I had just won a skirmish in the war.
Charlie and Trenton drank coffee and Old Grand-Dad as they reminisced about old times. After more than two hours of socializing, it was hard to guess they’d been enemies for years. With the day dragging on, I wondered if Charlie was ever going to move things along. I was curious to see how he planned to bring charges against a man who had now begun to seem like a long-lost brother. But Charlie droned on, dredging up one showdown after another over the past twenty years. Trenton finally brought it to an end.
“I’ll make that phone call now, if you don’t mind Charlie. I’ll just give Delbart a ring and tell him to get on over here and bail us out.”
Charlie slammed his feet off the desk onto the floor.
“I goddamn do mind! Why, hell! You don’t need to call that damn shyster lawyer. Ain’t no way I’m putting your ass in jail.”
Charlie poured another round of Old Grand-Dad into each cup.
Treddell eyed him suspiciously. “What are you talking about, Hickok? You’ve been after me all these years just to knock back a few drinks?”
Charlie scratched along his ribs, the chiggers having begun their trek south. “Listen here, Treddell. First of all, the rules are that I gotta catch you myself. This thing here don’t count.”
That rule must have gone into effect the moment I walked in the door with Charlie’s number one quarry.
“Second, when I catch you it’s gonna be on something good that’ll stick. Not on any piddling charge.”
Charlie was tap-dancing as fast as he could. Shocking fish was right up there. It was something he’d have been glad to stick Treddell with if he had been the one to catch him.
“Third, there’s something much better I’ve got in mind for you. I want you to help me nail that horse’s ass of all asses, Hillard Williams. We gotta bring him down before he gets to be the goddamn mayor of New Orleans, for Christsake. How does that interest you?”
Trenton leaned over the desk, his chest touching the fish that had begun to turn to soft mush.
“Agent Hickok, you got yourself a deal.”
I trailed Hickok out the door and down the hall all the way to the men’s room, following him inside.
“What are you doing Charlie? You don’t even know what’s going on with the Vaughn case! I’m the one who’s been doing all the leg work on this, and there’s no way Trenton Treddell fits in here.”
Charlie unzipped his fly as I turned my back.
“Listen up, Bronx. That man’s had a burr in his rear end for years about Hillard. He holds him responsible for his son’s death, and he’s got a score to settle. ’Course there ain’t no way that’s ever been proven, but Trenton’s like a man on fire with a need for revenge where that asshole’s concerned.”
“But he’s a poacher! What are you going to do? Dress Hillard up as a gator and let him loose in the swamp for Trenton to shoot and skin?”
Charlie chuckled as he zipped his fly back up. “That’s a good one, Bronx. Might even work.” Moving over to the sink, he ran a few drops of water over his fingers before shaking them off. “Listen, I’ve seen Treddell in action and when that man’s after something, believe you me, it don’t ever get away. What’s more, he knows these swamps better than any man alive. Whatever Hillard’s been up to, he opened the door for us when Valerie was murdered.”
“Jesus, Charlie. We don’t even know Hillard’s the one who did it. Even Santou said that. Besides, what does the swamp have to do with any of this? We’re talking about a murder that took place in the French Quarter.”
Charlie pulled a Baby Ruth from his shirt pocket and began to munch away. “I ain’t saying nothing’s going on or ain’t going on. I just plan on keeping all my options open, and Trenton is one of ’em. Sheeet, I been after that man so long, I might as well get some good use outta him, seeing how you’ve taken away what little fun I had. Hell, we’ll just start us a new game with bigger stakes.”
That’s when I knew Charlie was holding back. I also knew that whatever information he had, I’d never get it out of him unless he chose to tell me.
“We’re going back in there, Bronx. I expect you to keep your mouth closed and let me do the talking. You gotta use psychology on a man like Trenton. Get him to see things your way. So keep your trap shut, and don’t cause me no problems.”
Whatever game Charlie was up to, I’d play along for now. But if he had any intention of leaving me out of the loop, he was in for a major surprise.
“It ain’t just the murder of that girl, Trenton. Hell, I’m not even sure Hillard’s the one who did that. Could have been any pissed-off john she dragged in like some stray cat. But he’s stirring the pot something funny. I can feel it in my bones. The man’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.”
Charlie’s toothpick broke in half. It remained lodged between his teeth, where he’d been busy digging at a shred of chicken. The fish had been removed. All that remained was an oil slick, and a bucket of Colonel Sanders’s fried chicken covered up most of that spot now.
“Hillard’s been stirring the pot for years, and all you law-enforcement boys have just been letting him get away with it. And Valerie wasn’t just any girl, Hickok. If Williams had anything to do with it, that man’s going to pay in the worst way.”
“Well, that man’s about to meet his match. He ain’t come up against you and me yet, Trenton. We’re the dynamic duo who are gonna zap that sucker’s ass.”
All this talk of the “dynamic duo” was beginning to get on my nerves. No mention of my involvement had yet been made at all. With his feet propped up on the desk and fingers laced behind his head, Charlie conveniently appeared to have forgotten just how Treddell had come to be sitting in his office in the first place. I decided to speak up on my own behalf, no longer giving a damn as to the consequences.
“There’s something you’re forgetting here, Charlie. I’m the one who’s been working on this case from the start. I’ve been the one to meet with Marie Tuttle and Hillard Williams and his wife. And just to jog your memory, I was also the one that arrested Trenton. At this point, I’m more tied in to the players than you are.”
Scratching one underarm, Charlie glared at me in a silent warning.
“Exactly what is it you want, Bronx? A gold star?”
“What I want is to be kept in on this case. Everyone knows who you and Trenton are. No one’s going to tell you much of anything. But I’m an unknown factor in these parts. I’m a woman most people refuse to even take seriously. I’m the best weapon you’ve got for digging into what’s going on.”
Treddell nodded in agreement. “She’s got a point there, Charlie. No reason we can’t all work on this thing together.”
Hickok gave me a long, hard stare, but I was in no mood to be sloughed off.
“All right, Bronx. You’re in. But let me warn you, this ain’t no child’s game we’re playing. Things could get rough. Hillard’s got as far as he has by being a damn person who’d rape his own mother and laugh about it. So you just better be ready for some straight-out hardball playing. I’m aiming to find out what Hillard’s been into and put the kibosh on it. And I mean to do it before this damn election takes place.”
“Do you think it might somehow tie in with that dead alligator?” Remembering the baby gators in Trenton’s backyard, I looked down at the alligator boots that were on his feet now. Gator poachers, past or present, never seemed able to stray too far, for too long, from the critters.
“Will you let up with that damn thing? There’s something going on here a hell of a lot bigger than that. I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.”
By the time the meeting finally broke up, the sun was beginning to set. I had hoped Charlie might offer to drive Trenton and Gonzales home. But with a pile of paperwork in front of him and a half-finished bottle of Old Grand-Dad by his side, there was little hope of that. I volunteered my services, and we once more piled into my tiny VW.
Trenton was quiet at first. Stari
ng out the window, he pulled apart a Moon Pie and threw the chunks out to dogs that we passed.
I made a stab at conversation. “It must feel strange, suddenly joining forces with the man who spent the last twenty years chasing you through one swamp after another.”
Trenton idly put a piece of Moon Pie in his mouth.
“It takes an outlaw to catch an outlaw, chère. Because an honest man has no idea how we do things. Old Charlie’s got outlaw blood in him. I’d bet twenty gator skins that he didn’t tell you about that. You be sure and ask him about his early days the next time he’s on your back.”
If Charlie had been an outlaw at one time, it was something I hadn’t heard whispered before. But it did help to explain his obsession with trying to convert poachers once he had caught them. It was a policy that hadn’t sat well with the Service. They weren’t in the business of reforming outlaws. Even worse was the fact that Charlie spent both the agency’s money and time on the attempt.
Trenton took a bite out of the last Moon Pie before throwing the remainder out the window. “As far as Hillard goes, you can wager a month’s salary on the fact that he’s up to his neck in no good. That man can’t do right for doing wrong.”
I felt sure Trenton knew more than he had told either Charlie or me.
“Just what is it you think Hillard is up to?”
Trenton laughed softly. “I think he’s doing what he’s always done. He’s just doing it on a bigger and better scale now.”
“You think he’s still dealing in illegal gator skins?”
“Darling, that was always just a sideline for him and his partner. That’s never where the real money came from. I’d say he’s still dealing in drugs big-time. Gator skins was just the perfect cover.”
“Does Charlie know about this?”
Pulling out a soft leather pouch, Trenton’s callused fingers deftly laid a perfect line of tobacco onto a thin skin of paper. Flicking a few wayward brown strands into place with his thumb, he quickly rolled the cigarette into a tight cylinder, wetting down the glued seam with his tongue. A fleck of tobacco clung to his lower lip.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know whether Charlie knows about it or not. But he’ll find out soon enough. Going after Williams is like declaring war. He’s got some big guns on his side. We both have our own reasons for wanting to bring Hillard down. Just as long as we do, that’s all that matters to me. This is payback time.”
Striking a match against the dashboard, Trenton lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply. Burning with the intensity of a flare framed against the blackness of night, the cigarette moved rhythmically as Trenton took steady puffs, staring out the window at his own private demons. The smoke curled lazily in a slow-twisting dance, its aroma bringing back the apparition that had appeared through a curtain of fire the other night. That same man sat next to me now.
Gathering up my nerve, I questioned Treddell about the stockpile of baby gators in his backyard. I was answered by a volley of high-pitched, delirious laughter from the backseat—the same hysterical scream as nutria out in the swamp. I’d forgotten that Gonzales was even there. Trenton calmly continued to smoke.
“The gators are my own personal collection. Some I let go, some I keep as pets, some I skin, and some I eat. Some I use for dealing out a little bit of my own bayou justice.”
I was only surprised that Trenton hadn’t already brought Hillard to justice in his own way, sure that he blamed Williams for both the death of his son and now for Valerie’s. The night music of the swamp rose in crescendo along with a croaking choir of wood frogs and the long, lonely hoot of a distant owl, as Trenton’s house came into view at the end of the lonely dirt road.
Eight
The next day I decided it was time to pay Jake Santou a visit. He’d finally left a message on my machine. Two little sentences. “See you’re out. I’ll call back.” I wasn’t holding my breath. Or as Terri was fond of saying, “By that time, you’ll be old and grey and your boobs will have fallen down to your knees.” My vanity had assumed he’d have called before now. And though I hated to admit it, I’d been thinking about him in those moments before I fell asleep and immediately after waking up. During my days in the bayou, and my nights alone in the marsh.
I’d expected him to keep me posted on any new information he’d dug up on the case. The fact that I’d heard nothing from him until now had me puzzled. While I wasn’t expecting Hickok to throw any clues my way, I’d hoped for more from Santou. But I had another reason for stopping by. I wanted to snoop around Valerie Vaughn’s apartment. I’d had no opportunity to do much of anything besides examine Hook the other night, and while I’d picked up bits of information about Valerie from Trenton and Marie, I wanted to get a feel for who she was on my own. In order to do that, I needed a key.
Fighting my way through downtown traffic, I circled the precinct three times with no luck. The streets were packed as usual, without a parking space in sight, forcing me to cram my VW into the first illegal spot I could find that wasn’t already taken. I walked inside, the squad room buzzing with activity. Men in blue hurried past as I headed toward the detective division. Hookers on their way to and from jail glanced at the clock in annoyance as their working hours ticked away. A battered transvestite screamed at his pimp, swaggering in a black cowboy hat and snakeskin boots, while a druggy sat trembling in a corner, drenched in cold sweat as he moaned aloud. I entered the detective division, where garbage cans overflowed with torn pizza boxes. Phones rang incessantly with no one in sight. Spotting Santou’s name on a door, I peeked into a cubbyhole with walls the color of week-old oatmeal. The stench of fried food and hot sauce clung to a sparsely furnished room, the wooden desk and chairs looking like rejects from Goodwill. Stepping inside, I walked over to the desk, where a sack of McDonald’s French fries lay next to a cup of coffee, the creamer floating on top in tiny white curds. A blue plastic bottle of Mylanta sat nearby. A poster of skeletons dancing down Bourbon Street decorated one wall, while on the other side of the room hung a corkboard covered with papers. Wandering over for a closer look, I saw it was the schedule of a man who never went home but spent twenty-four hours a day on duty. Tacked next to it was a list of Santou’s cases. Arranged in numerical order, Valerie Vaughn rated a ten. Rock bottom, along with the notation L.P., standing for low priority. I was about to shuffle through a pile of papers on his desk when Santou walked in the door, his head hanging down, absorbed in his thoughts. Halfway across the room he sensed he wasn’t alone. His body jerked, and his hand automatically reached for the gun at his waist.
“A bit jumpy today, Santou?”
An ancient window fan creaked irregularly, like an old man drawing his last breath. Stale air circulated around the small room, making it seem even hotter than it was outside.
“Jesus Christ, Porter! You scared the hell out of me. Don’t you know better than to do something like that?” Pushing a thick lock of damp hair off his brow, he stared at me for a moment before attempting to smile.
“Sorry I haven’t been in touch, chère. But I’ve been bogged down pulling all-nighters on duty. I’m juggling so many cases these days that I’m having a hard time keeping them all straight.”
Although I had hoped for a warmer greeting, he at least was letting me know up front what I had already gathered from the papers on his board. He’d done nothing on the Vaughn case so far.
He rubbed his eyes as he sat behind his desk and took a sip of cold coffee. “Man, I could use a break. What’s say we put all this behind us and run away for a while? Maybe spend a week south of the border.”
“I’ve got an even better idea. Let’s go someplace where the temperature falls below ninety degrees.”
“You’re on, chère." Santou crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Now all we have to do is find the time. I’ll show you my calendar if you show me yours.”
“It’s a deal.”
There was no doubt in my mind that this was not a man to get
involved with. The problem was, the process had already begun. What made him attractive was exactly what I knew would be nothing but trouble. Dark and brooding, Santou had a melancholy that I found irresistible. It was the last thing I needed to drown myself in.
“At the moment, I’m here about something else.”
Santou’s eyes burned through me, burrowing past all my good intentions of not getting sucked in further. “Denial’s bad for the soul and other parts of the body, chère.”
“What I want is a key and permission to enter Valerie Vaughn’s apartment.”
Santou’s scowl came back with a vengeance. “You aren’t going to find anything there. We’ve been through that place top to bottom. Besides, I could get in big trouble by giving you that key.”
“If you’ve already scoured the place, what’s the problem? It shouldn’t matter if I have a go at it. It’s not as if I’ll be messing up any crucial evidence—unless there’s something you’re not telling me. But then, we have an agreement, don’t we, Santou?”
I conveniently ignored the fact that I hadn’t yet mentioned my own visit with Dolores Williams, or what I had gathered from Trenton Treddell. I was learning that everyone had secrets to be kept until the proper time. If Santou had any information I needed, I wanted to have something of value to trade.
Jake sauntered over to the office door and closed it before sitting down again. Leaning forward, he kept his voice low.
“Word has come down from the top that Vaughn’s place is strictly off-limits.”
“That’s rather vague. What ‘top’ are we talking about? The mayor? The chief of police? Or does Hillard Williams have a say in all this?”
Santou ignored my questions. “All I can tell you is what I’ve been told. This has been deemed a sensitive case. Even I’ve been taken out of the loop on this one.”
Considering that the investigation was Officially listed as low priority, none of this made any sense. It also led me to believe that Santou wasn’t even coming close to telling me what he knew.
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