Skeleton Letters

by Laura Childs

  “Maybe we can pick up a vibe,” Carmela repeated. To her way of thinking, it sounded awfully lame.

  But Ava was not to be dissuaded. “Come on, Carmela . . . you pretty much promised Baby you’d look into things. You can’t back out now.”

  Carmela pursed her lips and made a face. “Babcock’s gonna kill me. He hates it when I get involved.”

  “Still,” said Ava, “a promise is a promise.”

  Chapter 6

  AS they crept down the narrow back alley in the sputtering rain, St. Tristan’s Church looked like a spooky Gothic castle this morning. Its aged gray granite was stained black in several places, while rounded turrets with narrow windows rose up and lent a foreboding atmosphere. To make matters worse, fog had rolled in from the Mississippi to shroud the adjacent graveyard with its tilting, decaying grave markers.

  “I forgot how creepy it was back here,” said Ava. “I know we’re smack-dab in the middle of the French Quarter, but this graveyard and fog make it feel like we’re lost in Transylvania.” Indeed, the soft rain served to dampen sounds, while the fog gave everything an ethereal, soft-focus appearance.

  “We could still try getting in the main entrance,” said Carmela.

  “With that cop stationed there? No way would he let us in.”

  “So we sneak around the back,” said Carmela, “seeking alternate means per your plan.”

  “Look,” said Ava, glancing sideways. “The dig is still going on back here.”

  “Awfully close to the graveyard,” said Carmela.

  The two of them tiptoed over to a sharply spiked, black, wrought-iron fence.

  “Don’t say that,” said Ava. “It creeps me out.”

  “It’s just a fact,” said Carmela. “The graveyard encroached on the site of the old church. On top of the ruins.”

  “You’re telling me they have to move bodies?” asked Ava.

  “I guess so,” said Carmela.

  “Let’s not think about it,” said Ava, “let’s just keep . . . oof.” Ava suddenly lurched forward for about the tenth time. “Doggone.” She turned and stared peevishly at the cobblestones. “My heels keep catching. And then I look all stupid and ungainly.”

  “That’s because you’re wearing four-inch-high stiletto boots,” said Carmela. “Honestly, who do you think can walk around in four-inch-high stiletto boots?” She chose not to mention that the boots were also spiked with silver studs and extended well above Ava’s knees.

  “I usually manage just fine,” Ava said pointedly, “as long as I don’t have to prance about on cobblestones.”

  “Oh crap,” Carmela breathed, as they rounded the back corner of the church. “The crime-scene tape is still up.” Black-and-yellow tape that warned Crime Scene Do Not Enter was strung like cobwebs across the back door. The warning tape fluttered and flapped in the chill breeze that swooped and swirled around them.

  “But look here,” Ava pointed out, “some of it’s already been pulled down. So probably a few people have already ventured inside.” She reached up and gently peeled away another piece of tape. “Oh boy, some more just came loose!”

  “You like to live on the edge, don’t you?” Carmela said, under her breath.

  “The thing is,” Ava reasoned, “now it’s not completely verboten to go in the back door. Now it’s just a halfhearted warning.”

  “Clearly,” said Carmela, “the police don’t want people prowling around this church.”

  “But we’re not just people,” said Ava. “We’re relevant personnel.”

  “You think?”

  “Sure,” said Ava. “We’re witnesses. Sort of.” She backed up against the rough stone and hugged herself as if trying to keep warm. “Go ahead, try the door. See if it’s unlocked.”

  Carmela reached out a gloved hand, grasped the black metal door handle, and pushed down.

  A sharp, dry click rang out.

  “Imagine that,” said Ava. “It’s open. Practically an invitation.”

  Now Carmela’s curiosity got the best of her. “You are in the Angel Auxiliary,” she reasoned. “So you do have access rights to the church.”

  “That I do,” said Ava. “And you are my invited guest.”

  Carmela took a deep breath and tugged at the heavy wooden door. It hesitated for a split second, and then rusty hinges creaked and the door yawned open to reveal a dark interior.

  “Whoa,” said Ava. “Dark in there.”

  “Now you’re getting cold feet? Now that we’ve got access?”

  “Not me,” said Ava, quickly stepping inside. Carmela followed as the door shut behind them with a loud whoosh, leaving them standing in semidarkness. Stone walls closed in around them, and underneath their nervous feet the cement floor felt hard and pebbled. All around them, the old church seemed to let loose deep, mournful sighs. Maybe the wind? Possibly the old furnace? Suddenly, this little backdoor foray didn’t seem like a lighthearted game anymore.

  “Have you been back here before?” Carmela asked. She glanced around at putty-colored walls, deciding it all looked rather austere and foreboding, with an unwelcome hint of dungeon tossed in for good measure.

  “I guess I’ve been back here,” said Ava. “As I recall, it’s kind of a twisty-turny labyrinth. Lots of little rooms with nooks and crannies. Kind of like . . . catacombs.”

  “I wish you hadn’t said that,” said Carmela. Her breathing was suddenly a little more shallow as her heart pinged with excitement. Or was she picking up something else?

  “Let’s just wend our way into the main part of the church,” suggested Ava. “So we can take another look at that side altar.”

  “Lead the way,” said Carmela.

  They crept fifteen feet down a long, dark corridor, Ava walking point, Carmela following closely behind. Their footfalls were soft and dampened in what felt like dead air.

  Suddenly, Carmela let loose a low hiss and tugged hard on the back of Ava’s sweater.

  Ava stopped in her tracks. “What?” she asked in a whisper.

  Carmela crooked an index finger and pointed to her left, toward a small, dimly lit room. It was a coatroom, what used to be quaintly referred to as a cloakroom. Only this room held actual cloaks. Or, rather, brown monk’s robes that hung in a long row on tarnished metal hooks.

  “Jeepers,” Ava said, under her breath. “You think maybe the killer grabbed one of those robes yesterday?”

  “It’s possible,” said Carmela. Looking at the robes gave her an unsettled feeling, like seeing a crust of snakeskin that had been hastily shed. Yet the serpent was still wriggling around out there.

  “How many robes are hanging in there?”

  Carmela did a quick count. “Eleven.”

  “Think there’s one missing?” asked Ava. “Maybe there should be an even dozen? Seems like there should be an even dozen.”

  “No idea,” said Carmela. “Can you find out? Ask a docent or something?”

  Ava nodded. “I’ll try.”

  They continued down the corridor, passing several closed doors. The air had turned damp and musty and held a noxious touch of ammonia mingled with lemon wood polish. Probably, Carmela decided, the janitor used some crappy lemon-scented oil to keep these old wooden doors and door frames from drying out completely.

  “Getting close,” Ava told her, then stopped so abruptly that Carmela’s forehead bumped against her right shoulder.

  “What?” asked Carmela.

  Now it was Ava’s turn to point.

  Carmela slid around Ava and peeked into a small, dimly lit storage room. A huddle of little people, was her first reaction. Then, just as quickly, she realized that the room was jam-packed with three- and four-foot-high religious statues. Most of the statues wore solemn, beatific looks on their faces, their painted eyes gazing upward. A few bore horrible stab wounds or crowns of thorns. Obviously, they’d stumbled upon St. Tristan’s cache of saint statues.

  “Those statues look kind of creepy, don’t you think?” asked Ava.
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  “They’re just objects,” said Carmela. “Plaster and paint.”

  “But when they’re all jumbled together like that, it kind of looks like they’re waiting to be . . . animated or something. Like a Chucky doll.”

  “When you put it that way,” said Carmela, staring at the peeling face of a martyred saint, “it is a little weird.”

  Ava gave a nervous shrug, then whispered, “This way. Almost there.”

  They made a sharp turn to the left, then a quick turn to the right, and were suddenly directly behind the main altar. And when they crept around the side and into the church proper, they found themselves staring out into the immense darkness.

  “Nobody’s here,” said Ava.

  “Just us chickens,” said Carmela, trying to be lighthearted yet feeling she’d failed.

  “It seems so deserted,” said Ava. “Usually there’s somebody mumbling away in the confessional or arranging flowers on one of the side altars.”

  Carmela gazed in the direction of the saint’s altar and said, “Let’s get on with it.”

  They slipped through an opening in a wrought-iron railing and hurried down the side aisle. Ten seconds later they were standing at the saint’s altar, the site of yesterday’s murder.

  “Nobody’s done a new saint installation yet,” Ava pointed out.

  “Probably because nobody’s been allowed back in here,” said Carmela. “But, tell me, what do you mean by ‘saint installation’?” Not having been raised a Catholic, Carmela found this all a little foreign.

  “Oh,” said Ava, “every month or so, a new saint is put on display.”

  “Hence the saint’s altar,” said Carmela. “So it serves as a kind of rotating Who’s Who in heaven?”

  “Something like that,” said Ava.

  “Okay,” said Carmela, knowing what the huddle of saint statues was all about now. “Since we’re here, we need to take a quick look around.”

  But Ava was suddenly jittery. “Sure is deserted,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. “And dark.” A single red candle flickered on the main altar; a dim light hung in a flat circular bowl above the saint’s altar. The rest of the church—pews, baptismal font, three other side altars, and choir loft—seemed lost in shadows.

  “We think it’s deserted,” said Carmela. “But remember yesterday, when we thought the church was empty? There were all those people hanging around the periphery?”

  “So you think somebody’s hanging around today?”

  “Let me put it this way,” said Carmela, pulling a small Maglite from her suede shoulder bag, “I think we should look fast and cut bait.”

  But five minutes of hunting and squinting and scrabbling around on the floor yielded nothing at all.

  “No clues,” said Ava. “Not a thing.”

  “I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”

  “Probably the crime-scene techs got everything there was to get,” said Ava.

  “Hopefully,” said Carmela.

  “You think they vacuumed up all the hair and fibers?” asked Ava.

  “I’m sure they followed protocol,” said Carmela.

  “Can you ask Babcock about that?”

  “I can try,” said Carmela. She glanced around nervously. “Maybe it’s time we got out of here.”

  They padded slowly back to the main altar and slipped behind it, going out through the sacristy, the same way they’d come in.

  “I have a question,” said Carmela. “If someone had to get out of here fast, how would they do it?”

  “You mean like escape?” asked Ava. “Like the killer did yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  Ava thought for a couple of seconds. “There are only the two entrances that I know of. The main door . . .”

  “Which is how we came in yesterday,” said Carmela.

  “And the back door,” said Ava. “Where we sneaked in today.”

  “Is there a basement?” asked Carmela. “I mean, we know there’s some kind of lower level because the archaeologists were exploring it.”

  The dig article in the Times-Picayune had talked about how archaeologists found the original excavation some twenty feet down.

  “Maybe we should take a look?” said Ava.

  They crept back down the corridor they’d come through earlier. Only this time they tried every door.

  “Everything’s locked,” said Carmela, as she tried opening each of the doors.

  “Gotta give it a shot,” said Ava.

  The fourth door on the left yielded to their touch.

  “This one’s open,” said Ava.

  “The question is,” said Carmela, “is it just another room or does it lead somewhere?”

  Ava grimaced, then put her shoulder against the door and shoved it open. Much to their surprise, it revealed a narrow flight of stone steps that wound downward. “Shazam,” she whispered.

  Carmela flicked on her Maglite again and said, “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 7

  “WHAT’S that musty smell?” asked Ava. Her voice sounded hollow and otherworldly as they wound their way down the stairs.

  “No clue,” said Carmela. “I’m just focused on trying to stay upright.” The steps wound down in a tight spiral, so each was basically a pie-shaped wedge and very tricky to maneuver. You had to practically step sideways.

  “But there are lights,” said Ava, once they’d finally reached the basement. She pointed at a bare forty-watt bulb that dangled from a low rafter. Some twenty feet beyond them, in the darkness, a second bulb cast a feeble glow.

  “So maybe somebody’s down here?” Carmela murmured. She glanced at the tumble of junk that surrounded them. There were stacks of broken church pews, wooden boxes, piles of broken bricks, and stacks of old hymnals. In the corner were two headless statues. She decided that, like everyone else in the civilized world, the folks who ran this church had basic hoarding instincts, too.

  “It’s just junk,” said Ava, sounding dismayed.

  “But maybe . . . another door?” wondered Carmela. “Or an old coal chute or something?” A coal chute or some other type of basement door certainly could have given the killer a third option for escape.

  “What are you suggesting?” asked Ava. “That we explore?” Her enthusiasm was suddenly as dim as the lights.

  “Maybe if we wandered around and took a quick peek,” said Carmela.

  “You twisting my arm?” Ava was somewhat resistant.

  “No, but . . .” Carmela stopped and inhaled sharply. She was pretty sure she’d just heard a soft clunk somewhere in front of them. She aimed her flashlight beam into the darkness, but it wasn’t powerful enough to pierce the curtain of gloom.

  “Somebody’s there?” Ava quavered.

  “Either that or this church is home to some rather large rodents.”

  “Ooh,” said Ava, “I don’t like the sound of that!”

  Carmela took a single step forward, moving her beam from side to side. She saw a wooden lectern, a broken wooden cross, and . . . holy smokes! Somebody’s face?

  She jumped back.

  “What?” asked Ava, clutching her.

  “Somebody’s there.”

  Ava jittered on the balls of her feet. “Wha-where?”

  There was a crunch of gravel, and then a long, angular face wavered in Carmela’s weak flashlight beam. And a man in brown robes started toward them.

  “Whoa!” said Ava.

  “Who are you?” Carmela demanded.

  The man continued to move toward them, slowly, silently, almost as if he were floating. His unblinking eyes seemed to pierce right through them.

  “Name, please!” said Carmela. She was inches from a fullblown panic attack.

  The man slowly raised his right hand. “Peace,” he said. “I’m Brother Paul.”

  “What are you doing down here?” Ava cried, her courage suddenly returning with a vengeance.

  “I work here,” he told them.

  “You work here?” sa
id Carmela. In the basement? Yeah, right. “Doing what, may I ask?”

  But Brother Paul had already slipped past them, the bottom of his robe gently brushing against their legs as he headed for some other dark corner.

  “We’re talking to you,” said Carmela.

  Brother Paul stopped in his tracks. Then he turned slowly and gazed back at them. His eyes were pinpricks of light that seemed to throw off bright sparks.

  “Were you here yesterday?” Ava asked.

  His eyes continued to bore into them.

  “Excuse me,” said Ava. “Is that a yes or a no?”

  “Our friend was murdered here yesterday,” said Carmela, in a somewhat more conversational tone. Maybe if she didn’t harass him, she’d get an answer? “If you know anything about that, it would be a great help.”

  Brother Paul ducked his head and turned away, letting one single word float back to them. “Seekers.”

  “What’d he say?” asked Ava.

  “Who are Seekers?” Carmela called after him.

  But Brother Paul had already slipped away.

  “What a crackpot!” said Ava, when they were finally at the back door again, standing in the small vestibule. “What do you really think Brother Paul was doing creepy-crawling in that basement?”

  “Search me,” said Carmela. She touched her fingers to the door handle, ready to push it open, when suddenly the door flew open on its own. Then a shadow loomed in the doorway.

  “Eek!” Ava let loose a high-pitched squeal, then hastily recovered when she saw who it was. “Oh, Mr. Fried!” She drew a shuddery breath. “It’s you. I thought for sure you were . . . um . . . hi there.”

  A man with a narrow face, his mouth pulled into a surprised O, appeared a little bewildered himself. “Hello, Ava,” he stammered out.

  “Carmela,” said Ava, holding a hand to her throat, trying to recover her composure, “you know Norton Fried, our choir director, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” said Carmela, “I think we met once at a party at the New Orleans Art Institute.” She also remembered seeing Fried’s name in their annual report, listed as a donor.

  “Oh, of course,” said Fried. He was slightly prissy with thick glasses that magnified his eyes. “You’re Shamus’s wife.”