Nadine thought for a minute. “The girl wasn’t exactly guarded about her dating details, mind you, but that story was a whole new level of T.M.I.”

  “Do you have any idea who this asshole was?” Q asked.

  “Never thought to ask. The only thing she ever mentioned, besides the sex stuff, is that he had a thing for that Frank Sinatra song you sing sometimes.” Nadine replied. “When you were singing it a couple of weeks ago, at the end of that solo piano thing you did here, Beth said that it was her man’s favorite song. Liked to put it on and have her…blow him.”

  “She put it like that?” Sanger asked.

  Nadine shook her head. “No. She went into a little more detail about which techniques he enjoyed the best.”

  “Which song?” Q and Sanger said simultaneously.

  “Angel Eyes,” Nadine said.

  Sanger asked, “She tell you anything else?”

  “Yeah, she said that she knew when she was doing it just right because he’d start saying, ‘that’s it, my angel,’ over and over.”

  As the three of them left the office, Q could only think of one thing and one thing only: Angela Galvez, who loved angels.

  ~~~

  Sanger spent the next hour fleshing out a timeline of the events at the Cove in the days that led up to Beth's murder, beginning with Friday night. Nadine had been late to work because she'd met some out of town friends for dinner in the Quarter and had gotten stuck on the other side of an impromptu Drag Queen dance off.

  Josh had worked the door until Ben called to say he wasn't coming back in. After that, he'd found a friend in the crowd and gave them fifty bucks to man the door, so he could help Nadine out behind the bar. Joe had the night off.

  "Where were you?" Sanger asked Joe.

  "Me? I stood in a friend's wedding Saturday afternoon. Friday night was the rehearsal dinner." Joe scratched the back of his neck. "Why do you ask?"

  Sanger took a note and replied, "Where was the rehearsal dinner?"

  "That new Moroccan joint in the Marigny, off Frenchman," he answered.

  Sanger thought for a moment. "That's pretty close to where Ms. Hunter's car was supposed to have broken down."

  "It's also pretty close to a dozen bars, a fag bookstore, and an old folk's home. What's your point?" Joe asked.

  "It just seems to me,” Sanger said in a casual tone of voice, “That if Ms. Hunter's car had broken down, you'd be the closest person to help. Why did she text Mr. Bordelon?"

  Joe shrugged. "How should I know? Maybe she forgot where I was? Maybe she was hoping Ben would ride down there on a white horse and carry her away like Cinderella?"

  Ben interjected, "To be clear, she didn't text me for help initially."

  Sanger looked at Ben. "No?"

  He shook his head. "She texted me saying she wouldn't be able to make it in because her car had broken down and she was waiting for a tow."

  "So how did you end up driving to get her?" Sanger pressed him.

  "I needed her at work, so I texted back saying I'd come get her." Ben pulled out his phone and searched the screen for moment. "Here," he said, handing it to Sanger.

  Sanger silently read the text conversation. Q and Ben had read it so many times, she almost knew it by heart:

  Beth: Hey Bossman, my car broke down. Waiting for a tow, doesn't look like I can make it in tonight.

  Ben: Need you here. Joe's off. I'll come get you. Where you at?

  Beth: It's too far. I'm stuck in the ninth ward.

  Ben: Late’s better than never. Address?

  Beth: It's cool. You don't have to.

  Ben: Either I come get you or I swing by your place on my way home with your final paycheck and a little pink slip. You pick.

  Beth: Fine. 926 Villere

  Ben: Be there in 30

  Ben: I'm here. Where you at?

  Ben: Pick up your fucking phone, Beth

  Ben: Beth?

  Ben: This is bullshit. Where are you?

  Ben: I'm leaving. You and me gonna have a talk tomorrow.

  Sanger handed the phone back to Ben. "You threatened to fire her?"

  "Like I said the other day, she hadn't been very reliable lately. Not a lot of fat around here to trim," Ben replied.

  Josh spoke up, "We have an understanding around here. No calling in unless it's an emergency."

  Sanger looked critically at Ben. "But you didn't come back after you tried to pick up Ms. Hunter."

  Ben looked guilty for a minute. He started to speak, but Josh interrupted. "Look, Ben works harder than anyone. He's been working six days a week for going on eight years. Ever since...what happened to Q....look, family comes first and Q's his family. If she needs him, we work around it."

  It was Q's turn to feel guilty.

  "Anyway," Josh continued, "by the time he called to say he couldn't find Beth and he was headed home to Q, I'd already called in a friend of mine to help out.

  "Who's that?" Sanger asked.

  "Dude named Frank Bettendorf. He used to work here before he started his personal training business. Had Joe's job. We call him in from time to time if we’re short on staff,” Josh explained.

  Sanger took another note. "You have his number handy?"

  "Sure thing," Josh pulled out his phone and read Sanger the phone number.

  Q turned to Ben. "Isn't that the guy that lives across the street in the duplex?"

  Ben nodded. "How do you think he found out about the place?"

  "He's your neighbor?" Sanger asked Ben.

  "Yeah, super nice guy. Health nut, though. Didn't like working in a smoke-filled bar too much," Ben answered.

  "Ok, so tell me about Saturday," Sanger continued.

  Ben gave an accounting of The Soul Queens sold-out performance which boiled down to two things: everyone was too busy to breathe, let alone worry about where Beth was; and everyone thought she was either too scared to come into work and face Ben after the vanishing act she’d pulled on Friday, or she figured she was fired anyway, so why bother.

  "Anything unusual happen Thursday? Anything you can think of?" Sanger asked.

  Everyone thought for a moment and simultaneously shook their heads in the negative.

  "Did Ms. Hunter happen to mention where she was going after work on Thursday?" he asked.

  "Where else?" Nadine answered. "To meet her man."

  ~~~

  Q and Ben drove home in silence. As they walked into the house, Ben asked, "So what did Nadine tell Detective Sanger?"

  She sat down on the bottom stair and untied her Converse. "Nadine had told Beth this story about some dude getting rough in bed with her and how she’d handled it."

  Ben folded his arms and leaned against the wall. "How was that?"

  She grinned. "Grabbed him by the balls and told him, and I quote, 'he could either get laid or get castrated, his choice.'"

  He laughed out loud. "Pretty compelling argument."

  "Yeah, buddy," Q agreed. "Anyway, so Beth tells her how she loves it when her man got rough in bed and told Nadine this unbelievably graphic story. Whoever Beth was seeing was no good. Absolutely no good."

  "She repeat the story?" he asked.

  "Who? Nadine?" Q tossed her shoes by the front door, ignoring Ben’s disapproving look.

  He let out a defeated sigh and nodded.

  "Yeah, but please don't make me tell you. I feel like scrubbing my brain with steel wool to get that image out my head." Q started to stand up, Ben walked over and held out his hand to help her up.

  "You can spare both of us," he said. "I don't want to know."

  "Thank you." Q paused, "You hungry? I don't think I've eaten today."

  "Well, let's get you fed." He kissed her on the top of her head.

  They walked together into the kitchen, Q pushed herself up to sit on the counter across from the refrigerator, watching Ben rummage through its contents for ingredients. Ben and Q had an understanding: Q didn't drive a car or cook, and Ben didn't complain.

  "You want me to cook something, or you want some cold barbecue from yesterday?" he asked.

  "Cold barbecue, please."

  Ben handed her a sticky leg quarter and Q gratefully accepted, taking a large, unladylike bite. "One more thing," she said around her first mouthful, "her sick fuck boyfriend liked to get blown while listening to Frank Sinatra sing Angel Eyes."

  Ben walked back to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of beer. "Now I need a drink."

  He opened both bottles and put one beside Q on the counter, taking a long pull off the other. Q took a few more bites, wondering how to bring up the subject of Angela. She reached over and tore off a paper towel to wipe her hands, setting down her food on another before taking a drink of beer.

  "There's something else, Ben," she said. "Nadine said something that made me think of Angela."

  "My Angela?" he asked.

  Q pretended to try to kick him and flashed her ring. "Not yours anymore, love. But, yes.”

  “You know what I meant, Clementine.” He folded his arms. “So, what was it that made you think of her?”

  “Nadine said that when Beth told her about the song, she also said he would call her his 'angel' while she was doing...what he liked."

  "Why did that make you think about Angela? Just because I told you that she had a thing for angels?" he asked, confused.

  "I don't know. It just felt... familiar. I know it's weird... it's just - I don't know - they never caught the guy that killed her and Beth's apartment, it reminded me of the crime scene photos Ernst showed me,” Q tried to explain.

  More than a decade earlier, Ben's ex-fiancé, Angela Galvez, had been murdered; beaten and strangled in her own apartment. Ben had been suspect number one because Angela hadn't told anyone but him that their engagement was off. She'd been seeing someone on the side, someone who liked to leave bruises. While Ben had an alibi for that night, there was a point during Veronica Denton's murder investigation that Q's godfather, Ernst, had suspected that Ben may have been involved and told Q about Angela's unsolved murder using the crime scene pictures as visual aids.

  "Jesus, darlin'." Ben sat down at the table and stretched out his long legs. "You know better than anyone how many bad men there are in this world. Beth’s apartment didn’t look much worse than yours after Niko got through with us."

  "I know. It's stupid. It's just Angie gets roughed up and killed by a mystery boyfriend and now Beth..." she started.

  "You're assuming the boyfriend in both cases did it," he said, draining what was left of his beer.

  "Pretty safe assumption. If he didn't do it, why didn't he ever turn up?" she asked.

  Ben winked at her. "Probably because he figured some cute little Nora Jones wannabe would accuse him of murder."

  "Nora Charles, numbskull. Nora Jones is a singer,” she said, kicking her foot at him again.

  "So are you. Stick to singing, Clementine, please," Ben stood up and walked over to her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and leaned his forehead against hers. "I love you, darlin'. Please don't go poking around again."

  "I'm just thinking out loud, Ben," she said.

  "That's how it started last time, too,” he reminded her. “Leave this to Detective Sanger to figure out."

  Q tilted her face upwards and kissed him. "Consider it left. You don't like talking about her, do you?" she asked.

  Ben closed his eyes. "No. Some things are best left in the past. Just know that as much as I loved her, I never loved her the way I love you. I need you to stay safe."

  She wrapped her arms around his hips. "Nothing's going to happen to me."

  "It almost has, twice," Ben said quietly.

  "I'm right here, Ben," Q said. "You don't have to worry."

  He nodded and silently held her to him. Q rested her head against his beating heart, listening to its steady pattern while the sun slowly set through the sweet olive tree outside.

  ~~~

  The unseasonably hot weather took an uncomfortably humid turn by the end of the week. Q began to sweat in her black silk dress before they had reached the main entrance of the Tabernacle of the Resurrection Pentecostal Church in Westwego. Ben’s white cotton shirt and the undershirt beneath were already sticking to his back. He straightened his cuff links and smoothed his black suit coat hanging on his left arm.

  As they walked into the entrance, they were greeted with disappointingly insufficient air conditioning and a toothy man about Q’s age who introduced himself as Pastor Davidson. Q signed the guest book while Ben explained how they knew Beth.

  “I didn’t know Beth, personally,” Pastor Davidson replied. “But her mother attends services regularly and is a stalwart of our sisterhood.”

  Q glanced inside the sanctuary and saw a grieving woman with greying blond hair surrounded by six or seven other women comforting her. “Is that Mrs. Hunter?” she asked.

  The pastor nodded and motioned for them to find a seat. As Ben and Q approached, Beth’s mother found her composure and turned to greet them.

  “Are you friends of Annabeth’s?” she asked as she wiped her nose.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m Ben Bordelon. I own the nightclub where she worked,” he said gently.

  Mrs. Hunter stood up and pulled him to her in a clutching embrace against her ample figure. “Oh, you poor man. I wanted to call you but I didn’t have your number and I knew, oh I just knew, that Annabeth would have wanted us to see each other through this.”

  Ben softly pulled away and said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I think you may have me confused with someone else.”

  “Oh no,” she said. “Annabeth talked about you all the time. Told me how she’d found her someone special. How successful and handsome you were. How good you were to her. She showed me pictures of you two dancing together. You made such a sweet couple.”

  He helplessly eyed the women surrounding Beth’s mother, momentarily mute. Q decided to try to intervene. “Mrs. Hunter. Beth was seeing someone, but it wasn’t Ben. Those pictures were from a party she went to at work,” she said. “I took them.”

  The older woman shook her head. “No, I remember. Ben Bordelon. Because I asked her if that was going to mess things up for her, working for you and all. And she said that she wouldn’t have to work much longer anyway after the two of you were married.”

  Ben took Q’s hand and said, “I’m really sorry, but I’m not Beth’s boyfriend. I’m just her boss. That’s all.”

  “Really, Mrs. Hunter,” Q added. “Beth was head over heels in love with someone, but it wasn’t Ben.”

  “Who did you say you were?” Mrs. Hunter asked her.

  “I’m Q Toledano,” she replied.

  Mrs. Hunter shook her head, “I don’t remember her mentioning you. How did you know Annabeth?”

  “From Lafitte’s Cove. I play there sometimes and,” she paused before saying as moderately as she could, “I’m Ben’s fiancé.”

  Beth’s mother began to cry and shake, her knees buckling. “I don’t understand. I don’t…she said she was getting married. To him!” she cried, pointing to Ben.

  Several of the women around her comforted her and guided her away.

  An older woman with dyed jet black hair and lime green glasses put one hand on Ben’s arm and the other on Q’s. “I wouldn’t worry about it, dears. That poor woman is on so many sedatives she doesn't know what she’s saying. Beth probably told her she was dating someone and that y’all were getting married and the poor lamb has it all confused in her mind. I’m Beth’s cousin. Thank you for coming. It’s real nice of y’all to come pay your respects.”

  After they found a seat, Q leaned close to Ben and said, “Well, that was awkward.”

  “Sure am glad you’re not the jealous type,” he whispered, picking up her left hand to kiss her ring.

  “Baby, if you found the time for a whole other relationship between me, your family, and the clubs, my hat’s off to you.” She rested her head against his arm.

  Josh and Nadine eventually joined them. Nadine immediately informed them that Joe ‘didn’t do funerals’ and refused to attend. They visited quietly until the service began. During the silent prayer, Pastor Davidson began a strident apostatizing schpiel for Jesus. “…because it’s not too late brothers and sisters,” he said. “I know, deep in my heart that as Beth’s heart slowed and she breathed her last breath, I know that she took Jesus Christ into her heart and became a child of the Lord. Raise your hand now if you would like the same peace with the Lord and become a child of Christ.”

  Josh elbowed Q. “Repent you Christ-killer,” he whispered.

  Q nudged him with her shoulder and shushed him, whispering, “You repent, philanderer.”

  Josh took a hold of her hand and tried to raise her arm. She snapped her arm down, barely escaping salvation. Josh’s hand shot up and her elbow slammed into the back of the pew. She looked around uncomfortably to see if anyone had heard the somewhat loud thump and found a familiar face. As his eyes caught hers, she quickly turned away, looping her arm through Ben’s, comforted by the protective weight of him.

  This can’t be good.

  Jewish New Year

  A few days later, autumn had thankfully arrived. Q and Ben stepped off the streetcar into a deliciously cool evening breeze. They hurried across St. Charles to the synagogue steps. Q led Ben through the front door reaching into her purse and handing him kippah.

  “You wear it on your head,” she gestured, mimicking her grandmother’s first words to Ben.

  “I know what a yarmulke is, Q. I’m not a hayseed.” Ben put it on the back of his head and took her hand.

  “Should have told that to Bubbe.” She winked.

  “Unlike you, I was raised with manners. ‘Yes, ma’am’ seemed like a more appropriate response. And I was right, because she loves me.”

  Q nodded her head from side to side. “She’d love you more if you converted. Ten will get you twenty she’s still holding out for a Jewish wedding.”

  They were greeted by several well-dressed congregants talking loudly in the foyer. Dozens of children ran through the halls hopped up on sweets. They continued into the social hall where Q found her grandmother. Constance Toledano was bustling around the buffet table putting out food and fussing at the two children hiding underneath.

 

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