Free Cities of the Dead by Linda Barnes Page B

trade,” Mary said. “She’s in private service. My own.”
    â€œAh.” Armand’s bushy eyebrows lifted and settled. “Then she works for you and not the other way around—and I take your compliment about my soft-shell crab even more highly. Now bear with me a minute. I thought the police had the whole thing tied up with a ribbon.”
    Spraggue said, “We don’t think Dora killed anyone.”
    â€œI think you’re right.” Armand sighed and flicked a stray crumb of French bread off the tablecloth with a well-manicured fingernail. “But if she didn’t, well, that surely could open a couple cans of worms around here.”
    â€œMaybe we could start with how you came to know Joseph Fontenot,” Spraggue said.
    â€œI miss him,” Armand said quietly, as if he were embarrassed to acknowledge the fact. “And I’m surprised that I do. Joe was a difficult man, such a difficult man—but he was an artist in his own way, and yeah, I guess I miss him. Maybe it’s the shock. Guess it’s like losing a bit of my own life, I knew him so long. Some of it’s mourning for myself. Somebody close to you dies like that, it makes you realize that someday everybody will say these nice things about you—and these nasty things, too—and you won’t be able to get back at ’em. Makes me feel old.”
    A talker, all right, Spraggue thought.
    â€œHow long did you actually know him?” he asked. Maybe this was someone who could fill in the missing years.
    â€œSince I was a kid. I knew him from the bayou. I knew his people. He was the one who was going to be the famous chef—but I made it first, and he came to me for a job.”
    â€œWhen was that?”
    Armand wrinkled his brow and pouted his lips, deep enough in thought to get careless about his looks. “Eight, nine years ago. Maybe a bit longer—I can never remember exactly when things happen. But I hadn’t seen him in a long time.”
    â€œHow long?”
    â€œLong enough so I didn’t even recognize him. God, people change. The glasses and the gimpy leg. He looked like he’d had hard times, and my restaurant was doing well. Once, I think, when I was still a boy, teenager maybe, I told him if he ever needed work to come to me. See, I wasn’t born in the bayou like him. I used to go down with an uncle of mine to trap and fish. My rich uncle, Joe always called him, because a man who owns a boat must be very rich. Joe would show us the spots to catch the best crawfish, the best sac-a-lait —that’s perch—things like that. We used to yap a lot about growing up, the way boys do, and in my dream my rich uncle would die and I’d open a fine restaurant and Joe would cook for me. In his dream, he’d find a pot of gold, or marry a rich girl, and open his own. My dream came true faster.”
    Armand sampled a forkful of raspberry tart and nodded curt approval. A waiter ceased hovering and disappeared.
    â€œAt first,” Armand continued, “I could hardly believe this man was the same person as that boy, but when I tasted his gumbo, I knew he was the same old Joe.”
    â€œDid Fontenot get along well with the rest of the staff here?”
    Armand lifted his eyes from his careful dissection of the raspberry tart. “If I said so, the others would sure give me the lie,” he admitted. “Joe was difficult, that’s all there was to it.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œWell …” The eyebrows did their lift-and-settle routine. “He was special. He was gifted. And I guess he thought there oughta be a different standard of conduct for the creative chef. He put himself above the others. Now, I wanna say that he was gifted. In a man with no gift, his actions would have been intolerable. But, well, Joe knew what he could get away with. He knew that we could afford to lose some old salad chef, some apprentice saucier,