by J. L. Brown
“In what condition was the body?”
“A complete mess. Head battered. Only the right side, though. There were blood and brains everywhere.”
“Tongue?”
“I’ll show you the photos when we get back to my office,” Thomas said.
“Who found him?”
“A few of the neighbors called the leasing company complaining about the loud noise coming from the condo.”
“What was it? Music? An argument?”
Thomas grunted. “A recording of a speech he gave. Burned to CD. It was set to replay over and over again.”
Jade paused to absorb that. “Tell me about his column.”
“Published weekly. Dedicated to conservative issues. Readers could write in and comment.”
She nodded toward the CD player. “What was the speech about?”
“I don’t recall. I’ll check on that for you.”
“Any of his readers ever disagree with or become angry at LeBlanc?”
“LeBlanc could be obnoxious. He’d write articles some people found politically incorrect—sexist or racist—but his friends and co-workers said he was neither of those things.”
“What about the women he dated? Did any of them feel betrayed or angry?”
“As far as we can tell, not enough to kill him. His co-workers said he was okay to work with and he got along with everyone. He received the occasional hate mail. We checked out the senders, but came up with nothing. He wasn’t depressed or anxious about anything. He had a core following, active in local charity work. He had everything going for him.”
“Where did he hang out?”
*
They strode toward The Wine Shoppe two blocks away.
Jade downshifted her gait to allow Thomas to keep pace. Despite the short walk, her silk shirt stuck to her back from the humidity. “What do we know about his movements that night?”
“His editor said LeBlanc left sometime after eight. We believe he parked his car in the residence lot over there”—he waved to his right—“and walked to The Wine Shoppe and had several glasses of wine and some bar food.”
“Time of death?”
“The coroner estimated between midnight and three a.m.”
“You told me on the phone a witness—the ex-girlfriend—saw him leave with another man. No one else saw him?”
“We couldn’t find a corroborating witness. The manager said LeBlanc was a frequent customer, but the place is usually packed and he couldn’t swear LeBlanc came in the night of the murder.”
They entered the bar and walked around so Jade could get a sense of the place. She shielded her eyes when they came out, the sun brighter after the bar’s dark interior.
Thomas gestured at the retail establishments around them. “LeBlanc’s co-workers said he loved Perkins Rowe because it had everything: restaurants, a grocery store, clothing stores, a gym, and a movie theater. He used to always tell them he never had to ‘stray too far from the reservation.’”
Thomas stopped and faced Jade. “Murders like this don’t happen in this part of Baton Rouge. He probably felt safe here.”
Jade shrugged. “He was wrong.” They resumed walking toward the car. “I’m hungry,” she said. “Do you mind?”
*
Detective Miles Thomas stopped at a squat building, the paint long since peeled away, squeezed between two modern office buildings. Jade tried to hide her surprise as she emerged cautiously from the car.
Thomas shut the car door. “Don’t let the decor fool you.”
A small sign, the same color as the faded paint, hung on a nail at a crooked angle next to the door: Momma’s. The hole-in-the-wall exterior opened up to a cozy interior of ten small wooden tables. The cheap wood-paneled walls were filled with pictures of different individuals with Momma, the thin, light-skinned woman behind the counter at the rear of the restaurant. Jade recognized some of the individuals in the photographs: Former Senator Mary Landrieu and her brother, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, former Governor Bobby Jindal, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, NBA greats Shaquille O’Neal and Pete Maravich, and WNBA all-star Seimone Augustus.
Thomas pointed. “Our mayor, Kip Holden, former Governor Kathleen Blanco, and, of course, you know, Lolo Jones and Glen ‘Big Baby’ Davis.”
“Instead of who has eaten here,” Jade said, “the better question is who hasn’t?”
Thomas ordered a Coke. She asked for a Pepsi. Thomas shook his head, disappointed.
She eyed him and then the waitress. “What?”
Thomas tried to stifle a grin. “You’re in Coke country.”
The waitress nodded a slow, all-knowing confirmation.
Jade conceded. “I’ll have a Coke then.”
After the server brought their drinks, Thomas raised an eyebrow at Jade.
She was about to take a drink. “What?”
He inclined his head at her extended pinkie as she held her soda.
She smiled. “Don’t let the pinkie fool you.” She sipped the drink, trying not to grimace at the sharp flavor.
He laughed.
Since this was Jade’s first time in Baton Rouge, Thomas ordered a sampling of everything: gumbo for an appetizer, jambalaya, red beans and rice, and crawfish étouffée. She put her foot down when he attempted to order alligator. She developed an instant philosophy of not eating anything that could eat her.
The waitress placed their meal on the table. The aroma of the dishes made Jade’s mouth moist.
Thomas glanced at her plate. “Do you always separate your food like that?”
Jade shrugged. “I don’t like different foods touching each other.”
Thomas shook his head, and, as if to prove a point, mixed all his food together. He popped a forkful into his mouth.
Jade shook her head. “That’s disgusting.”
Thomas smiled. “You look like you can still play ball.” He had done his homework.
“A little.”
He laughed. “Yeah, right. I’ll let it go or next thing I know you’ll be challenging me to a game.”
Jade took a sip of her Coke. “What about your name? Miles Davis?”
“My mother, a jazz fan, wanted me to be a musician. I always wanted to be a cop. When I was growing up, playing ‘cops and robbers’ with toy guns was still okay. I was always on the side of the good guys.” The light in his eye dimmed. “When I became a teenager, some of my friends started playing with guns for real.”
“How’d you get out?”
“My mother enrolled me in a Big Brother program. Someone took an interest in me and saved me from the fate of most of my friends who are either in jail, on drugs, or dead. This city earned the distinction as one of the top US cities for murders per capita. Mostly black-on-black homicides.” His shoulders inched down, as if he alone bore the burden to save his black brethren.
Thomas, though a big man, had a certain gentleness. They discussed their careers and his eyes lit up when he talked about his wife, Tracy. His wife was a lucky woman. During the conversation, he remarked she was light-skinned, which still seemed to matter in the Deep South.
Later, at the police station, Thomas signed Jade in as a guest. The atmosphere buzzed as they weaved their way between the desks of the other officers.
In his office, he pointed at the conference table in front of his desk. “I pulled the case files. Let me grab them.”
She peered around him at the mess on his desk, the top covered with stacks of paper, towering in some cases a foot high. Coffee cups of various life spans acted as a buffer between the stacks. How could anyone work like that?
She dropped her briefcase on a chair and stretched her arms and rotated her neck. The big Creole lunch had started taking its toll. She wanted to take a nap. Thomas returned with the files and a laptop.
He sat next to her and tapped on the keyboard.
He brought up an autopsy picture of LeBlanc. “Not the easiest thing to look at after lunch.”
“
Occupational hazard,” she said.
She examined the photograph. The right side of LeBlanc’s head, matted with blood and brains, was unrecognizable but similar to the damage inflicted upon Randy Sells, the Pittsburgh victim. Thomas pulled a manila folder out of the stack, in an expert motion like the one Jade used to use in the game KerPlunk as a kid. He handed the folder to her.
“The autopsy report confirms he was killed by blunt-force trauma to the head.”
Jade began clicking through the crime-scene photographs on the computer. Thomas moved to the window, and closed the blinds halfway to block out the afternoon Louisiana sun. His action also removed the glare from the screen. Thoughtful.
“What do you think about the tongue?”
Thomas sat down in a chair and parked a foot on the table, his shoes scuffed and worn. “It’s significant. To silence him forever? Retribution? It was cut after he died.”
“Did you find it?”
“Keep clicking.”
Jade scooted back in her chair when she came to the photo. “Wow.” A vinyl album sat in a new turntable record player, ready to play. In place of the tonearm rested LeBlanc’s tongue. “Is he playing with us or is this a clue?” She squinted at the photograph. “What was the vinyl?”
“Tragic Kingdom.”
“No Doubt? Really?”
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Of course.” She clicked to another page. “What about the arms crossed over his chest?”
Thomas dropped his foot from the table. “Prepping him for his funeral? Some religious significance? How could there be an open casket with that much damage? Who knows? I still have more questions than answers about this case.”
“I know the feeling.”
Jade thought of the Pittsburgh commentator holding his tongue in his hands like a rosary.
Do the victims’ religious beliefs have something to do with this? Or the killer’s? Or possibly his lack of religion?
She finished perusing the photos and opened the folder with the autopsy report. She started to read. “Anything come up on the rope?”
“Made out of nylon and polyester. Manufactured by Everbilt. This particular rope can be found in any Home Depot store in the country.”
“That narrows it down.” She continued reading. “Not much food in his stomach and his blood-alcohol content was point-one-six.”
“Twice the legal limit here.”
She flipped another page, and eyed him, eyebrow raised. “Rohypnol?”
He nodded.
“Could he have ingested it unintentionally?” she asked.
“According to the lab, yes. In pill form, it’s tasteless and dissolves in liquid. If the liquid is clear, the drug turns bright blue. But in dark liquids, such as the red wine the victim drank, it becomes cloudy. In a dark room, like The Wine Shoppe bar, he wouldn’t have noticed.”
“How long would it have taken for him to feel the effects?”
“Within thirty minutes up to several hours.”
“So your witness may not have seen someone helping a drunk friend home, but rather a killer who had drugged his victim.”
“And before you ask, we were too late to obtain fingerprints at the restaurant. They’d sanitized the glasses before we got there the next day.”
Jade examined a close-up photo of a strand of hair. Light brown, Caucasian, human.
“Where was the hair found?”
“On the victim’s shirt. No match came up in CODIS.” CODIS was the Combined DNA Index System database managed by the FBI.
She closed the file. “What about his finances?”
Thomas grabbed another file midway down the stack. Jade was glad she would never play him in KerPlunk.
“Nothing jumped out at me. He earned a pretty decent salary and lived within his means. Owned the condo and made his mortgage payments on time. He had one credit card he rarely used and paid off his balance every month. His credit report, unenlightening. He paid all his bills on time, but only had an average credit score. He probably didn’t have enough credit. Only in America. He didn’t owe anyone any money as far as we can tell, and he didn’t gamble.”
“Do you think someone killed him for his political views?”
“Possibly. During my research I also discovered”—he got up, searched through a stack, and handed her a file—“this. In 1984, members of a white nationalist group killed a Jewish, liberal radio talk-show host in Denver, Colorado. So, yes, it’s possible.”
Jade read the article and the police report. “Anything on LeBlanc’s computer? Phone records?”
“Nothing on the hard drive. Checked out his Twitter and Facebook accounts. Some followers disagreed with his viewpoint, but most comments were benign. He didn’t use his home phone much. We found the ex-girlfriend through his cell. A graduate of LSU, she’d been with the paper only a few months before she and LeBlanc started dating.”
“But she was at The Wine Shoppe that night.”
“Yes, but they weren’t together. She saw LeBlanc talking to some guy at the bar. Didn’t introduce her. She said LeBlanc and the guy were in a heated discussion.”
“An argument?”
“No. More like a debate. She thought it had something to do with LeBlanc’s work.”
“Did she give a description?”
“She believed he had brown hair, but the bar was dark. And, oh, he was kind of cute.”
Jade rolled her eyes. “Any way she could’ve been involved?”
“We didn’t think so. We checked her out. She was pretty shaken up by his death.”
“What time did LeBlanc and this guy leave the bar?”
“Eleven thirty.”
“Consistent with the time of death.”
“I tried everything. Even asked for the public’s help through pleas on television, radio, and billboards throughout Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Nothing.”
It looked to Jade like the case still ate away at him.
They spent the rest of the afternoon reviewing every file and photo in detail and brainstorming ideas. Later, he leaned back in his chair and gave her a tired smile. “I’d better be getting you to the airport. Oh, before you go, let me check on that speech for you. The one playing in his condo when we found him.”
She gathered her things while he rummaged through his files.
“Here it is,” he said.
She stopped and eyed him, expectant.
He returned her stare and shrugged. “Income inequality.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Bethesda, Maryland
The DC area doesn’t enjoy many perfect-weather days, with winter sometimes switching to summer with only a brief touch of spring. Today, however, was one of them. The sound of what seemed like hundreds of happy, laughing kids running around filled the air. A soccer ball was kicked down the field, chased by twelve kids, six from each team. The coaches on both sides yelled “Spacing!” to no avail.
Cole Brennan loved the crisp scent of recently mown grass. He stood on the sidelines with his wife, Ashley, and a few of their children watching their son, Ryan, play. Blond hair flying, Ryan sported a huge smile on his face. Cole’s heart filled with love and pride as he gazed upon his son. Cole envied him. To be innocent and carefree. When the worst thing in the world that could happen to you was that no one passed you the ball or you didn’t score a goal. Much preferable to having the fate of your country’s future weighing on your mind. He glanced at his wife, reached for her hand, and turned back to the game.
Hannah, the best player on the team, sent a perfect pass down the left side of the field. Ryan sprinted his little heart out to arrive first, slowing as he approached the ball. He dribbled it toward the opponent’s goal.
Cole dropped Ashley’s hand and cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Go, Ryan! Go! Go! Go!”
Cole wanted to run down the sidelines along with his son as other fathers did.
Ryan shifted the ball to his strong foot. He was now one-on-one
with the goalie. He reared back his right foot and shot the ball with all the power he had, almost falling down in the process. The ball veered to the right, missing the goal by ten yards.
Cole’s heart fell as Ryan shuffled back up the field, his head down.
“That’s all right, Ryan! You’ll score next time! Keep your head up!”
The game ended a few minutes later. Cole was grateful these games were short. Ryan wouldn’t miss another shot and Cole would be able to sit down soon. He was not accustomed to standing for long periods of time.
“Dad?”
Cole tore his gaze away from his son to find his daughter, Kaitlin, staring at him with the look she had been giving him on a regular basis as of late.
“Yes?”
“Some kids at school were talking about you again today.”
“Don’t they have anything better to do?”
“They said you don’t have a heart.”
“They’re wrong, sweetheart. I do have a heart. It’s just not a bleeding heart.”
Cole’s high-pitched giggle faded away when Kaitlin’s expression didn’t change. He stole a quick glance at Ashley, but before he could say anything else, Ryan ran to where they stood.
Cole mussed Ryan’s hair.
“Good game, Champ.”
Ryan beamed, remnants from the post-game strawberry juice box forming a red circle around his lips.
“Thanks, Dad. I almost scored!”
“Yes, you almost did, son.”
Cole and Ashley sauntered toward the parking lot, Ryan between them, and the other children a few steps behind. None of the other players’ parents had said “hello” when they arrived or spoke to them during the game. He had picked up on the furtive glances. Maybe even dirty looks, he couldn’t be sure.
That is what I get for living in a liberal city. Now, these people are poisoning my daughter with their liberal way of thinking. We need to move.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Washington, DC
Whitney spent the afternoon in her office reviewing briefing books and pending legislation. A little after seven p.m., Landon knocked on her open door and stood in the doorway.
She affixed her signature to the document she had just read and looked up him. “How is the reading going?”
