Page 3 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception (A Midnight House Mystery #1)

TWO

That night, the rain came down in slanted sheets, slapping against the windows like a knocking that made you glad you were inside a comfortable, though occasionally leaky, house.

It was the kind of storm that wrapped my quieter neighborhood of the Marigny in a driving hum and made you feel bad for anyone wearing open-toed shoes in the Quarter.

The streets were notorious for taking on several inches of water with every downpour and locals all knew flip flops were either a slip accident or a bacterial infection waiting to happen. Probably both.

I made Aunt Odette’s jambalaya for the guests, with the right amount of cayenne to clear your sinuses and maybe your past sins too.

I was currently entertaining a pleasant couple from France on their honeymoon, a man in his fifties who was attending the paranormal convention and had his cell phone strapped to his jeans like he was perpetually on ‘official business’, and a family of three from Houston with a teenage daughter and her best friend, who were both scheduled for a tour of Tulane University.

The girls, who were clearly texting each other under the table, looked like they wanted to ditch the parents and run loose in the Quarter.

The dad kept jovially referencing wild times he’d had in his past in New Orleans.

And the mom looked like she would give her soul to be alone with the glass of Pinot Grigio she was desperately clutching and repeatedly swallowing.

“So why New Orleans?” Pete, from Houston, asked the honeymooners. “Not sure I would consider New Orleans romantic unless you want to make love to your toilet in the morning.”

“Pete!” his wife, Jan, said, sounding as horrified as I felt. “They’re newlyweds, not you and your old college buddies.” Jan took another liberal sip of her wine.

They were staying for three more days. I was going to have to do a run to Rouse’s for more wine. Not that I blamed her, being married to Pete.

“We’re going all around the US. New York City, Nashville, now New Orleans, then Los Angeles and finally Portland. We’re staying here because of the podcast,” Ava said, looking affectionately at her new husband, Davide. “We just love Murder Maggie.”

My best friend had earned the nickname very early in her podcast career and it was likely to be attached to her for all time.

I would have been honestly forlorn to have a bummer of a nickname like that, but it didn’t bother her at all.

Fortunately, my name wasn’t really conducive to shortening or rhyming so thus far, I had remained in the clear for being saddled with a macabre moniker. Or worse, a silly one.

“Murder is not something to be taken lightly,” Delia chastised.

There it was again—shades of Aunt Odette.

“No one said it was,” Pete replied, in a jovial tone that indicated he thought Delia was a little off her rocker.

“I love Murder Maggie,” one of the teen girls said. “Harper, I think it’s so cool sometimes you jump in.”

“It’s definitely been an adventure,” I said, lightly, because honestly, I did think it was a cool job but I didn’t want to get stink eye from Delia or Arthur, who was the paranormal convention attendee. He didn’t look thrilled at the casual tone to this conversation either.

“Pete,” I said, hoping to change the subject. “I hear you have tickets to the Saints game. We sure do love our Saints around here.”

“I remember when they used to call them the Aints,” he said. “We’re from Pittsburgh originally so we’ve been lucky to root for a dynasty team.”

I can’t say I cared a whole lot about football, but it did send Arthur sputtering and the girls rolling their eyes and Davide asking American football questions. In the end, they never got back around to murder and Delia was mostly silent.

Normally, eating dinner with my guests and hearing about their various lives and sightseeing planning was one of the best parts about my new position as B&B owner, but Delia’s presence and the rain were making me tense for a reason I wasn’t entirely sure I understood.

My smile was a bit forced but I told myself I was overreacting. Just in a mood, nothing more than that.

By the time the pot was empty and the dishes were stacked in the sink, the guests had all drifted to their rooms.

All except one.

When I went downstairs just before midnight to get myself a cup of tea, Delia DuMont sat alone in the parlor, her dark clothes blending into the plush antique settee.

I stepped into the room, Teddy waddling up behind me in his pajamas—yes, I put my skunk in pajamas, don't judge me. "Delia? Is everything okay? Is your room too warm? Because I can call Ralph again, though he's getting tired of me."

"It's not the room." She glanced over her shoulder as if someone might be following her. “Will you join me for the séance?”

“Sure. But I don’t have the gift,” I warned.

She shrugged her shoulder. “I just need a seat filler.”

Well, that was both deflating and insulting.

“Invite your Murder Maggie friend too.”

“Sure.”

"I've been having dreams,” Delia said. “About tomorrow night."

"Dreams?" I sat across from her, Teddy curling at my feet like a slightly judgmental throw pillow.

I waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t.

“You know,” I said carefully, “most people come here because of the B&B’s reputation. You seem like you came in spite of it.”

“I came because of it.” Her voice was low, barely audible. The rain had started up again about ten minutes earlier. “I needed a place... thin.”

“Thin?”

She glanced up at me. Her eyes were dark, not just in color, but stormy, shrouded. “The veil. Between here and there. Some places are thinner than others. Your house is one of them.”

I gave a half-smile. “That explains the electric bill.”

Delia didn’t laugh. Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out a deck of cards. They were worn, well-loved, and bound in a purple silk cloth. Purple was definitely her color. She began to shuffle, slowly, the sound of paper on paper hypnotic.

“I shouldn’t,” she murmured, almost to herself. “But I have to know.”

“Know what?”

She laid three cards face down on the table between us. Her fingers hesitated over the middle one, then flipped it.

The Tower.

Lightning striking a crumbling stone structure. People falling. Fire.

I knew just enough about tarot to recognize it wasn’t exactly a “have a nice day” kind of card.

“I knew it,” she whispered. “It’s coming.”

I leaned forward. “What is?”

Before she could answer, the lights blinked. On, off, on.

We both looked up. In the hallway, I swore I heard a creak. Then another.

One of my guests? Probably the teen girls sneaking out to find college boys and cheap beer.

Teddy raised his head and made a sound low in his throat.

Delia gathered the cards quickly, hands shaking. “I shouldn’t have come. But I didn’t know where else to go.”

“What do you mean? You’re safe here,” I said, not entirely sure it was true.

She shook her head. “No one’s safe when the Tower falls.”

“What were you dreaming about?” I wasn’t even sure why I asked her that. It was my personal stance that dreams didn’t mean a doggone thing. They’re just brain gumbo. Everything thrown in the pot and then gets stirred up at night.

"Visions, really.”

Visions were even less believable to me than dreams. I was pretty sure they were just dreams that occurred when the sleeper was semi-lucid. Trapped halfway between awake and full sleep.

“They're usually metaphorical. Symbols, colors, feelings. But this one was different. Specific. I saw someone screaming. A woman with dark hair. And there was water everywhere, but not like flooding. Like...like crying."

That really didn’t sound specific to me.

“Do you want some tea?” I asked, because I still wanted a cup myself and I honestly didn’t know what to say to Delia.

“I would love some, thanks.”

Glancing around as I headed to the kitchen, Teddy left safely perched on Delia’s feet, I looked up the wide staircase and down the narrow hallway that led to the back door.

I could see it was locked. A glance to the left showed the front door was locked as well.

At this time of night, guests used a keycode to get in either door. There was no sign of my other guests.

When I returned, I handed the cup to Delia. She had retrieved Teddy from the floor and was petting him. She took the cup with her free hand, took a sip, and set the cup down, never pausing in her Teddy pets. He shot me a smug look.

"Delia, do you really think a séance is a good idea because?—"

She cut me off.

"No." Her voice was firm.

I was a little startled. “No what? No, you don’t think it’s a good idea?” She seemed a little all over the place and maybe it was better if she let spirits lie if she was feeling some sort of weird way.

"No, I won’t cancel it. I need to do this,” she continued. “There's something here that's been waiting forty years to be heard." She lifted her tea again. "Your aunt knew, Harper. About Francine Darrow."

My breath caught. I knew that name. It was in all the ghost tour scripts and legends of the house. The young woman who'd vanished during Mardi Gras 1984, leaving behind only a room full of gardenias and a half-finished letter.

"Francine stayed here," I said slowly. "During Mardi Gras. She was studying folklore or something. So of course my aunt knew her."

"She was studying more than folklore." Delia's green eyes were intense in the parlor's soft light. "She was part of what your aunt called the Bergeron Circle. A group of women who met here monthly to...explore the supernatural. But also to investigate things the police wouldn't touch."

Like paranormal PI’s?

"What kind of things?"

"Missing women. Unsolved murders. Powerful men who thought they were above consequences." Delia reached into her purse that was sitting next to her on the sofa and pulled out a small, worn photograph. "This was taken two days before Francine officially disappeared."

I stared at the photo. Four women stood in my parlor, arms linked, smiling at the camera.

I recognized Aunt Odette immediately. She’d always had the same sharp eyes, the same stubborn chin that ran in our family.

Next to her was a young woman with blonde hair and a mischievous grin.

A third woman, older, with kind eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. And the fourth…

"That's you," I said, looking at the young woman who was unmistakably a decades-younger version of Delia.

"Yes. My hair was obviously brown then, and my skin was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I do miss that youthful collagen.”

Finally, Delia didn’t sound like a mysterious guru but just a woman in her fifties. I made a note to appreciate my youthful collagen more tomorrow with a mud mask.

“My name was Mary Vallon then. My birth name.

" She took the photo back, handling it like something precious.

"I left New Orleans the week after this was taken.

Changed my name, started over in California.

I thought I was running toward something better, but really I was just running away from the truth. "

Teddy chittered softly, and I could swear he was trying to comfort her.

"What truth is that?"

"That Francine didn't just disappear. She was murdered. And I know who did it."

This was news to me. And presumably news to Great-aunt Odette or she would have shared that with me or my father. Right? Or maybe not. Murder wasn’t exactly something you wanted to advertise.

"I thought she just vanished without a trace. Why are you telling me this now forty years later?" As opposed to the police back in 1984.

"Because the man who killed her is coming to tomorrow's séance." She stood and drifted toward the stairs like smoke rising in reverse.

Now that was a mic drop. Dang. Had she rehearsed that speech? And if she knew who the killer was, why the heck had she invited him to my house?

I watched her go until she disappeared into the shadows at the landing.

She wouldn’t. That didn’t make any sense.

And obviously any evidence of murder came solely from her dreams or visions or the tarot and not from actual facts.

But I still made a mental note to text Maggie about digging into Francine’s disappearance.

It would make a great podcast episode and drum up business for Midnight House.

As I gathered our tea cups and returned them to the kitchen I shook my head and muttered to myself, “I’m a Bergeron, but I’m practical.”

No sooner had I spoken the words when I heard soft tapping. Not at the door. Not at the window. From somewhere inside the walls.

I paused, heart stuttering, trying to decide if I had heard anything or not. Teddy’s tail puffed up like a feather duster.

“Please tell me that wasn’t a mouse or a ghost,” I muttered.

The tapping stopped.

I made a slow lap through the first floor. Nothing was amiss and no one was around. Just as I turned to head back to the kitchen, something moved in my periphery. A shadow near the parlor staircase.

I spun.

Nothing there.

But something fluttered down the stairs—soft, white, catching the edge of the light.

I picked it up.

A playing card.

The Tower.

Behind me, the grandfather clock ticked once.

Just once.

For the first time in six months.