Death of a Beauty Queen. Mallory Kane

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СКАЧАТЬ but Rosemary Delancey’s body had never been found.

      The woman slowed down, so he did, too, keeping her in sight but not getting too close. She glided along as if the narrow, uneven sidewalk were a beauty pageant runway, cradling a long loaf of French bread like an armful of roses.

      Dixon was no expert on beauty pageants or Mardi Gras Carnival queens, but after her murder he’d searched out every photograph and video ever taken of Rosemary Delancey. He’d become an expert on what she looked like and how she walked.

      At that moment she turned her head to check the traffic before crossing Prytania Street. When he saw her full-face for the first time, his certainty melted like cotton candy in the rain.

      Viewed straight-on, there was something not quite right about her features. Before he had time to figure out what it was, however, she’d turned away again and crossed the street.

      She said something to a newspaper kiosk vendor and he laughed. She continued on. At the door of a two-story shotgun house three doors down she produced a key from a hidden pocket in her skirt and unlocked the door.

      Dixon’s pulse raced. Had he really found Rosemary Delancey? Because T-Bo Pereau’s information had her boarding the Prytania streetcar, Dixon had checked the public records of every single resident within a twenty-block radius, without much hope of success. He’d found three people with names similar to Rosemary.

      Rosalie Adams, who was eighty-three; Rosemary Marsden, forty-eight, who owned a dress shop on Magazine Street; and Rose Bohème, thirty, whose signature was on Renée Pettitpas’s permit renewal for a display space on Jackson Square. Of the three, only Rose Bohème held any promise, although she was too young to be Rosemary Delancey, who would have been thirty-four. Still, it had been a place to start.

      Now here he was, standing in front of Renée Pettitpas’s address, his head spinning with excitement. If Rose Bohème was Rosemary Delancey …

      Dixon looked up at the house. Its chips and peels spoke of several decades of stucco and paint—white, pink, gray and most recently green. In this part of town, the effect of the crumbling layers with old brick peeking through was charming.

      Dixon’s sister made quite a good living working to achieve the same effect artificially for clients who loved the look but preferred to pay outrageous sums for faux finishing for their Garden District mansions rather than live in this part of town where they could have the real thing. He ought to take a picture for her. She’d go nuts over the rainbow of colors the crumbling layers revealed.

      He glanced upward at the creaky weathered sign that read Maman Renée, Vodun, Potions, Fortunes in peeling paint. She’d want to steal that, too.

      Just as the black-haired woman pushed open the door, a little girl, maybe eight or nine years old, ran up to her.

      “Mignon!” the woman cried, leaning down to buss the girl’s cheeks. “Here you are, early as usual.” She gestured toward the canvas tote dangling from her wrist. “I have a new piece for you to learn today.”

      “Miss Rose,” the little girl said with a shake of her many neatly braided pigtails, “I want to play ‘Saints Go Marchin’ In.’”

      “In good time, ‘tite.” She pushed the door open and let the girl go inside ahead of her. Just as she entered, she turned back and glanced around. Dixon could have sworn her gaze lit on him for an instant before she pushed the door closed.

      For a couple of seconds, he stared at the weathered wooden door with its clear-and-red leaded glass insert, his chest contracting as if a giant fist squeezed it. The little girl had called her Rose.

      Rose. Thinking of the woman’s features, doubt nagged at him, but he’d come this far. He wasn’t about to give up without checking her out.

      He looked around. Maman Renée’s voodoo shop was one of a row of similar two-story houses.

      In a window of the house next door, he saw an elderly man’s gnarled, dusty-black fingers push the lace curtains aside, then quickly let them drop.

      The house on the other side and the duplex across the street were both boarded up and the duplex’s roof was caved in. They looked as though they hadn’t been touched since Katrina.

      Half a block up the street, he saw the tables and chairs of an outdoor café. The sign said Bing’s, since 1972. He walked over and sat. When a husky man with a towel slung over his shoulder and a marine tattoo came out to take his order, Dixon nodded toward the voodoo shop.

      “What happened to Maman Renée?” he asked casually, but the man wasn’t fooled. He eyed him suspiciously.

      “You a cop?”

      Dixon gave a short laugh and shook his head. “Café au lait,” he said. So Bing was protective of Rose Bohème. Dixon had seen it a lot in the old neighborhoods during his career as a homicide detective. He was glad she had neighbors who cared for her, but it was going to make his job a lot harder if none of them would give him any information.

      He’d asked his question about Maman Renée as an icebreaker. He knew that five months ago, Renée Pettitpas, seventy-eight years old, had suffered a stroke. Rose had called 911, but by the time the EMTs arrived, Renée had died.

      So what now, Lloyd? he asked himself as he waited for his coffee. The little girl was there for a piano lesson. It fit. Rosemary Delancey had majored in music at Loyola University’s College of Music and Fine Arts. Everything about Rose Bohème fit, except her face and her age.

      As he frowned, trying to figure out what was wrong with her features, the folded photo in his wallet that he’d taken from Rosemary Delancey’s apartment seared his buttock like a brand. He’d always hoped that one day, if she’d survived that bloodbath, someone would see her and recognize her, although truthfully, he’d never really believed the day would come. Yet here he was, about to confront the woman who everyone believed had been murdered twelve years before.

      He unwrapped the cloth napkin from around a fork and spoon. The flatware rattled. He held up his hand. He was actually shaking.

      Bing returned at that moment with his café au lait. He set it down, then folded his arms and watched him.

      Dixon sipped the hot milk-laced coffee.

      “Why’re you so interested in Maman Renée?” Bing finally asked gruffly.

      Dixon didn’t answer directly. “I see you’ve been here since 1972.”

      Bing looked down his crooked nose at him.

      He nodded at the tattoo on the man’s forearm. “Marines,” he said.

      “Yeah?”

      “I’ll bet you can take care of yourself.” Dixon watched Bing.

      A dark brow shot up. “Wanna try me?”

      Dixon shook his head with a short laugh. “No. I guess the folks around here take care of Rose, now that Maman Renée is gone.”

      “How’s any of that your business?” Bing said, unfolding his arms and clenching his fists. “‘Cause we don’t like questions and we sure as hell don’t like cops.”

      Dixon СКАЧАТЬ