He did cut a striking picture.
“You’re a people person,” he told her.
She shrugged. “I, uh, guess?”
He pulled his sunglasses off, and his eyes met hers. “I imagine even the dead people wandering around like you.”
“Who knows? Who can explain any of it?”
“Not me. I’m already beginning to doubt what I saw yesterday.”
“I imagine it’s a...hard thing to accept, especially when you’re older.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean, well, I wasn’t that young, but I was fifteen and was dealing with so much already. Then, of course, I realized that my privateer had saved me. I was grateful.”
He glanced at his watch. “I just wanted to check on you. I need to meet Ryder and the team at the police station. We’re doing a press meeting from there. Are you going to be out here tonight? What are your plans?”
She sighed. “I was awake bright and early. Sarah and I were down here by about eight this morning. I’m going to bring her back in around six. We’ve had a busy day, and she’s a great mule, but mules need their rest and fuel just like people.”
“People and animals,” he said.
“Pardon?”
He laughed. “My mother would have loved you. She said people who were nice to other people were usually good, but now and then they were devious. And people who were good to people and animals were almost always just really good people.”
“Well, I try,” Katie said lightly.
“I’ll come right back here,” he said. “Wait for me? I’ll have someone drop me, and I’ll take Sarah back into the stables with you.”
“That’s okay. I’m capable. I’ve been doing it for years—”
“I never suggested you weren’t capable. Maybe I need the help,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
A cop car was heading down Decatur, and he stepped out to hail the driver who stopped and, after a brief conversation with Dan, nodded gravely and let him into the car.
“You have all the luck,” Katie heard, and she swung around.
Lorna was staring at her, smiling and shaking her head. Her mule and carriage were drawn up behind Katie’s.
“I do?” she asked. Katie had never thought it good luck to have your parents brutally murdered, but Lorna wasn’t thinking of the past, and she knew that.
“Damn, he’s...hmm. Something.”
“Something, all right.”
“Where do you know him from?”
“He was a cop down in Florida when I went down for George’s trial.”
“Ah, and therefore, you...you what? He’s here for these axe murders?” Lorna looked at her with curiosity. “It’s weird. There’s like this strange electricity around you both with a push and pull, a magnet, coming close...opposite ends, pushing away... Ah, then they spark again, then...”
“Then nothing, Lorna. He and a few other cops are just asking me questions, going back into what I can remember about what happened down in the Keys.”
“Right.”
“Come on, it’s dead serious. Bad choice of words. Someone hacked people up with an axe, Lorna. I’m going to do everything I can to help.”
“Oh, of course,” Lorna said, earnest then. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know, I know. It’s okay.”
“You could have gotten stuck with an ugly detective.”
“He’s not a detective anymore. I don’t think he was detective. I think, technically, he was called a special agent. But he’s a private investigator now.”
“Oh! Here, in New Orleans?”
“Yes, seems he had family here, too.”
“Wow!”
“Yep. Anyway...”
There were other carriages on the street, but Matt D’Arcy, the third employee of Monty Trudeau’s carriages, was out with a group.
And there were tourists on the street sizing up the guides and the mules.
“I guess we should get to work,” Katie said. “And I’m calling it quits in a bit. I came out here super early today.”
“Cool. I’m staying on until ten, and Matt said he’d be out here until midnight, which seems about right since he showed up an hour ago.”
Their hours were loose. They just needed good reports from those who rode in their carriages. With the internet and customer reviews, it made for keeping a business nicely afloat.
“Okay, sounds good. Oh, see that little girl heading toward Sarah? I’m going to jump on it—I love taking kids these days.” Katie said.
“Grab that group,” Lorna said. “I see a crowd of young men coming. I’m going for them. Maybe I can meet a good one this way. I will not close my mind to the possibilities.”
Katie waved at her and strode back toward the little girl and Sarah. She still had a few bits of apple in her pocket. The child’s mother was near, so she asked if it was okay to let the girl give the mule the treats. A few minutes later, they were off, and Katie was glad. The little girl and her mother also had a dad and two teenage boys with them. The father told her in a whisper before climbing up that he didn’t want to hear about the Axeman. She nodded.
“Hey! There’s the place we had beignets,” one of the kids said.
And Katie was happy to tell them Café du Monde had been there since 1862, a coffee shop for the French Market, which had also offered goods and a sales venue for many of the Italian immigrants who had come to the city as well.
New Orleans had been under the French flag, the Spanish flag, the French flag again, and then become part of the United States. People in the city were from all over the world; many still had French roots, but the English had flooded in, a revolution had caused Haitian people to come, and almost every nationality known to man might be found in the backgrounds of many current residents.
“It’s a great big melting pot.”
“All-American,” the dad said cheerfully.
Katie was enjoying giving a tour to this lovely group. The kids loved her stories about Lafitte and Jackson and how they won the Battle of New Orleans.
She was halfway through when she heard the wife whispering to the husband. “There’s a live report, Arthur. A spokesperson is talking about...events. He’s warning people to
