by Linda Ladd
He actually grinned this time, one that didn’t fade instantaneously. “What’d you think?”
“I think not.”
“Let’s get out and see if she’s at home. She might be working at her store in town. Her place sells satanic books and black magic stuff on one side and her taxidermy projects on the other side.”
Claire could only stare at him. “Well, don’t you think that’s a bit pertinent to our investigation, Novak?”
“Yes, I do. I plan to drop by there and check that place out, too. But first things first.”
“I wanna go. Can’t say I’ve ever been in one of Satan’s stores. Been in a couple of the voodoo boutiques in the Quarter a time or two. Which were eye openers, to be sure.”
Mary Lou Picard, a.k.a. the taxidermy/Satan aficionado, had a home that was as neat as a pin, if you excluded the stiff and hairy carcasses displaying her prowess at gutting and tanning dead things. It was sort of fairy-tale cute, even, two stories like Adonis’s house, with white paint and blue shutters with little cutouts in them. Crescent moons and stars and stylized Mexican-type suns. Cute, cute, and downright whimsical. Except that all the stuffed critters seemed to be staring right at Claire with dark and vengeful thoughts in their shiny glass eyes that looked a whole lot like cat-eye marbles.
On the other hand, the paint on the house was not peeling, which was probably some sort of a miracle out here in the damp and sultry swamp environs. The front door was painted red, blood red in fact. There was a hush over the place, kinda eerie and foreboding, but hey, everything she’d seen so far in Mr. Novak’s Neighborhood was eerie and foreboding. Hell, he needed to move back to town in the worst way. Maybe then he’d get used to spouting more than three words at a time.
It was also very, very quiet, too. No shrill birds calling, no crickets chirping, no animals screaming for help from wild, animal-stuffing-crazed swamp people with sharp needles. Not in the mood, no doubt, to get their insides pulled out. Mary Lou and Adonis had probably already stuffed them all anyway. Big-time woe to any deer or defenseless chipmunks that happened by. Okay, once again, there was no way in hell that Novak was ever getting within ten feet of Jules Verne.
“Relax, would you?” Novak said suddenly. “You look tense.”
“I’m not tense. I’m worse than tense. I have an almost irresistible urge to pull out my gun and start firing at anything that moves. Why is that, you think?”
“You’ve been a homicide detective too long.”
Claire realized that he was probably right. She was expecting to find Ms. Mary Lou’s very dead body sprawled out on the living room floor, perhaps decapitated and bleeding out all over the rug, with a thousand bluebottle flies buzzing around all over the place and picking their spot on the tasty corpse. They clomped up onto the porch, and Novak gave a polite little tap on the door with one large knuckle.
Claire took the time to case out the place. It looked fairly well groomed in a weedy sort of way. There were lots of flowerbeds with all the pretty blossoms named on cute little white metal stands, all neat and orderly, as if a librarian of satanic books that was well acquainted with the Dewey decimal system tended to them. Most were red, white, and blue flowers, so make that a patriotic satanic librarian. Three hanging baskets of red petunias lined the front porch, just over the stuffed sparrow brigade, and some gorgeous purple wisteria climbed a trellis at the end of the porch behind a wicker swing. It was a nice place, especially if one blocked out the sight of said dead but lifelike and unfortunate critters.
“This place looks like Hansel and Gretel married Frankenstein and they built a place in the swamp,” she said to Novak.
He didn’t respond, just rapped his knuckles on the door again. Only a big bird in the tree answered with a cheet, cheet, cheet. At least it wasn’t a raven wailing “Nevermore.” While they waited for Mary Lou to answer her door, Claire took a good, analytical look around for places in which a missing girl could be hidden, or be forced to partake in blood-spilling satanic rituals replete with knives/scalpels. There was a barn out back—seemed like every house in the deep swamp had a barn out back, probably where they stored mucho shotguns and taxidermy equipment and jugs of moonshine. There were electric lights, though, and it didn’t really look like a psychopath’s house, of which Claire had seen one too many of late.
Then out back came a hailing voice. They both turned and espied a woman walking toward them from somewhere out behind her barn. Mary Lou the Satan Lady, Claire presumed. There was a young girl with her. Both were dressed in indigo denim jeans and brown leather sandals and plain white Tshirts. Both had dark hair and sunglasses and long ponytails. Both were attractive in a swampy and outdoorsy sort of freckled way.
“Well hey there, Mr. Novak. What you doin’ here today?”
Claire and Novak walked across the grass to meet them. “Hey, Mary Lou. Becky. You guys doin’ okay?”
“We’re fine. Just now gettin’ ready to go in to town.” Mary Lou looked expectantly at Claire.
Novak took the hint. He was a born gent under the gruff. “This is Claire Morgan. Claire, this is Mary Lou Picard, and her daughter, Becky.”
“Hi,” said Claire. “Nice to meet you.” Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t. Too soon to tell.
Novak said, “We’re investigating a case that’s led us down this way. Thought you might be able to help us out a bit.”
“Sure thing. What’d you need?”
“There’s a girl missin’ that we’re tryin’ to find.”
“Really? Who? Somebody we know?”
Claire moved forward and showed the two women the picture she had of Andrea. She hadn’t been able to get close enough to Adonis to show the photo to her. “Have either of you seen this girl anywhere around here?”
Mary Lou studied it closely for a moment. “No, I can’t say that I have. What about you, Becky?” She handed the photo to the young girl.
Becky Picard was probably around Andrea Quinn’s age. She had a very round, flat moon face and a blank expression in her mud-brown eyes. She looked like she and Adonis could be in the same class at school. She said nothing, which didn’t surprise Claire. “You know anybody that goes to Tulane by any chance, Becky?”
“Yeah, I go to some parties out there sometimes.”
Well, surprise, surprise. Maybe she was smarter than she looked. Or maybe she just wanted them to think she wasn’t smart enough to kidnap a girl. “Think you might’ve seen this girl at any of those campus parties?”
Becky looked at the photo, but not for very long or very hard. “No, I don’t think so, but I could’ve, I guess.” She paused, considered things a moment. “How long that girl in the picture been missin’? You think she’s dead, you know, murdered in some horrible way, or somethin’?”
Well, that was grabbing the cat by the tail, Claire thought.
“Too long for comfort,” said Novak. “And we hope not.”
“Is she a runaway, you think?” That was Miss Mary Lou, waxing more hopeful.
“No, we don’t think so. Her parents have described her as a very responsible kid.”
“That’s really a shame. Gosh, just vanished, huh? That must be awful for her folks. You thinkin’ somebody down this way’s got her?”
“We don’t know yet. But there’ve been hints that there might be a satanic connection. Maybe even a cult. I’ve heard rumors of Black Sabbaths being held out in the swamp now and again. You ever hear anybody at the store talk about stuff like that?” asked Novak.
“Oh, yeah. Clients have told me they hear drums and chants way out back in the swamp sometimes, usually on full moon nights. That’s big now. Not just here, either. All over the place, lots of covens croppin’ up in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Their members come into the shop and buy books and pentagram posters, stuff like that. You know, all of it started back with Anne Rice and now it’s the Twilight fans. The television shows are bringin’ them in, too. That craze is makin’ us some good money. Hope it keeps goin’ for a while.�
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“Any of them into the real thing? That you know of anyway?” Claire asked her. “Or just a bunch of wannabe teen vamps playin’ at it?”
“I can’t say. Some of our customers are pretty damn weird, and that’s the truth.”
“Yeah, some of ’em are downright scary weird,” agreed Blank-Eyed Becky without even a trace of human expression or tonal variance.
“I can see that,” said Claire. Right now, she thought.
“Mind if we come into the shop later and take a look around?” That was Novak.
“Sure. Anytime you want. We have to run into New Orleans for taxidermy supplies, but I have people working there every day, except Sunday.”
“Okay. If you see anyone that looks like this picture, give me a call, okay? You’ve got my cell number.”
“I sure will. You wanna come in the house. Have some tea? Or coffee?”
Hell no, Claire thought, rather afraid of Becky’s dead-zone eyes and what lay behind them.
“No, thank you. We better be on our way. We’ve got work to do.”
“Okay. Come back anytime. We’d love to have them, wouldn’t we, Becky?”
Becky just looked blank some more. At that point, Claire would give a year’s pay to see what was going on inside that girl’s brain, if anything. After several moments of thought, Becky nodded.
They took their leave with Mary Lou happily waving good-bye from the porch swing. Becky just stood there, probably thinking about the fastest way to raise her arm and get her wave going, too. Poor, poor kid. Raised in a remote swamp through no fault of her own.
Off they went again, even deeper into the Louisiana swampy wetlands, until Novak finally hung a right down a narrow road covered with lots of little white shells that crunched prettily under his big tires. “Sure you couldn’t get any farther away from civilization, Novak? Ever thought of Kathmandu or Antarctica? The northern reaches of Siberia, maybe?”
“I like my privacy. And I inherited this place. Been in the family a long time.”
“I must say you’re gettin’ downright forthright with your personal data.”
“You obviously want to know everything about me. You’re not very hard to figure, Claire.”
Okay, so now they were on first-name basis. That had to be a step in the right direction for their rapidly budding relationship. The kind of budding relationship done with a hand clutching its throat and squeezing long and hard. “That right? I’m transparent as glass, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Well, you got me beat in that attribute, that’s for damn sure. You hold your cards close to your vest.”
No answer. But she had to admit, he was downright chatty today, after their prior days of studied silence. But if there was a satanic cult of devil worshippers in the vicinity, Claire was gonna find it. If Andrea Quinn was now a lifetime member of it, she wanted to know, and deport her right alongside her criminal daddy. And she was tired of wasting time riding around and meeting the nutjobs that Novak referred to as neighbors.
About five minutes later, they pulled out of a forest of towering oaks hung almost to the ground with Spanish moss and thick with kudzu vines and into a big grassy yard that was neatly mowed. Claire stared at the old plantation house sitting in the middle of the verdant grounds and surrounded by even more ancient and giant magnolias and live oak trees bearded with the clinging gray moss that was anywhere and everywhere in south Louisiana. It looked pretty much like Tara of Gone with the Wind fame. Very large, two stories high, replete with verandas and shuttered windows, but more like a Tara that had been burned and ransacked by those dastardly Yanks.
Yes sirree, Novak’s place needed some serious elbow grease. Said house required some genuine TLC and master carpentry and about a million dollars’ worth of new paint. Maybe she and Black ought to come down and chip in some bucks, give the place a fresh coat of white paint, instead of paying Novak’s fee, one he didn’t seem to care about anyway.
“Needs a coat of paint,” Novak admitted, as if he did indeed find her glassy stare transparent enough to read her innermost thoughts. On the other hand, nobody who came upon the place would be thinking anything else except the house’s gargantuan need for a major paint job. So they drove up the white-shelled drive that curved around to a big covered portico on the far side. One designed for Civil War horse-drawn carriages, no doubt.
“Nah, Novak. That unpainted look gives the place character. Looks good that shade of peeling gray.”
He smiled but kept his eyes on the road. Yes, he was a careful driver. “This plantation’s been in my family for over two hundred years.”
“Novaks like to hang around and put down roots, I take it?”
“My mother was a St. Pierre, Creoles who came over from France in the late 1700s. Sugar planters. I’ll get around to restoring it someday.” He pulled up in the portico and shoved the gearshift into Park and glanced over at her. “Wanna come in? I’ve got to get something.”
“Sure. Got a bottle of water I could filch off you?”
He nodded, and she kept looking around as they walked up some old cracked red brick steps circa 1800 onto a wide side gallery with ornate bannisters set with fleurs-de-lis and then around to the front door. There were lots of empty flowerbeds lining the front veranda and cracked concrete urns sitting about and even an ancient moss-covered sundial in the middle of a circular garden sans anything but dirt. At one time, she suspected that Novak’s place had been quite the talk of the Louisiana Purchase. Maybe Stonewall Jackson had dined on that very porch once upon a long time ago.
There was a barn behind the house—of course there was, as was required, it seemed. It looked in a tad better shape than the main house, and she could just glimpse some falling-down and ramshackle ancient-looking slave quarters off to the right and way down at the end of the mowed fields. She could also see a wide swift-flowing bayou down there, off in the distance, probably one that would take a boat straight out to the Gulf of Mexico. More surprising to her was the big fancy sailboat she espied that was tied up at what looked like a brand-new and covered and state-of-the-art dock.
“Whoa, Novak, that is quite the boat you got down there. That is yours, I take it?”
“Yeah. I like to sail. And fish.”
“Looks like a honey. Black would be jealous. He likes big shiny toys.”
“It’s nice enough. That’s where I usually sleep. It’s cooler down on the water.”
Inside the nine-foot front door, one that was replete with sidelights and a beautiful stained-glass fanlight, there was a large foyer. No air conditioning, unfortunately. It was all shut up and hot as hell inside. Even in April. It appeared that Novak saw no reason to raise all the windows and invite in buzzing hordes of swamp flies and mosquitoes to join him. There was a lot of antique furniture sitting around, all of which had probably not been moved in all those two hundred plus years. Probably each and every one worth a small fortune, too. Ditto with some very antique paintings in frames that looked like da Vinci had carved them himself, and ornate mirrors taller than Novak stood. Novak would do well to get himself a topnotch alarm system, if any robbers could even find the place.
The house was fairly clean, though, with what looked like an attempt now and then at neatening. Some areas looked updated to at least the twentieth century and were decorated comfortably, as if a family had once lived there. There were some women’s magazines on the foyer table, with models wearing clothes fashionable in the late nineties, maybe. Wow, maybe she should give Novak a new subscription to Good Housekeeping for Christmas.
There was also a small and dusty red tricycle sitting at the end of the central hall. Claire wondered then if it had been Novak’s immediate family who’d lived there, if he had ever had one, and if the heat was the real reason why he didn’t want to sleep inside the house. But she wasn’t crass enough to ask him, or maybe she was, but she wasn’t going to. Somehow she knew that was a no-no of the highest caliber. He had begun to open up a little bit to he
r, to be sure, but at a sluggish slug’s pace, and maybe not even that fast. But he was now offering up a word or two, sometimes even more. Her instincts told her that he was quite a complicated man and had lived a life full of interesting people and faraway places, and had experienced some super traumatic events that he would never in a million years talk about. It would be interesting to hear his life’s story. Maybe Black could hypnotize him and make him spill his guts while in a trance.
“Nice place, Novak.”
“Thanks.”
“Wouldn’t hurt you to buy a feather duster, but I don’t see any poor animals all stuffed-up and staring. That’s always a plus in my happy-to-visit-you book.”
“I’ll get you some water.” And thus Will Novak avoided further wordy exchanges.
Claire followed him into the kitchen, looking down at her phone when she received a text from Harve Lester.
Got info you wanted. Call me ASAP.
Good, but she couldn’t call him back right now. She texted back with two words:
Later. Thanks.
Then she watched Novak open a new side-by-side stainless steel Samsung refrigerator, take out a bottle of Evian water, and hand it to her. He moved very quietly and gracefully for such a large man. No clomping for him, uh-uh, but she hadn’t seen him in leather boots yet. Always wore New Balance sneakers. “Seen enough? Can we go now? There’s a girl we need to find.”
“You bet.”
“Gotta get something upstairs first. I’ll be back in a minute.”
This, of course, meant she wasn’t invited to tag along to floor number two. Probably kept his stuffed stuff up there. He headed up the wide pink marble staircase out in the center hall, one that had at one time been a most beautiful work of artisan craftsmanship, and probably imported from the self-same quarry used to build the Pyramids of Giza. It still looked damn good, though. When he disappeared at one end of the upstairs hallway, Claire moseyed into the parlor (she guessed that’s what it would be called) mainly because she was a very nosy sort and wanted to snoop around in his private life.
