Lorna sighed. “The cops are all at the crime scene,” she said. “Katie, no one is going to talk to you right now.”
“Yes, but we’re not busy this week. Mardi Gras is over, and we don’t have a festival for a few weeks. The city is quiet. I’m taking Sarah and this carriage back, and when I can find out a bit more, I’m going to get myself to the right police station and talk to someone,” Katie said.
“Katie, maybe you should take out more tourists today. It’ll keep your mind off what is going on—”
“Seriously?”
Lorna sighed. “Okay. I’m sure Matt and I can keep business moving along. But I wish you’d wait. I wish you’d let me go with you. I mean, tomorrow we could plan—”
“Thank you for covering whatever,” Katie said. She headed back to her carriage. “You get a break today, Sarah,” she announced to the mule, crawling up to the driver’s seat. “We’re heading home.”
Sarah must have understood. Her ears pricked up, and she clopped along at a decent pace as Katie led her around the square and through the French Quarter, headed for the Trudeau stables across Rampart Street and deep into Treme.
Easy enough. Katie had purchased her own little home, a small house built around 1890, right next to the large property where Monty Trudeau lived and kept his stables. She loved it: no commute to work.
And while her cousin Jeremy Delaney had often suggested she could do more with her education and abilities, Katie thrived in her job.
Once upon a time, she’d thought she’d grow up to be a dive master, leading folks to historic shipwrecks, showing them the incredible beauty and wonder of the reefs.
That had changed. She had discovered she could throw her passion into the city of New Orleans, unique, beautiful and filled with more riches than anyone could ever truly embrace. She’d made a new life.
But there was something that had always nagged at her.
The killer or killers.
They had never been caught.
And she knew she would be haunted by that fact until the day she died.
Unless somehow, somewhere, whoever had committed such a heinous act—taking such wonderful people from the earth far too early—was finally brought to justice.
The scene had been far too familiar.
Three dead, heads bashed in, limbs torn asunder.
Blood everywhere, splashed on the walls and even the ceilings of the little Victorian house.
Their home help, a young woman named Elle Détente, had been killed in the kitchen, and every cabinet and appliance bore spots of her blood. The medical examiner estimated she’d received at least ten blows from an axe.
The elderly woman, Lettie Rodenberry, had been caught in her bedroom on the second floor—killed last, as Dr. Vincent currently believed. Her right leg and head had been almost severed. Two weapons had been used, it appeared.
A knife and an axe.
The elderly husband, Randolph Rodenberry, had been caught in the parlor.
“Shades of Lizzie Borden,” Ryder had said grimly as they surveyed the man who had apparently fallen asleep on the couch there.
Dan could just imagine the man, sweetly sleeping, and then opening his eyes to see a vicious killer standing over him.
He’d been struck at least twelve times, hit again and again after death.
Dan had said quietly to Ryder, “Wow. Looks personal. Crime of passion. What stranger kills with this kind of fury?”
“Yeah, it feels personal,” Ryder said lowly.
“And yet the same as the last two—six years ago and twelve years ago. The woman...her throat is slit almost ear to ear. This killer used a knife and an axe. And while it bears serious investigation, how could someone be so passionate about such diverse groups of people? This...this is extreme.”
“The couple have a son, but he’s deployed to the Middle East.”
“Either of them known for... I don’t know...pissing off the neighbors? Cheating, stealing, complaining about others?”
“From everything we’ve gathered so far, they were model citizens, nice and kind to everyone, living on their pensions. They were both teachers. No known enemies. And their maid had been with them twenty years. Similarly well-liked in the area, beloved by her employers who depended on her.” Ryder paused and drew a deep breath. “The Axeman—the Axeman all those years ago—his murders and assaults were random. Just random.”
To kill like this randomly... They were truly dealing with something terrifying.
But they were way too early in the investigation to know anything, even to come up with any kind of a real theory.
“Let’s hear the doc,” Ryder suggested. Dan observed Dr. Vincent’s initial examination and listened to what he had to say. He watched as the photographer worked diligently to take any picture they might need in the future. As the crime-scene investigators moved through the house, they were looking for anything, any clue.
The killer had used a knife and an axe. Mrs. Rodenberry had nearly been decapitated, the slicing on her throat had been so powerful.
“What was his mode of entry?” Dan asked.
Despite being Dan’s own age, Ryder winced in a way that added years to his countenance.
“He used a chisel to take out a panel on the back door, the kitchen side door. He left the panel and the chisel on the back steps,” one of the CSIs said. “And the axe.”
“Just like the damned Axeman,” Ryder said. “That bastard always said he was a specter or a demon of some kind—a spirit, uncatchable and unkillable.”
“Ryder, come on! Of course, anyone coming here to commit a murder or murders might have looked up stories about the past. What was known about the Axeman was well-documented. Except, if I remember right, there wasn’t that much known. The police were grabbing suspects without evidence, they were
