Garden of Forbidden Secrets

by Eric Wilder

  “Who was that?” Armand asked.

  “Are you a basketball fan?” Adela asked.

  “You kidding me?” he said. “Only bigger fan in town is Madam Toulouse.”

  “We’ve had season tickets for ten years now,” Madam Toulouse said. “Tell us who it was?”

  “Taj Davis. Heard of him?”

  “No way! Every fan in town is wondering why the team traded Zee Ped for him. He’s good but he ain’t Zee Ped good.”

  “We think we know the reason,” I said.

  “Then tell us,” Armand said.

  They both looked amazed when I said, “Voodoo.”

  “You’re making this up,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Taj’s shirt was open to his waist when I met him. Probably to show off his chiseled pecs and the gold chains he wears around his neck,” Adela said. “I couldn’t help but see he had a mark on his chest. It was just like the one on my chest.”

  “What kind of mark are you talking about?” Madam Toulouse asked.

  Adela glanced around the dark bar to see if anyone was looking and then raised her sweatshirt to show Armand and Madam Toulouse the mark between her breasts.”

  Armand leaned closer for a better look. “Damn!” he said. “That’s a voodoo veve. Where the hell did you get it?”

  “Born with it,” Adela said.

  “Impossible,” Madam Toulouse said, touching the symbol.

  “Is it a tattoo?” Armand asked.

  Madam Toulouse shook her head. “More like a birthmark.”

  “It’s too damned detailed to be a birthmark,” Armand said. “Surely, someone put it there.”

  “The mark on Taj’s chest is larger, though identical to mine. We decided it was too much of a coincidence for us to have met in the way we did without something very powerful having caused it.”

  “Something like voodoo,” I said. “That’s how Mama Mulate and I got involved.”

  “It’s a voodoo veve,” Armand said. “It’s not very detailed, and I’m wondering if the person who drew it was an amateur and not a mambo or houngan.”

  “Are you saying it’s not an authentic voodoo veve?” I said.

  “It’s a veve, all right. A Baron Samedi veve. Each deity has a specific symbol though all are slightly different depending on the person drawing it. This one doesn’t have all the flourishes a mambo might have used.”

  “Would it still work?” I asked.

  “Don’t see why not,” he said.

  “Interesting,” I said. “That puts a strange little twist to things.”

  “How did you and Taj hear about Mama and Wyatt?” Madam Toulouse asked.

  “A man who Taj met at the cemetery told him about Mama Mulate,” Adela said.

  “And Taj Davis, the professional basketball player, was taking a tour of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 when you met him? Why the hell was he doing that?” Armand asked.

  “He was staying at Hotel Montalba when a demon accosted him. He ended up with a cut foot and a bloody voodoo doll in his hand when he ran out into the hall,” I said.

  “This story gets stranger by the minute,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Taj thought so too. He booked a tour of the cemetery at a voodoo shop because he was trying to make sense of the demon and the voodoo doll,” Adela said.

  “I know this is hard to believe, but the man he met at the cemetery was apparently Baron Samedi,” I said.

  “Unlikely,” Armand said. “Voodoo deities never appear to mortals except through possession.”

  “Mama and Taj visited the cemetery last night. Mama summoned Samedi, and he appeared. Mama is convinced it was the actual voodoo deity and not someone possessed by him.”

  Adela was grinning. “What are you smiling at?” Madam Toulouse asked.

  “Even though I have this mark on my chest, I still can’t believe it has anything to do with voodoo, and people around here actually believe in it,” she said.

  “It’s real in the Big Easy,” Armand said. “I promise you.”

  “How do you know? Have you ever attended a voodoo ceremony?” Adela asked.

  “There ain’t much me and the Madam here haven’t done or seen here in New Orleans,” Armand said. “It’s what we do.”

  “In this town, knowledge is power and power is money. You don’t have one without the other, and there’s always a price to pay for both,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “And the price is knowledge,” Armand said. “Powerful people in this town pay big bucks for it.”

  Flashing me a look of exasperation, Adela reached for her handbag. Seeing her reaction, Madam Toulouse realized Adela had misinterpreted their boasts.

  “He didn’t mean you and Wyatt,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Wyatt is family,” Armand said. “Can’t put a price on that.”

  Madam Toulouse’s shoulders were wider than many of the linebackers playing for the Saints. She was smiling when she wrapped her arms around us.

  “You’re family now. Tell us how we can help you.”

  Chapter 23

  Cold air filled the room when customers entered. The rain had returned, wetting the floor before the door had closed. Armand signaled Jake to bring us another bottle of champagne.

  “Lots has happened since Taj hired Mama and me to help solve the mystery of the bloody voodoo doll,” I said. We met Taj and Adela at the Riverfront last night. After dinner, Mama and Taj went to a jazz club, and I took Adela back to her hotel. That’s when things began getting crazy.”

  Jake interrupted my story when he arrived with a fresh bottle of champagne. Adela’s smile had disappeared.

  “We’re waiting,” Madam Toulouse said.

  Adela squirmed, slugging her champagne. “Before Wyatt starts, let me say his story is ridiculous. He was dreaming. The only part of his fairy-tale that’s real is when he drinks wine and smokes marijuana.”

  As if on cue, Armand produced a joint, lit it, took a puff and then passed it to Adela. The recognizable odor of marijuana began wafting through the smoky little bar.

  “Nothing goes better with champagne than a good toke,” Armand said.

  “Amen to that,” Madam Toulouse said.

  A puff of pot lifted Adela’s mood. When Madam Toulouse attempted to pass the joint to me, I waved it off.

  “Can’t hold your pot, Cowboy?” Armand asked.

  “I had too much last night,” I said. “And yes, I drank some wine. Adela confessed to having powers she has possessed since she was old enough to know about them.”

  “Powers?” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Adela can move objects with her mind, cause them to levitate. She can levitate. I saw her do it.”

  The gaze of Madam Toulouse and Armand’s eyes turned to Adela.

  “That’s bullshit!” Adela said. “Wyatt was drunk and stoned and trying to get me into bed. When he did, he passed out and had a dream induced by pot and wine.”

  “Adela can also fly,” I said. “She flew us to the same room where Taj saw the demon his first night in the city. We saw the demon, and something else.”

  “Like what,” Armand said.

  “The headless body of the woman in the bathtub.”

  “Bullshit!” Adela said.

  “The demon was dragging a woman’s head by its long, red hair. Adela’s head.”

  “Damn, Cowboy! What you had was more than pot and wine. Sounds like an acid trip to me.”

  “Exactly,” Adela said. “Nothing he’s telling you is real.”

  “The specter spoke to us,” I said.

  “What did it say?” Madam Toulouse asked.

  It said, “I will have you, Aisling.”

  “Who the hell is Aisling?” Armand said.

  “Adela is Aisling,” I said.

  “Whoa, Cowboy. You’re confusing me.”

  “Then let me explain. Adela and I visited Madeline Romanov before coming here. Her raven Calpurnia repeatedly called her Aisling. That’s not all. Baron Samedi told Mama Mulate a re
d-haired witch named Aisling can lead us to the French Quarter courtyard where our answers to this mystery lie. Whether she knows it or not, Adela is Aisling.”

  “Wyatt was high on LSD,” Adela said. “The only part of his story that holds water is the color of my hair. Madeline’s raven called me Aisling, but the demon and the voodoo deity in the cemetery are nothing more than drunken fantasies.”

  “I’ve never known Mama Mulate to tell a lie,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Neither have I,” Armand said. “How do you explain her meeting with Baron Samedi?”

  By now, Adela’s arms were folded tightly around her chest. “My name is Adela and not Aisling. I’m Polish and not Irish. I have no magical powers, and I’m certainly not a witch.”

  “Before our visit to Madeline’s, we walked down Royal Street,” I said. “When we passed the Lalaurie Mansion, Adela almost fainted. People have past lives. I believe Adela is the Irish witch Aisling, and the courtyard we are looking for is at the Lalaurie Mansion.”

  “Madeline’s raven called you Aisling?” Madam Toulouse asked.

  “Though Madeline’s bird is adorable, it didn’t live here centuries ago, and neither did I,” Adela said.

  “You seem a bit too sure about that,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “You think I’m lying?” Adela said. “You people believe in voodoo, magic, and reincarnation and seem amazed I don’t agree with you.”

  “Suspend your disbelief for a moment,” I said. “You certainly can’t explain where your voodoo veve came from, or why Taj has an identical one on his chest.”

  “What you’re suggesting is crazy,” Adela said.

  “Is it? I don’t think you’re lying. I think your memories of a past life are just repressed.”

  A clap of thunder sounded outside the bar. The front door opened slightly, wind and rain blowing through the crack. Jake was shaking his head as he brought us yet another bottle of champagne.

  “Tell us how we can help,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Two things,” I said. “The unsolved murder that occurred years ago at the Hotel Montalba, and details about the atrocities that happened at the Lalaurie Mansion.”

  “Both events are real,” Armand said.

  “The murder in Room 1313 actually occurred?”

  “Yes,” Madam Toulouse said. “The murder took place in 1834, the very same year the Lalaurie Mansion burned.”

  “You know about it?” I asked.

  Madam Toulouse nodded. “No one knows more about the murder in Room 1313 than I do, though I haven’t thought about it in years.”

  The large woman became introspective, sipping her champagne and then giving Armand a pensive look. Armand reacted immediately, relighting the joint and handing it to her.

  “Š'il te plait ne pleure pas mon amour,” he said.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “The murder must have profoundly affected you,” I said.

  “More than I care to elaborate,” she said.

  “Is it too painful for you to continue?” I asked.

  “The murder in the hotel has nothing to do with me, though it mirrors something that happened to my family.”

  Madam Toulouse seemed comforted when both Adela and Armand took her hands.

  “Sorry, Cowboy,” Armand said. “Talk of this murder has upset Madam Toulouse. I’ve got to cut this short.”

  “No, Armand,” Madam Toulouse said. “I’ve carried this with me far too long and now’s as good a time as any to get it off of my chest.”

  “You sure?” he said.

  “I’m sure.”

  Though I had no clue why a murder that had happened more than one-hundred-eighty years ago should affect Madam Toulouse so profoundly, I waited for her to tell the story. Armand asked me to trade places with him. With Madam Toulouse between them, he and Adela clutched her hands as she began telling us about the murder at the Hotel Montalba.

  “I came across old newspaper clippings when I worked at the Archives. To say the details of the killing caught my attention would be an understatement. I became obsessed with it, absorbing every scintilla of information I could find about the case.

  “A chambermaid found the body of the deceased when she arrived to clean the room. The distraught woman went screaming into the hallway. Police found the nude body of a headless woman in the bathtub, the water red with blood and cold to the touch. The woman’s head was never found.”

  “Did they identify the victim?” I asked.

  “It was long before the discovery of DNA. It was the body of a female, her identity never determined.”

  “Who occupied the room?” I asked.

  “Someone using a false name, though it doesn’t matter because the clerk recognized the man and identified him to the police.”

  “Who was it?” I asked.

  “Dr. Leonard Louis Nicolas Lalaurie, Delphine Lalaurie’s third husband,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Was the desk clerk sure about that?” I asked.

  “Most likely,” Armand said. “Rich folks in those days were local celebrities.”

  “Why in hell wasn’t he charged with the murder?” I asked.

  “Because the Lalaurie Mansion burned that very night,” Madam Toulouse said. “Dr. Lalaurie disappeared, along with Madam Lalaurie, after the fire.”

  “Quite a coincidence,” I said. “Are the murder and the fire connected?”

  “They have to be,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Who started the fire at the Lalaurie Mansion?” I asked.

  “Some say the cook, though no one knows for sure,” Armand said.

  “What’s the story on Dr. Lalaurie?” I asked.

  “Madam Lalaurie’s third husband and much younger than she was,” Madam Toulouse said. “They had a son out of wedlock and got married shortly after.”

  “Why was he attracted to an older woman?”

  Armand laughed. “Hot sex and rampant sadism, maybe?”

  “Dr. and Madam Lalaurie disappeared the night of the fire and never resurfaced here in New Orleans.”

  “Do you remember anything in the records about a girl from Ireland?” I asked.

  “No, though it wouldn’t surprise me. Madam Lalaurie was Irish,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “You have to be kidding,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Delphine’s maiden name was Macarty, her grandfather born in Ireland. They had the name shortened from MacCarthy. It was common for rich families to have indentured servants from Europe.”

  Armand chimed in. “Her family was connected, her uncle the governor of Spanish-American provinces in Louisiana and Florida. One of her cousins was the Mayor of New Orleans.”

  “Some say the reported abuse and torture never occurred,” I said.

  “It happened. Slaves rescued from the fire had been horribly abused, and some tortured,” Madam Toulouse said. “Abuse and torture had long been rumored. When actual proof arose, a mob formed, demanding justice.”

  “The slaves all survived the fire?”

  “Miraculously, though a few passed away shortly after that.”

  “Baron Samedi said the answers to our questions lie in a French Quarter garden. Though I’ve never been inside the Lalaurie Mansion, it doesn’t look as though it has a courtyard.”

  “The present house isn’t where the torture occurred,” Armand said. “Madam Lalaurie acquired the original house from Edmond Soniat Dufossat. That house burned in the fire. It’s likely little of the original structure survived.”

  “The appearance of the original house was similar to the Soniat House on Chartres. That house exists to this day, and it definitely has a courtyard,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “The so-called house of horror you see today didn’t even exist when Madam Lalaurie owned it. The present Lalaurie Mansion wasn’t built until several years after the fire,” Armand said.

  “What else suggests torture occurred at the original house?” I asked.

  “The Lalaurie
Mansion was large. The Lalauries hosted many lavish parties. Even so, the couple had more slaves than they needed to serve a house even as large as theirs. Some say many slaves spent time at the house. Graves were found in the courtyard, and bodies in the well on the property,” Armand said.

  “While all of the Lalaurie’s slaves were abused, not all were tortured,” Madam Toulouse said. “For at least half of the slaves, torture was their only purpose.”

  “Was torture common in 1834?” I asked.

  “Abuse was common though torture was rare,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “Why was that?” I said.

  “Code Noir,” Armand said. “A comprehensive law governing the rights of slaves. Slave owners could chain and beat their slaves. It was illegal to mutilate or kill them.”

  “Slaves were valuable assets, and most owners tended to treat them well to protect their value. Intercourse was encouraged and families discouraged,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “What kept the slaves from rebelling if they had the Lalaurie’s outnumbered twelve or more to one?” I said.

  “Whips, chains, intimidation, and one mean-as-hell enforcer,” Madam Toulouse said.

  “They had an enforcer?” I said.

  “The Lalauries owned a large black man straight from Africa who had been captured far away from the usual slave trade. He had no tribal ties to the other slaves and capitulated to Madam Lalaurie’s whims because it curried him special treatment from her.”

  “How big was he?” I asked.

  “Tall enough to play in the NBA,” Armand said.

  Suddenly interested, Adela asked, “What was his name?”

  “Strange though it may seem, his name was Taj,” Madam Toulouse said.

  Chapter 24

  Mama was feeling guilty after spending the day, looking at upscale condominiums with Taj. Enthralled by the tall, handsome woman, Taj didn’t immediately notice her frown. It finally became too apparent to overlook.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “I’m such a heel,” she said. “I berated poor Wyatt this morning for being unprofessional. I’ve had so much fun helping you shop for a condo, and I’ve done nothing at all on your case. I’m the one who should be tongue-lashed.”