by King, Leo
“Right,” replied Rodger as his head was getting bandaged up. “I’m not sure exactly what a ‘priory’ is, but it seems to denote an organization of some kind. Perhaps, given that an assassin was sent to kill Monty, this Nite Priory is more than one person.”
Nodding his head, Michael leaned back. “It’s possible, Rodger. All we know is the following.” He started to count off on his fingers. “One, the killer contacted Miss Babineaux personally, meaning he was either a past customer or knew how to contact her. Two, the killer is contacting the previous accomplices of Vincent Castille, calling himself, herself, or themselves the Nite Priory.
“So whoever they are, they knew that the Bourbon Street Ripper had accomplices, as well as what they did. Three, we know that this killer is either a trained assassin or can retain the services of a trained assassin to stop people from talking. Therefore, he must have either some kind of military or police background, or he must have strong finances.”
Rodger nodded, again impressed with his younger partner. “The only problem is that we are, as of yet, unsure as to which of those variables you mentioned are true. Is the killer one or more people? Is the killer wealthy or highly trained? Is the killer aware of the accomplices or is he himself an accomplice?”
“Right,” agreed Michael, who was finally being released by the EMTs and getting up and ready to depart. “We’ll need to start checking those variables out tomorrow. I’ll look up what this Nite Priory could be.”
After being helped off the ambulance, Rodger joined his partner as he headed to their car. “And as for the accomplices,” he said, “if Topper Jack and Mad Monty were involved, you can guarantee that Fat Willie and Blind Moses are as well. Who knows, with Fat Willie behind bars, Blind Moses could be the killer.”
“Could be that Blind Moses was the masked assassin,” said Michael as they got into their sedan and he buckled himself in. “Could also be that Dr. Castille’s accomplices are being played as much as we are, you know?”
Having momentary difficulties with his safety belt, and finally clicking it in place, Rodger nodded before starting up the car, which roared to life. He pulled out of the warehouse courtyard and turned toward Old Gentilly Road. “We should also check up on the pay phones around the murder site, see if anyone has seen anything.”
As Michael agreed with him, Rodger turned his attention to driving. He didn’t know what his partner wanted, but Rodger wanted to get home, have a stiff drink, and go to sleep. Today’s ordeal felt like it should have given Rodger half a head of gray hairs, and he wanted to put it behind him, hopefully in an alcoholic daze.
It was 10:00 p.m. when Rodger finally trudged into his apartment, a two-room place tucked away on Barracks Street in the southeast part of the French Quarter. After parking his car and squeezing through the alleyway’s tight entrance into a residential courtyard, Rodger turned right and headed to the second door down—the door to his home. As the detective fumbled tiredly in his coat pocket for the keys, he heard a voice behind him that sounded as crotchety as it was old.
“Rodger Bergeron, there you is!”
With an internal groan, Rodger turned around and managed a weak smile for the diminutive African-American woman standing before him. She was standing at the doorway to the first apartment down, leaning on a black metallic cane and gumming her dentures. One bony hand pointed up at Rodger as the old woman looked at him through a single squinty eye.
“You owes me rent, Rodger Bergeron, and don’t go thinking that just because you with the poh-lice, you gets a free ride.”
“Of course, Ms. Parkerson,” replied Rodger, keeping that smile. “You know I’m good for it. I’ve just been too busy to—”
“You been too busy to take all of thirty seconds to write me a check, Rodger?” interrupted Ms. Parkerson, wagging her finger in a very dismissive fashion.
While he kept smiling on the outside, inwardly Rodger sighed.
To be fair, Ms. Parkerson was probably one of the kindest and most considerate people he knew. One Christmas, when the heat went out in his apartment, she invited him over to her apartment to have dinner with her and her son and his family while putting a rush order on the repairs. When his water pipe broke, the old woman went and woke up Earl Mastadon, the portly plumber who lived two doors down, and paid him fifty dollars to fix Rodger’s pipes that evening, even though it was Earl’s day off. When Edward died, Ms. Parkerson sent an impressive arrangement of cypress flowers to Rodger at work, expressing her condolences.
She treated all of her tenants that way, saying that if she couldn’t be a friend as well as a landlord, then there was no point. However, there was one thing Ms. Parkerson was an absolute tyrant about—the monthly rent.
“All right, Ms. Parkerson,” Rodger said in a tired voice, “give me one minute and I’ll write you the rent check.”
Getting out his keys and opening the door to his apartment, Rodger stepped inside. In the front hallway, which only went in a few feet, there was a small writing desk that belonged back in the thirties—a keepsake from his father, Edgar Bergeron, a successful detective in his own right. Inside the desk was Rodger’s mostly unused checkbook, the last several dozen entries centered solely around his monthly rent.
Quickly writing out the check, Rodger headed back outside, not the least bit surprised to see Ms. Parkerson standing right outside his door, tapping an impatient foot. “Your rent, Ms. Parkerson,” Rodger said with a less forced smile.
Snatching the check in a brusque manner, Ms. Parkerson looked it over. Satisfied, she gave Rodger a denture-filled grin and thanked him. Rodger started to close the door when the old woman suddenly asked, “I noticed you were limpy, Rodger. Are you okay?”
This made Rodger smile a more genuine smile, opening the door and leaning on the frame. Despite being the Rent Gestapo, she honestly cared for her tenants. He shrugged off his pain and replied that it was simply a job-related injury.
“Hmm,” Ms. Parkerson mused, looking the detective over, “you need some of my famous chicken and dumplings. I’ll cook you up a batch tomorrow morning.”
Rodger opened his mouth to protest, and almost got an old wrinkled finger in it for his troubles. “And I won’t hear a word against it,” Ms. Parkerson said before turning around to head back inside. “Thank you for keeping us all safe, Rodger. You have yourself a good night.”
“Good night, Ms. Parkerson,” Rodger said as he closed the door. He was certain that she would indeed cook up a batch of chicken and dumplings, and he was equally certain that it would be the best chicken and dumplings he’d had in months—since her last batch. As he headed into his apartment, he couldn’t help but be glad Ms. Parkerson was his landlady.
Like Rodger, his place was disorganized, with old books and newspapers all over his front room, boxes of half-eaten cereal closed up but not put away in his kitchen, and last week’s laundry on his bedroom floor. Rodger engaged a maid service to come in once a month to clean up the apartment, throw away the old food, and sort his laundry.
Rodger threw his coat over a coffee table, took off his shoes and slid them underneath the television stand, and poured himself a glass of whiskey. Then he sat back in an oversized comfy chair, resting his tired, battered body with a deep sigh.
The ice cubes rattled in his whiskey glass as Rodger leaned back, put his feet up on a small Victorian ottoman, given to him one year by Ms. Parkerson as a Christmas present, and tried to unwind. With every sip of the bitter liquor, Rodger felt more and more relaxed, his body sinking farther and farther into the comfy chair.
Only when he looked over to the side, at the side table to his right, did the detective sit up again.
On the table was a framed photograph, in black and white, of him and a man about his age, dressed in a neatly pressed suit and tie, clanking whiskey glasses together and smiling like a bunch of fools. The photograph was signed, “Edward and Rodger, good job catching the bad guys—Commander Ouellette.”
Nostalgia filled R
odger’s head as he reached over and picked up the photograph, looking it over.
“Edward, I’m sorry. You came to me during a time of crisis, and I turned my back on you. If only I had listened instead of being an obstinate old fool, you’d still be here. I’d be going over to your house for dinner and would probably be sitting for your grandchildren by now. I’m really sorry. When you needed me the most, I wasn’t there for you. I won’t make the same mistake twice. Not with anyone. Rest in peace, my friend.”
The detective toasted his long deceased partner and slammed back his drink. With a shake of the head from the burning, bitter liquor, Rodger plopped down the glass, slid back in his chair, and fell immediately to sleep.
His dreams were vague and troubled and rapidly turned into a disturbing nightmare. In this tortured dream, Vincent Castille had him tied down to a conveyor belt that went toward a series of rotating scalpels and then into Monty’s gaping, laughing mouth. Monty laughed as he chomped on the conveyor belt, and Vincent Castille, who looked like the old British actor Christopher Lee, had a dead, ghostlike pallor to him.
“That is right, Rodger,” said Vincent as he walked alongside the tied-up Rodger, “this is what you want to do to every criminal you’ve ever failed to catch, isn’t it? You want to tie them up and feed them into ‘The Machine,’ do you not?”
Looking forward, Rodger saw that the machine was no longer Mad Monty’s face, but a giant typewriter, the keys slamming in a crushing manner along the length of the conveyor belt. Looking back at Vincent, Rodger was shocked to see Sam Castille there, her eyes looking distant and possessed. She continued to speak in Vincent Castille’s voice, saying, “Maybe you should have let me die that day, too, Rodger. You can’t trust a Castille. Didn’t you say that to my father before you killed him? Didn’t you?”
Rodger closed his eyes and shook his head, muttering something that could be an apology. When he opened his eyes again, the typewriter was now the machine from Mad Monty’s warehouse, and the rotating scalpels were now steak knives on machine-like human arms, stabbing into the conveyor belt.
Looking back at where Vincent was, Rodger instead saw Mad Monty holding Michael’s decapitated head. The head’s eyes rolled forward to look at Rodger, and the head spoke in his partner’s voice, saying, “You aren’t very good at this, are you? Are you sure you solved the Bourbon Street Ripper case? I think you lied about it.”
Mad Monty then threw Michael’s head over his shoulder and leaned forward, saying in Mad Monty’s voice, “Damn, Rodger! You lied about solving that murder case? You a meaner bitch than me!”
The knives began stabbing into Rodger’s legs, chest, and arms as Mad Monty started to shake him by the shoulders, roaring, “What’s wrong with you, Rodger? What’s wrong with you, Rodger? Rodger! What’s wrong with you, Rodger? Rodger!”
Rodger just flailed and screamed, the knives turning him into a bloody mess.
“What’s wrong with you, Rodger? Rodger! RODGER!”
Suddenly, Rodger was awake, and instead of lying on a conveyor belt, he was lying back in his comfy chair. Instead of being shaken by Mad Monty, he was being shaken by Michael, who looked concerned. It was still dark outside his window, and Rodger was safe in his home.
Holding up his arms to ward off Michael, Rodger said, “Michael, Jesus Christ, what time is it? How’d you get here? What are you doing in my apartment?”
Michael leaned back, still looking concerned. Straightening his tie, he said, “I took a taxi. And you gave me a key, Rodger, and told me that if you ever failed to answer your phone three times when you should be home, to come over and check.”
“Right, right,” said Rodger, sitting up and stretching. “So you called me three times and I didn’t wake up?”
Michael shook his head. “Not me, Commander Ouellette. He told me to come wake you up and, to quote, ‘Get his sad ass out of bed.’ So here I am. Are you okay?”
There was an unusual tone of concern still in Michael’s voice, and Rodger suspected that in his stupor, he was so deeply asleep that he could have appeared to be comatose—not too far a stretch given that he had received a mild concussion earlier that day.
Now stretched, Rodger just cracked his back and neck, then looked over at his partner again. Michael was fully dressed in a new suit, and judging from the slight moisture about his hair, it seemed that he had showered off, too.
“Well, aren’t you ready for work,” replied Rodger, getting up and immediately wishing he hadn’t. His body was sore all over, and he felt like the raw piece of meat that Mad Monty had made him last night. Again he asked his partner what time it was.
“Quarter to five,” Michael said, getting up and following Rodger out into the hallway. “Go and get showered off and changed. I’ve got breakfast waiting.”
“Whoa, whoa,” said Rodger, turning to his partner and holding out his hands. “We don’t have to go in until ten, and I aim to get some quality sleep in my bed.” He then turned to head to his bathroom, intent on taking the longest piss he’d had in days.
“Yeah, you’re starting work right now,” said Michael as he continued to follow his partner like a baby duckling. “So go on and get cleaned up.”
Rodger, who was in front of the toilet, stopped short of unzipping in front of his partner. His hands on his zipper, he looked over at Michael and said, “Oh yeah? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just take my piss and pass out for three more hours?”
“Because we were right,” said Michael as he folded his arms. “It’s a copycat killer.”
As Rodger stared blankly at Michael, the younger man added, “Another woman was found this morning in the French Quarter, eviscerated alive. Whoever it is, they have killed again, just like the Bourbon Street Ripper.”
Chapter 15
The Magic in Your Mind
Date: Friday, August 7, 1992
Time: 7:30 a.m.
Location: Sam Castille’s Townhome
Uptown New Orleans
With a series of sharp ringing sounds, the egg timer in Sam’s kitchen went off, calling her attention away from doodling in her day planner. The smell of bacon and eggs wafted throughout the room as the blond woman, dressed in a loose white blouse and relaxed-fit blue jeans, hopped up and headed toward the skillet.
“Hmmm, was almost in there too long,” Sam mused, looking over the singed edges of the bacon.
She turned off the heat from underneath the skillet and, using a pair of tongs, removed the now quite crispy bacon, placing it on a plate simply covered with paper towels. The dozen strips still sizzled, smelling of cooked pork fat, a simply sumptuous smell. That done, she moved over to the eggs, cooking scrambled in an adjacent pan.
After seeing the texture was perfect, not too runny and not too solid, Sam stirred the eggs up some more and placed them on a plate next to the bacon. The aroma was intoxicating, and despite herself, she stole a bite of both.
As she munched the tidbits, Sam reflected on how different she felt on this sunny morning. Forty-eight hours ago, she was in a hellish place, memories of her grandfather assailing every waking moment. And now here she was, about to have a man over for breakfast for, honestly, the first time in her life.
It was not a situation Sam had expected to find herself in, not by a long shot. After the catharsis she’d had the night before, through the powerful memories brought about thanks to the sherry bottle and red plastic charm, Sam had vowed to finally come out of her shell.
Originally, she had just planned on dropping off her manuscript and then heading to a local park to read. However, when she learned that Richard Fastellos was in town, she decided to get him to autograph a copy of Darkness Rising, one of her favorite books by one of her favorite authors. After doing both tasks, Sam spent the rest of her afternoon reading that signed copy, enjoying the feeling of being a part of the world again.
Sam had never expected to find out from her lawyer that the very same Richie Fastellos wanted to meet with her. Kent hadn’t
even given a reason, which was all right with Sam, as she just wanted to meet the man. Although she decided to go and have dinner with him, Sam wasn’t sure what to expect. She even drank a few glasses of wine before going to make sure she could concentrate on her dinner companion. And although she was nervous, the dinner went remarkably well; Richie was far more interesting than Sam ever could have expected.
Sam also wasn’t expecting him to be so handsome, and even though she had gone through most of her life without giving men much thought, she couldn’t get that smile of his out of her head. Her cheeks starting to pink, Sam came out of her thoughts and looked at the time. Seeing it was already eight o’clock, she realized Richie would be there any minute. She hurried to finish cooking breakfast.
She raced across the kitchen to prepare the toast. Six pieces of bread were torn from the womb of their bread box and crammed into the toaster oven. She busied herself with putting out a spread of preserves and butter. Then her nose caught the whiff of burning toast.
“Crap,” Sam exclaimed and hurriedly opened the toaster oven door. In her haste to rescue the last part of breakfast, she touched part of the hot metal grating, and she snatched back her hand and cursed.
She removed the slightly burnt but still edible toast, and placed it on the same plate as the preserves. She then quickly moved to the kitchen sink to run cold water over her burn.
The pain wasn’t excruciating, but already Sam could feel the throbbing associated with a minor burn from hot metal. She chided herself for being so clumsy.
Well, at least I didn’t touch a hot coil this time.
After a minute or so of running cold water over her finger, Sam took a look at the wound. A red mark was visible and the skin was already tightening—a first-degree burn. Sucking in her breath through her teeth, Sam looked at her hand with disgust, trying to remember the last time she had actually burned herself. As she concentrated, she felt the world around her grow dim.