Free Floodgates by Mary Anna Evans Page A

sense whatsoever. The upshot was, though, that Matt enjoyed a cushy position because of who he was and who his family knew. Family connections were important, no matter where you went, but only in New Orleans was a man likely to be acquainted with his fifth cousin, once removed.
    “No wonder Matt has the face of a choir boy,” Faye observed as she lowered herself into the excavation. “He’s led a sheltered life. His family has always taken care of him.”
    “Maybe a little too much.” Nina stepped into her own unit. “But they couldn’t shield him from the turmoil of the past three years. Matt lost loved ones in the storm. He almost lost his parents. He would have, if the rescuers had been any slower in coming.”
    Twenty minutes later, Faye watched Matt walk back to the visitor’s center by a circuitous path that came nowhere near her work site. More than once, he rubbed the heel of his hand across his face, the way men do when they don’t want anybody to know they’re crying.
    ***
    Faye had watched Jodi spend the past twenty minutes reading all the educational placards in the vicinity of the excavation where she and Nina and Dauphine were piling up the backdirt. It was now straight-up noon, and Faye had a sneaking suspicion that the detective wanted to talk to her and that she was just killing time until Faye sent her crew off to find some lunch.
    Faye’s hunch was right. Immediately after Nina and Dauphine went to fetch their sack lunches from the project trailer, Jodi approached Faye with an invitation. “There’s a greasy spoon a couple of miles down St. Bernard Highway that has a cheap lunch plate. How do you feel about po-boys?”
    “Since I got here, I’ve tried just about every variety, and I’ve loved them all. How do the bakeries around here get that crisp crust and still leave the bread soft on the inside?”
    Faye was using a hose, some foamy soap, and a fingernail brush to get the worst of the dirt off her hands. It wasn’t working.
    “Beats me. Something in the water, maybe? So…you wanna do lunch?”
    “Police business?”
    “Heck, no. Working all the time makes a girl old fast. Oh, maybe I know something about yesterday’s bones that might get an archaeologist’s attention…”
    She grinned at Faye’s obvious interest, and kept talking. “Besides, I can always use a good woman friend. I’ve got me a lot of friends but most of them are dumb as a post, which you’re not. I love ’em and all, but I can only spend so much of my life talking about nothing but liquor and pretty men. I mean, they’re two of my favorite subjects, but—”
    Joe had been standing nearby, slowly pouring water out of the paper cup in his hand and watching where it flowed. Faye had no idea why he was doing that, but Joe had a reason for everything he did. Dauphine was standing a few feet away, too far to be standing with Joe but too close to pretend that she was looking at anything beyond a dark and handsome man who had a strange obsession with wet dirt. Faye wasn’t sure what she thought about that.
    When Joe noticed Jodi, he turned his attention away from the mud he was making and walked over to greet her. Wiping a hand on the rag hanging out of his back pocket, he shook her hand, then turned his head to ask, “Ready for lunch, Faye?”
    Jodi’s mouth was saying, “Oh, if you already have plans…”, but her eyes were fastened on Joe. He elicited that response from most women, even those who claimed they didn’t want to talk about pretty men quite all the time.
    Faye had been looking forward to a few minutes alone with her fiancé, but Jodi knew exactly how to pique her interest. Faye really, really wanted to know what the police had learned about the dead woman.
    She and Joe were going to spend the rest of their lives together. What was one hour more or less? Of course, that was how married couples woke up after decades together and realized they didn’t know each other any more. Her pre-wedding