Nude in Red

by O'Neil De Noux

  “When you leave here, you might be.” She smiles again and sits. “We’ll see.”

  “It’s just the first time I’ve been in this room without being in big trouble. But I don’t recall doing anything recently …”

  She chuckles. “I’m familiar with your record. That’s why you’re here.”

  She leans back in her captain’s chair. “I’m from the city, you know. Went to The Academy before moving on to Smith College.” The Academy – The Academie de Jeanne d’Arc – one of the most exclusive and expensive schools in the city. Uptown. Occupies two stately buildings behind a six foot brick wall along Saint Charles Avenue’s Garden District.

  Isn’t Smith College one of those elite colleges up in New England? All women. He’ll have to look that up online.

  “I want you to know I was raised here and know the city.’

  Beau nods. She’s in her forties, he figures.

  “I need you John Raven Beau because you do things no one else can do.”

  “What? Extreme violence?”

  You telling me what everyone knows? I’m a killer. The morning coffee churns in Beau’s stomach but he gives her the expressionless look of the plains warrior.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Yes. I need you because you get away with it.”

  OK, now I’m confused.

  “You do it right.” She looks to her left at the row of windows along the wall. “Damn Justice Department Consent Decree. We’re under court-mandated reforms for a police force with a history of civil rights abuses. Excessive force and alleged racial profiling. How do you racial profile a city that’s mostly black with more black officers per capita than any other force in the south?”

  Her voice is low, soft and Beau smiles to himself. This is what homicide detectives are trained to do when testifying in court. Speak softly and slowly and the jury has to pay attention to keep up with what’s being said. She stands, moves behind her chair and puts her hands atop it, looks at Beau.

  “They have no idea. NOPD, since day-one, has been understaffed, underpaid, undertrained, overworked and held up to standards few humans can achieve. If the damn feds would spend half the money they use to investigate us – to investigate street crime in this city – our crime rate would plummet fifty percent.”

  She’s preaching to the choir here.

  “You know it. You work these streets.” She shakes her head. “I’ve got to implement a 492-point plan to overhaul our ‘troubled’ police force. They spend millions to point out our shortcomings.”

  Jesus, I hope she’s not asking me to do administrative work.

  She moves back around the chair, sits, leans forward. “Which brings me to you. When the Justice Department came here, there was a gentleman with them who wasn’t with them, wasn’t FBI. All I know he’s from Washington. He took me aside and let me in on some secret information and advice about one of our officers. You. What secret information? So secret I cannot repeat it, even to you.” She watches him.

  Beau gives her nothing, his face as dead-pan as the face of the Sioux warriors who went up that dusty hill at the Little Big Horn. Focused. Concentrating. Emotionless. Beau knows that particular gentleman from Washington and the secret information she’s referring to involves the Brown Ravens that Beau gunned down right after Katrina. Never made the papers. Never made it on any police report.

  This city has many secrets.

  “So I’ve been thinking about what that gentleman told me and have an idea. I’m going to make you my man.” A hint of smile comes to her lips and Beau realizes she’s wearing only light make-up but it’s effective on that fair complexion.

  “No reaction,” she says. “I can’t read you and that’s good. But in case your cop mind thinks otherwise, you are the superintendent’s man, not Janet Féroce’s man. You work special assignments only. Nothing political. No bullshit. Just cases that are important to the city. Homicides. Heater cases. You’re a homicide detective and murder is your business.”

  This is sounding better.

  “You will head my CIU – Critical Investigations Unit.”

  She’s serious?

  “Unit?” Beau finally says something.

  “You and your partner. And you answer to no one but me.” She sits again.

  “Who’s my partner?”

  The smile goes away. “That’s your choice.”

  “My choice as in picking my partner or accepting the assignment?”

  The smile is back, a little broader. “No one told me you were funny. You pick your partner. Any cop on the department. As for accepting the assignment. You have no choice.” She sits up straighter. “If anyone on this department is a man of his duty. It is you. I’m sitting here telling you – YOUR SUPERINTENDENT NEEDS YOU. Understand what that means?

  Beau lets out a long breath, leans back in his chair and nods.

  “How you handle your cases is your business, Chief Inspector Beau.”

  She opens her center desk drawer and pulls out a flat box, slides it across to Beau. There are two gold star-and-crescent badges inside.

  “I worked long enough with the Sûreté to know we need a special rank for you. No one has authority over CIU except the superintendent. Not Internal Affairs, not the Public Integrity Unit, not any ranking officer.

  One badge reads Chief Inspector, the other simply – Inspector.

  “We’ve created two new civil service positions for you and your partner. Your salary just doubled. Leave your detective badge at home, chief inspector. You work your hours, dress the way you want to dress. Your new office will be ready down in the Detective Bureau by this time tomorrow. Your new car is downstairs.”

  She stands again, puts her hands flat on her desk.

  “Only one car. You’ll have to share with your partner.” She comes around the desk with a letter-sized white envelope and Beau stands. “There’s a case I would like you to work first.”

  She leans back against her desk. “It’s a cold case. Eleven months ago. Working girl found strangled to death.”

  “Hotel in the Quarter?” Sounds familiar.

  “Hotel DeSaix. It was a whodunit and a whoisit as well. All we had was the girl’s street name.”

  Another Homicide squad handled it. Beau remembers comments about a beautiful body.

  “It turns out the victim was the daughter of US Secretary of the Interior Beverly Brookings. A woman left a message for the Secretary at her office. Phone call came from a pay phone, Burgundy and Dumaine. Said her daughter could be found in the New Orleans morgue. The Secretary’s newest husband came down with fingerprints taken at school when the daughter was eight. One of those programs to help identify kids if they became lost. Positive ID. Confirmed when they viewed pictures of the victim’s face before the autopsy.” She taps the envelope against the open palm of her left hand.

  “The daughter had visited home two months before. Tempestuous relationship. Told her mother she was headed to San Francisco.”

  The chief takes in a deep breath, looks at the windows again, says, “In Victorian times, the English called prostitutes ‘daughters of joy’.” She looks at Beau now. “They were thought to be nymphomaniacs.” She stands straighter. “My mother was a part-time hooker. A housewife hooker. Put me through The Academy.”

  She must see surprise in Beau’s eyes and adds, “It’s not a state secret. She was a good person. My father did not understand, of course.” She nods to Edwards who leaves the room.

  “He’s going to put out the department email of your official promotion.” She reaches back on her desk for a business card. “Call my office extension and give Edwards your partner’s name as soon as you decide so I’ll get it out in an official e-mail.” She grabs a pen from a pen holder and writes on the back of the card. “My cell number and personal e-mail address. Texts will get to me faster.”

  Beau nods. “OK. Chief. I’ll text you.”

  “I hear you hate the media more than I.”

  “A lot more.”


  “Good. No one knows the connection with Secretary Brookings. Her new husband has a different last name so the coroner’s office and our fingerprint technicians only know his name. She hands Beau the white envelope, nods to it, says, “Information on your victim from her mother. Any questions?”

  Beau shakes his head as Edwards comes back in, hands Beau a set of car keys,

  “That gentleman from Washington.” Nods at the car keys. “He left you the new car downstairs. It’s a souped-up version of the car the Secret Service uses on presidential security. Don’t wreck it.”

  Just before he steps through the door, the chief calls out, “Don’t forget to pick up your new credentials at HR, chief inspector.”

  By the time Beau reached the elevator, he knows who he wants to be his partner and calls the Second District station.

  • Mystery Street, 11:01 a.m.

  Beau presses the buzzer next to the steel door and a female voice says, “Come on up.”

  The offices of Mystery, Inc. occupies the second floor of a pale blue stucco building on Mystery Street just off Esplanade Avenue, Mid-City. The building has a 1920s look to it, arched doorway, the concrete above the Japanese laundry on the first floor has ‘Genusa Tombstones’ chiseled on it. The stairs are steep and narrow and there’s another door, this one glass and aluminum that pops open as he reaches the second floor landing.

  A young black woman sits behind a desk. She looks like a high-schooler, that young.

  “Is Jessie Carini in?”

  The door to the right opens, a wooden door with smoky-glass with the word ‘Private’ painted on it in stencil. LaStanza comes out carrying a large white envelope.

  “Jessie left this for you. Her card’s in there with her cell number, email address if you need anything else. She’s on surveillance.” LaStanza is five-six, still thin in his late thirties now, hair still dark brown, full moustache still thick with no gray. He wears a pale blue dress shirt and jeans and carries his own 511 murse.

  “She told me the story.” LaStanza smiles and slaps Beau’s arm. “Thugs keep finding more ways to be stupid.”

  “You’ll be late,” the girl tells LaStanza and he introduces her as Ally Jones.

  “She’s Fel’s niece. He’s working here you know.”

  Beau heard. He was happy to hear Felicity Jones finally retired and this has got to be a good gig.

  “Ally’s a freshman at Loyola,” LaStanza adds. “Gonna be a lawyer one day.” He moves around Beau, adds, “Walk with me.”

  They go back down the stairs and LaStanza says, “Féroce talked to you this morning?”

  “You know already?”

  A car’s horn blares along Esplanade Avenue. Two blue jays squawks as they fly past.

  “She called me last week. Féroce is related to my wife’s family. Asked my opinion of her idea. I told her ‘Fuckin’ A’.” He shoves Beau’s shoulder this time and the big man doesn’t move. “I’m an unofficial fuckin’ advisor to the chief. That’s hysterical, don’t you think?” This from a man who was forced out of NOPD by a former chief for killing too many people. Not that it hurt LaStanza, his wife’s family is one of the richest in the city. Now a Private Eye, this fiery Sicilian gets to pick and choose his cases and really fuck with bad guys.

  Beau opens the door of his new black unit, a souped up GMC Acadia Denali SUV with extra dark windows. Subdued blue lights are barely visible through the grill.

  Beau points to the writing on the building. “Genusa Tombstones?”

  “Used to make grave stones here back in the 1920s. Saint Louis Cemetery #3 is just down the avenue.”

  Beau holds up the envelope. “Jessie’s cell number in here?”

  “Yeah.” LaStanza starts to move away, stops and goes, “Oh, no. No, no, no. You don’t wanna do that. I know she’s hot but Lord, Beau. Jessie’s a maneater.”

  Damn, LaStanza. The fucker knows what I’m thinking.

  “I was just gonna …”

  “No. She told me her dress was all flying, how she flashed you. You’re going to ask her out and you’ll be coming around my house all hang dog in a month because she ate you alive.”

  “Jesus. That’s no way to talk about your cousin.”

  LaStanza laughs. They have to step away from customers coming out of the laundry.

  “I love my cousin. But I like you too and she’s ruined a couple of my friends already. Left one begging me, a full grown, six-foot five-inch man, bigger than you, crying in my kitchen because she never really loved him. She was just using him.”

  LaStanza backs away, shaking his head.

  “I don’t mind being used.” Beau slips on his Ray Bans.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  • Magazine Street, 3:33 p.m.

  Beau catches Officer Juanita Cruz coming in the front door of the Second District station, smiles at her and points to an interview room.

  “This won’t take long,” he says, leading the way into the small room and steps around to the lone table.

  “I can’t be late for roll call. My sergeant’s a fuck-head.”

  “Yeah?” Beau points to the chair next to her and sits across the table from her. “Who?”

  “Scott Rimock.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “Woman hater. Been harassing me for months. Trying to get me suspended for a flat tire now.”

  Juanita is about five-five and five years younger than Beau, had worked with him on a few cases – the boyfriend who had his friend shoot him in the leg so he’d have an excuse to be late for a date with his domineering girlfriend only he died instead. Then there was the cop killer who referred to himself in the third person as ‘The Wolf’. Right after Katrina she worked with Beau on a series of bodies. She was assigned to the detective bureau for a while but sent back to the Second District with the personnel re-shuffling AK – After Katrina.

  “I just spoke with your captain. I’ve a proposition for you.”

  She smiles at the word ‘proposition’ knowing Beau is all business when it comes to her. She pulls at a loose strand of hair, tucking it back into her hair, which she wears pinned up while in uniform. Juanita is a pretty Latino, her body a little thick, which always seems to bother her because all women think they are fat.

  “I’m not a detective anymore.” Beau unclips his badge from his belt and puts it in front of her.

  “Chief Inspector?”

  He puts the other badge next to it, gives her the superintendent’s offer, watches her dark, chocolate-brown eyes grow wide, the sides of her lips slowly curl up. He asks her to be his partner. She leans back in the chair, hands on the table, looks at the badge.

  “You can choose anyone you want?”

  “I want you.”

  “Anyone on the department?”

  “You’ve earned this. You speak what, four languages?” He leans forward. “More importantly, I like the way you think when we work together.”

  “You do?”

  “You’re a natural. Come work with me.”

  Her voice rises, “But I’m a woman.” Teasing now.

  “I need brains, not testosterone. Got plenty of that.”

  She lets out a high pitched whistle. “Some team, huh? A Sioux-Cajun and me half-Cuban, half-Costa Rican. Is this city ready for us?”

  “Are the criminals ready for a team like this?” He sticks his hand out and she shakes it.

  He pulls out his cell, punches in the chief’s extension, tells Juanita. “Pick up your badge, inspector.”

  Cathy George answers and Beau informs her Juanita Cruz accepted and if Edwards could have her new ID ready in the morning, they’ll start rolling.

  They step out of the room and a big sergeant with a wide, pink face snarls at Juanita. “You’re late!”

  “She doesn’t work for you anymore, ass-hole.” Beau steps in the man’s way. “She’s an inspector, now. Go see your captain.” He looks back at Juanita. “Let’s clear out your locker.”

&nbs
p; A couple other officers watch but say nothing. Familiar faces to Beau who worked this district before going to Homicide.

  “I won’t miss this place,” Juanita says.

  “I do, a little. But that was BK.”

  They found two boxes as the shift is coming out of roll call, men watching them. The cops step out of the old building with the huge gold star-and-crescent above its archway and headed for their units. Beau and his partner step out as well and he tells her, “Go home. Get ready for tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at eight.

  “Can I wear my hair down?”

  “Wear it anyway you want.”

  He lays a box in her truck, she puts the second box in and closes the trunk of her Honda.

  “Do I have to wear pants?”

  Beau shakes his head as he backs away. “Wear anything you want. I’m wearing casual shit like this tomorrow.”

  “I think I’ll wear a skirt. I’m tired of looking like a boy.”

  • New Orleans Marina, 5:40 p.m.

  If Beau hadn’t put his houseboat into dry dock before Katrina hit, Sad Lisa would have been battered to pieces like most of the yachts, cabin cruisers and sailboats that crammed the marina and yacht harbor when the witch-storm sent monster waves across Lake Pontchartrain to slam the south shore. With the influx of new boats, Sad Lisa looks out of place moored between a large sky-blue sail boat and a white yacht.

  Stella sits in her usual position in the center of the main cabin, watches Beau enter and close the door and move to his small desk to begin removing his gear. Once she’s sure he is alone, Stella talks to him, going, “Meow. Rowl.”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Meow. Meow. Rowl.” She comes over and rubs against his leg. Stella is full grown now, looking regal and magnificent, a Turkish Angora Blue with a long gray coat and green eyes. A pedigree Beau found on the dock as a kitten about two months AK, just as the Brown Ravens began their rampage, trying to consolidate their drug businesses by murder only to run into a man who hunts murderers with methodical, calculating precision, a man with the blood of the great plains warriors surging through his veins, a man carrying a Glock and an obsidian knife.

  It’s stuffy in the houseboat even with the portholes cracked open for ventilation, so he turns the AC temperature down. Stella rubs his legs again.