“Because . . .”
“Because our anonymous caller used Batman nomenclature, and there’s a Gotham City area at this park. Plus, the caller may have either subliminally or deliberately inserted the Jester reference because of the female abductions that have taken place here, and there’s a roller coaster called the Jester. And we’re here because we need to stop this savagery somehow. And yes, it’s a stretch, but this is the best I can come up with right now.”
Heather looked doubtful. “Okay, but maybe this guy that Bert is talking about is just some lone nutcase wandering around the park. . . .”
“You know the old saying about criminals returning to the scene of the crime?”
“Yes, actually thinking about that.”
“Well, it’s not true. Not in most crimes. But there are two types of crime where it is true. One’s arson. Not applicable here.”
“And the other?”
“Crimes of serial violence. Kidnapping. Rape. Murder. I’m thinking that if Mr. Creepy is part of these abductions, he may be showing up again. Just a hunch.”
She did some head bobbing. Then, “So why the business about voodoo? The caller has mentioned it twice. Once to your friend, the detective. And again in the call just now to you. But I don’t see the connection.”
“Paul Pullmen was overseeing Jason Forester’s work, cracking down on child abductions and child pornography. First Forester dies by some voodoo curse, according to an insider. Then Pullmen is killed in an orgy of blood that practically shouts cultic ceremony. No signs of a struggle. A coffee cup was found in my room that didn’t belong there. If he was poisoned first, then it matches the death of Minerva Sabatier, the voodoo queen who was done in by a toxic plant used in voodoo practices. And Minerva’s diary was talking about girls and about blood and some kind of atonement. I think we’re just inches away from pulling all the threads together.”
“Even if you’re right that it’s all connected, you haven’t given the ‘why’ behind any of that.”
“Sometimes that’s the very last piece.”
I had an assignment for Heather while I tromped through the theme park. “Why not look up the use of the poisonous Calabar bean in voodoo ceremonies? In your search, see if you can tie it into the disgusting core of these cases—child abduction and human sacrifice.”
She smirked. “You’re not giving up on the voodoo angle. . . .”
“No. I saw with my own eyes on that FBI video what was done to Paul Pullmen.”
A police cruiser made its way toward our car, with a two-man team in the front seat. I got out and approached the squad on the driver’s side.
After showing my driver’s license, I thanked them for allowing me access to the park.
The officer behind the wheel spoke up. “Look, I’m just following orders from the captain. You enter this park at your own peril,” he said. “And it’s understood you’ll advise any frequenters to exit the park.” I nodded. He handed me a card with his cell number on it. “You’ll report any suspicious circumstances immediately.” I agreed to that too.
He ended with “I’m guessing you must have some pull, Mr. Black.”
“No. I just know somebody who does.”
With that, I started trekking across the busted concrete parking lot, toward the wreckage of Six Flags.
27
The Six Flags theme park was ringed with a new chain-link fence to keep the public out. Kevin told me about the spot where the fence had been cut. Not far from the Super Heroes area.
As I walked along the chain-link boundary, I could already see up ahead the twisted metal and rusting signs. The flood tides of Katrina had inundated this place and laid it waste. When the powerful waters receded, the theme park that was left behind looked as if it had been hit by some cosmic blast. Not decimated entirely, but ravaged, leaving only its skeleton behind.
I trotted along the six-foot-high fence until I found a part that buckled slightly. When I looked closer, I could see that the chain link had been cut from top to bottom and closed up with some thin-gauge wire. I plucked the wire open and bent the metal mesh back so I could slip through.
At one time there must have been a manicured grove of trees where I was walking, but the trees had been uprooted by the floodwaters and strewn across the wasteland.
I tried to get my bearings. Not easy when you are surrounded by four-foot weeds and rusting outbuildings. I ended up doing a tour of the devastated grounds. At one point I could see in the distance the sign for the Jester and the outline of the mangled roller coaster that had been tilted by the force of Katrina’s waters. A giant clown’s head lay sideways on the ground, its eyes blankly staring ahead.
Eventually I spotted an entrance to my destination—an archway that read DC Super Heroes Adventures.
Scanning the area, I noticed some tall scaffolding that had at one time been a supporting structure. I studied it closer. It had been the theme park facade of an art deco cityscape building, now in shambles. That was all that was left of the Gotham City Hall. At one time a fun house for children and families, now a sagging false-front building with peeling paint.
But there was no Bert or anyone else. Until I started calling out my name and yelling that I had been sent by a law student by the name of Kevin Sanders.
Then, the sound of feet shuffling through the wreckage. A tall young man in jeans and a T-shirt, maybe in his late twenties, stepped out from behind the fake scenery. Followed by another male about the same age, shouldering an expensive-looking steady-cam. A few seconds later, they were followed by two girls, maybe eighteen or nineteen.
I showed him my ID and explained that I was an investigator looking into strange occurrences and abductions, some of which happened in the abandoned park.
One of the girls elbowed Bert and yelled, “See. I told you so. I told you this place is creepy.”
I asked him if he saw anything unusual the night Peggy Tanner went missing.
“Nah, nothing at all,” Bert said. “We’re just shooting a film, that’s all.”
“You see anyone else here?”
He shook his head.
“I’m here on behalf of the local police. I need to advise you of something.”
All four of them flashed a panicked look. For a moment, I could relate. I was back in my own crazy youth thinking about all my stupid risk-taking and brushes with cops and near misses with the law.
I said, “So here’s the deal. I promised the police that I would get you people out of the park. Count yourselves lucky. They’ve agreed not to prosecute you for criminal trespass. But you have to leave right now.”
A disappointed expression on Bert’s face as he puffed his cheeks out, then exhaled loudly.
“Sorry about that,” I added. “Hollywood will have to wait.”
Just then, one of the girls went wild-eyed. “Uh . . . uh,” she stammered. She slowly raised her arm, pointing to something out there, beyond.
I whirled around. About fifty yards away, there was a stocky male who quickly turned away from us. But before he did, I caught the fact he was wearing sunglasses. And a little, short-brimmed bebop hat.
I yelled to the group. “Get out of the park now!” Then I took off after the man in the hat, who had disappeared behind a dilapidated ice cream booth, heading toward a field of chest-high weeds.
Wheeling around, I saw Bert urging his partner with the camera to start filming my chase.
“Shut it down and get out!” I yelled again and sprinted toward the collapsed ice cream booth.
As I ran, I plucked out my cell and punched in the number for the patrol officer in the parking lot. “I’ve got a possible perp on the run in here, wearing a hat, sunglasses—”
He bulleted back. “Where are you?”
“Leaving Gotham City, heading past an ice cream vending kiosk.”
He ordered, “Do not engage that individual.”
Ignoring that, I clicked off my cell and burst into a full sprint. But at the ice cream s
hack, I lost sight of the man in the hat. I stopped for a moment because I was winded. Time to get back into shape, I thought as I bent over to catch my breath.
It would be my last thought. Next, a heavy blow to the back of my head, shooting stars, the world beginning to tilt, and the sensation of falling forward.
28
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the ground facedown, and I heard a voice. I rolled over, swooning with nausea and with a swirling pain in my skull.
Bert was standing over me, next to his amateur film assistant, who was still clutching his shoulder-mounted camera.
My scrambled brain was able to frame a single question. “Did you catch his face on film?”
The camera guy shook his head. “Nah, just his back.”
I stumbled to my feet. I could see two patrol officers running to my location with their hands on their sidearms. When they arrived, I struggled my way through a rundown of the incident and the few details I could tell them about the potential predator.
One of the officers said, “Sir, you should go to the emergency room to get checked out for your concussion. We’ll call an EMT unit.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “I’ll have my daughter do the driving.”
The officers gave a stern warning to Bert and his crew, but true to the deal I had struck through Morgan Canterelle, they let the group go without charges.
I finally made my way out through the cut chain-link fence to the cracked cement parking lot that was choked with weeds.
As I approached the rental car, Heather must have noticed something odd about me because she jumped out of the passenger seat and trotted up to me.
“Okay, what happened? Something happened to you. . . .”
“An incident,” I said. “I’m okay.”
She stared into my eyes. “Trevor, you’re looking goofy. I’m driving.”
When I settled into the passenger seat, she turned on the ignition, then tossed me my iPad. “You’ve got to read this. This is sickening. A game changer.”
For me, it wasn’t a game changer at all. But I had danced with the dark side for several years and Heather hadn’t, so by then nothing surprised me except the constant realization that the God of all compassion continued to look out for me in the process.
On the iPad, she had come across a series of articles dating back to June of 2014, including one in International Business Times and another in Business Insider. They were spawned as a result of a report from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child warning about voodoo ceremonies involving children and sexual abuse.
She found a link to an earlier online article in the National Geographic News dated February 10, 2005, recounting the horrific death of a child brought into England by voodoo followers and apparently killed as a human sacrifice.
But it was the manner of death that jumped out and accounted for Heather’s reaction. An autopsy showed signs of poisoning by the toxic Calabar bean.
“This needs to be stopped!” Heather yelled as she began to wheel our rental car across the parking lot. “But first, let me tell you something, Trevor: you don’t look good. Tell me what happened.”
I gave her the Twitter-length version of my being knocked out, but I stressed that the loss of consciousness maybe lasted only for a few seconds.
“Well, I’ve got to get you to the ER. You need a doctor to check you out.”
“I’m fine. We don’t have time for that. I have someplace else in mind.”
I gave her the address for Belle Sabatier’s mansion in the French Quarter.
When we arrived, I marched up to the front door, turned the old brass handle on the doorframe several times, and heard the tinny ring-a-ling as I did.
No butler came to the door. Instead it was Belle herself, looking unsteady. She wiped her swollen red eyes, and with that same hand gave a sloppy wave for us to follow her inside. In the other hand she held a wineglass that had clearly been drained and probably more than once. We were led to the familiar sitting room with the fireplace and the portrait of Minerva Sabatier hanging over the mantel.
Heather began apologetically. “We’re so sorry to disturb you. I hope we didn’t catch you at a bad time—”
I interrupted. “Belle,” I said, “time for straight talk.”
“Of course, Mr. Black. Straight as an arrow . . .”
She took the last swig of red wine, then set the empty glass on the little table next to her. That’s when I noticed a worn Bible on the tabletop. It was open to a page where an old-fashioned embroidered bookmark was draped.
Belle struggled through tears to say something, pointing to the open page of the Bible. “After finding Mother’s diary, I needed to know . . . to know what she meant about the young girls. And what it had to do with her power as the New Orleans mambo. So I tore this mansion apart, looking for answers. Until I found this.” As she said that, she put her finger on the page of the Bible.
I checked the passage she was pointing to. It was the New Testament. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 17.
It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.
Next to that verse was a long, handwritten note down the entire margin of the page. It had obviously been written there by Minerva.
O God, forgive me! They just wanted names of my followers. “To help expand my influence,” they said. But then they recruited them. I didn’t know about the girls. Have I aided this terrible slavery? The rumors are that Sulphur is the path to Hell, leading to the sea. I must stop this.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“You’re smart,” Belle said. “Figure it out. Her diary showed she was concerned. About some girls. You thought it was a confession, didn’t you? Well, here’s your confession,” she said, jabbing a finger at the Bible. “It’s all coming back now. I heard a comment from one of her voodoo friends when I came back for Mother’s funeral. That someone had been asking for her help in ‘networking’ all of her voodoo followers together. Some kind of Internet thing. And how Mother and her voodoo power were going to ‘go global.’ That was the carrot they used. Her pride. But all they really wanted was to enlist some of her followers. Looking for the worst of the worst.”
I asked, “Why? For what purpose?” But as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew the answer.
“The girls . . . ,” she began to say but then broke down in a sob.
Heather left her seat, put her arms around Belle, and tossed a look back to me. It seemed to be saying, Now what do we do?
I leaned toward Belle. “You know what I think? Your mother was an unwitting pawn in that horrific scheme. She opened the door. And hell walked in.”
Belle couldn’t talk. All she could do, as she tried to stifle the sobs, was to nod yes to my question.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “About your mother being poisoned?”
After a few heavy sighs, Belle let go of Heather and said, “Didn’t know who to trust. Besides, Mr. Canterelle was handling that. Investigating her death.”
“So you’re one of his clients too?” I asked. She told me she was. Belle had to be that client whose case Canterelle said was indirectly related to his other cases: the murder of Lucinda, who was found at Bayou Bon Coeur, and the still-open case of Peggy Tanner. But still related to all that because she was poisoned by someone involved in the wider network. Someone responsible for the crimes.
“Do you think your mother was killed because when she learned the truth, she was guilt-ridden and was going to expose the criminal network?”
“With all my heart,” Belle said. “Mother was raised Catholic. But left it when she decided to devote herself to voodoo. I always thought, though, that she had some unfinished business with God.”
I glanced at the page of the Bible that had been opened to the words of Jesus in Luke. “It looks like it,” I said.
Then I added, “Belle, I
want to find out who—or what—was behind her death. And behind the occult network orchestrating these females being abducted, and even worse.”
29
Heather drove us back to our hotel. We grabbed a table in the downstairs restaurant and began to debrief each other on the events of the day.
She kept asking how I was feeling after my knock on the head. I got a kick out of her concern.
Back at the mansion, before we left, I had asked Belle whether she knew what her mother meant by the reference in her Bible to “Sulphur,” as well as the cryptic note about “the path to Hell, leading to the sea.” But she hadn’t the faintest.
“Sulphur,” I said out loud to Heather as we ate. “It could be a euphemism for evil. The subtext relating to the burning fires of hell.”
That stopped Heather, fork in hand, right in the middle of her Cobb salad.
“So,” I continued, “was that what Minerva Sabatier meant?”
Heather saw where I was going and shook her head. “I wouldn’t expect a voodoo priestess to think in terms of hell like that. Too orthodox.”
“But not for a lapsed Catholic.”
Then I remembered how the note about sulphur in the margins of Minerva’s Bible actually read.
I said, “Minerva capitalized sulphur. Maybe it’s not a theological reference. Maybe it’s geography. A place name.”
A second later Heather was frantically typing a search on my iPad.
“Talk to me,” I said.
She raised a finger. She was onto something.
I asked, “What?”
“Okay, this is it. You said geography. So I checked place names with the word sulphur in them.”
“And you found what?”
“Something about an hour from here.”
“Give me more.”
She smiled. “A place called Port Sulphur.”
“A port?”
She nodded. “On the Mississippi.”
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