Side by Side (32 page)

Despite the fact that she was wide awake, the ringing telephone startled her. The red numerals on the clock said 12:22.

“Yes,” she said.

“Special Agent Keen?” a male voice asked.

“Speaking,” she responded.

“This is Detective Michael Manseur,” he said. “I’m with N.O.P.D. Homicide.”

“Winter Massey’s friend,” she said, smiling. Six months earlier, she and ex–Deputy U.S. Marshal Winter Massey, a close friend of hers from childhood, had worked together on a kidnapping case in North Carolina. In one of several conversations about an incident involving the murder of a friend’s niece, and Winter’s efforts to find her missing daughter before some hired killers and corrupt cops did, he had spoken very highly of Michael Manseur.

“Well, I expect
friend
might be a stretch,” Manseur responded. “Acquaintance is closer to it. I have nothing but respect for Winter, that’s for sure. He is a remarkable and memorable individual.”

“I spoke to him last week and he told me I should call you. I really did mean to.”

“He called me three days ago to say I should call you while you were here at your seminar. He said we should get together. I intended to ask you to join my family for dinner while you’re in town, but I’ve been up to my belt loops in alligators.”

“I’m leaving first thing in the morning,” she told him truthfully.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” the policeman replied.

What Alexa couldn’t imagine was why Manseur was calling her well after midnight. Maybe he’d been working in a windowless room and lost track of time. It had happened to her enough times.

“Maybe the next time I’m in town . . .” she suggested.

“David Landry, our missing persons detective, sat in on your talk today,” Manseur said. She liked his voice. He stretched his vowels out like taffy. The deep timbre and heavy accent were warm and comforting.

“There were a lot of officers there. It was a big room.”

“In his late twenties. Six two, one forty or thereabouts, blond, wears horn-rimmed glasses. Landry looks more like a professor than a cop.”

She remembered the man whom Detective Manseur was describing but didn’t acknowledge that. “Well, maybe we can get together next time. It was nice talking to you, Detective Manseur.”

“That isn’t why I called you, Agent Keen. I’m thoughtless to a fault, but I sure wouldn’t bother you at this hour just to chitchat. I
was
wondering if I could impose on you a little bit.”

“Please do.” Perhaps he had a pressing question on a case he thought she might have an answer to.

“We’ve got ourselves a potential situation. I was hoping you could spare me a couple of hours.”

“My flight leaves at seven-twenty this morning.”

“I mean right now. This deal is what you do, and Winter says you’re one of the best at it.”

“An abduction?” she said, straightening and letting the curtains drop shut, closing out the rainy night.

“Might be. Going missing in New Orleans is hardly unusual. Ninety-nine times out of ten, the case solves itself pretty quick. I hope you might be able to help us assess the situation. Tell us what you think we’ve got. It’s a pretty delicate deal.”

“You’re the commander of Homicide, aren’t you?”

“That’s pretty much a temporary assignment.”

“How does this situation concern Homicide?”

“Missing Persons is technically a department under Homicide, since identifying the deceased folks we run across is a big part of our deal. I hoped I could get your opinion on this since you’re here and carry the reputation you do. That’s all.”

“I see.” She was flattered.

“And then we can tell Massey that we got together. Are you free to go to a location with me?”

It isn’t just a question or two over the phone.
“How soon?”

“I’m in the lobby,” he told her. “Standing by the elevators. I’m wearing a green raincoat. You have one, you might want to bring it.”

Michael Manseur’s voice had thoroughly misrepresented him. The voice was something along the lines of Tommy Lee Jones. The man waiting at the elevator bank looked more like a chronically unsuccessful door-to-door vacuum cleaner hawk than a detective. Even with the thickness of the soles of his scuffed brown wingtips, Manseur was no more than five seven and, except for the laurel of short pale hair anchored by small ears, he was bald. His round face was covered with skin a shade darker than porcelain and featured intelligent but sad eyes with dark bags beneath them, a razor-thin nose, and a smile like that of a child with a huge secret. The green trench coat had oily stains on the hem. The knot on his predominantly yellow tie had been loosened hours ago, and the left side of his stiff shirt collar was bent up like a hand waving.

“Agent Keen?” he said.

“Alexa,” she said, smiling. “Please call me Alexa.”

“Certainly. Call me Michael,” he replied, nodding. He swept his arm to indicate the direction she should travel to get to his car, which turned out to be a white sedan waiting at the curb.

Manseur opened the passenger door for Alexa, closed it gently, then hurried around to take his place behind the wheel. He checked the rearview, pulled out, and headed away from the Mississippi River, turning on the blue light centered on the dash to cut a path through the traffic as the sedan gathered speed.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

“Uptown a little way,” he replied, as if that answered her question.

Alexa sat back and watched New Orleans pass by.

3

Manseur drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he sped along streets Alexa wasn’t familiar with. Policemen, firemen, and ambulance drivers were required to learn the streets of their cities and towns until they were human GPS devices. If cabbies and delivery people didn’t do the same, they were less effective at their jobs, but people didn’t usually die on account of it.

Alexa’s understanding of the layout of New Orleans was at best sketchy. She knew that the streetcar ran from uptown, through the Garden District, and made a loop at Canal Street. She knew the Mississippi River curved around the city, which was why it was called the Crescent City. She knew that Lake Pontchartrain was north and that the twin-span bridge across it was the longest bridge in the world. She knew where the French Quarter, the Central Business District, the Federal court building, and FBI headquarters were located.

She knew a lot of cities in the same general way, which was as much as she cared to know about any of them. Normally, she was with a team, and usually they had local agents or policemen to get them efficiently from place to place. And these days there were GPS devices in most Bureau cars and rentals.

“You ever hear of the LePointes?” Manseur asked her.

“Can’t say I have,” Alexa replied.

“They’re about the most influential family there is around here. Truth be told, I don’t know if they even know what all they own. Any questions so far?”

He stopped talking to navigate a turn.

“LePointes are wealthy people and everybody around here knows it,” Alexa echoed. “So the missing person is one of these LePointes?”

“Gary West, who married Casey LePointe.”

“So I may presume Gary West would be a valuable target for a kidnapper?”

Manseur nodded.

“What were the circumstances of his disappearance?”

“He didn’t come home for dinner.”

“Missed dinner? Obviously a kidnapping.”

“Oh, you’re being sarcastic. I’m sorry if I’m not doing this briefing right. I just want you to know who we’re dealing with.”

Alexa laughed. “Being a smartass is part of my FBI training. Go ahead.”

“I don’t mind.” Manseur had slowed the car down and Alexa figured they must be getting close to wherever they were heading. “Dr. William LePointe is presently the last male LePointe. His brother, Curry, has been dead for about thirty years. Curry LePointe was murdered, along with his wife—Rebecca, I think her name was—by a lunatic with an ax. Dr. LePointe’s niece Casey has the husband Gary, was there at the time. From what I remember of it, a pair of patrol officers answered the burglar alarm and saved the child. Gary and Casey West have a daughter who’d be I’d guess three, maybe four years old.”

“The family’s influence explains why an out-of-place LePointe rates the commander of Homicide.”
And an FBI agent.

“Dave Landry, our missing persons detective who was at your lecture, will be meeting us there. Maybe you can watch how he handles it, possibly suggest things to me or whatever. The LePointes don’t want a big fuss made about this until it’s been established that there’s a need for it. They’re the kind of people who like to keep everything low-key.”

“Like keeping it a secret when one of them is missing?”

“Well, for instance, they don’t take credit for what all they do, good things for a whole lot of people. You don’t see what a LePointe is doing in the newspaper except on the society page. William LePointe was Rex when he was about thirty.

“Rex?”

Manseur smiled. “You’re not familiar with Rex?”

“I know it’s the number-one name for German shepherds.”

“It’s King of Carnival. It’s about the biggest deal in New Orleans society. Well, being Momus is probably bigger, but Momus is always masked, so nobody but a few people in the secret society know who he is. Momus bids adieu to Mardi Gras.”

“How did I miss that?” Alexa said. Manseur talked about Rex and Momus like a Catholic might speak of saints, or the pope.

“Just so you know, I didn’t mention to anybody that I was asking you to come along.”

“You didn’t?”

“We have a new superintendent of police. Jackson Evans. Evans told me to do whatever I needed to make sure this was done right. You understand, nobody wants to involve the FBI in this unless it turns out to be an FBI matter—”

“Of course not.”

“Which nobody thinks it is. I’m just . . .” Manseur hesitated, as if he were looking for the right word.

“Covering your bases.”

“Covering my something. The LePointes give millions every year to all sorts of things like schools, libraries, the zoo, museums, scholarships, after-school programs, homeless and battered women’s shelters, summer camps—all manner of civic-betterment deals. They’ve donated fire-fighting equipment and ballistic vests and service weapons to the police. They are very generous to New Orleans.”

“Their generosity extends to political campaigns?” Alexa asked.

“Local, state . . . and national.”

“Say no more,” Alexa said.

About the Author

JOHN RAMSEY MILLER’S career has included stints as a visual artist, advertising copywriter, and journalist. He is the author of the nationally bestselling
The Last Family
and of three Winter Massey thrillers:
Inside Out
,
Upside Down
, and
Side by Side
, and is at work on a stand-alone crime novel,
Too Far Gone
, which Dell will publish in 2006.

A native son of Mississippi, he now lives in North Carolina with his wife and writes full-time.

Also by John Ramsey Miller

Upside Down

Inside Out

The Last Family

Available from Bantam Dell