Doing the Devil's Work (12 page)

Quinn shrugged. Ruiz had wandered off into the dark. Maureen didn’t like not knowing where he was. She disliked harboring worries for her safety around a fellow cop.

Trying to disturb the body as little as possible, she rummaged through Gage’s front pockets.

She found his wallet, the well-worn nylon-and-Velcro billfold with a faded Mötley Crüe logo on the front. He’d probably had it, she thought, since the eighth grade. Inside, he had lots of singles, a few fives, and a card for half off a lap dance at a Downman Road strip club. The other stuff Maureen figured he bought at the club, kitchen-sink crank from the look of his teeth and parking-lot hand jobs from the look of the rest of him, he paid full freight on those, if not double.

Mixed in with the dirty, wrinkled bills was a ticket stub for a gun-and-knife show about three weeks earlier, held west of the city out in Kenner. She found a pocket calendar listing the year’s remaining gun shows like the schedule for a sports team. He had no credit cards or debit cards. He had no cell phone. Tucked in a wallet pocket were business cards from several gun shops. She looked at one off the bottom of the stack, for a store outside Baton Rouge. Its logo was an assault rifle. The store motto read
Worried about the next four years?
Mixed in with the cards was a yellow Post-it note folded closed.

“You believe this shit?” she said, passing the business card over her shoulder to Quinn. “Subtle.”

“It sells guns,” Quinn said. “They know their market. I’ll give ’em that.”

Maureen opened the Post-it note. Written inside, in a childlike scrawl:
Heath. 718 St. Peter Street. Eleven p.m. Sunday.

“And then there’s this,” she said. “That’s Pat O’s address. Gage had Pat O’s go cups in his truck. I met a guy named Heath the other night on Magnolia Street.”

“On Magnolia Street? A guy named Heath? You sure about that?”

“He arrived right after you guys bailed. He owns the house where the body was found. He’s some kind of slumlord, a total douche bag, too. No surprise there.” She’d detected an odd note in Quinn’s voice. She turned and looked up at him. “You know the guy?”

Quinn blinked a few times. “I know
of
him, his family. They’re old-school New Orleans. His dad’s a big shot. Just that kind of thing. You see their pictures in the society pages, they’re always doing charity shit that involves wearing tuxedos and ball gowns. Good people.” He handed her back the business card and took the note from her, frowned at it as he reread it. “Maybe we leave this business alone, Cogs. Let Homicide handle it. Seems complicated, a lot to sort out.”

She put out her hand, gestured for the return of the note. Quinn didn’t give it back.

“Let me bag this,” Quinn said. “It is evidence. I should do something useful around here.”

“Suddenly you’re interested,” Maureen said, only half kidding. Quinn didn’t respond. He was already walking away from her. Maureen turned her attention back to Gage’s wallet.

She checked his driver’s license again. Three years expired. She stared at the picture. Gage looked healthier in it, though not a whole lot. Not much to compare, his corpse and his driver’s license photo. Neither would flatter him. She should have run his name through her computer herself last night, not left everything to Quinn and Ruiz, who she knew could get lazy. It was her stop, her scene. She should’ve kept control. Leary and the stolen purses had commanded her attention. She’d been too impressed with her own detective genius, and with exerting her physical authority over Gage, with feeding that adrenaline need.

Quinn had returned. She looked up at him. “Mr. Gage was visiting our fair city from LaPlace. At least that’s what this license says.”

“A country boy,” Quinn said. “I’d never have suspected.”

“What are the odds that whoever killed him took his phone, his credit cards, and his big bills, and put his wallet back in his pocket? Pretty long, I’d think. We can probably rule out a robbery.” She stood. “His jewelry is gone, though we don’t know that he was wearing it.”

She stretched her back then lifted her right foot, rotating her sore ankle until it cracked. She’d left her Percocet at home. Maybe after this business here she’d swing by her place real quick. She looked up and down the street. “Where’s his truck? We should check and see if he claimed it out of impound. What was he doing out here? He wasn’t hanging with his old college buddies at F and M’s.” She turned to Quinn. “This doesn’t make any sense. This is such a weird place for him to get murdered.”

“How the fuck should I know?” Quinn asked, impatient. “Where are the fucking detectives? Maybe he liked college girls. Pat O’s was full of them last night.” He moved closer to Maureen. “Cogs, one more time, not to pull the experienced officer card, but you can dial it down. You
should
dial it down. We’re already working above our pay grade here.”

“C’mon, aren’t you curious? Stringing yellow tape, herding drunk kids, it’s fucking boring. My brain falls asleep.”

“You’ve been a cop since August,” Quinn said. “It’s October. You can’t possibly be bored already.”

Maureen reassembled Gage’s wallet and set it on his hip. “You heard the brass, you were at the same meetings and roll calls I was when they read the memo from HQ last month. More investigative initiative from the uniformed officers. It’s encouraged.” She paused. “Don’t you wanna know if we missed something last night that could’ve prevented this? Or that could lead to the killer? Could be good for us.”

“You’re new,” Quinn said, “but you should know by now that there’s what the brass says for the reporters and the mayor and then there’s the real world we live in. Having the Justice Department hanging around doesn’t change that. And now because of this first dead guy, the marshals and the FBI are on their way? It’s gonna be a fucking circus around here. Guess who’s gonna get stuck playing the clowns? Fuck that. The dicks are gonna be crazy nervous. I gotta deal with them regular. Now is not the time for us to get uppity. Especially if this murder and the Magnolia Street murder are connected. We want no part of that. None.”

“I think it’s too late for me as far as being uppity,” Maureen said. “You got that note?” She wished she hadn’t handed it over to Quinn. She’d made the same mistake she made with Gage, letting go of something important too easily. “You’ll make sure the detective gets it?”

“It’s in the car,” Quinn said. “It’s safe.” He pointed across the street. “That there’s the kid who discovered the body.”

Maureen saw a young man, early twenties, dressed in khakis and a yellow polo shirt. He wore his shirt collar popped. He leaned against the brick building, his head hanging, his hands on his knees, a big watch hanging loose on his left wrist. He had on boat shoes with no socks, wore his sandy hair in the goofy, bushy style favored by boys—young men, Maureen corrected herself—these days. These prep school kids, Maureen thought, they all looked the same to her. He was, she thought, a younger, slimmer version of Caleb Heath. “What’s he got to say for himself?”

“Not much,” Quinn said. “Claimed he was headed for his car, meant to duck behind the VW for one last piss and literally walked right into our boy back there.”

“So the body’s been disturbed,” Maureen said.

“Not much.”

“He left footprints?”

“Nobody’s pulling anything useful from that gravelly mush,” Quinn said. “And who knows who else has been back there tonight before Gage got done.”

“The kid call it in?”

“Nope,” Quinn said, laughing. “He went back inside and told the bartender about it, yelling about it over the fucking music. Which was awesome, because that guaranteed the whole bar knew there was a dead body outside. Must have been ten of them standing around, polluting the scene when we got here. Fortunately, these kids chase easy, like pigeons. We didn’t have much of a time getting them herded back across the street.” He shrugged. “Which is good. It’s our asses getting chewed by the detective if the Junior League over there sours the scene.”

They both turned as the crime lab van came around the corner, blinding them for a moment with its headlights. It made a K-turn on the street, throwing its lights on the shrinking crowd of kids, and backed up to the scene.

Clad in dark blue cargo pants, ball caps, and their matching NOPD polo shirts and windbreakers, the techs climbed out of the van and readied their equipment. Ruiz went over to greet them. A few kids wandered into the street and up to the edge of the scene, watery cocktails in one hand, smartphones in the other, craning their necks to see through the shadows and to take pictures, attracted to the new arrival and activity, deciding if any of it was Facebook worthy.

Maureen moved toward them, sweeping her flashlight beam across their faces, yelling at them, backing them up onto the opposite sidewalk and against the wall of the bar. Quinn was right. They were easy to push around. Not quite the same crowd, she thought, as Magnolia Street. At least no one was throwing bottles at her. Not even any insults or wisecracks like in Frenchmen Street. Not yet, anyway. She thought of the previous night’s tedious and fruitless Magnolia Street canvass. She was not looking forward to another one.

“Are we gonna have to interview the whole bar?” she asked, returning to Quinn. “All of these kids, there’s probably fifty more inside. It seems pretty obvious to me that Gage was killed on this block, right where we found him. Who knows who saw what coming and going? Did any of them see him inside the bar?”

Quinn sighed. “What we do next depends on what the detective says. We can take the initiative and ask around, but I don’t know that we’re gonna get any kind of useful statements from a barroom full of hammered college kids. Unless the detective is hard core, I’m thinking it’s too late at night for a neighborhood canvass.”

“We did one on Magnolia Street,” Maureen said. “Most of those guys were drinking and smoking all day.”

“They’re used to us in that neighborhood,” Quinn said.

“I cruise this block twice a week on noise complaints.”

“Atkinson was in charge on Magnolia Street. Unless we get her for this one, day shift’ll get stuck with the door-to-door in the morning. It’s gonna be fucking useless anyway. No one saw anything. I guarantee it. That way, every neighborhood is the same.”

Maureen chewed her thumbnail. “I wanna know what Gage was doing back there. Hiding? Waiting for someone to come out of the bar? Maybe Heath stood him up the other night at Pat O’s. Maybe Gage hooked up with Leary and blew off the meet.” She looked at the mop-headed kid, who was now texting something on his phone. “Heath struck me as the arrested-development overaged frat boy type. I could see him digging this place. You think so?”

“Maybe Gage was taking a leak behind the van like the rest of the neighborhood,” Quinn said. He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Was he smoking rock? Maybe he was beating off to college-age pussy? The fuck should I know?”

“You think he was with the person who killed him?” Maureen asked. “You think they knew each other?”

“Then why do it here?” Quinn asked, exasperated. “Why kill him in a place where the body might be found before he even bleeds out? According to Eli Manning over there, this VW’s been around as long as anyone can remember. Back behind it is a popular spot for plenty of wonderful things. Techs’ll find an old condom or two back there, I figure.”

“I could’ve done without that bit of intel,” Maureen said. She fought back a smile. No matter how hard Quinn pretended not to care, she’d noticed, he had answers, or theories, at least, for every one of her questions. His brain was working the scene, she thought, even if his heart wasn’t in it. Why hadn’t he ever gone out for detective? she wondered. Another time, she decided, she’d ask him that. “Maybe Gage didn’t know this bar, this corner. Maybe the killer didn’t know it, either.”

“It’s fucking F and M’s,” Quinn said. “It’s infamous. People know it. Besides, it only takes half a minute to figure out that there’s plenty of foot traffic on this block.”

“Gage wasn’t from here, remember?” She looked up and down the block. “The killer could be in the neighborhood. Could be in the bar, even.”

“I doubt that,” Quinn said. “There’s a lot of blood here. A lot. He’ll be wearing a fair share of it. After a job this messy, he’s got to go to ground and clean up.”

“The body’s fresh. The killer is bloody. He can’t be far. I wish we had more urgency here.”

“Tell it to the detective,” Quinn said, nodding at the dark sedan pulling to a stop in the middle of the street. “Fucking finally.”

Maureen watched as a short, jowly man in a gray suit climbed out of the driver’s seat. He had a heavily gelled gray and wavy pompadour, and thick lips. He looked like a lounge act’s bass player’s dad, Maureen thought. Quinn spat in the street. “Awesome. I love this guy. Really. I do. What a great fucking night we’re having.”

“Fuck me,” Maureen said. “At least we won’t have to work too hard tonight.”

“You got that right. Let me see how Rue’s doing with the techs. You wait here for His Majesty. Remember now, all he needs is the basics. The facts, no theories. The bare minimum. Keep it simple in the Sixth, Cogs. That’s how we roll.”

Maureen watched the detective, Ronnie Drayton, also known as Defective Drayton, hitch up his trousers. He surveyed the scene, puffing out his chest for the chirping co-eds in short skirts and high heels now whispering behind their hands. Rumor had it he was sleeping with the new crime-beat reporter from the
Times-Picayune
, a recent Brooklyn émigré fifteen years his junior.

“Thanks for nothing, Quinn,” Maureen said.

Quinn raised his shoulders high, palms upturned. “Hey, you’re the one with the big-time professional aspirations. We drew the Lead Defective, the guy who couldn’t catch herpes in a whorehouse. That means you’ll have a shot at nabbing the killer yourself. The brass will love you. You’ll get a medal and a promotion. It’s totally a glass-half-full type of scenario for you. Enjoy.”

10

Drayton walked around the front of his car, somehow looking right through Maureen as he approached her, unbuttoning his suit jacket then adjusting his crotch with one hand. She’d worked other murder scenes that had become his cases. She didn’t follow up, but she wasn’t sure he’d cleared a single one of them. She didn’t like him and was far from the only one on the force, uniformed or otherwise, who felt that way. She wondered who or what he knew that allowed him to linger, indifferent, ineffective, and entitled while the rank and file got gutted by the merciless new regulations. A part of her wanted to come right out and ask him who he was blowing to keep his job. She kept her questions to herself. Instead, she met him in the street, her hand extended. “Officer Maureen Coughlin.”