“Your dress was saturated with your mother’s blood. Your fingerprints were all over the axe.”
“Yes, Yes. Yes.” She bowed her head and her shoulders shook.
It left him cold. “Then you’ll understand when I tell you that I don’t believe you.”
“I didn’t kill my mother. I have never told anyone what really took place that night.”
“You could start by telling me.” His voice sharp and heartless.
“It isn’t easy for me.”
“Have it your own way. The door’s over there.”
“No it’s time it was told.” Duval sucked in a deep breath and started. “Something had been troubling my mother for several weeks. At first she was nervous, frightened of strangers, then one afternoon she came back home in a state of real panic and over the next few days became increasingly paranoid. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, no matter how much I pleaded with her. She wouldn’t leave the house, wouldn’t allow me to leave. She hammered nails into the oak tree to make at easier for me to climb, and started to call the flat branch I liked to sit on my secret place. She told me I was to run and hide there if bad men came. I don’t think she had ever been so scared, not even in Haiti when the mob killed my father. I was desperate to do something to help her, so I snuck out and stole the axe. Can you imagine how I felt when it was turned against her?”
“Your statement about the initiation ceremony was all lies?”
“Most of it was true. My mother started my initiation that first afternoon. She must have been terrified of something happening to her before she had a chance to pass on her secrets. But she would never have hurt me.”
“If you didn’t kill her, who did?”
“A policeman. A white man in uniform. The two of us were in the middle of a ritual when he knocked on the door. My mother seemed relieved at the sound of his voice. She opened the door and let him in. He saw the axe on the table and picked it up. He made a joke about it and asked my mother what she planned to do with it. Before she had time to answer, he struck the first blow. Her blood spilled on my dress.”
“Had you seen him before?”
Duval shook her head and wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. “He struck her twice more, then wiped the handle and dropped the axe on the floor, staring at me all the time. He promised to hunt me down and kill me if I ever told anyone about him. Then he turned and left. I seized the axe and ran outside. I climbed to my secret place as my mother had instructed me to do.”
“Did you tell all this to your attorney?”
“No. Wells wouldn’t have believed me.”
Val pulled a crumpled tissue from the pocket of his robe and handed it to her. “It’s not an attorney’s job to make judgments.”
Duval dabbed at her eyes, then scrunched the tissue into a tight ball in her hand. “I know that now. I don’t blame Wells. He was very gentle and patient when he broke the news that I was about to be arrested for murder. Explained what evidence was and that the police had already collected enough to make a case against me. When he asked if anyone else had been in the room, I didn’t give him an answer. He admitted that it looked pretty black for me, but he couldn’t begin to understand what was going through my head. All I wanted was for the police to leave me alone. I thought they would if I told them what they wanted to hear.”
“What made you have my brother offer me a job?”
“I’m fond of him and Angie; they’re good people. They both said that as a cop you were so straight, you would have made a flagpole look crooked. Angie told me about how you had resigned from the police department. I was intrigued and pumped her for more information. Then I heard about the campus police chief having a stroke and I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up.”
“Who the hell for?” Val asked, more perplexed than ever.
Duval took another deep breath. “I need a white knight. The man I saw kill my mother has resurfaced and has been following me. I saw him in a car outside my apartment and again near the restaurant where I work. The first time I thought I was imagining things, but the second time proved it. Since then, I’ve been making it hard for him. Left my job and have been sleeping at friends’ apartments, but once I start university, he’ll know where to find me. Will you be my white knight?”
“Go to the police department.”
Her moisture-filled eyes fixed on Val. “They wouldn’t want to know; not until it’s too late.”
“Hire a private investigator.”
“I don’t have the money for that. I want him stopped. I thought if you were to accept the campus police chief’s job, then it would be your duty to protect me.”
“What makes you think he’s planning to do anything after all this time? You’ve kept your silence for ten years.”
“What other reason would he have for following me?”
He shrugged. “What’s his name?”
She smiled tentatively. “You believe me?”
“I didn’t say that. What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I’ve made a sketch of him. I see his face each night in my dreams.”
Duval reached into her purse and extracted a folded sheet of paper. She opened it and flattened it out on her knees before handing it to him. “I’ll never forget the way he looked at me after he killed my mother.”
The pencil sketch was a good likeness. Duval had caught the facial characteristics of ex-policeman Donny Jackson. Val refolded the sheet of paper and slipped it into the pocket of his robe.
“Do you recognize him?”
“Yeah. You were right about him being a policeman.”
Duval relaxed her face. “Now you have to believe me.”
“No, now it’s time for you to leave. You’ve taken up enough of my morning with your childish games.” He took her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. “I don’t know what your motivation is, or what you were hoping to achieve by this charade. It was well thought out though, I’ll give you that. You almost had me buying into it. Blaming your mother’s murder on a police officer would have helped to explain a lot: the lack of defense wounds on your mother’s arms; your unprovoked attack on me. Especially when the officer you’re pointing a finger at is one who was kicked off the department in disgrace. Give a cop a bad rep and the public is all too willing to believe the worse.”
He pushed her towards the door.
She tried to shake his hand off. “I’m telling you the truth. How else could I known what he looked like?”
“Jackson’s photograph was splashed all over the newspapers and television news for the best part of a week. You drew your sketch from that.”
He slammed the door hard after her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Arena Victory’s corporate headquarters were on Loyola, across from city hall, a few blocks from the Superdome. The building, a squat cylinder of green marble and reflective glass, had been purpose-built by the company as a testament to its phenomenal growth in the early nineties. Their core business was the manufacture of sport footwear. Astute marketing and the blank-check recruitment of top sport stars to endorse its products had transformed the company from a smalltime Louisiana slipper manufacturer into a multinational success. Two teenagers out of every three would trade their souls to be the first kid on the block with a pair of the latest AVs. Image is everything with American youth, and Arena Victory had it in spades.
That’s why it was the talk of the police department when Donny Jackson walked into a highly paid corporate-security job with AV exactly two months after being canned from the force.
Jackson and his radio-car partner, Bill Trochan, had been convicted of helping themselves to a murdered woman’s jewelry. They had been dispatched to answer a 911 call in the Garden District and found the victim lying prone on her bed, her eyes staring emptily, one hand clutching the phone. She had been strangled with a computer electrical cable. They checked for signs of life and, finding none, made a radio call to the homicide detectives and the medical examiner. Wi
th time on their hands, and only a corpse for company, the two uniforms spent the next twenty minutes rifling through the bedroom drawers and closets. They found three hundred dollars in cash and a gold Rolex. Jackson kept the cash, Trochan the watch.
No one was more surprised than them when the medical examiner arrived and, having performed a circumspect search for vital signs, discovered that the victim was still very much alive. The removal of the computer cable and the administration of CPR and an oxygen mask led swiftly to the low-point in the lives of the two police officers. Before she would allow paramedics to load her onto the ambulances gurney, she insisted, in a barely audible croak, that the uniformed officers be made empty their pockets in front of the homicide detectives, one of whom was Detective Lieutenant Val Bosanquet. The press scavengers enjoyed a feeding frenzy when the news broke.
Val left his car in a quiet, brick-paved alley and walked half a block to AV’s front entrance. He explained to the girl behind the reception desk that he wanted to speak to Donny Jackson. She asked for his name, then pecked at a few keys on her computer and told him to take a seat. Someone would be along in a moment or two.
The moment or two developed into a quarter of an hour. Val spent the first five minutes watching the young corporate Turks entering and leaving the building. It seemed that no one over the age of twenty-five worked for AV. Feeling his age, he picked up a glossy prospectus for AV’s upcoming stock market flotation and flicked through it. Inside the front cover was a map showing AV’s principal manufacturing plants across the globe: one in New Delhi, one in Caracas, another in Port-au-Prince, one under construction in Hanoi. He wondered if any of the institutions that were falling over themselves to invest, appreciated the irony that few of AV’s manufacturing employees could ever hope to purchase the product they had made.
“Jarvis Kraftson,” boomed the voice of a slick thirty-something as he crossed the foyer towards Val. “Vice-president of Human Resources.”
“Val Bosanquet.” They shook hands.
Kraftson’s palm was soft and felt oily, his suit shiny and expensive. Val speculated as to what percentage of casual inquiries at AV’s front desk was attended to by vice-presidents.
‘‘Nice place you have here.’’
“I’m told you made a request to speak with Donny Jackson. May I ask in what respect?”
“It’s a private matter. Mainly beer and broads. I used to work alongside him in the police department.”
Kraftson flicked a strand of blonde hair back behind his ear. His eyes were the same vivid blue as a pool ball.
“You’re positive it has no connection with Arena Victory?”
“You’ve got to be kidding. I wouldn’t have troubled you only his home number’s not listed and I was in the neighborhood. Last I heard, Donny was working here.”
Kraftson’s lips formed into a predatory smile. “Not any longer. I apologize if I seem unduly cautious, but we had to let Mister Jackson go and, regrettably, not under the best of circumstances. Arena Victory is proud of its reputation as a fair employer, but there are sometimes those who would delight in besmirching our name. We’re all a bit keyed up over the flotation.”
“It don’t come as no surprise. What was old Donny up to this time? I lay twenty it was his pecker got him fired. He never could resist a short skirt or a high chest.”
“I couldn’t comment on that — it would be against company policy.”
“Any chance of a current address for him?”
“I’m sorry, that would be---”
“---against company policy. When did you fire him?”
“Just over a year ago. If there is nothing else I can do for you, Mr Bosanquet, I’ll say good afternoon.”
“Maybe there is another favor you could do me. Take a time-out and explain how come a company so mindful of its image would hire a man who’d steal from a corpse.”
Kraftson’s eyes hardened, but his answer was a polished as he was. “We believe that everyone deserves a second chance. Regrettably, some fail to grasp the opportunity.”
Val left Kraftson standing in the foyer and departed. As he crossed the paved plaza in front of the building, his attention was caught by Arena Victory’s logo erected on top of a chunk of raw green marble that had water streaming down its flanks. The logo was cast in bronze and was covered in verdigris. A mammoth splayed letter A sat astride a mammoth V. They were surrounded by a laurel wreath of honor. For years he had been seeing the logo stitched on the sides of countless sneakers and on big-dollar Hollywood-produced TV advertisements, but never before had he realized how much it resembled the dividers and square of Masonic imagery.
Kraftson remained motionless until his visitor had left the building. Then he waved over a man who had been observing from the rear of the foyer. The man listened carefully as Kraftson gave him swift and concise instructions. His manner made it clear there were to be no foul-ups.
Val detested cell phones and refused to carry one. He found a pay phone and called work. He told the production manager that he wouldn’t be coming in that day, or any other day for the foreseeable future. The man passed him on to another of the firm’s partners and Val explained that his leave of absence was unavoidable. His partner reacted scathingly, but came around when Val explained how any detrimental effect of his leave of absence could be minimized. They had on the payroll a young female designer who was very capable and desperate for an opportunity to prove herself. If she didn’t get it soon, they would lose her. So compelling were his proposals, it felt like he was talking himself out of a job, so he called his brother and talked himself into another. Marcus didn’t try to conceal his surprise at hearing from him.
“I'll take the Chief’s job on three conditions,” Val said.
“Which are?” Marcus asked warily.
“It will be for a single semester only. After that, you’ll have to find someone else.”
“And?”
“I refuse to wear a uniform.”
“The third?”
“I won’t carry a gun.”
“If that’s the way you want it, it’s fine with me. What made you change your mind?”
“Something I should have seen ten years ago,” Val said, before hanging up.
Back in the alley, fumbling for the car keys in his jacket pocket, Val’s path was suddenly blocked by a couple of muggers on early shift. They must have followed him into the alley, Val assumed, though he hadn’t been aware of them until they were in his face. The one holding the blood-filled syringe was white and had breath that smelt worse than week-old road-kill.
“Let’s have the wallet, podna.” His voice sounded hoarse as though somebody had poured lye down his throat. Val could see blood smears on the syringe’s needle.
“Best do what he says,” his Latin accomplice encouraged. “You don’t want a taste of the virus.”
The Latin was holding a telescopic steel baton in his right hand and was slapping it against the palm of his left. Extended, it could break an arm or crack a skull.
“Sure. Anything you say. Just don’t stick me.” Val reached slowly around to his hip pocket and pulled his wallet out. They were alone in the alley. The whites of their eyes were too clear for druggies, but Val had been wrong before.
“Give it here,” the Latin said, snapping it from his hands.
He opened it and scanned the contents. Val’s eyes never left his.
“Is this all you’re carrying?” the man asked finally. “A lousy fifty bucks.”
The guy holding the syringe stabbed it towards Val’s throat.
“You holding out on us?”
Val shook his head. “That’s it. I swear it.”
That seemed to satisfy them and they started to back off.
“Now’s not the time to try anything dumb,” the Latin warned.
They turned on their heels and loped off down the alley.
Val opened the car door and climbed in. What sort of mugger, he wondered, turning the key in the ignition,
takes the time to read the name on his victim’s driving license before counting the cash? He had a strong feeling that he knew why Jarvis Kraftson had kept him waiting so long in the foyer.
Bill Trochan opened the door of his room in a run-down single resident occupancy hotel wearing nothing but a set of graying skivvies. It took him a moment or two to recognize Val.
Trochan sucked catarrh back down his throat. "What the fuck do you want?”
He was a small man and must have been right on the minimum height requirement for the department. He had a tiny, round face and a lopsided grin that made him appear to be constantly pulling a W.C. Fields impression.
“Can we talk inside?”
Trochan swung back the door and waved him in. The TV was on, though the sound was turned down. Everything in the room was a shade of brown. The drapes were sienna, the carpeting a dark rust color, and the furniture a cheap mahogany veneer. The stale air smelt strongly of dirty socks and milk on the turn.
“Okay, now you’re in. What do you want?”
“To see you put on some clothes.”
“You’re a funny man.”
Trochan slipped on a pair of trousers, but left it at that. His trouser waistband needed cinching with a belt.
“You've dropped some weight since you were at Garden,” Val said.
“It’s the welfare diet. You get to eat alternate days. You can fucking leave now if all you want to do is joke and talk nutrition.”
“I’m trying to locate Donny Jackson. I thought you might be able to point me in the right direction.”
Trochan didn’t seem surprised by the inquiry, but he didn’t answer it either.
“I hear you quit the department,” Trochan said. “You walked; you weren’t pushed. What made you do something like that?”
Val had a reply he knew would satisfy him. “I was tired of messing with people’s lives.”
Trochan lifted a pack of cigarettes from the table and slid one out. He lit it and took a long drag. “I know what you mean. They take two coonasses like Jackson and me outa the swamp, send us back to school for a couple of months, empower us with enough authority to make our heads spin and let us carry a shield and a gun to back it up, then turn us loose in a cesspool. They say a city gets the police force it deserves. Goes a long way to explaining why the NOPD are the poorest paid cops in the country.”