No Second Chances

by Don Bruns

  ‘And of course you are correct. I do have a sizable following of people who depend on me. I understand that.’

  Matebo walked from the fire and took her hand. He stared into her eyes, and she felt all her troubles fly away.

  ‘Then go, do your work. Make Ma proud of you. And when you see her, tell her I think of her. Always.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Joseph Washington had to die. For two reasons. The first reason was that Old Joe had betrayed Pop. The petty criminal had walked out on an unlawful but lucrative business. Piecing together his father’s checkered past, Brion understood the deeds his father had committed. However, but for one instance, as far as he was able to ascertain, there had never been anyone seriously hurt. The only black mark was the accidental death of an innocent man. A death due to the crime involving his father, but it was accidental. For all of his crimes, and there appeared to be many, his father was not solely responsible for that death. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but he had come to terms with that.

  There were others who were more intimately involved. Joseph Washington had commiserated with Jack Leroy. They’d both been afraid that Andy Brion was going to go soft and announce to everyone what had happened and who was involved. Brion nodded to himself, confident that was the reason for Pop’s death. For that, Joseph Washington had to die. The man had obviously agreed that André had to be killed. Why else had Old Joe been allowed to live? And he had to die for a second reason, as well. Joseph Brion needed a catalyst, and Joseph Washington was the perfect stimulus.

  Something had to happen to spark a riot. He wanted a full-blown revolt to celebrate his old man and Washington was the perfect foil. Oh, there were other ways to get his desired outcome. Joseph Brion had his minions who were not above killing someone for him, but as much as he feared the fallout, a large scale riot, this had been a perfect storm. A rare combination of circumstances that aggravates a situation drastically. A little inside information, some well-planted seeds of doubt. Besides, he knew Joseph. Joseph Washington was his godfather. Andy Brion’s kid knew just how Joseph thought and acted. And he was true to form. No disappointment.

  From what Brion had read about the shooting, Joseph had been a little on the dramatic side. The robbery money blowing in the wind, and the pause before he pulled his other hand out of his pocket. Perfect Washington. He had always been a drama queen. He patterned his actions after Hollywood characters. Loved the classics. And maybe it had been suicide by cop. Possibly Old Joe had decided this was a time to check out. If so, he took the cowards way and let a cop do it for him. Anyway, it was going to be a spectacular celebration.

  Brion had never planned for the kid, this rookie officer Jethro Montgomery, to actually shoot Washington. But if it had to be, Joseph Washington was always one to go out with flair. So Joseph had to die.

  Now there was just one to go. He sat on the concrete bench, watching a paddlewheel steamer crawl up the Mighty Miss. The slow laziness of the craft made him melancholy for those days with Pop. He’d told him stories of Mark Twain, and some of the famous early steamboats. The New Orleans, The Comet, The Enterprise and The Washington. Stories about their captains and obviously made-up heroic stories about their endeavors. Gamblers, shady ladies and other people of ill-repute. Stories of rollin’ on the river.

  Pop was a criminal, and his small family had made peace with that. But to be gunned down by one of his own, to be brutally murdered in the streets of his own city, to have his life taken at such an early age was inexcusable. The sentence for the person who took his life, causing him to leave behind a child and an inconsolable wife, could only be execution. There was no other way to pay for the crime. And Joseph played that over and over in his head. The only way he could live with himself. He’d killed a man who deserved to die. He tried to erase the image of shooting the man in the face with the conviction that the gruesome, hideous deed was one that had to happen.

  Joseph Brion closed his eyes and pictured a simpler time. Sitting on the steps of Jackson Square. A calliope coming down the street, the oompah-pahs booming from its tinny speakers, and the colorful wagon zigzagging in front of the square. Horse-drawn carriages, vendors hawking their wares and artists selling portraits and paintings depicting the tackiness of the Quarter. He slowly drifted into a much-needed sleep, his hand positioned perfectly over the pocket of his cargo-shorts. The next best thing to sleeping with one eye open was to be ready at a moment’s notice with your pistol.

  Archer grabbed his buzzing phone.

  ‘Quentin, it’s Solange.’

  Back to first names.

  ‘Hey, surprise. Did you think of something else?’

  ‘I have an idea for you. You told me that Officer Leroy shot a man named André Brion.’

  ‘Totally exonerated.’ Very strange that she would bring that story up. And he was surprised at his immediate defense of the officer. He was simply echoing Levy’s adamant concerns.

  ‘I told you I thought that Leroy’s death and Joseph Washington’s death were tied together.’

  ‘You also said that you thought Washington had killed someone and went out of his way to make sure he wouldn’t kill again. That’s why he didn’t carry a weapon. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, I apparently said that, although at the time, I didn’t remember making that statement.’

  ‘So,’ Archer took a breath, already puzzled by the call, ‘you’ve got another idea?’

  ‘Quentin, it is so hard to explain the complexity of some of my thoughts. Most of the time I don’t understand them myself. Seriously. There are spirits that speak to me, there are some things that, like your process, are just deductions. And there are often things that are just happenstance. Like you, I can make an educated guess, or make a huge blunder.’

  He laughed out loud.

  ‘I assume you’ve made several?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Please, bear with me while I tell you this.’

  ‘I don’t pretend to understand, but just tell me. I promise you I’ll at least explore whatever you’ve got.’

  ‘There’s another thought. Someone who died, possibly by Joseph Washington’s hand.’

  ‘That’s the one death that he struggled with?’

  ‘Maybe, but I’ve had a strange feeling since seeing Officer Leroy’s corpse. I think that Johnny Leroy may have been responsible for another killing.’

  ‘Leroy?’ He had one killing to his record. She had to be wrong. ‘Solange, he’s totally clean. If there was anyone else he’d killed, we’d have a record of it. When an officer is involved in a death, it doesn’t go unreported. There would be paperwork like you can’t believe, and—’

  ‘Not if it happened off duty. Not if it happened in a different universe, Quentin. Explore just a little with me.’

  He was quiet for a moment, wondering what other universe she could possibly be referencing. He couldn’t explore what he didn’t understand.

  ‘Quentin, most people live a dual life. We have two faces. Be honest with yourself. You know there’s the one we show to the world, hopefully a positive one, and the face that we wear at night, in the deepest of shadows, when no one is watching. That is our disguise. In many cases, in most cases, the second face is a darker side that we don’t want others to see. I have this feeling that Officer Johnny Leroy lived two lives, had two faces. You and I have had this conversation before. I’m asking you to look into the death of a man killed during a series of truck hijackings. I know that the science of keeping records wasn’t necessarily perfect back then, but this should be easy. One driver was killed. Who was it?’

  A darker side? God knew he had one. He wanted vengeance for the death of his wife. He wanted retribution for the crimes his brothers had committed, hooking hundreds of people on drugs. He wanted some reckoning with his family, mother and father, who had shunned him for turning on his brothers.

  ‘The truck hijackings. It’s sketchy. I can look it up, but that’s hard to say that he was responsible
for the driver’s death.’

  ‘I think he was …’ she hesitated as if getting her thoughts together. ‘I get it. This is a very sketchy lead, but I believe that Leroy and Washington were involved in the death of this driver. That death ties them together.’

  ‘Wow.’ He considered for a moment telling the woman what he knew. ‘I will share something with you,’ he said, ‘but in the strictest of confidence. Please, you can’t tell anyone about this.’

  ‘Who am I going to tell, Detective? We don’t exactly run in the same social circles.’

  He realized the absurdity of his request.

  ‘Officer Johnny Leroy worked as a security guard at a business in Algiers, before he joined the force.’

  ‘That’s secret information?’

  ‘No. The secret information is what happened during his employment. During the year he worked the night shift, he stopped two would-be thieves and detained them until the cops arrived.’

  ‘You’ve got some names of those thieves?’

  ‘I do. Confidential.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Joseph Washington and Andy Brion. And now you bring up the truck driver. I have no knowledge of him, but damn, this whole thing seems to be dovetailing.’

  ‘It’s like all the stars are converging to one point,’ she said. ‘Detective, I’ve given you as much information as I can. It’s all I know. I seriously believe that if you track this driver, you may very well find why your Johnny Leroy was killed.’

  ‘Solange, do you ever feel like your brain is aching? Too much information? Sensory overload?’ he asked.

  ‘Are you truly asking me for an answer, or are you just commenting on the current situation?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m asking. There are so many avenues to explore in this case. I’m still working with fellow officers in Detroit on Denise’s murder, I’ve got four other cases that I’m actively involved with and we’re on our second night of riots in Algiers. My brain is about ready to explode. Sometimes I wonder why—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Quentin.’

  ‘And I shouldn’t lay that all out on you. But do you ever feel that?’

  ‘Every day, Detective. Every hour, every minute.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Nick Martin. The records, as old as they were, spit up the name. He had no knowledge of the man, but any lead was a positive so he called the office and asked them to run records. And he tried to grasp all the information he had in his head. The cell phone buzzed again and he answered. Detroit calling.

  ‘Archer.’

  ‘Q, good news, my friend. Really good news.’

  Tom Lyons sounded very positive.

  ‘I could use any good news, Tom. On a number of levels. There’s a lot of shit going on.’

  ‘United States Marshalls, they found Bobby Mercer.’

  Officer Bobby Mercer, until recently a member of the DPD. At one time one of Archer’s comrades in blue. This was the man who had recruited his brothers into the drug ring. The man who had walked out on the force and traveled down to New Orleans, threatening Archer. The man who killed Denise, his wife. He’d run her down with a stolen car to send a message to Archer. He was the one person he’d kill in a heartbeat. His darkest enemy. He had hoped, dreamed and prayed that he could spend fifteen minutes with Mercer. He wanted to choke the confession out of him, endlessly kick him in the balls, torture the motherfucker. The man who killed Denise. The damned motherfucker. Archer was shaking.

  ‘Details, my friend. Please, details.’

  ‘Two hours ago, Q. That’s all I know. And I’ve already been informed there are some very scared cops on our force at this moment. For some reason, I think some of the “participants” thought that Mercer was an untouchable. We’ve already had some sudden defections.’

  ‘Where? Where did they find him?’

  ‘Dallas, Texas.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘What do you think? Selling opioids. You’d think he’d be a lot smarter, but he was trying to move some H to an undercover cop. We’re cops. He was a cop. Can’t we usually spot a narc?’ Lyons took a breath. ‘Bobby Mercer was smart enough to set up the ring, but he got a little too cocky. That’s my take on it, Q.’

  Archer almost smiled. ‘As long as they nail the son of a bitch, Tom. I hope he gets life. The absolute worst for our former friend.’

  ‘Death would be nice,’ Lyons said, ‘but that hasn’t happened since the 1800s.’

  The death sentence had been abolished in the late 1800s in Michigan, and most cops wished it would come back.

  ‘Tom, right now I’m tied up in this shooting of a New Orleans cop, a black-lives-matter riot in Algiers, and a number of other cases but—’

  ‘We’ve all got a lot on our table, Quentin. Trust me. How does that play into the arrest of Mercer?’

  ‘Look, I’m just saying, in spite of a full schedule, you have to know how desperately important this is to me. If the prosecutor needs me to come back, no matter when, I’m there.’

  ‘I know. As I said, this just happened two hours ago,’ Lyons said. ‘So, at the moment I don’t know any more than that. I could speculate, but for now I’m just keeping you up to date, my man. We’ve finally got some traction. You know what I mean?’

  ‘I do. And you did a whole lot more than that. No, Tom, it goes way beyond friendship. You and your handful of cohorts, if it hadn’t been for your work behind the scenes, that son of a bitch would still be running the business from his squad car. You guys drove him out. I couldn’t be any happier. We are now in family status. Capisce?’

  Lyons chuckled. ‘I know your family, my friend. I’m not certain I want to be a part of that dysfunctional group. We’re all extremely happy that Bobby Mercer has been captured. The family up here in the frozen tundra is happy. Not your family of misfits.’

  Archer laid the phone down and drawing a breath put his head in his hands. Dad, once a cop, was now vocally disappointed in his son. His brothers, at one time friends, were now sworn enemies who had both been salesmen in Mercer’s drug cartel. Dad was first and foremost a family man, and Archer had betrayed the family. That was always forefront in his mind. But Denise, the naïve nurse, had been the love of his life. His best friend. They’d shared dreams, talked about kids and planned a life. It was hard to deal with the sadness of losing family, but harder still, losing his love. Archer tried to pull it together.

  ‘Q? Are you there?’

  He picked up the phone. ‘Thanks, Tom. Needed a moment. I guess I just wait for the next step?’

  ‘I’m sure they’re working on extradition. My uneducated guess is they will ask you to return to Detroit sometime in the near … oh hell, Quentin, you know that it won’t be pleasant.’

  ‘Unlike it’s been since she was run down?’ He closed his eyes and took a breath. ‘Won’t be pleasant seems to be a watered-down phrase from what it’s actually been, Tom.’

  ‘I can’t imagine, my friend. I have no idea what you’re going through. But we want to nail him. Make the conviction stick. You know that. Doing everything possible here to make that happen. And you? You’re working on the cop killing … I imagine you are going through a new kind of personal hell. An officer down is a scary situation.’

  ‘I am.’ He was.

  ‘Quentin, I told you there are some cops looking over their shoulders. There are also some resignations up here and some cops who have just disappeared.’

  Just like cops had disappeared right after Katrina. Cops with stolen cars and weapons. No one knew where they’d gone.

  ‘The writing’s on the wall, Q. I believe this drug thing may be deeper than any of us thought.’

  ‘Deeper?’ Archer asked. He was somewhat incredulous. ‘They ran me out of town, Tom. Destroyed my life, and took Denise’s. I always thought it was deep. Hopefully this arrest will bring the house down.’

  ‘I get it.’

  ‘So keep me informed. No chance he can skate on this?’

  Th
ere was a long silence on the other end. Finally, ‘Hey, you know the way the justice system works. Anyone, anywhere can skate. If someone oils the skids. If someone greases the wheels. You know that as well as I do. Every minute, someone in power is screwing with the system. It can happen, pal. But I think we’ve got some solid evidence. A video that almost nails Mercer stealing the car and then another one that shows the hit-and-run.’

  ‘We’re going to get him, Tom. We’re going to get him.’

  The phone buzzed again, and this time Beeman was on the other end.

  ‘OK, Q, I don’t know where you got the name Nick Martin, but here’s a thumbnail of what we’ve found so far. A Nick Martin was a truck driver for the Lane Freight Company about twenty-five years ago.’

  ‘There must be dozens if not hundreds of Nick Martins who died in the last twenty-five years. You’re sure you’ve got the guy who died during the hijacking?’

  ‘Patience, my son. A lot of manpower, a lot of investigation went on in the last half hour. You’re working on a cop killing and there are no limits as to time and effort. You know that. Overtime be damned.’

  Archer was quiet.

  ‘On the night in question, Martin was hauling a load of cigarettes to a wholesale warehouse in New Iberia. There’s a record of a CB broadcast he made asking about a detour on I-90. Highway Department isn’t sure they have records that go that far back to verify, but for whatever reason, he got off the highway, driving his rig onto some jerk-water country road. He went off the road, the truck jackknifed and skidded down an embankment. When the cab flipped, he broke his neck and died on the scene.’

  ‘Wow. That’s a tragic story.’ He still wasn’t sure how it all fit together. ‘Sarge, what does a truck accident have to do with the case?’