A New Orleans Detective Mystery. Ken Mask
A New Orleans Detective Mystery
Ken Mask
Copyright 2011 Ken Mask, A New Orleans Detective Mystery
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American copyright conventions. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved in the USA, Canada, India, Europe, Japan, China, England, and South Africa. No part may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of William Kenneth Mask (Ken Mask) except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This novel is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Cover design by eBookit.com
_________________________________________
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mask, William Kenneth
City Park Murder/Ken Mask
p.cm.
Murder at the Butt: A New Orleans Mystery; Luke Jacobs, PI; Luke Jacobs’s Series
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0419-6
1.Fiction 2. Mystery 3. Detective literature 4. Thriller 5. Literary fiction
“But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.”
~ Lord Alfred Tennyson
“Ignorance is the parent of fear.”
~ Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
“Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak of you?”
~ Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man)
Preface
The Deep South U.S. space termed New Orleans is that kind of unique arena which can best be described with a collection of carefully chosen words by someone with language command saved for a few piercingly discriminating thinkers. The capacity of this correspondent to reflect on the texture of the place and to appropriately translate the well of thoughts into a body of material that will do the area justice is suboptimal and, thus, I arrest my energies.
But wait. I’ll try.
The two, straight, two-lane highway entrances to New Orleans from either east or west via Interstate 10 are characterized wonderfully with large, lengthy, very carefully and delicately constructed bridges that speak volumes of the special dedication to settle here despite the terrain. A causeway comes in via the Covington suburb, but inhabitants consider anything in the 60-mile radius to be ‘New Orleans.’ Folk always claim New Orleans, even as far away as the Mississippi border, and then some.
‘There’s water in them there plains.’ The surrounding landscapes are actually waterscapes: marshes, swamps, canals, bayous, rivers, lakes, and low-lying wetlands. The great, magnificent city, however, does not demonstrate the type of anxiety to impress in order to enjoy life that is found in many places. The land is a superb mixture of waterways, green foliage, light tan sandy dunes, and natural levees, as well as Mississippi dark mud-caked wetlands.
Land meets ocean in this cove, seemingly ‘created’ to let folk know there is a God and He/She wants you to take a moment sometimes to live and dance and play and interact. This port city brings a smile to all. It can rightfully claim the title of ‘World’s Most Lively City,’ though no one there would be so corny as to state that.
The long stretches down Interstate 10 carry you along approximately 40 miles through settings, the names of which offer the kind of respect to Native American villages and mixtures of European history and cultural influences that should blanket all the United States. Places with names like Tangipahoa, Ponchatoula, La Place, French Quarter, Vieux Carre, Baton Rouge, Elysian Fields, Gentilly, Treme, and Pontchartrain. Once you reach the end and take the crescent curve flow along the Mississippi, you find one of the world’s most unique spaces.
Enough said. The wonderful architecture and luscious environment of its parks, hanging-oak-lined streets, waterways, bayous, and canals are the type seen on postcards used to show off a place. Yet with the naked eye, they are truly amazing. With no airbrushing needed on photographs!
“What do you think of this, Smooth?” A typed letter-to-the-editor was placed on the dark maple desk/table sitting in the north corner of the busy detective office. It was in bold letters in a short, column-length newspaper style. “I wrote that last night on my way back down here.”
After a few moments of reading the text and a dramatic pause to absorb the contents and reflect, he replied, “Yeah, Luke. Send this in. It’s good!”
“Yes. I told him the same thing. He doesn’t listen to me anymore! We’ve been reading morning newspapers together, absorbing the data, sometimes critiquing the writers, and debating the stories while enjoying all of the lighter sections for a while now. It just seems to me that we need a voice there once in a while. That’s why I keep telling him to write more, to get in there! It’s something that he’s been passionate about for ...” She stopped when it appeared that the statement was running into a banal tone.
“News drives this city, man. You know that and folk pay attention to the media unlike no other time in our history! Let your voice be heard. You’ve got the attention of the city. Right now they’re fascinated with you ... and ...” The sideman arrested the statement and rose from sitting on the large, leather, worn-out Mexican antique sofa. He opened the door to get better ear from the others who had meandered into the front secretarial space.
Rosalind, Matt, aka ‘Smooth,’ and our man stood on the porch of the private detective’s office overlooking Bayou St. John as the late afternoon sun shone through the trees of the quiet city.
Letter to the editor, Times Picayune
New Orleans, Old and New
The thing that strikes anyone who knows or has heard about New Orleans is the ‘old’ feeling which permeates the space. The city was settled early in our nation’s history and boasts of some of the most distinguished landmarks around and individuals who have called the place home.
It’s the birthplace of jazz, the location for great food, the keeper of the flame of early and late night ‘good times’ and warm hospitality. The area on the curve of the Mississippi River termed the Crescent City is unique and will remain so. No other city in the history of mankind has experienced a displacement of an entire populous. Not to make light of the extreme destruction of property, loss of life, and altered psyche of all who experienced the flooding as the result of Hurricane Katrina, I merely want to champion ‘the call for hope.’ New Orleans stands out in an outstanding way. The events of the week of August 29, 2005, are a wake-up call for us to treat one another with respect. Rushing floodwaters pounding people’s places and spaces, changing land, minds, and roots presented unpredicted trauma.
I’ve lived and worked in New Orleans for most of my life, although once I left for the Big Apple to study. Other cities I’ve called home cannot compare. The climate is excellent year-round. The landscape is a marvelous mixture of evergreens. The grass, oaks, pines, cypress, palms, ferns, and bright red dogwoods along with the bayous, ponds, and lakes are delightful. The airport is 20 minutes from the farthest