The Drought (20 page)

She approached the boy preparing to complete her nightly examination when she heard him gasp for air. Rushing forward she reached to pull the blankets away. A cold hand wrapped around her wrist. A thrill of fear rushed through her and a scream rose and died in her throat. Barry opened his eyes. Brilliant blue orbs locked onto her. He pulled himself toward her and croaked, “Don’t let the gypsies…” then he collapsed back against the pillows. She snatched her arm away.

Backing away from the bed, she touched the cold place where his fingers had held her wrist. A chill moved up her arm. She rubbed her arm vigorously trying to stop the spreading chill. A dull dread, as numbing as the cold, spread through her. Something’s come over from the other side. Death stopped by and left his calling card.

A gust of wind hit the window. Startled she spun around. This time she did hear the sand skittering against the glass. Frozen between the cloak of coldness emanating from the boy and the sight of the sand swirling outside the window she came to a decision. She quietly gathered her things, edged toward the door and retreated to her own room.

She sat primly on the edge of her bed and stared vacantly at the wall. In her mind she was already gone, she could see herself putting her bag in the car and driving down the lane but the image of the wrought-iron gates stopped her midflight. She didn’t have the code. An inner voice whispered,
just ask him for it. Tell him you have a family emergency.

She thought back to that first day, the glistening blood, the premeditated beating, she should have left, she should have gone to the police and she knew, somehow fully, what price she was meant to pay, she’d felt it coming for years, ever sense she’d accepted the bribe not to report the dead baby—that’s how the devil works, he chisels away taking little tiny pieces that seem inconsequential but overtime they add up. The numbness moving through her was the cold certainty that she and the boy shared the same plight. Neither one of them was meant to leave Griffin Tanner’s estate.

Reserve, Louisiana

“Hey, Daniel let me ask you something.” Nathan hesitated, playing with the pen on his desk as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say. “You’ve got a little Creole in you, right?”

Daniel sat across the small room hunched over his keyboard filling out a police report, hunt and peck style, with a pencil clenched between his teeth. He held up his hand, pinched his thumb and index finger together, and managed to say around the pencil, “Just a pinch.”

“What do you know about Voodoo?”

The typewriter went silent as Daniel turned to look at Nathan, his two index fingers still poised over the keyboard. “What’s one got to do with the other?”

Nathan didn’t look away. “Maybe nothing. Anyone you know into that stuff?”

Daniel’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. A big smile split his face. “You gone tourist on me, Nathan?” Realizing his boss was serious, Daniel rolled his chair across the room and stopped in front of Nathan’s desk. “What’s this all about, what’s on your mind?”

“All those missing animals.” Nathan paused. “I’d say it’s starting to add up to something.”

Daniel broke eye contact. “Gwen Doucet’s collie only accounts for one dog. I wouldn’t go connecting the dots just yet.”

Nathan nodded. “Yeah, I know, only…” He stopped, thought about what he was about to say, shrugged and gave it a shot. “Let me run something by you real quick. What if I told you back in 1954 before the kids went missing, the local pets disappeared first? He held up his hand to stop Daniel from answering. “Now wait, I’m not finished. This last piece is a little sketchy and odd as it’s going to sound, it’s true. What if there was a drought back in the 50’s?” He thumped his desk to emphasis the last point. “Just like what we have going on right now?”

A serious look came over Daniel’s face. He said, “Well I guess the very first question I’d ask is, how much have you had to drink and do you have any to spare?” Humming the tune to the twilight zone he rolled his chair back over to his desk.

“Okay, okay I know I sound like a crackpot but somehow I think it’s all going to tie together. I think we’ve got someone messing around with voodoo. Maybe it’s a cult that sacrifices dogs when it gets hot, hell I don’t know.”

“Serious now. I don’t think there’s any linking what’s happening today with something that happened some fifty years ago. Besides we don’t have any missing kids. Knock on wood.” Daniel tapped the corner of his desk. “Did you ever think the animals are just lying low? When it gets this hot sometimes they hunker down and find themselves a cool spot to stay out of the heat.”

Nathan reached into top drawer of his desk. He withdrew the packet of old news stories and handed them to Daniel. “There’s a pattern Daniel. I’m watching something unfold here and I haven’t a clue what to do to stop it from going to the next level.”

Daniel’s eyes flicked from the old paper clippings in his hand to Nathan’s eyes. “You think I know something?”

“It was 1954, your granddaddy was sheriff. It occurred to me he might have told some tales over the years about the woman he found out in the woods.” He splayed his hands. “Maybe a motive, did she confess to all seven murders?”

Daniel knew the story well. The woman had been chewing on a string of intestines when his grandfather found her. It took everything in him to keep the sneer from ripping across his features. Nathan Singer had no idea what was coming down the pike. Keeping his expression neutral he said, “My granddaddy Roger was a heavy drinker. That man told so many outrageous stories, I wouldn’t know what was real or fabricated. He added casually, “I think his reports are a matter of public record. Have you checked the archives?”

Nathan said, “A mob carried her off before he had a chance to interrogate her.”

Nodding, Daniel murmured his agreement. “Sounds familiar. At least we know he didn’t lie about that part.”

*

Nathan didn’t push. He could tell Daniel was lying but to what end he didn’t know. Maybe Roger Dupier was sick over what happened to those children, maybe he handed her over to the mob, let them tear her apart instead of going through due process. Hell, he might have delivered the death blow himself. That might be a family secret worth keeping. Whatever the lie, it didn’t matter. Something about Daniel’s response had the warning bells going off inside Nathan’s head just like the day he’d come out of Elise’s house and heard the voice whispering through thick static.

Reserve, Louisiana

“I’m telling you Elise, he knows.”

She dismissed his words with a flick of her wrist. “He sees a pattern. It doesn’t mean he knows why it’s there, or how to stop it.”

Daniel sat at her kitchen table still dressed in his uniform. “I don’t know, I checked with Mary Dugas. Those articles he has, they had to come from the archives. But get this, Mary says he never got a look at the archives. She has those boxes stored in a separate location.”

Elise paused. She stood at the counter kneading a wax mixture. She said, “He is a Sansericq. It’s possible Anne told him.” A worry line creased her brow.

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think so. Earlier he asked me if
I
was Creole—I nearly choked. You’re sure Anne Singer was one of Johanne Sansericq descendants?”

“I have no doubt.”

Daniel took a sip of iced tea. “Did she tell you that before she died?” His sister had never admitted she’d been there the day Anne Singer died but he’d been one of the first responders—he knew his sister’s scent intimately and he smelled her that day. The coroner’s report came back with heart attack in the space for cause of death but he knew Elise had access to things that would never show up in an autopsy.

*

Elise didn’t take her brother’s bait. She bit her lip and folded the long sheet of wax, working it with the heels of her palms. She was no longer concerned about Anne Singer or the Sansericq line—if Nathan did not know his heritage the remaining two bloodlines would be powerless to stop what was unfolding in Reserve.

In her heart she knew Narried Savoi was involved. Narried had once been one of the most powerful Mambos outside of Haiti, even more powerful than the infamous Marie Laveau, but she had not been an active participant in the society in over a decade. Even if she intervened and managed to convince Nathan of his family’s history, and initiated him in the rites of voodoo, she could not make Nathan strong enough to withstand the spirit of Jean-Claude Brunache—there just wasn’t enough time.

As if reading his sister’s mind Daniel commented, “If Narried’s already gotten to Nathan, the chances of you getting your hands on that script are slim to none.”

Ignoring her brother’s concern, she took a paring knife and slid it lightly across her open palm. A thin line of blood appeared in the wake of the small blade. Without a word she rubbed her palm across the wax mixture, and began kneading her blood into the mix. She said, “I don’t need the script. I have a special ceremony planned, one I am certain will please Jean-Claude Brunache when he is returned to Reserve.”

Daniel retorted, “Good than you can stop fucking Nathan.”

She flashed a coquettish smile. “Jealous?”

“I don’t like to share.”

Elise tore a sheet of paper towel and wrapped it across her bleeding palm, while she calculated how best to deal with her brother’s vulnerability. Crossing the room like a feline, she touched his arm, curved around him, whispered in his ear. “Nathan is dispensable.” Her hand slid inside his shirt deftly unfastening buttons. “I’ve only been using him.”

His breathing became ragged. “I can’t stand the thought of him touching you.”

“You’ll have your revenge soon enough.” Her lips touched his. “I promise.”

Eyes hooded with unfulfilled desire, Daniel watched his sister saunter away. He knew she was manipulating him, she’d been doing it since they were young. Usually her pursuit was his own, the end justifying the means. The stakes in this game were higher. They weren’t in high school using the craft to punish a teacher for a failing grade, or casting a spell to regain the affection of a lost love. Elise’s pursuits required dark favors. The Petro Loa were always willing to accommodate but in return they demanded blood sacrifices. So far the dogs had pleased them but he suspected a human sacrifice could not be far off.

His sister’s fixation with Jean-Claude Brunache came at a young age. She had been raised at the knee of Roger Dupier, her head filled with stories of a woman dragged into the woods by a mob, a woman who fought with the strength of ten men, and spat curses at her captors even after her head was severed from her body.

Granddaddy rather liked little Elise hanging around the darkened house while he drank his rum. He’d stroke her long blond hair while whispering tidbits of gore, tales of voodoo and sacred bloodlines, his rum soaked breath moist against the shell of her ear. Her favorite story was about Jean-Claude Brunache a colonel in the Haitian Civil war who brokered a deal with a Bokor and became invincible on the battlefield. “Tell about what happened next Grandaddy.” And Granddad would say, “The bokor warned him the gift wasn’t free—the spirit protecting him would want payment and when the spirit came to collect he had to pay up or die.”

The story wasn’t free either. Granddaddy liked to cuddle Elise in his lap, his thick fingers finding warm places to tickle. She played along wiggling her bottom and squealing for him to stop. In the end she knew what price the spirit exacted from Jean-Claude Brunache, knew who was responsible for his death and knew how the sordid story tied to Reserve, Louisiana.

If Daniel had been older he might have figured out what granddaddy was doing to Elise in his recliner chair—he’d walked into the dimly lit room more than once and heard the heavy breathing, saw Elise cradled in his lap. He would have protected her.

Elise got in the habit of crawling in Daniel’s bed at night. She’d snuggle up to him and tell him all granddad’s stories. One night right before she drifted off to sleep she told him about Brunache’s machete. Yawning, she whispered, “If I had Brunache’s machete no one would ever hurt me.”

It turned out she didn’t need a machete.

One afternoon while granddad slept in his recliner, she poured a bottle of his favorite rum over him, lit a match, and set him on fire.

Daniel was there. He didn’t stop her.

While they watched granddaddy burn, Elise whispered to the rising flames. “If Granddad’s stories are true, Brunache and his machete are here in Reserve.” Her eyes hardened. “I’m going to find them both.”