What She Doesn't Know

by Tina Wainscott

  “What’s that?” he asked, walking closer.

  She showed it to him. “He works here.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s the guy who brought us coffee last night.”

  “This is the man who foisted his assistance on me when I was going to meet you at O’Brien’s. And maybe I’m imagining it, but he could be Henri, too. And the janitor. This is the male half of the team.”

  He took the picture. “Let’s find Tammy.”

  “That’s Edward Sharp,” Tammy said a few minutes later. “Why?”

  “I need his employee file.”

  “You’re the boss. He doesn’t work here anymore, though. I fired, fired, fired his ass the other day.”

  “The disappearing employee you mentioned,” Rita said, putting it together.

  “What I don’t need as we head into Mardi Gras.” Tammy led them into an office and headed to the files. “He wasn’t here when I needed him, but I caught him hanging around when he wasn’t on the schedule. Even after I fired him.”

  “Last night,” Christopher said.

  Tammy nodded. “He was always skulking around. I escorted him off the property and alerted the security staff to keep an eye out for him.”

  His face paled. “You didn’t send us coffee last night, did you?”

  “No.” She pulled out a file. “Here it is. I caught him in here once, too. Said he wanted to see his file.”

  “To take it,” Rita said. “Could he have put something in our coffee?”

  “Maybe. Damn, I threw out the cups, dumped the coffee down the drain.” He took the file from Tammy, who asked, “What’s going on? What do you mean, ‘put something in your coffee’?”

  “Never mind. Keep a sharp eye out for him. He’s more dangerous than you think. If anyone sees him, have security detain him and find me.”

  “Us,” Rita added.

  The sun was slanting through the sky as they headed to the car a few minutes later armed with Edward Sharp’s application. Christopher was looking at it as they walked.

  “His address is in the Garden District. Wait a minute. If this address is really his, no wonder he and Sira had easy access to the house.”

  They were even more surprised when they found the pink house, shadowed by the draping trees on the west side of the property where the driveway was completely in shade.

  “Velda’s house,” they both said simultaneously.

  “Could that old woman actually be involved in all this?”

  He parked the car on a side street. “My guess is she doesn’t live here anymore. Edward and his friend may even be squatting here.”

  “What should we do now?” she asked.

  “Let’s see if anyone’s home.”

  No one answered his quick rap on the warped wood door. Rita peered through a crack in the curtains in the front window but saw nothing in the dim house. When he found the door locked, he walked around to the back, pausing to make sure she was following him. She kept an eye on the windows, looking for movement. Where was Edward now? Where was Sira?

  When she turned back to Christopher, he was standing by the French door he’d opened. “Be quiet,” he said. “And stay close.”

  She followed him into the dim house. It smelled of old wood, faded mothballs, and perfume. There was no furniture, only large pillows on the living room floor. A computer sat on an old nightstand in the kitchen. Speakers were wired from the computer to the living room, where Sira played music each night for their benefit. Teasing them, laughing at her cleverness. Christopher turned the computer on, but it halted at a password prompt. He looked around, probably hoping for a clue. When nothing he tried worked, he turned it off.

  Everything was old and sad, even the thick air inside the house. She and Christopher never let down their guard, checking two empty rooms, looking behind the doors. They both jerked at the sound of the heat coming on. It felt like the warm, fetid air of an aging monster breathing down her neck.

  The bedroom contained a sagging king-sized bed and a nightstand that matched the one in the kitchen. Two faded pictures depicted the days of burlesque, probably Velda’s. Maybe the music was hers, too, left behind when she either moved or passed on.

  Nothing in the room itself indicated that anyone lived there permanently. If they were squatting, though, why was the electricity on? There was only one toothbrush in the bathroom, but toiletries for both a man and a woman. The bathroom cabinet was crammed with wigs and the kind of make-up an actor in a play might use. The closet seemed to hold all of the secrets. It was jammed with boxes and clothing. Christopher paused to listen before stepping inside and turning on the overhead bulb. The chain creaked as it swung from the movement.

  Men’s clothing hung on the left, crammed into the small space. She pointed to a janitor’s uniform and the sloppy jeans Henri had worn that first day she’d seen him. Leather gloves had been tossed in the far corner. On the right was a full complement of women’s clothing. The black cat suit hung there, legs flaccid. Toward the back an outfit was wrapped in plastic.

  He indicated that she wait there and stepped out of the closet to make sure no one had returned. She reached up on tiptoe and pulled down a shiny black box. Inside was the mask she’d seen so many times, including in the car that had run her off the road and in Brian’s final moments. She was so struck by it that Christopher’s reappearance startled her. The black feathers could be matched to the one found in the car, she bet. She pulled one free from the bottom row and wrapped it in a piece torn from the plastic. She showed the mask to him before replacing it.

  He pulled down a metal box and opened it. Ashes filled much of it. Human remains? He grimaced and replaced it, then pulled down another box filled with ashes. They had better luck with a larger box pushed to the back of the shelf. It contained pictures ripped from magazines, curiously all male bodybuilders. Some had been crumpled into a ball and then smoothed out again.

  Beneath the pictures was a yellowed photo album. Pictures of a family, mother and father, two sons and a much younger daughter. Rita could see so much in these pictures, just as she saw Christopher’s distance in his childhood photos. The girl was miserable, though the rest of her family seemed happy enough. She never smiled, was never interacted with or embraced in any of the pictures. In candid shots, she was often looking at one of her older brothers with resentment. Sometimes she was looking at her parents that way, too, especially as she grew older.

  Rita studied the two brothers, looking for Edward’s face. It wasn’t there. Both men were stocky and tall with chiseled features like the men in the torn magazine pages. Was the girl Sira? Rita peeled away a picture of the girl making mud pies and looked at the back. The words had been scribbled through with a black marker.

  As she started to show Christopher, she saw that he had a birth certificate for Edward Sharp. Rita peeled back a picture of the two brothers and looked at the names on the back. Neither was Edward, which meant the girl was likely Sira. It also meant the two people stalking them weren’t brother and sister. One of the pictures had to have Sira’s real name on the back, hopefully not scratched off.

  Before she could look further, the sound of a car pulling into the driveway shot her heart into her throat. They shoved everything back into the box and returned it to the top shelf. A car door slammed shut. They raced down the hallway as keys jingled at the front door.

  Rita led the way to the French doors at the back of the house, Christopher right behind her. She glanced back long enough to see the front doorknob turn. He closed the door behind them just as the front door opened and pulled Rita around the side of the house. They dashed through the line of trees into the next-door neighbor’s yard and then circled back to the street. They crossed and took the long way back to the car. She saw the black Buick in the driveway, nearly hidden by the trees. The front door of the house was open, and just inside she saw a man.

  “Let’s go to Connard,” she said. “We may not have proof, but we have a name. If he’s pot
entially squatting, that would give Connard reason to question him. If he could get a look at that computer, he’d realize this is all tied in together. A feather off that mask could prove one of them was in Boston.”

  “We’ll tell him everything, even about the Gathering. If we can convince him that something is going on, maybe he’ll give us some help.”

  She lifted up the picture of the girl, now damp from where she’d grasped it as they’d run. “Maybe he can figure out what was written here.”

  He pulled around to Brian’s house. “I want to get a couple of things. Stay here and call Connard, tell him we’re coming in and we’ll wait until he can see us.”

  “We have to convince him this is real. The best thing for everyone is to get these two into custody before the Gathering.”

  They had been in his house. In his things. He stood in the closet where his box had been thrown back on the shelf. How had they found him? It didn’t matter. He had to get out of here. His fists clenched at the invasion of his privacy. First into Xanadu, then the warehouse, and now his house. Fury washed through him. He would kill them. Oh, yes, and he would enjoy it.

  He threw his clothing into the trunk of his car, not caring about anything but the costume wrapped in plastic and the mask. Sira would need those tomorrow. Within minutes, he’d dismantled the components of his computer and placed them in the back seat. He wiped every surface clean of prints. If the police got involved, they could find out who had a lease on this place, but they wouldn’t find him. He would find someplace to stash the car, but he would return here. They would be back, he was sure of it. And he would be waiting.

  CHAPTER 23

  Detective Alex Connard looked at the notes he’d taken when Rita Brooks and Christopher LaPorte had come in to talk to him. Rita he could write off as being a little unbalanced, but Christopher was a different story. He hadn’t recently sustained an injury to his head, and he was a successful businessman back in Atlanta. He didn’t look like the kind of guy to be swayed by a woman, even one he obviously cared about.

  He promised he would check into it, but they’d obviously thought he was dismissing them. They’d left in frustration. Maybe he had dismissed them, but their words stuck to him and he’d looked everything over again.

  Detective John Porter stopped by his desk. “You heading out? We got a long day tomorrow.”

  He considered telling Porter about the strange case of Brian LaPorte but nixed it. “Yeah, see you in the morning.”

  He was ready to go home and pack in some sleep, but he couldn’t stop thinking about this. If the mask was in the house, he could verify whether a feather off of it matched the one found in the car that hit Rita. Even though she had given him a feather from the mask, he had to take it from the mask itself. No way could he get a search warrant, though, based on what they’d told him. There wasn’t enough. But there was enough to pique his interest. He pulled Brian’s file again.

  It read much like it had before, but this time he wasn’t looking at it as an attempted suicide. The injuries from impact were in line with the fall. What did strike him as odd were the four small marks on his collarbone. Finger marks? And the tie tack. Why remove one tie tack and not the other?

  He studied the back of the girl’s picture. Whatever was beneath the marks would probably reveal Sira’s real name. If she existed, he reminded himself. He did a background check on Edward and found something curious. He had legally changed his name several years back. Using his social security number, he pulled up his previous name.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  He took the picture down to a colleague in Forensics who verified what he suspected.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said again. Christopher and Rita were on the right track—and the wrong track.

  He looked at the address in the Garden District. He’d stop by on his way home to check things out. If the guy was illegally in residence, he’d have reason to look further. Some of the old homes were undergoing renovation, and he’d had problems before with homeless people holing up in a house waiting to be torn down.

  He headed out.

  From Brian LaPorte’s living room, Edward watched the back corner of his previous home. The new locks had only been a temporary setback. Now he sat in the warmth and peered through the broken branches that allowed him a view of his driveway.

  It wasn’t long before his patience was rewarded. Headlights slashed across the trees before the car came to a halt.

  “Let me handle this,” he said. “I’m the boy. You get tomorrow. Tonight is mine.”

  Sira protested, but he ignored her as he stole through the back yard. The West African Exorcism dagger was warm in his hand from holding it all this time. He’d seen the name on the brass plate and knew he had to have it. It fit. He was the Exorciser.

  He didn’t recognize the car in the driveway, but once he got inside, he did recognize the man knocking on the door. It was the detective who had investigated poor Rita’s near fatal accident in the hospital parking lot. So Rita and Christopher had apparently convinced him that something might be awry. All allies must be banished.

  Twilight colored the sky deep blue. Edward toyed with the idea of answering the knock on the door, but his lease was packed away with his other papers. He knew where the detective would go once he came inside. The man was already walking around to the back of the house. Edward threw the breaker and slinked into the darkest shadows.

  A flashlight’s beam slashed through the house. The man once again identified himself and called out to anyone who might be inside. He tried the door and found it unlocked. And he stepped inside.

  Edward heard the useless flick of light switches. It wasn’t long before the detective was venturing down the hallway, still calling out his identity. He only took a few moments with the empty rooms. He took a little longer checking out the old mattress and nightstand. The beam of light trailed along the floor, creeping toward the closet. The door was half closed, necessitating that the detective push it open before he could look inside.

  Sweat trickled down Edward’s armpits, and his mouth felt as though he’d licked the dusty floor. He couldn’t moisten his mouth enough to swallow, and the dry, gulping sound seemed explosively loud to his ears.

  I should have done this. Look at you, sweating like a pig. Nervous sissy.

  Sira’s voice taunted him, and he blinked furiously when sweat dripped into his eyes. He should have let her do this. She was good at it. Cool, calm. His muscles ached from holding the knife in front of him, at the ready. She wouldn’t be sweating.

  I’m the boy. I can do this. I’m the boy, he said back, but his words faltered.

  He blinked again, grimacing at the sting of sweat and tears and the truth. He was a sissy. His body didn’t make enough testosterone to grow more than a few hairs on his chin. Even with the supplemental shots, when he could get them, he wasn’t man enough.

  His eyes snapped open at the creak of the door. A hand on the wood, the beginning of the sweep of light that would reveal him cowering in the corner.

  He lunged forward, feeling the knife sink into flesh, and he kept pushing harder and harder. A gun went off, startling him so much he let go of the knife’s handle. He hadn’t seen a gun. Why hadn’t he thought about a gun? He waited for pain but felt nothing. He hadn’t been hit.

  The detective slumped to the floor, making guttural noises in the dark. The flashlight had skittered to the far corner, lighting only that part of the closet. The gun made a louder thunk.

  Finish it! Sira’s voice commanded.

  “I don’t want to see,” he whispered, his voice high and near tears.

  Sissy boy! Finish it!

  The man was struggling, his breath coming raspy. Maybe the knife had punctured his lung. How long would it take him to die? No, he had to make sure it was done. Sira would never let him live it down. She would never let him do anything again.

  He didn’t want to hear those taunts again, never, ever again. He looked down at
the man who was trying to reach his gun. Edward grasped the knife handle and pulled it out. Blood was everywhere, warm and sticky on his hand. This was why Sira did the killing. She liked blood, liked death.

  “I’m a boy! I’m a boy! I’m a boy!”

  With every sentence, he stabbed again and again, until he collapsed on the floor crying.

  Get up, pansy.

  He got up before she moved on to the nastier names. He had to clean this mess, had to get rid of the body. All the anger drained from him now that it was over. What had he done? He’d killed a cop. He’d fry for that.

  He walked to the adjoining bathroom, Sira screaming at him to get the hell out of there. He didn’t see her looking back at him from the mirror this time. He saw Edward. Edward who had taken care of the intruder on his own. But he could feel her trying to take over. His mouth twitched; the muscles at his temple throbbed. He squeezed his eyes shut and pushed her back inside him.

  “Not this time. I’m the boy.”

  He returned to the closet. Instead of looking at the detective, he lifted his gaze to the two boxes he’d left on the upper shelf. They watched him, judged him.

  Clean up this mess! his mother’s voice echoed. You’re an embarrassment to the whole family.

  “Ya didn’t raise me to be a slob, did ya, Mama? Ya raised me to be a la-dy.” He sneered at the box. “You and Daddy only forgot that one detail ‘bout me being born with a pecker.”

  Susan Sharp had been the third child in an average, middle-class family. Her mother, Pauline, ran a seamstress business from the house, sewing for uppity New Orleans women like Iris LaPorte. Bob was an auto mechanic with a short temper.

  From an early age, Susan remembered multiple doctor’s visits when the place between her legs was poked and prodded. Then she was sent out of the room so the doctor could discuss her own privates with her parents. But they wouldn’t talk about them with her. There were the pills she had to take, pills that were never adequately explained.