Cocoa swam over and stuck her head out of the water to look at them. Lara stroked her back and watched the delight on Meg’s face as the animal slid beneath her hands. She gave Cocoa a fish.
“Meg will stay here with you,” Matt said, rising. “I’m heading over to the local office. Adam will have sent down our assignment paperwork by now. I’ll be back by the end of the afternoon.”
Lara turned to Meg. “You don’t have to babysit me. I have work to do. And I’m sure you have a job to do, too.”
Meg smiled at her. “Right now, my friend,” she said, “you are my job.”
* * *
Brett stared as Phil Kinny spoke, almost smiling.
He didn’t consider himself completely ignorant when it came to the human body and medical matters, but Kinny had left him and Diego far behind when he started talking about neurotransmitters and other features of the brain.
“Layman’s terms, please, doc,” he begged at last.
Brett was glad that the head was turned away from him; he wasn’t sure he could have stood there like a hardened professional if what was left of Miguel’s face had been staring at him while he tried to grasp what the ME was saying.
“Okay, first, we only use about ten percent of our brain power, give or take. But the brain is divided into sections that are responsible for different chores when it comes to our bodies. You’re heard about people with bullets in their heads surviving for years?” Kinny asked.
“I don’t personally know anyone with a bullet in his head,” Brett said.
“Wait, I do—and so do you,” Diego said.
“Yeah? Who?”
“David Archer, NYC office,” Diego said. “They can’t take the shell out—too dangerous. He gets scanned or X-rayed or whatever every so often to make sure it hasn’t moved. He’s not in the field anymore, works a desk now. Great guy, though.”
“I knew he was shot taking down an Eastern European human trafficking operation,” Brett said. “I didn’t realize he’d been shot in the head, though.”
Diego nodded. “Yep. And he’s basically fine.”
“Yes, depending on where the bullet is, depending on the damage it caused, a person can live a pretty much normal life even with a bullet in his brain. I’ll try to explain more clearly what I think happened to Gomez, though I can’t say I understand all the science behind what I think happened myself,” Kinny said.
“Just give us whatever you’ve got. We’re pretty desperate,” Brett said.
“All right, an anatomy lesson, more or less in layman’s terms,” Kinny said. “The human brain is an amazing thing. Think of it as a computer for a few minutes. The frontal lobes are associated with what we call executive function—thinking things out, consciously controlling our behavior, our ability to reason, and also our capacity for abstract thought. Then we have the cerebral cortex, a layer of neural tissue that covers everything. It’s pretty thick in human beings. While our brains may be smaller than those found in some animals, they’re larger in proportion to our size. Understand?”
“So a blue whale has a bigger brain than ours, but it’s much smaller in comparison to the many tons it weighs, right?” Diego said.
“Something like that, but I digress. None of that matters in regard to my theory as to what happened to Miguel Gomez,” Kinny said.
“Mike the chicken,” Diego said.
Kinny arched a brow. “So you know that story?” he asked.
Diego nodded. Brett looked from one of them to the other, then asked Kinny, “So the chicken story really is true?”
“Absolutely,” Kinny said. “So, in a nutshell, you have the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe and occipital lobe. We perform many different functions, and each of those functions is associated with a particular part of the brain. Even when someone is clinically brain dead, he may still move, react to stimuli, process nutrients, often even breathe without artificial help. In short, I believe, based on what I saw in my autopsy, that parts of Miguel’s brain were still functional even though other parts had been destroyed. In a very real way, he remained alive, at least technically speaking. Just as we breathe due to the programming built into a part of the brain that requires no conscious thought, so we perform other functions.”
Brett frowned, trying to digest the science.
It was actually easier to believe that Miguel’s neighbor had seen a zombie.
“So someone managed to kill part of Miguel but not all of him. Then they somehow programmed him to kill his wife before finishing him off?” he asked incredulously.
“I’ve given you the science, and I’ve sent a sample of his brain matter out for toxin testing. The man wasn’t shot, but I believe he was injected with some type of toxin that killed just the part of the brain that made him who he was,” Kinny said. “I can give you a technical explanation, use medical terms like cerebral cortex, neurotoxins and the like, but I mentioned before that the brain is like a computer, so think of it this way. Miguel had no internet connection going. He was essentially dead from the time his brain was damaged. This is probably the most insidious murder I’ve ever come across, and I’m guessing it was some kind of experiment, since this isn’t something there’s a lot of medical documentation on.”
“Not your typical mob hit,” Diego said drily.
“Not a typical hit in any way,” Brett said. He hesitated. “I don’t know a lot about this, but what about voodoo or Santeria?”
“I know some people who practice Santeria,” Diego said. “They sacrifice chickens, but they don’t turn them into Mike the chickens.”
Brett shook his head. “I know that what we think of as voodoo comes mainly from Hollywood, but to many people—especially in New Orleans and Little Haiti here—it’s a very real religion. Papa Doc used it to support his regime of fear in Haiti. He had a devoted group of voodoo priests who could supposedly make the dead rise. From what I understand, they used poisons that caused their victims to appear to be dead, and yet they weren’t. Even physicians couldn’t tell the difference. Then the priests used mind control when they brought them back to ‘life’ as zombies. Many people believe that the Tonton Macoute, his private militia, was made up of those zombies.”
“It’s actually a crime to make a zombie in Haiti now,” Dr. Kinny said.
“From what I understand, Papa Doc and the voodoo priests use a powder made from the poison of a puffer fish,” Brett said.
Kinny nodded gravely. “It’s only really been about the past thirty years or so that science has begun to explore the creation of ‘zombies’ and admit that such things really are possible.”
“So we’re looking for a homicidal voodoo priest?” Diego asked.
“Or a mad scientist,” Kinny said.
“Funny,” Diego responded.
“I’m not trying to be funny. I’d say someone who has studied the human brain—and the creation of so-called zombies—is at least in on this. And I’ll pretty much guarantee you that the poison the tests find will be puffer fish toxin, whether real or synthetic,” Kinny said.
“We were never intended to find the body,” Brett said. “And if it hadn’t been for that dolphin, we never would have. We would have gone on believing that Miguel was burned to cinders in a fire and that his neighbor must have been mistaken about the date or hallucinating or something.” He let out a long breath and turned to Diego. “We have to find Mr. Randy Nicholson,” he told him.
“That will go a long way to proving my point,” Kinny said.
“And I’m betting Nicholson’s body ended up in the same condition—even if not the same place—as Miguel’s,” Brett said.
“Damn,” Diego said. “This is a big city and a hell of a long coastline.”
Brett looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “It’s curious. They kept Nicholson alive a long time
. He was supposedly buried three months ago. Miguel only died recently.”
“Maybe the killer gets rid of his victims once they’re of no use to him anymore,” Kinny suggested.
Brett was silent for a minute and realized that Diego and Phil Kinny were looking at him, waiting. “Say you’re right, which you probably are. The question is, why? Why is he doing this? And why kill these particular people? It was easy for us to accept that someone wanted to murder Miguel Gomez, but why Maria, much less Arnold Wilhelm?”
“Maybe he killed them just because he could, testing how far he can push his...minions,” Kinny suggested.
Brett turned to Diego. “Time to see the good Dr. Robert Treme and find out why he signed a death certificate for a man who wasn’t dead.”
* * *
A group called Just Say Thanks was coming in on Sunday. Lara had been in contact with the events coordinator several times. She had just spent another hour with her on the phone now, assuring the woman that they were open and ready for the group’s visit. Meanwhile, Meg was bent intently over her Bureau laptop.
Just Say Thanks had been founded by a wealthy household-appliance inventor who hadn’t served in the military but who was grateful to those who had the courage he didn’t. It was largely funded by about twenty wealthy people across the country, though they accepted donations. Their mission was to help wounded veterans, and especially those with PTSD, by getting them out into the world. Lara had been thrilled when they made contact, and Grady had even offered to underwrite their visit. Lara had done a half dozen press releases for the event, but now she continued contacting the media. Sea Life liked to welcome vets and went all out for them. The employees even lined up to applaud as the soldiers went by. It was a nice touch. Not nearly enough, but nice.
She emailed a small piece for the next day’s paper, then turned to look at Meg, who was so deeply involved in her work that she could have been back in her own office in Virginia. She didn’t even notice Lara.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” Lara said softly. “But...what are you doing?”
Meg turned to her. “When you were on the phone I was cyber-conferencing with Matt, Diego and Brett. Here’s a shock to the system. Someone is making zombies.”
“What? Zombies aren’t real. They’re horror movie stuff.”
“No, not zombies like in the movies,” Meg said. “Real zombies. Slaves with no free will, basically. The whole thing comes from Haiti, and it involves voodoo and drugs, and now it’s here in Miami. A conservative estimate for South Florida says close to half a million people here are Haitian or of Haitian descent.” Meg smiled. “I’ve been on the computer a long time, and now I’m full of statistics. Miami’s Little Haiti is a small area. It runs, roughly speaking, from Northwest 79th Street to Northwest 86th Street, and from the bay over to 2nd Avenue. It’s got a fascinating history. It used to be a small agricultural community called Lemon City, founded around 1850. There were lemon groves everywhere, and supposedly there are still a lot of lemon trees in people’s yards. It’s a poor area, with its share of crack houses, but the median income has been rising, and the local businessmen are fighting to protect their investment and keep drugs out of the area.
“The population has grown a lot more mixed since the 1980s, but it’s still primarily a Haitian and overall Caribbean community.” She shook her head. “It’s not the safest neighborhood, though. The trip advisory sites all say to be careful, even though the design district and a lot of tourist attractions are just to the south.”
Lara nodded. “I’ve been there.”
“What? Already?”
Lara laughed. “I took a city tour when I first moved down.”
“Well, at any rate, you can still find voodoo priests and priestesses there,” Meg said.
Lara leaned back. “Okay. So how do you guys go about that? Do you just walk down the streets and ask people where the voodoo priest lives?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“What, then?”
“We use the internet, just like everybody else, ask the local cops at the task force meeting. To tell you the truth, I suspect there will be a voodoo shop on every block, though.” She was quiet for a long moment, studying Lara. “I’d hate to be handling the press on this one. I can just see the headlines. ‘Real Zombies Roam Miami.’”
“I admit, I’m glad I don’t have to spin this one,” Lara said.
“Listen,” Meg said, “I’ve got some time, and since you know the area, how about you go with me, and we drive around, see what we can see?”
“It’s nearly lunchtime anyway, so give me ten minutes to finish up here and I’m all yours.”
Forty-five minutes later, Meg and Lara stopped at a place called The Haitian Princess.
As Meg had suspected, they’d had no difficulty finding voodoo shops, and they’d chosen this one at random. Lara knew she could take a long lunch, but she didn’t want to be gone too long. Still, she was eager to go inside and see what the place was like.
A tour group was just leaving when they arrived. Lara was glad; she didn’t want to share the place with a large group. The neighborhood itself had a few sketchy housing projects not too far away, but she was with Meg. And Meg was armed and knew how to use her weapon.
But Lara didn’t think about any of that once they entered the shop. It was magical. There were beautiful carvings everywhere, freestanding sculptures along with African masks and paintings adorning the walls. A large table held gris-gris bags and a wide variety of herbs. Religious talismans and statues of the Virgin Mary and various saints were displayed in handsome cases. A sign over an archway advised that there was an altar in the back for the faithful.
They had just stopped by a tightly packed bookshelf when they were approached by a tall African-American man in a handsome white suit.
“Welcome,” he told them. “May I help you?” Then he smiled, his eyes on Meg. “Ah, you’re a police officer, here to ask me about zombies.”
Lara’s eyes widened. How did he know?
But Meg only smiled and introduced herself as she pulled out her badge. “FBI,” she said. “And yes, we’re here to ask you about zombies.”
Lara followed suit and introduced herself, then said, “We’re hoping to learn, to gain insight, as Meg told you.”
The man smiled at her. “It’s all right, miss. I am an ordained priest, with a wonderful flock of the faithful here. Good people, gentle, working people. I am called Papa Joe, and you are welcome to call me that, as well. Voodoo, like any religion, may be twisted by poverty, fear and greed. My shop has been full since the media began talking about the so-called dead man who murdered his friend. I am more than happy to help you, though I’m not sure I can. Neither I nor any of my followers know anything about zombies, and we certainly don’t create them.”
“We never thought you did,” Meg assured him. “But we think that someone here in Miami has resurrected—no pun intended—some of the practices that were popular under Papa Doc’s regime. What we were hoping to talk to you about is the history of voodoo generally, and we’re curious whether you’ve seen or heard of anyone with a particular interest in zombies.”
“History?” Papa Joe said, his eyes brightening. “Ah, yes. I’m happy to tell you the history of voodoo. It is quite possibly as old as the continent of Africa. We believe that our spirits walk the earth with those of our ancestors. We believe in one great god and many saints, a pantheon based in Catholicism from the time when Europeans came to Africa and began the slave trade around 1510. And voodoo with the slaves to the islands of the Caribbean and the shores of the North American continent.” He paused for a moment. “I was a boy late in Papa Doc’s rule of Haiti, when we all feared the Tonton Macoute, his private army under the control of his devoted voodoo priests. I saw men who looked at the world with sightless eyes, as if they had no souls. How
much of that was a result of fear of the priests and Papa Doc himself, and how much came from brainwashing—or the promise of power and the adrenaline rush of brutality—I don’t know. I do know that Papa Doc reigned through fear. My parents walked with their heads down. We were helped out of the country when I was a boy, and I thank God and my ancestors continually that they brought me here.”
Lara smiled; she found herself liking Papa Joe. “Did you ever hear of anyone—anyone specific, I mean—coming back from the grave?”
“Back then, of course. We heard about it frequently. There were always stories going around, rumors—as was intended. The men I saw, though, I don’t think they were truly dead. Many things can cause a trancelike state. Maybe they were using certain drugs, maybe they were using hypnotism. I heard about one particular man who came back, though. His family buried him, and then he showed up at his house a week later. He even talked a bit at first. Then he died again, and they buried him again. I think someone used the zombie poison on him, and because he wasn’t truly dead the first time, he miraculously came back. But I never heard of anyone who was known to have been buried and then came back with his mind intact, or who lived more than a week at most. If you want to know more, I can point you to the right books.”
“That would be great,” Lara said.
He led them to a shelf of books on the history of voodoo, its use in the United States and abroad and more. They made several selections, thanked him again and prepared to leave.
“If I can help you more in any way, let me know,” Papa Joe told them as they left.
“Thank you,” Lara and Meg said in unison.
“I’ll do some asking around for you, too,” Papa Joe promised. He shook his head. “Naturally, my flock is disturbed. Whenever talk turns to zombies, especially zombies right here in Miami, the spotlight falls on we Haitians. So you never know. Someone may have heard something.”
Lara got behind the wheel, and Meg had her head in one of the books before they were even out of the parking lot.
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