“I don’t want anyone hurt.”
“Nobody will be, just as long as you do this one last favor for me.”
“Okay.”
“That’s more like it. Now you’re thinking like a parent.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Val parked his car close to the entrance to St Louis cemetery No. 1 and stood on the sidewalk near the gates while he took a long, careful look around him. Fully aware of the dangers, Trochan must have had a valid purpose to come here after dark and Val thought he knew what it was.
He shifted his attention to the opposite side of the street. An expensive Italian restaurant was sandwiched between a restored apartment house and the offices of a legal firm. Trochan’s body had been found just inside the cemetery, but what if he had been there so he could surveil the buildings opposite without attracting undue attention? Only he hadn’t anticipated that there would be somebody watching the same building.
Val crossed over. Crescent City Holdings had done a fine preservation job on the apartment building. Restorers had repaired all the lacy filigree ironwork, casting new sections where necessary, and stripping generations of paint from the original iron before decorators had applied a fresh coat. Craftsmen had cleaned and re-mortared the redbrick. The wooden windows and shutters were varnished teak, the stucco of the sills end surrounds painted a lime green. Baskets of camellias hung from brass hooks fastened to the teak ceiling of every balcony.
Right next to the entrance was a small cast iron plaque proclaiming how Crescent City Holdings had carried out the restoration in 1995.
The building super was a black man in his early fifties, with a grizzled, gray beard. He was skinny and walked with a limp. The lenses of his glasses were thicker than the bottoms of shot glasses. Val gave him a quick look at his shield.
“What can I do for you, officer?”
“Is Donny Jackson a tenant here?”
The black man shook his head. “No sir. We have no one of that name.”
“He may be using a different name.” Val took a copy of Duval’s sketch from his jacket pocket and unfolded it.
“This remind you of anyone?”
The super took the sheet and drew it close to his eyes.
“That’s a lot like Lonnie Dupree. He ain’t here right now.”
“When do you expect him?”
“Could be a week, could be a month. Hard to say. The company leases the apartment. He doesn’t spend much time in New Orleans. Usually lets me know in advance when he’s due back, but must have forgotten this time.”
“That could be him. I want to see inside his apartment.”
The super squinted up at Val. “You got any paper?”
“Only the green sort.” Val held out a twenty-dollar bill. The hand that snatched it moved faster than a striking cottonmouth.
“Right this way. The apartment’s on three.”
Val followed him into a smell elevator and made the short trip to the third floor. The super produced a bunch of keys, selected one, and opened the door to apartment 36.
“Let me put the power on for you. With Dupree being off so much of the time, I keep the juice turned off.”
After some fumbling behind the door, the light came flooding on and the air-conditioning unit kicked in.
“You going to take a while? Only I’ve got plenty of chores to be getting on with.”
“Don’t let me stop you. I’ll turn the power off before I leave.”
“Mind you do,” the super said. He closed the door after him.
Val took a quick look around the living room. There wasn’t much to see. The furniture was generic; the type found in every twenty-five-dollar motel from New Orleans to New York. The one exception was an expensive sound system. Val had a riffle through the CDs. Donny was a big fan of country and of Cajun. There was a bunch of circulars on the coffee table. Val went through them all, without finding anything of interest.
The bedroom was next. The closet contained a selection of jackets and trousers, a couple pairs of jeans, a dozen brightly-colored Bermuda shirts, and a chartreuse seersucker suit. Val winced. Subtlety wasn’t the guiding principle in Donny’s sense of style.
The bed had been stripped, but there were no bedclothes in the closet or the bedroom drawers. There was, however, a matching set of well-worn Samsonite luggage. All present and correct, and all empty.
The bathroom was tidy and clinically clean, except for a long splash of dried blood on the underside of the ceramic sink. Val wouldn’t have spotted it, only he had bent down to run his fingers along the gap between the pedestal and the wall.
Val found nothing of interest in the spare bedroom and the kitchen. What was he searching for? An address book, a journal, or some old correspondence, credit card receipts, check book stubs. Anything which would give him some clue as to where Donny was hiding out. Only he could provide the last few answers Val was seeking.
He went over the living room for a second time, checking under chairs in case Donny had taped something to their underside, examining the backs of pictures and mirrors. Opened every CD box. Fanned through the pages of three soft porn paperbacks. Stuck his fingers down the back of the couch and found a few quarters.
Reluctantly, Val conceded that he was wasting his time. He turned off the power, closed the door and rode the elevator back down to the lobby. A row of brass mail boxes were set into the wall next to the entrance, each one engraved with its apartment number. He found 36.
The super pocketed another twenty and opened it.
Two more circulars and one hand written envelope, addressed to Lonnie Dupree. Val slid a finger under the flap and removed the birthday card that it contained. Signed only by Rita, there was a letter from her written on the inside leaf.
She started by apologizing in advance should the card fail to reach her son in time for his birthday. His father and she had been preoccupied with finding a clandestine way to assist Duval locate a college place. They were getting nowhere, until finally, in desperation, they had approached Assist Haiti. At first, the operations director didn’t want to know, but eventually reconsidered and agreed to help out. It was the perfect solution. If Roy came up with the cash, Philip Lausaux could guarantee Duval’s acceptance by the UNO, and in addition, would pass it off as an Assist Haiti scholarship. The true identity of who was footing the bill for her education would never need be revealed.
Val stopped reading for a moment. He would like to know, now that the Jacksons were dead, what Lausaux had done with the money.
The letter went on. Rita hadn’t taken to Lausaux and didn’t think any man prepared to do something for nothing could be trusted. He was too fond of asking probing questions, too keen to delve into why Roy had kept Duval in the dark about who her real father was and the existence of her half-brother.
Val could understand Roy Jackson’s reticence. What a family get-together that would have been.
Rita finished the letter with a warning. Ever since Roy’s last meeting alone with Lausaux — when her husband had handed over the money — he had been acting moody; she had a feeling he might have let slip more than he should have.
Val closed the card and returned it to its envelope and pocketed it. One way or another Lausaux had tumbled the Jacksons’s dark secret. His curiosity aroused by the Jacksons’s entreaty, he may have compelled Roy into spilling the beans.
Exactly how many beans, Val couldn’t be sure. Lausaux may have unearthed for himself the connections between Valerie Duval’s murder, the implausible employment of Donny by Arena Victory, and Crescent City Holdings. Then, having put two and two together, he conceived a plan to profit from it and at the same time avenge the humiliation he had endured over the hog debacle.
All well and good, Val admitted to himself, but, as Paul Larson had so succinctly put it, Wall Street wouldn’t let a little thing like murder or exploitation come between it and a profit. There had to be some other angle to the Valerie Duval killing. An angle that Lausaux must have established. His disappea
rance and the bloodstain in the bathroom pointed to Donny Jackson having provided it.
Val walked back to where he had left his car.
Angie was almost finished writing a letter to a cousin in Houston, sharing the news of her pregnancy and swearing her cousin to secrecy, when the ringing of the doorbell startled her. She put down her pen. Nobody was expected and Marcus was at a faculty meeting, not due home for another hour at the earliest. With the UNOPD car stationed outside, she knew she was being silly, but Val had upset her with his talk of Haitian thugs and she had been feeling jittery ever since. She left the security chain on when she opened the door.
“Madam Bosanquet, I’m so sorry to disturb you,” Philip Lausaux apologized.
“Not at all.” Angie’s heart started to beat again and she removed the chain and opened the door fully. “Marcus isn’t at home right now. Maybe you could come back later.”
“It’s really you I’ve come to see. To discuss what we are going to do with Marie Duval.”
“I didn’t realize. Please, won’t you come in?”
Lausaux entered and Angie showed him through to the living room. She asked him to take a seat on the couch.
“May I offer you a drink?” she offered.
“Only if you join me.”
“No can do. I’ve recently found out that I’m expecting. I’ll stick to a soda. Cognac?”
“That would be perfect.”
Angie moved over to the antique bureau that Marcus and she used as a drinks cabinet.
“How do you like it?”
“In a highball glass, lots of ice.”
She poured a double shot and popped a can of diet soda for herself. She picked up the silver ice bucket. “Please, make yourself at home while I fetch the ice. I won’t be a minute.”
In the kitchen, she filled the ice bucket from a plastic bag in the icebox and opened a packet of cheese sticks and emptied them into a glass dish.
Lausaux was standing next to the bureau, admiring a painting Marcus had recently acquired. He had his highball glass in his hand.
“I hope you don’t mind, it’s been a very trying day,” he said. “I’ve poured your soda.”
“Not at all. Let me put some ice in that.”
Angie used a pair of tongs to drop ice into Lausaux’s drink and her own. They clinked glasses and sipped at their drinks.
“Val Bosanquet came to see me this morning,” Lausaux started. “He asked me to renew the charity’s offer of financial backing to Marie Duval. I’m afraid I was rather abrupt with him.”
“I haven’t spoken to him today.”
“I’ve been thinking it over and perhaps I was too hasty. But the way I understood it, Miss Duval has made up her mind not to accept any financial help from Assist Haiti. She comes across as a very resolute young lady.”
“She certainly is.” Angie took another drink of the soda. It tasted odd. Her doctor had warned her that she might experience some alteration of her tastes. “You want me to speak to her?”
“If you would. Marie confided in me about what close friends the two of you had become in a short time. And she might listen to reason quicker if it was coming from another women.”
“I’ll do all I can,” Angie said. She shivered and felt pins and needles tingling her arm. Maybe she had put too much ice in her drink. “But as you say, Marie can be very stubborn when it pleases her.”
“At least we’ll have tried,” Lausaux said, then smiled apologetically. “Do forgive my rudeness. I didn’t congratulate you on your pregnancy. What are you hoping for?”
“I haven’t taken a scan yet, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be twins. A boy and a girl. Lots of twins in my family. I’m due in late May.”
Lausaux raised his glass and smiled. “Let’s drink to Gemini.”
Val parked in a nearby street and followed the iron railings to the front gates of the church. Monsignor Charbonnet was right. St Dominic’s was a very beautiful building. When the Irish had built it in the 1870s, they had spared no expense. Its architecture and stonework were exquisite. As is the way with churches, it had changed very little since its construction. Other than a coat of city grime and the installation of electric light, the church remained the same. The five largest stained-glass windows depicted the four apostles and St Patrick.
Inside, all was quiet. Two women were sitting apart in the center pews, their heads bowed. Val felt the familiar unease creep over him. Did his lack of any kind of faith mean something was missing from his life? Ten years ago he would have claimed a definite no, now he wasn’t so sure. Like Voodoo, he had also had to adapt to a constantly changing world; to a world that contained passions and greeds that he couldn’t begin to comprehend. But according to the laws of nature every action produces an equal and opposite reaction.
Perhaps the only Supreme Being was inevitability.
He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and knocked on the sacristy door. A young male Latin answered, possibly Colombian. Val had disturbed his cleaning of two massive brass candlesticks, only slightly shorter than Val, their candles as thick as his wrist.
“Es Senor Malcolm Kellerman aqui?”
The young man wiped his hands on the polishing cloth. “No, he’s gone to St Francis parish for a few days. To make arrangements for his sister’s funeral. He’s expected back on Thursday.”
“Gracias.”
“Is there a message I can give him?”
“No, thanks. I’ll see him some other time. Buenas noches.”
The young Colombian returned to his polishing. Val walked back through the church into the night.
Marcus called Val’s cell phone as he was turning on to Loyola on his way home.
“Is Angie with you?” Marcus asked anxiously.
“No. Isn’t she at home?”
“I’ve just returned from a faculty meeting to find the house empty and the security alarm not turned on. I’ve had a good look around but I can’t see any note. She told me she would be in all evening.”
Val’s vision blurred. He pulled over to the side of the street.
“Have you spoken to the officers on surveillance duty?”
“There’s no patrol car outside. Somebody’s been here; there were two dirty glasses on the living room table.”
Val told himself not to overreact. Maybe she had had to leave the house to go someplace and the police officers had tagged along after her. “I’ll ring the station house and find out where she is.”
“I thought she might have been at your place. I know she’s still seeing you,” Marcus said belligerently.
“Not now, Marcus,” Val said and cut him off. He tapped in the automatic dial code for the UNOPD. The duty sergeant answered on the third ring.
“Chief Bosanquet. Let me speak to Captain Clements.”
“He’s not here right now.”
“What’s happening with the watch on my brother’s house?”
“Nothing. It was terminated earlier this evening.”
“On whose orders?” Val stormed.
“Captain Clements’s. He said he needed the manpower and had okayed it with you.”
“I want you to find him and have him call me. Now!”
Val restarted his car and drove the short distance to his house. Maybe Angie would be there, but he had a bad feeling about this. Angie had a mind of her own, but she was far from dumb. What on earth did Clements think he was playing at?
There were no lights on inside the house when he arrived home. He sat in the car and called the station house again to find out what was keeping Clements. The duty sergeant was surprised to learn that Clements hadn’t been in touch. The sergeant had contacted him at home and Clements had assured him that he would phone Chief Bosanquet immediately.
Maybe he was calling his home number. Val sprinted up the steps.
He found a plain white envelope taped to his door. He opened it. Inside, there was a note and a gold wedding band. He knew without examining it th
at it was the one he had placed on Angie’s finger a lifetime ago.
The note said he was to be at Woldenberg Park by the river at ten o’clock. He was to park his car near the Conti end of Front Street and to come on foot and to be alone. There was no threat or mention of any consequences should he fail to show. There didn’t have to be.
Val checked his watch. Nine fifty-five. He was late. He stuffed the letter in his jacket pocket and hurried down the steps.
Two men approached him as he was unlocking the door of his car. They showed him their credentials, but he already knew who they were. FBI.
“Chief Valentino Bosanquet? I’m Special Agent Ben Lehman and this is Special Agent Mike Comeaux We’d like a word with you.”
“Won’t it wait until the morning? I’m on my way out. It’s important.”
“No, it can’t,” Lehman said. “A man was killed early this afternoon and we think you might be able to help with our inquiries.”
Val felt his stomach flip over. “Since when has it been the FBI’s job to investigate homicides?”
“The homicide may be tied in with one or our investigations. The NOPD called us.”
“Who was killed?”
“Howard Woods, a convicted drug-dealer. Several witnesses have come forward and given the police accurate descriptions of a man seen chasing Woods on Sunday evening. A bartender called in and gave homicide your name. Said you had been in his place asking about Woods.”
Val nodded. “Didn’t any of your witnesses mention the fact that Woods got away from me?”
“Yeah, but only after you almost strangled him. Our SAC wants to know why you have the mark of Cain on you. It seems everybody you talk to ends up dead. That ex-cop, Trochan. The Jacksons, and now Howard Woods.”
Val sneaked a look at Agent Comeaux’s watch. Ten o’clock. “There’s a very simple explanation. Let me come over to your office in the morning. I’ll tell you all about it then. I didn’t kill Woods; he was a drug-dealer for chrissake. It’s an occupational hazard.”
Lehman seized Val by the arm. “Now would suit us better.”
“You two really know how to screw up a guy’s love life.” He held up his cell phone so they could see it. “At least allow me time to make one phone call. Tell the girl not to wait up.”