Rescued By A Kiss (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 1) (19 page)

“Oh, yeah, his real name is Gervais St. Germain.”

“Okay.” Guitarzan was making sense now, I thought. “Where did y’all go?”

“I called a cab and we took it to the Napoleon House. After our drinks, we walked around Jackson Square and I called one to bring us back here.”

“So, there are two cab drivers out there who saw you with him last night,” I said.

She burst into tears. Through tears and sniffles she rendered the rest of the evening to me. They returned and had a nightcap in the salon. Julia went to his room, to make sure he had enough towels. Who was she kidding? Anyway, one thing led to the other and after a night of whoopee she left his room about 5:15 in the morning to make him breakfast and prep food for the other guests arriving later that day. When she brought the tray up to his room, she found him dead and dropped the tray of food. It was still there, all over the floor, just inside the door.

“So, what did y’all talk about last night? Did he have friends here or was he supposed to meet someone else here, since he came in a day early?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” was all she could blubber.

I had a thought. “Check your voicemail. See if anyone called looking for him.”

We went into the hallway where the phone sat on a small, antique reception desk. It was blinking and said it had two new messages. We hit play and the first one was a woman’s voice asking if Gervais St. Germain had checked in. She left a number for him to call. The second caller was a hang up and left no message, but the caller did breathe heavily into the phone for a few seconds.

“That’s the same person who’s called here the last three days, only breathes into the phone, then hangs up. It’s always from a blocked number,” Julia said after I replayed the messages and wrote down the phone number from the first.

I looked at my watch.

“Where are the police?” she asked. Almost thirty minutes had passed since I phoned.

“You should offer coffee and donuts for all cops in this precinct who work the early shift as part of your marketing. Then, they will always keep an eye on the place,” I suggested.

“Now you tell me,” Julie sniffled.

Two cups of coffee later and another splash of Jameson for Julia, a squad car pulled up. It had taken the police over an hour to get here.

Julia and I discussed more of what happened and how much she didn’t know about him while we waited. I told her to tell the truth, as much as she could remember, and if she didn’t know something, to say she didn’t know it. If, for any reason, the police decided to take her in for questioning, I told her to tell them she wanted a lawyer and not to say another thing. I knew her calling me before she called the police was going to be a problem, but I didn’t think it would be a big problem. And, it would have been fine had the first cop car on the scene not been my childhood sweetheart and ex-boyfriend, Dante. Dante and his cop girlfriend who was also his new partner.

During the initial aftermath of our breakup, I thought, or was led to believe, Dante was gay and that was why our relationship was going nowhere. We were childhood sweethearts that morphed into a close friendship, but it didn’t feel like love. Local gossip had it that he was dating his new partner, the lady detective. His previous partner, Joe, was arrested and waiting trial for in his involvement in the oil lease scam I stumbled into after I kissed a stranger in a parade.

J
ulia and I
walked out to the front porch to meet the police when the Ford Custom, the police department’s car of choice for unmarked cars, arrived and flashed the blue dashboard light and pinched off a single bloop on the siren by way of announcing themselves. Dante strode up the steps and introduced himself as Detective Deedler, as if we didn’t know him, and his partner as Detective Hanke. Dante’s partner waved her name shield in my face. It said Z. Hanke. Z stood for Zide, or so the neighborhood rumor mill advised me. I almost burst out laughing at the thought of the other cops calling her Hankey Pankey. Dante appeared to be in an ill humor.

“What happened?” he asked, opening his notebook without looking at either of us.

I looked at Julia. She was standing there as if in a trance.

“Julia?” Dante asked not looking up from the notebook. His partner put her hand on her gun and stared at me. I guess I didn’t need to introduce myself.

Julia turned around and walked inside and started up the steps. I waited for Dante and the partner to follow. Dante looked up and gave me the after you hand gesture. Detective Hanke followed me with Dante bringing up the rear. We all trudged up the stairs to the second floor guest room. I thought the dead guy looked more ghostlike by now. I’m sure rigor was setting in. The floor-to-ceiling windows were all the way open and the lace curtains billowed out to the veranda. The windows opened high enough where you could duck your head and walk out onto the balcony. The sheer curtains waved around the bistro table and two chairs set up out there. An enormous oak tree covered the entire front of the house and most of the porch, making it impossible to see anyone seated there from the street. I didn’t recall the window being open when I found Julia up here. In fact, I thought the windows were closed and the sheers drawn. I wondered when, or if, Julia opened them, and made a mental note to ask her.

This was the first time I had seen Dante in a couple of months. We both seemed to back away from each other when I started dating the guy I kissed at the parade. I thought I had it on good authority that Dante was gay. Turns out, I had bad information. Afterwards, Dante and I mutually agreed it would be best if we dated other people. By mutually agreed, I mean, I decided to date other people and Dante ignored me and just went with whatever way the wind blew. It didn’t help matters that we both lived with our parents right next door to each other since birth, and I was going to be under the magnifying glass every time I had a date. Someone was always ready to report to us about the goings on of the other. So, I moved out of the family home and into an apartment with Suzanne, another childhood friend from the neighborhood. Over the last couple of months, life had become a roller coaster of adjustments. Seeing Dante for the first time since the move and breakup was harder than I thought it would be, especially seeing him with his new girlfriend.

Julia took a small step over the threshold into the room and immediately moved along the wall plastering her back against it. She stood staring at the body.

Dante’s partner leaned over the body to check his pulse. She looked back at him and shook her head. That’s when I noticed her extra wide backside. From the rear she looked as wide as she was tall and I’m not counting the holster with all their police stuff—gun, flashlight, handcuffs, radio—just her big butt filling out a pair of ill-fitting polyester uniform pants. I was feeling tall and thin and stood up a little straighter.

“Julia, how do you know the victim?” Dante asked her while he walked around the room making notes of the havoc, the disarranged furniture, the man’s clothes and the lady things.

“I. He. He’s a guest,” she mumbled.

“Did you get a name and address when he checked in?”

“His name is Gervais St. Germain and he said he’s from here but now living in Colorado Springs,” she answered.

Oh good, I hoped she would leave off the Guitarzan part.

“Do you know if he has any aliases, nicknames, something else he could have been known by?” Dante asked.

Here goes
.

“He told me the band guys called him Guitarzan.”

“So are you a gymnast or was Guitarzan there swinging from the chandelier?” asked Detective Hanke nodding toward the ceiling.

No wonder Dante liked her. She was a riot.

“When did you last see him?” Dante looked directly at Julia when he asked.

“About 5:15 this morning when I went down to make breakfast,” Julia said and this got a raised eyebrow from the girlfriend/partner/polyester pants stretcher.

“What is your relationship with this man?” Dante was doing the interrogation while big butt was looking through the dead guy’s pockets for a wallet or an I.D.

“I don’t have a relationship with him. He, he just checked in last night.”

“How is it you last saw him at 5:15 this morning?” he asked and looked right at the chandelier with the lace thong hanging from it.

“How do you think?” I answered for her trying to save her some embarrassment.

“I need Julia to answer the questions, unless of course,” he paused and gave me a steely look, “you were here too.”

I gave him one of my stares I inherited from my mother and he turned his attentions back to Julia.

“I slept in here with him,” Julia stated as if it took her last breath. She looked unstable on her feet as if she was about to melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Who else is registered here as a guest? We’ll need a list of them and all your staff that comes and goes,” Dante asked.

“The guests registered are arriving later today,” Julia said.

“Where are they?” asked Hanke.

“What part of arriving later today makes you think we know where they are now?” I was immediately sorry I mouthed off.

Dante looked like he was going to explode.

“Julia Sawyer, you need to come with us for questioning,” Dante said.

“Is she under arrest?” I asked as he started to escort her out of the room and the partner called in a homicide over the police radio. Hankey Pankey also asked for forensics to come to the address. “I think Julia should consult with an attorney before she answers anymore questions,” I said to his back as he walked from the room ushering Julia out by the elbow. To her I added, “Julia, I’ll call Stan.”

“You need to come with us, too,” was all Dante said without looking at me.

“Really, Dante? Are we under arrest?” I asked following him downstairs. I really didn’t want to be left alone with Detective Wide Side.

“We’ll let you know after you answer a few questions.” He shoved Julia in the back seat of the police car.

“Dante, please, can you drive me and my car to the station?” I sounded pitiful asking.

He paused and told Detective Hanke to drive the squad car with Julia while he waited for forensics. Then, he said he would drive my car and me to the precinct. I thought Hankey Pankey was going to shoot me on the spot.

D
ante followed me
back into the Canal Street Guest House and told me not to touch anything.

“Can I sit down?” I asked and when I turned around, he was in my face.

“Do what you want.” He didn’t move.

“So how long have you and Hankey Pankey been dating?” I asked trying to lighten the mood and ease the tension I could slice with a knife, but it came out all wrong. I sounded snippy and catty, like a jealous ex-girlfriend.

“What made you think I was gay?” he asked, moving closer, causing me to back up.

“I don’t know. I mean, now I know I had wrong information. I, uh, guess it’s because our relationship wasn’t physical or romantic. I didn’t see it going anywhere.” I was being honest. I inched backwards and started to get a tight feeling in my stomach from him invading my personal space.

“I bought you a ring. I was going to give it to you when we set the date.”

“How was I supposed to know that? Dante, our relationship was stuck in neutral. We were more like friends, not lovers. We never talked about getting married. Our parents did.”

He continued to move into me until my back was up against a wall. He was so close to me I couldn’t focus on him, so I closed my eyes.

He grabbed my hands, laced his fingers through mine and pushed my arms up over my head holding them against the wall. I wanted to slap him but couldn’t free my hands. He stepped into me until his body totally pressed against mine. Our knees were touching. Dante had never been this forceful with me. The sensation from him all over me mixed fear with excitement. I felt his mouth was all over my neck, then my face and when he moved onto my mouth, I kissed him back. Then he let go of me and pushed himself away.

“Is that physical enough for you?” He stormed off to the kitchen.

I stood there waiting for the heat to leave my body.