Devil Dead (11 page)

“Yeah, I am. That girl who jumped out the window? She stabbed me with those scissors, the ones lying over there on the floor.”

“Both of you just sit down on that bed over there and stay put. I'm calling this in and getting some NOPD detectives down here.” He already had his trusty black cell phone out and was talking into it. Very official and wannabe cop-ish. He watched a lot of dramatic TV cop shows, count on it. The cop turned back to the two kids still crying and whimpering and gawking wide-eyed at them from the threshold. “And you two girls, you sit down right there on the floor beside that door and shut up. I don't want to hear a word, unless I ask for it. Nobody's goin' anywhere until we get this scene secured and every one of you is questioned by me, you hear me?”

The two kids immediately got quiet, sank down, and looked at each other with wide and frightened, yet noticeably excited, eyes. Claire looked at them, too. She had a lot of questions to ask them herself. She hoped the not-quite-a-cop-yet knew what to ask.

Novak said, “You're losin' a lot of blood. Better put more pressure on that wound.”

The campus cop heard him. He said, “You, big guy. See if there's a towel or something in the bathroom for your girlfriend's arm. But don't make any quick moves.”

The big guy rose with nary a quick move, walked into the bathroom, and brought back a white hand towel. Good for him. She had figured he might flee out the adjoining suite and leave her to fend for herself. Maybe he was a gentleman after all. Claire pushed up her sleeve to her shoulder, and Novak wrapped the towel tightly around her upper arm and managed somehow to knot it there. She wasn't hurt all that bad, though, and sure as hell not as much as the girl lying splattered on the sidewalk five stories below.

“Okay, I want some answers, and I want them now,” the cop said to everyone. He was young, mid-or-late twenties, probably. Not particularly tall, but muscular and wiry enough and he looked strong and fit. He probably stood five ten or so. He wore a dark blue campus police uniform, but its insignia looked like he was somehow affiliated with the NOPD, too. Maybe they had rookie officers working the Tulane campus, or wannabe cops in training while they gave parking tickets to bicycles. He did seem to have a suitable amount of smarts and acted as if he knew the score. Yep, he was most likely a cop wannabe in training with a dream to join the NOPD ranks. This incident would probably get him a leg up on his application, too. His shiny black nameplate said JASPER DANFORTH.

“Yes, sir, anything we can do to help you,” said Novak, Mr. Polite and Docile and Unintimidating all of a sudden.

“Who was that girl?” Danforth demanded, really into his cop mien now.

Novak said, “We didn't have time to get her name. Maybe those girls sitting over there know her.”

“Do you?” said Danforth, turning toward the inordinately stunned-acting girlish duo.

They looked at each other some more; seemed like they did that a lot. One of them was a blonde, the other one had that aforementioned red hair, artificial and kind of electric red actually. The redhead looked bohemian and less than erudite; the blonde looked like a Gap model but more cerebral. The redhead's first words were all trembling and weak and horrified, as if the girl was still half in shock.

“Oh, my God, Jasp, you saw it, too. Pru just jumped out, just took off running and dove out that window. I can't believe it, she just dove out, man, headfirst, too.”

So the girls knew Jasper rather well, it seemed. He was a cute guy, sort of, not Black or Dean Winchester, by any means, but not too much older than the girls. Maybe he and Miss Red had a thing going. Novak looked at Claire in a significant way. She looked back at him in a less significant way. Now they were doing it, too. Man, what a day.

“Answer my questions, Nev. And who's your friend there?”

“That's my roommate. Poppy Randolph.”

Poppy? How unfortunate was that?
Claire thought. Parents must be idiots or wont to name their daughter after the flower they smoked.

Poppy, a.k.a. the maybe smart blonde, stopped her sobbing and got control of herself. “That girl, the one who jumped out the window? Her name's Pru Davidson. That's short for Prudence. She used to live in this room with Andi, you know, they were roommates and stuff, but Pru just up and left a while ago and didn't tell anybody where she was. Not even Andi.”

Claire jumped on that. “What about Pru's family? Did anybody contact them about her disappearance? Did she just quit and go back home?”

“She didn't have any family. She's been on her own since she was sixteen, or something. I dunno. They died, I guess. But they left her enough money to come here, and stuff. She always has lots of money to spend on stuff and was always throwing it around. You know, buyin' stuff. She bought me a new white cashmere sweater from Abercrombie and Fitch, and it wasn't my birthday, or anything.”

Yeah, drug dealers could afford to be generous,
Claire thought
, and that would be a lucrative endeavor for a college student, and an idea backed up by Pru's terrible physical condition.

“That girl lying down there dead on the street was hooked on drugs. How long?” That was Novak a.k.a. Brass Tacks.

Nev the Red got excited. “Oh, man, she's always been on weed. Always freakin' high, too. But she started using some harder stuff right before she took off that last time. We didn't even know she was in here today. She hasn't been back for freakin' weeks and weeks.”

“Now, wait just a minute.” Jasper Danforth butted in and halted the progress they were actually beginning to make. “Everybody just shut up. I'm gonna be askin' the questions. Got that?”

“Of course,” Claire said, stroking his obviously rather fragile, wanna-wear-official-badge ego. “You are the one in authority here. We all know that.”

Jasper's frown softened a tad, liking her cloying back patting it seemed, but his voice didn't lose its official tone. “Okay, first off, who the hell are you, lady, and what the hell are you and your boyfriend doing in this dorm room? You crashin' in here illegally or what?”

Well, now. Jasper knew something about those brass tacks, too. “Okay, my name is Claire Morgan, and this is Will Novak. He's not my boyfriend. He's my partner. We're private investigators looking for a girl named Andrea Quinn. This is her room. We have permission to be in here from the guy at the downstairs desk. He gave us the key.”

“Is it that girl's room?” Jasper asked Nev of the fake Carrot Top hair.

“Yeah, used to be hers. Neither one of 'em are here much anymore, though. I think Andi's gotten herself hooked on drugs, too. She was pretty straight when she first got here, and then Pru got her into all kinds of freakin' kinky stuff.”

“Who're you?” said Will.

“Nev Collins.”

“What kinda kinky stuff?” asked Will.

“You know, coke and all kinds of drugs. Crack, too, I think. Ecstasy, sometimes. I'm talkin' real bad trips and comin' down hard. That gross boyfriend of hers got her into needles and all that stuff.”

“What boyfriend?” Novak said. “What's his name?”

“I'll ask the questions,” reiterated peeved campus cop.

“Sure,” said Novak, looking extremely annoyed by said peeved campus cop.

“Okay, what's the boyfriend's name?” Danforth asked the girls. Not very original of him, but Novak would get his question answered quickly enough.

“Clarence Carver,” the girl answered. “Pru called him Carvy.”

Claire hoped that rather telling moniker didn't have anything to do with knives, hatchets, or the pair of dress shears that she'd just pulled out of her arm. Danforth turned back to Novak. “So what's your name?”

“Will Novak. Just like she told you.”

“Let me see your P.I. licenses.”

Novak pulled out his wallet, opened it, and held his license up. “Here's mine. She's working alongside me until hers comes through. She's a trained police officer, out of state. Missouri. She'll have hers in ninety days and then she'll be able to work alone, but not until then. We're goin' by the book, Danforth.”

“That true?” Danforth said to Claire.

“Yes. I've been a homicide cop for over ten years. I just recently decided to go private.”

“Okay, I guess. Who you workin' for?”

Claire didn't want to answer that. So she didn't. “I'm afraid that's confidential information. Our client does not want his name known. We were hired to locate Andrea Quinn, but look, man, we're wastin' time right now with all this stuff.” She turned back to the girls. “When was the last time you saw Andi?”

Jasper Danforth glared at her, but he turned and looked at Nev and Poppy and waited for them to answer, too. Poppy got talkative. She talked very fast with a New Jersey accent, and in a real high-pitched voice, a real soprano Tony Soprano. “I guess it was a couple of weeks ago that I saw her standing out there in the hall. She had a backpack on, looked like she was headed out somewhere. She looked scared, too, at least I thought she did, but when I asked her if everything was okay, she just nodded and said she'd see me later, that she had to get to her History of Art class.”

“What about you?” Claire asked Nev.

“I've been studyin' crazy hard. Daddy put me on probation. I gotta get my grades up to a C average or he's gonna pull the plug on me. And make me take this red outta my hair.”

Since Jasper was backing off some, Claire took advantage of his largesse. “Do you both live on this floor?”

“Yeah, right across the hall. We're roommates this year.”

It looked like Nev a.k.a. Red had now decided to give Novak the come-hither-you-sweet-thang eyeball ogle. Wow, she had some gumption to take him on. Novak was a lot older than Nev, and he was pretty scary looking for coed-suitable flirtation material, too. But Nev hadn't seen him throw that girl onto the bed like she was full of feathers. Or maybe Nev liked that kind of rough stuff. Maybe
the bigger, the better
was her motto.

The ambulance chose that time to roll to a siren-shrill stop somewhere far below, and the sound died a few moments later. Jasper Danforth walked to the window and looked down at the pandemonium, which was no doubt still in full swing below. “Okay, the cops are here. I want everyone to stay put until they get up here. They will want to question all of you. Man, this is just godawful. Poor kid. I can't believe she just up and killed herself like that. Right in front of us all.”

Minutes later, two NOPD cops came traipsing into the room, looking large and official with their Kevlar vests filling out their own dark blue uniforms. They looked at the little congregation sitting around the room. The taller one with the sergeant insignia and a nameplate that said GROVENER halted his gaze on Claire's face.

“You're Claire Morgan, right? The homicide detective from Lafourche Parish. What you doin' over here?”

Damn. What was she gonna have to do, shave her head and wear tinted contact lenses? Maybe she should. Incognito wasn't gonna be an option around New Orleans, if she didn't. Not after that last voodoo case. Maybe Novak would shave his, too. Just to be partner friendly.

“That's right. I'm not here in an official capacity. I'm working private now.”

“No shit? That's surprising, after all those commendations our department gave you last summer. What happened to your arm?”

“The victim was hiding in that closet over there. She jumped me when I opened the door to check it out.”

“You need an EMT up here?”

“No,” said Claire. “But thanks.”

“Yes,” said Novak. “She's gonna need stitches. It's a pretty deep cut.”

“Who're you?” Sergeant Grovener asked Novak, frowning at him with a good bit less admiration in his gaze.

So Novak told him, and Claire decided if they ever got all the damn introductions over with, maybe they could figure out why the girl had jumped to her death. But it took a while longer, and the cops did allow them to sit in on their interview with the two girls, out of professional courtesy. As it turned out, they asked a lot of the same questions, but even though neither girl had seen Prudence or Andrea for a while, they hadn't been particularly worried because their friends across the hall took off a lot without telling anyone when they snuck off to smoke weed and shoot dope, and stuff. They were real sorry for what happened to Pru and they sure did hope Andi was okay, but they were really shaken up and could they go call their parents and stuff and maybe get something to eat and stuff because they had skipped breakfast to sleep in because they'd been cramming all night for exams, and they sure were creeped out and stuff by all this bad stuff that was going on right across the hall. The cops released them on their own recognizance a lot sooner than Claire would have if she'd been the detective on the case, but she and Novak hung around, even after they strung the crime scene tape and headed back downstairs to where Prudence's body still lay on the pavement. There were a lot of kids who lived on the fifth floor. Novak took one end and Claire started at the other end, and the interviews began.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For months, Diana thought about just running away, far out into the deep swamp where Luna couldn't get her. She tried it a couple of times, but Luna always found her, no matter where she hid. Luna knew how to track animals and kill them for their meat and skins and for sacrificing to their gods and goddesses, so she was very good at tracking Diana and Spirit when they ran off together. Fearful to venture too deep into the swamp, anyway, for fear she'd get lost or eaten by the alligators, she spent a lot of time on the back porch where she could go through the house and out the front door if she saw Luna coming up from the Sanctuary on the swamp trail. One day, she sat there pushing the porch swing back and forth with her toe and staring across the backyard at the little shed way down at the end of the yard, the one with the strange black symbols painted all over the walls.