Robert Walker - Pure Instinct

“ Blackmail for what?” Jessica asked.

“ Frank had a wife and kids at the time of Surette's death; they've since left him, of course.”

“ I hadn't heard.”

“ Meade had him on a couple of things… gambling, skirtchasing… I never knew Meade could be so vicious, but for reasons of their own, he and Stephens wanted the Surette kid's death kept as John Doe as possible, you understand?”

“ Hell, was Meade sleeping with the guy?” Alex sneered.

Landry smirked, and then laughed full-blown, which eased the electrified air inside the car. “Both the P.C. and Meade have powerful connections. That's all Frank needed to know. He wasn't going to trust his fate to a grand jury investigation into his alleged wrongdoings. Now, he'll be facing one anyway.”

Alex nodded grimly. “So you've deduced from the amount of pressure put on Frank that whoever Stephens and Meade were out to protect, these people have position and wealth and power-like Susie Socks tried to tell Ben and me, Ben already knowing. People with old-money connections in the highest circles, the mayor's office, the governor's office.”

“ And we get squeezed by the mayor's office and the state to close out the Queen of Hearts killings so that Surette-with the same first name as Raveneaux's son-can be quietly forgotten as having had no relation to the crimes,” Carl concluded. Kim sat shaking her head in disbelief, fearful of the truth. “All nice and tidy for the people who took Surette's body, people who obviously don't give a damn about the whereabouts of either Surette's heart or his killer, or whom the butcher might choose next.”

“ Hey, wealth and position can do that to a person, you know that, Kim,” replied Alex with a warm look over his shoulder for her.

“ I guess we take this case to a higher level of inquiry then; we raise it out of the gutter and the gay ghetto of the French Quarter to here-a place the size of the governor's mansion?” Jessica said.

“ The home of retired general and senator George Maurice Raveneaux, a friend of the governor's,” Landry declared.

“ Now you tell me, Kim,” Alex said. “Are the missing hearts really at Raveneaux?”

“ I can't honestly say…”

Landry pushed on, saying, “I checked the senator out thoroughly. His wife's maiden name is Surette.”

“ Damn, and we put out a request for information if you recall,” Alex noted, “a televised plea for anyone who might know Surette to come forward, claim the body. All we got were a handful of his friends from the Quarter, all of whom have either disappeared or have themselves been killed by the Queen of Hearts killer. Some coincidences you can shirk off, but some cling to you like burrs on Velcro.” Alex's anger could not be checked.

Now they were pulling into the blacktopped drive at Raveneaux, and none of them knew whom they could trust any longer. The thought seemed to coalesce into a palpitating question that hung in the cab where they sat. Backup squad cars came careening along and pulling in behind them.

“ I guess all that we can trust is one another,” Alex said, voicing his thoughts. “Can we trust you, Dr. Coran?”

“ What?”

“ Well, you were called in by Stephens, right? And you do work under Lew Meade's direction.”

“ That's not entirely fair,” Kim declared. “I mean, just because she's FBI doesn't mean she agrees with or goes along with everything Lew Meade has to say, Alex.”

“ I'm glad to hear that, because a showdown with Meade and Stephens is inevitable. You up for it, Dr. Coran?”

Jessica produced a document. “If I were in Meade's pocket, would I have served the sheriff of Ascension Parish with a federal warrant to back you guys up? I have a few connections of my own.”

The police party had arrived here at the plantation home of one of Louisiana's most honored and decorated citizens, having exhausted all other avenues, having moved the venue of their search from the squalor of the French Quarter's back-alley flophouses to this place of opulence and wealth; it seemed a contradiction, and nothing here spoke of murder or mayhem. The night air was fresh with the scent of blooming jasmine and old hickory trees that fluttered high above them in the wind, rows of them on either side of the long, expansive driveway ahead, just the other side of the huge, black gates.

Landry had halted the car at the gatekeeper's little watch booth, the gatekeeper long since replaced by electronic surveillance cameras and intercoms. Landry announced them, explaining their business and telling some butler or other servant at the other end to leave the gate open long enough for three trailing police units to follow him through.

“ We'll see you up at the house,” Landry finally said to the disembodied voice at the other end. “Now buzz us through.”

“ But this is so… highly irregular, sir. I must confer with the general, sir.”

“ The hell you do, hoss! All you have to do is press a goddamned button or be charged with obstruction of justice, you got that? Now which is it to be? You can confer with your boss afterwards.”

Landry held his badge up to the camera again.

“ How do I know you're really the police. Police never come out here. All the general's business is done in the city, and-”

“ God damnit, man! If you don't open that gate in the next five seconds, we're going to blow a hole through the locking mechanism and you're the first SOB we're going to handcuff when we get up there to the house! You got that?”

The buzz came, and the gates rattled apart and opened wide for them to pass. Along the top of the gates, a series of ornate black ravens all in a row began to “dance” before their eyes, all the ravens' eyes like enormous stone receptacles, filled with secrets forever locked inside their wrought-iron hearts. The ravens adorned the black iron gates at intervals of two feet, large birds of prey with eyes that pierced the night.

Kim instantly recognized the ravens as those in her vision, and she imagined each taking flight after dark when no one was looking; they did seem to be flying now as the gates opened wide. A child might easily be frightened of the images. Kim had spoken of great black ravens in the air surrounding the killer, but here they were at Raveneaux, the only two-thousand-acre Southern plantation which had survived both the Civil War and Reconstruction, the possession of one of Louisiana's most honored and oldest of families. The Raveneaux family was at the top of the social register. Every major charitable organization across the state and many across the nation owed some allegiance to George Maurice Raveneaux.

Having two search warrants, one a federal document, the party entered the gate, closely followed by a trio of cars filled with sheriffs deputies, familiarized earlier with the FBI search warrant. All of the green-suited officers were filled to the brim of their Smokey-the-Bear hats with loathing and serious doubt directed at the NOPD cops who'd crashed their jurisdiction with a warrant to disturb the general and his family. They were also filled with a certainty that nothing untoward would come of the visit, that all Landry and Alex Sincebaugh would accomplish with their damned warrant was a loss of income and profession. At this point the deputies were more in Rave-neaux's camp than that of the city cops. Still, somehow Captain Landry had in fact gotten on a first-name basis with two of the deputies, who were worried sick about “making a 'raid' on the ol' gen'ral's home.”

General George Maurice Raveneaux had served his country with distinction during the Korean conflict, and had for the last three decades been a pillar of society and commerce in the region. In fact, a newspaper article of a few years past had credited him as being the single most powerful influence in rejuvenating the entire New Orleans region, thanks to his influence in Washington and the years he'd served there as a distinguished senator.