Burnt Black

by Ed Kovacs

  “The individual you saw was wearing a costume?”

  “Yeah, a white suit, you know, like an astronaut, or … like the kind of suits the cleaners wore after the Storm, when they went into the Convention Center with power washers and hosed out all of the crap and piss and garbage.”

  “A biohazard suit.”

  “Yeah. With a hood and a mask.”

  “What kind of mask?”

  “You know that character they call ‘Anonymous?’”

  I nodded. “I know it. By any chance, did the person in the white suit spend extra time at the back door before going inside?”

  “Now that you mention it, yeah. I thought it was a case of being too drunk to get the key in the lock. It took a couple of minutes for whoever it was to open the door.”

  I looked to Honey. She knew I’d been right; the killer had been picking the lock.

  “Ms. Huff, you just saved an innocent girl a lot of grief. Thanks for talking to us.”

  I extended my hand. She looked at me suspiciously and then gave me the most masculine handshake she could muster. I felt so grateful I almost didn’t want to let go.

  Mackie, Honey, and I walked out onto the sidewalk. I lit a cigarillo, then immediately put it out. I was in no condition to smoke.

  “We caught a break. I hope there’s more to follow.”

  “A hooded white suit. It’s the ghost Patrice Jones told us came in the back door,” said Honey.

  “You were right, Mackie. That lady in there just ruined the chief’s day. Pointer will look like a fool after everything he said about Jones at the press conference this morning.”

  “Our two main suspects are safe in Mexico. The chief is not the only one who looks like a fool,” said Mackie.

  “True,” I said. “May I suggest that we move Jones into a private room in the jail ward at Touro Hospital? We make sure she gets exceptional care, but sit on Huff’s information for now. Jones has no family, nowhere to go, and can’t provide for herself. VIP treatment in the jail ward is not the worst experience she could have. We quietly tell the DA to put the brakes on moving forward while we clarify a few details.”

  “We have to tell the chief,” said Honey.

  “Thank you for volunteering,” I said. “I’m sure the chief will go along for the short term and give us some new unrealistic ultimatum to find the killer.”

  My cell rang; it was Kerry Broussard, my JP Crime Lab buddy. I’d dropped the martini glass and cigarette butt from Anastasia off with him only a few hours ago.

  “That was quick,” I said into the phone.

  “Drago’s. Grilled oysters on the half shell and beer, on you. Twenty minutes. We have an anomaly.”

  * * *

  Seventy-two oysters, eight beers, and two shots of medicinal whiskey for me later, Honey, Kerry, Mackie, and I got down to the reason for his call, at a corner table in Drago’s at the Hilton on Poydras. We sat in solid wooden chairs in the large, open plan restaurant that usually had a mix of tourists and locals. During the last hour we’d regurgitated the facts of the case to Kerry, accompanied by the background soundtrack of oyster shuckers in fast tempo behind a stainless steel counter.

  The long and the short of it came down to Robert Drake and Gina Sanchez on the run, traveling under false identities. Once again, I had to keep secret from fellow investigators the fact that Drake had ordered a contract on me.

  “The DNA I couldn’t rush, but I got three hits on the prints from that martini glass,” said Kerry, squeezing some lemon over an oyster as big as a hamburger patty. Like many locals, I usually skipped the entrées at Drago’s and just stuffed myself silly on grilled oysters.

  “Three sets of prints?” I asked, confused.

  “No, three hits on the lady’s prints. Tiffany Mouton from Gulfport, Mississippi, has a long juvenile record starting at the age of twelve. Shoplifting, auto theft, assault, illegal possession of a firearm. She was arrested four years ago for a series of burglaries in the Marigny Triangle here in New Orleans.”

  The three of us stopped eating and listened intently to Kerry.

  “Then two years ago she got a DUI. Her Louisiana driver’s license was under the name Anastasia Fournier.”

  “The DMV didn’t get a match on her prints as Tiffany Mouton?” I asked.

  “Her juvenile record had been sealed, so no, they didn’t. But I have ways to pry open seals,” said Kerry, smiling. He then diverted his attention to the last and biggest oyster on his plate.

  “Okay…” I said, silently willing him to hurry up and not put the big-ass oyster in his mouth, but of course he did, so we all sat there watching him chew. I hadn’t been able to eat much, so Kerry was finishing off my platter.

  “A little over a year ago, there was an investigation by the Tulane University police force into rape charges against Professor Robert Drake. The prints on that martini glass belong to the accuser, one Georgia Paris, a freshman.”

  My poker face failed me. I sat there silently, but my brain was spinning, putting together a scenario. I felt dumbstruck, then just dumb. “They played us, and everyone else, like chumps and suckers from the get-go.”

  “Tiffany Mouton, Anastasia Fournier, and Georgia Paris are one in the same?” asked Mackie.

  “Absolutely no question,” said Kerry, still chewing.

  “But how could Anastasia be undercover? How could she infiltrate the same group she’d accused of rape when she’d been a Tulane student?” asked Honey.

  “I’ll tell you how, but let me paint the whole picture. The best liars salt a lot of truth into their lies, and I’m sure Tony did that to us. He probably did meet Anastasia—she was Tiffany Mouton then—when she was a transient. And he got her off the streets and married her.

  “But his obsession with Drake was such that he enrolled her at Tulane under a false name—Georgia Paris—and signed her up for anthropology classes.”

  “Knowing she’d draw the attention of Drake,” said Honey.

  “No doubt. We wondered why Tony never ran a sting against Drake. Well, he’s still running one. Anyway, back at Tulane, he planted her undercover, and it was a smart move.”

  “And before long, Drake invited her to one of the Crimson Throne meetings at his house,” said Mackie.

  I nodded. “At the meeting, Drake drugged her. She told Tulane police she hadn’t agreed to have group sex and that she signed the waiver under duress. Everybody had sex with her that night, and some of the sex was pretty rough.”

  “Vermack,” said Honey.

  “And Townsend too. According to the Tulane report, she’s a BDSM dom. She probably put all of those restraints in Drake’s temple room to good use.”

  “I doubt Tony wanted Anastasia to press charges. She probably did that on her own,” said Mackie. “Maybe it caused problems in their relationship, because Tony would have kept her undercover, I guarantee it.”

  “Probably. But it still suited Tony if he could bring Drake down with the rape charges.”

  “But the facts weren’t strong enough. Tulane didn’t pursue it aggressively,” said Honey.

  “So what could Tony do? He had to bide his time for seven or eight months, then get his girl back on the inside,” I said.

  Kerry took a sip of beer, then raised his hands. “How could he do that?! She’d already accused them of rape.”

  “Simple: He used what he knew about Townsend, the fact that she’s always trolling for young women to recruit as call girls. Anastasia told me herself how she did it. She took a job stripping on Bourbon and let it be known she was in a money jam with no place to live. The Crimson Throne folks didn’t know she was married to Tony. They didn’t know anything about him. Anastasia—the woman they thought and still think is named Georgia Paris—was doing drugs and drinking heavily. It was probably very gratifying for Townsend to see a former accuser’s fall from grace, now groveling for assistance. And let’s face it: Anastasia is a great-looking young chick, sexy as hell, so Townsend probably saw lots of ear
ning potential.”

  “Okay, I can buy Townsend. But rape is a serious charge. Why would the rest of the group let her return?” asked Honey. “I mean, she wasn’t disguising herself. She returned as Georgia Paris.”

  “Kate Townsend is the Crimson Throne’s high priestess. She took in her former accuser as her live-in lover. I think that spoke volumes to the rest of the group. Besides, they needed her.”

  “Needed her?”

  “On the set of porn movies is a woman whose job is to make sure the male stars are ‘ready for action’ so to speak. Well, the Crimson Throne used Anastasia as a sexual object. She must have been pretty good, or they wouldn’t have kept inviting her back. They didn’t invite her for her magic skills—she doesn’t have any.”

  “I can see how she could worm her way back in,” said Mackie. “I mean, they had to know that she could never accuse them of rape again. No cop, no prosecutor would believe a hooker who willingly returned to the same group she had previously accused of violating her.”

  I nodded. “It wasn’t like they were befriending her. They just used her as a sexual stimulant. And don’t forget, Anastasia is a good actress. I have no doubt that she sold them a very convincing bill of goods.”

  “I hate to say this,” said Kerry, “but how do you know she’s not the killer? She knew all of the victims. She would have known how to fake the ritual aspect of the murders. And she had a strong motive. Revenge. In her mind, these people had raped her. She was upset enough about it to disobey Tony and go public with those charges. I’m guessing she’s dealing with huge rage issues.”

  “She suggested that Vermack brutalized her sexually,” said Honey. “And the killer gave Hans very special treatment, right?”

  “But does Anastasia know how to pick locks?” asked Mackie.

  “The burglary arrests of hers—did the report say how she broke in?” I asked Kerry.

  “The report said she’d been found with burglary tools.”

  “Read that ‘lock picks,’” I said. “Where is Anastasia now?”

  “At Kate Townsend’s apartment,” said Honey. “The question is, is Townsend the killer? Or the next victim?”

  “And for that matter, are Drake and Sanchez on the run from the police or from a killer named Anastasia?” asked Mackie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Honey dispatched detectives to locate Tony Fournier and bring him back to the station house. I paid the check at Drago’s and brought Kerry along for the short ride to Crafty Voodoo. We checked in with the surveillance team to make sure Anastasia and Townsend were both still inside, then Honey, Mackie, Kerry, and I entered the shop.

  The cashier refused to open the wooden door leading to the stairs, so I just elbowed her aside, jimmied the tang of the lock with a credit card, and we all rushed up the stairs.

  The apartment stood empty. No Anastasia, no anyone. Alive, that is.

  From a distance, Kate Townsend made for a pretty sexy corpse, sprawled naked on her red satin sheets. Upon closer inspection, her death mask was one of pain. It hadn’t been a pleasant passing.

  Kerry and Honey moved in carefully to examine the stiff.

  “I’ll call in the signal thirty,” said Mackie, reaching for his BlackBerry.

  “Tell Kruger he needs to play travel agent again, pronto. Find out if Tiffany Mouton/Georgia Paris/Anastasia Fournier is flying out of any of the local airports.” I slipped on a pair of latex gloves.

  “No obvious signs of death,” said Kerry.

  “Poisoned, I bet, just like the others,” I said.

  “This is a very fresh body. One hour, maybe,” said Honey, and Kerry nodded in agreement.

  “If you think she’s been poisoned, I’d like to take a sample to the JP Crime Lab,” said Kerry.

  “What sample?”

  “From this carafe here next to the bed. Looks like water inside, but who knows?”

  “Please be our guest.”

  I checked Townsend’s purse: Keys, cash, cards, cell phone were all present.

  “She’s naked, so maybe there was sex. And her face looks like she suffered. That’s two out of three,” said Honey. “Where’s the third element of the MO, the religious-ritual connection?”

  “Crap, look around the room. There’s small statuary, esoteric paintings … even the magical symbols on the jewelry she’s wearing.”

  “So how did your surveillance team let Anastasia walk out the door?” asked Kerry.

  “If I were her I’d disguise myself. Hook up with a group of tourists in the shop downstairs and leave with them.”

  “So she’s making a run?” asked Honey.

  “Maybe she’s after Drake,” said Mackie. “The last person on her ‘to do’ list.”

  * * *

  The United flight to Houston with passenger Georgia Paris was taxiing for takeoff at Louis Armstrong, when Honey and I pulled up to the terminal and bolted inside, yelling into our cell phones.

  Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies met us at the entrance, and we all ran full-bore toward the TSA security setup at Concourse C as I frantically explained over the phone to an air traffic controller that the plane needed to return to the gate.

  And I’ll be damned if we didn’t catch another break. The United jet returned to Gate 35. Honey and I were waiting along with four uniformed JP deputies as the passengers deplaned. Since a dangerous murder suspect was on board, procedure was for the pilot to announce a mechanical problem and tell passengers a replacement plane was standing by to take them to Houston.

  The wig was blond, the sunglasses large, but you just can’t hide gorgeous. At least not from me.

  “Don’t make a scene,” I whispered, grabbing Anastasia’s wrists and cuffing her so quickly that few people noticed what had happened.

  “We can’t let them get away with it,” she protested.

  “I don’t intend to let anyone get away with anything,” I said, and led her toward the exit, as Honey and the deputies closed in around us.

  “Kate drank something and died,” said Anastasia. She sounded shaken, but I knew how great she was at role-playing.

  “Don’t say another word for a second,” I said, and then Honey quickly read Anastasia her rights.

  “You understand your rights?” asked Honey.

  “Yes, I understand, but I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anyone. Yet.”

  “I’m recording all this, Anastasia, but why don’t you save it until we get downtown?”

  “We made love. She has a special water bottle. It has aloe, lavender, and lemon, and I don’t like the taste. Only she drinks that. The bottle was on my side of the bed, and she asked for it so I handed it to her. Within a few seconds after she drank some…”

  Anastasia teared up and bit her lip.

  “So, your girlfriend is suffering horribly in front of you and you don’t call for an ambulance. You don’t call police. Instead, you commit a federal crime by buying an international air ticket to Mexico using a false identity and fake ID. What do you call yourself? Anastasia Fournier? Tiffany Mouton? Georgia Paris? I didn’t catch April the hooker’s last name.”

  “Please call Uncle Tony.”

  “Your husband isn’t answering his cell. The police are looking for him right now. Where was it that you got married?”

  The phony game was up, and her face showed she knew it. “Reno,” she said, matter-of-fact.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what. Since you’re innocent, we won’t go downtown, we’ll go to your house in LaPlace. You can let us look around since you don’t have anything to hide.”

  “You asked why I didn’t call the police. If I had called them, I wouldn’t be able to fly to Mexico to kill Robert Drake.”

  “You’ve finally said something I can believe.”

  “Because if I don’t kill him, he’ll for sure kill me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Anastasia opted not to let us into her house, so we convened at Broad Street headquarters in an interrogation
room. Other detectives and crime-scene techs were scouring Kate Townsend’s apartment and her shop, Crafty Voodoo, for anything of interest relating to Anastasia Fournier or Kate Townsend.

  Kerry Broussard had gone in after hours to the JP Crime Lab and had already confirmed Anastasia’s prints were on the water bottle. He was testing a sample of the water for myriad exotic poisons and additives that were beyond the scope of the NOPD lab’s budget.

  “You know, I have to congratulate you—you’re a convincing liar. I mean, when you came to my loft to have sex with ‘Steven’ and found out you’d been set up, you didn’t miss a beat. ‘Uncle Tony this’ and ‘Uncle Tony that’ just rolled off your tongue like sweet syrup,” I said.

  “Your house in LaPlace is surrounded. We’re getting a search warrant,” said Honey.

  “Good for you,” said Anastasia.

  “Where’s the white biohazard suit you used when you killed Vermack?” I asked.

  She just smiled. “Is it true that Patrice ate him?”

  “You told her to, right?” asked Honey.

  “I always felt so sorry for her,” said Anastasia.

  “Hope you’re not disappointed, but she didn’t really eat him, just nibbled a bit,” I said. “We’ll do forensics on your laptop. Did you use it to study the placement of acupuncture needles?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The fact that Becky Valencia was found with dozens of needles in her hadn’t been released to the public yet.

  “What I’m talking about is this.” I spun my laptop so she could see the security-camera footage from the auto-parts store on Carrollton of the killer slowly walking on the sidewalk, approaching Valencia’s house.

  Anastasia’s eyes flashed, and a look of shock washed across her creamy skin.

  “You didn’t know we had you on tape?”

  “This conversation is over. I want a lawyer. Now!”

  * * *

  The Old Drunk Judge told me to my face that I could easily have gotten the search warrant for Tony Fournier’s home in LaPlace based on the facts.

  “All you need to do is call a Saint John’s Parish sheriff’s detective with this information. He can get the warrant from a judge in his parish.”