Make Me Dead: A Vampyres of Hollywood Mystery

by Adrienne Barbeau

  “Let’s let dat dry. You’ll say de rest of de words when we burn it later. Now sit on de floor, be comfortable. I want you to close your eyes, concentrate on your breathing, and stay quiet. You can pray if you want. Ask de Lord to help. Do you know de Psalms? Dey’s a good thing to pray wit’.”

  No fucking way I was going to pray. I closed my eyes and listened to her doing something in the kitchen. Then she went into the bathroom and ran the water in the tub. When I opened my eyes, she was standing above me with a silk mojo bag in her hand. It was wet. It was dripping blood.

  “Tilt your head back, Maral,” she said. “Close your eyes.”

  I did. Like she had when she washed my feet, she started speaking in French. I couldn’t understand it. It didn’t sound like prayers this time. Maybe an incantation? Then she must have squeezed the mojo bag over my head, because bloody water dripped on my eyes. “Ferme les yeux, sha,” she said. That I understood. I squeezed my eyes tight, but I couldn’t stop myself. I stuck my tongue out, licking the blood off my cheeks. My fangs started to drop. I clenched my teeth so she wouldn’t notice and clenched my fists to hide my talons. Oh, Miz Foret, it’s too late, vielle. Your fucking magick is fucked.

  “Take the bag, Maral. Take it now. Open your eyes and take the bag. Hold it against your heart.”

  I did. I kept my eyes closed because I knew they were turning red, but when the bag touched my flesh I could feel the tiny veins in them begin to constrict. My fangs and talons contracted. It took a minute, but the mojo bag did something. I was back in control.

  “Open your eyes, chère. I’ve made you a tea for a purifying bat’. You need to stand in de tub, wash de blood from you, and let de water rinse all de blood from de mojo bag down de drain. Den drip 7 drops of wax into de tub from de pink candle I left burning dere. Run you a bat’ wit’ de tea in it— de tea is in a crystal glass on de rim of de tub— and keep de bag in de water wit’ you while you soak. I’ll come to get you when it’s time, and we’ll do de rest dat has to be done.”

  37. PETER

  Ovsanna and I drove the first ten miles in silence. I found a local radio station with a female DJ who alternated Cajun, country, and Zydeco with folk and classic rock. Made me want to Google her to see what she looks like and how old she is. Do twenty-five year olds know Ellen McIllwaine’s version of “Can’t Find My Way Home”? Or Marshall Chapman’s “Turn the Page”? Or anything this girl was playing by Judy Henske? Well… maybe in New Orleans.

  She followed The Radiators’ “Confidential” with The Iguanas’ “Love, Sucker.” I looked at Ovsanna to see if she picked up on the references. She was holding back a grin. Then the Nevilles’ “Brother John/Iko Iko” came on. It’s impossible for me to hang on to my anger with that song playing. I reached out and put my hand on hers, briefly.

  “Are you serious about trying to arrest Maral?” she asked.

  “If we can prove she had anything to do with the murders, yes. At least, bring her in for questioning. Hell, Ovsanna, I don’t know how this is going to work. I’m going to need your help. There, I’ve said it. Big time Beverly Hills cop with his puny wooden stake might be able to kill a vampyre, but sure as hell won’t be able to keep her handcuffed and in custody. Think I should stop somewhere and stock up on silver bullets?”

  She stared at me with a smirk on her face for a good five seconds. “Let’s find her first,” she said, “and then worry about how to handle her. And yes, you are going to need my help.”

  The name of the place we were looking for was Bayou Geaux Down. It wasn’t showing up on my GPS. Ovsanna had visited Maral’s mother’s house there once back in 2005 when she was scouting locations for Blood on the Bayou. A lot of the film’s sets were later wiped out by Katrina, but she was sure the grocery store had survived. The one they’d used for the scene where a mama gator has built her nest behind the dairy case and her 65 eggs hatch all at once.

  “Sixty-five?” I said. “How’d you come up with that number?”

  “That’s what they do. Gators lay a lot of eggs. Have to keep those $20,000 designer handbags in stock.”

  “Sixty-five gators hatching in a mini-mart. Don’t know how I missed that movie,” I said.

  “I don’t either,” she answered. “I played a Cajun girl whose father kept her chained in the barn on his alligator farm. We used real gator eggs for that scene. That was a shoot I won’t soon forget. SuzieQ would have loved it. I’ll tell you what, be nice to me and I’ll screen it for you.”

  “I love being nice to you. Not so sure I want to see 65 baby gators hatching, but the being nice part sounds like fun.” I kissed her hand.

  Ovsanna remembered the store being on Highway 56 near Bayou Geaux Down. She figured if we could find it, someone there could point us in the right direction.

  I couldn’t get past the name of the town. Started visualizing Ovsanna and Maral taking it literally. Almost drove off the road.

  “I think that’s it,” Ovsanna said, pointing at a gas station/mini-mart combo on the opposite side of the highway. I pulled into the lot on the far side of the building.

  It was a big, low-ceilinged structure with two fuel pumps in front of it and an entrance at either end. The door on the right had a sign saying no one under 21 admitted. That seemed strange for a mini-mart.

  We entered the door on the left and the sign made sense. The place was two separate rooms. We’d entered the grocery store side. There was a display of hot fried foods in the center of the room and two long cafeteria tables over by one wall. The tables were set with napkins and utensils so people could eat. The rest of the room was jammed with displays of chips, cookies, Pop Tarts, Corn Nuts, and the dairy case— birthplace of the aforementioned gators. I couldn’t help looking at the floor for stains. On the right was another room, separated from the grocery side by a glass wall with a glass door and another sign saying no one under 21 admitted. It was a casino with a bar. And a life-sized statue of Elvis greeting the customers. Slot machines lined three walls and were stacked up against each other in the middle of the room. The bar, sans bartender, was on the far side. I could barely make it out through the cigarette smoke.

  The woman at the cash register on our left gave a shriek and came barreling out from behind the counter. Well, as much as 250 pounds can barrel. She was wearing men’s overalls with a plaid shirt and yellow crocs. Her blond hair was so thin she looked like the bad Rob Lowe in those DirectTV commercials from a few years back. I stepped in front of Ovsanna to divert her onslaught.

  “Oh, my Gawd. Oh, my Gawd. Yer that movie queen lady. You are. You are. Oh, I been axin’ and axin’ when yer comin’ back ’cause I been wantin’ ta meet ya since I started workin’ here. You were in that movie with the gators! Oh, I’m so glad ya came back! I’m so glad!” She waddled over to the glass doors and yelled into the other room, “Hey, y’all, that movie queen lady is here!” Nobody moved from the slots. She whipped around to Ovsanna. “Oh, sugar, ya gotta sign somethin’ for me. You gotta sign somethin’ for me.” She grabbed a box of Cocoa Puffs off the center rack and waddled back behind the counter to pull a Sharpie out of a drawer.

  “What’re ya doin’ here this time? What’re ya doin’ here? Y’all gonna make another movie?” She shoved the cereal box at Ovsanna. “Can you make it out to Crystal? I spell it with a K. With a capital K.”

  Ovsanna took the pen and started writing. She hadn’t said a word. Krystal didn’t notice.

  “We were hoping to get some directions, ma’am,” I answered. “Ms. Moore is visiting her friend in Bayou Geaux Down, but the town isn’t showing up on our maps.”

  “Fer sure, mister, that’s ’cause Geaux Down ain’t big enough to be a town even. Who’s the friend? Maybe I can tell ya how to get there.”

  Ovsanna finished signing and handed the box back. “Maral McKenzie. It’s her mother’s house. She was here helping me when we were filming. Do you know her?”

  “Oh shoot, I just moved here last year. I wasn’t here when ya ma
de the movie, I just heard about it. And I don’t know that name. I don’t. But I can get ya to Bayou Geaux Down, for sure, and there’s Cecil’s on the way. They might know her there, and if they don’t, I’ll betcha someone at Terry’s does. That’s the shrimp factory and campground down the road.”

  She wrote out the directions for us and Ovsanna thanked her a half dozen times, promising to send her a signed DVD of Blood on the Bayou, before we were able to walk out the door.

  “I thought for sure she was going to throw her arms around you to say good-bye,” I said, as we walked to the truck. “I don’t want to know what psychic visions that would have brought up.”

  38. OVSANNA

  “I know the place Krystal was talking about, Peter. The shrimp factory,” I said. “It’s up ahead, about a mile. The cast and crew went dancing there when the second unit wrapped.” I could see it in the distance, but Peter wouldn’t be able to, not from this far away. “It’s a big, square, low-roofed white building with an American flag flying in front.”

  “You went dancing in a shrimp factory? What’d they play— ‘Jambalaya’? Elvis singing ‘Crawfish’?”

  “No. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band doing ‘Fishin’ in the Dark.’ And Otis Redding’s ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.’” She smirked at me again.

  “Didn’t Crystal with a K say it was a campground?”

  “It’s a campground, a shrimp factory, a grocery store with video poker machines, and a bar with the shiniest dance floor you’ve ever seen. It’s got a five-foot crab mounted on the wall. And they’ve got a great jukebox.”

  “How about Jo Stafford’s ‘Shrimp Boats Are A’Comin’? Please tell me they had that.”

  I laughed. “All I remember is Maral doing Bayou Jello Shots and playing ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ over and over again. She thought it was our little joke. It’s way up there on the right, can you see it?”

  Rain clouds had darkened the sky. Peter turned on his headlights. “You know what?” I said, before he could answer. “Let’s not stop there. They were lovely people and they probably do know Maral’s momma and where she lived, but I don’t want to go through another meet and greet with a bunch of people while they’re drying shrimp. The other place is farther on down this road. It’s a general merchandise store, mostly hardware, cigarettes, and fishing supplies. It’s not likely anyone’s going out in this weather. Hopefully, the proprietor will be there alone.”

  He was. Surrounded by antique radios, yellow enamel pots, and cobalt blue glassware that had probably been there since his grandfather opened the store in 1914. He told us he was the third generation to own it and he knew exactly where Maral’s mother’s house was. He gave us detailed directions, involving a right turn at the shack selling gator skulls and a drive past a ghost forest and a floating cemetery.

  “What’s a ghost forest?” Peter asked.

  “Dat’s a ridge a 200-year-old oak trees, all dead from de salt water comin’ in and takin’ away de land. Takin’ away de graves, too. You don’t t’ink dey were buried in water to begin wit’, do you? Y’all are gonna see a lot a dat on your way. We losin’ land at de rate of one football field every hour. I keep tellin’ my kids dey better t’ink about gettin’ a different job ’cause dis place may not be here when dey ready to take over. Miz Maral’s momma’s place is still standin’, but dere’s no tellin’ how long. And y’all better be careful, radio’s already callin’ dis storm by name. Looks like it’s gonna be a hurricane, for sure.”

  It took us another twenty minutes to find the house. We parked in the dirt driveway and Maral’s brother Jamie came banging out the screen door before Peter had the engine turned off. I opened the truck door, but stayed in the cab to keep out of the rain. It was coming down hard.

  Jamie’s face lit up when he saw me. I’d met him when I’d come to the house with Maral during the location scout, and then he’d visited the set the week we were shooting here. Every Christmas I send him video games and the latest consoles, and when Maral was living in my house she used to call him and put me on the phone to say hello. He was five years old when I met him, just a little thing. The boy standing in front of me was six feet tall and 16 years old. He acted much younger. He’d suffered some brain damage at birth. “’Sanna! ’Sanna! What y’all doin’ here? Did y’all come for Momma’s funeral? She died, you know. She’s in heaven wit’ de angels!”

  “I know, Jamie, and I’m so sorry your momma’s gone. I know how much she loved you and you loved her. But you’re right, I’ll bet she’s having a joyous time watching out for you from heaven.”

  “Who’s dat wit’ you?” He motioned to Peter with his head. “Is he an actor in your movies? Did he come to see Momma get buried? De coffin’s gonna be open so we can watch.”

  “That’s my friend Peter King and we came to visit Maral. Is she here?”

  “She was here, but she ain’t now. Mais, Maw-Maw’s not here neither, but I think she knows where Maral went to. I think Maral went to see Miz Foret. You know— de traiteur? She lives in Chauvin next door to de sculpture garden. We always go to visit her when we’re sick. I think Maral’s not feeling good. Can we go in de house? De rain’s startin’ to hurt my skin. Why don’t y’all come in de house and when Maw-Maw comes back, she can tell y’all. She’s over to de funeral place in Cut Off right now.”

  The house hadn’t changed since I’d visited nine years earlier. It’s a small, wood-frame box sitting on 3' tall pilings to keep it above the water line. Someone had tied the rocking chairs on the front porch to the wooden railing surrounding it, so they wouldn’t blow away. The wind was fierce.

  “You can sit dere, Mr. King,” Jamie said, motioning to a burgundy chesterfield. “Maw-Maw made some sweet tea dis morning and she always tells me to offer visitors somethin’ to drink. Do you like sweet tea? I do. It’s my favorite. I like it even when it’s rainin’. ’Course de rain ain’t very cold anyway so I guess you can always have sweet tea. ’Sanna, you want some sweet tea?” He started for the kitchen.

  “I’m fine, Jamie,” I called after him. “We’ll just sit here and wait for your Maw-Maw to come home.”

  Peter looked around the room. I saw his eyes settle on the photograph I’d taken with all Maral’s relatives when we’d been here filming.

  “Mais, ain’t no more waitin’ to do. I’m here, me.” Maral’s grandmother came in from the back door.

  Peter and I both stood up. “Mrs. LaForche,” I said, “this is Detective Peter—”

  “I know who he is. I seen him when I threw de cards at Christmas time. He’s de one I warned Maral about. He’s de reason you sent my grandchild away. You broke her heart when you did dat. I don’ know what happened ’tween de two of you, but dere’s somethin’ wrong wit’ my chère now. And he’s de reason. Why’d you bring him here? I don’t want him here.”

  “Maw-Maw!” Jamie had a glass of tea in his hand. “Dat’s not nice de way you’re talkin’. ’Sanna’s my friend. We don’t talk to friends like dat, dat’s what you always say.”

  “Sha, you get your slicker on and get de plywood up on de windows. Dis storm’s gettin’ worse. Ovsanna and her friend need to be leavin’ before dey can’t drive in it no more.”

  “But Maw-Maw—”

  “It’s okay, Jamie,” I said, “you do what your Maw-Maw says.” I turned to Maral’s grandmother. “I’m worried about Maral, too, Mrs. LaForche. I think she may be in trouble. We want to find her and help her if we can.”

  “For true, she’s in trouble. She’s like a broken doll. She says dere’s no feelin’ inside her, and dat’s because of you. She’s not my Maral no more, for true. I think she’s got a spell on her and I think you had somethin’ to do wit’ it. You want to help her? You get dat cunja off her.”

  I knew I couldn’t put my hands on her, but I held her eyes and concentrated on forcing my will on her. “I didn’t put a spell on her, Maw-Maw. I don’t know how to do that. But I think she’s in danger of harming herself, and I might be able
to help her if I can find her. Jamie said she went to see someone, a woman. Ms. Foret? Is that where she is? You need to tell me where she is and how to get there.”

  * * *

  The rain pelting the roof of the car sounded like the M-16 I’d used in Convent II. On full auto. The store-owner was right; the NWS had started issuing hurricane warnings. In the half-hour we’d been in the house, Maw-Maw’s driveway turned into a mud-pit. It was all Peter could do to back out and get the truck on the road. The wind pushed at us like one of those turbines on the road to Palm Springs.

  Fighting the storm, it took almost forty-five minutes to get to the front entrance of the sculpture garden. No signs of anyone around, but there was an old Sentra parked a little farther down the road in front of a wide dirt path leading toward the bayou. The trailer home Maw-Maw had described was at the end of the path, closer to the levee. A four-foot tall chain link fence separated it from the garden. Peter turned off the engine so I could listen for Maral or Ms. Foret.

  I heard voices coming from the far side of the fence, inside the trailer. I closed my eyes and concentrated on what they were saying.

  “You gotta drain de bat’, Maral, den wrap a towel ’round you and come stand in dis circle. Dere’s a tiny bottle of dirt next to de crystal glass de tea was in. Bring dat wit’ you. Bring de mojo bag, too. Make sure dere’s no more blood on it. And de pink candle. Don’t blow it out, jes’ be careful de wax doesn’t drip.”

  I looked at Peter. “They’re both in there. It sounds like Ms. Foret is doing some healing. Maral has a mojo bag.”

  “What’s that,” he asked, “some Goth designer brand I’ve never heard of?”

  I grinned. “Oh, you young Italian boys from Beverly Hills. Please tell me you at least know who Muddy Waters is. ‘I Got my Mojo Working’?”