The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  “You do that,” said Parks. “Are you okay, Doc? Dr. Laveau?”

  “Sure.” She stooped, lifting up the tarp.

  She sucked in air. Autopsy, surgery, even cancer deaths were nothing compared to this. An absolute drain of body fluids. Taut, leathery flesh covering bone. All the bones—clear, heightened, in bold relief. Inhale, exhale. Don’t get emotional, she told herself. Still some muscle and fat. Just limp, flaccid, without blood flow.

  Parks squatted beside her. She imagined they looked like little kids staring at a dead, malnourished cat in a sandbox.

  Except this was a man. Skin poured over bones. No sense of organs, everything depressed, caved in, bloodless. Nails, yellow. Eyes, wide open, bulging with a glazed look of surprise. His wrist had three punctures, right along the vein.

  “Trumpet.”

  “What?”

  “He played the trumpet,” said Parks.

  Marie squinted at Rudy’s ring. Something etched on the gold. Were the markings linked to the wall? A dialogue in some ancient tongue?

  “If anyone deserved dying, he did.”

  Parks stood. “Who might you be?”

  “Dede. Stage manager. I’ve been here forever.”

  Marie stretched the tarp over the dead man’s head. Parks, surprisingly gentle, put his hand under her elbow. Helped her rise.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Real gentleman,” scowled Dede.

  “Show some manners,” said Parks.

  “Why?” asked Marie. “I mean, why did he deserve it?”

  Dede crossed his fat hands over his chest. Scrunched his lips.

  “Say something. Else I can take you down to the station for questioning.”

  Dede looked at Parks as if he were a roach. He licked his lips, sly, hesitating, like a dying man. “Everything about him was corrupt.” His voice was soft, more melancholic than damning. “He’d sell his sister . . . lie to his mother . . . steal from his brother. Called no man friend. Ornery. A good musician, but no soul. Not supposed to be that way. Feelings supposed to make great music. Everything in him was hate.”

  Marie shifted from foot to foot. Dede was staring at her. She thought of the ancient mariner. Except Dede wasn’t confessing his sins. He was confessing someone else’s; strangely, he was warning her.

  “You going to take him?”

  “Ready to load,” said Roach, returning.

  “He deserves a shout-out,” said Dede. “He’s still one of us.”

  “Shout-out? What’s that?”

  “A moment of praise. Witness. Recognition that he was one of the group,” said Marie.

  Dede nodded. He looked around the room, slapped his hands against his thigh. One beat, two.

  “My man,” replied a sandy man, hair slicked back, drumming sticks on the table, a syncopated rat-a-tat-tat. Marie recognized him. He was the drummer possessed at the club.

  Someone else added a slapping. A steady rhythm against his chest. Then another. Marie looked at the fluttering hands. Another. Thighs. Chests. Tables. A gray-haired man slammed his flattened palm on wood. Dede began stomping his feet. Then all of them were slapping, stomping. Not cat’s gut strung tight over drums, but a haunting, improvised sound. Loud. Louder. Leather soles pounding. Dede, steadily watching her.

  She swallowed, clapped her hands. Syncopating, counterpointing the men’s beats.

  Musicians—black, white, high yellow, cinnamon brown, and all the colors in between. Some with gold in their mouths; some with no teeth, few teeth; some young, others old. They all had weary “been there, done that” looks and smiles that recognized the secrets in men’s and women’s souls.

  More soul stirring, less slick than the Preservation Band sound.

  Ceremonial. The sound growing louder, the beat more intense. Their bodies as drums, harkening back to an ancient time. A time when communication was just rhythm, when hands against flesh mirrored beating hearts. Like an African juba. A community using rhythm for spiritual release.

  All the men were looking at her. They were in need, needed something from her.

  She raised her hands high. The drumming quickened. As if the roof could lift. High. Higher.

  “Spirit find peace,” she hollered. “We’ve honored, witnessed your life.” The musicians were nodding. “Rudy, be gone.”

  The men abruptly stopped their drumming.

  Dede smiled crookedly.

  The men and the room seemed to have lost air, exhaled energy. It was now a near-empty, dirty bar filled with tired, disillusioned men.

  “I don’t get it,” said Parks. “What just happened?”

  “I need to be outside.”

  “Don’t go far,” said Parks.

  “Or you’ll arrest me?”

  “No. I’m worried about you. Be careful.”

  She exited through the back door, into a courtyard. It felt odd having a man be concerned for her. Not since Reneaux—Detective Reneaux—had someone looked at her as Parks had. Like he cared.

  She looked about the courtyard, searching for Rudy.

  Rudy’s ghost was leaning against the south wall, licking his lips. JT, shoulders slumped, looked as mournful as a freshly neutered cat.

  “What connects you?” Marie asked.

  “Talking to yourself?”

  “You following me?”

  Parks shrugged.

  “No. To them,” said Marie, pointing.

  “Whatever you say, Doc.” Parks lit a cigarette.

  “Bad for you.”

  “This case is bad for me.”

  “For a doctor, cases are the ones we try to keep alive.”

  “Mine are homicides. Without a doubt, dead.”

  Parks blew smoke right through the ghosts. He looked at Marie, his shoulder leaning against concrete. “I didn’t hear a shout-out. Except you—saying ‘be gone.’ Did it work?”

  “No. I said what they wanted to hear.”

  “Trickery?”

  “No. The shout-out was in the music. The rhythm. Each of the gods has its special rhythm.”

  “Whose rhythm were they playing?”

  “Agwé’s. The sea god.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “You think they know something? Something they’re not telling?”

  “No. I think the rhythm was instinctive. Spirits do shape things. Like the markings on the wall.”

  “There’s writing on the wall?” Parks stood upright.

  He had the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man. “Inside,” she murmured. “Markings. Above the body.”

  “A message? Some clue other than impossibly dead bodies?” His voice was soft.

  Marie knew he was angry.

  Parks pressed his cigarette against the wall, sparks flying. He went back inside.

  Marie stayed outside. The ghosts were gone. She—who’d seen all manner of dying—had never seen two men drained of blood. She leaned against the brick wall, her fingers digging in the crevices, the cracks. Scraping at mortar over a hundred years old.

  Parks was again in the doorway. She could see him straining to hold himself back, not to get in her face. He lit a cigarette, then stared at the matchstick flame, watching it burn down to his fingertips, before blowing it out.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Agwé’s sign, I think. But it’s not finished. Just the shape of a bow, a line for a mast. And something else—uncompleted. Perhaps two Vs.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  Marie just looked at him. “I think there are going to be more deaths.”

  Face taut, he gripped her shoulders. He seemed to be looking inside her—probing her anxiety, her fears, her heart’s secrets.

  She felt the strength in him, the strength behind his usual careless posture, his pretty-boy looks. Here was the man who liked tracking murderers. Who could stare at all manner of abuse—homicide by knife, strangulation, beating . . . an
d now what? vampirism?—and not be undone. She couldn’t help wondering whether he’d been born or made that way. Nature versus nurture.

  “Never thought I’d be tracking a voodoo killer,” said Parks.

  “It isn’t voodoo.”

  “Markings indicate a ritualistic killing. Your involvement—your ghosts make it seem voodoo enough for me.”

  “Then you’re a fool.”

  He stepped back, dragged on his cigarette. “You don’t like cops.”

  “Nothing to do with the profession.”

  “So it’s me you don’t like. If you respected me, you would’ve told me about the drawing sooner. You wouldn’t have withheld it, thinking I’m stupid.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid. Slow, perhaps. Needing to be reminded to take a dog to pee.”

  Parks smiled slightly. “All right. I admit that one.” His voice lowered. “But I don’t want to admit there’ll be more murders. How do you know?”

  The courtyard was grungy. Cigarette butts, the tips of rolled weed, a few empty pints of Jack Daniel’s. This was where the musicians rested between sets. A small square. At night, she imagined, they could see flickering stars.

  “I just know.”

  “Concrete, tangible evidence. That’s what I’m interested in, Doc.”

  “Sure. Except with Rudy dead, you came to me. When his ghost was at my door, you didn’t question. You protected Marie-Claire. I’m grateful for that.”

  Parks blew smoke at the clouds.

  “Bad for you,” she sighed.

  “This job. This place is bad for me. Ten AM and my clothes are already sticking to me like water.”

  “Why are you here? New Orleans.”

  Parks flicked the cigarette onto the cobblestones, watching it burn between crevices.

  “A woman,” Marie whispered.

  Parks froze, expressionless.

  Marie felt his suppressed longing, melancholy. Funny how emotions radiated. The more you suppressed them, the more powerful they became.

  “Failed love affair,” she said, “and you blame New Orleans.”

  “No. Just her. She knew I was a cop. She wanted to be with her people. What’s that? Her people?” He tapped the Marlboro pack against his palm. “Was it my fault New Orleans is the murder capital of the South, hey, maybe the whole damned United States?” He lit another cigarette.

  Marie clasped his hand. For a second, he held hers, staring at their fingers, entwined, before letting his hand go limp.

  “You love her.”

  “Stop creeping me out.”

  “Just a woman’s intuition.”

  “And you? In love?”

  His eyes were ocean blue. And, for a second, she imagined she could fall into them. That beyond the blue was brown.

  “Parks,” shouted Roach.

  They stepped apart.

  “The body is loaded. We’re ready to roll.” Roach looked at one, then the other. His eyes blinked behind glass.

  “I’m coming,” said Parks.

  “Take your time. A woman always appreciates that.”

  Marie bobbed her head. A blush spread across her cheeks.

  “Don’t mind Roach. Good man. Just crass sometimes.”

  “No matter. Besides, he’s right.” She smiled.

  Now it was Parks’s turn to blush.

  “Look,” said Parks. “I don’t understand what’s going on. But I admit it. I need you.”

  “I, you.”

  His brow arched.

  “Things happen for a reason,” she murmured. “The world is full of signs.”

  “I’m a sign?” He grinned.

  “A big one.” They both laughed.

  “Let me have a patrolman drive you home. I’ll get back to you after the autopsy.”

  “I’d rather walk. Helps me think.”

  “You sure?”

  Marie pressed her fingertips to her eyes. She’d like nothing better than to crawl into bed. But something was awry in the world; she was smack in the middle of it. That made it dangerous for Marie-Claire, for everyone she loved.

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  She went inside the musty hall. Several musicians were still straddling chairs; some, packing instruments; others, already slipping out the front door. A saxophonist was sleeping on the floor, his coat his pillow, his instrument cradled like a lover.

  Parks had slipped beside Roach. Comparing notes. Beat cops yawned.

  The hall wasn’t much. Yet here, magic was made. Music—a universal human endeavor. Slaves had used it to save their own souls. Preservation Hall, “preservation”—protecting something from loss or danger; salvation; self-preservation; to conserve. In medical terms, “preservation” meant a process to save organic substances from decay; embalmment, fixation, hardening tissue to resemble, as much as possible, living tissue.

  Her head hurt. She turned to go, but her mind didn’t connect with her body.

  She blinked. Her sight narrowed, focusing on the bandstand. JT stood beside the drums.

  Her respiration increased; sweat beaded on her neck. As in a ceremony, she was both here and not here, in two worlds. Present/future. Present/past. Which would it be?

  Time converged. Space receding; streaks of color. Wait, she said to herself. Wait. For the vision.

  The world bleached gray, then blanched yellow. Sickly, feverish yellow.

  Like a picture show, she saw JT. Saw herself, standing, beside him.

  Marie cleared her mind. Let the miracle happen. Be it. In it.

  She stepped inside JT’s ghostly body.

  Loneliness. Heavy as a mountain. A river of tears dammed inside.

  On the dock. Keeping lookout. Fearful police will arrive. Water crested. A swell of white foam.

  She remembered playing as a child, on the beach. Marching with a stick in her hand, wearing an admiral’s hat. Mama—lovely and young, embracing her, feathering her face with kisses. Placing a bag about her neck.

  Something burst from the water.

  “Mama?” Arms outstretched, trying to embrace the past. “Agwé?”

  The water was still like a glass pane, but dirtied from mud, refuse, sewage.

  Hands high, lowering, she slapped out a rhythm. Flesh against flesh. Hands to chest. Agwé’s rhythm.

  Darkness, a floating mist rose from the water. Coming. Closer. Agwé inspires. Redeems.

  Impact. Wood digging into flesh. Lungs aching for air.

  Horror as her wrist twisted, arched, as the snake drained blood.

  “JT, fight. Fight. “ But her words inside the spirit had no sound. She felt him letting himself die. Giving in. She died with him.

  Welcoming sleep. A sweet exhale. JT believed he had nothing to live for. That Agwé was punishing him, making the world right.

  “Doc?”

  Marie looked at Parks. He needed a shave; a lock of hair kept falling over his eye; there were brown flecks in his irises. She smelled him: his worry, his sweet aftershave.

  “You’re crying.”

  “JT thought he’d dishonored his mother’s god. Agwé. Thought he deserved to die.”

  “Woman’s intuition?”

  “Voodoo, this time. I was him. In him.”

  She swayed.

  Parks held her upright. “You need rest, Doc.”

  “No. There isn’t time. It’s the music. JT and Rudy. Connected by music.”

  “JT was a dockworker,” said Parks.

  “But he called Agwé. Like the shout-out, he drummed his body.

  “When I first saw him, his spirit,” her words tumbled out, “the tune was in my head. Knick-knack, paddy-wack. He played one, he played knick-knack paddy-wack on my drum. I’ve just seen him. Drumming. He thought Agwé killed him. But it couldn’t have been Agwé. It was darkness. A snake.”

  “The devil, then.” Parks brushed back his hair. “I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

  “Snakes aren’t evil.”

  Outside, the ambulance whoop-whooped twice
. Rudy’s body was being taken away.

  “JT thought Agwé was punishing him. Rudy must’ve thought so, too. That would account for the drawing. He was trying to pacify Agwé.”

  Raucous singing, from outside, filtered into the hall. “Oh, when the saints . . . Lord, how I want to be in that number. . . . ”

  Marie hated the song. In her mind’s eye, she could see the tourists’ hips shaking, fingers snapping, taking up the anthem, dancing in the street. Trumpets blared.

  “Everybody dead gets a party in New Orleans,” cursed Parks. He stomped out his cigarette. “I think we should await evidence. Follow police procedure.”

  She touched her throat, feeling her carotid artery. Her pulse, ebbing and flowing. “Did JT have a bag around his neck? Or near his body?”

  “Nothing.”

  “As a child, his mother gave him a mojo bag.”

  Parks raised his brows.

  “A corrupted version of mojuba,” she responded. “ ‘To give praise.’ An African charm. Sometimes called gris-gris. Trick bags. Agwé was JT’s guardian.”

  “Sure, Doc.”

  “Something must’ve happened to the bag. It would account for why he was such a bad-luck man.”

  Grimacing, Parks stepped back warily. “I’ll escort you home.”

  “Parks. Listen to me. You’ve got to believe me. Nothing of this world is going to solve this crime.”

  “I’m not going to end up like Reneaux.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Everybody admired him. Don’t get me wrong. But there’s talk—you and your voodoo drove him crazy. He let himself slip as a cop. That’s why he got killed.”

  She slapped Parks. Hard. Then slapped him again.

  Parks clutched Marie’s wrist. The two of them, breathing heavily, their gazes fixed, angry.

  A patrolman stepped near. “Need help?”

  “Get the hell out,” answered Parks. He held Marie’s wrist, gaze unwavering. “Concrete. Tangible evidence. Nothing less.”

  Cymbals clashed; the bass drum sounded. The snare fell over.

  “What the hell—”

  “JT’s trying to provide evidence.”

  Quick as lightning, JT hid the drumsticks behind a speaker.

  “I’m out of my mind. Ghost drummers. Vampires. Witches.”

  “I’m not a witch.”