“That’s right. You’re not a medium,” Jared noted.
“I never claimed to be.”
“You’re a psychologist,” he added.
“Right. One who couldn’t find work after college.” Casey tried to hide her irritation with her friends. “And, again, I call myself a reader. I don’t claim to be a medium. Come on! The place is called A Beautiful Mind,” she added. “Art, music, and a sense of helping people solve their problems.”
“You know, think about it. We could liven things up. You could call yourself a medium,” Lauren said excitedly. “Oh, imagine. I could costume you in gypsy skirts and do a fantastic headpiece for you. We could stand on the street, and Jared could play his guitar, and we’d all sing Lady Marmalade. Imagine! We’d draw the tourists in.”
Casey groaned—loudly. “Guys, give me a break. I just read the signs. And it works out fine. No singing on the street. Let’s be happy, huh? Come on, you two. It’s a miracle I found the shop and that we scraped up the money to buy it.”
Jared elbowed Lauren, nodding in acknowledgement to Casey. “And, seriously, she’s the best fake medium in the city because she is a psychologist. She tries to tell people to look at a situation and do the right thing.”
“Nice, thank you.” Casey grinned. “I’ll take that.”
She decided not to mention that none of them had received degrees that would help them much in the real world. Lauren had been an art major, and Jared had a degree in music— they both had fine arts degrees.
Lauren and Jared were both exceptionally talented, in Casey’s mind, but they all survived because of the shop.
Jared often played his guitar outside. Sometimes, Lauren and Casey joined him, and they had fun—until someone went into the shop, and Jared had to finish up alone.
They sold Lauren’s sketches and paintings and jewelry creations, along with tee shirts, and specially created NOLA souvenirs.
Casey glanced at her watch. New Orleans didn’t tend to be an early city. They never opened the doors to the shop until ten, but it was almost ten now.
“Hey, look.” Lauren pointed. “There. That tomb is freshly sealed.”
Casey saw that the entrance to one of the more spectacular family mausoleums had been freshly sealed.
“Maybe they were actually getting ready to repair this place,” Jared wondered. “My brother came through here once when one of the oven doors was cracked. Said there were bones sticking out. I did hear the upkeep of the St. Louis cemeteries and Lafayette has gotten a lot better in our lifetimes—though maybe Lafayette was kept up all the time. You said you think the Marceau Foundation runs this place?”
“I think so, with the church managing the daily operations. But Marceau Industries Incorporated helps too,” Lauren said.
“Rich people there. But here...I mean, I don’t know why the family doesn’t donate the cemetery to a historical society or something of the like. It’s all falling apart,” Jared said.
They stopped and stared at the tomb. It was both Gothic and Victorian in style and resembled a small colonial mansion with arches and gargoyles with a winged angel cradling a cross atop the roof of the old structure.
Stone and metal plaques mentioned the names of those interred, from the first family member to the latest.
“Oh, my God,” Lauren breathed.
“You’re right. Look. This is the Marceau family mausoleum,” Casey said.
“Someone was just interred here. Lena Marceau,” Jared added. He whispered as if afraid he might wake the sleeping dead within the tomb. “Man, we should have thought of that.
“Lena Marceau. Of course,” Casey murmured, thinking it odd that she had just been thinking about the woman. She had, of course, read about the young woman’s death. Her sister had found her, looking as if she were merely asleep. The investigation was leaning toward suicide.
Lena’s husband had died just the year before. It was presumed that she had never gotten over his death.
The facts were heartbreaking.
“This is so, so sad,” Casey said softly, feeling the truth of her words.
“You knew her?” Jared asked.
“She came into the shop a few times. She was nice. She had a great smile, and was fun. She came in with her daughter. The baby is so beautiful. When we decided to come here, I had nearly forgotten all about...what happened. Though I figured the family had a really grand mausoleum in one of the major cemeteries by now.”
“Sad, yes. And selfish.” Lauren frowned and looked perplexed. “She had a two-year-old baby depending on her. If her sister hadn’t arrived early, the baby might have...well, she might have gotten seriously hurt. You don’t commit suicide when you have a two-year-old.”
“Maybe she didn’t commit suicide,” Casey murmured.
“It was all over the news and in the papers,” Lauren said. “She was alone. There was no evidence of a break-in. I heard there was supposed to be a board meeting at the mansion later that day, but she locked the baby in her supposedly childproof room for a nap and took enough pills to kill an elephant. What else could it have been but suicide? She overtook prescription drugs. There was no sign of violence. I guess I should have figured she’d be buried here. I remember once thinking the board for Marceau Industries Incorporated must be a bunch of really mean old men. They were probably so horrible to her, she couldn’t stand it anymore. Maybe she even figured the baby would be better off if she was dead. She was alone with all those monsters. Her husband...yeah. Look. His name is here. He was interred here, too. I don’t know why I didn’t think anybody was buried here any longer.”
“People who commit suicide usually suffer from terrible depression and believe others will be better off without them,” Casey said. “And the family owns the place...I wasn’t thinking either. I imagined she might be buried at Lafayette Cemetery. But, obviously, the family still has this beautiful mausoleum, so...it makes sense she’d be interred here.”
“Weird. I think there are a few more of these smaller cemeteries that still aren’t part of the major foundation that looks out for most of the historic cemeteries in the city,” Jared said. “But nothing this size. Even if it seems tiny next to the St. Louis cemeteries or those in Metairie—some of which are huge. Anyway...it’s good we came.” He was trying to lighten the mood, Casey knew. “We all learned something we didn’t know and came to a place we’ve never been—in the city we grew up in.” He looked at Casey and likely saw the expression on her face. “Hey, it’s okay.”
She smiled. She didn’t want to describe the sadness she felt for someone she had barely known.
“Now we know there was a recent interment. This is good,” Jared said earnestly. “So, when our spirited lady comes in, you’ll know how to direct her concerns.”
“It just feels odd. I...I don’t mean to be irreverent. We should have thought of it before. I mean, Lena Marceau died. As you said, it was all over the news,” Casey murmured.
“Again, we didn’t know she’d been interred here. Our client thinks she saw a ghost, and now Casey will know who the spirit was,” Jared said and winked.