The downpour that fell on New Orleans was both mean and lazy. Mean in that it was Cayenne's birthday and she was feeling as dark as the sky above. Lazy in that this was New Orleans. Nothing was ever done with urgency in this city. Not even a January rain.
Cayenne McKenzie Del Roi had been staring at a map of New Orleans for about 45 minutes, trying to plot out her stakeout for the weekend. The map and the metropolitan phone book were her most used tools of the trade beside the stained coffee cup in front of her. Her detective agency, Del Roi Investigators really only had one investigator. Her father had died about seven months ago and left her alone in this rainy, languid city. She hadn't yet taken off the "Father and Daughter" phrase off the sign, hoping it would inspire more customers. Her bread and butter business was trailing around bitter couples as they tried to catch each other in the oldest act of the world. New Orleans was a lucrative place for crimes of passion, so she never moved back to Chicago.
But, though it paid the rent and kept her busy, her chosen line of work added one more layer of despair onto her mood. Cay realized she was going to be spending her 29th birthday in the self proclaimed party city in the United States, sitting in a car drinking bad coffee and hoping that the husband who wasn't paying her was actually cheating on the wife who was. She absently munched on a stale beignet left over from her daily visit to Café Du Monde, rubbing powdered sugar onto her chin as she struggled against a dark weight pushing down on her shoulders.
Radio Free New Orleans played some old blues in the background. Between the throaty saxophone and the rain falling hard against the window pane, Cayenne barely heard the soft knock on the storefront door.
"Come on in," she mumbled. "The door's open." She was still staring at the worn map when she heard a rustle of expensive fabric and smelled a waft of magnolia flow over her desk. She looked up and caught her breath.
"My luck has changed, " she mumbled again, as she found herself looking at one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. She was tall, with raven black hair framing a face of pale, silky skin. A Chinese silk embroidered shawl hung over her shoulders. She languorously removed from her slim shoulders and shook out the rain. She was dressed in a red flowered dress that flowed in a frilly hemline. Her shoulders were bare despite the weather. Atop her dark hair was pinned a large hat, crowned with a large swoop of an egret feather and on her feet she wore the brightest pair of red cowboy boots Cay had ever seen east of the Mississippi.
"Nice boots," she said involuntarily, once she realized her guest had not yet said a word. "Cayenne McKenzie Del Roi, Private Investigator. What can I do for you today?"
"Miss Del Roi. My!" The woman stopped as if recognizing her. She seemed to want to say something, but Cay saw her shake it off. "My name is Mary Dan, Miss Del Roi." she slowly pulled off her glove and extended a flawless, smooth hand.
Cay shook it firmly, leaving a dusting of powdered sugar on the lady's palm. Like a true lady, Mary Dan seemed not seem to notice, but Cay felt like a bumbling Yankee in a land of magnolia blossoms.
"I'm in need of your detective services," the tall woman said.
"Please sit," Cay said, gesturing to the chair before she realized the chair held a pair of running shoes, four old copies of the New Orleans Times Picayune and an empty box from the Café Du Monde that had held her beignets and coffee. She quickly shoveled off a spot as she thought, "This one looks like she has money." Something Cay was badly in need of right now.
"I need you to find a bead," Ms. Dan said in a soft drawl.
"What kind of bead?" Cay asked back, reaching for a yellow tablet. She found one with a coffee ring neatly circling the top three items on last week's shopping list.
Ms. Dan's mouth curved noticeable upward in amusement. "A Mardi Gras bead, Ms. Del Roi. What else could it be in New Orleans at this time of year?"
"Ms. Dan, I could find you a hundred beads just by walking down Bourbon Street and lifting up my shirt."
Ms. Dan looked at her, her eyes shrewd. Cayenne felt slightly irritated, but she couldn't look away. She always felt intimidated by Southern women, who were delicate as flowers and tough as 16-penny nails. They were the true politicians in the South and this one, Cay guessed, was plotting her winning strategy.
"Do you think your father, Ms. Del Roi, would approve of your flaunting yourself like a French Quarter whore, even if is to solve a case?"
At the mention of her father, she felt her face go flush. But her mother's Irish side flared up and took over. "Ms Dan, I charge by the hour and we have already spent 15 minutes of your money without me ever getting closer to finding that bead of yours."
Ms. Dan paused, drew her gloves through her fingers once, then seem to be satisfied. She began her story by pulling a Polaroid picture out of her beaded purse and laid in in Cay's eyesite. "My krewe has been working on the best and biggest float we have ever had and this is our first year in the King Rex parade. The bead is an antique one that came from the original Captain's beads. I kept the bead in a box in my sewing table for safe keeping. Yesterday, I found it missing." Cay looked at the Polaroid and saw a shiny, slightly chipped bead that was a luminescent rainbow of pale purple, yellow and green.
She paused and chose her words carefully. "It is important to us that we get it back. It is…," she stumbled for the first time, "it is a good luck charm to us. We think it was stolen while we were working on our float. I have a name of the man I think stole it. He was hanging around the den." She opened her purse and began to search.
Cayenne had never heard such a crackpot story in her life. She stood up, shaking her head. "Miss Dan, surely I am too expensive to track down craft supplies for you. I think I'm not the person for the job. Maybe check EBay. That's where I would sell it…'
It was then she saw that Miss Dan was actually pulling out a wad of bills, hundreds, crisp and calling to her. Cay wished she could snatch the words back.
"The bead is priceless, Ms. Del Roi. A substitute from E Bay will not do," she said in a voice of steel. "Will $5000 be enough for your retainer? With another $5000 upon the safe return of the bead to our krewe?"
She laid the money on the desk. She returned to her purse and retrieved a card with a name and address on top of the money. Shawn Traceaux, 301 St Charles. Apt 3 New Orleans, Louisiana. "He is with the Phunny Phorty Phellows. They are, of course, the krewe that holds the first parade of the season on the St. Charles Street Trolley. One of our own krewe saw him leaving our den yesterday and he would have no business there."
Mary Dan paused and that silky drawl returned. "Our competition, Ms. Del Roi. The krewes tend to get competitive this time of year, and we do not want our rival krewes to use our bead in their float. The Phunny Phorty Phellows open the parade season on the St. Charles Street Trolley tomorrow. You can find Mr. Traceaux there." She paused and looked Cay straight in the eye and asked gently. "Darling, you do know that Carnival begins tomorrow ?'
Cay didn't know that. She thought the season never ended in a city like New Orleans. To be quite honest, she didn't understand most of what Mary Dan was talking about, but she wrote as fast as she could., Shawn Trace-oh. Name of crew--40 Fellows. "Of course I knew that. It's Mardi Gras all the time around here."
Mary Dan looked sharply at her. and Cay swore she shook her head slightly. "Well, Mardi Gras is actually the last week of the season. Carnival season start on January 6, but I'm sure that's what you meant."
Mary Dan looked at Cay's notes, then asked for Cay's pen. "May I?" she wrote a phone number down, then followed with the words Krewe du Couture. "This is how to get a hold of me."
Cay notice she also tactfully also wrote the right spelling of krewe, Phunny Phorty Phellows, and Traceaux's last name.
"Krewes are the organization that put on the parades in this city that the public is invited to. They also sponsored members only balls and dances not open to the public." Mary Dan said gently, watching Cay closely.
Cayenne drew up her standard contract and noticed her hand was shaking when she signed her name. Mary Dan signed her side of the contract with a flowery hand,
She paused and looked into Cay's eyes. "McKenzie Del Roi. French father, Scottish mother?"
"Chicago Irish. We lived up there all my life until my mother died and my father wanted to move back to New Orleans. He died shortly afterwards and I never left."
"Your father would have loved Carnival season, I suppose. Every native New Orleanian does." Mary Dan said wistfully.
Cay found herself suddenly flashing back to her childhood. Every year, her father would get nuts around February and try to make her wear cheap plastic beads and drink punch. She thought it was fun as a kid, but during adolescence she would hide in her room. Dad got absolutely looney. It was the family's dirty secret. Her mom likened it to St. Patrick's Day which Cay loved, but she never got the gist of Mardi Gras, even during these last years of living in New Orleans. It seemed like an overblown, overdone excuse to party, throw up, and take your clothes off. Her father would get sentimental. Cay would roll her eyes.
"Yes, he did." Cay said abruptly, standing up and extending her hand. "I'll be in touch in a few days to let you know what I find out."
As the tall woman walked out the door, Mary Dan once again turned around and fixed her eyes on Cayenne. Cayenne felt some ancient wind shiver down her back and heard the rain pound harder against the pane.
"Ms, Del Roi. … " She said in a lovely drawl, fixing dark spooky eyes on Cayenne and putting a gloved finger to her delicate chin. "It would be best if no one died." Then she slipped liquidly out the door.
The mysterious Ms. Dan was out the door and halfway down a block on Marais Street before Cayenne McKenzie Del Roi realized that Cay had never mentioned anything about her father being born in New Orleans.
CHAPTER TWO: The Phunny Phorty Phellows take a ride and we meet Rufus Thibodeaux.
