Page 94 of The Shop on Royal Street
“Is that something else you learned from your grandmother?”
“Nope—I learned that from reading Nancy Drew mysteries.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes Melanie gets phone calls from her dead grandmother Sarah. She got one today saying that I was in danger. From the woman I was afraid of. Someone who doesn’t want me disturbing ‘what’s hidden.’ ”
Jolene’s red eyebrows rose.
“Not Mimi—someone already dead. I think she meant the female spirit in the house. And I’m pretty sure it’s Jeanne. Beau and I saw her—briefly. She looked exactly like a photo of Jeanne. I just have no idea why she would find me a threat.”
Our gazes met, then slowly moved over the hatboxes, with their lids and contents spread across the room, before returning to the open one in front of us.
“What’s this?” She reached into the bottom seam of the box and brought out a small metal object pinched between her index finger and thumb. Placing it on her palm, she said, “It looks like a man’s tie clip. My granddaddy used to wear one, but I don’t think they’re popular anymore.” Holding it closer to her face, she said, “It looks like it has some kind of a double snake-with-wings design on it.”
I leaned closer to get a better look. “It’s a caduceus. A symbol used by doctors.”
Our eyes met. “Why would that be in here?”
Without answering, I lifted a black leather-bound notebook from the box. Flaking gold embossed lettering in the middle of the front cover readClientele. On the bottom right, in the same lettering, was the nameJeanne Broussard. I opened the cover, exposing sheets of lined paper with the headersName,Address,Date, andItem(s), each column and line filled in with neat, precise handwriting in black ink.
I stared at the notebook, then raised my eyes to meet Jolene’s. “Who would have put these things in a hatbox and locked them in the closet with the hats?”
Jolene rubbed her hands together as she plopped down on the couch. “I feel like Nancy Drew. She was a redhead, too, by the way.” She patted the seat next to me. “Let’s go through the clientele book. Maybe a name will jump out at us and tell us something.”
“But tell us what? If we don’t know what we’re looking for, we’re just wasting our time.”
She looked at me with the patience a mother might give her toddler. “Did you never read Nancy Drew as a child?Everythingis a potential clue. And sometimes you don’t know what that might be until you look.”
We spread the book on our laps, with Jolene reading the left side and me reading the right side, and starting with the A’s. The first entry was made in 1962 with the name Berniece Adams.
Jeanne’s cursive handwriting was neat, tidy, and extremely hard to read for those of us who were unaccustomed to cursive. Jolene and I each dragged an index finger down the name column on our respective page, looking for something that might jar a memory. Our enthusiasm had begun to wane by the time we made it to the R’s, Jolene’s voice waking me from my stupor. “Do you know of any woman in Beau’s family whose first name starts with a C? The name C. Ryan keeps popping up. It’s a common last name, but I thought it could mean something.”
“I saw that, too,” I said. “I can’t say for sure, but the only females in his family I know of are Mimi, Adele, and Sunny—none of them with a C.”
Jolene drummed her pink-tipped nails on the page. “Jeanne Broussard worked in the lingerie department, but the only things purchased by C. Ryan were gloves and pajamas. Lots and lots of gloves and pajamas. Not even a single bra or even stockings. Just seems odd.”
“Agreed. And she was definitely Jeanne’s best customer by far, since her name appears more than any other.”
Jolene’s head popped up. “Or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Nola. Maybe C. Ryan isn’t a she. Maybe C. Ryan is a he.”
I blinked rapidly, the pieces and possibilities bouncing around my head like a ball in a pinball machine, each thought ricocheting off the sides. “Charles Ryan,” I said. “He would have been a young man then.”
“Maybe Mimi had an obsession with gloves. Although I can’t really see her in pajamas. She’s more of a flannel-nightgown person to me.”
“True,” I said. “Can you imagine her wearing a red bustier or anything sexy that a person might find in the lingerie department?”
“Maybe in her younger days,” Jolene said, always trying to be fair.
We looked at each other, trying to imagine Mimi as a younger woman wearing a red bustier. “Or not,” I said. “Although I can see her occasionally asking her husband to pick up something for her, or even him selecting a gift for her. Her husband’s medical office was in the business towers on top of the Maison Blanche building, which meant that it would have been convenient for him to stop by and pick up the occasional item for her. But according to this clientele book, the purchases were made almost every week between July of 1963 and Jeanne’s death in 1964.”
“Maybe he was buying them for someone else?” Jolene asked.
I thought for a moment. “That frequently?” I thought about Jeanne’s pregnancy, and her boyfriend’s insistence that they’d never had sex. “What if his visits were only done so he’d have an excuse to visit Jeanne?”
We looked at each other, our mouths opening in silent O’s of mutual understanding.
