Biloxi Blue (The Biloxi Series Book 2)

by Jerri Ledford

  Jack had been promoted shortly after she was shot when the police chief - William Darnow - died of a heart attack. The promotion was unexpected. Jack wasn’t next in line for the position, but he’d gotten the job and now Kate had no partner. It was a fact she’d wrestled with. She wasn’t sure she wanted to stay in homicide, or police work for that matter, without Jack. It left her off balance, and without him to back her up, the treatment she’d experienced in the past, the distrust and sometimes even blatant disdain, would probably get worse. She wanted to try to handle things on her own though. If it looked like it would be too much, then she could figure out what to do next.

  Patrol officer Paul Usry barely looked up from his phone when Kate walked in. “This is John Landers.” He tipped his head toward the young security guard. “He found the scene.”

  The pale guard stared at his hands. All Kate could see of his face was bad skin and sparse facial hair that looked like it hadn’t been trimmed in weeks. His unwashed hair obscured his features.

  “Mr. Landers.” She waited until his gaze slowly shifted to her. Dull, glassy, pale green eyes stared back at her. Kate knew by the eye color and his latte-colored skin that he was Cajun before he even spoke. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I was doin’ the early morning walk-tru.” His skin had gone ashy making his eyes look even paler. Kate fought the urge to break eye contact. It felt as if Landers looked straight through to her soul. “I din’t…I mean, we’ve ain’t had no problems. Not even vandalism. I ain’t expected something like this.” The young man’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat.

  “Did you see anyone last night?” She pulled out a chair and sat down across from him.

  “No. I ain’t seen Beth…Um, Ms. Martin, in the building. I thought she gone on Friday when everybody else did. Dis building ain’t checked inside on the weekends. Once everyone gone for the day, we check and then lock up. Weekends we only check the locks from outside. They’s a lot of ground to cover, you know.”

  Kate noted he used the victim’s first name. “How much ground is ‘a lot’, Mr. Landers?”

  “We got this building, the warehouses, the docks. The main security office in Warehouse One.” The security guard squeezed the fingers of one hand, tracing his thumb over the knuckles of the other hand.

  “Security cameras?” Kate asked.

  “On the outside. None inside. Outside they’s only ‘round the docks and the warehouses. We don’t have none in or around the office building.”

  Great. No record of anything. Nothing is ever easy.

  “You called the victim ‘Beth.’” Kate paused until the young man looked up at her. “How did you know her?”

  The security guard’s gaze slid back to his hands. “I…Um. We…” He swallowed deeply. “We gone out a couple of times. Just some dancing and drinking. She weren’t much interested in a relationship. Wit’ me.”

  Kate knew that feeling. Even though she had been staying with Jack and his niece, Lisa, since she was shot, most of the time they seemed like roommates, not lovers. He’d asked her to marry him just before he was promoted, and they hadn’t even discussed the wedding since. He was always focused on work.

  She shook her head. She didn’t need to be distracted by thoughts of Jack right now. She needed to focus on the young man’s answers to her questions. Besides, she and Jack were fine. He was just busy with his new responsibilities and since she had been off work, they didn’t have a lot to talk about on the rare occasion when he was home.

  It’s an adjustment period. That’s all.

  She pulled her wayward thoughts back on track. “Are you the only security guard on duty at night?”

  The kid croaked out a half-laugh. “You kiddin’, Cher?” He didn’t wait for Kate’s reply. “I tole you. They’s a lot of ground to cover here. We have teams of two for every shift. We split the yard in half. Brandon. Um. Brandon Causey. He’s a guard, like me. He takes the docks and I takes the buildings. I check all them locks when I got here, and everything was fine.”

  Maybe you cover for one another when you’re into things you’re not supposed to be into?

  Kate’s instinct told her only the bare minimum got done because that’s what they could get away with. From the bloodshot, dull look in this kids eyes, Kate bet he would pop positive if they drug tested him.

  “So, you were here on Friday night?”

  “Yes, but…” The security guard focused on the sky outside a small window on one wall.

  “But what, Mr. Landers?” Kate tamped down frustration.

  “Well, see…”

  Kate glared at the young man.

  “I’s late. But don’t tell Mr. Ingram.” His eyes pleaded for her cooperation. “I can’t get fired. I got a kid to feed. I overslept. I mighta partied too hard the night before.”

  I knew it.

  Kate hated being right about people like this. His irresponsibility might have cost this woman her life. “Was Brandon Causey your partner Friday night?” She shot a glare at the patrol officer. He just shrugged lazily.

  “Yeah, we always work the night shift together. But he,” Landers tipped his head toward Usry, “done sent Brandon home.” The accusation in the kid’s tone was unmistakable. Usry didn’t even look up from his phone screen.

  Kate schooled her reaction to that and continued. “Did Causey walk this building before locking up on Friday?” She tried to keep her voice neutral, but she was furious. What gave Usry the right to send the other guard home? Before she had a chance to question the man?

  Frustration crept up Kate’s spine. This was the kind of thing that would never happen if Jack was here. Negligence. She was already tired of people treating her like she had no idea what she was doing, and she’d only been back on the job for a couple of hours. She needed to finish this interview, but then she was going to deal with Usry. No one was going to get away with pushing her around anymore.

  “He said he did. But, I done tole you I weren’t here.” The guard opened his mouth, then closed it slowly and pursed his lips.

  “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Well. It’s just…” He scrubbed a ropey hand across his face. “Oh man. I’m gone lose my job.” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes we don’t walk inside the buildings. Like if one of us is late. There’s too much to do, and we gotta have someone in the office, case there’s a call. Brandon might not have walked through. He mighta just locked up and kept moving. I didn’t ask.”

  The frustration that Usry triggered was working toward anger. Young people today had no sense of responsibility. That, combined with Usry letting Causey leave, made Kate want to shake someone. She tried to shrug it off, but anger wormed through her turning to fury.

  She couldn’t talk to Jack about it. He had enough going on without her whining. She could handle this herself. She had been in this department long enough to prove that she’d overcome her past. Yes, she’d frozen up during a firefight when she was a new detective in Memphis. Her partner, Ryan, had died because of it. She lived with that guilt every single day. But the people in this precinct had no right to hold that against her. She had proven herself trustworthy time and again.

  She didn’t care what they thought of her. She couldn’t change their minds. But she could make them do their jobs properly or she could take their negligence up the chain of command. One way or another, this was going to stop.

  Twenty minutes later, Kate motioned the patrol officer out into the hallway. The kid had nothing to offer, and somehow his partner had been released. The fury that had been building as she questioned Landers flamed hot. When the door clicked shut behind them, Kate spun on Usry. “Why did you release Brandon Causey before I could talk to him?” She struggled to keep her voice calm, her hands balled into fists at her side.

  The patrol officer looked dully at her and raised his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Didn’t think we needed him.”

  “You…What?” Kate lost her struggle. She twisted
away from Usry and shoved her hands in her hair to keep from punching him. “You didn’t think we needed him?” She spun back around. “Since when did it become your job to determine who I need to interview?” She shouted as she stepped into Usry’s space.

  He shrugged again, staring past Kate.

  She slammed the palms of both hands into his chest. “Answer me!”

  Usry’s gazed focused sharply on Kate. Hatred and rage pinned her as he raised his fist.

  Kate stood her ground. “Answer me!” Spittle flew from her lips as she shouted at him again.

  The patrol officer glared at her, his breath hot against her face. Then he dropped his arm as quickly as he’d raised it. Without breaking eye contact he said, “It’s not like you’re going to do your job anyway.” His voice was quiet. Calm in comparison to her own. But the venom in his words cut Kate to the core. “Why did you come back? No one wants you here.”

  He turned and walked away, leaving Kate staring after him, feeling as if she had just taken another bullet.

  TWO

  “Frankie. You on the ground yet.” Bubba’s voice boomed, too loud, through the mobile handset.

  “Just got my bags. Headed to the truck now.” Frankie Deveaux made his way through the double doors of the Gulfport International Airport and was enveloped in humidity. That was one thing he didn’t miss. North Dakota might get hot a few days out of the year, but the humidity never came close to this stifling soup in the South.

  Glad to hear it. I was worried you might be delayed. That wouldn’t work at all.” Brian “Bubba” McKenzie sounded genuinely relieved. Frankie shook his head and bit his tongue. They were only related through marriage, and Frankie didn’t feel much loyalty to Bubba, but he was good to have around.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Bubba could be a liability. He thought he was smarter than he actually was, but having him inside Biloxi PD, especially since Chief Darnow was gone, was good for Frankie. That’s how Frankie knew what was going on while he was up North Bubba was his best resource. But now he was back. With a plan. Even Bubba couldn’t screw this up.

  Bubba continued talking. “We got something just come up this morning. Kid with a record that might have been involved in a murder. And get this Frankie,” Bubba sounded positively giddy. “The kid is a member of that gang. Locos Mamoncetes. This is a good one.”

  “Might have been involved in a murder?” Frankie intentionally ignored the information about the gang involvement. He watched people ahead of him who had grabbed their bags and rushed out into the heat. People focused on their own lives with no idea of what might be happening around them. It would be so easy to pick one of them off. Except, he couldn’t do that. It wasn’t part of the plan.

  “We don’t know for sure about the murder, Frankie.” Bubba cleared his throat. “Giveans caught the case. The kid has a sheet long as a gator’s tail, and clear ties to Mamoncetes. Usry sent him home before Giveans could even talk to him. She was angrier than a red wasp on a cool day.” Bubba laughed.

  Kate. Just her name energized Frankie. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about her over the last three months. He had plans for her.

  “Why’d Usry let him go?” His plans for Kate aside, he wasn’t making the connection. Sometimes Bubba’s thought process was convoluted and Frankie didn’t want to try to figure out what twisted thought process he was using.

  “We know this kid is involved in Mamoncetes. We send him home, you do your thing, and Giveans never gets to talk to him. If he’s the doer, she never solves the case. Just more proof that she can’t do her job, and it puts us one step closer to getting her out of our way.”

  Getting her off the force dovetailed nicely with his plans. She didn’t know it yet, but Kate’s future was about to change, and Frankie already knew how those changes would happen. This plan was spectacular. Bubba’s continued help was unnecessary, but at this point it couldn’t hurt. Frankie let it go.

  Bubba could be a genius or an idiot, depending on the circumstances. Problem with him was that it was hard to tell which you would get until it was too late. It made Frankie crazy, but having him inside the police department had proven to be useful. For now, that was his insurance. It would only keep him alive for so long, but Frankie wasn’t about to ruin things by throwing Bubba to the wolves just yet.

  “Can you imagine?” Bubba continued to talk, oblivious to Frankie’s disinterest. “A kid with the background this one has? As a security guard. How stupid can you be? If whatever moron hired him had just done a background check, they would have found his record. It’s not like it’s hidden.”

  “Bubba.” Frankie interrupted. “My time is limited.” Frankie tossed his luggage into the bed of his truck. A wave of heat washed over him when he opened the driver’s side door.

  “Right. Yeah. So anyway, Usry talked to the kid before he sent him off. He can’t, or won’t, account for his whereabouts. He also said Giveans got up in his face, screaming at him, like she thought she could take him. Said it was a testament to his loyalty to you that he didn’t knock her flat out. Wanted me to be sure you knew that.”

  “Your point?” Frankie was past impatient. Today had taken three months to get here and he was ready to move forward. Nothing that Bubba had to say held any interest for him at all. It didn’t matter. Bubba had handled the one thing that he needed most. Everything else was already in motion and no one was going to stop him.

  “You know Giveans has only got two choices here. She can deal with it herself or she can go running to her fiancé. Either way, she ain’t gonna look good. Everyone knows she’s incompetent. It’s just a matter of time before someone does something about it.”

  Frankie’s jaw tightened. The thought of Kate and Jack together irritated him. He’d heard they got engaged. Frankie had people everywhere, and the right questions asked to the right people could yield all kinds of answers. Jack and Kate hadn’t announced their engagement, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t already common knowledge in law enforcement circles.

  Kate belonged with him. He had believed that since the night he saw her on the pier after the Christmas Boat Parade. The night he’d killed Dale Abernathy. Now all he had to do was convince Kate. He would. One way or another.

  “You still there, man?” Bubba’s voice was unsteady.

  “Yeah. We’ll talk more about this.” It wasn’t a completely stupid idea. Frankie could work with it. And he looked forward to getting his hands dirty again. Three months was far too long. “How have things been since Roe took over?”

  “Quiet. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

  Bubba was an idiot. He might have half-way decent ideas now and then, but he was clueless about most things that mattered. As soon as Jack Roe was moved into the chief’s position ahead of more senior candidates, Frankie knew something was wrong. It took him a while to learn about the letter that was found on Darnow’s computer, but he wasn’t surprised.

  The most likely candidate to replace Chief Darnow when he died was Charles Chatley. He was a good choice. Frankie needed someone like Chatley in a position with a little pull. Bubba and the other peons in the department were okay for the grunt work, but some actions required more influence, and Frankie needed someone that had that kind of influence. Jack Roe couldn’t be bought. He was too much of a boy scout to see that sometimes justice needed a helping hand.

  It would all come together. Frankie spent three months planning this. He had no doubt it would work. He just wanted to get started. There were murderers and rapists out there that needed to be dealt with. The justice system was certainly not going to do anything more than give them a slap on the wrist and a shove out the door. He and his team needed to pick up the slack.

  “Good.” Frankie pulled the Silverado out into the early morning traffic. “Work on the details of that security guard. I’m going to make a quick stop at the house and I’ll see you soon enough.”

  He finished the call with Bubba, and slid the phone back into hi
s pocket. He had to deal with Jack Roe soon. And he would. But first, he wanted to get face to face with Kate.

  THREE

  Kate pushed back into the office upstairs. The body had been removed, but crime scene investigators still worked collecting and logging anything they thought might be evidence. A scene like this could yield enough trace evidence to keep the lab busy for months. A large office meant lots of places to look for evidence and groups of crime scene techs were scattered throughout the cube farm. Kate had a hunch the place she needed to start was the victim’s desk. She asked a crime scene tech near the door where the desk was located. He pointed her to a knot of people working together in one corner of the room.

  She approached the group. “How’s it going?”

  A female tech she’d never met before glanced up, frowned, and went back to what she was doing. “We’re going to bag up everything and take it with us.” No friendliness warmed her voice.

  Kate bit back a retort. She still stung from her confrontation with Usry. What she wanted to do was get into the tech’s face and straighten her out too, but Kate knew that would get her nowhere. One confrontation was enough for her first day back on the job.

  “Anything jump out at you?” She tried, and failed, to hide the irritation she felt. Maybe she was being too sensitive, but she was fed up with the people in this department. She had spent so much time thinking about just not coming back at all. She still wasn’t completely sure why she had.