Death of a Beauty Queen. Mallory Kane
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Something metallic, maybe just the foil from a cigarette package or gum wrapper, had caught the late-afternoon sun.
She could hear Maman’s voice in her head, chiding her. Breathe easy, ma ‘tite. Just forget all that’s gone before. Maman put a spell on this house, keep you safe.
But behind the sweet memory of Maman’s voice lurked other unsettling voices, scurrying around the back of her mind with susurrus whispers that haunted her dreams.
Rissshhhh, rozzzzzsss. She pressed her fingers against her suddenly pounding temple and shook her head.
Stop it. Rose closed her eyes and listened for Maman’s soothing words again, but the ghostly hissing drowned out all other sound.
Rissshhhh, rozzzzzsss. Rissshhhh, rozzzzzsss.
Pain throbbed in rhythm with the voices. Pressing her fingers against her temple seemed to help. As she massaged the sore place near her hairline, her stomach rumbled.
Of course. She was hungry. That was all that was wrong with her. She hadn’t eaten at all today. She thought about the gumbo she’d made this morning. That’s what she needed. A big bowl of gumbo and some of the French bread she’d bought. Then she’d go to bed so she could get an early start tomorrow.
Just as she headed back up the stairs, a knock at the door made her jump.
Mignon? Surely not. She should have made it home by now. Rose retraced her steps, squinting against the sunlight, and flipped the light switch near the bottom of the stairs. She unlocked the door, leaving the chain on.
“Mignon?” she started before she saw the looming shadow of the man who stepped forward. “Oh,” she said, then, “the shop is closed.”
“Hold it.” He stuck his foot between the door and the facing as a glint of light on metal flashed in her eyes.
She recoiled with a cry before she realized that the shiny object he held was a badge.
“New Orleans Police, ma’am,” the man said in a low, gruff voice.
“Police?” She put a hand to her racing heart. “Has something happened to Mignon?” she rasped.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Detective Lloyd. Dixon Lloyd. I need to ask you some questions.”
Rose opened the door to the maximum width allowed by the chain and looked up at him. He was tall, three or four inches taller than her five feet eight inches. His eyes were hooded.
The badge he held reflected the waning sunlight off its burnished surface.
Rose blocked the reflection with her hand, wishing he would put the thing away. What could the police want with her? She hadn’t done anything, had she? “I’m sure you have the wrong address,” she said.
“No. I have the right address. You are Rose Bohème, right?” His voice was firm, commanding.
He knew her name. Oh, this was not good. “Yes,” she said, working for just the right tone of mild interest and slight impatience. “What is this about?”
“Could I come in, please?” he asked, only it didn’t really sound like a request. The commanding tone was still there.
“Of course.” She tried to keep the stress out of her voice as she unlatched the chain and held the door open. He stepped past her into the foyer, filling it up with his height and his broad shoulders. He brought with him the smell of sunlight, wind and the street.
She sent a glance up and down the sidewalks. Curtains fluttered and a couple of doors slammed shut. She smiled wryly as she closed the door but left it unlocked. People on this end of Prytania Street didn’t like cops. She’d have a lot of questions to answer tomorrow.
“What can I do for you, Detective?” she asked, studying his shadowed face and wishing she’d replaced the second bulb in the foyer fixture. The single pale globe did little more than create eerie shadows along the dusty, bottle-lined shelves and counters of Maman’s shop.
The detective didn’t answer her. His head turned as he checked around him. Rose didn’t like the imperious way he took in the entire room with one sweeping glance and then dismissed it. The only thing that seemed to catch his attention was the stairs. His head tilted as he looked up to the top of them.
“Is there somewhere we can sit?” he asked.
Rose considered saying no. He’d dismissed Maman’s shop as beneath his notice, so she didn’t feel the need to be even nominally polite. As she opened her mouth to speak, he turned his dark eyes to meet hers.
She looked away. The throbbing in her head increased, flaring into a hot, bright pain. Her personal warning system. This detective wasn’t here to ask about some crime or other that had happened in the neighborhood.
He was here for her.
So this was it—the day Rose had dreaded for ever since she could remember. The police had come for her and she had no idea why.
Her entire body tensed as awful, encompassing fear blanketed her. She felt helpless and lost, like she had twelve years ago when she’d woken up to stare blankly at a wizened woman who was wrapping her cuts in soft white bandages.
It took all her strength not to bolt past Detective Lloyd out the door. She clenched her fists and the skin of the scar that ran along her hairline and down her cheek stretched as she frowned. She consciously relaxed her features until she could no longer feel her skin drawing.
“It’s okay,” he said, watching her closely. “We can talk standing here if you’d rather not allow me upstairs.”
His tone worried her and those eyes were positively searing. Was she acting suspiciously? “No, no. Please, come in.”
She ascended the stairs, conscious of his heavier, masculine footsteps, his eyes boring into her back and his thoughts, which of course she couldn’t read, swirling around her. At least that’s how she imagined them.
At the top of the stairs she stepped aside and turned on the landing light. Then she led the way into Maman’s living room, where the curtains were open and the waning sunlight was brighter than downstairs.
The detective stopped in the doorway and surveyed the room before he entered. Rose squirmed as she looked at the furniture through his eyes. The green velvet chairs and the old burgundy brocade couch looked threadbare, not fit even for Goodwill. Its frame was in good shape, though, sturdy.
The grand piano’s gloss was dazzling under the light, but big and little finger smudges marred the surface.
Fingerprints. Her hands began to tremble. She tried to relax them, but despite her effort they clenched into fists. Her gaze darted back to the piano. Her gloves were there, where she’d removed them for Mignon’s lesson.
“P-please sit,” she said unsteadily, unwrapping her fingers and gesturing toward the couch. She walked over to the piano and picked up the black lace fingerless gloves and slipped them on as unobtrusively as she could. She perched on the edge of the piano bench and clasped her hands in her lap.
The detective sat down on a chair and turned it to face the piano bench. Then he leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, which were mere inches from hers. He sat there, saying nothing, his gaze on her hands—her gloves. It took all her strength not to hide them behind her back like a child.
After what seemed like an eternity, he shifted his gaze to his badge, regarding it as if he’d forgotten he was still holding it. He tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Rose tried to concentrate on studying him instead of wondering what he was thinking about her. She noticed what she hadn’t seen at the door or in the dim light of the shop downstairs.
Detective Lloyd was very well-dressed. Her interest piqued, she assessed him with the eye of an experienced fortune-teller. Maman had taught her that understanding people was all in the subtle details.