Eric Wilder's Blog, page 2

Garden of Forbidden Secrets - a synopsis

My new book is titled Garden of Forbidden Secrets. It is Book 7 of my French Quarter Mystery Series and is set in New Orleans. I always enjoy writing about New Orleans and this book is no exception. I’m also a huge basketball fan and enjoyed creating Taj Davis, my veteran NBAer, for this book. If you read my last book Sisters of the Mist then you’ll remember I sort of left Eddie Toledo dangling in the breeze. I’ve resolved his dilemma in this book and I’m seriously thinking about spinning off Eddie into a new series. After you read Garden of Forbidden Desires I would love to hear your reactions and thoughts. The book isn’t yet available for pre-order on Amazon but shortly will be. Right now it's available in Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. Thanks for your support and I hope you love the book when it comes out on April 1, 2019. I know, but trust me when I tell you there’s no April Fool’s joke involved. At least I hope not.
P.S. – This may or may not be the final cover for the book. It’s kind of stark.
Synopsis
The desire of veteran basketball player Taj Davis to end his professional career in Cleveland is thwarted when he is traded mid-season to New Orleans. His first night in the Big Easy he stays in an old French Quarter hotel crowded because of the Christmas holidays. He's assigned a suite of rooms that haven't been used in more than forty years. When he dozes off in the bathtub, he finds out why.Accosted by a demon, he escapes into the hallway, his foot lacerated by a broken wine glass. He realizes as a bellman escorts him to the hotel doctor that he is carrying a bloody voodoo doll. He also learns that the strange tattoo on his chest is a voodoo symbol with an unknown meaning.On a trip to a voodoo shop to find out about the tattoo and the bloody voodoo doll, he meets a young woman named Adela with an identical tattoo on her chest. Sensing that something frightening and possibly supernatural has brought him and the young woman to New Orleans, Taj retains voodoo mambo Mama Mulate and her partner French Quarter sleuth, Wyatt Thomas to help him solve the mystery.They soon learn Adela isn't the young woman's real name and that she may be the reincarnation of an Irish witch that has knowledge of a terrible secret long hidden in a dark, French Quarter garden.
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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Motorcycle - a short story

Written after a failed marriage and while I was still suffering from deep depression caused most likely by my time in Vietnam as an infantry foot soldier, much of this story is autobiographical. Like the lead character in the story, my life was in a mess. I somehow managed to keep my day job and most of my relationships, probably because it was during the "wild and crazy" days of the Oklahoma Oil Boom of the 80s and almost everyone at the time was drunk, stoned or both. There's a grain of truth in every fiction and there was a real person I met one night who called himself Blue Angel. And yes I owned a 750 Triumph Bonneville, just likes James Dean.
P.S. Unlike the way I may once have been, it isn't my desire to offend anyone. If you are offended by apathy, drugs, sexual and violent situations then please stop reading now.


Motorcycle
Dying twilight and flashing neon beckoned me into one of the many stripper bars skirting the edge of town. I parked my bike beside a row of Harleys and opened the black enamel door, blaring rock and roll flooding over me as I made my way through the crowded barroom. A tipsy dancer had just begun her gyrations on center stage and I grabbed the first empty chair I came to.When my eyes finally adjusted to the subdued light, I noticed the man sitting beside me had a big pear-shaped head and a screwy grin on his pug-ugly face that indicated he was already drunk. He was also obese; his double chin dove into hairy flab wedged beneath the gaudy western shirt he wore.Unmindful of my sudden critical stare, or foaming brew dribbling down his neck, the fat man slugged beer straight from the pitcher without an offer of apology. Despite his repugnancy, I couldn't turn away, his ugliness hopelessly mesmerizing me.The man's blackened teeth looked like California asphalt on a hot August day, and a motorized wheelchair supported his bulky frame. He grinned when he finally noticed me staring at him. Had I been sober myself, I'd have probably searched for another chair. I wasn't.I was wishing I had minded my own business when he said, "Kinda motorcycle you ride?"Dancing strobes flooded center stage with silver light, further accenting his drunken grin. I straightened in my chair and said, "Triumph Bonneville 750. Like James Dean.""Most people 'round here ride Harleys," he said.Glancing around the crowded barroom, I saw what he meant. Leather-clad, bandanna-headed bikers of both sexes crowded the stripper bar, rotating strobe lights magnifying their greasy hair, deadhead tattoos, and silver earrings. The fat man's raspy voice shattered my flight of fancy."What's your name, bub?""Denzil. You?""You can call me Blue Angel."I needn't have worried about my inability to suppress a drunken snicker. Blue Angel didn't seem to mind. He was apparently either used to the look or else he just didn't give a damn. I forgot about my musings when the girl on stage winked at me and jutted her breasts in a brazen manner. Blue Angel whistled, using his index fingers to tightly stretch his thin lips, managing to produce a piercing shrill."Pleased to meet you, Blue Angel.""Nam," he said, seeing my inquisitive glance at his withered legs. "Landmine."After comparing tiny legs with his bloated body, I had trouble believing his deformity was anything other than congenital. I kept my opinion to myself, not wishing to insult him even further."I was there," I said. "Infantry."Blue Angel grabbed the elbow of a passing waitress, ignoring my assertion, and ordered another pitcher. His broken-tooth grin had all but vanished from his inflated cheeks."I ride a Harley," he said.Advanced inebriation and a pinch of embedded meanness marked my blurted reply, regretted the moment I spoke the words. "The hell you say. Cripples can't ride bikes."My drunken grin failed miserably to indicate that I meant the vicious remark in the best possible way. Blue Angel's own smile revealed he had taken no apparent offense. He just kept describing his cycle."Three-wheeler. Hand controls. Custom made."On stage, the nude girl with broken hearts tattooed on her breasts gyrated to the caustic strains of a Bob Seeger psycho-melody. Multi-colored strobe lights flared in my face. From a shadow-cloaked corner, the waitress returned with Blue Angel's pitcher of beer and he tipped it to his lips, swilling beer until it gushed from his mouth, wetting his shirt. He shoved it toward me when he finished."You work, Denzil?""Longshoreman.""Married?""Not now," I said, shaking my head."Marrying soon, myself," he said. "Luanna's crippled too. Met her at a paraplegic convention. Gonna marry her right here on center stage."Terrific," I said."Hell's Angels comin' from all over the country. Big event. Be here or be square."Ignoring his off-handed invitation, I returned my attention to center stage where two blondes were dancing in an odd pseudo-sexual parody. Blue Angel whistled to the waitress, hastily ordering another pitcher.By now I was totally anesthetized by cold beer, blatant sex, and loud music. When we finished the second pitcher, I ordered yet another. Awash in noise, beer, and gyrating naked dancers, Blue Angel wheeled himself to the bathroom. When he returned he slid out of his wheelchair, onto his back on the filthy floor. Without success, he struggled to get up.I tried lifting Blue Angel's dead weight back into his unwieldy vehicle but found he was heavier than he looked. Two bikers wandering over from the pool table helped, grinning as if they'd performed the same task many times before. After we'd killed another pitcher of beer, Blue Angel asked me to show him my bike."Why not?" I said.Through the crowded barroom, I wheeled him, past milling bikers, out the side door to the parking lot flooded with interfering rays of moon and neon. Parked between a black Harley and candy apple pickup we found my metallic blue Triumph."No Limey bike's good as a hog," Blue Angel said. "Least it ain't a rice burner.""Faster than any hog," I said. "And lots of rice burners.""Maybe. Take me for a ride?""You crazy?" I said. "I couldn't even lift you off the floor in there. How do you expect me to get you on back of the bike?""Jack and Banjo will help.""But you wouldn't stay put, even if we managed to get you on back.""Then strap my ankles to the bike frame with bar rags. I'll hang on."Shaking my head, I said "I might not make it home myself, drunk as I am. You want to go for a ride on the back of my bike, Blue Angel then you must be drunker than me."Blue Angel's lips curled into a pleading pout. "I ain't that drunk. Please take me. I never been on a Limey bike before.""Maybe next time," I said, wheeling him back toward the strip bar.*  *  *I don't remember when I began stopping after work for drinks at the Blue Note Lounge. Sometimes I stayed until Jimmy Turner, the owner, kicked me out and closed the place. Sheila didn't mind much. She was busy with her own life, new job, summer softball league and all. That summer she met Big Zina, playing ball on the same team. Before long Big Zina began going everywhere with us. Out to eat, to the movies. I didn't mind. When Big Zina was around Sheila was always in a good mood. When she wasn't. . .Sheila had never smoked during our seven-year marriage. That summer I began finding ashtrays filled with butts, hers and Big Zina's. I also found a half-smoked roach in an ashtray. Sheila and Big Zina confessed to buying a lid to smoke at a Peter Frampton concert. They spent the weekend out of town, seeing Peter Frampton and doing other things with some of the girls from the team.Shortly after our divorce, I bought a motorcycle, a metallic blue Triumph Bonneville 750. I knew nothing about motorcycles, never ridden one, but had an immediate need to wrap my legs around a powerful engine and drive it, very fast, down the highway.After selling my old Mustang I began going everywhere on the bike. Even in the rain. Most of my free time I spent swilling beer at the Blue Note. Sometimes I made it home without remembering where I had been, or what I had done. Once two teenage boys lifted the cycle off the pavement when I tumped it over, leaving the bar. I remember the shock in their eyes when I charged out of the parking lot, barely missing the front fender of a passing car.About that time Jimmy kicked me out for good. In a drunken fit, I threw a pitcher of beer at his frosted-glass mirror behind the bar. Unsatisfied with the ensuing explosion, I capped it off by smashing a couple of chairs and tables with my fists and feet. Jimmy and two regulars tossed me out on my face."Don't ever come back," he said as I powered away on my cycle.After Jimmy banned me from the Blue Note, I began frequenting sleaze joints and biker bars populating the back roads leading to the ocean. It was there I met Rhonda.Rhonda had red curly hair, a tattoo on her left shoulder and ultra red lips the same intense color as her skin art. Her personality also matched her hair. She smoked pot, used various drugs, slept around and had no visible means of support. Between jobs, she had explained. Rhonda lived in a three-room wood-framed cracker box on the wrong side of town.Shortly after we met, we made love - spontaneously. In the front room on her shabby couch. We were both drunk, Rhonda's libido further stoked by pot and coke. I made do with beer and a couple of shooters. As we made love I noticed her faded green curtains gaping, wide open, for the world to see. The front door was also open."Think I better close the door and window?""Why?""Because someone might see us.""Fuck 'em," she said.Rhonda had long since sorted out her life, going through men faster than some women go through nail polish. As I was becoming attached to her, she had already finished with me, tossing me away like an empty bottle. Leaving a bar one night, drunk and alone, I motored past her place, maybe to satiate my morbid curiosity. See who she was with. Perhaps, deep down, I thought she might be alone and be happy to see me.Parking the Triumph in the drive, I strolled up to her front door, peeking through the window before I knocked - a good thing because she wouldn't have answered anyway. She was on her back and she wasn't alone. Rhonda and a long-haired, nearly nude man was in motion on the shabby couch, feeling the apparent throes of full-blown, drug-assisted sexual nirvana. I had to kick-start my heart, and then my bike.Gunning its engine, I trenched Rhonda's front yard as I sped away, nearing sixty by the time I reached the approaching intersection. It didn't matter that the light was red because I didn't have time to stop anyway. An old woman wheeled her Chevy directly in front of my fleeting path and I still remember her startled look when she saw me sliding toward her. I was very much out of control.Concerned motorists pulled the cycle off my chest, the accident sparing me, and mostly the motorcycle, but leaving me cut, scratched and black and blue. When the cops finally released me, I watched headlights trailing away into the night, feeling the fool. I walked home alone after the tow truck had hauled away the bike.*  *  *"You awake?" Blue Angel said, tapping my shoulder."Sorry," I said, glancing up into his big cow eyes.A nude dancer was weaving a sexual burlesque on the grimy wooden stage in front of us and lightning flashed through the open front door. I could smell rain blowing in from the north."Gotta go," he said, tapping the counter. "Don't forget my wedding next Saturday. Right here, same time."Jack and Banjo suddenly appeared, pushing through smoke, shadows and frenzied customers, wheeling Blue Angel out the front door. They lifted him into the bed of an awaiting pickup and drove away as rain began to fall. I watched them disappear into the neon-illuminated gloom, and then rested my head on the counter.By now my brain pulsated with a deep-seated ache, threatening to burst straight through the skull. Resting my head on the bar, I closed my eyes, letting loud music and bar noises resonate through flesh, bone and the distressed wood of the stage. The moment provided scant solace. Instead, I screamed through space, straight to the back of the truck with Blue Angel, my suddenly blurred thoughts a vision of street noise, glimmering neon, and passing humanity. Blue Angel flashed his blackened grin when he saw me."Welcome home, Bub," he said.
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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Pole Dancer - a short story

I can't recall the exact time I wrote this short story though sometime during the 80s is a safe guess. It's about a man, an American Indian man, visiting a strip club to watch his sister perform. The idea came to me after I had visited a strip club. I'd had a conversation with a dancer who was upset because her father had come into the club to watch her perform and to try to convince her to quit her job. The bouncer had thrown him out before he'd had a chance to do either. Reading the story again after many years I can still feel the anger in my words that I felt following a failed marriage and, most likely, still suffering from PTSD from my time as an infantry machinegunner in Vietnam. The sentences are choppy and the dialogue stilted but I refrained myself from launching into a massive edit job because it was written by the person I was at the time and not the same person I am now. Thanks for reading Pole Dancer and I hope you like it anyway. P.S. If the subject of nudity offends you then please stop reading now.
Pole Dancer
Another hot Oklahoma day, dry clouds streaking a faded sky as dervishes of swirling dust burnished Joe Redbird's elbow. Two crows, examining an armadillo carcass, moved out of his path. Joe had other things on his mind and didn't notice as he passed a slow-moving pumping unit, siphoning the last greasy sips from a dying reservoir. Scattered remnants of a once proud industry littered both sides of the road, staining the dry earth with dirty water. Overhead, a lone hawk floated in a thermal updraft.Redbird pulled into a pea-gravel parking lot surrounding a freestanding cinder block building. Broken neon lighting, mounted on two pilfered stands of drill pipe, proclaimed the place Valley of the Dolls.Shading his eyes from noon sun, he steered the pickup between a red Chevy and a dented Fat Bob Harley. Waves of damp heat flooded the cab when he opened the door. He didn't bother stretching as he side-stepped a drunk Okie leaning against the wall.He squinted into murky darkness, smoke accosting his eyes and loud music his ears. At least the air-conditioning felt good, chilling his sweaty neck as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. A half-nude waitress encircled his waist with slender arms, pressing her breasts into the small of his back."Whatcha having, Geronimo?""Pitcher of Bud," he said."Smile, Chief. Can't be all that bad."Redbird's expression remained dark, despite the young woman's friendly prodding. He nodded toward the bar circling center stage. His mousy-haired server puckered her lips and made lewd kissing sounds. When he refused to respond, she wriggled her nipples between thumb and forefinger and then kissed him on the cheek."You need something, just whistle. I'm Anita."Redbird's features remained impassive as Anita winked and backed away through the crowd. When his eyes dilated enough to see, he glanced over his shoulder at the dozens of other patrons. Bikers in leather and chains, soldiers with shaved heads and roughnecks in dirty overalls. They filled the large room to frantic capacity, and he had to elbow his way to an empty chair at center stage.His dollar tip earned him a wet kiss when Anita returned with his pitcher of beer. Ignoring her, he wiped the lipstick off his face with the back of his hand. Anita shrugged and eased away through the crowd. After draining the first glass, he poured another. Then he faded into cool darkness as pulsating-neon flooded center stage.Several-dozen prairie voyeurs rattling beer bottles soon replaced the jukebox. A new dancer was preparing to come on stage, and shrill whistles began piercing the darkness. Redbird cocked his head for a better view of the wooden stage.Staggering up the short ramp, a young blue-eyed blond woman licked her lips. Clad in only a bra and gold sequined g-string, she smiled at the whistling, cat-calling audience staring back at her. When the jukebox began, she gyrated in a drunken simulation of sensuality. Above blaring rock and roll, a high-pitched voice shrilled."Hey baby, show us your snatch."When someone put two soft hands on Redbird's shoulders, he knew who it was without turning to look."What are you doing here, Joe?"Redbird pivoted in his chair, gazing up into a dancer's dark eyes."Pete Thompson said I'd find you here."The young woman's long hair draped in raven waves over bronze shoulders. Reflections in her dark eyes rippled like black paint in a blender. Joe's neck grew warm as he sensed the gaze of everyone around them. They were admiring the attractive dancer, a woman with smooth skin, brown as his own."Pete's right. I'm a dancer."Glancing over his shoulder at the girl on stage, Redbird said, "Like her?"When Victoria shut her eyes, Redbird could almost feel the hot flush spreading up her neck. Opening them, she stared at the floor."Mom send you?"In a voice barely audible above the loud music and grating background voices, he answered, "Mom doesn't know you work here. Maybe you can tell me why you do?"Redbird leaned forward, touching her hand, causing her to wrench away and back into a drunk at the table behind her. The man groped her leg before she could move away."I have no answer. Least one you'd understand.""Try me.""Vicky, you're up next," someone called from behind the bar."Have to go," she said. "Finish your beer and get out of here before you embarrass us both.""Will it embarrass you to have your big brother watch you strip and do squat thrusts while these monkeys masturbate in the dark?"Vicky shook her dark mane. "I don't do that. They are to watch me dance. That's all."Glancing at the girl weaving drunken circles on stage, Redbird said, "You call that dancing?""What about you? You've been here before.""Different," he said.Victoria tried to smile, but her quivering lower lip betrayed her true feelings. She leaned against the table so no one else could hear her reply."Why is it different?""Because people are laughing behind your back," he said."Who are they laughing at? You or me?""I don't dance in a titty bar.""Yeah, and I suppose all your friends have great respect for the way you earn a living, driving a garbage truck.""Honest work.""So is dancing.""This isn't dancing, Vicky. It’s obscene. I feel sorrow for you and shame for our family.""Only thing you feel is your throbbing head and queasy gut when you wake up Sunday morning with puke on your pillow.""Doesn't change things," he said.Victoria touched his hand and said in a whisper, "I can't expect you to understand. I've wanted to dance since I was a little girl.""But why here?""Because we all have decisions to make, and don't always have enough choices."Redbird folded his arms and shook his head. "These scumbags don't care if you dance, or parade around on all fours. In fact, I'm sure that's what they would prefer.""I do it for myself, Joe. Not them, and not you." When he didn't reply, she said, "Just get out of here. Please."He stayed in his chair, noticing glints of sadness flicker and fade in the darkest corner of her eyes. Her lip quivered, and she drew a breath, almost losing the tiny halter covering her breasts when she exhaled. Clutching it to her bosom, she hurried away through the crowded tables.Though impassive, his shoulders began shaking in an almost imperceptible tremble. Sitting straight up in the rickety bar chair, he locked his folded arms against his chest and turned toward center stage. Everyone locked on to the blue-eyed dancer. No one had noticed the confrontation. Enveloped in her third song, she'd already discarded the sequined halter covering her breasts. As he watched, she yanked on her golden g-string.With eyes like a stalking wolf, she promenaded across the stage on hands and knees. When she spotted Redbird and saw his frown.Pulling the snap of her g-string, she twirled it once around her head, sniffed it, and then tossed it around Redbird's neck. With a satisfied smirk, she flipped over, wrapping long legs around her neck. She rolled across the stage, displaying her shaved privates. Her performance brought whistles from the drunken crowd.Redbird turned away. Some perverse curiosity returned his gaze to the stage. He locked onto the young woman's sweating body, dirty from the dust tracked floor. She writhed in widening circles, not forgetting Redbird until the music ceased.When the song ended, she collected the dollar bills scattered across the stage and grabbed her outfit in a slight bend of the knees. Redbird folded his arms and turned away, trying to lose himself in the remaining slug of beer. At least, until a hand touched his shoulder."Another pitcher, Chief?"Redbird nodded. After returning from the bar, Anita filled his glass, sipping from it before handing it to him. Confused by his rampant emotions, he studied the rose tattoo on her breast and the strange gold fleck in her left eye. She licked foam from her lips with an overt flick of her tongue. His dollar tip earned him another wet kiss, followed by solitude as she departed to wait on someone else.Attracted by the booming jukebox, Redbird's gaze returned to center stage. As beautiful Victoria appeared through the neon-lighted darkness, he held his breath.Except for her near-nudity, she seemed a beautiful princess, ascending dirty steps to a royal throne. Behind Redbird, the anonymous audience whooped and whistled their approval. He couldn't look her in the eye but couldn't take his own off her body. His face and neck grew red. Victoria was tall and dark, moving across the stage like a dandelion wafting in the breeze. She pirouetted in slow, measured circles, long raven hair billowing in synchronous waves.  Her eyes, dark and liquid, mesmerized and quieted the audience, Her movements possessed them. Victoria whisked off the tiny halter covering her breasts during a slow turn on the polished pole. As a single entity, the crowd gasped.Joe Redbird watched, along with bikers, soldiers, and roughnecks. His skin flushed with rising anger. Unable to forget the leering creatures gaping at his beautiful sister, he turned away. His head began to shake with a subtle flutter that crept into his shoulders and down the base of his spine.Victoria's last number sheathed its patrons in a tight knot of rapt concentration. As bass notes resonated through the murky darkness, her movements entwined them. Nothing disturbed her as she revolved around the polished pole, like a holographic vision in a giant music box. Finally, she whisked off her last garment.Screaming shouts and wild applause punctuated her curtsied finale. Smiling at the ovation like a prima ballerina, she waved, acknowledging their praise. As she prepared to exit the stage, Redbird hoisted his half-filled pitcher of beer, hurling it at his sister.She dodged the missile, watching it crash into the wall-length mirror behind center stage. An explosion of flying shards liberated the audience as angry patrons closed around Redbird. A fat security guard bullied his way through the crowd. When he reached for Redbird, the tall Native American took a round-house swing and knocked him on his ass. With fists raised, he pivoted in a semi-circle, daring anyone to touch him. Someone did.Willowy arms encircled him; the gentle pressure of soft breasts in the small of his back calmed him like water on a lighted fuse. With fury bleeding from his soul, he allowed the woman to back him to the front door."Get the hell outa here and don't ever come back," the fat security guard called after them.Someone started another song on the jukebox, and another dancer took center stage. Bar patrons grumbled but returned to consuming more beer and watching the next performance. Mousy-haired Anita pushed Joe Redbird into bright August sunlight of the graveled parking lot. He halted when she shouted at him."What right have you got pulling a stunt like that?"Naked, except for a yellow strip of tawdry cloth covering her pubic hair, she waited for his answer. It never came. Instead, his apathetic stare caused her to shield her bare breasts with a perfunctory arm.A pickup passed on the highway, honking its horn and raising dust devils on the blacktop. Heat from late afternoon sun sent perspiration trickling down Redbird's neck. Wiping it away, he continued staring at Anita in silence.They stood like gunfighters preparing to draw their weapons. Brilliant sunlight revealed all the young woman’s physical flaws. Her self-confidence began to wane, and even the rose tattoo on her breast seemed to fade. Redbird stared at stretch marks on her breasts and belly, blinking as he studied her bowed legs. After gazing at angry scars of adolescent acne on her almost pretty face, he turned away.Her shoulders sagged. Taking a single step backward, she tripped on a rock in the uneven parking lot and almost fell.Quivering with emotion, she said, "Victoria is beautiful. Everyone loves to watch her dance. If you didn't want to see, you shouldn't have come."Redbird didn't answer, unsure of what he had seen, or how he felt. Returning to his pickup, he lowered the windows before cranking the engine. The heat felt like the last agonizing breath of a bursting lung.As he pulled out of the parking lot, he glanced again at sad Anita, her arms folded across her bare breasts. Numbed by emotion and too much beer, he spun the tires in loose gravel and drove away back down the lonely blacktop road from where he had come.
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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Ghost of a Chance - chapters

Having grown up only a few miles from Caddo Lake, the largest natural lake in Texas, I remember its mystery, beauty, and danger. My grandmother lived on a farm at the very end of a long dirt road in east Texas, not far from the lake. When I was young, Grandma's house had no electricity. Whenever my brother Jack and I visited her, we watched as she churned butter, drank well water, and burned coal oil in sooty lamps. We listened to panthers and wolves howling outside in the woods at night. Emma Fitzgerald is the first character to appear in my book Ghost of a Chance, and she reminds me a lot of my East Texas grandmother.Texas is a big state, and East Texas reminds you more of the old South than the Wild West. Jefferson was once the largest seaport in the state; as many as twenty-five steamships visited the boom town daily to load cotton to take down the river to New Orleans. Unlike the Wild West, East Texas is hilly, with thick pine forests that the area has been called the "pine curtain."Ghost of a Chance is my first published book and remains as one of my favorites. It features my Oklahoma private investigator Buck McDivit. Buck is visiting east Texas for the first time and quickly becomes a victim of culture shock. I hope you wind up loving both east Texas and Ghost of a Chance. If so, you might like the other two books in the Paranormal Cowboy Series.
Chapter 1
Emma Fitzgerald’s rocking chair creaked as she listened to a chorus of frogs by the lake. Silent lightning snaked across the sky, and angry clouds rolled toward the island. The approaching storm heightened the old woman's senses and sent a chill down her spine.

The storm arrived with lazy raindrops dampening the path to the lake. Emma didn’t notice, her gaze locked on the point of light far across the dark water. Words from behind released her from the spell.

“Miss Emma, you’ll catch your death if you don’t get in this house. You know it’s way past your bedtime.”

“It’s dry beneath the overhang, and I’m not the least bit sleepy. The storm’s blowing in and I’m watching that strange light out there.”

Pearl Johnson opened the screen door and joined Emma Fitzgerald on the porch, shivering when thunder rumbled the rafters. She shielded her eyes from some imagined glare and stared in the direction Emma had pointed.

“I don’t see nothing, Miss Emma.”

“Then I guess you scared it away.”

Pearl frowned and shook her big head. “Come on inside. You been brooding out here since dinner and it’s getting late.”

Emma glanced at her watch’s luminous dial. “Then why are you still here?”

“Cause you’re distressing me the way you’re acting.”

Worry lines on Emma’s face softened into a smile. She stood up from the rocking chair and wrapped her rangy arms around the big woman.

“Don’t fret over me. I’m too old and ornery to let anything get me down very long; least of all a man. Now you run on home to Raymond before the bottom drops out and drenches that pretty yellow dress of yours.”

“You sure?”

Emma pushed Pearl toward the door, waiting until she’d opened the screen and stepped outside.

“Sure as this old lake’s got twelve-foot alligators. Now get on home with you.”

Pearl started to say something. Shaking her head instead, she hurried down the stairs. More thunder shook the rafters as she lumbered toward her own house on the far side of the clearing. Emma settled back into the rocking chair and draped a frayed orange Afghan over her knees. This time the meow of a striped kitten broke her trance.

“Tiger, you little rascal, don’t you know cats hate rain and thunder?”

Tiger didn’t seem to mind the rain, curling up in Emma’s lap and closing his eyes. Pearl had gone in time as falling water swelled into a deafening deluge. The pouring rain pooled up on the roof, finally causing a waterfall to stream from the porch overhang. Emma watched the storm as Tiger ignored it with a contented purr. Neither moved until the tempest had passed, leaving behind hazy moonlight. Grabbing Tiger by the scruff, she carried him inside and deposited him on his kitty bed beside the stove.

“Enough attention for one day, you little rascal,” she said.

Tiger nudged his toy mouse and then returned to contented sleep.

Emma started for the stairs but stopped at the window, staring at the lake. Again, she saw it. The ephemeral glow of circular light had returned, hanging over the dark water. Wrapping the Afghan around her shoulders, she headed for the door.

The hoot of an owl sounded from the distance as Emma followed the mushy path past the boat dock to the water’s edge. Vapor rose off the lake’s surface as she stopped beside a pile of brush and stared across the water.

The rain had moved north, leaving only dancing shadows to frolic over the lake. When an alligator’s knotty head appeared ten feet from Emma’s muddy slippers, she ignored it. The floating light locked her gaze, growing brighter as it approached the bank. As it did, the surrounding mist chilled the muggy air around her.

Emma’s dilated eyes soon made out the vague outline of a girl’s slender body. An apparition surrounded by veils of phosphorescence floating through the fog. Mesmerized, her sense of reality dimmed as the spirit girl approached. The apparition drew ever nearer, her translucent skin glowing. Even her eyes were colorless. Emma focused on something clutched in the spirit girl’s hand.

“Please help me,” the spirit girl whispered.

Emma reached for her hand. She succeeded only in passing her fingers through the damp mist as the spirit’s image began to wane. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, the girl had vanished. Her hand was damp and cold but no longer empty. The object in her hand emitted an eerie pink glow when she opened her palm.

Sounds of someone shoveling damp earth grabbed her attention. The beam of a powerful flashlight overpowered its misty incandescence. Squeezing the object in her hand, she decided to investigate.

Murky shadows replaced moonlight as she followed a path through a maze of creepers and vines. She discovered the origin of the light in a small clearing. Leaning against a cypress trunk, she brushed gray hair from her eyes, gazing at a large hole in the ground. When a hand touched her shoulder, she wheeled around, realizing who was with her in the clearing.

“You scared me half to death. I told you to get the hell off my island and never come back.”

Instead of an answer, she caught the brunt of a shovel across the back of her head. A chorus of bullfrogs began to sing as she toppled into the mire. Miss Emma Fitzgerald never heard them.
Chapter 2
Sheriff Taylor Wright stood knee-deep in shallow water, mopping his forehead with a red bandanna. Remnant humidity from last night’s rain sent rivulets of sweat down his neck, providing dive-bombing mosquitoes a tempting target. Something other than mosquitoes occupied his attention as he brushed the swarming creatures away with a subconscious swat. It was a body, already stiff with rigor.

He waited as Dave Roberts, the assistant medical examiner, and Deputy Sam Goodlake pulled the corpse toward shore. Raymond Johnson and his son Ray watched from the bank. When Roberts and Goodlake reached the shore with the body, Raymond Johnson fell to his knees and began to sob.

“It’s Emma all right,” Dave Roberts said. “Been dead a good ten hours, I’d say.”

Sheriff Wright pushed Raymond away from the body, turning him toward the lodge. “Ray, take your daddy back to the house. Nothing either of you can do here now. I’ll be along directly to ask a few questions.”

When Raymond resisted the sheriff’s advice, Ray took his father’s elbow, gently directing him away from the lifeless body of Emma Fitzgerald. Dr. Tom Proctor, the coroner, and chief medical examiner nudged the corpse with the toe of his boot.

“Looks like Emma got herself tangled in a trotline. Maybe drowned. Her nigrahs seem mighty distraught.”

“What was she doing out in the lake in the middle of a storm?” asked Sam Goodlake, the lanky deputy.

“Good question,” Sheriff Wright said, bending over the body. “Anyone got an answer?”

“She’s holding something,” Dave Roberts said, ignoring Wright’s query as he struggled with Emma’s frozen fingers.

They watched Dave Roberts pry open her hand, revealing a crusty piece of jewelry. After palming it once, he handed it to the sheriff.

“What is it?” Goodlake asked, craning his long neck for a better view.

“Looks like a cameo brooch.”

Sheriff Wright fingered the old brooch, caressing its alabaster edges as Roberts took photos of the body and surrounding area. Something behind Emma’s ear caught the sheriff’s attention. Using both hands, he gently canted the old woman’s chin, brushing aside her salt and pepper hair to expose caked blood that had oozed from a swollen contusion on the back of her head. After a careful rotation, he rested the old woman’s head in soft earth, and then slipped the brooch into his khaki shirt, giving the body one last look.

“Sam, check the lakefront for evidence. I’m taking a little walk down to the lodge to question Pearl and Raymond.”

Sam had already begun helping Dave Roberts stuff Emma’s body into a rubber bag and didn’t bother replying to Wright’s request. A motorboat with a two-stroke engine droned across the lake, causing dozens of turtles to abandon their perches and splash into the water. The commotion failed to interrupt Sheriff Wright’s long stride.

Fitzgerald Lodge loomed in the distance, about a hundred yards from the lake’s edge. Backed by pine and live oak, the rustic abode formed an imposing edifice, dwarfing all other structures and outbuildings on the island. The once active resort had declined in recent years to little more than a worn and neglected fishing camp for locals.

Before her untimely demise, Emma Fitzgerald had planned to change all that. Sheriff Wright recognized the woeful cry of Pearl Johnson as he entered the door, knowing long before seeing her how distraught she must be. He followed her whimpers to Emma’s office at the end of a long hallway. There he found her and husband Raymond, along with Randy Rummels, a local attorney.

“You all right, Pearl?” he asked.

She wiped her mouth and nose with a paper napkin, blinking away her tears. “No sir, sheriff, I ain’t. I still can’t believe Miss Emma’s really dead. I should have hung around last night, knowing how blue she was.”

Taylor scrawled Pearl’s remark in a notebook he carried in the pocket of his Western-cut khaki shirt.

“Wasn’t your fault.”

Raymond banged the big oak desk with his formidable fist. “Miss Emma wouldn’t have gone out in no storm.”

“Calm yourself down. I’m sure no one carried her there,” Sheriff Wright said. “There’s one big bump on the back of her head. Maybe a limb blew down in the wind and knocked her into the lake. Who saw her alive last?”

“Guess it was me,” Pearl said. “I went home last night about ten. About the time the storm hit.”

“What were you doing here so late?”

“Miss Emma was brooding, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

Taylor Wright turned a chair around, straddled it and rested his arms on the backrest. “Brooding about what?”

“Bones Malone. They had an argument, and Miss Emma told him to pack his stuff and move off the island. He left without even bothering to take his things.”

Sheriff Wright digested this tidbit of information. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him around lately. Know where he is, or what they were arguing about?”

Raymond and Pearl exchanged perplexed glances. Pearl said, “Whatever it was, Miss Emma took it pretty hard.”

“You think Bones is involved in Emma’s death?” Wright asked, removing his hat to scratch his bald spot.

“Why hell no,” Raymond said, turning away from the sheriff’s stare and gazing at the hardwood floor. “Maybe they had a little argument. Don’t matter none because I know Bones Malone loved that old lady.”

“Maybe so, but you said yourself Miss Emma wouldn’t have wandered down to the lake in a thunderstorm, no matter how upset she was.”

“She was getting along in age,” Randy Rummels said.

“Eighty,” Raymond said. “And still sharp as any twenty-year-old.”

Sheriff Wright tapped the back of the chair twice, rearranged the hat atop his head, stood and leaned against one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the room.

“What are you doing here, Randy?” he asked. “Smell a healthy legal fee all the way from town?”

Rummels brushed aside Sheriff Wright’s professional slur without protest. “How you doing, Sheriff? Guess you know Daddy was Miss Emma’s lawyer. I’m discussing her estate with Pearl and Raymond. Emma died intestate.”

“You’re full of shit,” Raymond said. “Miss Emma’s had a will for years. I saw it, and so did Pearl. You know it’s true because your daddy wrote it.”

Randy Rummels shook his head. “I’m Emma Fitzgerald’s attorney now, and I’m telling you, she never had a will.”

“Your father was Miss Emma’s lawyer,” Pearl said.

“Well Daddy’s dead, and nothing ever went on in that firm that I don’t know about. Believe me, Emma died intestate.”

Raymond’s glare left no doubt of his emotional frame of mind or his feelings about Rummels’ statement.

“You’re a liar.”

“Who you calling a liar?” Rummels said, jumping to his feet and standing eyeball to eyeball with the larger black man. “You two are just trying to horn in where you don’t belong.”

“Wait just a minute here,” Sheriff Wright said, stepping between the two men. “What difference does it make anyway?”

“Because Miss Emma’s will deeds us half the marina,” Pearl said.”

“Miss Emma couldn’t run it by herself,” Raymond added. “Or afford to pay much in the way of wages. She made up for it by willing us half the marina when she died.”

“You’re dreaming,” Rummels said. “There’s no record of any such transaction.”

Rummels’ declaration was more than Raymond could take. Clinching his hand, he lunged across the desk at the young lawyer. Sheriff Wright interceded again, this time grabbing Raymond’s wrist and backing him up with a combination of arm strength and steely eye contact. Rummels sat down, apparently grateful for the sheriff’s timely intervention.

“The bank has a mortgage on all Emma’s real property. The island, marina, and lodge that is. With no heir and no will,” he said, “Everything left in Emma’s estate will be used to settle her debt with the bank. I got no ax to grind with the Johnsons here. I’d as soon they got the place as have it go to the bank.”

“You’re crazy as hell,” Raymond said. “Miss Emma never borrowed a penny in her life. She don’t owe the bank nothing.”

“We have her signature to prove she does,” Rummels said.

Sheriff Wright glanced at Pearl and Raymond, not letting his glimpse linger. “So what happens to Raymond and Pearl?”

“Nothing,” Rummels said. “They simply vacate the premises.”

“We’ve lived here thirty years,” Pearl said. “Miss Emma sold us the house we live in and the yard around it. She filed the deed at the courthouse in Deception and left a copy in her safety deposit box.”

Rummels simply shook his head. “No deed, no record of a deed, no way.”

Talk of the marina had propelled Raymond into a rapidly disintegrating emotional state. Rocking side to side, he said, “We don’t want a damn thing that ain’t coming to us. Miss Emma didn’t intend to leave Fitzgerald Island to the Bank of Deception. Check it out at the courthouse, and you’ll see we ain’t lying.”

“Never trust a white man,” Randy Rummels said with a smirk. “Or in this case, a white woman.”

Sheriff Wright frowned at Rummels and pointed toward the door. “Why don’t you get the hell out of here? You’re just causing trouble.”

“Not until I finish my business.”

“It’s finished,” Wright said.

Randy Rummels didn’t miss the angry inflection in Sheriff Wright’s voice. Realizing he was already pushing his luck, he folded his portfolio and started for the door.

“Fine. You straighten it out with these people.”

“Watch your tone, Randy,” Wright said. “These people took care of Emma for thirty years and deserve a little respect.”

“The only thing they deserve is a quick trip off the island. I don’t make the rules. I just see they’re carried out.”

Taylor Wright’s own adrenaline was pumping, as was that of young Rummels’. Neither reacted immediately to Pearl’s words.

“Maybe Miss Emma’s heir can settle the bank debt.”

Rummels glanced first at Pearl, then at Wright. “What did you say?”

“I said Miss Emma has an heir.”

“There’s no indication of that,” Rummels said, slamming his portfolio back on the desktop.

“Yes, there is,” Pearl said. “Miss Emma has a nephew in Oklahoma.”

“Says who?” Rummels said.

Pearl opened the top drawer of the desk, took out an opened letter, and handed it to Rummels. After removing the contents slowly, the lawyer made a big production of reading it. When he finished, Sheriff Taylor Wright took it from him.

“What’s this all about?” he asked after glancing at the letter.

“Miss Emma received it about a week ago and couldn’t wait to call the man who sent it. Seems he’s a private investigator in Oklahoma. A young man raised in foster homes.”

“Already sounds bogus to me,” Rummels said.

“It’s the truth,” Pearl said. “When Miss Emma talked with the man on the phone, he told her he could prove he was her nephew.”

“I’ll believe it when I see his proof,” Rummels said.

“What happens until then?” Wright said.

“Not a damn thing.” Rummels turned before reaching the door. Pointing his finger at Raymond, he said, “Until this matter is assessed, don’t run off with anything on this island. Sheriff, I’m holding you responsible.”

Sheriff Wright waited for the front door to slam before handing the letter to Pearl.

“What’s this all about? Emma had no family I know of, and I’ve lived here all my life. Where did this long lost nephew come from?”

“Miss Emma’s wandering brother,” Pearl said. “He had a son while traipsing around the oil patch up in Oklahoma.”

“You think this man is Emma’s nephew and can prove it?”

Pearl lowered her eyes. “Don’t really know, Sheriff Taylor. I just made that part up because that little weasel Rummels made me so mad. The rest is true, though.”

“Could just be a scam artist that sees an opportunity to cut a fat hog. P.I.s search for lost heirs all the time.”

“We don’t know nothing about that,” Raymond said. “I do know Miss Emma thought he was for real. She was going to call Randy Rummels to change her will.”

“Randy says there is no will. Never was one.”

“Uh huh,” Raymond said as he stalked out of the room.

Wright tapped the desktop twice before following him. Halfway into the hall he turned and scratched his head.

“Why would Rummels destroy Emma’s will and let the bank take her property instead of letting you two have a shot at it?”

“You’re the sheriff,” Pearl said. “You tell us.”

Sheriff Taylor Wright tipped his hat. “I’ll check it out.”

“You’ll get your chance, Sheriff. Miss Emma’s nephew is on his way to Texas. James T. McDivit should be here any minute. When he arrives, you can check him out for yourself.”
Chapter 3
James T. “Buck” McDivit had come to Texas for answers. What he found was a giant lake amid a maze of vines, creepers and lily pads; a place that seemed more like Louisiana than Texas. He quickly realized it was different from both states.

Cypress trees grew in abundance, both in the water and out, and Spanish moss, wafting in slow-motion waves, hung from their limbs, caressing the lake’s coffee-colored surface. Only the head of a slow-swimming snake disrupted the lake’s tranquility.

East Texas was a place far different from Buck’s own home on the rolling hills of central Oklahoma. This mysterious locale seemed more like a virtual botanical garden replete with subtropical greenery and a climate to match. He felt a thousand miles from home.

Interstate highway, replaced by rural Texas blacktop, had long since disappeared in his rearview mirror. Untended hollyhocks, blooming in lavender flower falls that saturated humid air with their cloying fragrances grew wild beside the road. Damp pathways, none leading anywhere in particular, pierced the tangle of vegetation as a flock of cattle egrets winged high overhead.

Egrets weren’t the only wildlife in abundance, nor were oak, cypress, and Hollyhock the only plants bordering the road. Cascades of blue impatiens, crimson-blossomed rosebushes, and clumps of green willow painted the terrain from a diverse palette of color. When a trucker blew his horn, waving an angry fist as he sped past, Buck realized he had slowed to less than twenty miles an hour. Taking the warning to heart, he pressed the accelerator and followed him.

Dense vegetation parted as he rounded the next bend. It left him little time to worry about the angry trucker and prevented him from further gawking at the birds and wildflowers. In front of him lay a sleepy Victorian village dwarfed by the mammoth lake. Buck quickly realized Deception, Texas was the literal end of the road.

 Deception, once a riverboat stop along the way between New Orleans and Jefferson, was situated many secluded miles from the nearest Interstate highway. The old riverboat port had managed to preserve much of its antebellum flavor. Many buildings, some with ornate decks jutting out over the water, still fronted the lake. Tourists wandered the narrow streets, gazing at storefront displays or licking Sno-cones purchased from vendors vying for space in the town square. Buck parked his Ramcharger and stepped out for a better look.

Near a little park fronting the lake, Buck discovered everything wasn’t old. Bulldozers and heavy equipment were at work clearing trees and leveling dirt. Someone was building something large and incongruous with the sleepy village and had already cut a large brown swath across the flourishing sea of green.

He completed a quick swing through Deception before returning to his truck and driving to the rear of the Pelican Restaurant. An attorney awaited inside the Pelican to discuss his late aunt’s estate. Their recent telephone conversation had left Buck leery about their impending meeting and little doubt that the attorney considered him a money-seeking opportunist.

Afternoon shadows had begun draping the village as gray clouds formed out over the lake. The back of the restaurant seemed unexceptional except for the stacks of fish traps and piles of gill netting strewn across the ground. As he scanned the area, someone came crashing through the screen door. The disruption ended his thoughts about his meeting with the attorney.

A man that looked big enough to take care of himself tumbled across the loading dock, slamming headfirst into a packing crate. Lying in a daze, he rubbed his head as two men piled out the door after him.

“Get your black ass out of here,” the first attacker said, delivering a vicious kick to the fallen man’s ribs.

The big man managed to roll off the dock and crawl on his hands and knees to shelter behind a broken fish trap.

“Next time use the back door,” the second attacker said. “Our customers don’t want no stinking niggah shuffling past their tables while they’re trying to eat.”

The two men halted their attack but stood at the door, glaring at the black man on his knees below them. The taller of the two was bone thin with scraggly hair capping his acne-scarred face. His shorter partner, whose diminutive height probably resulted from some congenital deformity, was anything but thin. He stood hunched over in a permanent crouch, a large hump crowning his twisted back. Neither man would have had much luck in a beauty contest.

Buck could tell by their attitudes they probably liked it that way. He waited until they’d slammed the door behind them before helping the big man to his feet.

“You okay?”

“Take more than those two to get the best of ol’ Raymond Johnson,” the man said, dusting himself off.

“Looks to me like they did a pretty good job.”

“They got the drop on me when my back was turned,” Raymond Johnson said, rubbing his jaw.

“Take it easy big fellow and next time watch your back,” Buck said.

He quickly forgot the incident and strolled to the front of the restaurant. Daylight was waning, but the cobbled parking lot continued radiating heat absorbed from late afternoon sun. He found it cooler inside, frigid air chilling the perspiration on his forehead as he opened the restaurant door. Wiping his face with his handkerchief, he greeted the hostess waiting in the entryway.

“I’m meeting a man named Rummels,” Buck said. “Know if he’s here yet?”

The young woman was dressed in a colorful period costume. Antebellum, he guessed. She had a friendly smile, a red bow in her hair, and made him feel welcome. The woman’s warm smile was no accident. Buck McDivit was young, tall, and good-looking, with the body of a trained athlete and piercing blue eyes of a movie star. Dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and western-cut shirt, he could have passed as a young John Wayne.

“Mister Rummels just phoned,” she said, quickly flipping through the guest register on the entryway lectern. “I’ll seat you, and you can wait for him in the dining area.”

She led Buck into the main dining room where potted ferns hung in garlands from rough-hewn rafters. Checkerboard tablecloths draped wooden tables, and the restaurant’s rustic decor blended perfectly with the aroma of frying cornmeal floating in from the kitchen. An outside veranda flanked the room on three sides. A damp breeze moved along by slow-moving ceiling fans, wafted in through the open door.

“Enjoy your dinner,” she said, seating him at a corner table overlooking the lake.

Buck barely had time to adjust his chair and stare out at the darkening sky before a waitress appeared and asked him what he wanted to drink. Her red bow went well with a thick thatch of black hair and her own colorful period dress.

She smiled when he said, “Coors, please and keep the frosted mug.”

Buck had finished his beer before Raymond Rummels arrived. Rummels was wearing dark pinstripes, despite the oppressive outside heat, and a constipated smile. He looked about thirty, trying to pass for fifty.

“You James T. McDivit?”

“One in the same,” Buck said, reaching to shake the young lawyer’s hand.

Rummels joined him at the table, not bothering to thank their waitress when she brought him a Manhattan, and Buck another Coors.

“Catfish is the specialty of the house,” he said.

Buck gave the young woman a thumb up and said, “Sounds good to me.”

Rummels dismissed her with a dispassionate nod. “I’ll come right to the point, McDivit. I’m unaware of any heirs to the Emma Fitzgerald estate. She had no children, adopted or otherwise. Her only brother died years ago in an oil field accident in Oklahoma. To my knowledge, he had no children.”

“He had one,” Buck said. “Me.”

“Then why is there no record of his marriage, or your birth?”

“Because he never married. He carried on for a while with a teenage girl, my mother, and I was the result. The family forced her to give me up.”

“Why didn’t you come forward before now?”

“I didn’t know I had any relatives until recently. I’m a private investigator in Oklahoma City. While reviewing some public records for a client, I came across a newspaper article that got me thinking about my own roots. Once I decided to track down my parents, the rest was easy. John McDivit was definitely my father.”

“Can you prove it?”

Buck handed Rummels a package of information and waited as he pawed through it.

“What is all this?” the lawyer asked.

“Birth certificate, eye-witness accounts, and a statement from my mother. She had pictures, some belongings, and even John McDivit’s medical records. There’s no doubt I’m his son and that he was the younger brother of Emma Fitzgerald.”

“These could be forgeries.”

“They’re not.”

“How do I know that?”

“You’d believe a federal judge, wouldn’t you?”

The hint of a snicker appeared on Rummels’ face but vanished just as quickly. “You bring one with you?”

“No, but I have this affidavit.”

Buck handed Rummels a letter his old friend Judge Beamon Dawkins had written for him before leaving Oklahoma. In it, Judge Beamon attested to Buck’s good word and the authenticity of the documents he’d presented the lawyer. Rummels held the letter long enough to read it three times.

“Excuse me a moment,” he finally said, hurrying away from the table without explanation.

Remnant daylight had all but disappeared, replaced now by intermittent lightning that veined the sky over the lake. Thunder, shaking the roof and windows, soon followed, causing the lights to dim. Rummels rejoined Buck at the table.

“Assuming your papers are in order and you inherit Emma Fitzgerald’s estate, what exactly do you intend to do with it?”

“Don’t know,” Buck said. “It was never my intention to stake out my aunt’s estate. I only wanted to meet the old lady and discuss my father’s family with her.”

“Then you deny your inheritance?”

“Didn’t say that. What exactly is my inheritance?”

Rummels cleared his throat, finished his Manhattan, and waved for another.

“Emma Fitzgerald’s estate consists of an island on Caddo Lake and everything on it. She has some money in the bank. Just enough to pay for the probate.”

“What about the island?” Buck asked.

“Emma Fitzgerald operated a lodge and fishing camp, discontinuing lodge service about four years ago. Though the marina is still operable, there are a couple of problems, Mr. McDivit.”

“Such as?”

“Emma Fitzgerald borrowed money from the bank last year to remodel the lodge and marina. She put up the island as collateral. Emma failed to make a payment on the note for the last six months, and the bank had begun foreclosure proceedings before her death. The hearing is in ten days. If you want to prevent the foreclosure, you have ten days to repay the bank loan, along with court costs and accumulated attorney fees.”

“That’s not much notice. You mentioned a second problem.”

Rummels rustled his yellow pad, leaning forward in his chair. “They found Emma Fitzgerald floating in the lake. Pearl Johnson, her housekeeper, says she was despondent. The coroner considered that and ruled her death a suicide. I’m afraid that nullifies Emma’s life insurance.”

“No one said anything to me about life insurance or suicide.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “When they found Emma, she had something in her hand,” Rummels dropped a crusted cameo brooch into Buck’s open palm. “Depression sometimes takes people to the edge. In Emma’s case, it sent her over the edge.”

Nearby thunder shook the rafters followed by slow rain drumming the roof and windows.

Rummels brow furrowed when Buck asked, “What if I pay off the note?”

“Well, of course, you have that option. Is that your plan?”

Buck had neither assets nor collateral to satisfy Aunt Emma’s note. Rummels didn’t know that. Tapping his chin as if he were considering it, he said, “Don’t know yet.”

“Pardon me a moment,” Rummels said. He returned shortly with another man. “This is Mr. Hogg Nation. He owns the Pelican.”

The distinguished gentleman with the odd name had green eyes, short hair, and specks of white frosting his head. Despite his hair color, his face proclaimed him no older than forty.

“At your disposal, Mr. McDivit. Hope you’re enjoying our hospitality. Your meal and drinks are on the house tonight.”

Buck managed a nod and half smile. Raymond Rummels was wringing his hands, his own expression having turned sour.

“Mr. Nation is also my client. He wishes to purchase Fitzgerald Island from you. Two-hundred thousand dollars is a generous offer, Mr. McDivit. Enough to pay the bank note and leave twenty-five thousand for your troubles.”

Nation’s proposal caught Buck by surprise. When he finally managed a reply, he said, “Thanks, but I’d like to visit the island before I decide.”

“Take your time and enjoy the catfish,” Nation said, moving away toward the kitchen.

Randy Rummels remained standing until his client had departed, the waitress arriving with a bell-shaped glass filled with an icy concoction.

“Mr. Nation would like you to try a Hurricane. It’s the house specialty.”

She winked and hurried away.

It was raining harder now, water beading down the picture window in soft sheets. Buck sipped the sugary drink. Rain and alcohol had all but hypnotized him when a familiar high-pitched voice returned his attention to the restaurant. Staring across the crowded room, he spotted the two men involved in the incident behind the restaurant. They were drinking and talking loudly, even above the din of the crowd.

“Who are those two men?”

Rummels was chewing on the straw of his Manhattan. “Humpback and Deacon John,” he said. “They work for Mr. Nation.” Before Buck could inquire further, the lawyer glanced at his watch. “I have another appointment. Raymond Johnson, an employee of the marina on Fitzgerald Island, will pick you up shortly and take you there.” Handing Buck his business card, he said, “You have ten days to make up your mind.”

Thunder shook the roof as Randy Rummels tapped the back of his chair and started away. Buck wondered, as the lawyer departed, why the man’s crooked grin gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his gut.

The friendly waitress soon appeared with hush puppies, catfish, and another hurricane. Buck handed her his empty glass and took a quick gulp from the fresh drink. The spicy catfish tasted wonderful and whetted his growing thirst. He was feeling light-headed when the waitress appeared for the final time.

“Raymond Johnson is waiting for you on the back porch,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said, stumbling when he tried to get out of the chair. “Which way?”

She pointed him to the back door. He was surprised when he realized the person waiting for him was the large black man involved in the scuffle behind the restaurant. Before he could ponder the coincidence, he caught his foot on a net and tumbled into the big man’s outstretched arms.

“Have yourself a little too much of Mr. Nation’s hospitality?”

“Guess I did. Was that you that got yourself kicked out the door a little earlier?”

“Mr. Nation’s boys,” he said without explanation. “You probably don’t remember me. I’m Raymond Johnson. You Mr. McDivit?”

“Buck.”

Johnson stared at Buck McDivit’s extended hand and finally shook it. “If you ain’t through eating yet, I’ll wait out here.”

“I’m done,” Buck said, unable to stifle a drunken giggle.

“Good. Don’t need no more trouble tonight. Let’s get out of here.”

Concurring with Johnson, Buck followed him off the porch. By now, his head was swimming. His vision was blurry, and tongue thick.

“Where’s your car?” Raymond asked.

“Truck’s in the back.”

The big black man grabbed Buck, supporting his weight and ignoring his helpless giggles. Raymond left him on the steps while he retrieved his suitcase from the truck. The rain had slackened as he herded him and his bag down the slope to the lake where a gentle breeze was blowing across the water. It caused the boat, and Buck’s head on the side of the boat, to rock with the waves. Raymond Johnson untied the bowline and pushed away from the dock.

“Couple of miles to the island,” he said, maneuvering through a stand of cypress trees surrounding the shadow-dark shoreline. “You okay?”

Buck answered with a giddy laugh. “I think someone spiked my drink.”

“Sure they did,” Johnson said as the high-pitched outboard motor drowned out Buck’s slurred words and any further attempt at conversation.

As the boat glided across the rain-dimpled water, Buck closed his eyes, his mind awash with flickering moonbeams splaying the lake’s murky surface. Half an hour later, they landed on the island. When they reached a large two-storied house, Raymond Johnson dragged him upstairs and dumped him on a feather bed.

The suitcase made a hollow thump when it hit the floor, the door shutting behind Raymond as he exited with a damp swoosh. Locked in a drunken stupor, Buck didn’t really care.

He lay there for what seemed like hours, mesmerized by slow rain drumming the tin roof as he stared at the ceiling’s darkness. He finally stumbled out of bed, hoping to find an aspirin for his throbbing head. Unable to locate the lights or an appropriate pill, he embarked instead on a late-night tour of the house.

Moonlight through open windows guided him back down the stairs where he found a liquor cabinet amid stormy shadows and resident gloom. What the hell, he thought. A little hair of the dog couldn’t make him feel any worse than he already did. Shattering one of the bottles in an eruption of flying glass, the ensuing explosion failed to deter him. Slugging whiskey straight from an unbroken bottle, he headed down a dark hallway, glassy shards crunching beneath his boots.

Buck stumbled through the house, finally finding a door that led outside. Soft rain continued falling, a few rays of moonlight penetrating the cover of clouds. Reflections off the lake beckoned. Wobbling toward the water’s edge, he dribbled whiskey from his open mouth and down his neck, and then howled at the moon. When he reached the lake, he tripped on a cypress knee, tumbling into the mud. Revived by the dank odor of warm rain and rotting vegetation, he watched dull light radiate from a pinpoint across the lake. This time it wasn’t the moon. Even after rubbing his eyes, he couldn’t make it disappear. Instead, it grew larger, drawing ever closer.

Sitting in the mud, too stunned to move, he swayed as the vague outline of a veil-shrouded apparition floated toward him. He bit his lip, pain failing to convince him he was coherent. When the apparition stopped directly before him, he could see it was a girl.

A translucent shawl clung to her thin frame, icy mist drifting around her shoulders, chilling warm night air. Tears flowed down her cheeks. When she reached out to him, his neck grew inexplicably warm. Aunt Emma’s brooch in his hand began pulsating with pink light as the translucent body of the ghostly vision gleamed brightly.

He blinked, opening his eyes to see the girl had disappeared, leaving him unsure of what he’d seen. Still very much inebriated, he managed to stumble back to the lodge, where he passed out before hitting the sheets.

###


Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You can also check out his Facebook page.

Ghost of a Chance - an excerpt

Having grown up only a few miles from Caddo Lake, the largest natural lake in Texas, I remember its mystery, beauty, and danger. My grandmother lived on a farm at the very end of a long dirt road, not far from the lake, in east Texas. When I was young, Grandma's house had no electricity. Whenever my brother Jack and I visited her, we watched as she churned butter, drank well water, and burned coal oil in sooty lamps. At night we listened to panthers and wolves howling outside in the woods. Emma Fitzgerald is the first character to appear in my book Ghost of a Chance and she reminds me a lot of my east Texas grandmother.Texas is a big state and east Texas reminds you more of the old south than the wild west. The town of Jefferson was once the largest seaport in the state and as many as twenty-five steamships visited the boom town daily to load up cotton to take down the river to New Orleans. Unlike the wild west, east Texas is hilly with pine forests so thick the area has been called the "pine curtain."Ghost of a Chance is my first published book and remains as one of my favorites. It features my Oklahoma private investigator Buck McDivit. Buck is visiting east Texas for the first time and quickly becomes a victim of culture shock. I hope you wind up loving both east Texas and Ghost of a Chance. If so, you might like the other two books in the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Thanks for giving the first three chapters a read.  
Chapter 1
Emma Fitzgerald’s rocking chair creaked as she listened to a chorus of frogs down by the lake. Silent lightning snaked across the sky, and angry clouds rolled toward the island. The approaching storm heightened the old woman's senses and sent a chill down her spine.The storm arrived with lazy raindrops dampening the path to the lake. Emma didn’t notice, her gaze locked on the point of light far across the dark water. Words from behind released her from the spell.“Miss Emma, you’ll catch your death if you don’t get in this house. You know it’s way past your bedtime.”“It’s dry beneath the overhang, and I’m not the least bit sleepy. The storm’s blowing in and I’m watching that strange light out there.”Pearl Johnson opened the screen door and joined Emma Fitzgerald on the porch, shivering when thunder rumbled the rafters. She shielded her eyes from some imagined glare and stared in the direction Emma had pointed.“I don’t see nothing, Miss Emma.”“Then I guess you scared it away.”Pearl frowned and shook her big head. “Come on inside. You been brooding out here since dinner and it’s getting late.”Emma glanced at her watch’s luminous dial. “Then why are you still here?”“Cause you’re distressing me the way you’re acting.”Worry lines on Emma’s face softened into a smile. She stood up from the rocking chair and wrapped her rangy arms around the big woman.“Don’t fret over me. I’m too old and ornery to let anything get me down very long; least of all a man. Now you run on home to Raymond before the bottom drops out and drenches that pretty yellow dress of yours.”“You sure?”Emma pushed Pearl toward the door, waiting until she’d opened the screen and stepped outside.“Sure as this old lake’s got twelve-foot alligators. Now get on home with you.”Pearl started to say something. Shaking her head instead, she hurried down the stairs. More thunder shook the rafters as she lumbered toward her own house on the far side of the clearing. Emma settled back into the rocking chair and draped a frayed orange Afghan over her knees. This time the meow of a striped kitten broke her trance.“Tiger, you little rascal, don’t you know cats hate rain and thunder?”Tiger didn’t seem to mind the rain, curling up in Emma’s lap and closing his eyes. Pearl had gone in time as falling water swelled into a deafening deluge. The pouring rain pooled up on the roof, finally causing a waterfall to stream from the porch overhang. Emma watched the storm as Tiger ignored it with a contented purr. Neither moved until the tempest had passed, leaving behind hazy moonlight. Grabbing Tiger by the scruff, she carried him inside and deposited him on his kitty bed beside the stove.“Enough attention for one day, you little rascal,” she said.Tiger nudged his toy mouse and then returned to contented sleep.Emma started for the stairs but stopped at the window, staring at the lake. Again, she saw it. The ephemeral glow of circular light had returned, hanging over the dark water. Wrapping the Afghan around her shoulders, she headed for the door.The hoot of an owl sounded from the distance as Emma followed the mushy path past the boat dock to the water’s edge. Vapor rose off the lake’s surface as she stopped beside a pile of brush and stared across the water.The rain had moved north, leaving only dancing shadows to frolic over the lake. When an alligator’s knotty head appeared ten feet from Emma’s muddy slippers, she ignored it. The floating light locked her gaze, growing brighter as it approached the bank. As it did, the surrounding mist chilled the muggy air around her.Emma’s dilated eyes soon made out the vague outline of a girl’s slender body. An apparition surrounded by veils of phosphorescence floating through the fog. Mesmerized, her sense of reality dimmed as the spirit girl approached. The apparition drew ever nearer, her translucent skin glowing. Even her eyes were colorless. Emma focused on something clutched in the spirit girl’s hand.“Please help me,” the spirit girl whispered.Emma reached for her hand. She succeeded only in passing her fingers through the damp mist as the spirit’s image began to wane. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, the girl had vanished. Her hand was damp and cold but no longer empty. The object in her hand emitted an eerie pink glow when she opened her palm.Sounds of someone shoveling damp earth grabbed her attention. The beam of a powerful flashlight overpowered its misty incandescence. Squeezing the object in her hand, she decided to investigate.Murky shadows replaced moonlight as she followed a path through a maze of creepers and vines. She discovered the origin of the light in a small clearing. Leaning against a cypress trunk, she brushed gray hair from her eyes, gazing at a large hole in the ground. When a hand touched her shoulder, she wheeled around, realizing who was with her in the clearing.“You scared me half to death. I told you to get the hell off my island and never come back.”Instead of an answer, she caught the brunt of a shovel across the back of her head. A chorus of bullfrogs began to sing as she toppled into the mire. Miss Emma Fitzgerald never heard them.
Chapter 2
Sheriff Taylor Wright stood knee-deep in shallow water, mopping his forehead with a red bandanna. Remnant humidity from last night’s rain sent rivulets of sweat down his neck, providing dive-bombing mosquitoes a tempting target. Something other than mosquitoes occupied his attention as he brushed the swarming creatures away with a subconscious swat. It was a body, already stiff with rigor.He waited as Dave Roberts, the assistant medical examiner, and Deputy Sam Goodlake pulled the corpse toward shore. Raymond Johnson and his son Ray watched from the bank. When Roberts and Goodlake reached the shore with the body, Raymond Johnson fell to his knees and began to sob.“It’s Emma all right,” Dave Roberts said. “Been dead a good ten hours, I’d say.”Sheriff Wright pushed Raymond away from the body, turning him toward the lodge. “Ray, take your daddy back to the house. Nothing either of you can do here now. I’ll be along directly to ask a few questions.”When Raymond resisted the sheriff’s advice, Ray took his father’s elbow, gently directing him away from the lifeless body of Emma Fitzgerald. Dr. Tom Proctor, the coroner, and chief medical examiner nudged the corpse with the toe of his boot.“Looks like Emma got herself tangled in a trotline. Maybe drowned. Her nigrahs seem mighty distraught.”“What was she doing out in the lake in the middle of a storm?” asked Sam Goodlake, the lanky deputy.“Good question,” Sheriff Wright said, bending over the body. “Anyone got an answer?”“She’s holding something,” Dave Roberts said, ignoring Wright’s query as he struggled with Emma’s frozen fingers.They watched Dave Roberts pry open her hand, revealing a crusty piece of jewelry. After palming it once, he handed it to the sheriff.“What is it?” Goodlake asked, craning his long neck for a better view.“Looks like a cameo brooch.”Sheriff Wright fingered the old brooch, caressing its alabaster edges as Roberts took photos of the body and surrounding area. Something behind Emma’s ear caught the sheriff’s attention. Using both hands, he gently canted the old woman’s chin, brushing aside her salt and pepper hair to expose caked blood that had oozed from a swollen contusion on the back of her head. After a careful rotation, he rested the old woman’s head in soft earth, and then slipped the brooch into his khaki shirt, giving the body one last look.“Sam, check the lakefront for evidence. I’m taking a little walk down to the lodge to question Pearl and Raymond.”Sam had already begun helping Dave Roberts stuff Emma’s body into a rubber bag and didn’t bother replying to Wright’s request. A motorboat with a two-stroke engine droned across the lake, causing dozens of turtles to abandon their perches and splash into the water. The commotion failed to interrupt Sheriff Wright’s long stride.Fitzgerald Lodge loomed in the distance, about a hundred yards from the lake’s edge. Backed by pine and live oak, the rustic abode formed an imposing edifice, dwarfing all other structures and outbuildings on the island. The once active resort had declined in recent years to little more than a worn and neglected fishing camp for locals.Before her untimely demise, Emma Fitzgerald had planned to change all that. Sheriff Wright recognized the woeful cry of Pearl Johnson as he entered the door, knowing long before seeing her how distraught she must be. He followed her whimpers to Emma’s office at the end of a long hallway. There he found her and husband Raymond, along with Randy Rummels, a local attorney.“You all right, Pearl?” he asked.She wiped her mouth and nose with a paper napkin, blinking away her tears. “No sir, sheriff, I ain’t. I still can’t believe Miss Emma’s really dead. I should have hung around last night, knowing how blue she was.”Taylor scrawled Pearl’s remark in a notebook he carried in the pocket of his Western-cut khaki shirt.“Wasn’t your fault.”Raymond banged the big oak desk with his formidable fist. “Miss Emma wouldn’t have gone out in no storm.”“Calm yourself down. I’m sure no one carried her there,” Sheriff Wright said. “There’s one big bump on the back of her head. Maybe a limb blew down in the wind and knocked her into the lake. Who saw her alive last?”“Guess it was me,” Pearl said. “I went home last night about ten. About the time the storm hit.”“What were you doing here so late?”“Miss Emma was brooding, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.”Taylor Wright turned a chair around, straddled it and rested his arms on the backrest. “Brooding about what?”“Bones Malone. They had an argument, and Miss Emma told him to pack his stuff and move off the island. He left without even bothering to take his things.”Sheriff Wright digested this tidbit of information. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him around lately. Know where he is, or what they were arguing about?”Raymond and Pearl exchanged perplexed glances. Pearl said, “Whatever it was, Miss Emma took it pretty hard.”“You think Bones is involved in Emma’s death?” Wright asked, removing his hat to scratch his bald spot.“Why hell no,” Raymond said, turning away from the sheriff’s stare and gazing at the hardwood floor. “Maybe they had a little argument. Don’t matter none because I know Bones Malone loved that old lady.”“Maybe so, but you said yourself Miss Emma wouldn’t have wandered down to the lake in a thunderstorm, no matter how upset she was.”“She was getting along in age,” Randy Rummels said.“Eighty,” Raymond said. “And still sharp as any twenty-year-old.”Sheriff Wright tapped the back of the chair twice, rearranged the hat atop his head, stood and leaned against one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the room.“What are you doing here, Randy?” he asked. “Smell a healthy legal fee all the way from town?”Rummels brushed aside Sheriff Wright’s professional slur without protest. “How you doing, Sheriff? Guess you know Daddy was Miss Emma’s lawyer. I’m discussing her estate with Pearl and Raymond. Emma died intestate.”“You’re full of shit,” Raymond said. “Miss Emma’s had a will for years. I saw it, and so did Pearl. You know it’s true because your daddy wrote it.”Randy Rummels shook his head. “I’m Emma Fitzgerald’s attorney now, and I’m telling you, she never had a will.”“Your father was Miss Emma’s lawyer,” Pearl said.“Well Daddy’s dead, and nothing ever went on in that firm that I don’t know about. Believe me, Emma died intestate.”Raymond’s glare left no doubt of his emotional frame of mind or his feelings about Rummels’ statement.“You’re a liar.”“Who you calling a liar?” Rummels said, jumping to his feet and standing eyeball to eyeball with the larger black man. “You two are just trying to horn in where you don’t belong.”“Wait just a minute here,” Sheriff Wright said, stepping between the two men. “What difference does it make anyway?”“Because Miss Emma’s will deeds us half the marina,” Pearl said.”“Miss Emma couldn’t run it by herself,” Raymond added. “Or afford to pay much in the way of wages. She made up for it by willing us half the marina when she died.”“You’re dreaming,” Rummels said. “There’s no record of any such transaction.”Rummels’ declaration was more than Raymond could take. Clinching his hand, he lunged across the desk at the young lawyer. Sheriff Wright interceded again, this time grabbing Raymond’s wrist and backing him up with a combination of arm strength and steely eye contact. Rummels sat down, apparently grateful for the sheriff’s timely intervention.“The bank has a mortgage on all Emma’s real property. The island, marina, and lodge that is. With no heir and no will,” he said, “Everything left in Emma’s estate will be used to settle her debt with the bank. I got no ax to grind with the Johnsons here. I’d as soon they got the place as have it go to the bank.”“You’re crazy as hell,” Raymond said. “Miss Emma never borrowed a penny in her life. She don’t owe the bank nothing.”“We have her signature to prove she does,” Rummels said.Sheriff Wright glanced at Pearl and Raymond, not letting his glimpse linger. “So what happens to Raymond and Pearl?”“Nothing,” Rummels said. “They simply vacate the premises.”“We’ve lived here thirty years,” Pearl said. “Miss Emma sold us the house we live in and the yard around it. She filed the deed at the courthouse in Deception and left a copy in her safety deposit box.”Rummels simply shook his head. “No deed, no record of a deed, no way.”Talk of the marina had propelled Raymond into a rapidly disintegrating emotional state. Rocking side to side, he said, “We don’t want a damn thing that ain’t coming to us. Miss Emma didn’t intend to leave Fitzgerald Island to the Bank of Deception. Check it out at the courthouse, and you’ll see we ain’t lying.”“Never trust a white man,” Randy Rummels said with a smirk. “Or in this case, a white woman.”Sheriff Wright frowned at Rummels and pointed toward the door. “Why don’t you get the hell out of here? You’re just causing trouble.”“Not until I finish my business.”“It’s finished,” Wright said.Randy Rummels didn’t miss the angry inflection in Sheriff Wright’s voice. Realizing he was already pushing his luck, he folded his portfolio and started for the door.“Fine. You straighten it out with these people.”“Watch your tone, Randy,” Wright said. “These people took care of Emma for thirty years and deserve a little respect.”“The only thing they deserve is a quick trip off the island. I don’t make the rules. I just see they’re carried out.”Taylor Wright’s own adrenaline was pumping, as was that of young Rummels’. Neither reacted immediately to Pearl’s words.“Maybe Miss Emma’s heir can settle the bank debt.”Rummels glanced first at Pearl, then at Wright. “What did you say?”“I said Miss Emma has an heir.”“There’s no indication of that,” Rummels said, slamming his portfolio back on the desktop.“Yes, there is,” Pearl said. “Miss Emma has a nephew in Oklahoma.”“Says who?” Rummels said.Pearl opened the top drawer of the desk, took out an opened letter, and handed it to Rummels. After removing the contents slowly, the lawyer made a big production of reading it. When he finished, Sheriff Taylor Wright took it from him.“What’s this all about?” he asked after glancing at the letter.“Miss Emma received it about a week ago and couldn’t wait to call the man who sent it. Seems he’s a private investigator in Oklahoma. A young man raised in foster homes.”“Already sounds bogus to me,” Rummels said.“It’s the truth,” Pearl said. “When Miss Emma talked with the man on the phone, he told her he could prove he was her nephew.”“I’ll believe it when I see his proof,” Rummels said.“What happens until then?” Wright said.“Not a damn thing.” Rummels turned before reaching the door. Pointing his finger at Raymond, he said, “Until this matter is assessed, don’t run off with anything on this island. Sheriff, I’m holding you responsible.”Sheriff Wright waited for the front door to slam before handing the letter to Pearl.“What’s this all about? Emma had no family I know of, and I’ve lived here all my life. Where did this long lost nephew come from?”“Miss Emma’s wandering brother,” Pearl said. “He had a son while traipsing around the oil patch up in Oklahoma.”“You think this man is Emma’s nephew and can prove it?”Pearl lowered her eyes. “Don’t really know, Sheriff Taylor. I just made that part up because that little weasel Rummels made me so mad. The rest is true, though.”“Could just be a scam artist that sees an opportunity to cut a fat hog. P.I.s search for lost heirs all the time.”“We don’t know nothing about that,” Raymond said. “I do know Miss Emma thought he was for real. She was going to call Randy Rummels to change her will.”“Randy says there is no will. Never was one.”“Uh huh,” Raymond said as he stalked out of the room.Wright tapped the desktop twice before following him. Halfway into the hall he turned and scratched his head.“Why would Rummels destroy Emma’s will and let the bank take her property instead of letting you two have a shot at it?”“You’re the sheriff,” Pearl said. “You tell us.”Sheriff Taylor Wright tipped his hat. “I’ll check it out.”“You’ll get your chance, Sheriff. Miss Emma’s nephew is on his way to Texas. James T. McDivit should be here any minute. When he arrives, you can check him out for yourself.”
Chapter 3
James T. “Buck” McDivit had come to Texas for answers. What he found was a giant lake amid a maze of vines, creepers and lily pads; a place that seemed more like Louisiana than Texas. He quickly realized it was different from both states.Cypress trees grew in abundance, both in the water and out, and Spanish moss, wafting in slow-motion waves, hung from their limbs, caressing the lake’s coffee-colored surface. Only the head of a slow-swimming snake disrupted the lake’s tranquility.East Texas was a place far different from Buck’s own home on the rolling hills of central Oklahoma. This mysterious locale seemed more like a virtual botanical garden replete with subtropical greenery and a climate to match. He felt a thousand miles from home.Interstate highway, replaced by rural Texas blacktop, had long since disappeared in his rearview mirror. Untended hollyhocks, blooming in lavender flower falls that saturated humid air with their cloying fragrances grew wild beside the road. Damp pathways, none leading anywhere in particular, pierced the tangle of vegetation as a flock of cattle egrets winged high overhead.Egrets weren’t the only wildlife in abundance, nor were oak, cypress, and Hollyhock the only plants bordering the road. Cascades of blue impatiens, crimson-blossomed rosebushes, and clumps of green willow painted the terrain from a diverse palette of color. When a trucker blew his horn, waving an angry fist as he sped past, Buck realized he had slowed to less than twenty miles an hour. Taking the warning to heart, he pressed the accelerator and followed him.Dense vegetation parted as he rounded the next bend. It left him little time to worry about the angry trucker and prevented him from further gawking at the birds and wildflowers. In front of him lay a sleepy Victorian village dwarfed by the mammoth lake. Buck quickly realized Deception, Texas was the literal end of the road. Deception, once a riverboat stop along the way between New Orleans and Jefferson, was situated many secluded miles from the nearest Interstate highway. The old riverboat port had managed to preserve much of its antebellum flavor. Many buildings, some with ornate decks jutting out over the water, still fronted the lake. Tourists wandered the narrow streets, gazing at storefront displays or licking Sno-cones purchased from vendors vying for space in the town square. Buck parked his Ramcharger and stepped out for a better look.Near a little park fronting the lake, Buck discovered everything wasn’t old. Bulldozers and heavy equipment were at work clearing trees and leveling dirt. Someone was building something large and incongruous with the sleepy village and had already cut a large brown swath across the flourishing sea of green.He completed a quick swing through Deception before returning to his truck and driving to the rear of the Pelican Restaurant. An attorney awaited inside the Pelican to discuss his late aunt’s estate. Their recent telephone conversation had left Buck leery about their impending meeting and little doubt that the attorney considered him a money-seeking opportunist.Afternoon shadows had begun draping the village as gray clouds formed out over the lake. The back of the restaurant seemed unexceptional except for the stacks of fish traps and piles of gill netting strewn across the ground. As he scanned the area, someone came crashing through the screen door. The disruption ended his thoughts about his meeting with the attorney.A man that looked big enough to take care of himself tumbled across the loading dock, slamming headfirst into a packing crate. Lying in a daze, he rubbed his head as two men piled out the door after him.“Get your black ass out of here,” the first attacker said, delivering a vicious kick to the fallen man’s ribs.The big man managed to roll off the dock and crawl on his hands and knees to shelter behind a broken fish trap.“Next time use the back door,” the second attacker said. “Our customers don’t want no stinking niggah shuffling past their tables while they’re trying to eat.”The two men halted their attack but stood at the door, glaring at the black man on his knees below them. The taller of the two was bone thin with scraggly hair capping his acne-scarred face. His shorter partner, whose diminutive height probably resulted from some congenital deformity, was anything but thin. He stood hunched over in a permanent crouch, a large hump crowning his twisted back. Neither man would have had much luck in a beauty contest.Buck could tell by their attitudes they probably liked it that way. He waited until they’d slammed the door behind them before helping the big man to his feet.“You okay?”“Take more than those two to get the best of ol’ Raymond Johnson,” the man said, dusting himself off.“Looks to me like they did a pretty good job.”“They got the drop on me when my back was turned,” Raymond Johnson said, rubbing his jaw.“Take it easy big fellow and next time watch your back,” Buck said.He quickly forgot the incident and strolled to the front of the restaurant. Daylight was waning, but the cobbled parking lot continued radiating heat absorbed from late afternoon sun. He found it cooler inside, frigid air chilling the perspiration on his forehead as he opened the restaurant door. Wiping his face with his handkerchief, he greeted the hostess waiting in the entryway.“I’m meeting a man named Rummels,” Buck said. “Know if he’s here yet?”The young woman was dressed in a colorful period costume. Antebellum, he guessed. She had a friendly smile, a red bow in her hair, and made him feel welcome. The woman’s warm smile was no accident. Buck McDivit was young, tall, and good-looking, with the body of a trained athlete and piercing blue eyes of a movie star. Dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and western-cut shirt, he could have passed as a young John Wayne.“Mister Rummels just phoned,” she said, quickly flipping through the guest register on the entryway lectern. “I’ll seat you, and you can wait for him in the dining area.”She led Buck into the main dining room where potted ferns hung in garlands from rough-hewn rafters. Checkerboard tablecloths draped wooden tables, and the restaurant’s rustic decor blended perfectly with the aroma of frying cornmeal floating in from the kitchen. An outside veranda flanked the room on three sides. A damp breeze moved along by slow-moving ceiling fans, wafted in through the open door.“Enjoy your dinner,” she said, seating him at a corner table overlooking the lake.Buck barely had time to adjust his chair and stare out at the darkening sky before a waitress appeared and asked him what he wanted to drink. Her red bow went well with a thick thatch of black hair and her own colorful period dress.She smiled when he said, “Coors, please and keep the frosted mug.”Buck had finished his beer before Raymond Rummels arrived. Rummels was wearing dark pinstripes, despite the oppressive outside heat, and a constipated smile. He looked about thirty, trying to pass for fifty.“You James T. McDivit?”“One in the same,” Buck said, reaching to shake the young lawyer’s hand.Rummels joined him at the table, not bothering to thank their waitress when she brought him a Manhattan, and Buck another Coors.“Catfish is the specialty of the house,” he said.Buck gave the young woman a thumb up and said, “Sounds good to me.” Rummels dismissed her with a dispassionate nod. “I’ll come right to the point, McDivit. I’m unaware of any heirs to the Emma Fitzgerald estate. She had no children, adopted or otherwise. Her only brother died years ago in an oil field accident in Oklahoma. To my knowledge, he had no children.”“He had one,” Buck said. “Me.”“Then why is there no record of his marriage, or your birth?”“Because he never married. He carried on for a while with a teenage girl, my mother, and I was the result. The family forced her to give me up.”“Why didn’t you come forward before now?”“I didn’t know I had any relatives until recently. I’m a private investigator in Oklahoma City. While reviewing some public records for a client, I came across a newspaper article that got me thinking about my own roots. Once I decided to track down my parents, the rest was easy. John McDivit was definitely my father.”“Can you prove it?”Buck handed Rummels a package of information and waited as he pawed through it.“What is all this?” the lawyer asked.“Birth certificate, eye-witness accounts, and a statement from my mother. She had pictures, some belongings, and even John McDivit’s medical records. There’s no doubt I’m his son and that he was the younger brother of Emma Fitzgerald.”“These could be forgeries.”“They’re not.”“How do I know that?”“You’d believe a federal judge, wouldn’t you?”The hint of a snicker appeared on Rummels’ face but vanished just as quickly. “You bring one with you?”“No, but I have this affidavit.”Buck handed Rummels a letter his old friend Judge Beamon Dawkins had written for him before leaving Oklahoma. In it, Judge Beamon attested to Buck’s good word and the authenticity of the documents he’d presented the lawyer. Rummels held the letter long enough to read it three times.“Excuse me a moment,” he finally said, hurrying away from the table without explanation.Remnant daylight had all but disappeared, replaced now by intermittent lightning that veined the sky over the lake. Thunder, shaking the roof and windows, soon followed, causing the lights to dim. Rummels rejoined Buck at the table.“Assuming your papers are in order and you inherit Emma Fitzgerald’s estate, what exactly do you intend to do with it?”“Don’t know,” Buck said. “It was never my intention to stake out my aunt’s estate. I only wanted to meet the old lady and discuss my father’s family with her.”“Then you deny your inheritance?”“Didn’t say that. What exactly is my inheritance?”Rummels cleared his throat, finished his Manhattan, and waved for another.“Emma Fitzgerald’s estate consists of an island on Caddo Lake and everything on it. She has some money in the bank. Just enough to pay for the probate.”“What about the island?” Buck asked.“Emma Fitzgerald operated a lodge and fishing camp, discontinuing lodge service about four years ago. Though the marina is still operable, there are a couple of problems, Mr. McDivit.”“Such as?”“Emma Fitzgerald borrowed money from the bank last year to remodel the lodge and marina. She put up the island as collateral. Emma failed to make a payment on the note for the last six months, and the bank had begun foreclosure proceedings before her death. The hearing is in ten days. If you want to prevent the foreclosure, you have ten days to repay the bank loan, along with court costs and accumulated attorney fees.”“That’s not much notice. You mentioned a second problem.”Rummels rustled his yellow pad, leaning forward in his chair. “They found Emma Fitzgerald floating in the lake. Pearl Johnson, her housekeeper, says she was despondent. The coroner considered that and ruled her death a suicide. I’m afraid that nullifies Emma’s life insurance.”“No one said anything to me about life insurance or suicide.”“I’m sorry,” he said. “When they found Emma, she had something in her hand,” Rummels dropped a crusted cameo brooch into Buck’s open palm. “Depression sometimes takes people to the edge. In Emma’s case, it sent her over the edge.”Nearby thunder shook the rafters followed by slow rain drumming the roof and windows.Rummels brow furrowed when Buck asked, “What if I pay off the note?”“Well, of course, you have that option. Is that your plan?”Buck had neither assets nor collateral to satisfy Aunt Emma’s note. Rummels didn’t know that. Tapping his chin as if he were considering it, he said, “Don’t know yet.”“Pardon me a moment,” Rummels said. He returned shortly with another man. “This is Mr. Hogg Nation. He owns the Pelican.”The distinguished gentleman with the odd name had green eyes, short hair, and specks of white frosting his head. Despite his hair color, his face proclaimed him no older than forty.“At your disposal, Mr. McDivit. Hope you’re enjoying our hospitality. Your meal and drinks are on the house tonight.”Buck managed a nod and half smile. Raymond Rummels was wringing his hands, his own expression having turned sour.“Mr. Nation is also my client. He wishes to purchase Fitzgerald Island from you. Two-hundred thousand dollars is a generous offer, Mr. McDivit. Enough to pay the bank note and leave twenty-five thousand for your troubles.”Nation’s proposal caught Buck by surprise. When he finally managed a reply, he said, “Thanks, but I’d like to visit the island before I decide.”“Take your time and enjoy the catfish,” Nation said, moving away toward the kitchen.Randy Rummels remained standing until his client had departed, the waitress arriving with a bell-shaped glass filled with an icy concoction.“Mr. Nation would like you to try a Hurricane. It’s the house specialty.”She winked and hurried away.It was raining harder now, water beading down the picture window in soft sheets. Buck sipped the sugary drink. Rain and alcohol had all but hypnotized him when a familiar high-pitched voice returned his attention to the restaurant. Staring across the crowded room, he spotted the two men involved in the incident behind the restaurant. They were drinking and talking loudly, even above the din of the crowd.“Who are those two men?”Rummels was chewing on the straw of his Manhattan. “Humpback and Deacon John,” he said. “They work for Mr. Nation.” Before Buck could inquire further, the lawyer glanced at his watch. “I have another appointment. Raymond Johnson, an employee of the marina on Fitzgerald Island, will pick you up shortly and take you there.” Handing Buck his business card, he said, “You have ten days to make up your mind.”Thunder shook the roof as Randy Rummels tapped the back of his chair and started away. Buck wondered, as the lawyer departed, why the man’s crooked grin gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his gut.The friendly waitress soon appeared with hush puppies, catfish, and another hurricane. Buck handed her his empty glass and took a quick gulp from the fresh drink. The spicy catfish tasted wonderful and whetted his growing thirst. He was feeling light-headed when the waitress appeared for the final time.“Raymond Johnson is waiting for you on the back porch,” she said.“Thanks,” he said, stumbling when he tried to get out of the chair. “Which way?”She pointed him to the back door. He was surprised when he realized the person waiting for him was the large black man involved in the scuffle behind the restaurant. Before he could ponder the coincidence, he caught his foot on a net and tumbled into the big man’s outstretched arms.“Have yourself a little too much of Mr. Nation’s hospitality?”“Guess I did. Was that you that got yourself kicked out the door a little earlier?”“Mr. Nation’s boys,” he said without explanation. “You probably don’t remember me. I’m Raymond Johnson. You Mr. McDivit?”“Buck.”Johnson stared at Buck McDivit’s extended hand and finally shook it. “If you ain’t through eating yet, I’ll wait out here.”“I’m done,” Buck said, unable to stifle a drunken giggle.“Good. Don’t need no more trouble tonight. Let’s get out of here.”Concurring with Johnson, Buck followed him off the porch. By now, his head was swimming. His vision was blurry, and tongue thick.“Where’s your car?” Raymond asked.“Truck’s in the back.”The big black man grabbed Buck, supporting his weight and ignoring his helpless giggles. Raymond left him on the steps while he retrieved his suitcase from the truck. The rain had slackened as he herded him and his bag down the slope to the lake where a gentle breeze was blowing across the water. It caused the boat, and Buck’s head on the side of the boat, to rock with the waves. Raymond Johnson untied the bowline and pushed away from the dock.“Couple of miles to the island,” he said, maneuvering through a stand of cypress trees surrounding the shadow-dark shoreline. “You okay?”Buck answered with a giddy laugh. “I think someone spiked my drink.”“Sure they did,” Johnson said as the high-pitched outboard motor drowned out Buck’s slurred words and any further attempt at conversation.As the boat glided across the rain-dimpled water, Buck closed his eyes, his mind awash with flickering moonbeams splaying the lake’s murky surface. Half an hour later, they landed on the island. When they reached a large two-storied house, Raymond Johnson dragged him upstairs and dumped him on a feather bed.The suitcase made a hollow thump when it hit the floor, the door shutting behind Raymond as he exited with a damp swoosh. Locked in a drunken stupor, Buck didn’t really care.He lay there for what seemed like hours, mesmerized by slow rain drumming the tin roof as he stared at the ceiling’s darkness. He finally stumbled out of bed, hoping to find an aspirin for his throbbing head. Unable to locate the lights or an appropriate pill, he embarked instead on a late-night tour of the house.Moonlight through open windows guided him back down the stairs where he found a liquor cabinet amid stormy shadows and resident gloom. What the hell, he thought. A little hair of the dog couldn’t make him feel any worse than he already did. Shattering one of the bottles in an eruption of flying glass, the ensuing explosion failed to deter him. Slugging whiskey straight from an unbroken bottle, he headed down a dark hallway, glassy shards crunching beneath his boots.Buck stumbled through the house, finally finding a door that led outside. Soft rain continued falling, a few rays of moonlight penetrating the cover of clouds. Reflections off the lake beckoned. Wobbling toward the water’s edge, he dribbled whiskey from his open mouth and down his neck, and then howled at the moon. When he reached the lake, he tripped on a cypress knee, tumbling into the mud. Revived by the dank odor of warm rain and rotting vegetation, he watched dull light radiate from a pinpoint across the lake. This time it wasn’t the moon. Even after rubbing his eyes, he couldn’t make it disappear. Instead, it grew larger, drawing ever closer.Sitting in the mud, too stunned to move, he swayed as the vague outline of a veil shrouded apparition floated toward him. He bit his lip, pain failing to convince him he was coherent. When the apparition stopped directly in front of him, he could see it was a girl.A translucent shawl clung to her thin frame, icy mist drifting around her shoulders, chilling warm night air. Tears flowed down her cheeks. When she reached out to him, his neck grew inexplicably warm. Aunt Emma’s brooch in his hand began pulsating with pink light as the translucent body of the ghostly vision gleamed brightly.He blinked, opening his eyes to see the girl had disappeared, leaving him unsure of what he’d seen. Still very much inebriated, he managed to stumble back to the lodge where he passed out before hitting the sheets.
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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

River Road - an excerpt

New Orleans is perhaps the only place on earth where a deceased person can attend his or her own wake as the guest of honor. In River Road, sleuth Wyatt Thomas attends one such wake at the Saenger Theater on Canal Street. My first memory of the theater was when I was ten. My brother and I were visiting our Aunt Carmol for a week or so. She dropped Jack and me off there to see David Niven in Around the World in 80 Days. The theater, newly renovated after Hurricane Katrina, is a showplace destination and I remember comparing it in my mind to the tiny Wakea Theater in the little town of Vivian, Louisiana where I grew up. To my ten-year-old brain, the Saenger was like a palace.In River Road, Wyatt attends an eclectic wake, even by New Orleans' standards, at the behest of a new client. The secretive little man gives Wyatt a single clue and a bag of cash. The man is murdered as Wyatt watches. Before the night ends, he must go on the run to save his own life and to comply with his client's last wish.River Road takes the reader to places a tourist in New Orleans will likely never see. The story is based on historical accounts of an actual murder that remains unsolved. Much of the book is a fictional recounting of what actually happened in New Orleans shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Though I don't profess to have all the answers to the many questions about that particular time in the history of New Orleans, I did draw a conclusion about who actually killed the president. In a later chapter in the book, one of the characters on her deathbed explains who killed JFK and why they did it.I hope this short excerpt compels you to read River Road. If you do, I hope you love it and all the books in my French Quarter Mystery Series. Some of the mental images in the book may haunt you for awhile. The monkey lab actually existed and the thought of the empty cages remains indelibly fixed in my own memory. The story isn't all dour. There's also lots of mystery, adventure, and fun. Just don't forget to wear your gris gris.
Chapter 1
It was one of those days, rain falling in a gentle mist as I glanced down Canal Street. When thunder shook the windowpanes, I stopped gawking and hurried up the sidewalk.Late afternoon streets were empty as I reached the Saenger Theater. The old auditorium had occupied the corner of Canal and N. Rampart for as long as I could remember. My parents liked their liquor. They could buy cocktails at the balcony bar and get drunk as they watched the latest Hollywood flick. They loved the Saenger.Flooded and damaged during Katrina, the theater had recently undergone renovation. With work finally completed, the facility is a destination for music and touring acts. The marvelous new sign over the front entrance greeted me, flashing crimson neon as I entered the lobby.I wasn’t the only one that had braved summer rain, dozens of other people filing into the main amphitheater with me. Music from an old pipe organ flooded the auditorium as I entered the ongoing festivities. The occasion was a wake, the atmosphere anything but somber. As I gazed at the crowd, I spotted someone I knew.Rafael Romanov smiled and worked his way toward me. The tall man with thinning hair seemed as dark and mysterious as his hooked nose and Eastern European face. He’d grown a tiny goatee on his pointed chin since the last time I’d seen him.“Wyatt,” he said, grasping my hand. “You’re looking dapper.”“Don’t hold a candle to you, Rafael,” I said.He brushed an imaginary flake off his cashmere sports coat. His expensive jacket complimented the military crease of his dark pants and the gleam of his spit-polished shoes. His light blue silk shirt splayed open enough to draw attention to a hairy chest and the heavy gold chain around his neck.“I didn’t know you knew Jeribeth,” he said.Jeribeth Briggs was a recently deceased New Orleans socialite. Unlike most wakes, Jeribeth wasn’t in a coffin. Her corpse, dressed to the nines in a red designer dress and audacious hat, sat on a wrought-iron bench. Her signature feather boa draped her shoulders. As in life, she had a cigarette with a long filter in one hand, a glass of Jack Daniels in the other. Garlands of flowers and lush potted shrubs surrounded her almost as if she were enjoying cocktails in her garden.“Didn’t know her,” I said.“Just gawking?”“I have reasons for being here.”“Such as?”“A new client. He requested I meet him at the wake.”“Strange place to meet a client,” he said.“His call, not mine. Did you know her?”“You mean Jeribeth? Saw her many times at Madeline’s when I was a child. Like you, someone is paying me to be here.”“Oh?”“My usual gig. Comforting family and friends of the bereaved. From the quantity of alcohol everyone is consuming, I’d say my services will go unneeded.”Rafael was a defrocked priest; defrocked because his mother Madeline is a witch. As the saying goes, once a priest always a priest. Since leaving the church, he’d served as a rent a priest aboard a cruise ship sailing out of New Orleans. Like most of the other guests crowding the auditorium, he had a drink in hand and a smile on his face.The Saenger Theater auditorium is large, its walls decorated to mimic an Italian villa. Priceless chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The crowd included actors, politicians, musicians, and many of the city's richest people. Human chatter didn't begin to overwhelm the background music. The acoustics were so acute you could hear every musical instrument while eavesdropping on your neighbor's conversation.“Now this is the way to have a wake,” Rafael said.“Wildest thing I’ve ever seen.”“It’s the Big Easy, Cowboy, not the real world.”His smile disappeared when I said, “Not sad like Kimmi’s wake.”My ex-wife Kimmi had married Rafael. When she died, we’d met at her wake and had maintained a friendship ever since.“Mind if I change the subject?” he said, sipping his whiskey. “See the attractive woman by the punch bowl?”“Gorgeous. How do I know her?”“Lucy Diamond. A reporter for Fox. National, not local.”“Bet she gets lots of jokes about her name.”“From her frown, I don’t think I’d ask,” he said. “Want to meet her?”“You know her?”“We met on one of my cruises, and we've kept in touch.”Rafael waved, catching the reporter’s gaze. Smiling, she made her way through the noisy throng.“Rafael,” she said, on her tiptoes to plant a sensuous kiss on his lips.“Lucy, this is my friend Wyatt Thomas.”She nodded, acknowledging my presence with only a frown.“Got to rush, Rafe. Can we do lunch while I’m in town?”“Love it, beautiful lady,” he said.“I’ll call you,” she said, kissing him before disappearing back into the crowd.“Rafe?” I said.Rafael grinned. “What can I say? She has a thing for tall, dark, and mysterious men.”“I’m jealous. What’s she doing in New Orleans?”“Working on a sensational story; something to do with Jeribeth and Dr. Mary Taggert.”“Oh?”“The old lady had a few skeletons in her closet. She was best friends with Dr. Taggert.”“How do I know that name?”“A prominent surgeon murdered fifty years ago. The case was never solved.”“I wasn’t alive, but remember hearing about it. Doing cancer research, wasn’t she?”“Along with Dr. Louis Hollingsworth, the founder of the Hollingsworth Clinic. Someone wrote a book saying the C.I.A. had a hand in the murder,” he said.“What interest did they have in her?”“Not sure, my friend. Something to do with the Kennedy assassination.”I must have rolled my eyes because Raphael held up a palm, smiled and shook his head.“It's hard to separate fact from fiction because there are so many conspiracy theories floating around out there,” I said.“Don’t know about that. What I do know is Madeline used to hold séances at our house when I was young. Jeribeth and Doctor Mary often attended.”“What’s your mother told you about it?”“Madeline never discusses her clients, even with me. If you want to know something about Dr. Mary, Lucy is the person to ask.”As with Rafael, the Catholic Church had also expelled Madeline. Her heresy was being a witch. She has a shop in the Quarter called Madeline’s Magic Potions. By all accounts, she is a witch. When Rafael grabbed another drink from a passing waiter, I glanced at the punchbowl.“I’ll keep that in mind. Has Ms. Diamond told you anything?” I asked.“Not much, even though we had drinks last night at the Carousel Bar.”“Sweet.”“I wish. Lucy’s there every night, usually drinking alone.”“Not even with her crew?”“Hardly. They’re staying at the Sheraton.”“Because?”“Lucy’s a bitch!”“I see,” I said.“Razor tongued, and she uses her words like blunt instruments. Her producers have an impossible task enticing celebs and politicians. She has rough edges, but her viewers love it when she unloads on her guests.”“So she’s . . .”“Bitch personified,” he said, finishing my question.Jazz music had grown louder. I glanced at the punchbowl again, realizing I was the only one without a drink.“Excuse me a moment?” I said. “I need to visit the punchbowl.”“I’ll be here when you return.”“I think you’re right about having no consoling to do.”He nodded, hoisting his whiskey glass in a salute. “I ain’t complaining, boss.”The crowd had grown. As I inched toward the punch bowl, a young woman in front of me caught a heel and almost fell. When I grabbed her shoulders, she nodded before moving away into the throng.From the spread on the table, some lucky caterer had earned a fat payday for this gig. They weren’t the only ones. Local florists had also made out like bandits. I noticed as I sidestepped a potted peace lily.Smelling the gumbo, I remembered I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Piles of shrimp and crawfish rested on sheets of yesterday’s Picayune. In deference to my white jacket, I decided to pass on the food.No one had touched the grape punch. Likely because it wasn’t yet spiked with alcohol. Since I have a low tolerance for anything alcoholic, I took a sip first to make sure. When I turned, I bumped the person standing behind me. Grape punch splattered the woman’s silk blouse, the growing stain spreading across her chest like a bloody wound. It was the Fox reporter Lucy Diamond.“You idiot!” she said.“I’m so sorry.”“Back off, you moron. Do you have any idea how much this blouse cost me?”“Is there anything I can do?” I said as she pushed away through the crowd.“Yeah, drop dead!” she said, showing me her middle finger.People were staring at me as if I were a serial killer. I slunk away in shame to a corner of the amphitheater vacant of guests. When I backed against a potted tree, someone tapped my shoulder.“Don’t turn around,” a man’s voice said. “I told you to come alone.”“I did. I bumped into a friend.”“Nothing we can do about it now.”“You’re the person that asked me to meet them here?”“Yes,” he said. “I got a job for you.”“What exactly are you hiring me to do?”“You’ve heard of Mary Taggert?” When I nodded, he said, “My mother. Everybody in New Orleans knows someone murdered her. I want you to find the killer, and then make sure everyone in town knows his name.”“The case is fifty years old. It’s not just cold; it’s frozen solid.”He placed an envelope in my hand. “You’re my last hope. There’s information in the envelope and a large retainer. Can I trust you?”“Yes.”“Hope so. Not much I can do about it now.”The man turned me until I faced the potted palms, my mind blocking sounds of the noisy wake.“At least tell me something to get me started,” I said.“Check the envelope and you’ll know everything I know. Now, give me five minutes before turning around.”“Wait . . .”“Don’t turn. Trust me; it’s for your own good.”I wheeled around the moment I heard his feet begin to shuffle. He was too busy elbowing his way through the crowd to notice. I followed the balding little man in white socks and an old checkered sports coat. It was dark outside as he hurried through the doorway. He broke into a run when he reached the sidewalk. It didn't take me long to realize why.A black sedan waited on the street outside the Saenger. It pulled away from the curb when he exited the front doors. Seeing the vehicle, he dodged traffic and sprinted across Canal Street. The sedan did a sliding u-turn, barely avoiding a streetcar returning from the cemeteries. When it screeched to a halt two Hispanic looking men exited, chasing my client up the sidewalk.Both men wore black sports coats and khaki pants. One of them tackled my new customer, sending him sliding across the concrete. The second pursuer tapped the back of his neck with a club. I raced across the street, dodging traffic as they dragged him into the awaiting car.“Hey, stop right there!” I yelled as they shoved him into the backseat.One of the men had a pistol, people on the sidewalk ducking as he pulled the trigger. Two muffled pops were the only thing I heard, and it was the last thing I remembered for a while.
Chapter 2
I awoke in a strange bed, two people dressed in medical scrubs staring down at me. If that wasn’t enough to send my alarms blaring, a mule inside my head was trying to kick its way out. It was then I noticed the numbness in my left arm. The IV hanging above me was dripping fluid into my veins.“How you doing?” the young man asked.“Where am I?”“Hospital. Gunshot wound to your left shoulder. Luckily, the bullet didn’t strike bone. How’s your head?”“About to explode.”“You banged it on the sidewalk when you fell. Mild concussion. You’ll feel better in a few days. I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow.”Though the doctor’s blond hair was thin, he didn't look old enough to shave. He had yet to smile. The nurse watched, flashing a silver-toothed grin as he disappeared into the darkened hallway.“I’m Claytee,” she said. “He’s such a baby. It makes me feel like spanking him sometimes.” When I glanced at the bandage on my shoulder, she said, “Don’t worry. It’s the Big Easy, and you’re not his first gunshot victim. You making it okay, hon?”I massaged my temple with my free hand. “I can’t feel my arm and there’s an angry mule inside my head.”She grinned, her silver tooth catching the dim light cast by the medical instruments. “Time for a dose of cloud nine. You’ll feel better in a minute.”“How long have I been here?”“Don’t matter none. You alive, nothing broken or missing. Lots of my patients can’t say that.”After injecting me, she turned off the lights and left me alone in the hospital room.The only words I’d understood were “gunshot victim.”I needed to use the facilities and wheeled the IV cart with me. Before the bathroom door shut, a ruckus in the hall disturbed me. The commotion continued as I exited the bathroom. Cracking the door, I peeked down the darkened hallway.Something I’d heard piqued my curiosity. Familiar voices resonated down the hall. The same two men who were responsible for the bullet hole in my shoulder. They were asking the night nurse directions to my room. Shutting the door, I hurried to the bed.I plumped pillows under the covers to resemble a sleeping man. The needle didn’t even hurt when I jerked it out of my arm, sticking it into the mattress. My clothes were hanging in a bathroom recess. Scooping them up, I rushed into the hallway, and then to a tiny break area across from my room.The smell of burned coffee hit me as I hid in the supply closet. Men entered my room, two muffled pops shaking my already fragile consciousness. I backed against the wall behind a rubber apron, my heart racing as I held my breath.Shuffling feet entered the break room. Someone opened the door to the supply closet, peering in. It was then the alarm on my abandoned instruments began to blare. The door shut as night nurses and emergency doctors descended on my room. I pulled on my clothes, glanced down the empty hallway and hurried to the elevator.Nurse Claytee’s cloud nine had rendered me numb. I noticed as I floated down the hall, my sense of well-being worrying me. Though feeling no pain, I realized the seriousness of two men trying to kill me. Emerging from the hospital, I almost expected to take a bullet in the back. It didn’t seem to matter. Outside, the sky was dark. I recognized the well-lighted area as the New Orleans hospital district. A cabbie waiting in front opened the back door when he saw me looking.“Where to, bub?” he asked“Bertram’s bar on Chartres,” I said, ducking as I saw the two men exit the hospital.They didn’t see me.The French Quarter wasn’t far. As I exited the cab, music from a brass band wafted up from the direction of Bourbon Street. It was summer in the Quarter and business slow at Bertram’s. The Cajun bartender wasn’t happy, and his dark eyes showed it. He didn’t bother removing his trapper’s hat as he mopped his brow with a red-checkered handkerchief.During the day, large windows flooded the open room with ambient light. It leaped off polished wood floors and an ornate bar that had to be two-hundred years old. Tonight, only flashing neon reflected through the windows. Panties, bras, and other undergarments hung from the ceiling over the bar. They were a testament to the consumption of gallons of alcohol resulting in lost inhibitions. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, they say. Unlike Vegas, visitors celebrate what happens to them in the Big Easy.Bertram had no permanent help, preferring to do everything himself. It didn’t seem to matter because the bar rarely closed. Sometimes, there were so many customers that beer flowed like water. I realized he must have been making a fortune. You’d never know it from looking at him. He still drove the same old truck, and he’d never spent a dime remodeling the bar.“Tourists like it like this,” he always said.Yes, they did and so did I.“Where the hell you been?” he asked when I came through the door. “The N.O.P.D. was here earlier and tore up your room looking for something.”“Did they have a search warrant?”“Didn’t ask,” he said.Sensing something was amiss he locked the front door and flipped his closed sign.“You let them in my room without a search warrant?” I asked.“Hell, Cowboy, since when does the N.O.P.D. need a search warrant?”I didn’t bother answering his question. “What were they looking for?”“Don’t know, but your room’s a mess. What the hell’s going on?”“Too much to explain and not enough time. No sense in calling the police now.”“What happened to your arm and why are you slurring your words?”“Someone’s trying to kill me. Can you take care of my cat for a few days?”“You ain’t told me what happened to you, yet.”Before I could answer, someone began banging on the door. Bertram nodded for me to get out of sight. A door behind the liquor cabinet led to the suite of rooms where he lived. I called to him before I slipped through it.“Bertram, alert Tony. Tell him I’ll meet him at Culotta’s tomorrow, about noon. Ask him to dig up anything he can on the Mary Taggert murder. And Bertram, tell him to come alone.”He nodded as he hurried across the empty bar to check on the disturbance at the front door. Slipping into his apartment, I looked to see if it was my two new companions. It was.A back door to Bertram’s apartment led to the tiny garage where he kept his old beater. Another door exited into an alleyway. I stepped into the darkness, disturbing a stray cat pawing through the trash. If I weren’t already paranoid, I was now. Someone was trying to kill me, and the New Orleans cops were somehow involved. I needed answers and headed to the only place I knew where I might get some.I had no idea what time it was as I hurried to the Carousel Bar, hoping it was still open. Lucy Diamond, according to Rafael Romanov, might be there. I wanted to see her.The rain had ended, moving east to Mississippi. Water, glistening from reflected streetlight, flooded the streets. A few late-night party people were still prowling the Quarter. I hurried past them as I entered the majestic Monteleone. I didn’t have time to admire the chandeliers, ducking into the Carousel Bar instead.The intimate setting featured a circular bar that rotated like a circus carousel. It had a top, shaped like a crown, and decorated with carved Mardi Gras faces. A single person, the reporter Lucy Diamond, sat alone at the bar. Her eyes widened when I joined her.“You! Are you stalking me?”“I assure you I’m not, but I do need to talk to you.”“You ruined my new silk blouse, you asshole.”“We met before that. I’m Rafael Romanov’s friend. Remember?”As she glared at me, it was my first real look at her. She was a knockout with striking green eyes and ash blond hair. Her pouty lips required no lipstick, nor did her Nordic complexion need any makeup. She sounded tipsy, and the punch stain formed a rose bloom on her silk blouse.“Fred, would you please call security and have this man removed?”During my drinking years, I’d spent many hours rotating at the Carousel. I didn’t recognize Fred, the bartender, but put up a hand as he reached for the phone.“Please, wait. What I have to say to Ms. Diamond is important.”“He’s a stalker. I’ve dealt with your kind before.”“I’m not a stalker. Won’t you at least give me a minute to explain why I’m here?”Lucy nodded to Fred, giving him permission to replace the phone. With arms clasped to her chest, she gave me a quick look.“Okay, buster, this better be good.”“Doctor Mary Taggert,” I said.“What about her?”“I’m a private investigator. A new client who said he was Mary Taggert’s son hired me earlier tonight.”“Impossible. Mary Taggert had no son. She was a confirmed lesbian.”“Sure about that?”Lucy Diamond didn’t answer, sipping her martini instead. “Your jacket.” she finally said. “What happened to you?”My bandage had failed, blood oozing from the bullet hole in my linen sports coat.“My client. Someone kidnapped him in front of the Saenger. They shot me when I tried to stop them.”“You kidding me?”“I met him for the first time at the wake. He hired me to find his mother's murderer, and make sure everyone knew their name.”By now, I had Lucy Diamond’s complete attention.“What’s all this got to do with kidnapping and getting shot at?” she asked.“He gave me a package. Told me not to turn around until he was gone. I ignored his instructions, tailing him out to Canal.”“And?”“Men in a black sedan were waiting outside for him. He tried to run away. They chased him down and threw him into the backseat of the car. They shot me. When I fell, I hit my head on the sidewalk, unconscious until I came to in a hospital.”“You expect me to believe that crazy story?”“I didn’t make up this bullet hole in my shoulder.”“Then why aren’t you still in the hospital?”“Because the two goons that shot me returned to finish the job. I managed to escape and came to the Carousel because Rafael told me I could find you here.”“Why didn’t you call the police?”“Because they’re somehow in on it. They trashed my apartment looking for something.”“This tale is growing a little too tall,” she said, glancing at a bottle of gin on a rack above the bar.Fred was polishing a glass as he listened to our conversation.“Want me to make that call?” he asked.“Wait,” I said. “I have something important to show you.”“Like what?”“This,” I said, dropping an object into her hand.“A Mardi Gras doubloon?”“1948 Krewe of Rex. a rarity, I’d guess“Oh my!” she said. “This is so heavy it must be . . .”“Solid gold.”She fingered the Carnival coin, holding it up to the light for a better view.“There’s a strange symbol on the back. What does it mean?”“No idea,” I said. “It was the only thing my client gave me, except for twenty thousand dollars.”“You have to be making this up,” she said. “What the hell am I supposed to make of an old Mardi Gras doubloon?”“My client seemed to think it was all I needed to solve the case.”“What did you say his name was?”“He didn’t tell me.”When I grabbed my head, the bartender reacted by handing me two aspirins and a glass of water.“You don’t look too good,” he said. “Want me to call an ambulance?”“A sinking spell. I’m okay now.”“Finish your story,” Lucy said.“That’s about it. Two goons in black sports coats are trying to kill me. I can’t go to the police, and my head’s about to split.”“Charge my room, Fred,” Lucy said. “Buy this pest anything he wants. I’m out of here.”“Thanks for the aspirins, Fred,” I said, following her out the door.I caught up with her at the elevator.“Your story reeks, but Fred seemed a little too interested. Everything I have on the Taggert murder is in my room. We can have a little privacy there. I’m too drunk to worry about whether you’re going to rape and kill me.”Her remark made me grin. “I’ve never raped or killed anyone. My shoulder is killing me. Right now, I'd have trouble arm wrestling a bunny rabbit.”She stopped in her tracks and stared at me.
“That’s the first thing you’ve said all night I believe.”
###


Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Primal Creatures - an excerpt

Do you believe in werewolves? In south Louisiana, Cajuns do and call them rougarou. In Primal Creatures, a movie producer hires French Quarter sleuth Wyatt Thomas to investigate a gruesome death at an island resort south of New Orleans. There's a fishing village on the island populated mostly by the descendants of slaves that had escaped into the swamp. An old voodoo woman from the village tells Wyatt, "There are creatures on this island that only walk at night." To make matters worse, a hurricane is approaching the island, southern Louisiana and New Orleans.Wyatt's friend and associate ex-N.O.P.D. homicide detective Tony Nicosia is helping him with the case and Tony tracks a discredited researcher to his rundown Garden District mansion in New Orleans. The city is buttoned up and evacuated in preparation for the approaching hurricane. Dr. Kelton Frenette and his wife Latrice can't leave because they've had something frozen in their basement freezer for forty years. Don't believe in werewolves? Read this excerpt from French Quarter Mystery No. 3 and you might just change your mind. Hope you love it.
P.S. If you need to go down to your basement after reading this at least wait until daylight and even then you might want to take someone with you.
Primal Creatures Excerpt
Tony awoke the next morning feeling better than he had in weeks. The rain had momentarily abated to just a sprinkle falling from a dark and cloudy sky. Just a brief respite, he knew. His neighbor was boarding his windows as he went out to the car. The man shouted across the driveway.“You hear about the hurricane?” “I heard. I got something to do first. I’ll be back to board up the windows a little later.”“Need some help, just let me know.”“Thanks, Joe,” he said as he cranked the engine on his Sebring.Though still early, traffic was heavy, people scurrying around, preparing for the approaching hurricane. The storm was in the back of Tony’s mind as he splashed through puddles of water on his way down St. Charles Avenue.Kelton Frenette still lived in the Garden District. Tony had his address and was on his way there. He hadn’t called first because sometimes the best tactic was to just show up at someone’s doorstep. Give them no time to concoct a story, if that’s what they were inclined to do.Steady rain poured down his windshield as Tony parked on the street in front of Frenette’s home. He knew a person’s house spoke volumes about the people living in them. As he gazed at the old two-story mansion, he’d already formed an opinion of the man before ever seeing him.The Garden District is known for its eclectic architecture. Frenette’s house might have been Greek Revival, Victorian, or plantation style. Tony didn’t care. What he saw was a house desperately in need of a fresh coat of paint, trees that had gone untrimmed for years if not decades, broken boards on the porch, and cracked panes of glass in the windows.The iron gate was unlatched, swung open toward the front door of the house as if there was no one inside that cared if anyone came or went. Pulling his collar up around his neck, he closed and latched the gate behind him.The doorbell didn’t work. After knocking several times, he began wondering if the house was deserted. Before he turned to leave, someone opened the door a crack.“Help you?”The large, black woman peeking through the door sounded pleasant enough.“Is Dr. Frenette in?”“He’s in, but he doesn’t see anybody these days. What is it you needed?”“Dr. Frenette did some research years ago. I’d like to talk to him about it.”“As I said, he doesn’t get around much anymore.”A booming voice sounded behind the woman. “Who is it, Latrice?”“Some person that wants to talk to you about your research.”“Well let him in.”The woman named Latrice opened the door for Tony, and he entered the spacious alcove lined with large pots where ornamental plants probably once grew. Sitting in an antique, wooden wheelchair was the man with the booming voice.“I’m Kelton Frenette,” he said. “How can I help you?”“I’m Tony Nicosia. You did research on a rabies-like virus. I’d like to talk to you about it.”“Are you a reporter?”“No sir, I’m not. Just a guy with some questions I hope you have answers for.”“Then come with me,” he said as he wheeled into a cavernous room that was clearly the main living area.Like the paint on the outside of the house, the off-pink walls had the look and feel of faded antiquity. The couch, settee, and chairs were antiques. Probably valuable. Everything was spotless, no dust anywhere in the room. Only the shiny patina of age and continuous use tarnished the furniture.“Take a seat, please,” Latrice said. “Can I get you something to drink? Tea or lemonade?”“Forget the tea and lemonade, Latrice. Bring Mr. Nicosia a brandy, and one for me too, please.”Latrice didn’t argue, soon returning with three snifters filled with expensive brandy.“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” she said.“Is Latrice your help?” Tony asked when she was gone.“Latrice is my wife,” he said.“I apologize.”“Don’t worry about it. A more tolerant age is what Latrice and I needed.”“You haven’t been out much lately. Things are better now. Whatever, I can see you made a wise choice.”Frenette smiled for the first time. Like his voice, he was a portly man, probably pushing three hundred pounds. His khaki pants and canvas shirt were pressed and clean but as timeworn as the paint on the wall.“There was a time when mixed marriages were frowned upon by people in the Garden District,” he said.“Then you should have moved to the Quarter. They always been a little more tolerant across Canal Street.”“Ain’t that the truth,” Frenette said in an affected southern accent.“This is wonderful brandy,” Tony said.“Pierre Ferrand, 1972. I only serve it to my favorite guests. Since you are the only guest we’ve had in a while, you got lucky. If you like brandy, that is.”“Love it, though it sounds like I probably can’t afford the finest stuff.”“None of us can, Mr. Nicosia, but then again none of us can afford not to.”“I like your philosophy.”“Now tell me what you need to know about my research.”Frenette nodded when Tony asked, “You know what a rougarou is?”“I do.”You think they exist?”Frenette nodded again. “If you’re a journalist, it’s too late to discredit me. That was done years ago.”“Tell me about it, please,” Tony said.“When I published my findings in a small medical journal, my colleagues called me mad. My research funds dried up, and I was widely shunned.”“I’m not a journalist, Dr. Frenette, I’m a detective investigating two recent deaths that are baffling, to say the least.”“And you think a rougarou is responsible?”Tony dropped the claw into Frenette’s hand. “You seen anything like this before?”“Where did you get it?”“From the horribly mutilated body of a person possibly killed by one of those creatures we aren’t supposed to know exists.”Frenette fingered the claw, then tilted his oversized head, rubbing his chin with thick fingers.“Interesting,” he said. “Latrice, we need more brandy.”Latrice must have been within hearing distance because she quickly appeared with the bottle.“Thanks, ma’am,” Tony said as she replenished his snifter.“We’re going into the basement,” he said.“You sure, Honey?” Latrice said.“We’ll be fine,” he said.Latrice pushed him to a hallway near the center of the large house. With some difficulty, she lifted the heavy, metal bar across the door. Using a ring of keys hanging on the wall, she unlocked three padlocks.Opening the door of an oversized dumbwaiter, she wheeled Frenette in and pushed a button. An old electric motor made grating sounds as the cab of the dumbwaiter began descending into the basement.Latrice pointed Tony to a door leading to the cellar, removing the metal bar and unlocking three more padlocks as she had on the dumbwaiter door. When he entered, she switched on a bare, overhead bulb that dimly illuminated the musty stairs.The stairway was steep, Tony thankful for his recently repaired knees. Another dim light greeted him when he reached the concrete floor of the basement. Dr. Frenette waited in a large room that felt twenty degrees colder than at the top of the stairs.“I haven’t been here in ten years,” he said. “I know this place looks like something out of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. I assure you, my endeavors weren’t so manic.”The room was filled with beakers, test tubes, and medical paraphernalia, everything coated with dust. There was also a dissection table that reminded Tony of the autopsy room he’d recently visited. The large, open cellar reeked of must, and maybe something else. The subtle, but distinctive odor of death, like he’d smelled in the autopsy office, permeated everything.“You haven’t come here in ten years?” Tony asked.“That’s right.”“Because?”“There’s something here that haunts me to my very core. Are you a religious man, Mr. Nicosia?”“I go to church on Easter and Christmas. My priest doesn’t remember my name because I haven’t taken confession in years.”Frenette grinned for the first time since they’d been in the basement. Tony still had the empty snifter in his hand. Frenette motioned him over and refilled it.“Sometimes brandy is more comforting than a priest,” he said. “Since there’s no priest to comfort us, let's have another drink.”“Amen to that. What’s going on down here?”“I want to show you something. Do you have a strong stomach, Mr. Nicosia?”Frenette grinned when Tony said, “I’ve lost my cookies a time or two. What you got, Doc?”Dr. Frenette pointed to a large, horizontal freezer against the wall. Like the dumbwaiter and the cellar door, it was secured by several locks.“It’s in there,” he said. “You might want to take a deep breath before you open it.”

Chapter 26
 Frenette tossed Tony a set of keys, and he quickly slipped the padlocks. The lid had long since frozen to the top of the freezer, and he had to give it an extra hard pull. When he did, it popped open with a whoosh, stale, refrigerated air blasting his face. After glancing a moment at the contents of the refrigerator, he took a step backward.“Jesus! What the hell is it?”“Your rougarou, Mr. Nicosia.”Tony stared at the frozen body of something that wasn’t quite a man. Dark eyes glinting red in the overhead lighting stared back at him. Tufts of thick, brown hair splotched the creature’s face and neck. Long fangs protruded from the half-opened mouth. Black claws, like the one he had in his pocket, extended from his hairy fingers. White frost encased the frozen body.“Is it. . . ?”“Dead? It’s been frozen for more than forty years, though I fear it’s still very much alive.”“It’s enormous. How did you get it in there?”“I had help.”“Where did it come from?”“Close the lid, lock it tight, and then I’ll tell you the story. After we go back upstairs.”Tony closed and relocked the freezer, then wheeled Dr. Frenette to the dumbwaiter. After situating him inside it and pushing the button, he switched off the lights and hurried up the steep stairway toward the dim light shining at the top. Latrice was waiting for them.She quickly padlocked the doors and returned the metal bars to their catches before giving her husband a hug that dragged on for several anxious moments.“It’s okay, Baby. It’s still frozen.”The rain, buffeted by the wind that hadn’t been present when Tony arrived, had intensified as they returned to the pink living room. Latrice quickly handed him and Dr. Frenette a new snifter of brandy, and then covered her husband’s legs with a tattered blanket. After placing the fancy bottle of brandy on the coffee table in front of Tony, she joined him on the couch.“Hon, I was so worried.”“It’s okay. The freezer’s working, and there’s nothing to worry about.”Frenette smiled when Tony said, “I didn’t toss my cookies, but I almost did. That creature in the freezer. Was it really a rougarou?”“You already know the answer to your question.”“You haven’t told me where it came from.”“The creature is a person and has a name—Calvin Couvillion. His relatives brought him here. Like I said, more than forty years ago.”“And you’ve had it frozen in your basement since then? Maybe you’d better explain,” Tony said.“It’s not like you think,” Latrice said.Frenette waved his hand and shook his head, shushing her.“Covillion came from the Atchafalaya Swamp, over near Thibodaux. His family brought him here.”“A live rougarou?”“Let me finish the story, and then you’ll see. Most of Couvillion’s family was at a fais-doux-doux.”“I know,” Tony said when he hesitated. “A Cajun celebration.”“The family had already become concerned about Couvillion’s erratic behavior. When a storm came up during the party, he began to transform.”“The storm caused him to transform?”Frenette nodded. “Perhaps hurried along by a rapid change in barometric pressure. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.”“And everyone at the party saw him?”“They believe in such things out there on the bayou. He might have killed someone but was struck by lightning, the impact rendering him immobile, at least temporarily. They packed him in dry ice and brought him to me.”“Why?”“I was doing research on lycanthropy and rumors had started to spread.”“Lycanthropy?”“The study of human transformation into a wolf-like creature,” he explained, seeing the puzzled look on Tony’s face.“What about his family? They just left him here with you and never said nothing about it, even after all these years?”“They were afraid. They helped me put him into the freezer, and then left me with their problem.”“He was struck by lightning and didn’t die?” Tony said.“You apparently know little about rougarous, loup-garous, werewolves, or whatever you want to call them.”“Tell me.”“The virus that causes lycanthropy is similar to the rabies virus. Rabies can take months or even years to develop. Before a cure was discovered, people contracting it often became hyper-sexual and then eventually quite mad.”“But we aren’t talking about rabies here,” Tony said.“No, but the two diseases are similar in many ways.”“How so?”“Rabies is the only virus contracted by a bite, the person bitten guaranteed to contract the virus and die unless they undergo a painful treatment.”“If you shoot a mad dog, it dies. If the disease you’re talking about is like rabies, how could someone that has it survive a lightning strike?”“Because, Mr. Nicosia, the disease makes them immortal.”“I don’t believe that. Nothing’s immortal.”“Oh, but you’re wrong. Cancer cells are immortal. That’s why we have no cure. Succeed in knocking out one cell with radiation or chemotherapy, and it usually only results in the propagation of many more.”“We’re not talking about cancer here,” Tony said.“The rabies-like virus that causes lycanthropy mutates the cells in a person’s body. Like cancer, the mutated individual becomes, quite literally, immortal. I’m sorry if the concept is difficult to reconcile, but it is what it is.”“Don’t get me wrong, Doc. I don’t want you to cut me off this great brandy, but I don’t quite buy your story. Like I said, nothing is immortal.”“Au contraire, Mr. Nicosia. The creature you saw frozen in the basement is very much alive. Of that, I can assure you.”“Then why didn’t you report it to the authorities years ago?”“Because I was already a discredited researcher when the family brought me Calvin Couvillion. I thought I could show everyone I wasn’t crazy by curing the man.”“Why didn’t you?”“A little problem,” Frenette said.“Then didn’t it occur to you to get it the hell out of here?”“More than once,” Latrice said. “We even thought about burning the house down.”“Just call the authorities. Let them deal with it. You should have done it forty years ago.”Latrice’s hands went to her face to hide her tears. “You just don’t know how it was back then. People protesting at our front door, calling Kelton Dr. Frankenstein.”Tony grabbed the bottle of brandy, topped up her snifter and then gave her shoulder a reassuring pat.“Ma’am, I’m not here to point fingers or cause distress. I’m just looking for answers. Maybe I can help get rid of that creature in your basement if that’s what it actually is.”Tony’s words and the brandy calmed her. Cupping the snifter in her palms, she held it to her nose as if the pungent aroma might somehow drive away her unpleasant memories. Tony topped up his own glass and that of Dr. Frenette’s.“Our paranoia kept us from revealing the creature to the authorities. Not to mention we feared letting loose such a beast on an unsuspecting city,” Frenette said.“I was afraid they’d put Kelton in prison,” Latrice said.“No one’s going to jail. If you have a serum that cures the disease, why don't you just use it?"“The little problem I mentioned. You can’t inject serum into a frozen body, and we can’t unthaw him because he would kill us.”“Jesus! I can’t believe you’ve lived forty years with that thing in your basement. I take it you stayed here during Katrina.”When Latrice began to cry again, Frenette wheeled over to her, and they hugged again.“We were afraid to stay and even more afraid to leave,” Latrice said when her tears abated.“It was terrible with the wind and rain. Not knowing if the house would survive, much less ourselves,” Frenette said.“Yeah, well it’s not getting much better out there right now. Didn’t you lose power? How did you keep that thing in the freezer from thawing out?”“We had a large generator installed years ago. We’ve never had to use it,” Frenette said.“I think I’d have carried it out to the swamp and dumped it in the bayou,” Tony said.“Believe me, we thought about it. In the end, it just wasn’t possible. If there were just a way to disable it until the serum had a chance to take effect,” he said.Frenette and Latrice both looked at Tony when he said, “Maybe there is.”“You know something you’re not telling us?” he asked.It was Tony’s turn to hold up a palm. “Like I said, I’m investigating two deaths down in St. Bernard Parish, near the Gulf. Both may have been killed by a rougarou. Hell, I don’t even think we’re talking about a single rougarou. There may be several.”“An outbreak. What I’ve feared all these years,” Frenette said. “I have a possible cure, but no way to administer it, except in the early stages of the disease. What were you talking about when you said maybe there is?”“My partner’s working the case on Goose Island. There’s a fishing village with a voodoo woman that lives there. Her son coats his buckshot with something she gives him. He claims it’ll knock down a rougarou.”“For how long?” Frenette asked.“At least until the person doing the shooting can escape.”“Well for God’s sake, tell me what it is!”“Wolfsbane,” Tony said, waiting for Frenette to scoff at his suggestion.He didn’t. Turning to Latrice, he said, “Baby, can you get me the Martinsdale?”“Sure, Hon,” she said.Latrice apparently knew what he wanted because she went to the bookcase lining the wall and pulled a large book from the many volumes. Frenette began leafing through it immediately. Apparently locating what he was looking for, he stared at the page.“Find something?” Tony asked.“Aconite,” he finally said.“Pardon me?”“Aconite, the active ingredient found in the Aconitum species.”“You mean Wolfsbane?”“That’s one of the flowers. The substance has been used in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for centuries. In small doses, it can be helpful. Its highly toxic in large doses and can paralyze, stop a person’s heart, and even kill.”“But will it stop a rougarou?”“You’re the one that said it does.”“Yeah, but I’m not speaking from experience here.”“The Ainu, Japanese indigenous people, used it on their arrows when they hunted bear. It’s extremely powerful. It just might work.”“Fine,” Tony said. “Now what?”“We have to thaw him out.”“You’re shitting me! You have aconite?”“Yes, more than enough to do what we need.”“You sure about that? What if it don’t work?”“Then at least we won’t have to worry about it anymore.”Tony glanced at his watch. “Sounds like you’re gonna need help moving him. I’m ready if you are.”“You’re a brave man, Mr. Nicosia,” Frenette said.“Hell, I don’t hold a candle to you and Latrice. Let’s do it before I change my mind.”Dr. Frenette smiled for the first time since leaving the basement.“Baby, you better open us another bottle of Pierre Ferrand, and then join us in the laboratory.”Tony and Frenette were at the basement door when a clap of thunder shook the roof. When it did, all the lights went out.“Oh hell, there goes the power,” Frenette said.“What happened to the generator?” Tony asked.“It hasn’t been tested since the time it was installed. Who knows? We’ll have to make do without it.”Flickering light soon lit the hallway as Latrice joined them, the bottle of brandy in one hand, a hurricane lamp in the other. Frenette took both.“Go get more candles, Baby. We’re going to need them.”Tony and Frenette were soon back in the dank laboratory lighted only by glimmering candlelight. Latrice quickly joined them. After steeling themselves with more brandy, Frenette pointed to an operating table, its legs lowered so he could reach it without standing.“You ready?” Tony asked.When Frenette nodded, Latrice unlocked the freezer and opened it, her face revealing more than words could express.“What is it, Baby?” Frenette asked.“Oh my God, Hon! It’s fully transformed. No longer even partially human.”Her words caused Tony to become more nervous than he already was.“Help me up,” Frenette said. “I need to see.”Latrice and Tony helped him out of the wheelchair, supporting him as he gazed into the freezer.“My God! Even encased in melting ice, he’s somehow managed to transform entirely from human to wolf. It must be the storm.”“How is that possible? The electricity hasn’t even been off for ten minutes yet.” Tony said.“Then we must hurry. We don’t have much time left.”Tony nodded when Latrice said, “Can you help me get him out of there?”As Frenette watched, Latrice and Tony lifted the large body out of the freezer.“This thing must weigh three hundred pounds,” Tony said, struggling with the weight. “You okay, Latrice?”“I got him. Just hurry.”Frenette had rigged up a mechanical drip and filled it with aconite. The creature’s body was totally naked, its wolf/human genitals only partially hidden by thick tufts of hair. Latrice covered most of the body with a blanket to accelerate the thawing.“Now we wait,” Frenette said. “Soon as I can penetrate his skin with the needle, I’ll start the drip. I don’t need you two for that. Go upstairs and lock the door. I’ll call when I’m done.”“I’m not going anywhere,” Latrice said.“In for a penny, in for a pound. I’m staying,” Tony said.”Twenty minutes passed. Though he’d tried several times, Dr. Frenette was unsuccessful in inserting the needle into the rougarou’s vein. After an hour, the creature’s eyes moved in their sockets. For a moment, Tony was sure they were looking straight at him.“It’s now or never,” Frenette said. “The beast is almost cognizant.”Latrice clutched Tony’s arm as Dr. Frenette began working the needle. The creature was fully thawed and beginning to move. Tony reached for his service revolver before remembering he didn’t have it anymore.“Bingo!” Frenette finally said. “Thank God this instrument has a battery pack or it wouldn’t do us any good without electricity.”“Yeah, when was the last time you checked the batteries?”Frenette didn’t answer. Latrice just closed her eyes, crossed her fingers and began praying out loud. Reaching for the I.V.’s control panel, Frenette flipped the switch. The display turned green and the screen began recording drips of aconite into the creature’s arm.“Shit, that’s a relief. Now what?” Tony asked.“It’ll work, or else in an hour or so we’ll all be in hell,” Frenette said.

###


Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Big Easy - Chapters

In Big Easy, the first installment of the French Quarter Mystery Series, a sinister presence lurks in the shadows of New Orleans. The common thread in these chilling crimes is voodoo. Enter Tony Nicosia, a dedicated N.O.P.D. homicide detective who seeks the aid of his trusted allies- voodoo mambo Mama Mulate and French Quarter sleuth Wyatt Thomas. Together, they embark on a gripping journey to unravel the dark mysteries of the city.

 

GaylonLeBlanc was a collector. Not stamps or coins, but shriveled objects, much likethe one he carried in his pocket for luck. He fingered it as drums echoed fromthe cultural center in Louis Armstrong Memorial Park. Intent on the arrival ofsomeone he knew and his upcoming task. He paid no attention. The drummers hadno idea their hectic tempo would backdrop an actual Vodoun ceremony. One that wouldculminate in someone's death.

Gaylon waited in a part of the park namedBeauregard Square. Also known as, Place du Cirque, or Place des Negres atdifferent times, most locals still called it Congo Square. Dressed as voodoodeity Baron Samedi, in tuxedo, top hat, and flowing cape, Gaylon had arrived atCongo Square long before dark. He awaited a woman's arrival near the fountain centering the cobblestone pavement.

His cigar remained unlit, and his purplesunglasses served no purpose except to save his eyes from the glare of afull moon. He removed them as a taxi halted at the entrance to the square. Whenthe passenger, a nun dressed in a black habit, offered the driver a ten, hemotioned it off with a wave. After crossing himself, he pulled awayin a screech of burning rubber.

The nun stuffed the note in her clothes andturned to the man awaiting her; no words were exchanged when she reached him.Strapping her arms around him, she probed his mouth with her tongue and gropedhis privates. Undisturbed by her blatant sexual advances, Gaylon reciprocated,returning her ardor with his own. Wild drumming continued as he tore open herrobe, ripped off her starched head cover, and tossed them to the ground.

She stood before him in a knee-lengthmantle of beaded seashells that did little to hide her athletic body. Blondhair tumbled to her waist. The fake sister had something else hidden beneathher robe.

Backing away from him, she grasped a blackrooster by its neck in one hand, an opened bottle of Jamaican rum in the other.The rooster, sedated by strong rum poured down its throat, was alive, thoughnot for long. Gaylon watched as she twisted the head off the bird, tossing itslifeless body to the ground.

The headless rooster ran in circles until itfinally dropped, blood gushing from its neck. When it did, she grabbed itspulsating body and held it with the bottle over her head. Warm bloodand strong alcohol poured down her face, mixing with beads of sweat on her bareneck and breasts.

Drawing closer to Gaylon, she begandancing the wild bamboula, her sultry moves daring him to join her. Thepercussive melody pervading the park had become more frantic, as if feeding onthe strength of the two dancers. Her beaded wrap glistened with sweat and bloodas the drumming reached a crescendo. When it did, she stopped dancing.

When she smacked his forehead with her bloodypalm, he dropped to his knees, grabbing his temples as if they were about toexplode. He was no longer Gaylon LeBlanc when he arose from the ground. He wasnow Baron Samedi, as the voodoo deity had taken possession of his body.

 Thewoman began dancing again, her gestures sexual and overt. Baron Samedi finallyreclined her on the cold stone and began ritually humping her. A man burst from the shadows at the climax of the wild yet simulated performance.

He was huge, his crooked smile imparting afierce look in light reflecting from the full moon. Moving away from BaronSamedi, the woman danced toward the man with unkempt hair and blew something uphis nose. The inhaled powder caused an instant change in his persona. A smilereplaced his scowl as she tore open the front of his shirt and clawed deepscratch marks down his chest with her long fingernails. Voodoo drums continuedas she stood on her tiptoes, accosting him with her lips.

“This is the night you’ve waited for, myhandsome lover. The great Ghede himself has sent Baron Samedi to assist you.Tonight, he will help you revenge yourself on the person that has wronged you.”

She turned when Baron Samedi spoke. “You arenot yet done. You have one more thing to do before satisfying my needs.”

Prostrating herself, she crawled toward BaronSamedi and licked his shoes.

“I pray you will return him to my bed,” shesaid.

Baron Samedi dusted his tuxedo, reached intohis pocket, and removed a frightful object, showing it to her.

“He will have his revenge, and I will haveanother nipple for my collection.”

As Baron Samedi left Congo Square, a bus passedon the street, saturating humid air with the momentary odor of burning diesel.Before following him, the other man bent the woman over a park bench. Thistime, the sex wasn't simulated.

“Go now and return triumphantly to my bed beforethe sun rises,” she finally said.

The drums had gone silent as the man followedBaron Samedi out of the square and vanished into the night.

Nearby, a dog howled at the moon, its mournfulsound melding with the screech of brakes on N. Rampart. As a tugboat soundedits whistle, dark clouds shrouded the moon. They masked the man as he left thenun alone in Congo Square and followed Baron Samedi down Rue St. Peter.

 

 

Torrentialrains had moved in from the North, cooling afternoon heat twelve degrees inless than fifteen minutes. As I sat in Bertram Picou’s bar on Chartres Street in the French Quarter, shucking oysters from a pile of seafood laid out on paper spread across a table in the back, I could still see the headline through theoily stains: Strangler claims victim near Lee Circle.

The headline didn’t surprise me. The Big Easyis a violent city, a fact usually hidden from tourists, again visiting afterHurricanes Katrina and Rita. This murder touched me personally because thevictim was my high school English teacher.

Something, maybe the bottle or hundredsof unmotivated students, had driven Sally to madness. She had disappeared for awhile, finally surfacing on St. Charles Avenue, pushing a grocery cart she’dstolen from a nearby grocery store. No one seemed to care. Rain gusted throughthe door, freeing my thoughts from the disturbing murder of Miss Sally Gerant.

The drop in temperature provided a welcomerespite to Bertram’s overworked air conditioning—a bonus for the few luckycustomers enjoying the fragrant mix of rain and spicy seafood. Bertram’s brother, Junior Picou had taken his flat-bottomed skiff out at dawn, into thesplay channels beyond Yscloskey.

Junior had returned before noon with a bounty of shrimp, oysters, and redfish. What Bertram hadn’t used in his pot of gumbo simmering in the kitchen, he boiled up and put on the table as complimentaryappetizers for his customers. Who said there was no such thing as afree lunch?

The bar remained virtually empty despite the enticement, except for a few primarily out-of-work regulars. Everyone,especially Bertram’s female customers, gawked when the front door opened, and ahandsome, middle-aged man entered. After spotting me by the table, he smiledand walked toward me. An expensive raincoat draped his elbow. Despite afternoonhumidity through the roof, he was still wearing his tweed sports coat and hadnot bothered to loosen his tie.

“That you, Wyatt Thomas?” he said. “Rememberme, Beau Kaplan?”

How could I have forgotten? Captain of the L.S.U. football team and student voted most likelyto succeed. How could anyone forget handsome Beau Kaplan, the big man on campus and the one voted by everyone most likely to succeed? He needn’t have worriedabout his popularity as Bertram’s women regulars and a table of local legalsecretaries stared goggle-eyed at him from across the room. He palmed my handwith the secret fraternity handshake I’d almost forgotten.

“How are you doing, Beau? Help yourself to someof Bertram’s grub.”

Beau’s grin vanished. “Ate already. Can wetalk?”

“Sure. There’s a booth in the back.”

“No, I mean somewhere else, like over inJackson Square.”

“You bet,” I said, taking one more bite of theshrimp po'boy.

Not knowing why Beau had bothered looking me upafter all these years or for all the secrecy, I wiped hot sauce off my mouthwith a bar rag and followed him out the door. We found the sidewalk almostdeserted. Rain had moved south toward the Gulf. Dark clouds hung directlyoverhead, weighing heavily on thick, humid air. Too hot for mosttourists, the square was almost deserted. They were probably visiting theendless miles of air-conditioned shops that began where Canal Street intersectsthe Mississippi River. Most any place that had air conditioning. Only awhite-faced mime and a few persistent portrait artists occupied the Square whenwe reached it.

Beau led me to a wrought iron gate to asecluded park bench. His physical appearance had hardly changed since I’d seenhim last. Just a touch of gray rimmed his full head of dark, wavy hair. He andhis wife Kammi owned a mansion near Pontchartrain and many expensive toys. Oneof New Orleans’ leading neurosurgeons, he’d only added to his family’simpressive wealth. His trademark grin soon returned.

“Seeing you again has really brought backmemories.”

I knew what he meant. My sudden recollection ofKammi had sent a wave of melancholy nostalgia cresting across my bow.

“Those days at L.S.U. were the best of my life,” he said. "Remember the frat parties down by the river with the bonfires, barbecue, and kegs of ice-cold beer? Those hot young things all loved you, Wyatt.”

“You kidding me, Beau? When it came to women,you were the pro. I’m just an amateur.”

“Kammi didn’t think so. She never gave me thetime of day until you had that fight at the Old South Party. When you broke up, she gravitated to me—on the rebound, I guess.”

Kammi and I were a number for a while. Icouldn’t remember why we’d argued, but I hadn’t forgotten her large green eyes.Soon after breaking up with Kammi, I took a real job and moved out of the frathouse. Sometime after that, I’d married Mimsy, my ex, and had lost touch withthe frat crowd.

As we talked, a half-grown yellow tabby with astump for a tail appeared from under the park bench. After rubbing against myleg, he bounded into my lap.

“Didn’t know you like cats,” Beau said.

“Never had one.”

“I think you do now. That one looks like hehasn’t had a meal since the last time he sucked his mama’s tit.”

When I stroked the cat, he promptly closed hiseyes and fell asleep in my lap. “What’s bothering you? You didn’t look me up totalk about cats or old times.”

Beau stared at the sky as a gull, wingingtoward Pontchartrain, disappeared into the clouds. Rolling thunder rumbled inthe distance.

“It’s Kammi. She’s trying to kill me.”

I waited for the punch line. Beau’s puckeredbrow and bowed head soon informed me there wasn’t one.

“You’re kidding me?”

“It’s true. You handle this kind of work. I’llpay you to help me.”

Beau’s insinuation that I’d only assist an oldfriend for money stung me, even though I’d experienced a prolonged dry spellwith few clients and fewer payments. Still, I could see he was serious, and Iwas in no position not to hear him out.

“If what you say is true, you should go to thepolice.”

“They’d never believe me.”

“I’m finding it hard myself. Why would Kammiwant to kill you?”

Beau sank back against the bench and squeezedthe raincoat draped over his arm. “Cause I got a girlfriend,” he said,averting his eyes. “Well, more than a girlfriend, a mistress, really. Kammimust have found out about Sheila, and now she’s trying to even the score.”

His admission failed to surprise me. Beautifulwomen had flocked around Beau, always ready to comfort the moody young man. Icouldn’t believe Kammi wasn’t aware of her husband’s wandering ways or thatshe could sustain any negative emotion other than mild anger.

“What did she do? Threaten you with a gun orknife?”

“Worse than that. She went to some witch doctorone of her girlfriends told her about. I know because Sandi, another of hergirlfriends, confided as much to me at the country club barbecue lastSaturday.”

I could only imagine the confiding scene at thecountry club with Sandi and Beau.

“Witch doctor? What the hell are you talkingabout?”

“Voodoo, Wyatt. It is real around here, and youknow it. Kammi found some voodoo witch doctor to cast a spell on me. I’ll be dead soon, and no one will be the wiser.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute, and neithershould you. How is this spell affecting you?”

“It’s bad, Wyatt. I wake up in a cold lather,my head pounding and bones aching. I’m so nervous I can hardly do my business at the hospital.”

Beau grew silent as heat lightning pulsedacross the horizon behind St. Louis Cathedral. Another clap of thunder quicklyfollowed, frightening the pigeons on Andy Jackson’s statue. The white-facedmime had gone, the few remaining artists busy packing their brushes and easelsand hurrying off toward Pirate’s Alley. I waited for Beau to resume his wildtale.

“One thing, though. All this malarkey with Kammihas made me realize the one I love is Sheila. You know, Wyatt, what’s sostrange? I never felt this way about Sheila before and never thought of her asanything except a mistress. Don’t mean a thing, though. When I get thissituation behind me, I will divorce Kammi and marry her.”

“Why wait?”

“Cause I got to break the spell first. That’swhy I need you.”

“I’m no voodoo expert,” I said, half in jest.

“I bet you know someone. That is because you know everybody—always have. Can you help me?”

Warm rain began falling in the vacant JacksonSquare. A clap of thunder almost masked my answer.

 

 

Anotherhot day in New Orleans and Detective Tony Nicosia ran chubby fingers throughthinning hair, trying to ignore the Chief’s angry words that had greeted himwhen he arrived at work. Although barely July yet, the city had alreadyexperienced more than three hundred homicides. Tony seriously consideredpacking up and moving to a safer place. New York City, maybe.

The daydream was fleeting when his partner,Tommy Blackburn, entered the office unannounced.

“Don’t you ever knock?”

“Sorry, Fat Tony,” Tommy said as he pulled up achair.

Detective Nicosia had lost seventy-five poundsin the last two years and had, so far, managed to keep the weight off. Atfive-eight and two-twenty-five, he was still not exactly svelte. He continuedworking at it, walking two miles before work, lowering his cholesterol andblood pressure as he cinched his belt tighter by the month. He detested theprecinct nickname he had lived with for twenty years. He couldn’t get them to stop calling him Fat Tony despite constant appeals to his fellow officers. Noteven Tommy Blackburn, his young partner.

Tony had grown up in a rough New Orleans areaknown as the Irish Channel, a neighborhood once populated by Irish workers. Hisaccent was clearly recognizable by locals from other parts of the city. Manyethnic and racial groups lived there now, and the low-income neighborhood stillmaintained its rugged appearance.

Tommy Blackburn, ten years younger and fortypounds lighter than his partner, had also grown up in the Channel. A raw-bonedsix-footer, Tommy’s ruddy complexion matched his unruly growth of flame-red hair. Tony often accused the bachelor of sleeping in his clothes. His rumpledsports jacket provided no evidence contrary to that accusation. Tommy was likethe little brother he’d never had, so he didn’t bother reminding him not tocall him Fat Tony. Instead, he poured two cups of coffee from the percolator on the corner table.

“What’s up?” Tommy asked.

“My blood pressure,” Tony said, testing thecoffee with a careful sip. “Chief Wexler chewed my ass this morning. Secondtime this week, and it’s just Tuesday.”

“Can’t be that bad. Chief Wexler’s not much ofan ass chewer.”

When Tony failed to answer, Tommy sipped hisown coffee, knowing better than to ask what was caught in Wexler’s throat.

“I’m starved. Let’s grab a po'boy atNicoletta’s.”

“We’ll get something on the way,” Tony said. The chief didn’t like our report from last night’s murder scene, so we’re going back down and looking again to see if we missed something.”

Tony grabbed his own coat from the rack andstarted out the door. After a final swig of his coffee, Tommy followed.

Sergeant Blackburn and Lieutenant Nicosiaworked out of the 8thDistrict Station on Royal Street in the French Quarter. The 8th District includes the Central BusinessDistrict—what the locals call the C.B.D.—theprime downtown and business district and, of course, the French Quarter.

The vaunted 8thDistrict was well known for providing outstanding police service forsignificant events, including Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl. For a while after the hurricane, Detectives Blackburn and Nicosia wondered if thereever would be another Mardi Gras or Super Bowl in New Orleans.

Tony was the chief detective, a job heconsidered one of the city's most essential. He was also one of the few olderofficers in the District who had survived the firings to clean up what somehad deemed the most corrupt police department in the country. Many closefriends and associates had lost their jobs, and not all had been dishonest.Tony still smarted from the experience, and his early morning meeting with theChief brought unwelcome memories.

The district firings were only a blink of an eye compared with the loss caused by Katrina. One of Tony’s oldest and dearestfriends had committed suicide during the immediate aftermath of thedevastation. Many officers fled New Orleans with their families. A fewparticularly heinous individuals had even joined in the looting. Most decent cops had stuck it out, performing like champions through the ordeal. Now, it was summer, and many things had changed.

July in New Orleans is tolerable, although onlybarely, even for the locals. Prickly heat and intense humidity drape the citylike a damp washcloth. Tourists planning their visits usually wait until springor fall. Driven by the need for tourism, city leaders promote minor events like the Festival of the Tomato and Crawfish Week.

Usually, only sweaty tourists tempted byoff-season hotel bargains frequented these events. It was usually so hot inJuly that many locals took their vacations, traveling to cooler climes.After driving down St. Charles Avenue in a police car with inadequate airconditioning, Tony wished he’d gone with them.

“Roll down your window,” he said as they passeda clanging streetcar. “It can’t be any hotter than the air coming out of thevents.”

“That’s the truth,” Tommy said. “What’s thematter with our report?”

Tony remained silent as he parked on thestreet just before reaching Lee Circle. The Garden District, one of the oldestand classiest neighborhoods in the city, lay further down St. Charles.Businesses and warehouses populated the C.B.D. between Lee Circle and downtown New Orleans. Interspersed between them were afew tiny eateries, visited during the day by hordes of workers. They usuallyclosed around five.

Lunch hour, aromas of gumbo and frying shrimpwafted from the many cafes and bistros. Tony’s stomach growled as he and Tommythreaded their way down the sidewalks filled with people dressed in industrialuniforms, white shirts, and ties. There were also the invisible, homelesspeople living on the streets, some asleep on the sidewalk while others extendedhands to the passing herd of office workers. Many were already sipping from Tokay and Mad Dog 20-20 bottles.All they had in common was they didn’t care what people thought about them.

The latest murder had occurred in the earlymorning hours of the previous day Tony and Tommy called at two in the morning.Now, they were returning to the crime scene, an alleyway leading to a largedumpster surrounded by crime scene tape. Tony stepped over the yellow plasticbarrier, walked behind the dumpster, and stared at the bloody concrete patch.After several minutes of silence, Tommy finally tapped his shoulder.

“What do you think?”

“There’s blood all over the dumpster. And overthere,” Tony said, pointing at a spot on the brick wall he had overlooked inthe dark. “The old lady was probably going through the trash to findsomething to eat. That door is the back of a café that closes around five. Herkiller probably dragged her behind this dumpster. He must be a big one, considering how he manhandled her.”

“Or maybe two murderers,” Tommy said. “Thevictim looked at least one-seventy-five. Living on the street and all, I doubtshe was a shrinking violet.”

Tony thought about his comment. “The killer cuther clothes off with a razor and then used it on her. Bruising and loss ofblood means she was alive while all this was happening.”

Tommy shook his head. “The coroner’s reportwill be interesting, especially if she put up a fight.”

“He’ll have something for us, always does.”

Tommy mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “Nowonder the Captain is pissed. This one could be bad for the recovery, being soclose to the Quarter and all.”

Tony crossed over the tape and started for thecar. “We’ll nose around the streets and see if anyone saw something unreported.”

Lunch hour was near an end, and it didn’t takelong to find two of the many homeless people who lived in the C.B.D. The men were sleeping on the walkway coveredby remnants of a day-old Times Picayune. An empty bottle of Tokay lay betweenthem. Tommy prodded one man’s ribs with the toe of his shoe.

“You boys seen anything unusual lately?”

Both men blinked and rubbed their eyes. “Likewhat?” one man said.

“Like a large man, maybe a stranger to thearea? Maybe you saw him drive up in a car.”

The man shook his head and pulled the paperback over his head. The other man refused to answer at all. When furtherquestioning provided only a consumptive cough, Tony motioned Tommy to give itup and move on. They continued questioning panhandlers, bag ladies, and winos,again with no success.

“These zombies aren’t alive just yet. Make anote to have the uniforms come back after dark. Maybe they’ll be morereceptive.”

As they returned to the car, someone caughttheir attention. The big man walking toward them was tall and sallow, his facescarred by acne and exposure to the sun. He also had the muscled physique of asmack-down wrestler. A red ski cap topped his dark and greasy, shoulder-lengthhair. His thousand-yard stare glared at them as he passed on the sidewalk.Despite his disheveled appearance, the man appeared sober.

“You looking at me?” he said.

“N.O.P.D.,”Tony said. We need to ask you a few questions.”

“I didn’t say anything to you,” the man saidwith an angry edge to his voice as he continued walking.

Tommy started to grab him, but Tony shook hishead. “Call for backup to take this guy downtown for questioning. He’s not awino, but he’s large enough to be our killer, and clearly not normal.”

Tommy quickly used his cell phone. Until helparrived, they followed the large man who was apparently indifferent to theirpresence. Shortly, two uniformed police officers arrived in a cruiser and wentafter the suspect as soon as Tony had pointed him out.

“Sir, you need to come downtown forquestioning,” one of the officers said.

The man ignored the request, brushing pastthem. The two officers grabbed his arm.

“Hey Mac, didn’t you hear me?”

The suspect wheeled around, his face red andwild eyes accentuating his tortured complexion. Without warning, he swiped atthe cop with a small knife he had hastily pulled from his pants pocket.

“Don’t kill him!” Tony yelled, sensing what wasabout to happen.

Without waiting, Tommy knocked theknife-wielder to the ground with a flying body roll from behind.

“You sons-of-bitches,” the man screamed asthree cops descended on him, cuffing and dragging him to the awaiting squadcar.

Tony and Tommy watched as the two uniformedpolice officers screeched off downtown, the suspect in handcuffs in thebackseat.

“Now that’s one crazy dude. You think we’relucky enough for him to be our killer?” Tommy asked.

“Never know. One thing I do know. We got aboutall the information we’re gonna get today from this damaged mass of humanity.Let’s head uptown and visit the morgue.”

A tanker coming up the river blew its whistle,the mournful sound melding with blaring car horns involved in trafficcongestion on Canal. As they drove down Camp Street, the air conditioningworked no better than before. Despite their impending confrontation with death,both men welcomed cooler air as they entered the building housing the morgue.Dr. Bernard’s office was at the end of a long hallway, and they entered withoutknocking.

“Got anything for us, Doc?” Tony asked.

Dr. Bernard nodded and began reading from thereport on his desk. “As you already know, her name was Sally Gerant, a white female, sixty-five years old, hundred and eighty pounds, raped and sodomized.We have a sufficient sample of semen. The murderer bruised and cut her with astraight razor. He also took some trophies, pieces of her skin, and snippets ofhair. Some of the cuts in her chest look like symbols.”

“Of what?” Tommy asked.

“Can’t tell because of the swelling, but theylook like patterns. He kept her alive while he was torturing her, althoughthere was no evidence of a struggle from the woman. I found no hair or skin underher fingernails and no bits of anything human I could identify. She was apracticing alcoholic. She had no other diseases and was in reasonable health exceptfor her scarred liver. No physical abnormalities. Excellent muscle tone for awoman her age and weight. Cause of death strangulation.”

“Ligature,” Tony said. “He kept her alive byapplying the right amount of pressure to whatever he used to strangle herwith.”

“Probably a thin wire,” Dr. Bernard said.“There’s swelling around the ligature mark, which means he worked her over forten minutes or more. He gloved her so she couldn’t scratch him, but he didn’tbother tying her hands.”

“Find any prints?” Tony asked.

Dr. Bernard shook his head. “The killerprobably wore gloves. Not that it matters. Besides his semen, we got samples ofhis saliva, where he drooled on the old woman, and some long hairs from someoneother than her. When you catch the man, we’ll have all the needed evidence.”

“Crazy,” Tony said. “He wore gloves but not arubber. What’s the point?”

“What color are the hairs?” Tommy asked,ignoring his partner’s question.

“Dark, almost black, but definitely Caucasian,”Dr. Bernard said

“What’s the victim’s history?” Tommy asked.

He cast a questioning glance at his partnerwhen Dr. Bernard said, “From New Orleans. She used to teach English over inMetairie. So far, no relative has come forward to claim the body.”

The footsteps of Tony and Tommy echoed down theempty hallway as they departed the coroner’s office. Though Tony was movingahead with authority, Tommy had no trouble keeping up with his short-legged,older partner. They went to the snack shop on the ground floor andpoured coffee from the urn. Tony’s stomach growled again, louder this time ashe glanced at the doughnuts lined up in the cabinet by the cash register. Tommyjoined him at a table in the back corner.

“What’s your take on all this, Fat Tony?”

“Your ass if you don’t quit calling me FatTony.”

“Sorry,” he said, sipping his hot coffee.

“These street people are tough. They had to beto survive Katrina. Sally was a bag lady living alone on the street. Reasonfor murder is random selection. At least, that’s my first take, though we needto check her family and acquaintances to verify that. Our killer is big andunusually strong.”

Tommy frowned and folded his arms. “What else?”

“The killer seems to know something aboutpolice procedure, or he wouldn’t have gloved her. Even that fails to make much sense because he didn’t bother using a rubber. Sounds like something a crazyasshole might do.”

“Something else puzzles me,” Tommy said. “Evenwith a crazy asshole, he could have found a better candidate to satisfy hissexual needs.”

“It had nothing to do with sex,” Tony said.“That old woman was physically unattractive, bordering on the grotesque.Probably hadn’t bathed in years and smelled like a distillery. Our man hadanother motive in mind.”

“Like what?” Tommy asked.

“Humiliation,” was Tony’s terse reply.

 

 

BeauKaplan was right. I did know a voodoo practitioner, as did almost every other resident of the Big Easy. Beau picked me up in front of Picou’s bar in his maroon Lexus coupe for a little trip to see the one I knew. Mama Mulate lived in a two-story Victorian house not far from the river. Age and decay typifiedmost of the homes in the old neighborhood, with crumbling brick walls only partiallyconcealing junk cars littering many of the yards.

Mama’s house resided at the end of the block. Ahorn sounded from a nearby tugboat plying its business as we parked in herdrive. I kept my fingers crossed that the fancy chrome hubs of Beau’s Lexus wouldstill be there when we returned.

A jungle of garden plants covered Mama’s frontporch, banana palms and other semi-tropical plants that melded with fragrantbougainvilleas draping from the ceiling in wicker baskets. Hibiscus and morningglories crammed well-tended beds surrounding the porch, and a small truckgarden teemed with peas and carrots on the side of the house.

Mama answered the door, Beau instantly smittenby the handsome woman. When I introduced them, he became all charm andPepsodent. Ignoring his blatant flirtation, she led us down a narrow hallway toa room where she donned a black lace shawl retrieved from the closet. Onlyflickering light from several well-placed candles lit the room, and it took amoment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness.

Mama was sensually stunning, slender, and nearly six feet tall in her thin caftan. Coffee-colored flesh accentuated finelychiseled features and flowing black hair draping her shoulder blades.When she finally spoke, she did so with no discernible accent. Mama’sunderstanding of the black arts wasn’t all she possessed. She also had adoctorate in English and taught classical literature at Tulane University.

She sat at a table near an elaborateshrine decorated with glowing candles, various bones, feathers, and crucifixes.The room reeked with the cloying odor of melted wax and burning incense. Shemotioned us to join her at the table and quickly locked Beau’s eyes in herintense stare. Her eyes soon mesmerized Beau, reducing him to swayingpassivity. When Mama finally spoke her Oxford-flavored accent had disappeared,replaced by the rhythmic singsong of a Haitian field hand.

“Why you come see Mama?”

“A spell,” Beau’s voice droned. “Someone put aspell on me.”

Mama tossed her head, causing a strobe-likepassage of light to permeate her thick black hair. She closed her eyes andslowly raised her chin, stretching her arms toward the ceiling. Soon, she beganto shake. It started with a barely noticeable palpitation in the hollow of herlong neck and then quickly shimmied down the length of her body.

Absorbed in his own trance, Beau didn’t notice Mama’s fit. I did, reaching a hand across the table to help her.I didn’t get far—a force, like repelling magnets, stopped my hand, locking itin midair. All the candles flared as if pure oxygen had suddenly surgedthrough the room. Mama’s head slammed against the table with such force Ithought she must have knocked herself out. Again, the force kept me fromtouching her.

For the better part of a minute, I watched asMama’s upper torso writhed on the tabletop; her dark eyes rolled back in her head, and a thin strand of saliva drooled from the side of her open mouth. Whenher convulsions finally ceased, she lay on the table for a long moment before apiercing sound emanated from her unmoving lips—a moan that seemed to come fromanother world rattled the walls and whipped the softly glowing candles intoorange and crimson flame.

“Who dares awaken me from my sleep?” a deepvoice said.

 Beau’seyes were open, his body rigid, almost as if he were in an advanced stage ofrigor mortis. The voice, pealing from Mama’s lips, repeated the question.

“Mama, is it you?” I asked.

“Mambo asleep. I am Bon Dieu. What is it youwant?”

Mama was a close friend, and from my manydiscussions over the years with her, I knew Bon Dieu was the High God ofVoodoo. The voice coming from her body had to be a hoax, but I didn’t believeit. Mama had too much integrity to stoop to such theatrics. Maybe I was wrong.Still feeling quite the fool, I answered the question.

“My friend thinks someone has cast a spell onhim.”

The spirit’s laughter echoed inside the smokyroom. When the laughter died away, the voice said, “A powerful spell, anunbreakable spell cast by a mighty houngan.”

“If you’re the Bon Dieu, you can helpus.”

“Such a powerful spell cast cannot be undone,”the indignant voice replied. “Finality is the only solution.”

“What finality?”

A cold wind chilled the room before I’d gottenmy answer. It rattled the walls, flying files and feathers and flaringcandle flames. When the wind ceased, Mama moaned, raised her head, and staredaround the room. Beau shook the cobwebs from his head, opening and closing hismouth, trying to pop his ears as his eyes began to refocus.

“What was that?” he asked.

“The Bon Dieu,” I said.

“Hardly,” Mama said, making the sign of thecross. “It was only a loa, a simple spirit of the dead, but he told you whatyou came to hear. A voodoo priest we call a houngan has cast a powerful spell you cannot break.”

***

Beau’s Lexus had survived the stay in Mama’sdriveway. He returned me in silence to my apartment over Bertram Picou’s bar.Two days later, I discussed the incident with Bertram as he polished glassesbehind the bar, his collie asleep on the floor beside him.

Cajun slang peppered Bertram’s colorfulvocabulary. His bar on Chartres, hidden two blocks from Bourbon Street, was afavorite of the locals and the occasional tourist who stumbled in toescape the heat or rampant humidity. Bertram’s bar never closed its doorsduring Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Bertram, like many of his regulars, refusedto evacuate.

Many parts of New Orleans became flooded when several levees failed. Most notably, the Lower 9th Ward remained underwater for several weeks, first under Katrina and then Rita. The French Quarter was different. Theoriginal inhabitants of New Orleans constructed the city on the area’s highestground. The forethought of the founding fathers helped spare the Quarter andthe C.B.D. from the storm’s destruction.

Bertram never stopped serving whiskey andbeer—cold as long as the ice lasted and warm afterward. He soon found agenerator, solving even the problem of warm beer. The main drawback was thesmell of garbage, dead fish, and mildew that lingered long after clearing the carnage of the two monster hurricanes.

Bertram always wore a trapper’s hat that framedhis square face, emphasizing his gapped teeth and graying ponytail. He alwayssmiled, even when tossing the inevitable unruly drunk out the front door.Bertram was French Acadian—an authentic Cajun. That meant he was friendlythough distant with people he didn’t know. Like most Cajuns, he would doanything for a friend.

“What’s up, my man? You look like you seen aghost.”

“Maybe I did,” I answered, relating my experience at Mama’s séance as briefly as possible.

“Your doctor buddy sounds beaucoup screwy,”Bertram said, tossing Lady a treat from a canister beneath the bar.

“He is just a little eccentric from growing upthe only child of one of the wealthiest families in the city.”

At that moment, Beau Kaplan entered the bar dressed like a Calvin Klein runway model. “You wouldn’t be talking about me,now would you, old buddy?” he said, pulling up a bar stool beside me.

“One and the same,” I said. “Beau Kaplan, thisis Bertram Picou, proprietor of this fine establishment.”

The usually moody Beau pumped Bertram’s handacross the bar, his smile celebrating every perfect tooth in his mouth.

“Proud to meet you.”

“Sorry about what happened at Mama’s house,” Isaid.

“You kidding me? That was the most awesomeexperience of my life, and the spirit told me exactly what I needed to do.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“I had Kammi served with divorce papers. I’mmoving in with Sheila. Best thing I ever did and I owe it all to you.”

I had a feeling Kammi would be less thanthrilled with me if she knew of my involvement in her impending divorce.Without asking, Bertram poured himself and Beau shots of Jack Daniel’s and acold glass of lemonade for me.

“Here’s to you!” Bertram said as he and Beaudrained their shots.

“Wyatt, I got a business proposition for you.All my friends at the club are just as curious as I am about my voodooexperience. They all want to learn more about the city’s best-kept secret, andyou’re just the one to teach them.”

I glanced at Bertram and noticed his usualsmile had changed into a wry grin. “I really don’t know that much aboutvoodoo.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. Here’s themoney I owe you for solving my problem,” he said, peeling off ten crispBenjamin Franklins from the roll he pulled out of his sports coat. “I know youcan use the money, and you can easily make this much and more. All you gotta dois introduce some of my friends into the voodoo inner circle. You know what Imean?”

I had no idea what he meant, and I wanted toreturn the thousand dollars to Beau. I knew I couldn’t because I owedBertram two months’ rent. After Katrina, he needed the money, and so did I. Withhis 100-watt smile still intact, Beau patted myshoulder and headed for the door.

“I’ll be back in touch,” he said. “Thanks abunch, Wyatt.”

I watched him go, then turned to find Bertramwaiting with an outstretched palm. Counting out half the bills, I pocketed therest. Was Beau the answer to my prayers or a nightmare waiting to happen? Ididn’t have an answer.

 “Youhaven’t had a paying customer since February,” Bertram said, sensing myhesitation. “You need some work, and to tell you the truth, I’m tired of seeingyou sit in that booth back there sulking all day.”

“I’m not a tour guide,” I said.

“Now you listen to me,” he said, thumping hischest. “If someone wants to give you a job plucking chickens, you better takethe plucking job. You ain’t got nothing else going right now.”

Bertram was right. Still, I knew little moreabout voodoo in New Orleans than Beau. It didn’t matter because Mama did. Icalled later and left a message on her answering machine.

***

Although my room upstairs was small, it was allI needed. It had a bedroom, closet, and bath, but it had a wrought ironbalcony overlooking Rue Chartres. I had a potted palm growing on it, and hangingplants draping the colorful awning that shielded it from the day's heat.Oh, and now there was Bob, the cat I’d rescued in Jackson Square during mymeeting with Beau.

Despite my better judgment, I’d grown fond ofthe yellow tabby. He looked as if his name should be Bob because all he had fora tail was a stump. Once I’d named him, as the saying goes, he was my cat.More likely, I was his human.

Bertram had frowned on me keeping him. Itdidn’t matter because Bob had taken to the balcony. He wasn’t about to leave,and I wasn’t about to make him. He spent his days sunning, stretching, andwatching the action on Chartres from a perch in my potted palm. At night, he’dgo tomcatting. I always knew when he’d returned because he would scratch on thepatio door until I let him in. He’d also taken to sleeping at the foot of mybed, and I’d finally given up trying to put him out. Soon, I didn’t know if hewas my pet or the other way around.

***

Toward the end of the week, Mama returned mycall. “I feel terrible taking the poor man’s money when there’s nothing I cando for him.”

“There’s nothing poor about him Mama, and hethinks you hung the moon. Anyway, I called you about another matter Are youinterested in a potential business deal?”

“What kind of business deal?”

“Let’s talk about it in person.”

Mama hesitated and then said, “I’m workinglate tonight, grading a few papers. Will you stop by? When I finish, we’llget some oysters and barbecue shrimp at Pascal Manale’s.”

Later that night I took Mama up on her offer.

***

When the streetcar rattled to a stop at Tulane,I entered a world of towering oaks and academia. The old universitywas stately and somewhat imposing. I entered the large building housing theEnglish Department and took the stairs to Mama’s office. It was the weekend,and the building was nearly deserted. I found her alone at her desk, dressed quitedifferently from our previous meeting. Instead of the revealing caftan she’dworn at the ceremony, her pinstriped dress imparted a stately and intellectualpersona. Steadfastly refusing to discuss my business proposal while gradingpapers, she made me wait silently. When she finally finished, we drove downthe street in her fully restored Bugeye Sprite to Pascal Manale’s.

While waiting for a table in the crowdedrestaurant, we enjoyed two dozen freshly shucked oysters at the bar in the front. After making it to a table in the back, we barely talked while eating thesucculent shrimp and didn’t discuss business at all until we had finished ourbread pudding. Finally, I told her about my meeting with Beau Kaplan.

“You know I’m a practitioner of Vodoun becauseit is very real to me,” she said. “What you saw and heard the other day was nota sideshow attraction.”

“That’s exactly why I called you. Beau wants anexpert. I’m not, but you are. His friends have money, Mama, and they willgladly pay. I propose a fifty-fifty partnership. I bring you the clientele, andyou take it from there. I’ll help all I can, of course. I think we can makesome real money.”

“Well,” she finally said. “I would love anextended trip to Europe this time next year. When do we start?”

“When Beau calls. He is setting us up withsomeone as we speak. Are you in?”

Mama smiled, shook my hand, and motioned ourserver for more coffee.

###



Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You can also check out his Facebook page.

Big Easy - an excerpt

In Big Easy, Book 1 of my French Quarter Mystery Series, a killer is at play on the dark streets of New Orleans. The element connecting all of the killings is voodoo. Long-suffering N.O.P.D. homicide detective Tony Nicosia enlists the assistance of two of his friends: voodoo mambo Mama Mulate and French Quarter sleuth Wyatt Thomas to assist him in his investigation.Voodoo is the street name for Vodoun and it’s safe to say few people know much of anything about this strange and mysterious religion. In Big Easy, Mama instructs Tony about voodoo and takes him with her to attend a ceremony on the banks of Bayou Rigolette. Ride along with Mama and Tony and attend the ceremony with them. Some of the content of the excerpt is “racy,” so if you are offended by such content then please stop reading now.In Mama’s words— “The ceremonies are often quite sexual as Vodoun is the religion of common people. Poor people of the world have no place in their lives for puritan mores and morality. Life is not all flowers and fairy tales, it’s also bladder wrenching fear, utter poverty, and rotten meat. Will you be okay?” she asks Tony.Tony survived but not without consequences. Like Tony, I hope you will also be okay and that you will enjoy your peek into a Louisiana voodoo ceremony during a stormy night on the bayou.
Big Easy, Chapter 24
When the rain had subsided a bit, Mama continued along the blacktop, this time at a much slower speed to avoid hydroplaning into the ditch. Her body language indicated Tony had regained her good graces. As flashes of lightning illuminated the cab of the car, he could feel the thaw.“Tell me about the case. Maybe I can help,” she said.“The three victims were homeless, the two females both murdered in a ritualistic fashion. All lived near the Camp Street Mission. Slow strangulation with a thin piece of wire killed the two women. The murderer strangled the male with his bare hands. Oddly enough, the male victim was our prime suspect in the case.”“Why did you suspect the murdered man?”“His history of violent behavior. He’d once attacked his English teacher. Both female victims were former English teachers. Problem is he was also a victim.”“I see,” Mama said. “A mystery wrapped in a conundrum.”“Something like that,” Tony said. “We found a bowler hat, cigar, and flashy sunglasses at the scene. That’s compatible with your description of the man that attacked Celeste.”“Baron Samedi,” she said. “Wyatt told me the murderer took a hand and left the foreleg of a cow in its place.”“The way Wyatt explained it to me, this Baron person should have ended up with the cow’s hoof. Tommy, my partner, said it sounds ass-backward.”“Unless the murderer left the foreleg as a clue.”“Or to make us think he’s someone he’s not,” Tony said.“The person that enticed Celeste away from Bourbon Street was Baron Samedi, and not someone disguised as him. Of that, I am sure.”“Mama, I’m having trouble absorbing this spiritual stuff and such. I can’t deal with a ghost here. I need a killer that’s an air-breathing human being.”“He is Tony. In Vodoun, we deal with the concept of possession. Spirits often possess the bodies of the living. Possession causes them to do things they would not ordinarily do. You will see this at the ceremony tonight. These possessions are usually initiated by mambos or houngans.”“You mean someone could be directing the murderer?”“That is exactly what I mean.”“Great! I can see the confused looks in the eyes of the jury right now. Every defense attorney in the city will be clamoring to represent the killer. Hell, the case is already so convoluted that I could get him off myself.”Again, the rain became so intense that Mama pulled to the side of the road, put the car in neutral, and engaged the emergency brake. This time, she kept the engine running because the roof and windows of the little car were so porous there was little chance of asphyxiation. “It’ll work out,” she said.“I hope so. Now finish your story about tonight’s ceremony.”“Each Vodoun ceremony is unique, meant to invoke a particular Loa to negotiate with Bon Dieu. Our faith has three stages of initiation. Most worshipers never go beyond the first level. The next requires much more time and effort to achieve. Mambos and houngans are initiates of the second level. The third level is, quite simply, the most powerful practitioner of our faith on the earth.”“And who is that?” Tony asked.“That’s a secret even I don’t know.”By now, the ground was saturated and heavy rainfall streamed across the road with large fish flopping around in the middle of the narrow thoroughfare. It seemed to be raining fishes. Tony worried the intensified storm would result in canceling the ceremony.“This could go on all night,” he said.“Have faith,” Mama said. “The rain will cease long before the activities begin.” “If you say so,” he said.He began to notice her perfume—an enchanting fragrance further enhanced by the sweet, subtle scent of her warm, damp body. Like a double shot of straight whiskey, it quickly intoxicated him.“The ceremonies are often quite sexual as Vodoun is the religion of common people. Poor people of the world have no place in their lives for puritan mores and morality. Life is not all flowers and fairy tales, it’s also bladder wrenching fear, utter poverty, and rotten meat. Will you be okay?”“I’ve been around the block a time or two.”“I’ll bet you have. What do you think is the most appropriate gift for the Queen of the Sea?”“Fish, I guess,” he said.Mama laughed aloud. “Never offer Lasyrenn fish. Appropriate offerings are sweet, white wine, mirrors, and perfume. It was a reasonable guess.”As Mama predicted, the rain soon abated and finally stopped altogether. They still had a problem. When she put the car into gear, the rear wheels spun in the mud. They were stuck. Tony got out and rocked the car, pushing as Mama applied the gas. Luckily, the vehicle wasn’t heavy, and the pavement nearby. Still, he was out of breath when he reentered the car.“You’re way too young to be wheezing like that after a little exercise. I have something to increase your strength. You’re going to need all you can muster before the night ends.”She reached into her purse for a vitamin bottle filled with capsules, popping one into his mouth.“What is it?” he asked.“An extraction from the bark of an African tree called Yohimbe. Warriors used to drink Yohimbe tea before going into battle. It has psychotropic properties. Simply put, it alters perception, emotion, and behavior. It was the first drug approved as a treatment for sexual dysfunction. Unlike Viagra, it does more than make you erect.”“Like what?” he asked.“Puts you in the mood. Makes you want it like a rutting stag.”“Do you get it from Africa?”“You can buy it over-the-counter at practically any drugstore.”Since Mama had made clear the herb only works on male subjects, he wondered why she kept a bottle in her purse. He didn’t need her drug because he was already hot for the gorgeous voodoo mambo. While taking a hard corner, Mama reached over and grabbed his thigh for support. When her electric touch brought him to an almost instant erection, he began to worry.The car’s top that had been such a bear to raise and secure was a pussycat to lower. The rain had finally ceased, and Mama unlatched the top, laying it behind them as she drove.“Never did like these things,” she said.Mama exited the main road and took an even narrower blacktop that led into a thicket of trees, bushes, and vines. An armadillo ran across the road in front of them. Minutes later, the pervasive rhythm of African drums, echoing through the draping shadow of live oak and Spanish moss, encompassed their senses.“Mambo Aghnee will have a mistress-of-ceremony. Her name is Estelle. There is also a group of servers dressed in white. Most of the worshipers will only be onlookers. Some will even become possessed.”Between the Yohimbe and magic powder Mama had blown up his nose, Tony’s head had begun to hum. Though he couldn’t explain the feeling, he knew it was a mental high more powerful than he’d ever experienced. The herbs, Mama’s perfume, damp night air, and the steady drumming had transported him to a different plane of reality. Worse, he’d almost forgotten the main reason he was there in the first place. He remained in his seat after Mama parked and got out of the car. Opening the passenger door, she grabbed his hand.“Are you ready?”He had a silly grin on his face as she nudged him gently out of the bucket seat. It no longer worried him that she might see the obvious bulge in his pants. Mama simply smiled as she led him to the peristyle illuminated by torchlight. The brethren had already started gathering, many sitting cross-legged in a circle around the peristyle, their bodies swaying to the beat of drums.
“Being a mambo has its perks,” Mama said. “There’s something important I have to tell you. It’s possible you may be asked to perform in the ceremony.”Her statement normally would have sent Tony running to the comfort and safety of the car. Tonight was different. He was different.“How will I know what to do?”“You’ll know,” she said.Heavy rain had passed, heading south toward the Gulf. Humidity remained, carrying with it the dueling fragrances of perfume and night blooming hyacinths. Mingling aromatic scents further lifted his already elevated libido. As he and Mama swayed to the music, the tempo of the three drums began to change. Smoke, billowing from the far side of the peristyle, appeared after a loud pop. It remained near the ground as humid air prevented its rapid dissipation. With everyone’s attention rapt, a young woman appeared followed closely by three women dressed in white.The woman named Estelle, Mambo Aghnee’s La Place, danced slowly to the rhythm of sultry drums. Attractive Estelle had the body of a college athlete. Gris gris and charms draped from chains around her neck, decorating her white dress. Her legs, exposed to mid-thigh, were the color of coffee lightened with extra cream. Bouncing cornrows framed her face and expressive eyes.The servers carried a hidden stash of offerings for the Loa Lasyrenn. Estelle took a bottle of white wine from one woman and danced to the poteau mitan, a post in the ground acting as the altar. Removing the cork, she poured a few drops on the post. Dropping to her knees, she began writhing like a serpent. When she finally returned to her feet, she grabbed the neck of her dress with both hands and ripped it open to the top of her dark pubic hair. After pouring the rest of the wine down her chest, she caressed her breasts with the bottle. Sinking to her knees, she continued her snakelike dance.The serpent dance caused the audience of fifty or more people to sing, sway, and moan, many joining in with their own writhing movement. Estelle crawled on her belly to her servers, retrieving from them dove feathers and a mirror. Something unusual happened this time when she deposited the offering at the poteau mitan.The audience gasped as the loud pop of another explosion sounded. A second thick cloud of smoke billowed up from the far side of the peristyle. From the cloud of smoke, another woman appeared. It was Mambo Aghnee, her arms outstretched to the heavens, right hand clasping a rattle made from a calabash gourd.Mama Aghnee’s flowing hair reached her waist. Instead of black as Tony had expected, it was a striking shade of blond. Her pale skin seemed almost as though it had never seen the light of day. Her knee-length mantle of loosely beaded seashells made no pretense of covering her otherwise nude body. In that obscure age somewhere between early forty and seventy, her legs and torso could have passed for an athletic twenty-five-year-old. The youthful-looking mambo had neither scar nor blemish on her body. Her finest asset kept the crowd from spending too much time staring at her body. If she locked you with her eyes—limpid blue, the color of the sea pooled in Bahamian coral grottos—it was hard to break the stare.Mambo Aghnee danced around the perimeter of the peristyle, shaking the rattle at her servers and the rapt audience. She circled three times and then moved toward the poteau mitan. dropping to her knees, she produced a bag containing powdered eggshell from beneath her beads. Pouring the eggshell into her hand, she used it to draw Lasyrenn’s vever in the dirt. Everyone watched until she completed the masterful drawing, the symbolic meaning known only to her.Mambo Aghnee pivoted on her knees, facing a bit of the peristyle that she and her La Place had oriented. Swaying observers parted and the servers appeared, between them a young woman with an angelic smile and nude body. They danced her to the awaiting Mambo Aghnee.Something about the striking mambo seemed vaguely familiar to Tony. Awash in the beat of drums, Mama’s perfume, and flickering torchlight, it failed to register as something important. The breaking and ebbing waves of dancers and performers engulfed him. Like the rest of the crowd watching the ceremony, he was only intent on the actions of the naked initiate and Mambo Aghnee.After the servers and Estelle had oriented the initiate, Mambo Aghnee began dancing around her, shaking her rattle. Estelle and the servers placed offerings at the poteau mitan and on the body of the initiate. The young woman was soon dripping with perfume, honey, and white wine.Matched by Mambo Aghnee’s frenetic movements, the drummers changed the rhythm of their instruments. The faster she danced, the more sexually overt her gestures became. The crowd responded, mimicking every move and mannerism the animated mambo made.A collective gasp surged through the mass of swaying bodies following someone’s shrill scream. Almost on cue, a dozen observers began rolling on the ground, their bodies, and limbs writhing in a burst of uncontrolled motion. Mambo Aghnee’s actions were similar, although wilder and more animated.The possession had begun. Having accepted her offerings, the loa Lasyrenn had finally appeared embodied within the molten shape of Mambo Aghnee. Sultry and brazen, Lasyrenn/Aghnee pulsated through the faithful, humping their legs, stimulating them with the sexually explicit use of her lips, tongue, hands, and body. Her lewd behavior prompted more possessions. Those possessed rolled, squirmed, squealed, and cried on the ground beneath her bare feet.As Lasyrenn/Aghnee passed among the true believers, they opened a pathway toward the vever, the poteau mitan, and the loa’s newest initiate. Tony watched the blue-eyed woman mount the young initiate and hump her like an excited stallion. When the simulated, although quite explicit action ended, Lasyrenn/Aghnee stretched to her full height and pointed to the woman she straddled with her legs.“Ainsi sort-il,” she shouted.“Ainsi sort-il,” the dancers replied.Estelle and the servers helped the young initiate to her feet and then pulled a white dress over her head. One of the women brought an ivory bowl that she and the others used to clean the initiate’s head. Following the ceremony known as Lave Tet, they led her away into the trees. Although the initiation had ended, the ceremony was not yet complete.Mama’s drugs had already altered Tony’s perception of reality. No reality remained. As if on cue, the drumming intensified as every reveler crowded into the peristyle. He had the vague sense of Mama dancing around him, her caftan pulled down to her waist to reveal her bare breasts. It all seemed natural as she pulled him into the crowd. Tony’s spirit had entered a wild, bacchanalian dream as Lasyrenn/Aghnee singled him out of the crowd. She danced toward him, her muscles flexing, and skin glistening with sweat. When he reached for her, she smiled and pulled away, then moved even closer, blowing in his ear and licking his eyeballs as she played with his nipples through the coarse cotton fabric of his shirt. Soon, she squatted atop him, humping him in a lascivious manner.Lightning flashed overhead, joining the fireworks already ignited in Tony’s brain, his reality suddenly altered beyond breaking. After turning the wildly excited Lasyrenn/Aghnee on her back, he spread her legs and began humping her as if a man possessed. He was possessed. Crowding around him, they began chanting Ghede, Ghede, Ghede.Finished with Lasyrenn/Aghnee, Ghede/Tony rose to his feet and saw Mama. Stalking her, they launched into a game of cat and mouse as interpreted by dancing and movement that was both ritualistic, and sexually explicit. Ghede/Tony finally caught her, rolling her in the dirt beneath him, her shapely legs pointing toward the darkness.
Mama’s skirt lay crumpled on the grass, her shapely legs spread wide and inviting, her eyes wild with desire. Ghede/Tony needed no encouragement. With tongue hanging from his salivating mouth, he lowered himself between her legs and had his way with her.
###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

City of Spirits - an excerpt

In City of Spirits my second book in the French Quarter Mystery Series, N.O.P.D. homicide detective Tony Nicosia is dealing with Mardi Gras, an escaped killer and an affair he's having with a woman young enough to be his daughter. When he seeks the assistance of his friend voodoo mambo Mama Mulate, she agrees to help him. First, though, he must help her with the problem that she has: the intervention of her friend who is a serial bird hoarder.
City of Spirits - Chapter 27
Morning sun peeked over the Superdome as Tony left Venus’ apartment and hailed a cab. Too late—or too early, whichever your perspective—to go home, he decided to pay Mama Mulate a visit instead. He’d met Mama during a murder investigation. Voodoo had been involved.Being a voodoo mambo, Mama had provided valuable information that had helped stop the murderer. Along the way, they had become close friends. Right now, he needed a friend, someone to consult with about his ever-encompassing relationship with Venus Hernandez.The taxi driver dropped him off in front of Mama’s old two-story house, purple, gold, and yellow pansies blooming in the flower garden around her front porch. His visit sat a dog to barking across the street. Mama, checking on the commotion, came to the door before he had a chance to knock.She was tall, not quite six feet although slender enough to pass for it. Her skin was the color of cafe au lait, with extra lait stirred in. She had dark eyes perfectly highlighted by subtle cheekbones. Her long hair, usually tied up in back to match the persona of the Tulane University professor she was, flowed down her graceful shoulders in curly waves. Morning mist rose up from the lawn as she opened the front door, still wearing her cotton robe.“Why Lieutenant Nicosia, to what do I owe the pleasure, this early in the day?”Tony smiled, getting a whiff of the aroma wafting through the open door. “I need your sage advice, but whatever you’re cooking has my stomach growling.”“Well come in this house,” she said. “First, give me a hug.”After embracing, Tony said, “How you doing, Mama?”“If I felt any better, I’d start to worry. You’ve—”“Gained a little weight?”It was Mama’s turn to smile. “Did you run out of Mama’s diet pills and come for more?”“Awhile back, but that’s not why I’m here.”Mama put her arm around his waist and led him down the hallway. “I’ve got hot Creole coffee on the stove and sticky muffins just coming from the oven. You look as if you could use both.”When Tony started to take a chair at the kitchen table, Mama shook her hand and pointed to the door leading to her back porch.“Let’s go outside. It’s so pleasant today we can listen to the birds singing. If crowd noises and marching bands don’t drown them out, that is.”“Mardi Gras,” Tony said. “I used to love it.”“Uh oh! You must have a problem. Grab a chair. I’ll get the coffee and muffins, and join you.”Mama’s covered porch wrapped around the back and sides of her house, overlooking her yard that featured raised vegetable gardens, flowerbeds with lots of multicolored flowers, gargoyle fountains, and koi ponds. Ferns and flowering baskets hung from the porch ceiling as sounds of a distant Mardi Gras parade failed to drown out songs of robins, redbirds, and blue jays in the backyard.When Mama appeared with coffee and muffins, her old robe was gone, replaced by jeans, and a form-fitting gold and purple tee shirt that highlighted her busty body. When Tony whistled Mama grinned as if expecting nothing less.“If it wasn’t for Lil and my new girlfriend, I’d have to make a play for you, Mama.”“Girlfriend?” she said, placing muffins and carafe on the table. “Maybe I should lace your coffee with Jack Daniel’s, so I can get the whole story here.”Mama filled Tony’s cup with strong, chicory-laced, Creole coffee. He took a drink before replying to her comment.“I got a problem, and I don’t need whiskey to help me tell you about it.”“Then tell Mama,” she said, resting her chin in her palms and leaning toward him.“I met this girl—”“Girl?” Mama said, interrupting him.“Someone young enough to be my daughter. Worse yet, she’s the daughter of one of my oldest friends.”“Does Lil know?”“I’m sure she suspects something. I don’t think she knows the whole story. At least as yet.”“Do you want her to know?”Tony frowned, sat the coffee cup on Mama’s white tablecloth, and slowly tilted his head. A dauber buzzed overhead. Tony watched until it landed on its red clay nest in a corner of the ceiling.“I don’t know what I want. Venus is giving me the best sex I’ve ever had. That’s not the main reason I’m attracted to her.”“Then what is?”“She treats me special, like a hero, and not some chump, beat cop.”“You are special, Tony,” Mama said, clutching his hand. “You know that.”“I’ve served on the force long enough to retire, and Lil’s nagging me to do it.”“How do you feel about retirement?” she asked.“Except for a summer of minor league baseball, police work is all I’ve ever done. I think I’d rather ride horse patrol in the Iberville Project.”“Tell me about Venus.”“She’s young, gorgeous, and smart, though not quite as smart as you are, Mama.”“Flattery will get you everywhere. Meantime, we’re talking about Venus.”“I met her while my new partner and me were investigating a murder at the Golden Bough Casino. She’s the daughter of my old friend, Mo Hernandez. He and I broke out in the force together, and he later moved to Baton Rouge. Venus is the director of security on the Golden Bough. She carries a gun and has a degree in criminal justice from u.n.o.”“Did you instigate the affair?”Tony grinned and sipped his coffee. “Let’s just say I didn’t resist very strongly. Marlon says some women like older men.”“Marlon?”“Marlon Bando, my new partner. I don’t know if you heard. Tommy took a knife in the gut while we were staking out a Carnival parade.”“Oh my God! I didn’t know. Is he okay?”“I hope so. Meantime, I got this pasty-faced, college-educated nerd-ball that’s about to drive me crazy.”“Lil’s a smart woman. Are you sure she doesn’t know about your little fling?”“What I’m sure of is she suspects something’s going on. I don’t think she’s figured it all out quite yet.”Mama topped up their cups from the metal pot and pushed a muffin toward Tony. “Do you want a divorce?”“Why hell no! Lil and I’ve been together so long I don’t know what I’d do without her, not to mention our girls would kill me.”The steady bass of a distant tuba echoed off the walls, momentarily silencing songbirds in Mama’s yard.“So you want to break it off with Venus, but don’t know exactly how?”Tony smiled and nodded, took a quick bite of one of the muffins and followed it with a sip of coffee.“Something like that. Now tell me how to do it without breaking the poor girl’s heart and I’ll be forever in your debt.”A hummingbird hovered near a feeder filled with red nectar. Mama glanced at it and then back at Tony.“I can help you, Lieutenant, but I’ll need a favor in return.”“Lieutenant? What happened to Tony?”Mama laughed, put her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Because when you hear what I want you to do, you may tell me to go to hell.” Tony felt like hell, his stomach churning, and the pounding in his temples threatening to turn into an all-out migraine. When Mama slowed for an intersection, glanced at him and saw his eyes closing, she pulled her fully restored 1964, British racing green, Bugeye Sprite to the side of the road.“You didn’t tell me how much you drank last night. I have something that will help.”Reaching for her purse, she retrieved an ornate, metal container filled with brownish powder. After dumping some into her palm, she bent over the stick shift and blew it up his nose. The hit caused his eyes to open widely. When he took a deep breath and popped his neck, she handed him two aspirins and a silver flask. After downing the aspirins, he took a deep swig from the flask.“Old Billy Goat,” she said when his eyes crossed.Mama continued watching him until a smile appeared on his face.“I swear, Mama, you got the best hangover remedies in New Orleans.”“In the world,” she said with a grin. “Are you going to make it now?”“Hell, I feel so good all of a sudden maybe I should take a cab back to Venus’ and go another round.”“You’re already in enough trouble as it is. Even Mama’s going to have a difficult time extricating you from this little problem.”Mama had the top down on the Sprite, glimmers of bright sunlight warming their necks. Despite the sun, it was chilly as they tooled toward City Park, Mama detouring through the recreational area on her way to Pontchartrain’s Lakeshore Drive.“Wow!” Tony said. “The place looks beautiful.”“Hard to imagine it was underwater for weeks following Katrina.”The large park teemed with visitors enjoying gardens, lakes, and oak trees draped with Spanish moss. A flock of snowy egrets rose up from a lagoon, their wings driving them skyward as the Sprite tooled past.“Maybe you need to tell me exactly what we’re about to do,” Tony said.“A close friend of mine has a problem.”“Such as?”“She’s a bird hoarder.”Tony gave her a sharp look. “A what?”“Valerie is a veterinarian specializing in rare and exotic birds. The rich often buy expensive parrots and cockatoos, realizing once the novelty wears off they don’t like the hassle and noise the birds create. Some only see what a mistake they’ve made when they try to return them to the pet store where they bought them, or attempt to give them away. Valerie started taking in these avian rejects years ago. Now she has hundreds of birds.”“Hundreds?”“I’m not exaggerating. They’re all over her house, not to mention numerous cats and dogs their owners took to her clinic to have her put down.”“Oh my God! I think I’m getting sick again.”As Mama turned on Lakeshore Drive, the scenic route that followed the banks of Lake Pontchartrain, she reached over and touched his wrist.“You have to help me, Tony. Valerie is eccentric as hell, but she has the proverbial heart of gold.”“What can I do?”“I’ve thought this all through, and I have a plan. I want you to pretend to arrest her.”Tony grimaced as he stroked the morning stubble on his cheek and gazed at a sailboat wafting in the breeze, far out on the lake.“Sounds to me like a job for animal control.”“That would kill her. You have to promise you won’t take her in.”“You just said you want me to arrest her.”Mama’s bouffant hair whipped in the breeze when she shook her head. “That isn’t what I said. I only want you to pretend to arrest her.”“Okay, tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do the best I can.”When Mama reached Lakeshore Drive, she headed east to the entrance of an exclusive subdivision. Like City Park, Katrina had flooded many of the ultra-expensive homes. Because of their desirable location, most, but not all, had been restored. Others remained as empty shells, even years after the killer hurricane. Valerie lived in the biggest house on the block, surrounded by empty houses. Mama parked on the street.“Won’t seeing your car make her suspicious?”Mama laughed. “Though Valerie’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, she doesn’t have a lick of common sense. She’ll never put any of this together.”“And you have somewhere to go with the birds and animals?”“They’re all placed, either with the zoo, bird sanctuaries, or bird and animal lovers. They’ll all be well cared for. My psychiatrist friend and I will keep Valerie sedated until we convince her this is all for the best.”“She’s not gonna commit suicide, or something I’m going to feel guilty about for the rest of my life, is she?”“Trust me, Tony.”Mama smiled when he said, “Last time I did I became the star performer in a voodoo sex extravaganza.”“Not this time,” she said.“Okay, what else?”“You have handcuffs?”“No.”“Then take these,” she said, handing him a pair.“I’m not even gonna ask where you got these.”Mama grinned. “You don’t need to know. Just cuff her and bring her out. I’ll take care of the rest.”“That’s it?”“Not exactly. I want you to scare her.”Tony shook his head, got out of the car and headed for the front door, knocking instead of using the doorbell. A young woman answered on the third knock, her dark eyes looking at him suspiciously as she peeked through a gap in the door.“Who is it?” she asked.“Water department. I need to check your pipes,” he said“There’s nothing wrong with my pipes,” she said.“Look, ma’am, I’m here on official business, and I don’t have time to argue with you. Now let me in.”When she opened the door for him, the jarring din of birds, many birds, accosted his ears. The large room he entered was empty except for several long perches that hung from the ceiling. The room resonated with chirps, squawks, and screeches. A large cockatoo landed on his shoulder.“I think he likes me.”Valerie didn’t reply, grabbing the bird and scolding it severely before lofting it back to the perch from where it came.“That’s Brutus,” she said, talking loudly, so he could hear her above the dissonance. “He’s a mean one. You could have lost an ear.”Tony’s hand went to his ear in an involuntary response.“He’s a mean one!” the parrots began repeating.Valerie shook her head. “Don’t say anything around here you don’t want repeated.”As Tony listened, he started hearing everything from Polly want a cracker, to the most vulgar profanity.“Are they always like this?” he asked, almost in a shout.She nodded. “Sometimes much worse.”Birds were flying around the room. Macaws and parrots, seemingly every color of the rainbow; cockatoos and other rare birds Tony didn’t recognize; parakeets, canaries, and exotics.“Why do you have so many?”“I’m a vet. I specialize in rare birds. You’d be surprised how often their owners simply abandon them.”Tony turned away briefly, so she wouldn’t see his smile.“No, I wouldn’t.”“I know I have too many birds. You’re not going to report me, are you?”Tony saw his opening. Pulling out his badge, he showed it to her. “I’m afraid I’m going to do more than that. I’m placing you under arrest. Stick out your hands.”Valerie was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall with short, brown hair. When she extended her hands, Tony cuffed her. Her wrists and hands were so small she could have slipped out of them if she’d tried. She didn’t.“I can’t go to jail. Who’ll care for my birds?”“You need to worry about yourself, not the birds,” he said, pointing her toward the door.“What’ll happen to me?”“You’re going to do hard time, believe me. Maybe even Angola. This is as double-dog rotten as anything I’ve ever seen. The city can’t let you get away with it.”“But I’m not hurting anyone.”“That’s not for me to decide.”Mama and another woman dressed in a pin-striped, business dress waited outside the door, giving Tony dirty looks when he pushed Valerie to hurry her up. Several cars and vans had lined up on the street behind the Bugeye Sprite. Mama grabbed the little woman and hugged her.“Oh Val, are you all right?”Valerie began to cry.“I’ve been arrested. What’ll I do?”“I called your dad and Chloe’s here to help. We’ll do whatever we can for you.”The woman named Chloe, apparently Mama and Valerie’s psychiatrist friend, grabbed Valerie’s arm. After quickly administering a sedative, she gave Tony another dirty look and then hustled Valerie to an awaiting Mercedes limousine. When they reached the curb, a chauffeur opened the back door for them, returned to the driver’s seat and then hurried away, tires squealing.More vans began arriving. As Mama and Tony watched, they immediately dispatched people dressed in work clothing and carrying nets to retrieve the birds and animals. As they passed on the sidewalk, Mama continued glaring at Tony.“What?” he finally asked.“You didn’t have to be so cruel to her. Couldn’t you see how frightened she was?”Tony didn’t answer. Just shaking his head, he walked toward the Bugeye. After buckling her seatbelt, Mama patted his knee before driving away.“I’m sorry, Tony. I didn’t mean to snap at you. You did a fantastic job. I’m just upset because this is all so stressful.”“Hey, don’t worry about it. If that was the worst shit I had to step in every day, then I’d be in heaven. What’s going to happen to Valerie?”“That was her dad in the limo. He’s extremely well-heeled, and they have an estate on the lake not far from here. We’ll soon have her convinced all her birds are in excellent homes, and this is for the best. Bird hoarding isn’t incurable. Chloe will work with her until she’s better.”Mama laughed when Tony said, “It was scary in there, and I’ll probably have bird nightmares the rest of my life.”“Maybe Chloe can work with you too,” she said.“I think I’d rather work out my own problems than deal with Chloe, thank you. She looked as if she could wrestle professionally.”“Now that’s not very nice,” Mama said with a grin.“Don’t be mad at me, Mama. I still need your help with Venus.”“I’ve been thinking about this,” she said. “She’s apparently attached to you. We need to break the attachment and then present her with someone else to tie herself to.”“And how do you propose to do that?”Mama pulled the Bugeye to the side of the road, retrieved a pair of scissors from her large purse and proceeded to snip a lock from Tony’s hair.“What the hell!”
“Now, you need to bring me a lock of Venus’ hair, and a lock from someone you think might replace you when you’re gone. I’ll take care of the rest, though you’re going to have to deal with Lil on your own.”

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.