Upside Down wm-2

by John Ramsey Miller

  Without hesitating, he took a deep breath and dove.

  By now Faith Ann had inhaled water, was certainly unconscious, but he could still save her if…

  The fury, the grief, drove him into the darkness, the pressure constricting his body. He'd promised his son he would keep Faith Ann safe. He was a madman, who believed that he could search a giant body of moving water for something so tiny. He kicked desperately. He grappled about in the icy dark until he was at the point of inhaling water himself. He broke the surface just long enough to inhale as much air as he could hold, then threw himself back into the depths again.

  He lost count of how many times he dove. Finally, gasping, he came up for air and heard Manseur yelling at him from inside the nearby boat.

  “Winter, it's been ten minutes! She's gone. Get into the boat. I've called for help. It won't help anybody if you die.”

  Winter knew it was over. His body was fatigued to the point of torture, his mind was filled with grief and pain and numbed by guilt. Tears of frustration filled his eyes.

  Faith Ann is gone.

  Dead and alone.

  It is over.

  “Get in the boat!” Manseur ordered. Winter looked from the detective to the policeman pilot standing beside him. Then, knowing he had lost, that he had failed both a twelve-year-old child and his son, he somehow swam the ten feet, reached up, and let the two men hoist him into the boat. There he sat slumped on the deck, his mind blank with failure.

  The first thing he saw was Marta seated on the port bench, her hands behind her, a thin, taunting smile on her face.

  Something is wrong. What?

  On Winter's left, the young patrolman had laid his twelve-gauge across the passenger's seat, which had been left turned toward the driver's seat.

  Suddenly his mind cleared and Winter realized that Marta had defeated the cuffs he had used earlier to join her to the jack. It was as if she was reading his mind, taking that moment to spring and grab the Glock from the young police pilot's holster.

  Manseur had his back to her.

  Marta shoved the pilot aside and was bringing the Glock around to bear on Winter. When she saw the Mossberg 12 in Winter's hands, its dark eye staring at her, her own eyes widened in surprise.

  The muzzle blast lit her against the darkness like a flashbulb-the buckshot erasing her features.

  Winter's ears rang.

  The wind swept the cordite away.

  “It's over,” Manseur said, gently wrenching the shotgun from Winter's iron grip. “There's the evidence. Pond is alive. Faith Ann didn't die for nothing.”

  Winter lifted himself up and slumped on the bench.

  He knew that he would never allow himself to feel the slightest pang of remorse over shooting a child-killing monster.

  “Faith Ann had the envelope on her,” he told Manseur.

  “We won't need it. They'll turn on each other.”

  Winter knew Manseur was right. Suggs, Bennett, and Tinnerino would all be tumbling over one another to cut deals.

  Winter had never felt so completely defeated, so utterly empty.

  99

  As the speedboat raced toward the Canal Street ferry landing, Winter could see dozens of vehicles packing the ramp. Flashing lights-blue for cop cars and police department technical vans, red for EMT vehicles-washed the crowd standing on the balcony attached to the enclosed pedestrian walkway. There would also be media trucks in the street-their dishes elevated to send electronic signals to every television screen in the region.

  How fast they react these days, Winter thought. And why not? At first blush, taking a ferry at gunpoint must have looked like an act of terrorism.

  Law enforcement and EMTs swarmed the lower ferry deck, while another group was moving around on the roof near the pilothouse.

  Nick Green stood solemnly at the stern of the USS Thomas Jefferson beside a deckhand, who took the line Manseur tossed, and Nicky helped Winter onto the deck. He handed Winter his SIG Sauer, but did no more than glance at the corpse in the speedboat, at the pool of diluted blood in the stern where her ebony hair floated, surrounding her ruined head like a storm cloud.

  “It was all Marta Ruiz, Winter. It wasn't your fault.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Winter said weakly. He wanted to vomit-to rid himself of the vitriol that filled him like a poisonous cloud. I should have taken the shot I had on Marta. I might have wounded Faith Ann, but she might still be alive.

  “How soon can you get a search going?” Winter asked Manseur. “I don't want her in there any longer than-”

  “Already under way. The Coast Guard will find her,” Manseur promised. “They know exactly where she went in, and they have computer models, so it's just science to locate a…” He stopped when he saw the hard look in Winter's eyes. “Sorry.”

  “I looked all around,” Nicky said. “I didn't see any envelope anywhere.”

  “Faith Ann put the envelope in her jeans. I saw it when she went in.”

  Winter looked at the Stratus, the shattered side window, the passenger door still open. A crime scene technician took a picture of something inside the vehicle, set the camera on the car's roof, leaned in, and lifted something out, dropping it into a clear evidence envelope.

  “Hey!” Winter called out, striding toward the car. “What is that?” He reached out to take the bag. The technician straightened defensively but handed it over when he saw Detective Manseur nod his approval.

  The technician said, “It's a cassette tape-no label. Was on the floorboard.”

  “You think it's her tape?” Manseur asked Winter.

  “Yes,” Winter said, looking at the cassette through the clear plastic. He knew that was the only thing it could be.

  “That's great,” Nicky said. “You've got evidence.”

  Winter nodded, seeing some light leaking into the situation. “If it contains what Faith Ann heard from her hiding place, it had Arturo implicating Jerry Bennett for sending him to get the pictures back from Amber Lee. It has the murders. It'll add weight to the fact that the negatives Faith Ann had were pictures of Bennett killing the Williamses. Don't tell Suggs we don't have the negatives. Play the tape to him and Bennett and one'll snap quick. At least Faith Ann didn't fail.”

  “She was something, that kid,” Manseur said. “She cleared Pond single-handedly.”

  “Her mother would be very proud of her.”

  “Somebody cleared Horace Pond of something?” the technician said, looking up. “Too bad for him it wasn't of murdering the Williamses.”

  “What do you mean?” Winter asked him.

  “Horace Pond is a goner.” He glanced at his watch. “Well, he will be in about 25 minutes, give or take the speed of liquids snaking through the tubes. And damn good riddance, I say.”

  “The execution was called off,” Winter said.

  “No. It wasn't.” The technician looked perplexed. “Who told you that?”

  “It sure as hell was called off,” Manseur said. “The governor's office will be announcing it any minute now.”

  “A half an hour ago the governor was on TV saying the death penalty was created for creeps like Pond, and his execution would serve all of the people of Louisiana, even those who oppose executions.”

  Winter saw the same confusion he was feeling reflected in Manseur's eyes.

  “All due respect, Detective Manseur,” the CSI tech protested, “you can walk up the hill to the first news truck and ask them. I mean, there's news coverage on every channel. Caption said it was live from the Fairmont. They had some kind of fund-raiser there. I know one of the patrolmen on the bodyguard detail at the hotel.”

  “The governor's staying at the Fairmont?” Winter asked. And when the perplexed tech nodded, Winter ran.

  Manseur was close behind, the sight of the detective serving to get them past the cops on the ramp. From far behind Winter heard the tech yelp, “Hey! My tape!”

  Winter arrived at the WWL van ahead of Manseur. On one of the monitors he sa
w the reporter standing outside the prison interviewing a woman under a KILL

  POND SCUM banner. A clock beside the monitor was counting the minutes down to the execution. 19:52, 19:51, 19:50…

  “What the hell is happening?” Winter demanded when Manseur reached him.

  “I talked to Hurt, and he said he would… He didn't do it. Maybe they're just waiting for me to…”

  “We've got to make sure,” Winter said, looking down at the tape in his hand.

  “George!” Manseur yelled at a police sergeant, who was standing outside a cruiser, watching over the cops who were holding twenty reporters and a crowd of the curious back from the ferry ramp. “We're taking your car!” Nicky was limping toward them.

  “We gotta run,” Winter yelled.

  “Go!” a limping Nicky yelled, waving them off. “I'll see you at the hotel later.”

  100

  Manseur and Winter erupted from the elevator into the hallway where the governor's suite and his staff's rooms were located. Badges out, they met the uniformed highway patrolmen, who had been alerted that the pair were on the way up. The patrolmen pointed them to a set of double doors set in an ornate facade at the end of the carpeted corridor.

  As they approached, Parker Hurt opened the right-side door, allowing Winter and Manseur into the foyer. The governor's executive assistant were a red V-neck sweater over a starched white shirt, stiffly pressed khakis, and shiny black loafers with tassels. He looked like a college fraternity rush chairman.

  “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he asked.

  “Why does the press think the Pond execution is still on?” Manseur blurted out.

  “Why do you think it wouldn't be?” Hurt replied easily.

  “Because you said the governor would call it off,” Manseur snapped. “Hours ago.”

  “I said I'd tell the governor what you told me to tell him,” Hurt replied. “I never said he would do what you wanted. Did I? That was before I spoke to Captain Suggs, your superior.”

  “You talked to-”

  “And he told me all about your-”

  Winter seized Parker Hurt by his cashmere sweater, ending the need for Manseur's words and erasing Hurt's smirk. He had stood around far too long already talking to someone who wasn't the governor.

  “We'll talk to the governor now,” Winter snarled as he shoved the governor's executive assistant backward, throwing open the door into the suite using Hurt's narrow back as a battering ram. Four men in their shirtsleeves sat around a felt-covered table playing poker.

  One of the men, a bodyguard, reached to his shoulder holster, but Governor Lucas Morton grabbed his arm to stop him.

  A reporter, who had the illuminated ferry in the background, was showing on the large-screen TV on the wall.

  “What in God's name is the meaning of this, Detective?” the governor asked, setting his cards facedown on the felt before standing. He waved his hand in the air, signaling the other three men to remain seated.

  “Governor, my name is Winter Massey. I'm a United States Deputy Marshal. You know who Faith Ann Porter is?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Quickly, Winter told the governor about Pond's frame, about what had happened over the past two days. He was careful to hit all of the important points. Manseur nodded, didn't interrupt. When Winter finished, Morton stared at him for long seconds, thinking.

  Finally he spoke. “Let me see if I have all this. Jerry Bennett, who is a respected businessman and a friend and political supporter of mine, killed Judge and Beth Williams? Harvey Suggs, a decorated member of NOPD, fabricated Pond's case out of whole cloth? That alone is the most preposterous thing I've ever heard.

  “And you say Jerry Bennett then sent a professional killer to murder Attorney Porter and this Lee woman-his mistress? Because she had in her possession photographic evidence that he murdered the Williamses. The child had the negatives and that tape, but not the pictures.”

  “The killer got those back. Faith Ann said he didn't ask about negatives. He probably didn't even know she had them.”

  “And tonight Commander Suggs sent two detectives to kill Detective Manseur here and two professional killers to the ferry to kill you and the Porter child. And both of those killers are dead, the detectives under arrest.”

  “Yes,” Winter said.

  “There are warrants out now for Bennett and Suggs,” Manseur said.

  “The ferry incident, all that gunplay, that was you two?”

  “You have to stop the execution,” Winter said. The time on the screen was now ten minutes to go.

  “Bennett sent the killer to Kimberly Porter's office, which is on your audiotape,” Morton said. “Marshal, if you had the pictures Faith Ann claimed to have, I would stop the execution this minute. That phone is connected directly to the death house.” He looked the screen. “I've got just enough time.”

  “I only have the tape,” Winter said, holding it out. “Faith Ann had the pictures and the negatives on her when she went in the river.”

  “So you said.”

  Winter said, “You can check me out by calling the A.G.”

  “Marshal, I don't have to call anybody to know who you are. Your reputation for leaving a veritable rooster tail of death and havoc in your wake is well-enough known hereabouts. Even if there are voices on that audiotape saying that Jerry Bennett sent a hired killer to Kimberly Porter's office, it doesn't prove who killed Judge Williams and his wife, unless Bennett himself confessed to it on the tape. You say Bennett's hired killers are dead. So who can prove the voice on this tape is this dead hit man? Or that he isn't lying when he says Jerry Bennett sent him? Or is it Ms. Lee or Ms. Porter who says that?”

  “Faith Ann saw him commit the murders,” Manseur insisted. “She was hiding under a table.”

  “She can't testify from the grave,” Hurt said.

  “I was a prosecutor for twenty-two years,” the governor told them. “Emotion and hearsay aside-you have nothing but a wild tale.”

  “Stop the execution,” Winter urged, feeling more desperate by the second. “Pond is innocent. Suggs will talk, and when he does, he'll implicate Bennett in the Williams murders. So will Tinnerino and Doyle.”

  Manseur said, “I'll get Bennett and Suggs.”

  Morton studied Winter's face. Then he said, “I prosecuted Horace Pond, and I know the evidence better than anybody. You haven't given me a scrap of proof that Pond is innocent. If Jerry sent a killer to Porter's office, it will take more than a recording of questionable authenticity to make me short-circuit a lawful execution. Only the child could have testified that the tape was authentic. Even if she was here with this tape now and I knew she had maintained the chain of custody, anybody who watches Judge Judy could keep it from ever seeing a courtroom. What is the sound quality? Who says what? How are the people identified?”

  “We'd have to listen to it,” Winter said.

  “You haven't heard the tape?”

  “Listen to it after-”

  Lucas Morton laughed out loud. “Does the term pig in a poke mean anything to you? I'm sorry. If there is this picture proof and it turns up at some point, I'll eat crow, but what the jury and appellate courts decided on this matter is going to go forward. My stand on Horace Pond's execution is a matter of very public record.”

  “What could it hurt to put it off a couple of days?” Winter pleaded.

  “Faith Ann Porter had the picture evidence on her,” Manseur added. “With any luck those pictures will still be with the body when it is recovered and they might survive a dip in the river.”

  “ May be, could be, might surface…” Morton was a political animal, so he was considering, measuring the probabilities, possibilities, and weighing his options. Winter saw his resolve swaying. For a long ten seconds, Lucas Morton stared over at the telephone, three steps and three words from saving an innocent man from being murdered. Winter was sure he had convinced him to at least postpone the execution and avoid any criticism should Wi
nter be right about Pond's guilt. Morton took the three steps.

  Then Parker Hurt spoke. “Sir, the election is being decided now, at this very moment. These men don't have one scrap of evidence. Stopping the execution will give your enemies ammunition that will pull undecided voters. Sir, you're within the two-point margin of error according to our own polls. You are playing with fire. You don't have to do anything.”

  Winter saw Morton's eyes change focus and, with his heart sinking, he knew the governor wasn't going to stop the execution. “The tape is useless,” Morton told him bluntly. “Since you don't have those pictures in your possession, it is as if they do not exist. I will not override the judicial system on a maybe.”

  Manseur pleaded, “Call the chief. Check out what I've told you.”

  “No,” Morton said finally, looking at his watch. “It's too late.”

  “You are making a big mistake,” Winter said. “When Pond is proved innocent, when people know what happened on the ferry tonight, when they know you were told, when they know that a little girl died trying to save Pond and you turned your back on that, your career will be over. You will live the rest of your life with people pointing at you and whispering. That will be your legacy.”

  “Aw, hell, Deputy Massey. In a few days the election will be over. Who's going to worry about this last-minute maneuvering? Eighty-five percent of the people in this state want Pond dead. Go on back to wherever you came here from and make trouble there. We don't need your kind screwing things up around here like you did last year,” Morton said.

  Morton dismissed them by sitting down at the table, and picking up his cards. “This sounds to everybody here like a tall tale spun by a deluded detective who makes wild accusations against a quality citizen, and a deputy who shoots up the world. Who in their right mind is going to blame me for not accepting your words?”

  Winter was done, and he knew it. He started to turn to leave. Then he saw something that almost stopped his heart. He pointed and said, “Well, I bet they'll believe her.”