Читать книгу City of Sins - Daniel Blake - Страница 14

The air was already warm and heavy when Patrese met Phelps at seven a.m., three hours ahead of schedule. Though traffic was already building on the I-10 ramp a couple of blocks away, the lobby of the New Orleans Police Department headquarters was quiet at this time of morning and they could speak undisturbed.

Hoping that being in public would save him from getting chewed out, at least for the time being, Patrese told Phelps as quickly and succinctly as he could what had happened: Varden’s party, Patrese’s research, Selma at Cindy’s apartment.

‘Good work, Franco,’ said Phelps.

Patrese bit down on his surprise.

‘I should have rung you,’ Patrese said, knowing like every law enforcement officer that two layers of butt-covering are always better than one, ‘but like I said, I wanted to meet with you in person first …’

‘Franco, I said don’t worry about it.’ Phelps’ teeth were bright white when he smiled, as though he’d run a coat of paint over them. ‘You showed initiative. I like that in my agents. And now we’ve got an “in”, right from the get-go.’

‘That’s just fluke.’

‘I don’t care. You learn to take credit for things you didn’t intend, then you’ll really start going places in the Bureau. Like I said, we’ve got an “in”. Doesn’t matter how, or why; just that we have. The NOPD doesn’t much care for us …’

‘I got that impression.’

‘…and if they can freeze us out, they will. But not here. Well done, young man.’

A cop in uniform appeared. ‘Special Agent Phelps? Agent Patrese?’

‘That’s us.’

‘If you’d like to follow me?’

They rode the elevator to the third floor in silence. The cop took them as far as a meeting room, enjoined them both to have a good day now, and left.

Patrese and Phelps stepped inside the meeting room. Selma was already there, prettier and younger than Patrese remembered from the previous night. Then again, no one looked their best at a murder scene. Especially the victim.

Next to Selma was a heavyset man whose mustache and temples were shot through with sprays of gray. Both detectives got to their feet. Southern courtesy was always on show, Patrese thought, turf war or no.

‘Wyndham.’ The man shook Phelps’ hand.

‘Ken. You know Franco Patrese?’

‘Not had the pleasure.’ He shook Patrese’s hand with a grip that was just a touch stronger than necessary. ‘Ken Thorndike. Deputy chief of police.’

Selma nodded at Patrese, and they all sat down.

‘We got coffee and beignets.’ Thorndike nodded toward the sideboard. ‘Just about the only inedible beignets in the city, but that’s budget cuts for you. Blame Nagin.’

Ray Nagin was the mayor, a black man who’d gotten twice as much of the white vote as he had the black. Only in New Orleans.

‘OK,’ Thorndike continued. ‘Won’t keep you long, ’cos there’s lots to do. First off, this is our case till otherwise proven. Clear?’

‘That depends what the deceased wanted to discuss with Agent Patrese,’ Phelps said. ‘It could be interstate, it could be international …’

‘Then you can go through the usual channels, when – if – that transpires.’ Thorndike made it sound as though the slower and more congested those channels were, the better he’d like it. ‘But till then, this is homicide, pure and simple. We don’t even know if her rendezvous with Agent Patrese and her death are related.’

‘Hell of a coincidence if they aren’t,’ Phelps said.

Thorndike glowered at Phelps, and Patrese realized what the two of them reminded him of: a corporate executive and a union boss, negotiating industrial action with ill-disguised antipathy. Phelps’ hair was swept back, and his cufflinks glittered even in the dull strip lighting; he was probably the only man in the entire city who wore long sleeves in the summer. In contrast, Thorndike’s hands were rough, and his nose sat slightly off-center; legacy of at least one break, possibly more.

‘Listen, Ken,’ Phelps said, and even to Patrese it sounded slightly – deliberately? – patronizing. ‘Varden’s her boss, her daddy’s a congressman. We have to tread carefully, we all know that.’

‘That don’t make them above the law. And I know Detective Fawcett is very keen on that.’

‘No one’s saying it makes them above the law. But this is different from dealing with a two-bit hooker out in Desire.’

‘Shouldn’t be,’ Selma said.

‘Maybe. But it is. And the Bureau can help you here.’

‘Yeah?’ Thorndike raised a skeptical eyebrow. ‘If it’s the kinda help you gave us with Marie Laveau, we’ll take a pass. Thanks anyway.’

‘Bring us in, and it shows those men – Varden, Rojciewicz – how seriously we’re taking it.’

‘We?’

‘We. Law enforcement, not any one agency. Strength in numbers. Shows them we’re doing everything we can to solve the case.’

There was an unspoken agenda here too, of course; unspoken because it was both delicate and blindingly obvious. Those closest to the deceased are always prime suspects. In Cindy’s case, that meant that either her boss or, God forbid, her father, might be involved; especially, perhaps, if they were part of whatever Cindy had wanted to tell Patrese about.

She’d chosen Patrese because he was an outsider. In contrast, you didn’t get much more inside than Varden or Rojciewicz. So if they were innocent, they’d be reassured that everything was being done to catch the killer. And if they weren’t, then they’d be worried: and worried people make mistakes, sooner or later.

Thorndike thought for a moment, and then turned. ‘Selma? This is your case. You want Bureau help, or not?’

She looked at Patrese a beat before answering.

‘Help, yes. Agent Patrese was a cop till not so long ago. He can’t have totally gone over to the dark side yet.’ She smiled, but Patrese knew she was serious. ‘Command, no. We work together, we share information, but my word goes. Yes or no?’

Growing up with two sisters had made Patrese a good judge of which battles were worth fighting and which weren’t. This was the latter, he knew. It wasn’t an opening gambit; it was a one-time offer. Better for him, and for the Bureau, to be inside the tent pissing out.

‘Yes,’ he said.

She stood up. ‘Good. Then let’s get to it. We’ve got an incident room already set up. There’s a spare desk in my office. You can use that.’

Phelps and Thorndike were also on their feet.

‘Can you give us a minute, Selma?’ Patrese said. ‘I’d like a word with Mr Phelps.’

‘Fine. I’ll be outside.’

‘What’s on your mind, Franco?’ Phelps said once Selma and Thorndike had left the room.

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but …’

‘OK; now I know what you’re going to ask.’

‘You do?’

‘Yup. ’Cos in your position, I’d ask exactly the same thing. I go to Varden’s parties. I’m in contact with him. Heck, I might even be a friend, if people like him actually have friends. So: with all this, how can I be prepared to bring him down, if that’s what it takes? That’s what you were going to ask, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Patrese held up his hands. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘Listen, Franco. Two things you should know. First, my job is more important to me than any personal ties. The law comes first. Has to. Second, this is New Orleans. It’s a corrupt place, everyone knows that. It’s a great place, don’t get me wrong, but here even plumb lines fall crooked. But there’s a flip side to that. Just because you accept someone’s hospitality doesn’t mean you’re blind to his faults. So if Varden’s guilty, let’s put him inside. Simple as that.’

If the foyer of police headquarters had been typically public sector utilitarian, that of Varden Industries wouldn’t have disgraced a five-star hotel. Patrese sat in a sofa that was almost ludicrously deep and comfortable, and wondered idly how much all the art on the walls had cost.

Selma flicked through a corporate brochure. Men hard of hat and determined of face laying pipelines, rig workers cheerily adjusting drill bits, painters touching up a classroom in Baghdad, white men bringing light, might and the American way to the natives’ darkness. Numbers picked out from the text in bold: employees worldwide, countries of operation, charitable donations.

Selma put her tongue against the back of her teeth, hissed, and batted the back of her hand against the brochure. ‘They should stock these things in Barnes & Noble. Fiction section.’

‘What did Thorndike mean?’

‘About what?’

‘About you being very keen on no one being above the law.’

‘I worked Internal Affairs before I moved to Homicide. Busted a lot of cops who were on the take. Thorndike tried to protect some of them, said they were good cops. I said no cop who was on the take was a good cop. Don’t matter what else they do or don’t do. A cop can’t be honest, he can’t be a cop. End of.’

‘And Thorndike resents you for this?’

‘Probably.’

‘You don’t sound like you care very much.’

‘I don’t. I don’t give a shit, and I don’t take any shit. I’m not in the shit business.’

A young woman approached, heels clacking as she walked across the marble floor. One of Cindy’s colleagues, Patrese thought; perhaps even her replacement already. Varden wouldn’t have got to where he was by wasting time on sentiment.

The young woman took them up in the express elevator without speaking.

Varden Tower was the tallest building in New Orleans. Unsurprisingly, Varden’s office was on the top floor; more precisely, it was the top floor. A decent-sized antechamber for his support staff, and for him, something the size of a ballroom, with views across the city to three sides: the Mississippi one way, Lake Pontchartrain the other, and a patchwork of roofs and roads in between.

Varden came round from the far side of his desk. Patrese was struck by how unimposing he was; lost in the vastness of his office rather than having the charisma to fill it. You wouldn’t have given him a second glance in the street; a man in his sixties, average height, well turned out without being especially so, and with a look of perpetually mild surprise, as though he found the world and its people harder to read than a balance sheet.

‘Agent Patrese. Detective Fawcett. Good of you to come.’ If Varden had been wearing a hat, Patrese thought, he’d have tipped it.

‘I’m the lead on this case, sir,’ Selma said. Polite but firm.

‘Are you?’ Equally courteous, but without the slightest hint of apology. Elderly white men clearly didn’t say sorry to young black women in Louisiana, Patrese thought, even in this day and age.

There were low chairs round a coffee table next to one of the windows. As Patrese sat down, he glanced out at the Mississippi, stretching lazy wide as barges and ferries churned it gray and brown.

‘Do I need a lawyer?’ Varden said.

‘We’re just here to ask you some questions about Cindy, sir,’ replied Selma.

‘Do you always bring the Bureau with you on homicide cases?’

‘We do when the victim worked closely with a man like yourself.’

Varden’s eyes flashed. ‘What does that mean, young lady?’

‘It means you’re an important citizen, sir, and we want to assure you that the New Orleans law enforcement community is doing everything it can – doing everything we can – to bring Miss Rojciewicz’ killer to justice.’

Spoken like a true pro, Patrese thought.

‘In that case, Detective, fire away.’

‘How long had Miss Rojciewicz worked for you?’

‘Four years, just about.’

‘And how would you describe her as an employee?’

‘First class. As are all my staff. I don’t employ anybody who’s anything other. Not for very long, at any rate.’

‘Her father is a friend of yours, is that right?’

‘That’s right. I’ve – I’d – known Cindy for a long while, so I knew she’d be up to the responsibilities I entrusted her with.’

‘And what were those responsibilities?’

‘She ran my life.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I mean exactly what I said. My meetings, organized. Any documents I needed, ready. Transport, in place. Bills, paid.’

‘Bills? Work bills, or home bills?’

‘Both.’

‘She looked after your personal arrangements as well as your professional ones?’

‘To me, there’s no difference. My life is my work; my work is my life. Let me tell you something, Detective. Cindy’s job, it’s not one most people could do. You know why? Because she sacrificed her life to the dictates of mine. I went somewhere, she came too. I needed something at three in the morning, she got it for me. I changed my plans at a moment’s notice, she had to do so as well.’

‘Did she ever complain?’

‘Never. Why should she? How many people of her age have stayed the places she has, met the people she has?’

‘You say you involved her in every part of your life. Was the reverse true?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘How much did you know about her life?’

‘As much as anyone knows about their staff. Things you find out over time.’

‘Did she ever talk to you about her social life?’

‘Sometimes. Especially if my demands had dragged her away from a party.’

‘Love life?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Did she ever talk to you about her love life? Boyfriends?’

‘Good heavens, no.’

‘Did you ever sleep with her?’

Varden wasn’t offended, Patrese saw; if anything, he was flattered. ‘I refer you to the answer I gave to your previous question, Detective. Good heavens, no.’

‘She was very attractive.’

‘She was indeed.’

‘And you weren’t tempted? Rich, powerful man; young, beautiful secretary. It would hardly have been the first time.’

‘You asked me, I told you.’

‘Are you upset? That she’s been killed?’

‘What an imbecilic question. Of course I’m upset. I liked her very much.’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘Tuesday evening, about eight o’clock. We’d been out of town that day …’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Denton, Texas.’

‘Business?’

‘I’ve found little reason to visit Denton for recreation, put it that way.’

‘And you last saw her where?’

‘The airport.’

‘Louis Armstrong?’

‘That’s correct. We landed back there around seven forty-five. What with deplaning and so on, it was around eight before we went our separate ways. Yes: we’d left at eight that morning, and I remember thinking we’d been gone for twelve hours on the dot.’

‘What did you think when she didn’t turn up for work yesterday?’

‘I didn’t think anything. I knew she was sick. She’d rung in to tell me.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Just after eight, I think.’

‘Were you angry?’

‘No. Why should I have been?’

‘You said you needed her on call round the clock. She’s not there for a whole day, that could mess up your plans.’

‘I have other staff, Detective, who are also very good. We can do without anyone for a day. Even me.’

‘And now?’

‘Now what?’

‘Have you replaced her?’

‘Her responsibilities are being covered by her colleagues. I haven’t yet considered a permanent replacement, no.’

‘Did you monitor her communications?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Record phone calls, keep copies of e-mails; that kind of thing.’

‘All phone calls into and out of this building are recorded as a matter of course. All e-mails written on Varden computers are company property.’

‘Did you ever find anything which led you to question her loyalty?’

‘Never.’

‘She must have been privy to some sensitive information.’

‘Much more than “some”, I can assure you.’

‘Did she ever report approaches from other organizations? Attempts at corporate espionage? Bribery. Corruption? Anything like that?’

‘Again, never.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘Why so?’

‘This is New Orleans, after all.’ Selma looked at Patrese, and then back to Varden. ‘How many computers did Cindy use?’

‘Two. A desktop, and a laptop.’

‘Are they both here?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘She didn’t have her laptop with her on Tuesday? When you went to Denton?’

‘Yes, she did.’

‘Then surely she’d have taken it home with her?’

Varden shook his head. ‘She gave it to me at the airport.’

‘Why so?’

‘I never let her take it home. Security. It always came with me.’

Selma shrugged; it made sense. ‘We’d like to impound those computers.’

‘You have a warrant?’

‘Not yet. But we can get one.’

‘Then you get one, and you come back, and you can have it. But not till then.’

‘I thought you said you had nothing to hide.’

‘About her murder, I don’t. But as you yourself pointed out, Cindy was privy to commercially sensitive information. Much of that is bound to be on her computer.’

‘And you’re going to delete that information before we get a warrant?’

‘I built this company up from nothing, young lady. I am the reason it is what it is today. Nothing is going to jeopardize that. You understand?’

Varden Tower to police HQ was straight up Poydras, about twenty blocks. Patrese drove while Selma called the pathologist. She crooked the cell phone between her right ear and shoulder, and scribbled notes on a pad.

The Superdome slid by on their left, squat and bulbous. Patrese remembered a drunk cornering him in a bar a few months back, not long after he’d arrived in New Orleans, and telling him in all seriousness that the Superdome was a flying saucer, landed right in the middle of the city, and all the expressways and flyovers which coiled around it were hiding power lines and waste pipes for the aliens living inside.

Funny thing was, that guy hadn’t even been the craziest person there that night.

Selma ended the call and turned to Patrese. ‘OK. Autopsy, prelim results. Far as they can tell, Cindy died from a combination of neurotoxins and blood loss. Either would have killed her on its own. Together, no chance.’

‘Neurotoxins. As in snake bite?’

‘Perhaps; they can’t be certain until they’ve done some more tests. But it seems pretty clear, what with the puncture marks on her right calf. And get this. You wonder why she didn’t fight back? Because the venom had paralyzed her, that’s why. Neurotoxic venom blocks nerve impulses to muscles, including the ones in the diaphragm we use for breathing. Can’t breathe properly, can’t move, can’t speak, swallow …’

‘…and all the while conscious that someone’s cutting your leg off.’

Selma nodded. Didn’t say anything; didn’t have to. Patrese winced.

‘It was a rattlesnake, right?’ he said.

‘Right. A Yucatan rattlesnake, apparently. Latin name, crotalus simus tzabcan. There are about thirty different species, but this one’s one of the more deadly.’

‘Probably why he chose it.’

‘Exactly. Guys at the incident room are finding us a herpetologist to go see.’

‘Herpetologist?’

‘Reptile expert.’

‘You learn something every day.’

‘You grow up round here, Franco, you get to know your snakes pretty fast.’

‘Yeah, and some of them even have scales.’

Selma laughed, and for a moment all her attitude and spikiness disappeared. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’

Her mobile rang. She answered, wrote a few more lines on her pad, checked a couple of details with whoever was on the other end, and hung up.

‘Want to take a trip to the bayou?’ she asked.

Murder investigation or not, Patrese felt the tension leach from his body with every mile they put between themselves and the city. Clogged urban streets thick with traffic and tension gave way to highways smeared with garages and hypermarkets in the primary colors of corporate America; highways melted into back roads dappled under arboreal canopies. Patrese lowered his window and inhaled heavy marsh tang.

Selma peered at the upcoming street sign.

‘Bayou Barataria. This is it. Make a right here,’ she said. ‘Then it’s two miles after that. We’re looking for a purple-and-yellow sign on a metal gate. Wyatt Herps.’

Patrese laughed. ‘Great name. Wonder how long that took to think up?’

The sign was exactly two miles further on, above a ‘No Trespassing’ warning in red and white. Patrese got out of the car, opened the gate – hot to the touch in the rising sunshine – and they set off down an unmetalled track.

They hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when a shot rang out.

Selma had her service revolver drawn almost before Patrese had hit the brakes. They were in an unmarked car; nothing to identify them as law enforcement.

‘There a rooflight anywhere in here?’ he asked.

She rummaged in the glove compartment and under her seat. ‘Not that I can find.’

‘NOPD efficiency for you.’

‘Button it. Keep going. Slowly.’

He inched forward. Selma lowered her window and rested her gun hand on the sill.

Around the next corner, a red-faced woman in a check shirt stood in the middle of the track. The unblinking twin black eyes of her rifle stared at Patrese and Selma.

‘Get the hell off of my property!’ she shouted.

Patrese stopped the car. Selma held up her badge with her free hand.

‘NOPD, ma’am.’

‘Can’t you people just leave me alone? I done tellin’ those other fools everything. I ain’t done nothin’ wrong. I got nothing to say to y’all. Now get.’

Selma looked at Patrese, puzzled. He shrugged. Selma looked back at the woman.

‘Ma’am, I’m afraid I don’t understand. What other, er, people?’

‘Fools from Wildlife and Fisheries.’

‘And what did they want?’

‘Y’all don’t know?’

‘Not at all.’

The woman squinted, decided Selma was on the level, and continued: ‘Comin’ here askin’ if I been stealing people’s pets.’

‘Why would you have done that?’

‘To feed to my snakes. As if!’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That they didn’t have probable cause.’

Blame Grisham, Patrese thought. Everyone reckoned they were Perry Mason now.

‘Ma’am, we’re here because a young woman’s been murdered in the city. We were told you’re the foremost snake expert in the area, and we need your help.’

The rifle came down. ‘Why didn’t you say?’ She indicated a low building behind her. ‘Park on round the side, under the cypresses. I’ll see you in there.’

‘In there’ was an office which looked about as organized as the last days of the Roman Empire. Invoices spilled out of colanders and cardboard boxes; in-trays were buried like earthquake victims under mountains of brochures.

The woman wiped her brow and offered her hand to Patrese, who took it without wincing. ‘Kat South,’ she said. ‘Sorry about just now.’

‘Forget about it. I’m Agent Patrese of the FBI; this is Detective Fawcett, NOPD.’

Selma explained about Cindy’s murder. She left out Cindy’s personal information – name, job, address, and so on – but included as much detail from the crime scene as she could. She and Patrese had discussed this on the way down. Usual practice is to keep certain details of homicide scenes secret, in order to weed out the inevitable bunch of lunatics who ring up claiming to have done it, but Patrese and Selma had agreed that in this instance they had to share as much as possible. To someone who knew about snakes, the smallest detail might be significant.

‘Shoot,’ Kat said, when Selma had finished. ‘That’s terrible. Poor girl. Well, any way I can, I’ll help, of course. What would you like to know?’

‘Is there any particular significance to the Yucatan rattlesnake?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Are they, for example, the most poisonous rattlesnake?’

Kat shook her head. ‘No. They’re venomous, sure, but they ain’t top of the charts. Tiger, neotropical, Mojave, twin-spotted, western, diamondback – eastern and western – timber, pygmy, red diamond, rock; they’re all more venomous than the Yucatan.’

‘Are they easy to get hold of?’

‘Yes indeedy. If you go to Yucatan.’

Patrese laughed. ‘You deal with many yourself?’

‘A few. Not too many. But if people want to buy ’em, sure.’

‘You sell any recently?’

‘In the past year? A handful. Dozen, maybe.’

‘Can we see the customer list?’

‘No problem. I’ll dig it out.’ She gestured to the chaos on her desk. ‘It may take quite a while, though. I can’t be doing with all this computer stuff.’

‘And these dozen – they come from the Yucatan itself?’

‘Not any more. The first few, obviously, but ever since, I’ve bred them here.’

‘Can we see?’

‘Sure.’

She led them from the office into a large outbuilding. It was about the size of Varden’s office, but without the view, the furniture, or the art. Perspex cases marched in neat lines away from them.

‘Here are my babies,’ Kat said; jaunty, but with a tinge of sadness that Patrese clocked immediately. Many a true word, he thought. ‘Yucatans are at the far end, past the boas and pythons.’

They started off down the rows of cases, each with its own lighting and foliage. Patrese couldn’t help but think of those weird Tokyo capsule hotels he’d seen on TV, or of prisoners lounging in their cells, apathetic almost to the point of coma.

‘Must be pretty safety-conscious,’ Selma said.

‘Sure am. Cases are all secured, tops latched on. The holes you see let the air in but are too small to crawl through.’

‘What do they eat?’

‘In the wild, things like mice, rats, small rabbits. Here, I give them frozen rodents, pre-killed. Saves a lot of thrashing around.’

‘Probably better for the rodents, too.’

‘I guess. I got one of them big industrial freezers, and it’s full to burstin’. Darn things eat better than I do. Here.’ She tapped lightly against the front of a case. ‘This is one of the Yucatans here.’

Patrese and Selma peered closer, both aware that the only previous example they’d seen had been covered in Cindy’s blood. The rattlesnake, rough-scaled in muted blue and gray, peered back.

‘I’ll be honest,’ Kat said. ‘They ain’t the prettiest. I mean, to me, all snakes are beautiful, but some more than others.’

‘Are there any other breeders in the area?’

‘For Yucatans? Not that I know of. That’s not to say that …’ She stopped abruptly.

‘Not to say that what?’

Kat winced. ‘Listen, I don’t want to get no one in trouble, but it ain’t a secret that Louisiana laws are pretty lax when it comes to my line of business. A lot of states are a whole heap tougher. So if you were, let’s say, not so qualified, this is the kind of place you’d wanna come.’

‘You mean there could be breeders operating without official sanction?’

‘Exactly. And unless you can get FedEx or whoever to tell you who they deliver to, you ain’t never gonna find them. Not me, though. I’m fully registered.’

‘I’m sure you are.’

‘Listen, it’s hot as hell, ain’t it? Y’all want a lemonade or something?’

‘Please,’ Patrese and Selma said in unison.

‘There’s a terrace out there,’ Kat said, indicating a door. ‘Y’all make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back.’

The terrace was on the edge of the bayou itself. Patrese and Selma each took a seat, and for a moment were content merely to be still. The water sloshed mud and silt gently against the bank beneath them. A pair of butterflies flashed rainbow colors as they whirled around a black willow. Out on the marshes, herons stood like soldiers, looking toward the point where the archipelago petered out into the Gulf of Mexico.

Selma gave a little, sudden shiver. ‘You feel it?’ she asked; and the tone of her voice meant Patrese knew exactly what she was talking about, because he’d been thinking it too. There was a darkness out here in the bayou, a presence beyond man or animal. It was little wonder that swamp monsters featured so heavily in local folklore.

‘Yup.’

‘What do you think? About Kat?’

‘Overall? She’s on the level.’

‘Why so?’

‘Too eccentric not to be.’

Selma smiled. ‘One way of looking at it. Let’s wait and see what her customer lists come up with. And if Wildlife and Fisheries do have a case, that might mean leverage for us, if we ever need it.’

‘Of course.’

Kat came back with a jug of lemonade and three glasses.

‘Heck of a place you got here,’ Patrese said, as she poured.

‘Thank you. My own little bit of paradise. No neighbors, no cell-phone reception. Sometimes it seems like I’m the only one who wants to keep it this way, what with everyone trying to build on top or drill beneath. Fools. We’re supposed to be the most intelligent of animals, but sometimes I think we’re the dumbest, you know? That’s why I love snakes.’

‘Ms South, no disrespect,’ Selma said, ‘but Genesis, chapter three, says that the serpent was slier than all the animals of the field. It was the snake who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden. It was the snake who spoke to them with forked tongue. The snake is not a creature to be loved. It’s a creature to be feared, and despised.’

Kat smiled. Patrese figured she must have heard all this before.

‘You can’t see it, can you, Detective?’

‘Can’t see what?’ asked Selma.

‘You see only the scales, the venom, the danger. You don’t see kaleidoscopes of color. You don’t see the elegance of their movements. You don’t see the purity of their design. No limbs, no ears, no eyelids. Evolution pared to the bone. May I ask: do you have children?’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Young children aren’t afraid of snakes. They’re perfectly happy to handle them.’

‘Only ’cos they don’t know better.’

‘No; only ’cos they don’t know worse. It’s as they get older that they start to mistrust snakes, and you know why? Because they’re encouraged to. By adults. When those children become adults, they pass it on to their children. And so it goes on. The snakes aren’t the problem. We’re the problem.’

Roger Rojciewicz’ house, all immaculate crown molded ceilings and travertine floors, was out in Metairie, one of the city’s western suburbs which fell within his congressional district. As its Lake Drive address suggested, it overlooked Lake Pontchartrain, though the view clearly meant nothing to him today. One look at Rojciewicz, and Patrese knew that he couldn’t have had anything to do with the murder of his daughter. There was a special tier of anguish for parents who’d lost their children, and Patrese had seen that soul-numbing grief many times – too many times – in his Homicide days. Anyone who could fake it deserved an Oscar. In fact, the only person Patrese knew to have successfully faked it, at least for a while, really did have an Oscar.

Rojciewicz accepted their condolences with vague distraction, and answered their questions in a monotone. He’d last seen Cindy at Varden’s party on Monday. On Tuesday, he’d taken an early flight to Dallas on some congressional sub committee business. Yesterday he’d taken the six thirty evening flight back to DC, arriving past ten at night. By the time he’d gotten the call about Cindy, it had been too late to get back to New Orleans, so he’d had to fly first thing this morning.

That was the congressman’s whereabouts accounted for, Patrese thought.

‘I appreciate the efforts you’re making,’ Rojciewicz said. ‘Any help you need, you let me know. Just find the, the – monster who did this, you hear?’

It was past lunchtime by the time Patrese and Selma got back to police headquarters, and the heat was virtually a physical entity; wet, suffocating, like an airline towel.

There were about fifteen officers working the case. Selma called them together and asked for a situation report.

Cindy’s severed leg had been found stuffed in her hall closet, which Patrese thought was interesting. He’d have expected the killer to take the leg with him as some sort of warped trophy. That he hadn’t done so suggested that the rationale for removing Cindy’s leg would be found either in the very act of cutting it, the arrangement of her body without it, or possibly both.

Forensics were still analyzing the usual mish-mash of fingerprint, hair and fiber evidence from Cindy’s apartment. Whether any of it meant anything, or led to anything, only time would tell. The axhead and the mirror were also being examined. If they could find the manufacturers of one or both, they could find how many units had been sold in the immediate area, and from which outlets.

The murder’s chief characteristics – severed leg, rattlesnake, mirror, axhead – had been entered into the Bureau’s VICAP national database, which searched for correlations in any other homicides across the nation. No matches had been found.

Three judges had been asked to issue a search warrant for Cindy’s workplace computer. All of them had said no. If you ever wanted to know Varden’s power, that was it, right there.

Cindy had more than a hundred and fifty numbers programmed into her cell phone. The cops were working through them, finding out if anyone knew anything. Some of her friends had heard the news; others were understandably shocked when they were told. Nothing suspicious so far, except for a text which had come in a couple of hours ago.

U want more stuff for weekend? Same as other night?

Someone who didn’t yet know she was dead, obviously. Patrese read it twice. Stuff, other night: it could surely only mean exactly what he thought it did.

The sender was identified as ‘L’.

‘Has anyone called this person?’ Patrese asked.

‘I did,’ said one of the uniforms.

‘And?’

‘No answer.’

‘You called from a phone in this room?’

‘This one right here.’ The uniform nodded to the handset on his desk.

Which meant it would have come up on L’s phone as an unknown number. If L was Cindy’s dealer – if he’d been the black man visiting on Tuesday night, the other night, dropping off the cocaine Patrese had found in her bedroom drawer – he probably wouldn’t have answered a number he didn’t know.

The first twenty-four, maximum forty-eight, hours are crucial in solving a murder. If there are no solid leads by then, the chances of finding the killer plummet. Even at the more generous limit, they were already a third of the way through, with nothing concrete to show for it.

They had to do something, Patrese thought. Change the game.

Patrese typed a reply to L’s message.

‘What the heck are you doing?’ Selma said.

He pressed ‘send’, then showed her.

OK. Come 2nite. About 8?

‘Outside,’ she said, eyes flashing. ‘Now.’

Patrese heard a snicker from one of the cops as Selma led him out into the corridor.

The door had barely shut behind them before she was into him.

‘Are you out of your mind? That’s entrapment.’

‘It’s initiative.’

‘This is my case.’ Her words came out fast and staccato through gritted teeth; as angry as he’d seen her the previous evening at Cindy’s apartment. ‘You are here on my sufferance. Don’t think for a second that because I tolerate that, and because in general I find your input useful, that you can take liberties and pull a stunt like that. Especially not in front of my men. You do not play to the gallery, you do not break the rules. This is just the sort of thing that gives the NOPD a bad name. And it’s just the sort of thing that gets cases thrown out of court, as the Bureau well knows.’

Cindy’s cell phone shivered in Patrese’s hand.

8 gd see u there.

She held out her hand, unsmiling. He passed her the phone.

‘Entrapment,’ she repeated.

‘It’s her dealer. Bet you anything.’ She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know you don’t. Figure of speech. But think about it. Dealers are criminals. Dealers have records. Dealers co-operate with the cops when they don’t want their asses slammed back in jail.’

‘It’s still entrapment.’

‘It’s a lead. You see any others round here?’

Selma took charge of the press inquiries. She didn’t mention Patrese or the FBI, for fear that this would alert the media that there was more to the story than met the eye. In fact, she said as little as possible.

Yes, Congressman Rojciewicz’ daughter had been killed in her apartment.

No, they didn’t yet know who the killer was.

Yes, they were keeping an open mind and following up all leads.

No, she didn’t have any details about the crime scene she wanted to share.

Yes, all Miss Rojciewicz’ family, friends and colleagues were being very helpful.

No, the police hadn’t asked for help from outside agencies. (This was technically true – the Bureau had offered, the NOPD hadn’t asked – and as far as Selma was concerned, when it came to the media, ‘technically true’ was quite true enough.)

Yes, Selma was confident of an arrest soon.

No, she wasn’t going to change her methods or tread carefully because Marie Laveau had been acquitted. That was one case, done and dusted. This was another.

Yes, she thought the crime rate in New Orleans was way too high. It was the murder capital of America, and she was doing all she could to help change this. Unfortunately, the nature of her work meant she was always dealing with crimes already committed.

No, she had nothing more to say. Thank you, and good afternoon.

Patrese and Selma were installed in Cindy’s condo by half past seven, having removed all police tapelines and made everything else look as normal as possible – which wasn’t very normal, given that there was a bloodstain the size of Lake Pontchartrain in the living room.

But if things went according to plan, L – whoever he or she was – wouldn’t even get that far before Patrese and Selma were asking some not-so-delicate questions.

Selma was jumpy. ‘I don’t like this,’ she kept saying. ‘Should never have let you talk me into it.’

‘Will you give it a rest? We’re here now.’

‘Yes, we are, aren’t we? And no, we shouldn’t be.’

‘You ever done surveillance, Selma?’

‘Course. Every cop has.’

‘Then tell me this: how the hell did you persuade anyone to go on stakeouts with you, if this is how jumpy you get?’

‘My stakeouts weren’t illegal.’

‘Anything’s illegal if the other side’s lawyer is good enough.’

‘This is different. A law school sophomore could have this struck off.’

Patrese was about to answer when the intercom system trilled.

Showtime.

He pressed the entry buzzer without speaking, and opened the apartment door.

Footsteps on the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Patrese stood behind the door, out of sight, ready to close it the moment L was inside. Selma was on the other side of the living room, with Patrese between her and the door. She had her revolver drawn, but down by her side.

Footsteps on the landing now, right outside.

Selma’s face suddenly fell, her eyes closing above an agonized grimace.

Patrese didn’t understand; didn’t have time to understand, as the man was in the room now, black, six feet and 180 pounds, just as the neighbor had described him, and he looked as confused as Patrese felt.

‘Yo. What the fuck, man?’

Patrese kicked the door shut, spun the man round, slammed him up against the wall and began to go through his pockets. Possession with intent to supply would certainly provide him with an incentive to answer their questions.

The man wasn’t struggling. He was staring at Selma.

‘Selma?’ he said.

‘Luther.’ Her voice was soft, almost blank.

‘You know him?’ Patrese asked.

Luther laughed. ‘Know me? Hell, man – she used to be married to me.’

Luther’s appearance seemed to have shocked Selma into silence. It was several minutes before she could form a coherent sentence, and in that time Patrese had frisked Luther, found three wraps of cocaine, cuffed him, sat him at Cindy’s kitchen table, and started to grill him. Figuratively, not literally.

The wraps were laid out on the table like a three-card trick, to remind Luther what was at stake if he didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t play ball.

‘Before we get down to why you’re here – as in right here, right now – tell me how you got here,’ Patrese said. ‘More generally. One minute, you and Selma are married; the next, you’re running coke to white kids in Faubourg? How does that work?’

‘I fought for my country, man. I don’t have nothin’ to be ashamed of.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I was in the army. Fifteen years. Intelligence, 519th Battalion. Went to Panama a couple of months after basic training, then Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again. I was a good soldier. I was.’

‘And?’

‘And then I got fucked.’

‘How?’

‘Abu Ghraib.’

Patrese nodded. American soldiers’ abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad had been all over the news, on and off, for more than a year now.

Luther went on. ‘Three months in the can, demotion to private, bad conduct discharge. All I was doing was …’

Don’t tell me, Patrese thought; obeying orders.

‘…obeying orders. Just like I was supposed to. But heads had to roll when it all came out, that’s the way it is, and those heads weren’t ever gonna be the big shots in DC, were they? No, sir. They were gonna be the little guys on the ground. It was a crapshoot, and I lost.’

‘So you became a dealer?’

‘Soldiering’s all I ever wanted to do, you understand? No unit’s ever gonna have me again now, not with that on my record. But a man’s gotta earn his keep. And I got skills. So …’ He gestured to the wraps.

‘You could have been a mall cop.’

Luther snorted. ‘I don’t think so.’

Patrese gestured to Selma. ‘And you guys were married for …?’

‘Seven years. Like the itch. Came down here from Bragg summer of ’97, to see my cousin. Met Selma at church. That was it, man. Love at first sight.’

Selma nodded; for her too, clearly. ‘Got married that fall,’ she said.

‘Whirlwind romance,’ Patrese said.

‘When you know, man, you know,’ Luther replied.

‘And you moved down here, Luther?’

‘No. Had to stay at Bragg. Came down as often as I could, and Selma came to see me, but, you know, I had my job, she had hers, and ain’t neither one of us wanted to give that up. They were good jobs. Righteous jobs.’

‘Must have been hard, though.’

‘Sure. Why the heck you think we split? Cops and soldiers got two of the highest divorce rates in the country, ain’t they?’

‘We could have survived without Abu Ghraib,’ Selma said.

‘Abu Ghraib had nothing to …’

‘If you hadn’t done those things …’

‘I didn’t have a choice.’

‘What things?’ Patrese asked.

‘I can’t …’ Selma shook her head. ‘Look it up on the web, Franco.’

‘I didn’t have a choice, man,’ Luther repeated.

Patrese got the impression this conversation had been played out many times before; sometimes with a marriage counselor, perhaps, sometimes without. Maybe Selma would give Patrese her side of the story sometime.

He changed the subject.

‘You came here around ten o’clock on Tuesday night, that’s correct?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘And you brought cocaine for Cindy then?’

‘Did I?’

‘Remember the text you sent?’

Luther shrugged. ‘Maybe I did.’

‘And how did she seem to you then?’

‘Fine.’

‘Fine?’

‘Yeah, fine. A little tired, maybe. Said she’d had a long day.’

‘Stressed about anything?’

‘Not that she told me about.’

‘How long did you stay for?’

‘A few minutes. We chatted a bit, then I had to shoot.’

‘More deliveries?’

‘I had to shoot, man. Where and why ain’t your concern.’

‘Don’t get lippy with me, Luther. You’re in enough trouble as it is.’

‘Maybe.’

Patrese let it go. ‘You talk a lot with Cindy? In general?’

‘Man, we were … I supplied a service to her. We weren’t buddies.’

‘You ever fuck her?’ Patrese was watching Luther closely for his reaction, but even so he sensed rather than saw Selma wince.

Luther didn’t miss a beat. ‘Never.’

‘You ever want to?’

‘Oh, here we go. Black men violating white women. Man, your fear’s forty years out of date. Ain’t you never seen Shaft?’

Selma took personal charge of processing the paperwork for Luther’s arrest, having belatedly roused herself to appreciate that she couldn’t afford to be accused of letting her ex-husband off lightly. Luther would spend the night in a police cell, and would be transferred on remand to Orleans Parish Prison tomorrow. Drugs for sure, possibly murder as well; though if he had killed Cindy, he’d have known Patrese’s text was a fake, so why would he have turned up? Unless he’d tried to double-bluff them by pretending not to have known.

Either way, the only question seemed to be how long he’d be going down for.

Luther hadn’t mentioned entrapment. Maybe his lawyer would. Maybe Patrese could make the texts disappear before then; he had Luther’s cell phone as well as Cindy’s now, so he could delete the evidence at both ends.

Luther didn’t have any previous: not in civilian life, at least. Abu Ghraib, of course, was a different matter entirely. So, while Selma was filling out the usual mountain of forms, Patrese did as she’d suggested, and searched online for exactly what Luther had done in Iraq.

It wasn’t hard to find.

Luther Marcq had been one of the intelligence officers assigned to interrogation duties, and with one particular detainee, Salman Faraj, he’d gone too far. He’d handcuffed Faraj to a radiator with his underwear over his face; he’d jumped on his leg (already wounded by gunfire); and he’d beaten him with a flashlight.

Speaking in his own defense, Luther had said he’d known that what he was doing was wrong, but that his superiors had put him under intense pressure to get results, reminding him over and again that they were at war and that he was to use any means necessary.

He’d been convicted of dereliction of duty, battery, and making a false official statement to army investigators. Jail, demotion, discharge, as Luther had already said.

Patrese knew soldiers operated for months on end under conditions unimaginable to civilians in their comfortable suburban homes, but even so. Selma’s disgust wasn’t hard to understand.

He found her in her office, staring into space.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘I never, ever thought he’d do something like that.’ Patrese didn’t know whether she meant the drugs, the torture, or both. ‘He’s a good man. Was a good man. We married for life. I really believed that. God had brought us together. But I just couldn’t go on with someone who could do those things. My minister told me to hate the sin while loving the sinner, but it was too late. Luther … he just wasn’t the same man any more.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘You never really know someone, do you?’

Patrese was about to agree when the door burst open. Thorndike, looking furious.

‘Luther Marcq. What the fuck?’

‘Excuse me?’ Selma said.

‘What the fuck are you doing arresting him?’

‘Three wraps of cocaine, for a start.’

‘Right. And how did he know to meet you at Cindy’s apartment?’

Selma looked accusingly at Patrese: Told you so.

‘Let’s not even start on your personal connection with him,’ Thorndike continued, looking straight at Selma. ‘In fact, I’m reassigning you.’

‘You’re what?’

‘You can’t work on this case. Not if your ex-husband’s a suspect. You see how this would look if it ever came to court? I tell you to tread carefully, and what do you do? Go running around like it’s the Klondike out there. You forgotten who Cindy’s daddy is? Her boss? That means we take no chances. Not one.’

‘Luther’s a drug dealer. Pure chance that Cindy was one of his clients.’

‘Pure chance? Ain’t no such thing. Not in law enforcement. And certainly not in law school.’

‘Then let the lawyers prove that.’

Thorndike shook his head. ‘I let him go.’

‘You did what?’ said Patrese and Selma in perfect tandem.

‘A half-hour ago. Let him walk free, no charge.’

‘But he’s …’

‘He’s nothing. He was a lawsuit waiting to happen, if I hadn’t done what I did. Franco, I’ll assign a new lead detective in the morning.’

‘This case is mine,’ Selma said. ‘You know that.’

‘You prove Luther had nothing to do with Cindy’s murder, you can have it back.’

‘How can I? You just let him go.’

‘Don’t mean he’s not still a suspect.’

It was past eleven by the time Patrese got home; home being, for the moment at least, a two-bedroom bungalow hard up against the London Avenue Canal in the mixed-race, largely middle-class suburb of Gentilly.

He’d inherited it from another Bureau guy who’d been transferred to Sacramento. When the lease was up in the fall he’d probably move somewhere nearer the Quarter – where else would a single guy want to be, not just in New Orleans but very possibly the entire world? – but it was fine until then.

He’d been on the go for sixteen hours, nonstop. It was all he could do to make it to his bedroom without falling over.

As he brushed his teeth, he thought of what Selma had said about Luther; about the trust she’d put in him, about the standards she set for those she loved, and about the terrible impact when it all failed.

She liked to come across as a hardass, but she wasn’t really, not deep down. She’d been brave enough to let Luther get in close, properly close.

Patrese knew it was more than he’d ever done with anyone.