Page 14 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
"None. Although..." I hesitated, remembering Delia's words about knowing Aunt Odette. "She said she knew my aunt. They met in person a long time ago from what she told me. There was a picture of her with my aunt and two other women."
Hollis made a note in his phone.
It disappointed me that he didn’t have a little notebook like they do in crime shows. Then I realized that was a completely inane thought to have when Delia was dead.
"Did she seem upset about anything? Worried? Frightened?"
I thought about the tarot cards, the whispered conversation about murder, the way she'd clutched my hand and asked for help. "She seemed...anxious. Like she was expecting something bad to happen."
"Did she mention any enemies? Anyone who might want to hurt her?"
"Not specifically." I took a deep breath. "She told me something last night about a murder from forty years ago. A woman named Francine Darrow who disappeared during Mardi Gras 1984. Everyone knew this girl disappeared but there was never any proof of a murder. She just vanished."
Hollis's fingers stilled on his phone. "Why would Delia bring that up?"
"They knew the girl. Delia also said she knew who killed Francine. And that the killer was coming to tonight's séance."
For a moment, the only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and Teddy's enthusiastic crunching.
“I honestly didn’t think much about it. I thought she meant, you know, a spirit. The ghost of whoever killed Francine. Not a live human.” Or that’s what I had talked myself into believing. It honestly had sounded like she meant an actual living man would be in attendance.
"Did she tell you who she suspected?"
"No. She was being all mysterious about it. But Hollis..." I leaned forward. "What if she was right? What if someone killed her to keep her quiet?"
The detective studied my face for a long moment. "Harper, I need you to listen to me. This looks like an accidental drowning. There are no signs of struggle, no obvious wounds, no evidence of forced entry. Sometimes people just die."
"In a locked room? After predicting their own death?"
"She predicted her own death?"
“Maybe not her death. But a death.” I told him about the tarot cards, the Tower, the whispers about something coming. It sounded crazy even to me.
Hollis sat back in his chair. "Look, I'll have the crime scene team process everything thoroughly. But unless they find evidence of foul play, this is going to be ruled an accident or natural causes."
"And if they do find evidence?"
"Then we'll investigate accordingly." He stood up. "In the meantime, you need to close the B&B to new guests until we finish processing the scene. Your current guests can stay, but no one new comes in."
After he left, I sat alone in the kitchen with Teddy, who had finished his stress-eating and was now sprawled across my feet like a furry heating pad.
"What do you think?" I asked him. "Heart attack? Accident? Or murder?"
Teddy looked up at me with his dark eyes and made a soft chittering sound that I chose to interpret as "definitely murder, and we're going to figure out who did it."
Because despite what Detective Hollis Broussard thought, I knew Delia DuMont hadn't just accidentally drowned in my bathtub. Someone had killed her, and they'd done it right under our noses while we sat in a circle holding hands and calling to the spirits.
The question was: who?
As if reading my thoughts, Teddy got up and padded over to the kitchen door. He sat down and stared at it expectantly, his tail twitching.
"What is it, boy?"
He chittered again, more insistently this time.
I opened the door and got hit with the wind and some misty rain. I shut it again.
Teddy might have sighed. He clearly was unimpressed. It did occur to me that opening a door in a rainstorm after a possible murder wasn’t all that smart. But he clearly wanted me to do something.
