Bitter Reckoning

by Heather Graham

  It occurred to her that the place must be incredibly eerie and sad by night. She’d lived in New Orleans all her life; she knew well what many referred to as the “decaying elegance” of the NOLA cities of the dead.

  This place…

  It was more. So many burial styles, so many chipped and broken tombs and stones. Age sitting upon the place like a gray and dismal aura.

  Danni suddenly felt as if something had wound around her ankle. Shrubbery! The place was so overgrown!

  She fought to steady herself, but she could not—she pitched forward, stopping herself from meeting with the ground by catching the edge of a life-sized child holding a lamb. Luckily she had caught herself just before she could fall on a chipped and decaying tombstone.

  The last name was all but obliterated, but she could read the first name.

  Yvette.

  Chapter 4

  Quinn looked back to see Danni bent over, clutching an old and broken tombstone. He frowned as he saw her face; she was wearing a very strange expression, but as he started to head back toward her, she shook her head slightly. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to share with Trent and Tracy, and the two had paused just feet ahead of him.

  He waited for her to straighten and head their way, smiling and apologizing. “Tripped! But I’m fine. Caught myself.” She extended a hand toward the expanse of land they were approaching. They had almost reached the remnants of the old stone wall and beyond; it seemed trees and foliage stretched forever—the earth was rich here, marshy and wet, and greenery took hold in abundance.

  “That’s all yours?” she said to Trent. “Lovely!”

  Trent laughed. “Yes, it’s all mine. I do love my home. To be honest—all my acres out here are equivalent to one mansion in the Garden District.New Orleans is surely one of the most beautiful and continental cities in the country, but this is home.”

  “The area is fascinating,” Danni said. “Where’s your lodge?”

  Trent pointed through the trees. “Believe it or not, there’s a little trail.”

  “It never…freaked you out, when you were a kid, to be so close to a cemetery, huh?” Tracy asked him, wide-eyed.

  Trent grinned. “It was just always here. I loved the stories—and having kids out for weekends when I could take them into the cemetery and tell them all the wild stories.” He lost his smile. “I would have never thought…well, someone would use them or…kill people.” His voice grew low and somber. “Our stories were all about lonely ghosts—not the living murdering one another.”

  They stood at the old wall for a few awkward moments.

  “What about Yvette?” Quinn asked. “Lonely—but murdered—seeking revenge?”

  Trent laughed. “Yvette, Mary, Kathy, Pam…every decent old cemetery has a broken-hearted lover. Or a vengeful ghost.” He sobered quickly. “I’m sorry—I forgot. People are dead.” He seemed to realize he was standing in a cemetery and he winced. “Newly dead. I’m so sorry—we have lots of legends and lore and most places have violence in their past histories, but…we’re small. Really, bad things don’t happen here that often anymore.”

  “I’m sure,” Danni murmured, and they all stood in silence for a minute.

  “We need to get moving,” Tracy said nervously, “get the car, and get back to Honeywell Lodge. Colleen will be going crazy. She won’t have Ally; she’ll be devastated. She’ll need me. And I…well, I suppose we must go on. We have a lodge that’s filled with people, and most of them never knew Ally—she tended to be business behind the scenes. Oh…I don’t want to go back! Poor Colleen!”

  “She will need you,” Danni said. “She’ll need all the support she can get.”

  “I’d love to see your place, sometime,” Quinn told Trent.

  “Sure. Whenever…ah, whenever you can,” Trent said.

  Quinn slipped an arm around Danni as they watched them go. They could barely see the two as they walked along the trail. Just flashes of color here and there. When they were out of view and earshot, Quinn turned anxiously to Danni.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” she said, looking at him with brilliant blue eyes, a slight flush on her cheeks. “I tripped, honestly. But caught myself—for real. What I tripped over though was a stone with the name Yvette on it—can’t read the last name anymore. And Quinn, I’m sure a tombstone can’t be causing this…if you go by legend—and maybe even records!—bad things only happen every few decades. That may just be the natural way of life, and then any bad thing can be chalked up to…legends and curses or superstition.”

  He shook his head. “Not a stone.”

  “What? You think the murders might have been caused by a—tombstone?” she asked skeptically. “You think this is something more than…just a crazy person committing heinous murders?”

  “One of the CSIs is local—there are several legends. That of Yvette and her spirit, I suppose, ridding the world of evil women, and another about settlers who first came to this area. The woman was a witch and she killed her husband and a friend, or something like that, but supposedly it was because of some kind of talisman that caused a person to go insane. I don’t know—it’s all stories at the moment, but…”

  He paused. He’d met her not long after her father’s death when they’d had to find and destroy an ancient statue, because it apparently did very bad things. That any such thing could be true had been a massive shock to her. Quinn was certain Angus, tough old massive Scot the man had been, never intended to leave his daughter unaware—and vulnerable. But he had.

  It didn’t take long for her to come to understand, which was very good, because their next case had involved an extremely evil painting from the summer when Mary Shelley had penned Frankenstein, and then a saxophone—charmed, cursed, or not—and they’d dealt with a wicked doll, and even the rougarou.

  Now, after all they’d been through, while he might be the P.I., there was no way she wasn’t going to plunge in; it was what they did.

  “Library—parish library!” Danni said. “I’ll have to see what I can dig up there. But Quinn, Larue is out here because of a similar crime scene in NOLA?”

  “Yes. So…I don’t know. Maybe the killer is local—and just needed to dispatch someone in NOLA, too. Or maybe…at this point, who knows? Maybe the murderer has already moved on, and we’ll hear about such a case in Baton Rouge or…Texas. Right now…”

  “I’ll start with the local legends,” Danni said.

  “All right. The doc is going to start the autopsies as soon as he gets the corpses in and cleaned up. I’ll be with Larue and Ellsworth at the morgue. I’ll get you to the library first. When the killer realizes you have a talent for finding out what shouldn’t be known…”

  “I have a feeling this killer will be happy; he wants it all chalked up to legend,” Danni said. “Maybe. We have to get back to the lodge, too, right after. But first…“

  “First, where’s this Yvette who tripped you? And after that…”

  “After that?”

  “Your cave or tomb entry. But we’ll start with Yvette.”

  Danni smiled, “Come meet her. It’s an old stone, not a big tomb or mausoleum grave. Just a stone. At some time, though, someone must have re-etched the first name.”

  “Well, Yvette…every school kid around here has heard about Yvette, so I understand. Not to mention the fact this cemetery might well hold dozens who went by the name of Yvette when they were living.”

  “So, tell me, before I start the research—when I find out about people who might have offed one another because of an object, what do you think I’m looking for?”

  “A charm or a talisman…something small enough for someone to carry. It’s supposed to cause insanity and murderous rages, and sometimes, suicide as well. I guess it depends on just how mad you are at yourself.”

  Danni studied him. “Do you think there is such a thing? The legend seems to come from here—and while New Orleans is huge at Halloween, I don’t remember celebrating
a lot of harvest festivals when I was growing up.”

  “No. But I haven’t had a chance to talk to Larue about the murders in New Orleans yet—the concentration has been about Ally Caldwell here—and whoever the man with her may be. Where’s your Yvette?” he asked.

  “This a-way,” she said, turning to lead. He followed her back along the trail with its overgrown grass, weeds and occasional flowers, almost tripping over a broken stone on the ground himself.

  He could see right away when she stopped that she had been right; everything on the stone was obliterated—other than the first name, Yvette.

  “And you think she reached out and grabbed you?” he asked Danni, only halfway teasing.

  “No, I think I tripped. Caught my foot in some weeds. It was just…ironic, I guess. Though, in this cemetery, I believe you are probably right. There will be dozens of stones with the name Yvette on them.”

  He nodded. “Onward—to your secret entry to the vaults!”

  “It’s not a secret, just low to the ground and covered over with some bracken.”

  Again, she turned, and they started back to the vaults that were half underground, and half built up high above it.

  “Three,” Quinn noted.

  Danni nodded gravely. “So, we have three hills, three scarecrows, well, three in New Orleans, and three out here. The vaults may just be happenstance.”

  He indicated he’d like to lead on the way in. He drew a penlight from his pocket and played it around the dank vault walls as he leapt down to the earth floor of the vault. Shining his light around, he saw there had been walls constructed of concrete and brick down here; he imagined the vaults had once been higher above the ground, but time had sunk them as deep as they were, with time building up the “roofs” of the tombs and nature taking over to make them appear to be hills.

  Danni hopped down beside him. “There’s a straight line of a narrow tunnel leading from one of these to the next,” she said. “Quinn, it’s so bizarre—all the coffins or tombs in here are filled with straw. Whoever originally lay in each coffin has been removed. If you look around, there are bones everywhere littering the floor.”

  It was as she said, bones haphazardly lying about everywhere.

  “A year and a day,” he murmured, referring to the time the intense heat of the Louisiana sun took to rapidly decompose and cremate a body naturally when it was in a coffin, on a stone slab, in a crypt until only the bones were left. It was the time a family had to wait before the remains of the loved one could be shoveled into a holding container at the end of a crypt thus allowing space for another family member to be buried within the tomb. Which was why there could be so many names on a tomb that might appear only large enough for six coffins.

  Family might really join with family in the holding containers that held the naturally cremated ash and the bones.

  But this was different from most of the family crypts or mausoleums in the famous cemeteries of New Orleans. These had been the same, perhaps once standing higher in the cemetery. But shelves for those interred had not been against the walls and arranged for most space. Rather, concrete sarcophagi had been built to house coffins in the middle of the floor.

  He headed to the first; it was indeed filled with straw.

  He quickly looked in two other coffins in the crypt.

  Straw.

  “What do you make of it?” Danni asked.

  He shook his head. “I have no idea. The straw might have been here a long time…and our murderer just knew about it. The way the bones are strewn about and broken…I think the tomb was rifled some time ago.” He shrugged, looking around the dark, damp, and eerie space. “We all know teenagers like to party in tombs, but…”

  “No beer cans, no cigarette butts—no sign kids came here to fool around,” Danni said.

  “No, I will bet our killer did come here for his straw—whether he brought it or found it out here. We need to know who these tombs were for—that might mean something,” Quinn said.

  He raised his light and looked to the side and saw the narrow opening that was something of an earth tunnel from this crypt to the next. Danni followed him. In the next two vaults, they found the same thing.

  Empty coffins, bones littered everywhere.

  “No jewelry, no belt buckles, no buttons,” Quinn said.

  “You think grave robbers at some time?”

  Quinn nodded. “Someone had to have been buried with something. We’ll get the crime scene investigators in here—see if they can find anything. It seems to me this place has really been stripped of anything that might have had some value.”

  “But why straw?” Danni asked. “Unless you know you’re going to create a human scarecrow.”

  “Why, indeed?” Quinn murmured. “Let’s head out—I need to get you to the library. And I need to get to the autopsy—and talk to Jake Larue.”

  They made their way back through the second tomb. As they re-entered the first, they heard a loud, startled gasp.

  Larue was down in the tomb, staring at them as if they were the walking dead.

  He swore softly. “Holy Mother of God!” he exclaimed. “Where the hell?”

  “Two more of these, exactly the same,” Quinn told him.

  Larue shook his head. “I think you just cost me a decade of life. I didn’t see…where the hell, how the hell…”

  “There’s a bit of a tunnel connecting this one to the next, and then to the next,” Quinn explained.

  “And the others?” Larue asked.

  “Just like this. Ellsworth is local—he may know more about these crypts,” Quinn said. “We’ll send the techs down here and get to the morgue with Ellsworth.”

  “Weird. I mean, I’ve come to know weird hanging around with you,” Larue said, “But this is…weird.” He lifted his hands suddenly. “And if you find out these murders were committed by an intellectually advanced rougarou or the like, don’t tell me—I don’t want to know!”

  “No. There’s someone human involved in this, I assure you,” Quinn said.

  Larue sighed. “Isn’t there always?” he asked. “Monsters, yeah. The real ones come in flesh and blood. Human flesh and blood.”

  ***

  Perryville was a tiny town. It had a tiny library.

  There were only two librarians, Mrs. Beauvoir, the woman at the check-out counter told Danni, beaming and delighted as they chatted. She was a petite woman with salt-and-pepper hair, thrilled, it seemed, to be talking to anyone.

  “We do stay open seven days a week!” she said proudly. “Nine in the morning until seven. Mrs. Flowers—Genevieve—and I share the time, three and a half days and three and a half days. And over time, we’ve collected an amazing array of books. Of course, the kids come in and head straight to the computers these days, but our books are fantastic!”

  Danni explained she was looking into local history and legends, and Mrs. Beauvoir sighed deeply. “I heard! Horrible murders—in the cemetery no less. All the stories about Yvette will start up again, and…well, with that new place opened by that lovely young woman, Colleen Rankin, we will have more tourism. Oh well, we always get some good local trade during harvest time—there’s a big fair going on now, you know! Harvest time—it’s how many of the shopkeepers survive all year. Oh, you must find time to get to the harvest festival. Runs two weeks; there are rides, animal shows, and contests for the local children.”

  “Nice,” Danni murmured.

  She didn’t want to be rude; she wanted to study the history of the area and see what she could find out about Yvette. Discover if she had been real—and see if there was anything that suggested scarecrows should come in threes—especially three as in dead people, but she listened politely, and courtesy paid off.

  Mrs. Beauvoir led her into an archive room where they kept their oldest records and books. “We have church records from a number of the first churches here, too—some in buildings that, sadly, went the way of time. You’ll love it! We even have diaries in there, al
ong with records. Now usually, we don’t let anyone in there, but…you’re trying to help the police, right? And you’re such a sweet thing!”

  Danni smiled at that, not sure she was happy to be a sweet “thing.” But Mrs. Beauvoir was a sweet little “thing,” too, and Danni was grateful she was being allowed into the little library’s most sacred and climate-controlled room.

  Mrs. Beauvoir left her, excited because the local grade school was having a special day. She was going to be working with thirty students, helping teach the French and Acadian history of the area, and showing off work done by local authors through the years.

  Danni headed to work, taking a minute to study the little room. It was about twenty feet by twenty feet, with a large desk in the center and rows of well-ordered record books and file boxes.

  Her heart sank a little as she realized just how many years of records she might have to examine, but to her delight, as she glanced into one of the file boxes, she saw personal diaries were among the finds which had been carefully preserved.

  She read an introductory sheet in the first diary she picked up; it had been written by a bride coming to the area in 1889 with her husband. Danni thought she needed to go further back, but she quickly glanced over the information the young bride had written.

  People had first settled around Bayou Teche in the late 1770s, but Acadians had travelled to the area in small numbers even earlier, forced south because of the French and Indian wars with the British. Then came the American Revolution, but by then…

  Over time, English and Americans had come, and then people from just about everywhere. Still, through the years, the area remained heavily “Cajun,” the word being a bastardization of Acadian.

  The bride, Danni noted, had married a man named Beauvoir—possibly an antecedent of the librarian?

  She smiled and looked on.

  After looking through several of the boxes, she found a leather-bound diary neatly secreted into one; it was dated 1811, and the journal-keeper had been a young woman named Yvette.

  The first pages were heart-breaking. There were days in which Yvette carefully penned in her first meetings with the handsome and dashing young Percival. She saw him at the harvest festival, where all members of the community gathered, forgetting their ethnic differences. Percival was charming, and she knew how he cared for her.