Chapter 2
The following morning, Benjamin Reese was sprawled across his bed, completely naked except for a sheet that precariously covered his lower half and a thick blanket tangled around his legs. The room was dim, the heavy curtains doing their best to keep out the bright Louisiana sun, but narrow shafts of light still slipped through the gaps, illuminating the aftermath of the previous night's excesses. The clothes he had worn—now wrinkled, rumpled, and carrying the unmistakable odor of stale alcohol and cigarette smoke—were draped carelessly over a nearby chair. His scuffed shoes lay abandoned on opposite sides of the room, one partially hidden beneath the nightstand and the other tipped over near the door, silent evidence of a less-than-graceful arrival home.
The pungent aroma of bourbon and cheap beer still clung stubbornly to him. It was a lingering reminder of the previous evening spent roaming the bars of the French Quarter with fellow detectives from the New Orleans Police Department. There had been laughter, arguments, stories that had grown taller with every round, and enough alcohol consumed to make a lesser man question his life choices. It had felt less like a night out and more like an organized effort to drink the city dry. Judging by the hammering pain behind his eyes, they had made a respectable attempt. Unfortunately, as Reese lay there with a headache that seemed determined to split his skull in two, he couldn't shake the feeling that he and his companions had still somehow fallen short of their ambitious goal.
He would have been perfectly content to remain buried beneath the blankets for another hour, drifting comfortably between sleep and consciousness, but the shrill chirping of his phone abruptly shattered that pleasant fantasy. The sound seemed impossibly loud in the quiet room, each ring stabbing into his already throbbing head like an ice pick.
"Reese," he croaked, his voice rough and scratchy from sleep and too much alcohol, his mouth feeling as parched and unpleasant as a litter box that hadn't been cleaned in far too long.
"Hey, Ben, it's Bobby," came the exuberant voice on the other end, brimming with an energy that felt downright irritating given Reese's current state. "You're going to want to hear this. We've got a juicy multiple homicide case for you this morning," Bobby continued, his tone almost buoyant as he delivered the news. "At least, we think it's murder."
Reese groaned as he rolled over in bed, immediately regretting the movement as the room swirled around him like a carnival ride gone horribly wrong. The pounding in his head intensified, each heartbeat feeling like a hammer strike against the inside of his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut and lay perfectly still for a moment, hoping the sensation would pass.
"Damn," he muttered. "I really need to stop doing this shit."
With considerable effort, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat there for several seconds, elbows resting on his knees. The cool air of the room felt strangely sharp against his skin. Slowly, the dizziness began to subside. Rising carefully to his feet, he shuffled toward the kitchen, one hand dragging across the wall for balance. Every step reminded him of the previous night's poor decisions.
The kitchen was quiet except for the faint hum of the refrigerator. Reese opened it and grabbed a bottle of water, twisting the cap off and draining nearly half of it in one long swallow. The cold liquid felt glorious against his dry throat. It didn't cure the hangover, but it at least made him feel slightly less like death warmed over.
"Okay, Bobby, text me the address, but give me a few minutes to shower and get my act together," he said, holding the phone between his shoulder and ear.
Then something Bobby had said finally penetrated the lingering fog in his brain.
"What do you mean you think it's murder?" Reese asked, frowning. "Could it be suicide?"
For a brief moment, he wondered if he was walking into some bizarre mass suicide or murder-suicide situation. Those cases were ugly enough on their own.
"No, it could be an animal attack," Bobby Johnson replied, his voice becoming noticeably more serious. The enthusiasm was gone now, replaced by something Reese didn't often hear from him—uncertainty. "It's bad. I'm leaving it up to you to make that call. Oh, and whatever you do, don't eat breakfast before you come. Trust me on that one."
The line went silent for a second.
An animal attack?
In New Orleans?
Reese stared at the kitchen counter, trying to process that statement through the haze of his hangover.
"Now you've got my attention," he said quietly.
With a growing sense of unease settling into his stomach, Reese headed for the bathroom. The shower filled the room with steam as hot water poured over him. He stood beneath it for several minutes, letting the heat work some life back into his aching muscles. Gradually, the pounding in his head eased from unbearable to merely unpleasant.
Afterward, he brushed his teeth twice and gargled enough mouthwash to sterilize a small country. Staring into the mirror, he examined the man looking back at him. The eyes were bloodshot. The face looked tired. But at least he now resembled a detective instead of a casualty.
A short time later, dressed in freshly pressed clothes and wearing his badge and sidearm, Reese felt somewhat restored. Not good, certainly not healthy, but functional. In police work, that often had to be enough.
Traffic was surprisingly cooperative as he drove through the city. Morning sunlight reflected from windows and windshields while the streets slowly filled with people beginning their day. Vendors opened storefronts. Delivery trucks made their rounds. Tourists wandered sidewalks with coffee cups in hand, blissfully unaware that somewhere nearby a scene awaited that had seasoned detectives calling one another before breakfast.
The farther Reese drove, the more his hangover faded into the background. Professional instinct gradually replaced personal misery. By the time he neared the address Bobby had texted him, his mind was focused entirely on the case.
An hour later, he pulled to the curb and stepped from his vehicle.
The morning air was surprisingly pleasant. The oppressive heat and humidity that New Orleans was famous for had not yet settled over the city. A faint breeze drifted between the buildings, carrying distant sounds of traffic and conversation. Reese straightened his jacket and adjusted his badge.
Though his body still felt as if it had recently lost a fight with a freight train, he looked every bit the professional homicide detective.
Now he just had to find out why Bobby had told him not to eat breakfast.
Bobby was waiting for him at the mouth of a narrow alley, where morgue attendants and forensic personnel moved in and out with grim efficiency. The scene had an almost choreographed quality, as if everyone knew their role in a macabre performance they would have preferred not to attend. The flashing lights of police vehicles painted intermittent streaks of red and blue across the surrounding brick walls. Instead of stretchers, a multitude of heavy black plastic body bags lined the entrance to the crime scene. Some were zipped closed, while others remained partially open as investigators worked. Their presence alone provided a sobering hint of the grim reality hidden deeper within the alley.
“I hope you took my advice and skipped breakfast,” Bobby said, his expression unusually serious. The humor Reese normally expected from him was absent. “It’s more than just a little messy in there. Like they need a pair of tweezers and a flat shovel to clean up the mess.”
He gestured with a tilt of his head toward the alley, the weight of his warning hanging heavily in the morning air.
Reese shrugged, trying to mask the apprehension creeping into his thoughts. Years in homicide had hardened him to the ugly realities of death. He had stood over victims whose heads had been destroyed by shotgun blasts at point-blank range. He had worked on machete murders where entire rooms looked as though someone had attacked the walls with buckets of paint. He had seen overdose victims, gang executions, domestic murders, and scenes involving children that still visited him in his dreams from time to time. Such memories never truly leave a detective. They lingered in dark corners of the mind, surfacing unexpectedly years later.
“I've seen some truly horrific scenes,” Reese replied, drawing confidence from experience.
“Not like this, you haven't,” Johnson said.
A cynical grin crossed Bobby's face, but it lacked any genuine humor. Reese knew his partner well enough to recognize the difference. Bobby enjoyed exaggeration as much as any detective, but when he described something as bad, it usually meant it was far worse than advertised.
The two men continued forward.
As they approached the rusted chain-link fence that marked the far end of the secured crime scene, Reese suddenly stopped.
For a moment, he simply stared.
The alley beyond looked less like a crime scene and more like the aftermath of a battlefield massacre.
Dark stains covered the pavement. Blood splattered the brick walls in wide arcs and violent streaks. Evidence markers dotted the ground among scattered debris. Investigators moved carefully through the destruction, taking photographs and collecting samples while trying not to step where they shouldn't.
“Jesus wept,” Reese whispered, the words escaping before he could stop them.
His eyes moved across the carnage, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
“How many guys are there?”
At first glance, it was impossible to tell.
There was no obvious place where the victims began or ended. The destruction was too extensive, too chaotic. His experienced detective's mind instinctively tried to assemble the pieces into something understandable, but the scene resisted every effort.
“We're pretty sure there are three,” Johnson replied dryly. “We counted the parts. Arms, legs, and heads.”
Reese shot him a look.
Bobby merely shrugged.
“Dark humor,” he said. “Occupational hazard.”
Taking a slow breath, Reese stepped beneath the crime scene tape and entered the alley.
The smell hit him immediately.
Not merely blood.
Not merely death.
There was something else mixed into it. Something wild. Something animal.
His stomach tightened.
The entire area looked as though an unspeakable nightmare had unfolded there during the night. There were no intact bodies lying neatly beneath sheets awaiting examination. Instead, what remained were grotesque fragments of humanity scattered throughout the alley.
His gaze settled on a pair of severed arms hanging from the chain-link fence.
The fingers were still curled tightly around the metal links.
For one horrible moment, Reese could almost picture the final seconds. The victim had attempted to climb. He had been desperate enough to claw his way up the fence in a frantic effort to escape.
And then something had caught him.
The arms appeared to have been torn away with tremendous force, ripped directly from their sockets while their owner struggled to flee.
They hung there like some grotesque Halloween decoration, swaying slightly whenever a breeze passed through the alley.
Reese felt a wave of nausea rise in his empty stomach.
For several seconds, he simply stared.
In all his years as a homicide detective, he had never seen anything remotely like it.
“Are you really convinced this is a homicide and not just a horrific animal attack?” Reese asked finally, forcing himself to look away from the fence.
His voice carried a mixture of disbelief and professional curiosity.
The sheer brutality of the carnage defied comprehension. The victims had not merely been killed. They had been destroyed. The level of violence on display seemed far beyond what any ordinary human being could inflict upon another.
Even after years of investigating murders, Reese struggled to process what he was seeing.
These men had not simply died.
They had literally been ripped apart.
Bobby Johnson let out a low chuckle, though there was little genuine humor in it. The sound felt more like a defense mechanism than amusement, a veteran detective's way of coping with a scene that made no sense.
"What kind of animal do you think could cause this kind of chaos?" he asked, gesturing toward the mangled remains scattered throughout the alley. "Sure, we've got a few black bears wandering the bayous from time to time, but I seriously doubt one of them strolled into the city last night looking for a midnight snack. Hell, I've seen what a bear can do to a person. Years ago, I worked a case where a hunter got between a sow and her cubs. It was ugly. Real ugly. But even that didn't look like this."
His gaze swept across the carnage.
"So, unless the Creature from the Black Lagoon crawled out of the Mississippi and decided to start feeding on street trash, I'm not buying the animal attack theory. This is supposed to be an animal attack, but I've never heard of anything around here capable of doing this."
"Point taken," Reese replied.
His eyes remained fixed on the destruction around him. The smell of blood hung heavily in the humid air, mixing with the odors of garbage, oil, and damp brick. Yet even as he surveyed the scene, something felt wrong. Not merely the violence itself, but something deeper, something his subconscious had already noticed even if his conscious mind had not yet caught up.
"Any surveillance cameras in the area?" Reese asked. "Something had to see these guys come in or go out."
Bobby nodded.
"None directly in the alley. Whoever picked this spot knew what they were doing. But a couple of businesses on the street have cameras. Uniforms are already talking to the owners. With any luck, one of them caught something."
"Good."
Reese crouched beside a collection of remains while investigators worked around him.
"I need the meat wagon boys moving faster," he said. "Get every piece of these men to the coroner. There may be something in all this that tells us what happened."
"Consider it done."
Johnson nodded without argument.
He respected Benjamin Reese. Most detectives eventually developed instincts. Reese seemed born with them. Over the years, he had solved cases that had baffled entire investigative teams. More than once, another detective had jokingly called him Columbo. Reese hated the nickname, but secretly Bobby thought it fit. The man had an annoying habit of finding answers that everyone else overlooked.
Left alone with his thoughts, Reese continued examining the alley.
His eyes moved methodically across every inch of the scene.
The brick walls.
The dumpsters.
The fence.
The pavement.
Years of experience had taught him that crime scenes spoke. The trick was learning how to listen.
Something caught his attention.
A series of deep scratches scarred the brick wall of the adjoining building.
He walked over and examined them more closely.
Four parallel grooves.
Each nearly an inch deep.
The brick itself had been gouged away.
Reese slowly ran his fingertips along the damaged surface.
The edges felt sharp and fresh.
Whatever had made these marks had done so recently.
"What the hell made you?" he murmured.
His mind immediately searched for possibilities.
Years ago, he had worked on a homicide in which a woman murdered her boyfriend with a handheld garden cultivator before attempting to stage the scene as an animal attack. The wounds had fooled officers initially, but not the forensic team.
Could something similar have happened here?
Maybe.
A specialized tool could explain the scratches.
Perhaps.
But it didn't explain the bodies.
It didn't explain the missing limbs.
And it certainly didn't explain the sheer force required to carve grooves this deep into solid brick.
Still, Reese made a mental note to have the markings examined for metal residue.
Every clue mattered.
Even the strange ones.
Then another thought surfaced.
Actually, it wasn't something he saw.
It was something he didn't see.
Blood.
There was blood throughout the alley.
Plenty of it.
Dark stains coated sections of pavement. Crimson streaks decorated the walls. Small pools had formed in low spots where the concrete dipped.
Yet for three men who had been literally torn apart, there should have been vastly more.
The realization stopped him cold.
An average adult male carries roughly twelve pints of blood.
Three victims.
Thirty-six pints.
Over four gallons.
Reese slowly turned in a circle, studying the scene again.
The blood present was horrific.
But it wasn't enough.
Not even close.
This alley should have looked like the floor of a slaughterhouse.
Instead, it looked as though someone had removed most of the blood before leaving behind what little remained.
For the first time since arriving, a genuine chill crawled up his spine.
That wasn't normal.
That wasn't even remotely normal.
Trying to clear his head, Reese stepped beyond the crime scene tape and onto the street.
The city was waking up around him.
Cars rolled past.
Delivery trucks made their rounds.
Pedestrians hurried along sidewalks carrying coffee and breakfast sandwiches.
Within an hour, thousands of people would pass this block without ever realizing what had happened here during the night.
His eyes wandered toward a muddy patch near the curb, roughly a hundred feet from the alley.
Something there caught his attention.
He walked over and crouched.
A footprint.
Small.
Distinct.
The tread pattern of a running shoe.
Reese studied it carefully.
The impression was surprisingly deep.
Deeper than someone casually walking would normally leave.
Whoever made it had been moving quickly.
Running.
The size suggested a smaller individual, possibly a woman.
The edges remained sharp, indicating it had been left recently, likely sometime during the previous evening or night before foot traffic could disturb it.
Was it connected?
Probably not.
Still, Reese had built a career on investigating probabilities that everyone else ignored.
Pulling out his phone, he photographed the print from several angles.
Maybe it was nothing.
Maybe it belonged to a jogger.
Or maybe it was the first useful piece of evidence he had found all morning.
As he stood, he took one final look toward the alley.
The coroner's team was busy collecting what remained of the victims. Forensic personnel continued photographing and cataloging evidence. The scene would occupy them for hours.
For now, there was little more he could accomplish here.
The answers would come from the lab, the coroner, witnesses, and whatever footage the nearby businesses might provide.
Police work often depended on long shots.
Sometimes long shots became breakthroughs.
And right now, breakthroughs were exactly what Benjamin Reese needed.
As Reese sat in his car just outside the crime scene, staring absently through the windshield, it suddenly struck him how hungry he was. Between the hangover and Johnson's warning, he had skipped breakfast entirely and rushed straight to the alley. Now that the immediate demands of the crime scene were behind him, his stomach was making its displeasure known.
Almost immediately, thoughts of Skeeter's Place drifted into his mind.
Within minutes, he was pulling into the diner's gravel parking lot.
Skeeters wasn't the sort of place tourists usually found. It sat a few streets away from the polished sections of the city, tucked between older buildings that had seen better days. The faded sign above the entrance had been there longer than Reese could remember. Inside, however, the place possessed something chain restaurants could never manufacture—character. The food was excellent, the coffee was strong enough to wake the dead, and the regular customers often provided more useful information than half the department's confidential informants.
The moment he stepped through the door, a wave of familiar aromas washed over him. Fresh coffee. Bacon grease. Butter melting on toast. The scent alone was enough to make his stomach growl.
The diner hummed with the sounds of an ordinary New Orleans morning. Silverware clinked against plates. Coffee cups rattled against saucers. A few retirees occupied their usual table in the corner, debating politics with the same passion they had probably displayed every morning for the last twenty years.
"Morning, Sue," Reese called.
The waitress glanced up from refilling a coffee cup and immediately grinned.
"What'll it be, Detective?"
"What's good today?"
Sue laughed.
"The same thing that's been good since you were in grade school." She placed one hand on her hip. "You getting your regular, or am I gonna have to listen to another one of your complaints about the menu?"
"My complaints improve the atmosphere."
"Your complaints increase my blood pressure."
"Same thing."
Sue rolled her eyes.
"Regular it is."
A few minutes later, Reese settled into his usual booth near the window. Before he could even ask, Sue appeared and set down a steaming mug of coffee.
The rich aroma rose into the air.
Reese wrapped both hands around the cup and took a long sip.
For the first time all morning, he felt almost human.
Soon afterward, breakfast arrived.
Golden-brown toast coated in cinnamon butter.
Two sunny-side-up eggs.
Several thick slices of Canadian bacon.
The sight of it nearly brought tears to his eyes.
"You look like you're about to propose marriage to that plate," Sue observed.
"Don't judge me."
"I absolutely judge you."
Reese cut into an egg and watched the yolk spill across the plate.
Life suddenly seemed a little less terrible.
Then Sue spoke again.
"Hey, I heard about those three guys who got killed last night."
The words immediately brought the crime scene rushing back into his mind.
The severed arms.
The blood.
The claw marks.
His appetite diminished slightly.
"Are you working that one?" Sue asked. "The radio didn't say much. They mentioned something about an animal attack."
"Yeah," Reese replied.
His tone alone told her everything she needed to know.
"It's bad."
Sue pulled out the seat across from him and sat down for a moment.
"How bad?"
Reese stared into his coffee.
"I've worked homicides for a long time."
Sue nodded.
"I know."
"I've seen executions. Drug murders. Domestic violence. Cartel stuff."
"And?"
Reese hesitated.
"This was worse."
The waitress frowned.
"Worse how?"
He took another sip of coffee before answering.
"The kind of scene that sticks with you."
Sue's expression became more serious.
"You think it's gang-related?"
"I don't think so."
He shook his head.
"The victims didn't have gang colors. No obvious gang tattoos. Nothing that immediately points in that direction. Could've been a drug deal gone bad, but right now we're mostly guessing."
He paused.
"The problem is the damage."
"What kind of damage?"
Reese looked around the diner.
Several customers were now quietly pretending not to listen.
"They weren't just killed."
Sue waited.
"They were torn apart."
For the first time, she looked genuinely unsettled.
"Torn apart?"
"Literally."
The waitress slowly leaned back in her chair.
"Jesus."
"Yeah."
For several moments, neither of them spoke.
Finally, Sue shook her head.
"Well, if it's an animal, I've never heard of one around here capable of doing that."
"Neither have I."
"We've got gators."
"I know."
"We've got wild hogs."
"I know."
"We've got things in the swamp that'll ruin your day."
"I know."
"But nothing like that."
She fell silent.
Then, suddenly, she looked down and chuckled to herself.
"What?"
Sue shook her head.
"Nothing."
"What?"
"It's stupid."
"Sue."
The waitress grinned.
"Maybe it's the Bayou Girl."
Reese lowered his coffee cup.
"The what?"
"The Bayou Girl."
His brow furrowed.
"Who exactly is that?"
Sue laughed again.
"Nobody. Just an old story."
She leaned against the booth and lowered her voice slightly.
"Old Creole legend. Been around forever. Depending on who's telling it, she's either a witch, a ghost, a swamp spirit, or some beautiful woman who lives deep in the bayous."
"And what does she do?"
"Oh, the usual."
"The usual?"
"Appears out of nowhere. Lures bad men into the swamp. Makes them disappear."
Reese smirked.
"Convenient."
"Gets better."
Sue pointed a finger at him.
"According to some versions, she drinks blood."
"Of course she does."
"According to others, she eats people."
"Naturally."
"And according to my grandmother, if you hear a beautiful woman singing in the swamp after dark, you should run in the opposite direction."
Reese laughed despite himself.
"Sounds like somebody's grandmother had an active imagination."
Sue grinned.
"Probably. She drank a lot of moonshine, too."
She stood and picked up her coffee pot.
"Truth is, it's just folklore. A scary story to keep kids away from the water, warn them about alligators, and entertain tourists on airboat rides."
As she walked away, Reese took another bite of breakfast.
Yet despite himself, he found his thoughts drifting back to the crime scene.
The missing blood.
The claw marks.
The impossible violence.
And for reasons he couldn't quite explain, the old legend no longer seemed quite as amusing as it had a few moments earlier.
Reese shrugged, long accustomed to the Big Easy's seemingly endless collection of ghost stories, urban legends, and supernatural folklore. New Orleans had always been fertile ground for such tales. Between the city's centuries of history, its old cemeteries, lingering voodoo traditions, and the vast stretches of swamp and bayou that surrounded it, people were always whispering about something strange lurking just beyond the edge of civilization. Most of the stories were nonsense, of course. Yet the bayous themselves were another matter entirely. Miles of dark water, tangled cypress roots, and isolated stretches of wilderness created places where sunlight struggled to penetrate and where a person could disappear without a trace. Even Reese had never been particularly eager to wander too deeply into them after dark.
"Alright," he said, nodding skeptically as he cut into another piece of Canadian bacon. "I've got enough on my plate without worrying about some mythical witch running around the neighborhood."
He paused, then pointed his fork toward Sue.
"But just out of curiosity, why is she called the Bayou Girl? Why not the Bayou Woman? Or the Bayou Witch? Seems like a strange name when you think about it."
Sue stopped in mid-step.
A thoughtful expression crossed her face.
For several moments, she simply stood there, staring off toward the front windows of the diner as if searching through decades of half-forgotten memories. The story was one she had heard countless times growing up, usually from older relatives gathered on porches during humid summer evenings. Yet she suddenly realized she had never actually questioned the name before.
"You know," she said slowly, "I haven't thought about that story in years."
She leaned against the booth and folded her arms.
"I guess it's because everybody who claims to have seen her describes the same thing."
"The same thing?" Reese asked.
Sue nodded.
"A young woman. Beautiful. Usually very young. Not some old crone stirring a pot over a fire or flying around on a broomstick."
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
"Actually, now that you mention it, that is a little odd."
She tilted her head thoughtfully.
"Most stories about witches describe some scary old woman with warts and missing teeth. The Bayou Girl was always supposed to be young and easy on the eyes."
Reese took a sip of coffee while considering that.
"Interesting."
He stared into the dark liquid for a moment before setting the mug back onto the table.
"Then again, maybe it isn't that strange."
Sue raised an eyebrow.
"How so?"
"Sirens."
"The mermaid things?"
"The Greek ones," Reese clarified. "Beautiful women who sang to sailors. They weren't monsters because they looked frightening. They were monsters because they looked irresistible. The whole point was getting people close enough before it was too late."
Sue nodded slowly.
"That's actually a pretty good comparison."
Reese shrugged.
"If somebody were inventing a supernatural predator, making her beautiful would probably be part of the package."
The waitress laughed.
"Well, if she's out there, let's hope she stays in the swamp."
"Agreed."
He glanced down at his breakfast.
"Although at this point, I can't honestly say a witch didn't kill those three guys."
Sue blinked.
"You're kidding."
"I wish I were."
He shook his head.
"When a crime scene stops making sense, every possibility stays on the table until evidence rules it out. Right now, I've got a lot more questions than answers."
The images from the alley briefly returned to his mind.
The severed arms.
The claw marks.
The missing blood.
None of it fit together.
None of it made sense.
Sue noticed the expression on his face and wisely decided not to press further.
"I guess it is what it is, Detective."
Reese finally smiled.
"Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to eat what's left of this breakfast before it gets cold."
"Probably a good idea."
She grabbed the coffee pot and topped off his mug.
"If you solve the mystery, let me know whether it was the Bayou Girl."
"I'll put it in my official report."
That earned a laugh from both of them.
As Sue walked away, Reese returned his attention to his plate. Yet despite his skepticism, he found himself turning the name over in his mind.
Bayou Girl.
Just another local legend.
At least, that's what he told himself.