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Chapter 12

I left the bar and headed home, but instead of making the turn to my street, I drove on past and kept going. My thoughts were in a bit of a muddle. It had been a long week. Long month, even. By the time my musings quietened, I found that I had ended up near the Carrollton cemetery.

I drove past Horace and his wife's house and up around to the next street to the home of the missing man, Joey Creddie. The front of the house was neatly maintained, nary a weed in the cracked path and an American flag hung from the patio railing. The curtains were closed, but I sensed a mind inside. His wife was in a bedroom at the back of the small house, folding away laundry.

On a whim, I parked and knocked on the screen door. I heard her mental pause at the sound, saw the front curtains twitch a moment later.

"Who is it?" she called through the closed door.

"My name is Sookie Stackhouse. I was here the other day. I'm not with the FBI."

"Go away," she called. "No law enforcement."

"Ma'am, I'm not with any law enforcement. I was assisting the bureau in an unofficial capacity."

"I don't care, just leave."

"We've been specifically looking into the circumstances of your husband's disappearance. The FBI have reopened an investigation."

As I said it I had a little out of body moment. Was I really in the X-Files? How had my life brought me to this point? I jumped as the door unbolted and opened a crack. "You ain't the first to come knocking and you won't be the last. Either way, he's gone. Y'all can't bring Joey back."

"I understand that, but Agent Ray has every intention of helping locate him, wherever he may be." Dead or alive, was the unspoken caveat to that statement.

"And you?" she asked.

"I'm helping—"

"How exactly?"

She was regarding my outfit with a look of confusion that bordered suspicion. T-shirt and denim cut-offs don't exactly exude professionalism.

"I've done a lot of private investigation work," I said, opting for shades of the truth. "I work at a law firm in the city."

"As an investigator?"

"Yes, ma'am. The FBI's cold case department isn't exactly what you'd call well resourced. Agent Ray and I have worked together in a similar capacity on a previous case, so he asked for my professional opinion, so that's why I've been helping out."

The door opened a sliver wider. "I already told the FBI, the police, the state investigators, all of y'all everything you need to know. Find the notes. Just leave me alone."

Her thoughts filled me with a discomfiting guilt. Every knock from law enforcement was effectively picking off the scab of her grief. This woman hated, resented, the trauma the questioning shook up. She hated that it meant that she might not be leaving every stone unturned; she hated that it dragged her back to the worst period of her life. I didn't like the idea that I was just another person in a long line of interrogators disrupting the life she'd managed to cobble together in the years since her husband's disappearance. I knew, however, I was investigating in areas no one else had even thought to consider.

"What about the shadow man?" I asked.

I heard her breath catch. "What do you know about the shadow man?"

"Not a whole lot, to be honest."

"It's just talk," she said and then fell silent. "Isn't it?"

"I'm not sure, ma'am. Things were all over the place those weeks after the hurricane. Any number and manner of people could've been squatting in the neighborhood."

"The flood didn't reach here," she said, her voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. She opened the door wider but I still couldn't see her clearly, the black security screen door obscured most of my view of her. "But you're right. All sorts were coming and going. Joey spent half his time out of the house helping people out, helping them set their homes to rights."

"Did you see anything out of the ordinary?"

She let out a harsh bark of a laugh, full of bitterness. "That entire fucking year was out of the ordinary."

"I can only imagine. But was there anything else that struck you as specifically strange? Not, you know, the everyday."

I felt her regard for me turn distrustful. "You mean supernatural?"

I nodded.

"No. But I heard talk. Kids were telling stories of something lurking in the shadows. Hunting people. An old guy a few streets over got attacked and told the tallest tale after. I heard someone say a squatter in a place up on Burdette Street had someone stalking him home one night, hiding in the yard. And then God only knows where he disappeared to. Someone else swore black and blue they knew someone who fought off a monster."

"A monster? Did they see who it was?"

"Well, apparently it wasn't a someone but something." I saw her grip flex and tighten on the edge of the open door. "Do you think… something like that happened to Joey?"

"I can't really say."

"I know he's gone," she said. By gone, she meant dead, though she couldn't bring herself to say the word aloud. "I feel it. I feel it in my soul." The authorities in previous conversations had voiced the possibility that he'd run off, using the hurricane as a convenient time to abandon his wife, simply slip away and never be found. The notion angered her and it made her furious that she'd had to waste emotional effort convincing authorities otherwise.

"I'm sure you both had a lot of love in your marriage. I'm sure he did not leave of his own volition," I said.

"And what do you know?" she snapped.

"I don't, but—"

She cut me off. "Don't even start on any of that crap about closure either. I don't need closure. It doesn't change a damn thing. Either way, he's still gone. There's nothing more I can offer you. I just need to be left alone." The door shut firmly and I heard the tell-tale clunk of a deadbolt.

I waited on the porch a moment, deciding what to do next. I had been hoping she would go over the details of exactly what had happened the night of his disappearance, but she was right. I had a copy of those notes already. They were in a file on the USB sitting on my nightstand at home. She didn't need to be bothered any more.

I walked back to the car, her words bouncing around inside my mind. Why wouldn't a person want closure?

I remembered when Hadley disappeared. The ripples of shock and grief that permeated our family for years. And that was with us assuming she was alive. It was a giant question mark looming above us at every family gathering, every holiday, every missed birthday.

But had it felt any better upon learning of her death? No. It had felt infinitely worse. I was alone to pick up the pieces of the life she left behind. Gran had passed without ever knowing if she was okay. Without knowing she had a great-grandbaby living only a town away.

And I alone had been left to learn the extent of the mess Hadley brought into my life. That closure had been a bitter pill to swallow: Hadley's pillow-talk with Queen Sophie-Ann Leclerq had sent my life careening in a completely different direction. It sent Bill to my doorstep. While knowing how Hadley died and the circumstances of her life leading up to her death didn't change the facts of mine, it contextualized what happened to me in ways I'd maybe have been better off never knowing.

I got back into my car and sat there lost in thought, staring down the street. I eventually roused myself and decided to head home. I might even make a stop for a tub of ice cream at the store. I turned on the car, but when I checked the rear-vision mirror, I saw at the end of the street that same group of kids from the other day riding their bikes again.

They were a little further away from where Horace lived and they waved to me as I passed. I guess I was getting to be known in the neighborhood.

I wound the window down and slowed as I passed by. "Hi, boys."

"Still lookin' for the shadow man?"

"I don't think there is any. We searched that cemetery top to bottom."

"He doesn't live in the cemetery," the taller kid of the two said. His friend nodded in agreement.

"Really? So where does he live?"

"In the drainage tunnels." There was an implied 'duh' to his statement.

I kept the car on the spot, idling, as they waved and rode on. Could that be possible? Or was this just the fiction of urban legend?

The drainage tunnels… The only way something could possibly survive there during heavy rains was if it were some sort of aquatic creature. I gave myself a little mental shake. Okay, that was just silly. My thoughts were really moving into X-Files territory now.

I drove past Horace and Bernie's home, but I slammed the brakes on when I happened upon the brickwork drainage tunnel a little ways past their place. I'd seen it before. I'd noted it on that first day I'd come here with Agent Ray but thought nothing more of it. These weren't exactly an oddity in the city. Most neighborhoods had some sort of drainage that led to man-made canals feeding out to the Mississippi. Though most drains were the more modern storm grates built into curbs or alongside roads. This style was old.

I parked the car beside a nearby home and crossed the street. The tunnel was built up over an earthen trench and nestled between two fenced homes. It acted as a sort of no-man's-land. I stepped down the grassy culvert and peered inside. It went in quite deep, daylight seemed to get sucked in, like a blackhole into nothingness. Water puddled on the floor of the tunnel… which was also a little strange. Shouldn't the water drain away?

I jogged back to my car and grabbed a flashlight from my glove compartment. Was I really doing this? I took a shaky breath. Yes, I suppose I was. I noticed a modern style drain on the street next to my car. I paused to shine the flashlight into it. I could see water trickling freely inside this. That meant… that meant what exactly?

I looked over at the large brickwork drain. Was that one an old relic? Never demolished when they updated the storm water systems in the area? I made my way back down to the tunnel entrance and shone my flashlight inside. The light penetrated deeper than I expected, revealing a space large enough for me to walk provided I squatted. I was not surprised to discover the end was bricked up. It was a decommissioned drain, no longer in use. That explained the standing water. I moved the beam of light across the entire tunnel, successfully eliminating all shadows and failing to illuminate any shadow men.

I sighed. Here I was hoping I was onto something. At least I didn't have to worry about getting my clothes dirty.

I moved the flashlight beam around and at the furthest end, something glinted. Okay, that was odd. I moved the light around a little more. Sure enough, there was something down there reflecting back at me.

I looked up to the road and down the length of the street. It was empty, and casting my mental net wide revealed no one in the vicinity paying attention to me. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The water was brown and stagnant with a strange oily sheen on top, and it permeated the toes of my shoes instantly. Ick. I ducked into a crouch, being careful not to splash the water any more than was necessary. God knows what was in it. The last thing I wanted was some sort of parasite or dysentery.

I sloshed my way forward into the tunnel, the sounds of the neighborhood fading to a murmur behind me. My heartbeat thudded in my ears. I focused on breathing evenly; I hated small spaces. I was just going to check that metallic flash and then I was outta here. Doing my due diligence. I thought of Joey Creddie's wife, the way grief had hardened her. I drew in a deep, bracing breath. Just a few more feet. At least the water wasn't getting much deeper.

I waved the flashlight around until I caught sight of the glint once more. I froze, tilting my head. Something small in its furthest depths was definitely catching and reflecting the light of the flashlight back at me.

I slowed now, taking halting steps. A strange, brown shape became apparent in the water. It was half submerged. My breath caught in my throat, my eyes struggling to make sense of its form. It was… it was humanoid shaped.

Whatever it was, it was definitely dead, covered in fabric. A mummy? A zombie? I squashed the bubble of hysterical laughter that rose in my throat. No. That was ridiculous. This form wasn't quite that human-like. It was smaller. Not smaller like a child, but shorter somehow. It couldn't possibly be a body. While it smelled mildewy and damp within the confines of the tunnel, there was definitely nothing rotting. I took another faltering step forward. I tightened my clammy grip on the barrel of the flashlight.

"It's fine, this is fine," I whispered.

I didn't know what it was, but it wasn't alive. It was probably nothing. A bundle of clothes. An old sandbag. A weird piece of debris that had been washed down after Katrina. Light glinted again with the movement of my steps. The shape was now right before me, and my eyes struggled to make sense of what I was looking at through the murky water.

For a few moments all I could hear was my ragged breathing and a faint dripping. Oh God, why did I put myself in these situations? I made it there, one step at a time until I was in reaching distance. I grasped for whatever it was glinting in the water. My hands wrapped around something long… a branch? I lifted it and with dawning horror realized it was a human arm, very much attached to a body. I dropped it immediately and it landed back into the water, splashing me.

"Oh my god… oh my god." The light shone directly down into the water as I fumbled in my pockets for my cell phone. Idiot! My phone was still in the car. It was then that I comprehended what it was that glinted. It was jewelry… The arm I'd just lifted had been adorned with bracelets and rings. I held the light more steadily leaning further down.

I reached and plucked the arm up again. It was firmer than I would expect a decomposing body to be. Thin and rakish, almost skeletal. I angled the arm under the beam of light. Several bracelets adorned the wrist. In fact, it was not just the wrist that was adorned. The fingers were bejeweled with a large array of finery, gold, diamonds, and other precious gems. One, in particular stood out… a bracelet—platinum, Edwardian-style with a large solitaire diamond.

I felt my heart stop.

I knew this bracelet.

I knew it very well, in fact. My breath came in shallow rasps. I was willing to bet this bracelet's matching pair was on the other wrist.

A hysterical laugh tore from me. I sounded like a gasping hyena, and the noise echoed around me.

This was the bracelet I nearly lost my neck trying to retrieve. A bracelet that had been a gift from the then King of Arkansas Peter Threadgill to Louisiana's then reigning queen.

Someway, somehow, in a dank dark tunnel in New Orleans' suburbia, I'd found Queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq.