CHAPTER ELEVEN

“This is the place,” said Cruz, looking at the little house. “It’s a nice home. Clean.”

“Yep. Probably why she was working as a prostitute. To pay for this and give her grandmother and kid a safe place to live. Come on. Let’s get this part over with because I hate this shit more than anything we do,” said Gabe.

They knocked on the door and were surprised when it opened, revealing a room full of people.

“Our apologies, we’re looking for Estelle Marchand,” said Cruz.

“That’s me,” said an old woman in a recliner. There was a young boy spread over the upper half of her body, holding onto her for dear life.

“Come in,” said the woman at the door. “We’re all family and friends. Just come over to help Ms. Estelle.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s nice of y’all,” said Cruz. “We’re awful sorry to be here under these circumstances, ma’am. Can we speak with you about your daughter?”

“Everyone here knows her story,” she said, nodding her head. “Baby is sound asleep right now, so we can talk.”

“He’s a big boy,” smiled Gabe. “He reminds me of my brothers and I when we were little, although I guess we were never little.”

“He’s four, almost five, but he’s as big as most second-graders,” she said, kissing the top of his head. “His mama, she was a little thing, but his daddy was a big, tall man. Worked on the rigs in the Gulf.”

“Is he around? Do you want us to find him for you?” asked Gabe.

“Nope. Ain’t been around since my daughter told him she was pregnant. We’re doin’ just fine without him, so I don’t need him here now. He’d only try to take the boy or, worse, ignore him. He don’t need that right now.”

“Ma’am, can you tell us when your daughter disappeared, when was the last time you saw her?” asked Cruz.

“Don’t really know,” said the woman. “She works odd hours, as you can imagine. Girl works harder than anyone I know. She didn’t set out to be a hooker, but the money was good, and so was she. Ain’t no shame in that.”

“No, ma’am, there is not,” said Gabe.

“She left here Christmas night and said she wanted to make enough money to take off through the new year. Don’t know how much that was, but she wanted to do it. When I didn’t hear from her the next day, I didn’t worry much. Sometimes, I wouldn’t hear from her for a day or two. She always came home, though,” she said with a sniff.

“I hate to ask this, but did your daughter have a pimp or a steady book of clients?” asked Gabe.

“Don’t be sorry for askin’ questions about my girl,” said the woman. “Stella, that was her name, she didn’t want no pimp, and she made sure they knew it. She’d get bothered now and then by one, but most left her alone. I know she had a few steady clients, but most were just tourists in the Quarter or down near the stadium. Made enough to buy this little place and ensure that we’d have a roof over our heads.”

“She sounds like a wonderful girl, ma’am,” said Cruz.

“She was. She was,” nodded the old woman. “She worked so hard and always was there for everything her son wanted to do.”

“She went to church with me whenever she could,” said a woman seated beside the older woman. “I didn’t like going alone, so if she was home, she’d call and say let’s go to service. I loved going with her. She had the voice of an angel.”

“Did she sing in the choir?” asked Cruz.

“Oh, no. She didn’t like to be up on stage. It’s why she chose being a prostitute over a stripper. Girl had a body to die for, that’s for sure.”

“We’re going to try and figure out who did this to her,” said Gabe. “If you can think of anything that might help us, just let us know.” He left a plain white card with their emergency hotline on the table and turned to leave.

“Boys?” she called.

“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.

“You find who killed my girl and took this poor baby’s mama away. They deserve what’s comin’ to ‘em.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Cruz.

Both men were silent in the truck as they headed to the coroner’s office. They knew that these murders were connected, and they knew that it was someone connected to that church. None of that mattered right now. A little boy lost his mother, and a grandmother, barely able to manage herself, was now all he had left.

It seemed odd that a place like the coroner’s office had Christmas decorations everywhere and holiday music playing. But then again, if you were in a place like this, you either didn’t care or didn’t notice. If you were working in a place like this, a little cheer probably did you good.

“Felix, we’re making a habit of this,” said Gabe, shaking the hands of the coroner.

“You boys seem to find trouble, or trouble finds you. Not sure which,” he nodded. He was standing over the body of the young woman, looking down into her chest cavity.

“Anything you can tell us?” asked Cruz.

“Normal, relatively healthy thirty-one-year-old woman. No cancer, lung or liver disease, and surprisingly, no STDs. You can see the ligature marks on the wrists. Just plain old rope, from what I can tell. Nothing special about it, but we’ve sent some fibers to the lab.

“It looks like he tied her up, hanged her from above, like the ceiling or something, then tightened the ropes as time went on. If you look, the ligature starts here, then moves a little. At some point, she either struggled to get away or she was moving as he was cutting her, and she dislocated her shoulders.”

“Fuck me,” growled Cruz.

“It had to have been painful for her,” said Felix, shaking his head. “Lacerations from a small knife are on the abdomen, hands, feet, thighs, calves, forearms, and chest. The last two cuts were designed to kill. Her femoral artery was cut and the jugular. The laceration on her right thigh wasn’t just intended to hurt her. He was sending her a message.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gabe.

“Her son’s name and face were tattooed there. He sliced through it, four times.”