by Laura Childs
“Sidney!” she cried. “What are you doing here?” He’d surprised as well as flustered her.
Sidney arranged his long face into a smile. “I came by to see you, Carmela.”
She placed the suede albums on the shelf and pulled herself together. “What’s up?”
Sidney dropped his head, gazed at his black high-top tennis shoes for a few moments, then glanced back up at Carmela. “I . . . I came by to offer my help.”
“Help?” Carmela wasn’t sure what Sidney was talking about. Did he want to help with Medusa Manor?
Sidney plunged on ahead. “I understand you’ve been making a few inquiries about . . . well, about Melody’s murder.”
Carmela’s nod was almost imperceptible.
“And I thought,” continued Sidney, “that perhaps I could help.”
Carmela gave a slow reptilian blink and then said, sweet as pie, to Sidney, “Why don’t you come back to my office, where we can talk?”
Sidney followed docilely and, once they were settled, told her in a rush of what appeared to be heartfelt sentiment, “Melody was my friend, too. A good friend.”
“I know she was,” said Carmela. She was seated in her swivel task chair with Sidney across from her in a director’s chair, his long legs splayed out.
“The police don’t seem to be getting anywhere,” said Sidney, gazing at her rather intently.
“No, they don’t,” agreed Carmela. She gulped, took a deep breath, and plunged ahead. “In fact, last night Ava and I were just remarking on that rather sad state of affairs. About how Melody’s death is so . . . so unresolved.”
Sidney nodded emphatically, punctuated with a slight sniffle.
“I know this might sound somewhat unusual,” said Carmela, “given the circumstances, but Ava and I were actually thinking of conducting a séance.”
Sidney’s eyes widened. “To try to get in touch with Melody? To try to talk to her?” This clearly intrigued him.
“Um . . . yes,” said Carmela. “That would be the general idea.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea!” cried Sidney.
“You do?” She leaned back in her chair, pleased that he’d jumped at the idea. The bait.
“Absolutely,” said Sidney. “When did you want to do this?”
“Ava actually mentioned something about having a séance tonight at her place,” said Carmela.
A frown flitted across Sidney’s face. “It would have to be later. I have a ghost walk tonight. Going to hit a couple old hotels, Pirate’s Alley, a voodoo temple, like that.”
“So maybe ten or ten thirty would work for you?”
“Ten thirty,” said Sidney, “would be perfect.”
“Good,” said Carmela. “I’ll call Ava and tell her you’re eager to participate.”
“Wouldn’t it be something,” said Sidney, “if we really made contact?”
“Yes, it would,” agreed Carmela.
Sidney’s big hands slapped his knees, then he rose from his chair. “See you tonight. And thank you!”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Carmela told Ava when she picked up the phone, “but we’re set for tonight.”
“Tonight . . .” said Ava.
“The séance!”
“Oh my gosh, you talked to Sidney?”
“He came waltzing into my shop!” exclaimed Carmela. “On his own accord.”
“And you just laid it on him,” said Ava.
“Something like that.”
“And he agreed to it?” said a still-surprised Ava.
“Are you kidding?” said Carmela. “Sidney jumped at the chance. This is an eager boy we have here.”
“Hot dog!” exclaimed Ava. “Like a rat to the trap. Aren’t you the clever one.”
“Maybe,” said Carmela. “We’ll see.”
“We’ll set up a Ouija board in the back room,” enthused Ava. “Make sure it’s dark and draped, suitably spooky. Then, if we have to, we’ll move on to tarot cards.”
“I leave this completely in your capable hands,” said Carmela. “You’re the one who’s the voodoo lady of New Orleans.”
“Don’t tell anybody,” said Ava, dropping her voice to a whisper, “but I’m really the faux voodoo lady. Truth be told, all my love charms and gris-gris bags are really filled with herbs and spices. Good for flavoring jambalaya or baking a turkey.”
“My lips are sealed,” laughed Carmela.
“So what time tonight?” asked Ava.
“Ten thirty. Sidney has a ghost walk and Babcock’s taking me out to dinner.”
“So you’ll have to ditch him,” said Ava. “Easier said than done.”
“Naw, he was over last night, so I pretty much wore him out.”
“You wicked girl,” said Ava.
“I certainly hope so,” laughed Carmela.
“So . . . I culled through those prom dresses that were jamming my office and picked out the bummers. I’ll probably haul them over to Medusa Manor this afternoon.”
“If you’re going over there,” said Carmela, “I’ll call Jack Meador at Metcalf and Meador and tell him to deliver the stuff I bought from him. There’s a table, a couple of paintings, a trunk, and a lamp.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Ava.
Chapter 22
“YOU stamp directly on the leather?” asked Byrle.
Carmela nodded. Byrle Coopersmith, one of her regulars, had dropped by with Tandy this afternoon and begged for a few ideas on embellishing small notebooks. Byrle wanted to make several, in different motifs, to give as gifts.
Carmela had mulled this over for a couple of minutes, then pulled out a number of leather scraps as well as some western-themed rubber stamps. She’d directed each woman to choose a stamp while she selected a buffalo image.
“First I’ll stamp the image on leather,” Carmela told them. She pressed the rubber stamp against a black ink pad, then stamped a buffalo impression on her scrap of leather. “Then I’ll use a wood-burning tool to burn along the outline.” She picked up a wood-burning tool she’d had heating, then leaned forward and touched the tip of the tool to the leather. There was a hiss and the distinct scent of burning leather as Carmela eased the tool around the stamped buffalo image until it resembled something a branding iron might have created.
“Cool,” said Tandy. “Then what?”
“Now I’m going to make a slightly ragged cut around my buffalo image, leaving maybe an inch or so on each side. Then I mount that image on a torn, slightly oval piece of brown card stock.”
“Okay,” said Byrle, “but what about the album itself?”
“That we’re going to cover,” said Carmela. She’d already found a piece of tan paper with an aspen leaf design, so she used spray adhesive to mount it on the album cover, then wrapped the excess paper around to the inside. “Now I can adhere my buffalo piece to the front cover, then add a leather cord with some beads.”
“And maybe a feather?” asked Byrle.
“Love it,” said Carmela. “In fact, the more layers you can build up, the better.”
“That’s really the key to crafting, isn’t it?” asked Tandy.
Carmela nodded. “Layers and coordinating colors. That’s how you achieve a certain . . . what would you call it? A richness.”
Carmela helped Tandy and Byrle for another ten minutes, then disappeared into her office for a quick lunch. Gabby had run out for po’boys, so that’s what Carmela was hunched over now—a classic New Orleans French roll sandwich stacked with roast beef, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and plenty of mayonnaise.
As mayonnaise dripped on her papers and Melissa Etheridge wafted from the CD player, Carmela flipped through pages of her business planner. Early on, when she’d first conceived Memory Mine, she’d written an initial business plan. That had become the template for her one-year, five-year, and ten-year plans. Amazingly enough, she was starting to close in on that five-year plan! Of course, not everything had gone according to plan. There’d been litt
le business hiccups along the way and then one great big hiccup known as Hurricane Katrina.
But scrapbooking was still the number one craft in America, and it had long since dovetailed into other areas, too. Business and customer satisfaction scrapbooks were huge—she had created at least six of them last year. Her favorite had been a scrapbook for Storyville Catering that had incorporated photos of their food offerings and beauty shots of their tablescapes interspersed with testimonial letters from happy customers.
The art of scrapbooking had long since extended to family journals and recipe scrapbooks, too. Then there were crafts such as card making, tag art, rubber stamping, memory boxes, votive boxes, collages, and altered books.
Carmela smiled to herself as she turned a page to study her monthly accounts. Sales were okay, but bills were coming due and it looked like her rent was going to get jacked up again. Good thing she and Ava had scored that Medusa Manor gig.
As if on cue, the phone rang.
“Carmela,” came a hushed voice. “It’s Garth.”
Medusa Manor’s been sold, she told herself. Then she said, “Hey there, how are you?”
“Okay.” Garth’s voice sounded hoarse and just this side of tears.
Not okay, thought Carmela. In fact, Garth sounded terrible. “I know the funeral yesterday was tough,” she told him. “You were very brave to get through it as well as you did.”
“Kind of you to say so,” said Garth. “I was calling to see if you’ve . . . uh . . . made any sort of progress.” His voice faltered. A few seconds passed, and then he cleared his throat and continued. “You were going to kind of snoop around, see if you came up with anything that might be . . . uh . . . relevant or even suspicious.”
Like you, she wanted to say, but didn’t. “There are a few people who, I think, warrant a closer look,” she told Garth.
“Who?” he asked, pouncing on her words.
“I know you told me Sidney St. Cyr was a good friend of Melody’s,” said Carmela, “but he just seems a little strange to me.”
“To me, too,” said Garth, eagerly.
“And Sawyer Barnes, the fellow who originally tried to buy Medusa Manor, has a slightly shadowy background.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Garth.
“Turns out one of his properties mysteriously caught fire, and he has a history of slightly shady deals as well as highpressure negotiations,” said Carmela.
“The property catching fire scares the shit out of me,” said Garth. “How did you find out about that?”
Carmela grimaced. “Actually, Detective Babcock mentioned it to me.” Was that one of the things he’d warned her not to repeat? She couldn’t quite remember.
“Do you know,” said Garth, “if he’s seriously looking at Barnes?”
“I’m pretty sure he is,” said Carmela.
“Because if he isn’t, I’m gonna call Babcock and really try to pressure him.”
“No, no,” said Carmela, “don’t do that. I promise you, I’ll talk to him and try to, you know, nudge him hard in that direction. Don’t you call Babcock, though. You’re just too . . . emotionally distraught right now.”
Carmela heard rapid, shallow breathing, and then Garth said, “I suppose I am. You’ve . . . you’ve been a real friend in all of this. How can I ever thank you?”
By being innocent, thought Carmela. “No thanks are necessary,” she said. “I’d be doing this even if you hadn’t asked. Melody was a dear friend.”
“You’re the dear,” said Garth, as he hung up quietly.
“Oh crap,” muttered Carmela. “What did I get myself into?”
“Hey cupcake,” called a voice behind her, “I’d say you got yourself into a big load of bat guano!”
Carmela spun in her chair to find Ava’s grinning face looming over her. “Ava! What are you doing here?”
Ava waved a hand, then collapsed opposite her. “I got tired of slumming and wanted to see how the other half lived.”
“Then you made a wrong turn,” said Carmela. “No high life here.”
Ava pulled a gold compact from her Louis Vuitton bucket bag and began powdering her nose. “I just came back from Medusa Manor,” she told Carmela. “I took the really bad prom dresses over and hung ’em up. Boy, do they look phenomenal! Like an entire cotillion of ghost brides. Very creepy.”
“I can’t believe you went over there all by yourself.”
“I didn’t,” admitted Ava. “I made Miguel go with me.” Miguel was Ava’s assistant at Juju Voodoo. “He was a huge help. Put hooks in the ceiling and everything.”
“If we keep pushing like this,” said Carmela, “we’ll get this project finished in time for that horror convention.”
“For sure,” said Ava.
“Did the other stuff get delivered, too?” Carmela asked.
Ava had finished with the powdering and was now applying plum-colored lip gloss. “Yup. Jack Meador was real swell about it, too. Even hauled some of the stuff upstairs.”
“Finally,” said Carmela, “someone who’s actually proactive and helpful.”
“Ain’t that a breath of fresh air?” asked Ava. She snapped the top on her lip gloss and peered at Carmela. “I meant to ask you, has anyone bothered to talk to the original designer?”
“You mean the original designer for Medusa Manor?” Ava nodded. “Yeah, the one who quit.”
“No,” said Carmela, slowly. “Somehow he got lost in all of this.” She thought for a few moments. “But now that you bring it up . . . maybe we should.” She spun her chair a half turn and pawed through the papers on her desk, and finally found what she was looking for. “Henry Tynes,” she said. “Maybe I should go talk to him.”
“Do you know where to find him?”
Carmela placed an index finger on the paper again and scanned down. “Tynes is, uh, let’s see, one of three partners in a design firm. Xanadu Design.”
“Xanadu,” said Ava. “That name sounds familiar. Wasn’t that an old nightclub? Like Studio 54?”
Carmela leaned back in her chair and smiled. “‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree.’”
“Ooh, cher,” Ava cooed. “You are so smart!”
An hour later, sparked by her conversation with Ava, Carmela found herself standing in the reception area of Xanadu Design. Turned out it was located only a few blocks from Memory Mine, in a rehabbed brick building. A baby boutique occupied the first floor, and Xanadu Design had the second floor.
“Henry will be right out,” the receptionist told her. “He’s just finishing up with a client.”
“Thank you,” said Carmela, looking around the lobby.
The design firm had retained the flavor and character of the old building, opting to keep the wood floors and yellow brick walls, and had hung an interesting mixture of contemporary oil paintings and examples of their design work on the walls.
Carmela studied some of the design work Xanadu had done. There was a package design for the St. Charles Coffee Company and a logo design for the Maison Villeroy Hotel. Not bad. Kind of reminded her of her early days before she opened Memory Mine, when she was part of the in-house design staff at a food product company named Bayou Bob’s. When she’d designed labels for Catahoula Ketchup and Turtle Chili.
“Miss Bertrand?”
Carmela whirled about to find a tall, good-looking young man gazing at her. He was dressed business casual. Or, rather, design firm casual, with a graphic T-shirt and chino slacks.
“Henry Tynes?” she asked.
The man nodded. He was in his early thirties, with dark tousled hair, an olive complexion, and a serious look about him. Although, Carmela decided, that serious look might be because he was pressed for time. Maybe had a design deadline.
Carmela crossed the lobby and shook his hand. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”
“No problem,” said Tynes. “C’mon back to my office.” He spun on his heels and led her down a short corridor that had may
be six open cubicles on each side. Three were occupied, the others were piled with storyboards, computer gear, and cardboard boxes.
“We’re a young company,” Tynes told her, “which is why we’re running a little lean right now.” He led her into his cubicle at the end of the hall, indicated for her to make herself comfortable on a small leather couch, then sat down across from her in a yellow plastic bucket chair.
“Which is why you agreed to take the Medusa Manor job,” said Carmela.
Tynes nodded. “That’s about it. Initially, we were under the impression there was to be quite a bit of design work. Logos, print ads, a Web site . . . you understand.”
“But it turned out to be more set design,” said Carmela.
Tynes nodded. “Not that I dislike set design. I actually did quite a bit of it when I was in school.”
“So you got about halfway through the project,” said Carmela, trying to lead the conversation.
“That’s right,” said Tynes. “Then we were approached by a major client. A software company that had amassed some serious start-up money and wanted us to create a complete campaign for them. I’m talking from the ground up: logo design, corporate graphics, print ads, Web site, and a national print campaign.”
“Sounds big-time,” said Carmela.
“Believe me, it is,” said Tyne. “And a dream job, the kind that can put a little company like ours on the map. Maybe even get our work recognized in Print or Communication Arts magazine.”
“So you said good-bye to Medusa Manor,” said Carmela.
Tynes grimaced slightly. “We did. I felt bad about it, but . . . business is business. I suppose we never should have strayed from our corporate mission in the first place.”
“And then Melody was murdered,” said Carmela.
Tynes’s face crumpled in anguish. “A bizarre turn of events,” he replied, then touched fingers to his chest. “I really thought she was a terrific person. I can’t imagine anyone having it in for her.”
