Severed

by Corey Brown

  “Come on, we’re going home.”

  Chapter 10

  Without the excitement of an armed conflict or the spectacle of a chained suspect, the crush of onlookers has scattered. Still, the whispers of a body hold the interest of a few. The sirens have long since gone silent but flashes of red and blue light continue to trace unsettling arcs against the eighteenth century buildings.

  The police had quickly abandoned any hope of finding the killer in the immediate area as he, or she, most likely slipped away long before their arrival, disappearing anonymously into the French Quarter and beyond.

  Leading Jamie down the winding staircase, Cody stops in the lobby long enough to look at the spectators still milling about, as if they were a pack of jackals waiting for their turn at the carcass. He understands their curiosity but it frustrates him, too. The desire to see something----see anything---- signals disrespect for those involved, as if the victims are nothing more than a sideshow.

  Cody shakes his head, tugs on Jamie’s arm and leads her toward the back of the building. Quietly, they slip out through the rear courtyard.

  Hansen watches them go, watches as Cody and Jamie make their way to each landing, spiraling downward. They disappear from sight and he stares a moment longer, then he squares his shoulders and goes back into the apartment. By now, more crime scene investigators have arrived, the coroner too.

  Hansen looks around and draws a breath. A snap of the wrist and he ejects a Marlborough from the wrinkled red cigarette pack. As he puts the cigarette to his mouth Detective Ramirez looks at him, shakes his head.

  “Sorry,” Hansen says, looking away, pulling the cigarette from his lips. “Forgot where I was.” He slips the Marlboro back into the pack then points to the computer Ramirez is examining. “See anything interesting?” Hansen says.

  “Not really. Maybe the boys in lab can recover some data from the drive.” Then he touches the damaged hard drive with a neoprene gloved finger. “This thing took a real hit, it’ll be a miracle if it can be resurrected.”

  “Makes you wonder.” Hansen says.

  Knowing what Hansen is thinking, Ramirez nods and says, “Uh-huh. Whoever was here wanted to make sure this thing was destroyed. They knew to take the cover off and go after the guts. In fact, the outside of the machine wasn’t really damaged, just the hard drive. Hopefully, the lab can pull something off it.”

  “What kind of chances you think they got?”

  “Shit, I could give you odds on a Saints game, but this?” Ramirez spreads his hands, palms up, “I have no idea. From the looks of it, I’d say the chances are slim and none. But the byte-heads are pretty sharp. They might be able to get something useful.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Ramirez looks at Hansen, his expression turning grim. “I hear you guys caught that case out in the swamp.”

  Hansen nods. “Yeah, a guy named Wheaton. Know him?”

  “What a goddamned shame,” Ramirez says, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t know him but I heard good things.” Ramirez shrugs. “You know, besides his deal with Internal, I think he was a good cop.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

  A camera flash goes off in the bedroom and the light draws Hansen’s attention. “Hey, excuse me,” he says. “I think I’ll see what Drake has going on.” He steps over a handful of jewel cases that are strewn across the floor. Some of the cases are empty, as the CDs and DVDs have fallen out, some still contain discs.

  Ramirez looks at the jewel cases and again at the computer. It is then that he realizes both the CDROM and DVD drives have been damaged. Why would someone destroy a drive that reads removable, make that portable, data? The drive is insignificant, after all any CD or DVD drive could read the data disc. He frowns, trying to make sense of it, wonders if it was the drive or the media they were after.

  “How’s it coming in here?” Hansen asks, stepping into the bedroom.

  Slater looks at him and tilts his head toward the other detective. “Drake agrees with our theory. Turano’s assailant was in the closet, shot her up close. Looks like she pulled the closet door open and bang, right in the head. She probably never even saw it coming.”

  “What about the weapon?” Hansen says.

  “Entry wound is simple,” Drake says. “There’s not much in the way of contact damage to the skin and the fact the bullet never exited her skull, even from up close, I’d say the gun was a small caliber. The coroner and ballistics will verify but my gut says twenty-two.”

  Hansen nods. “Great, a twenty-two, there’s only a zillion of those in this city. What else have we got?”

  “Not much,” Drake says. “There’s some sort of scuff mark on the floor over there by the window. The perp might have skidded on the glass as he went after Mrs. Briggs.” Drake steps over to the bedroom door and points to a mark, about five feet up from the floor. “But look at this,” he says. “There’s some minor damage here on the outside corner of the doorjamb and there are fibers hooked on the casing, here.”

  “What do you make of it?” Hansen says.

  “Don’t know. Could be nothing, could’ve been there for months, might be the key to the whole case. Only the lab can tell us. We’ll check it against all the other fibers in the apartment. We’ll figure out if it belongs here or not.”

  “Good.” Hansen looks up and points. “What about that?”

  Both Slater and Drake turn to see what Hansen is pointing at. There is minor damage to the plaster wall, about four feet up. Drake moves in for a closer look.

  “Hmm, I’m not sure,” Drake says. “Something whacked the wall right there, that’s for sure.”

  Now both Detective Ramirez and a crime scene investigator have joined them. The crime scene investigator pulls out a magnifying glass and studies the damage closely. “I think we’ve got embedded fragments of something foreign,” he says. “I’ll get a pair of tweezers.”

  Hansen points downward. “How about the mark on the floor? Can we get anything useful from it?”

  “Sure,” the investigator says. “If it came from a shoe or a boot, we can analyze the material and figure out which manufacturers use that substance in their soles. It’ll take some time, but we can do it.”

  “Good enough,” Hansen says. “So, what’s the theory? Our guy came in through the window and tore the place up looking for something. Then he popped Ms. Turano when she found him in the closet.”

  “That’s about it,” Drake says. “The door hadn’t been forced. None of the other windows show any signs of damage.”

  Hansen pulls the corners of his mouth into a frown. “Hmm, why so much glass?”

  “What’d you mean?” Slater asks.

  “You break a window to get in,” Hansen remarks. “You hit it hard enough to crack it. Then you push the pieces in, so you don’t make a lot of mess, you minimize the noise. But look around. There’s glass everywhere. Whoever broke this window smacked it hard.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” Slater says, shaking his head. “The glass could’ve been kicked around after the shooter came in.”

  “Could be.”

  A technician who is dusting the knob of the balcony door looks up and says, “The intruder didn’t come in through the window.”

  The four men look at him.

  “Why’s that?” Hansen says.

  The tech points to the balcony door. “That wasn’t locked. And I doubt the victim unlocked it after she came home. I’ll bet she never locked this door. I mean, we’re thirty or forty feet in the air with no direct access from the courtyard.”

  “A cop lived here, too,” Slater says. “I can’t believe he’d leave it unlocked.”

  The technician makes a face. “Why not? Cops do stupid things, too. Besides, we’ve got the altitude factor. Who could get up here, why lock it at all? And look at the patio furniture. Whoever plowed through that stuff is the one who came through the window, too. If the killer was hiding in the closet, waiting, why make such a mes
s? You fly in here like a goddamned Tomahawk missile then squirrel away and wait? I don’t think so.”

  All four detectives just stare at the technician.

  “What?” The tech says, his expression growing harder. “My grandfather was a Baton Rouge cop, my dad and uncle were NOPD, detectives like you. The only reason I’m not investigating this case is a bad ejection at Miramar.”

  The four continue to stare, then Detective Drake glances at his counterparts, looks back at the tech and says, “You were---?”

  “Yeah,” the tech says, interrupting. “I was a Top Gun. At least until my trainer flamed out over Nevada and I took a hard landing. My chute deployed late, it fucked up my spine. Now, I’m painting doorknobs with powder.”

  “No shit?” Slater says.

  “No shit.”

  Hansen steps over to the window and examines the frame. It is undamaged. He thinks about the scene and concludes that whoever had broken the glass did not attempt to force the window open first. Instead, they just crashed through it.

  Leaning out beyond the jagged pieces of glass still in the frame, Hansen tries to imagine how or why the window was broken. On the balcony are a couple of canvas deck chairs, a small table and a rusty, black barbeque grill. Oddly, one chair and the table are knocked over, as if someone had pushed them over, pushed between them.

  Hansen considers what he is seeing. The tech is right; by the look of it, someone or something swooped down from the sky and crashed in through the window, taking out the balcony furniture along the way. Hansen looks again at the broken window, at the outdoor furniture. But how could that be?

  “Okay,” Hansen says. He pauses, looks back at the technician. “Nice work and thanks. NOPD fucked up by not hiring you.”

  The guy shrugs. “They hired me, just not for the right job.”

  Hansen steps over to the technician, offers a business card. “Nice work anyway. You put this investigation back on track. Call me, we should talk.”

  The tech hesitates, holds Eric Hansen’s eyes, takes the card.

  Now, facing his colleagues, Hansen says, “So, if our shooter did not come through the balcony window, and the front door was not forced, how the hell did he get in here?”

  “Good question,” Slater says. “The window could be unrelated to the break-in. It could’ve happened earlier in the day, before our guy ever showed up.”

  “Maybe,” Drake says. “But I doubt it. What else have we got? Other than the window, we have no evidence of forced entry, right?”

  Slater nods. “That’s correct.”

  “What if our bad boy had a key?” Hansen offers. “What if he just walked in the apartment door?”

  There is a moment’s pause. All four detectives, the CS investigators, technicians and the few remaining street cops fall silent.

  Slater frowns, says in a low voice, “Maybe our bad boy lives in the building.”

  «»

  Her head lying on Cody’s shoulder, Jamie opens her eyes and watches as buildings, street signs and the outside world drift past. It all seems like a dream, now. Exhaustion pressed in on her mind with such intensity that she had struggled, and failed, to stay awake as they drove home. But now, slipping back into the conscious world, Jamie tries not to think about what happened.

  Letting her senses adjust, Jamie focuses on the scenes of New Orleans that glide past just beyond the car window. She knows that some time has passed, that they should be home by now. Without realizing it, she begins to notice she is nowhere near home. Confused, slowly, she lifts her head, takes a closer look.

  “Where are you going?” Jamie says.

  “Home,” Cody says, quietly. “Taking the long way around.”

  For a moment the answer is sufficient. But then Jamie watches Cody, sees how his eyes keep darting to the rearview mirror.

  “What’s wrong?” Jamie says, sitting up.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “You keep looking in the mirror, you’re tense.”

  Cody’s facial muscles tighten, he purses his lips. “I don’t know, maybe someone’s following us. I’m not sure.”

  From the corner of his eye, Cody sees Jamie’s shoulders pull back, sees her body stiffen. First homicide cops visit Jamie’s home then she has to console a woman who’s lost someone dear and finally someone tries to kill her; all in one day, all within a few short hours. Cody swallows. He can just imagine what Jamie is feeling right now.

  Without trying to be obvious, Cody removes his cell phone, hands it to Jamie.

  “Keep it in your lap,” Cody says, matter-of-factly. “I don’t want anyone to know we’re making a call.”

  Jamie’s heart rate spikes and a single point of pressure zeroes in on her chest. Her hand starts to shake, she tries to calm herself as she silently flips open the Motorola.

  Cody puts his hand on Jamie’s and says, “Don’t worry, honey. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  She forces a smile and says. “I know, I’m not afraid.”

  Unconsciously, Cody taps the brake pedal, glances at her, squeezes her hand firmly. “I’m serious,” he says. “No one can touch you, now. I won’t allow it.” He points at the cell phone. “Press that button then one-one. That’s a speed dial to Laroche.”

  Mechanically, in a dream-state, Jamie does as Cody instructs.

  “Now press that button,” Cody says, pointing to another key. “That will put us on speaker.”

  Jamie looks at her husband. She’s never actually seen him working. She has watched him flip pancakes at the annual NOPD pancake breakfast and, when Todd was little, she’d gone to Mrs. Schell’s second grade class when Officer Briggs visited the school. But she has never really seen him doing his job. The sight, this feeling, is odd and very foreign to her.

  But Cody is totally calm, his voice controlled. It is if nothing can happen that he does not permit. For one moment she sees him as a completely different person. Someone she hardly knows.

  “Honey?” Cody says. “The button?”

  Jamie blinks, looks down at the phone in her hand. “Uh…okay,” she says, slowly, the pinpoint of pressure easing slightly. With a touch of her finger the sound of an artificial ringer fills the car’s interior.

  “This is Laroche.” The voice is distracted.

  “Captain, its Cody. Listen, I think someone is tailing me.”

  “Where are you?” Now, Laroche’s tone is all business, completely focused.

  “Coming up on Saint Charles and Jackson.”

  “Okay,” Laroche says, “I’m----”

  The phone produces a short chirp and Laroche’s voice is cut off.

  “Shit,” Cody says.

  “What’s wrong?” Jamie asks.

  Cody takes her wrist, turns the phone toward him, looks at the blank display. “Battery’s dead.”

  Bringing the Impala to a halt at a stoplight, Cody sees the dark green Crown Victoria that he had noticed shortly after they had left the French Quarter. It is just two cars behind.

  As soon as he suspected a tail, Cody had started to drive aimlessly around the city, turning down obscure side streets, avoiding any path that would take them near their home or Jamie’s parent’s house. For a time, Cody thought he had been mistaken, but now he was sure they were being followed.

  The Crown Vic gently rolls to a stop, almost straddling the dotted white line dividing the two lanes, effectively blocking all the traffic on the left side. Cody stares at the vehicle in his rearview mirror. Who is the driver? Suddenly, adrenaline starts to pump into his veins, he knows what is about to happen.

  “Jamie,” Cody says, “Lay down.”

  Jamie starts to turn around.

  “Don’t look back. Lay down now.”

  “What about----?”

  The light for the cross street changes to yellow, at the same moment the Crown Victoria accelerates, pulling out into the left lane, driving parallel to Cody and Jamie.

  Cody reaches for Jamie, pushes her hard. “Get down.”

&nbs
p; Cody jams his foot on the gas pedal and the Impala charges forward. A car going south on Jackson Avenue enters the intersection against the yellow caution light, it swerves at the last moment, trying to avoid a collision but it clips Cody’s left front fender.

  At impact, Cody’s head snaps sideways, bouncing off the side window. The accident pushes his Impala sideways, the other car skidding to a stop in the opposite lane of Jackson, blocking traffic heading north. But the Crown Vic pulls up even with Cody’s Impala, a pistol grip, twelve-gauge shotgun in the driver’s hand.

  Cody shoves the car into reverse just as the shotgun erupts. Jamie screams as spider webs appear on the windshield and steel pellets ricochet across the glass. The Impala lurches backwards, but Cody has to slam on the brakes in order to avoid ramming the car behind.

  For a moment, the hit man seems to hesitate. Cody expects a second attempt but the driver cranks the steering wheel, turning the Ford left onto Jackson. Tires howl, rubber catches and the car rockets across the trolley tracks north on Jackson Avenue. But then it brakes, tires complaining again, and turns left again. The car leans, lurches, then heads west on Saint Charles Avenue, disappears.

  Scrambling out of his car, Cody pulls his weapon, raises it, intending to fire, but a stabbing sensation arcs through his neck and shoulder, forcing him to drop his arm. Wincing in pain, Cody rotates his shoulder, sets the safety on his pistol and shoves it back into his holster. He stares across the boulevard as the green Crown Victoria speeds west.

  “Cody?” Jamie says, getting out of the car. “Are you all right?”

  He looks around, the shotgun blast having stunned the intersection into silence and immobility.

  “Cody?”