The Reckoning (18 page)

“You’re probably right.”

“Wasn’t right to do you boys that way, though. Grown women’s got a choice. Kids don’t.”

“I agree with you, ma’am.”

“Well, seems you turned out to be a decent sort despite not having a good role model, so what brings you here in the middle of a storm to talk to an old woman? I ain’t broke any laws—not that your fool of an uncle would know if I did it in front of him. But I figure you got something on your mind if you came all the way out here in the storm.”

“We need your help,” Alex said.

“Is this about your missing niece?”

“Yes.”

Ms. Maude nodded. “I’ll help any way I can. When I think of how scared that poor child must be…well, it just makes me want to haul out my shotgun and put it to good use. What is it you need to know?”

“I want to know everything you can tell me about Martin Rommel,” Holt said.

Ms. Maude raised her eyebrows. “Well, I guess I know now why you’re here. Can’t have everyone knowing you’re checking up on Lorraine’s bit of fluff, can you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You’re shrewd to guess that anyone besides me would probably take that bit of information back to her, but I got no problem telling it how it is and keeping my mouth shut about it besides.”

“I’d appreciate anything you can tell me.”

“The man’s a snake,” Ms. Maude said, “and a liar.”

“How do you know?”

“I got a feeling for such things, and I didn’t like him the moment I set eyes on him. Never had feelings so strong for someone before except a man I met in a bar in New Orleans when I was young and foolish. That man turned out to be a serial killer who was looking to make me his victim that night. If I hadn’t listened to my instincts, I wouldn’t be talking to you today. That taught me to never ignore what I feel.”

Holt nodded. “You’re smart to do so. My uncle said Rommel’s relationship with Lorraine is about business, but do you know what that business is?”

Ms. Maude snorted. “Business, my foot. The woman’s
got him hanging around like a plaything. Oh, she cooked up some story about him running her high-end restaurant…years of experience and a culinary degree and the like. I ate there a couple of times and one thing is for certain—Martin Rommel has never set foot in a restaurant before that one—not to run it, anyway.”

“You’re certain.”

“My mother owned a country kitchen. I worked there for forty-two years before Mamma sold and retired to Florida. That man wouldn’t know fine dining from a bologna sandwich.”

“So what do you think is going on?”

“I don’t know, but you can bet he’s up to no good. Do you think he took that girl?”

“I don’t know,” Holt said, “but I’ll be watching him closely.”

“Be careful with that,” Ms. Maude said. “He’s got cunning. He plays all smooth and mannered, but I can see the wheels turning in the back of his eyes. The man’s always looking for an angle—a weakness he can exploit.”

“What’s he got on Lorraine?”

“She’s a lonely older woman who was married to a serial cheater. That’s all a smooth talker like Rommel needs to get in the door. Some women don’t listen to their instincts. They always pay for it in the end.”

“Do you have any idea where he came from? If he has family around?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard of. Seemed like he just appeared one day after Walter Senior died and never left. I asked around back then, but no one seemed to know much about him. After a while, he became old news and people stopped asking.”

Alex looked over at him and frowned. “I think it’s time someone finds out exactly who Martin Rommel is and why he’s in Vodoun.”

* * *

H
OLT PEERED OUT THE
kitchen window of Sarah’s home into the stormy night. Alex stepped up beside him and looked out into the inky blackness that the porch light failed miserably in illuminating.

“See anything?” she asked.

“Unless there was something to see six inches from the window, I’m not going to see a thing.” He released the curtain and it slid back over the window. “Habit, I guess.”

Alex nodded. “I just finished looking out the front window.”

“There’s a state trooper posted in a car across the street. No one’s coming in the front of the house.”

“I know, but I have this feeling that someone’s watching.”

“Someone
is
watching—the state trooper.”

Alex sighed. “You know what I mean.”

Holt nodded. He’d had the same feeling all day, even though he’d found no evidence of a tail since the car incident that morning. Still, tailing wasn’t necessary when everyone in Vodoun knew where Sarah lived. With the rental car parked out front, all it would take was a drive around the block to know exactly where they were.

“Did you find anything on Rommel?” Alex asked. Holt had dropped her off at Sarah’s and went straight to the sheriff’s department after their conversation with Ms. Maude, hoping to fill in the blanks on Lorraine’s “business associate.”

“Not a thing, and that’s not a good sign. There’s only three types of people who don’t leave a trace on the internet—those who live as hermits, those who intentionally live off-radar or those who started as one person and are now masquerading as another.”

“But surely there’s something.”

“Nothing. Not even a driver’s license.”

“Are you going to tell Lorraine?”

“No. I’m going to find a way to get a fingerprint first. You can change your look and identity, but prints always remain the same. If Rommel’s gone to this much trouble to hide his identity, likely he’ll have a record. If I go to Lorraine without proof, she won’t believe me, and she’ll warn him.”

“Lorraine always was too stubborn for her own good.”

He nodded. “I talked to Mathilde’s doctor. He’s releasing her tomorrow at noon.”

“Are you going to arrest her?”

“I don’t have any reason to believe she had anything to do with this. Certainly she didn’t run our car off the road today or shoot someone in that alley.”

“But Bobby’s body was dumped somewhere near the island.”

“I think someone is using Mathilde as a scapegoat. Someone who knows what happened years ago.”

“You think they planted the barrette, too?”

“If someone were trying to frame her, it would fit.”

“But it doesn’t make sense, Holt. They cleaned out Bobby’s place after they killed him to make it look like he’s the one that took Erika. Why plant evidence on the island?”

“Yes, but dumping the body near the island may have been a way to hedge their bets just in case it was discovered. That and the barrette.”

“I guess that could be, but the biggest question still isn’t answered—why kidnap Erika in the first place? She’s just a little girl. Do you actually believe there’s an organized gang of pedophiles kidnapping little girls then committing multiple murders to hide it all?”

Holt blew out a breath. “No, but I can’t come up with a single idea that works.”

Alex slapped her hand against the top of the couch. “It’s all so maddening. There has to be logic behind this on some level, but yet all we find is more questions. Erika is still out there going through God knows what while Sarah slowly goes off the deep end. And we sit here in this house with armed guards and don’t have even one idea about how to fix all this.”

Tears welled up in her eyes and Holt stepped over to her and wrapped his arms around her. “We’re going to figure it out,” he whispered. “I promise you I will not rest until we find Erika.”

“I won’t rest, either.” Alex held on to him for a bit then released him and swiped her hand across her cheek. “What are you going to do about Mathilde, then? Finding Bobby’s leg may have put her in danger.”

“If Mathilde knew anything that could help us, we already had an opportunity to get it out of her at the hospital. Any threat she posed for the killer has already been exposed. If he goes after Mathilde, it would change her status from suspect to victim as far as the killer knows.”

“What about the barrette? If we can get Mathilde onto the island for the full moon tomorrow night and you give her back the barrette, she may be able to tell us where Erika is.”

He stared. “You can’t possibly believe that.”

Alex threw her hands up in the air and flopped down on the couch. “I don’t know what I believe anymore. If there’s a logical explanation for everything, then what’s yours for the crows or the doll?”

Holt walked over to the couch and took a seat beside her. “Just because I don’t have one doesn’t mean there isn’t one. But the last thing we need is for you to start believing in curses and spooks and magic.”

“Why? It’s the only thing we haven’t tried, and we’re probably the last people in the parish to buy into it. Maybe that’s the problem.”

Holt blew out a breath. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. What’s going on, Alex? Why are you suddenly willing to believe in the old ways? Mathilde Tregre is a scared old woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“No. Mathilde Tregre is much more than a scared old woman.” Her mind flashed back to that day…to what she and Sarah saw.

Holt took her hand and squeezed. “Tell me why you say that,” he said softly.

Chapter Fifteen

Alex knew it was time. Time to free herself of something she’d carried around for far too many years. Something she’d never been able to come to terms with. If anyone could help her put things in perspective, it would be Holt.

“Sarah and I weren’t supposed to go to the island, but you know how Sarah is. She nagged and wheedled and made it sound like an adventure, until I couldn’t say no.”

Holt nodded. Sarah’s tenacity was a well-known fact among her family and friends.

“We told her mom we were going to a friend’s house to play, but instead we snuck out to old man LeBlanc’s cabin and took his boat.”

Holt smiled. “You stole a boat?”

“We brought it back, and besides, he was on vacation and not using it, anyway. I prefer ‘borrowed.’”

“Most criminals do.”

“Well, presumed criminal acts aside, we took the boat into the swamp. Jenny Breaux had lifted a map to the island from her brother’s room weeks before, and we’d made a copy. It was fun at the time—like finding a treasure map. I guess I never really thought Sarah would want to go or that she’d get me to agree to it, but as usual she managed.”

“Was the map correct?”

“More or less. The water was low that summer, and some of the channels that were marked on the map were no longer there, but we managed to work our way around to the same points on the map.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” she continued. “We rounded that last corner and the island was right there in front of us. A cold chill ran over me when I saw the dolls, just like it did when we pulled up to the island the other day. I tried to get Sarah to turn around, but there was no stopping her.”

“So you docked?”

“Yes. The pier was in decent shape then, so we tied the boat off and climbed out. I tried not to look at the dolls as we ran down the pier and onto the bank, but I could feel their eyes on me.”

“You know they’re just toys. I agree that they look creepy, but they can’t hurt you.”

Alex shook her head. “There’s something about them. Something that doesn’t feel right. And why are they there? There’s tons of legends and rumor and speculation, but no one knows why Mathilde’s family started putting the dolls around the island. Most people believe it’s to ward off spirits.”

“More likely, it’s to ward off anyone nosy enough to want to poke around.”

“If that’s the case, then I guess it’s worked for the most part.” Alex paused for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts before she told the next part of the story. “It was starting to cloud up by the time we docked. I was afraid we’d get caught in a storm, but Sarah promised if I’d spend ten minutes looking around, that she’d leave.”

She stared at the wall for a moment, that long-ago day running through her mind like a film reel. “The path to the cabin was wider then and easily passable, or maybe it was a different path than the one that’s there now. Either way, we hurried down it and crouched in the bushes at the edge of the clearing.

“We could hear someone inside moaning, then there was a blood-curdling scream—like someone being murdered. I wanted to run, but I was frozen in place. I heard Sarah suck in a breath that she never blew out. Then the swamp went completely silent, and the only thing I heard was the sound of my own heartbeat—like a bass drum booming so hard it made my chest hurt.”

Holt squeezed her hand.

“I finally got control of myself and was just about to pull on Sarah to leave when Mathilde came out of the cabin. She was younger then, but her hair was already turning silver.”

She took a breath and slowly blew it out. “She was dragging a body behind her.”

Holt sat upright on the couch and stared. “A human body?”

“Yes. It was wrapped in a blanket that she was pulling, but one arm was hanging out, dragging along in the dirt.” Alex crossed her arms in front of chest and shuddered. “When she stopped behind the cabin, I realized there was a fresh grave.”

“She buried the body behind her cabin?”

Alex nodded. “It took her a bit to drag it into the hole, but she managed. Then she picked up a burlap bag that was sitting next to the hole and pulled out a doll—the same doll that Sarah found in Erika’s room.”

“You’re certain it was the same?”

“Positive. Mathilde held the doll up and did some sort of chant, then dropped the doll into the grave with the body. Then she pulled a square piece of wood laying next to the grave, into the hole.”

“The top to a homemade casket?”

“That’s what it looked like. She shoved a reed in the middle of the hole and it stood up straight out of the grave. Then she started shoveling dirt onto the grave.”

“You waited there the entire time?”

“Yes, and it felt like forever, but looking back, it couldn’t have been that long. I don’t think the hole was very deep.”

Holt shook his head. “No wonder you were scared.”

“Oh, that’s not the scary part. Not at all.”

Holt stared. “Then what is?”