The Best American Mystery Stories 2013

by Otto Penzler (ed)

“All these people out here and no one saw anything. No one’s heard anything. You think a ghost flittered in here and shot old man Hudson? If it were a stranger, someone would tell me, ‘I saw him but don’t know who he is.’ But that’s not what we’re getting. No one saw anything because they know who he is.”

  Neither detective had to say the word retaliation. Eyewitnesses, especially inner-city eyewitnesses, were at the top of the endangered species list in New Orleans. So much for the vaunted witness protection program.

  Back at headquarters, Savary sat next to his Macintosh G5, donated by Apple to the department AK, typed in the hundred block of Jeanfreau’s Grocery, and searched the police database for any incidents that had occurred there over the last five years. As a boy, Savary had looked up the definition of felicity, discovering it meant “intense happiness.” Felicity Street was a real-life oxymoron.

  In the five years AK, NOPD had received over one thousand calls along the twenty-four blocks of Felicity Street. In the last two years there had been two murders in the blocks around Jeanfreau’s—nine rapes, twelve aggravated batteries, eight burglaries, seven armed robberies, two carjackings, twenty-nine batteries . . . the list went on. Savary narrowed the search to Jeanfreau’s Grocery and discovered there were nine thefts, two armed robberies, two simple batteries, four disturbing-the-peace calls, and a peeping Tom reported there.

  The only arrests on-site involved the two simple batteries—fistfights—and the peeping Tom case. A suspicious man standing outside Jeanfreau’s had a warrant out for his arrest for peeping Tom from Tangipahoa Parish. Jack Hudson was the victim of both armed robberies. Of the nine theft cases, five listed young African-American males as the culprits. Two were later arrested after pulling the same shoplifting stunt at other stores.

  Savary stood and stretched. Time to get home, cook something up, and call his girls on the phone. Every night between six and seven, when he wasn’t working, Detective Joseph Savary called his ex-wife’s number and talked to his girls. Emily was nine and Carla four. Carla thought she could show her daddy things through the phone as if he could see what she pointed the receiver at. Last night she was talking about a drawing she’d done and said, “See, Daddy?”

  “Yes, baby. I see it.”

  Savary left headquarters, heading uptown to his small apartment near Audubon Park. He would pass his ex-wife’s house, the one he still paid the mortgage on, but would not stop. Joint custody in Louisiana meant his ex was the custodial parent, but he got his girls every other weekend and every other holiday. He fought for those visits even harder than he fought to solve murders. He barely knew his father. His girls would not suffer this.

  It had been a Sunday morning, just before 6 A.M., January 8, 1815, and the men lined behind the Rodriguez Canal strained to see through the heavy fog. Bagpipes echoed across the plain as the British army came at the quickstep. Major Joseph Savary, commander of the 2nd Battalion of Free Men of Color, stood near the center of the American line, not far from General Andrew Jackson. A rocket rose into the sky near the swamp to their left and the fog lifted to reveal the enemy columns in all their splendor—red coats, shako hats, steel bayonets atop their muskets.

  The column near the river rushed the exposed redoubt just in front of the American line. The column coming along the swamp, closer to Savary’s position, rolled toward them, sixty men abreast, the column so long its end could not be seen. It was a magnificent spectacle until the American cannons opened up.

  A maelstrom of fire and shells—grapeshot, canister shot, chain shot, and black iron cannonballs—ripped through the British lines. Still they came, and Savary’s men were finally able to join the firing. Major General Sir Edward Pakenham in his black commander-in-chief jacket and his best friend, Major General Samuel Gibbs, were cut down not far from Savary’s position. Later, Andy Jackson would claim it was one of Savary’s men who shot General Pakenham.

  As the British attack faltered, eventually to fail, Major Joseph Savary learned his brother had been killed down the line. Etienne Savary was one of the eight Americans killed that morning. The mighty British army, veterans who had defeated Napoleon’s finest in Spain and Portugal, suffered over two thousand casualties. Major Savary buried his brother in an above-ground tomb in the city they helped save. He had his brother’s name carved into the tombstone above the words “Killed in action at the battle of New Orleans.”

  Nearly two hundred years later, Major Joseph Savary’s descendant and namesake felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he stepped away from a shotgun house in need of a paint job at the corner of Felicity and Freret Streets. The door slammed behind him. Detective Joseph Savary had just eliminated another suspect, Willie Nelson (no relation to the singer), a nineteen-year-old convicted serial purse snatcher just released after serving two years at Hunt Correctional Center. That left one name on his list of those who’d had run-ins with police around Jeanfreau’s, a list Savary had made quick work of, eliminating one dead guy, one in jail in Mississippi, and the others who had fairly solid alibis. What pricked Savary’s goose bumps was the fact that no one had said anything about the last name on the list, Oris Lamont, also nineteen. Every other name had come up in the interviews except Lamont’s. In his short lifetime, Oris Lamont had managed to get arrested five times as a juvenile and seven times as an adult, charged with aggravated burglary, simple burglary, auto theft, simple robbery, carjacking, and a new drug charge. There was a lone conviction. Simple burglary. He served fourteen months of a ten-year sentence. Lamont had spent his entire eighteenth year in prison.

  The silence wasn’t probable cause for arrest, by a long shot, but it drew Savary to focus on Lamont, who had been arrested the previous week on Felicity Street for possession of crack cocaine with attempt to distribute. Savary hurried back to headquarters and pulled up a mug shot of Lamont, scooped up a copy of the videotape from the Jeanfreau murder, and headed straight back to his car.

  On his way to the FBI Building on Leon Simon Boulevard, Savary called an old friend on his cell. Elvin Bishop had played middle linebacker at St. Augustine while Savary was the team’s star defensive end. Both were good enough to bring two state championships to St. Aug, but these particular Purple Knights both passed up college ball. Bishop’s knees required orthopedic surgery after their senior year, and Savary passed on playing for Southern Miss for a full academic scholarship to Xavier.

  “You busy?” Savary asked when Bishop called back. He’d left a voicemail and hoped his friend was in town.

  “Just got out of a meeting.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “Now?”

  “I need a favor.”

  The FBI compound, surrounded by a twenty-foot steel-and-brick fence, was guarded by Department of Justice police, who stopped Savary at the gate and directed him where to park his unmarked police car. The homicide detective did not have an official U.S. government “secret” clearance, so he remained in a first-floor, windowless waiting room until Bishop could come downstairs to meet him.

  At five-ten, Bishop was stocky, his face filling out from his high school days. He flashed the familiar easy smile as he approached. Savary stood and they shook hands, slapped each other’s shoulders.

  “Glad to see you’re still in town,” Savary said.

  Typical FBI custom was to have agents work away from their home for years before they had an opportunity to be stationed back home. Bishop spent his first five years in Baltimore but returned with the glut of special agents right after Katrina and remained.

  “So, what you got?”

  Savary reached into his briefcase and withdrew the videotape and the envelope with the mug shot. “Need you to send this to Quantico. See if your lab guys can do a facial comparison for me.”

  Bishop laughed. “You been watching too much CSI bullshit.”

  “I know you got the technology. This is a first-degree murder case. You gonna help me, or do I have to call Coach on you?”

  They both laugh
ed at that, although a call to Coach Washington would prod the old man to tongue-lash Bishop. Washington might be retired, but these were his boys and he was still around to coach them.

  “Remember that damn hook-and-ladder play?”

  “Never forget something like that.”

  St. Augustine Purple Knights versus their nemesis, the Archbishop Rummel Raiders, the only team to beat St. Aug both years of their back-to-back state championship seasons. Their senior year, St. Aug held on to a six-point lead. Ten seconds left, fourth and goal, and the Raiders’ two sacks and a penalty had them all the way back to the St. Aug forty-yard line.

  Everyone expected a Hail Mary pass. The Raiders had beat the Brother Martin Crusaders earlier in the year with one. No one expected a hook-and-ladder. Savary drew back into pass coverage. The Rummel quarterback dropped back but threw short, to their fullback, who wheeled and lateraled to their star running back, a fleet-footed, skinny white boy—they later learned he was the star of their track team and the fastest kid in the school.

  “Vincent—I forget his last name,” Savary said.

  Vincent, the Raider running back, scampered past two linebackers, but Savary had him cut off near the sidelines with Bishop and their strong safety closing quickly.

  “Still don’t know how the boy got through.”

  They’d reviewed the videotape again and again. The four players collided at the thirty-yard line. Bishop and the safety went down, Savary pulling the Raider toward the turf, only Vincent’s legs kept churning and he yanked away and hit the afterburners.

  “Fastest white boy I’ve ever seen.”

  Vincent outraced the St. Aug cornerback and free safety to the end zone. Extra point good. Rummel 21–St. Augustine 20.

  “I bumped into Vincent right after Katrina. He’s with ATF,” Bishop said. “His great-great—I don’t know the number of greats—was wounded at the Battle of New Orleans.”

  Savary felt goose bumps again.

  Both men knew the story of Major Joseph Savary and the 2nd Battalion of Free Men of Color.

  Savary held up the videotape. “I need a Hail Mary on this one.”

  “We’ll see. Wait here.”

  “Wait?”

  “Don’t have to send it to there. The meeting I was in had our two top forensic scientists from there. Let’s see what they say.” As he backed out of the room with videotape and envelope, Bishop pointed to the far wall. “There’s coffee and muffins.”

  The coffee was weak but the pecan muffin quite delicious. Savary had a second and was dozing on a fairly comfortable sofa when Bishop came back in with an Asian man in a gray lab coat.

  “This is Special Agent Kent Yamasaki.” Bishop introduced Savary and eased behind the smallish Japanese-American, who said, “There is a ninety-seven percent probability that the man in the video is the man in the photograph. I am having a report prepared for you.”

  “Ninety-seven percent is good, isn’t it?”

  “We never go higher than ninety-eight. It’s as close as you can get, Detective.”

  Savary called Jodie on his cell on the way back to headquarters.

  “Who’s the duty judge?”

  “Joe Sayzo.”

  “Dammit.”

  Sayzo was as anti-police as they came. Better known as “Lack of PC Sayzo,” the man rarely saw enough probable cause in officers testifying at preliminary hearings, forcing the DA to produce fact witnesses, who were hard enough to get to court for a trial, much less a hearing. Sayzo saw even less probable cause in most warrants.

  “I don’t have enough for an arrest warrant,” Savary said. “I was thinking I have enough for a search warrant. I’ll go talk to the suspect, case he wants to cop out.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  Neither had to mention the fact that Judge Marcus Summers was next up as duty judge. That would be tomorrow. A retired state trooper, Summers understood probable cause for what it was, “a reasonable belief that an individual committed a specific crime.” Far from the “beyond a reasonable doubt” necessary for conviction, PC was what every cop strived for. It was up to the DA to present a case “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  Damn attorneys. Shakespeare had it right. First, kill all the lawyers.

  Two sheriff’s deputies brought Oris Lamont, who was young and thin, like the killer in the video, into the small, stuffy interview room at Orleans Parish Prison where Detective Joseph Savary sat behind the small table with a Miranda rights form. He’d filled out the pertinent details of name, address, date, and time.

  Lamont sat in the chair across the table from Savary and reached for the mini digital tape recorder next to Savary’s hand.

  “Don’t touch it,” Savary said. He introduced himself and asked, “You have a lawyer?”

  “Not yet.”

  Savary started reading Lamont his rights.

  “I know them,” Lamont interrupted.

  Savary continued until he reached the waiver portion and read, “I understand what my rights are. No pressure or coercion of any kind was used against me to waive my rights. At this time, I am willing to answer questions without a lawyer present.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “It’s not about any chicken-shit drug charge.”

  Lamont’s dark brown eyes went wide. He leaned back in the folding chair. He tried smiling. Savary pulled a crime-scene photo from his briefcase, a photo of the exterior of Jeanfreau’s from the afternoon of the murder. Lamont looked at it but his eyes revealed nothing, not even recognition of a place he must have passed hundreds of times in his short life.

  “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no murder.”

  “Who said anything about a murder? I could be a robbery detective for all you know.”

  “You got a cigarette?”

  “I don’t smoke.” Savary pushed the waiver forward. “You’ll have to sign the waiver to talk with me.”

  Lamont folded his arms. Savary shrugged, picked up the waiver form, and said, “You can go back inside then. With your padnas.”

  “I got no padnas.” Lamont reached for the form, signed it, said, “I want you to tell the judge I cooperated. Damn drug charge.”

  “When was the last time you were in Jeanfreau’s?”

  “Man, I don’t know. It’s been a while. A year or so.”

  “Really? You know there’s video inside. You sure you didn’t drop in, get a cold drink?”

  “Nope. I mean yeah. I ain’t been inside.”

  “You remember Mr. Hudson, don’t you?”

  “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout that old man or any charge he put against me.”

  “I’m not here to talk about shoplifting.”

  Savary tried different tacks. What had Lamont heard about the murder? Was he outside when it happened, maybe saw something? Oris Lamont insisted he hadn’t been at Jeanfreau’s for a year. Savary turned on the tape recorder, read Lamont his rights again, and recorded the young man’s statement, how he hadn’t been in Jeanfreau’s for a year. As he was ending the statement, Savary casually asked, “Old man Hudson”—that’s what Lamont called him—“what did he mean when he touched his chin?”

  “Huh?”

  “When he touched his chin. Was that a signal?”

  Lamont laughed. “That’s no signal. Band-Aid on his chin kept comin’ off, the old fool.”

  “When was this?”

  “No time in particular. I just seen him do that.”

  Lamont added nothing else of value. Didn’t seem overly concerned about the matter. Only added, “I need your name.”

  Savary passed him a business card.

  “I wanna give it to the judge on this cocaine case. Show him I cooperate with the police.”

  Savary went to the morgue early the next morning, caught pathologist Dr. Jess Gomez before the man started on his first autopsy.

  “Go back down to the record room,” Dr. Gomez said. “See the investigator. I usually put everything in my notes. Only put what’s pertinent in the
autopsy report, but my notes are more detailed.” Savary found it an hour later. Jack Hudson had a clear Band-Aid on his chin on the day he was murdered.

  “All this may be enough for an arrest warrant,” Jodie said as Savary typed out a search warrant on his computer. “It’ll sure be enough for a search warrant.”

  The right honorable Judge Marcus Summer of Criminal District Court agreed and signed the search warrant for Oris Lamont’s shotgun single house, a block off Felicity Street at the corner of Magnolia and Melpomene. The house smelled of burned cabbage and creaked heavily as the detectives and uniformed officers came through the front door. The place seemed to rock beneath their weight.

  Lamont’s mama wasn’t happy with all the police in her house and being forced to remain in the living room with her five-year-old daughter, who wore a pink dress and hugged a stuffed Sponge Bob doll.

  Savary found a Milky Way wrapper under Oris’s bed, as well as two Baby Ruth wrappers and an Almond Joy wrapper. He also found a Ruger nine-millimeter with six rounds left in a ten-round magazine under a loose floorboard beneath Oris Lamont’s single bed. His mama never saw the gun before. He looked at the little girl and those big eyes stared at the semiautomatic.

  “Is this your gun?” Savary asked the child.

  “That Oris gun.”

  Her mother pulled her away from the detective and glared at him.

  “You’re violating our rights, questioning a baby.”

  Savary gave the woman a cold smile.

  A crowd had gathered outside, kept back by two Sixth District patrol officers. Savary spotted a familiar face and went over to Reverend Milton, who moved toward him.

  “Let him through.”

  The reverend looked Savary in the eye, but only for a moment. He shook his head. “I figured the longer you worked on the case, the more likely you’d figure it out.”

  “You knew about Oris? That he had a gun. That he did it.”

  “Everybody knew, ’cept y’all.” The reverend looked over at Oris’s mother, now standing on the front stoop with her little girl.