The phone rang just as Cay was heading out the door into yet another foggy and cool New Orleans night. The previous evening's stakeout had been successful. Cayenne had enough sordid pictures to put the husband into a very apologetic mood and her client in a generous one. She was finishing the final paper work and thinking about going out for some rice and beans when the phone interrupted her culinary thoughts. It was Marcy, her best friend.
"Where y'at?" her girlfriend breathed into the phone. "Can I borrow Roux?" Marcy usually skipped over the amenities.
"What do you mean? Don't you already have him with you?" Cay panicked. Roux was her 25 pound mutt mix who was a beautiful shade of dark red with two rice like spots on his face. Marcy often dogsat when Cay was out on stakeout.
"No, he's fine." Cay heard the phone go muffled and heard a fuzzy drawl shouting directions at a warm being in another room. "Bark for momma, baby." She heard Roux bark at the phone and was flooded with relief.
Marcy was back on the phone and picked up right where she left off. "Cay, you got to let me have Roux for the Mystik Krewe du Barkus parade. We would be so fine together and you know you're not going to go, so let me have a little fun with him."
"Barkus? Mystik Krewe? What the hell are you talking about?" Cay never paid much attention to the intricacies of the madness called Mardi Gras, but in the last two days, she had heard more about krewes than she since she moved here. Now even her dog was getting into the spirit more than she. Her tired mood turned darker.
"It's the parade for dog owners. I met this guy with a beautiful Newfoundland, and darling, he thinks that Roux is my dog. He invited me to parade with the Mystik Krewe du Barkus." Marcy paused to take a breath and plunged on. "Come on, girlfriend. It's that Mardi Gras parade that goes through the French Quarter. You need a dog to be in it. There's a big fais do-do afterwards. You can get yourself a date and meet us afterwards."
Marcy barely took a breath.
"I got the greatest idea for an outfit for us both. The Statue of Liberty. Can't you see it? Me in a mint green toga and Roux with a spray of soup spoons spreading out from a circular crown… get it? Roux? Soup spoons?"
Cay rolled her eyes and threw up her free hand. "Okay, okay… but be sensitive and remember that Roux is a guy. Don't use anything pink or glittery, okay?"
Marcy protested. "Tie my hands, why don't you? Come on. If you can't get into Mardi Gras, at least let your dog have a little fun."
Cay was about about to object, but stopped the words in her throat. It was the least she could do for Marcy who was so good at keeping her dog with so much enthusiasm and with so very little warning. Marcy was beautiful. She didn't need Cay's runt of a dog to meet any guy.
"Sure. Listen," she said before she had to sit through Marcy's litany of how she was planning on dressing up Roux. "You can borrow him if you can keep Roux just a little longer tonight. I got to get something to eat and go see a guy about some beads. Give me a couple hours and I'll be over to get him."
"Sure, girlfriend. Roux and I will start practicing formations."
Cay rolled her eyes again as she hung up the phone. Her dog had a better social life than she did. Marcy was from an old New Orleans family who were all super nuts about Mardi Gras. Now Roux was getting caught up in the festivities and without Cay. Her mood darkened a shade more.
Her eyes fell on the Polaroid left by the mysterious woman in the red cowboy boots. She picked it up and studied it. The bead was light and faded, obviously old. It shimmered in pale colors of green, yellow and purple. Cay knew those were the three official Mardi Gras colors, representing something like truth, justice, and the American way. Cay was feeling overqualified to find a stupid bead until she remembered the stack of cash in her purse compliments of the intense Ms. Dan.
She fired up her computer and wrote "Antique Mardi Gras beads" in the browser. A homepage was devoted to antique Mardi Gras beads, so she clicked on the address, let it load, and began reading.
Over 50 million strands of beads thrown from floats during a typical parade season...over 70 New Orleans parades each year from January 6 to the actual Tuesday of Mardi Gras... dozens and dozens of krewes, some over a hundred years old, some existent only for a season. Beads seem to be the most popular "throw" or item thrown from the floats. When the tradition of throwing beads first began in early 19th Century, beads were strung with Czech glass beads. The first half of the 20th Century saw the trend toward Mercury beads from Japan. The beads were very popular, but were fragile and easily shattered. Few survived. They were considered cheap at the time, but now, those flimsy beads from Japan were collector items. The author of the web page recalled how she remembered being a kid and catching beads from floats as the floats rolled by pulled by tractors. She and her friends would smash hundreds of beads under their feet. Now she paid top dollar for beads like those. In today's parades, almost all the beads were plastic and made in China.
Cay compared the photos on the website with the Polaroid. Though the colors were different, she found a set of beads with a similar size and shimmer. She clicked over to the "Beads for Sale" page and skimmed through the list of prices. Even as "collector items," the beads were not worth the tidy sum that Mary Dan was offering.
"Time to take this Traceaux fellow for a little walk," Cay said out loud and clicked back to her search engine. She looked at the card upon which Mary Dan had written his address and noted the name of his krewe. Phunny Phorty Phellows. Somewhere, someone had too many hurricanes and forgot how to spell, she thought. She punched the name into her search engine and several citations came up including a piece from the Time-Picayune.
"The Krewe of Phunny Phorty Phellows herald the beginning of Carnival Season tonight with their traditional parade on the trolley car route down Charles Street. Parade begins at 6:30 p.m. The parade begins at the car barn on Willow Street, will head down Carrollton and St. Charles to Canal and back to the car barn. The Phunny Phorty Phellows traditionally hold the first parade on Twelfth Night and choose their boss and queen tonight with king cake and champagne."
Cay shut down her computer and calculated that she could probably catch up to Traceaux as the trolley reached Canal Street. Heck, she even had time to grab that bowl of red beans and rice she was hungry for.
Her office was not too far from where the St. Charles Street Trolley was supposed to make the turn onto Canal Street. She decided to walk to avoid the hassle of parking again and grabbed her umbrella.
She walked briskly in the cool air and found the Amore Cafe open and advertising "Real Cajun Food." It was a favorite greasy spoon of hers. She ordered a paper bowl of red beans and rice to go and scarfed it hungrily as she walked through the night, leaving a stream of steam behind her. She mindlessly dodged the traffic and tourists, as the crowd started getting thicker and drunker. She finished the beans, found a trash can, and quickened her step to find the accused thief. The rain started falling as if on cue as if waiting her to finish her hasty dinner.
Ahead, near the turn, a gaggle of cops were gathered. Despite the crowd of parade goers covered in dozens of cheap beads in the thrall of the opening of Carnival season, it seemed like far too many police for crowd control. Cay could see a stopped trolley car on busy Canal Street. A trombone and clarinet played a swing tune in the distance and people all around her were drinking champagne out of purple plastic go-cups. But the party spirit seemed subdued. Something was wrong.
She pushed past a couple people dressed as Anthony, Cleopatra and the pyramids and walked over to the growing knot of bystanders. She looked around the crowd and spotted a cop she knew. She pushed up to the yellow tape holding the crowd back and waved furiously.
"Rufus!" she waved and caught his surprised attention.
"Bay-bee!!" he smiled a big fat white smile and motioned her under the tape and over to him. "Boo, you show up in the oddest places!"
Rufus Thibodeaux was a handsome black man in his early sixties who rode with Cay's dad back when her dad was a cop and the races in New Orleans didn't mix it up easily. He was one of Cay's best contacts in the police department. Rufus genuinely liked Cay and often acted the role of her father when he thought she was taking too many risks or not acting the part of a true Southern woman. Cay found if she played the role of the dutiful daughter, Rufus was more generous with his information. So she played along.
"What's happening?" Cay asked, seeing even more crime scene tape strung up not too far away.
"Now, Cayenne. You can't be investigating this murder already? Poor bastard just died!" Rufus scolded her with a finger as big as a sausage.
"Relax, I'm looking for a bead, not a body."
"Will a baby do?" said a young detective walking up. He was in his late twenties and had that fresh scrubbed face of a Cajun new to town. He held a plastic baby between his gloved fingers. "Hey, cap. Found this near the body. Looks like it fell out of his pocket or something." He stopped short when he got a look at Cayenne.
"What is that?" she asked, intrigued and forgetting that it was not her role to investigate a homicide. She couldn't help but notice that the young officer was staring at her. Her bright red hair and pale skin often did that to men before they actually got to know her and stopped calling.
"Stupid little plastic things," Rufus muttered. "I stepped on one barefoot the other day, just about sent me to the hospital. They're all over the place this time of year. That baby is supposed to be the King Jesus. If you get it in your cake, you supposed to be king or bring the coffeecake the next day. So much for being king today."
Rufus turned to his colleague. "So we have a suspect in custody. A one inch plastic white male. What else do you got?" he snapped.
"We found a wallet. Name is Shawn Traceaux, Address 301 St. Charles Street. He took it pretty bad to the throat." The young detective reluctantly turned his attention back toward his older partner.
Cayenne felt her blood go cold. "Did you find an antique Mardi Gras bead?" she blurted.
Both Rufus and the other detective looked at her.
Rufus was the first to speak. "Now, Cayenne, darling, if you know anything, you need to let me know right away."
Cayenne was tempted to spill what she knew, but something held her back. She remembered the serious note in Mary Dan's voice when she said "It is best if no one died." But more vividly, she remembered the additional $5000 that was waiting for her if she found the bead. Cay knew from her father's stories how valuable evidence seem to disappear from the New Orleans evidence locker. Discretion got the better part of her. Besides, she reasoned with herself, what could a bead have to do with a murder?
"Just hoping that you'd make my job easy, Rufus. Was just coming by to celebrate the opening of Carnival season and saw you here." She tried to flash her most innocent smile, but Rufus was glaring at her suspiciously.
"Never knew you to be so interested in Mardi Gras nonsense. I don't know if you should be ..." Rufus was cut off.
Cayenne was saved by the arrival of yet another detective with two men in tow. The men had obviously been partying. One was dressed like the Jack of Spades and the other the Jack of Diamonds. Spades carried a trombone, Diamonds had the clarinet and both wielded an empty go-cup in their other hand. Cay could still not get used to people being allowed to drink on the street in New Orleans. In Chicago, they'd throw you in the pokey.
"These guys are from the Storyville Stompers, the band on the trolley. Says the deceased's name is Traceaux and was pretty new to the krewe. This here is John C and this one is Eric Knight. Says they partied with the stiff a couple times."
"Storyville Stompers? I love y'all!" Rufus's partner gushed. "I saw you at the Jazz and Heritage Festival last year."
The young detective turned to Cayenne. "Ever been, m'am? It's a fine chance to hear lots of music. My name is Mike, by the way. Mike Piéce..."
Rufus barked at the young detective. "Mike, take their statement and stop shining on this young lady here. And remember this is murder investigation, not a fan club meeting!" Mike looked sheepishly at Cay and shrugged his shoulders before guiding the two partygoers away for an interview.
"Kind of rough on him, weren't you, Rufus?" Cay teased.
She was saved from his reply when a neatly bearded man in a pair of scrubs and a raincoat walked purposely up to Rufus.
"What have you got, Grandbois?"
Cay recognized the name and face of one of the New Orleans most gifted coroners. Dr. Grandbois was fresh from the body and was shaking his head. He snapped off his bloody rubber gloves and chuckled. "Damnedest thing I ever saw," he mumbled.
"Damnedest thing, Thibodeaux." Grandbois repeated. "Never saw it before." He looked up and smiled a creepy grin. "This damn city."
"What?" Thibodeaux said impatiently. He seemed to forget that Cayenne was standing next to him in the now heavy rain. Cayenne stood up straight and tried to look part of the investigation team.
Dr. Grandbois kicked into his work voice as if speaking into a handheld tape recorder. "The victim appears to be a male in his late twenties, early thirties and died of causes related to massive hemorrhage due to an injury to the thoracic cavity which sliced the arterial artery. The weapon appears to be a galvanized steel undulating surface filed to razor sharpness and uncharacteristic mode. The cut was deep and clean indicating a crime of passion and the lack of stiction makes me think that the body has not been dead for very long."
"What does that mean in English?" Rufus asked, forgetting that Cayenne hadn't moved out of earshot.
Grandbois snapped his rubber gloves as if to get everyone's attention, sending a small spray of blood in Cay's direction. "Means he died fast. Means he is still warm. Means that the ragged wound seems to indicate that Mr. Traceaux's throat was slit with the edge of a intentionally sharpened zydeco rubboard."
Rufus's eyes got so wide Cay thought they would get stuck.
"You mean?" and the detective made up and down motions with his closed fists on his chest to simulate playing the metal rhythm instrument.
Grandbois nodded his head, "Killed by a rubboard."
He snapped his gloves again. "Poor bastard. Only in New Orleans."
CHAPTER THREE: Get Down, Get Zydeco at Evangeline Pon Pon's!
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