Then the vegetation returned.
Finally, civilization conquered the landscape. Arriving at Karpis’s address a few minutes later, he saw him in the big front yard, trying to wrestle a large section of dying privet hedge out of the ground. As Gatlin pulled into the drive, Karpis stopped working, looked in Gatlin’s direction, and took off the gloves he was wearing. Gatlin got out of his car and they met halfway across the lawn.
The first thing that caught Gatlin’s eye was the full arm sleeve tattoo of two colorful intertwined Koi on Karpis’s right arm. Koi were carp, Gatlin recalled. Carp on a Karpis. How about that.
Karpis had long wavy hair with gray highlights in it. His driver’s license said he was fifty-five years old, but he appeared younger. He was lean and muscular, with odd cheekbones that looked like bunions under the corner of each eye, and his nose was slightly askew: A guy that had been around and had enough left to do it all again. If he’d been dressed in cammies, sunglasses, and a cap, would he resemble the body taken from the water at Bayou Sauvage? Gatlin decided that from 200 yards away, he definitely would. And the background check said he was a marksman in the marines.
Gatlin flashed his badge. “Mr. Karpis, I’m Lieutenant Gatlin with the NOPD. I’d like to talk to you about Joe Broussard.”
A kaleidoscope of expressions rippled across Karpis’s face, reminding Gatlin of a squid he once saw changing color. Gatlin was sure that at the mention of Joe’s name, there had been a fleeting look of pleasure on Karpis’s face, followed by one of concern, then arrogance. The latter was the one that remained.
“Yeah,” Karpis said, “I heard somebody took the old man out. About time.” Arrogance now gave way to anger. “That old shit didn’t care about anybody but himself. The world is better off with him not in it. In fact, I like what it says in Deuteronomy 5:9 . . .”
Gatlin waited for him to finish his thought, but he let it go. “Never mind. I guess you’re here because I threatened him.”
“In front of a lot of witnesses, I understand.”
“I was upset . . . still am, but you’ll be disappointed to know that I didn’t do it. Although it was such a slick operation, wish I could say I did.”
“Where were you yesterday morning?”
“Fishing.”
“Where?”
“Bayou Rigolettes.”
He was referring to a body of water about ten miles south.
“You have your own boat?” Gatlin asked.
He gestured to the garage. “Behind the house.”
“Where’d you put in?”
“Public boat ramp at Lafitte.”
Gatlin was aware of that ramp, had even seen it. “It costs five bucks to put in there. Got your receipt?”
“It blew out of my shirt pocket and into the water while I had my Mercury at full throttle.”
“Anybody go with you?”
“I don’t like a lot of talking while I’m on the water.”
“So that’s a ‘no’. Stop anywhere to buy bait?”
“Don’t need live bait for Speckies. Top water plugs work great if you know which ones to use.”
“I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“How many’d you catch?”
“Twenty maybe.”
“Where are they?”
“Catch and release, just like bail bonds work in your business.”
“Did you kill Joe Broussard?”
Karpis gave Gatlin a sardonic grin. “Small talk is over, I guess. No, I did not kill him.”
“Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Suppose you screw it up and say I failed? Then you find some schlub judge to admit it into evidence. Sorry, I don’t trust you.”
“Did you send him any threatening notes?”
Karpis squinted at Broussard but didn’t answer. After another few seconds, he said, “I let him know I was thinking about him a couple times, but I don’t believe anything I sent amounts to a real threat, at least not legally.”
“Found a new job yet?”
“Not a lot of openings for my skill set.”
There were a lot of phrases Gatlin thought should be retired. ‘SKILL SET’ was one of them. “Mind giving me a phone number where you can be reached?”
“Sure, but you should know I screen my calls.”
He recited a number and Gatlin wrote it in his book, then said, “Got any trips scheduled?”
“What are we, best friends now, discussing our future plans?”
“Oh, I think I know your future. That’s what you should be preparing for.”
Gatlin turned and walked away
Karpis watched until the old detective was in his car and back onto the street. Then Karpis walked over, picked up the shovel near where he’d been working, and threw it across the yard.
Gatlin didn’t go back toward the city, but instead headed south, until he could get on the two-lane bridge over Bayou Barataria. Except for a strung-out cluster of small clouds low on the horizon, the sky ahead was clear and blue. Traveling over the treetops and then the bayou stole Gatlin’s thoughts and he simply enjoyed the feeling of being above the strife and evil that lay below.
A few minutes later, Gatlin navigated around the curve that brought him onto Jean Lafitte Highway. For the next eight miles, the bayou flirted with the road like an old-time Bourbon Street Burlesque dancer, now showing a bit of itself then hiding the goods behind whatever vegetation was present. As he drove, his mind went back many years to when his son, Andy, was still alive . . . before the meningitis killed the boy and a good part of his mother’s good nature. Yes, they still had a grown daughter, but there was no way one remaining child could fill the void left by the death of the other, who would always remain in their memory as a small boy. How many times had he and little Andy hauled their sea Fox Commander to the Lafitte boat ramp? He didn’t know it then, but those were some of the best days he’d ever have in his life. It seemed ironic that he’d spent his life making sure killers were punished, but couldn’t do anything to the one that had ravaged his son’s brain.
He didn’t regularly have thoughts like this. It was just the surroundings that had brought them on. As quickly as they had come, they left, and he continued the trip in a neutral state of mind.
When he finally reached the entrance to the boat ramp’s dirt parking lot and drove inside, he found a dozen empty boat trailers and trucks waiting for their owners to return from the water. He parked beside one of them and walked over to the tan kiosk with an outdoor counter. Inside was a kid wearing a pair of big glasses with black frames.
“Yessir. You want a launch ticket?”
“Were you here yesterday morning?”
“All day from 6:00 a.m. ‘till 5:00 p.m.”
Gatlin took out his cell phone and navigated to the driver’s license photo of Howard Karpis. “Was this guy here yesterday?” He held the phone close to the kid’s face.
After a few seconds of moving his head around like he was trying to see the picture better, the kid said, “He’s got funny cheek bones. I wouldda remembered that. So, no, he wasn’t here.”
The kid could have been mistaken. But Gatlin didn’t believe he was. Heading back to his car, Gatlin imagined the metallic caress of handcuffs against his fingers as he brought them out of his pocket and into position. He even thought he heard the click of the latch teeth engaging over Howard Karpis’s wrists. But he had a lot of work to do before that would happen.
The entrance gate to the picnic area at Bayou Sauvage was closed and locked with a big padlock, and there was a strip of crime-scene tape wrapped around the gateposts. Broussard sat in his white T-Bird and assessed the situation. In five minutes of fiddling with his phone, he hadn’t been able to contact anyone to let him in. But he was not a man to be thwarted by such a minor problem, especially since the gate was meant only to stop vehicles. There was no fence on eith
er side.
He gracefully slithered out of his car and crunched across the oyster shell pavement to the left end of the gate, where duckweed-covered water almost touched the galvanized anchoring post. Having seen that the right side of the gate would be no better, he took a long look around for gator eyes watching him, then grabbed hold of the gatepost and tried to imitate the time he’d seen one of the flying Wallendas walk across a two-inch steel cable 1500 feet above the ground.
But Wallenda didn’t have a ponderous stomach to deal with. That particular encumbrance pushed Broussard away from the post as he passed it, sending both feet into the bayou up to his ankles. Undeterred by this and using the post for leverage, he managed to get back onto the road on the inside. His wet shoes squishing with every step, he walked down the road toward the picnic tables.
Reaching his destination, he saw that no one had cleaned up anything. The picnic tables that people had turned over for protection still lay on their side. On the ground in the middle of the area, beside one of the upended tables, he saw the smashed remains of Uncle Joe’s birthday cake. Judging from the small amount that was left, it had surely been sampled by the area wildlife. And there was paper litter everywhere.
As he stood there, he heard the latent echoes of the violence that had been visited upon the place the day before. He thought about walking over and looking at the spot where Joe fell, but then, deciding it would serve no purpose, he began to hunt for that birthday card.
Ten minutes later, he still hadn’t found it. He’d even searched through the 55-gallon steel drum with the sign on it that said: LITTERING MAKES THE GROUNDS AND YOU, LOOK BAD.
His inability to find the card could mean it wasn’t there. In her anxious state, Amelia might have taken it back to her car and it had fallen down between the seats. Not wanting to give up too soon, he took a final survey of the area. He’d been looking at the ground around the tables and had even poked in the nearby weeds. For the first time, he let his gaze sweep upward, out over the water, hoping he might see it floating within reach. And there, about four feet from shore, in a clump of cypress knees, he saw an envelope.
Figuring his shoes were already wet, he took a moment for gator surveillance then waded out, sinking in mud that he should have expected, but didn’t. Water edging higher with each step, he kept moving forward, water now to his calves . . . now to just below his knees . . . starting to tickle his lower thighs . . . and . . . he leaned over and snatched the envelope from its resting place. He lifted it to his face and turned it over to see the writing across the front: TO JOE.
Now he was ready to sit down in his office and compare the list of picnic invitees with the names on the card. But that task would not be completed anytime soon, because he had no sooner reached his car than he received a phone call that a man in NOPD custody had unexpectedly died. Considering the potential political consequences of this, and the fact Broussard had agreed with Charlie Franks that this was Broussard’s weekend to deal with any time-sensitive issues, he didn’t even bother going home to change into dry clothes before heading for the morgue.
Chapter 16
Bubba called Kit a little after 2:00 p.m. on Sunday to say her car was ready. They agreed that Bubba would pick her and Teddy up in front of the photo gallery in thirty minutes and they would then return him to the impoundment lot. In addition to bringing good news about her car, Bubba’s call was a welcome break from the hours she and Teddy had spent looking at the surveillance videos from Gator Willie’s.
They got back to Kit’s apartment around 3:00 p.m., and though it was by now an activity that Kit believed would produce nothing, Teddy wanted to look at the videos again.
Three minutes later, just as Kit returned from a bathroom break, Teddy pointed at the screen and excitedly said, “Look at that!”
He paused the action and hit rewind. “Watch Betty’s right hand.”
In the video, Kit saw a guy in a blue baseball cap approach the bar from Betty’s right side, where her hand rested on the bar while she spoke to a customer. Now that Teddy had focused Kit’s attention, she saw the guy in the baseball cap put his hand over Betty’s. Without looking at the guy, Betty quickly pulled it away.
“How could I not have seen that?” Kit said. “I’ve watched it all those times.”
“The view is blocked by someone passing,” Teddy replied. “It’s only apparent for a split second.”
Kit wanted to see the guy’s face, but he turned to his left and moved out of frame.
“Call up a split screen of all the interior cameras,” Kit said.
Teddy complied but they couldn’t find the guy in any of them.
“Give me the camera on the outside door.”
They sat and watched that view for thirty minutes. Then, “There he is,” Kit said, pointing. As he left, his face was clearly visible. “Let me have the mouse.”
Teddy moved the mouse and its pad to her side, where she hit rewind and went back to the full-face shot. At that point she stopped the video and did a screen capture.
“Change chairs,” she said.
When she was reseated, she cropped the picture of the guy and relayed it to her cell phone. Then she navigated to Dee Evans’ phone number and typed a brief text message: Do you recognize this man? She attached the photo and sent the message on its way.
“Who’d you send the picture to?” Teddy asked.
“Dee Evans, Betty Bergeron’s apartment mate. She told me about a guy whose been harassing Betty, but she didn’t remember his name. If that’s the guy, we can take his picture around the Tulane campus and the bar and maybe find out who he is.”
While they waited for Evans to answer, Teddy said, “You know, I once heard on TV that when the police want to find someone, they ping their cell phone. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think the phone provider sends the phone a signal to respond. When it does, the response goes to the nearest cell tower, and from there to some central switchboard at the company. I don’t know how close they can get to the exact location of the person that way, but at least it’d get you in the right area.”
“I thought about that,” Kit said. “But the phone has to be on. And Betty’s isn’t. I checked that myself. But thanks for the thought.”
Kit then remembered that she hadn’t yet done a background check on Leo Silver. She told Teddy what she was doing and turned again to her computer. After a short session there, she sat back very disappointed. “He has no criminal record. Not even a parking ticket.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t guilty of something,” Teddy said. “Maybe he just hasn’t been caught yet. I wouldn’t give up on him.”
“I agree. Feel like taking a little ride and talking to some people?”
“That’s pretty vague, detective. Could you be more specific?”
“I was able to get the picture that’s on Silver’s driver’s license. Let’s take that and the one of the guy in the bar over to Betty Bergeron’s apartment and show both pictures to the neighbors . . . see if they’ve noticed anything odd involving either one of them.”
A few minutes later, as they crossed the courtyard outside Kit’s apartment, they encountered a young guy with fashion model good looks coming in from the lattice panel tunnel. He was carrying three 2 x 6s on one shoulder.
Seeing them, he brushed the dark curls from his forehead and grinned. “Dr. Franklyn, how are you?” Despite the weight he was transporting he stopped walking. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to make any noise today. Because of the light traffic, it’s just easier to bring in supplies on a Sunday.”
“Makes sense to me,” Kit said. “Teddy, this is Remy LeBlanc. He and his father own the company doing the renovations back here. Remy, this is my fiancée, Teddy LaBiche.”
Because Remy was steadying the lumber with his right hand, Teddy didn’t attempt a handshake but simply said, “I admire a man who can carry that much in one trip.”
“Got to maximize your effort if you want to make any mon
ey in this business. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to put this stuff down before I drop it. Good meeting you, Teddy.”
Out on the street Teddy said, “How do you know his first name?”
Kit gave him a coquettish look. “Jealous?”
“Want me to be?”
“Just a little.”
“Okay, maybe this much.” He held his thumb and forefinger so close they were almost touching.
“Remy is a distant relative of Andy Broussard. He did some work for Andy a few months ago and when I mentioned to Andy that my landlord was looking for a reliable contractor, he recommended the LeBlancs.”
The trip to Betty Bergeron’s apartment proved to be a waste of time and they learned nothing useful. They didn’t even see Dee Evans. On the way home, Teddy said, “It’s nearly five o’clock. Are we going to keep our reservations at Commander’s Palace?”
Behind the wheel, Kit inhaled sharply. Their engagement celebration dinner. She’d forgotten all about it. “You don’t think I’d miss out on seeing you in a jacket and tie, do you? What time are we supposed to be there?”
“Six o’clock.”
Considering the garage where she parked was three blocks from her apartment, that wasn’t going to leave much time for her to get ready. Teddy could change much faster. So, pushing the speed limit all the way back, she pulled to a stop in front of the photo studio and jumped out. “You park the car and I’ll get dressed. With luck, I’ll be out of the bathroom by the time you get back.”
“You know how that sounded?”
“Very funny.”
While Kit ran for the door to the courtyard, Teddy hustled around the front of the car and hopped in without remembering to put the seat back. The true measure of a man’s good nature is if he refrains from cursing when he accidently bangs his knee, stubs his toe, or injures himself in some other avoidable way. By this test, Teddy proved himself mortal. But in his defense, he cursed in Cajun French, which at least sounds polite.
Assassination at Bayou Sauvage Page 9