Murder in a Minor Key (28 page)

“I’ve been meaning to see this cemetery,” I said, looking at my watch.

“I wouldn’t go there by myself, Mrs. Fletcher,” Napoleon said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“That’s true, but I may have a solution for that. Would you mind waiting here a moment?”

I’d convinced the guide to let me join her group and returned to the carriage to thank Napoleon and Beatrice. Thursday would be my last day in New Orleans. We arranged that they would drive me to the funeral, and I waved good-bye.

“You’ll notice that the crypts here are not as elaborate as the ones you’ll see in some of the other cemeteries,” said the guide. “That’s because it’s the oldest; it was established in 1789, during the Spanish colonial period. There was an earlier one, but it’s gone now, closed in 1788 when a yellow fever epidemic took more lives than it had space to accommodate.”

Compared to the bracing ride across Lake Pontchartrain, the heat in the city was oppressive, the moisture in the air an added burden, like a heavy weight on my head. Our little party trooped in a ragged line behind the parasol, stopping to admire the classical proportions of tombs erected by some of the city’s many benevolent societies, and the cast iron angels and other embellishments that adorned fences in front of family tombs. The ash-gray clouds had deepened into charcoal, and thunder was rolling toward us.

“The writer Walker Percy wrote about St. Louis Number One, describing its ‘tiny lanes as crooked as old Jerusalem, meandering aimlessly between the cottages of the dead.’ As you may have guessed from that quote, it’s easy to get lost here, so please stay with the group. We’re going to move pretty quickly so we don’t get caught in the rain.”

Crashes of thunder grew louder the deeper we walked into the cemetery. Despite the sultry air, a sudden chill crept up my spine, and I had the oddest feeling someone was watching. I looked behind me, but no one was there. When I turned back, my fellow tourists had moved rapidly ahead, and I had to jog to catch up with them.

They were standing in front of a plain, narrow tomb topped by a simple pediment. Graffiti covered its sides, except in a few places where the stucco had been recently patched. Scattered around it was the debris of visitors’ offerings. Several half-spent candles had fallen over in front of the door, and the wind was rolling them like a child playing with a toy. Carnival beads were draped around a squat vase, its flowers long since dried and blown away.

“This is called the ‘wishing tomb.’ It’s the burial place of the most famous voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. Those X’s you see represent the wishes of those who have asked for her assistance; the red ones were made with pieces of crumbled brick. The inscription is in French. It says, ‘Here lies Marie Philome Glapion, deceased June eleventh, eighteen ninety-seven, aged sixty-two years. She was a good mother, a good friend, and is regretted by all who knew her. Passersby, please pray for her. ”’

The rumble of thunder was gathering strength, and flashes of lightning lit up the underbelly of the black clouds, giving them a sickly yellow hue. The wind blew sand from the concrete and stone platforms on which the tombs rested, and it swirled around our ankles and up into our faces. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the sandstorm. The description by the mortician fueled my imagination. In my mind, I saw Wayne meeting a shadowy figure at the tomb. I envisioned his shock when the snake sank its fangs into his hand, collapsing as the poison coursed through his system, blisters boiling up on his arms, splitting, spilling his blood till his clothes were soaked with it. Did it happen here beside this wall? Was the last thing he saw the ragged artificial flowers taped to the corner? I detected a faint rust stain on the stone paving to the side of Laveau’s crypt. Was that Wayne’s blood?

I also thought about Elijah. With the hopes of giving his wife a little comfort, he’d been willing to part with a family legacy, only to have his life stolen in this same place, his body set down like another offering against the cold wall of the tomb. Had he been surprised to see his killer? Was it the man who’d pursued him for fifteen years?

I shivered. The eerie feeling of being observed returned, intensified.

A bolt of lightning split the sky to my left, its jagged claw scorching the spire of a tall tomb. It was followed by an ear-splitting crack of thunder right over my head. I heard the jangle of metal rattling around me. Something banged against my leg. It was part of a box with a familiar mark on it. I bent to retrieve it, but the wind lifted it out of my grasp and sent it cartwheeling down a grassy path. I ran after it, trying to grab it out of the clutches of the coming storm. It fell between two massive tombs, sheltered from the wind for the moment. I reached into the passage to get it. It was the top of a box. I held up my reading glasses to see better. Part of it had been torn away, and the mark was smudged, but there was no question that stamped on it was a red circle, the letters PSTS in the center. The Pinto Snake Transportation System.

I felt the first splat of rain on my head and hurried back to Marie Laveau’s tomb. Squinting against the wind, I looked around to realize I was alone. No pink parasol to guide me. No trailing tourist to follow. My heart started racing. Which way did they go? The wind was furious now, pulling at my skirt and tearing at my hair, keening as it flailed the burial vaults all around. Rain pelted my face. I pushed against the current, leaning in the direction I thought the group had taken. Was Marie Laveau taunting me as I struggled to stand against the force of her power?

The wind stepped aside to come at me from another angle. I stumbled, regained my balance, and started forward again. The rain became a torrent, harder now, beating down on the stone, turning the dust into mud. I skidded and slipped, tumbling forward, my hands out to break my fall. I landed on a patch of grass. Inches from my head, a marble urn thudded to the ground, wrenched from its moorings by the storm. Breathing heavily, I knelt to get up, pausing to take an inventory of my joints and limbs for injury. I was bruised, but nothing was sprained or broken.

“Mrs. Fletcher, are you all right? You could have been killed.” Strong hands helped me to my feet.

The wind had died down and the rain was gentler now. I put a hand up to straighten my hair, and Archer looked down at me.

“What luck! That urn just missed your head. If you hadn’t fallen, it would have gotten you.”

He handed me a dry bandanna that I used to wipe my face and hands. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have considered falling down to be lucky, but in this case ...” I said, shaking out the cloth and dabbing at my arms. “Thanks for the use of your handkerchief. I’ll wash it before I return it.”

“Don’t worry about that. Are you okay?”

“Battered but unbowed,” I replied, picking up my bag. “What are you doing here?”

He looked embarrassed. “This is the first time I’ve come here,” he said. “I thought I needed a pilgrimage to the place where Wayne died.”

“You picked a bad day for it.”

“The weather suited my mood actually,” he said. “What are you doing here—and alone? I thought Wayne warned you against wandering in this neighborhood without an escort.”

“I was part of a tour group,” I explained, “but when the storm blew up, they left, and I didn’t see which way they turned.”

He bent to examine the toppled urn. It was one of a pair that had been resting on matched pillars. It didn’t look easy to dislodge.

“Let’s get you back to your hotel,” he said. “If we can find a cab.”

As we made our way to the exit, I saw the tour guide hurrying toward us, her arm holding the parasol high. “Oh thank goodness, you’re not lost. I did a head count when we got back to the bus and realized we’d left you behind. You’re soaked. Come with me. I’ve got a sweater on the bus. We’ll drop you off first. Did you hurt yourself?” She fussed over me all the way to the bus, and offered to drop Archer at my hotel, a proposition he declined.

“I’ll see you later at the party,” he called out as I mounted the stairs into the bus.

A hot shower and a nap did wonders for my bruises and my mood. I sat in my armchair, wrapped in the terrycloth robe the hotel had provided, and thought about my stay in New Orleans. The Big Easy, they called it. It hadn’t been easy this time. Snakes, death, and danger had accompanied me. What a strange city it was with its sultry weather, spicy foods, high spirits, and voodoo traditions. It was like attending a full-time party with Gothic overtones. The only time my hometown of Cabot Cove approached as colorful an atmosphere was at Halloween. For the people I’d met in New Orleans, it was Halloween all the time. And I wanted to peek behind their masks, analyze what they’d been thinking.

Archer was upset that Wayne had left so much money to Clarice. His appearance at my side in the cemetery so soon after the falling urn missed me was alarming. Was he making a pilgrimage, or visiting the scene of the crime?

Clarice desperately needed money, and it must have rankled her when Wayne turned down her request for more. She was about to receive an influx of funds. Her brother’s office and files had been available to her every day. She could have examined them at leisure. Would a million dollars have been enough for her to sacrifice her brother? It seemed to me that Archer and Clarice had battled for Wayne’s attention. They were both spiteful and manipulative. Was one of them also a killer?

Mayor Amadour. How far would he go to protect Clarice? He’d stopped the investigation into Wayne’s death. Was it to protect her—or himself? What did he really know about Wayne’s death?

Beaudin was ambitious and charming, but I kept feeling he was holding something back. He’d held a grudge against Wayne for a long time. Was their recent reconciliation genuine? He and Broadbent had been cronies in the early days of the mayor’s administration. Broadbent was an investigative reporter, but he’d been under the mayor’s influence before. He’d disappeared the night Wayne died and was missing the day after. His animosity toward Wayne had been obvious at the Book Club Breakfast.

And how did all this tie in with the recordings of Little Red? Did someone want them enough to kill?

So many questions to answer. And for the first time since arriving in New Orleans, I thought I might have some of the answers. Hopefully, there would be more at tonight’s party.

Chapter Twenty-one

“Mrs. Fletcher, I’m so delighted you could come.”

Marguerite Amadour stood next to her husband in the large oval foyer of their home, welcoming guests to their party. The tinkle of a ragtime piano in another room could be heard over the buzz of voices as people crowded in. The mayor pumped my hand and directed me to a tuxedo-clad waiter holding a silver tray with glasses of champagne. “The bar is in the library if you’d like something a bit more potent; food is out back in the garden. Make yourself at home. We’ll find you later for some conversation.”

Doris and I had been driven to the party in a car sent by Charlie Gable of the
Times-Picayune.
He came forward to greet us as well. “Ladies, how wonderful you’re here,” he said, taking our arms and guiding us from the reception area into the living room. “You must come see what the Amadours have done.”

The house was large, elegant, and old—an antique, like much of its furnishings. The walls were freshly painted and the floors highly polished, but elsewhere there were indications of the patina of age so prized by New Orleanians. An ancient mirror hung over the marble mantel, its silvered back worn away in many places. The wood surrounding the doorway to a small room off the living room was nicked and distressed, a sign, perhaps, of the many times over the years large pieces of furniture had been moved in or out, battling to make it through the constricted opening. In the center of the room, the Amadours had set a round Biedermeier table with a display of books of all the authors from Charlie’s Book Club Breakfast. Copies of
Murder in a Minor Key
were piled high with one standing open on top. The works of Doris, Julian, and Wayne were similarly featured, alongside a framed photograph that had been taken at the program.

“Everyone has to pass this table on their way to the courtyard,” Gable said, clearly delighted with the publicity we were getting. “Maurice plans to give away the books as gifts later on.”

We followed the stream of visitors outside to a generously proportioned stone courtyard between two wings of the house, hemmed in by an array of banana trees spaced to allow a view of the gardens beyond. The evening air was refreshingly cool, the afternoon storm having blasted away the heat, and a beautiful sunset provided a delicate scrim against which the party was played. Food was one of the stars. Long tables had been set up with platters heaped high with Louisiana specialties. I recognized the crawfish boil with red potatoes and corn, and the Oysters Rockefeller that Wayne had introduced me to. There were also baskets of fried chicken, bowls of beans and rice, gumbo, barbecued shrimp, blackened fish, crawfish étouffée, fried green tomatoes, jambalaya, and even more dishes that I’d not seen before.

“There goes the diet,” Doris moaned. “I guess I’ll have to sacrifice myself.”

“On you, it’ll look good,” said a voice behind us.

I saw her stiffen. “Julian, we haven’t seen you for some time,” she said coolly, picking up a plate and turning back to the buffet.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was working and didn’t have time to call.” He grabbed a plate and followed her down the table, but she ignored him and concentrated on her choices. “You should understand,” he said. “You told me you were going to be busy, too.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Charlie murmured to me.

“Let them work it out,” I said. “Would you like to show me around?”

“With pleasure.”

As we crossed the flagstone paving, Charlie pointed out the doyennes of New Orleans society, and other influentials in the city. I saw Philippe Beaudin talking to a group of people. He was standing near a zydeco band that was setting up at the far end of the terrace, opposite the food. Charlie led me through open doors into the library where a group of men, including the mayor, were standing around the bar, puffing on cigars and drinking from silver mugs of mint julep. We walked down a black-and-white-tiled hallway to peek into the kitchen; the bustle of activity convinced us to get out of the way quickly. We ended up back outside in the garden, Marguerite Amadour’s showpiece, admiring the beds of colorful flowers and plantings she had lovingly cultivated.