By A. C. Mason
Mystery, 317 pages
Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald
Blurb:
Susan
Foret is thrust into a murder scene when one of the town’s
wealthiest citizens dies near her as the local Krewe’s parade is ending. A
gris-gris bag containing tarot cards and several other fetish items is left
dangling from the knife in his chest.
Excerpt:
A horn blared and two twerps of a siren sounded from the fire
truck, a signal the Mystic Krewe of Helios parade had
come to an end. A lone street sweeper followed to clear the streets of broken
beads, other discarded throws, and more important, any poop left by the horses
belonging to the Allemand Parish Mounted Posse. Some
of the revelers on the opposite side of the street started strolling off on
their way back to homes or vehicles.
I inhaled the delectable aroma of jambalaya steaming in a huge
black iron pot under a canopy behind Lucky Jack’s CafĂ©. Laughter, upbeat voices
and the celebration of carnival were just what I needed to raise my spirits.
The long ordeal for me and my twin brother was finally over.
Dealing with a couple of killers and the slow court system had taken a toll.
Justice took sixteen and a half years to officially vindicate Steven and convict his wife’s killer. The voice of my
neighbor, Rachel
Marchand,
broke into my thoughts.
“No matter how old I get, I
always enjoy Mardi Gras.” She removed a multitude of colored beads from around
her neck and stuffed them into a plastic grocery bag.
“What’s with all this talk about getting old?” I teased.
Rachel laughed and
pointed to her salt-and-pepper hair. “Susan,
I’m not exactly a spring chicken.”
“Age is only a frame of mind.”
“So true.” She surveyed the area with her gaze. “This day
couldn’t have been better. The morning started out a little chilly, but at
least the sun’s shining. And to think you didn’t want to come today.”
“I know. I know.” I slipped an array of beads from around my
neck and placed them in my own bag. “I’m glad I came. Too bad the parade didn’t
last longer.”
“All good things must come to an end,” Rachel
said with a joking tone.
Her remark turned out to be prophetic and no joking matter. A
man wearing a full-face rubber mask staggered out from behind the fire truck
and directly in front of the street sweeper.
I stared at the man. My brain didn’t quite register what my
eyes observed. Did I actually see an
object protruding from his chest? No, he’s in costume. Or else I’ve been out in
the sun too long.
“Crazy fool,” Rachel
muttered. “Is he drunk?”
In the back of my mind, I
thought I’d seen a second man wearing a short black mask some distance behind
the man who ran into the street. I checked again, but didn’t see another person
wearing a mask. Confused, I returned my gaze to the man staggering across the
street and tried to make sense of the scene unfolding in front of me.
The street sweeper swerved and came to a screeching halt, but
not before the side of the vehicle clipped the man and knocked him to the
pavement face first. Rachel and
several men in the crowd rushed over to where he lay. I took a few wary steps
closer. Even from this distance, I could tell the man was dead.
No comments:
Post a Comment