Crescent City Connection (9 page)

The Monk had no friends who would visit him—Dahveed or Revelas would probably bail him out of jail if he found himself there, and the woman who made the robes would sew for him, but none of them would come calling. It was probably a Jehovah’s Witness.

He ignored it. But the knock came again; and again, louder, faster, a bit staccato. It sounded slightly hysterical to him, though it was only a knock. What could you tell from a knock? Yet he wondered if there was a problem—perhaps his next-door neighbor’s house was on fire, or her phone was out and she needed his. The Monk had no idea why he kept his phone—each month when the bill came, he considered having it disconnected, yet he never did and he never knew why. Perhaps this was why. Perhaps Pamela needed it now.

He got up and crossed the room before he remembered two things: Pamela was so fat that he’d have heard her footsteps on the porch. She had come up once before, and he had heard her. And that time she hadn’t knocked, she had yelled, “Monkey.” That was her nickname for him, though she claimed it wasn’t the simian, but the diminutive of “Monk,” therefore spelled “Monkie.”

It couldn’t be Pamela.

As soon as he had the thought, the knocking stopped. He returned to his tatami and resumed his meditations.

He had a breakthrough. It was an image of his mother with her eyes closed, her hands stretched out in front of her, sleepwalking through a busy street.

Maybe it didn’t have to be that way, he thought. Maybe she could have just opened her eyes.

Tomorrow, he would meditate on that—his mother with her eyes open, and maybe he’d be able to see what she would have seen.

He could have his treat now.

The Monk had a vice, which he permitted himself to indulge once a week on Saturday—Haagen-Dazs ice cream. He had to clean his entire house every day (which he would naturally do anyway) and complete two hours of meditation every day, as well as twelve hours of painting a week, and a few other little things, mostly involving kindnesses to Revelas and Pamela, and then he could have a quart of any flavor he wanted (he varied them), to be eaten over the course of two days. Ice cream could not be eaten on weekdays.

He got a five-dollar bill and picked up the shepherd’s crook that Revelas had made for him, a multicolored, intricately carved instrument that Revelas said was supposed to remind him of the twenty-third Psalm, though The Monk couldn’t get past the fact that it wasn’t the narrator who was the shepherd. Nevertheless, he appreciated the gesture and he dearly loved the crook, although he never permitted himself to take it to work and used it only on special occasions.

He opened his door, and nearly tripped over a waif sitting on his steps, her back to him. She turned and said, “Oh. I thought no one was home.”

It was his Angel.

He watched fear start at her eyes and spread over her face. “Omigod, I’m sorry. I was looking for my uncle.” She got up and started to back away. But The Monk stepped toward her.

She stepped backward again. He needed to speak, but he couldn’t. He could only make faces and gesture, waving his crook.

She turned and ran.

He could not call to her to stop, could only pound after her until he caught her.

* * *

For Skip, it had been a great weekend—she and Steve left Napoleon in Kenny’s capable hands and drove to Nottoway Plantation, where they spent Saturday night and damn near forgot about kids who shot each other and cops who did, too.

They went hiking Sunday afternoon and arrived home exhausted. It was probably around five
A.M.
Monday morning when Napoleon started barking.

Steve couldn’t be roused to reason with him. Skip tossed for an hour and finally got up. She was on the first watch anyway and had to be at work at eight. Might as well go in early and maybe leave a little early.

She was the first in her platoon to arrive and, coincidentally, the one up for the next case.

The others came in one by one—her sergeant first, Sylvia Cappello, and then the young guy named DeFusco, and Jerry Boudreaux and Charlie Dilzell and Adam Abasolo, also a sergeant, but not hers.

The call came in at five after eight. Later they found out the dispatcher had lost it: “The chiefs been shot! The chiefs been shot!”

Corinne, the secretary for Homicide, simply gave the call to Cappello, her face white, her lips drawn, but not losing it, not saying a word. Skip couldn’t hear what the dispatcher said; she was told later. Still, Corinne’s whiteness, her tension were enough—it was something bad. A policeman, Skip thought, her heart sinking. But she never thought of the chief.

Cappello didn’t tell them till they were in the car. “The call’s at Chief Goodlett’s house. A man’s been shot there.”

Jerry Boudreaux said it for all of them: “Oh, shit.”

“Sylvia, goddammit. Is it the chief?”

He hadn’t even been sworn in yet.

“There were several calls. People said different things.”

She didn’t speak again during the ride and, oddly, neither did anyone else except Charlie Dilzell, who seemingly out of the blue hollered out, “Fuck!” when they were nearly there. It was as if they were in awe of such a thing, as if it demanded silence out of respect.

In Skip’s case, she was simply trying to hold it together, to assimilate the fact that Albert Goodlett, her friend and the only possible hope of a thoroughly decayed department, was really gone. In her heart she knew he was. Cappello was being circumspect, but it had to be that. And yet it couldn’t be; it was impossible.

Goodlett lived in a modest neighborhood out in Gentilly. Everyone who lived there was outside. The street was choked with district cars.

The chief’s car was in the driveway, and the chief was still sitting in it, the whole area closed off with yellow tape. The car had no rear windshield. The chief had an entrance wound in the back of his head and, as a result, no face left.

Someone had apparently driven by and opened up with automatic gunfire. Or perhaps they had been parked, waiting for the chief to back out of his driveway.

Skip was dazed, wondering how the hell she was going to function. Cappello didn’t even bother to take her aside. She said simply, “Langdon, I want you to handle this. You’ve got kind of a knack with heater cases.”

Jerry Boudreaux said, “This ain’t no heater case. It’s a fuckin’ volcano.”

Skip’s heart pounded. She wanted the case badly, almost as much as she didn’t want it.

She sent the other detectives to canvass the neighbors and went in to see the widow, whom she knew slightly. The woman fell upon her chest as if they were best friends—any old port, Skip thought—and cried like a child. Skip’s eyes filled as well, and she choked up.

I will be calm
, she chanted to herself. I
will not cry. I will be professional.

A lot of officers might lose it in a case like this—it wasn’t your everyday homicide—but Skip couldn’t. She had once when she should have been cool—it had to do with the man she’d shot, Shavonne’s father—and that was how she ended up on leave. Cappello was sticking her neck out trusting her with this one. For right now, she couldn’t afford to show emotion. So she had to comfort the widow as best she could, hanging by a thread, yet appearing stoic as a statue.

She just held the woman tight and mouthed the usual meaningless soothing sounds: “That’s right, Bernice—you’re okay, Bernice. Everything’s going to be okay.”

The hell it was.

“I’m going to catch this bastard,” she said. “And you’re going to help me, aren’t you? You feel like you can do that?”

Bernice pulled out of Skip’s grasp. “He just walked out the door. He was on his way to work.”

“And then what?”

“And then … it sounded like the end of the world.” Bernice started weeping again, remembering the peppering, drilling hailstorm of the fusillade.

“Where were you?”

“In the kitchen. I was still drinking coffee. Oh, baby … oh, Skip…”

“What?”

“I hardly even said good-bye. I was just reading the paper, and he came in to kiss me good-bye. I barely even looked up—I just kind of let him peck me.”

“On the cheek?” It was an unprofessional question, but Skip wanted to make Mrs. Goodlett feel better.

“Why, no. On the lips.”

Skip had never seen a good-bye cheek-peck. “You see? He knew you loved him.”

She thought of the familiarity of the scene—the husband leaving as he had a million times, coming in automatically for an automatic kiss, the two partners going through it almost like robots, they were so used to it. Yet underneath there was a vast canyon of feeling, this enormous pocket of love that the chief’s death had opened up. Skip felt her eyes fill again, in sympathy with the widow’s regret.

“What did you do?’

“I dropped my coffee. I just sat there staring into space for a minute and by the time I got up, the shooting had stopped. I went to the door and … everybody was there.”

“Everybody?”

“All the neighbors were coming out. And he was still in the car. Other people got there first. They told me not to go any closer and so I didn’t.” Her mouth crumpled up. “The last time I saw him was in here saying good-bye.”

“Kissing you. Remember that, Bernice.”

“The kids …”

“Somebody went to get them?”

She nodded. “They don’t even know yet.”

“Bernice, I know this is hard, but please try to help me for a minute. Do you know anyone who’d want to kill him? Anyone who threatened him?”

“No.” She said it as if the idea had never occurred to her. “Everyone loved him.”

“He was a tough cop, Bernice. He must have had enemies.”

She shrugged. “Racists. But everybody …” She stopped, apparently afraid of giving offense.

Skip was silent.

“I mean, there’s always the fear … when you achieve something.”

When a black person achieves something. It was obvious what she meant.

Skip said, “Anything specific?”

Bernice shook her head. “Nothing. No.”

Skip wondered if she had something here. Probably not, she thought. More likely some criminal he’d crossed, some gang who thought he was too good a cop, some crazy. Or the mob. If it was mob activity, things were about to come out that she didn’t even want to think about.

She made her manners and went outside. Charlie Dilzell was racing toward her. “Langdon! We got a witness. Guy across the street saw the shooter.” He pointed at an upstairs window. “Guy went over to the window to tie his tie—checking out the weather, he said. Saw a white Chevy pickup parked in front of the chief’s house. Man got out, started shooting, got back in, and drove off.”

“Did he get the plate number?” It was more or less a rhetorical question—they weren’t going to get that lucky.

“Said the truck wasn’t in the right position. But he could see down into the bed of the truck. It was full of painting supplies.”

“What’d the guy look like?”

Dilzell shrugged. “White, he thinks, but he can’t be sure. Plain, light-colored pants, same kind of shirt—work clothes, maybe; something like khakis. Baseball cap.”

“Did the cap say anything?”

“It was turned the wrong way.”

Skip drew in her breath and let it out too hard, in a sigh she hadn’t meant to make. They still had hardly anything. “Okay. Put out a bulletin, will you?”

“With that?”

“Yeah, with that. I don’t care if we have to stop every white Chevy pickup in the state of Louisiana. Let’s go with it.” She spoke more sharply than she intended. She was angry—not at Dilzell, but at the asshole who’d killed the chief, and the dude with the tie for failing to get the plate, and the chief for dying.

“Charlie.”

Dilzell turned around.

“Was it this house?”

Dilzell nodded and turned away, piqued at her for snapping.

She rang the bell and identified herself. The witness’s name was Ezra Johnson. He was a light-skinned black in his early twenties, young to have such a nice house. She suspected he lived with his parents.

Ezra, I hear you saw down into the bed of the truck. I wonder if you could tell me what was in it.”

“I told the other officer. Painting supplies.”

“Paint?”

“Yeah. Cans of something. Looked like paint.”

“Brand? Colors?”

“I couldn’t see.” His body language showed irritation. She didn’t blame him.

“Anything else?”

“A ladder.”

“Aluminum or wood?”

“Aluminum.” He thought a minute. “Not tall, not short. About medium.”

“Now, you got it. You got it, Ezra. What else?”

“Drop cloths. Hey! Bed in a bag.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“There’s this company that puts together these kits—you can buy everything, a comforter, dust ruffle, sheets, pillowcases, everything you need for about a hundred dollars. The whole thing comes in a plastic bag and they call it ‘Bed in a Bag.’ Cheap, but popular. Real, real popular.”

“You sound like you know all about it.”

“I should. I work at Macy’s in the bed and bath department. I’ve sold about a million of them. This guy had ‘Early American’—the drop cloth.”

Skip felt a tingling in her stomach. “What does it look like?”

“Kind of like a quilt. Only it’s not, really—it’s just a polyester comforter. It’s red, white, and blue. I guess that’s what the name comes from.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I bought one for my sister last week—she just moved into her own apartment.” It wasn’t a plate number, but it was something. Skip went back to add the ladder and the drop cloth to the bulletin.

The coroner had already come. She was consulting with the crime lab techs, barely listening, mostly just trying to hold herself together when the call came. A district car had the truck in sight.

She took Boudreaux with her, leaving Cappello to supervise the crime scene. Tires squealing, they drove to Earhart Boulevard, where the vehicle had been spotted. They heard it all on the radio: The district officers waited for backup and then signaled the truck to stop. Instead, it went through a light and took off. The officers gave chase. Skip drove like a demon.

In a minute it was all over—the officers lost the truck. The good news was, they had a plate number. The truck was registered to a Nolan Bazemore, who lived in Mid-City. A new bulletin went out.