“I need to regroup.”
Parks sat on the chair. Dog gnawed his bone.
“Working at the hospital. Checking on Petey is as good as anything.”
Parks nodded at the bottle.
“One drink won’t kill me,” she said irritably.
“Hey, why are you mad at me?”
“You’re here.” She swallowed more beer. “Why are you here? Don’t tell me it’s because of dog bones.”
“I thought you might remember something.”
“Useful?” She pitched forward, her elbows on her knees. “Tell me. What did you think? Old men and women dancing like there’d be no tomorrow? Me, flailing in the dirt? You think I’m a fake?”
“I told you. You did a good thing.” Parks dug into his jacket for his cigarettes.
“Can I have one?”
“No, it’s not good for you.”
“I’m cranky.”
“You’re still not getting a smoke. I don’t corrupt others.”
“Yeah, I bet.” She tilted the bottle. “Guess I’ll stick with beer.”
Parks looked away, blowing smoke rings. “Marie-Claire at day care?”
“No, El has the day off. She’s watching her. She’s the ER head nurse. I met her and DuLac my first day here. In New Orleans. My surrogate family.”
“My first day here I met Roach. And a body that a killer had hacked to pieces.”
“You complaining?”
“No. Just stating a fact. The boyfriend did it.” Tilting the chair on two legs, his feet on the rail, hands behind his head, Parks’s tattoo was more visible. Lines as intricate as a spider’s webs.
“Is that why you wear long-sleeved shirts? A jacket? So no one will see your tattoo? I didn’t know Eagle Scouts did tattoos.”
Parks lowered his arms. He turned. His knee touched Marie’s. “I think I believe.”
“You think? Or are you just changing the subject?”
“Both.” His gaze was hard. “Got any more clues, Doc? Anything you remember?”
There were flecks in his eyes. Dark patterns, shifting in the blue. Hazel irises deepening to brown. Sable.
“Doc, I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Were you once a bad boy like Reneaux? A teenage rebel? Is that a prerequisite for detectives?”
“I told you, I’m not Reneaux. Don’t mess with my mind.”
“Funny. Sometimes I think Reneaux is messing with you. Me.”
“You see his ghost, too?”
“No. I wish I did.” She gripped the railing, staring at nothingness.
Dog sat up, whimpering.
“He knows you’re sad,” said Parks.
“I’m beginning to believe I won’t ever see Reneaux. Unquiet souls roam. Between this world and the next. But Reneaux was shot on duty. I think he’s made his peace with it. He did his job.”
Unlike me, she thought.
“Look. You saved a life last night. Pretty special, if you ask me. Though I don’t know what else I supposed would happen. You’d vanquish the creature? Use your hocus-pocus?” He pulled out his notebook. “I told you before—evidence. I gather clues.”
“So. You’re hedging your bets?”
Parks grinned. “I’m sticking with you until we solve these crimes.”
She grinned back. The sun felt good. She raised her bottle. Then, without sipping, set it down. “DuLac says Petey is hanging on.”
“I know. I called.”
She looked at him wonderingly.
Slouching, Parks loosened his tie. “I do like a New Orleans sky. Reminds me of days on the shore.”
Companionably, they sat, watching billowy streaks fanning across the sky. Thin clouds illuminating blue and gold.
“A rainbow,” she said.
It was dim, midhigh in the sky. Shift your gaze, slightly, and it disappeared; stare, just right, and the colors revealed themselves. Streaks of red, yellow, blue.
“Damballah’s sign.”
“Who’s he?”
“Father to all the gods.”
“Even Agwé?”
“Yes. Like a Zeus. Some say the Greeks based their pantheon on African gods.”
Marie laughed at Parks’s expression.
“I wasn’t taught that in school.”
“A great deal isn’t taught in school. I’m proof of that. Evidence.”
She tapped his breast pocket. “Answer your phone.”
“It isn’t ringing.”
“It will.”
The cell phone chimed.
“Parks.” His hand covering the mouthpiece, he whispered, “I believe.” Then, “Yeah, I’m still here.” His smile faded, his jaw locked; his face, stone.
Marie picked up her bottle. Whistled for Kind Dog.
Parks followed her into the apartment. Watched her put a leash on a happy Dog.
“I’m ready to go,” she said, “once I take Dog out. Not unless he can come with us? He might be useful.”
“You know? Or just guessing?”
“I know you shouldn’t wear suits.”
“Doc.” He scowled.
“Yes, I know. No time for levity. Yin and yang. Shadow and light. Sometimes,” she said, “there’s a rebalancing.”
“You call somebody dead a ‘rebalancing’?”
“No. The thing doing the killing.”
“So what’s the point?”
“You, a detective, asking that?”
“The killers keep coming.”
“One at a time, you tilt the scales back to good.”
“Spiritual world. Physical world, the same?”
“Always.”
“Maybe I need a new job. New state. New country.”
“Let’s do this, Parks.”
Parks squared his shoulders. “Come on, Dog. Help, and you’ll get another bone. Maybe some gravy.”
“It’s bad,” said Roach, opening the door as soon as Parks stopped the car. Kind Dog bounded out the car.
“What’s this?” asked Roach, scratching Dog’s ear.
“I deputized him. How come you’re not inside?”
Roach looked away, crossed himself. “I needed a break.”
“You, Roach?” asked Parks, skeptical.
“Let it rest, Parks. He needed a break,” said Marie.
Roach nodded gratefully. “One of my great-aunts used to be a nun here.”
“The Ursulines,” said Marie. “Founded in Italy, spread to Ireland in the eighteenth century, then America with the immigration of the Irish. Ahead of their time. Famous for educating women.”
Kind Dog dashed forward, sat on the steps.
“Used to be a place of good,” said Roach.
The building was dilapidated. Two stories with ironwork and crosses on the doors and windows. A plaster Virgin was in the overgrown yard; her palms open, upraised. Her white gown chipped, the blue paint of her veil faded.
“It’s still owned by the church,” said Roach. “A kind of halfway house for priests. Those exported from Boston, New Mexico, Chicago. Get my drift?”
“Pedophiles,” whistled Parks. He looked up and down the street. “Where’s the police tape? I see the forensic’s van, not much crew.”
“Special request from the diocese.”
“Figures. Low profile,” replied Parks, sarcastic.
“Hey, watch the faith.”
“Yes,” said Marie. “Watch the faith.”
Parks rolled his eyes.
All three followed Kind Dog.
The basement windows were dirty, covered with spider webs. Pamphlets on the door announced AA meetings. Free legal advice. Yoga and meditation. Dance classes.
“It’s also some kind of community center,” said Roach.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Parks, stopping. “I hope kids aren’t involved.”
Priests loitered in the hall. Some dressed in black pants, white shirts, crosses hanging from their throats; others were in uniform, wearing nineteenth-century tunics, the black
skirts damp, sticking to their legs.
“Fathers,” she murmured.
None of them looked her in the eye. One priest, thinner than Wire, almost skeletal, patted Kind Dog. His blue-veined hands unnerved her; even Dog dipped his head and skittered away.
She could smell Evil. A distilled essence. An evil, inhuman and unlike any spirit she’d known. Even Satan had once been God’s favorite.
She walked the first-floor hallway. Men’s musk and sweat. Humidity accelerating decay. Creating mold spores in the walls, toxic and pungent.
She swallowed. Death blended with an odd, burnt taste. A sickly smell assailed her.
It was hard to breathe. She understood how Roach, an experienced coroner, was avoiding the scene not because the murder was so grim but because it involved religion. Someone who shouldn’t have behaved sinfully had.
Marie sympathized with the priests. Trying to meet inhuman expectations: celibacy, suppressed emotions in a veil of piety. Even Mother Teresa had felt darkness. Christ, too, had questioned the need to die on the cross.
Marie knew she could never shoulder a priest’s burden.
Voodoo was more accepting of basic humanity. Far less guilt. Just striving to heal, to do good. To be better.
Still, hurting a child was unforgivable.
Marie looked back at the wraiths of men, milling in the hallway, outside their cloistered doors. The Ursulines’ nunnery had become purgatory.
“Did any of you see anything? Hear anything?” asked Parks.
The priests drifted away. Some, furtively, shut their doors.
“I’m told we can interview them at the diocese. Not here. Too public,” said Roach.
“One of them could be the murderer,” Parks protested.
“I don’t think so,” said Roach. “You’ll never get me to believe priests can be vampires.”
“After Marie’s ceremony, I’m leaning toward believing anything is possible.”
“Should we go in?” asked Marie, halfway down the hall. “It’s here. In this room. I can smell it. Dog, too.”
“You picked right,” said Roach.
Parks pulled his gun.
“It’s secure,” said Roach.
“Like to be sure.” Parks slipped in front of Marie. “Ready to do your job, Roach?” Parks asked.
Roach blushed red. “All of us got our tipping point, Parks. You’ll get yours.”
“Stop it. Both of you.”
“Sorry, Doc.” Parks opened the door.
The room smelled like a multiple-trauma scene. Dried blood. Festering wounds. Urine, loose bowels.
Windows sealed from the inside. Christ, crucified, hung on every wall. Flies buzzed, covering trays of rotted and rotting food.
Parks gagged, coughing the smell out of his lungs. “Roach, you sure this is the same M.O. None of the other victims had this smell.”
“Yeah. Same M.O. with a difference.”
Kind Dog howled.
“Hush, Dog,” said Marie
“Seems,” said Roach, “Father Xavier never left his room. Been here five weeks. Priests brought food to the door. Maybe he was trying to starve himself. Or else keep himself barely alive.”
The dresser had a mirror. An unusual vanity for a priest. Marie stared at her reflection. She wondered what horrors, what false piety the mirror had seen.
“Where is he?” asked Parks.
“There,” said Marie, seeing the body before she actually saw it.
He’d fallen, squeezed between the wall and the twin, single-mattress bed.
She could see him, trying to get away, scuttling like a crab into the tight space. He’d been drained just the same. Pinpricks marked his wrist. Both arms thrown over his head.
Frenzied, Dog started chasing his tail.
“Dog, go outside.” Marie braced herself.
Blood drained; flesh deflated. Sores, fresh and scabbed, covered the priest’s body. The grotesqueness was multiplied by lack of moisture. He looked like Kafka’s dead and shriveled bug.
“What’s that?” asked Parks. “Something’s under the bed. Above his head.”
Roach crawled over the bed, lifting a whip from the floor.
“A flagellant,” said Marie.
“A what?” asked Parks.
“Medieval period. Whipping one’s self as penance. Each strike, wounding, tearing of flesh was symbolic of God’s wrath.”
“Give me a break,” said Parks.
“Our murderer cornered him. He must’ve sensed it, whatever it was, coming.”
“Yeah, and he cowered,” said Roach, studying the blood streaks on the floor. The spattering on the dresser, the bed, and the walls. “He must’ve been on his knees. Beating himself. Then he scuttled away from the attack. Wonder if he thought God’s wrath had visited him? Vampirism beats flagellation.”
“Maybe,” said Marie.
“Who’s to say it wasn’t God?” said Parks. “Seems reasonable to me. Though I can’t imagine what connects a pedophile with JT and Rudy.”
Marie felt nauseous. As a doctor and voodooienne, people harming themselves affronted and angered her.
“I don’t need to see any more,” she said. “At least not here. Perhaps after the autopsy.”
Marie clasped Roach’s pudgy hand. “Sorry you have to do this.”
“It’s the Irish in me. Shouldn’t have to view a murdered priest or one who abused children. Still. I feel sorry for him. No one to give absolution. A priest should have absolution.”
“After what he did?” sneered Parks.
Marie glared at Parks, then squeezed Roach’s hand. “You’re right. Everyone deserves forgiveness.”
Roach’s eyes blinked rapidly behind his glasses.
Marie stared at Parks.
Parks shrugged, as if to say, “What?” Then, shifting his weight into his hip, murmured, “Roach, I’m sorry. Buy you a drink later?”
“Yeah.” Roach wiped his eyes. “Go on, get out of here.” Shirt untucked, his belly folding over his belt, Roach looked bewildered, staring at the priest’s body.
“Hey,” said Parks. “Let me send another coroner.”
“No, no. I’ve got it.” He stooped: one hand on the bed to steady himself, the other lifting the priest’s flaccid hand, marked with pinpricks, like bites from a snake.
Outside, Marie inhaled, letting the fresh air clear her lungs. Eyes closed, she tilted her face skyward.
Parks lit a cigarette. “Weirdness. Can’t wait until I leave this town. Imagine, Roach upset like that.”
Eyes still shut, Marie could hear a rope slapping against concrete. Children jumping double Dutch, chanting rhymes.
“Did you see his ghost? Or is that only at night? Think you’ll see him? Our pedophile priest?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “And he’s not my priest.”
“Point taken.” Parks blew smoke rings. “I say he’s in hell.”
“I don’t believe in hell,” said Marie. She whistled and Dog bounded toward her. “Dog and I are going to walk home. I need time to think.”
“Connect the dots?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll try and do that here. Look for clues. Fingerprints.”
“Won’t find any. Other than the victim’s.”
“Yeah, well, procedure. I’ll buy Roach a drink. Two drinks. Talk to the priests at the diocese. Doc? Meet up tonight?”
Before she could answer, Parks, brow furrowed, slapped his notebook against his hand. “Got to be some connection. Wharf rat. Jazz man. Priest.”
Marie wandered across the unkempt lawn. Dog, head low, trailed behind her.
“Hey,” shouted Parks. “Give Dog the bones. The whole damn bag.”
Dog didn’t bother to lift his head. Marie didn’t turn, just held up her hand, feeling the warm breeze on her fingers. The air was tinted with the smell of magnolias and fish.
From far off, she heard music, a poignant duet between piano and sax. Maybe some blues or jazz men who’d deci
ded, no, needed, after a night of playing music for tourists, to play their soul’s desire. Fingers skimming ivory. Lips kissing metal while lungs blew air. They’d play until they were spent, sleep a few hours, then play all night, until dawn, buoyant tunes for drunk, happy-time patrons.
“Doc. Doc.”
Parks’s voice was melodic. A deep timbre, rising to a call, slicing the air. “Doc—”
She and Dog kept walking. It was impossible not to hear music in New Orleans.
Music connected JT and Rudy.
Why not the priest?
The blood had been thick with sin. Richly aromatic. The wounded flesh, seductive. This blood, more than the other two, was sustaining. It felt itself gathering texture and strength. It had been. A walker on two legs.
A creature of needs, desire.
Still. Blood filled. Fulfilled. Carried memories.
Touching flesh. Smooth, yielding. Then, not yielding. Holding tight. Tighter. Bowing the child’s back. Tears, wails. Resistance, thrilling.
Thrilling, too, the self-abnegation. Pleas for forgiveness. Lying prostrate before the child. Children who never failed to say, “I forgive you.”
Such innocence demanded blood.
Another type of ecstasy as skin cracked, sliced. Blood mingled with pain, flowing, flowering into blooms.
How sweet the taste. How sweet the blood.
EIGHT
CATHEDRAL AND RIVERWALK
THURSDAY MIDAFTERNOON
Marie’s cell chimed, melodic and startling. Playing a few bars of the Neville Brothers’s “Yellow Moon”:
Yellow moon, yellow moon,
Why you keep peeping in my window?
Do you know something I don’t know?
She didn’t know anything. The more the case dragged on, the less she knew.
She was outside the Café du Monde. Kind Dog begged while young women and children petted him, letting him lick powdered sugar from their hands.
Normally Marie enjoyed watching Dog charm a crowd. But the dead priest was still sharp in her mind.
She stared at the Mississippi, trying to sense Agwé. Trying to remember precedents for murder. There weren’t any. Not in authentic voodoo.
The song stopped. She exhaled. Let the message go to voice mail. If Charity needed her, her pager would buzz.
“Yellow moon, yellow moon, why you keep peeping . . .”
She flipped open the cell phone.
The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy Page 9