by Sandra Brown
other way. Anytime you get a policeman on the witness stand, you'd
better be on your toes."
"Please, Pinkie," one of the men in the group scoffed."A policeman's
credibility in the courtroom was destroyed forever when Mark Fuhrrnan
testified at the O. J. Simpson trial."
Pinkie shook his head in disagreement."Granted, Fuhrman did that
prosecution more hamm than good. But Burke Basile is a different animal
altogether. We searched his past for something that would discredit him.
His record was impeccable."
"Until the night he shot his own man," one of the guests chortled.
He whacked Pinkie on the shoulder."You really raked him over the coals
on the witness stand."
"Too bad the judge refused to let the trial be televised," another guest
remarked."The public would have seen live coverage of cop meltdown."
Another said, "It wouldn't have surprised me if the jury had stopped the
trial during Basile's testimony and asked if they couldn't close up shop
and go home right then."
"We're talking about a man's death," Remy blurted. She considered their
joking and laughter obscene."Regardless of the outcome of the trial, Mr.
Stuart would not have been shot if Bardo hadn't used him as a human
shield. Isn't that right?"
The laughter died a sudden death and all eyes turned to her.
"Technically, my dear, that's precisely right," Pinkie replied.
"We acknowledged in court that Mr. Bardo was holding the wounded officer
against him when he was shot, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that
Stuart was being used as a shield. What happened was a tragic accident,
but that doesn't warrant sending an innocent man to prison."
Remy had never been invited to attend a trial and see Pinkie in action,
but she was well acquainted with the facts of this case because she'd
followed the media coverage. Narcotics officers Stuart and Basile had
been the first of their unit to arrive at a warehouse where it was
suspected that drugs were being manufactured and distributed.
Those inside the warehouse had been alerted that a raid was imminent.
When Stuart and Basile approached the building, they were fired upon.
Without waiting for backup, Stuart had charged into the warehouse,
exchanging gunfire with and killing a man named Toot Jenkins.
Toot Jenkins lay dead, Stuart was badly wounded. His bullet-proof vest
had deflected potentially fatal shots, but he'd been hit in the thigh,
the bullet narrowly missing his femoral artery. Another bullet had
shattered his ulna.
"The doctor testified at trial that Stuart was probably in shock, but
that he would have recovered from those wounds," Remy said."They were
serious, but not life threatening."
"But your husband destroyed the doctor's credibility."
Pinkie held up a hand as though to say that he didn't need anyone to
come to his rescue, particularly since the one challenging him was his
own wife."Put yourself in Mr. Bardo's place, darling," he said.
"One man lay dead, another was wounded and bleeding. Mr. Bardo reasoned
correctly that he had inadvertently walked into a very dangerous
situation.
"He thought that perhaps the men outside weren't police officers as they
claimed, but were in fact Mr. Jenkins's business rivals impersonating
officers. Toot Jenkins had been dealing with an Asian gang.
These gang members can be extremely clever, you know " "Officer Stuart
was red-haired and freckled. He could hardiy be mistaken for an Asian."
One of the guests chuckled and said, "Touche, Pinkie. Too bad for the
D.A. Remy wasn't arguing his case."
Pinkie laughed along with the others at the mild put-down, but perhaps
only Remy noticed that his laughter was forced. His eyes moved over her.
"Remy in a court of law? I hardly think so. Her talents lie elsewhere."
As he said that, he ran his fingertip across her low neckline.
Everyone else laughed, but a hot flush of humiliation and anger surged
through her."Excuse me. I haven't eaten anything yet." She turned away
from the group.
She had an opinion on what had happened the night Stuart died but it
wouldn't be prudent to air it in front of Pinkie and his friends.
They were celebrating his client's acquittal, not his innocence, which
weren't necessarily one and the same.
She didn't believe for a moment that Wayne Bardo had been confused when
gunfire erupted. He had known exactly what he was doing when he lifted
the wounded policeman off the floor of the warehouse and used him as a
shield when he went through the dark, open doorway, drawing fire from
any other law enforcement agents who might have taken cover outside the
building.
Unfortunately, Burke Basile had excellent reflexes, and he was an expert
marksman. Believing he was firing at an assailant, he'd gone for a head
shot, and his aim had been true. The jury's verdict had laid all the
blame for Stuart's death at his feet.
Making good her lie about being hungry, she went into the formal dining
room, where, as she had expected, the buffet was a gourmand's delight.
Sterling silver chafing dishes were brimming with steaming crawfish
etouffee, red beans and rice, and barbecued shrimp steeping in a sauce
so fiery that the aroma alone caused her eyes to tear.
Raw oysters on the half shell lay upon trays of ice. A chef was carving
slices of ham and roast beef off enormous slabs of meat. There were
deviled eggs and deviled crab, along with salads and side dishes and
sausages, breads and desserts to suit every palate. The sight and smell
of so much rich food didn't pique Remy's appetite, but rather made her
slightly queasy.
Glancing around, she saw that Pinkie was now conversing with some of the
recently dismissed jurors. They appeared to be enthralled by whatever he
was saying, and he loved having an audience, so he wouldn't miss her for
a while.
Unnoticed, she slipped through a French door into the relative quiet and
seclusion of the backyard. The air was cold enough to make vapor of her
breath, but the chill actually felt good against her exposed skin.
She moved along the pathway that led to the gazebo. The lacy
wrought-iron structure with the onion-shaped dome roof was located in a
far corner of the property. It was one of her favorite spots.
Whenever she desperately needed seclusion, or a semblance of it, she
retreated to the gazebo.
Stepping into the circular structure, she leaned into one of the support
posts, practically hugging it while resting her cheek against the cold
metal. She was still embarrassed over what Pinkie had insinuated in
front of his guests. Comments like that underscored what everyone
already believed about her, that she was a pampered trophy wife, with
limited intelligence and trivial opinions, whose only purpose in life
was to accessorize her flamboyant husband in public and satisfy him in
bed.
It also appeared they thought she had no feelings, that their subtle
insults bounced off her without leaving a mark. They thought she was
happy wi
th the sheltered life she led and had everything her heart
desired.
They were wrong.
Wild horses couldn't have kept him away.
Burke Basile acknowledged that being here was inadvisable.
Inadvisable, my ass, he thought. It was downright stupid that he was
lurking in the shadows of a hedge of tall, dense azalea bushes, glaring
malevolently at Pinkie Duvall's Garden District mansion.
The house was as fancy and white as a wedding cake, gaudy as hell in
Basile s estimation. Golden light from the tall windows spilled onto the
lawn, which was as perfectly tailored as a green carpet. Music and
laughter wafted from the shimmering rooms.
Burke hugged his elbows to ward off the cool evening air. He hadn't even
thought to wear a jacket. Autumn had come and gone. The holidays had
passed virtually unnoticed. New Orleans' mild winter was on the wane,
but the changing seasons and encroaching spring were the last things on
Burke's mind.
Kev Stuart's death eight months ago had consumed him, immobilized him,
and anesthetized him to his environment.
Barbara had been the first to notice his preoccupation, but then she
would because she lived with him. When his grief evolved into obsession,
she had lodged a legitimate complaint. And then another.
And another, until she exhausted herself with nagging. Her attitude of
late had been indifference.
As Wayne Bardo's trial date approached, it became obvious to everyone
within his division that Burke's heart was no longer in his work.
He couldn't concentrate on present cases because he was still hung up on
the case that had taken him and Kev to that warehouse.
For more than a year prior to that night, they'd been shrinking the size
of that particular operation, chipping away at it bit by bit by taking
out key dealers one by one. But the really big players had continued to
elude them, and were probably laughing their asses off at the bungling
and self-defeating efforts of the authorities, local and federal.
To frustrate the division further, their success rate dwindled into
nonexistence. Each time a raid was organized, it was foiled. No matter
how tight the security, how secret the bust, the criminals were always
tipped off beforehand. Drug labs were deserted with the chemicals still
cooking. Huge inventories were abandoned moments before the squad
arrived for the takedown. These were sacrifices the dealers could afford
to make, they simply factored in the loss as a cost of doing business.
The next day, they relocated to a new place of operation.
The sons of bitches scattered quicker than roaches when the lights went
on. Cops were made to look like fools. After each failed raid, the
division was forced back to square one, and the painstaking procedure of
rooting out the suppliers started all over again.
Having worked Narcotics for years, Burke knew the drill. He knew to
expect setbacks and delays. He knew it took months to build a case.
He knew the undercover guys had to cultivate relationships and that
these matters took time and patience. He knew the odds against success
were overwhelming, and that even when they did succeed, the rewards were
few.
But knowing all that and accepting it were miles apart.
Patience wasn't one of Burke's virtues. Frankly, he didn't even look
upon patience as a virtue. In his opinion, time equated failure.
Because for every day it took to do his job right and to collect enough
solid evidence for the D.A. to build a case around, kids by the dozens
were yielding to the allure of neighborhood dealers. Or a yuppie stoned
on a designer drug plowed the hood of his BMW into a vanload of senior
citizens on an excursion. Another few crack babies were born.
A teenager's heart burst from over use. Someone else OD'd and died a
wretched death.
But because the only alternative was complete surrender, he and the
officers in his division kept at it. Painstakingly they built their
cases. But each time they thought they were there, each time they
thought that the next bust would be the mother of all busts, each time
they thought they'd catch the bastards red-handed and nail their asses
good, something got fucked up.
There was a traitor within the Narcotics Division of the N.O.P.D.
Had to be. There was no other explanation for why the dealers were
always a step ahead of them. It had happened too many times to be
attributed to coincidence or karma or bad breaks or rotten luck or the
devil's handiwork. Someone in the department was working on the side of
the bad guys.
God help the bastard when Burke Basile discovered his identity, because
it was that cop's betrayal that had turned Nancy Stuart into a widow and
had left her two young boys fatherless.
Burke had begged Kev not to go barging in before the van got there with
the rest of the squad, equipped with rams, gas masks, and automatic
weapons. The two of them had arrived a few minutes ahead of it, the
arrest warrants in Basile's pocket. But Kev, frustrated over yet another
failed raid, had lost his Irish temper. He had charged the building
through the open overhead door. Burke had heard a hail of gunfire, seen
the flashes, smelled the gunpowder.
Then screams.
For damn sure, someone was down.
Frantic, Burke had called out to Kev.
Silence.
The longer he waited for Kev to answer, the more anxious he became.
"Jesus, Jesus, no, no," he prayed."Kev, answer me, you goddamn mick!"
Then a man came lurching through the open, black maw of the warehouse
door. It was dark, Burke couldn't see why he was walking with such an
awkward gait, but his gun was drawn and aimed at Burke. Burke shouted
for him to drop the weapon, but he kept coming. Again, Burke shouted for
him to drop the weapon and put his hands on his head.
The man fired the pistol twice.
Burke fired only once.
But once was enough. Kev was dead before Bardo dropped his body to the
ground.
As Burke raced toward the friend he'd mistakenly killed, he heard
Bardo's laugh echoing off the metal walls of the warehouse. He hadn't
learned it was Bardo until he was captured by the backup unit arriving
in time to see him running through an alley behind the warehouse.
There were flecks of Kev's blood and flesh and brains and bone on the
face of the repeat offender, but his three-piece Armani suit hadn't even
been spattered. He'd walked away clean, literally and figuratively.
The weapon he'd fired was never produced. In those few intervening
minutes, Bardo had successfully disposed of it, refuting Basile's claim
that Bardo had fired a weapon.
Nor was it ever explained to the court what business Bardo was
conducting in the drug lab with Toot Jenkins. Pinkie Duvall argued that
Bardo's presence in the lab was irrelevant to what had transpired and
that it might only serve to prejudice the jury against his client.
No shit, Einstein, Burke remembered thinking. It was supposed to
preJudice the Jury against Bardo.
>
On that question, the judge had ruled in the defendant's favor. No
mystery there. Duvall contributed heavily to the elections of judges.
The candidates with the most money backing their campaigns usually won,
and then went soft on the lawyers who helped put them on the bench.
Duvall had most of them in his pocket.
And that wasn't the only dirty pool Pinkie Duvall played. Wayne Bardo
had been in that warehouse that night conducting business for his boss,
Pinkie Duvall.
It was an accepted fact throughout the division, although never proved,
that Duvall was the primo operator they'd been after for years. He had
more connections to drug trafficking than whores did to herpes.
Every trail led to him, but ended just short of contact. There was no
solid proof against him, but Burke knew the son of a bitch was a player.
A big-time player.
Yet, here he was, living it up in his fancy house, celebrating Kevin
Stuart's death with a big, blow-out party.
Movement at one of the rear doors interrupted Burke's bitter
reflections. He shrank farther back into the foliage so as not to be
seen by the woman who made her way along a path to a gazebo.