by D P Lyle
Tony’s shoulders sagged a little. Not much, but some.
“That leaves us with a problem,” Ray said. “And why I wanted to talk with you. Any idea where Kristi would have gotten this?”
“If she did,” Tony said.
“If she did,” Ray conceded.
“I don’t know.”
“Look,” Ray said. “Let’s don’t tap-dance here. Okay? We both know little goes on in that world that you don’t know. Or couldn’t find out.” Tony stared at him, face flat, giving away nothing. The consummate poker player. “You know we talked to Ju Ju and Ragman—there’s a piece of work. And they both said they knew nothing. My question to you is, are they shooting straight here?”
Tony hesitated then said, “I’ve had a chat with them, too. They told me the same thing. I’m inclined to believe them.”
“Completely?”
Tony smiled. A half smile anyway. “Mostly.”
“There you have it,” Ray said. “The question is, will you help us find out who the seller was?”
Tony shrugged. “Sure.”
“Then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“We know a great deal about you,” Ray said. “That you take care of business. To your credit. But here, I don’t want to track down someone and then have something happen to them. Outside the courts, that is.”
Tony raised an eyebrow. “You mean like floating down the Mississippi?”
“Something like that.”
“Life is funny, isn’t it? Folks stumble and fall all the time. Nothing is guaranteed. Not even someone’s next breath.”
“Look,” Ray said. “This is your domain. Your world. But it’s mine, too. Dark alleys never bothered me.”
Now, Tony smiled. “I know about you, too. I’d say we aren’t all that different. Aren’t strangers to dark passages. To the sordid corners of the human mind. I refer to several things, but mostly that little deal near Kandahar a few years back.”
Ray shrugged. “So, we understand each other?”
Tony leaned back in his chair. “We do.”
What the hell was that about? I knew Ray had done some tours in the Mideast. Back when he was involved in the spook world. He never talked about it, saying generic things like he was merely a consultant, but I had always had my doubts. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the way he avoided that period of his life. Maybe it was because I knew Ray all too well.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“WE SHOULD’VE TALKED about this long ago,” Ray said.
We were huddled around a table in the corner of the Carousel Bar. The place was noisy, which made good cover, but required each of us to lean forward to hear Ray.
“Truth is I never wanted to. Wanted to put it all in the archives. Not to mention, much of it I can’t talk about anyway.” He took a slug of his Knob Creek bourbon, swirled it in his mouth, and swallowed. “None of this leaves this table. Clear?”
I nodded, as did Pancake and Nicole.
“Back then, I was attached to a special operations group with the Pentagon. It will forever remain nameless. From me, anyway. But we carried out black ops. Mostly I was a consultant, just as I’ve always said. But sometimes, I took on a more operational role. It might be simply dead-of-the-night intel gathering. Or disrupting communication or support centers.”
“Like blowing shit up?” Pancake asked.
“Sometimes.” Another hit of bourbon.
Our waitress reappeared. Another round was ordered.
“Other times it was more personal,” Ray said. He cradled his nearly empty glass in his hands. He glanced around, either checking for curious ears or buying time. I couldn’t be sure, but I sensed he wasn’t comfortable with any of this. “Maybe a local warlord needed neutralizing. Maybe an IED team needed to be taken off the board. Maybe a certain so-called mosque needed to evaporate. Our missions took many forms.”
“Who is the our?” I asked
The waitress returned, placing bourbon before Ray, Pancake, and me and another wine before Nicole. “Anything else?”
“We’re good,” Pancake said.
“The team varied,” Ray said. “Sometimes a Marine platoon or some SEALs or Delta guys. Whatever assets were needed.”
Assets. What an innocuous term. Ray an asset. This was all news to me. That Ray had been involved in covert ops at this level. As an operative. It didn’t surprise me, yet it did. I was seeing him in an entirely new light. Not necessarily a bad one, just different. I had always regarded him as warrior of sorts, but this was different. He was basically saying he had been involved in assassinations. And more. It was weird. I felt a sense of pride to be his son. Not sure why, but the feeling was undeniable.
“So, what was Tony referring to?” I asked. “Kandahar?”
Ray pinched his nose between his eyes, then scanned the area again, before leaning forward. His voice dropped a few decibels. “This absolutely goes nowhere else. A Marine sniper, two SEALs, a Delta Force op, and I were flown into a hot zone in the city. Maybe a half mile from where the Marines had wrested control from the bad guys. We came in on one of those super quiet copters. All stealth, all dark. Remember Megan Willis? It was her boat we used to attack Barkov’s yacht and pluck you two out of the Gulf.”
“We remember,” Nicole said.
“She was the pilot on the mission. She dropped us near an abandoned soccer field in the city and then extracted us from the desert after the mission was completed.”
“She flew combat missions?” Nicole asked.
“Many times.”
“Wow, that’s amazing.”
“Megan was all that and more. She could stand her craft on its nose if need be.” He took a sip of bourbon. “The mission was to neutralize a mullah and his war dogs. The kind of op no one ever talks about.”
“A mullah?” I asked. “You killed a mullah?”
“He was that in name only. He was a bigwig in the Taliban. A commander way up the food chain. And a weapons maker. Mostly IEDs. Big ones. Ones that killed and maimed a lot of Marines over the years. Took a year to locate him. He was hunkered down in a mosque.” Another sip. “I use that term loosely. Those guys would name anything a mosque, knowing we considered them off-limits for airstrikes. This was simply a house. With a basement filled with explosives and people working round the clock to churn out IEDs.” Again, he scanned the area. “He and eight of his guys were down below. I guess they thought they were safe because they never saw us coming. I remember the thump as one of the SEALs popped the door with a well-placed explosive and then we were through the door.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you, there is nothing more disconcerting than a bunch of bullets flying around a room filled with explosives. I expected the world to go up in a big fireball at any minute. Our weapons were silenced, of course, each making that soft spitting sound. I was a pretty good shot back then, but these SEALs and the Delta guy were even better. Seemed with every shot a bad guy’s head snapped back and he was down. Took about twenty seconds, seemed like an hour, and we were alone. No one else breathing. The silence, the stillness was startling. Like we had suddenly been dropped into a vacuum.
“We set charges and humped it out of there. We were three blocks away, creeping down an alley, when the Fourth of July went off. Shook the ground with explosion after explosion. The sky looked like noon had arrived. Then all hell broke loose. Taliban guys were everywhere. Don’t know how many others we took out before we reached the open desert and scrambled down a ravine. Nearly a mile of dead-out running and then Megan swooped in and we were gone. Without a scratch.” Ray drained his glass, placed it on the table, and leaned back in his chair. “So, there you have it.”
He looked tired, older, even war weary. But I also sensed that a great weight had been lifted from him. As if this was a story he had wanted to tell for years. Needed to tell someone. Even if it meant breaking a handful of federal laws. I felt closer to him than I had since I was suiting up for Little League baseball.
�
�This is obviously all classified,” I said.
“Very.”
“How did Tony Guidry know about it?”
Ray smiled. “Not sure he did. Not the details anyway. I suspect he knows someone who knows someone and he discovered I had done a few undercover ops and maybe knew my name was connected to something in Kandahar. My guess is he was fishing. And making a power play. Acting like he knew more than he did. For Tony, the mantle of knowledge and power are necessary illusions in his world.”
I considered that for minute and decided that Ray was probably right on in his assessment. “Do you think he’ll be of any help here?”
“Not really. Not unless it’s in his best interest.”
I cupped my glass in my hands, stared down into the amber liquid, running a thumb back and forth along the lip. “Do you think his plan was to kill Kirk if the courts let him off?”
“I do.”
“And if we find out it’s someone else?” I asked.
Ray stared at me for a beat. “I think Tony hoped the courts would take care of things. Probably didn’t want to intervene. I mean, Kirk is an international star. Anything happened to him after he walked would be a media shit storm and the blowback could be huge.”
“But he would have anyway?” Nicole asked.
“Probably. For Tony, this is personal. And about power. If someone got off with killing his niece, it might not sit well. Might loosen his grip. Maybe offing Kirk would be the lesser of two evils. For him, anyway.”
“And now it looks like someone else is the killer,” Pancake said. “How does that change his equation?”
“I think with Kirk off the table, if it turns out it’s someone who had it in for Kristi, he’ll walk through the fires of hell to take care of business.”
“So, he might cooperate with us, and Doucet, until the killer is found?” I said. “Then what?”
“He’ll do what he does. Fix it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THE NEXT DAY we decided to hook up with Detective Doucet at the Acme Oyster Bar on Iberville, around the corner from the Monteleone. Ray, Pancake, and I, anyway. Nicole had gone out to the shooting site with Ebersole, Kirk, and the twins. Acme was packed, as usual. Also, as usual, a long waiting line extended down the sidewalk. We had just beaten the crowds and were near the front, only two groups of four ahead. Five minutes later, we were escorted to a four-top near the back. As we took our seats, Ray’s cell buzzed. Doucet, saying he’d be a few minutes late.
We ordered. Ray and I, gumbo and iced tea; Pancake, an oyster po’boy, fries, and iced tea. And gumbo. And a shrimp cocktail. Our tea arrived before I could unfold a napkin.
“What did Doucet say?” I asked Ray.
“He was at the ME’s office. Going over the DNA with the lab guy.”
“And?”
“And nothing. Said he’d tell us about it when he got here.” He took a gulp of tea. “But he didn’t sound overly excited. I’d suspect he came up with nada.”
“Not unexpected,” Pancake said. “I agree with Doucet. I didn’t read any of the women out there as murderers. Or as enemies of Kirk.” He played with a pack of sugar, flipping it back and forth across the table with his index fingers. Sort of like sugar hockey. Sort of like a big kid. “In fact, just the opposite. Everyone seems to love the guy.”
“Somebody doesn’t,” Ray said. “Maybe not part of the crew, but somewhere in this city Kirk has a mortal enemy.”
“Or Kristi did,” I said.
Ray nodded. “Or Kristi.”
The food arrived and we dug in. The gumbo was perfect. Thick and the right amount of spice. Pancake added a large dose of Tabasco to his and then it disappeared quickly. He moved to his shrimp cocktail, the po’boy waiting at his left elbow.
Doucet arrived as our waitress was refilling our teas. He ordered gumbo, too.
“What’s the story?” Ray asked.
“Dead end. The lab did a great job rushing the DNA for us, but they found squat. The twins of course matched each other, but none of the samples matched what was found beneath Kristi Guidry’s fingernails.”
“That means we have to look outside the film crew,” I said.
Doucet nodded. “Looks that way.”
His gumbo arrived. He stirred the rice and the soup together and took a bite. Pancake tore into his po’boy. Literally.
“Any new ideas?” I asked.
Doucet took another spoonful of gumbo, dabbed his mouth with a napkin, and shook his head. “Nothing to shout about. We’re still looking into Kristi’s life. Friends and really anyone who knew her. So far, no one looks good for this.”
Ray pushed his empty bowl away. A busboy immediately snatched it up. Ray then told Doucet about our dinner with Tony last night.
Doucet stared at him. “Tony Guidry and you guys sat down for a friendly dinner?”
“Friendly might be pushing it,” Ray said. “But we did have a long chat.”
“And?”
“My read is that Tony wanted to know what we knew. Maybe even get in our good graces so we would keep him in the loop in case we turned up anything.”
“That would be Tony. He has his eyes and ears everywhere. Knowledge is power.” Doucet leaned back in his chair. “The question I have is exactly what Tony will do with that knowledge.”
Ray nodded. “That’s my take. I think he’ll do what he usually does. Get revenge. By whatever means are necessary.”
Doucet smiled. “Seems you know Tony well.”
“I know his type.”
“Where does this leave Kirk?” I asked.
“Doesn’t drag him out of the woods, if that’s what you’re asking,” Doucet said. Another bite of gumbo. “Yesterday, after the initial DNA came back, saying it was of female origin, I chatted with Melissa Mooring and asked her the same thing. She said it was bothersome but that she was proceeding toward trial with Kirk Ford as the defendant. Said she had no reason not to do so. That she would argue that the DNA was older and had nothing to do with Kristi Guidry’s murder.”
“But this is still good for Kirk?” Nicole asked. “Right?”
Doucet shrugged. “Not my call. It all depends on how the jury sees it.”
“I called Kornblatt yesterday,” Ray said. “Told him about the DNA. He believes that’s the end of the case. That he can introduce enough reasonable doubt to gain an acquittal.”
Doucet raised an eyebrow. “Maybe. Unless he alienates the jury. Folks down here don’t care for outsiders. Particularly some slick Hollywood dude flashing thousand-dollar suits and Rolexes.”
“I suspect that’s true,” I said.
“Take it to the bank.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
AFTER LUNCH, DOUCET headed to his office; Ray, Pancake, and I back to the hotel. Ray and Pancake said they had some work to do on another case. Something down near Orlando. I wasn’t involved in that one, but I knew it had something to do with someone embezzling from an insurance firm. Millions had disappeared. Pancake was sorting through all the accounting and computer stuff, Ray looking into the lives of the two guys suspected of doing the deed.
That left me with nothing to do. I called Nicole. She said all was well on the set. The shooting was going smoothly. I lay on the bed and played with my balls. Baseballs. Throwing them up and catching them. I swung my bat a few times, carefully avoiding lamps and chairs. I read another chapter in my self-defense book.
I was restless. Felt I should be doing something.
I walked down to Café du Monde, where I found Gloria. She was due for a break so we walked up the steps to the adjacent Washington Artillery Park. We stood along the black wrought-iron rail, looking over Jackson Square and the three spires of the St. Louis Cathedral. Two tourist couples in a horse-drawn carriage clopped by below. Their wide eyes and enraptured expressions told me it was their first trip to the Big Easy. Not an uncommon reaction. Brochures and Internet pages just don’t quite capture the real thing.
“What’s up?” Gl
oria asked.
“This is just between us. For now, anyway. Okay?”
“Sounds very secretive.” She smiled.
“Sort of.”
“Okay. My lips are sealed.” She made zipping movement across her mouth. “Or would you prefer a pinky swear?”
“Just your word will do.”
Her smile evaporated. Concern creased her forehead. “What is it?”
“Some new evidence. They found DNA beneath Kristi’s fingernails.”
Her shoulders sagged slightly. “Let me guess. It’s not from Kirk Ford?”
“It’s not. In fact, it’s from a female.”
“What?”
I shrugged.
“What does that mean?”
“Since the ME thinks the DNA was fresh, it could mean someone else was in that room that night. And since Kirk was out of it, he can’t tell us who. In fact, he doesn’t remember anything.”
“This is crazy.” She looked down toward the street where a juggler entertained a cluster of tourists, her gaze unfocused. Her grip on the railing whitened her knuckles. She looked back at me. “Why are you telling me this? What do you want?”
“Do you know of anyone—any girl, woman—that might want to harm Kristi?”
“Jesus.” She shook her head. “First it’s guys. Now it’s some chick? What’s next? A space alien?”
“I’m as confused as you are about this,” I said. “And if it’s any comfort, so are the cops.” I laid a hand on her shoulder. “But I have to ask. Does anyone’s name pop up for you?”
Tears welled in her eyes. She sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “No.” Now she wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “No one here for sure. None of her friends—at least the ones I know—would ever do this.” Another sniff. “I guess this means I can expect the cops to come back by to see me?”
“Probably. And don’t freak out, but I’m sure they’ll want to take a DNA sample.”