Imogene in New Orleans Read online

  “Put your hands up, all of you,” Rogers said. Jackson flung his hands above his head, and Allen and Billy followed his lead. Billy’s blood-pressure monitor swung from his arm, not unlike a pendulum, because the cord was still attached to the cuff which he’d secured to his arm.

  “What the hell is that?” Rogers called out. He motioned for his officers to check out the “possible weapon.” They grabbed Billy’s arm and yanked it. Billy yelled, so Jackson stood up to stop them. “Hey, sit down, kid.”

  “Who are you calling ‘kid,’ you beef-neck? Your officers either calm down or you’ll have more than Neil to worry about.” Jackson’s voice cracked. He was already sick of the tension from Rogers.

  One of the underlings unplugged the monitor and checked it, leaving the cord dangling from Billy’s arm. The officer said, “Lieutenant, it’s nothing but a medical device. It reads blood pressure.” He put it beside Billy’s feet and backed up.

  “All right, listen, boys. Y’all put handcuffs on this one, so he don’t run off.” Rogers pointed at Neil, who began protesting. “Handcuffs? You’re kidding? Surely—”

  In a three-step motion, Neil was bound in restraints. Rogers walked in front of Jackson, who tightened his gut, worried that he was the next biggest threat, on account of his response.

  Rogers unwrapped the calendar and stuck out his jaw as he read it. “Hmm, this…So this belongs to one of you?” Rogers thumped the calendar. No one said a word. “I didn’t think so.” Rogers’s eyes got big and wide. “I guess Glenway Gilbert wrote everything on this calendar here.”

  Neil coughed. “Yeah. I’m particularly interested in who he was meeting on August sixth.” Rogers perused the calendar and then puffed out his chest as he glared at his accuser. Neil continued. “And you’ll also notice those two meetings in July with the same man. Hmm. I would probably check with him first.” Neil leaned forward as he spit his words toward Rogers. Jackson noticed that Neil usually spoke with his hands but because of the handcuffs, he had to use his facial expressions. His arms bounced up and down behind his back as he talked. Jackson knew Neil was referring to the dates Glenway was supposed to meet Lieutenant Rogers. He curled his toes in his boat shoes, feeling the tension of the accusation. He glanced at Billy, who fidgeted like he wanted to pick up his monitor and give himself a check.

  Rogers swatted the air with his hand. “Shoot. That doesn’t mean anything. As an officer, I meet with a lot of citizens.”

  Neil kept pressing the point. “And also, you’ll notice that same person’s telephone number—I mean, your number—is on the July and August sheets. Do you see that, Lieutenant?”

  Rogers squinted at the calendar and then flinched suddenly, the way one does after being stung by a wasp. He flipped the calendar over again and concentrated on it.

  “Who the devil you talking ’bout, Neil?” Imogene raised her voice. She scooted toward Lena. “I can’t make heads or tails of it. Can you, shug?”

  Lena shrugged.

  Neil turned to Imogene. “I tell you who it is. It’s the lieutenant, right here—Nathan P. Rogers. The same man who showed up at Glenway’s studio before we even called the cops. How do you figure that? Yes, the same man who decided to barge onto my porch with weapons drawn and handcuff me. That’s who.” Neil’s face turned red during his proclamation, and his lips quivered. A bead of sweat dripped down his curly sideburns.

  Rogers walked closer to Neil. “That’s it. You wanna accuse an officer of the law of something, do you? It sounds like you know a great deal about this murder.” Rogers smacked the rolled up calendar on his open palm.

  “And in fact, when I arrived at the gallery moments ago, who greeted me and revealed the dead body?” He towered over Neil. “And moments ago, when I arrived at your house to follow an investigative lead after Glenway Gilbert’s clerk gave me your address, who was holding the victim’s calendar?” Rogers poked Neil in the chest, knocking him back. “You, that’s who, Mr. Neil.”

  Neil’s face could not have been redder. Jackson worried about his friend popping a blood vessel. Rogers kept pressure on Neil’s chest. “Get the hell off me, you oaf.” Rogers moved a step closer, so that Neil’s mustache scraped Rogers’s shirt pocket. Neil exhaled short, angry breaths through his nose. Jackson raised an eyebrow as he saw his friend’s breathing get heavier, as if Neil was building up to something. Jackson cringed, because he had seen his friend’s fuse blow on a few occasions.

  Neil jerked his head back and head-butted Rogers with great force, hitting Rogers directly in his sternum. The lieutenant stutter-stepped backward and fell right off the porch into the herb garden, a small patch carefully delineated in sections of mint, basil, and parsley. He stomped several sprigs of mint. “Dammit.”

  The police subordinates ran to get Neil, but Rogers stopped them. “I’ll handle this, boys.” He hoisted one knee on the porch and grabbed the bottom of Neil’s trousers. In one motion, he yanked Neil off the porch like an old rug.

  “Hey, what the hell? You’ll break my legs.” Neil crashed feetfirst. He nearly toppled over into the pavement, but Rogers kept him vertical with one arm. He then grabbed Neil’s collar and pushed him toward the car.

  “You’re not taking me to jail, Lieutenant.” Neil struggled to stop Rogers from dragging him, pushing his feet against the pavement, so they scraped as Rogers manhandled him. When they approached the short wall that separated his yard from the public sidewalk, Neil kicked his legs out at the partition, temporarily stopping the procession.

  “You’re wrong about that, Neil. You’ve earned a spot in a cell.” Rogers used both hands to pry Neil from the wall.

  Neil’s golf cap had turned sideways and his black hair appeared to be trying to escape out from under it. “I’ll have your job, Lieutenant. You have no right.”

  Rogers stuffed him into the backseat of his car, slammed the door, and then turned to the two remaining officers, who were watching the scene between Rogers and the detainee with as much interest as the people on the porch.

  “Hey, boys, I want you to see what else these people took from the gallery. Get the items and then follow me back downtown.” Rogers straightened his shirt and then ran his hand through his crew-cut hair. Jackson couldn’t help wondering why Rogers had the duffel bag he’d tossed in the corner of the studio. Was it still there?

  “Yes, sir. We understand,” said one of the officers. Rogers got in his vehicle and drove Neil away from the house. Neil wasn’t going quietly, though. Jackson saw his friend shaking his head and screaming inside the car. It looked like a scene from a silent movie. Neil’s lips moved at a machine-gun pace until the car became a blurry dot on the road.

  ##

  “I ain’t got nothing to hide, Officers. Y’all just take it all.” Imogene smirked as she said it. Jackson knew she had her purse hiding in the backseat of the car. The officers grabbed all they could from the porch: clothes and wine bottles and a kit Glenway used for polishing and detailing his gemstone characters. The boys had taken everything they could see—posters, postcards, piles of unopened mail, bills. Jackson picked up one of the postcards and put it in his pocket. Rogers’s voice blared through the subordinates’ radio: “Hurry it up. This Neil’s a live one, so bring everything he took and do it now.” The officers began scrambling back and forth from the porch to the car.

  “Is there anything else?” one of them asked, trying to keep all the papers in his arms. He was trembling and nearly cross-eyed from anxiety, dropping as many pieces as he picked up.

  “No, that’s it,” Jackson said.

  They piled the last of the stuff in their car and drove off. Allen stood beside the far column, massaging his beard and looking down the road, as if waiting for Neil to come back at any moment.

  Lena spit into the dirt under her feet. “Shoot, you thank I trust that ol’ cop, then you wrong about it. Them poleese don’t do nothing but cause trouble. ’Course, I knowed Neil was angry ’bout Glenway and that’s how come he treat me in such a
way, but I love that boy and he can’t really do no wrong in the eyes of Lena Ward.” She rubbed her knees as she spoke. “Reckon I best get back over there to the shop. Them prawleens, they don’t cook theyselves. I’ll keep the window open wide for Neil.” Her gray eyes scanned the two properties, and Jackson noticed her chin sort of sagging under her skinny face.

  Imogene tugged at Lena’s shirt as she stood to leave. “Hey, shug, I’d love to see what you got of a kitchen over there. I wouldn’t bother you none. Matter of fact, I’d give you a hand for a while.” Imogene rose to her feet carefully. The concrete porch had made her back stiff. She winced.

  “Naw, you need to stay with these boys, here. Plus, you on a trip, ain’t ye? No need to study no pots and pans and cookin’ when you travelin’.” Lena grinned and revealed a big gold tooth up front.

  Imogene shook her head. “I’m a seventy-three-year-old widow woman, shug. I ain’t been on a trip nor vacation without cookin’ in all my days. It don’t suit me to sit around. Let these boys talk to theirselves. Billy and Jack hadn’t seen Allen in months.” Imogene took hold of Lena’s arm. “If it’s all the same, I’d like to hep you. My choice.” She smiled as Lena led her through the subtropical bushes between Neil’s house and the cinder-block cooking hut.

  Allen hadn’t said a word since Neil left. He continued stroking his beard, a Walt Whitman beard with much more brown and red than gray. Jackson watched, waiting for him to speak. Billy picked up his blood pressure monitor and examined it for damage. He plugged it into the plastic cord and took a reading.

  In a few minutes, Imogene reappeared and went straight to the backseat of Jackson’s car. “What are you doing, Mama?” Billy asked.

  Imogene removed her purse from the car and swung it over her shoulder. She hurried past the front porch and disappeared under the plantains without answering her son or looking up at the rest of them. They heard the back door to Lena’s Place open and close.

  “Looks like she’s met a friend,” Jackson said. Allen didn’t comment. He stood there looking lost. His eyes sat deep in their sockets and since Neil left they looked a little hollow.

  “Hey, Allen, come have a seat, man.” Allen shuffled over to them in his boots. He wore blue jeans that draped around his skinny legs. His white T-shirt had wood dust from the framing workshop.

  Jackson felt concerned for his friend. “Allen, do you trust a turd like that to help find Glenway’s killer? I swear I saw him arrive at Glenway’s with a duffel bag, or some sort of bag that he tossed after seeing Neil. Of course, Neil did run away from Rogers at the studio and then he head-butted him, but still, I’m with Lena Ward on this one. I trust that cop about as much as she does.” Jackson swatted a fly that landed on a praline wrapper. He slicked back his salt-and-pepper hair, the curls of which fell in his face. New Orleans felt like a sauna in mid-August, but it smelled like a botanical garden outside Neil and Allen’s place. Jackson admired the tiny white petals of the jasmine just beyond Allen. He waited for his friend to respond. “Are you all right, man?”

  Allen sat in the chair, rubbing his beard from his chin to his neck and back again. He looked up at the porch fan above their heads. “Hmm…I…” He started to say something and then stopped. He pulled his beard. “Ah, well.” Another moment passed. “Something I didn’t say when Neil was talking to Lena. You know how Neil can get ‘fired up’ at the sound of anything suspicious or unjust?”

  “Yeah, I do. He can go from tranquility to full-blown fit in three seconds.” Jackson smiled, thinking about Neil giving Rogers the head butt.

  Allen continued. “You saw him on a tear with Lena, right…? Well...I didn’t wanna make it worse.” Allen shifted around in the garden chair beside Billy and pulled his boot to his knee, half crossing his legs. “You know, I help Glenway with his finances. I manage my own for the framing shop here, of course.” He pointed to the sign out front that said CUSTOM FRAME SHOP.

  “So, I have a lot of experience keeping books, and Glenway knew it and he’s probably one of our oldest friends. He wanted someone to help him with his money. You know, Glenway was always a generous soul, but he could spend way too much. Neil suggested I help him, and this last year, I’ve been doing just that. I gave him a budget and he pretty much sticks to it…or he did stick to it.” Allen’s beard trembled as he looked out into the park across the street. “Of course, his family had money, so he’s never lacked for it. Not ever. He just didn’t want to spend his inheritance or the income from his art, and I didn’t want him to either. So, I helped him.”

  Billy looked at his friend as he spoke. Billy was usually quiet and could always be counted on to pick up subtle clues and biographical information that most people would forget. “Allen, you’re also the executor of Glenway’s will, aren’t you?” Billy asked it so softly that if Allen had been an arm’s length away, he wouldn’t have heard it.

  “Yes, Billy, in fact I am. Not by my own wish, though. Glenway said he trusted me and Neil more than the rest of his friends down here. But how did you know that?” Allen leaned over, holding on to the sole of his work boot.

  “Neil told me last visit. He and I were talking about how Jackson and I needed a lawyer to help us create a living will.” Billy raised his sunglasses and checked the monitor on his machine. He took a moist towelette from his satchel and wiped his round face. “It’s no big deal.”

  “It certainly is a big deal. I was hoping to never have to execute Glenway’s will. Since it’s Friday evening, I won’t be able to call the lawyer till Monday, I suppose.” He checked his watch. “Yeah, it’s past quitting time.” Allen sat there thinking. Billy and Jackson turned to watch him. “Yes, well, as I was saying…about Glenway and the money. Three months ago, sometime in May, Glenway insisted on giving a hundred thousand dollars to a ‘friend.’ It took him weeks to tell me it was for Lena. After the September eleventh attacks, the down economy affected everyone, and Lena as much as anyone. Even three years later, it’s still affecting her. She told Glenway she had decided to close up the shop, but Glenway wouldn’t let her. He immediately gave her the money to pay her back bills and her assistant. He saved her business, really.” Allen scratched his hairy chin.

  “Neil didn’t know about this?” Jackson rubbed Goose’s belly, which caused his dog to stretch his paws on the porch and roll over, sort of like a cypress log set adrift in the bayou.

  “No, I didn’t tell him, because I knew he would question it, even though we love Lena and she deserves to keep that shop open. Neil’s protective of all his friends, as you guys know, and he was particularly protective of Glenway, because of Glenway’s good nature and his sometimes naive generosity. Business has been better for Lena lately, and this summer, Glenway decided to update his will. He told me he wanted to forgive the loan completely, to even quit taking repayments from her. I wouldn’t let him. I made him compromise. I convinced him to continue accepting Lena’s monthly repayments until either she died or he died. At either one of their deaths, the loan would be completely forgiven.”

  “Maaan, I could use a friend like that,” Jackson said. He smiled at his partner, but Billy’s blondish eyebrows were tensed.

  Billy asked, “Did Lena know about his updated will? Because that sort of generosity is an easy reason to kill someone. A hundred thousand dollars is a payload.”

  Allen sat up straight in his garden chair, pushing back the fluffy cushion. The tip of his beard pointed at Billy’s face. “Billy McGregor, you think that old woman could’ve or would’ve killed Glenway? She’s a tough woman for sure, much like your mom, but I don’t see her as the murdering type. She’s been too sweet to us and to Glenway. Plus, you saw her yourself. She can hardly stay upright on her own power.”

  “Neither can Mother, but she’s stronger than you think. From the looks of his studio, Glenway was drinking Thursday night. We saw wineglasses on the coffee table and empty bottles everywhere. If he passed out on the futon, anyone—including a senior citizen—could have beaten him. That’s
all I’m saying.”

  Again, Allen began pulling his beard, as if it were helping to keep him from floating off the porch. “I just...I don’t…I don’t know…” Allen blinked several times.

  Billy ripped the Velcro cuff from his arm and stood up. “If she did kill Glenway, she’s with Mother right now, alone in her shop over there. All Mother needs is to befriend a murderer.” He clutched his satchel, hopped down the steps, and hurried through the bushes toward Lena’s Place.

  Five

  “Should we make sure they’re all right, Jackson?” Allen pointed toward the graffitied walls of the praline shop.

  “Naw, man. Let Billy go check on her. He can handle himself.” Jackson took a deep breath and patted Goose on the head. The dog’s tongue rested in a puddle of water Imogene had poured him. “You wanna treat, dude?” The beast jumped to all fours as Jackson ran to the car to get a beef bone. He reached into the backseat and saw that Imogene’s camera had slipped onto the floor.

  He scrolled through the pictures of the trip—shots from Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and then the bridge, the French Quarter, the carriage drivers, and Glenway’s studio.

  “Allen, you need to see some of these,” Jackson said, walking back toward the porch. Goose stood on the edge of the concrete steps, awaiting his promised treats. “You mind if we go inside? Goose won’t admit it, but he needs some relief from this heat.” The bulldog started moving around, dancing almost, as Jackson got to the top of the steps.

  Allen swung the door open and Goose trotted in with the bone protruding from his mouth like a cigar. He was ready to take on a new scene. Allen led them through the foyer, which sported several of Glenway’s prints. Jackson stared at a framed poster of an art show on Royal Street, where city residents and guests dressed up in their best clothes and did a tour of all the galleries on that famous thoroughfare. Jackson saw Glenway’s initials in the bottom-right-hand corner of the print. The painting showed a young, shirtless man resting languidly on a chaise lounge, surrounded by wine and fruit. He held a plum in his hand. The model had dark, seductive eyes. A window behind the young man showed the gorgeous European-inspired rooftops in the French Quarter.