by John Moore
“No wonder he’s back in New Orleans. He’s not worried about us. But it doesn’t make sense for him to come after me unless he wants to get into the drug and prostitution business in the city. And why would he team up with Bart Rogan?”
I went back downstairs to make an appointment with Mr. Swartz. It worked out well because he could see us tomorrow morning. Maybe he had some idea what ACC was up to. I knew it was connected to Rogan some way.
We steamed broccoli and cauliflower and poured a Cajun sauce over the mixture, opened a bottle of wine, and sat out on the balcony. The evening air was fresh, and a slight breeze cooled us while we enjoyed watching the passing crowd and the neon lights of the Quarter. I thought about how nice it was going to be to have this instant entertainment 365 days a year. “This’ll be great when we’re two old coots in our rocking chairs,” I said.
“Don’t even, Alexandra Lee. We’re not even married yet.”
I smiled. I loved hearing that word on his tongue.
Chapter Thirteen:
All Together
Mornings in the Quarter were a magical time. I let Tom and Piper sleep while I drank coffee sitting on my Bourbon Street balcony. New Orleans resembled a sleepy Southern town when the sun first peekedits head up to start another day. Most of the partiers had surrendered to their beds, either by themselves, with a partner, or with their pounding heads. Deliverymen came and went, restocking the bars for the booze-fueled nights. The normal sounds of jazz, blues, and Zydeco hibernated till the crowds arrived later in the morning. The cool air supported a homeless man’s undisturbed sleep in a doorway of a closed souvenir shop across the street. Early mornings were a pause in the action allowing a reset before it all began again.
Morning was quiet time for me to enjoy simple pleasures like coffee and casual reading. It was also a time to plan my wedding. I was taking the enormous step into marriage. Shouldn’t I be nervous? Yet it felt natural and easy, and that is what I wanted the ceremony to be. I preferred a smaller more intimate setting at the Aquarium of the Americas to rented banquet halls and gargantuan churches. The aquarium reflected Tom and me, a simple place surrounded by the animals he loved, in the French Quarter we both loved, joined by the people who loved us. What type of wedding dress would I wear? I had no idea. Thank God I had a friend like Charlotte, who would help me figure it out and make the right choice.
Piper joined me on the balcony, wearing a sleep-is-overrated expression on her face. “Piper, you look like you didn’t sleep last night. Sleep is important at every age but even more important to teenagers.”
She poked her bottom lip out and said, “I went to bed at ten but tossed and turned, so I finally gave up and got out of bed. I got on the web, Alexandra, and another person was murdered in the French Quarter last night. I had a hard time going to sleep after that.”
“Damn!” I felt a tremor of fear—when would this stop?—then pulled myself together. “Piper, I’m sorry to hear that, but you have to get your sleep,” I said. “Did you look in the mirror this morning? You have dark circles and bags under your eyes. Sleep is crucial to your body and brain’s development. We may have to restrict Internet access to no later than nine during the week. On weekends, we can extend it to ten but no later.”
“Alexandra, that sucks. I promise I’ll do better. I’ll make certain I get at least eight hours sleep every night. Will that work?”
“Yes, that’s perfect,” I said, and then my inner Lois Lane took over. “Now, tell me about the latest murder.”
“There wasn’t much information about it on the web. No reports have been logged into the main police server,” she said.
Piper’s words stunned me. “What? Did you hack into the New Orleans Police Department central computer server, Piper?” I asked.
She hesitated for a moment, knowing she’d already incriminated herself.“Uhh, maybe.”
“Piper, you can’t do things like that,” I said. “Hacking into police servers will get you arrested. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should.” I fought against the approving smile that was battling to occupy my face. “Did you find out anything about the murder?”
Once again she hesitated. I knew what that meant; she’d hacked someone else’s server or cell phone, but I needed to know what she’d learned. Jess was counting on me to write a piece about the murders, and I had to have facts. “OK, Piper, you might as well tell me. You’ve already done whatever it is you don’t want to tell me. So, what did you find out?”
“OK, but don’t be mad at me,” she said in a small voice. “I found out some things on the coroner’s computers. This latest victim was a young girl about nineteen years old. Her head was shaved and she was dumped in an alley. Her body was in a bag. There was a nursery rhyme typed on a small piece of beige stationery neatly folded in the left front pocket of her jeans.”
I covered my gaping mouth with my right hand. “Oh no, do they know who she was?”
Piper continued, “According to the coroner’s report, her clothes were dirty and worn. She’d not had a bath in days based on the coroner’s assessment of the smell of her body. His conclusion was she was homeless. She didn’t have any ID. The nursery rhyme printed on the paper read:
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir;
Three bags full:
One for the master,
And one for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
“All of this information came from a preliminary report. Those were the only details.”
“‘Ba Ba Black Sheep nursery rhyme in her pocket with her hair shaved off. That is weird,” I said. “Was there anything in the report about voodoo?”
“Not really, except the report said the cause of death was a puncture of the brain by a long sharp object like a small circumference needle,” Piper said.
I remembered what Dusty said about a pin stuck through the last victim’s head from ear to ear. “Could it have been a voodoo pin stuck through the girl’s ear?”
“Voodoo pins are usually short. They wouldn’t be long enough to go through a person’s brain from ear to ear,” Piper said. “They are much smaller and not very strong. The murder weapon must have been more like a doctor’s needle.”
Voodoo needles are small but so are voodoo dolls, I thought. Maybe voodoo was involved and the scale of the needle grew with the size of the victim. Mandy Morris and Bob Broussard sprung to mind. These murders had to be connected to them some way. First of all, they started when Bob broke out of the hospital, and second, the rituals felt like a voodoo connection. But what about the nursery rhyme? I wondered how that was connected to Bob and Mandy. I didn’t know the answers, but getting to the bottom of these murders was my mission.
I picked up my phone and called Mandy. “Hi, Mandy, this is Alexandra. I’ve re-visited our last conversation and would like to hear more about your plans for Superior Sugar. I don’t think I listened to your beliefs about voodoo with an open mind either, so I’d like to learn more about why you are committed to practicing it. Would you have coffee with me tomorrow morning at the Café du Monde?”
Mandy responded with hesitation, “Sure, Alexandra, tomorrow morning would be fine. Would you like to bring Piper?”
I took a moment before I answered her. Why would she want Piper to come with me? My intuition told me to play along. “I’m not sure she can make it, Mandy. She and Tom might have plans.”
When I hung up with Mandy, Piper’s mouth had turned down and her sleepy eyes were large, round, and pouty. “Why did you tell her I might have plans with Tom? I want to go with you.”
“Just being protective,” I said. “Mandy and I were meeting to talk about Superior Sugar, and our last conversation was about her voodoo beliefs. I couldn’t understand why she wanted you to come to a meeti
ng like that. I’m worried she might have some hidden agenda. With all of the evil ones in town, I think we need to be cautious.”
“Alexandra, we will be meeting at the Café du Monde in the bright sunlight with people all around. It’ll be safe. I want to find out what Mandy knows about the murders too.”
She was right. We would be safe at the café in the morning. If Mandy were involved in the murders, she wouldn’t try anything there. Piper could help me get to the bottom of these murders, and I might as well accept the fact that she was not a normal teenager. She had exceptional skills and a curious mind like me. I would have insisted on going when I was her age too, and I’d have found a way to get there.
“OK. You can come,” I said. “But no more hacking into government computers, young lady.”
Piper flashed me one of her impish smiles that meant her need to know would get the best of her willpower. If I had her skills, I’d do the same. Without even consciously trying, Piper and I were becoming an awesome investigative team. Maybe I should let her help me uncover the mystery behind the new killer loose in the French Quarter. The sooner he was caught, the sooner we’d all be safe. It was time for me to stop treating her like a baby. She’d managed to take care of herself in a rough environment before we met, so she’d earned the right to be independent.
“Piper, you can join Mandy and me tomorrow morning,” I said. “I need your help to figure out who’s committing these murders.”
Piper jumped up and placed a kiss on my cheek. “Alexandra, you are the best. Mandy is a little weird, but I like her anyway.”
“Me too, Piper, me too,” I said. “Now, go get your shower so you can come with me to see my lawyer.”
I wondered what ACC had up their sleeve. They were pushing back on the remediation of the farmland for a reason other than costs. When they first offered to rid the well and land of contamination they had a fairly good idea of the expense they were facing. I felt like their change of heart had to do with something other than money. So, when Piper and I sat in Mr. Swartz’s conference room, I peppered him with questions.
“I remember ACC agreeing to the cleanup of the entire farm. Why are they balking now? Did they send another expert to look at the land? Did they tell you what the costs would be? How can we force them to do what they agreed to do?”
“Whoa, slow down, Alexandra,” Mr. Swartz said. “There are some new developments that I need to tell you about. They didn’t just agree to clean up your farm. As you remember, they also agreed to remediate the other four farms as well. During their work on the other farms, they discovered chemicals from other companies. They’ve taken the position that removing the contamination from those chemicals wasn’t their responsibility.”
I could feel my temperature begin to rise. Anger rose from the pit of my stomach to the roots of my hair. I knew their explanation was their latest attempt at avoidingresponsibility. “How in the hell can they take that position? Are the chemicals mixed together? Won’t removing one remove all?”
Mr. Swartz scratched his head and thought a minute before he answered. “I’m afraid I have no idea how to answer those questions. Maybe we can get your remediation expert on the phone to provide some answers.”
We called Jason and put him on speakerphone. Swartz briefed him on ACC’s position and asked him his opinion. “I can speak with authority about Alexandra’s property. I have no knowledge of the others. I’ve taken core soil samples and analyzed the soil. ACC is correct about other pollution on the property. Oil companies have been fracking land near Alexandra’s land. Some of the chemicals they use in the fracking operation were in the soil analyzed.”
“Jason, if I understand what you are saying correctly, the fracking chemicals infiltrated the land after the chemicals from the pesticides and herbicides. Are they mixed together so that removing one removes the other?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” Jason responded. “But there’s more to the story. ACC makes the fracking chemicals too. They manufacture them under another company name, but they own that company. Either way you look at it, they are responsible for the contamination.”
“Those bastards are stalling for some reason,” I said.
Swartz took notes as he listened to Jason’s opinion. “Mr. Crawford, would you please put your factual findings and your opinion in writing and send it to me? I would prefer it be in a letter on your company’s letterhead.”
“Not a problem,” Jason said. “You should have it in your inbox within an hour.”
We hung up with Jason. Mr. Swartz breathed deeply and sighed. “They are indeed slippery devils. But once I have Mr. Crawford’s letter, I’ll be able to force them to remediate the entire farm. That is, unless they want to incur more expenses and legal fees battling us. They will surely lose and theirsuit will bring attention to the destructive nature of their fracking chemicals. They would be misguided to maintain their position.”
Piper listened to Mr. Swartz with a puzzled look on her face. Finally, she spoke. “Does that mean they’ve got to get off their asses and get the job done?”
Swartz chuckled, “Yes, ma’am, it does.”
We left Mr. Swartz’s office to head back to the condo. We had to ready the guest room for Maddy and Zach. They would be arriving in a couple of hours. God, I loved our French Quarter home. We had lots of room and the setting was exquisite. Piper and I sat on the balcony to watch the parade of people walk up and down Bourbon Street. We had the best people-watching seats in town.
Tom stayed at the condo while Piper and I went to the airport to get Maddy and Zach. The afternoon traffic was atrocious as usual, but we managed to inch our way along. Finally, we swung through baggage claim and they were waiting for us, both looking so healthy. Zach had come a long way since the night he was nearly beaten to death by El Alacran’s men, and Maddy looked radiant. Farm life definitely agreed with them.
On our way to the condo, Swartz called and I put him on the speaker so we could all hear him speak. “It seems ACC has had a change of heart. They are willing to allow the remediation to go forward. I had their attorneys and company representatives and Jason Crawford on a conference call a few minutes ago and they have agreed to place the money for the entire operation in my trust account so the work can begin.”
“Whoo-hoo,” Maddy yelled. “We can go back to the farm soon then.”
“That’s great news, Mr. Swartz,” I said. “Thank you.”
A surge of excitement bubbled inside me as I drove from the airport back to the condo to tell Tom the good news. I stopped on the way to pick up a couple of bottles of wine to add a little spice to our celebration. Tom was cooking shrimp tonight and we were going to party.
We would seize the opportunity to eat on the balcony with paper plates in our laps. Who wanted to be stuck indoors on such a beautiful night? There would be a full moon visible in the clear night sky. Neon lights would be flashing all over Bourbon Street summoning people into bars to drink New Orleans style. Some would not remember much of what they did this night, many would regret it, but most just wouldn’t give a shit. The only certainty was that everyone would have a great time and the bars wouldn’t run out of booze.
We were back on track with our plans.
Chapter Fourteen:
New Plan
Tom was waiting with shrimp peeled, deveined, and ready to cook when we got home. I brought him up to speed about what was happening at the farm. Tom had learned about hazardous waste remediation at LSU in addition to practicing it at his job. He called Jason and asked him to describe the scope and duration of the job. Once he had a handle on the job timeline in Indiana, he knew where we should direct our efforts.
When he joined us on the balcony his brow was furrowed, and he had a serious look on his face. “Jason told me more about what we are looking at to remediate the farm. The pollution from the fracking is widespread, so it will take months to complete
the job. That’s if the weather holds and he’s able to put enough men and equipment on the job. The good news is the farm is getting new soil, but the bad news is that it will take a while.”
We all realized that Maddy and Zach would not be able to get fall crops planted before the winter snow covered the land. Idle hands were not a recovering drug addict’s friend, and I knew from my youthful years on the farm there’s little to do in the winter except stay indoors and stay warm. A long winter trapped inside was an incubator for bad habits. Some people did drugs or stayed drunk to pass the time, while others knitted afghans the size of Texas.I didn’t take Zach for the afghan-knitting type. It dawned on me that ACC had stalled us to stop us from getting a fall crop planted. They were at it again. I don’t know how they knew about our plans to create an organic food movement, but somehow they did. I could feel it in my bones. We were going to have to battle them at every turn.
“That sucks,” Zach said. “We made so much progress getting the farm ready to plant. There won’t be much for Maddy and I to do in Indiana. Jason doesn’t need us to do the remediation. He has an experienced crew.”
I could see Maddy drumming her fingers on the balcony table and kicking her foot back and forth as she listened to Zach. She knew he needed to keep busy and New Orleans wasn’t the best place for him right now. Damn those ACC bastards. I’d bet a dollar to a donutthat Bart Rogan was right in the middle of it all.
“One of the guys at work said he knew of some land in LaPlace that might be available to farm,” Tom said. “If we could lease it, we could start farming here in Louisiana. That way we could learn while the farm in Indiana was being cleaned.”
“Where would we live if we were able to farm that land?” Maddy asked.
I looked at Tom and he nodded at me. “If you don’t mind being a little cozy, you can stay in the room you’re in right now,” I said.
