The Devil in Her Way

by Bill Loehfelm

  “And me?” Maureen asked. “I go home and have dinner and go to sleep. Just another normal day at the office.”

  “Go home and drink a bottle of bourbon and pass out on the bathroom floor, then,” Preacher said. “Climb up on your cross and hang there. Whatever gets you through the night, Coughlin. But just remember that it’s not about you, what’s happening here, it’s about Marques. And you’re not the only one out here, Tonto. You’re one of many. You’re a cog in a machine. We had this conversation.” He chuckled. “Cog, Coughlin. Get it?”

  “This shit is making me crazy,” Maureen said. “I could strangle somebody. I can’t believe I chased after this job. What was I thinking?”

  “It’s usually about now,” Preacher said, shaking his head, “that the quitters come out. The bitter end of training. Like werewolves, the quitters can’t help it, the failure just comes out of them, from deep inside, like an ancient curse. I call it”—he spread his hands in a theatrical gesture—“Rise of the Quitters’ Moon.”

  “I am not fucking quitting,” Maureen said. “Don’t say that. I never quit. What? I can’t be frustrated?”

  “He’s a smart boy,” Preacher said. “He’s made it this far. He outlasted his friends. He’s got us and Bobby Scales running in circles.”

  “This isn’t fucking Survivor Central City, Preach.”

  “You don’t need to tell me how it goes in this town. Understand?”

  Atkinson returned, radio in hand. “I gotta go. Some poor bastard got pistol-whipped out in Lakeview.”

  Maureen couldn’t say Atkinson looked happy about it, exactly, but there was a charge to her, an energy in her stride that Maureen hadn’t seen since the night they’d met under the overpass—which was the last time Maureen had been around her when she’d caught a body.

  Is that gonna be me? Maureen wondered. Is murder gonna be what turns me on?

  “Is the guy dead?” Preacher asked.

  “They don’t call me for the live ones,” Atkinson said. “Believe.” She scratched her scalp. “So we’re nowhere with this kid. He’s in the wind. Still. I fucking hate this.”

  “He’s smart,” Maureen said. “And we’re gonna let the night shift at the Sixth know. They’ll put a lean on it.”

  “A lean?” Atkinson asked. More voices over her radio. “Whatever. Sounds impressive.”

  “She’s got a lot to learn, the kid,” Preacher said. “Lots of lingo to get down.”

  Atkinson pointed with her radio antenna at Preacher, and then at Maureen.

  “Anything happens, anything, I want to hear. I’ll make sure the Eighth puts someone on the Cabildo tomorrow. He shows up for marching band, we won’t miss him this time. Maybe we can get Scales at the same time, put a fucking bow on the whole thing.”

  She turned on her boot heel and headed back to her car. She revved the engine, hit the lights, and sped off up Josephine Street.

  “You should see the look on your face, Coughlin,” Preacher said. “I know it’s a job thing, ’cause I’m chock-full of wisdom and therefore hip to such things, and it’s not like nobody can tell you’re ambitious, but do yourself a favor and don’t let any of the young fellas on the job see you look like that at another female. Especially not one with a rack like that. Some of your coworkers, they’re not like me; they lack intellectual finesse.”

  Maureen let all that go. Her mind was elsewhere. She followed Preacher back to the car, trailing by a yard, watching her feet on the asphalt, one after the other: right, left, right, left.

  “Relax, Coughlin. You’ll see her again.” Preacher opened the cruiser’s driver’s side door. “Seriously, I think it’s safe to say you found yourself a rabbi. And quick, too. Might be a record, you ask me.”

  “The marching band,” Maureen said.

  She looked up from her feet, blinking over the car at Preacher as if unsure of who he was or why they stood where they did. She wondered if her push-up form was as good as Marques’s. She’d never had anyone to teach her. Her old track coach hadn’t been much help with that. He’d never had anyone to teach him, either. He was a priest. He’d never been an athlete, or, like, say, in the military.

  “I think Atkinson’s right,” Preacher said. “We don’t find Marques tonight, then we find him tomorrow. He’s smart enough to know we’ll look for him there. He knows the place to be is with us.” He frowned, worry on his face. “Get in. I’ll take you back to the Quarter for your car.”

  “You heard Dodds talking about Marques,” Maureen said. “You were there. You heard what he said.”

  “Indeed,” Preacher said.

  Maureen could see his gears turning. He was trying to catch up to her thought process.

  “What kind of kid,” Maureen said, “does Marines-ready push-ups? What kind of kid wants nothing more than to march?”

  Preacher’s eyebrows arched. “I know. Doesn’t make sense. Especially with the friends he chose. When I was that age I was perfecting my jerk-off stroke, not my push-up form.”

  “Think about it,” Maureen said. “What’s the Roots of Music provide? Uniforms, discipline, tests, tasks, peers. Knowing where to go and what to do every day.”

  “I know, I know. It all contradicts. I have no answers. Kids are a mystery.” He hitched up his pants. “You wanna get dinner?”

  Maureen almost snapped at him. Suddenly he’d become an idiot? It had to be now? She remembered that she’d seen things that he hadn’t. She’d had a conversation that he’d missed, because he’d stayed in the car.

  “Take me to Mother Mayor’s place,” Maureen said. “I need to talk to her.”

  Preacher checked his watch. “Come on, Coughlin. That was where we started. It did nothing for us.”

  “This is different,” Maureen said. “Believe me. Take me there, or take me to my car and I’ll go alone. You know I will.”

  “Are you, like, threatening me with something?” Preacher asked. “Because that’s what it sounds like. Haven’t we discussed your tone?”

  “Please, Preacher,” Maureen said. “Give me one more hour. Call it in, make something up, or don’t. It’s not a secret. Whatever you think is best. But do this with me.”

  “A cigar,” Preacher said, “and a bottle of brandy.”

  “Done.”

  “No, port, instead. And no bullshit rotgut, either. I know you worked in a bar. I know you know the good stuff.”

  “Done, done, done. You’ve got an extra set of cuffs?”

  “Coughlin, should I even ask what for?”

  Maureen jumped in the cruiser. “Can we go?”

  “The young,” Preacher said, climbing into the car. “Always in a hurry.”

  33

  Maureen knocked on Mother Mayor’s front door. She’d been knocking for a while. Someone from down the block had already yelled through the dark for them to leave the poor old woman alone. Preacher sat on the hood of the cruiser, his arms crossed, his hat back on his head. This was Maureen’s play and he was letting her have it. She knew that, and was grateful for it. She also knew that he was skeptical of her getting in the door. But he’d radioed the Sixth anyway and had two units stationed around the corner in case anyone headed out the back door of Mother’s house. Preacher was no fool. He wasn’t too proud to prepare for contingencies.

  The Golden Rule: Cover Your Ass. Believe.

  “New Orleans Police Department, ma’am,” Maureen said, knocking on Mother’s door. She rang the bell. “Officer Coughlin, ma’am. We talked earlier in the week.”

  She waited some more. She would’ve worried about Mother Mayor—it wasn’t impossible that Scales also knew what Maureen had figured out—but walking up the front steps she’d heard a TV that now, minutes later, she didn’t hear. Someone was in there. Someone was home. She thought maybe she’d seen a shadow in the living room. But no one came to the door. Maureen felt that familiar simmer beginning in her gut—the temperature rising on her temper. She ran her tongue across her front teeth, back and forth, back and fo
rth, like the arm of a metronome. Patience was what she needed now. The spider, she thought. Be the spider. Wait. See. Don’t get caught in your own threads.

  “I’ve got all night,” Maureen said. “Really, I do, Mother. I have nothing else to do with the rest of my goddamn life but stand on this stoop and make unpleasant noise. I’ll wait.”

  Tonight, she missed her uniform. Even the vest. She missed the extra size it gave her.

  Maureen thought she might back down off the stoop. She could talk to Preacher. They could invent another way to find out if Marques was inside Mother Mayor’s house. But Maureen couldn’t fight it. She sucked at waiting. Always had. Low-cut Chuck Taylors or not, she wanted to kick that fucking door down. She needed to know if she was right about Marques and Mother Mayor. And she needed to know right now.

  The knuckle where her pinky met her hand was tender and swollen from hitting the door. She slapped the door with the flat of her hand so hard her palm stung.

  “I am trying to fucking help you!”

  She raised her arm again. The door flew open.

  Mother Mayor gasped, wide-eyed at the sight of Maureen’s raised open hand. She drew back as if expecting a slap. “What do you want?”

  Maureen pulled her badge from her belt. She held it up to Mother’s face like damning evidence. “New Orleans goddamn Police Department. I’ve been knocking forever. You’re lucky you still have a front door.”

  “Coughlin.” Preacher’s voice, calm, from behind her. Someone deep in Maureen’s head made a note of it, and filed it away. “Easy.”

  “I have nothing to say to you,” Mother said. “And watch your mouth. In fact, get off my stoop.”

  “Where is he?” Maureen said. “Your grandson, Marques? Where is he?” She stood up on her tiptoes, trying to look around Mother and into the house. “Is he here?”

  “Go,” Mother Mayor said. “Go now.”

  But she didn’t step back and close the door. Instead, she leaned around Maureen, eager to catch Preacher’s eye. “Officer, are you responsible for this young lady? I’ll call the district and report the both of you. I have the number on speed dial.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Preacher said.

  He hauled his weight off the car. He crossed the sidewalk, set his foot on the bottom step of Mother Mayor’s stoop. “Ma’am, if your grandson is Marques Greer, as Officer Coughlin seems to think, and with good reason I might add, and if the boy is here with you, we very much need to talk to him.”

  “Did Marques tell you,” Maureen asked, “that someone tried to kidnap him today? In the middle of Jackson Square. Did he tell you that I saved him?”

  Maureen could hear Preacher’s heavy breathing behind her. He’d moved up a step. She moved the slightest bit to one side, giving Preacher a more direct look at Mother Mayor.

  “Mother, you know me,” he said. “You don’t like me, but you know me. If I’m out of the car, and working late, it’s because something important is happening. This ain’t shoplifting or picking pockets. This ain’t fighting in the playground.”

  “My grandson doesn’t do any of those things. He’s a good boy.”

  And there it was.

  Nothing to it, as far as Preacher was concerned. Unreal, Maureen thought. Like a Jedi fucking mind trick.

  At least, Maureen thought, she’d been right that Marques was Mother Mayor’s grandson. She was the one who’d brought him home from Baton Rouge while his mother served overseas. She’d probably raised him. She’d known he was in trouble the first time Maureen had come around. That was why Mother had refused to give her name. Maureen was willing to wager there were more photos of Deandra and her son in the house, hidden from curious eyes.

  Did she know Marques had been in the car that had Mike-Mike’s body in the trunk? Had Scales already been to her door looking for Marques?

  Maureen bit down into her bottom lip, nearly hard enough to draw blood. Just shut up. Just wait. Be smart. Keep your mouth shut half a minute longer.

  “The lady officer here is a tad overenthused,” Preacher said. “She’s excitable, to say the least. We’re working on that. She’s new. But she’s a smart woman and a hard worker. She wants to do the right thing. She thinks your grandson is in very real, very now trouble, with us and with people worse than us. I do, too. We can help him. They can’t. They only want to hurt him. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. You know this.”

  From her doorway, Mother Mayor looked away from Preacher, scanning the block. Maureen followed her eyes. Shadows hung everywhere, in doorways and in windows, the occasional orange glow of a cigarette tip revealing half of a face on a porch or out on the sidewalk. She wondered if Mother Mayor was searching the block for Scales, or if she was weighing the judgment of her neighbors. Maureen imagined the neighbors didn’t often get a chance to pass judgment on Mother. They’d want to take advantage of the opportunity. They’d see her opening her door for the police. Word would get back to Scales, if he wasn’t already one of the shadows out on the street.

  Mother Mayor stepped back from the door. “Come in, officers.”

  Preacher said nothing, his head down as he came up the stairs, as if to look away from Mother Mayor’s surrender. Maureen said, “Thank you.”

  From the look on Mother Mayor’s face, Maureen noticed as she passed, you’d think the old woman had opened her door to Katrina’s floodwaters all over again.

  Stepping into the living room, Maureen wondered if she should call Atkinson now, thinking that maybe a detective’s authority would lend urgency to the proceedings. Unless, a quieter voice told her, unless getting up in Mother’s authority was the exact wrong thing to do. Wouldn’t be the first time, Maureen knew, that she had made the wrong choice. It wasn’t what Preacher had done. He’d been firm, but gentle, respectful. His approach was getting results.

  She’d wait till they were sure, then. She’d wait to see how things played out.

  “We’d very much like to talk to the boy,” Preacher said. “Here, in your living room. With you in the room.”

  Maureen noticed he wasn’t even asking anymore if Marques was there, quietly and effortlessly ending the game they’d been playing. Not asking questions removed the option of easy lies for Mother. The only sound in the house was the asthmatic rattle of Mother Mayor’s air conditioner, the machine working overtime in the next room.

  Maureen nearly hit the ceiling when Preacher’s name crackled loud over his radio. “Jesus. Fuck.” She hadn’t realized she’d been so tightly coiled.

  Preacher threw her a look. He adjusted the volume on his radio, keyed the mic on his shoulder, and gave the cop on the other end, named Spivey, the go-ahead.

  “Movement around the back of the house,” Spivey said. “Careful in there.”

  That got everyone’s attention.

  “How many?” Preacher asked. “More details would help.”

  His voice was calm, but his body had tensed. He turned to step away from the women, but with three people standing in it, Mother Mayor’s living room was about full. Preacher had nowhere to go. He couldn’t hide the conversation.

  “Mother,” Maureen said, “is your back door locked?”

  Mother nodded.

  “You’re sure?” Maureen asked. “You’re positive?”

  The glare from Mother Mayor answered her question.

  “One, maybe two individuals,” Spivey said.

  “Descriptions?” Preacher asked. “Height? Age?”

  “Can’t confirm. It’s dark as fuck back here.”

  “Do you have a light in the back?” Maureen asked.

  Mother Mayor nodded.

  “No one goes in the kitchen,” Preacher said. “Everyone stays right here.”

  Mother took a step toward a side window. Maureen reached out and snatched her arm. She prepared herself for the haymaker sure to follow, but Mother didn’t throw it.

  “The curtains,” Mother said.

  “Too late for that,” Maureen said. “Stay here in the ce
nter of the room. Stay away from the windows.”

  “Where are you exactly?” Preacher asked Spivey.

  Static instead of an answer, then: “Hold on a sec, Preach.”

  More static over the radio. Mother clutched tight fistfuls of her dress.

  “We’re gonna fan out on the block,” Spivey said. “Stay away from the windows.”

  Maureen, her hand on Mother’s elbow, deepened her breathing, making sure to keep it quiet. She stayed conscious of her heart rate, waiting for the cold teeth of a headache to start chewing on the back of her brain. Nothing so far.

  Where was Marques hiding in the house? Maureen wondered. Upstairs? The bathroom? Or was he that moment climbing out a window? He had to know better than that. And who was that creeping in the yard? Scales? Shadow? Other cohorts? Could be neighborhood kids trying to get a peek in Mother’s window for a look at the action. Or was it Marques himself out there?

  Preacher took a moment to pat his brow with a bandana. “Do you have any idea at all,” he asked Mother, “who could be outside? They appear to be trying to sneak into your yard.”

  “I don’t know,” Mother said.

  “Is it Marques out there?” Maureen asked.

  “You should let me go in the kitchen,” Mother said.

  This was not good, Maureen thought. This situation was all kinds of bad and getting worse. Nervous cops on the prowl outside, searching in the darkness for unknown, unidentified persons. She’d heard the stories, plenty of them. Kids in the shadows, a sudden movement or something in their hand, dead in their tracks in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong cops. Maureen felt her pulse quicken its pace. Any faster and her heart would trip over its own feet and go flying.

  She couldn’t be a wild card. She couldn’t add to the entropy. She needed to march straight on toward the one fact they absolutely had to have: the current whereabouts of Marques Greer.

  “Mother,” Maureen said, “I need you to tell me the absolute truth. Is Marques in the house?”