Cay could smell the Stew Du Roux from a half a block down the street. Warm, yeasty bread smells mixed with the unmistakable nutty aroma of a roux cooked slowly for hours. The Stew Du Roux was always packed, a modest appearing café that was a magnet for local appreciators of good Creole food. Cay was surprised when Kristina met her at the door, pulled her into the small restaurant and flipped over the sign on the door so that it proclaimed CLOSED to the public.

"Why own a small business if you can't close it every once in awhile?" was Kristina's answer to Cay's puzzled look.

Red and white checked tablecloths brought a humble, country French accent to the tables and large windows with cottage lace curtains let in as much sunshine as a New Orleans winter would allow. Mardi Gras paraphenelia and collectibles covered the walls and filled the curios tucked into the corners. Kristina walked quickly through the restaraunt and stopped in the kitchen to pick up a tray that held a plate of chocolate croissants, a carafe of chicory coffee and some good cream. Stan waved a wooden spoon at Cayenne in greeting, but Kristina whisked her out of the kitchen before any civilities could be exchanged. "We'll be in the office."

Her office was filled with small touches that spoke of her love of things Southern. Mardi Gras Masks, beads, original oils by local artists, a framed article reviewing the Stew Du Roux's opening, and shelves of Southern cookbooks both new and old. Several bouquets of fragrant flowers tucked away on various shelves throughout the room permeated the room with a reminder of spring yet to come.

Kristina set the tray on a small end table near the desk and pulled up a chair for Cayenne. She poured her a glass of chicory, added in just the right amount of cream, and gestured at the croissants. "Baked these just this morning. I know how much you like the chocolate ones."

Gratefully, Cay gladly reached. Kristina gasped when she saw the red crusted slice in her palm.

"Your hand! Darling, what happened?"

"Injured in the line of duty." Cay briefly shared the details about the visit to Frank's apartment and trying to avoid this mysterious man who had been following her since the beginning of this case.

"I think I have some rubbing alcohol around here. " She left and returned with a clean, cotton washcloth and a plastic bottle. "Here, soak this cloth good and wet and hold in on that cut. You are going to catch an infection from that nasty cut."

As Cay tended to her wound and munched delicate pastry filled with bitter sweet chocolate, Kristina began to tell of what she had found out.

"The Tulane University Library was filled with very interesting information about the origins of the Mardi Gras Indians, more accurately called the Black Indians. But I learned more from a less exciting part of history."

She pulled out a slender, flimsy book that was bound in cracked brown and black leather. In chipping, gold inscribed ink, the cursive title spelled out History of Louisiana Plantations.

"Now this here lovely tome," she wiped off some dust from the spine with a napkin from the tray," was been self-published by some blue blooded Daughter of the South many decades ago and was donated to Tulane by her estate sale. A rather gossippy little piece of writing with lots of family genealogy. You know, this person begats that person begats yet another. Family lineage is very important in the South and especially important with the society people.

"It took me a couple hours of searching until I found this small story about the Fontainebleau Plantation in the early 1800's just outside of what is now known as Jackson, Mississippi. Rich and big and important. Lots of slaves. Not much kindness. Only way to say it that Fontainebleau was a son of a bitch."

Cayenne was shocked that a Southern lady as sweet as Kristina would use such language, but Christina continued unapologetically. "He made his fortune in trade and cotton production and he did it on the back of his slaves. He was harsh and he was cruel. Many of the slaves on his plantation died at his hands or face a million other atrocites. He was a bad man, Cayenne. A bad man. But Fontainebleau made a lot of money, and much of it was dealing with the scalawags and the international traders that were coming through New Orleans in those days."

"I'm not getting the connection to the headdress," Cay said through a mouthful of her second croissant.

Christina filled up Cay's cup while she continued her story. "Lots of slaves tried to run off from that plantation. Almost everyone was found and dragged back to that hell-hole. Fontainebleau grew to be an old man taking pride that had such control over his plantation. But one slave in particular got away. Not the first time he ran. But he got away the second time. Fontainebleau was furious. The book says he thought it would cause an uprising amongst the slaves but I think it wounded his arrogant pride. I think he never forgave the runaway for denying his place in the world. Old Man Fontainebleau whipped another slave to death in the escaped slave's place to show all the others what would happen if any of them left. He had all of his five children watch, too, to show them that you had to be ruthless to keep in control."

Cayenne stopped chewing. Despite the delicious pastry, she felt slightly sick to his stomach.

Kristina continued. "Book says that to add insult to injury, before he ran the slave stole three diamonds from Fontainebleau's stash of trade. The old man was filthy rich, but he obsessed on those diamonds the rest of his life, talking up how injustice had been done to him. Some says he went crazy over it and went to his grave, making his children promise to avenge him."

Kristina paused to take a sip of coffee, then continued. "The book didn't say who the runaway slave was, and of course, back then the white people writing these books didn't care much that black folks had names. But the book sure went into detail about the Fontainebleaus. It gave their lineage and the lineage of those five babies forced to watch the beating and it turned out that the daughter of Fontainebleau ended up marrying a plantation owner in Louisiana named LaTourne."

"I had to bribe the librarian with a year's worth of free gumbo at the Stew Du Roux to find out who else had checked out the book. Sure enough, the only other one who checked this book out since it was donated to the library was a Mr. Dumont LaTourne. About 11 years ago. Not too long before Mo was arrested for murder."

Cayenne's head was swimming. "So LaTourne was looking up his family history. I'm sorry. I still don't get the connection. "

"Well, darling, neither did I. Until I paid a social visit to Sweet Babe Fontane,. The best libraries in the country aren't as accurate as a good oral history. I swear, Sweet Babe Fontane holds every bit of information about the South's slave history in her 98-year-old head. Not just dates, mind you, but who, where, and why. Her grandfather was a slave and a griot."

"A griot?" Cay questioned.

"That's what they called the storytellers who were brought over from Africa. The griots kept history alive by telling stories, and over in this country, the storytellers started keeping alive their own stories and experiences of what was happening in their everyday lives and passing it down to their children. Sweet Babe grew up listening to the story of the brave slave who ran away and found his freedom. Way she tells it that the slave was captured the first time and whipped as an example. Whipped his woman too and she ended up dying from the infections to her wounds. Later, he escaped again and disappeared into the woods. Sweet Babe says her grandfather said that he probably got shelter with some of the local Indians. They often took in runaways and made them part of their tribes. The second time the slave left, he took some of Fontainebleau's diamonds with the help of his woman's mother who worked in the house. The story came down to her that the slave believed that he wasn't stealing. He was just taking payment for the work his family had already done. The man had pride. The rest of the plantation slaves always saw him as a hero and that was what really irked Mr. Fontainebleau.

"Sweet Babe's grandfather and her father told this story often and passed down the story from one household to another. Name of the slave was Tinot. Sweet Babe said that the people took Tinot on as a hero and called him their own. Mon Tinot, in Creole. It offered some hope in a very dark time in our country's history."

Cay's eyes widen as she finally caught on why Kristina was telling her this long story.

"Mon Tee-noh." Cay repeated the name out loud in French. "Mon Tinot. Montana. You are telling me that Dumont's family were the slave owners and Montana's family were the slaves?"

Kristina nodded. "Sweet Babe also said her grandfather said that Mon Tinot hid with the Indians and had a son with a Choctaw woman. Mon Tinot and his son started one of the first Black Indian Tribes in Louisiana. That was the beginning of the Yellow Magnolias. This headdress that everyone is fussing over is the real thing, given to Mon Tinot during his years in hiding. He was an old man when the Mags started but he wore that Chocktaw headdress back then just like every other Montana has worn it since."

"Dumont found out that Montana belonged to the family of the man who drove his great great grandfather mad, and he wants the headdress?" Cay shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. Even Mary Dan said that Frank ruined its worth with all his painting and sewing."

"Unless the headdress is more than just a headdress." Kristina said quietly "Sweet Babe said some of her own ancestors masked in early years with the Yellow Magnolias and the story come on down to her that the diamonds were sewn into the headdress as a sign of pride and of fighting back. That's what made the Yellow Mags were so fierce. Big Chief would fight anyone who tried to make him humbah just like Mon Tinot showed his defiance to Fontainebleau.""

"The diamonds couldn't possibly be in the headdress all these years, could they? Wouldn't they have been sold a long time ago?"

"I don't know, Cayenne. A symbol of freedom can be worth a whole lot more than money to a people who have truly known slavery."

"Mary Dan said that there was some recent stitching done to an inside seam. Let's take a look."

Kristina opened the desk drawer and pulled out a small delicate scissors while Cayenne opened up the box and pulled out the headdress.

"Please, you do the honors. " Cay handed the headdress to Kristina. "I can hardly sew on a button. It's why I'm not a full member of Krewe du Couture."

Kristina took the headdress and turned it inside out to reveal the inside seam with its perfect, neat stitches. She carefully snipped each of the stitches and gently extracted the sturdy thread until there was a three-inch opening. She inserted her slender forefinger in the gap.

"Nothing." She declared disappointedly. She turned the headdress over, looking for another seam.

"This is silly. We're just some ghost treasure hunt." Cay said. She waved her hand in the air in frustration and accidentally knocked over the bottle of rubbing alcohol.

The cap was loose and the contents sprayed over the top of the desk. Both women instinctively rose. Cay took the cotton cloth from her hand and hurriedly began to contain the spreading alcohol. In her frantic efforts to wipe up table, she sent a small trickle of alcohol spilled all over the desk. It dripped onto the headdress that Kristina still held in her hand and flooded over the headband.

"Give me your rag!" Kristina shouted to Cay. She took it and started to blot off the alcohol before it seeped into the feathers and in between the beading. Cay saw that the alcohol was taking off the bright paint over the front jewels.

Kristina did, too. She paused in her cleaning, looking horrified at the paint on the rag. But an idea took a hold of her. She started to rub the jewel band harder. The paint was thinning, but resisting. Years of paint had sealed in many tight layers. "I need something stronger."

Kristina hurried out of the room and returned quickly with a bottle of nail polish remover. She took the rag, now was mottled with yellow paint and berry colored blood, and soaked it in the solvent. She returned to her scrubbing efforts of paint removal while Cay looked on, oblivious to the alcohol still spreading on the desk. Under Kristina's circular motions, gradually emerging from the years of decoration came a dull, white jewel.

"A diamond!" Cay whispered hoarsely. "It's huge!"

Kristina started working on the one next to it. It, too, was white, but obviously a glass fake. On the other side of the real one, another diamond was mined from beneath years of decoration. The other three in the headband turned out to be glass.

"Two of the three," Kristina said. "Blood diamonds. Tinot's own blood. And that of the woman he loved." She handed the headdress over to Cay for a closer look.

"Damn!" Cayenne said, fingering the dull sparkle of the jewels. "Dumont wanted the headdress because he wanted the diamonds.

"And revenge," Kristina added. "He is avenging his great-great-granddaddy."

At that moment, a clatter rose up from the front room of the café. Someone was pounded at the door. The women could hear Stan yelling from the kitchen in his gruff voice. "We're closed! Can't you read the sign?"

The pounding continued, accompanied by a woman shouting. Cayenne and Kristina could hear Stan cursing and stomping to the door. There was more shouting and a flurry of urgent sounding voices posing questions, then a rush of feet toward them. Stan was leading Dinah and Samantha from the Krewe du Couture into the back room.

"They have Eliah. She is gone!" Samantha shouted, as she pushed past Stan into the room.

Dinah was right behind her, gasping and breathless from running. "They left this!" She handed over a crumpled note to Cayenne. Dinah had a small cut under her eye, a scrape across her cheek, and an ugly bruise around her arm.

"You are hurt!" Kristina exclaimed, putting her hand on Dinah's arm.

"You should have seen the brute that got Eliah." Samantha said, wearing a proud smile directed toward Dinah's way. "He has several nasty burns from Dinah's glue gun."

"And a black eye given to him by Miss Dan!" Dinah boasted.

Cay smoothed out the crumpled paper in her hands. Kristina positioned herself so she could read over her shoulder. It read:

Kristina and Cay turned to each other and said at the same time.

"Dumont!"

Copyright by Aileen M. McInnis, 2005. All Right Reserved.