The man shivered. But he didn’t see Mabel.
Dan paid the bill and hurried out, anxious then to get back to Katie. As he walked, he called Axel and quickly filled him in on his meeting with Mabel.
“Allan Pierce?” Axel said. “Well, he didn’t come down the line in legend like Marie Laveau or Madame Delphine LaLaurie. But we have people who can dig to the bottom of anything. I’ll get on it.”
“If possible, I’ll head to the library later,” Dan told him. “I’m not with Katie right now, and I’m anxious to get back to her.”
“This guy strikes in darkness,” Axel said. “And away from the public eye.”
“I know. That’s why I dared chase down my ghost. Anyway, get back to me. Anything yet on the blood on the axe or anything else?”
“Not yet,” Axel told him.
“Thanks.” He hesitated. “Axel, what are the possibilities this whole thing started in New Orleans? What if the murderer is from here, if something about the legend brought him down to Florida? Maybe to Lou Delaney’s boat, and Lou Delaney?”
“That’s a stretch.”
“Anything on this is a stretch.”
“Did Delaney have any ties to New Orleans?” Axel asked.
“Well, his cousin lives here. That’s why Katie moved here. I’ll have to find out more.”
“Back at my headquarters, Jackson Crow’s wife, Angela Hawkins, is researching anything she can find on Allan Pierce, his so-called power of six and anyone who followed in his footsteps. I’ll also have her search out anything she can find on an association with Louis Delaney.”
Dan and Axel ended their call, and Dan strode urgently down the street. He’d been on Royal Street just a few blocks from the square, but it seemed a great distance to him suddenly.
He hurried along the park and came out on Decatur Street, annoyed at the sense of fear he was feeling, that his heart was racing, and he could hear his own breathing almost as if he was scuba diving.
He burst around the corner.
And it was all right.
Katie was there, on the sidewalk, chatting with a passerby.
He smiled, striding over to her.
“Hey!” she said cheerfully, seeing him. “You’re just in time.”
“For?”
“Well, this lovely young woman and her friends want to head over to the Irish Channel. It’s not a big tourist destination, but the ruins of an old mansion and the family cemetery are there. I was explaining that, as far as I know, it’s private property and there’s a big fence up around it all, but they’d like to just go by.” She grimaced, indicating the one cheerful-looking girl with dark curls and rosy cheeks. “Brenda is a medium. She just wants to get to the old place and see if she can feel anything.”
“Oh, okay,” Dan said.
A medium? The way Katie had said the word, he didn’t think she believed this woman had any special abilities at all.
She was far too polite to say so.
“Are you game?” Katie asked.
“Sure.”
The Irish Channel was a fine-enough area in which to live.
It wasn’t a tourist area, and the streets weren’t thronged with people as they tended to be in the French Quarter. It seemed Katie wasn’t against taking her carriage there, but Dan figured she hadn’t wanted to go alone.
“Let’s head on out,” he said.
Curly-haired Brenda was with a group of five, all explaining they were mediums, and yes, they had a small conference here where there were so many interesting places to be explored.
Where so many spirits cried out, unheard, seeking help.
He glanced at Katie and just nodded and smiled.
They hadn’t been in the carriage long before one of the men in the group—a thin, sandy and shaggy-haired man around twenty-five years old, leaned forward.
“Um, excuse me? You’re the cop, right? From the press conference? Do you think you could get us into the morgue? If one of us could touch the victim, we might be able to help. I mean, the spirits of the dead might be able to give us information.”
“I’m afraid I’m not a cop,” Dan said. “I can’t get anyone in anywhere. Sorry.”
“But we saw you on the news,” Brenda said.
He shook his head, glancing at Katie. “I was voted the spokesperson in the group,” he said. “But I’m sorry, I’m a consultant on this and nothing more.”
“Damn!” Brenda said. “It’s so frustrating. I mean, we could help. Oh, well. I have really wanted to see the ruins of this mansion. It comes with all kinds of rumors, scandals and ghosts.”
Dan arched a brow to Katie. She shrugged and rolled her eyes.
Still, she gamely launched into her best tour-guide voice. “What I know about the Medford Mansion is this. Jonathan Medford was in the Confederate military. The Union took the city in 1862. Jonathan had a beautiful young wife. She fell in love with one of the Union soldiers occupying the city. Maybe. Or maybe she felt she had no other choice than to give in to him, the man they called Beast Butler, a General Benjamin Butler who was running the city under his Union military. And for Southern women, it was bleak. If they mocked Union soldiers in any way, they could face punishments, be labeled as prostitutes and so on. Butler was reviled in the South, but he was an interesting man. He claimed he was for Southern rights and against Southern wrong. He was Union army all the way, but I doubt President Lincoln would have approved of some of his tactics. Anyway, Jonathan Medford’s brother, Isiah, heard about it. He was older, and he had made his fortune in real estate and cotton, neither of which was doing well then, but he lived—seething with indignation, I imagine—just a few blocks away from Jonathan’s home. One night he went to the house. There was an argument. The wife, the lover and the brother were all killed, and when he heard about it, Jonathan Medford walked straight into the enemy lines and a bullet went through his heart. The
