The Gone Dead Train

by Lisa Turner

  Frankie looked back at him, cocked her head toward the library. “I’ve got this. Go.”

  He took off across the plaza. Garrett’s dash into the library had amazed him, desperation making the man agile and even more dangerous. He could be hiding anywhere in the library, in the stacks or even holding a hostage. Billy’s edge was that Garrett had no idea he was coming right behind him.

  The automatic door slid open. He drew his weapon and pressed along the foyer wall. Scanning the open atrium, he saw a group of people who were staring at the top of the escalators that ran to the library’s second-floor mezzanine.

  He stepped into the atrium, barrel pointed skyward. “Police,” he said, just loud enough for the bystanders to hear.

  They turned. He put his finger to his lips. “Where’s the man who ran in?”

  A woman pointed to the escalator. “He just went up.”

  “Is he armed?”

  “He might be,” the man closest to him said. “He wrestled with a security guard at the top.”

  A woman’s scream rang out from somewhere on the mezzanine. The people in the atrium scattered as Billy bounded up the escalator steps, crouching as he reached the top. He scanned the space then quickly took cover behind a book cart.

  Except for a few people peeking out from among the stacks, the mezzanine appeared to be empty. Directly across from the escalator, a woman stood up from behind the information desk, her hands pressed to her mouth. On the floor in front of the desk, a uniformed guard lay sprawled with one knee rising up.

  Billy waved to get the woman’s attention. “Police. Where did the man go?” he whispered.

  She pointed toward a metal door on the back wall twenty feet behind her.

  He moved to kneel beside the guard, a man in his sixties. Blood leaked from a gash in his scalp. Billy looked up at the woman behind the desk.

  “Where does that door lead?”

  “It’s the old wing—a hallway with a meeting room and two storage rooms. It ends in a balcony. No one works back there.”

  He was familiar with the balcony she was talking about. He could see the back of the library from the barge.

  “Call 911,” he said. “Tell dispatch there are additional injuries at the scene.”

  The guard opened his eyes and looked around. “Where’s that old fucker?”

  “Down the hall,” Billy said.

  “He got my gun, a .357.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  “Empty chamber, and one bullet. I’m not here to shoot up the place.” The guard was shaken, groggy.

  “Are you sure about the bullets?” he asked.

  The guard nodded.

  He squeezed the man’s arm and ran to the metal door through which Garrett had just disappeared. Garrett would never allow himself to be locked up for murder. Billy wanted to catch the son of a bitch, but if the guard was right, going after Garrett meant risking one shot in order to take him alive.

  He cracked open the door to peer around the frame. The hall ran straight back about seventy-five feet, with tall windows on the left and three doors on the right. At the end of the hall, an exterior door was just swinging shut, which meant Garrett was now standing outside, two stories up on a balcony about six feet wide with a waist-high railing. Below him was a steep, grassy slope held in place by a fifteen-foot-high retaining wall. At the base of the wall ran the train tracks, then the road, then the river.

  Billy made a split-second decision. He pushed through the door and sprinted toward the first meeting room on the right. Ten feet into the hall he saw a flash of sunlight as the balcony door swung open. Garrett limped inside, the guard’s gun tucked in his waistband. Momentum carried him three steps before he saw Billy coming.

  “Drop it,” Billy shouted, pointing his SIG at Garrett. Garrett’s eyes flared with recognition.

  He could shoot Garrett, but under these circumstances, he’d have a hard time proving it wasn’t a revenge kill. It was a gamble, but he raced the last few steps to the meeting room doorway. As he cleared the opening, he heard the click of the .357’s empty chamber. He hit the floor and rolled. A second later a slug caromed off the door frame, exploding the wood into splinters. He came up on the far side of a conference table, his weapon trained on the opening. If Garrett came through that door, he was a dead man. Billy waited, breathing hard in the silence. He heard footsteps going back down the hall. Then the exterior door slammed shut. Garrett was on the balcony again.

  Billy raced for the exterior door, factoring in the possibility that the guard had been confused about the number of bullets loaded. He’d have to sucker Garrett into taking another shot to find out. He stopped at the door, brought up his knee, placed his foot on the door’s panic bar, and shoved as hard as he could. The door crashed into the outside wall. He crouched, his SIG before him, and peered around the frame.

  Garrett was in the corner, wild eyed, standing with his back against the railing. His face was bleached white, and he was mumbling, the muzzle of the .357 pressed to his temple.

  “I’m sorry, Robert, sorry, Robert, sorry, Robert.” Garrett closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Click. He pulled again. Another dry click. Garrett looked at Billy with huge, empty eyes.

  Billy rose from his stance. “Drop the gun. Let’s do this right.”

  Garrett came suddenly to life. He hurled the gun at Billy and heaved his body on top of the railing. Billy was on Garrett fast, grabbing for a handhold, but Garrett twisted and smashed an elbow into his jaw. Billy’s head snapped back and he stumbled, his grip on Garrett broken. Garrett launched himself over the rail. Billy dove for the rail in time to see him roll down the slope and then pitch airborne over the edge of the retaining wall. Garrett landed on his back, angled across the first set of tracks, his head resting against a rail. One hand rose and dropped. Then he lay, inert.

  He stared down at Garrett. Sirens yowled from three directions, cruisers and first responders making the scene. Red and Little Man. Augie and Dominique and Pryce—all victims of Garrett’s pride. Let the ditch doctors scrape the bastard off the tracks, he thought. I’m done.

  He’d pulled out his mobile to alert dispatch of Garrett’s location when another sound came to him, a single horn blast. He knew instantly what it meant. Living on the barge, he’d learned to count down the seconds before a train’s dual engines powered past. The engineer wouldn’t see Garrett in time to stop.

  He stared down the slope, knowing that if he jumped he could wind up in the same shape as Garrett. The horn blew louder. He owed the son of a bitch nothing, certainly not his life. At the street corner, the crossing gates came alive, bells sounding and lights flashing.

  No one would blame him for not risking it. But if he didn’t move now, right now, Garrett would die. He saw Augie’s face before him, the warrior’s face in the painting behind the catcher’s mask. Augie’s eyes smiled at him.

  He knew what he had to do. “This one’s for you, buddy.”

  He swung over the railing, lowered himself to hang from the bottom edge of the balcony, and let go. The impact with the slope knocked him breathless. He skidded out of control, the grassy slope slicker than he’d imagined. Sliding down toward the edge of the retaining wall, he grabbed a handful of brush at the last moment. The brush tore away but slowed his drop. He hit the gravel bed below, somehow staying on his feet.

  The bells rang. The horn blew nonstop. Garrett, who was lying twenty feet away, raised his head to see the black locomotive bearing down. His head fell back.

  The engineer must have finally spotted Garrett, because the wheels locked in a high-pitched scream, sparks flying off the rails. Billy raced for the tracks, planning to grab Garrett’s belt and haul him to safety.

  The locomotive pounded down on him as he reached the rocky strip of ballast. He strained forward. Seconds left. Almost there. Then Garrett kicked out, connecting with Billy’s shin. The ballast shifted, and his feet slid out from under him. He went down hard on a creosote tie, his face even wit
h Garrett’s, staring straight into the man’s eyes.

  “You can go to hell,” Garrett whispered.

  The wheels hit with a furnace blast of hot metal and sound. Billy smelled grease and fire and the blood of damnation.

  He rolled away.

  Chapter 53

  The next day, iPhone videos of the events at the library appeared on YouTube. The videos immediately went viral. A German tourist on the gangplank of the Memphis Queen II captured the struggle on the balcony and Garrett’s fall. His subsequent beheading by the locomotive was clearly visible.

  Because of the sensational videos, the case was red-hot. The footage Jasmine Cooper taped of Billy’s accusation at the ground-breaking connected Garrett to Augie’s murder. The resulting firestorm compelled Middlebrook to arrange a media briefing at the CJC the next morning. He asked Billy and Frankie to stand on the dais behind him while he addressed reporters. They weren’t expected to answer questions, only to make a good showing for the department, then disappear before anyone could corner them.

  After the briefing, Billy and Frankie walked the half block west to the downtown First Presbyterian Church. They sat in the back while a church lady walked the rows of pews and placed hymnals in their slots. She kept her eyes averted but wore a secret smile, probably spinning young-lover stories to herself.

  Billy liked the sanctuary’s old-wood smell and the fragile, clean light coming through the east-facing windows. He’d been raised in church, but in the last year had fallen away after he’d discovered what Lou had done to little Rebecca Jane. Hearing a preacher go on about Jesus’ good and faithful servants made him uncomfortable.

  Who was good? Who was faithful? He didn’t know anymore.

  “I saw the train-track video,” Frankie said. “Close call.”

  “I considered standing back, but I couldn’t do it.”

  She nodded. “Guys like you are always looking for someone to save.”

  “That’s not true. I had an opportunity to take Garrett down in the hallway. I wanted to. Payback, you know?” He stared at his shoes, a small smile coming to his face. “I decided against it. Too much paperwork.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t live with yourself if you’d shot Garrett.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Guess it’s a moot point. I caught the video of you whacking the guy in the head and kicking his gun. You’re one tough chick; 48 Hours will be calling.”

  “Oh, shut up.” She leaned forward, rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “That was nothing. I was a lot more nervous at the briefing. All those cameras. What happens next?”

  “You go back to work. I wait to see if the review board is going to give me the ax.”

  She gave him a sidelong look. There wasn’t much she could say about that.

  “Middlebrook met with me this morning,” he said.

  “And?”

  “He said you’re the one who broke the Poston case when you spotted Augie’s watch on Dominique. He knows we were poking around in Red’s investigation, but we can’t be penalized for that. The case was closed.”

  “Besides, we were right,” she said.

  “They don’t care. It’s about procedure and regulations. I told you it would work out. With that video, you’re a free ad campaign for the MPD. They’d be fools not to bump you up to an investigative squad.”

  “Did Middlebrook say that?”

  He shrugged. “We didn’t talk about much except Garrett and the review board.”

  She sat back in the pew, frowning. Her toes were doing a little tap dance on the carpet. “You’ve got to get through this.”

  “Middlebrook says he’ll back me. His statement to the board will have to include my interview with Pryce at his house. He warned that there would be repercussions.”

  “But not dismissal,” she said. “They’re not crazy.”

  “Probably not. I’m not worried.”

  He rested his arm on the pew, tipped his head back, and studied the walnut ceiling. His casual front was for her benefit. He was worried as hell. Now that he was on the chopping block, he wanted back on the force more than anything.

  “They found the phone, laptop, and the missing photo,” she said. “Garrett had them locked up in his desk at home. If he’d locked up the watches and manuscript, he would’ve gotten away with it.”

  “Pryce is out of the ICU. He talked to Dunsford, told him Garrett was supposed to be at his house around the time of the attack, so I’m off the hook for that.”

  Frankie nodded. “Will Dunsford try to shoot you down at the hearing?”

  “He won’t want the board to look too deeply into how he mishandled those cases. And he’d be an idiot to start up with me. As it stands, he’ll close four cases at once. He’ll retire with the best stats in the squad.”

  “That’s okay with you?”

  “No, but he’ll be gone. He won’t do any more damage. I may be gone, too. Or they may take away my stripes. Or try to move me out of homicide. But I’ll be damned if I’ll spend the rest of my career chasing down stolen lawn mowers.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “On the plus side, my paycheck is already built into the budget. For that reason alone, I may get a pass.”

  She gave him a broad smile.

  He slapped his thigh and stood. “It’s been a pleasure, Mz. Police Goddess, but I have to go. I’ve got business that needs tending to.”

  Chapter 54

  He drove to the Peabody where he found Theda Jones seated on a plush velvet sofa in the middle of the hotel’s sumptuous lobby. She was flipping through a copy of Vogue, the automated baby grand plinking softly behind her. She wore a tailored jacket and jeans with her black hair coiled in a loose bun that exposed the elegant length of her neck.

  “Miss Jones,” he said, noticing the carry-on bag tucked next to her feet as he approached. She’d asked for a one P.M. meeting, explaining that she was about to leave for Boston.

  “Detective.” She stood and tilted her head toward the player baby grand. “That machine is butchering ‘Clair de Lune.’ But we’re not here to talk music.”

  For privacy, they moved to a small table some distance away from the lobby bar.

  “First, thank you for coming. I apologize for getting upset and leaving you so abruptly the other day.” She pulled an envelope from her pocket and removed the letter. “I wanted you to read Red’s last letter.”

  It was written out on the same staff paper he’d seen in Red’s room and in the same hand that had made notations on “Old Fool Love.”

  Dear Theda,

  I trust you to keep this package safe. Do not open it, baby girl, because what’s inside might put you in danger. I’ll write in a few weeks to say where to send it.

  We played a club at Tunica last night and had luck at the black jack table. I’ve enclosed part of the winnings. Go pick out yourself a pretty dress.

  Remember. You’ve got what money can’t buy. Talent. Don’t let nobody stand in your way. If anything happens, carry on for me and Little Man. He said to tell you hello. Remember, we love you, sweet girl.

  Daddy Davis

  P.S. I’m working up a new song. “Old Fool Love.” It’s going to be a hit.

  Billy slipped the letter back in the envelope. “How much money did Red send?”

  She rested her elbows on the table and peered at him from behind her interlaced fingers. “Two money orders of a thousand each.”

  Her gaze drifted away, drifted back. “People have used me all my life, everyone but Red Davis. He was the father I never had.”

  Behind Theda’s eyes, he glimpsed the little girl who’d come from a sordid background and been caught in a trap, yet she possessed an artless aura of confidence and privilege. Theda had talent and beauty, but like everyone else, what she really wanted was someone to love her.

  “You don’t know about me,” she said. “In New Orleans, I got involved in the kind of trouble a lady doesn’t like to talk about. Then I met
Red and Little Man. I was so desperate for a chance to get out, I believed the scholarship in Boston was true. I didn’t know Cool Willy would go after them for helping me.”

  She pressed her fingertips to her eyelids to stop the tears. “After you told me Willy had hurt them, I had to find out if he’d been involved in their deaths. I called friends in New Orleans, working ladies.” She looked up at him, embarrassed. “I asked if he’d ever talked about going after Red and Little Man, hurting them again. They said all he talked about was me. He loved me, wanted me back. I was the only one. Ridiculous, romantic stuff. Willy wants to build a new image. William wants to be classy. I’m part of that.

  “The ladies said Willy didn’t know where Red and Little Man had gone until the Times-Picayune reported Red’s death. He left for Memphis Tuesday night. Said he thought he’d find me here.”

  “Cool Willy didn’t kill Davis and Lacy,” Billy said. “It was the man who died on the tracks.”

  “I thought that might be the case.” She nodded, wiped her cheek. “I have to leave in a few minutes, and we still have the package to discuss. I no longer need you to sell what’s inside.”

  “Why’s that?”

  She cocked her chin toward the bar. “Check out the guy in the cashmere T-shirt, the one scrolling through his iPhone.”

  “I spotted Cool Willy when I walked in,” he said.

  “He paid for my last school semester. He thinks I’ll come back to New Orleans to play in his piano bar after I graduate. That I’ll be his girl, maybe his wife.”

  “What about the competition?”

  A slow smile crossed her face. “William Cooley is pussy-whipped for the first time in his life. I plan to keep it that way. I’m going to win that competition. I’m going to be a star. He’ll fall in line once he gets the bigger picture. He’s all about prestige.”