Upside Down

by John Ramsey Miller

  “Do you know why?”

  “Because I didn't interpret the evidence so that it pointed to the captain's conclusion.”

  “Which was?”

  “That Faith Ann Porter murdered her mother and Amber Lee. Believe me, it didn't seem to point that way at the time, but it seems to be fitting nicely now. A bit too nicely.”

  Winter listened as Manseur went over the evidence that pointed toward Faith Ann's guilt. Manseur told the two men what he knew about Amber's connection to Jerry Bennett and what Bennett's value to the city administration and the police department was.

  “This Bennett a crook?” Nicky asked.

  “He is a slippery but tough businessman for sure, and a little eccentric—a virtue in New Orleans. I understand that he worked hard for everything he has. He built the Buddy's Fried Chicken franchise from scratch, sold it for a bundle, and he still gets a million dollars a year as a consultant for like twenty years, and he furnishes them the special sauces through another company.”

  “But do you think he might be involved in the killings?” Winter asked.

  “All I know is that Bennett accused Amber of embezzlement and swore out a warrant after she'd been his special friend for years.”

  “But why would Kimberly Porter handle a case of embezzlement?” Nicky asked.

  Winter said, “I thought her practice these days was strictly appeals for death penalty cases. That was her area of expertise.”

  “As far as I could tell from her papers, Porter was focusing strictly on capital cases. Her assistant told me that there was a woman who'd called the office and claimed to have proof that one of the men on death row was innocent. If Kimberly knew which inmate, she didn't tell her assistant. It is possible that Amber Lee had that information and that might be why they were both killed. Amber might have had information on any of the eleven guys on death row Porter represented.”

  “What did Suggs say when you told him that Kimberly was Millie Trammel's sister?”

  Manseur exhaled loudly. “I didn't tell him. I couldn't risk him handing the case to the detectives he already gave the Porter one to. I'm pretty sure he wants to control the Porter case, and if he believes they're connected he sure as hell won't want me running this one into that one.”

  “You think whoever killed Kimberly ran the Trammels over?”

  “Don't you?” Manseur asked bluntly.

  “Of course I do. But what I think isn't proof. Faith Ann telephoned my son the afternoon Kimberly was shot. She was trying to find Hank and Millie. Sean told her that they were staying at a guesthouse near Audubon Park, but not which one.”

  “She found it,” Manseur said grimly. “And the clerk there told her where they went to eat. I believe she saw the hit-and-run, because people saw her there. A doctor on the scene said she had on a yellow poncho and she seemed upset.” He looked at Nicky. “Did you see Faith Ann there?”

  “I saw a kid in a yellow slicker,” Nicky admitted. “It could have been her. Might be I just think it is, now that I've seen a picture of her.”

  “I am sure it was her,” Manseur said. “I put in my notes only that there was a child in a slicker who went to both the guesthouse and the scene of the hit-and-run, and perhaps she might be related to the Trammels. The doctor on the scene thought the child was male. The clerk swore it was a girl, but he didn't get her name.”

  “Where's your investigation now?” Winter asked.

  “A fisherman found the Rover, which was stolen from a long-term lot at the airport. There was a body in it that someone tried their best to burn. Fortunately they pushed it into a shallow bayou. I'm hoping they miscalculated how long or how hot the fire needed to be to completely destroy identifiable features. I'm betting it's either a hired killer, who was killed to make sure his employer never got identified, or the killer did in his accomplice for the same reason, or maybe so he wouldn't have to split the fee. I'm hoping the medical examiner can help me figure out whose body it is.”

  “You thinking Bennett might have hired it done?” Winter asked quietly.

  Manseur shrugged. “I have no reason to talk to Jerry Bennett on the Trammel case. But there's no reason you can't ask questions about either case. Bennett's office is at the River Club, and he's there most of the time. Lives in an apartment on the second floor, and also out on the lakefront in a luxury boathouse.”

  Winter said, “If I talked to this Bennett, he might tell someone on the force about it, and Suggs could have the connection between the two cases. Of course, if Suggs did make the connection through Bennett . . .”

  “Which I think is about the only way he could at this point,” Manseur said, smiling. “I can tell Captain Suggs it's all news to me,” he said. “And he can't prove any differently unless you tell him. If he takes me off the Trammel case, I'll know for sure he's dirty and that Bennett is calling the shots.”

  “In which case?” Winter said.

  “You could interest the media in both cases. Hand them the right questions to ask. I seriously doubt Bennett owns the media.”

  “They sure love to get into the mud,” Nicky said.

  Winter smiled. “I like the way you think, Detective. Nicky and I will try to find Faith Ann first. You know why she might be hiding from you?”

  Manseur shrugged. “If she has a reason, it might be due to something she saw or heard in the office. She was definitely there around the time her mother was killed. I think she saw it. Suggs thinks she did it. The murder weapon was found in a hamper with her clothes along with the four spent cases. I don't know how the weapon got there, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that it was planted there by the real killer. I had a patrol unit at the Porter house as soon as I could get one there. Faith Ann was already gone. As far as I know the patrolmen were there until the detectives took over the scene. The detectives found the weapon.”

  “You think the detectives could have planted the gun?” Winter asked.

  “I suppose it's possible the killer beat us there and did it. Or maybe he dropped it at the crime scene, and the girl picked it up. It doesn't mean she used it. Who knows what a twelve-year-old thinks.”

  Manseur reached into his pocket and removed a clear plastic evidence bag. “One more thing that might be significant,” he said. “I found this in Hank Trammel's hatband. The hat was under a truck.”

  “What is it?” Winter said as he reached for the bag.

  “It's some sort of a spy bug,” Nicky said.

  “Looks like it.” Winter nodded. “Why would this be in Hank's hatband?”

  “I've seen some small ones,” Nicky said, “but that critter there sets a new record for compactness. I doubt it has much range.”

  “I'm going to have it looked at by a friend who's in the electronics business and see what it's capable of doing. Sometimes he lets me borrow sophisticated devices that the NOPD can't afford.”

  Manseur pocketed the plastic bag, stood abruptly, and started for the door.

  “I appreciate the information,” Winter said. “More than I can tell you.”

  “Based on your reputation as a man who isn't afraid of facing Goliaths, I believe that confiding in you is the right choice—perhaps Faith Ann Porter's only chance of getting cleared. Be careful, Massey. Whoever we're dealing with here won't hesitate to give me more work.”

  39

  When Captain Harvey Suggs's private line rang, he was clipping his fingernails. He let it ring three times because that was how long it took him to complete the work on his right hand. He lifted the receiver and grunted into it. “Uh-huh.”

  “It's J.B.,” the familiar voice said.

  Suggs straightened and swept the nail crescents from his lap. He checked the space outside his office door to make sure nobody was within hearing range. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can do what you are supposed to do, Harvey.”

  “I'm handling that,” Suggs said, trying not to sound irritated, which he was.

  “My employees asked me abou
t a cell phone.”

  “A cell phone?”

  “One registered to the Porter woman. You see, if the phone wasn't at the office, it might still be in family hands.”

  Suggs furrowed his brow, thinking. “We're already running all the phone records. I'll get on the cell trace.”

  “Would you?” Jerry Bennett's voice had taken on a decidedly hard edge. “She had one. Everybody has one. For Christ's sake, Suggs, what are you doing on this, twiddling your fat thumbs?”

  “Just a minute,” Suggs said. He picked up another phone and dialed Tinnerino's cell phone.

  “Yeah,” Tinnerino answered.

  “Porter's cell phone. You find one?”

  “No,” the detective said.

  “Did she have one?”

  “Matter of fact . . . I don't know.” There was a short pause while he asked. “Chief, Doyle says there were bills for one.”

  “Have you gotten a list of the calls to and from all of her phones?”

  “We're on that now,” Tinnerino said, obviously lying.

  “You'd better be. I want that cell phone number ASAP.”

  Suggs disconnected the line and picked up the one where Jerry Bennett was waiting. “Porter has a cell phone, and it isn't accounted for.”

  “Well,” Bennett said, “if I were you, I'd put a trace on that phone and I'd figure out how to pinpoint its location. You can do that, can't you?”

  “Track it? Yes, of course we can do that.”

  “She might be using it. Harvey, don't expect me to do your job for you. Let me know as soon as you get a fix on that phone. And my people will handle the pickup.”

  “Of course I'll do what I can—”

  “You understand how important it is for your people to keep my people in the loop?”

  “She'll use the thing and we'll get a fix on her location.”

  “I know that, Harvey!” Bennett snapped. “I watch television. If I were you, I absolutely would not disappoint me.”

  40

  Winter rode in the passenger seat of his rented Dodge Stratus, thinking as Nicky drove up St. Charles Avenue.

  Other than what Nicky Green and Manseur had told him, Winter had no information to go on. Until there was evidence to the contrary, he had to assume that Faith Ann was alive and in hiding and that she had a good reason for not seeking out the police. He could accept that either Faith Ann knew, or believed, that there were cops involved in the death of her mother. Maybe she was correct. At any rate, it was her perception that mattered, not what the facts were. She was only twelve years old. If there was corrupt police involvement, then Faith Ann was in danger if the cops did find her. That would certainly explain why Suggs wanted her declared the suspect in the double homicide. The public would assume she was guilty—just another killer child, the stuff of adult nightmares. And if such a killer dies during apprehension, who's going to look too closely?

  For the present, Hank was beyond his help. Winter's priority was to find Hank's niece and make sure the child was safe.

  Winter trusted Nicky Green because Nicky and Hank were close friends and Hank's judgment of people was accurate. Nicky was also a professional, even though he was a strange-looking one.

  Winter didn't know Detective Manseur, and he had no idea if the detective's actual reasons for not telling his chief about the connections between the two cases were what he claimed. But Winter did believe their interests—when it came to Faith Ann Porter—did in fact coincide. It wasn't relevant to Winter yet whether Manseur's prime objective was to find Kimberly's real killer. Maybe he wanted to prove Faith Ann's innocence, or maybe Manseur needed to prove he had been taken off of the Porter case for “dirty” political reasons—not because he actually wasn't competent to handle it.

  Winter was taking a chance. He desperately needed Manseur's help as a navigator—without it he had nothing at all to go on and no way to see inside the investigation. But he wanted to make sure he had exhausted his options before he put Manseur in Suggs's sights.

  There was one person who might know something that would be of help. He dialed his home number. Sean answered, and he told her in detail what he had learned.

  “So I need for you to talk to Rush,” he concluded. “Explain this to him and ask him to think hard and try to remember if Faith Ann ever told him about any of her favorite places or named any close friends here in New Orleans. Call me back with anything. Anything at all.” Winter hung up the phone.

  “We've got company,” Nicky announced, glancing in the mirror. “Two cars back.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely. He was parked outside the hotel when I went out to my car for my gear. His car was one back from me. When I looked back at him, he turned his head.”

  “Lose him,” Winter said. “Let's see how good he is.”

  “Belts on, ladies and gentlemen.” Nicky jerked the wheel at the next cross-street without signaling. His tires squealed, and the oncoming car he cut off honked in furious protest. Nicky completed the U, took a swift right, and floored it. He was an amazingly skillful driver. He coordinated the wheels, the accelerator, and the brakes effortlessly, and the sure-footed car moved as though it was on tracks.

  “You know,” he said, “with a few tweaks here and there, some minor work on the suspension, this wouldn't be a bad car. It ain't no Caddy, but it ain't bad.” He tilted back his cowboy hat and looked in the rearview. “Mission accomplished. Our tail is gone.”

  “Why did Manseur have us tailed?”

  “Manseur?”

  “Who else knows we're around?”

  When Nicky slowed for the next light, something touched their bumper.

  “Jesus Christ,” Nicky murmured, looking back.

  Winter turned in his seat and saw that the car they thought they had lost now had its front bumper resting against their rear end. The driver, a man with a crew cut, relaxed his grip on the wheel enough to wave his fingers.

  “He looks like a cop,” Nicky told Winter.

  “Pull over,” Winter replied. “Let's see what the deal is.”

  Nicky pulled into the parking lot of a bicycle store. The sedan parked so that the driver was shoulder to shoulder with Winter, four feet away.

  Winter zipped down his window. The driver did the same.

  “Hi there,” Winter said pleasantly. “Is there something we can do for you?”

  The driver turned and stared at him. “Maybe there's something I can do for you.”

  “Like what?”

  “I could tell you why Roy Rogers there didn't shake me.”

  “Okay.”

  The driver held up a laptop computer. On the screen was a blinking dot positioned on a street grid. “I put a C-2 Tracker behind your visor.”

  Winter flipped down the visor and unpinned the dime-size disc with a smiley-face decal stuck on it.

  The driver raised his hand above the window, and the badge case in his hand fell open. “Special Agent John Everett Adams,” he said. “Maybe we should sit down and talk.”

  Except for his eyes, which were light blue, Adams's features were almost bland. The FBI agent's closely cropped hair was light brown, and his fingernails were clipped so the ends appeared to be uniform in the amount of edge showing. His teeth were bright and so perfect that Winter wondered if they had been veneered.

  “About?” Winter asked, handing Adams back the tracker.

  “We could talk about anything you'd like. Sports? I'm a Redskins fan. Games? I play checkers and shoot pool. Or we could talk about Hank and Millie Trammel. You guys hungry?”

  “I could eat something,” Winter said.

  “Follow me,” Adams said. He backed up and pulled into traffic. Three blocks later he turned into a diner parking lot and got out of his car. Winter and Nicky did so too.

  “You like omelets?” Adams asked. “This place looks like shit, but the omelets are to die for.”

  Winter wondered if it was possible that the health department had not been informed of
the existence of the diner. The space was long and narrow with booths along the left wall and stools at the long counter, behind which food was grilled in plain sight of the customers. The putty-colored paint on the walls and ceiling had been dulled years ago by airborne grease, and the floor tiles were stained and chipped. The three men took seats at the first booth, Winter and Nicky facing Adams, who kept his back to the door. They sat silent until the waitress took their orders. Adams ordered a cheese and mushroom omelet, Winter asked for black coffee. Nicky ordered a hamburger, which bought a scowl from the woman.

  “Try a seafood po'boy,” Adams suggested.

  “I'd rather take my chances with red meat,” Green said. “Medium rare.”

  “State won't let us make ground beef but one way,” the woman muttered, walking away.

  “So, what do you think of the place?” Adams asked. “It was recommended by a local agent when I was here a few years back. The seafood po'boys and omelets are the best in the world.”

  “Probably half the stuff they serve will kill you,” Nicky said. He put a napkin over a sticky spot on the table. “I hope that's syrup.”

  “Deputy Massey, I expect you're curious as to why I'm here.”

  “I'd love to hear that. And why you're wiretapping us.”

  “I'd like to know that too,” Nicky said.

  “Well, when my director got this last night, he had a conference with your director, and my director told him that a hit-and-run wasn't anything the FBI could officially investigate, but that for reasons known well to you, he'd take a look from the sidelines. My director dispatched me to watch out for you, knowing you might try to interfere, and if that was the case, to unofficially give you aid if that became necessary. If it turns out that the hit-and-run had roots to what you and Chief Deputy Trammel were involved in last year, I can insert myself officially, and if need be I can call in necessary assistance. I have two associate agents a couple of hours away.”

  “If the hit-and-run was related to the past, by which I assume you mean that fracas last year, what does Kimberly Porter's murder have do with it?” Nicky asked.