701

  ***

  It had been a restless night, Renner had made the decision to come in early, and review the case file before the office began to fill with noise. With little else to go on, she hoped to find a detail they had missed - something to help move the investigation forward. It turned out to be the right call. Broadcasting the still frames on the previous evening’s news had led to a tip-off from an anonymous caller. The elderly man had identified all three women and cited specifics of the case that had not been released to the media. It was regrettable he was unwilling to meet or sign an affidavit, but the details confirmed the lead as viable. He had also provided more information about one of the women, Latreece Mays.

  Renner quickly searched the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles database and found the driver’s license details for Mays. The match was clear: five-five, in her late thirties, attractive, with a rounded face and braided hair. She wasn’t what Renner had expected. On first appearance, Mays looked anything but dangerous and it immediately began to seed doubt in her mind - could this really be her?

  She sat back and checked her watch. It was 6:40am and the early morning light had begun to bleed through the blinds. The dawn sky was starting to come alive.

  She reached forward, picked up her phone and called Lucas. With the handset wedged under her chin, she rocked back and clicked her fingers as the call dialed through. A moment later he answered.

  “Hey, you far away?”

  “Parking. Be there in five. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got a lead. We need to take a ride out to Gentilly Terrace. Bring the car round; I’ll meet you on Gravier.”

  She hung up, printed the DMV file and made her way out of the building to meet Lucas. During the drive, she filled him in on the morning’s events and less than fifteen minutes later, they made a right off St Roch Avenue onto Carnot Street to the address listed on the file.

  They parked and made their way across the sidewalk and up to the front porch. Renner knocked and waited while Lucas made his way back down the stairs and around the side of the house to check the rear of the property. He returned around the opposite corner.

  “No one here. Let’s head back and we can take another run out here later this morning.”

  “Fine. I need a coffee anyway; I’ve been in since five.”

  She tossed the keys to Lucas as they made their way back across the street to the unmarked unit.

  Her mobile rang as Lucas pulled the car away from the curb. She answered and a minute late placed her hand over the mouthpiece. “Forget coffee. Let’s head back; you won’t believe what’s just happened.”

  Latreece Mays eyes wandered nervously about the lobby to the NOPD detective bureau. Her elderly mother sat one side, clearly agitated, and her teenage daughter sat on the other, arms folded tight. All three looked up as Renner and Lucas approached the desk sergeant. He gestured across in their direction.

  “Latreece Mays?” Renner asked, as she crossed the room.

  Mays’ mother sprung to her feet and, with a glowering look, took a step forward, shielding her daughter from Renner’s approach.

  “You’re the detective they were fussin’ over on the news last night?”

  “That’s right. I’m Detective Renner. This is my partner Detective Lucas.”

  “Well, what in the Lord’s name do y’all want with my daughter? Her face was all over the television. Look at her - she’s been up all night, scared all to hell. Shame on you, detective.”

  Renner stood and stared back. She waited for her to take a breath. When she began to calm, Renner spoke.

  “Ma’am, we would like to speak with your daughter. We need to ask her a few questions. It won’t take long. You can wait here and if you would like something to drink, one of the officers will arrange that. Okay?”

  “You don’t speak with her without me in the room.” She was shaking in the standoff with Renner.

  “It’s ok, Mama,” Mays said, quietly. “I’ll talk to the lady.” She stood, hugged her mother and slowly made her way toward the door in the corner of the room.

  Renner looked at Mays’ mother and daughter before she turned and closely followed Mays down the corridor to the interview room. She passed Mays then paused at the door, allowing Mays to enter first. She followed and closed the door, while Lucas entered the adjoining room to watch the interview on CCTV.

  Both women sat facing each other for a minute, as Renner leafed through some paperwork in a buff-colored manila file. She eventually looked up. “Latreece, we are recording this interview. You understand?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Mays replied.

  “So your Mama certainly has some fire in her belly.”

  Mays sat with her head down and arms folded tight to her chest. Even with the defensive posture, Renner could see the smile cross her face.

  “Fact is, she’s taken care of me and my baby since my husband passed,” Mays replied. “I don’t know where we’d be without her.”

  She reached into her purse, pulled out a small photograph, and handed it to Renner. The family looked happy. Mays and her husband leaned against a stone balustrade. Their daughter stood in front.

  “It was taken in City Park at the Popp fountain,” she said. “It was my baby’s fourteenth birthday.”

  “How did he pass?” Renner asked, quietly.

  Mays took a long breath. By her expression, the feelings were raw.

  “Taken by the floods. Lord knows, it took everything from us.” Mays shook her head as she finished the sentence.

  “Your home?”

  Mays nodded. “Lower Ninth. It was all we could afford. We were gonna move somewhere better. I wanted to get my baby out of that hellhole.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Moved around best we could. At first a man took us across the river to Algiers.”

  Renner nodded. “It’s where I grew up.”

  “Oh,” Mays replied.

  “And after that?”

  “The Superdome.”

  Renner narrowed her eyes. It was another piece of the puzzle – Solieau and Mays had probably crossed paths there. She let the room fall silent for a beat.

  “That her out in the lobby?”

  Mays nodded.

  “She’s pretty. How old is she now?”

  “Comin’ up on seventeen.”

  “She looked upset.”

  “She’s a teenager. She’s always upset.” She paused, confused by Renner’s odd line of questioning. “Detective, why did you put my picture on the news last night?”

  “My partner and I are investigating the murder of a man at the bar a few nights back. His name was Jermaine Solieau. We need to speak to three women we know were there. You are one of them.”

  “Oh, Okay. You mean where Otis Shaw was playin’?”

  “That’s right,” Renner replied. She thought for a moment about reading Mays a Miranda warning. It was clearly a high-risk move as she was their only lead. The fact she had come to the station voluntarily weighed in their favor. The move might scare her, leading her to request a lawyer that would result in a drawn-out, frustrating case of procedure. With the present circumstantial evidence, she knew it was unlikely the District Attorney would support a prosecution and she would walk. Conversely, with the information provided in the tip-off earlier that morning, albeit unconfirmed, there was a high likelihood Solo’s killer sat in front of her. The risk of a judge ruling any evidence she obtained during the interview inadmissible would leave them empty-handed and the case would go cold. One thing Renner knew for sure; Mays was not walking out of the station until she was sure. She decided to make the play but, before she could speak, Mays went on.

  “I don’t understand what you want with me. I only went there to see the band. Otherwise, I don’t even go down to the Lower Ninth no more, after what we been through an’ all.”

  “Latreece. Before we go any further, I need to let you know your rights.”

  “Whatever,” Mays replied,
confused.

  Renner proceeded to read the Miranda warning and then passed a copy across for Mays to sign, acknowledging she understood and was not under duress. She slipped the signed copy into the case file. She then flicked through the file and retrieved a photograph of Solo. She slowly slid it across the table.

  “Do you know this man?”

  Mays shook her head, face down toward the brown desk.

  “Take another look, Latreece. It’s important you are sure.”

  Mays picked up the photo, studied it for a moment. Her eyes narrowed and a confused look crossed her face for a split second. Recomposed, she placed it back on the table and pushed it back toward Renner with the tips of her fingers. It was a small detail, but Renner noticed the image was now face down.

  “No. I don’t know him.”

  Renner changed tack.

  “How did you hear about Shaw – specifically, that he would be playing that night?”

  “My friends. They knew I liked Otis. My daddy brought me up on jazz.”

  “Did he play?”

  Mays nodded. “Trumpet, like Otis.”

  “Nice,” Renner replied.

  It was important to keep Mays calm, so she would keep talking.

  “Okay. When did you arrive at the bar – what time?”

  “Maybe round ten-thirty. His set didn’t start till eleven.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “No. It was me and some others.”

  Renner paused. The answer seemed vague.

  “The other two women in the photo we screened on the news. Are they your friends?”

  Again, Mays nodded, head facing the table.

  “What are their names?”

  “Eleesha and Thereze.”

  The names checked out with the detail provided on the earlier tip-off.

  “Tell me what happened at the bar.”

  “We were dancin’- you know, having a good time an’ all. Maybe a couple of songs in was when all the fuss and commotion started. We got pushed to the ground. People walked all over us. Everyone was panickin’.”

  Renner wrote a note on her note pad in large capitals, tracing over them to reinforce the point. She stood the notepad up so Lucas watching remotely would notice the instruction. She sat back and continued.

  “Go on.”

  “I still got the bruises – see.” Mays lifted her sleeve to show the yellowish patches of skin.

  Renner leaned forward to take a closer look.

  “We waited till it was clear, then we left. I went home. It annoyed me. I was really looking forward to seeing him play.”

  “Did you see who attacked Mr. Solieau?”

  She shook her head. “Like I said, I’ve never seen him bef—”

  Before she could finish the sentence, there was a knock on the door. A young female officer made her way into the room.

  “Latreece, I am going to pause the interview. I would like to get a set of fingerprints. This officer will take you through the procedure. We have done this for everyone at the bar that night – you understand?”

  “Okay. Can you check on my family, please?”

  “Sure. Sit tight, I’ll be back shortly.” As the officer started unpacking equipment, Renner pushed her chair in and left the room.

  She made her way down the hallway and into the surveillance room where Lucas was waiting. He handed her a bottle of water.

  “We can run the prints against the reference set from the crime scene,” he said.

  “That’s gives us twenty-five minutes.” She unscrewed the top off the bottle and took a sip. “You come in with me this time. I’ve built some rapport. Time to push her a bit harder.”

  Renner picked up another bottle of water and both detectives made their way back into the room where the officer was packing up. While Lucas stood in the corner of the room, Renner handed Mays a bottle and followed the officer out into the hall. “Check on her family out front, Okay. Get the confirmation on the prints back to me here as a priority.”

  Mays, was wiping her fingers with a cloth when Renner returned and took a seat.

  “Latreece, this is Detective Lucas. He will join us for the rest of the interview.

  “Okay.”

  “So Latreece, I want to pick up where we left off.”

  “Sure.”

  “You said earlier, you’ve never seen Jermaine Solieau before. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You sure?”

  Mays nodded.

  “Latreece, I’m confused. I have a photograph of you standing next to him at the bar. You’re an attractive woman – he said nothing to you?” Lucas asked.

  “No, sir. Nothing.”

  Renner handed the enlarged color image across to Mays. It was grainy but it was clear Mays and Solo were only a few feet apart. Mays shook her head and looked agitated.

  Lucas leaned forward. “I talk to people in this room every day and I’ve learned one thing. There’s five main reasons why people kill in this city - money, women, guns respect or revenge. You know that, four out of every five of those murders, the victim knew the killer.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Crazy maybe, but it tells me that it’s likely whoever killed Solo crossed paths with him before the night he was killed.” He waited a few seconds for it to sink in.

  “Like I said, I don’t know him. Maybe ask my friends.”

  “We intend to, but first, be honest. There is more to this story,” Renner added. “You’re in a fix. You need to clear this up for the sake of your family, if nothing else.”

  “I swear I don’t know a damn thing.”

  “Look at me, Latreece,” Lucas said, with a raised voice. “This is my job, you understand. I talk to people like you every day and right now every instinct in my body is telling me that you’re holding back – and I’ll be honest; that’s a bad move. So I’m gonna do you a favor and lay this out straight. You need to understand something. If I find you are obstructing our investigation and I find out that you’re wasting our time - and you do know Solieau - I will charge you. That means a criminal record and that means life gets a whole lot harder from now on. You understand me?”

  “But I’ve done nothing.”

  “Latreece!” Lucas replied.

  Mays sat still with her head down for what seemed an age before she spoke. “Fine, but I’m not sure what I can tell you.”

  Renner looked across at Lucas and back to Mays. “Latreece, tell me about the Superdome. When did you arrive there?”

  “Like I told you before. Day after the storm hit. We were some of the first people to arrive and set up on the grass.”

  “Who was with you?”

  “Just my baby girl. We didn’t know where my husband was. We were all alone in that place.”

  Renner and Lucas both sat back. Mays was speaking freely; they let her continue. “They promised us we would be safe but people kept coming and coming. Soon you couldn’t move. It was so damn hot.”

  As she looked up, Renner could see tears were beginning to well in her eyes as the memories washed through her mind.

  “Soon it wasn’t safe to even move around alone. Sure, the guards had guns, but they didn’t have control.”

  Mays began to break down. Renner looked across at Lucas who nodded. “Latreece, I know this is hard. But we need to understand what happened.”

  Mays nodded as she wiped her reddened eyes with the palms of her hands and over the next ten minutes she described how the conditions at the Superdome had progressively declined over the four days they were there.

  “Let’s go over this again. At any time did you cross paths with Jermaine Solieau?”

  Mays shook her head. “Why you keep askin’ me that?”

  “Latreece, Jermaine Solieau was at the Superdome during the storm. The same time you were there.”

  Mays took a long-drawn breath. She moved uncomfortably in her chair as tears began to stream down her face again. Before
she could speak there was a knock at the door. Renner shook her head; it seemed impossible to get any momentum into the interview.

  Lucas got up and met the officer who handed him a file, turned and left. The results were back sooner than expected.

  He looked at Renner and gestured outside the room.

  “Ok, Latreece, we will be back in a couple of minutes. We are almost done.”

  They made their way into the hall where he stopped after a few paces. He rubbed his chin as he looked back at Renner. “You’re not going to like this.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not her. The prints weren’t a match.”

  “No way, that’s impossible – fuck. It’s a mistake. She knows something. I saw it in her eyes. It’s her. I know it’s her.”

  Lucas shook his head as he passed the file. “No mistake. They checked. It’s not a match.”

  Renner paced the hallway with her hands on her hips.

  “We have to cut her loose?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Gabe, so much time has passed and we’ve got nothing without her.”

  Lucas nodded as Renner turned on the spot.

  “This isn’t right. I’m missing something.” She paced up and down the narrow passage for a minute, then suddenly stopped. She threw open the door to the interview room and, as she made her way in, she caught a chair in one hand and sat down facing Mays. Lucas followed her, closed the door and stood, unsure of his partner’s approach.

  “Latreece, you said your husband wasn’t with you in the superdome and at that time you were not aware he had passed. Is that right?”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “And where was your mother?”

  “She was in Baton Rouge with her sister. She went out there a week before.”

  “Okay.” Renner thought for a moment.

  “When you set up in the superdome, where did you sit, specifically?”

  “On the grass like I told you before. Near the end zone.”

  “End zone? You watch football.”

  “Andre did.”

  “Andre?”

  “My husband,” Mays replied, quietly. “He always said it was the best place to sit. Strange, but kinda made me feel close to him.”

  Renner looked across at Mays. “I’m sorry. I should have asked his name earlier.”

  Mays shrugged and took a sip of water. The water sloshed as she tipped the bottle back and forth as she waited for Renner to continue.

  “It was pretty tough in there.” Renner hoped the statement would prompt Mays to volunteer information.

  “You seen the news, Detective. I honestly thought me and my baby might die. I prayed to God every day that he keep us safe.”

  “You’d do anything to keep her safe, wouldn’t you?”

  “Including killing Jermaine Solieau?” Lucas added.

  With Mays looking down at the table, Renner looked across at Lucas and gently shook her head. It wasn’t the direction she had wanted to take.

  “No, detective. I would never hurt nobody.”

  Mays looked up and her eyes locked with Renner. Renner exhaled and nodded.

  “Why are you doing this to me. I done nothing wrong.”

  Renner stared back silently and it seemed an age before she audibly exhaled and nodded. “I know you haven’t.”

  “You believe me?” Latreece replied, hopefully.

  “I believe you.”

  Lucas looked at Renner and raised his eyebrows. She looked back and taking the cue, he stepped forward and held out his hand. “Come on, your family is waiting.”

  “Truly, are we finished, detective?”

  “Almost, I’ll walk you out.”

  Lucas followed as Renner led Mays out to the lobby. Mays ran forward and embraced her mother.

  “We done?” her mother asked, looking back over her daughter’s shoulder.

  “Yes. You can go.”

  “Just as well, detective. Time you were takin’, you were workin’ my last nerve.”

  “Mama,” are you ok,” Mays’ daughter asked as she stood and stepped forward.

  “TC, I’m fine sweetheart, I’m just fine. Let’s go home.”

  Before she finished the sentence, Renner’s shook her head, her suspicion was right.

  “What did you just say?” she asked.

  “I’m Sorry, detective?” Latreece replied.

  “What did you just call your daughter?”

  “T.C.”

  “Why did you call here that?”

  “Tyiasha Chantay. That’s the name I gave her.”

  Renner looked back at Lucas before addressing Tyiasha. “Well then, T.C. It’s nice to finally meet you,” she said as she extended her hand.

  Tyaisha kept her arms tightly folded, with her head down, but Renner held the posture and after what seemed an uncomfortable pause, Tyiasha finally returned the gesture. The bandage between her thumb and forefinger became clearly visible.

  Renner held the grip tight, eyes locked with Tyaisha. The sparkle in her young eyes from the family photo was gone. It seemed that only despair remained.

  “Latreece,” Renner said, without breaking the stare, “I would like to speak with your daughter.”

  Mays and her mother stared at each other, then glared back at Renner.

  “No way in hell. she’s only sixteen years old.”

  Renner turned to look at them both.

  “You can join her - both of you, for all I care – but T.C. and I are going to talk. Now!”