“What happened then? Did you go downstairs looking for your wife?” Angela asked. “Did you think she might have been in the kitchen, cooking, maybe?”
He shook his head. “I saw the doors open to the balcony. It was a beautiful twilight, and I figured she had stepped out to catch the night breeze. I walked out to the balcony, and I called her name again. And then I looked down.”
Grief, poignant and fresh, had slipped into his voice. He covered his face with his hands. Angela touched him gently on the shoulder, and stood silent, waiting. Anything she might have thought of to say would have been inane.
He took a moment, and then looked at her, his features contorted with pain. “Her eyes were open,” he said, his voice ragged. “Her eyes were open. She lay on her back, her head at an awful angle, and blood was pooling beneath it. But her eyes were open, and she almost seemed to be staring at me. Or…”
“Or what?” Angela asked.
“As if she had seen something as she died. Something so horrible that she couldn’t bear it. Something terrifying. And, I’m afraid I know what it was.”
Startled, Angela asked, “What?”
“A ghost.”
Confused, Angela stood still and quiet for a minute. “You said that you and your wife weren’t fanciful people. That you didn’t believe in ghosts,” she said.
“I didn’t. Not until I owned this house.”
“But—you believe your wife saw a ghost?”
He let out a breath, staring at her. “There were places in the house she wouldn’t go when I wasn’t home. She said that they just made her uncomfortable. And I don’t really know what I saw, but when I was in the kitchen once, I felt as if someone was watching me. I looked at the door to the basement—and there was something there. I don’t know what. It seemed like a big black shadow. It was there, and then it was gone. Was it a ghost? Hell, I don’t know. I do know that I felt as cold as ice, and had rivulets of fear racing up and down my spine. I told myself I was being ridiculous, but, later, that night, Regina asked me if I believed in ghosts. I said no, and reminded her that neither did she. But, then, after she died…I started to think about it again. And when she died, people looked at me as if I had to be a monster—as if I had caused her suicide. I didn’t. I believe now that ghosts caused her suicide, and you people need to find out if they’re real—you need to prove it for me!”
Jackson sat on the counter, trying to remain casual and easy while questioning the trio that continually surrounded Senator Holloway. They’d chatted about the Saints and other local sports teams, and he learned that the hulk—Blake Conroy—had wrestled professionally. Grable Haines admitted to having done time in a juvenile detention center for petty larceny, and Martin DuPre had simply been in love with politics since he’d been a kid. “Politics and power, they go hand in hand. And the right people need to be in power. I’m lucky. I learn so much from Senator Holloway, it’s like a miracle, a present from God,” DuPre told him.
“Everybody loves the senator,” Blake said, nodding.
“But he needs a bodyguard,” Jackson pointed out.
“He’s a politician—and no wishy-washy yes-man, either. He sticks to his guns. If he ever changes his stance on something, it’s because he’s received new information,” Conroy said. He was drinking a soda—the regular-size bottle dwarfed by his mitts.
“Mostly, some of the really right-wing religious groups are against him,” DuPre told him.
“I heard about a few earlier,” Jackson said. “The Aryans and the Church of Christ Arisen.”
“The Aryans are assholes,” Grable said.
“Freedom of speech in this country—nothing we can do about them,” DuPre reminded him.
“Yeah, well, thank God they don’t have much of a hold here, not in New Orleans,” Blake said. He slammed a fist against his palm. “They are neo-Nazis at their worst. Of course, it would be illegal to euthanize anyone with impure blood, so they use words as weapons. And they do it well. If God had wanted us to be all one race, we would have come that way, they say. God had separations in color for a reason.”
“Um—we come as one single race at the beginning, as far as I understand anthropology,” Jackson said.
“Yeah, go figure,” DuPre said. “Thing is, the senator, he’s always politically correct. No matter what those—” he stopped for a moment, glancing at Grable “—assholes do, the senator is calm and soft-spoken, just holding his own.”
“What about the Church of Christ Arisen?” Jackson asked.
“Well, now, they’re just really weird,” Grable told him. “They have some secret rituals, like the Masonic Lodge.”
“Don’t compare them to Masons!” Blake protested. “My dad was a Mason. And a Shriner. Those guys got together and supported kids in hospitals. Don’t even compare.”
“Well, you have to be a member of the church to attend their meetings. There’s a bishop, name’s Richard Gull,” Blake told him. “And there’s a high council, with five members. They’re protected by law, but I don’t think they should be.”
“Hey, there’s an enormous church in this country where people worship aliens, for God’s sake,” DuPre put in. “It’s a free country, with separation of church and state.”
“You can have all the laws in the world—and that don’t stop the Santeria groups from practicing animal sacrifice,” Blake said.
“Or voodoo priestesses from torturing snakes!” Grable asserted, shuddering as he made a face.
“You feeling sorry for the priestess or the snake?” Blake asked him, grinning.
“Well, anyway, can you all tell me about the day Regina Holloway died?” Jackson asked. They’d been talking, the three of them, easily, coworkers who might not have a lot in common, except for their love for their boss.
But they sobered and went silent at the question.
“Should have been a good day,” Grable said, shaking his head. “I was off most of the day. I gambled at the casino and won. Then the senator called me, and I picked him up and dropped him off. Wasn’t half an hour later that I got the call about Regina. I got back here, but…by then, the coroner’s office had been called in, cops and yellow tape were everywhere, and the senator was in the entertainment room, with DuPre.”
Martin DuPre sighed softly. “It was horrible. Senator Holloway cried. Sobbed. I had to get him away from people.”
“Why weren’t you with him?” Jackson asked Blake. “Sorry— I mean, you are his bodyguard.”
He shook his head. “He was just working in his office in the CBD that day. Going in and coming out. He said that he didn’t need me.”
“So where were you all day, Mr. Conroy?” Jackson asked.
“At home. I don’t have much time to call my own, and it was like a picnic! I have a place uptown and I just worked out all day. But I came when I got the call, too. DuPre let me know what was going on, and I got here as fast as I could. I felt helpless as a baby, though. Never saw anything like the senator,” Blake said. “The next week, it was like he didn’t care if he died himself. I was working hard then, I’ll tell you. Running after him, keeping up with him,” the bodyguard said. “He’d start working, he’d want to walk. He’d start working again, he’d want coffee, he’d need something at the apartment—he was all over the place.”
“Mr. DuPre?” Jackson asked. “Where were you that day?”
“Me? I was at the office most of the day. I was going to come back here with the senator, but he said that he didn’t need my help, he wanted to try to have a nice night with Regina,” DuPre said sadly.
None of them had an alibi, except for DuPre.
Blake Conroy was just about the size of a yeti—doubtful he had leaped down from any brick walls. Both DuPre and Haines were probably more agile.
Didn’t matter. He needed to chase down the alibis on all three of the men.
He looked to the doorway. Angela was back down with the senator.
The senator handed Jackson a card. “My office address, and my business phone and cell phone are on that card. I’ve taken an apartment in the complex down on Decatur Street, overlooking the river. I’d just as soon we talk there from now on,” he said.
DuPre, Haines and Blake stood, clearly aware that they were leaving.
“I know it was hard for you. Thank you for coming here today,” Jackson told the senator.
“Thank you for being here,” the senator told him sincerely. “Find out the truth. Maybe I can let Regina rest if I can just know the truth.” He was quiet for a minute. “I didn’t believe in ghosts, dammit. But, I might have been the fool, and, of course, I couldn’t say that to the police. There is something about this house. If I would have taken more time with Regina…but maybe that wouldn’t have changed anything. Maybe there are ghosts. And maybe the ghosts were too much for her.”
Jackson was startled by his statement, and looked at Angela. Her eyes widened and she subtly shook her head.
“You now believe that there are ghosts in here, Senator?”
“Don’t you people confirm that sort of thing?” the senator asked. “I mean, Miss Hawkins was here one night, and she dug bones out of the basement. If my wife went over that balcony, something made her do it. God alone knows—maybe it was a ghost.”
“Sir, I have a book on Madden C. Newton. Reading it led me to the bones,” Angela said.
“When was this book written?” he asked, frowning.
“Years and years ago,” Angela assured him.
“Why didn’t the author find the bones?” the senator asked. “Because he didn’t have a sixth sense,” he said, nodding sagely.
“Actually, in the book, there was a mention of the fact that Madden C. Newton used to tell people that his basement was an amazing place, and that he loved the shadows beneath the stairs,” Angela said. “So, I’m afraid it was the book that led me to the skeleton.”
