For the occasion, Kit wore a silver fringe hem dress that showed off a significant portion of her shapely legs, a major reason why she bought it. Teddy stood about five inches taller than she was, so even with the three-inch stiletto heels on the silver strappy evening shoes she chose, she’d still be looking up at him, exactly how things should be. Figuring that it just wouldn’t look right if she wore her Ladysmith .38 on her calf as she usually did, she put it in the beaded silver clutch bag she took. Liking the action they provided when she turned her head, and imagining how the restaurant lights would reflect off them, she also wore the sterling silver French wire earrings Teddy had given her for her last birthday.
When she stepped out of the bedroom, now fully dressed, Teddy’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my God, you look great.”
Teddy was wearing a two button, light gray single-breasted silk suit with one of those lapels that comes off the shoulder and runs down to the first button in a continuous curve, giving the suit a very formal look. The collar on his light blue shirt was a spread design that allowed room for the full Windsor knot on his lilac-colored tie. In Kit’s view, he couldn’t have chosen better shoes than the tan cap-toe oxfords he’d brought.
“What happened to my alligator farmer?” Kit said.
“Why, do you want him back?”
“Maybe later.”
It didn’t seem appropriate to arrive at the restaurant in Teddy’s red pickup with the Bayou Coteau Alligator Farm logo on each door. Instead, they took Kit’s car, Teddy at the wheel.
Sitting down, the part of Kit’s dress where the fringe began, rode high on her legs. This made it hard for Teddy to keep his eyes on the road. “Hey LaBiche,” Kit said. “We both look too good to be involved in a car wreck tonight.”
“I don’t know, at least I’ve got on clean underwear.”
Commander’s palace on the outside doesn’t look like a palace at all, more like a Victorian cottage built for someone with a very large family. In fact, the structure was built by Emile Commander over a hundred years ago for a daughter who never married. It might be supposed that a restaurant often voted best in the city would reside in the French Quarter. But this one sits in the Garden District, where sensibilities are more refined.
The restaurant is surrounded by residential streets and large family homes. What is not present is a parking lot. Since Teddy and Kit were celebrating a major life event, they took advantage of valet parking, not even wondering where the devil they put the cars.
Inside, they were guided to a table that had a great view of the Christmas light-illuminated tropical jungle that comprised the courtyard. Here, looking at the fresh yellow rose and fern centerpiece on a crisp white tablecloth, watching the waiters in black vests bustling about, listening to the murmur of muted conversation . . . it was all so civilized Kit was almost seduced into forgetting about Betty Bergeron. Was this the way Phil Gatlin had spent all those years as a detective, never being able to give himself fully to any other endeavor, his open cases picking at the margins of his attention? When he was telling her all the reasons she should refuse his proposal, he never mentioned that.
“Teddy to Kit . . . come in . . .”
“I’m sorry. My mind wandered.”
“To Betty Bergeron?”
“Yes.” She reached over and put her hand over his as it rested on the table. “Of all nights, this is one where you deserve my full attention.”
“I love that you’re concerned about her. Even half your attention is more than any man deserves.”
“I’m sure I can do much better than half,” she replied, withdrawing her hand as the waiter approached with the huge menus.
Dinner was a culinary experience worthy of the occasion. For an appetizer, Kit had the white shrimp and tasso ham henican while Teddy chose corn fried gulf oysters and crispy braised pork belly both of which arrived looking so artistically arranged, actually eating them seemed like a barbarous act. Before attacking either dish, Teddy held up his wine glass and proposed a toast. “To the most attractive detective there ever was and the alligator cowboy who loves her. May they find contentment and fulfillment in each other that would be impossible by themselves, or with anyone else.”
They touched glasses and sealed the toast with a properly decorous sip of what Andy Broussard described as one of man’s greatest achievements. (Of course, he once said that of concrete as well.)
For the entrée, they both chose the filet of Black Angus beef, Kit preferring hers with a pink center while Teddy, being more akin to the creatures he lived with daily, wanted his medium rare. Because the filet came with a French potato puree and they had nearly emptied the breadbasket, they ordered no sides with their meat.
In this country, it seems that people often feel they are in violation of some fundamental law if, after a fine dinner, they don’t at least say they shouldn’t have dessert. Neither Kit nor Teddy belonged to that group. With no feelings of guilt, both ordered the praline parfait. Nor did they utter any self-critical comments before or after requesting coffee as well.
A few minutes later, just as Kit took her first bite of parfait and closed her eyes with pleasure, she felt her clutch purse vibrate in her lap. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have looked at her phone while in such a fine place and on such a meaningful occasion. But with a young woman’s life possibly in the balance, she couldn’t take a chance on ignoring it. She looked at Teddy. “It’s my phone. It could be Dee Evans.”
She took out her phone and glanced at the screen, a text message. She read it aloud. “That picture you sent is the guy who harassed Betty. And I remember his name. It’s Jes DeLeon.”
Kit put the phone back in her bag and looked across the table. “I can’t wait to see what his rap sheet looks like.”
“Want to leave now?” He didn’t say it petulantly, but more like, ‘I’m ready to go, if you are’."
“Just a few more bites. How many engagement dinners am I going to have in my life?”
Not even trying for a clever comeback, Teddy grinned and nodded as he returned to his dessert.
Suddenly, Kit said, “Oh my God.”
“What?” Teddy said. “Something in your food?”
“I may know how to find Betty Bergeron.”
Chapter 17
While they waited for the valet to bring their car around, Kit explained how she was going to find the missing girl. “We couldn’t ping her phone, because it was off or the battery was spent. Dee Evans, Betty’s apartment mate, said that Betty never shuts her phone down completely, so the battery must be dead. There’s a function on the iPhone called send last location. Just before the battery dies, the phone sends Apple the phone’s last location. To find it we go on the Apple iCloud site, put in Betty’s Apple ID and password, and it’ll show us on a map where the phone is.”
“Where will you get the ID and password?”
“When I first went to Betty’s apartment to talk with Evans about her, I looked around Betty’s bedroom. In her desk I found a little book with all her site access information. I’ve got it at home.”
The valet pulled up at the curb with Kit’s car. Teddy gave him a five, opened the passenger door for Kit, then went around and got behind the wheel. After a quick check for traffic, Teddy pulled from the curb. “Is that send last location function a default setting on the phone?”
“Okay, that could be a problem. It has to be manually set by the owner. Another potential issue is that Evans said Betty always keeps her tracking setting off. Depending on how she did that, it could also inactivate send last location. So we’ll need some luck. And even if we do get lucky, we won’t actually be locating her, we’ll be finding her phone, which should probably be in her possession, but possibly isn’t.”
“Let’s not worry about all the things that could go wrong,” Teddy said. “It’s definitely an idea worth pursuing.”
It seemed as though the drive home took twice as long as the trip going to the restaurant even though Teddy pushed the
speed limit all the way.
When they reached Toulouse Street, Teddy said, “Look, it’ll take forever to park the car in your garage. I’ll just stop in front of your courtyard and wait on the street while you check this out. Soon as you know one way or the other if this worked, call me. If we’re going somewhere, you can change clothes.”
“What about you?”
“Just bring me my boots.”
Two minutes later, Teddy pulled to a stop and Kit jumped out and headed for the big cypress gate beside the photo gallery.
Reaching her apartment steps, where Fletcher was waiting for her as usual, she gave him a quick rub on the head, then hurried upstairs. Inside, she flew to her computer, navigated to the iCloud site, and reached for Betty’s little jeweled notebook. She typed in the girl’s ID and password, then, almost holding her breath she chose Find My iPhone. A compass icon appeared and began to rotate back and forth with the word locating underneath it.
Did that mean it was working or would the compass finally stop and say something like no location found?
Suddenly, there it was! A map with a green dot appeared on the screen. Even with several street names shown, Kit was unsure of the location. She opened a new window, went to Google maps, and entered one of the street names. Now with a map she could manipulate, she zoomed out until she could get her bearings. Then she zoomed in by stages, constructing in her mind a route to the location.
She called Teddy. “Got it. Be down ASAP.”
Leaving her restaurant clothes scattered around her room, she threw on a three-quarter sleeve pale blue pullover and a pair of tan pants, then slipped into a pair of running shoes. After strapping her Ladysmith to her calf, she grabbed Teddy’s alligator skin boots and headed for the door, where Fletcher sat looking at her quizzically. She gave his ruff a quick scratch. “Gotta go out again, Boy. Be back later.”
In the car, by way of greeting, Teddy pointed at one of his ears and said, “you forgot something.” Kit reached up and felt the earrings she’d neglected to remove. She took them off now and put them in the glove compartment.
Teddy pulled from the curb. “Where to?”
“Keep going straight to Decatur, then turn left.”
“What’s our destination?”
“The Holy Cross neighborhood, other side of the industrial canal.”
The place she’d named bordered the lower Ninth Ward, where the worst flooding had occurred during hurricane Katrina.
“Nearest bridge across the canal is on St. Claude,” Teddy said.
“That’s what we want.”
Ten minutes later, as they crossed the bridge, Kit said, “We’re going to hang a right on Baptist Street . . . there it is. Take it all the way to the end.”
They were now heading toward the Mississippi River.
Their route took them past six intersecting streets, each lined with modest well-kept homes. After another block, the road led up to the top of the river levee, where in the dim illumination from a light on a tall pole, they saw a pair of galvanized iron gates.
“Up there?” Teddy asked.
“No, that way,” Kit pointed to the left. “Then go slow.”
Teddy made the turn and they inched down a street with well-tended grass of the levee on their right and overgrown vegetation and an abandoned house at the end of a long gravel driveway to their left. On each side of the gravel driveway, overgrown scrub, wild vines, and tall grassy weeds created a sprawling morass of green large enough to conceal the ruins of an Aztec temple.
“The cell phone locator dot was right over there, Kit said, pointing to the unkempt side of the road.
Teddy eased onto the right shoulder.
There was a street light about twenty yards down the road on the wilderness side of the asphalt. It produced a cone of light that did nothing to illuminate the house and the jungle around it.
“Now what?” Teddy asked.
“She could be in that house, tied up and near death.”
“And the one responsible could be with her and not happy about seeing us.”
“You never go anywhere without your pistol,” Kit said. “You have it now?”
“Yes, but no flashlight.”
“I’ve got a couple.”
Teddy knew how fearless Kit could be, sometimes to the point of foolishness. He had a suggestion to make, but held his tongue to see if she needed to hear it.
She got out and looked at the house over the top of the car. She remained there for a while, then came back inside and got out her phone. She punched in Phil Gatlin’s number, waited a few seconds, and said, “This is Kit. Hate to bother you, but I tracked Betty Bergeron’s phone to an area with an abandoned house near the levee in the Holy Cross area. I really want to go in there and look for her, but I’d feel better with some backup.”
She gave Gatlin directions and hung up. Then she looked at Teddy. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“I know that’s what you thought I should do. But you let me decide for myself.”
Teddy was proud of her for showing such good judgment, but at the same time wondered if she thought he was afraid of going in there.
“And no,” she said. “Anyone who makes a living walking around in pits of live alligators isn’t likely to be afraid of an abandoned house. I know that if I’d decided to go, you’d have been right there with me.”
Teddy nodded. “Are we going to end up like identical twins that complete each other’s . . .”
They each said, sentences at the same time.
Then, remembering what might be in that house, both of them regretted their moment of self-indulgent word play.
After a short wait, during which Teddy put on his boots, a police car with its blue lights off eased around the corner and drove toward them. It stopped behind Kit’s car. Leaving his headlights on, a cop got out and came their way. Teddy rolled down his window.
The cop paused beside Teddy’s door. “Sir, please step out of the car.”
Teddy did as he asked, making sure he moved slowly to keep the cop from getting nervous.
Kit too, got out and showed him her badge over the top of the car. “It’s alright officer, I’m . . .” she hesitated, wondering how she should identify herself, finally just saying it. “. . . I’m Detective Franklyn. I called this in.” She pointed at Teddy. “He’s with me.”
The cop, a big guy with a heavy, distinctly cleft chin, said, “You mean like a ride-along?”
Figuring there was no point in clarifying Teddy’s identity any further she said, “Something like that.”
“I’m officer McCoy. Lieutenant Gatlin is on his way. We’re supposed to wait for him. What’s the deal here?”
“I’ve traced the phone of a missing young woman to this area. I can’t say exactly where it is, but it could be in that house. It’s possible the girl and whoever made her disappear are in there too.”
He looked at the house. “Don’t see any vehicles.”
“Hard to see much of anything.”
“That’s true.”
“Anyone else besides Gatlin coming?” Kit said.
“Don’t think so.”
Conversation then dried up, making the wait for Gatlin an awkward experience. Finally, his old Pontiac rolled around the corner and he pulled in behind the patrol car.
When he approached them, Kit could see he was wearing a black vest, presumably one that could stop a bullet. Without any words of greeting, he looked at Kit and said, “You and Teddy stay here. Officer, let’s go.”
Weapons drawn, each man holding a flashlight, the two moved toward the house, one on each side of the driveway, where they could dive for cover if necessary. Kit watched them until they approached the house, kicked the door open, and went inside. Through the windows, Kit could see the beams of their lights flicking over the interior.
After about five minutes, during which Kit’s heart was racing with apprehension, Gatlin called her cell phone. “I’m here,” she said, breathle
ssly.
“The house is empty,” Gatlin said. “We’re gonna look around behind it. I don’t think there’s any danger in the area. How about you and Teddy work the jungle out front.”
“Will do.” She looked at Teddy. “That was Gatlin. He wants us to search around out here. But you’re not really dressed for it.”
“They’re just clothes. If they get ruined, I’ll buy more. Where are those flashlights you mentioned?”
“There’s one in the glove box. You get it and I’ll get the one in the trunk.”
A moment later, flashlight in hand, Kit motioned to the brambles and brush to the left of the house. “You work that side. I’ll take the other.”
Kit knew when she began this quest for Betty Bergeron’s phone that it could lead to the girl’s dead body. But she hadn’t let that thought possess her, feeling as though if she did, death is what they’d find. Still, as the search now moved to the wilderness around the house, a gratifying result seemed farther away.
Approaching the brush, Kit’s senses became more acute, and suddenly she could smell creosote wafting from the coated timbers comprising the dock for the warehouse on the other side of the levee. She heard the rustle of some small animal forcing itself deeper into the green labyrinth ahead. Then she saw something that caused her arms to erupt in gooseflesh. Just ahead of her, the weeds on the edge of the jungle were trampled and there were two parallel tracks that in places had disturbed the growth all the way down to bare dirt, as though . . .
Heart in her mouth, Kit pushed aside the branches of a shrub that prevented her from seeing where the tracks led. In the brambles beyond, she saw a flash of teal fabric and all hope fled.
Chapter 18
The crime scene investigator came out of the brush. Dressed as he was in a white jumpsuit with an attached hoodie and a white mask, the bright lights that had been rigged around the area gave him an unearthly glow. He pulled off his mask. “Okay, Dr. B, You can go in now. You gonna need a hand?”
Assassination at Bayou Sauvage Page 10
