by Fiore, L. A.
5
Mindy rubbed at the back of her neck and still the tingle wouldn’t go away. She wasn’t drunk enough for this. Henry had been dared to visit this place, practically taunted by some stranger at the bar. And he’d fallen for it, totally took the bait and now here they were at what was considered the most haunted place in New Orleans.
“It’s a hoax,” Henry said, looking back at her and grinning. “Probably some locals rigged the house to scare the tourists. They’ll have to do better than that to scare me off.”
The old estate looked haunted. The sun couldn’t penetrate the trees around it, keeping the place in perpetual shadow. That likely explained why the temperature seemed so much cooler.
They reached the front of the house and the long dirt drive lined by old trees. It wasn’t inviting. It was ominous. “I don’t want to do to this.”
“You want to chicken out, that’s cool, but I’m going in.”
“Please don’t, Henry. Let’s go back to the others.” She couldn’t explain the fear or the panic, but she was desperate to get away from the house and was willing to try anything. She started to unbutton her blouse. “Come on, big guy. Come back with me. You wanted to have sex in public. Anywhere you want I’m game.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Seriously?”
“Anywhere. Let’s get out of here.”
He grinned, that sexy grin she loved. “Sweetheart, that is very tempting.” He glanced back at the house. “But we’re here. I want to see inside.”
“Please don’t. I’m not coming, Henry.”
“You stay here. I won’t be long.” He pulled her close and kissed her, his hand moved down her body to her ass where he squeezed. “Thanks for the offer, babe. I know that wasn’t easy for you.”
“Please let’s go,” she pleaded. She loved this big dope, but something wasn’t right here.
“I’ll be right back,” he promised before he kissed her again.
He’d taken only a few steps when two large black birds flew down from the sky, flying so close he had to duck, his arm lifting to protect his head. “What the fuck?” he bellowed.
A scream caught in Mindy’s throat as she watched the huge birds circle Henry, squawking, dive-bombing. It wasn’t enough to discourage him; Henry never backed down. He ran toward the door, the birds followed for a bit before they flew off. Mindy watched as he disappeared into the house. A chill moved down her spine.
Warmth brushed over her neck before she heard the whisper. “Run.”
She turned expecting to see someone standing behind her. There was no one. She heard the voice again, this time louder. “Run!”
She ran.
6
Josiah
Waiting in line for my afternoon fix of coffee, my thoughts were all over the place. Jasmine had confirmed the marks on Ivy Blackwood’s arm and throat were almost identical to the marks on the McKinnon kids. Twenty years separated the cases and unidentified claw marks and birthdays were the only common denominators. Was it possible we were dealing with some kind of ritualistic killings? Had Ivy Blackwood set her house on fire to save herself from whoever killed the McKinnons? Had she been the first victim, but lived, and it took the suspect this long to try again? I wasn’t feeling it. He waited twenty years and then his next attempt he pulled off a pretty perfect murder…two murders? No, he wasn’t laying in wait. He was out there, practicing, preparing. I wondered how many other documented and undocumented cases of marks like Miss Blackwood and the McKinnons were out there.
I reached for my phone and called Nick. He needed to get out in the field more, and we could use all the help we could get on this case.
“Hey, Sheriff.”
“I want you to check the local hospitals for records of wounds similar to the McKinnons. Start with wild animal attacks, maybe some of those were actually caused by our suspect.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
Cyril was waiting outside the café, leaning against the car. “When we get back, I want you to find out everything you can about Ivy Blackwood. I know we’re visiting her, but I want her backstory…all of it.”
“What are you thinking?”
“These cases are linked; we need to figure out how.”
“All right.” We’d just climbed into the car when the radio crackled from dispatch. “Sheriff, a Mindy Brewster is at the station house. She and her boyfriend, Henry Werth, were at the LeBlanc house. He went inside, she wouldn’t. She’s terrified, claims the place is haunted.”
There should be a fifteen-foot chain link fence around that property to keep the nosey tourists out. We had enough to do without adding hunting down wannabe ghost chasers. “We’re heading to the LeBlanc place now.”
Another crackle of the radio before dispatch added, “We got a body, Bourbon Street. Officer on the scene just radioed it in. Description matches Henry Werth. Apparent animal attack.”
Cyril and I shared a look before I threw the car in drive and hit the sirens. “Looks like we got ourselves a serial killer.”
Standing over another body with the exact same claw marks as the McKinnons, the urge to scratch my head was strong. “He was at the LeBlanc place. That’s not a coincidence.”
“No,” Cyril said.
Jasmine finished her preliminary check. “I won’t know for certain until I take measurements, but I’m about ninety percent sure that whatever killed him killed the McKinnon kids.”
“So he kills the McKinnons and holds onto them, but this time, he kills and dumps the body in a populated place hours later. Why did he change his MO?” I didn’t let myself think about the unexplainable condition of the McKinnon bodies or Ivy Blackwood sharing similar wounds decades earlier. I needed to focus on what I could explain. “The McKinnons could have been his first, and it’s the progression of a killer, taking more chances and risks, but to jump to this so soon. Something is off.” I rubbed the back of my neck. I hated fucking serial killers. “Send me your report as soon as you have it.”
Jasmine held my stare, both of us hoping there was nothing supernatural about Henry Werth’s body. “Absolutely.”
“Nick,” I called.
He hurried over.
“In addition to looking into the wounds, I want you to find out everything you can about the LeBlanc place.”
“On it.”
I turned to Cyril. “Let’s go talk to this Mindy Brewster.”
Entering the station, I couldn’t help the smile seeing Dahlia despite what brought her here. There were platters of food on a desk in the bullpen, pitchers of sweet tea. She was serving up food to my staff. I strolled to her, touched my lips to her neck. “Thank you.”
She turned into me, her eyes sad. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“You’re doing it.” I nodded to the cops. “Most of them have worked double shifts. Thank you.”
“It’s horrible, just horrible. I wish I could do more.”
The thought of her involved in this ugly had my blood going cold. “I want you as far from it as possible.” I kissed her, then kissed her again and let it linger. “I have to talk to the victim’s girlfriend.”
Her eyes moved to the young woman sitting with Doris, tears welled. “It’s heartbreaking.”
I wiped the tears away. “Thank you.”
She pressed a kiss in my palm then released my hand. Turning back to the horde she was feeding, she asked, “Who wants more?”
That was my wife. Good down to her bones.
Mindy Brewster was just college aged. Her pale face was streaked with tears. Someone had told her about her boyfriend. She clutched a tissue, puffy blue eyes looked up at us when we approached.
Doris stood, touched my arm and led me out of earshot. “I called the Doc. He’s going to give her something.”
“After we talk with her, but that’s a good call.” Miss Brewster was close to hyperventilating.
“Miss Brewster?” I said as I approached her.
“Are you the sheriff?” she aske
d through her sniffles.
“Yes. I’d like to talk with you. Are you up for that?”
“He’s dead.” It was almost like she was asking, like she didn’t want to believe her boyfriend was gone. I couldn’t blame her.
“I’m afraid so.”
I expected more tears, but she rallied, pulled herself together then stood. “Yes, I’ll talk to you.”
I gestured to my office. “We can talk in there.” Cyril followed us, but I stopped him at the door. “I’ve got this. You go pester Jasmine and Nick for their reports.”
He hesitated, his focus shifting to Miss Brewster before he said, “Okay.”
I closed the door before walking around my desk and taking a seat. “Do you want something to drink?”
“No. I’d like to get this over with.”
“Okay. Talk to me about what happened at the LeBlanc place.”
Her fingers twisted together, her focus on them for a few seconds before she turned her attention on me. “A man approached us at a bar. It was almost like he knew how to incite Henry, what to say to get Henry to go to that place.”
“A man? You never saw him before?”
“No.”
That was weird. “Go on.”
“Henry loves…” Her voice cracked when she corrected herself, “…he loved ghost stories and that house is considered the most haunted place in New Orleans. It wasn’t hard to pique his interest. As soon as we stepped on the property, I wanted to leave because it felt haunted, but not Henry. He wanted to see inside. He told me to wait and he’d be back. I would have thought being attacked by the crows would have scared him off—”
“I’m sorry, the crows?”
“Yeah, they dive-bombed him. He had to run to get away. I didn’t even get to say goodbye…” She bit her lower lip, her eyes welled as the tears streaked down her face again. “I only stood there for a few minutes because I felt a breath on my neck. I know it sounds crazy, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I felt warm breath on my neck right before I heard someone tell me to run and not just once, twice. After the second time, I did run. I came right here.”
“How long were you here before the news…?” I didn’t need to finish the question, it was more compassionate not to. She knew what I was asking.
“About an hour.”
An hour to kill and move the body and in the middle of the day during Mardi Gras, and no one saw a thing. How the hell was that possible? MO changed a bit but the location, the LeBlanc place…a pattern was forming.
“I have to call his parents,” her voice broke.
My heart went out to her. Her life would be forever altered from this. She was young, she’d bounce back, but she’d carry a bit of the horror with her for the rest of her life. “You can use my office,” I offered and stood.
I started for the door when she stopped me and asked, “You will catch the person who did this, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She reached for the phone; I closed the door behind me. “Doris, see Miss Brewster gets back to wherever she’s staying when she’s done using the phone.”
“I sure will.” She hesitated, gauging my mood, I suspected before she asked, “Do you think it’s the same person who killed the McKinnons?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“So many people in the city,” she whispered.
Yeah, we were serving up victims like a smorgasbord. “We’re tripling patrols, locking down what we can. I’ve a meeting with the mayor. He’ll be making a statement.”
“Good, but even with the precautions, there are too many easy prey during Mardi Gras.”
Doris wasn’t wrong. We needed to find this bastard.
“Talk to me.” Mayor Reginald Blanchard had been mayor of New Orleans on and off for decades. He was a straight shooter, didn’t back down from a fight but he had diplomacy, often getting what he wanted because he knew how to compromise. I respected the man.
I settled across from him in his office. I didn’t like having so little, but we needed to do something. “We have three victims and not a damn clue.”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. The onyx cufflinks winked out from under his Italian suit. “So it’s confirmed. The McKinnons were murdered.”
“Yes.”
He looked a bit distant, his thoughts moving to something else. “I know Diana. She’s a good woman. She’s had a bad run.” His brown eyes came back on me. “What do we know?”
“We know the marks are the same, some kind of claw and yet Jasmine hasn’t been able to identify the animal.”
“But it’s murder?”
“I’m thinking some kind of ritualistic thing. Cyril is looking into it.”
“We need to be very careful on how we proceed. There are factions in this city that practice different religions; people fear those religions as it is because they don’t understand them. We don’t need to add fuel to the fire.”
“I agree. Cyril’s family is one of those. We’re looking to get some insight from them.”
“Good, that’s good.” He linked his fingers. “What do you need me to do?”
“I’d like you to shut down the city and send everyone home. I know that won’t happen, so let’s get more cops on the streets.”
“You want to tap into the reserves?”
“Yeah, we’ve got them in place since Katrina. Let’s use them. We need people patrolling the city, day and night. This last victim was dumped on Bourbon Street in the middle of the day, and no one saw a thing.”
The mayor paled under his tan. “Shit.”
“Exactly.”
“You have it. I’ll find the money or I’ll pay for it personally if necessary. Anything to make this city and her people safe.”
“Thank you.” I stood.
“Keep me posted, Josiah.”
“I will.”
Pulling the door closed behind me, I leaned up against it and let out a breath. I reached for my phone and called Cyril. “We got the go ahead. Call in the reserves.”
I left the debriefing, feeling like I was leading a bunch of lambs to slaughter when Jasmine texted me. I found myself in the morgue more during this investigation than in my entire career as a cop. The sight of the biohazard suit had me asking rather bluntly, “Why the hell do I need this?”
“The morgue is under quarantine. I’m being cautious. I need you to see something.”
She led me to a microscope. I assumed it was human blood I was looking at, but it looked funny. “What am I looking at?”
“I’m not sure. This is Henry Werth’s blood.”
“What’s the black stuff?”
“I don’t know.”
“What made you look at his blood?”
“He started to bleed when I cut him open.”
My head snapped to the body on the metal slap. “But he’s dead.”
“I know.”
“We aren’t talking zombies here, are we?” Under normal circumstances that would be the most ludicrous statement of my life, but with how this case was going, it wasn’t all that farfetched. I needed a new fucking job.
“No,” Jasmine said then thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe. His blood is changing. To what end, I don’t know, but he’s dead. So, yeah, as crazy as it sounds, it is zombie-like.”
I was not paid enough for this shit. “If we assume he was infected when he was killed, then why weren’t the McKinnons infected?”
“I don’t know, but their bodies were also different.”
“And their blood?”
“Normal.”
“So if this is a zombie-like situation…did I just say that? Fucking hell.” I rubbed a hand over my head. “How fast is the blood changing?”
“At this rate, about a week.”
“And then what?”
“That’s the million dollar question.”
“Keep the morgue on quarantine. I’ll find it in the budget for the overtime hours.”
“I don’t care about the
overtime. What the hell is going on here?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Lock him up when you’re done. I’ll post two officers at the door.” I glanced over at her and added, “And Jasmine, carry your weapon. Go for head shots.”
7
Ivy
The street was stone; it matched the buildings. The yellow hue was broken up by pots of bright red geraniums that hung from black wrought iron hangers. There was a little café on the corner with white iron tables and chairs that sat under sapphire blue umbrellas.
She ordered the same thing every day, a cappuccino and a dacquoise. She came at the same time and waited for hours. She was waiting for him.
Day in and day out, she even sat at the same table. The old man who owned the café joined her after months of her waiting and leaving alone.
“May I?” His English was very good.
“Please.”
He pulled the chair out, his old body folding into it. “Did you enjoy the dacquoise?”
“It was delicious, always is.”
“Perhaps you should let him go. You come every day and every day you leave alone. It breaks my heart. Sometimes, it just isn’t meant to be.”
She twisted the ring on her finger. “What’s the hardest dessert you make?”
Her question surprised him, his brow furrowed before he answered, “The soufflé.”
“How many times did it take you to get it right?”
“Countless.”
“But you didn’t give up.”
Understanding pulled a smile from him. “No.”