“I found something, Detective!” a cop called from a windowless sitting room at the end of the building. “There’s a little door behind this old couch!”
They pulled the sofa into the middle of the room and saw a four-foot-high door with an ornate brass handle. Behind it was a closet-sized room and a flight of stairs. They heard no sounds from above, and with weapons drawn, two officers crept up.
“Clear up here!” the sergeant shouted as all the others joined them in the attic.
Ted said, “What on earth...Landry, what is this room for?”
The long attic ran the width of the house. Its vaulted ceiling made the room seem larger, and through filthy dormer windows high above, slanting rays of sunlight struggled to peek through. Phil shot panorama video as Landry talked about what lay before them.
There were six ancient metal cots along each side of a middle aisle. Piles of dust and broken wood lay beneath each one, all that remained of mattresses and bed slats. The setup looked like a hospital ward, but there were grim clues that this had been no infirmary.
An iron ring with a long chain was solidly affixed into the brick wall behind each bed. Four smaller chains branched from the major one, each with a thick iron cuff. “Arm and leg shackles,” Young remarked.
A brick chimney ran up the back wall, flanked by what had once been storage closets. Instead of doors there were steel bars that transformed the cramped rooms into cells, each with a set of the same heavy cuffs bolted to the back wall.
While the cops searched every square inch of the attic, Landry and Detective Young talked on camera about what this room represented. The LaPieres were slave traders, and this building served not only as their home, but their place of business. It appeared they’d stumbled upon the hideaway where human beings were kept until the next auction.
“It’s almost beyond comprehension what must have happened here,” Landry said. “No wonder people have reported hearing moans and wails from the attic for years. I’ve come across tortured souls in my business, and if this place isn’t full of them, I’d be surprised.”
Detective Young added, “I wish we could say slavery ended years ago, but human trafficking’s still a problem right here in New Orleans. Teenaged girls sold into prostitution rings, migrants smuggled in and forced into indentured servanthood — I’ve seen shackles and cuffs like these myself.”
Before Jack left, Landry told him everything — how the scenario had changed after Elberta’s death. Dr. Little was bringing Jack out of the trance when Empyrion got involved. No one was seriously hurt, but they had missed what they were after. There had been no time to go to 1837 and get the proof necessary to exonerate Jack.
The WCCY crew departed, leaving only Landry and Detective Young. As they left, a cop stuck row after row of yellow crime scene tape across the entryway. There would be someone on duty all night, and tomorrow they’d continue searching, find him or not, and wrap things up.
“Where did Empyrion go?” Landry said, mostly to himself. “He knows the building. There has to be another way out. He’s no ghost and he didn’t just disappear.”
“Maybe there’s an opening onto the roof, but it’s so steep a person couldn’t go anywhere. You’re right, though. He didn’t disappear. Either he’s here somewhere, or he knew a secret exit.”
Empyrion Richard had vanished from the upper floors of a building whose only exits were windows opening onto the street or the courtyard. He didn’t come downstairs and he couldn’t have walked away from a twenty-foot jump out of the windows, but there was no explanation where he was or how he had eluded them.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I know the reasons for everything that happened today. I know the secrets.
Having just awakened, he glanced at his watch. Almost three in the morning.
He dressed and went down the stairs into the street. With few cars and even fewer people out this time of night, the walk took no time. On the sidewalk in front of the building, a policeman sat in a chair. He waited in the shadows of a storefront until the cop stood, stretched and walked to the corner for a smoke break.
Two dozen pieces of crime scene tape crisscrossed the doorway; he removed some, stepped through and replaced them behind him. Eerily silent, the corridor was so dark he had to feel his way along the ancient stone walls until he came to the doorway. He couldn’t use a light because if the duty officer saw a glimmer from the building, he’d know someone was inside.
He climbed the old ladder, and when he pushed open the trapdoor at the top, he heard muffled sounds from somewhere above. Moans, whimpers, a wail, a cry of alarm — mournful cries for help punctuated by periods of intense, dead silence that enveloped him like a blanket.
He crawled on hands and knees through the entresol, resisting the urge to curse out loud when he hit an old crate or a gunnysack that blew dust motes everywhere. He stifled a sneeze, paused to be sure no one had heard, and resumed his tedious crawl toward the stairway at the back.
He started up. The risers were as old as the building itself, and they creaked and groaned as he tested each one, then slowly climbed to the next. At the top he swung back the next trapdoor and climbed up into the second floor. This was Lucas’s sitting room, and through the windows of the adjoining bedroom, moonlight gave him sufficient light to see at
