“Tell you what,” said Carmela. “You go to St. Louis and I’ll carve the jack-o’-lanterns for Natalie.”

“How are you going to manage that, pray tell?” asked Jekyl. “Your schedule’s got to be as jammed as mine.”

“I’ll corral Ava and we’ll make time.”

“Really?” asked Jekyl, a hopeful look lighting his face.

“No problem,” said Carmela. You go to St. Louis and be a star. Whip ’em into a frenzy with that great ‘Fakes and Forgeries’ talk you do.”

Can I get all this done? Carmela wondered. Sure I can. Of course I can. Gulp.

“A thousand blessings on your head,” proclaimed Jekyl.

BY THE TIME CARMELA FINISHED A FEW ERRANDS and got back to Memory Mine, it was after five. The sign hanging on the front door said CLOSED, and Gabby was nowhere to be found.

Of course Gabby’s gone, Carmela told herself. Closed means closed. Gabby went home to make dinner for Stuart, the car czar.

Stuart was notorious for having low blood sugar. When Stuart didn’t eat on time, all hell broke loose. He once gobbled half a dozen Three Musketeers bars during the last quarter of a New Orleans Saints game because he claimed he was suffering from a low blood sugar “attack” brought on by his beloved team’s desultory performance.

Carmela shuffled back toward her office. She wanted to take a couple scrapbook pages with her to Bon Tiempe. Quigg Brevard might think he knew what he wanted, but Carmela still wanted to do a little show-and-tell. And she for sure wanted Quigg to look at the sample scrapbook pages she’d put together for Lotus Floral and the pages she’d done for Romanoff’s Bakery.

Okay, where the heck are those pages? Where did I put them?

Carmela whipped open three drawers in the flat file in rapid succession, but came up empty. Frowning, she decided the pages had to be stashed somewhere in this cubbyhole of an office.

Cramped, crowded, and cluttered, her office wasn’t exactly a model office deserving of a center spread in Architectural Digest. In fact, her office was definitely due for a makeover. Or a cleanup. Or maybe even a full-scale intervention.

Carmela wondered if there were twelve-step programs for junk junkies, then decided there had to be. There were twelve-step programs for everything else. Heck, there were probably twelve-step programs for people who ate glue.

Finally, in the bottom drawer of her battered wooden desk, Carmela found the scrapbook pages she’d been searching for.

Hah! Gotcha.

Now she had to beat feet home, hit the shower, and wiggle into a cute little dress.

Right?

As if in answer to her question, a sharp knock sounded at her back door.

Ava? No, can’t be. Tonight Ava’s supposed to be shepherding Sweetmomma Pam to an early dinner at Brennan’s and then a jazz concert at Pete Fountain’s club over in the Hilton.

So who’s tapping on my back door? Quoth the Raven, Nevermore?

Carmela padded to the door and hesitated. Putting an ear to the heavy reinforced steel door, she listened for a couple seconds, but could hear nothing.

“Who’s there?” she called, then added in an emphatic tone: “I’m sorry, but the shop is closed.”

“Carmela?” came a low muffled voice. “It’s me.”

“Who’s me?” she called warily.

“Billy. I-”

Flinging open the door, Carmela was stunned to find Billy Cobb standing at her back door. Looking utterly forlorn and bedraggled in a faded checked shirt and frayed blue jeans, he was the last person she expected to turn up here.

“Billy! What on earth…?” Carmela began.

But Billy simply stared at her and continued to look mournful.

Carmela did a fast scan of the alley. Then she reached out, plucked at Billy’s shirtsleeve, and reeled him in. “Get in here,” she whispered hoarsely. “Don’t you know everyone is looking for you? The police are looking for you, for goodness’ sake. And your poor family… well, they’re worried sick!”

Under her prodding, Billy Cobb hustled himself inside and closed the heavy door behind him.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Carmela asked.

Billy screwed up his face in a look of sublime unhappiness. “I… I don’t know what’s going on.”

Always a results-oriented person, this was not the answer Carmela wanted to hear. She decided to take a different approach in her line of questioning.

“Billy, you didn’t have anything to do with what happened last Saturday night, did you?” she asked.

“No, of course not!”

Carmela stared at him. He looked believable, sounded believable.

“The police are trying to railroad me,” he protested.

“Any idea why?” she asked.

“I think because I’m convenient,” he said, one hand raking through his mop of hair.

Carmela stared at Billy. He was a kid who’d been in trouble with the law, he wasn’t a property owner or a business owner, and he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was sure this wasn’t the first time the police had taken the path of least resistance.

“Listen, Billy, did Bartholomew Hayward get a lot of late-night deliveries?”

Billy shook his head. “I dunno. If he did, he always took care of them himself.”

“Do you have any idea who killed Bartholomew Hayward?” asked Carmela.

Something akin to fear crept into Billy’s expression. “No, of course not,” he answered. “But…” He cast his eyes downward.

“Billy,” said Carmela, her voice softening, “has someone threatened you?”

Billy’s mouth twitched, but no words issued forth. Finally he nodded. “Just tell my family I’m okay, will you? Can you do that for me?”

“I’d like to do more than that,” said Carmela. “I’d like to help if I can.”

“Then stay out of it,” pleaded Billy. “Because right now, the best thing for me to do is disappear for a while.” He spun back toward the door and grasped the doorknob.

“Billy,” said Carmela. She grabbed a pad of paper, scrawled her cell phone number on it, and pressed it into his hand. “Call me, will you? Let me know you’re okay.”

Billy pulled open the door and a gush of cold, damp air swept in. He hesitated, his back to Carmela. “I’ll try…”

And with that, Billy Cobb was out the door.

“Billy, please…,” said Carmela.

But he’d already melted into the darkness.

Chapter 12

THE dinner hour at Bon Tiempe was even more appealing than lunch or brunch. Candles flickered inside glass hurricane lamps, pale peach table linens imparted a romantic glow, and a tuxedo-clad sommelier solemnly bore bottles of wine to the various tables as though he were delivering precious elixirs, which he probably was.

As the maitre d’ led Carmela to a small, somewhat out-of-the-way table and seated her, she noted that the evening atmosphere at Bon Tiempe was decidedly elegant and romantic. Not exactly conducive to a serious business discussion. Then again, after her somewhat unnerving encounter with the disappearing Billy Cobb, she wasn’t sure she could even conduct a business discussion with Quigg Brevard tonight. Billy’s pop-in, pop-out act had been very strange indeed.

Is he covering up for someone? she wondered. Does Billy have a suspicion about who murdered Bartholomew Hayward and he’s afraid to say? Or is something else going on entirely?

Carmela brushed her hair back from her shoulders in a symbolic act of clearing her head. Got to tend to business, she told herself. Although everywhere she looked, couples were gazing into each other’s eyes, enjoying a romantic dinner.

And (Carmela had to admit it) she had dressed up for this meeting, this encounter with the rather dashing Quigg Brevard. Studying her reflection in the mirror at home, she’d decided that the black shantung silk dress had maybe looked a little too sexy. So she’d toned down her look with a pashmina shawl tossed casually about her shoulders and replaced the pearl bracelet with two chunky carved Chinese cinnabar bracelets that Ava had given her the previous Christmas. Her leather portfolio, filled with samples and tucked under one arm, had imparted the final business-woman touch.