Mostly Murder

by Linda Ladd

  “You? What are you doing? Stop right now and get off me! Why are you doing this to me? Why? Stop it!” She kept yelling the same things over and over, sobbing now, squirming around under him and getting him all excited. He loved it, loved her fear and disappointment, and the way she ended up begging him to stop.

  But now he was in a conundrum, to be sure. She was spitting mad, working herself into a full-fledged rage, still trying to scratch his eyes out, really, truly furious that it was him doing this to her. He couldn’t let her tell on him, or he’d lose his scholarship. He just couldn’t do that. His parents didn’t have the money to send him where he wanted to go. He didn’t have a choice now, and he had always wanted to kill somebody, now hadn’t he? He wanted to see the light gradually go out of her eyes like it did in the movies.

  So he got his knees over her arms and held them down. He put one hand around her neck and he put the point of the knife against her throat. Betsy lay very still then, her eyes wide and afraid, so he put down the knife and pressed both thumbs on her windpipe. That stopped all the yelling, and it got real quiet real quick, except for her gasping and the sound of her heels beating against the floor.

  While she suffocated, he got to thinking about all the good times they’d had, at the school dances, and how pretty she’d looked in that short pink formal dress at last year’s prom and how she’d helped him cheat his way to a ninety-six on his last math test. She wasn’t so bad; maybe he ought to kill somebody else the first time. So he let up, and then she tried to claw his face and called him some real bad names. Then he got so angry that he grabbed the knife and just thrust it down into the side of her throat. He must’ve hit an artery because blood spurted out everywhere, all over him and the wall and the rug. He scrambled away from her and stood up, but within minutes, she was dead. He had killed her, when he hadn’t really planned to, and he hadn’t gotten to take her virginity, either, damn it.

  Then he ran, outside and through the woods. He stopped at the edge of a little pond and washed himself clean of the blood on his hands and face. But it was all over his clothes so he pulled them off until he wore only gym shorts and a T-shirt. Trembling with fear and excitement and sexual gratification, he put the bloody clothes in a Wal-Mart plastic bag and pitched it into a Dumpster behind a garage. Then he went home, went straight to bed, and lay there reliving the whole thing, over and over, and every time he got more and more aroused. Oh, yeah, killing was fun. Killing was his thing, all right. Maybe he ought to be an assassin or a secret agent. Hone his kills, like James Bond. Kill his victims for money or patriotism. Yeah, that would be his perfect profession, a secret job where he could earn lots of money. He lay awake a long time, wondering how he could make it work, because that’s what he was going to do with his life. Scare people, then kill them and watch them die. God, he was so excited that he could barely catch his breath.

  Chapter Four

  Fortunately, Madonna Christien’s home address was not hard to find. In fact, it wasn’t all that far from the cozy mansion that Claire shared with Black in the French Quarter. There were several apartment buildings on Carondelet Street, but the one they sought sat near the intersection of Carondelet and Gravier with a narrow alley running behind it. The tarmac was in disrepair, grass struggling up between cracks and potholes here and there, but most buildings lining the back alley were in fairly good shape.

  Madonna Christien’s home looked considerably better than its neighbors. Painted pale yellow with white shutters, it was neat and clean and deserted. The apartment was on the second floor, but had a large enclosed carport space underneath at ground level. A balcony faced the alley, but Claire couldn’t see Christien’s front door. There was an interior stair that led to a landing unseen from the street.

  Various clay pots filled with wilting red geraniums sat on the wide balcony railing. Several more sat on the floor of the deck. A striped yellow cat with a bell on his collar sat on the banister and stared at them with an utterly bored expression. One pot, the largest, lay in pieces in the alley in front of a new-model white Ram truck.

  Zee said, “There’s Rene. Right on time.”

  As they pulled up behind the truck, a man got out and strode back to them. He looked about five feet nine or ten, probably a little bit taller than Claire, and he was ruggedly handsome, with the dark hair and eyes of Louisiana Cajuns. He looked a little different from how she remembered. When Zee rolled down his window, Bourdain leaned in, unsmiling and all business.

  “Hey, Zee, my man, how you doin’? Been a while, eh?”

  “Yeah, you lookin’ good as usual, Lieutenant. Sorry you had to come over here and miss the second half of the game.”

  “You sure this here’s your victim’s address?”

  Claire decided to get things on the road. “We’re not certain about much of anything at this point. This’s the address we found when we identified the body with prints, but the victim’s face was painted up. It looks like the same woman.”

  For the first time, Bourdain bent down low enough to look at her through the open window. Claire watched his face register surprise, and then he stared at her, as if speechless. “Annie? That you, chère?”

  Oh, God, Claire thought. He remembered her better than she remembered him. She did not like him using her birth name. It just brought up a lot of unpleasant questions about her past.

  “Hi, Rene. I’m surprised that you recognized me. It’s been a long time.” Claire got out of the car and gave him the obligatory smile, but her mind remained on the case.

  “Oh, yeah, I heard you was down here with that Dr. Black fella. Hell, you’re pretty near famous now.”

  “Not really. Who told you I was here?”

  “Why, I heard tell from Luc and Clyde and the boys over on the Bayou Blue. I go there to play poker and listen to them play zydeco, and they said that our little Annie gal and Nick Black came in and was talkin’ ’bout old times when you stayed down there on the bayou with Bobby and Kristen.”

  “I don’t go by Annie anymore,” she told him pointedly, but kept the courteous smile. She didn’t want to be rude, but she didn’t want to discuss any of this in front of Zee, either. She hoped Rene got the message. “It’s Claire Morgan now, Rene. Please don’t ask me why, that’s way too long a story. Right now, I’m working with Zee down in Lafourche Parish.”

  “Lord have mercy, little Annie, or Claire, I guess. Look at you, girl, all grown up and pretty as a picture, too, with all that blond hair and those big blue eyes of yours. I’d a known you anywhere. Even with you bein’ a grown woman now.”

  Claire sucked in a breath and looked him straight in the eyes. She liked the guy, but the last thing she wanted was to reminisce about the old days. “Well, it’s good to see you, too. Good to see all the LeFevreses, but right now, we’re really anxious to get inside and take a look around. This woman died real hard, Rene, and we want her killer. You can let us inside, right?”

  Interesting expressions flitted across Bourdain’s face. He appeared highly expressive and easy to read. But his wide grin didn’t falter. He was a nice-looking man, and he had been good to her once upon a time. “Sure thing, no problem. The TV folks are callin’ you a super detective, that true? Wanna come over and join us at the NOPD? We sure could use you.”

  “I’m hardly that. I just got involved in a couple of newsworthy crimes.”

  “Well, Luc and Clyde and the rest of us are sure glad you’re back.”

  But there was one person that Claire was interested in. “What about Gabe? I haven’t run into him yet. He still live around here?”

  “Ah, Gabe. No, no, he went bad from what I hear. Got himself into drugs and spent some time in prison. You know, just went down the wrong path.”

  Zee was just standing there, looking from one to the other, obviously surprised about their past relationship.

  “Zee, Rene’s a friend of the family I lived with down here for a while.”

  Rene nodded. “Yeah, Bobby LeFevres was his nam
e, and a better officer you’d never find.”

  “Yeah?” said Zee. “Didn’t know that.”

  “Bobby and I both rode patrol here in the city. Down in Lower Ninth, mostly.”

  “Luc says they both died a long time ago,” Claire said. “I was sorry to hear it. He and Kristen were really good to me back then.”

  “Yeah, I still miss them. He was a good friend and a good cop.”

  Okay, enough of his sentimental drive down memory lane. Claire was eager to get inside and find something that could help them. On the other hand, they were in Rene’s jurisdiction and had to play his game, no matter how chatty he wanted to be.

  “Bobby and Kristen were just sick when Family Services wouldn’t let you stay with them. They tried to get you back legally, but it didn’t go down that way.”

  Claire began to get annoyed. She didn’t want to have this conversation and had told him as much. Most of her childhood years had not been pleasant, and a lot of it was fuzzy now, anyway. The LeFevreses had been the bright spot. They’d treated her like a daughter. It had broken her heart when she had been forced to leave them, especially their son, Gabriel. “Okay, Rene, enough about me. Let’s go in. It’s gonna be dark soon.”

  “Okay, good enough. Guess what? I already found the key. Right over there on a hook behind the first step.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  Rene Bourdain took the lead. Zee gave Claire a questioning glance as they followed him up the inside steps. Few people knew about the things she’d suffered during the years when she’d endured so many foster families, not even Black, and that’s the way she wanted to keep it. Her own personal little childhood hell, but it was long over.

  The steps were neatly repaired and covered with a fresh coat of gray paint. Claire took in everything outside, searching for signs of struggle or forced entry, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Rene opened the screen door and tried the handle. The steel front door was painted indigo blue and was locked up tight. He glanced back at Claire. “I can’t believe it’s really you, Annie. After all this time. God sure does work in mysterious ways.”

  Feeling like she was lost in an episode of Lost, Claire strove to keep things professional. “Think we ought to knock first, Bourdain? Just in case somebody’s home?”

  “Oh, c’mon now, chère. It’s Rene to you, always.” Grinning, he tapped on the door with one knuckle, and they all waited. No answer. No sound of running feet going out the back door, either, or of a shotgun being ratcheted. All good signs, under the circumstances. They waited some more. Rene smiled at her until she felt distinctly uncomfortable.

  Jeez, what was with this guy? He was looking her over like a blue-ribbon steer, for God’s sake. She stayed in serious-as-sin business mode and hoped he would kiss the nostalgia good-bye and just get down to the business at hand. “Looks to me like everything’s pretty normal. No newspapers piled up. Except for the broken flower pot out in the alley, Madonna Christien kept a tidy place.”

  “True, but never can tell what goes on behind closed doors.” Bourdain knocked again, harder this time. He called out, “NOPD. Open up.”

  No answer. When Bourdain inserted the key, it turned easily, and the door swung open. He called out again and was met with dead silence. He looked back at them and said, “You want me to wait outside while you clear the place?”

  “Whatever you wanna do, Rene. We just appreciate you comin’.” That was Zee, the grateful, polite detective, eager to please.

  They stepped inside the foyer and glanced around. Directly in front of them, white-draped French doors were closed. Zee and Claire both pulled their weapons, just to be on the safe side. Perhaps still a bit unsettled by all those big black stitches on the victim’s face. Rene Bourdain didn’t bother. Let them shoot it out all they wanted; he’d just wait outside where it was safe. The front hall led off to their left, and Claire could see the room at the far end. The open door revealed a white iron bed with white bedding. It was barely visible in the interior gloom.

  Rene said, “This’s your case, detectives. I’m not gonna interfere. Have at it. I’ll wait right here.”

  What is he, anyway, a U.N. Observer? Claire thought, but she pulled out some latex gloves and handed a pair to Zee. They snapped them on, stepped once more into matching paper crime scene booties. “Zee, you take the bedrooms down this hallway. I’ll check out the back of the house.”

  Zee moved off down the hallway, and Claire opened the French doors and stepped inside what appeared to be Madonna Christien’s living room. On the far wall, an undraped expanse of plate-glass windows slanted late-afternoon sunlight across the interior. The floorboards were painted white, as were the walls. Except that now there was blood spattered all over everything. Somehow Claire had expected to find neatness and order inside the apartment, just like there was outside, but was she ever wrong. There had been one hell of a struggle inside that room, violent and lengthy and bloody, one that had left pretty much anything not nailed down overturned, broken, or shattered all over the floor.

  Sidestepping the mess, Claire edged around the perimeter of the room, weapon out in front, finger alongside the trigger, avoiding pools of dried blood. She was very wary now, although her gut told her that whoever had been there was long gone with the victim in tow and a healthy supply of black and white paint and sewing thread and religious candles. Quickly, she cleared the kitchen and other rooms for more victims or a psychopath holding a voodoo doll with her face on it. After she was satisfied that they were alone in the apartment, she sidestepped her way back through the living room, thinking it looked as if Edward Cullen, that teenage vampire, had stopped lusting after Bella Swan long enough to have himself a hell of a blood feast. She hadn’t read those books, of course, but Zee and Nancy had filled her in on every single detail on every single page.

  Zee met her outside the French doors. “Neat as a pin in the bedrooms.”

  “Look in here, Zee. Madonna Christien was murdered right in there, I’d bet my badge on it.”

  Bourdain took a careful step inside the living room. “Christ almighty,” he breathed out. “Maybe I should bring in my forensics team to sweep this scene? Nancy’s probably gonna have her hands full down there at Thibodaux by the sound of it, both with your victim and the old LeFevres place. It’d be quicker, too, if we take over at this end.”

  Claire considered his offer and looked at Zee for his take. He lifted a careless shoulder and nodded. So she said, “Okay, call them in. There’s got to be a ton of trace evidence in here. Look at the blood. It’s all over the place.”

  Rene Bourdain moved back out into the front hall, his cell phone against his ear. “Okay, Zee, let’s look around and see what we can turn up. We can’t move anything until the photographer shoots this place.”

  There was a white rolltop desk in front of the windows. The top was up, and a handful of unopened mail was scattered around. Seemed like somebody had already rifled through the letters. Looking for what? Claire leaned down and read the print on the top envelope. “This’s a gas bill. Sent to Madonna Christien at this address. She lives here, all right.”

  Claire found a light switch and flipped it on. The overhead fan with blades shaped like palmetto leaves slowly started revolving, and the lights flared on in a four-pronged light fixture. Several lamps were overturned and broken, the debris scattered around on the floor. A potted palm was lying on its side with dirt spilled all around it, the huge clay pot cracked open. There was a square cocktail table, the glass top cobwebbed with cracks that streaked down to the opposite end.

  “Looks like the perpetrator slammed her head down on this glass top. See the impact point, Zee, the starburst thing? I think he choked her unconscious right there on that table and took her somewhere else and painted the body.”

  Zee squatted and examined the tabletop. “Blood’s accumulated down inside the hairline cracks. Lots more leaked down underneath and stained the rug.”

  Claire took a closer look. The blood
in the cracks looked like a scarlet spiderweb lying on top of the table, and it had soaked into the white shag rug in a round puddle the size of a basketball. It was congealed now and looked like sticky black tar. Madonna Christien’s all-white décor made the blood spatter easy to detect. Claire found some long dark strands of hair caught in the cracks. “Looks like her hair, Zee. Hopefully, the killer left his DNA somewhere in all this mess. Notice that everything’s white in here?”

  “Yeah, just like her gown and candles and everything else on that altar.” He stood up and looked around. “I think he slammed her up against that wall over there, too. See how the blood ran down to the floor in those little rivulets. Lord have mercy. She suffered some serious pain before she died. Nancy’s gonna find all kind of injuries on the body.”

  Claire moved to the smear of blood. “It’s about waist high. Maybe he bent her over and rammed her head into the wall.”

  “That would’ve stunned her, if she was still puttin’ up a fight. And she was, by the looks of it.” Zee frowned. “He showed no mercy, that’s for damn sure.”

  Rene Bourdain was back. “They’ve got a unit on the way. Want us to take over the whole case? Just say the word, and we’ll be glad to.”

  Claire wasn’t about to do that. She had seen the victim’s injuries. She wanted this guy herself. The murder scene was inside NOPD’s jurisdiction, but they’d found the body in Lafourche Parish. They could cooperate, but no way was Bourdain taking over. “We can handle it. Thanks, anyway. I think he murdered her here, but he took her down our way to dump her. Sheriff Friedewald doesn’t appreciate that. We’ll get him.”