The Unforgiven

by Heather Graham

  “I’m sorry,” she told him.

  He nodded and said quietly, “They had good lives. They were happy together. The two of them lived in Florida as their main home, but the house I’m living in has been in my family for years.”

  “And it’s in New Orleans?” she asked.

  “French Quarter,” he told her.

  “Ah. Well, I guess that’s New Orleans, all right,” she said. She was surprised to feel her cheeks redden. She felt a bit bad about assuming he’d followed her to the city when she’d first seen him.

  “Katie, you remember these people, right? What they looked like?” Axel asked her.

  “Of course.”

  “It was twelve years ago,” Dan said.

  “You don’t forget a day like that,” she said.

  “No, I guess you don’t,” Dan agreed. “And you’re right about this place. It could become one of my new favorites. Food is great.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Katie said.

  Adam rose and was pleasant to the waitress as he asked for the check and paid at the counter.

  He returned to the table and looked at Katie. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Barry Gleason is meeting us there. He’s one of the finest sketch artists I’ve ever met. He’s not just a fine artist, he also knows how to listen and adjust details of a person’s features.”

  “It’s so late,” Katie said.

  “Ah, well, there’s the thing. Criminals don’t keep office hours. Therefore, law enforcement can’t do that, either. He’s waiting for us.”

  Axel drove. Katie found herself in the back seat with Dan Oliver.

  She sat politely silent and to her own side.

  They headed out to the city’s offices. Adam was apparently well-known; he was greeted by the security guards and then a woman who seemed to be guarding the inner sanctum.

  Katie quickly found herself in a room with a desk and the artist, Barry Gleason. He was a tall, slender man with thinning white hair and a quick smile. He assured her he was happy to be working with her despite the hour.

  “We’re happy for any help, Miss Delaney. If you can give us a good description, I can hopefully turn it into something valuable.”

  She sat with the man, aware that Adam, Axel and Dan were silent against the wall as she spoke and Barry Gleason worked.

  “The man I met as Dr. Neil Browne had dark hair, very dark. Almost black. He wore it short, but with a swirl over his forehead. His face... He had a young face. I thought he was young to be a doctor of anything...maybe early to midtwenties. He had very angular features, a long face. Thick brows, light eyes. His eyes were almost a powder blue. He was pleasant, smiled a lot, his lips were thin, and as I said, his face was long, not much in the way of cheekbones, but he was still a handsome man. Part of that might have been in his manner. He was polite, courteous, liked to tease.” She paused. “That doesn’t help in creating a sketch, does it?”

  “Yes, it does,” Barry said.

  He was working away as he spoke. “Computers can do these things right off the bat, but I like pencil drawings...at first, at least. So...” He added a shadowing to what he’d been doing and slid the paper in front of her for a look.

  As Adam had said, Barry Gleason was good.

  She nodded, feeling her throat constrict.

  It was already a good likeness. Good enough to bring her back in time twelve years.

  “Brow a little thicker and a bit higher at the arch. His nose was straight, dead straight. And other than that, the likeness is very good,” she said.

  He worked on the paper again and handed it back.

  She nodded, amazed he was so good, and felt a little sick inside. “Yes, that’s very much like the man. The coloring—”

  “Ah, I may look like a relic, but I’ll be entering this into the computer, and then I’ll do all kinds of shades with you at my side. Let’s get on to the woman he was with.”

  “On to Jennie,” she said.

  And Katie began Jennie’s description. She had been about five foot six—unnecessary for a facial sketch, she thought, but Barry listened gravely. Katie went on. Sandy-blond hair to her shoulders, deep brown eyes, slight uptilt to her nose, clean, well-defined brows a little darker than her hair.

  Hair color could change easily, Katie knew, but it was also important in remembering and then getting down to details.

  Jennie had been pretty, full of enthusiasm and, just like Dr. Neil Browne, charming. She had been pleasant with everyone. She’d had a light spattering of freckles over her nose, and her eyes were hazel, green with starbursts of brown. Also like Dr. Neil Browne, she’d had a long, lean face, but full lips and...

  She paused, and Barry looked at her, waiting.

  “A mole. On the left side of her face, just below and to the left of her eye,” Katie said.

  Barry showed her his work. Once again, he smudged, put in new lines, narrowed, widened and came up with an incredible likeness.

  When he was done, he first thanked her, telling her she had an impressive memory and a remarkable way of giving him the little details that made one person different from others. Then he glanced at the trio of men who had been waiting silently through it all.

  “I’m going to put these into the computer and deal with the coloring. There’s coffee down the hall, and we have a fancy little machine so it’s darned good coffee. I’ll come get you when I’m ready for Katie.”

  The men all thanked him. Katie rose nervously.

  “Coffee, anyone?” Adam asked. “It’s late, if anyone was planning on sleep, but...”

  “Hell, yes, coffee,” Dan said.

  He started out of the room but paused, indicating Katie was welcome to go first.

  “No, no, lead the way,” she said.

  He did, but in the little break room, he offered to make her coffee first. There were different pods to choose from.

  She knew she wasn’t going to sleep that night. It didn’t make any difference. She chose a dark roast.

  Since she came from Miami, where Latin American powerhouse coffee was the norm, and now lived in Louisiana where they liked it just as strong, she considered anything less than very bold coffee to be nothing more than colored water.

  He smiled.

  She thought he approved of her choice.

  Adam and Axel opted for tea but noted their tea tasted like coffee.

  The offices were quiet; the only noise was from them puttering around the break room. She was afraid it was going to grow awkward, but Barry came for them, and she gratefully followed him back.

  His images in the computer were amazing. She gave him only a few more changes in the way they had worn their hair and in the shape of Jennie’s mouth. He accomplished all easily.

  “Now,” he told her, “we’ll add twelve years to them.”

  He hit a few keys on his computer. When he was done, she could easily see she was staring at the couple she had met all those years ago as they might appear now.

  “If they’re guilty, they’ve changed everything about themselves. Hair will be different. They may even wear colored contact lenses. But unless you undergo serious surgery, there are things you can’t change. These could be extremely helpful,” Adam assured her.

  Again, they all thanked Barry. He nodded gravely.

  “I wasn’t at the crime scene this morning. I understand you were,” he said to Dan.

  Dan nodded. “Yeah.”

  “If this helps catch those bastards in any way, I’m grateful,” Barry said.

  “We don’t know, but we can’t leave any stone unturned, as the saying goes,” Adam told him.

  They were ready to head out. It was midnight, Katie saw.

  After midnight. But while many residents of the city would be in bed—ready to wake for s
chool or jobs in the morning as in any other place—Bourbon Street would still be blaring out music.

  Lorna and Matt might still be at Jackson Square getting ready to call it a night.

  Or maybe Monty had headed on out to work the late shift.

  Katie’s mind was whirling. The day had started out so...normally.

  And now she was back a thousand miles away and twelve years ago.

  Axel drove to her house first, but it was Dan who got out of the car to see her inside.

  “I’m okay once I’m through the gates,” she told him. “The boys will be out in the yard. Really, you’d have to be one brave criminal to try to get past the boys.”

  He smiled. She was right, the three dogs were already at the gate, barking away. But they greeted Dan with wagging tails and sloppy licks on his hands.

  “If they’re here, no one has broken into my house,” she said.

  “Hey, I was taught to walk a lady to her door,” he said lightly.

  “Ah, now we’re going to be...polite, nice, courteous?”

  “I really am nice, polite and courteous. I was just hoping Ryder—that’s Detective Stapleton—would let me work this thing.”

  “Because you should still be a cop?” she asked him.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I should still be a cop. Or something. Or...” He let his voice trail. He looked at her for a moment with real concern and confusion. “You... So you’ve seen the dead for a long time?”

  She hesitated and then exhaled a long breath.

  “A dead man saved my life,” she said softly. Then she grimaced. “When I surfaced and saw the boat, the blood, my parents... I went numb. I fell back in the water. I would have drowned. But there was a man in the water, a long-dead pirate—or privateer, as he later assured me.” She took another deep breath. “And then I came here, to New Orleans, and... Well, they like to say this is one of the most haunted cities in the country.” She shrugged. “It is. Helps a hell of a lot when you’re a tour guide.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I guess it would.”

  “You?”

  “Today,” he said quietly. “Today. My first time. And I don’t...”

  “Don’t...”

  “I’ve seen a lot of death. FDLE, we got a lot of bad cases. Bodies in stages of decomposition, bodies chopped to throw in the ocean...a lot of bad. Lost both my parents, though they were older, and it was natural causes.” He shrugged. “As I said, my family is in Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District.”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  He smiled. An honest smile. “The thing is... I’m wondering why I suddenly see a flapper who passed away in the 1920s.”

  “Maybe because you needed to see her. I saw my pirate because I needed to survive. Maybe you need her to help with this case.”

  He smiled and nodded again. “Well, then, let me get you to your door. I understand the NOPD and the FBI will have a task force with Adam as the titular lead, and Axel, Ryder and me—and every cop and agent in the city on it.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Be a tour guide. I’ll find you in the afternoon,” he said.

  The dogs followed them to Katie’s door, tails wagging.

  She unlocked her door, and Dan peeked in.

  “Love this. Great little house,” he told her.

  “Thanks.”

  “You want to let these guys in for the night?” he asked her.

  “Ah, well, they’re following us because they want treats. But the gates between the stables and my place are open. Their job is to guard the stables, and they have nice plush beds there.”

  “Okay, then.” Still, he hesitated. “I listened to everything you said about Neil Browne and Jennie. And I think you’re really on to something with them.”

  “You do?” she asked. “Even with George saying they existed, it seemed the cops back then thought he had made them up, and I was a kid and didn’t know better and agreed. While he was never arrested for my parents’ murders, he was under suspicion. The hospital stated his condition was critical when he was first found, and there was no hard evidence he committed the crime. His story of being hit and sent flying overboard chimed with the forensic evidence they did find.”

  He shrugged, looking out at the night. “I’ve come across people like the man you described. They’re charming. Pleasant, polite, devious and cold-blooded. Psychopaths. Killing someone is no different than squashing a bug to such people. Sometimes, people they kill are just in the way, preventing what the person wants. And sometimes they become fixated on an idea, and to them people need to die because of that idea. People—and statistics—show most such killers are men, but I’ve seen the work of misfired minds come in male and female. I think...”

  “Yes?” she asked.

  He was looking toward the road in front of her house beyond the gate.

  “I’ll tell you another time,” he said. “Axel and Adam are waiting. They’re not impatient types, but it is late, and tomorrow the autopsies are starting at 7:00 a.m.”

  “Yes, of course, go ahead.”

  “I will tell you,” he promised, “when I see you next.”

  He waved, heading down the walk and out to the waiting car.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dan’s morning started at the morgue with Axel and Ryder.

  Adam Harrison was working at the local offices, where he could remain in contact with their main offices and gather any intel from research he could find.

  Dr. Vincent was going to handle all three bodies. While the New Orleans morgue had more medical examiners—good ones—on staff, it had been agreed he would oversee the autopsies on all three victims.

  And if such attacks should arise again, he would oversee the autopsies done on those victims, too. Any little detail could become important, and the medical examiner on one case might see that same detail in another.

  It would be a long morning.

  Despite so much that was obvious, Dr. Vincent carefully went over each body. And Dan could only imagine the scene as it had unfolded.

  Dan had read Ryder’s reports on the victims, and he couldn’t help but think about them as their wounds were described in detail and the customary autopsy procedures were performed.

  Elle Détente had been in her midforties; she had been a beloved caretaker for the elderly couple for almost twenty years; Randolph Rodenberry had suffered from Parkinson’s disease, and when their son had left home to become career military, they had hired Elle. She had been a childless, young widow; she was one of the family. Dan could imagine she hadn’t suspected anything amiss, that she had been shocked to turn away from the sink where she had been rinsing a few dishes and see an axe-wielding killer before her.

  Randolph might have opened his eyes to see his killer, but he hadn’t seen them long. The first blow had cleaved his skull down a line that had split his face. Subsequent blows had dislodged his eyes from their sockets.

  Lettie might have heard the commotion by then. She had possibly been lying in her bed to rise and head for the bedroom door to see what was happening. But she never left the room. She might have been confused, turning the doorknob to discover it was already turning, and then she was facing a man with an axe raised high in the air.

  Dr. Vincent believed that she, too, had been cleaved first straight through the skull, lifted and thrown on the bed, receiving more blows there and then the slice of the knife.

  Hours went by as the ME worked. Stomach contents were sent to the lab. They might give some indication as to where the Rodenberry couple and Elle Détente had last eaten, but Dan figured it may well have been at their home.

  “There are two trains of thought on the Axeman killings,” Ryder said as they all left the morgue at last. “One—because so many victims were Italians, perhaps it had to do with the Mob. But some of the victims weren’t Italia
n. And there weren’t any other obvious connections. So...the other theory is the victims were random. Do we think this killer just chose the Rodenberrys randomly?”

  Dan shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think he knew an elderly couple lived in the house and their maid wasn’t the feisty kind who might carry a weapon. They didn’t have an alarm system, but I think they felt safe in their neighborhood. Back in the 1900s, anyone might have had an axe lying around for firewood or household repairs. Nowadays, people have guns around because the laws allow it in Louisiana. But I don’t think they were chosen for any other reason than they were vulnerable.”

  “So where will he strike next?” Ryder asked.

  Dan shrugged and grimaced. “Somewhere he can easily get in and out. We need warnings out in the city. People need to be careful. They need to secure their windows and lock their doors.”

  “So who wants to give that press conference?” Ryder asked, looking hopefully at Axel and Dan.

  “Hey, I’m barely official,” Dan said.

  “You are official. You’re a PI hired by a victim and a consultant with the FBI,” Axel assured him. He offered him a grim smile. “And there will likely be questions about the legendary Axeman and the Florida cases you’ve worked already.”

  “And it doesn’t matter. None of us has anything to really give people,” Ryder said.

  “An active investigation. That’s all you need,” Axel said.

  Dan glanced at his watch. It was already growing late in the afternoon. The conference was scheduled for five, barely an hour and a half away.

  “All right, all right,” Dan murmured.

  Ryder nodded. “See you at headquarters,” he said.

  “And where are you going?” Dan called after him.

  “Lunch!” Ryder replied.

  Dan watched him go. Eating kept the body going.

  But after the autopsies he’d just witnessed? Lunch would wait a bit.

  “I’m going to the office to see if Adam has managed to get anything that might be helpful in any way. He’ll have Angela on the home front following any old clue possible,” Axel told him. “You’re welcome to come with me.”