Chapter 11 #2
Lissette cried out, rushed toward him, took the feather and let loose a long string of curses.
“Only the lowest forms of humanity would hurt an animal.” She ran out of the shop.
“Johnny!” For the next thirty minutes, they combed the streets, looking through trees and at rooftops, searching for the bright blue macaw to no avail.
When Lissette returned to the shops, she walked into the Mamba Wamba, turned around and walked back out. “I can’t deal with the mess. Not now. Come on. Let’s go to the diner.” She set out at a swift pace, anger lighting a fire in her eyes.
Xavier caught up. “Shouldn’t we stay and clean up? Maybe the bird will find his way back.”
“We need to let as many people know he’s missing and to keep an eye out for him. The diner is gossip central. If you want to spread the word, that’s the place to start.” She pushed through the door and marched inside, straight up to Mimi. “I need to make an announcement.”
Mimi smiled and waved her hand. “The floor is yours.”
Lissette turned to the diners filling the tables and booths. “I need your help.”
Eyes narrowed, and chins lifted as many of the diners stared down their noses at her.
Anger rose inside Xavier. “Listen to her.”
“Why should we?” a man said. “She’s an ex-con. She tried to kill an officer of the law.”
Xavier started toward the man, his fists clenched.
Lissette’s hand darted out, snagged his arm and stopped him.
She moved in front of him and addressed the room.
“You can hate me, call me names and slam doors in my face. I don’t care.
I deserve it. But someone broke into the Mamba Wamba and knocked over Johnny’s cage.
He’s not in the shop. If he was dead, we’d have found his body.
You might not like him either, but he doesn’t have the skills to live in the wild.
Please...if you see him, let me know. If you don’t want to let me know, let someone else know.
We need to bring him home before the hurricane hits, or he dies of starvation.
” She stared around at the people, her eyes shimmering.
“Please. For Johnny.” Then she turned to Xavier. “I’m done here.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re not. We’re going to have breakfast and then go back to the shops to clean things up.”
Mimi showed them to an empty table and laid menus in front of them. “I’ll keep an eye out for him,” she said. “He’s a mean son of a gun, but he’s great entertainment. The Mamba Wamba wouldn’t be the same without him.”
Lissette smiled up at the woman. “Thank you.”
Xavier ordered food for both of them, and Mimi filled cups with steaming coffee.
“We need to notify the sheriff of the break-in,” Xavier said.
Lissette sighed. “I know. I can’t believe this happened. Gisele will never trust me to look after her place and Johnny again.” She stared down into her coffee mug. “Assuming we get Johnny back alive.”
“He’ll come back,” Xavier said, praying he was right.
“I’m calling the sheriff.” He placed the call.
The dispatcher answered and said she’d send a deputy as soon as he came back from a wellness check on someone whose life alert had gone off that morning.
Xavier told the dispatcher where the deputy could find them and ended the call.
“They’re sending someone. I think we have time to eat. ”
A woman gathered her two children and headed for the door. When she reached their table, she stopped, holding the children’s hands as she glanced down at Lissette. “You’re Lissette, aren’t you?” she asked.
Lissette nodded.
The woman hurried on. “You might not know me. You were a few grades ahead of me in school. I’m Stacey Jenkins, Arley Romig’s daughter.”
Lissette’s brow dipped. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”
“I didn’t expect you to. My father relies on your grandmother’s house calls since I can’t get out there often, what with a full-time job and two little ones. He said you were the one to warn him about the stolen reliquaries and that we should be careful until they were returned.”
“I did,” Lissette said.
Xavier frowned. Romig was the man who’d been particularly nasty toward Lissette. He hoped the man’s father wasn’t about to make a scene, especially in front of the children.
The woman glanced down at her toddlers. “He called me and let me know what you said. I was worried to learn our reliquary had been taken. As soon as I got off the phone with him, I went looking for these two. I found them climbing a bookcase. It was leaning, about to fall over when I came into the room. Without that warning, I might not have gone looking for them soon enough to keep the shelf from falling. I just wanted to say thank you. Your warning saved my babies.”
The smallest child, a girl with bright blond hair, reached her arms up to Lissette.
“May I?” Lissette asked. “I mean, I’ll understand if you’d rather I didn’t.”
“Of course,” Stacey said. “Emmy is a little love bug.”
Lissette reached down and lifted the child up into her lap. “I’m glad you got to them before the shelf fell.” She smiled down at Emmy. “Do you like climbing?”
She nodded and then her forehead wrinkled. “Is Johnny lost?”
Lissette nodded. “He is. Do you know what color he is?”
“Johnny’s blue,” the little boy said.
“Yes, he is.” Lissette turned to the boy. “Will you look out for him whenever you’re outside?”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll look for Johnny,” Emmy said in her little voice. “Johnny needs to come home.”
“Yes, he does.” Lissette hugged Emmy and set her on her feet.
Stacey took the little girl’s hand. “We’re on our way home to pack a few things. What with your warning about the reliquaries and the weatherman predicting the hurricane is speeding up, we’re going to head north before the call for mandatory evacuations, and the highways get jammed with vehicles.”
“That’s smart,” Lissette said. “I’ve heard of people stranded on the roads during evacuations, having to ride out the weather in their cars.”
Stacey laughed. “There’s no way I could survive with these two in a car for an extended length of time.
I tried to talk my father into coming with us, but he’s a stubborn old cuss.
” Her brow furrowed. “I hope the storm isn’t as bad as they’re predicting.
He promised he’d get out if they called for a mandatory evacuation. ”
As Stacey and her children reached the exit, Anton and Jacques arrived and held the door for them.
The men spotted Xavier and made a beeline for his table.
“Dude, we’re glad we found you.” Anton pulled out a chair and sank into it. He glanced toward Lissette. “Morning.”
Jacques took the other empty seat and leaned forward. “We were about to call and have you meet us here.” He tipped his head in Lissette’s direction. “Morning.”
“What’s up?” Xavier asked, glad his teammates hadn’t snubbed Lissette as so many others had.
“Yesterday, after Remy briefed us on the thefts at the cemetery, we called as many of the antique stores as we could find listed online in neighboring parishes and a few in New Orleans,” Anton said.
Jacques continued. “We asked them to be on the lookout for reliquary boxes and to let us know if one showed up from any of their dealers.”
Xavier straightened. “Did one?”
Anton and Jacques nodded.
“We got a call from a store two parishes over,” Jacques said. “The owner had several deliveries the day before that he had yet to inventory. After our call, he went through everything and found an ornate brass box with painted images of a saint on the top and sides.”
“It’s a reliquary box,” Lissette said. “Did it have anything inside it?”
“The store owner said it was empty,” Jacques said. “He put it aside, not wanting to sell a stolen item. The sheriff is sending a deputy over to pick it up to see if he can identify who it belongs to.”
“Did he say who delivered it?” Xavier asked.
“He’s still going through the invoices to determine which one the box came in on.
He had one from New Orleans Collectibles, another from a smaller seller from Thibodaux, Thibodaux’s Treasures, and one from a company whose initials are PHT.
We have Swede surfing the web for dealers with those initials. ”
“Good.” Xavier nodded. “Hopefully, we can trace the paper trail back to the thieves.”
“We’re going to check with the two dealers he mentioned and the third when we find out where to look,” Jacques said. “Did you want to go with us?” He looked from Xavier to Lissette and back.
Xavier met Lissette’s gaze.
“I can’t,” she said. “They’ll be out of my range.” She lifted the leg sporting the ankle monitor. “And I have to meet with the sheriff.”
Anton shot a glance toward Lissette. “Why? What happened?”
“My shop and Gisele’s were broken into last night.”
“Anything stolen?” Jacques asked.