Chapter Seventy-Eight
I rode to the crime scene alone, feeling increasingly distant and unreal. The wheels in my head were turning slowly and methodically. Where did we go from here? I had no goddamn idea. Jesus, I was beat. The house was an outbuilding for one of the Garden District's historic homes, a small carriage house with a second-story balcony. It looked like it could have been a cute, cozy B&B. Magnolia and banana trees surrounded it on the outside. So did an intricate wrought-iron fence, the kind I had seen everywhere in the French Quarter. About half of the New Orleans Police Department was already at the scene. So were a couple of EMS trucks, their roof lights spinning and blazing. The press was beginning to arrive as we did - the late shift. Detective Sams had gotten to the murder scene a couple of minutes before I did. He met me in the hallway outside the upstairs bedroom where the killing had taken place. The interior of the place had fine detailing on almost every surface - ceilings, banisters, moldings, doors. The owner had cared about the house, and also about Mardi Gras. Feathers and beads, colorful masks, costumes were tacked up on most of the walls. "This is bad, even worse than we thought,' Sams said. 'She's a detective named Maureen Cooke. She's in Vice, but she was helping out on Daniel and Charles. Most of the department was pitching in.' Sams led me into the detective's bedroom. It was small but
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attractive, with a sky-blue ceiling that someone had once told me was supposed to keep winged insects from nesting there. Maureen Cooke was a redhead, tall and thin, probably in her early thirties. She had been hung by her bare feet from a chandelier. Her nails were painted red. The detective was naked except for a delicate, silver bracelet on her wrist. Blood streaks were all over her body, but there was no sign of blood pooling on the floor or anywhere else. I walked up close to her. 'Sad,' I whispered under my breath. A human life - gone - just like that. Another detective dead. I looked at Mitchell Sams. He was waiting for me to speak first. 'This might not have been done by the same killers,' I said, and shook my head. 'The bite wounds look different to me. They're superficial. Something's changed.' I stepped back from the body of Maureen Cooke and took in her bedroom. There were photographs that I recognized as part of E.J. Bellocq's study of the Storyville prostitutes. Strange, but fitting for the vice detective. A couple of Asian fans had been framed over the bed, which looked like it had been slept in. Or possibly the bed hadn't been made the previous day. My cell phone rang. I hit a button with my thumb. I felt out of it. Numb. I needed sleep. 'Did you find her yet, Dr Cross? What do you think? Give me your best guess on how to stop these terrible murders. You must have it figured out by now.' The Mastermind was on the line. How did he know? Suddenly I was yelling into the phone. 'I'm going to take you down! I've figured that much out, a*shole!' I hung up on him, then I shut the phone off. I looked around the bedroom. Kyle Craig was watching me from the doorway. 'Are you all right, Alex?' he whispered.
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