Bayou Nights

by Julie Mulhern

  The driver stopped short when he saw the corpse on her carpet. He scratched his ample belly. “Didn’t I…?”

  “His twin brother,” she snapped.

  The driver shrugged then, with Drake’s help, he transferred the corpse from her carpet to the board. The two of them carried it down the hallway.

  “Detective Kenton, the body is in the wagon,” said Christine.

  He left off making calf’s eyes at Molly.

  “What? Oh. Sorry.” The policeman lumbered to his feet.

  “Molly ought to rest some more. Would you see her home?”

  “My pleasure.”

  Of course it was. Away from the store, he could stare at Molly like some lovesick fool and Christine wouldn’t interrupt him.

  Kenton helped Molly up from the chaise with the utmost gentleness.

  The girl leaned into his bulk, her fingers clutching his sleeve. She looked around the shop then said, “I can’t possibly leave Miss Lambert with this mess.”

  The girl didn’t mean a word of it but it was nice of her to at least pretend.

  “Don’t be silly, Molly,” Christine insisted. “Go on home. Rest.”

  “But—”

  “She’s right, Molly. You fainted. You should lie down.”

  Molly looked up at Kenton with adoring eyes.

  Christine swallowed a sigh. She’d be training another assistant within six months. If she was a betting woman, she’d lay odds on it.

  With Molly on his arm, Kenton unlocked the front door.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Molly.”

  The girl answered with a feeble nod. “Thank you, Miss Lambert.”

  The police detective led her into the street. Christine locked the door behind them. They’d left her with a mind-boggling mess and a damn Yankee.

  Christine’s hand rose to the delicate chain that circled her neck and the coin hanging from it. She’d taken to touching it of late, a talisman hidden beneath the cotton and lace of her shirtwaist. What did a zombie want with a bit of Spanish silver? Her father hadn’t told her why the coin was important, only to guard it.

  Where was he?

  Christine bent and picked up another silk rose, this one splattered with Holy Water. Ruined. Damn it all, what was she to do? She couldn’t search for her father alone. The places where she might gather information weren’t suitable for a lady.

  But…Mattias Drake? Why couldn’t Zeke have sent someone avuncular—a short, ugly man with a paunch and thinning hair?

  She put the rose on the counter then picked up a hat with a now crumpled brim.

  “I locked the back door.”

  Christine turned and looked at the non-avuncular man. “Thank you.”

  “Whe—”

  “Detective Kenton took Molly home.”

  “Wh—”

  “I’m not telling you. I don’t trust you. We’ve been over this.” Christine smoothed the hat’s brim.

  “Then—”

  “I know. If I don’t tell you, you’re leaving.”

  His brow wrinkled. “Sto—”

  “Stop reading your mind? I’m not.” She wasn’t. Knowing what people were going to say before they said it could be useful. It allowed her to fetch pink velvet ribbon or blue ostrich feathers before a customer asked. It wasn’t mind reading. More like intuition, reading subtle signals, a lucky guess that was seldom wrong.

  According to her father, her little talent was incredibly annoying, even off-putting. She usually hid her ability. Actually, that wasn’t true. She always hid her ability. She never interrupted people before they finished their sentences. Not until today. Not until Mattias Drake walked into her shop. He discombobulated her.

  She scowled at him.

  He scowled back. “Why don’t you save us both some time and tell me what I’m going to say next?”

  Should she lift her nose or turn her back? Decisions, decisions. She tilted her nose toward the ceiling. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m sure you do.” He considered her with narrowed eyes.

  Lands!

  He considered her and her little talent a puzzle. She could tell.

  “There’s no mystery. I’m a good guesser.” The words spilled out too quickly, her tone too high. Mr. Mattias I-cannot-tell-a-lie Drake would hear the falsehood in her voice. She turned away and picked up another hat from the floor, this one made of black satin and velvet.

  “When did you last hear from your father?”

  She paused, smoothed a bit of luxurious ribbon, then breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to help her. What had changed his mind? She glanced at the hard lines of his face, almost got caught by the intensity of his blue eyes. Puzzles fascinated him and she’d offered two—first the zombie then her ability. It would be far better to send him away but—damn it—she needed him. “A week ago.”

  “Did he give you any indication something was wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Was he always with you? At the shop or your home?”

  “No.” Maybe in Boston ghosts stayed in one place or with one person, but this was New Orleans, where ghosts did exactly as they pleased. None more so than Warwick Lambert. He’d always done exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, consequences be damned. A little detail like death couldn’t change that.

  “Ghosts are usually tethered.” So began the argument.

  She held up a hand to halt the slew of well-reasoned words she sensed were poised to flow toward her. “Not my father.”

  The tanned skin around Mattias Drake’s eyes crinkled when he scowled. It crinkled now. “What are your theories?”

  It was suddenly much easier to look at the black hat in her hands than his eyes. “I think my father was kidnapped.”

  She stole a glance from beneath the cover of her lashes. Drake’s mouth opened then closed. Twice.

  “You know what I’m going to say?” he asked.

  She did. She also knew she was right. “It sounds impossible”—her words tripped over each other in their eagerness to appear on her lips—”but, I’m sure someone is holding him against his will. If a boko can imprison a soul in a bottle, why can’t someone capture a ghost?”

  He didn’t reply.

  She’d stumped him, offered up another puzzle. If the man was motivated to solve puzzles, she needed to present as many as possible.

  “Where would you start looking?” he asked.

  “Bony LeMoyne.” A chill trickled from her scalp to her neck to her spine.

  “Where?”

  “Who,” she corrected. “He has a shop off Rampart Street.”

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Christine crossed the blessedly corpse-free carpet and peered through the glass. A tiny black woman—one who looked older than dirt—waited on the stoop, her head wrapped in a purple and green tignon, her expression as sour as curdled milk. She didn’t look like someone who wanted to buy a hat with an eight-inch brim covered in ostrich feathers. Not that it mattered. The shop was closed. Christine pointed to the Fermé sign in the window.

  The woman shook her head.

  Christine cracked the door. “I’m sorry, we’re closed.”

  “I ain’t here to buy a hat. Trula Boudreaux Barnes sent me.”

  She had? That changed things. Christine opened the door wide. “Please come in.”

  The woman shuffled inside then looked Christine up and down.

  Lace ribbons hung untied from her sleeves, the bows casualties of her bout with the zombie. Strands of her hair had escaped her chignon. Her skirts were wrinkled. She wasn’t at her best. “I’m Christine Lambert.”

  “Granny Amzie.” The woman’s creped chin bobbed a greeting.

  Christine’s heart skipped a beat, or two, or five. Trula had sent a Voodoo witch to help find Warwick? “Welcome, ma’am.” At least her voice didn’t skip.

  The old woman’s gaze took in the silk roses on the floor, the hats waiting to be picked up, the score marks on the glas
s counter, and the scowling man with too-blue eyes who leaned against the jamb of the door leading to the back hall. Then she patted her tignon. “Looks as if you had a speck of trouble.”

  “We did,” Christine admitted.

  “More’s comin’.”

  She’d need more Holy Water. When her father had told her to keep a pitcher handy, she’d never dreamed she’d actually use it. Now, being without it seemed dangerous.

  Granny Amzie claimed a seat on the fainting couch then waited, as if she expected Christine to serve her tea or make formal introductions.

  Christine complied, donning a social smile perfected in the parlors of St. Charles Street before her life went to hell. “Granny Amzie, this is Mr. Mattias Drake, an associate of Zeke Barnes. Mr. Drake, this is Granny Amzie. She and Trula are close.”

  Granny’s wise eyes narrowed. “Pleased to know you, Mr. Drake.” Then she worked her lips as if she was dying of thirst.

  Southern hospitality, both the boon and bane of a southern woman’s existence, demanded she offer refreshment. “May I offer you tea or lemonade?” Christine asked.

  Drake crossed his arms over his chest. “You didn’t offer me a drink.”

  The muscles in her jaw tightened. “I haven’t had time. May I get you something, Mr. Drake?”

  “No.”

  “Lemonade,” said Granny. “If it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. If you’ll excuse me.” Christine slipped past Drake and went to the small kitchen. She poured lemonade into two crystal glasses, garnished them with fresh mint, and put them on a silver tray that had belonged to her maternal great-grandmother. The adrenaline that carried her through the fight with the zombie and its aftermath had dissipated, leaving her limbs as heavy as cypress beams. A tray with two glasses seemed more than she could carry. Christine snorted. Bemoaning the weight of a tray walked dangerously close to self-pity. She picked the damn thing up and carried it to the front room.

  Granny took a glass. Christine claimed the other.

  “That looks so good, I’ve changed my mind. May I have some?”

  Mattias Drake didn’t want lemonade any more than he wanted another zombie to burst through the front door. What he wanted was to bedevil her. It wouldn’t work. She offered up her sweetest smile then held out the crystal tumbler. “Take it. I haven’t touched it.”

  “I couldn’t.” His lips, the upper one which was entirely too full for a man, twitched.

  “I insist.”

  “No, no. Just point me to the kitchen.”

  As if a southern woman would let a guest serve himself. The man wasn’t bedeviling her, he was the devil.

  “Enough of that,” Granny’s voice cut through their little game. “The girl offered you her lemonade. You take it.”

  Looking only slightly cowed, Drake accepted the glass.

  “You think I come all the way to the city to listen to the two of you spat?”

  Spat? Hardly. Their exchange was about Mattias Drake seeking to establish a pecking order with him at the top. “My apologies, Granny Amzie. You said Trula sent you.”

  The old woman took a sip of lemonade then nodded. “She sent me a letter said your daddy was missin’.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ain’t no easy thing to catch a ghost.”

  Drake snorted softly and Granny focused her sharp gaze on him. “You don’t catch ghosts. You send ’em to the other side. That’s different.”

  He sent ghosts to the other side? Christine shifted her gaze to the man sipping her lemonade.

  He acknowledged Granny’s point with a half-nod and a lift of his lemonade glass.

  “Question is—” Granny scratched her temple near the edge of her tignon “—why would anyone go to all that trouble?”

  Another why. Why did the zombie come to her shop? Why did someone kidnap her father? And there were bigger whys. Why did Warwick Lambert need to gamble? Why had he risked and lost his family’s future on a hand of cards? Why did she find a rough-cut Yankee with no sense of style and cocksure confidence handsome?

  “I reckon you know the answer,” said Granny.

  “Pardon?”

  “I reckon you know why your daddy got himself kidnapped. I reckon you know what caused this here trouble.” Granny’s gaze encompassed the upended hats, the ruined glass counter, and the water-stained silk roses on the carpet.

  “I don’t.” Christine’s hand rose to her throat.

  “What you got hanging round your neck?”

  Was she so easy to read? Christine dropped her hand. “Nothing.”

  “Let me take a look at nothing.” Granny patted the empty spot next to her on the chaise.

  Antagonize a Voodoo witch or show her a bit of old silver? The choice was easy. Christine sat and unbuttoned the top button of her shirtwaist.

  …

  Christine Lambert unbuttoning her shirt was the single most erotic thing Mattias Drake had ever seen. It shouldn’t have been. He saw nothing but the smooth column of her neck. Yet, with each button parted, his mouth grew drier. He took a long, slow sip of lemonade and forced his eyes closed.

  “I reckoned as much,” said Granny Amzie.

  Mattias opened his eyes.

  The old woman leaned forward and peered at a chain circling Christine’s delicate neck. One of her gnarled hands reached out and picked up a charm hanging from its end. “You, child, are in a heap of trouble.”

  He straightened. It took an old woman to get answers? “What is it?” His voice sounded dry, bone dry, crumbling bone dry.

  “It’s a piece of eight,” said Christine.

  One bit of pirate silver shouldn’t cause a heap of trouble. “And?”

  “I don’t know. My father gave it to me.”

  “Where did he get it?” Mattias asked.

  “In a card game.” Christine’s voice was flat, devoid of all expression. Why then did he think she disapproved of cards? Why did he think she was withholding information?

  Christine gently freed the coin from Granny’s fingers, tucked the bit of silver inside her shirtwaist, and buttoned a pearl button.

  What was so special about that coin? “May I see it?”

  She unbuttoned the button she’d just closed.

  He abandoned his post by the doorway, drew a calming breath, then approached. A typical piece of eight shined against the satin of her skin. Typical silver, typical skin. Well, maybe a bit brighter than he was used to seeing. Both the silver and the skin. He swallowed another gulp of lemonade.

  “How long you had it?” Granny asked.

  “Ten days.” Christine’s voice was a mere whisper.

  “You said your father has been dead for years.”

  She looked up at him. “He has.”

  “Then how?”

  “Ghosts gamble for secrets. He won the location to this coin then took me to fetch it.”

  “Where?” asked Granny.

  “The corner of Bourbon and St. Philip Streets.”

  The old woman crossed herself.

  He was missing something. Something important. “What’s there?”

  Granny Amzie took Christine’s hands in her own then stared into the milliner’s singular eyes. “You need more help than I can give you. You got to tell him.”

  The pale pink of Christine’s cheeks faded to parchment and she shook her head.

  “You got to,” said Granny. At least the old woman had some sense. He couldn’t help Christine if he didn’t know what he was up against.

  “What’s there?” he repeated.

  “It’s such an unassuming little place,” said Christine. “I peeked through the window. There’s a double-sided fireplace and old beams.” She looked up at him, her amber eyes wide. “The roof sags.”

  What was so mysterious about an old building? She was still keeping secrets.

  “You went alone?” asked Granny.

  “My father went with me. He showed me the loose brick.”

  “What did he t
ell you ‘bout that there coin?” Granny loosed Christine’s hands and reached for the silver again.

  “He told me to guard it.”

  Granny snorted.

  Enough. He’d had enough of their secrets. Either they told him exactly what was going on or he’d walk out the front door. “Explain.” Drake demanded.

  Granny looked up at him with eyes yellowed by age. “This here coin”—she let the bit of silver drop against Christine’s skin—“belonged to Jean Lafitte. She done fetched it from his blacksmith shop. Legend has it, the holder of this coin and its brothers is the only one who can find the treasure.”

  “Its brothers?” asked Christine

  “What treasure?” he asked. Scenes from Stevenson’s Treasure Island danced a jig in his head.

  “Jean Lafitte’s treasure. Ain’t you ever heard of New Orleans’ pirate?”

  He hadn’t. “You just said he was a blacksmith.”

  Granny Amzie snorted then shook her head. “The man was a pirate.”

  “He had his own island,” said Christine. “Barataria.”

  Mattias put the now empty glass of lemonade on the counter and crossed his arms. “Is that why the zombie came in here? Attacked you?”

  “Zombie?” Granny Amzie’s brows rose to the edge of the odd turban she had wrapped around her head.

  “Zombie,” he confirmed. “Christine doused it with Holy Water then carved a cross on its forehead with a silver hatpin.”

  “Christine done stole the zombie’s soul back for him. The boko ain’t gonna like it.” The old woman shook her head as if making a boko angry was a terrible problem. Maybe it was. They could add it to their list. “How did you know to do that, girl?”

  “My father told me about the Holy Water. The cross just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “I knew it.” Granny shifted back and forth as if the fainting couch was a rocking chair. “You got a bit of shimmer to you.”

  “Shimmer?” Christine asked.

  “Shimmer. You know what people is gonna say before they say it.”

  Drake snorted. Let her deny reading his mind now.

  “Sometimes,” Christine allowed, then she tilted her head toward the older woman. “But, it varies. I haven’t the slightest idea what you’ll say next.”

  “There’s more to shimmer than just knowin’ what someone’s fixin’ to say. You see ghosts and spirits and sense…other things.”