by Ed Kovacs
Honey dropped in from time to time, mostly to brainstorm and to trigger new lines of thinking. We helped nightshift clear Terry Blanchard’s death as a suicide. And we administratively cleared Grigory Pelkov’s murder by turning it over to the feds—he was a Russian agent, after all. I invited Mackie and Kruger to drop by for take-out Thai food and Singha beers to run angles by them and solicit advice I didn’t really need on a strategy; I was trying to make nice with guys I’d be working with who might otherwise have reason to pour acid in my coffee due to my special status in the unit. And yes, I drank a Singha, too; moderation in everything, including moderation.
I felt emotionally numb, having dissociated from all of the recent death and violence that I’d experienced up close and personal; my mind, however, felt razor-sharp, in spite of the dearth of sleep. A jangled anticipation flowed through my veins, energizing me.
We confirmed rumors that Peter Danforth had hired a high-priced criminal attorney and was trying to negotiate a deal with the federal prosecutor, the state, and the DA, granting him blanket immunity from any criminal prosecution in exchange for his cooperation in the pertinent on-going investigations. I knew that dog wouldn’t hunt, so I didn’t feel any pressure.
Still, I wanted it over soonest, so six days after the chief’s big press conference, we put the hammer down.
While Mackie and Kruger convinced Danforth to accompany them downtown, ostensibly to identify items we suspected belonged to Del Breaux, Honey and I showed up at the Academy with a large support team.
“Detective Baybee,” I said, waving a warrant—a real one this time—in the face of the two beefy guys dressed as swabbie MAs in the main entranceway, “how many times do we have to come back to this crazy place where these idiots think it’s Halloween every day?”
“This will be the last time, Detective Saint James.”
We used semi-trucks to haul away all of the Russian matériel Danforth had already showed us, and we found another storeroom that contained Del Breaux’s most valuable stash, including the non-lethal weapons that he bought the night he died. We seized security video files going back twenty-one days, although I suspected they’d been tampered with. We found a few other goodies, and—very importantly—we took into custody a gentleman who wore a green cloth bracelet on his right hand.
Joey Bales was Danforth’s on-and-off-again lover of the last nine years. Danforth had lied to us; Bales lived at the Academy. Barry Morrison had first told me about him the day we had lunch at Jack Dempsey’s. Turns out both Bales and Danforth had been given dishonorable discharges way back when from the navy over violating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Bales started falling apart like a twenty-dollar Hong Kong suit before we even got him downtown. We had to Miranda him in Honey’s unit. Bales had multiple arrests for burglary and blabbed that he’d used the Jefferson brothers as fences for goods he’d stolen, but had nothing to do with their murders. He was eager to cut a deal, but we held off.
Honey and I slowly paraded Bales past a big window that looked into the interrogation room where Peter Danforth sat. Danforth’s jaw practically hit the table when he saw his old lover. We put Bales on ice, conferred with Mackie and Kruger, then Honey and I entered the interrogation room with a laptop and some show-and-tell aides.
“Peter, thanks for coming in and helping us out,” I said smiling, setting a cardboard file box on a chair next to me. “You’ll be happy to know our investigation is almost complete.”
Danforth looked at us with contempt.
“I’d like to go now.”
“Just a second,” said Honey. “You need to look at some things.”
“I need my lawyer.”
“You can have one anytime you want, but do you really need a lawyer to help you look at some things?” I asked.
“Just hurry up then.”
Danforth was being a little bit of a bitch.
“After you were dishonorably discharged from the navy for conduct unbecoming, you moved to New Orleans. Ten months ago you bought the building that now houses the Academy, where you get to dress up as a rear admiral every day.” I showed him copies of his discharge papers and a copy of the property deed to the Academy building. “You told us ‘the owner’ rented space to Del Breaux to warehouse his arms. You didn’t tell us you were the owner.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“No, you just didn’t tell the truth,” said Honey. “Right off the bat, just for warehousing the munitions improperly? You got all kinds of legal trouble.”
I removed the cigar box of black ink pens with gold trim. Honey and I had just found it in the room with the non-lethal weapons. I didn’t tell him that we knew it had been taken from the Scrap Brothers file- cabinet safe. I simply took one of the pens and doodled on paper. Oh, and I twisted the top as he watched.
It was almost as if his mouth suddenly dried up. He didn’t speak as his eyes riveted on the exploding pen.
“Look, I—” He couldn’t take his eyes off the pen. I hadn’t twisted the top back yet.
“One year ago you joined your sometime-lover Del Breaux in the arms business.”
“The goods you showed us? That was your stash. Merchandise you had skimmed,” said Honey.
“See, you needed to build up your own inventory for when you replaced Breaux, because you didn’t have enough working capital yet,” I said. “Pelkov and Haddad got furious with Breaux for shorting shipments when there was bartering going on, but you were the guy doing it.”
I twisted the cap back twenty-six seconds after first twisting it.
“I— ahh—don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was sweating.
“And you only got a measly one percent of Breaux’s action. You needed to do something about that,” said Honey.
“How about a little treason, hmm?”
I twisted the cap of the pen again.
“I mean if the government didn’t care about selling the candy store, why should you or Breaux?” I tapped the pen on the desk; he couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“Two and a half million from Tan Chu for the GIDEON sample and formula. That’s some walkin’—around money. Was Breaux giving you a piece of that?” asked Honey.
“But then Pelkov had that great idea. I mean, why should Breaux settle for just two point five mil from the Chicoms? Why not get the Russkies and ragheads in on the action, right Pete?”
When I clicked the top closed, Danforth audibly exhaled.
“I was in Atlanta that weekend.”
“Yeah, for about an hour and a half.” I clicked on a laptop video file. “I’ve edited this copy for brevity, but here you are checking into the Atlanta Hilton with an unknown male—you dip your wick all over the place, don’t you, Pete? Here you are both entering your hotel room. Thirty minutes later, here you are in drag—and you make a pretty good-looking chick—leaving your room. Are you with me, Pete? Now you didn’t fly back to New Orleans in drag; I figure you changed clothes in the airport bathroom, but Joey Bales bought a ticket in your name using his credit card, and this shot here shows you coming out of Terminal Two at Louis Armstrong at about six o’clock Friday night.”
“I want to deal. I want witness protection. I told you that from the beginning.”
“We’ve already made a deal. But not with you.” Honey stared at him.
We hadn’t made any deal yet, but detectives are allowed to lie through their teeth in an interrogation such as this.
Danforth blanched. I twisted the cap on the pen again.
“Did you know today was movie day at Homicide, Detective Baybee?”
“I’ve got my ticket.”
“So does Pete. Now take a look at this short subject; it shows men entering the offices of Breaux Enterprises the night Del Breaux and Ty Parks were killed.”
“I wasn’t there!”
“No, but look at this guy with a green cloth bracelet on. Why I think that’s your old buddy, Joey. And here he is again, pretending to be an FBI agent and trying to get into
Del Breaux’s house to get the two-and-a-half million and the top-secret laptop.”
“You are insane.”
“He’s in the next room, you know. Joey.”
I twirled the pen with my fingers, and then he watched me, mesmerized, twist it closed. Danforth looked like he was ready to vomit; the guilty often do that, right in the interrogation room. Honey used her foot to slide a plastic wastebasket on the floor closer to him.
I reached into the white box and retrieved a file. “Don’t you love a Mercedes? I mean, I can’t afford one, but you have to practically take a weekend seminar just to learn how to use all the gadgets and gizmos they have nowadays.”
“Like built-in GPS,” said Honey. “And GPS leaves a trail of breadcrumbs. Like Hansel and Gretel. Tiny digital tracks. So we can recreate where a vehicle has been.”
“Pete, you want to know where Del Breaux and Ty Parks stopped before they drove to the place where they were murdered?” I shoved the file toward him.
“You want to know about the cocaine we found in your room? At the Academy just now. Think it will chemically match the kilo left in the Jefferson brothers’ file cabinet?” asked Honey.
“Want to see the FBI report on who drained Breaux’s bank accounts?” I shoved another file at him. It was bogus, but that wasn’t the point.
“Want to see records from Brandt’s office showing that Breaux Enterprises secretly smuggled sensitive cargo via helicopter onto Nassir Haddad’s ship as part of a three-way swap? Think you can’t take the fall for that? You were helping to make the arrangements. A file on Breaux’s laptop confirms it.”
I clicked open the pen, practically holding it in his face.
“On Friday while you were flying to Atlanta, Tan Chu agreed to pay Del Breaux two-point-five million for the Project GIDEON sample and formula. You left a guy in your Atlanta hotel room ordering room service for two to make it look like a lover’s weekend. But you flew back to NOLA, and on Friday night you were at Breaux’s house when Grigory Pelkov and Nassir Haddad showed up with a counter-offer: split the sample three ways and give the formula to all three parties simultaneously. You were the only one who didn’t want Breaux to go for it.”
“Because you already had a deal in place with Chu. Certain arrangements had already been made,” said Honey.
“On Saturday Tan Chu handed over the money, but Breaux stalled him on delivering the goods, because he had to give Pelkov and Haddad time to assemble cash for the secret side deal. But Chu got wind of the double-cross that night at Restaurant August. He was furious, but he already had a plan. And you were the linchpin. After returning home from the auction at Michoud, Del Breaux got a call from the payphone at Banks Street Bar. That was you calling, convincing him to meet you at the Academy at one AM. Breaux and Ty Parks picked up you and Joey Bales in the Mercedes for the drive to that secluded parking lot near the old Calliope Projects where Tan Chu’s boys were waiting.”
“You can’t—”
“The murder weapon came from Nassir Haddad’s ship—a place you visited often.”
“I—”
“Del wasn’t going to give you a piece of the GIDEON action; why should he? You’d seen that coming a long time ago. So you made a side deal with Chu. I have phone logs showing you called him a few times the last few weeks. He offered to make you the new Del Breaux of the Buyer’s Club; all you had to do, Judas, was to deliver him to that parking lot with the GIDEON sample, the sample you had under lock and key at the Academy. Then you’d get to keep the two point five million, right?”
“You murdered Del Breaux! You shot Ty Parks in the head at point-blank range!” Honey was practically screaming, in his face.
“I did not!”
“Joey’s already given you up, man. You’re going to Angola for the rest of your life, where that sweet little ass of yours will look pretty good to some of the big bulls, you understand?”
“Please click that pen closed!”
I clicked it closed—the bomb squad had disarmed it—just as Danforth turned sideways and tossed his cookies. Thankfully, he delivered them right into the wastebasket. When he sat back upright, his eyes were wet and ringed with red.
“I guess I let things get out of hand.”
As understatements went, I thought Danforth’s was pretty good.
“You weren’t the only one who let things get out of hand. Just tell us what happened in that parking lot,” said Honey.
“Ding Tong killed Del and Ty. Chu and two of his other men were there, one of them is a really tall guy. I didn’t kill anybody. It didn’t occur to me that—they would do that.”
Honey and I shot each other a look. This was one of those confessions where the guilty party has admitted his guilt, but then tries to spin the scenario in a way to make him seem inculpable.
“I made a deal with Chu. He offered me a half million if I could get Del to that parking lot with the GIDEON material. But I didn’t know he was going to kill him. And when he did, what was I supposed to do, protest? Then get shot myself?”
“He wanted you to get the laptop too, didn’t he?”
“Yes. That’s why Joey and some of the guys took Del’s computer from his office, in case he had the GIDEON formula on his PC. But he didn’t. So we tried to get into his house.”
“Breaux’s renters stopped that.”
“Yes.”
“And the Jefferson brothers?” asked Honey.
Danforth pursed his lips together.
“You were there, Peter. You supplied the cocaine that went into the file cabinet. And while you were at it, you took the box of exploding ink pens that we just found at the Academy.”
“I didn’t kill those people, either.”
“Why were you even there?”
“Chu and Tong were unbelievably angry that the shipment got intercepted at the port and that the GIDEON sample disappeared. I guess Chu was covering his tracks by killing the Jeffersons. Tong picked me up. Maybe they wanted me to see what they were going to do, as a way to keep me in line down the road. That was my impression, anyway.”
“Why put the guys through the shredder?”
“Leroy or Jimmy wouldn’t give up the combination to the safe. Chu wanted the money that was inside. He was furious he’d paid so much but had gotten nothing. He said he would be in trouble with Beijing if he didn’t get something in return.”
“Chu had you plant the cocaine to make it look like a drug hit?”
“Yes. And he gave me the box of exploding ink pens. He made me take them. They’d just killed three people so I wasn’t going to refuse.”
“Peter, you’re doing pretty well, but you’re leaving something out.”
Danforth looked at me through hollow eyes.
“The silver cargo container with the doors welded shut?”
But Danforth was finished singing. “I’m done talking.”
“Then we’ll get your lawyer right now, Pete, but just one more thought. If you didn’t know Chu was going to remove Breaux from the picture, how could you have gotten Joey and your team of boys into mover’s uniforms and supplied with replacement computers so they could be at Breaux Enterprises before Del’s body was even cold? That sounds pre-meditated.”
Danforth’s mouth opened, but the only sound he made was that retching rasp from the dry heaves.
Honey and I had lots more questions, but it didn’t matter. It smelled worse than a Bourbon Street urinal in the room, so we called for the lawyer and booked Peter Danforth on multiple felonies, including five counts of murder one.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Chief Pointer was getting more press than a Hollywood starlet in rehab. Since Honey looked better on camera, I stuck her with the honor of representing NOPD Homicide to the local newshounds who hung on every recounted detail of Peter Danforth’s treachery.
Of course, Danforth’s duplicity paled in comparison to the ruthlessness of Tan Chu. The Chinese agent had Breaux and Parks, the Jefferson brothers, their employee Her
bert, and TDF owner Eddie Liu all scrubbed for the simple reason that dead men tell no tales. Well, that rule now applied to him as well as Pelkov and Haddad. And with Clayton Brandt in prison, the Buyer’s Club was no more. I should have felt satisfaction—the murders were solved, the arms-dealing operation in New Orleans shut down—but instead I couldn’t shake the notion that I’d achieved a Pyrrhic victory. I harbored no illusions that the Pentagon would change their ways, nor could I say that I’d want to take on another case like this anytime soon.
Still, one piece of the puzzle remained, so I cruised with Fred Gaudet in his unmarked unit over to North White Street and pulled into the driveway of a corner house, a couple blocks from CCs Coffee House on Esplanade. This property was number seventeen on my list of thirty-five. Danforth had told the truth about one thing: he owned a lot of property and was rich on paper.
The shotgun house strangely had a big yard but wasn’t much to look at. But then, a whole lot of houses in New Orleans looked more like piles of kindling than they did homes.
We circled around back, dodging an old broken sink and a battered hot-water heater. I was about to cross this property off my list.
And then it caught my eye.
In the on-going post-Storm recovery, it was still very common to see all kinds of things in people’s yards: FEMA trailers, mobile homes and RVs, heavy equipment, piles of construction materials, piles of debris, and portable steel storage containers.
There was a FEMA trailer in the side yard of the corner lot that I hadn’t paid much attention to. On the other side of the FEMA trailer, tarps partially covered a steel container. But this wasn’t one of the little ten or twenty footers so often seen in yards around town. This one was a forty-foot ocean-going cargo container.