A Life Without Fear

by Leo King

  “Would you do that, Dr. Lazarus?” asked Rodger. “That may very well put an end to this case.”

  “All right,” replied Dr. Lazarus. “I’ll talk to Dallas in a little while. I’ll call you back here when I do, OK?”

  “That’s fine. And thank you, Dr. Lazarus.” Rodger hung up.

  So this is it. Julius is the real killer, I’m sure of it. I just need confirmation from Dallas. Now to get to Sam’s townhome and find out what Vincent willed to Sam.

  Rodger headed out, grabbing the mail Ms. Parkerson had brought in. As he got into his car, throwing the mail onto the passenger seat, a large envelope addressed to him from “Orleans Parish Courthouse” fell to the floor. After putting the envelope on the top of the pile and struggling for a minute to get his seatbelt to click shut, Rodger headed toward Sam’s townhouse.

  The rain started to come down in heavy bands.

  When he arrived at the townhouse some thirty minutes later, everything seemed quiet. Sam’s car was still in the driveway. The porch lights were on, classical music was playing from inside, and the lights were on in the study and Sam’s bedroom on the third floor.

  When he reached the front door, however, he saw that the latch was off and the door was cracked open.

  “What the fuck,” he said, drawing his gun and delivering a swift kick to the door before heading inside.

  The front hall was in a shambles, with obvious signs of a struggle. Near the broken grandfather clock lay Edward’s service revolver, the bullets scattered about. In the study, books and papers lay everywhere. At the base of the stairs was some blood and Sam’s overturned wheelchair.

  He didn’t see Sam or Richie.

  “Sam!”

  Rodger went into her study and then her office. Both rooms were ransacked.

  “Sam! Richie!”

  Moving into the kitchen, Rodger saw that everything from flour to coffee grinds had been scattered everywhere. The ground was soaked in blood and coffee. It looked like a war had taken place.

  Going out to the back porch, he saw the two police officers and the nurse that the state had sent to watch over Sam. They were arranged on the large swing, holding cups of cooled coffee, leaned back with their throats slit and their mouths split open in wide, disturbing grins.

  He was horrified. The brutality looked like the Knight Priory slayings Richie had mentioned.

  Quickly, he moved upstairs.

  “Sam! Richie! Goddammit, answer me!”

  When he reached Sam’s bedroom on the third floor, Rodger stopped and stared. His mind took a moment to process the horror. A scream built inside him like steam in a pressure cooker.

  Lying on the bed, arms and legs bound, was a male body so brutally treated that it was utterly unrecognizable. The head had been skinned and scalped, and the eyes had been pulled out. However, the clothes were unmistakably that of a certain novelist from Pittsburg.

  “Richie! Oh, my God, no!”

  Rodger rushed to the corpse’s side, not knowing where to begin. Richie had been secured by leather straps and obviously tortured to death. It wasn’t clinical or methodical like the other murders. This one had been quick and brutal.

  Shit, Julius got Richie!

  Fuck!

  But don’t touch the body.

  Leave it for the crime lab.

  God, Richie, I am so sorry, man!

  Dammit, I let this kid die, too.

  Inside, Rodger felt his guts churning, tearing him apart. Another one dead because he wasn’t fast or smart enough. The shock of seeing the mutilated body was almost too much for him. Leaning against a wall, he buried his face in his hand. For a minute or so, he rubbed his head. Then he looked up. Immediately, he saw something written in blood on the ceiling. It was obscured by the canopy of Sam’s bed, so he moved to the side. There were two words.

  “Nite Priory.”

  Wait, why is it spelled wrong? He furrowed his brow and again thought of the anagram. Iron pyrite. Fool’s gold. A trick. A lie.

  “Is Julius fucking with me?”

  Rodger headed downstairs to the kitchen. Near the phone was a lacquered black box. Inside was a small open envelope with the name “Sam” in calligraphy on it. Inside the envelope were three pink capsules. He had seen similar ones before, on the night Sam had fought against Blind Moses.

  “The tkeeus,” he said, pocketing one of the pills and closing the box.

  For a minute, he stood there, his face in his hands. “Julius killed Richie but took Sam. Why? Why take Sam?”

  The answer came in a swift revelation.

  “Of course,” said Rodger. “Julius wants to hurt everyone associated with the original Bourbon Street Ripper case. I’m the last one. The only person Julius can kill to get at me, now that Michael is dead, is Sam!”

  That thought made him feel sick to his stomach. Julius was now targeting him. “Once again, I have failed to see the writing on the wall until the very end.”

  Very end. That resonated in his mind. As he stood up, the part of the letter to Blind Moses that dealt with the final victim’s identity made sense: “You will know who that is when the time arises.”

  Rodger felt weak in the knees as he said, “My God, the last victim has always been Sam. The bastard was going to kill Sam from the very beginning. All of these murders weren’t leading up to Cheryl. They were leading up to Sam.”

  He knew he had to act. Picking up the phone, he quickly dialed the eighth precinct.

  The voice answering sounded totally bored. “New Orleans Police Department, Eighth Precinct, Homicide Division, Detective Landry speaking.”

  “Landry, this is Rodger. Contact Ouellette and let him know that the real killer is Julius Boucher. He’s killed Richie Fastellos and kidnapped Samantha Castille. I’m at her townhouse right now. Also, send a uniformed patrol to my apartment complex. The people there might be in danger.”

  Before Landry could say so much as “um,” Rodger hung up.

  OK, there has to be some kind of clue as to where they went. Where would Julius take Sam?

  As he started looking around, he remembered his conversation with Dr. Lazarus. “Dr. Lazarus treated Julius,” he said to himself. “He may know of a place that is important to Julius. He was going to call me back at my place, so he’s probably waiting for me to call him.”

  Picking up Sam’s phone, he quickly dialed Dr. Lazarus’s number. His heart was pounding as he waited for the other side to pick up.

  When it did, Dr. Lazarus’s voice was trembling. “Detective Bergeron?”

  Rodger was instantly concerned. “Dr. Lazarus, what’s wrong with your voice?”

  “I am positively terrified,” replied Dr. Lazarus. Rodger heard a female and male in the background shouting instructions to other people. “After we get off the phone, I am calling the FBI. We need to start a massive manhunt.”

  Rodger’s mouth started to dry. “What happened, Doctor?”

  Dr. Lazarus sounded like he was sipping something. Rodger heard the distinctive clink of ice in a glass. Dr. Lazarus said, “Well, I went to speak with Dallas about Julius. I wasn’t hoping for much, considering his injuries, but I thought maybe I could get something to give you.”

  “Yes? What did Dallas say?” asked Rodger. The tension was palpable. What the fuck happened? Spit it out!

  “It’s funny,” Dr. Lazarus chortled nervously. “He’s been so quiet. So calm. The moment I mentioned Julius, however, he completely lost it. He started crying and hitting his head and rubbing out the scribblings of the words ‘Nite Priory’ on his wall, like by writing them, he had been revealing a secret he could get in trouble for.”

  Rodger’s heart was pounding in his chest. He was so choked with anxiety he could barely ask, “But what did he say about Julius? Is he alive?”

  “Yes, Julius is alive,” replied Dr. Lazarus. “I just confirmed it with his dental records. And I’ve been fooled. We’ve all been fooled. I should have figured it out. I can’t believe I was this negligent.
There’s no way Dallas would be that obsessed with word games. All these years, the person I thought was Dallas has been trying to tell me that he’s not Dallas.”

  Rodger felt the blood drain from his face. “What did you say?”

  “I said, the person in Room Six is Julius Boucher. The night of the fire, he helped Dallas Christofer escape. They switched places!”

  Rodger was stunned.

  “Did you hear me, Detective?” asked Dr. Lazarus. “The implications are incredible. Julius is… he’s positively terrified of being referred to as himself. Dallas must have threatened, harmed, maybe even burned Julius to keep him quiet. He must have been planning this all along. That would mean he’s a psychopath and sociopath of the highest level, an insanely genius mind that orchestrated an escape at the age of ten. We are dealing with someone who is far beyond the normal definition of dangerous.”

  Rodger felt like he couldn’t stand. Leaning against the cabinet, he asked, “So… why hasn’t anyone seen him? Where could he have gone?”

  Dr. Lazarus sighed heavily. “I don’t know. Some place important to Dallas’s memory. That’s all I have. I… I can’t talk. I need to report this… this is bad. Detective, we will talk in a few days.” He hung up.

  Slowly hanging up the phone, Rodger just stared blankly at the world. As he walked out into the hallway, he saw Edward’s revolver and bullets still on the floor. Not knowing why, he gathered them up and pocketed them.

  It was Dallas all along. My God. He manipulated Julius into taking his place. But, why… ? Why does Dallas want revenge on Sam?

  He stumbled out of the townhouse, feeling utterly lost. He never would have guessed that Dallas Christofer was the killer, that Sam’s story would end up being reality. I just want to know where he is with Sam.

  The rain had stopped. Inside the squad car, he saw the large envelope from the parish courthouse. He shook his head.

  “This is almost useless to me now, but I might as well open it.”

  Opening the envelope, Rodger was surprised when two certificates of marriage fell out, along with a letter from the clerk of court. He read the letter first.

  Detective Bergeron,

  Here are your marriage licenses for “Castille” in the sixties. However, since you did not specify which license you wanted, we are sending both.

  Sincerely,

  Derek Malone, Clerk of Orleans Parish Court

  “The hell,” Rodger said, and then looked at the marriage licenses. He gasped.

  The first license was between Edward Pierce Castille and Maple Marigold Christofer.

  The second license was between Vincent Gilles Castille and Mary Magnolia Christofer.

  Immediately, things started falling into place.

  “Oh, my God,” he said, the shock forcing him to sit down inside the squad car. “Edward and Maple. Vincent and Mary. That means… Holy shit!”

  Rodger closed his eyes, feeling completely overwhelmed.

  Vincent was Sam’s father. And Dallas was the child of Edward and Maple. That meant Dallas was a Castille. But he would never have been considered an heir because Sam was Vincent’s child. That meant Maple would have felt angry and jealous at Magnolia.

  Suddenly, everything from twenty years ago made sense: the secretive relationships between the M&M sisters and the Castilles, the reason Vincent ran to Mary’s side when she collapsed, and the reason Magnolia was murdered. It made sense.

  “Maple was jealous,” he said, his brain assembling the entire sordid tale from two sheets of paper. “Because even though she married the next in line for the Castille fortune, Vincent’s marriage to Mary ensured that Sam would be the heir. Not Maple and certainly not Dallas. So Maple killed her sister.”

  Suddenly, he stood up. “And Vincent did all those murders to hide the real one, to get revenge on Maple for killing Sam’s mother. And Vincent cared about Mary because she gave him Sam—the only person he ever truly loved.”

  Pacing in the driveway of Sam’s townhouse, he continued to talk out loud. “But then there’s Dallas. His mother was murdered in front of him. He let his rage grow for years—his rage toward everyone he believed let his mother die. Ouellette loses Jason. Aucoin loses Cheryl. Kent is used and then killed. Topper Jack is killed. Mad Monty is killed. Fat Willie is killed—oh, I bet that was no accident after all. Blind Moses is set up to get killed. Everyone who helps him is killed. Until… until it’s just him and… Sam…”

  He realized that Dallas, the mastermind, had set up the final confrontation on his terms. “And me… He wants to confront me… he wants to punish me by having me arrive too late to save Sam, just like I was too late to save Edward.”

  Everything had snapped into place for Rodger. Only one question remained.

  Where is Dallas now?

  Looking back at the townhouse, his mind raced. He had to move quickly or Sam was dead. Closing his eyes, he went over every clue from inside the house. Richie’s body. The black box. The writing on the ceiling. All of those things were out of place.

  Moving to his car, he started to speak to himself again. “The box from Vincent was there, so Dallas attacked them after Mason left. Mason would have gone back to the Castille mansion. Dallas murders Richie and then kidnaps Sam. Dallas would want to take Sam someplace where they could be alone. Someplace significant to Dallas.”

  Once in his car, he closed his eyes again, concentrating on the last thing that was out of place, the reuse of the phrase “Nite Priory,” an anagram for “iron pyrite.”

  Nite Priory. Iron pyrite. A misdirection. Is it possible that Dallas is leaving me a clue as to where he’s gone by leaving that phrase above Richie’s body?

  Rodger’s eyes flew open and he said, “What if ‘Nite Priory’ wasn’t the only anagram? Why not use another? He wants me to find them, to arrive too late. Giving me a puzzle might accomplish that. This may work.”

  Taking out his notebook and pen, Rodger thought of all the words significant to the case.

  “Let’s try ‘Knight Priory.’”

  It took a few minutes for him to dismiss that one.

  “How about ‘Samantha Castille’?”

  Again, a few minutes later, he realized it wasn’t working.

  “Maybe ‘Bourbon Street Ripper.’”

  By the time he was finished ruling that out as an anagram, he felt he was wasting precious time.

  Then Rodger looked back at the names on the marriage licenses.

  He tried “Mary Christofer,” then “Maple Christofer,” then “Magnolia and Marigold.”

  Nothing.

  “I’m overthinking this again,” he said, taking a deep breath.

  Starting at the top of the page, he wrote down the name of his prime suspect.

  “Dallas Christofer.”

  His pen scribbled and scratched, creating line after line, crossing out letters and rearranging them. Several side tangents were started upon and then discarded.

  In the end, despite weeks of investigating a tortuous plot, it took Rodger only a few minutes of solving an anagram before he was looking at the name of the serial killer who had been terrorizing New Orleans.

  “No goddamn way.”

  The answer had been in front of them, all of them, the entire time.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Suddenly, a certain person’s weird—at times, almost psychotic—behavior made sense. The inconsistency in that person’s stories with what everyone else experienced made sense. The involvement of the Nite Priory, the Knight Priory, and the group of hooded assassins, made sense. Even Dixie’s innate distrust of that one person—it all made sense.

  The madness surrounding the recent string of serial murders, from start to finish, now made sense to Rodger. He was also pretty sure he knew who was dead up in Sam’s bedroom. The entire sick scenario fell perfectly into place.

  When you saw who Dallas Christofer really was… everything made sense.

  His seatbelt clicked into place as he turned the key, the sq
uad car roaring to life. Skidding out of the driveway, he sped toward Lake Pontchartrain and the Castille mansion, where he had arrested Vincent—the place he was certain Sam was being held captive.

  He wouldn’t be too late this time.

  “Don’t worry, Sam,” Rodger said between gritted teeth. “I’m going to save you.”

  Chapter 29

  A Sheet of Notebook Paper

  Chapter 30

  The Bourbon Street Ripper

  Date: Monday, August 17th, 1992

  Time: 11:00 p.m.

  Location: Castille Family Mansion

  Lake Pontchartrain

  The euphonious and harmonious tranquility that was the third movement of Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 3 cascaded over the Castille dining room. The only light was from the faintly glowing gold and glass chandelier above, which barely illuminated the suits of armor and marble statues lining the walls alongside portraits, only their golden frames twinkling in the darkness.

  The scent of wine graced the room like the scant light and gentle music. The black walnut dining table, large enough to fit more than a dozen, seated only two people, one at each end. Before each of the pair was a fine china plate with an exquisite cut of red meat, dripping with a deep crimson sauce, and garnished with a sprinkling of sumptuous herbs. Sitting at the foot of the table was an elderly woman in formal attire, her gray hair up in a bun. At the head of the table was a young man wearing a black tuxedo and tails, a butler’s uniform.

  The young man’s dark hair was combed back, held in place with what must have been a sizable amount of grease or gel, as not a single strand stood up. His back straight, his mannerisms poised, the young man slowly cut the meat and, tasting it, made an approving sound, following it up immediately with a sip of the red wine from a nearby crystal goblet.

  He uttered a sigh of contentment. “God, that’s lovely.”