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“You signed your name with your left hand tonight.”
“I sign with my left, but I promise you, I can inflict pain with either. You’re not very subtle, Detective LaMorte. I take it Maxwell Burgoyne was struck by a right-handed person.”
He didn’t answer, and a second later the door across the hall opened.
Lisa emerged looking edgy and drawn. “Thanks for waiting, Eden.” The blackness under her eyes had grown more pronounced. “Lieutenant Owen says we can leave.” She rubbed her forehead. “Who were you talking to when I came out?”
Eden glanced back. Somehow, it didn’t surprise her that Armand had vanished. “A man, a detective on the case. He asks questions, but doesn’t answer many.” She regarded Lisa. “Are you all right?”
“I want to get out of here.”
Eden checked out the shadows one last time. “They’re so elusive,” she said softly.
Lisa blinked. “What?”
Unsure what to make of the entire bizarre encounter, Eden shook her head. “I’m either incredibly perceptive, or—” she released a weary breath “—I’m headed for a whole lot of trouble.”
ARMAND WATCHED HER GO. She was more than he’d anticipated and not like her sister at all.
He had his cell phone out and the number punched. As she left the building with Lisa, he pressed the button to make the call.
“Is it done then?” his father demanded over a static-filled line.
“For the moment.” Armand took care not to lose his cover of darkness. Eden owned a sporty, black car, similar to both her sisters’, and she had the sexiest walk of any woman in New Orleans.
“Are you napping, Detective LaMorte?”
He smiled a little. “Observing. How did you know it was me?”
“Who else would phone so late? You understand your job?”
Armand’s gaze hardened. “I only need to be told once. Are you sure this is how you want it to be? It’s more complicated than you thought.”
“There we agree,” his father said. “But more complicated doesn’t mean we can walk away. You made me a promise, and I mean to hold you to it.”
“I’ll keep my word.” Armand followed Eden’s movements as she disengaged her alarm. “They’re leaving now, probably to pick up their other sister.”
“You sound displeased. You should be happy.”
“Why, because Maxwell Burgoyne is dead? I’m supposed to extract justice for death, not applaud it.”
“We both know what kind of snake Maxwell Burgoyne was while he lived. Now he’s gone, and I need your help, father to son. Don’t disappoint me.”
“Have I ever?”
“In the important ways, no. Just remember what’s at stake here, and if you have to, lock your conscience away. It’ll only be a burden to you in this case.”
This case, Armand thought as he disconnected. This skewed and twisted case into which he had been plunged with next to no warning.
Like it or not, however, he was in deep and stuck there. Whether that would prove to be good or bad depended entirely on how the victim’s murder was viewed.
“STOP AT LUCILLE’S CLUB,” Lisa pleaded with Eden. “She’s part of our lives. We should tell her what’s happening.”
“I didn’t drink enough if I’m hearing this.” From the back, Mary used her knee to poke Lisa’s seat. “Although she conveniently neglected to mention it to us, Lucille was married to Maxwell Burgoyne. She knows he’s dead. The rest of it has nothing to do with her.”
Lisa faced her sister. “Why do you hate her so much? Because she runs a nightclub?”
“No, because nightclub’s just a polite name for the business she really runs.”
Nonconfrontational by nature, Lisa appealed to Eden. “Can you talk to her, please? Oh, and turn left here.”
Eden had fought this battle with herself back at the police station. “Ten minutes, Mary,” she said. “You can wait in the car.” Which was the last thing Mary would do.
Lucille’s club, called Nona, was situated on the fringe of the Vieux Carre. The sign over the door didn’t flash or shine so the club didn’t appeal to the masses. That was exactly as Lucille wanted it. Her other business ventures—and she had more than a few, Eden had discovered over the years—did that. Nona was understated and personal. It was also the place where Lucille could be found six nights out of seven.
“I still haven’t figured out how someone as cool as Dolores could have given birth to a tarantula,” Mary muttered. “Too bad the family curse didn’t strike Lucille.”
“It couldn’t. She wasn’t the oldest,” Lisa reminded. “Lucille’s brother died from the curse twenty years ago. He drove off a cliff or something.”
Mary folded her arms. “Yeah, well, Dolores has a few things to answer for if you ask me.”
“Like what?”
Eden glanced in the rearview mirror for the fifth time in two minutes and saw Mary roll her eyes. “Like why she never mentioned that Lucille’s ex-husband—”
“Our biological father,” Mary inserted.
“Was alive,” Eden finished. “Lucille lied, Lisa, and Dolores went along with her.”
But Lisa was always ready to defend other people. “Of course Lucille lied. You’d have lied, too, in her position. You didn’t meet Maxwell. He was—awful.”
It was a huge comment coming from Lisa.
Bright headlights in the rearview mirror diverted Eden’s attention. She noticed a faint blue tinge around the edges. Was someone following them? Out loud, she asked, “Awful how? Was he obnoxious, abrasive, sloppy, rude?”
“He wasn’t sloppy.” Lisa indicated the curb lane. “There’s a parking spot. He was obnoxious and rude, and I didn’t like him at all. I’m sure you heard, I met him twice.”
Eden wedged her car between two monster SUVs. “Why a second meeting if he was so bad?”
“Because after our first disastrous outing last Wednesday, I figured I must have misjudged him. No one could be that horrible. So I called and asked if we could have dinner somewhere. I wanted to try again.”
“But you hadn’t misjudged him.”
“If I did, it was on the generous side.” Lisa’s shoulders twitched. “I don’t want to go into detail. Just believe me when I say he had a mean tongue.”
“Ah, so that’s why he hooked up with Lucille. Like seeks out like.” Mary made a face as she read the sign above the door. “I hate this place, but at least Mommy Dearest keeps a well-stocked bar. Defend her all you like, Lisa, I still have a bone to pick with—” She stopped, frowned and backtracked. “Wait a minute, he was rich, right? Eden, didn’t I tell you earlier that Maxwell Burgoyne was loaded?”
“You said big-time businessman. Lisa said horrible.” Eden used her remote to lock the car doors. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”
“He might have left us something in his will,” Mary persisted. “You know, a conscience thing.”
Lisa shook her head. “Maxwell didn’t have a conscience, Mary. There won’t be any guilt money.”
“Oh, well, screw him then. Or sue him if the opportunity arises.” Mary poked the front door open with her fingertips. “I smell raspberries.”
Eden looked up. The rain clouds had moved downriver but no stars shone overhead. The air felt heavy, almost suffocating. Cars rolled past on Canal even this late at night. She heard a saxophone down the street and the repeated zot of someone’s bug zapper.
Everything seemed normal. So why, she wondered, couldn’t she shake the image of those stupid blue-tinted headlights in her rearview mirror—or the face of a cop who preferred shadow to light?
“Losing it,” she decided and followed her sisters inside. “Hey, Ty.”
“Hey back at’cha.” Lucille’s six-foot-six rail-thin assistant waved a ring-covered hand at the rear of the building. “She’s up in her office if you’re looking.”
“Bring bourbon,” Mary called over her shoulder.
Ty ignored her. “Bad day?” he asked Eden.
“Okay day, not great night.” She squinted through palm fronds, people and tables to a trio of women on a small raised stage. “Is it blues week?”
“Winding down now, sugar. Got a reggae band booked tomorrow. Tell your chippy little sister, Lucille still keeps a good bar upstairs.”
Eden grinned. “Mary doesn’t really have a chip on her shoulder, Ty. She took a method acting course last year and hasn’t realized it’s over yet.”
Ty chuckled and moved on. Eden headed for the stairwell.
Lucille’s preference ran to freeze-dried palms, rattan furniture and dim lighting. Blues music drifted out of the private rooms, and the air did in fact smell like raspberries.
Because she’d done her first filling at seven-thirty that morning, Eden’s head felt as fuzzy as the lights. She’d crossed, she reflected, into that weird realm between consciousness and sleep.
The wall beside her was lined with oil paintings, most of them abstract, and every one as dark and mysterious as Armand LaMorte.
“Hell.” With a sigh, Eden started up.
“Hell, is it? And I thought you liked my place.”
Her heart lurched. Pushing a fist into her ribs, Eden breathed out and turned. “I don’t need a coronary to make this night a bust, Lucille. Don’t you creak when you walk?”
Lucille, a tall, fine-boned woman with straight, dark hair, a thick fringe of bangs and bloodred fingernails, gave Eden’s cheek a pat. “You were creaking enough for both of us, love. What are you doing here so late?”
Eden relaxed. “Lisa wants to talk to you.”
“I heard the story.”
“The whole thing?”
“Most of it. There was a police officer here tonight, an old friend. We chatted. He left twenty minutes ago.”
For some reason, Armand’s face flashed in Eden’s head. She pushed it out and asked, “Is this cop a regular friend?”
“Yes, but I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t use that word around Mary. Since my potpourri now contains a hint of poison, I’ll assume she’s upstairs with Lisa.”
Humor crept into Eden’s tone. “Wanna run?”
“It’s tempting.” Lucille plastered on a smile. “I’ll settle for letting you lead the way—in case she’s conned Lisa into buying her a gun.”
Gun, cop, Armand LaMorte. The circle drew her in, as did all the problems Eden saw looming before her. Why couldn’t Mary look like Lisa instead of her?
Barbs flew the moment they entered Lucille’s office. Eden ignored them and drank in the atmosphere to distract herself.
The decor was Haitian with an abundance of ebony wood. Eden zeroed in on the sofa and dropped onto it. Five minutes passed before it occurred to her that Lisa had vanished.
“She made a beeline for the lower balcony.” Mary gestured at a large outer terrace. “Digging helps her deal. She told me to fill Lucille in. Now that’s done, where’s the key to the liquor cabinet?”
Lucille’s brows elevated. “You don’t seem concerned about Lisa’s state of mind, Mary. Since when can’t she speak for herself?”
“She asked, I complied. Who am I to psychoanalyze her? She’s dealing, okay?”
“By digging in my club garden at 2:00 a.m.?”
“Digging’s what she does.” Annoyed, Mary paced. “Why am I talking, Eden, and you’re not?”
“I’m too tired to talk.” She wasn’t even sure she could open her eyes now that she’d closed them. “I see disembodied teeth smiling at me. I think I have an extraction at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.” She forced her eyelids halfway up. “Lucille, why didn’t you tell us about Maxwell?”
“Because he was a dreadful man. Not bad from birth, but he became that way over the years. For you to have known him would have served no purpose.”
Mary prowled the room. “You’d never know she grew up in the bayou, would you, Eden? Bottom line, the guy was a creep.”
“Did Dolores know about him?” Stupid question. Dolores knew everything about everyone in her life.
“She agreed you shouldn’t meet him.”
“But you must have realized Lisa would track him down eventually.”
“I thought Lisa had put that obsession behind her. I had no idea she planned to hire a private investigator to search for him. I wouldn’t have expected her to bother.”
“Well, no, seeing as you lied to us so convincingly.” Mary tugged on the armoire door. “You remember the tale, Lucille. Our natural father sailed off to the South Pacific with a team of scientists and their ship went down, blah, blah, blah.”
Curious now, Eden asked, “What made Lisa look for Maxwell, Mary?”
“Hey, I just found out about the P.I. thing myself. I have no idea what middle sis was thinking or why. Maybe the ship going down sounded hokey to her. It might have to me if I’d cared enough to think about it. I’d say you should ask Lisa, but she’s out of talk mode at the moment. As soon as we came in here, she got that ‘I need to get my hands in dirt’ look in her eyes and took off out the balcony door. Can we go now, Eden?”
“As soon as my muscles reconnect to my brain. Have you spoken to Dolores yet, Lucille?”
“Briefly. She said you didn’t have dinner with her last Sunday. That’s very generous of you. Unwise perhaps, but generous.”
Guilt niggled as Eden recalled her resistance to the police lineup. “It was Mary’s idea.”
“And a selfless one, I’m sure.”
