Page 24 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
“How old is Hollis? Was he a kid then?” Maggie asked. “I’m surprised he didn’t remember Delia. Then again, she had a different name.”
“I don’t think he’s old enough to have even been alive. I think he’s in his mid-thirties but I can’t say I’ve ever asked.”
Maggie kept typing and swiping. Then she paused. Lowered her voice.
“His family owned the house back then. Claude Broussard held the deed.”
“Which Claude? There’s two of them.” I really needed to ask Hollis what the hell that was all about.
“That I don’t know.”
“Hollis’s father wasn’t even a detective yet. Could a relatively young cop buy a big house like that?”
“Real estate hit the skids in the city in the seventies and eighties. It was probably five dollars.”
That made me laugh. “Good thing we held onto our family house. Or, I hate to say this, but maybe his dad was…shady. Taking kickbacks.”
“How do you feel about calling Hollis and asking him a few questions?”
“I hate that idea. He’ll want to know why.”
“Be casual.”
I’m mildly distracted by the fact that a man is doing what I think is the macarena in front of a trash can. “I’m about as casual as that guy,” I told her.
It was Maggie’s turn to laugh. “Maybe you can just work it into a conversation with Hollis. I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you about Delia.”
“Or maybe I need to talk to someone who knew the Broussards back then. Someone outside the department.”
“What about Beau?” Maggie offered. “His father was on that list. Those kinds of families all ran in the same cocktail circuit.”
I hesitated. “Beau seems harmless, but I don’t know if I trust him either. Besides, he’s only a year older than us. What would he know about the eighties?”
“You don’t have to trust him. Just…be casual.” Maggie shot me a grin.
“Right. I’ll wear my most casual cardigan.” We got to my car.
“Can you drop me at my place? I have a ton of editing to do on our last episode.”
“Of course. And I have a lot of cleaning to do.” I grimaced at the thought of going through Delia’s room.
“Harper?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful. The last woman who asked these questions disappeared.”
SEVEN
The house had been acting up all day. That’s what my aunt had always referred to it as— ”this old girl is acting up again.”
It began with the air conditioning deciding it wanted to make up for lost time and run nonstop until the parlor could have doubled as a meat locker. The smell of gardenias was so heavy that even Arthur, who claimed to have “a piss-poor sense of smell” noticed it.
Then the lights in the dining room had flickered during dinner. Nothing dramatic, just a brief stutter that made everyone pause mid-conversation. Pete from Houston made a joke about the ghost of his credit card statement haunting him after his shopping spree. Jan managed a weak laugh, though she was still looking pale and jumpy after yesterday's unfortunate encounter with Delia's body bag and my antique rug.
Or maybe I should say her unfortunate encounter with Pat O’Brien’s hurricanes.
By Friday afternoon, the flickering had spread to the kitchen, the parlor, and the upstairs hallway. I called Sam the electrician. He was approximately a thousand years old and had been fiddling with the electrical in the house at Odette’s behest since the seventies.
