Darkest Journey

Looking at her now, he realized she’d grown even more beautiful, even more elegant.

“The killer was caught and tried, and it was all over and done with quickly, Charlie,” he said.

“Really? Quickly? It still haunts me,” she said. “I’d really like to go with you to talk to the police, now that it’s all happening again.”

“Do me a favor,” he said after a moment. “For now, just do what you told your father you would and go home, okay? I’ll let you know if I learn anything after I’ve had a chance to talk to Randy.”

“Randy?”

“Randall Laurent, the detective heading up the case. He’s an old friend, so I’m hoping things will go smoothly between us.”

“I can’t imagine they won’t. I only vaguely remember him from school. Like you, he was three years older—a huge difference back then—and I know you were both on the football team. He seemed like a decent man when I talked to him last night. He wanted all the facts, but he was very understanding about asking. I guess he knew I was pretty much in a state of shock.”

“That sounds like him,” Ethan agreed. He wished her eyes weren’t so blue. And that she wouldn’t look at him the way she was, as if he’d become a stranger.

She walked past him, moving toward the path down to the road. They still hadn’t touched, but he could smell her perfume, something as light as air and yet inexplicably provocative.

“Charlie?”

She waved to him without turning around. “I’m going home. Call me when you’ve got something.”

Ethan watched her go. She might be going home now, but he had a very strong feeling that she wasn’t going to stay there.

With a soft groan he decided to locate Laurent and find out everything he knew about the victims and whatever they’d pieced together about the killer.

Charlie just might be investigating on her own, relying on that special talent of hers.

And that could prove very dangerous.

* * *

Charlie paced the old house her dad owned just on the outskirts of St. Francisville. It was a wonderful old place, built sometime right before the start of the Civil War. It wasn’t a plantation house and had never been a working farm. It had been built by a man who had worked the riverboats, which made it a perfect fit for her father, with his passion for history and his current position on a riverboat himself. It wasn’t a large place, but there had always been enough room for their family, with three bedrooms upstairs plus a living room, dining room, office and library/family room—and modern kitchen—downstairs. Each bedroom had a fireplace, as did the living room. It was furnished with a mishmash of antiques that somehow worked, and her dad knew the origin of each piece of furniture. Only the big-screen television and entertainment center were new.

She loved her home....

Loved to remember her mom working in the kitchen or the seasonal flower beds she was so proud of. The sense of loss remained, of course, but Charlie thought both she and her dad had adjusted well, loving the memories and embracing them, but also finding satisfaction, even joy, in the lives they led now.

Right now, though, she didn’t want to be home. She didn’t want to care for her mother’s flowers, look through scrapbooks or even learn lines for her upcoming scenes. She didn’t want to read or catch a movie on Netflix, not when two people had been murdered and either a newly dead man or a long-ago ghost had called out to her by name. She felt connected to this case, compelled to do something to help solve it, but Ethan had sent her home instead, leading to her current restless frustration.

Ethan.

She really didn’t want to think about Ethan, which was pretty much impossible, seeing as she was the one who had asked him to come back and look into this case. Because while she wasn’t afraid of graveyards—or even the dead, when it came to that—she was afraid. Something very bad was on the horizon.

No, very bad things had already happened!

And she knew he would help with the situation, because she could tell him things, like the fact that she’d heard a dead man call her name, things she couldn’t possibly tell the police.

She just wished he’d turned stodgy and perhaps developed a giant beer belly.

No, she didn’t wish that, she just wished...

Wished she didn’t still find him so incredibly compelling.

She told herself to forget about Ethan for now.

Which was next to impossible when the rest of the day seemed to stretch out boringly forever, even if it was actually more than half over and so far talking to him had been the best thing in it.

She couldn’t help marveling at the speed with which he’d arrived; she’d talked to Clara last night, telling her what had happened, but she hadn’t reached Krewe headquarters until this morning.

She would definitely go crazy if she kept thinking about Ethan—and the dead.

She had to get out.

She hadn’t lied; she’d come home just as she’d promised. Ethan couldn’t possibly object if she hung out with other people and made sure she was never alone, could he? She quickly texted Brad.

Going crazy. Need any help on set? she wrote.

A few minutes later, he texted her back.

Always. Left the field to the cops. Filming at Dad’s office downtown—he donated the space. Come on in. Help with mikes and lighting.

She quickly responded On my way, then grabbed her bag and keys, and headed out. It didn’t take her more than a few minutes to reach the downtown office building Brad’s father owned. The security guard downstairs, whom she’d known since she was a child, greeted her by name. He immediately directed her to the second floor, where Brad was filming in the back conference room.

She waited outside in the quiet hallway before she heard Brad call “Cut!” Then she knocked and went in. There was no crowd of extras on hand for this scene, just Jennie with her makeup box, Mike Thornton with his camera, Luke Mayfield handling sound, Barry Seymour for lighting and George Gonzales keeping an eye on continuity. The only two actors in the room were those playing the oil-company exec and the senator, Harry Grayson and Blane Pica. And Jimmy Smith was standing on the sidelines, observing.

Despite the unexpected interruption in his planned shooting schedule, Brad was going with the flow. He beckoned her over as she entered. She waved to the others and walked toward him. Brad immediately invited her to watch the footage he’d just shot.

She looked into the camera as he replayed the latest scene. Afterward she looked over at Harry and Blane, and smiled. “Great stuff. Do you two sound scuzzy or what?”

“Thanks,” Blane said, accepting the compliment with a pleased nod. He was from New York, and had been a couple of years ahead of Charlie and Brad at Tulane. He was heavyset, though a lot of his weight was muscle, and he was slightly balding, making him a perfect movie villain. Harry, on the other hand, was older, a seasoned actor Brad had met when working on a music video in New Orleans for a major producer. He was thin and wiry, with a sharp face that usually wore a pleasant smile unless the part called for something else. When he chose to, he could do grim and threatening very well.

The scene Brad had just shot came before the one he’d finished the other night, when the two men had been chasing her, ready to kill her because she’d discovered their plans.

“They only look good because of the great lighting,” Barry said teasingly. The actors only rolled their eyes.

“Yeah, right. Everyone goes to see a movie for the great lighting,” Jennie said drily.

“Actually, sometimes they do. They just don’t know it,” Barry said. “Lighting can be everything.”

Brad cleared his throat. “Movies really belong to the director. All film buffs know that.”

“Go ahead and delude yourself,” Mike teased. “Real aficionados know the cameraman is everything.”

“Think what you want. I know what really matters,” Luke said, waving one hand dismissively. “Ever since the ‘talkies,’ sound has been the heart and soul of a film.”

“I don’t even pretend people come to see who the makeup artist was,” Jennie said.

“Or the prop master,” George put in. “But if you want my opinion, I say we stop this ridiculous conversation and head out for something to eat—and a beer.”

“But I just got here to help,” Charlie said.

“Too late. You can help us choose a restaurant,” George said. “What’s the cool place to see and be seen in St. Francisville these days? Or, even better, relax and have a great, hassle-free meal?”

Charlie thought of Mrs. Mama’s, a local café tucked away on a side street, where they could order some of the best shrimp and grits she’d had anywhere. “I know just the place,” she said.

Twenty minutes later they were seated, and a waitress was hurrying over to them. Charlie was looking at her menu when she realized the waitress was standing behind her, waiting for her drink order.

“What will you have, honey? Beer? Iced tea?”

Charlie turned and started to speak, and then she gasped softly and said, “Nancy? Nancy Deauville?”

It was the same woman who, ten years ago, had directed the action on the night Charlie was tied to a tombstone.

Like everyone involved with that horror show, Nancy had apologized. She and Charlie had even managed to act cordial for the rest of the year; then Nancy had graduated, and Charlie hadn’t seen her since.

“Charlie, great to see you here,” Nancy said. She seemed a little anxious and a little shy.

As if she meant what she was saying.

Charlie nodded. “Good to see you, too.” She meant it herself. Time had gone by; they were no longer teenagers.

Nancy nodded. “I hear you’re a movie star now.”

“Hardly. Just a working actress. How about you? How is everything?”

Nancy smiled, but Charlie thought it looked a little forced. “I married Todd Camp. The quarterback. We have two kids.”

“Congratulations.”

“Twins.”

“Great.”

“Sometimes,” Nancy said, then shrugged. “Sometimes when Todd is working at the garage all day, I bring the kids here with me, and sometimes they even behave. But I love them. Anyway, I’m so happy for you. You always wanted to act.”

“Well, thanks. I’m not exactly a fixture on the red carpet, though, you know?”

“You’re doing what you want to do, and that’s what counts.”

“Thanks. Hey, how’s Sherry doing? You two were so close. Is she still around, too?”

“Sherry got married and moved to New Jersey.”

“That’s nice.”

“New Jersey? After here? I don’t know. But she has a family, became an LPN.”

“So. Twins,” Charlie said into the awkward silence that followed Nancy’s updates. “No kids for me yet, but one day, I hope.”

“I’m sure it will happen for you. As for me, I just hope for a vacation one of these days. Anyway, what can I get you?”

“Iced tea and gumbo, please.”

“You got it,” Nancy said, and moved on.

She and Jimmy chatted for a minute, and then Jimmy looked down the table at Charlie and mouthed, “Didn’t know she was working here.”

Charlie shrugged. It had been ten years since that awful night, and it was a relief to discover she didn’t really care what had happened to Nancy and the rest of them.

Once Nancy left, they chatted companionably as they waited for their food; they were almost evenly split between gumbo and shrimp and grits, breaking along pretty much the same lines for iced tea vs. frosty beers. For a few minutes the talk revolved around how to film the upcoming confrontation between Charlie and an oil baron. Brad wanted a live location, but Luke was worried about getting the clean sound that he believed the scene warranted. And then, because it couldn’t be ignored forever, the subject of the dead man, Farrell Hickory, finally came up. They were all a little spooked because he was the second reenactor to be killed.

“And we all knew them both,” Jimmy said.

Charlie turned to look at him. “We did?” she asked.

“Most of us did, at any rate,” Barry said, nodding solemnly.

“Can’t say I knew either man well,” Mike Thornton said, pushing back a lock of dark hair. He was a lot like his brother, in both looks and mannerisms. He and Brad had been making movies together since they’d been kids.

“And,” Jimmy said to Charlie, “you didn’t know either one of them, unless it’s from when you were a kid, because you weren’t there for the special reenactment they did on the Journey a week ago—like so many of us were.” He was wearing a brave face, but she could see he was deeply upset by the murders.

He had never really forgiven himself for being involved the night a serial killer had almost killed her.

“Right, I was doing that webisode series. Banshees on the Bayou.”

Brad smiled. “I hope this film is as successful as Banshees on the Bayou.”

“A bunch of us were involved because there was a corporate sponsor, so we were paid pretty decently,” Jennie said, then went quiet for a long moment. “That’s when we met the men who’ve been killed.”

“Who—who else was working that day?” Charlie asked, more worried than she wanted to let on.

“Well, your dad, for one,” Luke pointed out.

“Yeah, my dad. I know. Who else?” she asked.

“Let’s see,” Brad said, looking around. “Me and Mike, Barry and Luke... Jennie did makeup.”

“Todd and I were there, too.”

Charlie spun around to see that Nancy Camp—née Deauville—was standing right behind her. “We earn extra money any time we can. We didn’t hang around, just did the bit they were paying us for, then left. You have to try to make more money than day-care costs or it’s not worth it to work. Tons of locals were there, not just us.”

“Jimmy Smith and Grant Ferguson,” Brad added, then shook his head. “We were just extras. There was a scene between Hickory and Corley, though. I’m sure you already know this, but there was supposedly a meeting between a black Union orderly and a Confederate cavalry captain when the Journey was turned over to the Union. We were extras in that scene. We brought our own uniforms, so they cast us a lot.”

“I have my Confederate infantry uniform and a Union artillery uniform,” Barry said. “I can make money on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line.”

Charlie grinned at that. But her smile quickly faded. “Did you notice anything wrong, anything that was even a little bit off, that day? Was anyone fighting?”

“I think there was a bit of a tiff between Corley and Hickory,” Luke said. “They were both convinced they were historians, not just reenactors, and they disagreed about some detail of the scene. It got a little heated, but then your dad stepped in and calmed them down. But...well, they’re both dead, so it’s unlikely they killed each other.”

“It’s pretty damned stupid for anyone to kill someone over a reenactment,” Jennie said.

Brad shrugged. “People can be crazy sometimes.”

There wasn’t much of an argument to be made against that, so they all fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. Then Jennie made a comment about how good the food was, and the conversation turned to everyone’s favorite restaurants in their favorite cities.

Charlie found herself smiling and laughing along with the others. But all the while she was making mental notes of things she needed to tell Ethan.

Farrell Hickory and Albion Corley had both taken part in the special reenactment aboard the Journey.

They had argued, and her father had intervened.

A number of her friends had also been involved in the reenactment: Brad and Mike Thornton, Jennie McPherson, Barry Seymour, Luke Mayfield, Grant Ferguson, George Gonzales and Jimmy Smith.

She didn’t want to think that any one of them could be the killer.

Of course they were all innocent, she thought, giving herself a mental shake.

Because if one of them was the killer, surely he—or she—would have acted strangely while they were filming the rise of a ghostly army so close to the place where one of the victims lay dead.

* * *

“Wow. Ethan Delaney! As I live and breathe. Back and slumming it all in small-town America.”

“Nice to see you, too, Randy,” Ethan said, greeting his old friend outside the parish morgue on Oak Street.

The two of them were only about a month apart in age. They’d been friends throughout high school, making a lot of the same mistakes, going through the same wild stages, cleaning up their act when the world demanded they had to be adults. They’d lost contact when they went their separate ways after college. Since Ethan’s parents had moved to New Orleans, he hadn’t had much occasion to get back out to St. Francisville.

“Never thought of us as coming from the slums,” Ethan said.

Randy grinned. “Yeah, we were all right, growing up, huh? I love this part of the world. I guess you can tell, seeing as I came back here. Look at you, though—a real live Fed.”

“And look at you, a big-shot cop,” Ethan said. “Not bad for a kid who got hauled in on more Saturday nights than anyone else I knew.”

“Detective, West Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Office, I’ll have you know. The deaths actually occurred in two different towns in the parish, so we were called in on lead,” Randy said, and grinned. “Special Agent Delaney. I have to say, I’m kind of surprised to see you down here for something like this. Wait, no, I’m not surprised you’re here at all. This has to do with Charlie Moreau being back in the area, too, right? Bad business back then. Though I never did understand Jonathan being so pissed at you. You threw yourself on the guy.”

“That was ten years ago,” Ethan said.

“Bet you Jonathan is still pissed,” Randy said.

“Thing is, I really have been sent down here on the case,” Ethan said. “So what have you got?”

He studied his friend, noting the man the boy had grown into. Randy was lean, but deceptively so. He had excelled on the school’s wrestling team, as well as being the football team’s top field-goal kicker. He’d told Ethan once that he knew he was never going to have the bulk and broad shoulders of some other men, so he had to make up for it with lean muscle.

“Nothing new. You probably know everything I do, since I’m sure they brought you up to speed before they sent you down here. You have the case folders, crime-scene photos, all that, right?”

“Yeah.”

Randy met his eyes and nodded. “Okay, so West Feliciana Parish has just under fifteen thousand people. Our annual crime rate is about two murders a year, and that includes negligent homicide, so it’s not like you’re looking at a major city where the cops are accustomed to investigating murders. We’re not total newbies, though, so don’t think we’re all a bunch of toothless rednecks doing alligator wrestling for reality TV.”

“Randy, I grew up here. All my friends had their teeth, although the way you showed off opening beer bottles with yours, I’m surprised you kept yours.”

Randy shrugged. “Guess I’m glad they sent you and not some big-city know-it-all. Okay, so here’s where things stand. At first, when Albion Corley was found, we were a little worried that some kind of race thing might erupt in town. We thought maybe some bigot was pissed at him for having the nerve to wear the uniform and take part in that big-deal reenactment, even as a Union orderly. Everyone liked the guy, though. Smart, a professor. Passionate about no-kill animal shelters and saving the wetlands and all that kind of thing. Then Farrell Hickory’s body turned up, found by your old girlfriend.”

“Randy, we were never a couple,” Ethan said patiently.

“Proof of fatal stupidity on your part,” Randy said.

“Might be true. She was only sixteen, though.”

“Shakespeare’s Juliet was thirteen, or something like that.”

“Wouldn’t have been right,” Ethan said.

“Okay, okay, Mr. Morality, I’m moving on,” Randy said. “So now we have one dead black man in a Union uniform, and one dead white man who played a Confederate cavalry officer. Our investigations found that the two of them had some kind of dustup during what was billed as ‘Journey Day.’ You probably remember that every year there’s a big reenactment of The Day the War Stopped. But this year, because it’s a situation that also draws a lot of interest, some enterprising person with a tour group of teachers had a brilliant idea—reenact the day the Confederates traded the Journey and her Union wounded to the Yankees for a bunch of their own prisoners. There was so much sickness aboard ship, the Rebels didn’t even want it, but the Union didn’t know that. Anyway, the cruise line offers special tours each year that focus on the Civil War, and this year they decided to feature a special reenactment of the Journey handover. To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long for someone to realize that there could be big bucks in that kind of thing, but then again, Celtic American has only owned the ship for six or seven years. The reenactment was subsidized by Gideon Oil, so the participants even got paid. Half the people I know around here were involved. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But a lot of locals turned up as extras. As far as we know, that was the last time the two victims saw each other. We actually questioned Farrell about Albion’s death once we heard they’d been seen arguing. He had an alibi for the night Albion was killed, though, and then, of course, Farrell turned up the same way. I guess you’re here to see the bodies?”

“It’s a place to start,” Ethan said.

Inside the morgue, they found Dr. Earl Franklin on duty. He had to be nearing retirement age, Ethan knew, but he was also one of the brightest and most thorough men Ethan had met in the field, and not only in Louisiana but anywhere. He greeted Ethan warmly. When he’d been young and had already set his sights on a career in law enforcement, Ethan had plagued the man relentlessly, wanting to learn everything he could, and Franklin had been unendingly patient, as well as informative.

“Great to see you,” Franklin said to Ethan now. “Sorry you’re here under such unfortunate circumstances, though.”

The ME was a stout man with wire-rimmed glasses and a head full of white hair. He would have looked at home on a big front porch, wearing a white suit and sipping a mint julep, Ethan thought wryly. Instead the man preferred libraries and skiing vacations in Colorado to sitting around anywhere.

“Good to see you. Though I’m sorry about the circumstances, too,” Ethan said.

“Well, both of you put your masks on and come in. I’ve got Mr. Corley and Mr. Hickory ready for your visit.”

Both men were laid out on steel gurneys. Their autopsies had already been performed. Sheets draped their lower extremities, revealing the Y incisions on their chests.

“No reason not to get right to it,” Dr. Franklin said. “Mr. Hickory was my only client this morning—both a good thing and a bad thing. My last was Mrs. Delsie Peterson. Do you remember her? Sorry to cut her up, but she died in her own home, alone in her bed, so the law required an autopsy, despite the fact she was ninety-eight. The old girl went easily. Just fell asleep and her heart stopped.”

“Glad to hear that. I do remember Mrs. Peterson. She fixed all our collars when we were kids and on our way into church,” Ethan said.

“Aren’t you proud of the man, Doctor? He remembers his roots.” Randy grinned.

“A very good thing. Meanwhile, here are my notes. Both men were in good health, other than stabbed through the heart by something long and sharply pointed. Like a bayonet,” Franklin said.

Ethan took a moment to look over the notes the ME handed him. Then he studied each man in turn.

There was something incredibly sad about a person’s earthly remains, no matter how they had died. When the spark of life left the body, it seemed to take everything important with it. No matter what, the body had a gray, pasty color. It didn’t matter if the person had been Caucasian, or of African, Asian, Native American or any other descent, or represented a combination of nationalities. The flesh sank in until there was nothing real left of the person who had once made the physical being vital. He’d loathed open coffins all his life. What was the point, when the person was simply gone?