When Death Comes for You Page 5

  Renée couldn’t think of a meaningful response. She could only stare at this woman who embodied so many contradictions.

  “Let’s change the subject.” Gigi beckoned their server for another beer. “What’s it like to work for Lady Death?”

  “Lady Death?” Renée arched a brow. “Is that what they’re calling her?”

  “Nineteen people get in a boat, and she’s the only one to get out alive? You’ve got to expect people to talk.”

  “People around here talk too damn much,” Renée muttered.

  Gigi reached for her hand. “I’m on your side, you know. But you must understand what you’re up against.”

  Renée gently pulled back from her grasp. “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone is afraid of your client. They say she serves the Vodou Spirit, Erzulie.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Erzulie

  Erzulie?” Renée reached for her beer, surprised to find her hand shaking ever so slightly.

  Gigi nodded. “She’s one of the most powerful Lwa in the Vodou pantheon.”

  A line from Rose’s song played in Renée’s head: Erzulie si’w wè mouin tombe nan dlo . . .

  She swallowed a mouthful of beer, but it went down the wrong way, choking her. She coughed uncontrollably. It felt like drowning.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, catching her breath. “You don’t believe that nonsense, do you?”

  “Nonsense?” Gigi gave her a questioning smile.

  “Spirits, Voodoo, zombies. None of those things are real outside of Hollywood.”

  The other woman raised a brow. “I thought you were Haitian?”

  “My parents were Haitian.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  If one more person said that to her, she was going to scream. “You were raised by French parents,” Renée pointed out. “It’s not as if you grew up with this sort of thing either.”

  “My father was fascinated with Haitian culture. I was exposed at an early age.”

  “Really?” Renée was astonished. Her own parents had so thoroughly rejected their homeland that the slightest reference to Haiti made them cringe.

  In second grade, she had run home breathless to tell her mother about the International Day celebration her teacher was organizing. All the students would dress like their ancestors—and everyone had to bring a favorite dish representing their culture.

  “Your teacher wants to see the food of your culture? Give her this,” her mother had grunted, slamming a jar of Jif peanut butter and a bag of Wonder Bread on the kitchen table. “You are an American.”

  The server appeared with two more beers. Gigi smiled at him with just the right hint of dismissal to ensure he did not linger. “I’ve spent years studying Haitian Vodou, and I find it a beautiful explanation of the cosmos,” she continued after he left. “It isn’t about punishment from a vengeful God—an idea that so many religions cling to. In Vodou, the universe is an orderly place, but it is not always just or fair. When an evil force comes into our lives, it is a sign that the spiritual world is out of balance and must be made right.”

  “And how are we supposed to do that?”

  “By serving the Spirits. In the end, Papa Bondye—the good Father God—knows all and sees all. He will not let evil prevail.”

  “Do you believe that Rose is some kind of evil spirit? I’ve met her, and I can tell you she is quite human.” As far as Renée was concerned, Rose Fleurie was not only human, but she also had a serious psychological problem.

  “It does not matter what I believe. People around here think she gets her power from a dark force.”

  Renée shook her head. “I don’t believe anything I can’t examine with my five senses.”

  “Does that include quantum physics?” Gigi asked dryly.

  Renée couldn’t help but laugh. “I sound like a pompous ass, don’t I?”

  “Maybe just a little,” Gigi agreed.

  “Okay.” She held up a hand in surrender. “I admit that some truths are intangible, but this?”

  Gigi tilted her head, staring at her. “Well, how do you explain the special treatment Rose is getting? Her own bungalow? A lawyer for her asylum application? No one else is getting those things.”

  There was no denying that her client was getting special treatment, but that didn’t mean she was in league with a “dark force.” Renée found herself coming to Rose’s defense.

  “She was a member of Aristide’s team. It stands to reason that she would get special privileges.”

  “Aristide and his people went to Venezuela after the coup. They will probably end up in New York. Why isn’t she with them?”

  “I don’t know,” Renée had to admit. “All I know is that some powerful person in Washington stepped in on her behalf. It was enough to stop her repatriation—and to get her a lawyer.”

  “You don’t know who’s pulling the strings?”

  “No.”

  Gigi shook her head. “I love a good mystery.”

  Renée traced a rivulet of cold sweat down the neck of her bottle. “Who is Erzulie?”

  Gigi gave her a knowing smile. “Erzulie is another mystery. She is a complicated Spirit with many aspects—some of them good, and some . . . well, unusual, I guess you could say.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that she can manifest in many forms. She is the goddess Erzulie Dantor or ‘Erzulie of the Wrongs,’ the great protector of women and children. She rides into battle against those who wrong them.”

  Renée was fascinated despite herself. “I think I’d like her.”

  “I think you would too,” Gigi agreed. “She can also manifest as Erzulie Fréda, the African goddess of love and beauty. She enjoys the luxuries of the flesh like alcohol, perfume, and jewelry. She is said to wear three gold wedding rings, one for each of her husbands.” A naughty gleam lit Gigi’s eyes. “But three men are still not enough for our Erzulie Fréda. She enjoys the game of flirtation. Men and women have been known to succumb to her erotic spell.”

  “I would take a warrior over a seductress any day,” Renée said.

  “Why choose? A woman can be both.” Gigi paused for a moment, then admitted, “Erzulie Fréda does have a shadow side. It is said that she can never attain her heart’s true desire, so she leaves her ceremonies in tears.”

  “She sounds emotionally unstable,” Renée said dryly.

  Gigi gave a delicate laugh. “Aren’t we all sometimes?”

  #

  The elevator ride back to her room was a wobbly affair. Renée giggled as she tripped over her feet for the third time. She was a lightweight when it came to drinking, which was why she had declined Gigi’s offer of another round. She didn’t want her new friend scraping her off the floor. Besides, she had work to do. She had an autopsy report waiting to be deciphered.

  The thought was almost enough to kill her buzz.

  Everything about this case was off-putting. Rose Fleurie was a strange woman with eyes that saw too much, and all this talk about Erzulie and Vodou Spirits was macabre. A part of her wanted to drop this case and get the hell out of there as fast as she could. Go back to Boston, to a life that was familiar and predictable despite its pain. But she had learned that she couldn’t run from her problems.

  The elevator doors slid open on the third floor. She stepped out and weaved her way down the hall. Whatever she might personally think of Rose, the woman was still her client. It was her professional duty to represent the client to the best of her ability.

  In any case, she couldn’t leave Guantanamo even if she wanted to. The US military controlled the airspace over the base, and flights off the island occurred on a fixed schedule. She was trapped here for another two days.

  A man came out of her room.

  He was about six feet tall, solidly built with well-formed muscles beneath his short-sleeved shirt. He wore a blue baseball cap pulled low, obscuring most of his face. He moved as if he knew how to fight, his weight evenly distri
buted. It gave him the power to evade a punch—or to throw one.

  Her breath caught. Her eyes scanned his body in search of weakness. He sported a nasty sunburn all the way down his right arm. Did it hurt enough to slow him down? Where should she aim the first blow? She would knee him in the groin, then jab him in the eyeball. The one-two punch should take him down.

  She shoved a hand in her pocket and pulled out her room key, holding it with the metal tip jutting from between her fingers. She stepped forward, he sidled away.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Fixin’ your fan, ma’am,” he answered in a gruff voice.

  “Oh.” That stopped her in her tracks. She had been about to gouge out the eyes of the Maytag repairman.

  “Shouldn’t be no problem now,” he said, touching the bill of his cap before hurrying down the hall.

  “Thank you,” she called out to his back. A quick flick of his sunburned arm was his only acknowledgment as he all but ran from the crazy lady.

  She stepped into the room, laughing. Guantanamo might be the Mayberry of the Caribbean, but she was not so quick to let down her guard. She dropped her key on the desk and pulled off her clothes to take a shower. She needed to shake off the buzz from all those beers.

  Sunburned.

  The image of the repairman flashed in her mind. White skin burned red by the sun. White man. He was the first white man she had seen doing service work in the hotel. Everyone else was Jamaican or Filipino.

  Her hand reached for the fan. A whiny metallic noise filled the air.

  Damn.

  She dropped to the ground and scanned the room. Armoire, desk, bed. Nothing looked out of place. She peered under the bed, then leaped up and jerked the armoire open. Nothing.

  A ragged breath escaped her just as an eerie sound drifted in from the bathroom. What the hell?

  She grabbed her robe from the armoire and belted it tightly around her waist before reaching for one of the lamps. The glass lamp was too light to be of much use, but it would have to do. The marines tended to frown on civilians carrying guns on a military base.

  Heart in her throat, she took three careful steps and put her ear to the bathroom door.

  Squeee-eek.

  Deep breath. Focus. Go for the soft underbelly. She could do this.

  She flung the door open and stepped into the bathroom. The lamp fell to the tile floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.

  She screamed at the top of her lungs.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Rat

  Rat!

  A large gray rat, two feet long and roughly twenty pounds, scurried across the porcelain bathtub. It started the arduous climb up the sheer wall of the tub only to slide back down, its sharp claws fighting for purchase, its long thin tail wiggling in agitation.

  Squeee-eek.

  Renée ran out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She hated rats.

  For the second time that day, she picked up the phone with trembling hands. “Get someone up here!” she shouted to the desk clerk. “There’s a rat in my bathtub.”

  “I’ll send someone right away, ma’am. Sorry for the inconvenience.” The desk clerk’s unruffled voice suggested she’d had plenty of experience fielding these calls.

  Renée hung up, her heart still racing. She retrieved her clothes and shoved quaking limbs through pant legs and arm holes. By the time the knock came on her door, she thought she’d managed to restore some semblance of calm. She was wrong.

  The bellhop’s pleasant smile—Eric, was it?—faltered as soon as she opened the door.

  “Where is it?” he asked with a concerned frown.

  She moved aside, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “Bathroom.”

  Eric motioned for his companion to follow him. She had been so preoccupied, she hadn’t noticed the short man in stained overalls holding a wire-mesh trap in his hands.

  She led them to the bathroom, then hurried back to her desk, as far from ground zero as she could get. The squeaking was terrible. She heard Eric croon, “You are a big one, aren’t you?” His rich Jamaican accent gave the words a tender overtone.

  A few minutes later, the man in the overalls walked out of the room with the rat wiggling in the cage. He departed without a word, leaving Eric to make the explanations.

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am,” Eric said, as he approached her. “The banana rat climbed a pipe and landed in your bathtub. Your window was open.”

  She couldn’t remember opening the bathroom window, but she must have.

  “I know it’s hot, ma’am,” Eric continued, “but you want to keep your windows closed when you’re out. There’s lots of rats on the island, and you don’t want them getting in here.”

  “My fan’s broken,” she said. “I don’t think your repairman did a good job.”

  Eric fiddled with the dial on the fan, but he could not tame the noise. “I will see that it is fixed.” He turned to leave but caught sight of the file spread open on her desk. “You have the autopsy report,” he said.

  She frowned. Had she left the file on her desk? She couldn’t remember taking it out of her briefcase. Her mind did a rapid rewind, and she could see herself enter the room, drop her briefcase, and race to the phone. At the time, she had been preoccupied with reaching her boss to talk about Rose’s mental state. After the phone call, she’d headed straight to the hotel bar.

  When had she opened the file?

  Eric misread the look on her face. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be nosy.” He held up a pleading hand. “It’s just that I am a medical student, and I am fascinated with this case.”

  She pushed her misgivings aside to focus on him. “You’re a medical student?” She vaguely remembered him mentioning something last night, but she’d been too distracted to pay much attention.

  “I am in my final year at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica,” he said proudly.

  “What do you know about this case?”

  “There are many rumors that Ms. Fleurie is some kind of Voodoo priestess. This is ignorance. Science can explain everything.”

  He was a man after her own heart. If she didn’t hear another word about Erzulie-what’s-her-name, it would be too soon. “You know anything about drowning?” she asked.

  “I grew up on an island,” he said, as if that were answer enough.

  Maybe it was. She didn’t have a lot of options. She gestured to the folder. “Take a look. Tell me what you think.”

  He took a seat and began sorting through the file before she could change her mind. She watched his face, there was none of the horror she might have expected as he flipped through the Polaroids. As a medical student, he must have seen his fair share of dead bodies. When he got to the report, his expression shifted from curiosity to puzzlement.

  “This is not a careful report,” were his first words after reading the file.

  “Why not?” By now, she had taken a seat next to him and was craning her neck to see what he saw.

  “Laymen may not believe this, but the diagnosis of drowning is one of the most difficult to make in the field of forensic medicine.” He’d adopted the pedantic tone of a tweed-coated professor. “It is not surprising for an examiner to find the cause of death undetermined, but to positively rule out drowning? This is a rookie mistake.”

  She almost smiled at the indignation in his voice. Eric obviously took his science very seriously. “I don’t understand how it could be a difficult diagnosis. When a body is floating in the ocean, isn’t drowning the most logical explanation?”

  Eric shook his head. “Drowning occurs when a body is submerged in liquid, resulting in hypoxemia and irreversible cerebral anoxia—”

  “Speak English.”

  “Sorry,” he laughed. “A body floating in water could have died of many different causes. Perhaps he suffered a traumatic event on the boat—a heart attack, a blow to the head, or maybe he had a preexisting condition. He could have been murdered and his body
thrown overboard. A forensic pathologist cannot presume drowning. He must first eliminate the other potential explanations.”

  “How?” Renée asked.

  “Well, there are some classic signs.” Eric shuffled papers on the desk, searching for something. “Do you have a pen? Paper?”

  She reached for her briefcase and handed him her pen and legal pad.

  He sketched out a human form, then drew some wavy lines to represent water. “Drowning is a fight to the death. When water enters the air passages and lungs, oxygen is cut off. The victim panics. He is fighting for his last breath. He responds with such violent thrashing that he will sometimes bruise or rupture muscles—particularly the muscles in his shoulders, chest, and neck.” Eric rapidly shaded those areas in his illustration. “In fact, this is a good indication that the victim was alive when he entered the water and that the body was not placed there postmortem.”

  Renée’s stomach churned at the images his words evoked. What a terrible way to die. “Did any of the victims suffer ruptured muscles?” she asked.

  “The report is silent on that,” Eric said. “Muscle rupture is not always present, so it is possible no one in this group exhibited such symptoms. But a careful examiner would at least have noted its presence or absence.”

  “What are some other indications of drowning?” she asked.

  He drew a circular pattern on the face of his animated figure. “The presence of a fine white froth in the mouth and nose or in the lungs and air passages.”

  “But there was no white froth on these bodies,” she said, remembering at least that much from her earlier reading of the report.

  “Yes, but white froth is only one possible indicator. I could think of several reasons why these bodies might not show such evidence, even if they had drowned.”

  “What are those?” she asked, grabbing the pen and pad away from him.

  “Putrefaction,” he offered.

  She paused before writing the word. “What’s that?”