Raiders of the Lost Corset (38 page)

“The bodies are buried in this way, above the ground,” Philipe continued, “because as the water table rises with floodwaters, the coffins would not stay underground in graves dug in the soil.

Coffins and rotting corpses, they pop right out of the ground.
C’est
vrai.
The crypts, they stand like little whitewashed houses, no? So in the Crescent City we call this the City of the Dead.”

Stella was fascinated, and even Griffin seemed to be caught up in Philipe’s narrative. He led them to an empty crypt at eye level, not yet sealed up. The interior was just coffin-sized. He tapped it with his cane. “Bodies here, by law, must be housed in the tomb for a year and a day,” he said. “The temperature inside the tomb reaches as much as 250 degrees. A year and a day it takes for the flesh to drop from the bones and turn to dust. The tomb acts as a slow crematorium,” Philipe said. “All that is left is ashes, dust, and bones.” Once the tomb has done its work, he said, the bones are removed to the bottom of the crypt or to a family mausoleum with other predeceased relatives.

Lacey scanned the cemetery, trying to memorize the layout.

Where was the crypt Drosmis Berzins had purchased? According to her memory of the map in the urn, now safely in her hip pocket, it must be two or three rows from the back wall, well off Philipe’s tour route of crypts of the famous and infamous. She itched to slip away and find the crypt, but she would have to wait for Vic. And could
The Eye
really get permission to open it? It all seemed so unlikely now.

She certainly wasn’t going to lead Griffin straight to it, no matter what was in it. Griffin was a determined rascal, she had to give him that much. What if the trail petered out and she never found the corset? The thought horrified her. Would Griffin hang around her neck like an albatross forever, convinced she was on the trail of a lost Fabergé egg?

Chapter 35

The air had changed in the City of the Dead. The sun had gone behind a cloud and the atmosphere felt heavier, as if the barometric pressure had dropped suddenly. A sadness descended on Lacey.

She wondered if a crazy old man was capable of hiding the Romanov corset in a tomb here in New Orleans just to play a cruel joke on his old comrade from the Revolution. Had Drosmis Berzins hoped it would be incinerated to dust and the jewels walled up and lost forever? Or was it just a way of tormenting his old pal over a stolen treasure that had proven too valuable and too notorious for either of them to ever profit from? She was lost in her thoughts and barely realized that the tour had ended. Philipe was bowing to applause from the little band of tourists.

“Come on, Lacey.” Stella grabbed her arm. “Great tour, you were so right. Let’s go! Bourbon Street. Hurricanes. I want to catch some Mardi Gras beads.” She did a little dance, a seductive shimmy obviously meant for Griffin’s benefit.

“It’s not Mardi Gras,” Lacey protested.

“That doesn’t stop the boys from tossing beads if you show ’em something worth tossing ’em for.” Stella winked and led the way, a bemused Griffin and a reluctant Lacey in tow.

Stella’s destination, Maison Bourbon on Bourbon Street, had a wailing old-time jazz band and a full house of tourists sucking down Hurricane cocktails in huge glasses. Before Stella could dive into one, Lacey detoured her friend to the ladies’ room for a little chat about the facts of life and Nigel Griffin. She reapplied her lipstick while Stella smoothed her hair.

“But don’t ya love his cute accent, Lacey?” Stella said. “I think he’s kinda dreamy.”

“Yeah, dreamy like a nightmare. Stella, he is one of the bad guys.”

“No way.” Stella took her eyeliner out of her silver bustier purse. Before Stella, Lacey hadn’t been able to imagine who would carry a purse like that, but now she knew.

“Yes, way. I don’t know exactly how bad he is, but trust me, he is up to no good. We can’t let him find out why we’re really here.”

Stella practiced a seductive look in the mirror. “We may need to keep him distracted,” Lacey went on, “so he doesn’t catch on.”

“No problem, Lacey! My girls have got him plenty distracted already,” Stella said, admiring her cleavage in the mirror. “Do you think I should sleep with him?”

“With Nigel Griffin?” Lacey dropped her lipstick in the sink.

“Stella! Of course not!”

“But what if I want to? You know, I could seduce him and spy on him. Like Mata Hari.”

“Stella, they shot Mata Hari!”

“But he’s a doll and he’s got that cute accent, and maybe I’ll be more like Belle Starr, one of those glamorous female spies who didn’t get shot?”

“You have to be subtle.” Lacey took Stella by her shoulders.

“Repeat after me.”

“Subtle! I got it, Lacey.” She winked. “I wrote the book on subtle.”

Stella, her silver bustier purse, and her “girls” bulging out of their pink lace sashayed out the door. Lacey shuddered.
Stella’s
book would be called
How Not to Be So Damn Subtle
!
Lacey’s cell phone rang, so she stayed behind in the ladies’ room for privacy.

“Hey, sweetheart, I’m so sorry this job thing came up.” His voice was like hot buttered rum, soothing and stimulating at the same time. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going.”

“Are you all right?” Vic’s voice sounded alert.

“We may have a little trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Trouble with an English accent.”

There was a pause, then an exasperated sputter. “What the hell is Griffin doing there?”

“Stalking me, I guess,” Lacey said. “Although he is currently being very thoroughly distracted by Stella. I’m afraid she’ll let it slip that we’re here to find Magda’s killer.”

“Say that again. Because I really hope I didn’t hear what you just said.”

“That’s what she thinks we’re doing, and nothing I say can convince her otherwise.” Lacey peeked out the ladies’ room door to keep her eye on Stella, who was letting Griffin light her cigarette.

Lacey groaned.
She promised me she quit!

“What about the corset?”

“She doesn’t exactly know about the corset. Now she wants to play Mata Hari, with Griffin as her conquest.” Lacey pawed through her purse for aspirin.

“Where did she come up with that?”

“I blame the Spy Museum.”

“Lacey, I’ll be there tomorrow. Can you keep her out of trouble till then?”

“Hey, I’m not a magician. You’re really coming tomorrow?”

“Yes, you
are
a magician! Hold on till I get there.” Vic hung up, and Lacey realized this relationship was moving forward. Vic apparently thought she could keep Stella out of trouble, and herself too. At least for one day. This was real progress, she concluded.

She headed for the bar to rescue Stella and their mission from the insidious clutches of Nigel Griffin.

“Did it ever once cross your mind, Lacey, that this urn might contain human remains?” Vic’s green eyes were boring a hole into her soul. “Remains that require a little respect?”

“Yes! No. Maybe. I wasn’t exactly sure. It didn’t, did it?”

They were working their way through an order of fresh hot beignets and chicory coffee at the Café du Monde. A greedy-eyed brown-speckled pigeon waited by their table for crumbs.

“But you opened it anyway.” Vic’s eyes scanned the patrons in the café. He ignored the pigeon. Vic had caught an early flight down from D.C., and it was ten in the morning, still the crack of dawn by New Orleans time. “I suppose you couldn’t resist. Reporter.”

“Drosmis Berzins was some kind of nutcase, and I had a suspicion that he planted something in there. Maybe even the jewels, but no. He was orchestrating this whole weird game.”

“It might have held somebody’s grandmother, you know. And pardon me for saying this, but the crazy old dead Latvian isn’t the only one in this whole weird game who’s nuts.”

Lacey rolled her eyes and reached for another beignet. She was so happy to see Vic that his traditional lecture on her cavalier dis-regard for the safety of her own hide didn’t even bother her. She felt utterly safe and secure in his company beneath the green and white awning of the open-air café. Fans overhead circulated the drowsy air and hungry birds waited to swoop in for the crumbs.

The speckled pigeon flew in closer. Apparently the entire tribe of French Quarter pigeons had a jones for the powdered sugar crumbs that fell from the tables at the Café du Monde. Outside on the sidewalk a burly musician wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses made love to his saxophone.

“Did you hear what I just said?” Vic asked.

“Sorry, I was admiring the line of your jaw.”

“Lacey —”

“And the way your eyes crinkle when you look at me.”

“This is serious,” he said, but a smile was beginning to make its way to his handsome face.

“It must be, or you wouldn’t have asked me to your parents’

house for the holidays,” she said. Vic gave up and kissed her. The street musician eyed them and obliged the moment with a sweet rendition of “As Time Goes By,” also known as “A kiss is still a kiss. . . .”

“You drive a man to distraction,” Vic whispered in her ear.

“As long as it’s this man.” Lacey gave him a seductive smile.

“Have you noticed there’s something different in the air here?”

“It’s the alligator pheromones. They float downstream from the swamps in a big toxic cloud. Careful not to succumb to their allure, I’ll eat you up like a gator, lady.”

It was nice to know that all kinds of pheromones flowed in New Orleans, she thought, just like the liquor on Bourbon Street. But Vic was right, she needed to be careful. Lacey told herself not to become so intoxicated with his presence that she forgot why she was there.

“So,” he said, dusting crumbs from his hands, “where are the unlikely lovebirds?”

Lacey harrumphed. Stella had disappeared with Griffin without so much as a wave good-bye during Lacey’s call from Vic in the ladies’ room. She didn’t answer Lacey’s calls to her cell phone until late that evening, and then she had bristled at Lacey’s suggestion that Griffin could be a killer and a jewel thief.

“You got him all wrong, Lace, he is a
reformed
jewel thief,”

Stella had whispered. “Just like Cary Grant in that old movie, you know? But I don’t know anything about this Fabergé egg thing. I know what you wrote about it, but Magda never said anything like that to me and I was her
hairstylist
, Lace! I think I would
know
, you know?”

“Please be careful, Stella. And please come back to the hotel, I’ll send a cab —”

“Lacey, I’m a big girl! I’m busy pumping him for information, if you know what I mean.” Stella had clicked off her phone and she didn’t pick up when Lacey called back.

“The lovebirds? Good question,” Lacey said to Vic, but she was interrupted by her cell phone. The display showed her editor’s number in Washington.

“Smithsonian! How’s the reckless tomb raider today?”

“Hi, Mac, I’m fine, so far.” She mouthed “It’s Mac” to Vic. “I think.”

“Good. You’re supposed to be at St. Louis Cemetery Number One today in exactly one hour. I just want you to know the newspaper had to pull all kinds of strings to do this.”

“One hour? Really?” She was impressed. Their publisher, Claudia, must have known which strings to pull. Lacey had hoped it might be possible to open the tomb, but she had expected days of delays and red tape, if it would be allowed at all. “Thanks, Mac.

I’ll be there.”

“What is it, Lacey?” Vic interrupted, but she raised a finger for him to wait.

“You get one chance, Smithsonian. They open it up. You see if the corset or whatever is in there. If by some bizarre miracle this thing is there, you bring it back to
The Eye Street Observer
and you have one hell of a scoop. If not, you’ll be on the bag-and-shoes beat till kingdom come.”

Lacey started writing notes. “So you managed to get the note translated from the Latvian?”

“Yes, indeed,” he purred with satisfaction. “Latvia loves America, did you know that? It’s not long, but it is interesting. If the translation is correct, it seems to corroborate this story that Magda Rousseau told you.” Mac paused for effect, and Lacey could hear him take a bite of something, no doubt whatever Felicity Pickles was pushing that day.

“Go ahead, Mac, just keep me in suspense. Take another bite.”

“Here it is. Berzins gives a very brief and bloody eyewitness account of the execution of the Romanovs. He says he helped steal a corset from one of the dead princesses, and the remorse will haunt him forever.” She heard Mac smack his lips. “He says taking part in the murders and stealing the corset have shamed him and his friend Juris Akmentins, and he swears no one will ever profit from the bloody corset. And that goes for anyone who discovers where he hid it.”

“Ah, say that word ‘corset’ again, Mac. You believe me now?”

“It’s insane, but it’s pretty good stuff. I mean, he hides it out of shame, but then he leaves clues to find it? A wacko. Talk about am-bivalent. But it means
The Eye Street Observer
has new information from an eyewitness to the assassination of the Romanovs. You might call it a late-breaking scoop from the Russian Revolution.

When you get here with the documents, we’ll have them authenticated. The Latvian embassy will help. And the paper will reprint this note to go along with your front-page story. Now today —” He paused for another bite of the mystery dessert.

“Go on, I’m listening,” she said.

“There’ll be one workman waiting for you at the cemetery gate.

Name of Dante. Not a big delegation from the archdiocese; everyone involved wants this done very quietly. As I understand it, all he has to do is take some nameplate off the front of the tomb where they shove in the deceased, then break through the bricks with a sledgehammer. I’m told it shouldn’t take long.”

“Oh, dear.” Lacey thought of one more thing.

“What now?” Mac demanded.

“What if there someone’s bones in there?” she asked. Vic was at full attention now.

“Not my problem, Smithsonian. This is your tea party.” Mac paused for a moment. “Take a camera. Don’t let me down. Or you can see if the
Times-Picayune
there needs a new fashion reporter.”