J Bertrand - Back on Murder

He skimmed his way along a chain-link fence, then ducked down a driveway running parallel to a self-storage unit whose bright lights made him impossible to miss. I had my gun out now, but without closing the distance there wasn’t much hope of actually hitting him. So I poured on some speed. By the time he reached the end of the road, where the light suddenly dropped off, he was winded and staggering. I brought my pistol up and started yelling for him to freeze.

Instead, he turned on me.

I thought I saw the gun barrel shining through the shadows. I put two rounds into him, my gun bucking in my hands.

He stood on tiptoes a moment, then sank to one knee. By the time I reached him, he was facedown on the cracked concrete, breathing hard, moaning.

Keller drove up with the second kid in the back of the cruiser. He told me to holster my gun, then rolled my perp over to check on him. I’d have sworn both rounds hit center of mass, but in fact he’d only been hit once, the projectile ripping a superficial channel through the fleshy part of his side, then smashing into his bicep just above the elbow.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Big Reg said. “But, son, we seem to have a problem.”

Namely, there was a wounded perp on the ground, but no nickel-plated automatic. Stand-up guy that he was, Big Reg doubled back along the route we’d just run, searching the uncut grass along the chain-link fence for any sign of a discarded piece. He came back shaking his head, telling me not to worry, though, because he’d back my story. The guy had taken a couple of shots at me, there was no disputing that. Later, it turned out Keller didn’t have to back me: the video-surveillance cameras took care of that.

Still, I was grateful.

Six months later, once Big Reg had disappeared into the detective bureau, word trickled down that he’d had to gun down a dealer who came after him off duty. Feeling a bond after the way he’d helped me through my own shooting, I made a point of dropping in as a show of support. Talking to the other narcotics detectives, I learned something significant. The thug who’d stepped up to Keller was brandishing a nickel-plated Browning BDA.

He hadn’t missed the discarded weapon. He’d pocketed it for use later on. Which meant his latest shooting was dirty.

“You know,” I tell Nix as we emerge onto 290, “if you’d helped me out a little when Keller planted that piece, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Right,” he says. “Because we wouldn’t be with the department anymore. I’m all in favor of settling scores, but not at the expense of the job.” He gives his badge a pat, reassuring himself it’s still in place.

He’s probably right. I could’ve made trouble for Keller, but not enough for it to matter. People would have closed ranks, because that’s what you do when a brother officer is challenged. None of us knows when he’ll be forced into the same situation, making a mistake that needs covering.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he says. “If you’re gonna slip a knife into somebody’s back – whether they deserve it or not – you gotta make sure you sneak up on them first. Get my drift?”

Yeah, I do. And showing up in Keller’s office, putting myself front and center like that, it probably wasn’t the best move. Maybe Nix already heard the news and is letting me know. If he’s just spouting random advice, it’s pretty good advice.

From now on, I’d better start listening.

For the second time I show up at task force headquarters late, with no explanation, and for the second time Cavallo chooses not to call me on it. She eyes me silently as I approach, then slides a stack of interview forms across the table, picking up where we left off before. I recap my late-night visit to the Robbs’, giving her the various accounts of the vandalism incident.

Yawning, she digs through her box of files, pulling a couple of sheets out. I skim them quickly. The thirteen-year-old youth group girls Gina Robb said were in her class gave statements to the police early on, including the accusation that Hannah had bashed up the car of an unnamed boyfriend of Evangeline Dyer.

“How does stuff like this get missed?” I slap the pages down.

She shrugs. “Information overload. Nobody knows it’s important at the time. And anyway, is it important? If it’s true Hannah keyed his car, then I guess that gives him some kind of motive – but I thought you’d already ruled Fontaine out.”

“Maybe. But we should at least follow up on Evey Dyer, get her side of things. If she was such a good friend of Hannah’s, no matter how they left things, she might be able to tell us something useful.”

“Anything’s worth a try.” She throws her hands up in frustration.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She brushes her hair back. “Everything.”

I remember Bascombe’s words about the Morales case. A cool breeze blowing. The same thing’s happening here, and Cavallo’s not taking it well. The reason professionals don’t invest too much of themselves in a case like this is that it’s almost certain to end badly. But of course professionals do it all the time, because they’re human like anyone else. Cavallo lets out a sigh, then rubs her eyes until she can’t rub anymore. She starts back on the interview forms, making me wonder if she’s more human than most.

“So you want me to follow up on the Dyer girl?” I ask.

“Knock yourself out.”

After an hour of hunting and pecking on the computer keyboard, I decide to take a shortcut around my technological limitations, placing a long distance call to Detective Eugene Fontenot, a New Orleans homicide detective who helped me out years ago on my most celebrated case, the Fauk stabbing, which was the basis for Brad Templeton’s book The Kingwood Killing. We had a good laugh about that, Gene and I, when he stayed at my place after Hurricane Katrina blew his house down. Like Evangeline Dyer’s mother, he’d toyed with the idea of a new life in Texas before nopd reeled him back.

“Don’t you people have such a thing as databases out there in Texas?” he asks. “I’m lucky you didn’t talk me into staying.”

“There’s nothing like the human touch, Gene. Besides, I heard you’d gotten fat and could use some exercise.”

Over the line I hear him patting his belly. “My ex-wife been talkin’ again?”

He asks about Charlotte, then gives me an update on his leisure time, which seems mainly to be taken up by fishing. Finally, I get his attention by explaining the link between the favor I’m asking for and the case that’s on every television screen.

“This is connected to that girl?” he says, wonder in his voice.

“The one you’d be locating is supposed to be her best friend.”

Fontenot hums a tune, thinking things over. “For you, I wouldn’t lift a finger. You’ve never brought me anything but trouble. Still, I’ve got kids of my own, and if one of them went missing, I’d want anybody who could lift a finger to do it.”

“That’s noble of you, Gene.”

“I’m a noble sort of man.”

“Not according to your ex-wife, you’re not.”

He laughs with me a little, then at me, and then hangs up the phone. Cavallo, who’s been making an effort not to pay attention – or at least, not to seem to be – can’t help looking up with an inquisitive lift of the eyebrows.

“Gene Fontenot,” I explain.

“That name sounds familiar,” she says. Reaching under the table, she digs through her shoulder bag for a couple of seconds, then produces a dog-eared copy of The Kingwood Killing. “I’ve been reading up on you, March.”

I snatch the book away, flipping absently through the pages. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Not everybody around here has a book written about them.”