The Best American Mystery Stories, Volume 17 (7 page)

A tan Impala pulled up and Savary went around to the driver's side to speak with his sergeant. Jodie Kintyre gleeked him over her cat-eyed sunglasses. It tickled Savary, because Jodie had wide-set, hazel, catlike eyes. She claimed Scottish descent, but there had to be some Asian blood in her genes with those eyes.

“Any luck?”

He laughed, stood back as she climbed out. Unlike most women cops, Jodie liked wearing skirt suits and wore them well. This one was beige. She left her jacket in the car as well, readjusting her shoulder rig with gold badge affixed. She was a striking woman in her forties with that shock of yellow-blond hair cut in a long pageboy. Jodie stood five-seven, her heels added a good inch, but she had to crane her neck to look up at Savary, who stood six-four.

“I'll take this side of the street.” She clicked her ballpoint pen, flipped open her notebook, and moved to the two outside the laundromat. Savary crossed the street. A half-block down he ran into a distant cousin, Eddie Tauzin, who worked as a caretaker at the Audubon Zoo.

“On my way to work, my man.” Eddie slapped the big detective's shoulder. “You gettin' nobody to talk about it?”

Savary shook his head.

“Man, I been askin' but no one sayin' nothin'.”

He got a nod in response. “I appreciate your asking around.”

Eddie moved past, backing as he walked. “You know, I hear anything, I'll give you a call.” He turned, spied Jodie across the street, and looked back at Savary. “I admire the comp'ny you keep.”

Reverend Tom Milton stepped out of his chapel with a large sponge in hand, spotted Savary, and gave him a knowing smile. The Sacred Congregation of the Good Lord occupied a two-story brick building two blocks from Jeanfreau's.

“Hot enough for you, boy?” The reverend leaned over a bucket, dipped the sponge inside. Savary wiped his brow as Milton took the sponge to the picture window lining the front of his building, slapped it against the glass, and rubbed on the soapy water.

“Hear anything from your congregation?” It was the same question Savary had been asking.

“You know if I did, I'd be the first to call. You get any luck at
your
church?”

That brought a smile to Savary, a lapsed Catholic who hadn't been to church, except for weddings and funerals, since he was a teenager.

“You want a bottle of water?” the reverend asked.

“No thanks.”

Milton reached over and patted Savary's back as the detective went by. Hopefully, the man of the cloth would pass any information to Savary, who had asked the reverend to talk with the children of his congregation about the matter because kids hear and see more than anyone in a neighborhood. When Savary was a patrolman, Milton and some kids had helped him recover two stolen cars. But that was before Katrina.

Things were different now, AK—after Katrina. The hardcore criminals, who were some of the first to return, had reestablished themselves with a killing vengeance. The murder rate was back up top as new blood carved out drug territories, and the police department, as devastated as the neighborhoods, reeled in turmoil from lack of manpower, lack of leadership, lack of inspiration.

Savary linked up with Jodie back at her car and she actually had a line of perspiration on her upper lip. The fair-haired sergeant rarely perspired, even in the sweltering summer city.

“M.F. screwed this one up from the start.” She went on to her repeated diatribe against Detective Maurice Ferdinand, who had done absolutely nothing on the Jeanfreau case beyond overseeing the processing of the crime scene. M.F.'s recent transfer to the reorganized Vice Squad was welcomed by the rank and file of the Homicide Division. M.F. in the Vice Squad, always a joke in decadent New Orleans, was a classic example of the Peter Principle—a worker rising to the level of his incompetence. So much for a man who thought being called M.F. was cute.

“Know how I know it's somebody local?” Savary asked.

Jodie narrowed her left eye as she looked up at him.

“All these people out here and no one saw anything. No one's heard anything. You think a ghost flittered in here and shot old man Hudson? If it were a stranger, someone would tell me, ‘I saw him but don't know who he is.' But that's not what we're getting. No one saw
anything
because they know who he is.”

Neither detective had to say the word
retaliation
. Eyewitnesses, especially inner-city eyewitnesses, were at the top of the endangered species list in New Orleans. So much for the vaunted witness protection program.

Back at headquarters, Savary sat next to his Macintosh G5, donated by Apple to the department AK, typed in the hundred block of Jeanfreau's Grocery, and searched the police database for any incidents that had occurred there over the last five years. As a boy, Savary had looked up the definition of
felicity
, discovering it meant “intense happiness.” Felicity Street was a real-life oxymoron.

In the five years AK, NOPD had received over one thousand calls along the twenty-four blocks of Felicity Street. In the last two years there had been two murders in the blocks around Jeanfreau's—nine rapes, twelve aggravated batteries, eight burglaries, seven armed robberies, two carjackings, twenty-nine batteries... the list went on. Savary narrowed the search to Jeanfreau's Grocery and discovered there were nine thefts, two armed robberies, two simple batteries, four disturbing-the-peace calls, and a peeping Tom reported there.

The only arrests on-site involved the two simple batteries—fistfights—and the peeping Tom case. A suspicious man standing outside Jeanfreau's had a warrant out for his arrest for peeping Tom from Tangipahoa Parish. Jack Hudson was the victim of both armed robberies. Of the nine theft cases, five listed young African-American males as the culprits. Two were later arrested after pulling the same shoplifting stunt at other stores.

Savary stood and stretched. Time to get home, cook something up, and call his girls on the phone. Every night between six and seven, when he wasn't working, Detective Joseph Savary called his ex-wife's number and talked to his girls. Emily was nine and Carla four. Carla thought she could show her daddy things through the phone as if he could see what she pointed the receiver at. Last night she was talking about a drawing she'd done and said, “See, Daddy?”

“Yes, baby. I see it.”

Savary left headquarters, heading uptown to his small apartment near Audubon Park. He would pass his ex-wife's house, the one he still paid the mortgage on, but would not stop. Joint custody in Louisiana meant his ex was the custodial parent, but he got his girls every other weekend and every other holiday. He fought for those visits even harder than he fought to solve murders. He barely knew his father. His girls would not suffer this.

 

It had been a Sunday morning, just before 6
A.M
., January 8, 1815, and the men lined behind the Rodriguez Canal strained to see through the heavy fog. Bagpipes echoed across the plain as the British army came at the quickstep. Major Joseph Savary, commander of the 2nd Battalion of Free Men of Color, stood near the center of the American line, not far from General Andrew Jackson. A rocket rose into the sky near the swamp to their left and the fog lifted to reveal the enemy columns in all their splendor—red coats, shako hats, steel bayonets atop their muskets.

The column near the river rushed the exposed redoubt just in front of the American line. The column coming along the swamp, closer to Savary's position, rolled toward them, sixty men abreast, the column so long its end could not be seen. It was a magnificent spectacle until the American cannons opened up.

A maelstrom of fire and shells—grapeshot, canister shot, chain shot, and black iron cannonballs—ripped through the British lines. Still they came, and Savary's men were finally able to join the firing. Major General Sir Edward Pakenham in his black commander-in-chief jacket and his best friend, Major General Samuel Gibbs, were cut down not far from Savary's position. Later, Andy Jackson would claim it was one of Savary's men who shot General Pakenham.

As the British attack faltered, eventually to fail, Major Joseph Savary learned his brother had been killed down the line. Etienne Savary was one of the eight Americans killed that morning. The mighty British army, veterans who had defeated Napoleon's finest in Spain and Portugal, suffered over two thousand casualties. Major Savary buried his brother in an above-ground tomb in the city they helped save. He had his brother's name carved into the tombstone above the words “Killed in action at the battle of New Orleans.”

Nearly two hundred years later, Major Joseph Savary's descendant and namesake felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he stepped away from a shotgun house in need of a paint job at the corner of Felicity and Freret Streets. The door slammed behind him. Detective Joseph Savary had just eliminated another suspect, Willie Nelson (no relation to the singer), a nineteen-year-old convicted serial purse snatcher just released after serving two years at Hunt Correctional Center. That left one name on his list of those who'd had run-ins with police around Jeanfreau's, a list Savary had made quick work of, eliminating one dead guy, one in jail in Mississippi, and the others who had fairly solid alibis. What pricked Savary's goose bumps was the fact that no one had said anything about the last name on the list, Oris Lamont, also nineteen. Every other name had come up in the interviews except Lamont's. In his short lifetime, Oris Lamont had managed to get arrested five times as a juvenile and seven times as an adult, charged with aggravated burglary, simple burglary, auto theft, simple robbery, carjacking, and a new drug charge. There was a lone conviction. Simple burglary. He served fourteen months of a ten-year sentence. Lamont had spent his entire eighteenth year in prison.

The
silence
wasn't probable cause for arrest, by a long shot, but it drew Savary to focus on Lamont, who had been arrested the previous week on Felicity Street for possession of crack cocaine with attempt to distribute. Savary hurried back to headquarters and pulled up a mug shot of Lamont, scooped up a copy of the videotape from the Jeanfreau murder, and headed straight back to his car.

On his way to the FBI Building on Leon Simon Boulevard, Savary called an old friend on his cell. Elvin Bishop had played middle linebacker at St. Augustine while Savary was the team's star defensive end. Both were good enough to bring two state championships to St. Aug, but these particular Purple Knights both passed up college ball. Bishop's knees required orthopedic surgery after their senior year, and Savary passed on playing for Southern Miss for a full academic scholarship to Xavier.

“You busy?” Savary asked when Bishop called back. He'd left a voicemail and hoped his friend was in town.

“Just got out of a meeting.”

“I'm coming over.”

“Now?”

“I need a favor.”

 

The FBI compound, surrounded by a twenty-foot steel-and-brick fence, was guarded by Department of Justice police, who stopped Savary at the gate and directed him where to park his unmarked police car. The homicide detective did not have an official U.S. government “secret” clearance, so he remained in a first-floor, windowless waiting room until Bishop could come downstairs to meet him.

At five-ten, Bishop was stocky, his face filling out from his high school days. He flashed the familiar easy smile as he approached. Savary stood and they shook hands, slapped each other's shoulders.

“Glad to see you're still in town,” Savary said.

Typical FBI custom was to have agents work away from their home for years before they had an opportunity to be stationed back home. Bishop spent his first five years in Baltimore but returned with the glut of special agents right after Katrina and remained.

“So, what you got?”

Savary reached into his briefcase and withdrew the videotape and the envelope with the mug shot. “Need you to send this to Quantico. See if your lab guys can do a facial comparison for me.”

Bishop laughed. “You been watching too much CSI bullshit.”

“I know you got the technology. This is a first-degree murder case. You gonna help me, or do I have to call Coach on you?”

They both laughed at that, although a call to Coach Washington would prod the old man to tongue-lash Bishop. Washington might be retired, but these were his boys and he was still around to coach them.

“Remember that damn hook-and-ladder play?”

“Never forget something like that.”

St. Augustine Purple Knights versus their nemesis, the Archbishop Rummel Raiders, the only team to beat St. Aug both years of their back-to-back state championship seasons. Their senior year, St. Aug held on to a six-point lead. Ten seconds left, fourth and goal, and the Raiders' two sacks and a penalty had them all the way back to the St. Aug forty-yard line.

Everyone expected a Hail Mary pass. The Raiders had beat the Brother Martin Crusaders earlier in the year with one. No one expected a hook-and-ladder. Savary drew back into pass coverage. The Rummel quarterback dropped back but threw short, to their fullback, who wheeled and lateraled to their star running back, a fleet-footed, skinny white boy—they later learned he was the star of their track team and the fastest kid in the school.

“Vincent—I forget his last name,” Savary said.

Vincent, the Raider running back, scampered past two linebackers, but Savary had him cut off near the sidelines with Bishop and their strong safety closing quickly.

“Still don't know how the boy got through.”

They'd reviewed the videotape again and again. The four players collided at the thirty-yard line. Bishop and the safety went down, Savary pulling the Raider toward the turf, only Vincent's legs kept churning and he yanked away and hit the afterburners.

“Fastest white boy I've ever seen.”

Vincent outraced the St. Aug cornerback and free safety to the end zone. Extra point good. Rummel 21–St. Augustine 20.