by Julie Chase
A string-bean-shaped man crouched in the grass behind a box filled with newspapers. His jeans were skinny, and his feet were bare. He poured water from a gallon jug over his hands.
“Sir?”
He twisted at the waist, squinting against the sun. “What do you need?”
I tried not to stare at his beard or tiny man bun. “I’m interested in one of your masks. A black cat.”
He made a disgusted sound. “I don’t make those anymore.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’ve made forty in seven days. I can’t look at any more cats.” He rubbed his face with wet hands. “Let me make you something else. What’s your spirit animal? Wait. Don’t tell me.” He snapped his fingers. “A sloth.”
I made a stink face. “No it’s not. I’m more like a white stallion or a powerful lioness.”
“Nah.” He tipped his head over one ear, obviously not seeing it. “Maybe a penguin.”
“All right,” I said. “That’s enough. I’m not here to commission a mask. I want to ask you about the people who bought black cat heads. I’m being stalked by a guy wearing one, and I want to find him so I can have him arrested.”
Man Bun looked everywhere but at my face. “Is this a joke?”
“No. Do you keep any records of your sales?”
He flopped into his pop-up chair and laughed. “Why would I do that? People pay cash. No returns.”
“How do you claim the income for your taxes?”
He looked around again.
“Right. Silly me.” I turned my phone on the vendor and snapped his picture. Four days had passed since Annie’s death, and I knew nothing more about her killer than I had the moment I found her body. Maybe I needed a big stalker wall, too. A place where I could see everything at one time and connect the dots.
I sucked down cold water and headed back to my car with nothing but fresh irritation and a bag of peppers for my time.
And time was marching on.
Chapter Fourteen
Furry Godmother’s quick tip for stopping on a dime: Keep one in your shoe.
Imogene and I worked in companionable silence Monday morning. She handled the customers and phone calls. I worked on llama scarves. The early morning expedition to my favorite craft store had been a bank-draining success. Luckily, the new window display drew a steady stream of walk-ins. No one was buying me out, but few people left empty-handed. Imogene put a business card in every hand she saw. If nothing else, we were planting seeds for a harvest.
Despite my best effort to be rational, I held my breath every time the phone rang. Two random misdials did not constitute a threat. In fact, if the last few days hadn’t been so strange, I’d have dismissed the calls immediately.
Imogene took another call. She smiled against the receiver and chatted several minutes before moseying across the room to me. “How’s your project coming along?”
“What do you think?” I lifted the scarf for her inspection, draping the soft underside over my forearm. “When I finish adding sequins, I’ll sew the ends and make them infinity scarves.”
“You’re going to blow Margaret Hams’s tiny mind with these. How’d you get so far so quickly?”
“Prestrung sequins.” I fished a fresh line from my supply bag. “Ta-da. I only have to arrange them and sew them down where they belong. Easy peasy.”
“For you, maybe. I’ve seen your mama donate five-hundred-dollar blouses because a button fell off.”
I blanched. “She donates things with missing pieces? That’s awful.”
“What’s awful is that she never learned to sew a button.”
I set the scarf back onto the counter, unable to drive yesterday’s strange phone calls from my mind any longer. “Have we gotten any prank calls today on the shop’s line?”
“Someone wanted size-thirteen peep toes. I guess they thought Furry Godmother was a drag queen company.” She clucked her tongue and popped a hip. “When was the last time anyone saw a furry drag queen? Those ladies are better waxed than Madame Tussauds.”
“Did anyone call and play music instead of speaking?”
She furrowed her brows. “What kind of music?”
“I don’t know. Any kind.”
She looked me over. “You’re up to something.”
“No I’m not.”
“Then you’re hiding something.”
I corrected my posture.
The phone rang, and I grabbed it without thinking. “Furry Godmother, where pets are royalty and every day is a celebration.”
“Your gown is ready,” a snooty voice reported. “We close at four.”
“Excuse me?”
A loud huff blew through the receiver. “This is Bon Cherie Cleaners. Someone dropped off a wrinkled mess yesterday and left this number. A black Givenchy gown with perfume and champagne spots on the collar. It looked like it was kept in a shoe box.”
“That’s me.”
“It’s ready.” She disconnected.
I dropped the phone onto the base. “Mom’s dry cleaner is a snot.”
Imogene laughed. “Yeah, but she’s good.”
“Are you coming to dinner at Commander’s Palace tonight? Dad bought a whole table.”
“Not me. I promised to help Veda again.”
I smiled. “Another ghost problem?”
“No. She’s looking for her next of kin. Veda’s fading and the cookie shop has to go to someone in her lineage, or all hell will break loose.”
I waited for more information. She sounded a little too literal on that last part for my comfort. “Anything I can do to help?”
She pulled her chin back and flung a palm up between us like a traffic cop. “No, thank you, Miss Lacy. You’re a nice girl, but we don’t need any of what you’ve got.” She circled the palm. “Your juju could tear up an anvil.”
“I’ve never liked that saying.” I’d heard it from her all my life. Apparently I was born under a blood moon, and my juju was doomed from the start. Convenient. “I think I’m doing pretty well for a cursed woman.”
“Do you still have your dime?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see it.” She presented an open hand.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you have it. So it must be in your shoe where it belongs. Right?”
“Yep.” Nope. I turned my wrist over for a look at my watch. “I’d better get over to Bon Cherie before the owner calls my mother and tells her I won’t pick up my dress.”
“You’d better stop at home and get that dime.”
I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. “Yes, ma’am.”
The drive to Bon Cherie wasn’t bad, and though afternoon traffic was a pain in the butt anywhere in the city, at least I was moving against traffic instead of stuck in it. I parked across the street from the cleaners and dug through my glove compartment for the claim ticket.
I waved to the members of a walking tour headed for the cemetery, then dashed inside the cleaners for my gown.
The woman behind the counter was tall and thin in the extreme. Her sleeveless white sheath adhered to her narrow body like the paper on a drinking straw. “Yes?” she asked before I’d closed the door behind me. Her green eyes bulged, probably a result of the French twist she wore as a facelift.
I handed her my ticket. “I’m here for the black Givenchy.”
She positioned frameless glasses on her nose and walked away.
A zippy number from Cabaret piped through hidden speakers. I tapped my toe along with the beat. I’d seen the musical in New York with friends and imagined myself onstage, confident and gorgeous like the six-foot models in fishnets. It had been a wild night full of firsts and lasts. I’d promised myself to go back, but somehow I imagined the trip wouldn’t be the same at thirty.
The woman returned on the click-clack of stilettos, a garment bag over one arm. She draped the bag over the counter and dragged the zipper from top to bottom, freeing the gown for my approval.
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We yelped in unison.
My floor-length gown was shredded into ragged strips. “What did you do to my dress?” I squeaked.
Her big green eyes protruded from her sunken face. “I don’t know. I did nothing. This was perfect when I arrived.” She ran her hands, unbelieving, through the jagged layers of chiffon and silk. “It’s like a tiger,” she said, making her hand into a claw and swiping.
I exhaled long and slow. “Or a cat.” This was a message. A threat. Like the calls were a threat. I fumbled to the nearest chair and sat. “I need to make a call.” I brought up the dial pad on my phone with trembling fingers.
The phone rang before I could send my call.
“Hello?” I warbled, hoping to unload the disaster on anyone who’d listen. Scarlet, Mom, Dad—I didn’t care.
“You follow me. I follow you.” The low, droning bass and eerie voice barged into my ear. “You’re not alone. Not at work. Not at home.”
I jammed my finger against the red disconnect button fifty times. A tear hit the screen. I wiped my face and the phone, then dialed Jack.
“Detective Oliver.”
“Jack?”
“Lacy?” Alarm cut through his voice. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m at Bon Cherie Cleaners. Someone clawed my gown into bits, and I’m getting phone calls with musical stalker connotations at work.” I swallowed a hard lump of panic. “This time the call came on my cell phone.” Calling the shop was one thing. That number was listed. That number was painted on the front window. My cell number was not.
“Stay inside the cleaners. Give me fifteen minutes.”
I nodded to no one and disconnected.
The woman behind the counter fixated on my dress, stroking the tattered material and mumbling, “I’m the only one here. I don’t understand.”
I forced myself onto wobbly legs and turned my camera on the dress. Another shot for my future crime board. “It’s not your fault. This was a message meant for me. Can you recover it with the bag? A detective is on his way.”
The flash of my phone’s camera startled her into motion. She lowered the bag over the ruined couture and zipped it shut. “I’m so sorry.”
“May I?” I walked to the edge of her counter. “I’d like to take a look in the back, make sure we’re alone.”
“Of course.” Her voice was soft and breathless, the hoity attitude gone. “You think someone else is here?” She clung to the front desk as I passed. “Who? Why? What kind of person ruins something so beautiful?”
I ignored her questions. She knew the answers. Someone unhinged and dangerous. Sane people didn’t sneak around destroying things. I grabbed her broom when it came into view and wielded it like a baseball bat. I poked the racks of bagged clothing and checked her stock and bathrooms. No one.
“Where does this go?” I gripped the handle to an aluminum door. “Outside?”
“Yes,” she called, still stuck to the safety of her counter.
I shoved it open and stepped into the sun, careful to keep my broom handle in the door. “Does it lock automatically when you close it?”
“No.”
I let the door close to test her word. The rear courtyard was small but delightful—and accessible from every side. A pile of crushed cigarettes gathered in a planter. I tugged the door handle and swung the barrier wide. Anyone could walk inside unseen. “You need to lock the door behind you after cigarette breaks.” I returned her broom and left my gown. “The detective will be here in a few minutes. Show him the gown and the courtyard. Tell him I went back to work.”
I wanted my shop and my Imogene. I wanted to pet Penelope and bury my thoughts in sequined llama accessories. I didn’t want to sit idly, waiting for something else to happen.
Imogene met me at the door. “What happened?”
My splotchy face must’ve given me away. I blurted the whole ugly scenario. My dress, the calls, the cat-man. I typed as much of the music’s creepy lyrics as I could remember into my phone and found several matches on YouTube.
Imogene gripped my hand in hers. “I’m going to contact Veda. Maybe we can get in touch with Annie’s ghost and get right to the bottom of all this.”
I wiggled free. “No, thank you. Jack and I will get to the bottom of this. You and Veda worry about finding her next of kin. This is going to be okay.” I repeated the last part, silently, a few times for good measure. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but if I was one, I’d want to be left alone.
I played the video results on YouTube until I found the one from my phone calls.
Jack arrived twenty minutes later with a scowl. “I asked you to stay at the cleaners.”
“Well I needed to be somewhere I felt safe.”
Imogene whistled soft and low. “I’m going to check on your turtles,” she whispered.
Jack shifted his weight, leaning one hip against the counter between us. “I took the dress as evidence. Checked the store and the rear lot. No signs of forced entry. No footprints or tire marks out back.”
“I know.” I turned my phone to him and pressed play. “Someone called here twice yesterday and played this song.”
“The one you heard today on your cell phone?”
I nodded, focusing on the dreary lyrics to a blatant obsession song.
Jack stopped the music. “You need to stay with your parents tonight.”
“No.”
He grimaced.
I crossed my arms and stared back.
He jerked his buzzing phone to his ear. “Oliver,” he barked. His clear-blue eyes pierced mine. His expression flattened. “On my way.”
He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “Let’s go,” he told me. “Miss Imogene, can you take care of things here if I borrow Lacy for a while?”
“Take as long as you need.” She waved from the register, where a group of ladies cooed over silk headscarves and beaded collars.
I jogged onto the sidewalk, attempting to keep pace with Jack. “Where are we going? Who called?”
“Henri called. We’ve got a situation in the Quarter.” He opened the passenger door of his truck and nearly tossed me inside. He appeared behind the wheel a moment later. “You’re going with me because you can’t be left alone.”
I didn’t argue. If I attracted lunatics, Jack was better prepared to handle them than Imogene or my folks.
We barreled through town, running yellow lights and weaving past indecisive drivers. His custom lights flashed behind the big silver grill on his truck. He pumped his siren to whoop and holler at every intersection. The districts blurred outside my window. My hair whipped in the thick Louisiana wind. The wide, reaching branches of ancient oaks gave way to a cluttered skyline, woven with historic buildings and punctuated by millennial high rises. My nerves balled into knots as I anticipated what we were in such a hurry to see.
A trio of New Orleans police cars blocked the street ahead. Lights from an ambulance circled outside Heart to Heart animal shelter.
Jack pulled his truck half onto the walk. “Folks heard a commotion, followed by what sounded like gunshots. Police came and found your guy Gideon unconscious.”
“Will he be okay?”
Jack climbed down from his seat without an answer.
I jumped onto the sidewalk and raced in his direction. “Was he shot? Will he live? Just tell me so I can freak out over here in private.”
“He’s not dead.” He reached for my hand and dragged me like a toddler behind him.
Henri stood in the doorway, dressed in all black again and still unshaven. He tipped his ball cap when he saw us. “Jack. Lacy.”
“What do we know?” Jack asked.
“Not much new since we spoke. Operators got a call from the victim, reporting an intruder. Someone came through the back door instead of the public entrance. A passerby called several minutes later. She reported hearing an argument but couldn’t make out the words. Lots of thumping and bumping, dogs going crazy, and a couple of loud pops. She called the police. Re
sponding officers found Gideon knocked out cold.”
EMTs pushed the door wide, shoving us out of the way. Gideon was strapped to a gurney, wearing an oxygen mask.
“Was he shot?” I asked.
“Blanks.” Henri rubbed a heavy hand through his hair and slapped the ball cap back in place. “And that isn’t the weirdest thing. I’ve got a guy two blocks down that says he saw a man dressed as a cat hopping fences. He claims the cat had a gun, so we took the guy in for more questions. No sign of the cat-man. That’s nuts, right? A guy dressed like a cat holds up an animal shelter?”
Jack gave me a look. “I want to talk with the guy who saw the cat-man. How about Gideon? Anyone spoken to him yet?”
“He hasn’t woken up, but the hospital has orders to give us a call when he’s able to answer questions.”
I followed Jack and Henri into Heart to Heart. We went straight for Gideon’s office. I stopped short. Every picture on his crime wall was missing. Who would do that? Why? Was Gideon embarrassed that we’d seen and photographed it? I took a few pictures while Jack and Henri rehashed details I’d already heard.
Forty minutes later, Jack returned me to Furry Godmother.
“I’m headed to the station. I want to talk with the guy who saw the cat-man before he’s released.” He leveled me with an icy stare. “Stay out of trouble until I can catch up with you again later. I’m serious about staying with your folks tonight.”
“Can’t,” I said. I popped the passenger door open and slid onto the sidewalk outside my shop. “I’ve got a schmancy dinner to attend in less than three hours, and I have to find a new dress.”
Chapter Fifteen
Furry Godmother supports and enforces a strict no-beignet-left-behind policy.
I spooned dinner into Penelope’s bowl. “You’re a lucky girl. You get to eat dinner in the privacy of your home and lay around all night. I’ve got to get dolled up and pretend I’m a proper lady.”
