Burnt Black

by Ed Kovacs

  “If the murders weren’t so sensational, and if Fournier didn’t meet the definition of a serial killer, I might agree with that. Now are you on board or not?”

  She bit her lip, thinking. “I’ll go along with the guys,” she said without enthusiasm.

  “And what do you want?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Take a week off with pay. If I see your face before then, I’ll transfer you to traffic. Understood?”

  She nodded, then looked at me like I’d let her down.

  And I probably had.

  * * *

  As I stood waiting for Anastasia Fournier to get kicked out of lockup, I surfed the Internet on my smartphone. It only took a few minutes to confirm I’d been right about others being struck and killed by lightning while standing on top of El Castillo in the rain. It happened in 1978 to anthropologist and Maya expert Dennis E. Puleston. Lightning strikes were common at Chichén Itzá and it made it easier for me to dismiss Fournier’s contention that he had been responsible for the bolt of justice. Nevertheless, I continued to wear the talisman he’d given me on a heavy silver chain around my neck. And that pretty much summed up my conflicted relationship, my cognitive dissonance, with things occult.

  Anastasia had been informed almost immediately of Tony’s death. She emerged from the turnstile looking like she’d been through the wringer emotionally. She glanced at me with uncertainty.

  “I’m here for three reasons,” I said. “First to apologize for the arrest. Second, to offer my sincere condolences. I’m truly sorry about your husband. He probably saved my life down in Mexico.”

  “You were with him when he died?”

  I nodded.

  “So he saved your life but he framed me for murder.”

  “No he didn’t. Not at all. That’s the third reason I’m here. If you want, I can show you some things, explain some things.”

  She looked like she wanted to believe me. But I could tell she didn’t trust me. “I’d stopped loving him. I told him I wanted a divorce.”

  “Good thing you didn’t divorce. You get to collect his pension for the rest of your life.”

  “Money is easy to get.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “unless you want to call a taxi, I’d be happy to give you a ride, out to LaPlace or wherever you want.”

  “Vegas?” she joked, sadly.

  “I like Las Vegas, but I’m not sure that’s the place where Anastasia Fournier should start her life over.”

  I stood there thinking that Twee Siu should be recruiting Anastasia instead of recruiting me. The young woman had successfully penetrated a secretive group operating undercover with practically no support, was an experienced burglar, could think on her feet, and was a drop-dead-gorgeous widow, all at the ripe old age of twenty-one.

  “What do you really want?” she asked.

  “Tony wrote me a letter. I thought you might like to see it.” I hadn’t told the chief or anyone else about the letter from Fournier and had no intention of doing so.

  “Did he really save your life?”

  “He took three bullets that could have easily gone into me.”

  For a second she looked vulnerable. But then the practiced mask of a woman confidently in control took over, the facade I’d seen her wear before. “I liked that martini you made. Make me another.”

  She stepped up to me, took my arm, and we walked out together.

  Saint James:

  If you’re reading this, then I’m dead, and deservedly so. I killed Felix Sanchez, Roscindo Ruiz, Becky Valencia, Hans Vermack, and Kate Townsend. With divine help, I’ll kill Robert Drake too.

  You probably think I’m a lowlife for setting up my wife Anastasia to take the fall, but I did it just to give me time to hit Drake, the hardest target. I’ve attached a few pages to this note explaining how I carried out the murders and have provided details only the killer could know. Anastasia was not an accomplice; she is truly an innocent. Everything she did, initially at least, was because she loved me.

  And I truly love her beyond measure. What a fool I was to employ her in my quest to bring a serial killer to justice. God or Buddha or the Universe, or karma, or whatever it is one believes in—well, divine retribution is a fairly immutable process in most cases. I should have stayed out of it and let Drake keep killing, instead of appointing myself the agent of justice, because I have lost the only thing that meant a damn to me—my young, sweet wife.

  Believe it or not, she was sexually inexperienced when we first got together. Later, when I enrolled her at Tulane under the phony name, she got invited to one of Drake’s Crimson Throne meetings. I knew it was all about sex, but Anastasia and I agreed she wouldn’t participate. We figured they would let her stay and observe. Her being drugged and raped never entered my realm of possibility. And since the criminal justice system is rigged in this country and always has been, that left it to me to even the score.

  The Bible has it wrong; the meek don’t inherit diddly-squat.

  What I did was wrong, but it was RIGHT. And that is something I can die with.

  Please do what you can to look after Anastasia. My tarot cards tell me you two have a lot in common.

  Anthony Xavier Fournier

  Anastasia and I spent the next three days in bed together. Our relationship was the most natural one I’d ever experienced. Mature far beyond her years, she made me laugh with her sly sense of humor, made me sad with stories of her childhood, and made me think that our fourteen-year age difference might be surmountable. We shared secrets on lock-picking and breaking-and-entering, watched old bank-job movies, and she cooked me Eggs Sardou just the way I like it.

  All of her exposure to the occult had left her open-minded but reticent to pursue that path. Exactly the way I felt.

  I knew we had a future together. The future might only last a few days or a few months, but there was shared time waiting for us.

  * * *

  I spotted an ad on craigslist for a moving sale in which the lady pulling up stakes from New Orleans was selling “spiritual objects.” I stopped by her place on Octavia and ended up with an armful: Buddhas in various postures, a bronze Quan Yin; A Tibetan dorje; a rose quartz Christian cross; a malachite pyramid; stone incense burners; a pewter Hanuman, the monkey king; Hindu prayer flags with the symbol for Ram; a soapstone statue of Isis; and about a dozen other items, including hawk feathers.

  I’d decided to become a collector of sorts.

  My reasoning had nothing to do with believing the objects were imbued with some power that could protect me or do my bidding or bring benefit. In a way, the things I bought were like sigils, in that they functioned as prompts to me, reminders of what I simply call the Divine.

  Religion-specific items, like a Star of David or a brass statue of Ganesh, for me function only as symbols that connect me to some deeper reality, not as part of any particular dogma. And I’d decided that the only good-luck charm or talisman I need is the power of my will, the energetic intent that I hold in my personal space, a clarity that comes from within me.

  I still pray, of course, and I still embrace divine intervention, but I’m the guy who has to do the grunt work; prayers are not always answered, so I believe it is a sucker’s game to rely too heavily on things outside of oneself.

  All of this reminds me of how quick so many people are to surrender their own power as human beings, as citizens. So many choose to believe that the government will save them. Or a new spouse or a pill or a cult or a fill-in-the-blank. Many people tend to put faith in anything but themselves, possibly because they don’t want the responsibility.

  I personally don’t play the blame game, and I figure the only person responsible for the state of my life is me.

  Anyway, it feels good that I’d faced my fear of the occult. It doesn’t matter whether voodoo is real or if black magic “works.” I’ve survived quite nicely.

  * * *

  I rolled up behind Honey in the Bronco as she walked her dog over by the
levee at the end of Mazant Street. We hadn’t spoken since that meeting in the chief’s office, four days ago. The sunshine reflecting off the broken pavement made her look a bit peaked and pale. And troubled.

  As the roar of a passing garbage truck faded, I heard a couple arguing on their front stoop, but a duo of cardinals played on an overhead power line and flitted among the tangle of wires. I chose to take the redbirds as a good omen for my talk with Honey. I held a couple of frozen granitas from PJ’s and handed her one.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry I let you down,” I said.

  She registered surprise.

  “You let me down? I think it’s the other way around.”

  “C’mon, I know you wanted to go public with Fournier being the killer. You think I’m a sellout, corrupt like the chief.”

  “No. Well, maybe I did at first. But it was the right call. We both know there’s no black and white. Truth is, I … I … you’re my partner and … I got jealous. Emotional. So I wasn’t there to back you up when the Mexicans came after you.”

  “Forget about that.”

  “I can’t. I’m not sure I want to stay in Homicide. My instincts were all wrong on this one.”

  “Honey, this case was messed up from the get-go. I made my share of mistakes, that’s for sure. But we worked it out, didn’t we?”

  “You worked it out.”

  “No. We worked it out. Me, you, Mackie, Kruger—the whole team. It’s a group effort. I was just unlucky enough to be there at the end.” I lit a cigarillo, in spite of the state of my lungs. “I have something to tell you: Anastasia’s been staying at my place.”

  Honey didn’t seem surprised to hear it. Our relationship had shifted radically in the last week. Maybe she saw something like this coming. I truly liked Anastasia and felt Honey needed to see me hooked up with a girlfriend, to make it concrete to her that things between us had changed. It was more insulation to protect Honey from ugliness that I knew would be coming in the future.

  “I need to … I’m going to … work some things out,” she said. “For myself. Long overdue personal things.”

  I nodded. “That’s good. I’m glad to hear that.” I stubbed out the smoke in my pocket ashtray and then bent down and patted her dog, Chance. “Hey, Chance, think your mom could give me a ride to the airport, like, right now?”

  Honey stiffened as she drilled me with her eyes. “You’re going away. For three months, right? Some kind of conference.”

  I smiled. “The chief signed off on the FBI putting me through a ninety-day counterterrorism program.”

  Honey gave me a look; she knew better.

  “Anastasia will be house-sitting. My bags are in the Bronco.”

  “So you’re coming back.”

  “Yeah. Unless you don’t want me as your partner anymore.”

  She reached down to pet Chance. “You any good at construction? Mom and I took your suggestion.”

  I raised an eyebrow quizzically.

  “I helped her put in an offer to buy Drake’s property. If we get it, the temple room will have to go.”

  I now remembered having joked about buying the place when Honey and I first responded to the shots-fired call. “Fitness room? Swimming pool? Racquetball court?”

  “Mom was thinking of a couple extra bedrooms. Wait—” She smiled. “You don’t think it’s haunted do you?”

  I just laughed as we walked toward the Bronco.

  Also by Ed Kovacs

  Good Junk

  Storm Damage

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ed Kovacs is the author of the critically acclaimed Detective Cliff St. James series of crime novels, including Good Junk and Storm Damage. He is a member of the Association for Intelligence Officers, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America. He splits his time between his home in Asia and his aircraft-hangar home at a Southern California airport. Visit his Web site at www.edkovacs.com for more information.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  BURNT BLACK. Copyright © 2013 by Ed Kovacs. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by Marie Pompilio

  Cover photograph © Steve Allen/Getty Images; sky © Shutterstock

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Kovacs, Ed.

  Burnt black: a Cliff St. James novel / Ed Kovacs.—First edition.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-250-02029-1 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-02030-7 (e-book)

  1. Police—Fiction. 2. New Orleans (La.)—Fiction. 3. Drug traffic—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3611.O74943B87 2013

  813'.6—dc23

  2013025297

  e-ISBN 9781250020307

  First Edition: November 2013