by JM Gulvin
‘Always had a hankering to be a writer then, did he?’
‘I don’t know. I never spoke to him.’
‘What’d he do, prowl car, plain clothes, what?’
‘He was a detective working the Irish Channel: did a lot of surveillance work from what I can gather.’
Quarrie flicked through the photographs again. ‘Back in Texas the ME told me he figured Anderson for thirty years old. Seven years to make detective, he does all that work then ups and quits to become a writer. Does that make any sense to you?’
Colback shrugged. ‘I guess it depends on what he planned on writing.’
‘You mean he came across a story while he was still in the job?’ Quarrie squinted at him. ‘It’s what I’ve been thinking, how he found something that could make him a whole bunch of money only he couldn’t write it if he was a serving cop?’
He returned his attention to the photographs. ‘I told Garrison I think Anderson saw that photo printed in some magazine somewhere and recognized the blond-haired guy. I think he got hold of an original and figured he was onto something that could either make him a lot of money or blow sky-high.’ Looking over at Colback he gestured. ‘I think he used his position as a detective to do some digging then put together some kind of dossier. The way this has played out he knew if he wanted to take it further he had to quit the job. You see what I’m saying, Lieutenant? Anderson figured he was on to something big enough that he’d give up a career, but he wasn’t going to go it alone. That’s why he wanted to speak to the district attorney. It wasn’t Moore he called or Gervais; it was Garrison he was trying to get a-hold of. He knew what they were working on and called the office, only his luck was out because it was Moore who answered the phone. Moore spoke to Gervais and Gervais told him to say nothing to Garrison then he called our blond-haired boy. By the time Anderson is back on the phone they’ve set things up for Wichita Falls.’
Colback was looking puzzled. ‘Why there, though? All the way over in Texas, that doesn’t make any sense.’
Quarrie looked squarely at him. ‘Sure it does. Wiley was already there. They had him rob a gun store to get the M1C he was going to use to shoot Jim Garrison. This thing with Anderson blew up around the same time so they figure they’d kill two birds with one stone.’ He paused for a moment then. ‘You know what though, maybe there’s more to it than that. Wichita Falls is where they were going to re-try Jack Ruby. He spent last year telling the press he wasn’t alone in shooting Oswald and that trial was supposed to take place back in January.’ He gestured to Colback. ‘Only he died in December, didn’t he. You see what I’m saying, Lieutenant? If Anderson thought he was hooking up with Garrison what would add more gravitas than a meeting in Wichita Falls?’
He slipped the pictures back inside the envelope and laid it on the desk. ‘I told you what Andrews said about Rosslyn Tobie.’
Colback nodded.
‘Well, that ain’t all. Before he was killed, Soulja Blue got as far as telling me about this old guy who came by that club on Bourbon and Governor Nicholls. If the girl he was with didn’t do exactly what he wanted he’d beat her with the handle of his walking cane.’
Colback snorted. ‘And you believe him, a man like that? He was trying to stay out of jail.’
‘You’re forgetting Nana Matisse. Twenty years without speaking to her then this kicks off and Tobie’s all over that apartment on Orleans Street.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Colback said. ‘So he likes black women, so do a lot of white men. You’re talking about one of the most respected attorneys in New Orleans. If you want me to go after him I’m going to need a whole lot more than the word of some pimp from Governor Nicholls.’
‘Sure you are,’ Quarrie said. ‘There has to be something else and that’s why Moore was in Anderson’s apartment. But whatever it was he found, it ain’t here and it ain’t in his desk so where else could he have hidden it?’
He cast an eye across the bookshelves and memorabilia, the university pennants. Opening the study door he called Mrs Moore and a moment later she appeared clutching a box of Kleenex.
‘We’re done here, mam,’ Quarrie said. ‘Thank you for letting us in, I know that was difficult for you. I got a question though, before we leave out.’ He nodded to the pennants. ‘Those night classes you were talking about. Did your husband have a college locker?’
Thirty-one
Back in New Orleans they drove to the Tulane University campus opposite Audubon Park. Quarrie had the locker key Moore’s wife had given them and they crossed to Gibson Hall. A gothic-looking gray-stone building, they located the locker in a corridor on the second floor.
When he unlocked the door Quarrie found a pile of text books and some envelopes as well as a couple of yellow legal pads still bound with cellophane. Right at the back was a paper file and he was about to reach for it when Colback placed a hand on his arm.
‘Wait up,’ he said. ‘This is my call now, not yours.’
Quarrie looked round and Colback indicated the file. ‘If what’s in there is anything like you’ve been saying then it could be evidence and you have no jurisdiction. Touch it and it’s inadmissible. I want you to go ahead and leave this to me.’
For a moment Quarrie just looked at him. Then he stepped back and Colback plucked the file from the locker as a group of students came clattering through the fire doors.
They walked back to the car and Colback handed Quarrie the keys. ‘You drive,’ he said. ‘I need to take a look at what we’ve got here, and while we’re at it let’s go see if Gervais is home.’ They got in and Colback directed him towards the river while he flipped through the file.
‘So what is it?’ Quarrie looked sideways as he worked the wheel.
‘Nothing I can figure.’ Colback had lines cut deep in his brow. ‘If you’re right and Moore did have something on these guys, this can’t be it. It’s just a bunch of notes about copperheads and Lincoln in the civil war.’ Reaching over to the backseat he grabbed his briefcase. ‘History,’ he muttered, stuffing the file inside. ‘I guess that’s how the law’s written. The way things play out down the years. There’s nothing in that file but historical notes, it must’ve been for some essay.’
Quarrie glanced over the seat. ‘You’re telling me there’re no names back there, no phone numbers? No mention of April 28?’
Colback shook his head. ‘You can look for yourself when we get back to my place; it’s just notes for an essay is all.’
They drove to Pershing Gervais’s single-story clapboard property a couple of blocks off Tchoupitoulas Street, but there was no car parked in the driveway and nobody answered when they knocked on the door.
When they got back to Camp Street the lieutenant told Quarrie to pour a couple of drinks while he went through to his study to put word out that Gervais was wanted for questioning. After he got off the phone he came through with his briefcase and took out the file. Quarrie considered the papers and Colback was right, it was page after page of historical notes with no apparent sequence to them. There was one thing, though, that caught his eye: the words Adapt or Die printed under a Xeroxed image of a crudely drawn snake that had shed its skin. Below the picture he read The Order of the Sons of Liberty.
‘You see this?’ he said, showing the page to Colback. ‘I found the words Adapt or Die on an envelope in Anderson’s apartment. Not only that, he wrote Liberty on a piece of notepaper I found in his room at the Roosevelt Hotel.’
‘So?’
‘So, if this is just something Moore was working on, that’s some kind of coincidence, isn’t it?’
Casting an eye across the rest of the notes he read aloud. ‘The Order was made up of a group of influential landowners out of Ohio, Missouri and Illinois; men with holdings in Kentucky and West Virginia during the civil war. Known colloquially as “Peace Democrats”, they formed The Order of the Sons of Liberty from a group called the Knights of the Golden Circle who’d been outlawed a few years before. That gro
up was banned after they tried to form a confederation of slave states south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Members of the new order swore an oath of allegiance, but the government got wind of who they were and hunted them down. A few were tried and sentenced to hang only for their sentences to be commuted to life. In the end Lincoln got involved and they were banished behind confederate lines.’ Again he glanced at Colback. ‘According to this the main man was some guy called James Cutler. Does that mean anything to you?’
The lieutenant shook his head.
‘Disappeared in 1865 a week after the Columbus Courier accused him of being involved in the plot to kill Lincoln.’
‘I never heard of him,’ Colback said. ‘Quarrie, there’s nothing in those papers that tells us anything at all.’
Quarrie worked a hand through his hair. ‘There has to be more than this. Anderson had the 28th marked in his diary so he had to know something was going down.’ Falling silent he peered across the room at Colback.
‘What?’ the lieutenant said. ‘Why’re you looking like that? You think I’m holding out on you?’ He jabbed a finger towards the door. ‘You want to go search my study, it’s right across the hall.’
They sat in silence after that with nothing but the sound of the clock ticking on the wall.
‘So what do you want to do about tomorrow?’
Colback lifted his hands. ‘I don’t see there’s anything we can do. If you’re right about any of what you’ve been saying then it’s Garrison they’re after and you already gave him the heads up. We’ve got prowl cars parked outside his house tonight and he cancelled the press conference at City Hall.’ A little wearily he got to his feet and Quarrie followed him through to his study. He watched as Colback locked the notes in his safe.
‘A precaution,’ the lieutenant said. ‘You never know we might be wrong and the whole thing’s in code or something. Tomorrow I’ll bring it over to Loyola Avenue and have the Feds take a look just in case.’
‘All right,’ Quarrie said. ‘What about Franklin?’
‘What about him?’
‘We need a warrant to search his apartment.’
Colback looked at his watch. ‘It’s too late now. That’ll have to wait till the morning.’
Back in his hotel room Quarrie wasn’t sure he could wait till morning. He remembered what Nana had said about that itch between her shoulder blades and he was conscious of it himself now. The phone rang on the nightstand beside the bed and he stared for a moment before picking up.
‘Van Hanigan here, John Q.’
‘Captain, what’s going on?’
‘After the call I just took, that’s what I was going to ask you.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Quarrie said, ‘I’m pretty sure this outfit planned to assassinate Jim Garrison.’
‘The district attorney: why would they want to do that?’
Quarrie stared at the bathroom door. ‘It ain’t something I want to talk about on the phone, but the NOPD’s got a bunch of prowl cars making sweeps and a uniform guarding his door.’
‘And this is all to do with that photograph you discovered.’
‘Yes, sir, it is.’
He heard Van Hanigan sigh. ‘John Q, I had a phone call just now from a feller called Wells down at the Fort Worth Star. He was trying to get a-hold of you.’
‘What did he say?’
The captain’s tone was dour. ‘Those two cops with the shotguns are Dallas PD. The photo was taken the day Oswald shot President Kennedy. A freight train was pulling out of the yard back of the railroad overpass at the bottom of Elm Street right where the motorcade was supposed to come through. Only it was stopped by the switchman and a bunch of hobos hauled off.’
‘Those two guys were on a train?’ Quarrie said. ‘They don’t look like hobos to me.’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘So what happened to them?’
‘As far as I’ve been able to find out they were taken to the Dallas County sheriff’s office. But no mug shots were taken, no fingerprints or statements and nobody from Homicide showed.’
When he put down the phone Quarrie drove to Chartres Street and the crayfish bar where he found De La Martin sitting pretty much where he’d been two nights before. ‘Soulja Blue,’ Quarrie said. ‘Canal Street is your turf, right?’
De La Martin looked a little weary. ‘Don’t tell me, you were the last person to see him alive.’
‘Him and his buddy Vernon, Claude Matthews and what-all else went down.’
‘So what is it you want from me?’
‘I’ve got an address for our blond-haired boy. Washington Avenue, Detective, I want you to go get a search warrant.’
‘Courthouse is closed. I can’t do that, not till tomorrow.’
‘That’s what Colback just told me.’ Quarrie laid a hand on De La Martin’s arm. ‘But I feel like I’m getting to know you some and I’m guessing there’s a district judge you can call.’
‘Supposing there was – why would I want to do that?’
‘Because that pimp told me stuff about Rosslyn Tobie the lieutenant doesn’t want to believe.’
‘So?’
‘So, I remembered what you said, Detective. That cab and all, Tobie’s the only other fare you’ve seen.’
De La Martin sipped his drink. ‘This apartment, what do you figure we’ll find?’
‘I’m not sure. But I think Moore had information. He was at Esplanade before anybody else and I can’t believe that photo was all that Anderson had.’
‘And now you think Franklin’s gotten hold of that information, how would he have done that?’
‘They shot Moore when they thought he was meeting Gigi. It’s possible he had it on him when they took his body from Lafayette Square.’
De La Martin nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I can buy that. Supposing I was prepared to get a warrant, why won’t it wait till morning?’
‘Because tomorrow is April 28 and I got an itch between my shoulder blades I just can’t seem to get quit of.’
By the time De La Martin parked his car outside the darkened building it was after midnight. On the dashboard in front of him he had the paperwork from a judge who lived in Metairie. With a little breeze in the stagnant air, they got out of the car and De La Martin opened the trunk. He took out a fire axe he’d brought from the station house and tossed it to Quarrie. Then he closed the trunk and they made their way to the entrance. De La Martin pressed a stubby finger to the buzzer of an apartment on the same floor. He held it there until they heard a crackling sound and a man’s voice came over the intercom. ‘All right, all right, it’s late already. What do you want?’
‘NOPD,’ De La Martin said. ‘I need for you to open the door.’
Inside, they took the elevator to the second floor and stopped outside Franklin’s door. ‘All what you been telling me,’ De La Martin said. ‘It’s a fact most people in this town think the DA’s just a politician on the make.’
‘Maybe they’ll think different when he’s done with Shaw.’
The detective laughed. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to Shaw. I hear they’re saying if it goes to trial it’ll be held in Texas but that won’t make any difference. It won’t matter what kind of evidence Garrison shows up with or how long jury selection takes. He ain’t going to get a conviction, not if we’re talking old-world southern business and old world southern law.’
Quarrie rapped on the door but there was no answer so he lifted the axe. He brought it down on the lock and the door was open. They stepped into a hallway with a living room and kitchen on their right and a bedroom at the far end. A king-size bed and nightstand stood against one wall with a chest of drawers on the other side. Switching on the lamp Quarrie opened the closet and was confronted by a rail of sport jackets, business suits and slacks. There was a rack of shoes on the floor and a set of drawers that housed a selection of leather belts and underwear as well as two brand new, unopened shirts.
Finding nothing in the bedroom they went
through the living room where the windows overlooked the street. In one corner was a color TV with a remote-control box on top. A metal coffee table stood between it and four stool-like wooden chairs. Other than that there was a chrome bureau against the wall set with ice bucket and glasses, but that was all.
They searched the bedroom again and the kitchen and bathroom but didn’t come up with anything. De La Martin threw a glance at Quarrie where he stood in the hallway with his hands in his pockets and his brows fixed in a frown. ‘So what now?’ he said. ‘There isn’t anything here.’
Quarrie did not reply. He went back to the bedroom for a third time and opened the closet door.
‘Maybe it’s been destroyed,’ De La Martin said. ‘Or maybe there wasn’t anything other than what you already found.’
Quarrie shook his head. ‘There was. There had to be. I told you what I read in that file.’ He fell silent, staring at the clothes in the closet and then he closed the door.
‘Maybe they don’t have it,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe they don’t know about Moore being in the apartment at all.’ He turned to the bed and nightstand, the chest of drawers. He thought about the night classes Moore’s wife had spoken about and the locker at Tulane. He thought about the bottle of meds, the affair with Gigi. Then all at once it dawned.
*
As they came out of the building Franklin waited in the shadows cast by the parking-lot wall. He saw Quarrie and the overweight detective make their way to the Ford. When they were gone he went inside the building and took the elevator to the second floor. In the hallway he studied the smashed lock on his door. His face expressionless he heard the neighbor step into the corridor behind him but did not look round. He waited until that door was closed again then he went into his apartment and stood in the silence of the hall. He changed his clothes and went through to the living room where he picked up the phone. ‘He was here with De La Martin,’ he said when the call was answered.
‘All right,’ Tobie replied. ‘If everything is good to go, it’s time you hit the road.’
