Detective Defender

“So it wasn’t a robbery.”

Jimmy didn’t notice who’d stated the obvious—not him, not Murphy. He studied the woman instead: wet hair of dirty blond or light brown. Thin face, sunken cheeks, deep shadows under her eyes. Lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, signs of worry or general unhappiness. Her T-shirt clung to her in wet folds, once white but now a vague shade of gray. She’d lost weight recently, judging from the long loop of drawstring that held her pants around her skinny hips and from the way her skin sat uncomfortably on her frame. Her clothes were cheap, maybe secondhand, but something about her didn’t strike him as a secondhand-clothes person. There was a line on her left index finger where she’d long worn a ring, not a tan but a bit of shiny skin where the ring had rubbed back and forth, and all ten of her nails were bitten to the quick.

What there wasn’t was an obvious cause of death. She didn’t look like she was just sleeping, though Jimmy had seen his share of dead people who did. No, it was apparent with the quickest of glances that this woman was dead. The lights were out; the soul wasn’t home.

Which meant the cause was on her back side. “Can you roll her over?” he asked, and the crime scene guys moved to comply. Something dark stained the back of her head. Blood, possibly from a blunt object, possibly the entry wound of a small-caliber bullet.

“There’s something under her shirt,” Leland said, and they returned her to her original position. He pulled up her T-shirt to reveal a large bandage, sticky clear film protecting some type of dressing. It was centered over her chest, crossing her breasts, extending above and below several inches.

“So she has surgery, someone kills her and dumps her in the cemetery?” It was the same voice that had stated the obvious earlier. This time Jimmy looked and identified its owner as one of the crime scene guys who’d so far managed to stay on the perimeter, not doing much of anything. Maybe one of their lab rats who’d thought working out in the field would be fun, or maybe a new guy who was destined to get on Jimmy’s last nerve pretty quickly.

Ignoring his coworker, Leland began peeling back the edge of the dressing. He worked it loose carefully, teasing the adhesive from the skin, as gentle as if his patient were alive and watching, then abruptly he stopped. He looked a moment, then folded back the flap of bandage as his distraught gaze met Jimmy’s. “I think we’ve found the cause of death.”

Jimmy and Murphy both leaned forward, concentrating on the small area of chest that had been revealed—not pale smooth skin but a wickedly ugly wound and, inside, emptiness. Not real emptiness, of course, but the essence of something missing. Something important.

“Damn.” Jimmy breathed the word the same time Murphy did, then looked to Leland for confirmation. Leland nodded.

“The killer removed her heart.”

* * *

After a restless night, Martine gave up any hope for peaceful sleep, pulled her robe on and shuffled to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. She’d had dreams all night—ugly, unsettling ones involving deep shadows, woods, birds screeching that had raised the hairs on her arms. If she were fanciful, she’d say the fog was keeping the happy dreams at bay. It didn’t want her nights to be any more cheerful than her days had become since it moved in.

“It’s just fog,” she groused, pouring cream and sugar into her coffee. “A cloud of tiny water droplets hovering above the earth. It doesn’t think or care or even know you exist, Tine.”

The old, almost forgotten nickname made her pause before taking the first sip of coffee. Where was Paulina this morning? Had she checked into a motel or crawled into a hole and pulled it in after her? Had she stayed safe last night? Had she gotten anything hot to eat?

Was she crazy?

Martine had tried to put all the memories behind her when she got back to the shop yesterday, a task made easier by an influx of tourists. They’d worn a variety of N’Awlins T-shirts, a few had sported Mardi Gras beads or feather boas around their necks, and they’d done their best to project the carefree, good-time-in-the-Big-Easy air that most tourists came by naturally, but it had been a struggle for this group. Even inside the brightly lit shop, they’d huddled together in small numbers, their voices muted, lamenting the lack of sunshine and the mild weather they’d expected. They’d been worried without knowing why, and they had cleaned the shelves of every single good luck charm and candle in sight before leaving the way they’d come.

After the shop was closed, after Martine had finished off a po’boy from down the street and locked herself inside her cozy apartment, the memories had come knocking again. A search of the internet had proved true one of Paulina’s claims: Callie Winchester had died three months ago in Seattle. The details reported by the news outlets were scarce, but the obituary confirmed it was their Callie. Her parents, who’d once lived two blocks from Martine’s family, were now in Florida, and her twin, Tallie, made her home in London.

Callie...dead. Though Martine hadn’t seen her in twenty-four years, though she hadn’t thought about her much in twenty of those years, it hurt her heart to know she was dead. Callie had always been so vibrant, full of humor and wild ideas that usually ended in trouble for all of them. She’d been beautiful, with sleek black hair that reached down her back, olive skin and gray eyes, and she’d done a perfect imitation of her posh mother’s British accent, but there had been nothing refined or elegant about her huge booming laugh. Tallie, identical in every way except the laugh, had compared it to a braying jackass, which merely made Callie laugh even harder.

And now she was gone. Someone had stolen her very life and discarded her for someone else to deal with, as if she were no more important than an empty burger wrapper.

That thought raised goose bumps on Martine’s arms and stirred an ache in her gut. She was browsing through the pantry, looking for something to settle it, when the doorbell rang, echoing through the floorboards.

The clock on the microwave showed the time was 7:23. No one came to visit her before nine, and rarely without a phone call to alert her. Maybe it was just some punk, walking along the sidewalk and pressing doorbells. But no sooner had that thought cleared her brain, the bell rang again, seeming more impatient. Her nerves tightened, and apprehension throbbed behind her eyes. Whoever was downstairs on this ugly dreary morning after her ugly restless night couldn’t possibly be good news for her.

Unless it was Paulina, come to take her up on her offer of coffee and beignets.

Hope rising over the dread, Martine hurried down the stairs as the bell rang a third time. Reaching the bottom, she jerked the security chain loose, undid the dead bolt lock and yanked the door open, prepared to meet her friend with a smile and a comforting hug—

But it wasn’t Paulina. Jack Murphy stood on the stoop, dressed in the white shirt and dark suit that were his usual work clothes. He looked as if he’d slept in them, hadn’t had time to shave and had forgotten to comb his hair, and his eyes were dark and somber with shadows.

Panic clutched Martine’s chest, cutting off her breath. “Oh, God, please tell me nothing’s happened to Evie or the kids.”

His eyes widened, an instant of alarm followed by sudden regret. “No. No, God, no, they’re fine.”

Her knees going weak, she sagged against the doorjamb, one hand pressed to her chest. “Aw, jeez, you about gave me a heart attack! Don’t do that again!” For emphasis, she poked him with one finger. “Not ever!”

“Is she always this ditzy?” a voice drawled from the curb, and Martine realized Jack wasn’t alone. He’d brought along her least favorite police officer in the world—her least favorite person. It was too damn early in the morning—too damn early in the year—to face Jimmy DiBiase.

Especially when she was wearing what passed for pajamas and a robe: tank top, shorts, an old boyfriend’s flannel shirt. She was exposed from the top of her thighs to her bare toes, to a letch like DiBiase with a freakishly cold fog silently creeping everywhere. No wonder her skin was crawling.

She was torn between slamming the door and fleeing upstairs to wrap up in her favorite quilt and inviting Jack inside while pointedly leaving DiBiase in the cold. Neither action would surprise Jack; he knew DiBiase was an acquired taste for most women besides strippers, hookers and cop groupies.

Then the realization clicked in her brain: Evie and the kids were okay, but Jack was still here, still in work mode. That meant someone else... “Who is it? Anna Maria? Reece? Jones? Alia? Landry?” Her brain was spewing forth names faster than her mouth could get them out.

Paulina’s voice sounded faintly through the mist, sending a bone-deep shiver through Martine: They’re coming after us, and they’re not going to stop until we’re dead.

Dear God, could it be her?

“I’m sorry, Martine,” Jack said. “I’m handling this badly. We’ve got a...victim.” The grimness returned to his expression. “No ID, nothing but a call to your shop yesterday afternoon.”

Martine thought longingly of the quilt, and of the coffee she’d left on the kitchen counter. She needed warmth. She needed a lot of it to melt the ice that suddenly coated everything inside her, slowing her heartbeat, making it difficult to breathe. Paulina had warned her, had told her they were in danger, and Martine had done nothing. Had let her walk away. Had let her die.

Because she knew in her heart Paulina was gone.

“Oh, God.” She swayed forward, and a hand caught her arm, holding her steady. It was a big hand, strong, the skin olive-hued, the fingers bare, and the overcoat sleeve above it was gray. Jack’s overcoat was black. She knew, because she’d helped Evie shop for it. Which meant this coat belonged to DiBiase.

The hand holding her up was DiBiase’s hand. For one brief moment, she let herself accept the warmth and comfort and strength that seeped from him, just one moment when she was too weak to do otherwise. Then, with the stubbornness she’d been legendary for back home, she tugged free, folded her arms over her chest and hid her fisted hands against the soft flannel.

“I guess you should come in.” Her voice was flat and numb, a pretty good match for the dismay and sorrow building inside her. She’d been a fool for letting Paulina walk away. Paulina had obviously not been herself; she’d needed taking care of. Needed someone to pretend to believe her, to take her home and help her until she was better able to help herself.

Twenty-four years ago, Martine had been the person Paulina turned to first, before anyone else. Oh, Tine, he broke up with me for good. Tine, I’m failing algebra, and my dad will take my car away for sure. Tine, my mom and dad are fighting again. Tine, I think I’m pregnant, but I’m too young to have a baby!

They had been best friends—had had a bond that should have been unbreakable. But now, after all those years, when Paulina came to her again, Martine had let her down. She hadn’t even tried. She’d just wanted to get out of the cold and go back to her shop and take care of business. She’d wanted to stuff the past back into its cramped little corner of her brain and never take it out again.

At the top of the stairs, she turned left into the kitchen. “I’ll make coffee,” she suggested with the same numbness.

“We’ll do it.” Jack touched her arm. “Go get some clothes on.”

She glanced down. Her legs and feet were an unflattering shade of blue, thanks to the cold, and goose bumps covered every bit of skin. When she lifted her gaze again, it automatically went to DiBiase, who was also just lifting his gaze. Jerk. Self-centered, unfaithful, two-timing, arrogant—

Giving him a look of loathing, she went down the hall to her room, where she dressed in comfort clothes: fleece pants, a long-sleeved shirt, thick wool socks and cozy slippers. By the time she returned to the kitchen, the two men had their coffee, and Jack had reheated hers in the microwave until it steamed.

“You want to go into the living room?”

Martine paused, then shook her head. “In here.”

* * *

Jimmy was the last to walk through the doorway she’d indicated. She went first, turning on lights, opening curtains, and Murphy followed. Jimmy stood at the threshold, taking in everything before invading it.

He would admit, he didn’t know Martine well. That time he’d tried to get her to go home from Murphy’s party with him had been only their second meeting, and since then she’d looked at him like he was some kind of bottom-feeder. He did know that he wished things had happened differently back then, that she and Evie Murphy were like sisters, that his ex-wife, Alia, had been welcomed into their group last year and that Martine ran the voodoo shop below: part good fun, part legitimate business. He knew she was serious and mysterious and superstitious and sometimes wild and worrisome.

This room didn’t seem to go with any of that.

It had once been a dining room, he suspected, from the general size and shape, the proximity to the kitchen and the arched doorway into the living room. Now it looked like it belonged in a suburban house, reigned over by a crafter who indulged creativity in the lulls between being World’s Best Soccer Mom and World’s Best Cheer Mom. The woman belonging to this room drove an SUV, had a closet filled with conservative trendy clothes, was organized enough to keep complex schedules for four kids in her head, never missed a PTA meeting and terrorized any mother who did.

It looked nothing like the Martine he’d offended a few years ago.

It held a large rectangular table, the top etched with a one-inch grid, and four perfectly matched chairs. Every available inch of wall space was covered with white bookcases, and the shelves were filled with books, craft supplies, an array of tools, fabric and a lot of things he didn’t recognize, all of it in color-coordinated hampers or boxes. The lamps in the room gave off bright white light; for the first time in a week or more, he could see clearly again. The fog had lifted, at least inside this small space.

Martine settled on one side of the table. Jimmy sat on the opposite side next to Murphy. She opened a white bin, neatly labeled with the years, and pulled out a photograph, laying it on the table in front of him and Murphy.

Jimmy leaned forward to study the shot of the smiling blonde in an off-the-shoulder gown. Gaudy decorations behind her suggested a high school prom, an innocent time. It was funny the things twenty-plus years could change and the things they couldn’t. This pretty, smiling, well-nourished, blue-eyed blonde shouldn’t have a thing in common with the underweight, hard-worn, weary woman they’d seen in the cemetery this morning, but he had no doubt they were one and the same.

Murphy knew, too, but he still offered his cell phone to Martine. She glanced at the picture—quickly the first time, as if afraid there might be damage she didn’t want to have in her mind, then for a still quiet moment. Shivering, she held her hands to her coffee mug before lifting it for a drink.

“Her name is Paulina Adams. We grew up together in Marquitta. She called yesterday afternoon and asked to meet me by the river.” Her voice sounded hollow and distant, making its way through a thick haze of shock and emotion and guilt and sorrow. Jimmy had heard that voice a hundred times from a hundred different people, when he broke the news that someone they loved had died. God, he hated that part of the job. Today, because it was Martine, he hated it even more.

“Did you meet her?” Murphy asked. Of course she did. Jimmy wouldn’t even have asked.

“She, um...she looked like she’d been having a tough time. She was frightened. She said...” Her breath sounded loud in the room. “She thought someone was trying to kill her. I thought she was being paranoid. But I guess it’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you, right?” Her smile was faint and sickly and slid away faster than it had formed.

With prompting from Murphy—a lot of it; the hesitations and pauses started long and got longer—she related the conversation with Paulina. Paulie, she’d called her, and in return Paulina had called her Tine. After a time, she fell silent, locking gazes with Murphy. “How did she die?”

Death notifications were Jimmy’s least favorite part of the job, and definitely the least favorite part of that job was answering questions like that. No one wanted to hear that their sixteen-year-old daughter was raped before she was murdered, or that their elderly father had been beaten with a baseball bat by the thugs who broke into his house. Certainly Martine did not want to know that her friend’s heart had been cut from her chest.

“We’re waiting for the autopsy report,” Murphy said gently. All cops, no matter how tough or gruff or abrupt, had a gentle side—even Jimmy himself. Granted, the only people who ever saw his were the victims and the officers he worked with. Martine couldn’t see anything when she pretty much pretended he didn’t exist.

“Why would someone want to kill Paulina?” he asked, part curiosity, part to remind her that he did exist.

Martine breathed deeply, her fingers running along the edge of the storage bin in a slow back and forth pattern. Her nails were painted dark red, and heavy silver rings gave an elegant look to her hand. Those hands could perform magic. He’d felt it for himself that last night, when everything had been full of promise. He didn't know even now what he had expected at the time—a few hours, a few dates, maybe even something serious—but what he'd gotten was rejection and her never-ending scorn. Most of the time, he was okay with that. Most of the time, he provoked her just because he could. But sometimes he caught himself wondering what if...

Realizing he was watching her, she stopped the rubbing and clasped her hands. “I don’t know. Before yesterday, I hadn’t seen her in twenty-four years.”

“But you were best friends.”

“Were,” she repeated for emphasis. “In school.”

“What happened?”

Again she drew a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if it was meant to imply her annoyance at being questioned by him or if she was using the time to figure out the right answer. Right answers never needed figuring. The truth came easier to most people than evasions or lies.

“We were kids. We went to the same school, the same church, had the same interests. Then we graduated and...things changed. We changed. The ones who went to college went elsewhere. The ones who didn’t moved elsewhere, too. We wanted to see what the world had to offer, and we lost touch after a while.” A narrow line creased her forehead. “Are you still in touch with your best bud from high school?”

“I am. I introduced him to his wife. His kids call me Uncle Jimmy.”

The crease deepened into a scowl. “Of course they do.” Snideness sharpened her tone. “Most of us move on after high school. We all found new lives and new friends.”

“And yet when Paulina was having a tough time, when she thought someone was going to kill her, she came to you, someone she hadn’t seen in twenty-four years. Doesn’t that seem odd? That she wouldn’t go to one of those new friends you all replaced each other with?”

Martine’s face flushed, giving her the first real color he’d seen since she’d found them at her door. Anger? Embarrassment that she didn’t have an answer for a perfectly reasonable question? Guilt that if she wasn’t outright lying, she was at least not being entirely truthful?

He had to give her credit: she didn’t shove back from the table, pace around the room or throw him out of her house. He’d watched plenty of people do all three. He’d even been on the receiving end of a few punches in the process of being thrown out. No, Martine might have surpassed the limits of her tolerance for him, but she retained control.

“I don’t know where Pauline’s new life and new friends are,” she said, a clenched sound to her words. “I don’t know where she went after school, what she did, how she lived, whether she married or had children, if she kept in touch with her family or anyone else. No one could have been more surprised than I was when I heard her voice on the phone, or when I saw her, or when she ran off into the fog. We were friends a lifetime ago, but after twenty-four years, she’s as much a stranger to me as she is to you. I’d have better luck coming up with suspects who want you dead than Paulina.”

If the conversation hadn’t been so serious, he might have laughed at that. He’d been a cop for eighteen years. Everyone could come up with a list of people who wanted him dead.

She slid her chair back and stood, replaced the picture in the bin and closed the lid. “I have to get ready to open the shop, and I need time to...”

Jimmy silently completed the sentence for her: grieve over a stranger who’d once meant the world to her. He needed time to figure out whether he believed everything—or even anything—she’d told them. His first two questions for himself after an interview were Did she lie? and Why? He wasn’t looking forward to telling Murphy he believed his wife’s best friend had lied.

Murphy made the small talk to get them out the door—thanks, sorry, take care—then they took the stairs in silence. The street was just as empty of life as it had been when they came.

Murphy started the engine and turned the heat to high before thoughtfully tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Notice how she just happened to have that box on the table? The yearbooks were inside there, too. A lot of pictures, souvenirs, old cards. Seeing Paulina yesterday upset her more than she wanted to show.”

“Maybe she was wondering how Paulina went from that kid at the prom to that woman on your phone. Or maybe seeing her made her nostalgic for the good old days.”

Murphy snorted. “I know you didn’t miss the fact that she wasn’t telling us everything, so don’t make excuses. I love Martine, but I’m not here because she’s my kids’ godmother. My job is to find who killed Paulina and why.”

“But you can’t forget that she’s your kids’ godmother, can you, and that makes the job harder. Evie and the kids would never forgive you if you treated her like a suspect or an uncooperative witness.”

“Hey, I can be tough,” Murphy said in self-defense. “I once handcuffed Evie and took her to jail.”

“Yeah, and you’ll never do that again, will you?” That arrest had been the end of their relationship the first time around. Once Murphy realized he’d been duped, he’d had to solve a few murders, arrest a few corrupt feds and grovel like hell to get back into Evie’s life. In Jimmy’s opinion, that was a hell of a lot of work for one woman.

Which probably explained why he hadn’t stuck with just one woman in a long, long time.

Chapter 2

Oh, God, she’d lied to the police—and not just to the police, but to Jack.

Groaning, Martine dragged her hair into a ponytail. Instead of being bouncy and perky like it should be, it just dangled limp and heavy—the way she felt, coincidentally. She’d put on makeup as soon as the detectives had left, but she’d had a hard time finding the balance between enough and too much. Even now, she couldn’t tell whether she looked like someone who’d had a shock or someone trying to pass for a clown.

She hadn’t actually lied to the police. She just hadn’t volunteered a few things, like the fact that Paulina believed their voodoo curse was the reason for the threat against her. Or that one of their other best friends had been killed just a few months ago, allegedly because of the curse. Or that Tallie, Robin and Martine herself were on the supposed hit list, too.

Martine couldn’t get past the cold hard fact that the others ignored: their voodoo curse wasn’t real. It had been far more Dr. Seuss than Marie Laveau. They hadn’t raised any spirits; they hadn’t disturbed the peace between this world and the other; they hadn’t done anything a million stupid kids before and after them hadn’t done.