Whispers in Time

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  Frank shuddered slightly. “Lunch before or after?”

  With a forced laugh, Carol replied, “I want to go do this thing right now, Frank, and get it over with. As for lunch, food can wait.”

  “Okay. But you may want to wait quite a while.”

  Carol noted a flicker of emotion as their eyes met for a moment and she watched his darken as if a shadow passed over his face. She felt a little curl of warmth inside her. It seemed as if, by his change of expression, Frank was letting her know that she was not alone in this, that whatever she meant to do, he’d be right beside her all the way.

  “Carol?” he began as she was locking her door. “There’s something I’m curious about.”

  “Yes, Frank?” She turned and looked at him, ready to answer any question he might put to her. The expression on his face, however, gave her a moment’s pause. She had the fleeting feeling that he knew she had left the hotel and that she was keeping something from him. She steeled herself, sure he was about to ask probing questions that she really wasn’t yet ready to answer.

  But he waved it off. “No. Never mind. It’ll keep.”

  The morgue was every bit as chilling as Carol had expected. She felt as if she had stepped into one of the old black and white B movies she loved to watch. It was a sterile setting—all stainless steel and ceramic tile—but it seemed she could almost feel something lurking in the very chill of the air.

  “Are you okay?” Frank whispered when he saw a shiver run through Carol.

  “I’ll be fine,” she whispered back.

  Whispering seemed the thing to do in such a setting.

  “We’re ready, Mac.” Frank nodded grimly to the white-coated attendant.

  The man went to a steel drawer at the far end of the room. Carol noted as she followed that they had interrupted his lunch. A plastic dish of spaghetti and meatballs sat cooling on a nearby table. Her stomach churned at the the sight.

  “Here she is,” the attendant announced matter-of-factly, pulling the drawer out full-length. “And, by the way, Frank, we’re a mite cramped for space around here. How much longer before you plant this one? I hear tell the case is already closed.”

  “When I’m damn good and ready, and convinced I can’t do any more,” Frank snapped. “Then I’ll see she gets a decent burial, Mac. Not before!”

  Carol wasn’t listening to the two men. She closed her eyes for a moment, bracing herself for the ordeal. She opened them in time to see the nonchalant morgue attendant whip back the sheet. She gasped softly in spite of her determination to remain calm and in control.

  Frank gripped her arm. “Steady,” he murmured.

  “Let’s just get this over with.” Carol stepped up to the slab, her hand outstretched to touch the mummy. She looked down and another, louder gasp escaped her.

  “What’s the matter?” Frank asked, concerned.

  Carol stared at the dark, shriveled skin, stretched like old leather over the skull. As she watched, features imposed themselves over the mummified remains. The brown, weathered flesh became soft and pale. Long hair the color of a raven’s wing draped the partially-bald skull. Black, feathery lashes formed a spidery pattern on the pale-rose cheeks. An instant later, those very lashes fluttered. A moment after that, Carol found herself staring into lovely, liquid eyes of deep indigo blue.

  Soft laughter filled the cool chamber, then the mummy’s lips moved and a familiar voice asked, “Whatever are you doing here? We have business, you know, at Fiona’s.”

  Trembling as if she had palsy, Carol touched the woman’s arm. She had expected warm flesh, but felt only cold, taut leather stretched over ancient bone. Carol cried out and jerked her hand back. Tears streamed down her flushed cheeks. Her heart was pounding so rapidly, she felt as if she might faint.

  “That’s enough,” she heard Frank say. “Cover it up!”

  Suddenly, Carol found herself in Frank’s arms. She was weeping hysterically, crying, “No! No! No!” over and over again.

  “Carol, take it easy,” Frank pleaded. “Let’s get you out of this place. What’s wrong? What happened?”

  He sounded as frantic as Carol felt. It was as if she had just seen her own corpse. Her whole body ached. Suddenly she was dying of thirst. Her left leg throbbed so painfully that she couldn’t stand on it. Frank had to literally carry her from the room.

  Moments later, in a comfortable office away from the dreadful morgue, Carol came back to her senses. The pain in her leg stopped throbbing. The weakness went away. She stopped crying and stared up at Frank, who looked as pale as a corpse.

  “Carol, thank God you’re all right.” He was kneeling before her, chafing her cold hands.

  She stared down at his long, tanned fingers gripping hers and a little shiver ran through her. There was something in his touch that warmed her, calmed her. But she couldn’t think about that now. Frank was talking to her, firing questions.

  “What the hell happened to you in there?” he demanded. “I knew this wouldn’t be a tea party, but I never expected you’d go all to pieces like that. Did you have another vision?”

  “Give me a minute, Frank,” she begged, gulping deep drafts of air. “Could I have a glass of water? I’m so thirsty!”

  “Sure! Take all the time you need.” He walked across the room, filled a tumbler from the pitcher on the desk, and handed it to her. His hand lingered on hers, sending that feeling through her once again. “God, Carol, you scared the hell out of me!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said between gulps. “It’s just that I saw…” Even with her thirst quenched, the words simply refused to come.

  “What, Carol? Tell me,” he begged.

  “I know who she is… was. I’m sure of it! She spoke to me, Frank.”

  Frank stood up abruptly. Staring down at Carol, he snapped, “You’re putting me on, right? I didn’t hear a thing, ’cause dead folks don’t talk. And there’s no way anybody could actually recognize what’s left of that woman in there. Come off it, Miz Marlowe! This isn’t some kind of game we’re playing.”

  Carol didn’t blink. “I’m very serious, Frank. No games! Her name is Camille Mazaret. Her family owned a sugar plantation somewhere around here called Elysian Fields.”

  Frank’s mouth gaped. She could tell by the look on his face that he still didn’t quite believe her. Actually, Carol herself found it all pretty hard to believe and she certainly didn’t understand any of it. She just hoped Frank wouldn’t ask her to explain.

  “Her father’s name was Edouard Mazaret,” Carol added. “Check it out, Frank. His name must be in some old records somewhere.”

  The creases were easing from Frank’s face. His black eyes began to glitter with excitement. “All right! We’ll do that! We’ll check it out right now.” He grabbed Carol’s hand to pull her up from the chair, ready to be on his way instantly.

  “Hey, give me another minute to catch my breath, won’t you?”

  “Yeah… sorry!” His voice was actually shaking, he was so eager to get on with it. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me how you know all this stuff?”

  Carol shrugged and offered a weak smile. “You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Let’s just say I have an anonymous source.”

  “Good enough for me.” He gave her a lazy smile. “Hey, I’m sorry I snapped at you before. Are you feeling well enough to travel now?”

  “Sure! Let’s get going.”

  Frank took her hand and helped her up. His scowl of disbelief was gone. He looked as eager as a kid about to set out on a scavenger hunt.

  A short time later, the two of them were poring over old records in a musty courthouse storeroom. The task seemed endless and hopeless to Carol. The more they searched through the crumbling record books, straining their eyes over faded flourishes of ink from the past century, the more discouraged she became.

  “I wish I had a date,” she said at last.

  Frank glanced over and grinned. “Honey, I’ll take you on a date wherever
you want to go as soon as we find out about these Mazaret folks. I never figured you’d be able to come up with something so fast.”

  Carol couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s not what I meant and you know it! I mean a date!… 1860… 1854… 1898. I have no idea when Camille died.”

  “Well, you said you knew from this ‘anonymous source’ of yours that Elysian Fields was a sugar plantation. If that’s so, we can narrow it down. I happen to remember from studying my history books that Étienne Bore harvested the first profitable sugarcane crop in 1796. So we don’t need to look any earlier than that. And the War Between the States finished off the big plantations. That would mean we’re looking for a date pre-1860s.”

  “That’s not narrowing it down much,” Carol answered. “Oh, I just remembered something else, Frank.”

  She had his full attention. “Tell me!”

  “Camille’s father found some of Jean Lafitte’s treasure buried somewhere at Elysian Fields. So it had to be after pirate times.”

  “Let me think a minute.” Frank bowed his head, closed his eyes, and tapped at his forehead with the pencil he was holding. When he looked up again, he was grinning. “Lafitte left here shortly after the Battle of New Orleans. That was in 1815. So we can knock a few more years off our search. Edouard Mazaret really found treasure, no foolin’?”

  Carol nodded. “I’ve seen a piece of it.” She hedged, not telling him that she actually had one of the gold doubloons.

  “Really?” Frank sounded more than mildly skeptical.

  “So have you,” Carol reminded him. “Didn’t you say the mummy was wearing a gold doubloon around her neck? Cami’s father had that made into a necklace for her here in New Orleans. It was part of the treasure he found.”

  For some time, Frank remained silent, staring out the dusty window of the storeroom. Then he swung around toward Carol, his head tilted and one eye squinting. “You know, if I’m supposed to believe all this, sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me how you know so much. I mean, I am a policeman. I work with evidence, not speculation. Are you ready to divulge your anonymous source?”

  Carol pursed her lips tightly and shook her head. “Right now, Frank, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I think our best course of action at this point is to turn up a deed or something with Edouard Mazaret’s name on it or find Elysian Fields on some old map.”

  “A map, of course!” The lights were dancing again in Frank’s black eyes. “We should have gone there first thing instead of wading through all these crumbling old files.”

  “Where, Frank?”

  “The Historic New Orleans Collection.”

  “What’s that?” Carol looked up at him quizzically as she blew a dust-streaked strand of hair out of her eyes.

  “It’s a museum and research center on Royal Street. They can probably turn up names, dates, and maps in a flash.”

  “Great!” Carol cried. “Let’s go!”

  For several moments, she studied Frank as he worked at replacing files and old ledgers. There was something about that profile… the long, slightly crooked line of his nose, the high forehead, the way his mouth drew down just a bit at the corners even when he smiled. She’d seen a face like his on some other man. Recently. But who?

  Black Vic! Carol almost said the name out loud, but caught herself in time. Instead, she mentioned casually, “There’s another name we need to check out. Victoine Navar. I think he may have figured prominently in Camille’s life. If my guess is correct, they came to mean a great deal to each other.”

  He glanced toward her, unsmiling. “Your guess?”

  “You’ll have to be patient with me, Frank, and give me more time before I can be certain. Guesswork is part of what I do. I get my information in ragged pieces sometimes. It’s like fitting a jigsaw puzzle together.”

  Frank glanced at Carol and smiled, his eyes lingering on the soft curve of her lips. “Hey, I’m not complaining,” he assured her. “You haven’t been here twenty-four hours yet, and you’ve told me more already than I’ve been able to dig up in two months. You’re the boss, lady. I promise to be patient from now on.”

  His words, simple as they were, struck a chord deep in Carol’s soul. There was something so kind and vulnerable about Frank. She wondered fleetingly what his wife had been like. Surely, their marriage had been special. With a man like Frank, how could it have been otherwise? He was, as Jesse had said, “a sterling fellow.”

  “All set?” Frank asked, slamming a drawer and sending up a cloud of centuries-old dust.

  “Ready for anything!” Carol answered with a smile.

  The walk to Royal Street from the old government building where they’d been searching the records was delightful. The sun was shining and there was an early hint of spring in the air. Jamming the banquettes, the Carnival revellers—most from out-of-town—were doing their best to enjoy every minute of their visit to the old city.

  “Is New Orleans always like this?” Carol asked.

  “This time of year—yes. Actually, it’s pretty lively all the time.” Frank grinned down at her. “I love the place—tourists and all. It’s hard to explain. The French Quarter is like another country. Have you ever been to Havana?”

  Carol shook her head.

  “I was there a long time ago. I was just a kid, but I remember the noise and the color and the smell of the place—perfume and rum and bananas. Just like New Orleans. Key West runs a close second, but I guess the French Quarter reminds me most of Cuba.”

  Frank’s mention of Key West brought to mind Carol’s broken engagement and shattered the warm spell between them. She was trying so hard to forget about that unpleasantness. Most of the time, being with Frank helped. He was easy to be with. Fun to have around. Still, his mention of Key West cast a pall. Carol fell into silent thought.

  As they walked on, she glanced into the shop windows along Royal Street. The glittering displays of antiques quickly improved her mood. Suddenly she froze in total thrall before one of the shops, oblivious to the fact that Frank had hurried on.

  “Carol?” Frank called back over his shoulder when he realized she was no longer at his side.

  “Come look at this.”

  Frank stood beside her a moment later, his eyes following the direction of her gaze. “Yeah, what?” he asked. “It’s just a bunch of old jewelry—not nearly as flashy as what women wear nowadays.”

  “That necklace and the matching earrings—the tiny tiers of seed pearls in the faded red velvet box. Look at the card beside it. The set belonged to Mary Lincoln.”

  Frank said something in response; Carol had no idea what. Her thoughts were adrift in time and space. Her body was still on Royal Street, but her mind and soul were elsewhere.

  Quite suddenly she found herself in a dark theater. Hearing an excited whisper pass through the audience, she glanced around. The President’s pretty, dark-haired wife, her pearls glowing softly in the footlights, settled herself beside her tall husband in the flag-decked Presidential Box to the right of the stage.

  A hush fell over the audience once more and the play continued. But Carol’s attention was glued to the late arrivals, her eyes fixed on the dainty pearl necklace.

  In ladylike fashion, Mrs. Lincoln laughed behind her fan as Harry Hawk, playing the comic backwoodsman in “Our American Cousin,” delivered the line that Carol knew was destined to become the world’s best-remembered and most horrifying cue: “… you sockdologizing old mantrap.”

  Carol heard a shot ring out and jumped. “What was that?” she cried.

  “Just some kids shooting off firecrackers down the street.” Frank caught Carol’s shoulders and turned her to face him. “Where were you just now? I got this odd feeling, as if you were here, but you weren’t.”

  She tried to laugh it off, but Frank’s face remained solemn. He demanded an answer. Finally, she gave up trying to deceive him.

  “Bear with me, Frank. Occasionally, I have out-of-body experiences. Mary Lincoln�
�s necklace.” She pointed toward the shop window. “Seeing it just sort of transported me back in time.”

  Frank’s frown deepened. He continued gripping Carol’s arms as if he meant to keep her in the here and now.

  “You mean you actually went…?”

  She nodded solemnly, reading his thoughts before he could get the words out. “I’ve just come from Ford’s Theater in Washington where I witnessed President Lincoln’s assassination. His wife was wearing those pearls.”

  “You mean, you imagined seeing it,” Frank stated.

  Looking straight up into his eyes, Carol shook her head. “No, Frank. It was very real. I was there!”

  He still couldn’t comprehend. “You actually witnessed the whole thing?”

  “No, not all of it. I heard the shot, but the firecrackers going off at the same time snapped me out of it. Thank goodness, I didn’t have to stay this time!”

  “This time? Carol, what are you talking about?” Frank sounded frantic—almost angry—as if he was afraid she was losing her mind.

  “Take it easy, Frank,” she soothed. “I know you don’t understand. I don’t know how these things happen either. All I can tell you is that they do.”

  “Not often, I hope.”

  She answered quietly, “More often than I care to admit. Now how about getting on with normal business.”

  “Normal!” He laughed nervously, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m not sure anything about you is normal, Miz Marlowe. You better just watch yourself around these parts or people will start accusing you of being a latter-day Marie Laveau.”

  “The voodoo queen?” Carol chuckled. “No, Captain Longpre. Thank you just the same, but I want no part of the black arts.”

  The Historic New Orleans Collection was housed in two buildings, the Kemper townhouse built around 1880 and the 1792 Merieult House. The moment Frank and Carol entered, a trim, tailored woman in her late fifties came toward them, her hand outstretched.

  “Captain Longpre, I believe.” She smiled at the look of surprise on Frank’s face. “You’ve no need to be embarrassed. We haven’t met before, but I’ve seen your picture often. I’m Louise Thibodaux. How may I help you?”