by Nick Dorsey
A short time later, the French doors opened and Sal cursed softly.
Amelia LaRocca wheeled into the room, her stocky body-man pushing the chair. She looked formal and severe and not at all like the ill, slightly mournful woman Jean had met at the St. Joseph altar. “What is this?” Amelia said, and Sal tried to explain that Jean was just leaving, but it was too late. Jean could see that.
When Sal said, “She was just going to the hospital,” Jean knew what he meant. Sal wasn’t saying as much, but he was begging for her life. Sal’s power was fading while Amelia was in the room, and soon his star would snuff out, a black dwarf drained to feed the sun that was Amelia LaRocca.
Jean could see that her life was nearly out of her hands. She had to do all she could to wrestle it from the woman in the chair.
Amelia looked at her like she was a bug.
“I’ve got information.” She was talking right to Amelia. If she was the real power here, then she was who Jean would deal with. The woman herself didn’t look impressed, so Jean said, “I know where Dominic might be. I just need to see Tom.”
Now they all looked curious, if not impressed. As soon as Jean said it, she knew she had locked herself into making a deal. Into trading lives. A part of her felt sick at the idea. She was supposed to be an officer of the court, of course. She was supposed to honor and uphold the social compact. But she wasn’t naive, either. She knew the guilty weren’t the ones who went to jail, and the innocent weren’t always the ones who got to go back on the street. Of course not. She thought of the line she had told her parents when she became a Public Defender. The same answer she told curious men on mediocre dates. The same one she carved in her heart so she could study it when she lost a case and another client went to jail: “The system isn’t perfect,” the refrain went. “But it’s what we have. It replaces revenge with justice. And everybody deserves a chance.”
That left out the fact that she and a few other Defenders rarely called the behemoth they served the justice system. They all knew justice was a rarity in the system. Innocent people went to jail every day. And in the absence of justice? Maybe revenge would do.
And right now Patton was in a hospital somewhere.
Right now Sofia was taking up space in prison, a spot that should be reserved for Dominic and his girlfriend. It was a long shot, but there was a chance that Jean could get the judge to drop the charges against Sofia. The kicker was, it had to be a trade. The scales of justice had to be balanced, or something like that. Without the whole story laid out cleanly and simply for a judge and without Dominic trussed up neatly, ready to take that spot in prison, Sofia wasn’t going anywhere. She’d take whatever plea the lawyers cooked up and that would be it. And Dominic would run free.
“I want to see Tom,” she said. “Then we can talk.”
“No.” Amelia laced her fingers together and set them in her lap. “But feel free to tell me what you know.”
“We have a deal?”
Amelia scoffed. “What deal? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She cut her eyes to Sal. “Lawyers.”
“I need a few things from you.” Jean squirmed on the couch. Was her voice shaking? She couldn’t tell. She continued, “I need a few things from you. You need a few things from me. No reason we can’t work this out.”
“If you have something to say, say it,” Amelia said. “Then we’ll see what happens.”
It was Jean’s only move. As soon as Dominic Barese and Erika Cheramie had come into her world, Jean had Patton do a little background work. Some light internet surfing and record pulling. She had arrest records, work history, and wouldn’t you know, she even had the names and addresses of the pair and a few family members. Including Erika Cheramie’s closest relatives. A sister up in Lafayette.
Jean let her hand push back her hair, her thumb tracing the thin scar there. She started talking.
For Dominic, the drive out of town had been tense. For Erika, it seemed okay. She fell asleep while they were passing through LaPlace, so he felt very nearly alone as he drove past the black stink of the refineries and low green tangle of swamp beyond. He hadn’t been able to take care of the detective which didn’t sit right with him, but Erika didn’t react well, exactly, when he shot the black guy. What was that guy doing there anyway? He couldn’t think about that. He spent his time driving over the swamp trying to remember what Connelly knew for real, for certain. What could he prove? And anyway, did any of that matter if he was going to wind up in Cuba? He didn’t know if they had extradition there or whatever. If the Cuban cops would send him back to New Orleans. He hoped not.
He was feeling better by the time they hit Baton Rouge traffic where the interstate clogged for no good reason whatsoever. The traffic needled him, and he was already cursing at the little Mazda dipping in front of him when Erika woke up. She seemed better. After the apartment, she had been talking a mile a minute. All that adrenaline, he guessed. Which was why she crashed so hard, of course. Awake, now, she said she was hungry and started talking about the half a year or so she spent living in Baton Rouge and mostly drinking with frat boys, which he didn’t want to hear about. But she wasn’t talking about the guy Dominic shot, so that was better.
Forty minutes later they were closing in on Lafayette and her mood was markedly improved. She was talking about her sister, Amanda, and how they could stop over by her house on Saturday for a crawfish boil. Dominic couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Erika was sharp, of course. She was smart and she knew when she was being put-on, but every now and again she did something so stupid Dominic wondered if she was joking.
He said, “We’re running. We can’t go see a bunch of people. I could be in the news.”
“I just want to see my sister for a little bit.”
“At a crawfish boil with the whole neighborhood?”
“If I can’t see her, why are we even going to Lafayette?”
“You want to see her, okay. That’s her. Not half of creation who you don’t know. That’s how people get caught, you know. Shit like that.”
Her mouth became a line so thin it almost disappeared. He knew he was fucked. So he pursued the only reasonable course of action. Strategic withdrawal.
“Okay. You go. I can’t go over there, you see that? Or else everything we did was for nothing. Plus it’s for her protection, you know? Not affiliating or associating or whatever.”
The vibe Erika gave off was one of suspicious acceptance, so Dominic left it at that. He asked her what she knew about the Cuban whatever to American dollar exchange rate, and they tried to figure out how long they could live off the stash in red bags in the back seat. Longer, they decided, once they sold off Dominic’s car.
In Lafayette, they found a motel close to the interstate. One of those old-school types, where the buildings all faced an open parking lot. They pulled some of their bags into the room, including those red duffel bags stuffed with cash. Couldn’t leave those in the car. The television made too much noise, even on low, and Dominic couldn’t sit still. He was vibrating from the drive, a loose, nervous feeling. He watched Erika turn the tiny bathroom sink into a temporary vanity after he unpacked. Dominic always used the drawers in hotel rooms. As soon as he unlocked the door he transferred everything from his bags to the drawers. Erika never did. All her things stayed clumped in suitcases except for her makeup and face cream and whatever else she needed to start the day. Those little tubes and jars stood guard no matter where she stayed.
Watching her in her leggings with her hair tucked over one shoulder, he decided there was only one way to release the nervous energy that had been building all morning. He grabbed her hips and felt her resist, surprised at first, then move back against him. She turned and he thought she must have the same energy reined inside her.
He must have fallen asleep pretty soon after, he didn’t know for how long. He woke up in a dark room with Erika standing at the window. She was peeling the curtain back and letting in a dagger of soft light. He hear
d her voice.
“We’re here. No, the hotel is fine,” she said. Her sister, Dominic was thinking.
“I’ll come tomorrow. Sure. I just needed to get out of the city, you know? Sometimes the city feels smaller than it looks. Sort of claustrophobic, if you know what I mean.”
Dominic scooted up in bed and leaned an elbow on his pillow and watched the edge of her shoulder, the lean slope seared with afternoon light.
Yeah, he was thinking. He kind of knew what she meant.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Tom had no idea what the hell happened, honestly. One minute he thought the old woman was going to put a bullet in him, the next he was being told to get dressed and he was shoved into a car with Jean of all people, with one of Sal’s big goombahs driving them back downtown.
Louis, the goombah, was up front when Tom climbed into the back of the car. Jean was there already, and she cursed and slid across the seat to him. He put his arms around her shoulders and felt her fingers dig into his ribs. His impulse was to squeeze. He wanted to crush her against him, to almost absorb her and in that way confirm that they were together, now. To confirm he was still alive. “What the hell are you doing here?” He said.
“Shut up,” she said. He heard the hitch in her voice, so he did. They breathed there together for a few minutes while Louis steered the car towards downtown.
Tom inhaled against her neck and said, “Patton.”
She nodded. “That’s where we’re going.”
“What did you say to them?” Tom asked, against his better judgment. He pulled back so he could look at her.
She bit her lip slightly then shook her head. He stared her down, willing her to answer.
He said, “Don’t do this. They weren’t letting me go for nothing. Tell me.”
“We talked,” Jean said, though they both knew that wasn’t an answer. She wasn’t looking him in the eye. Her face became hard, and Tom marveled at how quickly she could put that mask up. He tried to return the stone look, his eyes darting over hers, waiting for her to give him something. When she didn’t, he pulled her in again. He would have to know eventually. Whatever had happened, it would surely lead to a reckoning for someone.
The drive downtown wasn’t quick, despite the short miles. Jean and Tom were in their own world in the back of the car, stuck in their own strange time warp. By the time they reached University Medical Center Jean wasn’t sure if they had been in the car for ten minutes or three hours. Tom’s cheek was greying and swollen already, and she was afraid to think of what would have happened if she had been just a little later arriving at Sal’s house. Jean barely acknowledged Louis when she left the car, though she heard Tom say a few words. She waited for him outside the emergency room doors and collected herself. When she felt Tom beside her, she walked through to the emergency room admitting desk with him trailing. The admitting clerk had a Patton Brooks, and she wouldn’t let Jean see him. He was out of surgery and in recovery, and that’s all Jean got out of her. Which made Jean think about Patton’s family. The clerk told her no family had been contacted, at least. So there was that. Tom leaned past her to argue but Jean pulled him away. They were dealing with another system, now, something with all sorts of checks and balances to make sure everything ran smoothly.
She sat in a hard plastic chair in the waiting room with a dozen other worried folks, all looking tired and scattered in the middle of the day. Tom stood over her like a bodyguard, like she was somebody important. She told him to get some coffee and he did. He gave her a look, though. The kind of look that told her he was trying to figure out what had happened in the last half-hour, trying to line up all the pieces that eventually placed him there. They would have to have a conversation, she knew. But it could wait. She pulled out her phone. She had a lot of practice giving people bad news, but she never had to tell anybody news like this. She put in a call to Nadine and asked her to come up with Patton Brooks’ file. She needed his next of kin. It was a big day for next-of-kin at the investigator’s office.
Later, Jean Perez pressed her fist into the small of her back as she walked the waiting room at University Medical Center. Her back was killing her. The chairs reminded her of something out of high school. Designed by some sadistic engineer with the vague notion of correcting errant posture as a cover story. The sea of half-empty grey plastic led into the nurse’s station under too-bright light. The Friday night rush hadn’t started yet, so a few nurses were chatting amiably near the doors to the operating room. Voices muttered over an intercom system.
Tom Connelly was sleeping, sprawled over two chairs despite the coffee and unyielding nature of the chairs. He looked like hell, honestly.
She saw them come in the afternoon, Patton’s mother and sister. They both had Patton’s look, though his younger sister was taller than both of them. Mrs. Brooks was in a sort of twilight. Her eyes were unfocused. Shock, Jean decided. She had every right to that. His sister was all edges, alert to the point of being furious with the world. She had a right to that, too. They spoke with Jean, and she told them what she knew. She was going to take them to Tom so he could explain to this angry young woman why her brother was in the hospital, but Patton’s doctor mercifully intercepted them. He told them Patton was awake and took them away. Jean was not invited to go with them. She saw them again ten minutes later, walking with a man in a white-collar, some priest or pastor. Probably going to the chapel. What else could they do at a time like that?
She sat next to Tom, who grimaced as he straightened his spine. He asked if Patton was awake.
“Yeah. Family is with him.” Her voice was curter than she intended.
“Thank God,” Tom said. He didn’t ask if he could see the kid, which was good. Jean thought it was best to give the young investigator some time to recover. She filled Tom in on Patton’s status. He was alive and he would continue living for quite a while. The bullet that struck him in the forehead was a small caliber round, which is the only reason he hadn’t died right there on the floor of Tom’s apartment. As it was, the slug hit Patton’s forehead and managed not to pierce his skull. Jean would make it a point to give him some grief about being hard-headed. Instead of taking Patton out, the bullet traveled along the side of his head and carved the kid a brand new forehead wrinkle. He had a fractured skull and a concussion and lost a decent amount of blood, but he would live. She would have to tell him he was the luckiest man alive after all this was over.
Tom leaned over to her and was about to say something, but he stopped. Jean followed his gaze. Two uniformed police officers were coming through the glass doors. They looked around the room and made a beeline right to her. Tom sat up straight, ready to intervene, but the cops weren’t interested in him.
One of the cops said, “Jeanette Perez? I’m Officer Middleton. Felicia Brooks said you could help us out.”
Patton’s mother. Jean nodded. She stood. It was her turn in the confessional.
They actually did take her to the chapel. The Brooks family had cleared out. On the way there, Jean had to calm herself. The proximity of their visit to her deal with Amelia LaRocca was just a coincidence. She had to remember that. It would be better to forget all about her visit to Sal LaRocca’s house. She sat in a pew on her own with the two police officers in the row in front of her. They were each leaning against the back of their pew and looking at her. Middleton, the officer with the thin mustache right over his top lip, had an easy way. He was comfortable, even though he was the younger of the two. Reese was the sour kind of cop, and with how he was looking at her, Jean couldn’t help but feel like she was a suspect in Patton’s shooting.
“So he was doing interviews?” Middleton asked. Meaning Patton.
“Mr. Brooks is one of my investigators, yeah. It’s his job to do the legwork for me. That includes interviews.”
“With Tom Connelly, is that right?” Reese said the name with venom. Jean knew that Tom was known in the department but she didn’t realize the animosity was still there. I
f it were any other day, she could have understood the man’s frustration with Tom.
She said, “Correct.”
“We’ll get to him,” Middleton said. “Do you have his notes? Where he was, who he was talking to?” His face was open and honest.
Jean almost hated to shut him down. She nodded slowly. “I do. But that’s work product. Privileged information.” And not something she had to turn over to anybody. Jean didn’t have to say it.
“It’s your guy that got shot,” Reese said, almost whining.
“We’re trying to help.” Middleton put his weight on the back of his pew. He covered a yawn and looked sheepish for a moment. “Sorry. I’m on the wrong end of a double.” He blinked and looked down at his notes. Jean wasn’t sure if this was an act or not, but either way, the man wasn’t getting Patton’s notes. Middleton said, “Can you tell us about the case? About the people he was interviewing?”
“He was doing background on a murder case,” Jean said. Because even though all of Patton and Tom’s notes were covered under attorney-client privilege, she couldn’t resist throwing out a bit of her theory. Tom’s theory that he had infected her with. She hadn’t been able to sell anyone else on it, she might as well tell it to these two. She didn’t think about Amelia LaRocca at all. Best to forget that conversation ever happened. She said, “He canvassed the neighborhood. But the victim had connections to a restaurant, a car dealership, and a game room. Our investigators went to all three.”
“Do you have the names of the businesses?” Middleton asked.
She gave them. That hadn’t been part of her deal, after all. Besides, the LaRocca family knew those businesses were shot. They were probably already fixing their accounts in that regard.
“And the game room?” Reese asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s a game room?” Middleton said. He was asking his partner, not Jean.