by Greg Herren
When I’d first met Rev Harper, I was tied to a chair, much as Fleming was when we found him. I was investigating the murder of a tabloid reporter whose body I’d actually stumbled over—maybe it does happen a lot more than I was willing to admit—and I’d gotten my friend David to give me a ride to follow a lead. Harper’s men had followed us, forced off the highway, and pretty much caused us to have an accident. Within minutes, they’d whisked me out of David’s car and into the trunk of theirs. That time, Harper was looking for the death mask of Napoleon, which had disappeared during the Cabildo fire in 1988. He’d drugged me with sodium pentothal to make sure I was telling the truth. Once he was satisfied that I didn’t know where the death mask was, his men had locked me into a bedroom in his penthouse on top of Jax Brewery. Colin had rescued me while I was still stoned from the drug, and despite my fear of heights, had strapped me to his back and scaled down the side of the building.
I still had nightmares about that. Call it post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Wow.” Taylor’s eyes had widened again. “You live a pretty exciting life, don’t you?”
“I don’t know that I would call it exciting,” I observed. “I would say it’s not average, that’s for sure. Although there have been times when I’ve wished for something a little more normal and boring.” I grinned at him. “But boring and normal’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you know?”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “Dr. Fleming didn’t seem all that upset that Harper’s men took his notes.”
“Well, my guess is he has another set.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “But didn’t you think it was weird how neat and tidy his house was? I mean, other than the crap on his dining room table.”
Taylor thought for a moment, and then smiled at me. “No signs of a struggle.”
“Very astute of you.” I smiled at him as I started the ignition. “So, he either didn’t resist or try to get away from them, or they had other methods of persuading him to let them tie him up.”
The one thing I didn’t understand, though, was why put on such a show for us?
He couldn’t have known we were stopping by.
I pulled away from the curb, drove two blocks, then turned right and swung back around, heading back to Octavia Street, where I turned right again and parked right before the corner at Constance. I turned off the engine and turned to look through the passenger window.
“What are we doing?” Taylor looked out his window, following my gaze.
“We’re going to watch the good doctor’s house for a little while—not long, I promise.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I have a hunch.” I turned in the seat so I was looking right at him. “He seemed to be in a hurry to get rid of us—which is also suspicious. So we’ll just sit here for a while and see if he is up to anything. We’ll give it no more than ten minutes.”
I set the stopwatch function on my phone and propped it up on the dashboard of the truck. A car drove by. A pair of sweat-drenched joggers ran past. It was starting to get hot inside the Explorer, so I turned the key to accessory to get some cold air moving.
The stopwatch beeped, and I was just about to ask Taylor if he thought we should give it another couple of minutes when the front door of Fleming’s house opened. Fleming stepped out with a backpack slung over his left shoulder. He locked the door, got into the Cavalier, and started the engine. The tires squealed loudly as he pulled away from the curb.
“Here we go,” I said, starting the SUV and slipping it into gear. I went around the corner and caught sight of his car about a block ahead of us. He turned on his signal when he reached the stop sign at Magazine Street. I pulled over to the curb, not wanting to come up behind him at the corner—the SUV was too big not to notice. He turned onto Magazine and I swung out again, flooring it and driving too fast. I hoped I wouldn’t lose him on Magazine—it was a narrow, two-lane business street, and traffic was a nightmare under the best of circumstances. I stopped at the corner and looked to the right. He was stopped at the light at Jefferson. I had to wait for a few moments before I could turn, but I could see him clearly as he went through the intersection when the light changed and continued downtown on Magazine.
I’ve been a passenger with Colin and Frank enough times when they were following someone to figure out what I was doing. The key was to never lose sight of him while keeping enough distance between us so he didn’t notice us behind him. I kept three cars between us, figuring that was good enough on the narrow street. He turned on his left turn signal when he got to the intersection at Napoleon. The oncoming lane was clear, so I turned left onto a one-way side street and headed up a couple of blocks before turning right again and heading toward Napoleon. I reached the stop sign just in time to see the red Cavalier drive past, away from the river. I had to wait for another couple of cars to go by before I could pull out to the neutral ground and make a left onto Napoleon. Napoleon was under construction between Prytania and St. Charles and narrowed to only one lane. I could see him ahead of us, three cars back from the red light. There were a couple of cars in between us, but I could easily lose him when the traffic merged when the light changed. I couldn’t see if his signal was on. I cursed under my breath and hung a sharp right.
“What are you doing?” Taylor asked, surprised.
“I don’t want to lose him—” I swore again as the SUV bumped over potholes on the side street. I turned left and drove up to Prytania and shot across the street, right in front of a gray Lexus, which slammed on its brakes and blared its horn at us.
When I got to St. Charles, I could see the light was red at Napoleon, so I drove across to the neutral ground and didn’t slow, almost going up on two wheels as I turned left. I swung into the right turn lane and got to Napoleon in time to see the Cavalier heading toward Claiborne, still on Napoleon. The light finally changed, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned to follow him. There were about four or five cars between us now.
I relaxed.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Taylor whispered.
“You don’t have to whisper—he can’t hear you,” I said, suppressing a grin as his face turned red. “I’m hoping he’s going to meet whomever he’s either working for or with. Maybe we can figure out what he’s up to once we know who that is.” What I was really hoping was wherever it was he was leading us, was where they were keeping Dad.
But I didn’t believe for a minute that Harper had Dad—that wasn’t his style. Sure, he’d kidnapped and drugged me to find out what I knew all those years ago, but kidnapping Dad and holding him hostage was not his style. Harper was more direct—he didn’t play Machiavellian games like that.
No, I didn’t doubt Harper was looking for the deduct box for reasons of his own, but Dad’s kidnapping was the work of someone else.
Which meant there were two opposing groups looking for the deduct box.
And us.
“Call Frank, let him know what we’re doing, and find out what’s going on around my mom’s—see if the kidnappers have called since we left,” I instructed, keeping my eyes on the back of the Cavalier as it continued toward Claiborne Avenue. I heard Taylor talking in a low voice.
Even though I was confident I was right that Harper wasn’t behind Dad’s kidnapping, I wasn’t happy to know he was involved in any way in whatever it was that was going on. The big Texan firmly believed his wealth and power put him above the law and he was justified in doing whatever it took to get what he wanted. But Harper seemed to have a grudging respect for me. I had kept him from getting his hands on the death mask, but he’d given me the fifty-thousand-dollar reward he’d put up for its discovery since I had in fact found it.
No, Harper was more likely to deal with me directly than grab Dad.
The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Whoever had kidnapped Dad seemed to think we either had the deduct box or knew where it was. The only way we could possibly know that was if Veronica had somehow known w
here it was and passed the information on to Mom. And unless Mom wasn’t telling us everything, she didn’t know either. The kidnappers were wrong.
I also wasn’t sure if Fleming had lied about the bonds—it just seemed really weird to me that the state government would have issued what were essentially bearer bonds against state funds, even if Huey Long had wanted it to. None of that made sense. The Huey Long legacy website had been pretty clear that he’d always kept the money as cash, so why on earth would he have done something so out of character? No, Fleming must have been lying about that. He might be an expert on Long, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a liar.
There had to be something else, more than the money, in that box that everyone wanted.
Fleming turned right onto Claiborne and headed downtown.
I bit my lower lip as I turned to follow him.
I didn’t like having Taylor along with me. He was just a kid, and there was no telling how this might end up. But there was no way I could just dump him on the side of the road either. There was nothing to do but keep following Fleming and hope things didn’t take a turn for the worse.
This is why I can’t be a parent—why kids shouldn’t be around me. I get into too much trouble, and I’d put the kid at risk. Frank will never forgive me if anything happens to Taylor. I shouldn’t have brought him with me. I should have known this would turn into more than just a talk with Fleming. But if he can lead us to Dad—isn’t it worth the risk?
Yeah, GREAT parenting skills there, Scotty.
I got even more nervous after we passed through the intersection at Martin Luther King and he got into the lane for the on-ramp to cross the river bridge.
“Fuck it,” I told myself, following him up the long ramp onto 90 West. Traffic wasn’t as heavy as I’d thought it would be, but it was also still early in the day—during rush-hour traffic would come to a horrible stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper halt. I still didn’t think he’d noticed us following him, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that Taylor wasn’t on his phone anymore and was just holding it loosely in his left hand. “What did Frank say?” I asked as we made the steady climb to cross the river.
“They haven’t heard from the kidnappers,” he replied. “But my mother called.”
“Is that good or bad?” I asked as we went over the high point of the bridge and started down the other side to the West Bank. “What did she have to say?”
“She wants me to call her to let her know I’m all right.” He made a face. “She wants to hear my voice. Well, fuck her!”
I glanced over as I braked to slow us down—the downward slope had gotten us to about ninety miles per hour. The Cavalier continued ahead of us on 90, going around the big turn at the bottom of the incline but not getting off at Charles de Gaulle Boulevard. In that quick glance I could see his lip was quivering and his eyes were filled with tears.
“Taylor, it’s okay to be angry with your mother, but she’s still your mother,” I said, trying to keep my voice as soothing and consoling as I could. “You’re going to have to talk to her sometime. I know—I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so completely rejected by your parents, but your mom is doing the best she can, you know?”
He nodded, wiping at his eyes.
I didn’t like sticking up for his mother—frankly, I thought she deserved to be boiled in oil—but saying that wasn’t going to make him feel any better.
“You don’t have to decide now anyway,” I went on, turning my attention back to the highway and frowning. I didn’t see the Cavalier anywhere—had he somehow gotten off the highway when I wasn’t looking? “Do you see him?”
“He’s in front of the eighteen-wheeler,” Taylor said, his voice hushed and a little shaky. “That’s why you can’t see him—oh, look—there he goes! He’s taking that exit!”
Sure enough, Fleming was getting onto the Belle Chasse Highway.
Where the hell is he going? I wondered as I followed him through Belle Chasse and stayed back as he started driving along the river levee.
I stayed back as far as I could. There were no longer any cars between us, and I had to hope he hadn’t noticed us following him before. Where is he going?
Farther and farther we drove; it became clearer we were heading into the marshes that eventually became the coastal wetlands.
“Do you know where we are?” Taylor asked.
“No, not really,” I replied nervously, without taking my eyes off the back of the Cavalier.
Finally, after it seemed like we’d been driving long enough to be out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, he made a left turn and drove along a dirt road.
I hesitated for just a moment before following.
After about another ten minutes, he pulled off the road into a dirt parking lot and drove around behind a building made of rusty corrugated steel with a tin roof. All around us was marsh and water and towering live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. I stopped on the road and let the truck idle for a while.
I didn’t know what to do.
Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to turn the SUV around and head back to New Orleans. I knew I could find the place again, and I couldn’t think of a single good reason we could give to whoever might be back there if I drove around to the back of that building. I was just about to put the car into reverse and turn around when three men materialized from the side of the road, pointing shotguns at us. A woman, short in stature and wearing cut-off jeans shorts beneath a Greenpeace T-shirt, came around my side of the SUV and gestured for me to roll down the window.
Starting to sweat, I rolled the window down and plastered a smile on my face. “Can I help you?”
“Turn off the engine and get out of the car,” she said with a scowl. She had long black hair that hung limply around her face. Her forehead was covered by her greasy bangs. Her skin was pitted with acne scars, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. “Don’t make us shoot you, because we will.” She gestured over her shoulder. “There’re plenty of gators out there that’ll be more than happy to eat the two of you. No one would ever find you or know what happened to you.”
I glanced over at Taylor, who looked absolutely terrified. I turned off the engine, mouthing the words we’ll be okay to him as I opened my car door and stepped down onto the dirt road. “I’m Scotty, and this is Taylor. I’m not sure what you think we’re doing out here, but we’re lost and—”
She shook her head. “Don’t make things worse by treating me like I’m stupid,” she said. “I’m nobody’s fool, Scotty. I don’t know what you’re doing out here, but you didn’t get out here by getting lost, all right? So just drop the dumb act. Frisk them,” she instructed, “and then drive the vehicle around back.” When they finished patting us down, one of them climbed into the SUV and drove it around behind the building. “Come along, then,” she said, and started walking.
One of the rifles pushed me in the center of my back, and I started walking, following her. I mumbled a quick prayer to the Goddess to watch over Taylor, and asked, “Won’t you tell me your name?”
“I’m not feeling like making your acquaintance at the moment,” she snapped, walking a little faster. She took a few more steps, then stopped and whirled around, a smile on her face. Her teeth were gray, and I noticed she had a rather sickly pallor to her skin. She stuck out her hand. Her arm was covered in mosquito bites. “My name’s Diana. Diana Killeen. Pleased to meet you.” Her voice was saccharine sweet and about as phony as her politeness.
I didn’t take her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
She scowled at me, her eyes narrowed momentarily, and she turned and started walking again.
Once we reached the building, she opened a side door and went inside. We followed. She pointed at two chairs. “Sit.” She pulled some water from a cooler and held the dripping bottle up to her sweating face for a moment, her eyes closed. “Tie ’em up nice and tight,” she instructed, and smiled as she watched her henchmen tie us to the chairs. I looked around but
didn’t see Fleming anywhere, cursing myself as an idiot.
This is what you get for thinking you can play hero and follow someone. He probably knew we were following him from the start and called ahead to make sure they caught us. I just hope they don’t kill us.
Once they finished tying us to the chairs she walked over and stood in front of us. “Why were you following Doc Fleming?” she asked in a conversational tone. Her face was still completely blank and free of emotion. When I didn’t answer, the corners of her lips twitched in what was probably an attempt at a smile. “If you don’t talk, I can have one of the guys start breaking your little friend’s fingers, one at a time.” She sounded rather pleased with herself, and my palm itched to slap her right across her smug face. I promised myself if I got the chance I’d make it count. “Answer me! Why were you following Doc Fleming?”
I glared at her. “I knew he was lying to us, so I figured we’d hang out for a while and see what he was up to. When he got into the car, we followed and wound up here.”
“Who are you?” Her eyes narrowed. “And what do you care about Doc Fleming?”
“Well, like I said, my name is Scotty Bradley, and I—”
“Wait a minute, did you say Bradley?” She interrupted me, her eyes widening momentarily, and she exchanged a look with one of the men. “Bradley? Did you say Bradley? As in Cecile Bradley?”
“She’s my mother,” I answered.
And just like that, I knew exactly who and what she and her friends were.
“You’re AFAR, aren’t you?” I tried to turn my head to give Taylor a reassuring glance. “You were working with Veronica Porterie. You’re the ones who took the tiger. Is this where you have him hidden?”
“That’s none of your business,” Diana replied. Her face was expressionless, her eyes and voice cold. “Doc Fleming said you broke into his house and tied him up, and then when he escaped, you chased him out here.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing with him, but he’s playing you for a fool,” I replied, over Taylor’s gasp of indignation from somewhere to my left. I laughed. “He was tied up when we arrived. We untied him. He told us some bullshit story, like I said, and we followed him out here. He must have seen us following him, so he concocted this bullshit story to tell you.” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care what you people are doing with the tiger. All I care about is—” I stopped myself.