A Ghoulishly Grim Halloween

Prologue

Killer

Halloween!

How Killer loved it. Killer, was, of course, the name he had given himself—because of course, once again--he was a killer.

He hadn’t meant for life to be that way. But now . . .

He intended to keep being one! Until he had taken them all out, those who had ruined his life, taken what should have been his.

And Halloween! Could any time of the year possibly avail him better?

Darkness hadn’t even fallen yet, and already the city was alive with crowds everyone, with street performances, with princes and princesses, superheroes and superheroines—and every horrible creature of time, culture, and legend and every heinous villain known to man as well. Vampires, werewolves, mummies, and zombies, oh, my!

And the actual holiday was still a few days off!

And the thing was, far more than the revelers, the costumed idiots running about, buildings and flora and fauna were mystically attired. Trees dripped skeletons, ghosts, and other such decorations, meant to give the night the true proper feel of that time when ancient pagans had believed that the dead could back to the mortal earth.

Yes! People were running around, assuming every creepy vision was a decoration fitting for the holiday! How it made him smile!

Because he did love returning to the scene.

To the body.

He’d taken out William Kittridge two nights ago, right after the costume party at the restaurant on Bourbon Street. The man had been an idiot, way too into the holiday, into role playing. He’d been a vampire—a jerk, hitting on everyone female, convinced that he was God’s gift to women.

Yep. Kittridge had been a vampire. But, sadly for him, one who didn’t really recognize death until it hit him right in the head. Literally.

Kittridge really looked like a vampire now. He was covered in blood.

His own.

It was drying and the body was going ripe, and here, by the river, barely covered up by the grasses that tangled around the embankment—right by the trees that had been so creepily decorated with plastic skeletons and misty white gauze.

No one had noticed the real corpse.

Of course, the city’s police were pushed to limits right now—a party city, as the central fabled French Quarter and river area had come to be--could keep the cops busy at the slowest of times. But Halloween season . . .

Yeah, might take them awhile to find a real corpse.

Killer almost laughed aloud. Of course, he could do so. He just looked like the city’s historic axe murderer, The Axeman of New Orleans, busy between 1919 and 1920.

A killer who never caught and never known.

Through the years, many people had dressed up as what they thought the historic killer might look like. Of course, he was carrying a knife rather than an axe, but he wasn’t walking around with anything plastic as most people did.

His knife was real. Like the saw he had at the house.

Still, that Axeman! Never, caught, never known.

Just as Killer would never be caught, never be known. He had done all the right things to ensure it!

Enter the Krewe

Halloween.

The main night of the year when every scary creature known to man was out there.

Including man himself—or herself--because, seriously, there wasn’t a creature more capable of being dangerous and deadly!

Angela Hawkins Crow, special agent with the Krewe of Hunters unit of the bureau, knew that all too well.

The only redeeming feature of doing what they did was knowing that there was equal goodness in the world, no, more goodness than evil, and their reward for fighting greed, cruelty, and depravity was the face that could often save those who were innocent—and who were so often the very good that was also to be found in humanity.

And this was a difficult for another reason. She loved New Orleans.

Their first case as what they were now officially calling the Special Situation Unit-- and unofficially the Krewe of Hunters—had been in New Orleans. And even though they were always called in for bizarre and usually tragic situations, she loved the city. She loved the architecture, what they called the faded elegance of all that was old and historic. Then, they’d had the kids there on vacation several times; they’d gone to the zoo, the aquarium, and the wonderful museums, not to mention the delicious food, including dinner on a steamboat ride on the Mississippi, visits to shops and incredible book stores and so much more.

But the kids weren’t with them this time. They were working on a case.

But being away now still saddened her, because Halloween was on the horizon, and she loved reading at their schools, taking them to their parties, helping them with costumes, going trick-or-treating and all that the holiday entailed.

She smiled to herself briefly. They never dressed up as ghosts, because of course, in her family, they knew that “ghosts” could sometimes be real.

Usually, in the best way. And, with any luck, she told herself, they’d be home when the actual day of Halloween arrived.

But that all depended. Jackson was the Special Agent in Charge of the Krewe, and while they now had several dozen accomplished agents in their unit, they were here because the man responsible for the Krewe, Adam Harrison, had asked for help, specifically their help, because the man who had seen that they were called in was Detective Dante Harrison—one of Adam’s great nephews. Because Jackson managed so many cases from headquarters and she had learned to work incredibly with their tech crews, when they were in the field these days, it often seemed to be because of personal requests, and that was fine. She loved it when they could use their training and their rare talents to help anyone, and maybe just a little especially, a friend.

She needed to take the few steps that separated her from Detective Dante Harrison and Jackson right now. Something had caused her to take just a minute and look down at the length of Royal Street with its striking buildings, filled these days with exceptional shops, restaurants, and iconic hotels. Tourists were out and about, of course, in large numbers. New Orleans was a Halloween destination, since it vied with cities like Savannah, Charleston, Gettysburg, Salem and others for being the most haunted in America. And nothing like a good, haunted place for Halloween in the minds of many.

Which was intended to be fun.

The only problem being . . .

The city embraced the holiday, too, and decorations were everywhere, most of them frightening, some funny, and some a bit of both. Creatures from fiction and legend adorned shops and trees along the many of the streets in the French Quarter, including the boundary streets of Esplanade on the east to Canal on the west, and then Rampart down to the Mississippi. Royal, Chartres, Bourbon, and many more were done up to the nines—not to mention that a penchant for decorations ran into Treme, the Irish Channel, the Garden District, Uptown and . . . everywhere!

Sadly, among the playful and creepy skeletons, ghosts, goblins, and more, something far more sinister and deeply disturbing had been discovered.

Human remains.

“I have asked Jack Dupree to come out in a minute; naturally, I spoke with him immediately following the discovery, but I thought that we’d speak with him here before heading up toward Uptown. The tree where . . . the body parts were discovered is in a large line of oaks that parallel the street, right off Canal. Not on Jack’s property, but when he went out to take his kid to school today, he discovered them. That was about three hours ago, but I asked them to make sure that nothing was disturbed until you arrived and observed the remains as they were discovered. I have never been so grateful for a decision I made, asking the captain to invite you down here. I mean . . . well, thank you!”

“No thanks necessary. You’re followed an amazing man into law enforcement—different venue, but same purpose. You know, surely, that this is what we do, and that, of course, anyone associated with Adam would do anything for him. Beyond that, we want to help in any way that we can,” Angela said.

“Absolutely,” Jackson agreed. He glanced at Angela and smiled. “And we love the city; we want to stop any evil going on here.”

“Any evil,” Dante said, grimacing. “Interesting word, yet such a true use of it.” He shook his head. “New Orleans can be a party city. So much more, and still . . . you get that much partying, you get your share of drunks and violence. And more planned crime, robberies, shootings . . . crime went up after the pandemic and we’ve been working hard to get a grip on it—like a lot of cities over the last year or so. But this . . . this is something different.”

“Geared to Halloween,” Jackson said dryly.

Dante nodded. “And since you were staying right here on Royal Street and Jack’s antique place is right across the street, it made sense to me that you talk to him. Then I’ll take you out there.”

As Dante spoke, a man of about forty—dressed as a character from a Harry Potter movie—emerged from his shop.

“Here’s Jack now,” Dante said. “Jack Dupree, Special Agents Angela Hawkins and Jackson Crow. Special agents, Mr. Jack Dupree.”

Jack Dupree nodded to them. “Sorry about this,” he began, indicating his costume. “We’ve got tourists and kids in and out all day, and they enjoy all this. I mean, I hope they keep getting to enjoy all this. Not sure what I can do to help, except, my God, it’s so horrible, anything!”

“Just tell us what you found, if you saw anything unusual—” Jackson began quietly.

“Unusual? Oh, you bet! Even in New Orleans at Halloween! I went out to the car, and I was waiting for the kids, thinking the decoration in the tree was a bit too much, especially in a residential neighborhood, and . . . I just walked closer to the tree and saw that blood was still dripping out of the ‘zombie’s’ head and . . . the limbs were arranged on the branches, and I realized that they were real, and I called the cops!”

“You didn’t recognize the man?” Angela asked.

“I wouldn’t have recognized him if he’d been my brother,” Jack said, his face wrinkling with sincerity and the memory of what he had seen. “I whisked the kids in the car, and I know that you haven’t removed the, um, parts, and I hope—”

“Sir, these agents will take a look, and we’ll have the M.E. and the crime scene people out there then as soon as possible—they’re all on standby,” Dante assured him.

“Thank you. Thank you, Detective Harrison, Special Agents. No kids should see that. I know you have the area cordoned off now, but . . . kids have eyesight, you know,” Jack said. “And I hope they all think it’s just more crazy decoration, but . . .”

“We’re going right over,” Angela assured him.

“Thank you,” Jack Dupree said again, his voice sincere.

“Thank you, sir,” Jackson said. “And one more minute, if you will. Have you seen anyone around the neighborhood who isn’t usually there? Any people watching houses, anything unusual, or as if someone has been watching the neighborhood?”

Jack Dupree frowned. “The dog was barking in the middle of the night, come to think of it. Because we’re in Halloween season, I didn’t think much of it. Our neighborhood is residential, you know. But a lot of the houses in the Garden District and Uptown go all out. In fact, I have a giant pumpkin in the front yard myself. My neighbor had a plastic blow-up witch and cauldron in his yard. Some people have skeletons dangling from the trees in their yards. It’s Halloween. You know.”

“Of course. When the dog was barking did you get out of bed, look out at the street?” Angela asked.

“Well, I did get up and I told Scotty to stop and behave. But I didn’t think to look out. My house has an alarm, so I figured it had to be something going on out on the street, but . . . no. I didn’t think to look,” Jack said.

They thanked him again and let him return to work, telling him they’d be sure to check out his shop.

When he was gone, Dante said, “That wasn’t much help, but I thought maybe you would want a word with the man who had called it in.”

“Never hurts,” Jackson assured him. “We’ve got our rental car; we can meet you Uptown and that way—”

“If I get a call, you can still take your time. And we will head right up; I have Dr. Larson, one of our medical examiners, on hold there, along with a forensic team. They do need to get started. So far, apparently, those who have gotten close enough to see the tree have thought that the body parts were all part of Halloween.”

They parted ways, heading for their separate cars. As they passed Bourbon Street, Angela sat back, smiling slightly.

“And what is that smirk for?” Jackson asked her.

“Not a smirk at all. I was thinking of the places I love. Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. The building definitely dates back to the 1770s, one of the few buildings to survive both great fires, and Jean Lafitte’s brother Pierre was a blacksmith; they did need horses in those days.” She turned to look at him as he drove. “But apparently, people think they ‘see’ Jackson and Lafitte talking there together. Way back when, it wasn’t a bar, so the two didn’t have any casual conversations at the place—”

“If they are hanging around here at times, neither, um, soul is likely to help us at this time. But then again, maybe . . .”

“Maybe we’ll find someone,” she said softly. “This is so horrible.”

“Sadly, not . . . entirely rare,” Jackson said. “Historically, Madame LaLaurie and her husband, mutilation and murder—chopping limbs off one slave to sew onto another. And they managed to flee, and no known justice for the pair. Did they land in France? An island? Did they return to living in a different district? No proof. Then! More recently, after Hurricane Katrina—Zachary Bowen and Addie Hall. He jumped to his death, leaving a suicide note in his pocket and when it was investigated, they found a few of Annie’s body parts on the stove. We had our own case here, our first case—”

“And we had help. Maybe we’ll have help again,” Angela said.

She leaned back again. She wanted to believe that the members of the Krewe were ace investigators on their own. But they were . . . special.

And the dead could be so incredibly helpful.

Special—and special, she decided. But Halloween . . . and body parts in a tree!

“We’re here,” Jackson said.

They had arrived. Some cars were about; some people looked at the area from behind the barriers of the crime scene tape.

They parked and showed their credentials.

And they saw the tree. And the way that it had been ghoulishly decorated for Halloween with its bloody human body parts.