It didn’t appear the cigarette was actually lit, but she took a drag on the mouthpiece of the holder anyway.
“May I help you?” he asked her.
“I’m here to help you.”
“Really? And what is it that you think you can help me with?”
“You’re losing your mind over the recent murders, aren’t you?” She looked distressed, wincing in a way that drew her face into a truly pained expression. “I know. Trust me. I know.”
Dan stood straighter, frowning as he looked at her. “Forgive me, lady. Yes, I have a lot on my mind, and yeah, I’m worried about the murders. I don’t know how you think you know that—or me—but I’m not in the mood for playtime or dress-up.”
“Dress-up?” she demanded indignantly. “I rather think I chose amazing apparel. And luckily. Lord, I loved my sister, but Evie would have dressed me in a tunic or something if I hadn’t left a will. Not that I expected to die at thirty, but...one should always be prepared.”
He shook his head. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I came to the cemetery to be alone.”
He decided to walk away. He felt her following behind him.
“Okay! Again, I don’t mean to be rude, but leave me the hell alone!”
He was startled when he realized he was near the gate and some other people coming in were staring at him in surprise.
“I’m sorry, excuse me. She’s just driving me nuts,” he said.
A woman with a teenage girl skirted far around him. Two college-age kids who looked like they were intrigued tourists shook their heads, looking at one another, laughing.
“Buddy, what, are you off your meds?” one demanded, nudging the other.
“Hey, hush,” the other murmured. “He’s way bigger than us and talks to himself! Let’s get out of here.”
They rushed by him, too.
Dan swung around. She was still there, the woman in the flapper dress.
“Dan, give it a rest. They can’t see me. I’m dead.”
He stood absolutely still, feeling as if the light breeze suddenly turned chilly.
He reached out to touch her. She inched back, but not in time. His hand went straight through her arm.
“I’ve taken this too personally,” he muttered. “They warn against that in law enforcement.”
“Don’t you see?” she asked him, her tone heartsick. “I’m here to help you! I lost my best friend to an axe murderer once, and I’m not going to see someone get away with this again.”
He stared back at her. His mind scrambled to explain what he was seeing. If she was an actress with her image being projected into the cemetery, she was damned good.
Was such a thing even possible?
And if so, why had no one else seen her?
Second guess: he was truly losing his mind.
Because she couldn’t be real. Ghosts didn’t exist.
CHAPTER THREE
Katie felt as if she was going to either explode or implode. What information there was about the murders was being blared on every radio and television station known to man. And in the city, there was no way around every tourist on her rides asking about the Axeman murders of 1918–1919.
She went to work because, otherwise, she’d have been crawling up the walls.
“I can tell you what was known, but to this day, no one can really say who the killer was, if it was just one killer... There are theories, and one woman claimed to have killed him,” she bantered as she directed her mule through the streets.
Her carriage held two couples, both in their late forties or early fifties. They were from a small town in Ohio, and it seemed everything about New Orleans fascinated them.
Both couples had become empty nesters, with kids recently off to college, and wanted to do everything wild that New Orleans was known to offer: Bourbon Street, packed clubs, over-the-top drinks... Fun things for adults who were suddenly free to let loose in the world.
Katie had chatted with them when they had first approached her carriage. They’d liked her mule, and she’d given them a bit of info on Jackson Square just in conversation and pointed out that, yes, they were just across the street from Café du Monde.
But now, though she’d gone into history regarding the French founding of the city, the pirate Jean Lafitte and General Jackson, they wanted more recent history.
“It was early in the 1900s, right? They were killing Polish people...or Jewish bakery owners?” one of the men asked.
Katie had known to expect this. She was ready. “Supposedly, there were axe murders that took place in 1911, but a few literary authors have done intense research and could find no record of the victims or anything to suggest that such murders did occur. Catherine and Joseph Maggio were killed on May 23 of 1918—I believe that most scholars see them as the first victims. They were immigrants to the city, and there was already a large Italian immigrant population here. Some people thought the murders were Mob-related, that it was a Mafia retaliation of some kind.”
“All the victims were Italian? I thought the killer wrote the press about being Satan or a demon or something like that,” one of the women said.
“No, not all the victims were Italian, and a few survived. There’s a theory the killer was a man named Momfre and he was shot and killed by the widow of the last victim, a man named Pepitone, in California. The problem with all of it is that records were sketchy in the early 1900s. People were arrested but later released. Previously, there had been an uncaught killer known as the Cleaver in New Orleans, but he took money. The Axeman never took anything. He broke into residences by chiseling out portions of doors. He used a knife and an axe—”
“The news this morning said this killer is using a knife and an axe,” the husband said knowingly. “They’re suggesting he—like the Axeman—might be some kind of a demon.”
Katie arched a brow, glancing back quickly. “A legitimate news station suggested the killer is a demon?”
“Well, no, they mentioned the old Axeman had claimed to be a demon.”
“He sent a letter to the Times-Picayune on March 13 in 1919,” Katie told them. “He claimed, yes, to be some kind of a demon.”
“And he made people play jazz!” the other woman said.
“Yes, he said he wouldn’t kill anyone playing jazz on a certain night,” Katie said wearily. “Four days later, the night of the nineteenth.”
“And?”
“People played loud jazz. No one died that night,” Katie told them. “We’re going to be passing Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar. It’s one of the oldest structures remaining. There were horrible fires that ripped through the French Quarter, destroying much of what was original to the city. The bar might have been where the Lafitte brothers sold their booty. They were popular among the people!”