Page 23 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
Her expression darkened. "That woman had no business coming back here. I told Odette forty years ago that girl was trouble, and I was right."
"What kind of trouble?"
Celeste gestured for us to follow her to a small table in the back corner of the shop. She pulled out a well-worn deck of tarot cards and began shuffling them with the practiced ease of someone who'd been reading fortunes since long before I was born.
"Mary Vallon was her real name and she had the gift, but she was reckless with it. Kept pushing into spaces she shouldn't, trying to talk to spirits that didn't want to be bothered." Celeste laid three cards face down on the table. "Your aunt tried to guide her, teach her proper respect for the boundaries between worlds. But that girl was all ambition and no wisdom."
"What happened in 1984?" Maggie asked.
Celeste flipped the first card. The Tower. The same card I'd found on my stairs, the same one Delia had drawn the night she died.
"Death," Celeste said simply. "Not physical death, but the death of innocence. The death of trust. Your auntie's circle was broken that winter, and it never healed."
She flipped the second card. The Five of Swords. A figure walking away from a battlefield, leaving behind defeat and sorrow.
"Betrayal. Someone in the circle wasn't who they seemed to be. Someone was working for the other side."
"What other side?" I asked.
Celeste flipped the third card. The Devil. A horned figure chaining two people, but if you looked closely, you could see that the chains were loose enough to slip off.
"The kind of evil that looks like respectability. The kind that wears a badge or a collar or a business suit." She gathered the cards. "Francine saw something she shouldn't have. Mary tried to help her, but she was too young, too frightened. Odette made choices she regretted for the rest of her life."
That surprised me. I had never gotten the sense that my aunt regretted anything. But people put on a brave face for loved ones. Maybe she thought if she showed any vulnerability to me I wouldn’t listen to her.
"Do you know what happened to Francine?"
"The dead girls call me sometimes, especially during storms. She's still here, Harper. Still looking for justice." Celeste reached across the table and gripped my hand. "But be careful. The same people who silenced this girl are still alive, still powerful. They've got too much to lose to let you uncover the truth."
After shaking off the thought of how truly horrible it would be to have dead girls calling to me on the regular, I said, “In other words, follow the money.”
Celeste nodded. “Big men with big ambitions. Smart girls, but naive. Fall in love with men who make promises. It won’t be the first time, it won’t be the last.”
That was appropriately voodoo-practitioner-vague, but I understood her meaning.
“You think Francine was having an affair with an older man? Or Mary Vallon aka Delia?”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
That wasn’t much of an answer.
After a few more minutes of visiting, we left and I stood on the sidewalk, fishing in my pocket for my sunglasses. Something was bothering me.
“So…if Francine was a student at Tulane, why was she staying at Maison du Minoit?”
“Maybe she didn’t feel safe in her own apartment.”
“Do you think if Delia was having an affair she would have told Francine since they were friends? Or my aunt?”
Maggie shrugged. “It’s possible. Some women like to give their friends every last detail. Other women like having a dirty little secret. Who knows what Delia was like when she was young? Or really, what she was like now. We barely met her.”
“It just seems more likely to me it was Delia because Francine was looking into corruption, not falling in love with a powerful older man.” I shrugged. “But I guess that’s just speculation. We started strolling toward where we parked the car. “Where was Delia living back then?”
Before I could even respond, Maggie pulled her phone out and started tapping and swiping. She had spent so much time researching for the podcast that she knew how to cut through the noise of the internet and get to useful information.
“Last known address for Mary Vallow was on Esplanade.” She rattles off the number. “Wait. That’s really close to your house number.”
I pulled out my own phone and plugged it in on Google Earth’s map. “That is Hollis’s house. You have got to be kidding me.”
