by Eva Pohler
“It will be at least a year before we see any kind of return on the condos on Chartres,” Tanya said. “If we move forward on Lalaurie Mansion, we could be strapped financially for who knows how long.”
“Why don’t we call Lionel and arrange for a viewing,” Sue said. “We don’t have to decide today.”
Tanya agreed, so Ellen took out her phone and dialed the realtor.
“Only serious buyers are allowed viewings,” Lionel said. “Are you ladies curious or serious?”
“Serious,” Ellen said.
“Alrighty, then. I’ll see what I can do and call you back.”
From Coop’s Place, Ellen drove her friends out of the French Quarter to the other side of town to shop for cabinets, countertops, tile, and other materials Michael had requested after they’d approved his plans that morning. Ellen loved looking at the slabs of marble and granite at the warehouse Michael had recommended. She’d convinced Tanya and Sue that they should choose the countertops first and build their design from there. They agreed that the two condos should not be identical but should complement one another, so they chose granite for one and marble for the other, both with a creamy base from which they would pull their paint colors.
Tanya found tile for the backsplash that had Ellen jumping up and down. It couldn’t be more perfect for the condo with the granite. Together, they found a similar tile that worked perfectly with the marble. They recorded the product details to send to Michael later.
With granite and marble samples in hand, they then headed to a paint store and spent nearly an hour holding the paint cards against the stone. This was such an exciting part of the process for Ellen, and soon she’d forgotten all about the ghost of Delphine Lalaurie.
Next, they went to Lowe’s and Home Depot to shop for appliances, sinks, faucets, and fixtures. From there, they visited antique shops. Sue found a chandelier that resembled the historical one in the Chartres house living room. Tanya found some incredible light fixtures. Ellen found corbels that they believed matched those on the fireplace mantel. The three friends couldn’t be more excited about their finds.
They’d just returned to their favorite bakery in the French Quarter to pick up sandwiches and cupcakes to take home to the guesthouse when Lionel Hurd called, saying he’d arranged for a viewing of Lalaurie mansion that evening.
Armed with their gris-gris bags hanging from their necks, Ellen, Sue, and Tanya waited for Lionel Hurd on the sidewalk in front of Lalaurie Mansion at eight thirty in the evening. Dusk had fallen, and the streets were busy with tour groups. One of the groups had stopped across the street as their guide talked about “Mad Madame Delphine Lalaurie,” who had tortured her slaves behind closed doors for years until a fire in 1834 exposed her to the world.
“I want to say something,” Ellen said to her friends.
“It won’t do any good,” Sue said. “You’ll just cause a scene.”
Two more tour groups walked by with guides telling the same story about “Mad Madame Delphine Lalaurie,” the sadist who tortured her slaves. It made Ellen angry that Dr. Lalaurie was not mentioned and that Delphine had been forced to take the blame. Ellen was appalled by how exaggerated the tales had become—not seven slaves, but dozens, with their limbs resewn on at odd angles, like a crab, with sex change operations, with their intestines tied around their waists, with their skin peeled in a spiral. No wonder Delphine’s ghost hadn’t found peace. What a torment it must be for her to listen to the lies spread about her for nearly two hundred years.
Delphine had been wrong not to expose the doctor. She’d been wrong to chain Rachel to the stove. And she’d been wrong to keep the devil child from Marie Laveau. But how long must she be forced to pay for her sins?
Lionel’s arrival brought Ellen from her reverie. She was surprised, as they walked through the beautifully updated and renovated mansion, by how similar it was in structure to their house on Chartres—except the courtyard was indoors. Ellen was convinced that this property must have been the inspiration for the Mikaelson mansion in The Originals.
“We wouldn’t need to do a thing to it,” Sue said, “aside from creating a photo gallery telling Delphine’s story.”
Lionel glanced back at Sue, his interest piqued, but he said nothing as he continued the tour.
“We could hang prints of key pages from both her diary and the doctor’s medical journals,” Ellen said.
“Maybe we could work with the historical society,” Tanya said. “They could buy it instead. We could make a proposition.”
Ellen stopped in her tracks. That was actually a good idea.
The following day, Ellen and her friends met with Nora Wetzel, the president of the Louisiana Historical Society, at a local diner. They showed her Delphine’s diary, Jeanne Blanque De Lassus’s letters, Louis’s medical journals, and some of the other books from the house on Chartres. They offered to donate everything to the historical society, along with one million dollars, if the society would agree to purchase Lalaurie mansion and transform it into a museum dedicated to the truth about what had happened behind its walls. They repeated what Michael had said, about it being the most famous haunted house in the world. It would draw people from all over.
Nora seemed excited by both their discoveries and their proposal, agreeing to present them to the board at their next meeting, in two weeks. Ellen and her friends agreed to leave Jeanne’s letters and one of Louis’s medical journals with Nora, but they kept possession of everything else, not forgetting their promise to Isabel to let her read the diary once they were finished with it.
A few days later, Ellen and her friends were on a plane headed back to San Antonio. Tanya sat between them, reading the last pages of Delphine’s diary. The subject of those last pages was Delphine’s joy at being reunited with her older daughters and her grandchildren. She lived under a different name and continued to be troubled by the rumors circulating about her, but she took strength from her family and was relatively happy. She wrote of making every effort to avoid an encounter with Marie Laveau, fearing the Voodoo queen would want her devil child. Delphine’s last entry was in January of 1858, in which she wrote that she had come down with pneumonia and would have to miss her grandson’s birthday party.
Tanya and Sue were both worried that Delphine’s ghost might have followed the diary back to San Antonio, so Ellen offered to hold onto the diary, even though she was a little afraid, too. In six weeks, they would loan it to Isabel, when they returned to New Orleans to check on Michael’s progress on the Chartres house.
In the meantime, they searched for Jamar Nunnery.
The data collected from their investigation at Audubon Park had provided no further clues regarding Jamar or his whereabouts. Their emails and phone calls to hospitals in Louisiana also proved futile. One night, alone in Nolan’s old bedroom, where Ellen went to escape her husband’s cold shoulder, Ellen got on her phone and went to Jamar’s Facebook page. On a whim, she sent a private message to the page: “Where are you, Jamar?”
Ellen was shocked when a reply came within seconds: “Who is this?”
Ellen gasped and sat up in the bed, bumping her head on the headboard.
She stared at the message for a full minute, wondering how to respond. Should she call Sue and Tanya first?
She glanced at the clock. It was after eleven. Sue would be up, but Tanya would be fast asleep.
“Hello?” came another reply through Facebook messenger.
“Hello,” Ellen wrote. “I’m a paranormal investigator. Is this Jamar?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I’ve been looking for him,” she wrote. “The ghost of his mother told me that he’s still alive.”
Ellen waited for a reply, but none came.
“Hello?” she wrote. “Please talk to me and tell me what you know.”
Ellen lay beneath the covers in Nolan’s old bed staring at her phone, praying for a reply, until she couldn’t keep her eyes open a moment longer.
“It’s got to be Jamar,” Sue said over lunch the next day. “Who else would it be?”
“But why wouldn’t he have contacted Maria and Cecilia?” Tanya pointed out. “Could he have amnesia but still know his name?”
“I guess that’s possible,” Ellen said before taking a sip of her tea. “But, surely, he would have reached out to Maria, out of curiosity, if that were the case. It’s got to be something else.”
“Maybe he feels responsible for Cornelius’s death,” Sue offered. “Maybe he was the one who discouraged them from evacuating.”
Ellen raised her brows. “That could be it—though thirteen years is a long time to hold onto that guilt.”
“We have to find out if it’s him,” Tanya said. “Let’s draft a message to him and see if he responds.”
Ellen found an old grocery list in her purse and turned it over and began putting into words what they wanted to say to Jamar—if he was the person to whom she’d been privately chatting through his profile page.
Once they agreed on a final draft, she typed the message to him:
Jamar, if this is you, please hear me out. I began this journey two months ago when I discovered one of my best friends had a spirit attached to her. Spirit attachments can be life-threatening, because they use up your life force. To save my friend, I took her to a Voodoo high priestess for help. We eventually discovered that your son, Cornelius, was attached to my friend, Tanya, because his ancestor, Voodoo queen Marie Laveau, wouldn’t let him pass to the other side and find peace until her “devil child” was consecrated to her family tomb. For the past thirteen years, your son’s spirit has been trying to find the remains of the devil child. We finally found them four weeks ago. Cornelius has found peace.
Your wife, Maria, and your daughter, Cecilia, were there to witness it at the funeral service for the devil child. When the priest prayed over the tomb and asked that the child be given a joyful resurrection, Tanya felt Cornelius pass on. We could see it happen in the way she was affected.
I don’t know why you haven’t reached out to your surviving family members, but I wish you would let us help you to reunite with them. If you check this page, you know what they’ve been doing: Cecilia recently graduated law school and works for a prestigious firm, and Maria is waiting for Cecilia to help her to rebuild your home.
Cornelius’s death was not your fault, even if you discouraged the evacuation from your home. No one could have foreseen the failure of the levees that allowed the flood waters to destroy much of New Orleans.
If there is some other reason why you have not come forward, I’m sure we can work something out. My friends and I are in the business of bringing peace to both the living and the dead. We’d like nothing more than to see you reunited with your family in peace.
If this isn’t Jamar, then please say so. It’s not fair to give an old woman false hope.
Ellen was shocked when the messenger app on her phone began showing the ellipses symbol. indicating that the person was writing a response.
“Guys, he’s writing something,” she said.
They stared at her phone, waiting and waiting. A minute, two minutes, three minutes went by before the message finally appeared on the phone.
It sounds like you already have false hope. Jamar is dead. He died in Hurricane Katrina. There’s no paranormal investigator alive who can resurrect him.
Tanya wrinkled her brow. “That last line…”
“I know,” Sue said. “I might have believed him if it weren’t for that last line.”
“You think that’s Jamar?” Ellen asked. “You think he’s lying to us?”
“Not lying, exactly. I think he’s speaking metaphorically.” Sue took the last bite of her pie.
“Should I message him again?” Ellen asked. “I’m going to ask him if he’ll meet with us to talk about Jamar.”
She wrote her message and hit “send.”
The reply soon followed: For what purpose?
Ellen wrote: closure. I need closure.
They waited for many minutes for a reply, but none came. Even after they’d finished their lunch and paid their tickets, a reply hadn’t come.
“What now?” Ellen asked.
“Let’s see who else posts to his page,” Sue said, looking at her own phone.
Tanya took hers out, too. “Wow, Maria posts nearly every day. I see a few from Cecilia.”
“What’s this blog, Voices from the Dead?” Ellen wondered. “I see regular posts from it.”
Ellen clicked on one of the links to the blog.
“It’s a poetry blog,” Sue said. “Written by Jeffrey Nicholson. Let me click on his avatar. Hmm. There’s no photo.”
“Do you think Jeffrey Nicholson is Jamar Nunnery?” Tanya asked.
“Listen to this,” Ellen said. She read one of the poems from Jeffrey’s blog:
I walk among the dead
The dead walk alongside me
Their faces, like mine,
Are twisted in agony.
The dead follow me to work
They see me on the street
They call me out by name
Every time we meet.
We are kindred souls
We know what hell’s about
Just look me in the eye
If ever you’re in doubt.
“Wow,” Tanya said. “Here’s another one.”
Tanya read:
Death doesn’t care about faith and prayer.
Death doesn’t heed a man’s good deed.
Death doesn’t find, if a person is kind,
Or mean, or in between,
Relevant.
“Ooh, I like this one,” Sue said, before reading:
My name is What-Will-Never-Be.
I live in No-Man’s Land.
I pray to One-Who-Never-Was.
I live by No-Command.
I drink from an empty glass
I eat from an empty plate
I live in an empty home
And sit by an empty grate.
“Guys,” Tanya said, her eyes filling with tears. “These poems are making me cry. Do you think Jamar wrote them?”
“I think there’s a good chance,” Sue said.
Ellen nodded. “It’s worth investigating, and I have an idea.”
Chapter Twenty-One: Leads
“You’re leaving again?” Paul asked Ellen in their bedroom, where she was packing her bags.
“We have to check on the progress of the Chartres house. The architect needs our approval for a few changes.”
“Were you going to leave without saying anything?” he asked.
She looked at him for the first time in weeks. He looked hurt. Upset. She hadn’t noticed before now.
“I didn’t think you cared.”
He mumbled, “Son of a bitch,” and walked out of the room.
Ellen sighed, wondering whether she should follow him. Lately, she’d felt like giving up, like their marriage had become a sham. Maybe it had always been a sham.
She hadn’t decided how best to respond when he returned, his face red, his eyes narrowed.
“For years, I was the primary breadwinner in this household,” he said through gritted teeth. “You used your teaching income for extras, but I paid the bills.”
“What’s your point?”
“Did I ever make you feel like your opinion didn’t count? Did I ever make a financial decision without consulting you? The answer is no, Ellen. I considered you my partner…in everything.”
“Paul…”
“But you haven’t showed me a fraction of that same respect since the oil money. You see that money as yours…not ours. And you’re moving on to better things. You’re moving on and leaving me behind, like an old rag you no longer need.”
Ellen’s eyes filled with tears, and her mouth fell open. She’d had no idea he was feeling that way. She thought he resented her, but she had no idea that he was feeling left behind. “Paul…”
“I d
on’t need your pity. But I deserve your respect. I want you to consult with me before making important financial decisions. Will you do that, Ellen?”
“Paul, I’m so sorry. Of course. Yes. I will. I promise.”
As she moved toward him, he left the room.
She didn’t follow.
Tanya’s son, Mike, and his partner, Seth, both in their mid-twenties, joined Tanya, Ellen, and Sue on a flight to New Orleans the week before Halloween. Mike and Seth had convinced them to attend the LGBT Halloween festivities that raised money for Project Lazarus, a home for men and women with AIDS. The festivities began on Thursday with a silent auction and dinner party.
Ellen was pleasantly surprised to see people there that she knew. Eduardo Mankiller from Tulsa was there with his partner, Felipe. Lionel Hurd was there with his wife, Tanisha. And Michael Rouchell was there without a date. When he asked if he could join them at their table, Ellen and Sue nearly fell out of their chairs.
They spent Friday afternoon with Michael going over the progress on the Chartres house. He’d had to alter his plans slightly, to accommodate the new stairwell, which Ellen and her friends approved. Overall, they were very pleased with how the work was coming along. The units had been divided, the drywall painted. The kitchen and dining room had been renovated into an open concept. Although the countertops had not been installed, the cabinets were in, and painted, and the floor refinished.
The library and office had been converted into the second unit’s open-concept kitchen and dining area. The marble countertop had just been put in, and workers were installing the backsplash. Ellen and her friends were elated.
