“You think I saw his ghost?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Dexter shook her head. “I think you saw him when he was alive. My colleagues in London have been searching your aunt and uncle’s home. They’ve found a doorway in the hallway wall by the corner. Leads to an old cellar. You have to look closely for the catch but it’s there. There is evidence that at least one child was kept there at some point. We think your aunt and uncle kept this boy in the cellar until they killed him. Perhaps others too.”
“No.” Keisha shook her head. “No. He was a ghost. He was so white, he was a ghost.”
“No.” Dexter’s rough voice was surprisingly gentle. “He just looked like a ghost to a little girl.”
He took another photo from his file and passed it over. “His name was Oliver Okimbe. His family had just moved from Nigeria to Yorkshire when he went missing.” He paused as Keisha, with shaking hands, took the picture from him. “They moved to England to keep him safe from witch doctors in Nigeria who wanted to kill him for his body parts. Sadly, your uncle’s cousin followed him and brought him to your auntie. Oliver wasn’t a ghost. He was an albino.”
Keisha looked down at the picture, and even as the image blurred with her tears, she knew it was him. The boy who wasn’t there. The tears fell heavy after that. Oliver Okimbe. A real live boy.
She’d never been cursed at all.
Part Four
65.
“I wondered if you’d find your way here,” Elizabeth said, not moving from her chair by William’s hospital bed. “I did hope you would. You’re a smart woman. And I would have hated all my planning to have gone to waste. I’ve been so looking forward to sharing everything with you.” She smiled, contained; a still, calm figure compared to Marcie’s fizzing energy. “Scratch the surface and history always wills out, isn’t that true?” she finished. “And history makes us who we are. As you’ve discovered.”
The room was quiet, only the hum of the machines feeding life to William. Marcie tossed the black ball from her trunk onto William’s bed, and she was sure she saw a maggot wriggle away as it landed on William’s legs. He didn’t seem to mind. “Iris’s cat?”
“He was dying. I didn’t hurt him. A conjure ball should be made with care and I’d been fond of Midge.” She shrugged. “Plus, Iris was a little too friendly to Keisha too soon. That would have hurt Eleanor’s feelings. So an eye for an eye, a hurt for a hurt.”
“Mama Laveau was an old voodoo queen of New Orleans at the end of the nineteenth century,” Marcie said. “Her daughter took her name and kept on practicing as the original Laveau. One daughter married a white man, by the name of Glapion. Was he your daddy, Elizabeth Glapion? Is your mother the current Mama Laveau? The old woman with the crazy umber hair?”
“Bloodlines,” Elizabeth said wryly. “The rich think only theirs matter, but the poor have history too. Our blood runs deep. Do you know what they call me? The real people of Savannah?” Marcie said nothing, and so Elizabeth continued. “They call me the White Voodoo. My pale skin hides my blood. But yes, Mama Laveau was my grandmother. Her blood is mine. Mama Laveau and Dr. John, old John Bayou? Well, they ran New Orleans back in the old days. Rivals. Mama Laveau, she had voodoo in her soul. She could do it all. Just like my mama. But Dr. John—do you know what power he had?” Marcie stayed silent and she continued. “He understood the power of information. He had servants in his pay all over New Orleans and they told him everything about the people who lived in the big houses—all the secrets only servants knew, so when his rich clients came knocking for his help and he already knew their business, they thought he was the most powerful voodoo doctor. I have some of my mother’s magic. I can curse with a spit if I so wish, but I prefer Dr. John’s methods. Times don’t really change. To William, I was simply an assistant. But he trusted me with everything. Funny, isn’t it? I know all his business. Most of his friends’ business. Most of his clients’ business. Some of them have actually become mine and Mama’s clients. So, Mama takes care of the voodoo and I take care of the information and between us we have made a little fortune of our own. Eleanor knew. Eleanor loved and respected us. Eleanor believed in the power of our magic.”
Marcie looked at the half-dead figure in the bed. “You did this for Eleanor, didn’t you?”
Elizabeth sighed and squeezed William’s hand. “Eleanor was going to murder William herself. That’s why she had the morphine and the needles hidden away. She’d put them to one side and she was going to kill him in his sleep.”
“Why? Because of the waitress?” Surely Eleanor wouldn’t have resorted to murder over someone as obviously trashy as Michelle from Michigan?
“No, of course not. Because of what the waitress represented. His lack of respect. His lack of love or care. You weren’t there. You didn’t see how much it had taken from Eleanor to forgive him for Lyle. Lyle was her heart. Oh, he was such a beautiful boy. He deserved a long and happy life. If it wasn’t for William, he might have had one. His death nearly destroyed Eleanor. It broke my heart, but that was nothing next to watching her pain. But she was a good person and she wanted to forgive William, not only for Lyle’s death but for making him join up in the first place, for something so opposite to his nature. She made herself forgive him. She locked Lyle away in a box so William wouldn’t feel guilty and she strived to make the marriage work. And I guess on some level it did.”
“But then Eleanor got sick,” Marcie said.
“Yes. And it became clear very quickly that William wasn’t good with illness. He hid from it, barely spending time with Eleanor, sleeping in a guest bedroom. And then, when Eleanor was diagnosed as terminal, and not even Mama or I could do anything to stop it, he started his fling with that girl. As if Eleanor wasn’t suffering enough. I didn’t blame Eleanor for wanting to kill him, but I couldn’t let her do it.” She looked up at Marcie and smiled. “She was a beautiful woman inside and out. I wouldn’t let her ruin herself—her soul—for William. I stopped her. I had planned to retire and go back to New Orleans with Mama once Eleanor had passed. I’d made enough money through our private services to the wealthy of Savannah. Tarot readings. Love spells. Advice. Curses. When you can get that stuff right, people will pay you anything you want. Plus, Eleanor hadn’t left me forgotten in her will. We were like sisters after all.” She smiled again, softly but sadly this time, remembering her friend.
“So yes, I was looking forward to relaxing into a quiet comfortable luxury of my own, but although I wouldn’t let her kill William, neither could I let her die without peace of mind. So I promised her on her deathbed that I’d take care of all of it. I’d kill William for her. It was her dying wish.” She paused. “There’s a lot of power in a dying wish.”
“Maybe not so much,” Marcie said. “He’s not dead.”
“I’m not as kind as Eleanor.” Elizabeth laughed. “There are some fates worse than death. William’s alive on a whim. Watching him when Eleanor was dying I learned a lot about that fat old man. Dying terrified him. The weakness of it. The becoming irrelevant as life moved on. He wanted a quick death, which, to be fair, is what Eleanor was planning to give him. But he didn’t deserve that. Why should he get a clean death while Eleanor had to rot slowly? No.” She shook her head. “Eleanor and Lyle deserved more than that after so many years of having him controlling them. But look at him now—trapped here, locked in the dark of his own mind, no power at all. The visitors will stop coming. All he has is me, sitting here, whispering to him about Lyle and Eleanor and how he failed them and how this whole situation is his own fault. He’ll live awhile but eventually, if his organs don’t fail entirely, the machine will be turned off. Then he’ll be dead. That will be the moment of mercy.”
“But what about the rest of us? Me and Keisha and Jason?” She paused. Quiet subservient Elizabeth had done all this to them. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so terrifying. Elizabeth and her crazy mother. Voodoo queens.
“Ah, the replacement wife—mentally unstable
and from a juju background full of secrets. The liar—hiding her colorful past in a box in the ceiling. And finally, the thief—who didn’t even learn his lesson after his father’s death. A perfect cast of characters for Eleanor’s revenge. All shackled to ghosts of the dead: a boy, a husband, a father.”
“You think you know so much about us,” Marcie sneered, angry. “But you don’t.”
“Oh, but I do. As I said, information is my business. I had Keisha’s life investigated for William, and when you arrived on the scene I did the same. I research everyone who comes into my circles. You always find something useful.” She stared at Marcie, and despite the warmth in her eyes, Marcie shivered. “And my, was your past useful.”
“You’re going to let them go to prison for a murder they didn’t commit. And what about me? Why the stupid doll and the disgusting ball?”
“Why does everyone presume voodoo is curses and devils?” Elizabeth said. “So wrong. Some spells curse and bind, and some protect. Good or bad. It’s all karma.”
“Which was mine? Or Keisha’s?”
Elizabeth didn’t answer, but stood up and went to the window. “The police are here,” she said. “They’ll have traced the email to your old high school back to Jason’s office computer. They still don’t know who sent it, but they may well now be thinking that you were a ménage à trois. You were sleeping with both of them after all, and Jason could well have met Keisha when he went to London. He didn’t, by the way. Like I said, information is my magic. But I digress. Now, here’s where you come in. I’m not going to send anyone to jail. You are.”
“What do you mean?” Marcie was so over this shit.
“I’m going to give you a choice. Jason or Keisha?”
Elizabeth turned and smiled. “I can make it so that one of them goes free and one goes to jail for William’s attempted murder.”
“What?”
“Keisha or Jason. Which do you want to save? The errant husband or the flighty girlfriend? Time’s ticking on.”
Marcie looked down at the barely living body in the bed. She felt sick. She felt relieved. She felt like she was stuck in a fever dream. “But what if William dies? That could be the death penalty.” There was noise behind them in the corridor. Detective Anderson and her sidekick arriving.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said pleasantly. “It will be. But it won’t be you facing it.” She winked, and Marcie, just before answering, decided Elizabeth was mad.
66.
As Elizabeth had said they would, the police had taken Marcie in for further questioning after discovering the email to the high school came from Jason’s work computer—a computer that Marcie had plenty of access to.
Marcie hadn’t answered any of their questions this time, as Kate Anderson quizzed her, trying to find out if all three of them, Marcie, Keisha, and Jason, were in it together. It all was just as Elizabeth had said it would be. Marcie hadn’t bothered to try to defend herself. It felt odd putting her faith in Elizabeth that she wouldn’t be charged, but she found that she did. After all, Elizabeth had been pulling their strings for long enough. Instead, as Anderson had talked at her, she’d zoned out while putting the pieces of Elizabeth’s plan together in her head. Thankfully, finally, the detectives were called out, leaving her alone in the room with her thoughts.
It was almost to be respected, how intricate Elizabeth’s plan had been. She’d known all about Keisha before she even arrived in the city. Emmett had been in love with Elizabeth and so no doubt made sure that Jason’s investments weren’t going to pay out in time. Maybe he even encouraged Jason—at Elizabeth’s behest—to invest money he didn’t have. The figure she’d half recognized at the rave—not Zelda but Elizabeth standing behind her mother, serpent in her arms. She must have arranged for their drinks to be drugged to make Keisha more susceptible to the voodoo. The more unstable she was the more unhappy William would be. Also, the drugs made them looser, hotter for each other, and that was how they got the photo. Enough to make William angry that night and want to keep away from the party and tell Noah he wanted a divorce.
Marcie thought about the coolant. Elizabeth had done all the organizing for the new car and no doubt had a spare key. The light came on after she and Keisha had gone to see Julian and Pierre—when they fucked in the car—and Elizabeth had met them there. She could easily have loosened the cap to make it leak. Elizabeth could have been in the kitchen and injected the cartons at any point after she returned to the party. Julian and Pierre had brought their own catering Winnebago for the canapés and parked it around the back.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Detectives Anderson and Washington came back into the room, and only then did Marcie realize that her hands were cold and legs numb from sitting still. How long had they been gone? “There’s been a development, which means that you’re free to go.”
Marcie got to her feet, despite the pins and needles running through her calves. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve found the syringe used to inject the coconut water cartons and a small water bottle containing coolant.”
Marcie’s eyes widened. What have you done now, Elizabeth? “I don’t understand.”
“Behind the cutlery drawer in the Radford house kitchen. There’s an odd gap there at the back that can only be accessed if you pull the drawer out at a certain angle. Did you know about it?”
Marcie nodded. “Yes, but—”
“If you were involved in the attempted murder and hid them there, or knew they were there, you’ve since had opportunity to remove them.” Marcie’s blank face prompted further explanation.
“You were at the Radford house earlier this evening and Iris Cartwright tells us you were left alone in the kitchen.” She paused. “Lucky for you.”
“So I can go?”
“Yes, we won’t be charging you.”
Marcie wanted to laugh out loud. Oh, Elizabeth. How you played us.
She was free, and if she wasn’t mistaken, if Elizabeth had stood by the choice she’d given Marcie, the future was looking pretty bright.
67.
It was a decadently hot night in the Bahamas, but a slight breeze blew in through the fluttering curtains and was delicious on Marcie’s naked skin. It had been a long few months and she—they—deserved this holiday away from everything.
Everything had played out as Elizabeth predicted. The syringe and bottle had only Jason’s fingerprints on them. The conclusion drawn was that he must have planned William’s death alone and had to quickly ditch the murder equipment in the broken drawer space after being interrupted by Elizabeth on the night of the party when Keisha had started shouting at Zelda. Both Marcie and Keisha had the opportunity to retrieve and dispose of them and they hadn’t. If either had been involved in any way they would have.
Poor Jason. He’d vehemently denied his guilt throughout the trial, which hadn’t exactly helped his case, and Marcie had felt the hatred coming off him in waves as she played her own part, weeping quietly on the stand, giving evidence against him. So that was it. Jason had gotten life for attempted murder and the trial for his financial wrongdoings was upcoming.
She wondered what evidence Elizabeth would have produced if Marcie had chosen differently. Something equally compelling against Keisha no doubt. But she hadn’t chosen differently. Why would she? She’d been getting bored with Jason before any of this happened and she’d never bought into that stand by your man philosophy.
“Can I ask you something?” Keisha murmured. “And you won’t get mad?” She was curled on her side, one hand protecting her growing belly, Billy having left her with more than money after all. Was it going to be another request for reassurance? Keisha, although still glorious in bed and now fabulously wealthy, was turning out to be quite needy.
“Sure,” Marcie whispered in reply.
“It’s really stupid, but I just need to hear it from you. You didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Jonny, did you?”
“No, of course not!” Marci
e looked down at her. “You really have to ask that?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Keisha said, reaching up to kiss her. “I didn’t mean it, it’s just all been so crazy with Auntie Ayo and Uncle Yahuba having murdered that poor boy and maybe others, and then what Jason did, it’s just all such madness it’s making me question everything. Ignore me. I’m being stupid. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry.” Marcie leaned down and kissed her. “But you can trust me. I love you.”
They kissed more deeply and for a while Marcie let Keisha’s glorious body do the apologizing.
Afterward, as Keisha slept, satiated, Marcie stared into the night, at last alone with her thoughts.
You can’t cage a wild thing.
Marcie was a wild thing, always had been, and nothing could change that.
Jonny.
She sank back into the memories. How her heart had raced walking back into the trailer, not knowing whether he’d be dead or alive or if he’d even drunk the laced whiskey at all. The contrived argument the day before and then storming out to go to work. The shot of clean whiskey she’d secretly slipped in his coffee to give him a taste for liquor again. Staying out all night drinking and dancing with Janey, turned on by not knowing if her plan was working or not.
Oh yes, how her heart had raced when she walked into the trailer and saw him there on the floor, eyes wide, frozen in terror. Dead. And it had been so easy. Jonny always had stuff for the cars in the trailer. Oil, batteries, coolant. And sure, Jonny had straightened out for a while, but alcoholics relapse, and there was enough doubt to get her off scot-free.
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