Page 18 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception (A Midnight House Mystery #1)

I stood there for a second, not sure what to do. There were three doors and I just decided to knock on them.

The bartender didn’t act like there was anything odd about that. I imagine she’d seen all manner of strange behavior. After I knocked on the third door I actually got a response.

"Come in," a female voice called out.

I opened the door and stepped into a small, well lit, but not harshly bright room that looked like it had been decorated sometime in the 1940s and never updated.

There was a round table in the center surrounded by four chairs, a small bar cart against one wall, and a desk that held a very modern desktop computer with dual monitors and an ergonomic chair.

Sitting at the table was a woman I'd never seen before.

She was probably in her seventies, with silver hair pulled back in an elegant bun and sharp blue eyes that seemed to take in every detail of my appearance in a single glance.

She wore a simple black dress and a single strand of pearls, but there was something about her posture that suggested money, power, and the kind of confidence that came from decades of getting exactly what she wanted.

"Ms. Bergeron," she said, gesturing to the chair across from her.

So the doorman had tipped her off with a text. It was oddly reassuring to be expected and acknowledged.

"Please, sit. I'm Lucien Marquette."

Marquette. Then it hit me. Lena Marquette was the third member of the Bergeron Circle, the woman I'd been planning to track down. Or, more accurately, have Maggie track her down. Was Lena Lucien? Or related to Lucien?

"Lena?" I asked, settling into the chair.

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Lucien is my professional name. Has been for forty years. Lena Marquette died in 1984, along with everything else from that winter."

“It seems like a lot went down that winter.”

“It did.”

When she didn’t elaborate, I slide the Tower card across the table. “Delia DuMont was murdered. She left me this.”

“So I heard.” Lena didn’t really look at the card.

I stared at her, trying to process this revelation. "Why did Delia write your name on the card? You were the fourth in the Circle, right?"

Lucien finally picked the card up. “The Tower’s a warning. Sudden upheaval. Collapse. Back in the day, the Circle used it to signal danger. Someone in the fold working against us.”

“Ginger?” It was a guess.

She smiled faintly. “She was always ambitious. Ambition can be useful. Or fatal.”

“And you think she killed Delia?”

“I think,” Lucien said, “you’re asking the wrong question.”

“What’s the right one?”

She drained her glass, set it down, and leaned in. “Would you like a drink?”

I was a bit parched, to be totally honest. This level of subterfuge and mysterious innuendo was giving me a dry mouth. “Club soda, if you have it.”

Lucien picked up her phone and typed rapidly. “I’ll have Jade bring you in one. The bar cart in here doesn’t have any club soda.”

“Oh, don’t go to any trouble.”

“No trouble. I own half of the bars in the Quarter. But I like the quiet here when I want to be alone.”

A minute later there was a knock and the bartender came in with a glass that she handed to me.

“Thank you.”

She retreated without a word.

I sipped my drink and just waited. I got the impression if I asked too many questions Lucien aka Lena would shut down on me.

“What do you think happened to Delia?” she asked me.

“I have no idea.”

“That’s a lie. You have lots of ideas.”

Lucien—I was having trouble thinking of her as Lena—pulled out a silver cigarette case and extracted a thin brown cigarette. She lit it with a matching silver lighter, taking a long drag.

I tried not to inhale. “I think it was either an accident or murder.”

"My dear girl, nothing that has happened in the past week has been an accident. Delia's death, Ginger's poisoning. It's all connected to what happened to Francine forty years ago."

"How is Ginger connected to the Circle? She wasn't mentioned in Aunt Odette's journal."

"Because Ginger wasn't part of the original Circle. She was Francine's younger sister."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I sat back in my chair, staring at Lucien in shock.

"Her sister? But her name is Ginger St. James, not Ginger Darrow." Which immediately occurred to me meant nothing. Everyone in this group seemed very hot to change their name at random.

"St. James was her married name. She kept it after her divorce because she wanted to distance herself from the Darrow family tragedy." Lucien took another drag of her cigarette. "Ginger was only sixteen when Francine disappeared."

"Then how did she know about the Circle?"

"Because Francine confided in her. Told her about the missing women, about the corruption they'd uncovered, about the threats they'd received." Lucien's voice grew darker. "And because Ginger was there the night they took Francine."

My mouth went even drier. I gripped my glass again. "She was at the house?"

"Not inside. Francine had arranged to meet her sister at the Cat’s Cradle.

It was one of the few places that wouldn’t be invaded by tourists during Mardi Gras.

When Francine didn't show up, Ginger went to Maison de Minuit to look for her.

She arrived just in time to see the police cars, to see them dragging Francine out of the house in handcuffs. "

I thought about Ginger's behavior at the séance, the way she'd seemed so hostile toward Delia, so territorial about her spiritual practices. Had that been professional jealousy, or something deeper?

"Is that why Ginger became a psychic? To try to contact Francine's spirit?"

Lucien stubbed out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray.

"Partly. But also because she needed to find out what really happened that night.

The police version never made sense. Francine was supposedly released after a few hours of questioning, then went to a Mardi Gras party where she met with foul play.

But Ginger knew her sister would never have gone to a party after being arrested.

Francine was too cautious, too frightened.

Traffic alone would have been total hell. Why bother?"

That was fair. Getting around the Quarter on Fat Tuesday was virtually impossible.

"So what did happen?"

"That's what we've been trying to piece together for forty years. But maybe she never left the house."

Lucien stood up and walked to the cart, refilling her glass with amber liquid from a crystal decanter.

“Why have I never met you?” I ask. “You never came to the B&B or were at any of Odette’s parties. You weren’t a member of the Krewe with her.”

Aunt Odette was a proud member of the Krewe of Iris, as were most of her friends.

“I left all of those relationships behind me.” Then she sat down heavily. “Or I thought I did. The past never leaves us alone, does it?”

“In my case, it’s those social media posts I made in high school. Screenshots are forever.”

I half-expected a reprimand but Lucien gave a laugh. “I don’t envy you young girls that. Odette and I kept in touch, but from a distance. Safer that way.”

“Are you in danger?” I asked. She was getting on in age.

“Don’t you worry about me. Worry about yourself. Digging up the past brings a lot of bodies to the surface. Decomposing and filled with maggots.”

Now that was a visual I could have done without.