It would be good to find out who, though.
Lights. Amelia had seen lights. She’d been convinced her ancestors were haunting the house, that they were coming for her. Those lights could be explained now, as could the noises. Someone sneaking around back here would undoubtedly have made noise.
But then there was the bone.
This was actually pretty high ground—on the river, yes, but above sea level. How high had the water come? High enough to shift bones from old coffins?
He rose and surveyed the domain that was now the Flynn brothers’ legacy. It was in sad shape, at least cosmetically, but comparatively speaking, it had survived the centuries well. The house and stables were intact; the slave quarters decaying and in need of repair, but they were still standing.
Just as they had stood for nearly two hundred years.
Maybe his brothers were right; maybe this place really was important and represented their chance to do something good, to make a difference.
He looked across the overgrown lawn and untended brush to the family burial ground, its white mausoleums and stone monuments just visible through the trees. There was a line of bent and twisted old oaks, dripping with moss, that more or less defined the edge of the cemetery.
He walked toward it.
A low wall of stone, covered with lichen and crumbling with age, ran alongside the trees, a truer demarcation of where the cemetery began and ended.
An angel sat atop a sarcophagus that stood at least five feet high. Only one name was listed on it: Fiona MacFarlane. Below her name, the etching grown faint with time: Beloved in this house.
Nice sentiment. He wondered what her connection to the family had been. He really should get hold of some of the old family records and trace the connections.
There was a row of in-ground graves with simple plaques to mark them, each one etched only with a first name, making Aidan think they might have been graves for the family slaves, as well as those who had chosen to stay on to work for the plantation as free men after the war, since several were from the 1870s and ’80s.
None of them seemed to be disturbed.
His attention was drawn next to the large family vault he’d noticed the day before. It was an imposing stone structure with a marble facade. Clearly, it had been built long ago, when the family had been flush with money. Before the War Between the States. He walked up the broken stone path to the heavy iron door. He assumed it would be locked, but it wasn’t.
He pushed open the door and stepped inside. It was cool—and dark, so he drew his keys from his pocket and switched on the little flashlight attached to them, then shone it around.
He had expected more cobwebs. And there were dying flowers here and there, so apparently someone still came now and then to honor the dead.
Amelia had been dying of cancer. In the end, she had almost certainly been bedridden. So who had it been? Kendall?
He didn’t think it possible that any of his ancestors’ bones had escaped from the tombs that lined the walls, or from the two sarcophagi that sat in the middle of the mausoleum, facing a small marble altar backed by a tall golden cross. Behind that, a stained-glass window depicted St. George slaying the dragon. The window faced the trees, rendering its purpose moot, since the heavy branches of the oaks prevented the sun from showing off the beauty of it.
He walked back out of the mausoleum, wondering what he was looking for, what he was expecting to find. There was a simple and reasonable explanation for everything that was bothering him. Shifting earth and rising water had resulted in bones showing up in all kinds of odd places. Amelia had been sedated, so was it any wonder she had seen and heard things, that she had talked to ghosts? Some down-on-his-luck guy had been living on the property, eating chicken and making soup.
Whatever was bugging him, it was something he had to shake, and he should start by getting the hell out of the cemetery. He and his brothers weren’t rolling in cash, but they could afford this project. He was between cases and had time to plunge into the restoration of the house. It might be good for all of them.
He started back toward the house and almost tripped over a broken gravestone.
Swearing softly, he regained his balance, looking down to see what had nearly made him fall.
He frowned, noticing a suspiciously familiar stain on the stone.
He hunched down and studied it more closely. It looked as if something had splattered or…dripped onto the stone. It was brownish and, up close, completely recognizable.
Dried blood.
6
Kendall groaned. “Mason, no. I can’t go out tonight.”
“You have to.”
“No, I don’t. What’s that old saying? Only two things are certain in life—death and taxes. And we don’t even have to pay taxes if we don’t want to. We can just go to jail and then die. I do not have to go out tonight.” She was tired, and she didn’t know why. And she was afraid that she would run into Aidan Flynn again, which she definitely didn’t want to do, and she didn’t know exactly why she felt so strongly about that, either. If the guy was going to be living near the city, she could end up running into him a lot, so she was going to have to learn to deal with him, because she wasn’t about to let anyone change her life, her friends or her habits.
Not that she always hung out on Bourbon Street. The locals all said that Bourbon Street was for the tourists; anyone who still wanted real blues or a genuinely Southern-style bar usually headed to Frenchman Street.
But Vinnie played on Bourbon. And lots of her friends went there to see him. The truth was, any musician looking for a full-time gig that actually provided a living wage was lucky to get a job on Bourbon Street.
Mason pointed a finger at her. “Fine. If you want to break Vinnie’s heart, be a no-show. He was crushed last night when you weren’t there to hear his new song.”
“Oh, come on. He knows I’m his biggest fan,” Kendall protested.
Silently, though, she admitted that Mason was probably right. Vinnie was sensitive when it came to his music. Artists! She knew enough of them. Once upon a time, she had intended to be one. But making a living had superseded certain dreams, and she did love her shop. She even loved the opportunity to use her “powers” to help people when they were hurt, anxious or just in need of a friendly hand to hold.
She knew the disappointment of rejection all too well. That was another reason why she had loved Amelia so much.
“Young lady,” Amelia had told her, “don’t you ever let anyone put you down. You are strong and talented, and don’t you forget that, no matter what anyone else says or does. Life is a fight. You need to know when to retreat, when to go forward. You need to know yourself, and know your own value.”
In short, Amelia had told her to never let ’em see her cry.
Amelia had given her so much.
“Mason, Vinnie is my best friend. But…”
Her voice trailed away. Why would she want to hurt a friend’s feelings, adding to the pain life was always so ready to dish out?
Mason gave her a look. The look. He was good at it. The look made her feel as if she were worth about two cents, as if she were cruelly betraying her best friend, as if she were nothing but a sniveling coward.
She threw up her hands in resignation. “All right.”
Bourbon Street was still struggling during the week. Only on weekends could any place guarantee a crowd. Things were getting better, but better hadn’t yet brought them back up to their pre-storm par. That would still take years, most residents realized. Even so, the shills were working hard to entice them as they headed down Iberville and moved on to Bourbon.
“Three drinks for the price of one!” A guy wearing a sandwich board tried to hand them a flyer. “Oh, hell, it’s you, Mason,” he said.
Mason laughed. “Sorry, Brad. We’re on our way to hear Vinnie.”
Kendall recognized Brad Humphries. He managed a place that had been forced to downgrade to canned music during the week. He
was doing his best to survive: managing, bartending, being a DJ—and wearing a sandwich board in the street.
She set her hand on Mason’s arm and smiled at Brad. “We’ll come in for a minute.”
Mason looked at her, hiking up a brow. “Yeah?”
She nodded. “Thanks,” Brad said, clearly meaning it.
Inside, a few people were hanging out at the bar. The place offered live country music on the weekends and had a mechanical bull, but even the bull looked forlorn that night.
“I guess Brad’s been hitting up a lot of the locals,” Mason said, as they collected their drinks from the bar and took chairs at a high table.
“What do you mean?” Kendall asked, looking around at the mostly empty place.
“Cops,” Mason said. “Off-duty cops.”
Kendall turned in the direction he’d indicated and saw a couple of the cops who worked the French Quarter during the day. Sam Stuart was there, a nice guy of about thirty, with a little paunch, and Tim Yates, the same age, but dark-haired, fit, and something of a local Lothario. She had always steered clear of him; he had a slick line, and she didn’t need to read the tarot cards to know he thought of himself as a player and only wanted to add more notches to his belt. He was a good cop, though. He had stood fast during the terrible ordeal of Katrina and the lawless chaos that followed.
A third man joined them at the table, a man there was no mistaking. Hal Vincent was tall, and his close-cropped hair was shockingly white. He was lean and straight as a ramrod. He’d taken down some of the city’s toughest criminals and gained the respect of his fellow officers, as well as the public. She’d heard he was working homicide these days.
He sat down with his fellows, a tall beer in his hand. He joked as he sat, then looked up and saw Kendall and Mason.
He frowned, as if he were seeing a picture he shouldn’t be seeing, then said something to the other two cops and came over to say hello.
“Hey, you two. Kendall, haven’t seen you in a while. How are you doing?”
“Fine, Hal, thanks. And you?”
He nodded. “Doing all right.”
“I haven’t seen you around for a while,” Mason said.
“Thank God. We don’t need murder in the French Quarter. We’re getting a bad enough rap for the violence in certain areas as it is.”
“You here just trying to help Brad build his business back up, too?” Mason asked.
“Yeah, I guess. Didn’t really have anything else to do. My wife is away for a while, taking care of her mother over in Crowley. Broken hip. I’m kind of lost without her giving me chores at night.”
“We’re going down the street in a few minutes to catch Vinnie’s band,” Kendall offered.
“Yeah. Kendall just decided we needed three beers for the price of one first,” Mason explained.
Kendall looked at the glasses on the table in front of her. She’d told the bartender she didn’t really need three beers, that she wouldn’t be able to drink them in the time they had.
But she had downed one quickly, and now she was in the middle of the second.
“Never knew you to be a drinker before,” Hal said with a laugh.
“I guess I was thirsty.”
“Probably just wanted to drown out the voices in her head, now that she’s decided she’s a real psychic,” Mason said in a teasing whisper.
“Oh?” Hal asked.
“Pay no attention to Mason,” Kendall cautioned. “He just likes to torment me.”
“She’s taking old Ady Murphy to the doctor on Thursday. She’s convinced the woman she has cancer.”
“You get a feel for these things when you spend time taking care of someone who’s ill,” Kendall said, trying to sound perfectly calm and logical—and just slightly aggravated.
Hal looked at her and nodded. “Guess you were spending most of your time up at the old Flynn place, huh?”
“A lot of my time, yes,” she agreed.
To Kendall’s surprise, Hal said thoughtfully, “Maybe that place really does have some kind of weird vibe.”
“What?” Kendall asked, startled.
“Met the guy taking over,” Hal said.
“There are three guys taking over,” she pointed out.
“I’m talking about the oldest brother,” Hal said. “I got a call to meet him at the river, and then at the house. The guy seems to have a knack for finding human bones. No, not just finding them—getting obsessed with them.”
“Well,” Kendall said, surprised to hear herself defending Aidan Flynn, “you’ve got to admit, most people would get concerned if they found even one human bone, much less two.”
Hal took a long swig of his beer. “Not around here,” he said sadly. “Not around here. Hell, we had bodies everywhere….” He lowered his head, shaking it. “Everybody failed us…city, parish, state, country.”
Kendall set a gentle hand on his arm. “I know, but that doesn’t mean we can just give up fighting crime now.”
Hal straightened. “Of course not. I’m a good cop, and you know it.”
“Of course you are,” Kendall agreed. “Hal, you’re one of the best.”
“Yeah, well, I hope this guy realizes I’ve got too much on my plate right now to go crazy over a couple of old bones.”
“He is persistent,” Kendall admitted.
She swallowed the last of the second beer and, to her surprise, started on the third.
“So, Hal,” Mason said, “want to come see Vinnie with us?”
“I’ll come by in a bit,” Hal said, then winked at Kendall. “I don’t want to make it look like an exodus. Might hurt Brad’s feelings.”
“Good thinking,” she told him.
She was surprised to find she had already finished the last of her three-for-ones. The alcohol seemed soothing tonight.
She slid off her stool and discovered that the world was teetering just a bit. Damn, she was actually tipsy.
She immediately sought to cover up her inebriated state. She stood very straight, perfectly balanced. “Okay, Mason. Let’s go claim a table while it’s early, just in case the place starts to get crowded later. Hal, we’ll see you over there.”
She wasn’t so sure Hal would really come, though, because Brad had wisely decided to keep the level of his canned music down. It might be one of the only places on Bourbon where people could actually hear each other talk.
There was more of a crowd listening to Vinnie tonight, but even so, Mason spotted an empty table toward the front. As she started to weave her way through the dancers and the other tables, she looked up to see Vinnie staring at her. He offered her a huge smile, and she was glad that Mason had guilted her into coming, despite the strangeness of her day.
Besides, she was probably just imagining things. She was overtired, and her mind was playing tricks.
That was absolutely it, she decided.
She smiled back at Vinnie and waved, then sat down and leaned back to enjoy the band. Mason arrived a minute later—carrying another three beers. All the bars seemed to be using the same early evening come-on.
“I can’t drink three more beers,” she told Mason.
He raised his voice to be heard above the music.
“You said you couldn’t drink the first three, either.”
True. She lifted one of the bottles to him in a toast. “Thanks for making me come out tonight.”
“My pleasure. I like hanging out here. I do it a lot.”
“Too much alcohol,” she said sternly.
“Yes, Miss Prim. Although I’ve been known to have three sodas for the price of one, you know,” he said in mock indignation.
“Not tonight.”
“Hell, no, not tonight. Tonight I’m trying to keep pace with you.”
She made a face at him. Just then a waitress came by, and Mason took it into his head to order a large plate of chicken wings and a large order of fries. The food seemed to help some with the tipsiness, she decided, once it arrived.
As she nibbled on a chicken wing, she noticed an older black man who was one of the place’s regulars. He noticed her, too, and smiled and lifted a hand, then turned his attention back to the band.
One day, she decided, when she hadn’t been drinking so much, she was going to introduce herself to the guy, seeing as she saw him so often. She loved New Orleans because it was home to such a mix of people, and he was a part of that mix. Black, white and maybe something else. Asian? Indian? She wasn’t certain.
The group took a break then, and Vinnie came over and sat down at their table. “Hey, you—you ran out on me last night,” he told Kendall, but he was smiling to take the sting out of the accusation.
“I’m sorry, Vinnie. But I’m here now.” She grinned at him.
Vinnie looked at Mason. “She’s tipsy,” he said, amazed.
“I know,” Mason said, laughing.
“‘She’ is not tipsy,” Kendall protested.
“The place seems to be doing a pretty good business,” Mason said, “especially for this early in the week.”
“Yeah,” Vinnie agreed. “We lucked out and got some free PR. This guy Jeremy Flynn—one of those guys who inherited that plantation of yours, Kendall—has been talking us up when he pushes that charity bash he’s planning.”
“It was never my plantation, Vinnie,” Kendall objected.
“Whatever.” He waved away her objection. “He’s sitting in when we come back from our break.”
“If he’s playing, how am I going to hear the new song?” Kendall asked. Her good mood was evaporating. She didn’t know why. Jeremy Flynn hadn’t done anything to her. His older brother was the one she didn’t like. Didn’t want to like, a small voice whispered inside her.
All of a sudden, she felt uncomfortable. She looked around, trying to figure out what could be upsetting her, but the clientele hadn’t changed all that much from the night before. There was a group of businessmen, their ties loosened, to the far right. She was pretty sure she had actually seen one or two of them the night before. Hal had come in, as he had promised, and was hanging out in the back with the other two cops he’d been with earlier. There was a man she vaguely recognized sitting alone at a table to her left.