The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) (53 page)

Before Sam had a chance to reply, Richie was at the desk, picking up the phone. Putting the receiver to his ear and speaking in his manliest-sounding voice, he said, “Hello? What do you want?”

A woman’s voice was on the other line. She sounded like someone who could only be described as a class-A bitch. “Hello, is Sam there?”

Richie wasn’t convinced this wasn’t a threatening call. “Who wants to know, eh?”

The woman replied in a very cold-sounding voice. “Caroline Saucier. Editor-in-chief of the
Times-Picayune
. Who the hell are you?”

Richie was caught off guard. Again that suave smooth-talker who made two seasoned detectives throw in the towel had been beaten by a single, calculating female.

By the time Richie mentally recovered, the woman on the other line had apparently grown impatient, as she was saying, “Look, whoever you are, just tell Sam to get her ass down here by four o’clock with her submission for tomorrow’s paper, or she’s fired. Got it, stud muffin?”

Caroline hung up.

Slowly, Richie hung up the receiver and gave a sardonic chortle, shaking his head before looking over at Sam and saying, “Well, that was decisively rude and unfriendly.”

“Let me guess,” replied Sam, leaning back against the liquor cabinet. “Caroline wants me to turn in my submission.”

Richie was both surprised and impressed, although more the latter than the former. “How did you know?”

Finishing off her whiskey, Sam chuckled and winked at Richie. “The look on your face was enough. Also, I remembered that I never turned in my submission. You know, intruder-slash-stalker crap. I should probably get it to Caroline before I get canned.”

Sam then tilted her head at Richie, her voice dropping a little in volume and rising a little in pitch as she said, “Wanna come with?”

Richie felt his heart race. On the outside, though, he played it cool and said, “Sure thing. I’d love to see what the inside of the
Times-Picayune
looks like. Been dreaming about it every day for a year.”

Sam smirked and said, “Smartass.” She put her hair back in a ponytail, gathered her boots, watch, and wallet out of the foyer, and sat down to lace up her boots. Richie watched her move and felt a small smile come to his lips. Just watching her put him in a good mood.

Soon, Sam was picking up her manuscript and heading into her home office, where she started up the copier and started making a copy of her manuscript.

Richie watched with interest. “So you make copies of your writing, eh?”

“Yeah,” Sam said matter-of-factly as the two watched the copier spit out page after page. “Originally, I was going to go to Kinko’s, but then I found out that using those places isn’t very secure. Nothing would stop an employee or someone from stealing your work and publishing it themselves. So I asked Kent what I could do, and he said it would be easiest to have a copier at home.”

“So Kent really looks out for you, doesn’t he?”

“Oh yes, absolutely,” replied Sam, as she gathered the first copy of her manuscript and put it in a manila envelope. “Kent is one of the few people I trust. He’s always looked out for me.

“In fact, before I met you”—Sam paused as she wrote
The Bourbon Street Ripper—Chapter 2
on the envelope—“Kent and Jacob were my only friends after my father died.”

Richie nodded. He understood that all too well. He was barely acquaintances with Gordon, rarely spoke to his mother about anything substantial, and hadn’t spoken to his father since he was a child. For a moment, Richie felt very lonely.

“So, Richie… ” Sam said, leaning forward on the copier, her hips jutted back as she swayed absently.

Richie was entranced for a long moment, before asking, “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Tell me about the Nite Priory.” Sam turned around and looked seriously at him.

Richie’s expression returned to being serious, matching Sam’s pace stride-for-stride. Slipping his thumbs into his pockets, he recounted everything that had happened the previous night pertaining to the Nite Priory, and how the Lady in Red, their apparent leader, needed their help to find out who was framing them.

“What do you think?” Richie asked.

“I think you’re nuts,” Sam replied.

Richie felt his ego deflate like a balloon.

Before Richie could think of how to respond, however, Sam smiled and said, “But I must also be nuts, because I believe what you’re saying.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Richie wiped his brow. “I’m so glad. You have no idea how worried I was that you’d just call me crazy and kick me out.”

Sam smirked and turned around to gather up the second copy of her manuscript, which had been sitting there finished for a while, and placed it in another manila envelope. Making the same scrawl on it as the first one, Sam said, “Nah. Lately, I’ve been thinking Grandfather was up to something.”

Richie cocked an eyebrow and asked, “Oh?”

Sam nodded. “There was something my grandfather was up to before the murders, or maybe during the murders, that seems off. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. But it reminds me of that voodoo cult stuff we talked about. And Vincent Castille was a member of New Orleans’s elite. We’re talking families that have been in the city for over ten generations.

“That makes him nobility as far as this city is concerned. They even had a Mardi Gras krewe exclusive to them—the Krewe of Comus. If there is a secret organization like the Nite Priory that has some kind of weird voodoo thing going along with it, and there is a frame job, maybe from a traitor or something, and it’s all cultish… ”

Sam turned and shrugged at Richie, saying, “I don’t know. It’s all speculation right now, but I’m finding out stuff about my family every day that I never knew. A secret society is not too far off from the crazy shit I’ve seen lately.”

Richie, who had been silent the entire time, nodded in agreement. Everything Sam had just said made perfect sense. “I think we’re on the same page then. Shall we get going? And get you some lunch before you get sick from drinking whiskey like that?”

Gathering her manila envelopes, Sam again smirked, saying, “Yeah, I’m a tough Nawlins girl, Richie. I grew up on red wine, White Russians, and a street named Bourbon. I’ll be fine.”

Richie couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that one. As he held the door open for Sam, he asked, “So, give me a sneak preview. Who gets axed in this chapter?”

Sam chuckled nervously. “Oh yeah, that. I was thinking of changing it, after what happened yesterday morning. But Michael told me not to change anything.” Any trace of amusement vanished from her countenance, her look suddenly gravely serious. “I hope what happened Thursday night doesn’t happen this time. This time, my victim is a teenage girl.”

Chapter 27   
The Scent of Fruit

The two detectives entered the Jefferson Parish Police Department. It was a mostly open room, with doors on all three sides leading off to various other rooms and hallways. The air inside was hot and thick with the smell of human odor.

Ceiling fans slowly turned above, doing little to alleviate the heat. All around, people of all ages and colors sat around, waiting to see the police, or stood around talking with the police. The large African-American woman muscled her way past a small line of people, and immediately laid in on some poor clerk who looked like he desperately needed a day off.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” came a deep voice to the side of the detectives. Turning, Michael saw a large man in a Jefferson Parish uniform. His skin was as dark as pitch, and he looked like he could be Mad Monty’s long-lost cousin. The badge on his uniform bore the title “Sergeant.”

Rodger moved in first, taking out his badge. “Detective Rodger Bergeron of the New Orleans Eighth Precinct. This is my partner, Michael LeBlanc.”

Michael nodded and showed his badge as well. Once the officer seemed satisfied, he introduced himself as Sergeant Calvin Carter, and asked what had brought the two detectives all the way to Bayou Lafitte.

“Why, they’re here to see me, C. C.,” called out a rip-roaringly thick-accented voice, from the doorway to another room. Michael felt his heart sink and his blood pressure rise as he saw Deputy Sheriff Jean-Luc Thibodaux.

“Hey there again, Shreveport,” cawed out J. L. as he sauntered over to the two detectives. “Couldn’t get enough of me, ya?”

“My day is not complete without hearing your voice, J. L.,” came Michael’s dry reply. This was not the person he wanted to see, not ever again, but he knew it couldn’t be helped. These small towns didn’t have too many deputies, so it wasn’t like he could pick and choose.

J. L. shook Michael’s hand, much to his chagrin, and then shook Rodger’s. “Man, Rodger, you look like the shit that came out of my dog last night. What happened to you, bud?”

Rodger shrugged. “I’ve had a rough couple of days, J. L. This investigation has been pretty rough.”

Michael could tell his partner wasn’t in the mood for J. L. any more than he was.

“No shit?” said J. L. in the most insincere display of sympathy Michael had ever seen. “Well, you big-city detectives’ll figure it out. Especially since you’re back to speak to Old Man Fontenot.”

“Right, have you checked up on him?” asked Michael. “Also, where is your phone? We have to call in and let our commander know what’s going on.”

J. L. moved to the side, showing the way to a back room with a sweeping motion. “Phone’s in the break room, Shreveport. Help yourself to some good old-fashioned bayou coffee while you’re at it.”

Michael couldn’t help but feel that coffee, in his state, would just make him feel ten times worse.

Fortunately for Michael, Rodger spoke up, saying, “I’ll go make the call, Michael. I need some coffee.”

As Rodger was shown to the back by J. L., and as Michael couldn’t help but feel snubbed yet again, he turned to Carter, who had been standing there watching the whole thing, and asked, “So, is J. L. always this much of—”

“Yes, although he’s going easy on you,” interrupted Carter, as if the question had been asked a million times before. Michael found the thought disconcerting.

Half an hour later, the detectives were on their way, following J. L. and Carter, who were in a squad car ahead of them. Michael had wanted to leave early, but J. L. had been called in to help calm down Mrs. Williams, the large African-American woman who had bullied her way to the front of the line, when she got irate at the police for “not arresting that son-a-bitch to-
day
.”

Michael had asked if this sort of thing happened all the time, to which Carter replied that it did.

Earlier, on the ride out to the bayou, Michael had told Rodger about Robert Fontenot being the Black Bayou Boatman. Both agreed that, at this time, it was not a good idea to openly accuse Robert of that. They’d go back with Ouellette and have him and the district attorney make that decision.

“For all we know, Robert’s got an arrangement with the district attorney that we don’t know about,” Rodger had said. “Plus, even at his age, I doubt a hit man like him has lost all of his skills.”

Michael, who had not relished the idea of going toe-to-toe with a professional assassin, agreed.

Soon, the dirty roads were replaced by just plain old dirt roads, and the pair of cars pulled up to the entrance to the boathouse owned by Robert Fontenot. The Jefferson Parish car’s door opened, and J. L. came out, aviator glasses and all, and told Carter to wait. When Carter nodded in agreement, Michael, who had just stepped out of the car, got confused.

“Wait, Calvin’s a sergeant, J. L., how is that you’re telling him what to do?”

J. L. turned and pulled back his sunglasses, looking right at Michael. “Shreveport, I know Old Man Fontenot better than anyone else, and that old fucker hates men of color. I gotta look out for my superior here, so it’s best that C. C. just stay out by the car.”

“It’s cool,” Carter replied to Michael, his relaxed demeanor indicating that he actually didn’t care one way or another. “They have a lot of bigots back here, and they don’t care that I’m second in command at the police station. Fuck ’em, Detective LeBlanc. But I still ain’t getting shot at.”

Michael just shook his head slowly. Racism, in any form, was as alien to Michael as putting emotion before logic. But Michael knew it existed everywhere in this city, and on all sides. It wasn’t a problem that was going to go away. So Michael had to admit that Carter’s decision to not talk to a bigoted man with a gun was a good philosophy. Giving the sergeant a nod, Michael followed his partner and JL to the boathouse.

As they approached the house, Rodger put his arm out to stop Michael. Michael stopped, unsure what was wrong at first. Then he saw the door was open, and Robert Fontenot was nowhere to be seen.

“This could be a trap if he knew we were coming,” Michael whispered. “Maybe Rosemary tipped him off?”

A nod from Rodger told Michael that his partner suspected something similar. As he and his partner drew their weapons, Michael said quietly, “J. L.!”

J. L. turned around and, seeing the detectives with their weapons drawn, furrowed his brow. Coming over toward them, the deputy asked, “What’s going on here, Shreveport?”

“Precaution,” Rodger said. “Remember, this is a murder investigation. This area could no longer be secure.”

It took J. L. a few moments to comprehend what he was being told. “Wait, you think Old Man Fontenot is… ? Oh hell, no, not him. Really?”

“I’m being serious, J. L.,” replied Rodger. “Just have your weapon ready, just in case.”

“All right, all right,” J. L. replied, unholstering his sidearm. “But just… Don’t shoot at the guy unless you have to, all right? He’s jumpy, but he’s not a bad guy.”

Michael couldn’t think of anything more ridiculous that J. L. could have said, but he dropped the subject, as the deputy was at least going along with the idea of not entering the darkened boathouse without protection.