The Hoodoo Detective (8 page)

“How long did he live here?”

“Bought the place five years ago.”

A tug beneath her solar plexus drew her through a door, down a hall, and she found the kitchen – slate-tile floors and white cabinets, black quartz countertops flecked with blue. Her skin buzzed, a ripple of magic – dark and light. She checked under the sink, pulled out a box. “Roach chalk.”

Wolfe backed up against the Dutch door, camera to his eye.

Short bagged the box. “Doesn't make him a hoodoo practitioner. Or tie him to the other murder.”

“No,” she agreed.

“And if he was into hoodoo, wouldn't he keep the chalk with his other magic stuff?”

“You found other magic stuff?”

He shook his head.

She looked inside the refrigerator. It, at least, was well stocked. Beer, eggs, expensive cheese, butter. The freezer was packed with frozen dinners. Riga opened a tall cupboard. A spice rack had been built into the door. Rows of glass jars filled with herbs and powders ran from top to bottom. She turned the jars, reading the labels.

Dirk strolled into the kitchen, cameraman in tow. “Was he cooking up anything spooky?”

“Parsley, sage, rosemary, rue, angelica root, calamus root, silverweed... I think we've found our hoodoo paraphernalia,” she said.

Dirk shrugged. “Herbs? So the guy liked to cook. I'll bet you could find the same stuff in my kitchen.”

“Potassium nitrate?” Riga lifted out a jar of white powder. “I might believe that if his freezer wasn't packed with frozen meals. The only thing this guy was cooking up was hoodoo tricks and jinxes.”

Dirk shrugged. “Sounds thin to me.”

Remnants of past magic sparked through the kitchen, raising the hair on her arms. “It's
The Purloined Letter
– he hid the evidence in plain sight, where no one would think to look.”

“Purloined letter?” Sam walked into the kitchen.

“An Edgar Allan Poe story,” she said, knowing he already knew the answer. But the cameras were rolling, and she had to explain for the audience. “One of the first detective stories. You could say Poe started the genre of the hero private investigator.”

“Now you're just showing off,” Dirk said.

“What's potassium nitrate used for?” Detective Short asked.

“It's also known as saltpeter,” Riga said. “And it's a common ingredient in hoodoo magic, though it can also be used for preserving food. But put together with these other ingredients, this looks like a hoodoo kitchen.”

“But you said it could be used for preserving,” Dirk said. “Maybe he liked making jam.”

“Find me some jam, and we'll talk.” Riga stalked past him, found the hallway and a curving staircase.

Detective Long leaned over the upstairs banister and peered down at her. “Bedrooms are up here.”

“Find anything?” She climbed the stairs, Wolfe at her heels.

Long pointed at an open door.

Wolfe followed her inside a pastel blue bedroom with white molding. The furniture was heavy, antique, but simple in design.

She trailed her fingers across the rough, white coverlet, and caught a flash of tangled bodies – black and white – of sweat, of sex.

The walk-in closet was half empty and held only men's clothing. She extended her senses, but felt nothing more – no tugs of magic, no premonitions, no chills or changes in air pressure that might signal the introduction of the supernatural, another world.

Slowly, Riga walked to the tiled bathroom. The shower door was clear glass, heavy, expensive. On the soap dish was a pink razor.

“There was a woman here,” she called over her shoulder.

Long materialized in the doorway beside Wolfe, and the cameraman took two steps back, trying to capture a better angle.

She pointed at the razor.

“Maybe he liked to shave in the shower,” the detective said.

The cell phone in her pocket buzzed. She drew it out. A message from Donovan: FLIGHT DELAYED. ON MY WAY. BE SAFE.

Riga stared at the text, chest weighted. She cleared her throat. “There's no mirror in the shower. That's a woman's razor.”

I'LL BE WAITING, she texted back.

She returned to the bedroom, opened the bureau drawers. The right drawers were empty. The left were filled with men's socks and briefs.

Long's footsteps were muffled on the thick rug. “Any signs of the occult?”

“Not here.” She went to the window and stared out at the street. The hoodoo hit man had confined his activities to the kitchen. Easier cleanup, and the stove was there. It was what she'd have done, though she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually brewed a potion. A jar of salt set in moonlight to cure was as far as she usually went in that direction. “Why am I here?”

“What do you mean?” Long asked.

“I don't understand why you've brought me here. You didn't seem to put much stock in the hoodoo hit man theory.”

“Not until I learned Turotte was at the restaurant where he died.”

“At the... The hanging victim was there? When the hit man was killed?”

“We don't know he was a hit man.”

“He said he was.”

“People say they're a lot of things.”

“He wasn't lying about the hoodoo,” Riga said. “The man who attacked me in the hotel, did he say what he was after?”

“He's not talking. Probably just a mugger.” Long gazed at the bed. “No wife, no kids. What a crummy life.”

The room suddenly felt close. “I need some air.” She walked downstairs, onto the front porch. Two kids rolled past on skateboards, wheels rattling, dreadlocks flying behind them.

A male voice whip-cracked. “Riga!” The bodyguard, Ash, strode through the gate. If there was such a thing as a perfect body, Ash had it. Impossibly tall, with long, powerful muscles, he took the three steps to the porch in one stride.

His toffee-color eyes flashed with annoyance, a spark against his dark skin. “You shouldn't be out here, not alone.”

Wolfe opened the door, stuck his head out.

“I wasn't alone,” she said.

Ash flicked a dismissive gaze over the cameraman, but he extended a hand to Wolfe.

“Good to see you again,” Wolfe said.

Ash grunted a response.

Wolfe shifted the camera on his shoulder. “So what brings you to New Orleans?”

Ash jerked his head toward Riga.

“Not everyone on the crew knows,” Riga said. “We've actually joined up with another reality show,
Mean Streets
—”

The bodyguard's eyes lit. “Not with Dirk Steele?”

“Yeah,” Wolfe said. “He's inside the house.”

“No shit. Dirk Steele.” Ash looked longingly toward the door.

“Come on in.” Riga sighed. “I'll introduce you.” She wasn't sure how. If Dirk knew she'd brought a bodyguard, he'd either laugh his ass off or throw a tantrum because he didn't have one.
Mean Streets
had gotten her into two crime scenes possibly connected to the Old Man, and she didn't want to lose access.

Inside the foyer, Ash stopped, whistled.

Sam hurried downstairs, his chinos making swishing sounds as the hems brushed together. “Ash! Thanks for coming.” He gave Riga a significant look. “I wasn't sure when you'd arrive, but I've told the crew you'll be hanging around until that little problem with my ex resolves itself.”

One corner of Riga's lips crooked upward in rueful admiration. Sam had anticipated the potential problems with Dirk and provided his own cover story for Ash's presence. But that was why he was the field producer. He knew how to manage people, keep things running smoothly. It was a talent she admired. Diplomacy had never been her strong point.

Dirk and Detective Short strode from the living room. Dirk's cameraman hurried around them, camera glued to his eye.

“There's been another murder,” the detective said, catching Riga's eye. “This time in the French Quarter. It's occult, like Turotte's. You up for this?”

Riga took an involuntary step back, a coldness striking her core. “Are you sure?”

Dirk's mouth twisted. “I think we'd know a murder.”

“I meant about the occult connection.” The Old Man couldn't have struck again, so soon, not when she'd been watching his hotel all night.

Long trotted down the stairs. “Decapitation. The head was put on an altar of sorts. Same weird symbols.”

Riga swallowed, her throat thickening.

Another murder.

And she'd done nothing to stop it.

It wasn't her fault.

Trudging up the brick walk, her legs dragged, weighted. The house stood two stories high, a cube sandwiched between two homes too close for Riga’s taste. Wrought iron balconies sheltered its faded green shutters. Police cars lined the street. In the fading twilight, their red and blue lights blazed a garish trail across the building's golden pink walls.

A dead man waited inside. And somehow, the Old Man was involved. She'd pointed the police toward him, but they needed evidence, a connection.

She had neither.

The air, thick with dampness, gripped her, slowing her pace. She wiped her forehead, leaving a glossy trail of sweat and makeup on the back of her hand.

“You look pale,” Dirk said, his bare arm brushing hers. “If you can't handle it, you don't have to go in.”

“I can handle it.” She gathered energy from the above, below, and in between, imagined it hardening, a bubble-like shield around her. But guilt weakened her focus. She sensed the cracks.

A man walked out the front door. Halting on the top step, he jammed a cigarette in his mouth, didn't light it. His five o'clock shadow was a dirty snowscape, flecked gray and white. He looked Riga over. “You the consultant?”

She nodded. “Are you the man in charge?”

“Yes ma'am,” he drawled.

Long and Short shook hands with him. “Afternoon, Chief,” Short said.

The chief glanced at the darkening sky. “Night's more like it.” He jabbed a finger at Riga and Dirk. “You two can come in. No cameras.”

The field producers sputtered.

“No cameras?” Sam asked.

Dirk's forehead creased. “Without video, it's like it never happened.”

“I wish it hadn't,” the chief said. Turning his back on them, he returned inside.

Long shrugged. “You heard the man. No cameras. And no audio.”

Riga unclipped the black box from the back of her waistband. Detaching the microphone from her blouse, she handed it to Angus.

His round face wrinkled in a frown.

Ash stepped forward.

“And no extras.” Long glanced at Sam. “Stay out here with your client.” He followed the chief inside.

The muscles bulged in Ash's neck and shoulders, and he opened his mouth to argue.

Riga touched his arm. “It's okay,” she said beneath her breath. “The place is surrounded by cops.”

“Cops don't prevent crime,” Ash said. “They're just the cleanup crew.”

She shook her head.

“Ladies first.” Dirk bowed, making an after-you motion with his hand.

Dark magic, the scent of rot and blood, oozed through the front door. Her stomach roiled. A drop of sweat stung her eyes. She closed them, taking a breath, imagining the shield around her filling with golden light. The image faded, her shield splintering.

This would be bad.

“Having second thoughts?” Dirk asked.

“None.” She walked inside and air conditioning blasted her, raising gooseflesh.

In the distance, a dog barked in an endless, steady rhythm. The interior was modern, high-ceilinged, with glossy white walls and black furniture.

Dark magic, sickly sweet, tugged at her, pulling her in all directions but the one she wanted – out the front door. She ached with a fever, felt a strong pull to her right. Feet leaden, she allowed herself to be drawn to a black-painted curio cabinet in the foyer. Metal implements, thumbscrews, a leather-bound
Malleus Maleficarum
– the witch hunter's bible – open to a woodcut of a woman on a pyre. The objects weren't magic, but they were cursed, haunted. She couldn't imagine keeping them in her house.

“Okay,” Dirk said from behind her. “That's creepy as hell. What are those things?”

The chief appeared at their elbow. “The victim collected this crap – old instruments of torture.”

“Fun hobby,” Riga said.

“Yeah.” The chief worried the unlit cigarette between his fleshy lips. “Well, it got him in the end. They tell you it was a decapitation?”

She nodded.

“I hear it's not your first.”

Her shoulders twitched. There'd been another case, not quite a year ago. “You talked to the cops at Tahoe.”

“It's the only reason you're here. This way.”

He led them into a living room, black and white and red. For a moment, she thought a decorator had broken the monochrome color scheme, and then realized what she'd been resisting. Blood was splashed across the white walls and throw rug like a sick Jackson Pollock painting. Shiny spots of blood flecked the black leather couches. And in one corner stood a guillotine, the headless body of a man squatting behind it. Blood trailed across its blade.

Her stomach turned over, lunch pushing its way up her throat. She looked up, struggling for control. Blood dripped from the vaulted ceiling.

The dog kept barking.

“A guillotine?” Dirk choked out. He looked as green as Riga felt.

“It belonged to the victim,” the chief said.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“Jordan Marks. Trust fund baby. His head's over there.” He pointed.

Riga forced herself forward. A black, side table sat against one wall. On it, black taper candles burned low. Had the killer brought them? Or were they part of the victim's decorating scheme?

She took in the details, trying to separate them from the whole, trying not to look at the head centered between the candles. Blood pooled around the severed neck, and tarot cards had been laid in a circle around it. Symbols had been painted in blood on the cards.

“These are the same symbols as those from the prior murder,” Riga said.

“You said they spelled out a demon's name,” Short said. “Is it the same?”

“Yes,” she said. “Nwyrk. According to my research, he grants power – physical, magical, social.”

“So our murderer is killing for power?” Short asked. “Why'd he cut this one's head off?”