Case of the Ragin' Cajun Page 4

  “He had red hair, only …”

  “Only what?” Greg asked, interested.

  “It looked very thick, almost clumped together. He might have had dreadlocks.”

  “Red dreadlocks?”

  Jillian nodded, and then placed a hand on her neck. “And tattoos. I saw tattoos all the way up to his chin.”

  “Next, you’ll tell me that he only had one arm,” Detective Martins chuckled.

  “No, I’m sorry. He had both hands.”

  “I was joking, ma’am.”

  “I know you were, detective.”

  “Do you have any idea how old he was?” Greg asked.

  Jillian shrugged. “Oh, gosh, I suppose he was in his mid-twenties.”

  “That’s a very detailed description,” Detective Martins admitted, several minutes later. He snapped his notebook closed and looked at Jillian. “Would you care to explain how you were able to be looking in the right place at the right time?”

  “She’s very observant,” I offered. “She always has been. I can never win an argument with her.”

  Jillian smiled warmly and placed her hand over mine on the table and gave it a friendly squeeze.

  “Look, I can vouch for everyone here,” Vance began, as he pulled out his police ID. “I’m Detective Vance Samuelson, of the Pomme Valley Police Department. Zack is one of our consultants, as are both Sherlock and Watson.”

  “Oregon, right?” Detective Martins asked, as he flipped his notebook back open to consult his notes.

  “Correct. Zack and the dogs have solved a number of cases for us.”

  “Have they now? Well, that’s nice. Here, in New Orleans, we do everything by the book, Mr. Samuelson.”

  Vance’s smile thinned. “Good to know, Detective Martins. We do the same back home.”

  Tori laid a reassuring hand on her husband’s. “So, detective, what now?”

  Martins looked up at the overhead ceiling and noticed several security cameras. He nudged Greg and pointed up.

  “Get with the security team here,” Detective Martins told the consultant. “Go through the video. Let’s see if Ms. Cooper’s mystery man shows up in any of the feeds.” Greg nodded, but before he could hurry off, Detective Martins held up a hand. “Wait a moment. Let’s make sure we cover all the bases. Ma’am? You’re the one who has seen the person we’re after. Is there any way I could get you to accompany Mr. Plinth here and help him look?”

  “Only if all of us can come,” Jillian said. “I don’t want to be back there by myself.”

  “Seconded,” I added.

  Minutes later, we were all following Mr. Plinth as he led us through a number of hallways, before stopping at a black door with a single word written across the front: SECURITY.

  “Mr. Dobson, hello again. I have some people here who are going to help us try to locate a person of interest. Er, how much room do you have in there?”

  Mr. Dobson, a big, beefy black man who was probably around six and a half feet tall, smiled warmly at us and pulled the door open as much as it could go. I was immediately reminded of a bouncer at a bar.

  “Absolutely. We’ve got room for everyone. Come on in, folks. What’s this? Dogs? How cool! They’re corgis, aren’t they?”

  “Pembrokes,” I confirmed. “And thanks.”

  Mr. Dobson returned to his station, in front of at least fifty small screens, and began tapping instructions into the keyboard.

  “Now, how far back do you want to go?”

  “Well, you have cameras covering the front doors, don’t you?” Gregory asked.

  Mr. Dobson nodded. “Five.”

  “Why don’t you go back to just before the people panicked,” Vance suggested. “That was, what, about an hour ago?”

  “Is that when Mr. Anderson pulled you up on stage with him?” the security guard asked, with a smile.

  “You know who I am?” I asked, amazed.

  “My wife loves that Ireland book you wrote,” Mr. Dobson explained. “Now, thanks to you, I gotta find a way to surprise her with a trip to the UK. Can’t wait to have a pint of Guinness at an actual Irish bar.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, Mr. Dobson,” I began, “could you tell me how you knew I wrote Heart of Éire? Is it written down somewhere?”

  The big security tech pulled a duffel bag out from under the table and rifled through it for a few moments. Turning, he was holding a copy of my book in his large hands. He tapped the author name on the cover, namely Jim McGee, and then pointed at a sentence in a smaller font printed just above the name. Leaning forward, I studied the line.

  Zachary Anderson, writing as …

  Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Perhaps I should pay more attention to the cover?

  “Ah. Well, that explains a few things. So, uh, have you ever tried Guinness before?”

  Dobson shook his head no. “Not yet. Why, have you?”

  “Once,” I confirmed. “And it will be the last. The texture and flavor of Guinness can be … that is, it could be considered … tell you what. Let’s just call it an acquired taste.”

  “Didn’t care for it, huh?” Vance quipped.

  “Not one bit. But, people always tell me my taste buds are no better than a bottom-feeder, so I don’t think I’m qualified to give a decent opinion.”

  Dobson laughed and began working his magic on the controls. Much to my surprise, a three-by-three grid of camera feeds in the direct center of the wall of videos fuzzed out and was replaced by an image of the front entry, looking toward the hallway that passed in front of where my panel was. A counter appeared in the lower left corner and counted backwards as Dobson skimmed through the footage. We watched hundreds of people jump about in reverse as Dobson searched for the correct time frame. Then, the people seemingly vanished and the picture went still.

  I stared at the huge wall full of different screens and realized something. All these screens? They were essentially part of the same massive video screen. I’m pretty sure I was looking at the largest computer monitor I’ve ever seen. Whatever computer program was using it had divided the surface area up to display as many feeds as (presumably) the user wanted. That was one way to get the most bang for your buck.

  “I think I’ve got something,” Dobson reported, bringing me back to reality. “This is about five minutes before everything went south.”

  “Go forward, but slowly,” Gregory instructed.

  Several figures appeared and quickly accelerated. We watched as three minutes passed in about twenty seconds. Then, as we approached the five minute mark, Jillian suddenly grabbed my arm and pointed at the screen.

  “There! Stop the footage! That’s him! Zachary, do you see him?”

  We all crowded close to the monitors, which I later learned wasn’t one big LCD screen, but a series of frameless displays set so close together that they could be used as one giant screen if the situation called for it. A lone figure appeared, and Jillian was right: yellow shirt, black jacket, black jeans, and bright red hair. He was clearly heading for the entrance.

  “So, this is who you saw?” Gregory said, as he studied the image. “Can we trace this back? Where did he come from?”

  “Let’s find out,” Dobson muttered, as his hands flew across the keyboard.

  The mini videos on the huge screen suddenly turned black. Then, every one of them had an image playing. I nodded as I realized what I was looking at. Dobson was now playing all the video, recorded from each camera, on its own separate feed. We just had to watch the cameras and find out which way our mystery man had come from.

  “His hair is, without a doubt, red,” Tori observed. “And it does look like dreadlocks to me.”

  The image suddenly froze. Dead-centered on the screen was a crystal clear picture of our suspect. His back was to the camera, which wasn’t ideal, but his head was turned to the left. A blinking blue rectangle appeared, and was resized so that it fit over the suspect’s head and torso. Moments later, the image was replaced by a close-up
of our perp.

  “They’re hanging halfway down the guy’s back,” Vance pointed out.

  “But, are they dreadlocks?” I wanted to know.

  Vance, Tori, and Jillian all turned to look at me.

  “What?” I demanded, growing defensive.

  “You need glasses, pal,” Vance told me. “We can all see that they’re dreadlocks.”

  “Says the man who isn’t wearing his own glasses,” Tori quipped.

  Surprised, I turned to my friend.

  “They’re reading glasses,” Vance grumbled. “And I forgot to bring them with me on this trip.”

  Tori reached into her purse and pulled out a brown leather eyeglasses holder. “I figured you might, so I brought your spare pair for you.”

  Jillian and I were silent as Vance reluctantly donned his eyewear. Avoiding eye contact with me, he leaned forward and studied the image again.

  Now it was Jillian’s turn to point. “There, see? Can you see his neck? It’s covered with tattoos.”

  “Roger that,” Greg said, as he made some of his own notes. “Mr. Dobson, is there any way you can zoom in on the guy’s neck? I’d like to see if we can identify any of the images.”

  Vance and Tori both leaned forward at the same time, and cracked their heads together.

  I pulled out my phone. “Guys? Could you do that again? I’d like to film it this time.”

  Vance rubbed his head. “Bite me, pal.”

  Tori massaged the side of her head. “Well, I can see a skull, located about here.” She tapped an area under her left ear. “And it looks like there might be UFOs for eyes?”

  “Suns,” Vance corrected.

  “Those aren’t suns,” Tori argued. “We’re going to get you some stronger glasses. Those are UFOs.”

  The image we were staring at suddenly expanded in size and filled the screen. What we were looking at was a crystal clear close-up of the victim’s neck. Granted, our friend Mr. Dreadlocks wasn’t walking around, shirtless, but enough of his neck was exposed where we could see that he had undoubtedly spent a pretty penny at a tattoo parlor.

  I looked at the tattoo of the skull. No, the eyes weren’t UFOs, or even suns. In fact, I thought they looked an awful lot like … I don’t know. Pancakes?

  “If you want to put the UFOs or suns debate to bed once and for all,” my detective friend said, “then listen up. It’s neither. The skull’s eyes are buttons.”

  I reflexively leaned forward once more. “Really? I thought they were something completely different.”

  Vance removed his glasses and held them out to me. “Wanna borrow ’em? Looked like you could’ve used them earlier.”

  “Hmmph. They look better on you.”

  Dobson leaned forward to stare at the screen. “I can enlarge this one. Hold on. Yes, look at that. They’re buttons, all right.”

  “Which way is he heading?” Vance asked.

  “It’s in reverse,” I pointed out. “We’re trying to find out where he came from.”

  “Fine. Find out where he was prior to walking through that hallway, there, on the way out.”

  “The food court,” Dobson reported. “That hallway will take you straight to the food court. Look at that screen, top left. You can see him loitering there, by the Chinese food place, and then, prior to that, he was over by the sandwich shop.”

  “Is there anything else we can tell about the guy?” Plinth wanted to know.

  “He sure is going out of his way to stand out,” I mumbled.

  “What do you mean?” Vance asked. He leaned forward for a better look. “I mean, sure, he’s got red dreadlocks. Not many people can pull off that look.”

  “I’m not sure he is able to pull that one off,” Tori observed.

  “Look at him,” I urged. I stood and leaned over to point at the video feed that had our guy. “Dreadlocks is wearing a bandana, black pants, boots, and a bright yellow shirt. Plus, he’s got on a black duster. That’s about the equivalent of windowless cargo van driving through a school yard.”

  “You’re suggesting he wanted to be noticed,” Vance guessed, as he stared at the image.

  “It’s just an opinion,” I said, as I stepped away from the monitors. “I just don’t know why he’d want to, unless he was looking to get captured.”

  “I’d be more interested in learning about the veve,” Jillian said.

  “The what?” Vance asked, as he turned to look at my fiancée.

  “I have no idea what she said, either,” I had to admit. “What is a vay-vay?”

  “Veves are used in voodoo,” Dobson said, nodding. “You’re right, ma’am. I see it, too.”

  I peered closely at Dreadlocks’ neck. All I could see was a jumble of images. Hearts, stars, skulls, boobs, and babes. All were represented on Dreadlocks’ neck and all were smooshed together. And Jillian, without bothering to lean forward, had spotted something in that mess which had some meaning?

  I pointed at the screen. “Can you bring this veve thing up so that those of us who know nothing about voodoo can see what these things look like?”

  Dobson was nodding. “Sure, just a second.”

  The blue rectangle reappeared. Dobson dragged the box over to Dreadlocks’ neck and zoomed the image in even further. It took several more magnifications before I spotted what had caught Jillian’s eye. Surprising myself on how quickly it happened, I pulled my cell from my pocket in one fluid motion and snapped a picture of the image frozen on the security screen. I figured I could always study the image later.

  It was a symbol, all right, but not something I ever recall seeing. And, let’s be honest. If I ever saw something like this in passing, I know I would either laugh it off or flat-out ignore it. In this case, this particular symbol had been set into the top of one of the skulls, directly below the suspect’s left ear. Unless you knew what you were looking for, you’d just pass it off as an artist being creative. But, in this case, Jillian had zeroed in on it instantly. Plus, our pal Dobson here confirmed it had something to do with voodoo.

  Now, would something like that catch your attention? This veve consisted of two overlapping arrows, one pointing northwest, and the other northeast. Tiny stars were at all four points of the compass, and there was also a zig-zag going through the middle of the arrows. No, wait. It actually looked like a backwards Z. Or a backwards N, tilted about 45 degrees clockwise. I guess it would depend on how you looked at it. Additionally, there was something on the tip of the squiggly line, directly above the southern star. What was it? Well, I certainly didn’t know the technical name of it, so I guess I’ll call it a hook, or maybe a barb. Now you know as much as I do about this particular symbol. If this thing had some sort of meaningful purpose, it was lost on me.

  Vowing to look the crazy thing up once we made it back to our hotel, I was about to ask if there was anything else of note. However, Sherlock and Watson chose that time to wake up from their nap and sniff the air, as though they were able to smell food. Let’s face it, they probably were. Then again, they’d been sleeping for a little while. Perhaps they needed a potty break?

  “Hey, there’s somethin’,” Mr. Dobson suddenly reported. He pointed at one of the screens. “There? Did you see that? He’s standin’ there, by the sandwich shop.”

  Vance perked up. “He dropped something by that cement planter. Could anyone see what it was?”

  “Maybe a wallet?” I suggested. Everyone in the room was staring at me as though they thought I was the biggest dunce of them all. And, I’m sorry to say, that included the dogs. “What? It could be, couldn’t it?”

  “Not on purpose,” Vance decided. “Come on. I want to find out what that thing is. Mr. Plinth? What do you say?”

  “I say I’ll be right behind you,” Greg said.

  “It’s good timing,” I decided. “I think they may need to go out to go potty. It’s been a few hours since either of them were outside.”

  Vance shook his head. “I’d say they want to go find this thing, to
o. I mean, look at them. Sherlock and Watson perked up just moments before we saw the footage of the guy dropping whatever it was he dropped. And now? They don’t want to go outside, but around that corner. Zack, they want to check out the food court!”

  “Fine. Guys? Let’s go see if we can find this thing. Remember, look but don’t touch, okay?”

  Giving the corgis as much leash as I could, I followed them down the hall and into the indoor courtyard. Several crime scene techs were still poking about here and there, taking samples, pictures, notes, and whatever else you could think of. Several police officers eyed us as we neared, but thanks to Vance, and him flashing his police badge, we were allowed through.

  “Keep them clear of those areas over there,” the nearest cop said, pointing at several tables which had no fewer than four different techs examining the scene.

  We looked down at the dogs, who were eyeing one of four large potted ferns. It certainly looked like the planter from the video. Before I could say anything, the dogs guided us to the closest planter, looked up at the large plant, and whined. Sherlock looked back at me and immediately plunked his butt down.

  “All right, Sherlock!” Vance praised. He approached the plant and, using an empty serving tray procured from a stack of empties on a nearby trash can, gently moved a few of the fronds out of the way.

  “Do you see anything?” I eagerly asked.

  Vance suddenly froze, stooped to get a better look at something, and then looked over at the closest crime scene tech.

  “Hey, guys? Could I get one of you to come over here, please?”

  The tech in question, a young woman in her late twenties, pulled off her latex gloves and headed toward us.

  “Yes? Can I help you with something?”

  “I think we might be able to help you with something,” Vance countered, as he pointed at the fern. “Would you look in there and tell me what you see? And I’d put on another pair of gloves, if I were you.”

  Baffled, the woman looked at the fern, back at Vance, and then over at Gregory Plinth, who nodded his encouragement. Snapping on another pair of gloves, she gently pulled a few fronds out of the way. Right then, she let out an exclamation of surprise.