The Hoodoo Detective (24 page)

Donovan blotted the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin. “That was a neat trick with the envelope. Something new?”

“Yes,” she said. “New.” She didn't know how it had happened, but sensed it was connected to her own passage through the in-between. Whatever had happened, she'd tapped into a power beyond anything she'd experienced before, and it was terrifying.

Angus and Wolfe stood on the sidewalk outside the Old Man's hotel, damp circles beneath the armpits of their tees. Sweat beaded Angus's forehead, pink from the sun and the reflected light off the brick building. The dog panted by his side.

Wolfe's skin had turned swarthy, his long sideburns piratical.

“I brought it.” Angus pulled a filigreed pendant on a long chain from his pocket. He fiddled with its base and handed it to Riga. “It's ready to go.”

“Thanks.” She slipped it over her head. The necklace contained a miniature microphone. The number of people involved in this investigation made her itch with annoyance, but at times they came in handy. “What's the range?”

“As long as you're within five hundred yards,” Angus said, “I'll be able to pick up and record the sound.”

Donovan lifted it from her chest, letting it dangle over one finger. “Not bad. It looks like something you might wear. Do you think the Old Man will be able to detect it?”

“Fingers crossed he doesn’t.” She didn't want to discuss the Old Man's magic in front of the two young men.

“Have you heard from Pen?” Wolfe asked.

“No,” she said. “You?”

He shook his head.

There was a shout up the street.

Ash jogged toward them. He clapped the two bodyguards on the back. “Take a break.”

They nodded and strode off.

“We shouldn't stand out in the open,” Ash said.

Donovan glanced at Angus.

“Wolfe and I will wait at that café across the street,” Angus said.

Lightly, Donovan laid a hand on the small of Riga's back, and the three strolled into the cool of the hotel lobby.

The desk clerk glanced up, running a hand over his balding scalp. “May I help you?”

“We're here to see the gentleman in room 105,” Riga said.

The clerk put down his pen, his thin mouth turning down. “I'm sorry, he checked out thirty minutes ago.”

Riga stopped mid-stride. “What? How?”

“I didn't see him leave,” Ash said, his face darkening.

“He's quite ill,” Donovan said, “wheelchair bound, and his nurse was no longer with him.”

“Ah yes, what a tragedy.” The clerk shook his head. “He must have found a substitute, because they left together.”

“They?” Riga asked sharply. Her fists tightened, fingernails digging into her palms. “What did his nurse look like?”

“Like...” The man trailed off, frowned, looked down, straightened his papers. “I'm sorry, what?”

“You were telling us about the Old Man's new nurse,” Riga said.

“Ah, yes. He had a new nurse.”

“And what did that nurse look like?”

The clerk blinked, swallowed. “Looked like?”

“Was it a man or a woman?” Donovan asked.

“I don't...” Blinking rapidly, he ran his hand over his head. “Strange, I can't remember at all. I know he had assistance. Someone was with him. I suppose I was busy, must have been distracted by another guest...”

“May we see his room?” Donovan asked.

“His room? But I told you, he checked out.”

Donovan rested his hand on the desk and slid it close to the clerk's.

The clerk made a quick swiping motion, and his face smoothed. “Ah yes, his room. Many potential guests like to see vacant rooms in case they may stay here in future. I'll take you.”

“Just the key, if you don't mind,” Donovan said. “We know the way.”

The clerk passed him a key and returned his attention to the computer screen.

They passed through the lobby and into the courtyard. The air was soupy, Riga's hair coiling and damp about her neck.

“I was watching. I'd swear he hadn't left.” Ash brushed against a potted fern. “There's no way he could have gotten past me.”

“There's more to that Old Man than meets the eye,” Riga said, grim.

“But—”

“You're a bodyguard,” Donovan said, “not a private eye. Forget about it.”

The fountain splashed, and a breeze ruffled the leaves of the palm plants. A uniformed maid stopped her cart outside room 105. She slid a plastic key into the door.

“Just a moment.” Donovan hurried forward and said something to her in a low voice.

She nodded and rolled the cart away. If he had passed her money (and Riga was fairly certain he had), Riga hadn't seen the transaction.

He ushered them into the room. Blinds drawn, it was dark, stuffy. One of the double beds was rumpled.

Riga walked to the garbage bin beside the desk, turning it over. Nothing fell out. Towels lay on the bathroom floor, but the room was otherwise immaculate. Not even a bar of wet soap beside the sink. She returned to the main room.

Ash knelt, peering beneath a bed.

Donovan pulled out the drawers, closed them. “Nothing.”

“All right.” Letting her eyes drift shut, she relaxed, feeling outward with her sixth sense.

Nothing.

Returning to the bathroom, she ran her fingers along the damp sink and sniffed them. Salt water. He'd magically cleansed the room, and she'd no doubt she wouldn't find so much as a nail paring. But she went through the motions anyway, crawling on the carpet looking for traces of hair.

“I got something.” Straightening, Ash held out a colored bit of cardboard.

Donovan took it, his forehead wrinkling. “A matchbook? Where did you find it?”

“Someone was using it to even out the table leg.”

Riga sniffed. She didn't smell cigarette smoke and had never seen the Old Man smoking. The nurse?

Donovan handed it to her, and a faint ping rippled through her awareness, a stone dropped in a pond. Not dark magic, something else. She turned over the matchbook:
Voodoo That You Do Lounge
.

“It just had to be voodoo themed,” Riga muttered.

“It might not be related to the Old Man,” Donovan said. “Who knows how long that matchbook's been propping up the table?”

“There's a connection.” She listened to her intuition, and that odd ping couldn't be ignored.

“Isn't that a cliché?” Donovan asked. “The old matchbook clue?”

“Yes,” she said. “The Old Man was so careful about everything else. It's hard to believe he missed this. But we have to follow up.”

“It's a set up,” Donovan said. “I'll go.”

“Or me,” Ash said.

“Donovan, you're not leaving me behind.”

“Fine. Me and Ash.”

“Are we going to have our first fight?” Riga said. “Because this is my investigation.”

“Good luck getting rid of the children,” Ash said.

“Who?” Riga asked.

“Angus and Wolfe.”

“This is my investigation!”

Donovan chuckled. “Not anymore.”

Two young men drummed on overturned paint buckets in the late afternoon heat, their dreadlocks bouncing with exertion. Donovan tossed some bills in their tip jar and pointed. “There it is.”

A sign hung beneath an iron balcony: The Voodoo That You Do Lounge.

“Cool,” Angus said.

Riga shot him a look of irritation. Donovan had been right — the investigation was no longer her own. And she didn't like it.

They crossed the street. The bar's door stood open, and a wave of chill from its air conditioner flowed onto the sidewalk, inviting.

Riga followed Donovan inside. Blinking, she let her eyes adjust to the gloom. Murals of bayou voodoo rituals decorated the walls — a group of people dancing around a fire, a skeleton in a top hat and tails, a woman dancing with a snake.

The younger men peeled off from the group and sat at the bar, beneath a painting of a turbaned Marie Laveau. Leaning across the bar, Wolfe said something to the bartender, pointed to the dog. The bartender nodded, brought a bowl from behind the counter and filled it with water, gave it to Wolfe. He sat it on the floor, and Oz buried his nose in it.

A hostess in a tight, black miniskirt led Ash, Riga and Donovan to a small, round table near the empty stage. “Your waitress will be here in a moment to take your order.”

“I've been looking for a friend.” Riga dug her phone from her satchel. “He was supposed to meet us here.” She pulled up the photo she'd taken of the Old Man and showed it to the hostess.

“Sorry. Haven't seen him.”

“Are you sure?” Riga asked. “Has he been here before?”

Shaking her head, the hostess dropped drink menus adorned with voodoo dolls on the table and sashayed away.

Not bothering to open hers, Riga tapped the menu's edge on the table. This didn't feel like a setup. It just felt like a bar in the afternoon. Busy, because this was New Orleans and the drinking hour got going around three o'clock. But not packed, not mad. The real insanity would begin when the sun went down.

But magic prickled her skin. Neither light nor dark, it tickled the edges of her awareness.

“Getting anything?” Donovan asked.

She knew he was asking about the magic, but was reluctant to expound on it in front of Ash. “Just a glass of champagne, I think.”

A waitress with gold bangles lining the dark skin of her arms stopped at their table, and tapped her drinks pad. Smiling brightly, she scratched beneath her denim bandanna with the end of her pen. “Can I get y'all something?”

They ordered, and Riga went through her shtick with the Old Man's photo. The waitress shook her head. “He looks sort of familiar, but we get so many in here.”

Someone shouted from the bar, and she looked up. “I'll get your drinks.”

“I do appreciate your investigative method,” Donovan said. “It always seems to involve food and drink.”

“My motto is serve, don't suffer.”

“I thought it was semper paritus.”

“Why limit myself?”

“Riga?” Hoodoo Hannah strode toward them, her movements long and loose, her fat, golden hoop earrings swaying. The top of her yellow turban brushed against a drum hanging from a ceiling beam.

Riga's pulse quickened. The matchbook had led them to Hannah?

“I thought that was you,” Hannah drawled, stopping beside their table.

Ash and Donovan rose from their seats.

“Hannah, this is my husband, Donovan, and our friend, Ash.”

“Charmed.” She took their hands, her gaze lingering on Ash.

“Would you like to join us?” Riga asked. Could Hannah possibly have a connection to the murders?

“Don't mind if I do.” She pulled out a chair, seating herself in a fluid movement.

“What's a lady like you doing in a place like this?” Donovan asked.

Laughing, Hannah tilted her head back. “I guess I'm waiting for you to buy me a drink before I have to go on stage.”

Donovan motioned to the waitress.

“A mint julep,” Hannah said.

“Sure thing.” The waitress spun away.

“You're a performer?” Donovan asked.

She eyed Ash. “When I feel like it. I'm better known as the Hoodoo Queen of New Orleans, but they let me sing inside this lovely voodoo establishment in spite of that.” Her face tightened. “Hoodoo and voodoo don't always get along. How are you enjoying our fair city?”

“You've heard about the murders,” Riga said.

Hannah leaned back in her chair and folded her hands across her stomach. “Word is, the killings were part of some occult ceremony.”

“Have the police said that?” Riga asked, surprised.

Hannah laughed, a mellow chuckle. “Chère, the police don't have to. Folks like me
know
.”

Riga slid her phone across the table to her. “Have you seen this man in here?”

She glanced down. “Old guy in a wheelchair? Yes, he's been here. Big mojo magician.”

“How did you know?” Donovan asked.

Hannah raised a brow. “That kind of power, a body can feel. It's like a ripple in the atmosphere. A storm blew in with that man.”

“Do you remember who he was with?” Donovan asked.

“She looked like a nurse. Pacific Islander, I'm guessing. And another woman, or should I say 'lady?' A white girl dressed to the nines.”

Riga took back her phone, did a quick Internet search and slid it back to the Hoodoo Queen. “This woman?”

“Yes, that looks like her.”

Riga passed the phone to Donovan. It displayed a headshot of Jenny Wade from her company website.

“Get any hits off of her?” Riga hadn't, and wasn't sure if Jenny was a dilettante like the others, if Riga had missed the mark, or if Hannah was lying.

“Mm.” Hannah closed her eyes. “There was something about her, but the energy from the Old Man swamped just about everything.”

The waitress returned with their drinks.

Impassive, Ash sipped his mineral water.

“What have you heard about these murders?” Donovan asked when the waitress left.

Hannah shrugged. “Just that they were ritually killed.”

“Magical practitioners tend to know one another, even if they follow different paths,” Riga said. “Did you know any of the victims?”

“Only by reputation. Bunch of bored, rich folks.”

“What can you tell me about the dark magic scene here?” Riga asked.

“Dark and light magic, that's a western idea.” Hannah sucked in her cheeks, lowering her brow. “Hoodoo is about balance. And the dark side isn't all bad. Some things belong in the shadows. And some things that seem to be shadow aren't. For example, a curse isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes folks have got it coming.” She gave Riga a hard look. “Sometimes, it's justice.”

Riga shifted in her chair, the back of her throat tightening. “The hoodoo concept of working with both hands,” Riga said. “Don't you think that can be a slippery slope?” She didn't fully understand hoodoo, but in her experience, dark magic left a stain that never washed off.

“It's survival. Nature is red in tooth and claw, and as long as we're a part of it, we can't afford to play nice.”

“I don't think the killers were involved in hoodoo, more along the lines of dark necromancy.”

“Yes, I've heard we had a little.... What do you call it? A coven?”