Tandy had shown up promptly at ten o’clock. A packet of photos that showcased two of her grandchildren, wide-eyed, grubby-faced, and cooing over last night’s Pluvius parade, were clutched in her hot little hands. Carmela figured Tandy must have hit the one-hour photo mill at first light.

“Sweetie,” said Tandy, obviously enjoying her inside track, “don’t you ever watch Sixty Minutes? Haven’t you ever heard of club drugs?”

Gabby shrugged. The only clubs she was familiar with were the boisterous, rollicking clubs in the French Quarter. Jasmine’s, Dr. Boogie’s, Moon Glow. She assumed some drug trafficking went on there. But didn’t it go on most everywhere now?

“Ketamine as in Special K,” explained Tandy. “It’s the stuff kids are always OD’ing on at raves.”

“Oh,” said Gabby as understanding began to dawn. “Come to think of it, I have heard of Special K. And raves. Aren’t those like . . .” She searched for the right words. “. . . . unauthorized parties for high school kids?”

“More like illegal,” snapped Tandy.

Standing behind the counter, listening intently, Carmela gave an involuntary shudder. How on earth did something like that connect with Jimmy Earl? Or Shamus, she mentally added. Or Shamus.

“Here’s the thing,” said Tandy as she waggled her index finger and moved closer to the counter. Carmela and Gabby, fascinated by her words, leaned in to listen, even though no one else was in the shop yet. “Poor Jimmy Earl had a whopping dose of this Special K stuff in his bloodstream.”

The news of Jimmy Earl’s death had made front-page headlines in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, though the story that followed was short, with very few details. Carmela knew it was only a matter of time, however, before a mix of rumors and truth concerning Jimmy Earl’s demise would spread like wildfire throughout the city.

Gabby frowned. “Isn’t too much of that stuff like poison ? Where did you hear this?” she demanded. “And are you sure it was ketamine?”

“Darlings,” Tandy’s hyperthyroidal eyes got even bigger, “I heard it first-person from CeCe Goodwin, Darwin’s sister-in-law.” Darwin was Tandy’s husband. “I’m not sure you-all know this,” continued Tandy, “but CeCe is a nurse over at Saint Ignatius. And,” she added triumphantly, “she just happened to be on duty last night when Jimmy Earl Clayton was brought in to the emergency room, all pale and white on a stretcher!”

That level of confirmation was good enough for Gabby. “Wow,” she breathed. “Do they know how he overdosed? I mean, it was an overdose that killed him, right? Or did someone . . . what? Put it in his drink?”

“Nobody’s saying anything about that yet,” said Tandy. “Of course, it’s possible Jimmy Earl could have taken the drugs himself. He did have a slight tendency to overdo.”

Slight tendency, thought Carmela, now there’s an understatement . She recalled seeing Jimmy Earl Clayton at a Garden District party one night doing the macarena on top of someone’s Louis XVI table, stoned out of his mind. Then there were his so-called after work “martini races” at Beltoine’s. Those were legendary. And he’d once tossed his cookies on the eighteenth green at the Belvedere Country Club in full view of the clubhouse after he’d imbibed in a few too many bourbons. No, she thought, Jimmy Earl Clayton hadn’t been just a social drinker; he had darn near achieved professional status.

“I’m sure the police will explore all possibilities,” continued Tandy. “They’re extremely clever when it comes to things like toxicology screening and forensic tests.” Tandy talked as though she’d just earned a master’s degree in criminal justice. “They can run tests that narrow everything down to the nth degree,” she added.

Carmela listened intently to Tandy. That was exactly what the police had told her last night when they revealed that Jimmy Earl had been poisoned. No wonder Shamus had been heartsick and worried this morning, thought Carmela. Being accused of such a heinous crime. And poor Jimmy Earl. Dead from an overdose of a drug that was popular, easy to obtain, and so very lethal.

Jimmy Earl had so loved to party, Carmela mused. So there was that possibility. It wouldn’t be the first time a white-collar business type had been caught using drugs. Just look at the popularity of cocaine. It was not only rampant these days, cocaine was most often the drug du jour among executives. Jimmy Earl could have just as easily developed a taste for club drugs. It happened. God knows, it happened.

On the other hand, Jimmy Earl was also a high-test financier. He was one of the senior partners in Clayton Crown Securities. Clayton Crown was one of the few independently owned brokerage firms left in New Orleans, and they handled millions, maybe billions, in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and corporate financing. They also engineered mergers and acquisitions. Shamus had mentioned Clayton Crown on more than one occasion and had obviously had a lot of respect for them. In fact, Clayton Crown was considered a major player in New Orleans.

But as head of a prominent company like that, it was also possible Jimmy Earl had courted a few enemies over the years. Sooner or later, investors lost money, mergers went sour, financing fell through.

The question was, would someone have gone so far as to kill Jimmy Earl? Carmela thought about this for moment, didn’t come up with anything definitive. That would be a good question for Miss Cleo’s Psychic Hotline, she decided.

“What happened to the float?” Carmela asked Tandy as an afterthought.

“Impounded,” said Tandy. “Apparently, poor Jimmy Earl really choked down a megadose so they’re checking everybody out.”

The tightness in Carmela’s chest loosened a notch.

“So . . .” said Gabby, unwilling to let the issue of Jimmy Earl Clayton’s death go, “they are surmising that someone put ketamine in his drink?”

“Honey, nobody knows for sure yet,” said Tandy. “But I’m not surprised that Jimmy Earl ingested so much,” she sniffed. “Given the way most of those men tipple all that whiskey.” Tandy gave a tight nod of her curly head, then headed for the back table to work on what would be her fourteenth scrapbook.

Gabby looked up from the counter. “I think it is. Didn’t you order more?”

Purple, green, and gold were the official colors of Mardi Gras, and Carmela knew that, over the next few weeks, everybody and his brother would be looking for those specific colors when they put together scrapbooks to showcase their Mardi Gras photos.

“I ordered a ream of foil paper. What’s happened to it?”

Gabby frowned as though trying to recall. “I think Baby bought a hundred sheets for wrapping party favors. Then, the other day, while you were at lunch, some of the people from the Isis krewe came in and bought a whole bunch more. What with your regulars . . .” Gabby’s voice trailed off uncertainly.

“I get the picture,” said Carmela. “But we’re going to need more. Pronto.”

“Can you put an order in?” Gabby asked as she stood at the counter, arranging packets of foil stickers.

“I’ll place an order on-line,” Carmela assured her. “That way we’ll get free shipping, and the order should be processed today.”

“Good.” Gabby looked up as the bell over the door sounded. “Oh, hi there,” she said as Baby walked in, accompanied by one of her spectacularly beautiful daughters.

“You remember Dawn, don’t you, everybody?” asked Baby as she proudly thrust her daughter in front of her. Dawn possessed the same classic features as her mother, but at twenty-five was a far younger and perkier version.

“Of course,” said Carmela, greeting her warmly. “And this is Gabby, my assistant.”

“Hello,” said Dawn pleasantly as she pushed back a tendril of golden blond hair. “Hi, Tandy,” she waved a hand toward the back of the store.

“Hi, sweetie,” replied Tandy, barely looking up from her stack of photos.

“You heard about Jimmy Earl?” asked Baby.

Everybody nodded.

“Tragic,” breathed Baby, “simply tragic.”

“Tandy’s husband’s sister-in-law was there,” said Gabby. It was a tangled reference, but Baby and Dawn seemed to pick up on it right away and nod expectantly.

“She was right there in the emergency room when Jimmy Earl was brought in,” finished Gabby with great enthusiasm.

Baby cranked her patrician brows up a notch and turned to study Tandy. “You don’t say,” she murmured. “Was the poor fellow still alive, do you know?”

“Dead as a doornail,” said Tandy as she flipped through her stack of photos like playing cards.

“I heard they found drugs in his bloodstream,” volunteered Dawn.

“Ketamine,” called Tandy from the back, not wanting her inside information to be overshadowed by anyone else.

“Such a sad business,” said Baby. “I think I’ll make a crab étouffée to take over to Rhonda Lee.” Rhonda Lee was Jimmy Earl’s wife. Technically his widow now. “What do you think, honey?” She turned to Dawn.

“Crab’s good,” said Dawn.

“You know, the Claytons only live a few blocks away,” Baby added. “It just goes to show you never know when or where tragedy’s going to strike.” There were murmurs of agreement from the women, then Baby shook her head as if to clear it. “On a happier note, I was telling Dawn about the wedding scrapbook pages you showed us yesterday.”

“Ya’ll know I just got married this past fall,” said Dawn, brightening immediately. “To Buddy Bodine of the Brewton Creek Bodines. And I still haven’t got my reception pictures in any semblance of order. Mama did my wedding album, of course, but these . . .” She sighed dramatically and held up a large fabric-covered box that presumably contained a jumble of reception photos. “I thought maybe ya’ll could help,” she finished with a pleading note.

“You thought right,” said Carmela, draping an arm around Dawn’s shoulders and leading her to the table in back. “In fact I just got a load of new albums and papers in. Here . . .” Carmela got Dawn and Baby seated at the table, then moved to a flat file cabinet and slid open a drawer. Drawing out an album with a thick cover of cream-colored, nubby paper embossed with tiny hearts, she passed it over to them.

Dawn fingered the thick paper. “I adore this cover, it’s so tactile.”

“That’s because the paper’s handmade,” Baby quickly pointed out.

“And I absolutely love the almond color,” said Dawn, “it’s so much more elegant than just plain old pasty white. And those little hearts are perfect. So romantic.”

“I’ve got some great papers, too,” said Carmela, smiling at Dawn’s over-the-top enthusiasm. “Some are mulberry, handmade in Japan. One even has cashmere fibers woven in.”

Saint Cyril’s, like all the ancient cemeteries in New Orleans, had been built aboveground back in the late 1700s. With constant outbreaks of yellow fever killing off large numbers of the population, early settlers had still found it nearly impossible to bury the bodies of their dead in the ground. The city of New Orleans, it seemed, was situated a good six feet below sea level. So the water table had a nasty habit of eventually returning their loved ones to them. An alternative method was hastily and cleverly devised. The aboveground tomb.

Carmela had been commissioned by Saint Cyril’s Preservation Society to design a history scrapbook commemorating this historic old cemetery with its whitewashed tombs, historic monuments, and black wrought-iron gates. Quite a creative coup and the first commercial scrapbook project she’d ever received.

“Look what someone just donated, dear,” said Donna Mae, handing a yellowed and tattered brochure to Carmela. “It’s the program for the dedication of Saint Cyril’s back in 1802.”

Carmela accepted the fragile program. From the condition of the faded, half-shredded paper, it had obviously been forgotten for decades in someone’s old trunk. And, over the past hundred years, it had been subjected to all manner of heat, mildew, mold, and insects.

“I’ll get this treated with archival preserving spray right away,” Carmela promised. “Like some of us, it doesn’t need any more age on it.”

“We located a few more black-and-white photos, too,” said Donna Mae, handing over a large manila envelope.

“And I asked some of the older folks to write down their recollections, just as you suggested.”

“Wonderful,” said Carmela. “That way this scrapbook can be an interesting amalgam of photos, news clippings, and written history.”

Donna Mae beamed. “And you’ll have a sample page or two to show the committee by the end of next week?”

“Count on it,” Carmela assured her.

“Isn’t that a coincidence,” remarked Tandy as the door closed on Donna Mae Dupres. Tandy’s eyes sparkled, and a curious smile occupied her thin face.

“What is?” asked Carmela.

“You’re creating a scrapbook for Saint Cyril’s,” said Tandy, nodding at the packet of photos in Carmela’s hands.

“Yes,” said Carmela slowly, still wondering what coincidence Tandy was referring to.

“And the Clayton family plot is in Saint Cyril’s,” continued Tandy. “That’s where poor Jimmy Earl will be laid to rest.”

“Jekyl Hardy’s on the phone,” Gabby announced. She looked at the computer screen. “You got the order in okay?”

Yes, mouthed Carmela as she picked up the phone. “Jekyl, hey there,” said Carmela.

Jekyl Hardy was a whirling dervish of a man who, for the better part of the year, made his living as an art and antiques consultant. When Mardi Gras rolled around, however, you could usually find Jekyl Hardy at the Pluvius or Nepthys dens, where he served as head designer and float builder for both krewes. Lean and wiry, dark hair pulled snugly into a ponytail, Jekyl Hardy was usually attired in all black. And since he was constantly overbooked, Jekyl was generally in a state of high anxiety throughout Mardi Gras—at least until the last beads were tossed and the queens were crowned on the final Tuesday night.

“Carmela, my most darling and favorite of all people,” came his intense voice at the other end of the phone. “Do you know your name was mentioned in passing regarding our fair city’s latest brouhaha?”

“What are you talking about, Jekyl?” She had a pretty good guess as to what Jekyl meant but still held out a faint glimmer of hope it might be something else.

“I’m referring to the untimely demise of Jimmy Earl Clayton,” said Jekyl. “My phone’s been ringing off the hook. As you know, I’m doing the decorations for the Pluvius Ball next Tuesday night.” He paused dramatically. “And now there’s a slight rumble the ball may be canceled altogether.”

“Out of respect for poor Jimmy Earl?” asked Carmela.

“I suppose that would be the general idea,” said Jekyl. “Although, from what I’ve heard about Jimmy Earl, the man didn’t garner all that much respect when he was alive.” Jekyl Hardy cackled wickedly, pleased with his offbeat brand of gallows humor. “But, Carmela, this nasty innuendo about your ex,” Jekyl continued. “Very, very bad. Word on the street is that Shamus is suspect numero uno, the odds-on favorite for the moment.”

“Not my favorite,” replied Carmela.

“I admit it’s all circumstantial,” said Jekyl. “On the other hand, Shamus does posses a fairly famous temper and has been known to dip his beak in the demon rum. It’s a fairly damning combination. I mean, I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off last night, trying to get the damn floats out the door, and I still noticed Shamus staggering around, sucking down hurricanes like they were Pepsi Colas.”

“Shamus always does that at Mardi Gras,” said Carmela. “Hell, Jekyl, the whole of New Orleans does.”

“Point well taken,” agreed Jekyl. “The question is, what’s to be done now? What kind of damage control can you engineer?”

“There’s nothing to do,” said Carmela. “Except let the police do their job. I’m sure they’ll blow off all the nasty rumors and innuendos soon enough and get on with their job.”

“Which is?” said Jekyl.

“Figuring out who really did away with poor Jimmy Earl Clayton,” responded Carmela. “Or, rather, I should say determine how he died. Since nothing’s really been proven yet.”

“Carmela,” gushed Jekyl Hardy, “you’re such a linear thinker. I absolutely adore that aspect of your brain. Me, I’m far too right brain. Just not enough balance between the cerebrum and the cerebellum, I guess. Or does it all take place in the cerebral cortex? I can’t remember. Anyway, next question. What lucky gent is squiring you to the Marseilles Ball this evening?”

“No one,” said Carmela. “I’m not going.”

“But, darlin’, you have your beauteous costume all figured out!” protested Jekyl.

Carmela grinned. To pass up a Mardi Gras ball was heresy for a Mardi Gras fanatic like Jekyl Hardy.

“Well,” blustered Jekyl, “you most definitely are going, and don’t bother trying to weasel your way out of it. You’ll go with me.”

“I don’t think so—” protested Carmela.

“Mm-mn, case closed,” declared Jekyl over her protests. “I’ll meet you in the lobby of the Hotel Babbit at eight o’clock sharp. Okay?”

“Okay,” sighed Carmela.

“And you are wearing that delightful black-and-gold creation, correct?”

Carmela sighed again. “If you say so.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to go flouncing into one of the biggest Mardi Gras parties of the year with her décolletage in plain sight while her soon-to-be-ex-husband was being speculated on so freely. On the other hand . . . what could she do? Shamus was surely innocent, right?