“Is that okay with you?” Duval asked Val. “Assist Haiti is holding a charity auction during an evening river cruise. One of my paintings has been entered. I’d love you to be there.”
Lausaux smiled and said, “The Natchez will depart from Poydras Street Wharf at seven. Once we have our guests on the river, nobody’s allowed off the boat until they’ve bought something.”
It didn’t sound like the sort of event where Jackson would put in an appearance, but it was clear that Duval wanted Val there.
“I would be happy to join you, as long as you bear in mind that a police officer’s wages don’t stretch to works of art.”
Captain Clements entered the room, his face bleak. He indicated that he wanted a word with Val in private. They stepped into the corridor.
“I’ve had an urgent call from Chief of Detectives Larson. He wants you to meet him at St Louis Cemetery Number One. An ex-cop has been found with a knife in his back. Some guy called Trochan.”
The St Louis cemeteries No. I and No. 2 are referred to by New Orleanians as the Cities of the Dead. A high water table prevents below ground burials, so the coffins were simply placed in position on the surface and the tombs built around them: row after row of concrete Wendy houses arranged along strips of St Antoine grass.
Tourists flocked to the cemeteries during daylight hours, but after dark they belonged to the city's malefactors. Come the new day, it wasn’t unusual for the body count to have risen by one or more. The homicide detectives got to spend a lot of time amongst the marble.
Larson was made Chief of Detectives a month after Val resigned from the police department. A couple of the detectives had called him with invitations to a celebratory beer fest that the homicide squad was throwing for Larson, but he told them he wouldn’t be coming along. He would have felt as out of place as George W. Bush at a spelling bee.
He left his car on Conti and crossed to the main Basin Street entrance. Larson wasn’t hard to find. He and a bunch of assorted crime scene personnel were huddled around a large tomb just inside the cemetery gates. Val had worked with most of them at one time or another.
The tomb was very grand, marble, with sculptured angels, and intricate wrought-iron railings.
A crumpled figure was lying face down on the ground between the railings and the walls of the tomb. A trickle of blood stained the St Antoine grass.
Larson detached himself from the huddle and walked over. He held out a packet of Juicy Fruit gum. Val shook his head. Larson unwrapped the foil with one hand and slipped a stick in his mouth.
“Chief Bosanquet,” he said. “Hope you’re not expecting me to salute.”
Val ignored his jibe. “How was Trochan killed?”
Larson worked the gum for a couple of seconds before he answered. “Skillfully. A stiletto blade into his spinal cord at the base of the skull, severing the cord. Quick, and with very little blood. He wouldn’t have had time to think about dying.”
“Any leads?”
“Just the one. He had your phone number written on his arm. One of the detectives called the phone company.”
They walked over to the tomb. The assembled officers opened up and let them through. Trochan was wearing a short-sleeved guayabera shirt. His arm had fallen through the railings and the numbers, written in ballpoint, were as clear as a tattoo.
“He’s been dead no less than eight hours, no more than twelve. He had five dollars and change on him, but this was no mugging that went wrong.” Larson nodded at the medical examiner, who unrolled a body bag and laid it out on the path in front of the tomb. He was whistling Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
It was apparent that everything that could be accomplished at the scene had already been done, and Larson had purposefully delayed the body’s removal until Val had had a chance to view it.
“Tell me why Trochan had your number written on his arm?” Larson asked when the body was finally removed. His earlier affability had evaporated and he was all business.
“I wrote it there. He was doing some legwork for me.”
“What sort of legwork?”
“He was trying to run down Donny Jackson. I needed to talk with him.”
“That ass-wipe. I heard he landed a job with some sportswear firm. He not with them any longer?”
“No. He was fired.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? What were you and Jackson going to talk about?”
Val had known Larson was bound to ask, so he’d dreamed up an answer for him on the way to the cemetery.
“At the start of each semester he runs a poker school on campus. Every night during the first week. Cleans out a lot of freshmen. I wanted him to know that this semester he's going have to find someplace else to play.”
“You expect me to believe that Trochan took a knife in the back because you wanted to break up a card game?”
“No. I’m telling you why he had my number on his arm. I doubt if his killing has anything to do with Jackson. They were patrol partners for years. Neither of them would have chosen to meet here.”
They had to move back against the iron railings to allow the gurney to pass.
“Something must have brought him here,” Larson said. “He was too savvy to risk this place alone after dark unless he had to.”
“Maybe he didn’t come alone.”
“Safety in numbers.” Larson worked his gum slowly and gave Val a searching look. The sun was shining directly in his face but Val kept his gaze steady. He heard a mocking bird call out from the branches of a live oak further into the cemetery. Larson knew that Val was holding out on him, but he also knew that there was not a thing he could do about it.
He broke eye contact when he spat the gum into the grass. “You’d best be running back to the campus. I’ll be sure to pass your message on to Jackson when we find him.”
Val turned and started to walk back down the path. Larson called out. “Bosanquet, you ever feel the need to be a real cop again, give me a call. I still have your shield in my desk.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
By the time Val arrived, there were no fewer than a dozen immaculate limousines lined upon Poydras Street Wharf waiting to discharge their well-heeled passengers. The Assist Haiti fund-raiser had attracted a great many of Louisiana society’s great and good. The favorable treatment that the Duval story had received on radio and television would have helped boost the attendance.
The steamboat Natchez stole the show from the expensively turned-out guests. A three-deck stern-wheeler, she was the last of the genuine article still steaming the river. All white, apart from her twin funnels, she resembled an intricately iced wedding cake. The steam organ on her top deck was blasting out a version of the ‘Saints’. A steady stream of guests was walking up the suspended bow gangway. Val took his turn in the flow.
Philip Lausaux was greeting each guest as they stepped onto the wooden deck. He was dressed in a white silk tuxedo and was flanked by two stunning Haitian girls in national dress handing out glasses of champagne.
Delighted to have you with us, Chief Bosanquet. Miss Duval is already on board. I believe she’s on the top deck. Lausaux treated Val to an obsequious smile, then dismissed him abruptly as he directed his effusive charm towards a couple coming up behind. Val guessed his wallet mustn’t have been fat enough.
He found Duval keeping cool next to an ice sculpture — Assist Haiti spelled out in two-foot high letters — and watching a jazz trio set up. She was wearing a white dress that accentuated her slim waist and long legs. She had on some sort of cloche hat, also in white. He complimented her on her appearance.
“Just don’t let me spill anything. Angie lent me the dress, and the hat has to go back in the morning.”
He was hoping for a few minutes alone with her, to break the news that, on disembarking from the riverboat, she was to be the subject of a twenty-four-hour guard. Val was assigning three campus police officers, working shifts, to protect her. He felt bad about telling her. She was bound to ques
tion the need for such a precaution and he would have no option but to fuel her anxiety with his report of Trochan’s murder. She was too bright a kid to bluff.
Marcus and Angie joined them, forcing Val to postpone his talk with Duval. His estranged wife was looking more dazzling than usual and blended in with the more glamorous guests as though she had been genetically engineered for that very purpose. Marcus had excelled himself by choosing to wear a vividly striped rowing blazer and a spotted bow tie. A waiter offered canapés from a silver salver.
“Have many parents have called to arrange transfers for their kids?” Val asked Marcus as soon as the waiter had moved on.
“Only three so far. Two changed their minds when they were told that Marie would not be rooming in the student accommodation. The faculty senate is ecstatic with the low-key attitude the media adopted. So is the Chancellor.”
“Have you seen Marie’s painting,” Angie broke in. “It really is something special.”
When Val said that he hadn’t, Angie insisted that they go below to the salon to admire it. As they were descending the steep staircase, the boat started to shudder and Val could hear the slapping of the paddle wheel against the water.
The goods to be auctioned were arrayed along the length of the inside wall of the salon — at least, those small enough to be brought on board. Photographs of the larger lots were displayed on gilded easels. A silver Bentley Turbo and a forty-eight-foot sailboat took pride of place. The auctioneer for the night was a twice Oscar-nominated New Orleans actor whom Val had once arrested for possession of narcotics. Camcorders would relay pictures to close-circuit screens all around the boat, so nobody would miss the chance to bid.
Marie Duval’s picture was mounted against the varnished wall of the salon. It was a depiction of the rush-roofed barracoon slave quarters of an eighteenth-century sugar plantation in Haiti. Her background colors were somber and thickly applied — her human figures stick-like and primitive. The pain and suffering of the slaves were visible in every brush stroke; it seemed she was trying to contrast the picayune impotency of the slaves to the might and resources of their white masters. There was a lot of misery on the canvas. One thing was certain: it wasn’t a picture that would ever find its way onto a calendar.
A voice Val recognized called out his name. He turned around and saw the grinning face of Professor Richard Bickford. There was no need to introduce him to Marcus and Angie: he had tenure at the University of New Orleans. Duval and Bickford swapped names and shook hands.
Subsequent to their first meeting ten years before, Bickford had sent Val a copy of his completed paper on law enforcement subcultures. Val had called him to argue a couple of points and, at his suggestion, they had met to discuss them over a drink. Rather a lot of drinks as it turned out. From that night they were good friends, even though they might not come across each other for months at a time.
Bickford held up his champagne glass and stuck out his tongue. “What do you say we give this horse’s piss a miss and go find a real drink?”
Val pulled a long face. “And miss the auction?”
“There’s a cash bar on the bottom deck. Can you think of a better way to make our charitable donations?”
They left the others estimating how much each lot would fetch and went in search of a decent drink.
The lounge bar was done out in mahogany and brass with yellowing antique river charts and nautical knots displayed on the oak paneling. Bickford insisted on buying the first drink to celebrate Val’s appointment as Chief.
“Hail to the Chief,” he said, clinking his glass against Val’s.
“I didn’t think this type of event would have interested you,” Val said, after he had taken his first swallow.
“Philip Lausaux invited me. I can’t abide the man, but he funded a post-graduate departmental research project in Haiti and if I genuflect deeply enough and often enough, he may come up with more cash.”
“What sort of research?”
“Zombism.”
Val didn’t hide his surprise. “The living dead? What possible use could that be to Lausaux?”
“He wanted it discredited. The islanders are said to be ninety percent Catholic, one hundred percent Voodoo. The oungans wield an immense amount of sway — to the extent that Zombies are officially recognized in Haitian law — and anything that disparages their influence is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, we weren’t a lot of help to him.”
“How come?”
“Rather than discrediting Zombism, our field workers validated it. Or rather, they uncovered how the scam works. The oungans use Zombi juice: a cocktail of extracts from the liver of the puffer fish and the sap of the manchineel tree. The story is that the recipe was tested and perfected on the Duvaliers’s political opponents in Dessalines barracks — right, across the plaza from the National Palace. Pharmacologists say its composition is similar to tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin. When the Zombi juice is administered by an oungan, usually surreptitiously in a glass of taffia — the local hooch — the victims experience pins and needles in their extremities, then hypothermia and severe catalepsy or muscular atrophy, symptoms which would, under cursory medical examination, be indicative of that person having deceased. Soon after, the oungan, who just happens to be passing, appears, administers an antidote, calls down a few lwas and puts on a show of resurrection. Powerful stuff.”
“And if no antidote is given?”
“The victim will succumb within twenty-four hours, from respiratory failure.”
Bickford drained his glass. He asked the barman to repeat the order. “When an islander is ‘resurrected’, he belongs to the oungan. The priest owns his soul and the Zombi becomes his slave. To prevent that happening, the bodies of the recently deceased — especially if they are young — will be beheaded by well-meaning relatives. God knows how many mistakes have been made: people in comas, oungan Zombi targets.”
Val felt a deep need to lighten the mood, so he asked his friend if he had found time to fit in some rock-climbing over the summer. The skin on the backs of his hands had the texture of old, sun-dried leather.
“Spent a couple of weeks in Montana. It’s getting harder to talk other rock-jocks into climbing with me. Most of my generation has given it up and the youngsters wouldn’t be seen dead with an old-timer like me.”
A buzz swept around the bar when a well-groomed mulatto entered, accompanied by two mean-faced bodyguards. Val estimated the man to be in his early seventies. His skin was the color of the copper arthritis bracelet he was wearing on his right wrist. His eyes were an intense turquoise, common amongst mulattoes. They sat down at a circular table that had been reserved and, after a few moments, Philip Lausaux joined them.
Lausaux crooked a finger at a waiter, who produced a silver salver loaded with a bottle of Dom Perignon in an ice bucket. The waiter opened the bottle expertly and poured two glasses of the vintage champagne. The elderly man’s eyes swept the bar and, for a fleeting moment, fixed on Val. His mouth tightened in a thin smile.
Bickford nudged Val with an elbow. “No domestic champagne for him. That’s where the big money will come from tonight, and that toad, Lausaux, knows it.”
“Who is he?”
“Jean Moncoeur, one of Haiti’s haute bourgeoisie. He and others like him are the principal reason Haiti has remained the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Their families are members of a Catholic oligarchy that has dominated the Haitian economy for two hundred years. The Duvaliers were part of it, though more by marriage than birth. They use the army, the Tonton Macoute, Voodoo, whatever, to keep control. And Washington stands back and does damn all about it.”
“It doesn’t sound as though he’s on your Christmas card list.”
Bickford ordered another drink. “I spent two summers doing fieldwork on Haiti. Christ, what a screwed-up country. During the time I was there, Assist Haiti was pioneering a scheme to help the peasant farmers of the Artibonite Valley become self-supp
orting. The reasoning behind it was sound enough: reduce the rural families’ dependence on handouts by introducing a livestock scheme whereby they could become financially independent.” Bickford shook himself. “Let’s drop it and concentrate on our own charitable work here at the bar. I tend to lose my objectivity when I start on about Haiti. It would bore you rigid.”
“No, I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”
Bickford rolled his eyes. “Okay, you’ve asked for it. Just don’t say you weren’t warned.” He flipped his ponytail off his collar. “The peasant farmers on Haiti used to rear hogs. They were one of the mainstays of the subsistence economy until Washington insisted that a compulsory cull be imposed to prevent a swine fever epidemic spreading to the US. Seventy-eight was a bad year for Haiti; Hurricane Christine hit and wasted two-thirds of the island.
“The charity’s plan was to reintroduce hog farming. They helped set up and fund a marketing commission that would guarantee the price for an adult animal. Assist Haiti would supply the young hogs and enough additional fodder to rear them to market size — the disease-resistant hogs they imported from the US were incapable of surviving solely on the fodder the peasants could grow. Their diet needed to be supplemented with expensive US grain. Initially the farmers were reluctant to take a gamble, but the first year was such a success for those who did, the next year Haiti went hog mad. That was when I arrived. Every square yard of ground had one of those damned hogs on it.”
“What went wrong? Some new more-virulent strain of swine fever wipe out the stock?”
Bickford threw a mean look towards the table where Moncoeur was seated. “Nope. He and the rest of the cronies had the Haitian government introduce a ban on the import of US grain. Damn hogs couldn’t survive without the grain supplement and started to deteriorate. There was nothing the marketing commission could do; it couldn’t be expected to guarantee prices when there was nothing to sell. The peasant farmers faced ruin and starvation. There was a chance that, given time, the hogs would adapt to a wholly Haitian diet, but with no money coming in the peasants had no option but to slaughter the hogs. Even that wasn’t enough: their stomachs couldn’t handle a high-protein diet. They needed money to buy vegetables and rice. They had to sell their land to survive. No prizes for guessing who bought most of it, and at knock down prices.”
An Evil Shadow - A Val Bosanquet Mystery Page 7
