Nick Noelle, Thicker Than Blood

Prologue

The light from the late afternoon sun pierced the oppressive black clouds, only to fall on the crucifix atop the tower of Saint Catherine’s Cathedral in Jackson Square, New Orleans.

Inside one of the grandest Cathedrals to the Divine,lamps flickered as the Archbishop took the stone steps one by one down to the burial grounds where the remains of the previous archbishops, from the 18th century until today, had been laid to rest.

The Archbishop’s footsteps echoed throughout the marbled mausoleum. With a perverse wisdom, he knew it was the perfect altar to take his sacrificial lamb. The Archbishop guided the young deaf and dumb boy slowly down through the dim burial chamber, gripping the small boy’s hand tightly. In his other hand, the Archbishop caressed the beads of a pearl rosary.

He stopped to stare into the boy’s dark, trusting eyes and slowly mouthed the words, Matthew, you will be consecrated here tonight. He knew the boy could read his lips. He continued, When you are crowned, you will be forever one with Christ, our Savior.

The Archbishop stepped to the lower enclave. He led the child around the black marble tombs of his dead predecessors. At the very back of the grand hall, the Archbishop stopped at the last mausoleum. The oldest archbishop was buried there. It was a small, simple altar with a white marble cross that hung on the wall above it. The priest showed the boy how to bow properly in front of it.

On the altar, two large, bronze candleholders rippled a fiery light onto the stone wall. The Archbishop had already prepared everything to his liking, setting the stage as though fora play.

The Archbishop grasped the bronze handle of a wooden chest, which was set before the altar, to nudge it open. Inside were a big, heavy gold crucifix and a gold braided dress complete with white linen skirts. The Archbishop turned the boy toward him so the child could read his lips. He announced to his young, blonde, perfect boy, As the blessed Infant of Prague, you are to become holy. When it is over, you will be mine.

The boy’s eyes widened with the thrill of becoming a saint, sacred, of being blessed. He stood there, perplexed and unmoving as the Archbishop slowly unbuttoned the boy’s trousers. When he pulled the white serving vestment off the child, the Archbishop’s favorite altar boy was left standing there almost naked except for his undershorts. For a second, the child had a flicker of doubt, but he still stood there, obediently waiting to be robed in the sacred garments.

The priest fingered the white under slips, picked them up and fitted them onto the boy. They wrapped around his slight body like a diaper. Next, the Archbishop covered the under garment with the golden dress, meant for a small male statue much younger than his prey. It fit snugly but it would have to do.

Once fully clothed in the costume, the child grinned from ear to ear, turning round and round in a circle as he surveyed his dress. The priest placed a small crown on the boy’s head as he exclaimed, And now, my child, you are the reincarnation of the Infant of Prague. But with that blessing comes great responsibility.

The Archbishop carefully peeled off his crimson vestment and lifted his long, black, inner cassock to reveal that he was wearing no trousers or underwear beneath them. As he fondled the boy’s cheek, he pulled the child’s face toward him, pressing it closer to his crotch.

The priest whispered, This is the greatest sacrament of all, better than Holy Communion. Eat my body; drink my blood.

The Archbishop was startled out of his reverie when he heard heavy steps behind him on the cold, marble floor. The priest felt a sharp blow on his shoulders that knocked him to the floor. He lay there silent, still.

The Avenger placed a blindfold over the boy’s eyes and gently held a rag doused with chloroform over his nose and mouth. The child fell into his arms, immediately unconscious. The Avenger gently laid him to the side of the altar. Once he took care of the innocent, he tended to the pressing matter at hand.

The Avenger turned to the priest, who was now weeping. He dragged the clergyman by his thinning white hair to the only electric socket near the altar. Out of his black duffel bag, the Avenger pulled out an electric drill and plugged it in. The Archbishop’s eyes were large with shock. He screamed in terror, but only for a moment, as the man quickly taped his mouth shut. The sound of the blaring drill—and the Archbishop’s muffled cries—echoed through the catacombs, as the Avenger pushed the spinning drill tip into the Archbishop’s chest wall, cutting through his breastbone and exposing his internal organs. Blood spurted and flowed freely onto the oldest archbishop’s grave.

The Avenger laughed. The harsh sound echoed throughout the room, only to be silenced by the whine of his drill. The killer pulled the heart carefully out of the priest’s chest. To further his fury, with all of his strength, the man grabbed the heavy, gold crucifix from the altar. He held it over the Archbishop’s eyes so the priest would know what was coming next…if he were still alive, that is.

The Avenger wedged open the Archbishop’s chest where his heart had been. The killer smiled as he drilled into the priest’s skull to disengage his rotten, twisted brain. Oh, so cautiously, the man lifted the brain from the priest’s split skull.

Suddenly, all was quiet, still. The man unplugged his drill. He placed the Archbishop’s brain and the heart into a plastic bag, then into a small, plastic cooler. He pushed the cooler carefully down into his bag, ever so slowly. The murderer checked the boy to make sure he was still unconscious. He was.

As his finale, the killer pulled the Archbishop’s body over to the oldest mausoleum and picked up the remains of his victim. He removed the priest’s garments and arranged his torn frame on top of the tomb. Lastly, the Avenger took the pearl rosary beads and wrapped them around the Archbishop’s shriveled, flaccid penis. He left him there, naked on display.

When he was finished tending to the Archbishop, the killer carried the unconscious boy back upstairs to the cathedral’s altar. He did this quickly because he knew it was time to flee. He placed the boy on the altar and wrapped him in the Archbishop’s vestments so the child wouldn’t catch a chill from the cold air conditioning vent blowing overhead.

Using the priest’s blood as ink, the killer wrote something on the marble wall behind the altar. With a flourish, his large, elegant handwriting left a message:

VENGEANCE IS MINE!

Before the Avenger left, he kissed the child on the head, and like the Angel of Death, disappeared into the muggy, back alleys of New Orleans as the sun began to set over the SaintCatherine’s Cathedral in the French Quarter.

Chapter One

Noelle's Nightmare

The dream always started the same way:

Nick Noelle dove into the deep end of the pool to start his workout. After the first few laps, a heavy rain poured down from the dark ominous clouds above. The chlorinated water turned into a murky sludge. Noelle continued to exert himself without making any forward movement as if he were swimming in an infinity pool.

As Noelle swam in place, the waters began to rise higher and higher, taking over the streets of his Houston neighborhood.Hurricane force winds and waves lapped at the windows of his new townhouse where he knew his sweet wife, Sally, was sleeping peacefully unaware of the danger.

Terror struck his heart as the muddy water engulfed his new home. He heard a woman with a strong Mississippi accent calling for help. He realized it was the voice of his mother, Catherine.

She called out his name, Nicolas!

He swam toward the voice but the stream morphed into a fast rushing river. Noelle fought the strong current with a herculean effort to reach his mother.

The thunder of insane guffaws and a loud cackle of a woman’s laughter stopped his momentum. Noelle knew instantly who it was and was overcome by terror and doom. She was back from the dead.

It was Pamela, the serial killer he had witnessed being swallowed by a crocodile. She was the same twisted, violent she-wolf who almost won his heart and who nearly mutilated his wife. Her dead arm wrapped around his neck and tightened,pulling him deeper into the slime. Noelle bit firmly into her arm and swallowed bits of bone, blood and hair. He saw Pamela’s face with her piercing blue eyes literally changing before him.Her body shifted and morphed as her limbs became branches.Her spine straightened and sprouted into a tree. It grew wider and taller with each moment. Her branches covered the sky and blotted out the light.

Shrieks blew and weaved through the branches of the giant evil oak tree. Noelle silently begged the powers that be tofree him from this ungodly power.

Noelle’s blood chilled when he saw his mother floating and waving wildly. She was surrounded by corpses of the doomed débutantes slain by Pamela. Their bloodcurdling screams were deafening.

Desperate to help his mother, Noelle grabbed one of Pamela’s branches that were as sharp as razors. Blood spurted from his hand so heavily that it formed a river in the midst of the muddy quicksand that trapped him.

Noelle cried out to his mother, Mama, I am coming!

The river of blood that flowed from him built a forceful wave that carried Noelle out of the swamp. Suddenly he was back in his swimming pool again. The waters all around his house had subsided. Beside the pool his mother waited and offered him a towel. She appeared young and radiant. She gently toweled off the blood, slime and murky waters from his shivering body. Once he was clean she comforted him. Nick rested his head on her breast and breathed a sigh of relief.

His mother kissed his cheek and whispered, Nick, my sweet boy, I have something to tell you. You must come to me for salvation.

Noelle woke up sobbing.

He opened his eyes and saw his wife Sally. She sat up and wrapped her arms around him.

Nick, you were screaming again! she told him sleepily.

With a racing heart, Noelle murmured, I just had that weird-ass dream again.

Sally touched his face and stroked his hair to soothe him. Noelle made the connection between his mother’s touch and the loving warmth of his wife. It was the same tenderness he knew as a very young child before his mother remarried Noelle’s horror of a stepfather.

Noelle smiled weakly but his nightmare lingered. He kissed Sally then spooned her warm curves until she fell backto sleep.

Once Noelle was confident his wife was out like a light, he carefully stepped out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs. Hehad a strong need for the Jack Daniel's that he kept hidden in his office.

‘Jack’ was the only friend who could calm his nerves. That night it took almost the whole bottle of the Tennessee whiskey before Noelle had the courage to crawl back up to bed. Still, he couldn’t fall asleep until the sun rose over the house and darkness was gone.

Chapter Two

Sins of the Fathers

The next morning, Noelle rolled over on to Sally’s long, red hair. It spread out like a fan, filling the pillow next to his. With a racing heart, he opened his eyes. I had that nightmare again, he told her.

I know, she said. Don’t you remember you woke me up in the middle of the night sobbing?

Noelle felt shame and mumbled under his breath, Sorry.

Don’t be, Sally told him.

She sat up in their big, brass bed; the one constant in their on-again, off-again relationship. Without makeup and the sun shining across her face, Sally was still beautiful. Noelle never got used to or tired of looking at her.

After he and Lopez had solved the Debutante Murders and Pamela was dead and buried (in the guts of a crocodile), Nick Noelle retired from the Houston Crime Squad and remarried Sally. Noelle took an early pension and bought a new townhouse in Montrose, a budding upscale Houston neighborhood. Sally filled their new home with tasteful modern furniture but had insisted they keep their old brass bed. It had lasted through the worst of their trials and tribulations. The bed did not reflect the new modern lines of her home. She romanticized the bed as a symbol of their powerful lasting love.

As Sally kissed Noelle’s head, he smiled, hugging her close. However, the horror of his nightmare lingered. He thought about the passage of time since he had closed the book on those insane Debutante Murders. The events of less than a year ago seemed like another lifetime to him now.

Since he remarried Sally he was trying to wean himself off the bottle and give up the gambling to keep the promise he made to her on their second wedding day. Since he had retired, Noelle’s new life lacked purpose and focus while Sally’s life had become the opposite.

After her near-fatal ordeal with Pamela, she was struck clean and sober with the help of Narcotics Anonymous. Noelle had made no such commitment, only a promise to try and stop. He felt guilty drinking in front of her, so he did it privately behind her back. It only increased his guilt and shame.

Noelle told Sally what he thought she wanted to hear only to make her happy. He even attended some Gamblers Anonymous meetings but he wasn’t about to surrender the whole kit and caboodle. He couldn’t abandon Jack...not yet. He needed it more than ever since his re-occurring nightmare.

Although Sally could smell the booze on him, she never said a word to him about it. Noelle knew that she suspected he was drinking a lot. His excuse was insomnia but he knew the truth. He knew he was becoming an alky, just like his loser old man.

Noelle was conflicted. He didn’t want to stop drinking but he didn’t want his affliction to hurt poor Sally. Noelle knew that if he followed in the footsteps of his deadbeat dad, inevitably it would. God knows, he loved Sally more than life. But Noelle also knew that he was failing miserably at being the man she deserved, the same man she had hoped he would become once they started over again. The question was: could he ever become that man?

Guilt rode Noelle as he realized that his happy, little home was just not enough to make him happy. He missed the chase, the rush of his detective work. He was bored with the empty, predictable, day-to-day life of a retired, married man. He had just turned fifty and suspected that Sally, who was hedging on thirty, wanted much more as well. To keep pace with his young wife, Noelle took up fitness by swimming in their new pool and playing golf, but he still had too much time on his hands. He knew he needed some kind of purpose.

Noelle didn’t need his keen gut instinct to know his nightmares were about the unfinished business between him and his mother. He hadn’t been back to New Orleans since he put his mother Catherine into an assisted living facility soon after he noticed her slipping into early dementia. Over the years, her letters diminished as did his telephone calls. He only phoned her on holidays and her birthday. All the years he spent crime solving made it easy for Noelle to brush his shaky relationship with her under the table, but lately it had been eating at him.

As Sally made breakfast, Noelle picked through the mail at his desk, resenting all the charities his generous wife gave to, even though it was only ten bucks here and there. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford it; he just was cynical. He wondered if the money actually went to the needy.

Noelle remembered how his mother would curse the television preachers when they hit up the holy viewers for donations. It used to make him laugh watching her scream at the evangelical preachers on their old black-and-white television with the floppy rabbit-ear antennas taped down to the set so they wouldn’t fall off. It was the only time he’d ever heard his mother use foul language.

As he waited for breakfast, Noelle took a swig of Jack to steady his shakes. He wondered if a trip to New Orleans was in the cards. Maybe, just maybe, the nightmares would end if he went there to face his past.

As they ate, Noelle told Sally that he was going off to play a few rounds of golf with Ted Wilson, one of Houston’s prominent "Defender-of-the-Rich-Crooks’’ attorneys. Ted, like Noelle, had recently retired. But unlike Noelle, Ted was part of the country club set. Although Noelle wasn’t in the habit of hobnobbing with the upper crust, and strongly disliked the rich, he tolerated Ted because Ted worshipped Noelle. So, why not golf with the guy? Noelle had nothing better to do with his day anyway.

As he gathered the new set of clubs Sally had given him on his fiftieth, Noelle announced, I’m taking your advice to stay in shape. He kissed Sally on the cheek and promised to be home in time for dinner.

After an uneventful game of golf, Noelle checked in with Sally to see what she was up to. She told him that she was taking his ex-partner Juan Lopez’s wife, Maria, shopping for maternity clothes but that she was planning something special for him and not to be late for dinner.

After her shopping spree with Maria, Sally had decided to take Maria’s advice on how to spice up her marriage by cooking Nick a phenomenal meal.

Dressed casually in jeans and a peasant blouse, Sally headed over to Jamail’s Grocery Store. She headed right to the butcher’s counter and asked for two special cuts of filet mignon.

Sally thought, ‘Only the best for my man.’ She wasn’t going to settle for pre-packaged meat sitting for ‘God know show long’.

At Jamail’s produce section, Sally picked out a beautiful bunch of asparagus and thoughtfully chose all the fixings for a spectacular mixed green salad. In the dairy section, she carefully selected an aged goat cheese that would be perfect to top off the salad.

After grocery shopping, Sally put away her purchases and went for a jog around the neighborhood. She believed itwas her wifely duty to stay in good shape for her man—and for herself.

Noelle took advantage of his free time and popped into Sam’s Gambling Parlor, just for old time’s sake. He felt like such a creep lying to Sally and telling her he was going to Gamblers Anonymous meetings when he was actually back at Sam’s high roller tables. His wife trusted him so completely and here he was betraying that trust.

As Noelle strutted through the room, people turned to look at him. They shook his hand and patted him on the back.

Solving the most famous murder case in Houston’s history had given him a celebrity status of sorts and he dressed to fit the part—compliments of Sally’s good eye and good taste. Noelle looked smart in his crew neck sweater, which he wore under a light summer jacket. Although he knew he never looked better, he cringed when he thought of his adoring wife again.

Noelle wiped his sweaty brow and grabbed a seat at one of the poker tables, hoping to fix his gambling itch with one good game. As always, he memorized the faces surrounding him: the do-or-die guy in his late sixties sporting long whiskers and reeking of cheap cologne, the well-dressed lady with a salt-and-pepper bouffant hairdo and an elegant string of real pearls around her slender neck (a sure sign she had money to burn, and Pearl’s exact opposite sitting across from her. She was a lady he had seen there often. She was a short, plump blonde hiding her wide hips and fat butt under a purple satin tent dress.

Noelle was annoyed by the soundtrack the brazen blonde added to the scene. Her huge, brass, bangle bracelets were stacked from wrist to elbow on both arms. They clanged every time she chugged her whiskey or lifted her cards.

When the hands were dealt, Noelle tried to hide his new, winning smile. (Sally had insisted he take care of his chipped,stained teeth when they remarried. No matter how bright his grin was, he didn’t feel like a winner that night even though he held a pair of aces.

He ordered another double shot of his favorite poison,relieved to be among other hard drinkers, including the elegant lady with the pearls who demurely sipped her third martini.

After a four-mile run, Sally took the time to draw herself a bath. She poured aromatic salts into the tub and enjoyed a long,luxurious soak. She slipped into her new dress, the one Maria insisted she buy on their shopping spree. Sally knew it was just the style Noelle loved; subtle yet sexy and innocent all in one.

She paused to study her reflection in the mirror, brushing her long, red hair. It had grown past her shoulders in the ten months since Pamela, the serial killer, tortured her by chopping it all off. As the current fashion trend dictated, Sally now parted it down the middle and wore it poker straight.

She filled in her lush lips with her favorite peach lipstick and brushed blush faintly across her high cheekbones. Next, Sally defined her large blue eyes with liner and mascara. She was pleased at the image of a classy, A-list fashion model staring back at her. For the finishing touch she sprayed the Chanel No. 5 Nick had given her on the nape of her neck.

The clock on Sally’s dresser read 7:05. She looked out the window to see if Noelle’s car was in sight. It wasn’t. Regardless, she walked downstairs to set the dining room table with their best china. She even used the silver candlesticks Noelle’s ex-boss had given them as a wedding gift.

Sally had prepped the vegetables and salad earlier and the potatoes were baking in the oven, so there was little left to do. She had the steaks marinating in a Spanish herb recipe she’d gotten from Maria. The only thing left was putting them on the grill. Since they were thick, she turned on the gas broiler so it would heat up, and left it on a low flame.

Suddenly exhausted from her busy day, Sally plopped herself onto the couch. As she waited for Noelle, she flipped through her new magazine on etiquette. The next time she looked up, she noticed that the hands on the large antique clock in the living room were approaching seven thirty.

Certain Noelle was bound to come in any second and apologize for being late, Sally decided to start the steaks. She set the timer so the beautiful pieces of meat wouldn’t overcook. (Noelle liked his steak medium rare. When the timer’s bell rang, she flipped the steaks to the other side, lovingly basting them with more marinade.

By the time Sally removed the meat from the broiler, her cheeks burned with resentment. It was now eight o’clock and still no sign of Noelle. She put the food in a warmer, sat on the kitchen stool and broke down in tears.

By nine o’clock, Sally’s stomach began to heave up the goat cheese she had nibbled off the top of the salad. She blew out the fancy candles and sobbed some more. By ten, she wrapped the food in foil, dumped the salad into Tupperware and stuck it all in the fridge.

Exhausted, Sally dropped back onto the couch and passed out. She was still wearing her new dress. Mascara stained her face.

Hours later, stone cold drunk, Noelle fumbled with his key in the back door. The kitchen light hadn’t been turned off. He noticed the uneaten chocolate cake then saw Sally curled upon the living room couch. He stumbled over to her and wrapped his arms around her. Sally opened her big, blue eyes, which flashed with rage, and pushed him away.

Where the fuck were you? she yelled.

Noelle slurred, "I had one drink, then another, which