Under the Cajun Moon (3 page)

In the meantime, one of the cops led me to an empty suite next door
and told me to have a seat on the couch and wait for the arrival of the detective. Silently, he stood guard in the open doorway, keeping me safe. I assumed the other one was securing the scene.

Still confused and incredibly frustrated, I was actually glad to have some peace and quiet to think things through. My brain still felt foggy and my headache was getting worse.

As I willed the fog to clear, the realization that a man was dead began to sink in. The poor guy was dead! However it had happened, I mourned for his passing and for his loved ones, who would be finding out the sad news any time now.

A cluster of curious hotel guests began gathering in the courtyard outside, trying to get a peek at what all the hoopla was about. Wishing they would all go away, I called the front desk and asked them to send over something for a headache. Soon a hotel employee appeared with a bottle of water and a packet of generic ibuprofen. I swallowed the pills immediately, leaned my head back against the couch, and closed my eyes.

From the sound of things, the room next door was buzzing with all sorts of activity. As I continued to wait for the detective, I tried to grasp more memories from my befuddled brain.

I remembered dropping Jenny at the office and then running home to pack after my mother’s call. I remembered racing to the airport, catching the flight that Jenny had arranged for me, hoping I would arrive while my father was still alive.

I remembered descending toward the New Orleans airport several hours later, nervously holding my cell phone in my hand and waiting for permission to turn it back on so I could call to see where things stood. Outside, as the lights of the city had loomed into view, I had felt that odd disconnect of coming home once it wasn’t home anymore. Astounded by the unreality of the situation, I’d had to admit that I always expected one day my dad would die from a heart attack or a stroke brought on by a fit of rage at some poor dishwasher who had missed a spot on a plate, or a waitress who had given a patron the wrong kind of spoon. Never had I expected to hear that he’d been a victim of gunfire.

But that was exactly what had happened. According to my mother,
around noon today my father had been the victim of a hunting accident down at his favorite stomping grounds in the swamps of south central Louisiana, an accident that had left him with a gunshot wound to the leg. The bullet had struck an artery, causing him to lose several pints of blood before help had finally arrived. Paramedics had taken him to the nearest hospital, which was in Morgan City, gotten him stabilized, and then airlifted him to Oschner Hospital in New Orleans. Even as I had been en route to New Orleans myself, my father had been having major surgery.

Reaching New Orleans at last, I dialed my mother’s number the moment I could after the plane landed, hoping she would report that my father’s surgery was successful and that he had regained consciousness.

The call had gone to voice mail, so I simply told her I had arrived in New Orleans and would be at the hospital as soon as I could get there. Once I hung up, I tucked my phone away, gathered my things, and waited what felt like an eternity for the plane to be secured at the gate and the doors to be opened.

Thanks to Jenny who had booked me in seat 1C, I was the first one off the plane. The airport was quiet, and I was able to move quickly up the hall and into the main area, which was lined with empty restaurants and darkened gift shops. Taking the escalator, I reached the first floor and strode briskly past baggage claim to the rental car desk at the far end of the hall. As I got closer, I was relieved to see that there was only one person in line. When it was my turn, the young man at the desk processed my rental quickly, and by the time I got back to baggage claim, the buzzer was sounding and the conveyor belt was just kicking into action.

Watching for my bags, I thought about my relationship with my parents. Things were complicated, but I did love them. Just knowing what they were both going through had knotted up my insides like a fist. I kept hearing my mother’s voice saying
We need you, Chloe
. I wasn’t sure if I had ever heard those words from either of my parents before.

We need you.

The physical trauma of a gunshot wound would be hard enough on anyone, but it didn’t help that my dad was getting on in years. I was a late-in-life baby for him, so it was easy to forget that by now he was
almost in his eighties. He had always seemed so healthy and vibrant, especially when he was with my mom, who was still stunningly beautiful and younger than him by fourteen years. But I had to remember that he wasn’t as young as he seemed, not at all. Even if he survived this, it was definitely going to take a toll on him.

My bag had been one of the last to come out, but after a quick shuttle ride I had claimed my rental car and climbed inside. There, I had forced myself to sit quietly for a moment, take a few deep breaths, and try to gather my wits about me.

I hadn’t been back home in a long time, longer than I wanted to admit. Had it been two years? Three? All I knew was that if my father died before I had a chance to see him and say goodbye, I would never forgive myself.

What kind of daughter was I, anyway?

My cell phone rang just as I was about to start the car, so I waited, answering instead. It was my mother returning my call, saying that she had been in the recovery room with my father when I had phoned from the plane.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s hanging in there. But he needs you to do him a very big favor, Chloe. I know you want to come straight to the hospital, but he desperately needs you to handle an important business matter for him first. You’ve got power of attorney, you know, so you’re the only one who can do it.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. My father and I had signed power of attorney papers a good ten years ago, when I was in my early twenties, just out of college and embarking on my career. At the time I hadn’t understood why he had chosen me for such an important role, so afterward I had gathered up the nerve to ask him why he had designated his daughter rather than his wife. What my mother didn’t know and would never know was what he said to me in reply.
You’re a smart girl, Chloe, not like your mom. She may be the most beautiful gal in New Orleans, but she’s also one of the dumbest. You know how much I love her, but if anything ever happens to me, I need to know you’ll be handling my affairs, not her.

At the time, I was offended on my mother’s behalf but deeply flattered
on my own. Mostly, I was shocked by the rare vote of confidence coming from a man who constantly found fault in those around him, especially me. He was right about my mother in the sense that certain things confounded her, particularly things that involved paperwork or finances. I, on the other hand, had taken after my father, who was born knowing how to do business. His trust in me was well placed, but even then I had hoped I would never be in a position to actually prove it.

Yet there I was ten years later, and the first thing my mother was asking of me was the last thing on earth I wanted to do.

“What if Dad doesn’t make it? Can’t this wait?”

“No, it can’t. Please, Chloe, just do this one thing and then you can come.”

She rattled out my instructions. I was to go straight to Ledet’s, our family restaurant in the French Quarter, where I was to meet up with their lawyer and sign some business contracts he and my father had been working on.

“Dad’s not selling the restaurant, is he?”

“Goodness, no. He’s buying something. Some property. The lawyer knows what it’s all about. You just have to sign the paperwork.”

Incredible
, I thought as the knot in my gut slowly began to shift upward toward my heart. My father was practically at death’s door, yet even in his last, desperate moments it was more important for him to know that a business matter was handled than to see his daughter’s face one last time and tell her all of the things he had never been able to say before.

Things like
I love you
,
Chloe
, and
I’m sorry
,
Chloe
.

Now, sitting on the couch in the hotel room and thinking of my father, I tried to remember if I had ever made it to the hospital last night. Somehow, I just knew that I had not. Frantic, I looked up at the policeman who was standing watch and asked him if he knew anything about Julian Ledet.

“Julian Ledet, the chef? Yeah, I heard he got shot yesterday.”

“Do you know if he’s still alive?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m his daughter. I came to town so I could be with him at the hospital. They weren’t sure if he would make it through the night.”

“Far as I know, he’s still alive,” the cop replied, eyeing me strangely. “At least I haven’t heard otherwise.”

We were interrupted by the appearance of a man wearing a brown suit the same shade as his bowl-cut hair. Speaking with a downtown “N’Awlins” accent, he introduced himself as Detective Walters, though it came out sounding more like “Wahtus.”

He sat down on the chair to my left, looking as though he was ready for a nice long chat. It wasn’t until that moment that I began to grasp the gravity of my situation. My father’s life was hanging in the balance at the hospital, but instead of being there with him I had woken up this morning in a strange hotel room, one with a dead man on the couch.

Now I could only hope that the detective had come to give me an explanation, because I sure didn’t have one for him.

F
RANCE, 1719
J
ACQUES

It was time for the final beating.

Jacques reached for the flat sheet of gold and placed it on the work surface in front of him, thrilled that after an entire month of casting, rolling, and beating, casting, rolling, and beating, over and over and over, this incredibly long and boring and tedious job was finally almost finished. That simple thought filled Jacques’ mind with a joy and relief so great he felt like shouting. Given that his presence was supposed to be a secret, though, Jacques knew he could do no such thing—nor even speak very loudly, for that matter, lest the farmer who labored in the surrounding fields hear. He kept silent but was unable to conceal a grin as he worked.

“You’re looking mighty pleased with yourself,” Papa said softly from accross the room, pausing to sit up straight, wiggle his shoulders, and move his head from side to side in a stretching motion. Goldsmithing was hard on the back and neck.

Jacques gestured toward the rack against the wall, its shelves bending from the weight of one hundred and ninety-five brass fleur-de-lis statuettes covered in gold leaf. Just five more and they would be finished!

“I’m smiling because this tedious commission is finally drawing to a close. Oh, how I long to get out of this stuffy workshop and breathe some
fresh air! Then it’s out of isolation for us both and back to the city and a normal life.”

“Back to Angelique, you mean,” Papa teased with a wink.

“Back to the angelic Angelique,” Jacques agreed, grinning.

Papa chuckled, which sent him into a bout of coughing. His agonized wheezing and choking had become a familiar sound in the past few weeks, a desperate refrain that echoed repeatedly off of the walls of this stifling place. The old man had quicksilver poisoning, incurred several weeks ago when he was preparing the amalgam for water gilding and had accidentally inhaled mercury vapors. Irreversible and incurable, quicksilver poisoning was also eventually fatal. Immediately he had changed processes, switching to mechanical gilding instead, which was more tedious but safer. By then, however, it was already too late.

As his health had grown worse, and knowing he would not be able to finish the job alone, Papa had written to Jacques, instructing him to close up their Paris shop, tell everyone that he was off to visit an ailing aunt in Provence, and head to the eastern banks of the Seine. There, he was to purchase a rowboat, load it with as much nonperishable food as it would carry, and set off upriver, watching for a leather apron that would be hanging from a tree along the northern shore.