The Devil Always Collects Page 12

  “Yes,” I said. “We need to talk.”

  Four hours passed before Tom knocked at my door. I let him in and he took me in his arms and held me trembling, letting my guard fall away, completely vulnerable. It felt so good. I didn’t know I needed his strong arms around me, but I did. I felt safe there. Safe is something I hadn’t felt in a while.

  “Tom,” I said. “I need to know what your feelings are for me. Sorry to be so direct so soon, but my world has been turned upside down in the last few weeks. I need to know where we stand.” I braced myself for more bad news. Shoulders squared and face resolute I faced him just like I had learned to face everything else coming at me.

  “Alexandra, I knew from the first night I met you that we were destined to be together. I don’t know if there is such a thing as love at first sight but I know from that night on I wanted you to be mine. You want to know where we stand? Let me spell it out for you. T O G E T H E R,” he said.

  Relieved, I grabbed him and gave him a baby-making kiss. I stepped back and said, “Thank God. Tom, I’ve got some tough decisions to make and they may affect us. You need to know what’s going on.”

  I told him everything: the meeting with Detective Baker, my viewing Sarah’s body, and the conversation with Jess. He listened carefully all the while watching my face to read my state of mind.

  When I finished, he said, “Alexandra, since we are now a couple and are being so honest with each other, I’ve got some things to tell you too.”

  Oh shit, I thought, what now?

  Tom continued, “I was not out working the last couple of days. I was on a mission for an organization called ROLL. That’s short for Rivers, Oceans and Lakes League. Our members are dedicated to protecting the environment from polluters. While we don’t publicly disclose our membership, it is also not secret. The offshoot organization to which I belong is confidential though. Its members’ identities remain highly protected. It is called ROLF, Rivers, Oceans and Lakes Fighters. Like the name implies, we do what we have to do to stop polluters. That includes acts the law frowns upon. Some polluters call us eco-terrorists. We are citizens protecting what belongs to all people. Our environment is not the disposable property of renegade corporations. All of our members believe in the capitalist system of business but see that powerful, unscrupulous corporate giants take advantage of the system. They break the social contract to suit their greedy will. ACC is one of our main targets. They are a dangerous group. They have billions of dollars that they use to bribe and bully politicians and influence law enforcement. So you see, Alexandra, your fight is my fight. Fuck those bastards. Let’s go after them together.”

  We embraced each other as lovers and as comrades. I no longer felt alone. Tom was with me and I with him. All that was left was to work out the details.

  I went to work the next day, and Jenkins called me into his office. His expression was sullen. He looked like a defeated man. It was obvious that he’d been drinking for more than one day. His eyes were sunken, red and lifeless, the odor of alcohol wreaked from his pores. His voice was weak and hoarse, barely above a whisper.

  “Alexandra,” he said. “I am closing the PR firm. You are the first to know. I can’t go on. I am old and tired. Time for me to fade away. You are young and full of promise. You don’t know it but I picked you and Sarah to be my heirs. I built this company. Who else can I give it to? Now Sarah’s gone. I can’t face this place without her. I have spoken to Dan Broussard of Bayou Oil and Mitch Morris of Superior Sugar. They want you to represent them. They both offered you a full-time job but I thought it would be better for you to have your own firm. You don’t need a fancy office anymore; you can handle these two clients from your home. What do you say?”

  Jenkins went on to show me the money they were offering and how I could make it work. It was exactly what I needed. I would have my independence and a way to make enough to pay all of my bills and still have money left over.

  I called Tom and clued him in. He agreed that the offer was too good to pass up. I told Jenkins I would do it. Then I went to see Jess.

  “What can I do for you?” Jess asked.

  “I have a proposal for you. Please wait till I’ve finished before you comment,” I said. “Mr. Jenkins is planning to shut down his PR firm. Both Superior Sugar and Bayou Oil would like to hire me as an employee to handle their PR and marketing needs. I can’t do that. You were right when you told me long ago that I was a journalist at heart. It is my passion. What’s more, I want to go after ACC and whoever killed Sarah. I think the best way for me to pursue them is to work for you as an independent journalist. What I need from you are press credentials. I propose to open my PR firm from my home and confine my practice to two clients. This arrangement will leave me free to pursue ACC and Sarah’s killer. You will be able to publish my story when it is written. But, it’s got to be my story now, and no one else’s. Deal?”

  Jess sized me up, clearly impressed by my confidence. She answered, “Your proposal is acceptable with some small alterations. First, you will have free reign to go after ACC as an independent journalist. I will give you anything I can find on them on a confidential basis. The newspaper will not be involved until you are ready to publish your story. Second, you cannot work officially on finding Sarah’s killer. Even if you were to develop leads and write a story, we couldn’t publish it because you are a witness in the case. The value of the story would be diminished. But I will assign our best crime reporters to both Sarah’s murder and the Quarter Killings. I will keep you up to speed with what they find – off the record, of course. I will also coordinate between you and Detective Baker, if need be, to protect you both. Deal?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We have a deal. Now let’s go get those no-good bastards.”

  I didn’t tell Jess about Tom’s extracurricular activities or that he and I would be working together. She didn’t need to know those details. I was totally committed now. There was no going back. I was going to make some powerful and deadly enemies. All I had to protect myself with were my wits and my press credentials.

  That night Tom stayed over. I got in the bed first. As I walked by the mirror on my way to bed I saw myself as a new woman. In love, still grieving, but fiercely independent and committed to my goals. I liked what I saw.

  I was ready to stir the pot.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Seeking Redemption

  I awakened first to the stillness of the early morning, the streets quiet except for the sounds of the Cicada’s singing and started the coffee. Tom soon joined me, sleepy eyed but handsome. I turned on the television and listened to all of the usual bullshit. I had lost interest in who in Hollywood was sleeping with whom or what politician had been disgraced. I focused on matters closer to home. Who killed Sarah? Mark was in jail and accused of her murder. The Quarter Killer was probably still stalking the streets. Sarah’s murder did not fit his M. O. Then there was Jess’ belief that somehow ACC had a hand in her murder. Were any of those demons her killer? Or was it to be someone else entirely? I needed to know.

  “You look lost in thought,” Tom said.

  “I am thinking about our future life. I have committed to hunting down polluters and killers much the same as you. Starting with Sarah’s killer. What kind of life will that be?”

  “There will be good times and there will be bad times. But there won’t be dull times,” Tom said. A devilish grin swamped his face and he added, “And lots of bed times.”

  “Oooh, that sounds good. But no time for that now with brigands on the loose,” I said in my best pirate voice. “Don’t you have a day job?”

  “Sure do and I’d better get my ass in gear and report to work if I want to keep it,” he said.

  Tom kissed me, exchanging the most romantic coffee breath I could ever remember and scooted out of the door. I was anxious to get started on my new career. I looked around at my condo and decided the liv
ing room would become my workspace. I had a notebook computer all blue-toothed up with my printer/scanner/fax all-in-one. I would work from my couch and coffee table. I had everything I needed for a home office. I would use the Internet to research as much as I could and do field work when necessary. My place beat the hell out of my cubicle.

  Computer in hand, I settled onto my couch with a cup of coffee and Googled Bart Rogan again. I thought I’d uncover a jackpot of information about him if I dug a little deeper this time. I was wrong. There wasn’t much there. Mr. Rogan had concealed himself well over the years. He was a cagey one. I found a circa 2004 article from the New York Times reporting that he had been implicated in and later indicted by an Indian prosecutor for his actions arising out of the Bophal, India leak. The Indian government’s recorded official immediate death toll was 2,259. Thousands more were injured, some permanently. Later more charges were added for poisoning drinking water with a pesticide. Rogan returned to the U.S. before his indictment, and our government refused to extradite him to India to face the charges. He must have been poisoning their water with the same shit as he put on our land.

  I wondered whatever became of those charges. What else had Mr. Rogan gotten himself into? I dug deeper into the web and found another interesting little tidbit. Seemed Mr. Rogan set up an herbicide distribution system in Colombia for the United States government to use in its war on drugs in the early 2000s. One of ACC’s affiliates supplied glyphosate herbicide for aerial spraying of cocoa plants. In areas situated close to the sprayed cocoa fields, 80 percent of the children of the locals became sick with skin rashes, fever, diarrhea and eye infections.

  There were plenty of other articles about Mr. Rogan attending society and political galas with celebrities and prominent politicians. He certainly knew how to play the game. I called Jess to see what she had gathered on Bart Rogan.

  “Not on the phone,” she said, her voice forceful. “We never share any information on the phone from this point forward.”

  Had I just entered a spy novel? This Rogan guy wasn’t the NSA. How the fuck could he know what we said to each other on the phone? No matter, though; I could learn to play by her rules. She was the pro. Everyone in journalism revered Jess Johnson. She was practically a damn legend. She was on a first-name basis with all of the politicians in Louisiana and most in Washington. Nothing went on in this city without Jess knowing about it. She feared no one. But if she said not to talk on the phone, there must be some treacherous characters circling her world.

  “I have your press credentials. I’ll bring them with me to your condo. You won’t be coming to my office for a while,” she said. Her tone was even more deadly serious than usual.

  I gave her my address. Then I began the unfamiliar process of erasing the evidence of my and Tom’s bedroom gymnastics, as well as some general tidying up my home/research center. My condo had taken on a different role. It was still my home, but it was also the place where I was starting a new life, the place where I was going to write the story that would bring Bart Rogan down.

  Jess arrived with my press credentials, and we sat at my kitchen table now a conference table, the city coming alive with the muffled sounds of traffic. I poured us each a cup of coffee, the aroma mixing with the faint smell of Jess’ perfume. She had a cardboard bankers’ box from which she extracted a multitude of documents and spread them over the table. Not another damn cardboard box. What kind of trouble will it bring?

  She held a thumb drive as if it were an extension of her hand and said, “These documents and the material on this thumb drive contain the evidence I have accumulated against ACC. There is more to the story that put me on ACC’s trail. Sarah and I first caught wind of their shenanigans in the months following Katrina in November 2005. Her confidential source told her they lost an ocean-going barge carrying pesticides during a previous hurricane. The barge was headed for Colombia, and its push boat had engine trouble before the storm. The barge was stranded. ACC didn’t want the barge careening about in the storm for the Coast Guard to eventually find. They ordered the captain to empty the barge’s contents into the Gulf. The informant told us that the barge was left sunken in the depths of the ocean’s floor. He told Sarah the barge was full of dioxin. That pesticide was banned for use in the US and Colombia decades ago. You may have heard of one of the products that contained dioxin, Agent Orange. The U.S. military use it during the Vietnamese war to defoliate the dense jungle hiding the Viet Cong. The formulation in the barge allegedly was 10 times stronger than the Agent Orange used in the war. If ACC were using dioxin in Colombia, many Colombians would have gotten sick and never known what caused their symptoms. I felt if we could locate the barge and tie down the witnesses, we could nail the bastards for illegal use of dioxin and pollution. I asked Sarah to investigate.”

  “Was the story ever written?”

  “No, Sarah made some initial progress. She felt like we could get more employees of ACC to help us. But, before we could get enough information to go much farther, our informant changed his story and then was killed in a car accident. Sarah told me that after his death everybody clammed up and closed ranks. We were never able to get any further information leading us to the location of the sunken barge.”

  “It’s been so long now. Why do you believe the story can be resurrected?”

  “Alexandra, the rest of this may be hard for you to hear. It’s about Sarah. After she read your mother’s letter, she asked me to come to her house for a glass of wine one evening. After two glasses of wine, she began to cry. She said she had a confession to make and asked me not to look at her while she made it. As I’ve already told you, she admitted to me she had suppressed the story about ACC’s missing barge many years ago. At the time, she was married to Mark Stevens. He told her his career would be ruined if she went forward with the story and begged her not to pursue it. She compromised her principles and killed the story. When she found out that ACC may have had something to do with your mother’s cancer, she couldn’t face herself any longer. Sarah quoted one particular line from your mother’s letter that sealed her decision. She had written it down and recited it to me word for word. I will never forget those words and how they gave her peace and a steely resolve. ‘Remember, Alexandra, when you make a deal with the devil, the devil always collects.’ She said that once she read your mother’s words, she knew what she had to do. Sarah said her deal with the devil was over. She gave me no more details other than she had something hidden that would revive the story and make things right. Sarah wanted redemption for her actions and was willing to risk everything to get it. She didn’t want to tell you about her past dealings with ACC or how Bayou Oil’s account made its way to Jenkins’ PR company until she’d cleansed herself of her misdeeds. I am afraid she paid the ultimate price to pursue that redemption.”

  I fought back the tears but they flowed freely down my cheeks once more. Poor Sarah carried the burden of her actions to her grave. Was this why she sought atonement at the shelter? She wanted a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance. She must have led a tortured life knowing she had suppressed the story.

  “Do you think ACC had anything to do with her death?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the timing of her confession and her death was just a coincidence,” Jess answered. “What I do know is that barge is still out there, and there must be witnesses willing to talk to us somewhere. You must find whatever evidence Sarah had hidden.”

  “Why didn’t Sarah tell me all of this?”

  “She planned to tell you. Had you agreed to accept my offer the day you and Sarah came to my office, she was going to tell you then and work with you to bust Rogan’s balls. Sarah didn’t want to influence your decision. She felt if you knew, you might take the job for her sake. She wanted you to make your choice free of any obligation to her. She loved you, Alexandra, and wanted the best for you. If you turned the job down, she was going to investigate and write the ar
ticle herself.”

  “And now she’s gone, sweet Sarah. Who killed her? I want to find the son of a bitch who killed her! What do you know about the Quarter Killer?”

  Jess narrowed her eyes, giving me the deadly serious stare of a soldier about to charge a heavily-fortified enemy bunker and said, “Everything I share with you must remain strictly confidential. Nothing must leave this room. Will you swear that solemn oath?”

  “Yes, Jess, on my life, I will,” I swore.

  “Demetre Baker and I have been close friends all of our lives. No one at the paper or the precinct knows it but we share information with each other freely. I have access to places he doesn’t, and he has to places I don’t. Demetre is a key member of the Serial Killer Task Force. He has kept me informed as the case has developed. The killer has close ties to New Orleans and particularly the French Quarter. He kills his victims in or near the Quarter and dumps their bodies in dumpsters in the Quarter. He has never been spotted disposing of the bodies, so police believe he knows exactly when and where to dump. An outsider wouldn’t know that. Toxicology screens show that every victim was given Rohypnol— roofies – before their deaths. Police believe he uses the drug to incapacitate the women before he abducts them. He kills his victims by stabbing them 25 or more times in the lower abdomen, where a woman’s womb and ovaries reside. Post mortem, he stuffs a paper doll in their mouths.”

  “Detective Baker told me about the paper dolls. That was one of the reasons the task force thought Mark was the killer. He didn’t think the Quarter Killer killed Sarah though,” I said.

  “Sarah’s blood didn’t have any traces of Rohypnol or any other drugs in it. Also, unlike the other victims, her throat was cut. She did, however, have more than 25 stab wounds in the same pattern that the Quarter Killer left in all of the other victims. The task force believed the killer has started devolving, and his rage was getting worse. They theorized that he didn’t get the opportunity to drug Sarah, or his attempt failed and he cut her throat out of rage. That is one of the reasons they decided to arrest Mark Stevens: his rage gets the best of him. They could also place him in a bar in the Quarter near where Sarah had been that night.”