by Tony Dunbar
“What time will it be when she gets back?”
“Sometimes it’s ten o’clock.”
“I guess I’ll see you then.”
The guard hung up, and Tubby went back to bed.
***
Properly outfitted in a navy three-piece suit and black wingtip shoes, Tubby Dubonnet presented himself in the courtroom of Magistrate Hampson at eight-thirty. It was one place in the building where lawyers were overwhelmingly outnumbered by civilians, all manner of them, bleary with lack of sleep, some cowed, some made belligerent by the sights and smells, disinfectants and discomforts, of their past few hours in a jail cell. Most wore orange jumpsuits with OPP stenciled across their chests.
The magistrate plowed through most of it by rote, in a practiced monotone. DWI? Bail $250. Armed robbery? Bail is $25,000.
Norella, slumped in a pew with a hand covering her eyes, was waiting her turn with the mostly male congregation. Tubby tried to get her attention by waving, but she wouldn’t look up. Finally he prevailed upon a well-endowed police officer to tap his client on the shoulder. She jumped and her eyes followed the pointing finger to her attorney. He motioned for her to join him at the barricade.
Norella looked past the policewoman’s blue chest to see who might object. Since no one was paying attention, she stood up, shook out her orange jumpsuit, and came to him with as much dignity as possible— difficult considering that her suit was at least five sizes too large and was bunched in comic cuffs around her elbows and ankles.
“I am not so attractive, am I?” she inquired sheepishly.
“Actually, orange pajamas look good on you,” he told her. “Have you been before the judge yet”
“No, I have just been waiting.”
“Have they treated you all right?”
“I could not sleep. Everything here smells like roach spray. When can I go home?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out. Who arrested you?”
“That man over there.” She pointed out a square-headed detective wearing a baggy gray suit in the back of the courtroom. Tubby recognized him as LaBoeuf Kronke, who had been in charge at the boathouse the day of Max Finn’s death. Kronke smiled at Tubby and wiggled an index finger at him by way of saying hello.
“Go back to your seat, dear,” he instructed Norella. “Let’s see what’s what.”
Reluctantly she rejoined the accused while her lawyer approached the law.
“Good morning, Mr. Dubonnet. I’m surprised to see you here so early,” Kronke said pleasantly.
“You arrest ’em, I come. What brings you down here for a bail hearing, detective?”
“Considering that Mrs. Finn is presumably well-connected and that she started screaming for a lawyer the moment we laid a hand on her, I thought you would probably show up. I didn’t want the magistrate to get all confused and decide we didn’t have any probable cause and maybe let her go home by herself.”
“So don’t be coy. What did she do?”
“Attempted to flee the jurisdiction— specifically on a jet to someplace I can’t pronounce in South America.”
“You may be speaking of Tegucigalpa in Honduras. That’s Central America.”
Kronke frowned and shook his head. “I was afraid this was going to be difficult,” he said.
“Not at all. Why can’t she leave New Orleans?”
“She’s a material witness to a murder.”
“Oh, come on. Nobody gets arrested for that. And did you say murder? I thought that was still an open question. How did you know she was taking a flight anyway?”
“I had her tailed.”
“Why?” Tubby displayed indignation.
“I told you,” Kronke said calmly. “She’s a material witness.”
“So you stopped her, which interfered with her civil rights, laying your entire department open to an enormous damage suit, not to mention the embarrassment to her of being tailed and arrested, and then what?”
“In her luggage we find two grams of cocaine.”
“Come on. Nobody smuggles cocaine to South America.”
“Central America.”
“Right. It’s obviously a mistake or a plant.”
“Plant is a nasty word. Anyway, we got her.”
“Fantastic. What do you want to do with her?”
“We want her to cooperate with us fully in the investigation of her husband’s death. She has to know more than she’s telling. Maybe she’s involved. I don’t know. In any case, I want her to start talking. If that means keeping her in jail, so be it. The drug-possession charge is very troubling.”
“I’ll bet it is,” Tubby said. “Enlighten me— what is your theory about Max Finn’s death? I thought the coroner was calling it a suicide.”
“That’s not final or public. And I don’t suppose you’d tell me where you heard that rumor.”
“Does it matter?”
“The coroner’s inquiry is supposed to be confidential until the report is released.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like murder, does it? Swallowing gambling chips from a casino is not exactly poison.”
“It doesn’t sound like a suicide, either. I demand to know the source of your information.”
“Strange way to kill yourself, indeed,” Tubby agreed, “but strange things happen, and this doesn’t add up as a murder. There’s lots of quicker and easier ways to off somebody, not to mention cheaper.”
“It is interesting,” Kronke admitted, “but the lady over there hasn’t helped us at all.”
“She probably doesn’t know anything that would help you. Norella is not the world’s brightest woman. If her husband was involved in something illegal, he wouldn’t have told her in a million years.”
“What makes you think he was involved in anything illegal,” Kronke pounced.
“I’m speculating. Isn’t that what you’re doing?” Tubby was hot.
“You say she’s a dummy?” Kronke was doubtful.
“A fiery Latin. Lots of beauty but not many brains.” He smiled at Norella across the room.
“Are you gentlemen ready?” Magistrate Hampson called from the bench.
Tubby looked around and realized that all of the prisoners except Norella had been processed and taken away. He had not realized that the judge was waiting for him and the policeman to work out a deal.
“Why don’t I take her out of here on her own recognizance?” Tubby asked the detective.
“Looks bad. Should be maybe a hundred thousand dollars.”
“I’ll bring her to your office tomorrow for a talk.”
“What’s she going to tell us?”
“I can’t promise what she’d say.”
“That’s not good enough for me.”
“Gentlemen,” the judge said again. He had a golf game waiting.
“Your Honor,” Tubby said, standing and going forward. “I am Mrs. Finn’s lawyer. This charge of leaving the jurisdiction is very unusual— especially since this woman’s husband died last week in a case that is still under investigation and is not officially a murder. She is under no compulsion to stay in Louisiana or Orleans Parish. There’s been no determination as to the cause of death.”
“There’s a possession charge here,” the magistrate said, studying his papers.
“Yes, sir, and I think it’s bogus. But in any case, Your Honor, no probable cause to search.”
“Incident to arrest,” Detective Kronke growled.
“You have something to say, Detective?”
Sure he did, and spun his tale. Tubby argued some more. An assistant district attorney finally arrived to glance at the file and add her two cents’ worth.
Magistrate Hampson finally held up his hands and said, “I am setting bail at five thousand dollars. The court will accept Mr. Dubonnet as the defendant’s personal surety, if he wants the responsibility. Anybody want to argue about it, take it to the district judge. Mrs. Peruna Finn, you are not to leave Orleans Parish until Mr. Dubonnet gets eve
rybody’s permission, capiche?”
Mrs. Finn nodded sullenly.
It took two more hours to get her out. There were some forms for Tubby to sign, where he promised to fork over $5,000 if Norella skipped her court appearance. Mentally kicking himself, he scribbled his signature. The last thing Detective Kronke said was, “Don’t forget we want her to talk to us.”
“Screw yourself,” Tubby said, but he immediately regretted it. There was no sense aggravating the police.
The deputies carried Norella back to the jail to process her out. She was back in her traveling clothes, waiting for her paperwork to catch up, when Tubby found her again, still behind a barred door.
“Have you got money for a cab?” he asked.
“Cash? No!” she said angrily.
“Well, here’s a twenty. Call me when you get home. I’ve, uh, got some business I must attend to back at the office.”
She waved him away with a disgusted look and stamped her foot on the floor.
***
He hit the sidewalk and used a pay phone on Tulane Avenue to call Flowers. As usual, he got the detective’s recording.
“This is Tubby. It’s about eleven o’clock. Norella Finn is going to be walking out of Central Lockup and looking for a cab to take her home. If you get this message, I want the lady followed. Stick with her until we talk. And by the way, there may also be a police tail on her.”
CHAPTER XXIII
It was about six o’clock when Flowers came to Tubby’s office. Cherrylynn had left for the day, punctually. Had she known that the detective was coming she might have stayed late.
Tubby was staring out the window watching a tug boat flailing against the current, trying to park an oil tanker at the Piety Street wharf, when he hard the rap on his door and waved the six-foot-tall detective in.
“Am I messing up your dinner plans?” the lawyer asked, trying to be polite.
“Dinner? My day’s just beginning. I’m spying on a ship captain up in St. Rose tonight to see what he sneaks on board.”
“Contraband?”
“Girlfriend.”
“That sounds like great sport. Wish I could join you.”
“Better bring a flask. Oh, I forgot. You quit drinking, right?”
“Taking a breather is more like it.” His gut tightened. “Take a seat. Let me tell you what I need. Actually, it’s several things.”
Flowers extracted his leather notebook and waited expectantly.
***
The winch creaked loudly, and the man on the dock stopped cranking the handle and listened.
The sounds of rigging clanging against the sailboat masts, a muffled motor of a small boat puttering through the yacht harbor without wake, and snatches of laughter from the bars across the water reached his ears.
“Whatcha waitin’ for?” his partner hissed.
“It’s noisy,” he whispered back.
“Nobody’s home. Crank that sucker down.”
Slowly the man worked the winch and allowed the sleek racing boat to settle into the water.
“Wanna hear some noise, let’s start this baby up,” his partner suggested, being funny.
The man didn’t reply but jumped lightly into the vessel while his partner on the dock grunted and pushed it out of the boathouse. Their plan was to tie it to their sixteen-foot ChrisCraft and tow it quietly past the long row of docked sailboats to an ancient dry dock and gas pump that was often out of business but was open for them on this particular night. There they would pop the ignition switch.
“Somebody is going to see us,” his partner sang cheerfully, securing the line and jumping into the smaller boat. He pushed the lever that made the inboard motor start purring.
“Just act naturally,” the man called softly. He stayed at the wheel of the sleek vessel and steered while his partner pulled them across the harbor.
Lights burned inside a couple of the sailboats, but no one was on deck, as far as they could see. Two people leaned against a phone pole in the shadows— they might have been necking. There were not any other boats moving around.
In a few minutes they came alongside the rusty dry dock, advertised by an old Pure gas sign. They scrambled to get the boat tied off, and another man joined them there.
He got to work with locksmith’s tools, and after ten fretful minutes he whispered, “All set!”
“Shall we get underway?” the first pirate asked.
The motor caught, and they quickly untied from the dock. They puttered away and crept past the Coast Guard station without any lights.
Once clear of the harbor, the captain pulled the twin throttles back, and the OmniMach HydroRocket blasted off like a Roman candle in the night.
***
“I was parked at the boat launch across the street from the Finns’ boathouse, just like you told me,” Flowers reported on the telephone. “It was right at midnight, but a few people were still putting in and taking out. These two guys in a pickup truck drive in and backed down the ramp. They put a little boat in the water, parked the truck, and pushed off. I didn’t pay too much attention to them.”
“Okay.”
“Now I’m watching the boathouse with my infrareds and I see a little movement. I get out and cross the street, and sure enough, somebody’s taking the race boat out of its shed. I sneak around some more, and guess who it is— the two guys from the pickup truck. They take the boat and tow it across the harbor to some place with a hoist where I’m thinking they’re going to pick it out of the water again.
“So I hotfoot it back to the pickup truck to see the registration, but instead of a tag it has one of those New Orleans specials.”
“A handwritten sign saying license applied for?”
“You got it. But the dudes got back before I had time to break in. The same time they get back, the damn boat goes flying out across the lake and disappears.”
“Okay.”
“Since I couldn’t go after the race boat, I followed the pickup truck. They drove out Veterans Boulevard and guess what?”
“What?”
“They parked that truck right at Lucky LaFrene’s Chevrolet, Hyundai, Nissan, and Isuzu, take the trailer off, hook it up to a brand-new sports car, and shoot out of there.”
“Where did they go?”
“Well, right then I had some bad luck. One of Sheriff Lee’s finest taps on my window to see why I’m lurking on the side of the road.”
“By the time I convince him that I’m a licensed professional with every right to act suspicious my guys have disappeared into the night.”
“Lucky LaFrene’s, huh?”
“Yeah. What do you make of it?”
“Sounds to me like Lucky LaFrene’s got himself a new boat.”
“And a fast one.”
“What else can you accomplish tonight?”
“You tell me.”
“Go to bed.”
“I’m still working on your other project. I hope to have something to tell you tomorrow.”
Tubby hung up.
This case has more wrinkles than all the peas in Asia, he told himself, and tried to get back to sleep.
CHAPTER XXIV
The call from the DA came sooner than Tubby had hoped. First Assistant Candy Canary delivered the message.
“We are presenting our case against Judge Hughes to the grand jury next week,” was what she had called to say.
Tubby was perplexed. “If you want his cooperation, that’s no way to get it,” he protested.
“You are welcome to come down and discuss a guilty plea.”
“He’s not guilty. I’ve interviewed your informant, Sultana Patel, and she will say that she was paid to make advances to the judge. He was entrapped.”
“That was not the testimony she gave in her sworn affidavit, and she reiterated those same facts before the grand jury.”
“What I’m saying is true. A man named Max Finn paid her.”
“And who is this Finn?”
“A
man who preys on women. He died last week under suspicious circumstances.”
“Very convenient. I’m not inclined to believe your dead witness, and I don’t believe it would make any difference if I did. Your client broke the law.”
“Very doubtful. And I don’t believe a grand jury will indict him when it hears Sultana Patel’s full story.”
“They have already heard enough from her.”
“I must insist that you call her to testify again.”
“That’s my boss’s call.” She hesitated, as if taking instructions from someone off stage. “I feel certain that his position will be that her original testimony, before she was coached by you, is all that is needed for the grand jury’s deliberations. Whatever new claims she wants to make can come out at the trial.”
“By then his reputation will be ruined,”
“Reputations are not our business, Mr. Dubonnet. Justice is. We’ve extended the olive branch to your judge.”
“If there were genuine corruption in the bench, Judge Hughes would willingly cooperate to root it out. You wouldn’t need to threaten him. But he doesn’t know of any.”
Odd sounds crossed the line, and Marcus Dementhe’s voice boomed in Tubby’s ear.
“No corruption? The stench from that courthouse fills the city. Those hypocritical men and women who wear the robes are filthy with deception. If you can’t see that, you’re as blind as the statue of justice.”
“Sir, what I see is not important. What Judge Hughes sees is, and he has no idea what you want.”
“Then he is chopped liver.”
“Can you give us a little guidance, maybe? I mean, who is your real target?”
“Everyone who violates the public trust is my target, starting with Judge Hughes. And if you don’t want to see his name in the headlines of every paper in town next week, you had better come to me with an offer and some real dirt.”
Dementhe hung up, and when Tubby could get his fingers to loosen their grip, he did too.
CHAPTER XXV
What used to take shoe leather now took CD ROMs. Flowers had them all: Skip Trace IV, You Can Run But You Can’t Hide, Who’s Who in the Known Universe, and the Phone Book Cross-Check, to name just a few. He also subscribed to all the monthly updates.