“Dad’s in trouble, Pithy.”
“I’ve heard some things. Enough trouble to postpone a wedding?”
I can’t help but smile again. “You heard that, too?”
She rolls her eyes. Pithy’s telephone is her lifeline to the world, and even in her present condition she doesn’t miss much. “You go on and marry that girl, even if she is half a Yankee. She’s got spunk, and you’ve dawdled long enough.”
“I’m going to. Postponing the ceremony was Caitlin’s idea.”
“Well, don’t let her get away. You’re ten years older than she is. Remember the old adage: ‘Don’t keep a girl guessing too long, or she’ll find the answer somewhere else.’”
Flora chuckles behind me. “Sho’ will.”
“Bring Penn a cold drink, Flo. I think we still have one or two cans of Tab down in the icebox. And bring me some sherry to go with this nasty ginger tea.”
“All right.”
As Flora’s steps fade, I say, “They indicted him, Pithy. For murder.”
“I heard. But darling, there’s a world of difference between that and being convicted. Some of the best people have been indicted for one thing or another. And anyone worth knowing has been arrested at least once.”
“Have you?”
She vouchsafes me a smile. “What Mardi Gras anecdote is complete without a night in jail?” Pithy fans her face with her hand. “Enough repartee. What do I know that you don’t?”
“Tell me about Brody Royal.”
Pithy inclines her head slightly, and I can almost see the flash of synapses behind her eyes. “What do you want to know?”
There’s no point trying to hide anything from this woman, and I haven’t got time anyway. “Brody almost certainly killed some people a while back, mostly black men. Albert Norris and Pooky Wilson to start. He also ordered the deaths of Jimmy Revels and Luther Davis. Probably Dr. Leland Robb, too, which caused the deaths of three other innocent people.”
My bald assertion has managed to impress a woman not easily shocked. “Well, well,” she trills. “You said a mouthful there. If Brody Royal did all that, why didn’t the high sheriff hang him in the courthouse square? Why is he roaming free?”
“That’s what I’ve come to find out.”
“Dear me. Sooner or later, everything comes to the surface, doesn’t it?”
“Talk to me, Pithy. Please. And don’t hold anything back.”
Without my saying it, she knows that her answers will somehow bear on my father’s fate. “Most people think Brody came from wealth,” she begins. “Nothing could be further from the truth. His father was a storekeeper and bootlegger in St. Bernard Parish. When Stanley Duchaine and his banker friends dynamited the levee in 1927 to save New Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes were wiped out. Brody’s father lost everything. He—and eventually Brody—rebuilt his business from nothing, and they didn’t worry about which side of the law they were on. They were in thick with those Italians who ended up running the city.”
“The Marcello family?”
“That’s right. The ones who put the slot machines into Concordia Parish when Huey Long was governor, then later when Noah Cross was sheriff. My husband despised Brody, for getting his mob connections to fix it so he could avoid military service during the war. Anyway, Brody did a little bit of everything until 1948, when he struck oil near Natchez. One of the biggest early fields, I believe, and it’s still producing. That staked him, and he never looked back. Before you could shake a stick at a snake, he owned a bank, an insurance company, and thousands of acres of timber.”
“You sure know a lot about him.”
She gives me a secretive smile. “Brody courted me for a while. Although pursued might be a better word.”
“What?”
“He and I are exactly the same age. The year I was queen of the Confederate Pageant, Brody tried everything he could to get me to marry him. But I’d just lost my husband to the war, and I was no fool. I saw what he was after.”
“What? Sex?”
“Lord, no. He got that from half the floozies on both sides of the river. Brody wanted respectability. My family was everything his wasn’t. He’d never forgotten where he came from, and he never wanted anyone to be above him again. He hated those haughty New Orleans bankers who’d ruined his father, and he’d made up his mind to become one of them. The biggest of them. And he’s done it, though it took decades. He got his revenge, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of the richest of those New Orleans moneymen was originally from Natchez. His daughter Catherine spent a lot of time here as a child. Cathy was in my court when I was queen, and once Brody found out who she was, he went after her with a vengeance—literally. She didn’t know enough to see through his charm. She married him—pregnant—and her father nearly disowned her for it.”
“That was Brody’s revenge?”
“Only the beginning, I’m afraid. Marrying Catherine opened the doors that had always been shut to him, doors no amount of money could open. The right Mardi Gras krewe, the Yacht Club, the second-best gentlemen’s club. And once he had that … Brody didn’t need her anymore.”
“What happened?”
“A lot of private suffering, I know. Some of it terrible, if rumor can be believed. In the end, Cathy drowned in her own bathtub. That was, oh … 1962. Her blood alcohol level was off the chart, so nobody looked too deeply into it. But her father was still alive, and I imagine he knew the truth. Brody had been cheating on Cathy from the beginning. That was no secret. And he’d got control of quite a bit of the family money by managing their investments. In the end, he virtually broke the father.”
“It sounds like The Count of Monte Cristo.”
“Not far from it. Revenge never brought Brody happiness, though. Nothing could. He’s gotten steadily richer, but his family …”