The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) (8 page)

“That’s the problem, Sam,” said Jacob as he met her eyes. “We’re both in hot water over this. I brought you in as Sam of Spades, and Caroline loved the idea of the
Picayune
having its own female mystery author. And your job isn’t that hard. Five thousand words a week. That’s all we ask for. Tell your stories about your detective, Mortimer Branston, and get paid for it. Not that difficult, right?”

Sam’s lips grew tight. She knew where Jacob was going with this, and she knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant. “So then why haven’t you turned in anything in over four weeks? We’ve run out of filler, and our readers are sending in letters and calling us on the phone wondering when Sam of Spades’s next chapter is coming out. It seems that half of New Orleans is waiting to see how
The Mystery of the Crimson Mask
ends.”

At that, Sam let out a heartfelt sigh, averting her eyes and saying, “Look, Jacob, I just haven’t felt inspired with a good ending lately. I want to give the readers something really amazing, and—”

“Don’t give me that, Sam,” Jacob said, a twinge of disgust in his voice. “You’ve never cared about quality before. Hell, your last Branston story,
The Mystery of the Gill-Slit Killer
, was so cheesy that the critics refused to pan it. You write campy mysteries, Sam. You don’t have to go for a Pulitzer Prize here.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam replied with a frown. “I know that I’m not taken seriously by most. But for this story, I really wanted to give the readers something amazing. I guess… ” Sam struggled for a moment to find the right words. “I want to be like Richie Fastellos. I want to enter the big times.”

At that, Jacob laughed—a short but hurtfully direct laugh—one that made Sam flinch. The expression on her face must have betrayed her feelings, because in the next moment, he was leaning forward and placing his injured hand gently on hers. To Sam, the scratchy and coarse bandages took a lot away from his warmth.

“Sam, I’m sorry.” Jacob’s voice had softened. “I’m not laughing at you because I think light of your situation. I just find it amazingly ironic that you, after all this time, want to be taken seriously as a writer.”

As Jacob’s hand left hers, the gauze scratching her skin, Sam gave her friend a wry smile.

She had met Jacob when she was only twenty years old, in a creative writing class. He seemed to take an interest in a short story she wrote about a young girl hitching rides across the country on trains and nearly falling out of one of those trains, only to be saved by the ghost of her dead companion. Up until then, no one had ever paid attention to her writing before.

They had continued to talk throughout the semester until Halloween, when Jacob had invited her, a recluse, to go to a Halloween Vampire Ball hosted by a famous New Orleans author.

Sam had originally declined, but Jacob was so earnest in his insistence that she’d enjoy herself, she eventually told him she’d go to this one party if he promised to never ask her out again. Jacob agreed, and so she went dressed as Elvira, and he went dressed as Gomez Addams. Three highballs and a sorry attempt at dancing the tango later, they were becoming close friends. Ever since then, Jacob had sort of looked out for Sam, even going so far as to vouching for her writing ability to Caroline.

Sam came back from the nostalgia and looked down at her hand. Jacob’s bandage had scraped her skin, leaving white marks. She thought that he must have really hurt himself to be wearing such thick bandages.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know I’ve been a real pain in the ass to the
Picayune
all these years. I miss deadlines all the time, my work has to be heavily edited, and I seem to go on a sabbatical every time I near a story’s completion. I really am a bad investment.”

To Sam’s surprise, Jacob shook his head. “No, you’re not a bad investment, at least not as a writer. Sam, I’ve read your stuff. You’ve got good ideas, you just lack organization. It’s amazing that you’ve lasted this long. Don’t you take notes on your stories?”

“Of course. I just don’t organize them very well,” answered Sam, looking guilty. “I think… ” For a long moment, she sat there and thought, her brow furrowed with effort. “Honestly, I don’t think I go into my stories with a good plan. I just sort of wing it.”

With a nod, Jacob leaned back and sipped his café au lait, only to make a face indicating that the coffee was now cold. Putting the cup down, he shook his head and said, “Well, Sam, I can’t make you get more organized. But I can tell you that Caroline wants something by tonight.”

“Or I’m sacked?” asked Sam point-blank.

Jacob nodded. “Pretty much. But that may not be a bad thing. I mean, come on Sam, you’re independently wealthy. Your father may not have been well off, but your grandfather left you wi—”

“Stop right there,” Sam snapped at her friend, who withdrew hastily. “Never suggest I live off of that man’s inheritance. I’d rather live on the streets than touch a dime that bastard left me!”

Sam soon realized that her outburst had gained the attention of almost a dozen people. Her ears burned as she turned back to her beignets, realizing that she had been mashing one against the powdered sugar this entire time, rendering it an inedible mess. Embarrassed, Sam wiped her fingers clean and washed them off in the small water glass near her plate.

“Sorry, Sam, I know how you feel about him. But if you don’t start producing, you may not have a choice.”

Finishing wiping off her fingers, Sam nodded in disgust, saying, “I know. Believe me. I know. It seems that no matter how hard I try, though, Grandfather’s ghost won’t let me be.”

Now it was Jacob’s turn to get silent. As he pondered, Sam stacked all the dirty plates to the side for a busboy to take away. She had an anxious desire to thank her friend for his time and head home.

“Sam, here is an idea,” started Jacob, his tone very businesslike. “Scrap the stories with Branston for now, and focus on a different series altogether. You may or may not know this, but last night a woman was brutally murdered.”

Sam’s heart started to pound in her chest, her blood pressure rising, her mouth going dry.
He isn’t about to suggest what I think he’s about to suggest. Is he?

“The murder was very similar to the Bourbon Street Ripper murders. In fact, Caroline’s already having us call it a copycat. It would be an incredible tie-in for the granddaughter of Vincent Castille to write about this copycat, give it her own—”

Something about Jacob’s suggestion set off an explosion in Sam’s skull. Her head started to ache, the veins in the side pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil. Closing her eyes tightly, Sam took in a short breath and clenched her jaw. The world around her seemed narrowed, as if she were looking through a tunnel. She felt like everyone was now looking at her and waiting for a response.

“I have to go,” said Sam, moving quickly as if she were in a bad dream that she had to escape. Reaching into her jeans’ back pocket, she threw out some money and gathered her things. In a heartbeat, she was walking out onto Decatur Street and heading toward the trolley stop.

“Sam! Wait,” called out Jacob as he hurriedly paid for his own coffee, gathered his leather portfolio case, and followed. When he caught up to Sam, he added, “Look, I know that was in poor taste, but I’m just try—”

“You’re damn straight that was in poor taste,” snapped Sam again, turning to Jacob, her voice low and venomous. “You haven’t the smallest clue how much it sucks being that man’s grandchild. I live every day with the memory of what he did to those women. What he did to me… ”

“Sam… I… ” Jacob reached out to touch Sam’s shoulders, only to have his hands swatted away.

“Just piss off, Jacob,” Sam snapped for a third time, everything around her moving in slow motion as she focused on her shocked friend. “A real friend would never ask me to capitalize on that bastard’s work. It’s bad enough that your newspaper is already calling this a copycat. How long do you think it will be before reporters are knocking at Samantha Castille’s door wanting an interview? You think I enjoy being known as a serial killer’s granddaughter?”

By this point, Jacob was looking quite sick to his stomach. Sam, however, gave no indication she was going to let up, a rush of adrenaline pouring through her to the point that she felt like she was wading through a fog.

“So whose idea was it? Yours? Caroline’s? Did you all have a group circle jerk and decide to ask Vincent Castille’s granddaughter to create the next series about the Bourbon Street Ripper murders?”

“No,” said a pale-looking Jacob. “Nothing like that at all. I just thought that—” He softened and lowered his voice. “I thought that it might help you deal with those demons. By, you know, writing about it.”

“Deal with it?” asked Sam, turning and walking away, Jacob following in a meek manner. “Let me tell you something about dealing with it. I haven’t slept well in over twenty years. I see and feel death all around me. Right now, every demon and dark loa in New Orleans is laughing at me. Tell me, how do I deal with that?”

By this point, Jacob had the look of a man who’d rather be swallowing razors than staying where he was. Somehow, he managed to say, “Sam, you’re freaking out. Have you… have you taken your medicine today?”

“Have I taken my medicine?” Sam yelled at Jacob. By now, they were both at the trolley stop, and the trolley car had arrived, heading uptown. Sam got on board, paid the toll, and then turned to offer one final attack on Jacob. “Yes, let’s just ask Sam the psycho if she’s loaded up on her Lithium and Valium today. You’re an asshole like every other person, Jacob. Good-bye!”

With that, Sam headed to her seat on the trolley as it began to speed away, leaving behind her distraught friend. As for Sam, as soon as she found a place to sit, her thoughts turned inward. She wondered how any friend could ever even dare to suggest she make a dime off of her grandfather’s evil.

They are all the same. Jacob. Klein. Caroline. They hate me because I’m Vincent Castille’s granddaughter. They all want to see me suck and die.

The fog around Sam thickened, the pounding in her skull like the screams of restless demons, as she got an image in her head. Again she was ten years old, standing at the end of a long hallway. The smell of blood and bile was faint but present. Walking down the hallway, her eyes were fixed on a single door, red luminance and smoke drifting from it. With every step, her heart beat faster. Her grandfather’s words echoed in her head,
Why do I do these things? Because this is what you want, Sam.

Sam’s vision blurred as, in her mind, she saw the door open, then a close-up of her grandfather, in surgical scrubs and with a surgical mask on, holding a bloody scalpel. Behind him was a corpse with its chest opened in the manner of a full autopsy, the heart beating rapidly. The smell of blood and bile was much more intense. Vincent Castille’s gaze was iron as he exclaimed, “Life everlasting through pain. Isn’t it wonderful, Sam? Sam!”

The fog began to lift, to thin out, the pounding overshadowed by a voice calling out her name.

“Sam!”

Sam’s attention came back to herself and her surroundings.

She was not on board the trolley as she had thought. She had not gotten up, had a nervous breakdown in public, and stormed off.

Instead, she was seated at the table at Café du Monde. Sam looked up and saw Jacob with a concerned expression on his face. He leaned back and frowned at her, saying, “So what do you think? I mean, I know it’s crappy to ask you this, but what about writing about those murders? Give it your own spin. Any direction you want to go is fine. Do that, and I’m sure Caroline will give you a few more days to get yourself straightened out.”

For a very long time, Sam sat there, her eyes focused on Jacob, her mind and heart racing.

God help me, I think I do need my meds.

After a long pause, one that got several uncomfortable “ahems” from Jacob, Sam gave a small nod and answered in a soft voice, “Let me think on it. I’ll call you tonight.”

It wasn’t until later that afternoon, when Sam had gotten home, popped her medication for “hallucinations,” and taken a seat on her back patio, that she thought about things.

At least the scene was familiar and therefore comforting. Her patio overlooked a small backyard garden adorned with popcorn bushes along its perimeter, a growing magnolia tree, and a water fountain, comprised of a naked cherub pissing into the basin.

For a while, she sat there and questioned her sanity, wondering if perhaps she had finally lost her grip on reality. After rationalizing that possibility away, she considered the possibility that she was suffering from severe sleep deprivation. Finally, Sam decided that analyzing herself was just a way of avoiding the real issue—Jacob’s offer.

Every fiber of Sam’s being hated the idea of giving her grandfather even the least bit of attention, and writing about a copycat killer would only serve to keep his memory alive. However, Sam reasoned, it was too late to stop the ghost of Vincent Castille from being empowered. Just from last night’s murder, her grandfather’s memory was already being given new life.

That thought sickened Sam, who had worked so hard over the past twenty years to bury her grandfather. But however sick those thoughts made her, she had to admit that the idea of Vincent Castille’s granddaughter penning a mystery based around his grisly crimes was an amazing shtick. If done properly, it could be amazing.

Finally, Sam said to herself, “Okay, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this right. I need to organize myself and make sure I don’t leave any loopholes.”

After making another pot of coffee, Sam headed into her study for what she hoped would be a fruitful brainstorming session. It was as she was walking around her desk that she heard a small
crunch
and realized that she had stepped on something. Looking down and moving her slipper-covered foot, Sam saw something silver and shiny pressed into the rug below. Curious as Alice in Wonderland, she stooped down to pick it up.

What she had stepped on was a metallic pen, one of those expensive types given for a graduation or some other memorable event. It was older, probably from the seventies, and still in beautiful condition. The silver casting was hardly dulled. It had one word professionally etched across its body—“Castille.”