Page 59 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
My sentiments exactly.
“Distant cousin,” he insisted. “Like third cousins. That branch of the family left New Orleans in the fifties and went west.”
“You didn’t think that was important to mention before now? I introduced you to her!” It occurred to me this might have been how Hollis felt when I failed to mention the note or the phone to him.
“We never met,” he insisted. “I didn’t even know who she was since she was using a made up name. I found out after she was killed.”
That gave me pause. I could almost believe it, but I still felt a little suspicious. “What do you mean by client list?”
“Psychic appointments.”
“What does that have to do with the Pelican Group?”
“There was a missing person consultation on a girl that went missing in 1983 before Francine," Beau said. "A socialite from one of the old Garden District families who were heavily invested in the Pelican Group. Big story at the time. A beautiful young woman, wealthy family, no apparent reason to disappear. The case was never solved."
"And Delia was consulting on it?"
"According to this, the girl, Vivienne, her family hired Delia to try to make contact with her spirit. They wanted to know if she was alive or dead."
"That's..." I paused, thinking. "That's probably pretty common for psychics, right? Families of missing people looking for closure? Geez, that’s really sad."
"I guess so. She met with them three weeks ago. Right before she came to your B&B."
The pieces were starting to fall into place, forming a picture I didn't like. Two women, only a year apart, both disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Both connected to the same development company, the same families, the same network of power and privilege that ran New Orleans.
“But we don’t have any way to prove anything about this,” Maggie. “And who the hell is blackmailing you? For what? What did you do?”
That was a great question.
Beau seemed to remember he was potentially in danger. He wiped his brow and looked around the cemetery. He took a few steps back, between two tombs that were still well preserved. "Forty years ago, my father was a good man trying to clean up this city. Pelican Development was going to bring jobs, tourism revenue, respectability to neighborhoods that were falling apart."
I had a sinking feeling. “So you’re protecting your father? He murdered Francine?”
“No, of course not. You know my father, Harper. He can be a commanding businessman but he’s not violent. No, I found evidence that my father was concerned about some financial misdealings and that one man in particular might be involved in something even shadier.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say. But if anything happens to me, talk to my father. He’ll know what to do.”
“Beau—”
Beau took another couple of steps back. “I’m the one who stole your purse,” he confesses in a rush of words.
“What?” Maggie demands. “Why would you do that?”
“The evidence…” Beau had cleared the back of the tombs and was now on the gravel path between one set of tombs and the next row.
Alarm bells finally started to ring.
Yep. Definitely a set up.
“Run,” Beau mouthed to me silently.
You didn’t have to tell me twice. I nudged Maggie hard with my elbow right as someone yanked Beau to the side. It was Arthur Kellum. As I was still trying to figure out what was really happening, Arthur came rushing between the tombs toward us.
He had a syringe in his hand.
That was my cue to get the heck out of there.
