Red Beans And Vice Part 11

Pretty soon Heaven saw the first sign that announced the fis.h.i.+ng camps, this one named JOLLY ROGER. Will and Mary had explained that this strip of Highway 90 was between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne. The Gulf of Mexico was up ahead somewhere, it and Lake Borgne seeping into each other.

Heaven had always been a little scared of Lake Pontchartrain. The brackish water looked so lifeless when you flew over it, and the lake itself was so big. Once, years ago, Heaven had driven across the the long bridge, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, that took so many New Orleans workers home each night to largely white suburbs like Mandeville and Covington. She vowed she would never do it again, it shook her so badly. She imagined all kinds of automotive emergencies that would be impossible to handle on the narrow strip of highway shooting down the middle of the lake. Now she shuddered thinking about her attackers in the pickup truck and how much worse their a.s.sault would have been if she'd been driving on the causeway.

When Heaven saw the house sign DO OR DIE, she pulled off and stopped the car. The deep tire tracks were still there, where the tow truck had pulled her car up from the ditch. No one seemed to be home, the fis.h.i.+ng boat was still safely tucked under the stilts of the house where it had been on Sunday night. Heaven noticed a freshly painted plaster rendition of the Seven Dwarfs on the lawn. Where was Snow White? Heaven walked up the drive, poked around under the house, not really looking for anything, walked back to the car. She made a pretense of checking out the other tire tracks, the truck's. They were bigger and heavier. She was sure an evidence technician could take a plaster cast and tell exactly what make of truck and tire had pushed her in the ditch. And if there had been a fatality, they would have done that. As it was, the police didn't have the resources to do that kind of work for a b.u.mp and run without a real injury to Heaven.

She got back in the car and continued east, not really having a plan. She was glad she'd made the trip, for her own mental health. The area was almost comical in its hominess. It wasn't the scary place it had seemed when Heaven had discovered that she'd taken a wrong turn in the dark.

She drove on. She remembered once going to a charming little town that she was pretty sure was just up ahead. Sure enough in twenty minutes Heaven was walking down the street in Bay St. Louis. She had lunch in a little joint, ordering the recommendation of the waitress, chili cheese fries and a shrimp po'boy. It was a fine fried-food establishment. She spent the early afternoon visiting several little shops, bought a little piece of folk art, a painting of dancing crawfish, then started back toward the city.

All day, without letting it overtake her, she'd been trying to be conscious of whether someone was following her. By this time, about three in the afternoon, she was relaxed and certain that no one was tailing her today.

On the way back to New Orleans Heaven spotted a sign that said Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. A little wildlife would make this day complete. She turned in. On one side was the bayou, water still and dark green, with a bicycle path next to it. On the other side was a hiking path that struck off into the woods. There didn't seem to be anyone else around. No other cars were in the parking lot. There was a covered gazebolike structure with picnic tables and pamphlets on the wildlife area. It was empty.

Heaven got out of the car and headed toward the bayou. These incredible trees-she supposed they were live oak, tall with curved branches-were dripping with Spanish moss. There wasn't much of a breeze, but the weight of the moss was so slight that it swayed gracefully every time there was the slightest ripple of air currents. There was nothing like it in the Midwest, that was for sure. She was mesmerized. She walked down the bicycle path, watching the herons and other waterfowl speed through the air over the water.

Heaven was not a nature girl. Her exercise was lifting large pots of boiling chicken stock, not jogging or any other outdoor sports. She had skied with one husband, played golf with another, but usually she would go antiquing while the man played sports. At this point in her life, she lived in a commercial s.p.a.ce without benefit of a yard or garden and she liked it that way. When she did walk, it was at the gym on an elevated indoor track.

But for the moment, Heaven thoroughly enjoyed ambling beside the winding strip of water, listening to the calls of various other living creatures, admiring the trees and watching closely for an alligator to come charging out of the bayou. Heaven liked being outdoors with no other people around for a change. There'd been enough crowds lately. She slowed down so she wouldn't frighten a snowy egret that was walking on the side of the bank, staring intently at something in the water.

Then it happened. The first shot rang through the air, splitting the serenity of the moment. It took Heaven a second to recognize it as a gun shot. When it registered, she ducked down in the tall gra.s.s, her movement and the noise scaring the egret. It started flapping its wings for a take-off, rising awkwardly off the bank. But the second shot hit the big bird and it collapsed right on top of Heaven with wings flapping wildly.

She shrieked in spite of herself, but instead of jumping up, getting the bird off of her, and running like a madwoman for the car, she made herself lie still, the dying bird convulsing on her head and shoulders. She stayed like that for ten minutes, afraid to move for fear she would be a target for the marksman. Finally, she decided to throw the poor dead bird up in the air. If the shooter was still out there, that should draw a shot.

She flung the body as hard as she could and it made a clumsy trajectory up and back down, landing beside Heaven with a soft thud. No gunshots. After another five minutes of relative silence, no yelling, no footfalls, Heaven got up, grabbed the dead bird by its leg, and ran to the car.

"Jo what happened then?" Amelia Hart asked.

"You mean, what did they say when I went walking in the Vieux Carre police station with a dead bird and told them it was evidence?" Heaven polished off her Pimm's Cup and waved to the waiter for another. She had made it to her six thirty date at the Napoleon House only a few minutes late. "Well, they didn't cart me off to the loony bin, but I don't think they were very impressed with my line of logic. I realized at some point that no one in this whole mess has been shot at before. It's a first."

Amelia started ticking things off on her fingers. "Let's see. There was graffiti, termites, a cross stolen, you were chased through town, Truely was stabbed, you were run off the road, and now either someone was trying to scare you, kill you, or they were poaching egret feathers and you got in the way. It is the first gunshot."

"And don't forget the hate mail. Put that on the list. But there are no other bullets to compare the one in the bird to. I figured that out after I'd already arrived at the police station, thrilled that I had a clue."

"So are they going to dig the bullet out of the bird anyway, do an autopsy?" Amelia asked, a small grin appearing on her face despite her attempts to remain serious. The image of Heaven taking a dead bird to the police station was choice.

"I'm sure I wasn't out the front door before the poor bird was in the Dumpster," Heaven said. "I tried to tell them there was probably a law against killing wildlife in a preserve like that. They said it was against the law to kill wildlife in the projects, too, but that never stopped anyone. They got a big kick out of that."

"Heaven, I wouldn't usually suggest a retreat, but after what you've just told me, the b.u.mp and run on Sunday and this thing today, why don't you go back to Kansas City while you still can?"

Heaven sighed and wondered why Amelia wanted to get rid of her. "I plan to do that soon. But the funeral is tomorrow..." She took a long drink. "Anyway, did your researcher have any luck finding out who owned those condos around the convent?"

Amelia nodded. "Of course, honey. We know how to get information out of the city." She held out a list of names. "But I have to tell you, none of these names rang a bell with me."

Heaven looked at the printout. "I was hoping they were all owned by the same person or corporation. d.a.m.n." She folded up the sheet of paper and stuck it in her purse. "Well, thank you anyway."

"I know where you were going. Greedy real estate developers. But why would they pick on the old convent if they wanted the newer one?" Amelia asked.

"Good question, but one that isn't pertinent if there isn't an owner in common to some of this real estate. I'm just trying to do some busywork to keep Mary satisfied. She thinks that Truely was killed as part of the plot against the nuns, that he was just unlucky, that the bad guys would have taken anyone."

"And what do you think?"

"I think that's possible. I also think it's possible that someone wanted to kill Truely, staged that explosion down the street so there would be confusion and slipped my Global in between his ribs when the rest of us were out on the sidewalk."

"On purpose," Amelia said quietly as she thought over the two possibilities.

"Very much on purpose," Heaven said. "Enough. Do you want to split a m.u.f.falata?"

"I'd like that," Amelia replied.

Tiramisu 2 cups strong espresso, lukewarm 3040 ladyfingers, depending on the size of your bowl 6 egg yolks or pasteurized yolks cup plus 1/3 cup sugar 1 lb. Mascarpone cheese (Before Mascarpone was widely available, I would fake it with a mixture of half cream cheese and half ricotta. It's not bad. You may want to add a little sugar.) 2 cups whipping cream cup dark rum cup chopped up chocolate, semisweet or sweet, but the best you can afford. Divide this in thirds. If you need a little more, don't be bashful.

Use a gla.s.s trifle bowl or a 13-by-9-inch gla.s.s baking dish. Dip ladyfingers in the espresso and line the bottom and the sides of your dish. Sprinkle a third of the chopped chocolate on the ladyfingers. Combine the yolks and the cup sugar in a bowl and with an electric mixer mix on high for quite a while, until it is frothy and lemon colored. Then fold in the Mascarpone cheese and rum and blend until smooth. In another bowl, whip the cream and when peaks are starting to form, add the cup sugar and beat to stiff peak stage. Fold the Mascarpone and the whipped cream together.

Spread half of the filling over the ladyfingers. Throw the next third of chopped chocolate on there and add another layer of soaked ladyfingers. Spread the remaining filling over the ladyfingers and sprinkle with the remaining chocolate. Chill for four to six hours. If you are using a fancy gla.s.s bowl with a much smaller surface, just make more layers-ladyfingers, filling, chocolate.

Nine.

A hand shot out of the crowd and touched Heaven's arm. "I hear this is one of your concoctions." It was Nancy Blair. "It sure is good. What's it called?"

"Nancy, I bet you've had this before. It's an Italian dessert called Tiramisu, which means 'lift me up.' The caffeine in the coffee and the chocolate does the lifting, I guess. I thought we needed a dish made with coffee, in honor of Truely."

"Poor old Truely. You don't believe that c.r.a.p about Truely being just a random victim of whoever was hara.s.sing the nuns, do you?"

Heaven's heart leaped. "No, I don't. Do you know something I don't?"

"I know bulls.h.i.+t when I hear it. I don't for a minute think someone just picked Truely out of the crowd. In fact, whatever is going on with the sisters, it hasn't been violent if we don't count Truely, and I don't."

Heaven looked around at the crowded room. They were back at the Whittens' for the after-funeral meal. "Two things. It may not have been violence per se, but whoever wrote all those hate letters just to shake up the chefs was a very sick individual. I think a person like that could kill someone. Second thing: I agree with you. I don't think Truely's murder had anything to do with the place he was killed."

Nancy Blair shook her head. "You're wrong there, Heaven. I think the culprit did kill Truely at that party on purpose because they knew it would be ascribed to whoever was causing the trouble for the nuns."

Heaven smiled. "Good point. But why are we the only ones that seem to be tracking with this thing?"

Nancy looked around the room nonchalantly as she talked, her eyes darting from group to group. "The police department is made up mostly of men, even today. It was always a great boon to my business that my customers were men because it's so much easier to hoodwink them than women. And the police have had several murders since Truely's on Sat.u.r.day night. We only have to think about this one."

"I'd love to talk to you about this some more," Heaven said.

"Lunch tomorrow at Commander's Palace. Shall we say one?" Nancy Blair glided on to the next collection of well-coiffed, well-lit, mourners.

The funeral had been grand and long. Heaven had excused herself from the ch.o.r.e of going to the cemetery by volunteering to come back to the house and make sure everything was ready for the hordes, that they had plenty of booze available and the food out on the table. She was getting the idea that in New Orleans, funerals and all the events surrounding them were perfectly legitimate social occasions. St. Louis Cathedral had been full of people dressed to the nines. Now the house was vibrating with only slightly subdued voices telling tales about Truely and gossip about each other.

Heaven was impressed with the generosity of Truely and Mary's friends. The food had started pouring in the day before the funeral. A whole country ham would just appear on the porch with a note. Turkeys and briskets, the linchpin of Midwestern funeral meals, were nowhere to be found on the long dining room table. In their place were big platters of Jambalaya and crawfish. Shrimp creole, a dish that Heaven had almost forgotten about, was emitting a wonderful aroma from a big silver chafing dish. A bowl of South Carolina rice sat beside it, each kernel separated perfectly from the next. Stacks of m.u.f.falata sandwiches had been delivered from Central Grocery early that morning. The entire sideboard was filled with sweet things: pralines and sweet potato pie and chocolate cake and Heaven's Tiramisu. Elegant china and heavy silver flatware had been laid out. It was no wonder they'd needed extra staff to get ready. Everything sparkled. Heaven had to remind herself that someone had been killed to bring all these party lovers together.

All of a sudden, Will Tibbets had Heaven by the elbow and was steering her out the open French doors onto the gallery. There were plenty of people out there as well, sitting on all the beautiful wicker furniture, eating and drinking. Will slipped his arm around Heaven's waist and squeezed her. "Thank you."

Heaven rested her hand on Will's shoulder for a minute. When she realized what she was doing she jerked her hand quickly away, like she'd been burned. "For what?"

"For being here for Mary Beth, or Mary as you like to call her. As long as she's been living here, I think she still feels like the outsider."

Heaven stepped back and found a chair to sink into. Will sat down effortlessly on the porch beside her, crossing his legs and not spilling a drop of his drink. "Will, you all think folks who came here way before the Civil War are newcomers to the area. Of course Mary would feel like an outsider after a mere eighteen or twenty years," Heaven said. "By the way, now that Truely is buried, we have to talk."

"I can feel another attack of the detective coming on," Will said, pulling at the edge of Heaven's very short black skirt. "Can't you take some thin' for this problem of yours?"

"What problem is that, wanting to find out the truth about Truely's death?" Heaven pulled his hand away from her skirt.

Will grinned and wrapped his arm around Heaven's leg. "I sure do love these black stockings you got on today. You have good legs, sugar."

Heaven pushed his hand off. "Go ahead. Change the subject. But you must have some ideas about who killed your friend."

Will stood up just as gracefully as he'd gotten down. "When I say that Truely had no known enemies, I really mean it. That's why I keep thinking it had something to do with the sisters. I'm not talking that way just to make you irritated, sugar."

Heaven waved her hands at him dismissively. "Oh, you know you love irritating me. Now go away. I need to think."

"Yes, ma'am," Will said as he patted Heaven's head and went back through the French doors.

Heaven sat and listened to s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation swirling from each side of the open doors. Laughter sounded on the other side of the porch. A fork clanged, falling on the wooden floor in the dining room. You would have thought Truely had pa.s.sed quietly in his sleep for all the concern she heard about his violent end from this crowd. The benefit for the art museum next week was much more of a topic of conversation. Did these people have no interest in finding out what had happened? Perhaps there was some unwritten code that murder was not to be discussed until after the victim had been interred twenty-four hours. There certainly was plenty of codified behavior in the South, and New Orleans was so special, so unique, it wouldn't surprise Heaven at all if everyone in there drinking Truely's booze already knew who did it and they were just waiting until the "correct" moment to clue in the police and maybe, if she was good, Heaven, too.

The only problem was that Heaven just couldn't wait. She got up and ran up the stairs to her room, grabbed her purse, her raincoat, and her cell phone, and slipped out without saying anything to Mary.

In just a few minutes she was standing by the fence that surrounded the outdoor loading area of the Pan-American Coffee Company. The warehouse and the plant were closed today to honor Truely. On her visit here the day before with Mary, Heaven had noticed a loose piece of fencing when she'd been talking to the man taking the samples from the bags of coffee. The chain link wasn't connected properly down at the bottom where the fence turned a corner. She'd meant to tell Mary to have it repaired, and she would, after she was done using it.

Heaven took one more look around. The warehouse next to Truely's was facing the opposite direction. The parking lot of that warehouse was on the other side of the building as well, so without the coffee employees around, there was no one in sight, except people on s.h.i.+ps on the river and they surely wouldn't be paying attention to her. She put on the raincoat, lay down on the ground, pushed the loose metal fencing up, threw her purse through the opening, and rolled herself under in an almost neat, fluid movement. One of her high heels got caught in the holes of the fence but it was easily retrieved, and she got a hole in her dark stockings, thigh high, but it didn't seem to be spreading. Heaven took off the raincoat and shook it. She hadn't changed out of her funeral clothes for fear of attracting attention leaving the house in tights and a tee s.h.i.+rt. She was in a short black skirt, black knit top, black leather jacket and the opaque black stockings and Italian high heels. It was more of a New York outfit than a New Orleans one, but it was all the black clothes she had with her and she had stupidly thought black would be the dress of the day. Little did she know that the locals wear their pastels to a funeral. She dusted herself off, put her shoe back on, and headed inside with the coat over her shoulder; if she was lucky that is, and could get inside.

Heaven had briefly considered going into Mary's purse and stealing her keys. But who knew if she was carrying around the keys to Truely's business? She might have stuck them in a drawer somewhere. They could still be on Truely's dresser. Mix all those possibilities with the fact that Heaven wouldn't know the keys to the warehouse from a hole in the ground, and she'd decided to wing it.

Beside the large sliding doors that were usually open to the inside of the warehouse, there was a standard sized door for use going in and out during inclement weather, when the big doors were closed. Heaven thought there was a chance that smaller door might be unlocked. It wasn't. She stood and jiggled it for a minute.

She and Mary had talked about the fact that the place didn't have an alarm system, that they left big piles of coffee beans out in the yard, as they called this covered outdoor wharf area. Theft had never been a problem for Truely as the burglars of New Orleans didn't seem to be into roasting their own coffee beans. Now Heaven was sorry she'd fussed at Mary about tighter security. Mary must have said something to the work crew about locking the place up tight.

Heaven dug around in her purse. She knew there was a bent paper clip down in the bottom somewhere that she used on her computer when it froze up. She found it, and also a credit card and a hairpin. She fiddled around and discovered, to her delight, that picking a simple lock like this one wasn't so hard. It wasn't a dead bolt. Heaven stepped inside the warehouse and dropped her coat by the door.

She had no idea why she'd been compelled to come here today or what exactly she was looking for. But she'd been thinking about what people killed for and it was money and hurt feelings most of the time. What combination of those two had done Truely in?

She now had a half-baked theory. After all, coffee beans came from exotic places that also grew other more illegal plants. Although she couldn't imagine that the United States Customs Service wasn't totally hip to the geographical relations.h.i.+p between Colombian coffee and Colombian cocaine, maybe there was something else that could be smuggled in that wouldn't be quite so obvious. She knew they had lots of emeralds in Columbia. Maybe Truely was involved in the gem smuggling game.

Heaven pushed and pried bags apart so she could read their origins. She found some labeled ORGANIC BOLIVIA and others saying COLUMBIA ESTATE. That seemed like a good place to start. Now she had to find one of those tools, the trier. She knew that the time clock was in the room with the fancy coffeepot and the tables and chairs for employees to eat their lunch. She went there and sure enough, a whole row of triers hung on hooks on the wall by leather loops, along with the long lab coats she had seen some workers wearing. She grabbed one of the triers and went back to the bags.

She was looking forward to this part. It had looked like fun stabbing into the coffee bags. Heaven slipped off her heels and climbed up on a small stack of the Bolivian beans. She was awkward with the tool at first, tearing a hole in the first burlap sack by not having a smooth in-and-out motion. Someone would curse when they moved this bag and it leaked beans all over the place. The person doing the cursing would most likely be the surly man who hadn't revealed his name the day before. Oh, well. After a few attempts, Heaven got the trier down pat. She could stab down into the bag deep enough to be sure there wasn't a bag of emeralds hiding in there. She methodically stabbed each bag in three different places, then moved on. Soon she was out of Bolivia and almost done with Columbia. She briefly considered diamonds from Africa and almost started over to the African coffee, then gave up. This wasn't getting her anywhere. She sat down on the edge of the pallets and looked at the mess she'd made. Because she wasn't armed with the baggies that were needed to store the beans that came out of the burlap bags in the trier tube, she had just tossed them on the floor. All around the pallets of bags she'd been poking in, there were coffee beans. They stuck out like a sore thumb in an otherwise neat environment. Heaven considered finding a broom and cleaning up after herself. She decided against it. If she hadn't found anything in the sacks of coffee beans, maybe she'd learn something from the reaction to a break-in at the warehouse. It might scare someone into making a mistake and she might notice that mistake.

With that decision, she walked back to the lunchroom and hung up the trier. Then she walked down the hall and opened every door. Most of them were for offices, full of invoices and computers and fax machines. But down at the end of the hall, several doors past Truely's office, she found a room that puzzled her. It looked as though a brand-new sewing machine had just been moved into the room; the box for it was still lying on the floor. A chair had been pulled up to a table and the sewing machine was plugged in and set up. On the floor beside the chair was a stack of coffee bags, their seams carefully opened so they were flat. Heaven looked through the pile. Costa Rica, Venezuela, Mexico, Ethiopia. Not a Bolivia or Columbia in sight. What Heaven couldn't understand was why the sewing machine? Was Mary going into the coffee bag fas.h.i.+on business? Since she wasn't supposed to be here, it wasn't a question Heaven could just ask when she got home, but she definitely would have to find out.

Heaven tackled Truely's office last. After ten minutes of determined digging, she was almost ready to give up on it. She couldn't take the time to go through the file cabinets and the desk didn't seem to have one personal item in it, not one. It was a ma.s.sive oak number with a wide middle drawer, a lot like the desk her Mom had used in the barn for her antique business. Heaven remembered things getting caught in that middle drawer, so she pulled it out again and wiggled the drawer up and down, putting her hand back as far as she could. There was something wedged in between the drawer and the side of the desk at the back of the drawer. Heaven gently pried at it until it fell out the other direction on the floor. It was a photograph. She reached down and picked it up.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," she said out loud. It was a photo of Amelia Hart wearing a revealing piece of lingerie, a teddy. Heaven supposed you could call that little bit of lace a teddy. Amelia was blowing a big kiss at whoever was holding the camera. Heaven slipped the photo in her purse and tried to put the desk back in the same disarray it had been in when she started her search, wondering if someone else had been there before her, removing the private stuff but missing that photo. Maybe Mary looked through it when they'd been there the day before, trying to find all of Truely's papers. Or maybe it had been tossed today, while all were gone. She took off for the warehouse.

When she got back to the door she'd entered, she put on the raincoat, went out and purposely left the door slightly ajar. It wasn't enough to attract the attention of a vagrant looking for a home for the night, but it would tell the warehouse crew that someone had been there. That and all the coffee beans she'd left on the floor should shake someone up.

Heaven went out under the fence, this time taking her shoes off and shoving them to the other side of the fence first along with her purse. She was getting better at this breaking-and-entering stuff.

The house was quiet when Heaven got back. They must have run out of scotch. Quickly, she went up to her room and now changed her clothes into tights and a big white linen men's s.h.i.+rt. She went back downstairs looking for Mary, quickly trying to figure out what she was going to say about her whereabouts. Blending back in with the crowd wasn't an option.

She found Mary sitting by herself on the enclosed porch, obviously one of her favorite places. "Heaven, where have you been?"

She lied. "I didn't know hardly anyone and after the first hour I had run out of niceties. I don't know how you Southerners do it. I went over to Audubon Park. Ended up at the zoo. It was great. But what I want to know is how did you get rid of the hordes of people that were here?"

"When the food was gone, they left. Also, I think Will told them it was time to go."

"Where's Will?"

"I told him it was also time for him to go home and get some rest. I know he's crushed about Truely and he just hasn't had a chance to let go."

"What about you? It seems like we haven't had any time to talk about this stuff. Have you bawled your eyes out yet?"

"That first night I did. But the medication is making everything hazy now. I'm still numb."

"Just remember, give yourself a time limit on taking the pills. They can creep up on you."

"Right now I don't care if I ever come out of this fog."

Heaven started to say something trite about time changing the way we felt about tragedy, but she decided to keep her homilies to herself. "So what are you going to do tomorrow?"

"I've asked for a month off from the law firm so I can attend to Truely's business, decide if I want to keep it or sell it. In the morning two lawyers who are taking my cases for the month are coming over so we can go through them. Luckily, I don't have anything ready to go to court right now."

"Good, then I'll work on my project in the morning while you're busy."

"What project?"

Heaven smiled innocently. "You know, who has it in for the nuns." And what Truely was doing with a naughty photo of Amelia Hart in his desk, she thought to herself with a sinking feeling.

Heaven stood outside the restaurant Bayona and let her eyes adjust to the bright sunlight. She'd stopped there to check with Susan Spicer on where the labor for the benefit dinner had come from. Heaven hadn't given it much thought at the time. She'd supposed that employees of the many restaurants and cafes in the French Quarter had somehow been summoned. But in the cold light of day she realized nothing happens without someone making the phone calls and having access to temporary labor. Susan's manager had confirmed this. They had used a temporary staffing agency in the food service field. The service sent waiters and dishwashers to hotels when they had a big convention and their own staff couldn't handle it, or an offsite party for a restaurant. They also worked with the local caterers to supply workers for them.

The office of the employment agency was on Burgundy so Heaven walked over there. The young man behind the desk was very polite; tall, with a shaved head and a nose ring. No, he didn't mind showing her the list of workers from the night of the chefs dinner. After all, the police had that list already.

"Thank you so much," Heaven said sweetly. "As I said, I'm one of the chefs that cooked that night, and there were two or three people that I thought I might want to hire again, although I'm not sure what their names were. Do you think I could take a copy of the list with me so I could call folks from my own phone?"

The man behind the desk guessed it would be okay. These people wanted temporary work. But what would happen to the fee that the agency was supposed to collect, if Heaven were to hire these people independently, he asked slyly.

Heaven dug around in her purse and came up with her business card and fifty dollars. She scribbled her cell phone number on the card and handed it and the cash to the man. "This is my old card, from when I lived in Kansas City, but that's my cell phone number on the back. And here is a little good-faith money, so you know I'm not trying to cheat your firm. If I hire any of them I'll call you and have them report to you as well."

The young man considered this for a second and swept the cash off the desk into his pocket with a nod. The deal was done.

"Would you help me with just one more thing? Could you go down the list with me and comment on the people you know? You can tell the servers from the dish people better than I." Heaven had spotted a lone straight-back chair pushed against the wall. The place was a pretty bare-bones operation. She quickly grabbed it and carried it over to the young man's post, knowing that unless he was totally unlike most people in the food business, he wouldn't refuse to give his opinions on the crew.