The Hunt

How is it getting darker but I'm seeing stars? A detached corner of her mind wondered. Her heels were scraping a frantic tattoo on the pavement, trying to find some purchase to resist her attacker, as she clawed at the arm around her throat. I don't want to go out like this!

"No more," the voice whispered in her ear. "I'm ending your depravity, whore!" His voice was dripping with satisfaction.

God, this is how poor Sally went! I don't want... I don't... Her thoughts began to slip away.

The last thing she heard was a sharp cracking sound, like a dry branch being snapped.

~~ Four Days Later, Monday October 19th ~~

Etienne stood at the edge of Mount Olivet Cemetery, a historically black cemetery, watching from a distance. The funeral was small, less than a dozen attendees standing around the small, four-door marble sepulcher with Nanette's family name carved in the pediment. He recognized Lolly and Alice, as well as a few other girls that he didn't know that well. To his surprise, Flo from The Clover Diner was there too. He shook out a cigarette from his pack as he waited.

"Cheval, whatchu doing here?" he heard behind him.

He turned to see Sam Ronaldo walk through the gates of the cemetery to join him. Etienne held out his pack and Ronaldo reached out to pluck a smoke for himself, nodding his thanks.

"Paying my respects. You?"

"Looking to see who shows up," Ronaldo said, lighting both cigarettes with his own lighter.

"What for?" Etienne said, then took a drag.

"Read something that murderers who go on a run like this sometimes show up at crime scenes or funerals to watch. Gets 'em off, supposedly. Dunno how much I believe that college-boy bullshit, but I got nothing solid on these cases."

Etienne nodded. He was also here for the same reason, but didn't tell Ronaldo that. No reason to advertise that he was probably working these murders harder than homicide.

"You comin' to Stan's poker game Saturday?" Ronaldo asked him.

"Don't know. Might have some work going on," Etienne said after a long drag of his cigarette.

"Good," Ronaldo said. Etienne eyed him questioningly. "You damn near cleaned me out last month. Without you there, I might make some of it back."

Etienne gave an amused snort. They stood, watching the ceremony down the aisle of the mausoleums. The water table in New Orleans was so high that most tombs were above ground to prevent the coffins from floating to the surface during heavy rains. Most mausoleums had six, eight or even more doors, depending on a family's wealth. Families would bury generations in them, breaking up the older coffins and laying the bones in the bottom of the tombs when new space was needed.

Ronaldo finally broke their silence, "You get your card from the widows this month?"

Etienne shifted uncomfortably. The widow's and orphan's fund was a euphemism for the under-the-table racket run by the police in the Eighth Precinct. Businesses paid monthly protection money, collected by the beat cops, who distributed it throughout the precinct. Businesses that chose not to participate would find that any calls to the police would be answered in a less than urgent fashion. They also seemed to have a much greater than usual frequency of broken store windows.

Once a month Etienne found a small envelope with a few hundred dollars under the blotter on his desk, along with a list of businesses that were not current on their payments.

"Yeah, I got it."

"Widows' and orphans' day is my favorite day besides payday," Ronaldo said, taking another drag on his smoke.

Etienne grunted. He didn't like it, but not taking it wasn't an option. Turning down his cut of the widows' and orphans' fund would mark him as someone out to upset the way things were done in New Orleans; a threat to the rest of the force. He'd quickly find himself on the wrong end of a street mugging, or someone would find "evidence" of him being on the take, or maybe a stash of drugs in his desk. It was easier just to take it and keep his mouth shut. Besides, he'd never have been able to afford his French Quarter apartment without his monthly graft.

"I only see the one male, 'sides the preacher. Wonder if that's him," Ronaldo said, gesturing to the group by the tomb.

The black man in the group that was gathered in a semi-circle around the open sepulchre door had caught Etienne's eye as well. He was of medium height, but his cheap suit didn't hide the muscles that bespoke a life of hard manual labor.

Etienne puffed out a cloud smoke thoughtfully. "Dunno. He looks pretty tore up. I can't imagine someone who'd killed all those women being that sad about it."

"He's a strong lookin' bull, though. Bet he could snap a girl's neck easy."

Etienne didn't say anything to that.

The ceremony ended after the cemetery workers slid the plain wooden coffin into the tiny, four-door mausoleum. The group of mourners made their way towards the gates where Etienne and Ronaldo stood. Lolly and Alice led the party.

Etienne respectfully removed his hat as the funeral party neared him. Ronaldo looked at him askance and did not remove his hat.

"Lolly, Alice, my condolences," he said.

"Thank you, Detective Cheval," Lolly said, with solemn dignity.

Alice looked at Ronaldo, "You any closer to catching who did this, sir?"

Ronaldo ignored her and blew out a huge cloud of smoke towards the mourners. He looked at the man with them. 'Who might you be?"

"Jasper Green, suh," the man said, in a quiet voice. His eyes were red from crying.

"Uh huh. Where were you three nights ago?"

Shocked silence fell over the graveyard.

Flo broke it, angrily snapping, "Jasper is Nanette's brother, Detective. You here to imply that he's the murderer?"

"No reason he can't be both," Ronaldo said.

"Jesus Christ, Sam," Etienne muttered.

"I's in Waveland, working at th' canning factory, suh. Same as erry day," the man said resentfully. "Boss man gave me th' day off fo' the funeral."

"What yo' boss's name, so I can make sure you ain't lying to me, boy?"

Flo stepped around Lolly, and slapped Ronaldo hard across the face, the impact rocking his head back.

"Ow!" Ronaldo said, reaching up and rubbing his cheek, a red handprint already springing to life on his skin. "The fuck you do that for?"

"You had it comin', trying to bait one of these poor, grieving folks into doin' that so you could lock 'em up, but I don't think you'll be quite so quick to lock up a white woman."

"That right?!" he snarled.

Etienne took him by the elbow and led him towards the gates. "Sam, go on now. Let's not let this get outta hand."

"You takin' their side, Etienne?"

"No, I'm trying to keep you from doing something you'll regret," he said, his voice pitched so only Ronaldo could hear him. He glanced back at Flo. "You want to never be welcome to eat at The Clover again?"

Ronaldo said nothing. He glared at Flo, then spun on his heel and stalked off. Etienne returned to the group.

"I apologize for Detective Ronaldo's behavior." He looked at Jasper and nodded. "My condolences on your loss, Mr. Green."

"Thanks, boss," Jasper replied.

The funeral party moved on, but Flo remained.

"That man has all the couth of a swamp gator," Flo said.

"I think the gator mighta said something a little more comforting right then."

Flo smiled briefly. "Thank you, Etienne. I know you're tryin' to catch The Monster. I think Ronaldo's just lookin' for someone he can hang for it, whether he gets the right man or not."

Etienne sighed. His instinct was to defend the NOPD's reputation, but he knew when it came to finding justice for colored victims, the department didn't have much to brag about.

"Doin' what I can, Flo."

"I know darlin'. See you tomorrow mornin', as always." She walked through the gates, leaving him to watch the two cemetery workers sealing up the mausoleum door behind Nanette's plain, wooden coffin.

After the workers left, he put his hat back on and walked over to the tomb. The family name of Green was carved into the small pediment above the coffin doors. He ran his hand over the space where he assumed they would add Nanette's name when the cemetery could get around to it. Or when the Greens could afford it. The Green family mausoleum was very modest compared to most others in the cemetery.

"That was gentlemanly of you," he heard from behind him. He turned and found Josephine standing behind him.

"Sorry?" he said, stupidly. In the daylight, it was far more obvious the woman was of mixed race, her light golden-brown skin glowing in the afternoon sun. She wasn't dressed for working the streets. Instead she wore a simple black dress that ended below her knees, with a wide black belt around her waist. A matching clutch purse, black gloves and a pill-box hat with a black lace veil that covered the top half of her face completed the look.

"Ah said, that was awful gentlemanly of you. Standin' up for those po' people."

"Shoot, all I did was keep things from getting outta hand. Flo's the one who put him in his place."

"Any lil' thing helps, Sugar."

"When did you get here? I didn't see you during the service."

"Ah was here," she said, vaguely waving a hand around at the graveyard. By unspoken agreement they both turned and started towards the cemetery gates, Etienne pacing her as they walked leisurely side-by-side, down the sidewalk towards The Quarter. "Jes keeping my distance, lettin' the family and friends have they moment together. Ah ain't been around so long as to be one of the, ah, family, as it were. So ah's paying my respects from afar. Much like yo'self."

"So, you been keepin' off the streets like I warned you?"

She smiled. "Sugar, ah done tol' ya, you kin' only tell me what to do if'n ya pays me. Or takes me up on that freebie."

Etienne cleared his throat. He'd been propositioned by more street walkers than he could count, almost always in an attempt to get out of a bust. Josephine's advances seemed more genuine than any he'd ever experienced from a prostitute. Certainly, they were more tempting. He was definitely drawn to her.

"Thanks, but I think I made myself clear, long as yo' line o' work and mine are at cross-paths, that's probably not a good idea."

"Yo' loss, Cher." Her smile faded. "Anyway, stayin' off the streets won't help me find The Monstah, now will it?"

Etienne decided to humor her for a moment, in the hopes of reasoning with her.

"What you gon' do if you do come across The Monstah?" He asked. It seemed like everyone outside the NOPD had decided to refer to the killer as 'The Monster'. The words fell easily from his lips as well. "That lil' bag you got yo'self there ain't big enough to hold no gun."

She looked down at her clutch purse and the smile returned. "Appearances can be deceivin'," she said, her eyes twinkling in amusement under the lace veil.

"Where you from, ya don't mind me askin'?"

"I wuz born he'ah, but I wuz raised near New Iberia."

"Near there? Not much o' nothin' near there."

"Daddy was a Cajun crawfisherman. Grew up deep inna bayou."

"What about yo' momma?"

"Momma... momma wasn't around much. She had other goin's on."

"Yeah?"

"She was Louisiana Creole, from th' city. Ah's never quite cleah as t' how they ended up meetin' t' make me. Daddy was also a traiteur. He travelled a bit, helping' people what's was sick. Maybe dat's how dey met."

"That right?" Etienne, remarked, amused. Traiteurs were Cajun healers, thought to have mystic powers to cure disease given by God. Etienne's mother had brought one to their house when he had scarlet fever as a child. He was pretty sure it was coincidence that he recovered soon after, but he always thought fondly of the portly woman with the kind face and soft hands who had cared for him in her own strange way. "What'd yo' momma do?"

"Daddy told everyone she was a voodoo priestess."

"Do tell," Etienne said, fighting down the urge to laugh. Her story was getting wilder by the second.

"S'true. She was from the line of Marie Laveau."

"The Marie Laveau, huh? That would make you royalty of Crescent City, wouldn't it?"

"That's right, Cher. Th' heir apparent."

Marie Laveau was a free black woman who lived in New Orleans in the first part of the nineteenth century. Born in 1801, legend had it she'd ended up running the city from behind the curtains, with people believing she had great powers. When she died, thousands had attended her funeral, including many of the white elite class of the city. Her tomb in St. Louis Cemetery had become a tourist attraction. Popular lore held that if you drew three "X" marks on her tomb in chalk, Marie would grant you good luck for a year. It had also been rumored that she'd been seen in multiple times and places around the city for years following her death in 1881.

"Well, your majesty," he said, doffing his hat to her theatrically, "it's an honor to meet a great-great-great-granddaughter of our own Voodoo Queen."

"Why, thank you Detective," she said, and paused to curtsy elegantly, the motion fluid and full of grace. They grinned at each other in shared amusement as they resumed walking. "If I might ask, how is it you seem to be more, ah... tolerant, shall we say, of us colored folk? My daddy suffered no end o' grief from the bayou folk for raisin' a child like me, him being white an' all. You from the bayou, I'd expected you might be th' same kind o' awful as that Detective Ronaldo."

He puffed out his cheeks. "Well, I'd like to say something like it was because we wuz poor and my momma taught me not to look down on coloreds because we wasn't much higher up the social ladder, but that ain't true. Momma would have loved to have been better off and enjoyed lookin' down on the colored folk in our town for bein' less than us. Think she felt steppin' on them raised her up."

"What 'bout you?"

"Most o' my life, I didn't have the experience to have a different opinion, ashamed to say."

"So what turned you 'round?"

"Korea," he said, while shaking out another cigarette. He offered her one, which she politely declined.

"You was in the war?"

"Yeah. I wasn't happy about being drafted, and since Truman desegregated the Army back in forty-eight, I sho' was upset when I showed up at Fort Jackson and a third of my training platoon was black. After a while, though, realized all I cared about was if the guy next to me was digging his foxhole fast enough and shootin' straight enough. Damn if the colored boys wasn't as good a' soldiers as any of us white ones if'n you gave 'em the chance. When you got a wave of Chinamen headed toward you and the guy next to you can knock 'em down fast as you can, you don't rightly care what color he is."

"Hmmm," she offered thoughtfully. By this time, they'd reached the edge of the Quarter.

"I'm 'bout ready for some lunch," Etienne said. "Fancy a bite? There's a lunch counter 'round the way that serves whites and blacks both. I think it's really supposed to be a black restaurant but the etouffé is so good it doesn't stop a few open-minded white folk from eating' there now and then."

"Why Detective, you askin' me on a date?" she asked, with a sly smile.

"I, ah..." He felt himself flush. "I'm only talking 'bout lunch, Miss Josephine."

She laughed delightedly. "Detective, yo' ears turn a lovely shade of pink when you's embarrassed. Don' worry none, I gots to go back home and get a little sleep. Streets gon' be busy this evening. I need to be ready to go a'huntin'."

He stopped walking, and reached out to gently take her arm.

"Miss Josephine, please, I'm askin' you, please don't be tryin' ta find this guy. Stay in busy areas. Try to stay where you girls can watch each other. Or better yet, just stay off the streets. For a while. Please?"

"Sugar, I appreciate you carin' 'bout us girls. It's touchin', really. Says good things 'bout you."

He let go of her arm. "But?"

Her face turned hard under her veil. "S'like I tol' ya. Rabid dogs needs t' be put down."

He sighed. "You makin' more work fo' me Miss Josephine. Now I'll have to be out there tonight trying to watch out you along with the others."

She chuckled. "If you c'n find me, yo' welcome to watch me, Cher." She looked him up and down and he got the distinct impression he was being looked at like a choice cut of beef at the grocery counter. "Fact, if you ever want that freebie, you can watch me to yo' heart's delight. It'd be my pleasure."

He grinned uncomfortably and straightened his tie. "You're mighty flattering, Miss."

"Hope to run up against y' again, Detective. I usually hang by that bar over the'ah on Friday nights."

Etienne turned to see which bar she'd pointed at behind him, then turned back.

"By the way, I never have caught your last..." he stopped. She was gone. He stepped off the sidewalk to look around the street, but there was no sight of her.

"...name. How in blazes does she do that?" he muttered.

~~ Four Days Later, Friday October 23rd ~~

Etienne found himself stalking the streets of the Quarter well after midnight once again. He'd been trying to keep an eye on as many of the girls as he could every night this week. Discreetly, of course. He'd only seen Lolly twice, Alice once. He hadn't seen Josephine at all since Nanette's funeral; a fact which, he admitted to himself, had him popping far more antacids than he usually did in a normal week.

All his street sources and snitches had nothing on the killer. Speedy Jones, one of his more productive snitches in particular, was getting annoyed with him that he wasn't interested in a tip on a new pusher selling Mary Jane in the Quarter.

He'd forgone any pretense of arresting either prostitutes or johns as well, not wanting to be off the streets doing paperwork. Instead, he'd assumed the role of the watchman of the Quarter, skulking around in alleyways, watching streetwalkers ply their trade from the shadows, and ready to jump in if he thought things were going south.

So far, all it he'd accomplished was to make himself feel like a peeping Tom.

At least no more bodies had been found. At least her body hadn't been found, he thought.

He was headed south, toward the Port, The Clover Diner, and a much-needed cup of coffee when he heard a high-pitched cry come out of an alley off Commerce Street.

He quickly sidled up to one side of the alley entrance, one hand reaching under his suit jacket to the small of his back where he kept his snub-nosed .38 Special. He'd wrapped his hand around the butt and started to peer around the corner into the alley when a short, balding man came stumbling out onto the street with a frightened expression on his face, holding his pants up with one hand. He rushed past Etienne, his eyes wide, face pale.

Etienne paused for a moment, watching him hurry away, then turned back to see Josephine emerging from the shadows of the alley, evening dress a little too elegant for a streetwalker and slightly askew. He let go of the butt of his pistol and couldn't help but lower his eyes to the roll of her hips as she sashayed towards him.

"Evening Miss Josephine. Havin' a spot a trouble tonight?"

"Not 't'all, Detective. That man the'ah wanted a little attention. I wanted to find out if maybe he was the killa. He took my, ah... encouragement a lil' wrong is all. My guess, he don' like it that rough with his ladies and ah skeered him."

"Jesus, woman! Is that yo' plan to find The Monstah? Pick up johns and encourage them to get rough? What you think that's gon' do, 'sides get you killed?"

"Cain't catch The Monstah without bait, Detective."

Etienne huffed out a frustrated breath. "Miss Josephine, am I gon' hafta lock you up for a few nights to keep me from gettin' an ulcer?"