Gossamer Ghost

by Laura Childs

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Wallace continued as he lowered a shoulder and tried an unsuccessful body block. “This is a crime scene. No one’s allowed to pass.”

  “But I work here!” cried Mavis.

  Carmela peered toward the front of the store. “That’s Mavis Sweet,” she told Babcock. “Marcus Joubert’s assistant.”

  He cocked an eye at her. “Let me take a wild guess. You called her with a heads-up?”

  Carmela nodded. “I thought Mavis had a right to know. And she’s not just the assistant. I’m pretty sure she and Joubert were . . . romantically involved.”

  “Let her in,” Babcock called to the officer at the front door. “It’s okay.”

  “Although this whole scene is really not okay,” Carmela mumbled.

  “Oh my gosh, who’s gonna tell that poor girl what happened?” Ava asked in a loud whisper. “Who’s gonna break the bad news to her?”

  Everyone in the room fell silent as they looked toward Babcock.

  “I will,” said Babcock, stepping past them to head off Mavis. “I suppose it’s up to me.”

  But Mavis had already caught sight of the black plastic body bag lying atop the metal gurney. She flew through the shop, her frizzy brown hair flying out behind her, her face red, and her slightly plump form jiggling like crazy.

  “Oh no!” Mavis cried. “Please no! Don’t tell me . . .”

  “I’m very sorry,” Babcock said in a respectful tone of voice. “There appears to have been a break-in and possible robbery. In the ensuing struggle Mr. Joubert was stabbed.” He said it straight out, with no wasted words.

  Mavis was utterly stunned. “Stabbed, you say? Stabbed to death?” Words failed her for a few moments, and then she said, “You’re saying he’s . . . dead?” Her voice rose in a plaintive squeak.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Babcock.

  “I need to see him,” said Mavis, elbowing and fighting to push past everyone. “Please!”

  This time Carmela, Babcock, Ava, and the entire crime-scene team tried to block her path.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Babcock, trying to grab Mavis’s arm and halt her progress. “Unfortunately Mr. Joubert sustained several rather severe injuries. Um, disfiguring injuries.”

  But Mavis remained firm. “No. I have to see him.” Her eyes blazed and had grown to the size of saucers as she glanced from one person to another. Mavis seemed so freaked out that Carmela wasn’t even sure if the woman recognized her.

  “Maybe just a little peek?” said Ava.

  Babcock looked unhappy.

  Carmela, sensing a kind of standoff, put an arm around Mavis’s shoulders and led her slowly toward the gurney. “Could you . . . ?” she said to Charlie. She motioned with her right hand. “Unzip it just . . . ?”

  Charlie slid the zipper down six inches, allowing a partial view of Joubert’s face.

  Mavis’s mouth opened and closed like a dying fish and tears streamed down her face. “Oh no, it’s really him.”

  Charlie zipped the bag back up as Mavis fumbled in her pocket for a hanky.

  “We need to ask you some questions,” said Babcock.

  “Really,” said Carmela, who was still trying to comfort Mavis. “Can’t they wait until tomorrow?”

  “I suppose,” said Babcock.

  Mavis sniffled loudly and gazed at Carmela. “Carmela,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Carmela.

  “Who would do this?” Mavis cried. “You know that Marcus was . . . everything to me.”

  “I know that,” said Carmela, trying to console her.

  “He was kind and sweet and gentle,” Mavis went on. “Such a dear, dear man!”

  Ava, who was never comfortable with tears, said, “Well, he wasn’t exactly Mr. Warmth.” She thought for a minute. “Or even Mr. Personality.”

  “Miss Sweet,” said Babcock. “Were you working here today?”

  Mavis shook her head sadly. “No, Friday’s my day off. Maybe if I had been here . . .” More tears leaked out. “This wouldn’t . . .”

  “We’re going to need to know about next of kin,” said Babcock.

  “There really isn’t anyone,” Mavis sobbed. “Well, maybe a sister.”

  Babcock gave a nod to the crime-scene team and they slowly rolled the gurney through the store and out the front door. Carmela saw this tragic scene drawing to a close and felt terrible for Mavis. The woman lived by herself and she sensed that her job at Oddities, her relationship with Marcus Joubert, had been the only good things she had going on in her life.

  As Babcock’s keen eyes searched the shop, something seemed to register with him. He cleared his throat, then said, “This somewhat strange collection of, ah, merchandise . . . these items resurrected from the past, they might possibly attract a certain unsavory type of character.”

  “Strange things indeed,” agreed Ava, glancing at the same stuffed monkey that had almost frightened Carmela to death.

  But Mavis was suddenly defensive. “Some of these items are priceless. One of a kind! Marcus had all sorts of customers who thought the world of him and relied on his ability to seek out unique and unusual objects of art.”

  “Hence the chance that this started out as a robbery,” said Babcock, trying to placate her. “Perhaps, since you are here, you could take a look around and see if anything is missing?”

  “How could you even tell if something’s missing?” Ava murmured. “This shop is like a cross between my Aunt Effie’s attic and an episode of Hoarders.”

  “Still,” said Babcock, pointedly ignoring Ava’s comment, “it would be a tremendous help if Miss Sweet was able to take a cursory look around right now. I wonder . . .” He focused his attention solely on Mavis. “Is there some sort of inventory list that you could consult? Maybe a stock status program on your computer?”

  “Yes, we have that, but it was never completely up to date,” said Mavis, sniffling loudly and wiping at her nose again. “Marcus was forever selling a piece here or there and then forgetting to delete it from our inventory list. It was the same thing when he purchased new items for the shop. Sometimes I’d notice something brand-new sitting on a shelf and not even know where it came from.”

  “What’s the most valuable item in here?” Carmela asked suddenly. “If this was a robbery, and it certainly feels like it must have been, what would a thief be most likely to grab?”

  Mavis suddenly looked really frightened. “Oh.” She put a hand to her mouth and drew in a deep breath. “Oh no. It couldn’t be . . . !”

  “What couldn’t be?” asked Babcock.

  “The . . . the mask,” Mavis stammered.

  “You mean like a Mardi Gras mask?” said Ava.

  Mavis gave a vigorous shake of her head. “No, it was . . .” She suddenly crossed the shop in three quick strides and placed her hands on a small tea-stained Tibetan cabinet. She paused. “You have no idea.”

  “No, we really don’t,” said Babcock. “Perhaps you could enlighten us?” Balanced on the balls of his feet, trying hard to follow the gist of Mavis’s words, he seemed a little tense.

  “Are you talking about some kind of tribal mask?” said Carmela. She knew Joubert often displayed carved African masks as well as Central and South American masks in his shop. She remembered a mask from Oaxaca in particular that had been carved from a cactus plant and threaded with honest-to-goodness horsehair.

  But Mavis was suddenly in a tizzy. “It couldn’t be . . .” she babbled. “Please tell me it’s not . . .” She suddenly flung open the doors of the Tibetan cabinet and stared inside. Curious now, they all crowded around her and stared in, too.

  The cabinet was completely empty. Just three empty shelves and a curious scent. Like a cross between cinnamon and eucalyptus.

  “This can’t be happening!” Mavis shrieked. She reeled backward
and spun around, almost crashing into a tall, glass pyramid-shaped case filled with antique jewelry.

  “Just calm down,” said Babcock.

  “Take a deep breath,” Carmela urged. “Try to pull yourself together and tell us exactly what’s missing.” She helped Mavis limp over to a vintage horsehair chair and sit down heavily. “Really, it can’t be that bad.”

  “Really, it can,” Mavis moaned. She was bent forward now, her head in her hands, trying to pull herself together, struggling to get her words out.

  Carmela knelt down beside her. “This mask that’s gone missing,” she pressed, “just what kind of mask was it?”

  Mavis let her hands fall away from her face. Then she lifted her head and gazed sorrowfully at Carmela. Her eye makeup had melted and run together and now she looked like a sad raccoon. “It was a piece that had been handed down through three centuries. It was priceless.”

  “You mean like a fancy carnevale mask from Venice?” said Ava.

  “No,” Mavis sobbed. “It was . . . Napoleon’s death mask!”

  TIME seemed to stand still for Carmela. She felt like she’d suddenly been teleported to some weird art history mystery from the eighteenth century. Or back to the dark days of World War II, when all the art galleries, museums, and private collections of Europe had been outrageously plundered. “Wait a minute,” she said to Mavis. “Could you repeat that please? Did you really say death mask?”

  “Napoleon’s death mask?” said Babcock. He straightened up and frowned. Rubbed the back of his hand against his cheek. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.” He turned and gazed at Carmela. “Is there such a thing?”

  Carmela shrugged. “I suppose. Or at least there was, once upon a time.”

  “No,” Mavis said with firmness in her voice. “It’s an acknowledged fact. There are four known Napoleon death masks in existence.”

  “Seriously?” said Ava. Then, “Come on, this is a joke, right?”

  Mavis threw up her hands and stomped her foot like a petulant child. “No joke! At the time of Napoleon’s death it was customary to cast a death mask of all great leaders. Special artisans would press a mold of wax against the dead man’s face and then make copies cast in bronze.”

  “Where on earth would Joubert get such a mask?” Babcock asked. “I mean, it’s not exactly your ordinary run-of-the-mill object.”

  “I don’t know!” Mavis wailed.

  “But you work here,” said Babcock. “So you must know something about it.”

  “But I don’t,” said Mavis. “I only know that Marcus purchased it very recently and kept it in that small Tibetan cabinet under lock and key.”

  “So this isn’t just a murder,” Carmela said. “It’s also a robbery.”

  “Homicide plus robbery,” Babcock corrected as he ushered the ladies toward the front door. “Now . . . everybody needs to clear out. I have to get to work.”

  “I bet we could help,” said Ava. She was clearly intrigued by the story about the death mask.

  Babcock flashed her a stern look. “The only way you can help is by leaving me in peace.”

  Carmela raise her hand to her ear with her pinky and thumb extended in the universally recognized gesture for Call me.

  Babcock gave Carmela a tight nod and then focused his attention on Mavis. “Miss Sweet, it’s likely I’ll be in touch with a few follow-up questions.”

  Mavis sniffled and managed to squeak out an, “All right.”

  Babcock closed the door to Oddities behind them and Officer Wallace hastily fastened a string of yellow crime-scene tape across the doorway.

  Out on the sidewalk, Mavis pressed her fist to her mouth and stifled a sob. All around them, darkness had settled upon the French Quarter like a cashmere blanket. Lights twinkled from old-fashioned brass lamps, palms swayed in the cool October breeze, tourists brushed past, talking excitedly and carrying geaux cups filled with daiquiris and hurricanes.

  Carmela put her arm around Mavis’s shoulders and walked her a few feet away from the store as Ava trailed behind them.

  Mavis gulped, as if she was trying to form a sentence, then she reached down and grabbed Carmela’s wrist tightly. “Please help me,” she pleaded.

  “Really,” said Carmela. “There’s not much I can do at this point. Or should do, now that you’ve got one of New Orleans’s best detectives working the case.”

  Mavis aimed a plaintive gaze at Carmela. “I hope you know that Marcus thought the world of you.”

  This surprised Carmela. “He did?” She figured Joubert tolerated her only because they were neighboring shopkeepers.

  “Absolutely he did,” said Mavis. “Marcus was always telling me how smart you were. Not just about business strategies and coming up with smart marketing ideas, but that you were able to figure things out. Things like . . . mysteries and murders.” Mavis delivered this last line with a pitiful, hopeful look on her face. “Like the one you figured out a couple of months ago . . . that fat-cat businessman who got killed in his Garden District home?”

  Carmela and Ava exchanged quick glances. Ava raised a single brow, a dubious expression on her face.

  Sensing their skepticism and hesitation, Mavis said, “This was kind of a secret, but did you know that Marcus and I were engaged to be married?”

  “Seriously?” said Ava. She sounded just this side of disbelieving.

  “Yes,” said Mavis with a pained expression. “The minute Marcus and I locked eyes it was love at first sight.”

  “Okay, whatever,” said Ava. Behind Mavis’s back she made a face that clearly conveyed her distaste.

  But Mavis seemed to sense the need to prove their love, because she suddenly shoved a pudgy hand right under Carmela’s nose. “See?” she said, flashing a gold ring decorated with interlocked skulls and a Sanskrit inscription. “We hadn’t announced our engagement yet.” She paused to catch her breath, then her voice quavered as she added, “But we were going to be married.”

  Carmela rubbed Mavis’s back as the girl broke down and sobbed. “There, there,” she said, as her heart slowly warmed to Mavis. Carmela was a believer in love, a champion of love. After all, didn’t everyone deserve to be happy? Of course they did.

  “Could you please help me?” Mavis asked. “Help figure out who committed this terrible crime against my poor dear Marcus?”

  “I think Detective Babcock is quite capable of doing that,” said Carmela. “But I could probably do a little checking as well. Ask a few discreet questions.”

  “You would? You will? How can I ever thank you?” said Mavis. She seemed genuinely overcome with emotion.

  “You don’t have to,” said Carmela. “But right now I want you to go home and take care of yourself.”

  “Fix yourself a good stiff drink,” Ava suggested. “Or watch some trash TV.”

  “Just try to relax,” said Carmela. “I know you’re in terrible pain right now, but I promise you, your fiancé’s killer will be found and brought to justice.” She nodded, almost to herself, and added quietly, “Somehow he will. I’ll see to it.”

  “Thank you,” Mavis breathed.

  * * *

  “Ho ho,” said Ava, as Mavis slowly slumped away. “What’s this?” A white van with a gray satellite dish on its roof was inching its way down Governor Nicholls Street.

  “Holy crap,” said Carmela. “It’s KBEZ-TV. Good thing Mavis took off when she did. They’d probably have tried to interview her.”

  The passenger door was suddenly flung open and Zoe Carmichael, a young reporter for KBEZ-TV, popped out. Zoe was petite and cute as a button, with a pale complexion and a heap of reddish-blond hair. As she recognized Carmela and Ava, she let loose an enthusiastic wave and called out, “Hey there, ladies!”

  Before Carmela could reply, Zoe’s eagle eyes landed on the yellow crime-scene tape that was strung across th
e doorway of Oddities.

  “What’s going on?” Zoe asked, motioning for the driver to hop out of the van and join them.

  Raleigh, the driver, was also Raleigh the cameraman, a middle-aged man dressed in khakis and a T-shirt. He pulled his camera out of the back, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and lumbered over to join them. He already had a battery pack strapped around his waist and was plugging in wires like crazy.

  Ava frowned at Raleigh. “You okay there, big guy?”

  Raleigh seemed to have a perpetual hunch from hauling camera gear around, and watching him negotiate a backbend was like watching Quasimodo perform in Cirque du Soleil.

  Raleigh angled the camera lens toward them and smiled. “Just a little stiffness, comes with the territory. We’ve been out cruising the French Quarter, looking for a story.”

  “I think we just found one,” said Zoe. “What’s with the crime-scene tape? What have we got? Robbery? Assault?”

  Zoe seemed so anxious that Carmela was surprised she hadn’t shoved a microphone in her face yet.

  “Worse,” said Ava.

  Zoe looked suddenly eager. So did Raleigh.

  “Murder,” Ava said, drawing out the word in a breathy voice.

  “I’m gonna need some details,” Zoe burbled happily.

  So Carmela and Ava brought Zoe and Raleigh up to speed on the gruesome murder of Marcus Joubert. The news team listened intently, nodding and frowning and gasping in all the appropriate places.

  “Too bad we didn’t get here sooner!” said Zoe. “To film the cops speeding to the scene and maybe talk to . . . what was her name again?”

  “Mavis,” said Ava. “Mavis Sweet.”

  Zoe turned to Raleigh. “We gotta talk to her.”

  “Of course,” said Raleigh.

  “And the body’s still inside?” asked Zoe.