The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) (31 page)

Why help a nobody like me?

Richie must have sensed Sam tense up, and he hastily set down his plate and, gesturing with both hands, continued his explanation. “However, the moment you told me your plans last night, I realized that I couldn’t go through with it. This story has too much raw emotion behind it, too much anger. I don’t want to get involved in that. To be honest, if I hadn’t come up with the idea of writing a True Crime novel based on the current investigation, I’d probably be on my way home today.”

Still tight-lipped, Sam nodded. His explanation made enough sense to relax her, but she couldn’t help but think that Richie was unaware of how horrible the situation actually was. Finally, she asked, “So, do you realize what you’re getting yourself into?”

Again, Richie got a pensive look, and Sam could almost imagine a thought bubble floating above her new friend’s head. Finally, Richie said, “Ya know, I’m not sure anymore. I know this guy, Vincent Castille, committed some of the most atrocious torture murders in American history. A real modern-day Jack the Ripper. And I know there is a good chance we’re dealing with another sicko who is doing the same thing. I don’t know how far this goes, Sam, but it’s ugly.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and continued, “And, if my writing about the investigation helps put it to rest, or even solve it, then I’ve done my part.”

“Solve it?” Sam asked, arching an eyebrow. “That’s a bit out of left field. Do you really think you can help solve this?”

His face again resolute, Richie nodded. “Yes. Well, I mean, I’m no detective myself, but I have to think like one to write about crimes. As a mystery writer, you have to understand what I’m saying. The idea of seeing the evidence and coming up with a solution is rather exciting to me.”

Shaking her head, Sam replied, “Look, Richie, this isn’t some prime-time mystery hour. You aren’t the brave consulting detective who helps the police solve crimes. This is a real murder investigation, possibly a serial one, and if you get too involved, you could get yourself killed.”

Locking eyes with Richie, Sam continued, “Look, I understand you are a writer. I get that. I’m a writer, too. We both have to think like what we’re writing about—killers and detectives. But this is some ugly shit, Richie, and if you’re thinking of becoming like a character in one of our stories, all you’re going to do is get hurt.”

To Sam’s surprise, Richie chuckled, giving her a wink. “Sam, I’m a dreamer and an optimist, but not an idiot. I don’t plan on stalking the back alleys of Toulouse at night, or skulking underneath the Riverwalk for clues. But I do think that by looking over the evidence, and collaborating with you, we can come up with something plausible.”

Sam nodded at that, giving Richie a wry smile. “Well, I’m a pessimist. I’ve been that way since my grandfather was arrested. I just want this to be over with, Richie, that’s all.”

To Sam’s surprise, Richie smiled, leaned forward, looked her in the eyes, and said, “So let’s do our part to help find out who this sicko is and put him away. You can’t be so jaded that you don’t want to help before someone else ends up dead. You’re a brilliant person, Sam, and you can make a difference.
We
can make a difference.”

Sam stared at Richie for a moment, her new friend’s words having struck a central nerve.

He’s right. I am jaded. I’m jaded as hell.

Looking down at her plate of food, Sam wondered how many more opportunities she’d let pass her up while being so disenchanted with people, and with life in general. Up until a day ago, she’d hadn’t cried in twenty years. And now, in the span of a few hours, she was realizing that she had all but slept through the past twenty years of her life.

Sam also realized this was the longest and most coherent conversation she remembered having in a long time. She hadn’t gotten distracted once. With only two conversations, Richie had drawn Sam out more than even Jacob had. Sam looked back up at Richie, who was smiling gently at her. Her cheeks flushed deeply as she looked away, muttering, “You’re a damn fool.”

She wasn’t sure whether or not she was talking about herself.

Finally, Sam said, “Well, one step at a time. And don’t you go running off on me, Richie Fastellos. I’ll never forgive you if you abandon me or screw me over, not after drawing me out like this.”

Richie kept that soft smile. “Nah, I won’t, Sam.” Leaning back, he continued eating. “I get the feeling we’ve both been through our own private hell. We’ll both see this through to the end.”

Sam gave a small smile. “Thanks.” She took a few more bites. “So, we finish breakfast and then get to work, right?”

“Right,” agreed Richie, who was happily eating his eggs, which had to be cold, seemingly without a care in the world.

After a few moments, the young man made an
“Mmmm”
sound and gestured to get Sam’s attention. When she looked at him, he said, “So, my original question. Rodger Bergeron. Do you think he’ll share any inside information with us?”

Sam, who was finished trying to eat the cold eggs and was just focusing on the lukewarm bacon, considered Richie’s question for a few moments before replying. “I doubt Rodger would reveal anything confidential, even to me. He’s a good cop, and a good man.”

“But you know him, right?” asked Richie, obviously fishing for information.

Sam thought about that for a bit. After a moment, she shook her head and said, “I do, but we haven’t really spoken since I was ten years old. It’s personal.”

“Of course,” said Richie, nodding his head and crunching on some bacon. “No problem. Well, I guess it is newspapers and bothering constables for us. God, sometimes I feel like I should have been a journalist. Ya know, my mother wanted me to be one, but the closest I ever got was being a paperboy.”

Sam chuckled inwardly at that, envisioning a young Richie trying to ride a bike and toss papers at the same time. The image in her head was one of him falling off his bike and skinning his knees, all with a bulldog latched on to his butt. As Richie continued to talk about his very uninteresting past, Sam looked over at him. He had an almost schoolboy charm to him, one that Sam found genuinely appealing.

Dreamers like him are a rare breed. I can’t let anything bad happen to him.

Breakfast was soon over, and both writers were on their second cup of coffee. That’s when Sam cleared her throat and said, “So, ready to start hashing out the details?”

Richie nodded, smacking his lips softly as he finished his coffee. After the second
smack
, he slowed down, looked thoughtful, and then said, “I mentioned newspapers earlier. Why don’t we check the one I brought in and see if there’s anything new?”

“That’s a good idea. If there’s nothing there, we can turn on the television in my office and see if there’s anything on the morning news.”

Setting down her coffee cup, Sam motioned for her guest to open up the newspaper. As Richie did so, she said, “Also, we can see if they’ve published my first chapter this morning. It could be posted today. After all, I just turned the manuscript in yesterday, and sometimes it takes… a whole… day… ”

Sam’s voice had trailed off when she spotted the headline to the morning paper. Richie, who had unfurled the paper, was staring at the headline as well. There it was in bold black print on the front page, right above a photograph of the side of a building in the French Quarter.

“SECOND VICTIM. POLICE CALLING NEW MURÂDERER A COPYCAT.”

“Oh my God,” said Richie, setting the newspaper down. “So it is a serial killer, isn’t it?” Standing up, he walked to the open doorway, shaking his head, looking pale for a moment. “I mean, a part of me was holding out that this wasn’t a real serial killer, but… ” Richie’s voice trailed off and he looked away.

Sam was calm. Richie’s reaction hardly surprised her, though, and it only cemented in her mind that he was someone special, someone who needed to be kept safe.

Quietly, Sam picked up the paper and began to read the article.

All the while Richie stood to the side, regaining his composure. He asked who the victim was.

Sam didn’t reply until she was a few paragraphs deep. Finally, she said, “This victim wasn’t a native. She was a tourist. See?”

Sam pointed to the picture of the woman, and Richie came over to look at it. As far as Sam could see, the woman, named Rebecca Clemens, from Austin, Texas, was like any other tourist, right down to the gaudy beads and the skimpy T-shirt with the words “Cock Teaser” across the chest.

To Sam’s surprise, Richie paled considerably. “I know that woman.”

Sam looked up at Richie and blinked. “You knew the victim?”

Gritting his teeth, Richie replied, “Well, I mean, I ran across her the night before last. Her and her friends. On Canal Street.”

Sam turned back to the paper and read over the information about the victim. Sure enough, she had two male friends she was traveling with. After confirming that, she offered the paper to Richie. “Wanna read about it?”

Richie backed away and held out his hands. “Give me a second to catch my breath. It’s kind of freaky, ya know? You meet someone one night, and a day later they’re a murder victim. First time this has happened to me. I don’t really know what to make of it, you know?”

As Richie rambled on, he took out a small medicine bottle, popped the top, and gulped down a pill. Sam watched the action with interest. She didn’t need to be a doctor to figure out those were panic pills, the kind people with anxiety disorders usually took.

She had taken enough medication in her life to be familiar with the mannerisms of one taking those kind of pills to ward off an impending panic attack.

While some people might have been turned off by Richie’s behavior, Sam found it drawing her even closer to him.
It’s like we’re kindred spirits. We’ve both got problems.

Sam found herself wondering what had happened to Richie to make him that way.

After taking a moment to breathe, Richie put away the pill bottle and held out his hand. “Yeah, let me see what it says about her.”

Sam smiled gently and tossed the paper into his hands. “Here you go. See for yourself. The last person to see her was the hotel clerk. The report looks like it gets pretty detailed.”

As Richie unfurled the paper and took a seat again, Sam shrugged and went over to her desk, took out her silver pen, and started to take some notes. The pen felt comfortable in her hand, and as Sam started to sketch out some random ideas, she felt them flow forth from her mind. She was learning to like this feeling, of being able to pour the ideas outward so easily.

“I guess I’m desensitized to this whole ‘someone you met on the street was murdered’ bit,” said Sam. “I’m more concerned that there is a copycat of my grandfather going around than in coincidences.”

“Right,” replied Richie, who had started reading the article. “They have a lot more information about the victim’s movements a few hours before the crime. Want to hear them? The guy who wrote the article, Jacob Hueber, was really thorough.”

Sam had been jotting down ideas for her next chapter, cross-referencing her notes, and remembering that she had to tie everything back to her copycat murderer. At Richie’s question, Sam looked up and smiled. “Jacob’s covering this story? He’s a good friend of mine. What does he say?”

Richie began to read. “Right, she had been partying with her friends all evening in the French Quarter. At eleven o’clock, she started to feel sick and had her two companions—her brother and her boyfriend—take her back to her hotel room on Dauphine Street. The boyfriend stayed and the brother went out for more drinks. At half past midnight, they got a call from the brother, who was piss-ass drunk and wandering the back streets of Chartres. The boyfriend left to go get the brother. At one fifteen in the morning, the clerk of the hotel where they were staying said that the victim came to the front desk, asking where the nearest twenty-four-hour pharmacy was. The clerk told her, the victim left, and she wasn’t seen again until her body was discovered in an abandoned apartment next to the Faulkner House in Pirate Alley.”

As he finished reading, Richie shook his head. “Pirate Alley is a tourist attraction. Seriously, don’t you think someone would have heard her screaming?”

But Sam didn’t reply, and in fact, she hadn’t focused on anything since Richie started divulging the timeline of the crime. Instead, Sam was sitting there, her entire body shaking. Her head pounded in unbelievable pain, and her mouth and throat were mothball dry. Her right hand clutched tightly on to her pen and her left hand clutched tightly on to the red plastic charm as if her life depended on it.

Richie looked up, saw Sam, and blinked. “Sam. You okay?”

“How the fuck is that possible?” Sam muttered, the pounding in her head like hammer strikes on an anvil.

Richie shifted in his chair, looking noticeably concerned. Finally, he said, “Okay, you’re freaking me out. What’s wrong, Sam?”

Sam felt herself withdraw from both Richie and the world around her. Once again, she couldn’t focus on anything but the horrible sensations she was feeling. “The murder. The victim. Her last hours alive. Where her body was found.”

Richie, still with a confused look, nodded. “Yeah, what about it? It wasn’t all that gruesome or anything.”

“You don’t get it,” Sam replied, fighting the urge to start screaming, her entire body shaking. “That’s exactly what I wrote in my story yesterday!”

Chapter 17   
Introducing Dr. Klein

“I don’t buy in to this shit at all,” said Rodger, a huffy air of indignation about him, arms folded and brow furrowed, as he sat waiting with Michael in Dr. Klein’s office. Rodger’s usual gruff tone was several degrees more severe, and it was apparent to Michael that his partner was in a bad mood, good reason for it or not.