Upside Down

by John Ramsey Miller

  Suggs wasn't in the catbird seat, but neither was he dumb enough to be standing around at the bottom of the hill waiting to catch whatever rolled down.

  If he played this right, handled it himself, nobody could point a finger at him when Bennett vanished. He remembered the words of the famous Louisiana gangster Sam Manelli: “Three people can be trusted to keep a secret . . . if two of them are dead.”

  Manseur was going to have to cover a lot of ground before he could trace anything back to Bennett, which would be a dead end. The Feds had compiled a lot in a short time, but suspicion and proof were different animals. Suggs had never banked one dime of the money he'd gotten under the table from Bennett or anyone else. The waiter brought his scotch, interrupting Suggs's worried train of thought.

  “Ten minutes on the trout,” he said.

  “No hurry, Angelo. If you have any steak scraps . . .”

  “Of course, Captain Suggs. A bag for Heinzie.”

  When the door opened a minute after the waiter left, Arturo Estrada and his girlfriend, or wife, or whatever she was, came in.

  “What are you doing here?” Suggs demanded.

  “We need some information,” Arturo said.

  “Meeting is not a good idea.” Suggs was annoyed.

  “Mr. Bennett says you won't take his calls.”

  Marta made Suggs very nervous. The woman was remarkably beautiful, and that was part of it, but he knew that she was as cold and as proficient a killer as any creature Nature had ever designed. Her big brown eyes were like wet river stones, and when she stared at him he was sure she was reading his mind.

  “I can't talk to Bennett. Didn't Tin Man explain that?”

  “Tin Man doesn't have the gift of explaining things,” the woman said. “He is a dumb son of a bitch, who sees only his own small part of things. He mentioned two federal officers showed up to make trouble. Tin Man told Mr. Bennett that you put someone else in charge of the lawyer's and Amber Lee's deaths. Mr. Bennett isn't sure this is a good thing. He is a little bit nervous. He liked it better the way it was.”

  “Mr. Bennett doesn't get to decide how things are done. The Feds are all over this now. I had no choice. They know certain things that they shouldn't know. Remind Jerry that I had it all under control until that little hit-and-run. You shouldn't have run over the deputy marshal and his wife.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marta asked. “What deputy and his wife?”

  “Uptown last night is what I mean. Your stupid hit-and-run brought in the FBI and Deputy U.S. Marshal Winter Massey. It turns out that Deputy Trammel and his wife were related to Kimberly and Faith Ann Porter. And the child was a close friend of Massey's son. She called the son and told him that cops killed her mother. That was how the Feds showed up at Canal Place.”

  “Cops?” Arturo said. “How did she think that? I knew she wasn't in her mother's office.”

  “The Winter Massey?” Marta asked, smiling.

  “Tell Jerry I can't talk to him about this or anything else for a while.” When Suggs said that, he had it all. His mind played out the scenario, ending with patting down the dirt over Bennett's grave. “Tell him that I have to talk to him face-to-face. Tell him to make sure he doesn't have a tail. Tell him to meet me at his lake house tonight at ten.”

  “Tell me more about the Feds,” Marta said. “Winter Massey.”

  “Winter Massey is about the worst possible man to have on your ass. Ask Sam Manelli about it.”

  Marta nodded impassively. “What else?”

  “What do you mean, what else?”

  “Tell me everything you know about Massey and the agent. Where they are staying, what weapons they have, how they communicate. Everything.”

  “Why?” Suggs said.

  “Because I asked,” she said.

  It didn't take long for Suggs to tell the killers everything he knew about Massey and the FBI agent.

  Marta said, locking eyes with Suggs, “Sometimes I wonder about things. Like why would the spying FBI agents all stay out of sight after Agent Adams told you about them watching? And I wonder why you would have Mr. Bennett go all the way out to the boathouse when you could meet closer?”

  “Sometimes I wonder about things too,” Suggs shot back. “Like what has Bennett done to get rid of any incriminating evidence? He did tell you that the Feds came to ask him questions? He must have told you that he didn't do very well in the interview. He mentioned my name to them. I am sure he would never give them your names.”

  Marta held Suggs's eyes for a long time. Icily, she smiled. “Maybe near the lake is the safest place for Mr. Bennett to meet you. We should all be thinking about our safety. And our futures.”

  “Maybe we'll see each other again real soon,” Suggs said. “I like the way you”—he tilted his glass to her in salute—“think.”

  80

  Winter and Adams went straight to Charity Hospital while Nicky stopped by the hotel to give the clerk a letter Winter had written, and an envelope. The letter said that if a child came looking for him, the clerks were to give her the envelope. It contained his phone number and a key to the suite. Faith Ann hadn't known where he was staying, because Rush hadn't known when they talked. If she called back, Sean would send her to the hotel and call him. He chose the hospital because there was a chance that the girl might show up, knowing Hank was there.

  Winter was bothered by the amount of time that had passed without Faith Ann calling Rush. While he visited Hank in the ICU, Adams sat out in the waiting room, perhaps watching for the superkiller.

  The young doctor assured him that Hank was showing signs of improvement as measured by the phalanx of machines that were charged with deciding such things. “We unhooked the respirator because he's breathing on his own now. I think we are going to set the bones we can set tonight and start bringing him out of the coma after the procedure. I wouldn't be surprised if he regains consciousness during the night.”

  To Winter, his friend looked even worse than he had the last time he'd seen him. The facial swelling looked worse and Hank's skin, where it wasn't abraded or bruised, seemed to have turned to a light gray.

  Winter suddenly felt the weight of the hours of worry and stress settling on his shoulders. He was accustomed to long stretches without rest, and although he couldn't think about sleeping yet, he needed to eat something and fill himself up with hot coffee. When the doctor left him, Winter slumped in the chair beside Hank's bed, put his elbows on his knees, and closed his hands over his eyes. He thought about Sean, Rush, and the baby that would soon join his family.

  When Winter opened his eyes, Detective Manseur was in the room. The bags under the cop's eyes seemed to be larger and to have turned a darker brown in the two hours since Winter had last seen him.

  “How's he doing?” Manseur asked in a soft voice.

  “Doctor says much better,” Winter said. “I wish I could see it.”

  81

  “In the city with the finest restaurants on earth we're eating in a hospital cafeteria,” Winter said. “So where do we stand.”

  “The transmitter I found in Trammel's Stetson,” Manseur said, “is an audio and positioning combination. My tech friend has never seen anything close to that size. Thinks it could be European. Probably a three-mile range. The body in the Rover had European dental work. That's about as far as I can go with that until we get I.D. on prints. I copied Interpol as well.”

  Winter didn't let on that the dental work or the bug's origin being European were of specific interest to him. It added credibility to Adams's story about a Russian assassin targeting Hank and Millie to lure Winter to New Orleans. If that wasn't true, the two crimes were just one very large coincidence.

  “I found out who the male half of the Latin couple was, without letting Suggs or Tinnerino know that I knew about them.” Manseur handed Winter a copy of a driver's license.

  “Arturo Pena Estrada. How'd you find him?”

  “There was no criminal record on the wo
man. But I ran her home and business addresses through the database and I got a separate hit on her home address. She owns the property. Estrada uses that address for everything, so he likely lives there.”

  “He's not a cop?”

  “A licensed private investigator, works out of the same address. He's in our files as a key consultant to the NOPD. In fact, despite his youth, he's been carried on the NOPD computer as a terrorism expert for three years.”

  “How are the two of them connected?” Winter asked.

  “With Bennett?”

  “To each other.”

  “She seems to be an antiques dealer. Seven years older. Could be married, lovers, business partners.” Manseur shrugged. “I've been going over Tinnerino's and Doyle's handwritten notes. They said they've been typing up a report as they went, but when they tried to retrieve it, it wasn't there.”

  “The old dog-ate-my-homework excuse.”

  “They obviously intended to write a report after they knew what had to be in it,” Manseur said. “They aren't much, but they are survivors.”

  “So let's talk about motives,” Winter said.

  “Porter/Lee or Trammels?” Manseur wondered.

  “Trammels' hit-and-run might not be connected,” Winter said.

  “They're connected,” Manseur said. “Both were professional hits. Porter/Lee was a silenced weapon, tight grouping, killer cool as a mint julep. Look at the sophisticated bug in the hat. The Rover corpse's old injuries and the European dental work, and the way he was killed. I don't see two separate pros doing this. The Trammel hit-and-run was planned, and so were the Porter/Lee hits. Faith Ann at both scenes . . .”

  The Styer information presented a problem because Winter couldn't explain it to Manseur without risking bringing out everything Adams had told him. He would have to go into things that were not ever supposed to be talked about, because the authors of the weasel deals that made it possible—all cosigners being powerful and some certainly dangerous—wouldn't let them be known. It was bad enough that Nicky knew, but he trusted Nicky to keep it a secret.

  “Any link to what happened to Hank and Millie Trammel probably sprang from the kid being there,” Winter added automatically. “To get rid of the witness. Trammels were collateral damage.”

  Manseur nodded thoughtfully, sipped coffee. “Doesn't explain the bug in Trammel's hatband.”

  “You didn't tell me if Suggs was involved with the Pond case,” Winter said. “Was Tinnerino or Doyle?”

  “You mean the Williams case,” Manseur said, visibly stiffening in his chair. His features hardened. “Tinnerino and Doyle weren't. Suggs was the primary.”

  “Your reaction to the name Horace Pond makes me think you have some connection to him too. Did you get on scene first or something?”

  “Arnold and Beth Williams were close friends of mine. They lived near my parents. I mowed the judge's yard from the time I was ten until I went to college. They treated me as an equal, they introduced me to people, gave me advice. They were very dear people. If I could have gotten my hands on Pond the night he was picked up, we wouldn't be waiting for any execution.”

  “You believe he's guilty,” Winter said.

  Manseur burned Winter with a look of undistilled anger. “Pond violated Beth Williams with the barrel of his twelve-gauge, and he wasn't gentle. All the while Arnold, trussed up like a turkey, was forced to watch. Then Horace Pond blew their heads off.”

  “That's tragic,” Winter said solemnly. Kimberly Porter may have believed her client was innocent, but Manseur was going to resist helping to save Pond. “Look. Just for the sake of argument, let's say Pond didn't do it. Let's say Suggs made sure the evidence fit Pond. He had a record. So Pond was interrogated by Suggs and his partner. Anybody listen in?”

  “Billy Putnam was his partner. It was a closed interrogation.”

  “Recorded?”

  Manseur shook his head.

  “So no witnesses. That usually means creative interrogation techniques. How long did his interrogation last?”

  “Maybe twenty hours,” Manseur said. “I know what you're thinking, but the physical evidence was overwhelming. They found the weapon hidden where Pond said he put it. They lifted his fingerprints in the house and off the weapon. Fingerprints on the gun were made in their blood. A box of shells behind the seat in his truck matched the hulls from the scene, the firing-pin strike was a match.”

  “Could the blood have been added to the prints after they were collected? When you fake a bloody print you can't duplicate what a bloody finger does when it comes into contact with an object—how the blood relates to the lands and grooves. If the blood was added to an existing print that was lifted from somewhere else, they can tell that now. Years ago, they couldn't. You're a detective. You going to tell me you don't have the technical expertise to frame somebody?”

  “I could do it. That doesn't mean he was framed. He signed a confession.”

  “Bear with me. Suggs has a lot at stake if he and his partner framed Pond—even if they believed he was guilty, he might not be. They had the power to take an illiterate man with a record and tie it all up for the D.A. with the confession. The D.A.'s career gets a big bounce from the conviction that helps put him in the governor's chair. The D.A. certainly wanted Pond to pay for slaughtering a judge and his wife. Pond probably got a lawyer who didn't want the case but had to take it. I'd bet Pond's attorney didn't try very hard.”

  Manseur looked at his watch. “In four hours it will be a moot point. The trial was fair,” Manseur said. “I was there, I heard and saw it all.”

  “Define fair,” Winter demanded. “An illiterate black yardman with a criminal record who signs a confession to raping a woman with a shotgun while her judge husband looks on. Done with that, he then blows their lily-white heads off and goes to trial swearing he didn't do it—he was framed, he was deprived of sleep and didn't know what he signed was a confession. He testified and the D.A. ate him alive, tied him in knots. The media worked the community into a blood fury. Come on, Manseur, you should be shocked they didn't stick a needle in him on the spot.”

  “Debating this is a waste of time.”

  “Okay,” Winter said, spreading his hands. “We both know the profile is all wrong. It seems to me that the foreign-object rape and murders were carefully planned sadistic acts designed to make the Williamses suffer as much humiliation and pain as possible. The perp violated her to torture him. What do you imagine the judge did to Pond to make him hate him to that extent? Give him a chance to earn a living? The D.A. said the motive was robbery, right? Home invasion gone bad?”

  Manseur nodded.

  “You're a homicide detective. Does Pond really make sense? If he wasn't guilty and he was framed, it means somebody else did it. And that sadistic psychopath is probably still out there.”

  “How would Suggs know where the murder weapon was if Pond didn't tell him?”

  “Good question. Ask Suggs's partner.”

  “Putnam's been dead for six years. He retired right after the trial, and during the departmental cleanup he ate his gun. The M.E.'s report had his blood alcohol level at 2.6.”

  “Who found him?”

  “Putnam did it in a fishing cabin he and Suggs owned together. Suggs found him.”

  “So, if Pond didn't tell Suggs and Putnam where the shotgun was because he didn't know, who did? Someone Suggs knew and agreed to protect in return for something else?”

  “Okay,” Manseur said. “Like who?”

  “I'll cut through the tall grass,” Winter said. “Did Judge Williams ever do anything, personally or professionally, to piss off Jerry Bennett?”

  82

  Tinnerino had followed Detective Manseur from headquarters to Charity Hospital and watched as the detective parked near the FBI agent's car on the street. Five minutes later his cell rang.

  “What, Doyle?” Tinnerino said.

  “I'm at the hotel. There's some bald guy staying with Massey. I figure he's anot
her Fed, maybe undercover FBI working with Adams. Five minutes ago I spotted the bald agent driving Massey's car. He went in for maybe a minute and came back out. I'm trailing him toward downtown.”

  “Yeah, he's headed to Charity. There's a powwow shaping up here. I'm parked on Tulane. Just meet me here.”

  Ten minutes later the bald guy had parked near Manseur's car and waltzed into the hospital. While Doyle watched the building's entrance, Tinnerino used a flat bar to jimmy open Manseur's Impala. He planted a transmitter under the dashboard. They had to keep up with what the opposition was up to, and since they couldn't wire the detective or go inside the hospital, the car was the next best thing. Suggs had accessed Manseur's computer to see exactly what files he had been looking at. Suggs wasn't pleased with Manseur's snooping, but that was the extent of what Tinnerino knew about it. Tin Man hated Manseur, and anything he could do to fuck him up was fine with him. Doyle didn't care much one way or the other, but Tin Man's partner was always in for a penny, in for a dollar.

  Tin Man locked Manseur's door and, holding the jimmy bar inside his jacket, strode back to his car and got in. He drove a block away, parked, and after calling Doyle to tell him he succeeded, he put on the headset and waited for Manseur to get back to his car. Doyle was watching the entrance: he'd call when he saw Manseur.

  Tinnerino called Suggs's private number and brought him up to speed. “Chief,” Tinnerino said, “so we got three vehicles and there's two of us.”

  “Call in the Spics.”

  “You sure?”

  “Oh yes. Absolutely certain.”

  Tinnerino dialed the number.

  83

  Faith Ann lay in the darkness between the bags and cases, just about frozen from the wind washing over her. Nobody had told her that the thirty-minute ride to the Bible bee would involve a three-hour detour to allow some no-stopping-to-get-out sightseeing. When the van finally slowed and turned, and gravel crunched under the tires, she leaned up on her elbow to see that they had pulled up in a large gravel lot next to a church building with a tall steeple. The van doors opened, and the kids and two adult chaperones spilled out. All of the kids, delighted to be somewhere, started horsing around in the parking lot below her perch.