Pulling out my phone, I brought up the pictures I had taken on this trip and started going through them. Jillian noticed what I was doing and scooted her chair close.
“Oooh, are you going to look at corgi clues?”
Jillian asked that question just as the girl who kept refilling our breadbasket wandered by. The teenager looked at us, and then down at the dogs. A giggle escaped her lips.
“Corgi clues? Did I hear that right?”
I pointed at the dogs. “Long story short, Sherlock and Watson are able to …”
“Sherlock and Watson?” the girl interrupted, giggling again. “Those are their names?”
Upon hearing their names uttered by a stranger, both corgis looked up. Sherlock was on his feet first. Within moments, both dogs were pulling on their leashes in an effort to be the first one to receive adoration from their newest admirer.
“They are so cute!” the girl exclaimed. “They’re named after those famous detectives?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” I said, returning the teenager’s smile.
“Too bad they don’t hunt for clues. Wait. You said corgi clues. They don’t, do they?”
Looking up, I shrugged. “What, find clues? Actually, they do. They are very proficient crime solvers.”
“These dogs are police consultants in Oregon,” Vance proudly announced. He showed the girl his badge. “I’m Detective Vance Samuelson. Zack and the dogs have helped on a number of cases. So, you heard right. They have found clues, only we haven’t really figured them out yet.”
I swiped at my phone a few times and showed the girl the picture my phone was now displaying.
“Do you see this one? Let’s see. Looks like we have a menu. The dogs stopped at Café Beignet, if memory serves, and … yep, got it right. You can see the restaurant’s name up at the top left. Anyway, they expressed interest in looking at the menu. So, as soon as I took the picture, they settled down.” I pointed at my phone and decided an explanation was necessary. “It means there’s something in this picture they wanted me to see.”
The girl leaned forward, nearly looking over my shoulder, to get a closer look at the picture.
“Café Beignet. I’ve been there many times. Their beignets are to die for!”
“How long have you lived in New Orleans?” Jillian asked, as she turned to look up at the girl. I watched my fiancée drop her gaze to the girl’s uniform. “Aimee. That’s a pretty name. Listen Aimee, do you think you can help us? We have some pictures here, and we might need some help identifying what we’re looking at.”
“Are you working a case right now?” the girl asked, her eyes widening with surprise.
“We are,” I confirmed.
“And you’re asking me for help?”
“Is that okay?” Vance asked.
The girl looked up and raised her voice. “Tomas? I’m taking my break, okay?”
We heard some faint shouting, coming from somewhere inside the restaurant. The girl smiled again and hastily pulled a chair from the adjacent table over to ours. That was when I got my first good look at the girl. Gumbo Stop’s bread filler-upper had pale skin, jet black hair, and full eyebrows. Her face dimpled when she smiled, and so far, every time I’ve seen her, she’s been smiling. In fact, she looked an awful lot like a young Jennifer Connelly.
“So, how can I help?”
“Let’s start with a few introductions. You know those two are Sherlock and Watson. I’m Zack, this is Jillian, and over there are our good friends, Vance and Tori.”
The girl’s smile widened even further as she waved at everyone. “I’m Aimee. Aimee Chapman.”
“What I’m going to do, Aimee,” I began, “is show everyone the pictures Sherlock and Watson wanted me to take. Go on, laugh if you’d like. It wouldn’t be the first time. At this table, you’re the odd man out, so to speak, in that everyone here believes me when I say the dogs wanted these specific pictures taken.”
“Amazing,” Aimee breathed.
“Now, first off, we have …”
“Oya!” Aimee exclaimed, looking at the bizarre mark from our mystery man’s neck. “You’re telling me your dogs wanted you to take a picture of a veve? How do they even know what it is?”
“How do you?” I challenged. “For the record, yes, we had someone at a voodoo shop explain this mark to us. The person we’re looking for had this tattooed on his neck.”
“Of course I know what this is,” Aimee insisted. “You can’t live in New Orleans and not be familiar with veves. I should know. I’m a doctor.”
Everyone at our table, excluding Aimee herself, suddenly sat back in their chairs and stared at the girl, as though she had become possessed. I’m sure all four of us had the same expression on our face: skepticism. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for an explanation.
“You’re a voodoo doctor?” Vance slowly asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism.
“Okay, okay, I may not be a doctor,” Aimee amended, “but I am a worker.”
“I think you might need to clarify what you mean,” Jillian told the girl.
“Doctors and workers are specialists in voodoo,” Aimee explained. I got the feeling she has had to explain herself on more than one occasion. “It’s a term used to describe someone who provides powders, perfumes, gris-gris, and even oils to clients. I haven’t been practicing long, since I just learned my great-great-grandmother was a voodoo queen at the turn of the century. As you can imagine, it didn’t go over too well with my parents when I told them I wanted to learn.”
“I’ll bet,” Vance agreed. “Let me ask you, what do you think of it so far?”
“Of voodoo?” Aimee asked. “It’s fascinating. There are so many things to learn if I truly want to provide a service to the people, like my ancestors did.”
I tapped my phone’s screen. “Well, I can say I’m impressed you were able to identify this particular mark.”
Aimee blushed accordingly.
“What’s next?” Jillian asked.
I swiped my finger to the right. “Oh, okay. Gang? Here’s the voodoo doll that our suspect dropped at the convention center.”
“The convention center?” Aimee repeated, losing her smile for the first time. “As in, the book expo that was going on this weekend?”
I nodded. “The one and the same. All of us were there. Jillian and the dogs were in the audience, while Vance, Tori, and I were up at the panelist’s table.”
“You were presenting something? You’re an author? I thought you said you were a police consultant?”
“He’s both,” Vance announced. I was surprised. I think that’s one of the few times I’ve heard my detective friend come to my defense with regard to being an author. Usually, I’m teased about being a romance writer. “His book is currently on the New York Times best sellers list. Tori and I were up there ’cause I’m the one who persuaded Zack to write a book featuring my wife.”
“Heart of Éire,” Jillian answered, before Aimee could ask the inevitable question. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
Aimee squealed with excitement and then pulled out her phone. “Heard of it? I’m currently reading it! You? You’re Jim McGee? I thought it was Zachary Anderson?”
“It’s one of the pseudonyms I’ve used,” I admitted.
Suddenly, Aimee was leaning close and holding out her phone for a selfie. Realizing she was now invading my personal space, she blushed again before turning to look at Jillian.
“Do you mind if I get a picture with him?”
Jillian smiled and shook her head. Then, she held out a hand. “I’ll take the picture, if you’d like.”
Once our new friend’s excitement had returned to previous levels, we moved to the next picture.
“Café Beignet,” Aimee observed. “Great place, awesome beignets.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” I told her.
“What were the dogs looking at?” Tori wanted to know. “What’s in the picture?”
I slid my phone over to the Samuelsons, who both leaned over to take a look.
“It’s the menu,” Vance answered. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” I pointed out. “The resolution is good enough to zoom in and see what was on it. As far as I can tell, it’s just a menu.”
Jillian’s turn with my phone was next. She studied the image for a few minutes before handing it to Aimee.
“I can’t see anything that stands out, either.”
“See anything?” I asked our new friend.
The phone was pushed back toward me. “No, I’m sorry.”
“All-righty then. On to the next. Nope, it’s another picture of the same menu. Moving on. Okay, here we go. Here’s something I didn’t take a picture of. Tori, I think this might have been you.”
Tori blinked with surprise. “Me? Let me see. Oh, that’s right. This was before Vance purchased his autographed program, when you handed me the phone to take a few pictures.”
The phone was passed around the table. “Does anyone see anything in common?”
“Well, there’s a menu visible,” Jillian reported, “but no close-ups of it. I can only assume that whatever the dogs wanted us to see, it isn’t on this particular menu.”
“What can you see?” I asked, turning to our new friend.
The phone made its way into Aimee’s hand. “Well, I see beads, trinkets, and all kinds of tourist stuff.”
The phone was pushed toward me, but I ended up pushing it back. “There’s three or four pictures there. Once these pictures were taken, the dogs settled down. Take a look at all of them, okay?”
Aimee nodded and swiped through the pictures. Studying each one intently, she sadly shook her head.
“There’s nothing here any local would want. I’m sorry, it’s all just junk.”
“Nothing that any local would want,” I repeated. “Could that be the key?” I backtracked a bit and looked at some of the previous pictures. “It’s so darn difficult to figure out what we should be looking for. This pub had just about everything in it, so it … oh, look. The next three pictures are from that gift shop we passed.”
“Which one?” Aimee asked. “I swear I’ve been to them all.”
I swiped my phone’s display a few times. “Hang on, I’m looking for a business name, or a sign, or …” I trailed off as I spotted Aimee’s outstretched hand. “Fine. You look.”
The girl took my phone and studied the picture. “Tricou Gifts.”
“How do you know for sure?” Jillian wanted to know.
Aimee adjusted the image, so that the picture was zoomed in on the lower left corner. “Do you see these beads? The yellow and pink ones? Well, even though you can’t see it, there’s a tiny letter ‘T’ on the yellow beads and a ‘G’ on the pink ones. You can only get them there.”
“Tricou Gifts,” I repeated, nodding. “Okey dokey. What else can you tell from the pictures? Anything else stand out?”
“It’s just more tourist stuff,” Aimee decided, after a few minutes had passed in silence. “Hmm. Let me check something.”
I watched the girl backtrack a few pictures. Then, she was nodding. Had she noticed something?
“Masks. Your dogs would appear to have a mask fetish. A lot of these pictures have some type of mask in the background.”
Jillian nodded. “Well, that makes sense. We know our mystery man was wearing a mask when he pulled off his stunt at the expo.”
I reclaimed my phone to look at the last set of pictures. They were of Checkpoint Charlie’s, where Vance had dropped some serious money for an autographed music program. As I sat there, trying to think why I was looking at several pictures of the pub, Jillian leaned over and looked at the display.
“Checkpoint Charlie’s. I remember this one. Sherlock and Watson woofed at you until some pictures were taken.”
“Was this before or after Vance came out?” I wanted to know.
“After,” Vance said, overhearing the question. “I remember hearing the dogs make some noise.”
I zoomed in on the photo as much as I could and slowly panned it around. The problem was, there wasn’t anything that stood out. I moved to the next picture, and then the next. As far as I could tell, they were all the same shot.
“Want a second opinion?” Aimee asked, upon hearing my dismayed groan.
Wordlessly, I slid the phone over to her. She studied the screen for several minutes before conceding defeat. That’s when Jillian held out her hand. Without waiting for my permission, our young friend handed my phone to Jillian and then sat back in her chair, as though the very effort of looking at pictures exhausted her. That’s when I noticed Jillian quickly sitting up in her chair. Her fingers danced over my phone’s display as she hastily flipped between pictures. Glancing down at her hands, I could see the only pictures she was interested in were the ones taken at Checkpoint Charlie’s.
“Did you find something?” I asked.
Jillian nodded excitedly. “Zachary, look here. This is the first picture you took. You can see people at the counter, and some squatting at this display case there.”
Vance stood, leaned over the table, and nodded. “That’s the case that had my program.”
I nodded. “All right. With you so far.”
“Zachary, look at this person right here,” Jillian instructed, tapping a finger on a person visible in the distance. “Do you see him, next to that row of washers?”
“I forgot it’s part laundromat,” I chuckled. “Okay, yeah, I see him. What about him? He’s too blurry to make anything out.”
Jillian brought up the next image. “And this one? The same guy is a literal blur of motion as he ducks behind that rack.”
Unsure where Jillian was going with this line of questioning, I smiled and nodded.
“And finally,” Jillian continued, as she brought up the third and final picture taken inside Checkpoint Charlie’s, “you see the guy rapidly heading for the door.”
“His head is down,” I reported. “We have no idea who this guy is.”
Jillian zoomed in on the guy’s right hand. “Do you see what he’s holding?”
I squinted at the picture. “Something is rolled up in his hand, but I can’t make out what.”
“Who has the best eyes?” Jillian asked, as she looked around our table. “I need someone to verify what I see here.”
“What do you see?” Tori wanted to know. “Here, give it to me. My eyes are pretty good. This? This person here? Okay, I see what you’re talking about. It looks like … Jillian? Is that a red dreadlock sticking out from the rolled up whatever-it-is? Is this our mystery man, holding his rolled-up mask?”
Jillian nodded excitedly. “That’s precisely what I think we’re looking at. Somehow, the dogs knew our mystery man was in there, watching us. I have a question. Can you make out any tattoos on the guy’s neck?”
Tori squinted at the picture. “I can’t tell. He has his hood up, which takes care of being able to see his neck. Why do you ask? Oh, I get it! You think the tattoos are just part of the mask?”
Jillian nodded. “I do, yes.”
“What I want to know is,” Vance began, “how does he even know who I am?”
“Because,” I answered, “you were up there with me at the panel. He saw me up there, so it goes without saying that he saw you, too.”
The table fell silent as my phone changed hands multiple times.
“I just wish we could see his face,” Vance groaned, after he passed my phone to Tori. “It must’ve been dark back there.”
“Auto-focus,” Jillian reported. “The phone’s camera was focused on the people in the foreground. Therefore, anything in the background would slip out of focus.”
“Photos of menus,” I began, “photos of trinkets and masks, and we’re pretty sure we have pictures of our mystery man, only it’s too blurry to make out. The masks I can understand, but I’m having trouble with the food element
. Take Café Beignet. Aimee, you said you’ve been there before, right?”
“It’s the best and only place to get fresh beignets,” Aimee confirmed.
“What else do they have on the menu besides beignets?” Jillian asked.
Aimee shrugged. “Just about everything, I suppose. There are breakfast items, like omelets, sandwiches, drinks, and so on.”
“Just like the rest of the menus,” I sighed. “That doesn’t really help us too much.”
“It was a good idea,” Vance told me.
“What’s with you?” I demanded, as I looked at my friend. “Since when are you so nice and supportive?”
Vance pointed at my backpack. “Since you’re still carrying my souvenir.”
I laughed. “Good answer, pal. What do you guys think? Is it right to assume that, excluding the food pictures, we’ve got these figured out?”
“Since we haven’t figured them out,” Tori began, “then I can say it’s safe to say they’re probably the most important aspect of the investigation.”
Our entire table fell silent as we each considered how the menu pictures fit into what we knew was going on. After a few moments, I ended up shrugging.
“Whatever the link is, it escapes me at this moment. Anyone have anything?”
There was a collective shaking of heads.
“I can see why you’d think that,” Aimee agreed, as she leaned back in her chair. She caught sight of my full water glass and pointed at it. “May I?”
Nodding, I pushed the glass over to her. “Be my guest.”
Taking a long drink from the glass, Aimee was silent for a few moments as she considered what she had seen.
“I think another link you might want to consider could be Mardi Gras.”
Vance nodded. “I was thinking that, too. I’ve seen quite a few pictures with beads and masks, although, as mentioned earlier, the mask link isn’t that difficult. Our mystery man was clearly wearing one when we were tailing him and vice-versa. It just means he’s probably not a red-haired man.”
Remembering something I had picked up as we were walking on Bourbon Street, I pulled my bag up to my lap and started searching through the various pockets. Finding what I was looking for, I stacked my empty bowl inside Jillian’s, and then moved it and a few other dishes to a nearby unoccupied table in an attempt to make some room.
Case of the Ragin' Cajun Page 13