Midnight Caller

by Leslie Tentler

  “Agent Rivette?” A dark-haired male jogged toward him. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, and a shield hung from a chain around his neck.

  “Thought that was you—this will save me a call,” he said as he caught up. “I recognized you from the press conference yesterday. I’m Danny Reyes with the DEA. I’m the lead agent over a local drug investigation, and I need to talk to you about the Ascension.”

  The men shook hands. “I’m headed to a meeting, Reyes. Want to walk me to my car?”

  Reyes fell in step beside him. “You’re looking at the club in relationship to the Vampire Murders?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “We’ve got an agent working undercover. He saw you there a few nights ago. Said you were asking a lot of questions, generally kicking up dirt.”

  Trevor squinted against the sun. “Two of the three victims frequented the club, including the one who turned up dead in Coliseum Square last night.”

  “I heard about that. What about the club owner, Armand Baptiste? You been able to link him to any of the homicides?”

  “Not so far.”

  “You should know the DEA has its sights on Baptiste.” Reyes tucked his shield under his T-shirt. “We’ve been following a distribution ring working out of the club for a while now, and we think he’s a big part of it. We’re conducting a raid tonight, and we also just got matching warrants for his antiques business and warehouse that we plan to enforce at the same time. Our agent says the time is right, so this can’t wait. I wanted to check with you first and make sure we didn’t get in each other’s way.”

  “I understand. Do the police know about this yet?” Trevor fished in his pocket for the keys as they neared the Taurus.

  “Not yet. This has been under pretty deep cover. That’s why I’m here—we’re going to need some NOPD assistance for crowd control and arrestee processing, among other things.”

  Trevor considered an opportunity. It wasn’t his warrant, but he wondered what the raid might reveal that could be of interest to him. “Do you see a problem with me and a few friends tagging along tonight?”

  “A few friends? I don’t want the legality of the warrants challenged—”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not suggesting a league of FBI agents. Just me at the Ascension and a couple of NOPD detectives at the other locations.” He shrugged. “We know what we’re looking for, so if your agents happen to stumble across anything relevant to our investigation…”

  Reyes nodded thoughtfully. “I’m all for interagency cooperation. I’ll set up a meeting to coordinate for this afternoon.”

  Once they’d exchanged business cards, Trevor stared after the agent’s retreating figure, then opened the car door. Heat escaped from the interior like a dry sauna. Tossing his briefcase onto the seat, he slid inside and started the engine. He took a small measure of satisfaction in knowing Baptiste was about to get his comeuppance.

  Fifteen minutes later, he arrived at the redbrick building housing the FBI field offices near Lake Pontchartrain. Trevor presented his shield and was escorted by a receptionist to a windowed conference room with a long table and swivel chairs. Sweating pitchers of ice water and a row of glasses were in the table’s center, although only one other person was already there. SAC Johnston stood with his arms crossed over his barrel-like chest, the fluorescent lights glinting off his smooth, bald head.

  “Well, Agent Rivette. I’d say this pimple you’ve been picking at is coming to a head right here in New Orleans.”

  “Yes, sir.” Trevor laid his briefcase on the table.

  “This is beyond a special VCU project now,” he said, referring to the task force.

  “I’d like to stay here in New Orleans to see this to its culmination,” Trevor emphasized. He had no intention of turning leads over to the local FBI team and walking away. There was too much at stake and he’d followed Dante’s trail for too long. “I’m from here, sir, and I’m very familiar with the area. As you know, I’ve also established a relationship with the unsub—”

  “Has he made contact with you about this latest victim?” Johnston asked. He still hadn’t sat down at the table, his bearing military straight. Trevor remained standing, as well.

  “Last night by cell phone, informing me of the body he’d left in Coliseum Park. He referred to the dead girl as a gift for me.”

  Trevor told him about the planned DEA drug raid on the Ascension that night. He lowered his voice in case anyone was within earshot outside the room. “It’s not our warrant and we can’t have a dozen FBI agents storming in there, but I can go in informally and see what stands out.”

  Taking off his wire-rimmed glasses, Johnston used a tissue to wipe the lenses. “This case has become personal to you, Agent Rivette?”

  Trevor felt his shoulders tense, but he didn’t break his gaze. “I want to get this guy. I’ve invested eighteen months.”

  “Agent Fincher won’t be able to join you. Another child abduction and murder occurred yesterday near Arlington. We think they’re related.” He cleared his throat, his gaze remaining stoic. “But you have the local FBI and police.”

  Footsteps and the murmur of conversation came from down the hallway, letting them know the others attending the meeting were on their way.

  “Make no mistake, Agent. I want this case closed before another body turns up.”

  Just before midnight, revelers poured from the doors of the Ascension like ants escaping a flattened anthill. Inside, DEA and police swarmed the converted sanctuary.

  Wearing a Kevlar vest like the other law enforcement roving the club, Trevor worked his way through the chaos and into the shadowed passage that led to the basement. When he reached the bottom of the stone stairwell, his eyes swept over the private playroom of Armand Baptiste and his goth kindred. With the lights on, the gaping room no longer looked eerie, simply bare and dingy. The bar area was deserted except for a half-dozen leather-clad males who were lined up and facing the windowless wall. Their legs were spread and their hands clasped behind their heads as DEA agents and police patted them down.

  “How many cows you figure had to die to outfit these losers?” Reyes had come down the stairs, his own Kevlar unstrapped and hanging at his sides. “It looks like the biker convention from hell down here.”

  “What’s the count?” Trevor asked, holstering his gun.

  “So far, we’ve got five for narcotics possession, one for carrying a concealed weapon. There’s also an NOPD wagon full of underage drinkers.”

  Trevor suspected the wagon contained some of the kids he wanted to talk to again, this time about Marcy Cupich’s murder. “What about Baptiste?”

  Reyes shook his head. “No sign of him here or at the other locales.”

  Scuffling sounds came from the hallway behind the bar. A stringy-haired male burst through the door with two policemen in pursuit. Blocking the man’s exit, Trevor seized him by the shirt and shoved him face-first against the wall.

  “I’ve been looking for you, Girard.” He pinned the struggling man’s arms behind his back.

  Girard snarled over his shoulder, flashing pointed teeth. One of the officers stepped in with handcuffs and took over.

  “You know this asshole?” Reyes asked Trevor.

  “Only socially. He tried to gut me with a six-inch hunting knife.”

  “Agent Reyes,” a muscular African-American in a DEA jacket called from the hallway’s threshold. “I think we found something.”

  Trevor followed Reyes and the agent down the corridor and past the storeroom that had been the site of the knife attack a few days earlier. That room was also now brightly lit, and DEA men were rummaging through the shelving units and cardboard boxes stacked against the walls.

  “There’s another room at the end of the hallway,” the agent commented, pointing ahead. “Some kind of private office.”

  A second slant of light indicated the other room. As they approached, Trevor noticed the awkward angle of the door, which suggested it had been p
reviously closed and locked until force was applied. It yawned open, hanging gingerly by its top hinge. Trevor and Reyes stepped inside. The room contained only a desk, a chair and a tall metal cabinet, its front padlocked. A bare bulb hung from a cord in the room’s center. If this was Baptiste’s personal office, it was a far cry from his elegant work space at the antiques firm.

  Another agent stood nearby with bolt cutters.

  “Do the honors,” Reyes told him.

  The cabinet’s padlock was cut through in seconds. The man swung the doors open.

  “Bingo,” Reyes intoned under his breath. On the cabinet’s shelves sat a half-dozen packages wrapped in brown butcher paper. One was partially ripped open, and pills tumbled from its insides like candy from a piñata.

  “This a nightclub or a pharmacy?” the agent with the bolt cutters asked, grinning.

  But Trevor wasn’t looking at the drugs. His gaze had shifted to the slim rectangular case on the cabinet’s lower shelf.

  “You want to remove that?” he said to Reyes.

  Reyes donned gloves and placed the case on the desk, then opened its lid.

  Trevor felt a jolt at what he saw. “Can we get a photographer in here?”

  “You bet,” Reyes said, calling for one.

  Black crystal beads with mother-of-pearl and a Celtic silver cross. His mouth dry, Trevor stared at the pair of identical rosaries inside the velvet-lined case, their glimmering ropes entwined like lovers’ arms.

  29

  Rain had cloistered herself in the upstairs study. She sat on the couch, cradling a cup of herbal tea between her palms as she attempted to distract herself with a late-night television talk show. But the host’s opening monologue failed to make much of an impression. Two minutes into his discussion with his first guest, a vapid blonde with collagen-enhanced lips, she clicked off the remote.

  She hadn’t heard from Trevor since the previous evening when they’d had dinner together. After Dante’s taunting phone call, he’d waited in tense silence for an officer to relieve him and then he’d gotten into his car and headed to Coliseum Square. Rain had watched his taillights recede into darkness as the wail of police sirens shattered the neighborhood’s quiet. A few hours later, the local news confirmed Dante’s vicious claim.

  Another girl dead. Rain had to wonder if it was all because of her.

  Picking at the fringe on the couch’s embroidered pillows, she silently urged Trevor to call and let her know what was going on. The cop downstairs in her kitchen seemed to know little beyond his assignment of keeping guard. Either that or he was being deliberately closemouthed. Despite his run-in with Oliver, Rain much preferred the young and talkative Officer Arseneau over the silver-haired, flat-eyed cop manning the evening shifts.

  She set the cup down and walked to the recessed bookshelves that lined the room’s far wall. Restless, she ran her fingers over the bound volumes. Academic tomes on psychology mingled with the Victorian novels and books on gardening that had belonged to Celeste. She pulled out Jane Eyre, which had been among her aunt’s favorites, but paused when she saw the slim paperback tucked behind the others, out of view. Rain stood on tiptoe to reach its worn spine. The lurid illustration on its cover surprised her. Carrying the book to the couch, she opened it at a random spot and began to read.

  The content was clearly sadomasochistic in nature, the story about a female submissive engaged in role-playing with a dangerously handsome man.

  Will he merely threaten me this time, holding the blade to my throat while he thrusts himself inside me? Or will he take our dark game a step further? I am hot and wet, and nearly come in the knowledge that he is in control…

  The rest of the passage was extremely sexually graphic. Rain flipped forward to the front pages and sought out the copyright date. As its yellowed appearance suggested, the paperback was old, printed thirty-five years earlier. Certainly, she knew such S&M erotica existed then. Had it belonged to Desiree?

  Twin beams flashed through the room’s fan-shaped window. A car made the turn onto Prytania, its headlights creating a sweeping pattern across the beadboard-paneled walls and high ceiling before fading away. Rain felt a twinge of nerves. Dante had been on her doorstep last night, then vanished as quickly as the car’s silvered lights. She thought of the Blue Moon photos, which had served as inspiration for the twisted fantasy he was bent on repeatedly bringing to life.

  She closed the paperback. What things didn’t she know about her mother? How much had Celeste protected her?

  Returning to the bookcase, Rain replaced the literature in its hiding place, using Jane Eyre to seal it back inside its dark tomb.

  The Royal Street precinct was as busy as a French Quarter bar on Fat Tuesday. Chalky-faced goths were shuffled through to booking, while surly teens waited in a holding pen until their parents or Juvenile Corrections picked them up. DEA agents and police mingled, trying to sort through the crowd who’d been hauled in from the club on a variety of charges.

  Trevor headed to where McGrath and Thibodeaux stood in line at the equipment cage, waiting to turn in their radios and Kevlars. While he’d been at the Ascension with Reyes’s team, the detectives had taken part in the synchronized raid of Baptiste’s antiques business and warehouse.

  “Any sign of Baptiste?” Trevor asked as he approached. “He wasn’t at the Ascension, although the undercover DEA agent placed him there just prior to the bust.”

  “Slippery bastard’s in the wind,” Thibodeaux remarked. “His residence in the Quarter’s staked out, but I doubt he’s stupid enough to show up there.”

  The detectives filled him in on their segment of the raid. Although it was nothing like the find at the Ascension, trace amounts of raw Ecstasy powder and a tablet press had been found at the warehouse.

  “Baptiste was using both businesses as channels for his real moneymaker,” McGrath theorized. “The antiques firm gave him a way to import drugs into the country without casting too much suspicion, and the club provided a method of distribution.”

  “Tonight’s bust put a stop to that.” The statement came from Reyes, who’d joined them after conferring with the station lieutenant. “Sixty kilos of MDMA won’t be stimulating the local economy.”

  He looked at Trevor. “Of course, distribution charges would be nothing compared to seven counts of murder one. That’ll get you death row in the great state of Louisiana. Looks like your tagalong paid off, Agent Rivette.”

  McGrath grunted in agreement. “At the least, the rosaries make Baptiste a person of interest.”

  “Forget this person-of-interest horseshit. If you ask me, he practically has killer stamped on his forehead.” Thibodeaux slung his vest onto the counter for check-in. “It all adds up. Two of the vics frequented his club prior to their disappearance, and now we find reproductions of the rosaries in his possession—what more do you want?”

  McGrath answered his partner’s rhetorical question. “I want Baptiste, sitting in my interrogation room.”

  “Any way you look at it, Baptiste is knee deep in alligators. We’re putting out a fat reward for him. If we don’t find him ourselves, some lowlife will turn him in.” Reyes walked into the briefing room.

  “With that, I’m going outside for a celebratory smoke.” Thibodeaux extracted his Marlboro Lights from his shirt pocket. “Buck up, Rivette. Tonight’s one of the good ones.”

  He ambled off in the direction of the precinct’s back lot. But McGrath remained rooted in place. He peered at Trevor. “Tibbs is right. You don’t look pleased. I thought you liked Baptiste for this.”

  “I do think he’s involved,” Trevor said. “But I don’t buy that one man is the top dog in a drug-distribution ring and a serial killer. The Ascension factors into the murders, but I don’t see Baptiste as the unsub.”

  McGrath shrugged. “Maybe he’s a multitasker. He wouldn’t be the first drug lord with a kinky sexual sideline. Besides, Tibbs has a point. Baptiste had the rosaries right there in his personal goth hidey-hole
, and I’ll bet you my next paycheck his prints turn up on the case. Either way, this is gonna get the D.A. off our backs—and your boss at the VCU off yours—now that there’s a bona fide suspect. Ever heard about looking a gift horse in the mouth, Rivette?”

  “I’ll feel better when the horse is in custody.”

  Their conversation paused as a teen with a ratty T-shirt that read I’m So Goth, I’m Dead was hustled past by a female officer. Trevor forced his mind to shift gears. “What about the kid—Oliver Carteris? I never got a call from you letting me know you’d picked him up.”

  “That’s because we didn’t,” McGrath replied. “We went to the residence, a big-ass Victorian number. Dr. Carteris claimed his son wasn’t home, and he didn’t seem too thrilled to see us. In fact, he recommended we go through his attorney prior to any future attempts at conversation.”

  The detective laid his equipment from the raid on the counter. He pushed it through an opening in the cage to a uniformed sergeant. “Get this, though. The surgeon had himself a shiner, and he wouldn’t state how he got it. You sure Junior doesn’t have a history of violent behavior?”

  Trevor recounted what Rain had told him.

  “Call it a cop’s instinct,” McGrath said, “but I’d warn Dr. Sommers to watch herself around this kid.”

  “All I see is black eyeliner and black hair. If this goth crap is about expressing your individualism, how come these clowns all look the same?” Thibodeaux made the observation as he stood in front of a cell crowded with detainees. He jerked his head toward a goateed man in a velvet frock coat who was loudly demanding his lawyer.

  “At least that one’s got style,” he said to Trevor. The man yelled again, and Thibodeaux stepped up to the bars. “Calm the fuck down, Lestat. How about taking that right-to-remain-silent speech a little more seriously?”

  “Rivette.” Trevor saw McGrath walking toward him. “Reyes wants to pull out some of these knuckleheads for questioning. I figured we’d start with your two friends. Since they’re facing charges of assaulting a federal officer, we can use that as leverage to see what they know about Baptiste’s whereabouts.”