I got to my knees and then heaved myself up. The room looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever been in it before. The woman looked familiar, too, but somehow I didn’t think we were lovers.
I reached into my back pocket and brought out my wallet. I stared down at the driver’s license and the PI’s license and the Orleans Parish special deputy’s commission that allowed me to carry firearms.
And slowly it all drifted back.
I had been looking through the window and somebody had dropped a load of concrete on my head. Then they had dragged me into this room. But why?
I went over to Cora Thorpe and felt her pulse. It was regular and she was snoring. So her male companion had slipped her a barbiturate. But he couldn’t have been the one who’d slugged me. Where was he? Had he heard the commotion and left?
I took a deep breath and started around the sofa and stopped. A pair of legs were sticking out and when I went around to the other side I had at least one of my questions answered: He hadn’t gone anywhere.
He lay face-up, his arms flung to the side and his silk shirt open to the navel, revealing his muscular chest. It struck me as a pose but I realized it wasn’t, because he wasn’t breathing. There was a small red hole about two inches below his gold neck chain and the blood around the hole was already clotting. I reached down and fished the wallet out of his pocket. His name was Claude St. Romaine, a name I’d heard somewhere before, and he had an address on the New Orleans side of the lake, near the yacht harbor. He had about every credit card known to the civilized world, as well as a wallet-sized colonel’s commission on the governor’s staff and a business card from a well-known brokerage firm. I checked his front pockets and found a roll of hundred-dollar bills in a money clip and a vial containing several types of pills. I identified Quaaludes and amphetamines, but there were several other ones that appeared to be homemade.
I put his things back in his pockets and started back around the sofa. As I did, my foot kicked something and I looked down.
It was a .25 Beretta, the kind of pistol ladies carry, not especially deadly unless you’re within three feet of your target. Which meant St. Romaine had been shot up close.
My watch said I had been out no more than twenty minutes, so whoever was responsible had had plenty of time to leave. And, I thought, as tires crunched the gravel outside and lights flashed into the room, time to return.
I picked up the pistol, because a .25 was better than a Hail Mary, and backed toward the rear door. But before I got there it opened and somebody told me to drop the gun.
The cavalry had arrived.
10
By two in the morning we had been through the routine twice, two St. Tammany sheriff’s deputies playing the good guy and the sadist, and I had already used up my quota of adrenaline. They were getting irked, because I had dragged them out of bed, making them go all the way from Covington to Mandeville in the middle of the night, and, as they kept reminding me, Claude St. Romaine was from a very well-connected family. I got the feeling they were hoping somebody would blink long enough for one of them to sneak in a rabbit punch. They were probably decent-enough men, but they didn’t like deadbeats and they’d exhausted their patience during the daylight hours.
So I was especially glad when the interrogation-room door opened and I saw John O’Rourke behind the uniformed sergeant, a pained look on his face.
The detectives left, resigned to the due process of law, and a sleepy O’Rourke took a seat that until moments before had been occupied by one of my inquisitors.
“Micah, what the hell have you gotten yourself into? You know what it’s like to have to take that causeway at two A.M.? Covington’s a nice town, but not at this hour.”
“Probably about like getting hit in the head with a sandbag,” I told him.
He squinted and touched my wound. I flinched.
“Have they taken you to the hospital?”
“Are you kidding?”
He shook his head, tisking to himself. “We’ve got them there. You’re entitled to immediate medical treatment.”
“It’ll wait. Right now I just want to get the hell out of here.”
O’Rourke shook his head sadly. “You really are an optimist. These guys are already measuring you for the chair.”
“Is this the same John O’Rourke who once plastered an FBI agent and got away with it?”
“That was different. They were too embarrassed to pursue it. With this, nobody’s embarrassed about anything. They have you at the murder scene and the gun was in your hand.”
“The residue test won’t bear up,” I protested. “It’ll show I never fired the gun.”
“Doubtless,” O’Rourke agreed. “But you could die in jail before they get the results. Which, as you know, are not always conclusive.”
He rested his chin on his hand and gave me a hound-dog look. “What the hell were you doing there, anyway?”
I told him how I’d followed Cora Thorpe and how I had seen the blond man drugging her drink just before I’d been slugged.
“What does she have to say about it all, by the way?” I asked.
“They pumped her stomach and they’re doing an analysis now. She’s apparently hysterical and they can’t get much besides gibberish out of her. Of course, they’ll force-feed her questions and answers and write down what she parrots back, but I think I can have her testimony thrown out if it comes to that. At least I hope so.”
“So do I. Who was this St. Romaine, anyway?” I asked. “I know the name from someplace.”
“You should,” O’Rourke commented. “He was the son of Jules St. Romaine, who owns the Velmark Building, about fifty oil wells, and some change. Big supporter of the Cultural Center, by the way.”
“Of course. Cobbett told me St. Romaine, Senior, was at the party the night Leeds was killed, but Junior wasn’t there.”
“Well, Claude was never quite up to his father’s hatband size, if you get my meaning. Spent all his time on fast cars and faster women, of whom Cora was undoubtedly one. Kept this vacation cabin over here for his girlfriends. He was known to like nose candy, too, from what I could gather from the few people that were awake at this hour, but nothing was ever proved and the boys over here were happy not to look too hard, since the family owns half the land in the parish. Now his old man is outside yelling for the blood of whoever did it, and the sheriff is looking at a marked decline in his campaign war chest if he doesn’t oblige. The way they’re trying to make it, Micah, you took a contract from a jealous husband. The proof that he’s capable of such is evidenced by the fact that he’s in jail for murder himself right now.”
“I guess I hit myself on the head,” I said.
“No. You and Claude had a fight and he got one in. I know it’s improbable—the back of your head and all, and none of it’ll stand up in court, but what I’m trying to tell you is that you don’t stand a chance with these guys. It’ll have to be at the DA’s level. As an attorney he’ll appreciate the weakness in their case. I hope.”
“How cheering.”
He yawned. “It’s hard to be cheerful about anything at this hour. And besides, my stomach doesn’t feel good. That place they touted in the Picayune? The muffalettas are awful.”
“I have a feeling they’re better than what I’m going to get here.”
“You want it? I think I still got half of it in the car.” He got up. “Anyway, first thing is to get your head looked at. Second is for me to talk to the DA. But not now; he won’t be very amenable if I wake him up. Can you hold out for five or six hours?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He smiled grimly. “I’m glad you see it my way.” He started out and then turned around. “By the way, I guess you know this introduces complications in the case.”
“Tell me.”
“No, I mean about my role. If it comes down to you versus Thorpe, I’ll have to choose. And if I don’t represent him, I may not be able to represent you, because of the privilege
between Thorpe and me.”
And on that note he left.
They took me to the hospital and a somewhat distant nurse dressed my head. The duty intern looked in my eyes and asked if I was having trouble with my vision. When I said no he gave me two aspirins, signed something, and they took me back to jail.
This time, thankfully, they left me alone and I curled up on the bunk, the only person in the cell. I’d slept in worse places, despite the Lysol smell and the snoring of another prisoner down the corridor, and I had confidence in O’Rourke’s ability to spring me, but the thought of the bars and the armed deputy outside was not conducive to rest.
I closed my eyes. I kept seeing Claude St. Romaine turning away from the hysterical Cora and dropping that little pill in her drink. And I kept wondering why. What threat did I represent to either of them? Or was I looking at it the wrong way? Was I just a convenient dupe in a plan to get rid of Cora’s boyfriend? If I had not come on the scene, what would have happened? Would the pistol have wound up in her hand? What did St. Romaine know that made him dangerous?
And somehow, as I lay staring up at the darkness, I found that I wasn’t thinking about St. Romaine at all. I was thinking about a lonely old sailor in a Charleston hospital. Damn it, why hadn’t I thought to ask O’Rourke to call him? And what if he found out I was in jail? What would that do to his chances for recovery?
I never got an answer because sometime around dawn I drifted off to sleep and, thankfully, I did not dream.
It was just after ten when the two detectives came again and this time they were disconcertingly cheerful for men who had lost most of a night’s sleep. It was only then that I realized they were taking me to be booked. I walked through the procedure in a daze, trying to remind myself that it was just their eagerness and that O’Rourke would straighten them out. But where the hell was he? Did he even know this was happening?
They took me back to my cell and left me after a few questions convinced them I wasn’t going to blurt out a confession. I lay down to sleep some more, but it was useless. Tableaux kept rushing through my mind: the half-forgotten lady who had been my mother; the Captain sailing a postcard ship; a rice paddy in Nam, and the eternity a split second after the explosion. At noon they brought me some red beans and rice and shoved another prisoner into the cell with me. He was a young man, perhaps thirty, with neatly cut brown hair, and I thought they were unnecessarily rough.
He sat down on one of the bunks and told me he was in for a petty narcotics violation and his old lady would have his bail inside of two hours. He asked what I was in for and I told him.
He commiserated and said he’d be glad to look up anybody I wanted when he got out; that he hated the chicken-shit cops on this side of the lake, they were all bully boys and fifth-grade dropouts. He said if I’d killed somebody it was probably self-defense anyway, and he waited for me to elaborate.
When I didn’t he asked a few more questions about the crime itself, as if it were the most interesting thing he’d ever heard, and when I gave back vague answers he seemed to get frustrated. By one-thirty, when O’Rourke came, I was tired of my new friend and wished his colleagues would put him back in uniform, where he could do more good with a radar gun on I-12.
I started to complain to O’Rourke but when I saw his face I knew better. It was even longer than usual and when he pounded the chair with his fist I knew things hadn’t gone well.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “The DA over here doesn’t believe in professional courtesy?”
“I wouldn’t be joking if I were in your place,” he said. “The bastards are adamant. They’re talking Murder One with aggravating circumstances. You know what that means in this state.”
“I’ll watch where I sit down,” I said, but it didn’t sound funny even to me. “Look, you know I didn’t do it.”
“I know it, but I also know there are things you haven’t told me. So come clean.”
I managed a smile and nodded. “Ever hear of a colleague at the bar named Oswaldo Ordaz?”
O’Rourke scratched his head. “There are eight million lawyers in the naked city. Still, the name rings a bell.”
I told him about my experience with the Cuban and the jade artifact.
“Do you believe him about why he wants it?” O’Rourke asked.
“You mean that he wants to stay clear of the murder investigation?” I shrugged. “There may be something to it. But I don’t think that’s the whole truth. A man who’s scared of having his reputation blemished doesn’t go around kidnapping people off city streets and threatening them with mayhem. I think the jade has some other value, but what it is I don’t know.”
We lapsed into silence and I found my eyes wandering to the green walls and then back again to my friend. “Okay, John. Do what you can.”
“I will.” He slapped my shoulder. “Believe me. But it may take some time. There’ll be a preliminary hearing Monday and after that the case will go to the grand jury.”
“Since grand juries are mouthpieces for prosecutors, that doesn’t sound very good.”
“No.” He frowned. “If it gets that far, I think you can assume an indictment.” He raised his hands expressively. “But, Micah, I can’t in a million years see you getting convicted. Even if I have to drop off the case.”
“I don’t want to find out,” I said quietly, getting up.
“Me either.” We shook hands. “Is there anybody you want me to call?”
“Yes.” I gave him the Captain’s room number and the name of the hospital. “Don’t tell him where I am. Just tell him I’m out of pocket and I asked you to see how he was. He may talk to you.”
I watched him leave, resigning myself to the course of events. I had another round with the two detectives, but they were only going through the motions, because by now they knew I wasn’t about to break. They even seemed to have forgotten their roles, because the one who’d been the good guy yesterday kept telling me about the last convict they’d executed at Angola and how the news stories never gave the full picture. He let me have a step-by-step account, and though my yawn in the middle of it threw him off his stride, I had to admit to myself he’d scored. Of course O’Rourke would find a way to get me free. He was a good lawyer. He could dredge up precedents that had lain forgotten for a century and he could make juries cry. At least, that’s what I told myself. But there had been something in his manner that bothered me, as if he weren’t too sure himself.
Fatigue, I told myself. He’d driven across the causeway in the middle of the night and then come back again a few hours later. Besides, I was his friend and it was natural for him to be worried. But still I didn’t like it.
I fell back onto my bunk, at first oblivious to my cellmate. But I didn’t stay oblivious for long. He started on another tack. This time he told me how he’d been roughed up and showed me a bruise to prove it. I wondered what it had taken for him to allow one of his friends to punch him in the jaw. He let me know that somebody accused of murder could expect a lot worse. It wasn’t very subtle, but I had to give them credit for trying.
I lay back and some more tableaux went through my mind. Now I saw O’Rourke, bringing me back ten years ago when I’d been down and out, giving me a chance because he had a gut feeling I’d work out. I drifted to thoughts of Thorpe, in his own cell now. What had he been told about what had happened on this side of the lake? I smiled grimly to myself; maybe he’d been right to dump me in the first place. I couldn’t help either one of us in jail.
Then I thought about the fat museologist, Cobbett. He knew more than he was telling, but he’d taken off as soon as things had gotten hot. It was Friday afternoon now, and he had made sure he wouldn’t be back until Sunday.
And I thought about Sandy and the little jade object that I’d given her wrapped in a piece of newspaper. I hoped she would stay away an extra few days.
I tossed and turned all night. My companion had given up with his questions. His strategy now was to try to keep me awak
e. He paced, he hawked, he rattled the bars until the jailer appeared and made a great show of threatening him. I turned on my side to face the wall but it didn’t do much good.
I tried to block it all out, the way I had when I was in the hospital, and it helped. I woke up Saturday morning feeling like I’d gotten a solid three hours of sleep.
O’Rourke came at nine-thirty. “I called the hospital. Your father had gone home. They weren’t happy at all. I tried his number but the line was always busy.”
“I have to get out of here.”
I watched his jaw muscles tighten. “Micah, I’m working on it. But it’ll take time.”
I got up to pace the room, regretting for once that I’d given up cigarettes. “John, I can’t do anything in here. The answers are outside. The answers are with that piece of jade. I have to get out where I can find them.”
“What can I say except to advise you as your attorney, which won’t cut any ice, I know. So I’ll advise you as your friend. Let me handle it.”
“But you’ve already told me you’ll probably have to drop out because of conflict of interest.” I shook my head. “You’re a fine lawyer, John. The best there is. That’s why I don’t plead cases. I only do investigations.”
O’Rourke unwound himself from the chair. “Okay, okay.”
I thanked him and let them shepherd me back to my cell, a broken man. Even the deputies noticed the change and I thought I caught smirks of satisfaction on their faces when they thought I wasn’t looking. My cellmate even perked up.
“Looks like you got some bad news,” he said.
I ignored him, crawling onto my bunk and turning my face to the cold wall.
There wasn’t much O’Rourke could do. Once he’d been a protest lawyer and had risked disbarment with his anti-war activities. He was taking a big chance now, advising two clients whose cases might well conflict. I knew it wouldn’t be fair to put him in a worse position.
I reviewed my options and kept getting the same answer, so I closed my eyes and willed the time to pass. It was a long night.
The Maya Stone Murders Page 10
