“Not a problem,” said Shamus. “I was going to attend myself. Better yet, we can go together.”

“Sorry,” said Carmela. “But I’m sitting with Baby and Del. They already reserved a table for eight. Besides,” she added, “I’m likely to be busy. I’ve been tapped to create menu cards and twenty description tags for the art and floral displays that are going to be on view.”

Shamus ducked his head and threw her an inquisitive look. With his tousled brown hair and slightly olive skin, he looked youthful and boyish. And, truth be told, quite adorable.

Quit it, Carmela told herself. This marriage is over. Fini. Finito. Down the toilet.

“Okay then,” said Shamus. “Grant me another simple favor. Come to dinner with me Tuesday night at Glory’s.”

“At Glory’s?” Carmela’s voice rose in a sharp squawk. Glory Meechum was Shamus’s older sister and the self-proclaimed matriarch of the Meechum clan. Glory had also led the charge to force Carmela out of Shamus’s palatial home in the Garden District after he’d skipped out on her and fled to his family’s camp house. Suffice it to say, Glory was not high on Carmela’s top ten list of amusing dinner companions.

“Come on, Carmela,” said Shamus. “It’d mean a whole lot to her. Hell, it’d mean a lot to me.”

Carmela narrowed her eyes, wondering if the invitation to Lafitte’s Landing Plantation Inn had simply been a red herring.

Maybe Shamus was confident I’d turn him down on that, and dinner at Glory’s was what he’d been angling for all along. Am I nuts to think this way? Yeah, probably. But Shamus makes me nuts.

Shamus scrambled to his feet and flashed her a winning smile. Carmela recognized it immediately. It was his touchdown smile. The same confident, slightly arrogant smile he’d always worn when he played varsity football at Tulane. The smile that, even when his team got royally trounced, said I did my best, I sure as hell played to win.

“Tell you what,” said Carmela. “I’ll be your date Tuesday night, but I’m going to need a small favor in return. Quid pro quo.”

“Such as?” said Shamus.

“I’ll go with you to Glory’s dinner party, but you have to pick up the two tables stashed behind my store and return them to Party Central.”

Shamus considered this for a few seconds.

“Deal?” pushed Carmela.

“Deal,” said Shamus. “Glory’s going to be thrilled.”

Carmela gave a disdainful snort. “Glory hates me.”

“Carmela,” said Shamus in a hurt tone of voice, “Glory’s your sister-in-law. Of course she doesn’t hate you.”

“Then how come she banished me from your house after you walked out on me?”

Shamus threw his hands in the air. “That doesn’t mean Glory hates you, honey. It’s just…”

“It’s just what?” demanded Carmela. She clambered to her feet and placed her hands on her hips, pretty sure now that she’d been blindsided on the dinner invitation.

“It’s… it’s just the way some families are,” stammered Shamus.

He leaned down, brushed his lips across the top of her head in a quick semi-kiss, and headed for the door. As the door flew open and chill air wafted in, Carmela was surprised to see a mixture of confusion and unhappiness on Shamus’s departing face.

And deep within her heart, in the part where she tried to suppress her true feelings for him, Carmela felt a painful stab.

Chapter 5

GABBY, I’m so sorry about Saturday night,” Carmela apologized for about the twentieth time. “I should never have let you go out back by yourself.”

“Carmela, it’s okay, really,” said Gabby. “I’ll get over it. I am over it.”

It was Monday morning. Gabby had shown up on time at nine o’clock, looking slightly subdued, but certainly no less enthusiastic about her job as Carmela’s assistant.

“I was afraid Stuart wouldn’t let you come back to work,” said Carmela. Gabby’s husband of barely two years was a combination worrywart and hard-ass. Stuart was also, as Tandy whispered when Gabby was absent from the shop, a male chauvinist pig. Only Tandy never actually said the word, she just spelled it out: p-i-g.

“My coming back to work here was an issue,” Gabby admitted. “But I promised Stuart I’d never venture into the back alley again, even during daytime hours.” Gabby grimaced. “Stuart’s not particularly happy making that concession, but I wasn’t about to give up a job I love.” Gabby adjusted her black velvet headband and nervously picked at a mythical speck of lint on her camel-colored sweater. “Besides, it’s not as though murder was a rare occurrence around here.”

Gabby was right. New Orleans was infamous for its nasty murder rate, and the French Quarter had always been a hotbed of trouble. Hot music, hot women, hot tempers.

Gabby smiled broadly. For her the issue was closed. “Okay to put the OPEN sign on the front door?” she asked Carmela as the phone on the front counter shrilled.

“Please,” said Carmela.

Gabby flipped over the sign, then swiped at the telephone. “Hello.” She listened for a few seconds, then held it out to Carmela. “It’s Tandy and she’s super upset!”

“Tandy,” said Carmela, taking the phone.

“The police kept him until five in the morning and now they’ve called him in again,” said the tearful voice on the other end of the phone.

“You mean Billy?” Carmela gasped. Of course Billy. Who else?

“It’s downright crazy,” shrilled Tandy. “Insane. Billy had absolutely nothing to do with Bartholomew Hayward’s death! You know that and so do I!”

“Of course he didn’t,” said Carmela. “The police are probably just trying to put together a possible timeline or something. Or they’re quizzing Billy about acquaintances of Barty’s, fishing around for possible suspects.”

“No, they’re not,” blubbered Tandy. “They keep asking Billy about the latex gloves.”

“What about latex gloves?” asked Carmela.

“The police found a box of them in Barty’s workroom.” Tandy paused and there was a loud honk as she blew her nose. “Carmela, this is awful!” she cried. “The police think that, just because they couldn’t find any fingerprints, Billy might be involved!”

Billy Cobb involved? No way. Billy was a good kid. Bright, polite, upstanding. Right?

“Has Billy got an attorney?” asked Carmela. She knew that even if you were totally innocent, it was always smart to be represented by a crackerjack attorney. A lot of people learn that one the hard way.

“I already called Baby,” sniffled Tandy. “And Del ’s agreed to represent Billy.” Baby’s husband, Del Fontaine, was a high-powered attorney and senior partner with the law firm Jackson, Fontaine & DeWitt.

“Okay, honey,” said Carmela. “Let us know if you hear anything.”

“I might be coming in later,” said Tandy.

“Really?” said Carmela, surprised by Tandy’s remark.

“There’s nothing else to do right now,” said Tandy, her voice quavering wildly.

Twenty minutes later, Baby Fontaine and her daughter Dawn Bodine, who’d married into the Brewton Creek Bod-ines, pushed their way through the door. Shortly after that, Byrle Coopersmith, another of Carmela’s staunch regulars, also arrived. They were all shocked to hear that the police were now eyeing Billy Cobb as a possible suspect.

“But those latex gloves were used for stripping and shellacking,” argued Gabby. “Everybody knows that.”

“Sure,” said Carmela. “Even I keep a box of latex gloves in the store. For when I work with glass paints and things. It doesn’t make me a murderer.”

“Didn’t you try to take over part of Barty’s space a few months ago?” asked Baby.

“I did,” said Carmela.

Baby put a finger to her mouth. “Ssshhh.”

“All this talk about murder is making me very jumpy,” said Byrle. “Can’t we just work on our projects for a while?”