The Blue Garou (Detective 'Cadillac' Holland Series Book 1)

by H Hiller

  I next tried sprinkling some of Biggie's cologne on my hand and held it near the cage. Taz sniffed at it and we waited another moment or two for his reaction. Taz did register mild interest, but then moved away from the rather strong scent. The odor would have been familiar to the real Taz, but this dog had never seen Biggie Charles until the moment he stormed from the cage and attacked the fat man. Roger set up a pair of digital video cameras, one focused through the front windshield and the second one through the lowered passenger window on the driver’s side, opposite of where Biggie had sat.

  Kevin joined us wearing the bulky training suit. It resembled a Halloween costume of a sumo wrestler but was specifically designed to withstand animal bites. Kevin had taken the additional measure of donning a lightweight ballistic vest and metal chain-mail gloves, the sort normally associated with use in shark cages or by oyster shuckers. I would have worn nothing less were I in his position.

  The rear seat had been lowered in the Suburban, allowing almost two feet between the front of the cage and the passenger seat Kevin had barely been able to fit into. Seeing him crammed into the space gave me a clue of how little room Biggie Charles had allowed himself in the back seat of the Land Rover.

  “Here we go with the Big Bang Theory,” I said as I loaded the CD recovered from Biggie’s CD player into Roger’s portable boom box. Roger suggested using a portable CD player rather the vehicle's player because doing so would make it easier, not to mention safer, to control the music than having to reach inside the vehicle with an angry dog in the mix. We heard the dog begin to whine anxiously the moment the fight song from the previous evening came from the speakers, but Taz’s level of agitation did not seem to approach that of the dogs I had witnessed the night before.

  “I'm going for it,” Kevin decided when it became apparent that this song held the key to the attack on Biggie Charles. Kevin tried to turn around in his seat and reached back with his left hand to open the animal carrier.

  “I can’t reach the latch.”

  Roger and I approached the vehicle and witnessed his struggles. It was very obvious to me that there was no way Biggie could have turned around in his seat and done anything with the dog or its kennel the night the dog killed him. I turned off the music and waited for Taz to calm down before lifting the blanket and opening the latch, as the kennel had actually been prepared that night, and dropping the cover back in place.

  We repeated the experiment with the music and this time the dog burst through the opening in a flash of color and made a bee-line for Kevin. It did not, however immediately attack the trooper as we expected. The dog did pound its muzzled jaws against Kevin's chest and headgear, but whined rather than growled as it did so. Roger and I looked at one another and shrugged. We had established that the song would agitate the dog enough to attack, and the lack of a visceral reaction did not entirely disprove our theory.

  The ridiculous suit, or some other cue, may have been enough to confuse the dog about its target. Roger immediately turned off the music, and within a minute the dog stopped whining. I witnessed a physical and emotional change wash over the fevered animal. The dog settled down and stretched out on the seat next to Kevin.

  I was the first to speak. “That was a bit disappointing.”

  The canine officer stepped out and pulled apart the heavy suit. He used a towel to wipe off the sweat he had built up in the suit. “It seemed to me that the dog was begging me to shut the music off. I didn’t feel it was intent on attacking me.”

  Roger held his own counsel for a long moment before speaking. “Why don’t we try the other CD as well? You know that it had a definite response last night.”

  I did not expect a different reaction, as I believed the songs sounded identical, but agreed that it was best not to leave any stone unturned. Roger swapped the CDs, inserting the one I had confiscated from the CD player of Cisco’s truck while the Trooper and I reloaded Taz into the cage and he pulled the suit back on.

  The second CD brought a wholly unexpected reaction, even though it was exactly the one we had been hoping for all along. Taz rather obviously heard something in the second version that sent him hurtling upon the surprised Trooper like a cannonball with teeth. Turning the music off had only a minimal immediate effect, but the dog did finally become manageable after a few moments of silence and restraint by the canine officer.

  Roger and I looked at one another as Kevin pulled himself out of the vehicle and began peeling off the layers of protection. I silently watched Roger reach out to pet the still heaving haunches of the dog, and then move his hands slowly forward until he could remove the muzzle and attach its leash. The dog seemed to grin and then stretched its jaws in a large yawn before stretching out on the driveway and resting its head on its forepaws.

  Roger left me with the dog while he walked around the vehicle, turning off the video cameras and collecting the digital recordings while I dialed Avery's number. Roger and Kevin next set about pulling the carrier from the vehicle and loaded the pit bull back inside.

  “Hey, guess what. We were able to duplicate the attack just now. The dog was trained to attack on the cue of one of the songs on the CD I took out of Cisco’s truck last night.”

  “What about the one from Biggie’s car?”

  “Taz reacted to it, but not as violently,” I admitted.

  “Well congratulations. Now you have a genuine clue in your murder investigation. How does it feel to have been proven right?”

  “Not as good as I imagined.”

  Avery didn’t ask for an explanation but told me he would pick up the video discs at the bistro in the morning, and wanted to talk to me before I spoke with Cisco.

  I looked at my watch and saw I had plenty of time to get home to watch the Saints try to stretch their undefeated season against the Miami Dolphins. The city had no idea how to handle a winning football team, but universally hoped we wouldn’t end our streak by losing to the Dolphins. I decided to visit with my mother while she and Roger ate the meal my mother’s sixty year old Vietnamese housekeeper had prepared. The woman’s son did the heavy yard work and mowing. My mother had been ecstatic to find people she could hire for what she had been paying on the Lakefront before the storm.

  “Have you made any progress on your father’s disappearance this week?” she demanded.

  “I have been working on the murder investigation.” The explanation did nothing to remove the look of extreme disapproval on my mother’s face. “What was I supposed to do when Tulip insisted I keep them from shooting the dog?”

  “Well….” she trailed off. She is no better at resisting my sister’s entreaties than I am.

  “You’ve been in touch with the Great and Powerful Oz, haven’t you?” I could not bring myself to ever actually say the name of the internet medium my mother had been getting readings from off and on for the past four years.

  “Yes,” she said a bit defiantly. “I told him about your case and he has advice for you.”

  “Oh joy.”

  “Let me see if I remember this right. He said to tell you that, quote short men aim too high and that even tall men still live in shadows unquote. Does any of that make sense?”

  “Of course not. I cannot believe you spend money on this drivel,” I mocked her yet again for giving a moment’s consideration to anything she was being told by someone whose junk e-mail she had answered in a moment of profound sorrow and weakness.

  “Well he always says that we are close to the answer to our question. I assume he means closer to learning what became of your father.”

  My mother has had a recurring dream of my father waving to her from the parapet of the old pre-Civil War fort across the water ever since she took up permanent residence in this house. Having a psychic meant, to her, that she was actually hearing from her vanished husband and not simply losing her mind. She had remodeled this masonry shell of a disaster because the strange psychic told her that she was safest where she felt closest to my father.


  “We? As in you and who else?”

  “I know, I think it’s a bit strange myself, but I assume he means you.”

  “You would.” I muttered but I knew she heard me. I didn’t have the time to try to debate semantics just then. It didn’t matter. She was already storming off with her usual injured pride and dignity whenever I scoffed at her online wizard who only spoke in fortune cookie riddles.

  “Why are you and Avery worried about what happened to that horrible man anyway?” She spun around and demanded to know.

  “Avery’s certainly not very worried. He’d let me drop the case any time. Tulip didn’t want them to shoot the dog and making the dog a material witness was the only idea I had for keeping it alive.”

  My mother now looked at me and broke into a wry grin. “I’m happy to see you’re developing a sentimental side. That was something else my psychic said to me, but I think it applies to you as well. You have to have a heart to learn how to love.”

  Expressing affection is not something that runs in my family. I learned more about living with roommates than I ever did about loving relationships under my parents’ roof. As for being sentimental, while I love being home I have actually lived away far longer than I have ever lived in the city of my birth. The city and I have both changed quite dramatically since I departed as a teenager, and August of 2005 turned too much of what I once knew and loved about New Orleans into what we describe locally as things that “ain’t dere no more.”

  “So how’s the case coming?” My mother softened a bit. “It looked like you had some luck getting the dog to attack.”

  My mother has been a sounding board off and on with other situations I have handled for Avery. I know a lot about investigating, but not much about policing. Five decades of marriage to a detective has given her a mind full of ideas when I have none.

  “It has begun to get a little messy. So far I have one person in custody I know I could convict, and at least the list of other suspects is short. There is Biggie’s long term girlfriend he treated like crap and left nothing to in his will. There is an undercover informant that was posing as his bodyguard. There is the kennel owner, but I doubt he had any involvement or motive. There is also a woman who adopted Biggie’s child years ago. All I know for certain is that the trainer was involved. He knew which dog was in that kennel when it was loaded for delivery.”

  “That’s quite a cast of characters,” Roger agreed.

  “Well, the suspects aren’t my problem. The dead guy and his girlfriend had put their kid up for adoption a few years ago but, in his will, Biggie left his business to the son he gave up.”

  “How is that a problem?” my mother asked.

  “I’ve been spending time with the boy’s adoptive mother. Do you remember the actress Amanda Rhodes?”

  Roger studied my face for a moment and then started laughing.

  “Oh, right.” I smiled and punched his shoulder. “Like you wouldn’t be doing the same thing if you were in my shoes.”

  “Really?” My mother cut short our male bonding. “I certainly would not compromise myself with anyone connected to the case until the matter was through the court system. You need to start watching that blind spot in your pants a lot closer. Your father had that problem.”

  I was not about to abandon the budding romance with Amanda Rhodes because of questions about my ethical or professionalism. The work I do for NOPD is to stay sane, not to pay my bills, and Avery is free to fire me any day he thinks I have strayed too far across the line. I knew better than to express that sentiment to my mother just then.

  If nothing else, for once my mother’s psychic was saying something useful. I was finally opening myself up to another person for the first time in literally decades, and had found that what I feared would make me vulnerable as an individual actually made me stronger as a partner. I probably should have told my mother all of this as well, but I couldn’t bear the thought of suggesting her psychic wasn’t just spouting nonsense.

  TWENTY SIX

  My first appointment Monday morning was with Cisco Barnes, who was being held without bail before his preliminary hearing that afternoon. He had been informed that the hearing was being delayed while a decision was made on whether to file state or Federal animal cruelty charges. This was actually just a ruse to make him nervous, and for his attorney to encourage cooperation. There was already a long list of people eager to make plea bargains and offer testimony against him in either courtroom. I was going to be able to interview him before he was formally charged by the state’s prosecutor. Avery told me to meet someone named Katie Reilly from the State Attorney’s Office and to have her sit in on Cisco’s questioning.

  Avery was responsible for the story about the possibility of Federal prosecution, and for requiring me to conduct the interview in the company of a prosecutor. His experience was that going into the interrogation room with someone who represented the choice of spending years in a prison far from home or the faint hope of a plea bargain might save me some breath and time, especially if Cisco had used his long weekend in custody to consider his limited options. The time would have also allowed him a chance to get himself a good lawyer, someone who would defend him even if he lied to them. He had done this by hiring Dan Logan.

  Chief Avery had told me that Katie Reilly had been with the prosecutor’s office for nearly two decades. He failed to mention her good looks. Her thick auburn hair hung loose well past her shoulders and I was glad to be on the good side of the fierceness her doe-like green eyes held. She was nearly my height, but her height was no problem when she locked eyes with me as she explained her ground rules for the interview. I was to make no threats, or promises, and restrict myself to an exchange of facts in an effort to extract more information.

  Katie then surprised me by saying she knew Tulip socially and said Tulip was satisfied that Avery thought I knew what I was doing. We both laughed that his was apparently not Tulip’s personal assessment. She did not press me on the specifics of the working relationship I have with NOPD’s Chief of Detectives. Katie had dealt with Logan in the past, and held no better opinion of him as a person than anyone else. I surprised Katie in turn by also knowing Logan, and even more so by the banter with which we engaged one another.

  Logan was waiting for us outside of the interrogation room.

  “Should I look surprised?” I sighed at the thought of having to deal with him.

  “If it makes you feel any better.” He was studiously avoiding even looking at the comely prosecutor. “Tell me what you’re looking for, maybe my client can help.”

  “Justice. So that’s not likely.”

  Katie leaned against the opposite wall while Logan and I continued to posture a bit.

  “You didn't think you'd get to him before he lawyered-up did you?”

  “No, I just hoped he'd get a better one.” With that said I reached for the door knob. Logan laughed and waved the prosecutor into the room with us. He sat next to his client, who was handcuffed to the table. I turned towards Katie and she just shrugged and sat back. She now understood that Avery only wanted her there for show for Logan, and to perhaps intimidate Cisco. She was content to watch me work my magic.

  “This is the most important day of your life. Today you get to choose between pleading guilty to any charges from the dog fight or with being charged with the first degree murder of Charles Lynley.” I addressed Cisco directly. I wanted him to lose track of everyone else in the room except me.

  “Murder?” Cisco was still trying to act uninvolved in Biggie’s death despite being the only person I knew had played a part. It was Logan who was genuinely surprised. The attorney didn't seem entirely ignorant of what I was talking about but his client wasn't a good enough actor or bold enough gambler to last long at poker. I could tell they had hoped to use whatever knowledge Cisco had of the murder as a bargaining tool on the other charges. He would lose that leverage if he was formally charged with the crime himself.

  “Murder in
the first degree. Death penalty murder, actually.” I ignored Logan and kept staring into Cisco’s eyes. That much was true, the next was a bluff. “You didn't really think your involvement in the murder of Biggie Charles was going to stay a secret, did you? And every piece of evidence I have right now are just nails in your coffin.”

  “I need to talk to my client!” Logan was on his feet and shouting. “Alone.”

  “Fair enough, but the likelihood of a deal gets smaller each time we leave this room,” Katie said and stood up. The prosecutor played her part magnificently and we headed for the door.

  “Sit down,” Cisco said and gave Logan the universally understood shut-up glare. “I am not going down for murdering that piece of crap. Not alone.”

  “So, tell me what you know and I'll tell you what it’s worth.” I avoided using the 'we' or 'us' words so he would focus on me and not start playing to the prosecutor. She and Logan could make any deal they wanted for all I cared. “Just know that whatever you say will be an anchor taking you deeper instead of being a life line if you’re lying.”

  “I know you got me on the dog charges, but the Biggie thing was not my idea. I was asked about switching dogs as a surprise. I could have the breeder dog if I would just find a different dog to put in the cage that afternoon.”

  “Partial truths aren't going to save you. You don't get to be honest about everyone else and lie about yourself, Cisco. And I need names, not pronouns.”