An Evil Shadow - A Val Bosanquet Mystery

by A. J. Davidson

  He blew a thick stream of blue smoke from his nose.

  “I’m not making excuses for what I did. I always knew we’d be caught sooner or later, I’ve been a fatalist since the first time my father give me a licking with his belt. That’s why I don’t hold no grudge against you for turning us in.”

  “Where’s Jackson’s crib?”

  “Don’t know. It sure ain’t in any lousy SRO. The Fairmont is more that sonofabitch’s style. He gave up his apartment soon after he started work with AV and moved someplace else. Your guess is as good as mine. I heard he was clocking up a heap of air miles for them.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Must have been about six months ago. I ran into him in the Quarter.”

  “Was he still with AV?”

  “You best ask him when you find him. Though I reckon so, going by the slick suit he had on and the way he was throwing money around like he was some sort of big shot. The guy’s been an asshole all his life.”

  “You sore at him for not fixing you up with a job with AV?”

  Trochan took another pull on his cigarette. “Luck of the draw. We both had moonlighting details when we were wearing blue. Same race, different ponies. The nag I backed didn’t last the course, while Jackson’s long shot romped home for him.”

  “When did he first start working with AV?”

  “Must be close to ten years now. Why don’t you have them put you in contact with Jackson.”

  “I asked. They aren’t keen on cooperating. How do you feel about doing some legwork for me? Pick up a couple of Franklins for yourself.”

  Trochan rubbed a hand over the bristle on his jaw. “Running Jackson down? Does he know you’re after him?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you want him to know?”

  “Do what you have to do. It’ll be okay with me.”

  “Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Give me a number where I can reach you.”

  Val took out a pen and searched around for some paper. Trochan held out his arm for him to write on. That way, he said, he would always be sure to have it on him.

  When he had finished writing, Val said, “Aren’t you interested in why I want to talk to Jackson?”

  Trochan gave him a melancholy stare. “What do I care? A man who can be bought for a lousy couple hundred dollars isn’t going to be picky. You knew that; it’s why you’re here.”

  There were two messages waiting on Val’s answering machine when he reached home. The first was from Marcus. Val’s appointment as the new UNOPD Chief was confirmed and he was expected at the university’s station house first thing Tuesday morning to complete the formalities. A press conference to announce Duval’s university place would be arranged for the following morning.

  The second message was from Angie. She had called to say how delighted she was that Marcus and Val were on speaking terms at long last, and asked when she would meet him again. There was still something she had to talk to him about. She ended her message by saying that Duval sent her sincerest thanks and that she would be staying with them until the freshman orientation week commenced in six days’ time.

  Val made a bunch of calls to cancel his credit cards and to notify his bank of the loss of his ATM card. After that, he pulled the cap off a bottle of Dos Equis beer and went and sat on the wood decking in his yard to watch the setting sun fill the western sky.

  Mother Nature had pulled out all the stops. For the best part of an hour, it seemed the whole world was going up in flames.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Val felt ambivalent about carrying a shield again, especially that of Chief. On the one hand, he despised himself for going back, however temporarily; to a job he had sworn he was through with. On the plus side, being involved in an investigation once more brought the familiar surge of energy that charged his mind and allowed him to focus with a relentlessness that nothing else had ever come close to matching. And that troubled him.

  The weight of the hand-sewn, shiny-with-age leather wallet which held the shield was the one tangible of his first twenty-four hours in the job. Tuesday had passed in a blur of frantic activity. His picture had been taken, he’d been finger-printed, sworn in, and issued with the shield. A cell phone − under protest −, a beeper, and a parking permit for his car’s windshield were signed for by Val. The sergeant in charge of the gun safe took it personally when Val declined the standard issue .38 Ruger revolver.

  All that had been quickly followed by an introduction to some of the troops. Each UNOPD officer had undergone his or her training at a police academy and was empowered to make arrests, by city, parish, and state commissions. Then Val was briefed on the two main security systems operated for the students’ safety — the blue-light telephones and the escort-request service. Both briefings were rushed through in indecent haste, as though Marcus had spread the word that Val could change his mind before the ink was dry on his appointment.

  Under him, Val had one captain, four lieutenants, eight sergeants, six detectives, and seventy-eight uniform officers. Thirty part-time auxiliaries — mainly police cadets could also be called on when extra manpower was required, most commonly for the policing of events at the University’s Lakefront Arena. He was ultimately responsible for twelve patrol cars, six motorcycles, twenty-five mountain bikes, one station house and one lock-up.

  The previous year’s crime figures showed that larceny came tops, followed by liquor and drug violations, burglary, aggravated assault, and date rape. A female final-year Bienville Hall student had killed herself in her car and a member of the science faculty had absconded with two hundred and fifty grand. He was traced to Mexico City, but there had been no request for extradition. The man had already blown the money, and the university didn’t need the bad press.

  Val was sitting at his desk in his new office, familiarizing himself with the duty roster while he waited for Captain John Clements to show up. Clements had called in earlier and asked to meet with Val at ten o’clock, one hour before the press conference was due to commence. Val felt he already knew what Clements wanted to talk about. What police captain wouldn’t feel bitter about a former lieutenant leap-froging into the chief’s job?

  The office door was open, but Clements rapped the glass panel before entering. He was wearing full uniform and was carrying his peaked cap. A tall broad-shouldered man, he had salt and pepper hair and an officious bearing. Ten years older than Val, Clements had been a campus cop for twenty-eight years. The previous chief had assessed him as an efficient and competent officer, though reading between the lines, Val judged that Clements’s promotions had been earned more from time-served than inspired police work. He wouldn’t have lasted a day in the Desire housing project. He was the sort of officer who would have been in the running for commissioner by now if he had been in the NOPD.

  The few minutes they had spent together the day before had been awkward for both of them. Clements’s grim expression did not hold out much promise that this meeting was going to be any easier.

  Val stood up and gave him the keys of the Chief of Police vehicle.

  “I want the standard rookie tour of the lakefront campus. We can talk in the car.”

  Clements opened his mouth to speak, then thought better and closed it. He pulled on his cap with a determined tug.

  The UNOPD captain started the tour by pointing out that the creative arts building where Duval would be spending most of her time was directly opposite the station house. They turned left and drove past a clump of stucco accommodation blocks known as Lafitte village. The University of New Orleans was essentially a commuter campus, but there were some facilities for out of town students. During the vacations, the university rented out the rooms as lodgings for tourists traveling on a shoestring budget. With the new semester about to start, most of the buildings were deserted. Clements took a left at the engineering block and drove past the building that housed the performing arts faculty.

  Val had often listened to Marc
us bitching about how the UNO had to exist under the shadow of the more academically distinguished Tulane University. It seemed to be coping just fine.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t have longer to talk yesterday, John,” Val said. “Things were a bit hectic.”

  “That’s okay, Chief Bosanquet. I understand.”

  “Chief will do just fine. I’ve been reading your department record. You’re a first-rate officer and an excellent administrator.”

  Clements dipped his head. “It’s kind of you to say so.”

  “I’ll be frank with you. You probably regard my appointment as some sort of nepotistic, political move. And you would be absolutely right. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had your resignation already typed out and signed. We both know who should be sitting behind the Chief’s desk.”

  Clements shifted uneasily. “It had crossed my mind. I can appreciate the university had to do what they thought was best — under the circumstances — but that doesn’t make it any easier to stomach.”

  “It’s not a job I wanted, nor is it a job I intend holding down for very long. What I need in the interim is for you to put all thought of resigning out of your head and take over the day-to-day running of the UNOPD. I’m not trying to shirk my responsibility. I’ll be there if you need me, but I don’t envisage spending much time behind a desk. If you do as I ask, then you have my word that immediately the dust has settled over Duval, I’m out of here.”

  Clements’s face brightened. “You’ve got it.”

  “Good, now drop me outside the old library. It’s time to perform for the press.”

  The press conference was to be held on the second floor of the library. The university boasted two libraries. The Earl K. Long library was a vast concrete and pillared edifice that had about as much character as a slab of marzipan. The old library was an ivy-clad, redbrick Victorian building that had originally been built as a fever hospital.

  It had been Marcus’s idea to host the conference there. The book stacks that lined the walls contained some of the university’s most valuable texts and he thought they might help create the right ambience, one of gentle academe, slightly embarrassed at finding itself being intruded upon. Oxford was never far from his mind.

  Facing the press were Val and Marcus; Philip Lausaux, in his role as project director of the Assist Haiti charity; and Duval herself. Although the twenty or so journalists were local, they were all stringers for the nationals and any one of them could guarantee nationwide coverage for a story if they felt it warranted. It was Marcus’s fervent hope that they would see it as a strictly local issue — of little interest outside the Gulf States.

  Marcus started the ball rolling by giving the assembled journalists a potted history of Marie Duval, starting with the death of her father and brother and her arrival in the US as a refugee, moving on to the manslaughter of her mother, and finishing with a resume of her academic achievements. He then switched tactics and went on the offensive.

  “Marie Duval committed a heinous crime, of that there is no doubt. A crime provoked by fiendish mistreatment at the hands of her mother — abuse that we can’t begin to imagine. She did not try to deny her crime or escape retribution; she accepted her punishment and benefited from it. Yet — and it does us no credit — when Miss Duval sought a college education, she turned to out-of-state universities in the mistaken belief that she would encounter greater tolerance. But those universities closed their doors on her. The University of New Orleans will not deny an education to anyone who seeks it. Ladies and gentlemen of the press, may I present our newest student, Miss Marie Duval."

  The room erupted in noise and bright light as motor drives started to whir and flashguns fired. In response to the photographers’ demands, Duval took a few cautious steps towards the front row. She was nervous and appeared overwhelmed at finding herself the center of so much attention. Questions were being fired at her, but she refused to be drawn. Marcus had cautioned her to let him answer on her behalf.

  When the furor died down, Marcus gallantly escorted Duval back to her seat, then returned to the microphones.

  “I’ll take your questions one at a time.”

  A journalist from The Times-Picayune was the first to be given an opportunity to speak.

  “Miss Duval claimed that she was provoked into killing her mother. How can you be certain that the same won’t happen when she has an essay marked down? Will a C minus put the lives of the teaching staff at risk?”

  “I consider it a contemptible trivialization to compare brutal and systematic child abuse to objective academic grading.”

  Cool it, Marcus, Val thought, as he watched the journalist scowl; don’t get their hackles up.

  A girl from Driftwood, the university’s student newspaper, was next in line to ask a question. “How will Miss Duval find the money to pay her tuition?”

  Marcus explained that the Assist Haiti charity was funding her studies and introduced Philip Lausaux. That brought on a barrage of probing questions about why a charity, ostensibly created to provide aid within Haiti, would deem it appropriate to foot the bill for Duval’s college education.

  Lausaux responded to their quizzing competently enough until a journalist asked him how he expected Duval’s studies in Caribbean art to put food in Haitian bellies. Anger flared briefly across Lausaux’s face and he said tersely that it was his charity’s avowed aim to feed Haitian minds as well as their stomachs. The mood amongst the journalists was turning increasingly ugly when Dawkins, a widely read columnist with the New Orleans Magazine, raised the circumstances of Val’s appointment.

  “My congratulations to the university’s new Police Chief on his appointment. Isn’t he the former New Orleans Police Department detective responsible for Miss Duval’s arrest ten years ago?”

  Marcus assured the columnist that those were the facts.

  Dawkins wasn’t through.

  “I would like to ask the Chief what circumstances led to him being offered the job and what reasons he had for accepting? Have they anything to do with Miss Duval not being as rehabilitated as the Dean would have us believe?”

  Val joined Marcus at the rostrum. He leaned into the microphones. “It was not a decision I reached easily. My immediate response was to decline the post, but a personal appeal from Miss Duval had me reverse that decision. Seventeen years service with the New Orleans Police Department has provided me with some insight into the hostility and threats she will encounter.”

  “Surely,” Dawkins said, “you mean the threat she poses?”

  “No, that is not what I mean. Miss Duval is black. Her mother and she were illegal immigrants to this country. She is a young attractive female and a non-Christian. Threats will be made against her by white supremacists, the KKK, the Bible-Belters and a lot of testosterone-loaded young men. Confronted with obstacles like those, how many of us would take the easy way out and keep our heads well below the parapet? Marie Duval is an exceptionally courageous girl who deserves all the support she can be given. I will do my best to see that no harm befalls her. All you present have a chance to play your part by resisting the impulse to sensationalize the university’s decision to accept Miss Duval. We all know the extremists we have on our streets. Let’s not give them something to freak out over.”

  The mood of the journalists lightened and Val could sense an undercurrent of consensus sweep the room. One female journalist got to her feet and applauded. They fired a few more questions at him, but without the ferocity of before.

  Marcus seized on a pause in the propitative questioning to call an end to the press conference. He thanked the journalists for coming and told them that they could pick up a press release at the back of the room. Then he ushered the participants of the panel into an annex to give the journalists time to disperse. Angie was holding a tray with a glass of chilled white wine for each of them. She took Duval aside and started a spirited conversation with her.

  “That went better than I dared hope for,” Marcus said, smil
ing broadly at Val and Lausaux. “I think we can expect a fair hearing from them.”

  “You have your brother to thank for that, Marcus,” Lausaux said.

  “Yes, yes indeed. Will you excuse me for a few moments? There’s something that requires my attention. I’ll be right back,” Marcus said, then left.

  Lausaux patted Val on the back. “You gave the reporters an opportunity to feel good about themselves, and believe me, that is not something they get to do all that often. I didn’t expect such deftness of touch from a police officer.”

  Lausaux was Louisiana Creole, though his accent owed more to Cambridge, Massachusetts than to New Orleans. He was mocha-colored, with a thin, arrogant nose, angular cheekbones and a high forehead. He wore a suit that could only have been cut in London's Savile Row and which no doubt had attracted Marcus’s envy. Val found his patronizing attitude offensive.

  “I did only what you do every day,” he said, allowing some edge into his voice. “Isn’t that how a successful charity operates? In return for their, relatively speaking, pitiful contributions, the wealthy are allowed to feel virtuous. You massage their egos and give them the oxygen of favorable publicity. And after some creative bookkeeping, it ends up costing them nothing.”

  Lausaux’s eyes zeroed in on Val as though he was seeing him for the first time. “How candid of you. It’s intriguing to meet a man with the gall to criticize our methods, while totally bereft of all scruples over his brother’s canvassing on his behalf. If I had a couple more like you on staff, my job at Assist Haiti would be a great deal easier.”

  Angie and Duval joined them. They were too keyed-up to notice that they had stepped between two combatants.

  “Thank you, Val” Angie leaned into him and gave him a peck on the cheek. “For everything.”

  “What is it you have to tell me?” Val said softly.

  Angie blushed slightly. “Not now, not here.”

  Lausaux picked up on it and raised an eyebrow a fraction. He turned to Duval and said, “Chief Bosanquet and I have been discussing how a charity operates. Perhaps you can persuade him to be my guest this evening on the Natchez. He’ll have an opportunity to see at firsthand how we raise the bulk of our income and learn something of our plans for its distribution.”