Chapter One: Got To Get Back to Lake Charles
"I know, I know," Cayenne McKenzie Del Roi sighed into the phone. With her finger, she hooked her medium length red hair behind her ear as she sympathetically nodded. "I wish things were back the way they were, too. This job looks to be a few more months and I'll try to get back home for good. It won't be in time for Mardi Gras, but save me a piece of king cake."
The word "home" stuck in her throat. She had been back to New Orleans just twice to assess the damage after Katrina rocked the world of Southern Louisiana. Her apartment building had been condemned after Hurricane Katrina came through and pushed two old oak trees over the roof. Her office fared better in the storm, but the floods rendered it unusable for weeks.
"Mambozo, I hope you are taking care of yourself. Even voodoo can't protect you all the time," she chided the old talking chicken, suddenly missing her feathered friend intensely. She missed his jitters-inducing Cuban coffee, his folksy advice and the Santaria beads that clicked around his neck. Mostly, she missed her old life, waiting in her drafty Marais Avenue office waiting for the next job to walk through the front door.
"Chere, all is well." Mambozo consoled her. "Yolanda and Deirdre have hired me to help spread pamphlets around about their traveling cheesecake and espresso business. They are doing a brisk business with all the construction around here and so many places closed forever. It is probably best. Phillippe is in India and won't reopen the Slippery Slope at least until May, after he has swum in the Ganges and renewed himself." Mambozo stopped his gossip and turned his attention toward Cay. "How is it living in that close to the Texas border?"
"Calcasieu Parish is a really pretty part of Louisiana. But it's three hours and a lifetime away from New Orleans," she said moodily. "And I got to tell you the work is depressing."
During Hurricane Katrina, she had evacuated to Lake Charles in western Louisiana to stay with a cousin of Marcy's. Then Rita came screaming through a short time later and she had nowhere else to go. Cay stuck out the hurricane in a Red Cross shelter set up in a school, then continued to stay to help clean up the cousin's house from the wind and rising Lake Charles waters. She quickly found detective work with State Farm Insurance checking out suspicious insurance claims. Day after day, she saw people cleaning up, throwing things away, crying at the destruction, and desperately keeping depair at bay. As the income came in, she was able to rent an office/apartment from Raven LeFleur, a therapist and yoga practitioner. By day, Cayenne stealthily took pictures and wrote anonymous reports about people who were taking advantage of a bad situation. By night, she slept on a pull-out couch and had nightmares about drowning in black water.
Mambozo pulled her back from her wade into the waters of self-pity. He said gently, "The spirit will rise again here in New Orleans, even if we need to do it without some of our good friends beside us."
Tears instantly stung Cay's eyes. An image sprung to mind. It was Mr. Jonathan drinking a beer at McCloskey's, singing a chorus of "Indian Red." She was saved from totally immersing herself in a black funk by the squeaky sound of her office door opening. A woman with long black hair and a slender frame gently tiptoed into her room holding a plate in her hand. Cay's dog Roux, who had been sleeping peacefully in the corner, suddenly woke up to the smell of freshly baked cake filling the room.
"Taste this for me and see if it is okay," she whispered in a broad swampy accent and fussed a spot of room to put the cake on the desk. "It's Spiced Pecan Cake with Pecan Frosting and I'm not sure it is quite right. Now, be honest." Then she glided silently out of the room, her presence lingering like a solid piece of ground.
"Thanks, Raven." Cay yelled at the closing door. "That's another two pounds I'm putting on!"
"Are you eating again, chere? How I miss good food!" Mambozo complained.
Through a mouth full of cake, Cay teased him back. "Hey, you should come on out here with Kristina and Stan when they come to Carnival Days. From what I hear, they put on a pretty nice shindig out here in Lake Charles for Mardi Gras. And Raven is a fantastic cook."
She could hear a squawk at the other end. "Mon dieu! You live in the part of Louisiana that puts chickens like me in a pot on Mardi Gras. I have heard about the Courir de Mardi Gras. They are animals! I'll stay away from those hooded thieves on horseback."
Cay heard another knock at the door and Raven put her head in again.
"Someone named Nicolette to see you. Says you know her brother."
Cayenne held her cell phone to her chest and said quietly, "Can you show them in? Thanks, Raven. "
Raven nodded. "Come on, Roux, come with me."
The black mutt enthusiastically jumped up. He knew Raven usually had some kind of treat for him in the kitchen.
"Gotta to go, Mambozo. Business calls." Cayenne paused. "Be careful, mon coq."
"One last thing before you go. The mold has totally taken over whatever you had in the boxes in the back room. I could save the records, but those nasty items in the U-Haul boxes have got to go." Mambozo said. Then he signed off. "Au revoir, mon petit pois. Call again in a few days."
Cay's spirits sunk lower. All her mementos from Chicago and from her father and mother were in those boxes. She had tried to dry them out, but the insidious mold that was reclaiming New Orleans these days had finally won. It seemed Katrina had wiped away great swatches of her life in her powerful gales.
As she hung up the phone, the door squeaked open again. She turned to greet her guest and gasped. She found herself looking straight into a familiar pair of deep blue eyes that in another lifetime belonged to the most handsome French baker she had ever slept with. Now, the eyes belonged to a younger, slender female version who at this moment was now looking expectantly at her and clutching a powder blue jacquard cloth bag in her very white, very delicate hands.
"Mademoiselle Del Roi?" She inquired in a strongly accented voice. She extended her free hand. " I am Nicolette Aubrey. My brother JeanMarc said you could help me. Je suis desole de..." She caught herself. "I am sorry to bother you."
Cay shook the offered hand automatically, but could not find the words to speak. Her phone call with Mambozo had left her emotionally raw, and now again, her past was pushing her feelings to the edge. The smell of fresh baked cookies, the bubbly bite of a champagne, a stolen kiss in a busy bistro, the sensual slurp of wicked oysters sliding down her throat. Old memories came back with a bang.
She managed to croak out a few words. "How is your brother?"
JeanMarc had been deported back to France after a nasty encounter with his employer Phillippe, the temperamental baker and owner of the famous Slippery Slope Bakers. She had heard from Yolanda that he married his old girlfriend and was living le bon vie in Paris.
"Bien, bien. I was already living here in Lake Charles when he left. I have never even laid eyes on Pieter, his little boy. He just had his first birthday this last month."
Cay nodded, crushed.
"I need your help…" Nicolette started to explain, tugging on a silver alligator charm which hung from a woven chain around her neck, when lumbering through the door came a swarthy and muscular man with a long, dark beard and tattoos covering every visible inch of skin on his body except for his neck and face. He assumed a hovering wrestler's stance directly behind Nicolette's side and his arms bulged from under from under a too tight-white tee shirt and a worn leather vest worn over tattered khaki trousers. The man's eyes were dark and stormy, glaring out over his huge beard.
Cay's internal alarm system went into overdrive.
"Is this man bothering you? Do you need me to call the police?"
Nicolette looked confused, then looked behind her. She stared at the man and he stared back at her with a puzzled look. Then both of them burst out into laughter.
"Pardon moi, Mademoiselle Del Roi!" Nicolette wheezed out from behind her slight hand. "Please meet my fiancée Bernard. Despite his exterior of a lion, he is gentle as a lamb. It is only for the alligators that he is a threat."
They both started laughing again.
Bernard stuck out his left hand, "If you aren't afraid" Cay took it defensively, then saw the twinkle in his eyes that said her mistake was forgiven. She also noticed that he had a slice of Raven's cake in his other hand. He gestured the cake toward Cay. "Somebody has an expert hand in the bakery department in this house. I had to poke my head into the kitchen. That nice lady in there insisted I take a piece of this." He used his free hand to dive into his pocket, pulled out a card and gave it to Cay.
Cay placed the card on her desk and waved the odd couple to sit on her hideaway couch tucked into the corner of the small room. She picked up a yellow pad and got down to business. "Ms. Aubrey, you said you needed help."
"Please, call me Nicolette." Cay was again struck how much the young woman looked like JeanMarc. Nicolette reached into the jacquard bag. "I have a friend and the police say she has committed suicide."
She pulled out a shoe from her bag and handed it to Cay. The shoe was a stunning high heel, straight out of the fifties, with a spiky heel covered with cheap rhinestones and a top completely covered in cascaded red and gold beads of every size and shape. Feathery white ostrich feathers ringed the shoes opening and a snaky row of iridescent pink colored pearls form a conga line around the toe. The delicate work was astounding, yet it was playful, almost kitschy. Cay ran her hand over the heel. She could see that the beading was not finished. An original patch of the original red satin peeked through a two inch bare spot and a long white thread had been secured with a small safety pin to the fabric.
"That was Penelope's work. No one better in the Krewe at beading except for Marie Marguerite. The police found it in her apartment." Nicolette fished a piece of paper from the bag and handed it to Cay. "They found this in her car, taped to her steering wheel."
Cay opened the note. It was written in bold letters on a piece of line paper, torn in a ragged edge at the top as if in a hurry.
Cay inwardly cringed. She thought to herself, I would hope to have something a bit more original to say when I go. She composed herself and looked at Nicolette.
"C'est merde!" Nicolette said, defiantly.
Bernard smiled, then leaned over to translate. "She thinks the note is crap."
Nicolette raged. "C'est raison! Penny was une optimiste…the most positive person I know. She was beautiful. She was le choix de le Krewe of Muse," she stumbled, mixing her French with her second language of English, "our choice for the Queen of Queens pageant. I went shopping with her for sparkly things for her for her outfit two days before she showed up… morte…. drowned in the swamp. Does that sound like someone who is depressed to death? The police in this town…. They are… how you say.... " She struggled for the word "Bete!"
Cay looked at Bernard. "Stupid," he said, nodding his head.
Cay laughed. Nicolette spit, "No c'est amusante!"
Bernard explained. "The police found the note in her apartment after discovering her body in the swampland just outside of Prien Lake. They figured Penny was depressed about the aftermath of Katrina and Rita and just decided to call it quits. They closed the investigation just like that." He snapped his fingers, then shrugged his shoulders defeatedly. "It is a common story around here. Unless there's a knife sticking out of someone's chest and someone is standing over the dead body with his hand on the knife saying 'I did it', the police just write it off to the Hurricane."
Cay had to agree. Clean up, construction and psychotherapy were growth industries in the Gulf these days. Cay thought of all the patients that Raven had been seeing in the past three months.
She asked delicately, "This past year has been really stressful for everyone around here. With Rita going through so soon after Katrina, do you think it could have all been too much for Penelope and you just didn't know?"
Nicolette looked her right in the eye. "Penelope did not know the meaning of pitiful. I've never heard her even use that word. Look at that shoe. Does that look like depression to you?"
"But I don't understand why you think this shoe has anything to do with Penelope's death."
"Shoes come in a pair." Nicolette explained haltingly. "This is le deux-- the second one. She was working on a matching set for her Queen's outfit. and then she was going to use them both as throws from the float in the Krewe of Krewe parade on Mardi Gras. Her first one was finis. I saw it myself. I thought her parents would like to have the finished shoe as a memoir, so I went searching for the other one. I searched her apartment and it was nowhere! Where did it go, Miss Detective?" Nicolette asked, her voice rising with emotion."What, did she wear one shoe it into the swamp just to be dramatic? Mais non! It is… ridicule!"
Throughout the horror of the past months, Cay had seen a lot of denial and a lot of anger in a population that had lost old people, houses, jobs, and futures to the winds of two Category 4 hurricanes. She could see that Nicolette was a friend visibly overwhelmed by loss and grasping for a reason why. But Cay's years as a detective made her doubtful that a single missing shoe pointed to foul play.
As if Bernard sensed Cay's doubt, he leaned closer to Nicolette on the couch and put his arm protectively around her. She could tell he cared for her deeply. "Ms. Del Roi. There's more. Penny and Nicolette both belong to the Krewe of Muse."
"I thought that was an all-female New Orleans Krewe?"
"Yes," Bernard explained, "but since there are so many displaced New Orleanians here in Lake Charles, a chapter has started here. The New Orleans girls have given us their blessing.. I mean… given them their blessing to parade in the Krewe of Krewes parade. Penny was going to mask as the Krewe's Queen."
He paused, his voice catching on some unidentifiable emotion. Nicolette jumped in.
"It's not just Penelope, Ms. Del Roi. This morning, we found out that another member of our Krewe of Muse has gone missing." She reached over and squeezed Bernard's hand.
"My niece…Elena." Bernard said in a tight voice. "She's moved back from New Orleans since Katrina and she went to Church Point to visit family a few days ago. She didn't return the night before last when she was expected. No one knows where she is."
His voice wavered, but he continued. "The police says she'll show up, but you can tell they don't really care. They just think of her as some fast floozy from New Orleans who probably ran off with a guy she met at a zydeco club. They think she'll be slutting her way back here after her party week is over." The bitterness in his voice caused Cay to step back a bit.
His voice cracked. "She was chosen as the Krewe's next Queen. She had gone to Aunt Fanny's to pick up her headdress for the Mardi Gras ball."
"I know something is wrong. I can feel it!" Nicolette's eyes filled with tears. She anxiously rubbed her silver alligator charm, as if for reassurance or for luck. "Someone is trying to kill our Krewe, Ms. Del Roi. One at a time."
Nicolette nodded at the shoe that Cayenne still cradled in her hand. "Who ever has that other shoe has got to be the one responsible for all this. We need you to find out who it is."
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CHAPTER TWO: I'll Stand Bayou
Copyright by Aileen M. McInnis, 2006. All rights reserved. Contact the author at aileen_mcinnis@yahoo.com .
