Die Again (The Bayou Hauntings Book 6)

by Bill Thompson

  “I’m up here,” Young called from the window Landry and Jack had tumbled through. He leaned out, scanned the courtyard and said, “The perp’s still up here in the building. Black male, maybe seven feet tall. Mid to late fifties. Landry, how do we get to the attic?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll come help look,” Landry said as he, Phil and the others climbed to the second floor. Having been here only minutes earlier, this was Landry’s first time to take in the LaPieres’ living quarters. It was furnished similarly to their bayou mansion. Rooms filled with dusty old furniture, decaying carpets and grime-encrusted knickknacks proved that no one had lived here for many years, and he wondered if after Prosperine’s death her trustee Charles Richard had simply closed off this part of the building.

  “I found something, Detective!” a cop called from a windowless sitting room at the end of the building. “There’s a little door behind this old couch!”

  They pulled the sofa into the middle of the room and saw a four-foot-high door with an ornate brass handle. Behind it was a closet-sized room and a flight of stairs. They heard no sounds from above, and with weapons drawn, two officers crept up.

  “Clear up here!” the sergeant shouted as all the others joined them in the attic.

  Ted said, “What on earth...Landry, what is this room for?”

  The long attic ran the width of the house. Its vaulted ceiling made the room seem larger, and through filthy dormer windows high above, slanting rays of sunlight struggled to peek through. Phil shot panorama video as Landry talked about what lay before them.

  There were six ancient metal cots along each side of a middle aisle. Piles of dust and broken wood lay beneath each one, all that remained of mattresses and bed slats. The setup looked like a hospital ward, but there were grim clues that this had been no infirmary.

  An iron ring with a long chain was solidly affixed into the brick wall behind each bed. Four smaller chains branched from the major one, each with a thick iron cuff. “Arm and leg shackles,” Young remarked.

  A brick chimney ran up the back wall, flanked by what had once been storage closets. Instead of doors there were steel bars that transformed the cramped rooms into cells, each with a set of the same heavy cuffs bolted to the back wall.

  While the cops searched every square inch of the attic, Landry and Detective Young talked on camera about what this room represented. The LaPieres were slave traders, and this building served not only as their home, but their place of business. It appeared they’d stumbled upon the hideaway where human beings were kept until the next auction.

  “It’s almost beyond comprehension what must have happened here,” Landry said. “No wonder people have reported hearing moans and wails from the attic for years. I’ve come across tortured souls in my business, and if this place isn’t full of them, I’d be surprised.”

  Detective Young added, “I wish we could say slavery ended years ago, but human trafficking’s still a problem right here in New Orleans. Teenaged girls sold into prostitution rings, migrants smuggled in and forced into indentured servanthood — I’ve seen shackles and cuffs like these myself.”

  Before Jack left, Landry told him everything — how the scenario had changed after Elberta’s death. Dr. Little was bringing Jack out of the trance when Empyrion got involved. No one was seriously hurt, but they had missed what they were after. There had been no time to go to 1837 and get the proof necessary to exonerate Jack.

  The WCCY crew departed, leaving only Landry and Detective Young. As they left, a cop stuck row after row of yellow crime scene tape across the entryway. There would be someone on duty all night, and tomorrow they’d continue searching, find him or not, and wrap things up.

  “Where did Empyrion go?” Landry said, mostly to himself. “He knows the building. There has to be another way out. He’s no ghost and he didn’t just disappear.”

  “Maybe there’s an opening onto the roof, but it’s so steep a person couldn’t go anywhere. You’re right, though. He didn’t disappear. Either he’s here somewhere, or he knew a secret exit.”

  Empyrion Richard had vanished from the upper floors of a building whose only exits were windows opening onto the street or the courtyard. He didn’t come downstairs and he couldn’t have walked away from a twenty-foot jump out of the windows, but there was no explanation where he was or how he had eluded them.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  I know the reasons for everything that happened today. I know the secrets.

  Having just awakened, he glanced at his watch. Almost three in the morning.

  He dressed and went down the stairs into the street. With few cars and even fewer people out this time of night, the walk took no time. On the sidewalk in front of the building, a policeman sat in a chair. He waited in the shadows of a storefront until the cop stood, stretched and walked to the corner for a smoke break.

  Two dozen pieces of crime scene tape crisscrossed the doorway; he removed some, stepped through and replaced them behind him. Eerily silent, the corridor was so dark he had to feel his way along the ancient stone walls until he came to the doorway. He couldn’t use a light because if the duty officer saw a glimmer from the building, he’d know someone was inside.

  He climbed the old ladder, and when he pushed open the trapdoor at the top, he heard muffled sounds from somewhere above. Moans, whimpers, a wail, a cry of alarm — mournful cries for help punctuated by periods of intense, dead silence that enveloped him like a blanket.

  He crawled on hands and knees through the entresol, resisting the urge to curse out loud when he hit an old crate or a gunnysack that blew dust motes everywhere. He stifled a sneeze, paused to be sure no one had heard, and resumed his tedious crawl toward the stairway at the back.

  He started up. The risers were as old as the building itself, and they creaked and groaned as he tested each one, then slowly climbed to the next. At the top he swung back the next trapdoor and climbed up into the second floor. This was Lucas’s sitting room, and through the windows of the adjoining bedroom, moonlight gave him sufficient light to see at last. There were no sounds except his own movement, but he knew that would change soon.

  The man walked to the sitting room at the far end of the building and knelt before the small door. When he opened it, the creaking would give him away, but the stairway behind was the only means to get to the attic. He turned the handle and jerked the door hard. It opened easier than he expected, and he fell against the sofa.

  The silence erupted into a cacophony of horrific screams as he climbed the familiar stairs to face the reality of the Toulouse Street horrors once again.

  He stood in the attic the police had found less than twelve hours ago. Then it had been quiet. Tonight it was anything but. He was alone in the room, but the sounds were close. As he walked down the aisle between the rows of metal cots to the far wall, everything went silent again.

  They know I’m here.

  He strode the length of the room to the two closet-like cells. Between them a wall of bricks — the chimney of the fireplace below — extended from the floor to the ceiling. Its construction had withstood the ravages of time and kept its secret well hidden. He reached into the seam where a wooden wall abutted the chimney, gave a slight tug, and a section of wall panel slid noiselessly aside.

  He stepped through the opening into the chamber of horrors.

  Dressed to the nines as always, a tall man stood in the middle of the room. The only light came from a few candles here and there. From the shadows came rustling sounds and whispers.

  Jack Blair walked to Empyrion Richard and said, “Hello, Charles.”

  “Welcome, Lucas. We’ve been expecting you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Landry was not happy. He'd just about had it with Jack. Landry wanted to believe he was on the straight and narrow, but it had been days, not weeks or months, and the desire for a drink must be tormenting. Every time the man wasn't where he should be, Landry imagined him somewhere, passed out and sleeping i
t off.

  Sometimes Jack got sidetracked when he was doing his research, but now that he had a phone, there was no reason not to check in. He was an hour late for work, and this time Landry would not call. When and if he showed up, he'd better have an explanation.

  He opened the shared network drive where Jack stored hundreds of documents he'd found relating to the LaPiere family. There were photocopies of records, stories, articles and photos from the archives, and links to other material, all neatly cataloged in a folder. Landry found the research part of his job boring, and he was glad his new assistant seemed to enjoy it. This morning, with no assistant and no pressing agenda items, he looked at the records.

  For an hour he looked through a lot of things only peripherally related to the Toulouse building, but he came across something Jack hadn't mentioned. He opened a document from the Orleans Parish records in March, 1832.

  The flourishes and swirls of old handwriting were beautiful to look at but difficult to read. A record from Lucas LaPiere's estate, it provided an interesting glimpse into those times. For tax purposes, a list of the decedent's assets was required, and this was Lucas's.

  The first page listed the building, the plantation, furniture and personal effects, a fancy carriage and two horses, and four house servants, one of whom was Caprice, whose name lent credence to the veracity of what they'd seen in the courtyard.

  The second page was a somber picture of the atrocities that had occurred back then. It was a list of fourteen human beings held for resale. This was Lucas and Prosperine's stock in trade — slaves. He presumed these were Africans, brought over on slavers like the ship the LaPieres themselves took, and the fourteen names on the list had been Anglicized. Each had a first name and a brief description. He saw a Mary, a John, a Joshua and a Grace.

  But then he raised his eyebrows. "I'll be damned!"

  Two names stood out. Charles and Richard.

  Charles, a seven-foot-tall healthy male aged around twenty. Speaks some English.

  Richard, the brother of Charles, aged around fifteen. Stocky. Would make a good field hand.

  Charles Richard. Not one man, but brothers.

  Then who was Empyrion Richard?

  He called Detective Young for an update. The cops were wrapping up their fruitless search at the building. That was what Landry expected. There was so much more to this story, and he had a hunch where to find answers.

  Hoping once more Jack wasn't in trouble, he got in his Jeep and headed toward I-10 and Edgard.

  Landry drove through the brick columns and down the narrow lane. He looked for the cemetery but didn't see it. He walked across the tall grass to the trees and searched until he stumbled across it. Tall brambles weaved in and out through the fence, and saplings grew everywhere. The tops of the LaPiere crypts were just visible through the heavy foliage.

  There was no explanation for the condition of the cemetery after only eight days, but he was about to see something even more inexplicable. He became dizzy as he approached the house. A chill and a sense of dread swept across his body. What he was experiencing — these things he saw with his own eyes — weren’t possible.

  The veranda was far more covered in vines than before, and the front door was a mass of tendrils as thick as a man's finger. This growth had been here for a very long time — the gaping hole they had followed Empyrion Richard through didn’t exist, but Landry saw a much smaller hole through the tendrils down in one corner. He knew what it was — the parish clerk had told Jack she and her father had cleared an entry through the vines a few weeks back, and this was their handiwork.

  He stepped into the hallway and gasped. Gaping holes lay where the floorboards had collapsed, pieces of ceiling plaster littered the floor with white dust, and a staircase's railing lay in rotten pieces. He turned right and entered the parlor. In stark contrast to the room where Empyrion Richard had served tea a week ago, this chamber hadn't seen activity in decades, maybe even longer. The clerk's description was accurate; what furniture there had been lay in pieces now. The massive brick fireplace and the chimney where they saw a man's portrait hanging couldn't have been there mere days ago, because the bricks lay in a heap on the floor and the massive painting — if it had existed — had long since disintegrated.

  Landry looked at the bookshelves on each side of the fireplace. Where once sat bric-a-brac, now there was an inch-thick layer of dust on what few shelves hadn't yet fallen. As he made his way across the room, he glanced at the floor. Where there had been other footprints in the hallway, the only ones here were his. No one else had stepped into this room for a very long time.

  He took a lot of pictures, and as he turned to leave, he heard, "Trespass seems to be your modus operandi, Mr. Drake."

  Empyrion Richard stared down at him from the top of the staircase.

  "How did you escape from the building yesterday? We searched everywhere for you, and the police are still looking."

  "What brought you back to my home?"

  Landry stood his ground. "Your home, which I doubt it is, has changed quite a lot since the last time I was here. Remember how we sat in the parlor on the couch? And the portrait of Charles Richard — tell me, was that Charles or Richard in the painting? Everything's different today. How do you make the house change appearance like that, Empyrion?"

  "Tell me why you came or get out of my house."

  "No, this time you'll answer the questions. You pushed Jack and me out the window yesterday and I know why. At that moment you were Charles Richard. You and Prosperine shouted to each other, she addressed Jack as Lucas, and you told her to kill him. When she didn't, you pushed him yourself. I want to know everything, so start talking.”

  Empyrion said, "There is much in this world that defies logic. A man in your profession should understand that better than most. You demand answers, but I don't submit to your demands. That frustrates you, but there are things best solved on one's own — or left alone. The answers you seek are in the latter category."

  "Stop the double-talk and tell me everything, by God!"

  "Are you so interested in finding out 'everything' that you're unconcerned about the welfare of your friend Mr. Blair?"

  Jack? What was he talking about?

  Landry bounded up the stairs, narrowly avoiding falling through a riser that collapsed under his weight. He hadn't been to the second floor before, and he saw that it was in exactly the same dilapidated condition as the other.

  "What do you know about Jack?"

  "What do I know? Quite a bit, actually. I know that Prosperine LaPiere calls him Lucas. But you also know that, don't you?"

  Landry raised his fist, thought better of it and brought it down. He wasn't prone to striking someone, but he had had all he could stomach of this man and his nonchalant attitude.

  "Prosperine doesn't call anyone anything. She's been dead for a hundred and ninety years. Where is Jack?"

  "I believe he's at the building on Toulouse Street. I'm not certain, of course, because I'm not there. But the last I saw of him, that's where he was."

  "Goddammit! What the hell have you done? You're coming with me!"

  He grabbed for Empyrion's sleeve, but the man stepped backward. Landry lost his footing and seized a still-standing piece of railing. It collapsed and he tumbled backwards down the stairs.

  Hacking from the enormous cloud of dust and grit he'd raised, he rose and ran back up the stairs, but Empyrion Richard had vanished. There was no point remaining; he knew in his gut he wouldn't find the man.

  Landry went to the Jeep and called Detective Young, who was at the building. They hadn't seen Jack this morning and were making one final sweep through every room before calling it quits. Landry didn’t reveal where he was or what Empyrion said about Jack. He wanted to see things for himself, and he headed back for New Orleans with more questions than answers, as seemed to be the norm these days.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  The motel’s front desk manager hadn’t seen Jack today, but a
call to the night clerk revealed that sometime around three a.m. Jack walked through the lobby and out into the parking lot. He didn’t acknowledge the other man and seemed preoccupied. By the time the night shift ended at seven, Jack hadn’t returned.

  After what Empyrion had said, Landry knew Jack wasn’t lying drunk in some gutter. He was in trouble and he needed help. Landry parked the SUV and walked to Toulouse Street. There was a new hasp and padlock on the gate. A quick call to Detective Young revealed that Shawn Leary had come over as the police were leaving and installed it.

  “How can I get inside?”

  “Call the guy. That’s what he asked me to do if we needed access again.”

  “Would you call him for me? He’ll never let me in.”

  Young sighed. “If the captain catches me helping you, I’ll be walking a beat again. He already thinks I’m too close. Why do you want to go back inside?”

  “Because I want to look for Empyrion, plus Jack’s gone missing. It’s happened before and the building is always involved somehow.” He still didn’t mention he’d gone back to the mansion. With things so different there, it now seemed like a dream. Young would never believe what had happened, and he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.

  It surprised him when the cop agreed without hesitation. “Okay. I’ll get the key and meet you over there. I’ll call you back with a time.”

  This wasn’t what Landry wanted, but he had no choice if he wanted to get inside legally. The cops had combed the place for hours over two days and found nothing. Now he would have a cop tagging along as he fumbled around pretending to look for something they’d missed. He didn’t know if he’d find Jack there, but given what had been going on, he had to find out.

  “Good deal. See you soon.”

  Landry arrived at the building first. He stood across the street and forced all preconceived notions from his mind about Jack’s whereabouts, Empyrion Richard and the supernatural aspects of the building and its spirit inhabitants. He started with a clean slate, took a deep breath, and looked at the Toulouse Street building as if it were the first time.