Carnival Read online

  The hairs in King’s nose burned. He knew what he was going to find even before Dick opened the last door on the left. He swung it wide, hearing it bounce off the wall behind it.

  King’s breath hitched. He reflexively covered his mouth and nose with his hand.

  “I should’ve warned you,” Dick agreed. “But you’ve seen worse with the DEA, right?”

  King managed a nod, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scene on the bed. It was true that the DEA encountered plenty of murder crime scenes. But since he’d left the agency, the only dead bodies he’d seen had been those that Louie Thorne—his dead wife’s niece—tended to leave in her wake. It was admittedly quite the body count. But Lou was cold, methodical. She killed as a means to an end.

  But this…this…

  A woman was splayed on top of the covers, a stiff and scratchy patchwork of fabric. King wasn’t sure what color the blankets had been at the start of their life, and it no longer mattered. Now they were soaked in blood.

  Her silk negligee was a festoon of crimson splatters from neck to groin. Her eyes were rolled up into her head, her mouth still partially ajar. Two of her upper teeth were gold, and her lower lip had a hoop ring looped through it.

  One of her legs had been partially severed, above the knee.

  The mangled mass of meat and white bone poked through—King looked away.

  The second body was that of a man slumped against the wall. His clothes were mostly clean. But the wall behind his head was splattered with brains and blood from a gun blast.

  Dick was chattering away. “He stabbed her thirteen times then shot himself in the mouth. It looks like that happened after he tried to cut off her leg.”

  “Christ,” King said. The woman’s toes were painted a bright aquamarine. It clashed with the rest of the room, and King’s eyes just kept coming back to them. “I didn’t work homicide. There better be a good reason you called me here.”

  Because making him look at something like this for no reason would’ve been a sick joke.

  “Oh, right.” Dick turned to the closet covering the wall opposite the bed. “At first we thought it was just a domestic dispute. A crime of passion. But then we found this.”

  Dick opened the closet and King whistled.

  Part of the plaster had been cut away to reveal brick after brick of cocaine. They were piled on top of each other like a secret hidden wall within the wall.

  King scratched his chin. “That’s a lot of dope.”

  “There’s more.”

  “How much more?”

  “It’s behind every wall.” Dick gestured at the house around them.

  “What?” King laughed, unable to believe it.

  “Every wall,” Dick insisted. “Every cut we’ve made, we’ve found it piled up from floor to ceiling. It’s way too much for a humble couple living a quiet life in the The Big Easy, don’t you think?”

  “It’s too much even for heavy dealers.”

  “That’s what we thought. The knife had the man’s prints on it, but now we’re wondering if maybe the woman was tortured to get him to talk. It’s still possible he offed himself out of guilt for not saving her. Or maybe the mysterious third party hurt the woman, then shot the man before framing him. Either way, we’re hoping if we learn more about the drugs, we’ll learn about these two. Right now, we don’t have anything on the man at all. No name. Not even a wallet with a driver’s license in it. The woman is Rita Cross. She owns the house and works as a hairstylist in Treme. But she isn’t married and doesn’t have this guy’s name on even the utility bills. So who the hell is he?”

  King whistled. A second later, someone—probably Clarice—yelped. Then Lady was in the room, looking up at King expectantly.

  He gave the dog the sign to search the house for evidence. With a delighted yip, she put her nose to the ground and started in on her work.

  “Damn smart dog,” Dick said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’d you get her from?”

  “The NYPD. I’m friends with a guy up there. They said that she was perfectly trained as a dual-purpose dog. The department’s original plan allowed for the recruitment of six dogs. Then a budget cut revised it down to four. They decided to keep the males and let the two females go. I was able to convince my friend to sign over ownership of Lady in exchange for reimbursing their expenses.”

  “Budget cuts, man. So, she’s from New York?”

  “Europe, actually. Demand for these dogs is so high right now, nine out of ten of these dogs are imported.”

  “You’re lucky to get her,” Dick agreed.

  “Damn lucky. Except my French is shit.”

  Dick snorted. “Excuse me?”

  “She learned her commands in French. And my pronunciation is no good. It’s why I prefer the hand signals. She listens better to Mel.”

  “I didn’t know Ms. Mel spoke French.”

  King shifted his weight, trying to abate the ache in his lower back. It snuck up on him these days if he stood for too long. “She’s got that Creole background.”

  Dick laughed. “Of course she does. Well, I’ll send what we’ve got about the house, the drugs, and these two to your office. Piper’s usually quick getting back to me.”

  “She is,” King said. “But she’ll be in and out for the next two weeks. Carnival.”

  “We’re spread pretty thin ourselves.”

  King had suspected as much. The flood of tourists also meant a flood of police force in the Quarter. Probably another reason why calling in a local PI seemed so attractive, if manpower was thin.

  Dick gestured to the hallway, and King was relieved for permission to leave the room. It was the painted toes—those damn turquoise toes—that he kept seeing.

  Dick closed the door behind them.

  Lady barked twice and King looked at the ceiling, tracking the sound.

  “She got something?” Dick asked, his hand still on the bedroom doorknob.

  “Let’s see.” Though he had no doubt. Lady really was a damn good dog. He’d only had her for eight months, but his affection for the animal was unlike any he’d had for a pet before.

  King mounted the stairs, following the sound of Lady’s instructive yips.

  He found her at the top of the landing, her paws on the base of an open window.

  “What have you got?” King asked her, ignoring the worsening ache in his lower back as he crested the stairs.

  Lady hopped out the window onto the sloping roof. She scratched at the shingles.

  “That isn’t going to cave in,” Dick said supportively. “If you think you can squeeze out of that thing.”

  King was able to squeeze through the window with much effort, collapsing onto the shingles with an undignified harrumph. His back was definitely talking to him now. He saw a Vicodin and a long nap in his future.

  Dick laughed behind him.

  “I don’t see you coming out after me,” King called crossly as he pulled himself up.

  Lady’s paws framed a splatter of blood about a quarter in size and another beside it no bigger than a dime.

  “Good girl,” King said, and gave the dog an affectionate scratch behind the ears. He reached into his coat pocket and found one of the treats he kept there now. He never knew when he would need to reward Lady for her work, so it was just easier to keep his pocket stocked.

  Lady lapped the treat from his hand.

  “What is it?” Dick asked, his head hanging out the window, giving the impression of a guillotine about to come down on the back of the man’s neck.

  “Blood,” King said, resisting the urge to touch the tacky surface with his finger. “Call someone up here to collect it.”

  3

  Melandra had just closed her loft door when the telephone rang. Her hand hovered above the handle.

  “No, nuh uh,” she said, shaking her head. She was supposed to have turned over the open sign on the front door of her shop four minutes ago. She wasn’t taking calls
right now that would put her even further back in her day.

  She was late because she’d overslept—and she never overslept. But she’d tossed and turned much of the night due to the unbearable din of the street outside her window. It was Carnival in New Orleans, a time when an already restless French Quarter fell into a fever pitch of revelry.

  Two weeks, Mel reminded herself and her splitting headache. Two weeks and this will all be over…

  Mel, being the light sleeper she was, found this part of the year to be wretched—even if her sales did quadruple as the tourists flooded the Quarter. It seemed everyone wanted their fortunes told and their pockets filled with voodoo trinkets.

  Money aside, it had still been dawn before the ruckus quieted and she’d finally been able to doze off.

  The phone rang again. Melandra turned her key in the lock with a huff.

  Nobody called her landline these days anyway, except old friends and telemarketers. If the former, they could leave a message on the answering machine that she’d had since 1999. If they were telemarketers trying to sell her a time-share condo in Florida, they didn’t need to bother with the message.

  Melandra adjusted her shawl around her shoulders and backed away from the door despite the small knot forming in her stomach. She descended the metal staircase that bridged the two loft apartments above Madame Melandra’s Fortunes and Fixes and the occult shop occupying the first level.

  Her bangles clanked noisily against the rail. She surveyed her domain.

  The shop was quiet, wrapped in the long gray shadows of morning. She glanced at her watch. 10:05.

  Outside the storefront window with the decal of her business logo printed on its front, a bike messenger whizzed by. He rang his bell twice to alert a woman crossing the street. Otherwise, the area was quiet. No doubt the drunks would be back in the streets by noon, after a late, boozy brunch, taking full advantage of the city’s open container law.

  God, she hated Carnival.

  Head buzzing and eyes burning, she unlocked the front door. She pushed it a little to make sure it would swing, then flipped the sign from Closed to Open.

  Her bangles continued to jingle on her wrist as she moved about the shop, preparing for a fresh onslaught of customers looking to kill the hours until the sun went down and the next round of debauchery began.

  She checked that all the candles were forward facing, labels out. She untangled the glittering beads hanging from a hook and straightened the crooked 5 for $1 sign. The Carnival masks were fussed over as well, a few turned toward the window to catch the eyes of passersby.

  She checked her appointment book, knowing she would be busy well into the night, and guessed where she might squeeze in her food and bathroom breaks.

  The back-to-back readings she didn’t mind. Using her gifts was one way to channel her own restless energy and gave her a real chance at sleep. For once, exhaustion would work in her favor.

  Lastly, once the rest of the shop was ready, she lit incense—deciding on myrrh today—and two candles: one for Mother Mary, another for St. Jude.

  She considered these unconscious choices for a moment and wondered if they were a warning. That knot in her stomach hardened a bit more.

  Her gaze softened on the candles’ flames, and the room dimmed around her.

  Almost, she thought as she felt the world disappear. There. Something was coming through all right. A dark shape. A shadow. Perhaps a woman walking toward her? Or a man…?

  The shop phone rang, high and strident. Goosebumps rose on her arms.

  She turned from the flickering candle flame, listening to the sound. There was something about its tone she didn’t like.

  Bad news, she thought. It’s felt in the bones.

  She answered on the fourth ring, knowing already it wasn’t a customer. She gave the standard greeting anyway, in case she was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time, especially on as little sleep as she’d had the night before.

  “Madame Melandra’s Fortunes and Fixes.”

  “Mel!” Her name came out in one long sigh of relief. “God above, why are you so hard to get ahold of? I thought you’d done changed your number on me.”

  “Janie?” Melandra leaned a hip into the glass counter, either for support or in relief. She couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy to hear from her cousin. It was only that she couldn’t shake that feeling nipping at the back of her neck.

  This wasn’t an expected call. No birthday or holiday today. So why now?

  “Everything all right up there?” Melandra ventured.

  “Oh, me and the girls is fine, yeah. Not that you’d know. Your ass ain’t been back here in…what?”

  “Six years,” Melandra said without hesitating. She wasn’t one for guilt trips. “Funny thing is, I hear cars travel both ways. Like money.”

  Melandra had sent money to all her family when they asked for it.

  Janie knew this. Her tone turned saccharin sweet. “Hey now. I know, I know. It’s just so hard with the girls in school. And they got so many practices. You wouldn’t believe. Band practice, cheerleading practice, math team practice—whatever the hell that is.”

  Melandra felt the knot in her stomach tightening. The longer her cousin prattled on nervously, the more worried she became.

  “If everyone is all right, then why you callin’ me, Janie?” Without meaning to, she heard her own accent deepening, spreading out. It always happened when she spoke to her people back home.

  There was an audible pause as Janie licked her lips. “Now don’t get mad. I didn’t have to call you and tell you nothin’, but that wouldn’t be right. I wanted to call. I wanted to. You remember that now.”

  A hard stone dropped somewhere deep inside her. The worrisome turning of Melandra’s stomach gave over to full nausea. And then all at once she knew the truth. “Terry is out of jail.”

  Janie clucked her tongue. “Now how’d you know that? Damn, I swear, you’re just like Grandmamie, ain’t you?”

  Her pulse roared to life in her ears. The room moved on a tilt. She reached out, found the countertop and seized it.

  “You there?” Janie asked. “Melandra!”

  “I’m here,” Mel managed despite her tightening throat and the panic pressing in on her, compressing her vision. All the spit had left her mouth. She licked her lips futilely, finding them parchment dry. “When did he get out?”

  “I don’t know. But he was here three days ago. He visited his momma out at that home. She don’t even know him, got Alzheimer’s and all that. But he went and seen her anyway. He also went to see his girl.”

  “Alexis?”

  “Yeah, his kid, but she didn’t want nothing to do with him. She’s married with a big house and two little ones. When the hubby flexed on his ass, he left without putting up much of a fight. Big surprise. He ain’t done nothing for that girl. And she’s a good ’un. She got her schoolin’ and got a good job. She don’t need no dog like him around.”

  Melandra grabbed hold of the back of her neck. It ached now. It was as if the muscles there were being squeezed by a large, unforgiving hand.

  “He came around here too, asking ’bout you.”

  No, her mind said. No, no, no.

  Janie kept speaking, unaware of the way Melandra’s world spun around her. “I didn’t say nothing, mind you. Not a damn word. But Tommy went and opened his big fat mouth like he always do.”

  Melandra eased herself into the chair before her legs gave out beneath her.

  “Tommy got to talking about how everyone was faring these days—you know how he likes to shoot the shit. Big ol’ lips just flappin’ in the wind. He got around saying you were doing well down there in The Big Easy. That you had yourself a nice little shop in the French Quarter and wasn’t hurting for no money.”

  No, no, no, no. Her mind was screaming now.

  “I’ll have you know that after Terry left, I slapped Tommy upside his damned head. I said, ‘Why’d you go and tell him all th
at for? He don’t need to know her business.’ And he’s like, ‘He’s her husband.’ And I’m like, ‘On paper. Not in any of the ways that matter.’ I swear he’s as smart as a box of rocks, that man.”

  Mel was on this side of hysteria when a sharp, uncompromising voice cut through her consuming fear.

  Get ahold of this. Get ahold of this right now. Don’t you lie down when there’s a snake in the grass. I raised you better than that.

  This was her grandmother’s voice. And though Grandmamie had been long in her grave, Mel could’ve no sooner shut off this voice than cut off her own hand.

  She straightened on the stool, adding steel to her spine.

  “How did he seem to you?” Melandra said. Her voice wasn’t perfectly steady, but that was all right. She was asking the right questions again, and that’s what mattered.

  “Like Terry,” Janie said. “He’s lean now. Before, ya know, he had a bit to him, but now he looks like one of those dogs that Bubba Rick fights out off Longfellow Road. And he got…”

  She faltered.

  “Tell me,” Melandra said. “You called to tell me, didn’t you? So tell me.”

  “I don’t know.” Janie sounded sincere. “I don’t know what it was, but there was something about him. Something about him had changed, you know?”

  “Twenty-five years in prison will do that to you,” Melandra said.

  “Yeah, maybe. Maybe that’s it. But there was something about him. It was just a feeling, but I don’t know. Shit. I just wanted to call you.”

  “Thank you for that,” Melandra managed. She wasn’t feeling particularly grateful, truth be told. She felt like the world had just served her a giant pile of shit and demanded she eat it.

  “Well, I gotta be gettin’ off here, but you call me, all right? If you need me. Cars do go both ways. I know it.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Melandra said. “Thanks for calling, Janie. I mean that.”

  And she did.

  The moment the call ended, Melandra dropped her phone onto the counter. She put her face into her hands, taking deep, desperate breaths.

  Three days. Three days. Her mind repeated it over and over again. He’s been out of prison for three days.