The Shoal of Time

by J. M. Redmann

  As I had hoped, the alcohol helped me fall asleep.

  It didn’t help me stay asleep.

  Emily swore no one in her inner circle, the ones investigating this, would be corrupt enough to work with the bad guys. Ashley claimed someone was. They couldn’t both be right. Madame Celeste clearly had contacts in law enforcement, but was it as benign as they claimed? Had she arranged for me to meet her contact so he could spin an innocent story? Emily said there were two rival gangs. Ashley implied there was just one. Madame Celeste said one that had tried to move in after Katrina was back again. She was in the business; Ashley and Emily weren’t. But Celeste was by now a wealthy woman, if she’d been wise with her earnings. Unless she was truly greedy, she had no reason to want to be part of a larger gang. It might make her more money, but she’d lose control. My instinct was that was more important to her. But if she hadn’t been careful with her money, the lure of more might be too hard to resist. What better way to get me off track than by concocting a story about another rival gang?

  Ashley was staying in a decent hotel, but that was on the government dime. From our trip to Café Adelaide, she didn’t seem the type to head to the fancy places. Emily, on the other hand, lived in a nice place in the French Quarter. Those don’t come cheap. She was a grunt FBI agent, probably near the bottom of their pay scale. Not minimum wage by any means, but not enough to live the lavish life. Still, she might have had money in the family, or a friend who liked her and gave her a deal. Then I wondered about the second voice I’d heard out by the warehouse—a woman with a low voice? It wasn’t Ashley; she was gone by then. Emily’s voice was the same range. So was Madame Celeste’s.

  Emily knew my car was there. I’d thought I got away before the cops arrived. Had a helpful neighbor seen my car and reported it? The thugs out there drove past it as they escaped; they had to have seen it. Maybe they called their pet cop and asked him—or her—to check it out?

  Who should I believe?

  And should I believe anyone?

  Dawn brought light, but no answers.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Somehow I did manage to fall asleep, as I woke up with the light of late morning across my bed. At least I slept, I thought as I slowly got up. This last week with its late hours hadn’t been kind to my getting the proper amount of rest.

  After a long, hot shower and a reasonably healthy breakfast, whole-wheat, oatmeal pancakes also pulled from the freezer behind the pita bread, which probably meant they had been there since last summer—and a lot of caffeine—I decided to do what I’m supposed to be good at, detective work.

  Even though I really wanted a day off, I headed down to my office—travel mug of coffee in hand—as that was where I had the better computer and the bookmarked search engines.

  It wasn’t likely I’d find anything truly revealing via online searches. Only the young and dumb leave a trail that wide. But I could find crumbs, and those could give me clues as to what I was dealing with.

  First up was Madame Celeste aka Desiree Montaigne. For her career path, it seemed like Desiree might be a perfect name—unless it was her real name and for obvious reasons, she decided she didn’t want to use her real name.

  Emily had been right about the property; Desiree did own the building, free and clear even. Her taxes were all paid. She also owned a smaller building next to it, listed as a private residence. At current market prices those properties were probably close to two million. For her business, she had it listed as a private club. That probably allowed her to skate on the legal line. Of course, charging money for sex is illegal, but they had to catch her at it, and it seemed the local cops weren’t interested in doing that.

  It took searching, but I was able to find an arrest record for her. It went back almost forty years, her first arrest coming when she was eighteen. She’d gotten arrested a few more times until she was about twenty-five, charges associated with prostitution such as “crimes against nature,” which could be charged for oral sex and was often used as it was a felony instead of the misdemeanor charge of soliciting. From the court record, she had spent a stint in jail of about six months. She never went back after that.

  What leads a woman to a life like that? Probably not a happy childhood. Sexual abuse as a child? What happens to kids when staying at home is a bad choice? Parents or guardians so chaotic and unstable that it’s impossible to study or have a chance of graduating even in the bottom of your class. Where do those kids go?

  They get arrested for prostitution when they’re eighteen.

  A lot of them turn to drugs to survive the pain and hopelessness. They get arrested like Bianca and go to jail, and that narrows their options even more.

  A few, a very few, find ways to survive and do as well as Desiree. Even so, she lived an illegal life, one that could crumble at any time.

  Much as I searched, I could find little to crack what I knew of her story. She seemed to be what she presented herself as, a successful madam who’d worked her way there from being a working girl.

  To have survived and thrived as she had meant she was smart, savvy, and willing to do what it took. But the Internet search gave no indication of how far she would go. Could she be as ruthless as her competition, or was the face she put on for me, someone trying to survive as honorably as she could in an ignoble system, the real one?

  That took a good part of the morning.

  Next up was Emily Harris.

  She bought her property in the French Quarter for cash. I found that out by cross-referencing the address and chancing on a social media post from the seller bragging about getting asking price and in cash. He didn’t mention her name, but the address was the same and the time was about right.

  Did her family have that kind of money?

  She was born in a suburb of Boston. From the census data I looked up, not one of the snooty ones, more a solid middle-class to solid working-class one. Went to the University of Massachusetts. Again, not an indication of money. It was a decent school, but also her state one. After that she went to law school at the University of Michigan. But from the dates, it looked like she took a few years off between. Yes, I got lucky and found a résumé she’d posted on a job search website. It was old. She’d worked for about a year at a law firm in DC, then became a good girl and worked for a nonprofit environmental law organization, one that, at least from their current website, did lawsuits about environmental racism—fighting putting belching factories in the poor communities and the like. That was the last job listed in the résumé and that was about six years ago. No indication of when she joined the FBI or what caused her to go from fighting big companies taking advantage of poor people to fighting crime at an elite level.

  Property records indicated she bought a place in DC during her first year there, while working at the law firm and probably making decent money. She sold it about six months ago to a woman named Susana Parker. A little more digging found that the two of them had lived there together for four years. The record of sale was for about half of what the property was worth, indicating that Emily’s ex had probably bought her out. If she put that directly into the New Orleans property, that would have covered about two-thirds of the cost.

  It was past lunchtime, and nutritious breakfasts only go so far. I hadn’t brought anything with me because I hadn’t gone to the grocery, which meant I had nothing at home to make lunch with. I had gone through all the archeological layers in the freezer. While debating whether to chuck my search and do a proper grocery run, my cell rang.

  I didn’t recognize the number but answered it anyway.

  “Yeah, this is Frank Mullen,” the caller answered.

  “Who are you calling?” I asked.

  “You called me, remember? About the Kimberly Fremont case?”

  Now it came back to me, the case Ashley said haunted her. “Yes, thank you for calling me back. What can you tell me about that one?”

  “What do you need to know?”

  “I have a friend
who’s an ICE agent and she said it was one of the cases that bothered her. I’m a private detective who specializes in missing people, so I told her I’d give it a look if I have the time.”

  “Why?”

  “I know it’s a long shot, but to see if I can find her.”

  “Find her? Whoa, she’s not lost. Showed up about two months after she went missing.”

  “What?” Damn, I’d only searched the immediate time period.

  “Yeah, you know, the usual thing, teenage girl meets one of those older creeps, he promises her the moon, she falls for it. Took her one and a half months to figure out he was a horny creep who only wanted to get in her panties. She came back. We busted the pervert and he’s still in jail.”

  “Well, that’s good news. Guess my friend missed out on that part.”

  “She shoulda called. Coulda sorted this out a long time ago.”

  “You’re right. Guess she got caught up with other stuff and assumed that it didn’t have a happy end.”

  “Yeah, happy enough, I guess. Kimberly wasn’t the brightest light on the Christmas tree. Last I checked she was doing okay, in the local community college studying medical records. What kid her age falls for ‘the older guy madly in love with her’ crap?”

  “Someone who wants to believe the love stories will happen to them.”

  “Guess you’re right. Wife loves those romance books. When I complain, she reminds me she’s a football widow.”

  “Go Saints.”

  “Giants. May the best team win. Say, who’s your friend? One of my former coworkers’ daughter is now with ICE. Met her a few times. Real impressive gal.”

  “Ashley West.”

  “Bingo, that’s her. Tell her Frank, the football nut her dad worked with, says hi.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Huh, how the heck did she not ask him about Kimberly?”

  “You know how family can be, last people you want to ask.”

  “Guess so, although I thought they were close. Oh well, done now.”

  “Thanks a lot, Mr. Mullen. Good luck with the football season.”

  “You, too.” He got out another “Go Giants” before we hung up.

  I could at least tell Ashley that the kid she wondered about had come home. Plus I’d talked to someone who knew her and seemed to think highly of her. Nice, all in all.

  But my stomach was still grumbling.

  Given that I was meeting Ashley tonight for dinner—with hints we might spend part of tomorrow together—the grocery store could wait.

  I ran to the Food Co-op on St. Claude and got a salad. And some chips, but healthy chips, mind you. I didn’t want to be starving for dinner tonight.

  Instead of going back to my office, I headed home. A couple hours of cleaning was beyond needed. I wasn’t planning to bring her back here—I was trying not to plan anything except a pleasant meal with a smart, attractive woman. But a clean house is always a nice thing, and this way I was prepared for whatever might happen. Including coming here alone afterward.

  I took another shower to get off the dust and sweat from my housework.

  She had said to dress for a night on the town. I’m not a night-on-the-town kind of girl and my wardrobe reflected that. If I needed a dress, I usually borrowed it from Torbin, since he had a closet full of drag queen clothes.

  I did have a few dresses all of my own for those times I didn’t want something that had appeared on stage in a French Quarter drag show, but that meant panty hose, and I wasn’t up to that, nor was it likely I had an intact pair in the house.

  I settled for as femme as I could be in pants with a gray suit of a light wool material, a white V-neck cashmere sweater, a birthday present from my mother, and actual girl pumps, black with about a one-inch heel. I didn’t want to tower over her. Silver earrings and necklace completed the look.

  I gave my hair a good brushing to make sure no rats were living there.

  “It’ll have to do,” I said to the mirror.

  One last mouthwash rinse and I left.

  Traffic was the usually drunken, tourist-besotted insanity in this area. I like living near the French Quarter, but it does make driving all too interesting in the Chinese curse way.

  I got to her hotel just at seven and valet-parked my car.

  She was waiting for me in the lobby. She was dressed in a green flowing jumpsuit, made of what I guessed was silk. It was cinched in the waist in a way that showed off her figure. The green brought out the green in her eyes and contrasted with the red in her hair. She had on a gold necklace with a small, tasteful emerald hanging from it, perfectly matching her outfit. Her shoes were classic black heels, an inch higher than I would have wanted to try, but they looked great on her. She’d even put on a discreet amount of makeup. I was buoyed she’d taken the time and trouble for me.

  “You look great,” she said as a greeting.

  “Not as good as you.” I half bowed to show my appreciation.

  She smiled a warm radiant smile.

  This was what I wanted, needed, more than the raw sex—and mistrust—offered by Emily. The quiet moments of connection, each of us taking the time to dress for each other, a smile when she saw me, going out to dinner to enjoy each other’s company.

  “You’re too kind,” she said, but her smile told me she appreciated the compliment. She tossed a dark-green wrap across her shoulders, then linked her arm through mine. “Ready for your night on the town?”

  “Only if you are.”

  “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. I’m sorry it’s taken us this much time to finally get there.”

  I was, too, but just smiled. Part of my wish was to keep things simple and clean, no longing for women I shouldn’t want.

  As we walked out of the lobby, she continued, “We have reservations at the Palace Café. White chocolate bread pudding strikes me as something one should try while in New Orleans.”

  “Yes, you definitely should.”

  “Not all by myself, you’ll have to help me.”

  “I could be persuaded.”

  She laughed again, a warm welcoming sound. “Are you okay to walk? Or should we take a cab? It’s about six blocks.”

  “I’m fine walking if you are.”

  Still a little chilly, but a nice enough night for a stroll. We walked for about half a block in silence, her arm still tucked in mine.

  I broke it by saying, “You heard about my little adventure last night?”

  “Your what? No, I don’t guess I did. All I heard was…there were some problems. What happened?”

  “I went to Des Allemandes, to see if anything did happen at eleven.”

  “After I warned you?”

  “Not to do anything, just watch. Maybe call 9-1-1 if needed.”

  “But the police had been tipped off, right?”

  “Yes, they were there.”

  “Were you the one who told them?”

  “No. Well, not directly.”

  “How do you indirectly tell the police?”

  “I have a friend who has contacts. I told her my worries and what I thought. I don’t know if she passed it on or not, but it seems she did.”

  “Ah. So tell me what happened.”

  “Everything would have been fine, except there was a party. A complaining neighbor parked his truck in the middle of the road and got into a shouting match with the revelers at the wrong time. He blocked the cops from getting to the boat. It gave them just enough time to pull away from the dock and get away.”

  “Wow, that’s bad luck,” she said.

  “Yeah, lousy timing. The cops might have gotten them if they’d had a boat available. But at least the police know who they are and the name of their boat.”

  “Really? Can you be sure they have the right ones?”

  “It’s a small town, people notice things.”

  “So you think they’ll find them soon?”

  “Maybe not soon, they can probably hide in the bayous
for a long time. But eventually. Plus they’ve lost what seems to be their preferred smuggling route. That means they have to find a new route, one they’re less familiar with.”

  “So all you did was watch?”

  I sighed and delayed answering. We crossed Canal Street, thick with tourists, six lanes of traffic, and streetcar tracks in the middle.

  She left the silence, so I knew I’d have to answer.

  “I didn’t want to get involved, but one of the women broke away and two of the brutes started to chase her. The real cops were still stuck behind the truck, so I pulled my fake cop act again, driving at them, yelling, ‘Stop, police.’ It seemed to work, they stopped chasing her and headed back to the boat.”

  “So they might not have gotten away if you’d let them keep chasing the woman?” Her tone wasn’t harsh, just questioning.

  “They could see the road clearly. As long as the truck wasn’t moving they were safe. I think if I hadn’t acted they would have recaptured her and maybe had enough time to reload the other women.”

  “The women get away?”

  “All nine of them.”

  “Did they say anything to you?”

  “Lots of things, all in a language I didn’t understand.”

  “The police saw you there?”

  “I claimed I was just a bystander, leaving the party. I think they believed me.”

  “Smart move.”

  “Yeah, it would have worked if that FBI agent I tangled with before wasn’t also there.”

  “Which one?” she asked as we arrived at the restaurant.

  I delayed my answer while she announced us at the reservation desk. When she was done she turned back to me with an expectant look.

  “The same one who questioned me about reports of my car being out by the warehouse.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth. As much of it as I could. I claimed a client I couldn’t mention was the one who gave me the info. And that I came out only to watch what happened.”

  “Do you think she bought it?”

  I had to admit, “No, not very much. I think she believes I’m involved. You told me there was a mole, so I’ve been very careful about what I’ve told her.”