by Stacy Green
“Hey.” The guy glared over Brady’s shoulder as the sergeant searched him. “I’m the one who thought to hide behind the headstone.”
Brady took the joint off his ear. “How much weed you got on you?”
“Just this roach. Way under the max.” New Orleans had recently decriminalized marijuana possession under fourteen grams, meaning minor offenders walked away with a ticket instead of taking up jail space and tax dollars.
“What were the three of you doing in here tonight?” Cage shined his flashlight at the girls.
The redhead edged closer, her sultry blue eyes striking against her china-doll skin. Her friend didn’t move. “I’m Zoey. What did you do to piss that guy off?”
“Busted him for selling drugs.” Cage held up his badge. “Special Agent Cage Foster.”
“Louisiana Bureau of Investigation. The big time.” She dropped the girl’s hand and tossed her thick hair over her shoulder.
Brady motioned for her to put her hands up. “I need to search you.”
“Agent Foster can do that.” She raised her arms and gave him a suggestive smirk that no doubt worked on plenty of men.
The dark-haired girl grabbed her arm. “Zoey, stop. Dead guy, remember?”
“I’m trying to forget.” Zoey wilted, hugging her chest. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be inappropriate.”
“You never answered my question,” Cage said.
“I needed Spanish moss from the big oak tree. It’s loaded with magic.”
A perfectly acceptable answer in New Orleans. “You couldn’t get it during cemetery hours?”
“I’m kind of impulsive,” Zoey said. “And I worked all day. Besides, if I had, you’d probably be dead right now.”
“Where’s the body?” Brady asked.
“Under the tree.”
“Talk to this officer.” Brady pointed to the uniform joining them. “She’ll take your statements. Where’s this tree?”
“In the middle of the cemetery,” Zoey said. “You can’t miss it.”
Between the brewing storm and his nerves, everything in the cemetery seemed threatening. Brady’s flashlight beam bounced over the mishmash of graves decorated with homemade headstones and personal artifacts.
“Where are the tombs?” Cage asked.
“No tombs here.”
“What about the water table?” The big vaults made depersonalizing a lot easier than walking by a kid’s grave with her stuffed animal attached to a handmade wooden cross.
Brady shrugged. “It’s a problem sometimes, but we’re uptown enough I guess.”
The oak loomed ahead, ghostly beautiful in the moonlight.
Cage checked his cell for a signal. Two bars, finally, and a dozen missed calls.
Bonin answered on the first ring. “You scared the hell out of me. I heard the calls over the scanner. I’m almost to Holt.”
“Someone called in a dead body. Patrol showed up and saved my ass.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Everything went to shit.”
“You think?”
“Look, I screwed up—”
“Holy hell.” Brady had stopped short a few feet ahead. Cage hurried to catch up.
A figure lay in the fetal position beneath the huge oak, a long string of Spanish moss dangling in his face. Red blisters and dark tissue mottled the flesh around the man’s blackened lips, which hung open in agony.
“I’ll talk to you when you get here.” Cage tucked the phone in his pocket.
“Jesus Christ.” Brady gagged.
A squawking crow emerged from the tree and swooped toward the body. His feet brushed the man’s shoulder, and the bird shot off into the darkness.
A vodka bottle lay a couple of feet away, its contents likely soaking the grass around it.
“Watch out,” Cage said. “Whatever he swallowed is keeping the scavengers away.”
The man’s throat could have passed for rotting meat. Whatever he’d ingested didn’t have an odor—at least not one strong enough to override the piss staining the poor guy’s jeans.
“Those are acid burns.” Brady cued his shoulder mic. “We need a hazmat team out here before the ME touches him.”
The man’s hand clutched a chunk of the dangling Spanish moss as if he’d tried to pull himself up. His bloody fingertips left streaks down the moss. Deep scratches covered the man’s face and neck. A fingernail clung to one of the scratches.
Cage glanced at the victim’s hand again. The nail on his index finger had ripped down to the quick.
The man’s eyes snapped open, bloodshot and terrified. His tarry lips twitched.
“Help me.”
3
Cage’s legs trembled as he squatted down, trying to stay away from the contaminated grass. “Paramedics coming. Hang in there.”
The man’s eyes rolled back into his head.
“What’s your name? Did you do this to yourself?”
The mottled lips opened, and Brady turned away, gagging. The man’s mouth looked like something had chewed it from the inside.
“N … n … n.” He clutched his throat and howled.
No one should die like this. And Cage couldn’t do a single thing to comfort him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re not alone. Just hang in there.”
Tar-like blood oozed from the man’s mouth as his body stretched tight as a string, his toes extending like a dancer’s. His hands fell limp on his throat, his elbows hitting the ground. His pupils stilled along with the rest of his ruined body.
“Brady.” Cage’s throat ached. “Can you meet the paramedics and tell them he’s gone? Have them bring hazmat when they come to officially call time of death.”
“Right.” Brady and his light disappeared, leaving Cage and the unidentified victim at the mercy of the partial moon. Humidity thickened the cool air around him. Wind brushed the Spanish moss over the body, the oaks’ limbs gently rocking in the breeze. Dozens of cowrie shells and beads were scattered among the tree’s roots.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.” Every death investigation left an imprint on him, but this victim’s final moments latched on to a part of Cage’s soul. “But I swear I will find whoever did this to you.”
Artificial light flashed onto the body. “You should get back.”
Cage didn’t acknowledge Bonin. The victim couldn’t have been much more than twenty-one. What a waste. “Hopefully he’s got ID on him.”
“We don’t need it.” Her voice sounded too controlled. “I know who he is.”
Cage’s hands shook as two of the hazmat guys carried the body away in a black bag while a third sprayed some kind of chemical on the grass. The storm lessened as the clouds headed west, but thunder still drummed in the background, slow raindrops falling.
“Masen Malone.” Bonin kept her distance. “From up north. Came down for Mardi Gras a couple of years ago. Met a girl and never left. Seven months ago, she disappeared after they had a big fight on Bourbon Street. He walked off to cool down. She’s never been seen again.”
“No witnesses?” He hadn’t been able to face Bonin yet. The wooziness in his head had given way to pounding, and his back muscles were taut as wire. He’d be lucky to get out of bed tomorrow.
“At 2:00 a.m. on Bourbon Street during Carnival season? No one’s paying attention to anything besides their drink.”
“Who worked the case?” Cage asked.
“Masen was the main suspect. He swore he left her standing under the big neon light at Pat’s Bar, but the bouncer didn’t remember them. Didn’t show up on security footage, either.”
“Was he arrested?”
“Not even when he failed a polygraph.”
“Those aren’t admissible. And if he blamed himself—”
“I’m aware of the psychology.”
Her sharp tone stoked Cage’s temper. “You were the investigator.”
“Initially,” Bonin said. “Things flatlined, and then you showed up for Annabeth. My old
partner’s still working the case, but last I heard, he had no new information.”
“You think he killed her?” And then committed suicide because he couldn’t handle the guilt. But of all the ways to do it, why drink acid? And Masen had tried to answer no, hadn’t he?
“It was the only thing that made sense. He found out she’d been stripping and lost it.”
“Where’d he dump her body, then?”
“Might have taken her to the swamps. You know alligators are a killer’s best friend. Just ask Lyric.”
Cage turned around, his temper at full boil. “What the hell happened?”
Big drug busts were supposed to be vice’s job, but the spike in opioid-related deaths due to a potent batch of Fentanyl had city officials on high alert. Three people had died since Christmas after taking ecstasy pills allegedly laced with fentanyl for a better high. With Mardi Gras only a month away, tourists had already started flocking in for Carnival season. The mayor and city council demanded all hands on deck, and Bonin’s fresh intel gave them a chance to bring a big fish down—if they acted quickly.
Cage and Bonin would make the buy, using an informant’s information. Bonin insisted no need for SWAT’s presence since Spider had been confirmed to be alone. Cage didn’t like it, but he trusted his partner—until she hadn’t shown up at their designated meeting spot a block down from Spider’s location. Either Spider had been tipped off, or Cage had been made by one of his guys patrolling the area. Cage had decided to mobilize SWAT when shots whistled past him.
“I screwed up.”
“We should have had SWAT ready. I listened to you, and I almost got killed.”
“Something unexpected happened. I thought I could make it.” Remorse thickened Bonin’s voice. “I’m so sorry.”
Bonin had always been straight with him, and she was the sort of cop who carried every mistake close to her heart. Yelling at her wasn’t going to change things, and Cage had a dead kid on his hands.
She seemed to pick up on the nonverbal truce. “Masen committing suicide makes sense. The guilt destroyed him.”
“He didn’t commit suicide.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked, and he started to say no.”
“Clearly?” Bonin asked.
“I watched him die. He didn’t do this by choice.” Cage shivered, his aching muscles turning into extreme exhaustion. “God Almighty, I never saw anything like that.”
They both turned to the contaminated area, watching the hazmat guy drive a stake into the ground to secure the yellow tape. Bonin swept her light around the base of the tree.
“Don’t touch anything. We have to decontaminate.”
“Make sure that vodka bottle is properly bagged,” Cage said. “We needed it tested ASAP.”
Very little grass grew on the ground around the ancient tree, and the moss streamed down like giant cobwebs. Like most of the giant oaks in the city, the tree’s vast roots had burst through the ground. Some were large enough to sit on.
“Right there.” Cage pointed to the streak of white on the oak’s roots. “Get the light on that.”
A large white cross had been drawn with chalk on top of a rectangular base. Seven asterisk-like marks surrounded the symbol, lining up with different points of the cross and its base. A cigar and tealight candles had been placed in front of the crudely drawn symbol.
“That’s a vévé, right?” Cage asked. “With some offerings?”
Vévé referred to the symbols representing the many voodoo loa—the litany of spirits believers of the religion looked to for guidance and help.
“You’re learning. It represents Baron Semedi, Loa of the Underworld.”
“What’s Masen doing out here making offerings to a loa?”
“Maybe he wanted Ghede to forgive him for killing her. Holt’s the perfect place to summon him.”
“I don’t want to hear magic mumbo jumbo right now.”
She stuck her hand in his coat pocket before Cage could react and yanked out the gris-gris bag she’d given him. “Really? Is that why you carry this?”
“That’s for good luck.” He snatched the bag and stowed it.
Bonin rolled her eyes. “Probably begging for forgiveness in the afterlife.”
“Let’s pretend he didn’t commit suicide. What else could he have asked for?”
“Fine,” she said. “He could have been asking the Baron for any number of things. He had some of the moss in his hand, right?”
“He probably grabbed at it, trying to get up.”
“Spanish moss has magical uses—protection’s one of them.”
“He was afraid of someone?”
“It’s possible. But he might have wanted safe passage to the other side.”
“He’s not a small guy,” Cage said. “And he’s essentially deadweight. He was poisoned right here. And didn’t you say he was from up north? Where’d he learn voodoo?”
“He’s been here a couple of years. Girlfriend was local. People leave offerings at the oak all the time for various reasons.”
“Agent Foster.” A female patrol officer hurried toward them, evidence bag in her hand. “This fell out of his pocket. Sergeant said to give them to you since it’s your case.”
Cage took the bag, surprised at its weight. “Are these Mardi Gras doubloons?”
Cheap doubloons representing various krewes were a popular parade throw, but these didn’t look like any he’d ever seen.
Bonin shined her light. “These aren’t cheap throw doubloons. They’re silver.”
“Which means?”
“Throw doubloons are cheap and plastic. Silver ones are likely vintage. Do those have weight to them?”
He handed her the bag, and she cursed. “Krewe of Atlas. That’s the London Club’s parade krewe.”
“What’s the London Club?”
“Social club,” Bonin said. “One of the oldest and most powerful.”
The hazmat guy whistled through his shield. “That’s old-line money right there. You think they go back to the early days? How much you think they’re worth?”
Bonin shifted the doubloons around. “Nineteen sixty.”
“Hot damn,” hazmat said. “Those are money.”
“They’re just silver coins.”
“Doubloons weren’t introduced until 1960—same year as these,” Bonin said. “Meaning these are from Atlas’s original batch. No way these were thrown. My bet is these were a gift to high-ranking members. Depending on the silver’s quality, they’re worth serious money. Some of Rex’s first doubloons are worth five figures.”
“There are doubloon trading shops all over the city. Who knows how many hands these passed through?”
The hazmat guy stared through his shield. “You didn’t grow up ’round here, did you?”
“The old-line krewes,” Bonin said, “are Southern aristocracy at its best—to this day. Bankroll is way less important than lineage. In a krewe like Atlas, if a man isn’t a legacy, he’s not getting in. These would have been handed down.”
“Then we need to contact Atlas and ask if anyone associated with them is missing the coins—or a family member.”
The hazmat guy shook his head and went back to work.
“These old-line clubs are so exclusive and secret that no one outside the club knows who the members actually are. That’s part of the reason they mask during the parade. Rex finally started publishing the names of their King of Carnival and his court, but Comus doesn’t. Neither does Atlas. And the London Club is notoriously hostile about protecting its members’ identities. Ça isit un difikilté.” This is a problem.
“Why?” Cage asked.
“Fat Tuesday is a month away. City officials are already worried about the fentanyl. Now we have a dead guy associated with a voodoo ritual in one of the city’s most historical cemeteries, with coins belonging to one of the most influential krewes in the city. The media will be all over this.”
“Not our concern.”
<
br /> “Wait until Atlas hears their name is associated. They’ll have the mayor out on the streets investigating the case himself.”
“Surely you’re exaggerating. This isn’t 1960s New Orleans.”
“Look,” she said. “I grew up here. I know how things work on both sides of the neutral ground. The old-line and super krewes bring in a shit-ton of tourist revenue. No one wants to screw that up. And these are white, old-wealth men with a long history of influencing city government.”
“Fine.” His muscles burned with fatigue, and the space between his shoulder blades felt like a knife digging in. He needed painkillers and a bed. “Let’s talk to the kids who found him so I can go home.”
4
“You’ll need to talk to the police psychologist,” Bonin said.
Cage kept his eyes on the ground, careful not to disturb any mementos or graves. “I don’t work for the NOPD.”
“The state shrink, then. Point is, you’ll have to sit down with them.”
“Waste of time.” He’d been shot at before. This was no different. The vest saved his life, end of story.
“It’s mandatory for a traumatic experience.”
“I knew what I signed up for. Thank God the vest had my back.”
She didn’t say anything, but the tension rose between them like an impenetrable wall.
Cage didn’t speak again until they’d reached Sergeant Brady’s cruiser. All three witnesses huddled in the tight back seat. “These kids saw the whole thing with Spider. Let’s hope they saw something with Masen too.”
He opened the door, his eyes burning at the weed stench. The skinny guy next to the door stared up at him, still half-baked.
“Are you smoking pot in a police car?”
“No way, man.”
“It’s embedded in his clothes.” Zoey elbowed him. “Kyle, get out.”
“He didn’t say we could.”
“Obviously we can. They’re just keeping us here so they can get our statements.”
“She’s right.” Cage waved the three out of the car. He pointed at the skinny guy. “You’re Kyle?”
“Kyle Roe.” If the kid didn’t hunch so much, he’d likely be taller than Cage.