Unhinged (6 page)

“Nobody really knew this girl except for Marla,” Ron said. “The owner couldn't offer anything, either,” he yelled over a drunk who had cut between us as we got into my Jeep.

“I wonder if Marla knows more than she's saying.”

“I doubt it. It's 10:45, time to go home,” Ron said as we inched onto Conti Street. “Get in for seven tomorrow morning and keep going with the files on your desk, okay? But you can put back all the files of parolees and convicted. I got a call from Dr. John. He only found June's and Marla's prints in June's place and fifteen sets of prints in Ryan's place, but the prints on the absinthe bottle didn't pop up in the system. John sent a scan of the prints to the Feds to see what they could come up with in their computer, but we didn't hear back from them yet.”

“Great. A model citizen.”

“They usually are.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow.” I waved to him when he got out of my vehicle, then flipped open my cell phone and called Jennifer. I knew she'd be worried about me working so late. Usually I was home by seven at the latest.

“Hey, sweetie,” she answered.

“Hi. I'm just leaving work, and I'm starving. Wanna go to Camellia Grill?” I knew that was one of her favorite places and she couldn't refuse.

“Sure. I was just watching TV, waiting for you to call. I'm naked, you know.”

“So am I. Ron was a little uncomfortable, but he got used to it. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“Hurry. Love ya. Bye,” she whispered in a seductive yet funny voice.

I drove down Rue Royal smiling. Jennifer Wilder was the kind of girl who could be a best friend as well as a girlfriend. She loved screaming her lungs out at Saints games, getting plastered at neighborhood bars, and doing crazy, spontaneous things just to get a reaction from people.

To me, her bizarre sense of humor was her best quality. She had long, dark brown hair that she usually kept in a ponytail, leaving her bangs to fall just above her thick eyebrows. She was five foot six with sensuous curves for which designer jeans were made.

Sometimes I thought that she was too good for me, and I often wondered how I was going to fuck everything up. In my life, this was the only relationship that had lasted longer than six months, and here we were going on six years, living together for three. I knew she was expecting a ring, and I truly wanted to give her one but not until the perfect time. And lately the time never seemed right.

I pulled into the driveway of my uptown home off Tchoupitoulas Street and tapped my horn twice. Jennifer came out wearing an LSU T-shirt, shorts, and, my favorite item of all, a baseball cap. She was the sexiest thing in that cap. She took big steps down the walkway and got into the Jeep, grinning. She kissed me with a quick dart of her tongue.

“Hey, babe. How's work? You must be exhausted.” She leaned back against her seat and positioned the vent to blow cold air on her face.

I backed out of the driveway. “Crazy. You won't believe what case I'm assigned to.”

“Don't tell me you got the double homicide that was on the news.” Jennifer stared at me with wide eyes. She was extremely beautiful even without makeup.

“Yep. Ron and I got it. We spent the day investigating. It was”— I grasped for the right word—”educating. I'm excited to be on a case like this, but I also don't want to blow it. What if I don't do something right and somebody gets killed because of me?”

“Trust me. You're no Inspector Clouseau. You'll do fine. So, do you have any suspects?” She reached over and grabbed my free hand. Her energy was infectious. I began to feel my second wind.

“Not really—maybe a bouncer. One of the victims was a childhood friend of mine. Her name was June Bieria.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Jennifer rubbed my neck. “That must be hard.”

“You don't want to know what this bastard did to those poor people. It was horrible.”

“I don't think I want to know.”

I could feel Jennifer's hot stare while I concentrated on the road. Her hand ran up and down my arm, then to my inner thigh, and she giggled like a bubbly cheerleader. I smiled, knowing what she was after. If she found herself in the mood, then the closest parking spot would be sufficient.

I wasn't that freaky, but I'd have to say the dressing room of JCPenney was the closest we'd ever come to actually getting caught. It had been closing time, and I was trying on pants when the door swung open and closed in one swift motion. Jennifer told me to do her right there as she let her jeans drop to the floor. The room was completely closed in, but we had forgotten to lock the door.

As we got down to business, with both of our pants around our ankles, the clerk knocked on the door and asked if I was coming along okay. Thank God she didn't open the door. I put my hand over Jennifer's mouth when she began to laugh, and I answered that I'd be out in a minute. It turned out being six minutes.

I pulled up to a dark spot under one of the many huge oak trees of Carrollton Avenue and parked. I turned off the engine and gazed into Jennifer's eyes.

“I love you.” She leaned over to kiss me, sliding her hand between my legs. She backed away smiling, turning her attention to my waistline, where she began to undo my belt buckle with her nimble fingers. She turned her Nike cap around, snickering as if we were teenagers on a date.

“I love you, too,” I repeated and felt all of the day's stresses vanishing.

The Camellia Grill didn't have any booths. There were only counter seats facing the cooks in the open kitchen.

We sat down and placed our orders with Teddy, a sixty-year-old black man who had been a cook there ever since I became a patron. He knew what we wanted even before we told him.

I turned to Jennifer and grabbed her hand. “I love you,” I mouthed.

“I love you, too,” she repeated.

I felt my eyelids begin to close of their own accord, and I began to slouch on the barstool. Suddenly, I wished I was home in bed, holding Jennifer in my arms.

“I saw my parents earlier,” she said.

“How are they?” I knew they probably didn't ask that about me. They became tight-lipped and evasive whenever I was around.

“They're okay. We did that yearly thing again.”

I knew exactly what she meant. Paulina disappeared eight years ago this month, and Jennifer's parents insisted they visit the scene where she vanished once a year. “Oh, shit. Sorry. How'd that go?”

“Same as always. We drove into the alley behind the Dixie-Mart, and they placed the flowers. The block is still a wasteland. The strip mall is half burned down, and I'm surprised the front portion of the store's still standing.”

“There's no need to bulldoze it till someone wants the property.”

“My parents don't seem to understand how nauseated it makes me to visit that place every year. I guess it's sweet, but I don't think they're ever going to get on with their lives until her body's found. You know what I mean?”

“Sure I do. I constantly wonder about what happened to her.” It was all I could say. I didn't like broaching that subject, and Jennifer knew it. But every once in a while, she needed to talk about it, and I understood. I had to put my guilt aside to be there for her.

“I'm glad you called on me.” Jennifer smiled.

I snickered at her choice of words. “You mean when I came a courtin'?”

Her smiled died, and she became reminiscent. I held her hands and let her speak. “Remember our first time?”

I nodded. It was one of the turning points that had allowed me to let go of some of the guilt I felt for Paulina's disappearance.

“We had been on five dates, and you were such a perfect gentleman. You were so scared to kiss me, and I knew why. I was scared, too. When I thought we were going out, you sat me on your living room floor instead. You had candles lit all over the place, and Mazzy Star was on the CD player. Then you brought out some red wine and sat down in front of me, and you didn't say a word until we drank our first glass.”

“And I brought up Paulina,” I said.

“I wanted you to. I needed you to, or we couldn't have gotten on with our relationship. That night we aired all of our concerns and fears and managed to destroy the demons that were following us around. Who understands us better than each other? We overcame a lot that night with the help of two bottles of wine, and that one night with you gave me my life back. I never want you to feel guilty about it.”

“I do and I don't. I don't feel ashamed or guilty for being with you or for being in love with you. What I sometimes feel guilty about is being the one who led Paulina into that alley and not being able to stop what happened.”

“Deck, you know—”

“I know it's not my fault. We don't have to rehash it. I keep the guilt in a little place inside myself where no one else will ever see it. You don't have to worry about it.”

Finally, the food came, and I gobbled up my burger before Jennifer even finished half of her club sandwich. We barely talked while we ate, but we didn't have to. Silence between us was just as comfortable.

S
ix o'clock came in an instant.
Jennifer didn't stir once through the alarm or my falling out of bed, yet she had keen hearing when her own clock started to beep. She had been a nurse at Children's Hospital for three years and her shift didn't start until nine. I'd be lucky to get a coherent word from her before I left.

The automatic coffeemaker had a steaming pot of caffeine waiting for me when I dragged my ass into the kitchen. I put on the television and ate a bowl of Franken Berry as I watched the early local news. Barbara Lincoln, ABC's trophy anchor, headlined with the weekend's double murder. The victims' names had been released, and several family members were shown in interviews.

She referred to the murderer as the Absinthe Killer in two instances, leading me to believe there was surely a leak in our precinct. The last thing she said was that the FBI had offered their help with the investigation.

I cocked my head, wondering if I had heard right over the cereal crunching in my ears. Greenwood hadn't mentioned anything about the Feds jumping on board.

I got dressed in a pair of loose-fitting jeans and another white-collared shirt, drinking my coffee as fast as my burning lips would allow. Then I kissed my oblivious girlfriend good-bye as I always did, collected my badge, ankle gun, and side arm, and left to begin my second day of adventure.

The morning sun had just peeked over the horizon when I started my drive with the radio turned off. I thought about the Feds getting involved and how that would change the investigation. Who was going to lead the charge? My only experience with the Feds had been watching them on videotaped interviews. It was exciting. Maybe they had some information that we didn't. Maybe they had been chasing this guy for years, and now he'd turned up in New Orleans.

Arriving a bit late to the station, I headed straight for the coffeemaker.

Detective Bienvenue got up from his desk and met me there. He was a big, muscular, blond man who looked like Hitler's dream. “You better get into Greenwood's office. The meeting with the Fed just started. They're waiting for you.”

“They sent a Fed here already?”

“Yeah. I think he's a big shot profiler.” He pointed with his coffee mug and walked away.

I took my coffee over to Greenwood's office door and noticed several shadows moving around on the other side of the frosted glass window. I knocked twice on Greenwood's stenciled name.

“Come in.”

I opened the door to see a well-dressed man sitting on Greenwood's low couch. Greenwood sat stiffly behind his desk, as if afraid to relax in front of the agent. Across from Greenwood were Ron and Dr. Will Covington, our district psychiatrist, and near them was an empty chair.

The office was the neatest I had ever seen it. Greenwood must have spent hours cleaning up and filing his paperwork. The books on the shelves had even been straightened and organized.