“The wolves start dying out, and the hunting cats come in,” Aubrey said, starting to follow my logic.
“And so Karen comes to New Orleans,” I said. “Maybe it takes her a while. Maybe she doesn’t know it’s happened or exactly who Legba’s riding. There’s a bunch of people who say they’re voodoo queens or houngans or whatever. Maybe Carrefour needs to figure out who the right target is.”
“Or who would get the new daughter organism,” Aubrey said. “With Amelie’s daughter dead in the storm, Karen—Carrefour—would have to find out who was going to be the next host.”
“Exactly,” I said. “But it turns out even the riders who used to be part of Carrefour’s team—the Petro loa like Marinette—have closed ranks against it.”
“Marinette,” Aubrey said, then paused. He seemed lost in himself, but only for a moment. “She hated Karen. She hated Karen more than she hated Legba.”
“And right after the exorcism, I asked Karen about trying to recruit the local riders. She shot me down because she knew everyone was against us,” I said, still pacing. “Carrefour didn’t have any local allies. And Carrefour had kept Karen isolated, so there wasn’t anyone she could bring in.”
“Except the hired guns. Meaning Eric. Meaning us,” Aubrey said.
She’d kept me off balance. She’d taken me out to the club instead of leaving me to my research. She’d dismissed me every time I’d questioned her. She’d seduced Ex. And when I started doing things on my own and asking too many questions, she’d told me to leave.
I’d been a chump.
“It answers everything,” Aubrey said.
“Well. Not everything,” Chogyi Jake said, “but it—”
I held up my hands, palms out. My fingers were trembling. My blood felt slightly electric.
“Okay, hold on. Before we get too freaked out, let’s just . . . look at it. I mean, maybe I’m wrong,” I said. “When I went missing, who was with Karen?”
Chogyi Jake and Aubrey glanced at each other. I couldn’t stop talking.
“I’d just said how we ought to warn Sabine, Karen said no we shouldn’t, and then I went AWOL, right?” I said. “If Carrefour is riding Karen, it might think I was running off to spill the beans. It freaks
out and decides to go after Sabine right then. But that can’t be true if one of you guys was with Karen the whole time. If she has an alibi for the time when I was getting my ass kicked, then I’m wrong.
“So was she with someone when it happened?”
The silence wasn’t any longer than two or three breaths together. It seemed like hours. Aubrey cleared his throat.
“No, she wasn’t,” he said. “I think we have a problem.”
THE FIRST flight back to New Orleans left at five in the morning, but had a huge layover and didn’t get us on the ground until early evening. A later flight would actually get us there earlier. Waiting in the terminal with the Monday morning business commuters, I kept reminding myself that by not going immediately and as fast as I could, I’d actually get there sooner. Intellectually, it made perfect sense, but my guts wanted the rush of speed, the appearance of heroic action. Something.
Because I had missed the cues, because I had been pushing myself too hard and letting myself get distracted, Ex was sleeping with a serial killer that slaughtered its lovers. I wanted to take it all back, to fix it, and I wanted to do it now, dammit.
“Joseph Mfume was part of a jailbreak from the Oregon State Penitentiary two years ago,” the
lawyer said from my cell phone. “The reports were that they recovered a body from a river that was identified as him, but apparently that wasn’t quite true.”
“Right. And the others?”
“Only preliminaries,” she said. “Kent and Catherine Black died in a fire eight months after Mfume was incarcerated. The insurance paid off, so the adjusters didn’t think it was particularly suspicious. But . . .”
“But Karen worked arson cases,” I said, remembering the detail from the original background report.
“Exactly,” the lawyer said. “Michael Davis died in a rock-climbing accident.”
“Were there any witnesses?”
“None so far, but I only got your message this morning. There’s still a great deal of work we can do.”
“And Glapion?”
My lawyer sighed. It was a tight, percussive sound.
“We’re looking, but the records in New Orleans weren’t anything to be proud of even before Katrina. We have the addresses I’ve already given you. None of the business records have other addresses. I’ve put alerts on all their accounts, so if there are any transfers of funds big enough to require reporting, I can find that for you.”
“But she’s got to be in New Orleans,” I said, trying not to whine.
“And if you want to live in an under-the-table economy, there’s probably no better place,” she said. “There are any number of people there who are living entirely off the books. There always have been. It’s New Orleans.”
“Okay,” I said. “All right, can you just . . . let me know if you find anything?”
“Absolutely. And I have some inquiries that I’m waiting to hear back on. If I get anything substantive, I’ll be with you immediately.”
“Thank you.”
“Be careful, dear.”
“I will.”
I hung up. Chogyi Jake closed his cell phone as Aubrey returned with two paper cups of coffee and one of green tea. A four-pack of identically tied businessmen looked over at us with an air of disapproval. It was petty of me, but I hoped they were on our flight. And in coach.
“Still nothing?” I said.
“He isn’t answering,” Chogyi Jake said. “Either he doesn’t have the phone with him, or he’s chosen to ignore us, or . . .”
“Or Karen has done something to keep him out of contact,” Aubrey said. “Anyone care to bet? What about the lawyers?”
I lifted my cell phone.
“No joy,” I said.
“Shit,” Aubrey said conversationally.
“Yeah.”
“They may still be using the safe house,” Chogyi Jake said. “The wards are still in place. It would give Karen the protection she wanted.”
“That would be nice,” I said. “In that sort of what-are-we-going-to-do-now way.”