Authors: Judith Townsend Rocchiccioli
Jack
couldn't wait to get into the solitude of his luxury automobile, cut on the
air, and be alone for the second time that day. He unlocked his car, laid his
head back on the Cadillac's thick cushions, and closed his eyes, grateful for
the darkly tinted windows. After a few moments, Jack once again forced
himself to review the legend of St. Germaine. He really didn't want to, but
he really knew he had to. His thoughts drifted as he reviewed St. Germaine.
If
there was one thing Jack knew a lot about, it was New Orleans' dark and murky
underworld. Witches and black magic, voodoo and the occult, they were all
part of New Orleans' dark, sensual, shadowy underbelly that Jack had learned to
navigate as a rookie cop. While most cases were readily solved, it was true
that the St. Germaine cases remained an enigma to even the most senior members
of the NOPD, including Commander Jack Françoise and his dad, retired NOPD.
St.
Germaine sightings were either reported by sober, imaginative, and/or terrified
locals or by drunken tourists walking the dark streets of the Quarter at
night. Legend had it that Comte St. Germaine, a Frenchman of royal lineage,
had lived in Europe for many years before emigrating to New Orleans shortly
after the city was settled. St. Germaine was known to be an extraordinarily
wealthy man with amazing abilities, who had left France shortly before the
French Revolution, fearing for his life. It was rumored that St. Germaine
was a musician and could play any instrument, but favored the piano and the
violin. The Comte was also well-versed in linguistics and was fluent in many
languages. In addition, he was charming, eloquent, and excellent
conversationalist. St. Germaine had a reputation for liking the ladies,
although he never married. It was also said that he liked men as well.
As
Jack continued to review his knowledge of the Comte, he remembered his
grandfather talking about St. Germaine when he was in his eighties, expressing
how unfair it was that his good friend never showed his age. In fact, no one
ever knew St. Germaine's age because he never seemed to change physically. He
was and always purported to be about 40 years old, although he remained that
age for at least a half of a century according to octogenarians who had known
St. Germaine in their youth. Many of New Orleans' finest citizens had partied
with St. Germaine in their youth and swore his face never aged.
In
addition to being ageless and rich, St. Germaine was known to have wonderful
dinner parties where his friends would dine for hours on the very best cuisine
that New Orleans had to offer. Germaine was never seen to take a bite. He
never ate. He only sipped red wine, pleading a sour stomach and a taste for
only "white" food. The Comte loved the ladies, but never had a
steady girlfriend or mistress. Many New Orleanians reported he visited the
brothels almost every night. In fact, Germaine was on the A list for years,
much loved and revered in his adopted city. A dinner invitation from The
Comte was to die for, until one night when things seemed to go amiss.
St.
Germaine had hosted an amazing dinner party that included guests from Europe,
as well as the locals. After everyone had left, he asked a very lovely lady
to have a nightcap with him on his balcony. All seemed well until the lady
murmured that she must leave to prevent gossip about them. Suddenly, St.
Germaine lunged for the beautiful lady, grabbed her tightly around her
shoulders, and tried to bite her neck while pressing her slender body against
the ornate wrought iron balcony. Fortunately, for the lady, the balcony was
rusty and gave way. She plunged to the ground and landed in azalea bushes,
apparently unhurt, and ran through the Quarter for safety.
The
incident was reported to the police the next morning, but when the police
invaded St. Germaine's home, the Comte had disappeared. The police searched
his home and only found tablecloths with large red splotches that appeared to
be wine, although it was later determined to be part wine and part human
blood. In his wine cellar, St. Germaine had stored hundreds of bottles of red
wine with French and Italian wine labels, but a random testing of the cache
proved them to be a mixture of wine and blood. Several cases of this wine had
remained in the NOPD evidence room until it washed away in the Katrina waters a
few years back, along with almost all of the evidence from the St. Germaine
case. But, the evidence was clear that the bottles contained wine and blood.
As
the air-conditioner continued to purr softly, Jack felt himself falling asleep
and gave into the feeling. It had been a pretty rough day, and it wasn't
getting any better. He deserved a few minutes of shut-eye. He continued to
drift off until he was rudely awakened by a blaring horn of a presumably irate
driver. After flipping the driver off, Jack shook his head to wake up and
shake out the cobwebs remaining in his brain from his short nap. Jack also
managed to convince himself that St. Germaine was a legend and only a legend,
just another good old NOLA ghost story. But then, reason and logic set in and
he was forced to confront the number of unsolved murder cases and deaths where
the bodies were discovered upon autopsy to have no blood or just a minimal
amount of blood. The most recent case had occurred in 2009, but three other
cases had occurred in the 1980s, shortly after Jack had joined the NOPD.
Police records also had similar crime reports that dated back to the early
1900s. Unfortunately, a lot of those files had been lost in the flood waters
of the storm.
The
unsolved cases perplexed Jack beyond belief, and it pissed him off that he had
been unable to solve the crimes. He also wondered about the hundreds of
people who had disappeared in NOLA over the years, never to be heard of again.
Of course, many of them were prostitutes and druggies, but they didn't deserve
to disappear without a trace. There were also hundreds of bodies that had
washed up on the shores of the mighty, muddy Mississippi, too decomposed to
identify. Fortunately, now they could often identify the corpses via DNA
evidence, but even that evidence had been lost in the storm. He was no closer
to solving the St. Germaine legend than he had been in the 1980s and he didn't
like that feeling. It irritated him beyond belief. Then he returned to his
theory that St. Germaine was a serial killer who preyed on the vulnerable and
down-trodden. He continued with that thought until his cell phone rang
.
Damn
, he thought as he listened,
here we go again.
After
lunch, Alex made several attempts to analyze pending malpractice claims. She
was totally not into it and her attention kept returning to Angie and the night
before. She called the O.R. and learned that Angela was in the recovery room.
A little after 2:00 PM, her temporary secretary, Mona, checked-in and Alex
asked her to transcribe the depositions that were left over from yesterday.
Unable to work, Alex decided to go off-campus to the psychiatric units to learn
if the team had uncovered any possible suspects.
The
heat was unbearable as she walked the distance between the main hospital and
the Pavilion. Alex noticed the cordoned-off crime scene. The yellow-taped
area showed her exactly where Angela had been assaulted, raped, and beaten.
Several detectives were still trying to uncover any bits of evidence that could
possibly exist. Alex wasn't surprised to see Commander François directing
them. Jack waved as Alex passed. She looked at the shaded areas and
shuddered when she thought of how dark it must have been last night and how
scared Angie must have been. The crop of trees where Angela's body had been
found was dense and the overhanging moss gave the area an eerie feeling, even
during the day. It must have been awful for Angie. Alex said a quick prayer
for Angela and her family.
The
Pavilion loomed in front of Alex and she couldn't believe how ominous the
building appeared, even in the daylight. The psychiatric hospital was a
two-story converted storage building, painted grey in color, with most of the
windows barred or shuttered, either to protect against the summer heat or to
keep patients from looking out – or, more likely, jumping out. Alex wasn't
sure which. Probably more to keep patients from jumping out of the windows,
she finally decided. Some of the bars in the windows shined brightly in the
Louisiana sun. They were a gun metal color. Everything was grey. How
depressing. It is all absolutely, totally depressing, Alex thought to herself
as she entered the building.
The
foyer of the Pavilion presented much as the outside, grey and dreary. A pair
of metal benches with grey, fake leather cushions were on either side of the
door and a bank of elevators stood to the right. The walls were painted
grey. Alex wondered what had happened to hospital green. That used to be
the color in hospitals. The doors to the stairway and several other areas
were locked. Good, Alex thought to herself, as she tried to open them.
The
silence in the foyer was deafening. Alex could hear herself breathe. As she
looked around, she thought about all of the sick, deranged, and criminally
insane patients who had crossed through this space. Deathly quiet. It was as
if the walls were waiting for her to say something.
She
pushed the elevator button and it slowly crept down towards her, making a slow
rattling noise.
Geez, the elevator sounds like someone is rattling chains,
she thought to herself. There is nothing normal or comforting about this
place, she thought, as the metal albatross rolled to a banging stop and the
door crept open. The elevator was unmanned. There was no operator on
board. Usually, the elevator was manned by a psych tech or mental health
worker who ushered people up and down the floors of the old storage building --
for safety reasons, of course. As she began the slow ascent to the inpatient
units, she wondered if the lack of an elevator operator was also part of the
budget cuts. She sighed sadly to herself.
Alex
rang the bell for admission into the closed unit. She was easily admitted and
was escorted by a large man, presumably a psych tech. As they walked down the
hall towards the day room, Alex was surprised by the silence. It was as
silent as a tomb on the unit. Deathly quiet and dark, the sun shuttered out
by long drapes.
She
spoke to two psych techs, one from the day shift and one from the evening shift
counting sharps. Sharps were globally defined as anything that patients could
use to harm themselves. Hopefully, most sharps, along with cell phones, were
confiscated on admission, but psychiatric patients who wanted to die were
ingenious at finding things to kill themselves. Razors, scissors, glass
perfume bottles, aerosol cans, and any other instrument the patient could use
were kept in the nurses' station. Patients were allowed to use their razors
during admission but only under the supervision of a staff member.
A
quick conversation with one of the psych techs alerted Alex that all sharps
were accounted for, except for one razor. The tech had laughingly informed her
that one sharp was always missing -- nothing to worry about. "We are
always missing at least one," he'd joked.
Alex
didn't share his macabre sense of humor over the missing razor. In fact, she
was concerned at the tech's nonchalance and casual dismissal of a dangerous
instrument. Alex asked him where the staff and patients were. He directed her
towards the Community Room on the North Hall, where the patients and staff were
holding a group meeting.
Alex
walked down the hall trying to remember what a therapeutic community was when
her cell phone rang. Mona was calling her to tell her that the 3 o'clock
executive meeting was canceled. Alex felt a tinge of impatience as she
continued down the hall. She knew Don had not wanted to meet and figured that
Favre had probably talked him out of it. She shook her head in disgust.
Finally,
she remembered the definition of a therapeutic community. It was a model of
behavioral health care that allowed psychiatry, nursing, social work, and
patients to work together to establish a trusting environment at the hospital.
In an effort to establish a psychiatric milieu, each group had an equal voice
in the operation of the unit. The therapeutic community addressed issues and concerns
that affected patients and staff. Alex paused outside the door and listened
for a few moments.
Today's
discussion was centered around the attack on Angie. The group leader was
attempting to get patients to verbalize their feelings about the attack and
share any knowledge of how it happened. About 20 faces stared at her as she
entered the community room. Alex scrutinized the group, looking for a friendly
face, but there were none. Only suspicious faces stared back at her
She
was surprised at the mixture of patients. Both genders and all ages were
represented. Some patients looked acutely ill, psychotic in fact. A few had
tardive dyskinesia, usually caused by the effects of long-term phenothiazine or
anti-psychotic therapy. These patients were easily identifiable by their pill
rolling mouths and shuffling gaits. One little, old, white-haired lady looked
like Mrs. Santa Claus. She sat attentively in the circle, her hands clasped
around her 1950s vintage pearl pocketbook. She smiled sweetly at Alex and
nodded. Finally, a friendly face. She spotted Monique in the group and gave
her a faltering wave.
Dr.
Desmonde, once again her unflappable self, signaled her in. Alex entered the
community room and Monique introduced her. "Group, this is Alex. She is
a nurse and the attorney for the medical center. Alex is a friend of Angie's
and she wants to help us understand what happened." Dr. Desmonde looked
carefully at the group, gauging their reaction to Alex. She was unsure what
their response would be to a stranger and an attorney in their presence. She
waited calmly for their response.
After
a short silence a male patient angrily retorted, "I ain't saying nothing
else. Why does she need to be here? She ain't part of this here. I ain't
never seen her before!"
Dr.
Desmonde looked nonplussed and replied, "Anthony, Alex is Angela's friend.
She's here because she cares about her. She wants to know who hurt her.
She's not here for any other reason."
Anthony
continued to look angry and uncertain as he muttered, "Yeah, yeah, sure.
What other BS you got for us, doc?"
Alex,
unsettled for a moment, responded. "Dr. Desmonde is right, Anthony.
Angie's my friend. Her twin sister, Bridgett, works with me. I'm concerned
about her and what's happened to her." Alex eyed each member of the
group. The silence seemed endless, an eternity. Of course, Alex remembered,
silences in psychiatry were meaningful. Right? It probably wasn't an
uncomfortable silence, it was simply a long silence, but for sure uncomfortable
for her. Each patient looked at her speculatively. Some of them seemed
skeptical and uncertain of her presence. Others looked interested in having
her there. Alex met each of their stares with a straightforward look.
Finally, a female patient spoke to her in a friendly voice.
"Hi,
Alex. I am Penny. I am a schizophrenic, so they say. So, I guess I must be.
Anyway, I'm doing good now. It's okay with me if you stay." Penny looked
around the room and then addressed the group, "She looks okay to
me." Penny nodded her approval of Alex. "Whatdaya say? Can Alex stay?"
A
dozen heads nodded affirmatively over what Alex perceived as a long period of
time. Only Anthony seemed unsure. He snarled at her and said, "Why in
the hell would she want to be with us? We're castoffs, crazies, don't nobody
want to be with us." His eyes glittered angrily at her.
Alex
looked directly at Anthony and replied calmly, "Anthony, I admire your
courage and your ability to voice your objections. I want to stay because I
want to learn what you all think about what happened to Angie. You know people
around here. You may have information that could be useful in helping us solve
this terrible crime. Angie didn't deserve what happened to her. She worked
here because she cared about you." Each group member seemed content with
what Alex had said. Only Anthony continued to stare at her suspiciously.
"Yeah,
so you say." Anthony's voice was mocking her. "Angie got a paycheck
for comin' here. She may have cared some, but the money was why she came.
She's okay, I guess. But, don't hand me no bullshit. She didn't care that
much. Besides, she was scared. Angie was scared of us. I know that. All of
us do." Anthony looked around at the group, grinning as he spoke. His
look was sinister. Several of them nodded their heads in agreement with him.
He glared at Alex and growled, "I'm sure that whoever hurt her knows,
too. Anyway, we know we cooperate with you or we stay here longer. I'm in for
now." Anthony, still mistrustful, gave Alex a shifty look, glared at her,
and then looked at the floor.
Alex
said simply, even though her heart was beating full force, "Thanks,
Anthony. I'll take what I can get. Don't let me interrupt. Just continue as
if I wasn't here." Alex felt frenzied, uncertain. She turned to Monique,
her eyes pleading with her to take up the reins of the group therapy meeting.
Monique nodded at the group leader to continue. Alex was definitely out of
her comfort zone and she knew the patients on the unit knew it.
The
group leader continued the meeting. "Now, group, before we were interrupted,
we were sharing our feelings about what happened to Angie. Rose, I believe you
were talking."
Alex
turned her head towards the patient identified as Rose. She looked to be about
31 years old, was waif thin, and had long, stringy brown hair. Alex thought
Rose looked afraid of her own shadow. She wondered if she'd been abused at
some point in her life. Rose literally seemed to shrink and almost became
invisible as the group stared at her.
"I
… I … feel so awful for Miss Angie." Rose's voice was soft and hesitant.
"She was nice to me. We talked last night, just before Jim started that
fight in the day room." Rose looked around at the group and saw them
staring intently at her. Her voice faltered and she began to cry. Then, she
said, "Angie and I could have talked longer, but Jim ruined our
conversation." She gulped, her thin shoulders heaving in despair as she
burst into sobs.
Anthony's
voice was hoarse with anger and resentment. "Why are you crying, Rose?
You are such a little crybaby bitch. Ain't nobody hurt you yet. You're such a
cowardly little piece of crap. You're a slut, just like all the women. You
remind me of my …." Anthony's voice had become louder and louder as he
screamed at Rose, his face livid with rage. Suddenly, he stood up in his seat
and lunged towards the frail, pale woman, who seemed to shrink away from him.
He was going for her neck.
"Oh,
no! No! No," Alex could only exclaim. She was unable to move, paralyzed
in her chair.
In
a flash, Donna Meade the nursing manager of the general psychiatry unit, a
behavioral health tech, and Dr. Desmonde had wrestled the 6 foot Anthony to
the floor, pinning his arms behind him. Donna Meade left for an instant to
ring the "all staff alarm" red button located by the door. The ASA
was to psychiatry what a code blue was on general hospital units. It announced
a psychiatric emergency and requested that all available staff report
immediately to the location. Within seconds, two additional male psych techs
and a second RN appeared with the syringe of Haldol which, after a nod from
Dr. Desmonde, was administered into Anthony's upper arm. The two psych techs
lead Anthony away to the seclusion room while the rest of the patients
stared.
It
was then that an acute realization hit Alex. These people, these patients,
had their own culture, their own pecking order. They had their own leaders and
power structure. Anthony was the power structure. Now that he was down, no
one was going to say much or offer any significant help.