Devil at Dusk - Installment Twenty Six

Welcome to installment twenty six of Devil at Dusk

I had to do whatever it would take to try to track down our killer! I had to be smarter than he was. I had been hearing rumors around town for a few weeks now that there was a psychic over in Larose Louisiana. I asked around to the towns people here in Laurel what they happened to know about this person. I heard many interesting stories regarding this person…they all said she was a young lady probably in her early 20’s (well at least that was a start, right?). One person told me she was 4 foot 8 inches tall and lived in the smallest house in the world, another person told me she was a witch and to be careful, another person told me she was a white girl from South Africa and her pet monkey rode around on her shoulder and went everywhere with her!

I finally went to the Russian’s the ones we had hired to teach at the horse riding school, because they had cousins that had moved to Louisiana. They had been keeping in touch via phone and letters, while the cousins made their journey through the south and eventually would be heading up to the eastern seaboard as a part of the traveling circus. I knew it was a long shot but I had to find out something about this person to see if it was worth my while to contact her. The Russian’s said their cousins had contacted them just the day before, they had said they were in a small town in Alabama for a few days and the cousins left them a contact number to reach them at in case of emergencies. They gave me the number to reach them directly. I contacted them as soon as possible.

 I spoke to Mr. Ilya Markov and I introduced myself. I asked him if they made it through Larose Louisiana on their journey and surprisingly they had (Larose was not originally on the route but the circus took a detour because one of the performers had gotten very sick). I asked them if they were familiar with a young gal in her 20’s that was a psychic there in that town. He said yes, he had heard that, he had heard that she was in her mid 20’s and was raised by her grandmere and her papa (her mama passed away when she was little). One of Ilya’s circus friends was the performer that had gotten very sick and needed her help. They said she was Cajun traiteure (a healer along with being a psychic), her skills for being a healer had been passed down from her grandmere, to her papa and then down to her. Her papa had gotten remarried a few years ago and had moved however he was still living in Larose. They said her name is Marguerite and her grandmere is Katherine Marie. 

Her grandmere was getting quite old and with her papa gone, Marguerite was taking over on doing most of the healing now but she does get quite a few requests for her psychic abilities. Marguerite was also taking over the role of caretaker now that Katherine Marie was getting on in years. Ilya told me they said she was born and raised on the bayou. She was a little bit of a wild child and a very pale looking girl. He said they had heard that her psychic abilities were spot on though. I asked him if there was anything else that he could tell me, he said she looked different than most people but that was just what he had heard since he had not seen her he did not know about any of that….

To be continued