The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) (11 page)

After a few minutes of silence, as Rodger drove the police car through the streets of New Orleans toward the precinct, Michael finally asked the question Rodger had been dreading.

“So, Rodger, what’s the deal between you and Sam?” asked Michael as he looked out of the window, observing the afternoon traffic. “Why is it that whenever her name comes up, or you get in front of her, you get more withdrawn than a guilty suspect?”

Rodger grimaced at his partner’s question, clenching his teeth and pretending to be too focused on the road to answer. This tactic did nothing to dissuade Michael, who spoke again after a few moments of silence. “I’m not trying to be nosy here, Rodger, but if this is something that could be significant in the future—”

“It’s nothing, really,” Rodger hastily interrupted, irritated even though he knew it was irrational. When he saw, out the corner of his eye, his partner looking at him, Rodger sighed and, stopping at a red light, turned to face his partner.

“I knew her father, and I made a bad judgment call that resulted in him getting killed,” Rodger said, staring right back into Michael’s unblinking eyes. “Sam’s already forgiven me. She forgave me about ten years ago. On Christmas Eve, actually. Sent me a long letter and a card and everything. But—”

“But you never forgave yourself, correct?” asked Michael. His attitude was passionless, as if he were simply stating a fact, just as one would state that boiling water burned.

“Correct,” said Rodger between his teeth, utterly irritated at his partner’s know-it-all attitude. It was at times like this that Michael’s brilliance was overshadowed by his lack of social skills. Resisting the urge to reply with an equally brusque comment, and partially because the traffic light chose that moment to turn green, Rodger instead focused on driving.

“So that’s it, Michael. Really. It’s one of those things that I wish I could forget, and yet know I’ll always remember.”

“Tough break, bud,” replied Michael in an almost bored tone, already looking back at his notebook. “At least she’s forgiven you by now. It would be really hard to work on this case if she was still pissed at you.”

This elicited another clenched jaw from Rodger, who actively tried to avoid personal conversations with Michael for this very reason. Even though his countenance never betrayed how frustrated he was, Rodger took the rest of the drive to the station to calm down.

By the time they pulled up into the underground garage of the police precinct, Rodger had cooled off. He knew that Michael was right—if Sam hadn’t forgiven him years ago, if she had held a grudge, they might not have gotten that box of evidence. Getting a court order when Sam was clearly not implicated in last night’s murder would have been difficult at best. Sam’s lawyer, Kent Bourgeois, was one of the best in the city, and he would block any attempt to force Sam to give up anything of hers that she didn’t want to give up.

Rodger reflected on this as he got out of the car. His reason for avoiding Sam was guilt, and he knew that. He also knew that trying to hide that guilt was useless—Douglas knew about it, Ouellette know about it, other detectives like Aucoin knew about it, and Michael had figured it out without so much as batting an eyelash.

As Rodger walked alongside his partner into the building, he decided that once the time was right, he’d talk to Sam and bury the past once and for all.

Chapter 6   
The Pale Lantern

The lights flickered as they turned on, cutting back at the darkness with the efficiency of a razor. A man sat up in a king-sized bed. Looking around with bleary, half-sleeping eyes, he noted his surroundings. It was the same hotel room he had checked into three days ago, and not the darkest recesses of his dreams where he had been just a moment ago. Rubbing his eyes, the man gave an “ugh” sound, followed by a cough, one that cleared his lungs of sleep-induced gunk. With a final yawn, the sort given when one has no worries as to who might overhear, the man stood up and headed to the bathroom.

The room itself was posh, as was any room in the Ritz-Carlton—one of the more expensive hotels in New Orleans. It offered down pillows and blankets, Egyptian sheets, plush red carpets that hushed one’s footsteps, a courtesy bar, and an executive desk and leather chair. The walls, papered in fleur-de-lis designs, were adorned with tasteful landscapes of fields, plantations, and the French Quarter.

The man had chosen the Ritz-Carlton on the suggestion of his publicist, who had stated that someone of his newly discovered fame should stay in nothing less than a five-star hotel. As the man stood in front of the toilet, relieving himself, he thought that he could have spent half as much for a nice bed-and-breakfast.

Business taken care of, the man flushed the toilet and looked in the mirror. “All right, Richie,” said the man to his reflection, “you might as well get started. You got a long night ahead of you.”

Richard Alfonso Fastellos, or Richie, as he was commonly known, was an author. Like many others, he had started out writing short stories and articles while he struggled to discover the real writer within him. One night, a horrific nightmare inspired him to write a sordid murder mystery. In less than six months, he had finished what would become his first best seller—
The Pale Lantern
.

Richie’s chronic anxiety had finally worked in his favor. Seeing as how he’d been taking medication for it since childhood, he considered the book-inspiring nightmare to be a blessing.

Continuing to appraise his reflection, Richie scowled a bit, muttering about how awful he looked. His normally neatly combed brunette hair was as messy as a mop, those normally crystal blue eyes were bloodshot from sleeping too hard, and that normally smooth Caucasian skin was stubbly with a five o’clock shadow.

Standing up straight and giving a nod, he started to fix himself up. Richie Fastellos, as he was commonly known, felt he could look better than he currently did. On the upside, he thought he still looked like he was under thirty, rather than over.

A shower, shave, and grooming later, and Richie was back to his normally sharp-looking self, dressed in a short-sleeved mock neck and jeans—comfortable and functional. Smelling like Brut, his favorite scent, and having claimed a bottle of water from the nightstand, Richie moved over to the desk and took a seat. Turning his computer on and connecting to the Internet, the laptop’s modem screeching to life, he took several swigs of water and started to check his e-mail.

The first were the usual e-mails from Gordon Rockway, his publicist, relaying pieces of wisdom on how to promote himself at the book signing tomorrow. Gordon’s e-mails were tiresome to read, and Richie found himself skimming for high points at first, and eventually just not caring and skipping the e-mails entirely, “archiving” them in his e-mail client’s trash bin.

“Gordon should be here tomorrow,” Richie said to himself. “I’ll talk to him then and see what advice he has for me. It’s not like I’m going to blow a book signing.”

Richie reached over and held protectively on to the bottle of pills near his computer. Having had anxiety attacks for years, the pills were a regular part of his life. Any high-stress situation could be made to disappear with one dose. In fact, just taking a pill made him feel better, even if they took a few minutes to actually start working.

Richie attributed that to the placebo effect. He was fine with it.

As he drew his hand back from the pill bottle, Richie’s fingers touched the cover of a nearby book. It was his book,
The Pale Lantern,
his ticket to the big times. The story was centered on a New Orleans detective solving the murder of a wealthy couple.

In a twist that shocked his readers, the murderer ended up being the detective himself, and the mystery was solved by the detective’s assistant. The novel became a hit almost overnight, making the
New York Times
best-seller list in only one week. Richie went from an unknown mystery writer from Pittsburgh to a millionaire.

One year and several talk shows later, Richie was in the city where the story took place, New Orleans, for a book signing at a local talk show. His publicist had arranged the book signing for the middle of the week, but Richie, who had always wanted to see New Orleans, came in a few days early.

So far, he had managed to get drunk two out of the three nights and get smashed a third time at a party held by a local author who specialized in books about vampires. Richie, who often enjoyed more than a few drinks, was already sick of daiquiris.

As Richie sorted through his e-mails, a particular one caught his eye. It had been sent by a man named Kent Bourgeois, an attorney in New Orleans. Richie wondered what a lawyer wanted with him. Anxiety beginning to churn in his stomach as he opened the e-mail, Richie saw that it was the result of an inquiry about a townhome in the Garden District—an inquiry he had apparently made several months ago.

“God, that was so long ago, I don’t even remember doing it,” said Richie to himself with a shrug as he read the e-mail. The contents of the e-mail, however, grabbed his complete attention.

For several minutes, Richie just looked at the e-mail, his mouth a straight line. He was a bit offended by its tone. He read the line talking about “Ms. Samantha Castille” over and over again. Finally, his expression melted and he rubbed his head. “Castille,” he said tiredly. “God, I’ve heard that name before, but where?”

Being unable to place Samantha’s name brought a nervous twitch to the corners of Richie’s lips. Mind racing, he loaded up his web browser and typed in a search for “Castille New Orleans.” A few minutes later, he was looking at the results—mainly newspaper articles from years ago on the Bourbon Street Ripper murders.

“Holy crap, that’s right,” Richie said to himself. “I remember this from when I was tinkering with the idea of doing a copycat killer story to the Bourbon Street Ripper murders from the seventies.” Picking up a briefcase resting near the desk, Richie opened it up. Over a dozen notebooks lay inside, along with the usual assortment of important papers and credentials.

As he started to sift through the notebooks, Richie continued to talk out loud. “This psychopath butchered over twenty women in a ritualistic fashion. I was just starting to look into this before I decided to write
The Pale Lantern
first.”

Finally finding the notebook he wanted, Richie opened it up and started flipping through it, revealing several pages of notes on the Bourbon Street Ripper murders.

Among the notes were four clearly marked columns: one was a list of the victims, another the names of the detectives investigating the murders, and a third was a list of suspects. A fourth column, titled “accomplices,” had a large question mark underneath it.

“It’s been awhile since I last looked at these,” he said almost fondly, turning page after page. “I should probably speak with Gordon about this idea after the book signing tomorrow.”

That course of action decided upon, Richie flipped to the final page of notes on the Castille murders. On that page was a single name—Samantha Castille—circled several times with an arrow pointing to it, and the label, “Only surviving descendant of Vincent Castille.”

Again Richie stared at the name for a long moment, before finally closing the notebook and looking at Kent’s e-mail once more. ”Well, slap my face and call me Cousin Lenny,” said Richie in a mixture of awe and disbelief.

“What are the chances that the same Samantha Castille who owns the townhome that I’m interested in is the last living descendant of Vincent Castille?” Deciding that those chances were good enough to risk responding to the attorney, Richie fired off a reply to Kent Bourgeois:

He hit the “send” button and leaned back in the chair. “Forget the property,” he said to himself, “if I can somehow meet this Samantha face-to-face and talk to her about her grandfather… ”

Richie’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud ringing coming from the hotel phone, breaking his Internet connection. The ring was particularly loud, and with a start, he picked up the phone. “Good evening,” he said into the receiver, “Richie here.”

“Richie, good, you’re awake,” replied a tired man’s voice on the other end, a voice Richie recognized as belonging to Gordon, his publicist.

“More or less,” Richie replied with a chuckle, leaning back again into the leather chair and getting comfortable. “How’s the weather over at Pittsburgh International?”