“Positive, thank you.”
“Then we’ll meet again. And we’ll get to the bottom of this,” he assured her cheerfully.
“So…I’m not exactly…crazy?” she asked pleasantly.
“The mind, as I said, is incredible. You’ve been through a terrible trauma. You want answers. You want an explanation for how something so terrible happened. There could be many reasons.”
“Maybe ghosts really exist,” she suggested.
“In our minds, of course they do. When we love someone and lose them, they’re always with us, in a way.”
“I don’t love a stranger I never saw before,” Nikki said.
“No…but the memory of having seen him not long before Andy’s death might be confusing the picture.”
“A logical explanation for everything,” Nikki murmured.
“It can take some time to get all the ghosts out of our minds,” he said, glancing at his watch again.
Nikki rose. “Thanks,” she managed to say.
Julian was pacing the waiting room when she came out. He rushed quickly to her side. “Well? Do you feel better?”
“No, not really.”
“Did he say you were having delusions or…well, what the hell did he say?”
“He didn’t call me crazy. He talked about the mind playing tricks, and how I might be dealing with survivor’s guilt.”
“There you go.”
“Right—and that explains why I saw a dead man? I still don’t even know who he is—only that the guy who showed up at the right time showed me a picture of him. I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”
“Nikki, you are going to see the doctor again, right?” He sighed. “You need help.”
“Sure. I’ll see him again. Can we eat?”
A little later, over po’boys at Madame D’Orso’s, Julian said, “Maybe you should take some time off.”
“Why?” she demanded, staring at him.
“Well, we actually do ghost tours, no matter what we call them.”
“We talk about history, and history includes the superstitions and rumors that have sprung up through the years.”
“Yes, but don’t you think that may be bad for you right now?”
“No!”
He sighed, sitting back. “Well, you’re on for the eight o’clock tour tonight. You sure you’re up to it?”
“Of course. Who’s on with me?”
“Me. We can rotate, you know. I can lead the tour.”
She smiled, shaking her head. “I’m not going to let the monster who did this to Andrea ruin my life, as well.”
Julian was silent.
“What?” she demanded.
“No, I still think…maybe you should take a vacation.”
“I can’t take a vacation. We just lost a guide, remember? And everyone else was shaken up, too.”
He leaned forward, speaking softly. “The rest of us aren’t seeing ghosts, Nikki. And Max could get his ass back from wherever he is to help out.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
They were seated in the courtyard, and Nikki wasn’t surprised when Madame came out with more coffee, pausing to fill her cup.
“You doing okay, Nikki?”
“Yes, thanks, Madame.”
“No, she’s not doing okay at all,” Julian said.
Nikki kicked him under the table.
“She’s seeing ghosts,” Julian said, grimacing and rubbing his shin.
“Ghosts?” Madame said, not appearing shocked, just concerned.
“Andy comes and talks to her at night.”
“Julian!” Nikki could have kicked him again.
“Oh, Nikki,” Madame said with soft sympathy. “This has been really hard on you, huh?”
She sighed. “I’m not ill, guys. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, you know I’m here for you, Nikki, if you need me,” Madame said. She glared at Julian. “Sometimes…well, grief and trauma can do strange things. Anytime you need to talk, you just come to me.”
“You going into palm reading, picking up the tarot, Madame?” Julian asked.
She scowled at him. “What Nikki doesn’t need is for her friends to make fun of her.”
“Ouch. Sorry,” Julian said.
Madame gave him a superior stare and moved on to the next table.
“I’m going to strangle you,” Nikki hissed to him.
“Well, sorry, but you are seeing ghosts.”
“It’s not something we need to share. Not till I know what’s really going on.”
“So you admit you may not really be seeing ghosts?”
She groaned. “Julian, I’m seeing them. Whether that means that ghosts exist or that I’m losing my mind, I’m not sure. The point is, one way or another, I’d rather not share my state of confusion with the world.”
“Sorry…sorry,” he murmured quickly. “I just thought that if I said it out loud like that, it would make you…well, make you see that it’s kind of crazy.”
She glanced at her watch. “Meeting here, in ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?”
“It’s almost three.”
“Wow, the day just kind of went, huh?”
“Time flies when you’re talking to the cops, thinking you’ve seen dead men walking around and explaining it all to a shrink,” she assured him.
“Hey, you know what we didn’t do?” Julian said.
“What?”
“Get the real lowdown on that guy…Tommyhawk or whatever.”
“Blackhawk.”
“Yeah, yeah…he came up with that picture, you recognized it, we were told the guy was dead…and you freaked.”
“I didn’t freak.”
“You did.”
“All right, all right, so?”
“So we didn’t really find out anything about him, either. The dead guy or Blackhawk. We really should find out everything there is to find out about both of them. The entire story about the dead guy.” He looked around, as if he was suddenly afraid of being overheard. “Okay, point one. You may suddenly have the ability to see ghosts. Point two—my personal choice—the mind does play tricks. Because there’s something in your mind that can’t quite get to the front burner but should.”
“What does that mean?” Nikki demanded.
“Maybe you know something. Something you shouldn’t know. And Andy knew it, too. Maybe you and Andy knew something that had to do with the guy at Madame D’Orso’s.”
“The dead guy?”
“Yes, except maybe he wasn’t dead when you saw him the first time.” He leaned closer still, a tone in his voice that sent tremors down her spine. “Maybe he said something, maybe there was something about him…and Andy died because of it. And that…well, that wouldn’t be good news for you.”
Nikki sat back, staring at Julian in horror. “What on earth are you saying?”
Julian apparently realizing that he’d really frightened her, sat back himself. “Nothing…nothing! I don’t know.”
“Dammit, Julian…. You’re scaring me big-time.”
“I don’t want to scare you. I want you to be careful. Beyond careful. Until the cops get…whoever. What I’m saying is that we need to understand what’s going on around here. Oh, what the hell do I know? I’m just a storyteller.”
“But still…”
“But still, we have to keep living, breathing—working. Making our lives normal, right? And look, here come the lovebirds, right on time. Right now we’ve got to get on with the meeting.”
He stood. Nikki could see Patricia and Nathan coming their way, both carrying cups of coffee.
She forced a smile, still plagued with goose bumps.
So Julian thought that she knew something.
What?
All she had done was give a guy twenty bucks.
A guy who had wound up dead.
And she was really seeing ghosts.
8
Though he was feeling increasingly curious about Nikk
i DuMonde, Brent decided his best use of the early afternoon would be a few hours spent in the local library.
He wondered why he hadn’t thought to come here before. Maybe he had just considered old Huey to be something of a whiner.
Growing up with a Lakota heritage had taught him a lot about bitterness and chips on the shoulder, but the past was just that—the past—and now people needed to focus on entering the twenty-first century, reaping the benefits of progress and technology, without losing sight of a heritage that was something precious, something to be preserved.
In Huey’s case, though, he had lived in the past. His tormentor had a name. He should have looked into Huey’s situation before this; he owed it to the old ghost.
Property records had been computerized by some wondrous soul, and once he had homed in on the right records using the family name, Brent had little difficulty finding Huey’s sadistic master.
Archibald McManus.
Apparently old Archibald had inherited the plantation from his father, who had worked hard to bring the property along. He’d married three times, and his wives had not fared well, either, each of them dying within a few years of her marriage. Each marriage had produced a single child.
In 1861, soon after the outbreak of war but before New Orleans had been taken over by the Yankees, there had been a slave revolt. The plantation had caught fire. There was no mention of what had happened to the three McManus children, but Archibald’s body had been found in the burned-out ruins of the grand foyer.
In pieces.
Not a happy ending. Not a death you would wish on anyone.
And yet…
God alone knew whether or not McManus had practiced a brutality that had not only robbed his slaves of their natural lifespan but of his young brides’, as well.
McManus’s remains had been interred on the property—public land now, having reverted to the parish of New Orleans. That was it. There was nothing more on any descendants. Wife one had borne a girl, Theresa, in 1848, wife two, a son, Alfred, in 1855, and wife three, another girl, Editha, in 1857. They must have left the area. There were no records regarding the family after the fire and the discovery of Archibald’s body, and the ensuing reversion of the property to the parish.
Brent ran off the pages, folded them, paid the copy fee and thanked the very helpful librarian. He decided not to head to the cemetery then—it would be filled with tourists and tour groups that came by day, since visitations at night were fiercely discouraged by the local police.
Instead, he returned to the police station, wondering if he would even find Detectives Massey and Joulette in.
In fact they were both at their desks, entangled in paperwork.
“Hey, Blackhawk, what brings you back?” Massey asked him.
“I was wondering if you’d let me see what you’ve got on the Andrea Ciello case,” Brent told them.
Joulette immediately stiffened.
“I think there might be a connection,” Brent said.
Massey frowned. “That’s what you said. But I don’t see how.”
“Could you humor me?” Brent asked.
He was certain that Joulette was about to tell him no, but instead, he went stiffer, looking past Brent, toward the entry.
Brent turned and saw that a man was coming toward the detectives’ desks. He was tall and lean, with dark hair clipped close to his head, Ray-Bans and a black suit.
He seemed to reek of being a federal officer.
“Good afternoon, fellows,” the man said, nodding curtly and looking a little curiously toward Brent. “I needed to see if you’d come up with anything new,” he said to Massey and Joulette. “Who the hell are you?” he asked Brent.
Massey stood. “Vince Haggerty, this is Brent Blackhawk.”
Haggerty had apparently heard Brent’s name. He didn’t look pleased.
“I didn’t think you were going to be in the way, although I heard you’d be here,” Haggerty said.
Brent looked around. “I don’t think I’m actually in the way, though quarters are tight.”
“We do life-and-death work,” Haggerty told him, his tone dismissing Brent as if he were a candy-selling Boy Scout taking up space.
“Good to hear it,” Brent murmured.
“We don’t have anything new,” Massey said, staring at Haggerty.
“If you hold back on me—”
“Hell, I wish I had something to hold back!” Massey said, his frustration evident.
“Are you actually doing anything?” Haggerty asked bluntly.
“Hell no, we’re just sitting here with our thumbs up our asses,” Joulette said, obviously furious.
“Our crime scene guys didn’t give us a hell of a lot to go on, and gee—neither did yours,” Massey reminded Haggerty, his expression bland. “So we’ve been hitting the streets. Bar after bar, looking for witnesses. Anyone who might have seen your guy. Eventually we’ll catch a break. And we’ll catch that break because we’re doing things—like pounding the streets. You can feel free to do the same.”
“I am doing the same,” Haggerty said stiffly.
“Yeah, and I’m sure every low-down dirty drug dealer is going to be ready to talk his head off when you walk in, looking like a Hollywood G-man,” Joulette said.
“You think I don’t know my stuff?” Haggerty said, leaning on the desk.
“I think we all have squat so far,” Joulette said, disgusted.
Haggerty was stiff as a board. He straightened again, then stared at Brent, eyes filled with suspicion.
“And you—if you get anything, anything at all, if you stumble on the smallest clue…” he said, pointing a warning finger at Brent. “I’d better hear it first thing. And if you’re all so busy pounding the streets, what the hell are you doing in here?”
Joulette stood then, too. “Working something else—NOPD business, and nothing to do with your jurisdiction,” he said. “Blackhawk, I’ll get you those files you want.”
Haggerty was frowning. “It was my understanding that Blackhawk was here on specific business,” he said, his tone a warning one.
“Yeah?” Massey said. “Well, it’s my understanding, straight from my lieutenant’s lips to my ears, that Blackhawk is here under the highest authority, and that I’m to be as accommodating as I can be.”
Haggerty leaned on Massey’s desk, inhaled slowly, then exhaled. “Look, all of you. I know I’m coming on as a tight ass, but we lost one of our own. You’re cops—surely you can understand how we feel about that.”
“You know, Haggerty, we consider any law enforcement officer who’s lost as one of our own,” Massey said. “And we know our jobs. If we get anything, anything at all, we’ll give it to you.”
Haggerty straightened again. “All right, just as long as you remember that.” He managed a very stiff “Thanks.” Then, “Blackhawk, glad to meet you.”
He turned to leave.
“Well, looks as if he’s trying not to be a complete ass,” Brent said when Haggerty was out of earshot.
“Yeah, well,” Joulette said, coming back in time to hear Brent’s words, “he’s a little too late. He thinks we’re both a pair of country bumpkins who don’t know our butts from a hole in the ground.”
“Maybe he was friends with the murdered agent. That’s hard to swallow. Pain can make people behave badly,” Brent said.
“I don’t think they ever met,” Joulette said.
“Still…” Brent said with a shrug, trying to be diplomatic.
Massey laughed. “There’s just something about the man…oh, well. You can take the Ciello files to the conference room over there.”
“Thanks,” Brent said, and added no more. He knew that he had been let into the inner circle not so much because these guys had begun to accept him or even like him, but because they really hated the fed who’d been thrust upon them.
It didn’t really matter. He had gotten what he wanted.
As he sat in the dingy conference room and opened
the first file, he knew he had also managed to get what he needed.
“So,” Patricia said, sipping a café au lait and staring hard at Nikki, “Nathan and I are doing the St. Louis cemeteries tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yes, just like you always do on a Friday afternoon,” Nikki said, not understanding why her friend was staring at her. They were all staring at her, come to think of it.
“Okay, what is it?” she asked.
Patricia looked at Nathan, who looked at Mitch, who in turn looked at Julian.
“What?” Nikki demanded.
“We…well, if Nathan and I take the cemetery tour, that means you and either Mitch or Julian will get the Garden District.”
“Right…so?” Nikki said.
Patricia looked at her with tremendous empathy. The two of them both knew the parish of New Orleans well. They had grown up in the same basic area, but were from such different backgrounds. Patricia had gone away to school in Virginia and learned to speak without any accent whatsoever.
When she wanted to, though, she could slip back into the Cajun patois. She had come from a family of shrimpers, honest, hardworking people who often had the whole group out to the bayou for some of the best meals ever.
Just as she had felt an immediate bond with Andy Ciello, Nikki had known from the minute she met Patricia that she really liked her. She had a wonderful sense of life and fun, and a passion for her heritage. They liked to shop together, and they were both bookstore fanatics who loved to find out-of-print volumes and triumphantly share their treasures with one another.
But now Patricia was looking at Nikki as if she were an elderly relative beginning to suffer from dementia.
“Nikki,” Patricia said kindly, “we don’t think you should be conducting tours of the Garden District.”
Nikki groaned. “I have been doing tours of the Garden District since I began working for Max.”
Mitch cleared his throat, running his fingers through his hair. “Um, you hadn’t lost Andy when you began. We’re thinking that now—it might be hard for you.”
“I didn’t lose Andy!” she said, angry. She groaned inwardly at the idea that she’d misplaced a friend. She shot an accusatory stare at Julian, who stared back blankly. “What the hell have you been saying to them?”