Vieux Carré Voodoo

by Greg Herren

  He wanted to be able to get in and out as he pleased.

  I thought back as Velma continued her rant. She was really letting her imagination run wild, and it was a little disconcerting to know how dark the vengeful corner of her mind could be. I hadn’t been paying attention when I got home from either the parade or Tea Dance. I wouldn’t have noticed if anyone had searched my apartment. But why would he want to search my apartment?

  What was he looking for?

  It didn’t make sense. He’d taken the keys before he’d hired me, before I’d known anything about Moonie. If he was after the Eye of Kali—and it stood to reason that he was—he had to have known it wasn’t in my apartment.

  Hiring me to look for Moonie had to be a ruse of some sort. He wanted to find out how much I knew.

  But how could he have thought I’d known anything?

  “His grandmother wasn’t an old schoolmate of yours, Millie, by any chance?” I finally interrupted the tirade. Unabated, Velma could have gone on for hours. I wanted to be sure Colin’s story held up.

  “Schoolmate?” Millie looked at me like I’d lost my mind—which I was beginning to believe myself. “Of course not. I advertised the apartment on craigslist. He answered the ad, paid the deposit and the first three months’ rent in cash. Where would you get the idea I went to school with his mother?”

  “That’s what he told me,” I replied. “This afternoon, when he hired me to find someone for him.”

  Velma’s eyes looked past me and narrowed with anger. “What the hell is he doing here?” she hissed.

  I looked back over my shoulder as Colin walked into the room. “No sign of him up there just like you said, Scotty. His clothes and everything are still there. But I think it’s safe to assume he’s gone.” He looked around the room. He gestured to Millie and Velma. “He tied them up, I gather?” He shook his head.

  Millie smiled a horrible smile. She walked over to him, reared back, and slapped him as hard as she could. It was loud, and it had to hurt.

  “That, you miserable son of a bitch, is for breaking Frank and Scotty’s hearts,” she said grimly.

  I tried unsuccessfully not to smile. Millie and Velma didn’t know the real story of Colin’s departure; we’d kept that within the immediate family. It was a bit much, frankly, to get into with everyone. The story we’d given Millie and Velma was he’d reconnected with an ex over Mardi Gras and decided to go back to him. They’d been furious.

  Colin gave her a rueful smile as he touched the red handprint on the side of his face. “Okay, Millie, I deserved that.”

  “You deserve more,” she replied coldly. “Now, what the hell is going on around here? Obviously, Levi is some sort of criminal. Didn’t you run a background on him, Velma?”

  “Of course I did. Nothing came up.” Velma shook her head. “He had good credit, references, and no arrests. I knew we shouldn’t have rented to a stranger.” She slammed her hand down on her leg. “Damn it to hell! I didn’t call his references. What the hell was I thinking?”

  “No sense beating yourself up about it now, dear.” Millie got up and headed for the bathroom. “It’s a little late for that now. And wait until I get back—I don’t want to miss anything.” The door shut behind her.

  Velma walked into the kitchen and opened a beer, offering me one and pointedly ignoring Colin. He bore the snubbing with good grace as I took my beer from her and took a drink. “Seriously, Scotty, why is he here?” she whispered to me. “Is he back for good?”

  I shook my head. “Doubt it. He’s here on a case, and it involves Levi somehow.”

  The toilet flushed, and Millie grabbed herself a beer from the kitchen before rejoining us in the living room. She plopped down on the couch. “Now, what the hell is all this about?”

  “Doc was killed tonight,” I said gently. Both of their mouths dropped open. “And it seems his name wasn’t really Benjamin Garrett.”

  “It was Larry Moon,” Colin interjected. “Apparently, he served a tour in Vietnam back in the sixties, and after he came back to the States he changed his name and moved to New Orleans.”

  “Levi hired me to look for Larry Moon,” I went on. “I didn’t know he and Doc were the same person at the time. Apparently, Doc and his friends stole”—Colin was gesturing at me frantically from behind them, but I ignored him—“a sacred jewel from a temple in some country called Pleshiwar. All of the guys are now dead, all of them killed. Doc’s been hiding here in New Orleans for almost forty years. And somehow, Levi is involved in this. I think it’s possible Levi may have been the one who killed Doc.” But even as I said the words, it didn’t seem right. It didn’t add up. Whoever had killed Marty Gretsch had tortured him. Doc had been thrown from his balcony. Their homes had been trashed from one end to the other. If he’d killed them, Millie and Velma were lucky to be alive.

  Once Millie had caught him in my apartment, his cover was blown. He knew he hadn’t had much time to do whatever it was he needed to do.

  He knew he couldn’t stick around much longer…so he came down to talk to me, give me this story in order to hire me.

  But what did he think I knew? What was he looking for in my apartment?

  “But why tie us up?” Velma asked. “We didn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

  “And why hire you, if he knew Doc was this Larry Moon already?” Millie chimed in.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, thinking. Everything had happened so fast, I really hadn’t had much time to think…

  And Colin had been directing my line of thought ever since I got to Mom’s.

  I glanced over at him. What game is he playing? I wondered. Aloud, I said, “Well, when you caught him in my apartment, Millie, his cover was blown.”

  “I guess we won’t know the answers until we find him,” Colin replied.

  “I’m sure he’s long gone,” I replied, watching Colin’s face. I wasn’t ready to trust him yet, no matter what Mom thought. I was certain Colin was deliberately clouding the issue. He was the one who said Levi wasn’t related to Marty Gretsch; I only had his word for that. And sure, Levi had lied about his grandmother’s relationship with Millie, and he’d had to get them out of the way once Millie caught him in my apartment. He’d tied them up to buy himself some time—but time to do what? What was he looking for?

  And it was very possible Levi and Colin could be working together.

  I only had Colin’s word for it that Levi wasn’t really Levi, after all.

  No, that didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t the real Levi. He’d invented the connection between Millie and his grandmother to earn my trust—and with Millie out of the way for a while, the way was clear for him.

  But why?

  My head was seriously starting to ache. None of this made any sense.

  And I still didn’t know who shot Colin in the arm, and why.

  “Do you two want to go to the hospital?” I asked. “or should we just call the police?”

  Millie and Velma exchanged glances. Velma said, “No need for the hospital, or for the police.”

  I just stared at them. “Okay, why not?”

  Velma yawned. “I have to be in court at nine in the morning. If we call the police, I won’t get any sleep. And what will we tell them?” She shook her head. “No, we can deal with it in the morning. I’m exhausted.” She frowned. “I’m a little worried about the key situation.”

  “I’ll stand guard,” Colin volunteered.

  She gave him a sour look. “I feel better already.”

  He flushed, but didn’t say anything. I kissed them both on the cheek, told them to call me if they needed anything, and hustled Colin out the door. I waited until I heard their deadbolt slide into place before heading upstairs to my apartment.

  “Ah, what memories I have of this place,” Colin said, plopping down on my sofa.

  “Don’t get comfortable,” I said, checking the answering machine. Nothing. Angela hadn’t called back. “You’re supposed to be stan
ding guard, remember?”

  “I’ve missed you.” He patted the sofa next to him. “You have no idea.”

  I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall. I shook my head. “Uh-uh. Not going to work. Tell me about your arm.”

  He stood up and stretched. “I was tailing someone when I got shot. I didn’t see who it was, and I didn’t want to go to the hospital—they would have had to report it to the police.” He shrugged. “So, I called Mom. If she didn’t want to help me, I’d have to do something else, but it was worth a shot. Besides, I wanted to see her.”

  “Stop calling her that!” I snapped. And just how long HAVE you been in town? I wanted to ask. And if you hadn’t been shot, would you have contacted us?

  “Are you going to help me now?” He checked his gun, slipped on the safety, and slid it back into the holster.

  “I told you I’d decide in the morning. Now go.” I yawned. “I want to get some sleep.”

  “I really have missed you and Frank,” he said softly, just before the door shut.

  Chapter Seven

  THE MAGICIAN REVERSED

  The use of power for destructive ends

  I was completely exhausted.

  After locking the door behind Colin—and propping a kitchen chair under the knob as a secondary precaution—I went into my bathroom and started the shower. I stripped off my clothes, and removed the gauze from my neck. I got close to the mirror and tilted my head back. The cut had scabbed over, and Mom was right—it wasn’t much. Apparently, only the tip of the mugger’s knife had cut the skin.

  But damn, I’d bled like a stuck pig.

  I cleaned it again with antiseptic, and climbed into the hot shower. It felt good on my skin. I relaxed and let the water drum the tension out of my muscles. The last twelve hours had been an insane roller-coaster ride—and it didn’t seem like the car would be pulling into the station any time soon.

  Of all times for Frank to be away…

  I dismissed that thought as I turned the shower off. I felt much better, and I was a big boy. Sure, it would be great to have Frank around—he was a trained FBI agent—but he wasn’t. I was on my own to deal with this entire mess, and I needed to step up and take charge of the situation.

  Forget the emotional fall-out from Colin’s reappearance, and focus on the case, I told myself as I toweled dry. Emotion just clouds your mind and keeps you from thinking clearly. You’ve got a good brain. Use it. Get some good sleep, and tackle it with a clear mind in the morning.

  I climbed into bed and turned off the lamp on my nightstand. I closed my eyes and felt all my muscles relax.

  But my mind wouldn’t shut off. I kept tossing and turning, and the best I could achieve was that wretched state of half-sleep where your body is relaxed but your mind is still aware. Every little noise made me jolt awake. The wind was still whipping around the house. It started raining again, a steady downpour that usually helped me sleep.

  No such luck this night, though.

  I debated taking something to help, but finally came down on the side of it’s not smart to knock yourself out with a pill. The last thing I needed was to be asleep should Levi come back—or anyone else for that matter.

  Finally, at about five in the morning I gave up on sleep and got out of the bed. I put on a pair of sweatpants and made a pot of coffee. Bleary-eyed, I put some bread into my toaster. While I was waiting for everything to be ready, I turned on my computer and got out a new notebook. I like to keep all of my notes from a case in one notebook, and I always start a new one with every case. I flipped the cover and stared at the blank page while my computer started up.

  Where to start? After a moment, I wrote down Why did they steal the Eye of Kali?

  Frank always said understanding the motivation behind a crime was a great place to start. Once you understood that, other pieces of the puzzle would start coming together. The motivation had been nagging at me since Colin first mentioned the theft last night. They were three grunts from Biloxi, Mississippi. Pleshiwar was a small postage stamp of a country—backward and hard to get to. How had they known about the Eye of Kali in the first place, let alone decided to steal it?

  Think, Scotty, think.

  Okay, the most obvious reason for stealing it was its value. From everything I could recall about the Vietnam War, Saigon had been a hotbed of intrigue and corruption during the war. The American-supported government had been little more than a dictatorship. The black market had thrived. In such an environment, it wasn’t hard to imagine black marketers from all over the world flocking there and looting treasures from all over southeast Asia. The majority of southeast Asians had been very poor. It would be easy to bribe people to look the other way while treasures were smuggled out of the country. American soldiers were risking their lives every day for the measly government paycheck—and were held in contempt by the growing anti-war movement back home. Under those circumstances, it wasn’t hard to see why even the most idealistic American GI would look for ways to line his pockets. Most of the soldiers were from poor or rural backgrounds. It was the children of the middle and upper classes with their college deferments who were protesting back home, calling them baby killers and spitting on them when they came home. They were just doing their patriotic duty as American citizens, and they were reviled for risking life and limb every day. Even Mom, who thought the Vietnam War was an abomination, thought the way those who served were treated was a national disgrace, one of the “worst examples of classism in the history of the country.”

  “They served their country and were treated like garbage,” she’d said once. “So many of them are now mentally disabled, homeless, and hungry. Our government and people all should be ashamed of ourselves.”

  Disillusionment was a powerful motivator.

  But that didn’t answer the question of how three soldiers from Biloxi planned on disposing of the jewel once they had it. I chewed on the end of my pen. That was the key. I doubted they would have committed the crime without knowing how to turn the jewel into cash. Colin had said Marty Gretsch had paid cash for his farm when he got back from the war, and Doc had bought a number of properties in the Quarter. They’d come back from the war a lot richer than they’d been when they’d gone over there—but they still had the jewel. Had they double-crossed the buyer, taken the money and not delivered?

  That was also a powerful motive for killing them.

  But why did it take forty years to track them down? Any private eye worth his salt would have been able to find Marty and Doc. Even with the name changes, there had to be a paper trail—the Veterans Administration and social security records, just for two. Doc had gone back to school and finished his PhD at LSU. He’d had to transfer his credits from Ole Miss in order to do that. Marty had married and had a family.

  I leaned back in my chair and tapped my pen against the notebook. If killers were looking for you, why would you have a family to put at risk? Who would do that?

  Doc had never seemed like someone hiding something, or in fear of his life. On the contrary, he was a pretty public person in his field. He had written highly acclaimed books, articles, and academic criticism, and had traveled all over the country speaking at conferences. He had been profiled several times in the local press. Someone trying to keep a low profile wouldn’t have done any of that. Every appearance, every time his picture was in the paper he was risking being discovered.

  Obviously, Doc wasn’t too afraid of being found out—which meant he was certain no one was looking for him.

  There was something there, but it kept dancing away from my consciousness into the darker, inaccessible parts of my brain.

  Something must have happened recently—something that made the jewel more desirable and brought all of this bubbling back to the surface.

  What could that be? What had set all of this back in motion again after being dormant for forty years?

  There was more going on than just looking for the jewel.

  But I also couldn’t
rule out the jewel’s value. Any number of wealthy collectors had no scruples about buying something stolen and hiding it away from the world. Someone had undoubtedly hired these guys to steal it—had either paid them some money up front or paid them in full but never received the stone. That was the only possible explanation for the money Doc and Marty came back from Vietnam with—but at the same time, why had that person never tried to hunt them down?

  It was also possible they actually had delivered the jewel to the buyer.

  Assuming Colin was telling the truth, the man I knew as Levi Gretsch was not who he’d said he was. He was the piece that didn’t fit into my scenario. I wrote down Who is Levi Gretsch?

  Okay, that was easy enough to find out. I switched on the computer and pulled up a browser. There were any number of Web sites accessible to private eyes I could use to find out. I went to my bookmarks, and clicked on the first one there. I logged in, and once the welcome screen popped up, I typed Levi Gretsch + Ohio into the search engine.

  I got up and refilled my coffee cup and put some more bread in the toaster. As I waited for it to pop up, I remembered that Levi had tied up Millie and Velma because he’d been caught in my apartment—and had stolen their spare set of keys.

  I’d been so fried last night I’d forgotten about that. I’d meant to look around and see if anything was missing.

  I made a quick round of the apartment. If Levi had searched my apartment, he was good. I couldn’t tell if anything had been moved, and nothing seemed to be missing from anywhere, either.

  I went back to the computer. The site had found five Levi Gretsches. Colin hadn’t been lying. Not one of them was the right age for the guy who’d hired me. And there was one who was twelve years old, currently living in Carthage, Ohio.

  Okay, so he was telling the truth about that—but that doesn’t mean I can trust him.

  I heard the toaster pop up.

  I walked back into the kitchen and munched my toast. I thought about the timeline. I’d left for the parade around two thirty. Levi had tied up Millie and Velma shortly after three. He’d come in here and searched my apartment, looking for something. But what could he have been looking for? Apparently, he hadn’t found it. That was why he’d come down to hire me. I tried to remember our conversation, word for word. He hadn’t seemed to be pumping me for information, though.