Bonfire Masquerade Read online

  “You think we can help you out?” said Sybil.

  “That’s what Sharkey told me,” said Lenni.

  Sybil turned on Joe.

  “So the three of you just show up, waltz into my house, and accuse me of dealing in stolen stuff? Are you trying to insult me?”

  People were beginning to drift over, as Sybil’s voice got louder and louder.

  “No!” I broke in. This was not going the way we’d intended. “We’re not—not trying to insult you. We’re just—we—”

  I was about to apologize and try to get us out of there, when Lenni cut me off.

  “All’s I know is I asked who were the major operators in this town, and your name kept coming up.”

  Sybil had been sitting on the couch, but she leaped up at that. She and Lenni were suddenly standing toe to toe.

  “You accusing me of something? Just come out and say it!”

  Lenni opened her mouth, but instead of saying anything, she pushed Sybil. Sybil stumbled backward—and then jumped on Lenni. Lenni teetered for a second, and then fell over on top of Sybil. They started twisting and wrestling on the ground. The other assembled people in the warehouse started howling and rushing us. Someone slammed into my back. I stumbled into someone else, who shoved me violently into Joe.

  Two seconds later, we were in the middle of an allout brawl.

  CHAPTER 7

  NANCY THE FIRE SPREADS

  The stairs had collapsed to the ground. The landing I was on was tilting and shuddering as one by one the struts that held it up pulled out of the wall. I looked down: The floor was a good twenty feet below, and strewn with broken glass, bits of metal, and debris. If the fall didn’t kill me, tetanus would.

  There was a horrible screeching sound as the metal of the last struts pulled out of the wall. This was it. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t help myself—I screamed.

  Something slammed into my chest. The air was knocked out of my lungs. I felt myself flying through the air. I braced myself, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop myself from hitting the ground, hard.

  But it didn’t happen. I landed on something only a few feet away. I heard the booming sound of the stairwell landing hitting the ground below. Whatever had hit my chest had held me up. I opened my eyes to find myself twenty feet up in the air, on the branch of a big old oak tree, staring into Bess’s face.

  “Bess?”

  “Oh, Nancy! Thank God we got here in time.”

  I looked down. The thing that had hit my chest was an arm—Aaron Pexa’s arm, to be exact. He must have yanked me right out the window. I grabbed the trunk of the tree, and he let go.

  “Thank you! If you hadn’t come along, I don’t know what I would have done.” A thought occurred to me. “How did you guys end up in this tree, anyway?”

  “Aaron and I went out to dinner in the French Quarter, and afterward, he wanted to tell me about his plans for his next building. It’s going to be here, if he can buy the lot now that Daniel is … you know.”

  “It’s going to be the gem of New Orleans,” said Aaron, breaking in. “It will be a boutique hotel, which will look just like a traditional New Orleans mansion, but the facade will be cast entirely from glass, a perfect blending of the modern and the traditional.”

  “We were standing outside,” Bess continued, “and Aaron was describing it all to me, when we first heard the noise. Then you screamed, and I knew you were in there! I was about to run in, when Aaron started climbing the tree—since the scream had come from above us and all. What happened?”

  I told them about the strange noises and the collapsing staircase. “If it wasn’t for your quick thinking, Aaron, I think Bess and I would both be dead—me from falling, and Bess because I landed on her!”

  “What were you doing in there?” asked Aaron. Was it the adrenaline from my near-death experience, or was there something weird in his tone?

  “Nothing—I went for a walk after the graveyard tour George and I took, and I heard a weird noise coming from inside. I thought someone was crying or something. The next thing I realized, the stairs were collapsing. I didn’t even know it was Daniel’s warehouse!”

  Bess shot me a look. She knew it wasn’t the full truth. But even though Aaron had saved me, I still didn’t know for sure if I could trust him. And besides, it was close enough to the truth.

  “You should be more careful before running off into strange buildings, Ms. Drew.”

  Now he was beginning to sound like my dad. Or worse—Chief McGinnis.

  “Let me help you down.” Aaron offered me his arm. Instead, I grabbed the branch below my feet and swung down, then wrapped my legs around the tree and shimmied to the ground. The day I needed help to get out of a tree would be the day they took away my girl detective card!

  Aaron and Bess slowly made their way down behind me. While they descended, I spotted a pay phone across the street and ran over to make a call—one I didn’t want recorded on my cell phone.

  “Hi, 911? I was just walking down the street and I heard a crash from inside this burned-down building—I think something big fell!” I gave the address and quickly hung up before they asked for my name. Someone needed to check the rest of the building out before workmen came in the morning. I would feel terrible if something else collapsed and hurt somebody.

  Aaron insisted on walking Bess and me home. I didn’t mind, really. They mostly chatted with each other, and it gave me some time to think about what had just happened.

  What was that voice I’d heard? No one else came running when the stairs collapsed. Perhaps they’d stayed upstairs. Or there may have been another exit to the roof—but most of the roof had been destroyed. Maybe it was the Haunted New Orleans tour I had just been on. Maybe it was the weird shadows that played off the flickering gas lamps on the streets. Maybe it was just some residual fear from nearly falling to my death. But the hair on the back of my neck began to prickle. Daniel had mentioned something about the construction site being cursed. This was New Orleans, city of voodoo, after all. What if what I’d heard … wasn’t a person at all?

  “Hello, Earth to Nancy?”

  I shook my head hard, to dispel the creepy horror-movie thoughts that had taken over. Somehow, without my noticing, we’d walked all the way back to what had been Daniel’s house. I tried to recall the conversation, but I couldn’t remember what anyone had said.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say, Bess?”

  “Aaron was wondering if we wanted to come with him to the ball his friend Andrew is hosting tomorrow.”

  I thought about it for a second. What I really wanted to be doing was some more investigating … but Aaron was a suspect.

  “Maybe,” I hedged. “After tonight, I’m not sure how much I’ll be up for.”

  “Totally understandable, Ms. Drew,” said Aaron. “Too much excitement can be a dangerous thing. I myself must head home and get some sleep. I’ve got another busy day ahead of me tomorrow, designing the future.”

  With that, Aaron said good-bye to us. I couldn’t help but notice that he took Bess’s hand and kissed it. Bess had a way with the guys. After that, he turned and strode purposefully off into the night.

  “Spill it,” I said to Bess as we walked inside.

  “Yeah,” said George, who must have been waiting up for us. “I want to hear all about the date. Did you end up their third wheel, Nance?”

  “Only by accident,” I responded.

  “And boy, does she mean accident!” said Bess.

  George gave me a quizzical look. I explained about the warehouse, and the collapsing staircase, and Aaron’s last-minute rescue.

  “Nancy! Can’t leave you alone for one minute. Did you at least find anything out?”

  “No.” I paused. “Well, maybe. There was this weird sound, like a voice, crying from the second floor. I don’t know what it was.”

  “You don’t think it’s actually haunted, do you?” said Bess.

  “Of course not!” I snapped. “Ghosts
don’t exist. Right?”

  “Yeah,” agreed George. “There are lots of explanations. Weird echoes. Cats. Daniel said the workers think the place is haunted—maybe someone is trying to sabotage the construction. It’s pretty easy to make voices appear somewhere using a radio transmitter, like what we used to communicate on that shoplifting case.”

  “Did you guys talk to Nicole, the resident voodoo expert? I wonder if she knows more about this haunting than she’s telling.”

  I told her how we’d failed to meet up with her but would try again. Then it was Bess’s turn to tell us about her night.

  “It was nice. Aaron’s sweet! And so handsome. He’s a little egotistical, though. If I had to look at one more drawing of his ‘New Orleans, City of the Future,’ I would have fallen asleep.”

  “Do you think he could have killed Daniel?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bess. “We only hung out for a few hours. He seemed genuinely sad that Daniel was dead. But who knows? If there’s one thing that being friends with you has taught me, Nancy, it’s that anyone can be the bad guy.”

  “Well, while the two of you were out getting nothing done,” said George, “I did a little research, and struck gold. Take a look at this.”

  She handed each of us a printout of a newspaper article from the Times-Picayune. I scanned it quickly. Warehouse … robbed … burned to the ground.

  “So, it’s another article about the arson at Daniel’s warehouse?” asked Bess.

  “Nope, that’s the thing. Look at the date.”

  I looked at the header on the page.

  “This was a full year ago!” I said.

  “Yup. Now look at these.”

  George handed me a dozen more printouts. Each was a newspaper article about a dual robbery/arson, all in New Orleans in the last year and a half. In each one, the MO was exactly the same: The buildings were robbed, and then burned to the ground to hide the evidence. In the ones where there were witnesses, they all reported seeing a gang of costumed young people running from the scene. The police had no leads.

  “Is there anything that connects all these places?” I asked, excited. Now we were getting somewhere!

  “None that I’ve been able to find,” George answered. “They’re all over the city. Some are rich, some are poor. Some are businesses, some are homes. It seems completely random. They don’t even usually seem to get that much from the places they rob.”

  “So they’re doing it for the kicks?” said Bess. “A group of kids out to have some adventure, whatever the cost to other people?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But then why kill Daniel? That doesn’t make sense.”

  We all read through the articles quietly, absorbing the facts that were changing the case we thought we were on. Whoever these people were, they were smart. By striking only during festival times, they gave themselves a cover for wearing costumes, crowds to disappear into, and blocks full of revelers who prevented police or fire trucks from getting to the scene of their crimes until it was too late.

  “What if …” I paused. The idea was not a happy thought.

  “What, Nance?” prompted George.

  “What if we’re looking at two different crimes? What if the people who burned down Daniel’s warehouse didn’t kill him? Or what if someone burned down his warehouse to make it look like it was part of this crime spree, and really they were just after him?”

  “So either we’re looking for a gang of arsonists, and a murderer … ,” said Bess.

  “Or a gang of arsonists who are also murderers … ,” added George.

  “Or a single murderer-slash-arsonist pretending to be a gang of arsonists in order to cover his or her tracks,” I finished.

  CHAPTER 8

  JOE REAL PARTY KILLERS

  I saw Lenni go down in a heap, with Sybil on top of her. A guy with biceps the size of my head threw a devastating punch right at Frank’s head. Thankfully, Frank managed to duck just in time, and with a careful push, sent the guy tumbling. A second later, someone grabbed me from behind and sent me flying into a couch. After that, the room was just a mass of arms and legs, screaming and yelling.

  I managed to lock my legs around the person on top of me, and I flipped him over onto the ground. Lenni was on her feet again, locked arm in arm with Sybil. Another girl was sneaking up behind her, though, about to knock her on the head. With nothing else to do, I yanked one of the pillows off the couch and threw it at her. I managed to clock her in the head, which probably didn’t hurt her all that much, but did slow her down long enough for Lenni to toss Sybil into her.

  “Bull’s-eye!” Lenni yelled, before leaping back on top of Sybil.

  Frank was being circled by three punks who took turns darting in and throwing punches at him. So far none of them had managed to land, but once they did, he’d be in trouble. I made my way over to him, hopping over a writhing mass of people on the ground. Somehow, this no longer seemed to be about us—the Krewe de Crude was fighting with themselves!

  And if I wasn’t mistaken, some of them were even laughing.

  I slipped behind one of the three people surrounding Frank. She was a massive girl—at least six foot two, and solidly built. I slipped my foot between hers, and then shoved her hard. She tripped over my foot and went flying to the ground. Quick as a flash, I joined Frank in the middle of the circle. Back-to-back with him, I felt safer. There’s no one I’d rather be in a fight with.

  “What the heck is going on?” said Frank. “I don’t know!”

  Two guys rushed us at once.

  “Left!” I yelled, letting Frank know which way I was going to go. Right as the two guys were about to collide into us, I stepped wide to the left. Frank stepped to the right. They ran right past us, with too much momentum to slow down—until I grabbed one of them by his long ponytail, snapping his head back. He fell backward like a character from a cartoon, stiff as a board. When I looked up, Frank was tossing the other guy over his shoulder.

  Somehow, Lenni appeared right next to us.

  “Good job, guys! Glad to see you can handle yourselves.”

  A new, bigger circle had formed around us. It seemed to be the entire Krewe de Crude. They were breathing hard, and there were a lot of black eyes and spreading bruises. But there were still more than a dozen people surrounding us. These were not odds I liked.

  Sybil stepped forward. Lenni must have gotten her pretty hard, because there was a small trickle of blood dripping out of her right nostril.

  “You guys are pretty good,” she said. Weirdly, she didn’t seem angry. She sounded … impressed?

  “Thanks,” said Lenni, pretending to clean her nails on her shirt, although it was a toss-up as to which was dirtier. “You guys are pretty tight yourselves.”

  “So what are you really doing here? Sharkey knows we wouldn’t deal in stolen stuff, not like that, anyway. Did he really send you?”

  “No.” I stepped forward. I had no idea who this Sharkey character was, but I was getting the sense that there was more to Sybil than met the eye. I was going to go out on a limb and try something.

  “I’m Joe. This is my brother Frank.”

  Frank waved.

  “We have family here in New Orleans, and last year, someone broke in and stole their stuff. Then they burned the house down. They lost everything. We’re just trying to figure out what happened. Lenni was helping us because we didn’t know who else to turn to.”

  At the mention of the fire, some of the Krewe nodded and exchanged looks. Sybil didn’t say anything until I was done. Then she looked me up and down.

  “We’ve heard about those jobs. That’s not our style. We take from the rich, give to the poor. Like Robin Hood, you know? We started a soup kitchen in the neighborhood last year. We love New Orleans. It’s our home. Those guys, they’re just destroying things. Taking from anyone. I’d love to get my hands on them.”

  She pounded one fist into the palm of her other hand. With the look in her eyes, and the blood trickli
ng down her nose, I wouldn’t want to mess with her, even if she did weigh only a hundred pounds soaking wet.

  The longer we talked, the calmer everyone became. A few drifted off to the other side of the warehouse. Sybil flopped back down on the couch. Lenni sat down heavily on the floor.

  “I can tell you they’re not anyone in the neighbor-hood,” Sybil continued. “Whoever these freaks are, they’re not operating out of the Bywater.”

  “Any clues on who they might be?” asked Lenni.

  “I wish.”

  “Can you tell us anything that might help us find them?” said Frank.

  “No. Wait, yes! I don’t know how helpful this will be, but the stuff that they steal—none of it shows up in the pawnshops or thrift stores. I don’t know what they’re doing with it, but they’re not selling it.”

  That was interesting. I had no idea what it might mean, but it was definitely out of the ordinary.

  “If you find these guys, let me know. They’re messing with my city—they’re going to have to deal with me.”

  There were some shouts of agreement from the assembled Krewe. We hung out with them a little longer, and Sybil told us about all the projects they were doing in the neighborhood—the soup kitchen, a community garden, a local fashion line that taught kids how to sew and make their own clothes.

  “Where does all the money come from?” asked Frank at one point. No one answered.

  Lenni gave him a look and then poked him in the ribs. “Ignore him. He was dropped on his head as a kid.”

  Shortly after that, we left. As we walked back through the Bywater, I could tell Frank was still upset about something.

  “Should we call the cops on them or something? Who knows where their money is coming from?”

  Lenni hit him again. “Don’t you fabulous spy boys have something better to do than harass people who are actually trying to make life better down here?”

  She had a point. Frank blushed.

  “You’re right, I’m sorry.”