Beneath a Blood Red Moon

Page 40

“In some instances, the medical personnel at the time of the Ripper killings were quoted as noting that there wasn’t really as much blood about the victims as there should have been,” Manny said.
“And hell, like we already noted ...” Jack murmured.
“What?” Sean asked.
“It is New Orleans,” Jack said dryly.
* * *
Maggie was nervous about Sean’s having insisted she go to work, and she knew he would go to the morgue. She changed her clothing, straightened out her personal quarters at the office, and sat down and tried to get something done, but she couldn’t concentrate. Angie came in on her while she was supposedly sketching out a ball gown for the wife of a senator. When Angie looked over her shoulder and gasped at what she was drawing, Maggie knew she was in trouble.
“What’s that, my God!” Angie breathed.
Maggie looked down at her paper, and frowned. Her fingers started shaking.
She’d been drawing a street. A darkened, shadowy street, with the figure of a woman lying so crumpled and sprawled upon it that she could only be dead.
She pushed away from her desk, horrified.
Angie quickly came behind her, hugging her shoulders. “All right, so I like Sean Canady, he’s as sexy as they come, and I’ve encouraged you to see him, but, honey! You’ve got to get away from cops and crime for a while!”
“No, no, it can’t be Sean,” Maggie protested.
“You’re getting too involved in this. Just because a no-good pimp decided to get himself murdered too close to this building!”
Angie was wonderful; she and Cissy were Maggie’s best friends, but right now, Maggie didn’t want to be told that her association with Sean was wearing on her well-being.
The murders had to be solved, and until they were solved— one way or another—she was involved.
She sprang up, trying to sound calm, rational, and natural. “You know what, Angie? I think I do need a walk. Clear my head. Or fuzz it up. I’m going out for a drink. I’m not sure yet if it will be coffee or something chock full of alcohol, but when I come back, I’m going to get the design sketched out for Mrs.
Smith.”
“Maggie, you shouldn’t go out alone—”
“Angie, it’s broad daylight. I’ll be fine.”
Maggie gave Angie an impulsive squeeze and hurried down the inside stairway, waving to Gema and Allie—who were both busy with customers—before hurrying on out to the street. She wasn’t sure where she was going until she realized that she was walking in the direction of Le Bon Marche—Mamie Johnson’s place.
It was afternoon, nearly four, so there wasn’t anything strange about crawling up on a bar stool and ordering a Manhattan. She felt the stares of a few of the men in the place, but she was capable of returning a look with one so frosty that even a polar bear would have kept his distance. Still, she had been there less than five minutes when the stool next to her was taken. She knew before she turned that Mamie herself had come to sit beside her.
“I expected you,” Mamie said.
“Did you? Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Maggie smiled, sipping her drink. “Well, that’s good. Because I don’t know exactly why I’m here.” Mamie lifted a hand. “I’ve promised to watch for the killer, but I don’t think he will come back here. He reads the paper. He sees. He knows that I know him, and that I will be watching for him. And it isn’t his way to walk in here with so many people about and kill me.”
“So ... if he is looking for a certain kind of woman, he’ll have to go somewhere else.” Mamie nodded.
“Where?”
Mamie smiled. She was a very attractive woman, her flesh a true copper, her teeth so white against it.
Her features were arresting, her movement smooth. “Honey, there are a hundred places he could go.”
“Yes, but... I think he liked what he got from you. A touch of class.” Mamie shrugged. “There are—naturally—others like me. We don’t hire out whores, we provide escorts. Companionship in a lonely place.”
Maggie didn’t comment. It was all the same. Rich or poor.
Sometimes, high-class call girls were asked to do nothing but sip champagne and listen to a fellow’s woes. With a street-girl, she got to drink beer or cheap wine while she cradled a man’s ego. And sometimes, rich or poor, she met with perversion ... or brutality.
“Sean wants to know what you learn,” Maggie said. She sipped her drink, then took a deep breath.
“I’m sure they’re going to set up a policewoman—or even a policeman—if the killer approaches a—er, procurer of escorts—again.”
“So I would think,” Mamie agreed.
Maggie took another deep breath. “Mamie, would you call me first?” As she had expected, Mamie frowned. “What you got in your pretty little mind, chile? Haven’t you heard how these women are being found? Why, you’re as slim as a ribbon, honey—”
“I’m stronger than I look.”
“Oh, honey!” Mamie protested, horrified, shaking her head.
“Mamie, please.” Maggie set her hand over Mamie’s copper one. “Mamie, please, look at me.” She hesitated. “I don’t want anyone else to be hurt. I—”
“Just whores, honey, hadn’t you heard?” Mamie asked wearily.
“Mamie, come on, you sound so bitter! I don’t judge whores, I don’t judge anyone. We all do what we’ve got to do to get by. Mamie, please, I want to help. I want to save lives. I may know who is doing this. And he may have a grudge against me in particular—”
“Oh, no! No, no, no, no! You are not going to sacrifice yourself because you’re on some kind of a guilt trip, Ms. Maggie Montgomery. What happened? Were you turning tricks somewhere? Why would this guy who is so brutal to whores want to get even with you?”
“I wasn’t turning tricks, Mamie. I just have an enemy.”
“Tell Sean about it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t understand.”
Mamie sighed. “Then you’ve got to tell me.”
Maggie shook her head. “If I did, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.” Mamie stared at her a long while. She reached over for Maggie’s Manhattan and drank it down herself, signaling to the bartender to make them each another drink.
“I come from the bayou, honey. I got some voodoo in my blood, even though I’ve not got the sight like some others. Talk to me. You want my help, talk.”
“At this point of my life, I really wish I could make you believe me,” Maggie said softly.
“Like I told you, my mind is open.”
“But can you keep your mouth shut?” Maggie asked. “Mamie, I will really, really need your help, and your confidence.”
“Talk to me, honey. I may be an old whore at the core, but I swear to you, I’m one with the old heart of gold.”
Maggie exhaled on a long breath.
She started talking.
The afternoon wore on.
Mamie listened and listened. Disbelief faded to simple doubt.
And then wonder.
CHAPTER 12
Callie’s mother had indeed come for her and she was now on her way to a clinic in Denver. Rutger had apparently gotten out of jail and crawled under a rock somewhere, but wherever he was, it didn’t matter anymore. He couldn’t touch Callie.
One good point, Sean told himself. Thank God. He needed one.
With his leads getting him nowhere, he decided again that walking the city was just as useful as any other enterprise. And so he walked down by Jackson Square, and there, among a dozen other vendors, he saw a woman he was instantly convinced had to be Mamie’s friend, the voodoo, Marie Lescarre.
He wandered over to her.
Two giggling young tourists were asking her about love potions. As old as Methuselah, brown as a gnarled oak, Marie still had a pleasant, lilting voice, touched with old Southern overtones along with a hint of Island-French dialect. She told the girls her potions were just herbal oils, but it was no fault of hers if the smell was so sweet that the right men came running.
The girls bought the potions while Sean studied her supply of incense burners, stones, herbs, and the like. When the girls disappeared, the woman looked gravely at Sean.
“Captain Canady.”
“Mamie told you about me?”
“I knew you were coming,” she answered, rheumy old eyes focused hard on his. Right. She knew.
Mamie hadn’t told her; she had just known.
“So you are Marie Lescarre?”
“You know it,” the old woman answered, smiling. For an old bird, she had fabulous teeth. He wondered what gris-gris, what magic, gave her such a good calcium retention.
He smiled. “Real name—or stage name?” he inquired, adding politely, “Your name is very similar to that of the voodoos who became so famous here—Marie Laveau and her daughter.” The old woman smiled. “Marie—it is a common enough name for any woman of French, Catholic, or Island descent. Lescarre—my late husband’s name.”
Sean felt uncomfortably reprieved. As if he had been mocking her. He felt as if he were behaving like a child—and as if she were behaving in a far more mature manner.
“You don’t need to blush, Lieutenant. You’re a good man.”
He shrugged. “Thanks.” If Mamie hadn’t talked to her, how did she know his name and rank—or even that he was a cop? Foolish. His name and face had been on the news and in the papers often enough.
“So you have come to me,” Marie Lescarre said then.
He shrugged again. “Mamie Johnson suggested I do so.”
“Ah. So have you come to a voodoo to mock me?”
He shook his head, realizing the sober truth. “I’ve come because I’m willing to try anything to stop these killings.”
She seemed pleased, nodding. But then her voice carried a worried tone. “You are in danger, you know.”