Revenant
“The coast guard believes that Jeffrey and Alana were swept overboard and that the boat drifted until it hit some shallows,” Mitch had said. “I appreciate all of the efforts of the coast guard and the volunteers who helped. I can only say that I’d never seen my brother happier than he was the day he set sail with his new bride.”
On more than one occasion, my mother had accused me of being incapable of sympathizing with others, and maybe she was right. I felt little at the deaths of a newly married couple, but for Mitch, the one left behind to survive, I felt compassion. Survivor’s guilt would have ridden him like a poor horseman, gouging with spurs and biting with a whip. I knew what that felt like. I lived with it on an hourly basis. I wondered how Mitch managed to look so rested and drug free.
I pushed back my chair and paced the small room, consumed with a thirst for a drink. At last, I sat down and spooled the microfiche backward. Mid-September gave way to stories about the Labor Day weekend, and then I saw the front-page story in the September 3 edition. No Clues In Disappearance Of Fourth Coast Girl. I scanned the story, which was a simple recounting of all the things the police didn’t have—suspects, theories or physical evidence of what had happened to Sarah Weaver, nineteen, of d’Iberville, a small community on the back of Biloxi Bay, where fishermen had resided for generations. It was a tight community of mostly Catholics with family values and love of a good time. In 1981, the disappearance of a girl from the neighborhood would have been cause for great alarm.
What the police did know was that Sarah was a high school graduate who’d been going to night school at William Carey College on the coast to study nursing. She disappeared on a Friday night, the fourth such disappearance that summer. She’d been employed part-time at a local hamburger joint, a teen hangout along the coast. She was popular in high school and a good student.
There were several paragraphs about the panic along the coast. Fathers were driving their daughters to and from work or social events. The police had talked about a curfew, but it hadn’t been implemented yet. Two Keesler airmen had been picked up and questioned but released. Fear whispered down quiet, tree-lined streets and along country club drives. Even the trailer parks and brick row subdivisions were locking doors and windows. Someone was stalking and stealing the young girls of the Gulf Coast.
I studied Sarah’s picture. She had light eyes—gray or blue—that danced, and her smile was wide and open. Was she one of the bodies in the grave? I couldn’t imagine that such information would be any solace to her family. If they didn’t know she was dead, they could imagine her alive. She would be forty-three now, a woman still in her prime.
In my gut, I felt it was likely that she was the fourth victim. But who was the fifth? There’d been no other girls reported missing, at least not in the newspaper, prior to the paving of the Gold Rush parking lot. I’d go back and read more carefully, just in case I’d missed something.
I took down Sarah Weaver’s address and skipped to the beginning of the summer. It didn’t take me long, scrolling through June, to find Audrey Coxwell, the first girl to go missing, on June 29. This story was played much smaller. Audrey was eighteen and old enough to leave town if she wanted. She was a graduate of Biloxi High and a cheerleader. She was cute—a perky brunette.
Her parents had offered a reward for any information leading to her recovery. I noted their address.
In the days following Audrey’s disappearance, there was little mention of her in the paper. Young women left every day. She was forgotten. No trace had ever been found of her. The reward was never claimed.
On July 7, I found the second missing girl, Charlotte Kyle, twenty-two, the oldest victim so far. The high school photo of Charlotte showed a serious girl with sad eyes. She was one of five siblings, the oldest girl. She was working at JCPenney’s.
This story was on the front page, but it wasn’t yet linked to Audrey’s disappearance. The newspaper or the police hadn’t considered the possibility of a serial killer on the loose. This was 1981, a time far more innocent than the new millennium.
I scanned through the rest of July. It was August before I found Maria Lopez, a sixteen-year-old beauty who looked older than her age. In her yearbook photo she was laughing, white teeth flashing and a hint of mischief in her dark eyes. There was also a picture of her mother, on her knees on the sidewalk, hands clutched to her chest, crying.
My hand trembled as I put it over the photo. I could still remember the feel of the strong hands on my arms, dragging me away from my house. My legs had collapsed, and I’d fallen to my knees inside my front door. A falling timber and a gust of heat had knocked me backward, and the firemen had grabbed me, dragging me back. I’d fought them. I’d cursed and kicked and screamed. And I’d lost.
The door of the newspaper morgue creaked open a little and Jack stood there, a cup of coffee in his hand. “I put a splash of whiskey in it,” he said, walking in and handing it to me. He closed the door behind him. “Everyone knows you drink, Carson, and they also know you haven’t contributed a dime to the coffee kitty. The second offense is the one that will get you into trouble.”
He was kind enough not to comment as my shaking hand took the disposable cup. I sipped, letting the heat of the coffee and the warmth of the bourbon work their magic.
“Carson, if you’re not ready, tell Brandon. He’s invested enough in you that he won’t push you over the edge.”
“I can do this.” Right. I sounded as if I were sitting on an unbalanced washing machine.
“Okay, but remember, you have a choice.”
I started to say something biting about choices, but instead, I nodded my thanks. “Where’d you get the bourbon?”
“You aren’t the only one with a few dirty secrets.” He grinned. “What did you find?”
“Four missing girls, all in the summer of 1981, before the parking lot was paved.”
“And the fifth?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she was killed somewhere else and brought to Biloxi.”
“Maybe.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Mitch wants to see you. He’s waiting in your office.”
I drained the cup. “Thanks.” By the time I made it out of the morgue and into the newsroom, I was walking without wobbling.
3
I studied the back of Mitch Rayburn’s head as I stood in my office doorway. He had thick, dark hair threaded with silver. By my calculation he was in his mid-forties, and he wore his age well. His tailored suit emphasized broad shoulders and a tapered waist. He worked out, and he jogged. I’d seen him around town late in the evenings when I’d be pulling into a bar. He used endorphins, and I used alcohol; we both had our crutches.
“Carson, don’t stand behind me staring,” he said.
“What gave me away?” I asked, walking around him to my desk. He had two things I like in men—a mustache and a compelling voice.
“Opium. It’s a distinctive scent.”
“If I’m ever stalking a D.A., I’ll remember to spray on something less identifiable.”
He stood up and smiled. “I’m ready to go to Angola. Want a ride?”
I shook my head. “I have some leads to work on here, but I’d appreciate an update when you get back.”
“I didn’t realize I was on the newspaper’s payroll.”
I laughed. “How did it go with Brandon?”
“He’s holding the photo, and thanks for not mentioning the missing fingers.”
“You’re welcome. I’m not always the bitch Avery thinks I am.”
“You got off on the wrong foot, and Avery has a long list of grievances with the paper that date back to the Paleozoic era. Give him a chance to know you. He likes Jack Evans.”
I plopped in my chair and motioned him to sit, too. “I went back in the morgue and found four missing girls from the summer of 1981.”
Mitch’s face paled. “I remember…” His voice faded and there was silence for a moment. “I was in law school that year.”
Beating around the bush was a waste of good time. “I read about your brother and his wife. I’m sorry.”
His gaze dropped to his knees. “Jeffrey was my protector. And Alana…she was so beautiful and kind.”
Loss is an open wound. The lightest touch causes intense pain. I understood this and knew not to linger. “I think four of those bodies in the grave belong to the girls who went missing. I just don’t know how the fifth body fits in.” I watched him for a reaction.
“I’d say you’re on the right track, but it would surely be a courtesy to the families if we had time to contact them before they read it in the newspaper.”
Brandon would print the names of the girls if there was even a remote chance I was right. Or even if I wasn’t. I thought of the repercussions. Twenty-odd years wouldn’t dull the pain of losing a child, and to suffer that erroneously would be terrible. “Okay, if you’ll let me know as soon as you get a positive ID on any of them.”
He nodded. “We’re trying to get dental records on two of the girls. There were fillings. And one had a broken leg. Of course, there’s always DNA, but that’s much slower.”
I noticed his use of the word girls. Mitch, too, believed they were the four girls who went missing in 1981 and one unknown body. “Okay, I’ll do the story as five unidentified bodies. Brandon will have my head if he finds out.”
“Not even Avery Boudreaux could torture the information out of me,” he said, rising. “Thanks for your cooperation, Carson.” He stared at me, an expression I couldn’t identify on his face. “I think we’ll work well together. I want that.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Just remember, nothing is free. My cooperation comes with a price. I’ll collect later.”
As soon as he cleared the newsroom, I picked up the phone and called Avery. I told him about the girls, and that I was voluntarily withholding the information for at least twenty-four hours. His astonishment was reward enough. I got a quote about the investigation and began to write the story.
It was after four when Hank finished editing my piece. I left the paper and headed to Camille’s, a bar on stilts that hung over the Sound. The original bar, named the Cross Current, had been destroyed by the tidal surge of Hurricane Camille. The owner had found pieces of his bar all up and down the coast, had collected them and rebuilt, naming the place to commemorate all that was lost in that storm.
The bar was almost empty. I took a seat and ordered a vodka martini. It was good, but Kip over at Lissa’s Lounge made a better one. There had been a bar in Miami, Somoza’s Corpse, that set the standard for martinis. Daniel, my ex-husband, had taught the bartender to make a dirty martini with just a hint of jalapeño that went down smooth and hot. The music had been salsa and rumba. My husband, with his Nicaraguan heritage, had been an excellent dancer. Still was.
A man in shorts with strong, tanned legs sat down next to me. His T-shirt touted Key West, and his weathered face spoke of a life on the water.
“Hi, my name’s George,” he said, an easy smile on his face. “Mind if I sit here?”
I did, but I needed a distraction from myself. “I’m Carson.”
“I run a charter out of here, some fishing, mostly sightseeing.”
I nodded and smiled, wondering how desperate he was. I hadn’t worn a lick of makeup in two years, and sorrow lined my face. I looked in a mirror often enough to know everything that was missing.
“I moved here in 1978, out of the Keys,” he said. “I don’t like the casinos, but they’re a good draw for business.”
“The coast has changed a lot since the casinos came in.” I didn’t want to make small talk, but I also didn’t want to be rude.
He settled in beside me. “I lost the Matilda in ’81. My first boat.”
Storms interested me, and the weather was a safe enough subject. “I was inland then. Was it bad?”
“Deborah hit Gulfport, but we got the worst here in Biloxi. The Matilda was tied up in the harbor. I had at least ten lines on her, plenty to let her ride the storm surge. Didn’t matter. Another boat broke free and rammed her. She took on water and sank right in the harbor.” He shook his head. “She was sweet.”
“I guess you had plenty of warning that the storm was coming. Why didn’t you take her inland?”
“It was a fluke. Deborah hit the Yucatan, lost a lot of power and looked like she was dying out, but she came back strong enough. I really thought the boats could weather it. Never again. I take mine upriver now. I don’t care if it’s a pissin’ rainstorm.”
“Was there much damage?”
“Washed out a section of Highway 90. Took a few of those oak trees.” He shook his head. “That hurt me. Funny, I’ve had a lot of loss in my life, but those trees made me cry.” He sipped his beer. “Life’s not fair, you know. I lost my wife two years ago to cancer. She was my mate, in more ways than one.”
I knew then what had drawn him to me. Loss. It was a law of nature that two losses attract. “My dad’s told me stories of storms that came in unannounced. At least now there’s adequate warning.”
He nodded. “We thought it was petering out. After it hit Mexico, it just drifted, not even a tropical storm. Looked like if it was going anywhere, it’d drift over to the Texas coast. Then, suddenly, it reorganized and roared this way. Caught a young couple on their honeymoon. The storm just caught ’em by surprise.” He looked at me. “Enough doom and gloom. Would you like to go out when I take a charter?” he asked.
To me, boats were floating prisons. I shook my head but forced a smile. “Thank you, but I’m not much for boats or water. I’m afraid you’d regret your invitation.”
“Then how about dinner?”
I hated this. How could I explain that I had no interest in the things that normal people did? “No, thank you.”
He looked into my eyes. “Sometimes it helps to be around other people.”
“Not this time,” I said, putting a twenty on the bar and gathering my purse. “Vodka helps. And sleeping pills.” I walked out before I could see the pity in his eyes.
It was dark outside and I got in my pickup and headed east on Highway 90. The stars in the clear sky were obliterated by mercury-vapor lights and neon. The coast was a smear of red, green, purple, pink, orange, yellow—a hot gas rainbow that blinked and flashed and promised something for nothing.
I drove past the Beau Rivage, the nearly completed Hard Rock casino, the Grand, Casino Magic and the Isle of Capri. Once I was on the Biloxi-Ocean Springs Bridge, I left the glitz behind. Ocean Springs was in another county, one that had refused to succumb to the lure of gambling. My house was on a quiet street, a small cottage surrounded by live oaks, a tall fence and a yard that sloped to a secluded curve of the Mississippi Sound. I’d forgotten to leave a light on, and I fumbled with my keys on the porch. Inside a strident meow let me know that I was in deep trouble.
The door swung open and a white cat with two tabby patches on her back, gray ears and a gray tail glared at me.
“Miss Vesta,” I said, trying to sound suitably contrite. “How was your day?”
A flash of yellow tabby churned out from under a chair and batted Vesta’s tail. She whirled, growling and spitting. So it had been one of those days. Chester, a younger cat, had been up to his tricks.
I went to the sunroom, examined the empty food bowl, replenished it and took a seat on the sofa so both cats could claim a little attention. They were as different in personality as night and day. Annabelle had loved them both, and it was my duty not to fail her. They were the last tangible connection I had to my daughter, except for Bilbo, the pony. Daniel hadn’t even tried to fight me for them when we divorced.
I thought about another drink, but I was pinned down by the cats. Today was Thursday, March 12, Bilbo’s birthday. He was twelve.
I wasn’t prepared for the full blast of the memory that hit. I closed my eyes. Annabelle’s hand tugged at my shirt. “Carrot cake,” she said, grinning, one front tooth missing. “We’ll make Bilbo a carrot cake. And he can wear a hat.” We’d spent the afternoon in the kitchen, baking. I’d made a carrot cake for Annabelle, and a pan of carrots with molasses for icing for Bilbo. Together we’d gone to the barn to celebrate. Daniel had come home early from his import/export business and had met us there, his laughter so warm that it felt like a touch. He’d brought a purple halter, Annabelle’s favorite color, for Bilbo, and it was hidden in a basket of apples.
Chester’s paw slapped my cheek. He was after the tears, chasing them along my skin.
I snapped on a light and got several small balls. The cats had learned to fetch. North of Miami, we’d had twenty acres for them to roam. When I moved to Ocean Springs, I decided to keep them inside, safe.
When the cats tired of the fetch game, I wandered the house. I’d painted the rooms, arranged the furniture, bought throw rugs for the hardwood floors, hung the paintings that I treasured, stored all the family photographs and stocked the pantry with food. It was the emptiest house I’d ever set foot in. When I’d first graduated from college and taken an apartment in Hattiesburg, I’d had a bed, an old trunk, some pillows that I used for chairs, a boom box and some cassettes, but the house had always been full of people.
The fireplace was laid, and I considered lighting it, but it really wasn’t cold, just a little chilly. The phone rang, and I picked it up without checking caller ID. It could only be work.
“Hey, Carson, I wanted to make sure that you’re coming home this weekend. Dad’s got the farrier lined up to do the horses’ feet.”
Dorry, my older sister, was about as subtle as a house falling on me. “I’ll be there. I already told Mom I would.”
There was a pause, in which she didn’t say that I’d become somewhat unreliable. “Today is Bilbo’s birthday,” I finally said. “I forgot.”
“We’ll celebrate Saturday,” she said softly. “He won’t know the difference of a few days.”
Dorry was the perfect daughter. She was everything my mother adored. “The horses need their spring vaccinations, too.” I sought common ground. “I’ll see about it. Dad shouldn’t be out there since he’s on Coumadin.”
“I know,” Dorry agreed. “Mom’s terrified he’ll get cut somewhere on the farm and bleed to death before she finds him.”
My father was the sole pharmacist in Leakesville, Mississippi. The drugstore there still had a soda fountain, and Dad compounded a lot of his own drugs. He was also seventy-one years old and took heart medicine that thinned his blood.
“I’ll take care of the horses. It’s enough that he feeds them every morning.”
“You know Dad. If he didn’t have the farm to fiddle around with, he’d die of boredom, so it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.”
“Will you and Tommy and the kids be there Saturday?” I was hoping. When Dorry was there, my parents’ focus was on her and her family. She had four perfect children ranging from sixteen to nine. They were all geniuses with impeccable manners. Her husband, Dr. Tommy Prichard, was the catch of the century. Handsome, educated, a doctor who pulled off miracles, Tommy’s surgical skills kept him flying all over the country, but his base was a hospital in Mobile.
“I’ll be there. Tommy’s workload has tripled. He has to be in Mobile Saturday. I think the kids have social commitments.”
I was disappointed. I wanted to see Emily, Dorry’s daughter who was closest in age to Annabelle. “I’m glad you’ll be there.”
“Mom and Dad love you, Carson. They’re just worried.”
I couldn’t count the times Dorry had said that same thing to me. “I love them, too. I try not to worry them.”
“Good, then I’ll see you Saturday.”
The phone buzzed as she broke the connection. I took a sleeping pill and got ready for bed.
4
The ringing telephone dragged me from a medically induced sleep Friday morning. I ignored the noise, but I couldn’t ignore the cat walking on my full bladder. “Chester!” I grabbed him and pulled him against me. “Is someone paying you to torment me?”
He didn’t answer so I picked up the persistent phone and said hello.
“Where in the hell are you?” Brandon Prescott asked.
“In bed.” I knew it would aggravate him further.
“It’s eight o’clock,” Brandon said. “I believe that’s when you’re supposed to be in the office.”
“As I recall,” I answered, my own temper kindling, “when I took the job, we agreed there wouldn’t be rigid hours.”
“I expect you to be on time occasionally. That isn’t the issue. The newspaper has been swamped by families calling in, wondering if the unidentified bodies are someone they know. We need a follow-up story.”
In an effort to spare four families, I’d worried a lot of others.
Brandon continued. “I want you to go to Angola and talk to Alvin Orley. He might have an idea who the bodies are.”
“Mitch went yesterday. I’ll call him and do an interview.”
“He’s the D.A., Carson. That means he doesn’t want us to know what he found out.”
I gritted my teeth and said nothing.
“Besides, even if you get the same information, we can put it in a story. Quoting Rayburn about what Orley said diminishes the power. And the Orley interview will open the door for Jack to do a roundup of a lot of the old Dixie Mafia stories. It’ll be great. So head over to Angola. I got you a one-o’clock appointment with Orley. You can call in and dictate your story.”
I hung up and rolled out of bed. Hank would be righteously pissed off. Brandon was the publisher, but most of the time he acted like the executive, managing and city editor. He meted out assignments and orders, totally ignoring the men he’d hired to do the job. I called Hank at the desk and let him know where Brandon was sending me.
“I’ll call whenever I have something,” I told him.
“Jack’s already working on the old Mafia stories.” Hank’s voice held disgust. “Never miss a chance to drag up clichéd images from the past. We’re running an exceptional tabloid here.”
I made some coffee, dressed, ate some toast and headed down I-10 West toward New Orleans. Before I reached Slidell, I took I-12 up to Baton Rouge and then a two-lane north to St. Francisville and the prison.
Alvin Orley was serving twenty-five years on a murder charge in the slaying of Rocco Richaleux, the mayor of Biloxi at the time. Alvin didn’t actually pull the trigger, but he hired someone to do the job. He and Rocco had once been business partners in the Gold Rush and a number of other establishments that specialized in scantily clad women, booze, dope and gambling. Rocco’s political ambitions ended his affiliation with Alvin, and once elected, Rocco decided to clean up the coast, which meant his old buddy Alvin. Rocco ended up dead, and Alvin ended up doing time in Angola because the murder was carried out in New Orleans. It was a good thing, too. A jury of his peers in Biloxi might not have convicted him. Alvin had ties that went back to the bedrock roots of the Gulf Coast. And he was known to even a score.
Angola was at the end of a long, lonely road that wound through the Tunica Hills, a landscape of deep ravines that bordered the prison on three sides. Men had been known to step off into a hidden ravine and fall thirty feet. The steep hills were formed by an earthquake that created the current path of the Mississippi River, which was the fourth boundary of the prison. During its most notorious days, Angola was a playground for men of small intelligence and large cruelty. Inmates were released so that officers on horseback could chase them with bloodhounds. Manhunt was an apt description. But times had changed at Angola. It was now no better or worse than any other maximum-security prison.
I stopped at the gate. Angola was a series of single-story buildings. Decorative coils of concertina wire topped twelve-foot chain-link fencing. Hopelessness permeated the place. After my credentials were checked, I went inside to the administration building.