Chapter 2 #2
“You’re driving us?” Taylor asked, eyeing the van, and then my dress, with some amusement as I climbed behind the wheel.
It was cheaper this way. And I was nothing if not good at saving a dime.
“I’m your hostess, your chauffeur, and apparently your emotional support human this weekend,” I said, wearing a sky blue evening gown that Maggie had assured me complimented my eyes. “Buckle up. There is no valet parking in the afterlife.”
“Comforting,” Reginald said dryly, folding his long frame into the middle row with caution.
“Move into the back, Reginald,” Allison complained. “Vivienne and I are in dresses. We’re not climbing all the way back there.”
Reginald sighed, but did as he was told.
Taylor moved easily to the back with a cheery wink, then slammed the sliding door shut once the women were settled in. That he had the strength to throw that door all the way closed from his position in the back seat indicated that in spite of a life indulging in liquor Taylor was in good shape.
I could feel Vivienne staring at me. I turned and saw she was taking photos of me. I’m sure my eyes bugged out because I couldn’t think of any reason why she’d want pictures of the back of my head and the rental van’s dashboard.
“I like the light,” she explained.
“Leave the poor girl to drive,” Reginald protested. “God only knows if she can even handle this thing.”
“Don’t be a misogynist,” Vivienne chided.
“It’s a van, not a commercial jet,” Taylor said, sounding amused. “Harper, do your thing. I have full faith in you.”
What Taylor was full of was Bourbon. He was already loaded. So far, he was a happy drunk so I was just going to hope that lasted.
“Thank you, Taylor.”
I pulled away from the curb, feeling a bit like Sandra Bullock in the movie Speed, Garden District-bound.
Until exactly ten seconds and ten feet later I slammed on the brakes. Everyone in the van hurtled forward with various expressions of shock and dismay.
“Sorry,” I said, glaring through the windshield at Hollis. He’d stepped right out into the street in front of me. I sent my window down and yelled out to him, “Just because your day was slow doesn’t mean you need to terrorize me.”
He rolled his eyes and came around to my window.
“I could have killed you.”
“You were going five miles an hour.” Hollis took in my hair that I had taken pains to curl, my made up face, and diamond earrings. He leaned in the open window to glance down at my dress. “You’re driving in a cocktail dress?”
“This is a gown, not a cocktail dress. And yes. I have an outfit for everything. You should see what I scrub toilets in.”
His eyes narrowed. I had the sudden thought that Hollis Broussard might be picturing me cleaning less than fully dressed, which flustered me.
“Sorry I asked,” he murmured.
That flustered me even more. Did he not want to picture me in nothing but a pair of pearls? That seemed far worse than him being happy about it.
My brain momentarily stopped functioning.
Hollis and I were friends and neighbors and he helped me whenever someone died in my house, but there was always this tension underlying everything between us…
“Let’s get this bus rolling!” Taylor called from the backseat.
That started me out of pointless thoughts.
“I forgot to bring my flask and there’s an open bar with my name on it,” Taylor added.
“Step aside, Detective,” I told Hollis. “You heard Mr. McIntosh.”
Hollis shook his head. “They heard Mr. McIntosh in Chalmette.”
Since Chalmette was a twenty minute drive away I took that to mean he thought Taylor was overly exuberant. Which he was.
But he had good reason to be. “We’re late, Hollis. Have a good night!”
I pulled away with a wave and looked both ways to make sure no other homicide detectives were going to jump out at me without warning.
Fortunately, none of my guests seemed concerned. They were all casually chatting in the van behind me.
It didn’t take long for the conversation in the back to drift toward Evelyn Carrington.
“I’ll say this for the Evelyn woman,” Taylor said, leaning forward between the two buckets seats Vivienne and Allison were in. “She knows how to throw a party. Say what you want about her personally.”
“And clearly you have things you want to say,” Allison said, not looking up from her phone.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it very loudly.”
Taylor laughed, but it had a thin quality to it. “Let’s just say Evelyn has strong opinions about everything. We go way back. There was a whole thing.”
“Like a romance?” Vivienne asked, clearly curious.
Taylor needed to be careful with what he revealed or he was going to make an appearance in Vivienne’s book.
“Like a cease and desist letter kind of thing.”
“Oh. That’s not the same thing at all.” Vivienne sounded disappointed.
Me, on the other hand…
“She threatened to sue you?” I asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“She threatened to have her lawyer look into it, which from Evelyn is basically the same thing. She can be a mean old broad. I don’t even know how she finds the time for stirring up fictional lawsuits.”
Interesting. I had no idea why Evelyn would want to sue Taylor but he seemed more heated and annoyed about her now that he’d been drinking than he had earlier.
“She has time because she makes time,” Reginald said.
That seemed obvious.
I glanced back and saw Reginald was looking out the window, jaw tight.
“Evelyn considers herself the last line of defense between authentic history and what she calls, and I quote, ‘Disneyfication.’ She does not believe restoration work should ever deviate, even slightly, from documented historical record. Even when documentation is incomplete. Even when a little creative interpretation would serve the building better than a rigid, and frankly sometimes inaccurate, adherence to what she thinks the record says.”
“You don’t agree?” Allison asked, sounding scandalized at the prospect. “Accuracy is everything, in my opinion.”
“Not when there aren’t facts to back any of it up,” Reginald protested. “Assumptions aren’t facts. Grainy photos with unclear details aren’t facts. Accuracy is everything, you’re right about that.”
“Have you worked with Evelyn?” I asked.
“I worked for her,” he corrected. “The Bellamy-Fitch restoration, two years ago. She insisted the front portico be rebuilt to match an 1850s daguerreotype that, in my professional opinion, was almost certainly staged with a false facade for the photograph. Common practice at the time. I raised the concern. She overruled me. Publicly. In front of the historical board.”
“Ouch,” Vivienne said, not looking up from where she was quietly adjusting settings on her camera.
“She was wrong,” Reginald said, quiet and clipped.
“The portico they rebuilt has proportions that don’t match anything else original to the house.
It’s wrong, and it will remain wrong for the next hundred years, and everyone who looks at it will believe it’s accurate because Evelyn Carrington said so. ”
I filed that one away carefully. A grudge over lawyers was one thing. A grudge over a man’s professional reputation and his life’s obsession was a different weight entirely.
“What about you?” I asked Vivienne, since she’d mentioned filming at the gala. I wasn’t sure if she’d been hired by the Society or she was doing something on her own. “Documentary filmmaker? Is the gala part of your latest project?”
“It’s about the Society. The history of preservation efforts in the Garden District. Evelyn is a significant figure in that history, so, yes, she’s in it.”
“Is she cooperating?”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Vivienne asked.
I couldn’t tell if that was an innocent question or something more loaded.
I shrugged as I drove down the street toward the manor house, grateful to see there was valet parking. Not that I would expect any less.
“I guess it depends on the angle your film takes,” I said. “I imagine some filmmakers would love to dig into the less than comfortable history of societies like this one.”
“Documentary filmmaking is unbiased. Or at least it should be.”
“Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve,” I said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked, sharply.
“Nothing at all.” It really didn’t. I was just trying to prevent an awkward silence. By making things awkward.
“I agree with Vivienne,” Allison said. “That’s precisely why I write fiction. I can say whatever I want and it has to be true.”
“Being unbiased is a monumental task.” We tended to land somewhere in the middle with our podcast. We presented the facts but we had opinions.
“It’s essential,” Vivienne said.
“We have arrived!” I said cheerfully as I entered the queue for valet parking.
My great-aunt Odette would think it was hilarious that I was driving a vanful of guests to the gala in my gown.
But I had to admit, I felt a teensy bit ridiculous when the parking attendant opened my door and blinked.
“Make sure nothing happens to this van,” I said breezily, leaping down onto the street in my heels. “I’ll make it worth your time.”
In my head, I could picture Hollis’s cackle if he heard me say that.
He would have made a great escort to an event like this.
I sighed, wishing I could at least have the opportunity to hold my champagne incorrectly. But since I was driving I threw my shoulders back and prepared for a long night of air kisses and society small talk with no champagne.
“Harper!” a shrill voice called out. “Harper Bergeron? Is that you?”