consultant and one of New Orleans ’s premier Mardi Gras float designers. He was also a dear friend of Carmela’s and sole proprietor of Hardy Art & Antique Consultants. Besides having a real knack for design, Jekyl Hardy periodically gave seminars on art collecting and connoiseurship.

Carmela had remained silent yet highly attentive throughout Baby’s story. Now she wondered if this might be the moment to tell everyone about the heelprint she’d found.

Tell them? Not tell them? What should I do?

It was a bit of a dilemma. Then again, there was the off chance someone might recognize the heelprint and shed some light on this whole thing.

Silently, Carmela slid a laser print onto the table. It was an enlarged printout of the enhanced heelprint that had been squashed into her medallion. Only she’d flopped the image so the initials, which had originally looked like interlocking G’s, now clearly read GC. The same way you’d see them if you looked at the bottom of the shoe.

“What’s this?” asked Byrle, turning the sheet toward her. “Another cover idea?”

“Better than that,” said Carmela.

The women listened with rapt attention as Carmela told them how she’d found the little medallion halfway down the alley. And how she’d noticed the heelprint, thought it might be significant, and enhanced the slightly smudged image by sprinkling it with embossing powder.

“Wow,” said Gabby, impressed. “You pulled a print. Just like on CSI!”

“Not exactly,” said Carmela. “You make it sound like I followed crime scene protocol. Instead, it was more like stumbling upon the little clay medallion, then noticing the smudgy heelprint.”

“You gonna show us the real forensic evidence, honey?” asked Baby, clearly fascinated by all of this.

“You really want to see it?” asked Carmela. She had initially thought the ladies might be a little put off by her amateur sleuthing. Quite the contrary. They seemed mesmerized by the idea of trying to track down Barty’s killer.

Carmela placed the actual medallion in the center of the table while Gabby slipped into the back office and retrieved a magnifying glass.

“Let me take a peek,” said Baby, reaching out a hand to Gabby.

Gabby handed her the glass.

Baby peered forward, studying the medallion with the heelprint. “This is the medallion you crafted from clay,” she said. “And you think you dropped it when you got out of your car.”

Carmela nodded. “I’m pretty sure I did.”

“You’re right,” said Baby finally. “This definitely looks like it’s been stepped on and kind of ground in by-what… maybe a lady’s heel?”

“What are those, entwined G’s?” asked Byrle. “Maybe a Gucci logo?”

Baby picked up a pencil, tapped at the page Carmela had printed out. “Not Gucci,” said Baby. “The initials read GC. And see here, there’s a little crosshatch pattern in the background.”

Gabby took the magnifying glass back from Baby, stared at the now-squished medallion, then at Carmela’s printout. Finally, she straightened up and looked around the table.

“Anybody ever hear of a designer with the initials GC?”

“No designer I know of,” said Baby, her hands unconsciously patting the gold and rust Versace scarf draped about her patrician neck.

“What about a local store?” asked Carmela. “It could be a private label thing.”

But nobody could think of a store or clothing shop that had the initials GC.

“Y’all are completely forgetting about Jade Ella,” said Byrle. “From what I hear, she and Barty were locked in the throes of a very nasty divorce.”

“That’s what Shamus said, too,” said Carmela.

Gabby flashed Carmela an approving glance. “You’re seeing Shamus again?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” said Carmela. “Shamus just sort of… dropped in on me last night.”

“Sounds romantic,” said Gabby, ever hopeful that the couple’s marriage would rebound.

“It wasn’t particularly,” Carmela told her. She looked around into the hopeful faces of her friends. “Don’t hold your breath concerning Shamus and me.”

“Well, this information about Jade Ella and Dove is certainly intriguing,” declared Baby, getting back to the main thread of their conversation. “It seems that both women had a serious ax to grind with Bartholomew Hayward.”

Dawn nodded excitedly. “They really did, didn’t they!” “And both ladies generally wear high heels,” said Baby, ever the fashion maven.

Gabby looked around the room, wide eyed. “I swear, it did kind of sound like someone in high heels taking off down the alley.”

“So either Dove Duval or Jade Ella Hayward could be considered a suspect,” said Baby.

“Or Chef Ricardo,” said Carmela. “But only if he wears Cuban heels.”

This new entry, tossed so casually into the pot, brought a stunned silence to the table.

Finally, Byrle spoke up. “Who on earth is Chef Ricardo?” Carmela quickly related her brunch experience from the day before and explained about the withdrawal of financing from Chef Ricardo’s ill-fated Scaloppina Restaurant.

Baby nodded. “That’s right. I heard about that. In fact, I think Del ’s firm might have represented one of the parties in a lawsuit. Turned out to be a real mess.”

“Buddy and I dined at Scaloppina once,” volunteered Dawn. “They served the best crab risotto I ever tasted.” She looked thoughtful. “Sad that the place had to close.”

“And under unfortunate circumstances, it would appear,” said Byrle.

“Sounds like Bartholomew Hayward might have had a few enemies,” said Gabby.

There were nods all around.

“Since this appears to be a crime of passion,” said Carmela, “what we need to do is try and figure out who hated Barty the most.” She gazed about the table, studying the troubled faces of her friends. “Anybody got any bright ideas?”

No lightbulbs clicked on.