Chapter 11 Luca
Chapter eleven
Luca
“Celeste is coming to dinner.”
Dominic announced it while reading the Arts Council’s latest programming memo over breakfast.
I looked up from preparing his breakfast French press. “When did she decide this?”
“Yesterday evening. She called after you went to bed.”
“She calls you at eleven at night?”
“She calls me whenever she has something to say.” He shrugged slightly. “I’ve never attempted to regulate her.”
At the far end of the kitchen table, Thiago was reviewing notes on his tablet with a legal pad beside it.
Dominic set down the memo. “She said seven.”
“Of course she did.”
He reached for the marmalade. “I assume this presents no hardship.”
“It presents planning.”
“Planning is one of your core pleasures.”
“That’s a terrible accusation to make before eight in the morning.”
The corner of Dominic’s mouth twitched. Across from him, Thiago finally looked up.
“Should I expect additional guests?” he asked.
“Not unless Celeste picks one up along St. Charles on her way over,” I said.
Dominic spread his marmalade with unnecessary precision. “If you try to govern her arrival, Mr. Reyes, she will ignore you.”
“I wasn’t planning to govern her.”
Dominic sipped his coffee. “You were planning to think about it.”
“Yes.”
Outside, a streetcar bell sounded on the avenue, then faded into the ordinary noise of a Saturday morning. I poured my second cup of coffee and thought about garlic.
By one o’clock I had onions diced, stock warming, and a chicken broken down on the board beside the stove. The kitchen ran cooler than the rest of the house, but not by much. A second line had started somewhere toward Magazine Street, the sound of brass filtering through the August air.
Thiago had notes spread out across the kitchen table and what appeared to be a cold brew he’d acquired through mysterious means. He was working through the Orpheum credentialing records, comparing names against a list Michael had sent overnight.
“Who managed guest credentials for the Preservation Society reception in May?” he asked.
“Alma from the Society office. Gerald Tureaud would be at her elbow.”
“Gerald had access to the completed guest list?”
“Gerald has access to everything. He is one of those men who always seems to know which doorway to be standing in when important things happen.”
Thiago made a note.
I moved to the stove and dropped butter into a heavy pot. When it melted, I added flour and stirred.
Thiago raised his head, pointing his nose into the air before joining me at the stove. “That looks like the beginning of a problem.”
“It’s the beginning of dinner.”
“It’s darkening.”
“It’s supposed to.”
He watched in silence for forty seconds. “That’s not burning?”
“Not yet. Stop watching it. It’ll get nervous.”
He chuckled, low and genuine. “I’m not sure that’s how chemistry works.”
“In this kitchen, it is.”
My roux deepened by degrees, pale gold through peanut butter and into something darker. I lowered the flame and reached for the onions.
“What time is check in with Michael?” I asked.
“Three.”
I scraped the onions into the pot, and heat rose into my face from the sizzle. From somewhere beyond the courtyard wall came the sound of the second line again, trumpets climbing and then dropping away.
Thiago watched the steam rise. “Henri doesn’t appear in any official Orpheum administrative records.”
“People who avoid records leave impressions elsewhere.”
At four-thirty the landline telephone rang in the front hall. I found Dominic already there, receiver in hand, saying “yes” and “fine.” He handed me the receiver without comment.
“Celeste.”
“Mon cher,” she said. “I forgot to ask whether you had enough garlic.”
“I’m covered.”
“One can never be too careful.”
“What else did you forget?”
A pause. “Nothing. I only wanted to hear whether you sounded strained.”
“I’m not strained.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
The line clicked off.
From the doorway of the salon, Thiago watched me. “Update?”
“Apparently she forgot to ask about garlic.”
“You don’t believe her.”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
At six fifty-five, the front bell rang. I opened the door to Celeste Boudreux Hargrove in rose-colored linen and a narrow gold cuff bracelet, gripping a bottle of Burgundy by the neck.
“I selected this for the chicken,” she said, pressing it into my hand before I could greet her. “Are you sure you used enough garlic?”
“Celeste.”
“More is almost always the answer.”
She moved past me into the hall, trailing expensive perfume. Seventy-one had not softened her into anyone’s decorative aunt.
Dominic emerged from the salon in a dark jacket over an open-collared white linen shirt. “You’re ten minutes early.”
“Five minutes. Arriving this early required tremendous personal sacrifice.”
They kissed each other lightly on each cheek.
From the kitchen doorway, Thiago said, “Good evening, Ms. Hargrove.”
She turned toward him and gave him a swift once-over. “Mr. Reyes. You remain reassuringly difficult to read.”
“In my line of work, that helps.”
“It does.” She lowered her voice half a degree. “The men who are easy to read rarely know anything useful.”
I led her through to the kitchen, where I’d set the table and the air smelled of garlic, sausage, and the lemon trees cooling outside in the evening. She looked over the room with a slight narrowing of her eyes.
“The house feels attentive tonight,” she said.
“That,” Dominic replied, “is because Luca has spent all day in the kitchen.”
“A noble and deeply Catholic use of time.”
I poured wine.
We were halfway through the first course when Celeste set down her fork, drew a folded slip of paper from the pocket of her jacket, and pushed it down the table toward Thiago.
He caught it before it reached the bread plate.
“What’s that?” Dominic asked.
“A date.” Celeste reached for her wine.
Thiago unfolded the paper. “May.”
“Yes.”
I set down my glass. “May what.”
“A man matching Henri Fontenot’s description was seen in the Orpheum’s administrative offices in May.” She tore a piece of bread and buttered it. “Before the public announcement of the ‘Saints’ production.”
“Who saw him?” Thiago asked.
“A woman on the development committee who occasionally notices more than she should. He wasn’t alone.”
“With whom.”
“Gerald Tureaud.”
Dominic’s knife paused against the plate. “Everyone knows Gerald.”
Thiago turned the paper over. “The same man you were speaking of earlier?”
“Yes, and no one would have thought his presence suspicious,” I said.
“No, Gerald thinks of himself as helpful.” Dominic took a measured sip of Burgundy.
Celeste set down her glass. “My source says they were in the administrative offices for forty minutes. In and out.”
“Which is nothing,” I said, “or slightly suspicious.”
“In this house,” Celeste replied, “those are no longer distinct categories.”
Thiago folded the slip of paper and placed it beside his fork.
“Do you remember the gala in 2003?” Celeste asked Dominic.
He exhaled through his nose. “The one you insist was ruined by the champagne.”
“It was warm.”
“The champagne was fine. The governor was warm.”
“The governor was sweating directly into the donor base.”
She turned toward Thiago. “Mr. Reyes. Do you have opinions about champagne?”
He swallowed before answering. “I generally drink it when offered.”
She nodded slowly. “That is an appropriately diplomatic non-answer.” She reached out and patted Dominic’s hand. “I like him.”
Celeste had just shown one of her more refined talents—introducing a new threat vector between bites of dinner and then shifting the room three degrees back toward normal before panic had time to organize itself. Dominic met her there, following fifty years of practice.
Over dessert, Dominic said, “Gerald has never struck me as imaginative.”
“Which makes him an ideal target for someone else’s imagination,” Celeste said.
Thiago rested one forearm on the table. “Did your source note whether Henri appeared ill?”
Celeste tilted her head. “They wouldn’t have recognized illness in a man like Henri unless he collapsed onto a donor.”
“That would at least improve some of those meetings,” Dominic murmured.
Celeste smiled into her glass.
At nine, she rose. “I’ve done my part for civilization. The rest is up to all of you.”
Dominic accompanied her to the front hall. I gathered the last of the dessert dishes. By the time I dried my hands and joined them at the door, Celeste had her keys in hand. She kissed Dominic’s cheek.
“Try not to become operatic,” she said.
“I never do.”
“That is simply false.”
Then she turned to me, and while Dominic straightened his cuff and Thiago leaned in the doorway behind us, she whispered, “He’s paying attention, mon cher. Don’t make him pay it from a distance.”
She was gone before I could respond.
Behind me, Thiago asked, “Everything alright?”
I closed the door. “Yes.”
By the time Dominic was ready to retire, the kitchen was clean, with leftovers in the fridge, and the lemon trees checked for water. The late-August heat had not broken.
He paused at the threshold on his way to the stairs. “The Burgundy was well chosen.”
“She rarely makes a mistake.”
“Mm.” He glanced once between Thiago and me. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
Thiago echoed it half a second later.
I reached for the Burgundy bottle and found enough wine for two shallow pours. I handed Thiago a glass without asking. He took it and leaned back against the counter.
“What did Celeste tell you at the door?” he asked.
“That you’re paying attention.” I rested my hip against the opposite counter. “And that I shouldn’t make you pay it from a distance.”
“Do you usually take her advice?”
“Only when it’s annoying.”
“Was that?”
“Yes.”
Thiago swirled the wine in his glass. “You’ve been in this kitchen all day.”
“I’ve been working.”