Just as the French Quarter is revered for its bawdy clubs, posh shops, cutting-edge restaurants, and picturesque architecture, the Garden District is the pièce de résistance of residential bliss. Once the sight of the great Livaudais plantation, the Garden District is now a grand dowager neighborhood filled with Victorian, Italianate, and Greek Revival homes that stand shoulder to elegant shoulder alongside each other. And just as its name implies, the Garden District delivers gardens galore. Gardens awash with camellias, azaleas, and crape myrtle. Gardens that echo with pattering fountains, chirping birds, and the quiet crunch of footsteps on pebbled walkways. Even private, hidden gardens enhanced with crumbling Roman-style columns, cascading vines, and greenery-shrouded loggias.

Tonight, as Carmela and Ava hopped from Carmela’s car, the Garden District seemed to resonate with excitement. Up and down Third Street, homes were ablaze with lights, and stretch limousines rolled up, one after the other, to drop off elegantly attired couples. Strains of music from the hired jazz trios, bands, and combos echoed throughout the neighborhood.

“Don’t you just love the smell of money?” exclaimed Ava as she adjusted a shimmery little shawl about her bare shoulders.

“What does money smell like?” Carmela asked with amusement.

Ava scrunched up her shoulders in a gesture that was pure Marilyn Monroe. “Like this!”

As Carmela and Ava hastened down the sidewalk, drawn like moths to the light, it seemed that everybody in the Garden District was throwing a party tonight. But on this sparkling evening, with lights blazing from every window and tiny garden lights dotting the path to her door, none of the houses seemed so grand as Baby Fontaine’s.

Baby stood in the entry of her Italianate home, looking cool and pixieish in a shimmery emerald-green strapless gown. Her husband, Del, who was her physical opposite, swarthy and dark, wide-shouldered and tall, held court next to her.

“Carmela! Ava!” cried Baby as two maids, specially employed for this grand evening, ushered the two women through the wrought-iron and glass double doors. Rushing to embrace them, Baby bestowed enormous air kisses which, of course, were eagerly returned.

“Gosh, this is absolutely stupendous,” said Ava, dropping her shawl a little lower to show off her spectacular décolletage and gazing about at the interior of Baby’s house. The walls of the front entry were covered with pale pink silk fabric. Ornate plasterwork and carved cypress moldings crowned the room, an enormous crystal chandelier dangled overhead, a huge circular staircase curled upward.

Peering down the center hallway, Ava could see a grand living room furnished with Louis XVI furniture and hung with original oil paintings to her right, a spectacular library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on her left.

“Baby, I really love your house,” gushed Ava.

Baby waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, it’s just home,” she said. “Casa Fontaine.”

But Ava was still very impressed. “I do believe this is even nicer than Anne Rice’s behemoth over on First Street.” Ava had once peeked inside when she delivered some of her voodoo trinkets for use as favors at a Hal loween party.

“Well, we certainly think so,” allowed Baby. “And thank heavens we’re located over here on Third Street. We don’t get quite the hordes of sightseers that First Street or Washington Avenue or some of the other streets in the Garden District do.”

“Lafayette Cemetery and Commander’s Palace are awfully big draws,” allowed Ava, referring to City of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, a historic cemetery crowded with family tombs and wall vaults that abutted the Garden District, and Commander’s Palace, the famed restaurant from whence Emeril Lagasse got his start.

Del put an arm around Baby. “If we start drawing crowds, honey, we’ll just go on ahead and charge admission,” he said in a leisurely drawl.

Baby batted her blue eyes at her husband. “Trust Del to find a way to turn a profit! Now, you two girls run along and kindly enjoy yourselves,” she urged Carmela and Ava. “Gabby and Stuart are already in there somewhere, cooing like lovebirds and acting like the newly-weds they are. Say, that Stuart is a handsome devil, isn’t he? And Tandy and Darwin are here, too. Although I think Darwin is huddled in the library with a bunch of menfolk, puffing on one of those awful cigars that Edgar Langley imports illegally from Cuba. I don’t understand what the fascination is, those things stink to high heaven. We’re probably going to have to air the place out for at least a week!”

“Is Jekyl Hardy here?” asked Carmela.

“He’s here somewhere,” said Baby. “And he was so worried about finishing up some of his floats. But then he got one of his assistants to oversee the final preparations, and he made it here just the same.” She smiled, pleased. “Everyone’s here tonight.”

Del put a hand on his wife’s bare shoulder. “Course they are, darlin.’ Nobody in their right mind would miss one of your parties.”

“My gosh,” exclaimed Ava as Carmela propelled her toward the bar. “Baby’s husband seems like he might be from one of those old Southern aristocrat families whose ancestors fought with Andrew Jackson.”

“Actually,” said Carmela, “I think Del’s great-great grandfather did fight with Andrew Jackson.”

“Cool,” exclaimed Ava. “Very cool.”

Carmela drifted from room to room, too. Ava had disappeared almost immediately in a flurry of golden silk, having laid eyes on two thirty-something men she deemed “extremely interesting.” In Ava-speak it meant the two men were bachelors whom she was itching to subject to her rigorous yet surreptitious questioning. For when it came to determining a man’s merit as a “likely prospect,” Ava was definitely an analytical left-brain type. And her scrutiny rivaled the process used for admitting prospects to the FBI Academy. Carmela had even kidded her about being a “profiler.”

“Carmela,” squealed Gabby as she waved from across Baby’s glittering living room. “Come say hello to Stuart. He’s absolutely dying to see you again.”

Carmela threaded her way through a sea of silk-covered sofas and ottomans, noting that Stuart Mercer-Morris looked nowhere near dying to see anyone. Rather, his youthful face bore a somewhat bored, been-there done-that look. It was, Carmela figured, the jaded countenance of a young man who was raised with money, lived with money, would always have a plenitude of money.

“Carmela darlin’.” Stuart greeted her with a chaste peck on the cheek and a hearty handshake. Carmela noted it was not the limp-rag grasp that many New Orleans males reserved for the fairer sex. Then again, Stuart had gone to an East Coast school. Princeton. Or maybe it had been Harvard. Carmela couldn’t recall exactly which one, except that it was one of those stalwart, preppy institutions where women were refreshingly considered the intellectual equal of men. Quite unlike little Clarkston College over in Algiers, where she’d attended school. There, they still elected a Crawfish Queen, Cotton Blossom Queen, and Sternwheeler Queen. Or course, there was never a crawfish, cotton blossom, or sternwheeler king. Gosh, life just wasn’t fair.

“Gabby is always regaling me with the most marvelous stories about the things that go on in your shop,” said Stuart pleasantly. “It would seem the problems of the world get sorted out there. Or at least the social pecca dilloes of greater New Orleans.”

“I’ve always thought we’d make a good premise for one of those reality TV shows,” said Carmela. “Just prop a camera in the corner and see what goes on when you get a pack of Southern women together.”

“What would you call it?” asked Gabby, clapping her hands together, caught up in the fun of the moment.

Carmela thought for a moment. “ ‘Cotton Mouths’?”

“Ah, very good,” said Stuart with a somewhat forced smile on his face. He snaked one arm about Gabby’s waist possessively. “And how is your husband, Shamus?”

Carmela kept her smile plastered on her face, maintained her voice at an even pitch. “Gone,” she said. She hoped it sounded like a casual, offhand remark.

“But not forgotten,” added Gabby, who suddenly looked a trifle nervous at the turn the conversation had taken.

“Shamus had such a promising career,” continued Stuart. “I was so sorry to hear he’d left his position at the bank.”

“And so was his family,” said Ava, joining the conversation as she slipped in next to Carmela. “They probably haven’t had a Meechum go rogue on them in the entire history of the family. Honey,” Ava said, focusing her big, brown eyes directly on Carmela. “You have got to pay a visit to the buffet table. The food those caterers laid out is simply out of this world.”

“Thanks for the save,” Carmela whispered to Ava as they pushed their way through the crowd and headed for the buffet table in Baby’s enormous dining room. “Stuart and Gabby are so hung up on my separation, it’s beginning to get out of hand. I was afraid Stuart was going to start reciting pithy little quotes about Mars versus Venus.”

“Oh, honey,” said Ava as she fluffed back her hair and reached for a bone china buffet plate, “don’t you know that touchy-feely caring-sharing thing is just a clever ruse with Stuart? The man owns car dealerships, for goodness sakes. He was just trying to soften you up so he could move in for the kill and sell you a nice big Toyota.”

“You think Stuart knows what I drive?” grinned Carmela as she grabbed a gleaming white plate bordered by pink roses.

“Everybody knows what you drive,” quipped Ava.

Baby’s description of the menu a few days earlier had been vastly underplayed. For here was a buffet that was truly sumptuous. Enormous silver chafing dishes offered up their bounty of Oysters Bienville, crawfish cakes with red bean relish, and cunning little eggplant pirouges, tiny little eggplants that had been hollowed out and stuffed with crabmeat and melted cheese.

The overhead lights in the dining room had been purposely dimmed and giant candelabras with sputtering pink candles placed strategically on the table to lend a warm, mellow glow.

Truly, Baby’s new caterers, Signature & Saffron, had come through like troopers. And they were even handling food for three other major parties taking place in the Garden District this evening.

Carmela dug an enormous silver serving spoon into an ocean of okra gumbo and transferred a helping to her plate. At the next chafing dish she reached for the fried plantains and succeeded in covering up part of the pink rose border on her plate. She cast an appraising eye down the table at the dishes she hadn’t tried yet, and decided she could probably cantilever a tiny sliver of duck au jus on top of her pork roulade.

“You’re going for the double-decker,” said Ava, impressed. She never knew Carmela could eat so much.

“Tonight I am,” said Carmela as they moved down the line.

“If I eat too much, I’m for sure going to bust the seams of this dress,” declared Ava. But Carmela noticed that didn’t stop her from helping herself to a little of everything.

Carmela was munching a crawfish cake and balancing a ramos fizz when Jekyl Hardy came rushing up to her some ten minutes later.

“Car-mel-a!” he exclaimed, planting a giant kiss on her cheek.

“Jekyl, hi,” she said. “Have you tried the food yet?”

Jekyl rolled his eyes. “Let’s not go into that right now. Suffice it to say I stormed the table with Tandy.” He grabbed her arm. “But right now, my dear, you are going to have your fortune told!”

“What are you talking about?” asked Carmela as Jekyl pulled her along with him and she practically had to toss her empty plate, Frisbee-style, to one of the tuxedo-clad waiters who was clearing away dishes and wineglasses.

“I’m referring to Madame Roux or Lou or whatever her name is,” said Jekyl. “Baby hired a fortune-teller for the evening. Isn’t that an absolute kick?”

Ensconced in Baby’s solarium on a Chinese-style settee, Madame Roux wasn’t so much a fortune-teller as she was a reader of tarot cards.

“See,” said Jekyl proudly as he prodded Carmela into the solarium ahead of himself, “you’ve just got to have a go at it.”

“Come in,” Madame Roux beckoned to Carmela. “Open your heart and mind, and let Madame Roux see what the tarot has divined for you.” Clad in a flowing hot-pink robe, armloads of bangle bracelets, and a Dolly Par-ton wig with a slightly pinkish cast, Madame Roux looked not so much like a fortune-teller as a flamboyant senior citizen dressed for a hot date at the bingo parlor.

“I’m not a big believer in fortune-telling,” Carmela confided to Madame Roux as she sat down on the low stool that faced her. “I think people create their own destinies.”

Madame Roux shuffled the cards like a practiced blackjack dealer, then fanned them out on the table between them. “I do, too, chèrie,” she said with a slight French accent. “The cards only point out choices; you make the final determination.”

“So what do I do?” asked Carmela, feeling kind of silly.

“Choose three cards,” Madame Roux instructed. “The first card will reveal your past situation, the second card your present situation, and the third card your future. But . . .” She held up her hand with theatrical flair. “Choose carefully.”

Carmela grinned. Past, present, and future, huh? Okay, this should be interesting.

She indicated her first card. Past. Madame Roux plucked it from the line of fanned-out cards and turned it over. It was the queen of wands.

Madame Roux crinkled her eyes in a smile. Or as much as one could crinkle when wearing double sets of false eyelashes. “You have always been very sympathetic and friendly,” said Madame Roux. “You were brought up to have a kind nature and also to be a good hostess.”

Carmela returned Madame Roux’s smile politely. “Not as good as Baby Fontaine is,” she quipped.

“Now you must select the card that indicates your present situation,” continued Madame Roux, unfazed.

Carmela chose a card from the middle.

Madame Roux turned it over, revealing the six of swords. A tiny frown crossed her face. “Difficulties. Anxieties.”

Carmela shrugged. “A few, yes.” Well, that was a strange choice of cards. Probably won’t come up again in a zillion years, right?

“And now your future card,” urged Madame Roux.

Carmela pointed to the last card on the far right. “That one.”

Madame Roux flipped it over. It was the hierophant card. The ancient Greek priest who was the interpreter of mysteries and arcane knowledge.

“What does it mean?” asked Carmela as she studied the card. Her final choice of cards looked fairly benign. An ancient priest sitting between two Greek columns with a gold key at his feet. Still, it could probably be interpreted any number of ways.

“The meanings are varied,” said Madame Roux. “Mercy, kindness, forgiveness.”

“All good things,” said Carmela. “And what does the key mean?”

Madame Roux studied the card. “Not completely clear,” she said, “but it should be revealed soon enough.”

Carmela continued to take this experience with a grain of salt. “So this is a short-term reading?” she asked, her bemusement apparent. This was like one of those psychic hot lines on TV, she decided. Got to flash a disclaimer that said, “For entertainment purposes only.”

Madame Roux’s eyes sparkled darkly as they met hers. But even as her eyes were filled with kindness, they also projected a certain seriousness. “You will know about the key in a matter of days, madame,” said Madame Roux.

“Well, thank you,” said Carmela, standing up. She dug in her evening bag for a tip, but Madame Roux held up her hand.

“Not necessary,” Madame Roux told her. “Everything has been taken care of.”

There were loud giggles and a shuffle of feet behind Carmela. Obviously other guests were waiting their turn to commune with Madame Roux.

Carmela turned around to leave and almost ran smack-dab into Ruby Dumaine.

“Carmela!” exclaimed Ruby loudly. Her round face was pink and flushed, her manner bordering on boisterous. A glass of champagne was clutched tightly in one hand. It was obviously not her first.

“Hello, Ruby,” said Carmela. She noted that Ruby was dressed not unlike Madame Roux. Lots of flashy jewelry, a hot-pink dress that swirled around her.

Ruby leaned unsteadily in toward Carmela. “A little bird told me someone was very mad at you!”

Carmela favored Ruby with a wry smile. Ruby Dumaine was notorious for hinting at little bits of gossip and then dropping nasty clues.

“Let me guess,” said Carmela, playing along with Ruby the best she could. “The garden club booted me off their roster for failing to produce a single Provence rose.” Carmela moved a few steps away from Ruby, noting that the woman was a notorious space invader.

Ruby Dumaine rolled her eyes in an exaggerated gesture. “Noooo,” she said.

“On the other hand, I’m not even in the garden club anymore,” laughed Carmela. Have I exchanged enough polite banter with Ruby to pass as being sociable? she wondered. Can I please exit stage left now?

But Ruby was in an ebullient mood. “If I recall, Carmela, when you resided in this rather hoity-toity neighborhood not so very long ago, you managed to coax a fair amount of flowers into bloom.”

Carmela heard familiar voices and glanced sideways. Tandy Bliss and Jekyl Hardy were bearing down on her. Bless them. Rescue was in sight.

“Ah, you’ll have to take that up with Glory Meechum, matriarch of the Meechum clam,” said Carmela to Ruby. “For, alas, I am no longer a resident of this glorified zip code.”

“Matriarch,” shrieked Jekyl, moving in next to Carmela. “Doesn’t that word conjure up images of incredibly stolid-looking women wearing togas and metal helmets?”

“I think you’re confusing matriarchal images with opera icons,” said Tandy. She smiled perfunctorily at Ruby. “Hello there,” she said.

“Oh, but I adore opera,” protested Jekyl. “It’s just those enormous opera singers that put me off. Stampeding across the stage as they do. Opera is so refined, so genteel. The art should reflect that, should it not?”

“But then the singers wouldn’t be able to project,” argued Tandy. She flashed Carmela a look that said, We’ll get you out of here in a minute.

Jekyl favored Tandy with a sly smile. “But you do. You can talk louder than a foghorn in a hurricane when you want to. And you’re only . . . what . . . a hundred pounds?”

“Please,” said Tandy. “I tip the scales at ninety-eight pounds.” In her short black dress with its teeny, tiny spaghetti straps, Tandy looked even skinnier.

Jekyl Hardy gave an elaborate shrug, as though he’d proven his point. “See.”

Carmela was pleased to see that her friends were now on either side of her, ready to spirit her away from Ruby.

But Ruby Dumaine wasn’t so easily put off. “Carmela,” she began again, “you are being whispered about. People are saying terrible things.”

Jekyl Hardy peered at Ruby peevishly. “Who’s got their undies in a twist over some insignificant slight on Carmela’s part?”

“Wrong,” interrupted Tandy. “When Carmela slights someone, if she slights someone, it’s significant. They stay slighted.”

“Good girl,” laughed Jekyl. “No sense pussyfooting around.”

“It’s Rhonda Lee,” Ruby blurted out loudly. “Rhonda Lee Clayton thinks Shamus is responsible for her husband’s death.” Ruby’s eyes blazed wildly as she stared directly at Carmela. “And she’s positive that you’re covering up for him!”

Carmela was suddenly dumbfounded. “She thinks I’m covering up for him?” she said to Ruby. “Does Rhonda Lee know that Shamus and I are separated? That we have been for almost six months now?” Carmela almost reeled from the impact of this nastiness. “Aside from the fact that Shamus had nothing to do with Jimmy Earl’s death,” she added. I hope, said a little voice inside her.

Ruby Dumaine nodded slowly, obviously pleased at the impact her words had on Carmela. “Rhonda Lee has been telling everyone that it’s all part of your master plan.” Ruby smiled, looking decidedly like the cat that just swallowed the canary.

“My master plan?” Now Carmela’s voice carried real outrage. “The woman is insane.”

Tandy rolled her eyes. “Why do I feel like I’m standing in Pee-wee’s Playhouse where things are getting crazier by the minute?”

“You’re right,” said Jekyl. “Time to take our leave.”

“Bye-bye, Ruby,” said Tandy as they propelled Carmela down the hallway and away from Ruby Dumaine.

“Whew,” said Jekyl when they were out of earshot. “What was that all about?”

“I think the old bat’s been drinking absinthe,” said Tandy.

“Actually,” said Jekyl, “Ruby was drinking a French fizz. Pernod and champagne.”

“A hooker’s drink,” sniffed Tandy.

“This is such craziness!” said Carmela, still smarting from the nasty gossip Ruby had been so happy to spread. Her angst and frustration were obvious. What started out as a lovely evening had suddenly taken a nasty twist.

“Do you know what?” said Tandy in a low voice. “The insidious thing is that people do listen to Rhonda Lee.”

Jekyl’s face was suddenly lined with concern as he stared at Carmela. “They do,” he said. “Carmela, do you know if Shamus has a lawyer? A good one?”

“I don’t know. Probably,” said Carmela, recalling Shamus’s many phone conversations with the attorneys who were kept on retainer by his family’s Crescent City Bank.

Tandy gave a quick look around to make sure no one was listening in on their conversation. “Do you even know where Shamus is, Carmela?”

Carmela shook her head. Tears had begun to gather in her eyes and threatened to spill down her cheeks. Why, she wondered, am I getting so damned emotional about this all of a sudden?

“My God,” exclaimed Jekyl, peering at her. “You still love Shamus!”

Carmela shook her head fervently. “I don’t. Absolutely not.”

“Yes, you do!” Jekyl insisted.

“Leave her alone,” hissed Tandy. “Can’t you see she’s upset?” Tandy slipped a thin arm around Carmela’s waist and pulled her close. “Don’t you dare make her any more worried than she already is,” she sternly admonished Jekyl.

“Sorry,” said Jekyl. “Really. I had no intention of . . . ah . . . upsetting Carmela.”

“I think the two of us better go outside for a little fresh air,” Tandy announced imperiously. She grabbed Carmela’s elbow and began to lead her through the crush of people that buzzed about the makeshift bar in Baby’s game room. “S’cuse us, s’cuse us,” Tandy intoned as they pushed their way through the crowd, heading for the French double doors that led to the patio outside.

Carmela’s and Tandy’s heels clacked across the bricks of the patio as they crossed toward the tent. They could see that the zydeco musicians were just starting to warm up, and a few couples were already lolling about the dance floor in anticipation of the music. Carmela knew it wouldn’t be long before the entire crowd, lured by the rousing music and wildly engaging beat, would thunder outside, lubricated with drink and ready to cut loose. And Carmela also knew that once the really wild music started, the party would go on until God knows when.

“Tandy,” said Carmela, “you go on back in. Let me take a breather by myself.”

Tandy’s pencil-thin eyebrows shot up, and her face suddenly assumed a worried look. “Are you sure, Carmela? Because you seemed awfully upset in there.”

Carmela sighed deeply. “Ruby Dumaine just got the best of me for a moment. Plus I went out to Shamus’s camp house today and found it totally trashed.”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Tandy. “Who on earth would want to—” She stopped suddenly, bit her lip. Obviously, someone did want to discredit Shamus or cause him serious problems.

“I’m pretty sure Shamus is in some sort of trouble,” confided Carmela. “I just don’t know what kind.” She was also recalling the blue sedan that had followed her for a while this afternoon. Suddenly her rollicking adventure didn’t seem quite so rollicking anymore.

“Jeez,” breathed Tandy. “So your ex is seriously on the lam. I didn’t know old Shamus had it in him. The Meechums always seemed like such a prim and proper family. The kind of people who are born with the proverbial stick up their butts, if you know what I mean.”

Tandy’s somewhat unkind characterization of Shamus and his family brought a wry smile to Carmela’s face. “Lots of people think that,” she admitted. “But the fact remains, Shamus is an honest person, a good person.” Carmela wanted to add, Except with me, but she didn’t. Instead she simply added, “I can’t believe Shamus was in any way involved in Jimmy Earl’s murder.”

“Course he wasn’t, honey,” said Tandy. “Ruby Dumaine is just a big old loudmouth pea hen. She’s got nothin’ to do all day but fret, bug her daughter Swan to death, and spend Big Jack’s money as fast as he makes it. It’s a lethal combination. Breeds contempt of others.”

“I think you’re right,” said Carmela.

“I know I’m right,” responded Tandy. “Now you go on and take a few minutes to pull yourself together, then I want you to march that cute little tush of yours back here. I am hereby issuing strict orders that you’re to be on that dance floor shaking your booty in approximately five minutes. Okay?”

She didn’t know how much booty shaking she’d be doing, but Carmela decided the easiest thing to do was agree with Tandy. “Okay,” she told her.

Tandy leaned forward and gave Carmela a motherly peck on the cheek. “Good girl.”

Standing on the side portico, some twenty feet away, Dace Wilcox had just witnessed this exchange between Carmela and Tandy. And, from the depths of the shadows, he was staring at them intently.