Hallow Be the Haunt (Krewe of Hunters #22.5)(9)

David Henderson sat at a table, twitching nervously, staring down at his lap. There were two chairs across from him and his head jerked up as Jake and Parks took them, even though he hadn’t moved when they’d entered the room.

“This is Special Agent Mallory. He’s from the area, David. He’s going to help us look into the murder of Tink. I need you to tell him everything that you’ve told me.”

“Witches man, they’re real,” David Henderson said. He was probably in his mid-thirties, and appeared haggard—like a man who wasn’t in withdrawal, but one who did spend at least some time with recreational drugs. He stopped twitching as he looked at Jake, but began nervously working his hands. He wasn’t cuffed, but then again, he wasn’t really under arrest. Yet.

Jake nodded. “Could you give me some more detail?”

“I admit it—we were meeting to rob a house. You gotta understand Tink. He was mammoth. You’re a big guy, Mr. Special Agent, but Tink… He was huge. He could scare anyone. And when he walked up to those witches, they knew… They knew he was about to belt one of them, and… The lead one, she stepped out. I never saw what she hit him with, but…he turned. And it was like a frickin’ geyser, man. Blood everywhere. She just slashed him…so hard and so fast. And he was down.”

“They were all alike? All three of them?” Jake asked.

Henderson nodded. “Noses, man, they had big noses.”

“But height, size?” Jake pressed.

That produced a pause. “No… The main one, she was taller. I mean, I was at a distance, but… Yeah. The one on her left was heavier, and maybe a few inches shorter. And the other one was shorter than that…and skinny, I think. But they were all witches. Wiccans, or whatever.”

“Wicca is actually a religion, and real wiccans believe in doing no harm,” Jake said. “Halloween witches—let’s go with that.”

But Henderson shook his head. “No, man, they were real. You look at them, and you know—they were real. Okay, so they weren’t Wicca people, or whatever that is. Maybe they were voodoo witches. This is New Orleans.”

“Voodoo is a religion, too. No human sacrifices on the street,” Jake told him, trying to be patient. “Not from people really practicing.”

“Hey, man, you a voodoo priest or a witch yourself?” Henderson asked.

“No.”

“Vampire?”

“No.”

The man was clearly terrified. Truly convinced there were real witches at work in the city of New Orleans.

“David, these were people dressed up. In really good makeup and costumes, I’d guess. Did you see the weapon they used?”

He shook his head. “I’ll bet she used a fingernail. Don’t witches have mile-long nails?”

“No fingernail made a clean gash like that on a man’s throat,” Detective Parks said quietly.

“Maybe she keeps a blade attached to it,” Henderson suggested.

“Where did they go after Tink—dropped?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know. I ran—I ran like hell. I ran to Frenchmen Street where there were people. I found a cop. After that… I don’t know.”

“Okay. Thank you, David,” Jake said.

The man looked at Parks with anguish in his eyes. “You’re not going to throw me out on the street now, are you?”

“No, David,” Parks assured him.

When they were out of the room, Parks asked Jake, “Do you need to see the bodies?”

“Maybe. But right now I want to visit that shop on Magazine Street.”

Parks nodded gravely. “Her coworkers were her closest friends, I think. She was something of an artist herself. I saw some of her work. She might have been really good in time.”

Parks actually seemed sad. Detectives had to learn not to take death to heart. But maybe, this time, Parks just hadn’t been able to manage it.

“Do you have a plan after you go to the shop?” Parks asked.

“Yep.”

“What’s that?”

“A lot of walking—through the Quarter and beyond.”





Lavinia Carole was an attractive, lithe young woman with pink and blue streaks in her short brown hair. She was happy to meet Ashley and quick to tell her how much she was loving the job at Donegal.

Beth next introduced Ashley to Jonathan Starling—the man who worked in the smokehouse. Appearing to be in his late twenties, he was about six-feet tall and built, but not muscle-bound.

“You thought I’d be bigger, eh?” he teased after shaking her hand. “I make up for it with my menacing grin.”

Ashley laughed. “You’re not small, my friend.”

“Just not a giant,” he said.

Next she met Artie Lane, Trina DeMoine, Harold Corn, and Sandy Patterson, the “ghosts” who appeared on the haunted hayride. Then Alex Maple, Bill Davis, and Jerry Harte, costumed actors who led the groups around. And then Valerie Deering and Rhonda Blackstone, the “sister witches” who worked with Lavinia Carole.

“We have another ten people on payroll for this,” Beth told her. “They aren’t in costume—they’re from Garrison Event Security—we’ve worked with them every year.”