Fairbanks, Nancy Page 7

  Fortunately, she didn't expect comments from me on the science. She got plenty of those from actual scientists. We hugged one another, Carlene asked after Julienne, but then took offense that our friend had not shown up. Given her at­titude, I didn't mention that Julienne had been seen at Caf6 du Monde yesterday. "She's missing, Carlene," I said firmly. I was only then beginning to realize that the waiter's identi­fication on the basis of an old picture might not be accurate, although he had mentioned a red dress. How many women went to breakfast in a fancy red dress? Well, in New Or­leans, there might be quite a few, I had to admit to myself but not to Carlene.

  "Don't you think she'd be here if she could?" I asked rea­sonably. But why couldn't she? That was the question. And why couldn't she meet me as we'd planned? Didn't she know I'd be beside myself with worry? Of course, she knew that.

  I saw Linus Torelli at the same time he saw me. He tried to skulk away, but I left Carlene without so much as an "ex­cuse me," which was very rude although necessary under the circumstances, and chased him into a small lecture room __ where chemists were beginning to assemble for a panel on something or other. "You lied to me," I said.

  Torelli flushed with embarrassment, glanced nervously at three or four men who turned to stare at us, and then hustled me out into the hall.

  "You said you hadn't seen her, but the desk clerk at your hotel says you two went out together Saturday night, and that she went upstairs with you when you returned."

  "Sh-sh-sh," hissed Torelli. "If this gets back to my ... to her . . . husband, he'll... he'll. . . he's really paranoid about the two of us."

  "Small wonder," I snapped. "Where is she?"

  "I don't know."

  "You do, too."

  "Listen, Mrs.—"

  "Blue."

  "Julienne and I are not lovers." He was whispering, glancing nervously from side to side. "We're colleagues. We run a combined seminar for our graduate students."

  "Then why was she spending the night with you?"

  "Sh-sh-sh. She didn't. I mean, after she quarreled with Nils, we went out wandering in the Quarter. She wanted to take pictures."

  "Did she have her camera?" She hadn't had a camera at Etienne's. She'd forgotten it, probably because she and Nils had been quarreling before dinner.

  "Of course. She always has it."

  "Fine. But she went up to your room afterward."

  Torelli looked downright desperate as a skinny, red­headed man, eyeing us curiously, greeted him and slipped around us into the room. "Please keep your voice down," Torelli begged. "If you don't care about me, you might think of Julie's repu—"

  "No one saw her leave your room or the hotel," I per­sisted angrily. If Torelli was worried about her reputation, why had he started something with her in the first place? If he had. "And no one knows where she is now." I glared at him accusingly. "She didn't even come to the plenary ad­dresses."

  "Well, it's not my fault!" Torelli sighed and admitted in a voice almost inaudible, "There are two beds in my room. She asked to sleep in one of them ... because she was so fu­rious with Nils, she refused to go back to their hotel. She said since he believed we were having an affair, she'd just spend the night with me."

  "And initiate an affair?" I gasped. Oh Julienne! And Nils—this was all his fault!

  "No!" exclaimed Torelli. Then, more calmly, "No. But she did say it would serve him right if, when she returned Sunday night—"

  "But she didn't!"

  "Are you sure? She said she was going to tell him that she'd spent the night with me. Jesus, can you imagine what would have happened if she'd done that? He'd kill me."

  Or her, I thought with a shudder. Had she carried out that crazy plan, and Nils—"

  "I told her that was a really bad idea," Torelli assured me.

  "And then what happened?"

  "And then she came up with another crazy idea—that we should rent a boat. As if I'd do that. I don't like boats. I don't know how to drive a boat, and she expected me to ... to run it while she took pictures."

  He turned pale at the very thought. Aquaphobia, I de­duced, wondering if he knew how to swim. Julienne swam with the ease and grace of a dolphin. We'd had wonderful times at the lake when we were children. Even Philippe had deigned to join us occasionally, although he wasn't nearly the swimmer Julienne was.

  "That's crazy, don't you agree? I mean, she's a beautiful woman, and a brilliant chemist, but you couldn't get me into a boat in the daytime much less at night, and certainly not to take pictures on the river or in the swamp. And I hadn't had any sleep. I can't afford to skip the meeting and go dashing off—"

  "Do you think she went?" I interrupted. It would be just like Julienne. When it came to photography, I'd seen her hang off cliffs and approach scary looking bikers. Taking pictures from a boat would be no big deal for Julienne. I could imagine her photographing the river, the docks, the riverboats, the—good grief. What if her little boat had been run down by some huge riverboat or barge, and no one even noticed? Had she gone out and rented the boat right after waiting for me at Cafe du Monde on Sunday morning? After all, she hadn't known of the arrangement to meet for brunch at Praline Connection. It was made after she left. She prob­ably wanted Jason and me to take charge of the boating while she took pictures, and when we hadn't been there to help, she'd—

  "With who?" Torelli was asking disdainfully. "She couldn't handle both a boat and a camera at the same time. And who'd want to go boating in a swamp?"

  That's right; he had mentioned the swamp. Surely she hadn't gone into the swamp by herself when she couldn't find anyone to go with her. I was conscience stricken to have failed her. Not that I'd have wanted to go boating in a swamp, except maybe on a tour. We'd talked about taking a swamp tour, which sounded safe enough. But alone? Well, if we'd met Sunday morning, I could have talked her out of that idea. "So you don't think she actually went?" I asked hopefully.

  "Of course not. But we did part on an unpleasant note."

  "Did she have any extra clothes with her?" I asked, sub­dued. She wouldn't have gone boating in that red dress. Would she?

  "I don't think so. All she had was her camera and one of those big shoulder bags. They look like pouches. I don't know what she thought she was going to wear to bed. Maybe one of my shirts. And that's a good point. If she hasn't been back there yet, she's probably in her hotel room right now. She can't still be wearing that red dress, even if she did look amazingly sexy in it."

  Ah ha! It was obvious to me that Linus Torelli was or had been in love with Julienne, no matter how platonic and colleague-oriented he claimed his feelings were. Therefore, I didn't know how much of his tale to believe, and I couldn't very well demand that he let me look in his hotel room to see if she was still there. Still... "Can I look in your hotel room?"

  "Why?" He glared at me. "Oh hell, why not? I have to at­tend this meeting, but.. ."

  Attendees had been streaming past as we hissed dis­creetly at one another. Now a man at the door was giving Torelli an are-you-coming-in-or-not look. "Room 2210. Here's the key. Leave it at the desk." He scooted through the door, which closed behind him, and I was left with his key, in which I was no longer interested. If he'd give it to me, ob­viously he wasn't hiding Julienne in his room. I did check and found nothing to indicate that she'd even been there, so I went back to my own hotel and knocked at the Mag-nussens' door, hoping fervently that Julienne would answer, that she had either returned to her husband or was at least packing her clothes in order to move somewhere else. If she'd had clothes in the shoulder bag Torelli mentioned, there couldn't have been many, not enough to last her into a second day.

  What a disappointment when Nils opened the door. Still, I barged right in and insisted on looking through her be­longings. There was no way to tell whether she'd taken clothes away, and Nils claimed not to know what she had packed.

  "She came back last night, didn't she? Why didn't you tell me?" I was watching closely to see what he'd say, whethe
r he'd lie.

  "I've already told you. I haven't seen her since she walked out at Etienne's," he retorted.

  He seemed more angry than guilty. "Her camera's gone," I said, trying a new tactic.

  He shrugged.

  "And there's no laptop computer here. She must have brought one. You all bring them with you." I even carry one myself, now that I am a paid writer. Not that I bought it: I haven't earned that much. My laptop was Jason's before he upgraded.

  Nils shrugged again. "I don't bring a computer with me," he said, as if this was a point in his favor. "Why don't you look in Torelli's room?"

  "I did."

  Nils gaped at me.

  "Nothing of hers, including her, was in his room. But this means that, at the least, she came back here from the dinner at Etienne's to get her camera and computer." It then oc­curred to me that someone might have killed her on the street to get the electronic equipment. Julienne would have resisted, and then ... Oh God! "You don't even care, do you?" I asked angrily. "You don't care what's happened to her."

  "Nothing's happened to her," Nils replied. "She's run out on me, and she doesn't care who she worries or—"

  "Oh, do be quiet, Nils," I retorted. "I don't for a minute think she was having an affair, but I can certainly see why she wouldn't want to spend the week with you. You're treat­ing her abominably."

  I left the room and went to the hotel desk. If Julienne had, in fact, meant to leave Nils, she would have turned in her key card, as any responsible person would. But she hadn't. The desk clerk assured me that both Magnussens had their cards, and if they'd lost them, they should report it.

  What should I do next? I asked myself. Have lunch? Or visit the police station?

  9

  Muffulettas

  You haven't experienced the ultimate in sandwiches until you have tried that New Orleans delicacy, the muf-fuletta. First, it is huge—big enough to feed two men or four women. Second, it contains generous piles of ham, salami, and mozzarella. Third and most important, it is garnished with a piquant, garlic-infused salad made of chopped green olives, capers, celery, and pickled car­rots. All of this is encased between the two halves of a round, eight- to ten-inch, seed-covered loaf of soft white bread. Ah, heaven!

  The muffuletta is messy to eat; bits of the olive salad may find their way onto your clothing. If you delay too long in devouring your muffuletta, the bun will become soggy. But even soggy, it is a treat. The only serious fault I can find with this treat is that it tastes so good, you'll be tempted to eat it all. Then, unless you're a very large person with a very large appetite, you'll feel in need of a tummy tuck or a girdle for hours to come. Still, what's a little discomfort when the cause is so yummy?

  So walk over to the Central Grocery or the Progres­sive Grocery on Decatur Street and, as you devour your muffuletta, spare a thought for the many Sicilian immi­grants who flooded into a crumbling French Quarter in the late nineteenth century, bringing with them new and delicious additions to the pantheon of New Orleans del­icacies.

  Hint: You can buy a half or quarter sandwich, some­thing I didn't know when I purchased my first muf­fuletta.

  Carolyn Blue, Eating Out in the Big Easy

  I sat down dejectedly on one of the antique chairs in the hotel lobby, thinking of Julienne, who might have been seen Sunday morning but not since then, maybe not since the pre­vious night. And the bottom line was that no one was look­ing for her. Not her husband, not her terrified-of-water colleague/lover, and not the police. Just me. And what did I know about finding a missing person? Deciding that I was more worried than hungry, I donned my raincoat, picked up my umbrella, and headed for the Vieux Carre Police Station. I was so upset that I actually found myself looking over my shoulder, responding to that eerie sensation one gets at the back of the neck when convinced that an unseen person is stalking one. Paranoia! At the station, before entering, I turned resolutely, scanned the street, and saw not a single suspicious individual. Well, Carolyn, I said to myself, aren 't you embarrassed? After all, you are not the person who is missing.

  Having rescued myself from silly timidity, I marched into the station. There was a different officer at the desk, but he was no more helpful than the sergeant who had. sent Jason and me packing early Sunday afternoon. I tried to remain pleasant, remembering my grandmother's advice that more flies are to be caught with honey than vinegar. In this case "honey" did me no good. Perhaps it was my Yankee accent that offended the officer.

  Finally, abandoning the gentle and ladylike persuasion I customarily espouse when not overcome by the effects of rum and Pat O'Brien's hurricane mix, I said forcefully, "I thought this was supposed to be a city that welcomed tourists. I do not consider your lack of concern for a missing professor, a very prestigious professor I might add, either friendly or helpful, and believe me, if anything has hap­pened to Dr. Magnussen, I intend to start writing letters to every newspaper and travel magazine in the country to warn tourists of exactly how little protection they can expect from the New Orleans Police Department. In fact, I'm here to write a book about the city, a book for which I've already re­ceived an advance, I might add—just in case you think I'm some deluded nincompoop who couldn't get a book pub­lished if—"

  "Ma'am." My tirade was interrupted by one of those deep, drawling Southern voices that are guaranteed to send a shiver down a female spine. I looked up to see, standing beside me, a very tall, very handsome man of a certain age, which is to say about my age. If I hadn't been a happily mar­ried woman, I might have melted into an adoring puddle at his feet. As it was, I simply stammered into stillness.

  "Lieutenant Alphonse Boudreaux, ma'am." He smiled at me as if I was the woman he'd been looking for all his life.

  I swallowed and steeled myself against such charm. I had Julienne to find. I didn't have the time or lack of wifely pro­priety to let myself be sidetracked by a man, even a police lieutenant, who undoubtedly left swarms of swooning fe­males in his wake. "My friend, Dr. Julienne Magnussen, is missing," I said, "and this is the second time that I have re­ported as much without arousing the slightest interest among the officers of your department."

  "Reckon they must be blind then," said the lieutenant. "Ah sure do find you mighty interestin'." Before I could re­proach him for flirting with me when I had a pressing prob­lem to solve, he said, "Why don't you step this way, Miz ..." He glanced at my ring finger. "Ah don't think Ah caught your name, ma'am."

  He put his hand under my elbow and gently shepherded me toward a door that led to an inner part of the station I had not been able to access before. "B-blue," I stammered.

  "Beg pardon?" He pulled out a chair for me in his utili­tarian office and seated me with a courtly flourish.

  "My name is Blue. Carolyn Blue."

  "Yes, ma'am. Ah thought for a minute there, you were re-ferrin' to your state of mind. Well, now, Miz Blue, why don't you tell me about your missin' friend. Whatever impression you might have got, Ah wouldn't want you to think N'Awlins doesn't care about the safety an' happiness of her visi­tors."

  I stared at him. He really was a fine-looking man, dark-haired with a hint of gray at the temples, nicely weathered skin, and a physique that flattered his uniform rather than the other way around. Of course, he wasn't any better look­ing or built than Jason, just eight or so inches taller. And there was no chance that he was anywhere near as intelli­gent, or humorous, or sweet-tempered, or—

  "Miz Blue?" he prodded, evidently realizing that he'd lost my attention to distracting inner thoughts. Good thing he couldn't read them. He'd either be amused at my interest or irritated that he had come off second best in comparison to my husband. "Could you tell me when the lady disap­peared? She one of those tooth-straighteners we got in town this week?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The orthodontists at the Superior Inn."

  "Dr. Magnussen is a chemist. Here for the American Chemical Society meeting."

  "Oh, sure. At the convention center. They'r
e a lot less rowdy than the dentists."

  "I'm delighted to hear it," I replied. "Now, having estab­lished my friend's credentials, could we—"

  'Talk about her bein' missin'? Yes, ma'am. When did she—"

  "She disappeared Saturday night... well, actually she was seen Sunday morning. By a Professor Torelli, but that was really in the middle of the night, depending on the hours one keeps, I suppose. And possibly Sunday morning around breakfast time, although that's not—"

  "Why don't you just start right at the beginnin' an' tell me the whole story," he suggested. "Plus anythin' you can think of that might help me."

  Help him? He was really going to investigate Julienne's disappearance? I felt as if a suffocating veil had been lifted from my spirit. Finally, someone who saw what a dangerous situation this might be! I smiled at Lieutenant Boudreaux and began to talk. And I told him everything, my suspicions about Nils, about Linus Torelli, about white slavers and muggers and camera thieves, about the possibility of Juli­enne being run down while boating on the river or becom­ing lost in the swamp. The lieutenant nodded with a serious expression and even made some notes. By the time I got to Julienne sightings at Torelli's high-rise hotel and at Cafe du Monde, the lieutenant interrupted me to say that he'd had no lunch and was getting "mighty peckish."

  I was quite hungry myself, so I could imagine how fam­ished a man his size might be. Therefore, I agreed to walk over to an establishment famous for its muffulettas (the lieu­tenant pronounced it moofalottah), a New Orleans treat of which I had read and on which I would certainly need to write in my book. Seeing no harm in combining sleuthing and culinary research, I rose with alacrity and off we went, although I had to stop talking because it took all my breath to keep up with him. I couldn't even pause to look over my shoulder, although I again had that unsettling sensation of being followed. But who would be following me? And why? If there were a stalker, he certainly wouldn't be practicing his avocation while I was in the company of a very large po­liceman. So again I was being silly, experiencing a psycho­logical discomfort induced by my friend's disappearance, no doubt.