Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (28 page)

So he was glad the detective was back in town and all the more delighted to push other business aside to attack the question that had been laid in his hands. And, he muttered to himself, the hell with what anyone upstairs thought about it.

He stared at the letters on the slip of paper St. Cyr had given him for a long time:
VVV
. He drank from the pint flask he always carried and stared some more. A tiny light went on in the back of his mind, then became bright and steady. He stood up, his gaze blank. He had it.

He walked away from his desk like he was in a trance, marching directly to the north corner of the room and a row of file cabinets. He went directly to the third from the left and the second drawer from the top. He pulled it open and let his fingers trip over the file tabs, his whiskey-scented breath coming short.

Within a few seconds he lifted a file folder from the drawer and started back to his desk. He heard a scrabbling noise on the opposite side of the room, and he shot a bleary glance that way. They hired a man to clear out the rats, but they always came back. Joe sometimes fell into a snoring sleep, only to be awakened by one of the filthy creatures brushing by his leg. Other times, he could see their little red eyes shining in the shadows. Or maybe it was the whiskey doing that.

Just as he reached the door, he heard the scratching sound again. Something was moving and it sounded big.

"Rats," he snarled. "Rats, rats, fucking rats..." They were everywhere. He told himself to remember to call upstairs and get the rat catcher back first thing in the morning. And this time get rid of them once and for all.

He sat down, took a pull from his flask, and opened the folder. He read through the news story, though it was hardly necessary. He knew what the lines said. What jumped out at him were the letters
VVV
. There was a faded photograph to go along with the story. Studying it, Kimball laughed blearily. St. Cyr was going to love it.

He heard another sound and glanced up to see a figure standing in his office doorway. He gave a start, caught his breath, frowned, and said, "What do you want?"

Eyes fixed on him glowing red, like the rats that only came out at night.

"I said, what do you
want?
"

The red eyes fell on the papers in Joe's hands. Followed by a snarling smile of yellow teeth.

An hour later Valentin came around the corner of the building and down the short set of steps to find the door open. He drew back. He had never before found it standing ajar or even unlocked. Kimball was too fixed on being left alone. If he wasn't in the mood for visitors, a thunder of pounding wouldn't rouse him.

The only thing Valentin could think of was that Joe had gone out and had been too drunk to remember to lock up. That's what he wanted to think. He had visited that basement too many times and knew better. Something was wrong.

He pushed the door open. The front room was in shadows, the only light coming from Kimball's office far in the back. As he moved to the doorway of the second, larger file room, he heard scrabbling feet along the baseboards. He waited there for a moment, heard nothing.

"Joe?" he called out. "Joe Kimball!" All he caught were echoes.

He crossed between the file cabinets to the other side of the room. As he came upon the office door, he saw a silhouette on the wall just inside and stopped. With a sinking sense of dread, he stepped into the doorway.

Joe was at his desk, his head tilted forward as if he was dozing or looking at something that had settled in his lap. In the dim amber light from the lamp in the corner, Valentin saw the splatters of blood that had joined the splatters of whiskey down the front of his shirt. He looked closer, saw another dark pattern on the wall behind.

"Joe," he said, his voice cracking. "Oh no..."

It took an effort for him to step to the desk, place his hand under Kimball's chin, and lift it. The hole, round and neat, probably from a .22, was centered on the forehead, an inch above the red tufted brows. The eyes were open and still bloodshot, gaping at the other side. Gently, Valentin let the head droop forward again.

He stared at Joe for a half minute, quelling the awful sickness in his stomach. From the looks of the graying flesh, the killer had been gone for a while.

He went to the office doorway, to get away from the sight of his friend and to get a breath of air. He thought for a moment about running out the door and to the nearest church so he could fall on his knees and confess all his failings, his pride and selfishness, his armor of cold indifference. Then he thought it would be even better if he walked out of those dark rooms and directly to the Union Station yards in order to jump the next freight train smoking. And this time never come back.

He put a hand over his eyes, and as he did, he heard Picot's voice in his head. The lieutenant had said it a dozen times: people who got tangled up with him got hurt. Some ended up dead, like Joe. He was right back to assuming his place as the local angel of death, Sophie Solomon's
malekha.

Now he had led another poor victim to slaughter. Though he had little doubt Kimball would have been killed even if he had handed over what he'd found. He couldn't be allowed to walk around with damaging information, no matter how sodden his brain. It was Valentin's fault. He had put him in that spot and left him unprotected. It wasn't the first time for that, either. And for what? To capture the killer of a rich white man who meant nothing to him.

He walked to the basement door and stared out into the dark alley. A small shape darted along the gravel and he gave a start. It was only a rat.

Valentin knew running away would only make things worse. He'd have to face the blame for what had happened to Joe. Then he'd have to find out who had murdered an innocent man with such cruel deliberation, and all for a few lines of information.

He went back to Joe's office, pushing the moment's grim reality out of the way, knowing it would be waiting for him when the sun came up, and just as surely. For now, he owed it to Joe to put the detective side of his mind to work.

He stood back, fixing his attention on the scene from wall to wall, scouring for clues. He saw nothing of value, no hand marks, no spent cartridges. Joe had a file folder open before him. It was empty. Then he saw the trail of newspaper clippings that were strewn over the desk and onto the floor, making a trail leading to the door. The pages had been rifled until the one that mattered was found. The one with information that couldn't get out.

Valentin went around the desk to gently push the chair and the body it held back to the wall. The old casters squeaked and the springs groaned. Valentin looked about on the floor, saw only a layer of dust, scraps of paper, two empty pint bottles, and the usual useless clutter.

He opened the desk drawer, poked around, saw nothing of interest. He found lucifers there and struck one, then went to his knees and put his head under the desk. There was nothing lying about that Kimball might have dropped on the floor. When the lucifer burned his fingertips, he tossed it and struck a second one.

In the flickering light, he twisted his head upward and saw, on the underside of the drawer, the place where the soft wood had been scratched. From the light color, the mark was fresh. The second lucifer burned down, and he tossed it away and struck a third. Holding it close, he discerned the scrawled lines of the single letter K. There was nothing else. He dropped the lucifer on the floor and crouched in the shadows, realizing what it meant. In the moments before he died, Kimball had managed to keep his killer talking long enough to leave a message. It was an astonishing act of courage, and it brought a sharp ache in Valentin's chest.

He crawled out from beneath the desk and wheeled Joe and his chair back to their original positions. He glanced at the telephone and thought about calling the coppers, then decided it wouldn't do any good. Someone would find Joe soon enough; and it seemed only proper to leave the man among his files for a little while longer.

He made his way through the rooms and out the door, pulling it closed behind him. He slipped down the alley and into the dark shadows of the New Orleans night, feeling an old, familiar weight dragging at him, as another corpse joined the parade.

It wasn't until 8:30 that anyone had a need to visit the newspaper's morgue. A young copyboy was sent down the stairwell to face Joe Kimball's morning-after wrath in order to gather background on two Garden District families in preparation for upcoming nuptials. It was well known how much Kimball hated even pointing anyone in the direction of background for the society pages. More than once, he had been caught slipping certain bits of delicate information into a story, arrest records and the like, in order to embarrass the parties mentioned. He thought it was funny. He knew he was too valuable to be fired, no matter what he did.

So by way of initiation, the most junior of the copyboys, a fourteen-year-old with the unlikely name of Richard Ricárd, was sent down to the depths to poke the monster who dwelled there.

Young Richard found the fearsome figure slumped in his chair. The boy cleared his throat and waited. Then he spoke Kimball's name, very politely. He waited, spoke it again, waited some more. It was gloomy in those dank rooms, and Richard did not notice that the man's flesh had gone to a sickly gray, despite being pickled in whiskey. Or maybe he thought anyone who lingered underground looked that way. He stood fidgeting for another minute before stepping closer to the desk and bending down to see if he could rouse Kimball from his nap. It was then that he noticed the neat hole in the middle of the bloodless forehead and the eyes open and staring downward, as still as glass.

Richard Ricárd let out a strangled shout, jumped back, and lurched dizzily for the door, stumbling over stacks of newsprint along the way and trying to keep his breakfast in his stomach.

Upstairs, the reporter who had sent the boy to the morgue started cursing as soon as he saw that he had come back empty-handed. Richard could only point a shaking finger at the floor and sputter, "He's ... he's..." It took a few minutes for someone to decipher his bleats. There was a noisy rush of bodies down the stairs.

Within a quarter hour, two patrolmen arrived and secured the scene. Then came two detectives, and lastly Lieutenant J. Picot showed up, a squat figure under a derby hat, plowing through the misty rain like a tugboat at sea.

Picot surveyed the basement room and listened to the reports from the detectives. Then he pulled one of them aside to whisper in his ear. It didn't take long for the detective to return with a scribbler named Robert Dodge. The reporter was led into the low-ceilinged morgue, sweating, his hands shaking as a nervous tic animated his round face.

Picot asked him about Kimball. The reporter had a loose tongue and babbled about the editors at the paper grumbling over the victim's friendships with Pinkertons and the like, and the way he gave them information from the paper's files. Picot already knew that Kimball traded in information. He had sent his own officers to visit the morgue dozens of times. Kimball was useful in more ways than one. Hints planted in his ear would bloom and then appear in print the next day. Still, it irked him to be reminded that St. Cyr and other detectives did the same and likely got better service.

The air in the basement was close, and Dodge did not look well. He had developed a shiver, and his face had taken on a greenish cast. The lieutenant invited him back outside to get some fresh air. At the top of the stone steps, Picot cadged an umbrella and once he and Dodge were huddled under it, he offered one of his cigarillos. Dodge smoked badly, and the cigarillo quickly shredded in his nervous fingers.

The lieutenant wasted no time in asking about St. Cyr and grunted when he learned of the detective's visit of the previous Monday. In fact, he said, it was Kimball who had sent the Creole detective to see him.

"Did he come to talk to you about John Benedict?"

"That's what he wanted."

"Were you able to help?"

"I refused. I told him to look elsewhere." Dodge's eyes glistened. "In fact, I told him to come back down here and see his
friend.
" He stared back into the basement, frowning. "Say, you don't think he did it."

"I doubt it," Picot said wistfully. He, too, gazed toward the door of the morgue. "I wonder what could have been so important that it cost a man his life," he mused. "What the hell could it be?"

Dodge thought about it, then cleared his throat. Picot listened, his eyebrows arched politely, as the reporter spoke in a low, loose voice. Amid the garbled aside was the name "Henry Harris." When the lieutenant didn't look at all surprised or impressed, the reporter's voice trailed off.

Picot said, "I'm wondering if you might have a look around the scene in there." He saw Dodge blink and go pale. "After we move the body, of course."

"Oh, well ... I wouldn't be of much..." He saw the look on Picot's face. "Well, of course, if you need my help."

"You'll earn the gratitude of my office," the lieutenant said smoothly.

Dodge performed something like a subservient bow and shuffled off to wait his call to duty. Picot stifled an urge to guffaw at this bizarre performance. Then he got serious again. He doubted the reporter would find anything worthwhile. If St. Cyr had been there, it would be a waste of time. The Creole detective was far too skilled at covering his tracks. Still, he'd gotten a friend murdered and that was worth something. Picot didn't want to waste any time before cashing it in.