by Nick Dorsey
He was still trying to convince himself when, out of the blue, Jeanette Perez left her place running. Not from him. She was in sweats and sneakers, out for a morning jog.
“Shit.” Dominic put the car in gear and drove a block over, then down a few blocks. He was going to drive into the lake if he was waiting for the woman all this time only to lose her to a morning run. He cut back over and saw Jean, walking now. Guess the morning jog only lasted a hundred yards or so.
She walked down to Carrollton Avenue and went into a place that had a sign in the window saying they had Coffee and Juice. Dominic parked and went in after her.
He stepped inside and took off his sunglasses. Dominic walked right behind Jean and said, “Hey.”
She turned and took an earbud out. It made her look clueless. Stupid, he thought. She said, “I’m sorry?”
“Hey. You know if they got a cortado here?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
After the strange man in the expensive jacket threatened her, Jean ran straight inside, locked the door, and pulled her bat from its place next to her helmet in the pantry.
Why had she put it in the pantry again?
Chicory mewled at her when she came back into the living room and held the bat high, ready to bash the guy’s head in if he tried to follow her. After a minute passed and the door remained shut and locked, she edged up to the window. Her front porch was empty and the lawn was clear. The cars on the street all belonged to her neighbors. The guy was gone. Jean sat heavily on the couch and grabbed her phone, trying to decide who she should call. The police? Eason? Patton?
Tom?
Ever since Jean took Tom Connelly off the Adelfi case, her world had gone straight to hell. She tried to convince herself it was just coincidence, but she couldn’t help but wonder if there was some cosmic force focused on completely and utterly screwing her.
Friday morning she woke to three missed calls from Connelly himself, which wasn’t surprising. She expected him to try and get his job back. This whole thing was more than a job for him, Jean had realized. It was something closer to a crusade. She did not answer. Instead, she went to CC’s Coffee and got herself a chai tea, then went down to Tulane Tower. She stayed hunkered in her office all morning, looking over the new cases she had been assigned. She spread files across her desk, quickly running out of space. She kicked off her shoes and arrayed them on the floor. Jean stood over everything. She made notes on the similarities. Assault. Possession of marijuana. That alone accounted for a quarter of the cases. Possession of cocaine. Possession with intent to distribute. One of those looked like entrapment. She remembered a case she had worked with Eason that was similar in scope. She would need to ask him for the case file.
Her phone rang and Jean answered. The office secretary was asking what her afternoon looked like.
That was never good.
“I’m free. Does Juanita need to talk?”
“Juanita is out for the day. Will wants to see you, though.”
Jean hung up and leaned back in her chair, wondering what the afternoon meeting would bring.
She knocked on Will Jackson’s door and he called out, “Enter.” She pushed into his office and was surprised to see Eason there, looking for all the world like a conspirator. Will stood up and shut the door behind her. He was good looking in a pink dress shirt. His goatee was just on the wrong side of going grey. Most of the attorneys in the Public Defenders Office had some sort of personal effects on the wall, but Will had nothing. His desk held a laptop and a few pictures of his kids, twin boys named Jamal and Jon. The only signs of life outside the Defenders.
“How’s it going, Jean?” Eason gestured to an empty chair.
“I guess I’m about to find out.”
Will took his place behind his desk and said, “We were just talking about Eason’s case. The shooting at Circle K on Lee Circle.”
“Yeah, they got him on the video. Mr. Young says it’s not him, but a jury is sure going to see some similarities. And he’s pulling the trigger on film.”
Jean relaxed a little. Will was Juanita’s second, but he was also the Chief of Trials. That meant every case that didn’t plea out, every case that saw a jury trial, was his purview. He assembled teams of different lawyers, sometimes seemingly at random, to assist and bolster one another. She first assumed that she was being called out on the carpet for some reason, but maybe she had been assigned to Eason’s team.
Jean said, “Is he putting you on, or does he seriously believe it’s not him?”
The two men looked at one another. “Tough call,” Eason said.
“We’re getting someone to evaluate him. Uh.” Will looked over the paperwork scattered across his desk. “In two weeks. He’s aware of the charges and the possible consequences, but he’s still claiming there’s no similarity between him and the guy on camera.”
Eason shrugged in his suit coat and smirked. “Maybe he’s got some sort of dissociative disorder.”
“Or,” Jean said, “Does he honestly believe he can convince a jury the man on the video isn’t him? What’s his I.Q?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll see what the evaluation turns up.” He made a show of collecting his papers into something like a stack. “Eason tells me you’ve been working hard on the Adelfi murder.”
“Yeah, I’ve been examining a few angles.” Jean cut her eyes to Eason, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. So this wasn’t about putting her on a team after all. She was pretty sure all the talk about the Circle K murder was for show. No, this was about calling her on the carpet for slacking with Adelfi. She knew it.
Will gestured to Eason, and the big man cleared his throat and pulled a hand through his beard. “You’ve been doing great work, Jean. Really. I was talking to Will and telling him so. Juanita thinks so, too. I just don’t want your whole life to get eaten up by this one case. It’s your first murder.” He grinned. “It won’t be your last.”
“Okay,” she said, drawing the word out. She could see what was happening, but she was going to make them say it.
With eyes nearly slits, Will said, “Eason’s coming on to your case. Just for a bit.”
Damn it. She knew it. Her hand wanted to crawl up the side of her head and find the scar there but she managed to hold it in her lap.
He said, “Just to lend a helping hand.”
The chair rocked as Jean stood. She tried to keep her cool. Because she had to. “If I’m doing great work, then why do I need a hand?”
The look on Will’s face told her everything she needed to know. He really had no idea. “There’s a budgetary concern.”
“I’m back down to one investigator. It’s not a concern.”
“I’m just double-checking. Crossing t’s and dotting i’s. Really.” Eason said.
“Juanita is good with this,” Will added. His eyes darted between the two. “So it’s a done deal.”
Eason stood up and extended his hand. “It’ll be like old times, right? Still friends?”
Jean gritted her teeth. Then she stood up and shook his hand. Then he asked for files and the investigator's reports and Jean put herself on autopilot. Just going through the motions.
She saved her aggression for the batting cages later that night, swinging and smashing for a full hour before she dropped the bat to the ground. She could barely carry it back to her car. The night brought Chinese leftovers and another ignored phone call from Tom. She wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone, let alone the man who was responsible for her case going down a rabbit hole.
The next morning was bright and cool, so she strapped on her tennis shoes and put in her earbuds, then set off for the juice bar on Carrollton. She ran for two blocks over the uneven street, dodging potholes and ripples of pavement, and then decided walking was more her speed. She walked the rest of the way on the sidewalk, though the path wasn’t any better. Up and down the street the concrete slabs that made up the walk were sunken, or raised, or jutting from the ground at forty-fi
ve degrees. At the juice bar, she ordered the one with peanut butter in it and ignored the young guy who tried a clumsy pick-up line on her, then walked back home.
She thought it might be a good day to walk around City Park. She could try and clear this Adelfi mess from her mind.
“Hey, they didn’t have a cortado.” The voice made her turn around. It was the young guy with the bad pick-up line. He had on a nice jacket and was wearing sunglasses over something that wanted to be a beard but just looked like artful stubble.
She didn’t take out her earbuds, but smiled at the guy and continued her walk. She heard his footsteps behind her. She thought to run, but then again, she didn’t want the guy knowing where she lived. She turned and stood up straight. The guy stopped and looked a little surprised, then recovered and flashed her a smile he obviously thought was charming.
“Hey, I’m just trying to talk to you. I don’t mean to follow you.”
“But you are following me.”
“I’m just saying hello.”
“Now you’ve said it.”
That made him frown. “Yeah, I guess I did, hunh?”
I’m a badass bitch.
Damn right she was. Jean felt her hands tighten into fists. She willed them to relax. She said, “I’m not looking for a date and I’m not religious. I don’t need anything you’re selling, okay? So just walk away.” Jean stood there and didn’t drop her eyes. Her forehead was itching like crazy all of a sudden, but she wouldn’t let herself scratch. She wouldn’t move until the guy walked away.
He turned but he didn’t walk. He bent over and grabbed a newspaper from a yard and slipped it out of the plastic coating. Jean took a step back, ready for him to use it as a weapon. It sounded crazy when she thought of it. But she was ready.
Instead of taking a crack at her with the newspaper, the guy unrolled it and opened it up. Reading a stranger’s paper there on the street. He said, “Look, this guy is still getting the newspaper.”
“Leave me alone. Walk away.” Jean said it loud, hoping somebody would hear it somewhere.
“I’m going. I’m going.” He wasn’t, though. He said, “You see the paper this morning?”
“No.” Jean took another few steps back. All the hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight out. She still didn’t know what this guy wanted, what this was.
“Strange story in the paper. See? I’m reading it right here. A Public Defender got in an accident.”
Jean’s heart thundered in her chest. She took another step back.
“Fell down the stairs. Right in front of her house. You know this lady? Lives right by the park.” He wasn’t looking at her at all now. The guy was just flipping through the morning paper, pretending to read it. He grinned and threw the paper on the ground. Jean flinched.
The guy raised his voice. “Hunh. I guess that was tomorrow’s paper. Anyway. You have a good day.” He spun around and walked off. Jean made sure he was leaving.
She dropped her juice. The green stuff exploded against the sidewalk in some alien Rorschach test. Then Jean began to run.
Now Jean sat on her couch with a bat in one hand and her cell phone in the other and tried to calm herself down.
If she was honest with herself, she knew who she should call. She thought she knew who the man with the beard was, or at least who he was connected to. He was connected to the only murder case Jean had ever had. The one she was being slowly edged out of. Jean couldn't say whether it was against her better judgment or because of it, but she called Tom Connelly.
He showed up in an LSU hoodie that was a bit too big and jeans. He brought with him a plastic case about half the size of a briefcase. His face looked drawn and his eyes were in constant motion. Jean had the idea that she had woken him up. His arms jerked toward her like he was going to hug her, but he didn’t. It was only then that Jean realized she was wrapped up into herself, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. One hand was gripping the bat near her shoulder.
Tom said, “You can put that down now.”
She nodded and unwound herself. Jean said, “Thanks.” She leaned the bat against the door frame. “Thanks for coming, I mean.”
“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” The was a hitch in his voice Jean hadn’t heard before.
“No, he didn't touch me. He just said something about a Public Defender being in an accident.”
“Meaning you?” Tom set his small briefcase on the coffee table. Jean took a seat at the far end of the couch.
“Yeah, meaning me.”
“Did he follow you back here?
“No, he went the other way. Down toward Carrollton.” She stared at the door, waiting for a knock. Jean said, “I wanted to talk to you to make sure I wasn’t crazy. But I should call the police, right?”
“Yeah. Probably. Let me just ask you a few questions, alright? Did you recognize him?”
“No.”
“There was a guy with Sal at the car dealership. Longer hair, bigger nose. It wasn't him?”
“No.”
“Was it a big guy?” Tom asked. “With sideburns? Fat Elvis type?”
“No, not really. And he was pretty young. Maybe in his twenties. He had a beard.”
“Big beard, a bushy beard?”
“No, short. Really short. And he was tan.”
Tom nodded. He opened his small briefcase. Inside was a silver pistol and two clips of ammunition set into a foam mold. “I borrowed this from a friend. Ray says you can hold onto it as long as you need to. Just don’t rob a corner store.” Tom looked to see if she was smiling. She wasn’t. He said, “Can you shoot?”
“No.”
“Well. Shit.”
“Okay. This is crazy.” Jean grabbed her phone and was surprised when Tom reached across the couch to take her hand.
“Don’t call them,” he said. “Just not yet. The guy had a New Orleans accent, right? Like an old-school accent.”
“Yeah.”
“His name is Dominic. He works for Sal LaRocca, but you already guessed that.”
“That’s why I’m calling the police.”
“I’ve been trying to call you. I want to talk to you about him. He’s dating Sofia Adelfi.” Jean screwed up her face. That didn’t make any sense. Tom waved a hand frantically. “No, not the lady in prison. But I’ve seen him with a woman who looks like her. And that’s who came to my office to talk to me right before Ernesto Adelfi was murdered. The real Sofia never met me. When we were interviewing her together she wasn’t lying. She’s never seen me before. Because it was this other woman.”
“So she was pretending to be Sofia?”
“I think so. I mean, it was raining when I saw her. Makeup all messed up. She was putting on the accent, though.”
Jean took that in. She furrowed her brow and walked to her kitchen. From a cabinet over her sink, she pulled down a plastic cup with the name of a Mardi Gras parade stenciled on the side. She cranked on the faucet and let the water run for a minute. She filled her cup and drank it. If what Tom said was true, then she still had a chance with Sofia Adelfi’s case. And the fact that certain people in the Public Defenders Office didn’t want her to take any chances meant less and less to her.
Jean sighed. Who did she sound like now?
Tom. She cursed.
She walked back into the room and stared at Tom. She said, “You don’t want me to call the cops?” Tom was quiet. He didn’t meet her eye. “Because this is a thread you want to pull, right?”
He said, “If I get some pictures, some names. I’ll put together a narrative, a story, just like you wanted. Then I’ll call the police.”
Jean looked down at the silver gun. “You can bring that back to your friend. I don’t know how to use it, anyway.”
She steered the little Mazda out of the city, away from the setting sun. Past the small neighborhoods and gas stations that made up Meraux and into Saint Bernard. Her parent’s neighborhood was nicknamed the Road Home Homes after the government funds
that had been dispersed to those who lost their houses during the storm. Not the most clever name, but her father chuckled every time he said it. Their house was new construction. It was raised, like all the other houses in the neighborhood, but still had the look of an old frame home on stilts. Jean parked and went inside and found the place dark and empty. She threw her bag in the guest bedroom. There was none of her old furniture anywhere in the house, but her mother insisted the guest bedroom was still her room. She made a few calls but no one was answering.
Jean got back in her car and drove out into the swamp. Past RV parks and stands selling shrimp, crabs, and the first crawfish of the year. A few street lights popped on as she drove down the two-lane highway toward Hopedale. The bayou was dark on one side of her, the charter boat agencies on the other were just shutting down. Hopedale wasn’t much more than a strip of that same highway crowded with fishing guides, boat rentals and seafood restaurants.
There were fishing nets and crab traps hanging on the wall of Islenos Seafood. The same plastic menus had been used since Jean was in high school, back when she spent a brief, terrible summer as a waitress there. The place even smelled the same, a heady mixture of old beer and shrimp. In the dining area, Jean saw an older woman talking to a young couple at a table. The woman was laughing, but covering her mouth with one hand, like she was afraid to let you know she was laughing. Her hair was streaked with a grey that Jean didn’t remember seeing a few months ago. Had she been dying her hair?
Jean walked over and said, “Hey, Mom.”
The woman turned, surprised. Her face broke out into an excited grin. Jean’s mother hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. “I wasn’t expecting you this weekend, darlin’.”
Jean shrugged. She had decided not to tell her parents why she was visiting them. Now she struggled to say anything at all.
