by Leo King
He leaned forward, his voice still more accusatory than he intended. “Well, you did give him up, and he was taken to Acadia Vermilion Hospital.”
Rosemary nodded ever so slightly, still gazing down. When she looked back up, she wiped away tears. She took the last cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “Yes, Detective. And there ain’t a day go by that I don’t regret it.”
Richie glared at her. She had given up her child, her precious little boy, and now she regretted it? He had no sympathy for her. “And you do know that he died in the same fire that almost killed Dallas Christofer, right?”
Snorting out smoke, she shook her head. “No, Detective. My baby didn’t die that night. He sent me a letter from Houma a few weeks after the fire.”
He blinked. “What? He’s alive? What did the letter say?”
Rosemary puffed on her cigarette. “It ain’t much. He just told me he was alive and some nice old woman had picked him up. Told me her name—Beaux or something. Then he told me he’d never see me again, but not to worry. The wording was a lot colder than my baby used to speak, more distant, but I know it was him. Mother’s intuition.”
Richie just stared, not believing what he was hearing. This could blow the whole case wide open.
“Do you still have the letter?” he asked.
She nodded.
“May I see it?” he asked, coughing a painful, scratching cough.
“Sure, hun. It’s in my bedroom. I’ll go get it,” Rosemary said with a smile, putting out her last cigarette. “Also, I’ll see if I have anything for those allergies. You look like shit.”
Richie shook his head as she went to the back of the house. Un-freaking-believable. If Julius was still alive, he could be the guy. He could be the killer. And Jacob was helping him… somehow.
Richie sat back and waited, trying to ignore the dog smell and his growing queasiness.
As the minutes passed, he felt himself getting more and more nauseated. The room was starting to spin, and the compulsion to vomit was growing. His eyes were watering and his throat was terribly scratchy. When he looked at his watch again, fifteen minutes had passed. The house was silent.
What the hell was taking her so long?
Standing up, he called out. “Rosemary! Hey, you back there?”
When there was no answer, he stumbled toward the back end of the house. He didn’t see the dogs and figured they were all up front. On his way to the back, he passed two doors, one to a bathroom, and one closed and labeled “Eustace’s Pad.”
Finally, Richie got to the end of the hallway and stood at the doorway of the master bedroom. Rosemary sat on the far side of the room, at her vanity. The curtains were drawn and the room was dark, save for a single vanity light.
Jesus, what is wrong with this broad? He was about to hurl all over her living room, and she was putting on makeup?
Holding back the desire to snarl at her, he walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. Giving her a gentle nudge, he said, “Look, Rosemary—”
Her head rolled back, revealing that her cheeks had been split, giving her a freakish smile. Her throat was slit, and her vanity was covered in blood that was beginning to dry.
He squealed. “Oh, God, what the fuck!”
Stumbling back, he took Rosemary with him. She landed in his lap, blood getting all over his clothes. As he pushed her off him, he saw a letter in one hand and a high heel in the other. The heel had blood on it, as if she had fought against her attacker.
Richie grabbed the letter and ran. For the moment, his head and stomach didn’t hurt him—he was way too terrified.
As he rushed out of the hallway and into the front room, he tripped on something large and heavy. With a sharp cry, he landed on the carpet. It was wet, sticky, and warm. What the hell?
Looking up, he saw the face of the bulldog staring right back at him. As he quickly backed up, he saw that it was only the head. The rest of the bulldog’s body was off to the side. With another cry, he scooted back, pressing against the large object that he had tripped on. It felt furry and damp.
He was shaking in fear. Almost against his will, he looked back and saw the full body of a Rottweiler, its stomach cut open. He choked on his own vomit and stared in horrified fascination. Then he saw something moving in the Rottweiler’s gut. Against all common sense, he reached out and opened its stomach cavity.
With a yelp, the toy poodle, now matted in blood, ran out. Its little stomach was split open, and its tiny intestines, caught somewhere within the Rottweiler, were unraveling as the small dog ran. Shivering in fear, the terrified toy poodle disemboweled itself as it sprinted toward the protection of the sofa. It made it halfway underneath, whimpering and crawling pathetically, before collapsing and dying.
Richie threw up, shivering just as the small dog had right before it died.
He looked around the front room. All Rosemary’s dogs were dead or dying, the silence broken only by their whimpers and whines. All the electronics were off. The house was dark, hot, and stifling.
Half crawling and half hobbling, he made it to the front door and threw it open.
Standing at the entrance was a Cajun man with a ruddy face, a big nose, and massive muscles. In one hand, he held a large hatchet, in the other hand, a dead jack rabbit. His eyes were rolled back and glazed over. Dried blood was caked around his mouth.
Richie cried out once more. Somehow, his fear-addled mind managed to wonder if this was Eustace. Richie stumbled back and fell onto the sofa. Eustace teetered and then fell forward with a thud. A hunting knife stuck out from the back of Eustace’s head.
Richie took leave of his senses, yelling, “What the fuck is going on here?”
The last of the noises from the dying dogs tapered off, leaving the room in total silence. As he got up from the sofa, he was overcome by a feeling of dread. Almost against his will, he looked over toward the kitchen. That was when he saw them.
The Knight Priory.
The last time he had seen them, even though he knew them by their misspelling, he had been grateful. They had saved him from Marcello’s men. This time, however, they seemed no better than butchers. They terrified him.
He took a step back and felt someone behind him. Turning around, he came nose-to-nose with a hooded figure. Gasping, he backed up into another. They both grabbed his arms and restrained him. The room was filled with those hooded figures. They said nothing.
Then Richie heard the sound of heels. The crowd of hooded figures parted and he saw, sauntering toward him, the Lady in Red.
She looked very cross.
“Richard Fastellos,” she said. “Author of The Pale Lantern and Darkness Rising, an up-and-coming author with a promising career.” Her hand, smooth but frightfully cold, touched his face, stroking his cheek as a mother would her child’s. As before, there was no emotion to it, just the physical act.
“Lived in northern California until his tenth year, when his father nearly beat him and his mother to death with a garden spade. Then moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There he went to college—even graduated top of his class—and after holding down many odd jobs, he began his career as a writer.” Her hand stopped at his chin, her thumb slipping over his lips. “And—oh, yes. One more thing.”
She whipped around and kicked him right in the chest with her heel. He flew back against the wall and landed in a heap. Blood dribbled out of his mouth from where he had bit his tongue.
“He’s a complete disappointment,” she said, slowly advancing on him.
Richie struggled to breathe, coughing hard enough to make his head throb and his vision blur, until he spat up blood. He felt himself get picked up and pinned to the wall.
The Lady in Red removed a small, shiny object from underneath her dress. It was a scalpel.
She flashed it in front of his face. “You know what’s lovely about a scalpel, Richie?”
His eyes focused on the instrument, his body trembling.
“It’s small enough to conceal,
and yet you can go deep enough to cut nerves and sever tendons.” She flashed the blade from side to side, twirling it between her fingers. “It’s a terrible irony, isn’t it? Something that can give life can also take it. This is the legacy of humanity, Richie, to be able to both heal and harm with the same hand.”
Richie finally had enough breath to speak. “What do you want from me?” Blood trickled down his chest from where she had kicked him.
The Lady in Red narrowed her eyes at him. “I want you to figure out who’s framing my organization, boy. Who the hell thinks they can frame us, the Knight Priory of Saint Madonna?”
“It’s another group,” he cried out, his voice getting hoarse. “They dress up just like you guys, black hooded coats and everything!”
She rubbed the blunt end of the scalpel over her lips in a sensual manner. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know their names!” Tears were running down his cheeks and snot was running from his nose. “They call themselves the Nite Priory, spelled N-I-T-E. It’s an anagram for fool’s gold. They’re just a bunch of biker thugs. I don’t think—”
Moving faster than he could blink, she slammed the scalpel into the wall less than an inch from his eye. He pissed himself, causing the two men holding him to shake their heads in disgust.
“I don’t want you to think, child.” She glared at him. “I want you to tell me who they are.”
Richie trembled as he stared into the Lady in Red’s eyes. The sensuality was gone, replaced with the remorseless gaze of a killer. She had gone from composed to cruel in a matter of moments. He couldn’t move, like a rabbit caught in a trap.
“I only definitely know of one person involved,” he squeaked out. He knew he was sentencing this man to a horrible death. “Jacob Hueber.”
She smiled at him, her white teeth almost like fangs. “Thank you, little boy.” Leaving the scalpel in the wall, she walked to the sofa. “Drop him.”
The men holding him let go, and he fell to the ground.
As he crumpled into a heap, she sat down on the sofa and patted her knee. “Come here, Richie. Crawl to me like the dog you are.”
Richie lowered his head, too terrified to disobey, and crawled across the room toward the Lady in Red. His arms and legs were weak, he stank of piss, and his dignity was long gone. When he reached her, he said, “Please don’t kill me.”
It was all he could think of to say. Anything to stay alive.
Sighing softly, she rubbed his head as if he were a dog. “I won’t kill you. You’ve proven useful after all. Now all you have to do is tell me where Jacob Hueber lives, and you get to keep your miserable life.”
He looked away, feeling both disgusted at himself and sickened at the situation. He could barely keep his voice from trembling as he spoke Jacob’s address.
Lifting up his chin, she looked at him appraisingly. Her expression hardened as she sniffed. “You smell like piss, boy. Go get cleaned up. The hallway bathroom. Throw those rags you’re wearing away. I’ll have some fresh clothes laid out for you.”
As he struggled to his feet, the hooded figures giving him a wide berth, he asked, “Just one thing I want to know, please.”
The Lady in Red raised one eyebrow.
“Why did you kill Rosemary?” Richie asked. His voice was heavy. He didn’t like Rosemary one bit, but it made no sense to massacre her, her son, and her dogs. “What did she do to deserve this kind of death?”
Her lovely red lips again parted, showing a very white set of teeth. “Oh, Richie, you should know the answer to that. She knew who murdered Mary Castille. But she sat on that information for money. You realize that the original Bourbon Street Ripper murders might have been solved more quickly if she hadn’t?”
That was true. If Rosemary had gone to the police with her information, they might have followed the trail leading to Vincent. “So you have a traitor in your midst. Someone in the Knight Priory who paid Rosemary off,” he said. The smell of his own stink was starting to make him nauseated. “Are you going to take care of that person?”
The Lady in Red’s smile grew until it looked both unnatural and sinister. “We’re going to remove that person from existence.”
Chapter 19
Never Off Duty
Date: Tuesday, August 11th, 1992
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Tulane University Hospital
Downtown New Orleans
Dixie wanted to scratch her left hand. That would have been rather amazing, as it was no longer there. The doctors referred to it as phantom pain. She referred to it as annoying. Even with the pain medication, she still couldn’t escape the sensation.
Looking up at the ceiling of her room, she counted the tiles, trying to pass the time. She had gotten out of surgery earlier that day. It had gone well. The doctors were able to pinch off her arteries and veins before she bled to death, then cut away at the jagged and damaged bone, smooth over the stump with flesh, and sew the whole mess up without a single complication.
More than half her left arm was gone, but she was alive.
She’d be here for at least a few days, if not a week. She wouldn’t even get fitted for a prosthesis for another month. Face it, I’m screwed. I’ll be lucky if Ouellette doesn’t make me get on disability.
Gino had gone back home to get some personal belongings so he could stay overnight. Outside her room were two uniformed guards. Ouellette had only come in once to make sure that she was OK, saying they’d talk about her future later.
Dixie wasn’t sure what the future held for her.
Despite everything that she had been through, however, she felt proud. When the moment of truth at the wharf had come, she had supported Sam because her gut had told her that the blond woman wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. Maybe there was something evil inside her, like another her, but the person Dixie knew was not a heartless sociopath. She had gone out of her way to protect everyone else.
“Oh, Sam,” she said to herself. “What demons lurk inside you?”
“It’s Samantha, not Sam!”
Dixie blinked in surprise, looking at the entrance to her room. At the doorway was someone who looked tired and yet somehow still completely full of himself. It was Dr. Klein, Sam’s psychologist. It was someone she didn’t really care to see.
She eyed him as he made his way to the side of her bed. He had purpose in his eyes.
“May I help you?” she asked the approaching doctor.
Looking down at her, he tightened his lips and nodded slowly. “Yes, Detective, I believe you can.” He motioned to a nearby chair. “May I?”
Dixie looked away. Something about this guy was really disconcerting. She just didn’t want to be around him. “This is a private floor. Go away before I call for the guards.”
Dr. Klein sat down. “I wouldn’t try my patience if I were you, Detective. I have had a very trying day. Und besides, your boss, Ouellette, has given me permission to talk to you. You can call him if you like and verify it.”
As she looked back at him, he added, “I want to talk about Samantha Castille with you for a moment. Und then I want to talk about you. Then I vill be gone.”
She looked him up and down, wrinkling her brow. “The commander let you up here? Seriously? Fine. What do you want to know?”
Smiling a vicious little smile at her, he said, “Samantha Castille, as you know, is the killer. She’ll be arraigned in the next few days. I wanted to know if you had a chance, while dealing with her, to see Sam of Spades in action.”
Dixie narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe that Sam is the killer. I do—”
“Samantha,” Dr. Klein said, his voice rising, his face darkening. “How many times must I tell you people zat she is Samantha. Sam is the other part of her und that is the killer.”
She shook her head, both her uneasy feeling and her contempt for this man growing every minute. “I have my reasons for believing that she is innocent, Dr. Klein. But to answer your question, the only time I have ever
met that ‘Sam of Spades’ was at the wharf.”
That seemed to please him. He again nodded and said, “That fight was not the first time Sam of Spades has harmed others. Remember how I told you before about the times in the past where Sam would take control and force Samantha to harm innocent people.”
Dixie closed her eyes. The reminder only added to how conflicted she felt.
Her face must have shown her feelings, because Dr. Klein grinned triumphantly. “Ah-ha, you see! You doubt her as well. It is an unpleasant feeling when you stop und realize that someone you know could be a cold-blooded murderer.”
She was getting sick of him. “Whatever you say, Doc,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. The pain medication was affecting her ability to focus on the conversation anyway. “You wanted to talk to me about me?” she asked.
“Ah, yes,” he said, leaning forward just a hair. “I am very interested in you, Detective. You have figured out some very useful things about this investigation. I am most pleased by how you did.”
It was the second time he had made her feel like he was scouting her—the first time they’d met, in his office, he had already known a great deal more about her than he had any business knowing. “Um, thanks. But what do you want?”
“What I want is for you to come work for me when this is over,” he said, resting his hands on his knees. “I could use someone with your level of analytical ability, und I think you could benefit from ze prestige of working for me.”
She blinked. She couldn’t believe this guy. Is he for real?
“Of course, you will have to leave the police department,” continued Dr. Klein, “but I can provide much better benefits than the city of New Orleans ever could. I have several influential colleagues who would have need of your intellect. In fact, the entire group could use someone like you. But primarily, you will work for me.”