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Lafayette, Louisiana, USA
31st of January, 7:25 a.m. (GMT-6)
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Martinez woke to a buzzing and when she didn’t find her phone on the nightstand, she frantically searched the sheets. “Hello?” she groggily answered the call.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” Morris cut to the chase.
Martinez rolled over and checked the time on the small digital hotel clock. Normally by this time, she would have done her calisthenics, showered, dressed, and been halfway through a piece of cold chicken and a cup of hot coffee. But when the alarm sounded at six, she was having none of it and went back to sleep. “Not yet, but we have plenty of time,” she assured him. “Breakfast is open until nine.”
Martinez gathered he didn’t think much of the hotel’s complimentary fare by the severity of his tut. “How does a real breakfast sound?” he suggested.
She relished the idea of staying in bed a little longer—she so rarely slept in—but she wanted to hear her options. “What did you have in mind?”
“I know a place, but you have to drive. My treat,” he offered.
She lazily stretched out and yawned while she thought it over. “Sure. Give me twenty minutes.”
“All right, but don’t sneak in any cold chicken. The food will be worth the wait,” he promised.
Martinez smiled. “Sounds good. Meet you in the lobby?”
“I’ll be the well-dressed one waiting,” he signed off.
Reluctantly, Martinez started pulling herself together and flung the sheets back. She couldn’t understand why she was so wiped. It wasn’t like she’d powered the ritual last night. She was just a spectator and all her will went into basic protections. Nevertheless, she had just crashed after they got back to the hotel and put in a request to the Mine to have someone make an anonymous tip.
Fortunately, she could do her morning ablutions, hair, and makeup on autopilot. As for attire, the choice was simple. She pulled out the navy suit hanging in the closet—they were going in as FBI as soon as they got word and she needed to look the part.
She entered the lobby with a minute to spare and found Morris chatting with another guest, an elderly woman with thick glasses sharing a laugh with him. He was back to his gregarious self this morning, although Martinez could now pick out hints of what lay behind the good humor. Keys in hand, she approached the pair. “Ready for breakfast?” she asked neutrally, uncertain of what tale he’d spun for his interlocutor to amuse himself.
“Always. You don’t get to look like me skipping breakfast,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “Thank you for keeping me company, Ms. Emmagene.”
“It was nice talking to you, Mr. Maycotte. You two enjoy your breakfast,” the septuagenarian cooed. He tipped his hat, and she was still grinning when they left her to her cup of coffee.
Deacon preferred to work in the shadows, but when he needed to be seen, he became Charles Maycotte, consultant for the FBI. He didn’t have the experience or procedural knowledge to pass himself off as a G-man, but he was intimately familiar with human psychology and all the terrible knots it could tie itself into.
The plan was straightforward. An untraceable anonymous tip would lead local authorities to the bones, which would be enough to warrant the FBI’s arrival to make inquiries and ascertain if this case was connected to the other murders along the eastern seaboard. Given the grotesque details, no one would question why Special Agent Martinez brought a profiler. They just had to give it time to percolate.
“What’s the name of this place?” Martinez asked Morris once they were in the car.
“It doesn’t really have a name,” he replied as he tugged on the seatbelt. “It’s just a place locals go to get good food.”
Phone in hand, Martinez tried a different tactic. “Okay, what’s the address? For the GPS.”
Morris smirked. “Just drive. I’ll tell you where to go.”
On the whole, the GPS was much better at giving anticipatory guidance, but it was not nearly as entertaining as Morris’s directions. Go straight past the Chicken Shack. Veer right at the fork in the road—no, more right. Take a left at the stuffed gorilla. Oh, we should have turned right back there—circle back around. She wouldn’t recommend it for general use, but it was fine for taking the long route to breakfast.
“This is it,” he announced as Martinez took her final turn into a lot with a rundown building in the back. There were no delineated parking spaces, so Martinez pulled parallel to another vehicle, giving it plenty of lateral space to avoid dings. Rental car companies were brutal about that sort of thing.
A small brass bell attached to the front door rang as Morris opened it for her; and it was like stepping back into another time. The linoleum floor was black and white harlequin and the tables were covered with white and red-checkered oilcloth. Along the far wall was a counter with a line of stools bolted to the floor. A short ledge ran flush for the parties of one to rest their feet.
A lone waitress behind the counter was topping off coffees. If she’d been wearing a pink uniform with white trim and a nametag, Martinez would have chalked this up as a retro throwback. Since she was wearing jeans and a knit top, Martinez guessed this place just hadn’t changed much over the decades.
“Take a seat where you like. I’ll be with you in a second,” the waitress greeted them before disappearing into the back through a swing door. Martinez selected a table in the corner, eying the full pie case on the way. There were a few people at the counter, and a group of three older men sat at a table at the other end of the room. The suited pair stuck out like a sore thumb, but the other patrons paid them no mind beyond stolen glances upon entry.
It was definitely an eatery, but calling it a diner was a little generous. It was the kind of establishment that didn’t need to print a menu because everything fit on a chalkboard, priced à la carte. It reminded Martinez of the numerous taquerias she had eaten at over the years. The selection may not have been broad, but what they did, they did well. The smell of fresh coffee was enough for her to give it a shot.
The waitress returned from the back bearing a plate of food from the kitchen: fried eggs and bacon accompanied by a pair of fluffy, golden biscuits. She set it down on the counter along with a wire rack of sweet, savory, and spicy condiments. The grateful man liberally dosed it with Tabasco before digging in, which made her smile. She liked people who enjoyed their food.
True to her word, she made her way to their table and put down two sets of utensils, each wrapped in a paper napkin. “What can I get ya’ll to drink?”
“Coffee for me,” Martinez answered.
“Same as the lady,” Morris seconded.
“Ya’ll take cream?” she asked.
“If it’s no trouble,” he replied.
At that she took note—manners were a dying breed. “No trouble at all. Be right back.”
She slid back behind the counter and performed a series of movements she’d done over and over, a well-rehearsed server’s ballet. She grabbed two clean mugs from the crate and slung them on the last three fingers of her left hand. She grabbed a stainless steel cup with her left thumb and index finger; it was still cold to the touch. Then she grabbed the coffee pot from the burner plate and headed out.
“Here’s the cream,” she explained as she set the steel cup down next to the fluted glass sugar pourer. Once she could rest the mugs on the table, she unthreaded her fingers from the handles and filled them up, leaving room on the top. “And there’s your coffee. Do ya’ll know what you want to eat, or do you need some time?”
Martinez tilted her head to the side and looked at Morris. “You order for us. I picked dinner last night.” Her delivery was straight but the word choice was a little more evocative than she intended. Morris let it slide; he was accustomed to bringing out the mischief in everyone.
“A platter of fried oysters, a bowl of cheesy grits, and biscuits with sausage gravy topped with two fried eggs,” he ordered without having to think about it. “And can you bring some extra plates so we can share?” The waitress didn’t write it down; she had a memory like an elephant.
“How you want those eggs?” she quizzed him.
“Firm whites, runny yolks,” he answered automatically, as if there was any other way to fry an egg.
“Coming right up,” she said with a smile. If it was a test, Morris had passed. She sauntered back to the swinging door and notched it open with her hip. “Crispy pearls, extra grits, and runny frog eyes with a squeal.”
Martinez poured a little sugar and a splash of milk in her cup, uncertain of portion size in the absence of packets and little plastic cups. “How did you ever find this place?”
“A recommendation from a hotel receptionist long ago,” he replied as he opened the flip-top lid of the steel cup and doled out a generous amount of milk for the size of the mug. “The locals always know the best places to eat, but you have to ask the older ones. Young people don’t know,” he sagely imparted wisdom as he stirred in some sugar.
“That’s borderline ageist,” Martinez cautioned him. She considered herself youngish and definitely knew about good food.
“It may be, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” he asserted before taking a sip. “Even the coffee’s good here.”
“It’s the chicory,” she stated knowingly to further discredit his theory. “And it should be, with as much sugar and milk as you put in. It’s paler than your coat.”
He pish-poshed her remark and changed subjects. “Tell me what we know about the witness.”
Martinez had requested more background information on Zoe Miller after she’d salted her apartment, and started with the broad strokes. “Zoe Miller, twenty-six years old, originally from New Orleans’s Ninth Ward but settled in Lafayette five years ago. Lost almost everything in a hurricane two years before that, including her grandmother who raised her after her mother’s death. Has an associate’s degree in accounting and has been working at Acadian Village the last four years. No criminal record—not even a speeding ticket. She’s not registered as a magician and there were no signs of casting or even protective charms in her apartment.”
“Yet she saw our spirit—spoke to him even—and lived to tell the tale,” he puzzled. “I find that very curious.”
Martinez opened her phone and pulled up a picture. “This is what came up when I salted her apartment. I’ve never seen anything like it. Is it possible for saltcasters to misfire?” she postulated.
He cut his eyes at her. “Don’t let Weber hear you say something like that.” He leaned forward to take a better look. “That’s not what this is. Ms. Miller isn’t a practitioner, but she has the ability to become one.”
Martinez gave him a skeptical look. “I thought magicians had their power come in during adolescence, along with acne and growth spurts.”
“Not everyone with the aptitude to practice magic actually learns how, either because they didn’t know or the decision was made not to develop it. Take yourself, for example. You didn’t start until you were well into adulthood.”
She was genuinely surprised by his point, even though it was completely logical. The truth was, she was so used to thinking about magicians as something “other” that she hadn’t considered her own abilities as part of the same phenomenon. When she’d signed on at the Salt Mine, a whole other world opened up and in the rush, she’d never thought to ask why she could cast. She’d just assumed it had something to do with Chloe and Dot helping her.
The magical signature she had come to recognize as her own had a form, but perhaps that was not always so. She was well into magical training when she’d had the ability to salt herself. Was that how Leader found her for recruitment? Was one of the numerous cases she’d worked as an FBI field agent suspected to be supernatural in nature and a Salt Mine agent picked up her blank signature inadvertently? She’d not bothered to ask such questions when she signed on; she was never one to dwell in the past once a decision had been made.
Although it raised other questions. If her abilities were a dormant predilection, that would mean someone in her family was likely a magician, or at least could have been. She could see her devout Catholic mother suppressing such things because they smacked of witchcraft, but she could also believe her abuela knew how to cast and ward off an evil eye. Maybe, like red hair, magic was recessive and could skip a generation, which would explain why old magical families were so particular about breeding.
Her brain flooded with these possibilities, but all that came out of her mouth was, “Huh, I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
Despite her attempts to conceal it, Morris could tell his comment stirred muddy waters. “We’ll know more when we interview her,” he remarked and redirected her focus on the case. “Let’s go over her statement of events one more time.”