Susan didn’t move or open her eyes.
“Make sure no one bothers her,” Maureen said. “And that she doesn’t wander off. I’ll see if I can get something to clean her up.”
Wilburn sat on the bench. He made no move for his radio or his phone. “Yeah, you got it, Cogs.”
What was his fucking problem? Was it taking direction from a rookie? From a woman? She knew Wilburn. They worked together often. They’d never had this problem before. He was gonna have to man up. They could talk about his feelings later.
“When I get back,” Maureen said, “you get a statement from your victim before she gets taken to the hospital.”
“I’ve got time,” Wilburn said. “We were lucky to get the two ambulances we got. It’s gonna be a wait for the third. They know it’s not life-threatening. She’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”
“Anything that woman might have seen,” Maureen said. “It matters. Just get her to talk.”
“Hey, Cogs?” Wilburn said, looking up at her from his seat. “I’ve been doing this a little while. Longer even than you. Longer than Cordts. I know how to take a statement.”
Maureen raised her hands in apology. Better, she thought. Some life from him. “Roger that.” She stood, wiping her hands on her pants. “Cordts. Get him back here.”
“He’ll turn up when he levels off,” Wilburn said. “Maybe we should try to get him a clean vest.” He looked at his own, at Maureen’s. Both were streaked with blood. His face clouded over. “Maybe not. Fuck it. Too much has happened already.”
“What is it?” Maureen asked. “What’s wrong with him that you’re not telling me?”
Wilburn shrugged. He paused. Maureen knew he had more to say, so she waited for it. “He wouldn’t let go of those fairy wings. He was still carrying them around with him when he wandered off to puke.”
7
Inside the raucous bar, Maureen yet again found herself shouldering her way through a crowd. A cop pushing her way through the jumble of drunks did nothing to dampen the party, which was finding its sea legs again after the bloody drama outside. Maureen could only imagine the electricity that the shooting had pumped into the night’s festivities. How many of these people had already posted their pictures of the scene on their social media feeds. Their friends back at home would envy their brush with authentic New Orleans danger.
Dude! What a way to kick off the night. The real New Orleans. With hashtag #imanasshole.
The bar back, a skinny blue-haired kid in a black T-shirt, who looked about the age of the girls by the jukebox, collided with Maureen as he came around from behind the bar with his head down. He carried a dripping black bag of trash slung over each shoulder.
“What the fuck?” he said. Maureen saw him realize she was a cop. “Shit. Sorry.” He froze, the ropy muscles in his tattooed arms pulled taut by the weight of the trash bags. “Uh, can I help you?”
“I need the female bartender,” Maureen said.
“Her name is Dakota.” The kid turned his head as best he could to see over the trash bags, trying to yell over the jukebox music. “Dakota! Yo! Dee! Eyes slideways. Five-Oh wants you.”
Maureen saw Dakota nod to show that she’d heard, but she didn’t turn to look their way.
“I got it from here,” she said. She stepped aside. “Please. You’re working. Don’t let me keep you.”
The kid nodded his gratitude and waddled off under the weight of the trash. The dripping bags spilled bar juice on her boots. May as well burn them, too, when this weekend is over. She looked at her bloodstained vest. She hoped it cleaned up okay. Otherwise that was seventy bucks gone to hell. She was getting tired of waiting. “Miss! Dakota! Come see me, please.”
Dakota held up a hand. She dug three High Lifes from the ice well behind her. Holding the bottles in one hand, she popped the tops with her opener and, turning, standing on her toes, the muscles in her thick thighs flexing, handed the bottles over the bar, taking a bill and ringing up the beers. She dropped the change in her tip bucket, wiped her hands on her ragged denim shorts. The crowd at the bar was three deep. People waved cash and credit cards in the air around her head. Dakota raised her hands at them in surrender, gesturing down the bar at Maureen and shrugging. Some people booed. Maureen figured the displeasure was directed more at her than at Dakota.
Dakota strode Maureen’s way, rolling her shoulders and straightening her back, digging a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her shorts. Broad shouldered and big chested, Dakota wore a tight, faded Sailor Jerry tank top. Colorful tattoos sleeved her muscled arms down to the backs of her hands. She stood maybe five feet tall in her knee-high cranberry-colored Doc Martens. A black, sweat-dampened bandanna held aloft her bright red hair, which was shaved at the temples and long at the top, and kept it from sticking to her forehead. Maureen was willing to wager Dakota’s hair hadn’t been washed in a while.
As Dakota lit a cigarette, Maureen noticed HOLD FAST tattooed across her knuckles. The lines at the corners of her eyes gave away the ten years she had on the rest of the bar staff, years you could see only close up.
“Sorry to pull you away from the crowd,” Maureen said. “I know you’re slammed. I only need a minute.”
“Any excuse to grab a break,” Dakota said. She dabbed with her pinkie at the thick red lipstick at the corners of her mouth. “But I’ll tell you right now I didn’t see the shooting. I was in here, and we were six deep at the bar when it happened. I mean, I barely even heard it.”
“What about your bar back?” Maureen asked. “Or one of the other bartenders? Maybe somebody stepped outside for some air? To talk to a friend on the phone?”
“Officer, none of us has been out from behind this bar for anything but a piss for three hours.”
“Except for you,” Maureen said, “when you heard the shots.”
“And even then,” Dakota said, “I only ran outside ’cause someone came running in here saying there’d been a shooting outside. That was right before you came asking for the towels.”
“So when you hear gunshots,” Maureen said, “you run toward them?”
“You did.”
“I wear a bulletproof vest.”
“Not my first rodeo.” Dakota shrugged. “I’m supposed to leave the guy bleeding in the street?”
“But you never went to him.”
“I saw he wasn’t alone,” Dakota said. “And y’all came running quick. Props for that, by the way. I got responsibilities in here. Can’t have the bar getting tore up. Registers, tip jars can’t be left unattended. Though this time of year someone’s just as liable to grab a bottle and run.”
“You’re the owner?”
“May as well be,” Dakota said, exhaling smoke from the corner of her mouth, “the amount of time I’m spending here. I’m the manager. Such as it is. Not like it bumps up my hourly much. Or at all. I have an air mattress and a hot water bottle in the liquor closet. Big bottle of Advil.” She sighed. “Every flock needs a shepherd.”
“You’ll have to call the owners,” Maureen said. “They’ll have to come down here. Tonight. I know it’s a pain in the ass, but we’re gonna need the security camera footage from outside. Probably inside, too.”
“I’ll call them,” Dakota said. “When I can. But they’re not around much over the holiday. No promises. They know my number, and they avoid answering if they can.”
“Hence the hot water bottle and the air mattress.”
“Yes, indeed. And they don’t live in the neighborhood, so if I can reach them, who knows when they can get here? They might make you wait until next week, until after the holiday. Don’t come after me if they blow you off, is what I’m saying.”
“I get the point,” Maureen said. She understood what Dakota was insinuating about the owners. The cops had time for nothing but Mardi Gras over the next few days, and plenty of people knew it. “Someone will come around looking for that video. Me or another cop. Probably a detective. Eventually. If not later
tonight, next week, I guess.” She hated the frustration she already heard in her own voice.
“Is he dead?” Dakota asked. “Cordell? He did not look good when I was out there.”
“He was alive when they put him in the ambulance,” Maureen said. “I think his chances are good.”
Dakota’s eyes watered, and she looked away from Maureen. “Susie and Cord, they’re regulars here, and a sweet couple.” She touched at her thick mascara with the tip of her pinkie. “I saw them putting someone else in an ambulance.” She swallowed hard. “Looked like a kid.”
“A little girl,” Maureen said. “It looked like she was going to be okay. We’re waiting on transport for one more victim. A woman was also injured. Not as bad as the others. Minor.”
“Three people? Christ. There are some real fucking animals in this city. It’s fucking Mardi Gras, for fuck’s sake. They can’t give it a break? Used to be no one fucked with a parade. You know, neutral ground? Now, forget it. We get this shit every year.”
“What shit is that?” Maureen asked. “You’re here a lot. Maybe you heard something around the neighborhood, maybe Cordell got caught up in something? Susan seemed to think he was the target.”
“I don’t know what Susie is talking about with that. You might want to clarify that with her.” Dakota shook her head. “As for the shit, you’re a cop, you already know the kind of bullshit I’m talking about. The basic same old, same old. New New Orleans, my ass. This crew, that crew, who’s beefing with who from week to week? Everything gotta be settled with a gun.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. “The way everybody’s fucking strapped, I guess we’re lucky it’s not worse.”
“That’s what we’re trying to prevent,” Maureen said. “Things getting worse.”
“Good fucking luck with that,” Dakota said. “My boyfriend, he never sneezes just once. There’s always a second sneeze. Sometimes it comes quick, sometimes not, but there’s always a follow-up. These shootings are like that. The next one is coming.”
“Not if I can help it.” Maureen couldn’t help but smile. “You been at this a while.”
Dakota chuckled. “You can tell? I’ve lived here a long time.”
“It’s my first Mardi Gras,” Maureen said. “I’m kind of new in town.”
“I can tell,” Dakota said.
“I’ve got Susan sitting outside.” Maureen dug into her pocket for some cash. “I need a couple bottles of water, maybe a few more towels. I want her to be able to rinse her hands.” She shrugged. “The blood. I want her to be able to clean up some.”
“Put your money away,” Dakota said. She turned, put out her hand. “Darin,” she shouted, “toss me a couple waters.”
Darin dropped the liquor bottles in his hands back in the well, the drinks on the bar in front of him half-made. People bitched at him over the bar. He ignored them. He reached into a cooler behind him, backhanding two bottles of water to Dakota without even looking. Dakota caught one in each hand. She passed the bottles to Maureen. She opened a cabinet and grabbed more bar towels. “Owner’s gonna shit himself over these towels. Guards them like gold. We can’t get more until Monday at the earliest.”
“He gives you shit,” Maureen said, tucking the towels under her arm, “send him to the Sixth District, tell him to ask for Officer Coughlin. I’ll be happy to discuss his priorities with him.”
Dakota smiled. “Will do. Indeed.” She stubbed out her cigarette in a plastic ashtray on the edge of the bar brimming with ashes and butts. “Coughlin. Okay. Good to know.” She dug a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer from her pocket, rubbed some into her hands, then handed the bottle to Maureen. “Tell Susie, she needs anything, anything at all and she comes right to me. Drinks, cigarettes, she needs to beat the line for the bathroom, anything.”
“I got it,” Maureen said. “Thanks for your time. Go make your money.”
Dakota dashed behind the bar and returned with a business card. She held it up, showing Maureen the front of it. “This is us. We don’t answer the bar phone during the parades.” She produced a pen from somewhere under her bandanna and scrawled a phone number on the back of the card. “This is my cell. I won’t hear it, but I try to check it once an hour. If I can help with something, let me know. No promises, but I’ll try. We love Cord and Susie.”
Maureen tucked the card in her pocket. “Thank you for this.”
“Go catch those motherfuckers who shot Cordell.”
“Will do,” Maureen said. “No staff leaves tonight without giving a statement to a cop.”
“You kidding me?” Dakota said. “Y’all will be long gone before we will. Maybe I get home to get laid one night between now and Wednesday. Maybe.”
8
Maureen exited the bar, stepping through the door into a white light so blinding it staggered her. She swore and raised her hands to shield her eyes. Squinting, she stepped aside, moving, her head turned to one side. A male voice apologized to her and the light moved away.
When she’d blinked away the spots in her eyes Maureen saw that the light emanated from atop a video camera perched atop the shoulder of a tall man in a flannel jacket. Even with the camera to his face, Maureen could see he had flowing black hair and a long, bushy beard. Another man stood beside him. This one was wide and compact, wearing a tight, short-sleeved checked shirt buttoned at the neck and a floppy, camouflage-patterned fishing hat. He held a long pole. At the end of the pole, dangling like a lure over Maureen’s head, was a microphone. She saw that the cameraman had redirected the camera and its spotlight toward Susan, who seemed barely able to stay upright, slumped and exhausted against the building. The microphone swung that way as well.
Beside Susan sat a skeletal woman with white-blond hair colored hot pink where the tips touched her comic-book-enormous breasts. The same color, Maureen thought, as the OD’s tights. The woman, shivering in the cold, her too-big black biker jacket shiny with the night’s mist, leaned in close to Susan as she spoke to her in earnest tones, her painted-on eyebrows furrowed with concern about as authentic as her breasts.
“That blood on your face?” the pale woman said. “That’s his? From when you tried to save him?”
“That’s enough,” Maureen said. “Stop this right now.” Where was Wilburn, how had he let this happen? “What’re you doing?” She made to move toward Susan, but someone stepped to her, purposely blocking her path.
“Excuse me,” snapped another woman, this one about Maureen’s height. She had wild, curly reddish-brown hair and dark, bloodshot eyes set far behind thick-framed glasses. She wore camouflage cargo pants low on her hips, ratty combat boots, and a puffy down vest over a long-sleeved Tipitina’s T-shirt. She had a computer tablet tucked under one arm like a schoolbook. “Excuse me, Officer. You’re in the shot. You can talk to me if you have questions.”
“Who are you?” Maureen asked the woman, dumbfounded. She and this woman stood practically nose to nose. “And take a step back, please. You’re way too close to me.”
“I’m the producer here,” the woman said. “And the director. Laine Daniels. I’m in charge here.”
“The fuck you are,” Maureen said. She set the water bottles and the towels down on the bench. “Get your camera crew and whatever she is and get the hell outta here. This is a crime scene. This woman is traumatized, and a witness to a terrible crime.”
“This is a street corner bar,” Daniels said. “This is a public space, we’re on a public street, during one of the world’s largest street party free-for-alls. I don’t see any police tape anywhere. I see no directions or indications of a closed-off crime scene.”
“Maybe the blood on this woman’s face is enough for you?” Maureen said. “The blood in the street? How about that? Are you for real?”
“We’re shooting here,” Daniels said. “We have every right to shoot here.”
Maureen laughed out loud at the woman’s poor choice of words. “Excuse me. This is obviously an active crime scene and that’s why you’re
here. Someone else was shooting here tonight, too. We’re trying to conduct an investigation here—of a real shooting. The kind done with a gun. You need to leave that woman alone. She’s a witness. We, the police, need to speak with her before anyone else.”
Maureen leaned around Daniels, speaking to the woman in black leather. “Ma’am, get up from the bench and leave that woman alone. Get rid of that microphone.” The blond scarecrow ignored her. Who got on TV with a nose like that? Maureen thought. “Stop talking to her. Now.”
“We don’t need your permission to talk to the public,” Daniels said. “You’ve never seen news crews conducting interviews around the scene of a crime? I know you’re not a fan, but check the Constitution.”
“Holy. Shit.” Maureen looked around. “A fan of who?”
“Thomas Jefferson? Heard of him?”
Where was fucking Wilburn? Maureen wondered again. He was probably walking the immediate neighborhood, she realized, looking for anyone else who might’ve caught a stray bullet. She hoped he came back empty-handed, at least when it came to there being any more victims. Bullets go places, she thought, and sometimes it’s hard to tell where.
She surveyed the intersection. People heading for the parade route and visiting the corner store wandered through the crime scene. Laine Daniels was right, Maureen thought, up to a point. No one had strung tape. Only two other cops remained on the scene. Everyone else had either returned to their route assignments or was back on patrol in the neighborhood. The two guys left behind, Kornegay and Faye, stalked the intersection with their flashlights, heads down, placing a small bright orange plastic cone wherever they found a bullet casing. Maureen counted six cones. If there were that many, she thought, there would be more. She had a feeling the shooter had emptied his entire clip, or had come close. She checked her phone. Surely the detective on duty back at the district knew by now what had happened. Why hadn’t they heard from him? And where was the sergeant? Someone had to step up and put a tent over this circus. She didn’t exactly have the authority to run the investigation.
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