by G A Chase
The lieutenant consulted his notes. “The Malveaux curse isn’t one I’ve run across before. This could all be just another wild goose chase. Lord knows I’ve been on enough of them. Miss Summer, you might ask your father about any family history regarding the names Myles has given me. If there is some kind of paranormal activity, these items often search out descendants of the original parties. I wouldn’t expect anything to come of it, though. If there is some connection, please let me know.”
Myles had never been a big fan of the police, but certainly, a death demanded some investigation. “What about the tractor breakdown? You don’t find that suspicious?”
“Have you ever known a Mardi Gras parade to run on time? Any city kid with a chauffeur’s license thinks he’s qualified to drive a tractor in a parade. Most of them don’t even know how to properly stop one. Add in some dry-rotted tires and our streets’ potholes, and you get a pretty good idea of why the processions are so slow. Give me a farm-raised field hand any day. At least they know how to handle one of those beasts. There simply aren’t enough experienced tractor operators who are willing to deal with drunk tourists running out into the route, beads being thrown in their eyes, and maneuvering the long floats down our tight streets. Almost every Mardi Gras season, we get some parade accident caused by an inexperienced driver.”
He put the pipe tool in a plastic evidence bag. Kendell pointed at what he was doing. “Will we get that back?”
The bag remained unsealed. “Even with your story, there’s no indication of wrongdoing. If you don’t want to make a formal request for an investigation, there’s only so much I can do. The department is more than happy to mark cases like this as merely accidents. So technically, I can’t hold this for evidence. But if there is some—well let’s just use the word—curse associated with it, I can keep it from causing any harm. It is private property, though. So if you ask for it back, I will have to give it to you.”
Myles thought they were better off without it, but Kendell clearly had other ideas. “I think I’d like to keep what’s mine.”
Before the lieutenant passed the tool across the table, he drew a symbol on the back of his business card and signed the bottom. “Should you decide this thing is better off secured from causing harm, take it to the abandoned World Trade Center building and hand the guard my card.”
Myles wasn’t ready to let the opportunity to talk with someone who’d been involved with the paranormal slip by. “From your investigations, have you ever run across truly cursed items? Do you believe in them?”
The man tapped his pencil against the table as he considered his answer. “I’ve noticed that bad luck follows some people and objects. But for there to be a victim in a crime, there also has to be a perpetrator. Things don’t act on their own. In the case of your pipe tool, there would have to be a murderer to have used the object. Marilyn Fontenot was a busybody reporter. I’m not saying she didn’t have enemies, but they aren’t the kind of people to cause physical harm. The high-society types are too self-absorbed for such behavior. Find me someone who really had it in for Miss Fontenot, and I’ll take your claims more seriously.”
“I wasn’t pushing for an investigation. I was just hoping for some clarification on what you thought was real.”
“Mr. Garrison, I do my best to be open-minded on the subject of reality. But I seldom find that trait in those around me. I find if I view every idea I have with skepticism people are more willing to listen.”
* * *
Back out on the street, Myles tried to come to grips with what Kendell had done. “Why on earth didn’t you just leave that damn thing with the police? I know we didn’t want to request an inquiry because of Cheesecake’s involvement. But he might have given our story at least some investigation even if he wouldn’t admit it to us.”
“Don’t you get it? He was afraid of the pipe tool. It really is cursed. He just didn’t want to admit it.”
The late afternoon lit up the sky in shades of oranges, pinks, and reds. The colors reminded him of the bloodshot eyes of the Mardi Gras revelers sobering up from the afternoon’s activities only to dive back into the evening’s debauchery. “It’s dangerous, Kendell. I don’t want you to get hurt. And we both know I can’t keep that thing with me. Whoever took it the first time may come back for it.”
He knew she was holding the tool in her pocket. “That’s another thing. Someone clearly thinks of this as a weapon. I appreciate Lieutenant Cazenave’s position as paranormal investigator, but I suspect he’s something of the laughingstock of the department. If we’re going to really get him on our side, we’ll need more evidence.”
Women were a constant mystery, but even he knew when one was hiding something important. “What aren’t you telling me?”
The streets were filling up with the evening dining crowd. She motioned him toward a secluded corner of Jackson Square near the wrought-iron fence and under the trees. “I asked my father about the names we’ve run across, specifically Malveaux since that’s what started this whole adventure. I’d never seen him blanch like that before. He’s from the Boston area. He said when they were courting Mom used to tell tales that had been passed down through her family. Her maiden name was Broussard.”
They had run into many names since they found the pipe tool, but Broussard wasn’t one he remembered. “Did she know the name Malveaux?”
“I don’t know. Dad wouldn’t tell me anything, only that I shouldn’t mention that name around her. Ever. The way he said it sent a shiver up my back like he was yelling the warning at me. He wasn’t, but I knew inside what he was saying was important.”
Myles had dated women from all across the country. The lure of attending college in New Orleans had a way of attracting any graduating senior who could con their parents into believing it was more about the education than the nightlife. “I never would have suspected you were a native.”
“I’m not. At least, I don’t feel like I am. Mom comes from one of the old New Orleans families, but you wouldn’t know it. My parents met down here in college. They divorced when I was still in elementary school.” She looked up into the ancient live oak. “I don’t think I was even consulted as to where I’d grow up. They simply decided I’d stay with Mom. She used to say getting divorced was like having an anchor chain cut off her. She wasn’t referring to Dad but to New Orleans. She took the opportunity to move us out to California, which honestly suited her better than here, but I was always close to Dad. So when I graduated from high school, he invited me down here to check out the colleges.”
“And during those years growing up, your mother never talked about her past?”
Kendell’s shrug lifted the shoulders of her jacket. “I never wanted to hear about it. California was my home. New Orleans sounded so old-fashioned. She never impressed me as the Southern-belle type. I think she was just happy to leave her past behind. Dad used to tell stories of his time down here—typical frat-boy stuff. Mom would just roll her eyes once he started recounting some adventure.”
“All the more reason to get rid of this thing. If your family is involved—”
She broke in. “I don’t feel in danger, though. If it is a curse, it’s not aimed at me. I have to know what my role is in this mystery. You’re the one who can read energy, but I swear there’s something about this pipe tool that makes me not want to let it go.”
Myles remembered his feelings of protection regarding Serephine while he experienced her unintended suicide. “Like you’re trying to prevent it from harming someone else? But wouldn’t that be just as easily done by giving it to the police?”
“It’s more than that. I don’t have words for the feeling. All I know is I won’t be able to rest until I know my connection.”
“All right, Nancy Drew. What’s our next step?” he asked.
As she scanned the buskers and artists outside the iron fence, he knew what she was going to say before she said it. “I want to go back to Professor Yates. If I hold the tool a
nd he uses that weird contraption on me, maybe he’ll be able to tell me something useful. He did say he thought the pipe tool would find its way back to us and that we should bring it to him once it was returned.”
12
Myles didn’t know what to expect as he and Kendell wandered along the run-down warehouses that covered the wharf. He knew the Bywater neighborhood that was a short walk from the French Quarter well enough. Friends of his in the service industry found rents in the eclectic area more reasonable than those close to the action. But the once-industrial area of the Bywater that bordered the river wasn’t a place he’d frequented. The wood of the old piers squished under his feet. The pilings rumbled as a freight train edged along the tracks, blocking off their access to the neighborhood.
“This must be it.” Kendell pointed to a newly painted red door in what otherwise looked like an abandoned office.
The boarded-up windows, rusting corrugated metal walls, and rotting roof beams left him with the impression that Professor Yates probably didn’t pay much rent, if any. The place looked more appropriate for squatters or drug users than someone seriously investigating the paranormal. “Are you sure you want to do this? I know he said he could help, but right now, I’m thinking we’re being conned.”
“He hasn’t asked us for money. What’s the harm in finding out if he does know something? We haven’t exactly run across a lot of people who have offered to help.”
Myles hit the door buzzer. “True, but he still reminds me of a snake-oil salesman.”
Professor Yates opened the door and rubbed his eyes like he’d just gotten up from a nap. The old man wore tatty jeans and a new white T-shirt that still had the creases, indicating he’d just pulled it from the package. With his gray hair tied back in a short ponytail, he at least appeared less of a charlatan than he had while working his trade as a mystic around Jackson Square. “Did you bring the pipe tool?”
Of course. Why else do you think we’re here? But Myles repressed his cynicism. “We were able to get it back from the police. There’s a new death associated with it.”
The professor widened his eyes and perked up on hearing the news. “Let’s have a look.”
Kendell searched her leather satchel and pulled out the tool. But instead of handing it over, she kept it clutched in her hand. “There’s something else I’m curious about. The longer I’m around this thing, the more I believe I have a connection to it. I wish I could explain it better. The thing doesn’t feel dangerous to me. A better description would be protective, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to protect it or it’s protecting me.”
The professor motioned toward an office behind the empty receptionist’s desk. “I have some equipment back here that might help me read your energy better. The mobile unit I use around the Quarter has its limitations.”
To Myles, the word equipment seemed to overstate the pile of wires, metal boxes lined with dials, and oscilloscopes that cluttered the previous supervisor’s desk. The professor whistled a tune Myles couldn’t identify as he hooked Kendell up to what looked like an old lie detector. From the frayed wires, yellowed plastic, and missing nobs, the investigative tool could have been salvaged from a pile of junk. With her looking like she was in danger of being electrocuted, the professor proceeded to place the pipe tool under a bell jar that had similar sensors attached to the outside of the glass.
The old man took a seat at the desk. “I must ask you both to remain quiet while I adjust the settings. Different vocal vibrations mess up the energy a person projects.”
Myles reminded himself to be open-minded. Kendell was right. There weren’t a lot of people they could turn to for answers regarding the paranormal aspects of their investigations and even fewer who approached respectability. The professor appeared more serious without the steampunk outfit he’d worn the last time they saw him. He methodically adjusted one dial after another in silence, not resorting to the constant banter typical of every fortune-teller and sideshow hustler in front of Saint Louis Cathedral. It took the man nearly half an hour to get all of the different colored lines on the oscilloscope to line up.
Professor Yates sat in the large leather chair, staring an unreasonably long time at the lines that moved in unified waves across the screen. He’s either stoned, fallen asleep with his eyes open, or lost in a trance. But again Myles kept his mouth closed. Throughout the experiment, Kendell did a remarkable imitation of a statue.
Finally, the old man sat forward and scribbled a name and address on a scrap of paper. “Meet me here tonight at nine.”
Myles couldn’t take it any longer. “You have to be fucking kidding. After all this time and the magic show, all you have to tell us is ‘meet me here at nine’? We deserve more than that. You must have seen something on that stupid readout.”
The professor lifted the bell jar and pulled out the pipe tool as Kendell removed the sensors from her head and hands. “For the last two decades, I’ve devoted my time to researching human energy. I stay in New Orleans because some of the oldest studies, dating back hundreds of years, are still being conducted here. In many ways, I’m still a student. If a doctor sees something he finds mysterious on a patient’s test, he calls for a second opinion. That’s all I’m doing.”
Kendell put the last of the wires on the desk. “So you did see something.”
Professor Yates pointed his glasses at the now quiet oscilloscope. “The lines aren’t supposed to mesh up like that. People have unique energy patterns. Once I learned how to identify them, it wasn’t too difficult to build my little mobile unit to read people in general terms. Physical objects also have an energy readout. Atoms are constantly in motion, so everything is really only made up of energy. But animals and inanimate objects exist on very different wavelengths, as I’m sure you can imagine. Once I adjusted for your biological rhythms and that tool’s metallic signature, I was left with two energy patterns that perfectly lined up. That’s not supposed to happen. I’ve seen all kinds of readouts using this thing on people with their objects. Everything from intersecting lines that look like they’re doing battle with each other to random oscillations that never touch. I’ll be honest. I have no idea what it means when they perfectly match. But I might know someone who does. Tonight. Nine p.m. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
* * *
“I know this place.” Myles didn’t like frequenting the area above Bourbon Street after dark and even less so with Kendell at his side. Many of the houses had been remodeled by people not familiar with the area, but full gentrification was still millions of dollars in the future for that handful of city blocks. The places where drug dealers conducted their illicit trade would soon be luxury condos. For the moment, though, it still wasn’t a place to venture into unarmed.
She shivered slightly beside him. “It’s a perfumery. How would you have heard of it?”
The mostly bare-wood exterior couldn’t have been painted in decades. Only the yellow glow from the windows indicated there was any activity in what otherwise looked like an abandoned building. The faded sign out front, Scratch and Sniff Perfumery, was so weather-beaten it could have easily been from a previous era. “Strippers frequently stop by the bar after work. They’ve mentioned this place. It’s one of the few establishments that will make perfumes the performers can use inside their G-strings. I think she calls her product Sensual Scents for the Sensitive Stripper.”
“Fancy.” Kendell’s diminished tone and judgmental glare indicated she wasn’t impressed.
“Hey, it wasn’t my idea to bring you here. I still think Professor Yates is a quack.”
“Maybe he is, but whatever he saw on his equipment made me think he wasn’t trying to con us. If he was after our money, he would have come up with a more elaborate explanation of his results, and I doubt he’d bring in someone else for a piece of the action. Let’s see where this evening takes us.” She headed up the crumbling brick steps toward the rough-hewn wooden door.
Myles followed her,
feeling a little like Hansel to her Gretel, stupidly entering the witch’s lair. He breathed just a little easier when Professor Yates, who was still in his jeans and T-shirt, opened the door. At least they had the right place and didn’t have to make their own introductions. “Right on time. Madam de Galpion is in the back. Don’t let this establishment fool you. Mixing up fragrance potions is only her way of making a living. She’s really quite skilled in the paranormal.”
The shop appeared more like a chemistry lab than a retail establishment. Glass-fronted cabinets lined the walls filled with small brown jars. Their neatly typed labels and commercial logos made it clear these weren’t homemade concoctions. A large industrial refrigerator stood against the back wall. A woman’s soft voice of welcome sounded more like a song than spoken words. “Bring them back, Cornelius. I’m ready.”
Myles had encountered enough people of creole descent to recognize Madam de Galpion’s look—chocolate-brown skin, penetrating black eyes, and an aura of the mystical. But unlike the women who made the most of their ancestry by wearing robes and headscarves, Madam de Galpion was dressed as a professional businesswoman in a tailored silk blouse and conservative brown skirt.
The woman’s office didn’t appear big enough for three guests, so Myles remained in the doorway as Kendell took a seat opposite the striking woman. Chemical stains intermixed with irregularly shaped burn marks covered the table between the two women.
She reached out across the work desk. “Give me your hands, ma chère.”
“We have some questions.” Myles was getting a bit tired of people telling him and Kendell what to do without offering any explanations.
