The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) (30 page)

“Yes, way,” Vincent mused, his tone momentarily matching his granddaughter’s, a feat that made the girl giggle. “Pain is your body giving important information to your brain. When you are in pain, your nerves are fully active, your brain is fully aware, and your entire being is fully focused.”

As Samantha looked up at her grandfather, confusion still on her face, Vincent said, “In fact, Sam, when you are in pain, you are at your most alive.”

Vincent ended that statement with a tight-lipped look, slowly staring down at his granddaughter. Leaning forward, he started to widen his eyes, and Samantha, who was nervous from the look for a moment, started to lean toward him and widen her eyes as well.

At the same time, both grandfather and granddaughter yelled, “Boo!” A few moments later, both were leaning back and laughing. It was a game that had been played many times, and Vincent was never successful in scaring his granddaughter.

“That’s my fearless Sam,” Vincent said triumphantly as he lifted the young girl off his lap and got up. “Nothing frightens you, does it, hon?”

“Nope,” replied Samantha, holding out her uninjured hand for her grandfather to hold. “Like you and Daddy say, I have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

“That’s right, Sam,” said Vincent, taking his granddaughter’s hand and leading her out of the study. “If you remember that, you’ll never be afraid. Besides, I’d never let anything happen to you. I want you to live a life without fear.”

Samantha felt her heart brim with happiness as she walked with her grandfather down the hallway. “I love you, Grandpa!”

“I love you, too, Sam,” Vincent replied tenderly, giving the child’s hand a squeeze. “Now, let’s go see if breakfast is ready. I can’t wait to try your magnificent toast.”

As the pair walked down the hallway, a bell rang.

The bell jarred Sam out of her memories, the sound coming not from the Castille mansion, but from the front door of her townhome. Looking around, Sam took a few moments to realize that she was an adult, in her own home, in the nineties. Reaching up to rub between her eyes, Sam sucked in her breath and muttered, “I didn’t used to have such vivid flashbacks. Ever since the murders started up again.” She sighed. “I swear, it’s like Grandfather’s spirit is haunting me in my dreams and when I’m awake.”

The front doorbell rang again, and Sam moved into action. She placed all the breakfast components on a large serving tray, covered them with plate toppers, and carried the tray to her study. Placing the tray on a stand, Sam looked over everything and, with panic, realized she had forgotten the coffee in the kitchen.

She was just about to head into the kitchen to retrieve it when the doorbell rang again. Sam was a bit annoyed at herself for acting like this was some kind of a date, and she took a moment to grab the red plastic shoe charm. Then she headed to the front of the house, stopping only to make sure that her father’s gun was still in its hiding place in the grandfather clock.

At the foyer, Sam took a moment to check herself in the mirror. While she wasn’t dressed up as a Southern lady should be, she doubted that Richie, a Yankee from Pennsylvania, would care too much. Before the bell could ring another time, she unlatched the door and opened it.

Standing there was Richie, dressed in jeans and a button-up short-sleeved shirt, holding two bags up for Sam to see, and smiling cheerfully. “Good morning,” he said in a morning person’s voice. “It’s early, so I brought breakfast. How are bagels and lox?”

Sam’s face fell.

Chapter 16   
Breakfast at Samantha’s

For a long moment, Sam looked at Richie with a defeated expression. Here she was, having scrambled to be the perfect hostess for her first guest in years, and Richie had gone and gotten breakfast! For a brief moment, Sam considered retreating. She didn’t want to make any more mistakes.

No, Sam
, she thought to herself.
You’ve moved past that. Don’t beat yourself up!

Sam noticed that Richie was starting to look uneasy, and realized that she needed to let her own anxiety go before she ruined both of their mornings. Taking a deep breath and recovering, Sam smiled, opened the door fully, and motioned for Richie to come inside. “Good morning to you, too, Richie. You won’t believe this, but I cooked breakfast for us.”

Richie’s anxiety relaxed from his face and was replaced with genuine surprise. “Oh, really?” His lips tightened as he looked down. “Sorry. I guess I’m not good at this Southern hospitality thing. I figured it would be polite to bring something.”

Instantly, Sam felt at ease, knowing that Richie was bumbling as badly as herself. Suddenly, her own worries didn’t seem so bad. Giving her new friend a smile, even leaning down to capture his gaze, Sam softly replied, “It’s okay, really. This just gives us more of a variety.”

Sam’s reply seemed to perk Richie up, and he nodded before following Sam into her study.

“Oh, by the way,” Richie said, producing a bundle of paper wrapped in plastic from underneath his arm. “I found your morning paper on the front walkway. Where should I put it?”

Sam motioned for Richie to put the newspaper on one of the chairs in the study, then placed the bags of bagels on the tray with the covered breakfast.

“I need to get the coffee from the kitchen. Wait right here a moment?”

Richie nodded and started to look around the study as Sam headed into the kitchen. Once there, she placed the coffee, cream, and sugar, along with two cups and saucers, onto a coffee tray.

As she readied the last necessary bits for breakfast, she heard Richie walking out in the front hallway. Sam smiled to herself, figuring he was like her and couldn’t help but look around.

When Sam emerged from the kitchen, however, she was surprised to see Richie staring into the glass case of her grandfather clock. Her eyes widened as Richie hummed to himself curiously and leaned down, looking near the bottom of the clock.

Sam cleared her throat, and Richie looked up, smiled, and gestured toward the clock. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but do most Southerners keep revolvers in their grandfather clocks?”

Walking past Richie, Sam smirked and replied, “Only those with nosy Yankees snooping around.”

This got a chuckle from Richie as he followed Sam back into the study. “Well, I do apologize if I offended you. It’s just as a mystery writer, I kinda think to look in odd places, and—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam interrupted, her smirk turning into a soft smile. She poured Richie some coffee. “I am a single woman living alone in New Orleans. I’d be a fool not to have a gun with me. Do you want sugar and cream with your coffee?”

“Yes, please, two spoonfuls,” replied Richie, taking a seat.

Once the coffee was poured, he asked, “So was the revolver your father’s? That model is—”

“Richie Fastellos,” Sam said, turning to him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance on her face, “do you have a habit of asking such intrusive questions of those whose houses you visit?” She handed him the coffee.

As Richie took it, he cleared his throat and said, “Sorry. Like I said. Writer. Notice stuff.”

“Well, yes, it was my father’s,” replied Sam, sitting in a chair across from Richie. “And the rest is my business. I don’t like thinking about the past.”

As she uncovered the plates and started serving them both breakfast, Richie said, “And yet you are writing about your grandfather.”

That made Sam stop for a moment, before shaking her head and handing Richie a plate of eggs, bacon, and somewhat burnt toast. “Sorry about the toast,” she said automatically, before starting to serve herself. “That’s different. Like I said last night—”

“I know,” interrupted Richie. “I get that it’s therapeutic. Sorry. I won’t pry anymore.”

Sam nodded to Richie and rested her plate in her lap. She couldn’t even be upset at his interrupting her, seeing as how she had done it to him twice. As she picked up her fork, Sam thought that Richie was a nice guy, just a little obtuse and a little too nervous.

Still, he’s not bad-looking.

For a minute or so, both writers sat and ate breakfast in silence, not a word spoken between them. The feeling in the room, to Sam at least, was relaxed—like they were old chums, or family.

Finally, Richie cleared his throat and said, “Ya know, the toast ain’t so bad, Sam. I like the jelly you got here.”

“Preserves,” Sam replied with a chuckle. “Surely you Yankees have preserves up north?”

“We do,” Richie confessed. “And I’m not really a Yankee, so you can stop saying that.”

This drew a surprised reaction from Sam, who regarded Richie with an appraising look. “Really? You’re not from up north?”

“Well, my parents are actually from Northern California,” Richie said, looking around the room as if forming his words carefully. “I was born there and moved to Pittsburgh when I was, what, nine, maybe ten years old? I don’t remember. I was a kid at the time.”

Richie seemed to grow quiet and contemplative. His face looked a bit tense for a moment, and then relaxed.

Sam nodded and munched on some toast. His sudden quietness made Sam wonder what caused him and his mother to leave their home out west. But she wasn’t keen on prying.

Sam made a face as she took another bite. The toast was awful, even with the preserves. Looking over at Richie happily eating his own, Sam thought he either honestly didn’t care how burnt the toast was, or he had the world’s best poker face. Either way, her new friend had scored some points with her.

As he continued to eat, Richie got a thoughtful expression on his face. It was the real-life equivalent, Sam thought, of a cartoon character’s lightbulb going off over his head. Sam watched him eat, appreciating how expressive his face was.

After a moment, Richie said, “Sam, mind if I ask you a few questions? About, you know, the current case?”

Sam, who was opening one of the bags and sliding a pre-made bagel with lox out of a wrapper, arched an eyebrow at Richie. “What makes you think that I know anything about the case?”

“Well, if I recall, one of the detectives who worked on the Castille case twenty years ago is working on this case. Correct?” replied Richie. He slid some scrambled eggs onto his toast and gulped it down.

“Yes, Rodger Bergeron,” replied Sam, avoiding eye contact with Richie, looking instead down at her half-eaten bagel. It was not a topic she wanted to get too in depth about.

“Right,” said Richie as he reached over, opened one of the bags he’d brought, and fished out his own bagel. Unwrapping it, he gestured with the breakfast item, saying, “And if I remember from the newspaper clippings I recovered on the Castille case, he was a close friend of—”

“You have newspaper clippings from back then?” Sam interrupted, giving her guest a most curious look. “Whatever for?” To Sam, for an outsider to have that level of interest in the Bourbon Street Ripper case, to go so far as to find old newspaper clippings from the seventies, was a bit odd.

Richie must have picked up on Sam’s questioning gaze, as he visibly blushed. He fumbled the bagel out of his hand, and it dropped to his plate and opened up, lox falling over his eggs. He let out something that sounded a lot like
“Gwah!”

This display of awkward, almost teenage silliness made Sam laugh, a soft but genuine chuckle. Shaking her head, she couldn’t help but feel that Richie, despite everything, was as harmless as a kitten.

As Sam looked over and watched as Richie stumbled to slide the smoked salmon back onto the cream cheese"“laden bagel, she wondered what on earth he was doing getting involved in this situation. To Sam, Richie seemed so completely out of place it was both amusing and intriguing.

Having recovered his breakfast and given a
heh
of triumph, Richie addressed Sam. “To answer your question, I have a bit of a confession to make.”

“A confession?” Again, Sam looked at Richie curiously, a bit apprehensive. It was like the previous night. For every ten comforting things Richie said, one thing came off as almost sinister. Sam quickly looked over at her desk where the red plastic charm was, wanting to grab it in her hand, but she fought back the urge. She was in her home. She was safe.

Sam’s gaze turned again to Richie. In the back of her mind, Sam wondered if Richie was truly being honest with her; however, in that same instant, Sam wondered if this was just her being paranoid and pushing others away like she had done for years.

Inhaling and then exhaling, Richie explained, “Last night, when I said I had been toying with the idea of writing a book about a Bourbon Street Ripper copycat, I wasn’t being totally honest. The truth, Sam”—Richie got a resolute look—“the truth is I’ve been dabbling in the idea of doing exactly what you’re doing—that is, writing a story about a copycat Bourbon Street Ripper—for a while now. I hadn’t given it a lot of thought, what with
The Pale Lantern
and all, but I was still toying with the idea. Last night, when you mentioned that you wanted to do this, it really took me by surprise. So… ”

Richie inhaled softly, then exhaled and said, “I came up with the whole’’you write one thing and I write another thing’ bit to cover up my surprise. But the more I think about it, I really like the idea of you, Vincent’s granddaughter, writing this mystery. As for me, I’m just happy to help you out.”

Sam’s lips tightened as she looked at Richie, her face stern, otherwise expressionless. She hadn’t suspected that it could be something like this; however, Jacob had often warned Sam that people might try to steal her work. She couldn’t help but wonder why Richie was offering to help, when all he had to do was finish the story first, and the entire world would believe he alone had come up with the idea.