The Book of the Unwinding

by J. D. Horn

  “It’s gone too cool out there now,” she said. “Alligators won’t be feeding.”

  The beam of his flashlight darted to her feet. “Well, hell,” he said, rising. “You know that, and I know that, but this here bibitte probably didn’t.”

  Evangeline laughed despite herself.

  “So, we’re not gonna steal his magic,” Lincoln said, the statement meandering back and forth between a confirmation and a question, “and we’re not gonna strip him for spare parts.”

  “No, and we’re also not feeding him to the cocodries.” She stretched the word out. It felt at home on her tongue. She’d spent so long running from her background, it felt good to reclaim at least a shred of it.

  “’Course not. Might make the gators sick.” He looked down at Celestin, studying him like a school boy examining a bug. “Okay, then, what are we gonna do with him?”

  Evangeline had already come to her decision. She couldn’t trust Fleur with the choice. Fleur would gorge on her father’s dark power, ruining herself to save her daughter. That was reason enough to protect the woman from herself, but it wasn’t the only one. As much as Evangeline hated to admit it, soon it might be her turn to go to Fleur for help. There was only one thing to do. “The man spent years judging me. I’m gonna see to it that the favor is returned.”

  Lincoln turned the light on his face to illuminate his exaggerated confusion. He shook his head. “Would you mind elucidating?”

  “He’s guilty of probably a thousand different crimes.” She knelt beside Celestin and tapped his nose with her finger. “You and I are going to see to it that he gets his day in court.”

  SIXTEEN

  “You could see this place from space,” Lucy said as Fleur pulled up to Nicholas’s house.

  Her daughter was given to youthful exaggeration, but she did have a point. Every light in the house had been turned on.

  There were not one, but two police cars parked in front of Nicholas’s house. Each had a uniformed officer behind the wheel. Two houses down sat a familiar-looking black SUV, but those things all looked alike to Fleur. Maybe it was an unmarked police vehicle.

  “Nothing screams ‘nothing to see here’ like bathing yourself in six million watts.”

  “Daniel is nervous.” Fleur was a bit nervous herself.

  “And acting like he’s got something to hide.”

  Fleur shifted into park and killed the engine. “He was the last to see Astrid. Maybe he does.” She’d started the statement as a joke, but by the time it was halfway past her lips, she had begun to consider the possibility. There wasn’t much that would astonish her anymore—other than the alacrity at which the unimaginable could become the everyday. Still, it gave Fleur pause that Astrid’s body had been right here in New Orleans the entire time she’d been missing.

  Astrid had disappeared almost twenty years ago. Everyone assumed she’d taken to the Dreaming Road, but that assumption might have been false. Maybe Demagnan had discovered her physical body after she’d separated her consciousness from it, or maybe he’d killed her. Either could be the case, although the police wouldn’t even entertain the first possibility.

  Lucy laughed as she opened her door. “Yeah. Right. Daniel.”

  In unison, the uniformed officers turned in their respective seats and leaned down to get a better look at Fleur and Lucy as they started down the walk. Simple curiosity or suspicion? Did they suspect that Demagnan might have accomplices?

  Lucy went ahead of her, but stopped at the already ajar door. Fleur joined her, wondering if they should knock first or slip in unannounced, but the door swung all the way open before Fleur could do either. Daniel met them in the foyer, a tray of finger sandwiches balanced on his hand.

  “Ah, here,” Daniel called at top voice over his shoulder. “Here’s someone who can help you.” Then, in a low whisper, he added, “What took you so long? The detectives want someone to go with them to identify the body.” Daniel pulled an exaggerated wide-eyed face, Fleur was sure, to remind her that he couldn’t even make it past the sidewalk without being snapped right back into the house.

  “I’m surprised there is a body to identify,” Lucy said. “It’s been like a hundred years, right?” Her math might be insulting, but she had a point. Astrid had disappeared long ago. It seemed she should have crumbled to dust and bone by now.

  Daniel’s comical look turned to a grimace. “Well, Mrs. Marin always was a well-preserved woman.” He turned on his heel and headed into Nicholas’s formal sitting room. Fleur followed the anxious servitor, with Lucy on her heels.

  A barrel-chested plainclothes detective sat on the edge of an antique settee, clutching a small, delicate china plate between his thick fingers. He looked like a prize fighter who’d been pressed into attending his young daughter’s dolly tea party.

  Another detective in a rumpled gray pantsuit returned the cup she’d been holding to its saucer and rose from the Bergère chair Nicholas had inherited from their grandparents—the Bergère chair that would, if Fleur got her way, soon make its way back to the Garden District house where it had started.

  “Detectives Collins and Morel”—Daniel nodded first at the woman and then the sausage-fingered man—“this is . . .”

  “Mrs. Warren Endicott,” Fleur said extending her hand. The divorce would be final next week. This would be the last time she could throw around the weight of the senator’s name, but she might as well take it out for one last spin. Fleur clocked the surprise on her daughter’s face, but Lucy, blessedly for once, kept her own counsel.

  Morel remained seated in his self-conscious pose, but Collins crossed to them and shook Fleur’s hand. “Mrs. Endicott,” she said, her tone suggesting both a question and a confirmation at once. Collins had done her homework. “I assume your”—she glanced over at Daniel—“assistant . . . has informed you about why we’re here.”

  “It was a shock,” Daniel broke in, “even to someone like me who’s never met Mrs. Marin, but Detective Collins broke the news with the utmost sympathy and tact.” Par for the course, Fleur thought. They’d left it to the woman to deliver the bad news. Easier for a family to hear about a death from a sympathetic female. Yeah, easier on the male officers who didn’t have to do the dirty work. “No, I mean it,” Daniel continued. “Is there a site where I can leave a review for you? Five stars, I promise.”

  Detective Collins’s eyes darted to Fleur, her raised brows telegraphing the question “Is there something wrong with this guy?”

  “Oh, Daniel,” Fleur said, “I do appreciate your trying to lighten the mood, but now is not the time for levity.”

  Daniel’s head tilted to the side like a confused pup’s, then he caught on that he’d committed a faux pas. “Oh. No. Of course not, Mrs. Senator . . . I mean Mrs. Endicott. Pardon me.”

  Collins turned to face her partner, then back to Fleur. The detective’s expression had gone blank. “I think it might be better to start afresh—make sure you have been properly alerted to the situation.” She cast a cautious side-eye at Daniel. “We’ve come to notify you that we’ve discovered your sister-in-law’s remains at a site in Uptown.”

  “The Doll House,” Lucy interjected, her morose interest in the matter burgeoning with the awareness that she had a personal connection to it.

  Collins gave Lucy a patronizing smile. “I’m aware social media has begun to popularize that tag.”

  “People are saying the guy built tableaux by posing dead bodies around the place, but dead bodies rot, right? It seems like the neighbors would’ve picked up on the smell.”

  “Taxidermy,” Detective Morel spoke up for the first time.

  “That”—Collins dragged the word out as she spun back on her partner—“has not been made public knowledge yet.” She turned back and fixed Lucy with her gaze. “I’m going to have to ask you to keep that detail quiet for now.” She turned to Fleur. “Perhaps it would be better . . .”

  Fleur cut her off with a raised hand and a nod. “Daniel,
perhaps you could take Lucy to the kitchen and whip something up for her? I’m afraid this tragedy”—she tried her best to make it sound like she meant it—“preempted our dinner.”

  “Hello. Plate of sandwiches. Besides, so not hungry,” Lucy said, and crossed the room to plant herself on the settee next to the awkwardly perched detective. She turned to him. “Hello.” She flashed him the bright smile that always landed her anything she wanted. Especially when she used it on Fleur.

  “All right,” Collins said, resignation in her voice. Or maybe she was just tired. Examining dioramas built using preserved corpses would have to take it out of a person. “Though I must caution all of you,” she gave her partner a severe look, “that any information we share with you, we do so to facilitate our investigation, not so you can go all big orange loudmouth with the little blue bird.” She paused and focused on Lucy. “Do we understand each other?”

  “Well,” Lucy said, her head tilted and a slight crease down her brow, “when it comes to social media, I’m more inclined to go with the little ghost guy, ’cause those messages . . .”

  “Do we understand each other?” Collins barked at Lucy.

  Lucy pushed back into the settee. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good.”

  The second Collins turned her back on Lucy, Lucy shrugged and looked at Morel with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth. A silent “What’s up with her?” Morel shrugged back in response.

  Collins seemed to have a preternatural ability to sniff out disrespect. Fleur could see her getting ready to check in on Lucy, so she spoke up fast. “I understand you need a family member to identify the body.”

  “Yes,” Collins said, “but it’s a bit more than that. We’re trying to reach your brother Nicholas, but Daniel here tells me he’s gone off grid. I’m hoping you can put us in touch with him. It would help us to be able to talk to Mrs. Marin’s husband.”

  “I’ll contact him right away.”

  “Perhaps you can give us his number so that we can call him now?”

  “It isn’t as simple as that.”

  “Mrs. Senator,” Collins said. Her voice was too weary for her sarcasm to shine through, but Fleur stiffened all the same. “It would be easier if you could just call . . .”

  If that’s the way she wants it, Fleur thought, as any sense of sympathy for the officer drained away. Fleur was pretty damned tired, too. “Detective”—she slipped into the tried-and-true role of congenial politician’s wife—“I’d be more than happy to give you his number. It’s only, as I’m sure you, as an investigator, will soon conclude, Nicholas has turned his cell off.”

  “Why would he take off like this?”

  “A few months ago he suffered a one-two punch to his ego, one romantic and one . . . professional. It seems to have triggered a midlife crisis, and now my big brother has gone off to find himself. He withdrew a fat stack of cash, packed up his car with camping gear, and vanished.”

  “Then how do you intend to contact him?”

  Fleur smiled. “ESP.”

  “No, really . . .”

  “Through friends. There are family friends spread out all over. I’ll put out feelers.” She brushed back the bangs she was still trying to get used to. “I’m sure he’ll be in contact with one of them sooner or later.”

  “Sooner would be better.”

  “I’ll do my best to make that happen.” She held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor. Is there any other way we can assist you?”

  “You have a nephew and a niece? Astrid’s children?”

  “Yes.”

  “It would be a great help if they could come by the station and submit to a DNA test. It could help with identification.”

  “I’m afraid my niece is incapable of doing so—”

  “Out finding herself?”

  “No. In a coma.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure Hugo, my nephew, will not hesitate to assist.”

  “Wait,” Lucy said. “One question, two parts. Part A: How do you know the body you’ve found belongs to Astrid? Part B: If you know the body you’ve found belongs to Astrid, why do you need Hugo’s DNA to identify it?”

  “That’s actually two questions—” Daniel began.

  “Whatever.” Lucy cut him off.

  Collins lowered her head and bit her lip. Fleur could tell that the detective was debating if she should answer Lucy’s questions. Her lips pulled into a pucker, then she looked up at Lucy. “Demagnan kept very good records, annotated before and after pictures. He tattooed his victims’ names on the back of their necks. A permanent reminder, I guess, in case any of his notes got misfiled.”

  “And the DNA?” Lucy pressed when the detective fell silent.

  “He didn’t keep the bodies intact. A taxidermist has to remove the organs, then refill the cavity with special wood shavings. I found out today they call the stuff ‘excelsior.’” A slight shake of her head. “See, you really do learn something new every day.”

  “What did he do with their organs?” Lucy asked with wide eyes.

  “Oh, he kept them. At least some of them. That’s why we need the DNA. Seems that he may have sold the rest.”

  “Sold them?” Fleur said, the full picture dawning on her. The missing witches. The black-market relics.

  “Seems there’s a market for everything these days. It isn’t only the internal organs. Most of the bodies are missing their original limbs. Demagnan replaced the missing bits with parts of old mannequins. We have no way of knowing if the missing parts have been marked to show . . .”

  “Provenance.” Fleur finished the detective’s sentence for her. Collins couldn’t know it, but this was the term used when dealing with preserved relics.

  Collins nodded. “That’s the word I’ve been searching for.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. She studied its screen for a moment before looking back at Fleur. “There are developments we need to attend to.” She turned to her partner, who shifted to his feet but seemed at a loss as to what to do with his china.

  “I’ll take that,” Lucy told him, flashing another patented smile. Fleur could read her without even trying. Her daughter might have no magic, but she knew how to make friends and influence people. Warm smiles, small kindnesses, positioning herself as a fellow sufferer of Collins’s surly nature—Lucy was building a sense of comradeship with Morel that she might benefit from at a later date. Her daughter’s barefaced methods wouldn’t work if she were in the least bit disingenuous, but Lucy’s every act was sincere. Fleur could never get over how her daughter had managed to become the perfect balance of compassionate and self-serving. Morel passed the plate to her and returned her smile. The man was hooked.

  “If you could,” Collins said, drawing Fleur’s attention back to her, “start putting out those ‘feelers’ to reach your brother as soon as possible.”

  “Immediately,” Fleur said, her senator’s wife’s smile in place.

  “Please give this to your nephew.” She fished a business card from her pocket. “It has my direct number. Ask him to call me as soon as . . .”

  “As soon as he’s sober.” Lucy jumped in. She met Collins’s surprise with a world-weary expression. “Just setting expectations. It may be a while before you hear from him.”

  “Lucy, dear,” Fleur said, feigning shock while playing off her daughter. Lucy knew what she was doing. She was buying time, in case they needed it. Fleur sighed. “My daughter has no sense of decorum, but she’s right. Our Hugo often finds himself needing to sleep off a bender.”

  “He doesn’t come home to do this?”

  Fleur chuckled, then copied Lucy’s expression. “He doesn’t need to. When you meet Hugo, you’ll understand why he never faces a shortage of welcoming beds.” She pressed her hands together. “Not to worry. I’ll see to it he calls you as soon as he comes around.” From behind her facade, the truth crept out. “This is going to hit him hard. I do hope you’ll appreciate that beneath all
his smugness there’s a very sensitive soul . . .”

  “And then another layer of smugness,” Lucy said, taking Morel by the arm and escorting him to his partner’s side.

  This time Lucy had managed to take her by surprise. “Yes. That’s true as well, but please don’t be callous toward him, even if he seems uncaring. They were never close, and Astrid disappeared when he was a young boy, but she was still his mother.” Fleur was speaking as much for Lucy’s benefit as for the detectives’.

  “We’ll use the utmost tact,” Collins said. “In the meantime, it would be extremely helpful to have a confirmation of identity from a family member.”

  “I’ll be happy . . . ,” Fleur began. “Well, perhaps ‘happy’ is the wrong word, but I’ll do it. Now if you need . . .”

  “Now doesn’t work,” Daniel said, sounding anxious, but trying to cover it with a wide smile. “Sorry. I worry Hugo might come home before you return . . . He’ll know something’s wrong. I’ll make a mess of telling him, and you can’t possibly want him to hear the news from Miss Incorrigibility here.”

  “Hey . . . ,” Lucy protested.

  “Truth,” Daniel shot back.

  Lucy glared at him, but then her expression softened. “Yeah,” she said, “he’s right. I’ll do more damage than good if I try.”

  “First thing tomorrow?” Fleur addressed the detectives. “Once we know the lay of the land around here? I may have news about Nicholas. With any luck, Hugo will have stumbled home by then as well.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow’s fine.” Collins checked her phone’s screen once more. “I’m not even sure the morgue is ready to show the body anyway.” She looked at Morel. “We have to get back.”