Let the Devil Out (36 page)

“I'm gonna make sure someone pays for it,” Maureen said.

“In case you hadn't noticed,” Cordts said, “we're all chasing that same result. Including the two guys who helped you conduct your secret interview with a wanted man.” He duplicated Shadow's hat-tipping gesture and walked out the door.

Maureen took several deep breaths before calling Detillier. She poured another shot but didn't drink it. Detillier was fully awake when he answered this time.

“I have new information on Clayton Gage,” Maureen said. “The location of an apartment he used in the city until his death.”

“Should I ask where you got this information?”

“Through a CI of Preacher's,” Maureen said. “It's reliable. It makes sense. It's an apartment that Caleb Heath provided the Watchmen through his father's stock of properties. That it's connected to Heath makes me think it's legit. He also puts Caleb Heath in that apartment with the Watchmen. He gives us back what we lost with Quinn and Scales and Leary.”

“Where's the apartment?” Detillier asked. “You have an address?”

“Not an exact one,” Maureen said. “It's in Harmony Oaks, the CI said, in one of the two brick buildings. One of them is part of the rec center, so there's only one building it can be.”

“There are some logistics I have to work out,” Detillier said, “but I bet we can get in the apartment by morning.”

“By morning? How can you wait that long?”

“Listen to me, Maureen, very carefully,” Detillier said. “The Sovereign Citizens and people like them, they booby-trap their homes before they go out on their missions. I've seen it several times before. We have no idea what could be waiting for us there. Please trust me on this. Don't go looking around there yourself.”

“I believe you,” Maureen said. “It's just, it's our best lead.”

“It is,” Detillier said. “And I'm taking it very seriously. I'm on it. I'll roust a couple agents out of bed and send them to sit on the building overnight.”

“I can do that for you,” Maureen said.

“Y'all are shorthanded enough as it is,” Detillier said. “Believe me, I have the manpower I need after today.”

“Don't cut me out of this,” Maureen said. “This is my lead. I tracked this down. I want to be there and see what comes of my hard work.”

“I wouldn't dream of freezing you out,” Detillier said. “But I'll take it from here. Keep your phone close. Trust me.”

Maureen laughed out loud. “And what do I do until I hear from you?”

“You keep doing your job,” Detillier said. “And you wait.” He hung up.

Maureen slipped her phone into her pocket. She picked up her plastic cup of whiskey, looked down into her drink. She raised it halfway to her mouth and stopped. It came to her what the look on Wilburn's face had meant, the tough-to-read frown he'd worn as she'd roughed up Shadow. She knew that look. What Wilburn saw when he looked at her was what she had seen when she'd looked at Quinn, when she'd seen him for what he really was.

She knew it wouldn't make a real difference to anyone, but she poured the shot of Jack down the sink anyway.

 

33

Maureen waited outside the Big Man for LaValle to lock up, then walked him to his car. He said nothing to her when she thanked him for his patience. When she offered him a business card, he wouldn't take it from her. She stood a few long moments in the street after he'd driven away. One of his taillights was out. She'd stop by the bar one night and let him know. Before he got pulled over and ticketed.

On her way back to the car, she pulled out her phone and called Atkinson.

“Very strange,” Atkinson said. “I was about to call you.”

“Where are you?”

“In the East,” Atkinson said. “A domestic double. Father and son, it looks like. Just when you think you've seen it all.” Maureen heard the
snick
of her lighter as she lit a smoke. “We pulled a second print off the handle of Madison Leary's razor.”

“Any idea who?”

“An idea, yes,” Atkinson said, “but we haven't heard back on it yet. I may have to hit up Detillier for help, those FBI resources. Anyway, what's on your mind?”

“I may have something for you on the Watchmen murders.”

“Do tell.”

“Me and the others have been working CIs in the neighborhood,” Maureen said. “We've uncovered an apartment that Clayton Gage used in the weeks before he was killed. We know he did Watchmen business there. And we know Caleb Heath was there, too.”

“An apartment where?”

“Right here in Central City,” Maureen said. “In the Harmony Oaks development.”

“Wow. Okay. That makes sense. You found Cooley's body right across that empty lot from there. And it explains what Gage was doing uptown when he was killed. Could be where he was headed with Madison the night you pulled them over.”

“I was thinking the same things,” Maureen said. She leaned against the hood of the cruiser.

“So you're there now?” Atkinson asked. “At the apartment?”

“No,” Maureen said. “I'm on the street. I'm going back on patrol. I told Detillier about it.”

“Does he think Leon Gage is in there?” Atkinson asked. “There's a weird logic to it. A hide-in-plain-sight thing.”

“I didn't get that impression,” Maureen said. “Though Detillier told me he was dispatching agents to watch the building. We don't know exactly which apartment it is, but we know which building. He's getting a warrant and a team to search the place in the morning. And of course, they'll pick him up if he tries to get there, or if he's in there and tries to leave.”

“Did you tell Detillier about Caleb Heath being at the apartment?”

“I did not.”

“Keep it that way,” Atkinson said. “As an extra precaution. I'm sure you asked him to let you in on the raid?”

“I did. He said he'd keep me in the loop.”

“Listen, I may need a favor from you,” Atkinson said. “As a professional courtesy, early tomorrow morning, Detillier
should
let me know that he's found this apartment, since I have a murder victim with a history there. He should invite me over for a look around. If he doesn't do that, I'm going to need you to let me know what's happening so I can be there. I want a look at that apartment whether the FBI has their manners or not.”

“You got it,” Maureen said. “I'll keep you posted on everything.”

“I have to ask,” Atkinson said. “How did you make this happen?”

Maureen tried to suppress the pride she knew would flood her voice. “We got to Shadow.”

“Really?” Atkinson said, astonished. “You have Shadow? You flipped Shadow?”

“I
had
Shadow,” Maureen said. “I had to do some dealing to get the information. So he's back on the streets. But he walked away thinking that I now have whatever Quinn and Ruiz had over him, so I don't know if he's flipped, but he might be useful to us in the future. At least until he finds out I'm full of shit.”

Atkinson said nothing for so long that Maureen started getting nervous. Then the detective said, “That is good goddamn police work, Maureen. Well done. This is how good cops make a name for themselves, this right here is exactly it. Hell of a job, Officer. Preacher's going to be real proud.” She paused. “I know I am.”

“Thank you,” Maureen said. She had decided only a year ago to be a cop, but Atkinson's praise sounded like words she'd been waiting her whole life to hear. She didn't know whether to jump up and down or burst into tears. “That means a lot. I'm just happy to help, on a day like today, especially.”

“You're welcome,” Atkinson said. “Have you seen Preacher? I heard he came through surgery okay, that he's doing pretty good.”

“He is,” Maureen said. “He's in pain, and he's rattled, but who wouldn't be? I'll probably stop by one more time before I head home, whenever that is. I'll tell him you asked after him.”

“Anthony's with him, I take it?”

Maureen stammered. Atkinson chuckled. “C'mon, Maureen. I thought you wanted to be a detective?”

“Some day,” Maureen said. “In the way, way distant future, apparently.”

“All right, I gotta go,” Atkinson said. “The music never stops. Don't forget to keep me updated on the apartment. Keep up the good work.”

“Will do,” Maureen said. She ended the call.

She eased off the hood of the cruiser, her whole body humming with what Atkinson had said to her. She felt high. She knew that when she got back to work, when the car started rolling and the radio chatter started, the spell would be broken. She wasn't ready to give it up just yet.

Instead of getting into the car, Maureen walked over to the abandoned house where she'd found Little E. She sat on the concrete steps. She tilted her head back and howled at the stars. A yard dog in the neighborhood answered. She rubbed her palms on her thighs, looked at her hands. What inside her, she wondered, had stayed her hand in the bar? She didn't really care about Shadow's welfare. She hadn't cared about Bobby Scales's at the river. That wasn't why she'd tried to save him from Quinn. Complete exhaustion had done her in, then? Maybe. The fact that other cops were watching her? Could be. But they didn't care about Shadow, either. They knew the stakes. They'd done things like she was doing. There was more to it than that.

She'd done a lot of damage over the past six weeks, she realized, to others, to herself, and the result of her efforts had been only the desire and the opportunity to do more and greater harm. She'd been here before, she realized, snared in this ugly cycle of using pain to justify pain. Like an alcoholic. Like a junkie. The snake eating its tail. In New York, she'd done it with married men and cocaine. Now, in New Orleans, it was pills and violence. Eventually, she knew, sometimes it took weeks, sometimes it took months, but eventually she came back to wielding her weapons at the same old target. Herself. She broke her own heart. She bloodied her own nose. Sabotaged herself. Over and over again. Too many ways. Too many times.

She thought, of all things, of what Solomon Heath had said about Leon Gage.
People like that never get less angry.

What had Nat Waters said to her on the day they'd met?
You have to protect yourself
,
Maureen
, he'd said.
Nobody else can do it for you
.

She rested her elbows on her knees, folded her hands in front of her. She closed her eyes. There wasn't a sound on the street. She took a deep breath and held it, listening for the grinding gears of the machine in her belly. She couldn't hear it.

She released the breath, pulled in another. She heard the rattle in her chest, the one she got late at night from too many cigarettes. Nothing after that. A cat screamed in the distance. But nothing happened inside her. When had that quiet started? When she saw Preacher? When she'd seen the look in Wilburn's eyes? All bad things must end, she thought. She had to stop killing herself sometime. Now seemed as good a time as any. She had already started being a better cop. Atkinson's words were proof of that. She took one more deep breath, made the sign of the cross, and came down the steps. Back to work. She couldn't live on magic spells.

She lit a cigarette and climbed into the cruiser, started the engine. She felt good, very good, but that didn't mean she didn't need coffee, and need it bad. She thought of Solomon Heath and his thermos. She had an idea. She'd promised him she'd be back. She hadn't necessarily meant that night, but, she thought, she had given Little E and Shadow the chance to do the right thing, and they had, in their way, come through. She wanted to give Solomon Heath the same choice, the same chance.

He'd told her unbidden that the Harmony Oaks apartment complex was under Caleb's supervision. It
was
possible that Solomon didn't know about the apartment the Watchmen had used. Would she tell him what Shadow had said about Caleb? What he did when he heard the news that the NOPD had a living witness connecting his son to the Watchmen, a witness who had spilled in front of not one but three cops, would tell her an awful lot. Solomon's next decisions after that would tell her everything she needed to know about him.

She was on a roll, doing the job Preacher had told her to do. There was only one thing to do, Atkinson had said so herself.
Keep up the good work.

She put the car into drive and pulled away from the curb.

 

34

When Maureen returned to Solomon Heath's house, she found the back door ajar. She couldn't think of anything more unlike him than that. She walked up the steps and glanced at the security camera above the door. Looked like it was working. A break-in? If so, she wondered, where was the alarm? Where was the security company that should be responding to it? She backed down the steps and swept the yard, the butterfly box, and the shrubs with her flashlight. Nothing. Not even footprints in the grass. She reached for the radio mic clipped to her shoulder, changed her mind. For the second time that night she was in the one place both Preacher and the FBI had warned her not to be. No sense flushing her career down the toilet because Solomon Heath had a senior moment and left his back door unlocked.

Maureen stood on the path leading to the door, chewing the inside of her cheek. What she should do, she thought, was go get that coffee. A big one. She wouldn't be going home after her shift. She would be there when Detillier searched that apartment in a few hours. Depending on what they found, it might be another twelve, eighteen hours before she slept again. So. Coffee. A lot of it. But instead of moving for the car, she stood there on the path, staring at the golden vertical line between the open door and the doorframe. But, damn, she thought, Solomon Heath didn't seem the kind of man prone to senior moments. What if something had happened as he returned to the house? What if he'd fallen? Had a stroke or some kind of emergency. Just to be sure, she thought, for safety's sake, I'll take a look. She returned up the path.