She turned to Amaia as soon as the elevator doors closed. “Your friend there is a fine-looking man. You know if he’s single?”
Amaia smiled. “Yes, I think he is.”
The woman looked at her, intrigued. “Well, seems to me he likes you.”
“He likes me”—Amaia smiled—“he likes you, he likes the women he sees walking down the street . . .”
The woman laughed. “Don’t worry, your ‘boyfriend’ gonna be fine in May Bailey’s; it’s the hotel bar now but used to be one of the city’s best whorehouses.” She gave Amaia a wink. “That has to be one of the most witchified places in the Big Easy.”
Amaia grinned. “You mean there are ghost prostitutes?”
“Fallen ladies, they call ’em here. We got a ghost, but not exactly a prostitute one. The sister of May Bailey, the madam, didn’t like life here, she dreamed about getting away. Met a young soldier who proposed to her and promised to take her away, but on the very day of the wedding, he died in a gunfight. They say it broke her heart and drove her out of her mind. Never did get away from here. Some of the clients say they seen her in her white-lace gown, crying her heart out in the garden or up on the balconies.”
The elevator doors opened, and the woman took Amaia to the first room on the right. Amaia smiled to herself as her new friend unlocked the door, wondering how many times she’d told that story to her customers.
The woman turned to her and resumed her tale. “But you don’t have to worry your head ’bout that. She appears only to men.” She shrugged. “Maybe still looking for her fiancé.”
She opened the door and stood back to let Amaia pass. Everything in the room—furniture, bed, walls, ceiling, carpet—was of a satiny cream color, the epitome of French style. The bathroom with a claw-foot tub was to one side, and the exterior wall was dominated by huge southern-style guillotine windows hung with venetian blinds. The woman tugged the cord to raise the blinds so they could see the building across the street.
“I’m sorry we can’t give you a better room, but it was last minute, and the hotel was mostly booked.”
“I noticed. I thought that with the evacuation . . .”
“Lots of folks decided not to leave. Want to stay to protect their property from looting after the storm, so they took rooms with us ’cause they know the French Quarter never gets flooded. Never has, since New Orleans was founded, and little ol’ Katrina won’t be any different.” She opened the window. Music came into the room; a brass band was passing. Amaia poked her head out, and despite the angle, she caught a glimpse of a large group of musicians marching smartly in formation.
“Musicians!” she commented, coming back inside. “I thought they’d all have left.”
“Two kinds of folks never leave New Orleans: musicians and ghosts.”
The hotel owner paused to switch on the television and turn to a news channel. The inescapable image of the hurricane out over the Gulf appeared on the screen. She nodded in satisfaction and went to the door. When it opened, she found herself face to face with Agent Johnson.
He nodded, let her pass, and stepped inside. Tucked under his arm were the half dozen folders of case material they’d printed out at the station. Amaia pointed without a word to the large desk by the window. She took one of the folders and settled on the corner of the bed, leaving the desk to Johnson. He raised the blinds all the way to let in light from outside and then settled down to work.
It took her twenty minutes to rule out the first two of the three cases she’d picked up. In the first one, men with gas company credentials got into a family dwelling where service had been interrupted by an earthquake. They tied up the father and mother, then tortured the elderly grandmother until she gave them the code for a safe. The second case was a late-night assault by a group of hooded thugs who tied up a whole family. The intruders took valuables, but they also forced the husband to watch them rape the women. The children were kept in another room.
The third case was a murder-suicide. Eight months earlier in Galveston, Texas, in December of the previous year, Joseph Andrews, forty-eight, shot his wife and his two children, a girl of sixteen and a boy of twelve, before taking his own life. He’d been transferred from Sacramento for work only a month earlier. His wife was a well-known decorator with a popular blog, as well as a dedicated theatre enthusiast. The image of their teenage daughter had been lifted from a group photo taken at her new school in Galveston. The case file noted that Andrews hadn’t shown up at work on the day of the murders. A neighbor went by to check on them and found the bodies. The father’s gun lay at his side.
Amaia spread the half dozen crime scene photos across the bed for closer examination. The bodies were stretched out on the floor with the heads aligned in the same direction. There was no way of knowing which direction that was, and the ink-rich photo print made it impossible for her to discern any signs that they had been tied up. Most telling for Amaia was the general scene. The case report didn’t comment on it, but disorder prevailed. All the furniture in the living room had been overturned. Flowerpots were tipped over. Pictures hung askew. It wasn’t as evocative as the aftermath of a tornado, but . . .
She decided on an order for the six photographs, laid them out that way, and added the four individual portrait photos of the family members.
“Johnson, take a look at this.”
Johnson put a file back onto the pile and crossed the room.
“The assumption is that the father stayed home that day because he was planning to murder his family. He shot each one in the head, then put a bullet through his brain. But look at how these bodies are arranged; I know there are only four, and I don’t see any ligature marks, but that could be due to the quality of the print. The file says he fired four bullets from the pistol found beside him. It was registered to him.”
Johnson picked up one of the photos and took it to the window, where the light was better. “Does the reporting officer say there were family members who weren’t home that day?”
“Yes. An older son, which would fit the family profile we’re looking for. The police gave him extra attention because he inherited two houses and a ton of money, but they never seriously considered him a suspect. He was living in Sacramento, and they confirmed he was there on the day of the murders. Looks as if he’s been stirring up the press, telling anyone who’ll listen that his family was murdered by an intruder, even though the police are convinced his father did it. He claims the investigation was mishandled.”
Johnson took the report and turned to the back page to check the name of the investigating officer. He called the Galveston number and learned that Detective Nelson had resigned and moved away. Smiling, he pressed the speakerphone button for his next call. Agent Tucker’s slightly nasal voice came through loud and clear.
“Tucker, I have Salazar with me on speakerphone. Are you still at Miami police headquarters?”
“Yes, we’re waiting for transport to the disaster zone, but it’s still cut off. Meanwhile, we’re monitoring reports for any mention of homicides or accidental deaths during the storm. Not expecting too much for a while; most of the phone lines are down and even the working phones are unreliable. They’ve gotten several reports of shots fired, but those we were able to verify didn’t match what we’re looking for. We do have a couple of missing families that fit the profile. Problem is, even if the Composer has struck, we might not hear about it for hours.”