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  They decided the Exorcist bedroom would pretty much decorate itself.

  That left two more bedrooms.

  “What about a Werewolf’s Lair?” suggested Ava. “We could add a bunch of fake trees, lay green Astroturf on the floor, and arrange some marble tombstones. Have a werewolf hopping around, snarling and jumping at people.”

  “Excellent,” said Carmela. “And for the last bedroom?”

  Ava pursed her lips and thought for a minute. “You say there’s lots of junk in the basement?”

  Carmela nodded. “Tons of stuff.”

  “Then let’s hold off on theming this last room until we see what we have to work with.”

  “Sure,” said Carmela. “Plus we have to figure out the third floor, too.” She consulted her notes. “The working title so far is Ballroom of the Red Death.”

  “It’s the ballroom of death, all right,” said Ava. She shifted from one foot to the other.

  “I take it you’d rather not venture up there?”

  Ava shrugged. “It’s where Melody was killed. It’s where we saw that blinding flash of light.”

  “If we’re going to decorate Medusa Manor, we have to go up there sooner or later,” said Carmela, though she, too, was a little hesitant.

  “Okay,” said Ava, making a sweeping gesture toward the staircase. “But you have the honor of proceeding first.”

  The ballroom was enormous, pretty much covering the entire third floor. Luckily, it was lit, though very dimly, like the rest of the mansion.

  “Cold up here,” said Ava, buttoning her denim jacket. “A cold spot.”

  Carmela rolled her eyes at her friend. “This place isn’t really haunted, you know. There’s no real cold spot.” Then her eyes slid over toward the small tower room at the front of the house. “It’s cold because . . . because the window’s broken out.” Her voice sounded small and hollow in the cavernous space.

  Ava nodded. “Have to get that fixed.” She glanced around. “I can still smell . . . what?”

  “Sulfur?” said Carmela. “Weird.”

  They both glanced toward the tower room again, but made no motion to go that way. Seconds ticked by, then Ava said, “Let’s go downstairs and paw through that junk in the basement.”

  Carmela couldn’t leave fast enough.

  “Cher, this is a treasure trove,” chortled Ava. She seemed to have gotten past her nervousness of the ballroom and was digging through the mound of basement furniture. “Look, here are candlesticks to arrange at either end of the vampire coffin.” She pulled out an enormous brass candlestick, then proceeded to unearth a second one from under a rolled-up Oriental rug. “A pair. Must have come from a church or something.”

  “That carpet will work in the Exorcist bedroom,” said Carmela, stooping down and flipping part of it open. “Oh yeah.”

  “And, look, here are some smaller candelabras, an old clock, and a pair of weird metal urns.”

  “Funeral urns?” asked Carmela.

  Ava grabbed one and held it up. Gunmetal gray on its way to a corrosive green, the urn was incised with floral designs. Elaborate handles stuck out from either side. “Heavy,” grunted Ava.

  “Looks enough like a funeral urn for our purposes,” said Carmela.

  Ava tipped it upside down, and a stream of dust trickled out. “Oops,” she giggled. “There goes somebody.”

  “Ah,” said Carmela, “they were probably used as flowerpots.”

  “Look at all this crap,” marveled Ava, pointing at the mound they’d barely begun to explore. “There’s a library table over there, a spinning wheel, and three or four bookcases.”

  “We could drape some of those fake cobwebs around the spinning wheel,” suggested Carmela. “Make it look like someone spun them.”

  “Then we’re gonna need big furry spiders.”

  “And the library table?” Carmela stood with her hands on her hips, thinking. “Probably put it in the Haunted Library.”

  “I haven’t even been in there yet,” said Ava, edging her way farther into the stacks of junk. “You think that’s where these bookshelves were slated to go?”

  “I’d imagine so,” said Carmela.

  Ava had all but disappeared now. “But I don’t see any books,” she called back.

  “Books we can get,” said Carmela. Wren West, who owned Biblios Booksellers in the French Quarter, had boxes of books piled in her basement. Many had been donated; most were falling apart and unusable, except to make altered books.

  “You know there’s a car back here?” called Ava.

  “Black Cadillac?” asked Carmela.

  “Yeah,” came Ava’s hollow voice. “It’s a . . . holy shit, it’s a doggone hearse!”

  Carmela chuckled to herself. For someone who owned a voodoo shop and professed to like spooky things, Ava was sure acting hinky. “It was on the list,” Carmela told her. She glanced around the low-ceilinged basement. “The thing is, this place is a basement and a garage.”

  Ava suddenly reappeared, dusting her hands on the front of her denim skirt. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s an underground garage,” said Carmela. “There’s like a ramp that goes up to the alley.”

  “Oh,” said Ava. “I get it.” She gestured with her thumb over her right shoulder. “So somewhere beyond that junk and old black hearse, there’s a garage door?”

  “Yup,” said Carmela. “At least it was there on the blueprints.”

  “Probably still there,” said Ava. “I doubt they drove a hearse down the basement stairs.”

  “So this is supposed to be . . .” said Carmela, turning around in a slow circle.

  “The Morgue of Madness?” said Ava.

  “Not sure,” said Carmela. “Did you see an old autopsy table when you were back there?”

  “Eek!” shrilled Ava.

  “Now what’s wrong?” asked Carmela.

  “I’m just eekin’ on general principle,” said Ava. “Like when you get your legs waxed and they rip those little strips off.”

  “Gotcha,” said Carmela.

  “Man, Melody was really planning to do this place up right, wasn’t she?” said Ava. “She had a real knack for spooky stuff.”

  “A true calling,” Carmela agreed.

  “But a calling that somehow did her in,” Ava added.

  The two of them stood for a few seconds, thinking about the words that hung in the air between them.

  “Okay,” said Carmela. “Time to get going.”

  “We accomplished a lot,” agreed Ava. “Figured almost everything out.”

  They climbed the stairs, snapped off the lights, and emerged into the long first-floor hallway.

  “That’s the library over there,” said Carmela, pointing. “The Haunted Library.”

  Ava opened the door, and Carmela shone her light in. The room was empty except for another fireplace and a ratty-looking leather couch.

  “Bookcases will go perfectly in here,” said Ava.

  Carmela told her about her idea for stuffed werewolf and gargoyle heads.

  “Love it,” enthused Ava as she backed out, crossed the hall, and pushed open another door. “In fact, I know a taxidermy shop over in Gretna that could probably dummy up some . . . whoa!”

  “What?” asked Carmela.

  “Uh . . . this would be your Morgue of Madness right here,” said Ava.

  Carmela stared into the room that had once been a kitchen. What had probably been a homey place with curtains and wood cabinets now had a row of steel morgue drawers against one wall. An old autopsy table stood directly in front of them, looking like some kind of weird human colander. Behind that was a huge metal door.

  “Holy cripes,” exclaimed Ava. “I think that’s supposed to be the crematorium!”

  “Is the door just for show or does it actually open?” asked Carmela.

  “Only one way to find out,” mumbled Ava, as both women stepped past the autopsy table. Ava grasped the door handle and pulled. The door swung
open slowly and the two of them peered in.

  “Wow,” said Ava. All four walls and the ceiling of the claustrophobic six-by-eight-foot room were lined with angry-looking red-painted metal grates. A metal slab hunkered in the middle like a monolith from Stonehenge.

  “I’m convinced,” said Carmela.

  “I wouldn’t want to get locked in there,” said Ava.

  Carmela stepped in and touched a hand to the metal grating. “There’s a scrim on this stuff, too,” she told Ava. “For more special effects.”

  “Take a look at that switch,” said Ava. One wall had a giant electrical switch, the kind Dr. Frankenstein might have used to send electrical current into his monster.

  “To activate the special effects, probably,” said Carmela.

  Ava shuddered as they shuffled out to the main parlor.

  “Kind of a crazy setup,” said Carmela. “Made you nervous, huh?”

  “Not me,” said Ava, her hand on the doorknob. “I’m cool with everything.” She smiled, and then the smile froze on her face and her eyes went cross-eyed.

  “What’s wrong now?” asked Carmela.

  “Door’s locked,” hissed Ava.

  “No, it’s not,” said Carmela. “And don’t kid around, because I’m pretty sure we left it unlocked.”

  “Then the knob’s stuck,” said Ava, tugging. “Either way, nothing’s happening.” Her voice seemed to rise an octave and quiver.

  “Let me try,” said Carmela. She grasped the doorknob with both hands, tugged hard. Nothing.

  “Try your key,” suggested Ava.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” said Carmela. “The key works from the outside only. When you’re inside you turn the deadbolt to lock or unlock the door.”

  “Duh,” said Ava. “So I should have been . . .” She reached up and turned the latch. There was a loud click, then Ava tugged at the door. “Nope, still stuck.”

  “Doesn’t make sense,” said Carmela.

  “A lock malfunction,” said Ava. “Or maybe somebody . . . jammed it?”

  “Who would do that?” asked Carmela. It wasn’t an idea she particularly wanted to entertain.

  The two women stared at each other for a few seconds. The notion that some unseen entity wanted them trapped inside was too frightening to contemplate.

  “So we should . . . what?” asked Carmela.

  “I think I . . .” began Ava. Then she stopped abruptly.

  “What?” asked Carmela.

  Ava stared at her with bright eyes. “Heard something.”

  “There’s nothing in here that . . .” said Carmela. And then she heard it, too. A soft click-tick against one of the front windows. Like branches blowing against the glass. Or skittering fingernails? No, Carmela told herself. Don’t go there.

  Silence hung over them like black crepe.

  “The garage door,” said Ava, snapping her fingers. “Let’s go back downstairs, push our way through all that junk, and raise the door. We’ll call a locksmith first thing tomorrow to come and fix all this shit. It’s not our fault some of this stuff needs fine-tuning.”

  “Sure,” said Carmela, feeling a flood of sudden relief. “That should work.”

  But negotiating their way to the garage door was easier said than done.

  “This stuff is a complete tangle,” complained Carmela. “We’re gonna have to move this box in order to get to this bookcase, then that’s gonna have to slide over to . . .” She sighed deeply. It was beginning to feel like a tricky Chinese puzzle.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Ava. “’Cept you might not like it.”

  “Try me,” said Carmela. She was ready to do just about anything to get out of there. The whole Medusa Manor project was starting to wear a little thin.

  “We move the rug and the library table, which allows us to open the front door of the hearse. Then we climb through and crawl out the back. One hit on that garage door opener and we’re outa here.”

  Carmela stared at her.

  “See?” said Ava. “I knew it would creep you out.”

  “This place seems to creep us out more than usual,” observed Carmela. “But, basically, I like your idea. And it should work.”

  Clearing a pathway to the driver’s-side door took only a few minutes.

  “See, cher?” said Ava. “Easy as sweet potato pie.” She wrenched the door open, then slid into the front seat. “Yowza, this is a very weird feeling. I feel like I’m in a movie or something. Phantasm or one of those other creepy cemetery flicks.”

  “Slide over, darlin’,” said Carmela. “Let me in there, too.”

  Ava slid over to the passenger seat, then said, “Oh, what the heck, I’m just gonna go for it.” She flipped around onto her knees, then suddenly dove into the back.

  Thump.

  “You okay?” asked Carmela. She glanced worriedly into the rearview mirror but could see nothing. Too dark.

  “There’s a coffin back here,” murmured Ava.

  “Another one?” said Carmela.

  “You don’t think this place is like that creepy house in Poltergeist, do you? Where all those coffins pushed their way up out of the ground?”

  “No,” said Carmela. “I think there are the two coffins, probably bought at closeout from some going-out-of-business funeral home, and that’s it. Nothing haunted, nothing strange.”

  “Maybe they were water damaged during Hurricane Katrina.”

  “Or maybe they’re just last year’s models,” said Carmela. “Whatever their sad tale, they’re props for us to use. Got that? Just props.”

  “Got it.” Ava’s voice floated back to her.

  Carmela scooted across the seat and turned around. “Can you edge past it?”

  “If I make like an inchworm without hips,” said Ava. “Jeez, I didn’t know I was so fat.”

  “You’re not fat,” said Carmela. “You’re lithe. Skinny and lithe like a cat. Like Isis.” Isis was a furry black cat that Ava had adopted.

  “Okay, I’m up against the back door now,” said Ava.

  “Got it open?” asked Carmela.

  “You’re not gonna believe this,” said Ava. “But it’s, heh heh, stuck.”

  “Stuck?”

  “I’m gonna twist around and give it a good kick,” said Ava.

  “You got room?”

  “Sure. If I pull myself into a ball and pretend I don’t have any lower ribs.” There was a clunk and a soft grunt, and then Ava said, “Here goes.”

  Her boot heels hit the back door of the hearse. Once, twice, and then . . . boiiiing!

  “Success!” exclaimed Carmela.

  “Open sesame,” Ava puffed, scrambling out the far end.

  Carmela heard footsteps scuffing cement, then the metallic rattle-clink-rattle of the garage door going up.

  “Your turn,” called Ava.

  “Good work,” said Carmela, as she eased herself over the backseat, gripped the side handle of the casket, and pulled herself along. In no time at all, she’d ducked under the garage door to join Ava outside. Carmela inhaled fresh, cool air and decided it had never felt better.

  “How we gonna close the door behind us, cher?” asked Ava.

  Carmela leaned into the doorway, hammered the inside button with the flat of her hand, then pulled her arm back fast.

  Another rattle-clink-rattle and the garage door slowly descended.

  “Okay,” said Ava, as they turned in unison and started up the patchy cement ramp. “No more haunted . . .”

  They both caught a hint of movement at the same time, then saw the caped man emerge from the darkness above them.

  And lifted their voices together in a shrill scream!

  “Eeeeiiiiy!”

  Chapter 9

  “WHO are you?”screamed Ava. “Back away!” yelled Carmela, trying to put some grit into her voice. “Or I’ll hit you with a dose of pepper spray!” She didn’t actually have a canister of pepper spray with her, but she hoped her threat would scare him off.

/>   The man wearing the cape threw up his hands in an anxious gesture and took a step back. “It’s me! It’s only me!”

  “Who’s me?” demanded Carmela.

  “Sidney,” came his voice. He sounded nervous. Like he was the one afraid of being attacked.

  Carmela and Ava relaxed slightly as they gazed at each other. Ava raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Sidney St. Cyr?” she called out.

  Sidney stepped forward into a puddle of light. “Ava?” he said. “Hey there.” Now he sounded cautiously friendly.

  But Ava wasn’t having it. “What the heck are you doing out here, Sidney?” she demanded. “You scared the living crap out of us!”

  “I live down that way,” said Sidney. He flapped a hand to indicate a spot somewhere down the dark alley, looking as meek and hunched up as he’d appeared on TV the other night. “On Frenchmen Street. This is my neighborhood.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Ava. She sounded as though she didn’t believe him.

  “I just finished guiding one of my ghost walks,” Sidney explained. “The History and Mystery Walk. And I was on my way home.”

  “You just happened to be passing Medusa Manor?” Carmela demanded. Sidney’s story sounded fishy to her.

  “Hey,” said St. Cyr, petulance creeping into his voice. “Melody was a friend of mine. I feel awful about her murder. The only reason I was lingering back here was I was kind of paying my respects.”

  “In the alley behind Medusa Manor,” said Carmela. His explanation still sounded wonky.

  Sidney bobbed his head. “Sure. Why not? Medusa Manor was one of Melody’s big passions. She had high hopes for this place and shared a lot of her ideas with me.”

  Emboldened now, Carmela stepped forward, forcibly invading Sidney’s personal space. “Speaking of ideas,” she said, “do you have any idea who might have wanted Melody dead?”

  St. Cyr looked at her sharply. “No! Of course not! Melody was a terrific person. Everyone simply adored her.”

  “Clearly someone didn’t,” Ava murmured.

  “You say the two of you were friends?” said Carmela, vowing to check Sidney’s story with Garth. “Compadres? Then maybe you know what Melody had been involved in recently.”

  “Like what?” Sidney asked, sounding puzzled. “What are you talking about?”