City of the Dead

by Eileen Dreyer

  Chastity didn’t think Mrs. Reeves was going to last much longer. Her back was so taut it should have snapped. But she bowed a head at Kareena and took the card. Thanked her. And left.

  “So what do you think our chances are she’ll say something else?” Chastity quietly asked.

  “I think she said more than she ever meant to already,” Kareena said.

  Chastity nodded. “Maybe we can come back.”

  James, stiff in his good clothes, said not a word.

  “Elvis, huh?” Kareena asked under her breath. “Was Marilyn with him?”

  “There is a girl who looks like Elvis,” James finally spoke up, just as quietly. “She’s an egg donor. At Arlen.”

  Kareena stared. “Get down.”

  “Faith was here ten days ago,” Chastity said. “Faith was here at Susan’s.”

  “Who’s now dead,” Kareena said.

  “We need to find somebody to talk to from that clinic.”

  “Well,” James offered, “I’m not sure if you noticed, but it doesn’t look as if there are any of them here.”

  Certainly no Eddie Dupre. No black cabdrivers or Elvis impersonators. No Dr. Petit.

  “I’m not sure why they’d feel compelled to come,” Chastity said. “Although it would sure have made it easier for us.”

  “You also need to talk to that brother-in-law of yours,” Kareena said. “He been trying to get in touch, girl, and you been avoiding him.”

  Chastity took one last look at the little girl who should have been her niece and turned away. “Well, we’ve tasted all the hors d’oeuvres here. Let’s go.”

  But just as they reached the front door it opened, and a petite, wet-eyed black woman stalked in followed by what looked like the lesbian brigade.

  Ah, Chastity thought. Safety in numbers. She was about to say something when the young woman in the lead saw her and stopped, gape-jawed. It seemed to be that kind of day.

  “What did you do to her?” the woman demanded, her voice shrill. “Susan helped you and now she’s dead.”

  Half a dozen people were suddenly on a vector to intercept. Chastity didn’t hesitate. She grabbed that woman’s arm and marched her right back out the door. All her friends followed, protesting.

  “That’s what I want to know, too,” Chastity said as they came to a halt on the gracious, pillored porch. “My name is Chastity Byrnes. I’m Faith’s sister. Faith, who looks a whole lot like Susan’s little girl?”

  The woman pulled out of Chastity’s grasp and stared at her. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”

  “It’s perfectly natural. You’re Susan’s partner?”

  Tears again, brutally controlled so that the woman stiffened almost as much as Susan’s mother. “Jane Brightwell. What did your sister do to Susan?”

  “My sister is missing, Jane. I’m trying to find her.”

  Jane stilled. The crowd around them just watched, cluttering up the porch.

  “Can we go someplace?” Chastity asked quietly.

  Jane shook her head. “No. I need to get in there and establish my place in Margaret Jane’s life, or I’ll never get another chance. Besides, I really don’t know that much.” She sighed, wiping at a couple of tears that had run over. “Susan wasn’t one to share everything. Even Margaret Jane is more Susan’s child than mine. I do know she tried to help your sister. I only saw her here once.” Suddenly she smiled. Chagrined and wry and sad. “My God, do you know how much you look like her? Like Margaret Jane?”

  Chastity fought the Vicodin and the frustration and the feeling of some awful deadline in her head. “I know. The sight of that little girl set me back ten years. But Jane, did Susan ever say why she was helping my sister?”

  Jane shook her head. “She did mention one thing,” she said. “She said if it were up to her, she’d shut down that fertility clinic with her own hands. She said they took advantage of vulnerable people. I think it had something to do with your sister.”

  “The Arlen Clinic?”

  Jane straightened like a shot. “Of course not. They were wonderful. It was New Life. New Life Associates, something like that. I think Faith was involved with them somehow. And that something was going really wrong. I know that Susan was afraid for her.”

  New Life. It was the second time she’d heard about that place in four days. Lloyd Burgard had claimed that Faith disappeared from New Life. And Chastity didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “Did Susan think she was in danger herself?” she asked.

  Those dark eyes got darker. “Last week. We hadn’t had a chance to visit. I called. She said she couldn’t talk. That she was involved with something that was getting beyond her control. She said she’d tell me later when she figured out what to do.” Jane fought again for control. For grace. “She never got the chance.”

  Chastity pulled out another card. “If you need me,” she said, closing her hand around Jane’s. “We’re going to find my sister, and we’re going to find out why Susan is dead. I promise.”

  It was easy to make a promise. Chastity tossed them around at work like candy, if it could make her families feel better. You’ll feel better. You’ll come around. We’ll do the very best we can to save your sister-brother-mother-son. Your mother never suffered. She knew better than to believe her own promises.

  She believed this one, though.

  Jane’s smile was a bit wobbly, but she nodded and offered a card of her own.

  “Now,” Chastity said, pocketing it, “I think you better go in there and fight for your daughter.”

  The groups parted, and Chastity led James and Kareena off the porch, Kareena once again rubbernecking like a tourist.

  They’d barely shut the doors to the cab, when Chastity leaned forward. “How are we going to get information on New Life?”

  Kareena glared at her over the back of the front seat. “Aren’t you tired or something, girl? You just got outta bed, ya know.”

  “I’m exhausted, Kareena. But now it seems I really need to find out about New Life.”

  Kareena sighed. “Should get something soon. Lot o’ people lookin’ into them.”

  “Yeah, but I mean in relationship to Faith. Do you think she went there when they threw her out of Arlen?”

  “They didn’t exactly throw her out,” James said.

  “She had to stop, and it seems she didn’t want to. Or couldn’t.” Like sex, Chastity thought briefly. Self-destructive behavior that began to define a person’s life. Something that sounded so good when you started. “But what was going on that scared Susan Reeves? And if she didn’t like New Life, why didn’t she report them?”

  For a second, the only sound in the cab was the rattle of James’s air-conditioning.

  “What if there was something going on that involved both of them?” he asked. “New Life and Arlen? Would Susan jeopardize the chance for more children?”

  “Maybe she thought she could keep everything under wraps till she could figure out how to secure those eggs.”

  “Eddie Dupre?” Kareena asked.

  “It’s worth a shot. But first we need to find out what went on at New Life that made a dead woman upset.”

  “We can’t,” Kareena said. “We got no jurisdiction, girl. Especially when it’s reproductive rights. Nobody can get into those files without a court order. Shit, Kareena’s already six feet into illegal with all the stuff she been gettin’ you.”

  “I know, Kareena. And I don’t mean to get you into trouble. I’m just thinking about how to get in the door. I need enough to give the police a reason to get court orders.”

  Both of them turned on her.

  “Did I mention that breaking and entering is also beyond the scope of my voluntary activities?” James asked.

  But Chastity had another idea altogether. “Who do I look like?”

  Kareena squinted. “Peter Pan?”

  “Fuck you. I look like my sister. Haven’t you seen all those people yelling at me because they think I’m her? What if
I just walked into New Life out of the blue? Don’t you think I’d get an interesting reaction?”

  “Looking like that?”

  “No.” Chastity sucked in a deep, shaky breath. “Looking like Faith. She’s got an entire wardrobe nobody’s using right now. And a lovely set of pearls, just going to waste.”

  James was frankly staring. “You’d go back into that house?”

  Chastity imagined he could see the sweat that had suddenly popped out all over. “Yeah. I think I have to.”

  “You’re not even thinkin’ to ask her husband?” Kareena asked.

  “I’m not sure he’s getting the whole story. I think I need a firsthand look.”

  James gave her another look. Then he just turned around and put the cab in gear. Next to him, Kareena jabbed him in the ribs.

  “James?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Our girl’s back, huh?”

  “I’ll tell you something, though,” Chastity said, slumping back into the hot, hard seat. “Either Faith looks really good right now, or I’m looking bad. She’s a lot older than I am, ya know.”

  It was Lloyd Burgard’s sister who called the police. Lloyd Burgard had been on a locked psychiatric ward the last four days, first restrained, then sedated, and finally, today, simply groggy and quiet. But every minute of every day that Lloyd wasn’t howling about his mission from the saints, he was begging for his camera. Lloyd kept his memory in that camera, especially for the times he disappeared into his delusions.

  Finally convinced that it couldn’t hurt, the nurses called Lillian Burgard and asked that she bring Lloyd’s camera for him.

  Lillian found the camera in the glove compartment of her car. The car she’d had to pick up from a police impound lot for illegal parking in the French Quarter. She knew Lloyd’s penchant for photography. She’d even bought him the camera and helped him learn how to use it. She referenced the pictures stored in its memory herself, just to see what Lloyd had been up to while he was in one of his fugue states.

  That day she clicked through the pictures to see shot after shot of Ms. Byrnes. Walking, talking, sitting at restaurants. She saw the protesters Lloyd had adopted, and she saw a big, bald guy. And then, toward the end, she saw the murder.

  She recognized the chapel, of course. Hadn’t she been to Saint Roch seeking help for Lloyd? Hadn’t she left flowers and prayers and a rosary made of crystal to hang around Saint Roch’s neck?

  But this picture was of Saint Roch’s feet. And Lillian couldn’t mistake what was lying there.

  So she called the police.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the homely, polite Detective Gilchrist who had talked to her after Lloyd attacked Ms. Byrnes. “I think my brother has done something terrible.”

  The detective looked at the picture and sighed. It was definitely Susan Wade Reeves, shoved behind those statues like trash. It was her blood on the floor and her eyes staring up at the camera. And Lloyd Burgard had caught it in full color.

  “I’m sorry, too, Mizz Burgard,” he said, and he was.

  Chastity Byrnes had asked him to put Lloyd Burgard on a psycho watch a good twelve hours before the murder, and he’d blown her off. He really hadn’t wanted to look too closely into her sister’s disappearance, certain as he was that she’d just run away from home. But he should have at least looked up Lloyd Burgard. If he had, he might have been able to keep Miss Reeves from dying.

  At least he had an answer for Ms. Byrnes now. He just wished she’d be content with the information and go home. He didn’t count on it, though. After all, her sister was still missing.

  The New Life Center paid its homage not to maternity, but to technology. A low, square building that looked more industrial park than medical center, it was tucked in at the end of a strip mall neighborhood in Metairie.

  James and Chastity had been there before in their searches. Chastity thought the place was as inviting as a dentist’s office.

  “You want we should go in with you?” Kareena asked.

  “You come, Kareena,” Chastity said, making a final check on her clothing and pearls in the mirror of Kareena’s compact, as if she were going on stage. “I need the support.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about passin’ for your sister,” Kareena said. “You look just like her.”

  Chastity sighed. “I smell like her, too.”

  Old lady perfume. Chastity thought she was going to gag. She was so tired she felt like frayed rope, she hurt from head to toe, and when she looked into the mirror, she saw her older sister.

  She wore Faith’s tailored, midnight blue silk dress, Ferragamo pumps, and pearls. She had the oddest feeling that she’d just wrapped herself into a straitjacket.

  “Let’s get this over with before I puke all over Faith’s nice clothes.”

  “Before you get arrested for boosting all your sister’s jewelry, you mean,” Kareena said.

  “I didn’t boost all of it. I carefully chose suspect pieces to get appraised. They’ll be back before Max knows they’re gone.”

  Pieces that were now sitting cheek by jowl with her own paltry treasure, the kind that glittered but didn’t cost.

  “He’ll know, he catches you in those pearls.”

  “Unless he has business at New Life, which I doubt,” Chastity said, “I don’t think there’ll be a problem. Now let’s go.”

  The two women climbed out of the cab and walked up a perfectly level sidewalk. They were in the suburbs, after all. No tree roots eating the pavement, no jungle-inspired landscaping and wrought-iron fencing. This part of Metairie looked like the interchangeable strip-mall-and-fast-food landscapes that blighted most of the rest of the country.

  Chastity felt the sweat break out along her back. It was hot here, muggy and noisy with traffic. And yet the minute she opened the door to the center, she stepped into a kind of techno-oasis.

  The wood floors were pale, the colors retro aquas and browns, the furniture architecturally inspired. Lights were strung on industrial wire, and there was a sound of soft white noise coming out of the sound system. Fertility for the twenty-first century.

  The last time she’d been here, nobody had recognized her. The receptionist had been young, cute, and a bit vacant.

  There was another of her breed behind the desk today. A blue-eyed blonde who might have been the first designer baby born here. She looked up from the magazine she was perusing and gave Chastity another of those empty smiles.

  “Hi. Can I help you?”

  Again, nothing. No recognition. No revelation. “Um, Faith Stanton,” Chastity said.

  The girl immediately stood up. “Oh, so you’re Mrs. Stanton. Everybody’s been worried about you. Wait a second.”

  And left.

  “Well, that’s one question answered,” Chastity said, rubbing at the ache in her neck.

  Kareena turned toward the waiting area. She’d just been about to sit down when she whistled. “Shit, girl. Look at this.”

  Chastity looked. There on the coffee table was a flat-screen computer monitor with a program running. On the screen was a progression of faces, one morphing into another like one of those National Geographic specials of the peoples of the world, except that these people were all stunningly beautiful. Women, men, children, blacks, whites, Latinos, mixed races, all smiling, all fading into someone else, someone even more beautiful, more compelling.

  “Hell of a sales tool,” Chastity agreed. “This is the place that auctions off eggs, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Kareena couldn’t take her eyes off that screen. “Normal people with big hips and skinny lips just got no chance here, do they?”

  Chastity shrugged. “It’s a product, Kareena. Like cat food.”

  “I don’ think I want my baby to be no cat food, girl.”

  They were both bent over that screen when the door behind the reception desk swung open.

  “Mrs. Stanton, my God, where have you been? Your client has been frantic to start her treat
ments. You should have been here days ago. Especially since you already have half the fee.”

  Chastity looked up then to see a thirtyish brunette with too little body fat and too much energy barreling toward her. The name tag on her pearl gray lab coat read Mary Webster, RN.

  Mary Webster finally caught sight of Chastity’s face and skidded so hard that her rubber soles squeaked against the wood.

  “You’re not Mrs. Stanton.”

  Chastity straightened. “I’m her sister. Chastity.”

  The nurse actually looked around. “Where’s Mrs. Stanton?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. She’s been missing now for close to four weeks, and you seem to be among the last people to have seen her. Obviously she’s donating her eggs here.”

  “Selling her eggs,” Kareena muttered. “Like cat food.”

  Mary tightened with displeasure. “What’s the problem with that?”

  “Besides the fact that she was overage and lying about it?” Chastity asked.

  The nurse’s reaction was telling. She wasn’t surprised at all. Ah, one of the questions that needed looking into at the New Life Center, obviously.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary Webster said stiffly. “Our relationship with our clients is confidential. There is nothing I can tell you.”

  “Not even the last time you saw her? Or if she personally seemed troubled, or afraid, or depressed? I don’t care about her eggs, Ms. Webster. I care that Faith’s husband can’t seem to find her.”

  Ms. Webster’s eyes lit. “Ah, Dr. Stanton. It should have tipped me off right away, of course.”

  “Tipped you off?” Chastity asked.

  “Yes. I should have realized right away that you weren’t Mrs. Stanton.” Ms. Webster smiled with a certain amount of triumph. “Faith Stanton never comes here without her husband.”

  Seventeen

  It was Chastity’s turn to stutter to a halt. “I beg your pardon?”

  Mary Webster wasn’t smiling anymore. “If you’re Mrs. Stanton’s sister, you should have known.”