Dead Girls Are Easy Read online

  She curled her lip in a cynical excuse for a smile. “Sure.” Heaving her ample bottom up off the chair, she added, “This oughta be fun.” She moved to pick up a red phone hanging from the wall behind her and muttered something into the receiver, glancing over her shoulder as she listened to the other person’s reply. The smirk on her face got bigger. When she hung up the phone, she gestured toward the blue plastic chairs that lined the room. “Sergeant Stone will be right out. Take a seat.”

  “Sergeant Stone?” I murmured the name under my breath as we gingerly did as she asked. The chairs were old and streaked with unidentifiable stains. “That doesn’t sound too promising.”

  Evan patted me on the knee. “Not to worry?I’ve gotten us this far, haven’t I? Let me do the talking.”

  I was happy to, especially when a buzzer sounded, releasing the lock on the metal door that led inside the jail. It opened, and a man stood there who would have intimidated the bravest of the brave.

  Easily six foot something, coal black skin and bulging muscles that distorted his uniform in every conceivable way. Heavy black belt loaded with a radio, nightstick, handcuffs, and, of course, a big ol’ gun on one hip. Next to me, I heard Evan’s gasp, and thought we were done for.

  Oddly enough, Sergeant Stone took one look at us and went dead still for several seconds. Then, without missing a beat, he glanced at the lady cop behind the counter.

  “Let ’em in.” Even his voice sounded like gravel.

  Then he turned around and faced the metal door, waiting until she’d buzzed him back inside the bowels of the place.

  Officer Ashante looked as shocked as I felt. I turned to Evan and whispered, “What was that all about?”

  Evan smoothed a strand of blond hair behind an ear, shooting me a coy look beneath his lashes.

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” was all he said.

  “Oh, jeez.”

  “Here’s your visitor’s pass.” Officer Ashante slapped two yellow pieces of paper down on the counter with ill grace, along with a two bright orange keys. “Sign the book and put your valuables in the locker over there. You’re subject to search, and can and will be charged if any contraband is found.”

  Evan didn’t budge. “I’ll wait here, Nicki. I’ve had enough excitement for one day. You go ahead. Tell Mojo I’m pulling for him.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  I picked up the yellow visitor’s pass, peeled off the backing and stuck it to my shirt, signed the book, then put my purse in the locker, tossing Evan the key. The lady cop heaved herself up again and gave me a cursory pat-down while I dared Evan with my eyes not to giggle. Then she buzzed me in, and I entered a world I hoped never to enter again.

  It was a big room, industrial and echoing. Somebody had obviously made an attempt at some point to make it friendlier by painting it a pale shade of blue, but the blue had faded to gray and the fluorescent lighting gave it a harsh look. There were tables scattered around, most filled with men in orange jumpsuits visiting with wives or girlfriends. It smelled like sweat and disinfectant. I was led to a long table at the far end of the room with a Plexiglas screen down the middle and little dividers between the chairs that gave an illusion of privacy. A single door was on the other side on the Plexiglas.

  I sat down and waited, trying not to listen to the guy in a blue suit at the far end?obviously an attorney?argue with his client about hearsay evidence, or something like that. I stared at the round metal grille cut into the Plexiglas in front of me and tried to think about lying on a beach somewhere with a tropical drink, far away from this noisy, depressing place.

  After a few minutes the door opened, and there was Mojo, handcuffed and orange-clad. He looked sullen and red-eyed, dreadlocks drooping. The deputy escorting him waited until he took a seat, then removed the handcuffs and left the area. I heard the snick of the electronic bolt as the door closed behind him.

  “Hey, Mo.” I kept my voice low.

  “What are you doing here, Nicki?” Mo didn’t look too happy to see me. “If you came to talk about Caprice?” He hesitated, swallowing hard. “If you came to talk about Caprice, I ain’t allowed to. Lawyer says don’t talk to nobody.” He looked away, blinking rapidly as he leaned back in the chair.

  “I know you didn’t kill her, Mojo.” I’d already decided on the direct approach. “I’m here to help you.”

  Mo looked back at me and shook his head. “How you gonna help me, little girl? You wasn’t even there. You don’t know nothin’ about it.”

  I leaned in closer, speaking as close to the grille as I could. “I know because Caprice told me.”

  That brought him upright, but slowly. He eyed me warily, obviously wondering what I was talking about.

  “I know this is gonna sound crazy. I know you’re probably not gonna believe me any more than anybody else will, but it’s true. I saw Caprice last night, Mo. Twice. After she…after she died.”

  The skeptical look I was expecting was there. “You saw Caprice?”

  “It’s true. The first time was on the street, right after it happened. I’d been to the Vortex and followed the fire truck because I was worried about the shop. She was right there, standing next to me.”

  Mojo was listening, saying nothing.

  “Then she came to my house in the middle of the night.” I’d swear he paled, his dark skin going a sickly ash color. “She told me about the other woman, and what happened on the stairs. She wants me to get you out.”

  There was silence while Mo stared me down. I met his eye, not looking away. When he spoke, his voice was low and urgent.

  “You got to get rid of her, Nicki. You got to get rid of her now.”

  That was the last thing I expected to hear. I sat back, temporarily at a loss for words.

  Mo leaned in, glancing around uneasily. “You don’t know what you messing with here, girl. That thing ain’t Caprice—it’s a duppy. You need to go to a mambo and get rid of it, quick.”

  I felt like I was in the middle of a bad movie and the actors had just started speaking in code.

  “What are you talking about? She wants me to help you.”

  He stood up, signaling toward the camera mounted near a corner of the ceiling. Then he leaned in one more time, putting his mouth close to the grille. “Don’t come here no more. It can’t reach me here…it’s too far, but I ain’t taking no chances.”

  It?

  The door behind Mojo opened and a deputy stood there, waiting. Mo turned and walked away without another word. I watched in stunned silence as the handcuffs were put back on his wrists, then the deputy took him by the arm and led him away. He didn’t look back, and the door closed behind him with a snick of finality.

  CHAPTER 5

  What the hell was a “duppy”? Or a “mambo”?

  Evan had been no help, as he thought one was a fish and the other some kind of dance step. We’d discussed it over egg drop soup and lemon chicken at our favorite Chinese place, to no avail.

  So I did what any twenty-first century girl would do, and turned to the Internet. After Evan dropped me off in Little Five Points to pick up my car, I drove home and poured myself a glass of wine. Then I turned on my laptop and settled myself in the middle of the bed to do some serious searching.

  My first pass on duppy turned up little except the title of a famous Bob Marley song, “Duppy Conqueror,” which at least told me I was going in the right direction. Mambo did indeed appear to be some kind of dance, which threw me off again. I went back to Bob Marley, did a lot of skimming, finally hit pay dirt.

  “A duppy is an ‘evil spirit’ that once inhabited a human’s body.” A definite chill went down my spine as I said the words aloud. I read further. “According to Jamaican folklore, all people have a dark piece of the soul that in life is restrained by the will. In death, that restraint can be ignored.”

  Well, wasn’t that just lovely? I suddenly remembered all those religious candles and handmade charms Caprice had always claimed were for the touris
ts. Maybe there’d been more going on in the back room of Indigo than a little ganja dealing.

  Almost afraid of what I might find, I typed Jamaican voodoo into the search engine and kept digging. Within minutes I’d discovered that a mambo was a voodoo priestess, the female equivalent of a “houngan”?a voodoo priest.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Nagging little Jewish ladies were one thing, but evil spirits and voodoo were another. This was seriously creepy stuff.

  A call to Evan was in order, but as I reached for the phone I noticed the answering machine light was blinking, and hit PLAY MESSAGES instead.

  “Nicki, it’s Joe Bascombe. I know you don’t want to see me, but I’d like a chance to explain. Please call me back.” A pause, then, “I’m worried about you.” Another pause. “I’d like to see you.” Dead air. “Please.” Then the click as he hung up.

  He must have gotten my phone number from hospital records, or else Evan had given it to him. After the soap opera sympathy routine Evan had given me this afternoon, I wouldn’t put it past him.

  I’d really liked Joe and would’ve enjoyed loosening him up. He had kind eyes?and a great butt. But I don’t do “married.”

  Dialing Evan’s number, I put aside thoughts of my nonexistent love life and focused on my more immediate problem.

  “Hello?” Evan’s voice had a lilt that told me he was expecting a caller other than me.

  “It’s voodoo, Evan. Mojo was talking about voodoo.”

  He made an exasperated noise. “You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t believe in ghosts, either?until I started seeing them. According to what Mo said, I need to go see a voodoo priestess to get rid of an evil spirit.”

  “Sounds like Mo’s been smokin’ something besides weed, Nick. This is crazy.”

  Morosely, I answered, “Yeah, I know.” I hesitated, then added. “Maybe I’m crazy.”

  “If you’re crazy then I’m a choirboy in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” he snapped. “Now put the computer away and go to bed. Too much surfing on the Internet can make you believe anything?remember when I had a sinus infection and convinced myself it was brain cancer?”

  I ignored his logic and asked, “Will you go with me?”

  “Nicki, you know I love you, but the only black magic I’m interested in is six-foot-three and works at the county jail. And even I’m not fool enough to go back for seconds. Go to bed. We’ll figure something else out tomorrow.”

  Sensing I wasn’t going to get anywhere tonight as far as Evan was concerned, I gave in. “Okay. Nighty-night. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  Evan hung up after his traditional response. “Bite this.”

  Having had a phobia about bugs since childhood, he always hated it when I did that. Which meant I did it all the time.

  I took his advice, though, and turned off the laptop. Then I got ready for bed and settled in early, hoping to catch up on lost sleep.

  As soon as I turned out the light, she was there.

  I smelled her first—that mixture of tropical fruits and coconut that always reminded me of piña coladas. Caprice applied body lotion to her caramel-colored skin every day, saying it reminded her of home.

  “Caprice?”

  My eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, so I saw nothing but darkness. I reached for the bedside lamp.

  “Leave it off, girl. I like it better this way.”

  I swallowed hard, willing my voice not to quiver. “I don’t. I don’t like any of this, Caprice. I think you should go away and leave me alone.”

  A heavy sigh. “No can do, bebe. You the only one who can help me?help my man, that is. Can’t nobody else help me no more.”

  “I tried to help Mo, Caprice. He won’t even talk to me.” I was afraid to tell her why. “He told me not to come back.”

  Silence.

  I ventured a question. “Why don’t you want me to turn on the light?”

  “Day for you, night for me,” she answered cryptically. “Go see that skinny ’ho, Felicia. Tell her you’ll go to DFCS about them kids of hers and get ’em taken away if she don’t tell the truth.”

  This was getting worse and worse. “You want me to blackmail somebody by threatening to have her kids taken away? I’m not gonna do that, Caprice.”

  This time the silence sounded ominous.

  “Don’t make me mad, Nicki.” Caprice’s whisper came from right beside my ear. “You was my friend once. Be my friend now.”

  I jumped out of bed so fast I nearly tripped on my way to the light switch, and flipped it up, flooding the room with brightness. I turned around, afraid of what I might see.

  There was no one there.

  High fever, abdominal pain, delirium, sudden onset.

  That’s all the information I could get from the emergency room nurse after rushing down there at three in the morning. Evan’s friend Butch had called a half hour earlier, telling me Evan was sick and asking me to meet him at the hospital. Thank God Evan always listed me as his next of kin or the old battle-ax nurse behind the counter wouldn’t even have told me that much.

  I left her at the main desk, pushing her papers with a sour expression on her face, and went into the waiting area. Sure enough, sitting in a chair that looked far too small for him was a worried-looking behemoth in jeans and a leather jacket, shaved head gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights.

  “Butch?” The giant stood, nodding. “I’m Nicki. What’s wrong with Evan? What happened?”

  He rubbed the top of his bald head as though it helped him think. “I don’t know?it all happened so fast.”

  I sat in the empty chair next to him, and he sank back down. “I was asleep. He woke me up, thrashing and screaming. At first I just thought he was having a bad dream.”

  Joe strode through the double doors marked NO VISITORS PAST THIS POINT and into the waiting room, looking harried and professional in his blue scrubs, stethoscope looped around his neck. Just my luck. Of course he’d be on call tonight, of all nights. He glanced at me briefly, but focused on Butch.

  “You the guy who brought in Evan Owenby?”

  Butch shot up from his seat. “Is he all right? What’s the matter with him?”

  “We’re not sure yet, Mister…?”

  “Carson. Butch Carson.”

  “I need to ask you a few questions, Mr. Carson, if you don’t mind. It might help me find out what’s wrong with Evan.”

  Exactly what I wanted to know, so I kept quiet and let the two of them talk.

  “Sure, sure. Anything you need.”

  Joe gestured toward the chairs before taking a seat. Goliath sat down as well, looking more worried than ever.

  “Can you tell me what you were doing just before Evan got sick?”

  The guy actually blushed, a dull red flush spreading from his cheeks to where his hairline would have been. “Well, we were sleeping, actually.” He seemed to take courage from Joe’s carefully neutral expression. “We’d been out earlier, had a few drinks, and then, well”?he gestured vaguely?“you know. Anyway, Evan was fine all night, just fine. Until he woke up screaming.” Butch looked bewildered. “One minute we were sound asleep, then he was screaming. When I tried to calm him down, I felt how hot his skin was, then he started moaning about his stomach hurting. I turned on the light, and he was just out of it, man?you know what I mean?”

  Joe answered carefully. “I’m not sure I do.”

  “His eyes were rolling around like he was crazy…he kept saying ‘day for you, night for me,’ or something like that.”

  My blood ran cold. It couldn’t be.

  “He curled up in a ball, and every time I got near him he’d scream, until I finally convinced him it was okay. Then I just picked him up and put him in the car and brought him here.”

  “Any drugs, Mr. Carson? Anything at all other than alcohol?”

  Butch shook his head vehemently. “Evan doesn’t do drugs, Doc, and neither do I. Just a few drinks, not even th
at many. He was fine when we went to sleep.”

  Joe sat back.

  “Thanks, Mr. Carson. I’ll let you know as soon as I have an idea of what’s going on.” The big man nodded, gnawing at his lower lip.

  “I wanna see him.” Those were my first and only words to Joe.

  Joe shook his head. “I gave him a sedative. He’s sleeping.”

  “Take me to him or I’ll go looking for him myself,” I threatened.

  He tried to stare me down, but gave in pretty easy. “You would, wouldn’t you?” He sighed, then stood up. “C’mon, then.”

  I followed him through the double doors.

  The familiar smells of fear and sickness stalked the corridors and permeated the air. All the cleaning fluid in the world wouldn’t get rid of them. It suddenly struck me that I’d been here myself less than a week ago, unconscious and totally oblivious to all this activity. The place was an antiseptic beehive, people in scrubs moving in and out of curtained cubicles, all moving fast and looking like they knew what they were doing.

  I could hear moaning behind a curtain. Joe moved it aside slightly, then stuck his head in and spoke to whoever was there. “My guess is indigestion, Mr. Martinez, but we’ll run some tests to make sure. Enchiladas with hot sauce is hardly the best choice for a midnight snack. The nurse will give you an esophageal cocktail and see if that helps. If it doesn’t, we’ll set you up for cardiac tests with Dr. Quinn.”

  A nurse came up and handed Joe a chart. “Lab work on 3B, Dr. Bascombe.”

  “Thanks, Nadine?nobody can bully those guys in the lab like you can.” Joe scanned the chart and signed it quickly. “Hematuria…probably a kidney infection. Tell Ms. Thompson I’ll be in to explain the results in five minutes.” He passed the chart to the nurse and kept walking, me trying to stay out of the way and keep up at the same time. The medical personnel behind the scenes in the emergency room obviously worked harder than the nurse who manned the front desk.

  “I take it you’re still mad at me,” Joe said, pausing outside a door at the end of a short corridor.

  I gave him a fake smile, in no mood to debate the issue.