Big Easy Evil Read online

  “We keep telling him that,” Gill said. He looked at Quinn, shaking his head.

  “Indeed,” Hattie agreed. “Sean, I’m so sorry, too, but, tomorrow, children—children with wonderful lives ahead of them—will come here. And they’ll see they can grow up and create things, tell stories…this is something wonderful. Despite the sickness of a killer, life goes on for others, and you’re giving little ones a chance at some fun, needed in many little lives.”

  Gill looked at Sean. “Can’t blame him—he worked for Abernathy.”

  That afternoon, Gill Martin looked like a later-day hippie. His hair was long and waving to his shoulders; he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that advertised a 70s heavy metal band.

  “So, Gill, you’ve been working this display all day with Sean?”

  “Naw, I just got here in the afternoon.”

  “I couldn’t have done the hard stuff without Gill,” Sean said.

  “Where were you earlier?” Quinn asked Gill.

  “I was—at home,” Gill said.

  “Why not work?”

  “Ah, hell! I meant to call in; I never did.” Gill sounded disgusted with himself. “I knew I was going to help Sean. I just…I was late.”

  “Didn’t matter. You came to help me,” Sean said. “And…” He sank down on the steps.

  “We just heard,” Hattie explained softly to Sean.

  “Again, I’m sorry. I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station with me.”

  “What?” Gill demanded. “You can’t demand anything—and what the hell? I didn’t work for that stupid horror place!”

  “We need help,” Quinn said. “I talked to Chrissy earlier.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Gill said resentfully.

  “Thing is, you two were there at Casey’s and Sean’s before the killing. And you were there again soon after. And you don’t have any alibi for those hours right when Abernathy was being killed. I’m sorry; we’re going to have to talk. You have to remember something else. You need to remember something else.”

  “You’re not a cop.”

  “You can take a ride in with me—or I can have a dozen cops out here before you can snap your fingers,” Quinn told him.

  “I thought you said he was a nice guy?” Gill said, his tone bitter, as he looked at Sean.

  “I am a nice guy—doing what’s needed.”

  “You can’t think that I killed people!” Gill protested.

  “You’re not being accused. You’re being asked to help,” Sean said.

  “What about guys who work at the place?” Gill asked.

  “Ned Denton, night manager, is down there now, too,” Quinn informed him.

  Sean was staring at Quinn blankly. “No, no, can’t be!” he whispered.

  “We just need information,” Quinn said.

  Gill shook his head. “The girls…Casey and Chrissy. I was going to go and get Chrissy.”

  “She’s still at work?” Quinn asked. It was getting late. Already almost eight, he thought.

  “They have to finish their Christmas projects!” Gill said.

  “I’ll get them. I’ll get them both,” Sean said. “I’ll bring them both to Quinn’s.”

  Gill sighed. “You got a hypnotist or something for me? I don’t know anything!”

  “We’re really hoping that you do,” Quinn said

  “All right, all right, let me get my stuff.”

  Sean looked at Quinn, confused, and hurt. “My boss is dead. A guy was killed in my yard. And you’re dragging my friend down to the police station?”

  “Elimination,” Quinn said simply. “And he may know what he doesn’t know he knows.”

  Gill came around, carrying his backpack.

  “Ready,” he said. “You’re not going to cuff me, or anything?”

  “Like you said; I’m not a cop.”

  “Everything will be all right!” Hattie promised. She smiled at Quinn. “Sean, you go get those young ladies. Gill, see if can’t somehow help the police. I’m going to lock myself up in my brand new panic room until one of you calls me!”

  She turned and headed into her house.

  Gill, Sean, and Quinn headed out of the yard. Quinn was glad to see a patrol car parked just down from his own car.

  The police would be watching over Hattie’s house. Still, he hadn’t known about it before now, but he was glad Hattie had a nice new panic room.

  Unless, of course, she had just been saying that as a safety precaution.

  Sean turned back to stare at the house. “I was…I was almost feeling good!” he said.

  Quinn had no answer for that.

  “We’ll see you back at the house,” he told Sean, and he led Gill Martin to his own car.

  He wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing. He wasn’t a cop. But, when he’d been a cop, he’d learned that people often had a lot more to say when they were sitting in an interrogation room—facing an authority that could bring them down, and knew just what questions to ask.

  ***

  “Good is countered by bad; Heaven is countered by Hell, and between the two lie worlds where the dead walk. Dead such as the ‘Jack’ told about in old Irish tales, for Jack taunted the devil, and thus walks the netherworld. Creatures of Darkness are cast there, as that ‘Jack,’ working their way not into Heaven, but into Hell, perhaps the devil’s spawn, perhaps those who have failed in their promises or vows. Death does not take them as it does others; in their bones like evil, in their ashes, malice and hatred and all that must be fought with light and goodness.”

  “Okay, okay, so…ashes. Someone dug up ashes and…made them then into something. And whatever that something is, Gretchen Avery had it, somehow got it to Marc Henson. And….”

  Danni read again.

  “Conquer ash with ash,” she read aloud. “Blessed be that which is Holy, goodness that transcends religion; that which is kindness and care, and thus Holy.”

  She paused, reaching for her phone. She almost jumped out of her chair; it rang as she reached for it.

  “Danni.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Eric. Eric Garfield.”

  “You found something?”

  “Did you?”

  “I think someone dug up Marc Henson’s ashes. Do you know where he was buried?”

  “That’s what I just found! Not buried—interred. In the No-name Cemetery.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s still on private property. It was a family cemetery from years and years back—never moved. It’s not far from me.”

  “No-name?” Danni repeated. “Eric, I’ve lived here my whole life. What? St. Louis #1, #2, and #3, and they ran out of names?”

  “No, no, it was a family cemetery from before the fires in the late 1700s. It’s just a couple of mausoleums in the back of a house that look like sheds or something from the street. Its rental property now, but the owners are still the original family. It’s vacant at the moment—the family is remodeling. And they’re innocent—been over in Europe the last few months. But, Danni, Marc Henson was buried there. His sister—never a cult member—was the mother of the LaClare family that owns it now. I think that someone tampered with the thing; I’m heading there now.”

  “Eric, no, not by yourself. Wait!” She started to say, “I’ll go with you.” She knew that would be a mistake. “I’m calling Quinn; he’ll go with you.”

  “Danni, there have been two murders now. I have to get out there—”

  “You need to live. I’m calling Quinn. Don’t you dare move!”

  She hung up and dialed Quinn. He didn’t answer. She swore softly and started to dial Larue, but Quinn was already calling her back.

  “Eric knows where Marc Henson was buried—or interred. Quinn, he wants to head right out. He can’t head out there alone!”

  “Both Ned Denton and Gill Martin are with me. And I really do think it had to be one of them. Or Chrissy. But, Chrissy was at work all day, so she didn’t kill Abernathy.”


  “You’re sure she was at work?” Danni asked.

  “She was when I went by.” He was quiet a minute. “I don’t get a read on her. I can’t tell if she’s really horrified by what’s happening…or if she isn’t a little slimy.”

  “I haven’t met her, remember, so I can’t tell you if I get a feel around her or not.”

  “I know, Danni. Thing is, this has all moved so fast.”

  “Yes, but, Casey and Sean seem to think that Gill and Chrissy are their good friends.”

  “Denton put on a good show when Abernathy’s body was found.”

  “It could be none of them!” Danni said.

  She could almost see Quinn shaking his head. “Someone had to have known their house and been to Horrible Hauntings.”

  “Well, Eric Garfield doesn’t really fit that bill. And he wants to go to the mausoleum. Quinn, I don’t think he should go alone. I can go; I can take Wolf…”

  “No. I’ll go. Okay. Like I said, I’m at the police station; I brought Gill Martin in here—Larue already had Denton. I’ll leave both sweating it out a little with Larue, run by the house for Wolf, and then I’ll head over and get Eric. Let him know I’m coming. Danni, did you get any closer to finding out who might be the killer now?”

  “Working on it.”

  “Work fast.”

  “I will!”

  She hung up. The house seemed strangely quiet. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was almost nine. Billie had probably closed up for the day, or he was doing so now.

  She needed to concentrate. Quinn was swinging on by; it would take him a few minutes. If she was lucky, she just might find something that led to their current killer.

  Marc Henson, cult leader, had had a sister—presumably not involved. Her family now owns the property where her brother had been interred in their little family cemetery. Marc Henson had been interred in a crypt—a small mausoleum, a little house-like structure that really belonged in one of the “cities of the dead.” “A year and a day” was the time given in most interments for a body to decompose enough to be shoveled back into a vault’s holding cell so that another body could be interred. Henson had been dead decades. He was surely pure ash and bone.

  Who the hell had been on the property?

  She needed to speak with Eric—yes! She’d forgotten to tell him that Quinn would be coming for him. And, she needed to know who had been renting the house previously.

  Eric answered her quickly.

  “Quinn is coming for you. Eric, who does the family use as a realtor?”

  “McMichaels and DuMonde,” he said. “Why?”

  “Going into records,” she told him. “Quinn should be there soon.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll wait.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hung up and brought out her computer and looked up the realtors. She warned herself she would probably find a number of names that meant nothing.

  Finding the records wasn’t as easy as she thought; she was sent from one page to the next, and a few pages that led back to the site pages where she had already been.

  The door to the office opening broke into her concentration. She almost jumped.

  It was Quinn. She smiled. He always seemed impossibly imposing. Very handsome, of course. But imposing—even intimidating—as well.

  “Hey!” she said. “You need to get to Eric. I’m afraid he’s going to get impatient and leave without you.”

  “I’m going; I figured we might need Wolf—a little warning if someone was watching or followed us. And, of course, I was checking on you.”

  “Quinn—I also read something here. ‘Conquer ash with ash.’ But, it also talks about goodness and holiness.” She hesitated. “I think you need to get some of that ash, too, and call Father Ryan and get to him and get him to bless the ash…in case.”

  “Will do.”

  She smiled and glanced down at the latest screen to pop on to her computer.

  She gasped.

  “What? What?” Quinn asked.

  She looked up at him. “Quinn, a Gilbert Martin looked at the property where Marc Henson was interred. Gilbert. Gill Martin.”

  “I’ll take Wolf with me; you stay tight. Make sure Billie closes the shop now, okay? And when Sean gets here with Casey and Chrissy—keep them all in the kitchen with the three of you. I’ll tell Billie to be prepared for anything. Ned is at the station, but…”

  “We’ll watch Chrissy like a hawk,” she promised.

  He turned to leave, then strode for the desk instead. He bowed down and found her lips and kissed her. It was a brief kiss, gentle, passionate…

  She smiled. It was somehow incredibly sustaining.

  “Take Wolf!” she told him.

  “Wolf should be here.”

  “No—here is safe. You’re heading off to an old mausoleum…where people might have been practicing very bad things. Please, Quinn, you worry about me. Let me worry about you. I have Billie and Bo Ray. Please, take Wolf.”

  “All right, all right, I will. And you…no going away from Billie and Bo Ray.”

  “I promise.”

  Then he turned and hurried out.

  Danni closed her father’s book and headed out as well; she wanted to make sure the shop was closed up tight—and the door was locked between them and Mr. and Mrs. Devil Demon.

  She just wasn’t sure about the pair.

  ***

  When he left the house on Royal Street, Quinn called Father Ryan, gave him the address, and received his promise to meet him there—with Holy water.

  Right after, Quinn paused to call Larue.

  “I think Gill Martin might be our killer. I don’t know it—but he has no alibi for today, he was at Sean’s, knows Sean’s, and was hanging around the first murder scene.”

  “So far, he’s not saying anything. He’s worried about his girlfriend. My captain is in with him now—I stepped out for a bit. We’re doing good cop/bad cop.”

  “Everyone knows that ploy!” Quinn said.

  “Hey, it still works sometimes. Are you coming back in here?”

  “I have a project…Seeing Eric Garfield. Then I’ll call and see how you’re doing, okay?”

  “All right. But, if you want me keeping either of these guys…”

  “Yes?”

  “You need to turn up some evidence.”

  “I’ll be trying,” Quinn said.

  Eric was waiting for him down by the sidewalk when Quinn arrived.

  “Thanks for—for this,” Eric said. “I don’t know what the hell we’re going to find, but, if someone has been tampering with the ashes…”

  “No. Thank you,” Quinn said, holding the door open for Eric to hop in.

  “We’re not even going a mile,” Eric said. “I could have walked.”

  “Better that we’re together. And I have Wolf.”

  Wolf barked and wagged his tail. He’d gotten to know Eric, Quin realized.

  And he seemed to like him.

  Wolf tended to be a pretty good judge of character.

  When they arrived at the property, Father Ryan came riding up right behind them.

  “A priest?” Eric asked.

  “Hey, yeah, fight fire with fire, right?” Quinn said. He didn’t know what Eric thought, what he believed, what he suspected, and what he might think of as insane. “Cover all our bases,” Quinn added.

  They parked in front of the house. It had all the appearances of an abandoned dwelling; chipping paint, overgrown yard, tangles of bushes here and there, and crowds of trees dripping moss.

  It wasn’t dressed up for Halloween. It had the eerie and spooky quality of a Halloween house without any decoration at all.

  The moon had risen, casting a strange glow over the house and yard.

  There seemed to be a fog, clinging to the ground and shrubbery, obscuring their vision, promising of something that lurked within.

  Father Ryan looked grim.

  Eric Garfield kept swallowin
g.

  Quinn quickly introduced the two men. “Well, then, we’re after some ashes, eh?” Father Ryan asked.

  “Well, we’ll see what we see, right? Eric asked. “I’ve studied the property—on a map. Through there.”

  He pointed to something of a poor trail around the two-story, colonial-style house.

  “Built in the late 1850s,” Eric said. “Just before the Civil War. Henson’s family had a long history here; he just…just went whacko with the cult and power and…”

  “You didn’t find anything on a descendent of his?” Quinn asked, pushing his way through the bushes.

  “Not yet; he was the last I know about or could find out about any kind of strange axe murders that followed in the wake of the Axeman.”

  They reached the back of the house. For a moment Quinn turned back and surveyed the eerie, decaying elegance of the old home. Then he turned back to the yard. Though a haze of moss he could see the mausoleums, built to echo the colonial beauty of the house. But, they, too, were decaying.

  Eric hurried ahead. He threw his flashlight on a plaque attached to the first. “Interments started in the Civil War…this one…we’re up to the 1950s.”

  Quinn walked around to the second mausoleum. He found a similar plaque and looked at the names. “This one,” he said. “It picks up in 1920. But…Henson’s name isn’t here.”

  “It wouldn’t be there; the family wouldn’t have put his name. It would have been an invitation to every would-be cult follower out there. Only someone who knew…” Father Ryan said.

  “Of course,” Quinn murmured. He walked around the back, where the “holding container” would be.

  Someone had broken in the wall there.

  Father Ryan came around by his side. He crossed himself. “It’s a separate…it’s just for Henson. Not even his family wanted their ashes mixed with his. What matters is…”

  “Are there any ashes left?” Quinn asked softly.

  “Ashes left?” Eric asked.

  Wolf suddenly began to whine. Quinn trained his flashlight into the pit within the tomb.

  The night seemed to darken; the moon slipped behind a cloud. It caused a pitch-black shadow to sweep over the yard.

  “Hurry,” Father Ryan said. And while Quinn worked at tearing out more of the wall to find the ash and bits of bone at the bottom of the cell, Father Ryan began a series of prayers in Latin, his words tumbling out.