Out of Body coa-1
Page 15
The Garden District came up fast, partly because of the speed the BMW managed to make by keeping up its weaving path between all vehicular comers.
Greek Revival, Romanesque and Italianate mansions glowed in the sunlight along streets lined with old oaks and sycamores.
Between elaborate columns, closed shutters helped trap cool air inside the high-ceilinged rooms they hid.
Here there were fewer cars. Gray hung back and hoped that Marley wasn’t looking.
His next thought was gratitude that he had slowed down. The cab swerved to the side of the road and stopped as if it had encountered a spike strip.
Under most circumstances, Gray would have ridden past, but that would be pushing his luck. He rode onto the sidewalk, leaned the bike against a hedge and crouched down as if he was having problems with a chain.
The black car had pulled into the driveway of a vast pink mansion with intricate wrought-iron railings along its flower-laden galleries and central double doors at the top of a tall flight of white stone steps. The house stood atop mounded lawns so green they didn’t look quite real and pristine pathways snaked through the grounds. Just visible at the back of the property was a white pavilion surrounded by flower beds. As Gus would say, this house wasn’t bought with green stamps.
Marley got out of the cab and paid it off. Gray could make a few guesses at the next move she intended to make and any of the possibilities could mean trouble.
She stood behind the trunk of a large tree and peered around to look across the street. He understood why she needed to cover her hair, but where had she come up with the huge black straw affair? She might as well be in a raincoat with the collar turned up!
Sidney ran up the front steps of the mansion and paused, looked back to watch Pipes’s slow climb. Gray saw Sidney’s impatient head motion. Then he saw Marley prepare to leave her cover.
One of the front doors of the house called Bord De L’Eau opened and the women went inside.
Gray sprang. He caught Marley in the middle of the street, hauled her from her feet and carried her, kicking, back to the sidewalk.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed when he plunked her down behind the tree she’d recently left. “Where did you come from? You followed me, Gray Fisher.”
“You’re right. And I’m going to keep on following you as long as you seem to have a death wish.”
Chapter 18
“You are so out of line,” Marley told Gray. “Get out of my way.”
His expression went from inscrutable to steely determined and he muscled her against the tree. “When I can trust you not to try something bloody stupid—like showing up at that house over there without an invitation—I’ll let you go wherever you want to.”
“Trust me?” Her voice rose to a squeak. She cleared her throat. “You are out of your mind. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t trust me to do. I’m none of your business.”
“You’ve become my business,” he said and she could tell he was deadly serious. “When you announced you’d seen two women the cops kind of think I could have knocked off, your life and mine got wound up together. Live with it.”
“How did you get here?” she asked him. At least she knew where to find Sidney so she could come back again once Gray lost interest. She looked at him. He didn’t show any sign of losing interest.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” he said.
“What I’m not doing is giving you chapter and verse on my movements. Before or after I make them.”
A woman pushing a baby buggy approached. Beside her, holding the buggy handle, a toddler boy with a tattered red cape tied around his neck trotted along. The boy chattered while the woman murmured responses.
“If you don’t get out of my way,” Marley said through her teeth, “I’ll make a scene.”
“In front of a couple of kids and their nanny?” Gray said. “Into scaring women and children, are you? Very nice.”
“Ooh,” she said under her breath.
Gray held her hand again, too tightly for her to get free, and said, “Hi,” to the passing trio.
“Nice,” Marley said when they were gone.
“That wasn’t hard, was it?” Gray commented. He smiled down at her and felt too close for comfort.
“We can’t just stand here like this,” Marley said.
His eyelids lowered a fraction. Gray Fisher looked from her eyes to her mouth and she knew what she was seeing. All of his thoughts weren’t about missing singers.
Marley wasn’t breathing so well herself. She straightened. “Have it your way. I won’t go to the house. Okay?”
“Great. I’ll get you back to the Quarter.”
Marley thought about Sykes and immediately wished she hadn’t.
“It’s nice the way your brother looks out for you,” Gray said.
Gray had taken to all but parroting her thoughts and this could get annoying.
And the vision of Sykes, be it ever so vague, grinning at her over a nearby hedge set Marley’s teeth on edge. “Stop creeping up on me,” she warned him.
“I didn’t creep.”
“Go,” she told him. “Have you already forgotten the talk we had about the Mentor? That was only this morning.”
“Until I see there really is a Mentor, I plan to rearrange the little house rules. You might need me around, so be polite.”
“I don’t need you.”
“We need each other,” Gray said. “Can you accept that and stop trying to run away?”
She glared at him.
“Where did you get the hat?” he said, screwing up his face to stare at her. “It’s horrendous.”
“I like it,” she told him.
“I don’t,” said Sykes. “And I’m here because you thought about me. Don’t argue.”
Marley ignored this. “I got it from a street vendor,” she told Gray.
“You followed me here,” she said to him. “And I don’t like that idea.”
“I’m not thrilled about it myself,” he said. “But you followed Sidney and Pipes and that made me nervous.”
“If someone inside that house recognizes us out here, it could be unfortunate,” Gray said.
“Listen to the man,” Sykes said, turning on a faint echo effect in Marley’s mind. “He’s got good instincts.”
“You can do one thing for me,” Marley told him. “Take a good look at his face and tell me if you see anything weird. Like a scar.”
Sykes approached Gray and got so close Marley couldn’t see where one man’s face ended and the other began.
She rolled her eyes.
“Not a thing,” Sykes said, gliding back to the other side of the hedge. “Good-looking guy. I thought you were into the ugly, deep kind.”
“Go away now.” It was hard to show Sykes any gratitude when he inevitably managed to get in a dig with whatever he did.
“I’m not going without you,” Gray said. “Get down by the hedge. We’ll be out of sight there.”
She gave him a withering look. “I’m not groveling on the sidewalk for anyone.”
Unceremoniously, he grabbed her hand and yanked her behind him to a disgusting-looking old bike. He knelt beside the thing, pulling her with him.
Gray whipped off her hat and replaced it with a baseball cap he picked up from the ground. When she tried to tear it off, he stopped her.
“I’m exchanging one way of hiding that gorgeous hair of yours for another,” Gray said. “Big black hats with veils get noticed. Baseball caps don’t. Help me out here. I’ve got your best interests at heart.”
“I like this guy,” Sykes let her know. “He’s masterful and that’s what you need. You’re too bossy for most men.”
“You are so out of line.”
“So’s Gray—I heard you tell him that. What’s your connection to him?”
“None of your business.”
“There’s trouble, isn’t there? Do you need my help or—”
“I d
on’t need your help,” she said and hoped she wasn’t being rash. “Would I interfere in your…love life?” Now she’d done it.
“Love life, huh,” Sykes said. “Now you’ve got all of my interest. I’m sure you’d try to meddle in my love life if you could figure out how.”
“Turn off the echo, you’re giving me a headache. Let’s get back to rules before Gray notices I’m not present—to him. In future you can’t come interfering unless I say, ‘Please come here, Sykes.’”
“That takes too long.”
“Seconds is all,” Marley said. “Okay. Sykes, come! If I say that, you come.”
“Yes, ma’am. Just like Winnie.”
“I don’t speak to Winnie like that.”
“Your brother seems like a nice guy,” Gray said. “He came by to check up on who you were hanging around with.”
She clenched her fists and frowned at the bike. Gray had witnessed the episode that just took place with Sykes? This was horrendous.
“He showed up outside the Caged Bird right after you left,” Gray said. “He doesn’t look like you.”
“Oh.” Marley was so relieved she almost sat on the ground to calm down. “I wonder…I must have mentioned where I was going before I left Court of Angels. Sykes was there.” She wasn’t a good liar.
“I see.” He bopped up to peer over the hedge and she squeezed her eyes shut. If he saw Sykes hanging out nearby there would be more than a few questions. She’d never seen Sykes get violent and didn’t want to think what he might resort to if the need arose.
“I don’t think we’ve been seen,” Gray said.
Marley shook herself. Of course he wouldn’t see Sykes in his invisible mode. She only saw her brother like that because she was conditioned to do so.
“Listen to me,” Gray said. “Closely. I want us to work together.”
He was tough. Every line of his hard face, every solid contour inside his jeans and T-shirt, suggested he was a man other men might regret bumping into if he was in an aggressive mood.
Gray would know how to use his fists. She looked back at him. His gaze never wavered and she didn’t have to resort to reading his mind to know he was willing her to do whatever he asked.
“Sykes?” she signaled tentatively. Would he keep his word and not interfere unless she asked him to?
He didn’t respond.
“You’re very close to your brother, aren’t you?” Gray said.
Marley jumped. “Yes,” she said shortly. She needed a chance to analyze exactly what Gray was picking up from her. Without a doubt, he didn’t know what was happening. Like any new psychic talent, he needed molding and training if he was to gain all the strength he might have.
What was she thinking? He was nothing to do with her—even if he was keeping her kneeling on the sidewalk.
“I’m going to see if I can get into that house and talk to Sidney and Pipes,” she said, expecting argument. “I’ve got to.”
“You won’t be doing that.” He sounded so calm, Marley blinked. He turned all grave. “I’m the one who’s going in. I’ve got an excuse, you haven’t.”
She started to argue, but shut her mouth instead.
“My job brought me here,” he said. “Believe it or not, I do have a job and I’m so behind on my deadline I’m starting to get calls from my editor. I don’t sound like I’m making excuses for going in there because I’m not. Now, I’m making sense, aren’t I?” he said.
Marley was glad he didn’t look smug. “Yes,” she told him grudgingly. “But I need to get closer to Sidney and Pipes. I’ve got a good reason for wanting that. Pipes knows something about what happened to the others. I’m sure of it.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“I can.” Men could be so hard-headed. “She’s got big welts…”
“Yes?” He brought his face closer to hers.
“Damn.” Marley closed her eyes. “Don’t ask me a bunch of questions because I won’t answer unless and until I want to. Pipes has a couple of marks on the back of her neck just like these.” She held out her wrists.
“So that’s why you suddenly didn’t want to go to Nat’s office and you had to take off in a hurry.” Gray whistled soundlessly. “I figured you were chasing Sidney and Pipes. And those marks have got something to do with what happened when you traveled this last time? Something to do with what you saw?”
“I don’t want to talk about that now.” She really did have to think about how much to share with him. “But you understand why I’m the one who should go in now, don’t you?”
He thought about it. “Sure, but it’s not going to happen.”
“Watch me,” she said and started to get up.
Gray grabbed her arm and she landed on her bottom on the sidewalk. “I hate pushy people,” she told him.
“I’m not pushy. You’re impossible. You need saving from yourself. When you have a good cover for going to see Sidney, I’ll be the first to back you up. Do it now and you’ll blow everything.”
She rubbed her face. He made too much sense.
“Stay here,” Gray said. “If I’m not back in an hour, ride the bike back to the Quarter and get Nat Archer.”
“An hour?”
He left her there and she tucked herself as close to the hedge as she could get. She wished her watch at least had a second hand so she could watch something happening.
Chapter 19
The morgue wasn’t Nat Archer’s favorite afternoon destination, but he’d been there often enough to take the scents and sounds in stride. He knew when to shove a bottle of wintergreen under his nose—for all the good it did—and how to neutralize the hollow noise of casket-size metal shelves sliding out and thumping shut. The shelves closed faster than they opened. Without resistance, dead weights slid easily.
Under glaring white lights, Dr. Blades sat at a stainless-steel table attached to the walls in a corner, and wrote on loose papers inside a folder. The man’s hollow cheeks held shadows the size and shade of big, ripe avocados. Nat got a fleeting image of nicking one of Blades’s veins to see green fluid oozing out.
Geez, Archer. He could tell this case had already gotten to him, but he hadn’t realized how badly.
“Archer,” Blades said without looking up. “Glad you could finally join me.”
Nat was ten minutes late. “Good to see you, Doc,” he lied. “You said I should get right over here.”
“Right over here,” Blades said.
“And here I am,” Nat said, refusing to be goaded into an apology for something as trivial as ten minutes in a busy day.
With surprising speed, Blades unfolded his long, thin body and drew himself up to what had to be about seven feet. “I want you to see something,” he said, and scuffed toward the bank of steel drawers. “Did you close the door when you came in?”
“Yeah,” Nat said. “Did you want it left open?”
That got him a faintly evil glance from ice-blue eyes. “No.”
“Oh. I thought maybe you wanted to air the place out a bit. I can open it if you like.”
Blades gave a humorless chuckle and pulled on a handle. The drawer slid out easily enough, which was always the case with small victims. The shape inside a white bag with an encircling zipper was no more than five feet, by Nat’s estimation. Maybe an inch more, but this was a diminutive corpse.
Without ceremony, Blades parted the zipper and revealed a woman’s body, or what was left of it. Shirley Cooper’s remains weren’t pretty.
Pity was never enough. Nat looked down with respect, and the cleansing surge of anger he needed to stay focused.
He frowned and shook his head. “Damn, I’d like to know exactly how this happened. What d’you want me to see?”
Blades sighed and rotated narrow shoulders. “No water in the lungs. She was dead before she went in the water.”
“You let me know that yesterday.” Nat looked at the other man and wondered if he’d dealt with one DB too many and was starting to slip.
Nat bent closer. Looking like a tracheotomy incision, a dark hole shone with a gelatinous sheen. He stood abruptly and put a hand in front of his face. “It smells different.” Even more overwhelming if that was possible.
“Yes, and that’s interesting.” Blades snorted. “But whoever did this is an amateur. They don’t know the voice is complex. Takes more to cut it out, or whatever the fool thought he was doing, than punching a plug out of the larynx.”
“Yes.” Trying to be patient, Nat submitted to the anatomy lesson and decided to allow Blades his moments of drama. “I wonder why.” His eyes watered.
“Making a point about picking on singers, I should think,” Blades said. He pointed at the wound in the corpse’s neck. “That would mess up a singer, but some reconstruction wouldn’t have been off the table here. She would have been able to communicate.”
Nat stared at him. Of course, he probably didn’t know. “Shirley Cooper was a maid at a club, not a singer,” Nat said.
“Huh.” The hairless places where Blades’s eyebrows should be rose in a ripple of wrinkles. “Well, that’s easily worked out. The killer wanted to pretend he wasn’t just killing singers, but then he couldn’t resist leaving his trademark.”
“We’ve never seen this mark before that I know of,” Nat pointed out.
“You will when the women who actually are singers turn up,” Blades said, so coldly matter-of-fact that Nat was reminded why he didn’t like this man, not at all.
“Is that everything?” he asked, unimpressed by the macabre little show. “I need to get on.”
“You’re going to need all the help you can get with this case,” Blades told him. “Look at the wounds all over the body.”
“Hard to miss them.” There was hardly any clear skin between gouges and welts.
“Some are from teeth, but not all of them.”
“What about the others?”