by S. A. Austin
Caramel. Gold. Yellow.
“Blond.”
He finished the drink in one gulp. Carried the glass to the kitchen sink. His hand brushed against the cell phone attached to his belt. No one had contacted him. Perhaps another woman hadn’t been murdered, but if one had, he knew she’d be a petite blond.
#
Alma pulled out the bottom drawer of the dresser, and set it on the floor. Scooped up the clothing and piled everything beside it. A tiny black satin tab was barely visible in the corner of the drawer. She gripped the tab and lifted up a thin board hiding a secret compartment. Inside was a book on dark majick, and a twelve by twelve by two gilded antique box.
She leaned back on her heels, listened if Boutin had come upstairs.
Flinging the lid back, she made a quick assessment of the contents of the box. Confident she’d replaced the items she used not too long ago, she buried it beneath two pairs of jeans in her suitcase.
Ready to head downstairs, she stopped. Looked around for what was missing, mildly annoyed that she felt rushed. It wasn’t every damn day she had a homicide detective hanging around her house.
“The book.” She tucked it in beside the gilded box. Added two folded shirts. Locked the suitcase. Hid the key and chain inside her blouse. She replaced the false bottom in the drawer. Put back the clothes, then shoved the drawer into its slot in the dresser.
#
After escorting Alma to her hotel room, Mick Boutin reluctantly retreated. Drove onto the highway. Watched the brightly lit marquee sign fade into the distance.
His mind’s eye re-viewed the events of the evening through the lens of an odd sort of kaleidoscope. Every time he’d been with her he sensed an undercurrent of something strange and wonderful. He didn’t have a name for it.
Had anything been added to his drink?
The urge to spend the rest of the night with her had been overwhelming. Without much effort, she made it clear she wanted him to leave. He did manage to give her his cell phone number. Told her it’s the fastest way to reach him. Intentional or not, she gave him the impression she didn’t care.
Driving the length of the core of the city, his eyelids grew heavy and the foot pressing down on the gas pedal was going numb.
CHAPTER 31
By dawn’s early gray light, Detective Lucas Cantin waited at the mouth of the alley on Decatur, across the street of the wharf. His tardy partner limped toward him.
“Gary?”
“Don’t ask.”
Light rain grew heavier. Pea-size hail pinged off their umbrellas. They stared down at the woman whose body, before the storm hit, had been littered with food scraps, blood, and vermin.
“I think its Sarri,” Gary said, tenderly.
Of the three prostitutes who worked Braud Way, Sarri was the most popular. There was something special about her. She possessed a natural sense of humor, and her outlook on life had been great, considering her lifestyle.
Gary recalled how changed she was that day when he happened to see her entering a craft store. Creased jeans. Clean white T-shirt. Ponytail. No makeup. She was downright pretty.
Sarri Luce was also a petite blond.
Gary and Lucas exchanged a knowing look.
Sex workers had a way of turning up dead worldwide, but this death was clearly dissimilar. Or rather, the same, given that she’d been murdered in as bizarre a manner as Susan Nolin. They hoped DNA testing showed whether or not it had been the same perpetrator.
“If this turns out to be the same person who killed Nolin,” said Gary, “that means we might have a potential serial killer on our hands. The media will have a field day with the information, if word gets out.”
“It’s the same person, Gary, and we both know it. The person who did this is nothing more than a lowlife coward.”
“I think it’s safe to say this goes beyond a dastardly attack on an unarmed citizen. Don’t think about the women being murdered, think about how they were murdered. Why wasn’t shooting them, or even stabbing them, good enough?”
Two uniformed officers, the first on the scene, moved aside to let the detectives pass by. They glimpsed at each other, but kept silent until the men were out of hearing range.
“Wooow, dude,” said Samuel Martin. “Did you hear what the detectives said? If this does turn out to be the work of a serial killer, we’re going to have our hands full.”
“I’m pretty sure Homicide already thinks a psycho is on the loose,” said Ethan Hebert. “Damn, didja see the woman’s face?”
“Damn, didja forget I was standing beside you?”
“Yeah, well, okay. Rats. Freaking rats. You think this guy might be a serious badass like Ted Geon? Or is he worse?”
Sam smiled. “I’ve never heard of him. You’ve been reading up on famous serial killers again, haven’t you? So who’s this Geon?”
“I didn’t read about this guy, a friend of mine told me about him. Back in the fifties Ted Geon, I think that’s his name. Anyway, Geon lived on the family farm in Wisconsin. When a local woman went missing, the sheriff had reason to think Geon was involved. The authorities searched his farm, and discovered some of the most grotesque crap ever committed. Seems the guy had murdered at least fifteen women. Dug up a bunch of others, including his mother, in the cemetery. Geon wasn’t just a serial killer he was a cannibal, and he made things out of leftover skin and bones. His place was called the House of Skin, or something like that.”
“Jeez. If this killer’s of the same sort, just think of the promotions and pay raises we’ll get if we’re the ones lucky enough to arrest him.” Sam caressed the pretend detective shield clipped on the pocket of his imaginary suit coat.
“We’re off duty in...” Ethan raised his arm to see his wristwatch, “right now.” A big grin. “Why don’t we find the other hookers and question them? I don’t see why we can’t carry out our own investigation. If nothing else, the experience alone will give us an edge over the other applicants for the detective division.”
“Hell yeah.” Sam rubbed his stomach. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. I think we’ve got enough time to grab some food first, don’t you?”
“I’m thinking, if we’re gonna question those women, we need to get going,” said Ethan. “The detectives are already looking for them.”
“And I’m thinking the women don’t want to be interrogated any time soon. Aw, c’mon. I haven’t eaten since last night. It’s going to take time for us to find them. We’ll spend more time questioning them. Oh. We haven’t even talked about what kind of questions to ask. See, we need to go somewhere and write it down. We can go to Marvern’s Garden. It’s a little soup and salad joint, up the street and around the corner on Chartres. We’ll sit by the windows up front so we’ll be able to keep an eye out for the other prostitutes and the detectives.”
“Sure, I’m in. I’ve never had soup for breakfast before.”
When the police officers rounded the corner on Ursula Avenue, Detectives Northcutt and Cantin were farther up ahead calmly approaching two known sex workers.
Sam Martin sensed he’d lost an awesome chance to move ahead in his career, by all of five minutes. He flattened a hand on his chest, no longer able to feel his detective shield.
“Cheer up, Sammy. There’ll be other opportunities. We just have to keep our eyes and ears open. C’mon, might as well head on over to the restaurant, and have breakfast. We’ll go real slow past the detectives, that way we can eavesdrop on their conversations.”
* * *
“Tell us everything you can remember about last night, Zoe,” said Gary Northcutt. Keeping a firm grip on a ballpoint pen, he dug the tablet out of his overcoat pocket.
“Daisy and I hung around here on the corner of Chartres and Ursula. Sarri went that way.” Zoe nodded toward Decatur. “She does, uh, did that, sometimes when she wants, uh, wanted to be alone to think about stuff.”
“Did you or Daisy hear anything, anything at all, during the time she was in
the alley?”
“No, Gary. I already told you, dammit. We heard nothing. The storm was coming, and it was awful windy last night.”
“How about you, Daisy,” asked Lucas Cantin, drawing attention to the woman standing a few feet away.
A flash of fear crossed her face. After a couple of failed flicks, she held a lighter to a cigarette. “No. Nothing. I’d tell you if I had.”
“Thanks just the same.”
Cantin handed her his business card.
Daisy Hernandez flattened an arm over her stomach and propped up the other arm up on it. Sucked hard on the cigarette, filling her lungs. Smoke got in her eyes, foreshadowing a sign of things to come. Bad mojo. Scared shitless, she crumpled the detective’s card in her fist, and let it fall to the sidewalk.
CHAPTER 32
Captain Ory Fortier called Northcutt and Cantin to his office.
“Put yourself in the shoes of the killer and the victims, men. Take a few minutes to soak up the details.” Fortier lifted the newspaper on his desk. Flung it forward so it landed face up to show the bold headline featuring another dark alley killing.
He wasn’t ready for the media to take off on the case and screw it up for them. “We can’t have this nonsense. A bokor? Voodoo? Witchcraft? Really? That’s their brilliant deduction? I’m assigning every available officer to work on this case. We have to stop this maniac before he kills anyone else,” Fortier shouted, rapidly pounding a fist on his desk. At age fifty-seven, the tall man with graying cropped black hair had seen more than his share of death.
“One thing we noticed,” offered Gary, “the scene didn’t look staged. He apparently hit them before they knew it was coming. Their bodies weren’t posed in a sexual manner. Which is kind of unusual. Makes me think he didn’t want to dehumanize them any more than he had to, except for leaving them partially nude. Okay. That makes no sense. There are other things, though. Rats. Boils. I’d be in hog heaven if I could figure this one out.”
“I want to point out another obvious connection,” said Lucas. “Their eyes were missing. Nolin’s were cut out. Luce’s appeared to have been devoured. It’s as if the killer, or killers, didn’t want them to be able to identify him or her, even from the grave. The killer may’ve been someone the women knew.”
“Except the two of them came from differing walks of life, so to speak. I doubt they knew the same people.” Gary snapped his fingers once. “No. The killer may’ve been a customer. To each of them.”
“Aha! I get your meaning,” said Fortier.
“Isn’t there a quote in the Bible about plucking out offending eyes?” Lucas asked.
“I think so,” said Gary. “I sure hope we don’t have some religious fanatic on our hands.”
“You know, standing there looking down at both women,” Lucas said gently, “you can recall feeling the fear and the pain of other women who’ve been attacked, and were lucky to live to tell the tale. In these two cases, however, I have a feeling it was a blitz attack. I don’t know. Their bodies were stiffer than a tailor’s dummy. Kind of paralyzed. I hope they weren’t conscious to experience the horror of it all.”
“Which only makes me wonder why the killer didn’t want them to experience the pain. Isn’t this the best part for a psycho, other than gaining attention? We didn’t know the Nolin woman, but we sure as hell knew Sarri,” said Gary. “The only piece of this puzzle that doesn’t fit is the writer, BJ Donovan. Last night she received a threatening email, possibly written by the killer of those two women.”
Lucas glimpsed at Gary.
Fortier continued to stare at the newspaper headline. “You need to evaluate the range of evidence and data collected so far, and you need to be able to recreate the crime scene in your minds. You also need to learn as much about both victims as you can, in order to get a feel for the case. Gary, Lucas, go over the body-related findings, if any, and read the initial report. Go back and talk to the first officers who arrived on the scene. Maybe one or the other remembers something else. Ask them again, what did they see. Maybe the scene had been altered somehow or some way.”
“We’ve viewed the photographs already, and we’ve asked for a schematic drawing of the crime scene,” said Gary.
“Yeah,” said Lucas, “and we’ve already re-read the medical examiner’s report, Captain.”
“Good, good. I’ve been wondering about this email stuff. How do we trace it back to the sender?” Fortier asked.
“Using his email address, we can contact his internet service provider and get his identity,” said Gary.
CHAPTER 33
Detectives Cantin and Northcutt found out the internet service provider was local. They now had the name of their killer: Virgil Wentzel of 262 Caulfield Lane, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Four uniformed officers were immediately dispatched to Caulfield, a short dead-end road. Wentzel’s house stood stark and foreboding. Bordered on three sides by trees and overgrown brush separated it from other houses in the area. They were told to remain out of sight until the detectives arrived with a search warrant.
Spanish moss draped live oaks. From their hiding places behind the broad tree trunks the officers observed shutters, soffits, and guttering in a serious state of disrepair. The clapboard siding and stuccowork had long since lost their original colors. Bermuda grass had been choked to death by weeds. The windows were covered on the inside with loosely hung black or dark blue bed sheets. Both of the dormer windows on top of the one-story house had either been used for target practice or had been hit by large hailstones.
Busting down the door, so to speak, with a search warrant in hand, Northcutt and Cantin halted. The living room was empty except for a white plastic folding table, covered with a clear sheet of plastic, holding computer equipment and a printer, a landline telephone, and a lamp.
A wood floor was stained and rotted with water damage and termite infestation. Sections of wallpaper were curled under from the ceiling to the center of the wall, the colors and patterns no longer discernible. The popcorn ceiling was discolored and cracked, here and there, because of a leaky roof and broken dormer windows. Large, medium, and small cockroaches, dead and alive.
The linoleum on the kitchen floor had become peeled back in spots, and had turned a disgusting yellowish-gray. The refrigerator interior was dotted with mold and mildew, and smelled like something bigger than a bug had crawled in there and died. Roaches ran undisturbed over the counters, stove, and sink speckled with black droppings of feces. Nothing in the cabinets other than more bugs milling about with nowhere to go.
Cantin flipped up a switch on the kitchen wall. The light in the ceiling fixture barely shined through the dusty glass cover holding a few dead bugs. “The electricity’s definitely on.”
One bathroom. The once-white porcelain of the tub and sink was now the blackish-green color of mold. Bugs crawled in and out of the drains. The toilet bowl was a disgusting shade of orange. A decomposing mouse was stretched out on the floor behind the toilet. Almost invisible against a brown baseboard, a two and a half inch long scorpion readied its stinger.
Three bedrooms. No doubt each as filthy as the other. Dark green carpeting stretched up the hallway to the four corners of the bedrooms and appeared coated with a thin fuzzy white layer of mold, possibly caused by high humidity and no air conditioning. No human footprints.
Cobwebs infested every corner, crack, and crevice. Toxic mold, everywhere else.
The only thing out of the ordinary was the garbage. Rather, the lack thereof. No empty packages, bottles, jars, or cans. Not one single scrap of food. Perhaps even a serial killer couldn’t manage eating in such a nasty environment?
Northcutt read one of the sheets of paper clutched in his fist. Copies of the records he requested at the deed office showed an attorney named Richard Gravois was the executor of the house at 262 Caulfield Lane.
He made a mental note to contact the attorney.
Headed outside for some fresh air.
“We
ntzel.”
When and where have I heard that name?
CHAPTER 34
“Hello, BeeeJay.”
“Hello, Frank. How are you? Where are you,” she asked, quietly. His anger was palpable.
“I’m in Lake Charles, and I didn’t call to talk about me. I want to know, right now, what the damn hell is going on there? Has been going on, rather. I just heard some shit about murder on the evening news. The damn reporter said they’d received an anonymous tip that novelist BJ Donovan of New Orleans was involved, then commented about email Mrs. Franklin Donovan had received directly from a serial killer. Damn you, BJ. I was sitting in the hotel lounge with a potential client whose sizeable bank account I was on the verge of tapping into when, lo and behold, that old newspaper photo of the two of us, taken back when we opened Wild Capers, flashed onto the TV screen. It embarrassed me to no end. Now, ask me again how I am, you stupid bitch.”
“Calm down, Frank. If you stayed home a little more than what you do, I might not’ve gotten into this mess,” she said in a feeble attempt to avert the blame.
“Don’t you dare put this off on me. How dare you. I’m working my ass off to keep a roof over your head, and to give you a good life, and this is the thanks I get?”
Her own anger began to build momentum.
How dare he.
She didn’t know where it came from, but once it arrived, she wasn’t about to turn it away.
“Damn you to hell, Frank. You love your business, not me, and it’s for that reason alone you work so hard. I sit home alone, night after night, while you leave me on the pretext of going on one business trip after the other. Did it ever occur to you I might find out about the little honey you’ve got stashed away in an apartment, an apartment paid for with our money? An apartment that kept me from getting a newer car. Or maybe from hiring a part-time housekeeper. Between the expense of maintaining your job and your girlfriend, I’ve suffered needlessly.” Her body shook hard. There’d be hell to pay later for this confrontation, but at this moment in time, she reveled in her victory brought on by her newfound courage.