Missing, Frank Renzi Book 6

by Susan Fleet

  Sam popped a Tums, anxious now. Did Emily tell the cops about him?

  “My wife is very distraught about Robbie,” Gates said. “She wanted to be here by my side, but I told her to rest. This has been a terrible ordeal, and I ask that you give us time to grieve and come together as a family. Thank you.”

  “When will you hold a funeral for Robbie?” a reporter asked.

  “Do the police have any leads on the murder?” called another.

  Gates ignored them, turned and walked away. The picture cut to the anchorwoman, who said, “We'll be back with more news in a moment.”

  “Where's the girl's mother?” Abby said. “I can understand that she's upset, but it seems odd that no one's seen her. I heard a rumor that she left the girl in the store by herself.”

  Donna left Emily in the store? Shocked, he said, “Where'd you hear that?”.

  “At work. One of the librarians lives next door to a woman who works at Whole Foods. Why on earth would she leave her five-year-old daughter alone in the store all by herself?”

  “Beats me,” Sam said, rubbing his arms. The rumors about Donna made him nervous. Worse, NOPD wasn't saying a word about Robbie’s murder investigation. That terrified him. He'd better find an excuse to go in the station tomorrow and talk to Kenyon Miller.

  _____

  10:20 PM

  Grateful not to be discussing kidnappers and murdered children, Frank sat on the futon in his living room with his cellphone to his ear. Kelly was telling him about her day. He could listen to her sultry low-pitched voice for hours.

  He propped his feet on the coffee table and chugged some Sam Adams, gazing at the Modigliani above the fireplace. He hadn't done much to the condo since he bought it. He was still sending alimony checks to his ex-wife in Massachusetts and paying taxes on their house in Milton where she still lived. Last year when he finally got around to painting the living room, Kelly had given him the Modigliani, a long-legged beauty sprawled naked on a maroon blanket. She had a nice ass, but not as nice as Kelly's.

  “Frank?” Kelly said. “Did you hear me?”

  “No. I'm looking at the Modigliani nude, fantasizing about ripping your clothes off and having my way with you. What have you got on?” His usual come-on when they couldn't be together.

  “Not much, just lying in bed in my sexy black lingerie.”

  “Jesus, don't say that. I've already got a hard-on.”

  Kelly laughed. “Good to know you miss me. I've been eating like a pig all week. My aunt had me over for lunch today. She's Italian so you know what that means. Soup with little Italian meatballs and a big plate of stuffed ravioli. I probably put on five pounds.”

  “Fine with me, as long as it's in the right places.”

  “I might let you check that out when I get back on Sunday.”

  “Three days,” he grumbled.

  “Hey, think how exciting it will be. After dinner tonight some of my classmates were talking about the most exciting thing that happened to them after graduation. I told them it was seeing you naked for the first time.”

  He burst out laughing. “You did not!”

  She laughed. “No, but I was tempted. Actually, I said it was getting shot.”

  “I bet that shut them up,” he said. It sure as hell had shut him up.

  “Yeah,” she said wistfully. “I still miss Ben.”

  During a hurricane evacuation two years ago, a thug had ambushed Kelly and her partner, Ben Washburn. Shot point-blank in the head, Ben had died instantly. The bullet that hit Kelly bounced off her clavicle, chipping off bone fragments. After she came out of surgery, Frank talked to the doctor, who said Kelly was lucky. If it had hit four inches lower, she'd be dead. The thought of losing Kelly to a scumbag gunslinger roaming the streets had infuriated him. But they'd caught the bastard. Now he was serving a life sentence in prison.

  “I talked to my dad last night,” Kelly said. “You lied. When I asked him about Claudia Cohen, he said she's not as pretty as Holly Hunter.”

  Frank laughed. “Aw gee, foiled again. What else did he say?”

  “He said whenever he dealt with her she was very professional and cooperative.” And after a beat, “So. Is she cooperating with you?”

  Kelly being a wise-ass, with a sneaky loaded question. “Not in the biblical sense, but we had a meeting today and it was helpful.”

  “How's the investigation going?”

  She didn't have to say which one. She knew he was devastated about Robbie. But she didn't know Donald Duck had let Emily and Donna go.

  It took him ten minutes to tell her about that and then everything that had happened since. When he finished, Kelly said, “Wow, it doesn't get much crazier than that. You think Ponytail is gunning for Donald Duck?”

  “No. I think he’s too busy digging up dirt on Gates. Vobitch and I have a new theory. Ponytail is blackmailing Gates. When I was at his house today, Gates seemed stressed out. Not about Donna, something else.” He wasn’t going to tell her Gates pulled a gun on him. She'd flip out.

  “But you know Donna's okay, Frank. Gates doesn't.”

  “True, but I don't think he gives a damn about her. Find my wife, he said, like she's some kind of possession, no more important than his car. My gut says he's worried about something else.”

  “He was involved in a gang-rape when he was in college? Allegedly?”

  “Yes. Not only that, the campus police chief liked him for a murder that happened six months after the gang-rape.”

  “Jesus, are you serious? Did they charge him?”

  “No. He had an alibi and the chief had no evidence. But I think he killed her, which would give Ponytail plenty of ammunition to blackmail him.”

  “How would he find out about it?”

  “I don't know.” Frank ran his hand over the prickly stubble on his jaw. “There's too many things I don't know. Last names mostly. Rose, owner of a rosary and a cross with Vietnamese characters, and René, a cruise ship worker.”

  “You think Rose is related to Ponytail?”

  “Correct. David Cho and the NOPD liaison officer who works with the Vietnamese community are hunting for Vietnamese men with any priors. And according to Donna's mother, René will get off a cruise ship tomorrow and find out his son is dead.” He sipped his Glenlivet. Just saying this, picturing Robbie, dead, pained him. “But I've got no clue how to find him. Cruise ships carry hundreds of workers.”

  Kelly started humming the tune from Annie about the sun coming out tomorrow. The music cue jogged his memory. He shut his eyes and pictured Robbie's room, a typical boy's room what with the science project, but the electronic keyboard beside his bed wasn’t so typical. Like father, like son?

  “Hey! You just gave me an idea. There's an electric piano in Robbie's room. Maybe his father's a musician. Hold on while I do an Internet search.”

  He powered up his laptop, got on the Internet and did a search on René + musician. He got multiple hits, the best one being René Picou and his New Orleans Swingers. He clicked on the link and a website came up.

  “Got something!” he said. “Hell, it's even got his picture.”

  “What?” Kelly exclaimed. “Tell me!”

  “René Picou leads a jazz quartet: piano, bass, drums and saxophone. They play gigs around New Orleans, when they're not playing for Carnival Cruise Lines. René plays piano.”

  “Yeaaa!” Kelly said. “You found him!”

  “Not so fast. I found his website, but when I click the Contact tab, I get an email address. No phone number, no street address.”

  “Check the phone book,” Kelly said, egging him on.

  “Hold on.” He dashed into the kitchen, grabbed the New Orleans phone book and ran back to the futon. “Okay, I'm checking it now,” he said, flipping to the P-section. He ran his finger down the page and stopped at Picou. No listing for René Picou.

  “I found a bunch of listings for Picou, but René isn't one of them. Listen, I'm gonna send you a deep-throat kiss and let
you catch some winks. I want to make a list of these names.”

  “Okay,” Kelly said. “Keep me posted. Be careful, Frank.”

  Their usual endearment since Kelly got shot. “I will,” he said.

  He shut his cell and counted the listings for Picou. Eighteen names and addresses. Tomorrow, he'd get in his car and check every one of them.

  Now René had a last name at least. Unfortunately, Rose didn't.

  CHAPTER 34

  FRIDAY October 29 – 9:45 AM

  Wielding a claw hammer, Darin nailed one People Magazine to a pine tree and nailed another one to the tree beside it. He'd filched them from the hospital yesterday after he left his mother. Magnum PI was on the cover of the Fall Preview issue. That's what gave him the idea.

  Figuring his real target would be no more than fifteen feet away, he turned and stepped off five paces. He put the hammer in his knapsack and took out the .357 Magnum, a Smith & Wesson Model 686, stainless-steel, with a two-and-a half-inch barrel.

  “Easy to hide,” Mr. Big had said, mocking him with his evil smile.

  Now he'd see if it was easy to shoot. Holding the wooden grip with both hands, he aimed for the “a” in Fall Preview and pulled the trigger.

  The kick surprised him, jerking his arms up and making the shot go wild. He'd missed the target completely. But there were six bullets left in the cylinder and more ammo in the box inside his knapsack.

  He heard the sound of a train and turned. A freight train was rumbling over the raised tracks that ran through the Bonnet Carre Reserve. Birdwatchers came here to see herons, egrets and other birds that inhabited the marshy woodlands. But the birders hung out at a spot upriver from the spillway, not this end. Nobody'd see him and his little ol’ Magnum here.

  He waited until the engine of the train disappeared and studied the other People Magazine, Prince William and Kate on the cover beside a big headline: THE NEXT PRINCESS! Kate's nose was in the center of the cover. He drew a bead on it, braced his arms and pulled the trigger. He didn't hit her nose, but at least he'd hit the cover. He took another shot.

  This time he'd hit Prince William's face. Too bad it wasn't Hunter Gates. Tomorrow night it would be. Gates would be in his office with six million bucks if he knew what was good for him. The arrogant prick. Last night he'd watched the press conference, Gates thanking people for their prayers. What a hypocrite! Six months after Gates and his football team pals gang-raped Nancy, Gates had murdered her roommate, Gwendolyn.

  Gates was the one who should be saying his prayers.

  Good thing there was no TV in Ma's room. If she'd seen the press conference, she might have recognized him. It pained him to think how hurt she must have been after he got her pregnant and ditched her.

  In Vietnam, family was everything. Ma had cared for her mother until the bitter end. He was only five when Grandma died of lung cancer, but he could still remember her quavery voice, telling him to never start smoking. Good thing she couldn't see him now. Maybe he'd quit after he got Ma a new liver. He never knew any of the men in the Thanh family. Ma’s father had died in the Vietnam War, and Ma never got married.

  Because his prick father had dumped her like so much garbage.

  Pumped with anger, he took another shot at Kate's nose. This time he hit her forehead. He aimed at William and pulled the trigger. Hit him in the ear.

  A prodigious yawn made him shiver. Last night he didn't get home from work until one, drank a couple beers while he watched TV, went to bed at two-thirty, got up at eight. He hated getting up early, but he wanted to get in some target practice before he went to see Ma. Tonight he had to work late again, pulling extra shifts for the cash tips. Copping another bag of coke for Sweets had wiped him out, his payoff to make sure the kid wouldn't rat on him.

  Not only that, the rent was due in two days. A thousand bucks, but he'd used the cash to buy the Magnum. He raised the weapon, sighted down the barrel at Kate's nose and pulled the trigger. Hit her forehead. Fired the last round. Bulls-eye! Kate's nose was gone!

  He put the Magnum in the knapsack. Now he had to go to the store on Vets Boulevard that sold religious items and buy a rosary. Ma said the rosary with the cross was on her bureau, but it wasn't. That worried him.

  The Gates boy had been locked in Ma's room. Thinking the kid might have hidden it, he'd searched every inch of her bedroom and bathroom. No rosary, no cross.

  Ma's name and the date she'd left Saigon were engraved on the cross. What if it was in the kid's pocket the night he'd killed him? If it was and the cops found it, he was in trouble. The cops would assume the kid had found it in the house where he'd been held hostage.

  Then again, Ma's last name wasn't on the cross, just her first name, Rose. He was probably worrying for nothing. He collected his People Magazine targets and set out for his van.

  _____

  10:15 AM

  Sam went into the District-8 station and checked the break room, but Kenyon wasn't there. Filled with a bleak sense of dread, he went upstairs and stopped outside the homicide office. He took out a handkerchief and mopped sweat off his forehead.

  His chest felt like the Jolly Green Giant was squeezing it. He'd already asked Kenyon about the murder investigation once. Why ask him about it again? What could he say? Did Emily describe the kidnappers? Did she tell you one of them was a big black man?

  He tried to think of a plausible excuse. He was upset about the boy, had a kid of his own, wanted to see the boy's killer punished. That was true enough.

  He tapped on the door and entered the office. Three detectives sat hunched over their desks. Fortunately, Kenyon’s desk faced the door.

  “Hey, Sam, what's up?” Kenyon's usual greeting, which relieved him.

  “Not a whole lot,” Sam said. “Least it's Friday, you know, so we got the weekend to look forward to.”

  “Maybe you do,” Kenyon said. “We're still working the Robbie Lee case.”

  The perfect opening. “How's it going? You got any leads?”

  The man at the desk opposite Kenyon's swiveled his chair. Lord-A-Mighty, Homicide Detective Frank Renzi, looking him over from head to toe.

  “Leads on the murder?” Kenyon said. “Or the kidnapping?”

  Aware of Renzi's penetrating gaze, Sam shrugged and said, “Both. They're probably connected, right?”

  “What's your interest in the case?” Renzi asked, skewering him with his dark eyes.

  Flustered, he said, “My interest? Well, uh, who wouldn't be, you know, a little boy gets murdered like that. Got a boy of my own. I'd hate to see that happen to him.”

  To his vast relief, Kenyon said, “How's S.J.?”

  Desperate to leave before Renzi asked any more questions, he said, “Doing fine now that he's in first grade, you know, same grade as the Gates girl. I wonder how she's doing. Saw that clip of her on the news last night, doing the gymnastics.”

  “You ever run into a Vietnamese woman named Rose?” Renzi asked.

  Stunned, Sam stared at him, felt like he was having a heart attack, the pain in his gut a five-alarm fire, his mind screaming: Get out of here!

  “Not that I recall,” he said, edging toward the door. “I best get back to my beat. Wouldn't want some tourist to get mugged on Bourbon Street while I'm on a coffee break.”

  “Have a good weekend,” Kenyon called. “Tell Abby I said hello.”

  Sam forced a smile, aware that Renzi was watching him, his bloodsucking eyes fixed on his face. “Will do, Kenyon. Give my best to Tanya.”

  He left the office, mopping sweat off his face as he rushed down the hall, his thoughts in turmoil. Why did Renzi ask him about a Vietnamese woman named Rose? Only one reason he could think of. Renzi knew about Darin's mother. And thought maybe Sam knew her, too. What a disaster!

  _____

  Frank watched Sam leave the office, swiveled his chair and said to Kenyon, “How well do you know this guy?”

  “Sam?” Kenyon smiled. “Hell, I'm the one got him to join NOPD. Sam play
ed football at LSU. Long after I did, but I met him at an alumni association dinner. He's a good guy. A good cop. Why'd you ask him if he knew Rose?”

  “Because Emily said Donald Duck was a big black man and that pretty much describes Sam.”

  “Plenty of big black men in New Orleans,” Kenyon said, not smiling now. “Why pick on Sam?”

  “The other big black men didn't come in the homicide office asking if we've got any leads.” Seeing Kenyon's troubled expression, Frank said, “I'm not saying it's him, but we know killers sometimes try to find out what the cops are doing. Sam's a patrol cop, not a homicide detective.”

  “True,” Kenyon said, “but his son is the same age as Emily, and a lot worse off than she is. He was born with Spina Bifida, has to use a wheelchair.”

  “That must be tough. Forget I said anything, okay?” Frank rose from his desk. “We can't find Rose or Ponytail, but I did a computer search last night and I might have found Donna's lover. René Picou, jazz pianist. When he’s not on a cruise ship, he plays gigs in New Orleans. No street address for René, but I’ve got eighteen addresses for people named Picou, might cover half of them by lunchtime.”

  “Good luck,” said David Cho. “I'm about to head over to Headquarters to see if Detective Trang has any leads on Ponytail.”

  Trying to psyche himself up for the day’s chores, Frank said, “We're gonna catch a break soon. I can feel it in my gut.”

  _____

  1:15 PM

  Hunter Gates opened the door to the kitchen and punched the code into the security pad to disable the alarm. It had been a fun outing with Emily but now he had work to do. When she came in the kitchen, he said, “Great lunch, right Emily? I think your friend Linda had a good time.”

  Emily nodded, gazing up at him, her big blue eyes solemn. “It was fun, but how come Linda can't stay here and play with me?”

  “Maybe next week, Princess. I've got a lot of work to do today.”