Indian Country Noir

by Sarah Cortez

  I tug up my pants as I start across the street. Must be losing weight, my stainless steel 9mm Beretta 92F, in its nylon holster on my right hip, weighs down my belt more than usual. Jodie nods at me as I approach and I recognize another familiar face. The uniformed cop smiles weakly at me and pushes a wild strand of dark brown hair from her face.

  I met Officer Juanita Cruz a couple months ago at Charity Hospital when I worked the murder case we call Shoot Me I'm Late-a case she helped me solve. Wasn't much to it. Guy had his buddy shoot him in the leg so he wouldn't get in trouble with his domineering girlfriend for being late again for a date, only the guy died.

  I'm about to ask what a Fifth District officer is doing downtown, but when a cop's killed, we all come out like the cavalry (may not be a very good analogy from a man whose ancestors wiped out Custer at Little Big Horn).

  "Hold this," I say to Juanita, handing her my radio as I unfasten my belt and tighten it up a loop. That's better. Juanita's chocolate-brown eyes are wide and I wink. She looks as if she's lost weight too. She still wears her hair back in a bun, like most women in uniform do. As I recall, she's twenty-five, a good five years younger than me.

  Jodie's cat eyes are weary as she lets out a long sigh. "We're going to recanvass the building first. I'll start at the top with Juanita. You start at the bottom, okay?"

  I slip my radio into my back pocket.

  It takes me six minutes to solve the murder.

  Mindy Cellers, with a "C," an inquisitive seven-year-old who lives in apartment 1A on the first floor, stares at my gold star-and-crescent badge clipped to my belt as she tells me, "I know who killed her."

  I go down on my haunches, eye level now, and ask the obvious, "Who?"

  Mindy tugs at the sides of her reddish hair. "I tried to tell the police last night, but nobody would talk to me."

  "I'm talking to you." I keep my voice low and soft. "Who killed her?"

  "The Wolf." Her green eyes narrow as she nods. "That's what he calls himself. He visits her a lot."

  "What does he look like?" Hoping she's not about to describe a canine from some childhood fantasy world.

  "He's as big as you and thicker. And scary looking."

  "Scary?"

  "He's got a sharp face and big eyebrows." Mindy leans forward. "I think he's her boyfriend."

  A door opens behind me and I turn to see an old man peek out.

  "He saw the Wolf when he left." Mindy leans past me, speaking to the old man. "The Wolf almost knocked you over when he left, didn't he?"

  I stand and the old man's gaze moves from my gun to my badge and he shrugs. He's barely five feet tall, balding with a craggy, sallow face. He's in a faded red plaid housecoat. Barefoot.

  "I'm Detective Beau. Homicide. You saw someone yesterday?"

  The man glances around, hand still on the door as if he's about to slam it and escape back inside. I recognize the look of fear; I ease forward.

  "There's nothing to be afraid of. We'll get him, you know. Nobody kills a cop and gets away with it." I drop my voice menacingly. "Not in New Orleans."

  "You don't know Wolf."

  I slip my radio from my back pocket and call Jodie.

  Allan O'Grady lives in 1B, an apartment decorated with timeworn furniture and old-fashioned lamps and smelling like sweaty socks. Jodie and I both jot O'Grady's story on our note pads.

  Last night, at about 7 p.m., the former boyfriend of Kim berly Champagne who lives in apartment 2B came hurrying down the stairs, bumping into O'Grady who was coming back into the building from putting his garbage out. The Wolf, in a black jacket and baggy black pants, kept his hands in his pockets as he jammed his shoulder against the door to swing it open and rush away. An hour earlier O'Grady had heard several loud pops, but thought it was a car backfiring. Later, when the police arrived, O'Grady heard voices and crying but wouldn't answer his door no matter how many times people knocked on it. He'd turned off the lights.

  Jodie asks why everyone knows this man as the Wolf and I Spot Juanita Cruz easing in the open doorway. Her eyes are red and she nods me over. We step back into the hall where Mindy still waits in her doorway.

  Juanita's face is scrunched up as if in pain. "I know him."

  She takes a step back and sits on the stairs. "Kim broke up with him months ago."

  I pull out my note pad as I watch her breathing heavily now.

  "What's his real name?"

  "Ahern Smith." She sucks in a deep breath. "Calls himself the Wolf or just Wolf. Always refers to himself in the third person. Like, `The Wolf is hungry,' or, `The Wolf thinks this is nice."' She blinks up at me and tears flow from her eyes. "He's an ex-Green Beret."

  I sit next to her and ask how long she'd known Kimberly Champagne.

  "I broke her in when she came out of the academy." Juanita buries her face in her hands. "We were partners for six months."

  Before leaving with Juanita, Jodie explains to me how the Wolf made it look like a break-in, as if Kim had stumbled on a burglar. "We've been looking at every goddamn 62-man in the computer."

  Jodie shakes her head and thanks me before she heads back to the detective bureau to get a line on this Wolf character and secure the necessary warrants.

  I'm left to take the formal statements from O'Grady and Miss Mindy Cellers with a "C."

  "What's a 62-man?" Mindy asks.

  "Burglar."

  "I'm not afraid of the Wolf." She tilts her head to the side and smiles. "I know you'll get him."

  I give her a long stare before I say, "I usually do."

  Ahern Keith Smith, alias the Wolf, has no arrest record but did spend eight years in the U.S. Army. In a photo we secured from Kim Champagne's apartment, a picture we've distributed to all law enforcement, he looks a little like the actor River Phoenix, the kid who OD'd, only the Wolf's face is leaner and meaner-looking with an almost rabid glint in his blue eyes.

  His condo is on St. Charles Avenue, corner of Peniston Street, in the center of a row of new town houses built on ground that once housed a mansion. On either side of the condos are mansions with antebellum columns, verandas and all.

  At 4 a.m., I follow three S.WA.T men, decked out in all black, army helmets, bulky flak vests. The first one carries a sledgehammer, the second a bullet-proof shield. It's Jodie's case and her warrants, so she makes me put on a flak vest or I have to stay out. I'm in all-black too, black T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, my Beretta cupped in both hands as we move up to the Wolf's front door. Jodie's right behind me, her own 9mm Beretta in hand. She's blacked-out also, her hair in a ponytail.

  The condo is quiet. A voice booms "Police!" as the sledgehammer shatters the deadbolt and the door flies open. Everybody wants him to be there with a weapon in hand so we can send the Wolf straight to hell, as painfully as possible.

  He isn't there, but there's blood around the kitchen sink. Pulling on rubber gloves, we start rooting. In the Wolf's desk, I find detailed notes of his surveillance of Kim Champagneher work schedule, times entering and leaving home, times and places she went to after work, along with black-and-white telephoto pictures of her. Just as I find the Wolf's night-vision goggles and binoculars, Jodie discovers six semi-automatic pistols and a World War II Browning Automatic Rifle, the famous B.A.R.

  I can see the strain in Jodie's eyes. Under the bright lights of the condo, her smooth face is still void of age lines, although she's pushing forty. I remind her of that, just to break the tension, and she gets up on the balls of her feet, extends her five-seven frame, and gives me a rabbit punch in the solar plexus.

  As the crime lab tech enters to collect the blood, headquarters calls Jodie on the radio to notify her that Ahern Smith's black SUV was just found abandoned on the Claiborne Avenue bridge over the Industrial Canal. There's blood in the car.

  "Jesus! I gotta go." Jodie yanks off her gloves. "You got this?"

  "I'll finish up," I tell her as she pulls the band from her hair, shakes out her ponytail, and hurries away.

 
When I find the Wolf's journal, I read the last entry where he says he's going to kill Kimberly, then himself. He even gives us the reason, a broken heart he calls my heart's death since she left him. I flip back through the pages as he describes his life without Kimberly, back through their relationship to the time he first saw her as they each stood outside Galatoire's, each with friends, waiting for Sunday breakfast at one of the most exclusive restaurants in a city of great restaurants. Kimberly wore a short red dress that day.

  He admits his clever lines didn't impress her at first, but he succeeded in discovering where she worked and kept at her until she let him take her out. I skim over the details of their sex life and feel a sickness in my stomach, knowing all this will be read in open court when we catch the bastard, all the detailed descriptions of Kim's body.

  I shake my head, my heart racing again.

  As if he really jumped off the fuckin' bridge. If he wanted to kill himself, why didn't he do it at Kim's? I close the journal, which goes back three years. There are other girlfriends listed too, with more explicit details. I add the journal to the box of materials we're taking.

  We've answered the question why, although why isn't important to a homicide detective. Why is only important in Sherlock Holmes stories and to the news media, which struggles to determine why everything occurs. In homicide, the who, what, when, where, and how of a murder is what leads us to the killer. But sometimes it helps to know why, I guess.

  I slip on my extra-dark Ray Ban Balorama sunglasses as I sit at my desk in the bureau, the early-morning sun burning through the withered tint on the wall of windows while Jodie explains the case to the assembled cops. It's 10 a.m. now and I'm worn out. That's what I get, being thirty.

  Yes, there was blood inside the Wolf's SUV. No, no one saw him jump. No one saw him walk away either. The everalert bridge operator didn't even notice the abandoned SUV until a passing Harbor Police car almost ran into it. Yes, we checked cabs and buses, but no one picked up anyone close to the Wolf's description.

  The ever-efficient Harbor Police are dragging the Industrial Canal, only they're not optimistic. The canal's deep enough for ocean-going ships and they can't keep the locks closed for long. I feel myself dozing off.

  No one in the room believes he jumped, so we set up a routine. Lt. Merten takes over, handing out assignments, sending detectives to cover all the Wolf's known haunts, houses of his relatives, places he's worked, whatever they've come up with from the computer.

  I'm slipping now, my regular breathing lulling me to sleep.

  I feel someone shaking me and raise my sunglasses to Juanita Cruz's eager face. "I'm going with you tonight. You want me to meet you here, or what?"

  I pull my feet off my desk. "Come again? What did I miss?"

  "I'm assigned to work with you." She sounds apologetic.

  "No problem there." I stand and stretch. "What are we supposed to do?"

  Juanita points to Jodie standing next to the coffee pot, waving us over.

  "You two go sit on his ex-girlfriend," says Jodie. "The one he went out with just before Kim." She takes a sip of coffee. "We've notified everyone from his journals to be careful."

  On our way out, Juanita remarks, "Everyone wants you to be the one to catch him."

  I don't have to ask why.

  Shortly after sunset, following some needed sleep and a thick burger and fries at my favorite haunt, Flamingos Cafe in Bucktown, I sit parked in my unmarked car with Juanita. We're outside the Wolf's old girlfriend's apartment house on Constance Street just down from Howard Avenue, only three blocks from Kim's apartment. The building is three stories tall with a security front door and a gated garage out back.

  Juanita and I both wear dark, short-sleeved dress shirts, unbuttoned and open over black T-shirts, black running shoes, and black jeans, with our 9mm's in nylon holsters on our hips. She wears her hair down and looks different. Even with only a hint of makeup, a brush of red on her lips, she's very pretty, with those sultry Latina looks.

  "So what's this girl's name again?" She has her note pad open.

  "Bessie Cleary, white female, twenty-three, five-five, thin, light brown hair. Went out with the Wolf for over a year. Lived with him. Jodie talked with her and Bessie doesn't think the lovely Mr. Ahern Smith would ever hurt her."

  Juanita looks up from her notes. "You sure he can't get in the back way to this place?"

  "I'm not sure. But the security guard's retired N.O.P.D. and he's just chomping for a shot at the Wolf. Carries a Glock 35, .40 caliber, seventeen rounds. Itching to shoot."

  I stretch out my legs as best I can. Even with the windows down it's still steamy, not even a breath of wind. The only smell is Juanita's light perfume, which is kind of nice actually.

  "So, your girlfriend's mad at you?"

  I'd mentioned it when I picked her up. "Yeah. Another night alone. She said it's getting old all these hours I put in."

  I don't tell her how many girlfriends have given up on me. Don't want to sound pathetic. Heartache's part of the job, I keep telling myself. Suddenly, the Wolf's words, heart's death, come to mind, and I brush them away. Fuckin' bastard.

  "Kim thought the Wolf was the one." Juanita's voice is husky with emotion. "Soul mate, you know." She takes in a deep breath. "I remember the first time I saw Kim, all brighteyed and eager, right out of the academy. She smiled all through that first shift." Her voice cracks.

  "You were her training officer?"

  She nods, catches her breath, and continues in a staccato voice filled with emotion. "Her family's rich. She was an athlete. Played tennis in high school. Had two college degrees. Was going to go to law school, but went to the academy instead."

  I watch a man enter the building, but he's too short and too old to be the Wolf.

  "She became a cop because she was tired of being a victim."

  I turn to Juanita, my eyebrows rising.

  "Kim was mugged twice, once in an evening gown coming from her debutante ball. It scared her and she didn't like the feeling and wanted to do something about it herself."

  A cab parks in front of the apartment house and an elderly lady gets out and enters the building.

  "I've never known anyone with a clearer definition between right and wrong," Juanita goes on. "She was a problem solver at scenes, running a guy in for hitting his wife, running a woman in for neglecting her kids, making peace between people more often than not."

  I'm not much of a peacemaker.

  Juanita readjusts herself, leaning against the door, facing me more as she says, "Why is your middle name Raven?"

  "I'm half Lakota."

  She's confused, so I explain: "Sioux."

  "Oh. Anyone ever call you the Raven?"

  "No."

  She comes right back with, "I looked up the word in the dictionary this morning. Raven has other meanings, besides the bird. It also means to be predatory, to seek or seize prey and to plunder, and-"

  I raise my hand. "I know. But what does that have to do with anything?"

  "How many men have you killed?" Her eyes are narrowed, her pouty lips set seriously, and for some reason I can't tell her it's none of her business.

  "I quit counting at five."

  I figured I'd get a raised eyebrow, but her face remains set.

  "The Grand Jury decided all were justifiable homicides. They did cite me, however, for scalping two of them."

  "Scalping?" Her eyes go owly.

  She's so gullible, I have to play it out, so I reach my left hand around and pull out my black hunting knife from its sheath on my belt. It has a nine-inch blade, a Sioux instrument, sharpened on one side only, a proper knife for a plains warrior.

  She folds her arms. "You never scalped them."

  Shrugging, I put my knife away. I don't bother telling her I hadn't much choice in shooting the men. Truly. But most cops never shoot anyone and Juanita doesn't have to explain her curiosity. I'm an aberration, either the unluckiest Cajun or a predatory Sioux taking revenge
on the white eyes.

  "The word wolf also means predatory, rapacious, and fierce."

  I chuckle finally to ease the pressure and counter, "So what's your point?"

  "I want to call you the Raven."

  "You can call me Detective Beau, Officer Cruz."

  She sits up as if I pinched her and looks out the windshield.

  I have to laugh. "I'm just kiddin', Juanita. Beau's fine. I just don't like nicknames."

  A minute of silence is broken when she says, "I told you, everyone wants you to be the one to find the Wolf. It's all they're talking about at headquarters."

  I don't like where this is going.

  "Because you'll kill him."

  "You shouldn't hang around headquarters so much." It's my turn to stare out the windshield at the dark night. The apartment building is now bathed in exterior lighting. The night is extra dark because it's moonless and in the darkness I feel a heartache, or rather the memory of heartache.

  Her name was Lily and I thought she was the one. Soul mate, you know. Only she walked out on me at the lowest point in my life. Lying in that hospital bed after the operation to repair the knee I tore up in the spring game at L.S.U., sophomore season, with my bright future as a quarterback all but gone, Lily told me she didn't love me anymore. I wanted to run after her, convince her it couldn't be over because I still loved her, but I couldn't even get out of bed.

  It was for the better, I suppose. And the heartache only returns if I think back. I fidget in my seat thinking how the Wolf reacted to his heartache. Where did he find the fury? I've never felt anger toward Lily and I guess that's the difference. The Wolf let his pain turn into rage. The Raven left his pain where it belongs because life is a series of losses. The Sioux know this and so do the Cajuns, refugees from Canada driven to the swamps of south Louisiana.

  "I wish something would happen," Juanita says.

  Those chocolate-brown eyes stare into mine for a long minute and her face looks very relaxed, calm, and lovely in the dim light. I feel my heartbeat now, but the moment is lost as I catch a movement behind Juanita's head and tense a moment, then I see it's a homeless man.