Voodoo Woman Page 8

  “Yes. It was hand drawn on a piece of paper. I picked it up, meaning to give it back to Anthea, but when I saw what it was—well, I thought it wasn’t something a young and impressionable girl ought to have in her possession.”

  Snooping and interfering were alive and well in the world of over-protective adults like the Reverend. Smirking, Boudreau opened a drawer in her desk, hunted for some aspirin there. She found none, gritted her teeth in annoyance. “Do you still have this drawing in your possession, Reverend?”

  Reverend Petersen confessed that he had thrown away the drawing. Disappointed, Boudreau asked if he could at least describe the veve to her?

  He could, describing the veve specific to Erzulie, the Loa of love and sensuality. Whilst that hardly fit with Anthea’s grisly fate, Boudreau figured it at least linked one of the Larue women with Voodoo. Opening another drawer in her desk, she rummaged through a stack of old files and tissue boxes, discovered an ancient bottle of aspirin buried underneath those. She shook out four pills, dry-swallowing them.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you this right away,” Reverend Petersen added.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Boudreau sighed. “Pretty much everybody lies to us at some point. I’d be disappointed, I think, if they didn’t.”

  “That’s a very cynical attitude, Detective,” Reverend Petersen opined.

  Boudreau snorted quietly. “It comes with the job. But thank you, for coming forward with this information now. Every little bit helps us.”

  “Are you…” Reverend Petersen hesitated. “How is the investigation going?”

  “Slowly,” Boudreau told him. She thanked the reverend again for his—albeit belated—honesty and hung up quickly, not wishing to field any further questions from him. The fact that he had withheld information didn’t exactly make him any less of a suspect and, even though Boudreau’s gut was telling her that Reverend Petersen had nothing to do with either Anthea’s or Jeannette’s murders, she nonetheless intended to check him out six ways to Sunday. The Erzulie veve connected Anthea to Voodoo only in the most tenuous sense. They were still a long way from connecting either her, or her mother, to the killer.

  The veve itself could’ve come from any number of sources. Anthea could have drawn it herself, or downloaded it from the Internet. Even had she purchased it from a Voodoo dealer, there were literally hundreds of stores throughout the city selling assorted Voodoo, Santeria, and general hoodoo shit. Combing through all of those would be like looking for one single needle amongst haystacks filled to the brim with identical needles.

  Boudreau called together four uniforms, handed them each pictures of Anthea—and of her mother for good measure—with instructions to show them around all of the Voodoo, Santeria, and hoodoo stores in the city.

  One of the uniforms gave her an incredulous look. “Y’all are kidding, Detective, right?” Boudreau’s expression told him that she was indeed very serious. He shook his head, tried to backtrack. “I mean, it’ll take weeks to cover all the stores—and that’d just be the licensed dealers. It’s a long shot, is all I’m saying.”

  “Thank you for your input, Officer Malcolm,” Boudreau told him. “The sooner y’all get started then, don’t you think?”

  That done, Boudreau ran a background check on Reverend George Petersen, and updated her checks on Antoine Camber. Antoine’s parents were Lois and David, both of whom were deceased in a long-ago car accident. Antoine inherited a small fortune and a considerable chunk of real estate upon their deaths, some of which he parlayed into his own business managing hedge funds for other rich people. The business did well until about a year ago when Antoine’s game appeared to have slipped. Boudreau wondered what caused the slip…drugs maybe, or alcohol. Those were the usual suspects when someone rich and successful suddenly stopped performing so well. In addition to the Lee Circle condo, he owned a fishing cabin on Bayou Castine, on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Boudreau was vaguely familiar with the place—little more than a dot on the map, popular with out-of-towners who liked to fish on weekends.

  Her phone rang whilst she was looking at Bayou Castine on a Google map, and she reached for it, pinning the receiver between her neck and shoulder as she continued to type coordinates into the Internet site. “Detective Pierce Boudreau.”

  “Good morning,” Flynn’s voice greeted her.

  “Flynn. What can I do for y’all?”

  “Listen, I may have got a lead on your mambo.”

  Boudreau scowled. “I seem to recall last night you said something about this being my case now?”

  “So?” Flynn’s voice became edged with irritation.

  “So what are you doing still digging in my sandbox, Flynn?”

  “Do you want the information I have, Pierce, or do you not?”

  Boudreau did want it, and said so. In fact, she needed all the information she could get right now, although she didn’t say that to Flynn. The PI told her about Johnny Cakes, and his information suggesting that Antoine may be the go-between for a mambo named Jean-Marie. Boudreau entered Johnny’s name into the system, came up with a couple of public nuisance beefs.

  “I doubt Johnny is a player on this board,” Flynn said and Boudreau grunted agreement. Jean-Marie, on the other hand, was an interesting prospect.

  “And where did you get this information?” Boudreau demanded.

  “You sure you want to know?” Flynn chuckled. “I mean, plausible deniability and all that.”

  Now Boudreau had a bad feeling. Like acid indigestion, only it wasn’t caused by eating bad crab cakes. She closed her eyes, swallowed on the taste of bile in back of her throat. “Just tell me that it didn’t come from Ariel Rousseau.”

  “Not this time, no. This came from Harvey Destrehan.”

  Boudreau choked. She scowled at the phone. “Flynn,” she grated, “you can’t be sharing privileged information with that fat, skeezy bastard.”

  “I didn’t share anything with Harvey. But while we’re on the subject of Ariel—she deserves a heads-up on the mambo thing. She could be in danger if she doesn’t know who she’s supplying for.”

  Boudreau huffed a sigh. “She’s only in danger if y’all keep telling her shit,” she pointed out. She slammed the phone down and sat for a moment, just scowling at the wall, letting her irritation at Flynn wear itself out banging its head against that. Then she got back to work.

  Her initial background check on Reverend Petersen revealed nothing immediately suspicious and he dropped a few more places down the rather bare-looking suspect list. Boudreau put in a request for the reverend’s military service records anyway, and then she went to back to pondering on Antoine Camber’s whereabouts. She could put in a request to the locals out by Slidell to check out the cabin, and wait maybe days or even weeks to have them do so if they were busy. Or she could head there herself and take a look.

  She hunted down Waylon in Evidence Lockup where he was cataloguing stuff taken from the Lee Circle condo. When she asked if he wanted to go with her to check out Camber’s cabin, he shook his head.

  “Can’t, Pierce. Cap’n says I have to get this crap tagged and stored. Sorry.”

  Boudreau sighed. “Okay. I’ll head out there myself, just for a look. If it seems like Camber is there, I’ll radio for backup.”

  Waylon nodded absently as he boxed and tagged a bloodied section of flooring torn up from the condo. The building super would have a fit at that no doubt, Boudreau thought wryly. “Okay. Cool. Be careful, Pierce. I reckon this guy’s a freakin’ nut job, I do,” Waylon told her.

  Boudreau grinned at her partner. “Hedge fund manager into Voodoo and ritual murder, ya think he’s nuts, really?”

  On her way out of the building, she ran into Dana Jordan as the Orleans Weekly reporter was entering. Boudreau tried to duck into a stairwell to avoid her, but no luck, the reporter spotted her and followed her.

  “Detective Boudreau! Hold up a minute, please!”

  Grimacing, Boudreau kept goin
g, pretending not to have heard the reporter’s shout. Last night, Flynn had told her about the purloined morgue photo that had found its way into Sy Lehane’s possession, and how Dana had come to her looking for information on the case. There had been no point in Boudreau wasting her ire on the morgue employees who leaked the photo. She had, however, been less than happy knowing that Flynn talked to the reporter.

  “Y’all can’t see straight when it comes to Dana Jordan,” she had sighed to the PI. Flynn hadn’t denied it, and that made Boudreau even more mad. “You know she’s gonna write it up. She’ll tip the killer off.”

  Flynn had shrugged. “Press would’ve got hold of it sooner or later anyway.”

  Boudreau could’ve pointed out that she’d have preferred for it to be later, but she sensed she was already wasting her breath and let the argument drop.

  Right now she had neither the time, nor the will, for a showdown with the reporter but as Dana followed her into the stairwell, Boudreau finally stopped, held up a hand and shook her head firmly. “No comment.”

  “Come on, Detective Boudreau, I just want a quote,” Dana pleaded.

  “There’s a press conference today, but I imagine you already know that. Save your questions for that.”

  Dana persisted, unfazed. “There’s a Voodoo angle to the murders—are you treating that seriously, or as a ruse orchestrated by the killer?”

  Boudreau threw her a poisonous look. “Whatever Flynn has been whispering into your ear, y’all aren’t going to get any confirmation from me.” She clattered down the stairs, footfalls ringing on the stone steps, the reporter staying doggedly on her heels.

  “Look, I’ll be straight—I’m here to ask for a heads-up, Pierce. Please? This is a big story. Voodoo gets a bad rap, and if there’s a serial killer at work in the city who is using Voodoo—”

  Boudreau came to such an abrupt halt and wheeled so fast on Dana that the reporter stuttered to a halt. Forced to take a step back, uncertainty flickered in her expression as Boudreau stabbed a stiff finger at her. “If I were you, I wouldn’t let Captain Embry hear you using the words ‘serial killer’ and ‘Voodoo’ in the same sentence.”

  “Looks bad for the tourists?”

  Boudreau raked a hand through her dreadlocked hair. “Yeah, it looks bad for the fucking tourists. That’s the bottom line. This city is just starting to get back on its feet after Katrina—last thing it needs are rumors about some deranged serial killer gutting people in Voodoo rituals. Y’all see what I mean, Dana?”

  “I do.” The reporter nodded. “So the official stance of the lead detective on the investigation is—what? There is no serial killer, and no Voodoo connection?”

  Boudreau shook her head in disbelief at the reporter’s ballsy attitude, then razored a deadly serious look at her. “I’m not Flynn. You can’t work me the way you do her.”

  “You have a serial killer in your city. He’s using Voodoo rituals—perverted ones, sure—but Voodoo all the same. The general media is going to get hold of this sooner or later. At least I’ll be fair.”

  “Oh, definitely no comment about that.”

  They had reached the level of the parking garage where Boudreau straight-armed the door and stepped through, expecting the reporter to leave her alone. To her annoyance, Dana continued to follow. “Let it go,” Boudreau growled over one shoulder. “Come to the press conference like everyone else. Don’t use your acquaintance with Flynn just to get ahead of some story.”

  Dana frowned. “What exactly is your problem with me, Pierce?”

  There it was. Boudreau sucked air in, held it for a count of three, and then blew it out hard. When she was sure she could face the reporter without giving in to the urge to punch her, she turned around. “I don’t like you. Simple as that.”

  “Why?”

  “I need a reason to dislike someone? Okay then—you’re a reporter. How’s that?”

  “Fine. I get that you don’t like me as a reporter—” Dana shook her head. “But it’s more than that, Pierce, isn’t it? There’s some other reason for your dislike of me . It’s just too personal.”

  A tangle of emotions caught in Boudreau’s chest. She did not need this reporter knowing how much she liked Flynn, nor how badly she wanted for Flynn not to become involved with anyone else. But she suspected that Dana already was starting to put those pieces together. “There is nothing else,” Boudreau lied. “I just don’t like reporters. Now, leave me the fuck alone. I have a job to do. An important one. Unlike some people.”

  And she spun on her heel, heart pounding against her ribs as she stalked away. It was all she could do not to run.

  Each time Boudreau saw Lake Pontchartrain she had to remind herself that it only had the appearance of an inland sea because the far shore was always beyond the horizon. In fact, Pontchartrain was a relatively shallow puddle of water, just forty miles wide east to west and twenty-five miles wide north to south. Normally quite placid, during seasonal storms Pontchartrain could get choppy enough to be dangerous. Swimming in the lake had long been illegal, and the water sports had once been popular were now largely banned. Boudreau used to come to the lake a lot as a kid. These days, not so much. Heading out to Bayou Castine, she took the I-10 through Mid City, skirting Lakeview and Wilshire Heights and jumping over to Metairie to get on the Pontchartrain Causeway. Twenty-four miles running northwards to Mandeville, the twin spans of the causeway was a stopover for vast migrating flocks of the same purple martins found roosting around the cathedral on Jackson Square. It was to see these pretty little birds that Boudreau had come to Pontchartrain as a kid.

  Across the lake in Mandeville she stopped at a service station to buy gas and to use the restrooms. She had checked out a vehicle from the motor pool, a beat-to-shit sedan of a shade not to be found on any color chart, manufactured in a distant decade when gas did not cost so much and nobody worried about the environment. Any attempt to claim expenses back from the department for the pool car would probably take until Boudreau retired. But the roads around places like Bayou Castine could be rough and the alternative would have been to risk damage to her own vehicle. No way the department would ever pay her back for that.

  As she drove, her thoughts drifted to her reaction to Dana Jordan’s questions, particularly the foolish way in which she had tried to deny that her dislike for the reporter was personal. Now, of course, Dana would know for sure that Boudreau thought of Flynn as more than just someone on the side.

  “Christ, even I didn’t know I cared that much,” she muttered aloud to her own reflection in the rearview mirror.

  But she did. She cared. And knowing that Flynn was interested in the goddamned reporter just ate her up sometimes. She wanted to be faithful to Carol, wanted their relationship to be successful and honest and all the rest of that ever-loving crap, but she just couldn’t deny that she had feelings for Flynn which stood in the way of such idealistic domestic bliss.

  “Fuck it.” Boudreau scowled at her reflection. “Keep your mind on the job.”

  Bayou Castine did not have much but what it had was pretty. Antoine Camber’s cabin, situated a good way out of town, could only be reached by following a single-track road—little more than hard-packed dirt which probably turned into a quagmire during rainstorms and which made Boudreau glad all over again that she’d taken a motor pool vehicle—through dense bayou country. Set back from the road and surrounded by foliage, the closest neighboring cabin more than five hundred yards away, the cabin was the ideal place to hide out.

  Boudreau parked a little way distant and walked to the entrance road, using the tree line for cover. She could see no vehicles parked out front, but Camber could’ve left the Lexus around back. On the run, and armed—which Boudreau was prepared to assume he was—he would surely be on the lookout for cops. She un-tucked her shirt, let it hang over her gun and badge. He might not be so suspicious of a lone black woman on foot.

  There were no signs of life around the cabin. Boudreau mounted the por
ch and rapped with her knuckles on the wooden doorjamb.

  “Mr Camber?” she called out, trying not to sound like a cop and failing. “Antoine Camber? Please come on outside if you’re here.”

  Boudreau stepped to one side and cupped her hand against the window glass, peering into the gloomy interior. Dusty, off-gray curtains hung on the inside of the window, obscuring her view. She backed away again, followed the porch around to a side door and knocked on that.

  “Guess y’all weren’t stupid enough to come here, after all,” Boudreau muttered, disappointed. She turned the corner of the cabin, and she almost walked straight into Antoine Camber.

  The hedge fund manager loomed in front of her, a huge mountain of a man, wild-eyed and disheveled, breathing heavily, and swinging a two-by-four at elbow height.

  Boudreau came to a dead halt, heart jumping into her throat, her gaze jerking immediately to the two-by-four. With an effort, she looked back into Camber’s wild eyes, just managed to hold her voice steady as she addressed him. “Mr Camber,” she said, “I need for you to put that weapon down. Right now.”

  His eyes were glassy and their focus kept slipping in and out. Boudreau backed up a careful step, reaching as she did so for the snap on her hip holster which had chosen that moment to become stuck. As she grasped at it, trying not to let the panic creep in, her sweaty fingers slid uselessly around the leather.

  “I didn’t want do it,” Camber said suddenly.

  Boudreau frowned, momentarily distracted by the announcement. “You didn’t want to do what?”

  Camber shook his head. “I didn’t want to do it! She told me it would be alright! She told me I’d have money, and power too! She promised me! Then she gave me all those fucking drugs and—and I didn’t know shit anymore!”

  Boudreau had no idea what the man was talking about and right now she didn’t much care either. She just wanted to get her gun out, preferably without spooking Camber into any rash actions, and make him put that goddamned two-by-four down, get some handcuffs on him. Then they could shoot the breeze all he wanted.