Witness To Kill (Change Of Life Book 1) (3 page)

She was considering how to answer when Agent Ruggle marched
in, trailed by a studious-looking younger man. The second man was as tall as
Ruggle but much more slender, his face more expressive. The second man carried
a cardboard box in both hands, a black canvas briefcase slung over the shoulder
of a dark suit coat.

Having followed Bureau protocol earlier, Ruggle apparently
felt no need to greet Mary again and did not acknowledge her presence. His
actions followed by the other man, he sat down heavily in a chair opposite Mary
and Sherry, set his cell phone out like a gavel and began pulling out and
sorting the box’s contents into stacks of paper files he lined on the table
between them.

Ruggle’s hair was cropped drill-sergeant close revealing a
muscled head over a skull that looked like it would outlast several bodies. He
worked with his coat on and his head lowered as if he were alone, not glancing
around at the room or its inhabitants. The eyelids over his leisurely blinking
eyes looked starved for blood. The flashes from the confessing fluorescent
picked up flecks of white on his shoulders. For long moments the only sound was
his paper stacking and the jumping buzz from the dying light.

“Yo! Sherry!” Someone cheerfully called from the hallway
where three young policemen were passing, jacking around like fraternity boys.
“We headin’ down to Al’s after softball tonight . . . come on down n’ tip a
couple.”

Ruggle raised his big head with a withering stare that
didn’t seem to bother the cops much. He glared for another moment, then jabbed
his left hand at the door. The younger man stepped over to close it, but held
it open long enough for Sherry to wave and shake his head at the offer before
the door separated them.

Ruggle snorted, then returned to his arranging while the
other three waited through long seconds of awkward silence. Finally, he raised
his face to Mary and looked at her like she was a
thing
.

“Is the subject ready?”

Without waiting for an answer he picked up his cell phone,
shoved her purse aside with the back of his hand and thumbed a button on it as
he set it directly in front of her.

Subject?
Mary felt a dislike for this man growing in
stomach. Cops weren’t among her favorites at their best; demanding,
self-important, and, worse yet, weak tippers was her experience with the breed.
Her throat stiffened. As she sat she sensed a level of hostility toward this
guy rising from Sherry as well—or was it
fear?
Disguised fear?

Outwardly, however, Sherry was still comfortably stretched
out, his face looking unconcerned.

Indicating the younger man with a quick glance, Mary spoke
in the firmest voice she could muster.

“May I ask who this is, please?”

Ruggle’s hand stopped and he raised his eyes in a look of
mild interest, his face’s pock-marks stayed waxen against the color has his
face brightened, chiclet-square teeth revealed by a tight smile. He grunted and
leaned his thick frame over the table, keeping his right arm drawn close to his
body and clicked a button on the cell before sitting back down. He exhaled
audibly and examined her, his pupils only points in eyes that looked too small
for his face.

“Of course, Mrs. . . . or it’s
Miss
isn’t it? Miss
Wilson. I am certainly concerned for your comfort.”

Certainly
was what he said. To Mary it sounded
suspiciously like
not very
.

“This is . . . uh,” he paused and picked up one of the
folders he’d been arranging, studied it like he was reading on stage. “This is
Agent Clay Mark Walker. He is assigned to assist me in these investigations.”

The small eyes hit Walker’s computer for an instant, but
they never found the introducee sitting in his chair like he was at attention.

Agent Walker’s face colored and he stood straight up, then
bent toward her to display his badge in a way that appeared to contemplate she
might actually want to examine it. After she made a show of reading it and
nodding like a diner approving a wine choice, he offered it to Sherry who held
up a palm and chuckled.

“Bureau regulations require that we work in p . . .pairs,
uh, Ms. Wilson,” Agent Walker said earnestly. His face worked and seemed to be
asking for understanding using its own language. “I apologize. I should have p
. . .presented my own credentials. It’s my, uh, my f . . .fault.”

Walker looked at her for an instant before turning to
Sherry. The young agent’s eyes were a deeper shade of blue than the
detective’s.

“Detective Sherry, I am p . . . pleased to meet you. I look
f…forward to working with you. I know New Orleans is your city, sir.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Mary regarded Ruggle while
Walker greeted Sherry. The little marks on Ruggle’s face whitened during the
niceties and he exhaled like he was venting anger and the muscles under his
cheekbones flexed at Walker’s
sir
to the city cop.

As Walker spoke haltingly while presenting his badge, Ruggle
drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table’s Formica, the flesh under
his nails as pale as paper.

Mary thought of crime shows:
Good cop, bad cop?

The bad cop took charge. “OK. Let’s get going here. I’ve got
ground to cover, there are a lot of questions left that need to be answered.”

The tiny pupils fired at Sherry, then returned to Mary.

Sherry’s face remained red and pleasant, his eyebrows jumped
just slightly at Ruggle’s dark black glance.

Ruggle reached across the table and punched the cell back on
and slid it back in front of Mary. Frayed bits of thread stuck out from the
cuff on his working arm.

“I want you to tell me exactly how long you knew . . .” he
glanced down at one of the open files.

Mary’s stomach turned a sick flip as she recognized an
upside-down color picture of Luis’s massacred face.

“How long did you know . . . Luis Edmond Rodriquez,” he
continued after he’d found the name. “Before last Sunday?”
Edmond
came
out slower, with a pronounced accent that sounded more mocking than respectful.
As he waited for her answer he clicked the table top with the nails of his left
hand.

She considered for a long moment, took a breath and
answered, “I guess . . . about two years? We worked in the same restaurant . .
.
Maison Paris
.” She pronounced the name in Midwestern-inflected French.
“It’s in the Quarter. But you probably know all that?”

Ruggle grunted noncommittally.

“Tell me what you know, Miss Wilson, everything you know
about any other, shall we say, any other
occupation
of, uh, of this Luis
Edmond Rodriguez.”

Again the mocking accent.

“Nothing,” she responded hesitantly, trying to concentrate
and answer accurately. Trying to get this
over
.

“I know he used to do some other work, some odd jobs. He
made some extra money working with one of his brothers from time to time. Used
to have some cash sometimes from that. I never really asked him about it. His
business . . . just labor, I think. As far as I know he was mostly just a
cook.”

Ruggle pursed his lips and nodded toward the recorder. “Tell
me that brother’s name, Miss Wilson.”

Mary squinted and thought for a long moment. “I don’t know,
to be honest. I don’t know. I think Luis had a big family, a bunch of brothers.
I don’t know them, really,” she sighed with a frown. “He probably told me
sometime or another. But I didn’t pay enough attention. I just can’t say.
Sorry.”

Ruggle’s eyes seemed to shrink even smaller as she answered.
He stared at her doubtfully then his eyes fell thoughtfully to study the back
of his left hand. He was working from a list only he possessed, clearly
relishing its control of the room. The pace and order of the questions were
entirely his to decide. With his right arm hanging limp in his lap, he selected
and picked up another paper with his left.

“So . . . when did the two of you start, uh . . . when did
you and this
Luis
decide to set up housekeeping?”

“A little over a year ago,” she injected enough voice so it
didn’t come out like a moan, sitting back in her chair with a side-glance at
Sherry. “Putting our money together we were able to rent a house . . . a
real
house. That’s hard down here. We got a decent place for all of us.” After
another pause she shook her head and added softly, “He was mostly just a
roommate.”

“
Mostly?”

His head was down as he made a note, but Mary could feel the
sarcasm on his lowered face. Sherry’s chair creaked as he shifted and made a
tiny sound in his throat, tapped her chair softly with the side of his foot so
that only she knew. The younger agent stared at his screen and listlessly poked
keys with a shadowed face, the tops of his ears burned red.

Mary bent forward and blinked several times, then folded her
arms with a deep breath and leaned back heavily. She was crushed with fatigue,
desperate to be somewhere else, to do
something
else. At the same time,
she felt a flash of indignation at this stranger’s right to pry into her life
pierce her weary ennui.

“What is your question, sir?”

He raised his head at her sharpened tone. She widened her
eyes and tried to look into his to make some human connection. He kept his own
eyes hooded over the crease of bared teeth that served as his smile.

“Well . . . you’ll have to excuse the intrusion but this is
a murder case. The
question
is that I have to know the exact nature of
your relationship with the decedent.”

He smiled at her unctuously.

“Tell us what you were you doing this past year with Mr.
Luis Edmond Rodriquez?”

In the cold quiet of the awful room,
Mister
came out
in exaggerated courtesy;
doing
was a profanity.

She searched his face for a morsel of pity. She shook her
head and sat back with another glance toward Sherry, saw Ruggle’s eyes record
it.

“Sometimes he stayed with me,” she sighed resignedly, “stayed
up in my room. Sometimes. If Brian stayed at Mrs. Cloutier’s.” She hesitated,
then continued in a simpering voice she instantly hated. “It really wasn’t
anything serious.”

“No. I suppose not,” he said with his head down as he wrote.
“Nothing serious.”

He paused to let the mockery settle, drumming his fingers.
His nails needed trimming and the insistent clicking bounced off the walls like
wasps trapped in a jar.

“So . . . who is this . . .” he frowned down at his pad.
“Who is this Brian?”

She stared at the top of his head, her face burning like
metal. Without thinking about it she jerked to her feet and snatched up her
purse. She saw—
felt
—his face raise and his little eyes drop
appreciatively down her body.

“My son! That’s who Brian is! My little boy! He was in the
house with those killers! So was I!” Her arms quivered as she fought off the
urge to swipe the recorder off the table. “I, uh,
we
haven’t done
anything wrong! Nothing! I don’t have to listen to this!”

She turned to Sherry.

“I’m leaving. Will you take me to my son?”

Ruggle’s mouth flapped, then his face closed like a fist.

“I’ve got more questions for you Miss Wilson.”

He swiveled in his chair with the big left hand pawing air,
his eyes still following her figure.

His own face wearing a genial look, Sherry ambled out the
door behind her, his jacket draped over his arm, his hat plopped on askew.

Agent Walker was silent, his own face pink and buried in the
computer screen.

“Miss Wilson! This childish behavior’s just going to cost us
more . . .”

Ruggle’s lecture faded as she strode down the hall trailed
by Sherry, then it was cut off completely by the opened door and the traffic
noise climbing the Chartres Street steps.

Mrs. Cloutier murmured a jambalaya dialect into the boy’s
ear, her mottled face brightened by rouge ovals smeared over Indian cheekbones;
long strands of gray-streaked hair were managed by a paisley scarf, its corners
joined in a forehead knot at her hairline. Her eyes sheened a pale green
pierced by slivers of silver; gleaming dully against her shadowy features, a
single gold hoop earring bobbed in a gentle rhythm with her words. Her age was
not clear.

An emaciated black bird stood motionless on a trapeze in the
cage hanging over the half wall separating the rooms, the longest of its
iridescent feathers dryly brushed the newspaper spread on the cage’s bottom.
Sitar notes floated from somewhere. The air was perfumed by a columbic candle
flickering from a wicker table in the corner opposite the cage. The other
source of artificial light came from a floor lamp draped over with a vermilion
bed-sheet that cast the apartment’s textured beige walls into a mysterious
shade of orange.

The boy sat next to her on the divan, a plastic box wired to
headphones lay on top of folded sheets and a pillow stacked on the floor at one
end. He gazed out the open balcony doors with the lady’s wine-red lips moving
next to his ear, brown spots marred the skin of her long fine hand at the end
of the silk-sleeved arm draped around his shoulders. He leaned against her and
appeared to listen, but his face and eyes were blank.

Mary and Detective Sherry bent over the kitchen table in the
next room, faces drawn close behind the strings of colored beads that separated
the rooms. The apartment’s size made privacy a difficult proposition, even with
the lady’s efforts at distraction.

A plump white cat sat licking a paw under the table holding
the candle; it blinked from time to time, but its pink eyes never left the
bird. Mary cracked her knuckles and sighed to herself, absently regarding the
homburg crouched in the third chair like it was one of the conferees.

She was worn out, not interested in more conversation. She
tried again to let him know through thinly-stifled yawns and bored body
language. He ignored the signals, seemed determined to speak with her. And, she
considered, in the interest of her son and her self she
ought
to fight
off her fatigue and boredom and make herself listen to whatever it was this guy
was trying to say.

Her eyes shifted to the next room, the woman’s hands
gesturing elegantly with her story, her face near Brian’s ear. The reality was
that they didn’t have many friends, and their best one had just been murdered.
This new one across the little table appeared level-headed and genuinely
concerned about them. She regarded Sherry, hunched over his elbows, hands
fisted under his chin. She sensed that behind the watery blue eyes looking at
her that there was
more.

“Why ‘ont the two of us maybe take a little walk?” he
groaned as he rose, picking up the hat and flicking it meaningfully toward the
ensconced pair on the divan. “We’ll tryta look jest like tourists.”

He flicked the hat at Mary’s running shoes and grinned.
“Walkin’ only though, Hon. Don’t go in for nonna that runnin’ stuff.”

She nodded and stepped through the beads, bending to kiss
her son’s forehead with her hand resting lightly on the lady’s arm. “We’re
going out for a while, Sweetie. We won’t be too long. Will you be a good boy
for Miss C?”

The boy pursed his lips and nodded firmly, wiggled his
fingers into something like a wave. He regarded the detective with wide
doe-eyes but didn’t speak. As she stepped through the door Sherry held open for
her, Mary flashed a brief, grateful smile back into the apartment. But the woman
didn’t notice it, her green eyes were also staring at Sherry, hers more
sharply.

“Lucky you got her to help the two o’ you. Seems like a nice
lady.” Sherry remarked over his shoulder, holding the handrail and leading the
way down the dark of the unlighted stairwell. He asked with a tad more
curiosity than just making small talk, “Know ‘er long?”

“Since we got down here. I guess we’ve known her about all
Brian’s life, come to think of it. She lived in the apartment next to us when
we first came down. We were by ourselves, she lived by herself. Mrs. Cloutier’s
kind of his second mother. Watches him like a mother hen, or maybe more like a
hawk.” She laughed softly. “Aren’t those eyes of hers something? Poor old soul
doesn’t have any family of her own.”

Neither do we
, she thought, but didn’t say it as
light burst through the opened street level door.

“Thinkin’ we oughta trya mess of them beignets down’t the
Monde.” He pointed the direction with a nod of the homburg as they stepped
blinking onto the east side of Ursulines, the sidewalk painted citrine by this
hour’s sun.

As he walked his toes pointed outward and he rocked back and
forth like a tipsy penguin. “Been awhile fer me. Usta be in there most ever
day,” he chuckled and patted above his belt. “LaDonna . . . my wife . . . she
usta say I’s down there way too much. Cops us’ly get ‘em for free, you know.
They seemed to like havin’ us hangin’ ‘round, cops that is. ‘Specially these
days, you know?”

“So . . . the rumors about cops and donuts are accurate,
Detective?”

She smiled at her companion, unexpectedly relieved to be
walking outdoors and breathing in the afternoon air. And relieved to be out of
the worry waiting behind in the cramped rooms of the apartment, feeling a few
moments of anonymity and security on the crowded narrow walks of the French
Quarter.

“Call me Sherry, Hon. Most everbody does. Hell, even ol’
Mayor Moon did.” He spread his palms grandly. “Those were the days. This was a
great city back then, I’ll tell ya. Great place then. Great place to live . . .
live ‘nd work.”

He sighed pensively and added after a moment. “Course not
everythin’ was run ‘xactly cordin’ to the book, ya understand. ‘Specially down
here. But the place ran, ya know?” He rubbed the side of his face, the hat
moved back and forth like it was having its own bout of nostalgia. “Lot
diff’rent now. Anymore . . . hard to tella forest from the trees.”

“How long till you give it up?”

She slowed her steps to meet his saunter.

“Oh, heck. Don’ know, really,” he drawled distantly. “Could
go ahead and do it now, I s’pose . . . maybe I should. Hate to lose touch with
everthin’ though, you know? Not sure what I’d do. Wife, LaDonna, she passed a
bit ago . . . cancer. Long bout.”

The hat shook again, his voice was matter-of-fact.

“Too old to party with those kids on the force, that’s for
shore. Done somea that after she uh, she went, ya know. . .prob’ly done morea
that ‘n I shoulda.”

He smiled shyly, theatrically raised the back of his hand to
his forehead.

“Too old. Cain’t take them mornin’s any more, ya know?”

They walked for a few steps before he exhaled audibly and
muttered at the sidewalk like she wasn’t there. “Sure ain’t the same these
days. Things’s become confusin’. Cops down here still don’t make any money. Now
they’re makin’ us take this . . what’d they call it . . .
sensitivity
trainin’. Jest a lotta public relations, y’ask me. Then after 911, everthin’
got worse. Them feds come in . . . thinkin’ they run everthin’. Talk about not
knowin’ right from wrong . . . them letter boys—”

He stopped and smiled at her with a trace of embarrassment.
“Don’t know why I’m ramblin’ on so much.”

He continued in a brighter tone.

“Got my girl, though, and my grandson like I said. Could
spend some more time with ‘em I s’pose.”

After a few more quiet steps he shook his head and added
softly, “Doubt those youngn’s need this old dinosaur ‘round that much, ya
know?”

Without thinking about it, in a motion that felt supremely
natural, she slipped her hand through the crook of his arm like he was her dad.

“I’ll bet you’d be surprised about that.”

Walking with the rumpled cop down one of the most dangerous
streets on earth, Mary felt a moment’s respite, felt better than she could
remember feeling since biking through the night air the night her roommate was
brutally murdered. They stopped talking and tread over sidewalks that dropped
toward the river, shaded by canopies supported by white and black curled iron
lace.

“So . . . Sherry! Sherry! My man!” An old black man sang out
in a kidding voice. He talked while wiping the frosted glass of a door propped
open by a bar stool. She could smell last night’s cigarettes and alcohol in the
cold air spilling from the murky interior, piano notes plinked the same high
key as the man’s voice.

“‘Bout time, old boy! ‘Bout time! Gonna introduce me to that
pretty little thing?”

Sherry’s face brightened and he dismissed the man with a
friendly shake of his head and smirk. They walked on and Mary could smell the
bricks as shopkeepers hosed and swept outside their store-fronts, others bent
over chalk-boards scrawling the day’s come-ons or arranging bouquets aimed to
first capture the eyes and noses of the tourist hordes walking the Quarter’s
uneven old walks—then to capture their money.

“I ‘member readin’ in one’a the guidebooks they got fer down
here,” Sherry continued, gesturing like a tour guide as they passed a knot of
young women in shorts and t-shirts smoking and talking on a stoop.

“Said the whole story ‘bout the success down here’n the
Quarter’s pretty simple and always has been. It’s all ‘bout whettin’ people’s
appetites . . . you know, whettin’ their
natural
appetites.”

He nodded and grinned mischievously back toward where the
girls were still gabbing in the sun. The afternoon’s frank light disclosed a
waxy fatigue in the day faces of the night-girls, faces lacking the leaven of
make-up, absent the veil of glamour and mystery waiting to cloak them like a
healing fog with the coming curtain of night.

“Then feedin’ ‘em.”

“Sherry! Monsier Sherry!” In the next block a woman who
looked like she could have been Mrs. Cloutier’s sister motioned a bouquet of
red and yellow daisies at Mary from between a pair of saloon doors.
“Prendre
ces . . . s’il vous plaiit . . . por la belle mademoiselle.”

He grinned and shook his head, touching the homburg with a
two fingered salute of thanks. “Quarter usta be my beat, ya know.”

He looked around proudly. As they strolled on he exchanged
greetings and jokes, turned down small gifts and offers of hospitality like a
popular local politician, like a giver of
things
. He gestured at points
of interest and related little stories about the people and the area. The humor
in the anecdotes came mostly at his own expense.

“Spent mosta my cop career down here since I was a rookie,
mosta my life actually, ya know? Then them feds moved in and set up shop.” He
coughed bitterly. “Then I got farmed out to homicide. Spent mosta my life down
here with these people.” He shrugged philosophically. “Course it’s true . . .
cain’t have too many homicide dicks in the Easy these days. Know what their
motto over ‘n homicide is?” He chuckled cynically. “Our day begins when yours
ends.”

He snickered, then shook his head in amazement. “Three
Hundred sixty-five murders down here last year! You probably noticed how
careful the cops down here have to be . . . the night . . . you know, uh . . .
t’other night.” He continued quickly. “We joke each other downtown . . . had
yer one a day? But it ain’t funny, really.”

He nodded his head around. “But these people got to be kept
safe. Safe, ya know? They don’t givea damn ‘bout enforcin’ a bunch of petty
rules.” He sighed deeply. “Don’t think you kin know that ‘thout spendin’ time
down here, you know?”

Mary didn’t
know.
And she didn’t know what he was
talking about, so she said nothing and they walked in silence down the slope
toward the earthen mound thrown up over the years to separate New Orleans’
lowest and oldest section from the spring meanderings of the Big Muddy. They
passed Jackson Square, just up from the outdoor tables lined outside the
Cafe
du Monde,
a French Quarter landmark nestled between the end of the city and
the narrow gauge track that runs inside the levee to the downtown business
towers.

The streets forming Jackson Square were jammed with tourists
gathered around thespian panhandlers plying their trades and talents. A blond
guitarist in a leather cowboy hat strummed from a bench while her bandanaed dog
danced around on its hind legs; wearing a dark suit and sunglasses, a black
saxophonist sat cross-legged in the shade of a giant cypress, playing a song
with drawn-out notes as if no one was watching; in one open-front tent a silent
dark-eyed woman drew wispy portraits of the parents while an open-faced man
jabbered nonstop as he twisted balloons into the shapes of cartoon characters for
their kids; on a prime corner a white-faced mime in funereal garb juggled
tennis balls in front of a singing human juke-box that had once housed only a
refrigerator.

As they walked the gingerbread and pastel blocks, Mary broke
the silence, motioning downtown. “Have you ever been to Disney World?”

“No.” He answered, following her gaze toward the shafts of
the steel and granite skyscrapers with a puzzled look. “Been promisin’ my
grandson to take ‘im ever since she passed . . . LaDonna, ya’ know. But we
ain’t made it down there yet.”

“Well, when I’m here . . . looking downtown from here in the
Quarter . . . sometimes it makes me think of Disney World.”

Sherry peered up at her, shielding his eyes with his hand.

She sighed with her eyes away. “Standing in one time, in one
world
actually . . . looking at the next.”

*** *** *** ***

They accepted a table behind the favored ones lined along
the white picket fence bordering Decatur, well away from the other guests. A
tilted umbrella shielded them from the lowering sun; the hat stayed square on
Sherry’s head.