Imogene in New Orleans (3 page)

“I know, Jackson, but Glenway was paranoid about the cops all summer, and I didn’t listen to him. Now I don’t trust the cops to do what they’re supposed to do. Please, just pick up everything you see.”

“Yeah, quit your hemmin’ and hawin’, Jack, and tote your own load,” Imogene said, excitedly picking up the entire box of delicious pralines. She made her way to the rolltop desk and looked at the calendar.

“Let’s see here. Look what he done just this month of August: ‘Meetin’ with Lena,’ ‘Meetin’ with Rogers,’ ‘Buddy,’ ‘Allen money.’ Shoot, the Gilbert boy was a busy fellar.” Imogene dropped her sunglasses on the floor and reached to get them. She leaned into the desk and felt around its base. She grabbed a leather-bound notebook and held it close to her stomach, trying to keep it away from the boys. Jackson watched her, though, as he and Billy both followed Neil’s instructions to collect important things.

Jackson saw Imogene slip the small leather book in her purse without Billy noticing. Billy walked over to Jackson and whispered, “We shouldn’t be doing this. This is a crime scene.” Jackson, who stood a head taller, squeezed his partner and then turned to Neil. “Neil, I think the cops ought to be here.”

Imogene scowled at the boys, as if they were ruining her adventure. She began feverishly stuffing her purse with everything that would fit before they could stop her. She pocketed matches, lighters, cigars, a cigarette case, a pencil, and a coaster with the name “Lafitte’s” on it.

“Just trust me. What happened here was not natural. I know Glenway was supposed to meet with the police this summer, some asshole named Captain Rogers or Sergeant Rogers. But one of Glenway’s complaints was that he could never get the officer to show up. I have a bad feeling about this, and if anything comes of us taking stuff, I’ll do the explaining.” Neil twisted the ends of his mustache and then searched the enclosure. He bent over and touched Glenway’s back. He had not yet made contact with the body since its discovery, and Jackson heard him sniffling. Neil stroked Glenway’s light red hair and mumbled, “He called that color ‘tangerine.’”

Goose had been in awe of the mess since he walked inside, and as soon as Imogene let go of his leash, he started sniffing the premises. He kept his smushed snout in the air as he walked around the futon. The earthy smell of Glenway’s body was not the only thing attracting Goose. He apparently smelled some leftover food on the coffee table in the alcove. A piece of garlic bread hung off a plate of cold red beans and rice. He lifted his head high to capture a whiff of the culinary goodness.

“Oh, hey, bud. You remember Glenway? He loved you.” Neil’s words fell on occupied ears. Goose looked at the bread and then back at Neil.

“Hey, what’s that?” Jackson asked. He walked over and put his ear to the door. Now they all heard some commotion out front—the sound of feet shuffling and keys jangling.

Neil craned his neck forward and then stepped back from the futon. “Hurry. Y’all go out the back door. Hurry. Imogene, here.” Neil ran to the desk, rolled up the calendar, and handed it to her. She grabbed it like an Olympic athlete grabbing a baton in a relay and immediately pushed past the boys to exit the studio. Goose had not yet given up on the red beans and bread.

Jackson had to coerce Goose, who planted his short legs against the concrete floor, refusing to leave peacefully. Jackson had to drag him, which elicited a healthy growl from the beast and an even greater attempt to stay put. Jackson wrapped his arms around Goose’s chest, picked him up, and started running to the car with him, his paws dangling in the wind. When he got to the vehicle, he said, “Hey, Billy, Imogene, you stay here while I make sure Neil’s all right. Crank the car.”

“Shoot. Where you goin’ then, Jack?” Imogene turned around and pulled her dress above her shin, ready to sprint with him.

“Just stay here, please.” As Jackson approached the alley door to the studio, he heard yelling.

“What in hell are you doing here, fellow?” The voice was gruff and enormous, a huge contrast to Neil’s, who had more of a gentle tone. Even at a fevered pitch, Neil’s voice could not reach such ferocity. Jackson slid to the alley window and peeked in.

“I’m Lieutenant Nathan P. Rogers. Who the hell are
you
?” The man speaking threw a duffel bag in the corner of the room, which made two wine bottles crash together. He was all sharp, jagged lines, from the cut of his strong jawbone to the cut of his dark suit. His shoulders were so broad, he looked like you could strap him into a plow and break an acre of dirt in a half hour. Currently, he towered over Neil. “Can you not speak?”

Jackson saw Lieutenant Rogers’s nostrils flaring up. The man suddenly looked like a bull preparing to attack a matador. Neil’s wild black hair trembled under his golf cap. Neil wasn’t short, but the gruff Lieutenant Rogers engulfed him.

“Of course I can speak, Lieutenant Nathan P. Rogers.” Neil spit the words more than he spoke them, spraying the lawman in the face. “If you’d give me a minute, I’d talk. I’m Neil, Glenway Gilbert’s best friend. I came here with some friends from Alabama, who’re visiting us for the week. We were here to pick up Glenway for dinner. We didn’t know he was dead.”

Lieutenant Rogers twitched. “Dead? Who said anything about being dead?” He pushed Neil out of the way and began scouring the room.

Jackson saw Neil grab the desk to stay vertical. “What the hell? I said he was dead. He’s back here on the futon.” Neil held the screen curtain as Rogers clomped toward the alcove. “What? Why didn’t you call the police?” Rogers folded his arms and poked his chest up toward the ceiling.

“Because I just got here, Lieutenant. You’re presumptuous and obnoxious, aren’t you?” Neil crossed his arms. He looked like he could spit again.

“You’ll watch your words around me, or you’ll be the first one I book on suspicion of murder.” Rogers barreled his way toward the coffee table, kicking it out of the way, which caused a shrill sound on the concrete floor.

Neil stepped back as he spoke. “Me? And how did
you
get here so quickly, bucko? Like you said, I didn’t call the police. I guess you were just in the area…?”

Jackson leaned closer to the window for a better view of the confrontation.

Rogers’s voice boomed again. “I’m an officer of law in this city, and I go where I please.” Rogers turned away and observed the corpse, placing his finger under Glenway’s chin for the pulse. Then he put his finger on the patch of bloody hair and lifted Glenway’s collar to see the bruises. He shook his head and then opened his cell phone and began speaking. “This is Lieutenant Rogers. I need three units at the six hundred block of Royal Street at the place called Glenway’s Gallery. Suspicious death of owner Glenway Gilbert: Caucasian male, late fifties, red hair, possible trauma to person including contusion on skull. Units, please respond.”

Rogers continued studying the corpse. Glenway’s legs were lying flat against the futon with his lifeless right hand touching the floor. “Was this mess here when you arrived?”

Neil didn’t respond.

“Hey, Ned or whatever your name is…you hear me?” The lieutenant squinted at Glenway’s pockets and his eyes got big. He stomped a few steps closer to the body. “Hey, Ned, what the hell’s wrong with you? You were talking like a politician a minute ago.” Rogers turned around, but Neil had left the enclosure and was running past Jackson. Rogers elbowed his way to the main studio space that held the empty easel and the desk. He kicked the duffel bag he’d thrown in the corner and yelled, “Hey, hey, fellow.” No one answered. Rogers stomped on an overturned easel, sending the splintered pieces flying toward the studio’s entrance. “Sonuvabitch.”

Three

In the car Jackson accelerated down the road, leaving Neil to follow in his own car. With Billy, Imogene, and Goose in the back seat, Jackson passed the great circle with the statue of a general and headed uptown on St. Charles.

Billy fussed at his mom. “No, you didn’t get those pralines in Mississippi, Mama. You got them in Louisiana, didn’t you? In New Orleans, on Royal Street, at Glenway Gilbert’s studio.” Billy grabbed the wrapper. “Lena’s Place. Hmm, Lena’s Place. Why does that sound familiar?”

Jackson looked at his partner. “Isn’t that next to Neil and Allen’s house? Of course it is. She makes the pralines Neil always gives us.”

Billy prepared his sugar monitor as he scolded his mother. “You’ve eaten two. You better not eat another.” He held his hand out for Imogene to pass him the pralines she had in her white-knuckled grasp. Jackson fastened the rearview mirror on her and watched as she slipped two of the confections in her pocket along with a scribbled note from the box, and handed the rest to the front seat.

“I wouldn’t know how to breathe if y’all wadn’t here.” She sighed.

After Billy made her stick out her finger to be pricked for a blood sugar test, she lifted her white-rimmed sunglasses on her forehead and removed the note from her pocket carefully, so as not to crinkle the paper and draw even more attention to her discovery. Jackson saw her reading the note to herself. She mouthed the words, “Don’t let these get stale, baby. If not for you, I wouldn’t have no shop for ’em. I owe you, Glenway. I won’t never forget. Love, Lena.”
Imogene squinted and read it again. The paper crackled in her hand. Billy turned around abruptly, his blond hair falling in his eyes, and asked what she had in her hand.

“Nothing, son. Just a little note.”

“Let me see it, Mother.” He held out his hand.

“Naw, this here’s mine, and you need to turn around in your seat and show Jackson how to get to Neil’s.” As soon as he turned around, she stuffed the paper in her bra, where she kept several twenty-dollar bills, which she thought she was concealing from the boys.

They heard the sound of a horn behind them. Imogene waved the car around. “Let ’em pass by us, Jackson…up here at the red light.” She couldn’t turn her head completely because she had lost her full range of motion years before. The horn blasted again.

“Dear God, what’s he want?” Imogene asked. “Y’all let him by, then.” She put her sunglasses back on to cover her eyes. The honks kept coming. “Hey, Jackson, just pull over. God knows I don’t wanna be kilt down here.”

“Hey, hold up. That’s Neil, isn’t it?” Billy motioned for Jackson to turn around. Neil flailed his arms at them. “It looks like he wants us to go.”

Imogene shook her head. “Go where? We’re going to the hotel, ain’t we? ’Cause I’m not about to go back to that Gilbert boy’s shop again, not with that big ugly, hulking fellar Jackson spoke of.”

Neil pulled beside them in his car and rolled down his window. “Hey, y’all hold up on going to your hotel. I didn’t even have a chance to tell you, but a friend of mine got you a deal at a better hotel. I’ll tell you about it in a bit.” Neil was talking so fast, they could hardly understand him. He was panting and drenched in sweat. He wiped his brow with his golf cap and flipped it back on. “Follow me. I gave that Lieutenant Rogers the slip. We’re going to my house, uptown.”

Jackson followed Neil onto St. Charles Avenue. As he sped up, Billy leaned over and said, “Do you think Neil or Allen did it?”

Jackson whispered, “Oh, come on. No way.”

Billy pulled his sunglasses down his nose and looked at Jackson. “Neil seemed pretty mad at Glenway. You know he has a temper.”

“Hey, boys, what y’all whisperin’ about up there?”

“Nothing, Mama. We just think it’s odd that we’re changing hotels. And Glenway’s dead.”

“Shoot, boys, sounds like Neil got us a deal. He always does take care of us. We been knowin’ Neil for how long?”

“About ten years, Mama.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t make ’em like Neil. He’s been good to y’all for as long as I can recollect. I know he’s broke up about the Gilbert boy.”

Jackson looked out the window as they passed through the Garden District. He didn’t want to admit to Billy that the thought of Neil and Allen offing Glenway had crossed his mind. They were close enough to Glenway to have the means and opportunity, but he wasn’t sure about a reason yet. By the time he pulled into Neil’s driveway, Imogene was nearly bouncing around in her seat. Jackson watched her pat her chest two or three times, like she had a nervous tick.

Neil immediately began helping remove the items they’d taken from Glenway’s studio. Jackson saw Imogene studying the calendar. Then she stared at the building beyond Neil’s fence, the one with the words “Lena’s Place” painted in a graffiti style and some crabs jumping into a gumbo pot.

Billy helped her out of the car as she asked Neil, “Hey, son. Did she know Glenway?” Imogene pointed her wrinkled finger at the gumbo building made of cinder block, more of a stand than a restaurant. Lena’s Place had only a service window with prices displayed on a plastic board using red numbers, the kind found at ballpark concession stands.

“Of course Lena knows Glenway. She and Glenway were great friends. He must have given her a half dozen paintings. Oh yeah. They drank whiskey together sometimes. And, of course, he didn’t think anyone on this side of the French Quarter could make jambalaya and pralines like her. Why?”

Billy answered before his mother could. “Because she stole a box of Lena’s pralines from Glenway’s studio. And there’s some sort of note she’s hiding. She probably found it in the box.” Billy’s face was flushed, but Jackson couldn’t tell if it was from the heat of New Orleans or the fight with Imogene. Billy fidgeted with the straps on his leather satchel.

“They was gonna ruin, son.” She turned to Neil. “I had a bite of one, but I gave the box
right
back to the boys once they asked after it.” Imogene frowned at her son, who had just ratted her out. She kicked a rock on the sidewalk.

“Hey, listen, it’s all right. Y’all come up on the porch.” Neil walked them to the front of his house, where four columns framed a glory of an old shotgun house, with its long storm shutters on each side of the windows. Ironwork on the door allowed Neil and his partner, Allen, to keep light in and the criminals out. The front door sported a fleur-de-lis in beveled glass.

Imogene motioned for Neil to follow her inside, trying to get away from the boys. Jackson hurried after them. He went to the edge of the foyer, just before it opened into Allen’s framing workshop, where Imogene dragged Neil. She whispered, “Listen, son, them boys stay on me like chickens on June bugs. I can’t do nothing without them raisin’ you know what.” Jackson saw her reach into her shirt. Neil took a step backward. She extracted the note from her bra and opened it. “Listen here to this: ‘Don’t let these get stale, baby. If not for you, I wouldn’t have a shop for ’em. I owe you, Glenway. I won’t never forget. Love, Lena.’” Imogene took a step closer to Neil and then asked if he thought it meant anything.