Tortured Spirits (3 page)

“And you came all the way here to help him?”

Jake nodded.

“Louise migrated here from Pavot Island. Miriam was born there, too, but Havana was born here. Miriam went back to Pavot Island and got married. When she returned to the States, she settled in Miami. That's where she lived the last time I spoke to Louise.”

Miami!
“Do you know her married name?”

“Santiago. Now you know what I know.”

Elaine handed the card back to Jake, and when he returned it to his wallet he removed two twenties. “Thanks for your help.”

She took the money and folded it in one hand.

Jake returned to the car and got into the front seat.

“Well?” Vincent said.

“I need to get to Miami.”

Standing in his hotel room, Jake called Carrie in New York City. He had left his assistant in charge of Helman Investigations and Security while he was away.

“Hi, boss,” Carrie said, no doubt recognizing his cell phone number on the display on her desk.

Jake tossed his clothes into his rolling suitcase. “I'm checking out. Book me a room in Miami for tonight, even though I probably won't be checking in until morning. I'll need a car when I get there, too.”

“Should I get you a motel room, so Edgar isn't a problem?”

“You read my mind.”

“How long are you staying in Miami?”

“Tell them three nights for now. Find me everything you can on Miriam Santiago, daughter of Louise Du Pre, sister of Havana Evans, aunt of Ramera Evans. Miriam was born on Pavot Island. Havana was murdered in the Bronx.
Louise died in New Orleans during Katrina. Ramera died in Manhattan nine months ago.”

“You hope to find Miriam in Miami?”

“That's the idea. E-mail me whatever you find but call me, too.”

“It was nice having you, Mr. Helman,” Walter said as Jake signed the credit card charge slip. The middle-aged black man glanced at Edgar. “And your raven. I hope you enjoyed your stay.”

“Thanks, Walter. This is for you.” Jake handed him a fifty-dollar bill.

“Thank you, sir.”

Jake also handed Walter an envelope. “Would you see that Jasmine gets this?” He had left her a note and his business card.

“Certainly.”

With a bag slung over one shoulder, Jake rolled his suitcase outside, where Vincent popped his Dodge's trunk and loaded the luggage.

“You know exactly where we're going?” Vincent closed the trunk.

Jake secured Edgar's cage in the backseat. “Not yet. Just Miami.”

“Play it by ear, free as a bird. I like that.” Vincent opened the passenger door for Jake, who got in.

Jake waited until Vincent sat beside him before saying, “Drive for two hours, then we'll get lunch. After that, I'll
spell you for an hour.”

“You're too good to me,” Vincent said, shifting the car into gear.

Jake reclined his seat and closed his eyes. He heard Edgar croaking close to his ear.

His cell phone's ringtone awoke him from a half sleep seventy minutes later, and he returned the seat to its upright position.

“I've got your room and your car, five minutes apart,” Carrie said. She read the addresses to Jake, who programmed them into Vincent's GPS. “There's only one Miriam Santiago in Miami. Her husband is in jail on Pavot Island. He's some kind of political prisoner.” She read Miriam's address, which Jake jotted down on the back of a business card.

“Good work, kid.”

Vincent drove along the Gulf Coast into Mississippi. Jake stared out his window at the gray water. First Katrina, then Rita, then the British Petroleum disaster had devastated the area. While most of the world had recovered from the economic collapse Jake had partially brought about by causing the death of Nicholas Tower, his former employer, the deep southeast continued to languish. Although microbes had eradicated much of the spilled oil, the question of how much damage these man-made dispersants would have on the ecosystem lingered like a ticking time bomb.

In Biloxi, they ate lunch in a large boat that had been carried several hundred feet inland by Hurricane Camille and then converted into a restaurant at the very spot where
it had come to rest.

Jake took his turn at the wheel, and they crossed into Florida. The sudden appearance of palm trees made him feel as if they had entered a foreign country, and in Tampa, sitting in the passenger seat as the sun turned orange, he pointed out an alligator on the side of the highway. They pulled over to a McDonald's for dinner, so he wouldn't have to worry about leaving Edgar in the car, then got out and stretched their legs. Mosquitoes as thick as houseflies swarmed around them as the pink sky darkened.

“It's growing season year-round down here,” Vincent said.

“I don't think I could ever get used to it.”

“I know other New Yorkers. You're all the same: you think that little island you live on is the center of the universe.”

Jake knew better, but he didn't say so. He fed Edgar some birdseed, then took his turn behind the wheel again.

“Let me know when you get tired,” Vincent said.

“I'm tired.”

“Damn.”

Forty minutes after they changed places once more, the sky turned black, clouds outlined in red.

“You want me to stop at a motel?” Vincent said.

Jake yawned. “No. We've made good time so far. Let's keep going.”

“In that case, are you going to tell me why you're going through so much trouble to find this woman and what it has to do with Edgar?”

“No.” Jake found it highly unlikely Vincent would believe Edgar had been a cop before becoming a raven, that
Miriam Santiago's niece had caused his transformation, or that Sheryl's spirit had told Jake only a blood relative of Ramera Evans could reverse the spell.

Vincent fiddled with the radio, then turned it off.

At 2:05 a.m., they pulled into a motel parking lot and got out. The streetlamp made the bushes glow bright green, and frogs croaked in the darkness behind the trees. Jake left Vincent holding Edgar outside while he checked in, then they took the luggage to the second level.

Inside the room, Vincent looked at the double beds. “You aren't going to make me drive back now, are you?”

Jake opened the cage door, allowing Edgar to hop out onto the desk. “You can stay here tonight. I need you to take me to the car rental agency in the morning anyway. But if you snore, you sleep in your car.”

“I don't snore,” Vincent said. “Does Edgar?”

Edgar turned and blinked at Vincent.

Jake changed the newspaper liner in the cage. “No, but he has other more annoying habits.”

Vincent switched on the air-conditioning. “I'm beat. I don't care what he does.”

They took turns washing up, then climbed into the separate beds.

“You live one interesting life,” Vincent said in the darkness.

Jake felt Edgar waddling across the bed. “You have no idea.”

Jake steered his rented Ford Fusion through the financial district of downtown Miami, an amalgam of glass, steel, and mirrored buildings, with Edgar's cage nestled in the passenger seat beside him. Vincent had left after breakfast, their parting unsentimental.

Finding himself surrounded by international banks, Jake wondered how many of them the Order of Avademe had sunk its tentacles into and how the banks fared now without Avademe and the cabal of powerful old men manipulating world affairs to enhance their profit margins.

Jake wore sunglasses, a polo shirt, and knee-length shorts for comfort, and he had tucked his .38 into the side compartment of the door for security. He had learned the hard way not to travel without protection.

The black Fusion's GPS guided him west to Little
Havana. Green trees and plants encircled pastel stucco houses, and Latin music filled the air. Jake navigated several turns and stopped before a mauve-colored house.

Removing his shades, he gathered the large envelope in which he carried his documents and Edgar's cage and got out of the car. He passed flamingo lawn statues, then knocked on the wooden door and waited. A lawn mower hummed in the distance. A red Nissan Versa drove by, its driver a Hispanic woman in her late twenties or early thirties wearing shades, who didn't glance in Jake's direction.

The front door opened, and a woman who appeared fifty stood there, her brown skin smooth and youthful looking. She had wide greenish eyes like Katrina.

Jake's heart beat faster. “Miriam Santiago?”

The woman looked Jake up and down. She wore a shiny sky-blue dress, and her short hair had been straightened. “Yes?”

Jake handed her his card. “My name's Jake Helman. I'm a private investigator from New York City.”

Miriam glanced at the card, then at Edgar, then at Jake's good eye. He wondered if she sensed his left eye was made of glass or if she was merely avoiding the scars on that side of his face, a common reaction.

“What's this about?”

Jake hesitated. After months of searching for Miriam, he didn't know how to present his request. “I knew your niece Ramera in New York City.”

“Then you know she's dead.”

“Yes.”

“The police told me she died with a drug dealer she was
seeing. Either they jumped to their deaths at a construction site, or someone pushed them.”

“She called herself Katrina.”

One of Miriam's eyebrows twitched. “That figures.”

“She and Prince Malachai—the dealer—were manufacturing and selling a drug called Black Magic. Are you familiar with it?”

“I was born on Pavot Island.”

“Do you know what the drug is, what it does to those who use it?”

“I know what it's
supposed
to be and what it's supposed to do.”

Jake felt disappointment creeping in. “You're not a believer?”

“My mother was a bokor. She taught Ramera vodou after my sister and her husband were killed. I disagreed with her decision, but I'd already moved back to Pavot Island, so I didn't have any say in the matter. It's nonsense.”

Jake's heart sank. A nonbeliever would do him no good. “Mrs. Santiago, did you ever study vodou?”

“I grew up with it. I couldn't avoid it. But I never took it seriously, and I only laughed at my mother when she tried to force it on me.”

The energy drained from Jake's body. “I have a problem involving a vodou spell Ramera cast. I'm told only a blood relative of hers can reverse it. I hoped that meant you.”

Glancing at Edgar again, Miriam clucked her tongue. “I'm sorry. If you're looking for a witch doctor, I can't help you.”

“Is there anyone else?”

“I'm the last living member of my family.”

A queasy feeling developed in Jake's stomach. “Thank you for your time. If you think of anyone who can help me or any way you can help me, please call the number on my card.”

“There's no such thing as magic,” Miriam said as Jake carried Edgar back to the car.

That's what you think,
Jake thought. He had encountered the supernatural too many times to doubt its existence. Sliding behind the wheel, Jake bowed his head.

Edgar croaked beside him.

“I'm sorry, Edgar. We both knew it was a long shot.”

Sitting up, he turned the ignition for the car's air-conditioning and called Carrie.

“How's the Florida sunshine?”

“Hot,” Jake said. “Miami's a bust; this case is closed. Miriam Santiago was the right person, but all she managed to do was put the kibosh on my plans.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It'll take me twenty hours to drive home. I'll spend one more night here and leave at the crack of dawn.”

“You want me to find you lodging along the way?”

“No, I'll play it by ear and see as much of the coast as possible.”

“Bring me some fresh oranges, will you?”

“Sure.” Jake set the phone in the cup compartment for easy access. Without warning, his left hand clamped onto the steering wheel with unexpected force, like a magnet drawn to metal. He blinked at his hand.