Corpse Whisperer Sworn

by H. R. Boldwood

  17

  The Dark Angel

  Rico scrunched his brow. “The shelves completely disappeared.”

  “And Toussaint…levitated?” Ferris asked.

  Babs tilted her head and gazed across the top of her cheaters. “Hallucinations. That’s new.”

  Like I said, astral projection doesn’t play well to narrow-minded know-it-alls.

  It had been a quarter ’til nine when I made it back to the Marriott. Babs was stepping out of the elevator, into the lobby, as I stepped in.

  “Be back in ten,” I promised, pushing the button for the second floor.

  When the door opened, I trotted down the hall, ducked into the room and tossed my leftover beignets onto the desk. I turned on the shower, and called Nonnie, while stripping out of my rain-soaked clothes. After quick assurances that the terrible twins were fine and hadn’t had time yet to miss me, I said goodbye, stepped into the shower, and took a deep breath.

  By the time I slid into the booth at the coffee shop, it was 9:05. My damp hair fell in clumps over my shoulders, so rather than have it hanging in my plate, I pulled it back in a scrunchie. I’d been so focused on getting to the coffee shop on time, that I hadn’t rehearsed my rendition of the whole dream-walking, soul-traveling…incident. Sadly, it showed.

  “I’m not crazy,” I muttered.

  Vinny shrugged. “Couldn’t prove it by me.”

  Jade and Rip wandered in and walked past us without as much as a sideways glance. They sat in a booth on the far side of the restaurant, well out of earshot. Thank God. Jade would have clung to me like another layer of skin if she’d heard us whispering about an evil, levitating necromancer.

  By the time we finished breakfast and headed out onto Canal Street, the rain had passed. Rain often passes quickly in New Orleans. Still, part of me wondered if that little squall hadn’t been summoned for my benefit.

  Ferris pulled the Suburban up to the curb and the five of us piled in for a road trip. For the second time since sunup, I headed to The Dark Angel.

  The vivid hues of the shotgun house on Rampart Street gleamed in the midmorning sun, making Toussaint’s apparition fade like a distant dream. But I knew better. I knew what I’d seen. The place had a bad vibe. And while I hadn’t noticed it earlier, the smile on the lips of the sidewalk angel never touched its dull, hollowed eyes. There was something sinister about Zanj Lan Fé Nwa.

  The brain bitch escalated to Defcon 3. Careful now, she warned. Stay frosty.

  For a voice in a head, she can get a little dramatic.

  Ferris made an executive decision. Babs would babysit Vinny in the car while the rest of us checked out the store. We didn’t know exactly what kind of reception we were going to get, but I doubted that a red carpet would be involved. No use risking Vinny’s safety, even if he didn’t see it that way.

  “This is bullshit,” Vinny moaned. “I could help—maybe create a distraction so you can scope out the place, like they do in the movies.”

  But Vinny got one vote and it didn’t count. He was still running his mouth as I climbed out of the car and shut the door in his face. Maybe I’d have been less dismissive if I realized I was about to swallow some humble pie of my own.

  “I’ll take lead,” Ferris said, as we climbed the steps.

  I stopped and gave him the stink eye. “Why you?”

  “’Cause it’s an FBI case. Rico and I can handle the interview.”

  “And what am I? A potted plant?”

  “You wander around. Keep your eyes open.”

  Oh no, he did not. If Ferris thought that was the end of the conversation, he was sadly mistaken. But we’d have to circle back to that later. Bells tinkled as Rico opened the door to the shop. An invisible cloud of earthy, herbal scents and the sharp-sweet tang of incense billowed around us.

  “Hello?” Ferris called.

  No answer. We walked deeper inside, eyeing the wooden shelves lined end to end with filled apothecary jars.

  “Look,” I said, pointing to the jars. “They’re…back.”

  Rico grunted.

  Ferris shook his head and muttered something unintelligible. Strike two, FedBoy. And the day was still young.

  The labels on the jars contained an impressive list of ingredients. Patchouli, orris root, sandalwood, snakeskin, sulfur, dragon’s blood, and more. I opened one of the lids.

  “Careful, Miss.” A tall black man, with dreadlocks and a winning smile, emerged from the back room. “The jar you hold contains Goofer Dust,” he said, gently snatching it from me and replacing the lid. “Very strong. And very dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  He placed it back on the shelf, and cranked his hundred-watt smile up a notch. He was lean but muscular, with angular cheek bones, one of which featured a jagged half-moon scar.

  “Perhaps,” he said, nodding toward Rico and Ferris, “I can interest you in a…different…kind of gris-gris. Maybe some Come to Me oil. No?”

  That was all I needed. My cheeks burned. “No thanks. I’d like to speak to the owner.”

  Dreadlock’s eyes, almond-shaped and emerald green, bore into mine, as he extended his hand. “Sinjin Lafitte, manager of The Dark Angel, at your service.”

  A skeleton tattoo peeked out from under his T-shirt sleeve. And not just any skeleton. It was Baron Samedi, the Vodun Lord of Death. We’d seen that same ink on the skels involved in Leo’s case. Bingo. We were on the right track.

  Ferris swooped in, shaking Lafitte’s hand. “I’m Special Agent Sean Ferris, FBI. And this is Officer Rico De Palma of the Cincinnati Police Department.”

  Ferris and Rico pulled Lafitte aside for a chat, then Ferris glanced back over his shoulder and gave me the high sign to start checking out the joint. I wandered among the shelves, eyes peeled, but stayed within earshot. Ferris might have been running the show, but we were playing in my sandbox now. A supernatural sandbox he knew nothing about. He needed me, whether he knew it or not.

  Ferris pulled his business card from his pocket and handed it to Lafitte. “Can you tell me where you were last night, sir? Between ten and eleven?”

  Lafitte’s smile flickered. “And why would you want to know that?”

  Rico lifted a candle from a display table and flipped it back and forth between his hands. “Just answer the question.”

  “Very well. I was…keeping company…with a dear friend.”

  “Your friend have a name?” Ferris asked.

  In my meanderings, I’d come to a door marked Employees Only. A twist of the knob found it locked. Another time.

  Lafitte’s tone took an edge. “A gentleman would never kiss and tell.”

  Ferris stared him down and closed the distance between them. “Who is the owner of The Dark Angel?”

  “Who can say?” Lafitte said, glancing away. “These days with holding companies and conglomerates. It’s all so convoluted.”

  Well, this circle-jerk was getting us nowhere.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” I said, butting in. “Does the name Toussaint Le Clerc mean anything to you?”

  Lafitte’s eyes flashed. “I’m sorry. Wh…who?”

  The bells on the door jingled again as Vinny walked in, followed closely by a bug-eyed, breathless Babs. “C’mon, Mom,” Vinny said. “Let’s check out the bongs.”

  Judas Priest, that brat was his father’s clone.

  Ferris winced, and Rico hissed under his breath.

  The brain bitch soared to Defcon 2. Abort! Abort!

  Little Allie was right. This recon mission was plummeting into a clusterfuck. But I’m a sucker for lost causes, and somebody had to drive this crazy train, so I stuck my finger in Lafitte’s face and let my bitch flag fly. “Enough stalling. Tell Toussaint that Allie Nighthawk’s looking for him. Want me to spell that? It’s N-i-g-h—”

  “No need,” Lafitte murmured. “Your reputation proceeds you.” He turned to Ferris and Rico. “Gentlemen, as you can see, I have customers to attend to. Should you have further questions, I sugges
t you return with a warrant.”

  He glanced at me thoughtfully, letting his eyes drop to my chest and linger on the gris-gris bag around my neck. With a flick of his finger, he brushed the bag aside and freed the obsidian bird necklace lodged beneath my shirt. “Such a beautiful bauble. I pray it serves you well.”

  I slapped his hand away and balled my fist to rearrange his teeth, but Babs’ voice warbled from the bowels of the store. “Sir? My, ah, son would like to discuss…bongs.”

  Lafitte’s lips curved into a dour smile. “Duty calls. I trust you can find your way out. I do hope we meet again, Ms. Nighthawk.”

  “Count on it.”

  With a parting nod, Lafitte drifted to the back of the store to assist Babs and Vinny. Ferris strolled to the door, pushed it open, and then let it close, causing the bells to jingle. Hopefully, Lafitte would believe that we’d left. Ferris hovered at the entrance with his eyes glued to Vinny. The kid was a natural at improv, keeping Lafitte occupied, asking alarmingly knowledgeable questions about bongs and herbs, while Babs, completely out of her element, played the perfect clueless mother. Rico and I moseyed to the checkout counter, out of Lafitte’s line of sight, and went to work. Rico quietly riffled through stacks of invoices, packing slips, and correspondence, while I searched the desk calendar and read the random notes scribbled across the dates.

  Vinny’s voice stopped us cold. “Thanks for your help, sir. I’ll take this one. Do you have any in the back that are still boxed?”

  Lafitte said that he would check, and then disappeared into the backroom, giving us all time to get the hell out of Dodge. Once we piled into the car, Ferris turned the key, slipped the Suburban into gear, and pulled away from the curb, leaving The Dark Angel in the review mirror.

  “Am I good or what?” Vinny asked, as he settled into his seat. “I kept that guy out of your hair, just like I told you I could. Too bad we had to bolt. I really liked that bong.”

  That earned him a collective eye roll, not that he noticed.

  “Hey. You get a load of that guy’s ink? The boney dude with the hat and cane. Gangsta, baby.”

  Vinny didn’t know the significance of the tattoo, or that it marked the members of Toussaint’s skeleton crew—the asswipes who’d gone after his dad. So, I shared the story and ended with, “Keep an eye out for that ink, kid. We’ll be seeing a lot of it before this case is finished.”

  “Let the bastards come,” Vinny growled. “I’m ready.”

  That crazy ass kid. Just like his dad. Too smart and too cocky for his own good. He was a big, ball-busting bulls-eye who didn’t know enough to be scared. And I had promised to protect him. Fucking awesome. Just once, couldn’t my job be easy?

  18

  Now We’re Cooking With Gas

  Monroe Hall, and any other of Vinny’s usual haunts, might have been off limits to him, but he was jonesing for his personal collection of pretty boy toiletries and his fifty-gallon drum of Paco Rabanne, so he wheedled Ferris into stopping by the dorm to pick them up. We stayed in the car with Vinny while Ferris retrieved a laundry list of comfort items and necessities, the most important of which were Vinny’s text books and laptop. He still had a take-home exam hanging over his head. From the dorm, we headed back to the NOLA FBI office to meet with Boudreaux.

  After nudging Vinny into taking his test, Ferris settled him and his laptop in a conference room, then joined the rest of us as we filed into the room next door, where we’d convened with Boudreaux the day before. We reclaimed our original seats and were quickly joined by Philip Mouton, the agent who’d picked us up at the airport.

  The fuzzy-faced kid scurried in with eager eyes that burned over-bright. “Nice to see y’all. Looks like I’ll be working this case with you.”

  I stifled a groan, wondering how many cases the rookie had handled.

  The door opened again, and without looking up, I assumed it was Boudreaux coming to join us. But the unmistakable scent of Cajun crawfish lured my nose to the air. My stomach growled. The beignet I’d eaten five hours earlier was a distant memory.

  “Kind of stiffed you guys yesterday, in the lunch department,” Boudreaux said, as he trailed in behind the food cart. “Thought I’d make it up to you today, courtesy of Fiorello’s. Even ordered some bananas foster—you know, lagniappe.”

  A little extra.

  That’s how you treat your team. If Dickhead were half that nice, maybe I’d be able to stand in the same room with him without twitching like a freshie.

  Boudreaux reached for a plate and nodded to Philip. “Let’s start with an update on the attack at the hotel parking lot last night.”

  “Sorry, sir.” Philip’s freckles blanched as he cleared his throat. “Nobody at the hotel, other than you guys, admits to witnessing anything. And if there was anybody else nearby when the incident went down, they didn’t stick around to leave their names.”

  “Strike one, Agent Mouton. What about the attack on Vinny Abruzzi at Tulane?”

  “We’ve interviewed the known witnesses, and knocked on all the neighborhood doors. The statements were pretty consistent. The biters appeared to head straight for Vinny.” Philip swiped his hand across his blonde crewcut. “We did talk to one guy who remembered seeing one of those small U-Haul box trucks in the area. Kind of odd, that time of night. Said it hadn’t been there at midnight when he went to bed, but it was there when he got up to pee around a quarter ’til two.”

  Boudreaux leaned forward. “Any chance your witness got the license number?”

  “No such luck,” Philip muttered, but a grin played at the corner of his mouth. “So, I called U-Haul and checked the rentals in the area for box trucks that day.”

  “Good man.”

  “Four names turned up: Samuel Tucker, Odell Watkins, Sheena Dempsey, and Sinjin Lafitte.”

  “Holy crap,” I yelled, nearly dumping my crawfish onto the floor. “Lafitte’s the manager at The Dark Angel!”

  “Do tell?” Boudreaux smiled, and nodded at the freckle-faced rookie. “Nice work, young man. But let’s stick a pin in that for a minute. Someone want to bring me up to speed on this Dark Angel?”

  I opened my mouth to jump in, but Ferris beat me to the punch. “Last night at dinner, we picked up on some intel that suggested our skel, Le Clerc, owns a shop named, Zanj Lan Fé Nwa, near Congo Square.”

  “Ah.” Boudreaux nodded. “The Dark Angel.”

  “This Lafitte guy’s the manager,” Ferris continued. “Lafitte wouldn’t give up the owner’s name. Interestingly enough though, he’s got the same ink as the skels who came after Leo Abruzzi in Cincinnati. When we asked to look in the back room, he said we’d need a warrant.”

  “That so?” Boudreaux asked. “Anything else?”

  Rico nodded. “We got a chance to snoop behind the counter when Lafitte was…momentarily distracted. Today’s date was circled with a note that said three o’clock. Nothing else.”

  “Although,” Babs chimed in, “our source also shared that Toussaint purchased a mansion somewhere in St. Bernard Parish.”

  “Do we know when?” Boudreaux asked.

  I shrugged. “A year, maybe a little more.”

  Boudreaux’s eyes lit up. “Now we’re cooking with gas. Agent Mouton, go sit on The Dark Angel, and see what magic happens at three o’clock. While you’re at it, check the property records in St. Bernard Parish for one Toussaint Le Clerc. Take Agent Fairchild with you. He’s back in cyber-crimes—about two minutes younger than you, tall, nerdy, kind of pale, looks like he needs some sun.”

  Philip glanced around the table, wide-eyed, rooted to his chair like a mighty oak.

  “Philip?” Boudreaux said quietly. “Git. Now, young man. Anything happens at The Dark Angel, you call in.”

  Philip nodded, then shook the lead out of his pants and bolted from his chair.

  “Agent Mouton,” Boudreaux barked. “I mean it. If Lafitte so much as wanders out for a piss, you call it in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

&nb
sp; “Kids.” Boudreaux chuckled as Philip hit the door on the run. “As for the rest of you, why don’t you dig a little deeper into Mr. Lafitte? And keep me posted. Ms. Nighthawk, I trust today’s lunch met with your approval?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  “Excellent. Couldn’t have you thinking I was…what did you call me? Lamebrained. Yes. That’s what it was. Lamebrained. Don’t forget to pick up Mr. Abruzzi on your way out.”

  What the…? Why the hell was he picking on me? Okay, maybe I had that dig coming. But I couldn’t help but smile. I’d never had my ass handed to me with such style. Cool, shrewd, and wicked smart, this guy. No doubt about it, Senior Agent Jake Boudreaux, for all his backwoods southern charm, had stones the size of casabas.

  Boudreaux hooked us up with an empty pod, and we began to fill in all the blanks on Sinjin Lafitte—a.k.a. Sinjin Phillipe, Lafitte Caron, Phillipe Bisset, and a few other aliases. He didn’t have anything major showing in his Louisiana OMV records, and he had zilch, zip, nada showing under either property or tax records. But we hit the mother-load under criminal activity: fraud, money laundering, forgery, racketeering, drugs, and that was only going back ten years.

  Ferris had requested a report showing known associates when Boudreaux popped his head in the room. “Mouton called in. Saddle up, boy and girls. Lafitte is on the move.”

  Things were about to get dicey. Taking Vinny with us on a ride-along wasn’t an option. He’d have to stay back at the office with Boudreaux and company. I felt a little better about letting him out of my sight, having gotten a sense of the local agents and Boudreaux. Besides, I had a bad feeling that whatever was going to happen at three o’clock would be the stuff of shock and awe.