She sighed. “I was awake bright and early. Sarah and I were down here by about eight this morning. I’m going to bring her back in around six. We’ve had a busy day, and she’s a great mule, but mules need their rest and fuel just like people.”

“People and animals,” he said.

“Pardon?”

He laughed. “My mother would have loved you. She said people who were nice to other people were usually good, but now and then they were devious. And people who were good to people and animals were almost always just really good people.”

“Well, I try,” Katie said lightly.

“I’ll come right back here,” he said. “Wait for me? I’ll have someone drop me, and I’ll take Sarah back into the stables with you.”

“That’s okay. I’m capable. I’ve been doing it for years—”

“I never suggested you weren’t capable. Maybe I need the help,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

A cop car was heading down Decatur, and he stepped out to hail the driver who stopped and, after a brief conversation with Dan, nodded gravely and let him into the car.

“You have all the luck,” Katie heard, and she swung around.

Lorna was staring at her, smiling and shaking her head. Her mule and carriage were drawn up behind Katie’s.

“I do?” she asked. Katie had never thought it good luck to have your parents brutally murdered, but Lorna wasn’t thinking of the past, and she knew that.

“Damn, he’s...hmm. Something.”

“Something, all right.”

“Where do you know him from?”

“He was a cop down in Florida when I went down for George’s trial.”

“Ah, and therefore, you...you what? He’s here for these axe murders?” Lorna looked at her with curiosity. “It’s weird. There’s like this strange electricity around you both with a push and pull, a magnet, coming close...opposite ends, pushing away... Ah, then they spark again, then...”

“Then nothing, Lorna. He and a few other cops are just asking me questions, going back into what I can remember about what happened down in the Keys.”

“Right.”

“Come on, it’s dead serious. Bad choice of words. Someone hacked people up with an axe, Lorna. I’m going to do everything I can to help.”

“Oh, of course,” Lorna said, earnest then. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know, I know. It’s okay.”

“You could have gotten stuck with an ugly detective.”

“He’s not a detective anymore. I don’t think he was detective. I think, technically, he was called a special agent. But he’s a private investigator now.”

“Oh! Here, in New Orleans?”

“Yes, seems he had family here, too.”

“Wow!”

“Yep. Anyway...”

There were other carriages on the street, but Matt D’Arcy, the third employee of Monty Trudeau’s carriages, was out with a group.