Authors: Bill Loehfelm
Well, when she was running and when she was chasing. And when she was hurting someone else.
One thing that being a cop and these past few weeks of night work had taught herâchasing after something or someone could feel as good, maybe better, than running away. Maybe because there was a real, live person at the end of the chase. Someone you could catch. Tangible damage you could do. The things she was running from, they weren't outside her, they were in her, and so she carried them with her. She knew that. One thing Maureen knew for sure was that neither the chasing road nor the fleeing road was anywhere near as frightening as the thought of standing still.
As she stretched in the soft grass of the park, she focused her vision on an ant crawling through the blades between her feet. She blew out her breath and the ant fell over on its back.
She moved her hands to the small of her back, did a slow back bend. When she'd righted herself she said, “You couldn't have picked a spot by the water fountain, at least? I'm putting in work here.”
“We can walk over to it if you like,” Preacher said.
Maureen looked out over the lagoon, eyes narrowed. She had an idea why he was there. Disappointment crept over her. This evening was crashing down around her ears in a hurry. “We're fine right here,” she said. “Go ahead and get it over with. What have you heard? Is the axe coming down?”
“Excuse me?”
“I told you last time we met,” Maureen said, “that I have my meeting tomorrow morning with the district commander. You're here because you've heard how it's gonna go. And you wouldn't be if things were gonna go well.”
“Come sit on the bench with me,” Preacher said.
“Wow, that bad.” Maureen set her hands on her hips. She looked over her shoulder at the spot where Solomon had stood with his cocktail and his golf club. He was gone.
Preacher ambled over to the bench and sat. Half a dozen ducks waddled to him, quacking, their expectations renewed by his return.
Maureen hadn't realized until that very moment that, despite everything she'd done wrong both to earn her suspension and while serving it, she had been completely confident the DC would reinstate her. For the past six weeks, as far as the NOPD knew, she'd done everything the department had asked of her. She had kept quiet and stayed away from other cops. She had told no one about her searching the streets for Madison Leary, not even Preacher. Had the NOPD found out anyway? Where had she blown it? Dice had said no one she had questioned while searching for Leary had made her for a cop. She couldn't see how any of the guys she'd dealt with in the streets could know she was police. Not one of them got a good look at her face. They'd hardly heard her voice. She wasn't sure any of them even knew it was a woman who had taken them down.
But why would Preacher cross town to stake her out in Audubon Park the night before her big meeting other than to cushion the blow of the bad news in person? He was brave. And professional. And he had always looked out for her. If she were walking into an ambush in her meeting tomorrow, Preacher would warn her.
“Do I need to buy a plane ticket and get out of town?” Maureen asked. She looked through the trees at Solomon's house. He knew by now his bribe hadn't worked. Maybe he'd tried different tactics and reached into the department. “Have the brass changed their minds and decided to bring charges?”
Preacher turned on the bench when he realized she hadn't followed him. “Good Lord, woman. Would you come over here and sit? Did I say I'm here about your meet with the DC? I'm not. It's something else entirely. You Irish, you always expect the worst. Most dour motherfuckers I ever met. How any of you ever had the nerve to get on a boat I have no idea.”
“We were highly motivated,” Maureen said. “Our survival instinct is epic.”
“Some of my people,” Preacher said, “they were highly motivated, too.”
Maureen sat next to him on the bench. A couple of noisy, dissatisfied ducks tottered in her direction. They had an arrogance to them, Maureen decided. The way they demanded things from you but never looked right at you while they did it, giving you one reluctant eye, like aristocrats demanding tribute. She kicked at them. “Beat it.” The goose hissed at her, lowering its head and spreading its broad wings. “Jesus.”
“This is their turf,” Preacher said, his thick arms extended over the top of the bench. “Most people feed them. You really gonna hate on them for expecting to get what they've always gotten? You don't look any different to them than the rest of us do.” He smiled. “Just another sucker.”
“They're fucking annoying.”
“They're fucking birds in a park,” Preacher said. “They're doing what they're supposed to, tryin' to eat. It's not personal. They'll go away in a minute.” He raised his chin at something over Maureen's shoulder. “Look, there you go. Salvation.”
A young girl, no more than two or three years old, waddled much like a duck to the edge of the lagoon. Her pink puffy jacket rode up on her ribs. Her shock of curly red hair blew in the breeze. In one hand she held a plastic Bunny bread bag. She reached into the bag with her other hand, throwing fistfuls of white bread into the grass. Crumbs stuck to her fingers. She screamed with delight as the ducks headed in her direction, quacking up a storm, wagging their tail feathers, putting on a show as they snatched the bread out of the grass. More ducks came paddling over from out on the lagoon, attracted by the fuss. Maureen worried the goose would make a power move for the bread bag. She wondered if the girl's parents stood close enough to protect her from the goose if the bird got aggressive, or to rescue their little girl if she got overexcited and tumbled into the lagoon.
Maureen decided
she
was close enough to the little girl to intercede if disaster struck.
Or maybe, just maybe, Maureen thought, a little girl could feed the ducks at the park on a fall afternoon for a few minutes without something terrible and violent happening. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. She wished she'd brought her cigarettes on her run.
She turned to Preacher. “Tell me you've got
good
news.”
“You're not going to take it that way.”
“You're killing me, Sarge,” Maureen said. “Just straight killing me.”
“When you go see Commander Skinner for your badge, he's going to ask a favor of you.”
Maureen took a deep breath and held it. Keeping quiet these past six weeks, she'd been led to believe
that
was the favor. Now there'd be more. She felt foolish for being surprised. She blew out her breath. “How big a favor?”
Like it mattered, she thought. Like she wouldn't do it, whatever it was, to get her badge back.
“The FBI wants to talk to you,” Preacher said.
Maureen sagged on the bench, as if her bones had turned to putty. “You are fucking kidding me. That wasn't supposed to happen. That was the deal.”
“I'm not kidding,” Preacher said. “And it's not as bad as it sounds.”
“Is my phone tapped?” Maureen asked, sitting up. “Is that why we've been meeting in the park like a couple of fucking spies? Am I being surveilled?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Preacher said, “before the FBI did, and before you went in to see the district commander. So you could have your tantrum with me, instead of the DC.” He turned to her. “Is that even a real word,
surveilled
?”
“What do they want?” Maureen asked. “I made my statements already. Detailed statements.”
“The Sovereign Citizens kid,” Preacher said, “the one who that Leary woman murdered on Lyons Street, the one who went to that reform school with Caleb Heath, name was Gage. Clayton Gage. His father has been in town asking questions. He's been to HQ and Homicide a couple of times, making angry demands.” He shrugged. “It
was
his son who got killed, peckerwood shitheel that he was.”
Maureen winced. “Tell me we're not back to covering up that traffic stop again. I can't. We did our best with that. It wasn't worth the lies we told. Not about Gage, not about Leary. I'm exhausted even thinking about it.” She waved her hand. “Atkinson is lead detective on the Gage homicide now anyway. I secured the scene the night it happened, took a quick look at the body. The FBI knows all this. That was it. The father can talk to Atkinson. She doesn't want to do it, that's not my problem.”
“What I'm hearing,” Preacher said, “is that the feds think the father might be a source of useful intel on the Citizens and the Watchmen Brigade militia and whatever else his son might have been into. The money, the guns.”
“He's involved, the father? He's part of the Sovereign Citizens movement?”
“Unknown at this time. That's probably the main thing the FBI wants you to find out when you talk to him.”
“Waitâwhat? You're
shitting
me. Preach, the Citizens, the Watchmen, they tried to kill me. And the feds picked me for this becauseâ¦?”
“I don't have specifics on that,” Preacher said. “But as near as I can figure, while Atkinson is lead on the murder,
you've
had more direct contact with the players.” Preacher ticked off Maureen's connections to the case on his fingers. “You pulled over the truck with Gage and Leary in it. You took her to jail. You worked the Gage murder scene. Before that, you discovered the Nazi guy's body, the first victim, what was his name, Cooley.” He raised his hands as if to fend off blame for the FBI's choices. “Anyways, looks like as far as the FBI's concerned, you, Coughlin, are the resident NOPD authority on these psycho patriot derelicts.”
Maureen sat up straight on the bench. Livid, she didn't know which way to look. “Man,
fuck
the FBI. Those terrorist motherfuckers in the Watchmen are
already
pointed in my direction. With guns blazing. Where was the FBI when these guys were stashing guns all over Central City? Where were they when these guys used their guns to try and kill me? They gotta be kidding me. Papa Gage is
their
problem. I don't get paid enough for this shit. I'm doing federal work, I want federal pay, and federal benefits.”
She stood, her legs feeling thick and heavy. She needed to get moving again. She shook her head, turning to Preacher. “The feds knew I'd react like this, didn't they? They knew I wouldn't like this idea. That's why you're here, isn't it?”
“You got it wrong,” Preacher said. “You're way ahead of yourself, as usual.” He threw a glance at the little girl's parents, who had started eavesdropping. “And lower your voice.”
“They sent you out here to soften me up to the idea.” Her tone was derisive. She should've known, Maureen thought. She should've known there'd be more dues to pay, even after her suspension ended, to get out from under what had happened with Quinn a month and a half ago. She
and
Preacher, they were the only ones left around and they'd never stop paying. But, wow, she thought, Preacher tasked with the FBI's foreplay? It stung that he would go along. That he would deceive her on their behalf.
“Look at you,” she said, giving him the up-and-down now, “a fucking butter man for the
federales
. Who'd a thunk it?”
Preacher rubbed his palms on his wide thighs. Maureen knew as soon as the last words left her mouth that she'd overstepped, even for her. She thought for a moment he might get up and walk away without another word to her. She took a deep breath. She forced herself to forget they were talking in the park, wearing their civilian clothes. Preacher was her direct superior. She had to stop abusing his patience.
“That's not the case,” he said. “I'm not applying grease on anybody's behalf. This comes on the QT from my sources in the department.
Our
department. Like maybe somebody in Homicide, a tall blond Detective Somebody who you already owe a world of favors, is tipping me some info. I'm not supposed to know this shit, and you
sure as hell
aren't supposed to know it. We're not even supposed to be talking, remember? But here I am anyway, like I've been the past six weeks. I'm here for you, Coughlin. For your sake. Not for anyone else's. You should do this favor for the FBI. It could be good for you. It could be good for the department, which you owe a few favors. Most important, lest you forget the point of what we do, helping the FBI might help us catch some bad guys. Serious bad guys out to hurt cops. Learn how to accept a favor.”
Maureen felt a hot wave of shame. She raised her hands, puffed out her cheeks. “Shit, I'm sorry.”
Preacher had protected her from the moment she had climbed into the police cruiser as his trainee. He had protected her from the bad guys, from bad cops, from herself. And not just her. He watched over everyone in the Sixth District. Here was the one guy in New Orleans she could trust, and she was shit-talking to his face. She'd stop, right then.
Tomorrow, she thought, she would be a real cop again. No more pretending, no more running the streets in an oversized sweatshirt, hiding her face. She should feel nothing but relief. Instead, though, she felt the oily stain of compromise.
Do us one more favor, the men in charge said. It's right here in my hand, what you want. All I have to do is slide it across the table. Shake that ass for tips one more time. Then we'll stop asking. Except they never did. Not today. Not tomorrow. She thought of her plans for later that night. She could let them go. She could stay home. Tomorrow, she would be a cop again. Right, she thought. Tomorrow. Which meant not tonight. Tonight she remained whatever it was she had become, what she had made herself into, over the past six weeks. She'd refused to put a name on it. If she named that other self, she thought, it might stay.
One more night, she thought. One more time. On my terms.