Side by Side
Page 27
“You ever hear of the LePointes?” Manseur asked her.
“Can’t say I have,” Alexa replied.
“They’re about the most influential family there is around here. Truth be told, I don’t know if they even know what all they own. Any questions so far?”
He stopped talking to navigate a turn.
“LePointes are wealthy people and everybody around here knows it,” Alexa echoed. “So the missing person is one of these LePointes?”
“Gary West, who married Casey LePointe.”
“So I may presume Gary West would be a valuable target for a kidnapper?”
Manseur nodded.
“What were the circumstances of his disappearance?”
“He didn’t come home for dinner.”
“Missed dinner? Obviously a kidnapping.”
“Oh, you’re being sarcastic. I’m sorry if I’m not doing this briefing right. I just want you to know who we’re dealing with.”
Alexa laughed. “Being a smartass is part of my FBI training. Go ahead.”
“I don’t mind.” Manseur had slowed the car down and Alexa figured they must be getting close to wherever they were heading. “Dr. William LePointe is presently the last male LePointe. His brother, Curry, has been dead for about thirty years. Curry LePointe was murdered, along with his wife—Rebecca, I think her name was—by a lunatic with an ax. Dr. LePointe’s niece Casey has the husband Gary, was there at the time. From what I remember of it, a pair of patrol officers answered the burglar alarm and saved the child. Gary and Casey West have a daughter who’d be I’d guess three, maybe four years old.”
“The family’s influence explains why an out-of-place LePointe rates the commander of Homicide.” And an FBI agent.
“Dave Landry, our missing persons detective who was at your lecture, will be meeting us there. Maybe you can watch how he handles it, possibly suggest things to me or whatever. The LePointes don’t want a big fuss made about this until it’s been established that there’s a need for it. They’re the kind of people who like to keep everything low-key.”
“Like keeping it a secret when one of them is missing?”
“Well, for instance, they don’t take credit for what all they do, good things for a whole lot of people. You don’t see what a LePointe is doing in the newspaper except on the society page. William LePointe was Rex when he was about thirty.
“Rex?”
Manseur smiled. “You’re not familiar with Rex?”
“I know it’s the number-one name for German shepherds.”
“It’s King of Carnival. It’s about the biggest deal in New Orleans society. Well, being Momus is probably bigger, but Momus is always masked, so nobody but a few people in the secret society know who he is. Momus bids adieu to Mardi Gras.”
“How did I miss that?” Alexa said. Manseur talked about Rex and Momus like a Catholic might speak of saints, or the pope.
“Just so you know, I didn’t mention to anybody that I was asking you to come along.”
“You didn’t?”
“We have a new superintendent of police. Jackson Evans. Evans told me to do whatever I needed to make sure this was done right. You understand, nobody wants to involve the FBI in this unless it turns out to be an FBI matter—”
“Of course not.”
“Which nobody thinks it is. I’m just . . .” Manseur hesitated, as if he were looking for the right word.
“Covering your bases.”
“Covering my something. The LePointes give millions every year to all sorts of things like schools, libraries, the zoo, museums, scholarships, after-school programs, homeless and battered women’s shelters, summer camps—all manner of civic-betterment deals. They’ve donated fire-fighting equipment and ballistic vests and service weapons to the police. They are very generous to New Orleans.”
“Their generosity extends to political campaigns?” Alexa asked.
“Local, state . . . and national.”
“Say no more,” Alexa said.
About the Author
JOHN RAMSEY MILLER’S career has included stints as a visual artist, advertising copywriter, and journalist. He is the author of the nationally bestselling The Last Family and of three Winter Massey thrillers: Inside Out, Upside Down, and Side by Side, and is at work on a stand-alone crime novel, Too Far Gone, which Dell will publish in 2006.
A native son of Mississippi, he now lives in North Carolina with his wife and writes full-time.
Also by John Ramsey Miller
Upside Down
Inside Out
The Last Family
Available from Bantam Dell
SIDE BY SIDE
A Dell Book / September 2005
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by John Ramsey Miller
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-440-33556-6
v3.0