Gossamer Ghost by Laura Childs

consultant and antique appraiser by trade, Jekyl was also one of New Orleans’s premier Mardi Gras float designers. Whenever you spotted a fire-breathing dragon in the Rex krewe’s parade or a purple, eight-tentacled octopus in the Pluvius krewe’s parade, you knew it had been dreamed up by the perennially witty mind of Jekyl Hardy.
    â€œCar-
mel
-a!” Jekyl sang out upon seeing her at the cash register.
    Carmela looked up and smiled. Her dear friend Jekyl was a dead ringer for Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat. With his pale oval face, long dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail, and taste for dressing completely in black, Jekyl not only looked the part, he was a force to be reckoned with. Though he lived in a rehabbed warehouse near the low-key Bywater District, he hobnobbed with the city’s elite and often served as a plus-one for wealthy widows at Garden District dinner parties.
    Naturally, the first question out of Jekyl’s mouth was about the murder at Oddities.
    â€œHow’d you find out about that?” asked Ava.
    â€œAre you for real?” said Jekyl. “I take it you two don’t watch TV news or haven’t seen the front page of today’s
Times-Picayune
?”
    Carmela and Ava exchanged startled glances.
    â€œJekyl, what?” Carmela asked, suddenly getting a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach—as if she’d eaten too many pickled peppers.
    â€œThe murder of Marcus Joubert is hot, hot news in today’s paper,” crowed Jekyl. “Your name is even mentioned.”
    â€œRats,” said Carmela. That wouldn’t go over big with Babcock.
    â€œBut they probably don’t have anything in there about the stolen death mask,” said Ava. She jabbed Carmela with an elbow. “They probably don’t even know about that.”
    â€œAu contraire!”
said Jekyl. “They know all about the mask stolen from Joubert’s shop and they’ve linked it to the one stolen three weeks ago from Wallace Pitney’s collection in Dallas.”
    â€œThat’s not good,” said Carmela. She knew it would sting Mavis that the media had drawn that type of connection.
    Jekyl went on. “The newspaper even reported the fact that Pitney and his staff had tried to keep the theft on the down low because they figured they might get a phone call from the thief.”
    â€œWhy would the thief call them?” asked Ava. “To taunt them and rub their noses in it?”
    â€œNot at all,” said Jekyl. “The Dallas collector thought perhaps the thief might call and demand a ransom.”
    â€œYou mean Pitney would have to pay money to get it back?” Carmela asked.
    â€œNot exactly,” said Jekyl. “Most likely their
insurance
company would have been asked to pay. There’s a big business in ransoming art and antiquities back to insurance companies.”
    â€œI never heard of that,” said Ava. “That’s a big thing? Insurance ransom?”
    â€œRansom and just plain old insurance fraud are getting to be popular schemes,” said Jekyl. “You know, like boat owners who overinflate the value of their boat, then sink their own tubs just to collect the insurance money.”
    â€œYou learn something new every day,” said Ava.
    â€œI’ve heard of people doing that with racehorses, too,” said Carmela.
    Jekyl’s hands flew up and he waved them wildly. “Don’t even go there,” he begged. “It’s way too sad.”
    Ava looked puzzled. “What do they . . .? Oh.”
    â€œWe’re not going there, remember?” said Carmela.
    Jekyl refocused his gaze on Carmela. “So what does the learned Detective Edgar Babcock think about this case?”
    â€œHe’s of a mind that Joubert might have stolen the mask and then someone stole it from him,” said Carmela.
    â€œThat sounds so convoluted,” said Ava.
    â€œI agree,”