by John Moore
Piper interrupted my warm thoughts. “Can I use your computer? My phone’s almost dead.”
“Sure,” I said. “Take it in the bedroom. I need to talk to Tom.”
I told him all about the day’s events. He was happy to hear we’d discovered Victor’s spy at Sarah’s House, but not happy to hear of her death. Tom mourned the death of any creature, even one who had allowed evil to dictate her path. He told me he’d booked his flight to Mexico and was scheduled to leave the day after tomorrow. He offered to cancel, but I insisted he go. I knew how much it meant to him to help Hector. We had to go on with our normal lives as well as we could. Who knew how long it would take to kick Victor out of New Orleans? Right now, going on with our lives included Tom and I sleeping together. We had unbelievable sex once again with clenched teeth to muffle our sounds.
Charlotte came over the next day for lunch. She told me Mr. Morris had been diagnosed with colon cancer, and he had to go through treatments in Houston at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He’d asked her to go with him. I could tell there was more to their relationship than employer and employee. I believed she was in love with him, and she was worried that he might be too sick to save, so I spent time comforting her. She made me promise again to try to salvage Mandy. It killed me, but I promised.
Piper and I took Tom to the airport the next day. He was so excited to go help Hector. He made me promise I’d be very careful while he was gone. I promised, but I was lying through my teeth. Sorry, Mom, no way I was going to sit back and wait for Victor to get Piper. I wanted to stop him, and so far, so good. My plan seemed to be working. He was blocked at the center, and Jaeger and his Dixie Mafia friends were blocked from using Piper or Zach as bait.
Piper was immensely excited when I told her about touring the cemeteries with Mandy. She immediately went online and looked up all of the places the tour visited. She babbled on and on about how Marie Laveau was a real voodoo lady. Marie could do magical things, including preventing and curing illness. Piper wanted to draw an X on Marie’s tombstone because according to the legend, all who did had a wish granted. I was afraid to ask what her wish was.
Piper and I went to see Detective Baker at the precinct after we dropped Tom at the airport. Just like the last time, Piper sat in the waiting room getting a good dose of people-watching. Her phone was fully charged, so she was good for awhile. Detective Baker showed me into his office and closed the door behind me.
“I don’t want Jaeger to walk in while we are talking,” Baker said. “We’ve gotten the coroner’s report in on the death of the woman at Sarah’s House. She was poisoned, and not just with any poison either. She was poisoned with aconite. According to the lab rats, aconite is a plant found in Europe and Asia. It is not generally used in the United States. It looks like parsley when sprinkled on food. Death comes quickly. I would say she was poisoned at the center or shortly before she got there. Our search warrant of the center turned up nothing. We interviewed all of the women. No one saw anything unusual. No men came to the center or met her in the parking lot.”
“You don’t think anyone at the center poisoned her, do you?”
“We just don’t know at this point.”
I told Baker about my conversation with Zach. He wasn’t surprised to hear about what Jaeger was up to. He’d pegged Jaeger as a guy who was obsessed with getting Victor, because it was personal for him, not professional. His face lit up when I told him I’d asked Sophia to come to New Orleans. He’d worked closely with her on the Bart Rogan case. I always thought he had a sweet spot for her too. I asked Detective Baker if he could recommend a firing range for me to practice shooting my .38 caliber handgun. I’d always shot guns on the farm back in Indiana, but figured I needed to be sharp with everything that was going on around me.
“I know the perfect place. It’s owned by a good friend of mine. I’ll go with you and give you a few pointers. They have plenty of .38 rounds there, so we won’t have to stop to buy any. They call me ‘Dead Eye’ around here,” he said with a smirk.
I was glad he was going with me. I was anxious about what Victor’s next move was going to be. Ethan dead . . . Tiffany (or whatever her name was) dead . . . Mr. Morris dying . . . it was too much in a short period.
Piper and I met Baker at his friend’s firing range. I was a little rusty at first but soon was back in my farmgirl form, hitting near the bull’s-eye with each shot. Since Baker knew the owner, he allowed Piper to fire some rounds as well. She learned her way around the gun but didn’t come close to the target. By now I was exhausted. Besides, now that Tom was gone, I wanted to corner Piper and probe her more on her life with her mom and why Victor wanted her so badly.
We picked up a couple of plates of shrimp etouffee and went to the condo. I didn’t waste any time sneaking up on the subject of Piper and her mother. I’d learned from my journalistic endeavors that if you wanted to ferret out facts, you often had to ask direct questions.
“So, Piper, you said you did try to call your mom on her cell phone after she sent you to your dad’s house in Chicago?”
Piper looked at me sheepishly. “I wasn’t supposed to. She and Katerina gave me strict orders not to contact either one of them.”
“Did you?”
“I tried. I called mom’s cell phone over and over. It usually went to voice mail. I’d leave messages begging her to call me. I wanted to go back to LA to live with her. She didn’t answer or call me back. I know it was the heroin. She must have been out of it. Eventually the phone was disconnected. I tried to call Katerina, but she never would answer either. Then my dad was killed, and you know the rest.”
“I’ve noticed you are quite good with computers. Where did you learn?”
“Katerina taught me quite a bit to get me started. From there I learned on my own. I loved working on the computer. Mom and Katerina made me hide what I knew from the other girls. I stayed up all night long almost every night surfing the web. I discovered the dark web. I learned to use the Tor browser and others to go to sites you can’t get to using your regular browsers. I saw several of Victor’s porn and prostitution sites.”
“How were you able to get into those sites?” I asked.
“Once I started surfing the dark web, I found sites that taught hacking,” Piper replied. “I learned HTML and other code the web uses to create sites. I found it easy, maybe because I loved it so much. Once, when Victor pissed me off really bad, I hacked one of his sites and shut it down. He crapped his pants trying to figure out who did that.”
“So Victor really does have his own programmers?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. My mom and Katerina were afraid if he knew what I was able to do, he’d send me to Eastern Europe or Moscow to work with his hacking group. They said I was a hacking prodigy. I think that’s why my mom sent me away. She’d messed her life up with heroin. I guess she didn’t want Victor to make me become one of his hackers in Eastern Europe or a prostitute. Victor was going to make me do one or the other. No one gets a free ride. I am so scared, Alexandra, that he’ll hurt you or Tom to get me. I love you and want you to be safe.”
It all started to make sense to me. Victor must have discovered her hacking abilities, and he wanted her to do his dirty work. He wanted to ship her to a country with corrupt law enforcement and turn her into a criminal. His sick mind calculated she could only make a few hundred dollars on her back but she could make millions with her mind. He probably would do anything to get his hands on her. How often would he get a chance to have a computer prodigy working for him? Especially one so young, so easily controlled? No wonder he was willing to go all in to get her. I was beginning to think better of her mom for sending her away. Victor would have used Sandy against Piper and had her just where he wanted her.
“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll figure something out.” I didn’t know if I was trying to convince her or myself. I didn’t feel too optimistic about her mother. Victor h
ad doubtless punished her severely.
I couldn’t talk to Piper about that. I was already regretting letting Tom go to Mexico. I needed him here with me to face Victor’s attack on our family. I knew this was going to get ugly.
Piper didn’t look reassured. Her eyes darted back and forth as if she were looking for a place to hide, her mouth curved downward. She was scared and so was I, but I dared not show her how scared I really was. To break the heavy mood, I changed the subject to Mandy and her invitation to take us on the cemetery tour. Not my idea of a happy subject, but Piper perked right up as soon as I mentioned the haunted tour. This was something she really wanted to do, so I phoned Mandy to set it up.
“Mandy, when would you like to take Piper and me on your cemetery tour?”
“Alexandra, I am so happy you called. As a matter of fact, I’m taking some of my friends on a tour tonight. Would you and Piper like to join us?”
I looked at Piper, and she was bobbing her head up and down in exaggerated agreement. “Tonight would be perfect!”
“Great. Meet us at the Lafayette cemetery at ten tonight,” Mandy said. “Lots of movies are shot there. She’ll love it. We’ll save the best for last, the St. Louis Cemetery, where Marie Laveau’s grave is located.”
Piper dug in her clothes till she found some black pants and a new black T-shirt emblazoned with the Grateful Dead’s logo, a gift from Tom’s parents, I concluded. I watched her eat the shrimp from the shrimp etouffee, pushing the rice aside. Her animated face glowed with excitement at the thought of touring the haunted cemeteries of New Orleans.
We joined Mandy and her friends at the first cemetery. We had to sneak through a broken section of a rusted gate to get in. Once inside the city of the dead, we strolled around brick and plaster structures listening to Mandy explain the burial practices of the city. All of the tombs were above ground since the water table in New Orleans would float any caskets buried below ground back to the surface. Mandy’s friends were all dressed in black, eerily similar to each other. They resembled an army of morose cadets. Their appearance unnerved me but thrilled Piper. As we walked through the graveyard streets, I couldn’t help but think of how each of these lives once contributed to the fabric of New Orleans. We made our way to the St. Louis Cemetery and trouped to Marie Laveau’s grave. A solemn figure kneeled beside the white plaster edifice, dressed in black as Mandy’s friends were. She was praying. As we approached, the figure turned to face us. It was Amanda, the young girl I’d comforted in the jail in Mexico. What the hell was she doing here? After touching her lips with two fingers and moving them toward us, she resumed her prayer. I watched in astonishment as each of the members of our group made the same gesture to her. Mandy began her diatribe about Marie Laveau’s life as Amanda joined the group. After a five-minute history lesson, Mandy walked up to Marie’s grave and made an X mark. I was transfixed watching each one of her friends do the same.
I turned to comment to Piper how uneasy this scene made me, but she wasn’t there. I looked all through the group, but couldn’t see her. I called her name. She didn’t answer. Then I raced through the group, yelling, not caring when I hit my knee on a tombstone.
She was gone. So was Amanda. I screamed “Piper!” loud enough to disturb the dead. Still no answer. Mandy and her group, once alerted to the problem, spread out to help me look for her. I was in a state of panic. I couldn’t believe it. Piper was gone.
Maybe she sneaked off to pee or something. Then I saw it, lying on the ground by a mausoleum, the pink case glowing in the dim light. Piper’s cell phone. Maybe it’s not hers, I thought. I picked it up to look more closely. It was definitely Piper’s cell. My face turned as white as the dead’s. I called the only person I thought could help.
“Detective Baker, help me, help me, please! This is Alexandra Lee. Piper is gone! I think she’s been kidnapped!”
Chapter Seventeen:
Desperate Search
I got all of the members of Mandy’s black brigade to pair up to look for Piper. Each pair walked along a different paved path between the graves, calling Piper’s name. Three police units rolled up and corralled our group together. One of the officers stayed with our group while the others took up the search. Detective Baker arrived and stayed with us, allowing the other officer to join the search. As Baker questioned me, a police van’s lights illuminated Mandy and her group.
Detective Baker spun around to face Mandy and her friends. “Please go with these officers in this van to the precinct. Your cooperation will greatly assist us in finding the lost young lady. Thank you.”
I found Detective Baker’s calm demeanor oddly sedating. “What would you like me to do?” I asked.
He requested that I give him a detailed history of Piper and her recent activities. I told him everything leading up to Piper coming to stay with us, some of which he knew. I repeated the conversation she’d had with me earlier before we joined Mandy for the tour. Detective Baker and I both agreed that Victor seemed to be the most likely person to have taken her. I paced back and forth in the cemetery parking lot for two hours as the officers conducted their thorough search. Piper was not there.
Detective Baker asked me to follow him to the precinct. When we arrived, the other officers had just completed their interrogation of Mandy and her friends. We ran smack into Jaeger. How did he know to be here? According to the interrogating officers, none of the tour group had any helpful information. Nobody had seen her taken. Nobody had seen any suspicious people or heard sounds of a scuffle. It was unnerving how quickly and quietly she’d vanished from a group of people with not one person noticing. Of course, these weren’t the best witnesses in the world, but what about me? I should have kept an eye on her. I’d known the danger. Guilt raced through me, but I forced it away. It wouldn’t help.
The realization set in that Piper was gone, and I had to keep my wits about me to help find her. Tom needed to know. He had to come home and help us look for her. I called and called his cell to no avail. Damn him and his Roll organization, I thought. Why isn’t he here when I need him? Calm down, Alexandra. You’ve come through worse than this.
“Bring her into the interrogation room,” Jaeger said to Detective Baker.
Baker gave Jaeger one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding looks, rolling his eyes to the top of his head. Jaeger wasn’t fazed. He acted like a machine on an assembly line, doing the only thing he knew how to do, pursue Victor. Jaeger had the bedside manner of a vampire, flat-toned and cold. His questions were his fangs trying to suck information out of me. I was in no mood for his insensitive German attitude, so I kept my answers short, giving only the least amount of information I could. Jaeger didn’t give a damn about Piper.
He eventually satisfied himself he’d gotten all he could from me and walked out of the room. Baker stood up and asked me to follow him to his office.
“Alexandra, I don’t want Jaeger to hear this,” Baker said. “Jaeger is heading up the search for Piper. Piper’s disappearance isn’t technically a NOPD matter yet. She hasn’t been gone long enough for the missing person’s unit to get involved, and there’s no evidence of foul play either. No crime, no police. My hands are tied.”
My face fell. No way I could trust Jaeger to find Piper and bring her home safe. I needed to take charge myself. “I understand,” I said. I knew what I was going to do as soon as I left the police station. I needed to go into the shadows where the demons live. I, like most people, went about my daily life ignoring the dark underworld of the city. That world reeked of crime, dirty dealings, murder, and treachery.
“Alexandra, I’m afraid there’s more bad news. There are serious problems at Sarah’s House for Battered and Abused Women. We are executing a search warrant this morning at the center, and I’d like you to stay away from there.”
I slumped in my chair searching his eyes for an explanation. “Search warrant? I thought you’d already searched th
e center? What are you looking for? Why do I need to stay away?”
“I can’t tell you the details now. Wouldn’t be right. Besides, it would just put you in more danger than you are already in. I’ll fill you in after we execute the warrant. I just need you to stay away for now. You need to focus your energy on finding Piper. Maybe you should go see Jess Johnson. She’s got more contacts on the street than anyone I know. The problems at the center are police matters now.”
Just as my head was about to explode, I received a text from Charlotte. “Alexandra, can you meet with Mr. Morris and me today? It’s really important.”
“I’m really tied up. Can it wait till next week?” I texted back.
“No, sorry. We need to meet with you today.”
Oh shit, now what? Charlotte was not one to insist unless it was absolutely necessary. “OK. I’ll meet you at Mr. Morris’s office at 2:00 p.m.” Maybe Mandy knew where Piper was and she’d told her dad. Wild thoughts were cascading through my mind. I had to slow my brain down and keep it on track. What I really wanted to do was trade my pistol for an army tank and start blasting away at Victor, Jaeger, and the Dixie Mafia.
I bolted out of the police station to my car. The sun was up and the city was coming to life. I was headed to the bowels of the French Quarter. Clinton Cunningham and I needed to talk. If he was involved in Piper’s disappearance, I was going to beat her whereabouts out of him.
I walked into his strip club on lower Bourbon Street like a gunfighter swaggering into a saloon. Even though the day’s sun was only three hours old, a stripper was on the pole and customers were in the bar. The smell of old stale liquor and cigarette smoke stung my nostrils. I trouped past the bar directly to Clint’s office. There he was, butted up to his desk as close as his fat gut would allow him to get. He didn’t flinch when I entered. He just lit the cheap cigar in his mouth.