The Caesar Clue (The Micah Dunn Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  We shook hands without greeting and he started to unpack his suitcase. A lanky red-neck of fifty, he’d drifted down to New Orleans from north Louisiana, and now he ran an electronics-supply house. But he made money after hours by doing electronic counterintelligence. He dipped snuff, had a dim view of all kinds of government, and got pleasure at the thought of throwing a monkey wrench into any of Big Brother’s machinations. I watched him unscrew the ear- and mouthpieces of my phone and attach his voltmeter. Like most PIs, I left the specialty work to others, but I knew the most common types of phone bugs would cause a minute drop in voltage, a change that could be detected by the kind of instrument Sessoms was using. He played with his dials for a while, shook his head, and then put my phone back together. Then he got out a magnetometer and started to sweep the walls.

  When he finished, he put his machine away and went to my window, where he glanced out, spat some snuff into the jar he carried and then motioned me out to the balcony.

  “If the phone was tapped, the tap’s off now. Nothing in the office, but you got a big window there, onto the street.”

  “Infrared,” I said, then laughed. “But you don’t think they’re in the old Mint?” It was one of the Quarter’s famous landmarks, directly across the street from me.

  “Not likely,” he agreed and spat again. “Though I’ve seen stranger things. More likely your other window, the one on the end. It would be an easy shot from the building across the street. That way they could hear everything going on in the room. Clean and simple; no need to get inside, no evidence to keep track of.”

  “We’re talking government, then,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Not necessarily. I can get the equipment if I want to. Hell, today everything’s for sale. And, you may not be bugged at all.”

  I thanked him and tried to give him some money, but he just smiled.

  “Professional courtesy,” he said. “Just keep them cards and letters coming.”

  After breakfast I called Sandy’s number and left a message for her to meet me for lunch. I had an appointment with a woman in Chalmette who was sure her ex had snatched their ten-year-old. The cops had refused to act and I listened as she went through a pack of Winstons and two martinis, describing in detail what a dirty, depraved bastard her ex had been and probably still was. She wasn’t the ideal client, but few of them are and she had a court order, so I laid out my terms and when she didn’t blink I agreed to look into it.

  Half an hour later I met Sandy at a burger joint on Chef Menteur Highway. She was stylish in a flowing dress and a half dozen gold necklaces and she drew admiring stares from a couple of brothers who whispered together and smiled. She stabbed them with a look and their whispering stopped.

  “Sorry to be late,” she said, sweeping into the booth. “I had a late night.”

  I explained about the woman and the abducted boy, and gave her the address on the last child-support check. “It’s Mississippi, so the locals aren’t all that interested. Figure it’s a federal case.”

  “And the feds don’t see any headlines from a custody dispute,” she agreed. “Gotcha, babe.”

  “Anything turn up on the Morvant woman?”

  She shook her head, exuding a perfume that smelled like orchids. “Street people don’t want to say nothing, but nothing. Your buddies, Mancuso and company, have stirred ‘em all up, looking for these girls that got lost. Same in Jefferson. You know how it is: Strung out kid, peddles herself for a couple of months, and moves on, but somebody at city hall has a hard-on, so now the cops are running all over the place, and nobody’ll talk because they think I may be the law.”

  “Well, I’ll tell Sal to lay low,” I promised.

  Sandy smiled and got up. “Right on. And I’ll get on this straightaway, Micah. But I’ll bet the kid’s better off.”

  “Probably,” I agreed and drove back to the central business district. I picked up a check for services at John O’Rourke’s law office on Gravier, along with a congratulatory note telling me my evidence had resulted in a settlement. The lawyer was in court on another case and his secretary, Abbie, let me borrow his phone.

  The book listed Dr. L.V. Laurent under “Psychiatry—Adult.” He had an office on Clearview Parkway, in Metairie, so I called to see if he was in, thinking I’d drive out if he was and try to figure some entrée.

  “Are you a patient?” the receptionist asked pleasantly.

  “No, I’m an attorney he talked to about … well, a matter we discussed. I’ve looked into it and I need to get in touch with him.”

  “I see. Well, the doctor’s at Riverview this afternoon. You can probably contact him there.”

  “Thank you.”

  A few blocks from the Riverside Country Club in Harahan, Riverview Clinic was a complex of brick one stories built in the last ten years, before the oil glut made new ventures unpopular. A border of well-clipped bushes masked a chain-link fence and the wood-shingled security hut at the entrance drive could have been taken from any of a couple of dozen residential developments. I told the guard I’d come to take Dr. Laurent’s car to the shop and he obligingly described it. I thanked him, signed in with my real name, and parked three cars away from the psychiatrist’s blue BMW. Then I went inside and asked the lady at the front desk if I could have an audience.

  The woman appraised me for a second, then pressed a button on the telephone. “What was your name?” she asked.

  “Dunn,” I said. “Micah Dunn.”

  She repeated my name into the receiver, nodded with a frown, and hung up slowly, as if the phone were alive.

  Half a minute later I was being hustled out by two men who didn’t want to hear my reasons. I’d half expected it, but it had been worth a try. I reverted to Plan B, which meant an afternoon of waiting, but waiting was part of my job.

  I was lucky, though. He must have finished early, because it was only three-thirty when the BMW passed through the gates and headed north, toward Jefferson Highway.

  When he was a block ahead, I followed, keeping far enough behind that my ’83 Cutlass wouldn’t arouse any suspicions.

  If he was headed for his club, I’d have trouble following him in, but as it turned out he was just going back to the office and I caught up on Clearview and slid in beside him, so that I was getting out before he’d finished locking his car.

  “Doctor Laurent,” I called, hurrying over to his side of the car.

  He looked up, quizzical under thick black brows. He was short, with a black beard that hid his features, and made him look younger than he probably was.

  “Yes? What do you want?”

  “My name is Dunn,” I said. “I need to ask you something.”

  His lips curled down in distaste. “Mr. Dunn, or whatever your name is, I have no intention of answering any questions. You misrepresented yourself to my office and then you concocted some lie to get onto the clinic grounds. I don’t have time for this kind of nonsense and if you don’t leave immediately, I’ll have you arrested. I saw you following me and I called the police on my car phone.”

  I got the feeling he expected applause but I just shrugged.

  “Have it your way, Doctor. All I want to know is why you prescribed Elavil to Julia Griffith.”

  “Do you think I’ll stand here and discuss the details of my practice with a stranger?”

  “I don’t know, Doctor. I’d just like to know what you were treating her for.”

  Ego got the better of irritation and he bestowed a patronizing smile. “If you knew anything about psychiatrists, you’d know we’re medical doctors, and that patient-physician privilege is absolute.”

  “Then Julia Griffith is a patient of yours?”

  “I said I don’t discuss my patients.” Once more, though, ego rose to the fore. “But, as a matter of fact, I don’t have any patient by that name. Now if I were you I’d leave before the police get here.”

  “They’re pretty slow,” I said. “But we could all go down and talk about what happ
ened to the plane Julia was on. It came down, you know. A mile short of the runway. So, you see, she isn’t going to sue you for divulging her secrets. She’s dead.”

  He gave me a sidelong look and then darted inside, leaving me in the late afternoon sun.

  Something about his sudden escape made me think it had all been bluff; that he hadn’t called the law and wasn’t going to.

  Why?

  I went back to my office, stopping at the pharmacy that had filled the prescription. But it was a chain operation, with a few hundred prescriptions a day, many from strangers, and the druggist was only slightly more communicative than the doctor. He didn’t know Julia, couldn’t remember her, and had work to do, if I’d excuse him.

  So I thanked him and left. The westbound lane was already bumper-to-bumper and it wasn’t quite four-thirty. In the distance was the shiny helmet of the Superdome, floating above it all. It was a pleasing sight, but I kept thinking about Solly. Somebody had told him to give me a nudge, but he knew me too well to expect me to just drop it all. Still, trying the psychiatrist had been a shot in the dark and I’d expected it to be a dead end, just like the investigation.

  When I opened my door the phone was ringing and I caught it before the answering machine cut in.

  “Dunn Investigations,” I said.

  “Right,” a tired voice said from the other end and I recognized it as Sal Mancuso. “Look, hotshot, I think you better get up to Wisner, where Mirabeau crosses the bayou. We just made the acquaintance of your friend, Linda Marconi. Somebody beat her to death and dumped her in the water across from the golf course.”

  5

  The first settlement of New Orleans was near the place where Wisner Boulevard now grew out of Carrollton and started up the west bank of Bayou St. John. The first recorded settlers were a small group of Indians. They didn’t last long after the arrival of the French, and soon the woods were felled for the Europeans. By the nineteenth century the oaks to the west of the bayou had become a favorite place for duels between young Creoles. Today, the old settlement was under the Fairgrounds, and the dueling oaks were inside City Park. Bayou St. John, once a thoroughfare to the lake, on the north, was a scenic canal, with masonry bridges reminiscent of Amsterdam, and high tone houses on the east bank.

  Whoever had done it had been considerate, I thought, as I bulled north on Wisner, through the traffic, and past the golf course on my left, where earnest putters were measuring their shots. No one’s game had been interrupted. The action was all on the right, at the water’s edge, where the disturbance would be minimal.

  I saw them soon after I crossed Harrison, a clutch of police cars on the grassy verge, right in front of the Mirabeau Avenue bridge. There was also an ambulance and a coroner’s wagon. I pulled up onto the grass and got out. As I opened my door I saw Mancuso walking toward me, the bottoms of his trousers wet.

  “Glad you could make it,” he said sourly.

  “Try calling when the whole city isn’t on the way home,” I said. “At least I didn’t have to use the Interstate.”

  “Save it,” he ordered and led me toward the water’s edge. He was in shirtsleeves, collar loose, with wet places where his 9mm hugged against his torso in the shoulder holster. My nose wrinkled as I approached the canal. The air was heavy with steam, carrying the mud smell of the bayou, along with the less pleasant smells of human excrement and rotting garbage.

  A little circle of people were standing in the ankle-high grass along the water’s edge, looking down at something. The circle parted reluctantly as Sal approached.

  “Can we move her now?” one of the coroner’s men asked. “It’s been almost three hours. …”

  “You’ll get her soon enough,” Sal snapped. “I just want this man to look at her first.” He shot me a gimlet stare. “Take a good look, Micah.”

  I did, but it wasn’t something I enjoyed. She was on her stomach, arms stretched out on either side as if she were swimming, her body half in, half out of the water. She was wearing the same outfit as when I’d seen her the night before, but it was streaked with mud and dried brown stains I recognized as blood. The left side of her face was exposed and her eye was open. So was her mouth. There were purple bruises on her face and arms and I winced.

  “Know her?” Sal asked through tight lips.

  “I met her once,” I said. “When was she found?”

  “Three hours ago. A jogger. Coroner figures she’s been there all night.”

  “Was she killed here?”

  “Who knows? My guess is they dumped her off the bridge and she washed up here.” He took a deep breath. “Look, hike your ass over here where we can talk.”

  I followed him to a spot out of earshot and he put his hands on his hips.

  “Now, goddamn it, what’s going on? I did you a favor last night, damn it, and you promised to keep me abreast. So what happens? First thing I know I get a call that a body’s been found in the bayou. They call me because I’m supposed to be in charge of all the dead and missing whores and maybe this is one. No good telling ‘em that if this is a whore, she’s a high-class one, not a streetwalker; that this is a murder and all the others are disappearances; and that this one looks like a beating, which probably means a pissed-off pimp or boyfriend. I’m the whore finder, so I have to come. Then imagine my surprise when I find out her prints make her the same lady one of my supposed friends asked me about just a few hours before somebody tried to remove her head. I might almost think I’d been had. So talk, Micah. I want to know what’s happening.”

  He was right. I had no reason to hold out on him. Whatever primacy Solly and his people enjoyed had disappeared with the death of Linda Marconi. It was as much a city homicide as a federal case now.

  When I finished explaining he shook his head and swore under his breath.

  “Bastards. Come in here like gang busters and think they’ve got all the answers. Okay, I’m sorry I acted pissed, but you’ve got to understand.”

  “I do. And I don’t blame you.”

  His features had softened. He took out a cigarette and lit it. “So now I’ve got two cases. Disappearing hookers, and this. There’s no way I’ll be able to explain to the lieutenant that they’re different. He knows it, but it’s all politics now. Dead white girls are high visibility.”

  I thought for a minute. “Have they turned up Julia Morvant’s body?”

  “I told you, I’m off the thing.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “But, just between us, I was a little curious. But the coroner’s man says the bodies are so jumbled up they don’t know what they’ve got. Or who.”

  I told him about Dr. Laurent. “Her name may not be Griffith,” I said. “It would be nice to have some prints.”

  He nodded. “I’ll call the Jefferson folks and make arrangements to go out and check her apartment for prints. If the feds haven’t turned everything upside-down.”

  I slept fitfully that night. Ninja warriors kept trying to get into my apartment and I kept blasting away at them with my .38. There were too many and I fell back into the office. Suddenly Solly was next to me, telling me not to worry, he’d take care of the bastards. He had some kind of laser gun and he was melting them down, laughing while he did it, and when he’d finished he broke down his ray gun and went over to the window.

  Something warned me and I yelled at him but it was too late. A death ray from across the street burned through in a shaft of red light and he vaporized before my eyes.

  I was still groggy when the phone rang and I heard my father’s voice.

  “You still asleep? Is that what they taught you at the naval academy?”

  The same old Captain.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just didn’t sleep well.”

  “Why? Sleeping alone again? I thought that archaeology woman was going to tie an anchor to you.”

  “She’ll be back in a few days.”

  “Not good for a man, being alone. I don’t sleep by myself any more than I have to.”

&nb
sp; Bravado, the mark of the old sea dog.

  “They say there’s a depression in the Caribbean,” he went on. “If it slips in between Cuba and Yucatan you’ll have a hurricane on your hands.”

  “We’ve had them before,” I said. “So what’s new in Charleston?”

  “Nothing. Everybody here makes money off what’s old. You could, too, if you’d come back.”

  “We’ve been through that before.” I tried to put the events of yesterday out of my mind. “You could come down here for a visit,” I said.

  “Not me. Seen enough of that town. Tourist trap. I was there for Mardi Gras in ’61, on the Stoner.” He chuckled. “Strange people in that town.”

  “True enough.”

  His voice turned serious. “What’s wrong, son? It’s not just loneliness, is it? Something bothering you?”

  “Just tired,” I said. “Look, I’ll talk to you later.”

  A brief silence, then a cough. “Sure. Didn’t mean to bother you. Fathers shouldn’t butt into their sons’ business. I got my own life, anyway. I’ll, ah, write when I get a chance.”

  I sensed his hurt, but there wasn’t anything to be done while I was still unsure of the phone. I made myself breakfast, fumbling the kitchen implements even worse than usual. I’d resisted special equipment, because I’d seen people manage with worse handicaps than my own, but I’d finally succumbed to a specialized can opener and a few other so-called improvements. This morning, though, I kept forgetting and expecting my left arm to work, like this was before Nam, before the academy, even, and I was living in Charleston, helping a wealthy friend race his yacht. Things had been simple then. Good was good and bad was bad, and I was going to help save the world.

  But the world was beyond saving and all anybody could do was make it from day to day, except that when airplanes exploded and young women turned up dead in the bayou it was harder, because you never knew what would happen tomorrow or if you wanted to be there to see it.