“What’s that?” Dominic asked.
“A date.” Celeste reached for her wine.
Thiago unfolded the paper. “May.”
“Yes.”
I set down my glass. “May what.”
“A man matching Henri Fontenot’s description was seen in the Orpheum’s administrative offices in May.” She tore a piece of bread and buttered it. “Before the public announcement of the ‘Saints’ production.”
“Who saw him?” Thiago asked.
“A woman on the development committee who occasionally notices more than she should. He wasn’t alone.”
“With whom.”
“Gerald Tureaud.”
Dominic’s knife paused against the plate. “Everyone knows Gerald.”
Thiago turned the paper over. “The same man you were speaking of earlier?”
“Yes, and no one would have thought his presence suspicious,” I said.
“No, Gerald thinks of himself as helpful.” Dominic took a measured sip of Burgundy.
Celeste set down her glass. “My source says they were in the administrative offices for forty minutes. In and out.”
“Which is nothing,” I said, “or slightly suspicious.”
“In this house,” Celeste replied, “those are no longer distinct categories.”
Thiago folded the slip of paper and placed it beside his fork.
“Do you remember the gala in 2003?” Celeste asked Dominic.
He exhaled through his nose. “The one you insist was ruined by the champagne.”
“It was warm.”
“The champagne was fine. The governor was warm.”
“The governor was sweating directly into the donor base.”
She turned toward Thiago. “Mr. Reyes. Do you have opinions about champagne?”
He swallowed before answering. “I generally drink it when offered.”
She nodded slowly. “That is an appropriately diplomatic non-answer.” She reached out and patted Dominic’s hand. “I like him.”
Celeste had just shown one of her more refined talents—introducing a new threat vector between bites of dinner and then shifting the room three degrees back toward normal before panic had time to organize itself. Dominic met her there, following fifty years of practice.
Over dessert, Dominic said, “Gerald has never struck me as imaginative.”
“Which makes him an ideal target for someone else’s imagination,” Celeste said.
Thiago rested one forearm on the table. “Did your source note whether Henri appeared ill?”
