Old Black Magic

by Jaye Maiman

  “What is it, Beth?”

  “Oh, damn, you don’t need this right now.”

  I snapped off the lid of the can so fast, juice splashed onto my shirt. Beth wet a sponge and started scrubbing at the spot. I could feel her fingers trembling against me.

  “You and Dinah—” I said, pressure building in my temples.

  A quick nod, lips tight, chin quivering. In a minute, she’d be sobbing. I covered her hand with mine and lowered her onto a stool by the breakfast bar.

  “She’s met someone,” Beth whispered.

  I cocked my head at her, unsure I’d heard her right. Ever since Beth and Dinah had adopted their daughter, Carol, more than a year ago they’d been going through rough times. Most of the arguments they’d had since then stemmed from the sudden tension of balancing a long-term relationship with sudden parenthood. But the stress in their relationship also stemmed in part from my role in their lives. In recent years, Dinah and I had become horribly estranged while my old connection to Beth deepened.

  I sat down opposite, Beth, dazed by her news. Dinah was one of the most self-righteous prigs I knew. In my wilder days, she had delineated with painstaking honesty every misstep, every marginally immoral decision I’d ever made. She once accused me of treating relationships with the same consume-and-trash attititude I held toward junk food.

  “Six and a half years,” Beth said, more to herself than me. “She didn’t even wait for the seven-year itch.” She made a weak attempt at a smile, her eyes brimming with tears.

  “How long—”

  “About seven months after we adopted Carol. Around the same time all that craziness was going on with you, K.T., and Lurlene. So I guess it’s been around nine months altogether. God! What an asshole I’ve been.”

  Nine months? It didn’t seem possible. Just before I left for New Orleans, we all had dinner together. I watched them snuggle up to each other on the couch, tickling their daughter, gazing at each other over her head with obvious joy. “But you two spend so much time together. How’d she even find—”

  Beth didn’t wait for me to finish. “They met at a weekend conference. She’s a therapist, too. Ironic, huh?” She wiped her eyes and said, “Her name’s Petunia, for God’s sake. How could Dinah fall in love with a woman named after a stupid flower? And, get this, she smokes like a damn chimney. I met her once, Dinah brought her home for dinner, then the two of them spent most of the time in her office. I didn’t think twice about it. She’d also said that affairs were obscene, a chicken-hearted approach to relationship problems. Oh, shit.”

  “Ah, Beth, honey.” I hugged her.

  For a few minutes, she shook her head against me, as if she couldn’t believe her own words, then she pounded my back, half-crying, half-laughing against my shoulder. “Can you believe it? After all the times she nailed you for fooling around with unfit women?” I waited for her to find a tissue in her pocket and blow her nose. “Petunia lives in Boston, which is why Dinah has had such an urgent need these past few months for professional development courses at some horrid, make-believe institute up there.”

  “When did you find this all out?”

  “Two nights ago. Without telling me, she’d cancelled her afternoon clients and met Pet—that’s what she calls her, can you barf? She met Pet at the airport. Apparently, she’d given Dinah an ultimatum. Break up with me, or it was all over. So, Dinah showed up around midnight, while my heart was in my mouth with so much fear that something had happened to her, and tells me, sorry, it’s over. I almost fainted, I was so stunned. All the time we’ve been working things out, she’s been saying, it’s Carol, I can’t handle being a mom, this isn’t what I expected. So I’ve been bending over backwards to give her more time, take on more of the child-care arrangements myself. I’m an idiot, right?”

  “Hardly.”

  “You know, when we adopted Carol, so many people told me about other couples who broke up after becoming parents. Dinah and I joked about it, made fun of those dipstick lesbians who hadn’t fully anticipated the amount of work it takes to raise a kid. I tell you, Rob, these last two days, I feel like I’m going crazy. I can’t make sense out of the last six and a half years of my life. Was it all bullshit?”

  “Look, I witnessed those years. They were not bullshit, no matter what’s happening now. Come on,” I said, lifting her chin with my finger. “Carol needs you. I need you. You’ll get through this. I promise you.”

  She threw her arms around my neck and held on. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  I rubbed her back, saw K.T. staring at me over the counter. I wondered how much she heard. “I’m going upstairs for a nap,” she said quietly.

  Beth and I spent the next few hours talking. Dinah intended to move to Boston and open a practice with Petunia. Her goal was to terminate her ongoing clients and get out of the house as fast as possible, perhaps as soon as July. She planned to ask me to buy out her share of the brownstone. The way Beth portrayed it, I sensed that Dinah expected me to put up an argument. In fact, the arrangement would work fine with me, since I earned enough from property rentals and book royalties to need an additional tax write-off. I gave Beth a written figure to pass on to Dinah, then assured her repeatedly that not only could she continue living downstairs, I expected her to. The most disturbing news I learned was that Dinah had firmly stated she did not want to have any further contact with Beth or Carol. Her rationale? Carol was young enough to recover from early parental separation, which in the long run would be less detrimental than continued parental conflict. Or some such nonsense. Legally, Dinah wasn’t obligated to pay child support.

  Around one o’clock, Beth left to pick up Carol from the day-care center. I called my accountant, told him about the buy-out, then checked in with my office. We’d made little additional progress since last night. At some point, I went upstairs to look in on K.T. She was asleep on my bed, one cat sharing her pillow and the other curled on her hip. I left them alone and went back down to make something for lunch. The phone rang as I was snatching my toast from the oven tray.

  “Miller, we got trouble. Big trouble.”

  I sat down and said, “Go ahead, Sweeney, shoot.”

  Less than forty-eight hours later, those words would echo in my head.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sweeney’s next words hit like a scud missile. “NeVille’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “I got out to the bayou first thing this a.m. Found him hanging from a rope tied to the old, metallic car fender he’d rigged like a drainpipe. Heat’d made him swell up like one of those blowfish. Know the kind I mean? Guess who was with him? That asshole with the egghead tattoo, the one that slipped you the tooth. And he had another one, right in his pocket. Along with three C notes.”

  A thrill ran through me. “Did you get him?”

  “Didn’t have to. NeVille got him. Shotgun blast through the head. Greasy brain bits all over the place. Shit, you should’ve seen my arms. ’Squitoes, flies, gnats, every other friggin’ insect life swarmed right over me. Even the gators got curious.”

  I dumped my sandwich in the trash. My appetite had disappeared. “Sounds like a murder-suicide,” I said. The prospect made me uneasy. Just as we’d crested the highest loop on a wild roller coaster, someone had jammed on the brakes. We weren’t crashing the way we should, though. Instead, we were suspended in air, the rules of gravity be damned. Something wasn’t right.

  “Looked like one, too,” Sweeney said. “There was a stool kicked over right under NeVille’s heels. Rope burns ’cross his right palm, like he tugged on the rope a while before finally letting go. Place was pretty messed up, too, like he’d beaten the crap out of the other guy before doing his own high kick. We got an I.D. on old egghead, by the way. Name on record is Jimmy Lee Troy, a kissing cousin of NeVille’s, as dim-witted as NeVille liked to make himself out to be. Apparently, they got pretty buddybuddy after NeVille moved back down here. Troy done time for petty shit—boosting a car, assaulti
ng a bartender dumb enough to try to stop a drunk from drinking, and one B and E. The detectives got it all figured out, nice and sweet. Let’s see if you can guess the tune of this song.”

  “Jimmy Troy got squirmy on Rubin’s homicide, so NeVille offed him.”

  “Bingo. Here’s why I ain’t on the force no more. Most cops got no imagination. The official line is, Troy falls in with his cousin and gets suckered into going along on the homicide. Only Troy don’t know how black his cousin is. He thinks all they’re gonna do is dick around with her some. But then NeVille does his thing and Troy freaks. Maybe he starts sweating about going back to the house, this time for good. No con who’s done time wants to be a lifer. So NeVille and him argue, even get down to knuckles. Then, boom, in the heat of the argument he blows Troy away. Now, here comes the good part, the man suddenly develops a conscience. After all, it’s one thing slicing and dicing a chick, and quite another to excavate the face of your cousin with a shotgun right on your own doorstep.” I winced at the image. “Oh yeah, NeVille bought himself a brand new baby yesterday. Twelve gauge. In his own friggin’ name, for crissakes. Then, man, this one blew me away…they found a nice, shiny crucifix clutched in NeVille’s left hand. Like he was praying for salvation. NeVille got religion. As far as everyone’s concerned down here, case is closed. Open and shut. Send the fat lady home.”

  I heard K.T. moving around upstairs. “So what’s the problem?”

  “Too fuckin’ convenient,” he said. “I did some dicking on my own and I found out that the tattoo on Troy, it was stenciled in on Monday afternoon. Some dive in the Quarter. Less than twelve hours before Rubin got taken down. When the woman told him how much it’d be, he said, no problem, I’m not footing the bill. I’m gonna make money off this, that’s what he said.”

  “You think someone was setting him up?”

  “Hello? At least you’re listening. You tell me what asshole’s gonna get the word ‘egghead’ inked on his butt-bald scalp hours before collaborating on a crime in which an egg is cracked on the back of the vic’s head, in almost the identical spot. Boys down here take that as confirming circumstantial evidence. Even my best pal down here thought NeVille had Troy marked as a way to prime his pump. What do you think?”

  “The story’s got merit.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that, but I still think someone was jerking his chain, making out like this homicide thing was all a big game. Maybe Troy didn’t even know about the killing. But with that tattoo on his head, he’d be numero uno in the suspect department, don’t you think?”

  “What about the tooth?”

  “What about it? It don’t prove squat.”

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs. K.T. was finally coming back down. I lowered my voice. “Do you know where Troy was when the other killings occurred?”

  “In the joint. Each and every time. He don’t figure in this, I’m telling you.”

  “So you think NeVille set him up?”

  “I did for maybe half a sec, but then I got a whiff of his puffed-up corpse, and my engine started to purr. NeVille’s just another pawn. We’re talking a master here. You’re not gonna like this, sister.”

  For some reason, I thought of Ryan. A shudder ran through me. “Go ahead, Sweeney.”

  K.T. came around the corner bearing the disheveled appearance of someone who’d just woken up. Her cheek held tracks imprinted by the weave of the blanket. She mouthed, “How much longer?” and I shrugged in response.

  Sweeney said, “I paid a visit to Fitzhugh Chamelle’s place out in Metairie. You ever been there?”

  “Stop dragging this out.”

  The refrigerator gurgled as K.T. held the door open, staring at the contents. They weren’t pretty. After one and a half weeks, whatever had once been barely edible was now fit for science. I could smell the sour milk from across the kitchen. She grunted and moved on to a cabinet. A box of graham crackers fell onto the counter.

  “You New Yorkers sure are impatient,” Sweeney said. “Okay, here’s the skinny. Chamelle’s flown the coop. I found dishes in the sink, but no suitcase in the house. Half of the master closet was empty.” He took a dramatic breath. “I did find the car, though. In long-term parking at the airport.”

  My stomach tightened. I cupped my hand around the phone’s mouthpiece and edged into the living room. “What’re you saying, Sweeney?”

  “Read the tea leaves.”

  “You think he’s coming to New York City?” I asked with more sarcasm than I felt. “Why not Vegas? Or Mexico?”

  “The last message on his answering machine was yours, Miller.”

  I glanced back toward the kitchen. K.T. stared at me from the pass-through. She hadn’t missed a beat. The blood drained from her face. I strode over, shook my head, trying to reassure her, but she shied away from me. She emptied the tea kettle, filled it, emptied it again. When she finally placed it on the burner, her shoulders slumped. I kissed the back of her neck and exited. This time, I went and stood by the windows.

  “I don’t buy it, Sweeney. If he’s about to go on a spree, why’d he pack so much?”

  “Maybe you’re his final act,” he said ominously. Sweeney seemed to be enjoying himself too much. For some reason, the sick amusement he took in scaring me eased my nerves.

  “Enough melodrama,” I snapped. “Did you find anything incriminating in his house? Bloody artifacts? The knife he used to kill Rubin? You do recall the concept of evidence, Sweeney, don’t you?”

  “Yeah and he had fuckin’ skulls under his pillow. This man’s a pro, Miller.”

  “Must be why he so ably evaded your notice all these years. And by the way, how does the NOPD feel about your breaking and entering, which is a crime even in the Big Easy, I presume?”

  He muttered a curse under his breath. The more irritated he became, the stronger I felt. “Easy for you to get on a high horse,” he said. “You’re not the one getting your hands dirty. Yeah, I broke into his place. And no, we’re not dealing with a minor leaguer here. You should’ve seen his files on the eggshell murders. Methodical. Every single one labeled, indexed, cross-referenced. And volumes on voodoo. I’ll put a case of Cuban cigars on this one. Chamelle’s it.”

  As much as I wanted to disagree, my guts said Sweeney was right. Everything we knew pointed back to Chamelle. “So now what?” I asked wearily.

  “Stay out of it, that’s what. So far, Chamelle’s killings have clicked according to his own perverse logic. The women got nailed for some reason we still don’t understand, but we do know he’s staying true to some brilliantly complex scheme. NeVille and Troy were the first real deviations. That is not a good sign. It means his fire’s already high and, Miller, tomorrow’s Friday.”

  One of the special days of Ogou Feray. A day on which the killer has struck twice before. At least it wasn’t the thirteenth. I hung up from Sweeney and twisted the phone wire around my finger. The prospect of Chamelle tracking me to New York made me queasy. Especially with K.T. in the house. I glanced over to the kitchen. From the smells emanating from that direction, I gathered that she’d managed to find something to eat in the disaster area I called a kitchen. I sniffed. Eggs. Given the circumstances, the last culinary odor I wanted to curl around my head. I ducked through the French doors and clambered upstairs.

  A while back, my partner Tony at long last convinced me to buy a handgun and take shooting lessons. The day I returned home with the gun triggered three weeks of insomnia. Then we finally headed out to the range. Bleary-eyed, sick to my stomach, I’d gritted my teeth while Tony put me through the paces. Each time I’d fired, my heart pounded so hard I could hear the pulse in my head. As my finger sank against the trigger in slow motion, my sister’s face swelled up in my memory, the moment of her death replayed with exquisitely painful detail. The next time went only marginally better. But eventually, I’d slept again. Eventually, I’d fired the gun, the only reverberation in my limbs the kickback from the gun. The therapist I’d been seeing at the time
had saluted my announcement with a stale cup of coffee. I’d used the gun once since then. To protect someone I loved. I’d do the same again, without blinking.

  The gun was locked away in the bottom drawer of my desk. I pulled out the key and withdrew the slick leather case. The chamois cloth fell to the floor as I hefted the gun. I always forgot how surprisingly light the twenty-two was. A weapon that could rip through a heart and end a life should be too heavy for anyone to lift. Especially a three-year-old. I slipped the gun into my waistband and changed into an oversized polo shirt.

  K.T. was poised at the kitchen counter, raising a forkful of egg to her mouth. She stopped when she saw me. We stared at each other for an instant before she asked coldly, “Would you like to tell me what that call was about?”

  I glanced down at my ankle. The bandage hadn’t been changed since yesterday. “Not really,” I said. “I’d rather talk about us.”

  Her eyes widened. K.T. was the one who always raised relationship issues. On most days, given, the choice between bungee-jumping from the Hoover dam and discussing emotions, I would’ve gladly taken the leap. But dire times called for dire actions. A heart-to-heart talk was nasty business, only a little less daunting than staring a killer in the eye. I figured if I could survive the latter, I could handle K.T. Still I had a hard time swallowing as I hopped onto the stool next to her. The gun pressed hard against my belly. A spasm of dread ripped through me.

  “Do you want to break up with me?” I asked, boldly blunt.

  K.T. choked. The fork clanged to the plate. I patted her on the back, but she shrugged me off. “I don’t need the goddamn Hemlich maneuver, Robin. Jesus! Where’d that come from?”

  “What you said earlier. What Ginny said in the hospital. I know I’m not easy to be with. My work is scary and dangerous. My psyche is not exactly aligned harmonically. I know my faults, K.T. The list is too long to run down. And I know you. You’re an incredible, passionate woman and—” I took a deep breath. A damn brick rested on my chest. “The last thing I want to do is see you settle. You may not believe this, but—” Again, the pressure intensified. I felt like I was diving without an oxygen tank. “I’ve never loved anyone…damn.” My eyes filled and I turned away. I didn’t want to feel this much. I didn’t want to need her so much.