I remember Jude taunting me on the phone, you afraid you’re going to get your ass kicked? “Isn’t it possible to go too far?”
“I suppose.” He frowned. “Has something happened to Cody? Is that why you’re here? And you think—“
“I’m just following up on your emails, that’s all, Mr. Fowler.”
“Chris. So something has happened to Cody?”
“Have you ever met someone you felt might be dangerous?”
“No.”
“And your emails were all just meant as fun?”
“Yes.” He stood up. “I’m sorry, but I have to excuse myself. I have to be somewhere in a little bit. Are you going to tell me about Cody?”
“It’s nothing serious, Chris. Just looking into a few things.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do, just let me know. Or if you think of any other questions—here.” He tore off a piece of a Burger King bag and scribbled his phone number on it. “Feel free to call anytime.”
“I’ll do that. “ I shook his hand and walked out the door. I could feel him watching me all the way back to the car. Once I was safely inside, I looked back and waved. I put the car in reverse and backed down the driveway.
He seemed okay, almost normal, I thought as I started down Forest Road, retracing my steps out of Bay St. Louis. I lit a cigarette. Maybe he’d seen the whole thing as a game; and Paul and Jude both just misconstrued his meaning. Maybe he was into pain—just because Jude wasn’t didn’t make him a crazed stalker. And it’s not like I knew Jude at all.
But I still didn’t have the slightest idea of where Paul was..
The car ran perfectly all the way back to New Orleans, thank God. I stopped at my usual garage on Camp Street. They weren’t sure if they could get to it until the next day, as always. I could practically see the dollar signs in the mechanic’s eyes when I said “transmission trouble.”
I flagged a cab and went down to the Quarter to meet Venus.
I got there fifteen minutes early, but she was already there, toying with the straw her vodka tonic. There were only three or four other people in the bar, all clustered around one corner where the bartender talked to them. Venus had grabbed a table in the opposite corner. I got a Coke and walked back to her. “Hey Venus,” I said, pulling up a barstool. “What’s up?”
She looked at the door, then back at me. “We never had this conversation, OK?”
I stared at her. “What’s with the cloak and dagger bullshit?”
She looked at me. Her eyes were bloodshot. She looked tired. Everything about her seemed to sag, as if took every bit of strength in her to remain erect. “I don’t feel comfortable talking in a place this public.”
“Let’s go up to the balcony then.” I got up. She followed me up the stairs and down to a secluded bench in a far corner of the balcony on the Dauphine Street side. The bench was barely visible from the street.
She took a big sip of her drink. “Chanse, I am talking to you as a friend here—not as a cop, OK? I’m trusting you as a friend. If anyone finds out I talked to you, I could lose my job.”
Jesus Christ. “Venus, I won’t say anything to anyone.”
“I must be crazy doing this.” She sighed, leaning back against the bench. “But I know you well enough to know you’ll keep bulldozing around, and I don’t think I could live with myself if I let you get killed.”
That
got my full attention. “What are you talking about?” I enunciated each syllable.The Quarter Pounder was no longer resting easy.
“You need to back off from the Williams case.”
I exhaled, and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it. “Venus, I don’t give a rat’s ass about who killed Williams. I just want to find my boyfriend—that’s all I care about.”
“Give me one of those.” She grabbed the pack out of my hand and lit one.
I stared at her as she exhaled. I’d never seen her smoke. “Since when—“
“I quit ten years ago. Every now and again I have one. Sue me.” She glared at me as she took another slow sensual drag. “You have to stop looking for Paul.”
“Look, Venus, I get that you don’t want me to—“
She grabbed my arm so tight it hurt, the long nails digging into my skin. “Chanse, shut up for a minute and listen to me.” She took a third and final hit from the cigarette before tossing it over the railing into the street. “Nasty things, really.” She turned to me. “The Williams case isn’t mine anymore, just so you know.”
“What?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as my mind tried to wrap itself around this.
She nodded and whispered, “That’s right. Something stunk to high heaven on this one from the beginning. Everything was wrong, you know? The crime scene just didn’t feel right to me—you know what I mean?” She held up a hand to stop me from speaking. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s a feeling I had, an instinct, and my instincts are rarely wrong.” She smiled grimly. “I didn’t get to where I am today without having good instincts.”
I knew what she meant. Training can only take you so far. The best cops always seemed to have this sixth sense about their work. “What seemed off to you?”
She sighed. “I couldn’t put my finger on it, you know? I mean, first of all, Paul called it in—but it was the
second
call we got. A squad car was already on its way over when he called it in. That didn’t sit right with me, you know? The first phone call came from a pay phone, and it just reported a gunshot and gave the address, then the caller hung up.” She rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t think Paul shot Williams—but the evidence was strong. Fingerprints on the gun—but there were
two
sets. The second set didn’t match up to anything in the computer.”
“Two sets of fingerprints.” My mind was racing. “So obviously, the other set belonged to the killer.”
“Well, they didn’t belong to Judge Dahlgren. Once we knew who the gun was registered to, we checked on that.” Venus sighed. “I was against booking him, but my lieutenant overruled me.” She shrugged. “I mean, the evidence was strong—the powder residue, his fingerprints—but I thought Williams had been dead for a while before Paul showed up.”
I got up and walked over to the railing, leaning against it. I was getting a little angry. It almost sounded like they’d been railroading Paul. “That’s bullshit, Venus. He shouldn’t have been charged.”
“I know.” She wouldn’t look at me. “I argued with my lieutenant. McKeithen is a damned good lawyer—once he sunk his teeth into the evidence, none of it would have gotten past a motion to dismiss. Especially after I got a good look at the powder residue test results.” She exhaled. “I interrogated him…once I saw the residue was on his right hand, I knew he wasn’t the shooter.” She shook her head. “I’d noticed he was left-handed— because I am too. Sure, he could have been ambidextrous, but….”
“So he spent the night in jail for nothing. That is such bullshit!”
“I’m sorry, Chanse, it wasn’t my call.” She held her hands up. “Once I saw that, I called the DA….and while I’m on the phone trying to get him released, the U. S. Attorney and some Feds show up.”
“Feds?” Oh Christ, oh Christ, oh Christ….
“They take the case away from us completely, and they tell us Paul wasn’t the shooter. Well, I’d already figured that much already, right? They ask a bunch of questions about Ricky Dahlgren—“
“Ricky Dahlgren?” I interrupted. “Him again.” I sat back down on the bench beside her. “Come on, Venus, I don’t give a fuck who his dad is, his name keeps popping up every fucking time I turn around.”
“So, the marshalls ask all these questions about him, right? And the murder weapon belongs to his dad, right?” She shook her head. “I’m thinking they’re trying to pull some fast one, right? You know how things work around here.” She ran her hands over her hair. “I mean, we should be pulling him in for questioning—but when I bring it up, they clam up.”
“They didn’t say anything else?”
“Nothing. That was it. Wouldn’t answer any of my other questions—they just left, after warning me to keep my nose out of the case. So the ADA put together the paperwork to drop the charges against Paul.” She finished her drink and toasted me with the empty cup. “And then, a few hours later, Paul disappears.”
“That’s why you showed up in a hurry when I called.” My heart was pounding.
“I was afraid something might happen to him—another hunch, for what it’s worth.” She shook her head.
“What are you thinking?”
She balled up her fists. “I don’t know. I was worried—and I didn’t know anything. Maybe we should have put him in protective custody, or at least assign a detail to keep an eye on him. My lieutenant refused, just based on a hunch.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry, Chanse.”
“Where do you think he is?” My heart was pounding. It was a struggle to keep breathing normally.
“Look, I don’t know anything for a fact, OK? But the Feds and the U.S. Attorney? That usually means the mob. Add in Ricky Dahlgren…and you’ve got the Santini crime family. No one has seen or heard from Ricky since Zane saw him going back to the slave quarter Monday night.”
“He’s disappeared?”
“The Santinis might have put out a hit on him, to teach Judge Dahlgren a lesson. Maybe Mark Williams got in the way. And then Paul—“
“—walks into the middle of everything.” I finished for her. I felt sick. Lunch was going to come back up if I wasn’t careful. I sucked on an ice cube for a minute. “But what about Ricky’s body? If they hit him back there—“
“Maybe they’re holding him, as leverage. I don’t know. But Paul didn’t know anything about it--anything. Talk about wrong place at the wrong time.” Venus patted my leg. “I interrogated him for hours. But it’s possible he did see
something
and didn’t realize it was important, I don’t know—you know how that goes. Then again, he might not have seen anything. But the killer didn’t know that….if it was the mob, he might been considered a—“ she swallowed, “—a loose end.”
The world seemed to have stopped. The sun was still shining, the wind still blowing, but everything else was suspended in that moment. All I could hear was the beat of my heart in my ears, the sound of my lungs filling with air. I didn’t want to say it, but had to. “You think Paul’s dead, don’t you?”
“They’d have no reason to leave him alive. I’m sorry, Chanse.” She took a deep breath. “I called his parents. They haven’t heard from him. I talked to his co-workers. Nothing. Do you know of anywhere else he might be?”
She was wrong. I knew it as surely as I knew I was still alive. “He could be holed up in a hotel somewhere.”
“No activity on his credit cards for the last couple of days, other than a dinner on Sunday night.”
We’d gone out to Bravo on St. Charles that night. He’d been tired, a long day of delays and cancelled flights at the airport, and I wasn’t in the mood to cook either.
That couldn’t be our last night together.
No.
“Are you OK?” Venus asked.
“I’m fine, really.”
“Do you want me to call someone?” She gave me a half-smile. “You don’t look so good.”
“No, really, I’m fine. I’m OK.” I sat there, unable to move. All I could hear was the sound echoing through my head, over and over again.
He’s dead, dead, dead
…. I was vaguely aware of Venus getting up, excusing herself, asking me again if I was OK. I waved her off, and sat there, the ice in my Coke melting.
Paul couldn’t be dead. Venus was wrong.
No body, no death.
“It’s just a theory.” I said aloud. “She doesn’t have any proof.”
My mind didn’t seem to be functioning. It just felt right to keep sitting there, with the sound of the cars going by below me. Despite the sun, I felt cold, like my blood wasn’t flowing anymore. I heard the music coming from the bar and knew someone was playing the piano on the second floor. Someone came out and sat on the stoop of the house across the street. I dimly was aware of a ringing sound.
My cell phone. I answered. “MacLeod.” My voice came out as a hoarse gasp.
“Chanse?” It was Paige. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” The spell was sort of broken, but my mind was numb, not capable of making connections and thought. “I made it back OK. I’m in the Quarter. At Goodfriends.”
“So this lead turned out to be nothing??”
“Yeah. I guess.” I shook my head, trying to jump-start my brain.
“Are you sure you’re fine? You sound funny.”
“No, I’m fine.” I stood up. My head swam a little bit at first, then everything seemed to come into focus. “Really. What’s up?”
“I just wanted to let you know I found some interesting stuff. I’m going to be leaving here in about an hour. Want me to come by your place and bring dinner?”
Food of any kind sounded disgusting. I couldn’t possibly eat anything. “Sure.”
“OK, I’ll be there around five.” She hung up.
I walked out of Goodfriends and headed up St. Ann. Zane, Zane had seen Ricky going back there. It couldn’t be mob related—it couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense. A lover’s quarrel of some sort had gone wrong and Ricky had fled. The Feds were trying to cover it all up for the Judge’s sake. That made more sense…I had to talk to Zane, find out more about Mark and Ricky.