by Don Bruns
Tom Lyons, one of the handful of cops who believed in him. One of the cops who was putting his career – hell, his life – on the line to find Denise’s killer.
Archer printed off the pictures. He wanted to study them, memorize them, hang them on his wall at the cottage. Along with the phone calls and the intrusions at his cottage, it was all part of the puzzle. He knew why they killed her. Now he needed to know who had run her down.
20
The stories were told by candlelight, by firelight, by moonlight, by starlight. Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau had danced topless, breasts exposed in their splendid glory, with a snake named Zombi wrapped around her supple frame, taunting the men in her audience, mocking the young women who stared wide-eyed as the voluptuous voodoo priestess worked her way through the throng. People of both sexes, all colors, would reach out to touch her, feel her firm flesh, caress her breasts and buttocks. Some of them felt her loins and encouraged her to touch theirs. The act of healing, affirmation and lust. Some of them, men and women, stripped naked and danced on the bare earth, where sometimes a massive orgy occurred. Hundreds of locals and dozens of visitors, who needed to see it for themselves, convened on the grounds deep in the bayous and later on Rampart Street, whipped into a frenzy, believing that the vision they saw would fulfil their dreams. Wealth, security, love, prosperity: dreams that were fueled also by the fermented drink served from large oak barrels.
The high priestess, Queen Marie, would solicit white married men of wealth, finding them fine mistresses of color to bed, house, feed and clothe. The voodoo madam. She accepted up to one hundred dollars from white businessmen who wanted to eliminate rivals and she accepted up to one thousand dollars from local judges who were determined to be re-elected.
This is what she heard, read, and this is what disturbed her. So many people believed that the spirit of voodoo was sexual in nature. The queen had turned the serpent into a sexual organ. Sex, salacious moments, baptism by sperm, retributions, whatever they wanted would be granted by the voodoo witch.
Solange Cordray lit the thin blue candle, silently praying to a special spirit.
‘The void, the voodoo emptiness, let it be filled with the power to heal my mother. This I pray and send the scent of my candle to the goddess of health. Loa, hear me. Make my mother whole again.’
The gods were tired of hearing from her, she was certain of it. Yet it gave her comfort and a feeling of being needed. She would go to her grave seeking a way to bring her mother back to full mental stability.
Twenty minutes later the candle was a puddle of wax, and then it extinguished itself. She heard it, the slight whoosh of air that rustled the papers on the counter. The spell had been cast. No naked dancing, no snakes slithering over her oiled body. If it took all of that to save her Ma, she would do it. But in her heart she knew this was all in the hands of the spirits, and all she could do was continue to pray.
21
Archer decided to check in with Strand as he walked to the streetcar. He figured he might as well make good use of his time. Past the jail with its stainless steel concertina wire boundaries, the bail bond stores, and the carry-outs with garish window signs advertising po-boys, check-cashing, fried chicken and lotto tickets. Across the cracked, pitted pavement to the next block where everyone on the sidewalk seemed to be on their phone. Not a soul looked up or acknowledged him. As he pulled out his phone to call Strand, it rang.
‘I heard they did Lerner’s house today.’ Strand was already home and Archer could hear the drone of a TV in the background.
‘Yeah. Lots of framed mug shots on his piano. Guy used them like decorations or trophies.’
‘You’ve got the day-planner from his office?’
‘Got it with me. I’ll look at it tonight and see if anything jumps out.’
‘Q, we’ve got an ex-con and we’ve got a gun. Tomorrow the press is going to tear us a new asshole. Why not get on board? Back me on this and let’s get this guy convicted. We’ll be heroes, Archer, instead of idiots.’
‘Strand, there are a lot of other things going on. I want to wrap it, too, but I’ve got some leads.’
‘If we don’t get this solved by week’s end, they’ll involve the FBI. They’ll have state officials on our ass. The governor is going to nail us to the wall. Come on, Q.’ There was a pleading in his voice.
He’d reached Canal Street and the streetcar was just pulling up to the stop.
‘Look, I’ve got to catch the trolley and …’
‘Streetcar, Q. This is New Orleans.’
‘Whatever. I’ll call you later tonight.’
There was a slight hesitation. Archer heard a young girl’s voice in the background.
‘No, wouldn’t be a good idea tonight. I’ve got someone here. We’ll touch base tomorrow morning and you can tell me about these other things.’
Archer stepped up on the streetcar, and pushed his ticket into the machine. A heavyset black woman in a red-and-yellow bandana brushed by him, pushing her ample breasts into his arm. An old man with a foot-long white beard and creased face grinned at him, relishing in Archer’s discomfort, the man’s lack of teeth giving his face a death-mask appearance.
The walk from Canal to his small cottage was five minutes and he paused at the door. The odd things that had been happening at his new home caused him to be a little hesitant before entering. Archer reached under his jacket and touched the handle of his Glock. Booming karaoke tracks echoed down the walkway to his courtyard as he unlocked and slowly opened the door. Apparently the newly passed sound ordinance wasn’t in force just yet.
The door squealed like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He mentally noted he needed some WD-40. The lubricant would immediately take care of one of the loud noises in his courtyard.
Flipping on the light switch, Archer’s gaze swept the room. Nothing out of place, nothing out of the ordinary.
His phone rang. Glancing at the screen he saw the sender was blocked. It rang again and Archer considered not answering. He hated these people, but he needed to stay connected. To keep the line open to the people who had alienated him from his family. To the people who had probably killed his wife. Eventually he would use it all to nail the bastards. He clicked in on the fourth ring.
‘Archer.’
‘Hey, Quentin.’
Silence. He knew the voice. Very well. It was Mercer. While one of his brothers was doing time in Detroit for dealing drugs, Bobby Mercer still worked for the DPD. The slimeball still drew a paycheck. Detroit taxpayers still paid for his benefits. No one had ever been able to prove that the crooked cop was behind hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of drug deals. No one.
But damn. Archer had tried.
‘Bobby.’
‘Just wanted to say hi, Quentin.’
‘How’s my brother?’
‘The one in prison? Or the one who’s on the run?’
‘Never mind.’
‘Wondered how the job was going, Quentin. Wondered if you’d pissed off any of the NOPD yet.’
‘Is my brother down here? The one who’s on the run?’
‘Down where?’ Sarcasm dripping from his voice.
‘You know where. New Orleans.’
‘Now why would you ask me something like that?’
‘Little things, Mercer. Like a dead cat on my doorstep.’
He laughed. ‘Really, a dead cat? Somebody putting a hex on you, my man? Watch yourself. It’s voodoo country. Next thing you know you’ll have zombies for neighbors.’
Archer stood still, tight-lipped. He shouldn’t have said anything. Just adding fuel to the fire.
‘Hey, Q, I’d think Jason would get as far away from you as possible. After you tried to have him put away and all. Besides, he’s a wanted felon. If I knew where he was, I’d have him arrested and returned. You know me. Following the letter of the law, Archer.’
The detective squeezed the handset.
‘Just want to make sure you know we haven’t forg
otten what you tried to do up here, Detective. Keep your distance, because you’ve got a lot of people who don’t like you in Detroit. Do you understand? We just think you need a reminder from time to time.’
‘Tell me, Bobby,’ Archer said, ‘because I don’t think you ever answered the question. Who killed my wife? Who ran her over? Was that you? Did you kill Denise? Because eventually, you fucking piece of scum, I will come after you, and—’
‘Keep your distance, Archer. Stay away. This is not a game.’
The phone went dead. Mercer had terminated the call. There was so much he wanted to say to the man, but it was better to stop before he started something he couldn’t finish. Maybe he’d already said too much. He’d tried to finish it, and had his ass handed to him. Not only that, he’d lost the love of his life in the process. It left an empty hole that he was finding impossible to fill.
There was one Archer doing time. One was on the run. And Mercer was biding his time in Detroit, still working the streets and probably still organizing drug rings. Quentin Archer wondered where his brother Jason had decided to hide out. If he was smart, and he was, Jason would be out of the country by now. Maybe hiding on some Caribbean island. He probably had enough money to stay hidden a long time.
Placing his gun on the small kitchen table, he sat down on the bed, taking deep breaths. Relaxation methods usually calmed him down. His wife’s murder, the Detroit threat and now the New Orleans press calling for an answer. It was a lot to shoulder. He unfolded the printouts of the vehicle and license plate responsible for Denise’s death and placed them on his nightstand.
Picking up Lerner’s day-planner, he moved to the table to work. He studied the page filled with appointments, notations, sidebars and scrawled initials. Some of the information would take a code-breaker. But looking at the pages, he could loosely put together what the judge had on his agenda the day before and the day that they found the body. Archer placed a yellow legal pad next to the judge’s schedule and started making notes. Trying to put together the hour to hour life of the magistrate just before his death.
An hour later he rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock. 11 p.m. The muffled sound of Bourbon Street wafted through the doors and windows and he stood, stretching his aching back. He needed a break.
Locking the pistol in the cottage’s only closet, he put on his sport coat and walked outside, heading toward the fabled street named after a French ruling family, the House of Bourbon. Archer preferred to think of its hard drinking heritage and the bourbon that was consumed on this famous stretch of pavement. The street was steeped in the lore of musicians, actors, writers and characters that prowled its rowdy bars and strip clubs. Strand had told him that Bourbon Street was where they quarantined the tourists so they didn’t fuck up the rest of the city.
Throngs of revelers roamed the street in various states of inebriation, and the smell of stale beer and sweet incense filled the air. Avoiding the slop that filled the gutters, Archer dodged small groups of tourists as he avoided colliding with a tall woman in tight black slacks and long hair, who was screaming at a short, scruffily bearded man who was walking away.
Ten young women crossed the street in front of him, identically dressed in skin-hugging black leggings and tees that said Goodbye, Julianne. One of the girls sported a crown and veil. Weaving out of the line she approached Archer.
‘Want to join us?’ she asked.
‘No, not right now.’
‘I’m getting married,’ she informed him in a slurred voice. ‘This is my last night on the town.’
‘Good luck,’ Archer said. She was going to need it.
The short man with the scruffy beard turned back to yell at the tall, angular woman.
‘You are a fucking bitch. Do you know that?’
She yelled down at him, shaking her fist. ‘I’m your wife, damn it. You can’t say things like that to me. I love you.’
A quartet of old black men sang some tight harmony doo-wop on the street corner as a small crowd gathered and from a block up strains of a brass section floated on the air. Following the music, he walked into a bar. A hot young band was playing Motown on the stage to his right. Four brass players and a rhythm section with a guy and girl singing outrageous vocals. He downed his first American Blonde, then ordered another and sat halfway back, enjoying the music and the euphoric feeling. The bar was crowded and the musicians ripped through songs from the Temptations, Ben E. King, Wilson Pickett and more. With shrill brass, bottom-thumping bass and a soaring, brilliant guitarist who shredded a solo on Pickett’s ‘Fire and Water’, the band was spot on, almost making him homesick for Detroit. Almost.
Forty minutes later, after one more beer, he walked back to his cramped residence, threading his way through the packs of people that were milling in the busy street. An aimless crowd that wandered up and down Bourbon without any purpose other than to party and drink themselves into oblivion.
Reaching the cottage, he automatically checked for any disturbance. Everything seemed to be the way he’d left it. He sat back down at the table and reviewed his notes. Alcohol and work never seemed to mix, but he kept looking, trying to find the magical solution, hoping something from the judge’s calendar would give him a clue to the murderer. Week’s end, they were going to charge Duvay. And then throw everything they could at the boy to get the conviction. He had to get some answers.
There were notations of things Lerner had to do, almost like an odd jobs list. Archer was sorting through the judge’s style of shorthand, trying to decipher exactly what the man was thinking. The appointments were easier. The day of the murder, he’d had five of them. Three in his office, one at a restaurant called Cochon in the warehouse district, and one where he’d written to be decided. Possibly by phone. Archer made a note to check with Detective Davis on progress recovering the phone record and any data off the SIM card from the victim’s phone. Initials were listed for four of the appointments. He’d ask Sue Waronker who the people were. The to be decided meeting had no identifying initials. He’d check with the Waronker lady about that too, and if Davis had the restored phone records he could start poring through those. And, suspect and gun be damned, Strand could help. He didn’t seem to be around most of the time. If the cocky detective was taking credit as lead on this case, he could do some of the tedious work. Archer considered the handwritten notes that someone had perused on his desk and wondered if Strand had riffled through them, catching up on what Archer had learned.
With an idea of where tomorrow was going, he stood up and walked the seven steps to the tiny bathroom.
Three minutes later he lay down on his bed and placed the Glock pistol on the nightstand. He closed his eyes, drifting into a dream state. There was the dark girl, whispering in his ear, and the dead bloated body of Judge Lerner, lying on the floor. Sergeant Sullivan was leaning over him, urging him to do what was right, and he kept wondering what was right, and then he heard a rustling sound.
Scratching, scraping, grating, a sound from outside. He’d had drinks. It could be his imagination, or just the wind. Sometimes curious tourists or drunks made their way back behind the Cat’s Meow into the tiny courtyard. It could be one of them.
Then there was a bump at the window, like a bird flying into its own reflection. The pane of glass not five feet from his bed. The creaking sound surprised him, like someone trying to pry it open.
Grabbing his gun he sat upright, all senses suddenly on high alert. Was the window locked? He couldn’t remember. Clutching the grip he tried to recall. If someone was trying to break in, if they were successful, would he shoot them? There was a huge difference in being a regular citizen home owner or renter, and being an off-duty cop. Archer felt perspiration on his brow.
And then it came to him. Of course there was a lock. Archer had checked it when he first noticed strange things at the ramshackle little cottage. But had he opened the window since then? Possibly he wasn’t as vigilant as he should have been. The detective slowly swung hi
s legs over the edge of the bed. He never should have had the beers, but someone was trying to break in, there was no question. In the dark he pulled on his pants and quietly stepped to the window, praying for a moment of total sobriety.
The sound suddenly ceased and pressing against the wall to minimize his exposure, he reached out and slowly parted the curtains. That’s when he saw the small wrapped package sitting on the inside ledge. Inside, but the window had not been opened. Archer stared at the object for a moment, hesitating, searching for an explanation. The window remained closed. The attempted intrusion hadn’t been successful, yet here was a small package that he swore had not been there before.
Letting the curtain go, he raced to the front door, unlocked it and flung it open, running into the small courtyard. A flash of motion down the walk, somebody scrambling to get out of the confined space and onto the street, and Archer sprinted after them.
He hit Bourbon Street, a bare-chested madman with a pistol in his hand. In any other setting, in any other town, people would have run, scattering every way possible. In the Quarter, it was entertainment. The large crowd parted as he ran through it, but folded back in as he passed. He dodged a toga-clad man with a snake around his neck, and a guitar player sitting cross-legged in the middle of the street.
The detective looked both ways, the fleeting image of someone running a good block away. He ran down the street, losing ground, evading drunks and revelers. In thirty seconds he slowed down, realizing there was no way he would find the person in the dense crowd that still filled the boulevard.
‘Hold on, hotshot.’
He felt a strong hand tighten on his shoulder. As he turned to lash out, someone swung around in front of him and grabbed his right wrist, wrestling the gun from his grasp. A second person gripped his arm and pulled it behind his back, sending a sharp pain through Archer’s shoulder. He could have taken one, but two—
‘Want to tell us what you’re doing waving a gun on Bourbon Street?’
