The cop knew her real name. What was he going to do about it? He could do nothing. She was of legal age to go where she liked and do what she wanted. No one could drag her back to Nashville. Not if she didn’t want to go.
The thought of how her disappearance had probably caused her mother pain stabbed her in the heart. It wasn’t easy to shake off the heavy feeling of guilt, but she’d done what she had to do to keep her sanity. If she could talk to her mother, Connie Bowman would understand. Her father never would.
Her mind jerked back from her inner thoughts. To her surprise, the man who ordered the bloody drink loitered down the street at the corner of St. Peter and Bourbon. His scruffy beard and dirty army jacket bounced with each step he took. His usual cap was missing, and his long, tangled, salt and pepper hair had been tied up in a ponytail elastic. No doubt, his hooded eyes stared straight ahead with the same intensity of purpose as when he ordered one of his drinks.
It seemed that Jeri and the weird guy were the only ones on that block of Bourbon at six in the morning. No doubt anyone who was hanging around that time of day had rushed to find out what the commotion was all about on Dauphine.
When it seemed she had caught the weirdo’s eye, he turned and hurried away, heading in the same direction she intended to go. She slowed her pace, trying hard not to look like she was following him and hoping he would turn onto a cross street before she walked the six blocks from the bar to Canal. He made a left on St. Louis when she was only about a half block behind him. She stumbled on the uneven pavement as she passed the corner and gazed down the side street.
He had disappeared. She released the breath she’d been holding and picked up her pace.
****
Nick stood over the body of a young female, probably between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. Her glassy eyes stared at nothing. A gaping hole in her neck suggested how she had died. The large pool of blood next to her body told him where she’d died, right where she’d been found. Sympathy swelled in Nick for the dead woman.
The guy from the medical examiner’s office pulled the black bag over the victim’s head. “She hasn’t been dead long, maybe six to eight hours.”
“Was she raped?”
“The autopsy will have to confirm it, but it doesn’t appear that she was.”
Nick’s stomach flipped. As long as he’d been a cop, he’d never gotten used to looking at the body of a murder victim who’d died a horrible death such as this. It didn’t often happen in New Orleans. Most murders in the city were of the domestic dispute or drug deal gone bad variety. The recent upswing in fatal gang violence had kept the major crimes squad busier than usual for a few months, and there was no end to the turf wars in sight. It appeared that it was going to be a long, hot summer.
Distrust between the community and the police didn’t help matters, but then Nick guessed he understood the source of the dissension. New Orleans had a history of corruption and discriminatory policing. Nick was trying to be one of the guys that bettered the department’s image. It wasn’t always easy. Sometimes he felt like he was alone. Old attitudes die hard, and a ton of resentment existed on both sides of the distrust divide. He hoped the mayor’s new initiative to reduce gang violence would help ease the tension, but Nick wasn’t holding his breath.
To cover his escalating sense of the utter futility of the constant struggle to enforce the law, Nick made a generic comment. “Such a horrible way to die.”
The assistant medical examiner, Dodge Corolla laughed. “There’s no pretty way to die. They all rattle in the end.”
What did Corolla know about it? He only saw them after they were gone.
Nick closed his eyes. The memory of watching his grandmother take her last breath could still get to him. “That’s rude to the dead, Corolla. Have a little respect.”
While they had tossed dark banter back and forth, Dodge had bagged her hands to keep any evidence under her nails from being contaminated. The guy might be an ass, but he was good at his job. Dodge could usually anticipate what the lead detective would request.
“You want to look her over before I send her to the morgue?”
Nick knelt beside the body and scanned the woman from her head to her toes. Corolla shoved a pair of latex gloves at him, and Nick pulled them over his hands. He patted her down. No pockets. No tears in her clothing. Still had her underwear on. Didn’t look like she’d been redressed. So Corolla was right; there was probably no sexual assault.
“Did anyone find a purse or a wallet? Cell phone? Anything?”
“No. What you see is what you get.”
“Okay. I’m through.”
Corolla nodded toward two officers to haul the dead woman to the morgue’s van.
Whoever screamed the loudest got the attention of the medical examiner’s office. Nick intended to be heard over the rest of the noise. “Let me know the minute you’ve got a preliminary report.”
“Don’t I always.”
No, he didn’t, or Nick wouldn’t have to remind him.
Corolla left the room without further comment just as Nick’s partner sauntered toward him. Petrie was never in a hurry to get anywhere. Languid, just like the river when she wanted to be. Funny how a lot of people gave the Mississippi a female personality.
“I’m starving.”
Nick lifted his eyebrows. “Didn’t you eat breakfast?”
Petrie smiled. “That was hours ago.”
How could the man have an appetite after viewing the murder victim? The metallic stench of stale blood was getting to Nick. He ignored Petrie’s not-so-subtle hint. They had work to do. Food could wait.
“Who found her?”
“A ruin porn photographer.”
“Ruin porn?”
“Yeah, there’s a whole subculture of people who go around taking pictures of abandoned buildings.” Petrie shrugged. “I don’t get it.”
Petrie wouldn’t, but Nick kind of understood. There was something sadly sentimental and haunting about an abandoned building. Although the lower floor of the building had been rented to a business, the second and third floors were vacant and didn’t appear to have been occupied for a long, long time. Standing between two other well-kept properties, this particular building had always appeared a bit forlorn, like nobody loved it.
Nick scanned the third-floor apartment in all directions, trying to visualize the scene through the eyes of the killer. What had he seen? How had he felt? Why this location? The room cast off a strange vibe. Like the air had been disturbed by a different kind of horror than usual.
“Make sure the crime scene officer pulls trace from over there. I see some slivers of glass.” All the windows appeared to be intact, so where had the broken glass come from?
Petrie grinned with apparent amusement. “Have you looked around, Moreau? This place is full of broken stuff. How do you know what’s important and what isn’t? That could have been left here when the building was abandoned.”
Technically, the building hadn’t been abandoned. Not if there was a tenant on the lower floor.
If the cocky jerk didn’t get why the slivers of glass appeared out of place, Nick was in no mood to explain it to him. He’d have to find a teachable moment on the subject another time.
He crossed his arms over his chest and stuffed back his irritation, presenting the man with a firm yet calm attitude. “Have her do it anyway.”
His subtle message implied that Petrie’s opinion didn’t count for much yet, even though that wasn’t entirely true. The man had made a few spot-on observations over the last few weeks. With enough time and a few humbling moments, Petrie might turn into a good detective.
“Sure thing.” Petrie didn’t budge. “Do you think anyone will ever wanna live here again? It looks like it was a pretty nice place once up a time.”
Was Petrie interested? Even with a murder committed on the premises, the property cost was over a cop’s budget. Murders tended to generate ghost stories. If a place was rumored to be
haunted, that property description drove the price up even more. What was it with people and their desire to have the pee scared out of them?
Nick stared at the man until the silence became awkward.
“Trace collection. Got it.” Petrie strolled out the door.
Nick shook his head. He had his work cut out for him. Not just training Petrie, but also solving this case when he already had other cases he was working. He wished Charlotte was still on the job in New Orleans. At that moment, he felt like he was in way over his head, and she had always been able to pull him out of the deep end.
****
That evening, Jeri studied the faces of the other riders on the bus. Who were these strangers? What did they do with their daytime hours? She liked to imagine their stories, making up drama and romance to entertain herself on the long ride to work every evening.
She caught the eye of the woman across the center aisle from her. Just a flash of an image zoomed across her mind. Flames from a raging fire crawled up a wall, licked the floor and ceiling around the woman who was passed out on the floor. Jeri shook her head to dispel the frightening scene, and the image dissolved bit by bit. When the moment had passed, she shuddered once, hard, as if someone had just walked across her future grave.
When she stepped off the bus and onto the curb, a cool wind ruffled her hair and sent it flying in all directions. She tried to smooth it back down, but the effort was useless.
Jeri headed down Royal, intending to stop at the corner grocery on the way into work and grab a cinnamon roll. If she hurried, she could get there before the store sold out of them for the day.
As she approached the corner, she caught sight of Moreau in conversation with a street musician. The bright red lining of the musician’s open case on the ground invited tourists to contribute a few dollars. While the detective talked, the man held his guitar awkwardly in front of him. The solemn expression on the cop’s face meant Moreau was on the job working the street.
Abandoning her plan to stop by the grocery, Jeri picked up her pace hoping the detective wouldn’t notice her. She didn’t want the cinnamon roll that badly, so she rounded the corner onto St. Peter and kept moving. When she’d made it halfway down the block toward Bourbon, she finally exhaled and then inhaled, struggled to catch her next breath, and hacked up a ragged cough. Maybe holding her breath while she hurriedly walked had been a bad idea.
She jerked when someone cleared his throat behind her. With a groan, she slowed her pace and allowed the cop to come alongside her. He didn’t say anything at first, which ticked her off. If he was going to disrupt her usual stop at the market, he could at least ask his intrusive questions and then leave her alone.
She cut her eyes sideways to catch a glimpse of his handsome face. His charming grin increased her irritation. “What?”
He drew the moment out long enough she considered punching him.
Finally, he spoke. “Olivia, isn’t it?”
She muttered under her breath. “You know damned well I call myself Olivia.” Louder, she hit him with her best sarcastic attitude, just in case any locals noticed her conversing with a cop. “If you have something to say to me, cop, say it. Otherwise, get lost.”
“Are you always so grouchy? You act like you’ve just got up in the morning and haven’t had your first cup of coffee. Wait. This is morning for you, isn’t it?”
She stopped in the middle of the block and faced him.
“Listen…” She paused to find that place within her spirit that could be polite in the midst of extreme aggravation. “What did you say your name was?” She remembered right enough, but she didn’t want him to think his meddling in her life mattered that much.
“Nick Moreau.” He smiled as if he knew she was pretending.
She leaned toward him, but she didn’t whisper. “Look…Moreau… We both know Jerilyn doesn’t want to be found, so leave her alone and stop bothering me.”
His eyes lit with mischief. “What makes you think I was on the street this morning because of you? I can’t spend my time looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found while I have more serious crimes to investigate.”
He didn’t sound sarcastic. Just matter of fact. Still, she felt minimized, like she was no longer relevant. Her heart sank a bit. That was the story of her life. It had always been easy for her to shrink into the background while others lived in the spotlight.
She shook off the gloomy thought. What was she thinking anyway? There was no privilege in being the center of a police investigation.
“Oh… So then why are you… If you aren’t… Why are you bothering me?”
Her abrupt conclusion to her stuttering seemed to amuse him.
“Okay, then. I’ll leave you alone.” He headed in the direction from which he had come.
She whipped around to watch him walk away. “Hey, wait.”
He slowed his stride and then turned to face her.
She drew in a deep breath. “I would tell you to tell Jerilyn’s parents that you found her and that she’s all right, but her father has certain resources. Just knowing she’s alive wouldn’t be enough for him. He’d come down here looking for her, and she doesn’t want that.”
He closed the gap between them. “Is there some reason she doesn’t want to be found?”
She caught his meaning easily enough. “She wasn’t abused or anything like that. She was just… Her father can be kind of…overwhelming.”
That sounded lame, but she wasn’t going to tell this cop the real reason she didn’t want to have anything to do with her father anymore. Sure, she’d thought being financially independent and going to school in New Orleans would put enough distance between her and her father that she could get some breathing room. It hadn’t worked out that way. It seemed the man had a long reach. More and more, she had come to resent his intrusion into her adulthood until she couldn’t stand it any longer. Like he had any right to make up her mind for her.
She’d gotten her pre-med from Vandy and stayed at home to go to college, but her father had thrown a royal hissy fit when she’d accepted a spot at Tulane Med School. New Orleans was a long way from Nashville, he’d complained over and over again. He couldn’t hover over her from that distance away like he’d been used to doing. Letting go had been difficult for the old man. Actually, he hadn’t quite let go. When she’d discovered that he’d had a friend of a friend keep tabs on her, she’d had enough. It hadn’t been her idea to become a doctor anyway. That was Lance Bowman’s idea. Probably so that he could tell his friends that his daughter was a doctor. It was all about his image.
The cop cleared his throat, and Jeri refocused on him, on his blue eyes, two deep pools of blue that could pull her under. Too damn bad he was a cop.
“Tell Jerilyn that I’m not going to tell her parents where she is without her permission. She’s an adult. No one can force her to go back to Nashville. Not even her father.”
She snorted. “Oh, you don’t know her father.”
Moreau stared at her with a speculative glint flickering in his eyes. “If she ever needs to get a message to her mother, just tell her to call me. You still have my card, right? You can give Jerilyn my cell phone number, if you want.”
Jeri fought to keep her eyes dry. Her disappearance wasn’t fair to her mother. The tension that had coiled in her chest was about to suck the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t handle the conversation any longer, so she swung around and rushed down the sidewalk toward Bourbon without looking back at the cop. She didn’t think she could stand the expression on his face any longer. The one thing she didn’t want was pity.
Chapter Three
It had been a long night, crawling into the next morning. The crowd had been unusually restless as if an undercurrent of anticipation had coursed through the bar vibrating with the beat of the drums. The drummer had banged out the set without any finesse, speeding up and slowing down, giving the rest of the band a difficult time keeping up with his unsteady beat. Jeri had bre
athed a little easier every time they took a break.
As the night progressed, tempers had flared. Strangers picked fights with one another, and Herb had tossed more than a few belligerent drunks out onto the street. Patrons had complained about everything from watered down drinks to stale pretzels to an insufficient supply of toilet paper in the grungy bathroom. When the tap had run dry around three in the morning, Jeri thought there would be a riot until the truck arrived with a fresh keg.
As the night neared sunrise and the crowd began to thin, Jeri tensed every time the door opened, expecting Weirdo to come in and order another gross concoction. Herb dragged Weirdo’s usual barstool out from the bar and slid onto the seat. Jeri caught Herb’s eye, and it seemed non-verbal communication passed between them. Weirdo had finally missed a night, and both of them were okay with that.
Herb picked up a pretzel and then tossed it back into the bowl. “Did you hear about the murder over on Dauphine?”
She had. The news had been buzzing up and down the street all evening. The shopkeeper next door had come in to gossip about the murder. No doubt, the woman had a few details wrong because she usually mangled any story she’d heard until it was practically unrecognizable as anything close to resembling the truth.
“Juanice said she’d heard the cops were keeping it off the news.”
“I heard he drained the blood out of his victim.”
Herb loved to be the expert on everything. For that reason, he was a great source of questionable information. What if Herb and Juanice got together? That thought made her stomach lurch. No way those two should ever procreate.
A chill slipped up and down Jeri’s backbone. She should know something about the crime. But that was ridiculous. How would she know anything about a murder?
“So there’s a blood-sucking vampire out there, huh?” She glanced toward the door. On the street outside, a couple passed the front of the bar, stumbling on the uneven pavement as they drunkenly locked lips. Shouldn’t they have already found a room by that time of the morning?
“Well…” Herb shrugged. “From what I heard, the guy is still out there, and they don’t have a clue who he is.”
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