Mardi Gras Murder_A Cajun Country Mystery

by Ellen Byron

  “’Night, chére.” She gave Bo a warm smile. “I’m impressed by your priorities. By the way, that happens to be my seafood gumbo. And you’re right. If I bothered entering it in a contest, no one would beat it.”

  Bo left through the kitchen’s back door, and Maggie set off to track down her father. She found Tug crouched in front of the family’s ancient black safe in the back parlor–turned-office. His face was a study in concentration as he turned the tumblers.

  “Dad, any chance you can go a little easy on the gumbo competition this year?” Maggie asked.

  “Tell your mother no.” Tug shoved aside a pearl tiara and other family heirlooms. “She’s got to make a King Cake for our guests, and you know how much she loves coming up with new recipes for those. So she should stop fussing about my gumbo and focus on that.” Tug gently extricated a tattered recipe housed in a plastic page protector. “Hold this.” He handed the recipe to Maggie, reached deep into the safe, and pulled out a beat-up cast iron pot. He addressed the pot fondly. “Hello, old friend.”

  Maggie, bemused, shook her head. “Some kids have to compete with siblings for attention. I had to compete with a black pot.”

  “This pot never told me it was borrowing the car to go on a church youth group retreat when it was really going to a party in New Orleans.”

  “It was a party at a church.” Tug shot his daughter a skeptical look. “Okay, a church turned into a club,” she admitted.

  “Where the only prayer was ‘Dear Lord, don’t let my parents find out where I really am.’” Tug turned his attention back to the pot. He stuck his head inside, reveling in the lingering bouquet of herbs and spices.

  “You know, Dad, you’re making Mom kind of crazy.”

  “Some men make their wives crazy all year. I save it for Mardi Gras.”

  Maggie started to rebut but stopped herself. “When you put it that way, it’s hard to argue.”

  “Now if you could just convince your mama of that.”

  * * *

  Maggie left Tug murmuring sweet nothings to his pot and made her way to the shotgun cottage she shared with her beloved Grand-mère. She found Gran’ at the living room’s antique desk, separating a small stack of documents into two piles. “Pageant applications?”

  Gran nodded. “It’s mind-boggling how few people bother to read instructions. The application clearly states contestants for Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen must be between fourteen and seventeen years of age. And yet”—she pointed at the larger stack—“thirteen, eighteen, even one hopeful twenty-four-year-old contestant. At least I’m winnowing down the pool of potential gumbo queens.” Gran’ reached for a tissue. She sneezed, coughed, and sneezed again.

  “You need water.” Maggie went into the small shotgun kitchen and retrieved a bottle from the refrigerator. She brought it to her grand-mère and then sat on the arm of the sofa. “You won’t believe this. The man found in our bayou after the flood? He didn’t drown. He was murdered.”

  Gran’ gasped and crossed herself. “That’s dreadful. Why?”

  “Nobody knows. I can’t stop thinking about him, Gran’. The man died on our land. What if he has family out there, wondering where he is? They deserve to know what happened. And the poor guy deserves better than being Pelican’s mysterious, murdered John Doe.”

  “I’m sure once Pelican PD is operating at full capacity, they’ll identify him and bring closure to his family.” Gran’ grabbed another tissue and let loose with a flurry of sneezes. “Oh dear.”

  “That’s not good. You don’t sound well.” Maggie placed a hand on her grand-mère’s forehead and frowned. “You’re warm too. I’m worried about you.”

  “It’s nothing—merely a late winter cold. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be fine.”

  Maggie hugged Gran’ and started for her bedroom. Gopher, the family’s basset hound rescue, and Jolie, the cute mutt the Crozats were fostering for a family on an extended Hawaiian sabbatical, padded along with her. Jolie’s cat companion, Brooke, preferred the comforts of the manor house, where the family was tending to both her and Jolie’s litters until they were old enough to go to new homes.

  Maggie changed into a tee shirt and pajama bottoms, then picked up the forty-five-pound Gopher, with a grunt, and placed him on the bed. His short, stubby legs made leaping onto it impossible. Jolie had no such problem. Within a minute, she was also on the bed, snuggled up next to Gopher. Maggie joined them and struggled to get comfortable in the foot of space the pups left her. Jolie recalibrated, curling up in the small of Maggie’s back while Gopher stretched his entire body the length of her legs and pressed up against them.

  Gran appeared in the doorway. “I wanted to say goodnight. By the way, I know the current housing situation with Bo has been rough on … aspects of your relationship. If you ever need me to make myself scarce…”

  “No, no, no,” Maggie said with a vehement shake of her head. She and Bo had yet to christen the shotgun with their romance because both were discomfited by the thought of displacing her grand-mère for a booty call. “Thanks anyway, Gran.”

  “Alright, chére. But the offer remains on the table.” Gran’ shook her head affectionately as she took in the picture of Maggie squeezed to the edge of the bed by her canine companions. “I do hope that handsome boyfriend of yours knows that when you tie the knot, he’ll be sharing his matrimonial bed with critters.”

  “The ‘M’ word hasn’t come up yet, Gran. I mean, not yet—scratch that, it was presumptuous. No marriage talk. We’re just dating, being in the moment, taking things a day at a time, and … I’ve run out of clichés.”

  “Well, when it does happen—and notice my commitment to the word when—my wedding gift to you will be a king-size bed.”

  Gran blew Maggie a kiss and closed the door behind her. Maggie heard a hacking cough as Gran’ set off to bed, and vowed to take her to the doctor first thing in the morning.

  * * *

  Maggie looked at her clock and yelped. “Nine AM?!” She jumped out of bed, but not before scolding the pooches still sacked out on it. “What kind of alarm clocks are you?”

  Fifteen minutes later, she was showered and ready to take Gran’ to the doctor before reporting to her job as a tour guide at Doucet, a plantation once owned by Ninette’s family and now serving as a nonprofit historical site. Gran’ wasn’t in the cottage, so Maggie walked toward the manor house. Gopher and Jolie tagged along, occasionally stopping to sniff a bush and mark their territory. Maggie stopped short when she reached the family’s gravel parking area. Tug and Ninette were helping Gran’ out of Tug’s old SUV.

  “We’re getting you straight to bed in the Rose Room so I can keep an eye on you, Charlotte,” Ninette told her mother-in-law.

  “Where were you?” Maggie asked, worried.

  “Your father heard me coughing in the early AM and insisted on taking me to the Emergency Room,” Gran’ said. “It appears I have a case of walking pneumonia.”

  Tug wagged a finger at his mother. “You’re gonna take care of yourself so it doesn’t turn into the real thing. At your—”

  Gran held up her hand. “Oh no you don’t. Anyone who utters the phrase ‘at your age’ will be subjected to an onslaught of my germs.”

  Tug and Ninette brought Gran’ to the manor house while Maggie returned to the shotgun cottage. She picked out a nightgown for her grand-mère and put together a bag of sundries, then dashed back to the others and helped her parents tuck Gran’ under a downy, deep-pink duvet cover in the Rose Room, the B and B’s loveliest lodging. “I feel like the Queen of England,” Gran’ said. “Oh, speaking of queens, I need the pile of Gumbo Queen entry forms from the desk. I can use this time to go over them.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Tug declared. “The only thing you’re going to do right now is rest.”

  “I can’t forsake my judging duties,” Gran’ protested.

  “Can and will, Mama.”

  Tug and his mother both folded their arms o
ver their chests and faced each other in a standoff. “My money’s on Gran,” Maggie whispered to Ninette.

  “Five dollars says your father takes this,” Ninette whispered back. Gran’ finally threw up her hands, and Ninette chuckled. “I win.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Thibault, if you’re going to be stubborn about this,” Gran’ said. “But a Crozat must replace me as judge. It’s a family tradition. Ninette’s going to have her hands full with guests soon, and you’ve got to represent the family in the gumbo cook-off. So…”

  Gran turned her attention to Maggie. “Magnolia, dear, I’m afraid you’ll have to take my place as a judge for the Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen contest.”

  Chapter 3

  “No,” Maggie protested. “You know how I feel about that contest.”

  “After the flood, our little town needs to celebrate Mardi Gras in the grandest way possible, and that means including the pageant,” Gran’ said. “It’s a way of reclaiming the spirit of Pelican. You’ll have to put your progressive views aside and take one for the team, chére.”

  Both of Maggie’s parents nodded in agreement. Resistance was futile and, if she was completely honest with herself, selfish. Gran’ was right. Maggie’s hometown needed her to step up. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

  “That’s our girl,” Gran’ said. “I know you’ll bring a fresh, youthful eye to the judging. Our precious spot on earth will bounce back better than ever. Like the town motto says, ‘Yes, We Peli-CAN!”

  Gran finished her pep talk with a loud sneeze, and the others discreetly backed away from her germs.

  A light rain fell as Maggie drove to Doucet in the 1964 black Ford Falcon convertible with the red ragtop roof she’d inherited from her late grandfather. On the seat next to her lay a small pile of applications from finalists for the title of Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen. The other judges had been notified she would be replacing Gran, who had recommended particular contestants for them to focus on. Maggie planned on reading their entry forms on her lunch break and dreaded the task of choosing one teen hopeful over another.

  She parked in the small employees’ lot behind the plantation’s manor house. Maggie opened her umbrella and hopped out of the car, negotiating puddles as she made her way to the staff room housed in the old overseer’s house. Once there, she struggled into the uncomfortable pink polyester, ersatz antebellum gown that served as her tour guide uniform. Ione Savreau, her close friend and boss, was already there, along with young coworker Gaynell Bourgeois, who completed the trio of work buddies. Maggie noticed Gaynell was changing out of her gown instead of into it.

  “Guess what?” Gaynell pulled off a wig designed to resemble a nineteenth-century hairstyle, releasing a cascade of her own blonde curls. “Ione said that until Mardi Gras, instead of being a guide, she wants me to set up a room where guests can watch me make costumes and masks for the Courir.” The Bourgeois family had played an important role in Pelican’s Courir de Mardi Gras for generations, channeling their innate artistic talent into the Run’s colorful costumes and masks. This year, Gaynell had the added honor of being chosen as a capitaine of the women’s Courir.

  “That’s fantastic,” Maggie said. “Yet another great idea from our beloved head honcho.”

  “Just milking the talents of my staff for some freebie entertainment,” Ione, always modest, said.

  “Okay, I’m now on a mission to come up with a talent that will get me out of this ball gown.” Maggie yanked up her dress, trying to cover more cleavage. “Nineteenth-century hoop skirt is so not my look.”

  But when she finished the last tour of the day, knowing that judging for the Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo contest awaited her at home, Maggie didn’t rush to change. She frittered around the Doucet office until Ione shooed her away. “Go,” Ione said. “Your community needs you. And I need to lock up this dang place.”

  Maggie stopped at the shotgun cottage and changed into a teal V-neck cotton tee shirt and black jeans, an outfit she deemed conventional enough for the occasion. She stopped in to see Gran’ and have the outfit approved. “Put on a skirt,” Gran’ ordered her.

  “I spent the day trapped in a sweaty, corseted ball gown. Please, oh please, let me wear pants.”

  Gran shook her head. “This is not a pants-and-jeans group. The head judge, Gerard Damboise, is your proverbial old fart. You need to wear the kind of conservative outfit he would deem appropriate attire for any representative of the Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo contest. Otherwise, he won’t respect you, which will render you useless as a judge. Go change.”

  “I really have to?”

  “Yes, you really have to.”

  Maggie groaned but did what she was told. Digging an appropriate outfit out of her wardrobe of jeans and tee shirts wasn’t easy. She settled on what she wore to funerals: a black pencil skirt and a silky dark green tee that almost passed as a blouse.

  She then ambled over to the main house’s parlor office, where she fluffed up the needlepoint pillows decorating the intricately carved walnut Victorian settees facing each other across an ornate coffee table topped with Italian gray marble. The table hosted carafes of coffee and hot water, a small wicker basket containing an array of tea bags, and a platter of Ninette’s homemade pralines, whose sugary scent permeated the air. Maggie heard cars making their way down the plantation’s drive. This was followed a few moments later by the sonorous bong of Crozat’s doorbell.

  Her fellow judges had arrived.

  * * *

  Small talk before the meeting gave Maggie time to size up the other judges. Robbie Metz, owner of several Park ’n’ Shop convenience stores in the area, had a slight build, wiry dark hair clinging to his scalp in tight curls, and the harried expression of a man in his mid-thirties who had four children under the age of five. Maureen “Mo” Heedles, an African American woman of forty to fifty, but who looked youngish, was the vivacious saleswoman of a multitier marketing skin care line called Veevay Beauty. “I’m the number-one rep in South Louisiana, and I’ve got the purple Mitsubishi Galant to prove it,” Mo declared as she shook hands with Maggie, using a sales sleight of hand to deposit product samples in Maggie’s palm. “Call me ‘the black Martha Stewart of skin care.’”

  The other two judges were a couple in the early days of their senior years, Constance and her husband, the infamous Gerard. Constance was reserved. She wore her gray hair in a meticulous bob and dressed in the kind of elegant Chanel-ish suit Maggie associated with ladies who lunched at traditional establishments like Galatoire’s in New Orleans. She was half a head taller than her husband, Gerard, who introduced himself with pride as the president of the St. Pierre Parish Historical Society. A small man with a compact build, the shape of his bald head reminded Maggie of an incandescent lightbulb. She understood why Gran’ insisted she don a different outfit; Gerard was the kind of old-fashioned dresser who wouldn’t be caught dead without a sport coat, even on Louisiana’s most humid days.

  It didn’t take long for Maggie to notice that none of the other judges seemed to like Gerard very much—including his wife. “I keep telling you, I agree with Robbie,” Constance said to her husband in an exasperated tone. “An exhibit about the orphan train would be wonderful and unique. I don’t know why you’ve suddenly turned against it.”

  “I’ve heard of the orphan train, but I don’t know anything about it, really,” Maggie said. Gerard looked none too happy she’d inserted herself into the conversation.

  “You see?” Robbie pointed out, a note of triumph in his voice. “We could educate people about an important but little-known chapter in our local history.” He addressed Maggie directly. “The orphan train ran from 1854 until the last train came in 1929. It brought orphaned or unwanted infants and children from the New York Foundling Hospital to be adopted by families and couples in South Louisiana parishes. Lots of people know about the orphan trains that ran from the East Coast to the West Coast, but hardly anyone knows about our own
Cajun orphan train. That’s how my great-greats came here,” he said with pride. “Mo, help us talk Gerard back into it. He’s bailed for no good reason.”

  “Don’t drag me into this,” Mo said, holding up a hand and shaking her head. “I’m still waiting on an exhibit about my people, who were here way before those orphans.”

  Gerard released an exaggerated sigh. “Robert, when you’re planning an exhibit, you must think of its appeal to visitors, especially in light of our need to raise funds to buy a decent home for the society and move it from its current sad location. It occurred to me, what are we going to display? The grimy undergarments of poor immigrant children? Most of them came from New York’s Lower East Side tenements.”

  “You mean they were Jewish,” Robbie said. “Like me.”

  “And Irish and Italian and Polish and—”

  “It sounds fascinating,” Maggie said, interrupting Gerard’s list of ethnicities, none of which seemed to impress him. “I’m an artist. And I lived in New York. I could help create appealing displays. I already have ideas for—”

  “It’s not happening,” Gerard snapped.

  “Don’t let him scare you,” Mo told Maggie. “When you’re the big dog, you get to bark.”

  Gerard collected himself. “I’m concerned some people may not want their past dredged up. It’s a rather inauspicious entrée into our society.”

  “Those are my ancestors you’re talking about,” Robbie said, irate.

  “For some it was a welcome fresh start,” Gerard backtracked. “Be that as it may…”

  “Constance, talk to him,” Robbie pleaded. “Get him back on board.”

  “Robbie, dear, I think it’s obvious my husband doesn’t listen to me.” Constance added a laugh to make the comment sound like a joke, but her eyes were cold and angry.

  “Let’s table any discussion of future exhibits and get to the business at hand,” Gerard said. “Finding our next Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen.”

  Two hours later, Maggie knew more than she ever wanted to about the pageant and its rules. She had objected to one in particular. “‘Applicants must be between the ages of fourteen and seventeen years old by Mardi Gras, single, have never married or cohabitated with a boyfriend, have no children, and have never given birth.’ The last one is rather judgy.”