Long Night Moon (Bad Mojo Book 1)

by Sharon A. Austin

  Placing the tablet on the table she glimpsed his way again. He smiled at her.

  Okay, so he’s aware I’m here.

  Deciding how she could use him in her current novel a distant rumble of thunder disrupted her thoughts. A strong gust rattled the trashcan against a loose fitting vinyl strap. She grabbed the pen and paper, and stuffed them in her pocket. The temperature plummeted. Dressed in thin slacks, a short-sleeved shirt and sandals, she felt goose bumps raise the skin on her arms and legs. A quick check of the time, she was surprised to find she’d been there for over an hour. She silently prayed for rain to end the game therefore making the attendant close up and leave.

  Another hour passed by.

  A customer approached the concession stand and placed a large order. Finally. Other people had come and gone but they’d ordered something small, too small for her to have time to get the bag. She strolled toward the wooden post. Glimpsed down and got a fix on exactly where the bag was. The second the attendant turned his back she shoved her right arm in the trashcan. The photo was near the bottom. She bent down far enough that the wig swept the side of the nasty container. With only one chance to retrieve the bag, she couldn’t believe she’d gotten it on the first attempt. Shoving the bag in her empty pocket, she moved fast toward the entrance, no longer caring if the attendant had seen what she’d done.

  She slid the bag out of her pocket long enough to confirm that’s what it was.

  “Un-fuckin’-believable.”

  Fifty feet or more from her car the sky opened up.

  “Now it rains.”

  Shivering when she stepped through the garage door into the utility room, she grabbed a folded bath towel off the top of the clothes dryer and draped it over her head and shoulders. Prepared a pot of coffee. Rushed to the bedroom to change clothes.

  BJ sipped the steamy brew and casually surveyed the bedroom she’d converted to an office while she waited for the computer to boot up. Wind and rain lashed the west side of her house.

  She could not wait to give Jeff a piece of her mind.

  Not only had he pretty much called her a liar after not finding the photo, he insinuated she’d never taken it there in the first place. The whiny remark about wasting two hours of his time was over the top.

  Typing fast, she told him of her own miserable experience and how she’d wasted more than two hours of her life trying to get the photo back. The photo was exactly where I said it would be, damn you.

  His response was short and shitty. Okay. I understand. He stupidly punctuated the sentence with a computer-generated smiley face, annoying her that much more.

  You understand nothing, she replied. I’m not easy to fool. I won’t be taken advantage of just because I am a woman. And I won’t be treated like I am nothing more than something to fuck with. Got it? Before clicking the send button, she took a deep breath, tried to calm down. Look, my husband would make my life a living hell if he ever found out about you, but I think you’re a decent enough guy you wouldn’t want that on your conscience.

  He simply wrote, You have nothing to worry about, Suite Sue.

  His stupid response reignited her anger. “Suite Sue? REALLY?” BJ tried not to scream. “And just what the hell does that mean, I don’t have anything to worry about?”

  CHAPTER 13

  Two days later, when BJ came home after a difficult day at the restaurant, made worse after she fired the head chef before putting the kitchen in the capable hands of the sous chef, she noticed the light blinking on the answering machine. She hit the button on the way to the kitchen. The song Dock of the Bay stopped dead her in her tracks. The message ended abruptly with the words loneliness won’t leave me. She let the tape run thinking she’d hear a personal message at the end. Other than a soft whirring sound there was nothing.

  Jeff? At first, she tried to convince herself it’s just his way of saying hi.

  Her hair stood on end. How, when, and where did he get her phone number?

  She wasn’t surprised when she found his email waiting for her.

  He asked if she had gotten the cool message he’d left on her machine? Put up another obnoxious smiley face. Went on the state that he’s not going to keep her in suspense. He had gone back to the park, too. Saw a short blonde searching trashcans. Figured it was you. Hard to tell what you look like, though, with those bigass sunglasses! After you found the photo, I followed you home. Got your phone number out of a cross-reference book. Another smiley.

  BJ became fearful. Not of Jeff, but of Frank finding out about Jeff.

  Well, two can play this game. She fetched her own cross-reference book from the closet in her office. Scrolled through the entire list, under the heading of consultants, in the business section. Twice. Not a single Jeff or any variation of the name.

  She saw her husband’s company. Donovan Database: Overseeing the installation and ongoing function of software on a system designed to be used by a number of users.

  Nothing even remotely related to one Mister Jeff Mystic.

  How could she have been so careless?

  She rarely smoked. Her hands trembled while she lit the cigarette.

  Being scared made BJ Donovan angry.

  Keep away from me, you little creep, she wrote, or else! No sooner had she sent the email to Jeff she wondered if she had gone too far?

  CHAPTER 14

  The woman continued to pace back and forth outside of Vieux Carré, a ritzy department store on the west end of Decatur Street. The angry expression on her face deepened.

  “Never again,” she proclaimed, as though the inconsiderate bastard who’d upset her now stood before her.

  She jerked her head to toss back long strands of blonde hair, unbuttoned her purple uniform vest. Hiked her purse strap onto her shoulder. Made an about-face, and started walking east toward her apartment twelve blocks away. She peered over her shoulder as two men, holding hands while strolling on the opposite side of the street, passionately quarreled about the intrinsic value of some movie they’d just seen.

  She stopped all a-sudden at the entrance of a dark alley.

  >+<|>+<

  Rookie cop Jeff Wentzel sat alone in a corner booth in the long-standing neighborhood pub, sipping draft beer from an icy mug. Noticed a drop of blood on the sleeve of his shirt. He unbuttoned both cuffs and tucked them over and under.

  The quiet street sprang to life with the wail of sirens. A customer sitting close to the entrance jumped up and jerked the door open as if everyone else cared what’d happened. He stood transfixed while swirling red, white, and blue lights silently lashed him.

  “Shut the fuckin’ door,” someone hollered.

  A young couple, who had their hands under the table playing touchy-feely, seemed to remember where they were. They went out and stood on the sidewalk next to the inquisitive man.

  Jeff followed, and stood behind them.

  Two police cars were parked against the curb in front of an alley two blocks up on the same side of Decatur. An ambulance pulled in behind a black sedan. Stimulated by the excitement, the couple kissed and fondled one another.

  “Get a room, for chrissake,” Jeff snapped.

  Laughing, they crossed the street, and disappeared into a novelty store.

  Still adjusting to being a cop and unsure of what his role would be if a situation arose while he’s off-duty and leisurely getting drunk, Jeff remained where he was and observed.

  A tall man dressed in a gray suit talked interchangeably with two men.

  Witnesses?

  Jeff walked toward them trying to remain relaxed; just an innocent bystander. Drawing nearer, he recognized the man questioning the couple. Homicide detective Gary Northcutt. Jeff scanned the faces in the small crowd. Saw Northcutt’s partner, Detective Lucas Cantin, walking toward the trio.

  Jeff moved close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation.

  “Like he told you, we were on our way home from the movie theater when we heard a strange noise up ahead of us. It
sounded like, oh you know, how an aluminum bat would sound if someone accidentally kicked it against a brick wall. No more than a second later, someone wearing a hooded sweatshirt tore out of the alley and ran around the corner of the vacant office building. Right there,” said Chris Smithe. He pointed to the brownstone.

  “That’s when we called the police,” announced Dewey Rees, Smithe’s life partner.

  “Okay. We need you both to go to the police department and give us a written statement,” said Northcutt.

  “Kounye-a?” Smithe shrieked. “Now?... We already told you everything.”

  “Twice,” Rees interjected.

  “And I appreciate it.” Northcutt nodded toward a uniformed officer. “He’ll take you.”

  A rookie cop, Jeff recognized from the academy, walked out of the alley with an arm outstretched. He held a white nametag between his thumb and forefinger. The black letters were large enough to be seen at a distance: SUE.

  Jeff’s hands trembled while he lit a cigarette. He quickly returned to the bar.

  >+<|>+<

  Detectives Northcutt and Cantin stood in the poorly lit alley looking down on the remains of a woman whose body appeared completely covered in boils. Her tan slacks and panties were bunched around her ankles and white pullover shirt and bra sliced up the middle, signifying she may have been raped.

  “Damn,” said Lucas Cantin. He grimaced. “Are we supposed to believe she was raped while those things were on her face?” A loud clap of thunder startled him.

  Gary Northcutt shined his light over the surrounding area. “I’d prefer not to have that image permanently etched in my mind. I don’t see a purse. The nametag must’ve been torn off in the struggle. The killer probably heard someone coming and got the hell out of here without policing the area.”

  Scattered raindrops the size and shape of a fifty-cent piece smacked the ground seconds before the sky unzipped a full bladder.

  “I don’t see a weapon anywhere, either,” Lucas shouted above the crescendo.

  Northcutt looked at him, quizzically. “A weapon that makes boils?”

  CHAPTER 15

  After a quick breakfast of eggs benedict at the small café adjacent to the police department, Northcutt and Cantin walked upstairs to their office carrying go-cups of black coffee.

  Gary held open the swinging wooden gate for Lucas to pass through. The detective division occupied the third floor with offices for Captain Oliver Foret, two sergeants, seven detectives and three criminalists also known as crime scene technicians.

  Gary picked up the stapled sheets of paper on his desk. The preliminary report on the woman found in the alley. Time of death: between 9 and 10 PM. She had not been raped. Hair samples found on the body were sent off for DNA analysis. Cause of death: bees. One was found lodged in her throat.

  “Bees? Damn. Nine and ten, huh? Someone other than Smithe and Rees could’ve seen or heard something. One building is vacant, but the rest were just closed for day. Someone may’ve still been around,” said Gary Northcutt, a thirty-two-year-old lean Caucasian with a thick mustache, piercing blue-grey eyes, and light brown hair.

  Unlike Lucas, Gary was married, albeit unhappy with the arrangement. She wanted more than he could give her. The Northcutt’s had no children.

  “I’m not holding my breath on another witness coming forward. Most people can’t afford to take time off from their jobs to testify in court. Or they’re too afraid. Or they just don’t give a damn. Take your pick,” said Lucas Cantin, a thirty-year-old powerfully built African American with big brown eyes and a warm smile. Six-foot-seven made him seven inches taller than Gary.

  Lucas held up a slip of paper. “Got a note here. Says some guy named Wyatt is downstairs. He made a positive I-D on the body in the morgue. Claims he heard about the alleyway murder victim on the news this morning, thought she might be his girlfriend. He’s on his way up.”

  Twenty-five-year-old Gilbert Wyatt appeared a little pasty-faced when he dropped down on the chair in front of Detective Northcutt’s desk. “You can call me Gil, if ya want. It’s her. Sue, Susan Nolin. Damn.” He ran a hand across the top of his head flattening a scraggy mop of red hair. Idly scratched the matching sparse bristles on his chin.

  Wyatt reminded Gary of a certain cartoon character, but he couldn’t remember the name.

  “Damn. Did you see her face? What happened to her face? Hell. Her whole damn body!” He cringed. “If it weren’t for the little angel tattoo on her shoulder, I probably wouldn’t have recognized her. Daaamn.” Wyatt glimpsed at the men. “Okay, uhm, I was supposed to meet her in front of Vieux Carré last night but I didn’t know that until I got off work, went home and found her message on my answering machine. We’re not allowed to accept personal calls where I work, you see, so I didn’t know.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Detective Cantin, frowning. “She was supposed to meet you, but you didn’t know it?”

  “No, I was supposed to meet her, but I,” he shrugged, “well, you know, I didn’t know it.”

  Northcutt glimpsed at Cantin.

  Wyatt took a deep breath, released it quickly. “Okay, it’s like this. Normally, I get off work at eight. Her message was that she’d meet me in front of the place where she works, uhm that’d be Vieux Carré, at nine o’clock. But she didn’t know I had to stay over and do some extra stock work at my job, uhm that’d be Old Square Hardware, it’s about seven miles from the department store, or that I didn’t get done until close to ten-thirty. By the time I stopped and got some burgers and fries then went home, it was after eleven. That’s when I found her message. Well, I figured she’s long gone by then,” he sat up straighter in his seat, “I mean, I figured she’d probably gone home by then. She’s got a bad temper, so just to cover my own ass I drove by Vieux Carré. When I turned on Decatur Street, I saw cops farther up ahead, but I didn’t make the connection it had anything to do with Sue. All I cared about was, I came to meet her but she wasn’t there, so that took the pressure off me. I’d done my part. The ball and court shit was on her then.”

  He rested his elbows on his knees, and cradled his head in his hands.

  “When I got home I called her apartment. No answer. I tried a couple more times then said hell with it and went to bed.”

  Northcutt saw a hint of amusement in his partner’s eyes.

  “Nothing else?” Northcutt asked Wyatt. “You sure you didn’t go back out looking for her? Then got angry because she wasn’t answering her phone or possibly because she stood you up?”

  Wyatt jerked his head up. Furrowed his brow. “Hell no. Look, guys, Sue’s got this little girl way about her. She gets pissed, seriously pissed, if I don’t do what she wants. It was a spur of the moment idea to see me last night, and that’s why I didn’t know ahead of time. Since we’re both in retail and since the hours are so wacky in this business, we usually only see each other on the weekend. Sometimes, not even then. I’m thinking she thought I stood her up, like I did a time or two in the past. When I didn’t see her in front of Vieux Carré I assumed she stomped off somewhere to pout, and she’d rip me a new one the next time I saw her.”

  “Uh-huh, that’s what I’d do,” said Cantin.

  “I wonder what happened to her cross?”

  Northcutt and Cantin looked at Wyatt.

  “Cross?” Northcutt asked.

  “Yeah, a solid gold cross and chain.” He lightly scratched his chest once, as if visualizing the necklace. “She never took it off. Not even when it got caught in the nose ring I used to wear. Her folks gave it to her before they moved to Florida. Here.” Wyatt wrote down the address and phone number on a scrap of paper he found on the desk. Saw suspicion in Northcutt’s eyes. “Hey, I only know the address ‘cause me and Sue went to Saint Augustine a few months ago to visit them. Honest, I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Cantin had slipped out of the room. Returned moments later holding a folder between his fingers. He plunked the folder on the desk. Sitting close to Wyat
t, he flipped it over revealing Wyatt’s name scrawled across the center with a black marker.

  “Now, run this shit by me again.”

  Wyatt’s eyes kept wandering from the folder to the broad shouldered cop before him, as he repeated his story nearly word for word and without faltering on any of the crucial details.

  “Okay kid, you can go, for now.” Detective Cantin quickly stood up, rising to his full height and then some.

  Wyatt slid off his chair sideways. He scurried out the door and down the hall so fast he crashed into the hairy chest of a handcuffed prisoner in a tank top. The guy tried to butt-head Wyatt, who shrieked girlishly and ran off.

  Gary’s mouth curled up on one side. He closed the door. “Sissy shit. He’s clearly not the guy we’re after. I believed everything he said.”

  Lucas tossed the folder filled with blank sheets of paper into the wastebasket.

  “Me too. His reactions and responses were too quick for him to be making the stuff up as he went along.”

  “At least we know the woman’s identity,” said Gary. “We both know it don’t come easy most of the time. If the contact information Wyatt gave us is valid, I’ll notify Nolin’s family shortly.”

  “Better you than me.” Lucas slid a hand in his pocket, and palmed the car keys.

  CHAPTER 16

  Within a few minutes of arriving at Vieux Carré, Detectives Northcutt and Cantin asked to speak with whoever’s in charge.

  The stern-faced manager of Young Men’s Wear escorted them to the elevator. She told them, “Third floor, turn left, see the switchboard operator behind the counter. She’ll page the store manager, Julian Chase, for you. Have a nice day.”

  Before the detectives had a chance to sit down, a short, balding man with wire-rimmed spectacles and a genuine smile greeted them. “Follow me, gentlemen.” He brought them in his office, closed the door.