Bright lights lit up the swamp just ahead as the boat eased its way around the bend. The sound of a generator matched the steady drone of insects. Alligators bellowed disapproval from various directions, reminding them that every step they took on solid ground or in the water was dangerous. Cypress trees rose out of the water, long tails of moss hanging from nearly every limb, draping the branches and swaying with the slight wind.
Remy stepped off the airboat onto the semisolid ground. His boots sank a few inches and he hastily moved to firmer ground. The swamp smelled of decay and death. The scent of blood was strong. Drake Donovan greeted him with a firm handshake.
His brother-in-law always surprised him with his strength. He was rugged-looking, with his permanent five-o’clock shadow and his wide shoulders and thick chest. It wasn’t that Drake didn’t look strong, it was that his grip was crushing, and Remy was an extremely strong man himself.
There was something steady and enduring about Drake, a calm most leopards couldn’t quite achieve. Drake not only had the hot passion and temper of the leopard under control, but he could lead a lair of alpha males and keep them loyal and working together. Remy considered Drake a fair man, as did the other leopards, which went a long way when the law of the jungle prevailed.
“Saria okay?” Remy asked.
Those cool green eyes went a little gold. “She’s just fine, thanks. Finding the body was a bit of a shock, but Saria doesn’t spook easily.”
That was Drake’s way of saying Saria was his and no one else was going to tell her what to do. A definite back-off warning.
Remy met those glittering eyes with a stare of his own. “She’s your responsibility, Drake, as is her guest.” His chin nodded toward the vomit on the ground a few feet from him. “That’s not Saria, so I’d say it was Bijou. Neither should have been out here without an escort, and you know it. That body could have been either of them. I don’ want my sister or any other woman seein’ this kind of thing.” Remy refused to drop his stare, something that could be construed as a challenge to the leader of the lair. Damn it all, Saria and Bijou had no business in the middle of a gruesome murder scene.
Drake didn’t blink. “Saria is Saria, Remy. You and your family are responsible for the way she is. I don’t beat my wife because she was allowed to go her own way from the time she was in the cradle, nor will I ask her to change. I fell in love with an independent woman.”
Remy shrugged, refusing to take the blame for his sister’s shenanigans now that she was married. “Perhaps you should accompany her into the swamp at night, at least until this killer is caught.”
A slow grin softened the hard lines in Drake’s face. Laughter lit the green eyes, so that the gold was nearly gone in an instant.
“You’re trying to get me killed, because you know if your sister thought for one moment I was protecting her in her precious swamp she’d probably stick a knife in me. If you want leadership that bad, Remy, say the word. It’s all yours. You tricked me into it in the first place, you and your hell-raising brothers.”
Drake’s ability to defuse escalating tension was one of the traits Remy most admired in his brother-in-law—and what was most needed in a leader. Remy had never been able to keep Saria under control, and neither could her husband. She went her own way. When it was needed, Remy had no doubt that Drake would put his foot down and Saria, being sensible about most things, would listen—he hoped. He couldn’t imagine Saria defying her husband over her safety.
He nodded, allowing a small grin to escape. “It’s not happenin’, bro. I’m not takin’ on the lair for you.”
“I took on your sister for you,” Drake pointed out.
Remy shook his head and turned his attention to the crime scene. They were all waiting for him and he needed to get on with it, but even after all the years on the force, he had to steel himself if it was the same serial killer from before.
The body hung from the limb of a cypress tree, and just like the others he’d found in the courtyards of New Orleans four years earlier, death had been both gruesome and brutal. Blood ran in rivers, pooled in dark, dank puddles. Insects clung to every inch of the body. Sprays of blood soaked the nearby trees and brush, indicating the victim was alive when the killer had cut into him. The body had been hacked open, and the killer had harvested the rib and chest bones. The left hand had been hacked off.
He closed his eyes for a moment. It was impossible not to recognize the victim, even with the swarm of insects clouding his face and body. The face was distorted in death and covered in bugs, but everyone in the bayou had seen that particular red plaid shirt many times on a shrimper named Pete Morgan.
Pete was as good as they came. Fiercely loyal to his wife, family and friends. He’d been in the bayous all of his life. Born and raised. That red plaid shirt had been his trademark. He owned several of them and didn’t wear anything else unless it was Sunday. Remy had gone to school with him, fished with him, stood for him when he got married. Got drunk with him when his firstborn had died a week after birth. Rejoiced with him when a healthy son was born two years later.
Remy made the sign of the cross, uncaring that anyone saw him. It was always difficult to see a gruesome murder, but to know the victim made it ten times tougher. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look around the crime scene, giving himself time to assimilate that his friend was dead and his end had been brutal.
He knew why Gage hadn’t said a word to him. Of course he’d recognized Pete. So had Saria. It was even possible that Bijou had. Gage needed a fresh pair of eyes, completely absorbing the crime scene. Gage believed in Remy and his abilities so he’d allowed him to be just as shocked as the rest of them.
“He isn’t shy, this killer.” Remy tested his voice, found it professional and steady. “Any boat comin’ through the swamp could have seen him, but he still took his time.” He turned and looked at Drake. “The vic hasn’t been dead that long.” Which meant Saria and Bijou just missed the killer. He might even have heard them coming.
Drake nodded as cool as ever. “Saria was very aware of that.”
Remy didn’t care if Saria was aware of it or not. He wanted Drake to be aware of it. He had no doubt this was the same killer. The signatures were all there. The killer didn’t bother to try to hide them—or maybe he wasn’t aware he signed his work. The first kill site Remy had seen of this man’s work had been in the vaunted Garden District in a historic bed-and-breakfast, with the victim hanging in the middle of the courtyard right beside the fountain. Just as this one was gruesome and messy, that scene had been horrendously nightmarish.
Arterial blood had sprayed everywhere. The body swung grotesquely from the hangman’s noose, and the left hand had been cut off, dipped in oil with candles tied around the fingers and displayed obscenely on a very precise and clean altar. The altar had been in sharp contrast to the messy scene.
Remy turned to survey the altar erected there in the swamp a few feet from the body, precisely, he knew, four and a half feet to the inch, just as it was in the last four murders, four years earlier. There was no doubt this was the same killer. If he repeated the same pattern as he’d followed four years ago, there would be at least three more bodies before he was done. Each body would have different bones removed from it, all while the victim was alive and hanging. Sometimes they died of shock and blood loss first, other times of asphyxiation.
The killer was bold and always prepared. He took his time, and often the crime was committed in an area where anyone could happen upon him. Still, he never seemed to hurry. The altar, so meticulous and precise, was at such odds with the haphazard kill site. If Remy hadn’t known better, he would think there were two perpetrators at the scene, but he’d studied the photographs and committed the scenes to memory. There was one murderer, and he cared nothing for the victim.
Clearly, the murder victim wasn’t human to him. The only thing he wanted was the bones; the rest was a personal ritual of some sort. He just got the job done of harvesting the bones as quickly as possible, hacking up the victim without seemingly noticing the mess, or the fact that the donor was still alive. Only then did he slow down and take his time over the preparation of the altar. Whatever he was doing seemed to catch him up in some kind of weird enthrallment—unless there were two of them—which Remy had considered more than once.
“Voodoo?” Gage asked.
Remy frowned and shrugged. He didn’t believe it was a voodoo altar, although certainly it appeared to be one. There were objects found in voodoo practice, but when he’d consulted Eulalie Chachere, a legitimate voodoo priestess, she had told him that the altar wasn’t right even for a black magic practitioner. Still, he would consult her again. She was an expert and if anyone could figure out what that altar meant, it would probably be her. Remy knew her and trusted her. “You’ll have to consult Eulalie. She worked with me before so she’s familiar with the crime scenes. She won’t disclose details. She can be trusted.”