However, as long as the present Chief Johnson had been in charge, there hadn’t been a murder in New Bergin. Had there ever been?
The funeral director was our medical examiner. The extent of our CSI was probably to put up yellow tape and hope for the best. It appeared that Chief Johnson had managed the first and was hip deep in the second.
Though I wanted to stay, I needed to get to school. If I wasn’t in class when the bell rang it wouldn’t be pretty. You think kindergartners are delightful? They are. But I learned not to turn my back on them. Or leave them alone long enough to trash the place.
I planned to cut through the alley between B and C—my shoes would get indescribable gunk on them, but I didn’t have the time to care—and the ghost poured from the air, filling the space right in front of me. Her eyes were solid black. No whites left at all. I’d never seen anything like it before. I never wanted to again.
She had a burn, make that a brand, of a snarling wolf on her neck. I glanced at the body. Sure enough, there was the brand, though it was impossible to tell from here if it was a wolf. I probably wouldn’t have seen it at all, beneath so much blood, unless I’d known where to look.
That I knew confused me. The wounds on the living did not transfer to the dead. Why had that one?
She grabbed my arm. I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Her fingers were fire and ice. Smoke poured from her mouth. In the center of her too-black eyes, a flame flickered. “He will burn us all.”
Then she was gone. If it hadn’t been for the trailing whiff of brimstone, and the blue-black imprint of her fingers just above my wrist, I’d have thought I imagined her.
“What the fuck?” I muttered, earning a glare from Mrs. Knudson, who stood in the doorway of her yarn shop, Knit Wits, contemplating the most excitement to hit New Bergin in a lifetime.
“I certainly hope you don’t speak like that in front of the children.”
“Children!” I resisted the urge to use the F-word again and ran, skidding through Lord knows what in the alley, then bursting out the other side, trailing the mystery muck behind me.
New Orleans Police Department
Detective Bobby Doucet stared at the photos spread across his desk. “Goddamn serial killer.”
“Isn’t that redundant?”
Bobby’s partner, Conner Sullivan, lowered himself into the visitor’s chair. The thing creaked then wobbled beneath his weight. Conner, used to such behavior in furniture, either didn’t notice or pretended not to.
“A serial killer is, by nature, damned. And damned comes from God. Therefore…” Sullivan spread his quarterback-sized hands. “Redundant.”
Bobby had joined the homicide division while Sullivan was on leave. The detective had been unwell, lost time, forgotten things. When he’d returned, no one had wanted to work with him.
Bobby, the new man, the low man, had been elected. He didn’t mind. Though the two of them could not have been any more different in both appearance and background, Bobby had found the Yankee transplant from … Massachusetts? Maine? Maryland? Something with an M. It didn’t matter. He’d found Sullivan to be thorough, fair, and an obscenely hard worker. As homicide in New Orleans was a busy, busy business, Bobby appreciated all three.
“’Tis a very Catholic view yer spoutin’, Conner.” Bobby’s use of a thick Irish brogue brought a rare smile to his partner’s face. “But then we are in the city of Saints.”
Which made the man’s annoying habit of rooting for the Patriots even more so. Bobby liked him anyway. They both had secrets in their pasts, shadows in their eyes, and chips on their shoulders.
Sullivan’s was much wider than Bobby’s but only because his shoulders were. The detective stood six five without shoes and ran about two fifty. He possessed sandy blond hair and oddly dark eyes considering the epic paleness of his skin and the potato-famine memories inherent in his last name. His habit of wearing amusing ties with his pristine dark suits—today’s offering featured Fred Flintstone in full “yabba dabba doo” mode—had clued Bobby in to a lighter side of Sullivan that few bothered to uncover.
In contrast, Robert Alan Doucet came from a long line of Creoles—both French and Spanish, with a little Haitian thrown in. He topped out just above six feet and he weighed one seventy only after he’d fallen into the river fully clothed. His hair was black; his eyes were blue, and his skin appeared tan year round.
“Why are you staring at those?” The wave of Sullivan’s huge hand created such a backwash of air that Bobby had to slap his palm atop two of the photos to keep them from sailing off the desk and across the floor. “Keep it up and they’re gonna call you obsessed.”
Sullivan should know. One of the reasons he’d been on leave was a tiny obsession of his own.
With another serial killer.