Chapter Four
Palmer Etergier stepped out of the Inveigler Casino late at night. He inhaled deeply taking in the crisp, moist December air as he stood on the steps. He paused a moment so his eyes could adjust before he went in search of his rental car.
“Why the hell did I park way back there?” he muttered as he descended the stairs. Palmer pulled his collar up against the wind, bending his head slightly to shield his eyes from the flying dust.
The parking lot was dimly lit, which made it hard for him to see the colors of the cars. He had always suffered from night blindness so things looked a bit fuzzy. He had been in the smoky casino for six hours and his eyes burned with tears as he tried to focus. He had walked about a half block of the lot when he thought he saw something run between two cars ahead of him. For one moment he thought it was a big dark colored dog, which he knew was impossible because whatever it was moved around on two legs.
Palmer heard a noise behind him. He spun around only to see a couple walking a few feet away from him. The man looked drunk and the woman was having a hard time trying to keep him upright. It looked a bit odd because she was a tiny thing and the drunk was tall.
Palmer thought about offering her a hand but he wasn’t in the mood to be hospitable or gallant since he had lost nearly a thousand dollars at the Black Jack table.
Palmer stepped up his pace. His short legs stretching far out as he walked. The clicking of the woman’s heels beat out a tune behind him, a little faster than they had before. He looked back and they were following him.
Something ran between the cars again. Palmer’s curiosity got the best of him. He tried to train his eyes on it. Cars were coming in and leaving the parking lot. Bright headlights blinded him and the footsteps continued behind him. Palmer blinked for a moment, trying to focus as the lights disappeared. Common sense told him to get to his car and get to the safety of his hotel room. Whatever he was trying to see wasn’t important.
Palmer spotted his car only a few feet away. He fumbled with his keys in his pocket. Behind him he heard the woman giggling. Maybe their car is parked near mine. Yes, he thought. That is it. I’m just over-reacting.
He paused beside the car and put a key in the lock. The giggling stopped. Palmer felt someone’s hot breath on the back of his neck. It came through the collar of his jacket. He saw the lock rise up to open the door. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. They were close enough to smell.
Palmer’s hand shook as he tried to open the door. “I have money,” he said. “Please don’t kill me.”
He was answered by a growl.
Palmer’s heart thudded against his chest. He’d never felt so scared in his life and he’d never been robbed before. Palmer turned. If I can make it into the car before anything happens—.
Something grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. Palmer screamed. It was the last sound he made.
* * * *
Blood covered everything. From the makeshift altar to the once white robes that littered the open field. Seasoned veteran police officers vomited at the sight of the carnage. One of the female reporters fainted at the scene. Ambulance sirens pierced the night as they took away the bodies after the coroners released them.
Oliver Randall, the head coroner of New Orleans had received the call a little past six in the morning. The chief of police shouted at him to get the hell out of bed and to get to Audubon Park as fast as he could. He screamed something about a murder and what he thought he said, was that there were nearly one hundred bodies. Oliver hung up the phone, wondering how much Scotch the chief had consumed earlier that night to make him hallucinate.
Oliver found the chief sober and accurate to a fault about the body count. The crime scene looked like something out of a horror movie. There were bodies strewn everywhere as far as the eyes could see. Men, women, even senior citizens had been grossly killed ritualistically, which included cutting out the heart, removing the eyes and draining the blood from the bodies. He had vomited for nearly fifteen minutes when he first arrived. His knees still shook as he made his rounds with the assistants he’d called in to help him. Two of them had to hold each other’s hair as they vomited.
Oliver zipped up another body bag and made the sign of the cross. Then he signaled for two paramedics to come over and take the body away. There were so many they had to be stacked on top of each other, and loaded into the backs of ambulances.
Anthony Norris, the Chief of Police walked over to him. Anthony was an average looking man of fifty, tall and balding on the top of his head. One would think he’d seen everything in his line of work, but for the last hour he sat on a gurney in one of the ambulances, recovering from a faint.
“Looks like some kind of gang sacrifice,” Anthony said in his laid back, slow southern drawl.
Oliver nodded. “Looks like the work of a cult.”
Anthony scratched the top of his bald head. “What kind of cult could possibly be this big and organized and we not know anything about it?”
Oliver shrugged. “That’s for you to find out, Chief. My hands will be full for some time to come.”
Anthony looked around. “Mayor Boudreaux is going to have a fit when he learns of this, and he’ll probably blame me—as if Orleans Parish didn’t have enough problems. Why couldn’t this have happened in Jefferson or Saint Tammany Parish?”
Anthony signaled for some of his officers. They hurried over to him. “I want every inch of this area searched. I want to know who did this. I want their asses caught, be it dead or alive and dragged into jail before me.”
Captains shouted out orders to their men. They pulled huge yellow flashlights from their cars and vans and spread out to comb the area.
“Get a couple of birds in the air,” Anthony shouted to one of his men. “I want those helicopters covering this area by air at first light.”
“Yes, sir,” the officer replied.
“And get the dogs…the best ones you can find. Dogs which can sniff out a coon’s ass at one hundred paces.”
The officers left quickly. Anthony’s men knew better than procrastinate.
There were news vans representing all six local stations and the World News team had arrived, broadcasting the story around the country. Reporters jammed mobile mics into the faces of tired and dirty police officers who had been working since the early morning hours to find a clue…any clue.
The last body was removed, the coroners returned to their labs and the long, grueling process of identifying the dead and notifying the next of kin began.
* * * *
Malcolm Boudreaux, a handsome charismatic black man in his early forties had been mayor of New Orleans for less than a year. He always looked like he’d stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, and he still looked very dapper after so many hours of being at a crime scene. Malcolm was the product of one of the city’s prestigious universities. He was intelligent, eloquent, and a real people’s person. With a warm smile and a strong handshake, he was elected to office with a preponderance of votes over the incumbent.
Malcolm and Governor Harrison were both on the scene giving reports to the news anchors, assuring the millions of viewers the murderers would be found and they would be dealt with quickly and severely.
People were tuning in and seeing for the first time actual footage of what was discovered earlier that morning. Louisiana had its share of crime but this took a toll on the state. They had to find whoever these people were before the huge masses of tourists descended on the city for the holiday season.
Later that day, Mayor Boudreaux called a council meeting at City Hall. The Chief of Police was in attendance. News reporters and anchors were allowed in only if they promised to hold their questions until the end of the meeting.
“I’m sorry to have to drag you away from your families but I can’t relax or think of anything else since I left Audubon Park,” Malcolm told the reporters.
Flashes from cameras went off in the room.
“Let me say to the good people of New Orleans and around the country that I will do everything in my power to see these murderers caught. Justice will be served and people will be able to rest easy at night.” Malcolm turned the floor over to reporters for questions.
“Chief Norris, do the police have any leads?” One reporter asked.
“Very little,” Anthony replied. “These people are experts at what they do. They didn’t leave much behind.”
“Are you hopeful of the possibility of finding who they are?” a female reporter from Channel Four News asked.
“There’s always hope, Miss. I won’t give up until we find out the name of the cult and the names and whereabouts of all its members. We’re going to search every inch of the city, to include Jefferson and the outline parishes. Someone saw something. A hundred people just don’t die together for any reason.”
“Have any of the bodies been identified?” The question was posed to Oliver, the coroner.
“Only a few. They’ve been identified as local folks, mostly homeless. A few of them had identification on them. As for the others, we’re searching the computers for dental records and fingerprints from all over the country. It’ll take a while but we’ll try to get them all identified as soon as we can.”
“Are you calling in any special forces?” another reporter asked Anthony.
“Not at the present time. The investigation is only in its preliminary stages. If it gets too big for us to handle, I’ll call in the best investigators from around the United States.”
Oliver looked over at the Chief. He hoped he didn’t wait too long. Orleans Parish didn’t have enough manpower to keep on this one case.