4 sleuths and a burlesqu.., p.1
4 Sleuths & a Burlesque Dancer, page 1
4 SLEUTHS & A BURLESQUE DANCER
A KILLER FOURSOME MYSTERY
LESLIE LANGTRY
ARLENE MCFARLANE
TRACI ANDRIGHETTI
DIANA ORGAIN
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. Franki
Traci Andrighetti
2. Valentine
Arlene McFarlane
3. Kate
Diana Orgain
4. Merry
Leslie Langtry
5. Franki
Traci Andrighetti
6. Valentine
Arlene McFarlane
7. Kate
Diana Orgain
8. Merry
Leslie Langtry
9. Franki
Traci Andrighetti
10. Surveillance Footage
Arlene McFarlane
11. Valentine
Arlene McFarlane
12. Kate
Diana Orgain
13. Merry
Leslie Langtry
14. Franki
Traci Andrighetti
15. Audio Recording from Delphine’s Cell Phone
Leslie Langtry
16. Valentine
Arlene McFarlane
17. Kate
Diana Orgain
18. Merry
Leslie Langtry
19. Ring Camera Video
Diana Orgain
20. Franki
Traci Andrighetti
21. Epilogue: Valentine
Arlene McFarlane
22. Epilogue: Kate
Diana Orgain
23. Epilogue: Merry
Leslie Langtry
24. Epilogue: Franki
Traci Andrighetti
Behind the Book
Preorder Book 3 now!
About the Authors
4 SLEUTHS & A BURLESQUE DANCER
A Killer Foursome Mystery
Copyright© 2022 by LMAO Press
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book in whole or in
part in any form.
4 SLEUTHS & A BURLESQUE DANCER is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-9994981-8-4
print ISBN: 978-1-9994981-9-1
Published by LMAO Press
Canada
Cover Design by Arlene McFarlane
Cover by Adrian Doan Kim
Formatting by Traci Andrighetti
Created with Vellum
PROLOGUE
From: Kate Connolly
To: 4 Sleuths Group Chat
You guys! Jim surprised me with a trip to New Orleans. We’re about to board a 6 p.m. flight! He rented us a house in the beautiful Garden District, so I’ll have you all over tomorrow. The four of us will get to hang out again! This time in the lap of luxury.
FRANKI
TRACI ANDRIGHETTI
“Please, tell me I didn’t hear you right, Kate.” I squeezed my phone with one hand and gripped the edge of my desk at Private Chicks, Inc. with the other.
“You did.”
“You’re sure?”
“Dead certain.”
Not an expression I would’ve used given our history, but okay.
Kate gave a flustered exhale. “The house Jim rented is owned by your landlady, Glenda O’Brien.”
I released the desk and poured more Baileys Mudslide Coffee Creamer into my mug. The label promised a “whimsical spin” on my morning. Now I needed one. “What a small, twisted world.”
“This is no coincidence. When I got back from Babette’s bachelorette, Glenda came up in conversation. Unbeknownst to me, Jim contacted her, and she offered him this place at a steal—”
“As in, steal your money.”
“We know that now, but he had no way of knowing that she’s a slumlord.”
“Too bad all the hotels are booked because of that hair show Valentine and Merry are at.” I sipped my coffee and waited for the whimsy. It didn’t come. “Anyway, Glenda’s not a slumlord. She’s a sleazelord.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Um…things like pornographic wallpaper, condoms in the candy dish, a dining-room stripper pole…”
Kate gasped. “Is that what the pole in the entryway is for?”
I blinked. “What else?”
“It’s by the stairs. I thought it might be a fire escape.”
I put down my mug and the phone so I could massage my temples. Jim and Kate were going to have a hard time in The Big Easy. “I know San Francisco has the Tenderloin District and all, but New Orleans is a whole different animal.”
“I’m seeing that. Cheetah, leopard, zebra, and tiger.”
“She really went all out with the prints. The furnished apartment I rented sight unseen from her only has zebra and leopard.” I spun my chair and looked out the window at Decatur Street in the French Quarter, three stories below. “Where is this place, anyway?”
“The Lower Garden District.”
And I lived in a tiny dump in her fourplex in Uptown. I turned from the window and took a long sip from my mug. Still no whimsical spin. “The Lower Garden District isn’t as fancy as the Upper Garden District, but it’s still a wealthy neighborhood. And with all the restaurants, boutiques, and bars on Magazine Street, it’s got character.”
“Character is one way to describe this place.”
“What’s another?”
“A whorehouse version of the Park Avenue Hotel in Niagara Falls. You can’t imagine it.”
I grimaced. “Actually, I can. My place looks like a French brothel funeral parlor, and it comes with a creepy cemetery across the street.”
“Gosh. How can you live there?”
“There’s a great bar next to the cemetery.”
“Oh. I sure wish I could drink. I could really use something stiff right now. Wait. No pun intended.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Why don’t I leave now to come meet you? By the time I check out the house and haggle with Glenda over your rental contract, it’ll be time for Valentine and Merry’s lunch break from the hair show.”
“Jim and I would appreciate that, as long as it doesn’t put you at odds with Glenda.”
My landlady was a sixty-something ex-stripper, and I was a thirty-two-year-old PI who’d been thoroughly repressed by my Italian-Catholic family, so we were already as “at odds” as you could get. “Don’t worry. I can handle her.”
A buzz assailed my ears—and my brain. There was only one woman I couldn’t handle, and I had to work with her, thanks to my kind-hearted fiancé.
“Franki,” Kate said, “do you hear that buzzing sound?”
“Multiple times a day. It’s Bradley’s maniacal assistant.”
“That’s a relief. I was worried a forgotten sex toy had spontaneously turned on in the house.”
“You’re at Glenda’s, so don’t rule it out. See you in thirty.” I hung up, grabbed my hobo bag, and charged the lobby.
Ruth Walker sat at the reception desk beside the office entrance. Despite her turkey neck, she looked like an angry ostrich with a tight graying-brown bun. She even had the facial fuzz.
I pulled back my long, brown hair, leaned all five-feet-ten of me into her space, and stared my cat-eyelined eyes into her cat-eye glasses. “What’re you buzzing about now, woman?”
“Your 8:05 a.m. personal call.” She gave me a blast of her so-called Get Busy Buzzer, and my fingers curled into turkey neck-wringing position.
Veronica Maggio, my best friend and boss, entered the main door in a crisp yellow linen dress that complemented her blonde hair and sunny disposition. Her cornflower blue eyes shifted from Ruth to me. “What’s going on?”
I straightened my fingers. “I was about to remind Ruth that she doesn’t run Private Chicks. You do.”
Veronica picked up her mail from the desk. “She’s right about that, Ruth. You work for Bradley.”
Ruth was so mad, her turkey neck shook along with the chain hanging from her glasses. “And we all know the story of how he quit his cushy bank-president job for this one here”—she jerked her thumb at me—“which meant I got the boot in the process. Then she cost me my cruise-director job on the Galliano steamboat, too.”
“You cost yourself that job,” I said, “and then you barged in here and made a job for yourself. So what are you complaining about?”
“Your 8:05 a.m. personal call.” She reached for the buzzer as her Judge Judy ringtone sounded. As a diehard devotee of the judge and all things justice, she put on her “listening ears” and grabbed her phone. “Lucky for you, missy, my boss is calling.”
“Lucky for you, buzzy, my boss is right here.” I took a step forward. “Otherwise, I’d stick that buzzer—”
Veronica took my hand. “Can I see you in my office?”
Without a word, I let her pull me back down the hall to the office next to mine. Before she could go on the offense, I did. First, I wrestled my arm free so I could flail it. “What are you going to do about Ruth Buzzi out there?”
She took a seat in the fuchsia leather chair behind her desk. “Ruth is Bradley’s assistant, Franki. There’s nothing I can do about her.”
“But
“She’s trying to keep her boss on task.”
“Yeah, all task and no me. She’s the reason he’s in Chicago right now. She convinced him he had to do some investigative work that he could’ve done from here.”
Veronica ran a letter opener through an envelope. “You’ll have to take that up with him. In the meantime, try to keep the peace.”
“I was!” I gave a furious flail. “Then she started blasting that blasted buzzer.”
“Ruth can be annoying, but she’s been doing a great job. She and Bradley have been solving a lot of fraud cases. You have to admit, she’s got a sharp eye for a scam.”
“Because she’s good at running them.”
“Oh, Franki. She’s harmless.”
I threw up my arms. “Why do people always overlook the fact that ostriches and turkeys are fierce animals?”
Veronica puckered and set the letter opener and envelope on her desk. “Listen, it’s been quiet around here—”
“Has it? With that buzzer?”
She licked her pink-glossed lips. “What I meant was, since you’re between cases, why don’t you take the rest of the day off? You said your friends were coming to town. You could show them around and blow off some steam.”
“You got the steam part right. It’s a sauna out there. But don’t say blow.”
“Why not?”
I parked my hands on my hips to prevent further flails. “You didn’t see how pregnant Kate was last month, and those twins have been doing nothing but growing since then. Also, she’s really on edge because her husband rented a house in the Lower Garden District from none other than Glenda.”
Veronica picked up another envelope. “Must be the one she bought from her mother.”
“Glenda’s mother owned a house in the Garden District? That cost serious money, even back in the day.”
“Don’t forget how popular burlesque dancers used to be. From the 1940’s through the 1960’s they ruled this town, some straight from the governor’s office. Think Blaze Starr and Huey Long. And you know burlesque still does a booming business here.”
I did know that. There were several burlesque clubs, an annual festival, and even a school. “Her mom must’ve had a famous lover who bought her the place, because there’s no way her Caressa the Crawdad Queen act earned that many clams.”
She smiled. “Cute.”
“You could even say whimsical.” Take that, Baileys Mudslide Coffee Creamer. But the smirk fell from my face. The Mudslide reminded me of Glenda’s ninety-year-old mother, a.k.a. Caressa the Crawdad Queen, mud-writhing in a barely there mudbug number, and the creamer curdled in my gut.
Veronica tossed the envelope in a basket she reserved for bills. “Why don’t you take your friends to Friday Lunch at Galatoire’s?”
“It takes social prominence and a line sitter to get a table, and I don’t have either.”
“The maître d’ owes me a favor for a traffic warrant I helped him with, and I’m sure you could get David or Standish to wait in line—for the customary fee of twenty bucks a head.”
I could take the girls for po-boy sandwiches for half that, but since David and The Vassal—as Standish was known—were college students who worked for us part-time, I didn’t mind funneling them extra cash. Plus, Friday Lunch at Galatoire’s was the New Orleans event, bigger than a Saints’ game or backstage passes to Jazz Fest.
God knew Valentine, Kate, Merry, and I could use an event to make up for the disastrous bachelorette party last month. “Thanks, Veronica. I’ll go ask the guys.”
I returned to the lobby, relieved to find an empty reception desk. The Vassal was standing over the corner desk he shared with David, cutting a yard or so of brown faux fur that clashed with his blue-and-green plaid shirt. David was in his gamer chair studying a strip of Velcro-lined jute that he held across his chest like a sash.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “Investigating a case for Miss Hunter America?”
David dropped the sash and held up long, skinny fingers that matched his lanky six-foot frame.
The Vassal gazed at me over the rims of his coke-bottle glasses. “Negative. We’ve been invited to walk with the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus, so we’re fashioning our costumes.”
The Sci-Fi-themed Mardi Gras krewe was infamous in New Orleans for its many pranks, so I was familiar with it. “In July?”
David flipped his longish bangs to one side. “We’re required to make all our own throws. We thought we’d get our bandoliers done early.”
“Seven months, to be exact. Out of curiosity, what’s a bandolier?”
“Uh…” David swallowed and glanced at The Vassal, whose already slack jaw had lowered an inch. “Chewbacca’s combination toolbelt and ammunition holder.”
“Lightsabers use ammo?”
A hiss came from the back of The Vassal’s throat, and David had fear in his eyes. The dorky duo gaped at me like I was an alien from Mars—or rather, their version of an alien from Mars—a human on Earth who’d never seen Star Wars.
The Vassal swallowed with his mouth open. “Wookiees don’t use lightsabers. Their weapon of choice is a bowcaster.”
David’s head bobbed. “It’s, like, a laser crossbow.”
Someone ought to shoot them with a bowcaster and put them out of their nerd misery. “Speaking of ‘Chew’ and ‘Bacchus,’ I’d like to take some out-of-town friends to Friday Lunch, and I need one of you to stand in line. You know Galatoire’s policy—no reservations since 1905, not even for celebrities and presidents.”
They gazed at their Chewbacchus costumes.
“Vassal, with a name like Standish, you’re perfect for the gig.” I pulled my wallet from my hobo bag. “Eighty bucks will make a lot of Mardi Gras throws…and furry sash thingies.”
David popped up. “At your line-sitting service. But if we can’t get a table, you should take your friends to Tales of the Cocktail.”
“Not an option.” I handed him four twenties. “One of them is pregnant.”
The Vassal pushed up his glasses. “In that case, Postpartum Support International is having their annual convention this weekend.”
My head gave a sad shake. These two were clueless to the ways of non-intergalactic females. “I’ve gotta run. Text me with the table info.”
Gripping the strap of my handbag like a sling—a real-world weapon—I headed for the exit. As soon as I’d conquered Ruth and Glenda, the girls and I would have a good time no matter where we ended up for lunch. It was going to be great to have a nice, normal get-together after the Niagara Falls nightmare.
“Although,” I hedged under my breath, “normal is a relative term in NOLA.”
“Not even the ancient Greeks—or frat boys, for that matter—would live in these ruins.” I slammed the door of my 1965 cherry-red Mustang convertible and surveyed the house that Glenda had rented to Kate and Jim.
Greek Revival mansions were common in New Orleans, but there was nothing revived about this one. It was a side hall double-galleried two-story with dingy gray paint and black shutters that were barely hanging on. And from what I could tell, the columns lining the front porch and balcony dated to the time of Aristotle. “The Acropolis is in better shape.”
As I headed up the walkway to the front door, I heard voices coming from the backyard, a man and woman arguing. Great. Got here just in time to hear Kate and Jim fighting about this dump.
Always one to eavesdrop, I tiptoed to the stone fence and peered through the wrought iron fleurs-de-lis adorning the top, as I was also one to spy.
A man in khakis and a white button-down was staring down a woman by a pool that might as well have been a swamp. He was in his mid-thirties, so he could’ve been Jim. But even though the female’s back was to me, it was clear she was no Kate. The lady was ninety if she was a day, but her age wasn’t what held my attention. It was the gray-blue dorsal fin on her back.
