And at last he found it. There was a death certificate for Celine Toussaint, who had died in Pierre's St. Ann Street house in 1787. From the ship's record, they knew Celine was twenty-five in 1699.
She died at a hundred and thirteen, Brian thought to himself. That means Pierre gave her the elixir too. He explained that to Kathy and asked if she could find out where Celine was buried.
She pulled up the plot plan for St. Louis Cemetery and searched for Celine's lot number. She found it, jotted it down and said, "Let's go see her tomb! Lots of those old vaults have inscriptions that provide more information."
At the gate, she showed an identification badge to the guard and he let them pass. They made the twists and turns down narrow lanes and came to the now-familiar Duplanchier mausoleum. She looked at the stately vaults on each side and carefully reread the lot number she'd written down.
"Is it around here?" Brian asked.
"It's supposed to be, but I don't see it. Maybe she's in the bottom one - there's no marker on it." She knelt, looked inside the open vault on the bottom, and pulled out the piece of paper Eve had left.
"Justine Quantin who died in 2017? Isn't she the one you said was Pierre's daughter who hated him?"
"Have you ever seen the old woman in a long black dress who walks the streets of the Quarter? According to Oliver, she was Justine. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's her body back there in that cloth bag."
Kathy looked at him in shock. "What are you saying? No, wait. Let's finish what we came for. The problem here is that Celine's burial plot is the same number as Pierre's mausoleum, but there are only three vaults here - his, Felicite's and the one on the bottom where you say Justine is. Where's Celine's body?" She walked around the tomb and examined each side. She went to the back and then called out to Brian.
"Here's her inscription. Let me translate it." She wiped dirt from the marble and looked at the faded letters etched into the back of Pierre's mausoleum. She began to understand now.
Celine Toussaint, citizen of Haiti, beloved of P. and devoted mother to F. Died 1787. Rest in peace.
"Do you understand why there are abbreviations?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"We run across this type of inscription frequently. There was a caste system in those days. Servants didn't mix socially with their masters, but sometimes emotions and passion overcame civility and tradition. There are countless examples of high-society people whose servants bore their children. Thomas Jefferson was one of the most prominent. What this inscription means is that Celine was P's beloved and the mother of F. Her beloved - Pierre - is buried right here. His first wife, Anne Saucier, wasn't Felicite's mother after all. Felicite was the illegitimate daughter of Pierre and Celine. After Anne died in 1698, they brought the child to New Orleans and I imagine Celine raised Felicite in Pierre's house."
"Are you saying she's buried here too? Where’s her body?"
"She isn't buried here and I have no idea where her body is. When people inscribed the sides of tombs, those were "in memory of" epitaphs. The people being memorialized were important to the family whose tomb their name was on. Most would have been faithful servants and they were never buried with their masters. My question is why the cemetery records show this as her burial place when clearly it wasn't."
"Maybe they put her body in with Pierre's."
"That couldn't happen. There isn't room for two and they wouldn't have removed her body so soon after her death to accommodate his. Most importantly, her inscription would have been on the front, not the back. She isn't buried here. Here's what I think happened. The Duplanchier mausoleum was built years before Pierre's death. It sat empty, awaiting the first Duplanchier's arrival. When Celine died in 1787, Pierre wrote a memorial to her on the back of the tomb but buried her somewhere else - maybe even in the Creole section of this cemetery. He died twelve years later and was the first person buried in this vault. Someone recording burials misread her memorial as an interment and the record's been wrong ever since."
They both came away with far more information than when the day had started. Kathy Sullivan had learned things about voodoo that she wasn't sure she believed. Brian had discovered how the Toussaints and the Duplanchiers were intertwined. Now he knew Oliver's secrets.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The next morning as he worked in Oliver's office, he heard a muffled sound from the showroom. "Betty?" he called, but she didn't answer. He walked out and saw her sitting in an overstuffed chair and looking distraught.
"Are you all right?"
Looking as if she'd seen a ghost, she tried to gasp an answer but couldn't. She pointed across the room at the piece where Oliver had hidden the books and the cross. Its glass doors were open and someone was rummaging around inside. He couldn't see the person from this angle, so he zigzagged across the floor, arriving just as the intruder turned around. Now he knew why Betty was speechless. It was a ghost.
"Oliver?" The man looked as if he'd been living on the streets. His clothes, always perfect in every way, now were rumpled and stained. His hair was a tangled mess and there was a stubbly growth of beard. "My God, Oliver! What happened?"
"Where's the cross, Brian? You took it out of here. Where is it?" His voice was an odd monotone.
"Oliver! How in the world ..."
"You moved it. Give it to me." He was a different person - cold and aggressive, with a distant look in his eyes.
"Certainly. Of course. Come on back to the office and let's talk."
Oliver followed Brian through the showroom. As he passed in front of Betty, she recoiled in shock, a combination of seeing him alive again and at his disheveled appearance. Although he saw her, he didn't acknowledge the woman with whom he'd worked closely for years. Brian closed the door and gestured for Oliver to sit in his old place behind the desk. He immediately pulled out the drawer and opened the secret compartment. He saw that it was empty and slammed the drawer shut.
"I gave you everything! Give me the cross!"
"Oliver, what's going on? I thought you were dead. Everyone did. How ..."
His eyes were ablaze with anger. Brian had never seen him like this. Not only was he shocked to see that his friend was alive, Oliver's attitude and demeanor were alarming.
"I want to help ..."
"Then give it to me! If you don't ..." Oliver paused.
"What? What are you saying?"
"Give me the cross or Nicole will never wake up."
Brian was shocked and angry. He'd known Oliver for years. He'd been the beneficiary of Oliver's generosity and had already decided to buy his family's beloved gallery. He'd mourned the death of a man he appreciated and admired. And now that man was sitting in front of him - seemingly the same man but different in every way from the kind, reserved, refined individual who had been his friend.
"What do you have to do with Nicole?" he yelled. "You can have the goddamned cross. I couldn't care less. It's brought nothing but grief to me. But I want Nicole back first, you bastard. How could you ..."
"I didn't," he replied, his voice more even and quiet now. "I had nothing to do with it. Eve did it, but I know how to wake her up."
"What are you talking about? None of this makes any sense. She killed you ... at least that's what you made people believe. You lied to everyone."
"You don’t understand. You just don't understand. I tried to warn you over and over. I told you Eve was a voodoo queen. I told you she was dangerous."
"But you sent me to Guatemala. You knew she'd be there, didn't you? You sent me there to get the cross."
"She would never have given it to me herself, and she would never have shared the elixir. She's a demon. She's the devil's handmaiden. She thought she could kill me, but I outsmarted her. I'm alive because I countered her spell."
"What are you saying? Are you saying you're ... like her? Are you like your grandmother Celine too? Are you a priest yourself? How old are you, Oliver? A hundred? Two?"
He ignored the ques
tions and said curtly, "Where's the cross? Give it to me and I'll tell you everything you want to know."
He went to Oliver's cluttered rolltop desk, opened one of its drawers and pulled out the box, tossing it to him. "Here you go."
Oliver looked inside, sighed wearily and said, "I'm sorry I ever brought you and Nicole into this."
"Just get her out of it," Brian snapped. He'd had enough. This wasn't his friend Oliver. This was someone else; it took a desperate man to stoop this low.
"I can do it right now. Where is she, and who's with her?"
"She's at a private treatment facility in Dallas and her mother's there. What do you mean you can do it now?"
Oliver told Brian to call Nicole's mother. He told her to hold the phone close to Nicole's ear. Then he began to chant foreign words in a singsong voice. He stopped and handed the phone to Brian.
"Oh God!" he heard her mother say. "Nicole, honey, it's me! Oh God, she's awake! She's awake! Honey, it's Brian on the phone! Talk to her, Brian!"
Nicole's voice was weak, but it was her, thank God. As they talked, he heard the door open and close behind him. Oliver must have stepped out to give him privacy. He cried and she cried as he told her he loved her and he would leave immediately and he'd be home to see her tonight.
Wiping tears away, he walked out of the office. Betty was sitting at her desk and she was crying too.
"Where is he?"
"He simply walked out. He stared right through me without saying a word. What's wrong with him? How can he be here, alive? He seems so different ..."
Brian didn’t hear her. He was running through the showroom, dodging furniture and banging his shins in a mad dash to the front door. He burst out onto the sidewalk and looked both ways, but it was too late. Oliver was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The slip of paper read, "I'll give you the cross. Come to the levee at the Governor Nicholls Street wharf at eleven tonight."
Eve didn't know when Brian had put the note through the mail slot in the front door of her house, but she was elated that at last he'd decided to accept her offer. She really did intend to bring Nicole out of her coma once she had her powers back. Unless he double-crossed her, that is. Any tricks on Brian Sadler's part and his new wife would never awaken.
She wrapped herself in a shawl for the walk from her house to the wharf. It was only a few blocks to where Ursulines dead-ended at the river, and the dock was deserted tonight. She passed huge shipping containers that had been offloaded and stacked in neat rows. As she walked along the pier, the darkness was broken by occasional circles from floodlights and she could hear the river lapping somewhere below. At last she saw a dim light flash in front of her. Someone had turned on and off a cellphone. She was a little frightened to be here; there were stories of drug deals and the occasional murder in this area, but perhaps she could still perform small spells. She might be able to incapacitate an assailant long enough to get away.
"Mr. Sadler?" she called out as she approached a figure standing in the dark.
"Sorry to disappoint you."
She stepped back in amazement as Oliver Toussaint walked to her side. She raised her hand and pointed a finger.
"My dear, I wouldn't do that," he said quietly. "I actually do have the cross and I do intend to give it to you."
"Why? How is this possible ..."
"How is it possible that you caused me to commit suicide, yet I live? Do you remember once when you said my family was old New Orleans but yours was far older? You said your family came when New Orleans was founded. Well, I have a surprise for you. There was a Toussaint on Jean-Baptiste le Moyne's boat that left Haiti and came here in 1699. Your grandfather and my great-great-great-grandmother were shipmates.
"My family was into voodoo too. I have the same powers you do. I'm alive because I countered your spell that night on the bridge. Yes, I jumped, but I had a spell to protect me. Do you want to know something even more interesting? We're related. Your half-sister, Felicite, is my great-great-grandmother. You've always believed her mother was Pierre's first wife, Anne Saucier, but that's not true. Her mother was old Pierre's eighteen-year-old servant Celine Toussaint."
She was stunned. Could this be true? Could her mother's half-sister - her aunt Felicite - be the result of her grandfather's affair with a servant?
"Why are you telling me all this, and why are you willing to give me the cross? Oh, I understand now. You want me to wake Brian Sadler's wife like I promised him I would."
He began to laugh but started coughing, something that had plagued him since he went into the river. "I don't need you for that. She's awake; I did it myself."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want the elixir. I'm the one who replaced the potion in your little bottle with water. I have that small bit, but it's not enough to last me until I decide to die. Your family had the Black Cross and mine hated yours because of it. Your ancestors had the power to prolong life, but they refused to share it with others. My ancestors were into voodoo just like the Laveaus, but only your wretched family had the magic potion. I've heard tales of how my relatives tried to steal the recipe, but it wouldn't have mattered, would it? Only the Duplanchiers knew how to interpret what was inscribed on the cross. And since no one else had the ingredients, no one else could create the potion. I'll give you the cross, but I want you to make enough elixir to last me until I'm done here on earth."
This is all he wants? She was elated. "Done! I'll give it to you."
"Not so fast. You tried to kill me. I’m not letting you take the cross with you."
"Come back to the house with me. Now. I'll make it and we can share it."
"That would be fine. And now for the cross. It's right over there." He pointed to something lying on top of a concrete post at the edge of the long pier a few feet away. Just on the other side of the post was the blackness of the Mississippi River.
It was so dark she couldn't see it at first and she wondered if it was a trick, but then she closed her hand around the cross. At last! She didn't realize that Oliver was now next to her, just on the edge of the pier. He raised his hand, extended his index finger and began reciting Creole words. She felt a spine-tingling chill as she realized what was happening.
Like her, he too was a master of the dark arts, but from the resolve in his face she could tell this wasn't about the elixir. He was trying to atone for the wrongs he'd committed against his friends.
"You ... you ..." She tried to scream, but the words caught in her throat. Something was constricting her chest like a vise. She raised her hand toward him, sucked in as much air as possible and started chanting a spell of her own.
Clutching the cross tightly, she fell backwards into the river without knowing if her witchery against him had succeeded.
Seconds later there was another splash.
_____
This time there was no story on the evening news about a drowning in the river. Police never investigated Yvette Frere's disappearance because no one reported her missing. When she didn't come home after several days, Marcel presumed she had met her match at last. It happened to those who thought they were superior to others, and like her mother had been before her, Eve was the high priestess of egotism. He was perfectly satisfied to be alone in the old house now, free from the two bitches who had lived here for all his eighty-seven years. It was quiet and he was happy.
Weeks later a decomposing torso was discovered by fishermen. It had swept up onto the base of a levee in Bayou Sauvage, southeast of New Orleans. The body would ultimately be determined to be that of a female in her seventies or eighties. Thanks to the work of the alligators that inhabit the swampy area, there wasn't enough to identify her.
There had been two splashes in the water that night, but a second body would never be found. Perhaps the creatures in the river had done a better job on that one.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Once two months passed since the day he last saw Oliver, Brian resigned hims
elf to the fact that his friend wouldn't be back. Oliver had supposedly died but suddenly he reappeared to get the Black Cross. He understood that part - Brian had seen the Toussaint family records, so he wasn't surprised to learn that Oliver was ensnarled in voodoo just as his predecessors had been. He had been a crazed individual when Brian last saw him. He'd broken Nicole's spell, thank God, but then he had vanished.
Brian told Betty what he had learned about voodoo and Oliver's connection to it, and they decided not to tell the police about his reappearance. What could they say? There was nothing but their claim that a missing man had come back, and there were only questions with no answers. Where did he go after he jumped off the bridge? Why would he return just to get an old cross? Had he really returned? If so, where was he now?
Brian also wondered about what happened to Eve Frere. He'd met her and sent her away without the cross, telling her she had to wake Nicole to get it. For some reason, Eve had also disappeared. The only explanation he could think of was that somehow she and Oliver had been allies and that he had given it to her. Would she enter his life again - perhaps someday as an old crone walking the streets of the French Quarter like her mother had done?
The books and coins from Haiti were deemed authentic by experts. The coins were minted between 1475 and 1495, which tallied perfectly with Columbus's expedition. The logbook was determined to be a previously unknown third copy of Columbus's original, dating to the 1530s. The Duplanchier journals - the one Brian bought and the second that Oliver already had - were of no great value. Their significance was that they were a window into that family's early history.
Brian was working on a documentary about Christopher Columbus that would run on History in December, marking five hundred and twenty-five years since the Santa Maria was shipwrecked on Christmas Eve 1492. After the filming was done, he planned to return the coins and Columbus's logbook to the National Museum of Haiti. The director was willing to accept the historic items along with a significant donation from Brian to build a secure, humidity-controlled place to display them. The Duplanchier journals would be put on permanent loan to the private museum run by Kathy Sullivan, who had been such a help when he was looking for information on the family. In that way, they could be made available to others who wanted to learn more of the strange history of New Orleans.
The Black Cross (Brian Sadler Archaeological Thrillers Book 6) Page 20
