The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,192

all.”

“We’ve finished here,” Johnson said. “We have to get back right away.”

Dupree stared out across the bayou for a moment. “Charbou, you and Salazar go back to New Orleans with Johnson, try to locate Lenx and follow him back to Texas, right to his front door if you have to. You’re going to stop him and arrest him. Detective Bull and I are staying here. We still have work to do.”

Amaia had been watching Bull stare at the deck the whole time. He and Dupree were obviously up to something.

Johnson looked first at Amaia and then at Bull. “With all due respect, boss, Salazar’s a temporary hire, and Charbou’s not even FBI.” He turned to Bill. “No offense meant.”

“None taken. Truth is truth.”

“Salazar is as capable an agent as you’ve ever worked with. As for Charbou, well . . .” Dupree winked at Bill. “He’s from NOLA. He’ll save your asses in a city he knows better than anyone.”

Johnson had more to say, but Dupree cut him off. “I won’t be much help. Yesterday I was half-dead, and getting to Le Grand and back has done me in. I’m afraid the traiteur needs to work on me some more. Bull will stay here to help me with the Samedi case. We have six dead kidnapped girls in that lodge and four dead men, three of them shot through the guts. We’ll take Jacob’s sisters back to the city once it’s safe to do so. No way am I going to just leave them here, and New Orleans can’t take them in yet. And the traiteur wants to do a ceremony for Médora, something he calls the farewell to the flesh. It will allow her to die in peace so her soul can start its journey. Bull and I should stay. After all, we know the family, and we bear some of the blame for her death because we failed to rescue her back then.”

“What happened to her is terrible,” Charbou said. “But it wasn’t your fault, and there’s nothing you can do for her now.”

“Dying’s not easy,” Dupree said, staring Charbou down. “And it’s even harder for someone like Médora. She spent almost her whole life believing she was already dead. Frank Carlino and Jerome Lirette were a really long time dying after whatever those people did to them, even though Lirette was decapitated and my friend had his heart torn out.”

“You really think some people linger after dying?”

“What I’m saying is that some find it hard to leave, especially those who are convinced that somebody’s conjuring them back or keeping them from going. Dying is hard. It’s like being born; you can do it by yourself, but it’s better when you have help, when somebody’s waiting for you on both sides.” His face was stern. “Bull and I are staying. The rest of you, get your things together and hit the road. Any questions?”

71

TRUTH AND JUSTICE

The swamp

Bull and Dupree stood on the pontoon walkway, watching the navy’s Zodiac and its passengers disappear into the distance.

Once the boat’s wake had dissipated, Bull took a cell phone from his pocket and handed it to Dupree. “I took out the SIM card and put it in my own phone. Voilà!” He turned it on, and the screen populated with a swarm of icons.

“Good.”

“Okay, but now what? Samedi—either the man or the organization—knew Len. They’re going to be expecting to hear his voice when they call. And they will call. As soon as something doesn’t sound right, they’ll hang up. We don’t have the equipment to triangulate their location. Considering the state of things, I doubt we’d find any police force in the state able to do it.”

“I’m not intending to track the call.”

Bull waited to hear more.

“When they call, Dominic will tell them what happened.”

“But . . .”

“Samedi didn’t know Dominic, Dominic didn’t know Samedi. Len was the link between them. Len blew his top when Pitt let the girls drown, and he gunned him down. Len told Samedi they’d lost their ‘catch’ and he’d killed Pitt for his negligence. I think he got permission to recruit another helper, someone they’d never met. And, lucky for us, everyone who knew the new man is dead.”

“Dominic . . .”

“My cover story is that Pitt’s brother, Vince, was furious and confronted Len. Put two trigger-happy guys together, everything goes to shit, and both of them end up dead. And now I—that is, Dominic, the only survivor—am answering Len’s phone, because I knew they’d call.