Limoncello Yellow (Franki Amato Mysteries) (7 page)

"
The case reminds me of a striptease I used to do when I was working at Madame Moiselle's in the Quarter."

"
Oh?" I was instantly drawn in. I couldn't help it—there was something about Glenda that intrigued me.

"
It was an artistic rendering of a woman's transformation from victimization to self-empowerment."

"
Wow," I said, at a loss for words in the face of her burst of intellectualism. Veronica wasn't kidding when she said Glenda was smart.

"
I dressed entirely in sheer scarves. As I stripped away each one, it signified her metamorphosis. There was a top layer of black scarves, then underneath a layer of gray, beneath that a layer of white and then finally, a single pink scarf."

"
That's really beautiful, Glenda," I said, finding myself—to my complete and utter astonishment—moved by her description. 

"
What did the pink scarf represent?" Veronica asked, entranced. "The woman's soul?"

Glenda looked taken aback.
"No. Her vagina."

"
Ah." I was once again speechless—but this time for a different reason. Fortunately, Phillip the bartender chose that moment to return with our drinks.

"
So, the woman reclaimed her power by taking back her vagina from her victimizer," Veronica interpreted, still completely engrossed in the significance of the dance.

Oh God
, I thought, taking a sip of the drink I was now overjoyed to have at hand.

"
Exactly." Glenda looked at her with renewed respect. "And after she took her vagina back, she did whatever the hell she wanted with it!" She cackled as she elbowed Veronica, truly tickled by her own zinger.

Taking
"The Vagina Monologues" as my cue to leave, I stood up and chugged the remainder of my glass of Prosecco. "Well, guys, I hate to drink and run, but I'd better head out. After all, I've got a case to start investigating tomorrow."

Veronica looked up at me.
"I haven't had a chance to tell you this Franki, but I feel so much better now that you're here. I just know I can't go wrong with an ex-cop on my team."

"
That's the first time I've ever heard that one," Glenda said as she tossed back another shot of tequila.

Ignoring Glenda, I replied,
"Thanks, Veronica. It's a nice change to work for someone who has so much confidence in my abilities. See you tomorrow."

As I exited the bar into the crisp January air, it suddenly became clear to me just how much was riding on this case. It wasn
't only about my self-esteem, pride, and career. It was also about Veronica's professional reputation and the success of the business she had worked so hard to establish. That night, the thirty or so steps back to my apartment seemed like the longest walk of my life.

I was getting dressed for work the next morning when I heard a knock at the door. I went to open it, hopping from one foot to the other as I hurriedly pulled on my gray Kardashian Kollection pants I
'd bought on sale at Sears. It was Veronica, rocking a sleek brown Elie Tahari pantsuit with a cream-colored silk blouse. She looked like a gazelle, while I was the spitting image of a hippo.

"
Hey, so how's Napoleon adjusting to his new surroundings?" Veronica asked before I could say hello.

"
Very well, actually," I responded, closing the door behind her as she entered the living room. "The bordello chic decor is really bringing out the animal in him. Last night when I came home from the bar, I found him lying on his back sound asleep on the zebra print chaise lounge with his legs splayed wide open."

"
Men—of any species—have no shame," Veronica said, following me into my bedroom.

"
I know, right?" I immediately thought of Vince and his brazen attitude about his infidelity. I walked into the adjoining bathroom to put on my makeup and was surprised by the scowling face looking back at me in the oval-shaped mirror of the knockoff red Louis XVI vanity. But then I forced myself to smile. I refused to waste anymore of my precious emotion on that cheat.

Veronica flopped down on the bed next to Napoleon.
"Speaking of shame, we're going to church this morning."

"
What?" My sudden anger toward Vince was instantly replaced by the waves of Catholic guilt washing over me. I tried to remember the last time I'd been to church. I'd visited the Vatican on my trip to Rome three years ago, but they turned me away at the door for having bare shoulders, so I was fairly certain that didn't count.

Veronica sighed.
"Relax, Franki. We're not going to mass."

I shot her a questioning look from the bathroom doorway, holding my liquid eyeliner brush like a weapon.

"Or confession," she added, correctly interpreting my gaze. "We're going there to meet Betty Friedan."

I gasped.
"The founder of the National Organization for Women?" Now I was wracked by feminist guilt for putting on my signature Sophia Loren–style cat eyeliner.

"
Gah, Franki! Calm down, will you?" Veronica was lying casually on her side with her head propped up by her arm, indifferent to my issues. "Betty Friedan is our informant's code name."

"
How was I supposed to know you were referring to an informant?" I asked, relieved that I could now wear blush and lipstick too. "I mean, why doesn't she have a normal informant name like 'Deep Throat' or 'Huggy Bear' or something?"

"
Because she's not Bob Woodward's Watergate source or a TV character from Starksy and Hutch. She's a feminist crime analyst from the New Orleans PD."

"
So, we're going to a church to pay off a corrupt feminist employee of the police department," I recapped. "What's the occasion?"

"
She's going to give us the police report on the Evans murder and photos of the crime scene. I called her and asked for them after David texted me the results of Ryan Hunter's background check. His record is clean, by the way. That is, except for the assault charge on Jessica he told us about and a surprising number of moving violations."

I remembered how angry and aggressive he
'd seemed yesterday. "I'm sure he's got a serious case of road rage. People like that are capable of anything."

"
That's a big accusation coming from a woman who once intentionally ran her car into her ex-boyfriend's house."

I glared at her.
"It wasn't his
house
, Veronica. It was his
fence
. The little picket fence we'd painted white together when I was still stupid enough to think he was going to marry me." I couldn't believe she would bring up my college boyfriend, Todd Rothman. Todd had wanted to marry me, but his wealthy parents hadn't approved. They had wanted him to settle down with a nice, upper-class girl who was more befitting of a soon-to-be doctor. So Todd found himself said girl, but he forgot to tell me about her until after they'd started sleeping together in the house that was supposed to have been ours. "But knocking down Todd's fence certainly doesn't make me like Ryan Hunter." 

"
Of course not," she said as she rubbed Napoleon's belly. He had sidled up next to her and was looking at her with pure love in his eyes, the traitor. "I'm just trying to point out that road rage doesn't make someone a killer. So, until we find evidence to prove otherwise, we have to proceed on the assumption that Ryan is innocent, no matter how despicable he may be."

"
I know, I know." It was so annoying when Veronica was right. I
had
all but convicted Ryan and was fully prepared to throw away the key. "But the jury's still out on that guy. And for the record, I've come a long way since Todd. Just look at how well I've handled Vince's cheating."

"
I know, and I'm very proud of you for that," she said, taking the angry wind out of my sails.

"
So where is this church?" I asked, eager to change the subject from my procession of cheating boyfriends to the business at hand.

"
On Rampart Street in the Quarter. It's The Old Mortuary Chapel."

"
A mortuary chapel, Veronica?" She knew how creeped out I was by cemeteries and churches, so I couldn't believe she would willingly take me to a combination of the two. "Really?"

"
Really. It's close to the police station where Betty works. And they haven't kept dead bodies there since the yellow fever epidemic of the 1800s, so you'll be fine. And you'll like it because it became an Italian immigrant church," she added, using our heritage to persuade me.

Such an attorney
, I thought.

"
Now let's go." Veronica gave Napoleon a final scratch and jumped off the bed. "I'll drive. You're kind of jumpy today."             

"
Okay, but we're going out the back door. There is no way in
hell
I'm passing by the cemetery on my way to a mortuary chapel."

* * *

When we arrived at The Mortuary Chapel twenty minutes later, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were no gothic spires or gargoyles on the exterior of the building. I was also surprised to see "Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church" written on the sign out front.

"
Veronica, why did you tell me this church was called 'The Mortuary Chapel'? The sign says 'Our Lady of Guadalupe.'"

"
Because I know you, and if you'd read the historical plaque over there and learned that the original name had the word 'mortuary' in it, you would've caused a scene. Possibly even in the church." She turned off the engine and put her keys into her brown Balenciaga bag.

Good point
, I thought as I walked over to the plaque. I was eager to find out if there was anything else about the church she'd failed to mention. "Hey, this doesn't say anything about being an Italian immigrant church. But it does say that it's 'Now the official chapel of the New Orleans Police and Fire Departments.' Is it really a good idea to meet Betty here?"

Veronica walked up behind me in her dainty Jimmy Choos.
"It's the perfect place. No one in the police department would be surprised if an employee came here. Plus, with all these people around, no one would suspect a payoff was going down either."

"
I hope you're right. You know my
nonna
would never live it down if I got busted in a church," I said, totally serious. My
nonna
was convinced that my lapsed Catholicism was a major impediment to my ability to attract a suitable husband. If I got excommunicated too, it would surely seal my fate as a lifelong
zitella
in her eyes.

Veronica looked at her phone, blatantly ignoring my concerns.
"We're early. Betty might not be here yet. Let's go inside and wait."

"
Why not?" I asked—not without a note of bitterness.

When I followed Veronica into the church, the first thing I noticed was a line of people in front of a statue of a Roman centurion holding a cross and stepping on a bird that, on closer inspection, appeared to be a crow. He looked like one of the modern-day Italian men who hang around the coliseum in
Rome dressed in cheesy gladiator costumes to pose in pictures with tourists. I watched as each person who approached the statue rubbed its feet, murmured something, and then made the sign of the cross. A few people had deposited flowers at the base of the statue, but others had left slices of what looked like pound cake.

"
Man, I wish people would leave me flowers and pound cake," I said. "Which saint is that anyhow? The patron saint of florists and bakers?"

"
That's Saint Expedite," a strong masculine voice replied from behind me.

I turned to see an unorthodoxly attractive young priest with thick, wavy brown hair, sensual lips
, and a ravishing smile. If he'd lived in Rome he would have been a candidate for the annual priest calendar, which, in my mind, was the bizarre and seemingly sacrilegious Italian equivalent of the fireman's calendar. Of course, I didn't think this priest was good looking or anything—it's just that he wasn't
anything
like the old priests I'd grown up around in Houston.

"
I'm Father John." He reached out and clasped my hand in his. The minute his skin touched mine, I instantly felt itchy. Ever since I was a young girl in Sunday school, I'd been allergic to the clergy. Literally. It was a psychosomatic reaction to the Catholic guilt I felt about my sporadic visits to church as a child, thanks to my parents' seven-day-per-week work schedule and the fact that my over excitable
nonna
couldn't be trusted with a car.

I quickly withdrew my hand from his as though it had been burned by the fires of hell and blurted out,
"Bless me father for I have sinned." It was the only thing I could remember ever saying to a priest. The moment the words were out of my mouth, I felt my face turning as red as communion wine.