Accused

by Michael Kerr

  Ellie Mae took another drag on her cigarette, unconcerned as a long length of ash dropped to the carpet at her feet.

  “What happened next?” Lucy said after a few seconds of silence.

  “I don’t know. The ape that had hold of my wrist let go, so I dropped to the floor, crawled out into the kitchen, and then got up and ran out of the rear door and high-tailed it across the lot to hide in the woods. I heard more shots. That’s all I can tell you. Is Dicky okay?”

  “Yeah, he got shot in the leg, but he’ll survive. Did you recognize any of the three men?”

  “No,” Ellie Mae lied.

  “Describe the two that were in your face.”

  “They were both quite tall and wore suits. One was broad and the other was slim. They looked to be in their thirties.”

  “Is there anything about either of them that stood out?” Lucy said.

  Ellie Mae closed her eyes for a few seconds as if she was giving it some thought, and then opened them, slowly shook her head and said, “No. It all happened so quickly. I was scared shitless. By the time I fell and sprained my ankle I was a little brain-dead I guess. I was convinced that they would find me and kill me.”

  “We’ll need for you to look at some mug shots downtown. Do you feel up to doing that tonight while what happened is still fresh in your mind?”

  Ellie Mae nodded. She would go through the motions and maybe tell them that a couple looked similar to the men that she had no intention of identifying.

  Lucy arranged for the waitress to be taken to headquarters, and then went back through to where Rod was watching an EMT clean the two wounds on Logan’s scalp.

  “You’ll need some stitches when we get you to the hospital,” the medic said as he held a sterile pad to the deeper gash behind Logan’s ear. “They’ll want to do a few tests, due to you having been knocked out. You could be suffering a mild concussion.”

  “I’m not,” Logan said. “I’ll be fine.

  “And he’s not one of the bad guys, either,” Lucy said to Rod. “The waitress says he was a customer, and was about to help her out when he was assaulted from behind. She watched it happen, and saw his assailant shoot the guy on the bench, after a struggle.”

  Rod beckoned the trooper that had cuffed Logan to come across from where he was talking to one of the CSI team that had just arrived, and told him to remove the cuffs. Trooper Alvin Brown did as he was bid and replaced them in the leather pouch on his belt.

  “Okay,” Rod said. “I think we can get you that coffee now, Logan, and then find an out of the way corner to take an official statement from you.”

  The two detectives and Logan went to Dicky’s office, away from the murder scene, to sit down with mugs full of strong black coffee that a young cop had brought to them.

  “So describe the perps to me,” Rod said.

  “I don’t know if they were the shooters,” Logan said, keeping the bloody pad pressed firmly to the wound. “I missed that part of it. They were both wearing sharp suits. One was maybe six-two, well built with black, collar-length hair. He had a broad face with a deep scar running from under his left eye to his chin. The other guy was a tad shorter, wiry, with short mud-brown hair and close-set eyes. I’d guess that they were both in their early thirties. That’s it.”

  Rod gave Logan another crooked grin. “We’ll need to get this down in writing and have you sign it,” he said. “The guy with the scar may be known to us.”

  “Whatever,” Logan said. “Can we make it quick? I’m hungry and tired.”

  “People have been murdered, Mr. Logan,” Lucy said.

  “And life goes on, detective. People die every day by fair means or foul, but I still eat and sleep, don’t you?”

  Lucy could empathize with the ex-cop’s take on it. He was right. The worst thing you could do was let a case become personal and get to you. You had to investigate it, hopefully solve it, but not become embroiled with the individuals concerned.

  Logan was driven to police department headquarters on Broad Street. Given a surprisingly decent cup of coffee and shown mug shots. Within a few minutes he picked out the guy with the scarred face. After another half hour of flicking pages in several books, he hadn’t seen a photo of the thin guy with the close-set eyes.

  “Enough,” Logan said to Detective Rod Reynolds. “If you want me to look at anymore it’ll have to wait till tomorrow. I’m done here.”

  “We need an official statement,” Rod said.

  “Not now you don’t. I’ve told you what I saw before I was knocked out, and I’ve picked out the lowlife with the scar. Who is he?”

  “You don’t need to know, this is police business.”

  Logan said nothing. The detective was right. He had no vested interest in what had happened at the diner. The guy that had struck him from behind was dead.

  “Where are you staying?” Rod said. “I’ll arrange a ride, and tomorrow morning we can get back to it.”

  “The Pilgrims’ Rest. It’s a motel not far from the diner,” Logan said as he stood up and waited for Rod to make a call.

  “There’ll be a car out front by the time you hit the street,” Rod said as he walked over to the door and opened it.

  Logan left the room as the waitress from Dicky’s came out of an office across the corridor. She approached him and said: “I’m Ellie Mae Sawyer. I’m glad to see that you’re okay. I appreciate that you were going to help me, before you got slugged.”

  “All’s well that ends well, Ellie,” Logan said, choosing not to use her full double-barreled Christian name. “Did you give the police a description of ‘Scarface’ and the other guy that was giving you grief?”

  “Not one worth spit,” Detective Lucy Pleshette answered for her as she appeared behind Ellie Mae. “Seems like they didn’t leave much of an impression on her, or perhaps she knows exactly who they are but is too frightened to identify them.”

  Logan shrugged. He could see by the look in the woman’s eyes that the detective was on the money. Some people came forward to be counted, despite any attendant risk. Others were more reticent and would not put themselves in the line of fire. Self preservation was a basic and powerful instinct.

  “They’ll think that it was me that identified them,” Ellie Mae said to Logan. “You’ve put me in danger.”

  “I didn’t put you anywhere, Miss,” Logan said. “I’ve told the police what I saw, which wasn’t a lot.”

  “If your memory of what occurred this evening has improved, give me a fresh statement and we’ll ensure that you come to no harm,” Lucy said.

  “I’ll take my chances. I don’t even want a lift home from you,” Ellie Mae said. “I need to use your phone to call a cab.”

  “We can share one,” Logan said. “I’m staying at a motel not far from the diner.”

  Ellie Mae almost said no, but paused and took stock. “Who are you?” she said.

  “My name is Logan. And I share your belief that the shooters will consider you, the owner of the diner, and to a degree, me, as being potential witnesses against them.”

  “So what do you suggest that I do?”

  “Tell this detective everything that you know. The quicker they lift those two, the safer you’ll be.”

  “They could be a hundred miles away by now,” Ellie Mae said. “Why would robbers stay around and risk being caught?”

  “They weren’t there to take a few bucks from the cash register,” Logan said. “You saw the high-end suits that they were wearing. What were they talking to you about?”

  Lucy let the ex-cop run with it. He was making headway with the frightened waitress, who was taking heed of what he was saying.

  “They wanted to see Dicky,” Ellie Mae said. “The one with the scar had called in to see him a few weeks ago.”

  “Do you know what he wanted?”

  “No. Dicky seemed very tense after he left, but didn’t say anything, and I didn’t ask.”

  “Let’s go back in the office and run throug
h it again,” Lucy said to Ellie Mae.

  “Will you wait for me?” Ellie Mae said to Logan.

  Logan nodded. He had a bad feeling about the two shooters, and thought that he and Ellie Mae would be considered loose ends and targeted.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CLAYTON did a drive-by to see if there was a police presence at the River View Trailer Park.

  “What do you think?” Dwayne said.

  Clayton shrugged: “Looks sweet. She’s probably still hiding in the woods. With any luck a rattler will have bitten her in the ass.”

  “So do we check her trailer out?”

  “Yeah. She could have high-tailed it home and think that she’s safe.”

  “Or watched us leave and gone back to the diner.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Clayton said as he parked the Buick on the unlit highway and switched off the engine and lights, for the black sedan to merge with the night.

  Clayton had no way of knowing that as he and Dwayne walked in the open gates and approached the cream doublewide, a SWAT team was fast approaching his apartment building in Terrytown.

  Stepping up to the front door of the trailer, Clayton rapped on the door. There were no interior lights on, but that didn’t mean Ellie Mae Sawyer wasn’t playing possum inside. He had to work on the assumption that she had given their descriptions to the police, or that even if she had not returned to the diner they would get round to interviewing her, sooner rather than later. But even if she had described them, she would not survive to be a witness in a court of law.

  No answer. He knocked again, waited a few seconds, and then stepped aside to let Dwayne force entry in less than five seconds with a short, steel pry bar.

  She wasn’t home.

  “Now what?” Dwayne said.

  “We find somewhere nearby to park up and wait.”

  They walked back to the car. Clayton drove less than a hundred yards, stopped and reversed the Buick into a weed-riddled track that cut through a deep stand of mainly dogwood, juniper trees and thorny bushes. He knew that the bitch would show. He just didn’t know when. He switched everything off and lit a cigarette and felt a deep loathing for Kyle Tate, who’d fucked up and blown a guy in the diner away. Kyle had probably snorted too much coke and had been as high as a kite and just done his thing. He’d always been brutal, but usually had the sense not to take it to the limit and beyond. And now the idiot had got himself killed and left them with a problem to sort out. He’d put them at risk, forced their hands, and turned what should have been little more than getting Dicky to pay up or sign the diner over to the boss into something that had escalated into chaos. The threat of violence was always more productive than actually carrying it out.

  Clayton LaSalle was an educated man. He had attained an MBA at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, but had then been introduced to Nathan Cassidy at the Metairie Country Club. His personality must have impressed Cassidy, because less than a week later he had been approached by a quietly spoken Mexican in a thousand dollar suit, who’d told him that his presence was required by Mr. Cassidy at the Restaurant R’evolution on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. On asking why he had been invited, Clayton was met with a stony stare, and the well-dressed man from south of the border had raised his black, bushy eyebrows and stated that he was not in possession of that information, but suggested that it would be to his advantage to attend.

  Curiosity won out, and Clayton had accepted the pitch and was given a date and time, and advised by the lackey that his boss could abide many things, but that unpunctuality was not one of them.

  It had been a few seconds before seven-thirty p.m. on a Wednesday evening five years ago when, as arranged, Clayton had walked into the restaurant and was shown to a corner table at which Nathan Cassidy was sitting, alone.

  “You’re wondering why I asked you to have dinner with me,” Nathan had said when Clayton sat down facing him. “Let’s have a drink, order a meal, and then we can get to it. I don’t like to rush meetings.”

  They made small talk, mainly sport, and how the Saints and the Pelicans were doing. Both men had more than a passing interest in football and basketball.

  Nathan ordered Creole Bouillabaisse. Clayton plumped for Death by Gumbo, which was a roasted, boneless quail stuffed with rice, oysters and andouille, topped off with a rich dark sauce.

  “You are a very intelligent young man,” Nathan said as he paused to take a sip of his wine. “You also have a propensity for violence. I have it on good authority that you became a persona non grata after serving for three years as a National Guard soldier, teaching martial arts at Jackson Barracks. Allegations of brutality were the reason for your leaving.”

  “They were―”

  “Please, no explanation is necessary. You don’t have to justify your actions to me. You have both brain and brawn; qualities that I seek in someone that I am considering making the offer of secure, well paid employment to.”

  “Doing what?”

  “First, tell me what you know about my business, Clayton. I’m sure that you’ve done your homework.”

  Clayton wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, “You own a bunch of Tex-Mex family restaurants, are seriously rich, and I’m informed by a couple of less than law-abiding friends in low places that you are probably the biggest loan shark in Louisiana. You also play golf off a nine handicap, but can play to four, give a lot to various charities, and somehow keep the law off your ass.”

  “Bravo,” Nathan said. “You somehow found out more about me than even my friends know. Would you be interested in giving up the middle management position you have with BrentCo Shipping?”

  “I’d consider any offer that would make it worth my while.”

  “Oh, it will definitely be worth your while, Clayton.”

  And it had been. He opted to be adventurous and accept the offer; his pay was tripled, there were bonuses, and he enjoyed the provision of health insurance, paid time off for vacations and illness, disability insurance, plus an option, which he took, to contribute to a gilt-edged retirement plan. Officially he was the general manager of the restaurant chain, but in reality he ensured that the many people indebted to Nathan paid their dues on time. The only proviso was that violence was to be used as a last resort. Intimidation was the way to go with slow, bad or non-payers, which was something that Clayton and his crew were very good at.

  They were, though, now in a hopefully temporary bind. Kyle had put them in it, and what was done was done. Replaying the evening at Dicky’s was a total waste of time. They would have been able to walk away from it clean if it hadn’t been for the waitress being awkward. Every breath she now took was one too many.

  It was over two hours later that a City cab pulled to a stop outside the rusted open gates of the trailer park. A very tall man exited the rear seat, followed by a woman that, from a distance, Clayton believed to be Ellie Mae Sawyer.

  “That’s the guy that Kyle slugged,” Dwayne said. “What the fuck is he doin’ with her?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Clayton said. “When the cab leaves we move in and whack both of them.”

  The United cab was black and white and looked like a police prowler car in the dark. It didn’t leave. It was obviously waiting for them.

  “So what do we do now?” Dwayne said.

  “We don’t complicate things,” Clayton said. “She must be just calling in to pick some stuff up. We’ll follow the cab. The guy must be taking her to stay at his place.”

  Logan stepped up to the door and saw that it was not closed properly. Someone had broken in and damaged the lock. He felt his spine tingle as though there was a target pinned to his back. If a shooter was close by, then he and Ellie were sitting ducks. He turned, grasped her by the shoulder and guided her to the far side of the trailer.

  “What’s the matter?” Ellie Mae said.

  “Somebody broke in. They could still be here. We need to go, now.”

  “But I need―”

  �
�You need to get back to the cab. They could be close by, watching and waiting, so move.”

  Ellie Mae let Logan guide her around the trailer and back out to the cab. They got in and Logan told the driver to take them to The Pilgrims’ Rest Motel, and to make sure that they weren’t being followed.

  “I’m a cab driver, not a stunt driver,” Jeff Rawlins said. “I don’t do cloak and dagger stuff.”

  “This lady is being stalked by her ex-husband,” Logan said. “It’ll be worth an extra twenty bucks if you keep an eye out for a tail.”

  “You got it,” Jeff said. “What’s the make of his vehicle?”

  “He’s probably driving a black Buick sedan,” Ellie Mae said. “And he’ll most likely have a friend with him.”

  After only a quarter mile Jeff made a left on to a gravel road, and then a few hundred yards later took a right on dirt that looped back to the highway, keeping his speed down to twenty-five. The sight of low beams in his rearview, well back, was enough to convince him that someone was following his cab, because the detour he was taking didn’t make sense.

  “We’ve got company,” Jeff said. “Do you want me to lose it?”

  “No,” Logan said. “Drop us off at Dicky’s Diner.”

  “There are reports of a multiple shooting at Dicky’s a few hours ago.”

  “So it’s a crime scene, and there will be a police presence,” Logan said. “We can get them to deal with the lady’s ex.”

  Clayton followed the cab, keeping his distance, and was surprised when it made a turn on to a back road. He had no choice but to stay with it. When it took a dirt road and headed back to the highway he knew that he had been suckered. The big guy was no dummy.

  “We’ve been made,” Clayton said to Dwayne.

  “We should’ve taken them out when they got back in the cab,” Dwayne said as he reached inside his jacket and withdrew a Glock from its leather shoulder rig. “Drive past them and I’ll blow the fuckers away.”