The Hoodoo Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

Chapter 9

  It wasn't her fault.

  Trudging up the brick walk, her legs dragged, weighted. The house stood two stories high, a cube sandwiched between two homes too close for Riga’s taste. Wrought iron balconies sheltered its faded green shutters. Police cars lined the street. In the fading twilight, their red and blue lights blazed a garish trail across the building's golden pink walls.

  A dead man waited inside. And somehow, the Old Man was involved. She'd pointed the police toward him, but they needed evidence, a connection.

  She had neither.

  The air, thick with dampness, gripped her, slowing her pace. She wiped her forehead, leaving a glossy trail of sweat and makeup on the back of her hand.

  “You look pale,” Dirk said, his bare arm brushing hers. “If you can't handle it, you don't have to go in.”

  “I can handle it.” She gathered energy from the above, below, and in between, imagined it hardening, a bubble-like shield around her. But guilt weakened her focus. She sensed the cracks.

  A man walked out the front door. Halting on the top step, he jammed a cigarette in his mouth, didn't light it. His five o'clock shadow was a dirty snowscape, flecked gray and white. He looked Riga over. “You the consultant?”

  She nodded. “Are you the man in charge?”

  “Yes ma'am,” he drawled.

  Long and Short shook hands with him. “Afternoon, Chief,” Short said.

  The chief glanced at the darkening sky. “Night's more like it.” He jabbed a finger at Riga and Dirk. “You two can come in. No cameras.”

  The field producers sputtered.

  “No cameras?” Sam asked.

  Dirk's forehead creased. “Without video, it's like it never happened.”

  “I wish it hadn't,” the chief said. Turning his back on them, he returned inside.

  Long shrugged. “You heard the man. No cameras. And no audio.”

  Riga unclipped the black box from the back of her waistband. Detaching the microphone from her blouse, she handed it to Angus.

  His round face wrinkled in a frown.

  Ash stepped forward.

  “And no extras.” Long glanced at Sam. “Stay out here with your client.” He followed the chief inside.

  The muscles bulged in Ash's neck and shoulders, and he opened his mouth to argue.

  Riga touched his arm. “It's okay,” she said beneath her breath. “The place is surrounded by cops.”

  “Cops don't prevent crime,” Ash said. “They're just the cleanup crew.”

  She shook her head.

  “Ladies first.” Dirk bowed, making an after-you motion with his hand.

  Dark magic, the scent of rot and blood, oozed through the front door. Her stomach roiled. A drop of sweat stung her eyes. She closed them, taking a breath, imagining the shield around her filling with golden light. The image faded, her shield splintering.

  This would be bad.

  “Having second thoughts?” Dirk asked.

  “None.” She walked inside and air conditioning blasted her, raising gooseflesh.

  In the distance, a dog barked in an endless, steady rhythm. The interior was modern, high-ceilinged, with glossy white walls and black furniture.

  Dark magic, sickly sweet, tugged at her, pulling her in all directions but the one she wanted – out the front door. She ached with a fever, felt a strong pull to her right. Feet leaden, she allowed herself to be drawn to a black-painted curio cabinet in the foyer. Metal implements, thumbscrews, a leather-bound Malleus Maleficarum – the witch hunter's bible – open to a woodcut of a woman on a pyre. The objects weren't magic, but they were cursed, haunted. She couldn't imagine keeping them in her house.

  “Okay,” Dirk said from behind her. “That's creepy as hell. What are those things?”

  The chief appeared at their elbow. “The victim collected this crap – old instruments of torture.”

  “Fun hobby,” Riga said.

  “Yeah.” The chief worried the unlit cigarette between his fleshy lips. “Well, it got him in the end. They tell you it was a decapitation?”

  She nodded.

  “I hear it's not your first.”

  Her shoulders twitched. There'd been another case, not quite a year ago. “You talked to the cops at Tahoe.”

  “It's the only reason you're here. This way.”

  He led them into a living room, black and white and red. For a moment, she thought a decorator had broken the monochrome color scheme, and then realized what she'd been resisting. Blood was splashed across the white walls and throw rug like a sick Jackson Pollock painting. Shiny spots of blood flecked the black leather couches. And in one corner stood a guillotine, the headless body of a man squatting behind it. Blood trailed across its blade.

  Her stomach turned over, lunch pushing its way up her throat. She looked up, struggling for control. Blood dripped from the vaulted ceiling.

  The dog kept barking.

  “A guillotine?” Dirk choked out. He looked as green as Riga felt.

  “It belonged to the victim,” the chief said.

  “Who is he?” she asked.

  “Jordan Marks. Trust fund baby. His head's over there.” He pointed.

  Riga forced herself forward. A black, side table sat against one wall. On it, black taper candles burned low. Had the killer brought them? Or were they part of the victim's decorating scheme?

  She took in the details, trying to separate them from the whole, trying not to look at the head centered between the candles. Blood pooled around the severed neck, and tarot cards had been laid in a circle around it. Symbols had been painted in blood on the cards.

  “These are the same symbols as those from the prior murder,” Riga said.

  “You said they spelled out a demon's name,” Short said. “Is it the same?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Nwyrk. According to my research, he grants power – physical, magical, social.”

  “So our murderer is killing for power?” Short asked. “Why'd he cut this one's head off?”

  “I don't know,” she said. Changing methods like this was unusual. “Necromancers use skulls and bones in their rituals to strengthen their connection with the dead.”

  “Why would you want one?”

  “A connection? Traditionally, necromancy was used for divination, supposing the dead knew more than the living. But in its darker forms, the dead, or death, is used to power a magical spell. To give it force.” She was babbling. The murder had unnerved her.

  Her fault.

  The phone in her pocket buzzed. She grabbed it, turning to read the text, glad for the excuse to look away. Donovan had arrived. Some of the tension in her shoulders released.

  “Problem?” Dirk asked.

  “No.” She turned to Dirk and the detective. “Was this man at the restaurant yesterday when the hoodoo hit man was killed?” If he was, they could stop this. Find the other wealthy New Orleans locals who'd been there, set up protection...

  “No,” Short said. “I checked on the way over. It was a good idea though.”

  “What restaurant?” the Chief asked. Long explained in a low voice.

  “And the tarot cards?” Short asked. “What do they mean?”

  “In this case, I suspect they represent the planets, sun and moon. When used in Magic, tarot cards can be used to create a miniature altar of sorts. Each card has a correspondence with a planet or sign in the zodiac. In this case, the killer used only cards from the Major Arcana, and these all represent planets.”

  “I don't get it,” Dirk said.

  Dark magic coiled around her, crept up her spine, curled around her throat. It seemed to come from everywhere, the floor, the walls, the table, the guillotine. Dark magic had been done here, tar seeping into the foundations of the house, tentacles dragging at her.

  The dog howled.

  Her barrier wasn’t protecting her. Riga’s chest tightened, throat thickening. A barrier was simple magic. She shouldn't have to work to keep it in place.

 
She swallowed her rising gorge. “I don't understand why he did it either. I'm just telling you what they mean. The cards selected all represent planets. For example, the Tower card represents Mars, which corresponds to the qualities of aggression, action, initiative. Astrological magic like this dates back to the Renaissance. Beyond, actually. Magicians have been looking to the heavens for guidance and inspiration since the dawn of recorded history.” Babbling. But she needed to show value if they were going to keep her in the loop. The objects in the hall were the sort of things a dark magician might keep. “Have you found evidence that this man was involved in the occult?”

  “No magic wands yet,” the chief said.

  “What about daggers? Daggers, or athames, can be used for the same purpose.”

  He sighed. “This guy collected all sorts of weird crap. I guess that's what happens when you don't have to work for a living.”

  “Mind if I look around the rest of the house?” she asked.

  “As long as you don't touch anything and don't go alone.” He jerked his chin toward Long, who nodded.

  She darted a glance at the body beside the guillotine, shuddered, and hurried from the room. The relief was immediate, a pressure dropping from her shoulders. But the cursed objects in the hallway pulled, an underlying nausea.

  “What are we looking for?” Long asked.

  “Evidence that this victim was a magical practitioner.”

  Dirk clomped behind them. “Why do you think he would be?”

  “The objects in the curio cabinet, the guillotine – they're not occult, but—”

  “But the guy was bent.” Dirk's eyes narrowed, and she imagined him thinking up a new one-liner for the occasion. “You lie down with the devil, you wake up in hell,” he muttered, as if trying it out.

  Riga stumbled into a TV room. The couches were white, curving. A zebra-print carpet covered the hardwood floor. She caught a flash of the carpet rolled back, a chalk circle and pentagram on the floor. People holding candles, wearing hooded, black robes.

  Kneeling, Riga flipped the carpet back.

  The floor was clean.

  Dirk laughed. “No magic wand there, either.”

  And she didn't feel dark magic, just that miasma from the cursed objects in the house. If her vision had been correct, she should have felt traces of the ceremony.

  A long howl pierced the air, thumping, a crash. A giant dog charged into the room, snarling, a line of fur on its back raised. Its hair was short and red. Its lips pulled back, revealing long, white canines.

  Dirk leapt backward. “Nice doggy.”

  The detective drew his gun.

  “DOWN,” Riga said.

  The dog dropped to the carpet, whimpering.

  Slowly, Long lowered his gun. “Are you a dog whisperer too?”

  A uniformed cop, red-faced and puffing, ran into the room, gun drawn. “He got away from me. He...” He stared at the dog. “Is that the same dog?”

  Riga stood. “Come.”

  The animal rose. Legs shaking, head and tail low, he walked to her, pressed the top of his head against her hip.

  She ruffled his fur. “The victim's dog?”

  “Yeah,” the uniform huffed. “We think so. He was locked in the kitchen.”

  “A witness to your master's murder, and now your house is full of strangers. I'd say that's a good reason to be upset.” She stroked its neck, and the dog's trembling subsided.

  “I'll take him.” The cop looped his beefy fingers through the dog's collar and led him out the door.

  “Well, that was exciting,” Dirk said. “What next?”

  She moved to a glass-fronted cabinet and stretched her hand to it.

  “No touching,” Long said.

  Riga grimaced, rubbing the back of her neck. She knew better.

  The detective snapped on a pair of gloves. “Allow me.” Opening the cabinets, he revealed rows of paperbacks. Mary Shelley. Conan Doyle. Laurence Durrell.

  “No Necromancy for Dummies?” Dirk braced his hands on his knees and bent, watching the detective.

  “Looks like ordinary stuff.” Long ran gloved hands along the book's spines, tilted one forward, looked behind it, put it back. He picked up a rusted, two-pronged implement. “What's this for?”

  Her head spun. Despair and fear and pain washed through her. She had to get out. Her magical barricade wasn't holding. It should have been simple, but she couldn't focus.

  Dirk peered at the instrument. “I think I saw something like that in the London Dungeon. It was used for torture.”

  She tried to tell them to put it away, but the words clotted her throat. She trembled.

  Out, out, out.

  And then the sense of sliding doors, reality shifting beneath her. A lurch, a pull. Her knees buckled, hit cold brick. She gasped, stared at her hands spread wide, at the narrow bands of moss between the bricks. A warm breeze tickled the back of her neck. Water splashed nearby.

  She looked up. She was on all fours in a walled garden. Lights from a gray-painted house lit the garden, dim in the twilight. A long shadow slanted from a fountain at the convergence of four brick paths.

  Hannah's grandfather sat on its ledge, mouth open, staring, a sandwich in his hand. “Well,” he said. “That was unexpected.”

  She lurched to standing, glancing around. She'd been in the air-conditioned house, and then... Beads of sweat broke upon her brow. Had she blacked out? “Wh— what are you doing here?”

  “Working. This may come as a surprise, but being a caretaker in a cemetery doesn't exactly set a body up for retirement. What are you doing here?”

  “I think... escaping.”

  “It's not a bad place for that.” He reached for something small and flat beside him, tossed it to her.

  She caught it with two hands, fumbling in the darkened garden. It was a rusted skeleton key, clotted with dirt. She brushed it off.

  “Found it while I was digging in the garden,” he said.

  “Why are you giving it to me?”

  He rose slowly, his joints cracking. “Next time, use a key, girl!” He shambled past her. “Bustin' in like you own the place. Gate's that a-way.” He pointed toward a wrought iron gate.

  Blue and red lights flashed through it. The murder victim's house loomed next door. Techno music thumped from Bourbon Street, several blocks away.

  Riga pocketed the key. Dazed, she walked to the gate and paused, one hand on the latch. She checked her watch. Riga wasn't sure what time she'd first gone inside the crime scene and didn't know how much time had elapsed since she'd “left.” The sun dipped low on the horizon, its beams scalding the mansard rooftops. So it couldn't have been long – a few moments, at most.

  She scrubbed her hands across her face. Lost time? A fairy abduction? Had she passed out? Lost her mind and somehow wandered out here? But she was alone, and if she'd left through the front door, Ash would surely have followed.

  The only entrances to the garden were the gate and the patio doors from the neighboring house. No entrance from the Tuscan-colored house next door, where a man lay, decapitated by his own guillotine.

  She stepped outside, letting the garden gate squeal shut behind her.

  Slowly, she walked back to the murder house. Ash, arms folded across his broad chest, stood beside Sam and Wolfe on the walk outside. The Mean Streets team was nowhere in sight.

  The closer Riga got to the house, the more she felt she was pushing through molasses, sticky, heavy, sweet. “Hi, guys.” Her voice cracked.

  Sam jerked, spun. “Riga! Where's Dirk? What happened in there?”

  Wolfe whirled, pressed the video camera to his eye. A red light flashed on the machine.

  “I was wrong,” she said. “I can't handle it. I need to go back to the hotel.”

  “You don't look so good.” Angus's moon face crinkled. “I can take you back to the hotel if you want.”

  “Whoa,” Sam said. “First we need a debrief.”

  “I'll tell you everything
,” she said. “Later. Please.”

  “I guess we can do that.” Sam's lips pursed. “What's—”

  A howl broke the still air. The dog burst from the front door and flew at Riga, knocking her to the ground.

  Something cracked, shattered.

  “Sniper!” Ash bellowed, grabbing Riga by the collar of her blouse. He pitched her onto her back behind a low hedge. “Everyone down.” He kicked over a concrete bench. It leaned against the box hedge, forming a shield. Ash flattened himself on top of her.

  She couldn't draw breath. His weight crushed the air from her lungs. She gripped his shoulders. The dog lay beside them both, its brown eyes looking worried.

  Ash raised himself slightly off her, and Riga sucked in a gulp of air.

  “If I tell you not to move, will you stay here?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She gasped. “What—”

  “Stay here.” Ash moved, swift, silent, a wraith.

  She rolled to her side, trying to track his movements, but he disappeared from her line of sight. Her pulse sped, her breath coming in short gasps. A sniper?

  The dog nudged her shoulder. She looped her arm over him.

  “Riga?” Sam called.

  “I'm fine.” Her voice trembled. “You?”

  “We're okay. Wolfe, go to her.”

  “No,” she said. “Don't move.” Turning her head, she stared at the roots of the box hedge digging into the soft earth.

  Wolfe stuck his head around the corner of the shrubbery. He lurched toward her in an awkward three-point crawl, one hand still bracing the camera on his shoulder and eye. “What's going on?”

  Chapter 10

  Ash extended his hand to Riga, pulling her upright. A sliver of moon crested the two-story home across the street. The flashing blue and red lights from the police cars painted the street.

  “He got away,” Ash said.

  Cops strode about, full of purpose.

  Long approached them. “See anything?”

  She rested her hand on the dog, panting beside her. “No, but Wolfe was filming. He may have some footage.”

  “What were you doing outside?” he asked.

  “Just getting some air, talking to the crew.”

  Another cop knelt beside the doorframe and flicked open a pocket knife.