Keepsake Crimes (26 page)

Carmela shivered. She’d never been here alone before. And as familiar as she was with the many cemeteries tucked in and around the city of New Orleans, she’d never seen one this empty. So utterly devoid of any human lifeforms. Then again, she’d never visited a cemetery on Fat Tuesday before.

Well, she decided, as she made her way down one of the lanes, she’d snap her photos and get out. Luckily, the rain
seemed
to be letting up a touch. So she just might get a good shot of the wall ovens. Which were . . .

Carmela stopped in her tracks and gazed around. She’d entered Saint Cyril’s from the Prieur Street entrance, so the wall ovens had to be . . . where?

Her eyes skimmed the tops of tombs, trying to determine just exactly where the wall ovens were located.

Carmela hooked a left and threaded her way through Saint Cyril’s. This was one of New Orleans’s oldest cemeteries, and many of the tombs clearly betrayed their age. Stone faces of angels and saints that had been lovingly carved more than a century ago had been melted by the ravages of time. Many tombstones were badly cracked and chipped and tilted at awkward angles. As Carmela skipped by one row of tombstones, they appeared to gape at her like broken teeth.

Her nerves may have been slightly frayed, but her sense of direction was intact. Carmela spotted the wall ovens from forty feet away.

Good
, she breathed.
I’ll take a couple quick shots and get out of here. It’s way too creepy without anyone around.

Stopping at a large, flat tomb, Carmela set her purse down and pulled the camera out. She turned it on and checked the battery. The green glow told her everything was a go.

Putting the camera up to her eye, Carmela framed the shot.

Keeping the camera to her eye, she moved a few steps toward the wall ovens, thinking how nice it was to finally be working with an auto-focus camera. So much easier.

She paused, rather liking the composition of her shot. The viewfinder told her she’d be able to capture three of the wall ovens head-on. It was a good shot. Told a complete story.

Holding her breath, Carmela was about to click the shutter when she heard a faint crunch of gravel.

She clicked the shot anyway, then whirled about quickly.

Nothing. Nothing but white, bleached-out tombs.
Am I hearing things? Probably. Gotta stop being so jumpy.

She put the camera to her face, deliberately hesitated, then fired off three more shots.

Something
felt
different.

Like
what?

Like the
air
had been disturbed.

Carmela was suddenly conscious of her heart beating a little quicker, the hair on the back of her neck suddenly beginning to rise.

You’re crazy; there’s nothing here
, she told herself.

Carmela fired off five more shots, then got the hell out of there. Walked briskly to the Roman Street entrance instead of going back to the Prieur Street entrance.
Better to walk around the outside wall of the cemetery,
she decided,
even if it is the long way. There are people out here. Living people.

T
HE feeling that she was being followed stayed with her all the way back to her shop.

You’re being paranoid,
Carmela told herself.
Nobody’s dogging your footsteps; nobody’s brandishing an umbrella with a poison tip. Stop running old James Bond movies in your head!

But even lecturing herself sternly didn’t stop Carmela from glancing in shop windows to see what shimmering reflection might be hovering behind her. And once she even stopped dead in her tracks and turned around to scour the crowd. But all she saw was a marauding band of pirates, a couple people in goofy-looking bird costumes, and a person in a red-and-yellow clown suit.

Hardly,
she told herself.

The phone was ringing as she pushed her way into Memory Mine. Leaning across the counter, Carmela swiped the phone off the hook. “Hello,” she answered breathlessly.

“I thought you weren’t gonna be there.” It was Ava.

“If you didn’t think I was going to be here, why did you call?” A fair question, Carmela decided.

“Don’t know,” said Ava. “Force of habit?” They
did
tend to call each other a lot.

“You finish all your masks?” asked Carmela. She knew there were at least a dozen different masked balls tonight and that Ava had been hustling her buns to get a couple last-minute orders finished.

Ava sighed. “Just barely. I’m still putting the finishing touches on one. Gold paint with lots of red and purple feathers. Very exotic and hot looking. Think Rio and conga lines. Then I’m gonna zip down to Canal Street and catch the Rex parade.”

“Isn’t Rex already rolling?” Carmela asked. She knew Rex usually hit downtown right around noon. That’s when all hell broke loose.

“I was just listening to the radio, and the announcer said they’re way backed up,” said Ava. “Not all the Zulu floats have gone through yet.” Zulu was the parade
before
Rex.

“So what else is new,” said Carmela.
Will Rhonda Lee be able to make it to my shop at all? Maybe I should call Rhonda Lee at home, just to double-check. . . .

“Oops, gotta go,” chirped Ava. “Customers.”

“Talk to you,” said Carmela. She hung up the phone and stood there, gazing about her empty store.
Okay, what’s next on the agenda? Oh yeah. Download the photos.

It took her but a minute to pop the card out of her camera and insert it into her computer. Then she was clicking her way through the roster of photos that, up until now, had been stored on the camera.

The first shots, of course, were the photos Gabby took the night she and Stuart went to the Pluvius den.

The night of the Pluvius
parade
, Carmela reminded herself. The night Jimmy Earl Clayton ingested his fateful dose of ketamine.

Gabby had taken the usual jumble of shots. Close-ups of Stuart talking with various people. A couple of Stuart hanging off a mermaid float. One with him cuddling up to the oversized mermaid. Gabby certainly was enamored of old Stuart, thought Carmela. Then decided her sour grapes attitude wasn’t particularly cordial. Just because
her
marriage didn’t work out all that well . . .

There were other shots, too. Shots that showed frantic volunteers putting finishing touches on a Poseidon float and a seahorse float. A couple that showed Jekyl Hardy looking like he was ready to tear his hair out. One close-up of a large silver papier-mâché octopus that had obviously just lost a tentacle.
Probably that’s why Jekyl was tearing his hair out,
Carmela decided.

There was even a shot of Jimmy Earl Clayton. Standing with two other men, raising their glasses in a boisterous toast.

Interesting,
thought Carmela.

The next few shots weren’t so interesting. Wide shots. Mostly just photos that recorded the frantic last-minute activity in the den.

Carmela scanned them quickly, was about to delete the ones that weren’t particularly good, when something caught her eye.

Carmela studied it.

Gabby had caught Dace Wilcox in profile. He looked like he was talking to a couple of the float builders.

Carmela flipped through a few more shots.

Carmela clicked to the next shot.

Doing what? Carmela hit a couple buttons to enlarge the photo.
Nope, that doesn’t work. I need to enlarge just the lower right portion of the photo.

She made a few adjustments on her computer. There, now she had it.

She stared at the photo, frowning.

Ruby was holding a drink out to Jimmy Earl’s daughter, Shelby.

Carmela forwarded to the next shot. In this photo Jimmy Earl had grabbed the glass and was waggling a finger at his daughter!

Carmela stared at the screen.
What was going on here?
She wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling it might be bad
juju,
as Ava would say. Really bad.

Feeling discombobulated, Carmela stood up, stretched her arms overhead, blew out a couple deep breaths.

A jittery feeling had suddenly insinuated itself in her body. Nerves, a little hit of adrenaline, whatever you wanted to call it, had definitely gotten her going.

Carmela sat down in front of her computer again. She thought for a couple seconds, then pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk, started pawing through papers.

It was here before
, she told herself. At least she
thought
she’d put it there.

She shuffled through the stamp catalogs again, a few old invoices that had been marked paid, flyers for scrapbooking classes that had come and gone.

Ah, there it was. The list of names for the Pluvius queen luncheon that Alyse Eskew had been so hot to trot over.

Carmela scanned the list, blinked a couple times, set it aside. She rubbed the top of her head in an unconscious gesture, as if trying to stimulate her brain cells.

Carmela shook her head.
No, it’s just a list. Nothing more.

But the odd feeling persisted, and a germ of an idea was definitely rattling around in her brain.

Carmela picked up the list, studied it again.
Think,
she prodded herself.
What’s off about it?

She bit her lip, thinking.
Whose?

And in that same leap of consciousness, Carmela thought,
So what? Shelby Clayton dropped out of the running for Pluvius queen after Jimmy Earl died.

Carmela slumped back in her chair, then immediately straightened back up again.

“Oh my God,” breathed Carmela. There was a sudden pounding in her ears as it dawned on her what might have taken place.

Jimmy Earl hadn’t been killed over a business deal at all! Jimmy Earl had been sacrificed so his daughter would drop out . . .

Carmela paced nervously about her store, thinking.

Okay, try this on for size
, she told herself.
What if poor Shelby Clayton had been the intended target all along? And Jimmy Earl, her father, had simply gotten in the way?

Carmela reeled at the idea. Strode back into her office, dropped into her chair.

Deep in her heart, Carmela knew it was possible. That it could happen. In Texas, not that long ago, a woman had taken out a contract on a sixteen-year-old girl just so her own daughter would be insured a slot on the cheer-leading squad!

The bell over the door sounded.

Carmela looked up from her computer, her expression one of consummate grief and commiseration.

Carmela was stunned to see a red and yellow clown costume materialize before her eyes.

“Hello, Carmela.” The flint-edged voice of Ruby Dumaine rang out in the stillness of the deserted shop.

Carmela’s eyes turned to saucers; she tasted bile in the back of her throat.
Ruby. Oh no!

Ruby Dumaine reached up and pulled a curly purple wig off her head. She flashed Carmela a supremely confident smile above the pistol she had pointed directly at her. Curiously, Ruby balanced the pistol in her hand with a confident, relaxed manner. It made Carmela think Ruby had done this before. That Ruby might be an old pro with a pistol.

Careful,
a warning bell sounded in Carmela’s head.
Don’t want to mess with an old pro.

“Ruby!” said Carmela, fighting to keep the panic from her voice. “What a surprise.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’re all that surprised to see me here,” said Ruby Dumaine. Her voice was smooth and dangerous. She edged into Carmela’s office carefully, and her eyes darted toward Carmela’s computer monitor.

“Well, isn’t that sweet,” Ruby Dumaine purred as she stared at the screen. “A lovely little photo show. Planning to immortalize me in one of your silly little scrapbooks?”

“Just reviewing a few shots,” said Carmela, trying to stay cool.
Now what?
she wondered.
Got any great ideas? Noooo, not really.

“Yes, let’s run through those shots,” said Ruby. “Let’s see what that dim-witted assistant of yours really captured.”

“You broke into Gabby’s house,” said Carmela, staring at her. Ruby Dumaine had slathered white greasepaint on her face and outlined her lips with coral lipstick. Not only did she look like a clown, she looked like a parody of an older woman who was hooked on using way too much makeup. The Tammy Fay syndrome.