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the paper. And noticed that a postcard, what people used to refer to as a penny postcard, was centered on top of this morning’s Times-Picayune .
    She snatched up both, assuming the postcard was some sort of advertising gimmick, and went back to the kitchen. A few years ago, just before she’d opened Memory Mine, Carmela had worked for a small design firm where she’d created print ads and newspaper inserts for Splendide Baked Goods and before that, package labels for Bayou Bob’s Chunked-Up Chili. So she was more than familiar with the constant churn of advertising clutter.
    Slapping everything on the counter, Carmela reached for her coffee mug. And suddenly stopped dead. Because a glance at the postcard revealed that it wasn’t an advertising postcard at all. It was a picture postcard of a cemetery.
    Huh?
    She blinked in disbelief, picked the card up, and stared at it. It was sepia-toned with delicately scalloped edges, like something from an earlier era. The photograph—she was pretty sure it was a photo—depicted whitewashed tombstones against a tangle of black wrought-iron fence.
    Turning it over, Carmela felt her heart do a sickening flip-flop. Because there was writing, too. A scrawl of black ink that looked like it had been written today, just this morning. It read Why didn’t you help me?
    And it was signed Kimber .
    * * *
    FIVE SECONDS LATER, CARMELA WAS ON THE PHONE to Ava. “This isn’t your idea of a joke, is it?” she asked. Ava lived directly across the courtyard in a funky second-floor studio apartment, directly above her Juju Voodoo shop.
    Ava yawned into the phone. “What are you talking about?” Another yawn followed. “Uh, jeez, it feels like I’ve got the entire Gobi Desert stuck in my eyes. Awful. How many glasses of wine did I have last night? Do you remember? ’Cause I sure don’t.”
    Carmela’s voice carried no trace of sleepiness anymore. “I just found a very creepy postcard stuck to my morning paper.”
    “Um . . . what?” Clearly, Ava had just rolled out of bed.
    “And the postcard is signed Kimber Breeze ,” said Carmela. “Well, actually just Kimber .”
    There was dead air for a few seconds, and then Ava said, “Seriously? Give me a minute, I’m coming over.”
    Two minutes later, Ava came flouncing across the courtyard wearing a full-length red peignoir trimmed in purple marabou.
    “You look like a refugee from Madame Kitty’s old-time bordello,” said Carmela. She had to smile in spite of herself. In spite of the ugly postcard that had left her feeling more than a little shaken.
    “Can I help it if I’m a gal with a taste for the exotic and the louche?” said Ava. She grabbed the matching marabou stole that dangled down the front of her filmy robe and flung it over her shoulder. “Now . . . let me see that postcard.”
    Carmela handed it to her.
    Ava took it, turned a speculative gaze on the photo, then flipped the postcard over and read the message. “Well, kiss my adorable sweet booty,” she said in a quiet drawl, “somebody’s sure got a sick sense of humor.”
    “Don’t they?”
    “Who would do a crappy thing like this?” wondered Ava.
    “I don’t know,” said Carmela, “but I’d sure like to find out.”
    Ava looked askance at Carmela, as if she were studying her. “This isn’t some kind of stupid-pet-trick joke, is it? Designed to freak out the upstairs neighbor?”
    “I wouldn’t do that to you,” said Carmela. She smiled. “Not like this anyway.”
    “And I know I didn’t fall fast asleep for six weeks and wake up on April Fool’s Day.” Ava lifted a hand to scratch her mass of dark curly hair. “Well, jeez. This is just plain weird.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “I hate to think that somebody’s been creepy-crawling around our courtyard,” said Ava, glancing over her shoulder. Water pattered in the three-tiered fountain, and colorful bougainvillea spilled from giant terra-cotta pots. But the courtyard’s essence seemed to