He reached the main road and turned toward New Bergin. “Oui,” he agreed, and became captured for an instant by her smile.
At home he peppered his English with French and Spanish. He always had because his mother had, his father had, nearly everyone did. Except for his Yankee transplant partner, Conner Sullivan.
“This hotel wasn’t too bad,” he continued. “But it wasn’t too good either.”
“Hence the murder.”
“Who said anything about murder?”
“You’re a homicide detective, and we were talking cold case.”
“Right. Have you ever heard of a locked-room mystery?”
“Impossible crime.”
“Not impossible, since the guy was killed. But the body was in a room locked from the inside. Windows painted shut.”
“Suicide?”
“Gunshot wound to the head. No residue on his hands. No damn gun in the room.”
She frowned. “How big of a room?”
“What difference does that make?”
“Just trying to get a picture. Sometimes it helps.”
“One room. Queen bed. Small bath. Old place. Had a locker—”
She tensed. If she weren’t already so pale, he’d think she’d gone paler. But why?
“I suppose lockers are the equivalent of safes in newer hotels?” she asked.
“A locker is a New Orleans term for closet.”
“With a lock?”
“No. It’s just something we say. Not sure why. We call regular old closets a locker.”
She seemed to be thinking overly deep and long about that.
“All places have their quirks,” he continued. “New Orleans has a lot of them.”
“In Milwaukee they call a water fountain a bubbler. No idea why. What about the floor?”
“Wall-to-wall, nailed-down carpet, no holes. We checked the ceiling too. Nothing.”
“What about the closet? Any holes in that floor?”
Bobby tried to remember, couldn’t. He should probably check.
“How close was the body to the closet?”
That he did remember, and the answer was …
Close enough.
*
After I delivered the ghost man’s message regarding the locker/closet, Bobby became very quiet. I hoped the information was useful. I didn’t see how it couldn’t be. Ghosts didn’t bother to hang about to deliver news that wasn’t.
I’d called earlier and told my father we were going for fish and not to wait up. He had anyway. I would have been surprised if he hadn’t.
“You should have gone to bed.”
“It’s nine o’clock,” he said.
I checked the time. “Huh.” It only felt like it was past midnight.
“I talked to Chief Johnson.”
“What did he tell you?” Bobby asked.
“The man who killed that poor woman tried to kill my daughter.”
“We don’t know that for certain.”
“There’s more than one maniac with a meat cleaver running around?”
At my father’s words, my earlier calm disappeared.
“I doubt it. But until we have confirmation from the…” Bobby paused. “Christiansen. You should be careful.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt Raye?” my father asked.
“That was a question I had for you, sir.”
“Me?”
“Raye said she was adopted.”
My father cast me a curious glance. I didn’t usually share. But, around here, I didn’t have to.
“She was,” he agreed.
“What can you tell me about her birth parents?”
“Nothing.”
“Closed adoption?”
My father let out a long breath and didn’t answer. He knew I didn’t like to talk about the way I’d been discarded like garbage.
“I was dumped,” I said. “Side of the road. No note, no nothing. Newborn.”
“Assholes,” he muttered, and my lips twitched as he echoed my opinion.
“To have survived you must have been found pretty quickly.”
“That was the consensus.”
“No one’s ever come looking for you until now?”
“Wait—” My father stopped, glancing back and forth between the two of us. “You think he was looking for her?”
If the man had been in my apartment once we could call it random. Twice? He’d been looking for me.
“I’m just following routine lines of questioning,” Bobby said. “Everything I eliminate—however far-fetched—is one less question on the list.”
“All ri-i-ght.” My father didn’t sound convinced.
“I’ve gotta go to bed.” I started up the steps.
“Maybe you should sleep down here.”
I glanced over my shoulder. “My room’s up there.”
My father’s eyes flicked to Bobby Doucet then to me.
Ah. So was his.
Even if Detective Doucet was interested, and so far I’d seen no indication of that, I wasn’t going to do him in the room directly above my parents’. The ew factor on that was so high I nearly said “Ew!” out loud.
“I’ll be fine.” I climbed the rest of the stairs, shut the door, and flicked the lock. Then I hurried to the heating vent at the front of the room and fell to my knees. Everything that was said in the hall, as well as the living room, drifted upward. As a kid, I’d found out a lot from chatty ghosts; the rest I’d found out right here.