Ciji Ware Read online

  Midnight on Julia Street

  Ciji Ware

  Sourcebooks, Inc. (2011)

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  Copyright

  Copyright © 1999, 2011 by Ciji Ware

  Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Susan Zucker

  Cover images © McCory James Photography LLC; ImageDJ/Jupiter Images

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  FAX: (630) 961-2168

  www.sourcebooks.com

  Originally published in 1999 by Fawcett Gold Medal, The Ballantine Publishing Group, New York

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ware, Ciji.

  Midnight on Julia Street / by Ciji Ware.

  p. cm.

  1. Women journalists—Fiction. 2. Historic sites—Conservation and restoration—Fiction. 3. New Orleans (La.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3573.A7435M53 2011

  813’.54—dc22

  2011015772

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note on the 2011 Edition

  A Louisiana Genealogy

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from A Light on the Veranda

  Back Cover

  This novel is dedicated to

  the stalwart band of preservationists who stopped an

  elevated six-lane expressway from being built along the

  Vieux Carré riverfront in New Orleans, thereby saving

  a National Historic Landmark from irreparable harm,

  and to

  the late Margaret McCullough Clymer and

  the late Adela Rogers St. Johns, who, together,

  remind me very much of Great-Aunt Marge,

  and finally, most gratefully to

  the inestimable Dr. John Grenner, who believes

  “The secret to life is telling the truth in real time.”

  Author’s Note on the 2011 Edition

  Midnight on Julia Street was first published in 1999 and provides a snapshot of New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina smashed into the city on the morning of Monday, August 29, 2005.

  Fortunately, the French Quarter and Garden District locales and buildings described in this novel miraculously survived the storm. Perhaps even more surprising, many of the political and societal issues threaded through the story remain the same, rendering the narrative as relevant, and hopefully, as intriguing today as when the novel was first published.

  Having owned property in the fabled lower French Quarter on Ursulines Street between Bourbon and Dauphine, the survival of this most unique American city remains close to my heart, as do the legions of friends I’ve made there over the years.

  I rededicate this story to them and to their courage, grace under pressure, and amazing ability to laisser les bons temps rouler—no matter what!

  Geaux Saints!

  Chapter 1

  December 20

  The trouble with weddings, Corlis McCullough concluded, was that the invited guests could never be sure if they were about to witness the beginning of a wonderful life or the end of everyone’s fond illusions—including the bride’s.

  Corlis slammed the door of the news van and stared up at the venerable Saint Louis Cathedral, its three slate-clad spires silhouetted against the New Orleans night sky. Another day in the Big Easy. Another cream puff story. Another chance to blow her cool over the sorry state of television journalism. And a golden opportunity, after twelve years, to run into Kingsbury Duvallon.

  For once in your life, McCullough, don’t shoot yourself in the foot!

  She glanced quickly around the deserted plaza that fronted the large church. At this pre-dinner hour, Jackson Square was devoid of its usual street performers, chalk artists, and tarot card readers. In the center of the gated park, Old Hickory sat astride his bronze horse, keeping silent vigil over the mighty Mississippi pulsing along its banks two hundred yards distant. The river churned with paddle-wheel sightseeing boats, the Algiers ferry, and freighters riding low in the water as they plied their way toward the Gulf of Mexico, a hundred miles downstream.

  That old, familiar feeling had begun to gnaw in the pit of Corlis’s stomach.

  Candlelit nuptials. An evening wedding. How chic.

  How revolting!

  She’d started to hate weddings, and she especially hated attending this one. The situation that faced her this unseasonably sultry December evening was the one she’d been dreading from the moment she’d arrived from Los Angeles two months earlier to go to work at WWEZ-TV in the fabled Crescent City. However, there was no ducking this assignment.

  With a sigh she advanced with her news crew across the expanse of stone paving toward the church’s arched entrance, neatly avoiding tripping over the scuffed boots of a wino who was apparently sleeping off the effects of letting the good times roll.

  Within minutes Corlis, along with her cameraman and sound operator, was ensconced in the balcony that overlooked the historic structure’s vast interior. The seasoned reporter put her mind to the task of calculating the best way to cover this so-called Wedding of the Season—a marriage ceremony that would join two of New Orleans’s most prominent old-line families.

  Soon, however, Corlis began to calculate her own margin of safety. She sternly reminded herself that associate professor of architectural history King Duvallon was merely a groomsman in this wedding tonight. He was also the brother of the bride. At the moment there was no sign of the Hero of New Orleans, celebrated everywhere for putting a stop to misplaced bridge and highway projects, condo complexes, mini-malls, and other scourges threatening this southern city’s hallowed and revered architecture. Despite Corlis’s duty to cover this wedding in the French Quarter, there was absolutely no need for her to get up close and personal with anyone tonight, especially King.

  Just dodge this bullet, baby. You can’t afford to get fired one more time.

  The church’s pillared interior was suffused with the golden glow of twinkling lights from two rows of chandeliers that hung from the barrel-shaped ceiling. Parallel lines of eighteen-inc
h tapers—each ivory candle attached to a pew—marched down the center aisle of New Orleans’s famed landmark. The pungent smell of incense collided with the sweet scent wafting from banks of fragrant red and white roses and abundant pine boughs that had been deployed everywhere as part of the Christmas wedding theme. In fact, the bloom-filled church served as a vivid advertisement for Flowers by Duvallon, the firm owned by the bride’s family, and the only florist ever recommended to bereaved customers by the groom’s family, founders of the prominent Ebert-Petrella chain of funeral homes.

  This merger must have been in the works since the bride and groom were in kindergarten! Corlis thought with a glance around the cathedral.

  “Virgil,” she addressed her cameraman, “give me lots of wide shots and some good cutaways of the altar, the flowers and candles attached to the pews, and some close-ups of the priest. Oh, and be sure to hold tight for a good long while on the groom, Jack Ebert… and on Daphne Duvallon… that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, boss lady,” Virgil replied patiently. “When do you want to do your lead-in and the stand-up?” he added, carefully placing his video camera on its tripod and tightening the screws.

  “After the ceremony,” Corlis replied. “Let’s record an intro and maybe a bridge in front of the church just before we head back to the studio, okay? When the guests leave for the reception, I’ll stay up here and write the copy while you go down below and grab what you need of the wedding party during the family picture-taking.”

  Good plan, McCullough. Keep your distance from the almighty Professor Duvallon.

  Virgil Johnson raised his shaved, ebony head from the camera. Then he arched an eyebrow and shrugged agreement with a change of logistics that even she knew was completely out of character for her. When had she ever, in the two months they’d worked together, not been standing right next to her camera operator, breathing down his neck to make sure he got every damned frame she was going to need when it came time to edit?

  She turned to address sound technician Manny Picot. Her news crew, who’d been great work companions since the day she started her new job, had shared the rumors that the new cameras due to arrive at WWEZ any day now would have built-in, high quality sound, eliminating the need for a separate sound operator—which was a pity, as Manny was as good as any guy Corlis had ever worked with in LA.

  She smiled in his direction. “Be sure you record a nice long stretch of organ music so we can lay it under the action and my voice track, okay?”

  “Yeah… gotcha,” Manny mumbled behind his thick black mustache that bespoke his Hispanic-African ancestry.

  Mellow sounds of classical organ music resounded throughout the cavernous space as five hundred of the bride and groom’s nearest and dearest continued to file into the church with help from an army of groomsmen.

  Corlis glanced down at the best watch she’d ever owned. Seven thirty-five. She had purchased it during her heady days as a well-paid, on-air consumer watchdog in Los Angeles. Exactly one week prior to the day she got fired, she’d plunked down an outrageous sum and then was promptly axed for graphically reporting the amount of air pumped into various brands of ice cream. Did she know that her former television station’s biggest grocery chain sponsor was the worst offender?

  Yes.

  Did she overrule the twenty-three-year-old kid on the assignment desk and do the story anyway, despite his warnings that the ad department would kill her?

  Yes.

  Did she get fired for telling the truth at a moment when she could least afford to?

  Yes.

  Had she shot herself in the foot that time, too?

  Yes.

  So, what else was new?

  Well… there were extenuating circumstances that time…

  Let’s not think about that, she told herself. Just think about getting through the job you came here to do.

  Where the heck was Kingsbury Duvallon, anyway? she fretted, peering over the edge of the balcony at the center aisle below. She certainly didn’t intend to be blindsided by him—again.

  At that moment Corlis heard footfalls coming up the stairs to the balcony, and to her horror, her nightmare suddenly materialized. A dashing, six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered figure, clad in white tie and black tail coat, appeared like an apparition, not twenty feet from their media outpost.

  King looked even handsomer than she remembered, damn it! His stylishly trimmed dark brown mane was a far cry from the close-cropped hair he’d sported when they had both been college students in California. In the shadowed church balcony, his eyes appeared to be a darker shade of blue than when he’d last glared at her while they shouted at each other in the blinding Los Angeles sun. And the engaging grin he’d bestowed on virtually every female member of the UCLA cheerleading squad was nowhere in evidence this evening. In its place, the man’s lips were set in a grim line above a cleft chin that could prompt movie stars to sign up for plastic surgery.

  Corlis prayed King wouldn’t recognize her after twelve years. After all, her look now was certainly different than it had been in those days. During her tenure as a take-no-prisoners editor of the feminist journal Ms. UCLA, she’d adopted a jet black Grateful Dead hairdo, pale makeup accented by magenta lipstick, shapeless sweatshirts and baggy jeans, plus she’d been a good twenty-five pounds heavier before the media consultants revolutionized her dietary habits.

  Any hope of remaining anonymous was dashed as Corlis became acutely aware that King Duvallon was staring rudely at her across the church balcony. From his glowering expression, he obviously knew exactly who she was. His gaze meandered southward and lingered on the curve of her calves.

  Well, to be fair, the man had never seen her legs now, had he?

  King abruptly broke into her reverie asking, “Corlis McCullough, right? My, my… I thought it was you.”

  His voice still had its lilting southern inflections, but it had also deepened, and his stare held her glance like a locked-on laser—cool and deadly.

  “Hello.” She felt her chin jut into the air at a belligerent angle.

  Hello? That’s all she could manage after twelve years? Not: Hello, Mr. Chauvinist Pig? Hello, you enemy of all women on the planet! Hello, and will you please vacate my balcony?

  “I need to talk to you,” King said without preamble.

  “Now?” she asked incredulously. “Isn’t your sister supposed to walk down that aisle in about two minutes?”

  “Exactly!” he countered sharply. “Can you come with me?”

  “ ’Fraid not,” she replied, pointing at her watch. “It’s just about showtime, and I’ve got a job to do.” Then she added archly, “I’m surprised you even recognized me after all this time.”

  “It’s been pretty hard to avoid you,” he retorted. “You’re on the news every night.”

  Of course! The ID slug at the bottom of the TV screen. Even without the spiky black hair and the ill-fitting clothes, how many Corlis McCulloughs were there in the news business?

  “I like your hair,” he commented abruptly, eyeing her natural brunette, shoulder-length mane. Was this an attempted peace offering, or was he just trying to lull her into complacency? He took a step forward and addressed her fellow crew members. “I’d really appreciate it, fellas, if you’d just pack up and go. This wedding’s closed to the public.”

  “Are you kidding?” Corlis asked, amazed by his gall. “Perhaps you aren’t aware,” she added with forced politeness, “that somebody in either the Duvallon or Ebert camps provided our station with a complete rundown of who’s who and what’s what at this little pageant! We were sent here by our assignment editor, and he wants this story on the ten o’clock news.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and added, “So, I’m afraid leaving is out of the question.”

  “Well, nobody in my family provided you with any press kit. This wedding is not news. We want it to be a private affair!” King repeated, his eyes now slits of steel.

  “Believe me,” she retorted, “I cou
ldn’t agree with you more, but we’re here on orders. And, just like twelve years ago,” she added with a feigned sweetness that barely veiled her rising indignation, “I don’t exactly appreciate your coming up here and telling us—”

  “Well, you’d better believe me when I tell you, the bride’s family wants y’all to just skedaddle on out of here,” King interrupted with icy control.

  Corlis felt her blood pressure zoom into the stratosphere. What right did this stuck-up character have to interfere with—?

  “Hey! Duvallon!” a hushed voice called up from the balcony’s stairwell. “Come on! They’re ready, son! Get down here! Now!”

  “Excuse me,” King addressed Corlis angrily, “but I thought by now you’d have sworn off always starting World War Three.” He turned toward Manny and Virgil. “Get her out of here, will you, guys?”

  Ah… the boys’ club. Well, forget it, pal, she wanted to tell him. Her TV crew knew perfectly well that in this kind of situation, the correspondent called the shots.

  “Look, Professor Duvallon,” Corlis replied evenly as she made a renewed stab at keeping her temper under control. “We’ve been assigned to cover this event. We’ve been given permission by the diocese to set up in this balcony so that we’d have the best view to get the pretty pictures everybody wants,” she added, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Therefore, we’re covering it! So, as we say out west, adios muchacho!”

  She absolutely hated it when she had to roll out her wicked witch routine, but there it was. Their boss, station owner Victor Girard, would crucify her and her crew if they didn’t get the story for the late news.

  “King?”

  It was a woman’s voice, and she sounded in some distress.

  “Hold on, sugar… I’ll be right there,” King called down the stairwell.

  Ever the southern gentleman. “Sugar” was probably the blushing maid of honor that he was slated to escort down the aisle.

  “One last time,” King said between clenched teeth. “Please go!”

  “I will,” she countered. “If you’d just please go downstairs so we could get this thing over with! Then we’ll go! Scout’s honor,” she replied, holding up three fingers in mock salute. The nerve of the guy!