The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) (2 page)

BOOK: The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1)
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All around, the other hooded figures were removing their hoods and masks, revealing men and women of all ages and races. Many of them started to help the few who had been wounded.

Someone called out, “We’re going to need an ambulance. Gerald Robichaux’s face is cut to ribbons.”

The leader walked through the parting crowd, not looking anyone in the eyes, to a large wooden doorway. Someone opened the door, and the leader walked up the staircase beyond it. The slender woman, still in her hooded robe, followed the man upstairs.

“Where do you think you are going, Brother?” asked the woman, her arms folded indignantly.

“To a hospital, Sister,” replied the man in an annoyed tone, stopping in a well-appointed and brightly lit study. “The princess has had a seizure and needs to be looked over.”

“You need to address what happened,” said the woman as she pointed down the stairs, her tight lips twisting with growing anger. “You need to assure them that this will never happen again. Tonight was a total failure.”

“Correction: tonight was an unexpected success,” replied the man, his nose in the air. “I will have to take a day or two to analyze the data, and I may have to reference some things with Dr. Lazarus, but I believe we’ve witnessed a miracle tonight.”

The woman looked as if she could spit, her lips snarling in obvious frustration. “A miracle, Brother? Really now? The child had a psychotic fit. Russell is right, the girl is fortunate if she doesn’t end up chained to a bed for the rest of her li—”

“Do not say that again, Sister,” the man snarled at the woman, making her gasp with shock and outrage. “Insult my princess again and I’ll forget that you’re family.”

The woman seemed to lessen her anger at the man’s outburst. Finally, she contented herself with just looking away in a huff.

The man turned to continue on his way out of the study, saying, “Anyway, next full moon, we’ll be better prepared. We know what to expect this time.”

“We are doing this again?” asked the woman, the surprise evident in her voice. “They will never go for it. The Priory isn’t like that, Brother.”

The leader chortled as he stopped at the door and turned toward the woman. “Ha! Those fools would jump off the Huey Long Bridge if I asked them. Face it, Sister, the Priory only lives because of our bloodline. Next full moon, we will try this again. This time, we should use one of the twins. Their mother is one of our priestesses. And they should take to the
tkeeus
nicely, don’t you think? I’m anxious to see how they react to the ritual.” The foreign word had an African-style
click
at the beginning.

As the man started to step out of the study, the woman called out, “Brother!”

The man stopped but didn’t look back. “Yes? What is it?”

“There is no such thing as magic or miracles,” she said with a scowl. “You and I both know these rituals are merely superstition to keep the others in line. So stop acting like they could really correct the girl’s condition. It’s madness.”

The man turned to the woman and grinned widely. “The mind can do things so incredible it may very well be magic. Therefore, there is a fine line between magic and madness, Sister. You would do well to remember that.”

And with that, the man left, the child in his arms, leaving the woman to stand there with a sour look on her face.

She only made one last comment before heading back downstairs: “No good can come from any of this.”

Chapter 1   
Twenty Years Later

 

 

Date:
Wednesday, August 5, 1992
Time:
3:00 a.m.
Location:   
Corner of Dauphine & Ursuline
French Quarter

 

A steady rain was falling on the streets of the New Orleans French Quarter. It was a reprieve after an ill-tempered summer shower. The torrential downpour had ceased not too long ago, leaving a low-hanging mist over the cobbled streets. The droplets of water were all but invisible as they fell from the night sky, only becoming perceptible as they passed a streetlight or collected on the shingles of a nearby roof before cascading into one of many gutters.

The sound of the rainwater rushing down those gutters to the streets below, where they collected in fetid puddles, had a sloppy quality to it, an unclean sound. Mixing together the sights and sounds was the smell. Despite the recent summer showers, the stench of the French Quarter still lingered, the collective booze and bile of the New Orleans tourist hanging like a heavy blanket.

Detective Rodger Bergeron noted, as he stood deep in thought on the corner of Dauphine and Ursuline, that he loved that smell.

The smell was a way for Rodger to know that he was home. Born and raised with all the pride of a pure-blooded Cajun, Detective Bergeron loved his hometown. He loved every single flaw New Orleans had to offer. He loved the constant humidity that made everyone sweat even on winter days. He loved the run-down and dilapidated buildings that simultaneously preserved their French and Spanish heritage. He even loved the myriad forms of human decadence that flourished in the heights and back alleys of the French Quarter and the Lower Ninth Ward.

It was New Orleans. It was the Big Easy. It was hell. It was Rodger’s home.

As Rodger stood on the street corner, coming out of his musings, he noticed that he was being watched. Looking across the street, he spotted three tourists looking in his direction from the second-story balcony of one of Dauphine Street’s hotels. The men, two of them, were typical middle-aged tourists, wearing cargo pants and sandals, heads crowned with ten-dollar crew cuts, and a little too much chest hair.

The woman had two dozen or so lengths of plastic beads draped around her neck as if they were treasured pearls and gemstones. She wore a pair of blue jeans that looked like they took a machine to get into, and a revealing white shirt with the words ‘I’ll Tickle Your Pickle for a Nickel’ written on it in bright pink letters. All three held large plastic cups.

Fortunately, the trio, who by now had noticed Rodger and were waving at him, were the only ones out tonight. Most of the French Quarter was either asleep or drunk, and the drunk people were mostly contained to Bourbon Street at this hour. As he gave the three tourists a nod of his head, Rodger felt relieved that no one else was around. Even the local news had yet to arrive, and with some luck, they could clean up and clear out before they did arrive.

Now facing down Ursuline Street, Rodger observed the flashing red-and-blue lights of the half-dozen or so police cars parked around the entrance to the crime scene—an inset door leading down into a basement. Next to the curb was a Mobile Crime Lab, its occupants absent. They were already in the basement.

Just another night in New Orleans.

“It’s horrible,” said a fresh voice beside Detective Bergeron. Rodger didn’t look at his partner, Junior Detective Michael LeBlanc, but instead watched as a number of uniformed officers and CSI personnel scurried in and out of the crime scene’s doorway. He absently raised a Styrofoam cup filled with piping hot coffee to his lips and sipped with expert dexterity, not even slightly burning himself.

The coffee was strong, and Rodger could taste the chicory, a strong, acrid taste that lingered. Lost in his thoughts, Rodger heard the voice of his partner again.

“It’s horrible,” Michael said again, as if trying to get Rodger’s attention. “CSI is just finishing up, and the coroner is on his way. What do you think?”

Rodger turned and looked at his partner, who was his opposite in every way. Michael stood there wearing a gray Stanford suit, complete with a white shirt and navy blue tie, right hand thrust into his side pocket as if he was feeling himself, left hand holding his own Styrofoam cup.

From his freshly trimmed sideburns and bangs to his recently polished dress shoes, Michael looked as far removed from his partner, who was wearing a pair of old, worn shoes and tan duster thrown over whatever he’d worn yesterday, as a Persian cat from a common tabby. Despite their night and day differences, the duo had already closed over fifty murder investigations this year—and it was only August.

Rodger was silent for a moment as he examined his partner’s face, which showed almost no emotion. Michael’s brown eyes just barely moved, as if reading the pages off a typewriter.

Rodger had come to respect Michael’s mental acumen. His partner had graduated top of his class with the highest honors. He rarely spoke needlessly or frivolously. His social skills sucked, and he had no concept of how the real world worked, but he was introspective and highly intelligent.

“What do I think?” Rodger paused and mulled over what he might say, only too certain he knew what to make of the scene. When Police Dispatch had placed the call for the two detectives, the words
gruesomely dismembered
had been used. Then, one glance inside the basement where the murder had taken place, and Rodger had had enough.

“Well, Michael,” Rodger finally said, his voice gruff from years of smoking, his eyes heavy with years of seeing one horror after another. “What do you think?”

Michael exhaled and looked up at the rain, letting it hit his face for a moment, before looking back at his partner and beginning, “Victim is a Caucasian female, age twenty to thirty, with severe lacerations to the abdomen, chest, and throat by a sharp, but small, instrument. Most likely a scalpel. Arms and legs were bound with electrical wire, either to a metallic chair or table, and the victim was dismembered with some sort of hacksaw or buzzsaw. Eyes, teeth, and fingertips were removed after death.”

Rodger nodded at Michael’s analysis, impressed as always with his partner’s ability to recall a scene simply by looking at it once. Michael paused for a moment before adding, “So yeah… I think it’s horrible.”

Rodger let out a snort. Then he was ashamed at himself for laughing even a little.

Finishing his coffee, Michael asked, “So why did you take one look and leave? It’s not like you to just walk away from a crime scene, but”—Michael paused and a thoughtful look crossed his face—“it’s like you’ve seen this before.”

Rodger looked over at Michael and frowned sorrowfully as he gulped the final draught of his coffee. Placing the cup on the curb for the street cleaners to take away, Rodger looked back over the entrance to the crime scene and sighed heavily. It was twenty years ago this very night that he had stood outside this very same doorway.

“I have, Michael.” Rodger didn’t look at his partner as he walked to the doorway, past the groups of officers and members of Crime Lab scuttling outside with uniform pale and sickly looks.

Tracing his fingers over the doorway’s frame, Rodger spoke as if addressing a distant memory. “The worst case I’ve ever worked. Solved some twenty years ago. The Bourbon Street Ripper murders.”

At that moment, another police officer, a short woman who walked this area as her beat, came out of the doorway. Officer Guidry exhaled and inhaled loudly, as if she had been holding her breath, before looking up at both detectives, shaking her head, and speaking in a thick Creole accent. “It’s a downright nightmare in there, Detectives. Crime Lab is almost through, and the coroner should be here any minute. Sergeant’s taken my statement and sent me back on my beat.”

That said, Officer Guidry hurried off down the street, as if she couldn’t get away from the crime scene fast enough.

Rodger watched her leave.

Michael shook his head and said, “It’s a real shame that she’s the one who found the body. She’s about the same age as the victim. Damn. What a way to start your career on the force.”

Despite his grizzled demeanor, Rodger had to agree with Michael’s statement. Officer Guidry had been on the force for only six months. She was the one to discover the body. She was the one to call in the murder.

It was a hellish awakening to the horrors a police officer can face at any given time. Rodger shook his head as he walked away from the doorway. “It’s a crying shame. But what’s worse is that it looks like we have a copycat of the Bourbon Street Ripper murders.”

Confusion showed plainly on Michael’s face as he followed his partner. “Hold on, Rodger. You were the one who solved the Bourbon Street Ripper murders. So why do you think tonight’s murder is a copycat?”

Rodger stopped several yards from the crime scene’s doorway and leaned against the wall of the building. Protected from the stray raindrops, Rodger took out a cigarette, lit it, and moistened it between his lips. As he took a lingering drag and exhaled just as slowly, he looked to his partner, who was watching him with anxious anticipation, and began to speak.

“It was during the early seventies when those murders began. Back then I was a moderately successful detective with an unimpressive list of closed cases. By a stroke of fate or a case of rotten luck, however you want to look at it, my partner, Edward, and I were assigned the case. The first time I saw one of those murder scenes, what he did to one of those women, I was sickened to my soul.”

The gravelly croak of Rodger’s voice as he sank into his narrative was ripe with sordid memories.

“The pools of blood. The strips of flesh. The stench of bile. The gruesomeness alone had been enough to turn my stomach inside out. But what affected me to the core was the look on the victim’s face.

It was as if someone had frozen a scream of incalculable agony on her once pretty face. Just one look, and in an instant I felt as if I had experienced every horror that woman was forced to endure before being allowed to die.”

“I remember hearing about the Bourbon Street Ripper at a lecture on serial killers. The media named him that because the murders were similar to the old Jack the Ripper murders in the late eighteen hundreds,” said Michael. “Awful. That a person can do that to another human being. It’s disgusting.”

Taking another lingering drag off his cigarette, Rodger continued without paying any heed to his partner’s interruption.

BOOK: The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1)
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