1 Mardi Gras Madness

by Alison Golden

  Louise had come across Richard Lomas’ body on her morning jog. At first, she thought he was passed out drunk and shook him, but…“Deathly cold!” she’d reported through sobs. “Deathly cold! And with a gunshot wound!”

  Now, Roxy sat in the corner of the dining room at Evangeline’s, feeling numb as the drama played out before her. They had raced back to the guesthouse from the hotel, and Nat had gone straight into panic mode. She couldn’t stop making tea and coffee and plying everyone with beignets. “A cup of tea will make everything better,” she kept saying over and over.

  “It’s her crazy English way,” Evangeline explained. She sat slumped in a chair, periodically shaking her head, biting her lip and wringing her hands. Elijah had rushed over when he heard Louise’s screams, and his complexion was now a shade of green that matched his shirt. He hovered in the doorway, looking unsure of himself. In the corner, Sage took Louise in her arms and rocked her gently, stroking her hair to calm her. Slowly, Louise’s wails subsided to sobs, then to a whimper as the shock of her discovery abated.

  9-1-1 had been called, and as the small group waited for the police, the friends sat mostly in silence, all quietly contemplating Louise’s discovery, what it could mean, and wondering what on earth would happen next.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DETECTIVE WILLIAM JOHNSON was a robust man in his early sixties with thick glasses and a bald head. He wasn’t particularly tall or large, but he was sturdy and sure on his feet. He somehow dwarfed the dining room. He wore a sharp black suit and had the look of a bull that was about to charge.

  As soon as he stepped into the room, Sage shivered. “Bad vibes,” Roxy heard her whisper. “Very bad vibes.”

  Roxy couldn’t have agreed more. Johnson seemed to make the very air turn cold and hostile. He was deeply unsettling, and the cruel glimmer in his eyes made Roxy feel like running upstairs and pulling the comforter over her head. As he looked over at Evangeline, Roxy could have sworn she heard him growl.

  “Right, listen up! It seems that this was the last place the victim was seen alive.” His eyes swiveled to Evangeline. They were beady, threatening. “He was talking to you.” Johnson looked back at the others and said, “So you’ll all stay here until you’ve spoken with me one by one.”

  Sam came running into the dining room, his eyes wild with anxiety. “Elijah called me. Is everyone okay?”

  Detective Johnson sneered. “We’re all fine, thank you, Superman. But now that you’re here, you can sit yourself down, too.”

  “Right,” Sam said, a little defensively. Roxy couldn’t help but notice he looked pretty nervous, just as Nat did. Did he have something to hide, too? He avoided Johnson’s eyes and rounded his broad shoulders like he was trying to make himself smaller, inconspicuous. “Well, I’m glad everything’s being taken care of.” Sam sat down on a chair by the door.

  “Shall I fix everyone some coffee?” Nat said. When she got no response, “Maybe tea would be better?” She bit her lip and rushed into the kitchen.

  “You first,” Johnson said, pointing at Roxy.

  “M… me?” said Roxy.

  The detective sneered again. “Yes. You.”

  “Oh, but I wasn’t even here when the body was found. I just came back.”

  Johnson stared at her. “Roxy Reinhardt, right? I’ve heard that you were at the victim’s hotel when the body was found! I want to know why.”

  He took her to a side room off the lobby, which Evangeline and Nat used as a place to dump stuff in order to keep everywhere else clean. There was a mess of files, some with papers poking out as they tried to make their escape onto the floor. An old washing machine stood in the corner, and an assortment of random items, including napkins, plates, bed linen, and bizarrely, a bicycle wheel, were crammed into the rest of the space.

  There was just about enough room for two chairs. Johnson set his recording device on top of a stack of files and sniffed. “Well, this will have to do.” He then stated the date and time for the benefit of the recording. “Now please give me your full name.”

  “Roxanne Melissa Reinhardt,” Roxy said.

  “Date of birth?”

  “2, 27, 1995.”

  “Address?”

  “Well…I’m kind of between addresses,” she said. She really didn’t want to elaborate about her breakup to this stern-faced, hard-hearted detective, but he looked at her with one eyebrow cocked. It clearly meant, “Explain.” She tried to put a positive spin on it. “I’m starting a new life,” she said, holding her head high. “I wanted a change of scenery.”

  “Tell me about what you were doing before and where,” he said flatly.

  She had to go into detail, it seemed.

  “And how did you end up in New Orleans?” he said when she had finished.

  “By bus,” she said.

  He sighed, exasperated. “No, why New Orleans in particular?”

  Roxy gulped. What could she say? Because her cat had alerted her to a commercial, which had stirred a feeling deep inside her that she didn’t understand? And she’d simply abandoned her former life and left? How ridiculous did that sound? In fact, it was ridiculous. What on earth was she doing with her life?

  “Ms. Reinhardt?” Johnson said. He was watching her suspiciously.

  She realized she had better come up with an answer fast. “Well, what with my ex-boyfriend leaving and me having a stressful time at work, I was attracted here by the, um, cuisine. It intrigued me. I thought it would be good to go somewhere…interesting.” Roxy’s palms were sweating, but she didn’t want to wipe them against her jeans in case it made her look guilty.

  “So, you left your job and your home town indefinitely because of…Creole and Cajun food?” Detective Johnson did not sound impressed. Roxy didn’t know if that was because he suspected her of lying, or that he considered her life choices to be ludicrous.

  “Something like that, sir.”

  “Ooookay, then,” Johnson said. He continued on. “Richard Lomas died from a gunshot wound in the early hours of this morning. Also this morning, you accompanied…someone…to the Fontainebleau Hotel where he was staying, in order to track him down. Why was that?”

  Roxy could feel her hands trembling. Authority figures always made her feel afraid. “Well…” she began, and her voice wobbled. “Evangeline had decided she was going to sell the guesthouse to Mr. Lomas and had arranged for him to come over and sign the papers. He didn’t turn up. The atmosphere here was tense, and I decided a walk would do me good. So when Nat said she was going to find him, Mr. Lomas, that is, I decided on the spur of the moment to go with her. Evangeline was angry that he hadn’t shown up.”

  “Right,” the detective said. “Evangeline is a well-known figure in these parts. She’s been part of the establishment for decades. What is not clear is why she would decide to sell to this developer. She’s well-known in town as a conservationist, wanting to keep old buildings alive. She’s also known as someone who never gives up, even in the face of a sensible, logical proposition.” The veins in Johnson’s temples stood out, and his jaw muscle twitched as a dark cloud of annoyance swept over his face as he spoke. Roxy got the feeling there was some history between the two that she didn’t know about. His animosity seemed extreme and out of place for so early in an investigation. “I find it hard to believe she would sell her property knowing that he would tear it down and develop the area beyond all recognition.”

  “I think she’s at the end of her rope,” Roxy said. “Exhausted by the responsibility and drudgery of running such a place. I’m sure she didn’t do it if that’s what you mean. Kill Mr. Lomas,” Roxy blurted out. “I mean, why would she? She wanted to sell her property to him.”

  Johnson smirked. “Is that so? Well, thank you for that important insight. Tell me again, which police department did you transfer from to come here?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I…UH….” ROXY stumbled.

  “So who do you think did it?” Johnson said, lea
ning forward, his eyes bright, his voice full of fake enthusiasm. He was mocking her.

  Roxy felt heat flush her cheeks. A sense of shame burned in her chest, but since she’d been asked the question, she decided to answer it. “Probably Mara Lomas. That’s his wife. She came over yesterday, telling us to inform her husband that she knew what he was doing. Something about an affair.”

  “Right,” Johnson said, raising his eyebrows and looking a little more interested in what she had to say. “She came over here?”

  “Yes, she was in the street outside.”

  “That’s mighty convenient for Evangeline,” he muttered under his breath. He coughed and looked down at his notebook. When he looked back up at her, his eyes were shining.

  His expression sent a shiver through Roxy. What was his beef with Evangeline? Did he hold a grudge against her? He wasn’t being logical, that was for sure. Or without bias, it would seem.

  “Not convenient at all,” Roxy said firmly. “How would killing Lomas help her? His wife has a far stronger motive.” Roxy wasn’t quite sure where she was finding the courage to speak out like this, but her sense of fair play was acute. And justice wasn’t being done here.

  “I’m not interested in your speculation,” Johnson snapped, despite the fact he had been asking for just that a minute or so ago.

  A silence stretched out between them. Roxy played with her fingers in her lap while Johnson sat back and let out a sigh. Roxy doubted he ever felt uncomfortable. He had far too much confidence and self-assurance. It was very off-putting.

  “Is this place going to be shut down?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Johnson said with a snort. “There’s no reason for it. However, if a certain someone happens to be guilty and is carted off to jail, it won’t be able to continue. It will have to be sold, probably to another developer who will tear it down. No one will buy it and retain it in its current state.” He looked around with disgust as if he had found himself in a stinking pigpen.

  “Actually, two people said they would buy it, aside from the developer.”

  “And you tell me that now?” Detective Johnson said, leaning forward. “Who? We may have to protect them from…” Roxy knew he desperately wanted to say Evangeline, but he couldn’t, because the tape was running. “Harm,” he said eventually. “Give me their names.”

  “Louise, the other guest,” Roxy said, “the one who found the body. She’s an interior designer. And Sam, the handyman and laundryman. He plays the saxophone,” she added and regretted it immediately. The instrument Sam played was completely irrelevant to the inquiry.

  “Okay,” Johnson said. “We need to make sure they stay safe. They might be in danger. Are either of them putting pressure on Evangeline to sell?”

  “I don’t think so,” Roxy said. “They seemed to be offering a way to preserve the building and for Evangeline to stay on in some capacity. They didn’t want to tear it down. They wanted to keep the guesthouse as is, improve it, update it. Their offers seemed to be acts of genuine kindness.”

  Detective Johnson opened his eyes wide and shook his head slowly. Roxy stopped herself from speaking. He was still being illogical. There was no sane reason to suspect Evangeline. “Right,” he said. “So you would say they’re on Evangeline’s side?”

  Roxy was getting a little sick of his line of questioning. He seemed so closed-minded, so dogged in his dislike of Evangeline. Every time he said her name his lip literally curled. “I don’t know,” she said, a little more sharply than she’d usually have managed toward an authority figure. “I’m new around here, I don’t know anything about sides.”

  “Whatever,” he said. His voice thickened into a monotonous drawl and his eyes glazed over as he said, “Can you account for your whereabouts last night?”

  Roxy explained about the parade, then the meal, and the boat ride. She told him of her near mugging, and how afraid she had been, and how Sam had come to her rescue.

  “Why are you going red?” Detective Johnson said.

  That only made her blush deeper, and stammer for the right words to say. “It’s… it’s hot in here.”

  Johnson rolled his eyes. “Can you tell me what Evangeline was doing last night? Was she with you at the parade? At the meal? On the boat ride?”

  “No,” Roxy said. “She stayed here. She said she’d been to enough carnival parades to last a lifetime, and she didn’t feel like it. I think she was very sad. She seemed to have resigned herself to selling this guesthouse, but she doesn’t really want to.”

  “Conjecture,” Detective Johnson snapped. “You have no idea what she was thinking. And she was here, alone, not far from where the victim was found. Very suspicious.”

  “Well, I do know that she was holding Nefertiti when we left. Nefertiti’s a very good companion when you’re not feeling well. And she’s a very good judge of character.”

  “Who on earth is Nefertiti?” Johnson said irritably.

  “My cat.”

  Johnson smirked. “And we can trust your cat to be a reliable character witness, can we?” He rolled his eyes again. “Anything more to say?”

  “I don’t think so,” Roxy said. She couldn’t stand being around this guy. She wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible. Roxy burned to say something to him about how he was assuming all kinds of bad things about Evangeline, but a shadowy fear swirled within her and sucked her voice down her throat. She lost her nerve. She wasn’t brave or bold enough.

  “No,” Roxy said eventually, more firmly this time.

  “Right. Interview over.” He snapped off the machine. “Now, I want to see the girl you went to the hotel with, whatever her name is; the strange looking one who works here, the one with all the tattoos, wears only black.”

  “That’s Nat.” Roxy felt for Nat. She was going to sweat. Roxy hoped Nat was a good actress because before she had even blinked, Johnson would have decided that her close relationship with Evangeline meant Nat was probably an accomplice to some crime that existed only in his mind. And that was before he knew of her illegal status.

  “Nat,” Johnson said disapprovingly. “Go and get her. And tell her to bring me some coffee and beignets. And don’t scrimp on the beignets, you hear?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “THAT GUY,” NAT said furiously. “Who the heck does he think he is?”

  “Right?” Roxy agreed.

  “He is deeply entrapped by his ego,” Sage said. “His true self is lost somewhere so deep within him that he doesn’t know who he is.”

  “Well, I know exactly what he is,” said Nat. “A complete and utter—”

  “He thinks Evangeline’s the murderer,” Roxy said, cutting Nat off before she said something she might regret. “And seemingly without any evidence.”

  After Johnson had finished speaking with her, Roxy had watched the others, Nat, Evangeline, Louise, Elijah, Sage, and briefly, Sam, go into the small junk room one by one. They had traipsed out again a while later, their faces blank. Judging by the look on the detective’s face when he finally emerged, no one, it seemed, had had any information that was remotely useful.

  In need of a break, Roxy, Sage, and Nat had decided to take a walk down by the Mississippi River. Sage had said she was feeling “energetically tied up” and Roxy knew exactly what she meant. The African-American woman looked particularly serene that morning, in long, flowing robes the color of golden sunlight. She had pulled back her now-braided mermaid hair into a topknot and adorned it with yellow-gold flowers. They were real, Roxy could tell, the petals had begun to droop a little.

  “Of course it wasn’t Evangeline,” Nat snapped. “It’s got to be the guy’s wife.”

  “That’s what I told him as well,” said Roxy. “She’s got to be the main suspect, surely?” Then an idea struck her. “Sage?” she said, then paused because she realized the idea sounded silly.

  Sage looked at her. “What is it, good soul?”

  “I don’t know…this sounds kind of dumb.” Roxy
wasn’t afraid to say it in front of Sage, but she was scared of Nat’s reaction. Sniggering was the most likely one.

  “Go ahead,” Sage said smoothly. She gave Nat a warning look. Roxy wondered if Sage’s skills included mind reading.

  She blew out a little breath and looked over the river. She tried to find a way to phrase what she was about to say so that it didn’t sound preposterous. “You know that you know magic and everything…?”

  “Yes,” Sage said, her face lighting up.

  “Like the cards and stuff. I was wondering if there was any way to…well, to find out who did it. Using magic.”

  “Oh, come on, Rox,” said Nat. Sage shot her another look, but it didn’t stop her. “If that were the case, we wouldn’t need detectives or police or anything. Sage isn’t Harry Potter, you know, and this is New Orleans, not Hogwarts.”

  “I know, but…” Roxy struggled to reply. She knew it was a crazy idea.

  “Well, good friends, there are ways to do so,” said Sage, mellow despite Nat’s derision. “But it requires very advanced magic. I have been practicing for thirty-three years, and even I wouldn’t trust my own ability at that level. Magic of that form is…complex.”

  “Then who would be able to do it?” Roxy asked. “Can we find someone like that?”

  “It would need to be one who has trained with a long line of indigenous priests, perhaps an advanced magician from Haiti or the Congo, or somewhere deep in the heart of South America. Certainly not me, unfortunately.”

  “Oh, what rubbish!” Nat said. “You don’t really believe in all this magic stuff, do you, Sage? Sure, you mess around with the cards and buy your lotions and potions and incense. But it doesn’t really mean anything, does it? It’s just a source of comfort, a hobby. It’s not real.”

  “That is grossly disrespectful, Nat,” Sage said calmly.

  “Yeah, but, come on! Magic? Even little kids grow out of that by the time they’re 7 or 8. Yet here you are, a grown person, actually professing to believe in this stuff?”