Under the Cajun Moon (12 page)

As they led me into the building, I saw two things that shocked me back to my current reality: across the street, a row of bail bondsman shops, and directly in front of me, a high fence topped with tangled rounds of barbed wire. This was the real deal. Central Lockup.

Numbly, I remained mute as I was processed into the system. I was glad when they finally took off the handcuffs, gladder still that they used no ink in taking my fingerprints. Instead, a woman held and rolled each finger in turn across a pad that was linked to a computer, and the prints were taken digitally. I may have lost my long nails, but at least I didn’t have purple fingertips once we were done.

I didn’t really start shaking until they took my mug shot. Somehow, standing there and holding a sign below my chin and looking at the camera, I finally began to feel the gravity of my situation. I had been framed for murder! As the camera flashed in my eyes, I knew this was all part of an elaborate setup, and that it had to do with my father and Alphonse Naquin and their long-hidden treasure. For some reason, someone wanted me out of the way and in jail, even if it meant killing someone else to put me there.

They let me make a phone call once I was processed, but as I stood there with the telephone in my hand, I didn’t have a clue as to what number to dial. I thought about phoning my mother, but in a situation this extreme, I knew she would be pretty much useless. I could call my father’s lawyer, but apparently he was dead and I was the one who had killed him. Finally, I tried calling Sam again but got no answer, which didn’t surprise me. For all I knew, he was somewhere else going through his own fog of confusion and disaster—if he was still even alive. In the end, I called the one person in my life who was utterly dependable and completely competent: my assistant, Jenny. When she answered, I explained my situation, saying that I was still in New Orleans and there had been a horrible mix-up, and that I had been arrested and put in jail.

“I’ll take the next plane to New Orleans and come get you out of there,” she cried.

“No, please don’t come. I just need you to make some phone calls.”

Giving her the numbers, I told her to call my mother and tell her what had happened, and then to keep trying Sam’s number until she got through. Most important, I said I needed her to find me a lawyer, the very best criminal defense lawyer in New Orleans. I told her the police were so sure of my guilt that I had refused to answer another question until I had a lawyer present.

“Good move,” Jenny replied.

The officer who had given me the telephone gestured to me to wrap it up, so I told Jenny that I needed to go.

“Find me a lawyer as fast as humanly possible,” I repeated.

As I hung up, I watched another prisoner coming in, one who was struggling violently against her handcuffs as they attempted to process her.

As she wildly cursed and writhed, my mind filled with the image of being forced into a cell with a dozen more like that.

A policewoman led me out of the room, down the hall, and into what looked like yet another processing area, a series of cubicles manned by police personnel. A scarred wooden bench was against a wall, and I was instructed to sit there.

“You behave, and I won’t have to lock you in,” she said, gesturing
toward a row of metal hooks that protruded from the wall above the bench. I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, but I had a feeling that the hooks were there to connect to handcuffs or other types of restraints.

I didn’t know what I was waiting for, or how long I would have to sit there, but an old wooden bench in the hallway beat a dirty barred cell with other prisoners hands down, so I kept my mouth shut and remained perfectly still. I tried to listen to the various conversations going on around me, but mostly the cops in the next room were just chitchatting about a recent ballgame, about what they did Saturday night, about what they planned to do next Saturday night. Finally, someone came out and spoke to the cop who was standing guard over me, and the next thing I knew, she was bringing me to what looked like an interrogation room. It was small with pink walls and a two-way mirror at the end. At the center of the room was a table with several chairs around it. I was told which chair to take and so I sat and again I waited.

After what felt like an eternity, there was a small knock at the door and a man stepped inside. He spoke with the policewoman, who left the room, and then he approached me and shook my hand, introducing himself as Mike Donner, my new lawyer. I was so relieved that I nearly blurted out the first thing that popped into my mind:
Are you sure you want the job? Apparently I’ve been known to kill lawyers!

He joined me at the table, pulled out his briefcase, and began telling me just a little bit about himself and his firm. He ended by saying that he was the best criminal defense lawyer in town but that the best didn’t come cheap.

“I’ve spoken with your mother, and she has assured me that if you can’t pay my bill, she will.”

This was not an auspicious beginning, but at this point, I didn’t have much choice. I replied that I was quite capable of paying for his services and that my mother’s assistance in that regard would not be needed. Once those formalities were out of the way, he seemed to relax a bit and urged me to relax as well.

“I just want to hear, in your own words, the sequence of events that brought you here today. Take your time, and tell me the whole story.”

“I’d be happy to. But first can you tell me if my father still alive?”

“Yes, but from what I understand he’s in a coma.”

I exhaled deeply, relieved to know that despite all that was going on and all that was going wrong at least my father hadn’t died during the night. Folding my hands and placing them on the table in front of me, I started at the beginning, at that moment when Jenny interrupted me during my television appearance to give me the message that my mother had been urgently trying to reach me. Unlike Detective Walters, who had constantly interrupted me to clarify things and ask questions in an apparent attempt to confuse me, Mr. Donner just listened quietly, took notes on a yellow legal pad, and responded with the occasional nod or grunt. When I was finished with the whole tale, I wasn’t sure if he believed me or not. I supposed it didn’t really matter. It was his job to defend me regardless.

When it was his turn to speak, he began by commending me for not talking to the police any more than I had.

“I wish you hadn’t said anything at all to them, but this is better than nothing.”

He went on to tell me of the strongest evidence the police had against me thus far, a preliminary match between Kevin’s scratched face and the blood and tissues under my nails. Mr. Donner said that they wouldn’t have DNA results back for a while but that the blood type was a match, as was the tissue structure. Worse, by evaluating blood and saliva stains, police had determined that the pillow I slept with under my head last night was the same one that had been used to smother Kevin to death at some point prior to midnight.

Even the lawyer seemed to turn up his lip a bit at that one, as if to say what a cold fish I must be to kill a man and then take a long rest on top of the murder weapon.

Donner then launched into a description of what would happen next, which seemed to have nothing to do with my guilt or innocence at this point. Apparently, the state was required to give me a bail hearing within twenty-four hours. Strikes against me were the nature of the charges—that is, murder in the first degree—and the fact that I was from out of town and did not live here. Very much in my favor, however, were the facts that
I was a responsible business person with no criminal history, I had strong ties to this area, including a father whose very name was synonymous with New Orleans, and the fact that my father was currently in a hospital and needed me there.

“I feel confident you will be released on bail, hopefully by this time tomorrow.”

He acted as though I would be pleased to hear him say the word “released,” when in fact I was still dumbfounded at the word “tomorrow.”

“Do you mean I have to spend the night here? In jail? With criminals?”

“I know the prospect of that sounds quite horrifying to you, but this is just Central Lockup. You might be okay here. Prison, on the other hand, is a different matter altogether. Believe me when I say I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you out of there.”

“And what happens if we go to this bail hearing and the judge denies bail?”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?”

I closed my eyes, telling myself I would most likely be out of jail by this time tomorrow. After that, I would be in a position to put things together and ask questions and track down whoever had really killed Kevin and framed me—not to mention shot my father.

In the meantime, I just needed to find some way to survive.

Detective Walters questioned me at the station with my lawyer sitting in. He asked me all of the same questions, but Donner wouldn’t let me answer most of them. I wasn’t eager to be shown to my cell, but the whole process was so incredibly aggravating that by the time we were done, going almost anywhere other than there was a relief.

I spent the next few hours locked in a small cell with a sleeping woman who was probably in for prostitution, given the outfit she was wearing. Other prisoners were led past, but fortunately no one else was ever put inside with us, and my roommate never woke up. Most of the time, I tried to ignore the stench of the open toilet that sat just a few feet from my bed. Worse than the smell, though, was the noise. It never stopped, not the yelling and catcalls from one cell to another, nor the clinking and clanging of bars and chains and doors. My senses were assaulted from every side, and even my skin felt scratchy and chafed under the orange jumpsuit I had been given to wear.

My stomach was growling by mid afternoon, which really surprised me. How could I want to eat at a time like this? I reminded myself that hunger was a normal bodily function, and that so far I had had nothing to eat all day. Of course I was hungry. Between the processing and the interrogating, somehow I had slipped through the cracks and not been given any breakfast or lunch.

I had no watch or cell phone to keep time, and there was no clock in sight, but the hours ticked by at an excruciatingly slow rate. At one point, I was so insanely bored that I found myself wishing my roommate would wake up, just so I would have someone to talk to. Finally, I was given a change of scenery when a uniformed officer came and got me from my cell and brought me to a room similar to the one I had been in earlier.

“Why are the walls in these rooms pink?” I asked, trying to make conversation. The policewoman gestured toward a chair and shrugged, answering that pink was supposed to be calming according to some psychological studies.

I didn’t reply what I was thinking, that I felt sure the psychologists weren’t talking about this particular shade of pink, which was hideous and had quite the opposite effect.

Once I was seated, another person came into the room and the woman left. This guy was older, in his early sixties, with closely shaven hair and the bearing of a cop. He wore slacks and a shirt, rolled up at the sleeves.

“Hi, Chloe. How you doing?” the man said in a familiar tone, seating himself across from me at the table and sliding a paper bag toward me. “I had a feeling you might be wanting something good to eat about now, so I brought you a muffuletta from the Napoleon House. It ain’t Ledet’s, but it’s better than the mystery meat you’ll get in this place. Sorry it’s a little messy. The guy at the charge desk had to go through it.”

Even without opening the bag, I could smell the heavenly scent of baked bread and sliced meats coming from inside.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Looks like you don’t remember me. I’m Wade Henkins. I’m a good friend of your father’s.” Squinting, I studied his face for a moment and thought he did look vaguely familiar. “Last time I saw you, you were about nine years old and had a snapping turtle clamped to your finger.”

I gasped, the memory suddenly flooding my mind.