Free Polished Off by Barbara Colley Page B

one-shouldered shrug, and, though he still looked skeptical, he said, “I suppose anything’s possible. But you and I both know that’s a long shot. What other reason would his billfold be in the urn?”
    Charlotte thought about it for a minute. “There could be other reasons,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe it was stolen or he just lost it. Maybe the person in the urn is a pickpocket. Or maybe the person in the urn simply found it on the street somewhere—maybe a homeless person.”
    “Maybe,” Daniel said. “But I doubt it. Regardless, I still have to warn Nadia.”
    Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “Why do you think she would be a suspect in the first place? I know they lived together and all, but—”
    “I don’t think it,” he said. “But the police will, once they check their files and start digging into Ricco and Nadia’s backgrounds. Ricco Martinez was an abusive bastard—sorry, Auntie, but that’s exactly what he was. Nadia and Davy both have the mental and physical scars to prove it. And there are hospital records—emergency-room reports. One time he broke her arm. Another time he split her lip. Of course, she told the hospital she’d fallen, but if the police dig deep enough ...” He shrugged.
    Charlotte was shocked at what Daniel was telling her. But at the same time, a deep anger took root within. She never had liked Ricco Martinez, and now she knew why. Maybe all along she’d sensed what kind of man he was.
    She frowned. “There’s something I don’t understand. If Ricco was abusive to her, why was she so anxious to get him released from jail? Looks like she would have been glad that he was in jail. And if I remember right, she told me—”
    “Oh, I know all about what she told you, Auntie—about Davy missing his father, crying for him. It was all a bunch of bull to get you to help her. Ricco had used his one phone call from jail to call her. He’d told her that if she didn’t find a way to get him out, she and Davy would live to regret it. He claimed he had connections to certain people who would make sure they regretted it.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine? A father threatening his own little boy like that What a sleazebag.”
    The anger within Charlotte grew. “Humph! Worse than a sleazebag, if you ask me,” she answered. Threatening anyone was bad enough, but threatening an innocent child was reprehensible.
    Daniel abruptly stood. “I need to get home now.”
    Charlotte stood, too.
    “One thing, though,” Daniel said. “I hate to ask you, but would you mind going with me to tell Nadia about all of this? She respects you, and I think she’d be glad you were there—you know, for moral support and all. I would really appreciate it.”
    Charlotte nodded. “Of course, hon. Just give me a minute and I’ll follow you in my van. That way you won’t have to worry about bringing me back home.”

    New Orleans is divided into distinctive sections by the natives. There’s the CBD, which is the Central Business District, the French Quarter, the Garden District, the Irish Channel, New Orleans East, Uptown, Downtown, and more, depending on who is talking.
    Daniel’s home, like Charlotte’s, was located in Uptown, but his home was in the Broadmoor area of Uptown. The drive from Charlotte’s to Daniel’s could take anywhere between five to ten minutes. Travel time depended on the route taken and the time of day. It also depended on the amount of traffic congestion along the stretch of South Claiborne where repairs were being done to the city’s century-old water lines running beneath what most people in the rest of the country would call the median. New Orleanians referred to the strip of land that separated a street’s lanes of traffic as simply “the neutral ground.”
    Six P.M. traffic was light. As Charlotte sat waiting behind Daniel at the traffic light at St. Charles Avenue, her stomach growled, and she was wishing that she’d grabbed a quick sandwich before