Burn: An Anna Pigeon Novel (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) Read online

  THIRTY

  Clare hadn't eaten "later"; nor had she slept long enough to overcome the weakness that had brought her to her knees outside her apartment door. Even so, as Anna watched her becoming Jordan Sinclair, a well-to-do pedophile in New Orleans for a good time, she was suffused with energy. She was Jordan running on his own toxic brand of fuel. Using Clare's key, Anna let him out the gate. Jordan had chosen not to carry the key because it didn't "feel right." Anna suspected that call was from the actress, not her alter ego. Jordan would call Anna on the cell if he needed to get in.

  "Les Bonnes Filles is the other way," Anna said as, towing the suitcase, Jordan turned toward the river and the heart of the French Quarter. He looked back at her with such disinterest, had she not watched the man being constructed, she would have sworn he'd never seen her before.

  The stare altered in some unfathomable way, and Clare's voice said, "I'll walk down to North Peters and get a cab there. I need to put some wear on the shoes and on the wheels of the suitcase." She--or somebody--sketched a salute and turned, continuing in the direction she'd chosen.

  Anna watched for a minute, noting how gutter punk Jordan's slouch was gone, replaced with the sullen swagger of a man whose money can't buy him the respect of those he admires.

  Closing the gate, she locked it and went back to her cottage. The day had been filled with the high-tech research of computers, the esoteric research of hypnotism, and the artistic use of disguise. Unfortunately for Anna, there remained only the tedious work every law enforcement officer depends on, whether the crime is bank robbery or the vandalism of Anasazi ruins.

  Retrieving her backpack and the photocopy of the sketch of Dougie, Anna let herself back out onto Ursulines to walk door to door, show anyone who would look the sketch, and say, "Have you seen this man?" Not particularly sexy, but the Boring Technique was the backbone of most police work.

  On a spring evening the shops in the Quarter where she had followed Mackie and Dougie would be open till six, some till eight, and, of course, the bars and restaurants would be open for business. Given it was going on six already, Anna decided to start with the shops at the levee and Dumaine, then work her way up to Bourbon Street. There, she'd have till 4:00 A.M. to wander around shoving her sketch under noses.

  She'd walked four blocks when the cell phone in her pocket started playing "Clair de Lune," the ringtone she'd programmed in for her husband, Paul. The rush of pleasure and excitement contact with this beautiful man always engendered in her was soured as she realized, if she answered the cell, she would have three choices: She could lie to him, either by omission or commission; she could abandon what she was doing and leave Clare to do or die on her own; or she could endanger her law enforcement spouse by telling him she was aiding and abetting a suspected murderess. None of the possibilities was palatable. Not answering the phone wasn't palatable either. It was unthinkable that should Paul ever need her, she turn away. Even if all he needed was to know she was alive and well and loved him.

  Across the street was what had once been--and could still be, for that matter--a convent. The building dated from the late nineteenth century and was surrounded by a high brick wall. The wall ended at a parking lot separated from the street by a matching wall, modern and only thigh-high. Anna crossed, sat on it, and flipped open the cell.

  "Hello, love," she said, feeling, through her guilt, the joy of having someone for whom pet names were not silly but secret and grand.

  "Am I interrupting anything?" Paul asked. This had become their traditional first line over the time they'd been together. With both working criminal cases--him much of the time, and Anna when she had to--it was too easy to interrupt a sensitive moment with an ill-timed call.

  At the sound of his voice, with all the warmth of his heart in it, Anna made a sudden decision. She had gotten in too deep to abandon Clare and her quest, even to the extent of turning her quest over to the police. Lying would start a cancer between her and Paul that nothing would ever be able to completely root out. Choosing the lesser of the evils, she decided to endanger him.

  "You're not interrupting anything--well, you are, but I need to make a confession."

  There was a brief silence; then he said, "Episcopal priests hear confessions, but we don't give out penance. We leave that to our Catholic brethren." His tone was light, but Anna could hear the worry underlying it.

  Starting at the beginning, she told him everything she had done or said or found or suspected since she left Port Gibson to "find herself" in Geneva's backyard. When she finished, she waited. Paul said nothing for a bit, and she forced herself to relax her shoulders and unclench her left fist. After so many years of not caring a whole hell of a lot what people thought of her, caring so much was painful.

  Finally, he let out a breath and said, "Oh, Anna . . ."

  He sounded frustrated and scared and a little angry, but he didn't sound disappointed. Anna breathed a sigh of relief.

  "I wish you weren't doing this," he said. There was a weariness to his tone that let her know how much working two jobs without help was grinding him down. At fifty-seven Paul was fit and strong, with the body type her father used to describe as "built like a brick outhouse"--not too tall and powerful across the chest and shoulders with legs that could carry him up steep hills with ease. Still, he was fifty-seven, and Anna had noticed when fighting wildland fires that the middle-aged firefighters were tougher than the youngsters at the beginning of a twenty-one-day assignment, but by the end the kids had grown stronger while the older guys had only grown more tired.

  "Yeah," Anna said, hearing an echo of his fatigue in her own voice. "I do, too, but Clare's right. Her stature as prime suspect would blind any law enforcement to what she was trying to show them. You know how it is."

  "I do," Paul said. "Your brother-in-law knows what's going on?"

  "Not officially, but he's been figuring out what evildoers are doing for so long it didn't take him long to catch on."

  "Molly?"

  "I'm sure he told her. Molly could tempt secrets out of the Vatican."

  "Well, that's good, then," Paul said. "We'll make going to the federal penitentiary a family affair."

  Anna laughed, not because she was in the mood for laughing, but to thank him for trying to lighten the mood.

  "You know what I want to do, don't you?"

  "Yes," Anna said. "You want to jump in the car and rush down here to watch my back."

  "And all other parts of your vulnerable anatomy," Paul said.

  "Failing that, you want to issue a head-of-the-household dictum forbidding me to do it."

  Paul broke out laughing. "Yes, but I won't because it would only serve to spur you on to do it further and faster and more often, just to prove you can."

  "I love you," Anna said with a depth of sincerity that couldn't be watered down by distance or sketchy cell phone coverage.

  "And I you," Paul said. "I will call you every three and a half minutes until we're together again, and if you don't answer, I will flood Sin City with good ole boys from Miss'sippi toting deer rifles. Make me one promise?"

  Anna hesitated, then was ashamed of herself. "Name it," she said.

  "Tell me before you do anything risky."

  "Cross my heart and hope to die," she said.

  "Not remotely funny."

  At the gate in the levee wall between North Peters and the river where she'd first spotted Dougie wearing the infamous yellow leather jacket, Anna realized she was whistling "Dixie," a song as politically charged as the Confederate flag. She changed to "The Yellow Rose of Texas," realized that, too, was a touchy subject, and gave up altogether. She didn't give up being happy. Had she realized how heavily being less than honest with Paul had weighed on her, she would have put his freedom and his career in jeopardy days ago.

  Smiling at her cheerful selfishness, she surveyed the bricked lane called Dutch Alley. The confectioner to the left was closed, but on the corner where Dougie and Mackie had turned was on
e of New Orleans's many art galleries. The sign over the door read DUTCH ALLEY ARTISTS' CO-OP. Anna went in and began her canvassing.

  The two artists working didn't recognize her sketch, but she didn't write the stop off as a waste of time. The gallery was one of the finest she'd ever seen--not that she saw many in her line of work--and she made a mental note to come back when she had time and money to throw around.

  Settling into the patient, stolid mode of a magazine salesperson, she stopped in two of the main watering holes near the gallery. At Sydney's grocery, the woman behind the counter thought she might have seen him but, then again, probably not. Anna thanked her.

  The bartender at Coop's said he'd never seen the guy with such alacrity that Anna suspected it was his policy never to see anybody. She thanked him.

  Returning to the corner of Dumaine and North Peters, she began the chore of stopping at every shop along the route she and Mackie had chased the yellow jacket.

  A young man at the tourist info center said the picture didn't ring any bells but he thought she'd like to try a Ghost Tour. The girl in the souvenir shop on the opposite corner knew the man in the sketch. Anna was thrilled with her luck until the girl began to tell her about all the secret police work she'd done and how if anybody knew she was working undercover, they'd sure be sorry they'd been such pricks. Anna thanked her.

  She worked her way up the east side of Dumaine getting nothing and thanking everyone. The Amazing Patty at Vieux Dieux offered to read the tarot or the stars or the angel cards to find the guy. Anna politely declined, so Patty gave her, free of charge, a charm to find lost things.

  Half past five, she turned at Chartres and headed down the west side of Dumaine. Stores were beginning to close for the evening. Soon she'd need to move into the nocturnally oriented businesses' territory.

  At Authentic Voodoo she made her last stop. She paused in front of the door trying to remember the owner's name. Racine. As she reached for the door handle she heard a man shouting. Unashamedly, she leaned closer to eavesdrop. The words were unintelligible, Cajun French, she guessed. Racine--at least she assumed it was Racine--replied in English. Unlike the man's, her voice was not raised, but Anna could still hear well enough.

  "You hate magic, you embrace work the devil would turn down, and yet you say you love me and Laura. There is so much dark in you, I wouldn't let you near her. Get out." The last was hissed. Anna was reminded snakes were an integral part of a lot of voodoo rituals; she was also reminded of the snake she'd sensed beneath Racine's skin on their first meeting.

  The man spoke again, still in Cajun French, but Anna knew cursing when she heard it. Then he cried out as if Racine had stabbed him with a knife. Anna jerked open the door and walked in, making as much noise as possible, banging the door and stomping. It was not her intention to get cut in a domestic dispute. She merely wanted to shatter the mood and distract the participants till things settled down. Failing that she would run away, fleet as any deer.

  Again dressed in unrelieved white, a tiered cotton skirt with eyelet trim and a tank top, the tall pale voodooienne stood behind the counter. Her hair was loose and straight and fell from a center part. Her daughter, Laura, was nowhere to be seen. In a bizarre tableau, the slender blonde was holding a burly middle-aged man, with wild black hair and muscles like the roots of an old oak, at bay with what appeared to be a handful of dried sagebrush.

  "I call on Papa Legba. Come to me. Send me a warrior; send Ogoun." Her voice was louder now and had changed pitch. The man threw his hands before his face.

  "You goddam witch!" he cried in accented English and backed toward the door in such a blind rush Anna had to jump out of the way or get trampled. He was so anxious to escape the curse of the loa that Anna didn't think he'd even noticed she was there.

  Slowly Racine lowered the weeds with which she had terrified the man. The elevated stare she'd adopted as she chanted melted down to a normal gaze, and her eyes locked on Anna.

  "You," she said. "We are about to close, but if your problem is small, and I can help, I will."

  Anna wasn't going to get a better invitation than this. She crossed the room and laid the sketch on the glass-topped counter. "Do you recognize this man, or does this sketch resemble anyone you know or have seen?"

  Racine turned the page around and, holding her hair back with one graceful hand, bent over the paper. It occurred to Anna that the woman was nearsighted and too vain to wear glasses.

  Suddenly, Racine jerked her head up as if the drawing were a scorpion about to strike and emitted a stifled gasp. Without looking at Anna, she spun around till her face was shielded from view and snatched up a pile of papers near the cash register, tapped them into line on the counter, laid them back down, and squared the corners as if it mattered.

  "You know him," Anna said flatly, not wanting to give Racine time to work up a good story.

  "I don't," Racine said, continuing to fiddle with the small pile of flyers.

  "It matters," Anna said. "It matters a lot."

  Racine took a deep breath. Letting her head fall back, she exhaled slowly. "I don't know him," she repeated.

  "Nothing will come back on you. I don't need to know how you know him, and I don't need to tell anyone you told me."

  Racine said nothing for a moment. Then, "I was about to close. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Her eyes were hard and her mouth determined.

  Playing for time, Anna looked around the shop. Racine started toward the door to usher her out. Anna sighed. Meeting Racine's eyes she said, "I know this guy's name is Dougie. I know he's dangerous. I know he's connected to the business of harming children. Me, by myself, I might not stoop to threats. With little girls factored in, I might stoop to anything. So: I know your name, Racine Gutreaux, and your daughter's name, Laura. I know you're involved with--or married to--a man who speaks Cajun French. I'm guessing he's Laura's father and there is a dispute about custody. In this information age, just how long do you think it will take me to put these pieces together and find out how you know Dougie?"

  Racine opened the door to assist in Anna's immediate departure.

  Anna rubbed her face with one hand. A headache was starting behind her left eye. "It might take me a day, two days. That might be long enough for the little girls I'm looking for to die or to be shipped somewhere their mother will never see them again. Can you live with that?"

  Racine looked at the floor. "Please go," she said.

  Having been chasing wisps and scents and old clues from the mind of a child, Anna had no intention of letting something that resembled a solid lead slip away. Eliciting information from an unwilling witness was tricky business. Sometimes threats worked; other times they backfired. The same went for good cop and bad cop and every other form of manipulation. The only thing that was fairly dependable was payment, but what kind? Money wouldn't work on Racine, Anna was fairly certain of that. She stood silently for long enough that Racine finally closed the door softly and leaned her back against it.

  "You know Jordan," Anna said suddenly. "I was in here one day when he stopped to look through your window at Laura. You thought he was a pedophile, and, being a voodooienne, you did something to him, didn't you?"

  "Curses are not illegal," Racine said.

  It was close enough to an admission of guilt for Anna. "Murdering harmless pigeons is."

  "No it isn't. If they are not anyone's personal property and if they are not protected by state or federal statute or city regulations, they can be killed at will. You don't even need a license, and there is no hunting season as regards pigeons."

  Anna hated it when people were well informed.

  "What would you say if I told you Jordan is not, and never has been, a pedophile?" Anna asked.

  "I wouldn't believe you. He's a pedophile. I should know."

  "Ah. You should? And why is that?" Anna leaned back against the counter.

  Racine said nothing. Her hands twitched on the doorknob as if she couldn't decide wh
ether to run or to try to bodily throw Anna into the street.

  "Mommy?" came a tiny voice from behind Anna's shoulder. Laura had come down from the upstairs apartment and stood looking out at them from the gloom at the foot of the stairs.

  "What is it, honey?" Racine asked, trying to watch Anna and her daughter at the same time.

  "I heard Daddy's voice," Laura said.

  "Daddy's gone, baby," Racine said.

  Anna watched the interplay between mother and daughter, both ethereal with their long blond hair and pale skin, eyes big and luminous blue in their smooth faces. Did Racine know about child molesters because her husband was molesting Laura? The idea of anyone despoiling such a frail and beautiful child made Anna's stomach clench. The idea of anyone despoiling any innocent made her stomach clench.

  "He didn't say good-bye!" the little girl wailed.

  Clearly she loved Daddy. That proved nothing. Abused children were dependent on their abusers. The attention and secrecy and "special" relationship, mixed with the natural love of child for parent, strangled the true meaning of love. Love was power and, in the hands of the corrupt, could be used in the most heinous of ways.

  Anna's mind leapt from Laura to Vee and Dana, the lost girls of Clare Sullivan. Girls who'd not yet been removed from danger. "Dougie," she said to Laura. "Is that your daddy's name?"

  Laura didn't say anything, but she scrunched up her nose and wrinkled her perfect little mouth into a moue of distaste. "Dougie's a stinker," she said. Anna got a sense that Dougie was not big enough in the child's mind to have monster status but was sufficiently odious to dislike.

  Racine left the door and was crossing quickly toward the stairs, intent on snatching her daughter out of Anna's reach, when Laura said, "My daddy's name is Blackie."

  THIRTY-ONE

  Anna was invited upstairs, not, she knew, because Racine had come to like or trust her but because it was more private than the windowed shop. They sat at a tiny table in a kitchen the size of a closet, each with a cup of tea that smelled faintly like gardenias and had little more color than plain water. Laura was in the front room. They could see her through the open door serving tea to her dolls. Beyond the child was the door to the stairs down to the shop. Though it was an internal door, and the voodoo shop was locked, Anna noted there were three locks on it: a key lock, a dead bolt, and a chain.