Jodie wears a canary yellow skirt-suit and white high heels. She typically looks like she’s out on a date, rather than handling a crime scene. Two more sets of cops have their cars parked on either side of Carrollton, stopping all passersby, getting driver’s license information and license plates in the unlikely event someone connected with the killers comes by to check on their handiwork. Another cop is out copying license plates numbers from all cars parked in a four block radius.
Beau takes a step past Jodie, sees the bodies are two men, both heavy set, one with his face missing, brains from the other has been blown against the bottom of the picture window. Looks like bloody gray mozzarella cheese slowly dripping. Beau smells the gunpowder, along with the coppery scent of fresh blood. He spots three red shotgun shells in the gutter.
“Do we know who they are?”
Jodie points to a black Cadillac where two wallets lay, driver’s licenses next to them.
“Who touched the wallets?”
“The killers.” Jodie nods up the street. “Got two eyewitnesses heard the shots, peeked out and saw two men with shotguns. One of them dug out the wallets and laid them out. Then a car they think was a Chevy with no license plate pulled up and they climbed in and headed off.” Jodie waves toward the lake.
“Think they wanted to make sure they got the right guys?” asks Juanita who wears her olive green tactical skirt and black polo shirt. Beau’s in all black.
Jodie points a pen at the bodies. “Big one is Paul Adamo. Short one is Salvatore Battista.”
“You call Ashton yet?”
“Nope. Why don’t you?”
Juanita punches in Ashton’s cell number she got the other day when they realized they didn’t have it. No answer. She leaves a message as Beau takes out his cell and calls Fel Jones.
“This better be good,” Fel answers.
“Who the fuck was Paul Adamo and Salvatore Battista.”
“Was?” Fel clears his throat. “This sounds promising. They’re LCN. Adamo runs whores for Turi Caruso and Sal Battista is fuckin’ thug. We think he’s a hit man but never here in town. They send him out for other families to use. At least that’s the word.”
“Well, they’re dead. Shot up outside Merendino’s.”
“Closing time, huh?”
“Looks that way. Fresh kill.”
“I’m coming.” Fel says.
“Bring coffee.”
Beau announces what they all figured. Mafiosi.
As a crime lab technician begins the tedious job of processing the crime scene, photographs followed by measurements, followed by evidence collection as soon as the coroner picks up the bodies, the detectives interview witnesses and gather what they can, knowing this is no ordinary crime scene. Fel shows up with four coffees from PJ’s, all black. He brings sugar, Equal and Splenda and lets them figure it out.
“You have a visitor,” he tells Beau.
“What?”
“Behind me. Half a block down. Can’t miss her. She’s wearing sunglasses.”
“The fuck?”
Beau mixes sugar into his coffee and takes it down the banquette where he spies a smallish figure with short dark hair and wearing a black jumpsuit and dark sunglasses leaning against a white SUV. He moves next to SA Donna Biondolillo, leans against the SUV next to her.
“Nice perfume.”
“Chanel. I like the classics.”
“I used to wear my Ray Bans all the time to look cool only I kept running into things at night.
She takes off her glasses and she has a puffy right eye, tells him, “Stye eye. Annoying as hell and it ruins a good makeup job.”
“The rest of the face looks fine.”
“Yeah. Right.”
He takes the lid off his coffee, offers it to her. “You can sip from the other side.”
He’s surprised when she takes it and sips from the other side. She nods up the street.
“That’s no Mafia hit.”
Neither has to say if it were a Mafia hit, the bodies would be in a meat grinder or in the river by now. Biondolillo takes another sip, hands the coffee back to Beau and puts her sunglasses back on.
“They lay out the wallets?” She asks.
“Yep.”
“Bucuresti. They did that in Chicago when they went to war with the Furfante Family. You’re gonna have more bodies.”
“It started with Judy,” Beau says. “Hope they leave the girls out of it now.”
“The ASAC would like an update when you can,” she says as she moves away from the SUV. “And we’re going to need what you have on your Carlo Butera case. We’re taking it over since your DA’s already dropped most of the charges and ATF’s screwing up with that gun possession charge. They haven’t been the same since Waco.”
News to Beau about the DA dropping the charges, but not surprising.
“Rico case?”
She stops, smiles. “Don’t know where you’ve stashed your other witness but you need to turn Mandelina Moore over to us.
Consuela Suarez. Good luck finding her.
“Oh, yes,” SA Biondolillo answers. “You won’t be seeing Nathan Ocheski or me for a while. The Marshals are moving Maria Mirescu to a navy base out of state. Thanks for the coffee.” She heads around to start up the SUV and pulls way.
Friday
• Police Headquarters, 10:20 a.m.
Superintendent Féroce is the last to arrive, stepping briskly into the small conference room where Detective Sergeant Jodie Kintyre – fresh from the autopsies of the dead guys outside Merendino’s – Captain Mark Land, Lieutenant William Ashton and the department’s two inspectors sit around a table, Curtis Edwards already in a corner chair. The superintendent wears a silver skirt suit with the jacket unbuttoned to show a pale pink shirt.
“Chief Inspector Beau,” she says as she sits. “Before we start with this gang war, do we have anything on the murder of Judy Allure?”
“Nothing conclusive, ma’am.” He nods to Juanita who explains the physical evidence from the crime scene and what they know of what happened that night, what they know of the murder of Angelina Goolime and the attempted murder of Consuela Suarez as well as the leads from Maria Mirescu.
“There is a possibility that the man who attacked Miss Suarez, the man who died in Arkansas, killed Judy but there is nothing conclusive.”
Féroce is looking at the report in front of her, goes, “George Galadrescu?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re talking organized crime figures. They don’t talk.”
She looks at Beau who says, “Especially dead ones.”
It’s Homicide Commander Mark Land who says, “With the exception of psychos, most murders are solved because more than one person knows who did it and people talk. Criminals have big mouths.”
The chief nods. “OK. So we have a gang war now?”
“It appears so.” Land turns to Jodie, who clears her throat, opens her notepad and starts in on Salvatore Battista and Paul Adamo, who ran whores.
Saturday
• New Orleans Marina, 2:42 p.m.
Jessie picks up her purse, pecks Beau on the lips, tells him she’ll see him in a few hours and moves through the cabin as Stella races past her for the sofa to be alone with her man.
Alizée starts singing and Beau looks at the number, his shoulders sinking. Jessie freezes, hand on the doorknob. Stella jumps up on the small coffee table, swats at Beau’s cell phone. Alizée’s voice rises as Beau looks at Jessie, picks up the phone and goes, “Yes, Mark. What’s up?”
“What happened to calling me ‘captain’?”
“I outrank you,” Beau almost smiles but knows this ain’t no social call.
Mark laughs. “Thought you might wanna know a douche bag named Gene Bailey just got whacked in his office. Roma Real Estate.” Mark hangs up.
Beau can see Maria Mirescu’s red lips telling him, “Uncle Eugen Buzau. Change his name to Gene Bailey.” Man owned Roma Real Estate, next door to the DeSaix.
; He looks at Jessie and her mouth slowly opens. “Not again.”
They’ll go dancing some other night.
• Toulouse Street, 3:30 p.m.
Inspector Juanita Cruz wears a khaki polo shirt and black tactical skirt, along with low heels. Beau wears a khaki dress shirt and black RipStop tactical pants with black Sketchers and Detective Mike Gonzales opens the locked door of the real estate office, looks at them and says, “Matching outfits. How cute.”
Gonzales, the Andy Garcia look-alike who worked with Beau before switching platoons, points to a box of rubber gloves atop the credenzas just inside the door. The inspectors each don gloves. A strobe goes off in a back room and Beau carefully steps down the hall to the doorway with Juanita, leaving Gonzales sitting in the foyer and writing on his notepad.
A crime lab tech is inside taking pictures and Beau can smell blood and figures the body’s on the other side of the desk. It’s a small office with a lone window in back and a rear door that’s ajar. The door opens and another technician stands there with gloves on and spreads fingerprint powder on the door knob.
“Coroner’s investigator already pronounced,” Garcia says as he arrives behind them. “He’s waiting for the meat wagon.”
That would be the tall man pacing out front of the building with the cell phone against his ear. Name is Caruthers or Cathers, Beau can’t remember. Juanita goes back up front, glaring at Gonzales as she turns. He cowers away and Beau knows he’s gotta ask his partner about this.
“Who found him?”
“Secretary. She called from the Eighth District Station. Ran all the way there. Pretty incoherent. Captain Land and Savary are with her. I get to process the scene.”
The crime lab men start vacuuming, bagging the victim’s hands. When they break out the fingerprint powder, Beau and Juanita go outside and around the building to the back door, see the alley has three exits, two connecting with the rear of the DeSaix. They peek in at the body. Maria’s uncle lies on his back, arms at his sides, legs straight out. Blood has pooled under his head. His desk chair is on its side to his left. It’s not until the body is lifted that Beau sees the wounds. Two small bullet holes in the back of the man’s head.
“Small caliber,” Beau says.
“The Mafia uses twenty-twos don’t they?”
“Maybe. Lot of people have small caliber weapons.”
She nods. “We’ll get the caliber at the autopsy.”
Neither has to mention the gunshot wounds are penetrating, not perforating. The bullets are still inside. Beau steps out and looks around the alley, spots a surveillance camera beneath the second floor balcony running behind the DeSaix.
“That’s new,” Beau says. There were no rear surveillance cameras when they last visited the DeSaix. They look around more carefully. No other cameras attached to any of the other buildings accessing the alley.
A marked police car passes slowly down Toulouse and Beau steps over, tells the driver to pull over.
Beau takes out his radio. “What’s your call number?”
“We’re 814.”
“Your sergeant?”
“820.”
Beau calls the sergeant on the radio. “2100 to 820.”
“Go ahead, 2100.”
“We’re going to use 814 here at the Signal 30 scene. Toulouse Street.”
“That’s negative. Who is this?”
“10-19 and you’ll find out.”
Beau gets the patrol officers out of their car, has one go around and copy license numbers of every car parked in a four block radius. Asks the senior of the two to go find any meter maids in the area, get a list of any cars ticketed in the area since eleven a.m.
As the coppers step away, Sergeant Al Wegmann pulls up, climbs out his unit, tugging up his gun belt. He’s short and skinny, spots Beau and shakes his head. “Shit, it’s you. Didn’t recognize your new call number.”
“I wasn’t asking your permission. I was advising you.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Al waves at Juanita. “You need me to hang around too?”
“Stop cars passing by with male occupants, get their DL information.”
Concierge Jennifer Jones gives them a weary smile when they step into the lobby of the DeSaix. The dark red lipstick gives her full lips a sexy look. Such a pretty woman with classic African features, she wears her hair in a long pony tail today.
“You put new surveillance cameras out back,” Beau says.
“Last week.”
“Good. Any way we can see the video from about noon today until now?”
“Today?”
“The camera pointed to the rear of Roma Real Estate.”
“I don’t see why not.” Jones calls another woman over to man her desk. As she leads the inspectors into a rear office, plops into a chair in front of three large computer monitors. It takes her only a few minutes to bring up the video and at 12:13 p.m., two men wearing baseball caps and long sleeves shirts, gloves, white tennis shoes, step up to the rear door of Roma Realty, which is cracked open. They pull out small handguns and go in. They are inside four minutes, come out and walk back through the alley toward Toulouse Street.
“We’re going to need a copy of that footage and can you archive it. It’s evidence.”
“Sure. They rob the place?”
Juanita says, “Murdered the owner.”
Concierge Jones looks from Juanita to Beau, sits back in her chair. “I need to move back to Lake Charles.”
Beau asks if they can see the video of the banquette and street in front of Toulouse. They leave with two copies, CDs of the killers, who did not show up out front of DeSaix. Killers must have taken a right when they came out of the alley. Beau and Juanita spend the next two and a half hours canvassing the businesses down Toulouse all the way to Decatur and up the sides streets a couple blocks. No one saw two men fitting the killer’s scripts. They also check the businesses for exterior videos and come up with a big zero.
• Decatur Street, 8:29 p.m.
Detective Joseph Savary, who’s a couple inches taller than Beau, loosens his tie as he sits at the small table with them in the open air Café DuMonde Coffee Stand. Juanita sits across from Gonzales with Beau between them. For the last half hour, Beau’s talked to each and relayed messages between the two Latinos who won’t even look at each other.
“This shit’s getting old,” Savary wipes perspiration from his dark brown face with a napkin. He looks at the Vietnamese waiter and says, “Just coffee.”
Beau raises a finger for a second cup of café-au-lait. Juanita has barely touched hers. Gonzales puts a hand over his empty cup and the waiter steps away.
Savary’s normally close cropped hair needs cutting. He catches Beau’s eye and its there. The homicide stare, the sharp glint. The look of a raptor. Brows hooded, pupils narrowed, eyes focused. These are the first few hours of a murder case where the dicks gather information, assembled facts and follow leads if presented. It is not the time for speculation, deductive reasoning, guessing who might have done it or why.
Beau tells the case officer about the surveillance video.
“We have two copies for you and the hotel’s archiving it.”
“Thanks.”
The waiter comes with their coffees. Beau pours in two teaspoons of sugar, Savary has a little coffee with his sugar.
Gonzales asks about the witness at the Eighth District Station and Savary looks at his watch.
“Hours listing to her talk through snivels.” Savary says. “Good lookin’ girl. Fresh out of UNO. A business major. Went to lunch came back in to find a dead guy.”
“You spent a lot of time with her.” Gonzales smirks at his partner.
“I told you. She was good lookin’.” Savary shoves Gonzales, adds, “We went over all visitors, people of interest. Our victim’s a foreigner and spoke Romanian to a lot with visitors.”
“You have names?” Juanita asks.
“In my notes.”
“We’ll get them Monday.”<
br />
Gonzales explains what he found at the scene.
Juanita asks Beau to ask Gonzales if he bothered to secure any files with Romanian names.
“We left the place locked up, remember. Crime Scene tape. You two and Ashton can go by tomorrow or Monday. It’s all yours.”
Savary finishes his coffee, tosses a dollar on the table, says he’s got daughters waiting at home and leaves. Beau leaves a tip as well and they leave Gonzales, who decides he wants an order of beignets now.
Beau waits until they are away from the coffee stand as they head back to the SUV.
“All right, what’s up with you and Andy Garcia?”
“Who?” Juanita snaps at him.
“Gonzales.”
“Why’d you call him Andy Garcia?”
“He looks like Andy Garcia.”
Juanita stops, makes Beau look back.
“No, he doesn’t. Andy Garcia’s a hunk. Michael Gonzales is a hunk of shit.” She walks past Beau who has to step up to catch up.
“You gonna tell me, or what?”
Juanita huffs. “I went out with him nine times before I found out he’s married.”
“Didn’t mention it, did he?”
“While he was humping me? No.”
Beau shuts his mouth, which he should have done all along.
After he drops Juanita off at home, he calls Jessie and she tells him she picked up a Chinese feast.
“Hope you’re hungry.”
“Ravenous.”
“Good. We have wonton soup. Peking duck. Egg Foo Young. Pork fried rice. Egg rolls. All waiting for you at Café Jessie’s Swiss Chalet.”
“I’ll be right over.”
• Saint Charles Avenue, 9:32 p.m.
As Beau parks in front of Jessie’s, a taxi pulls up in front and a teenaged girl steps from it with an bright orange overnight bag. The cabbie gets out, comes around the taxi. She’s a big gal and tells the teenager, “Slow down.”
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