by Jessie Cooke
“I’m an investment banker,” he said, “so I do okay.”
“Okay enough to take your girlfriend on a mini vacation to a nice hotel a few times a week...wow, when I was married my wife was happy if I was able to do that a couple times a year.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, if you live here alone then why are you shelling out three hundred dollars a night several times a week instead of just buying her a nice dinner and then coming back here, or to Brigette’s home.”
“She’s super paranoid about her brother showing up at the house and seeing me, that’s why we don’t go there...and I honestly don’t want to tell you why we don’t have sex here...you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Randy, I’ve heard some things in my line of work that a few years ago I might have never believed...but these days I’ve got a much more open mind.”
“I can’t have sex here because...this house, my bedroom, it’s where my wife died a few years ago, okay? I feel like she’s still here, and Brigette has even felt it. It seems...disrespectful, I guess, to her memory to have sex here with another woman.” Maddox didn’t say anything right away and Randy must have misinterpreted the look on his face. He was thinking about Lizzie, and the house he still lived in...the one he’d been in the night he found out his family was never coming home. He’d never taken any woman there, and his reasons for that hadn’t sounded quite so silly until he heard Randy voice those same reasons aloud. “See,” Randy said, “I told you that you would think I was crazy.”
Maddox shook his head. “Far from it,” he said. “We’ve all got our ghosts, don’t we?”
10
Maddox spent a few hours with Randy and when he left, he was certain the guy was telling the truth and that he hadn’t seen Brigette since he dropped her at her own house the night before she went missing. He was also certain that Randy had calmed down enough that he was no longer considering reporting the Jokers. Of course, although Blackheart had agreed not to touch him again, at least during the week he’d given Maddox to investigate, Maddox couldn’t help but notice the shiny Harley at the end of Randy’s street, parked where they could see the house, and more than likely follow the young banker as soon as he left it.
He was exhausted by the time he got back to his room, and disappointed but not surprised to see that Carmella was gone when he got there. This time she’d left a note on the hotel stationery, though; it was simple, but it made him smile. “Thanks for...everything. Peace and love, Carmella.” Feeling like a teenager once again, he propped the notepad up on the bedside table where he could see it and then he stared at her words for the few seconds it took him to fall asleep.
It was about three-thirty a.m. the last time he looked at the time on his phone, and the face of the phone said it was six a.m. when it started ringing again and woke him up. He reached sleepily for it, eyes closed, and when he pulled it toward his face, he opened his heavy lids. He was confused at first. Why would his “silent” partner be calling him at 6 a.m.? It was Friday morning and Maddox was taking the weekend off to join his family in Florida at his in-laws’ house...His partner knew that because Lizzie and Kevin were driving one of his own cars down. Donovan, his silent partner, was a car collector and because Maddox and Lizzie only had one car, Donovan had offered one of his SUVs, a luxury one that would be safe and comfortable for Lizzie to drive and give Kevin plenty of room in the back to watch videos and play games on his tablet. Maddox had spoken to them both right before he went to sleep and they’d told him they were having a great trip, and they couldn’t wait for him to join them. He was smiling at that thought as he pressed answer and put the phone to his ear.
“Yeah?” His voice was raspy, thick with sleep.
“Maddox, I need you to wake up, man.”
“Donovan? What’s going on? Why are you calling me so early in the morning?” Stephen Donovan was more than Maddox’s new business partner. Donovan had been the Command Sergeant Major of his regiment during his time in Special Ops. Maddox had been the Sergeant Major just underneath him...and underneath the two of them had been ten other men, ranging from Corporal to Master Sergeant. Donovan was a career military man, until the unthinkable had happened...and a few months after they both left the army, he’d reached out to Maddox and offered to finance a private security company that Maddox would run...for the most part. Donovan would be there for consultations, and occasional referrals, but he didn’t want to be involved in the day-to-day operations. Donovan liked his privacy, and his solitude. He loved Maddox and his family, but he didn’t have a family of his own. He had “acquaintances” but other than Maddox, no one he considered a “friend.” He dated many women, but he’d never been married or even in a committed relationship. Donovan was a complicated, sometimes dark, mysterious man, but there was no one on earth that Maddox trusted more. When Donovan had offered him a chance to run his own business and use the skills he’d acquired with a decade of service, he’d readily accepted, and for the past eight months straight, he’d worked from sunup until sundown to make it a reality. This weekend would be his first off in almost a year and he’d been looking forward to it more than anything else.
“Are you awake, Maddox? I need you to be alert for this.”
Maddox sat up. His body ached. He’d been working all day in the building where his new office would be...or had he? That didn’t seem right. He clearly remembered working on the building, but there was something else trying to peek through, another memory, of another time and place perhaps. “Yeah,” he said, rubbing his face with his hands. “I’m awake. You’re kind of scaring me, though. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Donovan said, his voice sounding thick, and sad...Maddox had only heard that tone in his leader’s voice once before; it was when Maddox had woken up in a military hospital and Donovan had to tell him that all six of his men were dead. Suddenly he really was wide awake. “This is hard as fuck, brother. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to say...” That was almost exactly what he said the day he’d told Maddox that he and his men had walked into a trap set by a terrorist...and Maddox was the only one that had survived. Maybe he was dreaming. He looked around the dark room then, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. He was at home, in the bedroom he shared with Lizzie. He smiled when he thought about her, and his boy Kevin. They had left the night before to head to Florida and he’d be joining them on the weekend. Suddenly his body convulsed and he felt like he was going to vomit. Lizzie...and Kevin...
“Donovan? What the fuck is going on? Just tell me!”
“I’m sorry, brother, Lizzie and Kevin were in an accident...”
“No! I just talked to them both right before I fell asleep...” Had he, though? He remembered the conversation, but it felt like it was so long ago. “She was in Texas, they were on their way to her parents’ house, in Tampa Bay.” Donovan knew that, though...why would he tell him his family was in an accident? God, his stomach hurt.
“Maddox, I’m sorry brother. The police called me because of my name being on the registration of the car. Her cell phone was destroyed...”
“No!”
“They were hit head-on by a drunk driver...”
“No!” He knew he should ask if they were okay...but somehow he already knew the answer, and he didn’t want to hear it out loud.
“They were both killed on impact. They didn’t suffer...”
“No!” He screamed that time and threw the phone across the room. It hit a photograph on the wall, the one of him in his uniform, just home from the army. He was standing next to his gorgeous red-haired wife with his arm around her, and Kevin was on the other side. They were all smiling...so happy to be reunited... Another scream woke him out of a dead sleep. He wasn’t at home. He was in a hotel room in New Orleans. Maddox was naked save for the boxer briefs he’d left on that morning when he crashed, and his body was drenched as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. The sheets underneath him were soaked as well,
with sweat. Lizzie and Kevin were dead. He’d sent them away to die all alone...and even five years later, he couldn’t forgive himself for that.
He reached for a bottle of water on the nightstand and his hand brushed against the note he’d found from Carmella. He picked it up and looked at it, thought about all the feelings that ran through his body and mind when he was with her...and then he crumpled the paper up in his hand and tossed it across the room. He didn’t have a right to anything that made him feel that good. Six men were dead, because of him. Lizzie and Kevin were dead, because of him. He was like the grim reaper to everyone he touched and he wasn’t about to do it again. He had to find this girl, and hopefully the butcher too, and then he had to get the hell out of NOLA and as far away from Carmella as possible before his cursed life destroyed hers too.
Maddox didn’t get any more sleep that morning. He’d gotten up and with his body shaking and physically aching all over, he’d taken a shower and dressed. There was something Randy said that was nagging at him. Randy had asked about the surveillance cameras from the other businesses in the area. It was an offhand question, and Maddox had told him the police had collected them...but that got him started thinking. It was at least forty-eight hours after the disappearances when the police confiscated those videos...that was plenty of time to alter or otherwise destroy any evidence. He might be chasing a lead the police had already thought to follow up on, but for now it was a nice diversion from the nightmare he’d had earlier, so he decided to check it out. He left the hotel by 8 a.m. and headed down to into the Quarter. He stopped in front of a French bakery three doors down from Louis’s now closed butcher shop. The place was already bustling with people getting their morning coffee and donuts or beignets and he had to wait in a line of about six people before finally making it to the counter. The girl operating the counter couldn’t have been over eighteen, and the barista not much older than that, so he was sure neither of them owned, or even managed, the place.
“Is your manager here?” he asked the girl. She looked confused for a few seconds, and like she was afraid she was in trouble. “I just need to talk to him about something that happened in the community recently.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll see if he’s in back.” The girl disappeared into the back and the young barista watched him, suspiciously, until she returned with a middle-aged, balding man with a rosy complexion. The man smiled and held his hand out to Maddox, who took it before stepping out of the way of the long line behind him.
“I’m Fernando DeMornay,” the man said. “The owner and manager. How can I help you?”
“My name is Maddox. I’m working on a case of two missing people. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to talk to me?” Maddox looked around the busy little place and added, “Alone?”
DeMornay frowned slightly and said, “Is this about Louis and that girl? I’ve already spoken to the police and given them my video surveillance from that day. I talked to the girl’s brother too...”
“Yes, it is about them. I just have a few more questions. I won’t take much of your time, I promise.”
For whatever reason, the man looked nervous. Maddox wondered if Blackheart or one of the Jokers had been rough with him...or if maybe there was something he knew, but wasn’t saying. He cleared his throat and finally said, “Okay, come on around, we can talk in my office.” Maddox went through a set of swinging doors and followed the rose-colored man through a hot kitchen to a small office in the back. As he passed through the kitchen he noticed a security camera, and he had also noticed one out front. In the office DeMornay took a seat behind his desk and offered Maddox the small chair in front of it. “I’m not sure what else I can tell you that I haven’t already told the police,” he said.
On a hunch Maddox asked him, “Did you tell the police that you give money to Gianni Tucci every week, for protection?” The little round man ran a hand over his sweaty, bald head and hesitated before saying:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s okay. I’m not here to bust your chops or get you in any trouble with the Tuccis. If you choose to give them your money, that’s your business...but I need to know how that works, and if Louis was giving them money as well.”
The little man looked around the 6x12-foot room, almost as if he was afraid someone else was there and hiding behind the cramped filing cabinet. He sighed, a lot, before finally saying, “Okay, I pay Gianni two hundred dollars a week. We all do. In return he makes sure no one bothers us...you know, he handles code problems with the city and things like that.”
“When was the last time you saw Gianni?”
“I don’t know...last week, I guess.” Maddox looked up into the corner of the office at another small camera pointing down at a safe in the corner.
“Was it after Louis disappeared?”
He shook his head and said, “I’m not absolutely sure what day it was...”
“Bullshit,” Maddox said. The man’s hands were shaking, and he’d slipped them under the desk, hoping Maddox wouldn’t notice. “You know exactly what day the Tuccis show up here every week...if not Gianni then one of his cousins? Frankie maybe?”
Another wipe of the bald head with a shaky hand and then he said, “They were both here, that Saturday morning...the same day that Louis went missing. First it was just Frankie. He stopped in and had a beignet and coffee and I gave him the two hundred cash. He left then and it was two, maybe three hours later when he was back, with Gianni.” Maddox waited, but when DeMornay didn’t go on, he said:
“What did they want when they came back?”
“They’ll hurt me,” he said. “And my family. Those are my kids up front...”
“I’ll make sure they don’t hurt you,” Maddox told him.
“How?”
“Blackheart wants his sister found. He’s going to be eternally grateful to anyone that can make that happen. I can promise you that the Jokers are going to make sure no one involved in helping us find Brigette gets hurt over this.” Maddox hadn’t talked with Blackheart about that, specifically, but he was sure the president would agree to whatever it took to find his sister. DeMornay was still shaking and sweating, but at last...in almost a whisper of a voice he said:
“The video. They wanted the surveillance video from the cameras out back, the ones that point out into the alleyway.”
11
Maddox was on his way into the police station when his text message alert rang. He looked at his phone and saw the text was from Carmella. “I get off at ten again tonight, should I stop by and see you?” He felt an ache in his chest, a need that had been there for a long time, a void that Carmella had filled, if only for a matter of hours. Then instantly, that ache turned to pain and he remembered why he couldn’t see her any longer. Being around him wasn’t safe. People died around him, good people, innocent people, and he wasn’t going to risk Carmella’s being another statistic. He stopped at the door to the police station and sent a text back that said:
“I won’t be able to see you tonight. I’ll call you later.” He didn’t know if not telling her he couldn’t see her any longer over a text was him being respectful, or just trying to satisfy the part of him that wanted to see her in person one more time, but he told himself it was the former and not the latter. He turned off the ringer on the phone and as soon as he tucked it into his pocket, he felt it vibrate. Ignoring it, he went inside. There was a uniformed sergeant at the front desk, talking to a woman about her missing dog. Maddox waited, not so patiently, until she was finished and when it was his turn he said, “I need to speak with Detective Petit, or Detective Stone.” Those were the two who had taken the missing persons reports and Blackheart told Maddox that Petit was the more “sympathetic” toward the MC. Stone was a female detective who had transferred to New Orleans about a year earlier from back east. Blackheart didn’t trust her and he’d told Maddox that she “didn’t understand” the way things were done in the south. Maddox liked having that information
from the get-go because he knew which tools to pull out of his arsenal before he even met them.
“What’s this about?” the officer asked him.
“Louis Breaux and Brigette Babineaux,” he said. The police officer cocked an eyebrow and then waved a hairy arm at the seats behind Maddox. He waited until Maddox found a seat to pick up the phone, stepping behind the Plexiglas to have his conversation. Maddox waited for at least fifteen minutes before a thirty-something, tall, thin, blonde woman appeared from the back. She was dressed in a fairly cheap-looking polyester pantsuit and Maddox guessed he was looking at Detective Stone. She was attractive in a hardboiled sort of way. With one hand on her hip she approached him and he stood up as she said:
“I’m Detective Stone. Can I help you?”
“Brock Maddox,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m a private investigator, investigating the disappearances of Louis Breaux and Brigette Babineaux. I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time?”
She shook his hand and then said, “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, even to a private...” She looked him over from head to toe with something like distaste then and said, “Dick.”
Maddox smiled. “Perfectly understandable. I actually have information for you.”
She arched an eyebrow but finally nodded and said, “Okay, come back this way.” She led him past the uniformed sergeant, down a short hallway, and into a room filled with about eight desks. There were four or five people that looked like detectives in the room, and several people that looked like ones they might be taking statements from. She led him over to a pair of face-to-face desks near the back where a small-framed dark-haired man, in a suit that looked slightly more costly than hers, sat. She introduced Detective Petit to Maddox and he was invited to have a seat. As soon as he was sitting she said, “This is Brett Maddox.”