Page 6 of The Shop on Royal Street
Jolene pulled out a monogrammed compact from her oversized purse and opened it. “My family’s house in Mississippi was built in1839, so it has a lot of memories. All old houses do. I think that’s what spirits really are. I never saw any ghosts—which is a good thing, because I was raised not to believe in them—but I always had a sense that our house had mostly good memories.”
Jolene finished dabbing her nose with powder and was now considering Beau with her wide green eyes; those and her red hair were the reason why her mother thought it a good idea to saddle her with the name Jolene. “I think if you won’t sell Nola the house you’ll be stepping in a whole pile of worms, because itdoessound like discrimination.” She smiled at me. “I’ve been thinking while y’all were arguing that this could be my first project, and I can get my friend atNew Orleansmagazine to do a story on a female-led team restoring a house in the Marigny. It would be like free advertising for JR Properties, as well as good PR.”
She placed her manicured hands on top of the table. “And since nobody here is worried about ghosts, there shouldn’t be any problem with rehabbing and moving into that house.” She returned the compact to her purse and snapped it shut. “Even with its history.”
Only Melanie and I looked surprised. Apparently, Beau already knew what Jolene was referring to.
“Its history?” Melanie repeated, her crossed leg bumping up and down violently—one of her many quirky habits—making the table shake.
Jolene turned toward Beau. “You didn’t tell them?”
“No.” He spoke through tight lips. “Because if Nola doesn’t buy the house, then it doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?” I asked.
We all faced Beau, waiting.
He took a deep breath. “It’s, um—it’s what we call in the business a, um...”
“A ‘murder house,’ ” Jolene finished, just as a crack of thunder shook the air and a gust of rain-scented wind picked up our red umbrella and swept it away down the sidewalk, flipping and turning like a thing possessed until it disappeared around the corner.
CHAPTER 3
Melanie, Jolene, and I sat around the small dining table in my Uptown town-house apartment on three of the five mismatched chairs, all jettisoned by previous tenants, along with a large scarred wooden teacher’s desk from the sixties and a couch that was older than I was. The sun peered meekly between gray clouds, the sudden storm over as quickly as it had begun, leaving the Crescent City sodden and sweltering, steam floating up from the streets like escaping demons.
I reached over to the window AC unit rumbling next to us and cranked it as high as it would go. I was sure I looked as bedraggled as Melanie, and studiously avoided catching my reflection in the window. Jolene’s hair still looked perfect, a testament to whatever hair spray she used. As a lifelong Southerner, she would have had lots of practice defying humidity. I still had a lot to learn, as my years in Charleston had taught me only to always have a hair band handy, and I had been forced into wearing my hair in a ponytail from May through September.
Since we’d returned to my apartment after our quick departure from Who Dat Coffee Cafe, Jolene had been searching through the vast number of cold-case and unsolved murders on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet. Apparently, this was a hobby of hers that shedidn’t even pretend to be embarrassed about, and I didn’t question it when the information gleaned proved to be a lot more enlightening than the sparse details and graphic euphemisms found in news accounts from previous decades.
“Are you sure that’s the right house?” Melanie leaned over Jolene’s shoulder, squinting to read the laptop’s screen. For as long as I’d known Melanie, she’d never willingly worn her glasses in front of anyone.
Jolene turned the computer to face us. “This is a newspaper photo of the house from 1964—it’s definitely it, right?”
I nodded. Even without all the clutter on the porch, I recognized the house. Which confirmed what we’d been searching for—it was definitely a murder house.
“And there was only one victim, and she was female?” Melanie squinted harder.
“Yes, ma’am.” Melanie had asked Jolene to drop the “ma’am” and just call her Melanie, but solid raising by a Southern mama couldn’t be messed with. “A young woman—Jeanne Broussard, aged twenty years. She lived in the house with her cousin Louise. They were both sales associates at Maison Blanche downtown.” Jolene turned the laptop back to herself, silent for a moment as she read. “Louise found Jeanne’s body on the stairs when she returned from a date. She had been strangled. There was no evidence of a sexual assault, and the perpetrator was never caught.”
“Never caught?” Melanie’s hand went to her neck.
“Not according to this article. I might be able to take a deeper dive if you really want to know more. I know someone who might be able to give us access to the police report.” Jolene flushed slightly.
“ ‘Someone’?” I asked.
“Yes. Jaxson Landry. He grew up in Metairie and went to Tulane Law. He’s a public defender, so he knows a lot of police officers. I’m sure he’d love to help.” Her flush deepened.
“Are you two dating?” Melanie asked. Marriage to my dad had apparently turned her into a hopeless romantic. Watching Hallmark movies had become her favorite pastime. I would sometimes join her togive her company, not because I actually enjoyed sappy romances and happy endings. Maybe it was because in my twenty-six years I’d already seen too much evidence that not every story had a happy ending.
Jolene shook her head. “We’re just friends. We met at a Mardi Gras party last year at a mutual friend’s house, and we just hang out occasionally with the same friend group. He’s, um, sort of dating that mutual friend. Carly.”
“Sort of?” Melanie asked.
“They break up a lot and then get back together. Just when I think I’ve got a chance in between the breakups, Carly starts blinking her eyelashes at him like a toad in a rainstorm and Jaxson is besotted again. They met in law school—she’s an attorney in a private firm here. They’ve been pretty much an item since then.”
“Ah, I see,” Melanie and I said in unison. We’d definitely watched too many Hallmark movies together.
“So, could you ask him to dig a little more?” I straightened, thinking of the possibilities of Jolene knowing a lawyer. “While you’re at it, maybe ask him the best way to fight Beau and buy the house that is meant to be mine?”
