by Ray Celestin
‘Tell me, boy,’ he said. ‘You like ghost stories?’
48
‘Kids’ll be getting up soon,’ said Annette, keeping her tone free of implications. She peered at Michael, rose from the kitchen table and padded over to the counter, her bare feet gentle and soundless on the night-chilled floor. Michael stared at the marks her feet were leaving on the tiles – fleeting islands and atolls of warm condensation. He guessed she wanted him to get cleaned up before the kids saw him, to take a shower and change his clothes, or at least go and lie down in the bedroom till Thomas and Mae were out of the house. The thought of his children seeing him bloodied and sleep-deprived induced a limp sort of panic in him, and the bile and rye in his stomach folded over themselves once again in a nauseous churning motion that was becoming alarmingly familiar.
Annette lifted the kettle from the stove, placed it under the tap and turned the water on. As she waited for it to fill, she moved the voile a touch from the window and peeked into the backyard. Daylight was creeping over the fences, slanted and pale, silhouetting the two policemen who were standing by the backdoor, sheltering themselves from the rain. She stared at the outline of the rifles slung over their shoulders, at the barrels pointing towards the dawn, at the bulky wooden stocks, and she wondered if the children would see the two men from the bathroom window when they were getting ready for school.
Michael’s colleagues had woken her at just past four. They had let themselves in with Michael’s keys, dragged her husband into the living room and laid him down in the armchair by the hearth. She had walked in on them, roused by the noise and the emptiness in the bed beside her. She introduced herself as Detective Talbot’s maid, feeling foolish even as she said it, and after an awkward moment of realization, the man who seemed to be in charge recounted to her what had happened to Michael. She listened to him intently, feeling cold and vulnerable in her nightgown, her arms folded over her chest. The man spoke to her with a chilly authority, his eyes flicking every now and then to her exposed shoulders. He told her they would be posting four men to the house for the family’s safety – two in a car out front, and two on the back step. When she asked about the bullet wound in Michael’s shoulder, she was told it was just a flesh wound, that the wound had been cleaned and that Michael had refused to go to the hospital. The men left the house soon after that, traipsing mud across the rugs with their heavy police-issue boots. As Annette walked back from seeing them out, she had a feeling of disruption, of her house having been tainted; of violation.
When she returned, Michael had propped himself up in a chair at the kitchen table, a bottle of rye and a glass in front of him. He hadn’t switched the kitchen light on and was sitting half in darkness, half in the burning, naked rays slanting in from the lounge. The angle of the light cast the scars on his face into high-relief, making him look unfamiliar, ghoulish.
She stared at him, strode into the kitchen, took a second glass from the cupboard and sat at the table. He poured them both large measures and for the first time since he had arrived, he spoke to her.
‘After this is finished, you wanna leave New Orleans?’ he asked, sliding her glass across the table. He said it as if he was confessing to something, unburdening himself of some great secret. She bit her lip when she looked at him, at the blood on his rumpled, torn suit, at his ashen face.
‘When’s it gonna be finished?’ she asked, not quite sure what it was.
He shrugged and took a sip of the rye. ‘Soon, I guess.’
She had the good sense not to ask him how much danger they were in, nor who it was that had tried to kill him, nor what it meant that there were policemen guarding the house. She sat with him and listened, watching him drink, keeping a motherly eye on him. Michael worked through the rye steadily and talked about the look on the boy’s face when he died, how pathetic and unfair the whole thing was. He had spoken to her about the boy before, and she realized now how much it had meant to him to have someone to mentor. He spoke about it all with a resigned, glassy-eyed distance that only increased the more he drank.
By the time Annette was standing at the counter watching the dawn rise over the backyard, he had finished the first bottle of rye and had started on a second. As she stared out of the window one of the policemen happened to turn around and catch her eye. Startled, she turned her head and let the voile spring back over the window. Then she cursed herself for letting them make her feel embarrassed in her own house.
She turned off the tap and heaved the kettle from the sink. Through the voile she saw the policeman turn back around and say something to his colleague, and the silhouetted gun barrels swayed as the two men chuckled. She clanged the kettle onto the cooker, lit the range with a splint and went about getting coffee and toast ready for Michael. She checked the clock on the wall and guessed she had enough time to make breakfast and put him to bed before the children got up and started asking questions. She opened a cupboard and pulled down a jar of ground coffee.
‘I’m gonna make breakfast and you’re gonna eat,’ she said, sounding sterner than she meant to.
When Michael didn’t answer she turned around and was surprised to see the room behind her empty. She frowned a moment, then she heard the front door slamming. She sighed and strode through the kitchen to the living room windows, noticing the dried mud on the carpet as she went. On the street in front of the house, Michael was leaning into the police car, talking to someone through the passenger-side window. Annette noticed the rain pelting onto his back and hoped it might wash off some of the blood.
Michael banged his fist against the roof of the car. The two policemen looked at each other, then one of them got out and Michael took his place in the passenger seat. The policeman in the driver’s seat started the engine and the ousted man trotted up the front steps of the house and took up a sentry’s position by the porch. The driver put the car into gear and drove off through the rain-washed, empty street. Annette watched the car disappear around the corner before she moved back from the window. She returned to the kitchen, feeling alone, with an overwhelming sense that things had changed for the worse.
Twenty minutes later Michael was stumbling up the precinct steps. He felt guilty for leaving without saying anything, but he knew Annette would have tried to stop him, that her good sense would have prevailed if it came to an argument. He knew who had tried to kill him, and he knew he had to act before it was too late.
He passed the spot where Kerry’s body had fallen the previous night and noticed that someone had already scrubbed away the blood. He wondered where the body was now, before realizing it was probably at the morgue, naked and cold on a slide-out tray. He felt a bitterness in his stomach as he looked at the paving stones, cracked from the bullets, as pockmarked and scarred as his own skin. To one side people had placed bouquets and wreaths. Someone had left a candle enclosed in a glass jar in front of a dime-store postcard of the Archangel Michael, patron saint of policemen. The candle had gone out, the jar already filled with brown, sludgy rainwater.
Michael stepped out of the downpour and into the half-empty lobby. The atmosphere was hushed and he wondered if it was on account of Kerry’s death, but then he realized that most of the regulars were probably at home, sleeping off the nightshift, and those remaining were reaching the end of a twenty-four-hour stretch on the job. He walked past the booking hall and noticed that the officers manning it looked burnt out and grumpy, having spent the whole night booking in scores of arrests during the previous night’s party. The men noticed him walking past, looked up, and nodded to him somberly. He nodded back and made his way to the staircase.
The bureau was a lot busier than the lobby. Half the shift was already at work, and the place was noisy with activity. When Michael entered, the floor went silent, his colleagues staring at him with puzzled, almost shocked expressions. Then one by one they approached him and offered their condolences. They patted him on the back and shook his hand, and told him how much they had liked the boy and how sorry t
hey were. Michael mumbled his thanks in return, angry that they were acting like his friends after all the years of making his life a misery. He suppressed an urge to rant at them, and kept his mind on his goal. He shook their hands, while scanning the floor for Detective Jake Hatener.
Before he could locate him, however, McPherson bustled through the crowd, put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and ushered him into his office. The men quieted down and returned to their work, and McPherson closed the door on the bureau with a gentle hand.
Michael sat across the desk from him, and the two men stared at each other. McPherson’s look was inquisitive and probing; he was studying Michael for signs of something, but Michael wasn’t sure what.
‘You stink of liquor,’ he said, ‘and is that the dead boy’s blood on your jacket?’
Michael peered at the stains on his clothes, as if seeing them for the first time, and then he looked back up at McPherson and frowned. There was something false in the captain’s tone and he realized what it was – it was McPherson who had ordered him to stay at the precinct the night before, who had made him a sitting duck for the shooters.
‘It’s always tough to lose a fellow officer,’ McPherson sighed. ‘I know. I was on duty back in 1890.’
He nodded at Michael, and Michael nodded back, unsure of what McPherson had just said. He was losing focus on the conversation. The alcohol and the lack of food and sleep was making his mind blurry. McPherson’s form shimmered in and out of his vision.
‘I think you should take some leave.’
‘Sir?’ Michael was startled.
‘Take some time off, lad,’ said McPherson.
Michael frowned at him. The old man seemed different all of a sudden, shorn of his usual authority. Michael stared at the long bony face and the piercing eyes that had in the past caused him to fear McPherson. But now the man inspired no feelings in him at all, his was just another worn-out, old policeman’s face.
‘I’d rather not,’ he said.
McPherson stared at him for a moment as he chose his next words.
‘If you want to stay on working you have to show that you’re fit to do so. Turning up here looking like that won’t help your cause. Take today off at least. We’ll talk properly tomorrow.’
‘Yes, sir.’ But Michael had no intention whatsoever of following McPherson’s advice. He nodded, rose wearily, and headed for the door. He stumbled into the main floor of the bureau and made his way over to the homicide division, keeping an eye out for Hatener. Eventually he saw him filling a cup from the coffee pot at the far end of the rec area, looking unkempt and faintly grumpy.
The Gyor Diner was run by a family of Hungarian Jews and was located on a corner just across from the precinct. The food had a reputation for being stodgy and badly cooked, but because of its location, and the friendliness of its owners, it was popular with the men from the precinct, although it was near-empty when Hatener and Michael entered. They sat at a booth and Hatener ordered coffee, fried eggs and toast for the two of them. When the food arrived the smell of the eggs made Michael feel sick.
‘Have you slept? You don’t look too good.’ Hatener shoveled some egg yolk onto a piece of toast and ripped a bite from it.
‘I need your help getting some info out of someone,’ said Michael.
Hatener paused, then nodded, understanding what it was that Michael wanted him to do.
‘The good cop turns bad,’ he said flatly, staring at Michael, who didn’t meet his gaze and peered instead at the untouched plate of food in front of him, at the reflection of the electric lights in the glossy domes of the egg yolks.
‘Amanzo?’ Hatener asked.
Michael nodded.
‘He’s the key to the whole thing,’ he said, ‘and he’s lock-jawed.’
Hatener thought for a moment, a look of concentration crossing his hangdog features. Then he stared at his plate and shoveled a forkful of food into his mouth.
‘How do you know he hasn’t skipped town already? If I was Amanzo, and I’d arranged that hit last night, I’d be getting on a train as fast as I could.’
‘There’s been two men on his tail since I arrested him. He’s still in town.’
‘Well, he probably won’t be for much longer,’ replied Hatener. ‘We’ll have to do it tonight.’
Michael glanced up at him. ‘That means you’ll do it?’
Hatener nodded, a somber, urgent look in his eye.
‘I’ll do it for the kid,’ he said. ‘Not for you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Michael. He eyed his coffee and decided to take a sip. It hit his stomach like a slab of lead. He winced and noticed Hatener was staring at him with an expression that mingled pity and curiosity.
‘Blood-lust ain’t good, Talbot,’ he said. ‘You sure you wanna do this?’
Michael nodded.
‘I wanna do it while my blood’s still up. Maybe if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it.’
Hatener continued to stare at him with the same expression and Michael sensed he wasn’t entirely convinced. Eventually Hatener nodded and mopped up the last of his food with a piece of toast.
‘You want him dead? Or you just want the info?’ he asked, chewing away, his great jowls rotating. Michael hadn’t thought about it in those terms before. He knew he wanted to hurt Amanzo, to avenge Kerry, and to get to the bottom of the case. But did he really wish the man dead?
‘I dunno,’ he said eventually. ‘Kerry was an orphan, you know that? Didn’t have a soul in the world to look after him, and he picked me for the father he never had.’
‘You didn’t kill the boy, Talbot. Amanzo did,’ Hatener replied, and Michael was surprised to hear the compassion in his voice. But then he remembered Hatener’s own son had been killed not too long before, and he guessed the man sensed something of his own pain in Michael.
‘So how’s it all work?’ asked Michael, who had only been vaguely aware of Hatener’s techniques during his time with Luca.
‘We pick up the mark, take him somewhere private, little place me and the boys know about, and we get to work. It’s not sophisticated but . . . they always talk in the end.’ Michael noted that there was nothing sinister in Hatener’s tone, he was simply stating a fact. He lit a cigarette to get the smell of grease and eggs out of his nose – the hangover was taking a hold and his head was beginning to throb.
‘Listen buddy,’ said Hatener, ‘are ya sure ya wanna be a part of it? It takes a certain kinda character, and if ya get found out, it’s ya career down the drain.’
Michael took a long drag on his cigarette and his head swooned.
‘My career’s already over,’ he said. ‘And I owe the boy.’
REPORT OF HOMICIDE
Thibodaux Police Department
Thibodaux, Lafourche Parish
Wed. May 14th 1919
Name of Person Killed:
Joseph Fisher
Residence:
336 Plantation Road
Business:
Accountant
Name of accused:
Unknown
Residence:
Unknown
Business:
Unknown
Location of homicide:
336 Plantation Road
Day, date, hour committed:
12.00 – 12.30 A.M., May 13th
By whom reported:
Sergeant David Pettersson
To whom reported:
Sergeant Martin Schluepp
Time reported:
6.00 A.M., May 14th
If arrested, by whom:
Still At Large
Where arrested:
N/A
If escaped, in what manner:
Left the scene prior to our arrival.
Witnesses:
N/A
Witness report:
Neville Clark,
no fixed address
(colored)
Detailed Report
Sergeant David Pettersson reports that at 6.00 o�
��clock this A.M. Wed. May 14th 1919 Neville Clark (13 years), an employee of the Du Pont Coal Co, arrived at the precinct reception and informed the night duty booking clerk, Sergeant Wllm. Jones, that he had discovered a body at 336 Plantation Road during his daily coal-delivery rounds. (See witness statement attached – Clark, N. #2373-1919).
I hastened to the address along with Sergeant Martin Schluepp, and on reaching it discovered Fisher dead at the scene. Fisher’s body was lying in the hallway of the building, and had been severely bludgeoned about the head with a blunt instrument – extensive bleeding and bruising all across the face and cranium. A trail of blood from the kitchen to the hallway suggested the victim had been initially attacked in the kitchen and was attempting to flee the premises when he was overcome by his substantial wounds. A fountain pen was found embedded in his right eye. Bloodstained pages from accounting ledgers were found ripped and strewn across the hallway and a home office in the front of the house.
A cursory search of the premises was conducted. Pools of blood were discovered on the floor of the kitchen, and a bloody metal pole, some 15 inches long. Also, upset kitchen furniture, suggestive of a struggle. No means of forced entry were discernible.
Your office was notified at circa 6.55 A.M., Patrolmen Reginald Hurst & David Fornes, and also County Medical Examiner Dr. Sam. Connolly.
By order of the Medical Examiner the Body was removed to the Morgue at the Thibodaux Regional Hospital. Victim’s clothes, the pole, the pen, and various other blooded objects from the kitchen (one carpet; 3 instances of cutlery; a whiskey tumbler), and blooded accounting ledgers from the hallway and office were turned over to the Medical Examiner by order of the Dist. Attorney to be used as evidence.