The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) Read online

  The woman had two dozen or so lengths of plastic beads draped around her neck as if they were treasured pearls and gemstones. She wore a pair of blue jeans that looked like they took a machine to get into, and a revealing white shirt with the words ‘I’ll Tickle Your Pickle for a Nickel’ written on it in bright pink letters. All three held large plastic cups.

  Fortunately, the trio, who by now had noticed Rodger and were waving at him, were the only ones out tonight. Most of the French Quarter was either asleep or drunk, and the drunk people were mostly contained to Bourbon Street at this hour. As he gave the three tourists a nod of his head, Rodger felt relieved that no one else was around. Even the local news had yet to arrive, and with some luck, they could clean up and clear out before they did arrive.

  Now facing down Ursuline Street, Rodger observed the flashing red-and-blue lights of the half-dozen or so police cars parked around the entrance to the crime scene—an inset door leading down into a basement. Next to the curb was a Mobile Crime Lab, its occupants absent. They were already in the basement.

  Just another night in New Orleans.

  “It’s horrible,” said a fresh voice beside Detective Bergeron. Rodger didn’t look at his partner, Junior Detective Michael LeBlanc, but instead watched as a number of uniformed officers and CSI personnel scurried in and out of the crime scene’s doorway. He absently raised a Styrofoam cup filled with piping hot coffee to his lips and sipped with expert dexterity, not even slightly burning himself.

  The coffee was strong, and Rodger could taste the chicory, a strong, acrid taste that lingered. Lost in his thoughts, Rodger heard the voice of his partner again.

  “It’s horrible,” Michael said again, as if trying to get Rodger’s attention. “CSI is just finishing up, and the coroner is on his way. What do you think?”

  Rodger turned and looked at his partner, who was his opposite in every way. Michael stood there wearing a gray Stanford suit, complete with a white shirt and navy blue tie, right hand thrust into his side pocket as if he was feeling himself, left hand holding his own Styrofoam cup.

  From his freshly trimmed sideburns and bangs to his recently polished dress shoes, Michael looked as far removed from his partner, who was wearing a pair of old, worn shoes and tan duster thrown over whatever he’d worn yesterday, as a Persian cat from a common tabby. Despite their night and day differences, the duo had already closed over fifty murder investigations this year—and it was only August.

  Rodger was silent for a moment as he examined his partner’s face, which showed almost no emotion. Michael’s brown eyes just barely moved, as if reading the pages off a typewriter.

  Rodger had come to respect Michael’s mental acumen. His partner had graduated top of his class with the highest honors. He rarely spoke needlessly or frivolously. His social skills sucked, and he had no concept of how the real world worked, but he was introspective and highly intelligent.

  “What do I think?” Rodger paused and mulled over what he might say, only too certain he knew what to make of the scene. When Police Dispatch had placed the call for the two detectives, the words gruesomely dismembered had been used. Then, one glance inside the basement where the murder had taken place, and Rodger had had enough.

  “Well, Michael,” Rodger finally said, his voice gruff from years of smoking, his eyes heavy with years of seeing one horror after another. “What do you think?”

  Michael exhaled and looked up at the rain, letting it hit his face for a moment, before looking back at his partner and beginning, “Victim is a Caucasian female, age twenty to thirty, with severe lacerations to the abdomen, chest, and throat by a sharp, but small, instrument. Most likely a scalpel. Arms and legs were bound with electrical wire, either to a metallic chair or table, and the victim was dismembered with some sort of hacksaw or buzzsaw. Eyes, teeth, and fingertips were removed after death.”

  Rodger nodded at Michael’s analysis, impressed as always with his partner’s ability to recall a scene simply by looking at it once. Michael paused for a moment before adding, “So yeah… I think it’s horrible.”

  Rodger let out a snort. Then he was ashamed at himself for laughing even a little.

  Finishing his coffee, Michael asked, “So why did you take one look and leave? It’s not like you to just walk away from a crime scene, but”—Michael paused and a thoughtful look crossed his face—“it’s like you’ve seen this before.”

  Rodger looked over at Michael and frowned sorrowfully as he gulped the final draught of his coffee. Placing the cup on the curb for the street cleaners to take away, Rodger looked back over the entrance to the crime scene and sighed heavily. It was twenty years ago this very night that he had stood outside this very same doorway.

  “I have, Michael.” Rodger didn’t look at his partner as he walked to the doorway, past the groups of officers and members of Crime Lab scuttling outside with uniform pale and sickly looks.

  Tracing his fingers over the doorway’s frame, Rodger spoke as if addressing a distant memory. “The worst case I’ve ever worked. Solved some twenty years ago. The Bourbon Street Ripper murders.”

  At that moment, another police officer, a short woman who walked this area as her beat, came out of the doorway. Officer Guidry exhaled and inhaled loudly, as if she had been holding her breath, before looking up at both detectives, shaking her head, and speaking in a thick Creole accent. “It’s a downright nightmare in there, Detectives. Crime Lab is almost through, and the coroner should be here any minute. Sergeant’s taken my statement and sent me back on my beat.”

  That said, Officer Guidry hurried off down the street, as if she couldn’t get away from the crime scene fast enough.

  Rodger watched her leave.

  Michael shook his head and said, “It’s a real shame that she’s the one who found the body. She’s about the same age as the victim. Damn. What a way to start your career on the force.”

  Despite his grizzled demeanor, Rodger had to agree with Michael’s statement. Officer Guidry had been on the force for only six months. She was the one to discover the body. She was the one to call in the murder.

  It was a hellish awakening to the horrors a police officer can face at any given time. Rodger shook his head as he walked away from the doorway. “It’s a crying shame. But what’s worse is that it looks like we have a copycat of the Bourbon Street Ripper murders.”

  Confusion showed plainly on Michael’s face as he followed his partner. “Hold on, Rodger. You were the one who solved the Bourbon Street Ripper murders. So why do you think tonight’s murder is a copycat?”

  Rodger stopped several yards from the crime scene’s doorway and leaned against the wall of the building. Protected from the stray raindrops, Rodger took out a cigarette, lit it, and moistened it between his lips. As he took a lingering drag and exhaled just as slowly, he looked to his partner, who was watching him with anxious anticipation, and began to speak.

  “It was during the early seventies when those murders began. Back then I was a moderately successful detective with an unimpressive list of closed cases. By a stroke of fate or a case of rotten luck, however you want to look at it, my partner, Edward, and I were assigned the case. The first time I saw one of those murder scenes, what he did to one of those women, I was sickened to my soul.”

  The gravelly croak of Rodger’s voice as he sank into his narrative was ripe with sordid memories.

  “The pools of blood. The strips of flesh. The stench of bile. The gruesomeness alone had been enough to turn my stomach inside out. But what affected me to the core was the look on the victim’s face.

  It was as if someone had frozen a scream of incalculable agony on her once pretty face. Just one look, and in an instant I felt as if I had experienced every horror that woman was forced to endure before being allowed to die.”

  “I remember hearing about the Bourbon Street Ripper at a lecture on serial killers. The media named him that because the murders were similar to the old Jack the Ripper murders in the late ei
ghteen hundreds,” said Michael. “Awful. That a person can do that to another human being. It’s disgusting.”

  Taking another lingering drag off his cigarette, Rodger continued without paying any heed to his partner’s interruption.

  “Correct. At that time, Moon Landrieu was in the mayor’s office, and already his battle with City Council over desegregation had the police budget in shambles. My partner and I were the only ones sent after this sicko, and every time that it seemed we were closing in on him, he evaded us with ease. After a while, it was like he was mocking us.”

  Rodger looked up at a nearby streetlight, watching the raindrops fall silently past the yellow halogen corona. His normally furrowed brow was even heavier this evening, all that stress from twenty years ago crashing back with every second.

  “But obviously you caught the Ripper, correct?” asked Michael, raising his eyebrows inquisitively.

  Rodger nodded in response before taking a third drag of his cigarette. Unlike some people who took lingering drags from a cigarette before accenting a point, Rodger managed to make it look natural. Like Sam Spade or Lieutenant Columbo, being a grizzled and jaded detective looked good on Rodger.

  “Yeah, we finally were able to piece together our killer,” Rodger said as he scratched his shoulder blades against the brick wall behind him. “Dr. Vincent Castille, a surgeon at Southern Baptist Hospital in Uptown. Old aristocratic money. Real old. Not that he needed it. The guy was a real genius with the scalpel. It was said he could fix any injury and heal any illness. And he wasn’t cheap. Rich folks would come from all over Louisiana just to place themselves under his care.”

  “A real saint,” quipped Michael.

  “And a first-rate psychopath. His personal life came out during the trial. Apparently, this monster had been collecting memorabilia from the Middle Ages or the Inquisition or some shit. Real torture equipment, like the kind you’d see down in the Wax Museum. I don’t even know what some of that stuff was, or how it was used, but it looked downright evil. The doc, however, loved that stuff.”

  Michael grimaced and then asked, “So the Bourbon Street Ripper—I mean Dr. Castille—tortured his victims to death because he was reenacting scenes from his private collection?”

  “That’s what the newspapers wanted to believe,” replied Rodger with disgust, taking a fourth drag of his cigarette, wearing the stick almost to the nub. He exhaled slowly and the smoke billowed out.

  “The murders were methodical and well planned, much like a surgery. The wounds were cut cleanly. There was no passion in the crimes, no rage.”

  He made a scribbling motion in the air with his stunted cigarette and said, “And he took notes. Lots of notes.”

  A coarse voice coughed out a pointed “ahem” beside them. Both detectives turned to see an older gentleman with tired eyes and scraggly gray hair. His black suit and white shirt were crumpled, as if it needed a trip to the dry cleaners as much as its owner needed a trip to the day spa. The man himself looked grim and serious.

  “Morton,” said Rodger with a nod of the head to the New Orleans coroner.

  “Dr. Melancon,” said Michael. He held out his hand, which the coroner ignored.

  “Rodger. Michael,” replied Morton with the look of a man who would rather not be outside in the rain. “I’m sure you know what this looks like, right?”

  “The Bourbon Street Ripper murders. It’s obviously a copycat.” Rodger looked over Morton’s shoulder toward the doorway leading to the crime scene. A pair of EMTs were rolling out a covered gurney, a third one behind them holding a black garbage bag that looked mostly full.

  “It’s goddamn butchery! That’s what it is,” exclaimed the coroner quite suddenly, his charcoal eyes burning with indignation. “Whoever did this knew exactly how the Ripper did it, down to the amputations and living autopsy at the end. It’s sheer barbarism!”

  Rodger didn’t let Morton’s outrage affect him. He knew that Morton had a personal reason for feeling so passionate about these murders. And one glance over at Michael, who had flinched at the outburst, confirmed to Rodger that his partner had no idea.

  “All the same,” inquired Rodger calmly, “your assessment is that it’s a copycat, correct?”

  Morton thrust his wrinkled hands into his coat pockets and spat on the sidewalk. “If you’re asking me if the victim died of exsanguination, then yes. If you’re asking if there was severe physical trauma, then yes.” Morton’s voice had once again considerably raised, so much that the trio of tourists, who were still on the balcony, perked up their heads with interest.

  “If you’re asking me if she suffered, then hell, bloody yes.” Morton was practically in a fit now, to the point where Rodger was holding out his hands to try and calm him. To the senior detective’s dismay, the coroner just railed on, “But if you want the really gory details, Rodger, you’re going to have to wait until I have the autopsy report ready. But don’t worry, if this is anything like the Bourbon Street Ripper murders, we’ll get plenty more where that came from! Until then, I suggest you go say some prayers at Saint Louis Cathedral, because Satan is back in the Big Easy!”

  With that, Morton stormed off, drawing looks from the remaining officers and officials at the scene, some of whom shook their heads at the over-the-top outburst from the coroner.

  Michael, who by this point wore an exasperated look, turned to his partner, and mouthed the words, “What the hell?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rodger said as he took a final drag from his cigarette and tossed it into a nearby puddle. “He has his reasons for being so sensitive about this shit. More so than most of us.”

  With that bit of wisdom dispensed, Rodger grew silent, his mind working. He mulled over a way to start the investigation off. He was sure it was a copycat, even though he knew that they needed more than one victim before City Hall would consider it a real copycat murderer.

  Goddamn bureaucracy.

  Rodger frowned. There was one way to get a jump on this investigation if it was indeed a copycat. It would require bothering someone he didn’t want to bother, but given the grotesque nature of the crime, he felt there was no other choice.

  Rodger began moving to his squad car. “Come on, let’s get going.”

  Rodger heard a quick “Hmm?” from his partner before hearing those polished shoes scuffling after him.

  Like a duckling hurrying to catch up to its mother, Michael scuttled over the sidewalk to the passenger side of the car. “Where are we going?”

  “To see someone who can help us get a leg up on this damn thing,” responded Rodger as he slid into the driver’s seat and strapped himself in tightly. The receptacle for the safety belt failed to catch a few times before finally clicking in place. Rodger paid it no mind. The department couldn’t afford to give him a raise after five years, so why have them spring for new seat belt latches?

  Damnable budget cuts!

  “All right, I’ll bite,” replied Michael as he effortlessly latched his safety belt in place. “Who is this person? How can they help us?”

  Rodger turned the key in the ignition, and with a roar the Ford Crown Victoria came to life, headlights spilling out over the back of Ursuline Street.

  Putting the vehicle in gear, he replied, “Sam Castille, Vincent’s only living descendant. Sam has some stuff of the doc’s that police never got warrants for during the trial. Some bullshit red tape thrown up by the defense that ultimately did that scumbag no good. If we can get our hands on that stuff, it may help us understand how Vincent thought out his crimes.”

  With a nod, Michael leaned back in his seat, folding his arms thoughtfully. “I see. So we establish a pattern of behavior and use that to predict the copycat’s next move.”

  “Exactly,” replied Rodger with a small smile.

  Michael’s expression was still thoughtful as he asked, “And you think this Sam fellow will help us out?”

  “I hope so,” replied Rodger as he pulled off Ursuline and onto Dauphine St
reet, passing underneath the balcony where the tourists still watched the gruesome gallery below. “Sam and I… we go way back. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  In truth, however, the uncertainty was still there, along with a pang in his chest. Sam was a delicate matter to Rodger, but Sam was also the only one who could give Rodger what he needed. It was a real conundrum.

  “Great,” answered Michael as he relaxed and looked out the window. “So where does Sam live?”

  “Uptown,” replied Rodger as he stopped at a stop sign, checking both ways before proceeding forward through the intersection. “Near Tulane University.”

  The rain had started up again, coming down in sheets of water that made visibility nearly zero.

  “Nice area.” Michael looked out the window, before looking over at the clock, blinking a bit, and calling Rodger’s attention to the time. “Will he even be awake at this hour? It’s only three thirty.”

  Rodger chuckled to himself. If he remembered properly, Sam was an incurable night owl. As he turned out to the highway, leaving the French Quarter and its grisly murder behind, Rodger said, “Oh yeah. By the time we get there, Sam will definitely be awake.”

  By now, the summer storm was raging on in full force.

  Chapter 2

  Sam of Spades

  Date: Wednesday, August 5, 1992

  Time: 4:00 a.m.

  Location: Sam Castille’s Townhome

  Uptown New Orleans

  With a shuddering series of clanks, the door to the medicine cabinet more or less slid open, revealing row after of bottles, each bottle filled with pills. Triazolam, Temazepam, Zolpidem, and other sleep aids shared the shelves with NoDoz, Vivarin, and other pills meant to do the exact opposite.