by Gary Jonas
“Cool,” I said, and opened the laptop. I pointed to the card flap that had originally held my room key. “Esther, can you read me the Wi-Fi password, please?”
She did, and I spent the next hour doing some research.
Kelly came back with breakfast burritos and bottles of water, and as we ate, I kept poking around on the internet.
“This can’t be right,” I said.
“What?” Kelly asked, crumpling a foil wrapper, and tossing it into the waste basket.
I enlarged a picture to fill the screen then flipped the computer around. “Who’s this?” I asked.
“Tara,” Kelly said.
I shrank the image so the obituary showed. “Islande Rousseau,” I said.
“They really do look the same.”
“Think about what Papa Simon said.”
“I’d rather not,” Kelly said.
“He said Madame Rousseau is Tara’s mother. Tara said her mother died when she was young.”
“So?”
“Read the obituary,” I said.
“Read it to me.”
I sighed. “I’ll read the pertinent part. Islande Rousseau is survived by her mother, Islande; her husband, Grady; and her son, Emmanuel.”
“So her mother and grandmother shared a name.”
“Or they’re the same person,” I said. “But that’s not what threw me off.”
“Read it again.”
I did so.
Kelly shrugged. “I got nothing.”
I tapped my head and pointed at her. “No mention of Tara.”
“Okay. And this is where you tell me why.”
I nodded, and scrolled down on the page to show her an obituary for Taraji Rousseau, age seven.
“When was that?” Kelly asked.
“March 4, 2000. Says she died in a car accident along with her mother, Islande Rousseau.”
“You’re not making any sense, Jonathan.”
“Emmanuel told me his family was batshit crazy and that Tara had a secret. I think Tara, aka Taraji, died in a car wreck, and Madame Rousseau brought her back to life.”
“That would qualify as a secret,” Kelly said. “It also explains some of what Papa Simon said.”
“Let’s try to piece it together,” I said. “Her daughter is killed, so Madame Rousseau is grieving. Maybe the spell she used to save Tara used up the magic she used to make herself look young and attractive.”
“That sounds insane.”
“No more insane than most of our cases.”
“It would take far greater magic to bring someone back to life.”
“And that used up her magic?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Kelly said, “It’s more likely that Mama didn’t want to look young anymore, and simply let herself look her real age.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“It makes more sense for it to be an emotional reaction because I don’t think she’s lacking in the magical arena.”
“True,” I said, thinking about what I’d seen her do.
“And Emmanuel?” she asked.
“Felt left out. Madame Rousseau paid Tara all the attention.”
“Then Tara grew up to look like his mother.”
“That had to be weird for him.”
“That kind of thing happens even in non-magical families. Genetics. What a concept.”
I shrugged. “That’s true. I’m just winging it here.”
“And this matters to us, why?”
“I don’t know,” I said, only I did know, but didn’t want to say. If Madame Rousseau could bring back her daughter without any weird side effects, she might be able to do the same for Esther. I just needed to know why it didn’t work as well with Emmanuel.
“So who’s the bad guy here?” Kelly asked.
“Meaning who do you get to kill?”
She smiled. “You know me so well.”
“Paul Tanner is a bad guy. And that demon thing is a bad guy.”
“The demon thing is all yours,” Kelly said. “But I wouldn’t mind tearing Paul Tanner’s head off. If you think your client won’t object.”
I laughed. “Oh, I think she’d object.”
“Are you going to limit my fun?”
“You didn’t let me finish. She would definitely object, which is why we won’t tell her. After all, Paul is already dead even if he was wearing shoes.”
“Huh?” Kelly asked.
“Bad Paul McCartney joke.”
“But Paul McCartney is alive.”
“Abbey Road?” I said, posing it as a question even though it wasn’t.
Kelly just stared at me.
“Barefoot?”
Still no reaction.
I shrugged. “Never mind,” I said.
“Finish your burrito,” she said. “You need your strength, though I doubt it will help much with your mental state.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A few days later, I was back to my old self. During my recovery, Kelly spoke to the hotel manager and canceled the extra room. The manager gave her a note one of the officers had left for her.
Kelly opened the note when she got back to the room. She laughed. “Officer Jenkins left me his cell number,” she said.
“Who?” I asked. “Wait, not the cop you went overboard on.”
“One and the same. It seems I made an impression. Want me to read it to you?”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t worry, Jonathan. He makes it clear he only wants me, so you’re safe.”
“I’ll take the positives where I can find them.”
Kelly tucked the note into her bag.
“You’re not throwing it away?” I asked.
“A girl’s got to keep her options open,” Kelly said. “Jenkins was a good looking man.”
I was spared the continuation of that conversation because my cellphone rang.
Unfortunately, it was Doris Tanner.
“Hello, Doris,” I said.
“I’m calling for an update.”
“I don’t have much for you at this point, but it doesn’t look good.”
“Don’t sugar coat it, Mr. Shade. Is Paul alive?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you call me as soon as you knew? Are you trying to take me to the cleaners? I’m not writing another check.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I said. “I’m trying to locate his body.”
“Oh. So you don’t really know he’s dead.”
“He’s dead, Ms. Tanner.”
“I…” She took a deep breath. “I won’t ask how you can be so certain if you don’t have his body. Monica tells me I can trust you. I have to say that I don’t like the idea of paying you for all this extra time. I don’t like any of this very much. I…”
“There’s nothing much to like about any of it. I know that. But you’re not paying me for any extra time. It’s all included in the original fee.”
“Humph. It better be.”
“I’ll call you when I find the body.”
“All right. Paul wasn’t a very nice man,” Doris said. “But he was my son. I really would like to be able to bury him.”
“I understand.”
“It’s more important to me than you know, Mr. Shade. I moved to the United States with my mother in 1946. My mother was American, but my father was British. He died in World War Two.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We never got his body. His father died in World War One, and as you may know, the bodies from the Great War were not repatriated. As a boy, my father lost his father, but never had closure. He went off to fight and never came back. The same thing happened to me with my father. I don’t want it to happen to me with my son.”
“It won’t.”
“So whatever it takes, Mr. Shade. You get my boy’s body back so I can have a proper funeral for him.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Her voice broke when she thanked me, and hung up.
/> I looked at Kelly as I set my phone down. “We need to destroy Paul Tanner without destroying his body.”
“No problem,” Kelly said. “I’ll cut off his head in a way that it can be sewn back on for the funeral.”
“That’s what I love about you,” I said. “You’re so sentimental.”
“Where’s Esther?” Kelly asked.
“She’s been spending a lot of time talking to Reginald.”
“That’s good for her,” Kelly said. “Get up.”
“Why?”
“It’s time to see if you’re ready to get back in the game.”
Five minutes later, Kelly and I were in the hotel workout room. It wasn’t very big, and was mostly filled with treadmills, but I knew better than to argue.
We had the place to ourselves, so we faced off.
I circled around, and had to step up on one of the treadmills in order to keep my distance. Kelly liked training in cramped quarters because you never know where you might get attacked. You have to be aware of your surroundings, and if possible, use them to your advantage.
Kelly darted in, and I tried to jump out of the way. She kicked my feet out from under me, and I hit the floor hard right next to another treadmill.
“Couple of inches to the left and I’d be jacked up,” I said.
“Then defend yourself better.”
“Somehow, I knew you were going to say that.”
“Get up.”
I pushed myself to my feet, and used the treadmill to launch myself at her.
She caught me, and flipped me into the wall. It hurt, but the real pain came on the landing. The floor was carpeted, but right beneath it was concrete.
“You’re not doing so well,” Kelly said.
I worked my shoulder a bit, and tried circling around again.
She darted in fast.
I blocked her first punch, and landed a fist in her kidney. I tried to sweep her feet, but she stepped over, spun and launched a kick at my face, but stopped a few inches from my chin. She kept her foot in the air in front of me.
It was a trap, of course. If I grabbed her leg, she’d whip her other leg up and over to smack me.
Instead, I dropped low, and kicked at her planted leg.
She brought her raised leg down, pinning me to the floor before I could reach her.
“Mighty slow today, Jonathan.”
She extended a hand to help me up. I accepted her assistance, and of course, she flipped me to the floor again, driving the breath from my lungs in the process.
“Should have seen that coming,” she said.
I finally managed to breathe.
“Maybe you should take it easy on me since I’m not a hundred percent yet.”
She shook her head. “You think Paul Tanner would take it easy on you?”
“No.”
“Well there you go.”
“But you said you were going to handle him. I get the demon thing.”
“You want some cheese with that whine?”
“Depends. Do you have some cheddar?”
“Get up.”
And so it went. When we finished our training, I was battered and bruised. I hadn’t managed a single takedown. But I did manage to get a bloody nose, so there’s that.
I limped back to the elevator. Kelly punched the button, and the car ascended.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“I’ll live.”
“I know that. I asked if you’re hurt.”
“Nothing permanent.”
The doors opened, and I wasn’t limping anymore by the time I turned the corner to head to the room.
Tara leaned against the wall beside the door. When she saw us, she raced down the hall.
“Mama’s missing,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Let’s say you’re in New Orleans. Let’s say the preeminent voodoo queen has gone missing. Where would you go to start your hunt for her?
I’d been to New Orleans a few times, but I had no clue where to look. It’s not like you can go to the Voodoo Queen Lost and Found, though they should probably have an app for that.
So when Tara said her mother was missing—and yes, I’d started thinking of Madame Rousseau as Tara’s mother and not as her grandmother—I did what any rational paranormal investigator would do. And what the irrational investigators would do, too, come to think of it. I looked at the young woman who reported the missing person and asked, “Where do you think she went?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you,” Tara said.
“She has a point,” Kelly said.
I wanted to thank Kelly for her support, but my sarcasm muscle wasn’t functioning properly thanks to getting slammed on the edge of a treadmill.
I wanted to soak in a hot bath for a week, but truth be told, I’d have said the same damn thing if I’d been at the top of my game because I’m not psychic. But as a detective, I was supposed to be able to detect. Of course, I rarely did much detecting these days.
“Let’s go into the room to talk about this,” I said.
“All right,” Tara said.
We walked down the hall to the room, and I used my keycard to open the door.
As I pushed down on the handle, Esther stuck her head through the door, and I jumped backward.
“Jesus, Esther!”
“Sorry,” she said. “Talking to Reginald got me all balled up, and I really wanted… Oh, you have company.”
“Madame Rousseau is missing,” I said. “No offense, but I think she’s a higher priority than Reginald right now. He’s not going anywhere.”
“That’s part of the problem,” Esther said, “but we can talk about it later because I’m not going anywhere either.”
She proved her statement wrong because before I could respond, she popped away.
I looked at Kelly. “Did I just step in a big pile of dog shit?”
“It’s all over you,” Kelly said. “You never mean to push Esther away, but you always manage it.”
“Should I—?”
“No,” Kelly said, grabbing the keycard to reopen the door. “We do have more pressing problems right now, but next time, listen to her before casting her aside like the dog shit you so figuratively stepped in.”
We went inside, and Tara sat on one of the beds. Kelly sat on the other. I pulled the chair out from the desk, and sat, feeling bruises complain as I leaned back. I felt like I should go after Esther, but as with Madame Rousseau, I didn’t know where she’d gone. And I wasn’t wrong about Madame Rousseau being a priority.
The living take precedence over the dead. That’s how things are supposed to work.
Sometimes it didn’t feel right, because sometimes the dead seem more important than the living, but there you go.
“Okay,” I said, “I’m guessing you know for sure that Madame Rousseau is actually missing and isn’t just out shopping for voodoo dolls and needles.”
“She’s been gone for three days. She never goes anywhere, Jonathan.”
Three days meant she’d disappeared a day after Papa Simon came to visit.
“Where does Papa Simon live?” I asked.
“He has a home in Lakewood, but he’s not there, and according to his secretary, he hasn’t been there in months.”
“That tells me where he’s not.”
“He’s been staying on a houseboat in the swamps, so he could be anywhere.”
“Alligators and cottonmouths,” I said. “Sounds wonderful.” I shook my head to break up the memories of the last time I’d dealt with alligators in the Everglades.
“I don’t think he took Mama,” Tara said.
“You don’t?”
“No. He called yesterday, and asked to speak to her. I just said she wasn’t home. He asked me to tell her to call him when she could. Said it was important.”
“Could be for cover,” I said. “Throw us off. But before we jump to any conclusions, when did you last see her?”
“The morning af
ter you left. You’re looking much better, by the way.”
“Thanks. Tell me what happened that morning.”
Tara shrugged. “She made breakfast, bitched about Papa Simon, did a few rituals, then went to her room for a nap. She got up an hour later, told me she had something to do in town, and left. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
“Did she seem agitated?”
“No more than usual. But she took her bones with her.”
“Can you repeat that?” I asked. “Because it sounded like you said she took her bones with her. What bones?”
“She had two femurs she kept on her bedroom wall in the shape of an X. They’re gone, so I’m assuming she took them with her.”
“Human femurs?”
“Yes.”
“Great weapons,” Kelly said. “The femur is the strongest bone in the human body.” She winked at me. “Longest, too.”
“Tell that to Officer Jenkins,” I said.
Kelly grinned.
“Tara,” I said, “do you have any idea who the bones belonged to?”
“My great-grandmother, I think. Or if Papa Simon was telling the truth, maybe my grandmother. Mama uses them in drumming rituals to call up extra magic for protection if she’s dealing with dark forces.”
“She might be going after that demon thing,” Kelly said.
“Or Paul or Emmanuel or even Sarah. Hell, she could be going after Papa Simon, ready to bonk him on the head for all we know.”
“Well, Papa Simon called yesterday afternoon, so if she went after him, she never got there.”
“Does she have a car?”
“No,” Tara said. “She likes Uber.”
“They may have a record of where they dropped her off,” I said. “Do you have a family profile with them?”
“With Uber? I don’t know. Why?”
“Because they have a trip tracker that families can use to make sure their family members arrive safely at their destination. Give me your phone.”
She dug in her pocket and handed me her smartphone. She had the Uber app. And within a few minutes, I saw that the family profile included the trip tracker, though it looked like it was set up by Madame Rousseau to keep tabs on Tara. Two can play that game, and I soon had the address where Madame Rousseau had taken her last Uber ride.
