Devil Dead

by Linda Ladd

  “You’re gonna have to quit slummin’ it in this dump when you come to Paris,” she told him as they were whisked up with slick and silent precision.

  “It’s a good investment and a convenient place to stay,” he told her, which was what he always said about his properties.

  Upstairs, it was all quite modern and airy with some ooh la la definitely thrown in, too. All black and white and gold and high end everything, and lots of French doors and French windows with gauzy white drapes galore. They dumped their meager bags and backpacks just outside the elevator. Black looked at her and said, “I really need to get to the clinic and see my patients. One of them has been asking for me.”

  “No problem. You go right ahead. I wanna check out the address Jonas gave me for that Dubois guy, and then I want to check out the Quinns’ country house outside the city. Shouldn’t be too hard, if you let me borrow your limo and that smiley French-speaking driver.”

  Black considered her for a moment. “I think I better tag along. It probably won’t take long. You don’t know the city, and you’ll probably need an interpreter who can keep his mouth shut about what you say and do to this guy when you find him. The clinic can wait another hour or so, I guess. When I called out there after we landed, they said the man is sedated right now. But I’ve got to have a personal therapy session with him before we leave. I have to, Claire.”

  “Okay, no problem. I’d like to get a gander at your clinic, anyway. See what you do when you come abroad and stay so long. So, where do you keep your Parisian stash of weapons, Black?”

  “We aren’t gonna need guns, right? We’re just looking for this guy to ask some questions about Andrea, and nothing else? You aren’t after a murderer this time. Besides, possessing a handgun is against French law. Except in special cases. They are very strict with firearms in this country.” Claire frowned until he said, “But if we should happen to need them, I know where we can get some. Until then, I have a stun gun and pepper spray here at the house.”

  Claire smiled. “That’s my sweetie pie. Now let’s get going, but give me that stun gun first. I couldn’t get mine through customs.”

  “Okay, let’s go. Maybe we’ll pass the Eiffel Tower and you can look out the window at it. Sounds like that’s the only sightseeing we’re going to get to do. Since my patient will be awake soon and asking for me.”

  Downstairs, the long black limo still waited at the curb, and Black gave some rapid-fire instructions in very fluent French to the rather debonair and nattily attired and black-and-gold-uniformed driver. After which, the always grinning man took off down the busy avenue in a mad dash through honking and swerving Paris traffic. Black leaned back. “You hungry?”

  “Of course.”

  “There are snacks over there in the fridge and beer and wine and bottled water.”

  Claire raided it and chose the water and a handful of miniature Snickers bars. “Wow, I lucked out on their choice of candy.”

  “I ordered the Snickers bars stocked in the car.”

  “You are just so super good to me, aren’t you?”

  “I hope you remember that later.”

  “Snickers bars are the way to my heart, as you well know.”

  The ride to the city limits took about twenty minutes, and then they took off for some place called Fremainville on some road that Black said was the A 15 branch of the Autoroute, or something like that. Eventually, they found themselves a good way outside the narrow and picturesque Paris streets and driving among fields of whatever French people grew. Barley, maybe, something like that? Quaint farmland that didn’t exactly equate with Missouri farmland but looked charming and verdant with haystacks right out of a Monet painting nonetheless.

  Lots of grazing cows began to dot the landscape, along with goats that Black said were raised for goat cheese, which Claire decided sounded really yuck and no thank you. They drove through fields of tall hedgerows and low gray stone walls, and the traffic composed predominately of small European kinda cars began to clear out. They traveled at a high rate of speed, but still almost an hour passed before their driver, a guy named Geraud, stopped at yet another low gray stone wall at the entrance of yet another dirt driveway that led to yet another rock farmhouse, way off back up the road and half hidden by a grove of leafy oak trees. Said driver spewed out a whole bunch more foreign gibberish that only Black understood and pointed up the road. Black responded in a long string of French that probably meant thank you, or was that merci, maybe? Or maybe he was telling the guy a joke, who knew? Who cared? Time was a wastin’.

  So Mr. Gallic Chauffeur killed the engine, obviously instructed to wait for them, and Claire and Black got out and stared out over the wall at the farmhouse. They kept out of sight behind a big willow tree with low hanging branches and watched for signs of life and saw nothing that moved except lots of green leaves fluttering in the light breeze. No stuffed animals or alligators, though, and thank goodness for that.

  “This doesn’t look just right to me,” Black said, verbalizing her own thoughts as per usual.

  “No, it does not. Too quiet. They do have birds that sing and flutter around in the French countryside, right?”

  “I don’t think we should take the road up, just in case he’s hiding out and watching. I doubt if he can see the limo from up there.”

  “Let’s go in across that field over there. Just in case he doesn’t like strangers and has a nasty surprise up his sleeve. Or a nine-mil. Could happen. Gun laws or not.”

  Black looked at her. “What do you know about this guy? Do you think he might be armed?”

  “Harve didn’t find out anything on him. And I mean nothing. Zip. Nada. Jonas Quinn gave us some stuff, but I’ve got no way of knowing if any of it’s true. According to him, Pierre was at the Sorbonne when Andrea was there. Twenty-seven years old. Native to Paris; Jonas said that his whole family is in fact. Never married but had a friendly sort of thing with Andrea for about two years. He supposedly worked as some kind of graduate assistant kinda thing after she left for the U.S. Doesn’t sound exactly like a French version of Al Capone, does it? But he was the last guy seen with her, and they were arguing at the time. There was a woman seated beside him on the plane, but the manifest doesn’t say it was Andrea Quinn. And zero records on him seems highly suspicious to me. Harve can find out anything about anybody. So, there’s more to this guy than meets the eye. I think he’s either dirty or official.”

  “What woman?”

  “Plane manifest shows Sheila Pollento.”

  “So you think it was Andrea coming back here with him under an assumed name?”

  “I don’t know what to think. But it could be that. They could be holed up in there right now. Reconciled and happy as two little lovebirds, making whoopee and havin’ fun.”

  “Okay, let’s go. They sure as hell are not coming down here to welcome us.”

  So they climbed over the low wall, and Claire was glad she’d worn her Nikes and jeans and a black hoodie against the slight chill in the spring air. Black wasn’t so casual. He had on a tan knit shirt and a tan suede jacket and black pants, but he did have the foresight to put on some pricey black sneakers that would be good for running, when and if the shooting started. They started up the cornfield, keeping to the fencerow where a long line of thick and leafy bushes would hide their progress.

  Claire just wished she had a weapon instead of the measly little stun gun. It was bigger and better than the one on her keychain, but not bigger and better than her Glock 19. She wasn’t used to going anywhere without her weapons, and she sure didn’t like being unarmed one tiny little bit. Hell, she might as well be naked. Luckily, and as they neared the back of the house, Black pulled out a Colt .45. She did so like that about him, how he had weapons stashed all over the world, and on his person, too. Even in really strict countries that would throw him in the Bastille and pitch the key in the River Seine if he dared to brandish a firearm.

  “Thought you didn’t have any handguns, B
lack. You know, that strict gun law thing?”

  “Maybe I have that special license I was telling you about. One that took me almost two years to get. So now I’ve got a hunting license and access to guns over here. We’re getting married in July so I’m not going to let anybody kill you before then, not if I can help it.”

  Claire liked that about him, too. He was always just so pragmatic. “You are just the sweetest thing. Wanting me alive at the wedding, and all. So, tell me, when did you start hunting with a .45?”

  “What you don’t know won’t hurt you when we get arrested by French authorities.”

  Up the field they trudged, moving stealthily toward the house, keeping low and quiet. That is, until one bulky gunman burst out of the fencerow right in front of them, like some kind of dangerous green giant, his very big and powerful assault rifle pointed directly at Claire’s chest. Two more similarly clad men dressed in military issue materialized behind them with similar weapons pointed at their backs.

  Claire froze in her tracks, and that was putting it mildly. The guy started off with a whole string of low and guttural French that Claire didn’t understand. On the other hand, she wasn’t stupid. She got the gist right off. Don’t move a muscle or you’re dead, most likely, the growling tone of which rather unlocked that pesky language barrier.

  “Put your hands up, Claire,” Black said softly.

  She obeyed. “Who are these guys?”

  “Paris police. Special operations unit, or so they said. And they’ve got us dead to rights. So don’t try anything.”

  “As if.” Again, Claire longed for her shiny police badge and multiple guns and knives and the official authority to be on present private property with no questions asked.

  Once Black was disarmed and questioned about the .45 that he offered up to them quick enough and handed over butt-first, both of them were de-passported and patted down in a semi-rough and really most unpleasant fashion. After that, they met up with some tight metal handcuffs behind their backs and were then both shoved unceremoniously down behind the hedgerow. In short order, three other big green guys joined them. So she and Black waited, all trussed up and uncomfortable and annoyed, but with not much else to do but sit there and fume.

  The leader of the green squad thumbed open their passports and other official papers and matched them to their pictures. He squatted down on his haunches. “What are you doing here?” he asked Black in heavily accented English.

  “We’re here looking for a missing person out of the States. She’s Claire Morgan, a former homicide detective, now working as a private investigator. I’m former U.S. military. You can check us out. We’re legit.”

  “Who is this missing person?”

  “Her name is Andrea Quinn.”

  The guy standing and holding the rifle on them then turned and gave forth with a swift string of French gobbledygook to his waiting men, who were all squatted down in a semicircle around their unhappy prisoners. One of them got on a radio and walked a few feet away. Everybody remained unmoving, and some, meaning Claire and Black, seemed a bit more anxious than their armed captors. Five minutes later, the guy with the radio returned and nodded to his fearless leader.

  “You check out. What’d you know of the man who lives in this house?”

  Claire said, “His name is Pierre Dubois.”

  “That is one of his aliases. His real name is Louis D’Angele.”

  To Claire’s surprise, Black knew him. “The gunrunner out of Marseilles?”

  “You know him?”

  “I know he’s bad news. And that makes me worry about the Quinn girl’s well-being.”

  “We have watched this place for several days with no movement, in or out.”

  “How about taking these cuffs off and letting me go in there?” Claire said, turning slightly and lifting her bound hands toward the guy. She smiled to let him know she was friendly as a puppy, despite the shackles.

  The guy hesitated a long moment, and then he motioned for his lieutenant to unlock the cuffs. “You stay back here. We will clear the place. Do you understand me?”

  Claire knew better than to not understand him. This was his jurisdiction. His little armed Gallic takedown. She and Black were lucky that they weren’t headed back to the aforementioned Bastille for a quick guillotining, or to be enlisted forcefully into the French Foreign Legion. But she wasn’t used to hanging back. She didn’t like it, but too bad for her. Sometimes, things sucked.

  The Frenchies seemed to be trained pretty damn well. They spread out, verged on the house from all sides, guns at the ready, faces somber, prepared for some serious action. Claire and Black watched, and probably with very different emotions. Claire was chomping at the bit to bust in the back door, right along with the guys in green. Black was chomping at the bit to hold her back. So, they both just sat there impatiently and waited for something to happen. Front-row seats to an exciting takedown were better than nothing, she supposed. Once more, she missed flashing her badge and pushing people around and diving into the action headfirst. If she and Black ever broke up, maybe she would join the French Foreign Legion and go to Morocco.

  After a lot of yelling and storming the premises and knocking doors down with handheld battering rams, it became fairly silent except that the French birds were back and cheeping and chirping as they returned from stage left into the surrounding oak groves. Uneasy now, as the minutes lengthened to number fifteen, Claire stood up, hands on her hips. Man, what the hell was going on inside that farmhouse?

  More time passed, and way too much in Claire’s estimation, before the officer with the radio came striding swiftly back toward them. He spoke to Black in his own language, of course. Claire frowned as they parlayed rapidly back and forth for what seemed like an hour, but was really only one minute.

  “They found him,” Black finally turned and told her. “Dead. You won’t be glad to hear that his corpse is surrounded by satanic symbols.”

  Okay, that floored Claire for one additional minute. She wasn’t expecting that, uh-uh. “Tell him I wanna help work the scene. Tell him I was following this guy, too, and they owe me a look-see.”

  “They don’t owe you jack squat, Claire, but I’ll ask him. Demands just don’t get it over here. So don’t make them, understand?”

  “Whatever. Just make sure he lets me go inside that house.”

  More lilting French. Man, she was gonna have Black teach her to speak French on the way home, damn it. She did not like being on the outside of pertinent, crime-related conversations. Especially this particular one. She already had learned a few French phrases, like oui, merci, bon temps, and the French word for jerk, which her Missouri partner, Bud Davis, had taught her, but that now escaped her. And she could sing “Frere Jacques,” that kid’s song with lots of dings and dangs and dongs at the end. That probably wouldn’t come in handy right now, though.

  “Okay, Claire, he said we can go inside. Just don’t touch anything and don’t get in the way. He means what he says, so don’t abuse their generosity or they’ll throw you out.”

  “Ask him if we can take some pictures.”

  “That would be pointless. He won’t let us.”

  “Ask him.”

  Black sighed and rather dramatically, too, and then he asked the guy. He turned back to Claire, looking all know-it-all. “No photos. Just like I told you.”

  “Does he understand English?”

  “Not much, or he’d be using it.”

  Claire waited until the guy stepped away and talked to one of his men. She lowered her voice. “Okay. Think you can take some pics with your cell phone without him seeing?”

  “Sure I can, if I want to rot for a few days in a French jail cell.”

  “Killjoy. Seriously.”

  So, no pictures allowed. Claire would therefore have to memorize every detail for later recitation to Novak. Damn, a satanic cult really was shaping up as the cause of Andrea Quinn’s disappearance. Man, alive. Claire did not like the way things
were going. The voodoo case she’d been involved with in New Orleans not so long ago had been bad enough to last her forever. Now this? Altars, spells, witches, demons. Who woulda thought? Holy Crap.

  A few minutes later, they entered the farmhouse’s white-stucco-walled kitchen and without the protective paper booties she always used in her own investigations. A big no-no that. She guessed Paris police officers had never watched the O. J. Simpson trial. Or they’d run all the defense lawyers out of town. A big French soldier with white hair in a buzz cut led them through several other white-walled, low-ceilinged rooms that looked as if Louis the XVI’s common country cousins had lived in them in the distant past. The 1700s, maybe.

  Pierre Dubois a.k.a. Louis the Marseilles Gunrunner was lying dead in a first-floor back bedroom. A bedroom someone had recently redesigned as the deepest pit in the depths of hell. All they needed was the fire and brimstone and screams of agony. The last had probably happened, and she could say quite honestly that she was glad they hadn’t heard the victim’s cries of terror. They all three stopped in the threshold and stared wordlessly at the scene, because it would take anybody’s breath away. Claire started to approach the body but was stopped with a firm French hand on her American arm.

  A string of quick words that sounded to Claire like blah, blah, blah, followed by gibberish to the highest degree, blathered out of the annoying French policeman’s frowning face. She was beginning to hate France.

  “He said not to go inside the room until forensics arrive on the scene,” Black said to her. “As well you know, because that’s what you would do, and you know it.”