by Leo King
She came out of her memories and realized that she was staring right at Gino. He was staring back with a comical expression—a pinched face and squinty eyes. She laughed out loud and finished off her orange juice.
“Okay, I’ve got to run,” she said, patting her mouth dry, getting up, and dressing. “Rodger’s not returning my phone calls and he’s not at the precinct, so I bet he’s still sleeping. Aucoin took our squad car with Cathy to River Oaks, so I’m going to take a cab to get—”
Gino casually tossed her a pair of car keys. “Take the Porsche.”
Dixie caught them and blinked in surprise. “Baby, you just got it detailed. If it gets scratched, I—”
“It’s fine, honey,” he said. “You can bring beauty to this ugly city. You take the Porsche.” He took another bite of his bagel and cream cheese.
She blushed. Despite not placing a lot of value on material possessions, she loved that car—it was a Porsche, after all. She put her arms around him and kissed his ear. “Thanks. Love you, baby. See you later.”
As she left, Gino said the same thing he always said whenever she headed out to work: “I love you, Dixie. I’ll be here when you come home.”
Thirty minutes later, she was pulling Gino’s red convertible with black leather interior onto the curb of Rodger’s Burgundy apartment building. As in the French Quarter, the street had a heavy police presence.
A few uniformed officers cat-called as she got out. She tipped her sunglasses and peered at them, raising her eyebrows. One of them recognized her, cleared his throat, and motioned to the Porsche. “Sexy car there, Detective!”
Dixie pushed her sunglasses back up. “Good save there, Officer.” She went into the courtyard of the complex.
A few of the tenants were about. The two most notable were a portly man dressed in a jumpsuit labeled “Earl’s Plumbing” and a short, elderly, African-American woman who was busy whacking his shins with a cane.
“Earl Mastadon,” said the elderly woman, “you is touched by the angels if you think you can go one more day without my rent.”
“Oh, come on, Ms. Parkerson,” said Earl, skipping back as he got whacked. “With the police everywhere, most folks are too afraid to leave their house, let alone have a plumber come over. I need that money to eat.”
“I’ll fix you a mess of jambalaya and black-eyed peas,” said Ms. Parkerson, patting his stomach with her cane. “You can eat that. Good for you. Get ya to lose that gut. Now go get my rent, Earl! You get going!”
With a few more choice whacks to the shins, she chased Earl away, the portly man quickly waddling toward his apartment. As Dixie approached her, figuring her to be the landlady, Ms. Parkerson spun around and raised her cane as if to hit the detective.
Dixie jumped back, almost reaching for her gun before stopping herself, realizing that the elderly lady was just frightened.
“Lord, save me,” Ms. Parkerson said. “You about stopped my heart. Thought I was going to see my dear Fred again. What you want to be scaring an old woman like that for?”
Dixie held out her hands, peeled back her overcoat, and showed her badge. “Detective Dixie Olivier, ma’am. I’m working with Rodger while Michael’s recovering. Is he home?”
Ms. Parkerson leaned forward, squinting behind her thick glasses, and examined the badge. A few moments later, she nodded. “Yes, he is, young lady. Come with me and I’ll lets you inside.”
Dixie followed Ms. Parkerson, who opened Rodger’s door with a master key. From inside, Dixie could hear some of the loudest snoring she’d heard in many years. Yeah, I’m probably violating Rodger’s right to privacy about a dozen times over.
“Thank you, Ms. Parkerson,” Dixie said with a smile. “Sorry about scaring you.”
“Aw, it’s OK,” said Ms. Parkerson as she hobbled off. “You just catch that monster what’s making this city all crazy. Bourbon Street Ripper, my club foot. Making my tenants late with the rent and all sorts of nonsense…”
Dixie shook her head as the elderly woman walked off, still muttering.
Inside Rodger’s apartment, which had a dusty smell to it, she saw him sleeping in his easy chair, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes. For a moment, he reminded her of Papa Olivier after a hard day’s work. However, as she approached him, she saw a glass of half-drunk whiskey on the table next to him.
Dixie scowled, unpleasant memories of her real father and his alcohol-laden abuse bubbling forth. Before she realized what she was doing, she had shaken him awake. “Come on, you old fart. Get your ass up. We’ve got work to do.”
He awoke with a startled yelp and raised his arms defensively. When he saw her, he glowered and rubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus Christ, Dixie! What the hell?”
Still frowning, she said, “We need to get moving. Go clean up. You reek of booze and you’re not stinking up Gino’s car with it. Go change or whatever. I’ll wait outside.”
She left as he continued to look surprised and startled. She needed to get out of there before she lost her temper. Seeing people passed-out drunk was a definite hot-button issue with her.
It was close to nine o’clock when Rodger came out, wearing new clothes save for his overcoat, which smelled of Febreze.
In the meantime, Dixie had thought about how she had treated him. She felt awful. “Hey, sorry about how I acted. It was the whiskey. Also, I’m getting on edge with this case. It won’t happen again.” She knew it wasn’t much of an excuse.
He snorted gruffly. “Well, it pissed me off. But we’ve all been ruffled lately, so I’ll let this one slide. Apology accepted. For now, though, just tell me what we’re doing.”
She didn’t immediately respond. Instead, she wondered if the stress of the investigation was taking its toll on everyone. It felt like it was.
“We’re heading to Odyssey House,” she said, starting up the Porsche. “Topper Jack was murdered last night.”
He sighed and shook his head. “First Willie, and now Topper. They’re dropping like flies. Isn’t this great?”
They entered the lobby of Odyssey House on North Tonti to the sound of angry voices. All around, groups of patients were noisily checking out of the clinic. The orderlies seemed barely able to keep up.
Dixie was just looking for someone to talk to when she heard Rodger groan.
“Oh, God. Not him again.”
A balding man with dark splotch of a birthmark on the side of his head approached the two detectives. He was dressed in scrubs with the name tag “Gomer Bernard.” He looked like he hadn’t slept recently.
“Morning, Detectives,” said Gomer, an obvious strain in his voice. “They said you’d be coming over. Where’s that partner of yours? The guy with the nice suit?”
“Shot and in the hospital,” said Rodger as he motioned to Dixie. “This is Junior Detective Dixie Olivier. She’s taking Michael’s place for now.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Gomer,” said Dixie, looking around Odyssey House. The few patients she saw seemed to be anxious. She could hardly blame them. After all, someone had just been murdered there.
“This way, then,” said Gomer, heading down one of the hallways. “As you can see, we’re losing most of our patients over what happened to Mr. Topman last night.”
“Not so much fun anymore, is it, Gomer?” asked Rodger in a distinctly snarky tone.
She glanced over, not sure what bad blood existed between him and Gomer.
“No, sir, this ain’t fun. Likely gonna lose my job over it. Doubt I can get a new one after this. Don’t know what my wife and kids are gonna do.”
Dixie felt kind of bad for him. His life was obviously ruined.
Rodger shut up and looked away, his face showing shame.
In Topper’s room, which was sectioned off with police tape, they started looking around. While Topper’s body had already been removed, the scene had obviously been combed over by the crime lab unit. All around were little numbered tags where they had taken photos. The blinds to the window wer
e up, and the window had a bullet hole in it. The pillow on Topper’s bed was covered in dried blood. The room stank.
Dixie shook her head. “So what happened?”
“About four in the morning,” said Gomer as he shuffled about the room, “an orderly heard a loud cracking sound from Mr. Topman’s room. When he got in, the window there had a hole in it, and Mr. Topman, he…” His voice trailed off as he leaned against a wall.
“Topper was dead,” Rodger said, finishing Gomer’s sentence. He was already looking over the blood-stained bed and pillow. “Was his head burst like a melon all over the room?”
Dixie remembered from her briefing that Mad Monty’s head was blown apart by an explosive round. She nodded at Rodger. They were thinking about the same person—the indigo-clad assassin that had nearly killed Michael.
“No, no,” said Gomer with sudden shock. “Not at all. He had a hole clear through his head. Bone, blood, and brains was only on the back wall.”
“That doesn’t sound like an explosive round,” Dixie said. “Then it wasn’t the same type of bullet that killed Mad Monty, was it? What about J.L.?”
Rodger stood up from checking Topper’s bed and rubbed his eyes. “The kind of bullet that killed J.L. was a normal bullet, I think. But the same assassin who killed Monty killed J.L. I saw her myself both times.”
She recalled the reports on the Jefferson Parish deputy who was killed moments before Michael’s famous chase. Come to think of it, why did that assassin kill J.L.? He hadn’t been an accomplice like Mad Monty. He must have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time. That sucks.
“Also, the crime lab guys said the angle of the bullet says the shooter was right outside the window,” Gomer said, sounding very tired. “But no one saw or heard nothing but that window crack. He musta used a silencer.”
Dixie frowned as she looked over the crime scene. Taking a few steps back, she said, “Silencers don’t quite work in reality like they do in the movies. There’s no way the killer could have fired from street level without someone hearing the shot.”
“Detectives, if it’s all the same, I’m going to get back to work. We have a ton of patients leaving, and I gotta handle it,” said Gomer.
Dixie ignored him, going into “work mode” and focusing on the scene before her. She nibbled on her thumb, as she often did when analyzing something.
She heard Rodger say, “Yeah. Thanks, Gomer. Good luck.” Then she heard Gomer leave.
Soon, Rodger was standing behind her, asking, “What do you think, Dixie?”
Dixie hummed to herself. After a moment, she said, “Well, if we just take the hole in the window into account, it’s low enough that the shooter could have been standing at street level. But again, someone in the adjacent rooms would have heard the shot.”
“Maybe the killer has access to a new type of silencer?” He shrugged. “If it’s that indigo assassin, I wouldn’t be surprised. Didn’t she have military-grade equipment?”
She continued to nibble on her thumb, visualizing Topper’s body lying there as a bullet came through the window, penetrated his head, and embedded itself in the wall behind him. Shaking her head, she said, “No. No, that’s not right.”
“What do you mean?” asked Rodger.
Frowning, Dixie said, “This theory would only work if the bullet travelled through the victim in a straight line. Bullets don’t do that. Their path is altered as soon as they enter the human body.”
He leaned next to her. “So, what do you—”
“Rodger, I have an idea. Drop the blinds.”
Rodger grumbled a bit, but then lowered the blinds. There was a bullet hole in them.
“I knew it,” Dixie said. “The orderly must have raised the blinds before the police got here. See the position of the hole? It’s lower than the hole in the glass. There is no way the shot originated from the street.” Putting the pillow back where it originally was, she took a step back and looked everything over.
“Perfect,” she said before lying on the bed.
“Hey, Dixie, what the heck?” Rodger said. “What are you doing?”
“Playing the part of the victim,” Dixie said, lying where Topper had been when he had died. She smelled the dried blood as she settled into place. She looked up at the bullet holes, trying to line up the shooter’s location.
He snickered. “Really, Dixie? Lying in dried blood? You’re one hard-core lady, you know that?”
She said nothing, focusing on the angle of the shot.
“There!” she exclaimed, sitting up, lifting the blinds, and pointing. “Across the street and on the roof of that building. Let’s go!”
Rodger shook his head, hands on his hips. “My God, there’s two of them.”
Dixie blushed as she realized he was comparing her to Michael.
“Only, let’s face it, Michael would never get dried blood on his nice suit, or in his hair, for that matter,” Rodger added.
She laughed and stood up, trying to dust off the back of her head. “Let’s confirm I’m right before you start comparing me to him.”
The other building happened to be an old office now used as offsite storage for corporate documents. There was no security, and they didn’t run into anyone on their way to the roof. Once there, she went into work mode while Rodger stood by and watched. She was grateful that he, like Aucoin, let her work in peace and quiet.
Hunching at the edge of the building, she again nibbled on her thumb and gazed toward Topper’s room. She crept along until she saw the holes start to line up. That’s it! The shooter was right here. She would have bet her badge on it.
Standing up, she looked around for a rifle cartridge, some bits of hair or cloth, even as much as a thread. All she found were scuff marks on the ground that might have come from a rifle stand. “They covered their tracks and took all the evidence,” she noted.
She squatted again and looked along the sightline she’d established. “And they made a shot through a drawn set of blinds in the middle of the night. See the lamp lights? That glare alone would make most people miss the shot. It’s either the same person who killed Monty and J.L., or someone with the same type of training. Either way, an expert killer.”
He looked over the edge and whistled. “I see what you mean. This is rather improbable—just like the person who killed Monty and J.L. and almost killed Michael.”
She stood up and winked at Rodger. “I agree. Odds are very good it’s the same person.”
“All right. Good work there, Dixie. So, what’s next? We aren’t due to the Castille mansion for a few more hours.”
Heading downstairs, Dixie said, “We’ll pick up some coffee on the way to St. Charles. You look like you need it.”
He followed her. “Thanks. But why are we going to St. Charles?”
“We’re going to meet with Dr. Klein.”
After a pause, he said, “Forget the coffee. I think I need a cigarette.”
By the time they arrived at Dr. Klein’s clinic, it was almost lunch time.
Dixie noted that Rodger was still in a rotten mood, despite having gotten coffee after all and then smoking three cigarettes. She had gotten out of him that he distrusted Dr. Klein when it came to Sam. He thought Dr. Klein was more concerned with using Sam as a guinea pig for his theories on psychosis than with actually helping her. Given that her own experiences with therapists were that they were more interested in fixing the symptoms than the problems, she could sympathize with his feelings.
She also wasn’t completely sure about Sam’s guilt. After just a few minutes of talking to her at the hospital, she saw Sam as a likeable and personable woman. Someone she could even have been friends with, had things been different. Given everything she had learned about Sam, she figured that the blond woman was either actually innocent or a dangerous sociopath.
Once inside the waiting room, she flashed her badge and asked to see Dr. Klein. To her surprise, she was told that he’d see her right away. She collected Rodger, who
had gotten comfortable in one of the waiting room chairs, and went back to the office.
Dixie was shocked by the amount of obsessive order present in the room. Everything was at right angles or lined up with something else. She spotted the short-statured man at the window, hands behind his back, looking out over St. Charles Avenue.
“Dr. Klein, I’m—”
“I know who you are,” said Dr. Klein, not turning around. His German accent was immediately apparent. “You are Junior Detective Dixie Olivier, formerly known as Dixie Electra Gateaux of Slidell. You graduated top of your class und are a first-rate junior detective. Your boyfriend is Ginopolis Eliopoulos. Your blood type is B+ und your favorite color is red.”
She stood there, stunned. How the hell?
After a few moments, she stuttered, “Well, well, Doctor. You know a lot about me. I’m at a loss.”
“I make it my business,” he said as he turned around, “to find out about ze people I feel are ze most useful to know.”
Dixie did not know what to make of that statement. Everything about him felt creepy.
“Dr. Klein, you remember Detective Bergeron.”
“I do, indeed,” he said, nodding curtly at Rodger. “So why are you here, Detective? This is about ze new Bourbon Street Ripper, ja?”
Dixie approached his desk. “I want to talk to you about Samantha Castille,” she said, remembering that he got agitated when anyone called her Sam. “Specifically, I want to know more about the personality you refer to as ‘Sam of Spades.’ You spoke about it at length with my colleague, Michael LeBlanc.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “That poor boy who is caught up in ze web of a shyster. I really pity him.”
Again, she didn’t know what to make of Dr. Klein or his statements.
Rodger was getting agitated. “You’re really barking up the wrong tree here. First you spit out crap about Sam and then you start saying things about my partner. You must love pissing me off.”