John Ames - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 128, No. 5. Whole No. 783, November 2006

Born and raised in New Orleans, where he was a police officer in adjacent Jefferson Parish for twelve years and a P.I. for six years, O’Neil De Noux is currently in Lake Charles, LA. Still displaced by Katrina, he’s attempting to resettle along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. His new book, New Orleans Confidential , is a collection of 1940s noir P.I. stories.

Five days before Katrina blew into town, topping the levees in Jefferson and St. Bernard Parishes, breaking through the levee at the 17th Street Canal, the London Avenue Canal, and Industrial Canal to inundate New Orleans, Detective John Raven Beau started his vacation by having his houseboat raised into dry dock. Five days after Katrina, Beau sat in a flat-bottom pirogue next to Sad Lisa. The hurricane had lifted his houseboat off the dry dock and deposited her between the remains of two huge boat sheds and the skeleton of Joe Boughten’s Boat Repair Yard, which had shielded the big winds from Sad Lisa, now floating in eight feet of water that covered the entire area. Lake Pontchartrain had taken the land as far as Beau could see.

With the strong summer sun beating down on the brown water, Beau and his partner had to shield their eyes from the glare with hands over brows, although both wore dark sunglasses. The stench was the worst part, reeking of dead fish, mildew, and a thick petroleum smell. The oaks were dying, the ones that hadn’t toppled over. The roofs of large trucks could be seen on what used to be high ground, boats littered the entire area, most upside down, half-sunk, pleasure crafts next to shrimp boats. A half-mile away, the levee breach at the 17th Street Canal was still pouring into the city.

“Well, she’s not listing,” said Beau’s new partner, Juanita Cruz. Five years younger than Beau, Cruz was twenty-five and had been promoted to detective a month before Katrina — or B.K. as it was now known. For the rest of time, this new New Orleans would be A.K. — after Katrina. Her brown-black hair pulled into a bun, she wore a black T-shirt over baggy black nylon pants and black combat boots. Across the rear of her T-shirt, NOPD was stenciled in silver letters. Beau wore the same getup, his .9mm Beretta Model 92F in a canvas holster along his right hip.

Beau tied up against his houseboat, heard a noise, and looked up into Joe Boughten’s face. Joe smiled weakly and said, “She’s seaworthy. Only one around here that is.”

Beau climbed aboard, followed by Cruz. Joe, in a soiled T-shirt that was once white, baggy gray shorts, face unshaven, eyes bleary, held up a can of beer and said, “Want a brew? They’re hot, ‘a course, but that’s the way the British drink it, ain’t it?”

“Engine ruined?”

“No gas. We emptied the tanks, remember?”

“How’d you get beer?”

“I stocked up before the storm.” Joe belched, then excused himself to Cruz, who stared at him real hard.

“Tell me you didn’t ride out the storm,” Beau said as he looked around Sad Lisa. Pieces of railing were missing, so were the seat cushions of the built-in seats, but he’d stored the radar and antennas below before putting the boat into dry dock, so it didn’t appear much else was missing. Then he saw the tarp on the roof. Joe had covered a hole.

Joe waited for him to look back before saying, “It was like bein’ in the middle of an atomic blast.” He turned to Cruz. “Wind so strong, rain slammin’, waves crashin’, things flyin’, hittin’ everything.” He belched again and took a step back. “Been listenin’ to the radio. Is it true about all the shit at the Dome?”

Beau shrugged. Cruz told him some of it was true.

Joe waved his hand. “No looters been by here yet, but they will, I’m sure.”

“Unlikely for the moment,” said Beau. “We had to get through two checkpoints. Coast Guard and National Guard stopping everything on the water.”

“Good. Bet they don’t check at night. Never seen it so dark around here.”

Beau went inside and dug out a canvas suitcase and started packing clothes. He could smell bacon now, saw a pan on the stove with three slices in it. There was enough propane to last awhile. “Hey,” he called out to Joe.

“Yeah.” From the deck.

“Thanks for saving my boat.”

“It saved me.”

Cruz came down and Beau grabbed another bag, shoving every T-shirt he had inside, along with extra jogging shoes. He wished he had something that would fit Cruz. They’d just come from her apartment on Fleur de Lis. Seven feet of water and still rising. She’d lost everything. The woman looked shell-shocked, eyes trying to focus. She moved in slow motion. Lack of sleep. Neither had slept much.

“Hey,” called out Joe. “I hear they’re gonna put y’all up on a cruise ship.”

“Not us,” Beau called back. No need explaining that they were stationed at the airport, which was dry, living in the main terminal with doctors, nurses, National Guardsmen, and a platoon of Royal Canadian Mounties, the same Mounties who were the first ones to go into St. Bernard when no one else bothered. Beau could imagine the people on their roofs getting rescued and asking, Who are you guys?

Mounties. From Canada.

Back up on deck, he found Joe sitting in a lawn chair he didn’t recognize. “You’re coming with us?”

“No. No. It’s peaceful here.” Joe raised the beer can. “Got five more cases. Could use some grub, though.”

They had three dozen MREs in the pirogue and twelve gallons of water, figuring they’d find people on roofs, so they left nearly all with Joe.

“You want my off-duty piece?” Beau asked.

Joe lifted his T-shirt to show a revolver tucked into his shorts. “My trusty Colt’ll do the trick.”

Beau went into the tool chest and brought out a can of red spray paint. On the blue tarp covering the blown-out windows of Sad Lisa he printed NOPD. Then he went down and took out one of his uniform shirts.

“When the Coast Guard or National Guard come around, put this on and tell them you’re my uncle or something.”

“This is still my boatyard.” Joe belched again.

“This is also a mandatory evacuation area.”

Cruz climbed back into the pirogue, sitting up front again. Beau went to the motor.

“Thanks for the grub,” Joe called out.

“We’ll be back in a few days.”

“I’ll be here.”

Beau took his time maneuvering out of the boatyard back across what once was West End Park. A huge black helicopter carrying three large sandbags passed overhead, heading for the levee break. The hot air was thick with the stench of burnt wood as they passed the shell of the Southern Yacht Club, which had burned to the ground, the waterline actually, just after the storm hit. Beau had heard about it as he tried to get back into the city from his vacation. He’d gone back home to Vermilion Parish. Stopped at a roadblock on I-10, he was eventually brought to the airport, where he linked up with his lieutenant, who was surprised to see him back in town.

“I got an assignment for you,” Lieutenant Merten had said, sweat glistening on his dark brown face. They were outside the main terminal of Armstrong International Airport in Kenner. “I want you and the rookie to stay out here and log in the bodies.”

“What?” Beau had come back to rescue people.

“You and the rookie.” Merten actually tapped Cruz atop the head. “Log the bodies they bring out of the city. I need a homicide team to check for 30-victims. Get all you can on them before they whisk them away to St. Gabriel. IDs if you can ID them, describe wounds, anything. I want someone who knows a murder victim to spot them. Before these military doctors get around to posting the bodies. We need to know how many murders we got. I want you to stay here. So don’t argue with me.”