“ How do I know you're really the police. Police never come out here. All the general's business is done in the city, and-”
“ God damnit, man! If you don't open that gate in the next five seconds, we're going to blow a hole through the locking mechanism and you're the first SOB we're going to handcuff when we get up there to the house! You got that?”
The buzz came, and the gates rattled apart and opened wide for them to pass. Along the top of the gates, a series of ornate black ravens all in a row began to “dance” before their eyes, all the ravens' eyes like enormous stone receptacles, filled with secrets forever locked inside their wrought-iron hearts. The ravens adorned the black iron gates at intervals of two feet, large birds of prey with eyes that pierced the night.
Kim instantly recognized the ravens as those in her vision, and she imagined each taking flight after dark when no one was looking; they did seem to be flying now as the gates opened wide. A child might easily be frightened of the images. Kim had spoken of great black ravens in the air surrounding the killer, but here they were at Raveneaux, the only two-thousand-acre Southern plantation which had survived both the Civil War and Reconstruction, the possession of one of Louisiana's most honored and oldest of families. The Raveneaux family was at the top of the social register. Every major charitable organization across the state and many across the nation owed some allegiance to George Maurice Raveneaux.
Having two search warrants, one a federal document, the party entered the gate, closely followed by a trio of cars filled with sheriffs deputies, familiarized earlier with the FBI search warrant. All of the green-suited officers were filled to the brim of their Smokey-the-Bear hats with loathing and serious doubt directed at the NOPD cops who'd crashed their jurisdiction with a warrant to disturb the general and his family. They were also filled with a certainty that nothing untoward would come of the visit, that all Landry and Alex Sincebaugh would accomplish with their damned warrant was a loss of income and profession. At this point the deputies were more in Rave-neaux's camp than that of the city cops. Still, somehow Captain Landry had in fact gotten on a first-name basis with two of the deputies, who were worried sick about “making a 'raid' on the ol' gen'ral's home.”
General George Maurice Raveneaux had served his country with distinction during the Korean conflict, and had for the last three decades been a pillar of society and commerce in the region. In fact, a newspaper article of a few years past had credited him as being the single most powerful influence in rejuvenating the entire New Orleans region, thanks to his influence in Washington and the years he'd served there as a distinguished senator.
Little wonder when they'd arrived at the sheriff s office with a request for assistance that the sheriff himself had laughed in their faces.
The deputies were understandably nervous about their mission, and Landry was not at all sure if they would carry out his orders. The sheriff himself had left ahead of them, presumably to warn the old general of their coming.
It was also little wonder that a court-ordered search warrant had been a damnably hard document to secure. George Maurice Raveneaux, a man whose money had secured the local economy during the oil debacle of the seventies, and more recently had secured the government jobs that would be coming into the region, was no paper tiger.
As they passed now along the black river of freshly coated road which formed a long, twisting drive up to the mansion, they were not surprised to see several vehicles ahead and men standing beside Raveneaux outside. He had been well warned of their arrival by the sheriff and others, it appeared.
They came up the circle drive to a building that might otherwise be a museum. Landry, Alex, Kim and Jessica were taken a little aback by the faces they saw on the expansive wraparound portico to the mansion, for beside the aged general, standing as erect as the Grecian pillars, were Chief Lew Meade and P.C. Richard Stephens, each man no doubt having learned of the proposed search from the buzz-eaters back at the courthouse in New Orleans. They were here, no doubt, to assure the prosperous, aging millionaire who'd built his kingdom on sugarcane that there was an obvious and idiotic blunder of monumental proportions being made, and that they at least would stand by him in any event.
“ They all look guilty as hell of something,” Jessica commented.
In the backdrop stood Mrs. Raveneaux, looking ashen, pale and drawn, her gaunt figure hardly more than a stick. Kim believed she looked like she had been through an emotionally draining day. It was past dusk now, and the matriarch of this place watched as her plantation was being overrun with police vehicles. Jessica, Kim, Alex and Landry got out of the lead car and walked toward the waiting aggregate of power standing above them on the pure-white porch, the lights emanating from the house brilliantly bathing the mansion, spreading attenuated shadows out from each of the huge Grecian columns on either side.
“ Mr. Raveneaux,” said Landry, taking the initiative, “I'm Captain Carl Landry of the-”
“ I know very well who you are, and I'll thank you all to leave my property at once. This entire proceeding is without foundation, based on the word of some lunatic killer who has nothing whatever to do with Raveneaux.”
“ Sir, isn't it true,” Jessica began, “that Victor Surette's stolen body was exhumed by your order and buried in your family plot here at Raveneaux?” She was bluffing, a thing she did well. “We have forensic evidence to prove as much. We don't need the testimony of the caretaker or his men. Now I asked myself, what interest would you have in Victor Surette's body, and naturally-”
“ All right, Victor was my son, goddamn you-Victor Raveneaux, and as soon as we learned of his horrible death, we… we brought him home. Is there any crime in that?”
“ Well, there could be, sir, yes,” Jessica said.
“ You've got no evidence any crime has been committed by this man,” countered Lew Meade, standing as stiff and erect as his paunch would allow, carrying out his own bluff. Had he arranged for Jessica's earlier findings to somehow be lost or skewed? she wondered.
“ Dr. Coran's findings tell us differently,” Alex countered.
“ That's right,” Landry agreed.
“ It's clear that the grave-robbing took place only in recent days,” Jessica added, “and that you let Victor's body stay in that paupers' cemetery all these months, Senator, until there was the threat of an exhumation.”
“ That's a lie.” The general's voice was firm, steady, the voice of a man always in control.
His wife whispered some disturbing words to him, making the general turn and scowl at her, ordering her indoors.
“ You know how microscopes have a way of pointing to the truth, General,” Jessica continued. “Microscopes don't lie about fresh striations against stone, sutures and that sort of thing, so I'd say you aren't being entirely forthcoming with us.”
“ We only Learned recently that Victor Surette-the deceased going by that name-was our son,” the senator replied. “We moved the body on learning this. It's been quite enough strain on Mother… on us all, and in the meantime, you people've done nothing whatever to apprehend this fiend who viciously killed Victor and has wantonly destroyed others for…for their hearts.”
“ We're going to look around, General Raveneaux-just to be thorough, you understand,” Landry said, playing the diplomat.
' The very idea that you men have come on such a preposterous mission, Captain Landry, jeopardizes your jobs. I hope you know that,” replied Stephens firmly, his eyes like dark, seething coals, the threat taking on a venomously slithering nature.
“ Is that a threat, Richard?” asked Landry. “Or would you place that kind of talk under job harassment or maybe even blackmail, sir?”
Kim Desinor could see that Captain Landry was now too angry to suppress his emotions; not this time, she thought.
“ It may interest you to know that we know you blackmailed Frank Wardlaw into this game, and you paid off Ben de Yam-pert,” he went on.
Meade erupted now. “Goddamn it, man, it was the general here who called in the FBI and financed Dr. Desinor's coming here! He wants New Orleans safe for everyone, you fool! And now you turn the investigation against him and his family?”
“ This is absolute madness, Landry, and tomorrow morning you can damned well clean out your office.” Stephens's teeth were gnashing. “That goes for you too, Sincebaugh.”
“ You can pick your friends, General,” Alex called out, his bandaged arms white against the night, “but you're
