Free The Hoodoo Detective by Kirsten Weiss Page A

Wolfe said.
    Ash grunted a response.
    Wolfe shifted the camera on his shoulder. “So what brings you to New Orleans?”
    Ash jerked his head toward Riga.
    “Not everyone on the crew knows,” Riga said. “We've actually joined up with another reality show, Mean Streets —”
    The bodyguard's eyes lit. “Not with Dirk Steele?”
    “Yeah,” Wolfe said. “He's inside the house.”
    “No shit. Dirk Steele.” Ash looked longingly toward the door.
    “Come on in.” Riga sighed. “I'll introduce you.” She wasn't sure how. If Dirk knew she'd brought a bodyguard, he'd either laugh his ass off or throw a tantrum because he didn't have one. Mean Streets had gotten her into two crime scenes possibly connected to the Old Man, and she didn't want to lose access.
    Inside the foyer, Ash stopped, whistled.
    Sam hurried downstairs, his chinos making swishing sounds as the hems brushed together. “Ash! Thanks for coming.” He gave Riga a significant look. “I wasn't sure when you'd arrive, but I've told the crew you'll be hanging around until that little problem with my ex resolves itself.”
    One corner of Riga's lips crooked upward in rueful admiration. Sam had anticipated the potential problems with Dirk and provided his own cover story for Ash's presence. But that was why he was the field producer. He knew how to manage people, keep things running smoothly. It was a talent she admired. Diplomacy had never been her strong point.
    Dirk and Detective Short strode from the living room. Dirk's cameraman hurried around them, camera glued to his eye.
    “There's been another murder,” the detective said, catching Riga's eye. “This time in the French Quarter. It's occult, like Turotte's. You up for this?”
    Riga took an involuntary step back, a coldness striking her core. “Are you sure?”
    Dirk's mouth twisted. “I think we'd know a murder.”
    “I meant about the occult connection.” The Old Man couldn't have struck again, so soon, not when she'd been watching his hotel all night.
    Long trotted down the stairs. “Decapitation. The head was put on an altar of sorts. Same weird symbols.”
    Riga swallowed, her throat thickening.
    Another murder.
    And she'd done nothing to stop it.
     

Chapter 9
    It wasn't her fault.
    Trudging up the brick walk, her legs dragged, weighted. The house stood two stories high, a cube sandwiched between two homes too close for Riga’s taste. Wrought iron balconies sheltered its faded green shutters. Police cars lined the street. In the fading twilight, their red and blue lights blazed a garish trail across the building's golden pink walls.
    A dead man waited inside. And somehow, the Old Man was involved. She'd pointed the police toward him, but they needed evidence, a connection.
    She had neither.
    The air, thick with dampness, gripped her, slowing her pace. She wiped her forehead, leaving a glossy trail of sweat and makeup on the back of her hand.
    “You look pale,” Dirk said, his bare arm brushing hers. “If you can't handle it, you don't have to go in.”
    “I can handle it.” She gathered energy from the above, below, and in between, imagined it hardening, a bubble-like shield around her. But guilt weakened her focus. She sensed the cracks.
    A man walked out the front door. Halting on the top step, he jammed a cigarette in his mouth, didn't light it. His five o'clock shadow was a dirty snowscape, flecked gray and white. He looked Riga over. “You the consultant?”
    She nodded. “Are you the man in charge?”
    “Yes ma'am,” he drawled.
    Long and Short shook hands with him. “Afternoon, Chief,” Short said.
    The chief glanced at the darkening sky. “Night's more like it.” He jabbed a finger at Riga and Dirk. “You two can come in. No cameras.”
    The field producers sputtered.
    “No cameras?” Sam asked.
    Dirk's forehead creased. “Without video, it's like it never happened.”
    “I wish it hadn't,” the chief said. Turning his back on them, he returned inside.
    Long