Unlike her, though, left to his own devices, given nothing but a broken bottle and thirty seconds to fight for his life, Caleb Heath would die a pathetic, tearful, and lonely death. If you took away his checkbook, and the family name and money that made it more than a worthless pile of paper, Heath could not protect himself. That dependence, to Maureen, was the very definition of weakness. It was what separated them. What made Heath dangerous to her and to others, Maureen worried, was that on some deep, unconscious level, Heath knew his needs and weaknesses, too, and lived in mortal fear of their exposure.
Maureen rubbed out her cigarette in the dirt at her feet and tucked the filter into her pocket. At some point during her conversation with Heath the frogs had gone silent. The bats had flown away. Sticking to the shadows and the alley that took her around the back of the mansion, she returned to find Quinn to finish her shift.
* * *
Over the course of her night outside, she saw neither Caleb nor Solomon Heath again, though she could occasionally hear their voices and their laughter bleeding out into the night from the house. She did not tell Quinn of her encounter with Heath. He’d probably know about it soon enough. She knew it wasn’t true, but at times she felt that Caleb laughed extra loud so that she would hear him. He knew she was out there, patrolling the yard like a good dog.
At the end of the night, after the last of the guests had left, a young man in a suit who Quinn didn’t recognize came out the kitchen door and handed each of them an envelope.
Maureen tucked her envelope in her back pocket, tipped her cap to Quinn, and headed for her car. She wanted to sleep on what to do next with him. He’d tried getting tough with her at Gage’s murder scene. Then he’d gone the other way and sweetened the deal with the offer of this detail and the others it would lead to. He’d let her know he was hooked into important people who, at least to hear Quinn tell it, could do things for her in the future. Quinn was slick. She had to give him that, the way he played bad cop, good cop with her, better than Drayton did, feeling her out for what would work. She did have things of her own to hide. Quinn might know what some of them were. She couldn’t trust him. He wasn’t an ally anymore, if he ever had been, but making him an enemy wouldn’t do her any good.
21
Around midnight, Maureen sat in her rocking chair, the night cooling around her. The last of the cicadas buzzed in the crepe myrtles and palm trees. A sweating glass of cold white wine rested on the table beside her. She watched the haloed streetlight, waiting as she often did for the flitting silhouettes of hunting bats. She had never seen one in the Irish Channel, not that she would swear to, only possibilities out of the corner of her eye, but her general environment seemed so damn tropical Gothic, they had to be out there. The evidence was too strong to resist. She watched for bats nearly every night.
Next to her wineglass, a cigarette burned in the ashtray. Next to the ashtray sat her phone. She was thinking about calling Quinn, hadn’t yet worked up her plan.
He’d promised her three hundred dollars for working the party. When she’d checked the envelope at home, she’d found thirteen hundred dollars, thirteen crisp one-hundred-dollar bills so new that they stuck together. She couldn’t accept the money. She wouldn’t. The question was what to do next. The cash had come from Solomon but had to do with Caleb. A son tangled up in a homicide case had to be pretty fucking counterproductive when it came to landing city and state construction contracts. Especially when word got out, and it surely would, that both Cooley, who’d died in a house he owned, and Gage, who he’d planned to meet at Pat O’Brien’s, were active in a domestic terrorist organization. Strong circumstantial evidence indicated that Caleb was guilty of the same. Evidence all around her, she thought, suggested the night sky be full of bats, and yet she’d never seen a one.
Was the money advance payment for whatever was coming next? she wondered. An invitation, maybe, over to Solomon Heath’s way of doing things. Or was the extra thousand a threat, a “look at how little a grand means to me, Officer” kind of gesture. A “think of what I pay people a lot more powerful than you” message. One thing it wasn’t, Maureen knew, was a no-strings-attached gift.
When she had waited tables and a certain kind of high roller left a big tip at the end of the night, it wasn’t for the service he’d already received, it was for what he expected next time he came calling. It was a demand, an expression of power. Solomon Heath was that kind of high roller, the kind who slid his hand down your hip and over the curve of your ass while you took his order, looking you in the eye while he did it, daring you to respond. Making sure you knew, because he had money, he could touch you wherever he wanted. Making sure you knew he could cost you your job.
Nobody ever asked, she heard Preacher say, for only one favor. No. Fuck no. She was not about to go to work for the Heaths.
Considering what she now knew about the Heath family, Maureen believed that Drayton would never pursue the case and risk exposing them to association with Gage or Leary. So she and Quinn and Ruiz were covered there. She wasn’t sure who had murdered Gage, but she knew his connection to Heath killed the investigation into his death. So why pay her, then, if Caleb was already protected by Drayton? Because, she thought, a thousand dollars was nothing to the Heaths, a dollar bill tossed in the bucket of a French Quarter tap dancer, and having another cop in their pocket couldn’t hurt, especially with a son like Caleb on the loose. What if they needed her a week, a month, a year from now? They wanted her paid for and safe on the shelf.
Had Quinn been paid the same as she had? Maureen wondered. She knew that if she asked Quinn, she wouldn’t get the truth. He’d tell her what he’d told her at the party, that she should enjoy her good fortune, that these breaks were part of being a New Orleans cop, compensation for the unrelenting onslaught of insanity-inducing bullshit they faced every day. She’d considered calling Preacher, but couldn’t think of a way to talk to him about the money without feeling like she was ratting on Quinn. Like more tales of shady shit was what Preacher wanted to hear from her anyway.
And what to do about Leary? Maureen had to do something. Right? Wasn’t it her duty? Circumstantially, with what Dice had revealed, Leary had emerged as a viable homicide suspect. The Gage murder was Drayton’s case. How much, exactly, was she in a position to tell him about Leary? Maureen believed the things that Dice had told her about the money and the pills and the razor blade and where Leary had come from. But Maureen also believed that Drayton wouldn’t even take an interview with a tattooed homeless woman, if Dice could even be persuaded to give it, something that Maureen knew was very much in doubt.
She thought she might go down to the Eighth District and give a description of Leary to Hardin, ask him to let her know on the quiet if Leary surfaced. That was how she was most likely to turn up again, getting busted. It was how criminals lived, committing the same crimes in the same neighborhoods and getting caught at it by the same cops, until they died of their addictions or got killed by rivals or put away by police. When Leary popped up, Maureen could deliver her to Atkinson. Dice might even talk to Atkinson. Maureen thought she could persuade her.
Maureen shook her head. She kept forgetting that she was better off with Leary missing. She didn’t want things to be that way, but …
The FBI, though, in its pursuit of the Sovereign Citizens and the Watchmen Brigade, would harbor no qualms about pursuing Heath’s history with Gage. Maureen picked up her wine, swallowed half of it. She took a long drag on her cigarette. So let them, she thought. Let the FBI do what they wanted with the Gage and Cooley cases. What was it to her? The odds of the FBI finding their way back to her and her mistakes surrounding the traffic stop were infinitesimal. Neither Gage nor Leary was around to rat her out. And who knew if the feds even cared about her? She hadn’t been around long enough to get dirty. Let Quinn protect his rich-kid friend, she thought. And if Drayton tried throwing her to the feds, she liked her chances against him. She had no desire to fight Quinn, Drayton, an
d the Heaths for the chance to get herself in trouble over a minor glitch in the investigation. She’d be keeping the dust of her mess off Preacher’s badge, too.
Maureen drank down the last of her wine. She grabbed her cigarettes, got up from the rocking chair, and went into the kitchen. She rinsed her wineglass and set it upside down in the drying rack beside the sink. Time to get ready for bed. She reached into the cabinet over the counter and pulled out a bottle of Jameson. In a juice glass with a blue palm tree painted on the side, she poured herself a double shot. She drank it down, took a moment to catch her breath. She splayed her hands on the kitchen counter, pressed her weight into them, feeling the muscles in her arms harden, watching her knuckles whiten as the blood drained from her fingers under the pressure of her weight.
The truth of it was, Maureen thought, she didn’t care who’d killed Clayton Gage, or his buddy the white-trash Nazi. Gage was an operator for domestic terrorists and probably a rapist who preyed on the mentally ill. Cooley was shit-kicking trash, worse than trash, and Louisiana was better off without them. If they weren’t killers, they supplied the weapons to people who killed. Even if Leary had cut their throats with her granddaddy’s straight razor, and Maureen thought now she probably had, she knew she could live with letting that go.
In fact, she’d be more comfortable covering for Leary than she would for Heath. Not that she’d sacrifice herself to let Leary get away with murder, but if everyone around and above her was more concerned with protecting themselves and their important friends, Maureen thought, why not let Leary slip through the cracks? Let being invisible and forgotten play in her favor for once. Unless the phone calls kept coming, Maureen thought. As long as Leary lost interest in her, they could coexist. Maureen liked her odds. She figured homeless schizophrenics weren’t known for their attention spans. On the other hand, if Leary had killed Cooley and Gage, she’d shown focus and cunning. Maureen sniffed, savoring the lingering whiskey burn in the back of her throat. She figured she should go lock her front door. She stayed at the kitchen counter. She took the neck of the whiskey bottle in her fingertips, rotated the bottle on the counter.
She walked to the fridge, opened the freezer, and stood for a moment enjoying the cold air on her face. She broke one ice cube free from the tray, put that cube in her whiskey glass, and poured some more Jameson over it. She sat with her drink at the kitchen table, and lit up a cigarette. She recalled then decided to ignore her promise to the landlord not to smoke inside the house.
She’d left the envelope full of money on the kitchen table, trying not to look at it as she moved around the house earlier, showering and pouring her wine. She shifted her glass and laid her hand over the envelope. There was one possible way to gain some insight about the money. She could confront Solomon Heath. Knock right on his front door. Ask him what he thought he was buying. His answer would let her know how cheap he thought she was. Bribery and extortion were tough accusations to make, though, with no one around to hear them, especially against one of the richest and best-respected families in the city. Most likely, now that Solomon had made his move, she’d never get face-to-face with him again, no matter what time of night she showed up or what door she knocked on. She thought of the little girl across the street from her, with her braids and her raggedy tricycle. Her family could use that money. Marques and his grandmother could use that money. They could pay their rent with it, Maureen thought, putting the money right back into Solomon’s pocket.
But she wouldn’t do it, give up the money. She might return it, if she thought that could hurt Solomon Heath, or if he could hurt her with keeping it, but she wouldn’t give the money away. She knew that. She wasn’t that generous. She never had been and didn’t aspire to be. She was a cop, a city employee saving to buy a house of her own. She was not a charity worker. A thousand dollars was a thousand dollars. She had the nerve to keep Solomon’s money and give him nothing in return for it. That wasn’t even a hard question. She looked forward to it, actually. She knew the power of saying no, of defying expectations. And she’d been broke so many years of her life that her conscience laughed at the moral quandary.
Outside on the porch, her phone rang. She hesitated to get up and answer it. A call coming after midnight was probably important. And probably bad news. She trotted through the house, answered the call right before it went to voice mail. “Coughlin.”
“How was your detail?” Atkinson asked.
Maureen sat in her rocking chair. “It was fine.”
“Our paper came through,” Atkinson said. “We’re taking Scales’s door at dawn. You want in, right?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Good to hear,” Atkinson said. “We’re meeting at oh five thirty, in the Jazzy Wings parking lot, on South Galvez and Felicity, to strategize and go over the details. Find us there. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t be,” Maureen said. Her heart was pounding. She could feel it in her throat.
“Any questions?”
“What do I wear?”
“Civvies,” Atkinson said. “Something you can run in, if need be. Bring your cap, and your weapon, of course. I’ll have a windbreaker and a vest for you. Anything else?”
“I’m good,” Maureen said. “See you there.”
“Indeed.” Atkinson paused. “I’m glad, that after what he put you through, and after what he did to those kids, and to Marques especially, that you’re gonna get to see him stuffed in the back of a cruiser.”
“I am, too,” Maureen said.
“Now get some sleep. I’ll see you in a few.” Atkinson hung up.
Maureen stared at her phone, her hand shaking from the adrenaline rush. Sleep, she thought. Good luck with that. She’d need a little help. She got up to top off her whiskey.
22
Maureen showed up at the Jazzy Wings ten minutes early, the low buzz of a hangover in her head, spearmint gum in her mouth, a travel mug of coffee in one hand and a thermos in the car. She wore a tight black T-shirt under her leather jacket, better to fit under the vest, and soft, old jeans and her running shoes. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail that spilled out through the back of her NOPD cap. Her department-issued Glock was holstered on her hip. She wore her badge on a chain around her neck. She’d left the house hoping she looked at least halfway like a badass. Those hopes withered and died as she crossed the parking lot. Despite being ten minutes early, she was the last cop to arrive.
Atkinson, all six feet of her, leaned on the hood of her dark sedan, several large photos spread out in front of her. She was talking to half a dozen other cops surrounding her in a loose circle, five men who looked like the linebacker corps for the Saints and a redheaded woman built like a power lifter, broad shouldered with heavy arms and thick across the rump and thighs, her color significantly more flaming than Maureen’s and her face more densely freckled. Every one of the officers looked like they could roll up Maureen like a magazine and tuck her in their back pocket. Instead of the regular uniforms, they wore combat boots, dark blue cargo pants, and matching shirts, NEW ORLEANS POLICE in big white block letters across a heavy cloth patch on the backs. Military utilities, basically, Maureen thought, in one color: midnight blue. The other officers were part of the Sixth District’s special task force. Each of the city’s police districts had a unit dedicated to serving warrants on violent offenders and making arrests on hard targets in dangerous neighborhoods. These cops were the big guns, the badasses, the department hammer. They dealt in violence and mayhem, an exclusive unit and a closed circle that rarely socialized with other cops. Maureen wanted to be promoted to that unit, to be in their club, with an almost sexual intensity.
Atkinson looked up from her photos as Maureen approached the circle. “This is Platoon Officer Maureen Coughlin. She works here with y’all in the Sixth. She’ll be assisting with the raid this morning. She has some experience with the target.”
Atkinson made no other introductions.
Maureen nodded, unexp
ectedly embarrassed, and mumbled a greeting. The other cops said nothing, not even looking at her, but the circle loosened enough to admit her and allow her a view of the photo array on the hood of the car. The photos showed front, side, and rear shots of a run-down shotgun house, painted dull gray, the unpainted shutters pulled closed, dark green vines growing up the back and sides of the house. That house, she thought, could fit five times over inside the mansion where she’d worked the party the previous night.
In a couple of the shots, Maureen saw Bobby Scales entering and exiting the front door. Much thinner than the last time she’d seen him, he looked haunted, tired. He looked more like prey than predator. Her heart jumped at the sight of him. Her embarrassment before the bigger, tougher cops dissipated. She liked seeing Scales this way. Vulnerable. Alone. Fearful. She liked thinking she’d had a hand in his dissipation. She licked her lips. She enjoyed the thought of him dead asleep, oblivious to the forces aligning against him at that very moment, her among them.
Atkinson caught Maureen’s eye before she resumed her briefing. “As I was saying, we’ve been running surveillance on the house since we got the statutory complaint. Scales always rolls in by three or four in the morning, always alone. We never see a sign of him, or anyone else, before noon. We know he’s in there now. We will surprise the shit out of him when we crash through, which as you know could make things easier, could make things worse. We won’t know till we’re in it.”
“He’s always seemed like a runner to me,” Maureen said.
Now the other officers looked at her, their heads slowly turning in her direction, their eyes hooded, like a pride of lions hearing a faint sound in the distance, deciding if whatever had made it was worth killing.
Maureen’s throat dried up.
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