by Ed Kovacs
She smiled but didn’t answer the question. “We can joke about it, but one student complained about an ‘event’ at Drake’s place. It was investigated by campus police and then dropped.”
“How long ago?”
“About this time last year.”
“What was the event?”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you got that from campus police?”
“Rape?”
“That’s part of it. She claimed she was drugged and then raped by more than one person, including Drake. Anyway, the people at the party all said it was consensual. And the girl had signed a release.”
“What do you mean she signed a release? An agreement to be raped?”
“I got a good look at the document because I see everything that crosses my boss’s desk. Drake had provided a copy of it to campus police during their investigation. It was a consent form to have group sex, basically, that she was partaking of her own free will, and that no one had coerced her to participate.”
“I need the girl’s name and the names of the other people who were present when she was raped.”
“Can’t help you with that, but if you’re a man of your word, I’ll see you sometime soon for that drink you promised.”
She handed me a campus map and drew a circle on it. “Campus police office is right here.”
CHAPTER NINE
Campus police were going to be problematic. I would be viewed as an interloper trying to encroach on their little fiefdom, and, hey, they controlled the fiefdom. Many public and private universities have their own police forces—sworn, commissioned law-enforcement officers possessing all the same arrest powers as big-city cops. Smart campus cops, however, understand they serve at the pleasure of the big shots holding the reins of power: chancellors, regents, presidents, trustees. It’s a scenario ripe for abuses of authority, although I had no such information that this was the case at Tulane.
To their credit, Tulane coppers were better equipped and trained than NOPD. I mean, hell, my department won’t even pay for our business cards. And NOPD has to be unique in being a big-city department that doesn’t even have its own shooting range; we have to drive to Slidell or Plaquemines to use their ranges. Even more frustrating is when homicide detectives need to respond to a murder but there are no units in the car pool available for them to use. When cars are available they’re old, outdated pieces of junk. The unmarked cars don’t have police radios installed, so detectives have to rely on the handheld radios they are issued.
I signed several waivers of liability and got permission to drive my own Bronco as my duty vehicle. Honey was fortunate to have a car assigned to her, but its beat-up condition exemplified a lack of concern the department had for its own officers. The Tulane police vehicles were newer and better maintained than ours. I could only imagine how else their small department trumped our large one, equipment-wise.
But I wasn’t sure they trumped us street-smarts-wise.
After making a very detailed and pointed call to the executive secretary to the university president and saving her number to speed dial, I decided on a simple tactic to use with campus police that I could defend if called on the carpet for it, which I probably would be.
Within ten minutes I had bullied my way through their headquarters building and into Police Superintendent Rob LaChappelle’s office. I’ve seen pickup trucks smaller than LaChappelle. I sat down and very respectfully and courteously told him what I was doing and what I needed, and of course he tried to blow me off. So I went right at him verbally, like a self-righteous attack dog. Homicide detectives like me are known as being arrogant prima donnas, and I didn’t want to disappoint.
“The files you want to see on Professor Drake are sealed,” said LaChappelle, with a look so sour I grew concerned for his pH levels.
“Oh, bullshit. No charges were ever brought, so nothing can legally be sealed. You are stonewalling me and impeding a homicide investigation with some chickenshit, two-bit, university cover-up.” I stood and silently congratulated myself, thinking I was putting on a nice show, as I whipped out my smartphone and speed-dialed.
I engaged the speakerphone, and the executive secretary to the president answered: “President Miles’s office.”
“This is Detective Saint James, NOPD Homicide, calling back regarding the matter with Professor Drake. I’m just now leaving the office of Campus Police Superintendent LaChappelle to come see President Miles.”
“President Miles!” LaChappelle shot out of his chair like he’d just sat on a tack.
“Detective, as I already explained to you, that won’t be possible…,” came the secretary’s voice over the speakerphone.
“President Miles will see me right now, or my message to her is two words: ‘exit strategy.’ Maybe she’s heard about some college sex-scandal cover-ups that have come to light over the last few years, costing the universities millions and the university presidents their jobs and reputations? Ring a bell? Come to think of it, I’m not going to waste my time to walk over to your offices. Put the damn president on this phone right now, miss, or my next call is to USA Today, just in case you people have The Times-Picayune and the local TV stations in your pocket.”
LaChappelle looked like he wanted to jump me, so I gave him my best Don’t even think about it stare, and this time, I wasn’t acting. He literally took a step back.
“This is President Miles,” came an angry but steely female voice on the speakerphone.
“President Miles, you know who I am and what I want. Quite frankly, I will destroy you and Superintendent LaChappelle if I don’t get it. Your position is untenable, and I’m not bluffing. But to help you say yes, I have just e-mailed you a photo of three freshly decapitated human heads that were found on Professor Drake’s property yesterday. That’s Drake, spelled D-R-A-K-E. Get the picture? Does Tulane want to be dragged into this kind of mud, or do you want to cooperate with NOPD and see if we can minimize a university connection to some pretty sordid shit? Like the rape of a Tulane coed that got swept under the rug by your police department here. I want everything this department ever generated on Drake: raw notes, interview transcripts, draft reports, final reports, memos, evidence—everything. And I want it now, understood? Mr. LaChappelle is standing right here, waiting for your orders.”
There was a pause, then, “I’m going to put you on hold, detective. Please don’t hang up.”
I turned to LaChappelle, who had somehow summoned a couple of officers into the room when I was jawboning the president. He looked like he was getting ready to have them throw me out.
“She’s checking with a lawyer, is my guess. It’s all about CYA, as you know. Nothing personal, LaChappelle. I understand you’re just a flunky for the mucky-mucks. Nice office, though. You must pull down six figures, or—”
“Superintendent LaChappelle, are you there?” said President Miles over the speakerphone.
“Yes I am. I’d like your permission to have Saint James removed from—”
“Shut up and listen. Give him what he wants concerning Professor Drake. Everything. Full cooperation. Starting right now. Is that understood?”
LaChappelle hesitated. “Yes, ma’am. Understood.”
“Detective Saint James, I wonder if you could please stop by my office as soon as possible.”
“Madam President, I’ll have to give you a rain check, but you have my word that however this plays out, my issue is with Drake, not Tulane.”
I terminated the call and then turned to a scowling LaChappelle. “While you get me the files, I’ll just set up here in your office.”
As expected, that hurried things up considerably.
* * *
I tossed a plastic tub filled with campus police files and evidence into the back of my 1986 midnight-blue-and-white Ford Bronco just as Honey called.
“Hey, I was about to—”
“Could you please shut up?” Honey yelled into the phone.
I blanched.
“I ask
ed you to interview the chair of the Anthropology Department. Not threaten the university president and police superintendent.” Honey could barely get the words out coherently, she was so angry.
“That’s why I’m such a good value; I always give so much more than asked,” I cracked. Honey didn’t respond. Her silence just hung there as a reminder that she wasn’t in my corner on this case. “Look, I came on strong to get some information we needed. You know that’s how I operate.” More silence from Honey. “The chief crawl up your ass?”
“Unless you got a smoking gun, as of midnight, Felix Sanchez’s and Roscindo Ruiz’s deaths will be classified as accidental drug overdoses. That’s from the chief, and I agree.” She said it perfunctorily. A done deal.
Damn. The whole case was being driven by public relations. I’d seen no smoking gun in the Tulane files as I’d skimmed them in LaChappelle’s office, so I quickly sketched in for Honey what I did have, knowing that the rape of a young female was not something she would easily gloss over.
“What did you find out that was worth causing me all this grief?” she finally asked.
“Kate Townsend was one of the people involved in the alleged rape of”—I checked the file for the name—“Georgia Paris, age nineteen at the time. Paris subsequently dropped out of Tulane and disappeared. She’s an orphan, but a guardian in Hattiesburg filed a missing-persons report on her.”
“Yet another missing transient tied to Drake,” said Honey.
“No kidding. Drake was the guy mixing drinks all night. I bet he slipped her some ‘roofies.’” Rohypnol, the “date rape” drug was as insidious as it was ubiquitous.
“Maybe,” said Honey. “I heard back from Second District. Drake’s curio shop used to be a corner drugstore. They sold voodoo stuff. But that was fifty years ago. They have no current info on the place.”
“Great,” I said, not bothering to hide my disappointment.
“Stop by your loft and get your tactical gear. VCAT located the Skulls’ hideout. We’ll hit them later today.”
“Well, that’s good news.”
“But for now, just get your gear and meet me at the Voodoo Cave on Saint Peter.”
“The one owned by Hans Vermack,” I said.
“We’ll talk to Hans first. Then go see Becky Valencia, the last name on the list of students Drake gave us. Try and use what you uncovered as leverage.”
So Honey hadn’t given the job to Mackie and Kruger after all. “Honey, I’m sorry my Tulane stunt caused you trouble. It gave us one more piece of a very large puzzle.”
“True. But we don’t have enough time to put the puzzle together.”
CHAPTER TEN
The Voodoo Cave had a handful of customers browsing the gris-gris, and its clerks were severely pierced and tattooed. They weren’t the kind of people you’d want walking behind you on a dark street. The merchandise on the whole felt a lot scarier and a lot less cutesy than at Kate Townsend’s place. If I were looking for a way to put a curse on someone, I’d do my shopping here.
Hans Vermack was a tall, rail-thin forty-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair tied into a ponytail using a cheap scrunchie. He wore gold and silver rings of esoteric design on all eight fingers and was heavily tattooed with bizarre symbols I’d never seen before and a few, like death heads, that I had seen but would never want permanently displayed on my skin. He wore a tattered black Rob Zombie T-shirt, and blue-tinted wire-rim glasses made him look like, at best, an aging hipster, and there’s not much worse than an aging hipster.
Vermack was a chatty guy who still maintained his Dutch accent and seemed genuinely troubled by Felix Sanchez’s and Roscindo Ruiz’s deaths. He readily agreed to speak to us about the murders but insisted we convene in a back workshop where he could fulfill orders while answering our questions because, “Time is money.”
“Speaking of time, where were you yesterday morning?” I asked.
Vermack poured out a gallon of low-grade olive oil from a large tin into a bowl. “I was … sleeping in. I live with my girlfriend upstairs.”
“So your girlfriend is your alibi,” I stated, unimpressed.
“Not really. She’s quite insane. Certifiable, actually. Too much mescaline. But she can still function within the narrow parameters I impose on her. And she’s a good worker, a good cook—although I had to remove all of the kitchen knives from the house. No reason to tempt fate a second time.”
“She knifed you?”
“No, but in a way it was worse. I woke up one night and she was straddling me in bed holding a butcher knife over my head. Anyway, I taught her how to satisfy me sexually and she does what she’s told. But try to interrogate her and she’ll go catatonic.”
I glanced at Honey, not quite believing what I’d just heard.
“What’s her name and where is she?” asked Honey.
“Patrice!” yelled Vermack, at the top of his lungs. “One diet Dr Pepper! Tall glass! Two cubes!” He looked up at us. “Patrice Jones. She’ll be along in a few minutes.”
After draining out the last drops of the cheap oil, Vermack unscrewed the cap from what looked like a dollar-store bottle of bootleg perfume and dumped the contents into the oil, then stirred with a single wooden chopstick from a moldy bag of Chinese take-out. “Any kind of love oil has to smell good,” he said, mostly to himself.
“Tell us about the group you belonged to at Drake’s,” I said.
“Not much to tell. A small weekly study group. We talked about spiritual ideas, practiced different kinds of meditation. Felix and Roscindo were members.”
“Who were the other members?”
“I’m sure you know the names already, but regardless, I can’t reveal that. I took an oath of secrecy about our group.”
“Why would that be necessary?” asked Honey.
“To keep powerful techniques out of the hands of amateurs and fools. Robert Drake facilitated the sharing of a lot of special knowledge. Only adepts who had reached a high level of awareness were allowed to become actual members, which is why the group was small.”
“So, based on your explanation, how could the number of members be something you couldn’t discuss?” I asked.
“I didn’t write the oath, I took it. I vowed not to discuss specifics of the group, and I won’t. Many groups such as ours over the millennia have had similar vows of secrecy. It’s nothing new, officers.”
“Murder has been around for millennia, too. And for thousands of years, the guilty have been held accountable by people like me,” I said, pointedly.
“I doubt they were murdered. They were fearless curanderos, and my guess is someone from south of the border brought them some kind of herb or plant and they tried it, with unfortunate results.”
A very pretty and petite woman of twenty-five appeared in the doorway holding a cold drink. A heavily dreadlocked Creole girl, she avoided making eye contact with anyone. On closer inspection, her green eyes looked like sunken pools, dead and vacant, and I couldn’t detect the slightest flicker of life behind them.
“Bring it here,” demanded Hans.
Honey and I couldn’t help but stare as she carefully placed the drink in front of him.
“I’m counting five ice cubes in the glass,” he said, practically snarling. “Do you think ice is free, Patrice? You’re costing me money again!” he snapped at her, and she flinched. “Just get back to work, quickly.”
She slowly, almost robotically retracted her arm and left as quietly as she had entered.
“Forgive the lack on introductions, it would just confuse and frighten her.”
I gave Honey a look that would roughly translate as Just when you think you’ve seen it all…, then I turned to Vermack. “We checked out your Web site, but I’m curious about what you’re making right now.”
“Lesbos Love Oil. Follow the instructions for usage and a female can bed another female. Four ounces for twenty dollars.”
I looked back to the low-quality olive oil and cheap perfume, sile
ntly calculating the high profit return for Vermack. “What gives it its power?”
“The intent I’m charging it with right now using my mind. And the hour of the day and the day itself that I have chosen to perform this work, ruled by certain planets and angels and spirits, as it were.”
I saw that Honey wasn’t interested in this line of questioning. “How long have you known Professor Drake?” she asked, a little impatiently.
“I met him in Mexico almost seventeen years ago. After that I visited him here in New Orleans and never left, not even for one day. I quickly realized voodoo was my destiny, although I practice many forms of magic now. Maybe one day I’ll become legal, but probably not, and I’ll likely remain in New Orleans forever.”
“You’re an illegal alien?”
“Sure. I get free medical, food stamps, all kinds of assistance. I used to live in Section 8 housing till I bought this shop and the building. Now I own some Section 8 housing units, thanks to the Storm, and I make a killing. America is a great country,” said Vermack, as he expertly used a specially designed ladle to fill small bottles with the love oil. “The state pays me to take care of Patrice. Why would I want to become legal, and why would I want to leave?”
“Glad to hear that, because we want you to remain in town until we clear up these deaths,” I said.
“I’m not going anywhere, except maybe over to Chartres Street to burn down Crafty Voodoo. Kate Townsend copies everything I do. She’s selling this oil now, too. In fact, her whole business model is a copy of mine, except I don’t use cheap whores in tight shirts to sell key chains.”
“Sex sells,” I said.
“She should know,” retorted Vermack.
“Care to elaborate on that?”
“I’m just calling her a bitch, that’s all. She posts YouTube videos with her priestesses in costume as they prepare and ‘charge’ the gris-gris. What’s next, a concession at Disneyland? My business is down thirty-six point two percent since she opened last year.”
“And you spend one night a week in a small group with her,” I stated.