“You mean before I strangle her?” he said dryly. He raked a weary hand through his hair. “I could use a cup of coffee.”
“Eight hours of sleep would do both of us more good, but coffee’s the best we have.”
Maggie and Josh took their time in the break room, and it was twenty minutes before they joined Ross and Barclay. In the other room, Michaels squirmed in her chair, cast a glance at the door and around the room now and then, even rubbed her arms.
Barclay tipped his head toward the mirror. “She deflated the moment you left. She’s caught, and it’s beginning to sink in. And she doesn’t like being in there alone. I’d swear that the last ten minutes she’s been hoping you’d come back soon. Gotta say it—I predict a quick confession, and we can all go home.”
“Keep your fingers crossed.” Josh left them and entered Interrogation.
Michaels squared her slumped shoulders and asked if her husband had been contacted. When Josh said he had, Maggie was afraid Michaels would ask for an attorney. Instead she began talking—as if she couldn’t quit.
Maggie frowned. This sudden cooperation was beyond anything she’d hoped for. Why wasn’t Michaels waiting when she knew her husband was on the way? Was she afraid for him to learn the truth? Had his impending arrival ended her last hope she could squirm out of this?
Leaning closer to the mirror, Maggie studied the woman’s movements, her rapid breathing. What was going on inside Michaels’s head? Then again, perhaps Maggie didn’t want to know. But when Michaels kept looking upward as if searching for something, Maggie scanned the room, her own gaze freezing on a high corner. She drew in a sharp breath. How long had they been here? A hovering globe of light—or to be more exact, three globes.
Could Michaels sense the trio of wraiths? Was her confession partly inspired by fear?
Whatever her reason, Michaels kept on. Sometimes her story held a note of pride but more often was defensive, as if needing to convince Josh everything she’d done was unavoidable.
“It wasn’t just the lure of black magic and the incredible things it can do,” Michaels said. “It was Isabella, and what she’d failed to do. All that untapped power going to waste.” Her eyes lit with fervor. “Imagine what you could do with millions of dollars and hundreds of witches willing to unleash the power of the dark arts. World domination…if that’s what you wanted. I would have been satisfied as High Priestess of New Orleans with all that money could buy at my fingertips.” Her smile was sly. “I realized I could do better than Isabella…more than three years ago.”
“Is that when you formed the other coven?”
She curled her lip. “The so-called Satanists? As if we’d serve the devil. But our goddess is a dark one. She commands us to seize what should rightfully be ours.”
“Did that include the Witching Hour Society?”
“Oh, yes. I was meant to be its High Priestess, but that’s over now.” A look close to pain crossed her face, and Michaels suddenly turned toward the mirror. “I can feel your eyes still watching, Detective York. You might as well come in. This will be your only chance to ask anything you want to know.”
Josh gave a barely perceptible nod, and Maggie didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation. You bet she had questions.
As soon as Maggie entered the room, the ghostly trio drifted down from their lofty perch and floated behind Michaels’s left shoulder. The suspect shivered.
So, she was aware of them. It must be uncomfortable with your murder victims breathing down your neck.
Michaels cooperated fully with names and details, and her nervousness gradually disappeared. They discovered they’d been both right and wrong about the first three murders.
“I needed that extra vote on the council,” she admitted. “Shayre and Gundermann were the top two contenders to reign over the Masquerade Ball. They would have easily defeated our contestant, Maureen Lacey. I spaced out their deaths and used different methods—killing one with a syringe full of drugs prescribed for my husband a year ago and shooting the other with a pistol I purchased at a gun show—so no one would make the connection. And no one did, not at first. My coven disciples accepted the deaths as fortuitous.” She looked down and removed a speck of lint from her sleeve.
“But Valerie Preston…in hindsight, she was a mistake,” Michaels continued. “How was I to know she was best friends with Fiona’s sister? Maybe Fiona became suspicious over too many deaths in a row, or I overdid it with the snake. But I felt I needed to make a point about those who are indiscreet.” Her eyes flashed. “It would have worked too, except Fiona flew into a rage over Valerie’s death and split the coven. I was forced to deny I had a hand in it—which ruined the deterrent effect—but it made the bitch back down. I shrugged it off as a minor setback. It never occurred to me she’d go behind my back and organize a rebellion to kidnap and punish me. I underestimated her. Badly.”
“Why’d they put a hood over your head?” Maggie asked. “If they were going to kill you, it didn’t matter what you saw. Did they really believe you could capture their minds?”
“Are you positive I can’t?”
“I know it’s nothing supernatural.” But didn’t she have the tiniest bit of doubt? If not, why had she brought it up again? After all, there were scientific explanations for extraordinary influence, like documented cases of brain washing. “But let’s assume they were afraid of you for whatever reason, why did they attempt a sacrificial rite rather than turning you over to the police?”
“They weren’t going to kill me. Harming another member is forbidden in the sisterhood. In fact, their rigid adherence to rules showed me how weak-minded they were.” Her mouth twisted in disgust. “You rescued me from a binding ceremony, not a sacrifice. Can you believe that? They hoped to frighten me into compliance and take my powers away. Me.” She placed a hand on her chest to emphasize her bitter words. “They would never contact the police, because they still believed in the plan.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“Don’t you?” Her eyes were scornful. “They didn’t care about the dead women, except Fiona’s stupid attachment to Val. They were afraid for themselves—that they’d be caught by authorities or be punished if they failed my orders—and wanted Fiona to take over. When I wouldn’t agree to step down, they decided to force the issue by binding my powers.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Maggie said. “They were chanting repent.”
“Yes, they were.” Michaels choked off a laugh. “A ceremony to cleanse the soul. If a witch repents before the binding, her powers may one day be restored. They were still trying to be nice to me. I was in no mortal danger until Fiona panicked…or decided to follow her own dark instincts. You arrived before the cleansing was complete or the binding even started.” Her eyes narrowed to a faraway expression. “Just before Fiona threw the candle, it must have dawned on her that only one of us could survive.”
Maggie stilled. She’d heard other killers confess, but most didn’t let their humanity slip enough to reveal the darkness inside.
Josh cut short the unsettling moment. “We’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Back to the early murders. You said Preston’s was a mistake. It was also different.”
“It had nothing to do with the contest, except that’s the only reason Val joined the Society. But once she was a member, she wanted to know everything about the organization. Somehow she heard about a secret coven and started asking questions. I had to shut her up quickly and send a message to whomever had leaked our existence. The snake seemed a nice touch, although it forced me to hire Bunjer, that grungy swamp guy.” Her lips wrinkled in distaste.
“I still have questions about Preston’s death,” Josh said. “Describe what happened. How you got in and out, how you avoided being seen.”
“We waited until dark and both of us were wearing hoodies. How we got in was actually Bunjer’s idea. He got a bump key from a friend of a friend. I didn’t ask who. We surprised Val and grabbed her from behind. I hel
d her arms, and Bunjer handled the snake. She barely had time to utter a sound before she was choking on her own terror. When it was over, we went out the back door again.”
“Why’d you bolt the door behind you?”
“Why not? I always lock up, don’t you?” She sighed. “I’d like to claim I did it to make you believe it was a suicide or an accident or so that your most likely suspect would be someone close to her who had a key. In truth, it felt like I was distancing myself from the scene.” Michaels gave a dismissive jerk of her head as if revealing too much. “Anyway, we stayed in the shadows until we were two blocks away, then Bunjer went his way, and I went mine.”
“But that wasn’t your last contact with him, was it? We saw the bullets in Big Roy’s boat. Is he dead?”
“I’m not sure. I’d always known he’d have to die to keep him quiet, but not another murder in New Orleans. So I went to his boat. When I shot at him, he jumped over the side and didn’t come up. I waited a while but didn’t go on board to look for him, because he had all those snakes. I suppose an alligator ate him.”
Maggie blinked at Michaels’s utter indifference. A cold-blooded witch.
“Since the C9 pistol was yours, I suppose you planted the gas cans with Sutter and Brice,” Maggie said. “But I can’t figure out why.”
Michaels shook her head. “None of that was me. All Fiona. I truly was out of town until yesterday. I’d intended to stay away until everything calmed down, but I knew what was going on and what I had to do. Fiona and I had a chat tonight—about all of it—while the drugs were taking effect. She burned Madame L’s shop and planted the evidence in a bungled attempt to direct your attention away from the coven. She wanted to be High Priestess instead of me, but the council had started to scrutinize us all.”
“But you had the gun,” Josh insisted.
“I hid it in Fiona’s nightstand on my way out of town.” She leaned back and gave them another smug look. “I hoped you’d find it there, and she’d be blamed, but she managed to get rid of it. You know, I might have forgiven her that kidnapping, even the fire, but after sending me the cursed bones and then these other clumsy incidents, I knew I had to come back and stop her before she exposed everything.” She turned toward Maggie, a spiteful gleam in her eyes. “Fiona didn’t like you. She put the spiders in your car and hoped to get into your apartment. Did you see her home breeding tank?”
“I heard about it.” Maggie kept her face blank, knowing Michaels would savor any sign of discomfort.
“Did she mention the cemetery attack?” Josh asked.
“No, but I was aware of it. Her method was sloppy, but I applaud her desire to eliminate your partner.” Michaels shifted her gaze to Maggie. “Your witch abilities were getting you too close to the truth.”
Josh took over the questioning from there, gathering details they’d skimmed over earlier, including the names of the other coven members. Most of them had never been under suspicion.
“What about the money transfers?” he asked.
Michaels shrugged. “Fiona again, but I forgot to ask her where she got that hare-brained scheme. She should have waited. In a few weeks, we would have had millions under our control. I suppose she needed funding.” Michaels pursed her lips. “Maybe she paid off some of the coven members to get their cooperation.”
While Josh and Michaels continued to talk, Maggie suddenly realized the ghostly trio had disappeared. Throughout the confession, they’d floated around the room, occasionally agitated, but mostly just listening.
Perhaps they’d heard all they needed to know.
It was nearly dawn when the interrogation ended. A half-hour later Stephanie Michaels’s confession was typed. The four detectives witnessed the signing. When she’d carefully penned her name, she lifted her head and looked at Maggie.
“Tell Isabella it was never personal.”
Maggie hung back when the other witnesses filed out of the room. Now that the paperwork was done, she could ask the one question they’d avoided over the past hours. “Why did you confess?”
“Why not?” The corners of Michaels’s mouth twitched. “Maybe I’m sorry. Or I want to be understood. No, those don’t sound like me, do they?” Her lips pressed in a thin line. “I thought you above all others would figure it out. Let’s just say I gambled and lost everything that mattered, including the Society and my marriage.”
Dennis Michaels and his lawyers arrived shortly afterward, and those were the last words Maggie heard from their suspect. She and Josh went home to bed, falling into an exhausted sleep.
She awoke two hours later to the news that Stephanie Michaels had been found dead in her cell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
District 13 was in a scramble. Any “in custody” death put the department under an unwelcome spotlight. On a case already in the headlines, it had the brass gnashing their teeth and demanding an explanation. Dennis Michaels was threatening a lawsuit. Suspicion bristled, and Captain Jenson had been grilling Maggie for twenty-five minutes over the details of the punch in the face and the private conversation in the Interrogation room.
“No significant marks on her except for the cut lip,” he muttered, pacing across his office. “I think we’re clear on the fight. Your actions appear to be well within the bounds of reasonable force, and the suspect received medical attention afterward. But it’s not going to look good if you threatened her when you turned off the mic.”
Maggie repeated what she’d told Ross and Barclay…which was true. “I reminded her of Louisiana’s death penalty in capital murder cases.”
“That’s what Ross said. Not the wisest comment you might have made, but at least you have your stories straight.”
Maggie didn’t offer anything else. She wasn’t going to lie to him, but some things shouldn’t be said. Any mention of witchcraft wouldn’t help Michaels or Maggie and certainly not the New Orleans Police Department.
“All right. That’s all I need for now. We’ll have to wait for the ME’s report.” Jenson scratched the back of his neck. “It’s strange Michaels didn’t call for help. They didn’t find her on the floor like you’d expect with a seizure or sudden collapse. She was on the cot, as if she’d gone to sleep and never woke up.”
Exactly like it, Maggie thought. Another hydrocodone overdose? She pulled the captain’s door closed behind her and took a steadying breath. Had Michaels known, even planned her own death? Is this what she’d meant by Maggie’s “only chance” to question her?
Josh was waiting when she returned to her desk. He searched her face but merely handed her two messages. “Annie called. She’d heard about Michaels’s arrest but not her death. I didn’t say anything. Madame L also called and wanted you to call back.”
“Anything from the ME?”
“Still waiting. Was the captain rough?”
“No more than expected. He wants answers too.” She sat down and gave him the highlights of her session with Jenson. Then she reluctantly called Madame L to inform her of Michaels’s death. She wasn’t sure how the priestess would take it; the two women had once been friends. But she seriously doubted if Madame L would be comforted by Michaels’s final words. Not personal? To even say that was an insult.
As soon as Maggie identified her, the soft-spoken Jamaican asked, “Is it true Stephanie is dead?”
“Where did you hear about it?”
“Then it’s true.”
“Yes, but it hasn’t been released to the media. How did you find out?” Maggie asked again.
“I felt her light go out.”
Maggie didn’t know what to say to that. “She gave us a full confession last night, and afterward, she had a message for you. She wanted you to know it hadn’t been personal.”
A brief silence. “She may have believed it,” LeMontaire said. “I suppose it is better this way. Considering the notoriety of a trial, she’s taken the easy path for everyone, including the Society.”
“You think it was suicide? We didn’t se
e any signs of asphyxiation or smothering, no self-inflicted cuts, no blood.”
“But you don’t have a cause of death either,” Madame L said gently.
“I don’t have the medical examiner’s report yet. What makes you think he won’t find something?”
“Stephanie could not have coped with prison. Years, even life, behind locked doors. She would find that worse than death.”
“Then why didn’t she fight it out in court? Why talk to us—even brag about it?”
“I’m sure she weighed the odds and knew the inevitable outcome. Under the circumstances, I’m not surprised she confessed. We all have a need to tell our story.”
“So rather than face the consequences, she willed herself to death?” Maggie’s voice held more than a hint of skepticism.
The phone line seemed dead as seconds ticked by. “She was a unique woman,” Madame L finally said. “She would have done things her own way.”
To Maggie’s disquiet and the department’s groans of gloom and doom, the ME found nothing definitive in the autopsy results. Internal Affairs had him check again for needle marks, the cell was searched for a syringe or drug residue, and Michaels’s clothes were tested for any foreign substances. Initial drug tests were negative, but considering the seriousness of the situation, Doc Merriweather sent autopsy samples for toxicology verification. He didn’t hold out much hope the results would change.
“The prelim tests are highly accurate, and a lethal amount of opiates—or any other drug—would be detected. Sometimes medicine doesn’t have the answers.” Doc cleared his throat and continued with an unusual show of empathy. “I can tell you the things that didn’t kill her—a gun, a knife, a blunt object, a couple of bruised ribs, or a smack to the mouth. Sudden, unexplained deaths are rare but not unheard of. Her heart just stopped.”
Dennis Michaels’s legal team demanded and was allowed to conduct an independent autopsy. While awaiting those results, the NOPD questioned the husband extensively and determined he was not aware of nor a participant in his wife’s illegal activities. On the day the private autopsy was completed—the same day he was allowed to read his wife’s confession—he abruptly left town, reportedly returning to his New York offices, and the lawsuit was dropped.