Charlie Hustmyre - House of the Rising Sun

LaGrange shook his head. “They say the next generation of IBIS will do shotguns, but for right now it just works with pistols and rifles.”

“So why are you telling me about IBIS? They used a shotgun in the House.”

LaGrange shook his head. “That’s not all they used.”

“I was there.”

LaGrange reached under the table and pulled a black leather attache case onto his lap. From inside he slid out a stack of paper, at least twenty or thirty pages, held together by a clamp.

“What’s that?” Ray asked.

LaGrange laid the stack of paper on the table. He flipped through the first couple of pages. “This is the initial report and a few of the follow-ups.” He stopped flipping and stared at one page for a second, then pointed to something about halfway down. “Right here’s where you got lucky.”

“That’s the second time you said that. I don’t feel lucky, so why don’t you just tell me what you found.”

LaGrange tapped his finger on the page. “Crime Scene dug a forty-caliber slug out of the floor.”

Ray shook his head. “Nobody fired a pistol in-” Then an image flashed through his mind.

The dancer up on stage, a hole in her leg, blood pouring out after a shotgun blast. Seconds later, another blast. Then something else, a pop, barely audible after the big explosion from the shotgun. Feeling the heat searing the back of his head.

Ray looked at LaGrange and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Where’d they find it?”

The former Vice cop flipped through more pages, skimming each for a few seconds before he found what he was looking for. He turned the stack around so Ray could read it. Ray saw a copy of a neatly drawn diagram he recognized as the first floor of the Rising Sun.

LaGrange’s finger pointed to a small handwritten “15” between the bottom of the stairs and the front door. “Item fifteen is the bullet,” he said. “They found it buried in the wooden floor, twenty-five feet from the door.”

Goose bumps broke out on Ray’s arms. “That motherfucker tried to shoot me in the head.”

“I’ve told you before, you’ve got the luck of the Irish.”

Ray pictured the skull mask, the pair of eyes, and the bad teeth, but most vivid was the image of the tattoo, the spiderweb wrapped around the back of the hand, reaching all the way to the base of the thumb. Somewhere-he wasn’t sure where-he had seen that tattoo before.

“What good does it do me that Crime Scene found that slug in the floor,” Ray said, “if they don’t have a gun to match it to?”

LaGrange pulled a second stack of papers from his attache case. “Your friend Landry has already run an IBIS check on the bullet and it came back positive.”

“Positive for what?”

LaGrange hefted the second report in his hand. “Turns out the same gun was used in a shooting six months ago. They dug the bullet out of a body on Frenchman Street.”

“Any arrests?”

The detective nodded. “Two weeks later, Homicide picked up a guy named Cleo Harris, goes by the nickname Winky.”

“They obviously didn’t find the gun he used, not if the shithead with the skull mask tried to kill me with it.”

LaGrange nodded. “They got the shooter but not the gun.” “Even if I could get into lockup to talk to the guy, what’s his name, Harris, there’s no way he’s going to tell me what he did with that gun.”

“He’s not in lockup.”

“He bonded out on a murder charge?”

The detective shook his head. “The D.A. dropped the case.”

“Why?”

“The only witness developed amnesia.”

“No witness, no case,” Ray said.

LaGrange nodded.

“Is Harris white or black?” Ray asked.

LaGrange slid his index finger down the face sheet of the report. “Cleo Harris. Black male, twenty-three years old. Five eight, one hundred and sixty pounds.”

“All four stickup men who came in the House were white.”

“Maybe he sold it.” LaGrange glanced again at the report. “It was a forty-caliber Smith amp; Wesson, by the way.”

“How do you know it was a Smith?”

The detective flipped to a page at the back of the report. After reading for a few seconds, he said, “They got some scientific mumbo jumbo in here about indications of bullet twist per inch and spacing between the lands and grooves, but the bottom line is that the lab determined it was a Smith amp; Wesson. It even gives some likely model numbers, all of which are stainless steel.”

Ray reached across the table. “I need that report.”

LaGrange pulled the sheaf of papers back. “No way.”

“Why not?”

The detective tapped a finger on the top margin. “I’m the one who pulled it up, and my name is printed on every page.”

“So cut off the header.”

LaGrange shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“I need that information, Jimmy.”

“I gave you the information,” LaGrange said flatly. “I can’t give you the report.”

There was only so far Ray could push. The bottom line was that Jimmy LaGrange was still a cop, and Ray was a convicted felon just out of prison. “Jimmy, I’m in a real jam here. This is all I’ve got to go on.”

“Why are you helping those assholes?”

Ray took a last drag of his cigarette, then dropped the butt into his nearly empty coffee cup. The waitress must have decided not to tell the manager, or maybe she had and the manager had called the police. Ray looked across the table at his old Vice partner. “I don’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“At least write down Harris’s information so I can find him.”

Jimmy LaGrange stared back at Ray for a few seconds. Then he looked away as he pulled a pen from his shirt pocket.

“Pull up right here and let me out,” Tony said as Rocco eased the Lincoln Town Car against the curb in front of the Messina Seafood Company on North Rampart Street. The rain was coming down hard.

The building was just east of the French Quarter, in a commercial district that was home to a host of small businesses, most of them barely dodging bankruptcy. The tin buildings lining the four-lane avenue sported peeling paint and faded signs. The sidewalks were strewn with waterlogged trash, plastered to the cement by the steady rain.

Under the nearby eaves and awnings, drug addicts, pushers, and prostitutes waited for a break in the weather so they could get back to work. This was the edge of the Ninth Ward, and Tony knew it well. He grew up here.

Just like its neighbors, the Messina Seafood Company was housed in an old metal building with peeling paint and a faded sign. The sides and back had once been dark blue, but the years and the sun had faded them to a light, almost baby blue. The brick facade was set back from the street just far enough to leave room for the sidewalk. The front third of the building was a two-story office suite. The rest was a high-ceilinged, single-story refrigerated warehouse for storing the oysters, shrimp, and fish that came in fresh from the Gulf of Mexico every day.

“You want me to come with you?” Rocco asked.

With the car door already open, Tony was getting pelted by the rain. He didn’t even glance back. “No, I don’t want you to come with me. Just park the car and wait. When you see me come out, pick me up so I don’t get soaking fucking wet.”

Tony dashed from the car to the front door, dodging puddles. He stood for a moment under the protection of the overhang above the front entrance and stared at his reflection in the glass double doors. Using an embroidered silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, he dabbed raindrops from his suit, then tugged at the slim knot in his tie. Next, he dragged a comb across his hair, knocking off the water that had beaded on top of his styling gel and making sure each strand was in place.