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  SECOND LINE

  STORIES FROM THE DUPAGE PARISH MYSTERIES

  GREGORY ASHE

  H&B

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Second Line

  Copyright © 2022 Gregory Ashe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests and all other inquiries, contact: [email protected]

  Published by Hodgkin & Blount

  https://www.hodgkinandblount.com/

  [email protected]

  Published 2022

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover design by Lyrical Lines

  Version 1.03

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63621-049-0

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63621-048-3

  HOUSEWARMING

  This story takes place after Stray Fears.

  ELI (1)

  “The house isn’t haunted,” my boyfriend, Dagobert LeBlanc, told me for what had to be the hundredth time.

  In the fashion of all good, true, loyal, respectful, loving, and most importantly, obedient boyfriends, I ignored him. I rolled the wheel on the Bic again, trying to get a flame. In my other hand, I held a smudge stick that was the literal cause of the figurative stick up Dag’s ass.

  “E,” he said, one hand wrapping around my wrist.

  “I heard you.”

  “So . . .”

  “Sew buttons.” I gave the Bic a shake, hit the flint wheel again, and this time got a tiny yellow flicker. I held it under the smudge stick until a wisp of smoke wafted up, carrying with it the smell of burning sage. I made a few passes under Dag’s chin.

  He wrinkled his nose. It was a cute nose. On a cute face. When he’d been a deputy, he’d kept his (mostly gray) hair buzzed, but now that he was getting ready to start school, he’d let it grow out a bit—although the regimental part made him look almost as severe. On my third pass with the sage, he coughed, and he gently—but unstoppably—moved my arm away.

  “There,” I said. “That should take care of the wicked spirit that possesses you when it’s time to do laundry and then half the socks go missing.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “And the other wicked spirit that possesses you when the Saints play and all of a sudden you can’t hear me when I’m talking to you.”

  He crossed his arms.

  “And the other other wicked spirit that possesses you when you do the grocery shopping. The one that brings home those Dove ice cream bars.”

  “That’s a lot of evil spirits.”

  “You’ve got legion,” I said with a grin.

  He beckoned me with one finger.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He crooked that finger again. His sandalwood eyes were unreadable.

  I inched closer.

  Dag kissed me lightly on the lips and said, “Now that we’ve got the evil spirits taken care of—”

  And that was when he made a grab for the smudge stick.

  I was ready. I was faster. I held it out of his reach, the grin on my face growing wider. “You’ll have to get up earlier in the morning, sweetheart.”

  “Says the guy who gets up at eleven,” Dag grumbled as he stomped away into the kitchen.

  I smudged my way through the house, starting at the front and moving toward the back. It was one of New Orleans’s classic shotgun-style homes: the living room at the front, then the bathroom, then the bedroom, then the kitchen. A single, narrow hallway connected the sequence of rooms. On the outside, the clapboard siding was turquoise, the door and shutters red, the trim yellow. Or, as Dag had muttered to himself the first time we’d seen it, the color palette of a junior clown college. On the inside, everything was much more subdued—partially because I was trying to meet Dag halfway, partially because we were in the process of renovating the house room by room, and I’d suspended further decorating until we were finished.

  When I reached the kitchen, Dag was eating cheese and crackers.

  “Those are for the party,” I said.

  “I’m only having a few.”

  “Oh boy. Another evil spirit.”

  Dag rolled his eyes and crammed another cracker-and-gouda combo in his mouth.

  Fanning the smudge stick, I drifted toward where he sat at our little particleboard table. I wagged the stick at him a couple of times and smirked. “Just in case.”

  Cracker crumbs dusted his lips as he lunged and caught me around the waist. I struggled, just for good form, and eventually let him pull me onto his lap. He kissed me.

  “You taste like gouda,” I said, although it was spoiled by the fact that I was a little out of breath.

  “That’s not a bad thing.”

  “For some people, it might be.”

  “Oh.” He kissed my cheek. “Then I guess.” He kissed my jaw. “I’d better not.” He kissed my neck, his stubble scraping there, his hand slotting into the vee of my legs. “Kiss you on the mouth.”

  I think I was making the same noise as one of those machines when somebody flatlines. Somehow I managed a coherent, beautifully articulate response: “Uh huh.”

  “I’m going to take this,” he whispered, and then he plucked the smudge stick from my hand.

  “Uh huh.”

  He kissed my neck again, and I shivered.

  “I know you’re nervous about tonight—”

  “Not nervous.”

  Another kiss. The hot scratch of stubble. “—and I know you want everything to be perfect—”

  “Nope. Don’t care about perfect.”

  Another kiss, this one brushing my collarbone. “—and I know last year was some weird, awful stuff—”

  “Except you. I met you.”

  “—but the house is not haunted, and no monsters are going to get us, and nothing evil is going to get inside our house, and tonight is going to be great, and the only thing you need to do now is relax.” He brushed his lips across mine, not even really a kiss, and his hand settled between my legs again. Eyebrows drawn together in mock intensity, he whispered, “Maybe I can help you feel a little less stressed.”

  I swallowed. “You can.” My voice was a little patchy, so I tried again. “You definitely can.”

  “I thought so.” He had a tiny smile as he fumbled with the waistband of my shorts. “We’ve got time before—”

  I slid off his lap, peeled his hand away, and said, “You can put some salt across each doorway. I’ll do the windows.”

  “Eli.”

  “I know, I know. Ghosts aren’t real. The monster that was hunting us last year was just a fluke. I know. But better safe than sorry. And a ghost—”

  “Once again, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “—is not going to make our first time hosting a party as a couple, plus our first time hosting a party in our new house, a success.”

  Dag ran a hand through his hair, mussing the perfect part. Then he sighed. “How much salt?”

  DAG (2)

  “I don’t think she uses that much pepper,” I said, chin on Eli’s shoulder as I looked down at the pan.

  “Ok,” Eli said. “I can fix that. Did you plump the pillows?”

  “Yes, dear. And I made sure the throws were thrown exactly the way you showed me. And I vacuumed
up all our potato chip crumbs.”

  “All your potato chip crumbs, I think you mean.”

  “And I even made the candles ‘look better,’ which is what I believe I was instructed to do.”

  Eli turned his head just enough to kiss me before turning back to the Cajun shrimp pasta he was making.

  “Oh,” I said, “I don’t think she puts the cream in—no, I mean, yeah. That’ll be fine.”

  “Ok,” Eli said. “Ok. Well, the cream is in now. I can’t exactly take it out.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “Your mom’s recipe, the one she gave me with her own two hands, says ‘Next add cream and stir slowly.’ That’s what I did.”

  “I know, but I think she might do it differently when she actually makes it. Like, maybe she didn’t update the recipe.”

  Eli said something very quietly that sounded like, Then what is the point of a recipe card? Tension made his shoulder tight. I kissed the back of his neck, and he visibly tried to relax.

  “Did you buy the andouille sausage from Pierre’s?”

  Eli let out a breath that sounded like it might be covering up a lot of swear words.

  “You know what?” I said. “I’ll go make sure all the pillows are still plumped.”

  “That is a very good idea.”

  Guests began arriving shortly after that. We’d invited everyone we knew: my parents, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my friends from my former job as a deputy for the sheriff’s department in DuPage Parish; on Eli’s side, it mostly consisted of friends, although Eli had been reluctant to invite even them. He’d cut ties with everyone after a family tragedy, and rebuilding those bridges, I was starting to realize, was harder than he had let me know. We’d even invited some of the grad students I’d met at a few different social events for Tulane’s ecology and evolutionary biology program.

  My parents arrived first. Of course.

  “Hello, Dagobert,” my mom said, kissing me on the cheek across the platter of muffuletta she was carrying.

  “We didn’t interrupt you, did we?” my dad said. He rose on tiptoes to peer over my shoulder. “I know we’re early, and if you boys were busy—”

  “No,” I said.

  “—pleasuring each other—”

  “Oh my God, no, stop, be quiet.”

  “Well, it’s perfectly natural,” my dad said. “Your mother and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other when we moved into our house. There’s something about having all that space to yourself, needing to mark it, make it your own. I remember we were painting your room, and I came up behind your mother and—”

  Swearing from the kitchen provided merciful relief.

  “Please go help Eli,” I said to my mom, wiggling the plate out of her grip and giving her a nudge down the hall. When my dad opened his mouth, I said, “Let’s get you a beer.”

  As I was setting the muffuletta on the folding table with the rest of the food and drinks, more swearing came from the kitchen, interrupted by an overly bright, “Oh, hello, Gloria.”

  “He sounds stressed,” my dad said as he settled onto the sofa, instantly de-plumping the pillows.

  “Of course he’s stressed. This is a big deal for him. For us.”

  “Are you taking care of him?”

  “Oh my God.”

  “He’s younger than you.”

  “Dad, I’m begging you.”

  “Younger men have relentless sex drives. As the older partner, you need to be aware of that. Make sure you’re taking care of his needs.”

  “It’s not like there’s thirty years between us. He’s twenty-two. I’m twenty-seven. It’s not that big a deal.”

  “I was reading an article on PinkNews about age-gap couples and the benefits of edging. I think it was edging.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” I whispered into my hands.

  “Gloria, did we decide Dag and Eli need to do more edging?”

  A loud clang of something—a pot or pan—being violently jarred told me Eli’s reaction.

  “I think it was tribbing,” my mom called back.

  “No,” my dad shouted down the hall. “Edging. Edging, Gloria. Edging.”

  “That man,” my mom said, probably at what she assumed was a conspiratorial volume intended only for Eli. Then, louder, “Hubert, I am telling you, it was tribbing.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Thank you,” I said to the ceiling.

  The three guys standing on the stoop were . . . scary. They were all blond. They were all waifishly thin, with just enough definition to their bodies to suggest diet and exercise instead of malnutrition. One wore a tank with a picture of a burrito on it; one wore a vee-neck tee with Dong Patrol printed across it; one wore a short-sleeve button-up that he’d unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. Their haircuts were complicated: short in some places, spiky in others, obviously expensive to maintain. All three of them looked at me like something they’d pay somebody else to scrape off their tires.

  “Um,” one of them said—he looked like the leader because his hair was the pointiest. “Is Eli here?”

  I held out my hand. “Yeah. Hi. Hey there. Dag. Nice to meet you.”

  Ten seconds. Then twenty. Then the leader shook my hand with two fingers, like he was letting a dog do a trick, and looked at his friends.

  “Why don’t you come in? Eli’s finishing up in the kitchen.”

  As the Three Evil Gays followed me inside, my mom emerged from the hallway. “Eli says it’s almost ready. Oh, hello. Oh my goodness. You must be Eli’s friends.”

  “Of course they’re Eli’s friends,” my dad said. “Dag doesn’t have any gay friends.”

  “Yes, he does. He most certainly does. There was that boy that looked like Jackson. And the other one. The one at the grocery store.”

  “Oh, right. The one he used to date.” My dad pointed his beer at me. “What was his name? Chaz? Chomp?”

  “It most definitely wasn’t Chomp,” I said. “And it was one date. I didn’t date him.”

  “I could have sworn it was Chomp. No. Chode. Was it Chode?”

  One of the Three Evil Gays snickered.

  “So,” the leader of the gays said. “You and Eli are, like, together now? Because Eli used to be such a slut.” Pitching his voice toward the hall, he added, “You were such a slut, weren’t you, bitch?”

  “Oh my,” my mom said with a thrilled little laugh. “Hubert, did you hear that? Eli used to be a slut!”

  “No surprise there,” my dad said. “He’s a hot little ticket. Good for a young man’s self-esteem, all that sexual activity. Very good. Wish Dag had been more of a slut myself, actually, but it’s important to let young people make those decisions on their own.”

  “Just kill me,” I told the ceiling. “Just collapse and bury me in the rubble right now.”

  The Three Evil Gays did some more snickering.

  Drying his hands on a towel, Eli appeared in the doorway. “Hi, D’Arcy. Hi, Bennett. Hi, Emmanuel.” He was scrubbing his hands furiously now, his gaze restless. “Glad you guys could come.”

  “Slut!” the pointy-haired leader screamed.

  Eli offered a weak smile in my direction as the Three Evil Gays swarmed him.

  ELI (3)

  After a round of greetings, I retreated, but D’Arcy, Bennett, and Emmanuel trailed me to the kitchen. The rising volume of voices from the front room told me that more guests were arriving. The house was already hot; sweat made my shirt cling under my arms, and for a moment, I fantasized about running out into the night. Running the way I had run before. Until Dag tracked me down, and I couldn’t run anymore.

  “But seriously,” D’Arcy said, “is this a joke, really?”

  “How old is he, anyway?” Bennett said. “Forty?”

  “You live here?” Emmanuel said. “Do you, like, cut the grass?”

  “Let’s get you guys some drinks,” I said. “Something to eat. I just put out
the pasta, and there’s a ton of other good food.”

  “No way.” D’Arcy caught my arm. “Slut, we haven’t seen you in over a year. And then you pop up out of the blue and invite us to a housewarming party. Where have you been? What have you been doing? Who have you been doing? Whoever he was, he’d better be a million times more delicious than your old man out there.”

  “I think everybody needs a drink. Come on, I’ll give you the tour, and we’ll get you set up.”

  “Oh my God,” D’Arcy said. “This is adorbs. You should be wearing an apron.”

  “Do you bring him his slippers when he gets home?” Bennett said.

  “And fetch the newspaper in the morning,” Emmanuel said with a honking laugh. “Like a dog.”

  “Ok, ok,” I said. “Did you get it all out of your system?”

  Instead of answering, D’Arcy clucked and leaned closer. “Bitch, is that a gray hair?”

  “And you’ve got a line in your forehead,” Bennett said.

  “You look almost as old as your old man,” Emmanuel said.

  “What the hell?” I said, twisting free of D’Arcy’s grasp. “I invited you here because you’re my friends. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Jesus,” D’Arcy said. “You’re such a queen about everything. We’re being bitches to each other like we always are; what’s your problem?”

  “You never had a sense of humor,” Bennett said.

  “You never knew how to have fun,” Emmanuel said.

  I waved at the hallway. “Yeah, you’re right: I guess I don’t know how to have fun. I can’t believe I missed you guys. Sorry for wasting your time; why don’t you go home?”

  D’Arcy stood frozen for a moment. Then he relaxed, tossing a smile at Bennett, and rolled one shoulder. “Fine, bitch. We’ll go. By the way, bold choice on the pasta. I mean, all those carbs. I could tell you’d let yourself go, but I didn’t realize you were—well, oink, oink. You know?”

  In the other room, a man’s deep voice was shouting something, and a chorus of laughter followed.