"Does it ever stop raining in this city?" Cay mumbled to herself as she sat at her desk staring out the window. She was trying to piece together the information she had learned the day before and trying to get over her shock. Her pen hung useless in her hand and the yellow legal pad in front of her was blank. The wet and bloody toaster fabric kept popping into her memory. Her stomach was still reeling from revolt of seeing Hillary dead. She cursed the day that those red pair of cowboy boots walked into her storefront office.
A nagging sniglet of suspicion was sitting at the back of her brain, nibbling at her conscience and working its way into a full blown headache. She couldn't help feeling that her dad was involved. Could the bead really have once belonged to her father? Did he dabble in voodoo? Was it his beads that caused the death of three people? Why had he kept such a big part of his life so secret?
Cayenne had been sitting there weaving in and out of disgust, queasiness, anger and homesickness for anywhere but New Orleans for about an hour when the phone sharply rang and pulled her out of her misery.
"Del Roi Investigations," she barked in the phone.
"Aaaayyyyiieeeeeee!" An ear splitting yell caused her to yank the phone away from her ear. Her headache kicked up a notch in her temple.
"What the hell! Who is this?"
"Cayenne McKenzie Del Roi, you are talking to one of the few female flambeaux in New Orleans history. Et toi!" she yelled again, this time in French.
"What the hell, Marcy! You sound drunk and you're making me deaf! Call me back when you calm down." She slammed the receiver back into its cradle.
Her bad mood let the phone ring seven times before it allowed Cayenne to pick up the receiver. "What?" she barked again.
"Girlfriend, I'm so happy that I am going to forgive your foul mood and give you an opportunity to say you're sorry."
"What the hell are you blathering about?"
"I'm going to be a flambeau, girl! I'm carrying the torch for Steve McCloskey's float. I am parading in the flammes d'enfer just like my daddy before me, and his daddy before him and his daddy before. But now it's me, a flambeau with a feminine ending, baby. Light my fire!"
Despite her foul mood, Cay smiled. Marcy loved Mardi Gras then any thing in the world and she sounded like being crowned Miss America. Thing is, Cay didn't have a clue what she was talking about.
"What the hell is a flamboo?"
"Flambeau, Yankee. Flambeau!" Marcy launched into a half English, half Creole 
explanation that Cay only caught part of. Best she could figure out is that flambeau referred to an old parade tradition made up of mostly poor black and Creole men that went back to the days before electric lights. Men would be hired to carry the heavy iron torches in the nighttime parades. Over the years, the tradition of carrying large kerosene torches developed into its own art form with the twirling of the flames and the entertaining of the crowd. It was a poor man's art form that was breathtaking and dangerous. Even today, the flambeau only earned about $20 a parade, but the adoring crowds would throw money at flambeau. The more flamboyant the dance in the flame, the more money was thrown.
"You got to be specially picked to be a flambeau. I loved watching my daddy in the parade every year and now he's got me in. I think I'll call my self Flaming Fanny. No, maybe I'll be Ember Amber. Aaiyyyeeee!" she yelled again.
"What the hell!" Cay swore and slammed down the phone again. Marcy had done it again. Cay couldn't but both be happy for her and be royally pissed that this Mardi Gras season was bringing Marcy nothing but fun, and Cay, nothing but heartache.
But Marcy had brought one positive note to Cay. The call had roused her from her inertia and she turned her chair back to her desk so she couldn't see out the gloomy window. She dialed the number of Mary Dan before she lost her nerve. The phone rang several times before it was picked up.
"Hello?" Cay recognized the throaty voice of Dinah. It sounded thick, as if she had been crying.
"Dinah, this is Cay. I'm so sorry about Hillary."
"It is my fault, I should have never brought back the cake." She broke down in tears. "It was because she got the baby. They got to her before she could find the bead."
"You didn't slice her throat, did you? It's not your fault. Listen I have some urgent news for Mary Dan. Is she around?"
"She is down at the police department answering questions and identifying the body. Can I take a message for her?" Dinah waited for her answer.
Despite her words absolving Dinah of guilt, something in Cay held back. Philippe might be involved and he was in love with Dinah. Dinah brought the cake back to the den. Maybe she was involved, too. Cay didn't trust anyone anymore. Even her own father.
"Just have her call me as soon as she gets in." She hung up the phone before Dinah could respond.
Her next call was to Teutite's in the Quarter. Jacques also sounded as if he had been crying. "Oh, chere, it is so horrible! What kind of beast would do such a thing? I heard you were there at the scene. Do you know who did it?"
News traveled fast. Cay moved fast before Jacques could start asking questions.
"Jacques, I have to ask you. Do you remember the beads that Mary Dan bought from you? You said you bought them on EBay. Where did they come from?"
"Some place outside of Chicago."
"When did you buy them?"
"Just recently. Maybe about five months ago. Why do you ask? Does this have to do with Hillary's death?"
"Maybe nothing. Maybe everything." Cay threw Jacques a bit of gossip. "Hey, the float them for Krewe du Couture is something with Venus and her girlfriends chasing naked cowboys around. Rodeo Romance they called it." Cay knew she wasn't supposed to tell, but she knew that Hillary wasn't going to come after her. Never again would Hillary wield a glue gun.
"Ooooh, it sounds so naughty!" Jacques answered gleefully. "I'm making my outfit this weekend for the big parade. The girls always let me ride on the float. That is if I beg hard enough and promise to bring a bag of pralines and a cooler of gin and tonics. What do you think of edible chaps?"
Laughing and gossiping with Jacques turned her heartache down a notch. When she hung up the phone, the sorrow came back. But her head was spinning.
Her father had kept a mini-storage locker in Chicago even after they had moved back to New Orleans. When he died in the accident, Cay didn't go through the items in storage, but had them sold at auction. If her father had owned the beads, they were probably sold at that auction.
Maybe Rufus was right. Maybe the evil bead had belonged to her dad's set. If it was, it was probably sold in the auction lot to a collector who sold them on EBay to Jacques who sold them to Mary Dan, who had been robbed of the magic bead. It was a stretch, but it was the only thing that made sense in this weird case.
She turned her focus back to her New Orleans map and tried to focus. The bead was found, but three people had been killed viciously in the process. She needed to pull together and think "like a detective" as her dad used to always say.
She looked at her certificate of graduation from the Global School of Investigation hanging on the wall above her desk. Her correspondence course had emphasized that after you have gathered all your information, that the successful detective always took time to step back and review all the clues in the case sometimes gives there is a pattern that is missed when only looking at small details. Look for the pattern, the manual said. Everything is a possible clue.
Cay took her legal pad again and pulled a box of push pins from her desk drawer. She faced her map of New Orleans.
Victim #1 -- Sean Traceaux. Found on Charles Street, she wrote on the yellow paper. She pushed a green pin into the corner of Charles and Canal. She wrote on her list, suspected of stealing bead from Mary Dan, first known murder, confirmed death by rubboard, found with baby in his pocket., connection to voodoo?? No known connection to Philippe. Phunny Phorty Phellows Krewe.
Victim #2 -- Evangeline Pon Pon. Cay took a pink push pin and nailed it into the site on Pon Pon's over on Burgundy and St. Peter. Found with slit throat and a baby on her. Known connection with Phillippe's bakery. Past connection to voodoo king. Overheard phone call about learning how to "use it." Visual confirmation of something shoved in a bag of coins, later thrown at next victim. Cute employee in possession of rubboard. She smiled thinking of Zy and then shook it off. Victim known by Mary Dan. Former krewe member with Phillippe. Current krewe is Krewe of Zydeco.
She wrote on her page, Victim #3 -- Hillary. A tear came unbidden to her eye. She pushed the last black pin at the corner of Decatur and St. Phillip to represent Hillary. The vision of her draped body being hauled away came back again. She wrote through blurry eyes. Krewe du Couture. Heck with a glue gun. Throat cut. Received baby from a Philippe cake. Probably had the bead on her, possibly thrown by Evangeline's paraders. Had the baby first. Did the bead find her? Mary Dan knew something about the bead following the baby. What was going on!!!
She underlined her question with three heavy lines.
Cay stared at her notes, and then at the map for several minutes reviewing all the possibilities. These murders seem to be connected, but how? Was Philippe marking folks with his magic cake? Was Dinah plotting against her own krewe? How did Evangeline Pon Pon fit into this? Was she a victim or was she a thief? Or both? How come Mary Dan didn't tell her more about history of the bead? Was voodoo involved some how? What was the deal with this old krewe that everyone seems connected to but no longer exists? Was her dad involved somehow from his time spent in New Orleans?
Cay mulled over these questions in her mind until she thought she would scream. She got up and pulled out a Coke from her portable fridge, popped it open and poured it into her Krewe du Vin go-cup she had caught off the parade the day before.
She returned to her desk and looked again at the map holding her push pins.
Then she saw it. She saw the pattern the Global School of Investigation's Primer of Private Investigations says is always there. It came to her as clear as the chank-a-chank rhythm of a Cajun band. She took a ruler from her desk and a black Sharpie marker and connected the three locations of murder.
The pins formed a perfect triangle.
Cay stared at the map until she realized she had stopped breathing. Here was the pattern. But something was still missing.
She kept staring at the map and she reached for her phone and deliberately dialed the number for Philippe's, praying that the owner wouldn't answer.
"Bonjour! Slippery Slope Boulangerie!" JeanMarc's soft French accent filled the phone.
"Hey, JeanMarc. This is Cay. Say I'm in a hurry, but do you remember us talking about the name Traceaux? You mentioned you heard of a Traceaux that worked in a bar in the Quarter. Do you remember the name of the bar?"
There was a pause as Jean Marc racked his brain. "Mmmmm, let me see. Something to do with mischief, breaking rules, no, I have it. I think it was called Misrules. "
Bingo. Sting Ray's place, Cay thought, her head reeling.
"Do you know where it was located?"
"Not exactly. A friend of mine told me about it. Somewhere in the Quarter. Off Royal I think."
"Gotta go, JeanMarc. Thanks a lot! Say how about another dozen oysters with me sometime?"
"Oui, oui, chere! The pleasure would be mind."
Cay hung up the phone. She opened her desk drawer again and this time pulled out the bead which she had wrapped in soft cotton and placed in a zip lock bag. She rolled it around in her palm as she stared at the map again. The bead seemed to vibrate and grow warm. She located the New Orleans phone book in a side desk drawer and looked up Misrules.
The listing gave Misrules an address of 345 Pirates Alley. Cay located the spot on the map, which was a tiny alley off Royal. She pushed in a red pin and sat back. A cold finger of fear traced a shiver down her spin.
The pin was located dead in the middle of the triangle.
Chank-a-chank.
The bead vibrated harder in her hand.
Everything seemed to point to an obscure alley in the Quarter and a voodoo priest named Sting Ray. The vintage bead she now held in her hand might have once belonged to her father.
And that bead had become the quickest ticket to a short reign as royalty and a slit throat.
CHAPTER NINE:
The Wine is Fine on Pirate's Alley
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