Let the Devil Out (27 page)

“If this isn't a national story yet,” Sansone said, “it will be any minute. You should call your people and let them know you're okay. I mean, who fucking knows what those media people are saying.”

Maureen checked her phone. She'd gotten no calls, which was a good sign. Her mother and Waters hadn't heard the news of the shootings yet. “I'll do that. When I get a minute, I'll send a text.”

Sansone shook his head. “No, no, no. Not a text. Let them hear your voice. You like acting like you're a lone ranger, but you're not. Show respect for your people.”

“Okay, okay,” Maureen said. “I'll call.”

“Ten-four.” Sansone moved to turn away, then came back to her, standing closer than he had before. “Whatever it is that happened at the river, whatever went on before that with Quinn and Ruiz, consider that over and done with. Maybe it gets revisited down the road, maybe it doesn't. That depends on you, mostly. But right now we're under the gun, and you're one of us. We gotta stick together. You need something, you call, you reach out. Ya hear?”

He waited for an answer.

“I hear you,” Maureen said.

“And whoever else there is to get, we'll get 'em. Only a matter of time.” He grinned and pounded his armored chest with his gloved fist. “Believe.”

Maureen felt tears rising to her eyes again. They ran down her cheeks when she tried to blink them away. She knew who else there was to get. She knew at whose doorstep the blood trail ended. Forget the goddamn weed dealers, Solomon Heath's door needed kicking in. She wanted to pin the man down, hold a broken bottle to his throat while he called his sons in Dubai. She wanted to, but she wouldn't. Not then. Not yet. She returned Sansone's grin and nodded at him. “Right,” she said. “We'll get 'em. Believe.”

But she was lying. She didn't believe.

*   *   *

She watched Sansone as he marched away from her to join the rest of his crew before they went out to eat together, which they would do before they spent the night working together. Maureen knew she'd have to dart out of roll call in a hurry if she was going to get on the streets alone tonight. And she needed to do that. Work alone. She didn't need anyone asking her questions about where she was going and what she was doing.

Carrying her vest and wearing the FBI windbreaker, she walked to Detillier's car. She left his jacket in the backseat and put her leather jacket back on. She turned and looked back at the scene. She shouldn't leave. Eventually, somebody would want to talk to her about what had happened inside the Walmart, and outside Li'l Dizzy's. Then again, Detillier had been there for everything. He was the one everyone wanted to talk to, and he could tell the story as well as she could. She realized they hadn't discussed her conversation with Leon Gage. Perhaps that had been what the “call me” gesture had been about.

Maureen couldn't think of anything from that conversation that would've tipped her off to what was happening across the city while she sat with Leon. She couldn't think of anything that might tell her what would happen next, either. He'd babbled at her, killing time while his people killed cops. Overall, she felt pretty fucking useless. Detillier would want to talk about Leon Gage. And he'd want to talk about Madison Leary. A call to Atkinson, Maureen thought, was probably a good idea.

She pulled out her phone and walked off to the side of the parking lot, away from the reporters. But before she spoke with Atkinson, she had another call to make. She found the number and waited for an answer, the phone to her ear.

“Maureen,” Amber said, “what's the matter?”

“Ma, every time I call,” Maureen said, “that's how you answer.”

There was silence, which was Amber's way of either refusing to argue or starting an argument, Maureen was never sure. But the silence was a good thing. If Amber were aware of what had happened in New Orleans, she'd be hysterical, not pouting.

“Last time I called and you answered like that,” Maureen said, “I had good news.”

“And that was two days ago,” Amber said. “What are the odds you've got more good news already?”

This time Maureen was quiet. Her mother had a point. She didn't have good news, unless she counted the fact that she wasn't one of the cops who'd been shot, which was kind of a big deal.

“Am I right or am I right?” Amber asked.

“Some stuff went down at work today, Ma,” Maureen said.

“Stuff? What do you mean by ‘stuff'?” Already Maureen could hear panic creeping into her mother's voice. “Do I need to turn on the TV? Is the city flooding again? I thought hurricane season was over. Let me find Nat and tell him to turn on the TV.”

“Before you do that,” Maureen said, “listen to me. No, we're not flooding.”

She decided she'd tell the truth, up to a point, and tell it fast. She felt immense relief that her mother had Nat there with her, in her life. That fact would help her be more honest. “It's bad news. It is. Four cops were shot here today. They were ambushed in restaurants. Two of them were killed, two of them were badly hurt.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Where are you? Where are you calling me from? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Maureen said, though she wasn't and she knew her mother could hear it. “I'm calling from a parking lot. I wasn't shot. I wasn't hurt. I'm fine.”

She could hear her mother yelling for Nat. For once, Maureen didn't want to talk to him; she wanted to talk to her mother. She wanted her mother's attention. But she felt her throat closing, acid rising from her belly to the back of her throat. She had to get the story out, had to finish telling it quick, before she lost control of herself. Hysterics on her part would only make her mother more upset, and she wasn't sure how many of her fellow officers could see her. The conversation couldn't last. Only one key piece remained to tell. She choked out the words.

“Mom, Preacher got shot. He got shot. He could die. They shot Preacher.”

With that, the levee broke.

Dizzy, weeping, her nose running, exhausted beyond reason, Maureen eased down onto her knees as best she could before she collapsed. Everything that had held her upright since she'd spotted Detillier outside of Dizzy's crumbled underneath her. She could barely hold the phone to her ear. She could hear Nat's confused questions in the background. She could hear her mother's voice. “Oh, my baby. Oh my God.”

On her knees in the Walmart parking lot, Maureen wept, her mother's voice in her ear, the sobs coming hard like kicks to the stomach.

 

24

Shortly after nine that night, Maureen stood outside the front gate of a two-story apartment building on Coliseum Street, across from Lafayette Cemetery.

Before lighting the cigarette between her lips, she offered the flame to the tall woman standing next to her. The woman, named Beatrice, was thin as a cocktail straw, her mahogany bob streaked with gray. She leaned down to the glow in Maureen's cupped hands. Her long wool coat reached the tops of her tennis shoes. She wore heavy makeup, and her waxy lipstick left a crimson ring on the filter of her long white cigarette. She had wine on her breath.

She exhaled to the sky, asking Maureen, “Will it be much longer?”

“The detective is on her way,” Maureen said. “It's been a long day.”

“Of course, of course,” Beatrice replied, looking away, resting her elbow in her palm as she held her cigarette close to her face. “I only meant, if there's a better time…”

That afternoon Beatrice had called the Sixth District wanting to talk about something she'd seen the night before, something possibly related, she thought, to the murder in the cemetery. Her message had been lost in the chaos following the shootings, and had only been passed along to Maureen a couple of hours into her patrol shift. Beatrice, returning home after walking her dog, had been quite surprised to find Maureen waiting for her at the gate more than four hours after her original call. Maureen had conducted a brief preliminary interview, deciding the woman could have something useful to offer, and had called Atkinson to let her know they'd found a witness. They'd been waiting nearly half an hour.

Beatrice turned and looked up at her dog, a serene white shepherd mix watching from the metal staircase that led to the second-story. “A few more minutes, dear.” She looked at Maureen. “He always gets a treat after a walk. He'll sit there and wait all night for it.”

“I know the feeling,” Maureen said. A white sedan turned the corner and headed their way down the potholed center of Coliseum Street. “Here she comes now.”

Atkinson parked close to them and climbed out of the car. She wore faded black cords that flared over her cowboy boots. Her broad shoulders stretched the limits of her bright red down jacket. Her huge hands were bare despite the cold. She carried her radio in her left hand and extended the other to Beatrice as she got closer. She offered Maureen a curt nod. “Officer.”

“Detective Sergeant,” Maureen said.

Atkinson shook with Beatrice. “I'm Detective Sergeant Christine Atkinson, Homicide.”

Beatrice released Atkinson's hand. She glanced at Maureen then dropped her gaze. “Someone did die. There was talk in the neighborhood, I was hoping it was wrong.”

“She was alive when we found her,” Atkinson said. “Unfortunately, she'd lost so much blood from the murder wound, she died before we could get sufficient help. Really, though, the wound was so catastrophic, a terrible gash to the throat, I don't know if there was any saving her no matter when she was found.”

Beatrice, who had turned pea-soup green, dropped her cigarette and grabbed the fence, steadying herself. Atkinson, thankfully, stopped talking. The dog trotted down the stairs and barked once at Atkinson. Then he wagged his tail while growling at her, as if simultaneously scolding, forgiving, and warning Atkinson for making his owner feel bad. Atkinson looked at Beatrice, trying and failing to raise a fake smile. “He's a wonderful animal.”

She's so much better with the dead, Maureen thought, than she is with the living. It's the one hole in her game.

“The reason we found the victim when we did,” Atkinson said, “is because someone called the nonemergency number to report a dead person in the cemetery. Was that you?”

“No,” Beatrice said. “I didn't call anyone until this afternoon.”

“Can you tell me,” Atkinson asked, “what you saw that caused you to call us today?”

“I have a studio downtown,” Beatrice said. “I'm a painter. I work odd hours, sometimes until dawn. I always take Cosmo out for a walk when I get home. Usually, he's been alone a long time by then, and it helps me unwind. I like the Garden District best late at night. It's rather mysterious and beautiful, especially when there's a good heavy fog coming in off the river.”

“So you were coming out of the gate here,” Atkinson said, “when you saw? What?”

“As I told Officer Coughlin,” Beatrice said, “I was coming through my gate with Cosmo, around midnight, and I saw two people hopping the wall there by the entrance, climbing into the cemetery.”

“Two people?” Atkinson asked.

Beatrice turned, gesturing toward the cemetery gates. “I saw two people go over the wall. Maybe others went before them and they were the last two, but I saw two.”

“Why didn't you call anyone last night?” Atkinson asked. “Neighborhood security? The police?”

Beatrice shook her head. “I didn't think anything of it. I see people, kids mostly, sometimes tourists, climb over the wall constantly. It's so short there.” She shrugged. “For mischief, to smoke some pot. For sex. For the creepy thrill of it. The tour guides are always going on about vampires in this neighborhood. There's hardly trouble from it, not even vandalism, really. The neighbors know it happens. Nothing bad has ever come of it that I'd heard of. Until last night.”

“And these two people,” Atkinson asked. “What did they look like?”

“One was a woman. Thin, long hair. Baggy clothes but definitely a woman. She climbed over second. Her friend stood atop the wall and helped her over. A boy, it looked like, if I had to guess. A young man, maybe. I couldn't see his face. He was short, slender, wearing a long coat with the collar turned up. He seemed to have short hair.”

“Would you know the male,” Atkinson asked, “if you saw him again?”

“That might be difficult,” Beatrice said. “I didn't see his face, the woman's, either.” She slid another cigarette from her pack. Cosmo let loose a short howl. “I swear he knows these mean we're staying outside.”

Maureen offered her lighter again and Beatrice lit up. She said, “Do you think the boy was the one who killed her?”

“That's where we'll start things,” Atkinson said. “Did you hear voices? Did either of them seem frightened or angry? Like maybe they didn't want to go over the wall.”

“They didn't speak that I could hear,” Beatrice said. “Although, once they were over the wall, the woman started singing.”

“Definitely a woman?” Atkinson asked.

“Absolutely,” Beatrice said, nodding, proud of her certainty. “More than anything, that voice told me one of them was female. I was walking away with Cosmo by then, and I don't remember the song, none of the words or anything. But I stopped to listen, just for a few seconds.” She pressed one hand to her heart, her eyes getting wet. “He cut her throat? Excuse me.” She coughed into her fist. “The woman had the most extraordinary voice. Mesmerizing. It's such a shame. Such a terrible shame. Horrible.”

“It is,” Maureen said.

“Do you think you'll catch the man who killed her?”

“I like our chances,” Atkinson said. “Thank you for calling us. You've been very helpful.”

Beatrice seemed startled the interview was over. Maureen could tell her mind was lingering on the singing she'd heard coming over the cemetery walls. “All right, then. I'm sorry I couldn't give you more. Officer Coughlin has my information if you need to speak with me again. I keep my phone off when I'm at the studio—I can't be disturbed while I'm working—but, as I said, I keep odd hours, so call anytime.”