“Doing your civic duty?” I ask.
He walks right by, yanking the driver’s door open and climbing in. I go around to the passenger side before he can activate the lock, hauling myself into the cracked leather seat.
“You look like the lord of the manor in this thing.”
“I don’t remember asking you to tag along.”
“Don’t kick me out just yet,” I say. “At least let me tell you why I’m here.”
He turns the key in the ignition, triggering a shake and a few squeals before the four-liter V8 rumbles to life.
“That doesn’t sound good. You should get that checked.”
His cheeks flush and he balls his sinewy hand into a fist. “Get out, March. I’ve had enough, okay? Whatever this is about-getting the fix in, making sure our stories are straight-I don’t want any part of it. How much clearer do I have to be?”
“I thought we’d buried the hatchet after the Thomson thing. You thought I was dirty on that, and I proved you wrong. How much clearer do I have to be? Stick your head in the ground if you like, but the Fauk appeal isn’t going away. What you saw yesterday is just the tip of the iceberg. The only way we’re going to be vindicated on this is if we do the vindicating ourselves. Now, that’s nothing new for me, but you’re in for a rude awakening.”
“It has nothing to do with me.”
“Keep telling yourself that. But you were right yesterday in the elevator: this thing does have the power to drag you down. Donald Fauk was a career case for you and me both, and if that conviction is overturned, I don’t think your buddies in Internal Affairs are going to be too keen on keeping you around.”
He gives me a wicked smile. “Don’t worry about me. If it is overturned, there won’t be any doubt in people’s minds who’s to blame.”
That’s probably true. While he’s kept quiet officially, I know for a fact that behind closed doors Wilcox has never been reticent about his suspicions concerning me. After teaming up to bring down Reg Keller, though, I’d let myself believe we had turned a page. Things would never be like they were, but at least some of the venom had been drained. But going by the look on his face-the raised vein in the forehead, the twisted mouth-perhaps I was wrong.
“How many times do I have to apologize?” I say. “If it’ll help, I’ll do it again. I dropped the ball when we were partners, and you picked it up way too many times. I cut corners, I screwed up, whatever you want me to eat, I will. But you’re wrong about what I was doing. I never framed anyone. I never planted evidence. I was never what you think I am. You’re determined to fit me into that mold, but that was never me.”
“Then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
“Not good enough. Maybe I’m not making myself clear. The DA’s not going to fight this thing like he ordinarily would. Lauterbach made too good an impression. He’s even got Bascombe second-guessing. You were in the car with me when Fauk confessed, and you know he was ready to talk long before that. Nobody had to threaten him-in fact, you kept telling him to keep his mouth shut. If you can’t trust me, Stephen, trust yourself.”
He unclenches the fist and lets out a breath. After a pause, his body relaxes a little, sinking down into the seat. He hangs his left hand over the wheel, kneading the leather with his thumb. I give him time to calm down, time to let his brain work.
“That much I agree with,” he says. “Fauk’s confession was genuine. He didn’t need any prodding to give it up.”
“But you and me are the only people who know that for a fact.”
Another pause. “This is against my better judgment, but. . what exactly do you want, March?”
“I’m meeting Lauterbach this afternoon to look at his case in detail. Bascombe didn’t give me any option. So blowing that apart is up to me. Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to find out what’s happening with Fontenot. That lawyer yesterday morning said there was an investigation in progress. We need to find out how far back they’re looking.”
“You have the relationship with Fontenot, not me.”
“And I can talk to him if it comes to that. First, though, we need to know exactly what he’s facing. As far as I’m concerned, Gene’s a good cop. Having said that. . Look, I don’t know how else to put this, so let me be blunt: if there’s a full-blown investigation going on, getting in touch with him directly might not be such a great idea.”
“It’ll look like conspiracy,” he says. “You’ve given this some thought.”
I ignore the barb in that last remark. “I’m gonna take a drive up to Huntsville tomorrow.”
“Turning yourself in?”
Shaking my head, I pop the passenger door open. “I have an informant up there who might be able to help with Fauk.”
“Wait a second.” He grabs my sleeve. “What kind of help do you mean?”
“Brad Templeton says he hasn’t had any suspicious contacts, but I’m convinced there’s a connection between the Fauk murder scene and the one I’m working-only not the connection Lauterbach has in mind. Maybe someone’s been in touch with Fauk, though. If my guy can get close to him, I might be able to find out. You wanna let go of me?”
His hand trails down to the buttons on my jacket sleeve. His eyes narrow as he pulls at the fabric, working one of the buttons undone.
“Those are horn buttons,” he says. “And they work.”
I pull myself free. “Charlotte’s dad inadvertently left me an inheritance.”
“Lyndon Pellier?”
His mouth crumbles into an eloquent frown, the kind of frown a Roman senator might have worn contemplating the rise of the barbarians and the complex ways of fate, rewarding the undeserving with gifts beyond their comprehension while overlooking virtuous men like himself.
“I have a whole closet full,” I say, slamming the door behind me.
His sad eyes follow me through the rain-dimpled glass.
Back at my car, I wait a few minutes for Wilcox to get going. The rain picks up, drumming across the roof and windshield. Everything is gray outside, even the brownish grass, but the sky seems unaccountably bright, like the effort of concealing the sun has just about exhausted the clouds overhead. I feel exhausted myself and thinking about Gene Fontenot doesn’t help one bit.
After Hurricane Katrina, Gene endured his own dark night of the soul, running concurrently with the collapse of civilization all around. His house swept away by floodwater and out of contact with his ex-wife and their two kids, all he could do was roam the powerless, swarming city, teaming up with other overwhelmed officers in an effort to improvise law and order. Six months later, sitting on the stairs outside my garage apartment with a sweating beer bottle in his grasp, Gene told me stories that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
By then, thinking he’d had enough of the Big Easy, like a lot of his fellow New Orleanians he contemplated a permanent move. I offered to recommend him, for what that was worth, and it wasn’t until the interview with HPD was arranged that he had second thoughts. The zydeco in his blood wouldn’t let him stay. Or something sentimental like that.
Our late night talks had convinced me that Gene was a kindred spirit, another lawman out of step with the world around him. After I confided in him about the bartender at the Paragon and some of my other projects, he opened up with a few of his own extracurricular enforcement efforts. Mostly stories about standoffs in knee-deep water with angry citizens on one hand and panicked cops on the other: I accomplished more in six days with a Remington pump gun than in the whole rest of my career put together.
If he’d had a talk with Donald Fauk in that interview room while me and Wilcox jumped through hoops at the car rental agency, I believe he would have told me on one of those nights in late 2005. But he never said a word.
Though I’m half tempted to call him, what I told Wilcox is true. The last thing I want to do if Gene is caught up in an internal inquiry is mix my name up in the case-especially if the accusation in the Fauk appeal is being actively
investigated. Even so, I can’t help feeling I owe the man more. Leaving him in Wilcox’s unsteady hands doesn’t seem right. For now, that’s all I can do. There’s just too much on my plate.
Before Cavallo’s husband went back to war, the newlyweds played house in a dilapidated Montrose cottage that must have seemed like a good investment at the time. A little sweat equity and they could flip it for a tidy profit. From the curb it looks like the sweat was invested elsewhere. Nothing has changed since my last visit apart from the wreath on the door and the jumble of unlit lights hanging from the rain gutters.
I step through the open door and call Theresa’s name. She walks through from the kitchen dressed in sweats and a v-neck shirt, a laundry basket balanced on her hip.
“Give me two minutes,” she says, disappearing down the hallway.
The nice thing about the cottage is that it’s never been updated. The floors, the wood trim, and even the windowpanes look original. I shudder to think what state the wiring must be in. Cavallo’s flat-packed furniture and rock band posters are an incongruous fit, and despite the passage of months, the place still feels like she’s just moved in. I sit on the edge of a shiny black sofa to await her return.
Five minutes later, she reappears, now dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater, her curly hair tied back into a ponytail. She sits cross-legged in an overstuffed chair across from me, the only piece that’s seen much use, and I fill her in on everything that’s happened since our visit to Dr. Hill’s place on Monday. When I finish, she shakes her head in amazement.
“You’ve had quite a week,” she says. “But I still don’t see what you want from me.”
I look at my watch. “An hour from now, I’ve got to sit down with this guy Lauterbach and compare notes. I’d like you there as a fresh set of eyes.”
“Wouldn’t you be better off with a fellow homicide detective?”
“Not particularly. Look, I want someone I can trust, and you fit the bill. Plus, you have a connection with Brad Templeton, thanks to his book on the Mayhew case, and that could be useful now that Brad’s got me in his crosshairs. Someone has to talk sense into him, and it might as well be someone young and pretty like you.”
“I’m flattered,” she says. “Though I don’t think I’m Brad’s type.”
“You can turn on the charm if you have to.”
“But what’s the real reason you want my help? It’s not like last time where I can go to Wanda and get her to sign off. You’ve gotta give me a good reason, March, or this isn’t gonna happen.”
“I’m asking you because you’re not in Homicide and don’t want to be. That means my bosses can’t put a word in your ear and turn you against me.”
“You don’t trust your colleagues?”
“Aguilar’s all right. Reliable. But he’s not going to stick his neck out.”
“But I will?”
“You won’t have to,” I say. “And it’s not like I’m asking you to work the case with me. It’s just this one meeting. All you have to do is sit there and take everything in, then afterward tell me what you honestly think.”
“And if it’s not what you want to hear?”
“When has that ever stopped you?”
We take my car downtown, parking on San Jacinto and walking the rest of the way. Cavallo tells me that the last time she spoke to Brad Templeton, he was agitated about his Hannah Mayhew book, The Girl Who Forgave Her Killer. Thanks to the case’s nationwide profile, the market had been inundated with competing accounts, most of them hitting the market sooner. Though they were slapdash affairs riddled with errors, these books soaked up most of the demand, leaving only a hardcore audience for Templeton’s definitive text. It’s hard for me to believe that just a few months ago we were on good enough terms to have hosted a book party at our house.
“The night of the party,” I say, “he must have already been working on this thing with Lauterbach. Did he drop any hints to you?”
She shakes her head.
We enter the six-story redbrick building and breeze through security, letting the first available elevator, half occupied, leave without us. The second one’s empty, so we take that.
“If Brad is responsible,” she says, “and he did all this behind your back, I can’t help thinking he has a reason.”
“He probably thinks it will make a great book.”
“That’s not fair. He believes in his work, March, just like you. I can’t see him undoing it unless he was really convinced he’d made a mistake.”
“You mean I’d made a mistake.”
“That’s the hard part for you. People thinking you were wrong.”
“I don’t know much,” I say. “Right now, I’m not sure what direction to move in. But I do know that this hayseed we’re about to sit down with is dead wrong.”
“How could he not be, going up against you?”
“I’m serious, Cavallo.”
“Oh, I know.”
Lauterbach eyes Cavallo from the other side of the conference table, then rises to take her hand. His smile strikes me as almost sinister underneath the drooping mustache. His Western yoke jacket is over his chair, giving us a prize view of the tooled leather holster and the gleaming Government Model on his hip. The laptop is already projecting onto a screen, and there are six tall stacks of paperwork down the spine of the table. He offers us our pick from the cluster of bottled waters on the sideboard.
“What?” I say. “You didn’t light any candles?”
“Have your fun,” Lauterbach replies. “I laid everything out for you as a show of appreciation. I know you think I blindsided you on this thing, but that’s not the case. Did I or did I not bring everything to you in advance?”
“You did not. One case, that’s all I got from you-and you pretended like you’d never seen Templeton’s book before, when the fact is he’s the one who drew the map for you. It was a slick move, I’ll give you that. But now you have my full attention.”
“Don’t mind him,” Cavallo says, inserting herself between us. She takes one of the water bottles and twists off the cap. “And don’t mind me, either. I’m just along for the ride.”
“I remember you now,” Lauterbach tells her, a twinkle in his eye. “You helped run the Hannah Mayhew task force.”
“That was me.” She gives a self-deprecating shrug. “Though it’s March who deserves the credit on that case.”
“That’s what he told me.”
Ignoring them, I start sifting through the reports on the table. All told, there are records on fifteen open homicides going back ten years. Scene photos, autopsy photos, an assortment of videos shot on-site by detectives and crime scene photographers. Out of curiosity and a deep-rooted morbid streak, I dig around for the macabre example Templeton cited to me, the severed head floating in the fish tank. There are things that strike a veteran homicide cop as darkly funny that would be horrific to anyone else. As far as I can tell, though, the beheading is not among these files.
Lauterbach goes for the light switch.
“Hold on a second,” I say. “You’re not gonna put me through another PowerPoint.”
“Not another one, no.” He flicks the light off. “Detective Cavallo hasn’t seen the first one, so I figured I’d catch her up.”
Sinking into a chair, I suppress my desire to moan. The Sheriff’s Department detective will not allow his inner showman to be denied. Cavallo tucks herself into a seat across from me, smiling at my discomfort. Spectators at old-fashioned bear baitings no doubt wore very similar expressions, anticipating the blood sport to come.
CHAPTER 15
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12 — 4:19 P.M.
Lauterbach reads aloud from a summary sheet while Cavallo and I follow along:
1999, Nicole Fauk, age 43
Kingwood housewife discovered in swimming pool. Probable 6” blade, not recovered at scene. [Suspect charged, convicted.]
“We’ll skip over that one for the time being,” he says, flashing me a smile. “Once
you’ve seen the rest, maybe you’ll wanna come back to it of your own volition.”
“I only count fifteen cases on this list. Yesterday there were more than twenty.”
“Like I said, some of these I’ve looked at in greater detail than others. This is a work in progress, so as I’m able to, I rule them out. But the ones on this list are looking pretty solid, with one or two exceptions, which I’ll point out. Now, if you don’t mind. .”
“Go right ahead.”
2000, Maria Olivares, age 28
Houston prostitute, multiple stab wounds, single-edged blade (probably 4”), not recovered. Body dumped in reservoir. No suspect.
2000, Shelly Lloyd, age 17
Student found in flooded ditch, ne Harris County, drowned and multiple stab wounds. Ka-Bar knife recovered at scene, partial print. No suspect.
“At the time, the Olivares case doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention. Just a hooker who got herself cut up. The body was in the water awhile. But the Shelly Lloyd murder was big news at the time. She was held down in the water and stabbed to death as she drowned. The murder weapon was an army surplus Ka-Bar knife-a clip-point 7-inch blade-but the partial print on the guard was never matched to a suspect.”
“And you think these two cases are connected?” Cavallo asks.
“It looks that way, doesn’t it?”
She gives a noncommittal shrug. “Right here, it says the knife that killed Olivares was probably four inches long, and you just said the other one was seven inches.”
“That’s the thing,” he says. “This killer isn’t attached to a particular weapon. He seems to use a variety of blades. Personally, I think he brings one with him as a backup but always makes a point of looking for available alternatives at the scene. Let me keep going and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
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