A Perfect Cover

“Yes, ma’am,” I said slowly.

Ignoring the direction of the woman’s pointing finger, I picked up the silver tray nearest the sink. It was littered with a few limp pieces of parsley, a half-nibbled radish and a few abandoned olives.

The caterer—a tall, middle-aged black woman whose presence seemed to calm the chaos of the busy kitchen—was destined to be a saint. She spent only a moment rolling her eyes heavenward before stepping in front of me, taking the tray from my hands and returning it to the counter.

“This one, honey.” She gave me a filled tray, then corrected my hands so that they held it level. “Now be careful, Olivia. Don’t spill.”

“No, ma’am.”

I offered her a smile enhanced by a gold-capped front tooth, then walked to the dining room down a short hallway lined with glass-fronted shelves stacked with fine china and polished silver.

I slipped behind the long buffet table and carefully set the tray down at the far end of the table, in an open space beside a huge arrangement of irises. The thick petals looked like velvet and were a shade of purple so deep it was almost black. I tucked myself behind the arrangement with my back into a corner.

Slowly, with an air of intense concentration, I began lifting each stem, turning it slightly and settling it back into the vase, as if to make sure that each flower was shown off as beautifully as possible. Except that the flowers I was arranging were at the back of the vase. Either the caterer didn’t notice or she’d given up on keeping the most dim-witted of her employees busy. And I wondered what favor Uncle Tinh had called in to saddle her with such a useless worker.

From behind my curtain of flowers, I peered out at the party through my thick-lensed glasses, genuinely enraptured by the graceful patterns that formed and reformed as guests sought out acquaintances and made new contacts. Laughter mixed with the murmur of voices and the rustle of the leathery leaves of the magnolia trees that overhung the open gallery windows. A live, six-piece band wove it all together with a soft, bluesy melody.

This was New Orleans at its best. For a moment I regretted mightily that Lacie Reed wasn’t making an appearance as herself at the party that Anthony Beauprix had thrown for his father’s eightieth birthday. Briefly, I considered how I could capture the evening in pen-and-ink washed with the faintest suggestion of colors. Then I sighed and considered what Uncle Tinh had told me about my host, Anthony Beauprix.

Besides being a cop who desperately needed my help but was too chauvinistic and anticivilian to accept it, Beauprix was wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams. That, Uncle Tinh had told me during breakfast. The Beauprix family was old money, their fortune tied to a history of sailing ships, bootleg rum, smuggled guns and an uncanny ability to end up on the winning side of any war, no matter which side they’d started on. In New Orleans, that knack earned them as much respect as their money did.

Perhaps inspired by a public hanging or two—the citizens of New Orleans also having no problem executing those they respected—the Beauprix family gradually shifted their attention to more legitimate enterprises such as shipping and oil. Which was what made Anthony stand out among the current generation. A maverick, Uncle Tinh said. A beloved black sheep. Unlike his younger brother and sister who’d earned M.B.A.s at Tulane or his engineer and lawyer cousins, Beauprix was a detective in the New Orleans Police Department. A job, Uncle Tinh noted, more suited to the morals and attitudes of the founding members of the Beauprix clan. Certainly in his attitude toward women and his unlikely friendship with Tinh Vu, he was a throwback.

Then Uncle Tinh had shown me a black-and-white print of a photo of Anthony Beauprix that the Times-Picayune had on file. It was a candid shot taken as he’d accepted the police department’s award for valor. The caption taped to the back of the photo mentioned a hostage situation and no one dying. Thanks to Beauprix. From the grainy photo, I could tell that he was taller and slimmer than the mayor, dark-haired, and had his eyes, nose, mouth and chin in approximately the right places.

More guests arrived and the area around the table became crowded, blocking my view of the room. The caterer, who still looked unharried, swept past me, switched out a nearly-empty tray of white-chocolate-dipped strawberries for a full one and disappeared back into the kitchen.

In a halfhearted attempt to keep Uncle Tinh in her good graces, I spent a few minutes brushing crumbs from the linen tablecloth before busying myself with the irises again. I had just finished stuffing a particularly gooey stem back into the vase when a nearby male voice said “the flowers” with the slight rise in tone that usually implies a question.

I lifted my head and slid my eyes in the direction of the voice.

Standing on the other side of the vase, staring in through the flowers, was a man in a tuxedo. He was perhaps six feet tall with olive skin, well-cut dark hair and hazel eyes. He was smiling with a mouthful of perfect teeth.

My first thought was that this was Anthony Beauprix. My second was to wonder who he was smiling at. My third thought was that there was only one possible candidate.

I looked quickly at my feet.

“Do you like the flowers?” Beauprix repeated.

I nodded.

“And strawberries,” I muttered thickly and for no particular reason, except that I’d always believed that distinct characteristics and a personality quirk or two were essential to creating a believable persona.

“What’s your name?”

“Olivia,” I said, wondering why he could possibly want to know my name. Impossible to think that he had seen through my disguise. Perhaps he was planning to complain to the caterer about her useless staff.

I was wrong.

“You’re doing a fine job, Olivia.”

He flashed me another smile, put the plate he was carrying down on the table, picked up several dipped strawberries from the tray and added them to the bounty on the plate. Then he frowned and looked back at me.

“If you wouldn’t mind, would you fetch me a paring knife from the kitchen?” he said.

I nodded, went on the errand and returned fairly promptly.

I watched him slice each of the strawberries on the plate into quarters, wondering at the task.

“Thank you, Olivia,” he said.

I nodded, carefully not making eye contact, and didn’t look up until he’d picked up the plate and turned away from the table. Then I lifted my head and watched him, admiring the fit of his formal wear as he moved across the crowded room, pausing to speak with one guest, then another. He had the muscular build and awareness of body and space that brought to mind a dancer. Or a street fighter. I’d met a lot of cops in the past couple of years, so there was no doubt in my mind: plainclothes had never looked so good. Though it probably helped to have a millionaire’s wardrobe and a personal tailor.

As the crowd parted to let Beauprix pass, I saw that an elderly man—Beauprix’s father, I guessed—had joined the party. He was sitting in a wheelchair in the center of the room, surrounded by a knot of people whose coloring and bone structure marked them as family. Beauprix joined them, leaning down to place the plateful of food carefully on his father’s lap. As the elder Beauprix smiled up at his son, I noticed that the right side of his face remained stiff and expressionless. When he picked up his food, he used his left hand awkwardly and chewed each small piece slowly and methodically.

I kept a close watch on the family group, remaining behind the serving table, but periodically shifting my position so that I could see them through the crowd. My job was easy. They stayed together in the same spot, chatting and laughing as their guests moved forward to greet the elderly gentleman. Periodically, Anthony would lean in close to his father and murmur something that made the old man smile.

After I’d been watching them for about ten minutes, I saw Beauprix nod and smile at his brother and sister. He signaled to the white-suited waiters to provide everyone with a full glass of champagne. While the waiters did their work, he chatted amicably with his family. Then he knelt, put his arm around his father’s shoulders and lifted his champagne glass with the other.

“To a good man, our dear friend, and my lifelong hero. Charles Beauprix.”

Anthony Beauprix wasn’t a handsome man by any conventional definition. But I doubted there was a woman in the room who wasn’t aware of him, who didn’t feel her pulse quicken as he walked past, who couldn’t imagine his hands and lips on her body. Certainly, I wasn’t immune to such thoughts. Nor was I oblivious to the effect that Beauprix was having on my libido. But I had more pressing things to think about. Such as where I was going to set a small, very dramatic fire.

A large cake, lavishly decorated with fresh and spun-sugar flowers, had been baked to celebrate Charles Beauprix’s eightieth birthday. It was several layers tall, rested on a silver-plated wheeled serving cart, and looked like it might serve a hundred people.

Beside the cart was a linen-clad stationary table that supported several large silver trays holding more dessert—dozens of uniform petit fours arranged in soldier-straight rows. Each tiny cake was covered in a smooth layer of marzipan, decorated with a single sugar rose and a pair of fresh violet blossoms, and topped by a small candle.

Toward the end of the evening, the catering staff began the task of lighting all the candles on the cake and the petit fours. Then most of the lights on the first floor were switched off and the large cake was wheeled to the center of the living room, where the Beauprix family was gathered. I stayed behind, lingering near the table that held the petit fours.

The crowd sang “Happy Birthday,” the elder Beauprix worked on blowing out the candles on his cake, Anthony Beauprix stood with his hand on his father’s shoulder and I surreptitiously dripped globs of gel fuel between rows of petit fours. As the last bits of whistling, cheering and applause faded, I tipped a lit candle into the silver tray and quickly stepped away from the table. A heartbeat or two later, there was a satisfying roar.

Someone shouted, “Fire!”

While everyone’s attention was focused on the flaming pastries, I made my way around the perimeter of the crowded room. Before the overhead lights came on, I was racing up a sweeping staircase whose grandeur reminded me of my adoptive mom’s favorite movie. Just call me Scarlett, I thought as I reached the hallway.

“His room has paintings of ships hung on the walls,” Uncle Tinh had told me. “Anthony once told me about his collection. Appropriate, don’t you think, for the descendant of a pirate?”

The second door on the left opened into the room I was looking for. Downstairs, I could hear shouting and the sounds of a fire extinguisher being discharged. That noise was muffled as I pulled Anthony Beauprix’s bedroom door shut behind me.

Time was short, so I gave the room only a sweeping glance. His queen-size bed was covered with soft bedding in shades of cream and tan, the dresser and desk were polished mahogany and the desk chair and love seat were covered with a nubby brown fabric. Tall bookcases were built in against one wall. Opposite, ceiling-to-floor guillotine windows flanked by sheer curtains in a surprising shade of tangerine let in the night air from a second-floor gallery. Paintings of tall ships and battles at sea hung on the walls, and a scale model of the U.S.S. Constitution graced the fireplace mantle.

Neat and comfortable, I thought as I crossed the room to Beauprix’s bed and knelt on the pillows. Hanging above the headboard was a gilt-framed oil painting of the Constitution defeating the British frigate Guerriére in 1812. I admired the artist’s use of blue, ochre and crimson as I swung the painting aside, revealing a vintage wall safe. The safe’s location and Beauprix’s habit of keeping his “piece” locked in the safe when company was in the house was information Uncle Tinh had provided. Information obtained from the Beauprix housekeeper’s adult daughter, whose husband liked to play the ponies. In exchange for the information, Uncle Tinh had arranged for a gambling debt to be canceled.

From my apron pocket I pulled out the electronic device. It was the size of a quarter and attached by thin wires to a pair of ear buds. I put the tiny black pads in my ears, placed the device against the safe, turned the dial slowly and listened. Right. Click. Left. Click. Right again. Click. A quick tug at the safe’s handle and the job was done.

I ignored everything else inside and went for Beauprix’s gun, a Colt .45 semiautomatic compact officer’s model. Uncle Tinh had suggested that it was exactly the item needed to get Beauprix’s attention. After returning the bullets to the safe, I tucked the unloaded gun securely between my belly and the corset-like padding I wore. Before closing the safe, I left a handwritten note inside. An invitation, of sorts. Then I went out the gallery window, shinnied down a vine-wrapped drainpipe and ran around the house to the kitchen door.

The kitchen was bustling with clean-up activity. The caterer, apparently unruffled by a mere fire, was calmly giving directions to her staff. As her back was to the kitchen door, I slouched in through the doorway. My apron was wet and soiled from my encounter with the drainpipe, so I picked up the nearest littered serving tray from the counter and tipped it toward me, adding a smear of discarded party food to my apron. Then I began scraping the remainders of crackers smeared with paté and thin brown bread topped with a pink-flecked spread into the garbage.

The caterer turned, saw me working hard, and nodded.

“Good, Olivia. Very good.”

I couldn’t help but smile.

The phone call I was expecting came near midnight. There was no warmth or humor in the deep male voice on the other end.

“City morgue,” Anthony Beauprix said. “Six a.m.”

Then he disconnected.

Chapter 4

T he ringing phone and cheerful female voice that was the Intercontinental’s wake-up service pulled me out of bed at four forty-five the next morning. Between bites of a room-service breakfast of crusty French rolls dipped, New Orleans style, in rich strong coffee, I dressed for my meeting with Anthony Beauprix.

I pulled my hair back into a French twist, applied makeup to emphasize my high cheekbones and the shape of my eyes, and put on khaki slacks, a black top and dress boots that added a couple of inches to my height. A glance in the full-length mirror mounted in the room’s tiny foyer confirmed what I already knew: I looked as unlike the slow-witted Olivia as was possible.

A taxi dropped me off in the lot adjacent to the city morgue where Beauprix was already waiting. He wore dark slacks, a blue-on-cream pin-striped shirt that definitely wasn’t off the rack and a silk tie that probably cost more than my entire outfit. He was leaning against one of the three cars parked in the parking lot at that ungodly hour. It was a standard police-issue unmarked four-door sedan, the kind that any street-savvy twelve-year-old with halfway decent eyesight can pick out from half a block away.

Beauprix’s legs were crossed at the ankle and he was smoking a cigarette. He didn’t bother moving, but watched with his head tilted as the taxi disgorged me near the entrance to the small lot.

I walked over to his car.

“Ms. Reed, I presume,” he said.

His voice was too hostile to be business-like and I suspected he wouldn’t shake my hand if I stuck it out. So I didn’t bother. I kept my own tone moderate.

“Yes, I’m Lacie Reed. Tinh Vu suggested I might be of some help to you.”

Beauprix threw his cigarette onto the pavement and ground it slowly beneath the toe of a very expensive leather shoe.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” he said. “Last night, you took something that belongs to me. I’d like it back. Now.”

Beauprix sounded like a man very used to having his own way. And his expression was clearly intended to make it difficult not to give him what he wanted. Dark, straight brows angled down over narrowed, hazel eyes; an angry flush of color underlaid his olive complexion and stained his broad cheekbones; his full lips were pressed into a thin, hard line.

Spoiled brat, I thought. But I smiled pleasantly as I replied.

“Returning your property before we talk would make it awfully easy for you to walk away. And that would make Uncle Tinh unhappy. So maybe I’ll hang on to it for just a little longer.”

“Maybe you don’t understand, little girl.” He spoke just above a whisper, and though his accent softened his vowels, he was unmistakably furious. “This is not a game and I have no intention of talking with you. If you don’t return my stolen property, I do intend to arrest you. Charge you with breaking and entering—”

There was no doubt in my mind that when he and his police buddies played good cop/bad cop, he always got to be the bad cop. Not that intimidation or bad temper was going to work on me.

“I didn’t break in,” I said matter-of-factly. “I walked in. I even spoke to you. Last night, you were charming.”

He forgot his anger for a moment as he stared at me assessingly, focusing exclusively on my face. Comparing it, I was sure, with the faces of any strangers he’d met the night before. Most people remembered features that could be changed readily—height and weight, eye and hair color, the appearance of teeth, the shape of a nose. Only the visually astute or the very well trained noticed the shape and placement of ears, eyes and mouth.

Beauprix was talented or well-trained or both.

“Flowers. And strawberries,” he said slowly, searching. “A homely woman. Kinda backward. And shy.” Disjointed detail became coherent memory. “Olivia!”

He snapped his fingers, almost shouting the name as a look of triumph and, perhaps, the slightest flicker of admiration swept his face. But his expression hardened almost immediately as his voice turned accusing.

“You! You set that damned fire! Not to mention, you scared my daddy half to death. So maybe we’ll just add arson and property damage to the list of charges—”

I lost my patience. And my temper. It was too early for such nonsense. Besides, I hadn’t had nearly enough coffee that morning. I stuck my arms out toward Beauprix, thumbs touching, wrists limp and hands palms down.

“Go ahead, Officer. Cuff me. Read me my rights. See how far that will get you.”

At that point, the sheer absurdity of the situation must have struck Beauprix. He snorted, gave his head a quick shake and waved his hand in my direction. The gesture was, at best, dismissive.

“Oh, hell, little girl!” he said. “You proved your point. And your uncle won his bet. Just give me back my damned piece and let me get back to work.”

When Uncle Tinh had suggested I remove Beauprix’s gun from his safe, he hadn’t mentioned any bet.

“Bet?” I said as irritation gave way to curiosity. “What bet?”

Beauprix seemed surprised that I didn’t know.

“The bet he and I made,” he said. “When we were arguing about whether I needed your help or not. Which I don’t. And whether you were as good as he said. Which I said you weren’t. And, well, maybe I was wrong in that regard. But, in any event, he said you’d leave a personal message for me. At my home. During my daddy’s birthday party. He said that I was naturally inclined to be pigheaded and it was worth five thousand dollars to him to prove me wrong.”

The old scoundrel, I thought. He’d used me. And it took some effort to keep my expression serious.

“You took the bet,” I said.

He nodded.

“Yeah.”

“And lost. Not only five thousand dollars, but your damned gun.”

“Yeah.”

Then I took a guess.

“And now you’re pissed. Not over the money, which is probably going to some local charity, but because the foxy old bastard outsmarted you. Again.”

He began to nod, then looked at me and grinned instead.

“Yeah,” he said, and almost laughed. “Real pissed.”

He looked down at the pavement again and gave the mangled cigarette a poke with his shoe.

“I used to have a pack-a-day habit. Now I only smoke when I’m pissed.”

I smiled back and revised my opinion of him.

“With a temper like yours, might be better if you cut back to a pack a day again.”

He thought about it for a minute, found the joke and actually did laugh. Then he stepped away from his car and began walking toward the morgue. He didn’t slow his pace to accommodate my shorter stride, but turned his head to talk to me over his shoulder.

“Come on,” he said. “I might as well show you what I’m dealing with. Then you can return my gun, pack your bags and head back up north where you belong.”

The autopsy room was cold and smelled of decay and disinfectant. Pale green ceramic tiles covered the walls and a concrete floor slanted to a drain in the room’s center. Several stainless-steel gurneys—each holding a shrouded cadaver—created an island in the center of the large room. From the doorway where Beauprix and I paused, I could see the cadavers’ feet sticking out from beneath the white sheets. Manila tags dangled from every other big toe. The two walls that ran the length of the room were lined with double rows of shoulder-width, stainless-steel drawers. At the moment, all of the drawers were closed.

We’d come in through a foyer and walked down a short hallway to the autopsy room. Just steps inside the door where we’d entered, there was a battered gray desk where a very thin Caucasian male in a white lab coat was sitting. He was bent forward over the desktop, which gave visitors a top view of thinning, slicked-back hair that was Grecian-Formula-44 dark. At one corner of the desk, nearly at the man’s elbow, was a tower of wire baskets. A basket labeled In was half empty, as was the Out box. The contents of Pending were overflowing onto a folded, greasy paper sack that served as a plate for a half-eaten ham sandwich. A soda can anchored one corner of the sack; dozens of crushed, empty cans filled the wastebasket.

Mayonnaise and yellow mustard had stained several of the papers on the desk, including the one that the man was furiously writing on as he noisily chewed the food in his mouth. He started when Beauprix cleared his throat, looked up quickly to reveal a narrow face and a blob of mustard at one end of a dark, pencil-thin mustache. The movement must have included inhaling a piece of sandwich because he spent the next minute or two choking, sputtering and finally sneezing into a tissue. He looked at Beauprix with teary eyes and I noticed that the tissue had also taken care of the mustard.

“Damn you, Anthony,” he said. “You almost give a man a heart attack.”

He began struggling up from the chair, but Beauprix stopped him.

“Don’t let us interrupt you, Joe. I know the way. If I need you, I’ll just give a shout.”

Joe flashed Beauprix a smile as he settled in his chair and went back to his paperwork.

Beauprix picked up a small blue jar of Vicks from the corner of Joe’s desk. He twisted off the metal lid and put in on the desk before using his little finger to dip into the jar’s gooey contents. I watched as he put a smear on the inside edge of each nostril. Then he casually tossed the jar to me. I caught it, followed his example, then screwed the lid back on before returning the jar to its spot.

“You won’t need these,” Beauprix said, snatching a pair of disposable gloves from a box that was weighing down the contents of the In basket. He pulled on the gloves as he walked around the clutter of newly arrived corpses, moving along the left wall as his graceful strides carried him quickly through the room. He stopped in front of a drawer in the top row, second from the far wall.

I followed more slowly, taking in details. Each drawer had a preprinted number and was sequentially numbered, with 1 prefixing the upper row and 2 prefixing the lower. Most of the drawers also had a more temporary index card with the victim’s name scrawled on it in indelible black marker. The drawer that Beauprix stood beside was labeled 15/Nguyen Tri.