Garden of Bone: Book 6, page 27
When Walter's texts had slowed to a trickle and finally stopped, she'd said, "Goodnight,” and signed off. He hadn’t told her about the man in the alley, either. He didn’t want to do it over texts, or even the phone. So instead of saying anything, he had said he was going to sleep.
But it still didn't happen.
His mind roiled with ideas as pieces of Eleri’s case churned through his thoughts. He realized it was time he started to treat this as a real case. He was no longer just helping out a friend. He was investigating. So, he did what they did best when they got a new case, and he laid everything out in order. Then he began clicking it together.
One—they had met Darcelle Dauphine, who had a knife made from human bone. There were missing human bones from the children he and Eleri had dug up in the cemetery.
He had no idea—and he made a mental note to ask Eleri—if the bone-handled knife in the shop had been made from a child’s bone. His best guess was that it hadn’t. Eleri most likely would have told him, because if would have been even more shocking if the knife handle was part of a child. So he would ask her, but he thought he knew the answer.
He moved to the second piece of evidence they had—a cemetery with at least ten patches of turned earth. Three of those sites—the only three they had dug—had contained human bones. Children’s bones, or at least those of minors.
They had not yet had a chance to dig the other seven patches that they found. Still, right now, at one-hundred percent of the sites where the earth was unsettled, there had been the decomposed body of a child. That was unsettling. He could only assume the other seven sites also had bones. Statistically, it made sense.
He was glad Eleri had turned in the locations of the un-dug sites to the agent at the FBI, along with the file boxes full of human bones they’d collected. Donovan suspected the cemetery might even now be crawling with agents. It might already have yellow tape wrapped around the corners and crossing the gates, cautioning anyone who dared to enter.
He almost thought it was funny. It was likely he and Eleri were the only ones who had dared.
He tugged his thoughts to the next piece of evidence and clicked it into place with an almost audible snap from his mind. They had found the cemetery by tracing Cabot's movements. Cabot had gone to the cemetery so often that he was willing to incur parking tickets for those visits. Not a big bit of willingness, Donovan amended. As apparently, Cabot wasn't paying the fines, so it wasn’t too great a risk.
Click. Another piece snapped into place. Cabot led them back to Darcelle Dauphine and the younger sisters, Gisele and Lafae. Were all the Dauphine sisters in league with Cabot and his brother Carson? Donovan made another mental note that they thought Cameron was involved—but what about the fourth brother? Where was he?
At least according to Eleri, it wasn’t clear if Darcelle, the second oldest Dauphine sister, was in cahoots with the younger two. Still, just because they hadn’t seen it, didn’t mean he could set the idea aside, either. There was no evidence either for or against it, so he couldn't count it out.
Next piece. Click. Grandmere had said the other big family in town was the Dauphine family. She’d said this before Eleri even knew that the woman she was speaking to in the shop was a Dauphine, before she knew the Dauphines had knives with human bone handles.
The facts made a big circle when he looked at them that way. It also meant the likelihood was that the Dauphine family—or someone close to them—had been kidnapping children over the years and using them for bloodletting.
That sounded bizarre as shit, he thought, his eyes still trained on the weird swirls in the ceiling. If someone had mentioned this to him even two short years ago, he would've laughed them off the planet. He, a man who'd known for several decades, that he could snap his bones in a series of double-jointed moves, roll his shoulders, stretch his feet a certain way, watch the hair on his arms stand up and thicken, and become what looked like, basically, a wolf—he would have laughed these people off of the street.
Westerfield and his FBI unit had certainly made Donovan think differently. He wasn't sure he appreciated it, but the scientist in him did appreciate knowing everything possible.
Since there was nothing more he could do about his situation now but accept it, he left it at that. Finally starting to get tired, he felt his eyelids closing and the ceiling growing dimmer. As he drifted off, he decided they needed to meet with Darcelle one more time.
55
Once again, Eleri had slept like the dead. It was a phrase she was beginning to think was not inappropriate, in this situation. She'd risen, the hour late, the night long, and met up with Donovan and Grandmere as they polished off breakfast. Of course, there was a plate waiting for her.
Eleri wondered how Donovan was doing. He’d gotten up before her, despite the fact that she'd heard him rolling around on his bed until the moment she’d fallen asleep. But she'd passed out so quickly, she had no idea how much longer he’s stayed awake.
She’d desperately needed every hour of sleep she’d stolen from the night. It had been a physically taxing day and an emotionally trying one, too. She knew she might have just handed away her ability to find her own sister. Agent Almasi had agreed to keep her out of it and claim that he’d been given the bones and the tip from an anonymous source. Still, she was pretty certain there was no way anyone of reasonable intelligence would not connect her to the bones that had turned up. Who else in this town could—or would—dig bodies out of shallow graves with such professional precision?
She wondered if the cemetery was now crawling with FBI agents. When she asked Donovan what he thought, he laughed, saying he’d figured that out last night probably around one a.m.
“Why wait for morning light?” he’d asked her.
Then she’d eaten her breakfast as she listened to him talk all the little pieces together, the same pieces she'd clicked. Good. They lined up in their thinking. She was comforted that they had independently arrived at the same conclusions. Though, that might be a mistake. Maybe they thought the same because they’d been in each other’s pockets for so long. In the end, she agreed they needed to go back to Mystic Vudu.
It was time to confront Darcelle Dauphine.
Her stomach turned, the heavy breakfast sitting like a rock as they parked the car down the street and walked in. It felt odd to her—almost at odds with their purpose—to be coming back here.
This was the one piece of work that Agent Almasi could not finish up. He might look at the Dauphine sisters and see a cult and a weird belief in the paranormal, but Eleri saw action. Eleri saw things that had actually happened, not just based on her belief. And not just murder. Still, after they’d worked so hard using Grandmere’s spells, trying to stay off the radar, it seemed wrong to walk right into the store.
If she’d had her way, she would have arrived as the store opened. But now, doing that would mean waiting until tomorrow, and she didn't want to wait. So they were here now, in the late morning, with tourists roaming up and down the streets as she and Donovan pulled open the door and let the air conditioning wash over them.
With the cool air came a breath of awareness. Darcelle Dauphine must have known the moment they entered the store. It took only as many seconds as it took heartbeats for her to appear in the doorway and ask, "Eleri, Donovan, what brings you back?"
Eleri almost shouted at her, "Where is my sister? What did you do with her?" But Donovan's hand, lightly clasping around the small bones of her wrist, stayed her.
Luckily, he was doing the right thing. Perhaps he'd smelled others in the shop or heard them. Regardless, Eleri hadn't noticed if they were alone. Perhaps that was why Darcelle Dauphine's opening conversation had perhaps been so generic.
Two men and a woman were rattling about in the back room. At least, that was what Eleri could see through the archway. Darcelle raised an eyebrow at her and turned away from them to wait on her customers.
Frustrated, Eleri roamed the shop. It took two rooms before she realized she already knew what was in here and nothing had changed. But what she wanted to know about was the knives. She wandered through to the last room to see that several of the knives she’d seen on her first visit had gone missing. Perhaps sold, perhaps taken home for personal use. New ones filled the gaps they left behind.
Donovan pointed to one of the replacements, which looked like the end of a femur. Eleri examined it more closely. It took only a moment to lift it and assess that it was a resin cast model, not an actual bone. In low tones, she said to so Donovan.
"Shit," he whispered. "It looks good."
"It does," Eleri agreed. She pointed to small spots where the bone had pock marks, rubbed dark with some kind of stain. The piece had been aged to look like it had been in the ground for some time. Even the way the edges were chipped and splintered made it look more real.
Eleri picked it up again then and gave another look. It was just resin. She did not doubt that initial assessment, but as she twisted it in the light checking all the angles, she became more and more convinced that it was a resin cast of an actual bone.
She pointed out features to Donovan. "I can't imagine an artist would carve this," she said, pointing to the kinds of pock marks and defects that one might find on a real bone.
Donovan had tilted his head, trying to get a better angle himself. "Do you think it's here to throw us off? Maybe to make us think you didn’t actually see a human bone the first time—or to discredit us?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, her brows pulling together.
"Well," he whispered, his head still occasionally tilting to listen to Darcelle chatting up the customers in the other room. Certainly, he heard it better than she did, so Eleri merely continued the conversation, trusting his judgment not to lead her off track. "I mean," he said, "that if we come back later and claim that there were human bone knives here ..."
Eleri caught on. "Then they pull this out and say, 'No, it's just resin, it's a big seller’ or something ..."
He nodded. It would make them look like fools. But the fact was, Eleri knew the other knife had truly been bone. She also knew that, if it came down to it, it would merely be her word versus theirs on the witness stand—and she didn't like that.
They waited almost thirty minutes, browsing the shop and acting like patrons while her nerves ratcheted up. Another set of customers had wandered in off the street just as Darcelle had rung up the previous ones. Eleri held her patience on a taut wire while the woman sold these next two—two very young women—books on witchcraft and Haitian voodoo.
As she thanked them and watched them leave, it was Eleri who ushered them out the door. She had decided, if anyone else tried to come in, she would pretend she worked here and push them out. Instead, she merely walked to the door and flipped the sign to "closed" while Darcelle once again raised an eyebrow.
"What is it that you want, little witch?" the woman asked, her dark skin gleaming, her teeth white in what wasn't quite a smile.
Eleri started with a softball question. "Where is the bone-handle knife?"
Darcelle shrugged at her. "I don't know what you are talking about."
"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Eleri replied, her tone calm, not even having reached mother-to-toddler level yet.
"Perhaps I sold it," Darcelle said, and Eleri was grateful for all her FBI training.
It did not take any witchcraft to see the micro-expression in the woman's face—the twitch of her cheekbone near her eye, the slight tick in her jaw. Darcelle Dauphine had not sold the bone-handled knife and her face revealed the truth. Eleri only smiled.
"All right then, enjoy your little lie," she offered, and watched the tick appear again as Darcelle found she was caught, but still didn't say anything. Eleri lobbed something a little harder next. "It's my understanding that your friend Cabot keeps ..." She almost said "racking up parking tickets," but as of yet—and she didn't know what Darcelle knew—she’d not revealed that she was a federal agent. There was no clear way for her to know about Cabot’s nasty little habit without some kind of legal access. She wasn't quite ready to play that card yet.
So she rephrased, wondering if Darcelle also might read her micro expressions or even the hitch in her phrase. "… that Cabot has been visiting a cemetery over on Villere street quite frequently."
Darcelle tipped her head, the same eyebrow going up, and Eleri watched as she continued talking.
"Interesting little thing there." Perhaps she shouldn't be giving this information away, she thought, but she had. She'd already given it away once to the FBI and she was ready to give it away again. While it might hinder the FBI's case, she did it because she thought it would help her own, and she was dedicated to finding Emmaline now.
"The interesting thing is that we found a grave for Nellie McKenzie Burke."
Darcelle crossed her arms as though the story bored her, and no micro expressions gave anything away.
"We found several other graves"—Eleri didn't list the number—“that had freshly turned earth. And when we dug them up, we found human skeletons, Darcelle. Children. We found children buried on top of existing graves."
Darcelle was trying to play it cool, but slowly, while Eleri had spoken, she'd lost her natural stance, her movements becoming stiff and finally still as Eleri talked.
"I don't know what your family has been doing, Darcelle, but I do know that you'll go down with them. I have only one question for you. Where is my sister?"
She said it as a demand. Darcelle was stock still, seemingly unaware of what had hit her. Eleri was not prepared for the return question.
"What, witch? You want your sister?" Darcelle snarled. "First, you tell me—where is mine?"
56
Eleri felt the air crackle between them.
She hadn't thought of her own power in this situation until it was obviously spreading out around her and sparking off an equal or greater power from Darcelle.
It took her a moment to gather her voice and her thoughts. "What do you mean, your sister? I came to find mine."
Darcelle's eyes narrowed. "I don't care what you came to find, little witch. I have my own problems."
Eleri almost laughed out loud. She believed not only that Darcelle had her own problems but that she caused them. She was not sure that her negative opinion wasn't showing across her face, even as she did try her best to hide it.
There was another pause as the air cracked and sparked. Donovan’s gaze volleyed back and forth between the two women. He looked as if he was about to step between them to create a physical barrier, to stop whatever was going on. He tried instead to become the voice of reason.
"Let's wait a moment," he said to Eleri, and then turned to the other woman. "Tell us about your sister, Darcelle."
As Eleri heard his voice break the tension, she thought what a good idea it was. She had been so stunned and so angry, she wouldn't have been able to think of it herself. Perhaps they could get Darcelle to give up some of the information without playing their own hands in return.
"Is it still Alesse who is missing?" Donovan pushed.
Eleri realized then that he had let Darcelle know, by his very words, that they knew about her sisters. Had he meant to do that? She wouldn’t have given up their knowledge so fast, but she hoped he had some ulterior motive.
It probably wasn't a shock to Darcelle that Donovan knew at least what Eleri knew. For a moment, the woman paused and looked as though she wasn't going to say anything. Eleri wondered about that. Had the original question about her sister just slipped out of her mouth? Was it even true? Had she simply bantered back to Eleri?
Slowly, a pout formed on Darcelle's features. Her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed. And at last, she said in low tones, "Yes, Alesse."
The oldest, Eleri thought but didn’t say out loud. Then, gathering her wits and thinking before she spoke this time, she asked, "Is this what you were talking about before? How long has she been gone?"
So, she hadn’t disappeared at the age of eight, like Eleri's own sister. Alesse had been accounted for even recently by the reports she and Donovan had pulled from the FBI and local police force databases. Still, she did not mention all that she knew to Darcelle.
"Yes.” Darcelle nodded and added, “One week."
"Are you concerned about her?"
Darcelle shrugged slightly. Eleri found it hard to tell if Darcelle wasn't concerned because she believed nothing bad had happened to her sister or if she wasn't concerned because she simply didn't care what might have befallen Alesse. Eleri stared, waiting, still hoping to drag the silence out and force the other woman's hand. It only worked so well.
"Tell me about your sister," Darcelle demanded softly. Quid pro quo.
Eleri realized the woman wasn't going to be quite so easy to play. She looked to Donovan, wondering if he had any ideas on how to proceed. His return expression was subtle, but it told her to do as she thought best.
Eleri opened up and cut her own wound a little bit deeper. "My sister disappeared when she was eight years old. I'm confident she lived to be seventeen before she died. And I'm confident that she wound up here."
Darcelle nodded, as though none of this was surprising—not that Eleri's sister had gone missing at such a young age, had stayed alive so long after, or even that she herself was looking like one of the prime suspects. None of it seemed to faze her, which almost fazed Eleri.
Eleri pushed back. "Tell me about Alesse. What happened when she went missing last week?"
Darcelle nodded, knowing it was her turn. "Her room looked like it had been tossed," she said, the accent coming through again, the words both crisp and lilting, almost as though the language itself was magical.
