by Jimmy Fox
Really quite professional sobbing, convincing, Nick thought, marveling at the detachment he could muster through the throbbing, whirling pain that probably indicated a burst something or other inside. He had a disturbing fleeting recollection of Houdini’s cause of death.
He had to hand it to Val, she was a great liar.
Butch moved in on him again. Small black eyes burning with hatred, an off-kilter face that reminded Nick of a red bell pepper, fists like pumping pistons in a Futurist painting, buzz-cut dark hair like a thousand nail points Nick was being dragged over at the moment the cabin door burst open and Shelvin, brandishing his NOPD badge, sent Butch stumbling across the room with a remarkably smooth and quick motion of one arm and hand, thanked him for capturing an international criminal, handcuffed Nick, and took him away, far away, thank God, from Butch.
“I compromised our investigation over you, Herald.”
Nick felt like a beaten poet now. He lay tensed with pain in the back seat of Shelvin’s unmarked police cruiser, seat-belt buckles gouging his back. The radio squawked, and Shelvin, in the driver’s seat, said something into the microphone. He turned his head to check on Nick.
“You want to go to the hospital?”
“Nah. Just got out of one. Give me a minute . . . or two.”
Shelvin spoke in his deep, forbidding monotone, staring out the windshield at the big wedding-cake casino boat, a few blocks away. NOPD was assisting in a State Police undercover operation to slow underage gambling, he said. Law enforcement and politicians knew it couldn’t be stopped.
Though twenty-one had always been the minimum age for riverboat- and Indian-casino gambling (riverboats that no longer had to sail, of course), Louisiana until fairly recently had allowed eighteen-year-olds to play the lottery and land-based video poker. A new law in the mid-nineties had also upped the drinking age to twenty-one. Was the state turning prudish? Not by a long shot. Through clever legislative bill writing, entrance to a bar or lounge was still legal for eighteen, nineteen-, and twenty-year-olds, so long as they didn’t drink alcohol (unless accompanied by a guardian or spouse of age) or have access to half-heartedly isolated video-gambling machines—fat chance.
Louisiana acted on such matters only on pain of losing federal highway funds or of some similar dire consequence that would jeopardize the pork-barrel projects public servants lavishly distributed to ensure their reelection. The altruistic claim from legislators and lobbyists that they were protecting individual and states’ rights was a classic Louisiana exercise in demagoguery. Meanwhile, cash-stuffed envelopes continued to change hands in Capitol corners, and cases of fine booze and LSU Stadium Club tickets still appeared like clockwork under bureaucrats’ Christmas trees. Statutory wiggle room and procedural cards up the sleeve always saved the day for graft, greed, and other assorted corruption.
Logic and consistency were alien to Louisiana bureaucrats, who hid their real agenda—power and money—within constantly shifting law; constitutional amendments, it seemed, created a different set of regulations for each week. No one could keep up, few bothered. And the lobbyist with the biggest stack of hundreds always got exactly what his client wanted.
It was the Louisiana way, a time-honored tradition that worked miracles for those in the know, Orwell’s Animal Farm on the bayou.
And so it shouldn’t be surprising that, despite the admittedly leaky laws on the books and the promises of the owners, underage “adults,” some in their high-school uniforms, routinely gambled and drank at Louisiana’s casinos and gussied-up betting parlors. Pari-mutuel wagering and charitable bingo and raffles got the official wink and nod, as well, for the young set.
French Quarter restaurateurs and hotel owners—big political contributors—hated electronic gambling and the riverboat casinos and the newer, huge one reeling in the suckers on Canal by the river, all of which competed for tourist dollars. Politicians, for their part, needed a grand gesture of enforcement to show that the funding, through gambling, of ballooning government and their ever-increasing salaries and kickbacks vexed their consciences. Casino operators understood these periodic outbreaks of goodness; the money flow was so phenomenal, the laxer ones were content to take the odd slap on the wrist as symbolic penance, and in time go back to catering to everyone not actually in a stroller.
Even through his pain, Nick was impressed by Shelvin’s penetrating analysis of Louisiana’s political burlesque show.
This guy should have a blog.
Shelvin had moved up to the Special Investigations Division. “Mostly vice, dope, and fugitives.” The department’s brass over the years had noted that Shelvin was tough, smart, and, by all accounts, incorruptible in a very corrupt city. During a ballyhooed departmental purging and rebuilding after the hurricane, he’d been promised the fast track to the homicide section. “It ain’t fast enough,” he noted now.
He had stayed on the streets with a riot shotgun and his sidearm through the end-of-the-world mayhem of Katrina, doing what he was ordered to do. And when no orders came down the line because the chain of command had collapsed and his radio batteries had died, he did what he could to help people pushed to horrible extremes of need and conduct. He wasn’t at Danziger Bridge, but in those desperate hours every contact of officer and civilian was a potential Danziger. Word had made it up to the top that Shelvin had been something of a superhero, defusing situations that could have been deadly, keeping citizens from tearing each other apart, keeping stressed cops and military personnel from pulling the trigger without proper cause. There had been some recognition: a medal, a certificate, a group banquet. But he’d come to learn that new administrations treat old promises like less-favored stepchildren.
Nick recalled the first time they met. Shelvin was an angry young man from Natchitoches, the historic colonial town in north Louisiana. He was a Gulf War veteran and an Army reservist, but still his frustration over a lifetime of prejudice and lack of opportunity was, at that time, about to boil over into something that would have sent him to Angola penitentiary or to the graveyard.
In the course of a complex and deadly genealogical case, Nick discovered that one of Shelvin’s ancestors had been cheated out of a considerable inheritance, over a century before. Nick’s resolution of the sordid tale of sibling jealousy, racial and religious intolerance, and twisted guilt brought a fortune to the Balzar family, but also tragedy: Shelvin’s younger brother was murdered, and Shelvin was stabbed, almost fatally.
Nick sensed this was a wiser, calmer, more seasoned man than the simmering volcano he’d known in Natchitoches.
He gingerly probed his midsection for unfamiliar protuberances and unusual movement of bone. “What do broken ribs feel like?”
“You’d wouldn’t need a second opinion if you had some. They’re probably just bruised. You’ll be all right in a few weeks. Unless it’s your liver or spleen.”
“Oh, thanks, I feel better already.”
“So, what really happened in there?” Shelvin asked, just as Nick felt like talking.
Val had contacted him in Cutpine, Nick related. Urgent. She claimed to have vital information on the Katogoula troubles, which he also explained to Shelvin. She wasn’t around at the agreed time and place to meet at the Crescent Luck, but he got VIP treatment while he waited. Val showed up. Nick got right to the point—that is, the Katogoula— but she had other ideas. She came on to him immediately, knew what she was doing. Being no saint, he saw no problem with that. At a critical juncture, she excused herself, went to the bathroom. Next thing Nick remembered, a security guard named Butch who just happened to be—uh-oh!—her boyfriend, was pummeling him senseless.
“Set up,” Shelvin said. “Must’ve called mayday from the bathroom. What you done to her?”
“Nothing. I mean, except those few hot minutes on the couch. And that was more ‘with her’ than ‘to her.’ I get the feeling she and her casino company want me out of the picture. About a month ago she tried to hire me away from the Katogoula.”
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“Uh-huh. See it a lot down on Bourbon. Competition’s fierce. Place got a good band, a fine stripper, doing too much business to suit the neighbors. All of a sudden, there’s an accident. Star of the show’s laid up. These Luck o’ the Draw dudes are deep like that, man. Protecting their turf down at the Chitiko-Tiloasha casino. Putting up roadblocks for your Katogoula friends; you just ran into a roadblock named Butch. But what you told me about the murders don’t seem like their M.O. They turn up the volume slow, do only what’s necessary. It ain’t no Schwarzenegger movie. When they decide some dude’s got to go, you never find the body. No, what you got up there in the woods, Herald, is a killer with a message to deliver. The real sick ones do that, feel the need to tell the world what’s inside their heads, teach society a lesson. Who’s on the suspect list?”
Nick told him.
“Best thing to do,” Shelvin said, “shock ’em. Shock ’em good with something they don’t think you know.”
“What if I don’t have anything definite to shock them with?”
“Find it. Make it up. Rub their face in it. If they’re lying, and they’re not completely psycho, you’ll know. Especially you, seeing as how you’re such a good liar yourself.”
Shelvin’s idea of humor.
“See you, Shelvin.” Nick opened the door and turned his windbreaker collar up against the damp river chill. He was already shivering from the pain. “Drop by sometime.”
“Where you think you’re going, fool?”
“Home.”
“Walking in the Quarter after two A.M.? Shit, I don’t do it myself. Shut that door. You’re coming with me, where the cops hang out.”
“Hey, I’m the one who got framed and beat up. Why are you arresting me?”
“Not arresting you, man.” Shelvin smiled as much as he ever did. “Buying you breakfast. You need something hot in your belly, and I’ll know you’re staying out of trouble for an hour or so.”
CHAPTER 29
The town of Cutpine had a police chief—when he wasn’t running his gas station. Emery Rud—a fifty-eight year old, sun-baked, crew-cut, jump-suited heart attack waiting to happen.
Emery had little use for showering and shaving, even less for flossing his one brown upper incisor. He didn’t see what the big deal was about the local murders. A few more dead Indians, as he often made abundantly clear to his white customers, who wanted to know where these Katogoula got off wanting everything on a silver platter. Like everybody hasn’t been screwed by the government at some time or other.
Law enforcement shared office space with the business of keeping pickup trucks running. Emery thought it was damn generous of him to allow the town a four-drawer file cabinet, for a small fee. The rare miscreant who needed incarcerating was sent to the parish jail in Armageddon, and, if necessary, on to the state penitentiary at Angola. There were no stoplights to run in Cutpine, and speeding wasn’t much of a problem, since Emery’s garage helper did most of the repair work, and that badly.
Before the recent rash of unsolved violent crimes, the chief had found it no problem to juggle his many responsibilities. A substantial distraction had come up two weeks before, however: he was caught fudging school-bus safety inspections. His scheme had brought in a nice income for him; he was sorry to see it go. How could a man live on what the town paid him for being chief ? he would ask his sympathetic but tight-fisted customers and fellow citizens. He hadn’t had a raise in ten years.
The scheme was this: bus drivers from all over central Louisiana came to Cutpine to get a safety sticker, because they knew the chief would do the inspection with one eye half open. He made a little from the inspections themselves, but his profit came from the obligatory incentive to squint when necessary. Drivers knew to leave the payment—cash only—under the chief ’s outdated desk-pad calendar.
Now he was in lots of trouble. Some school board member horny for re-election was swinging her moral ax. Emery’s enterprise was the vice she was determined to shatter. He really didn’t have time for sleuthing.
Sheriff Big John Higbee felt like whistling the theme from The Andy Griffith Show every time he spent a few minutes with Police Chief Emery Rud, as he was doing this afternoon, accompanied by Lieutenant Ray Doyle Sprague, his chief of detectives. Sprague had promise—a towheaded country boy proud of his mostly peach fuzz mustache, reluctant to get tough with people he’d known all his life.
The three men sat in the office of Emery’s service station, enjoying cans of soda. Big John had paid for all three. The customer bell clanged as a vehicle rolled across the black hose by the pumps. Emery hollered, “Luther!”, and eventually a surly young man with slicked back hair sauntered from the garage in filthy overalls.
Big John knew that Emery had no love for Native or African Americans. The police chief was renowned for his repertoire of racist jokes, and among friends he’d always referred insultingly to the Katogoula as sabines, redbones, griffes, or zambos. Sheriff Higbee, only partly out of professional courtesy, a few days before had delivered the summons for Emery to appear in district criminal court in Armageddon. Payback like that doesn’t come along every day.
Big John hoped to get a lead from Emery. Many Katogoula lived in the city limits of Cutpine; and if the killer was a member of the tribe, or someone else with a grudge against them, Emery just might have picked up some loose talk while adjusting a fan belt. The sheriff knew that most criminals have a compulsion to blab or brag about their crimes.
But Emery had nothing helpful to say about the murder of Carl Shawe, the arson at the museum, the resulting deaths of Grace and Irton Dusong, and the assaults on the Shawe twins and the genealogist. Big John had another unsolved case: a troublemaker by the name of Travis Corbett had been reported missing. A regular crime wave, something you’d see in New Orleans or Baton Rouge or Shreveport, not around here.
The Sangfleuve Parish DA demanded action. Big John wanted answers, too. Emery was more worried about his upcoming hearing before the State Police inspection-sticker committee. He showed Big John various administrative orders to appear in Baton Rouge, and picked his nose with a greasy finger while the sheriff explained what was expected of him.
After the fruitless meeting with the police chief of Cutpine, Sheriff Higbee and Lt. Sprague drove out of the sleepy town, onto the highway leading past closed Tadbull Mill, and along the privately owned enclaves of planted or harvested fields carved out of Tchekalaya Forest. Mostly Katogoula small farms, traditional lands occupied long before the arrival of the European powers. It was cotton-picking time. Soybeans and corn had already been harvested. Sugar cane was ready for cutting. Pecans were just popping out of their big green cases.
Big John hoped the fall harvest would be a good one. The idea of serving foreclosure papers on Katogoula farmers who’d lost their main source of income—Tadbull Mill—saddened him. Though a casino in the parish would inevitably bring more bankruptcies, broken marriages, and petty crime, he wished the Katogoula could get their act together.
Fall so far had been fairly pleasant, with no killer hurricanes charging up from the Antilles. Now the days were reliably below eighty and the nights getting into the low fifties. The early teal season had already closed. Real hunting weather only a duck and duck hunter could love—gray, rainy, and cold—was just a few weeks away. Football weather. He would never forget the cheers from the bleachers of floodlit podunk ball fields on cool November nights. . . .
Uninterrupted dense pine forest hugged the road here. Big John tuned out Ray Doyle, who hadn’t stopped blabbing about the forensics conference he’d just attended. He was all fired up, which, Big John, reflected, was a pretty good reason to send someone.
He was heading to the scenes of the crimes, Lake Katogoula and the remains of the museum, hoping to put Ray Doyle’s enthusiasm to use, to discover some new angle for investigation. Later he would send Ray Doyle and his other detectives to canvass the Katogoula again. As an experienced lawman, Big John knew that changes in stories oft
en broke cases. A second or third visit from a detective usually riled people and sometimes goaded perpetrators into incriminating admissions. Interviewing was an art; Lt. Sprague would have to get over his excessive politeness if he wanted to solve crimes outside of textbooks and seminars.
Big John had the cruise control at fifty. With a lot on his mind, and nothing for miles ahead, for a split second he didn’t register the movement at the verge of the forest. Before the thought activated his muscles, he realized what was happening: an animal, a large one, breaking from the trees, heading fast for his lane. Too fast.
“Hold on, Ray Doyle!”
Big John stomped the brake pedal to the floor with both huge feet. Tires screamed and smoked. Even so, the ABS on the big cruiser wasn’t going to stop him in time. The animal entered his lane, and though the vehicle was slowing rapidly, Big John knew it wasn’t going to be good. He recalled that in vehicle-pedestrian collisions at 40 mph, there was an 80% chance of fatal injuries. There was nothing to do but grip the steering wheel, hope he had slowed more than that, and pray for the animal’s soul, if it had one. It was all physics, now.
He felt the sickening thud. The windshield shattered but remained intact.
“Gawd! what the—” was all Ray Doyle could say before the air bags inflated with loud pops like gunshots and then several milliseconds later deflated.
A dark-yellow blur had glanced off the bumper and the passenger-side windshield, over the car, heavily onto the trunk, and then had disappeared.
The car skidded to a stop after what seemed like years. Big John looked over at Ray Doyle: he was all right except for blood running into his precious mustache. The young man had already switched on the interior emergency lights and now spoke to the dispatcher on the radio, dabbing at his nose with a tissue.
This boy might make it after all, Big John was thinking as he grabbed the shotgun, heaved himself out of the car, and looked back at the thing that lay on the faded centerline.
