New Orleans Requiem

by D. J. Donaldson

  “I’ve spent a few hours trying to puzzle that one out myself. Murder in the heat of passion, I understand. Murder motivated by greed, jealousy, or a desire for revenge, I still have some questions about. But the predator . . . the serial killer . . . there’s the ultimate challenge. Take this guy we’re after now; he seems to be totally without conscience.”

  “I used to think this country invented serial killers, but then there was that one recently in Russia, the Rostov Ripper.”

  “My guess is, they’ve always had them. Only now, they’re willing to admit it.”

  Lawson took another sip of his iced tea. “You figure every culture has them?”

  “I’d hate to think so,” Kit replied, “because that’d suggest it’s genetic, that there’s a certain number born every year, like hemophiliacs.”

  “Scary thought, but maybe not so wrong. That guy in Omaha in the early eighties who killed those two little boys said when he was only six, he fantasized about killing and eating the baby-sitter. In a way, a genetic cause could prove useful. I mean, maybe they could find a marker. . . .”

  “Then what, screen all new babies?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “What happens when they find one with the marker?”

  Lawson thought about this a moment, then said, “Well, you’d never get a baby-sitter for him.”

  Despite the subject of the conversation, both smiled. Sitting there, all comfortable and safe with her belly warmed by the rum, Kit began to see what a charmer Lawson could be.

  “Now a very personal question,” he said. Getting no protest, he continued. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “We don’t date others.”

  Lawson raised one hand. “Okay, I accept that . . . for now. But things change. When they do, will you keep me in mind?”

  Kit shook her head. He might have saved her, but she wasn’t going to turn her personal life inside out for his inspection. “First, there’s no chance in the wind. Second, you’re not my type. I prefer men who aren’t likely to come up missing someday because they were killed performing some fool stunt.”

  “I’d tell you I could change, but that’d be a lie. So I guess you’ll have to.”

  “Don’t count on it. Now, as pleasant as this has been, I’m going home.”

  Lawson had parked in the same lot, so they walked there together. In the rearview mirror, she saw him watch her drive away. It had indeed been a nice talk and she’d changed her opinion of him for the better. But that didn’t mean she felt guilty for failing to mention the killer’s forensic connection. Nor was she sorry she omitted her belief that when she and Phyllis Merryman were talking about the Heartbeats, Merry-man had definitely held something back.

  15

  The next morning, out of ideas and with her part of the investigation stalled, Kit headed for the Hyatt.

  Just inside the main entrance, she saw a 48 Hours TV crew tagging along after a small man in a blue suit, their camera trained on his feet. She did not recognize the object of their attention but was pretty sure it wasn’t James Starrs, the head of the team that on Friday would be discussing the results of their exhumation of Huey Long’s assassin. There would certainly be a lot of media coverage for that.

  She wondered if someday at these meetings there might be a session on the killer she was chasing. Maybe . . . but only if he was caught. And right now, she wasn’t being much help.

  She went up the escalator to the Regency Foyer and scanned the milling attendees, hoping to see Broussard. But he was not there, most likely being in the Pathology session, where at 10:15 he’d be giving his paper. She walked to the hospitality table.

  “Any crises?”

  “Everything’s running smoothly, dear,” Mrs. Gervais said, so loudly she could be heard far down the foyer.

  “Can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this,” Kit said. “I know it isn’t much fun sitting here all day.”

  “Don’t be silly—I’m enjoying myself,” Edna said. “Now I think I have a customer.”

  While Edna helped the attendee decide what he should do with his spare time, Kit went looking for Burgundy Rooms A–D. Ahead of her, two men going in opposite directions hailed each other.

  “Poisoning anybody?” the one going her way said.

  “Rigging the tests and denying it all,” the other one replied.

  Burgundy A–D was a series of small rooms on the fourth floor. Properly anticipating a good crowd, the organizers had pulled the partitions, making one large room. Kit found a seat on the right about six rows from the front, where five men were seated behind a draped table on a raised platform.

  For the next forty minutes, she tried to concentrate on a succession of speakers discussing psychological autopsies conducted in the wake of the USS Iowa incident, where one of the crew was suspected of committing suicide by causing a gun turret to explode. Ordinarily, she would have listened intently, but her mind was too full of the week’s events for that to be possible.

  When the last speaker finished, a voice rose from the back. “I don’t know why they called in psychiatrists in the first place. If they really wanted to know what happened, they should have come to a forensic pathologist. Face it, you boys are out of your depth here.”

  Kit looked back and saw that this came from a mustached man standing by the side door. His comment caused a thin old man in a brown suit to leave his chair a few rows behind Kit and charge to the front of the room, where he grabbed a microphone off the speaker’s table. “You . . . you . . . pathologists are good when it comes to cause of death,” he said in a foreign accent wavering with emotion. “But you are not so good at determining mode. I’d rather have a poor psychiatrist on a suicide case than a good pathologist.”

  This caused a great stir in the audience. Wearing a self-satisfied smile, the old man put the mike back and steered a course toward his seat. He was intercepted by a silver-haired man on the aisle who grabbed the old man’s arm. “How many suicide scenes have you attended?”

  “None,” the old man said.

  “That’s what I thought,” the other guy said, letting the old man go.

  The room prickled with animosity. At this point, the moderator of the session leaned into his mike and said, “I can’t tell you how good it is to see psychiatrists arguing with someone else for a change.”

  This caused a good deal of laughter and the session broke up on a congenial note. But Kit was not laughing. Psychiatrists and psychologists, she had expected at this session, but not pathologists.

  The evidence Broussard had uncovered suggested the killer might be a pathologist. She studied the silver-haired man, who was shaking hands with a colleague, then she glanced back for another look at the aggressive fellow by the door, who was now making notes in a tiny spiral pad. Both were normal in appearance, both well dressed. Neither seemed likely to cause alarm if they approached you on the street late at night.

  She examined the faces of the men talking with the speakers, briefly fitting each of them into the malleable picture she had of the killer. Finally, she left by the front entrance and went back downstairs, keenly aware that if the killer had not been in the Burgundy Room, he might well be in the session she was about to join.

  BROUSSARD LOWERED THE LASER pointer and began his summary, satisfied on two counts. Not only had his delivery been okay but he’d kept Franks from getting to his slides.

  He had been feeling a shade better since figuring out what the three hairs meant, but there was still a lingering emptiness inside him. A part of him wanted to give in to that emptiness and follow the beckoning darkness. But he could not . . . not now . . . not when a murderous colleague with a colossal ego was still free to roam the city.

  The chairman of the session called for questions from the huge audience and Jason Harvey rose from his seat near the back and made his way to a microphone on the aisle.

  “Dr. Broussard, it strikes me
that these cases you describe are not at all common.”

  There was a buzz in the room at this amazing statement.

  “Which is perhaps why I described them as ‘atypical’ in my title,” Broussard said pleasantly.

  “It also strikes me that we should not be dwelling at these gatherings on the unlikely, but, rather should be concentrating on patterns we’ll be seeing in the great majority of cases we encounter. To do otherwise is merely to indulge in esoterica.”

  Harvey returned to his seat. His position was ridiculous. Believing this was so self-evident as not to need reiteration, Broussard simply said, “I’m sure we’ll all give your observation careful consideration, Dr. Harvey.”

  There were no more questions and the session took its midmorning break.

  “What a jerk,” Kit said as Broussard joined her in the foyer. “You let him off too easy.”

  “There’s no virtue in engagin’ in a battle of wits with an unarmed man,” Broussard said, reaching in his pants pocket for a lemon ball, which he slipped into his mouth. He offered her the customary two wrapped in gold cellophane and she accepted. “You get anywhere with that singer you were gonna talk to?”

  “Yes and no,” she replied, putting the candies in her bag. “There’s something there, but she won’t come clean . . . and we’re running out of time.”

  Kit was surprised to see Nick Lawson come out of the ballroom. His head was slightly bent so he could hear what the shorter man beside him was saying. Noticing her, he waved. She waved back and Broussard turned to see who might be joining them.

  “You wavin’ to Nick Lawson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought you didn’t like him.”

  “He did me a big favor. Last night when I was down in the Quarter to find that girl we were talking about, I got mixed up with a pickpocket.”

  “You lose your money?”

  “Just the opposite. I ended up with six wallets that didn’t belong to me.”

  “How many wallets the other pickpocket end up with?”

  “Very funny. Anyway, while I was taking them to the police station, the pickpocket’s partner tried to take them back by force. But Nick stopped him.”

  “You were together?”

  “No. He was following me, trying to find the singer I talked to.”

  “So he knows about the article?”

  “He was in the photo lab when my contact at the paper arranged to have prints of the band’s picture made for me.”

  “He gonna write about it?”

  “I don’t think so. He said he wouldn’t.”

  “You know who that is with him?”

  “Who?”

  “An anthropologist on Phillip’s list.”

  “You’re saying Lawson probably knows we think the killer’s at the meeting?”

  “Hard to believe otherwise.”

  “I think I could get him not to write about it.”

  “Doesn’t much matter. I’m sure it’s all over the place by now.”

  “Interesting exchange you had in there with Harvey,” Hugh Greenwood said, coming up to them. “The man needs a keeper. But you did well not to rise to the bait. Very mature.”

  “Believe me, the bait was temptin’.”

  “Andy . . .”

  It was Zin Fanelli, looking sheepish and worried. “What Harvey said the other day about me saying you were never good with knife wounds . . . I swear to God, I never . . .”

  Broussard put a hand on Fanelli’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Zin. I didn’t take it seriously.”

  The contrition in Fanelli’s face evaporated. “Great. I’m really glad to hear that. Thanks.” He backed away, practically bowing. “Thanks a lot.”

  “What’s with Fanelli?” Leo Fleming said, joining the group. “He was actin’ like a Chinese houseboy.”

  “Apologizin’ for somethin’ he didn’t do,” Broussard said.

  “Low self-esteem, probably,” Fleming observed. “Guess you’ve already discussed Harvey’s perceptive comment.”

  “Hard not to,” Greenwood said.

  “Anybody else hungry?” Broussard asked. “They’ve got a great bread pudding here.”

  “I wouldn’t mind some coffee,” Fleming said.

  Kit had been hoping to get some time alone with Broussard to pick his brain about Phyllis Merryman. Now, that wouldn’t be possible. Reluctantly, she followed the others to the restaurant in the atrium.

  When they were seated and had placed their orders, Greenwood said, “I heard the police are grilling some of our colleagues about those murders. You thinking he’s one of us?”

  Broussard glanced knowingly at Kit and said, “Looks that way.”

  Greenwood smiled, or at least tried to, his scars pulling his lips into odd directions. “I like that, I really do. . . . Helluva’ interesting twist. Why don’t I ever get anything that unusual? Sort of puts you on the spot, though, doesn’t it, Andy? Usually you’re up against uninformed fools. But now . . . this is different. If he gets away, tongues will wag.”

  Broussard did not respond, his attention diverted by the approach of Phil Gatlin.

  “Three down and a crowd to go,” Gatlin said. “My ten-thirty rescheduled at the last minute, so I’ve got some time to kill.”

  “Pull up a chair,” Broussard said. “You know Leo, but I don’t believe you’ve met Hugh Greenwood.”

  As Gatlin took Greenwood’s outstretched hand, he stared at Greenwood’s name tag, his brow furrowed. He released Green-wood’s hand and reached in his pocket for his little black book, which he consulted. Then, looking at Green-wood, he said, “I wonder if we could talk for a few minutes.”

  “Sure,” Greenwood said. “Join us.”

  “You might prefer we do this in private.”

  “That sounds serious.”

  “Murder is always serious.”

  “Of course it is. If I can help, it’d be my pleasure.”

  “We can go . . .”

  “I’ve got coffee and a sweet roll coming,” Greenwood said. “So why don’t we talk right here.”

  “Your call,” Gatlin said, pulling a chair over from an adjoining table. “Dr. Greenwood, as I’m sure you know, we’ve had a series of murders over the last five days, all committed by the same person. The last occurred early yesterday morning down by the river. After the body was discovered, we had men stopping all pedestrians in the vicinity. My records indicate that you were one of those we stopped. Mind telling me what you were doing out at such an hour?”

  “I don’t sleep well when I travel,” Greenwood said. “And after all, this is a town known for its nightlife.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “Left Indie at seven-thirty P.M. Sunday, arrived at nine-thirty.”

  “Would you mind if we went to your room and had a look at your plane ticket?”

  “Can’t it wait until after I’ve eaten?”

  “I don’t have much time.”

  Greenwood pushed his chair back and stood up. Looking at Broussard, he said, “Have the waitress hold the order, will you?”

  When they were out of earshot, Fleming said, “I know he’s an odd duck, but I don’t think he’s that odd.”

  “Who do you know that is that odd?” Broussard asked.

  “Good point.”

  “Remember that comment he made the other night while we were all walking to the Quarter for dinner?” Kit asked. “How he said in hand-to-hand combat with a knife, when you strike the lethal blow, it makes you want to howl. . . .”

  “But these are murders,” Broussard said. “Except for the last one, the victims were unarmed. It’s not the same thing.”

  “If you get away without being caught, wouldn’t that give you the same feeling?”

  Broussard shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  Over Broussard’s shoulder, Kit saw a small man with thinning hair and a tie that stopped far too short of his belt coming their way. He was carrying a circular black slide tray.

>   “Dr. Broussard, glad I found you. You forgot your slides.”

  Broussard thanked him and put the tray on the table. Before the conversation could resume, he looked into the central circular opening of the tray and removed a folded piece of paper with a rubber band around it.

  “What’s that?” Fleming asked.

  “A note with my name on it.”

  Broussard took off the rubber band and put it on the table along with a loose slip of paper bearing his name in Courier typeface. As he unfolded the note, three large dried insects fell out of it onto the white tablecloth. Kit leaned over for a better look. They were a kind she’d never seen before, multiple legs on the front, smooth behind. “What are they?” she asked.

  Broussard turned one over with his knife. “Eyelids,” he said.

  Kit’s stomach pitched and yawed.

  “I want to talk to that projectionist,” Broussard said, coaxing the eyelids back onto the paper with his knife. He hastily refolded the paper with the eyelids inside and put it in his shirt pocket along with the slip of paper and the rubber band. He grabbed his slide carrier, got up, and headed for the ballroom.

  Feeling a little better now that the eyelids were out of sight, Kit looked at Fleming and he looked back, both of them unsure of what to do. Then they both got up to follow Broussard, Fleming nearly knocking the waitress’s tray from her hand as she arrived with their food.

  “Darlin’, somethin’ has come up and we may not get back,” he said. “Just figure the bill, give yourself twenty percent, and leave it with the cashier. I’ll sign it later. I’m in eight-oh-two.” He showed her his Hyatt key card and hurried to catch up with Kit and Broussard.

  They found the projectionist fiddling with the slide carriers for the next round of talks, lining them up in order on some shelves under the projector stand, where he’d pasted temporary labels bearing the speakers’ names on each carrier. He looked up at Broussard’s approach.