by Ellen Byron
Fatigued, Maggie rubbed her eyes. It was barely ten AM and the day already felt endless. “There’s just so much we can do. I need to find a new massage therapist fast.”
“I’m on it,” Mo said. Maggie started to speak, but Mo held up a hand. “No arguments. I’m the one with connections in the beauty world. You handle your guests and your job. I’ll handle the spa.”
Maggie leaned over the desk and hugged her friend. “A gazillion thanks.” She noticed the time on the reception desk clock. “Argh, I’m late. I better get to Doucet or I won’t have a job to handle.”
Chapter 6
Long as the morning felt, the rest of the day flew by. Ione, Maggie’s boss at Doucet and close friend, agreed to allow the historic plantation to host Helene Brevelle, which would help her make up for any business she lost to Susannah. She and Maggie set up a room in the annex for the voodoo priestess, who would explain the history and rituals of the practice to visitors. Grateful for the gig, Helene gifted Maggie with a beautifully crafted voodoo doll painted in vibrant colors. “I love it,” Maggie said. She sorted through a box of stray art supplies and pulled out a bag of straight pins topped with round black balls. “I even have a black pin to send some pain Susannah’s way.”
“No, no, no, no.” Helene shook her head. “No using the black pin on that doll—it’s for evil. I know your cousin is bad, but don’t go to the dark place. Don’t even joke about it.”
Ione poked her head in the room. “Quittin’ time, ladies. Maggie, see you at Junie’s?”
“Oh, you know it,” Maggie said. “Gran and Lee are going to listen to bands for our wedding, so Mom and Dad are keeping an eye on the guests to give me the night off.” Maggie’s cell phone rang. She checked the number. “Ugh, a spam call. Third one today. Blocking.”
The women locked up Doucet, and Maggie headed home to the shotgun cottage. She lay the voodoo doll on the antique desk where she kept her laptop and changed from her work clothes into jeans and a stretchy T-shirt decorated with the logo of a recent po’boy festival. Then she drove to Junie’s and parked in front of the old establishment, located in the heart of Pelican’s historic town square. As always, local merchants had gone all in with the holiday theme. Fake spider webs hung from the ornate iron balconies, which played host to blow-up ghosts, vampires, and monsters. The village green gazebo featured a band made up of animated ghouls playing spooky music. Normally the creepy decorations would have unnerved Maggie, but she was too distracted by the clash with the MacDowells to even notice them.
Junie’s was packed with locals and visitors. “Hey, gorgeous,” JJ, the proprietor of the restaurant, having inherited it from his late mother Junie, called to Maggie. “Where’s your Halloween duds?” JJ himself was clad in a pumpkin- and ghost-decorated orange caftan, which he’d also inherited from his mother.
“Wasn’t feeling the holiday today, JJ.”
“Boo,” JJ said, giving her a thumbs-down. “Or should I say, boo!” He mimed scaring her, and Maggie had to laugh.
Bo had arrived early to save a large table for their group, which included Ione, Quentin, Vanessa, Rufus, and Ru’s girlfriend Sandy Sechrest, along with Maggie’s cousin Lia and her husband Kyle, enjoying a rare night away from their infant triplets. Bo waved Maggie over. They exchanged a kiss, and he pulled out a seat for her. “I filled everyone in on what all’s going on with your newfound ‘family.’”
“I’m trying to figure out ways I can arrest them for something,” Rufus said. He tossed a popcorn crawfish in the air and caught it in his mouth.
“We’re all helping with that.” This came from Vanessa, wife to Quentin but formerly betrothed to Rufus and the mother of his child, Charlotte. Life could be complicated in Pelican.
“I pointed out that since they’re not American citizens, they can only stay in the country for six months,” Quentin said. “They gotta scoot back to Canada after that.”
“With what all’s going on, that could be a very long six months,” a gloomy Maggie said. “And it doesn’t stop them from owning the land. Lia, count yourself lucky the MacDowells aren’t on your side of the family.”
Lia started. “Huh? Sorry, I think I dozed off for a minute.”
Kyle rubbed his wife’s back. “To be honest, we’re too tired to process much of this. We’re just happy to hear adult voices and conversation.”
Emma Fine came into the restaurant, followed by Johnnie MacDowell. “That’s an odd combination,” Maggie murmured to Bo. The duo saw her and approached the table. “I don’t mean to interrupt,” Johnnie said after greetings were exchanged. “Emma and I had a meeting at the church across the street.”
“We’re both in recovery,” Emma said. “Alcohol.”
“And drugs in my case,” Johnnie said. “Lots of drugs. Anyway, Maggie, I wanted to apologize for my family. They’re horrible people, obsessed with money and materialism. Look at my sister over there. She’s all over that Rent My Digs trillionaire or whatever he is.” Maggie glanced at the table Johnnie was referencing. Bonnie MacDowell, made up and dressed in a skintight black minidress, appeared to be fawning over a good-looking hipster in his late twenties who wore jeans and a black T-shirt.
Vanessa craned her neck to see who Maggie was looking at. “Ooh, he’s hot.”
“That’s Gavin Grody, the guy buying up all the places around here and turning them into day rentals,” Sandy admonished her. “He’s the enemy.”
“They disgust me.” Johnnie mimed gagging. “As do my father and stepmonster.”
Maggie turned her attention back to Johnnie. She was about to respond to him when her cell rang. She checked it and grimaced. “Great, more spam.”
“Have you been getting a lot of that lately?” Johnnie asked. Maggie nodded. “You can thank Susannah. It’s a thing she does to get back at people. She sends their phone numbers to telemarketers. The best thing to do is block the calls and don’t let her know it’s ticking you off. She’ll get bored and stop. I’m telling you, she is the worst. When I think of the sideshow tableau that is the people I’m forced to cohabitate with, I could—ooh, Bonnie and her boyfriend are leaving. Let’s grab their table.”
Johnnie and Emma hurried off. Maggie’s phone trumpeted another call, and she glared at it. “Anyone have a permanent marker on them? I’m thinking about writing Susannah’s telephone number on all the stalls in the men’s bathroom.”
* * *
The MacDowell nightmare gave Maggie a restless night. At dawn, she dragged herself into the kitchen to make coffee. Gran was already there, thumbing through a stack of wedding magazines. “Coffee’s made, chère,” she said to her granddaughter.
“Thanks.” Maggie poured herself a cup and sat down at the kitchen’s café table across from her grandmother. “You couldn’t sleep either?”
Gran shook her head. “Too energized by my anger at those awful Canadians.” She put a finger under Maggie’s chin and raised her face into the light. “You look exhausted, beloved. Go back to bed. Your father can take guests to the pet parade. I’ll lead the immortelle workshop. You can manage the caravan to the cemetery show tonight. How does that sound?”
“Wonderful,” Maggie said. “Brianna Poche and some of her high school friends wanted to help out, so I asked her to do a nature walk and pick up any interesting plant life she found for the immortelles. She dropped off a box yesterday, so you’re good on supplies for the workshop. I’ll make it up to y’all by handling everything next weekend.”
Maggie put her coffee cup in the dishwasher and returned to bed, where she passed out for hours. By the time she woke up, the sun was low in the sky. She grabbed a quick bite and then shepherded Crozat’s playgoers into the van for the trip to the Dupois cemetery. They disembarked into a darkness lit only by the torches that director Quentin thought would enhance the location’s otherworldly atmosphere. A few guests clutched their immortelles in their arms. “We thought it would be a way of showing respect to the family,” explained Julie Mulhern, a t
eenager visiting with her parents.
Maggie admired the girl’s glass-covered wooden box filled with an arrangement of dried flowers shaped like a heart. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “If there were any Dupois descendants, I’m sure they’d appreciate it.”
“Oh, they do.” DruCilla—Lovie’s pet parent—closed her eyes and inhaled. She opened her eyes and graced the others with a beatific smile. “They send their regards.”
I buy her psychic powers more than I buy Susannah’s, Maggie thought. She forced herself to banish all thoughts of the MacDowells and concentrate on her guests. “Julie, why don’t you put your immortelle on top of Etienne Dupois’s tomb? He only passed away a few weeks ago, so his is bare.”
Maggie led Julie to Etienne’s tomb. Julie crossed herself and laid her immortelle on top of the tomb. Maggie was reaching for Julie’s arm to lead her to their seats when the teen let out a scream so ear-piercing it triggered sympathy screams from pretty much everyone in the cemetery, including Maggie. “In the woods!” Julie pointed, shaking. “I saw eyes. He was staring at me.”
DruCilla gasped and put her hand on her heart. “The rougarou. I heard one of those was terrorizing the town.”
“No, not at all,” Maggie responded quickly, eager to shut down the rumor before it spread and scared guests. “I’m sure it’s Walter, the caretaker of the property. He’s not social, but he sometimes looks through the trees to see what all’s going on. He’s harmless.”
Maggie’s explanation helped the panic subside. She led her group to seats, which soon filled with guests from all the plantations.
“Excuse me, ma’am, is this seat open?”
She looked up to see Bo grinning at her. She patted the chair, and he sat down. “You’re a brave man to sit through this show again,” she said.
“How else am I gonna see my girl on a Saturday night in October?”
He put an arm around her shoulder, and she snuggled up to him. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “You missed the hysteria a few minutes ago.” Maggie relayed Julie’s sighting. “I’m pretty sure it was Walter, but there’s something hinky about all these rougarou sightings.”
“Yeah, there is,” Bo said, lips pursed. “Pelican PD is taking a look into it.”
While the audience waited for the play to begin, Maggie craned her neck and searched the dense growth behind the cemetery for any sign of the strange caretaker. She thought she saw a branch move, but local high school students serving as stagehands extinguished the torches and the night went black as coal. There was a moment of tension; then floodlights borrowed from Pelican PD illuminated the cemetery, where the actors had taken their places. The play began.
Barrymore Tuttle emoted while Vanessa Fleer MacIlhoney overacted. For some reason known only to her, Patria Heloise, the voluptuous young actress playing their daughter, delivered her lines in the voice of a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. Maggie’s attention strayed to the outskirts of the acting area, where she saw playwright-director Quentin mouthing the words of his script along with the actors. He was dressed in his version of how a theatre professional should dress—black slacks, an expensive black cashmere turtleneck, and a black beret, giving him the look of an aging 1950s beatnik.
After forty-five minutes that felt like four hours to Maggie, who was on her third go-round with the play, the performers launched into the final scene. Rudy Ferrier slowly began to rise from his deathbed. “I live!” he cried out.
“Son!”
“Husband!”
“Father!”
“Grgh-agh!” The groan came from the offstage area. Suddenly someone dressed like a rougarou stumbled out of the woods into the scene. The audience gasped—as did the actors, who froze in place, stunned.
“When did Quentin add that character?” Bo whispered to Maggie.
“I don’t think he did.” Maggie pointed to Quentin, who looked as stunned by the unexpected appearance as his actors.
Vanessa was the first to recover. “It’s a miracle, a miracle sent from heaven above,” she ad-libbed. “The curse of the rougarou has been lifted. We are free!”
“Gagh-ahhh!”
The rougarou tried pulling off the head of its costume and failed. Distraught, it twirled around and let out another groan. Its entire body spasmed. The creature let out a yell, arched its back, and collapsed to the ground. The actors exchanged nervous looks. They grabbed each other’s hands, stepped over the rougarou, and bowed to thunderous applause. Bo and Maggie ran to the prostrate rougarou as the audience dispersed. The actors, joined by Quentin and Emma, huddled around them. “What on earth happened?” asked Quentin, in shock. “What was that? What is that?”
“That,” said Barrymore with gusto, “is theatre at its best. Impromptu. Invigorating. Electrifying.”
“If you don’t shut up, the only thing electrified around here will be you,” Emma hissed at him.
“Whoever or whatever it is, it’s sick,” Bo said. He carefully lifted the head off the still body. Cast members screamed and stepped back. Maggie clutched Vanessa and willed herself not to pass out.
Staring up at her with wide and very dead eyes was Susannah Crozat MacDowell.
Chapter 7
Bo switched into police officer mode. “Clear the area, but no cast members can leave.”
Kaity Bertrand raced over. “I saw what happened and called Pelican PD. They’re on the way.”
“Good. Keep your guests calm. For all we know, this was a prank gone bad,” Bo replied.
“Susannah wasn’t the prankster kind,” Maggie said. Her instincts were sounding the alarm that the massage therapist’s death was no accident, and the thought nauseated her.
“Oh no,” Patria said, her voice shaky as she stared at Susannah’s prostrate body. “That’s the psychic I saw last week. She said I was gonna meet my husband this year. Now what’s gonna happen?”
Emma stared at her. “You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding.”
“She was trying to get the mask off,” Vanessa said. She bit her lower lip. “Do you think there was something in there?”
“No idea, but we don’t want rumors to start flying around,” Bo said. He looked up at Maggie, his face grim. “Get your guests back to Crozat. Now. If anyone asks what happened, tell them one of the actors took sick. That goes for everyone here, got it?”
Intimidated by Bo’s harsh tone, the others gave nervous nods.
Maggie hurried to the Crozat van, where the B and B’s guests were waiting for her. “Sorry about the delay.”
“Is everything all right?” Julie’s mother asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Maggie forced herself to sound casual. “The actress playing the rougarou wasn’t feeling well, that’s all.” She herded the guests into the van.
“What an inspired ending,” DruCilla said as she buckled a seat belt around her waist. “I did not see that rougarou twist coming. It really added an element of surprise.”
You have no idea how right you are, Maggie thought.
She turned the key in the ignition and drove as fast as she could without endangering the lives of her guests. “Man, I thought we put pedal to the metal in California,” Julie’s dad said as everyone tumbled out of the van. “But I surrender the speeding crown to you.”
“I don’t usually drive this fast, but it’s late and I’m sure everyone’s tired.” Maggie faked a yawn. “I know I am. ’Night, all.”
She watched the guests make their way to their various lodgings, then sprinted to the manor house, where she found her parents eating a late dinner. “Terrible news,” she blurted. “Susannah’s dead.”
“What?” Tug said, dumbfounded.
“Oh my Lord.” Ninette crossed herself. “That poor woman. Her poor family. How did it happen?”
“We don’t know.” She relayed Susannah’s surprise appearance in the play. A pained expression colored Maggie’s face as she recalled the massage therapist desperately trying to pull off the head of her costume. “The
re was something wrong with her mask. And whatever it was may be what killed her.”
Ninette put a hand to her head, trying to puzzle out the evening’s bizarre chain of events. “What was she doing there? And why on earth was she dressed like a rougarou?”
“All questions I’m sure Bo and Pelican PD will find answers to.” Tug’s tone was somber. “We need to think about Doug and the twins. I’m sure the police will want to tell them what happened, but we should offer support. I know things have been bad between our two families, but at the end of the day, that’s what we are to each other. Family.”
Ninette scraped their plates into the trash. “I’ll put together a basket of cinnamon-sugar muffins.” Baking was Ninette’s way of coping with stress.
“I can’t go to bed,” Maggie said. “I’ll never fall asleep. I’m going back to the cemetery.”
“Be careful,” her father said. “I got a bad feeling about all this.”
Maggie pursed her lips. “You and me both, Dad.”
* * *
Maggie jumped in her Falcon and drove back to the scene of what she had to assume was a crime. As she parked and headed toward the cemetery, she walked past a phalanx of patrol cars from Ville Blanc, the town next to Pelican. Once a charming village like Pelican, Ville Blanc was now a sprawl of subdivisions and commercial development, its inadequate streets choked with traffic. While its citizens might grumble, its leadership touted the town as a “beacon of the future, not a relic of the past,” a dig at its quaint neighbor, Pelican.
The cemetery was swarming with law enforcement, many of whom looked unfamiliar to her, which meant they were members of Ville Blanc’s law enforcement agency. Maggie knew the whole small department at Pelican PD and was proud to call the officers her friends. She saw Bo talking to a man about his own age who was clad in a suit that looked expensive even from twenty feet away. Maggie gave a small wave to let him know she was there. Bo didn’t make eye contact, restricting acknowledgment of her presence to the slightest of nods. After a minute, he finished his conversation and headed to Maggie.