The Hoodoo Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

  They parked several blocks away from the hit man’s house. Hand-in-hand, they strolled past Victorian mansions and gardens scented with roses and fringe trees, greenish white flowers dripping from their branches.

  Ash paced behind them. “You're seriously going to break into a place in broad daylight?”

  Pulling in her energies, Riga cast a cloaking spell over the three. “I don't plan on breaking anything.”

  “It’s not legal. You might be better if you waited in the car,” Donovan said. They'd switched to an SUV, and Donovan insisted on driving.

  “I can't protect you from the car.”

  “We'll be fine,” Riga said.

  Ash snorted.

  “There it is.” Riga pointed to the ombre-painted Victorian, its porch overflowing with potted plants.

  Donovan paused, his hand on the iron gate, and whistled. “Not a bad line of work if he could afford that place.”

  “He said I was worth a quarter million.”

  “An offensively low price,” Donovan said.

  “That's what I thought,” Riga said.

  Donovan swung open the gate, holding it for her, then brushed his palm off on his slacks. The dust left a streak on the black fabric.

  “Hold it.” Ash strode in front of them and stopped, cocking his head. “I hear someone.”

  “Where?” Donovan asked in a low voice.

  Ash pointed to the side of the house. A high brick wall crawling with ivy screened the house from its neighbors. The bodyguard jogged across the yard, peering around the corner of the house.

  There was a sound of metal scraping on wood, and a dull thunk.

  Donovan lengthened his strides, catching up with the bodyguard, leaving Riga behind. The men rounded the house. Ash shouted.

  Riga broke into a run, fearful of losing sight of Donovan. She turned the corner, brushing past a potted palm.

  A slim, black man scrambled over a brick wall. Ash vaulted after him, dropping out of sight.

  Donovan paused, head tilted, then took off down the other side of the house.

  Turning on her heel, Riga raced back the way she'd come, meeting Donovan at the front gate.

  He blasted through it, coming to a halt in the middle of the street, his chest heaving. A figure grew smaller in the distance. Ash appeared at Riga's side.

  She jumped. “Augh! Where did you come from?”

  “I thought it might have been a trick to draw me away, so I let him go. We shouldn't have left the hotel without more protection.”

  “More?” Riga said. “How many bodyguards do we need? I can't conduct an investigation surrounded by staff.”

  A window scraped open above them, and a tousled, feminine head popped out. “Everything all right down there?”

  Riga waved. “We thought we saw someone breaking in.”

  “Land sakes, I'll call the police.” The woman pulled back, disappeared.

  Riga exhaled slowly. And now there was no way they'd get into the hoodoo hit man's house. Her cloaking spell hadn't survived a loud chase (not that she'd expected it would), and the cops were on their way. Cops she didn't want to explain herself to.

  Donovan glanced at her. “Let's get out of here.”

  They ambled back to the black rental SUV.

  “I think I recognized him,” she said. “He looked like the same guy outside Turotte's house when I was there with the TV crews.”

  Ash retrieved a mirror on an extendable metal pole and checked under the cars for bombs. He nodded, and Donovan handed her into the car.

  “We'll catch him,” Donovan said.

  “How? We can't stake out the house.” She snapped on the passenger side seatbelt.

  Donovan and Ash jockeyed for the driver's seat. Donovan won. Grimacing, Ash got into the back.

  “Technically,” Donovan said, “we could if we use that private investigation agency.”

  He started the car.

  In spite of the bomb check, the space between her shoulder blades tightened.

  Chapter 18

  “This isn't my favorite stakeout.” Adjusting his sunglasses, Donovan took a swig of his whiskey.

  An overhead fan stirred Riga's hair. “It's not a stakeout. It's multitasking.” Phone to her ear, she watched the Old Man's hotel across the street.

  She'd been calling “collectors” she knew – people who collected cursed and haunted objects. Jordan Marks's collection of occult objects had been extensive, and he'd gotten it from somewhere. So far she hadn't found his supplier, but at least now there would be people in the wings, ready to scoop up the objects and cleanse them before they fell into the wrong hands.

  But the one conversation she wanted to have eluded her. Pen still wasn't returning her calls.

  “We're in a bar,” Riga said. “There's food. Drink. A bathroom. If this were a stakeout, it would be primo.”

  Ash and another member of their security detail sat at a nearby table, sipping mineral water.

  “It's exposed,” Donovan said. “It may be easy to watch the Old Man's hotel, but it's also easy for someone to watch you.” After a long moment, he said, “But I knew you weren't a shrinking violet when I married you.”

  “Brigitte was right about one thing. The last few days have been all about me, me, me. You never told me what happened in Macau.”

  “Nothing happened. Macau was boring without you. No high speed car chases. No fisticuffs.”

  “Fisticuffs? And you're complaining about my stakeout?”

  “Also, man cannot live on Crazy Cat videos alone.”

  Riga laughed, relieved the video was receding to a joke. “Seriously. What happened in Macau?”

  “The negotiations went well. I was just wrapping things up when you called. And by the way, New Orleans hasn't been about just you. It's been about us.”

  “Donovan...”

  The Old Man's nurse emerged from the hotel. Squinting, she shielded her eyes with her broad hand, and strode down the sidewalk. Her blue nurse's shirt and slacks swished loosely about her.

  “That's his nurse,” Riga said. “Let's go.”

  They trailed her to a pharmacy on the edge of the French Quarter, Ash and the other bodyguard close behind. Out of her peripheral vision, she watched the nurse at the pharmacist's counter. Riga tried on a pair of reading glasses.

  “Mm. I like,” Donovan said. “The sexy librarian look.”

  “Shh!”

  “That's what I'm talking about.”

  The nurse paid and moved away from the counter.

  Riga whirled, bumping into her. “Oh! I'm sorry.”

  “It's okay.” The nurse frowned. “Don't I know you?”

  “I'm Riga Hayworth. And this is my husband, Donovan Mosse. I visited your patient a few evenings ago.”

  “Of course! I don't think we were properly introduced. I'm June Mahe.” She shook their hands, engulfing Riga's. Her grip was strong, warm. “The Old Man's said so much about you.” June flushed. “Sorry. That was disrespectful. Somehow I've gotten in the habit of thinking of him that way.”

  “I do too.” Riga laughed. “Have you worked for him long?”

  “A month. This trip to New Orleans came up, and since I've never been here before, I was happy to come along. This city seems to have done him a world of good.”

  “And is it just you?” Donovan asked. “I can't imagine doing your job twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

  “It's not so hard. Since we've arrived, he's been sleeping like the dead, and that means I get to sleep. You have no idea what it's like when you have to wake up every hour to attend someone... or maybe you do? Do you have children?”

  Riga's lungs squeezed, dull heaviness pressing upon them. “No.” She smiled brightly.

  “Not yet.” Donovan took her hand, and Riga felt worse. She was failing both of them.

  “Babies are louder,” June said, “but they're easier to manage. More portable.”

  “Caring for an adult must be challenging,” Riga
said. “Do you get time off?”

  “A local company spells me so I get weekends off. But I should be getting back. It was nice seeing you both.” She turned to leave.

  Centering herself, Riga reached for the in-between. The energy was there and not there, cool, powerful. She flicked it forward, and the nurse's paper bag tore. Pill bottles spilled out, ricocheting across the stained linoleum.

  Riga knelt for one, and gave the second a mental nudge, rolling it toward Donovan's polished, black shoes.

  He picked it up, glancing at it, and handed it to June. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you!” She took Riga's proffered bottle, jamming it in her purse. “And now I really should go.” But she hesitated. “He talks about you, you know. I think it would mean a lot to him if you visited again.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Riga said.

  “He likes to have breakfast on Moon Walk – beignets and coffee and watching the river go by. We're usually there around seven.” The nurse nodded and hurried off.

  They watched her leave, then Donovan bent his head to his phone. “I presume you wanted me to get the name of the drug.”

  Riga dug her phone out of her satchel and ran a quick Internet search for Levodopa, the name on the bottle she'd grabbed. “Mine is used for Parkinsons patients. Yours?”

  “Same.”

  “He's thorough, though I'd expect no less.”

  “Thorough?”

  “The drugs, the wheelchair, the nurse – they all make him appear too feeble to commit murder.”

  He looked at her sideways. “I agree that his appearance here is too coincidental. But it is possible he's ill.” Hand on her arm, he steered her outside.

  The heat hit her like a wave. “Less than six months ago, he kicked my metaphysical butt. There aren't many people who could pull off the level of magic I felt at the murder scenes. He’s one.”

  “Your aunts are two more.” He stepped off the sidewalk, letting a middle-aged couple dressed as pirates swagger past.

  “Do you really think they're capable of that kind of violence?”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  “But?”

  “But your aunts were out of your life for a long time. You only learned they were necromancers recently. There may be a lot about them we don't know.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek, not liking that he might be right. “He's in New Orleans for a reason.”

  They passed a zydeco band playing on the sidewalk. Donovan tossed some bills in their metal tip bucket.

  “I suggest we send June's name to that investigative firm, let them run a background check. And I think it's time we had them doing a check on the murder victims. The morning paper had an article on the murders – the request won’t violate your confidentiality agreement.”

  She nodded. “You're right. Thanks. It's a better use of our time if they run the background checks while we talk to the suspects.”

  “You have someone in mind?”

  “Dirk. He knew one of the victims, and he kept his mouth shut about it. I want to know why.”

  “Any idea where he might be?”

  “Most likely with the Mean Streets team.” She tapped her phone and handed it to him. A red dot blinked on a map of New Orleans. “I had Brigitte put a tracker on their van.”

  “You brought a tracker to New Orleans?”

  Her cheeks warmed. “It's a new toy.”

  “And useful. Is it legal?”

  She threaded her arm through his. “A question we only have to worry about if we get caught.”

  The Mean Streets van was parked behind a line of police cars, their lights flashing. Circling the block, Donovan found a space in front of a two-story villa overgrown with vines.

  Trailed by their protection detail, they walked to the crime scene. Yellow tape roped off a white, double-gallery house with black trim. The two-story was raised on brick piers and set well back from the street, surrounded by a green lawn and a simple iron fence. Its covered galleries were framed by columns.

  Riga leaned against the Mean Streets van and crossed her arms. Cops hurrying by glanced at them, but didn't shoo them away.

  “More of your cloaking?” Donovan asked. “The cops are letting us get close.”

  “We're behind the police tape, and as far as I know, I'm still an honorary part of the Mean Streets team.” But they hadn't called her to this crime. Because it wasn't an occult murder?

  Closing her eyes, she extended her senses toward the house. Dark magic coiled from it, stinking of rotting garbage. Electricity surged through her nerve endings, and she flinched. “Another murder by dark magic.”

  Donovan's brows lowered into a slash.

  Two uniformed men wheeled out a stretcher with a black body bag atop it. The stretcher hit a raised piece of walk. Swearing, one of the men rammed it over the break. The stretcher toppled, the bag and its contents thudding to the ground. The body slipped from the unzipped bag, an arm spilling out.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Donovan said. “Who are these jokers?”

  Zipping the bag, the men righted the stretcher and heaved the body onto it. Riga rubbed her brow, suddenly glad she wasn’t a part of this crime scene.

  They loaded the body into the coroner’s truck, slammed the doors.

  Donovan shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

  Thirty minutes later, Dirk and his crew emerged from the house.

  Donovan straightened off the van.

  “Let me handle Dirk,” Riga said quickly. “My authority is low enough as it is.”

  Muttering beneath his breath, Donovan subsided.

  Lounging against the van, she caught his gaze. Dirk's steps slowed.

  Riga's smile was brittle. “Hi, Dirk. What's going on?”

  “Can't really talk about it.” He reached for the passenger side door.

  “There are a lot of things you've neglected to mention, like your relationship to victim number three, Muriel Erickson.”

  Dirk froze, dropped his hand.

  “So the police don't know about it,” she said flatly.

  “Maybe we should go somewhere more private,” Donovan said.

  Dirk grimaced. “Hold on.” He went to speak to the cameraman, his voice too low for Riga to hear.

  The cameraman looked at her, eyes widening. Dropping his gaze, he nodded.

  Dirk returned to Riga and Donovan, crossed his arms over his chest. “Where do you want to go?”

  “There's a restaurant and bar not far from here,” Donovan said.

  “Lead the way.”

  They walked along the buckled sidewalk, passing tourists snapping photos of the gates to an old, high-walled cemetery.

  “That's Lafayette Cemetery Number Two,” Dirk said.

  “We don't need a travelogue,” Donovan growled.

  He shrugged. “Just making conversation.”

  It was well past lunch, and the restaurant was quiet. They settled themselves around a table in the bar area and ordered drinks.

  “I guess you want to know why I didn't call you about the crime scene,” Dirk said.

  “That is odd, since you asked Sam for me to stay.” Riga's fingers drummed the tablecloth. “But I'm more interested in the crime scene. What happened?”

  “Same weird occult shit. This time the victim was shot in the head. A guy named Rodney Pinkerton.”

  “Was Rodney a practicing occultist?”

  “Looks that way. We found books of magic and wands and that funny knife.... What did you call it?”

  “An athame,” Riga said.

  “Yeah. That. You were right about the occult connection between the victims. The cops went back to Turotte's and found a skull and other stuff. They think it's some sort of breakthrough.”

  “So I'm no longer needed,” Riga said.

  “I thought you didn't care about the show?” Dirk said.

  “I care about the murders.”

  “Why didn't you mention you knew one of the victims?
” Donovan asked.

  Dirk spread his hands. “Why would I? I've got nothing to do with this. I didn't know Muriel was into the occult.”

  The waitress placed a whiskey before Donovan, set Dirk up with a beer. Riga had iced tea. Perhaps it was the heat, but alcohol tasted strange to her lately. The bodyguards, at a separate table, drank mineral water.

  “Tell us about Muriel,” Donovan said.

  Dirk ran his hand through his hair, glinting with moisture. “She helped me make connections when I first moved to New Orleans. But.... She didn't have a good vibe, so I left.”

  “Good vibe?” Riga snorted.

  “I believe in following my instincts.”

  Donovan gazed into his whiskey. “What did your instincts tell you about Muriel?”

  “She was a little, ah....” His gaze slid to Riga. “Kinky. Don't get me wrong. I'm all live and let live. But she had a stone cold crazy streak, you know?”

  “No.” Riga sipped her tea. It tasted soapy. She put it down.

  Dirk leaned forward. “She was one of those, what do you call 'em, nihilists.”

  Riga raised a brow. “You’ve been reading the dictionary.”

  “Oh, you’re funny. I mean no one was real to her, just pawns on a chess board. If she wasn't dead herself, I'd figure her for the killer. She'd probably get a kick out of that sort of thing.”

  “We'd hoped for more concrete information,” Donovan said. “But since you can't provide it, we’ll go to the police station and you can tell them about Muriel.”

  Riga gulped her glass of ice water. It tasted metallic, and she wrinkled her nose. She couldn't wait to get back to Tahoe, where the water was pure.

  “Fine,” Dirk said. “Orgies. Are you happy?”

  Riga choked on her water.

  Donovan smacked her on the back. “You attended?”

  “Hell, no. When I realized what was going on, I left. Getting caught would have been too risky for my image.”

  Riga coughed into a napkin, her throat burning. “I noticed a cameraman went inside the house with you today.”

  “Yeah?” Dirk's eyes narrowed.

  “I want to see that video.”

  “Are you kidding? Do you know what we had to go through to get a cameraman inside? I'm not even sure if we can use the footage – the D.A.'s office has to sign off on everything.”