The Blood of Saints (Tom Connelly Book 2)

by Nick Dorsey

  “Like a poker room.”

  Jean said, “It was in a strip mall.”

  “You need a license to run one of those?” Reese asked.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Jean said.

  “Strip mall. Hold up.” Middleton looked up from his notes. “This is over on Jefferson? Jefferson and Eve?”

  “Maybe, yeah. Sounds about right.”

  “Shit.” Middleton dropped his arm and looked at his partner. “I heard the call last night. Somebody dropped two bodies at this strip mall on Jefferson and Eve.”

  Jean leaned forward, between the cops. “This was last night?”

  “Early this morning,” Middleton said. Then, to Reese, “I’ll hook up with Homicide and see what they say.”

  “Do you think it’s all connected?” Jean said.

  Reese turned to Jean. He gave her a wide-eyed, angry look that told her to mind her business. He put pen to paper. “Okay. That’s it. Let’s pull Connelly in here.” He sniffed. “See if he’s more helpful.”

  “Wait,” Jean said. She had been thinking about this for no time at all, but her gut told her it was the right move. If she wanted to use this situation to her advantage, there were a few moves she had to make. “I won’t give you Patton’s notes, but I can give you the name of someone he talked to. Someone who didn’t want to be interviewed.”

  The cops looked at one another. Reese put his pen down. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he made threats,” Jean said.

  “And you didn’t report it?”

  “I’m a defender. Can you guess how many times a day somebody gives me shit?”

  Reese grinned at that.

  “His name was Dominic Barese,” Jean said. “I didn’t think he was anything to write home about, at the time.”

  “You were wrong,” Reese said smugly.

  Jean nodded slowly. “I was wrong.”

  The two uniforms left after asking a few questions and giving Tom an appropriate amount of shit. They took Tom’s statement and promised they would be back, and they would probably have more questions. That was alright. He had driven down this road before. He had been fairly honest with the uniforms, which was probably a new experience for them. He told them he panicked when he found Patton, which wasn’t all that far from the truth. And, knowing what he knew about the case-which was all attorney-client privileged type stuff, you guys understand, right?-once he saw the EMTs on scene, he went to make sure a similar fate had not befallen one of their interview subjects. The older officer gave him a look, then. A look that said Tom was probably full of shit. But he didn’t call him out there in the little chapel. So everybody agreed the story was Tom went to Sal LaRocca’s place to make sure the old man was okay.

  They asked about his cheek. “Work,” he said. He fed them a line about a drunk swinging on him at the casino. They weren’t happy with it, but they left him all the same. He never went into what happened at Sal’s, of course. No reason to muddy any waters.

  After, Tom sat next to Jean and let out a sigh. She said, “That go okay?”

  He shrugged. Jean put her head on his shoulder, a gesture that surprised him. He said, “You say anything they’re going to think twice about?”

  “I don’t think so.” Jean’s chest rose as she pulled in a huge breath. She took his hand. “Erika Cheramie has a sister in Lafayette.” She met his eye when he looked at her. “Just so you know.”

  Tom had been thinking about how to approach this subject. He said, “Thanks.”

  “I figured you ought to know.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  When Erika Cheramie woke the next morning she wasn’t sure what time it was. The blackout curtains hid most of the day, but her phone told her it was dangerously close to noon. She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned on one hand, looking at Dominic in the dark. He looked good like this, peaceful in a way he never really was unless they just had sex or had just gotten stoned. She thought he could have been a model if he had the patience for it, which he didn’t. That didn’t mean he was a hot-head, the type of guy to rush into a situation without thinking it through. Not exactly. But he did have a determined air about him. Like as soon as he figured out what he wanted, he would go after it. She liked that about him the most, probably.

  She showered and concocted some story she would tell Mattie. Erika had an advantage here. Her older sister had always been the normal one, the one who was content in Lafayette. The one who knew what she wanted and figured out how to make it happen. Real Estate agent at twenty-one. Married at twenty-three. Two kids by the time she was twenty-eight and now trying for a third. She was an avid church-goer, a member of the Junior League, and a member of the Women’s Chamber of Commerce. Their mother had died five years previously and Mattie took it upon herself to keep their tiny family together. Their father was a distant memory of cigarette smoke and aftershave that had disappeared completely by the time she was three. So Mattie was it. She knew a little about Erika’s life. The dancing, mostly. She knew there was a man but not that it was Dominic or anything about him. She thought she could just tell Mattie they were on some sort of business trip. Like maybe Dominic was going to a conference someplace like St. Louis. He could be, what?

  It came to her. He could be an x-ray technician. She knew a dancer who did that. It was pretty good. So Dominic would be somebody who worked in a hospital, which Mattie would like, and have a job she wouldn’t know anything about. A long talk about Cuba would have to wait. Mattie wouldn’t understand, so why bring that part of it up? For now, it was just Erika and her boyfriend headed to some sort of medical conference in St. Louis. It sounded good to her.

  Cuba. Wow. She was still wrapping her mind around it. Better to think about that than the black guy Dominic had shot, the guy bleeding out over the hardwood floor.

  Yeah. That’s not the way.

  Cuba.

  She had seen pictures of all those old cars and vibrantly colored buildings, but that was about all she knew. They were communists, she guessed she knew that. And they spoke Spanish. Erika did not. Dominic knew a little Italian but she didn’t think that was quite the same. She guessed she would learn, though. Once they got to Cuba they could never come back, not with everything Dominic had done. That wasn’t a good thought. That led her down another dark path. One where she never saw her friends or her sister again. If some part of her realized that was the consequence of their original sin, the murder of Ernesto Adelfi, she was able to tamp that part down.

  After all, it wasn’t Erika that had pulled the trigger. In reality, Erika hadn’t done much of anything at all.

  Now, that was an interesting thought. By the time she turned the shower off, she was thinking about maybe not going to Cuba after all. What did she know about Cuba, anyway?

  She put on her face and got dressed as quietly as possible, so as not to wake Dominic. Shorts that weren't too short and a black halter top. The weather was better up there than it was in New Orleans.

  She had to give some serious thought to Cuba. Dominic had to go there, no doubt about that. The cops were probably looking for him right now, and if they weren’t, his friends were. So he had to go. But did she? They were supposed to be together forever. Wasn’t that right?

  Was it?

  She pulled one of the trash bags they had taken from the back of the car into the light of the bathroom. She dug inside until she found a fat leather tote bag, the one from Spain that she bought last year. She thought it was probably big enough. Moving quickly, she knelt by the rest of the bags and found the red one in the dark. The money was bound in thick stacks, though she couldn’t read the denominations. For some reason, she left three stacks in the bag. Why?

  Was she taking anything at all? She didn’t think it would be enough to live on. But it might be enough to hold her over until Dominic was out of the country. Relief flooded her for a moment. So she wasn’t going to Cuba. Great. Right on its heels, her adrenaline spiked. What would Dominic do when he foun
d out?

  She rose on shaking legs and went to the door, her purse puffy with stolen cash. In the dark, Dominic made a guttural sound. Erika froze. The bed squeaked as he turned over. He held a hand out to her. “You should come back to bed.”

  She kept walking. “I got to go.” She paused at the door. “I love you.”

  “You too.”

  She left him in the dark.

  At the party, Erika cracked open her second beer and tried to ignore the way Mattie’s husband was looking at her. There was the kind of skeevy look she expected from him, the lingering gaze, especially where she was showing skin, but there was something else. A little suspicious glint Erika couldn’t ignore. He worked at the golf club down off 89, although she didn’t know what he did there. She didn’t think he was all too smart. He was looking at her, though. Like he was putting something together. She didn’t know what he could possibly know, but she felt it. She drank her beer and turned away from him, to the group of moms planted in lawn chairs under a great big umbrella. She tried to pick up the conversation but she couldn’t focus. Her cash-laden purse was tucked away in the guest bedroom of the sprawling two-story house, along with a few other guest’s purses. She couldn’t bring herself to leave it in the car. Mattie lived in a nice neighborhood, but still. It was better to be sure. Now Adam, Mattie’s husband, was looking at her and Erika was thinking maybe she should have left it in the car.

  Besides being admittedly a little paranoid, she was feeling a little guilty about taking the money. Dominic wouldn’t understand that. If she had tried to explain about wanting to stay near family, near the city, he wouldn’t have understood. Sure, he acted like the city was the end-all-be-all for him, and he said the people at the Pan Dell’Orso were his family, but they were just a means to an end. Dominic always pictured himself on top, a real leader. If that opportunity dried up in New Orleans, he probably thought he could take another swing at it in Cuba. Still, she was guilty. Not guilty enough to run back to the motel and return the money, of course. And not guilty enough that she wasn’t a little relieved Dominic didn’t know where her sister lived. But still. She liked him.

  She told herself to shut up. To get right. She wasn’t in Lafayette to mope around, was she? No. So, she mingled and told lies about her fake radiology technician boyfriend and ignored Mattie’s husband as best she could. A few of the guys poured endless pounds of steaming crawfish from a big 60-quart pot, red potatoes and pale corn mixed in there for variety, and the dozen or so folks ate and drank. Erika was tearing the heads off crawfish with practiced ease and almost feeling normal when she had the sudden urge to check on her purse. It was an urgent, panicky feeling like she was on the verge of wetting her pants.

  She dropped the crawfish she was peeling and held her hands up like a surgeon. They were streaked with wet, cayenne-infused crawfish viscera. A muddy line ran down her wrist and made its way to her elbow. She told Mattie she was going to wash her hands and grabbed a paper towel to mop up some of the mess in the interim. She hurried through the kitchen, not even stopping at the sink. Down the hall and to the guest bedroom. She heard them before she saw them. Little voices giggling and chattering.

  “You little shits,” she said, and the voices went quiet. There were three of them. Mattie’s two girls and a neighborhood boy, playing some nonsense game on the floor next to the bureau. Several purses had been ransacked for their game. Mattie’s seven-year-old even had smeared some lipstick across her top lip and cheek. Erika didn’t know what kind of game it was, she only knew it somehow involved two of the three kids brandishing fistfuls of money. Her money. When she cursed, they went quiet. The boy was trying to smile like this was a new aspect of the game he hadn’t quite figured out. The girls were a bit quicker. They knew they were in trouble. Tears came and the youngest bolted, pushing past Erika and out into the hall. The seven-year-old started babbling an explanation or excuse but Erika was yelling at them, “Just get out. Out! Out!”

  They ran then, and that made Erika feel good. She had some privacy in which she could clean up. Collect herself. She swung the door shut but a hand stopped it before it could give her that satisfying slam. Adam, Mattie’s husband, pushed the door back open. His lecherous look was gone. Now he was angry, his face pinched up, mouth drooping open. “What is your problem?” He snarled, then he saw the cash.

  Erika moved first, stuffing the money back in her purse. She heard the door shut behind her and when she looked Adam was standing at the closed door awkwardly, not angry but genuinely confused. He was frozen there, almost like a vampire waiting to be invited in.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Your kids were in my bag.” She said it with as much venom as she could muster.

  “Where did all the money come from?”

  “Work.”

  That hung between them for a moment, then Adam burst out laughing. Well, he wasn’t getting any more of an explanation. Erika marched to the door but Adam didn’t move. He was blocking the door, but Erika was a little taller than he was. She was looking down at him.

  “Are you going to get out of my way?”

  He shook his head. “What if I don’t?”

  “Mattie, your husband grabbed my ass,” she said.

  “What?” he said.

  “Mattie,” she said, louder this time. “Your husband-”

  “Christ, don’t freak out,” he said and moved away from the door. “You lunatic.”

  Erika shouldered him aside and went down the hall and into the laundry room. There was a door there that led out to a side yard. The Lexus was right on the street. Close. She could be gone in twenty seconds. Maybe even back to Dominic?

  No. of course not. Not after taking the money. Anywhere else, then. As long as she wasn’t here.

  Footsteps in the grass. Adam was right behind her, “Hey, where are you going? You’re not going to say goodbye?”

  “No,” she said, without stopping. She could feel tears welling at the corners of her eyes and moved a hand to wipe them away, then realized that her hands were dirty and spiced. Wiping her eyes now would be the equivalent of turning a can of mace against herself.

  He grabbed her elbow and she stopped long enough to yank her arm free.

  “Stop it.”

  “Erika, if you’re in trouble,” he said and stopped. He was resigned, now. “Talk to Mattie, okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She pulled away and started walking to the Lexus.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” he said.

  She ignored him. Across the street, two men got out of a dark SUV. They were both wearing suits, which was weird. And both walking across the street.

  “Erika,” Adam was saying behind her.

  She ran across the yard, but one of the suits made it to the Lexus before she did. He stood in front of the driver’s side door, a middle-aged guy looking pretty proud of himself.

  “Erika Cheramie?” He pulled his suit coat aside and showed her the badge on his belt. “Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Department.” He must have seen the look on her face because next, he said, “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t run, okay? That’s not going to end well for anybody.”

  She couldn’t think of anything to say. Panic was taking over. She started to back away, to do exactly what he said not to, but another dark SUV eased around the corner and sat in the street. The windows were tinted so heavily she couldn’t see the driver.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” the cop said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Erika said.

  “Ah, shit,” the cop said. There were voices behind her and Erika turned. The whole party was easing out into the front yard, watching Erika and the cop.

  Mattie was there, confused at first but then straightening, marching over to give the cops a piece of her mind and defend Erika to the death. Adam intercepted her.

  While she was watching them, the cop gently took Erika’s bag and twisted her arm behind her back. She couldn’t believe it. He was slapping handcu
ffs onto her wrists.

  Erika’s eyes caught Mattie’s. “I didn’t do anything,” she said. But she didn’t think Mattie believed her.

  Back at the motel, Dominic cursed, then threw his cell phone against the wall. It dented the floral wallpaper and fell to the carpet. The screen immediately went dark.

  Three red duffel bags were piled on the floor, and small mounds of cash were piled on the bed. One pile was a meager three stacks of bills. He couldn’t believe it. She stole from him. After the day they had yesterday, and him even promising to take her to Cuba with him, she still took the damn money.

  He picked up the phone and tried to turn it back on. He had called her ten times and sent a dozen messages, but Erika wasn’t answering. Was there even a crawfish boil, he was wondering. Did she even have a sister?

  Wait. Of course, she did, he even met her once. He had to relax and think this through. First things first. His phone wasn’t lighting up. He had seriously screwed it up, chucking it at the wall like that. He smacked it a few times, and once he was satisfied it was dead, he dropped it onto the bed next to the money.

  Well, this was completely fucked. She didn’t take everything, though. So he had some money to live on. But was it enough? Shouldn’t he go after the rest of the money?

  He knew Erika was not lying about a sister. So all he had to do was remember her married name. And her first name, too. And then what? When he found her, would he deal with her like he had dealt with Ernie Adelfi? Like he had the black kid back in that apartment?

  Yeah, this was completely fucked.

  He checked his gun and set in within reach while he dressed. His fingers couldn’t make the buttons on his shirt work. His mind went back to Erika. He couldn’t believe it. She had really done it. The betrayal sat in the pit of his stomach, unmoving. He wanted to rage, to trash the room, but it all seemed futile at the moment. The phone proved that, didn’t it? He stood, waiting on anger that wouldn’t come, his shirt halfway buttoned. Finally, he sat on the bed, causing a small cascade of cash. His shoulders dropped.