Gabriel - Jessie Cooke Page 0,16

and handed out her advice, her potions, and her curses, but legend had it that Julie also handed one out that no one had asked for. Toward the end of her life, she’d sit on her front porch singing spooky songs about death and destruction and she delighted in the fear that her evil looks or arcane gestures would instill in anyone passing by along the swamp in front of her house. But worst of all, she began to talk about her own death, and how it was coming soon. That idea didn’t scare them, not until she promised she planned on taking with her as many of the citizens of New Orleans as she could. She also promised that her soul would live forever in the swamps and anyone who trespassed would be cursed as well. Some people believed her; others scoffed at her and waited for her demise. On a day in 1915, the day they buried Julie White at last, one of the worst hurricanes of the decade passed through New Orleans, and a tidal wave of epic proportions swept through the crowd of people at her funeral and three villages beyond. Hundreds of people died that day and according to legend, there was nowhere to put all the bodies. So, as unceremoniously as it sounds, a mass grave was dug for them in Manchac and it’s said even a hundred years later that bones still float up to the surface at night and become tangled in fishing nets, or scrape against the bottoms of boats as if asking to be let in.

People have also reported seeing Julie’s ghost, floating across the water and through the tangled boughs of the cypress trees at night, like a loose piece of Spanish moss, looking for a place to settle. And that was what Gabe had seen that night he’d stayed out there alone in that swamp. As he had lain huddled in the bottom of his Paw’s old boat, something floated above him, settling just low enough to brush across his face and causing him to dive out into the dark, gator-infested waters and swim to the shore for his life. He could still feel her sometimes at night when he closed his eyes, and now he was returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak, and wondering if he was putting his life and the lives of those he loved at risk, simply by doing so.

6

“This is it?” Blackheart looked at the papers in the skinny folder that his friend John Logan had slid across the table. He’d called Logan as soon as he left Baton Rouge, even before he spoke to Sally. Patrice had piqued his curiosity, even if he wasn’t sure what he might do with anything he found out.

“That’s it. The family didn’t want an autopsy.”

“But there’s a toxicology screen.”

“Yeah, from what I was able to find out from Sampson, who was the ME assistant in those days, as part of the police investigation they took blood for the toxicology screen and they checked the body for any signs that there was foul play prior to her jumping off that balcony and hitting the cement. She had a blood alcohol level of about half the legal limit and she was positive for cannabis. That was it. They obviously found bruising from the landing, but nothing that they could definitively say came before she climbed over that rail and ended up on the pavement. The NOPD said the door was locked from the inside and there wasn’t any evidence anyone else had been in the room except the baby, but it’s a hotel so they did have about a dozen or so random prints. Not that they ever followed up on them. It was declared a suicide pretty quickly and the family claimed the body right away. Her father had died just a week before and Sampson said they didn’t want to drag things out since they’d been through so much. Her dad was some bigwig in Congress and her mother came from a rich family that’s been in NOLA for centuries, so I’m sure that had something to do with the rush. Sampson said they were also all warned not to talk to the press about any of it if they came calling. He said the poor girl wasn’t even given a proper funeral. She’s interred at the family cemetery in Lakewood...”

“The cemetery is connected to the estate?”

“Yeah.” He handed Blackheart another file,