The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts Series Book 7) (19 page)

“I said… What if Mrs. St. Clair recognizes Jane Doe? What does that mean?”

“I have no idea. If she recognizes the woman, you’ll have to figure out what to ask next.”

Nick couldn’t be two places at once, and a sense of urgency had settled into the lower reaches of his gut. The interview with Bitsy St. Clair was going to be important. He sensed it. His stomach churned with anxiety. What if Petrie didn’t follow up with the right questions?

A long silence ensued. When Petrie finally spoke, his voice was unnaturally calm. “Why haven’t you tried to find out why a dead man’s fingerprint was in Thoreau’s car?” Petrie was much more perceptive than he looked. Did he detect a hint of reprimand in the younger cop’s question?

“I have been trying—”

“No, you haven’t. It’s like you already know that’s a dead end. While you were talking to Dallas Thoreau without me—oh yeah, I know about that—I was doing background on Brandon Wakefield, remember? The picture we have of him doesn’t look anything like his mug shot. Did you know that already? Are you sure the guy that hung himself in St. Denis Parish was Brandon Wakefield? You’re not, are you?”

Nick held down the temptation to snap at Petrie and tell him to leave it alone.

“His DNA matched.” Was his voice even enough?

“Are you sure?” Petrie’s question rattled with suspicion.

“What do you mean am I sure? Of course I’m sure.”

“A friend of mine in the state crime lab said there was something odd about that DNA match. He hinted there might have been a cover up, maybe some records altered. Do you know anything about that?”

So Petrie had done some investigating of his own. At that moment, Nick was kind of proud of his rookie. That didn’t mean he wanted to tell Petrie everything he knew. Nick had the sick feeling that it was dangerous to know about the weird DNA matches in the Wakefield bloodline. He’d been watching his back ever since Charlotte Soileau had told him of the anomaly.

His hands tightened around his steering wheel. “Go talk to Audrey’s mother. I’ll meet you at Johnny J’s when we’re done and we can compare notes. If you still want to know everything, I’ll tell you everything.

There was a long pause before Petrie replied. “I’m your partner.”

Obviously, Petrie thought that said it all, and maybe it did.

Nick disconnected the call. He wasn’t sure it was right to pull Petrie into something that was potentially deadly. Police work was inherently dangerous when dealing with human criminals. But dealing with paranormal criminals? That was uncharted territory, and Nick wasn’t sure he was the man for the job.

****

Twenty minutes later, Nick knocked on the door of Dylan and Sophia’s temporary residence. When Sophia swung the door open, Nick spotted packing boxes lined up along the hallway.

“Leaving so soon?”

Her eyes narrowed. “We told you we were.”

So Sophia wasn’t any less angry with him than she had been before. He moved on to his business. “I have a picture I want to show you.”

Dylan emerged from the kitchen holding a strange item in his hands. Nick refrained from asking the man point blank what it was. The object could have been anything, and a multitude of kinky thoughts passed through his mind before he rejected them.

Dylan must have read Nick’s mind. “I found it in the back of a cabinet, and I don’t know what it is either.”

Dylan tossed a glance at Sophia, who had crossed her arms over her chest. The woman could hurl meaner thoughts at Nick than any person he’d ever met.

“So why are you here?” Dylan set the item on the hall table and motioned them toward the living room.

He flicked through the photos on his phone until he found the one of Jane Doe on the slab in the morgue. “Do either of you recognize her?”

Sophia reached for the phone and held it a long while. “I think that’s Tanya Delacroix.” She handed the phone to Dylan.

“Yeah, that’s Tanya. She’s dead?”

Nick nodded. “How do you know her?”

“I didn’t really. She was a friend of…” Sophia stopped and swallowed hard. The fire in her eyes diminished. Certain subjects could knock the fierce right out of her.

Dylan finished her sentence. “She was a friend of Audrey’s.” He handed Nick’s phone back to him.

So Elsa’s uncanny suggestion that the two women were connected had been spot on.

“When did you last see her?” Nick’s pulse raced through his body. His fingers tingled as if coming back from being numb. He could always sense when he was about to hear something important to a case.

Sophia answered his question. “Years ago. I haven’t seen her since I moved out.”

Sophia and Audrey had shared an apartment the last two years they were at Tulane. So by Nick’s calculation, Sophia hadn’t seen Tanya in at least four years, maybe closer to five.

“When did you first meet her?”

“She knocked on our door one night. Audrey was kind of surprised to see her. Tanya told her that she’d just moved back to New Orleans. That upset Audrey. She kept asking Tanya why she hadn’t called before she came over, and Tanya kept saying she wasn’t sure she should.”

Dylan took up the narrative. “After I moved in with Audrey…”

He reached over and took Sophia’s hand. She flinched, but she didn’t reject the action. His temporary cohabitation with Audrey was obviously still a sensitive subject between them. Probably always would be.

“Tanya would call sometimes. I could hear Audrey make excuses why she was too busy to meet up with her.”

Sophia added a few more details. “I don’t remember Audrey ever inviting her over. Tanya would just show up. That always ticked Audrey off.”

“What was Tanya like?”

Sophia shrugged. “I don’t really know. The two of them would leave. I was never invited to go with them.”

“So what happened to her?” Dylan pointed toward the cell phone, but Nick had already closed the picture.

“She’s been a Jane Doe for almost a year. Someone dumped her body in the Royale Chateau.” Only a few weeks after the French Quarter Killer started killing. But he didn’t want to address that detail.

Dylan slid an arm around Sophia’s waist. “That’s awful.” He raised his eyebrows, obviously wanting more information. When Nick didn’t respond to his silent request, Dylan pushed harder for answers. “So it’s taken this long to connect her to Audrey?”

That fact embarrassed Nick. Should he have seen the connection sooner? “It never occurred to me to ask. Until today, they always seemed unrelated.” He stuffed his cell phone into his pocket. “Where was she from?”

Sophia tapped her finger on her chin. “You know, I’m not sure.”

Dylan shook his head. “I don’t think I ever heard her say. She never talked much to me. Actually, it was like Audrey didn’t want us around each other.”

Sophia’s head popped up. “Tanya had a sister. Chandra, I think. One night, Chandra knocked on our door looking for Tanya. I wouldn’t have known about her except Audrey wasn’t home. I answered the door. Audrey wasn’t happy when I told her Chandra had dropped by.”

Nick made a note of the name. “Okay, that’s something to start with. Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it in years. Until now. I didn’t realize Audrey’s relationship to them was significant.” A slow burn grew brighter in her eyes. “I wonder how many other things might be important to your case if I could remember them?”

Yeah, Nick wondered that as well.

****

The drive across town gave Nick plenty of time to digest the new information he’d learned. It was well past seven in the evening when he took a seat across from Petrie at Johnny J’s. He motioned to the waitress and ordered a beer on tap before turning his full attention to the younger cop.

Petrie raised an eyebrow. “Are we off duty?”

“We are now.”

“So what you’re gonna tell me is off the record?”

“After I tell you what I’m going to tell you, I think you’ll understand why this has to be way off the record. But first, did you learn anything new from Bitsy St. Clair?”

Petrie leaned his elbows on the table. “Have I got a story to tell you.” He yanked the photo out of his pocket and slapped the morgue shot of Jane Doe on the slab onto the table between them. “I know exactly who she is.”

He turned the picture over. The whole bar didn’t need to know whom they were talking about. “Tanya Delacroix.”

Petrie deflated. “Yeah.” Anger colored his neck. “If you already knew, why did you send me out to talk to Bitsy St. Clair? That bit…woman isn’t easy to talk to.”

“I didn’t know who Jane Doe was before I sent you out there. I swear. The person I interviewed this afternoon recognized her.”

Petrie stared hard at Nick for a long, long moment. “So you’re telling me we just happened to ask the right people the right questions to get the right answers on the same day nearly a year after this woman’s body was discovered? That’s kind of a big coincidence, isn’t it?”

In Nick’s universe, everything happened because something else set it in motion. Coincidences were just a matter of perfect timing.

He lifted his hands in his defense. “I swear I didn’t know. I was talking to Elsa Madsen and Collin McVey today. We talked about a lot of things including Audrey, and I told them about Jane Doe because she was found in the hotel they’re renovating. It was Elsa who suggested there might be a connection between Audrey and Jane Doe. How she came up with that idea, I don’t know. I didn’t ask her. Until that moment, I’d never even considered it.”

“Is Elsa Madsen a suspect?”

“No.”

“Is she a person of interest?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think that’s kind of hinky that she would just happen to put those two things together? Just from talking to you about them?”

Nick sighed. How to explain Elsa Madsen to Petrie? “Elsa has a special…gift. She perceives things.”

“Oh my God. Is she a psychic? Like you girlfriend? Do you think the whole world is filled with people who see things now? Get a grip, Moreau. Did you get shot in the head? Do you really think there is such a thing as sixth sense?”

Nick spluttered a few times, trying to find the words to rebut Petrie’s verbal assault on his ability to remain objective. “You don’t have to be insulting. I promised you the story. Do you want to hear it or not?”

“Just tell me the facts. Leave out the paranormal, psychic crap.”

Nick sighed. “Okay. I’ll tell you everything, but the paranormal, psychic crap is at the dead center of this mess. You still want to hear what I have to say? Because I can’t tell the story without it.”

“Fine. You promised me the
whole
story. So tell it. I’ll decide what I believe and what I don’t.”

Why was Petrie so belligerent?

“Okay. I will, but first, tell me what Bitsy St. Clair told you.”

Petrie looked like he wanted to explode with information. “It’s not what she told me. It’s who was there when she did.”

Good. Nick had effectively sidetracked Petrie from a discussion of the paranormal phenomena surrounding anyone named Wakefield. “Okay, I give up. Who was with Bitsy?”

“Dixie Thoreau.”

Dallas Thoreau’s wife. That was a shocking news flash.

Petrie smirked, obviously delighted to know something Nick didn’t. “Dixie Thoreau and Bitsy St. Clair are first cousins.”

Nick’s world took a decided tilt off center. Why had he never made the connection? Why had Dallas never mentioned that Audrey was related to his wife?

Nick whistled. “Wow, that’s significant.”

Petrie leaned forward. “It gets better.”

The suspense was causing Nick to itch.

“Both of them knew Tanya Delacroix. Dixie said Tanya was engaged, but the guy died in an accident a few years ago. She disappeared right after that and was never seen again. Well, not until that photographer found her dead in the hotel.”

Nick reined in his excitement. He had been right. The bits and pieces of the larger puzzle were slipping into place, and all of the facts seemed to be interlocking. The bigger picture was still out of focus, but it was a lot clearer than it had been that morning.

“Want to know who she was engaged to?” Petrie’s smug grin lit up his otherwise nondescript face.

“Jamie Thoreau?”

Petrie’s enthusiasm for his storytelling fizzled. “It’s really irritating when you know everything before I tell you.”

Nick smiled, trying hard to hide his amusement at Petrie’s expense. “Sorry. That was just a guess.”

“So how is that you’re guess is so spot on. As far as I know, we’ve never even heard of Jamie Thoreau.”

It was time Petrie knew what was going on. “I learned about his death when I was investigating the disappearance of Audrey St. Clair. He was the victim of a hit and run accident, and I’ve suspected for years that Audrey was driving the car that killed him.”

Petrie fell back in his chair. “That was a pretty big detail to keep to yourself.”

“Yeah, I know. This case is so twisted… I need your help.”