3 Louisiana Lies

by Alison Golden

  “What’s all this then?” Detective Johnson said as he stepped into the botanica after Dr. Jack had unlocked the door to allow him to enter. He looked in all directions and Roxy tracked his eyes as he took it all in—the incense burners, the skulls, the crystals, the essential oils. Undisguised hostility emanated from him as normal, but Roxy thought she discerned a little vulnerability behind his eyes.

  “Someone’s been killed,” said Dr. Jack.

  Johnson’s gaze swiveled as he took in not just the strange objects in the botanica, but the strange people. Charles, George, Lamontagne, and Terah stood or sat around the botanica desultorily looking about them. “You told me that already,” Johnson snapped. His shiny head reflected the different colors rotating through the botanica as the low, early evening sun shone through the windows onto the crystals which dispersed the light into tiny rainbows. “Who’s the vic?”

  “Meredith Romanoff, the renowned psychic and spirit communicator,” said Dr. Jack grimly, wincing at Johnson’s overfamiliar and disrespectful manner.

  “Renowned what?” Johnson said waving his hand dismissively. “Never mind.” He rounded on George, who was sobbing in a corner by the oracle decks. “And who’s this then? The son, I presume?”

  “No,” George said, gasping through tears. “I am, was, her assistant spirit communicator.”

  Johnson threw his eyes to the ceiling. “Right. Okay.” He turned and caught Roxy’s eye. He started in surprise. “You! Why do I always find you at some crime scene or other?” He curled his lip and growled.

  “I don’t know,” Roxy said truthfully. “I can assure you, Detective, that I’m no happier about this than you are.”

  Johnson fixed his unwavering glare on her. “I’m watching you. Just know that, Ms. Reinhardt.” He turned to Dr. Jack. “Well, where’s the body?”

  “She’s not a body. She’s a person,” George wailed. “Oh…” He threw his head forward over his lap and embarked on another jag of prolonged sobbing.

  Roxy looked at Charles, who was still ashen. He sat on a seat in front of the counter, looking almost dead himself. He had barely moved as much as his eyes since Johnson arrived. They were fixed on a point on the floor.

  “In the backroom,” replied Dr. Jack to Johnson.

  “Look, I have to get to an important meeting,” said Royston Lamontagne. He spoke around his little dog who was licking his face hungrily. The businessman marched up to Johnson, looking him directly in the eye. He removed his sunglasses to reveal piercing, angry black eyes. His shoulders were squared and his fist, the one that wasn’t under Fenton’s chest, was clenched. “I must get away as soon as possible. I have business to attend to.”

  Johnson snorted. “You could be having coffee with the President for all I care, but you’ll not get away any earlier. You’ll leave when I say you can.”

  Royston’s lips pursed with obvious fury, and he glared at Johnson. But wisely, he said nothing and threw himself down on a chair next to Charles.

  Johnson nodded at Dr. Jack. “In there?”

  “Yes. Let me unlock the door.” Johnson put plastic covers over his shoes and briefly disappeared inside the room. Everyone else in the store was silent and still except for George, whose sobs had petered out to be replaced by tiny sniffs punctuated by the occasional heaving sigh.

  Johnson reappeared and spoke into his radio, “Back up for forensics and questioning at… What’s this place called again?” he asked the room.

  “Dr. Jack’s Botanica,” Dr. Jack replied.

  “Erm, Dr. Jack’s Botanica, 22 52nd Street. Be quick about it, y’hear. Homicide.”

  The door to the botanica opened and in strutted a young officer. He thrust his chin into the air. “Officer Newman Trudeau,” he said to Roxy who was standing just inside the doorway. “Where is Detective Johnson?”

  Before Roxy could answer, she heard Johnson groan. “They sent the country boy, did they?” he said.

  “My name is Officer Trudeau, sir,” the policeman said. His eye contact was solid for a few long seconds until it stuttered under the unblinking gaze of the senior detective. Trudeau looked away.

  “Question everyone here about everything,” Johnson ordered, “Dr. Jack… you’re not a real doctor, are you?”

  “Well, that depends what you view as certification,” Dr. Jack explained. “I was trained in the herbal medicine of the Andes mountain people, and…”

  “That’ll be a ‘no’ then,” Johnson said. “Jack, where can Newbie… sorry Officer Newman Trudeau conduct his interviews? Is there another back room? Or will we have to transport y’all back to the station?”

  “There’s only a restroom,” Dr. Jack said.

  “Will a chair fit in there?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Jack.

  Johnson grinned nastily, showing imperfect teeth as he looked at Trudeau. “Just the thing.”

  “But sir, wouldn’t it be more professional to take them to…”

  “No,” said Johnson abruptly, “it would not. Question them one by one in the restroom and try to do it properly, boy. I don’t want any rookie mistakes. I’m going out to get a sandwich. I expect the interviews to be done and recorded effectively by the time I get back. I want you to present to me all the evidence in a coherent fashion on my return. Understood?”

  Roxy saw Officer Trudeau’s hands shaking. “Right, sir. Yes, sir.”

  Johnson swaggered out and wedged his large form behind the steering wheel of his unmarked police car. With a powerful surge of acceleration that, Roxy suspected, was for his onlookers benefit, Detective Johnson drove off.

  Officer Trudeau, on the other hand, clearly felt humiliated and now, with his superior gone, his humiliation morphed into self-importance. He assembled his features into an expression that he clearly hoped telegraphed authority and opened his mouth to speak.

  “Now, look,” his words came out croaky. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Now look, I don’t want no talk of ghosties and ghoulies in your interviews, y’hear? None of that nonsense. You’ll stick to the facts and only the facts. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Terah said. “Absolutely, sir. I’m with you. I’m not sure I believe all that either. Seems as though being on good terms with the spirits didn’t exactly help Meredith any, did it?”

  “Hmph, let’s keep our opinions to ourselves too, shall we? Now, Jack or whatever your name is, put those chairs in the restroom.”

  “You’ll only need one. There’s no room for a second. One of you will have to sit on the toilet.”

  “You,” Officer Trudeau said, pointing at Roxy. “Let’s have you first. Get in there. And fast. I don’t have no time to waste.”

  Roxy sighed. Why was it always she who got interviewed first? She felt a little bit sick. Johnson made her feel uncomfortable, but this Officer Trudeau seemed almost worse. While Johnson was officious and arrogant, Trudeau had something to prove, and it seemed unlikely he would give up until he’d proved it.

  Roxy followed the police officer into the rest room and shut the door behind her. With them both in there, there was no room to turn around.

  “I think you’ll have to sit on the toilet, Officer. That way your witnesses can get in and out easily,” Roxy ventured carefully. It wasn’t a very luxurious restroom, just a simple small room with white tiles on the walls and floor, a toilet, a sink, and a small window.

  “Absolutely not,” Trudeau said again. They engaged in an awkward dance as they tried unsuccessfully to change places by squeezing sideways and sidling past one another. It was impossible.

  Grudgingly, Trudeau finally accepted Roxy’s argument, and she was treated to the sight of an officer of the law sitting atop a toilet seat interviewing her as she sat on a chair next to the sink. They were uncomfortably close together, their knees almost touching. Trudeau’s humiliation was now total.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “RIDICULOUS,” ROXY HEARD Trudeau mutter under his breath. He balanced his phone on the edge of the basin and se
t up the recording. He looked at her, his gray eyes so penetrating that she had to look away for a moment. “State your name and date of birth.”

  “Roxanne Reinhardt, 15th July 1992.”

  “Occupation?”

  “Manager of the Funky Cat Inn.”

  Trudeau then spoke the date, time, and location of the interview. He omitted the fact that they were in a bathroom. On his knees, he set a paper notebook.

  “Right,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

  Roxy explained the evening’s events as Trudeau feverishly wrote everything down.

  “Do you have any previous connection with Meredith Romanoff?”

  “None,” said Roxy. “She was recommended my hotel by Dr. Jack. She wanted to stay somewhere more intimate than the big impersonal chain hotel where her main event was taking place. Oh! That’ll have to be canceled now. Oh dear.” Roxy looked at the floor for a moment. “Well, anyway, I came here to pick up her baggage as a courtesy, but she called me back and invited me to attend the séance. That’s the only reason I am here, her request. She said the spirits were demanding my presence.” Roxy could hear how silly her words sounded, a view reflected in Officer Trudeau’s expression. He raised his eyebrows just a fraction and pursed his lips.

  “Do you know anything about the relationship between the owner of this store and the victim?”

  “Dr. Jack? Nothing.”

  “Was there any tension between Meredith Romanoff and anyone else this evening?”

  Roxy swallowed and thought back to the argument between Dr. Jack and Meredith that she had chanced upon when she had arrived at the botanica. “Well, yes. I mean, I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything…”

  Trudeau slapped his pencil down onto his notebook. “I didn’t ask you if it meant anything,” he snapped. “I’m not searching for the meaning of life like you hippie-types. I want information. Stick to the cold hard facts, not what you think they mean.” He sighed, exasperated, and picked up his pencil again. Clearly he’d been a student of Detective Johnson’s interview methods.

  “Are you new? To the New Orleans police force, I mean?” Roxy asked, before realizing that she wasn’t being very tactful. “I… I’m just curious. I’ve not seen you around before.”

  “No, I am not new to the police force,” he said. “I’ve been working in a rural part of the state. But that don’t mean I’m not tough or cut out for detective work in the city.”

  “No, no, of course not. I—I see,” Roxy stuttered, but Trudeau continued.

  “I’ve shut down some real bad dog-fighting rings in my time, I can tell you, and I’ve also solved a lot of gun-crime cases. It’s not all sleepy farms in rural Louisiana, despite what you might have heard.” Roxy had clearly hit a nerve. Trudeau was babbling. “In any case, I can tell you’re not from this area by your accent. It’s very obvious. Do you know about rural poverty, and the crimes it causes? Of course, you don’t.”

  “Actually,” Roxy said sharply. “I grew up in poverty myself, in Ohio. I am well-acquainted with the drug problems and other crimes that happen in these communities. I know how tough it is.”

  “Right,” said Trudeau. He stared at her, then his expression softened and he quickly looked away. In that second, Roxy recognized a fellow traveler. She knew that Trudeau had had a similar upbringing to her, one where shoes ended up with holes in the soles yet didn’t get replaced, where cockroaches scuttled across the kitchen, where sleep was merely a short respite from the constant strain that living in such tenuous circumstances brought about. Empathy was strong in Roxy, and she felt for him. Trudeau was trying to prove himself in the big city, to better his life, just as she was. All was forgiven for a moment as she caught on to the bond they shared.

  “Continue with what you were saying,” he said, more gently this time.

  “Well, Meredith and Dr. Jack were arguing when I arrived,” Roxy said. “I’m quite sure he didn’t kill her, though. He would never do that.”

  “Stick to the facts, Miss Reinhardt. What were they arguing about?”

  “Honestly? I can’t tell you.”

  “You have to tell me,” he said, all of a sudden so loud and intense that she flinched.

  “I mean, I can’t tell you because I don’t know. It was some deep, spiritual, philosophical principle thing. I didn’t really get it.”

  “Fine,” he said. “What about the other people? What was she like with them?”

  “Meredith seemed kind of sharp with her assistant George, the one who was crying a lot, and dismissive of her husband Charles. The other two, Terah, and the businessman guy… um, Royston… she was fine to them.”

  “And to you?”

  Roxy thought about the book in her bag. “Actually, she was quite… erm, taken with me. She invited me along to this séance because she said the spirits wanted me there.”

  “The spirits wanted you there?” Trudeau smirked. “Okaaaay.”

  “Well, I don’t know much about all that, spirits and stuff, but she took an interest in me, and considering she was my special guest, at the hotel I mean, I thought I had better honor her wishes…I mean, the spirits’ wishes.”

  Trudeau was listening carefully to her now, genuinely interested. “Hmmm, you’ve got business sense, I will say. I could never work in hospitality. All that pandering.”

  “I prefer to see it as kindness.”

  Trudeau shrugged, “Kindness don’t solve crimes.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “So tell me what happened in the room before the victim was shot?”

  “It happened very quickly. There were six of us there. It was completely black. You couldn’t see a thing, not a thing. Then just a couple of minutes in, there was a bang and silence. Dr. Jack turned on the light, and there was Meredith on the floor, dead. There was a gun on the table. That was it, really.”

  “And for those couple of minutes, what was happening?”

  “We were seated around the table, and um, well, Meredith started talking.”

  “To who?”

  “To, um…the spirits.”

  Trudeau looked up from his notes, one eyebrow raised. Roxy shrugged and pressed her lips together. She did sound crazy, she knew it, but it was the truth.

  Trudeau asked Roxy a few more questions, but she had nothing to add, so he let her go. She left the restroom, the door swinging behind her, and joined the others who were waiting in the shop.

  “Was it really bad?” Dr. Jack whispered to her. “Are you okay?”

  “It was fine, really,” said Roxy, placing a hand on his forearm. “I’m so sorry this happened here, Dr. Jack. You must feel awful.”

  He looked pained. “The Universe has a reason for everything. Even though sometimes it is difficult to fathom what that reason might be.”

  Roxy nodded, unsure what to think.

  Trudeau called in Royston Lamontagne. “Not the dog, thanks.”

  Lamontagne handed his little dog to Terah, who immediately started stroking Fenton’s head and talking baby talk to him.

  While she waited to be dismissed, Roxy sat down behind the counter and called Nat to let her know what was going on and why she wasn’t back. “You’ll have to get all the dinner preparations finished up without me,” she said. “It looks like I’m going to be here a while. I’m sure we’ll be back soon, but it’s…” She looked up at Charles and George and lowered her voice. “Well, the joyous, welcome party idea that we had in mind isn’t going to be appropriate, obviously.”

  After Trudeau was finished with Lamontagne, the others traipsed into the bathroom in turn as Trudeau called their name—Terah, then George, Charles, and finally Dr. Jack. There was nothing at all to do while they waited. Roxy sat with her thoughts, but her mind kept going back to the image of Meredith lying dead on the floor. She tried to distract herself by reading Meredith’s book, but she couldn’t concentrate and was reduced to skimming the pages, taking in very little before she would find herself replaying the scene of Meredith’
s shooting in her mind.

  “Roxy, do you know?” It was Terah. She pointed. “Are those real human skulls?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Roxy with a shudder. “I sure hope not. I’m pretty sure Dr. Jack wouldn’t have real ones in here. Would that even be allowed?”

  “Some practitioners of dark magic do use real skulls,” Charles interjected, his voice monotone as he stared into space. “Perhaps we’ve stumbled onto a dark wizard.”

  “Surely not,” Roxy said quickly. The idea hadn’t even occurred to her. “Not Dr. Jack. That’s just something from storybooks, right? It can’t be real.”

  “Unfortunately, it is,” said Charles. “There are bad people in this world, Roxy. People with malevolent intentions.” He nodded toward the back room. “Obviously.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  OFFICER TRUDEAU FINISHED his questioning and stood guard at the doorway to the botanica, waiting for his superior’s return.

  Johnson arrived some ten minutes later, looking happier than Roxy had ever seen him. “Right,” he said, addressing Trudeau, and ignoring everyone else. “Get yourself outside and tell me your findings.”

  “I don’t think that it’s very professional to…” Trudeau began until he saw the dark stormy expression that formed on Johnson’s face.

  “Listen, I am the lead detective here,” Johnson said. “Whatever I do is, by default, professional, got it?”

  Reluctantly Trudeau followed Johnson outside and the two men spoke for a while. Roxy watched them through the glass doors. They were gesticulating and mouthing noiselessly while tension mounted inside the store as the minutes ticked by. Who was the killer? Did the police know? Would they let everyone go? Would they arrest someone? Would they arrest everyone? Roxy bit her lip. Of course, she knew she was innocent, but Johnson was always suspicious of her, and if she weren’t the murderer, which one of her companions was? It had to be one of them.

  She looked at them all. Dr. Jack was behind the counter closing out the register for the day. Terah sat sideways on a chair, her legs crossed, her foot jiggling. She scratched her face where the strap of her eye patch met her hairline. Lamontagne leaned against a wall, scrolling on his phone, occasionally kissing the fur between the ears of his little dog which he still held under his arm. Charles sat on a plastic chair next to Lamontagne. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped between them, staring into space, unseeing. George sat on the floor against the wall. He quietly sipped from a bottle of water, his face red, but blank, occasionally flicking his eyes to look at the two detectives standing outside.