Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 01 - Blood on White Wicker (11 page)

When Rosa drove up, I was waiting outside. When I got in the car, she gave a whistle.

“Amazing, I almost didn’t recognize you. Now we’ve got to go see this man I know who does all kinds of ID pictures.”

She parked on Poydras Street. We got out and went up stairs on the outside of a restaurant. When we walked in, I saw that there was all kind of camera equipment. Without a word, he motioned for me to stand in front of a big white screen. He took what seemed like thousands of pictures, and before I knew what was happening, he handed me a stack of pictures of myself and told me to give him two hundred dollars.

I was glad that I had taken some money out of the lining of my suitcase and put in my jeans pocket this morning while Rose was in the shower. I was hoping that the ID guy would be the end of it for awhile.

When we got back out on the street, Rosa said, “Now let’s drop these off, and then we’re going to have about an hour to kill. Anyplace in particular you want to go?”

“I want to go see a man named Jean,” I said. “He owns an art gallery over on Royal Street.”

When we walked in, Jean came over to greet me. I introduced him to Rosa, and he took her hand and kissed it.

“Would you like tea?” he asked.

I explained to him that we didn’t have much time but that I needed to give him a new phone number. He didn’t comment on my new appearance at all, but he did keep looking at my hair.

When we got back in the car, Rosa didn’t ask, but she kept looking at me, and I decided to tell her everything. After all, she had given up her whole day to help me, and I couldn’t have done any of this without her. After that, we picked up my new driver’s license and passport, and I gave this guy eight hundred and fifty dollars. As we were headed up I-10 back toward her apartment, I told her everything. She would gasp at times or whistle, look at me like I was some kind of weird creature, then look quickly back at the road.

When I finished, we were turning off the freeway. She grabbed her pigtail, pulled it from the back and started flipping it. When we went into her apartment, she still hadn’t said anything.

Then finally, just as I was beginning to wish I hadn’t told her, she said, “I’m sorry. This is all so astonishing. You should write a book. I’ve heard a lot of stories, but if I didn’t have good instincts about people, I would think you were making all this up. I’ll help you with this, Brandy. I really will. I think we can figure this out together. And forget about that disgusting old fart. I don’t think he’ll try to make trouble for you. If he does, he’ll have me to deal with. But right now, I’m tired,” she said with a yawn. “Let’s take a nap before we have to go to work.”

Frank was totally all right with me just dancing. He said that some of the other girls just wanted to serve drinks. So it would turn out good and everyone would be happy. Frank wanted to see my driver’s license. The date of birth on it was February 3
^rd
, 1963, which would have made me twenty. My last name was Alexander.

“Well, I guess we’re all set,” he said, “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready and so excited. I want to do real well for you, Frank.”

“You will, doll. Only three girls showed up tonight, so you’re going to be on stage a lot and will have a chance to make a lot of money. Oh, I forgot to tell you, there’s a sandwich place next door. You can go over there and get free sandwiches anytime you’re not on stage. I give them free drinks, and they give my girls free sandwiches. And all your drinks are free also.”

The rest of the week went smoothly. I was earning good money and told Rosa that I needed to get my own apartment. She said there was no hurry and that she was glad for the company right now because she was between boyfriends.

When Saturday arrived, the phone woke us up at noon. Rosa grumbled as she rolled over to answer it. When she heard who it was, she sat up in bed wide awake, and started hitting me with her elbow.

“Brandy, she’s there. Julia’s in the Gallery. We’ll be right down,” she said into the phone.

I think she was as excited as I was. We got dressed in a hurry and were soon speeding down I-10 towards the French Quarter and Royal Street. We didn’t talk much until she parked the car. Then we started both talking at once, saying how excited we were. I was also scared. What if she didn’t like me? What if she took one look at me and decided she didn’t want anything to do with me?

I tried to slow my breathing down and took one long deep breath and opened the door. The first thing I saw was Jean talking to a girl who had her back to me. I had thrown on a pair of jeans, but this girl was pure class.

She had on a beige straight-skirted dress with a wide alligator belt and alligator pumps. She had on one bracelet that was silver and, as she talked to Jean, she waved her hand, and the bracelet caught the light and sent out little shiny lights.

I had stopped halfway inside the gallery and was standing there watching her when Jean spotted me.

“Come on over, Vicky.” He said.

He introduced us, but I didn’t hear a word he said, and I don’t think she did either. It was like looking in a mirror before I had my own hair done.

Julia said, “You look just like me except for the hair. If I didn’t know better, I would think we were twins. But I know we aren’t because my parents said that I wasn’t adopted. They have always been truthful with me.”

 
I knew her parents were lying, but I couldn’t figure out why at this point.

She said something that surprised me, “My parents want to meet you. Can you come home with me? I live in St. Augustine, Florida.”

I told her I would let her know. I didn’t understand why her parents would want to meet me if they didn’t think we had any connection. I wanted to talk this over with my new best friend, Rosa.

CHAPTER 10

On Sunday, Rosa and I decided to go to the nursing home where Henrietta Hendrix was and see if we could talk to Tom, the nurse. I was hoping he would have some information for me. The nursing home wasn’t very far from where we lived. When we got there we were told that Tom was off that day but would be in the next day, for the three to eleven shift.

When we left there, I asked Rosa if I could drive. After all, I had a license now. She said that I could since it was just a little ways but she would take me one day farther out in the woods to get some practice. I drove home and she said I was a good driver.

I was feeling frustrated with things moving so slowly, about getting answers. I was still thinking about going to St. Augustine to visit Julia, and she kept calling to try to talk me into it but I was scared. If Rosa could have gone with me, I would have felt more comfortable, but Frank said that he couldn’t let both of us off at the same time. I was doing well at the club and making lots of money, but I had a lot on my mind. It was no surprise when I had the dream again.

The unicorn is lying on the floor. The two masked men are trying to get the two little girls down the ladder and out the window. Then the camera lens swings over to the woman that looks like me, and she is lying in a pool of blood. The camera lens swings over to a wicker rocking chair. And in it sits Henrietta Hendrix’s daughter. There’s blood on her forehead and on the wicker rocking chair she’s sitting in. At her feet is a man with light brown hair that looks like he has been shot in the chest. He’s lying half on the rocker of the chair and there’s blood all over the front of his shirt and on the rocker.

This was farther than the dream had gone and this time when I woke up screaming, it took Rosa awhile to wake me up. When her calling my name finally got through to me I started shaking and crying. She held me and I couldn’t have asked for a better friend.

It was almost two o’clock on Monday. We had to be at the nursing home before three to, hopefully see Tom before he went in to work. We had to hurry. We both jumped up and threw on a pair of jeans and made such good timing that we were in the parking lot of the nursing home by two thirty, and it wasn’t long before he pulled up right beside us.

As we were all getting out of the car, he happened to glance over at me and then did a double take,

“Vicky? Is that you? He said. “Are you all out now? I’d sure like to see Jesse. Did they all move back into Dave’s house?”

“No, I’m sorry they’re not out as far as I know. Do you have any information for me?”

“Okay, here’s the thing. Henrietta died about a week and a half ago.”

“Oh no, another dead end” I said. I was so disappointed.

“I’m sorry, but she did rant and rave about some things while she was dying. I don’t know if any of it means anything. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

I held my breath as he stood there thinking, “She said,‘I didn’t tell, I should have…had to protect my girl…what happened to the poor little girls? Where did you take them? Go to police, tell them, please…please…please,’ does that mean anything to you, Vicky?” Rosa and I looked at each other and Rosa gave a tiny shake of her head. I told Tom that it didn’t mean anything to me.

While we were driving home, Rosa took that thick braid and began flipping it again and I knew she was thinking.

“Here’s my thinking on this thing, Brandy,” she said. “First of all, I don’t think we should trust anyone. If Henrietta was involved, and her daughter apparently, we don’t know who else was involved in this thing.”

“But what
is
this thing?” I said. “I’m beginning to think this dream was something that really happened. I think the two little girls were me and Julia. I think that Henrietta’s daughter was maybe our nanny and she was somehow involved, even though, in the dream, she looked like she was hurt too. But that might have been a put on so she wouldn’t look guilty.

“I know she is guilty of something because she ran from both Jesse and me and later from Tom. She also gave a false address and phone number to the nursing home even though she knew they would need to get in touch with her in case something happened to her mother.”

By now Rosa was really flipping her braid, “That’s my take on it. And I’ll tell you something else. I think you need to go to Florida. Those people are lying and I think you can figure a way to get some more information. Snoop around every chance you get. Let’s call Frank when we get home and tell him you have a personal emergency and have to go out of town immediately. In fact, let’s see if we can get you a plane today or tonight and I’ll call Frank for you.”

We found out that there was a plane flying out of New Orleans at six thirty seven and arriving in Jacksonville, Florida two hours later due to the one hour time difference. I called Julia and asked her if it was too short a notice and she said of course not and that she and her parents would pick me up at the airport in Jacksonville. She said it was only about thirty miles from St. Augustine. I was used to packing really fast by now and, on Rosa’s advice, I took everything except my costumes.

CHAPTER 11

As far as I knew, this was my first flight. I was a little nervous, but not as nervous as meeting Julia’s parents. In fact, I was terrified of meeting them. If they were lying to her, then it made no sense that they would want to meet me. I couldn’t figure it out.

The flight seemed to take forever. I had let Rosa talk me into buying a first class ticket, so the seats were very comfortable and the drinks were free. I had two bourbon and cokes to try to relax.

When I got off the plane, Julia and her parents were waiting for me. I was shocked when I saw how old they were. They looked to be in their seventies. Julia gave me a warm hug, but her parents made me feel unwelcome. They were almost hostile. When they caught Julia looking at them, they smiled at me.

They told me they were glad I had come and they had been looking forward to meeting me. Their words didn’t seem to match up with the vibes I was picking up from them. I felt very uncomfortable.

After getting my luggage from baggage claim, we got into a limousine waiting at the curb. We headed down I-75 and crossed several bridges before we got out of Jacksonville. We exited off the freeway onto state road sixteen and went left.