Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One) (25 page)

“Why don’t you just go to the coffee shop
down the street?” I asked, taking another sip. Once I got past the
initial shock of five spoons of sugar (when I normally only had
one), it wasn’t too bad, and strangely, I was appreciating the
sweetness.

“They shut early. The owner was busy boarding
the front of his store up,” Joshua shrugged. “So you’re stuck with
this poor excuse for coffee.”

I took another sip and smiled at him over the
rim of the cup. “Thanks.”

“So how are you doing with this?” Joshua
asked, gesturing to the stacks of files on the desk in front of
me.

“I’ve got it down to twenty three,” I sighed,
poking at a corner of one that lay close to me. “I'm just not sure
I can get it lower than that.”

“Well, let’s start by splitting them into sex
and then race,” Joshua suggested, moving his tea to one side and
pulling a stack of files in front of him.

“Actually,” I said, closing my eyes. “I mean
I don’t think I can look at those files again. And for the record I
don’t think we can eliminate them due to sex or race.”

I nearly fell out of the chair when I felt
something on my shoulder – Joshua’s hand. “No one is forcing you to
look through these.”

“There are two things I'm certain of,” I told
him, turning to face him. “The first is that you have a serial
killer. The second is that I'm going to be the only one in this
place who is going to be able to see the pattern.”

“Okay,” Joshua nodded. “Then let’s go through
them together.” He pulled a file off the top of the pile and
flicked it open. “Can we at least eliminate them by age?”

I nodded. Something in me told me we wouldn’t
be looking for someone too old.

“Good,” Joshua muttered, flinging the file to
one side. “Because I would hate to have to include kids in
this.”

I squeezed my eyes closed again, rubbing at
my temples. I hadn’t even noticed the ages of the victims – I'd
just been looking at cause of death. “I think we can cap the age at
thirty,” I told him, quietly.

“You really don’t have to be here, you know,”
Joshua told me.

I glanced over, finding him watching me over
the top of a file. “I'm aware you’re just humoring me at the
moment, and that you think I'm completely wrong because I can’t
tell you what the MO is, other than the fact I think it’s something
related to angels, so I'm staying.”

Joshua stared at me with his cobalt eyes,
then nodded. “Are we happy to take out all those which have been
solved, or have a suspect?”

I nodded, reaching for my own file. “I think
we can rule out all of those with witnesses,” I added, adding the
rather thick file to those I'd already discarded.

By late afternoon, we had narrowed it down to
five additional potentials, and as I stared at the faces of the
four men and one woman, I knew that they too had been killed by the
same person as me.

Behind me, Joshua was clearing the last of
the files which had been discarded to one side, so we had space to
work. “I'll be back,” he muttered, disappearing out of the door. He
returned a few moments later with several items in his hands,
including some string, a couple of markers, and some paper. He
dumped the items in a heap on the table, reaching for the
paper.

I realized, as he opened it up, it was
actually a map of the city, and hurried over to help him attach it
to the enormous whiteboard that covered almost the entirety of one
of the walls. “What’s this for?” I asked him.

Joshua leaned back, picking up the first
file and plucking a picture of the victim from it, sticking it on
the whiteboard, close to the map. “Now, don’t jump down my throat,
but I'm trying to establish a connection, or a pattern – one
that
we
can see.” He
glanced down at the file and read something, then, peering at the
map, stuck a blue star sticker on it.

I reached for the next file and joined him in
placing the stars across the map. It wasn’t until they were all on
the map, and I was stood back with Joshua, staring at our findings
that I realized exactly what Joshua was referring to. There were
two around the French Quarter, and the remaining three were spread
out over the rest of the city – as far west as Kenner, and as far
east as Lower Ninth Ward.

I took a sticker and stuck it next to the
other blue stars clustered together in the Quarter. “That’s for
me,” I muttered. I reached for the file belonging to Preston
Johnston. His body was the one that had been found in the Lower
Ninth. “There’s something not right about this,” I said.

“What are you thinking?” Joshua asked,
peering over my shoulder.

I focused on the document in front of me,
trying to ignore the fact he was standing so close to me. “I don’t
know,” I admitted, flicking through the pages. “I'll know it when I
see it...” I trailed off as my eyes picked out some of the words on
the page. “...‘Preliminary reports show a lack of blood for this
kind of wound, which suggest that the body may have been dumped’,”
I read aloud, pointing the text out to Joshua. “What does that
mean?”

“It means you may have just found something
that could link these cases together,” Joshua told me, taking the
file from me. “Yeah, the detective on this case suspected that the
victim had been killed elsewhere – they were unable to find the
primary crime scene.”

“Well where was he before he was killed?” I
asked, peering over his shoulder.

Joshua turned the page over then flicked
through the paperwork in the file. “I don’t know. There seems to be
some paperwork missing.”

I reached for the victim from Kenner –
Harrison Rakes. Like Preston’s file, this one seemed to be missing
a few pages and I pointed it out to Joshua.

“That’s odd,” he muttered, taking the file
from me and laying it out on the table. “But the crime scene photos
seem to indicate the body was dumped.”

“And the same for these,” I added, as I
spread open the remaining three files. “How is this possible? How
has no one else noticed that it’s a serial killer?”

“The wounds are different,” Joshua pointed
out, taking the close up color photographs of the victims and
sticking them close to the relevant pictures of their owners.
“Different sizes – from knife to sword, by the looks of things.
That’s a huge thing in itself. But they’re split in gender, age,
race… this killer doesn’t seem to have a type, and that’s harder to
spot. Combine it with the fact they are spread out over the city,
some in alleyways, one in an abandoned car, another in an empty
house, all spread out over a number of months…”

“I suppose that makes sense,” I admitted.
“But what about the missing information?”

Joshua sighed and leaned back against the
table, staring up at the board. He rubbed his hand over his mouth.
“I don’t know,” he said. “If it was one file, I wouldn’t be
worried, but it’s five. And none of them are from this precinct. In
fact, only two are from the same precinct.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Joshua’s hand brushed up over his head,
sweeping his hair away from his face. “I don’t know. But I think
you’re right. I think these cases are all connected somehow.”

Mama Laveau

We stood there, staring at the board for a
long time. In some ways, it was a relief to hear that Joshua was
starting to believe me, but in another way, I was mortified that I
was right. “What now?” I found myself asking.

“
Timeline,” Joshua muttered, reaching for a
black marker. He stood up and drew a thick, black (nearly straight)
line from one side of the board to the other, just above the map.
Switching to a red pen, towards the right hand side, he made a mark
in the line, changing the pen to blue and writing above it
Emily
Montgomery,
with a date
and an approximate time of death.

Between the two of us, we quickly worked
backwards on the timeline, until my initials were the last one on
there. “That’s a lot,” I muttered

“Yeah,” Joshua agreed, sitting himself down
on the table to study the information on the board.

“Technically, it’s not the last one though,”
I told him.

“What makes you say that?” Joshua asked me,
suspiciously, shooting me a sideways glance.

I shrugged. “There was a girl before me. She
became an angel, like me. Well, better than me. She earned her
wings.” I joined him on the table.

“So why don’t we have her file?” Joshua
asked.

“The same reason you don’t have mine,” I told
him. “No body was found, nor will be found. I would hazard a guess
that if you searched through all the people who had been reported
missing, you would have better luck.”

Joshua’s eyes widened. “You want to search
through missing persons?” he asked in disbelief. “How many more
victims do you expect us to find?”

I quickly shook my head. “No, not at all. She
was the first and I was the second. There haven’t been any others
since me, and there weren’t any more before her. I was merely
suggesting that if we wanted to know more about his first victim
then that would be where we would find her. Although, that would be
interesting considering all I know is she’s called Lilah and I
don’t have a description of her.”

I wish I knew where she had gone. In fact, I
made a mental note to ask Michael about her – to see if she had
picked things up as easily as I had… or not, as the case was. It
would probably be rather helpful to see if I could actually talk to
her. To see if Michael was as hard on her too, just to make me feel
better. Although, if Michael said she had earned her wings in days,
maybe I didn’t want to talk to her.

A hand waving in front of my face snapped me
from my thoughts. “Angel? Are you in there?” Joshua was
calling.

I batted his hand to one side and rolled my
eyes. “What?”

“Did you hear anything I just asked you?” he
asked me. “Where’s your head at?”

“I was just wishing I could talk to her, see
how she coped with it all.” I quickly shook my head. “What were you
saying?”

Joshua scratched at his nose and frowned.
“Actually, that’s not such a bad idea.”

I shook my head again. “She’s moved on, and
not only do I suspect Michael is the only one who knows where she
went, I also have a very strong feeling that he won’t share that
information with us.”

“He would withhold evidence?” Joshua asked,
his eyes narrowing slightly.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Which
would mean, what? You would arrest him because he wouldn’t give the
location of someone who was dead, only to be found walking around.
I think you would get laughed off the force if you tried that.”

I could almost see the cogs turning in his
head as he tried to work out what to do next. “We need to find out
what the missing information is in these files,” he said
eventually.

“How?” I asked, curious. “Are you going to
re-investigate them all?”

“Not if I can help it,” Joshua replied,
pulling a face. “Do you have any idea how much work that would
be?”

I shook my head. Actually, I had no idea how
much work went into an investigation. I would hazard it was
proportionate to how much evidence there was, and as I glanced over
the lack we seemed to have, there was probably a lot of work to
do.

“I’m going to give the other lead detectives
a call and see if I can find out what we’re missing. Hopefully,
it’s still sitting on their desks.”

“And if it isn’t?” I asked.

Joshua pulled himself off the table and
turned back to me. “Well, there was either not a lot to go on to
start with.”

“Or?” I pressed.

Joshua shook his head. “We’re not going down
that route yet,” he told me, before he disappeared from the
room.

I let out a long, deep sigh before I too got
up from the table and went to examine the board. My hope was that
if I stared at it long enough then maybe something would jump out
at me and help us identify the killer.

Instead, as I stared at them, the only thing
that jumped out at me was how sad it was these people were dead.
With the exception of myself, all the other victims had been born
and raised in New Orleans, and now they had died here too – too
young. It was one thing to say to a distraught mother that her
child was in a better place, but what could you say when they asked
why they were dead to start with?

“Angel?”

The voice scared me and I jumped backwards
with a small squeal. So much for a hard core angel. “What?” I
demanded, glaring at Joshua who was now trying not to laugh at
me.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “But you were doing
that thing where you disappear into your own head and I did try to
get your attention a couple of times.”

I could feel myself beginning to heat up, so
I shrugged it off. “How long were you gone?” I asked, pulling a
face.

“Long enough,” he laughed. As though
realizing what he had gone for, he sobered up, looking
concerned.

“What?” I asked.

“I got through to three of the four
detectives. The guy who investigated Coleen Richmond is now off on
sick leave,” he sighed, slipping into the seat.

“What about the others?” I asked carefully.
“What did you learn from them?”

“There is supposed to be more information in
all of the files. A lot more. Witness statements, more detail on
the coroner’s report, as well as the detective’s notes.”

“That’s good,” I said, relieved. “That means
we…” I trailed off, seeing Joshua’s expression. “That’s not
good?”

Joshua sighed, raking his hand through his
hair before he stuck his elbow on the table and rested his forehead
into his palm. “It would be if we could get it sent over here.
Everyone’s too concerned about this hurricane. It’s going to be a
big one.”