Corpse Whisperer Sworn

by H. R. Boldwood

  Ferris bypassed the front entrance, and the first-floor windows with their drawn shades, and crawled around the side of the mansion, stopping by a collection of filled garbage cans—a strong suggestion that someone might be inside. An odd odor wafted up when he lifted a lid and shined his flashlight inside one of the cans. A combination of ammonia and rotten eggs, maybe? An acrid chemical fume kind of smell. Empty paint thinner cans, reddish stained coffee filters, dirty rags, and hundreds of empty cold medicine packets overflowed from trash bags and lay scattered across the gravel. On the far side of the drive stood a wooden picnic table, surrounded by a sea of cigarette butts. Whoever these people were, they smoked like fiends, coughed like Typhoid Mary, and smelled like egg farts.

  “That’s it,” Ferris said, shining his light at the trash heap. “That’s our ticket in.”

  I stared at him, wondering what he’d seen that I hadn’t.

  “All this garbage, the smells—they’re cooking meth,” he whispered. “You said yourself he was a wannabe chemist. What better way to finance his operation?”

  It made perfect sense. “Just to be clear,” I said. “I was going in anyway, but now because they’re cooking meth, you say it’s all hunky-dory?”

  “It’s called exigent circumstances. If someone is being held hostage, and the search is necessary to protect life or prevent serious injury, it’s permissible. It’s also permissible if we need to prevent the destruction of evidence or contraband. Either way, we’re good to go.”

  I’d never been much of a rules person anyway, but if it was blessed by Ferris, then by God, it was good enough for me. We rounded the back of the manse and noticed a small light glowing in one of the rooms. Ferris crept beside the window and cautiously peered inside.

  He circled back down and gave me a thumb’s up. “It’s quiet in there, no bogies in sight. We’ll infiltrate through the back door. You go right, I go left, clearing each room as we go. Got it?”

  Memories of slicing the pie at Perp Town flooded my brain. I’d done a face-plant into an open grave while chasing a deadhead, and banged up my wrist. Cap and Rico made me requalify at the range by shooting my way through Perp Town before they’d let me back to work. That was the first time I’d ever sliced the pie, inching forward and clearing a room, a sliver at a time. There was a distinct advantage that first time around: the bogies were cardboard cutouts as opposed to gun-toting douchebags. Today, I’d be dealing with douchebags.

  Since I’m a left-handed shooter, I tucked the flashlight between the fingers on my right hand and held it just below the barrel. Ferris gently turned the knob on the back door. It popped open with a quiet squeak. I entered and went right, clearing the rooms quickly, listening for Ferris’s voice. We met in the foyer, having found no bogey’s in between, nor any sign of Rico, Fairchild, or Jade. But we had another floor to go.

  “Somebody’s here,” Ferris whispered. “Careful with the gun. There’s a fresh batch of meth cooking in the kitchen.”

  We climbed the steps and hugged the wall, clearing the upper hallway much as we had the first floor. I cut right; Ferris cut left. Nada. Not a single soul. What had we missed?

  As we descended the steps, a quiet scraping noise caught my ear. Ferris pointed to the left side of the first floor. He went left, but this time, I took his back to be sure our bogey wouldn’t double back from behind. A wall in what might have been the study at one time had been pushed forward, revealing a now empty hidden room. The back door made an audible click as it latched in place. Ferris sprinted forward and threw the door open, then raced outside, with me hot on his heels.

  The moon had ducked beneath some clouds, leaving our flashlights as the only source of light. Our douchebag could be anywhere. Ferris inched forward with me covering the rear. A quick commotion to the left made me spin. Ferris and the bogey were on the ground in a death roll. Ferris’s gun, knocked from his hand in the fracas, lay several feet away.

  The moon peeked out from the clouds long enough to glint against the big-ass pig sticker in our bogey’s hands.

  “Knife!” I screamed, pinning the bastard in Hawk’s sights. We were out in the fresh air, away from the cooking meth, but I couldn’t get off a clean shot.

  The douchebag scrambled to his feet and swiped his knife at Ferris, drawing blood from his arm. Ferris jumped back and drew his own knife. They circled each other slowly, eyes locked.

  Ferris lunged; the bogey snap-kicked the knife from Ferris’s hand then wrapped him in a headlock.

  Ferris tucked his chin and leaned forward to throw the bastard over his shoulder.

  “Ah-ah-ah.” The bogey brought the edge of his knife to Ferris’s throat. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  “Put it down now, scumbag, and let him go.” I cocked my hammer and pointed Hawk at the douchebag’s head. “Where are Toussaint and the others?”

  “Who?”

  “Toussaint Le Clerc and the people he kidnapped.”

  “What the… I’m the only one here. I cook meth. That’s what I do. I never kidnapped nobody. Freaking nutjob.” He pressed the knife against Ferris’s throat.

  “I’m a zombie hunter, dude. I live for headshots. Go on. I dare you.”

  “I’ll slit him ear to ear before you pull that trigger.”

  “And two seconds later, you’ll be dead. You see the flaw in your plan, right?”

  Something in the bastard’s eyes told me he wasn’t afraid to die. He adjusted his grip on the knife, leaned into Ferris’s ear and murmured, “Say good night, Gracie.”

  The bastard flinched as I squeezed off a round, sending my bullet wide and into the garbage pile filled with paint thinner cans. The trash exploded, sending all three of us airborne, ass over elbows. Ferris, first to his feet, scrambled over to the douchebag, slapped him in cuffs, and dragged him down the gravel drive. I scuttled behind them, watching the flames growing closer to the house.

  “She’s fucking certifiable!” the bastard screamed, as he stumbled away from the flames. “Nobody shoots a gun at a meth lab.”

  Ferris glared at me. “Not to mention that was like the worst shot ever.”

  “He flinched, damn it! I wasn’t inside the meth lab. I was outside. And I almost never miss.” Holy Guacamole, I’d never live this down.

  We watched the inferno from well down the gravel drive, barely keeping our feet beneath us as the Violet mansion exploded in a magnificent blaze of glory. Shingles and flaming debris rained like fire bombs from the sky, making us bob and weave beneath them. An interesting change of pace and somewhat ironic, really. Usually, I was dodging zushi bombs.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. I gave silent thanks that the blaze would be contained before it spread through the woodlands. While Ferris called it in, I practiced my speech—the speech I’d have to give to finagle my way out of this debacle. What can I say? Some things never change.

  “Well, we’ve eliminated house number three,” I said, planting my hands on my hips.

  Ferris sighed. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Let’s go. We’re wasting time. You called it in and help is on the way. No need for us to stick around.”

  “What about Mr. Meth?”

  “Give me the key to the cuffs.”

  The douchebag flinched when Ferris tossed me the key. “Dude, she’s crazier than a shithouse rat. Keep her the hell away from me.”

  Ferris’s eyes blazed. “No way, man. You tried to slit my throat. And look at my fucking arm,” he said, staring at a gash in his bicep. “Did you do that, or did the explosion?”

  I dragged the bastard to a Cypress tree and uncuffed him. “Turn around, wrap your arms around the tree and give it a big old kiss.”

  He swore under his breath as I cuffed his wrists around its trunk.

  “There,” I said with a nod to Ferris. “Call Boudreaux, tell him we left his Christmas present trussed up to a tree. Now, can we please get the hell out of Dodge?”

  I set out through the brush without waiting f
or Ferris’s answer. That flaming carcass of a mansion was the last place I wanted to be when Boudreaux and Dickhead showed up.

  35

  I’ll Try to Bleed Slower

  Ferris trudged out of the brush a few minutes behind me and climbed back into the Suburban. “Boudreaux says thanks for the gift, but he didn’t get you anything.”

  “My bosses never do,” I said, inspecting the wound on Ferris’s arm. It was still bleeding with bugs, sweat, and…nature…stuck to it. “Do these fleet cars come equipped with first aid kits?”

  “Maybe. Check beneath the passenger seat.”

  I reached beneath me, felt the contour of a box and pulled it out. Ferris drove to the Chalmette location while I rummaged through the box, seeing what I had to work with.

  “This is the end of the line,” Ferris said, wincing as I pulled what was left of his sleeve out of the wound. “If Toussaint’s not holding them here, we’re back to square one with nothing to show for our efforts.”

  Little Allie begged to differ, pointing out that we…well, I…had successfully burned down an 18th century mansion—which was hardly nothing.

  I flicked on my flashlight to get a better look at the wound and frowned. A gaping two inch-long gash straddled his bicep. He wasn’t having trouble moving his arm, so nerve or tendon damage seemed unlikely, but he needed stitches.

  I opened a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured it straight on the cut. Ferris grimaced but didn’t pull away. After slapping a sterile pad on the wound, I tied it tight around his arm with a length of gauze and taped it in place. That would have to do for the time being.

  I shoved the kit back under the seat and pulled out my phone to review the information Mouton had emailed us.

  “Well here’s a bit of luck,” I said with a snicker. “This place already burned once in 2015, and judging by the Google Earth pics, I’d say they haven’t started work on it yet. So, it’s relatively Allie-proof.”

  Ferris snorted, but didn’t respond. Maybe he was thinking what I was thinking. As much as I wanted to strike gold this time, the manse in Violet had seemed a more likely location. Chalmette was the most populated city in the parish. This place might sit off the road in a wooded area, but if Toussaint wanted real privacy, why would he choose a location under everyone’s noses?

  Bold. Then again, Toussaint’s ego had always written checks he couldn’t cash.

  Ferris pulled into the River Road driveway and turned off the ignition. I climbed out of the car, took a long, deep breath, and stared at the moonlit mansion, part of me praying we were at the right place, and part of me dreading what would happen if we were.

  The woodlands have a sound of their own in New Orleans, especially in the middle of the night. Frogs croaking, insects buzzing, and owls hooting; brush rustling and twigs snapping from dozens of unseen species whose eyes and ears have been trained on you since the moment you stepped from the car. I tried not to think about alligators, but then every shadow took on the shape of twelve-foot-long eating machine.

  Ferris and I crept up the front steps of the mansion and peered inside through the sidelight windows. Our flashlights glared off the glass, doing little to illuminate what was on the other side of the door.

  “No warrant, no probable cause.” Ferris sighed. “Let’s do a walkaround, see what we find.”

  “Let’s not, and say we did.” I tapped my flashlight against the window, breaking the glass.

  “What the hell? You can’t just brea—”

  “Listen,” I said, cupping my ear. “Hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Rico and Jade calling for help.”

  Crickets chirped; flies buzzed. Tumbleweeds drifted across the porch while Ferris listened in vain and finally shook his head in disgust.

  “You didn’t hear a damn thing. Now, nothing we find here can be used as evidence. It’s called fruit of the poisonous tree.”

  “We don’t need evidence. If Toussaint’s here, he won’t be leaving alive.”

  I reached through the broken window to unlock the door but a voice inside me murmured, Turn the knob. The voice was cold, hard and new, definitely not the brain bitch’s.

  I turned the knob. The door popped open and swung back slowly, as if welcoming us inside.

  That was way too easy, Little Allie whispered.

  A menacing laugh echoed through the foyer.

  Every muscle in my body froze, but Ferris sighed and pushed against me from behind. “Well? Are you going in, or what?”

  I turned to tell him to back off, and the laugh boomed again, louder. Ferris didn’t even blink. An ugly realization set in: Ferris hadn’t heard the laughter because he hadn’t been meant to hear it. That creepy little gift was for me alone.

  “Toussaint’s here,” I hissed, pulling Hawk.

  Relax. Breathe, damn it. I stuck my finger inside the coin pocket of my jeans, brushing it against the vials, stroking them, as if they were magic talismans that could save us.

  Ferris drew his Glock and skimmed past me, planting his feet at the edge of the threshold, and knocked on the open door. “FBI. Is anyone here?”

  He waited several moments then called out again. “This is Agent Sean Ferris, FBI. Is anyone here? Please identify yourself.”

  I scoured the foyer with my flashlight, and saw two people dead ahead. I raised Hawk, but then realized I’d seen our reflections in a mirror. I think I peed a little.

  My light swept past something on the floor. When I looked again, it was a small pool of blood.

  “Ferris,” I hissed. He didn’t hear me, so I called again, forcing out his name in a voice I didn’t recognize as my own. “Ferris.”

  His eyes darted to me, then traveled to the end of my flashlight beam and stopped. He stared long and hard, as if he couldn’t make it out, then shot me a questioning glance.

  “Blood,” I mouthed.

  He squinted at the spot again, blinked, then eyeballed me like I’d lost my mind. “What?”

  “It’s blood.”

  “Are you sure?” He heaved a sigh, but brought his gun to high ready. “FBI entering the premises.”

  Without waiting for a response, he crossed to the center of the foyer and shined his light on the blood. Only it wasn’t blood anymore. It was a man’s black wallet. My mind raced. Had it always been a wallet? Absolutely not. I was sure I’d seen blood.

  Ferris rolled his eyes at me before squatting on his haunches and flipping the wallet open with the tip of his Glock. Rico’s driver’s license stared at us from the center of our flashlight beams.

  Ferris stood back up, yanked out his phone, and placed a call. “This is Agent Sean Ferris of the FBI requesting back up at 1416 River Road, Chalmette. Possible kidnapping.”

  My heart hammered; my spit went dry. I stepped across the threshold, and an odd but familiar stench seared the inside of my nose. Sick, sweet, decay with a side of mold, mildew, and rot. Weeds breached the splintered floorboards; algae snaked across the walls in endless green veins. Nature had taken over, adding a musty stink, but the underlying reek came from something darker. Something sinister.

  Ferris stepped toward me, and the floor groaned beneath his weight. “This place is one big boobytrap. Watch where you walk.”

  I heard Ferris’s voice, but another sound beckoned from deeper inside the mansion. Something distant, low like a whisper, but not. Something…urgent.

  I froze and listened again, blocking out Ferris and the nighttime noises from the woods. The sound returned, much louder now and more defined: a series of shrill screams followed by a long, furious rant. The screams? Probably female. The rant? Definitely male. Definitely Rico’s.

  I bolted across the foyer and dashed down the hall, following the voices. Ferris reeled, yelling something about waiting for backup, but his words disappeared like smoke in the air. I didn’t need to hear him anyway. The only thing that mattered was running deeper and deeper into the mansion, to get to where I was supposed to be—wher
e I needed to be.

  My feet pounded against the hardwood floor, one after the other, carrying me on a mission that wasn’t my own.

  Toussaint stepped out of the darkness and into my path, laughing like a loon, and pointing at me, as if I were the butt of some sick, twisted joke.

  I pulled up short, raised Hawk and fired, emptying my mag into his skull.

  “Nighthawk!” Ferris’s voice thundered in my ears. I spun to find him staring, slack-jawed, at the bullet-riddled wall in front of me. “What the hell are you shooting at?”

  The floor creaked once, twice, then gave way beneath me. My arms flew up and I dropped like a stone, losing both Hawk and my flashlight.

  I reached out, clawing at what was left of the floorboards, and stopped my descent. Sawdust and debris billowed through the room. Slivers of rotted wood snapped and fell, pinging against the bottom of the crawlspace below. But the floor held.

  Ferris lay down near the closest joist and extended his hand. “You okay?”

  “Never better.” I grabbed his forearm and pulled myself along his body, scraping my hips and legs against the jagged floorboards as I struggled up and out of the hole, breaking off even more of the rotted floor.

  Once extricated, I rolled away from the hole and onto my back, gulping air. But all the air in the world wouldn’t change what had happened. My mind was no longer my own. Toussaint had burrowed into my head like a tick, making me see and hear exactly what he wanted me to see and hear. If I was going to save anyone, the first person I needed to safeguard was me.

  I brought my fingers to my neck and held the obsidian necklace, silently asking Mama for protection.

  Ferris scrambled off the floor and pulled me to my feet. “What’s wrong with you? I tell you the floor’s rotten, and you take off across it like a bat out of hell. Then you shoot the shit out of an empty wall.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, dusting myself off. “I thought I heard Rico and Jade, that’s all.”

  “Yeah. Like you heard them before, right? Enough with the games.” He shined his light around the floor, locating my flashlight and Hawk. “Pick up your shit and get behind me.”