Nude in Red

by O'Neil De Noux

  He remembers to speak slowly and softly. “John Raven Beau. Chief Inspector.”

  ADA Patricia Petersen looks up from her notes. Seems surprised. Beau suspected she wasn’t listening earlier in her chambers when he told her his new assignment. She was looking at her notes then as well. Petersen gives a date, nearly two years ago, asks what was his assignment that day.

  “Homicide Detective.”

  “Where were you when you were notified of a homicide on St. Mary Street?”

  Beau glances at Juanita sitting in the first row behind the prosecution table. She wears a khaki polo shirt and her black tactical skirt and gun paraphernalia on her belt. Beau’s in a navy blue suit with a white shirt and sky blue tie. At least two hundred other pairs of eyes watch Beau. He looks at the jury – seven women and five men, mostly middle aged but a couple young ones. All appear anxious to hear his answer.

  “I was in the Detective Bureau at police headquarters and was notified at 10:02 a.m. of a homicide in an abandoned building at St. Mary and Nuns Street in the warehouse district.”

  “What time did you arrive at the abandoned building?”

  “10:31 a.m.”

  Petersen approaches the bench, picks up a sheet of paper from the table where items already submitted into evidence sit. She shows the paper to Beau, asks him to identify the list of officers at the crime scene. Next to nineteen names is the time they arrived, mostly NOPD officers, but two Harbor Police officers as well. The list was signed by Sergeant Aloysius O’Bannon.

  “State exhibit number 17. Sergeant O’Bannon earlier testified as to the accuracy of this list. Does this appear to be an accurate list?”

  Beau looks at it, makes sure his name is there. O’Bannon lists him there at 10:33 a.m.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Petersen returns to the prosecution table and Beau looks at the suspect for the first time. Seated at the defense table with a lawyer on either side, Carl Darryl Lawrence is even paler than when Beau arrested him twenty months ago. Jailhouse pallor. The tall man sits hunched forward, his stringy, straight brown hair neatly cut, his narrow face clean shaven, his dark eyes looking sunken. He wears an ill-fitted dark green suit.

  The ADA, also in green, a smart skirt-suit, begins her next question with, “Crime lab technicians have already described the scene and the condition of the body, but was there anything you noticed when you arrived?”

  Beau answers to the jury, meeting the eyes looking at him. “I spied a bloody footprint in the street about thirty feet from the back door of the building. A left footprint. There was blood in the grass up to and beyond the footprint.”

  Petersen is back at the exhibit table, thumbs through a stack of color photos, pulls one out and approaches Beau.

  “State exhibit photo number 32. Is this the footprint you spotted?”

  Beau looks at the photo and says, “Yes. ma’am.”

  “Were their any other bloody footprints?”

  “Inside the building. I saw several partial footprints and the crime lab technicians photographed them and took samples of blood from all the prints.”

  “Detective Beau, were you subsequently able to match the bloody footprint to any shoe?”

  Beau waits a second for the defense to object but the two lawyers, a man and a woman seem content to take notes.

  To the jury again, Beau explains how he found a pair of Nike running shoes in the closet of the apartment of Carl Darryl Lawrence with traces of blood on them. “The shoes were submitted to the state crime lab and the blood was subsequently identified as the victim’s blood.”

  ADA Petersen returns to the exhibit table, pulls out a sheet and brings it to Beau.

  “State exhibits 26 and 27. Are these the reports you received from the crime lab?”

  The Scientific Analysis Report on the shoe and footprint and one on the blood were curt and clear. Photographic examination of the shoe and footprint matched. Blood DNA matched.

  “How did you come to be in Carl Darryl Lawrence’s closet, Detective Beau?”

  Beau watches the jury again. “The manikin at the crime scene.”

  “What about the manikin?”

  Beau struggles to keep his face void of emotion. Don’t fuckin laugh.

  “It was dressed in a French maid’s outfit.”

  “What made that significant to you, Detective Beau?” Petersen keeps her composure, voice low and even.

  “When I was a rookie, I arrested Carl Darryl Lawrence after he broke into several department stores and stole manikins.”

  The young man in the jury smiles now. The old man on the top right shakes his head.

  “Which stores?”

  “Macy’s. Lord and Taylor. Dillards. Some others.”

  “How did you come to arrest Carl Darryl Lawrence in the matter of the stolen manikins?”

  Beau expects the defense will object. Keeping previous arrests from a jury is standard operating procedure but this is different. It plays into their undeclared defense that Carl Darryl Lawrence is stone fuckin nuts.

  Juanita’s eyes bore into Beau’s as he sits high in the witness stand. They’d discussed this case for several hours. He explained if Carl Darryl Lawrence’s attorneys entered an insanity plea there would be conflicting arguments if the man was not responsible for his actions due to mental health problems. What problems? Psychiatric gobbly-gook only confuses a jury and often plays into the hands of the prosecution. OK, he’s crazy. Shut him away forever or just execute him.

  Carl Darryl Lawrence’s chief defense counsel Robert Crane is gambling and ole Crane is a legendary manipulator of juries. Let the prosecution paint Carl Darryl Lawrence as bat-crazy. After all, he had the manikins to prove it.

  “I’m sorry. Can you repeat the question?” Beau’s so focused on keeping his face from expressing anything, he forgets what he’s asked.

  Petersen is patient and repeats her question.

  “An accident. He ran his car into a tree on the Carrollton Avenue neutral ground and my partner and I were right behind him. He had a manikin in a French maid’s outfit in the front seat.” Beau looks at the jury again. “There was a BOLO – a ‘Be On The Lookout’ for stolen manikins.”

  Petersen reads off the date of Beau’s arrest of Carl Darryl Lawrence for the manikins burglaries and Beau confirms the dates.

  “So six years later, you step into a crime scene and there’s a manikin in a French maid’s outfit, correct?”

  Robert Crane stands slowly, pats down his sky blue seersucker suit coat. “Objection. Leading the witness.”

  The judge instructs Petersen to rephrase her question and Beau watches the judge this time as he answers. Criminal District Court Judge Julius Simmons peers over his reading glasses, his brown eyes seem to twinkle, but his mouth is stiff and firm. A scar across the man’s right cheek all the way to his chin stands out pink against his dark brown skin.

  The next hour is taken up with the step-by-step details of how Detective John Raven Beau hurried crime lab fingerprint examiners to compare latent prints lifted from the manikin, the plastic handle of the saw used to dismember the victim’s body, and excellent prints taken from the lenses of the victim’s sunglasses. The identifiable prints belonged to Carl Darryl Lawrence. The duty judge signed an arrest warrant and a search warrant for Lawrence’s apartment.

  Beau reads off the items secured during the search. Beyond the shoes, they found nine manikins and four daggers, one with traces of blood from twenty-six year old Judy Martha Davenport, who was last seen alive leaving Smacky’s Bistro to catch the Saint Charles Streetcar and was found by two homeless men in the warehouse on St. Mary Street.

  After Petersen has Beau identify the Miranda Rights form he’d read to Carl Darryl Lawrence after the man’s arrest, a form which includes a waiver of rights clause that Lawrence signed, they turn down the lights in the courtroom to play the man’s videotaped confession on five large TVs, two for the jury, one for the judge and Beau to view, two for the lawyers and de
fendant. The audience can watch from behind the counsels’ tables.

  The video blinks on the screen and Carl Darryl Lawrence sits behind a small table in an tiny interview room at the rear of the Detective Bureau. The walls are pale green, the table wooden, a phone is next to Lawrence’s hand, a cup of coffee in front of him. Beau’s right shoulder and hand are visible.

  “This is the voice of Detective John Raven Beau, New Orleans Police Homicide Division. We are in – ” Beau describes the location of the room, names Carl Darryl Lawrence to the camera, gives the date and time and shows the camera the Miranda Rights form and goes over the man’s rights again. Lawrence is in a green Tulane T-shirt and jeans.

  “At this time, are you willing to answer questions without a lawyer present?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What is your name and date of birth?”

  The next twenty minutes are spent in background questions, establishing Carl Darryl Lawrence’s identity, how he graduated from Newman High School, Tulane University where he is a graduate student and should receive his Bioinnovation Interdisciplinary Ph.D. at the end of the year.

  “What is that exactly?”

  Lawrence sits up as straight as he can in the uncomfortable hardwood chair whose front legs had been sawed off a half inch so the person sitting in it would struggle to keep from leaning forward all the time.

  “Conceptualization, observation, experimentation and implementation of biomedical innovations to move biomedical technologies out of the laboratory and into the healthcare environment.”

  Doesn’t sound crazy, does he?

  “How did you meet Judy Davenport?”

  “Who? Oh, the girl. I saw her on the streetcar as it passed on the avenue. So I followed it until she got switched to the Canal Streetcar and when she got off up the line, I tooled my car around and almost hit her crossing the street. I jumped out right away to apologize and got close enough to her to stick her with my dagger.” He tilts his head to the side. “There was hardly any blood.” He leans back, puts his hands behind his head. “Until I got her to the warehouse.”

  “Why did you stab her?”

  “I knew she wouldn’t put on the maid outfit unless I made her and the best way was if she couldn’t resist so I took the manikin out of the back seat once I took off her clothes she started bleeding so much, I, I.” Lawrence looks at the camera lens. “I panicking and ran away. I started to call an ambulance but once I drove off I didn’t remember the street name and I … it was so traumatic for me.”

  According to Carl Darryl Lawrence, he’d tried to get three other women to put on a French maid’s outfit over the last two years but none would. Only his manikins obeyed him.

  “Where did you get the manikin you left in the warehouse?”

  “Online. I bought it like I bought the others. I have the site on my computer at the university.”

  The particular laptop would be entered into evidence, Beau had secured it with another search warrant. He had almost arrested an assistant professor who tried to hide the laptop when they arrived to seize it. The professor called the university police to stop the search but when the university police arrived, the prof became furious as they assisted NOPD instead of interfering.

  For the next hour and a half the tape showed Beau going over the murder again, step by step and Carl Darryl Lawrence’s actions before and after. Thankfully none of the jurors seemed amused when Lawrence described his affection for manikins, more so than blow-up dolls, more so than real girls. Only he couldn’t stop the fantasy of being with a real girl in a French maid’s outfit.

  “I saw a girl in a maid’s outfit at a Halloween party at the Seventh Street Bistro last year, but she was with her boyfriend. I watched her dance and wanted to feel her against me that way.”

  Beau had hoped to get the man to break down. Sobbing murderers played out well in front of juries, but Lawrence showed no emotion except impatience when the interview ran long and he wanted lunch. Carl Darryl Lawrence’s confession was dispassionate, his face eerily pale in the interview room light. When the videotape was over, the prosecution had a few follow-up questions before recessing for lunch.

  “You think the cross-examination will be tough?” Juanita says as they leave the courtroom.

  “Thanks for making me worry about it through lunch.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I just watched his lawyers taking a lot of notes while you were on the stand.”

  “Is that Guevara over there?”

  “Where?” Juanita’s head snaps around.

  When she looks back at her partner, Beau smiles.

  She elbows his side as they exit the hulking concrete Criminal Courts Building at the corner of Tulane Avenue and Broad as a light drizzle hurries them to the SUV for a quick lunch at some place close-by.

  Beau leaves lunch up to Juanita. Her turn to decide.

  • Tulane Avenue and Broad, 1:14 p.m.

  “Officer Beau, you testified you’re a chief inspector now. A chief inspector of what?” Crane’s accent is all north-Louisiana, a harsher version of the syrupy soft Mississippi Magnolia southern accent. More cracker.

  “CIU. Critical Investigations Unit.”

  Crane blinks at him, nods. “You handle investigations that are critical?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get a lot of them?”

  “It’s a new assignment, sir. I don’t have the numbers with me.”

  “That a promotion for you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is that a reward for shooting people?”

  “Objection!” ADA Petersen stands. “Sorry, your honor. I withdraw the objection. The state concedes Chief Inspector John Raven Beau has been involved in a number of police shootings investigated by the Orleans Parish Grand Jury, the Office of the District Attorney, as well as the FBI and in every case the shooting was deemed justifiable.”

  Cranes nods through this, waits until Petersen sits, looks at Beau and repeats his question.

  “The promotion was not a reward,” Beau tells the jury. “CIU only handles capital crime cases assigned by the superintendent of police.”

  “You investigate judges, politicians?”

  “Homicide cases only, sir.”

  Crane looks at papers in his hand. “Why did you not videotape what preceded your interview with my client?”

  Beau hesitates, which is not good because it makes the jury wonder why, so he says, “Videotape an empty room?”

  “When you first brought my client into that room, before the recorded statement, why aren’t we able to see you pull out that scalping knife you carry and press it against his head, threaten to scalp him?”

  “You cannot see it because that did not happen.”

  “You do carry a Sioux Indian hunting knife when you are at work, do you not?”

  “On occasion, I carry an obsidian knife given to me by my grandfather, along with a Buck folding knife, my duty weapon, handcuffs, extra magazines.”

  “Did you have your Sioux Indian hunting knife with you when you interviewed my client?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “I took no weapons into the interview room.”

  “You left your Sioux Indian hunting knife outside the interview room?”

  “I left it at home that day.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “In anticipation Mr. Lawrence’s attorney. You. Would ask about the knife.”

  Crane tilts his head to the side, looks at the jury. “Why would you think that?”

  “Attorneys have in the past. Y’all must have a web site where you exchange questions to ask certain officers.”

  One of the younger jurors snickers. Good.

  “It was in the newspaper, Mr. Beau. More than once.”

  “Was that the same newspaper that said Katrina was going to miss us?

  Ah, more smiles from the jury. All right.

  “Inspector Beau,” the judge cuts in. “Mr. Crane is not here to answer y
our questions. You’re here to answer his.”

  “Yes, your honor. I’m sorry.”

  “No you’re not and don’t do it again, OK?”

  “Yes, your honor.”

  It isn’t exactly a smirk on Judge Simmons’s face, but it might be.

  “The phone,” Crane says, “so conspicuous in the video. Is that a real telephone?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “With a line attached?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve heard from other officers that the phone is a prop for the camera. That it cannot be used therefore my client could not have just picked up the phone and called his attorney like it is represented on the videotape.”

  Beau does not react, does not answer. It’s not a question.

  “Is it your testimony that you did not threaten or coerce my client?”

  “No, sir. That is not my testimony.”

  “You threatened my client?”

  “I told him stop reaching for the knife on the table when we had to break into his apartment to arrest him or I’d shoot him.”

  Petersen smiles. Exactly what she wants the jury to hear, surprising Crane by leaving it out of Beau’s initial testimony. Crane’s face reddens as he moves back to the defense table to confer with the woman attorney. He doesn’t want to surrender but Beau’s sure the other lawyer is telling him to get that bastard off the stand as soon as possible.

  Crane looks at Beau again. “Did you call my client a derogatory term for the son of wealthy people.”

  “No. I don’t know any derogatory terms for the son of wealthy people, sir.”

  It wasn’t until they booked the man did Beau learn his family owned the Lawrence Furniture Stores.

  “How tall are you, Inspector Beau?”

  “Six feet, two inches.”

  “My client is five feet, six inches. Would you not agree you are an intimidating man?”

  “Objection. Calls for an opinion the witness is not qualified to make.”

  The judge waves the attorneys to the bench and they whisper together. It takes about five minutes, which Beau spends looking at the jury. Most look back. No indication of what they’re feeling but none scowl at him. Eventually the attorneys go back to their tables and the judge addresses the jury.