The Whispering Room (2 page)

Present day

T
here is no odor in the world like that of rotting human flesh,
Detective Evangeline Theroux thought as she climbed out of the car.

The scent hung heavy on the hot, sticky air, an insidious perfume that stole her breath and turned her stomach. It was all she could do to stifle her gag reflex.

A group of uniformed officers stood in the overgrown front yard of the deserted house and Evangeline could feel their eyes on her. It was like they could smell her weakness and were anticipating with relish a mortifying display.

Jerks.

As if she would ever give them the satisfaction.

A female police detective wasn't much of an
anomaly these days, but there were those in the New Orleans PD who still clung to their good-ol'-boy mentality. Evangeline was accustomed to hostile scrutiny from some of her male colleagues, and she knew better than to give them any unnecessary ammunition.

Turning away from those condescending glances, she swallowed hard, though she pretended to survey her surroundings—a ghost street in the Lower Ninth Ward. A no-man's-land of abandoned vehicles and tumbledown houses that served as an enclave for the city's crack merchants and the homeless.

This was the section of New Orleans hit hardest by the floodwaters, and it was also the last neighborhood in the city to be rebuilt. Some referred to it as the “bad” side of the Industrial Canal because of the crime rate. Others called it Cutthroat City.

Her late husband, Johnny, had once called it home.

Evangeline mopped her brow as she waited for Mitchell Hebert to get out of the car. The swampy heat was not helping her queasy stomach. Earlier, clouds had drifted in from the gulf, bringing a cool breeze and a quick shower, but now the purplish banks had given way to a robin's-egg-blue sky. At ten-thirty on a June morning, the temperature was already in the high nineties and the steam rising from the drying puddles felt like a sauna.

“You smell that?” Mitchell asked as he climbed out of the car. “That's dead-body smell.”

“You think?”

The older detective eyed her suspiciously. “You don't look so hot this morning.”

That was an understatement if she'd ever heard one. Evangeline had been up half the night with the baby, and she looked and felt like a hundred miles of bad road. But lack of sleep was the least of her problems. With the impending anniversary of Johnny's death, she was finding it harder and harder to emerge from the dark cloud that had hovered over her since the funeral.

A year ago, her life had been as close to perfect as she could imagine, and now it lay in ruins, the joy and sunlight replaced by a cold, gray loneliness. Happiness was a concept she barely remembered. Now she awakened each morning to the stark reality of a future without Johnny. Sometimes she felt so hopeless and lost, she had to pull the covers over her head and weep before somehow mustering the strength to swing her legs over the side of the bed and begin another day without him.

But Evangeline's lifestyle didn't allow for a breakdown. She was a cop and a single mother. She had her and Johnny's son to think about, plus all the responsibilities that her job entailed. Lives were on the line. She couldn't afford the luxury of wallowing in despair, no matter how much she might wish to.

Mitchell was still sizing her up. “You're not gonna faint or something, are you?”

She gave him a thin smile. “Have you ever known me to faint?”

“And that, in a nutshell, is your problem, girl.”

“I didn't realize I had a problem.”

“You don't always have to work so damn hard to prove how tough you are.”

Oh, yes, I do.

But all she did was shrug.

She knew that wasn't the end of it, though. Mitchell had that fatherly look on his face, the one that signaled he was about to impart a necessary but unpleasant truth.

He nodded toward the officers. “They're not the enemy, you know.”

“Sure feels that way sometimes.”

“Maybe you just need to lighten up.”

“If by lighten up you mean let a bunch of infantile ass-clowns humiliate me so they can feel good about themselves, then no thanks.”

“You know something? It might actually help if you let them see you toss your cookies at a crime scene once in a while. Li'l ol' thing like you. You make them look bad.”

“That's their problem. Besides, I don't see you upchucking in the bushes to get brownie points.” Placing an icy can of Dr Pepper on the car's fender, Evangeline tightened her blond ponytail. Her hair felt damp and lank even though she'd shampooed it in the shower that morning.

“Different situation,” Mitchell said. “I'm a man. We're supposed to be hardcore.”

Evangeline cut him a look. “You did not just say that.”

In spite of the teasing quality in Mitchell's tone, Evangeline knew there was an element of truth in what he said. She did try too hard to be tough and cold and cynical, and her stoicism in the face of blood and gore—and in the wake of Johnny's death—made some of the officers uncomfortable. Of course, they didn't see the reflection of a devastated woman that stared back at her from the mirror each morning. All they knew was the facade she erected for work and so they didn't know what to make of her. Here she was, a mere slip of a woman with the constitution of a vulture, as she calmly and methodically picked through human remains.

Someone had called her a ghoul girl once and the nickname stuck. On the surface, the teasing had seemed good-natured, but there was a disturbing undercurrent of scorn in the murmurs and stares that accompanied her arrival at every crime scene. Especially since Johnny's death.

Evangeline had discovered a long time ago that a woman in her position was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. Showing weakness might make her more palatable to some of her macho colleagues, but it would also cost her their respect.

She would never admit it, even to Mitchell, but
her cast-iron stomach was an illusion, just like the fragile veneer that hid her desolation. Her insides were still recoiling from the smell, and she would have liked nothing better than to join the young patrolman throwing up at the corner of the house, their smirking comrades be damned.

But instead she swallowed the bile in her throat and squared her shoulders as she walked across the yard. The sick officer looked up in embarrassment as he wiped a hand across his mouth.

“Here.” Evangeline handed him what was left of her Dr Pepper. “It'll help a little.”

He took the drink with a shaking hand and held the cold can to his face. “Thanks.”

“Softy,” Mitchell teased as they climbed the porch steps.

“Shush. Someone might hear you.”

“And wouldn't that be a shame?” He paused, as if bracing himself before they entered the house. “You ever think about getting out of this racket, Evie?”

“At times like this, yeah.”

“I've told you about my uncle, right?”

“The one who owns the security firm in Houston?”

“He's getting on in years and he needs somebody he can trust to put in charge of his operation.”

“Meaning you?”

“That's the plan. You play your cards right, there might be a place in Houston for you, too.”

Evangeline sighed. “It's a nice thought, but I have too many ties here. I'm not going anywhere.”

Not to Houston, anyway. It was hotter than hell in Houston, just like in New Orleans.

If I move anywhere, it'll be to someplace with snow,
she thought wistfully as sweat trickled down her back.

“Just give it some thought is all I'm saying.”

“You're like a dog with a bone,” she grumbled.

“I'm trying to look out for you, kiddo. A city like Houston has a lot to offer a smart gal like you. Might be a good place for you and J.D. to start over.”

“J.D. is barely five months old. He doesn't care where we live.”

“Yeah, but police work's not such a hot profession for a single parent. With Johnny gone, you're all that boy has left.”

And just like that, with his name spoken aloud, Evangeline's dead husband was right there with them on the dilapidated porch.

She couldn't see him, of course, but for a moment, his presence seemed so strong, she was tempted to reach out and grab him, hold on for all she was worth.

She knew only too well, though, that her fingers would clutch nothing but air.

Still, Johnny was beside her as she stepped into that chamber of horrors. The chill at her nape felt like the whisper of his breath; the gooseflesh that
prickled along her arms was the brush of his ghostly fingers.

Whether she could see him or not, Johnny was there.

He was always there.

 

Inside the house, the techs were already hard at work. Two uniforms stood just inside the door talking to Tony Vincent, the coroner's investigator, and Evangeline acknowledged them with a brief nod before she quickly scanned the litter-strewn room.

A few years ago, the squalor would have appalled her because the house she grew up in had always been spotless. Now the filth barely registered as her gaze came to rest on the victim lying facedown on the floor.

She took note of his size—average height, average build, but the suit he wore looked expensive and she would bet a paycheck his loafers were Italian. This was no derelict. This was a guy who'd had access to money, and judging by the flash of the gold Rolex on his left wrist, plenty of it.

“Do we know who he is?”

“His name's Paul Courtland. We found his wallet,” one of the officers explained when she raised a questioning brow. “Still had cash in it, too.”

“Looks like we can eliminate robbery as a motive,” Mitchell muttered.

“He has a Garden District address,” another officer piped in. “One of the historic places on Prytania.”

Mitchell whistled. “Old house, old money.”

“Paul Courtland,” Evangeline murmured. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”

“He was all over the news last fall,” Mitchell said. “Sonny Betts's attorney?”

“Oh, right.”

Sonny Betts.
As slimy and vicious as they came and that was saying a lot for New Orleans.

Betts was one of the new breed of drug thugs that had flocked back to the city after Katrina. More ambitious and more brutal than their predecessors, guys like Betts no longer hid in the shadows to conduct their nefarious business practices because the city's corrupt legal system and lawlessness allowed them to operate with brazen impunity in broad daylight.

“The feds put a lot of resources into building a case against Betts, and then Mr. Big-Shot-Attorney here goes and gets him off without even a slap on the wrist,” Mitchell said. “I think it's fair to say they were more than a little pissed.”

“No kidding.”

He nodded toward the victim. “You think Betts had a hand in this?”

Evangeline shrugged. “Seems a poor way to thank a guy for keeping your ass out of a federal pen, but I wouldn't put it past him.”

Tony Vincent walked up just then and Mitchell clapped him on the back. “Anthony! How goes the morgue business these days?”

He grinned. “Clients ain't complaining.”

His gaze drifted to Evangeline, and she pretended she didn't notice the lingering glance he gave her. She didn't like the way he'd started looking at her lately. He was an attractive guy and he had a lot going for him, but she wasn't ready to date. Not even close.

She couldn't imagine herself going out to a movie or to dinner with anyone but Johnny. She couldn't imagine another man's lips on her mouth, another man's hands on her body. She got lonely at times, sure, but never enough to betray the memory of her husband.

Which was not a very realistic or even sane way to spend the rest of her life, she freely acknowledged. But it was how she chose to live it at the moment.

Tony was still watching her. “Y'all ready to get this show on the road?”

Evangeline tried to ignore him, but,
damn,
the man really was something to look at. Almost too handsome in her book. She didn't go for the pretty boy types.

Never in a million years would Johnny have been considered a pretty boy. Or even conventionally handsome. Not with his broken nose and crooked
smile. But right up until the day he died, his boy-next-door looks had made Evangeline's heart pound.

“What have you got so far?” she asked crisply, snapping on a pair of latex gloves.

“Advanced putrefaction and seventeen-millimeter maggots. This guy's been here for a while.”