by H Hiller
“Oh, you aren't going to tell anyone you are having sex with a suspect, now are you?” Amanda was suddenly playing our little game just a bit cruelly.
“No. No, I am not.”
Nor was I not going to join her if she really wanted me in her bed, ethics be damned. We had spent nearly every evening together since we had met, but always in public where we could never really act like the romantic couple I hoped we were becoming. We enjoyed the rest of our afternoon together and I left her bedroom silently thanking Dan Logan for his part in bringing it about, but also determined to finally solve the murder and clear Amanda so we could see where our romance would lead without that cloud hanging over us.
EIGHTEEN
I spotted the Navigator parked next to a pile of construction debris a block away on Wilkerson Row as I leaned over Amanda’s bedroom balcony. It took me another minute to find my young shadow across the street, lounging against the high metal fence ringing Jackson Square. He was trying to hide under an artist’s umbrella but kept looking towards where I was standing instead of at the artwork. My concern now became making sure these guys were away from here before Georgia and Parker returned and piqued their interest.
“What are you looking at?” Amanda asked as she molded herself against my back. She was wearing a short silk dressing gown and I could feel the warmth of her body against my own. It did not make leaving any easier.
“Do you recognize that Navigator? Paparazzi perhaps?”
“I have never seen it before. Why?”
“They have been following me off and on since I started looking into Biggie’s murder. I think it’s time to shake them off.”
I turned around without losing contact with the warmth of her body. I kissed her once more and back-pedaled her into the safety of her bedroom at the same time.
“Are you in danger?”
“I won’t be soon.”
“My hero. Just play nice, alright?”
“I’ll call you when the coast is clear.”
I had tolerated the occasional car chase and had been playing along while the young man followed me through the Quarter. I saw no specific threat from either the nameless kid trailing me or the ghost in the Navigator, but I was growing annoyed with the lack of privacy. I realized that I would inevitably draw the attention of whoever these guys were to Amanda and her family. I doubted if Avery would soon forgive me if I converted a murder investigation into a stalking, kidnapping, or something worse, involving a celebrity.
My choices were to either call Chief Avery or to ask for help from Chef Tony. Tony and I had been through enough things together that I felt more comfortable exploring the options with him than creating a situation that would involve paperwork and use-of-force restrictions. Tony was already concerned that any interest in my investigation of Biggie’s murder might attract deeper scrutiny of our own personal histories, so he readily agreed to what I had in mind.
I waited in the lobby for five minutes and then headed past Jackson Square and towards the bistro, on a path the youth had come to expect. I stopped at Café du Monde to listen to a rail thin street punk playing one of the half dozen slide guitar tunes he had learned and gave him a buck so he would hopefully buy dog food for the mongrel that he had tied up beside him. I glanced back to the Navigator just as the driver pulled out of the side street and came through the traffic light to pass me and continue towards Esplanade Boulevard. I was beginning to wonder if I was about to be abducted or if the Navigator was simply going to turn around and come back the other direction on Decatur Street as it had the last few times I had walked this route.
I resumed walking and then mixed things up for the youngster. I normally crossed the street at the statue of Joan of Arc. My tail would then fall back and we would both walk the short distance down Decatur to the bistro. The Navigator would then pick him up at the corner of Barracks Street.
Today I stayed on South Peters and entered the tourist-crowded French Market. I stopped at a produce stand just inside the entrance while I watched the youth following me talking into his cell phone. This was the first good look I had at my shadow, and I was finally able to confirm that he was neither of the boys I had spoken with in the Walmart parking lot weeks earlier. He was likely waiting for my next move so he could get directions on what he should do. I wanted to be sure he had nobody able to come to his rescue when my own ambush was sprung.
I walked very slowly past the stalls of produce and tourist junk to give Tony time to move into position, and to be sure my shadow’s focus had narrowed to just watching me. I spotted Tony standing at the entry to one of the produce companies across the street from the market itself and we begin trapping the boy in my wake.
Tony walked briskly ahead of me on a path that would intersect in the middle of the open air market. I hastily let Tony know which of the many faces around us belonged to the boy following me. I then walked forward while Tony browsed until the youth following me was past him. He then began following my stalker.
I stood still for a moment and then walked to the public restrooms. I stepped into a tiled stall, pulled my pistol from its holster, and waited. My shadow waited until he heard me bolt the door on the bathroom stall before he entered the restroom and took up a position near the sink.
I flushed the toilet, which was Tony’s signal to make his own move. He stormed into the room as my tail acted like he was washing his hands while focusing his attention on my stall in the mirror. Tony jabbed a Taser into the young boy’s diaphragm and the powerful electric shock drove the air from his lungs. I stepped out of the rest room stall with my gun drawn just in time to watch Tony pull a .45 caliber handgun from the waistband of the boy’s baggy jeans and press the muzzle against the gasping youth’s forehead.
“Would you mind telling me why you’re following me?” I holstered my own pistol.
“You be tripping. I wasn’t following you.”
“Sure you are. You personally have been watching me for the last two days. You or your pals in the Lincoln Navigator have been on me since Biggie died.”
“You got no right to hold me.”
“We can discuss that topic at Central Lockup, or you can shut the hell up.” I showed him my State Patrol badge.
“This guy ain’t no cop.” I had to admire the young man’s willingness to antagonize a man holding a gun barrel against his sweaty hairline.
“That just means he doesn’t have to follow the rules that I have to follow. So you can either start talking or I can walk out of here and leave you with my friend since you insist I can’t do anything to you.”
The kid just sat and glared back and forth at the two of us. Tony and I tried our best to respect his show of bravado but I finally had to grin. I busied myself with the wallet Tony had pulled from the boy’s pants along with the pistol.
“Your name is Arnold Dupry?” It took a moment before he grudgingly nodded an acknowledgement. Arnold was fifteen years old, and should have been in a high school math class right then.
“Call me Shooter. That’s what my friends call me.”
“You need better friends, Arnold. What’s with the pistol?”
“I’m gonna kill the guy what killed Biggie. I’m gonna shoot the guy when you catch him.” He said this with a vengeance beyond what I thought him capable of harboring.
“No, you’re not.” I wagged a finger at him. “What’s your beef in this, anyway?”
“Biggie was good to me and my brother and didn’t deserve to have that dog being put on him. Now that Bumper guy says he doesn’t know if he wants to release the record my brother and cousin made and might want the money back that Biggie give to them. We wouldn’t have no problems if Biggie still be around.”
“That’s how you bozos can afford a Navigator?”
The SUV probably represented the bulk of the money Biggie had advanced the boys against their imaginary future royalties. What it would have actually represented was Biggie’s talons since the odds of the first record any of h
is so called artists making enough to cover such a royalty advance were probably slim to none. He would milk them for a number of records before they came close to drawing even with what he would say they owed him. “Biggie’s been like a dad to us. Our real dad stayed here when we went to Houston before Katrina and we ain’t heard from him since the storm. I think the cops shot him.”
Tony pulled the pistol from Arnold’s face and helped the teen to his feet before stepping away from him. The kid gave Tony a pretty hateful look but said nothing. Tony patted me on the shoulder and tucked the confiscated weapon under his chef jacket before leaving the restroom.
“Here is how we are going to leave this. You are free to go, but you need to stay far away from me. Being bushwhacked is the least of what you can expect next time. And try not to be such an angry young man, okay? It’s not very becoming at your age.”
“Yeah.” Arnold snatched the wallet I handed him.
“Who told you I was looking into Biggie’s death anyway?”
“Bumper told my brother to keep an eye on you.”
“Tell Bumper I burned you. Are we clear on the matter of you boys following me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Arnold had apparently found his manners and sullenly nodded agreement. I marched Arnold out of the Market and towards Decatur Street. Tony was waiting for us at the corner of Barracks and Decatur.
The Navigator was parked down the block and I nudged Arnold into the street and told him to wave for his ride. He hesitated but then did so. The vehicle approached very slowly and parked a few yards short of where we were standing.
“Make sure your brother and cousins know that this is over. If I arrest anybody for Biggie’s murder you’ll see it on the news like everyone else.”
I watched Arnold walk to the Navigator without looking back. He climbed into the back seat and a moment later the big SUV pulled past me at a parade pace. I assumed the Black man of about twenty three or four behind the wheel was Arnold’s brother. We eyed one another warily, but he was just trying to show me he wasn’t intimidated. There were two passengers riding in the back seat but I could not get a good look through the tinted windows. Tony wrote the license number down on his wrist with a Sharpie he kept in the pocket of his chef jacket and we walked into the bistro for a drink.
“All clear,” I reported to Amanda when I called her from the bar phone. I continued to watch the double French doors that opened from the end of the bar onto Decatur Street in case the boys in the Navigator decided to try to try their hand at a drive-by shooting. I saw little reason to really believe I had actually seen the last of Arnold or the Navigator.
“What did you do?”
“I engaged the young man in direct dialogue and he and his friends understand that following me is not acceptable behavior.”
“Did you hurt him?”
“I did not.” This was semantically accurate, even if not entirely honest.
NINETEEN
I had left the medical and kennel records with Roger when we moved the dog to my mother’s boathouse, but he hadn’t contacted me since that time. I also still needed to test my theory about Biggie's cologne being used in the dog’s attack. I knew that finding the spark for the attack was going to be necessary in order to fully understand how Biggie had been killed, and hopefully be able to decide who had used the dog as a murder weapon. It was going to take knowing who killed Biggie to ever know why they did so.
I called Roger at the boathouse but there was no answer. It turned out he was at the animal control center and had been planning to see me at the bistro after his shift. Roger said he had quite unexpectedly found some very interesting things in the veterinary and kennel files that he wanted to show me. I was curious enough that I said I would drive over to see him. He said he was checking on the adoption animals and to look for him there.
Roger was walking the long rows of kenneled animals when I found him. He alternated between making notes and taking a moment to pet each dog in his care. He greeted me and we shook hands before he set the clipboard atop one of the kennels.
“How are things going with my mother?” This was not just polite conversation. I was genuinely concerned that he might be tiring of getting a daily earful from my mother.
“Oh, it’s fine.” He said this with a rather amused grin. “Your mother is a real piece of work, isn’t she? I can see where Tulip learned some of her tricks.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, we’re fine. She makes sure I pick up after Taz when we exercise in the yard, and now she walks with us. She also wanted me to be sure to remind you that Taz is why your folks didn’t want you to get a dog when you were growing up. Apparently she mentioned all of this to some psychic she met online and she said he told her that maybe she needed someone around who was good with animals. I don’t think she read that the way I did.”
“At least he said animal and not bitch,” I said and we shared a laugh. “It’s so typical that she’d use Taz to justify a decision made forty years ago. You said the files proved to be helpful.”
“A lot, but I don't know if they solved your case or just made it harder.”
Roger took a digital camera from his pants pocket and pulled up a slideshow of pictures he had taken of the pit bull. “Look at Taz and tell me what you see.”
I swiped my finger across the screen to advance and study the dozen or so pictures in the camera’s memory. The animal looked the same as it had the last time I saw it.
“It’s a mature male pit bull. It has a brown on brown coat of fur consistent with the length of hair of the breed. There are a few scars on its flanks. You yourself have already said it is healthy.” I was looking for clues in each photograph. I was wondering what the special thing he had found was and felt disappointed that my responses did not crack Roger’s poker face. I sensed he was testing me.
“What do you know about show dogs?”
“They tend to be temperamental and expensive.”
“And there are very specific criteria for each breed.” Roger was obviously now suggesting I was missing something that should have been apparent.
“Just tell me.”
“Taz has what is called a 'merle' coat. Two-tone coats like this automatically disqualify the dog from being shown in competition. This dog cannot have been entered in any major dog show. The coat on the dog in both of the files you gave me is simply listed as brown.”
“Okay.” I still had no epiphany. It did occur to me that Jerry might have been lying about the pedigree of the dog he was selling to Biggie, but that was hardly a crime to pursue.
“You said the dog had been used for stud, right? Why would you breed a dog with such an obviously disqualifying defect?”
“You probably wouldn’t.”
“Here’s another clue.” Roger thumbed through to the uncomfortably close up photo of the dog's genitals. “The dog is not only neutered, but has been for some time. Those scars are well healed.”
“Alright, what we have then is a dog that could not have been used for show or stud as we were led to believe. What point is there to lie about something like that?” I had to admit defeat. I didn't really see how Roger could have the answer to this figured out.
“This dog is also larger and heavier than the one you gave me records for.”
“Different dog, right?”
“Bingo!”
“Why switch dogs?”
“My first thought is the dog Biggie actually bought would not have attacked him. But, whatever the reason, somebody absolutely switched the dogs.”
I pulled the bottle of cologne from my messenger bag and handed it to Roger. “I took this from Biggie's bathroom. Do you suppose the dog could have been taught to kill anyone wearing this scent?”
“Maybe. Something had to have set the dog off. I guess it could be cologne.”
Roger was showing no enthusiasm for my idea. The trouble we both had with the theory was that the dog would go for anyone wearing the scent
, and in the Land Rover it would have been hard to differentiate between the three people in the time the dog took to lock onto its target, unless his killer or killers knew he would be alone in the vehicle. Or maybe they didn’t care how many died.
“Hey, Roger, they’re here.” I glanced at the other animal handler standing at the end of the aisle about the same time the sound of dogs barking in the intake room made the announcement redundant. Roger apologized for the interruption, and explained why he was really at the shelter in the first place.
“We're doing intake on a couple of dozen dogs they rounded up in a dog fight raid last night on the Northshore.” I instinctively followed him towards the sound of the commotion.
The hallway was full of animal handlers, LA/SPCA animal protection officers, State Troopers, and very agitated canines in dozens of kennels. The dogs had been in these cages on the back of a truck since the middle of the night, waiting for someone to make a decision on their fate. Some were still ready to get back to the fight, but most were now just anxious and excited about these new surroundings and unfamiliar people. The people most experienced in handling a fighting dog were either in custody or hiking out of the woods where they hid to avoid arrest.
“Any arrests?” I asked one of the uniformed State Troopers I knew.
“Some of the spectators and a couple of guys new to the game, but most of the old timers were in the wind the minute we sprang the trap.”
I looked at a couple of the pit bulls that were sitting still and had not joined the barking chorus. I sized them up mentally against the dog I had and the one I was supposed to have. These were all similar sized animals to the killer and all had scars from previous fights similar to those on Taz. Roger was inspecting the dog I was standing next to and rubbed it behind its ear. The dog turned towards him, not in the least bit aggressively, and managed to flip its ear atop its head, exposing the inner skin and a small tattoo.
The tattoo was a simple blue design I recognized as the Greek symbol of Omega. Omega is the opposite of Alpha, so it should make a bad name for a fighting dog, or a fighting dog operation. Alpha Dog, though, was the very familiar name of a Northshore dog breeder. An inspection of the remaining dogs turned up seven more dogs with similar tattoos from the Greek alphabet, five more pit bulls and two Rottweilers. Roger and I simultaneously thought the same thing and he pulled the camera from his pocket. He thumbed through the digital images to find the one which showed Taz’s pulled up left ear. There was no tattoo, but there was a scar inside the ear where one may have once been.