“I agree.”
“Do you want to come to the autopsy?” Axel asked Dan.
“No, but I’ll be waiting to hear what you learn.” He hesitated. “I don’t think we’re even going to go to the archives. I want to get Katie talking. I’d even like to spend time with her and George Calabria and try to find out anything either of them might know about Katie’s father.”
“Maybe you should bring Jeremy into that conversation. He’d know more about anything that might have happened when Lou Delaney was in New Orleans after the storm.”
“True. I’m going to take it step by step. And hope for something.”
“All right. We’ll keep each other in the loop.”
“Axel, that letter. Did the paper print it?”
“No. While it would be the sensation of the year, the paper seems to value human life. They’re staying mum on it.”
“Wow! Amazing. And great. Except that it’s going to infuriate the killer.”
“Yes. But we’re keeping this as tight as we can be. The city has been warned. I talked to Ryder this morning, too. He was out last night, patrolling until the wee hours. You know what he told me?”
“That all you could hear was jazz?”
Axel laughed. “Right, and jazz is great. But a lot of venues like to blast out rock and pop, old and new. The killer wanted a panic. He wants people to believe the old Axeman was a supernatural being, and that he’s returned.”
“We need to move fast,” Dan said. “We have to stop him before he kills again. We can’t let the city fall into this fantasy.”
“I agree. That means we need to find the puzzle pieces. When I finish at the morgue, I’m going to continue door-to-door and walk around sketches of Dr. Neil Browne.” He hesitated. “Naturally, we have a host of agents and police out day and night. But this guy is striking by darkness.” He hesitated again. “I’d have them putting an alarm on Katie’s place, too, but I’m not sure it would guarantee safety. The old Axeman chiseled major gaps in door panels and used any conceivable entrance. The dogs and the cameras—and patrols watching through the night—seem to be our best defense. Of course, she could leave her house for a while.”
Dan spoke up. “You know I’m not leaving her.”
“Right. And don’t. But still, we may need to look at somewhere safer for her to stay.”
“Yeah,” Dan said. “But she loves her place. It’s right next to the stables.”
“But she’s not going to work today.”
“No.”
“Someone knows something, Dan.”
“I’m on it.”
They ended the call. Dan started coffee and then put a call through to Corey Crest in tech support at FDLE.
“Corey, I need help again,” he said.
“You got it,” Corey promised.
“Okay, I need anything at all you can find out about Lou Delaney, George Calabria...and also any info we got on Jennie and Dr. Neil Browne.”
“Dan, we didn’t get any info on Jennie or Neil Browne. That’s why many people didn’t believe that they existed.”
“Someone else down there had to have seen them,” Dan said.
“I’ll try to get you what I have on the other two men, but I’d say I’m not going to get anything new. Delaney has been dead for twelve years. Calabria... We had what we had six years ago, and after the trial, he left the state.”
“Thanks, Corey. Anything is deeply appreciated.”
“You got it. I hear the killer struck again. A woman, and her body was found in an old cemetery that was just about condemned.”
“Yes.”
“You knew her?”
“No, but we believe that it was Jennie.”
“Jennie! Then, she did exist.”
“So it seems. Anyway, thank you. Get back to me.”
“Will do.”
He ended the call and saw that Katie had come downstairs. She looked to have showered and dressed for the day in leggings and a tunic. She looked pale, as if she was suddenly afraid to greet him.
“Hey,” he said. “I put coffee on.”
“Uh...great,” she said. Now her cheeks looked like little rose blossoms.
“They haven’t found anything on Jennie yet, her real identity. I believe she stayed under the radar. Axel is heading to the autopsy.”
“Are you?”
He shook his head. “Do you have any of your father’s records?” he asked. “Did he keep a diary or anything? What about Jeremy? Do you think he’d meet with us? I’d like to talk to him about your father’s time here when he came back after the storm.”
“My father—” she started.
“Katie, it’s important. And there’s a clock ticking.”
“I know,” she said. “All the boxes I have with a few of my parents’ personal belongings, paperwork and so on, are at Jeremy’s house.”
“Could we speak with George?”
“We’ll have to ask George.”
He smiled. “We will. Do you remember anything about the time when your dad came up here?”
She shrugged. “I know he was happy when he talked to my mom because they’d gotten a few people off rooftops. And pets! He was thrilled when he could help with animals, too. He was a big-time animal person. I think about how my dad would have loved the boys! Let’s see, I remember him complaining, too, angry because there was an element out looting. He was sad one day when they pulled a woman out through a window, but she had already died.” She shook her head. “I didn’t know anything specific.”
“But Jeremy would.”
“Yes.”
“Can you call him?” he asked.
She nodded. “Of course. I, uh, left my phone upstairs.”
She turned and hurried on back up the stairs. As she left, his phone rang.
It was Axel. “Someone leaked the news about the letter,” he told Dan.
“Figures. Are they worried about a panic?”
“Let’s just say the airport is crowded,” Axel told him. “And we have the fanatics on Bourbon Street with their signs already, warning that anyone who commits any kind of sin—sneezing wrong is counted with that, I think—is going to hell. I just wanted you forewarned everyone is afraid of the Axeman. There is a segment of
