Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(46)

That’s gravity bringing that blood out, Maureen thought, not a heartbeat.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Don’t you f*cking die. Don’t die, don’t die.”

Fuck, should she try CPR? Why do that, she thought, when the blood you pump will only spill out onto the stones? She heard Preacher hustling along the path, his footsteps heavy, his gun belt jangling, calling her name.

“HERE,” Maureen shouted. “I’m here,” she whispered to Leary. She tossed aside the gore-soaked gauze. She reached for more. “Fuck.” None left. She’d used what she had, and it seemed there was more blood on Leary’s sweater, on the gravel, on Maureen’s hands, than ever. “But I found you. I finally found you.”

Never, during any of her searching, had Maureen imagined coming across Leary like this. Wounded. Dying.

The woman’s eyes remained open but blank, staring up at the indigo sky. She gave no sign she heard Maureen’s words, or was even aware of Maureen at her side. One shallow, rattling breath produced a tiny spray of red mist that settled on the backs of Maureen’s hands. The sirens were right outside the cemetery now. EMS would take over soon, thank God, Maureen thought. They’d have better things. Resources. Supplies. They could help. They could—

“Coughlin,” Preacher said. “Move away. Slow.”

Maureen looked into Leary’s eyes. Empty. Dead. The woman was no longer dying; she was dead.

“There’s nothing left to do, Maureen,” Preacher said. “We have to preserve the scene. Now move away.”

She stood. Leary’s blood had soaked through the knees of her uniform, and the fabric of Maureen’s pant leg stuck to her skin. Her nose was running. Her hands were too bloody to wipe it. She could hear the heavy footsteps of the EMTs as they hustled up the grassy path.

Preacher shone his flashlight at her feet.

“Look at your right foot. There by her hand.”

Maureen looked down. Shining in the flashlight beam, inches from Leary’s bony fingers, gleaming white against the dark stones of the gravel, lay an ivory-handled straight razor, the blade dark red with blood. Leary’s murder weapon of choice. In the Cooley and Gage murders, and possibly others. Dice had described the razor for her. A wanted killer and her murder weapon, Maureen thought, lying at her side. Not hard to figure out what had happened. The questions: Why now? Why here?

“Don’t touch it,” Preacher said.

Maureen stepped down from the edge of the grave, peeling off her latex gloves. She dropped them on the grave. Numbness spread through her insides. She could feel parts of her break away and dissipate into the night like smoke from a cigarette, like a soul leaving a body. Difference was, unlike the dead woman nearby, Maureen knew her parts would re-form and return to her.

“Leave her there,” she said to the EMTs as they arrived, panting. “She’s dead. This is a crime scene. Sorry to waste your time.”

One of the EMTs stared at her for long moment. “Maybe you should stop by the ambulance before you leave here.” He nodded at Preacher. “We’ll wait on y’all a little while.”

“Don’t,” Maureen said.

“Thanks,” Preacher said. “Give us a minute here.”

Maureen walked over to Preacher, standing by the iron fence. He was looking at the wind chimes. “Something to help us find her?” Maureen asked.

“Could be,” Preacher said. “Most of the graves in this place have gifts at them, though. And who knows what they mean. Could be for the deceased lying underneath her.”

“We should call Atkinson,” Maureen said. “She’ll want to know about this.”

“Indeed,” Preacher said. “We will. You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Unless I misrecollect,” Preacher said, “this is the first one you’ve had die on you.”

“Nonsense,” Maureen said. “I saw Cooley. Shit, I found him when he was two weeks gone. I saw Gage the night he was killed.”

“They were already dead.”

“I saw a friend of mine once,” Maureen said. “Well, not a friend, really, a woman I worked with. In a bar. In New York. She’d drowned. I mean, she was drowned. Murdered. I identified her body at the morgue.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Preacher said. “I didn’t know that.” He waited a moment before he continued. “But, again, she was already gone when you saw her. Having them go under your hands, no matter who or what they were, that’s a different thing. Believe me.”

“She was a killer. Those other bodies I saw here in New Orleans, she’s the reason for them. She and that razor she obviously used on herself. On top of someone else’s grave. A lunatic. A sick thing is what she was. Afraid to answer for what she’d done.”

Preacher said nothing, looking at the ground. He hitched up his gun belt. “Let’s have a cigarette, you and me, before we get down to business securing this scene. We’ve warned off the EMTs. Leary ain’t going anywhere.”

“You know what somebody called me once?” Maureen said. She felt light-headed. Preacher went in and out of focus. “A little redheaded angel of death. You believe that? Some people. The things they say.”

“Let’s go to the ambulance,” Preacher said.