Murder in a Minor Key (11 page)

“Ooh, I’d like one of those, please,” Doris said. “The beignet, I mean.” She helped herself to a wipe, too. She retied the raffia around the felt, and my juju, a little bulkier than before, was back in its original form.

I returned the juju to my bag and retrieved the notebook I’d been looking for in the first place. I checked the date of my book signing—it was Monday.

A few hours later, Doris and I joined the throng at Jazz Fest. It was Saturday, and it seemed that all the people in New Orleans and its surrounding suburbs, off from work for the weekend, were trying to cram themselves into the racetrack for the festival. We had the advantage of having been there the day before, but even though we were reasonably familiar with the layout, we arrived late at the press tent.

The entrance was flanked by two security guards. “We’re supposed to meet some people inside,” Doris said to the taller of the two, who might have been a wrestler before taking up security work. His short-sleeved shirt revealed enormous biceps, the sight of which probably prevented many from challenging his authority.

“Your names?” he asked.

He checked his list, moving his index finger slowly down the page. “Well, they didn’t leave your names on the list,” he growled.

“Does that mean we can’t go in?” Doris asked.

“That’s right, ma’am. No one gets in without a badge, or their name on my list.”

“Is it possible for one of you to check around inside?” I appealed. “Our friends may be worried about us.”

“Sorry, but we can’t leave our post.”

It was another hot day, and I was pleased that I’d purchased my broad-brimmed hat. Doris, who was hatless, fanned herself with a printed program. She was becoming increasingly, and overtly, agitated.

“I guess we’ll have to wait till they realize we’re not there and come looking for us,” I offered.

She scowled at the guard, whose face remained impassive, and started pacing in front of the tent. As I attempted to look past the guards into the tent, Oliver Jones, the pianist we’d met the day before, came out.

“Hello there,” he said with a wide smile. “You look lost.”

We explained the dilemma, and he agreed to look for Wayne and tell him we were there. We thanked him, and he disappeared inside. A long, hot ten minutes passed before he reemerged, accompanied by a press aide.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you,” he apologized, “but maybe Miss Heaney can.” He handed me an envelope. “Those are some passes for VIP seating at my concert, just in case you don’t find Wayne,” he said, and excused himself.

“Hi, I’m Ryan Heaney,” the pretty young woman said, “assistant to the director of press relations. How can I help you?”

She led us past the guards and into the crowded tent where she helped us look for Wayne and Julian. Neither was there.

“Did you speak with Julian this morning?” I asked Doris.

“No, but I got his answering machine and told him where we’d be.”

“We have a notices board where reporters leave notes for each other. Let’s check that,” Miss Heaney suggested. But there were no slips addressed to either Doris or me among the many messages posted.

Baffled as to where they might be, we asked Miss Heaney if we could post our own note for Wayne and Julian. She supplied the paper and pushpins and left us.

“Okay, so where do we tell them to meet us, assuming they ever get this message?” Doris asked. She was flushed from the heat, and fast losing patience.

“Since Oliver Jones was kind enough to give us VIP seating for his concert,” I said, “that sounds like a good place to connect. If they don’t turn up there, we’ll just have to keep going on our own.”

“That’s fine with me,” she replied, scribbling the note and jamming it up on the board. “Now, can we get out of this hot tent? I’m dying in here.”

Outside was not much better. It still hadn’t rained, and the breeze stirred up dust from the oval racetrack. We wandered around the edges of the fair for a while, listening to some of the lesser-known musicians, before we used our passes to find seats in the shaded VIP section at the main stage.

Oliver Jones’s concert was the highlight of Jazz Fest for me. His rollicking piano style was the perfect blend of all the music I’d enjoyed. It was mostly jazz, but with ingredients of classical, gospel, Latin, Caribbean, even country. It was complex yet accessible, spirited and moving, and made me forget the absence of our escorts. But when the concert was over, and the ovation had faded away, I was left with the nagging feeling that something was not right. It was not in Wayne’s nature to be cavalier about appointments.

Doris and I left the festival after the concert and returned to our hotel, she to do her interview with Ileana Montalvo, and I to my room hoping for voice mail from Wayne. There was none. Dismayed and worried, I showered, dressed, and prepared for my dinner interview with Charlie Gable. Before leaving the room, I called Wayne’s apartment and spoke into his machine, explaining where I was going and that I’d try to reach him later.

“Oh, Copely’s a bit of a flake,” was Gable’s assessment over cocktails at Arnaud’s, a traditional Creole restaurant he’d chosen for our interview. “Look at that crusade he’s on to find LeCoeur recordings.” He took a sip of his drink and looked over the rim of his glass. “You know he’s gay, don’t you? It’s probably something simple, like a fight with his boyfriend.”

“I don’t think Wayne’s sexual orientation has anything to do with keeping appointments,” I replied stiffly.

“C’mon, Jessica, don’t be offended,” he coaxed. “Copely and I go back a long ways. We’re old friends. And he’s a New Orleans boy. We’re very free-and-easy down here, not so rigid in our schedules as our Northern neighbors.”

“That’s not
my
impression of Wayne,” I responded. “I haven’t known him as long as you have, of course, but in my experience, he’s always been very responsible, and he’s passionate about jazz, so I doubt he’d willingly miss a day at Jazz Fest.”

“How do you know he wasn’t there?” Gable was more consoling now. “You said yourself you were late getting to the press tent. He could’ve reckoned he just wore you out yesterday, and you couldn’t reach him to cancel. So when you didn’t show, he decided to go on without you.”

“He could have,” I agreed, “but he wasn’t at the Oliver Jones concert, and I know he’s a big fan.”

“Jones plays again later this week. Copely may have gone to one of the other concerts, thinking he could catch Oliver another time.”

“Yes, that’s possible.”

“Anyway, it’s tough to find anyone in that crowd,” he said, spearing a bit of shrimp remoulade on his fork. “You’ll both laugh about this tomorrow.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, forcing myself to relax. I spooned up a taste of oyster stew. “This can take your mind off anything,” I said, savoring the creamy flavor.

“Isn’t it wonderful? One of my favorites, too.”

Though, every table was occupied, the atmosphere in the restaurant encouraged relaxation. The décor was decidedly old New Orleans with mosaic tile floors, crystal chandeliers, potted palms, lead-glass windows, and ceiling fans lazily circling high above our heads. And the food was of the delicious, stick-to-your-ribs variety. When we’d sat down, Gable had asked permission to record our conversation—“Saves me trying to write and eat at the same time”—and I’d given it. He’d placed a small tape recorder on the table, reset the counter to zero, and made a note on a small lined pad at his right hand.

“Whenever you make a particularly
bon, bon mot,”
he explained, “I jot down the topic we’re discussing and the number on the tape counter, so I can find where your quote is later.”

“And then you don’t have to listen to our entire conversation all over again?”

“That’s it. Although sometimes I get hungry all over again,” he joked, “reliving the meal.”

Gable’s interview was wide ranging. Once we’d put aside the topic of Wayne Copely, we chatted during appetizers about the success of his Book Club Breakfasts. Over en-trees, we moved on to changes in the publishing industry, particularly the impact of the Internet on bookselling, discussing the many websites authors now use to promote their works.

“Anne Rice has a good one. Have you see it?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. I visited her site before my first trip to New Orleans.”

“So, is there a
jessicafletcher.com
in the works?”

“Not yet.” I hesitated, refolding my napkin in my lap. “A section of my publisher’s site is devoted to my books,” I continued. “That’s sufficient for now.”

“Are you a fan of cyberspace?” he asked. “Many writers are,”

“I’m happy to use the Internet for research, especially when the weather is bad and it’s difficult to get to the library,” I replied. “And I have to admit I’ve fallen in love with e-mail. It’s a wonderful way to stay in touch with far-away family and friends, and I use it for business correspondence as well.”

“I hear a ‘but’ in there, Jessica,” Gable said, raising his eyebrows and making a note on his pad.

I sighed. “But I also find the Internet can steal my time. It’s too easy to get lost in front of the computer. Before you know it, hours go by and you’re not getting anything done. So I use the Internet sparingly, and mostly when I’m working and need information I can’t find anywhere else. It is a great springboard for research.”

The waiter cleared our places, and I glanced at my watch, wondering if Wayne had gotten my message and left one for me at my hotel.

“Don’t be in a hurry,” Gable chided. “They have wonderful desserts here. Besides, I have a few more questions.”

He ordered a
crème brûlée,
and at his suggestion, I opted for the bread pudding.

“I enjoyed
Murder in a Minor Key,
as I have all your books,” he started, “but I was surprised you didn’t use any voodoo material in it. It would seem a natural for a New Orleans setting.”

“This particular story didn’t lend itself to voodoo,” I explained. “Sometimes a book takes you where it wants to go, and you just have to follow it along.”

“How can that be?”

“It’s a strange phenomenon.” I paused, trying to find the right words. Gable was writing on his notepad. “Lots of writers create outlines for their books; some are more detailed than others. I use an outline, too, but often I’ll finish a chapter and reread the section of my outline I was supposed to be covering, and find that I’ve gone off in a different direction.”

“What do you do then?”

“If I like the new direction, I’ll follow it and rearrange the plot,” I said. “Sometimes, though, much as I may like what I’ve written, I’ll have to rewrite the scene and wrestle the story back into its planned structure.”

“It’s kind of like a fight with your subconscious.”

“That’s a good analogy.”

“So the last book took you in a different direction?”

“Away from the voodoo, yes.” I thought about Ileana Montalvo, and the juju in my bag, and about Little Red and his voodoo beliefs. “For some reason, on this visit, I seem to be more aware of voodoo than I was the last time I was here, and even though I’m not currently working on a new book, I’m thinking of doing some research anyway.”

“Well, if I can help in any way, let me know.”

I was torn. I wanted to get to a phone and call Wayne. He was on my mind all the time now. But I also wanted to use this opportunity to question Gable about voodoo. As both a native New Orleanian and a journalist, he would have a lot to offer, not only in factual information but perhaps in interpreting situations—like the juju in my bag, or the deaths in the cemetery. I couldn’t shake that image of a seated corpse leaning against a tomb.

“You can, actually,” I said, moving my spoon around the bread pudding. It was superb, but my appetite had flown. “Tell me about Marie Laveau, and the tomb where she’s buried.”

“Ah, the infamous voodoo queen.” He smiled. “You should visit her tomb before you leave. It’s one of our more colorful sites, in a city full of colorful sites.”

“I plan to get there soon.”

“Make sure you go with a tour group,” he cautioned. “It’s not in the safest part of town.”

“So I understand.”

“You want to know about the mother, of course. Her daughter had the same name and was a queen, too.”

“Yes, I think it’s the mother I want to know about.”

“She was a tall woman of mixed race, supposedly the daughter of a white planter and mulatto mother, although some say she had Indian blood as well. She married a man named Paris, from Santo Domingo, but he disappeared soon after, and no one knows what happened to him.”

“Did she practice voodoo on him?”

“Hard to say. She considered herself a devout Catholic. His disappearance and her involvement in voodoo may not have been connected. Anyway, she became a hairdresser, and was very popular with white aristocratic ladies who told her all their secrets, which, I’m sure, she put to good use. Later, she lived with a man called Glapion—and by the way, that’s the name on her tomb.”

“Glapion?”

“Right. She had more than a dozen kids with him. They lived over on St. Ann Street, here in the Quarter, but the house is long gone now.”

“What made her so powerful?”

“It must have been the influence she held over people,” he replied. “Supposedly, she had the police and city officials in her pocket, and she managed to eliminate all her rivals, using spells and deadly gris-gris.”

“Remarkable.”

“Well, that’s what people believed anyway. Who knows what’s true?”

“And her tomb?”

“Lots of voodoo practitioners—and the tour industry for sure—say both she and her daughter are entombed in the Glapion crypt in St. Louis Number One. Other cemeteries lay claim to the daughter.”

“What do you think?”

“What do I think? I think if both Maries are in the same tomb, that’s a lethal concentration of voodoo spirits in one place.”

“Lethal?”

“Just a turn of phrase,” he said, lifting the check the waiter had left on the table. “The tomb is definitely a voodoo shrine, a place of magic, maybe black magic. You should see some of the fetishes people leave there.”