Page 41 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
“Ginger?” It was a guess.
She smiled faintly. “She was always ambitious. Ambition can be useful. Or fatal.”
“And you think she killed Delia?”
“I think,” Lucien said, “you’re asking the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
She drained her glass, set it down, and leaned in. “Would you like a drink?”
I was a bit parched, to be totally honest. This level of subterfuge and mysterious innuendo was giving me a dry mouth. “Club soda, if you have it.”
Lucien picked up her phone and typed rapidly. “I’ll have Jade bring you in one. The bar cart in here doesn’t have any club soda.”
“Oh, don’t go to any trouble.”
“No trouble. I own half of the bars in the Quarter. But I like the quiet here when I want to be alone.”
A minute later there was a knock and the bartender came in with a glass that she handed to me.
“Thank you.”
She retreated without a word.
I sipped my drink and just waited. I got the impression if I asked too many questions Lucien aka Lena would shut down on me.
“What do you think happened to Delia?” she asked me.
“I have no idea.”
“That’s a lie. You have lots of ideas.”
Lucien—I was having trouble thinking of her as Lena—pulled out a silver cigarette case and extracted a thin brown cigarette. She lit it with a matching silver lighter, taking a long drag.
I tried not to inhale. “I think it was either an accident or murder.”
"My dear girl, nothing that has happened in the past week has been an accident. Delia's death, Ginger's poisoning. It's all connected to what happened to Francine forty years ago."
"How is Ginger connected to the Circle? She wasn't mentioned in Aunt Odette's journal."
"Because Ginger wasn't part of the original Circle. She was Francine's younger sister."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I sat back in my chair, staring at Lucien in shock.
"Her sister? But her name is Ginger St. James, not Ginger Darrow." Which immediately occurred to me meant nothing. Everyone in this group seemed very hot to change their name at random.
"St. James was her married name. She kept it after her divorce because she wanted to distance herself from the Darrow family tragedy." Lucien took another drag of her cigarette. "Ginger was only sixteen when Francine disappeared."
"Then how did she know about the Circle?"
"Because Francine confided in her. Told her about the missing women, about the corruption they'd uncovered, about the threats they'd received." Lucien's voice grew darker. "And because Ginger was there the night they took Francine."
My mouth went even drier. I gripped my glass again. "She was at the house?"
"Not inside. Francine had arranged to meet her sister at the Cat’s Cradle. It was one of the few places that wouldn’t be invaded by tourists during Mardi Gras. When Francine didn't show up, Ginger went to Maison de Minuit to look for her. She arrived just in time to see the police cars, to see them dragging Francine out of the house in handcuffs."
I thought about Ginger's behavior at the séance, the way she'd seemed so hostile toward Delia, so territorial about her spiritual practices. Had that been professional jealousy, or something deeper?
