Tortured Spirits Read Free

young man to serve as his guide on Walter’s recommendation three weeks earlier, only to discover Vincent was Walter’s nephew.
    After finishing his second cup of coffee, Jake left a twenty-dollar bill on the table and returned the hostess’s smile as he carried Edgar’s cage out of the dining room, through the lobby, and onto the sidewalk, where the humidity blasted him.
    Vincent opened the passenger door for Jake.
    â€œI keep telling you that isn’t necessary.” Jake set the cage down in the middle of the backseat and secured the seat belt and shoulder strap around it.
    Edgar cawed at the calypso music rising from the speakers.
    â€œA lot of things in life aren’t necessary,” Vincent said. “But it’s the little things that make a difference.”
    Jake sat up front and closed the door.
    Vincent slid behind the wheel beside him. “What you got planned for us today?”
    Jake held up a sheaf of printouts. “Take me to the Ninth Ward.”
    Vincent took the printouts from Jake and read the addresses. “Easy enough to get to, not so easy to look at, especially for a tourist like you.”
    â€œI’ll manage,” Jake said.
    Vincent pulled out.
    The Ninth Ward proved harder for Jake to see than he had expected, with its ruined houses and piles of rubble left like gravestones in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He glimpsed the tattered remnants of disintegrating blue roofs, rusted-out trailers, and shattered tree trunks. His body turned numb at the sight of the devastation, even whenhe saw signs of recovery: repaired houses sitting atop new raised foundations on the same block as collapsed houses in weed-choked lots. Deep down, he knew it wouldn’t recover. The grim faces of residents who refused to leave their homes depressed him even more; they resembled the shell-shocked survivors of third world countries existing in a constant state of war.
    Vincent turned down a street with cracked asphalt and tall weeds. “It’s a little hard to find my way around without street signs.”
    Staring at the ruins, Jake was sickened to think of the wealth hoarded and squandered by Karlin Reichard and the other members of the Order of Avademe, whom Jake had helped take down just three months earlier. The cabal members had been billionaires, and Reichard had flown a chocolate cake in from Germany for one of their dinners. Seeing misery around him, Jake found it impossible to rationalize the existence of Avademe, the mutant octopus creature the cabal had worshipped.
    Vincent pulled alongside a trailer parked before the ruins of a house. Two black children, a boy and a girl, played in an inflatable swimming pool.
    Jake got out, leaving Edgar in the car with Vincent.
    A woman emerged from the trailer before he reached the swimming pool. She wore sandals, shorts, and a blue muscle shirt, her dark hair pulled back. “Can I help you?” Annoyance and suspicion tinged her voice.
    â€œYou can if your name is Elaine Roberts.”
    â€œIt’s rude to ask who I am before you introduceyourself.” She glanced at Vincent sitting in the car. “I know it isn’t much, but this is my house.”
    Jake took out his wallet and handed her a business card. “My name is Jake Helman. I’m a private investigator, and I’m trying to locate Miriam Du Pre.”
    The woman looked up from the card. “That name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
    â€œHer mother was Louise Du Pre. Her sister was Havana Du Pre until she became Havana Evans, and her niece was Ramera Evans.”
    The woman’s brown eyes flickered. “My family lived next door to them. I was friends with Ramera when we were in school. She moved to NOLA from New York City after drug dealers killed her parents. I got my own place”—she gestured at the house—”after high school. Some place, right? Ramera attended Tulane U, then wrote some big book about vodou