Old Black Magic

by Jaye Maiman

  Fitzhugh Crock graduated summa cum laude from Stanford University. His sister, Sarah, was one of the women profiled in this piece. This is his first article for the Examiner.

  The date was 1973. A flush spread across my face. I poised my index finger over the enter key and held my breath.

  “I can’t believe this!” The bark came from the doorway. I recognized Ginny’s angry tone instantly. I tapped the key and turned around. “You can’t stop yourself, can you?” she snapped. Ginny had recently cut her hair to chin-length. It made the fire in her eyes more potent. She would’ve reduced a lesser woman to ash. I took the laser hit straight on and didn’t flinch.

  “K.T.’s still in surgery,” I said. “What was I supposed to do? Sit here and bite my nails?”

  “Gee, wouldn’t that just be dreadful? What would happen if you actually allowed yourself to worry?” She marched into the room. “I can’t believe how much alike you and Larry are. You’re never one-hundred percent present—”

  I cut her tirade short. “Enough, Ginny.”

  “Fine. Do you mind returning the phone to normal? I’m sure this strikes you as odd, but our family—” She stressed the word “our” for maximum effect. “Our family is very concerned about K.T., and I expect most of them will be calling in within the next hour or so.”

  She didn’t wait for my response. Her head disappeared below the bed as she began struggling to reach the modular phone plug. She bumped against a metal leg and cursed.

  Just before she pulled the line, I caught a glimpse of the article I’d just retrieved.

  “Barry NeVille Acquitted on Charge of Rape”

  The byline was Fitzhugh Crock.

  Chapter Eleven

  I cupped an ice chip in my palm and slipped it between K.T.’s lips. The surgery was minor, but the impact of the last twenty-four hours was anything but. K.T. looked pale and drawn, her eyes reduced to puffy slits. She squeezed my hand and turned away. “I feel so empty,” she murmured.

  I responded with the inanity, “I know,” and moved my chair closer. The hospital’s visiting hours had ended much earlier, but so far I’d managed to avoid eviction. My own stay in a hospital was recent enough for me to know that the hardest moments came late at night, when the silence of the hallways became oppressive, the staccato coughs of strangers in unseen rooms an assault to the senses. The narrow confines of the hospital bed had trapped me in a spider’s web of vivid nightmares that did not distinguish between sleep and waking.

  “Can you shut the light?” K.T. asked, still not facing me.

  I reached up and hit the switch. “Go ahead and try to sleep. I’ll be right here.”

  “You should go home…there’s nothing you can do here.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said, stroking her hand.

  A small sob escaped from her lips, but she swallowed it quickly. In the dim light, I could barely see her nod, but it was more than enough for me. K.T. needed me by her side. I kissed her neck and cradled her in my arms.

  Ginny had left shortly after five o’clock, and soon after her brother, T.B., had shown up. In typical form, Ginny had made it clear that her departure was made possible only because another family member had arrived on the scene. Lucky for me, that family member actually likes me. T.B.’s a medical examiner for the city of New York, and we’ve worked together on a few cases. Over time, we’ve developed a real affection for each other, which helps to offset Ginny’s brooding reservation. As soon as he arrived, he buried me in his arms, comforting me on the loss he assumed K.T. and I shared. I was surprised at how good his hug felt, how willing I was to accept his sympathy.

  T.B.’s a bit of an eccentric, with an odd fixation on Italian-Americans. His dining room table consists of a matinee poster of The Godfather sealed in lucite and mounted on a marble base. He has a slow Southern drawl and looks more like Ron Howard than he does either of his sisters.

  He crossed over to K.T.’s bedside in what was clearly meant to be an Al Pacino swagger and said, “I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse. Give your big bro a smile, or—” The way he’d mugged for her had netted the first sincere grin from K.T. in the past twenty-four hours. He’d stayed until ten, when his beeper sounded. Despite my fondness for him, I was relieved when he left.

  K.T. shivered against me. I got up and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. Without speaking, she placed her hand on top of mine and curled into a tight fetal position. A steady creaking of the bed frame punctuated the small rocking motion she’d begun to make. Glancing through the doorway, I could just make out the time on the wall clock. Eleven-fifty. We were in for a long, long night.

  Earlier, while T.B. still huddled by KT.’s side, I’d managed to slip out to the pay phone and contact Jill. She informed me that Sweeney had been trying to contact me at the hospital for a few hours with no luck. She’d given me a number where I could reach him between six and seven. I’d called right away. As I listened to K.T.’s breathing grow steadier, I replayed our conversation.

  The first thing he’d said was, “So she lost the baby.” It wasn’t a question or an expression of sympathy. Just a statement of simple fact. Yet I’d sensed a strange uneasiness in Sweeney, an uncertainty of how to proceed. I didn’t make the conversation easier.

  “How far along was she?” he asked.

  “Three months.” My voice was cold, the sound of rock hitting thick metal.

  “Could they tell the sex?”

  Pressure built up behind my eyes. The sex. “It was a girl,” I said, each word tight and precise. Her name would’ve been Charlotte, after K.T.’s grandmother. I hadn’t known that until less than an hour ago.

  “What happened?”

  “Cause undetermined,” I said, mimicking the tone of the physician who had stepped in for Dr. Wolf. Undetermined. “Most likely some chromosomal defect.”

  “I see,” he said, then after another moment, “So I’m assuming you’re off the case.”

  “You’re assuming wrong,” I snapped. “My agency’s on it, under my direction. We’ve made too much progress to stop now.”

  He coughed in my ear. “What kind of progress?” For a while I’d been hearing street sounds in the background. All of a sudden, there was rhythmic clip-clop echoing through the phone.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “A bar near Jackson Square. Damn horse nearly ran my table over.”

  “Don’t you ever go home?”

  “Home is where my ass is. Right now it’s here. You didn’t answer my question. What progress?”

  I was too tired to play cat-and-mouse. I gave him the full update on Fitzhugh Chamelle, including the article on NeVille, then waited for the information to set in. “By the way, did you know that Lisa Rubin left her husband and then had an abortion? Or that the Strampos family is super right-wing? There’s even a chance the two of us are way off base and this is a much simpler homicide than we’re making it out. You had to hear at least some of this from the NOPD.” My tone mingled equal parts of accusation and spottiness. Sweeney brought out my best side.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Sweeney, you keep holding out on me and I’ll cut you off so fast your nose will bleed. I’ve accomplished more in the past few days than you have in the past goddamn nine years. You want to run parallel investigations, that’s fine with me.” I saved the sucker punch for last. “Right now, Ryan’s confidence is riding with my team.”

  “You’re a bitch, Miller,” he shouted in my ear. “A stone-hearted bitch. You got a girlfriend there bleeding out a new life and you’re worried about who’s fuckin’ running ahead on this investigation. When my wife lost our baby, I was a fuckin’ wreck. Cried like a girl. Had to drink myself into oblivion just to stay alive those first few weeks. Christ! Is this what you dykes are like?”

  “Fuck you, Sweeney. My grief is none of your business.”

  “Fuck you back. You wanna know what I know? Fine. You are dead on. I am holding some of my ammo in reserve,
but you got it all ass-backwards. I ain’t trying to beat you at some fuckin’ head game…I’m trying to keep you from playing with guns you don’t know how to fire and you’re too damn juvie to be toting in the first place. I’ve been protecting your ass, ’cause Ryan doesn’t want his damn pseudo-daughter to bloody herself again.”

  His statement stung me like flesh on dry ice. His choice of words couldn’t have been accidental. Ryan must’ve told him how my sister died, and how the family had reacted. I gulped, steadied myself on the wall.

  The battery, continued. “Okay, you and your team found out some stuff. Big, hairy deal. I got all that data nailed last night, plus some. You think my connections got smaller balls than yours? The Strampos family angle is colder than a witch’s tit. Lisa was a shit to her old man, but the family didn’t rub her out, even if she deserved it. Good try, though.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Now try this on…Did you know some people suspected that NeVille was behind an attack on Chamelle’s sister, Sarah? No, I didn’t think so. Or how about this? Sarah Crock is still up in San Francisco, running an occult store called Tea Leaves where her friggin’ brother Fitz is a frequent visitor. Don’t bother calling her, she’s out of town for two weeks. Oh, yeah and I forgot…a buddy fetched me pix of Fitz from the newspaper morgue. I passed it by staff at the Royal Orleans. Seems he’d asked a couple of folks there about you and your girlfriend. K.T. Bellflower, right? You never did tell me her name. I hear her new restaurant’s doing pretty good. How’s that for detecting, huh?”

  I glanced around, searching for a water fountain. My mouth was desert-dry. Swallowing became difficult.

  “Nothing to say, Miller?” he taunted.

  “How’s this?” I said. “Back in ’eighty-eight, the first officer on the scene made the link between the murders and voodoo emblems. Clyde Peltier…name ring a bell? It was his first year on the job.”

  Not a home run, but at least I hit a ground ball. Sweeney sucked in his breath with a hiss. “Where’d you dig up that piece of trash?”

  “My partner spoke to him.”

  “He’s going by what a kid remembers from a crime that went down five years ago?”

  “It was his first homicide. Not an event you easily forget. Do you remember him?”

  “Shit. You’re talking about one moron in the course of years of investigative work. Who the hell remembers? Maybe, maybe not. If I did, he never mentioned the voodoo crap to me, I’ll tell you that much. He saying otherwise? ’Cause if he is, let me at him—”

  “Calm down, Sweeney.”

  “I just don’t want him making it out that I had a fuckin’ red flag shoved up my nose and didn’t know it.”

  “I’ll give him the message.”

  “You seeing this asshole?”

  “Maybe. I’ve been playing with some ideas I’d like to bounce off someone who’s familiar with voodoo.”

  “Try me.”

  “Another time. So where do you stand now on Chamelle?”

  “Me and some brothers played this thing out all afternoon. The way we see it, Chamelle could be setting up NeVille nice and slow for a one-way ticket to the chair. But there’s no official dope on this angle, so I gotta keep playing it out on my own.”

  “Sounds pretty far-fetched to me. Say NeVille did attack Sarah Crock and say it was a traumatic event for her. I’ll grant you that Chamelle may have been pretty pissed off that NeVille’s been free and clear all these years, but you’re saying the guy then proceeded to rape, maim and murder four other women just to tie up NeVille. Come on, Sweeney.”

  “Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Fitz’s clock is ticking one second at a time. The bastard’s obsessed with murder, for crissakes. You can’t argue with that. Could be NeVille was the match that burned down old Fitz’s wick. Or here’s another take…maybe old Fitz and NeVille are a team. Fitz sure as hell wouldn’t be the last guy to have stuck it to a family member. ’Specially not with folk from down here.” He guffawed at his own lame joke. “You got a better motive?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  He didn’t like my answer. “Hey, I’m being up front with you. There’s not a card that’s face down on my table.”

  “Let’s just say I’m taking a less traditional approach to this whole thing. The killer’s using voodoo emblems for a reason. I want to know what that is.”

  Someone asked Sweeney if he wanted another drink. My eyebrows gathered.

  “Yeah, another Coke. Lots of lemon,” he answered, then he came back on without skipping a beat. “You’re dead wrong. I bet if I laid out a sugar trail, you’d be the kind to bend on over and lick your way right into my big old trap. Voodoo’s a red herring. Follow it till you choke. Me, I’m gonna head out for another visit to NeVille’s camp first thing tomorrow. Your being there the other day kinda distracted me. Then I’m gonna track down Fitz and have a chat with the man. By the way, you have anyone besides me on the scene?”

  Cornered and bagged. Sweeney had me and he knew it.

  “What do you want, Sweeney?”

  “Cooperation. Don’t you think Daddy would want that?”

  Anger steamed through me. The man knew how to push my buttons. “Up yours.”

  He laughed heartily. “Okay. Get back to your lesbian friend. I’ll call you at home tomorrow. It must be nice having a nurse and a shrink live downstairs from you. One thing I don’t know is how long you-all have owned that brownstone together.”

  How the hell did he know so much about me and my housemates? For that matter, how could he be so sure K.T. and I planned to go back to my house tomorrow?

  “See, puppy girl, I’m a better detective than you think,” he had said before hanging up.

  * * *

  K.T. moaned and I immediately lifted my head from where it had been resting on her hip. Still asleep, she began muttering disconnected phrases. The only word I made out clearly was Charlotte. It was twelve-fifteen. K.T.’s nightmares had begun.

  Thursday, May 6

  I kicked the door shut behind me and dropped our bags. Geeja and Mallomar raced to greet me. Their meows echoed in the hallway. I swept Geeja up in my arms and kissed her trim, cocoa-brown belly. Her motor clicked on instantly. From nowhere, my eyes brimmed with tears. Meanwhile, something thudded onto my sneaker. I glanced down. Mallomar had draped herself over my foot and was throwing me one of her more insistent smoker-cat mewls.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Your turn’s coming.”

  K.T. glared up at the staircase and said, “Think you can carry me, too?”

  “Are you hurting?”

  “A little. Maybe I’ll just lie down on the couch down here for a while. I don’t feel like going upstairs just yet.”

  “No problem.” I parted the French doors to the living room to let her inside. “Let me feed the cats, then I’ll fix us something.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Not a good sign. K.T.’s appetite is one of the things I love most about her. She consumes food and life with a zest that astounds and thrills me. But now she stood in the center of my living room, listless, gazing at the shuttered windows.

  “Honey?” I walked over to her, touched the small of her back. “You okay?”

  After an instant of hesitation, she shook her head. “I feel dead inside.” Her eyes filled with her fear. “I don’t feel anything, Robin. Nothing.”

  “The hormones—”

  “No. I’m not talking about hormones. I mean me.” She pounded her chest. “My heart,” she practically whispered. “I don’t feel sad, or angry, or lonely, or—” Abruptly, she broke off eye contact.

  “It’s okay to say it, K.T.”

  In a voice I could barely hear, she said, “I feel disconnected from everything. My body, the miscarriage, work—” I braced myself for what was coming. “Even you.”

  Alarm zapped through me. The tables had turned. I know too well what it’s like to shut down emotions to prevent myself from a complete melt-down. But I’d never seen K.
T. retreat like this. I stroked my cheek with the heel of my palm to calm a nerve that had suddenly tightened along my jaw. Before I could respond, there was a tap on the wall behind me.

  “Hey, it’s me.” I turned around. Beth stood in the hallway, her hand still poised on the outside door. “You forgot to lock up behind you. Hope you don’t mind…” Her gaze swept from me to K.T.’s back. The expression in her eyes turned serious. “Jill called me yesterday to tell me what happened. How are you two doing?”

  “Not so good,” I muttered.

  K.T. didn’t answer. Instead she folded herself into the far corner of the couch.

  Beth said, “I’m sorry This must be hell for you. Did the doctor go over the stats with you—”

  “Don’t,” K.T. said abruptly. “Don’t.” A bitter smirk flickered over her lips. “I really don’t want to hear it.”

  My skin felt cold. Beth glanced at me. I warned her off with a blink of my eyes. She nodded, then kneeled down to rub Geeja behind the ear. “The cats really missed you this trip. Every time I came up, they slammed by my ankles, little linebackers, looking for their real mom.” At the last word, she looked up nervously at K.T. She shouldn’t have worried. K.T. had zoned us out. To me, Beth said, “Geeja was so upset, she got that little bald spot over her left ear. And Mallomar couldn’t bring herself to eat for two whole days. You know how serious that is. Look, another week or so and she’d be absolutely svelte.”

  Beth herself appeared to have lost some weight in the past week and a half. The bracelet on her wrist hung loosely, the rings on her fingers seemed on the verge of falling off. Even when she was tucked into a tight squat, her jeans bagged around her thighs. She followed me into the kitchen, the cats zig-zagging around our feet. I pulled out a can of food.

  “They had tuna last night,” Beth said.

  I smiled at her. Dark circles dulled the normal spark in my friend’s eyes. She bit her bottom lip, averted her gaze. All at once, I realized Beth was trying to get up the nerve to tell me something.