Keeping Watch

by Jan Hambright

  “That’s what it’s called. She’s a department source, and may have information we can use about voodoo tactics.”

  “Hmm. Okay, let’s go.”

  He pushed his chair back and picked up the sketch she’d done for him. The man had aged, but the distinctive scar on his lip would always be the same.

  Adelaide put the lid on the candle jar to extinguish the flame, and came around the table to where he stood at the door studying the drawing.

  “Since there’s no statute of limitations on kidnapping, I want to put his image into my computer program. Maybe we can get a hit.”

  “Maybe.” He pulled open the door and followed her out into the corridor, almost running into Gina in the process.

  “Hey,” she said, glancing between the two of them. “We got lucky and found enough of the boat driver, after a grid search, that we were able to get a name, and a rap sheet.” She handed the file to Royce.

  “Mr. Matthew Pournelle was some kind of bad.”

  “That good?”

  “In and out of prison over the last ten years. Robbery, assault, drugs. I’d say it’s a good thing that gator was there to take care of him for you guys.”

  Royce smiled and glanced over at Adelaide, who didn’t appear to share in the humor the opinion generated between the two of them. But then she’d witnessed the man being pulled underwater to his death.

  “The contact lens you found had manufacturing information on it, and we were able to trace it back to Wendy Davis. Thanks for saving it, Adelaide.”

  “You’re welcome, but it was comical to watch Royce believe for an instant that I’d actually eaten it.”

  Gina chuckled, turned and walked down the hall slightly ahead of them.

  “How is that momma alligator, anyway?” Royce asked.

  “Still guarding her nest, and probably glad we left her bayou before her babies busted out of their shells.”

  “Would you like to speak with the department’s counselor, Adelaide?” He cast her a sideways glance before refocusing on the elevator doors at the end of the hallway. “It’s routine when you witness a tragedy. The department has someone on staff for debriefing.”

  “I’m fine, Royce. I was just thinking that Matthew Pournelle would have gladly watched us being turned into gator food. It’s poetic justice if you ask me. He got as good as he was willing to give.”

  They bunched up at the elevator, and Gina pushed the down button. “It’s worrisome that every thug in this case has a lengthy criminal history, Royce. Both Clay Franklin and Matthew Pournelle showed an escalating propensity for violence. If they weren’t dead, I’d believe they could commit murder the next time around.”

  Royce listened to the elevator doors slide open and followed the women into the cubicle, dissecting Gina’s observation about Franklin and Pournelle. Both men had attempted to harm Adelaide, in somewhat different ways, but harm her nonetheless.

  What if they were looking at it all wrong? What if her attempted abduction and the murdered women were linked by more than the fact that she’d drawn their death scenes? A knot formed in his stomach as the elevator chimed and the doors opened on the detective unit.

  “Thanks, Gina.” Royce pressed his hand into the small of Adelaide’s back and steered her toward his desk in the corner as Gina broke off for the lab.

  Excitement frayed his nerves and drove a series of maligned thoughts together inside his head.

  “This will only take a minute. I want to run a comparison between Franklin and Pournelle’s known associates. I bet we find they have a lot in common.”

  “Okay. But how does that help? They were both creeps, thereby proving the old adage ‘birds of a feather flock together.’”

  “Exactly. And among that list of scumbags could be the thug who kicked down your door and dragged you out of your house, the one who set the place on fire around you, and put Officer Tansy in the hospital, the one who took potshots at us out in Destrehan and the one who tried to hack his way into the safe house.”

  “A criminal network?”

  “More than that, Adelaide.” He put Pournelle’s file and the sketch in his hand on the desk and slid an extra chair over for her.

  “It’s an organized hunting party, willing to do just about anything to get what they want. Find them, link them and you’ll find the ringleader.”

  He resisted the urge to reach out for her, to hide her away somewhere safe until the danger had passed and he’d connected every dot. “The mastermind directing this gang of deviants is behind the murders, here and in Baton Rouge. He’s one and the same. He destroys Beholders because he believes in their magic.”

  Royce watched her swallow and felt the blood turn cold in his veins. They were up against evil. Unreasonable evil that fed on people’s darkest desires. He reached out this time and touched her cheek with his fingertips, feeling the contact jolt his insides.

  “He’s a hunter, Adelaide. And he has been hunting you since the day you were born. We need to visit Miss Marie to find out what we’re up against.”

  ROYCE’S THOUGHTS WERE HEAVY as he escorted Adelaide along Bourbon Street in the late-afternoon sunshine that had chased Tropical Storm Kandace well to the east.

  He’d dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt at Megan Lorry’s suggestion. She’d convinced him that information would flow more freely if he didn’t look like a cop when he spoke to the shop owner about all things voodoo.

  “What’s this place called again?” Adelaide asked.

  “Spells-4-U, Voodoo Magic and More. It should be right here.” Royce glanced up at the gaudy purple sign suspended from the overhang twenty feet in front of them.

  “There it is. I never thought I’ve have to go into a place like this to work a case.”

  She glanced over at him. “Neither did I, and I suppose you think I frequent them?”

  “No. I’ve developed the highest regard for what you do. It’s not a parlor trick. It’s the real deal. You’re the real deal.”

  “Thanks.” She grinned.

  “We have strict instructions to play it cool. The department’s source is adamant about keeping her anonymity.”

  He reached out and took her hand. “How’s this for cool?”

  “A couple out for a stroll in the French Quarter on a sultry afternoon? I like it.”

  “Good, because we’re supposed to be here for a voodoo blessing on our upcoming nuptials.” He pushed open the door to the little shop and they stepped inside.

  The earthy aroma of patchouli incense overpowered Adelaide’s senses as she scanned the interior of the store. A couple of patrons milled around a candle display that stood six feet tall, and contained candles in every color she could name, and some she couldn’t. Another display dangled with charms and cloth bags she assumed could be filled with powders, potions and herbs.

  A young woman in a flowing skirt and a tight white blouse knotted above her exposed belly button moved toward them. She stopped several feet away and stepped back.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “We’re here to see Miss Marie. We have an appointment for a marriage blessing.”

  “Oh, yes. I can see it in your auras. You two are meant to be joined. She is upstairs.” The girl gestured to a stairwell in the back of the store and turned to help a customer with a handful of candles, casting a quick glance over her shoulder at the two of them before she turned completely away.

  Royce raised his eyebrows and led Adelaide toward the stairs. This place gave him the creeps.

  Pushing apart the bead curtain, he stared up the narrow stairwell and pressed through. They made the landing and stepped into a narrow room, painted the same hideous shade of purple as the sign outside.

  A frail-looking old woman sat behind a small round table. She glanced up as they entered.

  “Come. I’ve been expecting you.”

  Royce escorted Adelaide to the table, pulled out a chair for her and sat down in the one next to her.

  “M
iss Marie, we need your help.”

  The elderly woman looked back and forth between the two of them. “Ah, Miss Lorry sent you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how may I help you?”

  “Adelaide—” he gestured to her with a nod of his head “—is a Beholder. She’s in the process of exposing someone who is killing young women. The murders are ritualistic in nature, and the victims are found posed and circled in a ring of salt. We believe the crimes are being committed by someone with a knowledge of voodoo.”

  “The salt represents bad luck, and it is being used to direct that bad luck onto someone else.”

  The victim’s pointing finger?

  “Has he taken anything from you, Adelaide? A trinket, a personal item, perhaps a lock of your hair?”

  Adelaide felt an unsettling sensation move over her body. “A piece of my hair. He cut off a piece of my hair.” She fingered the exact spot where the chunk was missing. Cut off by the man who’d attempted to take her the night Royce rescued her.

  Miss Marie leaned forward. “Guard yourself well, child. Your white magic is powerful for good, your aura is obscured by it, but he can weaken you by possessing your hair, and the circle of salt can bring you bad luck. The circle of death he is creating around you could consume you, and he will destroy you if he has the chance. Do you have the protection doll of a true Beholder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep it close, but keep your Protector closer.”

  “My Protector?”

  She gestured with a hand, palm up. “He is your Protector, Adelaide. Your soul mate. It is his purpose, as dictated by the events of his life. The white light is strong around you both. But be warned, those who practice dark magic will try to separate you by killing him. That is all I can tell you.”

  It was enough, Royce decided as he stood up, dug into his pocket and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill.

  “Thank you for your help.” He held out the money, but she held up her hand.

  “I cannot take it. You asked for my help, and I’ve freely given it to you. You know the way out.”

  Royce took hold of Adelaide’s hand, headed for the stairs and escaped. He didn’t want to admit it, but somewhere inside him, the old woman’s words were resonating.

  Every attempt that he believed had been directed at Adelaide had been meant for him.

  Chapter Ten

  Adelaide stared out the car window at the shadows that stretched across the sidewalk at the corner of Canal and Royal, where they sat waiting for the traffic light to change.

  The sun and heat had managed to wring the rain-soaked city out, but even the presence of sunshine did little to burn through the layer of foreboding that had settled over her.

  She ran her thumb over the gris-gris doll cupped in the palm of her left hand. “Do you think my birth mother could still be out there somewhere?”

  Royce shot her a quick glance. “Anything’s possible.”

  “Can you look through old police files from around the time I was abandoned?” Her throat closed, and the pressure of the emotion in her heart forced tears into her eyes. “I need to rephrase that, considering all the new information that has come to light. Maybe, around the time she saved me.”

  “Yeah. I can look into it after we catch these guys and things settle down.”

  The light turned green.

  Royce pulled through the intersection, crossed Canal Street onto Saint Charles Avenue and braked on the bumper of another car. The going was slow; remains of traffic from the morning commute bunched up in front of them.

  He looked in his rearview mirror, studying the silver car trapped on the other side of the street. Paranoid? Yeah, he was becoming more paranoid with every passing incident, and Miss Marie’s spooky rant about dark magic hadn’t helped.

  “What’s your professor’s name again?”

  “Charles Bessette. He always claimed he could trace his French ancestors back to Louis the XVI, and maybe he can, who knows. What I do know is he was one of my favorite professors.”

  Traffic started to move, and Royce moved with it, taking an occasional look in the mirror at the car following them, at the man behind the wheel wearing a ball cap and sunglasses.

  “Cultural anthropology is a deep and diverse subject. He’s a hands-on kind of guy, always taking off on sabbatical to verify historical accounts with concrete facts.”

  She smiled for the first time since they’d left the station, and it helped to ease the worry lacing through his veins.

  “Looks like they’re working on your house.” Royce slowed a bit as they passed her home, its facade still marred by a strip of crime-scene tape looped around the impressive columns of the front porch. A couple of workmen were busy shuttling equipment inside, and a box truck with a huge paintbrush logo on the side was parked at the curb.

  “My mother is overseeing the cleanup and restoration. It should be ready to move back into in a month or so.”

  In a month or so? Where would he be at that point in time? For some reason he couldn’t picture anything beyond this moment, and that bothered him.

  “Tulane is a big place. How do I get where I’m going?”

  “Take Newcomb Boulevard to Freret Street. It’s on the corner of Freret and Audubon.”

  Glancing into the rearview mirror, he made a decision and turned right onto the next street. Accelerating rapidly, he braked at the next intersection on the residential street and hung a left, watching as the silver car made the corner a block behind him.

  “We’re being followed again.”

  “What do they want?”

  “You.” At least that was what it had always been the times before. Someone wanted her in the worst possible way, and they were willing to kill him to get to her. But he wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Taking a hard right into a narrow alley, Royce zipped to the end and turned right again, easing out to see the silver car disappear around the corner in the opposite direction. He pulled out and drove back to Saint Charles and nosed back into traffic.

  “I’m pretty sure I lost him, but keep an eye out.”

  “Okay.”

  Ten minutes later, he eased the car up next to the curb in front of the Anthropology Annex, an old two-story house conversion painted a shade of muddy white that reminded him of dust.

  “This is it,” she said. Reaching for the handle, she opened the door and climbed out of the car.

  Royce leaned down, pulled the trunk opener and climbed out, stepping around to the open compartment for the Songe mask he’d tossed inside to keep from having to look at it. The damn thing gave him the heebie-jeebies. Had since the day they picked it up off the floor in Clay Franklin’s house.

  He leaned into the trunk and picked up the evidence bag and the manila envelope next to it. Pulling back, he closed the trunk and turned to stare down the street behind him, feeling the air sag with tension, but the street was clear save a handful of parked cars.

  There was that paranoia thing again, but he couldn’t let it take over and obscure his reasoning.

  He stepped up onto the sidewalk and pressed his hand against Adelaide’s back as they climbed the steps and entered the building.

  A receptionist looked up from her spot behind a low counter. “Can I help you?”

  “We have an appointment with Professor Charles Bessette.”

  “Go on up. He’s on the second floor in room 200.”

  “Thanks.” They climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked down the narrow hallway until they found room 200. A brass plaque on the door showed them they’d arrived at the right place. Adelaide knocked.

  “Come in.”

  She turned the knob and entered the office with Royce behind her.

  Professor Bessette sat behind a large desk, staring at a computer monitor. He looked up at her from over a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and smiled. “Adelaide Charboneau. It is so good to see you again.”

  “Thank you, Professor Bessette. I wasn�
��t sure you would remember me when I called for an appointment.”

  “Yes, well, I will admit, I wasn’t sure who you were then, but the moment I saw your face I remembered you from my class last year.” The professor stood up and looked at Royce.

  “Detective Royce Beckett, New Orleans PD.” He reached out and shook the professor’s hand.

  “Please sit down. I understand you have an artifact you would like me to examine?”

  “Yes.” Royce broke the seal on the evidence bag and pulled out the plastic bag inside containing the two halves of the mask. “We’d like your expert opinion on this Songe.” He handed the bag across the table to the professor, who immediately began to open it.

  “I’m sorry, sir, it’s evidence. It has to remain sealed.”

  “I understand.” He put the bag on the desk in front of him and turned on his desk lamp, aiming its beam onto the mask. “It is most certainly a replica, and a poor-quality one at that.” Pressing the plastic taut over the gruesome features, he studied it. “You could easily pick something like this up from a street vendor in the Quarter during Mardi Gras, or perhaps any time of year.”

  Royce opened the envelope and pulled out the drawing Adelaide had sketched at the hospital. The mask of the man who’d tried to kill Officer Tansy. “What about this one, can you tell us anything about it?”

  He handed it across the desk to the professor, and saw him blanch as he studied the sketch.

  “Oh dear. This one is quite a different matter.”

  “What do you mean?” Royce leaned forward, his interest piqued.

  “Do you have this mask in your possession?” Bessette asked, his face contorted by a frown. “No, sir.”

  “Good. You would not want to touch this one in the flesh. It looks like an authentic voodoo Songe judging by the language reliefs cut into the wood under the eye slits. It was used by the Susu voodoo sect in the early 1800s, and based on its high ridge crest, its black magic is very powerful. It was only handled and worn by the high priest in ceremonies of vengeance and retaliation.”

  “Retaliation for what?” Royce asked, hunching up one shoulder as a chill crept across the back of his skull. He could almost imagine that Professor Bessette believed in the nonsense he was telling them by the intensity in his voice.