Black Hearts Dance

by Gerald Lopez

  “Politics,” I said, disgusted.

  “Exactly,” Forrest said, wiping sweat off his stomach. He stood, walked to the shower in the center of the room and rinsed off for a moment. “A lot of rich boys in town have their first sexual experience at Delilah’s House, which is what the bordello is called. I’m allowed in the house to check over things once a month in order to make sure they’re holding to their end of things.”

  “Which is what?” I said.

  “No hard drugs, like cocaine, and no dealing drugs,” Forrest said, while standing in front us with his hand on his hip. “They’re allowed to have liquor and the prostitution is ignored. At one time a move was made to stop the marijuana as well, but it was pointless. Too many clients brought it in with them. There are worse crimes to worry about, and every officer on the force knows their job would be on the line if they made a move against Delilah’s House.”

  “Well, as you say, there are worse crimes,” I said, then stood and went to the shower to rinse off.

  “You two are very lucky to have found one another,” Forrest said to Alex and me.

  “So we’ve heard,” Alex said.

  “I’ve probably already told you that,” Forrest said.

  I shut off the shower, walked to Forrest and gave him a friendly pat on the back.

  We left the steam room, showered, dressed, then signed up for gym memberships with Lynette before going back to the truck.

  When we were in the truck, Alex leaned forward from the backseat and spoke. “Layton, are you serious about getting the digging equipment?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s time to be proactive at Carson Court.”

  Chapter 33

  Digging Up the Past

  I WAS SEATED in the small backhoe we’d rented in town, familiarizing myself with its controls, when old memories entered my mind. I took a moment to reminisce about the time my dad taught me how to use a machine very similar to this one back on the ranch and it brought a smile to my face. There was never any great love in my heart for that dusty ranch, but my Dad and I had bonded at that place… it was a real home to me. One day I’d have to go back there. If for no other reason than to make peace with that place and the people I’d left behind. But I’d have Alex by my side and that would make everything alright.

  “OK, everyone, stay back and out of the way,” I said to the assembled crowd.

  Mrs. Carson sat in a lawn chair off to the side, while Shannon and Elise sat on the grass next to her. Rory, and Forrest stood by with shovels in hand should they be needed, and Alex was busy taking pictures. We’d decided to have pizza delivered, once we were done, instead of picking it up since stopping to eat beforehand would delay our work.

  “Where’s Miss Maribelle?” I said, loud enough to be heard by all.

  “She goes to church on Sundays, then for a late lunch with the ladies, and to visit the nursing home,” Mrs. Carson said.

  I started up the backhoe and slowly drove toward the spot where I’d seen the small plant growing out of, and where the twin’s bodies had been found. My goal was to try to scoop away as much of the grass and dirt in as sizeable portions as possible, so as not to destroy anything we might find hidden underneath. Forrest and Rory would be keeping a close eye on what I dug up so we wouldn’t damage what I hoped would be a container holding a little girl’s journals. With my first pass I just scraped away the surface, having decided it’d be better to go slowly with this process.

  My third time across the area I dug up an enormous root system that filled the bucket of the backhoe. Forrest waved his arms and Rory shouted at me to stop, so I gently lowered the bucket and stopped the machine. Rory and Forrest were scraping dirt away from the enormous and twisted roots, while Alex took pictures.

  “There it is,” Forrest said. “That’s what I saw.” He pulled at the edge of a dirty corner of fabric that the roots of the tree had grown around in a spherical shape. The root ball was actually as large as me, which came as a shock.

  “I think we hit the jackpot here,” Rory said. “It looks like some kind of sack in the middle of these roots.”

  “We don’t want to damage anything,” I said. “But we definitely need to cut these roots away to get to the sack.”

  “I’ll go get some pruning shears,” Rory said.

  “I’ll give you a hand,” Forrest said.

  Alex busied himself taking pictures of the tree root ball.

  “There’s so much dirt around the sack it’s hard to tell how big it actually is,” Alex said.

  “As long as it’s big enough to hide a journal or two, I’ll be happy,” I said.

  Forrest and Rory returned with shears, clippers, and a large brush. After Rory brushed some of the dirt off the roots, the three of us began cutting the roots in front of the sack away.

  “That sack is awfully big,” Alex said as he got close to take pictures. “There might be more in there than a couple of journals, like maybe whatever was used to kill the twins.”

  “Well, we’re about to find out what’s in there,” Forrest said. He took out his pocket knife and carefully cut a slit down the front of the sack.

  Alex gasped as soon as the two sides of the sack were pulled back.

  “Shit!” Rory said. “Holy fucking shit!”

  I just stared in silence at the huddled, decayed body of a girl in black clothing. From the looks of the clothing that remained, it was the same girl whose ghost we’d seen at the party… Javina Morelle.

  “Sorry, guys, this is officially a crime scene now,” Forrest said. “I’ll have to call my people to come out.” He reached into the bag and carefully pulled out a large tin container, opened it, pulled out a journal, and handed it to me. Then he looked at all of us. “Nobody here saw me do that.”

  “Do what?” Rory said, to show he understood. “I didn’t see a thing.”

  While Alex stayed to take pictures and Rory waited with them I walked to the ladies to inform them of what we’d found. After waiting for them to get over their shock, I held up the journal and showed it to Shannon.

  “You and I need to take a quick and close look at this—which officially we don’t have,” I said.

  “Understood,” Shannon said. “Let’s take it back to the guesthouse.”

  AFTER washing my hands in the kitchen sink, I sat on the living room sofa and waited for Shannon to clean off the journal. It only took her a few minutes, then she sat next to me and put the journal down in front of us. Together we read the first entry.

  I know he’s comin to get me cause I saw what him and the others did and I no the truth of things. He’s gonna kill me. They helped him lok Moses in a hiden room after they took Mr. Carson and Mr. Marcus away. Oh Jesus help me Jesus. I don’t wanna die.

  Shannon looked at me—I nodded, and she turned the page so we could read the next entry.

  Poor, poor Mrs. Veronica, she didn’t mean for it to happen. Reely she didn’t. And what they did to her just isn’t right. And I saw it all. I know what happened and they gonna kill me cause I know.

  Shannon turned the page.

  I gathered all my journals and put em in my hidin place in Carson Court. The truth of what happened is all in there. As I seen it with mine own two eyes. The truth startin all the way back at that party with those nasty pigs.

  Shannon looked at me and spoke. “What do the pigs from the party have to do with anything?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But I do remember the look on Veronica’s face in that picture taken at the party. She was disgusted by what she saw.”

  “Pigs on a spit like at a luau?” Shannon said.

  “At a luau I thought the pigs were buried in pits and covered with leaves to cook,” I said. “The stick or spit through the pig is more of a Spanish—”

  “Or Carribean thing,” Shannon said, as if suddenly made aware of something. “With the bordello having so many black workers, it’s not hard to imagine some of them may have come from the islands.”

  “
That’s yet another connection to the bordello,” I said. “Turn the page, Shannon.”

  Shannon did so.

  Oh my God, he’s comin for me. I hear him walkin my way. Today’s the day I die. Please God, oh please don’t let my big brother kill me the same way the twins died. Some day I pray someone will find my journals and read the truth. The door nob… the door nob is turning. He’s comin and I got no where to run and no body to help me. To who ever may find this, bye. My name is Javina Morelle and I tried to be a good girl.

  It was the last entry in the journal. I saw Shannon wiping tears from her eyes and put my arm around her.

  “She was just a little girl, Layton.”

  “I know,” I said, then held Shannon. “She saw something this town tried desperately to hide and she paid the price. But she wants us to find her journals and tell people the truth—and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  Shannon sat up and composed herself. “Sorry, I guess that wasn’t very professional of me.”

  “You’re not made of stone, and what we just read is heartbreaking,” I said. “Because of the things I’ve seen, I’ve learned to be tough and compartmentalize what I feel. But, don’t ever forget you have feelings. You do enough of these cases and you’ll learn how to hide them better until you can let them out. Here, with me right now you’re in a safe place. I’m not your superior or even your coworker, I’m you’re friend.”

  She kissed my cheek, then spoke. “Her brother… she wrote that it was her big brother coming to kill her. Why him?”

  “He was involved in what went down, that’s why,” I said. “But did he have a hand in the death of the twins or in whatever they did to Veronica?”

  “Layton, Javina also wrote that the people involved took Mr. Carson and Marcus away. They didn’t leave of their own accord.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it, but we’ve only got the writings of a little girl to back that up. Damn it! I thought I could see some of the pieces of this mystery coming together, but this journal has added even more layers.”

  “Interconnected layers,” Shannon said. “Do you have any theories at all yet?”

  “I thought I did, but they don’t make sense.”

  “Would talking it out help?” Shannon said.

  “It might,” I said, then stood—as was my way when I was thinking through things. “My initial thoughts were that someone or maybe more than one someones, were having an affair. This just feels like a case with an affair at the center of it, but again that’s just my gut telling me that.”

  “And a good detective knows how to listen to his gut,” Shannon said, turning to look at me. “I thought we’d already established that Mr. Carson and Marcus were lovers.”

  “We’ve hypothesized, with nothing more for proof than a couple glances in old photographs, but let’s assume we’re right. Except for a one year or so separation, Veronica continued to live with her husband and brother. Even if she found out about them, she got over the initial shock and found a way to deal with it.”

  “But, Veronica was presumably suffering from postpartum depression,” Shannon said. “If that was also the time she found out about her husband and brother, could it have pushed her over the edge? Javina makes it sound as if Veronica was being punished for something.”

  “But why send Mr. Carson and Marcus away?” I said. “What did they witness? There’s something else that happened. And we still haven’t figured out how the Black Hearts Dance fits in. The black heart in the mirror that broke featured two males dancing in the center. Which sort of implies that there were at least some same sex couplings at the dances. Or maybe the dances were exclusively for same sex couples.”

  “If Marcus and Mr. Carson went there, someone could’ve informed Veronica about it,” Shannon said. “In her state of mind who knows how she would’ve reacted.”

  “But could a woman who would react so violently ever make her peace with the two men who fueled such anger in her?” I looked at one of the latter pictures of Veronica, Marcus, and Mr. Carson, then handed it to Shannon. “There’s no animosity in Veronica’s eyes. There’s another player in this game.”

  “And one doesn’t have to be a detective to guess who that player is… Josiah Morelle,” Shannon said.

  “But he wasn’t acting alone and I want to know why,” I said. “We need to find Javina’s other journals and they’re hidden somewhere on this property.”

  Chapter 34

  What Drives Men

  IT HAD BEEN a long day, and after a quick and much needed shower I joined Alex in bed. As was the custom, I wore boxers.

  “I’ll be glad when this mystery is over and we can sleep naked in bed again,” Alex said, as he cuddled by my side under the covers. “I miss how our naked bodies felt against one another.”

  I turned and kissed Alex, held him close, then spoke. “What could drive someone to murder two innocent babies?”

  “Madness maybe,” Alex said. “It couldn’t be just run of the mill anger. I suppose jealousy could do it.”

  “Jealousy?” I said. “That’s one thing I hadn’t thought of. Anger yes… even madness, but could jealousy drive someone to do something so heinous?”

  “You tell me, Detective. Don’t people kill each other over things like jealousy?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “People do kill people, but not usually babies.”

  “I would think that jilted lovers could be capable of any number of things,” Alex said.

  “Do you think there’s a jilted lover somewhere in this story?” I said.

  “Don’t you?” Alex said. “It looks like Mr. Carson chose Marcus over Veronica which would make her the jilted lover.

  “No,” I said. “The one thing I didn’t see in any of the pictures of Mr. Carson and Veronica was romantic love. Not when she looked at him or he looked at her. Their pictures shout arranged marriage to me. Maybe Veronica’s parents asked Mr. Carson to look out for her before they died or some such thing.”

  “Hmmm,” Alex said. “Without romantic or passionate love between two people then jealousy wouldn’t be much of a motivation—that would remove Veronica as a murder suspect. Who then?”

  “You mentioned a jilted lover,” I said. “And that sounds like a good possibility to me.”

  “But who was most likely to have had a lover?” Alex said.

  “The Black Hearts Dance figures into this scenario as well, don’t forget. And the two men in the center of the heart we saw on the mirror suggests a male coupling. That could mean Marcus or Mr. Carson might’ve had a lover, or at least a paid companion at the bordello.”

  “I suppose Mr. Carson could’ve met someone there before he met Marcus. Or… maybe Mr. Carson and Marcus didn’t get together right away and Marcus met with someone at the bordello. You’ve got things to follow up on, Detective.”

  “Oh, I’ve got something to ‘follow up’ on alright,” I said, then kissed Alex and “followed up” on things of a more intimate nature.

  The next morning we made ourselves breakfast in the kitchen, then Alex and Elise went to town to record the deed. After Alex left, I sat in a rocker on the front porch with Lucky in my lap. We were joined by Shannon, who was dressed in denim cotton shorts, slip-on shoes, and a tank top.

  “You do like casual living, Layton.”

  “At least I’m dressed,” I said, and smiled. I was barefoot in plaid, cotton shorts and a V-neck white T-shirt.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I love casual myself,” Shannon said. “But I can’t exactly picture you welcoming guests to the court dressed in a three-piece suit anytime soon.”

  “Oh, I could do that too if the need arose, but hopefully it won’t.” Lucky rolled onto his back and I rubbed his stomach.

  “Layton, I was thinking about something this morning,” Shannon said. “If the girl in the sack does prove to be Javina, and we’re both pretty sure it will, then what explains the payments sent to someone in France?”

  “You and I are sharing a brai
n this morning,” I said. “Those were my exact thoughts.”

  “Make that three of us who were thinking the same thing,” Mrs. Carson said, as she opened the screen door in front of the wooden door and joined us. She held a large manila envelope in her hand.

  I put Lucky on the floor, stood, and helped Mrs. Carson to a rocker. She was walking slowly and was casually dressed in gray shorts and a T-shirt.

  “Are you OK this morning, Mrs. Carson?” I said.

  “I stayed up too late the last two nights, that’s all,” Mrs. Carson said.

  “Did finding the body keep you up?” Shannon said.

  “Yes, but not in the way you think,” Mrs. Carson said. “My thoughts turned to the payments made to the person in France and I dug up some of the bank receipts and records that my husband had found and placed in his safe.”

  “Why would he have saved them?” Shannon said.

  “He was probably trying to solve the mystery himself,” I said. “But why didn’t he ever dig in the yard like we did?”

  “It never occurred to him,” Mrs. Carson said. “Like everyone else he treated that spot as sacrosanct because of the bodies being found there.”

  “That whole thing about the bodies being found on that spot sure kept people from finding Javina,” I said. “That’s awfully damn convenient… too convenient.”

  “You don’t think that whole story regarding the twins was made up, do you?” Shannon said.

  “The twins died and the bodies were found, that much is true,” I said. “But, I’m starting to question everything else that we’ve been told happened.”

  Mrs. Carson handed me the manilla envelope, then spoke. “Have you heard anything from Forrest this morning, Layton?”

  “No,” I said. “But when he left yesterday he said he’d call me when they’ve positively identified the body.”