I brought them inside and walked them to my kitchen where the dogs had dropped the bone. I unlocked the kitchen door that opened to the backyard, and told them the dogs had been digging at something under the shed because they would come in muddy and neither my roommate or I could find a hole out there. I was sure my yard was about to be a crime scene.
Dante must have been taking some heat, or scrutiny due to his association with me over the last two crimes I stumbled upon during my recent CluckIt drive-thru, and three, if you count what I knew about the palm reader. If that was someone buried in my backyard, now my body count was up to four. I knew it must be bad when Hanky smiled at me and patted my arm before they went outside.
The Captain and Dante were shining flashlights under the shed to see if they could see anything. Then they looked around the yard and along the perimeter of the fence. I saw them exchange a few words, then Hanky and Dante started talking on their radios as they walked away from each other.
The Chief of Detectives, the Police Commissioner and what seemed like four thousand police personnel, including more detectives, uniformed cops, a canine team, the forensic people and coroner, began arriving in flashing squad cars.
I was looking out my front window and saw Jiff drive-up behind the crime scene van while the cadaver dogs were being leashed and led to the back yard. Everyone was going to the backyard via the alley to see what the dogs found. I opened my front door as Jiff came up my porch steps. I told the uniform posted there, who was not to let anyone in or out, that Jiff was my attorney. He let him in.
“Everybody’s out back?” he asked me. I nodded yes. Then he hugged me tight to him. He kissed my forehead before he looked at me and said in a confident voice, “Everything will be OK.” He placed his hands on my shoulders to steady me and looked at me with what I assumed was his client face.
“Yes, of course.” Everything was moving around me like I was watching it in slow motion, as if I were sleep walking and could see everyone, but they couldn’t see me.
“I called my dad,” Jiff said. “He’s on his way over here. He knows all these guys and how they operate. We both don’t want them thinking you had anything to do with this. He’ll take the lead when he gets here, okay?”
“Okay. This isn’t the way I wanted to meet your family,” I said.
“It’s just my Dad, and don’t worry about it. I’ll be right here with you. I’m not leaving.”
We stood there looking toward the kitchen and the lights moving around in my backyard, “I thought it was a stick they had. It was all brown from the dirt and they were carrying it together, Meaux and Jesus. They dropped it at my feet presenting it to me like a gift.”
I wanted to tell him how it all transpired and I wanted to keep talking so I wouldn’t think about who was buried out there. “When they dropped it, I realized it wasn’t a stick.”
Then I started shaking and a horrible feeling came over me like I’d made an error with tremendous consequences and just realized it. I started babbling, “What if I made a mistake and all these people are out here and it’s not a body? What if it’s only a piece of PVC pipe?”
Even to myself I sounded hysterical and my stomach felt tighter, my knees weaker, and my palms clammy. “What if it’s an old piece of plastic and I overreacted?” I grabbed Jiff’s arm.
“Dante wouldn’t have called all these people out here if it was a piece of plastic,” he said and he put his hand over my hand that was squeezing his arm. The warm way he touched me made feel connected to him.
Dante walked into the living room from the back of my house to where Jiff and I were standing. The Captain, Hanky and Dante were the only ones who came inside my house. The others went down the side alley to the backyard. Dante looked at Jiff and said, “Hey, you might want to come see this,” jerking his head toward the back door indicating Jiff should follow him. Jiff peeled my hand from his arm and started to follow him.
“Is it…” I trailed off and Dante answered me before I could even try to say her name.
“It’s not Suzanne,” he said in his police voice. Before turning to go back out again he made eye contact with me for a split second. He stopped mid-turn and in the voice he used to say my name when we were alone, he added, “Brandy, I’m sure. Different hair color.” He paused and I could tell he was trying to decide if he should say anything else. Then he added, “And she’s been there awhile.”
They both disappeared into my postage stamp of a backyard leaving me alone with my thoughts in the double parlor. From where I stood I could see the hive of workers there, down the hall, past the living room, dining room, through the kitchen and out the back door.
When I looked out back, I could see the police had pushed the shed to the other side of the space. My yard was stuffed with police, crime scene technicians, two German Shepherds and lights with enough candle power to light up the New York City skyline.
While every department of New Orleans law enforcement squeezed into my backyard, I was left alone with my thoughts. Suzanne was still missing. Who was that buried out there, and where was Suzanne?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hanky came back in saying she wanted a glass of water. I was pretty sure she was sent in to watch me. I’m sure Dante didn’t think I did it, or that I would run off to another jurisdiction, but God knows what his Captain and the other detectives were thinking.
“Hey, this is your case, go out there, don’t let the men make you babysit me,” I said. “You can send in a uniform to do this.”
“They didn’t send me. I offered,” she said. “C’mon, let’s go sit down.” I followed her to the living room and she went to sit on the sofa in the same place she sat with Jesus.
“Well, I’m glad a friendly face is with me. Jiff is in legal representation mode.”
“I kinda picked up on that. Look, whatever you say to me is off the record. I’m in here to ‘keep an eye on you’ she said using the air quote thing. Dante looked at me when he came back out with Jiff and I picked up that he’s worried about you, so when he told a uniform to come in here, I offered and he looked relieved.”
“Well, someone is going to want me to be on the record, and won’t they grill you and ask what I tell you?”
“I’m only here to keep an eye on you. They didn’t tell me to question you. Let’s talk rescue. When can I get Jesus?”
“You can take him home tonight. In fact, you might have to take Meaux Jeaux too if they haul me downtown. No one will be here to walk him, now that my backyard is taped off and they can’t go out there.”
“We’ll mark it off with crime tape and an officer will most likely be posted there along with one in front of your house. I’ll take care of Jesus and Meaux, don’t worry about them.”
I didn’t want to sit down. I wanted to do something to help find Suzanne. I got up and started to pace. Hanky pointed to the hall bath when the dogs started whining. They were nervous being locked up and hearing so many people coming and going so I let them out. Jesus ran to Hanky and jumped in her lap. Meaux wiggled around my feet waiting for me to pick him up. I went back to the sofa and held him in my lap.
“Suzanne is still missing,” I said. “I don’t think that’s her out back.”
“So, you tell me what you think you know about all of this,” Hanky said. “Dante briefed me with what you told him on the phone, when you discovered the bone. He sounded like a stream of consciousness data dump. I had no idea what he was saying, or what any of it related to. He did say you found something hidden here along with some other crazy stuff, and he said you think they all connect.”
“I know they all connect…I’m just not sure how.”
“Well, you tell me, off the record, and I’ll share it with him later when he and I are alone. We,” she pointed to me and back to herself, “let him take credit for solving it all. He’ll get another promotion out of it.”
“Another promotion? When was his last one? He didn’t mention any promotion to me. Besides,
he won’t take credit if you tell him how it connects. He’ll make sure you get it,” I said.
“He was just promoted to Detective Second Grade. He’s on the fast track to be Captain so he won’t be working 24/7 on homicides forever. Dante feels like he has to prove himself to you,” she said. “So, you tell me what you know or think, then I’ll tell him so he’ll connect the dots and figure it out on his own. Dante’s a smart cookie. This should get him another bump in pay and another promotion.”
“What do you get out of it?” I asked.
“He’ll take care of me, I’m not worried. He’s my partner. That’s what we do,” she said, looking pleased with herself.
She was wearing a top like I gave her, but in a different color. I made a mental note to school her on push up bras, but wondered if that wouldn’t be letting the tiger out of the cage too soon. Her pants had no cuffs and her jacket had a cincher at the back, giving her more of a shapely figure. She had on comfortable shoes, but they had a two-inch square heel, so I guess she could run in them. They were much more fashionable than whatever she used to wear. I don’t know what you would have called what she used to wear, other than ugly.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Dante and I have known each other forever. He saved my life, remember? He doesn’t have to prove anything to me, and I hope I don’t have to prove anything to him. All that doesn’t matter anymore. Our relationship is just platonic now.”
Hanky cocked her head to the side raising her eyebrows saying, “You don’t believe that. I certainly don’t believe it and neither does he. You might have said that to him, but he’s not buying it. Since the night he called me to come over here and we went to that bar, he’s been in a bad humor—a really bad humor.”
“Dante is only happy if he’s standing over a dead body,” I mumbled.
“At first, I thought it was all the murders we had dumped on us. But, it’s not because of the murders, it’s because it kept him away from you. At first, I thought maybe it’s because you two were fighting, or he saw you with Mr. Hottie that’s out there with him now. But, if you told him that night that you just want to be friends—platonic—then ever since that night he’s been a miserable S.O.B. to be around.”
“Off the record?” I said.
“Off the record,” Hanky said and got out a new notebook, one that hadn’t been previously written in. “I’m taking notes but they’ll be my notes and will not reflect that you told me any of it.”
“Lots of things seem isolated until I think about how they relate to the people. Frank, remember him?” I said. “You should, because he’s the handyman at Julia’s Guest House where you and I first met.”
“And even though we had a rough start, look how far we’ve come now,” Hanky said.
I thought it best not to dwell on the past because I’m pretty sure she wanted to shoot me when we first met. “Back to Frank,” I said.
“He went with me to talk to the other two workers, Earline and Lionel, at CluckIt They told us the cashier who was pulled out the window and found floating in Lake Pontchartrain, the one named Charles Ballon, was calling a sex line somewhere. Sandra, my cat lady neighbor, works a sex line. Sully, the bartender knows Sandra and has that Hedge Fund he told us about the night we went there. Jiff thought it’s a setup to con patrons and the owner out of their money.”
“Bartenders are notorious hustlers,” Hanky said while taking notes.
“Jiff made a comment that it looked like he picks someone to win who would drink up the winnings right back into the bar. Think about that. If that’s true, then Sully pockets the money,” I said.
“Right, and he probably pours the drinks for the winner without showing that to the owner of the bar. He’s probably bringing in his own bottle to pour from so he can hide it and the owner doesn’t see any shrinkage,” Hanky said.
“I think Sully has something to do with Sandra and the phone sex thing. Sully said Sandra had a second job she didn’t like, the night I went there with Jiff,” I said.
“What has that got to do with anything?” Hanky was tapping her pen on her notepad.
“I thought the second job was the phone sex but it’s the palm reading. She’s done the phone sex thing for a long time. I think there’s more to Sully and Sandra than what we know. Remember, I asked him the night I was with you at the bar if he and Sandra were dating? He didn’t answer me. Suzanne told me she asked him what his relationship was with Sandra after he served Sandra a boat load of drinks and she passed out on the bar. He didn’t answer her either. Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“Suzanne?” Hanky looked confused. “Same Suzanne that you think is missing?”
“Yes. Suzanne is my roommate. She and Sandra started sharing cabs home from the French Quarter on nights they both worked late. Sandra always got the driver to drop her off at that bar before going home. I’d see her stumbling up the stairs between seven to seven-thirty a.m. almost every day when I’m on my way to work. I try to leave for work before I see her, because if she falls over the side into the hedges, I have to go help her out and that is a forty-five-minute commitment at a minimum.”
“What do you mean you have to help her out of the hedges?” Hanky stopped tapping and looked at me.
I shook my hand and my head to signal I was waving off that situation and it wasn’t worth going into. Hanky went back to tapping on her notebook.
“Suzanne went to that bar the other night with Sandra as a favor to me,” I said.
“Why would she do that? Didn’t you think he was dangerous?” Hanky asked.
“Not at first.” I said. “I didn’t think he was dangerous until Suzanne went there and the next day Sully showed up at our front door under the pretense that he found some ratty sweater he thought she left at the bar. I think he wanted to see if she was alone.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Hanky said.
“Remember Sully said he lived here, in this house? Sully could have had a key and I would bet a paycheck that Chauvin didn’t change the locks before we moved in.”
“So that makes Sully a person of interest to the murder here, but what about the CluckIt murders and that palm reader in the Quarter?” Hanky was scribbling in her notebook.
“I called you right after I saw Sandra with her new handrails. She told me that Sully wouldn’t be happy over someone putting handrails on her front steps. Then she told me Suzanne offered to put up handrails if she won the lottery when she was at the bar and Sully made a comment that I had said the same thing. How did he know we moved in here together? He seemed to know it before I went there the first time with Jiff.”
“Well, for starters, you and Suzanne are hard to miss. Two attractive women are targets for male heat seeking missiles. When did you last see Suzanne?”
“Last Thursday night, I gave Suzanne a ride to work. I went away for the weekend with…with… never mind,” I said as Hanky’s eyes opened wide and she tilted her head back in surprise. “I talked to her yesterday on the phone. That was when Sully came here with the sweater.”
“The phone dumps I got back from Sandra’s phone and the bar’s phone show several different numbers forwarding from the bar to Sandra’s number,” Hanky said.
“Not good,” I said. “That fits with what the CluckIt people said. They said someone would call and ask for Charles Ballon and leave a number for him to call.”
“That’s not all. They are all billed, and the bill goes to the bar in the name of Samantha Sullivan.” Hanky looked smug.
“Samantha Sullivan?” I said. “Who’s that? I’m confused.”
“I was too. Then I remembered you said someone kept calling the police with complaints over the cats, so I got the uniform on duty to pull the complaints called in from Sandra’s address to see who made them. I also told him to run your address to see if they came from here. I’m waiting for him to call me back,” she said. Hanky was silent for a minute, thinking. “CluckIt. Who killed those two, and what was the motive?”
“Okay, don’t forget the palm reader in the French Quarter,” I said. “You—the police—not you personally, have to think that the palm reader and the CluckIt guy were killed by the same person because of the way they were found. Both were in bodies of water, floating, tied to something.”
“Whoever did it, knows it gets harder to find evidence once a body is in water a while,” she said.
The dogs were starting to growl at all the noise out back, and soon they would be barking. I got up and shooed them back into the hall bath. I walked to the kitchen and looked out the back door. There was a huge hole the police had dug on one side of the yard. A detective and a man in white overalls were down in the hole looking at something while several other uniforms, detectives, Dante and his Captain watched, standing from the perimeter. I really didn’t want to see what they found so I went back to sit with Hanky.
“The day of the…let’s just call it the day of the cat fight, Dante and I came here to talk with Sandra, remember?” Hanky asked.
“Do you think I could ever forget that?” I said.
“I was ticketing cars and when I got to that SUV, the vin number on it matched the stolen car you saw at CluckIt.” Hanky stopped a minute to think about what she just said. “If that SUV had been reported stolen two hours before the crimes at CluckIt, and Sandra said a friend loaned it to her, that means Sandra knows who drove it the night of the murder and…”
“She knows who the murderer is,” I said, finishing what we both thought.
Hanky sat tapping her pen on her notepad, then blurted out, “Sandra knows all these people.”
“That might be why she acted so crazy when you were ticketing car. She’s the connection.” I said. “Sandra and Sully—both knew Charles Ballon, the cross-dressing cashier at CluckIt. Sully hustles the bar patrons, the owner and Sandra. He’s making money on the pool he has on her falls into the bushes and Sully said—even admitted to us that night you met him—that they knew each other for some time.”
Drive Thru Murder Page 21
