“Yeah, that seemed to be going around last night,” Drake said.
“Yeah,” Eric nodded.
“So what did you find when you got here?” Josie Lynn asked.
“The place was pretty much a mess. Nothing had been cleaned up, so I decided I should probably do some picking up,” Eric explained.
Josie Lynn looked back at the nearly spotless courtyard. “That was a lot of work. Did you call Ashley? Did you try to call me?”
“Umm—” He shook his head, brushing his disheveled hair back in an almost agitated way. “Nah. I didn’t think to call anyone. I just decided to get to work myself.”
Josie Lynn nodded, but she found his story strange. Since he’d started working for her, Eric had needed his hand held. Unlike Ashley, who would take initiative and do tasks on her own, usually wrong, but at least she tried, Eric waited to be told what to do. And then he moved at the pace of a snail with mono.
So why was he cleaning now?
“Where are all the dishes that were on the buffet?” she asked.
“I washed them and loaded them into your van.”
Oh yeah, this was suspicious. Definitely.
She wasn’t going to let her employee know that was what she was thinking, but she did want to talk to Drake about her suspicions.
“Well, thank you, Eric. I’m going to go—see how the kitchen is looking,” she said. She didn’t give Drake a look to indicate she wanted him to follow, afraid Eric might notice it.
But she didn’t need to give Drake a sign. He followed her anyway.
Once in the kitchen, which was almost as tidy as the courtyard, she turned to him.
“Something is not right about this,” she whispered.
“I was thinking the same thing. I watched him just cleaning up the spilled tuna last night. He was being totally half-assed about it. Yet he’s cleaning this whole place, without any go-ahead from you.” Drake shook his head. “Something is fishy about that.”
“I agree. So do you think he drugged the punch?”
“Possibly.” Drake walked over to look in the fridge and near the sink. “There is no punch left. Even the punchbowl is washed and gone.”
Josie Lynn went to the back door. Her van was still in the back alley and she could see Eric had indeed put all her supplies into the beaten-up old Chevy. For a second she wondered if he had her keys. That might be a sign he was involved, too, but then she remembered that the back of the van had been open last night when everything had gone down. So he probably just loaded the already-opened van without the need of her keys.
“Why would he drug us though?”
“Robbery,” Drake suggested. “Maybe the Chers aren’t really involved. Maybe it was just this guy alone.”
Josie Lynn considered that possibility, but that didn’t totally add up to her. “Okay, if he drugged all of us to steal our money, cell phones, etc. . . . then why come back to clean up? He could have just taken off and been long gone by now. He wouldn’t even need to clean up any evidence, because there still would have been no way to pin anything on him. Yeah, he was near the punch, but so was everyone. So if he did it, why come back?”
“You’re right,” Drake said. “It doesn’t add up. Hey Eric!” he called behind him. “Come out here a second.”
“Yeah?” Eric poked his head out the door.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” Josie Lynn asked gently.
Drake snorted. “It’s a miracle you haven’t been robbed blind.” He turned to Eric. “Dude, why the hell are you here cleaning up without a word to your boss?”
Eric gave a reluctant shrug. “I don’t want to get fired.” With that, he went back to banging around in the kitchen.
Josie Lynn looked thoughtfully after him. “Wow. I’m kind of impressed.”
“But he could still be involved. I think we have to find those Chers.”
Josie Lynn nodded. “But where do we even start?”
Drake gave her a knowing look. “You start at the top. Come on.”
He caught her hand, and they left out the back door.
JOSIE LYNN GRIMACED as a raucous college student in a football jersey and baseball cap staggered into her. He gave her a cursory, and slightly slurred, apology, then kept moving with his group of equally wild and inebriated friends. Josie Lynn had been to Bourbon Street many times, but it had never been her thing—for reasons like that.
Growing up in a family of wild Cajuns, she’d seen her share of partying and fights and craziness. She didn’t need to come to Bourbon to experience that. But as they kept walking, she realized Drake was leading her to a section she didn’t know that well.
The first thing she noticed was that that clubs and bars looked better kept up than the places below the 800 block of Bourbon. The balconies were decorated with plants and lights. And while the party was still happening full tilt here, it did look less seedy.
Then she glanced over toward a beautifully decorated bar front, only to do a double take. Lined up in the opened windows were bare-assed men, shaking their naked cheeks to the pulsating music from inside the bar.
Okay, so not less seedy after all. Not to mention, she’d seen plenty of bare ass tonight already.
“Where are we going, exactly?” she asked once she managed to look away from the booty-grinding.
“Here,” Drake said, pointing toward a doorway Josie Lynn would never have noticed amid all the other lights and decorations. And butts.
“Where is here?” she asked as she followed him into the smoky darkness.
“The home of Madame Renee Chevalier.”
Josie Lynn looked around. Home? This was a bar. And honestly not a very nice one. In fact, the one with all the man butts looked considerably nicer than this place.
They walked down the length of a narrow bar toward the back and through another set of doors that opened into a larger room. This room was no less rundown and dingy. Wooden tables that had long since lost their polish were scattered around and surrounded by wing-back chairs covered in worn, red velvet. A few people, predominately men, sat at the tables, sipping drinks and smoking.
It reminded Josie Lynn of a gentlemen’s club that had seen better days. And as if to validate that image, curtains at the far end of the room parted to reveal a woman lounging provocatively across a chaise.
Drake took Josie Lynn’s hand, as he had when they had left Gautreaux’s, and led her toward the stage. He chose a table right in front of the woman languishing on stage. Pulling out a chair, he waited for Josie Lynn to sit.
She was about to ask him why they were here, when music began to play. She sat down and Drake hurried to take the chair next to her. They both turned their attention to the stage.
The woman, despite the heavy makeup and fall of bright auburn waves, looked like she was in her fifties, maybe sixties. She reminded Josie Lynn of what Ginger from Gilligan’s Island might have looked like when she aged. Well, except for the woman’s bosom, which was enormous under her gauzy white peignoir and robe. Actually, she looked more like Ginger and Dolly Parton melded together.
Then she started to sing in a voice so deep and husky that it startled Josie Lynn. She watched, amazed as the woman sang “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps,” lolling on her golden brocade chaise, occasionally waving a hand for emphasis or to flip back her hair. Josie Lynn was certain the woman thought her performance was provocative. Which it was, Josie Lynn supposed. Just not in the way the performer probably intended.
Just as Josie Lynn started to lean toward Drake to ask again why they were here, the music suddenly changed and with another flip of her hair, the woman started to croon “Three Times a Lady.”