In a flurry of industriousness no doubt brought on by temporary Lenten sobriety, New Toulouse saw a number of renovations, relocations, and new businesses in recent weeks. One “coincidence” that a less-observant colleague (I’m looking at you, Jack Mondieu) might have missed is two new detective agencies opening within three days of each other. Sensing a story (or several), I sat down with both to get the scoop.
Part 2: Trolley Trollop at TNT Detective Agency
At TNT Detective Agency, in Red Drum Place adjacent to the cemetery, Ms. Trolley Trollop ushered me into the comfortable office and immediately began the southern tradition of making guests feel at home by offering them copious amounts of food. I turned down the meat pie (I’m vegetarian) and the chocolate cake, because I’m already bursting the seams of my mesh skirts, but what reporter could resist a cocktail?
Before I’d swallowed my first delicious sip, Ms. Trollop was already talking about her highest priority case, finding a murderer she calls “Tunnel Man.” Ms. Trollop, who said she graduated from the Frederick Walker School of Detection in New York City, came to New Toulouse because her sources indicated that this Tunnel Man was here.
I asked her to start from the beginning, in case any of our readers haven’t been following the story. “Tunnel Man was working in the tunnel, and he didn’t have anything to eat, and nobody came to save him,” she said. “So he kinda turned into something not even his mama could love, and started taking young girls to be his bride. Well, one thing led to another, and Tunnel Man heard about work in New Toulouse and got himself here on a big old freighter. Been here ever since. I think.” She added, “But I ain’t got the proof. Yet.”
Her informant’s letters, she said, seemed to involve a particular building. “The one place that keeps being mentioned in the letters of those poor dead girls is Mrs. Varnish’s rooming house. Tarantula Arms. You know anything about it?”
When I told her that I had lived at the Tarantula Arms until the building got condemned, Ms. Trollop asked if I had ever seen anybody go missing there. I had, in fact—pretty much every time rent was due.
She handed me a letter she said was from a Euphemia Johns who had lived at the Tarantula Arms. I hadn’t met her, but quite a few people at the boarding house kept to themselves.
“You read that letter,” she said. “You’ll see why we are pledged to find those poor girls. Bring them home. Bury them decent in St. Louis Cemetery.”
Ms. Trollop dressed at bait during Mardi Gras
Were city officials taking her concerns seriously? “I got to say that Mr. Mayor doesn’t seem to be taking a real active interest in doing anything about Tunnel Man.” She had more positive things to say about the local police. “I have your sheriff’s assurances that he takes it real serious. Put out extra patrols during Mardi Gras. And he noticed right off that Tunnel Man seems to favor young women with dark hair. Doesn’t seem to have a taste for blondes.”
I asked if she and her second-in-command at TNT, Mr. Al Terego, were focused exclusively on the Tunnel Man. “We is here for anybody that needs our services. Women in particular. You know, I think there’s a place for a woman to be helping other women with faithless lovers and philandering husbands and sweethearts. Matters like that … well, we just ain’t gonna talk to a man about our female troubles. But we take anybody as a client. Dead people, vampires, living folks. We don’t discriminate. We are just a little business, but I think there’s lots of work for us. And if there isn’t, well, we’ll just keep putting out meat pies and being friendly to folks.”
As for Mr. Ramsey, she hopes they “become good friends and we can help each other,” adding, “If Mr. Ed has more business than he can say grace over, we’d be much obliged if he’d pass it on. I’m just a poor little gal from South Alabama trying to make my way. I ain’t gonna ever win the Miss Alabama contest now, so I got to start making my living with my brains.” Unlike her fellow detective, Ms. Trollop is less interested in cases involving the paranormal. “I think I had best get some practice in solving crimes of the flesh before I go after the haints,” she said.
And how close is she to solving the case of the Tunnel Man? She crossed herself and said, “I think I smelled him late one night.”
I asked her what he smelled like, expecting an answer like swamp gas or fire and brimstone or Jack Mondieu’s morning breath. “It was real strange,” she replied. “Smelled of lavender water.”
A man who lives in a muddy tunnel under a swamp smells like lavender water?
“Well, he is British.”
At that point I made the mistake of joking that since Mr. Ramsey is British, I should sniff him next time I pass him on the steps of Spiegel Hall. (The fact that he’s easy on the eyes is entirely irrelevant.) Ms. Trollop started to fan herself and nearly fell out of her chair.
“Oh my god! You think maybe Mr. Ramsey is Tunnel Man in disguise? Oh my god!”
Imagining having to explain to my neighbor how I accidentally sent a pitchfork-armed posse to his doorstep, I answered with an emphatic no. She seemed disappointed.
Still, Ms. Trollop does believe that the mystery will be solved in New Toulouse—with or without the mayor’s help. “We many never find Tunnel Man, but I just feel in my bones that we can find whatever’s left of them poor dead girls and we can bring ’em home and have a fine jazz procession to Number 32 at the cemetery. Let them girls have a resting place.” She expects that her agency will have help locating the so-far-elusive tunnels, and not just for the sake of justice and community spirit. “I think Dr. Avalon wants to get Tunnel Man real bad so she can use him in her experiments,” she said. “Might even cure him and turn him into a productive member of the community. He might even run for mayor one day!”
After finishing my chat with Ms. Trollop—and at least a couple of her delicious cocktails—I went to the police department to see what Pazzo Pestana thought about all these detective agencies opening up.
“I’d say that the advent of the Tunnel Man mystery presented an opportunity for investigative minds to set up shop and begin to offer their services to the community,” he said. “The police have been cautious in their investigation, having found a dearth of tunnels in the city.”
He did hint that a discovery “centered around the hospital” has caused them to intensify their efforts and ask the mayor for support. “In the meanwhile, an APB for all muddy men carrying mining tools has been sent out.”
TNT Detective Agency is at #2 Red Drum Place. (All photos courtesy Ms. Trolley Trollop.)
Jane Moreaux keeps all four eyes on New Toulouse—six, after she’s had a few cocktails.