CHAPTER ONE
I would blame no one for thinking me a hypocrite if I were to assert that fate intervenes by finding me a position in New Orleans less than a week after my arrival in the city. I don’t need money, but I do need information, and the family who hires me happens to have a long and storied history in the local jazz scene.
Marcel Lacroix is a man of no small renown in the world of jazz. An accomplished pianist, his career saw him work with the most celebrated names in the genre in addition to amassing a very respectful discography of his own. He was taken from us five years ago, victim of a heart attack in the middle of a performance, but his wife, Josephine, maintains an active presence in the scene as a connoisseur and occasional financier.
It cannot be coincidence that we meet at a local record store and I find that she has need of a governess for her twin grandchildren. Their mother is dead, and their father is often away on business. She is elderly, so she needs help with their day-to-day care.
Early in my life, I wished to be a psychologist. I believed my childhood with dysfunctional parents and a sister clearly impacted by her father’s indifference and her mother’s cruelty inspired me to want to understand the way people think and feel.
Once Annie leaves, however, I suffer a breakdown and spend eleven weeks involuntarily committed in a sanitarium. I remember only a little of my time there, but what I experienced must have been enough to turn me off to the profession because not only did I change my focus to education and become a schoolteacher instead, but I also developed a deep-seated distrust of psychologists that persists to this day.
I spent twenty-five years as a schoolteacher, but for reasons I’m not entirely sure of myself, I develop an urge to learn once and for all what happened to my sister. I should mention that I only learned recently that she left Boston of her own accord. Prior to that, I knew only that she had disappeared.
Another piece of evidence that proves there must be some such thing as fate is the fact that I choose the career of governess. That career somehow affords me opportunities to help others solve mysteries much like my own mystery while also leading me closer and closer to the truth of my sister’s disappearance.
All of this is to say that being offered a position here in New Orleans confirms in my mind that I am meant to be here.
And today, I am here, in the famed Garden District, staring in awe at the ornate mansions draped with Spanish moss and protected with forbidding wrought-iron gates.
The gates remind me of another wrought-iron gate, this one in the garden of a home in Savannah Georgia. That mansion is the site of a double mystery that I solved to the satisfaction of far fewer than I would like, least of all myself.
Still, I don’t regret my time there. The lessons I learned at that home inspired me to take the next step in searching for my sister. That next step was to hire Sean, so if nothing else, I’ve gained the love of a wonderful man.
I hope to gain a little more than that here.
I step through the gate and walk toward the mansion. It is a glorious house in the unique style of the neighborhood, two stories tall with ornate Corinthian pillars covering the ubiquitous covered porch and supporting the equally ubiquitous balcony. Unlike many other homes of such design, it is not the centerpiece of a plantation and lacks the typical wings which would house servants’ quarters.
That’s not to say the house or the property are small. On the contrary, the house sits on twelve acres of luxuriously sculped gardens and is itself thirteen thousand square feet. Or so Josephine tells me when I speak with her over the phone about this position.
Speaking of Josephine, the door opens before I reach the porch, and the woman herself comes out, arms outstretched, a beaming smile on her face. She walks with the natural poise of a woman who’s spent her life in high society and carries the enviable figure of a woman renowned in her youth for her surpassing beauty. Even at sixty years old, she is still breathtaking, at least in my opinion.
“Mary! Oh, how delightful!”
She speaks with a cultured accent that reminds me more of the Ivy League graduates of the Northeast than of the Southern debutantes of New Orleans. Not that I'm one to draw conclusions based on a person's accent. I've lived in the United States since I was eleven years old, but still speak with a British accent.
“It’s lovely to see you again, Mrs. Lacroix.”
“Oh, please, it’s Josephine. We’re friends now, you and I.”
As though to emphasize the point, she greets me in the European manner with kisses on either side of my cheek. Strange that this is considered European, as I’ve only rarely encountered it outside of America.
She takes my arm and leads me up the stairs. “The twins are on an outing with their father, but I know they’ll be just as overjoyed to meet you as I am. In the meantime, let me show you around the house. I trust Henri has taken your bags.”
“Yes, he was kind enough to retrieve them this morning.”
“Oh that’s right, I remember now. You had business to take care of in the city so you had to arrive later.”
“Yes, that’s right.” My business was to call Sean and ask him to find any possibility of a connection between my sister and New Orleans, but I don’t want to share that with Josephine at the moment.
She asks. “You should have had Henri chauffeur you. I wouldn’t have minded.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”
We enter the house, and I am not surprised to find it as grand inside as it is outside. The flooring is of polished marble tile, and the furniture all of maple and very luxurious.
The foyer is dominated by a massive seven-foot-tall grandfather clock with a shining mother of pearl face inlaid with gold filigree and a heavy bronze pendulum that swings regally back and forth with the passage of the seconds. Three exquisitely designed brass chimes hang near the pendulum, silent at the moment.
“My grandfather’s,” Josephine informs me when she notices my interest. “My favorite keepsake of his. Marcel was kind enough to allow me to place it in the foyer.”
“It’s stunning.”
“It’s a Howard Miller original,” she tells me proudly. “Grandfather purchased it from him the day his company opened. Between the two of us, we’ve resisted several offers to sell for truly exorbitant amounts of money.” She leans closer as though sharing a deep secret. “I’ll never sell. I’m too fond of it.”
It chimes then, four deep, resonating tones to signify the hour. The sound is pleasant but somehow ominous as well. It’s as though the clock is warning me that I have left the outside world behind. Like it or not, I am a member of this household.
Perhaps it’s warning me that I should have been careful what I wished for.
Josephine leads me through the grand dining room. It contains an enormous table for twenty lit by two equally impressive chandeliers that I am quite sure are real crystal. “My son, Etienne, has begged me for years to replace them with electric lights, but to what purpose? These are elegant. They are timeless. ”
She says that word in a slight hiss. I am reminded of the grandfather clock, the symbol of time’s inevitability. I wonder if perhaps a part of Josephine resents that inevitability.
Then I wonder if I’m just reading too much into things. After all, I’ve only spent a few minutes around her. I chuckle at myself and follow her from the dining room into the parlor.
Here is where the true grandeur of the Lacroix legacy is revealed. The parlor is arranged like a massive amphitheater with curved sofas and delicately carved coffee tables separated by artfully placed decorative tables topped with plants and sculptures. This opulence, however, pales in comparison to the single most important and elegant piece in the entire house.
The piano.
I have read the history of this instrument. A 1913 model Bluthner Model 1 in polished ebony, this piano once adorned the home of J.D. Rockefeller. Upon the magnate’s death, the piano was sold to a museum in New Orleans, where it remained until a young Marcel Lacroix, perhaps not realizing how sacred the piece was or perhaps not caring, sneaked past the ropes onto the display and began to play. The museum’s director was so awed by the young man’s playing that he agreed to sell the instrument. It was the instrument on which Marcel recorded every piece he ever wrote.
“Oh, yes. Marcel’s piano.” Josephine scoffs. “I keep meaning to sell it, but I never get around to it. I kept it for Marcel, but it’s such an eyesore in the parlor.” She sighs. “I really should list it. Anyway, come along. I’ll show you to your room.”
I am taken aback by Josephine’s dismissal of her husband’s legacy. She shows such love for her grandfather clock, but to scoff at her husband’s instrument?
This is where Sean would warn me once more not to read too much into something. Perhaps I should follow that advice, but I can’t help but let my mind wander to dangerous places.
Perhaps due to fate or perhaps due to coincidence, most of the families I have worked for as a governess have harbored dark and deadly secrets. Sean says that it’s my subconscious need to reveal what’s hidden that leads me to find these places without realizing that I’m looking for them. He could be right.
Whatever the reason, I begin to wonder if there isn’t at least a slight chance that Marcel Lacroix’s death wasn’t accidental.
But that’s foolish and more than a little rude. I have no concrete reason to suspect Jospehine in her husband’s death. Besides, he didn’t die at home, but in concert, and Miss Josephine was said to be so distraught that her son had to physically restrain her from attacking the coroner taking his body.
And it’s not my business anyway. That’s not why I’m here. I intend to solve a mystery, but not the mystery of whether or not Marcel Lacroix was murdered. I am here to learn whether or not my sister ever visited New Orleans. I won’t learn the answer to that worrying over an old piano.
We reach my room, and I am stunned by its opulence. The room is spacious with a king-sized bed, a table with two upholstered chairs and a master bathroom with a hot tub. I am used to being somewhat spoiled in my accommodations, but this is another level entirely.
Seeing my reaction, Josephine says, “This was my daughter’s room. Sylvie. She married and moved to Austria thirteen years ago. I’ve kept the room in case she visits, but she never does, so it’s yours now.”
My head is reeling too much to make sense of things at the moment, so I limit myself to, “Thank you. This is wonderful.”
She smiles and squeezes my hand before saying, “Well, I’ll let you get settled. I do hope you’ll join us for dinner, though. You’ll get to meet Etienne and the twins. Oh, I just know they’ll love you!”
She leaves me then. I sit on the edge of the bed and wonder if I’ve allowed my whims to carry me too far once more. I came here to find Annie, but whether it’s the ominous chime of the clock, the disdain Josephine shows for Marcel’s piano, or the shocking revelation that her own daughter refuses to visit, I can’t help but feel that I’ve been pulled into yet another mystery.