Page 11 of The Shop on Royal Street
If I closed my eyes, I could pretend I was back at Trenholm Antiques. The familiar and beloved scent of various varnishes, waxes, and lacquers used over the years and exposed to heat and moisture produced the unique perfume that my grandmother Amelia referred to as a “bouquet of old.” We’d always joked that we needed to find a way to re-create that particular chemistry and bottle the smell, so that if I ever got homesick, I could just spray it in the air to at least momentarily return to Charleston.
I ran my finger on the spotless top of a Regency escritoire, admiring the intricate wood inlays, imagining the people who had once sat in front of it and penned their thoughts. It was this personal connection to old things and houses that made me love them. The exact same reason why Melanie didn’t.
My gaze traveled to the back of the store, where an enormous English partners desk dominated a corner. A new and shiny iMac computer sat in the middle, a crystal pedestal dish containing foil-wrapped chocolates next to it. Comfortable modern upholstered chairs had been placed on both sides of the desk to make the process of spending enormous amounts of money as pleasant as possible.
“She’s nice, though, isn’t she?” Jolene whispered, taking my silence as simmering anger and needing reassurance.
“I’m not...” I lost my train of thought as my gaze strayed behind the desk, to what I now recognized as a hidden door, flush with the wall, with matching paint and chair molding so that it was hardly noticeable. Except for the heavy padlock—also painted a matching alabaster—I wouldn’t have seen it at all.
“Is that where the most valuable items are kept?” I was curious since my grandparents kept their most expensive items on display and kept only the front and rear doors locked.
Jolene shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve only been here a few times, with Beau, and we never went back there.”
“I know she has a collection of Frozen Charlottes and anthropomorphic taxidermy, which I don’t see out on the sales floor. Maybe she keeps them in the back, along with her frozen-head collection.”
“Nola.” Jolene sent me a warning look. “I said she waspeculiar. Not crazy like a betsey bug. That would be my great-aunt Thelma. Now,she’scrazier than a—”
“I’m so sorry.” Mimi reappeared at my elbow, and I saw that the couple was now standing by the desk. “My assistant, Christopher, isn’t here today, so I have to speak with this couple now. Why don’t you two join Beau and me for dinner tonight at the house—say six o’clock?—and we can talk it out then and hopefully come to a mutual agreement?”
I pushed back my disappointment at not getting the answer I needed, and I nodded. “That works for me.”
“Me, too,” said Jolene, as she reached into her bag to pick up her pinging phone.
“The address is 2505 Prytania. Just look for the black iron gate with a large half-full hourglass depicted in the middle. If you get lost, just ask for the sand-glass house.”
We said good-bye and Mimi walked us to the door, then locked it behind us and turned the sign toclosed.
“It’s a text from Jaxson,” Jolene said, looking at her phone. “He has information about the murder house.”
I was about to tell her not to call it that but stopped as my gaze followed Mimi and the couple with their covered burden as they approached the locked door. Mimi pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the padlock before stepping back to allow the man and woman to move into the room beyond. Mimi’s head turned in my direction, her mismatched eyes staring back at me. She acknowledged me with a brief nod, then followed the couple behind the padlocked door and closed it after her.
CHAPTER 5
We sat in the car. Jolene had found street parking on Banks Street in Mid-City, near Soule’ Cafe, not far from the public defender’s office where Jaxson worked. The car took up two full spaces, but she’d hit only one garbage can (twice) while maneuvering it close enough to the curb so other cars could still pass down the street. She spent a lot of time powdering her nose and fixing her lipstick in her rearview mirror, preparing for our lunch meeting with Jaxson.
“So, Jaxson is still dating what’s-her-name, right?”
Jolene nodded while blotting her lipstick with a tissue. “As of this morning, anyway. Carly texted me to say they’d just had the best makeup sex last night, so all’s good.”
She smiled brightly. “I’m happy for them.”
“Right.” I unlocked my door, then pushed it open with both arms. “Do you think you could just leave the car running with the air-conditioning on while we eat? That way when you turn it off to move the car forward, it will still be cool.”
“But then someone might steal it.” With a shove of her hips, she managed to close her own door, then locked it the old-fashioned way, by using an actual key.
“Would that be so bad? Doesn’t anybody with a small car ever die in your hometown? Maybe your grandmother could call dibs?”
Coming around the front of the car to join me on the sidewalk, she said, “Remember what I said about gift horses. Come on.”
She led the way to the corner and a blue-painted two-story building withSoule’ Cafeemblazoned on the glass door. Wooden picnic tables sat outside, with patrons crowded together eating, the scent of fried food mixed with the smell of beer permeating the entire block. I watched as heads and gazes turned toward Jolene and her red hair. I was more than happy to follow in her wake of floral perfume as an afterthought, content with not being the center of attention. I’d had enough of that over the last six years.
Many of the diners wore scrubs or other types of medical-personnel uniforms. Seeing my gaze, Jolene said, “We’re within spitting distance of three major hospitals and a medical school. So if you’re going to choke on an oyster or have a heart attack, this would be the place to do it.” She pulled open the door. “Did I ever tell you about my cousin Wayne and the frog bone that got stuck in his gullet?”
Happily for me, she didn’t have the chance to tell me more as a young man waved at us inside. We approached a simple table with four chairs, tucked beneath a wall mural—one of several—depicting the face of an exotic-looking woman with a flower in her hair. The man stood and pulled out two chairs for us.
Jolene beamed. “Thanks for meeting us, Jaxson.” He and Jolene embraced, Jaxson ending it with a platonic pat on Jolene’s shoulder. She kept smiling as if she hadn’t noticed. “This is my friend—and new roomie—Nola Trenholm.”
His handshake was firm and brief, all business, but his smile and the spattering of freckles on his nose prevented the impression from being absolute. His sparkling blue eyes and dark auburn hair—a shade that had probably been a lot brighter and caused him some pain when he was younger—made him look less like a serious lawyer and more like a mischievous boy who’d been reluctantly dragged into adulthood.
