A Life Without Fear Read online

  The conversation they had been having before Sam passed out started coming back to her. She said, “So, Richie, that scar on your chest. Is that from when your father… ?”

  Richie parked the car, flexing his jaw. “Yeah. That’s where it’s from.”

  She didn’t know what to say, other than to show that she cared. “I love you.”

  He helped her out. “I love you, too,” he said. “Although there is something you should know.”

  She slung her arm around his neck and they started walking through the parking lot. Her feet felt heavy and it was hard to focus. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Um, you got a moving violation for nearly causing an accident. The traffic cop, um, took your driver’s license.”

  Sam blew a raspberry. “Richie, I’m a suspect for serial murder. Losing my right to drive is a bit trivial right now.”

  The two shared a laugh as they entered the hospital.

  Chapter 3

  Theories and Postulates

  Date: Sunday, August 9, 1992

  Time: 2:00 p.m.

  Location: Tulane University Hospital

  Downtown New Orleans

  Junior Detective Michael LeBlanc was still getting used to the sound of beeping monitors and the feeling of pads taped to his body. He had been awake for a couple of hours, having regained consciousness just after lunchtime. Lying there dressed in nothing but a hospital gown, his left shoulder and lower abdomen taped up, he stared up at the ceiling. All around him were gifts from just about everyone in the homicide division, a bouquet of flowers from Dixie, and a card from Rodger. And even though both gestures from the people he was closest to had touched him deeply, he was no longer focused on them.

  For the moment, he was focused on the case. Without any distractions or interruptions, he felt he was in a better position now than ever to solve the case.

  We’re being led around in circles by someone who wants us to believe anything but the truth. It’s like we’re being delayed, he thought, holding onto his notebook, which Rodger had left with his get-well card.

  Clicking the lever on the side of his bed, Michael tilted it forward until he was sitting up. He winced as he moved, the pain from the stab wound in his gut twisting through him. He gritted his teeth and endured it.

  When the bed stopped moving, the pain subsided to an ache. “Ironic that the stab wound hurts worse than the gunshot wound,” he said to the empty room. Complaints aside, he counted his blessings that the bullet had gone clean through his shoulder.

  He sat up and opened his notebook. His eyes fell on the words “Bourbon Street Ripper? Jack the Ripper?” on the middle of a page.

  The media had called Vincent Castille the Bourbon Street Ripper because of the brutality of the original murders, harkening back to Jack the Ripper. However, what if he had been more like Jack the Ripper than just that? A common theory was that Jack the Ripper had killed all his victims to hide only one killing. What if both Vincent and the copycat were doing just that?

  Michael closed his eyes. In his mind, he visualized the information about the original victims. They were just names on paper to him, but he had read their statistics so many times during the past week that he had become intimately familiar with them. However, only two names stood out as relevant to the present case.

  Maple Christofer, Vincent’s last female victim, and Edward Castille, Vincent’s final victim—his son and Sam’s father.

  Maple had been murdered a day or so before Edward. Vincent had been captured by Rodger soon after murdering Edward. It was like Vincent had wanted to get caught, but not until he had killed a certain person. Let’s start with Maple.

  Opening his eyes, Michael flipped through his notebook, stopping on the page he had dedicated to Maple.

  “Maple Christofer and her son, Dallas. Vincent killed Maple in front of Dallas.”

  Michael blinked at that and quickly flipped to his notes on Edward’s death.

  “Edward Castille and his daughter, Samantha. Vincent killed Edward in front of Samantha.”

  The similarities were so obvious, he wondered why no one had ever picked up on it.

  “So, both parents were murdered in front of their respective children. Both children were paralyzed with a low-level sedative. Dallas was buried alive with Maple and left for dead. Samantha was not. Why? Why do the exact same thing twice? Unless…”

  Everything seemed so rehearsed, down to the last detail. It was like a ritual or a play or a—

  Michael’s eyes widened.

  “Could it be that Maple’s murder with Dallas was practice for killing Edward in front of Sam?”

  Despite his goal of always trying to remain dispassionate when investigating a case, he felt sick to his stomach over that idea. Even for Vincent Castille, that was too cruel. And all the evidence I’ve seen shows he really cared for Sam. He loved her.

  “Detective LeBlanc,” said a sultry voice from the doorway. Looking up, he saw a woman with dark red hair, her eyes a deep blue and her lips a red so dark they were almost the color of blood. She wore a nurse’s outfit, which strained to keep back her sizable chest and hips. He name tag bore only the Tulane logo and her first name, “Camellia.” She was holding a tablet and approaching him.

  Michael cocked an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, that’s me.” She looked unfamiliar, but he had already seen two other nurses, even if they hadn’t been quite so memorable.

  Camellia smiled at him and tapped the tablet in her hand, which she held against her chest. “My name is Camellia, Detective, and I’m assigned to your case.”

  “All right, Camellia. Have at it.”

  Without a word, she put down her tablet and started checking his bandages. Her touch was cool, like a refreshing breeze, and he felt himself relaxing.

  “You’ll need to have your bandages changed out later tonight. Doctor’s orders,” she finally said, jotting down notes on her tablet. He just sat there and waited for her to finish.

  “Okay, now I just need to ask you a few questions,” she said.

  “Go for it,” Michael said.

  Camellia checked his pupils with a small pen light. “Do you feel tired and drained right now? If so, by how much?”

  He thought about it for a moment. “I feel a bit drained. Not tired like I’m sleepy, just drained like I’ve run a marathon.” He hadn’t thought anything of it, figuring it was because he had been shot and gone through surgery.

  Taking his wrist with her cool touch, she timed his pulse. “Are you feeling any strange shivers? Any unusual cold spells or tingling in the spinal column?”

  Michael again cocked an eyebrow, wondering what that line of questioning was about. When she cocked an eyebrow right back at him, he said, “Not right now, no.” Thinking on it for a moment, he added, “I did have a sensation like that when I came in contact with a strange drug yesterday.”

  Nodding, Camellia jotted down more notes. “Last question. Have you had any nightmares or night terrors lately? Any feelings of uncontrollable dread?”

  “What? No,” he said, confusion in his voice. “What does that have to do with anything?” He didn’t understand any of what was going on.

  “Just the usual questions for someone in your situation,” she said. She looked at Michael again for a few more moments and then shook her head. “You’re going to be fine, kid, but don’t push yourself. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Will you please tell me what is going on?” Michael asked, his voice shifting from confused to annoyed. Who the heck was this nurse, anyway?

  Shaking her head, Camellia said, “Your contact with that strange drug, as you call it. The doctor wanted to see if you were exhibiting any of the post-exposure symptoms. Anything more, I can’t tell you. But the doctor will be in tomorrow to speak with you. For now, just take things easy, get lots of nutrition—low sodium—and stay hydrated.” She turned to leave.

  He called out, “So who are you? Who are you with?”

  She turned and gave him
a wink. “I’m nobody. And at the same time, I’m somebody who has a very vested interest in you.” And then she was gone.

  Sometime later, Michael had finally recovered from the surprise visit by the strange nurse. He had asked the officers outside who the woman was, and the only answer he had gotten other than “my dream come true” and “my next wife” was that she had all the usual credentials.

  He had just finished getting his bandages changed with the help of another, more ordinary nurse, when Rodger and Dixie entered the room. Immediately, Dixie was at his side, her arms around him. In her haste, she pressed against his injured shoulder.

  “Ow, ow, ow,” Michael cried out, pushing Dixie away. “Be careful there, Dix!”

  “Oh, sorry, Michael,” she said, taking one of his hands into her own.

  He saw the worried expression on her face and smiled. She was his closest friend.

  The nurse finished washing up and said, “You can visit with your co-workers for one hour, Detective. But then you have to take your medication.” She left.

  Rodger came around the other side of the bed, looking as tired as ever. “Hey there, partner.”

  Michael nodded. The two had gone through a nasty scrap just the day before he had been shot. But it seemed the rift between the two had mended. “Hey, Rodger. How’s it going, man?”

  Rodger shook his head. “Could be better. A lot of new developments in the case. I don’t want to burden you with it.”

  Michael smirked. “Yeah, right. Don’t even think for a second you can leave me out of this one, partner.” Camellia’s warning about taking it easy seemed as distant as her visit. “Catch me up.”

  Dixie squeezed his hand. “No, Michael, we’ve got this one. Just rest for now and rec—”

  “I can handle it,” he said, tension rising in his voice. “Seriously, you two. I’ve already figured out some things just lying here.”

  Rodger frowned and said, “Come on, Michael, you’ve done enough. You don’t—”

  “Rodger!” Michael shouted.

  When Rodger arched his eyebrows, Michael winced and said in a pleading voice, “Please, partner, don’t cut me out. I really can help.”

  Rodger and Dixie traded prolonged glances while Michael anxiously looked from one to the other. Finally, Rodger pulled a chair up next to Michael’s bed. “I’ll catch you up on stuff. But that’s it. I don’t do anything more until Ouellette gives you the all-clear. You got me, partner?”

  Michael felt a wash of relief. The sudden rush of anxiety was gone, and now that it was, he wondered what had come over him. That kind of behavior was not like him at all.

  Over the next thirty minutes, Rodger caught Michael up on everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours. He recounted the discovery of the bodies of “Blue-Eyed” Marcello and his men in the river. He recounted Richie’s information regarding the group that Vincent, Jonathon, and others belonged to—the Knight Priory of Saint Madonna. And he recounted his and Dixie’s visit to meet Jonathon and learn that ‘Nite Priory’ was a misspelling.

  Save for asking a few clarifying points, Michael said nothing the entire time.

  “So whoever’s writing the notes to the old accomplices is using a slang version of ‘Knight Priory,’” Rodger said, leaning back in the chair. “At least, that’s how I see it. Whoever’s doing this—be it one or more people—they want to implicate the original Knight Priory.”

  Michael frowned. Not only was there a copycat serial killer, there was a copycat Priory? This case kept getting more complex.

  “Analytically speaking,” Dixie said, “it would be easier for an individual or a small group to carry out these murders than it would a larger group. They’d have to be specially trained military or something to pull off moving around a city without attracting attention. And I really don’t think that’s what we have here.”

  Michael rubbed his forehead. He was getting a tension headache. “I think that this plays well into the ‘finding out about the past’ theory, guys. Jonathon said that when Sam was five years old, they did some voodoo ritual on them, right?”

  “Right,” replied Rodger.

  Michael sighed. There was the voodoo angle again. Even though he was sure there was nothing supernatural actually going on, since such things were not real, it was making the cult theory Sam had brought up even more plausible.

  “So what have you been thinking on?” asked Rodger.

  With a cocky grin, Michael said, “Here’s the summary of it. I think that Vincent committed the original murders to cover for one real murder. Just like the old theory behind Jack the Ripper. Right now, I’ve got it down to two people—Maple Christofer and Edward Castille. My theory is that one or both were the real murder and all the rest were misleads.”

  Even as he spoke, Michael knew Rodger might take his comment badly. Edward had been his partner, after all. “Sorry,” he added. He still wasn’t used to apologizing, but the past week had really changed him from being socially awkward to at least trying to get along with others.

  “It’s all right,” replied Rodger, getting up. He began to pace the room. “I think—and this is just a thought, mind you—that you’re onto something. Not necessarily with Edward being the real target, but with Vincent having a real target and everyone else being a ruse. It would make sense. The only person he murdered who had any connection to him was his son, Edward.”

  Dixie spoke up. “So, then, why did he bury Maple?”

  When Rodger and Michael looked over at her, she shrugged and continued, “Come on, guys. Think about it. Vincent never buried his victims. Why did he bury Maple? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “We always figured that it was to dispose of Dallas as well,” said Rodger.

  Dixie shook her head. “Now that doesn’t make any sense at all. Vincent was a remorseless murderer. Why not just kill Dallas? There had to be a reason to keep the boy alive. And there had to be a reason to bury him and his mother.”

  Shrugging, Rodger said, “I wish I knew. I never knew the Christofers.”

  Michael gently sucked on his bottom lip. He knew he could make sense of things if he was given a chance to ponder it alone. Filing away all that information to sort through once his friends were gone, he asked, “So, out of curiosity, who is handling the Marcello murder case?”

  “Oh, Landry and Rivette,” said Rodger.

  “Ah, OK.” Michael knew those two detectives were competent enough, even if Landry loved eating—all the time—and Rivette collected toys like Transformers and Power Rangers and kept them on his desk. That was no worse than Rodger smoking or Michael obsessively playing word puzzles.

  The three chatted a bit more about the cases, making sure that everyone was up to date on the facts, before the doctor came in and informed Rodger and Dixie that they needed to leave so he could treat Michael.

  Dixie hugged him again and told him to get lots of rest. Rodger patted him on his good shoulder and told him he’d check back after dinner.

  Soon the two were gone.

  As the doctor administered his medication, mostly antibiotics and painkillers, Michael asked, “So, who was that redhead who came by earlier today?”

  “Redhead?” replied the doctor. “Who do you mean?”

  “The nurse,” said Michael, wondering why no one seemed concerned that a random person had come into his room. “Camellia, the one who came in to check on me earlier.”

  “Ah,” said the doctor. “Camellia is the personal assistant for one of the hospital directors. She aids him on all of his special assignments.” He finished administering Michael’s medicine. “There. You’re good for the rest of the evening. A nurse—not Camellia—will be by later to give you your dinner. I’m afraid it’s a liquid diet for a while, Detective.”

  As the doctor headed out, Michael asked, “So, who is this director?”

  He turned and smiled pleasantly. “Oh, Dr. Lazarus. He’s a director for over a dozen hospitals here in southern Louisian
a. In fact, I heard that he’ll be here tomorrow.”

  Michael watched him leave. He remembered Dr. Lazarus’s last words before they’d parted. He had said, “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Detective LeBlanc. Do your very best.”

  That combined with Camellia’s statements made Michael wonder just what he was getting wrapped up in and what Dr. Lazarus’s true intentions were.

  It was another thirty minutes before Michael was calm enough to focus on the investigation again. He felt frustratingly close to a breakthrough. Looking through his notebook, he flipped back to Maple Christofer. He couldn’t place it, but something about her death seemed vitally important to the original murders.

  Dixie had a good point. Why go through the trouble of burying Maple? And why bury Dallas with her?

  He recalled that Dallas, locked away in Acadia Vermilion Hospital in Lafayette, was a horribly burnt shell of a man who scribbled the same thing over and over again: “Nite Priory.”

  Those words tasted foul on his lips. Why would someone deliberately use the same misspelling of “Knight Priory” for murders taking place in New Orleans, which was home to the actual Knight Priory, that Dallas had been scribbling for years while hundreds of miles away?

  Michael closed his eyes and visualized the timeline. The only plausible explanation was that someone had been planning these copycat murders for twenty years. Who would have done that? Who would have had the level of personal interest in the original murders necessary to plant seeds so far away, so long ago?

  The thought that came next wasn’t pleasant. It had to be someone who was directly linked to the original murders. Someone who also had contact with Dallas. There was only one person who fit those criteria.

  “Sam.” He whispered her name. “Dr. Klein said that Sam had a persona hidden underneath her psyche. He called it ‘Sam of Spades.’ Could that be our killer? He seems to think so.”

  He frowned. None of the other evidence supported her being the killer or having multiple personalities. But if you only looked at who was connected to both the original murders and the first use of the words “Nite Priory,” she was the only plausible person.