by Ed Kovacs
“We’re going from demons to ghosts?”
“She called it a ghost. What was it that she really saw?”
Honey shook her head in disagreement. “You know how Vermack treated her. Maybe she just had enough.”
I pursed my lips, took a step, then pulled my cell phone from a cargo pocket. I took a photo of Hans’s body parts in the turkey pan and then turned to the CSI techs who were watching. “Wasn’t there a British pop group called Heads Hands and Feet? I’ll send this photo to their fan page.”
Honey looked slightly aghast, but the CSI techies smiled; I didn’t want them to think I’d lost my sense of humor.
“C’mon,” I said to Honey, “let’s take a look at the bathroom again.”
* * *
Mere walking hurt like hell, but I kept that to myself. As we entered the bathroom, the stink almost overpowered me. Since the coroner was running late, Vermack’s remains remained.
“So you think, what? He comes in to use the can, she follows, then knifes him. Then her rage flows out and she dismembers him?”
“She had blood on her. Her shoeprints are in the blood on the floor.”
“Why was he naked?”
“You never went into your bathroom naked?”
“Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second! Damn if my mind isn’t scrambled eggs this morning. Vermack told me he didn’t keep knives in the house. There had been an incident, so he removed every last knife from the building. So where did Patrice get the butcher knife?”
* * *
The back door had already been dusted for prints, but I wanted to look for pick marks on the lock. We opened the door, revealing a tiny gallery with exterior stairs leading to ground level. The French Quarter was a warren of buildings crammed together, often in odd and illogical configurations, and when one caught a glimpse of what stood behind the historic storefronts, it brought home just how densely packed the place really was.
I gingerly bent over to check the lock, then stood and gazed outward. “Look,” I said, pointing. “There must be fifteen or twenty units with a direct line of sight to right here. We need to get officers canvassing all of them. A neighbor could have easily seen someone coming through this door.”
“Patrice’s ghost sighting?”
“Check out the lock. I don’t think ghosts make those kinds of scratches. And they’re recent, although I can’t tell how recent. This lock has been picked.”
Honey looked, then shook her head. Her easy arrest of Patrice was growing questionable.
“Why can’t we catch a break?” she asked.
“Maybe we need to hire a witch to brew us up some good-luck spells.”
* * *
I nosed around downstairs in the voodoo shop and immediately noticed significant items missing that had been there before, primarily items from the altars Vermack had maintained. I checked the photos in my phone, photos I had taken the first day Honey and I came into the Voodoo Cave. The entire skeleton from one large altar was gone, as were important pieces from other altars.
I called Honey’s cell and asked her to come downstairs. When I showed her the discrepancies, she nodded, remembering.
“You’re right, but could he have sold the stuff?”
“That altar had been there for years. I doubt he sold it. It’s just like at Valencia’s place, where the silver baskets her father made were missing.”
“Was theft the motive? Fifty thousand that Felix had stashed is gone. Then the pieces from Valencia’s and Vermack’s murders.”
I shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible. Aside from the money, the missing articles hold a lot of value to a fellow sorcerer or a collector.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down. Does it?”
“Not at all.” My mind had already narrowed down our suspect list to one person, the man who’d almost had me killed a few hours previous by some Mexican gangbangers, but I had to keep that information under wraps. And I reminded myself to remain open to the possibility that Drake had accomplices, even unlikely ones.
As I glanced out the shop’s front window, I saw a familiar figure across the street talking to an older crime-scene tech.
“That’s Tony Fournier,” I said.
“Like a bad penny,” said Honey, already on the move.
We hurried out of the shop, through the front door of the Voodoo Cave, and made a beeline toward Fournier. When he glanced over and saw us approaching, he made like he was going to run, then stopped, as if giving up, knowing he couldn’t get away.
“You have a lot of explaining to do, Tony,” I said.
“He knows I’m closing in.”
“He who?” I asked.
“We’re getting close.”
“I’m getting close to thinking bad things about you.” I looked to the CSI guy in his fifties. “If you’ve been giving him privileged information, you’ve got a problem.”
The tech didn’t say a word. I gritted my teeth from pain that shot through my body as I started to muscle Tony toward Honey’s borrowed unit.
“Heard you had a bad car accident. Glad to see you’re okay,” said Fournier.
“I’m not sure whether to thank you or arrest you,” I said. “Maybe both.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Patrice Jones was arrested and booked for murder. Due to the gruesome nature of the crime, the media frenzy had gone viral, so Pointer, in one of his trademark press conferences, trumpeted the quick arrest and hard work of NOPD and reiterated, as he always did, how no tourist visitors were ever in danger.
Just about everyone in the city was in danger, as far as I was concerned, and not from Patrice Jones. But I kept that to myself.
I’d just arrived back to the Homicide offices after making a quick trip to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Crime Lab. I dropped off the martini glass and cigarette butt to my old friend Kerry Broussard to get Anastasia Fournier’s prints and DNA. Kerry was faster and more accurate than the NOPD lab, and often did such favors for me. In return, I tutored his daughters in aikido and made frequent donations to his church on St. Claude. Kerry had apologized for not yet hacking into Drake’s laptop but said he almost had the job done and would messenger it to me later today.
Honey had Tony Fournier chilling in an interrogation room. Must have been uncomfortable for the retired detective to be sitting on the other side of the table. There certainly wouldn’t be any attempt at gaming him; Fournier knew the tricks as well as we did.
So Honey and I entered the room and sat across from him. I opened my laptop so he couldn’t see the screen.
“Tony, forget about any talk of demons or curses. You need to come clean with us, right now. You’ve been lying. You know it, and we know it.”
Tony was chewing gum, and he worked it pretty good. But he didn’t speak.
“Tell us about your brother again.”
“Died when he was twelve. Drowned in a lake,” said Tony, matter-of-fact.
“So who is Anastasia?” asked Honey.
“She’s not my niece, she’s my wife. Her maiden name was Tiffany Mouton.”
“Your wife,” Honey stated.
“For how long?” I asked.
“About three years now. She was a runaway, a transient. Had a fake ID. She was heading for a life of crime. Started hanging out at a place in the Quarter where I knew Kate Townsend trolled for fresh meat. I gave her a home instead.”
“And?” I asked.
“You had to do this down here?” exploded Tony, coming out of his chair. “At headquarters? With the tape recorder running to make sure the whole department finds out! You assholes couldn’t have just asked me?”
“We did ask, outside of headquarters, shitbag. And you lied to us. Because we weren’t supposed to see you and Anastasia together, right? That was not in the plan as to how you were going to spin us, influence our investigation. You must have known we’d come across her as we nosed around, but you never figured we’d connect her to you. So you made up some bullshit a
bout your brother dying in a boat accident.”
He sat back down. In what must have been a nervous tick, he flexed his fingers for a good five seconds. “She told me about your sting. That you know she’s hooking, working undercover for me to gather intel on Drake and the Crimson Throne. Told me you had it all recorded. She tells me everything.”
“How long was she undercover?”
“She still is. Don’t forget that,” he said, looking me in the eye.
“Which is a mistake, Tony. Bring her in.”
“I can’t. She’s … confused. She still debriefs me every day, still comes out to the house several times a week. We still have sex and talk about the future, but—”
“But she’s been seduced by the dark side,” I said.
“It’s the thrills, the adrenaline. She’s young and immature. She’s making all this money, partying nonstop. It’s why we were arguing when you guys showed up unexpected at my house. I wanted her to spend the night. She wanted to go party with Townsend.”
Maybe Anastasia had fallen victim to an old scenario of identifying too closely with the undercover role she was playing. Maybe she’d grown addicted to the excitement of her new life.
“Gee, all of this was left out of the files on Drake you gave us,” said Honey, sarcastically.
Fournier looked at her but said nothing.
“Why were you at the curio shop as it burned?” I asked.
“I have a police scanner in my car. I was in town, heard the calls, recognized the address. I had mixed feelings about seeing it burn.”
“Why?”
“On the one hand, to hell with Drake. Anything that hurts him is obviously okay by me. I only wish he’d been inside the burning building. On the other hand, I heard you guys were getting search warrants. For the first time, PD was going to see what was in the place. I was curious to know what you found.”
“And why were you outside Hans Vermack’s place this morning? Scanner again?”
He shook his head. “I got a call. Twenty years in the department, I have friends at the coroner’s, the lab, EMS, the fire department. You know how it is. You going to try and get my friends in trouble?”
“It’s not a witch hunt, no pun intended. You caused this yourself. You came to us and lied through your teeth. Keep that in mind.”
“Since you planted your wife on the inside of Drake’s inner circle, who killed our victims?” asked Honey.
“Professor Robert Drake. He’s got money problems. He owed Felix Sanchez and Roscindo Ruiz about ten grand for work they did on his house.”
“Felix’s wife Gina said Drake didn’t owe any money.”
“Felix probably kept it from her. I can tell you with certainty that they wanted to get paid and were ready to pull out of the Crimson Throne because they weren’t happy with how some things were being done. They felt Drake and others lacked integrity. Drake knew Felix kept tens of thousands hidden in his truck. First he took the cash from the truck while the Mexicans were in the house, then they had a sex-magic session, and Drake killed them.
“He killed Becky Valencia because she broke her vows. I figure he broke into her house the night before and drugged her juice or drinking water or something. He comes back the next morning while she’s incapacitated, but still conscious, still alert. He sets up his sex-magic session, and puts in the needle that kills her.
“Hans Vermack, I’m not sure yet, because I haven’t heard the details of the case. His girlfriend is a nutjob, but she’s never been violent.”
“Why would Drake kill Vermack?”
“I’m not the only one with friends in the department. I always suspected the professor had inside sources, the way he always outmaneuvered me over the years. So Drake heard, just like I did, that Vermack was giving it all up like a virgin on prom night. Drake doesn’t tolerate people who rat him out. In that way, he’s just like his buddies, the Skulls.”
“Drake introduced Felix Sanchez and Roscindo Ruiz to the Las Calaveras cartel?”
“Of course.”
“So the heads in the ice chest weren’t going to Drake.”
“Drake could buy direct from the Skulls. He didn’t need Felix or Roscindo for that. I assume the heads were for Kate Townsend.”
“If Drake needed money, why didn’t he sell to her himself and keep the profit?”
“Because he wouldn’t have gotten paid. She would have just kept the heads. She’s been squeezing him for years. She never forgave him for what he did.”
“You talking about the abortion?”
Fournier nodded. “He drove her all the way down to Reynosa to have a cartel doctor do it.”
“Why?” asked Honey.
“So he could gift one of the Skulls kingpins, Tico Rodriguez, an old friend of his, with the fetus. Tico either ate it or used it in some black-magic ritual.”
I looked to Honey. There was a reason police officers were the way we were. Partly it was from having to deal on a daily basis with the scum of the earth and the things they did. Even so, Robert Drake had just been enshrined in the pantheon of slime.
* * *
After we cut Tony Fournier loose, the chief called Honey and me into his office and read us the riot act. He was using the “If I Yell Louder, They’ll Work Harder” management philosophy today.
“Two naked dead guys, an acupuncturist with a million needles in her, heads in an ice chest, a botched raid shootout with four dead Mexican gangbangers, a Dutchman filleted and eaten by his Creole girlfriend! Not exactly the kind of publicity the tourism board or the mayor’s office or the city council likes to hear!”
“And you’re not going to want to hear this, but there might be some NOPD involvement.”
Pointer fell silent.
“Tony Fournier, a retired homicide detective.”
“I remember Tony,” said Pointer.
Honey and I filled him in with all the pertinent details, including the doings of Anastasia Fournier/Tiffany Mouton/April the hooker.
He shook his head. “Okay, what do you need?”
“How about paying for a rush job on the toxicology reports and sending them to a better lab?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Pointer, suddenly preoccupied with shuffling some papers on his desk. The meeting had ended, and I knew the chief wasn’t going to do a damn thing to help us.
* * *
Kate Townsend and Anastasia Fournier were currently at Townsend’s apartment above Crafty Voodoo, but our surveillance team had lost them until little over an hour ago, when a taxi deposited them at the shop’s front door. They obviously knew they were being watched and had somehow snuck out of the bordello late last night through a rear entrance. Or perhaps they had left in disguise; it wasn’t clear.
Drake was still missing in action. The professor hadn’t been seen since he left the Homicide Section and drove to his lawyer’s office. All places of lodging within fifty miles of the city had been notified, and Dinwiddie Hall at Tulane was under surveillance, but since it was finals week, he wasn’t due in class until tomorrow. Honey put out a BOLO on Drake, that if sighted, he was to be detained. His lawyer was refusing to cooperate in any fashion.
And then there was the troubling issue of Gina Sanchez. I wanted to let her know, unofficially, that the last of the New Orleans-based Skulls gangsters were no longer a problem for her. But Gina had deliberately ditched her NOPD tail yesterday. She’d taken a taxi from police headquarters to the French Market, joined a large group of tourists, and then melted into the crowds in Jackson Square. Fred Gaudet was diligently trying to locate her new place of residence.
After easing into my desk chair, I washed down a handful of anti-inflammatories with my fifth cup of coffee. I felt like shit-on-a-stick as I shook my head, trying to disengage creeping memories of what the Skulls had almost done to me, and to instead remain focused on the case.
A growling stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten today. I reached into a drawer and fished out a bag of kale chips I’d
bought for some obscene amount of money at Whole Foods on Magazine Street. You needed to take out a bank loan to shop there, their profit markup was about 10 million percent, but they sold good stuff.
I started munching and looked down at Drake’s laptop sitting on my desk. A messenger had just delivered it. Kerry Broussard had hacked the password, but the computer had been sanitized and held few files, none of interest. Drake’s briefcase and Tulane office computer had also yielded a fat zero.
I waved Honey over to my desk and gestured to the laptop. “No grimoire, no journal of magical workings, no business records listing sales of body parts to nefarious buyers.”
“Drake is smart. He’s had plenty of time to dump incriminating evidence.”
“Hey, partner. Peace?” I offered Honey some kale chips. She took one, scrunched her nose for the sniff test, and then put it back in the bag.
“Peace. But you need to buy some nacho chips. Or some other good junk.”
“Remember I said I had a second theory for the murders?”
“Right,” said Honey.
“What if the ritual aspects of the crimes—the candles, the sex, the pain inflicted—was just a dog and pony show?”
“You mean the killer actually had a motive. And wasn’t killing for magical power.”
“Right. But he or she incorporated the ritual trappings to deflect suspicion or lead investigators in the wrong direction. Fournier did a good job of outlining possible motives Drake might have for the killings.” I made loud crunching sounds as I gobbled down another kale chip.
“Except Vermack said quitting the Crimson Throne wasn’t a killing offense.”
“Maybe Drake felt otherwise. Anyway, setting aside the ritualistic nature of the crimes, let’s look at the possible motives of Kate Townsend. Question one: Why kill the two Mexican members of the Crimson Throne?”
Honey thought for a moment. “She’s greedy, but I don’t buy theft.”
“Me either. Could this just be about getting even with Drake? To pay him back for what he did to her unborn child?”