A Masquerade of Saints (Saints Mystery Series Book 3) Page 4

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “My battery died.”

  “Hop on back here, girl. I can give you a ride. Isobel and I ain’t got no place to be until one o’clock. That’s her nap time. Ain’t no way in hell we gonna miss naptime though.”

  I told her the list of household items and furniture that I needed and she suggested we go to a hotel surplus sale run out of her friend’s storage unit.

  She took us through town and down Tulane Avenue where we parked on the street. She held Isobel on her hip and her broken baby carrier in her free arm as we made our way down the sidewalk towards a tall man standing by an open storage unit.

  He called out to Claudia as we approached. “Hello my belle, Claudia and my petite belle Isobel. We just got a nice shipment of defective queen sized mattresses. The defects are on the underside so they good as new.”

  “We are in luck,” she smiled at me. “We want to see those for sure, but listen here, Maurice. I need a new Baby Bjorn. Not that shit you sold me last time. The Baby Bel John is not the same. My baby nearly fell onto the cement from riding in that death trap.”

  He shook his head and said, “Now Ms. Claudia, you got two months use out of that. I can discount you the price of a new model, but you can’t get something new for nothing. That’s bad business.”

  Claudia pushed Isobel into my arms without saying anything and approached the man reaching her well manicured finger up over her head to wave it in his face.

  “No, you listen. My baby could have died in that piece of junk you sold me. See my friend,” she pointed at me. “I bring you good paying business, and you try to cheat me by selling me some off brand baby junk. My baby could have died and then the police would have to ask me where I got such a shoddy piece of dangerous baby killing equipment, and I would have to tell them. I got it from Maurice from the storage place down on Tulane Avenue.”

  Maurice held his hands up in the air signaling that he was giving up.

  “Calm down. I’ll see if I can find you something. You go shop with your friend. Maurice will get you something real nice.”

  Claudia switched off her attitude, flashed her blindingly white smile at him and said, “Kay.”

  We walked into the dimly lit storage unit and saw rows of mattresses and shrink-wrapped bedroom furniture.

  I continued to hold Isobel while Claudia walked the unit. She made her way swiftly through the place bending over to check each of the tables and headboards.

  “Look at this one,” she said bent over a small table with a silver pull handle on the front and a huge scratch on the top. She ran her finger up and down the scratch.

  “This is a surface scratch. You can talk him down on that scratch and fix it up easy as pie with some Old English.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Maurice was back and holding up a baby carrier.

  “It’s green?” Claudia shouted. “I have me a baby girl here.”

  “The only real baby Bjorn I got comes in green.”

  She walked over to him and inspected it. “Well the label says Bjorn this time so it is at least one step closer to legitimate. And we’ll take a queen bed, that one over there and the table over there.”

  I looked to her surprised. “Claudia, I didn’t get a chance to see everything yet.”

  “Tsk, Tsk,” she said. “You liked how the house turned out. And I decorated that with the help of Maurice here just like this. Trust me. You’re going to love it.”

  She had solved my bedroom furniture problem in mere minutes, and if I stayed too long I would agonize over every detail.

  “It can’t be worse than the futon,” I said. I turned my attention to Maurice and asked, “Do you know where I could find a piano?”

  “Yeah, yeah, got a real nice upright around here somewhere. I can have it to you in a couple of days,”

  “Great,” I said.

  Claudia chimed in, “you make sure that piano comes tuned. And can you get her a full hope chest too. White plates, silverware, service for eight if you please, and pans and dishes.”

  “I can deliver it in a couple of days,” he nodded, writing down everything she said in a notebook.

  Claudia walked around him to get a view of his notebook and made that tsk noise she was so fond of. He turned to look at her and she said, “Too much.”

  Every time she would make her noise Maurice would cross out the number he had written, write a new one, and look back at her for approval. This back and forth ended when Claudia would nod her head then they would move on to the next item. The haggling went on for several minutes, until finally she declared the prices fair.

  He passed the notebook to me and I agreed it was more than fair. I would have gladly accepted the first figure he wrote down. I started to write a check and Claudia placed her hand over mine.

  “Put the book away, sweetie. This is a cash only business. I will front you the money and you can pay me back later. I know you’re good for it, everybody knows you is rich as sin.”

  I elbowed Claudia in the ribs; she was referring to the savings Josephine and I had accumulated to move to New York. On the East Coast that money was a pittance. In the South it was a fortune.

  Claudia gave him the address, and he promised to be by in a couple of days.

  “Maurice, you must be well connected,” I said. He nodded.

  “Have you ever heard of Curly’s Yard Service? They do a lot of work in the Garden District. I am not sure if they are the sort of place you’d find in the yellow pages.”

  “Sounds familiar. I can ask around, have that information to you in a couple of days.”

  Claudia had furnished my house in the space of 20 minutes. I admired her decisiveness and confidence. Her confidence was not all for show. I knew this from her meticulous restoration of the shotgun house and from her card playing skills. I had played a game of Bourre with her once, and lost enough to know you don’t mess with Claudia.

  We made the short trip from the storage unit to Jackson Square and found a space in one of the nearby parking garages. Claudia asked me to help her put on her new genuine or at least labeled as such, Baby Bjorn. Isobel snuggled right into it and gave me a big toothless smile once she was secured.

  “That feels about a hundred times better,” Claudia said. “I can’t believe I let him sell me a crappy Baby Big Bird or whatever the hell it was.”

  Once we were out of the shade of the parking garage it was hot. Madly, wildly hot. The air was so thick each breath felt like drinking in the heat, which spread throughout your body. I felt bad for Claudia wearing the baby, but she bobbed along as if the weight was nothing.

  We walked across the street to the open park that was square. It held the famous Café’ DuMonde, the go-to place to get a beignet in New Orleans. The sweet smell from the bakery caught a breeze and headed in our direction. When we caught the scent we both closed our eyes and breathed it in.

  “What do you say we have ourselves a beignet lunch after we meet with the psychic?” Claudia suggested, and I readily agreed.

  We crossed the street and passed a line of horse drawn carriages to get to the open grassy area of the square. In the center was a bronze statue of a man riding a horse, and beyond that there was the St. Louis Cathedral, a beautiful white building with tall towers and a clock in the center. It was the centerpiece of the square. Leafy tropical plants surrounded the cathedral and brought it to life.

  Once in the park we turned left and headed to the sidewalk where the psychics liked to congregate.

  There were very few tourists out, which gave us the run of the place. As we made our way down the alley of psychics they all shouted out to us about our fortunes, but I was looking for only one soothsayer, Madame Claire Du’Ponde.

  I found her sitting in her folded aluminum chair waving a fan in front of her to keep cool. She was leaning back as if to catch what little shade there was from the fence behind her. Claudia and I approached the table, and she leaned her tiny frame forward. When sh
e noticed us she clapped her hands together.

  “Oh, I knew you were coming, Fanchon, but not so soon. How are you enduring in this heat wave, ladies?”

  She was sweating profusely, and the makeup from her cheeks was completely washed away leaving her skin exposed and red. Around her eyes a thick mix of blue eye shadow and black eyeliner was dripping and getting stuck in her deep wrinkles. She tried to wipe it away a few times, but her attempts merely spread the thick mess out further, making her look like an ancient version of Cleopatra. I thought she would look younger without all of the make-up, but she didn’t. Then again I had no idea how old she was, so maybe she looked younger than she was.

  “We’re holding up just fine,” I told her.

  “Let’s get right to it, Fanchon. There is so much to tell you.” She held her hands to her temples and continued. “The spirits tell me you will be going by the name Helene very soon.”

  She kept her hands on her temples, closed her eyes and moved her head back and forth as if she was reacting to a conversation. While she was lost in her thoughts I dug into my purse, pulled out a $20 bill and set it on the table. Her eyes opened, just a crack as she smiled and reached forward to put her hand on the money.

  “You’re a paying customer today. Normally, I would not allow one of my neighbors to pay me, but as we all know you is rich as sin, so I will take it.” She tucked the bill into her bra and closed her eyes again.

  Claudia poked me in the ribs and said, “I told you everybody knows.”

  Madame Du’Ponde opened her eyes, reached forward and grabbed my hand. I could feel the bones of her fingers through her hot, wet skin. The amount of perspiration on her skin worried me, and I asked her if she was okay. She shushed me and waved off my concerns.

  “My dear the spirits are confused for you. Some are excited that you may find your family soon. Others say trouble lies that way.”

  “What kind of trouble?” I asked.

  “They say to tell you that the Baxter’s hired man, the man found dead in the tweed suit, was not sent to find you. He was sent to silence you.”

  “As in pay me off?” I asked.

  “No,” she said shaking her head. “Silence you more permanently.”

  I looked down at the ground.

  She continued. “But the spirits say there are those in the Baxter home that seek you and would welcome you. They think it would be good for you to know them. While there will be greatness in your meeting with them, there will also be a shadow upon it. Something sinister will come of it, I’m afraid. The spirits say to wash your hands often.”

  “Wash my hands?” I said quizzically.

  “When you meet your family they say wash your hands every hour on the hour, it is the most important thing you can do to protect yourself.”

  I sighed. “That’s just it, Madame. I’m not sure if I want to meet them at all. I’m so worried about all that I’ve heard. I don’t know if I should continue the pursuit or be happy with what I have.”

  She shook her head. “It’s too late for that, child. Your meeting is already in the cards. Your destiny and that of your birth family will intersect very soon.”

  “How will I come out of it?”

  “Too early to tell, but washing your hands will help.”

  Girl time

  Claudia and I peppered her dashboard with the white powder of our beignets. We rode lazily through town. At one point Claudia was cut off and had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of her. The tires squealed as we came to an abrupt stop. Claudia rolled down her window to yell at the offending driver and was cut short when the tiny voice of baby Isobel yelled from the back seat, “Shit.”

  Claudia and I looked at each other and started laughing. We laughed so hard we held up traffic and were met with a barrage of honking horns.

  “Oh, I gotta watch my mouth, Fanchon. I need to be more like you,” she said. She looked down at the clock on her dash and said, “We need to get back for Isobel’s nap. She is so tired she’s taken to cussing.”

  I nodded in agreement, and when we arrived at my house, before I got out of the car, I said, “It was nice to spend time with you, Claudia. I needed some X chromosomes in my life.”

  “What in the Sam hill is an X chromosome?”

  “I just meant that I needed some girl time.”

  “Anytime, sugar,” she said. “In fact, what are you up to tomorrow? I’m taking Isobel to the library for story time. Why don’t you come with us? Then we can go down to the Garden District and drive around. Maybe we’ll get lucky and bump into your family.”

  We kissed on the cheek and agreed to meet in the morning.

  I walked up the stairs to the house and remembered that I hadn’t purchased any food yet. I decided to walk to the grocery store near the main road and explore my new neighborhood. I first walked in the direction of the canal and traversed a footbridge across the water. My neighborhood was mostly residential with a lot of trees and houses set close together. I found a small ballpark. I did not see any restaurants in the residential section, and I knew if I kept walking in that direction I would eventually hit the downtown circuit. I took note of the route as a good way to get to the parades. I walked back over the bridge and down my street in the opposite direction. I passed my house again and saw that the neighboring house was also a shotgun, though not nearly as nice as mine. It was a dark brick building with poorly maintained paint around the windows and shutters. The yard was brown and patchy. I squinted to look past the window to the living room, because I could swear I saw a confederate flag hanging over the fireplace. Then I heard a bark out of nowhere and was startled to see a large pit-bull inches from me, held back by a silver choke chain. The foam from his mouth hit my toe, and I backed away and walked quickly past the house. I reached the main road and saw chain pizza places, restaurants and a grocery store plaza.

  I decided to grab a large pizza from the neighborhood store. The boys were thankful for the food, but told me next time to buy at least three.

  That night I helped Wyatt move his things to the front bedroom and was excited when at long last I received a phone call from New York. It was Banyan.

  He asked me about the weather and my move and then got into the meat of the conversation. I told him about my meeting with the Hadleys, and he promised to call them the next day to try to scare an address out of them.

  "There was one other thing," I said. "I got the impression from the gardener that they weren't very nice people. Madame Du'Ponde said the same thing. She had all sorts of hocus pocus warnings for me.”

  “You’re still getting caught up with that psychic then?” he asked.

  “You know she was right about Josephine.”

  “I still think if a psychic tells you something about a crime, then she knows something about a crime.”

  "Non-believer," I said.

  "Listen, I gotta go. You steer clear of those psychics," he said. "I’ll call you if I hear anything from the Hadleys."

  "Where’re you off to?" I asked, and he simply replied, "Have a good night."

  The next morning Claudia came for me early. I had just sat down on my designated carpet square in the story time room and settled Isobel on my lap when my phone vibrated. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw a blocked number.

  I showed it to Claudia, and she nodded her head and took Isobel off of my lap. I walked out into the hallway and answered. It was Maurice.

  “Good news, girl. Your stuff is coming in today, and I found Curly’s Yard Service for you,” he said. “But not Curly. Nobody has seen Curly for a couple of days.”

  He told me Curly was based out of his sister's garage behind a house located uptown.

  “Can I get an address?” I asked. He gave it to me, and I made a note on a scrap of paper by the computers in the library.

  I went back to story time and sat by Claudia who readily placed Isobel in my lap again. I tried to listen to the story and play along with Isobel but my mind was elsew
here, wondering about Curly and if his disappearance had anything to do with me. I wished I knew how to get in contact with Remy. I wondered if he would know where Curly went. If he did, it would put my mind at ease. I didn’t realize story time was over until people around me got up and bumped Isobel and me. When I looked to my left I saw that Claudia had fallen asleep sitting up. Drool was seeping out of the corner of her mouth.

  I nudged her awake and told her about the call.

  “Let’s go to Curly’s,” she said. “I’ve had enough story time for one day.”

  We left the library and made our way north to Curly’s sister’s house. She lived in a well-maintained two story with a balcony just inside the boundary of town. She had a big garage in the back and from the driveway we could see a rusted sign on a trailer in the backyard painted with the name “Curly’s Yard Service.”

  I walked up to the house, leaving Isobel and Claudia in the car, and rang the doorbell. Curly’s sister answered the door. She was a stout woman with long dark hair who wiped her eyes when she looked up at me. She looked like she had been crying, but smiled at me anyway.

  “You must be Maurice’s friend, Fanchon” she held her hand out to me and introduced herself as Carmen. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help to you, but I have no idea where Curly is. He was supposed to come here this morning for his equipment and never showed up. He never even called. That’s just not like him.”

  She sniffed and I said, “I’m sorry, Carmen. I appreciate you agreeing to meet me. I’m not actually looking for Curly. I am looking for a family he worked for, the Baxters. Do you know them?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me and changed her tone. “Who told you Curly would know about the Baxters?”

  “Remy,” I said, and she visibly relaxed.

  “Oh, my sweet Remy. How is he?”

  “He was great when I saw him a couple of days ago. Strong for his age.”

  She smiled at me. “That’s our Remy. Look, I don't know much about Curly’s business. I have heard him talk about the Baxter people from time to time. He keeps an address book in the garage with notes and stuff. It’s in the center drawer of the desk. You might find what you are looking for in there. You go on back and give it a look.”