That Old Black Magic Read online

  Bertrand nodded. “Yes, you must show me how you made those sugar sand dollars for that beach-themed cake you did.”

  “Well, I kinda stole that idea from you, Bertrand!” said Piper, smiling. “I saw the cake you did with the various sugar masks in your book—you know, the one that had all the different ideas for cakes and pastries to celebrate Mardi Gras? I just followed your recipe, shaped the round dollars, and very carefully outlined the little flower thing in the middle. It was making the five little slits that caused the problem. You can’t imagine how many of the sand dollars crumbled.”

  “Oh, yes I can,” said Bertrand, grinning. “Because I know how many of those little Mardi Gras masks I broke along the way.”

  “Ah, I wish I had gotten here a bit sooner,” said Piper. “I’m sorry that I missed Mardi Gras.”

  “Quel dommage,” said Bertrand. “But you’ll be here for St. Patrick’s Day.”

  Piper looked skeptical. “St. Patrick’s Day? Well, sure, but New York is the place to be for St. Patrick’s Day.”

  “Oh, we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in a big way here in New Orleans, Piper,” said Marguerite. “Prepare to be impressed.”

  Chapter 4

  Ellinore Duchamps puffed and wriggled her way into her restrictive undergarments, optimistic that the result would be worth the effort. Then she donned the full slip and hose. Ellinore was tempted to forgo the stockings, knowing that the day was going to be a sticky one. She couldn’t bring herself to do that, though. In her head Ellinore could hear her mama’s voice: A lady doesn’t ever go bare-legged.

  She pivoted from side to side, studying her head-to-toe image in the gilded cheval mirror. The girdle could not disguise the steadily increasing thickness in her waist. She raised her arm and jiggled the flab on the underside.

  Heaving a deep sigh, Ellinore went to the closet and pulled out a turquoise A-line dress. Its sleeves came just above her elbows and would cover her upper arms. The hem rested at the middle of her knees. At least her legs were still decent, thank the good Lord.

  Ellinore stepped into the dress and reached around to find the zipper. That took more stretching and wriggling, which only reminded Ellinore how she wished she could call down to Nettie and ask her for help. After having a full-time maid all her married life, Ellinore had found it necessary to drastically alter things. She couldn’t really afford to keep Nettie on even part-time, but Ellinore knew that if she gave up her maid entirely, people would talk. More important, not having Nettie in her life was unimaginable. So now Nettie was paid for one day of work each week.

  Nettie had been good about it, saying that she wanted to cut back her work and have more time to spend helping her daughter anyway. Though Ellinore had never said anything directly about the dissipation of the Duchamps fortune, she was almost positive that Nettie was aware of it. Her maid was nothing if not loyal and discreet.

  With the zipper finally closed, Ellinore took one last look in the mirror and was glad that she had purchased this dress years ago. Even on sale it had been expensive, but she had worn it many, many times. If something was good, it lasted, and old-money people didn’t care about keeping up with trends. The women in her circle wore their clothes for years. That made it easier for Ellinore to cover up the fact that she wasn’t the wealthy dowager people imagined.

  As the widow of Christophe Duchamps, Ellinore had inherited all his property. Before the Civil War, the Duchamps family had presided over a large sugar plantation along the Mississippi River, with a fifty-room Greek Revival house, gardens boasting trees imported from other continents, slave quarters, a small hospital, and a jail. Christophe’s great-great-great-grandfather had even owned his own steamboat. Later there had also been the classic Queen Anne masterpiece in the city, the mansion in the Garden District where Ellinore lived now.

  Over the decades, however, the wealth had dwindled as elegantly mannered Duchamps scions took their turns running things into the ground, unable to bring themselves to actually work and doing a grand job of mismanaging funds. Christophe had pretty much finished the job, clocking in at the law firm of a family friend but spending most of his time at his lunch club, at the racetrack, or making visits to various French Quarter watering holes. Finally he stopped the pretense and didn’t even bother going in to the office.

  Around that time Ellinore had begun to quietly sell off the family antiques. After a while, unhappy with what dealers had been offering her, she decided that she could make more money having a shop of her own. Christophe hated the idea of his wife as a shopkeeper and told everyone that Ellinore ran her little antique store on Royal Street solely because she needed something to keep her occupied. All their friends found it understandable that Ellinore would need to be out of the house and busy. They thought that the loss of her only child had precipitated the foray into the world of Royal Street commerce as a way back to sanity. Ellinore didn’t disabuse anyone of that notion.

  The plantation and the solid-gold table service that had been used in the dining room while slaves fanned their owners had long ago been sold. Ellinore wondered what those knives, forks, and spoons would have fetched in today’s inflated gold market. Every time she combed the attic or wandered around the house looking for things to bring into the shop to sell, Ellinore hoped she would come across some stray gold serving piece that had somehow been missed and could be redeemed for the cold, hard cash she could so dearly use.

  Ellinore straightened her shoulders and lifted her head as she turned away from the mirror. She was doing everything she could to keep up appearances. Nobody needed to know the economic straits she faced. It would be embarrassing and shameful for people to be clucking and worrying about her. She’d rather be dead than have everyone feeling sorry for her.

  And though she knew that it wasn’t right, she pretended she had no idea that her maid was still spending most of her days and nights working and sleeping in the Duchamps mansion. By feigning ignorance of the situation, Ellinore got exactly what she wanted without looking as though she were taking advantage of Nettie. All the housework got done, and Ellinore wasn’t staying alone in the big old house at night. The only hitch was that she couldn’t call out for Nettie anytime she wanted something. Doing that would reveal her knowledge that Nettie was working unpaid and would give away her manipulation of her maid’s loyalty. As long as Nettie didn’t think Ellinore knew she was in the house, Ellinore was only too willing to let the situation continue.

  Chapter 5

  Marguerite led the way out of the bakery and onto the sidewalk. She stopped at a tall wrought-iron gate immediately next to the shop and pulled a key from her apron pocket. Unlocking the black screen, she turned to Piper.

  “This is your key while you’re here, Piper. It opens this gate and the door to your apartment upstairs—not that we usually lock both. One or the other is fine.”

  Piper smiled and nodded as she accepted the key from Marguerite. She was certain she’d be locking both. She was trying to be more careful about taking chances. Her father had been warning her about New Orleans crime, but Piper had written it off to the perpetual worrying of a former New York City cop. Still, she appreciated his concern for her safety. Since she’d lain paralyzed on her hotel-room floor in Florida last month after ingesting poison purposefully fed to her, Piper had been understandably feeling less invincible and more vulnerable. Anything she could do to protect herself was totally worth it.

  They climbed up the long, narrow staircase. A single door stood on the landing. It was painted a deep burgundy.

  “We lived here when we first opened the bakery,” said Marguerite as she opened the door. “Then, after we bought our house in the Garden District, we rented this out for a few years. Now we keep it for guests, or once in a while Bertrand will stay here if he has a special project that keeps him working late at night and again early in the morning.”

  They entered a small living area, furnis
hed with a love seat and an armchair slipcovered with the same cabbage-rose-patterned chintz. A bistro table and two antique ice-cream-parlor chairs were tucked into the corner next to a door that led to a tiny kitchen with a sink, an oven-stove combination, and a small refrigerator.

  “The bedroom and bathroom are down here,” said Marguerite as Piper followed her along the short hallway. Marguerite stopped at two panels of fabric that hung from the hall ceiling.

  “This is your closet,” she said, pulling back the material.

  Piper looked in. “Plenty of room for my stuff,” she said. “What’s that door at the back?”

  “Oh, that’s a dumbwaiter,” explained Marguerite. “We had it installed when we lived here. Before we expanded our kitchen downstairs, sometimes we’d have to use our oven up here when we were busy. It made it easy to send trays back and forth. We haven’t used it in a couple of years.”

  They continued on the tour. In the bedroom an ornate iron double bed was covered with a pale blue matelassé spread and strewn with white pillows. An alabaster lamp sat on the nightstand, while a small Oriental rug in shades of blue and gold lay beside the bed on the wood-plank floor. The tiny bathroom was dominated by a vintage claw-and-ball-footed tub.

  “I love that chandelier,” said Piper, admiring the miniature lighting fixture. “It makes this little bathroom look so elegant.”

  Marguerite nodded. “That came from Ellinore Duchamps’s antique shop across the street. She has wonderful things, great old furniture and jewelry. She specializes in the most fabulous candelabra and chandeliers. I bought all those chandeliers downstairs in the bakery from Ellinore. And those candlesticks in your living room are also from her place.

  “The fridge is stocked with milk, orange juice, and sparkling water,” continued Marguerite as they walked back to the living area. “And the pods for the coffeemaker and sugar are in the cabinet.” She nodded at a cardboard box on the bistro table. “The beignets in there are for you, and of course you can help yourself to anything you want from the bakery downstairs.”

  “Oh, you’re going to regret that.” Piper laughed. “I don’t know if I’ll have any restraint when it comes to sampling Boulangerie Bertrand pastries whenever I want. Good thing I’m not going to be here that long.”

  As soon as Marguerite left, Piper kicked off her ballet flats, poured herself a glass of orange juice, and selected a powdered beignet from the bakery box. She walked to the French doors at the street side of the living room and opened them. A blast of warm air washed over her.

  She stepped out onto the balcony. Shiny necklaces of purple, green, and gold plastic beads still hung in the curlicues of the wrought-iron railings, vestiges of the recent Mardi Gras celebrations. Flower boxes filled with salmon, pink, and lavender salvia were affixed to the guardrails.

  Piper took a picture with her iPhone and posted it on Facebook. She tapped in a caption: GORGEOUS HERE IN THE CRESCENT CITY!

  She scanned the street, noting the signs for a café, a parfumerie, a bar, a voodoo shop, and a fortune-teller as well as the antique shop that Marguerite had mentioned. Piper was thinking that it would be fun to get her fortune told while she was in town, when she heard the man’s shout.

  “Hey, you with the blond ponytail!”

  Piper’s head shot up, and she looked around.

  “Over here, cher. Across the street.”

  A tall, handsome man dressed in a rumpled linen shirt and blue jeans stood on a balcony over the antique shop. His brown hair was tousled, and his eyes squinted against the sun. Piper suspected that he was about her age, maybe a couple of years older. Good-naturedly, she waved back at him.

  “I haven’t seen you before,” he called.

  “That’s because I haven’t been here before,” Piper called back.

  “Where are you from?”

  “New Jersey.”

  “And what are you in town for?”

  “I’m a guest baker for Boulangerie Bertrand.”

  Why was she telling him any of this? She didn’t know this guy. If she were in New York City, she wouldn’t get into a conversation with just any stranger she met on the street. But here in New Orleans, it seemed like a natural thing to do.

  “Is that a beignet I see in your hand?”

  Piper smiled and nodded.

  “That’s what I could use right now,” he said. “Want to meet me downstairs and we can go for a cup of coffee?”

  “Uh, thanks, but I’m gonna have to pass,” Piper answered. The disappointed expression on the guy’s face made her add, “I’m going to take a little nap. I didn’t sleep enough last night.”

  “All right, but at least tell me your name.”

  “Piper Donovan.”

  “Welcome to New Orleans, Piper Donovan. I’m Falkner—Falkner Duchamps. I give guided tours of the city. In fact, I just got back from a cemetery tour this morning. Maybe I can show you around while you’re here.”

  Piper laughed. “Who could pass up an offer to frolic in a cemetery?”

  As she waved good-bye and walked back inside, Piper thought of Jack. His quick thinking and fast actions in Sarasota the month before had saved her life. Their relationship was growing stronger and stronger, and Piper hoped it would only continue to deepen. She treasured Jack and had no desire to look elsewhere. The last thing she wanted or needed at this point was to get involved with another guy.

  She pulled out her phone and began texting: I’M HERE, JACK. IT’S GR8 BUT I MISS U ALREADY.

  Chapter 6

  In Hillwood, New Jersey, Vin Donovan finished clearing the snow off the sidewalk in front of The Icing on the Cupcake. He rested the shovel on the side of the building and scraped the bottoms of his boots back and forth across the cement before pulling open the front door. He inhaled the warm, sweet-smelling air that welcomed him inside the bakery.

  “Thanks, honey,” called the blond, curly-haired, middle-aged woman from behind the counter as she slid a tray of sugar cookies onto a shelf. “How about a nice hot cup of coffee and a cheese Danish fresh out of the oven as your reward?”

  “I’m going to spread some salt out there first,” said Vin. “We don’t want anybody slipping and breaking their neck.”

  As her husband cut through the kitchen on his way to the small storage shed in the back alley, Terri waited on a customer who asked to have a simple chocolate layer cake inscribed with birthday wishes. The customer pointed to the cake she wanted. Terri took it from the display case and carried it into the kitchen.

  “I hate having to ask you to stop what you’re doing, Cathy,” Terri said as she put the cake down on the worktable. “But can you please write ‘Happy Birthday, Frances,’ with an e, on this?”

  “No problem,” said Cathy, immediately putting down the wooden spoon and wiping her hands on her apron. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  Terri watched her assistant pick up a pastry bag full of pink icing and begin squeezing the message onto the top of the cake. Terri had to turn her head to the side and look from the corner of her eye in order to see the words take shape.

  “Sometimes it’s just so frustrating not being able to do what I used to do,” she whispered, not wanting her husband to overhear if he came back through the kitchen.

  “I know,” commiserated Cathy. “But I’m just so grateful that the doctor says your macular degeneration isn’t getting worse.”

  Terri nodded. “That’s the truth. My peripheral vision is fine, and my reading machine is a big help. All in all, I know how lucky I am, but, still . . .” Terri’s voice trailed off as Vin came into the kitchen carrying the bag of salt.

  “Still what?” he asked.

  “Still nothing,” answered Terri. “Go ahead and spread the rock salt out front.”

  “Really,” Vin insisted. “What were you saying?”

  “Nothing worth repeating.”<
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  Cathy picked up the cake from the counter. “I’ll go box this, ring it up, and leave you lovebirds to it,” she said.

  “You know, Vin, I don’t have to tell you every single thing,” said Terri as soon as Cathy was out of the kitchen.

  “True, you don’t, but it’s a helluva lot better if you do. For instance, it would have been nice if you’d talked it over with me before entering Piper’s name in that New Orleans thing.”

  “And have you come up with every single reason why it was a bad idea?” asked Terri. “I knew better than that.”

  He frowned, his brow furrowing with worry. “I hope we were right, letting her go to New Orleans like this.”

  “Vin, let’s face it. We are way beyond the stage of letting Piper do anything. She’s twenty-seven years old, an adult.”

  “But she still listens to us, Terri.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “About important things she does. If you hadn’t encouraged her, she wouldn’t have gone.”

  “I think it’s good for her, Vin. I really do. Boulangerie Bertrand is a renowned bakery, and she’s getting the opportunity to work with a baking master. New Orleans is a magical city, and I think the total change of scene will be good for her. She’s been so down since we got back from Sarasota.”

  “That can happen when somebody has tried to kill you,” said Vin.

  Chapter 7

  Crouched behind a giant pink azalea in the Duchampses’ rear garden, Nettie Rivers waited and watched. The warm, sticky air was thick with humidity, and her knees were paining her. Nettie ached to stand up straight. She glanced impatiently at the Timex wristwatch with the purple band that her grandchildren had given her for Christmas and wondered what was keeping her employer. Miss Ellinore was taking her own sweet time today.

  Nettie had a mental list of things she wanted to accomplish once she got inside the old house. She tried to do the big, noticeable tasks like scrubbing out the refrigerator or cleaning the oven or dusting and vacuuming on the day she was scheduled to come. Doing the laundry and slipping it back neatly folded into the mahogany dressers was something that could be done discreetly on her secret days. Polishing what was left of the silver or cleaning out the closets was each also a chore that Nettie accomplished on the days Miss Ellinore didn’t think anybody was in the house.