24. Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
Jack and Charlie arrived with Detective Barry, and the look Jack shot me from behind the detective warned that it wasn’t going to be smooth sailing.
Well, great. At least my parents could pony up the bail if it came to it.
I wouldn’t want to stare into my father’s disappointed eyes, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
“I need an explanation,” Barry said as he looked between the four of us and the staff that had appeared at the patio door.
“I have glaucoma,” the maid I recognized from our first visit blurted. “It’s medical marijuana.”
I made a slashing motion across my throat to silence her. “He’s not here for you,” I assured her.
“You don’t know that,” Barry countered. “I might be.”
“I sincerely doubt it,” I replied. His anger was palpable, and I honestly didn’t blame him. “If you want to take out your wrath on someone, I’m right here.”
“She didn’t do anything,” Knox interjected. “Blame me if you want.”
“I very much want,” Barry seethed, his eyes flaring as he glared at the big bounty hunter. “You know you could lose your license for a stunt like this. Is that what you want?”
Protectiveness surged through me. “Hey!” I shook my head as Barry’s eyes moved to me. “This isn’t on him. He only came to make sure I didn’t get hurt.”
“Don’t martyr me,” Knox complained. “I’m just as much to blame as you.”
“I don’t care who is to blame,” Barry barked. “How did you get in here and up to the second floor?”
“Oh, well … .” I shifted from one foot to the other. How could I explain this and save both of us?
That was, of course, the moment Papa and Baron decided to open their mouths.
“We handled that part,” Baron replied. He almost looked bored. “If you have a problem with it, we don’t really care.” He held out his hands in a “What are you going to do” motion.
“You don’t care?” Barry challenged, glaring at Baron. “You don’t care?” His voice ratcheted up. “You’ll care if I throw your ass in jail for the rest of your life!”
Baron snorted, and it couldn’t have been more obvious that he felt nothing but disdain for the detective. “The jail would fall down before that happens.” He patted Barry’s shoulder in what might have been considered a conciliatory move. I knew better. “Take a breath. Life is not that serious.”
If Barry were a cartoon character, this was the part where steam would have come out of his ears. “You don’t think murder is serious?”
That was enough to jolt me from the fog that had descended over my normally sharp brain. “We don’t technically know that it’s murder,” I interjected. “We only know there’s a body and it’s been here for a few days.”
“How do you know that?” Barry snapped.
I wasn’t a big fan of his attitude. When I put myself in his shoes, however, I could understand why he was so agitated.
“We’re the type of people who know those things,” I said in a soft voice.
Barry opened his mouth, then his eyes narrowed as he regarded Papa and Baron, seemingly with fresh eyes. “Who are you guys?” His voice had taken on an edge that suggested he was close to losing it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said hurriedly. “Who they are is of no consequence.”
“Don’t do that, Freya,” Jack chided. “We’re not here to gaslight Detective Barry. We’re here to work as a team.”
“I don’t want to be on your team!” Barry snapped. “No one asked me what I wanted, they just assigned me to a team and assumed I would make it work. Well, this isn’t working for me.” He was bordering on hysterical.
Charlie stepped forward. “We’re very grateful that you’re a member of our team,” she said in a soft voice, her hand igniting in soothing blue magic as she brushed it up and down the detective’s back. I watched, incredulous, as Charlie talked Barry down.
“You’re a very good detective, which is why you were assigned this case,” she assured him in a voice of melted chocolate and whipped cream. “It’s not your fault that we don’t have any leads. This, what happened here, could lead to a break in the case.”
Sympathy practically rolled off Charlie in waves as she kept petting Barry with her magic. As for the detective, he looked as if he were caught in a trance.
“We know that you’re under a lot of pressure and you’re upset because there’s no rhyme or reason as to what’s happening,” Charlie continued. “We’re all going to figure it out together. You need to take a breath.”
Barry did as he was told and inhaled, as if on command, because it was on command.
“There.” Charlie’s eyes were bright as she stepped away from him and smiled. “Now, these guys did a very stupid thing. It’s important to remember they’re trying to help, not because they’re idiots.”
I gave her a dark look, but it was wasted on her because her entire focus was on Barry.
“They are idiots,” Barry said, his tone much softer this time. “Complete and total idiots. I don’t want to know what these two are.” He was talking to Charlie even as he gestured to Papa and Baron. “I don’t think I can take it.”
“You don’t have to know what they are,” Charlie assured him. “They might seem like idiots too —”
“Don’t push it, young lady,” Papa warned, and I would have laughed if we weren’t standing on the edge of a knife.
Charlie ignored him. She was the only person I knew who wasn’t at least a bit fearful of the loas.
“Where is the body?” Jack asked when the silence had settled over the room for several seconds.
“Upstairs.” I pointed. “The master suite.”
That’s when I remembered the house staff members were still there.
“What body?” the maid asked.
“Archie Hayes,” I replied.
She started shaking her head, slowly. “Mr. Hayes is in Baton Rouge.”
“Did he tell you that, or did Brett?”
“He … .” The maid trailed off.
“What’s your name?” Jack asked. He had a calming presence.
“Marie-Thérèse Touchard.”
“Well, Ms. Touchard, it appears your boss is dead,” Jack continued in a soothing voice. “When was the last time you saw him?”
Marie-Thérèse looked unsure until Barry straightened and flashed his badge.
“Answer the question,” the detective prodded.
“It was four days ago, I guess,” she said, tilting her head as if trying to remember. “He came back from the office at about seven o’clock that day. He was in a bad mood about something.”
“What?” I asked.
“He didn’t say.” She shrugged. “I believe it might have had something to do with his mama. She’s been giving him fits.”
“The ghouls,” I said. “That was the day we got rid of the ghouls.”
“Could the ghouls have something to do with what’s happening?” Jack asked, his dark brows pulled together.
“I don’t see how,” I replied. “Ghoul infestations are common here because of the above-ground cemeteries. It makes for a ready-made food source.”
Charlie made a disgusted face. “Did you have to put that image in my head?”
“Sorry. I’m kind of used to it.”
“Was there anything unusual about this ghoul infestation?” Jack pressed.
“The number. Lenore said there were three under her house. We took out seven, I think. Then a bunch of others descended on us from beneath other houses. There were thirty all together.”
“What happened to them?” Barry asked.
“We took them out. There might have been a little fire involved to burn the bodies quickly.” I sent him an apologetic look. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Barry shook his head. “I’m curious why we didn’t hear about this from anyone else.”
“Probably because Lex used a jammer to make sure no one could take footage of what was happening.”
“Which makes sense,” Jack said. “Anyone spreading that story without proof would be laughed at.”
“Yeah.” Barry rubbed his cheek. “I’m a little worried that the Axeman thing started the day after you took out the ghouls. They have to be connected, don’t they?” He almost looked hopeful. That’s why it was so sad that I was going to have to crush his heart.
“Ghouls are a regular occurrence in the city,” I said. “They’re always here. Usually, we don’t notice until the nests get big enough to draw the attention of people in the neighborhood.
“They’re stupid and slow,” I continued. “Easy to take out. We go in regularly — at least once a week — to take out a nest. I can’t think of anything that would tie the Axeman to a bunch of ghouls.”
“Except, of course, that all of them should be dead,” Baron corrected.
I sent him a sharp look. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m the loa of the dead,” Baron replied. “What else would I be focused on?”
“Hey!” Barry jabbed a finger. “I said I didn’t want to know.”
I ignored the detective. He wasn’t my main concern. “What did you mean when you said that?”
“Ghouls manage to stave off death by eating the dead,” Baron replied.
“Sometimes they’ll try to eat the living, but they know that’s a surefire way to draw too much attention.
The current killer either is someone who should have died a long time ago, or someone pretending to be someone who should have died a long time ago.
Either way, death plays a part in what’s happening, other than the obvious. ”
What he was saying didn’t make complete sense, but it didn’t have to. There was something at the front of my brain. I just couldn’t grab onto it.
“Tell me about your boss,” Barry pressed Marie-Thérèse. “What sort of man was he?”
Marie-Thérèse looked at the two landscapers, then back at the detective.
She seemed to be making up her mind. “He wasn’t terrible,” she said.
“He wasn’t great. He insisted on uniforms like this.
” She gestured to her outfit, which reminded me of a Halloween costume.
“He also didn’t want us to be obvious when we were in the house. ”
“He wanted a clean house but didn’t want to see you cleaning,” I guessed.
She hesitated, then nodded. “That is basically it,” she confirmed. She didn’t look happy about it. “Most of the time, he ignored us. He paid well enough that it didn’t matter he refused to tip us.”
“What’s ‘well enough?’” Knox asked.