Love Can Be Murder

"Is the mayor in?"
    The girl shook her head solemnly. "No...she said she'd be in, but no one's seen her."
    Penny glanced down at the ring. Maybe it would be better if she left it for Mona so the woman could ponder the gesture without the pressure of a confrontation. She held up the ring box. "Would it be all right if I left something in her office? It's a family heirloom—I'm sure she'll be happy to have it back."
    The girl looked around nervously, then nodded toward the office door. "Go ahead. But hurry."
    Penny smiled in gratitude, then walked into Mona's spacious office, impressively outfitted with the best furniture. The woman had certainly built her own little world here in Mojo. Penny walked over to the desk and set the ring in the center where Mona would find it, then decided she should write a note. Penny scanned the desk for a piece of paper, but Mona was compulsively neat.
    What was it that B.J. had said—that when people are compulsive, it's to mask something else?
    She slid open a top drawer but didn't find any paper. Then she slid open a bottom drawer and jerked back in shock. The ason , the rattle that the masked voodoo priestess in the square had wielded, was lying there in a velvet-lined box. With her heart thumping against her chest, Penny lifted the rattle to make sure it was the same one. It had the same beadwork, the same little bell on the handle. She gave it a slight shake, a shiver skidding over her arms at the knowledge that the shimmy noise was loose snake vertebrae.
    Fear rose in her chest. Jules had said that only the priests and priestesses were allowed to use the ason. Her hand began to shake. So that meant—
    "What in the hell do you think you're doing?"
    Penny turned and nearly fainted at the sight of Mona standing there, looking as if she'd just as soon kill Penny as look at her. There is a serpent underfoot. Penny wet her lips. "I...brought you something," she said, nodding to the ring box on her desk. "I was looking for a piece of paper to write you a note. I didn't mean to pry. This, um, shaker is lovely." Mona didn't have to know that she was aware of its significance. "Is it Native American?"
    "No," Mona snapped, then walked over to her desk and slammed the drawer closed. "How dare you come here, how dare you come into my office and rifle through my things!" Her voice escalated to the point of shouting.
    "I didn't mean to," Penny said, moving toward the door.
    "Get out before I call the police!"
    Penny ran out of the office, past the trembling little clerk, and left the building, shaken at the new revelation: Mona was a voodoo priestess? Had she been the masked figure who had singled Penny out of the crowd and torn off the chicken's head with her bare hands?
    Could she have created a voodoo doll for her own son and left it at Penny's party? Then orchestrated the murder to frame Penny? But why would a mother kill her own son?
    With her hands shaking, she called B.J.'s cell phone number, but it rolled to voice mail. After a deep breath, she dialed directory assistance for the New Orleans police department and asked for Detective Maynard.
    "Ms. Francisco," he said, "this is a coincidence. Mona Black is on the other line accusing you of breaking into her office and harassing her."
    Penny swallowed hard and told him what had happened and what she had found, wondering if it sounded as bizarre to his ears as it did to hers.
    "So let me get this straight—you're saying that your ex-mother-in-law, the mayor of Mojo, is a voodoo priestess?"
    She hesitated. "Maybe."
    "And you think that she might have killed her own son and framed you for the murder?"
    She wet her lips. "Possibly."
    Maynard gave a little laugh. "Ms. Francisco, now I've heard it all. I thought you didn't believe in voodoo."
    "I d-don't," she said, suddenly feeling as if she were unraveling.
    "Ms. Francisco, I think you should leave this investigation to the police."
    She inhaled for strength. "Did you talk to Liz Brockwell and Wendy Metzger?"
    "Yes, we took statements from them both, including"—paper rattled in the background—"both of the women quoting you as saying on the night of the murder that you had plans for your ex-husband, and that he was going to regret screwing you over."
    She closed her eyes, her mind racing back to their conversation just before Liz and Wendy had left the bar. "I only meant that I was planning to have my attorney sue him for hiding assets." She let out a frustrated cry, wondering if her