Who Dat Whodunnit Read Free Page B

shuddered. “Ugh.”
    “You know, Papa Bradley isn’t that bad, and MiMi is pretty harmless.” Frank slowed the car as the light at Napoleon turned yellow, then red. “I really don’t know why you don’t like them.”
    I had to give Papa Bradley credit—Frank was welcome in his home. As a law-and-order conservative, he respected Frank as a retired FBI Special Agent. He was always cordial to him—although he never admitted we were more than business partners.
    Still, for him that was something.
    “Well, I do love them,” I replied. “I just don’t like them very much.”
    “You used to feel that way about Papa Diderot, too,” he reminded me, shifting back into first gear when the light changed to green again.
    I gave him a sour look. “Yeah, yeah.”
    Much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I closed my eyes and tried to remember a time when Papa Bradley acted like a decent human being. I had some vague memories of him tossing me in the air when I was a little boy, and the smell of his cigars and bourbon. When did he turn into an asshole? When did I stop liking him?
    I honestly couldn’t remember. There wasn’t a clear line of demarcation, like there was with Katrina, dividing time into before and after. I just remembered the clear look of disapproval when I told him I wasn’t going to be playing football at Jesuit High School, the way his eyebrows knit together as he puffed on his cigar when I told him I’d be going to Vanderbilt instead of LSU—the list of times I’d proven to be a disappointment to him was endless. I remembered him railing about the goddamned liberal Communists ruining this country, the lazy bastards on welfare, and the baby-murdering liberals, how we should just nuke Iran—on and on and on.
    “It’s kind of hard to love someone when you disagree with him about just about everything,” I finally said. “I mean, he makes Ann Coulter look progressive.”
    Frank laughed. “I’ll have to give you that one.”
    How many homophobic things has the old bastard said in front of me? I thought, trying to remember and giving up. He thought gays were perverts who didn’t deserve any protection under the law—and my being one didn’t change his mind one bit.
    “It’s a wonder Mom hasn’t killed him,” I said out loud, and smothered a grin as I remembered the last time he said something homophobic in front of me. It was Christmas Eve, and we were gathered around the gigantic tree in the massive front parlor of the State Street house. I couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three, still in disgrace on both sides of the family for dropping out of Vanderbilt. I couldn’t remember what exactly was said to set him off on his homophobic tirade—most likely it was my cousin Jared, it usually was—but it was one of his nastiest to date. Mom—who had absolutely no problem with telling her own father off and getting into a screaming match with him—always tried to bite her tongue at the Bradley house.
    But she didn’t this time.
    She very calmly filled her wineglass to the top, walked over to him with a huge smile on her face, and threw the wine in his face.
    He gaped at her in shock—everyone in the room did.
    “You miserable old son of a bitch,” she said in her pleasantest tone. “I’ve had to listen to your fascist bullshit for years, but I will be damned if you are going to insult and demean my son in my presence on Christmas Eve. What would your Lord and Savior think?”
    She left him blinking, his mouth open, and walked over to the Christmas tree. Before anyone could stop her, she gave it a good shove. It fell over, ornaments that had been in the family for decades shattering and splintering as everyone just gasped in shock.
    She turned back to him with a smile, gave him the middle finger with both hands, and swept out of the room, with Dad and me right behind her.
    She laughed all the way back to the Quarter.
    In fact, she still enjoyed a hearty laugh every time