A quick trip to the Intranet revealed that Arianna Beasly's in-laws owned a home in the Garden District, while her family, the Favreaus, still lived in the French Quarter. The calendar might read century twenty-one, but in New Orleans the old ways prevailed.
The original Favreaus had come to Louisiana before the area's purchase was a gleam in Thomas Jefferson's eye. Back then, the upper-crust French resided in the Quarter, eventually the Spanish did, too. However, when the Americans showed up, they were shunned miserably. Kind of like what happens in France today.
Being Americans, they'd taken their filthy money and built the American Quarter, which began in the business district and stretched into what is now known as the Garden District
Americans - gotta love 'em. Bigger is always better, and if we can't buy what we want, we'll just build what we want and call it superior to the original.
Mrs. Beasly would be considered a Creole, a descendant of Europeans born in the colonies. That and the family residence in the high tax bracket of the Quarter explained the crypt at St. Louis Cemetery Number One.
No doubt the Beaslys owned a crypt in the more modern Lafayette Cemetery Number One, which bordered the Garden District. Perhaps Arianna had chosen to be buried with her side of the family. Not uncommon. Around here, where you were buried was almost as big of a deal as where you were born.
At any rate, Cassandra and I rang the bell at a gorgeous nineteenth-century home on Burgundy Street. The door was opened by a tiny, wizened old lady sporting a ferocious scowl.
"We do not have ghosts, good day."
She began to slam the door, but I blurted, "We came to talk about Mrs. Beasly."
The woman hesitated, blinking through thick bifocals. Considering the murky state of her gray eyes, her cataracts were the problem, not her prescription.
"You're friends of Arianna's?"
"Yes," Cassandra answered before I could say, Not really.
Cassandra shot me a silencing glare as the elderly woman invited us inside.
"I'm sorry I was rude, but there are stories about this house, and all those damnable ghost walk tours stop outside and stare at us. Some rude people even ring the doorbell and ask to see the room where it happened."
"Where what happened?" I asked.
"The murder, of course."
"Of course," Cassandra said.
The woman tottered to her chair, and Cassandra took the opportunity to whisper, "There's always a murder or a ghost around here. That's not what we came for."
True. If we got started on the ghost stories in the French Quarter, we'd never get to the werewolves.
"You seem awfully young to know my Arianna." She motioned for us to take seats nearby.
"She was your..." I hesitated.
This woman resembled Mrs. Beasly around the eyes and mouth, but was she a sister, an aunt, a mother? Once people bit ancient I was no good at determining their generation.
"Granddaughter. I'm Marie Favreau."
"Ma'am." I nodded respectfully, earning a small smile. "Mrs. Beasly and I met at the library. I was sorry to hear about her... accident."
Mrs. Favreau's lips lost the smile and pressed together as if she wanted to keep the words inside. But she couldn't "That was no accident"
Cassandra and I exchanged glances.
"How so?" Cassandra asked.
Mrs. Favreau looked around, then beckoned us closer. "We wouldn't have buried her so quickly, without benefit of a church service, if we were only talking about a dog."
"What are we talking about?" I asked.
She made an odd motion with her arthritic fingers - half sign of the cross, kind of an FU. I wasn't sure what to do.
"Protection against evil," Cassandra murmured.
Mrs. Favreau considered her with a contemplative expression. "You know the old ways."
"Oh yeah."
"Then you know why we stuffed her mourn with monkshood and drew a pentagram on her chest" Mrs. Favreau continued.
"Monkshood?" I asked.
"Wolfsbane," Cassandra translated.
That made sense. I guess.
Of course I hadn't seen anything in Mrs. Beasly's mouth but teeth and hadn't gotten a gander at her chest. Considering she was ashes, I'd have to take Granny's word for it.
"Loup-garou," Mrs. Favreau whispered, and made the sign of the FU again.
Now we were getting somewhere.
"The bitten must be encased in cement and properly prepared or they'll rise and walk as a wolf," she continued.
"I'm afraid she rose anyway," Cassandra said gently.
I wondered how long we'd had before Mrs. Beasly turned into a wolf. Now we'd never know.
Mrs. Favreau went white. "She'll come for me. She'll know I'm the one who had her buried that way."
"Relax," I said. "She's dead for good this time. Shot with silver, we think."
The woman slouched in her chair, shaking fingers pressed to her mouth. "Thank you."
"Wasn't us."
"That doesn't matter as long as she's truly dead. She wasn't Arianna anymore."
Remembering Mrs. Beasly's sharp teeth and propensity for drooling, I had to agree.
"What do you know of the loup-garou?" I asked.
"Only the legend."
"You've never seen a werewolf?"
She closed her eyes, took a breath, then opened them again. "We take care to bury certain bodies in certain ways so the dead don't walk."
"What ways?"
"If a person is killed by an animal, monkshood and a pentagram."