Olivia had seen Mario’s spaced-out look before, one eyebrow raised, his face motionless. “What are you thinking?”
After a long hesitation, he replied, “I’ll convince Jay it matched.” His eyes were intense, looking at the ceiling, and his arms were resting on the back of his head. “Let’s see where it takes us.”
The Royal Street Grocery was three blocks away. It was a beautiful day for a walk but Mario opted to take his car. A hunch Jay might be his man for the murder, and a car would be needed for transporting him to Central Lockup. Mario parked on the side street of the grocery, not to give notice that a cop was entering. It didn’t matter, as his suit and tie were a quick giveaway that he wasn’t a French Quarter local or tourist.
He flashed his badge at the only cashier at the front when he entered the small and smelly grocery. It was crawfish season and a fresh boil had just been pulled from the pot to cool. The robust blend of seasoning consumed the building from the rear of the store all the way to the front door. Mario was directed to the produce section, where he found Jay bent over a crate of apples, placing them carefully on display. As expected, he appeared nervous when Mario came from behind.
“Detective?”
Mario picked up on Jay’s eyes roaming, as if there was a squad of police to arrest him. Jay’s nervousness spread, and he dropped two apples on the floor.
For a split-second, Mario got a glimpse of a scared man who looked as if he wanted to run. Encountering, for the second time, a detective investigating a murder intensifies the fright by 1,000 percent. Jay was frightened, his complexion beet red, hands a little shaky, and he wouldn’t make eye contact.
Looking guilty, the toothpick wiggled in his mouth. The first interview he’d said it was a bad habit since childhood. Mario’s opinion was that the toothpick was a stress mechanism. Based on the wiggling of the wood hanging from his lip, Jay had hit his threshold of coping.
“I wanted to ask a few follow-up questions.” Mario watched Jay’s actions.
Fiddling with the apples stopped when Jay dropped another one, “Shoot,” he said, leaning against the apple box. “What do you want to know?”
“What were you and Leon disputing?”
“What? He was my friend. I had his back, and he had mine for two tours in Iraq.”
Mario walked a few feet away to get an angle on Jay, should he make a run. “When you got home, things changed. Didn’t they?”
Jay was at the point of shouting. Mario preferred to grab him by the neck and beat the truth out, but letting him rattle on might incriminate him. Jay opened up and explained they’d served eight years in the Army. Leon came home with one arm missing, and both were living on the streets within two years of discharge. Then he stopped talking in midsentence. Emotions took over and a tear ran down his face.
“I’ll make you a deal. You walk out with me and take a ride downtown, and I won’t cuff you in front of your new boss and friends.”
Jay shook his head up and down, took his red logo apron off, and advised his boss he’d be back in an hour.
At the Eighth District station, Mario had Jay locked in a questioning room—a place less intimidating than downtown at Central Lockup. At this point, there was nothing to charge him with, but Mario was sure a confession was forthcoming.
In the office, Howard surfaced and found Mario in the coffee room. When asked how Atlantic City was, he denied being there.
He winked. “That problem between you and that guy in AC?”
Mario looked around, making sure they were alone. “Yeah.”
“It’s over. There’s been a change of heart.” Howard grabbed a cup of coffee and stopped at the door. “You coming?”
“You better give me more than that,” Mario demanded and stepped to catch up.
“All I can say—sleep well; it’s over.”
Howard entered the room with a sandwich and a Coke from the vending machine. “Nice to see you again, Jay.”
Jay’s nervousness came back. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
He was frightened and expressed he might be in trouble, possibly best to have an attorney. Mario suggested he hear him out first and decide later if he wanted an attorney.
From a folder, Mario pulled a picture of Leon’s lifeless body lying in the weeds. Grossed, Jay turned away. Howard insisted he looked carefully at the photo. A closeup of Leon’s head showed a single bullet in his forehead.
“It’s a point-blank shot.” Howard forced him to look. “No more than four feet away.”
Mario chimed in. “The shooter knew both Leon and Barry to get this close.”
Jay sat silent. His eyes looked everywhere but at the detectives. Mario gave Howard a slight nod. Howard picked up on the hint. All Mario had left was to outright accuse Jay of shooting Leon and Barry. However, Jay’s reaction wasn’t at all what the detectives expected when he reached for the pictures.
“How could he have done this?” Jay sat, physically shaking. “After all they had been through and then to die on their own home soil. It’s awful.”
“Who’s he?” Mario asked. “Come on, Jay, you know something.”
Howard saw compassion in Jay’s eyes. He was heart-wrenchingly sad and loved these guys. The three, like many other veterans, had been to hell and back. Coming home was questionable for some survivors of war. They would rather die in battle than to be killed at home, senselessly.
“Come on, Jay.” Howard sat at the end of the table next to Jay. One foot resting on the floor. “For the love of your Army buddies—let us help.”
“Help!” Rebounded from the walls. “No one can help me or protect me from this monster. Who would kill their own brother?”
Mario reached over the table and held Jay by the hands. “I will protect you—I promise. Did Wallace Jackson kill his brother?”
It seemed like forever. Finally his head shook up and down. “Yes.”
It took an hour to calm him down, which gave them time to get the DA’s attorney, Pamela Jones, to the office with a camera crew. He was in a secure room, where no one else could see through one-way glass or turn a mic on to hear Jay’s statement. Immediately after, he’d be escorted by US Marshals to an undisclosed, secure destination until trial. Mario was sure the chief would assist with this substantial proof of the mayor’s wrongdoings.
Jay stated his full name, his connection to the two murdered men, and how he was an eyewitness to the murders. He related that Wallace asked Leon to meet him in the park. Barry went along and was to leave when talks started. Barry was mostly there to be a witness that the mayor and Leon met that day. It was a precaution gone wrong. Jay stood back in the weeded area with the camera. Leon wanted more pictures of the meeting. It was early morning. Barry and Leon stood next to a tree when Wallace came up. Barry did his part and started to walk away. The mayor pulled him back by the arm and did the talking. Shortly after, he pulled a gun out and shot them both.
“Barry was shot first, as he was closer, then Leon. The gun had a silencer; when fired, it sounded like a champagne cork.” Jay was deep into the brush and saw the whole thing.
Mario identified himself on camera as the detective in charge of the investigation. When Jay was asked if there was anything else he could add, his eyes shifted. Mario pushed for more to the point that Pamela stopped the filming.
“You can’t badger a witness and expect a judge to hand down an indictment,” she said.
Mario pressured Jay off camera that if he had more to share, now was the time to let it flow. They had enough information to accuse Mayor Wallace Jackson. For the charges to stick was something else to consider. The DA would want more to put his name and job on the line. Without solid proof from someone other than a homeless wino, any reasonably talented attorney would rip the DA apart in court. For now, Pamela would go back and test the waters with her boss.
Mario told Pamela to sit tight while they moved Jay to another room. Pamela and her assistant flopped on a
chair out of frustration. It was a waiting game when gathering information for a case. Especially one as delicate as putting the mayor of New Orleans behind bars for life.
In a private office, Jay came through like a champ. Without video and other people around, he confided more in Mario and Howard. Jay said that he took two pictures of the meeting with the mayor. When an uproar started and the mayor pulled a weapon, he snapped a picture. The undeveloped film was still in a camera, hidden, if the heat hadn’t destroyed it yet.
Mario was stopped, as he took Jay by the arm to escort him to the camera. Jay had more.
“I followed Wallace back to city hall. I can show you where he dropped the silencer in a street drain and the gun in another.”
It hadn’t rained in a few days and both items were heavy, so Howard was sure they would still be in place. “They should be in the drain within a few feet of street level.”
Jay was taken back into the room, and his testimony was videotaped. Then they were off to find the evidence.
Only the two detectives, Pamela, and her camera person knew what was going on. However, Mario took no chances. Two police units tailed him to the camera. In an alley, Jay had hidden the camera within the same block as Leon hid the photos. There was no problem—the camera was stashed behind bricks and it had been kept cool during the day.
Then, they were off to Lafayette Square where they walked, with the patrol cars following. At a street drain Jay pointed out, Mario marked a red X with a can of spray paint. Around the corner, Jay stopped at another pipe, and an X was painted. Mario was sure Jay was telling the truth. He had no hesitation at pointing out the locations. Jay explained how he remembered the drains by the landmark storefronts.
Mario scanned the area of each drain, up and down the street. “The slick bastard knew these side streets didn’t have cameras.”
Howard smiled. “Does it matter? This asshole is going down.”
Chapter 30
Jay spent the night at Big Gabe’s house with Cyrus and three cops. It was all that could be done until a judge issued a subpoena. Before that happened, the DA needed the facts.
At five the next morning, a call went out to the Sewerage and Water Board supervisor of the city. There was one person on duty overnight in case a fire hydrant got knocked out by a car accident. In that case, a crew would need to be called before the streets flooded and water pressure dropped in the neighborhood. This was different. Gary Nicholes was on duty and requested a three-man team to meet the police at Camp Street at the back of Lafayette Square. The utility truck and the crew followed Mario’s car to the two street drains marked with a red X.
Mario’s car blocked the area. A road sign was set up that showed “Men at Work,” and orange cones were placed to block off this section of Camp Street. One man watched for traffic, while one man used a crowbar to lift the manhole cover. Another worker climbed down the ladder into the underbelly of the streets of New Orleans and searched for the weapon. He raked through the trash and found nothing.
Gary explained to Mario that from the street drain, there was a drop of four feet to a catch basin under the street. If the gun were found, it would be in the bowl. If it went farther, there was no way of finding the weapon. It could be hundreds of feet underground.
Mario pointed out that it had not rained in days, so there was nothing to wash the weapon any farther. Gary made a phone call to the head of sanitation. The man in charge confirmed that twice a week, a street-cleaning truck washed the roads. Significant water pressure forced trash through the drains into catch basins to keep the pipes open.
“The street was washed last night,” Gary said.
“We need to catch a break.” Mario looked down into the hole and waited.
From down below, a muffled voice shouted, “I might have something.” The man surfaced with a piece of steel held by his gloved fingers.
Mario held a plastic bag open. “Yes, it’s the silencer.” It was dropped into the bag and tagged for evidence.
The process was moved to the next drain at the corner of Camp and Poydras Streets. Within fifteen minutes, the gun was recovered.
Mario headed directly to Olivia’s research laboratory, where she had been at work since early morning. A light over the door glowed red, so he waited. Through the glass, Mario saw Olivia come through a door and the red light went out.
“Anything?” Mario shouted, before Olivia opened the door.
“Not what you were hoping for.” She took her protective eye shield off. In hand were two pictures, held by a clip, still wet with photo-developing fluid. “Both show Wallace standing to the side of Leon and Barry. But, no gun is visible.”
“Another picture of the meeting?” Mario gave a head shake and handed her the plastic bag. “The gun pieces were exactly where Wallace dropped them.”
“Should be all we need.” Olivia took the evidence to process.
Mario waited at her desk for a report about fingerprints on the weapons. His phone vibrated in his coat pocket. “Hello?”
It was Howard. He was at the Royal Street newsstand standing curbside with a New York Times newspaper. One of the few places in the city that carried out-of-state papers. The headlines were read to Mario. “New Jersey Mob Boss Roberto Ferrari Missing.” The article stated the information was reported by Roberto’s longtime associate, Bobby Galeffi.
“You’re telling me Roberto is dead?”
“Let’s leave it as—Roberto is out of your life forever.”
Mario sat back in a chair. If Howard had played a part in the disappearance of Roberto, he didn’t want to know, but it was a significant weight off his mind.
Olivia rushed back to her desk and typed in something on her computer. “Look at this.” She pointed at the monitor. The gun and the silencer lay on a white cloth.
Mario viewed it. “What am I looking at?”
“Nothing,” Olivia said, swinging her chair around. “Not one print on either piece.”
“You’ve got to be wrong.”
“I checked twice.” Olivia pulled her glasses off. “They’re clean.”
“Then the gun doesn’t mean crap.” Mario rubbed his hand through his hair. “It’s just a gun found in the drain. Could have been involved in any one of hundreds of murders in the city.”
There was nothing left to do but present the evidence to District Attorney Gilbert James. Mario called ahead, and Pamela Jones met him in the lobby. The DA agreed to see them on short notice, and they were set up in a conference room. Gilbert was at the head of the table. Mario laid out the details. Pictures of the mayor meeting Leon and passing what looked like money. The videotape of Jay’s statement ran twice. Photographs of the gun and the silencer. A final picture of Wallace meeting Leon and Barry within an hour of their deaths.
Gilbert James was a man of few words. He always got to the point and quickly. “I’ll have to sit on this overnight.”
Mario reminded him that Jay’s life was in danger without being in protective custody.
“Pamela,” Gilbert said, “can you make a case with one witness? A homeless guy?”
“He’s a decorated soldier with an honorable discharge. I’ll focus on the positive.”
Gilbert rubbed his face. “Sure, and the defense will focus on what he’s done for the last few years. A drunk living on the streets.” Both hands brushed over his face.
Mario gave a side glance at Pamela. She frowned. It wasn’t the enthusiasm he’d wanted.
“Any judge will throw out the gun,” Gilbert said. “It has no connection to the case. Nothing more than a gun found in an underground water drain.”
Gilbert reached for a photo of Wallace slipping Leon something. He referred to the claim that Leon was a half-brother of Wallace. If it were money he handed off, the defense would say there was nothing wrong with giving a handout to his brother.
Mario’s beeper vibrated on his belt. On the screen, it read “Olivia 911,” a code for him to call immediately. He excused himself and wa
lked into the hallway and called her.
She answered on the first ring. “Bad news. It’s not the gun.”
“What do you mean?” Mario shot back.
“The bullets we pulled out of Barry and Leon didn’t come from this gun.”
“What the hell?” Mario said, loud enough to turn heads in the hallway.
Mario went back to the conference room in time for Gilbert to say, “I’ll sleep on it and have an answer in the morning.”
“Sir, it might be best for me to get you some additional information,” Mario said. Getting a horrible side glance from Pamela. “No need to bother, let me work on it further.”
Mario left the meeting with Pamela close on his heels. Once clearly in the lobby, she let him have it with both barrels. She quickly cooled her heels when told they didn’t have a case.
A call to Howard with the gun situation overshadowed the good news of Roberto’s death. They agreed to meet at Big Gabe’s Car Wash and revisit Jay. On the way, Mario made a side trip to talk to some homeless people under the Claiborne Avenue bridge.
When Mario arrived at the car wash, Howard’s car was being detailed, courtesy of Gabe any time his guys had time. They didn’t touch Mario’s car. One, it was too dirty inside. Some said he ate every meal in his car. But most of all, he had too many guns in the trunk.
Mario was fired up and double-stepped to the rear of the house. He called off the two cops protecting the front of the building and the one guarding the house.
Hearing the cops were dismissed, Jay voiced, “What the hell?! I gave up information that could get me killed.”
“No! You gave me a bunch of bullshit,” Mario shouted. “And you better start telling me the truth.” He was gambling but had a decent hunch. Then his pager went off again with the same code to call Olivia.
He walked around to what Big Gabe called his courtyard. It was nothing more than overgrown weeds, but Gabe liked to pretend. “What do you have?”
“We have a winner,” she said.
“That mother—”
He returned to the kitchen where Jay sat at the table with Howard’s leg across the doorway. Cyrus was over the stove making eggs as fast as he could. The kitchen was heating up, and it wasn’t from the stove.
Street Justice Page 13
