by Laura Childs
“I was just telling Carmela about our float,” said Sugar Joe. He grinned at her through what was probably a high-test alcoholic haze. “We even had to get a special permit from the city, and then that almost didn’t go through.”
“That’s what I want to know about,” said Carmela, excitedly. “About the dragon, about the fire!”
Shamus and Sugar Joe exchanged glances, and then Shamus said, “Take it easy, babe. It’s not that big a deal.”
Carmela was suddenly leaning forward and in Shamus’s face. “Can you make your dragon breathe fire on command?” she demanded.
“Well . . . yeah, I guess,” Shamus responded. He put a hand to his mouth and muffled a small burp. “Somebody’s gotta hit a button or something.”
“Show me,” said Carmela. “Show me this instant.”
Sugar Joe grinned at her. “Jeez, you’re a pushy little thing.” Then he turned his laughter on Shamus. “How’d you ever let her get away, anyhow?”
But Carmela was prodding Shamus like a pack animal, forcing him to pull her into the guts of the float and take her to the command center.
Shamus led her along a narrow plank, bending down, trying not to smack his head on the wooden and metal struts that formed the underlying skeleton of the float. “The fire breathing is the coolest,” he told her. “This new guy in the krewe . . . we nicknamed him the Chemist . . . he’s the one who set it all up. He’s the one who had to goose those ass-holes over in city hall for the special permit.”
“Chemist?” shrilled Carmela. “Who’s the Chemist, Shamus?”
“Huh?” Shamus stared at her and grabbed a strut for support. He was having trouble tracking Carmela’s rapid-fire questions. Having a little trouble staying on his feet, too.
“The guy you call the Chemist,” said Carmela, practically screaming at him now. “Who is he? Is he a member of the Pluvius krewe?”
Shamus gave a silly smile. “Well, yeah. Duh. You don’t think we’d let just anybody ride our float, do you?”
“Who is it, Shamus?” shrilled Carmela. “Is it Sawyer Barnes?”
Shamus stared at her. “Huh?” He looked momentarily confused. Finally he said, “No. It’s . . . um . . . that antique guy. Jack Meador.”
“What?” exclaimed Carmela. “Is he here? Is Jack Meador here right now?”
Shamus still looked puzzled. “I don’t think so. I think with all the big doin’s he’s over at his gallery.”
At the next corner, as the float slowed down to make its turn, Carmela heard gears grinding deep inside. She hopped off. She hit the pavement hard, shoved her way through the jabbering crowd, then huddled flat against a brick building and pulled out her mobile phone.
Got to call Ava, she told herself, frantically pushing buttons.
Ava answered right away. “That you, cher? Where did you run off to, anyway?”
“Gotta get over here right away!” she screamed at Ava.
“Where’s here?” asked Ava, picking up on the fear and tension in Carmela’s voice.
“Metcalf and Meador Antiques,” said Carmela. She added,
“Meet me outside,” then quickly hung up.
Her next call was to Edgar Babcock. But all she got was voice mail.
Carmela left a short, shrill, but hopefully detailed message, then struck off down the street. As she flew past street vendors, antiques dealers, and food booths, her mind was in a tumult. Babcock had told her that the ingredients in the cemetery flare had been potassium nitrate, aluminum powder, and shellac. What he’d characterized as “fairly simple stuff.”
Stuff maybe an art and antiques dealer might have lying around?
Sure, why not? Potassium nitrate was a basic ingredient in paint stripper. Shellac was used for all sorts of things. Shining up wood, stuff like that.
On the sidewalk in front of Metcalf and Meador, three trestle tables were set in a U-shaped arrangement. They were filled with goods: paintings, jardinières, a silver teapot, a mirror and brush set, lots of small brass statuary. A young woman Carmela had never seen before was talking up the merits of an antique Seth Thomas mantel clock to a well-dressed young couple. Jack Meador was nowhere to be seen.
Carmela went flying through the front door before she had time to check her anger or her speed. “Meador!” she yelled. “Jack Meador!”
The interior of the shop was dark and warm and hushed. A clock ticked quietly; French table lamps with dark, fringed shades cast a creamy glow.
Oh crap, Carmela, she suddenly told herself. This is so not smart.
Just as Carmela stopped abruptly and was ready to do some serious backpedaling, something cold and metallic pressed against the side of her head.
“Shut up,” came Jack Meador’s feral snarl. “Shut up and let me think for a minute.”
Chapter 30
“YOU’LL never get away with this!” Carmela screamed through the bandana that was pulled tightly across her mouth. Though she was trussed and bound like a turkey, stuck in the back of Jack Meador’s van, her muffled screams continued as she kicked relentlessly at the side panels.
“Shut up,” Meador told her again for about the hundredth time. But he sounded worn down, like a broken record. Carmela was getting to him. They’d been driving for ten minutes, weaving through nasty traffic, crawling down narrow secondary streets.
And even though Carmela was putting up an aggressive and brave front, she was terrified. She’d come to the quick realization that Jack Meador had probably killed Melody. And now she was Meador’s prisoner. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get free, but she knew she had to.
The van spun fast around a corner and Carmela, who’d been kneeling, making another impassioned plea, was suddenly sent sprawling. By the time she’d righted herself, the van had rocked to a hard stop.
“What do you want?” Carmela screamed at the top of her lungs. She’d somehow managed to dislodge the bandana that was tied across her mouth.
No answer. Jack Meador no longer sat in the driver’s seat.
Huh?
The back door flew open and Meador grabbed for her. Quick as a rattlesnake, Carmela struck back, kicking him hard on the chin, losing a shoe in the scuffle. Meador back-handed her hard on the side of the head, causing her to skitter away from him.
He beckoned her with his fingers and a wave of the gun. “Come here. I want to show you something.”
Carmela instinctively knew she’d have a better chance if she was out of the van. Inside, she was helpless, a total prisoner.
Grudgingly, she edged toward him. “What?”
When she was within reach, Meador grabbed the rope that bound her hands and waist and pulled her rudely out the back. She landed in darkness. No streetlamps, nobody around to call for help.
Carmela glanced up, saw the outline of a familiar turret, and was stunned when she realized they were directly in front of Medusa Manor!
“I want something,” Meador told her as he marched her up the dark walk. “And you’re going to get it for me.” He shoved her up against the front door, stuck a short pry bar in the doorjamb, and popped the door off its hinges. “Get inside,” he growled.
“You’re crazy!” yelled Carmela, stumbling her way into the dark building, stiff-legged and tightly bound.
“There’s something here that I want,” Meador repeated.
Tragic Magic 273
“And you’re going to be a good little girl and get it for me.”
“What are you talking about?” Carmela screamed as Meador pushed and shoved her to the center of the room.
Meador bent forward and, in a stage whisper, said, “I want that painting.”
“What?” Carmela was momentarily stunned. Painting? What painting?
“Where is it?” Meador demanded.
Carmela’s head snapped around, taking in the first-floor parlor. “Over on that wall,” she told him, nodding at a desultory landscape, a grouping of bare willow trees.
Meador shook a finger at her angrily. “Not
that piece of crap, the real painting. The Ivern.”
Carmela gave a slow blink. That’s what this is about? A painting?
“Ivern?” she said, genuinely perplexed.
“Emilio Ivern,” snapped Meador. “As in student of Goya.”
Shit, thought Carmela. I really should have paid more attention in art history class.
“Oh, that painting,” she said to him, nodding slowly, as if comprehension were slowly dawning. The one I tucked under my arm and carried downstairs to the library.
“Where is it?” Meador demanded.
“Upstairs,” Carmela told him, without hesitation.
“Go,” said Meador, shoving her toward the stairs.
Carmela balked. “First untie me.”
Meador shook his head. “No way.”
“I can barely move like this, let alone climb those stairs.”
Jack Meador seemed to consider this for a few moments, then loosened one of the ropes that ran around Carmela’s hips.
“C’mon, man.” She gave him a look of disgust.
Meador adjusted more ropes and loosened one arm. “That’s all you get. And never forget, I have a gun!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Carmela. She trudged slowly upstairs, feigning difficulty. “The Ivern,” she said when they reached the landing. “It’s worth something?”
Meador nudged her in the back. “A small fortune. Keep moving, please.”
When they reached the second floor, Carmela paused. Meador was anxious now. “Come on, come on.”
“I’m all turned around in the dark,” she told him in a whiny voice. “And we’ve moved things around so many times, trying different—”
“It’s a small painting,” he said, practically gnashing his teeth.
“So I think it’s in . . .” She hesitated. “The bedroom.”
“There are four bedrooms,” Meador snarled. “Think hard and don’t get cute.”
Carmela stared down the long dark hallway, then lifted her right shoulder. “That one.”
Meador nudged her in the back again. “Go.”
Carmela walked stiffly into the ghost bride bedroom. “I think we hung it on the back wall . . .”
The words weren’t out of her mouth when she plunged directly into the dark room with its cotillion of hanging ghost brides. Dodging left, she set an entire row in motion; zigzagging right, she ran low, feeling the stiff, frayed dresses brush against her.
“Hey!” screamed Meador, suddenly tangled by the furor she’d stirred up. As if life had been breathed into their bodies, the entire room of ghost brides swayed frantically, their dresses a whisper of rustles and sighs.
“Get back here!” Meador screamed at the top of his lungs.
But Carmela was running for her life! Dashing from the ghost bride bedroom, she ducked into the connecting closet, emerging in the Exorcist bedroom.
Frantic now, Meador ran back out into the hallway, listened for a few moments, then cautiously stepped into the Witches’ Lair.
That was all Carmela needed. She tiptoed stealthily toward the back stairs, praying for a clean getaway.
The second step down tripped her up. A loud squeak rent the stillness, and then Jack Meador was pounding after her in the darkness!
A zombie on the lower steps went flying, hanging bats banged her in the head, and spiderwebs were filmy barriers that Carmela virtually flew through.
And still Jack Meador was hot on her trail!
Tripping on the last step, crashing painfully to her knees, Carmela scrambled to pull herself up, losing a few more of her ropes and grabbing a nearby brass candlestick in the process.
“I see you!” bellowed Meador. One hand reached out and pawed at the back of her blouse, but Carmela lunged around a corner into the Morgue of Madness. She skittered slightly, dancing around the metal table, then shoved it at Meador. Because there was no place else to run to, Carmela flung open the door and ran full-tilt into the crematorium.
Meador, hampered momentarily by the heavy table, came crashing in ten seconds later.
Carmela was ready for him. With the heavy candlestick poised high above her head, she brought it down hard on top of Meador’s head. There was an ugly crunch, followed by a high-pitched scream, as it glanced off the back of his neck. Meador swore as he staggered, sank to his knees, then went facedown on the floor.
Without hesitating, Carmela lunged for the huge metal switch on the wall and pulled it down hard. Then she was slaloming out the door, slamming it closed behind her.
Inside the crematorium, the newly installed special effects jumped to life in a spectacularly frightening manner. Heat lamps glowed with full intensity, flames leaped and danced on the walls, and a motor roared like a jet engine.
And Jack Meador, stunned by the blow to his head, threw his hands over his face and screamed as though the flesh on his body were being scorched by the hellish flames of eternity.
Chapter 31
RUNNING for her life, Carmela stumbled into the front parlor, crying, hiccupping, screaming for help. A glance to the left revealed the terrifying snake-ringed face of Medusa over the fireplace. A step to the right and Carmela was suddenly flinging herself against the front door.
The door stuck for a moment, as though someone were on the other side, holding on, and then it crashed open and Carmela rushed into a pair of waiting arms.
Struggling to get free, flailing wildly, Carmela didn’t realize just who had hold of her.
“Easy, easy,” came Edgar Babcock’s soothing words. “You’re safe.”
Carmela stopped her struggling and stared, wide-eyed, at Babcock. “How did you know where I was?”
“You left me a voice mail, remember?”
To Carmela that voice mail seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Jack Meador killed Melody,” Carmela blurted, her words beginning to tumble out. She was aware of two police cruisers screaming up to the curb and officers running toward them. “And then he tried to kill me. There’s some sort of . . . of painting . . . a really valuable painting that he was trying to get his hands on. Melody must not have known it was valuable, because Meador killed her or robbed her or . . . or . . . whatever.” Carmela suddenly went limp in Babcock’s arms.
“Inside,” was Babcock’s taut instruction to the uniformed officers.
“He’s got a gun!” Carmela cried after them. “Meador’s armed!”
“So are we,” said Babcock, suddenly leaving her on the doorstep and dashing in after the officers.
“Wait a minute!” said Carmela, lunging after him. But Babcock’s long strides had already put him twenty paces ahead of her.
Carmela finally caught up in the Morgue of Madness, where the five of them were clustered around the crematorium door, mumbling in low voices.
Babcock finally noticed her. He didn’t look happy. “Why is it so hot in there?” he demanded. “Is it a real crematorium?”
Carmela shook her head. “It’s all smoke and mirrors. Heat lamps and projections.”
One officer gazed at Babcock and said, “Guy was screaming his head off like he was being tortured. Then we heard a loud gasp.”
“Just seemed to give up the ghost,” said another officer.
“Ghost,” said Carmela. “Hah.”
They all listened for a few moments and finally heard a low groan from inside.
“Throw the gun out,” barked Babcock. “Or would you rather we toss in a nice stun grenade and let you spend the night together?”
“I’ll throw it out,” came the subdued voice of Jack Meador.
Out on the front verandah, handcuffed and in custody, Jack Meador seemed to regain some of his feistiness.
“I understand Ms. Mayfeldt showed up at your gallery with the Ivern painting?” Babcock was questioning Meador while Carmela clutched the painting she’d hastily retrieved.
Meador stared at them.
“And you knew exactly what it was,” said Babcock.
Meador had a crazy gl
eam in his eye. “Yes, but she didn’t,” he barked. Glaring at Carmela, he curled his lip and said, “I want a lawyer.”
“Easily done,” said Babcock, as the officers led Meador away. He reached a hand out. “Let me see that thing.”
Carmela handed him the painting she’d just pulled off the wall in the library.
He tilted it to catch the light. “Oh man,” groaned Babcock.
“It’s not that bad,” said Carmela, a note of reproach in her voice.
But Babcock wasn’t looking at the painting. His eyes were focused on the street, where Ava Gruiex and Jekyl Hardy had just pulled up in Jekyl’s Jaguar. “Just what we don’t need.”
“Cher!” screamed Ava, tottering up the walk, coming full-tilt on three-inch stilettos. “I was so scared! Are you okay?”
“I am now,” said Carmela, allowing herself to be kissed, hugged, and generally fawned over by both Ava and Jekyl. Then, of course, she had to relate her story, kidnapping, and ensuing rescue in Technicolor-type prose.
Jekyl carried the painting inside Medusa Manor, where he could study it under semidecent lighting.
“This is a phenomenal piece,” he pronounced. “Emilio Ivern was a student of Goya. This painting is probably worth a fortune!”
“I’m beginning to understand that,” said Carmela.
“Where did Melody get this painting?” asked Babcock.
“I’m pretty sure she bought it at auction,” Carmela told them.
“Finders keepers,” said Jekyl.
“Is that so?” asked Ava. “So who owns it now?”
“If Melody paid for it, Melody owns it,” said Babcock. “Or at least her estate does.”
“Then Garth owns it,” said Carmela.
“And he has no idea of its value?” asked Ava.
“I doubt he even knows it exists,” said Carmela.
“Lucky guy,” said Jekyl.
“Is he?” asked Carmela. “Is he really?”
Ava found it necessary to hug Carmela a few more times. Then she said, “So . . . there was no . . . what would you call it? . . . collusion between Olivia Wainwright and Sawyer Barnes?”
“Only a possible real estate deal,” said Babcock.
