Broussard slowed his T-Bird to a crawl as he passed the house that looked like a museum. From the front, nothing seemed out of place. Resisting the urge to just go up to the front door and knock, he continued down the street, made a right turn, and entered the alley behind Julien’s house.
A few heartbeats later, as he approached the couple’s garage, he saw that its door was open. Julien had left for work hours ago. Why would the door still be open, making the contents of the garage available to anyone who felt like taking something?
Dreading the next few seconds, Broussard drew even with the garage interior.
Oh-oh. Both cars were still inside.
Without bothering to pull into the alcove by the garbage cans, Broussard cut off the T-Bird’s engine and oozed from behind the wheel. He hustled around the front of his car and stepped into the garage’s dim interior. Two steps more into the space between the two vehicles and he saw what he’d hoped wouldn’t be there. On the garage floor, sticking out from in front of the SUV on his right he saw a pair of trousered legs.
Moving forward, his eyes now growing accustomed to the poor light, he saw Julien lying on his back, rivulets of drying blood running onto the cement from a bullet hole in Julien’s forehead, one through his left cheek, and another through the bridge of his nose. Clearly, those three shots had been enough to end his life. But his killer hadn’t been satisfied, for the region of Julien’s pants that covered his groin was also soaked with blood.
Chapter 31
“How do you see it happening?” Gatlin asked, while the crime scene team was finishing up their documentation of the carnage in Julien’s garage. Standing beside Gatlin, Kit listened attentively to what Broussard would say. They had been summoned back to the city by Broussard’s call before they’d even reached Howard Karpis’s home.
“I think the killer was waiting behind one of the garbage carts in the alcove,” Broussard said. “When he heard the garage door open, he darted around the corner, ran past the car on the left, and hit Julien with one of those shots to the head just as Julien shut the backyard door behind him.”
“Yeah, I saw that bullet hole in the door,” Gatlin said.
“Julien must have done a pirouette to the left and collapsed in front of his car. The killer then moved in and most likely emptied his gun . . . two more rounds in Julien’s head and the rest into his groin.”
“Pretty brassy to do it in daylight right where anybody going down the alley could see him,” Gatlin said.
“We’re about in the middle of the block,” Kit said. “Could be he figured odds were good that anybody leaving their garage would take the shortest route to the street and wouldn’t pass by.” She looked at the garage on the opposite side of the alley. “But that one could have been a problem.”
“Anybody would’ve come out of there at the wrong time, they’d be dead too,” Broussard said.
Gatlin rubbed his face, fuzzing his eyebrows with his big hand. “All the casings littered over the floor say he was using a semi, most likely with a suppressor on it.”
“Guy has access to a lot of weapons,” Broussard said.
Gatlin nodded. “Like someone who owns a gun shop.”
“Julien’s brother, Lewis?” Kit said.
“Yeah.”
“What would be the point?” Kit asked. “You got interested in Lewis when you found out he needed money and would get a quarter of Uncle Joe’s wealth. Now, won’t Julien’s share go to his estate?”
“Depends on how the will is written and whether probate has already occurred,” Broussard said.
“Something we definitely need to know,” Gatlin replied.
“Let’s say Julien’s share would be divided among the other heirs,” Kit said. “We all agreed earlier that Julien was in danger from whoever killed Uncle Joe, Betty, and Betty’s parents. How does that fit with a financial motive?”
“Work in progress,” Gatlin said. He looked at Broussard. “How’s Julien’s wife doing?”
“Not well. Her sister’s in there with her now.”
“How about you?” Kit asked.
“We knew this was gonna happen and still couldn’t stop it. I’m upset.”
“You tried. He just wouldn’t cooperate,” Kit said.
“I should have found a way to convince him.”
“Stop it. What you’re doing is natural but that kind of thinking destroys people who’ve suffered a loss.”
“I’m not gonna be destroyed, just unhappy for a while . . . Maybe a long time.”
“All the dots are now connected,” Gatlin said. “Should mean the killer is satisfied.”
“Unless we don’t understand the point of it all,” Broussard replied. “And of course we don’t.”
“On the bright side, we know almost to the minute when it happened,” Gatlin said.
Broussard made a sour face. “I’d call it useful, not bright.”
“Sorry, I was just thinking how I’ll be able to pin our suspects to the wall when I ask ‘em where they were when Julien walked out here this morning. But I see your point. I wasn’t trying to minimize the gravity of it all.”
“I know.”
When the crime scene investigators were finished and after Broussard, Gatlin, and Kit had a chance to see all the details of the tragedy for themselves, there was general agreement among those with the appropriate knowledge of firearms that Julien had been killed with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun equipped with a screw-on suppressor.
Able to contribute nothing more by hanging around, Broussard said, “I’m gonna head to the morgue and get ready to receive him.”
Gatlin nodded and looked at Kit. “We need to maximize our efforts. I’ll go with the crime scene techs to serve the search warrant on Karpis, while you canvass the people who have garages on the alley.”
“Most of those who would have seen anything are probably still at work,” Kit said.
“I know,” Gatlin said. “Places where someone is home, ask your questions then leave your number for whoever’s at work to call you later if they have anything to tell us. If you get a description of the killer or the vehicle that was most likely parked in the alcove out there this morning, call me. After you finish here, see what you can find out about those aspects of Uncle Joe’s will we discussed.”
Two hours later, as Broussard slipped on a pair of rubber gloves, he thought about the professional relationship he’d had with death for nearly four decades. In all that time he’d never done an autopsy on someone he’d known and spoken to mere hours ago. He’d let his assistant examiner, Charlie Franks, do Uncle Joe, but he felt that having failed to protect Julien, he could at least personally see him through this penultimate indignity, his final insult being ministrations of the undertaker.
Broussard crossed the room and approached Julien’s naked body. Cleaned of the blood that had stained his skin, Julien’s wounds stood out in stark relief against his death pallor. There were three in his head, one in each of his testicles, and one in the glans of his penis. There would be no bullets to recover from the body, because all had made through and through wounds, one lodging in the door of the garage, the others, flattening against the garage floor.
The three shots to Julien’s head surely had been enough to kill him. It seemed obvious that the shooter had kept firing because he was enraged at Julien for some reason. But why aim for the groin? To humiliate him by emasculation?
His eyes traveling from Julien’s groin upward, Broussard saw the likely reason that as a kid, Julien would never let anyone see him without a shirt. He had an extra pair of rudimentary nipples complete with areola, one on each side, below his normal pair. Other than being a fairly common congenital condition and obviously causing Julien embarrassment, they had no medical significance. But the vertical scar extending along the skin over Julien’s sternum was another matter. He’d obviously had coronary artery bypass surgery.
Broussard inspected the inner part of Julien’s leg on both sides. Then he looked
at Julien’s wrists. The absence of scars in those four locations meant the surgeon who’d done the heart operation had not taken a piece of replacement vessel from any of those places but had probably used the internal mammary arteries in the chest.
Broussard shook his head. While Julien was being subjected to major surgery, Broussard had no idea what his old friend was going through. And that just didn’t seem right. Then his mind shifted to another track. There was evidence that cardiovascular disease had long-term effects on cognitive function. Was that why Julien had ignored the danger he was in when it was explained to him?
Broussard’s eyes moved upward to Julien’s mouth, which was slightly open. For the first time, he noticed something inside, pushing against Julien’s lips. After a quick trip to a nearby drawer for a hemostat, he returned to the body, pulled down on the mandible, and inserted the open jaws of the hemostat into Julien’s mouth. Getting a firm grasp on the object, he pulled out a foil-wrapped condom.
Chapter 32
Search warrants must contain a list of items that are being searched for. Gatlin got a delayed start on his trip to serve Karpis because he wanted to update that warrant to include any 9mm semiautomatic or sound suppressor he might find in Karpis’s possession. It also was extended to cover any 9mm ammunition that Karpis might have, whether in a weapon’s magazine or a box on a shelf.
Because he was occupying the time of a crime scene team and it would be a long drive to where Karpis lived, Gatlin arranged for a patrol car from the Jefferson Parish sheriff’s office to first do a drive-by to make sure Karpis was home.
From his previous trip, Gatlin remembered that Karpis’s place was just around the bend ahead. At that moment, he got a phone call. Without bothering to check caller ID, he snatched his phone out of the holder on the dash and answered. “Yeah, Gatlin here.”
“It’s Kit. Found someone who remembered seeing a black pickup parked in the alcove by Julien’s garage this morning.”
“Before or during the murder?”
“She was sure Julien’s garage door was closed . . . so it was before.”
“She see anybody in the truck?”
“She didn’t remember and no, she doesn’t recall the license number or know the make or model.”
“Okay, thanks. I gotta go.”
Black . . . Like Karpis’s truck. He’d already included the truck in the search warrant, thinking maybe they’d find evidence that Betty Bergeron had been in it, or possibly find traces of her parents’ blood tracked into it on Karpis’s shoes after he’d killed them.
As he rounded the bend and saw Karpis’s driveway, Gatlin nodded with satisfaction and thought, I’m just too good to be a mere mortal. The Jefferson Parish patrol car that had earlier checked to see if Karpis was home and which Gatlin now wanted with him, was coming toward Karpis’s drive from the opposite direction.
In the drive he saw Karpis’s pickup and behind that, a red late model mustang.
The cops let Gatlin and the van behind him head in first. With no more room in the drive, the cops parked on the shoulder. As they all got out of their vehicles, the door of Karpis’s house opened and a slim blonde with hoop earrings and dressed like that gal who played the female lead in Grease came onto the porch, Karpis close behind.
“What the hell is this?” Karpis yelled from the porch.
“Search warrant,” Gatlin said, holding up the document, “for your truck and house.”
“You’re blocking my girlfriend’s car and she needs to leave,” Karpis said.
There looked to be about twenty years difference in age between Karpis and his girlfriend. If Gatlin cared, he might have mentioned to Karpis all the cases he’d worked in which much younger women take a lover their own age and then the two of them end up killing her sugar daddy. But that was Karpis’s problem, and depending on how the search went, maybe one he wouldn’t have to worry about.
“There’s room for her to get out by going around us,” Gatlin said. “But I’d like her to stay a minute.”
“I don’t think so,” Karpis said, ushering her down the porch steps and toward her car.
“A man named Julien Broussard was shot to death this morning around 9:00 a.m.” Gatlin said. “He was Joe Broussard’s son. Where were you when that happened?”
Gatlin saw the girl give Karpis a questioning look.
“I’m not answering any of your questions today,” Karpis said. “It doesn’t mean I know anything about this morning. I just don’t like you.” He pushed the girl toward the car and opened the door for her.
There wasn’t any legal reason Gatlin could detain her, so he let her go.
While the girl carefully backed her mustang down to the street, Karpis walked up and defiantly stood in front of Gatlin, hands on his hips. Though Gatlin was at least three inches taller than Karpis, the cops from the patrol car stepped closer to the pair in case Karpis turned physical.
“What’s the probable cause for the warrant?” Karpis asked.
Gatlin wanted to say, “your big mouth,” but deciding to keep it professional, he simply offered Karpis the warrant and said, “You can read all about it in here.”
Karpis snatched the document from Gatlin and headed for his truck.
“Sorry,” Gatlin said, “but that’s gonna be off limits to you for a while.” Responding to the frustration mask that appeared on Karpis’s face, Gatlin added, “Yeah, that’s also something you can read about.”
“So what, I’m supposed to just sit out here on the ground while you all snoop through my crap?”
Gatlin found it hard to believe this guy knew anything about oil exploration. But, considering he’d been fired for not finding any, maybe he didn’t. “You could have sat in your girlfriend’s car if you hadn’t let her leave.”
When Gatlin had submitted his paperwork to the judge for expansion of the search warrant, he had briefly considered adding a request for collection of gunshot residue from Karpis’s hands. Ultimately, he decided to skip a residue test because contamination of the labs analyzing the collected material had become a big problem. Even the FBI had stopped doing the analysis, something any decent defense attorney would know. But he had convinced the judge to include a cheek swab in the warrant.
“I’m gonna need to frisk you for weapons,” Gatlin said. “So if you’ll just step over to my car, lean forward, and put both hands on the top.”
Eyes blazing, Karpis said, “I don’t think so.”
“Look, Mr. Karpis. You don’t have to like me, or what’s happening. If I were you, I’d probably feel the same way. But you’re outmanned here. The three of us . . .” He motioned to the two cops, “. . . are all bigger than you are, and they’ve got Tasers. So respect yourself enough not to make us use force to accomplish any of this. We don’t want to do that.”
Gatlin could see by the subtle way the bonfire in Karpis’s eyes began to subside that he was thinking it over. Finally, the set to his chin softened and he nodded. With Gatlin and the two cops following, Karpis walked over to Gatlin’s car and took the position.
Gatlin did a quick but thorough pat down then said, “Okay, you can turn around.”
With Karpis now facing him, Gatlin said, “That warrant also gives us the right to do a cheek swab. Will you cooperate?”
Karpis hesitated.
“It’s not a trick question,” Gatlin said. “By agreeing, you’re just saying you won’t resist.”
Karpis nodded again.
Gatlin motioned to the crime scene techs, and one of them came over carrying a plastic box that looked like it might have fishing lures in it. Because the guy was shorter than Karpis, Gatlin said, “Just hand me the swab.”
The tech put his tackle box on the ground, briefly fiddled around inside it, then removed a long plastic rod from a paper sheath and handed the rod to Gatlin.
Gatlin turned to Karpis, “Okay, open. This won’t take long.”
Using the end of the rod that had a toothbrush-like piece of cotton on
it, Gatlin rubbed it over the inside of Karpis’s cheek for about 10 seconds, glad the swab had such a long handle. Satisfied that he had what he needed, Gatlin removed the swab from Karpis’s mouth and handed it to the tech, who carefully put the toothbrush end into a plastic vial containing saline, and detached that part from the handle with the plunger on the other end.
“Okay, one more and we’re done,” Gatlin said to Karpis.
Karpis scowled. “Earlier, you said a cheek swab. That means one.”
“Today, it means two,” Gatlin said, taking the second swab from the tech.
“Okay, that’s it, you can relax.” Gatlin said ten seconds later, handing the second swab to the tech. “Now, where can you sit? He looked around. “Under that tree . . . or . . . in the back of the patrol car.”
“I’ll take the tree.”
While Gatlin headed for Karpis’s house, the crime scene techs went to his truck. The two cops drifted back to their patrol car, where one got in the passenger seat and began to play with his cell phone. The other one took up a position leaning against the car’s front fender, passively accepting his role as watchdog in case Karpis decided to get aggressive.
Gatlin went up the steps to Karpis’s house and stepped inside, finding himself in a room covered with knotty pine paneling. All the furniture was rustic stuff, not banged together by some clod, but beautifully crafted. Gatlin particularly admired the coffee table, which had an amazing piece of walnut burl wood for a top. The sofa had stumps of polished walnut for its four legs and stout tree branches for all the rest. The cushions were decorated with Native American designs, or maybe it was something else, Gatlin didn’t know much about things like that. Whatever is was, the rug had the same feel to it. All around the room the walls were decorated with color photographs of oil rigs like those he’d often fished around in the gulf, making Gatlin wonder if Karpis had discovered the oil they were pumping. Remembering he wasn’t there to gawk, he headed for what looked like a closet.
Assassination at Bayou Sauvage Page 18
