Page 60 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
Maggie and I both started running, but almost immediately we got caught by a group of tourists taking photos in front of Marie Laveau’s grave. Darn her popularity.
I tried to shimmy around them but I got poked in the eye by a floral arrangement someone had brought to leave as an offering for the famed voodoo queen. I stumbled over a loose stone at the base of another tomb and put my hands out to brace my fall.
In an instant, Arthur hauled me to my feet by my arm and spoke. “Sorry about that, everyone. My daughter had a few too many hurricanes this afternoon.”
The crowd chuckled.
I was about to vehemently protest when I felt the prick of a needle on the inside of my wrist. It didn’t break the skin but it was an obvious threat. I froze.
“Don’t move, Maggie,” Arthur murmured in her direction as she was clearly about to bolt toward the front of the cemetery. “Or Harper goes night-night.”
Night-night? I was suddenly ice cold in the middle of a sunny October afternoon.
Arthur was cuc-koo.
Maggie stopped her attempt to flee and eyed me with a “what-now” expression. I shrugged.
I flicked my tongue over my suddenly dry lips and managed to speak. “Let’s talk about this, Arthur. You don’t have to do this.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what “this” was but I didn’t want it to happen.
“Come here and sit down.” Arthur gave me a shove in the direction of a flat tomb, the lid slightly askew. “Sit down.”
“On a grave? That seems…rude.”
“Shut up,” he said fiercely. “Just sit down. Let me explain what is going to happen here.”
Thank goodness, because I definitely needed a head’s up if he was going to shove me in a grave and take off running.
“Just so we’re clear, I destroyed all the evidence that Lucien gave you. I should have known she was going to be trouble.”
Maggie was backing up, very slowly, her hands behind her back. I could see she was trying to get close to the side of Marie Laveau’s tomb. Maybe she planned to take one of the offerings and whack Arthur on the head with it? I sincerely hoped she would grab a bottle of wine and not a string of Mardi Gras beads.
Though now that I thought about it, I supposed those would work for strangling Arthur.
But then I remembered how long strangulation actually took and decided the bottle would be better.
"I didn't kill anyone. Well, not back in ‘84. But I helped clean up the mess left behind after my business associates handled the problem. Delia was getting too close to the truth though. She'd figured out about the others. Not just Francine and the girl Vivienne, who Beau discovered, but the women who came after. Women who asked inconvenient questions about property transfers and missing persons reports that got filed away and forgotten."
Beau. I tried to look around discreetly. Had Beau gotten away? Maybe he was calling for help.
"How many?" Maggie asked.
"Does it matter? They were collateral damage in a bigger project. New Orleans needed saving from itself, and sometimes that requires difficult choices."
“They were people, Arthur. Just like Delia. And Ginger.”
“Ginger wasn’t my doing. That was on her. Snooping around, she accidentally put the powder under her nose, best I can figure.” Arthur was sweating profusely and pacing in front of me. He’d concealed the syringe again in his shirt sleeve, which was a good sign.
At least I had a chance at escape. I also strongly suspected Maggie was recording this conversation on her phone. She would have had an opportunity when Arthur was shoving me toward the grave.
Arthur’s face had changed. The disinterested, scholarly mask slipped, revealing something harder underneath.
"You're very smart," he commented. "Both of you. Just like Francine was. Just like Vivienne. That's always the problem with smart women. They ask too many questions."
“That’s very misogynistic,” Maggie remarked. “Like appallingly misogynistic.”
Arthur shrugged. “Never had much luck with women.”
