Bad Karma In the Big Easy

by D. J. Donaldson

  He was puzzled. “Why do you...?”

  “No time to explain. Talk...”

  Teddy reached out and turned her hand so he could examine the gun better. “It’s ready to go, but you should drop the magazine out of the butt so we can see how many rounds it has. This is the release lever. Don’t let it fall in the dirt.”

  Kit let the magazine slide into her hand and saw that it was full.

  “Now just slip it back in until it clicks.”

  She slammed the magazine home as though she’d been doing it her entire life. “I’m heading to the Marshall house. Phone for help. Send someone to the house to back me up and get an ambulance in here for Andy and Phillip.”

  “And me... don’t forget me...” Marion whined.

  Ignoring him, Kit said, “And have the medics look for Lancon. This guy has his radio gear so Lancon is likely in serious trouble, or maybe beyond it.”

  “Why are you...?”

  Without answering, she turned and sprinted off into the woods.

  Four minutes later, she reached the iron fence surrounding the rear of the Marshall estate. Rather than try to climb over it, she turned and followed it to the edge of the bayou, where she squeezed between the last fence post and the water and stepped onto Marshall real estate.

  BEFORE TEDDY LEFT BUBBA alone with Marion Marshall, he relieved Marion of Lancon’s ear bud and mike and the Walkie Talkie clipped to his belt. Frisking Marshall, Teddy found a gray metal box in the man’s back pocket.

  “What’s this?” Teddy asked, holding the box in front of Marshall.

  “It blocks cell phones. You’ll have to turn if off or you won’t be able to GET ME SOME HELP.”

  Teddy flicked off the device and headed for Kit’s car to call 911.

  KIT DIDN’T UNDERSTAND ALL of what had been happening, but when she saw that the body in the alligator had no liver, she’d instantly realized Organogenesis Inc. wasn’t making livers at all. It was somehow making kids, cloning the sick ones who needed a liver. And last week, when Quentin was complaining about Jude taking his own life, Quentin said he had two transplants coming up... one yesterday and another today. The child they’d found in the alligator had provided the liver for the first, and Quentin was going to need another one today. From what Marion had told her, there was no doubt in her mind that he was, this very minute, about to kill another infant.

  Unless she was already too late.

  Marion said their operating room was in the right wing of the house. As Kit sprinted for the bank of French doors opening onto the patio, she saw there were no windows over there, a fact that seemed to show Marion was telling the truth.

  She crossed the patio and darted up the steps. She grabbed the nearest doorknob and yanked.

  Locked.

  Unwilling to waste time checking any other doors, she smashed out the glass with the butt of the automatic and cleaned the remaining shards from the opening. Though Marion said the OR was soundproof, Kit hoped she’d set off a security alarm that might be wired into it. That would have surely stopped the operation. But no such alarm sounded.

  She reached inside and twisted the doorknob. She flew through the open door and across a sitting room whose expensive furnishings made no impression on her, and entered a vast kitchen, not even noticing the black onyx floor and countertops as she searched for a doorway to the right wing.

  There...

  Skirting a work island, she crossed the room and darted into the hallway on the other side. Thirty feet down, she saw a large doorway on the right.

  A few seconds later, she stood in front of a pair of metal pocket doors that opened by sliding left and right into the wall. She slipped her fingers into the handhold on the left one and threw it open.

  Across the room, two gowned and masked figures stood over an operating table. The shorter one on the opposite side looked up. The taller, whom she believed to be Quentin Marshall, turned to face her. There was a scalpel in his hand.

  Pointing the automatic at them, Kit said, “Both of you, get over there against the wall.”

  The smaller of the two, began moving. Quentin did nothing.

  Then he spoke. “How much do you know?”

  “More than you’d like, I assure you.”

  “You didn’t see anyone else in the house?”

  “If you mean your brother, Marion, he’s not in any position to help you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing. There’s a very sick child who needs me today. His parents have gone through hell with him. And today, I’m going to cure him. Do you understand that? Can it possibly penetrate your tiny brain?”

  “I swear, if you don’t move now, I’m going to shoot you in the kneecaps. Bad a shot as I am, I might shoot your dick off by mistake.”

  Quentin moved slowly over to the wall. “You’re acting irrationally, do you know that?”

  “All the more reason not to screw with me.”

  Keeping the gun on both of them, Kit went to the operating table, her heart thumping at what she might be about to see. She leaned over and looked at the tiny figure on the table.

  There was an endotracheal tube taped to his mouth and an IV line fixed to the back of his little hand. A blue surgical drape with a big window in it covered the rest of him. Kit checked to make sure the two against the wall were staying there. Then she turned back to the child. Her mouth dry with worry, she leaned in so she could see the operating field.

  All she saw was a big smooth, orange patch... Uncut skin swabbed with Betadine.

  UNCUT.

  She’d arrived in time. The child would live.

  But now she had to get him awake.

  She turned to the two against the wall. She motioned to the smaller one with her gun. “You, take off your mask.”

  That person responded, revealing the face of a woman in her sixties. The same woman Kit had seen in the flyover photos.

  “Who are you?” Kit asked.

  “Nita Marshall,” the woman said. “...Quentin’s mother.”

  “Good God, how can you be a party to this?”

  “You obviously don’t understand.”

  “I get it completely. Can you bring this child out of the anesthesia?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to do that. And if you hurt him...”

  Quentin pulled his mask down around his neck. “That proves you’re confused. We’re not evil. If we can’t perform the transplant scheduled for today with the organ we had planned to use, we have no other agenda.”

  “Then wake him up.”

  “Of course,” Nita Marshall said. She went to the side of the table where the anesthesia machine was breathing for the child and made some adjustments in the setting. “It’ll take a few minutes.”

  Kit backed up so she could keep an eye on both of them.

  “You realize the subject on that table isn’t really a person, don’t you?” Quentin asked.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “He was conceived in a dish to be a provider for a child who had real parents and a real home, where he would be loved and guided as he matured. That’s a thing on the table, it has no name, no future, no reason to exist other than to provide...”

  “The more you talk, the more I want to hurt you,” Kit said. “So you’d better just shut up. Sit on the floor.”

  Quentin slid to the floor and sat skewering Kit with a hostile stare.

  He was still there fifteen minutes later, when his mother said to Kit, “He should be coming awake any minute.” She proceeded to remove the tube before the child was consciousness enough to fight it. She then detached the IV from the back of his hand.

  “Get that surgical drape off him, too,” Kit demanded.

  There was a commotion in the hall. Sheriff Lazare and three deputies, all with automatics in hand poured into the room.

  The child on the table began to cry softly.

  “Sheriff, take those two into custody,” Kit said. “The charge will be
multiple murder.”

  While Lazare’s men led Quentin and his mother away, Kit put her gun on a nearby stand holding a tray of surgical instruments, went to the operating table, and picked up the crying child. “Hello, little man,” she crooned. “You don’t have to worry. You’re safe now. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” The child stopped crying. He looked up at her with impossibly bright blue eyes and with all he had been through, smiled at her.

  “Is he okay?” Lazare said, walking over to them.

  “He seems to be fine.”

  “There’s an ambulance outside. We should let them take him to the hospital for a check-up.”

  “He’s not going without me.”

  “Then you’ll both go.”

  “What about the others? Have you seen them? How are they doing”?

  “The only one in any real trouble is Theo. He might not make it.”

  Kit was relieved to hear her friends were going to be okay, but her pleasure at hearing that was mitigated by Lancon’s situation. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You didn’t do it.”

  “Still...”

  Lazare solemnly nodded. “Yeah...”

  KIT HELD THE INFANT in her arms all the way to the hospital, never taking her eyes from his delicate little face. Though it was a short ride, it was long enough for her to weave a tapestry for the child’s future. He was alone in the world, had no home, and didn’t even have a name. He needed someone to love him, someone to tuck him in at night, and read to him, and comfort him when he scraped his knee, someone to put money under his pillow when he lost a tooth, someone to help him become a man. In short, what he needed was her.

  And she needed him.

  Chapter 36

  “So, can I assume dose at da table with full use a all dere arms are da smarter ones?” Grandma O asked.

  She was referring to the sling on Gatlin’s left arm and the cast and sling on Broussard’s left arm.

  “I’m afraid that was more a matter of good and bad luck,” Kit said.

  “I don’t know,” Bubba said. “I had a feelin’ somethin’ bad might happen. Dat’s why I was crouchin’ down when da shootin’ started.”

  “You might have mentioned that to the rest of us at the time,” Gatlin said.

  “Didn’t think you’d pay any attention.”

  “Damn brave thing you did, charging Marshall like that,” Gatlin said to Kit.

  “At the time it didn’t feel like I had much choice.”

  “You actually did,” Gatlin said. “So stop being modest. I hate it when people won’t accept a compliment.”

  “You all play nice now,” Grandma O said as she left them and went to the kitchen.

  Wanting to get the topic off her supposed bravery, Kit said, “I checked on Theo Lancon this morning. They think he’ll recover.”

  A murmur of support for the injured deputy ran around the table.

  “I still got some questions about what happened,” Bubba said. “I know Marion liked to kill women an’ dress ‘em up after dey was dead.” He shivered. “Gives me da creeps jus’ sayin’ it. Why’d he choose women who had been... what was dat word?”

  “Surrogates,” Kit said.

  “Dat’s it. Why’d he choose dem?”

  “Until late yesterday afternoon I was a little fuzzy on that myself,” Gatlin said.

  “What happened yesterday?” Kit asked.

  “Because the bodies were found in New Orleans and we’ll need to iron out who has jurisdiction in the case, Lazare agreed to send me copies of statements any of the three Marshalls made. I got two yesterday, one from Marion and one from his mother. Quentin is still not talking. Guess you’ve all figured out Surrogacy Central was operated by the Marshalls to find women who would carry the embryos they made.”

  Broussard had been sitting there not saying much. At this point, he spoke. “Though the three surrogates had signed contracts givin’ up all rights to the child they carried, Jennifer Hendrin and the other two women couldn’t live by those terms. They threatened legal action if Surrogacy Central wouldn’t let ‘em see their babies. Of course, that wasn’t possible because the children were dead. The women had to be silenced.”

  “I wasn’t aware Lazare sent you copies of those statements,” Gatlin said.

  Broussard shook his head. “Didn’t have to. Hendrin’s best friend said Hendrin had changed her mind about givin’ up those rights and that the clinic had refused to listen to her pleas. Then she turns up dead... All pretty obvious now.”

  “Okay, how’d Marion get involved?” Gatlin asked.

  “I’m guessin’ that as a child he did somethin’ sociopathic, and his family covered up for him. When they needed someone to get rid of those women, they turned to him.”

  “Not bad,” Gatlin said. “When he was fourteen, Marion crushed a classmate’s skull with a rock. Before the authorities found the body, Quentin went to the scene, picked up the murder weapon, and buried it in the woods, miles away. Marion was never implicated in the crime.”

  “I think I see the rest now,” Kit said. “The family didn’t know about Marion’s little dress-up fantasy. He was supposed to dispose of those bodies, but instead, he decided that was his chance to act out the events he put in Night Demon. He collected the bodies and stored them in the LeDoux Street building until the flood washed the freezer into the street. Knowing they’d be discovered, Marion must have then confessed to his brothers what he’d done.” She looked at Gatlin for comment.

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “That has to be what drove Jude to take his own life,” Kit said. “... fear those bodies would cause everything to unravel.”

  “Guess that makes him the sensitive one,” Teddy said. “I don’t understand why they’d trust someone as unstable as Marion with killing those women.”

  Gatlin responded. “The interviewer asked Nita Marshall that. She said they felt they had no choice. They didn’t want an outsider having that to hold over them. And like Kit said, they didn’t know about Marion’s cadaver dress-up fetish.”

  Teddy shook his head. “There’s a gene pool that needs to be drained and filled in.”

  “Did either of the statements say where they got the eggs to make the embryos for their scheme?” Kit asked.

  Gatlin shrugged. “Apparently didn’t need any.”

  “Why not?”

  “They figured out a way to make embryos directly from the marrow cells they took from each client.”

  “I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “I only know what they said.”

  “So all the embryos they made were clones of their clients,” Teddy said. “Is that what I’m hearing?”

  “It’s how they were able to provide livers that didn’t require their clients to take any drugs to prevent rejection,” Kit said.

  “Didn’t you tell me the kid whose father you spoke to needed a new liver because the drainage system in his son didn’t develop right?”

  “Yes.”

  “If the liver the Marshalls were going to give him came from a clone, wouldn’t that one develop wrong as well?”

  Kit shook her head. “No. The father said there’s no genetic basis for the disorder. It just happens. Nobody knows why. You could make a hundred clones from a child where it went wrong and they’d all be normal.” Kit looked at Gatlin. “Did either Marion or his mother say why Marion came after me?”

  “Quentin told Marion about you investigating Jude’s death and he ragged Marion again for keeping the three bodies. Quentin used your visit as an example of the kind of trouble Marion’s stupidity could create. Marion decided, in his disturbed way of thinking, he’d make up for his earlier mistake by taking you out of the picture. I don’t know if Quentin has figured that out yet.”

  At this point, Grandma O appeared and began to distribute their lunch orders. Over the next half hour as they ate, the conversation ran heavily to the great alligator hunt and the subsequent shotgun attack. Kit noticed that Broussard did
not join in the discussion. Nor did he seem to be enjoying his food with his usual obvious fervor.

  When they had all finished and the gathering was breaking up, Broussard remained at the table, nursing an iced tea. “I’m going to see Teddy to his car, then I want to talk to you about something,” Kit said to him. “Can you wait?”

  “Sure.”

  Teddy and Kit walked out to the parking lot, where Teddy’s rental car waited. A few steps before they reached it, Kit’s cell phone rang. She removed it from her bag and took the call.

  “Kit Franklyn.”

  Teddy watched as her expression, initially expectant, became one of disappointment.

  “I understand,” she said. “That’s perfectly reasonable. Don’t know why it didn’t occur to me. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Who was that?” Teddy asked as she put her phone away.

  “Social services. I’m not getting the baby. The parents of the child who provided the marrow cells the Marshalls used to make him are taking him. It was stupid of me not to see that’s what would probably happen.”

  Teddy stepped close and took her in his arms. “It wasn’t stupid. You were just blinded by your affection for the little guy.”

  “I just feel so depleted now.”

  “You know, kids are still being made the old way.”

  She leaned back and looked at him. “The old way?”

  “I understand it’s not difficult. I’ll bet even you and I could figure out how to do it.”

  “Are you saying...?”

  “Clear your schedule and come over for a visit in the next few days. We’ll talk about it.” He gave her a lingering kiss on the lips and they walked to his car. He got in and rolled down the window. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

  Kit watched his car until it was out of sight. Feeling so light it seemed as though she was floating over the pavement, she returned to Grandma O’s and walked back to where Broussard was sitting limply in his chair like a bag of dirty laundry, fiddling with some sugar packets. She sat down beside him. “What’s going on with you?”