Lucky Thirteen (The Raiford Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Larkin was just finishing her roll check in order to put the absentee report on her door for pick up. She crinkled the piece of paper in her fist, but walked to the door and placed the absentee report under a clip before she said, “You aren’t afraid of anything, Mr. Parks? Not even snakes or rats or spiders?”

  “Nothin’.”

  Feeling that curious melancholy she had been experiencing, Larkin remarked, “Hmmm. Well, if you use that term in my room once more toward anybody, you will become very afraid of the six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound, sexually-starved monster who will be your bunkmate in lockup. Until then, perhaps, you should be afraid of me.”

  The students stifled snickers and looked between the two. She glared at them, prompting silence.

  Dupree burst out laughing. “You a scrawny little white woman. You come in here tryin’ to change somethin’ you don’t know nothin’ about. You know what these slits in my eyebrow mean?” He pointed to two shaved spaces in his eyebrow. “Maybe you should be afraid of me.”

  Larkin did know much of the gang liturgy and symbolism. She had learned quickly during her first year in the classroom. She had also learned not to show fear to these kids, so, although shivering inside, she calmly replied, “Mr. Parks, it appears you do not know who has the power in this room. Perhaps, you should leave us.” She moved toward the intercom.

  Dupree jumped up from his desk and shouted, “Try it, bitch!”

  Larkin raised an eyebrow and pushed the button. At the same moment, the literature book from beneath Dupree’s desk hit her in the face. Blood spread over her eye and down her cheek. The office responded to her call and heard screams from the three girls in the class. Within minutes, security came into the room to twelve voices telling them what had happened. One of the guards removed Dupree with an iron grip on his arm while the other escorted Larkin and the rest of the class to the office where the assistant principal took her to Catholic Charity Hospital for stitches to her right eyebrow.

  At her insistence, Mr. Manning, the assistant principal, left her in the capable hands of Dr. Bixby. Larkin was surprised she was seen so quickly. The doctor put five stitches in her eyebrow and told her to go home after writing a prescription for Lorcet. Larkin laughed. “Dr. Bixby, this has been one bad day, but a few stitches won’t keep me from my students. Besides, my car is at the school. I’ll take a cab back. Thank you for your nice work.”

  Larkin could not believe her luck for the day was changing when she found a cab at the entrance to the ER. Sliding into the back seat, “St. Ignatius,” she said.

  A soft, cultured, masculine voice said, “Seatbelt.”

  Larkin smiled that her cab driver would worry about her safety. After the day she’d had, it made her feel good. She glanced into the rear view mirror and was startled by the bluest eyes she had ever seen looking at her. She clicked the seatbelt and the driver cranked the car. She leaned back on the seat and smelled a sweet odor on the cushion. Sleep came a moment later.

  ♣♣♣

  Larkin jerked her wrist. The voice, the voice from the cab, said again, “Stop. You’ll hurt yourself. I’ll be back.”

  Blue eyes! Why am I thinking about his eyes? She jerked her wrist again.

  “Please stop. Relax. I’ll be back.”

  2

  A Real Pain

  Detective Raiford Reynolds groaned, rubbed his temples, opened his desk drawer, and snatched his prescription for Amidrine. “Damn it! I don’t wanna take this. I can’t afford to go to sleep right now. This shit always knocks me out.”

  As keyed up as he was, he half expected a voice to answer him. In the last two hours, he had already taken four Advil, three aspirin, and three extra-strength Tylenol. Nothing was left but to take the Amidrine, even if it meant passing out for a few hours. The last time his head had hurt this much had been when he pulled an all-nighter studying for his last final at Louisiana State University. He had partied far too much with his fraternity brothers at Delta Tau Delta to study in a reasonable fashion. “I’m surprised I graduated,” he grunted. No, this headache is worse, but I brought both of them on myself from lack of sleep and pushing my body further than it needs to be pushed.

  These damned headaches had prevented him from playing football as much as he liked the sport and had wanted to play. He had managed baseball and golf. His body took less pounding, and his doctor would only release him to play non-contact sports in school. A stabbing ache like an ice pick through his temple shot from one side of his head to the other. The pain was becoming unbearable; the Amidrine, inevitable.

  But what of my ridiculous headache? Detective Reynolds was certain his migraine, even if it was the worst one he had experienced during his three years as a detective, was nothing compared to the agony the twelve women in the pictures before him must have endured. Besides, he would be feeling a different kind of hurt, unemployment, if he didn’t solve this case, and soon. The chief had personally said, “Ray, you’re the best detective I have. This is an election year. Get this mess solved! I don’t need this, and neither do you.”

  The chief’s declaration had come after the seventh body was discovered. Now, there were twelve. Oh, yes, Chief Gerard is feeling the sting of an election-year nightmare—a serial killer. The mayor is on the chief’s back. And, oh, yes, misery loves company. The chief definitely intimated that if he’s out, I am, too.

  But what kind of pain is that? It’s not real suffering. Looking at the pictures again, a wave of nausea swept over him. He couldn’t be sure whether the nausea was caused by the persistent migraine or the crime scene photos, but he determined to get his headache under control. He had no choice. He had to take the Amidrine.

  Ray looked at the drink machine in the hallway. Maybe if I take the damned pill with a Red Bull, I can get a couple of more hours before I zonk.

  He stood and stretched to his full six-foot height. He clutched the prescription bottle and chuckled as another voice came to his memory. Ray could hear his mother, “Raiford Michael Reynolds, stand up and stop slouching! You’ll get a hump in your back. We might be Catholic, but I don’t want you to be known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. One of your ancestors, also called Raiford, was a knight who fought in the Crusades. Straighten that spine and show pride in the person you are.”

  Ray knew he always slouched when he was stressed. What would Mom say if she could see me now? This case is more than a hunch in my back. It’s enough to bend me double, maybe break my back. So what if my namesake was Sir Raiford Reynolds? It’s not really my blood anyway. After all, I’m adopted. I’ve always known I was born in the charity ward of Catholic Charity Hospital. My birth mother was a street-walking drug addict who went by the name of Audrey—real or not, I don’t know, nor do I really care. I’ve been blessed to have been adopted by Albert and Dorothy Reynolds. They’ve given me a good life.

  He looked down at his desk again and puffed out a remorseful sigh as the top picture, the second victim, burned into his brain, and a throb like a hot bullet shot through his head. He slammed his chair into his desk, stomped to the drink machine, got a Red Bull, and popped two Amidrine into his mouth, washing them down with the entire Red Bull without a breath. He tossed the can into the wastebasket and made a stop in the restroom.

  Ray washed his face and wet down his short soot-black hair. He leaned on the lavatory and gasped when he saw himself in the mirror. He touched strands of gray near his temple. Although somewhat thin at hundred eight-five pounds, he was by no means skinny, but his face looked gaunt. He had an athlete’s body and worked to preserve it three or four days a week at the gym, but visits lately had been few and far between. A good workout would go a long way toward relieving this damned headache. His two-day stubble made him look older than his thirty years. The blood-shot whites of his eyes and dark circles beneath his lower eyelids made his startlingly sapphire-blue irises look even bluer and more outstanding against his rather fair complexion and black hair. He noticed a coffee stain on his white button-down shi
rt. Ray grunted. “No, Mom wouldn’t holler at me. She’d probably slap me.” Then, again, I can’t remember having ever been slapped.

  He shook his wet hair like a dog and returned to the deserted office area. He turned the crime scene photos face down and whispered, “I can’t look at you deceased right now.” He then picked up the photos of the twelve dead women from when they were still alive. “Maybe living,” he muttered. The detective put them in order of their deaths and stared at them as if hoping one of them would speak to him.

  He reviewed in his mind: Twelve women are dead in less than a year. The M.O. is the same. All had their throats slit. Almost all the blood was drained from their bodies. They were all obviously bound as evidenced from the bruising on their wrists. There was a different emblem painted over each ones’ shaved pubic area, but there was no sexual assault. Moreover, none appeared to have been abused except for having been tied up. All were placed in the cemetery in the normal position a dead body would be laid in a coffin, and they were all wearing what could have been a white wedding dress. On the other hand, they have absolutely nothing in common.

  Serial killers usually pick a type, but my victims range from a fifty-five-year-old white nun to a sixteen-year-old black high school student, with various ages and races in between. There’s no socioeconomic attachment either. Nothing makes sense.

  Ray glanced at the white board against the wall where he had recorded vital information on each victim and their last known movements and whereabouts. He grabbed the badly dog-eared chart he had made and reviewed it. He had numbered the women in order and written the most important information: name, race, age, physical description, date missing and date of death, and the blasted symbols. He grunted as he looked at his chicken scratch. “Maybe it’s the dates. Some are holidays. But what are the others?”

  ♣♣♣

  ♣♣♣

  “Come on!” He slammed the chart onto his desk. “Gimme a break! Speak to me!” he screamed.

  Ray heard the response he had been expecting earlier. He looked up to see Special Agent Christine Milovich, the singular, but only, help the FBI had sent when Ray requested assistance at Easter. Chris was pretty and athletically built. Ray knew she never lacked male companionship for several of the patrolmen had asked her out since she had been there. She was almost as tall as Ray and wore her dishwater blonde hair short. Her soft brown eyes stared with rebuke at Ray now. She wore black slacks, a cream-colored lightweight cashmere sweater and flat black suede Earth shoes. She crossed her arms, pursed her lips, and tapped her foot. “Ray, have you been here all night again?”

  “Yes,” he replied, unaffected by his temporary partner’s tone or demeanor.

  Agent Milovich snatched the pictures from Ray’s desk. “Go! Now!” she commanded. “If you make yourself sick, you’ll be of no use to anybody. I can see by the expression on your face you have another migraine. You look like shit! Get some rest, and for God’s sake, shower and shave. Do that for me. I have to smell you.”

  Ray rubbed his head again and spoke softly. “Chris, I can’t have another body turn up.” He picked up the picture of the nun as it escaped her hands. “I knew her personally. Sister Mary Michael taught Sunday school when I was a boy. Who would wanna hurt this woman? Or any of them? It’s just that this does make it more personal, and I don’t have a clue.” He finished with despair in his voice. He ran his fingers through his hair and puffed out his exasperation in one long breath.

  Christine softened her tone. “Ray, get some sleep. We’ll get this bastard. I promise. But right now, you need to rest.”

  “I know,” he submitted. “I’ll go to the locker room and sleep a while. And I promise to shower and shave before I come back.”

  She shooed him on with a little hand motion. Ray went to the back of the facility where each police officer had a locker. Several cots stood for use during disaster times. They had been moved in after Hurricane Katrina. He plunked onto the nearest one and instantly fell asleep.

  A strange, disconcerting dream floated into his subconscious as often happened. He dreamed about himself, or thought it was himself. Although the person looked just like Ray, it was someone entirely different.

  ♣♣♣

  Ray woke to the gentle shaking of Christine Milovich and her voice insisting, “Wake up.”

  He opened his eyes slowly and squinted against the harsh glare of the overhead florescent lights. His headache lingered. “How long have I been asleep?” he asked, a little dazed.

  “Only a couple of hours,” his partner replied. “I’m sorry to wake you, but another woman has disappeared.”

  “Fuck!” Ray rubbed his forehead and neck. “Just shoot me and put me out of my misery. This is real pain, Chris, a real pain.”

  3

  Thirteen

  Ray inhaled deeply as he stood. He still felt as if he might vomit at any second. He opened his locker and found a clean white golf shirt on the top shelf. He could not remember the last time he had actually hit a golf ball, but at least the shirt was clean. Chris’s hand fell over his shoulder. It held a can of Axe and a bottle of Visine. She confided, “I commandeered the spray from Baker’s locker. The eye drops are from my purse.”

  He smiled. “I guess I don’t really have time for that shower and shave, huh?”

  “Not right now. Maybe after we talk with the woman up front.”

  Ray and Chris walked to their shared office space after he doused his musty smell with the Axe and dropped some of the redness remover into each eye. A woman of about fifty with short salt-and-pepper hair fidgeted in a chair beside Ray’s desk. Her dark eyes studied the framed documents on the wall behind the desk as she waited. Chris made the introduction, “Dr. Fairchild, this is Detective Reynolds. He’s in charge of investigating this horrible ordeal. Ray, this is Dr. Rona Fairchild, the principal at St. Ignatius. She has come to report a missing teacher and is terrified the young woman might be number thirteen.” Chris finished with a scowl.

  Ray shook the short, stocky woman’s hand. “Dr. Fairchild, why do you think this case could be related to the others?” He sat in his chair as Chris pulled another from the corner.

  Dr. Fairchild gushed like a severed artery, “Because Larkin Sloan never misses school, her car is in the school parking lot, she doesn’t answer her home phone or her cell phone, and she didn’t answer the door when I went to her house after she failed to show up for school today. Larkin has missed four days of school in five years and only because she had strep throat. She was named teacher of the year last year. She loves her job and her students. She’s the most dedicated teacher I’ve ever had. She had a really bad day yesterday, but she would never neglect to call in unless something was seriously wrong. I just feel it, Detective. I’m terrified.” The older woman started to cry.

  Ray handed her a tissue from his desk drawer. At the same time he snatched his notepad and a small recorder. Dr. Fairchild sniffled. “Thank you.” She dabbed her honey-brown eyes. “I’m sorry to fall apart on you, but Larkin Sloan is very special. I love her as if she were my own daughter. We’ve spent a great deal of time together in the last five years. I never told her how I feel about her.”

  Ray patted the distraught woman’s hand. “I’ll do my best,” he replied, his voice sounding hollow. “You know, adults are usually not considered missing until they’ve been gone for forty-eight hours, but under the circumstances, I’m not taking any chances. Now, Dr. Fairchild, what happened yesterday to make things different from any other day?” He touched the recorder. “May I?”

  Dr. Fairchild nodded. Ray pressed the record button as the woman began to speak. “Larkin was physically assaulted by the new student in her class. Mr. Manning, my assistant principal, took her to the emergency room at Catholic Charity Hospital for stitches after the boy threw a book at her and hit her in the face. She told him she would grab a cab back to school, so he left. I already called the ER, and Dr. Bixby, who attended her, said she left in a cab.”

 
; Ray wrote in his notepad. “What about the kid who assaulted her? Do you think he did something else?”

  “No. He was in lockup and still is.”

  “All right. We’ll need to talk to him anyway. Is he a juvenile?”

  “No. He’s eighteen. Dupree Parks. He’s in the parish holding facility.”

  “At least he’s easy to find. We’ll also talk to the ER personnel and try to find the cabbie. What can you tell me about Miss…Mrs. Sloan?”

  “Miss. She’s not married, not seriously involved with anyone that I know of.”

  “All right. Tell me about Miss Sloan.”

  Dr. Fairchild smiled sadly. “She’s brilliant. All her colleagues love her, as do most of her students. I already told you she was teacher of the year last year. At St. Ignatius, this is a 50/50 vote between students and teachers.”

  Ray smiled as he thought Dr. Fairchild’s view of Larkin Sloan had to be skewed because of her obvious emotional attachment. He prompted, “Dr. Fairchild, what makes Miss Sloan so brilliant?”

  “Larkin is from a small town in Mississippi, called Soso, if you can believe that. She’s an only child. Her parents were killed in a car accident when she was five, and she lived with her maternal grandmother until the grandmother died when Larkin was thirteen. Then, she lived in the Mississippi Baptist Children’s Home until she went to stay with a Pastor Eric Moore and his wife, Emily. They died in a house fire during her senior year in high school, and she became an emancipated minor. As far as I know, she has no family.”

  Ray furrowed his brow. “Sounds as if she might be a survivor. Tell me more, Dr. Fairchild.”

  “Rona, please.”

  Ray nodded.

  “Although she had a rough childhood, she turned out great. She has inner strength and a deep faith. She graduated high school valedictorian. In high school she was a member of the drama club, the choir, the newspaper staff, and the soccer team. She sang the female lead in the high school production of My Fair Lady, was editor-in-chief of the paper, and captain of the soccer team.”