Doing the Devil's Work (29 page)

“No disrespect, Detective Sergeant,” one of the cops said, “but you’ve confused us with beat cops. We don’t miss.”

“Today is not the day, then,” Atkinson said, pointing her finger into the cop’s wide chest, “for
your
first time.” She turned to Maureen. “No blood on the sheets from you.” Then, to the bragging cop, “No blood on the streets from you.”

She collected her photos, slipped them into a folder, and slid a new one out, laying it down on the car. It was a crime scene photo. A dead young black boy, curled up in the trunk of a car. Marques’s friend Mike-Mike, one of the homicides Scales was wanted for. Maureen had been there when the photo was taken. She’d chased Mike-Mike across a ball field earlier that day. In her sleep some nights, when she slept, she still chased him.

“Twelve years old,” Atkinson said. “Fucking
twelve
. The statutory warrant is a tool. He’s the reason we’re here. Any questions?”

The group was silent, serious, their eyes fixed on the photo, recording it, recording the narrative behind it. Maureen felt she could hear the skin of the other officers stretching tighter over their muscles, like a leather gun belt tightening in the heat.

“Strap up, then,” Atkinson said. She pulled open the back door of her car. “Here, Coughlin. Terranova, help her suit up.”

In the backseat Maureen found a bulletproof vest and a blue windbreaker.

She dropped the vest over her head. Terranova, the redhead, grunting, pulled tight the Velcro straps on the sides along Maureen’s ribs. She was so thin, getting the vest snug was a challenge. Normally, she hated wearing her armor. Today, the weight felt right. Once the vest was secure, Terranova pounded Maureen’s shoulders twice, hard, as if she wore shoulder pads and was preparing to take the football field. The other officers did it to each other, nodding, muttering. Maureen thrilled at the dull thumps, though Terranova had walked away before Maureen could return the gesture, leaving her observing, but not participating in, the ritual. Her pulse was picking up, her blood crackling with adrenaline, charged. The windbreaker she pulled on over the vest upped her excitement. The jacket was the same deep, dark utility blue as the task force uniforms, NEW ORLEANS POLICE in big letters across the back. Atkinson wore the same jacket, one corner of it tucked behind her gun. Maureen mimicked the gesture. Now she felt full-on badass.

“Let’s get this fucking done,” Atkinson said, checking the safety on her gun. “I want this motherfucker in a cage. I’m tired of him breathing free air.”

* * *

Maureen rode to the house with Atkinson, the other cops following close behind in their own dark-windowed and unmarked units, no lights and no sirens. Despite these efforts at discretion, Maureen knew that speed and the early hour were their best allies. There was no mistaking their identity. Three cars full of white people in that neighborhood couldn’t be anything but a parade of cops.

“I guess I kind of stepped in it back there,” Maureen said. “Sorry about that.”

“They don’t feel that training, or welcoming, for that matter, new officers comes under their purview. You should already be a wrecking ball when you get to them.”

“I see their point,” Maureen said.

Atkinson shrugged, her hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. “Look at it this way, they wouldn’t have liked anything you did. Standing there scared and quiet wouldn’t have gone over any better. They smell blood, they bite. It’s part of what makes them good at what they do. Might’ve been worse. It’s not personal, you’re not one of them. As you may have noticed, this job is like any other, with hierarchies and prejudices and cliques. You’ll learn to negotiate them.”

“Believe me,” Maureen said, thinking of Quinn, “I’ve noticed, and I’m learning as fast as I can. I hope I didn’t make you look bad for bringing me along.”

“Do your job,” Atkinson said, “and we all come out of this looking great.”

“What is my job?” Maureen asked.

“You’re the freelancer.”

“I figured. So I’ll be outside the whole time.” She knew Atkinson heard the disappointment in her voice.

“If everything goes according to plan you stay outside,” Atkinson said. “If you have to come inside the house, things are going very badly.”

Two cruisers, seemingly out of nowhere, appeared in front them. The parade was now five cars long. The cavalry was rolling, and Maureen was part of it. She could hardly sit still. Atkinson accelerated. She checked the rearview. The other cars stayed close. “I know it sounds like the shit assignment,” Atkinson said.

“I didn’t say that,” Maureen said.

Atkinson threw her a skeptical glance.

“Okay, yeah, I was hoping to be going inside. I wanna put the cuffs on him. Is that so wrong?”

Atkinson smiled. “Not wrong at all. But you have to wait your turn.”

They were close, Maureen thought, two or three blocks now from the house. She felt sharp and clear-headed, her hangover gone, wide-eyed, as if pure oxygen were pumping into her system. She felt she could jump from the car and sprint there.

“A few quick things before the fun starts,” Atkinson said. “No civilians on the street once we go in. No one comes outside, not even on their porches to watch. For damn sure no one approaches the house. Be courteous but firm. No explanations beyond we’re serving a warrant. Use no names. As best you can, don’t hurt any feelings. Don’t bias anyone. We don’t know who we’re gonna need later as a witness.”

They’d reached the corner. One cruiser went on ahead. It would circle the block, Maureen knew, closing off the street at the far end. Atkinson jumped the car up on the sidewalk, slammed it to a stop. Maureen nearly bounced off the dashboard, her seat belt snapping tight. She and Atkinson sprang from the car, slamming their doors in unison. Maureen watched as the other cops piled out of their cars, double- and triple-checking their weapons and vests. None of them spoke. Sansone rolled a toothpick in his teeth. Terranova breathed heavily through her nose, nostrils flaring like a racehorse in the starting gate. Maureen feared she’d start drooling from the anticipation. She wiped her sweaty palms down the front of her vest. Atkinson knocked her fist on the hood of the car to get her attention.

“You hear shots, you call it in first,” she instructed Maureen. “Then you come in with the other uniforms when they get here. You do not come rushing in alone into an unknown situation. Under any circumstances. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“If he somehow slips by us, run that motherfucker down. On foot, in the car, whatever. Do not let him get away.” Atkinson beckoned Maureen around to her side of the car. She reached inside, got out a radio, handed it to Maureen. “If you have to chase him, make sure we know where you are.”

“Count on it,” Maureen said.

“Should you fail to follow any of these instructions,” Atkinson said, her finger inches from Maureen’s chin, “you will never take another door with me ever again. You’ll be wearing shorts and a bike helmet and riding a Segway up and down Magazine Street. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me you understand, Officer.”

“I understand. I hate Segways.”

Atkinson pressed her fist into Maureen’s vest, over her heart. “This is gonna be a good day.”

Maureen bounced on her toes, grinding her gum in her teeth, as she watched the others fan out over the property and around the house. She felt like a lame or sick little girl stuck at her bedroom window, watching the other kids play her favorite game outside. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d been more excited, more jacked up, her chest heaving under her bulletproof vest. No track team race, no handsome and groping boy, no drug, no whiskey, had ever cranked her up like this. Her adrenaline spiked again. She felt it shoot down the backs of her legs like cold lightning when Atkinson, crouched by the front door, her weapon drawn, yelled, “NOPD! NOPD! We have a warrant!”

Maureen watched two of the other cops, weapons raised and tight against their shoulders, position themselves under the shuttered windows. Sansone’s voice echoed Atkinson’s words from the back of the house. Atkinson stepped to the side of the front door. One of the boys rose up on one foot and shattered the front door of the house with one brutal kick.

Another crash came from the back of the house, and the task force poured inside, weapons drawn, yelling, “NOPD! NOPD! Nobody fucking move!”

Maureen caught her breath. In her head, she could see the crouched officers moving through the dim house, muscles tensed, eyes darting in every direction. More bangs and crashes from inside. A loud, panicked “What the fuck?” that Maureen knew had come from Scales. She knew she shouldn’t be so transfixed, she knew she needed to be wary of some girlfriend or relative who might come running and screaming up the street, but she couldn’t break her attention away from the action inside the house.

She heard Atkinson command Scales, “I said on your fucking face!” Furniture got knocked over or tossed aside. Something fragile broke.

Things were coming to a climax. The raid would end any second or would explode to a whole new level, depending on what decisions Scales made. Maureen drew her gun. She let it dangle against her thigh, the weight of it pulling at her shoulder. She took a couple of steps toward the house. She backed off, checked the block. She saw some curtains and shades move in their windows, but nobody came outside. The house went quiet. The cops under the window stood frozen, listening for that one sound, a cry or a command, a shout or a shot, that would tell them to move.

Terranova came out onto the front steps. She took a quick look around and turned back into the house. “All clear.”

Atkinson came out next, lighting a cigarette as she came down the stairs.

Maureen slipped her gun back into her holster. She exhaled.

After Atkinson came Sansone and another cop, each holding one of Scales’s ropy arms as they dragged him down the stairs, his hands cuffed behind his back. When they got him to the sidewalk, they stood him up. He wore filthy gray sweatpants and laceless Timberlands. His head was shaved clean. Bright red bloodstains dotted the front of his torn and dirty wifebeater. One eye was already puffy. He leaned forward, letting a long trail of bloody spittle fall onto the sidewalk, some of it staining the toes of his left boot. He’d put up enough of a fight, it appeared, to catch a beating, breaking no one’s heart. Maureen did worry for a moment that he’d have to go to the emergency room instead of jail, but she couldn’t see Atkinson letting her prize out of her sight, never mind her immediate custody. She had a lot more authority than Maureen or Preacher or the sheriff’s office did about who went where. Whatever she wanted to happen to Scales would happen.

Maureen couldn’t wait for the moment Scales laid eyes on her. She couldn’t wait to tell Marques and his grandmother Scales was off the street.

“Put him in my car,” Atkinson said, leading the way. Maureen figured that if she could, Atkinson would have Scales strapped to the hood.

Scales regained his balance and his ability to walk, shuffling along between the officers holding his arms. He tipped his head back, showing his teeth, grinning, acting casual and amused by what was happening to him. Just another day, motherfucker. Neighbors wrapped in robes and housecoats had started to appear on their porches. Maureen opened the back door of Atkinson’s car and stood beside it, goose bumps running up her forearms and the back of her neck.

“Officer Coughlin,” Atkinson said, “would you like to do the honors?”

Maureen took hold of the cuffs. Scales’s one good eye swiveled in her direction, expressionless, thoughtless, unfeeling. She was reminded of the lizard she had seen the other day perched on her fence. If Scales recognized her face or her name, he gave no sign. Maureen saw no point in reminding him of their history. Cops were all the same to him. She’d wanted a big
I got you
moment, had thought about it many times since Atkinson had told her about the warrant. She knew now she wasn’t going to get it. Scales’s breathing was loud and labored. He sucked a wad of bloody snot to the back of his throat.

“Swallow it,” Maureen commanded.

He did. That would have to do, she thought. For now. Maureen palmed the crown of his skull, pushing him down into the backseat of the car. “Watch your head.”

She slammed the car door as hard as she could. She turned to Atkinson. She couldn’t stop smiling. “Wow. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt as good as I do right now.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Atkinson said, cigarette smoke curling from her mouth. “It gets so much better. We’re gonna break this guy to pieces. It’s gonna be
easy
.”

Atkinson called over two officers to keep an eye on Scales. Maureen joined her and the rest of the task force in the house search. The inside of the house was close and musty. The stale air put a tickle in Maureen’s nose. Scales was not much of a housekeeper. To-go containers and empty forty-ounce and Big Shot bottles covered every flat surface, the bottles half full with cigarette butts. Dirty clothes covered the floor. Maureen tried to imagine Scales at the Laundromat, reading a book or watching daytime TV while his clothes spun in a machine. She couldn’t make herself see it. A few flies buzzed high in the corners of the ceiling.

“We’ll take a quick walk-through,” Atkinson said, looking around. “We’ll get techs in for more detailed stuff, fingerprints, fibers, that kind of stuff, later.”

“What is it we’re looking for right now?” Maureen asked, pulling on a pair of latex gloves, wishing she’d thought to take off her vest. By now, her T-shirt was a warm, wet rag against her skin. Sweat pooled at the small of her back, dampening the waistband of her jeans.

“Leverage, really,” Atkinson said. “Big-ticket items. Officially, we’re looking for physical evidence that connects him to sleeping with that underage girl. What I
want
is a connection to Mike-Mike’s murder, which, I admit, is going to be hard to come by. I’ve never thought he killed Mike-Mike here. Anything that connects him to Mike-Mike in any way will be useful, though. Most important, we’re looking for evidence of a crime or of criminal behavior, anything we can pound him with in the box. Anything to convince him the shit he’s standing in is chin deep and we have the only lifeline.”