Lies Agreed Upon (25 page)

As if
he had waved a magic wand, Tess felt her insipient tension headache recede. She lifted a bite of tender, perfectly cooked filet mignon on her fork, slipped it into her mouth and closed her eyes briefly to savor it. Opening her eyes, she looked straight into Tony’s indulgent gaze. “Can you read what my sweet, open face is thinking?” she teased.

“You’re thinking this is a wonderful meal, and I am so very glad I’m enjoying it with Tony Mizzi. He’s kind, witty and sexy as hell,” asserted her escort without the least hesitation.

Tess laughed. “You’ve convinced me of your kindness, I agree. But how about some evidence of your wit? Any amusing New Orleans anecdotes you’d care to share?”

“Hey, why don’t I focus on proving my sexy attributes first?” protested Tony.

“Amuse me now with your conversational skills, and I’ll decide if I’m interested in seeing other talents,” said Tess in mock severity.

“Harsh. OK, let me tell you a little story about how I almost got arrested one Mardi Gras season. Usually I avoid the carnival craziness like the plague,
as I said, but two years ago…” Tony proceeded to recount various misadventures, and he kept Tess laughing through the rest of the meal.

Along the way Tony even gave Tess a lesson in the peculiar pronunciation of New Orleans streets, warning Tess to never, ever pronounce the French or Spanish place names in a French or Spanish way. Thus, Cadiz Street is “KAY-diz” Street, Chartres Street is “CHAW-tuhs” Street, and Metairie is “MET-tree.” The streets named for Greek muses p
resented even greater challenge. Euterpe becomes YOU-terp, and Calliope becomes CAL-lee-ope.

“A New Orleans native pronounces the city’s name in a variety of ways from ‘new OR-lans’ to ‘nyoo AH-lee-ans’ and several other variations,” advise
d Tony, “but not ‘new or-LEENS’. And referring to the place as The Big Easy can mark you as a tourist, too.”

As they sat relaxed and sated over coffee, Tess reminded Tony of his promise to show her the Mardi Gras museum, and the two climbed to the second floor to wander amid the
relics of long-ago merriment. Tony casually looped his arm through hers as they toured, and Tess felt it would be awkward to push him away, but she discretely avoided a continuation of his light touch as they stepped into the street for the short stroll to her hotel. His lighthearted chatter never skipped a beat.

Soon Tony was escorting Tess through
her hotel lobby to the elevator.

“Now moral sticklers
—who shall remain nameless, but they are probably friends of Jon—say that it is unprofessional for a lawyer to kiss his client. Do you agree?” he asked.

Tess responded breathlessly, “I
think a professional relationship would preclude kissing.” She began to cast nervously about for a response that would discourage Tony without insulting him.

“But it is quite alright for a friend helping a friend, with no money involved, to give a quick peck to said friend. Don’t you think?”
he continued.

Tess
looked at her feet and felt a flush creep up her cheeks. She had uttered only a choked “Um, I…” when Tony’s finger came under her chin and tilted it gently upward so that she had to meet his eyes.

“I’m willing. Are you?”
he asked.

Tess parted her lips to refuse, but Tony, sensing the incipient rebuff, moved quickly. His
mouth was already brushing her cheek in a brief touch of warm flesh and exhaled breath before she could answer.

“Exactly,” he agreed as he straightened, but his eyes teased and his lips twitched up in a pleased little smile. “So, good night, and I look forward to a duel with our nemesis Mr. Dreux. Call me and let me know how your meeting goes.” Tony gave a loose salute of farewell before vanishing out the door.

Tess felt unreasonably guilty for her failure to prevent the escalation of the flirtation. What about Mac? How could she engage in light-minded dalliance if she was passionately involved with him? She stepped into the elevator, scolding herself, “And I don’t even like Tony as much as—”

She stopped before completing the thought, di
sturbed. Was she going to say Remy? Or even Jon?

She stepped out of the elevator on her floor and checked her phone, which she had mu
ted during her dinner. As if conjured, she had a voice message from Remy: “Hey, Tess, I’m glad you enjoyed Uncle Joe’s swamp tour. He’s a character. Uncle Joe talked with J.J. about this Noah Cabirac of Manchac. Noah’s dead, but I guess you knew that. Anyway, one of his sisters is still alive and living in Lafayette, and I can pass on her contact info. Her name is Louise Gregory. If you want to drive out to meet her in person, I’d be glad to offer my services as a guide in Lafayette.”

Remy proceeded to provide Louise’s phone and street address and then paused.
“Listen, I think I should tell you that J.J. says Louise Gregory has some kind of grudge against the Cabrera family. It’s probably nothing, but he felt I should warn you.” Remy ended the call on that somber note.

“Of course, I’ve found another family feud,”
sighed a weary Tess.

11 vendetta

The law offices of Graham, Odom
& Dreux, LLC, were not what Tess expected. She stepped out of the elevator on the 10
th
floor of a high-rise commercial tower and immediately faced a bright cloudless sky through a near-invisible expanse of window glass. There was only a short runway of gray industrial carpet from the steel-enclosed elevator to empty air.

The lobby décor was minimal and domina
ted by a sleek brushed-chrome reception counter guarding a reception desk and a narrow black door to the legal inner sanctum. On the wall behind the reception desk, the words Graham, Odom & Dreux were spelled out in three rows of black wrought-iron, the only décor item reflecting its New Orleans milieu.

Tess approached the reception counter gingerly, tightly clutching Mr. Dreux’s envelope, although all the relevant papers were still with Tony Mizzi. The envelope was a decoy to distract the old lawyer while she probed for family background before announcing her decision to delay the deal.

According to an etched silver nameplate, Tess had located the “Miss Jinx” of her first conversation with the law office. The last name was actually “Jinks,” but the full name was still unique, even peculiar: Chrysanthe Jinks.

As if cued, a middle-aged woman with permed steel curls and grayish skin popped up
from the desk behind the reception bastion. “You must be Miss Parnell,” she said in a clipped, no-nonsense tone. At Tess’s wordless nod, the woman continued, “Mr. Dreux is on a conference call just now. I’m his administrative assistant, Miss Jinks. He should be available soon. Please take a seat.”

“Darn, a woman called Chrysanthe Jinks should be refreshingly exotic.
A 6-foot Amazon in designer couture would fit. But this one is an office machine.”

Too anxious to sit, Tess stood and gazed at the cityscape vista. She had
dressed in her new black pantsuit to convince Dreux and herself she possessed gravitas, but the impersonal power of his office had unnerved her.

“Calm down. Don’t let the modern veneer fool you. Old Phil is still a relic. You can handle him.”

Tess could feel the assistant’s eyes boring into her back, so she cleared her throat, faced the little gray woman and asked politely, “Have you worked with Mr. Dreux a long time?”

“Actually, I’ve worked for Nathan Graham and Gerry Odom for a long time. Mr. Dreux joined the firm
only 15 years ago,” replied Miss Jinks with a tight-lipped smile. “But he’s a lovely gentleman, and we’ll miss him when he retires in a few months.”

Because she was nervous, Tess blurted out the first questions that bobbed into her mind
. “Is Mr. Dreux married? Does he have any family?”

“I don’t think it would be proper for me to discuss Mr. Dreux’s personal life,” answered Miss Jinks with a disapproving frown.

“Of course not,” flushed Tess but then continued with sudden inspiration. “It’s just that Mr. Dreux has kindly shared his intimate knowledge of my family, as a family friend rather than as a legal advisor, but I’m embarrassed to say I never asked him anything about his own family. Can you perhaps give me a brief bio?”

Tess hoped Miss Jinks would assume her relationship with Dreux had already departed from the strictly professional so a bending of the rules was permissible. The strategy was rewarded.

“Well, I see your relationship with Mr. Dreux is more personal,” Miss Jinks conceded and relaxed her stiff posture. She stood and leaned her elbows on the reception counter, like a neighbor gossiping across a fence. “Mr. Dreux has never married, and I think he has no close living relatives either,” she confided. “Someone told me the poor man still carries a torch for a lost love from his youth.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” mumbled Tess and wandered back to look at the view. After many silent,
sluggish minutes, Miss Jinks hustled Tess through a maze of gray corridors and deposited her in a conference room. The far wall was another expanse of glass-framed sky, and a boat-shaped ebony table floated against the blue, surrounded by black chairs, five per side like unmanned galley oar stations. Tess sat tensely in the empty room. The only sound was the low hum of an office hive—pulsing machinery, rustling steps and conversations muted by doors behind doors. At last, she heard soft scuffing footsteps approach.

A smiling Philip Dreux shuffled in and extended a tremulous hand as Tess rose to greet him. “So nice to see you again, Miss Parnell,” he murmured and gestured for her to resume her seat as he toddled toward a credenza with a coffee maker. “May I pour you some coffee, young lady?” he asked.

When she politely declined, he slowly and silently poured a cup for himself and doused it with a creamer packet and two full sugar pouches. He then moved slowly toward a seat opposite Tess, concentrating on careful balance of the coffee in his palsied grip. He set the cup down in a slight slosh of hot liquid and then sat with his back to the bright window, which forced Tess to squint into the glare. It was an adversarial positioning probably due as much to ingrained habit as planning.

He looked for a moment at the manila envelope under Tess’s hand and then raised his pale eyes guilelessly. “Before we begin to discuss your property, tell me about your adventures to date. Did you look through more of your mother’s personal mementos? Did you find anything revealing?”

“I was pretty busy and didn’t have much time to dig around in old boxes,” Tess replied with a shrug, wondering about the old man’s obsession with her mother’s discarded life.

“Ah, perhaps when you return home,” nodded Dreux. He leaned back in his chair and took a tentative sip of coffee. “And since coming here, have you been able to explore your family history? Have you been to see the portrait of Josephine Chastant at the 1850 House, or chatted with Sam Beauvoir?”

“Yes, I looked at Josephine’s painting. I also met Sam Beauvoir as you suggested, and he was very helpful. In fact, I learned Mr. Beauvoir is the owner of SB Land Management, the firm my mother used as her agent here. I’m surprised you didn’t recall it. Plus, I learned quite a bit about my family from people you didn’t mention, like Gloria Donovan,” Tess replied, watching Dreux’s reaction carefully.

The old man blinked. “Of course, I should have remembered that SB Land Ma
nagement is run by Sam Beauvoir It’s distressing to realize my memory is not what it used to be. As for Gloria, well, she is the last Donovan and a bit eccentric, as I think you’ll agree,” he remarked. “So did any of these people supply you with new information?” Tess thought Dreux’s avuncular smile was a little strained.

“You know the most important thing I learned from Sam Beauvoir and Gloria Donovan was that
you
are personally acquainted with my family,” stated Tess in a firm voice. “Yet you didn’t say you knew my grandfather when we first met. You knew that he had been murdered, but you left that revelation to an old newspaper clipping. You knew my grandmother and mother stayed for a time with the Donovans, where you were a frequent visitor because of your friendship with Desmond Donovan. Yet you behaved as if my relatives were all strangers to you and directed me to Sam Beauvoir for family background. What I find most amazing of all is that you knew my mother witnessed Desmond Donovan’s suicide as a child, and that it was certainly related to why my grandmother moved away and perhaps for her decision to stop using her married name. But you said nothing.”

Tess leaned forward and her voice rose as she went through the list of information that Dreux had suppressed in their first meeting.

Dreux raised his hand defensively and gave her a small, patronizing smile. “You seem to read a nefarious purpose in what I consider laudable discretion, Miss Parnell. I omitted information, yes, but I didn’t lie to you, young lady. Once I realized you had little knowledge of certain past events, I didn’t feel it was my place to pass along gossip unrelated to our business, which was quite simply the sale of your property. I pointed you to people who could inform you, and they did. I was never close to your grandfather, and there was nothing pertinent I could tell you about his death, or his life for that matter. I had only minimal interaction with your grandmother and mother when I visited Desmond.”

“And the suicide? The trauma my mother suffered as a child witness? You didn’t think it was relevant?” demanded Tess.

“It has great relevance to the development of your mother’s character, I’m sure. But what is its relevance to my business?” replied Dreux, his blue eyes calm. “I certainly didn’t think it was proper for me to discuss my friend Desmond’s unhappy death in the context of a real estate transaction. The connection between his death and your family’s decisions would be something only your grandmother and mother could have, or should have, revealed to you. Did they?” As Tess reluctantly shook her head, he continued in a gentle voice, “Now don’t you think this conversation is far afield from our purpose?”

Tess
pressed her lips tightly together to hold back an irritated reply. She needed to be less confrontational and more diplomatic if she wanted to get information from Dreux.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, Mr. Dreux, and I really am grateful to you for setting me on the path to learning about my family hi
story,” she said, but she couldn’t resist returning to one of her original concerns. “But it would seem to be ethically if not legally proper to mention that your firm, perhaps even you personally, met with my mother right before she died, on the same day in fact, to discuss purchase of the Cabreras’ inherited land.”

Dreux looked at her, his face blank. “Yes, I did meet with your mother in California, but we came to no agreement. You didn’t find any paperwork to that effect, did you?” Again Tess shook her head. “It was a wasted journey for me as far as purchase of the property.”

“It’s not the fact of the meeting I’m getting at,” Tess persisted, “but its timing on the day of her death. Although you haven’t said so, I think you know it was a suicide. Naturally, I have to wonder if what was discussed at that meeting upset her. Perhaps a traumatic reminder of New Orleans?”

“Yes, I knew it was a suicide, but I didn’t bring it up with you simply because I am a di
screet man sensitive to others’ feelings. Heavens, I went out of my way with your mother to avoid any talk of traumatic memories, believe me. And there is no imaginable way sale of that property would lead to such a despairing act,” protested Dreux. He paused and appeared to tamp down an indignant agitation. His features settled back into kindly concern. “So shall we leave such unhappy memories and proceed with a discussion of the property in question?”

Tess was
not really satisfied there was no connection between Dreux’s visit and her mother’s action, yet his explanations were so reasonable she could not think of a way to dispute them.

“
Please indulge my desire to learn about my family for a moment more,” responded Tess finally. “Gloria Donovan told me there was information that only you would know. Once I sign away the property and return to California, I doubt we’ll meet again, will we?” Tess asked with a wide-eyed, conciliatory smile.

“Well played. You’ve simultaneously stroked his ego and stoked his greed. A little information seems a cheap quid pro quo for your signature.”
 

The old man was silent, his fingers tapping together in a tent that obscured his mouth. He aimed a cool blue stare at her and said quietly, “Yes, I understand your desire to know about your heritage, and I sympathize. But
, believe me, I am a peripheral and not unbiased observer, no matter what Gloria said.”

“Gloria Donovan said you went to high school with my grandfather Guy Cabrera as well as Desmond and Dylan Donovan. I would appreciate even sketchy portrait
s,” Tess pressed as earnestly as she could without pleading.

The old man’s eyes clouded and crepe lids descended to mask his thoughts. He fixed his gaze on the ebony table top, following a pale arthritic finger as it circled and spread the wet ring of coffee spill.

“Well, Guy and I did indeed attend the same high school—the venerable St. Paul’s. It was the alma mater here for your great-great grandfather Armand, his sons and grandsons. Unfortunately, Katrina flooded the place and it has moved to a new and soulless campus halfway to Baton Rouge.” Dreux’s lips twisted at the bitter residue of storm-forced change. “But Guy and I were not friends, and after high school, we went our separate ways—Guy into medicine and I into law.”

“Still you must have some memories of Guy Cabrera,” insisted Tess.

“Generalities mostly, I’m afraid,” said Dreux with resigned sigh. “In high school, Guy was bright but not outstandingly intelligent. I was the class valedictorian, not Guy, for example. He was good-looking but not as handsome as Desmond Donovan. While Guy was friendly, courteous and well-behaved, I think it was Desmond who had what you’d call ‘charisma.’ I suppose the thing that made Guy special was his universal popularity. He was a leader, not by force of will or talent but because people just liked him and invested in him a trust he didn’t seek—or always deserve in my opinion. It’s hardly a detailed portrait, but I was not Guy’s bosom buddy,” concluded the old man, arching a brow as if challenging her to object.