Someone nearly killed him, Preacher had said.
She thought of what that man would’ve done to that little bird of a girl.
Someone nearly killed him.
Good, Maureen thought.
She opened up her legs and lay back, settling her lower back into the crook of Patrick’s arm, biting the tip of his tongue as he entered her.
Half-stoned and exhausted, knowing she wouldn’t have another orgasm, she relaxed and melted, enjoying his steady rhythm, soothed by the motion inside her. When his breathing quickened again, she gripped the back of his skull, her fingers digging through his hair. She released him when he was done.
She was half-asleep by the time she heard him flush the condom. She was three-quarters asleep when she heard him close the front door behind him. By the time he had unlocked his bike from her fence, she was dead to the world. She slept deeper than she had in weeks, oblivious to the world. She’d woken with a start not long after sunrise, hungover, relieved and terrified at how well she had slept.
* * *
In the roll-call room, waiting for her fellow officers, Maureen studied the backs of her hands. Completely clean. Veins, tendons, and wrinkles. No blood under her nails. No cuts, no bruises from the night work she’d done. Her reward for choosing the right weapon. She’d been smart, but she’d been lucky, too. Don’t blow this chance to start over, she thought. Don’t lose what you came here for. Don’t end up shamed like Ruiz, or worse, wash up dead like Quinn. She didn’t want to figure in any more stories of how people around her had lost their lives. She had done that already in New York. It was a story she was trying to forget. She drank her cool coffee. Quinn and Ruiz had made their own choices, she reminded herself.
When two male officers came strutting into the room, Maureen saw Ruiz and Quinn. Then she blinked, realizing that was impossible, and saw the men for who they really were. Wilburn and Cordts. Moved to the night shift, she figured, to replace the two lost officers. They nodded at her as they sat a couple of desks away, Cordts touching his knuckle to his hairline as if tipping a cap. Maureen nodded back, raised her hand a few inches off the table in some semblance of a wave. She wondered how much they knew about her. If they remembered talking to her that night at Ms. Mae’s.
She took a deep breath, redirected her vision to the front of the room, and tried to settle her nerves. The rest of the night crew shuffled in and filled the desks around her. Patrol officers. Plainclothes officers on the night watch. She recognized their faces, knew most of their last names. Other than Preacher, she hadn’t really gotten to know anyone she worked with besides Quinn and Ruiz. She decided one thing she would do with this second chance was change that situation. As the room filled up for roll call, nobody sat with her.
Looking around the room, breathing in the testosterone-heavy smell of freshly showered, freshly shaved men, she realized she needed to be as uninteresting as humanly possible for as long as she could pull that off. She needed to be the most boring cop in New Orleans.
What were the chances of that, really?
Preacher ambled into the briefing room, huffing and puffing as he approached the podium. “Eyes front, chickadees. Put the fucking phones away. I could give a fuck about your fantasy football teams and your dick pics. Listen up.”
No matter the outside weather, the roll-call room was always warm and close. Preacher paused and used a bandana to dab at the sweat beading under his eyes. He frowned as he read over the night’s paperwork and announcements. The room stayed at a casual attention. No one talked.
“First things first,” Preacher said. “The big conundrum on everyone’s mind. The city has not gotten back to us on their petition to the DOJ for exceptions to the new detail regulations for New Year’s Eve. The state police will be here as usual, but there should be, I say should be, OT available for the Quarter, the Marigny, maybe Mid-City, traffic on Poydras and Canal, all the usual spots.”
“That’s Christmas-shopping credit-card money, Sarge,” someone said. “I need to know if it’s coming or not.”
“I gotta let my wife know if I’ll be working, Sarge,” another cop said. “It’s our year to host the party.”
Maureen watched Cordts turn in his chair. “You sure you don’t want to work?”
At second glance, Maureen noticed he was kind of cute. He had a mischief in his eyes she liked. She could see it from across the room, like flickering lights.
“We’ll get it,” Wilburn said, serious and self-important, slapping his partner on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Nobody important wants it getting out they kept us off the street if someone gets shot on Bourbon. You think Mitch wants that press? Look around this room. It’s half-empty. And it’s the same story at every district. Forget enough OT to go around, there aren’t enough cops, no matter how many troopers they send.”
“You mean when someone gets shot,” Cordts said. “This town loves tradition.”
“When I know about the OT,” Preacher said, “you will know. I’m told the decision is imminent. Off the record, I’m not inclined to disagree with young Wilburn’s assessment.”
“Soon as someone bends over and picks up the tab,” someone said.
“Enough,” Preacher said. “The day shift’s info will be on your laptops when you get your cars. Same as always. And all the cars have working laptops again, as far as I know.” He held up his hand. “No promises. But let me know if something goes wrong. I don’t think we have any extra, but we can look.” He moved some papers around. “All right, I want eyes on that grocery store at Magnolia and Washington. Used to be those dopes wore red. Now it’s a different bunch of dopes and they’re wearing white. I want to know why that is.”
“It’s after Labor Day,” Cordts said. “Case closed.”
Preacher took a long pause. “Two years of college and that’s the best you got?” He turned to another officer. “Morello, that’s your sector tonight, make some extra passes. Maybe get crazy and get out of the car, get a feel for things, sniff around. Get real crazy and make some notes.”
Maureen watched the muscles in Morello’s jaw twitch. She suppressed a grin. Morello hated being singled out, which was why Preacher did it. And because everyone in the room knew Morello got out of the car only for meals and, to look at him, to lift weights at the gym.
“The one who’s older than the rest,” Preacher said. “He’s got the white pit bull on a chain. He likes those sleeveless pullovers.”
Cordts flipped open his notebook. “The pit bull likes pullovers?”
Wilburn threw Cordts’s notebook on the floor. “Would you shut the fuck up?”
“I wanna know who he is, people,” Preacher said, “and I’m not talking about his name. I wanna know if that’s his white Camaro parked out front every day. That new school a couple blocks back behind the store is up and running now. We got kids coming and going. That part of the neighborhood is on the upswing. Fucking finally. I want it to stay that way. I am not giving back one fucking inch of territory. The only colors I want in that neighborhood are the school colors. Believe.”
“I hear ya, Sarge,” Wilburn said. “But I have a few thoughts.”
Preacher’s eyebrows hovered high on his forehead. “Proceed, then, Mr. Thoughts.”
“The store has started closing at night,” Wilburn said. “Eight, nine o’clock. I guess we’re not the only ones sick of those assholes.” He glanced around the room for affirmation. “That guy with the dog is out there during the day, but it’s a different cast of characters at night.” He glanced at his partner, Cordts, who intently read a page in his recovered notebook. Wilburn looked back at Preacher, his expression earnest. “And from what we’ve seen, it’s only a couple guys in lawn chairs at night, older guys, not a whole crew with cars and motorcycles and commotion like during the daytime. I can see the day shift getting after this case, but us, I don’t know what there is for us to find out. I don’t mind the work. It’s more of a manpower question. If we know the store is qu
iet at night, why dedicate resources?”
Preacher leaned forward, squinting at the speaker. He was pretending, Maureen knew, to read Wilburn’s name tag. She had no doubt Preacher knew exactly who he was. She saw Morello smile into his hand, happy to see someone else getting a ration of shit.
“Wilburn?” Preacher said. “Is that your name?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sir was a good sign, Maureen thought. Wilburn was bright enough to know he’d stepped in it.
“This your first fucking day, son?”
“No, sir. Three years on the job, sir.”
“That makes it worse, Wilburn,” Preacher said. “Not better.” He stepped out from behind the podium, leaned his elbow on it. Maureen felt her stomach drop as Preacher’s eyes locked on hers. She was going to get her welcome whether she liked it or not. “Officer Coughlin, you have returned to us from your forty days in the desert. Shalom. You wanna tell us why I want us there at night when the guy I wanna know about is there during the day?”
Wilburn had turned in his seat to look at her, his expression grim. Someone, she realized at that moment, fancied himself an alpha dog among the patrol officers. That spot had been Quinn’s. Now it was vacant. Someone, she figured, had to rise and take it. It was the natural order of things. She didn’t think Wilburn would make it.
She took a deep breath before she spoke. “Because it’s easier to get answers if the guy we’re asking about isn’t around and watching out for who the neighborhood people are talking to. We roll right up on everyone midday and start making demands, shit gets shut down. Maybe moved to another location, and we’re back at zero. Worse, this guy now knows we’re asking about him. We want him to be the last to know we’re looking at him.”
Preacher smiled. “A gold star for Officer Coughlin. Wilburn, take notes.”
Maureen hated that she’d been forced to play teacher’s pet, but directing the question at her, and referring out loud to her absence, was Preacher’s way, she knew, of announcing to the squad that he had her back. The attention also meant, she hoped, that Preacher would put her on the store.
“Let’s change things up. Morello, you’re out of Central City; you’re in the Channel tonight, instead. Wilburn and Cordts, you’ve shown such initiative, y’all take the Washington corridor tonight. My gut tells me the lawn-chair guys are trying to make a statement, trying to reclaim some territory. We may have an opportunity there. They might actually want our help in the neighborhood for a change. Go find out if I’m right.”
So much for that, Maureen thought. Getting Washington Avenue meant Wilburn and Cordts got the store. Cordts spoke up. “I noticed those apartments next door, there’s ‘No Trespassing’ signs all over them now. That’s new.”
Preacher nodded. “If someone is holding a knife to the sweater-vest man’s back, I wanna help them sharpen it. Make me proud, gentlemen. On my night shift, we’re gonna make real cops outta you yet. ABT. Always. Be. Teaching. That’s how I do. Believe.” He waited. “Yes?”
“Yes, sir,” Wilburn said.
“We believe, sir,” said Cordts.
“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Preacher said. “In other news, nothing yet on that shooting death from the 2000 block of Second. We’re waiting for suspect info from Homicide. I’m thinking someone from the neighborhood, as are you all, but we’re waiting for something, anything, more specific.”
“Who caught it?” Maureen asked.
“Drayton,” Preacher said.
A collective groan went up.
“Enough with that,” Preacher said. “Y’all are cops, too. Y’all have people out there you can put the lean on. Here’s an idea, do some police work for a change. Who knows what might happen?” He held up a piece of paper. “Maybe something like this, for instance. This here is a memo from Sergeant Hardin of the Eighth District.”
Maureen’s ears perked up at the mention of Hardin. The Eighth District included the Quarter and the Marigny, where she had been looking for Dice and Madison Leary. Hardin knew they were both part of Atkinson’s murder case.
“If you haven’t already heard,” Preacher said, “someone took a bad beating in the Channel two nights ago.”
Maureen’s heart sank. This was not what she wanted talked about at roll call.
“Victim is a Caucasian male, mid-twenties,” Preacher said. “An unknown person or persons snuck up on him and put down the hurt with a blunt weapon of some sort. Left him lying in the bushes outside a residence with a punctured lung. This was damn close, people, to being a homicide.” He shrugged. “But it’s not, so it’s staying here in the district. Detective Lamb has it.
“The fun part is this. You may also recall we’ve gotten calls in recent weeks about young women being followed home from bars on Magazine, the Irish Garden, especially. Morello, you caught one of those, I think. We have reason to think this may be our guy. One of the girls said something about a ring. This guy had a heavy college ring on his hand. The young lady who called him in, she had been drinking in the Garden that night. She was arriving home when the beating happened, and it happened in her front yard. Like I said, I think this is our guy, which would make this good news. We’ll see if the calls stop coming.”
“So that’s it, then?” Maureen asked, before she could stop herself. “We’re letting Lamb take it from here?”
Preacher was quiet a long time. Maureen worried that she’d said too much.
“If Lamb needs anything from us,” Preacher said, “he’ll ask, I’m sure. I know he talked to the kid this afternoon. How that conversation went, I don’t have details. If you feel really compelled, Coughlin, you can offer your services to Detective Lamb. Can I continue?” He held up the paper again. “Unlike many of you lesser cops, Sergeant Hardin pays attention to shit. This attention-paying compulsion has caused him to notice that this beating, instead of being an isolated incident, fits into an emerging pattern. This is the fifth assault of this kind in the past three weeks.”
These assaults we pay attention to, Maureen thought. She crossed her arms and slouched in her chair. We count them. We write memos. God save the young white men.
Preacher ticked off the connections on his fingers. “The victims are male, young, early to mid-twenties, fairly well off, and white. None of them have a record. None of them actually live in the neighborhood where they were assaulted. If you’ve been by Fat Harry’s during an LSU game, you know the type of guy I mean. The five of them are so alike they could be frat brothers.”
Maureen folded her arms as she listened. She hadn’t realized she’d been so predictable. Just another reason to hang it up, she thought. Patterns got people caught.
“One aberration: last night’s beating was the first one of its kind in the Irish Channel. Every victim suffered the same kind of injuries. A pipe, a baton, to the joints or the bones. Whoever’s doing it, he wants it to hurt. For a long time. I hesitate to use the word vigilante, because as far as we can tell none of these guys who got their asses kicked had committed any crimes. But whoever is doing this, he seems to think they had it coming.”
“Word gets out there’s a pattern,” Morello said, “and we’re gonna have frat boys all over town wanting police escorts back to their cars.”
“That’s what neighborhood security is for,” Wilburn said. “Let them babysit.”
“So robbery is out as a motive?” Maureen asked.
Preacher wagged a finger. “Good question. No, nothing was taken. Which emphasizes to us that the beating was the point. Right now, I’m issuing a be-advised kind of order. If whoever is doing this has started hunting uptown, we need to be on the lookout.”
“And girls walking home from the bars at night?” Maureen asked. “We looking out for them, too?”
To Maureen’s surprise, Preacher grinned. “Officer Coughlin. We’ve missed your particular brand of … you around here. Not only are we as a police department looking out for those very women”—he tilted his finger back and forth between himself and her—“b
ut we are looking out for them, personally, you and me. You’re with me tonight on Magazine Street.”
A slow clap broke out among the officers.
“You with me so far?” Preacher asked Maureen.
“Yes, sir,” Maureen said. “Maybe these beatings, maybe it’s something related to those attacks down in the Fifth District, on St. Claude? The Fifth abuts the Eighth. Those were random beatings. Every vic in those cases is a white male.”
“Or the kids with the bats on Esplanade,” Wilburn said. “The ones robbing the cyclists. Could be something like that.”
Preacher shook his head. “The kids with bats only go after bike riders, and the point of those attacks was robbery. And I think we caught those kids. Not that others won’t soon pick up the mantle. And the bats.” He looked at Maureen. “Anyway, the guys on St. Claude, the three of them live in that neighborhood, and they’re middle-aged. They were assaulted by a gang of kids who didn’t care if they were seen. Not one of the guys who took these other beatings got the slightest look at who attacked them. They had nothing to offer ID-wise. Nothing. That’s impressive work by the assailant. And it points to planning and forethought. To intent. That person doesn’t want anyone knowing who he is.
“One of the St. Claude guys named a kid from his art class as one of his attackers. Whole different thing. The guy dishing out these other beatings, he’s on a mission.”
He let his words hang in the air. Maureen thought she heard a hint of respect in Preacher’s voice. She was happy to hear the masculine pronouns. “This mission, this crusade, if it has come to the Sixth District, it ends here. Before it escalates, ’cause we know that’s next. I want no heroes dropping bodies in my district. Not for any reason. Believe.”
Maureen looked down into her coffee. Way ahead of you, Preacher, she thought.
Let the Devil Out Page 11