The Stalking, page 7
“Billy sounds like an interesting guy. Would I have known him or his family?”
“He wasn’t here long. His dad was working for one of the oil companies. I think they came from Ohio, and his father was transferred somewhere else in just a few years. I believe I saw somewhere that he’s working in Seattle now.”
“So, he’s not likely our monster today,” Andre said. She wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking or not.
The drive from the heart of the city out to New Iberia and up to the plantation and cemetery just outside of Broussard took almost two and a half hours.
Maybe a little less—with Andre driving.
But when they arrived, it was still afternoon. Sun flowed over the landscape: the great trees dripping moss waved in the breeze, the crumbling stone wall, the house shimmering up on its little hill—and the cemetery, haunting, even by sunlight.
“Where to begin?” she wondered. Then she looked over at him. “I could just call Mr. Justine, you know. Get keys and permission to look around.”
He looked at her. “You know him that well? And what if he refuses?”
“I don’t know him well, but my parents did,” Cheyenne told him. “I grew up on the edge of New Iberia, almost up here by the plantation. Small-town atmosphere all-around. I think he’d be willing to help, especially if he’s innocent. I don’t see any funerals going on. Arrangements are by appointment only, so...”
“You have a number?”
Cheyenne laughed softly. “He still owns the place, so he’s listed!”
They got out of the car. She watched as Andre leaped up easily on the stone wall by the road where he’d parked. He was looking out over the property.
Emil Justine answered Cheyenne’s call with, “Justine Plantation Mortuary Home and Cemetery. How may I help you?”
“Mr. Justine, this is Cheyenne Donegal. I don’t know if you remember me, but you know my mom and dad, Genevieve and Robert Donegal.”
“Of course, dear, I knew your old English dad well—a fine bowler!”
Technically, her father’s lineage was Irish, but if you weren’t of Cajun descent out here, you were pretty much always “English.” Her mother’s family had been from the area as long as anyone could remember—and as long as any records showed.
“Oh,” he said softly on the other end. “I hope you’re not calling to ask about an interment?”
“No, nothing like that...” She plunged in. Of course, he remembered the terrible incidences involving Ryan Lassiter—how could any of them forget?
She went on as quickly and sweetly as she could about her job now.
And about the new murders.
He was immediately ready to help. “I’ve heard—the nation has heard about what’s happened. You know, I’ve been hanging up on a lot of people, all wanting to know if my great-great-grandfather had been the Rougarou! You get in there and search all you like, young lady. Haven’t been out to the property myself in ages... Got a man, Guy Mason, keeping up the place for me now. Not getting any younger, you know.”
“May I get keys to all the buildings?” Cheyenne asked.
He chuckled and told her, “Broussard.”
“You’re...living in Broussard?” she asked.
“The Broussard tomb—you know it. Finest in the place. We have some of the long-ago Broussard family in there, and not so long ago, too. The gate won’t look open, but it is. Twist the handle three times. There’s a little altar in the middle, family all around. The keys are under the altar, beneath a box of votive candles. You let me know right away if you find anything, of course?”
“We will,” she promised. “Thank you so much.”
She came around the car. Andre was still standing on the stone wall. He looked down, and she thought that he would reach out a hand to help her up. But after the way she had fallen asleep on his sofa, she was determined to prove herself independently competent. She leaped up easily. Then she hopped down the other side and started walking toward the cemetery. She did know exactly where to find the Broussard tomb.
He followed. “Hey, did you have a problem? Are we breaking into tombs?” he asked.
She smiled and kept walking, turning down one of the cemetery paths.
She reached out with a gentle touch to acknowledge as they passed by the tomb with the name Dumas prominent atop the archway.
The Broussard tomb didn’t date all the way back to the 1700s, as some in the graveyard did. While Broussard family members had been living and dying in the area since the first Cajuns had arrived, the tomb itself had been built about 1826, following the manner of many created in New Orleans when St. Louis No. 1 became busy with yellow fever burials and the Our Lady of Guadalupe—the Chapel of St. Anthony of Padua, back then—had been built as a mortuary chapel to accommodate the dead who were bound there just a street over. It was definitely the most spectacular in the plantation cemetery, built to accommodate the dead of generations, with a massive statue of St. Anthony over the ironwork door and large plaque stating the name “Broussard.”
The gate appeared to be locked, but by twisting the handle three times—as Emil Justine had instructed—she opened it.
Many tombs didn’t actually have mausoleum-like interiors. They were simply large enough to accommodate coffins on shelves, with chambers at the rear to collect the ashes and bones. In the intense heat, “a year and a day” was the required time for a body to naturally cremate and be pushed back to allow for the newly dead.
But the Broussard tomb was a massive structure, and the gate gave way to a small area and the altar Justine had mentioned. She ducked down—with Andre still watching her, bemused—and found the box of votive candles.
The bottom was hollow, and there was a set of keys beneath it, just as she’d been told. She turned around and dangled them before Andre.
“Beats leaving them under the doormat, I guess,” he said. He looked around the tomb. “Well, there’s nothing for us in here, at any rate. You’ve got the keys, so you call the direction.”
“Start at the house and move onward?” As she spoke, she noted from the corner of her eye that they weren’t alone; her cousin Janine was peeking in from the iron gate.
Christian was right behind her.
In school, she might have been the überpopular chick and he might have been the nerd, pining away as he looked upon others.
In death, they had become inseparable.
Once, Janine had told Cheyenne that she didn’t really like “haunting” the graveyard; there were plenty of other places to be, places that recalled happiness, rather than the sorrow of death.
But Janine somehow managed to be at the cemetery anytime Cheyenne was there.
Cheyenne narrowed her eyes at the ghost of her cousin. She was just beginning to gain some credibility with this man. Now, being haunted could ruin it all.
“What did I say?” Andre asked her.
“Pardon?”
“You are fiercely frowning.”
“Sorry—just my thoughts on the whole thing,” Cheyenne said.
He smiled, turned and headed out.
She went after him.
And Janine, grinning, followed her, with Christian at her side.
“Well, well, well, what is going on here?” Janine teased. “The man gives a whole new meaning to ‘tall, dark and handsome.’” She made a growling sound, like a she-tiger.
Christian had obviously been learning some of Janine’s sass. “Butter my butt and call me a biscuit!” he declared. “Now, he is hot. If I weren’t straight, I’d want to be all over that boy like bees to honey.”
Cheyenne lengthened her stride, heading for the house. She could do without being ribbed by a pair of teenagers at that moment.
They still followed. Janine should know better; she knew what Cheyenne did for a living. She’d told Cheyenne she was often almost saddened by it, thinking her cousin might have done happier work if it hadn’t been for what had happened to her.
“I know him!” Christian said suddenly. “He was around here when he was younger—went off to high school in New Orleans. He was here the day...”
“The day I entered my dear family tomb,” Janine finished. “He was the one who went after Ryan Lassiter along with Jimmy Mercury. Is he a cop, too? Sorry, an agent?”
Cheyenne kept walking.
“And you’re out here...now,” Janine said. “What’s going on?”
“We haven’t seen anything...other than the usual,” Christian told her. “People coming and going, bringing flowers...and bodies coming. They go around back. There’s a drive that goes to the basement—it really is a basement. Guess the house is high enough on that little hill.”
“But when he took me...” Janine said, but didn’t seem able to continue. “But Lassiter is dead. I went to the execution. Call me vengeful.”
Cheyenne wanted to stop. She wanted to ask the two of them to think, and think hard. Had people been coming and going from any of the support buildings? Had anyone come with a body, not arriving by hearse or ambulance?
But she knew them both, especially her cousin. If Janine could help stop a killer, she would. Not that Christian wouldn’t do the same, but Janine had had all the hopes and dreams of a promising young woman stolen by such a man; she’d been tortured and killed by one.
And she stayed behind because life had been so viciously stolen from her, and she would want to stop it from happening to others.
When they reached the house, Cheyenne keyed the door open and then paused, looking at Andre.
“Perhaps we’d be better served if we split up. I have the keys. I can go to the outbuildings and start going through them methodically.”
And if she left him, she could talk to her dead cousin.
“Wait. Let’s do the house together. Once we’re done here, we can split up for the outbuildings.”
He was already walking past her. She winced and turned and frowned fiercely at Janine and Christian again.
The ground floor of the house had been split into three viewing chambers. Cheyenne didn’t think that there had ever been three viewings at the mortuary at one time—ever. But since the family had chosen not to live in the house anymore—maybe they weren’t all that happy about living in a “city of the dead”—the whole of the old mansion had been turned over to the business.
The entry was grand with a curving staircase leading up to a gallery hallway and the second floor. The viewing rooms had names—not particularly imaginative ones: the White Room, the Silver Room and the Gold Room. Two were to the right of the grand entry, and one to the left. Cheyenne knew that behind the White Room—the one to the left—the kitchen remained; the mortuary was quick to provide water and coffee for guests.
Andre was headed into the Silver Room on the right. Cheyenne walked briskly toward the opposite side, a stern glance warning her cousin’s ghost to follow her there. There were chairs arranged around a bier where a coffin would lie; a kneeling pew was before it. The room was beautifully draped with white curtains, peaceful and lovely. There were no cupboards in the room and it was easy to see that it was empty.
She quickly spun around to accost Janine and Christian. “I’m working!” she whispered tensely. “Please, this man seems to finally be taking me semiseriously, and I was so tired I babbled nonstop when we were first alone. Please, please, don’t make him question my sanity now!”
“I’m sorry,” Janine said, instantly contrite. “So, we’ve heard about what’s going on, and if I hadn’t attended Lassiter’s execution myself, I would be thinking it was him again. But I thought you were working in Miami.”
“I was, but I’m here now. And since you’re here and have obviously been here—”
“We haven’t been here that much,” Christian said quickly. “Old Mr. Marcel has his horse farm just down the road, and you know Janine loves horses.”
“We’ve been riding a lot,” Janine said. “It’s amazing. The horse knows us, and it’s so much fun. People driving by must think he’s just the most playful horse ever. He’s like a dog—he knows we’re there, but instead of being spooked, he loves us!”
“Okay, but have you seen anything other than official hearses or ambulances here—bringing bodies?” she asked.
They both shook their heads, solemn and serious.
“What about the outbuildings?” Cheyenne asked.
“No, but we really haven’t been here all that much. I saw the car pass the farm, and I was curious, and then we saw you,” Janine said.
“We did come for a funeral last week,” Christian reminded her. “Old Mrs. Ruby. She was a teacher once. Great lady.”
“Oh?”
“Katie Anson was here. You remember my friend Katie, right? I guess she’s Katie Ridgeway now—she and Nelson were married. They were here, oh, and even Jimmy Mercury was here. They had a jazz band accompaniment from the house to the grave, too. That was... I lose track of time. Last week, I think. Maybe last Wednesday or so,” Janine said. “But you know, they were here for the funeral.”
“Anyone else we know?” Cheyenne asked.
The two looked at each other. Janine shrugged. “I don’t really remember who you know—you were a few years behind me. Back then. Now I’m younger. Hmm. Dying’s not worth it. Anyway, let me think...oh, Mr. Derringer! You remember him. We were all in the church choir. He was playing piano, not the organ. There is no organ here, just a piano that can be rolled from room to room. They keep it on the other side, back in the Gold Room.” She looked at Christian. “Can you think of anyone else?”
“That Cheyenne knew...hmm. Oh, yeah, Mike Holiday, remember him? Janine dated him for a while—he was cool. Captain of the football team out here.” He grinned at her. “Heard he’s just not a hot commodity anymore. He kept getting benched in college, wound up dropping out. He’s a bouncer now at some bar or strip joint in NOLA. You remember them all, right?”
Cheyenne did; she could picture, all too easily, the day her cousin had been interred.
“Did you see Mr. Justine that day?”
“No, he wasn’t here. I think he was supposed to be out of town. It’s hard to eavesdrop and learn everything,” Janine said.
Cheyenne glanced toward the door, and then beckoned them to follow her into the kitchen. She hurriedly went through all of the cupboards and closets—finding nothing but dishes, cups and cleaning supplies.
“Okay, I need you to stick around here, okay? Keep an eye out for anything unusual that might happen.”
They looked at each other. “Sure,” Janine murmured slowly. “For—for how long?”
“However long it takes,” Cheyenne told her.
“And I just got the horses not to be spooked by me!” Janine said. “I’m sorry, that’s terrible. Of course, we’ll watch here. But seriously, do you think that a killer would do something back here? Imitating the Rougarou—where the Rougarou was at work?”
Cheyenne looked nervously at the doorway again; there was still no sign of Andre, but she believed if he’d found anything he would have called her.
“I’m begging you guys, behave for me, please. Let me work as a competent and intelligent agent with all my faculties,” Cheyenne told them.
“You are a brilliant agent,” Janine declared.
“And we’ll behave,” Christian added.
Cheyenne hurried back out into the White Room. She called out to Andre. “I’m heading down to the basement. The embalming room is down there.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Andre shouted back.
Cheyenne hurried down the stairs.
The lower level had been outfitted as a state-of-the-art embalming room. In spotless, tiled rooms, the old foundation housed stainless steel gurneys, sterilizers, instruments, cupboards for gloves, makeup and more. IV stands, rows of jugs of embalming fluid and plastic bins for biohazard waste were strategically set around the room.
Cheyenne wished that her cousin hadn’t followed her; she hoped that Janine didn’t remember her time down here.
There seemed to be nothing at all out of place.
And while she opened every cabinet and looked under every gurney, there was no one hidden there, no sign of anyone having been kept there.
She had just ducked under one of the gurneys when Andre came down the stairs.
“Anything?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“What’s upstairs now?” he wondered aloud.
“Offices...a lounge area for families. Oh, and there’s also one room kept as a bedroom, in case Mr. Justine or one of his employees needs to sleep here. I mean...” She paused. “I doubt that he rents it out.”
“You never know,” Andre said. “People love ghosts. A friend told me that no respectable house in the French Quarter was without a resident ghost.”
“But here, above an embalming room? Hey, I’m accustomed to autopsies, and even I wouldn’t want to sleep here. Ghosts are one thing,” she said lightly, trying not to look at Janine and Christian, who were standing near her. “Really creepy stuff is another.”
He smiled. “Guess we should all head up.”
He turned.
“We’re behaving!” Janine whispered behind Cheyenne as they followed him up the stairs, all the way to the second floor.
Andre and Cheyenne parted ways in the hall, Andre heading for the office and lounge, Cheyenne checking out the bedroom that had been kept. It was massive. As a family home, the plantation had grown to a good six thousand feet or so; that allowed for comfortable space now.
The bedroom was as fastidiously clean as the rest of the main house. She looked under the bed, into the walk-in closet and the bathroom—which had probably been a room of its own at one time.
