Let the Dead Sleep

by Heather Graham

  “You were. But that’s all right. I thought you were the biggest jerk in the world.”

  “And now?”

  “Now you’re a jerk with a mission.”

  He shrugged, still smiling. He knew damned well that he was attracted to her, that the scent of her subtle perfume—a scent he was coming to know well—instantly stirred something inside him. He gave his attention to the road, waiting for a few happy tourists sipping New Orleans’s famous Hurricane drinks from plastic traveler glasses. Music from half a dozen venues blared loudly enough to become a cacophony on the street as he drove. He shook his head.

  “Anyone would think you’re not a music lover,” Danni teased.

  “I am. That’s why this is overkill to me. I enjoyed seeing your friends—before the gunfire, the voodoo dancing and nearly getting killed in the bayou. If they keep playing regularly, your friend Brad said I can sit in with them sometime and play guitar.”

  She looked at him with wide eyes. “You’d do that?”

  “Uh, yes. Why does that surprise you?”

  She laughed. “I guess I never imagined you doing anything besides...well, hunting down a Renaissance funerary bust.”

  “Great. But remember I told you—I have family and friends. And life is precious.”

  “Yes, very much so,” she responded soberly.

  A few minutes later, the scenery seemed to underline that ideal as they passed areas that were still, after all the years gone by, a pile of wreckage from Katrina with signs of precious life few and far between.

  Then they reached Jenkins’s house. There was a patrol car in front, but the officer waved as Quinn drove up.

  Larue had kept his word.

  “So...you think the bust is still here?” Danni asked.

  “No, I don’t. But if don’t look, we can’t really be sure that it isn’t.”

  She nodded. She hadn’t seen the house before. She stared at it as they approached, Wolf close on their heels.

  A chalk outline in the shape of a body remained where Leroy had lain dying the night he’d gone there. Inside, they saw another to indicate the position in which Ivy had been found. There were little plastic numbers indicating blood spatters and other places where the forensic team had noticed possible evidence or clues.

  “We’re allowed to just...search?” Danni asked.

  “We are.” He paused as they walked inside. “It’s a life-size bust, so I doubt it could be stuffed in a small cranny. I also believe Shumaker’s had men in here—slipping past the patrols that have gone by. But we’ll look. We’ll see what we can see.”

  He began by surveying the living room, opening drawers, closing them, opening a closet, closing it.

  Leroy had been less than tidy.

  There was black powder on windowsills and doors, a leftover from the forensic crews’ attempt to lift prints. He avoided the powder. Danni went into one bedroom and he heard her going through closets and doors.

  They’d been there a few minutes, earnest in their endeavors, when Wolf started to scratch at the back door. Quinn hurried toward it, aware of Danni behind him.

  Out back, it looked as if a giant plow had gone over the ground.

  “I guess Brandt Shumaker’s men have been here,” Danni murmured.

  “Yep. Not a big surprise.”

  “So, if he’d buried the statue, they would’ve found it.”

  “I would think,” Quinn said.

  “Should we give up?”

  “Let’s look around awhile longer.”

  “Okay.”

  They turned and went back in. Quinn wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, but he couldn’t help feeling that something in the house would give them a clue as to what Leroy Jenkins would’ve done with his prize until he got his money—or negotiated for a higher amount.

  Danni disappeared into a bedroom. “This is pretty yucky, you know!” she called to him.

  “Yeah, old Leroy wasn’t much of a housekeeper. Neither was Ivy, I guess,” he called back.

  He looked through canisters in the kitchen. One held coffee; one held some pretty aromatic pot.

  “Quinn?”

  “Yeah?”

  He went into the back bedroom to join her. The bed was unmade with the sheets not even stretched over the mattress. Dirty towels lay in a corner. A dresser was laden with makeup and perfumes.

  “What did you find?”

  “Maybe nothing. The police searched here, so they must have figured it was just doodling or a piece of trash. What do you think this is?”

  She handed him a crumpled sheet of paper. It had a bunch of squiggly lines and a sketch that appeared to be an airplane drawn above a pile of squares. Between the airplane and the squares was an X.

  “I’m assuming the plane means the airport,” she said.

  “The squares might indicate the cemeteries,” Quinn added. “I-10 goes by this area, and Airline Drive, which goes to the airport. But there’s a line from the X toward the bayou. Hmm. You’ve got Greenwood Cemetery, Cypress Grove Cemetery—thousands of vaults and mausoleums. But after the cemeteries...”

  She pointed at the paper, tracing a line with her finger. “Heading toward the water, you have a few old house and mill ruins, some in better shape than others, but most of them abandoned.”

  “Let’s go,” he said decisively.

  “We’re going to search, vault by vault?” Her voice was incredulous. “Quinn, that could take days!”

  “Yeah. May as well get started.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard about letting the dead rest in peace?” she asked.

  “Not when we need the dead to give us a hand.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  EVEN HE HAD to admit that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, Quinn admitted hours later.

  Either that, or there were just too many dead in New Orleans.

  They couldn’t simply walk the rows and streets of the Cities of the Dead; he had to tap on tombs, watch for recent entombments and try to determine what a man like Leroy Jenkins would have done with a funerary bust.

  At least it was daytime. There were tourists thronging the cemeteries. There were also licensed guides all about, plus those who were visiting the tombs of their loved ones, and those who were curious and a bit morbid.

  That was good; he doubted they’d have trouble with crowds of visitors all around.

  But it was bad, too.

  He tried not to check iron gates and seals in front of people. Every once in a while, someone turned a corner when he wasn’t prepared, and he had to smile and make up something about a superstition.

  As he examined one vault where the seal was chipping, a couple turned onto their row or “street.”

  They scowled at Quinn with obvious disapproval.

  “Oh, this is the tomb of...” he said, quickly looking at the vault for a name.

  Danni was faster. “This is the DeMarie family tombs and chapel. It’s good luck to knock on it three times and say ‘Let the dead sleep, peaceful and deep,’” she invented on the spot.

  “Yo, wow, nice!” the man said with a heavy New York accent. “Honey, there’s nothing wrong with a little luck!” he announced to the woman at his side.

  Quinn and Danni left them at the vault, tapping and chanting.

  “We’re not getting anywhere, you realize,” Danni said.

  “Okay, Vic Brown stole the bust from a cemetery. He started shooting up his own gang members, and he wound up in jail. But he’d sold the bust to Hank Simon before that happened. Hank killed himself, and Gladys believed it was because of the bust. Gladys killed herself, and the bust was stolen again. By Leroy Jenkins. Then he was shot—and we now think that he hid the bust before he sold it. If it was stolen from a cemet
ery, kind of makes sense it would be hidden in a cemetery.”

  “We don’t have enough manpower to do this—just the two of us,” Danni said.

  “We can bring Billie in,” he suggested.

  “You know a lot of cops,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, but...”

  “But?”

  “Everyone who touches that thing becomes tainted somehow. Everyone we know who actually had it is dead—except for Vic Brown, and this is Louisiana. Death penalty state. If Vic’s attorney doesn’t convince a jury that he was mentally impaired, he’ll get a death sentence.”

  “And you think we’ll be safe from the bust?” Danni asked.

  “Let’s hope so,” he said. “But that means we have to find it.”

  “We can’t keep looking right now,” Danni told him. “You have a dog in the car, Quinn. We can’t keep him there for hours and hours. And, somehow, we have to narrow this down.”

  “I know,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “How?” he asked her. “Any ideas?”

  “Maybe some research on these cemeteries. Originally, the goodness of the family whose vault it ‘decorated’ here in New Orleans was supposed to help contain the bust’s evil,” Danni said.

  “That didn’t stop Vic Brown from stealing it.”

  “But it was dormant for a long time. Besides, what matters now is what Leroy believed, or what he thought would be safe. If we do some research, we may discover another such vault—or a mausoleum full of some kind of holy men or women. If we can get back to my computer—”

  And then his phone rang. He frowned, seeing the caller ID, and answered it immediately.

  “Quinn, I need to see you.” It was Father Ryan.

  “Okay,” Quinn said. Danni was looking at him with arched brows, waiting. “What is it?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “John—”

  “I’m a priest. I can’t break the sanctity of the confessional.”

  Quinn groaned. “John, you’re calling to ask me to come over—but you don’t plan to tell me anything?”

  “Just come. I’ll...I’ll figure out a way to give you the pertinent information without betraying a vow.” He was silent for a second. “Somehow,” he said.

  Danni was still watching him expectantly.

  “Wolf can get out of the car at our next destination,” Quinn said. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Church.”

  * * *

  Danni wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Father Ryan was, beyond a doubt, a good man.

  He’d invited them for lunch; he wasn’t saying much of anything. But after lunch had been served, he began to talk about shrimp boats and places out on the bayou.

  “We have incredible plantations along Plantation Row,” he said conversationally.

  “Yes, we do,” Quinn agreed. He was studying Ryan intently.

  “But, of course, the great houses that remain—especially cleaned up, with reenactors, tours, all that—are merely the tip of a once huge iceberg,” Father Ryan continued.

  Quinn leaned forward. “We could just play charades, you know,” he said.

  Father Ryan grinned at that. “People always think that plantation means Tara, right out of Gone with the Wind. As if a plantation had to have a massive and expensive mansion. Really, plantation meant farm. Back before the majority of the populace started moving into the cities, there were small plantations or farms all over the place. Naturally, they were on the river or a bayou that connected to the river, because you had to get your goods to market. There were all kinds of plantations. Big grand plantations owned by the rich—and smaller plantations that belonged to those who were just getting by. They could be really individual in style, too. You’ve both been to Oak Alley, right?”

  Danni smiled. “I think it’s illegal to claim you’re from this area if you haven’t been on a school bus out to Oak Alley.”

  “Gorgeous house, beautiful property, so much history.” Ryan nodded. “And the Creole plantation, Laura, is open now, too. Goes to show that, although they had similarities, these places were different. I mean, you can keep seeing more and more. San Francisco plantation is exquisite, but...I like the smaller plantations, not so grand, where you get to see how hard and heavy the work was—still is!—out on the cotton and produce farms.”

  Quinn murmured to Danni, “What the hell is he going on about?”

  Father Ryan poured them all more coffee. “Our rich history and diversity,” Father Ryan said. “And the fact that time can be brutal to houses and property. Time—and poverty, of course. Before the Civil War, there were rich houses, poor houses, great plantations, just plain old working plantations everywhere. Along the bayou, along the river. Some of the smaller of the old plantations are in ruins along the rivers and bayous now. And abandoned sugar mills, too. Why, they’re down dark trails, overgrown with foliage. Kind of like Natasha Laroche’s old shack out on the bayou, but on dry land.”

  Danni looked at Quinn. “He wants us to go back to the bayou area.”

  He nodded. “I think one of his parishioners confessed to something that happened in bayou country.”

  “I would never divulge words spoken in the confessional,” Father Ryan said.

  “No, because then he’d sound like a crackpot on speed,” Quinn muttered. “Not to cast aspersions on his flock or anything.”

  “Hey!” Danni protested. “He’s discussing history with us. He’s telling us there’s an old plantation house with an abandoned sugar mill. And something’s going on there.”

  Quinn rolled his eyes. “I presume this has to do with preventing a murder.”

  Father Ryan sighed with impatience. “If I knew there was going to be a murder, I’d call the police. All I learned is that one of my flock was tempted by something he heard while smoking dope at a crack house. I encouraged him to call the police. Because of my faith and my need to honor those who trust in my silence when they talk to me in the confessional, I can say no more. I’m counting on you not to be stupid, Quinn! Lord, what has happened to this boy?” he asked, gazing heavenward.

  “He’s talking about a lot of ground to cover,” Quinn said, “without being very specific.”

  “You have national preserves and wilderness,” Father Ryan said. “These wild zones give you an idea of what the Europeans first saw when they came to New Orleans to start building the French Quarter. Why, right near Bayou Sauvage there’s land that is still privately held, although no development has gone on in decades. You have ruins in that area. Ruins of old homes—on sugar plantations destroyed by floods and storms through the years, in different stages of neglect. Developers buy up a lot of this property, hoping the levees will hold, that the water will be diverted and one day they’ll be worth building up again.”

  Quinn took the paper they’d found in Leroy Jenkins’s house out of his pocket. He traced the X mark from the cemetery with one finger and turned to Danni. “This could be the Bayou Sauvage area.”

  “And it wouldn’t be really big because so much of it is part of the national wildlife refuge. That means nothing else is too close. It’s far out in the swamp area where people aren’t wandering around at night,” Danni said.

  He brought the paper to Father Ryan.

  “Father, do—”

  Father Ryan lifted his hand, looking away. “It’s easy for people to become disenfranchised with the church—to see the bad in the world, feel the everywhere pain and lose faith. When you lose faith, you begin to look for something to believe in. So you start listening to the newest faith healer out on the market. Doesn’t matter what brand they’re offering, as long as there’s some reward. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter what the price is to join. I think you two should go exploring tomorrow and see what you can find. Tomorrow!�
�� he stressed, turning to Danni. “You should always have a good dog with you. Dogs can often see and hear what we don’t. And God knows what kind of reptiles you could run into, so you really want to be armed. Danni, you can shoot?”

  “I have held and shot a gun,” she said.

  He shook his head. “That doesn’t mean you can shoot. Quinn, get her to a shooting range and get her something she can manage without shooting her own feet.”

  “All right,” Quinn said carefully.

  “Do it now,” Father Ryan told him. “She should know how to handle a gun by Saturday night.”

  Two nights away, Danni thought. Something was going to happen—or Father Ryan believed something was going to happen—out on private land near the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge.

  “Now,” Father Ryan repeated. “Go, shoo...get on it.”

  “Thanks for the hospitality,” Quinn said.

  “Sure.”

  With Wolf trotting obediently behind them, they left. As they did, Quinn looked up at the sky. “Night is coming on soon. Not a great time for cemeteries or the bayou.”

  “But there are lights at shooting ranges,” Danni said.

  They went by Quinn’s house first, leaving the dog for a few hours. He produced a gun for her and explained how it worked. She’d gone skeet shooting a time or two with friends, but couldn’t have identified the make or model of the gun she’d used.

  “This is a Glock 22. The bullets are hollow point—they don’t rust. It carries fifteen shots and it’s used by law enforcement agencies around the globe. Handle it, get to know it, become familiar with the safety. Never point that gun at anyone unless you’re ready to pull the trigger.”

  The only two guns she could recognize were the British Brown Bess and an ancient flintlock in her father’s collection that had last been fired in 1715.

  Quinn chose a range on Lafayette Street in nearby Gretna. He taught her how to draw and how to aim. He warned her that most times speed was of the essence. He impressed her with his accuracy and his steadiness—and with his dead-straight aim.

  She couldn’t begin to compare with his accuracy, and she was surprised when he seemed satisfied with her progress.