Polly Iyer - Diana Racine 03 - Backlash (12 page)

T
he
group got to their feet when Diana entered the office. She suppressed a smile at their expectant expressions. “Looks like you’re waiting for someone. Me, perhaps?”

“Yup,” Lucier said. “You need to start earning your salary.”

“Since when have I received a salary?”

“I’ll requisition some money. Write up a bill. And remember, this is a police department, not a private client with money to throw away for a psychic reading.”

“Huh? Throw away? As if I’m not worth it?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Hunh,” she huffed.

“The captain’s still trying to figure out how to justify your name on the payroll,” Lucier said.

“Simple. I’m a consultant.” She looked over at the cap and shirt on Lucier’s desk. “Those for me?”

“Yup. Captain Craven called Commander Lightner to ask if Halloran could pick up something from Chenault’s and Alba’s lockers.”

“The Commander ushered me there himself,” Halloran said. “He was very helpful. He’s also worried about the two missing detectives.”

“With good reason,” Beecher said.

“If I stay in the room, will it make a difference?” Cash said. “I’ve never seen you do this.”

“You can all stay. Remember, I used to do this in front of an audience. Got a lot more money too,” Diana said, raising a brow at Lucier.

He shook his head and smiled.

“Yes!” Cash pumped his fist. “How does this work? You hold the cap or shirt, then what?”

“The clothing either tells me something or it doesn’t.”

She sauntered to Lucier’s desk where a ball cap and a white dress shirt waited. Excitement swelled inside her. This case was important. She needed to help find her friend’s murderer. She picked up the ball cap. “Speak to me.”

“Which?” Cash asked. “The cap or the owner?”

“Either or,” Diana answered, taking a seat.

“Try to contain your enthusiasm, Willy,” Lucier said. “Not one word after you leave this office.”

“My lips are sealed, Lieutenant.”

“This is one time Jake Griffin won’t get wind of what we’re doing.”

“Nothing from me,” Halloran said.

The men pulled their chairs to the side to watch, and Diana gave them all a smile. “Just remember, I might not glean anything from these items, so don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

“Don’t beat yourself up if nothing happens,” Lucier said, “and if you lose control, stop.”

“Losing control means I can’t stop.” Diana’s outward smile turned inward.
Sweet Ernie.
Not long ago, he was afraid she’d pass out or die or something. He was coming around.

“Can someone take notes?”

Cash waved his notebook. “I will.”

“Good?” She placed the cap in her lap and held it tightly.

Concentrate, Diana.

The cap felt cold to her touch.

The room went silent. She closed her eyes and after a few moments, she slipped into another world where time didn’t exist. The image formed slowly. “This is eerie. I’m in … a large graveyard. It’s dark, and the full moon is casting shadows everywhere. Creepy.” She clutched the cap tighter against her midsection. “Secluded, on a quiet road with a big iron gate and a long wall or partition nearby.” A chill caused goose bumps to sprout on her arms, and she shivered.

“I’m near a border of trees ―” She stopped. Aromas filled her senses. “I smell fresh earth and evergreens. The air is muggy, but I’m shivering.” She rubbed her arms. “The area is thick with tombstones and old monuments. The paths are narrow. I see a big headstone with a cross on top.” She squinted, straining to read the name. “Joseph, no, Josiah, Josiah Jackson, 1905-1968.” She trembled again. “The ground is cold.” Her breath quickened as a new image developed. “Arms and legs all twisted around each other. Dirty. There’s blood, dried. So cold.” She swallowed hard and waited, and waited some more, but her vision faded into the darkness.

Lucier’s warm hand touched her arm, bringing her back, his cat’s eyes watching, concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Do you know where the cemetery is I described?”

“Not offhand, but you gave us enough information to find it. Anything else?”

“I sensed the isolation. There’s not much else around. I got an impression of something old and discarded there. Don’t ask me what that means. It could be the bodies in the earth, but I don’t think so.”

“Did you get a sense of the cemetery’s proximity?”

“Could be here or a thousand miles away,” she said.

“Got to be around somewhere,” Beecher said. “Whoever put a body in a cemetery, wasn’t about to drive a thousand miles. I’m guessing local, which, if your description is right, and past experience says it is, we’ll find it. Not many cemeteries in New Orleans are isolated and overgrown.”

“Mickey, plug the name Josiah Jackson into the computer. If nothing comes up, call the Genealogical and Historical Society. Willy, pull up Google Earth. Try to pinpoint a cemetery that fits the description.”

“What do you want me to do?” Beecher said.

“Run the rest of the card-playing buddies.”

“That was so cool, Diana,” Cash said. “You gonna do the shirt?”

“No need.”

“Why not?”

She couldn’t get the grizzly image out of her head. “Because both bodies are buried in one grave, near or in that cemetery, hiding in plain sight.”

B
ecause
the psychic intrusions left Diana drained, especially when her visions included dead bodies, Lucier sent her home to rest. He’d take dinner to her after work and make sure she was all right. Meanwhile, Cash searched the Internet for the right cemetery, hoping what Diana saw was local. Lucier intended to catch up on a backlog of paperwork.

Less than an hour later, Cash burst into his office, followed closely by Halloran. “Restview Cemetery, out near Read Boulevard,” he said. “A Josiah Jackson is buried there. Dates match. Location matches Diana’s description.”

“And across the street is a huge salvage car lot, hidden by a long wall,” Halloran said. “Picture’s clear on the satellite view. That accounts for old and discarded.”

Lucier bolted to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“You want me to call it in?” Halloran asked. “Get the crime scene people moving?”

“Not yet. I want to make sure we’re right.”

“Don’t you believe Diana’s vision?” Cash asked.

“Yes, and I’m sure she saw what she saw, but we don’t need the press all over us before we know the situation. Cash, come with me. Halloran, help Sam check the backgrounds of Chenault’s buddies. There’s a reason a cop turns avenger.” Or maybe not, Lucier thought. The idea of taking out a sleaze who had gotten off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist would be enough for most cops to go rogue.

Lucier barely heard Cash blather on about Diana as he shot through midafternoon traffic. Though he had long since become a believer, Diana’s psychic feats caused either doubt or amazement in most people. Cash idolized her.

Lucier hopped on I-10 to 90 and cut off on the long secluded road to the cemetery. The gate was open, and they drove through. After speaking with the attendant, who checked a list of names and pointed them in the direction of the final resting place of Josiah Jackson, they drove as far as they could, then walked to the back of the older part of the cemetery. Nestled far in the corner, in front of a border of trees, was Jackson’s headstone.

Cash searched around the area. “No dug up dirt I can see, Lieutenant. Could Diana be wrong?”

No new grave. No disturbed earth. Lucier’s stomach tightened. “She always said she wasn’t perfect.”

“But she definitely called the cemetery and the headstone,” Cash said. “How could she be wrong?”

Lucier wandered a way into the jungle of trees and brush. His stomach righted itself when he saw the mound of tamped-down earth a few feet inside. He didn’t smell death as much as feel it. “She isn’t.”

First he called Craven, then he called for the coroner and the crime scene crew. Finally, he called Diana to tell her they’d found the grave.

* * * * *

C
harlie
Cothran, clad in coveralls, tugged off his latex gloves and latched onto Lucier’s hand to help climb out of the now-open grave. Two bodies lay intertwined in a black tarp, clothes covered in dried blood. Lucier identified Denny Chenault and Cash did the same with Anton Alba, but the positive IDs would be made at the morgue.

“Bullets to their hearts,” Cothran said. “At close range. Looks like a .45, but I won’t be sure until I get them on the table. Hate that they’re cops.”

“Me too.”

“Doesn’t look like they put up much of a fight. We might find something under their fingernails.”

Lucier noted the hands of both victims were bagged, but considering the case so far, he doubted Cothran would find anything. “Clearly, the two men didn’t know what was coming.”

“Can’t tell your friends from your enemies these days,” Cothran said. “You have an idea who did this?”

“I could guess, but that’s all it would be. I have no proof. None. Nada. Zip.”

“You’ll figure it out.” Cothran moved toward his car. “I’m sure I’ll get a request to give the autopsies priority.”

“No doubt.”

When Lucier and Cash returned to the district, a message waited from the captain. Lucier had a feeling he was going to get chewed out, and he was right. Craven’s face was as stern as Lucier had ever seen.

“Don’t you think you might have shared your findings with me
before
you went trotting off on your own?”

“I wanted to make sure.”

“Are you putting the protection of your girlfriend above your duty to this office and the law?”

“I thought I was protecting the department, Captain. If word got out through our phantom leak, and Diana was wrong, we’d be ridiculed. Nevertheless, I should have informed you. I was wrong.”

Craven mumbled something Lucier didn’t understand, then said, “I’m not opposed to employing Ms. Racine as a consultant, but I’d like to know in advance what your plans are. Then, depending on her information, we can decide how to follow up. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

“No, sir, but I believed two cops were in the grave she saw in her vision. I wanted you to have all the facts before the story broke.”

Craven swiveled his computer screen. “Might be a bit late for that.”

Under the Times-
Picayune
banner in the newspaper’s electronic edition, Lucier saw one image of him and Cash heading across the cemetery grounds and another of the crime scene crew arriving. “How in hell ―”

“I don’t know,” Craven said. “Our mysterious leaker. Story by Jake Griffin. If I ever get my hands on whoever’s doing this, there’ll be hell to pay. Who knew about the cemetery?”

“No one but my team and Diana. I can vouch for them all.”

“Well, someone’s got a direct line to your office.”

“Not every leak has involved me or even this district. Remember the name of a suspect leaked a few months ago from District Two? Then someone posted that state representative’s involvement in an embezzlement scheme last year while he was still being quietly investigated.”

Craven paused, his brow creased. “And in each case, Jake Griffin wrote the follow-up story, and he got on it damn quick.”

“He’s paying moles to report to him when something breaks that could turn into a juicy story. Someone gave him a heads up when Cash and I left the building.”

“Get him and charge him with interfering with a police investigation. I don’t care if you have to lock him up. If fact, I prefer you do.”

“I already tried to do that. He said he gets anonymous emails.”

“I don’t care how you nail him, just do it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Oh, and, Ernie, don’t play lone wolf again. You’re on my team. Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t, Captain.”

Lucier didn’t blame Craven for being pissed. Cops were victims and more than likely murderers. How many were involved? Lucier figured the card-playing bunch, but he had nothing concrete other than they got together to play cards. A snarky run-in with Rickett didn’t count much either. Maybe it was time to pull them in one by one and turn up the heat. Then he wondered if someone talked, would he be signing another cop’s death warrant? How could he protect a cop without putting a target on the guy’s back?

And who the hell was leaking information?

He entered his office. “Where’s Beecher and Halloran?” Lucier asked Cash.

“Domestic call turned into the murder of an abusive husband. They just left.”

“Find anything about our poker group?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Our trip to the cemetery was photographed.” He pulled up the front page of the online newspaper.

Cash hopped to his feet. “How’d that happen?”

“The captain figures someone is feeding Griffin the information. Every time a leak exposes something going on in the parish, he gets first dibs on the story. That could only mean inside information.”

“But who? A cop? A secretary? No one knew but the five of us.”

“I know.” Lucier circled the office, checking the lamp and in and around the desk. Cash did the same with the window and light switch. Before long, they’d scoured the room to no avail. “Someone’s watching our comings and goings and reporting to Griffin. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“You want to bring Griffin in?”

“I’ll take care of this one myself.”