Possession

by Tori Carrington

  I can’t believe he did this to me again. I mean, how many times is a girl supposed to be stood up before she gets the hint?

  Akela read through the remainder of the entry. While it was apparent the subject was a man she’d been dating for an unspecified period of time, there was no mention of a name. Instead Claire had used words like the jerk to describe him.

  She turned a few pages.

  ‘C’ told me he asked his wife for a divorce today.

  Akela frowned at the use of an initial rather than a full name. She checked out the date noted at the top of the page. Two weeks ago.

  So Claire had been dating a married man she called ‘C.’

  “Anything interesting?” Joann asked, bringing in two cups of hot steaming water from the kitchen along with a small box of tea selections.

  “Maybe.”

  Akela sat down opposite her and chose a tea, putting the bag in to steep. “Have you read this?”

  Joann shook her head as she selected her own tea. “No. I mean, I thought about it, but something creeped me out about the whole thing, you know, now that she’s dead.”

  Akela nodded. “I agree.”

  “You probably have to do stuff like this all the time, though, don’t you? I mean, go through dead people’s stuff.”

  Akela had never really looked at her job that way. “Sometimes.”

  She got that feeling of being watched again and fought a shiver, even though the room was warm.

  She put the journal down on the coffee table and then went about taking the bag out of her tea. “You wouldn’t happen to have come across Claire’s address book or anything, would you?”

  Joann shook her head. “No. I think she might have had it in her purse or something. Maybe her mom got her personal stuff from the hospital or something.”

  “Maybe.” She crossed her legs. “Did Claire happen to mention anyone, a guy whose name may have begun with a C?”

  Joann appeared to think about it. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Do you have a phone here?”

  “You can use my cell if you want.”

  “No hard line?”

  “No. Both Claire and I used our cell phones, so what’s the point?”

  What was the point indeed? She wondered if there were any old cell phone bills in the boxes and guessed that anything that was Claire’s would be in there. Joann struck her as a thorough person.

  “God, what am I going to with that stuff?” Joann said. “I have a girl coming by this afternoon to take a look at the room.”

  Akela blew on her tea and took a sip. “I could probably take the boxes off your hands if you want.”

  Joann looked at her hopefully. “Could you really? I mean, I’d have to call her mother and let her know you have them, not that I think she’d care. She said something like, ‘What the hell do you want me to do with them?’ when I told her about the boxes.”

  “No problem. I can put them in the mail after I’m done with them.”

  “Oh, that would be so great!”

  Silence settled between them as they pretended interest in their tea.

  Then Joann asked, “Is it true what they say? You know, about dead people talking?”

  Akela lifted the journal. “In this case, it appears to be true. And Claire has a lot to say.”

  She only hoped there was something in there that would help clear Claude’s name.

  15

  AKELA HEFTED the last of the boxes into the trunk of her plain agency sedan and thanked Joann Bennett for her help. She stood for a long moment, watching as the young woman returned to her apartment then closed the door.

  In her job as agent, she’d been exposed to many interesting situations, today’s circumstances ranking low on the list, but nonetheless unusual. Joann Bennett had seemed virtually unconcerned that her roommate had been murdered. Akela supposed part of her behavior might have to do with the mentality shared by many, that since it had happened to Claire, the odds of something similar happening again so close to home were slim.

  Still, Akela couldn’t help feeling concerned on Joann’s behalf. She knew victims were chosen for their denial abilities. And Bennett was not that unlike, say, a waitress at a strip joint who decided to walk home late at night thinking she didn’t have anything to worry about, not thinking about the fact that a potential rapist could be following on her heels.

  She closed the trunk then let herself into the car, putting Claire’s journal in the backseat. Of course, her own sense of danger came from the feeling she, herself, was being watched lately. It didn’t matter what time of the day or night, there, just under her skin, was the unmistakable sense that she wasn’t alone no matter where she was.

  Akela checked her cell phone then started the engine.

  Someone opened the passenger door.

  Akela automatically reached for her firearm, then looked over.

  “Claude!” She retracted her hand, but found the traitorous limb shaking. “I wouldn’t do that again unless you’re after a piece of lead.”

  He climbed inside to sit on the passenger’s seat, closed the door then nodded toward the street. “It would probably be a good idea if you started driving.”

  She put the car into gear and headed farther out of the Quarter.

  “What were you doing at Claire’s apartment?” she asked.

  “Waiting in the other room.”

  Akela looked at him sharply. “Bennett knew you were there?”

  “No. She’d left and I thought she’d gone to work so I let myself in to go through the boxes you now have in your trunk.”

  Akela tightened her hands on the steering wheel. “Adding B and E to your list of arrest warrants isn’t going to help your case any.”

  She concentrated on driving, but could feel his intense gaze on her profile.

  “What would you have me do, Akela? Wait to see what happens first—if I get arrested or have to turn myself in?”

  She suddenly had difficulty swallowing.

  He had a point, of course. She couldn’t see herself waiting around and putting her future blindly in the hands of others, either.

  Still, she wished it hadn’t been him she’d felt watching her. It made her feel uncomfortable in a way she was loath to admit.

  “What did you uncover?” he asked.

  She reached into the backseat and handed him the journal. “I haven’t had a chance to go over the whole thing yet, but it appears the victim was involved with a married man and they were experiencing difficulties.”

  He accepted the journal. “Her name was Claire.”

  Akela was so accustomed to keeping a professional wall up between her and victims she sometimes forgot that they had names. It was called survival.

  She asked, “Did Claire mention anything to you about being involved with anyone else?”

  “No.”

  She was both disappointed and relieved that he didn’t elaborate. Likely he and Claire hadn’t done much talking during their time together.

  “Did you see a name?” he asked.

  She took the open journal from his hands. “Why? So you can break into his place?”

  She put the journal in the backseat again and watched as he lifted the leather cowboy hat he wore and ran his fingers through his damp, tousled hair.

  “This waiting is driving me crazy,” he said, an edge to his voice she hadn’t heard before.

  Without knowing that’s what she was going to do, Akela reached across and put her hand on top of his, slowly stroking it. “You know, there is something you can do.”

  “Turn myself in? Not an option. Anyway, how would that help anything?”

  “Depending on how you do it, you could turn public opinion in your favor.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. Akela gauged that he might be ready to hear more.

  “If you proclaim your innocence and good faith by turning yourself over to authorities, stating your trust that your name will be cleared, it could make
a world of difference.”

  It could also save his life.

  At this point, with the evidence Chevalier had already compiled against him, if a takedown went wrong and Claude was…shot, his guilt would never be questioned.

  He stared at her. “My name and likeness are already all over the papers, Akela. I’m being called the Quarter Killer.”

  That, in her opinion, was all the more reason for him to turn himself in. The court of public opinion was already in full swing, based on information she had little doubt Chevalier was leaking to the press outlining a damning case against the man next to her. And the longer he didn’t respond to the charges, the worse it looked for him.

  “Pull over here.”

  She was surprised by the request. She hadn’t known what she expected once he’d climbed into her car, but it wasn’t that he would leave as quickly as he’d shown up.

  “Claude…” She touched his arm when he moved to get out.

  He looked at her, his gaze intense, his features somber.

  “Look, I’m worried about you. The longer this drags on, the worse it gets for you.” She reached for her purse and took out her pad and pen, writing down a name then handing it to him. “This is one of my contacts at the Times-Picayune. Call her. Tell her I sent you.”

  “What if she calls NOPD?”

  “She won’t. She has too much to gain by getting an exclusive scoop from the suspect himself.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “At least promise me you’ll consider calling her. At the very least it can help create some positive groundwork.”

  “For when I surrender to authorities?”

  Akela looked away, unable to hold his gaze.

  They both knew that eventually that’s what it would come down to.

  He climbed out of the car, but paused before closing the door.

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter,” he said.

  His comment surprised her. Aside from being completely off topic, that he’d made a point of bringing up her personal life confused her.

  “Do you have a picture?”

  She wasn’t sure what to make of his question, so she just opened up the glove compartment where she kept her wallet and flipped it open.

  Claude took it.

  “She’s beautiful.”

  She smiled. “Yes, she is, isn’t she?”

  He handed back the wallet, a cryptic look on his face.

  “Claude?”

  He waited.

  “Promise me you’ll think about what I said.”

  He nodded, then closed the door.

  Akela sat, watching as he strode down the street, then turned a corner, disappearing from sight.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Akela wasn’t sure what was worse: hearing from Claude, or not hearing from him.

  She lay in Daisy’s double bed, the four-year-old cuddled up to her side, reading the journal she’d exchanged for the fairy tale after her daughter had fallen asleep in the middle of chapter two. She had her cell phone with her, and the house was quiet enough for her to think that her parents had long since called it a night. But rather than going to her own room, she cuddled Daisy a little closer then rubbed the creased skin between her eyes, going over the notes she’d made from the journal so far.

  It was obvious that Claire had had an ongoing affair with a married man. Akela could only count four times that Claire had actually met him—at least those were the only meetings she’d taken time to write about, the journal far from a daily dairy but more a place to record happy and angry memories. Most of it focused on her job as a paralegal where she called the pay paltry and the stress high. The other, more personal entries had never mentioned the married man by name, although she’d mentioned other men’s names. Akela didn’t think Claire actually called him ‘C’ but rather guessed the generic reference was rooted in her own guilt associated with the situation.

  Akela wished she had chosen a different initial. That the name Claude began with the letter she used didn’t bode well, even if Claude was very much single.

  It was obvious Claire had expected the man to leave his wife for her. Did any woman ever get into such a sticky situation without believing that? But as time and frustration wore on, Claire’s notes became more caustic and angry, at one point even mentioning having found out where the man lived and paying a visit to his wife, to whom she also hadn’t referred by name. Akela checked three times, but there was no follow-up mention of the meeting or how it had gone.

  Not that it would have made a difference. If her married lover’s name had been Charlie, the odds of finding him were slim to none. The young woman had been nothing if not private. A visit to her office had offered up very little additional information. She’d lunched for an hour every day, but never invited anyone to come with her, and never talked about where she’d been or whom she may have lunched with outside the office. She’d never received calls at work, but did take the occasional call on her cell phone.

  Akela read a note she’d made to herself to check for cell bills in the boxes still in her trunk.

  So what had happened to Claire the night she’d hooked up with Claude? Had she gone out planning to get even with a lover who would probably never leave his wife? And had that married lover then murdered her for her efforts, pinning it on Claude?

  Her left arm began to feel prickly from holding it in the same position for too long. She put the journal on the nightstand then gently moved Daisy until she was lying by herself, smoothing back her hair when the four-year-old sighed and tried to snuggle again. She got up with a minimum of fuss, switched off the light, collected her things, then made her way to her room down the hall. After she’d closed her door after herself, she leaned against the solidly carved wood, immediately aware again of that sensation of being watched. She shuddered, leaving the light off as she placed the journal on a dresser then made her way to bed.

  For long minutes she lay there, arms at her sides, staring at the outline of the cypress tree outside on her ceiling. She’d known Claude had been a frequent visitor to Hotel Josephine. Had anyone asked the pretty owner if Claire had been a regular customer? She couldn’t remember. But if the couple hadn’t rendezvoused at her apartment, and since his place was obviously out, they’d had to meet somewhere.

  She switched on the light and went to jot down a note to herself to follow up on the question, just as she heard something scratch against her window.

  Akela froze. Her bedroom was on the second floor with no easy means of access aside from a narrow storm drain. She slowly reached to switch off the light and lay there, watching the window. There was a light breeze tonight and the shadows of the cypress waved on the ceiling. Again, the scratching sounded.

  She took off the chain she wore around her neck at home that held the key to the heavy nightstand and unlocked the drawer, reaching for her service gun. With slow movements, she crept toward the window, flicking off the safety on the gun and staying well to the side, out of the sightline of anyone outside. Her heart thudding thickly in her chest, she held the pistol out in front of her, using the end of the barrel to nudge the curtains out of the way.

  A branch swayed, scratching across the glass and nearly causing Akela to jump out of her skin.

  She dropped the gun to her side and closed her eyes, damning her overactive imagination. What had she thought? That merely by thinking about the killer he’d appear outside her bedroom window?

  She’d never really bought into the hocus-pocus and the voodoo connected to her hometown, but she had to admit that this case was beginning to get to her.

  She began to straighten the curtains when a shadow of what looked like a man moved across the back lawn. She caught her breath, straining to see better. But whether it had been a man or another dark shadow caused by the wind and moon would remain forever a mystery, because she didn’t see it again.

  16

  “WE’VE GOT A LINE on Lafitte.”

  Akela had awakened that morning not h
aving slept well and more agitated than she’d ever been, thereby completely unprepared for Detective Alan Chevalier’s pronouncement the following morning.

  “What?”

  “I said we got a line on Lafitte. He’s in the city.”

  The Eighth District station was abuzz with activity, giving the morning a surreal feeling. Colors seemed somehow more vivid, background noise louder.

  Chevalier was shrugging into his ever-present overcoat. “Word came in from one of our snitches this morning. He’s at a hotel over on Bourbon Street, close enough to the Hotel Josephine to spit on it.”

  Akela was familiar with the hotel if only because she was familiar with everything within a quarter mile radius of where Claire Laraway had been murdered.

  “How reliable a snitch are we talking about?” she asked, her mood taking a further nosedive.

  She’d been ready to confront Chevalier on his policy of ignoring evidence because it didn’t support the airtight case he was making against Claude. Now the detective was about to arrest him.

  “Reliable enough.” He considered her closely. A little too closely. “Why?”

  “Seems like a waste of time to dispatch an arrest team if the man is still in the surrounding bayous.”

  “The information is consistent with some other tips we received yesterday.”

  Chevalier, along with three other armed detectives, passed her on the way out through the bull pen. She followed them onto the street where two squad cars with uniformed officers were also waiting.

  Akela’s mind swam with the scene. If she had arrived two minutes later, she would have missed the raid.