Vieux Carré Voodoo (12 page)

I ignored him. “Is this why you wanted me to come over here?
And where’s Dad?”

“Oh, dear.” Mom rubbed her eyes. “That’s right, you don’t
know. Oh, Scotty—”

“If you must know, I called your mother because I didn’t
know where else to go,” Colin interrupted her. “I’m here on a case—didn’t Angela
call you? She was supposed to call you—”

I interrupted him. “She called me.” I still couldn’t bring
myself to look at him. “She left a message on my machine. I called her back, but
she didn’t answer. I left her a message. She didn’t say what she was calling
about.” I smiled at him, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. I certainly wasn’t
there yet—and didn’t know if I ever would be. “How do I know she wasn’t calling
to warn me that you were in New Orleans?”

“Obviously, since I knew she was going to call you, it
stands to reason she was calling to ask you to help me.” Colin sighed. “You have
to believe me, Scotty.”

“I don’t
have
to do anything.” I snapped. “So, you’re saying you do, in fact,
work
for Angela Blackledge? That isn’t what she said three years ago, as I recall. So
which is it, Colin? Or Abram or whatever your name really is? Do you work for
her, or do you not?”

“Scotty, you’re being rude. You could listen to what he has
to say.” She gave me her
I raised you better than this
look.

I sighed. “I’m getting a headache.” I rubbed my forehead.

Without saying a word, she walked into the kitchen. I heard
the sink come on, and a moment later she was handing me two capsules and a glass
of water. I took them and drained the glass. She sat back down on the couch next
to him and took one of his hands in hers. He smiled at her before turning back
to face me.

“I
do
work for Angela Blackledge,” Colin said. “I know, I know, after the Mardi
Gras case, she denied that I work for her, but she had to. She didn’t have a
choice. We couldn’t let the local police get involved. It was just easier to let
everyone think I was the killer.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill your
uncles, Scotty, you have to believe me. I was undercover, yes, deep undercover,
and the case was a lot more complicated than you know. Once my cover was blown,
I had to get out of here as quickly as possible. There wasn’t time for
explanations.” He swallowed. “If I’d stayed, you and everyone I love would have
been in danger.” Mom smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “And if anything like
that happened—” He choked off a sob.

I rolled my eyes. Mom, of course, was eating this up with a
spoon.

He cleared his throat and went on. “And even now, I can’t
tell you everything. I wish I could, you know I wish I could.” He looked at me
pleadingly. I recognized that expression, all right. It used to melt my heart,
make me want to do anything he asked.

Well, it wasn’t going to work on me now.

“Yes.” I smiled thinly. “I suppose if you told me, you’d
have to kill me. Like Sasha and Pasha. Remember them? The uncles I never got a
chance to know?”

“Scotty!” Mom said warningly, but I ignored her.

“You killed them both.” I went on, worked up into a high
state of righteous indignation. “Your thugs kidnapped Frank, and beat him. He
could have been
killed.
” In spite of myself, I felt tears coming to my
eyes. I took a deep breath and got hold of myself. I’d be damned if I was going
to let him see me cry.

“Scotty.” Mom walked back over and sat on one of the arms of
my chair. She put her arm around me. “Trust me, son. I know it’s hard. But do
you really think you were wrong about him? Do you really believe he could have
done such a thing, lied to us all, kept up a charade like that
twenty-four/seven?” She kissed me on the cheek, and squeezed me hard. “I’m sure
Colin is good at his job, but no one is that gifted an actor, Scotty. He would
have slipped up at some point, or contradicted himself—no one can keep that many
lies straight. And none of us are stupid people, Scotty. At least one of us
would have caught on at some point, don’t you think?” She started stroking my
hair. “At the very least, Frank was in the FBI for twenty years. Do you really
think anyone could fool Frank for that long? I mean, it was his job—and he was
good at it, remember?”

I hated to admit it, but it was a good point.

On the other hand, she hadn’t held Frank every night until
he fell asleep for about three weeks after that fateful Mardi Gras, either.

Let it go, Scotty, just let it go.

So, hoping I wouldn’t regret it later—and suspecting I
would—I made a decision. I took a deep breath, and said, “All right. You have
until tomorrow morning to convince me to help you.” I looked at my watch. “And
then I’m calling the police.”

Colin started to say something, but Mom cut him off. “You
never said what happened to your neck, dear.”

“Someone tried to mug me.” I leaned back in my chair. I was
so tired. “It was very weird, though, he didn’t want my wallet or anything. He
just shoved me up against a wall and put a very sharp knife to my throat. All he
said was, ‘Where is the eye?’” I shuddered at the memory. “I kneed him in the
groin and ran the rest of the way here.”

Colin and Mom exchanged glances.

“What?” I asked crossly. “What the hell is going on around
here? And you never told me where Dad is.”

“Oh, honey. I started to tell you before, but—” She bit her
lip. “But you just wanted to argue.” She glanced at Colin and got up off the
couch. Mom walked back over to me and sat back down on the arm of my chair.
“Scotty, I’m afraid I have some terrible news. Your father is at the morgue,
making arrangements.”

“The morgue?” My eyes widened. “Papa Bradley? Maman? Not
Storm. Please, Mom, tell me it’s not Storm.”

“No, honey, it isn’t a member of the family. Well, sort of.”
She patted me on the head. “Honey, I’m afraid Doc is dead.”

My body, which had gone completely tense at the word
morgue,
relaxed and I blew out a sigh of relief. “Oh,
that
.” The absurdity
of the entire situation hit me at the moment as funny, and I started laughing
nervously.

“He must be in shock,” Mom said over her shoulder to Colin.
“Scotty, are you okay?”

“I’m not in shock.” I wiped at my eyes. “It’s been a pretty
crazy night, I’m sorry. It’s just that—I already knew about Doc, Mom. I kept
meaning to call you and Dad and tell you, but the night’s been kind of crazy.” I
rubbed my eyes and ran my hands through my hair. “I went out tonight to Tea
Dance, met David there, in fact. On my way home from the bars, I walked up
Governor Nicholls Street, and right into the crime scene. Venus Casanova and
Blaine Tujague were in charge. They had me go look around the apartment, to see
if I could tell if anything was missing.” I darted a look back at Colin. “I
couldn’t tell, of course. The place was trashed. I told them you’d have a better
idea, or his maid.”

“That Blaine Tujague called here, asked your father to come
down to the morgue and identify the body—”

“I already did that.” I cut her off. “Venus had me do it at
the crime scene.” That was weird; why would they want Dad to go down there and
do a second identification?

She shrugged. “Well, I’m just telling you what Detective
Tujague said when he called. Your father decided it was better for him to go
than me—the sexist.” She sniffed. “Like I can’t handle seeing a dead body?”

“True.” I smiled faintly. Everyone in my family has seen
their fair share of corpses.

“And that’s where your father is,” Mom went on. “He’s going
to make the arrangements with the funeral home while he’s there. Since there’s
apparently no family—”

“I thought he had a sister in Vicksburg.”

Mom shrugged. “Apparently that’s not true, after all. He
always told me her name was Blanche Segal, but there’s no Blanche Segal in
Vicksburg.”

“That’s weird.”

“Apparently, son, Doc was not who he said he was,” Mom
replied. “Do you want to tell the story, Colin?”

“And what happened to your arm, anyway? Who shot you?”

“In good time, Scotty.” Colin got up and started pacing.
“Benjamin Garrett wasn’t his real name. He changed his name when he came back
from Vietnam back in 1968. His real name was Benjamin Moon.”

“Moonie,” I breathed out. I closed my eyes. I was pretty
sure I wasn’t going to like where this was going.

Colin just gave me a brief look, and then continued. “He and
two of his best buddies from college all enlisted, in 1965. The other two were
Marty Gretsch and Matt Harper. They were all three from Biloxi, students at the
University of Mississippi. They grew up together, went to college together, and
enlisted together. Some of the other guys in their unit said they were
inseparable, like three brothers rather than friends. And they always managed to
arrange it so they had leave all at the same time. They traveled all over
Southeast Asia. They went to one place more than once.”

“Where was that?” I asked.

“A small independent nation sandwiched between the borders
of India and Nepal, called Pleshiwar.”

“Pleshiwar? I’ve never heard of it.” I looked from one face
to the other.

Mom inhaled sharply, and we both turned to look at her. She
shook her head. “I’ve heard of Pleshiwar.” Her face was grim. “It’s a horrible
place, ruled by a theocracy that’s perverted the Hindu religion. Their primary
deity is Kali—but not the same Kali the Hindus know. Their version of Kali is,
well, evil.” She swallowed. “Their ruler is the high priest, and the ruling
class is the priesthood. The people are little better than slaves. It’s a
barbaric place, still trapped somewhere in the Dark Ages.”

Colin nodded. “That’s right, Mom.” It rubbed me wrong to
hear him call her that. As far as I was concerned, three years ago he’d lost the
right to call her anything other than Mrs. Bradley. “Anyway, during one of their
visits, a valuable relic disappeared from the Temple of Kali. It was one of the
most holy relics, if not the holiest. In the center of the temple is carved
ivory statue of Kali. It’s about three feet tall, and is supposed to be an
incarnate statue—that means Kali’s spirit lives inside of it. The craftsmanship
is unbelievable. This Kali looks so real it’s like she is about to take another
breath. This temple, this statue, is the absolute heart of their religion—and
therefore their country. It is decorated with incredible jewels. In the center
of her forehead was a large blue sapphire with a flaw in the center. The cut of
the sapphire, along with the flaw, made it look like an eye.”

“The eye,” I breathed. The man who’d stabbed me—he looked
subcontinental Asian. His English had been accented.

“The stone was called the Eye of Kali, and the cult believed
the Eye was actually Kali’s eye, and she saw through it into the temporal realm.
You have no idea how sacred the stone is to the Pleshiwarians.”

“Think of how much the gold plates mean to the Mormons—well,
the idea of the gold plates,” Mom said, “or the tomb of St. Peter means to the
Catholics, then multiply it by about a hundred.”

“It was stolen,” Colin continued.

“How is that possible?” I asked. “I would think they would
have it guarded. Heavily.”

Colin shook his head. “Mom was right when she said the
country is stuck in the Middle Ages. The cult leaders believed that Kali herself
protected the temple, and would strike down anyone who defiled her. There were
guards, of course, but that night, all the guards went to sleep. When the Eye
was stolen, the high priest was torn to pieces by a mob of angry Pleshiwarians.
The new high priest claimed Kali had put the guards to sleep and allowed the Eye
to be stolen because she was displeased that the former high priest had not
allowed modern technology into the country, and the stone would not be returned
until the country had proved itself worthy of Kali, to spread her glory
throughout the rest of the world.”

I shuddered. “Sounds like a horrible place.”

Colin nodded. “The three GIs, though, were in the country
when the Eye disappeared, and left that same night for Vietnam. As Pleshiwar
gets very few tourists, the priests figured that it was the Americans who stole
the Eye. Shortly thereafter, Matt Hooper was found dead in a back alley of
Saigon. He had been butchered, and his eyes were taken as well. Shortly after,
the other two mustered out and returned to the United States, and disappeared.”

“So, you’re saying Doc and his friends stole the Eye, and
then came back to the U.S. and changed their names and went into hiding.” I
pondered that for a moment. I shook my head. “I don’t know if I buy this.
Obviously, they couldn’t sell the Eye of Kali, so why did they take it?”

Mom shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t realize when they took it
they wouldn’t be able to unload it. Greed makes people do stupid things.”

“And you think all this time, Doc has had the Eye?” It
didn’t make sense to me. “If they knew the Pleshiwarians were looking for them,
and would kill them to get it back, why didn’t they just return it?”

“They were dead even if they returned it,” Mom replied.
“Right, Colin? They had defiled Kali. The Pleshiwarians couldn’t let them live.
Kali is a vengeful and bloodthirsty goddess. She would want revenge.”

“What doesn’t make sense to me is the how and why of it,” I
replied. “I mean, does it make sense to you? Three GIs from Mississippi, serving
in Vietnam—how did they even know about this jewel? What did they think they
were going to do with it once they stole it?”

Colin shook his head. “We might not ever know the reason.
But once I was able to figure out what they changed their names to after they
came home from Vietnam, I did find some interesting things.”

“Such as?”

“Well, they came back with a lot more money than they had
when they enlisted.” Colin shrugged. “Marty was able to buy a farm, and pay cash
for it.”