The Hoodoo Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

  Relieved, Riga bowed her head, waiting for the actor to move on, to let the real investigating begin.

  Dirk looked up, staring past the cop at a space high on the brick wall. He narrowed his eyes, saying nothing.

  “What's he doing?” Riga asked beneath her breath, lips barely moving.

  “Working the camera,” Wolfe said. “You could learn something.”

  Dirk rose, stared into the camera. “Murder,” he intoned. “The unkindest cut of all.”

  Riga wrinkled her brow. “Seriously?” she muttered. Even when it came for a hoodoo hit man in a Hawaiian shirt, death deserved respect.

  “That's a good one, Dirk,” his cameraman said. “But I got a shadow. Can you shift a bit to the left and do another take?”

  The actor obliged, posing, while the police officer walked back to his squad car.

  “Uh, you two do realize that man is dead?” Riga asked.

  The actor strode to them. “Are you the two who found the body?”

  “Yes,” Wolfe said. “I'm a huge fan.”

  “What are you doing here?” Riga asked.

  “I'm Dirk Steele. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “No,” Riga said. “I'll wait for the real cops.”

  His jaw clenched. “According to the state of Louisiana, I am a real cop.”

  “Then you might want to tell your cameraman to stop messing with the body.”

  The cameraman dropped the arm he’d been repositioning. “The angle wasn't right.”

  Dirk stepped closer. “Lady, I asked you a question.”

  “And since you're an actor pretending to be a cop, I'm ignoring it.” Riga's phone rang, and she dug it from her pocket. Pen's name lit the screen.

  “Don't answer that,” Dirk said.

  Riga put the phone to her ear. “Hi, Pen. I'm a little busy right now.”

  “What's going on? Where are you? I went to look for you in the bathroom, thinking you might have fallen in or something, and you weren't there. Is Wolfe with you?”

  “Like I said, busy. I'll explain later. And yes, he's with me. Stay put.” Riga clicked off.

  “I'm John Wolfe.” He stuck his hand out, juggling the camera still to his eye. “Supernatural Encounters. This is our star, Riga Hayworth. She stepped outside and found him. I was right behind her.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs, wishing she had a spell to shut him up.

  Dirk raised a brow. “A reality TV show just happens to find a dead body with a camera in tow? You wouldn't have put him there to boost ratings?”

  “You've got a cameraman,” Riga said. “Did you kill him?”

  “I'm a cop. Finding bodies is my job.”

  “If you were a real cop, you wouldn't look so pleased about that.”

  “I am a real cop.”

  Riga cocked her head. “You can keep saying it, but it won't make it any more true.”

  “Did you set this up for ratings?”

  “You're delusional. Where are the real police?”

  “Maybe you killed him yourself. Or just found the body and brought your cameraman out here to film the discovery.”

  “I didn't...” A bead of sweat dripped into her eye, burning, and she rubbed it. Dirk was half right, and the heat and her own lingering fear muddled her.

  “Are you sure you didn't? Because with a mouth like yours, it seems like a con job would be...” he whipped toward his camera. “Right up your alley.”

  She ground her palm into her eyes, grimacing. “Do you sit up at night researching clichés?”

  “No.” He leaned back, his gaze traveling from her sandaled feet to her auburn hair, returning to rest at her breasts. “Last night I was involved in something much more... entertaining.”

  “Gagh. Since this is a crime scene, I'm laughing on the inside.”

  His nostrils flared. “I don't like your tone.”

  Wolfe's camera swiveled toward her.

  “And I don't like delusional amateurs contaminating crime—”

  A burst of sirens made them both draw back. More squad cars arrived, and some of the tension in Riga's shoulders released. At last, actual detectives.

  Waving at Dirk and his cameraman, a uniformed cop strode to the scene. “Thanks for keeping it secure,” he said.

  Riga's eyes widened. Secure? “Ah, that cameraman—”

  Wolfe stepped hard on her toes. “No one likes a narc,” he hissed.

  She bit back a yelp. “They need to know,” she whispered.

  “What does it matter what position his arm fell?” Wolfe asked. “The guy's throat was cut. How he died is no mystery.”

  Riga crossed her arms. He was probably right. Still, as a licensed private investigator, the scene tampering offended her sensibilities. “Whatever.”

  A detective in a sweat-stained suit interviewed Riga. “What brought you out here?” he asked.

  She fingered the scrap of paper in her pocket. “I came down the hall to use the ladies room and noticed the back door was open, letting in the heat. So I thought I'd do the restaurant a favor and walked back here to close it. I saw the body and called 9-1-1.” The lie came easily, automatic, and she didn’t miss the irony. She was a stickler with crime scenes, unless her own interests were threatened. Somehow she was connected to this murder. It was personal, and the thought tightened her chest, made her hands clammy.

  “Do you recognize him?”

  “I don't know him, but he was in the restaurant, drunk it seemed. He came by our table and told us he was a hoodoo hit man.”

  The cop smirked. “Right.”

  “One of my colleagues redirected him toward the bar. He went down the corridor toward the bathrooms instead.”

  Nodding, he asked more questions, took her contact information, let her go.

  She returned inside the restaurant. Uniformed cops made the rounds of the tables, notebooks out.

  Pen bounced in her chair with excitement. “The cops are here asking for our contacts and whether we went out back or to the restroom. What's going on?”

  “Riga did it again,” Wolfe said. “Remember that drunk? She found him dead in the alley.”

  Sam got out of his chair so fast it skidded backward, fell over. “What? And you didn't tell us?”

  “Couldn't,” Wolfe said. “Crime scene, and I got it on tape. And get this – Dirk Steele's team was there.”

  Sam paced between the tables, his movements quick, jerky.

  “What—?” Wolfe began.

  Sam held up a warning finger, silencing him. Finally, he stopped, looked up. “Idea.” He jogged from the restaurant.

  The waitress placed the bill on the table and hurried away.

  The crew looked at Riga.

  Sighing, she rooted her wallet out of her satchel, slung over the back of her chair.

  Her fingers fumbled with the credit card. Death had come, taking her would-be killer. She should feel relieved. But the why was a nagging question that pebbled her flesh.

  Chapter 3

  Riga passed her hotel key card over the lock. A green light flashed above the handle, and she walked into her room. Remnants of dark magic hit her, a physical force, sweet and nauseating, sulfurous and rotting. She stepped back, shaking her head in denial.

  Someone had done magic in her room.

  Stomach roiling, she took in the scene. Over the laminate flooring, a cream-colored sisal carpet was spread beneath a black coffee table. The diamond-patterned bedspread was smooth, matching black and khaki pillows propped jauntily against the sand-colored, faux-leather headboard.

  Riga extended her senses. She was alone, but something tugged at her from the queen-sized bed. Wary, she walked to it. Circling the bed, she saw nothing out of place. But dark magic lingered. She ripped back the bedspread, running her hands across the sheets, then pulled those off as well.

  Nothing.

  Stooping, she pushed the bed aside, wooden frame groaning, and almost stepped in the line of gray dust.

  She drew a
satisfied breath. “There you are.”

  Digging her tactical flashlight from her bag, Riga shined it beneath the bed. More lines of dust marched across the floor, but she couldn't see the entire pattern.

  Riga went to the other side of the bed and pulled, so she wouldn't walk through the stuff. Thanks to her recent hoodoo research, she could guess what she was dealing with: goofer dust.

  Panting, she gave the bed one last tug and stepped back to view the pattern. The magician had drawn a rectangle, with an X drawn between the four corners, and piles of dust at each intersection. It reminded her of the five of diamonds, and her thoughts went to the tarot cards in her bag. Fives often represented conflict...

  Shaking her head, she cut short that line of thought. Sometimes magical traditions overlapped. Sometimes they didn't.

  She snapped a picture of the design with her cell phone and called down to reception for a mop and broom.

  “We'll send housekeeping,” the desk clerk said.

  “No thanks, just the mop and broom.” She didn't want a maid dealing with this. It was dark magic of some sort, dark hoodoo most likely. Riga had hoped the murdered man had called himself a hoodoo hit man because he'd been pretending to be drunk, or because he'd fancied the alliteration. But she couldn't ignore this coincidence. She didn't believe in them.

  A maid knocked at her door with the cleaning implements, and there was a small discussion in the hallway as to who would wield them. Passing the woman a twenty, Riga got her way and shut the door. Anger flickered in her belly. Had the spell caster paid a maid off to let him or her inside?

  Humming a chant, Riga swept the dust, careful to collect it all and deposit it in the bathroom garbage bin. She tied off the plastic liner, then filled the sink with warm water and added a generous pour of salt – another magical item she never traveled without.

  A magical attack was a three-part affair, one part the connection between the spell caster and his victim. Once that connection was broken, the spell failed. Salt water was the quickest way to break that link. Chanting under her breath, keeping her fury at bay, she mopped beneath the bed with the salt solution.

  If the hoodoo hit man had left this for her, then he really had been what he'd said. Or had someone else left it? The person who had killed him? Riga's thoughts ping-ponged from one possibility to another.

  She shook her head. Tempting as it was, a metaphysical detective didn't jump to conclusions. Riga needed more, starting with the hit man's real name.

  Rinsing the mop in the narrow bathtub, she scrubbed the tub with a fresh salt water mix, anger powering her movements.

  She showered, dressed, and sank into a chair and stared out the window view of a freeway overpass. She itched to call Donovan and thrash it out with him, but with the time difference in Macau, he’d still be sleeping.

  She hadn’t the contacts in New Orleans to get to the truth about any underworld connections the “hit man” might have had. But if he had been involved in hoodoo, someone in the magical community would know.

  Hoodoo still confused her. Everyone she spoke with had a different take. It was Cajun, it was southern, it was Afro-American, it wasn't. Some said it was voodoo stripped of its religion. Others said it was something else entirely. Tonight she cared less about its origins and more about its practice.

  The hotel phone blared, jerking her from her reverie.

  She snatched it up. “Riga here.”

  “It's Sam. Can you come down to the work room? We've got to talk.”

  “Sure.” She lowered her head, frowning. The show was probably being canceled. She could live with the loss. Though the extra income fed her ego, she didn't really need the cash. It would be a blow for Pen, however.

  Jamming her key card in her pocket, she wandered down the hall. If the show did go on, Riga didn’t want her young niece here with a hoodoo murder hanging over their heads. Pen was only beginning to explore her gifts as a medium and their family’s heritage as necromancers. Her magic was raw, vulnerable, and as attractive as hell to those who practiced black magic. Like the necromancer whose file she kept in her hotel room.

  Riga tasted something sour in the back of her mouth. She couldn’t ignore the possibility dark hoodoo might be involved in the killing. Pen was going to have to go. Riga could handle her niece’s fury, but she keenly felt Pen's upcoming disappointment.

  The team's base of operations was a conference room on the hotel's first floor. The walls were a mellow sand color. Tables had been assembled in a U-shape for the team. Computer equipment and monitors lined them, black cables snaking across the thick, red and green carpet.

  Sam sat before a monitor, frowning. Wolfe stood beside him, camera at the ready.

  Riga's jaw clenched. Were they going to film her getting the bad news? That was one way to generate the conflict Sam craved.

  Looking up, Sam waved her to a chair. “Sit down, sit down.”

  She remained standing, crossing her arms over her chest. “What's up?”

  “So... The show so far is adequate. Not great, but it will work.”

  “But?”

  “We're going to be making some changes.”

  “Just tell me Sam. I'm a big girl.”

  “I've been talking to the police department and Dirk’s Mean Streets crew, and an opportunity has come up. We got lucky. This afternoon there was a murder with occult overtones.”

  “Lucky?” she asked.

  “I mean, it’s terrible, of course. But lucky for the police that someone like you, with experience as an occult consultant to law enforcement, is in town.”

  “They want me to consult on the murder of the hoodoo hit man?”

  “The drunk at the restaurant? No,” Sam said slowly. “There was nothing supernatural about that murder. But it turns out, there's been another. I managed to talk them into letting you consult on the case. Dirk was a big help.”

  Riga stared. “What?”

  “He's a great guy, Riga. I think you'll like him once you get to know him.”

  “What?” Her voice went up an octave.

  “I've been going over the footage of you and Dirk, and the chemistry is electric.”

  Wolfe chuckled. “That's one way of putting it.”

  She glared at the cameraman. “Are you saying that we're teaming up with Dirk and his Mean Streets show?”

  “A cross-over!” Sam rubbed his hands together. “What do you think?”

  Riga jammed her hands in her pockets and stared at a blank monitor. Dirk the jerk seemed to have good relations with the cops. It might be a way to get closer to the hoodoo hit man case. “What sort of occult murder?”

  Sam shrugged. “Does it matter? The cops are on their way over now.”

  Her lips thinned. “Pretty sure of yourself, weren't you?”

  “Come on, Riga. I know you're curious.”

  More importantly, her contract bound her to this madness. “Fine. And Pen goes back to California.”

  Wolfe blinked. “What?”

  “I don't want her around murders. She's not even twenty. It's too much. She goes home.”

  Sam took off his glasses and polished them with the hem of his golf shirt. “I'm sorry, Riga.”

  She drew breath to argue.

  “I should have thought of that myself.” He replaced his glasses and frowned. “I'm just so used to thinking of her as one of our cameramen... people. I didn't think. You're right.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Great. Thanks. And... I'd better be the one to tell her.”

  “I can do it. The fact is, with our crew combining with Mean Streets, we've got more manpower than we need. It makes sense to send Pen back. She can get to work with the editing team. It’ll be good experience for her.”

  “I'm sure she'll see it that way,” Riga said dryly. When Pen found out, she’d go nuclear. “Wolfe, I'd like to see the video from the restaurant today. Before the murder.”

  “I thought you might.” He handed his camera to Sam and flipped on one o
f the monitors. “Here.” He stepped away from the narrow table, pulling back a folding metal chair.

  “Thanks.” By now, she knew a bit about the equipment and was able to maneuver through the footage. Wolfe had queued it up to their arrival at the restaurant – walking down the wide, brick entry, their fleet slapping lightly on the flagstones. They paused to speak with the hostess, and Wolfe panned the scene: the fountain in the center, surrounded by ferns. Seated diners. Some shots of the Supernatural Encounters crew joking around the table, and then a cut to Wolfe, jogging down the dark hallway, Riga silhouetted in the open alleyway door.

  She rewound the footage, played it forward at half speed.

  Her heart stopped.

  An old man sat at a table near the door. Bald, in his tweed jacket he looked like an aging professor. Gaunt face. Sunken chest. A smile cold as a reptile's, turning Riga's heart to ice. Beside him sat a younger, dark-skinned woman.

  The old man was a necromancer. The necromancer. The file in her hotel room was filled with details of his kills, and she wondered wildly if her interest had summoned him.

  “The Hotel Meurice,” the Old Man said loudly. He glanced at the camera. Smiled. “Such a lovely courtyard suite. Ground floor, naturally. Room 105.”

  So it was going to be that way, was it?

  The hotel phone by the monitor rang, and Sam stretched to get it. “Yes? Yes. Sure. Send them in.” He hung up. “The police are here. You ready for this?”

  “As I'll ever be.” Rattled by the video, she twisted the wedding rings on her finger.

  The heavy door clanged open. Two detectives walked in, jackets over their arms, sweat stains darkening the armpits of their button-up shirts. One was tall, lanky, saturnine. He shook hands with Wolfe, towering over the cameraman. The other officer stood a couple inches shorter than Riga. He was muscular, his neck lost in the cords of muscle in his shoulders. Detectives long and short, she thought, wondering what metaphors Dirk had made of that team.

  The taller one looked about, his hawk nose flaring. “Dirk’s not here yet?”

  Sam rose, hand extended. “Er, no. But our consultant…” He motioned toward her. “Riga is ready.”

  The shorter one shrugged, crossing the room, and shook Riga's hand. “Don't know what Dirk could tell us anyway. He's not the supernatural type.” He held out a manila file folder to her, and for a bad moment she thought he'd taken it from her room upstairs. “Dirk said you were aces at this sort of thing. We called the references your show gave us. They all agreed.”