The Hoodoo Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

  “You figure out anything more about the sigils?” Short asked.

  “They’re protective sigils, to keep something trapped. You can find them on the Internet, so they don't tell us much about our killer aside from the fact that he's done some research.”

  “Keep someone in,” Short said. “The dead man?”

  She opened her leather notebook. “Something, not someone. To hold the demon he called. The man was a sacrifice. Who was the victim by the way?” She already knew the answer. Had known it as soon as she'd caged the address from Sam. But she was curious about how much information they'd share.

  “A rich playboy,” Long said. “Name was Franklin Turotte. Old family. Inherited wealth. But I figure you already knew that.”

  One corner of Riga's mouth slipped upward, but she didn't look up from her notebook. “And the hoodoo hit man I found yesterday? What was his name?”

  “Hoodoo?” Long asked. “Oh, that drunk at the restaurant. We need to notify next of kin before we release that information.”

  “When did Turotte die?”

  “Does it matter?” Dirk asked.

  “It might.”

  “We figure around two p.m. yesterday.” Long adjusted his collar. “Mean anything?”

  “Not yet.” Placing her compass on the table, she oriented it north.

  “Is the compass supposed to spin if there's a ghost in the room?” Dirk asked.

  “You can try that later if you're bored,” she said. To the detectives: “Those markings in the center spell the name of the demon being summoned. If we know its name, we can get a sense of what the killer wanted. Each demon has its own specialty when it comes to granting boons.”

  Short walked up to her and leaned over the compass. “And the compass helps how?”

  “It helps me orient my letter grid.” She tapped a grid she'd scrawled in her notebook, a letter in each box. “If the necromancer knew what he was doing, he would have been facing east when he drew the name.”

  Dirk snorted. “Come on. You don't really believe this?”

  “It doesn't matter what I believe,” Riga said. “The point is, what did the killer believe?”

  “This killing was satanic,” Dirk said. “That's all I need to know. And the victim...” He turned, paused, gazed somberly into the camera. “Hung out to dry.”

  Pinching her lips together, she shook her head. Wolfe's camera was focused on her, no doubt getting a good shot of her scowl. Well, Sam wanted conflict.

  “A satanic ritual.” Detective Long rubbed his chin. “That makes sense.”

  “Demons don't necessarily mean satanic ritual.” The headache roared, and she rubbed her temple. “There's a school of magic which considers demons the darker parts of oneself. The magician must wrestle with and control his own darkness within to gain power.”

  “But that's not what happened here,” Long argued. “The Satanist killed someone else.”

  “I'm just saying there are other options besides a Satanic cult.” Riga sketched lines across her grid. “And this doesn't appear to be the work of one, though I'll grant you it's evil.”

  “So what have you got?” Short asked, peering over her elbow at her journal.

  “Nwryk.”

  “What does it mean?” Short asked.

  “I'll have to look up the name. You can if you want – it's probably online somewhere. Once we know what demands the demon can grant, you'll have a better idea of your killer's motivation. But according to the literature, demons can specialize in multiple areas. We may not be able to narrow it down to just one motive.”

  Dirk snorted. “Specializing demons. What we need is good old-fashioned police work. The sort real cops specialize in.”

  Long shook his head. “He's right. If anyone with an Internet connection can figure this out, we're not much farther ahead.”

  Riga bit back a retort. Hadn't they heard of profiling? “There is one person you might want to talk to. He was at the restaurant when the hoodoo hit man was killed.”

  “Not that again,” Dirk said.

  “And he's an occult practitioner. He would know about this.”

  Long cocked his head. “Who?”

  She gave him the name.

  “We'll check him out,” Short said.

  The tendons in Riga's neck loosened.

  She knelt beside the chalk circle, drawing her finger through it. The chalk resisted, oily on her fingertip.

  “Hey!” Dirk said. “You're not supposed to touch anything.”

  She rubbed her fingers together and sniffed. Her nostrils burned. She rose, dizzy. “This isn't regular chalk. Have you analyzed it?”

  Short knelt, mimicking her movement. He looked up at his partner. “She's right. There's something off about this chalk. We can send it to CSI and check the local occult shops.”

  “Might want to check hardware stores too,” Riga said. “It could be roach chalk.”

  Short rubbed his fingers on his slacks. “Damn.”

  “Hoodoo practitioners use it for crossing spells,” Riga said.

  “You saying this is hoodoo now?” Dirk asked, stepping too close, looming over her. “A minute ago it was necromancy.”

  Riga ground her teeth. “I'm saying someone should analyze the damn chalk.”

  Dirk's breath was one hundred proof. She took an involuntary step backward, into the circle.

  Nausea hit her, a swirling darkness, rotting garbage and blood. Dark magic called her, doubling her over. She pressed a hand to her mouth, gagging.

  “I told you she couldn't handle it,” Dirk said. “What, are you pregnant or something?”

  Her face spasmed. “Something.” She brushed past him, unexpected tears pricking her eyes. Chest heaving, she strode into the foyer.

  Creep. She braced her hand on the entry molding, inhaled deeply.

  The spell subsided, its pull on her lessening. Death magic was her inheritance, but she couldn't touch it. It affected her badly, an addiction.

  But the pregnancy comment knifed her core. On the wrong side of forty, her chances of bearing a child were slim. There were drugs, and there was adoption.

  But...

  She rubbed her arms. Masculine laughter drifted from the octagonal room. She dragged her finger along the burn scarring the wallpaper. Dark magic rippled through her, a pleasant and terrible prickling of her skin.

  The fight had begun here.

  The hanged man, Franklin Turotte, had lost. Had the Old Man been the winner?

  Wolfe joined her in the foyer, his camera pointed at the floor. “You okay?”

  She schooled her expression. “Fine. Just needed some air.”

  “Yeah, it's stuffy in there.”

  A movement by the wrought-iron fence caught her attention.

  A young man laid his hand on the fence and gazed at the house. He was black – late teens or early twenties, though everyone was looking younger and younger to her these days. Close-cropped hair. Lanky, he wore sagging jeans that looked way too hot for a New Orleans summer. His spectacles glinted in the sunlight, and Riga blinked, looked away. When she looked again, he was still there. His muscles were rigid, hand clamped on the fence, mouth tight, lips turned down.

  Riga started for the front door.

  “What?” Wolfe asked.

  “I need to talk to someone.” Riga flung open the door and raced to the edge of the porch.

  He'd vanished.

  She hurried down the steps to the sidewalk. The streets were empty.

  He could have been a passing tourist. The house was big and lovely and eminently photographable. But he hadn't had a camera. And he hadn't looked like a tourist, except for those uncomfortable jeans.

  She returned with Wolfe to the house, lingering in the foyer, unwilling to rejoin the others.

  “Everything okay?” Wolfe asked.

  “Perfect.”

  Chapter 7

  Promising to meet the Encounters team later, Riga took a cab to the hoodoo queen's shop, Hoodo
o and Hexes, in the French Quarter.

  She paused outside the brick building. The front door's paint was peeling. It stood open, cool air blasting from it, fluttering her hair and her loose, linen khakis. In front of the bar next door, an older and younger woman sat in a shady patch on the sidewalk, arguing.

  “I told you, I don't want to go,” the young one snapped. Her hair was lank, her makeup smeared.

  “It's for your grandmother. Why are you being so damned selfish?”

  “I’m not being selfish. You’re being selfish.”

  A homeless man in a stained jacket watched from the street. He made a hugging gesture. “Just love each other!”

  Riga shook her head. If only it was that easy. She stepped inside the hoodoo shop, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. The shop was empty, its black-painted shelves cluttered with spelled candles and boxes of powders and vials of oil.

  Hannah looked up from behind a glass counter. Running a finger inside the fold of her red turban, she tucked it more tightly. “Riga Hayworth. Don't tell me you want me back for more shooting?”

  “No, this is personal.” Riga walked to a bookshelf, running her fingers along the spines. “I need to know more.”

  “Advanced studies, chère?”

  “Hoodoo hit men.”

  “You won't find one of them in those books.”

  Riga smiled. “Ever heard of one? Can someone hoodoo a victim to death?”

  “Anything's possible. Magic is a powerful force.”

  “But for murder, I'd imagine it would take an exceptionally powerful practitioner or an exceptionally weak victim.”

  Hannah's brow rose. “Like a Hoodoo Queen?”

  “The hit man was a man, and he had a gun. But I found this in my room.” Bracing one hip against the counter, she pulled her cell phone from her satchel. Riga found the photo of the marks in her hotel room, and laid it on the counter. Beneath the glass lay a leather-bound tome, a crude knife, and a ceramic bowl on red velvet.

  Hannah checked the phone, her full lips pursing. “Nasty. That's a crossing spell. Looks like the caster used goofer dust – graveyard dirt and magic.”

  Riga nodded. She'd been right then.

  “Whether it could kill or not depends on the practitioner,” Hannah said, “and the victim. You think a hoodoo hit man did this? I've never heard of such a person.”

  “A man approached me yesterday at the restaurant, after you'd left. He claimed to be a hoodoo hit man. Someone killed him in the alley.”

  “That was the man who was killed?” She whistled. “And you found this crossing in your room... when?”

  “That evening.”

  “So you think he chalked your room then went to the restaurant to scare you, let you know you were in danger?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But not exactly?”

  Riga didn't respond.

  Hannah's nostrils flared. She smiled. “All right. I guess I owe you one after getting me on that show. No publicity is bad publicity, right?”

  “That's what they say.”

  Hannah looked around the store. It was still empty. “You need to talk to Grandpappy. He knows more about hoodoo than anyone I know, even more than me. But that's the first and last time I'll admit it.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “You can't. I'll take you to him.” She checked her watch. “I think it's time for lunch. And you're buying.”

  They walked down brick sidewalks, passing elegant homes painted pastel and flying rainbow flags, and crossed a street to a long white wall. A small pyramid at the entrance marked St. Louis Cemetery Number One. The gate stood open.

  They entered, and the sounds of the city faded away. But the sight of it remained, skyscrapers rising behind the cemetery walls. Riga wished she was inside one of those lovely air conditioned buildings, or better, that they'd gone to lunch first. She was parched.

  They walked down a narrow boulevard of hard-packed earth, between rows of white, above-ground tombs. Riga glanced at a tomb. Its chipped plaster exposed the red brick beneath. Chalk x's marked its sides. Before it, lay offerings of empty beer bottles and dirt-stained Mardi Gras beads and plastic flowers faded to pink.

  Hannah caught her look, and her lip curled. “They think it's Marie Laveau's tomb.”

  Marie Laveau, the famous New Orleans Voodoo Queen, still had her acolytes. Riga wiped her brow with the back of her hand. It came away glistening with sweat.

  There was a dull thunk, the sound of rock and against rock.

  Hannah angled her head toward the noise, her hoop earrings swinging. “That way.”

  They zigzagged between tombs, beneath a headless angel, kneeling, hands clasped to its still heart. Gray dirt and soot covered its knee and elbows, leprous.

  Turning, they walked down a path that ran along one of the whitewashed cemetery walls.

  An elderly black man in a faded denim shirt and sagging gray trousers stood beside a short obelisk. He hefted a brick from one pile to another. Tombstones lay crooked against the wall.

  “Hey, Grandpappy,” Hannah called.

  He straightened, arching his back. “Hannah, honey. What brings you to the cemetery this time of day? It's a little early to visit friend Marie.”

  She kissed his cheek. “And it's a little hot for you to be throwing bricks around, old man.”

  Riga's shoulders jerked in shock. Someday she'd be able to hear the phrase “old man” and not feel she was under attack. But not today.

  He looked at her, head tilted, eyes squinting. His hair was gray, tight against his head. “And I see you brought a friend.”

  “Grandpère, this is Riga Hayworth.”

  Riga extended her hand. “Hello.”

  His palm was calloused, rough and cool in hers. “Riga?” His laugh became a cough. “You one of those Rita Hayworth impersonators or something?”

  “No. My parents chose the name before I was born – a bad pun. Nature did the rest.”

  “Or the good Lord.”

  “Then He's got some sense of humor,” Riga said.

  “That He does. That He does. You look just like her though. Except the eyes. There's something different there.”

  Hannah tapped her sandaled foot. “It's a little hot to talk dead movie stars.”

  “Rita wasn't just any movie star.” He closed his eyes. “She was a goddess.”

  “Riga has a question about hoodoo.”

  His lashes flew open. They were gray and long. “A question you couldn't answer?”

  “A man approached me saying he was a hoodoo hit man,” Riga said. “And later when I got to my hotel, I found crossing marks beneath my bed.”

  “A quincunx pattern,” Hannah said.

  He turned back to the bricks, picked one up, tossed it aside. “You ladies don't mind if I keep working while I think on this? I want to get this pile shifted before lunch.”

  “Sure,” Riga said.

  “What did you do with it?” he asked.

  “With the goofer dust?” Riga asked. “Took a picture. Swept it up, cleaned the floor with salt water.”

  “That will purify the room, but you should purify yourself too. Light some white candles. Take a bath in hyssop herb.”

  “And the hit man?”

  “A hoodoo hit man? You asking if I know one, or if one could really exist?”

  “Both,” Riga said.

  “Most folks 'round here think hoodoo's trash, darkness. But it's got its spiritual side too.”

  “I think all magic has a spiritual element,” Riga said.

  “But hoodoo practitioners work with both hands,” he said. “You know what that means?”

  Riga nodded. “Dark and light magic.”

  “There are lots of forces we don't understand,” he said. “Powerful forces. Forces of the mind. Of the heart.”

  “So it's possible,” Riga said. “Have you ever heard of this hit man? He was white, mid-thirties to early forties.”

/>   His movements paused. “Was?”

  “He's dead now, murdered.”

  “If he's the one who crossed you, sounds like someone did you a favor.”

  “And if he's a hit man, someone hired him. The job's not done.”

  He dropped a brick into the pile. Wiping his hands on his pants, he turned to her. “New Orleans is a psychic port, and we get all sorts of visitors. Not all are friendly. Some you see coming. Some you don't. My advice to you is to leave this place. Get back to your home territory, your power place. Where you're strong.”

  “I don't think I can.”

  “You can do whatever you want,” he said. “You've got power too. I can feel it. So can Marie. She's watching, but she ain't taking sides. Not yet. She likes to win. She'll wait and see which way the wind's blowing.”

  “You make it sound like there's more going on.” Riga shifted, restless. She'd met magical practitioners before who'd spoken in circles and riddles. They usually did it because they were hiding something.

  “Conjure is powerful,” he said. “It brings out what's in your heart. You got darkness there, that's what comes. You need to take care.”

  “I’d like to believe most people are good,” Riga said.

  He laughed.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I want to believe it, but don’t.” Most people had black spots on their souls, a darkness kept from seeping out only by the constraints of society. She counted herself among those black-spotted people.

  He turned to Hannah. “You going to your mother's house for Sunday dinner? You missed the last one.”

  “I'll be there.” She kissed his cheek. “And get in the shade before you have a heart attack, you old fool.”

  He picked up a brick and chucked it into the pile.

  “Come on,” Hannah said.

  “Thanks,” Riga said.

  He nodded, and they walked away.

  “You need to make it right with your ancestors, girl,” he shouted.

  Hannah flipped her hand, dismissive. “Old fool!”

  They left the cemetery and headed back into the French Quarter. Its streets were quiet, the smart tourists staying cool indoors. “You get what you wanted, chère?”

  “He was a little vague.”