Amanda Stevens - The Dollmaker

“I can’t lay my problems at Angelette’s doorstep, Titus. She never held a gun to my head.”

“Everything but. You’re only human and Angelette Lapierre is like a bitch in heat. Ain’t too many men I know who’d walk away from that kind of action.”

“It still doesn’t excuse my behavior. I did what I did and now I have to own it. But Angelette and me, we’re through. Whatever we had is finished.”

“Don’t sound that away to me.”

“It’s over, trust me.” Dave traced the scar above his left eye. “I hadn’t even seen her since I moved to Morgan City. Then she called me up the other day and wanted to meet at the Crescent City Bar over on Bourbon Street.”

“Jubal Roach’s place?”

Dave grinned at Titus’s expression. “Jubal was on his best behavior, even without you having my back.”

“Maybe he’s mellowed in his old age.”

“Or maybe I have. Anyway, that’s when Angelette told me that Graydon Losier was unhappy with the progress of the investigation and wanted to hire a P.I. She even said she mentioned my name to him.”

“And you believed her? Damn, boy, when you gonna catch a clue? Graydon Losier’s got more clout in Baton Rouge than Jesus Christ himself. If he had a problem with the investigation, he wouldn’t need to hire a P.I. He’d just call up one of his buddies in the statehouse to lean on the superintendent.”

“That’s the way I see it, too,” Dave said. “But what I can’t figure out is why Angelette came to me in the first place.”

“Maybe she wanted an excuse to see you.”

“I don’t think so. I think she has another agenda.” Dave paused, his gaze going to a set of tiny handprints at the edge of the concrete slab. “Titus, how well do you remember the Renee Savaria case?”

“Well enough that I don’t like where I think this conversation is headed.”

“Angelette made it out that the police were ignoring a possible connection between the Losier investigation and Renee Savaria’s murder.”

Titus shook his head. “You still don’t see it, do you? She’s playing you, Dave. She’s chumming the waters with all this Savaria mess, and now she’s got you chasing after her hook like a big ’ol suckerfish. If you really want shed of that trouble, do yourself a favor and haul ass out of N’ awlins tonight. Forget you ever heard of Angelette Lapierre.”

“I wish I could, but it’s not that simple.”

“It never is with you, kid.”

He tried not to wince at the older man’s tone. “I talked to JoJo Barone right before I came over here. He told me something I can’t walk away from.”

Titus put a matchstick in his mouth and sat back, as if trying to distance himself from Dave and his problems. “JoJo Barone is a low-life scumbag who’d sell his mama’s soul to cover his own ass. He ain’t exactly what I’d call a reliable source.”

“Did you know he’s got lung cancer?”

“I knew he had something. Looks like a walking corpse these days. I figured it was a bad case of the boogie-woogie flu, but whatever the hell he got, don’t expect me to get all choked up about it. You find yourself getting sentimental over a guy like that, maybe you need to stop and ask yourself how you’d feel if it was your daughter he been pimping out of the back room of that dump on Bourbon Street.”

Dave flinched and glanced away.

“Shit, man.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Titus sat slumped over the table, his expression contrite. “I hate like hell I said something like that to you.”

“Forget it. You’re right about JoJo. He is slime, but he’s also dying, and I think he was being straight with me this time. Titus…he told me a cop killed Renee Savaria.”

The older man’s gaze swept the yard and patio before coming back to rest on Dave. “I didn’t hear that.”

“Titus—”

“I’m serious. Don’t drag me into this shit, Dave, not this time. You need to believe a creep like JoJo Barone, that’s on you, but I don’t want no part of it.”

“You’re already in it, Titus. The Savaria case was ours, and you and me both dropped the ball. I know what happened to me after Ruby went missing, but where were you? What happened to Renee’s file once I resigned? You just shuffle it to the bottom of the pile and call it a day?”

Titus’s eyes sparked with anger. “You sure you want to start throwing around accusations like that? ’Cause if that’s the game you’re looking to play, let’s have at it.”

“I screwed up,” Dave said. “I admit that. It took me awhile, but I’m finally on the right track. And I’m trying to right some old wrongs that have been eating at me for too damn long. But it’s not just about me. That girl’s family needs justice, Titus. We owe them that.”

“Maybe what they need is a little peace. You ever stop and consider that?”

“Renee Savaria was killed at a private party by a cop named Clive Nettle.”

Titus started shaking his head, but Dave just kept right on talking.

“There were other cops at that party and they helped cover up what he did. And then I destroyed evidence that probably kept him out of prison.”

“Don’t say no more, Dave. I don’t need to hear this.”

“Yes, you do. We were partners. I should have been straight with you years ago about Renee Savaria’s diary.”

Titus put his hands on the table. His fingers were large and blunt and his nails were clipped almost down to the quick. “You don’t need to say anything more because I already know what you did.”

Dave stared at him in shock.

Titus nodded. “Like you said before, we were partners. I knew you better than you knew yourself back then.”

“But you never even looked at that diary. You weren’t interested. You thought it wouldn’t lead to anything.”

“But you did. And once you started looking like a man with a noose around his neck, I figured there had to be a reason why.”

“Why didn’t you ever let on?”

“You were a good cop, Dave. You had integrity and, for the most part, you played by the rules. I always respected that. If you tampered with evidence, I knew there had to be a damn good reason behind it.”

Dave glanced down at his own hands. His nails were short, too, but the ends had been chewed off instead of clipped. “They told me they had Ruby.”

“I figured it was something like that. What’d they say?”

“After she disappeared, I got some calls from someone claming to be her kidnapper. He told me if I didn’t destroy the last page of entries in Renee’s diary, he’d kill her. So I did what he said. I burned the evidence, because I wanted to believe Ruby was still alive and that, if I did what he said, he’d let her go. I was stupid and scared and I did something that went against everything I believed in as a cop.”

Titus’s voice softened. “You were trying to save your baby girl. Any father would have done the same thing in your place.”

“Maybe. But I wasn’t just a father, I was a cop. I should have known better.”

“You were out of your head with worry and grief.”

“I’m all out of excuses, Titus. Once I knew they didn’t have Ruby, I should have come clean about what I did. It wasn’t too late. I knew that diary page by heart. We could have leaned on JoJo Barone—”

“Wouldn’t have done any good and you know it. We didn’t have anything on him, and without leverage, no way in hell he would’ve talked. You’re not looking at this thing objectively, Dave. You’re too emotionally invested to see the big picture. Without JoJo’s cooperation, Renee’s diary didn’t mean shit and they knew it. A few initials with an address. Big deal. It wasn’t the diary they were worried about, it was you. They knew you’d keep digging, so they had to find a way to take you out of the equation. They turned you into a dirty cop. When you destroyed that evidence, your credibility was shot, and anything else you turned up against them would have been tainted.”