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  Cate was coming in for the weekend because of a phone call Landry got from his boss six weeks ago. Ted Carpenter told him that the “big boss” — the CEO of WCCY’s parent company, Triboro Media — would be riding in a Mardi Gras parade as honorary king of the Krewe of Calypso. Each year the krewe honored someone for public service, and 2020 was Channel Nine’s year.

  “The station has its own float in the parade,” Ted said, “and since you’re our resident celebrity, you have to join us.” As a paranormal investigator for Channel Nine in New Orleans, his Bayou Hauntings episodes had made him a celebrity to millions of faithful viewers across the country.

  Landry tried to beg off, but Ted said, “This isn’t a request, it’s an ultimatum. Invite Cate if you want.”

  Cate had loved the idea, and even more when she heard they’d also be attending a carnival ball. The Krewe of Calypso’s gala event was on Sunday night in the ballroom of the historic Roosevelt Hotel on Canal opposite the French Quarter. Carnival balls were boisterous, colorful and crazy events that went on until the wee hours. Few people ever wrangled an invitation. Landry had never attended one, but this year he had two tickets and instructions to wear a tuxedo, which so far in the thirty years of his life he’d avoided doing.

  When he told Cate he had to wear a “monkey suit” and show up for a carnival ball, she understood his objection but disagreed. For her, attending a black-tie Mardi Gras ball in a New Orleans hotel would be the pièce de résistance of the entire weekend.

  Her Southwest flight landed on time, and he waved as she exited security and ran to him. They walked arm in arm to baggage claim because she had checked luggage. That was rare; she had plenty to wear at his apartment, but this time she’d packed fancy clothes because she was going to a ball.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  They walked into Muriel’s, one of Landry’s haunts on Jackson Square near his apartment. The carnival season brought thousands more visitors than usual, and the dining room was full at this upscale restaurant two blocks and a world away from the craziness of Bourbon Street. More people stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the bar waiting for tables, and the noise level was deafening.

  Thank goodness he’s a local, Cate thought as Landry caught the eye of his friend Claude, the Maître d’. Addressing them by their first names, he apologized for the craziness and rearranged two single drinkers at the bar so Cate and Landry had adjoining stools.

  “Will you be joining us for dinner tonight?” Claude asked, and Landry said yes, apologizing that he hadn’t made a reservation.

  “No problem for you, Mr. Landry,” Claude replied with a dismissive wave. “It’s insane tonight, so give me some time, but I’ll take care of you two. Leave it to me.”

  There was a time when Cate would have pointed out people who recognized Landry — the ones stage-whispering to each other and surreptitiously nodding heads their way. Not tonight — the attention irritated him during times like this when they’d been apart and wanted privacy. Landry was a celebrity TV personality. If they chose to be out in public, especially in New Orleans, the chance of his being recognized was one hundred percent.

  Three years younger than Landry, Cate and he had been exclusive for over two years despite their long-distance relationship. She managed her father’s psychiatric practice in Galveston, and his rapidly growing fame at WCCY-TV, the Voice of the Crescent City, meant that New Orleans would be his home base for the foreseeable future. They chose weekends, took extended trips, or even just stayed home when they were together. For now it was working.

  The volume in the room was so high they had to lean in close to talk. He held her hand and kissed her cheek as they slipped back into the comfort of being together. Cate held her breath as across the room a tipsy bald man in a Hawaiian shirt rose from his chair and weaved through the room toward them. If he approached Landry, it might open the floodgates for others and ruin the evening. At the last minute she breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of turning toward them, the man made a beeline for the restrooms.

  “There are parades downtown every night,” he was saying as she tuned back in. “We’ll be at the Calypso parade on Sunday afternoon before the ball, but if you want more, we can walk down to Canal Street after dinner tonight. The floats should arrive downtown by 8:30 or so.”

  “I’ll be ready for bed once we’re done here. Are there parades tomorrow? That would be fun.”

  “You bet. There are two big daytime parades. The Krewe of Iris is at eleven, and Tucks rolls out right behind it. We should go up on St. Charles and watch one, and then I’ll take you someplace fun for lunch in the area.”

  Landry suggested going to the area around Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas, where the parades assembled. It was more laid-back there, like a family gathering with residents sitting in lawn chairs drinking Bloody Marys and beer, and chatting with the krewe members who stood twelve feet above them on floats while they opened and sorted bags of beads, doubloons and trinkets they would throw to spectators when the parade started. From Napoleon along St. Charles to Canal Street downtown, more than a million people would line up to watch.

  He said out there at the formation site, it was the calm before the storm. People walked alongside the enormous floats while men hooked up the tractors that would pull them through the Garden District. Before the parade rolled, the folks on the floats would nip from half-pint bottles and toss down goodies while they talked about where you were from and how much you were enjoying their city. This was a part of Mardi Gras the revelers on Canal Street would never see. It was the difference between crazy and civilized.

  There was an even more civilized way to view the Mardi Gras parades. Landry’s station had box seats in the viewing stand at Gallier Hall for everyone. You sat in a folding chair with a hot toddy or a cocktail. When the parade came by, the krewe members tossed lots of trinkets to the VIPs assembled there.

  Cate jumped at the chance to attend but turned down the offer to watch from a quiet street or the viewing stand. For this one — her first Mardi Gras parade — she intended to do it like a tourist. She wanted to stand behind the barriers downtown on Canal Street amidst thousands of partygoers and scream, “Throw me somethin’, mister!” to get her beads and doubloons from the guys on the floats.

  “Don’t be tempted to show your boobs to get beads,” he warned with a sly smile. “That worked in the old days, but if a cop sees you now, you might spend the rest of Mardi Gras in jail.”

  “Damn. I didn’t bring a single bra, because that was exactly what I had in mind!”

  He winked. “No bra sounds just fine to me.”

  Claude advised them their table was ready. As he led them through the crowd and into the dining room, Landry pushed ahead as people recognized him and called his name. A cozy table for two partially obscured by a post was decorated with purple, green and gold flowers. It was as quiet as Muriel’s could offer tonight, and it worked for them.

  As they dined, he asked what else she’d like to do, since they were playing tourists themselves this carnival weekend. She’d been to New Orleans countless times since meeting Landry, so they’d done many things. But when he asked, she grinned and said, “There is something I thought of. Don’t laugh and think I’ve gone bonkers. I want to do a French Quarter ghost tour.”

  He almost choked on a bite of food as he looked up in astonishment.

  “You? You want to do a ghost tour? Seriously? They’re the hokiest things —"

  “Hokier than standing on a parade route trying to get beads from a masked guy on a float who wants to see my boobs?”

  Landry laughed. “Okay but going to the parade wasn’t my idea either. This is your weekend —"

  She interrupted with a wave of her hand. “Then set it up! I want to see the old buildings and hear all the stories. You do this kind of stuff all day long, but I want a tour guide who’ll tell spooky legends.”

  He said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go on one of those tours. I can’t even come
to a restaurant without people recognizing me. What do you think they’re going to say when a paranormal investigator joins Reverend Voodoo for a walking tour of the Quarter?”

  Cate hadn’t thought of that, but she said she really wanted to go. “I’ve been on adventures with you all over Louisiana, but you’ve never shown me the dark side of your own town.”

  “Okay, I’ll remedy that. You and I will do a full-fledged ghost tour tomorrow night.”

  “C’mon, Landry, let me do it like a tourist. Indulge me. How about this? It’s Mardi Gras. We can wear masks so people won’t recognize you.”

  He had concerns, but her enthusiasm overcame his reluctance, and he agreed to sign them up for a walking tour of the Quarter tomorrow night. Whether he’d conceal his identity remained to be seen.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The people who work hard all year long preparing for carnival parades pray for good weather when it’s their turn. After a cold and rainy week, the gods of Mardi Gras smiled upon the city. Saturday was a glorious late February day with a morning temperature of sixty-five, climbing into the mid-seventies and bringing temperature in the seventies, blue skies and a perfect day for a million joyous revelers to watch parades.

  He and Cate rose around eight and strolled along the embankment by the Mississippi River, watching the fog burn off while barges and oil tankers sailed by and the calliope on the steamboat Natchez tooted “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” for folks in the French Quarter.

  First stop was Café du Monde for coffee and beignets. They saw the street artists and palm readers around Jackson Square, and he told her stories about Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral. Built by the Spanish and French, the square was once called Place d’Armes and was flanked by barracks and government offices. Slave auctions were held here, in what was then America’s largest port. Landry said human beings were sold like cattle here, and some guides and historians glossed over the atrocities so tourists wouldn’t learn this aspect of the city’s dark past.

  They had lunch at Felix’s, polished off Bloody Marys, downed a dozen oysters each, shared a crawfish etouffee, and walked to Canal Street to stake out their places behind the metal barriers. They met the people next to them and when the floats rounded the corner onto Canal Street, she screamed and yelled with the best of them.

  Cate loved catching the throws, and soon the plastic bag Landry had brought along to stow her treasures was full. When a fire department ladder truck rumbled down Canal, signaling the end of the parade, they walked back to his place.

  After they rested for an hour, she went through her bag of goodies one by one, sorting the beads from the kewpie dolls and the plastic coins from the drink cups. She said it had been a glorious afternoon and more fun than she ever imagined.

  After a late dinner, they arrived at the French Market at nine for their ghost tour. Most evenings this part of town would be quiet by now. The only bars nearby were local hangouts, but during carnival it was hard to find a quiet spot anywhere in the Quarter. Some rowdy college students stumbling along the sidewalk almost knocked Cate down, and they detoured through Latrobe Park, where there were less drunk pedestrians.

  Since Landry opted for no mask, their guide, a twenty-something guy named Ross sporting a top hat and a face painted like a skeleton’s, recognized him. “Dude, I love your shows. What the hell are you doing on my tour? You can tell people about this stuff way better than I can.”

  “My girlfriend wants the authentic ghost tour. She’s already heard everything I know. I thought I’d give her a break and let someone else take over.”

  Besides Landry and Cate, the group comprised Tiffany and Kayla, forty-something friends from Los Angeles, and an older couple from Alabama. They bombarded Landry with questions and autograph requests, and he firmly declined. This time he was along for the ride. The guide encouraged him to speak up any time he wanted, but he said it was Ross’s show and promised to keep quiet. Cate quipped it would be the first time that had ever happened, which drew a laugh from the others.

  Their first stop was the infamous LaLaurie Mansion on Governor Nicholls Street. A private home today, it was one of the Quarter’s most famous haunted houses. Centuries before, the demonic Madam LaLaurie imprisoned and tortured slaves in the upper parts of the house. Unsuspecting guests at her frequent dinner parties had no idea there were captives writhing in agony above their heads.

  “Is this the spookiest spot in the Quarter?” Kayla asked. Ross said so many mysterious and unexplainable things had happened over three centuries that any number of places might be candidates for most haunted.

  After two hours seeing ancient buildings and hearing ghostly stories, they walked down Chartres toward Canal Street for their last stop. They took a left turn on Toulouse; with no stores or bars, the block was dark and deserted. Things were different a few hundred feet away in the lights of Decatur Street. Rowdy revelers were hard at it even as midnight approached.

  As they approached a dark three-story building, Ross said, “This ancient structure has seen so many horrific things that it’s taken on a malevolence of its own. Psychics call it a real-life horror house. They call it proof that it’s not always ghosts who cause hauntings. Sometimes a building itself is so infested with the evil in its past, it becomes the source of the terror. According to the stories, a notorious slave trader and his wife lived here. She caught him in bed with a servant girl, threw them both off the balcony, forced a servant to dig their grave and then she threw him in too. Buried him alive right in the courtyard. Their ghosts still haunt the place today.”

  As they stopped in front of the building, the lady from California named Tiffany stifled a scream and put her hands to her face. Her friend asked what was wrong, and she cried, “My dream! That recurring dream I told you about!”

  “So what? You’re not dreaming. Want me to pinch you?”

  “Stop it! This isn’t a joke; it’s the street in my dream. This is the building. See that busy street a block ahead of us and people wearing costumes? They’re in my dreams too.”

  Landry said, “You see this building in dreams? Perhaps you saw it on TV, or when you were here another time.”

  “I’ve never been to New Orleans in my life, but I recognize this building. I can describe everything inside. There’s a fountain in a courtyard where a stairway leads up to a balcony with a railing. Tall doors are standing open and a girl is up there. She’s scared — scared of someone behind her. An older woman. Then she falls —" Tiffany uttered a miserable sob. “Oh God, this is the place where it all happened! It’s real. It’s real!”

  The tour guide was shaken and confused. Ross was a college student making a few extra bucks doing a stupid ghost tour, and nothing like this had ever happened. He’d dealt with drunks, but this girl was terrified. He said, “If you’ve never been here before, how could you know this building? That makes no sense.”

  “It makes total sense. Everything the girl says makes total sense.” The words came from somewhere behind them, from the darkness on the opposite side of the street. Landry walked over and found a man sitting in the doorway of another vacant building.

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Because it’s true. The dream part, the inside, the girl who falls off the balcony — I saw it just like she did. I have those dreams too.”

  “Bet he has all kinds of weird dreams,” the older woman sneered. “He lives on the street.”

  Landry shot her a look of disapproval. “He’s in a perfect spot to watch the building, so why wouldn’t he know what goes on? Don’t sell him short.”

  Unaccustomed to kindness, the homeless man smiled, extended a grimy hand, and said, “Jack Blair. Pleased to meet you.”

  Landry shook it and introduced himself. Jack didn’t know him, and it gratified Landry to find someone in this town who didn’t know him.

  “What’s been going on over there?” Landry asked, and Jack said it was deserted and had been for the few months he’d been living here.
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  “I always knew there was something weird about it,” he said. “Other homeless men like me learned there was no lock on the gate, and at first a few went in. Nobody ever stayed, though. Even on stormy nights they’d hightail it out of there fast. You’d think they’d have wanted a dry place, and I wanted one too, but...” He stopped and looked away.

  “Why didn’t you go in?”

  “Because by then the building was talking to me.”

  Tiffany cried out, “He’s right! It talks to me too!”

  The tour guide interrupted, saying their time was up and to follow him back to the cathedral. Only the older couple went along; Tiffany, Kayla, Landry and Cate stayed behind.

  Landry asked Jack if the building was still unlocked.

  “Yep. There’s a padlock and a chain, but it’s not snapped shut. But mister, you got no business going in there. As God is my witness, something evil lives inside that building. It’s real; I swear it. You may laugh at supernatural stuff, but you won’t be laughing if you go in there.”

  Cate smiled when he insinuated Landry didn’t believe in the unknown. That was his business, his stock in trade. She’d seen things firsthand, but he was the expert.

  Landry winked at her and said, “I have a healthy respect for things I don’t understand, but the paranormal interests me. I want to look inside. Anybody care to join me?”

  Tiffany shook her head. “I believe Ross. This place is haunted. How else could a building in New Orleans I’ve never seen be in a dream?”

  “That’s why I wish you and Jack would go inside with me. I’m interested in what you might experience in there.”

  “You’re one crazy man,” Jack grunted, but Tiffany wondered if she should. Perhaps she could learn why the building was haunting her dreams.

  Tiffany asked Jack if he recognized Landry, and he didn’t. “He’s a celebrity and a ghost hunter for a TV station that produces documentaries.”