Imogene in New Orleans (26 page)

Rogers started muttering, but Jackson shook his head. “I don’t know how or why you stole the figurines. Did you honestly think you could have sold them?”

Rogers didn’t answer.

“Anyway, here’s the thing. If you agree to help us find Glenway’s murderer, we promise not to turn you in for stealing
hundreds of thousands of dollars
in artwork.” Jackson’s heart raced. “And I mean really help us. You’ve been dragging your feet.”

“I have not.” Rogers took a deep, loud breath.

“Yes you have,” Jackson said. “You’ve slowed the murder investigation. Maybe because you really thought you could make some money from Glenway’s art.”

Rogers thrust his considerably jagged chin in the air and peered at Jackson. “How could you say such a thing?”

“Because you’ve done nothing of substance concerning Glenway’s murder. The moment you walked onto the scene with that duffel bag, you have been working for yourself and your own ends.” Jackson blew the hair from his eyes, which the nun coif had pasted to his face. “So. If you don’t want to be arrested for burglary, you’ll cooperate with us. We want all the evidence from the murder scene and the copies of your case files. Additionally, you will return all the carved pieces you stole.”

“Yeah,” Neil said, working on his restraints.

Rogers thought about it for a few minutes. He sunk his head down, looking like a defeated giant out of some fairy tale. He stammered, “I...um, well, maybe I don’t have a handle on the whereabouts of the art.”

“What? Jackson, just forget it. Let’s go.” Even though he was still bound, Neil stood up, but Rogers waved his big hand to stop him.

“Wait,” Rogers said. “There’s this guy, over in Algiers.” He rubbed his forehead as he spoke.

“Who?” Neil scooted closer.

“I can’t tell you. Let me get the pieces and then we’ll talk.” The lieutenant stared at the putrid green tile on his kitchen floor.

“Fine. You don’t want to cooperate? We can just talk in court. After you’re arrested.” Neil was fired up like an overturned anthill.

“I said I’d get the pieces. Just wait here and I’ll bring them.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Jackson said. “Take me and Neil with you to Algiers rather than leaving us in your house.”

Rogers stood up from his stool, walked into the other room, and made a phone call. Jackson heard most of Roger’s end of the conversation, “Listen, TH. I’m on my way to your house right now. I gotta get that stuff whether you’re there or not…Yeah, my whole career’s at stake… I don’t give a shit what you could lose, TH…”

Jackson stared wide-eyed at the lieutenant, moving closer so he wouldn’t miss any of the conversation. Rogers turned and saw him and eased down to the bedroom at the front of the house. Jackson eased toward the open bedroom door and caught bits of the conversation.

“You need to make time for it.”

Jackson turned toward Neil. “He’s talking to your friend Thurston, and I still think that’s the TH from Glenway’s journal. Thurston claimed he barely knew you and Allen, but he was lying. You knew him well enough to take his ‘suggestion’ on what hotel we should switch to, and you’ve defended him ever since I mentioned his name. He also claimed he barely knew Glenway, which is another lie. Why did you hide the fact that his initials stand for TH?”

“Because they don’t. I would’ve known if TH was actually Thurston. And he’s not done anything wrong.” Neil got creative in his attempt to escape his bounds, rubbing up against the edge of the kitchen cabinets and then rolling on his back. “Dammit.”

“Why are you so keen on defending Thurston? What if he’s involved in this murder? If he didn’t actually do it, he’s played some part, probably a major one.”

“Forget about Thurston for a minute,” Neil said. “We should be getting out of these restraints while Rogers is out of the room.” He pointed this out to his friend. “Well, don’t just sit there, Sister. Try to get loose yourself.” Neil apparently was finished talking about Thurston.

“I’m trying, Neil, but it’s really hard to get out of handcuffs without a key.” Jackson was trying to shimmy out of the robe using his hips and his abdomen, but he wasn’t having any more luck than Neil was. The habit was riding above his waistline when Rogers stomped back in the kitchen.

“What the hell are you turds doing? Trying to escape?” He stood over the two detainees. “I’ll throw y’all back in the closet where I found you.”

“The hell you will, Rogers.” Neil spun around in place, as if he were about to put a move on the lieutenant. “You’ll untie us right now is what you’ll do.”

Rogers raised his chin, and rubbed his dark, crew-cut head. It looked like he was considering what to do.

Jackson hurried to pacify the lieutenant. “Don’t mind Neil. He’s just a little upset.”

“A little upset?” Neil sputtered.

“Yes, Neil. You really should watch your blood pressure,” Jackson said, sending a silent message for Neil to just shut up, then he turned back to Rogers. “Lieutenant, did you just call your partner in crime?”

“Don’t worry who I called, Jackson Miller. It’s not any concern of yours.” He rotated the big police ring on his finger. It looked more like the end of a small barbell than a ring.

“Lieutenant, have you considered my proposition to let us ride with you to get the art work? We could stay in the backseat of your car. Neil and I won’t escape. We can’t.”

Neil apparently could not just keep quiet. “And if you don’t, Lieutenant, then you really will lose your job today. I’ll call the city councilor so quick your meaty head will twist in place.”

“Shhh, Neil. Cool it.” Jackson looked up at the officer, who sighed a deep, sad sigh.

“All right, boys,” Rogers said. “I’m pulling the car next to the house, and y’all are gonna get in the backseat. But if I hear so much as a peep, I’ll stuff your mouths again and dump you both in the bayou.” He rattled the keys in his pocket and exited through the kitchen door.

As soon as Rogers was gone, Jackson looked over at Neil. , “Listen, Neil, you have to stay cool in order for this to work. We have him just where we want him.”

“You’re wrong Jackson. He’s got us where he wants us. Look at you. You can’t move a muscle and you’re dressed like a nun. And I’m tied up like a prisoner. Dammit.” Neil shifted from one leg to the other in a last attempt to get loose before Rogers returned.

They heard the car pull beside the house and a door slam. Rogers took two steps in the kitchen, reached down, and propped Neil against the island and then did the same to Jackson. Rogers refused to take the restraints off them, so when Jackson met the sun in that moss-covered courtyard behind Rogers’s house, he had his Mother Teresa outfit on and could do nothing about it.

Neil nodded over at the corner of the house. “You see that, Jackson? There’s the curio cabinet that our brilliant officer here is hiding.” Rogers ran over to it.

Jackson said, “Yes, that’s the very one from Imogene’s pictures—I mean, from the studio.”

“Shut up, the both of you.” Rogers covered the curio with the tarp, grabbed the boys, and dragged them to the car.

“Dammit, Rogers, stop squeezing so hard.” Neil fought him, but Jackson surrendered to the force, because his habit had swung in front of his eyes and he couldn’t see anything. He and Neil were immediately thrown into the backseat with all the force the lawman had. He shut them in and they crouched down low in the city vehicle with big seats and new upholstery. They were relatively comfortable, but Neil continued to struggle.

“If you get up, I’ll shoot you,” Rogers said, after he heard the squirming.

Neil said, “You’d be a fool to shoot us. We have three people in this city who know we’re at your house.” He laughed sarcastically. “You shoot us and you’ll sentence yourself.”

Rogers turned around as he backed out of the driveway. “And who would those people be? Let me guess. Two old women and the nun’s partner?”

“Yes, exactly,” Neil said. “You know more about us than you do about who tried to kill Glenway Gilbert. Instead of doing your job, you’ve focused on how to plunder from our friend and how to keep us from catching on.”

Jackson joined in. “You didn’t even know the exact time of death until I pressed you about it. If you’d been more focused on the case, we wouldn’t have suspected you as much.”

“Agreed,” Neil said. “It’s shameless. Our belief is that whoever stole the figurines is the same person who killed Glenway. That points to you, Rog. I wouldn’t doubt for one moment that you yourself did the deed.”

Rogers huffed. He grabbed the steering wheel tighter as they exited the Quarter and then the city, crossing the bridge to Algiers. The afternoon sunlight was beating against the intricate metal framework at the top of the bridge. Rogers muttered underneath his breath that he was not going to take the “fairies” across in the ferry.

Neil heard it and raised his voice. “Who the hell are you calling a fairy, you dim-witted slab of beef?”

To hear such an apt description of the adversary would have amused Jackson under other circumstances, but he was thinking. He knew that if they were leaving the French Quarter and heading for Algiers Point, then the mysterious TH could not be Thurston, because Thurston lived in the Quarter near Glenway’s studio.

After a few moments, Neil calmed down. He began asking Jackson some rhetorical questions “Hey, Jackson,” he said. “Tell me, who do you think would be dumb enough to steal from his own crime scene? Hmmm. I’m thinking of a certain officer, let’s see...Caucasian...Creole…boxy...with overbearing speech, an elephant’s gait, a ridiculous ineptitude with the human race and—”

“Shut the hell up.” Rogers shook his big head in the front seat. Jackson saw him concentrating on the road as they neared the end of the bridge.

“Just tell us where we’re going, Lieutenant,” Neil said. “I recognize some of the landmarks I’ve managed to see, and I know we’re near Glenway’s house.”

Rogers glanced in the backseat. “That’s right. But when I stop, you guys stay down. If I see you looking out the window when we get to where we’re going, I’ll let my contact shoot you dead.”

“Just who is this ‘contact’?” Neil asked, scooting forward.

Jackson answered first. “It’s either Buddy or Lena or her son, Leonard…Catfish. Lena told us she lived over here, and I’ve been to Buddy’s house. You would already know about Buddy, if you’d been investigating the murder, Lieutenant.”

“Shoot, I know all about Buddy anyhow. For six years, that hustler’s been running around with any man who’ll feed him. There aren’t many people in the city with an arrest record longer than his.” Rogers turned left onto a familiar street and then he took another turn.

Neil stared at Rogers as if his gaze could burn a hole in the back of his head. Jackson didn’t know where they were, but it looked like Neil did, as he glared wide-eyed out the window. He leaned over, motioning for Jackson to see them passing the Mardi Gras museum in Algiers and the tops of the houses across the river.

“Surely it’s not...” Jackson recognized some of the houses. He had been on that road recently. “I believe it is him. One more turn and we’ll—”

“What are you sayin’ back there?” Rogers struck the console with his elbow.

Neil said, “We’re just noticing what a beautiful day it is to be stashed away and handcuffed in the back of an undercover cop car.”

Rogers huffed. “We’re just about there. You remember what I said. Keep your asses out of sight, unless you wanna be floating in the swamp.”

Neil redoubled his efforts to free himself. The lieutenant had created a funky system of knots that apparently could only be undone by seeing them.

Rogers drove down a side road, a tight alleyway of dirt and gravel, which crunched under the tires. Jackson saw fences come into view as the path narrowed considerably. The vines and bushes common in those Louisiana subtropics were growing over the wooden fences in cascades: trumpet, jasmine, wisteria, and bougainvillea. Jackson recognized another type too, one that Thomas Jefferson liked at Monticello, the purple hyacinth bean.

Rogers parked the car under a low-hanging, Japanese maple tree. Its large canopy shaded the vehicle.

Jackson heard Rogers unlatch the gun in his holster and then without turning around or moving his lips, he issued the same orders that he had been issuing the entire ride to Algiers.

“You turds stay here in the floorboard.”

“Just get out. Go on.” Neil frowned.

Rogers muttered, “Assholes,” and exited the car.

When he closed the door, Neil and Jackson let out a collective sigh of relief.

“He always has to make a huge entrance and exit.” Jackson listened to Rogers march off. After a few moments, he eased his head over to the armrest to take a look outside. He saw a wooden fence, the gate slightly ajar, open just enough to allow a view of a familiar house. Buddy’s. Jackson scooted up onto the backseat and had a view of the studio through the glass in the house’s sunroom. He could see everything, the easels, the tarps, and the paint cloths. A framed piece of stained glass hung on a wall.

“You’re gonna get yourself shot,” Neil said.

Jackson ducked back into the floorboard. “Do you know who’ll shoot me?” Jackson had to whip his head around because part of the habit had fallen into his eyes.

“Of course I do. It’s Buddy,” Neil said.

Jackson gawked at him.

Neil shrugged. “I guessed, because I recognized the neighborhood.”

Jackson thought he was letting Neil in on a big secret, but Imogene was right. Neil knew every “pig trail” in the city and the surrounding areas. He knew where he was even with an obscured view and restraints. Jackson peered at his friend. It took him a minute, but he mustered up the courage to mention what happened at Thurston’s place.

“Neil, Thurston told me that on the night of Glenway’s murder, he saw Allen at the ballet.”

At the comment, Neil’s nostrils flared just above his mustache, the way Goose’s did when he was being forced to move during a nap. In fact, Jackson may as well have been standing in front of a real bull wearing Spanish red rather than the jet black of the habit.

Neil didn’t speak, so Jackson continued. “I spoke with Thurston today in his condo in that marvelous nineteenth-century building on Royal Street.” He hoped that by pointing out the glory of Thurston’s abode, he could appeal to Neil’s deep love of the history and architecture of the city, hoping to make his friend relax. He was wrong.