Chapter Twenty-Eight
LIEUTENANT CORNELIUS BATES had visited the Garden District many times in the past few weeks, though for reasons not related to police work. He was in the market and had found himself a real estate agent.
He liked this neighborhood because the homes were more than houses.
They had personalities. Bates thought these homes fit his personality: good-looking, classy, charming.
With their Greek Revival, Italianate, or Spanish architecture, one might even call them seductive, a word that had always appealed to him.
Moreover, these homes had stories to tell, and where there were stories, there were secrets.
Bates had walked with the agent down this very street, Prytania, right before they stopped at the bar near the Irish Channel, where he worked his charm, getting her tipsy enough to agree to go out with him the following week.
It did not bother him that the Irish Channel was not an actual waterway.
He had been raised in New Orleans, a product of the Ninth Ward, where there really was a canal, one that had broken.
Over here where the elite had put their stamp on the river lands, the canals had never been connected to the Mighty Miss. Had they known?
Bates wouldn’t have been surprised.
The police cruisers parked at the corner of Third and Prytania formed a phalanx around the wrought iron, playing a red-and-blue light show on the neighbors’ walls. A handful of people were out in the street wearing robes and slippers.
He thought that was good. One never knew who might be watching.
This was an area that was home to judges, politicians, and the executives who funded their campaigns.
Icy herself lived a few blocks down on Third.
He had attended an event at her home a few months ago.
The charm hadn’t worked that time. Icy was as good as her name.
Shoving thoughts of that rebuff aside, Bates decided it would be better to walk through the cordon of policemen rather than drive through as he would have in the Ninth. Here in the Garden, it was better to be seen, to show up as the man in charge.
He stopped in the middle of the street and shifted his beefed-up Dodge Charger into park.
When he stepped out, he straightened his tie and adjusted his shirt.
Unlike other ambitious detectives, he rarely wore a suit jacket, even in the cool evening air or during the brief New Orleans winter.
Bates preferred to show off his narrow waist and well-developed shoulders that came from pumping iron and working the heavy bag at Le Boxeur gym in the heart of the French Quarter.
“Crime scene secured?” he asked a patrolman near the yellow tape. Clearly, the scene had been secured. Why else was the tape there? But Bates could sense as well as see the onlookers within earshot. It was important that they knew a leader had arrived.
“Yes, Lieutenant. We’ve got the perimeter set up.”
Bates nodded his shining bald head. He put his hands on his hips and took it in.
Five cruisers had responded. Good. It was necessary to provide a show of force here in the Garden.
One of them had the letters on the trunk of his specialized unit, the one that would elevate him to the top job: COPE.
He wished that cruiser had been parked closer to the onlookers.
“Any media?”
“Yes, sir. Three broadcast channels. We’re holding them down the street for now.”
Now, that was a rookie move. Under Icy’s sharp leadership, the NOPD budget lines had been increasing over the past few years. That funding came from the property tax dollars of the parish, much of it from this neighborhood. It was important for these people to see a swift and heavy police response.
“Go ahead and let them bring the cameras up,” Bates ordered. “We want to display full transparency.”
The patrolman nodded. Like all NOPD officers, he understood the force’s reputation. Citizens didn’t always trust the department.
“I’ll let them through, sir. We’ll set them up on the far sidewalk.”
“Perfect,” Bates responded.
With his badge exposed on his belt that matched the leather of his holster carrying his Glock 22, Bates ducked under the rope.
He preferred to carry the .40-caliber full-sized Glock like the patrolmen.
The smaller Glocks he was now authorized to carry as a lieutenant looked too small and unimpressive against his muscular body.
Detective Howard Gormley stood at the wrought-iron gate, his round belly casting a shadow on the home’s brick path. “Hey, boss,” he said when Bates approached.
“Place is a friggin’ zoo.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Who all’s in the house?” Bates asked.
Gormley tugged at the double chin beneath his stubble.
He was in his mid-fifties with pale skin that looked as if it had never seen the sun.
His hair was full but gray, and his eyes were so droopy that the other cops called him Bloodhound, shortened to Hound.
Gormley chose to believe they were complimenting his investigative skills.
“Detective Kile along with CSI techs, checking out the vics.”
Kile’s already in there? Shit. And the vic’s a Ms. Staub? Whe else?” Bates asked, noting the patrolmen within earshot.
“A couple of John Does so far. Look Hispanic.”
Because he worked in Bates’s COPE unit, Gormley wore a tie without a jacket, just like the boss, though he had violated the dress code by choosing a short-sleeved shirt.
“I’ll take a look,” Bates said, snapping rubber gloves over his hands.
NOPD had eight districts, the equivalent of precincts, that covered the greater New Orleans area.
Technically, this crime scene should have been processed by the head of the Sixth District, since they were in the Garden, but Bates had made a few calls and talked with the superintendent of police.
He explained that the principal victim and homeowner, Leigh Ann Staub, was the mother of a stiff they had picked up over in the Ninth tied to the heroin trade.
With what was reportedly a shoot-out at her home, Bates suggested it might have been retaliatory gang activity.
The supe knew Bates had the ear of the DA and agreed with his assessment. Bates was going to make this his scene.
He slid cloth booties over his shoes and crossed the mahogany foyer with the Persian rugs. Phillip Kile, a detective with the Sixth, was standing there, eyeballing the scene and taking notes.
“What’s up, Kile?” Bates said as he approached.
Detective Kile flipped his notebook closed and stepped forward carefully, staying on the wood floor so as not to alter the impressions in the carpet.
“Fucking mess, I’ll tell you that.”
“Looks that way, but let me make your night. COPE is taking this one.”
Kile studied the man who had intruded on his scene.
“We’re in the Sixth, Lieutenant.”
“COPE follows the leads wherever they go. That’s here. We got this.”
“I can’t agree to that. Not unless I hear from my squad. Or maybe Homicide.”
Kile had been an Army Ranger and still had the haircut. He wouldn’t respond to intimidation but did understand the chain of command.
“This is coming from the supe,” Bates replied.
Because he thought this might come up, he had asked the superintendent to send an authorization on the secure text circuit. Bates handed his phone to Kile.
“Yeah, okay,” the detective responded after a few seconds, handing the phone back. “Scene’s yours. You want me to stick around and help? I don’t mind. There is a lot to process here.”
Bates shook his head. “I’ve got Gormley and a COPE patrol unit here, but if you could assign your Sixth officers to the cordon, I’d appreciate it.”
Bates paused and scanned the rest of the room. Two crime scene techs were at work taking photographs of the dead man on the back porch, just past the open French doors.
“Have the techs been upstairs?” Bates asked.
“Just a quick cursory scan to confirm the vics. They haven’t processed anything yet. One of yours was first on scene, an Officer Dupuis. I have him securing the second floor.”
“Any security cameras in this house?”
“Negative.”
“Too bad. Anything else stand out to you?”
“No, Lieutenant.”
“Okay. Thanks for the head start, Detective.”
Kile remained standing for a few seconds, as though imprinting the scene on his memory. Having lost the pissing contest, he nodded at Bates and pulled off his gloves as he headed for the door.
Gormley entered, grinning.
“Did old Kile take that hard?” he asked.
“He took it as an order.”
“Army boys are good that way.”
“Hound,” Bates began, speaking softly, careful to keep his voice lower than those he could hear on the front porch. “Go grab Rayne. He’s outside somewhere. Sixth is taking cordon.”
“I’m on it.”
“And, make sure the guys from the Sixth are set up in a way that allows media to see the house, but that’s it. We all circle up here. This is our show. Nobody else.”
“Damn straight, Corn.”
Cornelius didn’t like his name shortened to Corn, but this was the NOPD, and when you had a name like Cornelius, your nickname was preordained.
With Gormley out of the house Bates quickly scanned the pantry and then stepped outside to speak with the CSIs.
Just as he had with Kile, he asked them to give him some time on-site to process.
When they shot him a puzzled glance, he smiled and explained that he preferred the crime scene to be free of investigators when he arrived.
“I like to see it just as it went down,” he told the two women, one young, the other middle-aged. “No distractions.”
Finally, alone with the dead man on the back porch steps, Bates knelt, backlit from the kitchen, casting a shadow out over the garden.
He snagged a penlight from his shirt pocket, clicked it on, and used it to check out the dead guy’s face.
The cause of death was obvious; someone had almost chopped off his head with a shovel. Rigor mortis hadn’t yet set in, which suggested he had been killed less than two hours ago.