Murder in the Bayou Boneyard

by Ellen Byron

  The phone rang. Gran picked it up off its stand and answered the call. “Crozat Plantation B and B. Celebrate Halloween with a Pelican’s Spooky Past weekend.” Gran listened as the person on the other end of the call spoke. “Yes, you did hear that. There have been several rougarou sightings and a mysterious death … Yes, a reported ghost sighting as well … No vampires, I’m afraid. Yet.”

  “Shh.” Maggie, trying to shut up Grand-mère, made a cutting motion with her hand to her neck.

  Gran put a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “It’s a group of paranormal aficionados.” She returned to the call. “We have a few rooms available, but they’re going fast. The Spooky Past weekends are already legendary.”

  “More like infamous,” Tug muttered.

  “Uh-huh … uh-huh … Yes, the ten percent discount is only available if you book online.… Wonderful. We’ll see you tonight.” Gran ended the call. “That was a woman who’s with a group that calls themselves the Paranormals. They heard about the goings-on in Pelican and can’t wait to visit. They’re booking our empty rooms, bless their supernatural-loving hearts. I thought we were going to lose them when I said there hadn’t been a vampire sighting. You might have to buy fangs, put on a tux, and come out only at night, Tug cher.”

  Ninette toyed with her half-eaten slice of coffee cake. “I hate that we’re pulling in the kind of people who are looking for a ghoulish thrill.”

  “I think we need to let go of that, Mom,” Maggie said, “and be grateful we’re pulling in anyone at all.”

  “True dat,” Ninette said.

  “Maggie, chère, you had news about the spa?” Gran prompted.

  Maggie slapped her forehead. “Right. I was so distracted by what Ru said, I almost forgot. If y’all approve this, our spa will be operating under a new name and new management.” She detailed Mo’s offer. “I think it’s the best shot we have at keep the spa going right now. The only shot, really.”

  Maggie waited anxiously for her family’s reaction. A wide smile creased her father’s weathered face. “It’s a great plan. Takes the pressure off us.”

  “I like it too,” Ninette said. “But I want to make sure we charge Mo a fair rental rate. I don’t want any issues between us. There’s been enough ugliness around that spa already.”

  “Agreed,” Maggie said with a vigorous nod. “Gran?”

  “As long as I get my day of beauty before our wedding, I am all in,” Gran said. She fluffed her shiny silver pageboy. “I might even dye the tips of my hair peach to match our color scheme.”

  “Show of hands,” Tug said. “All in favor?” Everyone raised a hand. Maggie raised two. “It’s a done deal. Let Mo know.”

  “Fantastic,” Maggie said. “I’ll tell her on my way to Doucet. I’m doing a special Halloween-themed painting workshop for the kids I teach. They were so excited I couldn’t say no.”

  She polished off her cake and left the manor house. The day’s rain, now over, had been followed by a blast of cool autumn air. Maggie, who loved fall weather, took a deep breath and let the air fill her lungs. She stopped by the spa to deliver her family’s decision to Mo, who was elated. “I’ve been sketching a logo,” she said. “Look.”

  She handed Maggie a piece of paper. Under the words Mo’ Better Beauty and Spa, Mo had drawn the outline of a voluptuous woman in a sexy pose. “She looks a little like a mud-flap girl,” Maggie said.

  “The universal symbol of hot.”

  “To monster-truck drivers,” Maggie said with a laugh.

  “And their girlfriends,” Mo pointed out.

  Maggie handed the paper back to her friend. “The spa’s your baby now. May your bookings be filled with mud-flap wannabes and their credit cards.”

  Mo held her hands up in a raise the roof gesture. “Amen, sistah.”

  Maggie left Mo to her sketching and drove to Doucet. Sunday was a busy day for the popular historical site, but she found a parking spot near the annex that housed her on-site studio. She opened a large folding table and laid out canvases and paint for her eight students. She also put out juice boxes and a container of her mother’s sugar cookies, this time decorated as witches and pumpkins.

  Ione knocked, then came into the room. “Just me. I’ve got messages for you.” She passed them to Maggie.

  “This is from Brandon’s mother,” Maggie said. “Canceling for today.” She quickly read the others. “Cancellations. Seven of them. Everyone but Xander.” Humiliated, Maggie sank into a chair. “Word must have gotten out that I’m a suspect in Susannah’s murder.”

  “You don’t know that.” After Maggie shot Ione a look, she said, “Okay, it’s probably what happened.” Ione, angry, crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I swear, I do not understand people. Your family helped found Pelican. The Crozats and Doucets have been here longer than America’s been a country. How can anyone think y’all had anything to do with what happened?”

  “I blame Halloween.”

  “Huh?” Ione said, bewildered. “How can you blame Halloween?”

  “All the emphasis on the supernatural—it puts a weird aura in the air. People get jittery, especially when they think they see ghosts and werewolves and rougarous, and boy, would I love to get my hands on whoever’s doing that to scare our guests. Anyway, I think Halloween brings out the paranoia in people.”

  “Huh,” Ione said, unfolding her arms. “I never thought about it like that. You’re not entirely wrong.”

  “Thank you for not telling me I’m nuts,” Maggie said. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes to hold back tears. She released her hands and noticed a small head peeking into the room. “Xander, honey. Hi, come on in.”

  Bo’s son took a tentative step into the room. His mother Whitney followed, pushing a baby carriage. “I heard class might be canceled,” she said, “but Xander insisted we come and find out for ourselves.”

  Maggie and Ione stood up. “Xander lucked out,” Maggie said. “He’s getting a private lesson today.”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Ione said. She headed for the door, stopping to coo over Bella, the baby Whitney and her second husband Zach had recently adopted.

  “You don’t have to teach him, Maggie,” Whitney said. “I’m sure you have lots to do.”

  “No, I want to. It’ll be the best part of my day.” Maggie gave Xander an affectionate smile. “I’ll drop him off when we’re done.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll wait.”

  Whitney pulled a folding chair to the side of the room. She sat down and jiggled the baby carriage, eliciting happy gurgles from her infant daughter. “What’s the matter, you don’t trust me?” Maggie, aiming for a jocular tone, failed. She found it impossible to hide how strained she felt.

  “Of course I trust you.” Whitney’s forced laugh also failed dismally. “I just never get the chance to be around one of Xander’s classes, so I thought, why not now?”

  “Why not,” Maggie said flatly. She stepped over to a cabinet above the room’s sink and took down a container of paintbrushes. “Xander, do you have any ideas about what you want to paint today?”

  “Yeah. I made a drawing.” Xander took off his Batman backpack and unzipped it. He took out a sketchpad Maggie had given him for his birthday. “I wanna make a rougarou. Like this.”

  Xander showed Maggie his drawing. The boy, a preternaturally talented artist, had drawn a rougarou lying on the ground in a cemetery, surrounded by crypts. Maggie recognized the haunting image. “Wow, this is really good,” Maggie said, forcing herself to sound enthusiastic. “Did you copy it from something?”

  The boy nodded. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a copy of the Pelican Penny Clipper. The cover photo showed Susannah’s body, clad in the rougarou costume, splayed out in the Dupois graveyard. A headline screamed, “Masseuse Death Ruled a Homicide.”

  But it was the subtitle that made Maggie feel ill.

  “Suspects Include Local Family.”

  Chapter 10

&
nbsp; “If I ever do murder someone, it’s gonna be Little Earlie,” Maggie fumed to Bo through her Bluetooth as she drove home. “Can’t I sue him for libel or something?”

  “I wish you could, except …”

  “It’s not libelous because it’s true.” Bo’s silence confirmed this. “I guess it does look bad, with us firing Susannah and the whole property line thing. At least it looks that way to people who don’t know us, like Zeke Griffith. But you’d think the locals had a little more faith in my family.” She shared the list of art class cancellations with Bo.

  “That’s insane.” Bo’s anger made Maggie feel a touch better. “Forget those numbnuts. You got Pelican PD on your side.”

  “That’s a true godsend.” Maggie made a right turn onto the side road by Crozat. Night had already fallen, so she put on the Falcon’s bright lights. “Can you come by tonight? I could use a hug. And maybe more.”

  “I better not.”

  “Right,” Maggie said, deflated. “The appearance of impropriety. Can’t have you consorting with suspects.”

  “Ugh, I hate this,” Bo said with a growl.

  “Me too. I’ll call you tomorrow. If Griffith isn’t tapping our phones.”

  Maggie ended the call. She turned off her car’s brights and parked. Her phone pinged a text from her mother: Paranormals here. Come join us. PLEASE.

  Maggie dragged herself to the manor house, where she found her parents entertaining the B and B guests with wine and cheese in the front parlor. Barrymore and Emma were mixed in with a half-dozen unfamiliar faces. Barrymore was holding court, while Emma, ignoring him, read one of the magazines the Crozats made available to their guests. DruCilla was there as well, Lovie perched on her shoulder. As soon as Maggie came into the room, Ninette jumped up. “There you are, chère. Everyone, this is our daughter Maggie. Maggie, these are our new guests, the Paranormals. Oh my, look at the time. I best get dinner going.”

  Tug leapt to his feet. “I’ll help, dearest.”

  Maggie’s parents made a quick exit, leaving her with the group. “I was in the middle of reliving the deadly twist to Resurrection of a Spirit for our newcomers,” Barrymore said, leading Maggie to understand why her parents had disappeared so fast. The actor had positioned his wingback chair to face the others as if he were performing a one-man show, which it turned out he was. He leaned toward his listeners, who responded in kind. “There we were, in the final moments of our evening’s production,” he shared in a sonorous voice. “The climax, as it were. Suddenly, a costumed creature appeared from nowhere—”

  “A rougarou,” DruCilla explained to the group.

  “Whatever you want to call it.” Barrymore didn’t look happy about his performance being interrupted. He resumed his story. “We were aghast, but being the professionals that we are—well, at least I am—we seamlessly improvised around the unexpected intrusion.”

  “It’s true,” DruCilla told the others. “They did.”

  The actor cleared his throat and shot her a look. “To finish my story, the audience was thrilled by our tale. Applause, applause, and then … the creature … died.”

  Barrymore somehow made the final word reverberate, and his audience gasped. Maggie caught Emma’s attention, and the two shared an eye roll. “I’m so disappointed I missed it,” groused one of the Paranormals, an attractive older woman named Cindy.

  “It was the death of another human being, so there’s that,” Maggie said. From the kitchen came the sound of the china bell Ninette used to announce a meal. “Dinner’s ready, everyone.”

  Maggie motioned for the guests to follow her, which they did. The Beckers, a young couple from New Orleans who had booked the B and B’s last available room on impulse, joined them. “We did some shopping in town,” Ashley Becker said. She held up a bag from Bon Bon Sweets and a box from its sister store, Fais Dough Dough Pastries. “Everything is decorated for Halloween. Look, they even used strands of string cheese to wrap the croissant like a mummy.”

  Maggie admired the croissant Ashley showed her. “I’m so glad you liked the stores. My cousin Lia owns them.”

  Will Becker pulled a mug decorated with a vibrant illustration of Crozat from another bag. “We got souvenirs, too. Not often that we get to say, ‘Hey, we know the artist.’”

  Maggie, the artist in question, blushed. She’d put her talent to use creating a line of souvenir items featuring her designs of local landmarks. “Thank you so much. A percentage of sales goes to our local historical society, so they thank you, too.”

  “I love your style,” Ashley said. “Are you working on anything new?”

  Maggie flashed on her beloved art studio, currently commandeered by the MacDowells. The moment of anger subsided, replaced by guilt and then fear. The MacDowells had suffered a loss—a loss Ville Blanc detective Griffith seemed determined to pin on her. “No, I’m not working on anything new right now,” Maggie said, keeping her response judicious. “I’ve been busy with our Spooky Past weekends. But I’ll get back to my art eventually.” If I’m not jailed for a murder I didn’t commit.

  Dinner was refreshingly uneventful. Even Barrymore was low-key—worn out, Maggie assumed, from his impromptu performance. When the meal was over, Maggie decided that a visit to her future home with Bo would help take her mind off murder. She unlocked the entryway door and climbed a flight of stairs to the apartment above the spa. She flipped on the lights to reveal the apartment’s spacious interior. The main living area featured an open floor plan, with no separation between the kitchen, living, and dining spaces. A hallway led past a bathroom to three bedrooms: Xander’s room, a master with an en suite bathroom, and a third bedroom that Maggie hoped would someday be a baby nursery. The hallway ended at a bonus room, which would serve as the couple’s shared office.

  Maggie noticed that her father had transferred the beautiful needlepoint chairs from the attic to the apartment’s living area. Their soft palette of golds and greens blended perfectly with the room’s pale-yellow walls. She wandered through the space from one end to the other, imagining it fully furnished and humming with life. The antique chairs would face the sage-colored couch she and Bo had picked out together—their first joint purchase for their new home. One corner of the large room would be dedicated to Xander’s needs: a desk and computer for schoolwork, an easel for his artwork, right next to a window that flooded the room with natural light. Maggie was overcome with emotion. Nuh-uh, no crying, she admonished herself, and shook off the moment of vulnerability. “Instead of crying,” she declared to the empty room. “Action.”

  * * *

  Maggie strode into the cottage, where Gran was sorting through a box of wedding favor samples. She put a blunt question to her grandmother. “Who do you think killed Susannah?”

  Gran, taken aback, put down the box. She held up a magnet decorated with a photo of a bride and groom. “I was going to ask what you thought about this as a possible favor, but that question feels rather lightweight right now.”

  Maggie plopped down on the sofa next to Gran. “I can’t sit around waiting for Pelican PD to clear me. They’re doing their best—I know Bo is all over it—but I can’t live with the threat of being carted off to jail hanging over me.”

  “It does put a damper on our wedding-planning efforts,” Gran acknowledged.

  “The only way for me to clear my name—for all of us to—is to find the real killer.”

  “Then let’s talk about suspects,” Gran said.

  “Good idea.”

  The women furrowed their brows and thought. “The only people in town who knew Susannah were us and her family,” Maggie finally said.

  “Helene Brevelle certainly had a bone to pick with her,” Gran pointed out. “Plus, Susannah had clients, both as a masseuse and as a psychic. She might have seriously offended one of them.”

  Maggie nodded. “Good point. She could have given a client a bad reading, one that pushed them over the edge for some reason.”

  “Unfortunately
, our motive is crystal clear,” Gran said. “Susannah’s departure from the earthly plane rids us of both a spa competitor and a property dispute. No wonder Detective Griffith likes all of us for the crime. Ooh, listen to me, I sound so Law and Order. I cannot stop watching those reruns.”

  “You’re assuming Susannah’s death means the end of our fight over the property line, but what if Doug inherits her property?”

  “Well, duh, as the kids say. Which means the grieving widower might really be a manipulative murderer.” Gran got a crafty look on her face. “What time is it?”

  Maggie glanced at the antique brass clock decorating the room’s fireplace mantel. “Eight thirty.”

  “It’s not too late to pay a call on the MacDowells. Checking in, worried about them and all that. We can gather a little intel before they leave town, which I assume they will, now that their one connection to Pelican is gone.”

  “That’s good and bad news,” Maggie said. “Good news if I get my art studio back, bad because three suspects will be gone. It’s too bad the police can’t say ‘don’t leave town’ anymore.”

  “I think that was mostly a trope of mystery novels. A convenient way to keep all your suspects in one place. What are you doing?”

  “Confirming we have an extradition agreement with Canada.” Maggie held up her cell phone. “We do.”

  Gran stood up. “Go to the manor kitchen and put together a meal we can bring to the MacDowells. You know Bonnie will welcome us. She’s a chowhound, that girl.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Maggie darted over to the manor kitchen. She assembled a healthy collection of to-go dishes that included her mother’s shrimp Creole, fried okra, and corn maque choux. She found half a chocolate Doberge cake in the refrigerator and wrapped it up, along with several biscuits. Arms full, she met her grandmother outside their cottage, and they tramped through the woods to the old schoolhouse.

  Doug answered their knock on the door. He looked no better than when they’d seen him the day before. In fact, he looked worse. His eyes were sunken, the bags under them pronounced and puffy. “The kids are out,” he said, motioning for them to come in. “We spent the day making arrangements for Susie. It was pretty draining, so they went to grab a drink in town.”