“The point is to choose,” Brooks said.
“Wouldn’t happen either way,” Broussard said. “’Cause I’d take his weapon away from him and make him eat it.”
“I think this man is hungry,” Brooks said good-naturedly, patting Broussard on the back.
A couple of intersections later, the group crossed Poydras and headed for Canal Street. Three blocks shy of Canal, the students stopped to point and giggle at the displays in the window of a T-shirt shop. They seemed to particularly like a shirt titled THE HAPPY FISHERMAN, in which a submerged fish had hold of a certain part of a wading fisherman’s erect anatomy.
Two of the students were female. One, a cool blonde with a perfect complexion, was wearing blue slacks and a short-sleeved blue-and-white-striped sweater that showed off a great figure. The other, a brown-haired girl-next-door, also with fine skin and a beautiful smile, was dressed in baggy jeans and a loose pullover. Of all those gathered around the window, she seemed to be getting the biggest kick out of the risqué T-shirts. She had an ingenuous bubbly energy that Kit liked very much, but it was strange indeed to think that before too long she would be an instrument by which sadistic killers got what they deserved.
The attraction of the T-shirt shop allowed some time to reconnoiter.
“Where we headed?” Fleming asked.
“How about Tortorici’s?” Franks suggested.
Brooks shook his head. “Can’t. It’s closed.”
“No it isn’t,” Greenwood said. “I had dinner there last night, so I’d rather try somewhere else.”
“I wouldn’t mind goin’ back to Felix’s for more crawfish,” Fleming said. “That okay with everybody else?”
Getting no objection, Fleming looked at Broussard. “It’s on Bourbon, right?”
Broussard nodded. “A block off Canal.”
“Okay, Bourbon Street, everybody.”
In Felix’s, the six senior members of the party were shown to a large round table near the front door, while the students were put nearby at two square tables pulled together to accommodate their number. The arrangement struck Kit as similar to the Franklyn family Thanksgiving back in Speculator, New York—the adults at the main table, the kids off by themselves.
After they ordered and were brought their drinks, Crandall Brooks asked Kit if she knew Otto Schatz. She didn’t.
“He was the prosecutor’s psychiatrist at the Wilhoit trial,” Brooks explained. “We had lunch together today and he told me that as a kid Wilhoit used to dissect road kills, which came as quite a shock, because I used to do the same thing.”
“Yeah,” Greenwood said, putting down his beer after a long sip, “but he was masturbating while he did it. That’s the difference.” He paused, then added, “There was a difference, wasn’t there?”
“Hugh, you’re a crude man,” Brooks said.
“But I’m not infatuated with road kills.” Hand cradling his beer, he looked at Broussard. “Now, Andy, let’s talk about your serial killer. What’s being done?”
“Everything that can be.”
“So he hasn’t made a big mistake yet?”
“Remains to be seen.”
“I take that as a no, because if it had been a big mistake, I don’t think you’d have to wait to find out. So it was a small mistake or no mistake, which means the hairs you found didn’t help.”
“Hugh, you’re havin’ a conversation with yourself,” Fleming said.
Ignoring his remark, Greenwood turned to Kit. “Have you thought about going on TV with a sympathetic piece about the victims? If it’s done well enough, it may make your killer commit suicide.”
Brooks dismissed his comment with a wave of the hand. “That might work if he had remorse over the killings. I don’t think he does.”
“Neither do I,” Kit said. “And beyond that, it would be immoral.”
Greenwood’s eyes widened. His scars made interpretation of any of his expressions unreliable, but Kit now thought he definitely looked amused. “Immoral?” he repeated. “It’s immoral not to try everything and anything you can to stop him.”
“I just have a problem with that approach,” Kit said. “Besides, even in cases where it might work, it’s unpredictable. Sometimes it backfires and sets him off.”
“Apparently, he’s going to go off at least twice more, anyway. Have you thought about what he’s building up to? Maybe he’s going to pop up at some mall and slash his way through the crowd.”
Kit shook her head. “You’re confusing two different psychological types.”
Greenwood snorted derisively. “And if it happens, there’ll simply be a new subtype in the psychology literature.”
Kit was about to reply when the brown-haired female student approached Fleming with a package wrapped as a gift.
“Dr. Fleming . . . this is from all of us . . .” She gestured to the student table. “To you on your birthday.”
Judging from the look of admiration in her eyes, Kit concluded that Fleming must be a fine mentor.
“I’m touched, Diane,” Fleming said. He looked toward the student table. “So much so that I won’t hold it against any of you for remindin’ me I’m another damn year older.”
That brought laughs from the students.
“Open it,” Diane urged.
The package was about the right width and length for a tie. Fleming opened it fastidiously, carefully loosening and unfolding the paper as though it was a Dead Sea Scroll. He removed the lid and smiled.
“Show everybody,” Diane said.
He reached in the box and took out a wicked-looking ser-rated knife, which he waved at the student table, prompting applause and whistles.
“I have a saw collection on my office wall,” he explained to those seated at his table. “And a serrated knife is actually a type of saw.” He looked back at the students. “Thank you all very much. It’s a fine gift.”
The other patrons in the room stared at the noisy group with great curiosity and Kit was struck by the fact that whatever theories they might have about who these people were, they wouldn’t begin to guess the truth.
As Diane went back to her colleagues, Greenwood said, “So, Leo, how old are you?”
“Old enough that if my hair doesn’t quit droppin’ out, I’m gonna look like one of those damn carnival Kewpie dolls.”
The waitress arrived with a large round tray loaded with crawfish and other Cajun dishes. When it was all distributed, conversation flagged while they ate. Kit had bypassed the crawfish, choosing instead a spicy jambalaya that, after a few bites, made her mouth feel as if it was harboring a smoldering grass fire.
This proved to be a mild harbinger of what was to come, for her lips were soon an open conflagration. In a place that served such food, there was no greater sin than to allow a guest to run out of liquid to quench the flames. Their waitress understood this and deftly kept the fires from consuming her tip.
After the meal, Broussard, Kit, and Franks decided to catch the shuttle back to the hotel. Everyone else wanted to stay in the Quarter a while. The shuttle pickup was near the Jax Building on Decatur, which meant the group remained intact for a few blocks down Bourbon. This time, Kit found herself paired with Crandall Brooks.
“Andy told me about your little dog,” Brooks said. “Despicable thing for someone to do. How is he?”
“When I first took him in, the vet said he’d be fine, but this morning he had a relapse. Now I don’t know what to think.”
“I have a vet friend here. I wonder if he might be the one you’re using.”
“Dr. Samuels, at the South Carrollton Animal Hospital?”
Brooks shook his head. “Nope. Not him.”
Brooks’s interest in Lucky made Kit feel guilty that she’d not acknowledged his wife’s death. “I was extremely sorry to hear about . . .”
“I know,” he said. “When I first arrived, I thought that coming might have been a mistake. But it wasn’t. It’s been a big help. Being with all of you . .
. seeing the life in those young people. I’ve drawn from that. And I’m stronger for being here. So don’t you worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
Behind them, Kit heard Diane say to her companion, “So when they found her brother and X-rayed him, the whole side of his face was full of shotgun pellets, too. Isn’t that totally wild?”
9
At the hotel, Kit said good night to Charlie Franks, then turned to Broussard. “You’ll call me if anything happens?”
“Absolutely.”
“Gatlin has your number?”
“All taken care of.”
Realizing that Broussard and Gatlin had managed for a long time before she ever arrived on the scene, she said, “Sorry, I’m just really into this one.”
“I know what you mean. Part of me hopes he won’t go out tonight . . . that he’ll just disappear and we’ll be rid of him. But another part of me wants him to go again and give us one more crack at him, ’cause the more he works, the more likely he is to make the mistake that’ll do him in. It won’t even have to be a big mistake. It’s not the big thing that sends you over the cliff, but the untied shoelace. I want him to make that mistake.”
Kit was taken aback by the passion in Broussard’s voice. Obviously, he, too, was into this one.
Heading for her car, Kit congratulated herself for resisting the temptation to give Broussard his copy of the article and picture of the Heartbeats. A scant second or two later, it struck her that she should not be going home. There was a potentially more productive place she should be.
On the way, she thought about what a long shot she was playing. If the killer was going out tonight to do number three, he likely would be nervous, jumpy, unable to sit still— which meant he wouldn’t likely remain at home until the time came, but would be out somewhere already, walking or driving.
The sight of a red sports car in the parking lot of Nick Lawson’s apartment building brought mixed feelings. If she was right about the murderer’s mental state prior to a kill and Lawson was her man, he shouldn’t be home. But all that was guesswork. Maybe he was cooler than she imagined. Then it occurred to her that the car might not even belong to Lawson; after all, she’d never seen him in it. This concern left her when she looked at the plate: NICK 1. There was also a light on in Lawson’s apartment, the third from the left on the upper level.
Across the street from the apartment building, there was an auto-parts store with a tall sign made of a half dozen orange fifty-five-gallon drums welded in a zigzag pattern to a metal pole. Just the thing to spruce up a neighborhood. But its empty parking lot was an ideal place from which to keep an eye on Lawson’s car.
She parked, checked the doors to make sure they were locked, then took her Mace canister off her key ring and put the keys back in the ignition. Then she waited, her finger on the button of the canister in case passersby got any ideas. She had been there only a few minutes when she felt the first small stirrings of her bladder. This was a problem without a good solution. She recalled seeing a Burger King about three blocks away but did not want to leave her post.
A few minutes later, a car pulled into the apartment parking lot and a woman in a white uniform got out and went to the trunk, where she removed two bags of groceries and struggled up the steps with them. At the apartment to the right of Lawson’s, she rang the bell with her elbow and the door was opened by a little girl who hugged the woman’s knees. Most likely, a single mother and her daughter just trying to get by.
Over the next hour, there was a steady procession of visitors to the apartment nearest the left stairs on the lower level. But no one was ever invited in. There was always a brief conversation at the door, what appeared to be a quick handshake, and that was it. They were so obviously drug transactions Kit wondered how they got away with it, but then she realized there were probably far more dealers in the city than cops to catch them.
Surveillance was a huge bore, a fact that made her keenly aware of the increasingly urgent messages from her bladder. Burger King was only three blocks away. She could make a quick run and be back in ten minutes. It was a gamble, but at the moment it didn’t seem—
A scream suddenly filled the car, a shriek from her own throat. In thinking about the Burger King, she’d turned to look in the direction it lay and saw something that almost made the trip unnecessary; a scant few inches away was a face pressed against the side window.
Recoiling as much as possible in a bucket seat, she screamed, “What do you want? Go away.”
Amphibious eyes stared at her from a matt of greasy hair that parted around a pitted nose, permitting lips the color of spoiled meat to flatten against the glass. In the dark space between the lips, yellow chisels tried to gnaw through to her.
She flashed on a childhood incident when her father had bought her an aquarium and put one huge snail in with the goldfish. Her interest had lasted only until the snail had crept onto the front of the tank and she saw its rabbit teeth and rippling mouth. She had fled from it, screaming, and from that moment would not go near it. Now it had come to her.
She held up the Mace. “This is tear gas. I’ll spray you if you don’t leave. Go away!” She pounded on the glass with the palm of her hand, which made the face begin to move. It shifted up to the right corner of the window and slid horizontally across to the other side, lips stretching with the drag.
“Go away!” She pounded again on the glass, aiming her palm at the ugly nose. The face left the glass and she felt better, until it reappeared on the windshield when its owner climbed onto the hood.
She turned on the wipers and the one on the passenger side began to clack over the glass. The other hit the face a frail blow and jammed against it. God. Now he had his tongue pressed against the glass, the pressure flattening it into a grotesque pink spatula.
She shuddered and closed her eyes in disgust, but that was worse. With her eyes closed, there was no telling what he was doing.
She pulled the lever for the windshield washers and a small jet of fluid wet his beard, making him pull back and wipe the spot with his hand. Without waiting to see what he would do next, she started the engine, put it in reverse, and slowly backed up a few feet to let him know he better climb down, which he did, but not before putting his thumb against his nose and wiggling his fingers at her.
Free of him, she backed up quickly and stopped fifteen yards away, from where she watched him stagger off into the darkness. Shifting her eyes from the drunk to the parking lot across the street, she saw that Nick Lawson’s car was gone.
BROUSSARD LAY IN BED, a lemon ball in each cheek, his head propped up with two pillows, a used copy of The Sacketts in front of him. When he finished this one, he’d only have thirty-nine more to go and he’d have read every novel Louis L ’ Amour ever wrote. Considering the day he’d had, it didn’t seem excessive to expect to relax and read a little before going to sleep. But the ruckus next door was making that impossible. Reluctantly, he got up, slipped on his silk bathrobe and his slippers, and went into the hall.
Surprisingly, his knock was answered by Leo Fleming, with a beer in his hand. “Hey, Andy, c’mon in.”
“Anybody else in there wearin’ a bathrobe?” Broussard growled.
“Actually, I’m the only person not in one.”
“You’re probably gonna feel lousy tomorrow.”
“It’s my birthday.”
“Yesterday was your birthday. It just turned tomorrow. How about pullin’ the plug on this shindig?”
“Did I mention that this was the annual anthropology wingding?”
Broussard groaned. Every year, the anthropologists threw a loud party in one of their rooms, usually ignoring all requests to quiet down until they were on the verge of being ejected from the hotel. He had remembered to ask for a room no higher than the seventh floor, the highest a firehouse hook and ladder could reach, but he’d neglected to specify a room at least four away from any anthropologist. To expect them to quiet down simply because they were disturbing him w
as quite hopeless. “Well, just do what you can to keep the inmates from destroyin’ the asylum,” he said with a sigh, going back to his room.
The melee went on unabated another thirty minutes or so, then miraculously there was silence. Too tired to keep reading, Broussard put his book on the nightstand and clicked off the light.
IT WOULD BE ANOTHER fifteen minutes before Mike Haskins, patrolman with the harbor police, joined him for his meal break, but Tim Bouchet was so hungry, he unscrewed the lid to his thermos and poured some chicken soup into it, wishing he’d not said those things to his wife, Maggie. But Christ, it was just askin’ too much, both of them with full-time jobs and now her and that night course. He never saw her anymore and the house was filthy.
From his truck deep in the shadows, he could clearly see all of the Natchez and the John James Audubon, but his other responsibility, the Cotton Blossom, was anchored upriver about fifty yards, a viewing promontory of the Riverwalk and its railing blocking his view of all but her upper parts.
On most nights, a fair number of tourists wandered down to the Natchez for a look and occasionally a couple might do some making out before they noticed his truck, and that helped the time to pass. But tonight, things were really dead. There had been that gimpy old couple around ten and nobody else. He put the cup to his lips and sampled some soup.
English Lit, for Christ’s sake. What is she ever gonna do with that? She don’t even read anything written by Americans.
Seeing a figure come up the steps to the Riverwalk down by the gazebo, he put his soup on the dash and picked up his binoculars. Through them, he saw a man with a briefcase pause on the Riverwalk, look around, then stroll toward the gazebo. He watched until his view was hindered by the temporary toolshed the city had set up on the near side of the gazebo, then lowered the binoculars and reached for his soup. Some of that stuff she was readin’ didn’t even make sense. Like that crap by John Donne. Whoever heard of poetry that didn’t rhyme?
He went back to the binoculars and watched the man who’d come up onto the Riverwalk go onto the promontory that blocked his view of the Cotton Blossom. The guy leaned on the rail with both hands and stared at the barges pushing their loads through the black water. Bouchet himself liked to do that when he first took the job, but now, except for sometimes when he’d shoot dock rats with a slingshot and ice cubes, he mostly stayed in his truck and listened to the radio.
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