ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) (30 page)

“
There’s a movie shoot in town,” Dupree said. “Did you read the article in the
Times-Picayune
about it?”

He shook his head, unwilling to remind his boss that he’d been gone for four days.

Dupree twisted his mustache with his fingers. “Danny Sampson came to the station in a big snit and told me his teenage daughter disappeared.”

Frank leaned forward, thinking: He got another one. But Dupree waved his hand. “I know what you’re thinking, Frank, but this is different.”

“
Maybe. Maybe not. The Tongue Killer’s due for another one. How old is she? When did she go missing?”

Dupree opened a three-ring binder. “Believe me, this is different. We’re dealing with Danny Sampson here. The name ring a bell?”

“
No bell that I’m hearing. Who is he?”

“
Not who he is, who he
was
. Sampson’s not his real name. His father’s a big shot with the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Danny hated living in his shadow so he changed his name to Sampson.” Dupree grinned. “He used to be Danny Fiore. Italian, right?”

Frank laughed. “Smart move. You don’t know Italian fathers.”

“
Whatever. Anyways, Danny took up guitar and split, wanted to be a rock star. He did Elvis impersonations for a while. Then he did a white-trash version of Mick Jagger, called his band Danny and Playboys, blew through New Orleans mid-to-late ‘80s, him and his mates banging every pussy that wasn’t nailed down and a lot that were. One of ‘em nailed Danny in a paternity suit.” Dupree made his eyes go wide.

Resigned to it, he settled in for the ride. Dupree would turn this into a shaggy dog story about New Orleans history. He’d been through this before.

“
And Danny
married
her. Only lasted ten months, but they had this little girl, and dig this, they named her Lisa Marie.” Dupree grinned. “Get it?”

“
Presley’s daughter,” he said, wishing the game would end so he could go find Lisa Marie. “How old is she?”

“
Eighteen. Danny’s says she’s run off before. She had a troubled childhood, understandable, considering who her daddy is.” Dupree got serious and read from his notes. “Here’s the particulars: Danny Sampson, over the hill at fifty-five, trying to make a comeback in this made-for-TV movie. I hear it’s a tearjerker. Anyways, Danny blew into town last Thursday with his daughter, checked into a B-and-B down in the Garden District. Oh yeah, Lisa Marie hates her middle name, never uses it, calls herself Lisa. Danny said they had a fight on Saturday and Lisa ran off and disappeared.”

Dupree leaned forward, squinting at him, dead serious now. “I want you to talk to him, Frank, see if you can find the girl. More than likely, she’ll turn up in a day or so, least that’s what Danny thinks. He said she does it to get attention, but I got to take it seriously or next thing you know he’ll go on TV and it’ll be a three-ring circus. That’s why I’m putting you on it. You’re too good a detective to be riding a desk.” Dupree winked and gave him a sly smile. “No need for Norris to know.”

He was happy to be off the desk, but he had a feeling that finding Lisa Sampson wasn’t going to be any fun-filled picnic. “Does she have money? Credit cards?”

Dupree shrugged. “Every teenager in America’s got a credit card.”

“
Okay. I’ll start with that, see if she used it since she disappeared. You got any pictures of her?”

Dupree pulled two out of the binder and handed them over. One was a publicity shot: Danny Sampson gazing at the camera with an I-want-to-fuck-you look, his shirt open to show his chest hair. It made Frank ashamed to be half-Italian. The other was a shot of Sampson and his daughter, a pudgy teenager shrinking away from her father, eyes downcast to avoid the lens.

He held up the two-shot. “When was this taken?”

“
Six months ago. Danny should be on the movie set right about now. It’s here in the Quarter, near Jackson Square.”

Frank left Dupree’s office, thinking: Great. Desk-duty to Hollywood in a single bound. But before he walked over to Jackson Square to interview Danny Sampson, he needed to call the D.C. homicide detective. To ensure privacy, he got in his car, called Lieutenant Paul McGuire on his cellphone, said he was a friend of Ross Dunn and he needed a favor.

“
You’re a friend of Ross?” said McGuire, his voice hoarse and raspy, as if he’d already smoked a dozen cigarettes. “Whatever you need.”

“
I’m working those serial murders down here in New Orleans.”

“
Sounds like a doozy from what I see on the news. You got a lead?”

“
Maybe. Can you check your files for any unsolved homicides in the D.C. area between 1988 and 1992? Sorry, I know that’s a lot to cover.”

McGuire grunted. “We got no shortage of murders, that’s for sure.”

“
Forget anything drug related. That should cut it down some.”

The comment elicited a chuckle from McGuire, a chuckle that turned into a hacking cough. “You kidding? That eliminates half of them.”

“
My guy was in the D.C. area from ’88 to ’92. If he got started down there, I want to know about it. Ross gave you high marks, so I trust your judgment. Flag any cases that look interesting.”

“
I don’t recall any homicides with tongue mutilations,” McGuire said, “but another detective might have caught the case. My caseload’s a bitch, but I’ll get on it, call you back ASAP.”

_____

The sinner tried not to limp as he entered St. Anne’s Nursing Home. He faked a cheery hello to the receptionist and got in the elevator. A fierce headache pounded his temples and his leg throbbed. He punched in the floor number and sagged against the wall, dreading his visit with Mrs. Fontenot. He wanted to rest, wanted to close his eyes and fall into the oblivion of sleep.

Last night during his panicked flight from Rona Jefferson’s house he had barked his shin, but that was nothing compared to the puncture wounds on his calf from the dog bite. After his miraculous escape, he had tended his wounds in his room, slathering antibiotic ointment on them, bandaging them with sterile gauze pads. Even so, the pain had kept him up most of the night.

The elevator door opened, and he limped down the corridor toward Mrs. Fontenot’s room. How could he comfort a dying old woman when his leg throbbed with unmerciful pain?
Lord, help me get through this.

“
Good morning, Father Tim!” called a dark-haired nurse, smiling at him from her chair behind the nurses’ station.

No, this is not a good morning
. He smiled and waved but didn’t stop.

Halfway down the hall he ducked into a rest room, splashed cold water on his face and studied his reflection in the mirror above the sink. His complexion looked sallow in the fluorescent light, and dark smudges rimmed his eyes. Each time he dozed off last night, he had startled awake, imagining the police pounding on the rectory door. At dawn he had watched the early news, massaged his aching leg as he watched coverage of last night’s fiasco. Jefferson’s house was a charred ruin, but her body had not been found. Footage of firefighters battling the blaze cut to shots of the house behind Jefferson’s where three people had died of gunshot wounds: a female resident, a police officer, and a man patrolling the neighborhood.

You failed again
, said the voice.
Rona Jefferson is alive and a cop is dead
.

He patted his face with a damp paper towel, threw the towel in the trash and massaged his temples. The news commentators believed the firebombing was racially motivated, just as he’d intended. Unfortunately, the wrong people had died, one of them a police officer, which guaranteed a zealous investigation. From now on, he would have to be very careful.

This morning, fearing someone might have seen his Toyota near Jefferson’s house, he had told Monsignor Goretti his car wouldn’t start, and Monsignor told him to use Father Cronin’s Honda Civic. Cronin had called last night; his mother was on her deathbed and he didn’t know when he’d return. “You’ll have to take up the slack,” Monsignor had said.

Take up the slack while the Monsignor relaxed in his leather recliner.

Grimacing with pain, he left the restroom. Time to visit Mrs. Fontenot.

But when he entered her room the old woman was asleep, mouth agape, tubes running out of her nostrils. Grateful for the respite, he sank onto an armchair with green-plastic upholstery and looked at the TV set above Mrs. Fontenot’s bed. A movie commercial was playing, the sound muted, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, their mouths locked in a torrid kiss followed by a close-up of Angelina’s battleship-sized lips. Disgusting.

Angelina should get down on her knees and pray for Absolution.

His groin stirred with a familiar ache. He glanced at Mrs. Fontenot, snoring softly now, then touched his erection. How could he remain chaste when women like Angelina tempted him everywhere he looked? He went to the door and closed it, and pulled the opaque curtain around Mrs. Fontenot’s bed. Then he got down on the floor and did twenty pushups, like a drill sergeant in assault mode, feeling the searing pain in his biceps.

He closed his eyes, but visions of the tongues filled his mind. With each pushup he whispered their names: Cheryl, Suellen, Lynette. Patti and Melody. No tongue from Dawn, the deceitful slut.

Still his erection throbbed. He switched to situps, did them until sweat drenched his shirt. But deep down he knew it wouldn’t help. Brother Henry had said he used to do pushups to stop fantasizing about having sex with students, but in the end it didn’t matter. He’d done it anyway.

Like Brother Henry, he was out of control.

Years ago in a city several hundred miles away, his first Absolution had attracted little notice. Gloria, a shy college coed, had teased him with her milky-white breasts. After he tied her up, she readily confessed, but the finale didn’t go as planned. Warning her to be quiet, he ripped the tape off her mouth. Not a peep from Gloria, though it must have hurt. He told her to stick out her tongue. She did, but when he tried to cut off the tip, blood spurted everywhere. He’d failed to anticipate the blood. A fatal error.

After Gloria he had managed to banish the evil thoughts, had lived happily ever after for quite a while. But, unlike the fairy tales, the evil thoughts and wicked desires had returned. He killed one girl and then another, and the euphoria wore off sooner each time. His moments of peace lasted only eight months, then four, then less than a week.

His life wasn’t working anymore. He forced himself to do ten more pushups, but he couldn’t get the look in their eyes out of his mind, the terror and the pleading, the dying light and the slow fade to black.

Again, he felt the inevitable, inexorable erection.

If you don’t stop
, said the voice,
they’ll catch you and put you in jail. That man almost caught you last night.

He went in the bathroom and studied himself in the mirror. His face was pink from exertion, shiny with sweat, his hair matted to his forehead.

You have to stop. Detective Renzi suspects you.

He thought about the tongues in his armoire. He had to find a way to live the way he had before he’d begun taking the tongues, had to try and live the way normal people did, reading books or listening to music or going to movies. Had to find a way to stop loathing himself. Had to face his demons. He wasn’t stupid. Deep down he’d always known that someday he would have to face them. He closed his eyes and saw Melody’s face, the shocked, reproachful expression that lingered after death, like a faint footprint in the sand, not quite erased by receding water.

You can’t keep killing these women. From now on you must be good.

Good. The only good thing he owned was a snapshot of himself as an innocent young boy. But had he ever been innocent? Maybe, before Mother died. Before Father began to bully him. Before Father hired the Queen of Torture, the bitch who’d seduced Father and stolen his love—love that was rightfully his—and convinced Father to send his inconvenient son off to boarding school so they could be married.

His groin throbbed with a steady pulsing ache.

He looked at his image in the mirror.

“
I don’t think I can stop,” he whispered.

CHAPTER 20

“
You are so full of shit!” Rona screamed, shaking her fist at the television set on Aunt Em’s antique maple dresser.

The object of her wrath, Special Agent Burke Norris, stood on the steps of the Louisiana Supreme Court surrounded by a bevy of supporters: the NOPD Superintendent, the Sheriff of Jefferson Parish, four FBI agents and two African-American ministers. Off to one side, conspicuously apart from them was Archbishop Quinn.

Norris had just read a statement condemning the firebombing and its violent aftermath and acknowledging the fears of the community. Now, sweeping the crowd with a stern gaze, he said, “But we will not tolerate vigilantes. Anyone patrolling the streets with a firearm will be arrested.”

This brought catcalls from a huge mob of outraged citizens.

“
You tell him!” Rona yelled at the screen.

Frightened more than she’d cared to admit by the dead bird and note, she had confided in Sam Leroux, her devoted fan. When the security guard suggested she check into his aunt’s bed-and-breakfast under an assumed name, she thanked him profusely but warned: “Tell no one where I am.”