And while she was there, she had a feeling that she would find something important in the museum. That she would find something that would give her a clue in the mystery of the house.
Jackson dragged her back to where heavy canvas draperies enclosed a large section of the back. A banner over the drapery announced, “It’s here! Meet the real monsters who called the city their home throughout history, and learn how history dealt with real monsters.”
“Tomorrow,” Jackson said glumly.
“Hey, we’re on a mission tonight, remember?” Angela said.
An announcement over the loudspeaker reminded guests the museum was closing.
“Hey, I really love it. I’ll come back here.”
Jackson ignored her for a moment, looked around, and stepped up to the heavy drapery. He pulled it back to take a peek inside.
There were display cases at odd angles and a worker in a lab coat was still busy washing the floor. He looked up at them.
“Museum is closed.”
“Sorry,” Jackson said. He nodded and gave up. “All right, Angela, I guess we are on to the next part of our mission tonight. Let’s go—it is getting late. Are you hungry?”
“Definitely. And when work combines with a good restaurant, it’s better than work combining with—”
“Bones in a basement?” he interrupted.
“Sure. So, we’re…trying to see what Martin DuPre might be up to?”
He glanced down at her. “Neither Blake nor Grable like the man—while they don’t seem to have a problem with one another.”
She was silent for a minute, and then said, “I’m just not sure what we’re actually supposed to interpret. The senator apparently had an affair with his secretary. Maybe he’s still seeing her—now that his wife is dead. However, he is definitely grieving his wife—no man could be that good an actor, not even a politician. The Aryans and the people belonging to the Church of Christ Arisen are apparently really, really messed up, but it’s not against the law to be messed up. No one likes Martin DuPre, even if they pretend to around the senator. So, where do you think that leaves us?” she asked.
“Closer than we were yesterday,” he said.
They neared the restaurant. To Angela’s surprise, he suddenly steered her around the block in another direction.
“Okay, what are we doing now?” she asked.
“Avoiding Grable Haines—he’s hanging out by the senator’s sedan just down from the entrance. We’re going to go around the block.”
They reached the restaurant, coming in from the far side of the car.
“Slip in, quick!” Jackson said. “I can see DuPre. They must have stopped for a drink or something, because they’re just coming now, from where they parked.”
“What?” Yet she quickly stepped inside.
The restaurant was situated in a building well over a century and a half old despite its modern decor. The place was jumping, an obvious indication that the food was very good—or that it had somehow become the trendy place to be. She waited in a group while Jackson spoke with the pretty girl at the front podium.
While they waited for a hostess to bring them to their table—on the far side of an elevator shaft that brought diners to an upper level—Martin DuPre arrived with three other men. At first, they didn’t see Jackson and Angela, and they were close enough in the milling group that awaited tables for Jackson and Angela to hear their conversation.
“Why, DuPre!” a squat and rotund man said to Martin DuPre, “this does seem to be the happening place for an evening meal. I hope you have the rest of the evening planned out as well.”
“Of course!” DuPre said. “Gentlemen, this is my city. I know my way around. When we’ve finished eating, we’re headed to Bourbon Street. And I’ve made reservations there, too, just to make sure that you are entertained this evening.”
“Sounds good to me,” a taller man said. “So, you know the best on Bourbon Street? Isn’t that strip clubs for college kids and the like?”
“Not if you know where to go,” DuPre told him.
“I’m game for anything,” said the last of DuPre’s trio of guests. “All business, you know, and a man gets a little crazy. With a new baby in the house, I don’t get out that much anymore. Nothing like a good business meeting—on Bourbon Street.”
The conversation made Angela acutely uncomfortable–a group of middle-aged lechers.
“Sad, huh?” Jackson whispered to her.
“I guess…I guess some people have to pay. Or want to pay. Anyway, yuck. So much for a really nice dinner,” Angela said lightly. “But they’ll notice us soon enough. Won’t that make DuPre get as far from us as possible?”
He brought his fingers to his lips and whispered, “Shh.”
She moved closer to him. She meant to just whisper right away, but she found herself hesitating for a beat. His tailored shirt was crisp and clean. He smelled of shampoo and woodsy soap or aftershave, delicious. She found herself fascinated again by the bronze tone and texture of his skin, the sleek darkness of his hair and the brilliance in the back of his dark blue eyes.
“What did you do? Pay the hostess to get the table next to his?” Angela whispered to Jackson.
He grinned and whispered back, “Not the table next to theirs. I want to be behind, out of sight.”
“And how will you manage that?” she asked.
“You’ll see,” he told her.
He had definitely done something right. DuPre and his party were seated first; they wound up at a table around the elevator shaft from DuPre and the other three men, out of sight, and yet, in a position where it seemed that anything said at DuPre’s table was amplified.
Angela leaned toward Jackson. “Can they hear us so loudly, too?”
“I’ll have to bump into him over there to find out,” he said.
He opened his menu. Angela heard the men talking about oil interests. There was something that had to do with an inspection, and DuPre assured the men that he would see that everything was fine. She picked up her own menu, listening. The squat fellow had a booming voice. He could be overheard the best.
“Well, I’m glad that Holloway has sent you out with us tonight, DuPre. David is a good fellow, but he’s been in the midst of too much tragedy lately. Not that I don’t sympathize with him, but…the man has forgotten what a good time could be,” he said.
Angela was pretty sure that it was the tall thin fellow who spoke next, his voice lower. “Hey, I understand the man. He’s a politician, so when Regina was alive, he felt right in doing whatever he needed to do to get people moving in his direction. But now she’s gone. He needs his time of mourning. Then he’ll be all right again.”
“He scares me,” DuPre said, speaking low, and yet the near whisper carrying. “He’s brought in a team to investigate the house, he’s so convinced that Regina didn’t kill herself. Supposedly, they’re from the government. I think they’re just a bunch of charlatans, ghost hunters. I think he wants them to prove that there’s some kind of presence in the house that killed his wife. Or maybe he’s just trying to appease the constituency.”
“Well, now,” the taller man boomed. “That’s understandable, too. He can’t take the guilt that something he might have done caused her to take the header, you know? Frankly, I think Regina was a little off from the get-go. Might have been the death of their boy. That can do it to you. But I heard she had some kind of voodoo priestess in there—and a Catholic priest,” he said.
“Maybe the voodoo worked too well,” the squat fellow said, laughing at what he thought was his own great joke.
Their waitress appeared, smiling, and suggested the grouper almondine. They both agreed on the fish. Angela found herself noting that Jackson did have a knack for following and listening to people without being in the least obvious. He was pleasant with their server, not hurrying her along, but speaking easily in a manner to get their order in quickly—and the waitress on her way.
Angela leaned toward hi
m. “So, despite his public image, you think that Holloway used to take guys like these out to a place he knew on Bourbon Street?”
“Doesn’t mean he got in on the action,” Jackson said softly.
She nodded.
He caught her fingers across the table. “Let’s face it—being a politician usually means making a few compromises. I’ve seen it with the best of men—and women. That’s why it’s way more fun to be an investigator.”
She liked the feel of his fingers touching hers. They somehow seemed incredibly intimate in the crowded restaurant.
But he eased back. They were listening.
Angela didn’t really understand much of the conversation. It continued along the lines of oil, oil equipment, and the inspections that were needed for a rig. They were seeking some kind of permit, and it would need an inspection, and Martin DuPre was assuring them that they would pass their inspection and get the permit they wanted.
She watched Jackson as he listened. And then, they might have heard the key words in what Jackson seemed to be searching for that night.
It was the squat fellow with the booming voice who spoke. They could hear him slap DuPre on the shoulder. “I say there, young fellow. When your boss gets tired of all the kissing baby butts and stuff that goes on, you’re going to take his place just fine! You know how to get things done.”
She looked over at Jackson. He returned her look with a grim smile, and lifted his wineglass to her. She returned it, set her glass down and leaned closer to him. “So, he’s a butt-kissing, lying-ass, deceptive little goon. But does that make him a murderer?”
Jackson leaned closer to her.
“No, it makes him a butt-kissing, lying-ass, deceptive little goon. But it’s good to get a true picture of those around the senator, and have a feel for what they would and wouldn’t do.”
“Sounds like the little rat would do about anything.”
“Precisely,” Jackson said.
Martin DuPre said, “Gentlemen, shall we move on?”
Angela whispered again, “Are we going to Bourbon Street?”
He grinned. “Are you game?”
“We’re going to a strip club?”
“Let’s see.”
He motioned to their waitress and quickly paid the tab. They waited until they saw the men exit, and then they followed behind.
“Thank God for the foulmouthed fat man,” Jackson said. “We can follow them easily.”
“Cruel!” she said.
Jackson shrugged. “His weight is fine. His attitude is enough to make your skin crawl.”
She didn’t reply. She thought that she was coming to like him so very much because his words were true—and simply him. Nothing mattered to him about a person other than what was inside them. He had no patience for the manner of big-money oilmen Martin DuPre was entertaining.
She wrinkled her nose. “Oil.”
He glanced down at her, grinning. “Ah, well, it’s apparent, my dear, that you’re not from this area. Oil is half the livelihood. And there are good men working in it—good men who aren’t graft-laden and trying to go the wrong way. We need solutions in the future, yes. But oil money isn’t necessarily evil.”
“Did I sound like that? I guess I did. I don’t know enough,” she admitted.
“We’ll all have to find solutions in the future, but it’s careless overseeing and major problems in regulation that cause the problems—as with everything.” He stopped, distracted, staring ahead of him.
“What?” she asked.
“There’s someone else following Martin DuPre.”
“Who?”
He pointed to a young woman who was about half a block ahead of them and half a block behind DuPre and his crew. She was young—maybe eighteen or nineteen—and had a small pudge, apparent because she was otherwise slim with long blond hair and a delicate face. She had paused for a moment to look in a window as DuPre and the men stopped at a corner for a car to go by; when they moved, she moved.
Jackson whistled softly.
“Do you know who she is?”
“I do—and I don’t.”
“What?”
“She’s a member of the Church of Christ Arisen. She opened the door for Jake to go in and pay them a visit today.”
* * *
Jake was glad to see that the meeting to recruit new Aryans was not going to be a huge success.
There were not quite fifty people in attendance. He stood by Jenna, responding with applause and enthusiasm to all the speeches given about maintaining the country for the “rightful” owners, and keeping a pure race.
He thought that Jenna was going to explode. Her fair skin was darkening to blood-red hue, and she held his arm, her nails digging into his flesh.
“Have you ever heard anything so insane?” she whispered to him. “The rightful owners! Is he forgetting the Native Americans—those people the white settlers basically stole all the land from? My God, I don’t think I can sit through this. What is the matter with them? Don’t they know that the days of slavery are long gone, and that we have laws guaranteeing equality?”
She was growing louder. He pinched her.
“Ouch!”
“You’re going to get us thrown out!”
“I think I want to be thrown out.”
“We’re here to observe.”
She tightened her lips and held silent. He smiled, feeling her beside him. Another outburst couldn’t be too far behind.
And once again, it wasn’t. “Oh, please! How can they do this here? New Orleans has come a long, long way and it’s the most amazing city in the world for people from everywhere, of every color and sex and even sexual orientation, and there’s still French spoken, and Spanish, and—”
“Shut up, please!” Jake pleaded.
She fell silent again. He was glad that the people who had come out were excited about the speakers—who were actually good at spouting rhetoric—because they didn’t seem to notice Jenna’s outrage. A young fellow was up at the microphone then saying that the world was what it was—a mess—and that there were all kinds of people in the world, and everyone had a right to be in the world, and they, too, had the right to seek the pureness of the Aryan race. They asked nothing of anyone else, they sought to hurt no one—they wanted their right to assemble and seek the life—the pursuit of happiness they had in mind for themselves.
To that end, they had to be very selective in voting for their representatives.
He began to preach a rabidly conservative doctrine—one that would leave even a staunch Bible Belt Republican squirming in horror, much less a moderate of any party.
Jake turned around to take a look at the others in the room, and he nearly jerked Jenna’s arm.
“What?” she gasped, but she followed his gaze.
There, seated in the far back of the room, was the bodyguard. Blake Conroy.
* * *
The pretty little pregnant girl followed Martin DuPre and his group.
Jackson and Angela followed the pretty little pregnant girl.
They made the turn off Chartres to head up to Bourbon, all keeping their respective distance. At Bourbon, the blonde girl paused. She seemed infinitely sad.
“Go talk to her,” Jackson told Angela.
“Talk to her? What do I say?” Angela asked him.
“See if she’s lost, or if she needs help. I’m going at DuPre and his group. I’ll wait for you in front of the cowboy bar with the mechanical bull.”
“You think that DuPre and his friends are going to go ride the bull?” Angela asked.
“No, it’s next to a club that’s behind a courtyard there, and supposedly offers the best and most expensive dancers in the city.”
“Oh.”
He gave her a little shove. Angela glared at him, and went over to the girl. Bourbon was already growing busy and loud. Rock ballads streamed out into the street from a variety of clubs, all trying to be louder than the next. Hawkers were handing out flyers, urging
patrons to come in and enjoy their entertainment and their most incredible cheap drinks.
The girl stood near a hot-dog cart, staring after the group that had joined in the throng walking in the street, blocked off for pedestrians only.
“Excuse me,” Angela said. “You look lost. Can I help you? Are you looking for a certain place?”
The girl stared blankly at her for a moment. Then she flushed. “I—no, I’m not lost. I live in the city.”
“Oh, well, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pester you. It just looks as if you’re a bit tired and disconcerted, and…pregnant,” Angela said.
The girl’s flush became brighter.
Angela offered her a hand. “I’m Angela Hawkins. Are you sure you don’t need any help?”
The girl shook her head. “No, no, I just have to head back uptown. I shouldn’t have been down here.”
“Can I get you a ride? Get you into a taxi? Where do you need to go?”
The girl looked down Bourbon Street, and then suddenly sagged against Angela. “I guess I don’t feel very well.”
Angela looked down the street. There was a restaurant on the corner one block down, on Royal. It had a bar, but it was a far quieter place, more for dining than drinking.
“Let’s get you some water.”
She led the girl, who leaned on her heavily, to the restaurant. The seating was open, and she led the girl to a secluded table near the rear. She ordered water from the waiter, and suggested the girl might like soup or gumbo or something with substance.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t—” the girl said.
“Please,” Angela insisted.
In a few minutes, the waiter had them supplied with water, and the girl had a salad and soup coming.
She stared at Angela then with huge brown eyes. “Thank you!” she said. And she flushed. “I’m Gabby Taylor.”
“How do you do?” Angela said pleasantly. “I guess you don’t come to this area often,” she added.
The girl shook her head. “Well, I did. Once. But that was before…”
“Before?”
“I’m a member of a church,” she said primly.
“Oh. I see. No drinking?”
“Or dancing. We…we try to serve, you see.”
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 1: Phantom Evil ; Heart of Evil ; Sacred Evil ; The Evil Inside Page 18