Chapter Eight

This was all foolishness. I didn’t believe in curses; I thought voodoo was a j oke. But someone at Rising Moon obviously didn’t share my opinion.

“You should really talk to a person who’s more knowledgeable than me about the religion,” Maggie said.

“You seem to know quite a bit.”

She smiled, pleased. “As I said, I’m interested. You can’t live here and not be.”

I probably could, but that was just me.

“I bet if you called Priestess Cassandra,” Maggie continued, “she could help you figure out what those animal carvings were for.”

“I hate to bother a voodoo priestess with a new baby.”

I’d had a couple of friends in the same situation. After a few weeks of sleep deprivation they resembled Linda Blair, croaking obscenities as their heads spun round and round. And they’d just been regular old new moms. I did not want to mess with a cranky voodoo priestess.

“She’s the most knowledgeable voodoo practitioner in the city from what I hear,” Maggie said. “She even went to Haiti on some kind of pilgrimage. You should see her snake.”

No, I shouldn’t.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as I gathered Sullivan’s file.

“Cassandra’s on Royal,” Maggie called as I left the cafe. “Shop by the same name, you can’t miss it.”

I lifted my hand in good-bye and kept going.

My phone rang as I headed toward Frenchmen; a glance at the caller ID revealed a local number.

“Anne, can you meet me?” I instantly recognized Detective Sullivan’s low clipped voice.

“Now?” I stopped walking and turned toward town. “Where?”

“There’s a place called Kelly’s on Orleans. Do you know it?”

I knew none of the places here, but I had a feeling I was going to learn. “I’ll find it.”

With Bourbon Street as a center point, locating things wasn’t hard. The French Quarter extended from Esplanade to Canal in one direction and from Rampart to the Mississippi in the other—a total of about ninety-eight blocks.

I found Kelly’s without any trouble—a small, narrow tavern among a host of others. Sullivan was already at the bar, nursing something clear and sparkly, with ice. His big hand enveloped the smaller container, and he downed the drink in a single gulp, then nodded at the bartender for another.

“Long day?” I asked, sliding onto the stool beside him.

The man behind the bar rilled Sullivan’s glass with clear soda. Interesting. Most cops I knew would have been drinking straight vodka, and I wouldn’t blame them.

“Not bad,” Sullivan answered. “What’ll you have?”

“Same.” I smiled; so did he, the expression starting a warm glow just below my breastbone. Conner Sullivan was a nice man, and I met so damn few of them.

My mind flashed on last night—make that early this morning—Rodolfo and I in the attic, him naked, me wanting to be. My face flushed, and I downed my drink in several large gulps.

“Long day?” Sullivan repeated.

“Oh, yeah.” I motioned for another.

“Where are you staying?”

“Rising Moon.”

His lips, which had still been curved appealingly upward, turned in the other direction. “What?”

“I got a j ob at Rising Moon. The salary includes a room on the second floor.”

Sullivan blinked, several times, long and slow. “You’re serious.”

“Most of the time.” I emptied half my second soft drink. I should probably have ordered water, but the sugar really tasted good after a night with so little sleep.

“When I told you I wanted your help on this, I didn’t mean—”

“For me to actually do something?” I interrupted.

“I don’t think sleeping in the lion’s den is classified as anything other than suicide.”

“No one’s going to kill me.”

“No? Does he know who you are?”

I knew precisely whom Sullivan meant by “he.” “Of course.”

“You told him you’re a private investigator, looking for your missing sister and working for me because I think he’s a serial-killing psycho?”

When he put it like that—”Not exactly.”

“What, exactly?”

“Rodolfo knows I’m searching for my sister.”

Sullivan waited, but I didn’t elaborate, because there was little else to tell.

“This is a bad idea,” he muttered.

“If people are disappearing from Rising Moon, someone should be there.”

“If people are disappearing, you could be next.”

I shrugged and took another sip. I didn’t care.

“Have you been undercover before?” he demanded.

Setting my glass down slowly so I wouldn’t slam it, I faced him. “Yes. My license isn’t just for show.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“Not on me.”

“Where is it?”

“In Philly.”

“Which will be so much help if you’re dragged into the swamp.”

“I can take care of myself, Detective.”

He didn’t answer, just signaled for another round. We were both going to be hopped up on sugar before this was through.

“Why did you call me?” I asked.

“I wanted to make sure you had a room. It didn’t occur to me last night that the city was filled to the brim.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Where were you going to suggest that I stay?”

“With me.”

Silence fell between us. Dull red crept up his neck. “I have an extra room.”

“That’s very nice of you,” I said. “You don’t even know me.”

“I checked you out.”

“Oh?” I wasn’t surprised. “And what did you find?”

“You’re exactly who you say you are. You’re single-minded in your devotion to finding your sister. No black marks on your record. You’d make a good cop.”

“Thanks.” For a man like him, who seemed to live and breathe his j ob, that had to be the highest praise.

“How did you end up in New Orleans?”

“You don’t think I’m from here?”

“No.”

“What gave me away?”

“Lack of an accent?”

“Maybe I got rid of it.”

“Why would you do that? You’ve got to take heat every day for being a Yankee.”

He shrugged. “More when I first came than now. People got used to me.”

In a city that had tallied more than its fair share of police corruption, Sullivan had to be an icon, or maybe a curiosity. In the wake of Katrina, at least fifteen percent of the NOPD had deserted their posts and many were caught looting. I doubted Sullivan had been one of them. I was certain that those who valued honesty and integrity and devotion to duty were able to overlook Sullivan’s lack of Southern charm.

“Did you have a chance to read the file?” he asked, neatly turning the subj ect away from himself.

“Yeah. Did you notice a pattern in the dates of the disappearances and deaths?”

“What kind of pattern?”

“I typed them into an astrological Web site.”

He straightened. “And?”

“Until six months ago, the maj ority of disappearances and deaths in New Orleans took place on the night of a full moon.”

“So you’re thinking we’ve got a werewolf?”

I snorted. “What?”

“Full moon, disappearances, deaths. Doesn’t that equal werewolf to you?”

“If I’m Lon Chaney Junior. You don’t actually think werewolves exist.”

“No, but there might be someone who does.”

“Someone who thinks he’s a werewolf?” I asked.

“It could happen.”

Not a bad theory, except—

“The full-moon connection falls apart about six months ago.”

“When Rodolfo showed up.”

“True. Except the full-moon madness stopp ed then.”

Sullivan grunted. “Weird shit has been going on around here for a long time. I told you there were several deaths by animal attack?”

“Uh-huh.”

“From what I’ve gathered, there’ve been whispers of wolves in and around this city for over a century.”

“A century,” I repeated dumbly.

“The wolves that have been seen are big—timber-wolf size, even though this climate doesn’t support timber wolves.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

He cast me a quick glance. “I’m just trying to tell you what I know.”

I waved my hand. “Lead on.” Into loony tunes land.

“A lot of the earlier reports were attributed to red wolves, which we had at one time, though they were declared extinct in the wild around nineteen eighty.”

“You’ve done your research.”

“Someone had to.”

“What about coyotes?”

“Those we have. They were brought in to deplete the nutria rat population in the swamp.”

“What’s a nutria rat?” It didn’t sound like anything I wanted to meet in a spooky, overgrown bog.

“Rodents that resemble beavers with a ratlike tail. They got out of hand a while back and had to be depleted.”

“Hence the coyotes. You think your animal deaths might have been them?”

“Coyotes don’t attack people.”

“And wolves do?”

“Not really, unless they’re starving or rabid.”

“Swell,” I muttered. Just what every big city needed—rabid wild animals run amok.

“After one of the animal attacks, when a swamp guide’s throat was torn out, I called in an expert.”

“What kind of expert?”

“Wolf hunter.”

I gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “Where the hell did you get one of those?”

“Department of Natural Resources.”

“Oh.” That made sense. “And then what happened?”

“Scary old German guy went hunting in the swamp for a few days.”

“Did he have an explanation for a wolf where one wasn’t supposed to be?”

“Said it happens all the time. People make pets of wild animals—usually get them when they’re little and cute. Then they grow into something not so little and far from cute, and they dump them. The animals can’t survive in the wild; they’re starving, but they also have no fear of humans, a bad combination.”

“Did the hunter find anything?”

“One wolf, which he killed.”

“And then?”

“Then we had another suspicious death by animal attack, but this time it was in the Quarter.”

I j olted. “A wolf came right into town?” That did not sound like any wolf I’d ever heard of.

“Not a wolf. A big cat.”

“I take it you’re not referring to a twenty-pound torn.”

“They don’t kill full-grown women. This had to be some kind of wildcat.”

“How do you know?”

“I had a zoologist look at the crime scene. The animal left spore. Marking territory as animals do.”

“Have you got wildcats in Louisiana?”

“Bobcats.”

I frowned. “They aren’t that big.”

“Big enough, and if the animal was rabid—”

“Then it would be violent and aggressive,” I finished.

“Exactly.”

I stared into his face. “But it wasn’t a bobcat, was it?”

Sullivan shook his head. “I had the spore analyzed. Leopard.”

“As in brown with black spots, not native to this country?”

“That would be the one.”

“You think someone had a pet?”

“Could be. We’ve seen the news stories of tigers turning up in Manhattan apartment buildings.”

I never had been able to figure out how people could be that stupid. Sure, a tiger cub is cute—all babies are—but they grow up, grow teeth, and then they turn on you.

“What happened after the death by leopard?”

“Nothing.” Sullivan’s shoulders slumped. “We never found the leopard—dead or alive.”

“Bummer.”

He shot me a glare. “There’ve been reports of wolves here and there. Always are.”

“People must mistake coyotes for wolves all the time.”

“Probably.”

“Did you ever confirm what kind of animal killed the other victims?”

“Not really.”

“I would think that would be something easy enough to figure out.”

“Probably. If the bodies didn’t keep disappearing.”

“You’ve got disappearing bodies.” I was starting to wonder how sane Sullivan was.

“Not disappearing exactly. They’re in the morgue, and then they’re not. Some are never seen again. Some are seen all over the place.” He cast me a quick glance. “You don’t believe me.”

“It does sound a little far-fetched.”

“I’ll get you a copy of the reports.”

I stared into his eyes for several seconds, then shook my head. “That’s not necessary.”

Why would he lie? Why would he offer to get me reports if there weren’t any reports to get? And if there were, that made the disappearing, reappearing dead people true.

The jukebox in the corner changed tunes with a thunk and a slow metallic whir. As if on cue, Patsy Cline began to sing “Crazy,” and Sullivan snorted. “My boss actually sent me to the local voodoo priestess to see if she knew anything about the bodies.”

“Cassandra?” I asked.

His gaze sharpened. “You know her?”

“Heard of her. She seems to have quite the rep around here.”

“She seems to show up a lot when things get weird, but I guess that’s to be expected.”

“What did the priestess say when you confronted her?”

“She denied raising any zombies.”

My eyes widened. “I thought we were talking about werewolves.”

“Zombies. Werewolves.” Sullivan rubbed between his eyes. “This place messes with your head.”

“Did you ever find any of the bodies that disappeared?”

“One.” He dropped his hand. “Turned up barbecued in St. Louis Number One.”

I’d walked past that cemetery at the edge of the French Quarter. Since New Orleans is below sea level —a fact everyone learned too well in August of 2005—citizens are buried inside brick monuments known as ovens. All those chalk-white markers and above-ground tombs were pretty creepy, but they didn’t explain a barbecued corpse.

“You lost me,” I admitted.

“Body disappears, a day or so later we’ve got two flaming corpses in St. Louis Number One. DNA tests revealed one to be our missing victim.”

“And the other?”

“A recently deceased elderly woman who’d been buried a few days before.”

“Cult?” I asked.

“Maybe. Hell, probably. Voodoo is rampant around here.”

“From what I’ve heard, voodoo isn’t a cult.”

“Not usually, but who’s to say what some nut might make it into?”

He had a point. Take a person on the edge of reason, combine with a religion that walked the line between natural and supernatural, and you might come up with a body-stealing cult.

Sullivan finished his soft drink, then set down the empty glass with a click. “There’s something going on just below the surface,” he murmured. “Like a whole other world exists that most people aren’t aware of.”

I frowned. Now who sounded crazy?