Mumbo Gumbo Murder

by Laura Childs

  Titles by Laura Childs

  Tea Shop Mysteries

  DEATH BY DARJEELING

  GUNPOWDER GREEN

  SHADES OF EARL GREY

  THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST MURDER

  THE JASMINE MOON MURDER

  CHAMOMILE MOURNING

  BLOOD ORANGE BREWING

  DRAGONWELL DEAD

  THE SILVER NEEDLE MURDER

  OOLONG DEAD

  THE TEABERRY STRANGLER

  SCONES & BONES

  AGONY OF THE LEAVES

  SWEET TEA REVENGE

  STEEPED IN EVIL

  MING TEA MURDER

  DEVONSHIRE SCREAM

  PEKOE MOST POISON

  PLUM TEA CRAZY

  BROKEN BONE CHINA

  New Orleans Scrapbooking Mysteries

  KEEPSAKE CRIMES

  PHOTO FINISHED

  BOUND FOR MURDER

  MOTIF FOR MURDER

  FRILL KILL

  DEATH SWATCH

  TRAGIC MAGIC

  FIBER & BRIMSTONE

  SKELETON LETTERS

  POSTCARDS FROM THE DEAD

  GILT TRIP

  GOSSAMER GHOST

  PARCHMENT AND OLD LACE

  CREPE FACTOR

  GLITTER BOMB

  MUMBO GUMBO MURDER

  Cackleberry Club Mysteries

  EGGS IN PURGATORY

  EGGS BENEDICT ARNOLD

  BEDEVILED EGGS

  STAKE & EGGS

  EGGS IN A CASKET

  SCORCHED EGGS

  EGG DROP DEAD

  EGGS ON ICE

  Anthologies

  DEATH BY DESIGN

  TEA FOR THREE

  Afton Tangler Thrillers

  writing as Gerry Schmitt

  LITTLE GIRL GONE

  SHADOW GIRL

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Gerry Schmitt

  Excerpt from Lavender Blue Murder by Laura Childs copyright © 2019 by Gerry Schmitt & Associates, Inc.

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Childs, Laura, author. | Moran, Terrie Farley, author.

  Title: Mumbo gumbo murder / Laura Childs with Terrie Farley Moran.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2019. | Series: A scrapbooking mystery; 16

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019018613 | ISBN 9780451489579 (hardback) | ISBN 9780451489593 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.H56 M86 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018613

  First Edition: October 2019

  Cover art by Dan Craig

  Cover design by Katie Anderson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Version_1

  Acknowledgments

  A very special thank-you to my partner in crime, Terrie Farley Moran. I am in awe of your skill with words and completely adore your twisted sense of humor. Major thank-yous also to Sam, Tom, Grace, Tara, Jessica, M.J., Lori, Bob, Jennie, Dan, and all the amazing people at Berkley Prime Crime and Penguin Random House who handle editing, design, publicity, copywriting, social media, bookstore sales, gift sales, production, and shipping.

  Heartfelt thanks as well to all the scrapbook lovers, scrapbook shop owners, book clubs, bookshop folks, librarians, reviewers, magazine editors and writers, websites, broadcasters, bloggers, and New Orleans friends who have enjoyed the New Orleans Scrapbooking Mysteries and helped spread the word. You make this possible!

  And I am forever filled with gratitude for you, my dear readers, who have embraced Carmela, Ava, Babcock, Gabby, Tandy, Baby, Boo, Poobah, and the rest of the scrapbook shop gang as friends and family. Thank you so much, and I promise you many more New Orleans Scrapbooking Mysteries!

  Contents

  Titles by Laura Childs

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Scrapbook, Stamping, and Craft Tips from Laura Childs

  Favorite New Orleans Recipes

  Excerpt from Lavender Blue Murder

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  MONSTERS were out tonight. As well as two girls who’d definitely come to party.

  “Jeepers!” Ava cried. “That skull puppet is a spooky devil.”

  Malevolent dark eyes peered from the hollow sockets of a bleached white skull. Shrouded in purple velvet, the creature’s jagged teeth protruded rudely while its spidery, skeletal fingers reached out to stroke the arms of unsuspecting visitors along the parade route.

  “You’ve never been up close and personal with the Beastmaster Puppets before?” Carmela Bertrand asked her friend. They were standing on a crowded sidewalk in front of Zebarz Cocktail and Cordial House in the French Quarter of New Orleans, watching the kickoff parade for Jazz Fest.

  “I’ve seen puppets at Mardi Gras, sure, but never like this.” Ava took a step back as a scabrous wolf head leaned in and tried to nuzzle her ear. “Keep wa
lking, big guy,” she muttered.

  “Take a look at the skeleton puppet,” Carmela said as a brass band blared out raucous foot-stompin’ music, a gigantic float glided past, and a dozen Beastmaster Puppets mingled with the crowd to thrill and chill.

  “The skeleton does kind of bother me,” Ava said.

  “Interesting, since you have an entire retinue of skeletons dangling from the rafters of your voodoo shop,” Carmela said. She was the proprietor of Memory Mine Scrapbooking Shop over on Governor Nicholls Street; Ava Gruiex owned Juju Voodoo a few blocks away on Conti Street.

  “But those skeletons are under my control.”

  “The giant puppets remind me of the bulbous heads on some of the Mardi Gras floats,” Carmela said. As a New Orleans native and die-hard parade fanatic, she was loving this, taking it all in practically by osmosis. Fact is, you could toss a string of colored lights onto a goat cart, roll it down Bourbon Street, and Carmela would stand on the curb and cheer. She was that addicted to New Orleans mirth and merriment.

  Ava Gruiex, on the other hand, was a different type of party girl. Slightly loose in her ways, she was a free spirit open to trying just about anything. And while Carmela was a jeans and T-shirt gal, Ava favored tight leather pants, skanky tops, and peekaboo lingerie. Of course, they both adored hot music and cold beer.

  “The thing that amazes me most is that real people are working their buns off inside those puppet costumes,” Carmela said.

  The Beastmaster Puppets were indeed manned by a myriad of people who were dressed head to toe in black ninja-style clothing with black gauze masking their faces. They were inside the large puppets, functioning as the beating heart of the puppets, and controlled the bobbing and weaving as well as the puppets’ arms. On the really jumbo-sized puppets, outlier puppeteers, also dressed in black, manipulated long sticks attached to the puppets’ limbs and faces—sticks that when worked carefully made the puppets look both ethereal and peculiarly animated.

  “Check this one out,” Carmela said as a banshee puppet flitted past, its bug-eyed, witchy face poking forward as a trail of diaphanous garments fluttered behind it.

  “Amazing,” Ava said.

  Carmela was smiling at the puppets, grooving with the mood and the music. In the flickering light from the antique streetlamps, her face fairly glowed with excitement, her nearly flawless complexion enhanced by the high humidity that seemed to hold the Crescent City in a perpetual cocoon-like embrace. Carmela’s honey blond hair was a tousled, choppy mop and her eyes an inscrutable ice blue that often mirrored the flat shimmer of the Gulf of Mexico.

  Ava shook back the dark, unruly mane that framed her exotic face. “Witches and banshees, those I can handle, no problem,” she said. “It’s when the puppets become this . . . active, when they take on human dimensions, that I get creeped out.”

  “I guess that’s what makes these giant puppets so popular,” Carmela said. She took a quick sip of red wine from her geaux cup and said, “Uh-oh, take a look at what’s coming next.”

  A hush fell over the crowd as the final parade unit appeared. It was a contingent of black-caped, chalk-faced vampires that seemed to crawl stealthily out of the darkness.

  “The Vampire Society,” someone behind them said in quiet, almost reverent tones.

  Four masked riders sat astride coal black horses, the horses’ coats glistening like an oil slick and reflecting the yellow and red neon signs from nearby bars.

  The vampires marched behind the riders in precise formation. Most of the men (and women) were tall, thin, and appeared to glide almost effortlessly.

  Ava wrinkled her nose. “With that funky white makeup, they look like a doomsday cult.”

  Carmela studied the vampires, whose faces were painted a ghostly white. Their eyes were kohl-rimmed orbs, their mouths a glistening blood red that sported glowing white fangs. It was a look that definitely gave her pause.

  Not so nice. Not that friendly.

  “I guess it’s just playacting,” Carmela said finally, lifting her shoulders as if to shrug off any sort of malevolent vibe that might hover in the night air. “Perfectly harmless.” Then, “Come on, let’s follow along behind. We’ll head over to Royal Street and check out the food booths.”

  Ava fluttered a hand. “You just uttered the magic words—food booths. You think they’ll have barbecued shrimp, andouille gumbo, and fried crawfish?”

  “Gotta go find out.”

  New Orleans was, of course, a foodie paradise. New restaurants, food halls, cocktail lounges, delis, and bakeries were opening at a dizzying rate. Here’s where those uninitiated into the dining delights of the Big Easy routinely lost their minds over gumbo, beignets, po-boys, jambalaya, red beans and rice, plump Gulf oysters, muffulettas, and tickle-your-sweet-tooth bread pudding. To say nothing of creamy, rich crawfish étouffée, which was practically a New Orleans obsession.

  Linking arms, Carmela and Ava trailed along behind the Vampire Society.

  They turned the corner at Dumaine Street, walked past the Praline Factory and Toups’s Italian Bakeshop, and then hung a right onto Royal Street.

  “Will ya look at this!” Ava cried. “Royal Street’s been turned into a gigantic street fair.”

  And she was right. All up and down Royal Street, for a good half dozen blocks, were food booths, food trucks, fortune-tellers, musicians, booths selling beads and T-shirts, and street artists. Revelers were cheek to jowl everywhere you looked—a mob of eating, drinking, dancing, good-time folks that formed a bobbling, jostling sea.

  “This is what I need right here,” Ava said, diving toward a frozen daiquiri stand. “We need two in . . . What flavors do you have?” she asked the bartender as she scanned the rainbow-hued liquors lined up on the counter.

  “Piña colada, amaretto, pineapple, blueberry, mudslide, and strawberry shortcake,” the bartender said, rubbing his hands on his red-and-white-striped apron.

  “What’s a mudslide?” Ava asked.

  The bartender shrugged. “Chocolaty rum?”

  Ava turned to Carmela. “Cher?”

  “Amaretto,” Carmela said.

  “Two amaretto daiquiris, please,” Ava said.

  The bartender nodded, tipped a bottle into a slurry of ice, and sent the mixture whirring through his daiquiri machine.

  Once they’d grabbed their frozen concoctions, Carmela and Ava strolled along the sidewalk past several antique shops. Royal Street was where the absolute primo shops and galleries were located, where even the locals shopped for that perfect crackle-glazed oil painting, French mantel clock, or piece of antique silver to grace their dining table.

  “What a perfect night,” Carmela said, as they allowed themselves to be swept along with the surging crowd. “Nice and warm . . .” She tilted her head back and smiled at the view over the Mississippi. “With a crescent moon dangling in an indigo blue sky.”

  “A fitting salute to our Crescent City,” Ava said. “Plus, everything you want to eat and drink. It really is a fabulous . . .”

  BANG! CRASH!

  Like a clap of thunder, the noise rolled down Royal Street, crackling and booming out. Revelers paused, heads turned, a woman let loose a high-pitched scream.

  There was a pregnant pause. And then it came again . . .

  CRASH! SMASH!

  . . . jolting everyone out of their musical-sugary-deep-fat-fried reverie.

  “Somebody’s shopwindow just got stove in,” Ava said. “With this many people boogying, something crazy’s bound to happen.” She sounded a little shaken, a little philosophical at the same time.

  But Carmela was instantly on alert. “That wasn’t just any window.” She raised up on tiptoes and gazed down the street, not unlike a prairie dog who’d just sensed impending danger. “I think it was the front window at Dulcimer Antiques! Devon Dowling’s shop!” She peered down the street again, deepl
y concerned for her dear friend. “Yes, that’s where the crowd’s starting to gather. Come on!”

  Together, Carmela and Ava weaved and dodged their way along the crowded sidewalk, angling toward Dulcimer Antiques. “S’cuse me, s’cuse me,” Carmela said breathlessly as she flew along, stepping on toes and causing several revelers to spill their drinks as she towed Ava behind her.

  When they finally got to Dulcimer Antiques, the street in front was a madhouse. A horde of people milled about, screaming and pointing at the large plate glass window that had been shattered. Dangerous shards of glass lay everywhere, and there was an ominous hole right under the letters that said DULCIMER ANTIQUES. BUY SELL TRADE.

  “Was it terrorists?” one woman shrieked.

  Another woman with blood trickling down the side of her face was starting to weep. She’d obviously been hit by a shard of flying glass.

  “Something got tossed hard against Devon’s shopwindow,” Carmela said, making a hurried assessment. She glanced around. “Maybe from the inside?” The gigantic hole in the center of the window was outlined with jagged pieces of glass, as sharp and dangerous as a shark’s teeth.

  “This is terrible!” Ava cried. “People are hurt!”

  “Where’s Devon?” Carmela wondered out loud. Worry engulfed her as she shoved her way to the front door. She put a hand on the brass knob, twisted it forcefully, and . . . got nowhere.

  “Locked,” Carmela said. She knew Devon had to be inside, because she could hear his pug, Mimi, barking frantically.

  “Devon!” Ava cried out. Now she was edging toward frightened.

  More gawkers gathered as Carmela pushed her way back to the broken window. She peered through broken glass into the dark interior of Devon’s shop, trying to fathom what had gone wrong in there. She could see sterling silver teapots, priceless Chinese vases, and antique clocks smashed to bits on the floor. Lamps had been toppled, furniture upended. But it was difficult to make anything out . . . way back in the shadows.

  “Devon?” Carmela called out in a strangled voice. Was he in there? Could he hear her? She looked about frantically, saw a man wearing a giant foam baseball mitt that covered half his arm, and snatched it off him.