City of the Dead Page 12

  What Chastity didn’t tell even her therapist was that the very last thing she really wanted to do was find her.

  Eight

  “How are you doing, Max?” Chastity asked four hours later.

  They had met at the Whistle Stop, a diner on St. Charles frequented by everybody from cops to businessmen. The waitresses were efficient and brisk, and the coffee strong enough to melt spoons. Chastity was drinking hers like Gatorade at a soccer game.

  For the first time since she’d met him, Max looked worse than she did. Pale, drawn, and just a bit disheveled, he was fidgeting as if he couldn’t hold still. Chastity battled a fresh flare of guilt. After what he’d learned the day before, maybe she should have stayed with him.

  It didn’t mean she could have. She’d barely made it to dawn where she was.

  He shuffled his cutlery like cards. “I just don’t know what to do. What to think.”

  “I know. You don’t have any idea who that woman they found could be?”

  If she wasn’t Faith, that is.

  He straightened as if insulted. “No. Of course not.”

  Chastity sucked in a careful breath. “And you’re sure that there was nothing different about Faith these last few weeks. Nothing that could have made you think, maybe…”

  His head shot up and his fist hit the table. “My wife did not leave me.”

  Chastity jumped as high as the cutlery. For a second, a startled silence fell in the diner. Reaching across the booth, Chastity tried to take hold of Max’s fist, to settle him. Max yanked away from her as if she were toxic.

  “You will keep looking for her,” he demanded. “You won’t stop now. You can’t.”

  “Of course I won’t,” she assured him, suddenly feeling at sea herself. “I’m going to start talking to her friends today. To everyone in her address book.”

  Max kept his eyes on her, his thankfully brown eyes, as he seemed to pull himself together. Gather his poise. He even managed a brief smile.

  “Excuse me,” he said with a stiff shrug and leaned back. “I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just…those police are convinced she ran away, aren’t they? Especially now.”

  “They might be. But I’ll keep on looking. I told you I would.”

  He nodded, looked around as if checking responses at the other tables. But everybody else was already back to their own business.

  “That’s all I need,” he said. “If I can count on you, I know I’ll be okay.”

  Again he paused. Straightened a little. Assumed that gentle, smiling self she’d first met. “What else can I tell you, Chastity?”

  No wonder they liked him in surgery if he could control his tantrums this quickly.

  “Chaz,” Chastity corrected him. “You can tell me about the Arlen Clinic, Max.”

  Again, his impatience slipped loose. But just in his eyes. “I already told you about it.”

  “No. You just told me the name. I’m not from here, Max. I didn’t know what it was. And I certainly wouldn’t have guessed from what you said it was a fertility clinic. One of the witnesses at Gallatoire’s said Faith asked to go to one. Do you know why?”

  Chastity caught another brief flash of irritation in his eyes, right before he donned a gently smug smile. “Well, it’s not what you think. We had a friend who couldn’t conceive. Faith donated ova for her. At the clinic. It gave her the idea that it was a nice thing to do for infertile women. She ended up donating for about, oh, three years or so. Off and on.” He smiled, the proprietary smile of a proud husband. “She loved giving that kind of gift. But when her mother got so ill, she decided to stop. I can’t imagine why anybody would have thought she went back.”

  Chastity frowned down at her coffee. “But isn’t she too old to donate eggs? I thought the cutoff was, like, thirty-two or three.”

  Max frowned a bit. “The cutoff is thirty-five at Arlen. And your sister turned thirty-four last month. It’s why she retired when she did.”

  Chastity looked up to see Max sipping his coffee, perfectly certain of what he’d said. Okay, she wondered. Did she tell him the truth about that, too? Did it matter so much that he know his wife was really thirty-eight and shouldn’t have been donating anything faintly reproductive for at least the last three years?

  Chastity just didn’t have that much courage. Besides, it wouldn’t make any difference in the long run.

  “Can you call the clinic and give your permission for me to talk to them?” she asked. “Just in case Faith did go there.”

  He shrugged. “Of course. Oh, and I’ll call the bank and see if there’s any activity on her checkbook. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  He focused on her a second, that laser-like eyeball that only a surgeon can master. “My wife wouldn’t leave me, Chastity.”

  Nothing like a surgeon for certainty.

  “She might not have been leaving you, Max. She might have just been running away from overwhelming stress. But I’ll find her, I promise. I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

  He reached over and patted her hand, an utterly avuncular motion. “I’ll never understand what was wrong between you two.”

  Chastity managed a travesty of a smile. “Someday I’ll tell you.”

  In the meantime, she needed to get moving. She could see James out in his hack reading the Times-Picayune. If he was going to earn that Richard Gere money, they had people to see and fertility clinics to investigate.

  “I’m not sure I approve of him,” Max said, following her gaze.

  “He’s an ex-firefighter,” Chastity said, the only defense she figured James needed. “Obviously invalided out from a bad fire. I have no problem trusting him.”

  Max considered her for a minute, those sharp brown eyes of his betraying nothing. Then he just nodded and pulled out his wallet.

  “I really do wish you’d stay west of the river. It’s much safer there.”

  “Except for those wild pigs,” Chastity couldn’t help but say.

  Max didn’t seem amused. “I feel responsible for you.”

  “Well, Max, don’t.”

  That didn’t sit well, either. But Chastity had stood up to too many doctors to let that bother her. Gathering her purse, she climbed to her feet.

  “I’ll call you later today, okay?”

  They left it at that, and Chastity walked out, most of her breakfast still on her plate.

  It was almost time for lunch. Melanie Magee knew that because little Mrs. Carrera in the first row was beginning to fidget. It was a too-bright, too-hot, too-summer day outside, and the air-conditioning at the Metairie Retirement Community wasn’t keeping up with it. Melanie felt sticky and limp beneath her makeup and wardrobe. The old people didn’t mind, of course. They didn’t have enough body fat left to withstand any climate less than tropical.

  Melanie knew she had enough body fat. Plenty, in fact, for the average healthy twenty-four-year-old postgrad student in history. A postgrad student who was at the moment dressed up as Elvis.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Evers,” she huffed in her best Elvis voice. “Now then, everybody, let’s just pull another ball and see who gets bingo, alright?”

  Bingo with Elvis. It was Melanie’s newest, hottest gig to help defray the astronomical cost of her doctorate. Twice a week she toured the local retirement communities in a white jumpsuit, handing out bingo cards and singing “Blue Suede Shoes” on a Mr. Microphone.

  Then, in the evening, she did her K.D. Lang impersonation down at the Lotusland Club in the Quarter, where she was the ringer in the gender illusion show that made people wonder even harder who the real women were.

  Melanie had no problems with her gigs. They paid well, she made people smile, and she had plenty of time for research and reading. She still lived with her parents in Metairie, the most boring place on earth in comparison to New Orleans proper. But her parents worried, and Melanie was a good girl.

  Melanie did have a secret, though. It had to do with how else she made money. Even h
er boyfriend, Kevin, didn’t know, because for the moment it wasn’t his business. Besides, it wasn’t illegal, and she was putting a much bigger dent in her loans doing that than she did prancing around in an Elvis outfit.

  “Uh-huh,” she huffed in her best baritone as she held up the next ball. “I’m shakin’ all over, baby. It’s B 15.”

  “Bingo!!” Mrs. Ignacio warbled from the back row.

  Melanie was just about to pick up the mike to serenade the winner, when her beeper went off. Reaching into the hip pocket she’d sewn into her white jumpsuit, she checked it.

  911. The package has resurfaced. Meet me.

  “Oh, shit,” she muttered.

  Well, maybe she was doing something a little illegal.

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Ignacio demanded, impatient for lunch.

  Melanie pasted a big smile on her face and slid the beeper away. “Well, now, Mrs. Ignacio, you just won ten dollars and that fine bottle of hand lotion. Now, Elvis has another gig to play, so enjoy your lunch. You all come back now, y’hear?”

  And after packing up all her supplies as quickly as possible, Elvis left the building. She had something vaguely illegal to do.

  From the outside, the Arlen Clinic looked like no medical facility Chastity had ever seen. A lovely blue, green, and white Victorian house complete with turrets and leaded glass windows, it took up the corner of Delachaise near the Touro Infirmary and looked like an upscale B and B. Lots of trees, a big porch with wicker furniture, and lush flower beds to line the sidewalk.

  Of course, most B and Bs didn’t sport a line of protesters out front. Not to mention the police car and crime scene van.

  “Well, now, this looks interesting,” Chastity mused as James pulled them to a stop behind the cop car.

  “Breaking through a line of people chanting slogans costs extra,” James informed her from the front seat.

  “Be content, fireman,” she said, pushing open the door. “This doesn’t really look like a tear gas kind of crowd.”

  Not yet, anyway. The line was a bit straggly, some serious middle-aged women, a mother or two with children, and a young man standing along the edge of the lawn with hand-drawn placards.

  Genetic Monsters.

  Murderers.

  Every Baby Deserves a Chance.

  Chastity hitched her purse over her shoulder and prepared to breach the line. A uniformed officer took up one of the wicker chairs on the clinic porch, but he was well settled in. It seemed that Chastity was on her own with this bunch.

  She barely made it to the front walk of the clinic before the intense young man planted himself in front of her.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, looking indignant.

  He was the one with the Murderers sign. Painted in dripping red, as if the word weren’t message enough. In his late twenties, he was good-looking, buttoned-down, and close-combed as a marine.

  Chastity lifted an eyebrow. “Minding my own business, why?”

  He stopped within millimeters of her toes. Chastity wondered if he wanted her to step back. She didn’t.

  He leaned forward. Actually, he leaned over. He had about six inches on her. “I know you, and I know what you do. And in the name of God, you’re going to stop.”

  “No kidding,” Chastity responded, wondering if she should recognize him from the night before. “Which thing that I do am I supposed to stop?”

  “I know you,” he insisted, as if she should understand.

  “Yes.” Chastity nodded. “So you said.”

  “Am I going to have to carry you across that picket line?” James asked from the taxi.

  “Nah. This nice young man’s gonna let me by now. He knows if he doesn’t, that policeman up on the porch is going to get upset.”

  “Murderer,” he hissed, giving ground. “You and all your kind. Selfish, thoughtless murderers. Your judgment is here.”

  “If it’s all the same to you,” Chastity said, walking by, “could it wait till I’m finished? I hate to miss an appointment.”

  “I knew I didn’t need to get out of the car,” James groused.

  The uniform climbed to his feet as she approached and asked for ID.

  “I’m here to meet Dr. Petit,” Chastity said, flashing her hospital ID as if it were an FBI shield. It had taken her all damn morning to score this interview. She wasn’t about to miss it now. Not after she and James had swung by every other fertility clinic in town to find that nobody recognized Faith’s name or face, but that everybody seemed to want a blond-haired, blue-eyed egg donor.

  “Nurse, huh?” the cop said, squinting. “You don’t got a driver’s license?”

  “Not this week.”

  He nodded, unconcerned. “You’re not here to throw blood on anybody or anything, are you?”

  “I couldn’t fit it in my purse.”

  That made him laugh, so he waved her on by.

  That homey B and B illusion lasted all the way through the entryway and into the large, bay-windowed front parlor. All soft colors and bright flowers, it had high ceilings and pastel rugs on gleaming hardwood floors. Overstuffed couches and lamp lighting.

  The fantasy was quickly marred by all the American Baby and Mother magazines lying about. The obligatory Mary Cassatt prints on the wall. The rather utilitarian reception desk crammed against the far wall that was staffed by a smiling woman who reeked of efficiency and confidentiality.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Sidney Petit,” Chastity announced. “I’m Chastity Byrnes.”

  Well, at least Chastity knew the receptionist was human. She caught the flicker of humor in those comfortable brown eyes. “Of course. Have a seat.”

  Chastity strolled instead to the window to see that for all the light coming in, somehow there wasn’t much to see outside but trees. Another graceful illusion that provided privacy from prying eyes. Fertility was a personal business, after all.

  “I’m telling you, we need more security,” she heard behind her. “They could have gotten in.”

  Chastity took a slow turn to see the tallest, biggest, baldest lab-coated man in the world whispering to a petite brunette in a business suit and flats. A woman with short brown hair, a roundish face, and a jaw that was just a little short.

  The doctor. Chastity could spot them a mile away. The big guy looked furious. The doctor was patting his arm as if he were a toddler, her irritation just barely in check. The receptionist sat there as if she didn’t notice what was going on three feet away.

  “It never would have happened,” the doctor said. “Your security precautions are second to none, Eddie. Now, the police are finished. We need to get back to work.”

  She looked up then to find Chastity standing by the ficus tree in the parlor. A bright smile lit her pleasant features. In contrast, when the bald guy caught sight of her, he looked horrified. Chastity could have sworn he went white for a second, before Dr. Petit stepped forward.

  “Ms. Byrnes,” she said, hand out. “I’m Sidney Petit.”

  Chastity took her hand and shook. Good clasp, dry palms. Relaxed eye contact. A woman comfortably in charge.

  “I appreciate your seeing me, Dr. Petit,” Chastity said. “If this is a bad time…”

  Dr. Petit just kept smiling. “I’m sorry you had to wade through all that. But don’t worry. We’re about all finished.”

  Then, turning away from the doorway, as if to sever attention from the motley crew beyond her lawn, she motioned Chastity farther into the building.

  “You’ve come about Faith, of course.” She seemed to heave a sigh, then shook her head. “We’re happy to help in any way we can.”

  She would. Chastity could see that. But the big guy over by the reception desk wasn’t quite so sanguine. He was back in scowl mode, his posture rigid with outrage.

  “Eddie?” Dr. Petit called over to him. “This is Faith’s sister Chastity. You’ll want to meet her.”

  Eddie hesitated, his face all but hidden for a second. Then, as if bracing for someth
ing, he lumbered over with a hand out.

  Dr. Petit smiled. “This is Eddie Dupre, our embryologist here at the Arlen Clinic. He and Faith got to be good friends.”

  Eddie’s hand was damp, his gaze unable to settle on Chastity. He topped her by a solid foot. “Nice to meet you. I have to…uh…”

  Dr. Petit patted him again. “Eddie’s a bit distracted today. Somebody broke in last night. Tried to get into his laboratory. We’ve been dealing with police all day.”

  “Not to mention protesters,” Chastity acknowledged. “That a normal thing for you?”

  “They’re the ones who tried to break in,” Eddie said, his voice hot again. “They were trying to get the babies.”

  “The babies?”

  Another smile from the doctor. “The cryopreserved embryos. We store them here, in Eddie’s lab. There is a possibility it was protesters….”

  Chastity nodded. “Ah. The Murderers signs out front. You destroy the unwanted embryos, which they consider children.”

  Dr. Petit offered a small sigh. “We’re actually much more responsible than most labs. We never store more than six extra embryos per request, and we have an embryo adoption program for the extra embryos. But, well, it’s still such a new science that of course there will be questions.”

  “There will be terrorists,” Eddie insisted. “That man outside is the one who did this. That Lloyd Burgard. Mark my words.”

  “If he’s the guy with the Murderers sign,” Chastity said, “I have to admit that he does lack basic manners.”

  Dr. Petit smiled. Eddie didn’t.

  “If you could stop by in a bit, Eddie, to talk to us,” Dr. Petit suggested, then turned to Chastity. “I know Eddie invited your sister to his annual hurricane season party.”

  “Hurricane season party?” Chastity echoed a bit blankly, thinking that nobody in this city took disaster seriously.

  “She wasn’t there,” was all Eddie said. “The police already asked me.”