Private Justice

  She touched his arm in thanks. She had heard that he was arrogant, vain, and self-centered. But to her he just seemed like a nice guy, and she hadn’t had much experience with nice guys lately. “Thanks, I will.”

  He disappeared back into the night.

  Jill stepped through the next set of glass doors, surprised at the amount of activity in the usually sleepy station. It looked as if every police officer in Newpointe had been called in to work tonight and half the town had been dragged in for questioning.

  She spotted Joe sitting outside one of the interrogation rooms. Before she could reach him, though, someone else called her name.

  “Jill, thank goodness. I’ve been trying to call you.”

  She stopped as she saw Lisa Manning, Jamie Larkins’s best friend. Her eyes were swollen, and she was wiping her nose with a wadded tissue. “Lisa, what are you doing here?”

  “They came and got me for questioning,” she said. “I already told ’em everything I knew, but they won’t let me go home yet. I didn’t think to call you until a few minutes ago.”

  Joe was standing now and waving impatiently across the room at her, but she touched Lisa’s shoulder. “What did you tell them, Lisa? What do you know?”

  “Nothing. At least, nothing about the murder. I want the killer caught as much as anybody. All I knew was about the coke. She bought it this morning—or yesterday morning—at the parade. She saw some guy she knew and bought it right there on the spot, in front of God and everybody. I didn’t even know what it was until later, I swear.”

  “Did you know the guy?”

  “No, I’ve never seen him before. He had like a black buzz cut, and this gross tattoo of a spider on his neck. Really gave me the creeps. He was about five eleven, I guess, early twenties. She said she knew him from when she used to party on the Southshore a lot. That’s all I can remember, but I told them I’d recognize him if I saw him again. Jill, should I have called you first?”

  She glanced toward the interrogation room from which two cops were coming, and she shook her head. “I think you’re all right, Lisa. You’re a witness, that’s all. They’re trying to get as many leads as they can so they can catch the guy.”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “If they want to talk to you any more, I’ll go in with you,” she said. “Just sit tight and wait. I have to go talk to Joe.”

  Lisa sank back into her seat, among the others who had been brought in. Some were handcuffed and leaning back drunkenly against the wall. Most were out-of-towners; she recognized few of them. They were probably people who lived too far north of New Orleans to make the trip all the way in, so they’d come here to do their partying. Some of the bars in town had advertised special events tonight to draw the crowds. Apparently, it had worked.

  She made her way to Joe and saw the fear in his eyes. “They wanted to question me, but I told ’em to wait till you got here.”

  “All right,” she said, sitting down. He did the same. “Joe, they must think you know something or saw something. Had Jamie Larkins been in your bar tonight?”

  “Not tonight, but she was in this afternoon, all shook up about the murder. She wound up tyin’ one on.”

  “Did you see her talking to anybody?”

  “Couple of her girlfriends. She’s a wild one, but I never seen her with any men except Cale.”

  Jill looked Joe in the eye, carefully trying to phrase her words so she wouldn’t set him off. “Joe, I have to ask. Is there any reason for the police to believe that she might have gotten the cocaine from you or someone who works for you?”

  “No! You kiddin’? I sell booze, not dope.”

  “All right.” She stood and looked around for the nearest cop. Stan Shepherd was just coming out of the interrogation room. “Stan?” she called.

  Stan nodded. “Hey, Jill. I see Joe called you.”

  “Yeah. You want to question him?”

  “Sure do.”

  “All right, let’s get this over with. It’s late.”

  He ushered them both into the interrogation room, called in another cop, and set up a tape player in the middle of the table. Jill coached Joe through Stan’s questioning for the next hour.

  Chapter Twelve

  Just outside of town, miles of traffic at the junction of Highway 90 and I-59 sat backed up as police checked each car for a man who fit the description Lisa had given them. If they could come up with any reason to legally search a vehicle, they made the driver pull over and checked for drugs and guns—specifically a .38 caliber handgun, which had killed both Martha and Jamie. A dozen cars had been pulled over to the side, and officers were arresting their passengers. Several had been caught with drugs, from marijuana to heroin, though they were all possession cases since the quantities of the drugs were small. One guy had been caught with a handgun that they’d determined was, indeed, registered to him, and three others had been caught with illegal weapons. Several others walked invisible lines, trying and failing to prove that they were not too drunk to drive. Though all eight of Newpointe’s squad cars were on the scene, fifteen cops had been called to work the roadblock.

  As they filed those arrested into the van that was quickly filling up for the third time, they still had gotten no closer to finding the suspected killer. Drunken revelers stewing in their stalled cars were getting angrier, and some were yelling out the windows at the cops who, undaunted, continued going from one car to the next.

  Vern Hargis waved a carload of college-aged girls past, and stopped the next car in line, a gray Plymouth that looked as if it had seen better days; the driver was the only one inside. Vern shone his beam into the car as he stepped close to the window. The man had a buzz cut, just as Lisa Manning had described. But so had a couple dozen other guys who’d come through tonight.

  “May I see your drivers’ license, please, sir?”

  The man pulled out his wallet, slid out his license, and handed it to him. “Rounding up all the drunk drivers?” he asked.

  Vern noticed the spider tattoo on his neck. “Please get out of the car,” he said. The driver opened the door and stepped out. Vern snapped the cuff on one of his wrists. Before the man could react, he had the other one on, and yelled across the roof of the car, “Captain, I’ve got something!”

  Two cops came running as Vern spread-eagled the suspect against the car and began to frisk him.

  “What is this? I’m not drunk! Can’t you see that I’m as sober as you are?”

  “He fits the description!” Vern said. “Check out the tattoo. He He reached into the man’s pocket and slid out three vials of cocaine. “Look at this!”

  The other two cops began to search the car. When they found a backpack in his trunk holding at least twenty grams of cocaine and $4,000 in cash, they knew they had their man.

  “You’re under arrest, pal,” Vern said, jerking him over to his squad car, which was parked in the grass on the side of the highway.

  “For what?”

  “Take your choice. Possession with intent to distribute, or murder one.”

  “Murder? Hey, I didn’t kill anybody! Is this about that Broussard woman?”

  That was as close to a confession as Vern needed. This guy was as guilty as the serpent in Eden. “Radio back to the precinct and tell ’em we’ve got our man.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The smell of something cooking in the kitchen woke Allie just as the first light of dawn softened the gray outside. She quickly showered in the hall bathroom, then dressed and headed for the kitchen. Susan was busy stirring something in a mixing bowl as her fifteen-year-old daughter, Vanessa, gathered her books for school. “Mama, please!” Vanessa argued. “What good is it to have your learner’s permit if you never get to drive?”

  Not wanting to interrupt their discussion, Allie stopped just short of the kitchen doorway.

  “Not today,” Susan said. “Ride with your car pool.”

  “But Mama! I can drive the car pool! My friends never seen me
drive before. I been waitin’ my whole life to drive and you won’t ever let me!”

  “You’re gon’ have to wait one more day.”

  “If it wasn’t for the murders you’d let me.”

  “Young lady, I said no!”

  “But Mama,” don’t let these murders get you all unreasonable and paranoid. Some of us still have a life!”

  Thinking she’d waited long enough, Allie reluctantly stepped into the room. “Good morning.”

  Susan looked up from her mixing bowl. “Hey, girl. I hope Vanessa didn’t wake you. If she did, she’s sorry, ain’t you, Vanessa?”

  “She didn’t wake me,” Allie said before the girl had to answer. “Good morning, Vanessa. I love your hair.”

  The compliment changed the girl’s tone, and she ran her fingers through the long weaves that gave her a movie star look. “Thanks. It took hours. Allie, how old were you when your parents let you drive?”

  “Uh…”

  A horn sounded outside, and Susan grabbed Vanessa’s sack lunch and thrust it at her. “Your ride’s here. Go.”

  “Shoot!” Pouting, she took the lunch and rushed out the door without saying good-bye to either of them.

  Allie grinned, and Susan chuckled lightly. “She’s got a tough life. And to think we were both awake all night worrying about murderers running loose…” Her smile faded, and she went back to stirring. Susan’s eyes were tired, and Allie wondered if her friend had slept at all last night. From the looks of the casseroles cooling on the stove, she doubted it. But it was Susan who asked, “Did you sleep okay?”

  “As much as can be expected,” Allie said. She went to one of the dishes and pulled the tin foil back to see what was in it. A broccoli casserole that smelled like heaven. “How long have you been at this?”

  “Oh, a couple hours. I couldn’t sleep.” She kept stirring, harder and longer than Allie thought she needed to. “I thought I’d make myself useful and take some casseroles over to George and Cale, so they wouldn’t have to worry about what to eat.”

  “George is with his parents, isn’t he?”

  “I’ll take it to them,” she said. “Heaven knows they’ll have enough on their minds without having to think up meals to fix.”

  Allie gazed at Susan. She was so pretty and petite that Allie had always envied her, and she seemed to have unlimited energy and enough compassion to comfort the whole town. “That’s sweet of you, Susan.”

  “Well, it’s the least I can do.” She drew in a deep breath and kept stirring. “I just don’t know what George is gon’ do. With that little baby…” Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked up at Allie. “Allie, I just don’t understand this. I know God’s in control, but George and Martha prayed fifteen years for that baby, and it was to God’s glory when Tommy was born. How can Martha’s murder be for good? How can it be part of the plan?”

  “Maybe it isn’t part of God’s plan,” Allie said weakly as she sank into a chair and stared down at the floor.

  “But that would mean that God’s not in control.”

  “He’s in control,” Allie said, thinking it through as she went along, “but he allows some things to happen.”

  “Why?” Susan’s voice cracked with the question. “Why something like this? That’s what I don’t understand.”

  Allie’s own emotions began to well up in her throat, burning her eyes, and she shook her head and got up. “I don’t know, Susan.”

  Susan abandoned her bowl and came to Allie, and the two women embraced and held each other for several moments.

  “Well, I guess that’s where faith comes in,” Susan said finally, stepping back and wiping her eyes. “We just have to pray that God’ll help us understand.”

  “We may never understand,” Allie whispered. “Maybe the best we can hope for is peace about it.”

  “Peace,” Susan said, turning back to the bowl. “That seems so impossible right now, with some maniac on the loose and two friends dead.” She pulled out a pan that she had already greased and poured the batter into it.

  Ray came to the door of the kitchen, just wakened, though he was fully dressed in khakis and a pullover knit shirt. “I just got off the phone with Sid. He’s still at the police station,” he said. “He been there all night. Says they caught the perpetrator.”

  “What?” Allie asked, spinning around. “Really?”

  Susan stopped pouring the batter. “Who was it, Ray?”

  “Some dope dealer they caught on his way out of town. He’s from Bogaloosa. Name’s Hank Keyes. Been I.D.’d by one of the witnesses who saw Jamie making the deal with him yesterday.”

  “And they think he’s the one who killed Martha and Jamie?”

  “They do.”

  Allie breathed a huge sigh of relief, and turned to Susan, who was staring at Ray with a poignant look on her face. “Do they know why yet, Ray?”

  “He’s denyin’ everythin’,” he said. “They can’t get nothin’ out of him.”

  Susan pulled out a chair and wilted down. “I wish I could talk to him.”

  “What would you tell him, Susan?” Allie asked.

  “That he blew a terrible hole into this town yesterday. That he didn’t just hurt the husbands and the little baby, but he hurt all of us.”

  “He wouldn’t care,” Ray said.

  “No, he wouldn’t,” she said. She drew in a deep breath, got back up, and returned to her cooking. “I’m gonna ask Brother Nick to open up the church today,” she said. “We need to pray for that man.”

  Allie didn’t say anything. But she didn’t think she could pray for a killer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hank Keyes’s apartment in Bogaloosa looked as though it had been ransacked, but it was soon apparent to Stan Shepherd and the other officers with him that Keyes had left it this way. Dishes in the sink in the kitchen had week-old food dried on them, and the half-filled glasses scattered around the room looked like science experiments Stan had done in high school-green fuzz covered the contents and climbed up the sides. The apartment reeked of decay and neglect.

  They stepped over dirty laundry and wadded papers on the floor, looking for a place to start the search that might prove definitively that Hank was their man.

  Before they’d gotten past the living room, the door opened and a bearded, greasy-looking man came stumbling in wearing a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. His eyes were bloodshot, and he smelled of vomit, booze, and body odor. He didn’t look surprised to see strangers, only mildly annoyed. “You friends of Hank’s?” he asked.

  “Police officers,” Stan said, flashing his shield. “We’re from Newpointe, but Officer Cockrell over there is from the Bogaloosa P.D. We’re going to have to ask you to leave. We’re in the middle of an investigation, and we can’t allow any of the evidence to be disturbed.”

  “I can’t come into my own apartment?” the man bellowed.

  “You live here?” Stan asked.

  “Yeah, I live here. Who’d you think lived here?”

  “We were told that Hank Keyes lives here.”

  “Well, he does. We share it.” Aggravated, he rubbed his eyes, as though it would somehow clear his thinking. “Who’d you say you were?”

  “Police officers,” Stan repeated. He noticed the spider tattoo on the man’s neck-just like the one their suspect had. “What’s your relationship to Hank Keyes?”

  “We’re roommates,” he said. “You got a warrant? ’Cause if you ain’t got a warrant-”

  “We’ve got one, pal.” Stan showed him the warrant, and the man wilted.

  “Man! What’d he do to get the cops to swarm this place?”

  Stan ignored him. “Do you own any guns of any kind?”

  “No. None. Come on, man. Whatever you’re lookin’ for, we ain’t got it.”

  One of the cops who’d started perusing the closets cleared his throat. Stan turned around and saw the guns sitting on the top shelf. “Want to change your story, pal?”

  “
Man…” The guy shook his head. “I thought you meant unregistered guns. Those guns are registered.”

  “To who?”

  “To me.”

  The same cop who had found the guns began riffling through some boxes on the floor in the same closet. “Man, that stuff’s personal. Don’t open that!”

  The cop on the floor opened the box and looked up at Stan. “It’s personal, all right. His personal stash. There’s enough cocaine here for every high school kid in Newpointe High.”

  “That’s Hank’s stash, not mine. I didn’t even know that was there!”

  “Right.” Stan snapped his handcuffs on the man, and hoped he didn’t have to be the one to take him back. He’d never get the smell out of his car. “You weren’t by any chance in Newpointe with your buddy last night, were you?”

  “No, man. I been in New Orleans all night. Why? Wha’d he do?”

  “He killed two women.”

  “Hank? No, man. He couldn’t have. I had nothin’ to do with that, man. I have witnesses who saw me in the Quarter. A girl I was with can tell you. Her name was Wanda something. I was with her all night.”

  Stan gave a dry laugh as he led the man to the door. “Hey, Cockrell. Look up Wanda Something in New Orleans. That ought to clear things up.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Before he headed back to Newpointe, Stan Shepherd stopped in at the only tattoo parlor in Bogaloosa, where he surmised that Hank and his roommate may have gotten their tattoos. The eight-foot-square waiting room was furnished with two split vinyl love seats that looked as if they’d been rescued from someone’s garbage pile. On the walls were sketches of hundreds of tattoos to choose from.

  Stan scanned the pictures carefully, looking for the spider.

  “Be right with you.” The voice was deep and phlegmy, and Stan turned to the curtained doorway separating the waiting room from whatever was behind it. A man who must have weighed four hundred pounds stood holding the curtains out of his way with one pudgy hand, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Know what you want?”