Rita looked around as she and Ray made their way through the Records Department to row eighty-two, with Ray moving confidently.

"This place is bigger than I thought," Rita said. She sneezed. "And dustier than I thought."

Ray smiled sympathetically at her. "Allergy pills were my friends when I was down here. And here we go," she said, reaching the row. "Okay, 1905…." She glanced up as a cool breeze rustled the files and papers.

Rita shivered. "What was that?" she asked, feeling a chill go down her spine.

Ray blinked and held up a finger, looking like she was listening to something, or someone, Rita couldn't see. Then she smiled. "Hello old friend. Yes, I know, it's been a while, and I'm sorry for not having been down here for a while, but you know yourself; time passes, and so do people." She grinned at Rita. "It's Mister Montello. He's saying hello, that he hasn't seen me for a while. He's harmless, mostly."

"This is going to sound really stupid coming from me, but can he help us?" Rita asked. "Because I have no idea where to start."

"We can ask. Sometimes he knows things, sometimes he doesn't, but he's not the only one down here, so someone else might know something," Ray said. She went over to a table at the end of the aisle and laid out the pictures she'd managed to print off, from the library. "Okay, these are the pictures I took from the library. The family we're looking for are Charles and Eva Fontenot, and this is dated May 8th, 1905, showing they had two children, Peter and Rose. Our victim, Ensign Fontenot, was trying to trace her family, and even though she lived, and was stationed, in Washington, D.C, she apparently discovered that the family had appeared in New Orleans around 1902. What she wanted to know was where the original house stood, and what happened prior to 1902, because there's no record of Charles Fontenot in D.C., at all."

"If I remember my history right, the 1900's was when the government started banning the slave trade," Rita said.

"That's right. It was thought to have officially stopped around 1867, but there's evidence it actually continued until 1873, and there was a lot of illegal slave trading long after that," Ray said. "The New Orleans slave trade was stopped in 1864, by the United States Army, after the Civil War, but due to the proximity to the South, publicly it was stopped, but privately, not so much." She shook her head in disgust. "We try to say we're good humans and all that ya-ya, but in reality, we have a long way to go. Anyway, Mister Montello, my fine fellow, might you know something of the Fontenot family?"

To Rita's amazement, a pen that was on the table suddenly skittered off, moved by unseen hands. It fell to the floor, then shot down the aisle across from them. The two women followed the pen, with the hairs on Rita's neck and arms, standing up, until it stopped in front of a section of files. Ray stood in front of the section, and closed her eyes, opening up her senses. Then she smiled, putting a hand to her chest, and bowing. "My gratitude, old friend. There's a small nip of Southern Comfort whiskey in my bag, for you. I will leave it open and out, before we leave."

Rita suddenly felt a feeling she knew wasn't her, one of gratitude. "That's weird. I suddenly felt a sense of gratitude."

"That's him," Ray said, reaching for an old file, and taking it off the shelf carefully. She opened it up to reveal a yellowed map and a sheet of paper with old handwriting on it. "And we have just struck gold."

Rita studied the map. "I think I recognize that area; it's an area known as Storyville. Used to be a Red Light district at one point, around the time of the Fontenot family."

"So, if we use that as our center point, we could overlap it with the current map of New Orleans, see if we can locate the Fontenot place," Ray said. "Toss it at Patton and Sebastian, see what magic they can come up with?"

"Sounds good. Problem is, it doesn't answer the question of why Ensign Fontenot was murdered," Rita said. "A manual strangling is pretty up close and personal."

"Tell me about it," Ray muttered, rubbing her throat, where, to Rita's horror, she could see a faint bruise around the woman's neck.

"Who did that to you?" Rita demanded, batting Ray's hands away to examine her neck.

"Ensign Fontenot," Ray admitted. "It happens, unfortunately, and I've had worse. I'm okay, really, but I may have to do some work if, and that's a big if, we find the Fontenot house, because I have a bad feeling this is just the beginning." She took a picture of the map, and the other pages, and forwarded them to Sebastian, before putting the file back, and picking up the pen Mister Montello used to direct them. "Anyway, yeah, that was an up-close-and-personal murder, so someone was pretty pissed at our victim. What I'm wondering is, based on the time frame of things, could Eva Fontenot have actually been from the Washington D.C. area, or her husband, Charles? Because the one photo we have of them, it shows Charles was white, and until President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Washington DC was a slave traders dream."

Rita's mind suddenly kicked into high gear. "And what if they came to New Orleans, changed their surname, and started their lives as a family not remotely connected to whatever family was in Washington DC?" Rita asked. "What if someone followed Ensign Fontenot here and murdered her to stop her from tracing the family line? She was receiving very nasty, racist-type text messages, especially the last one. What if someone doesn't want the rest of the world knowing he, or she, is connected to a black woman?"

"Especially if that person is very image conscious?" Ray asked. Suddenly, to Rita's horror, her hands went to her throat and she started coughing, like she was choking on something.

"What the hell?" Rita demanded, as Ray fell to her knees.

"Ensign… Fontenot!" Ray choked out, coughing and gasping. "She's… angry!"

"Oh, this is so stupid," Rita muttered, thinking fast. "Okay, okay. Ensign Fontenot, I'm Commander Deveraux of the United States Navy, and I am ordering you to let Ray go, right this instant, or as a member of the JAG office, I will find a way to charge you with assault, ghost or not!" she snapped, looking around for something, anything. "You are a member of the United States Navy, and you know better than this!"

To Rita's relief, whatever it was that had a grip on Ray's throat, suddenly let go, as evident by the way Ray suddenly collapsed in Rita's arms, breathing hard.

"She does know better," Ray admitted. "And she's sorry; you're right. She's just so angry, because all she wanted was to know her family lineage."

"And we will help her, but she cannot attack you like that again, because that's wrong," Rita said. "She was a member of the Navy, and from what we found out, working with the JAG department. There will be justice for her death, but she can't do that again."

"She won't; she promises," Ray said

.

"Good. Let's leave the whiskey for Mister Montello and get out of here," Rita said, helping the other woman stand up.

"Sounds good to me," Ray said, rubbing her throat and wincing. That was gonna leave a mark.