Chapter Forty
THE NINTH WAS bordered on three sides by water—canal to the west, swamp to the north, and the Mississippi River to the south—and, after the drug house hit, Walker had lit out in search of a better forward operating base.
He drove his van through neighborhoods near the Mighty Miss and then bumped over a railroad frontage road.
Killing his lights and investigating with the monocular NOD on foot, he found a long-forgotten meter-wide, litter-strewn trail, overgrown with buttonbush shrubs and cattails.
It led to the river, where the ground turned muddy and lumpy with sinewy roots fighting to push clear of the damp soil.
An oak grove stood in silence, rings on the trunks marking the river’s seasonal reach. For Walker’s purposes, it was perfect.
He had killed two cops and, dirty or not, the counterstrike would come.
He spent the day comparing Connor’s journals with the take from the trap house, to piece together the network that the young man had been investigating. In the SEAL Teams and in the CIA, he would have turned everything over to a team of analysts. Here, he was the analyst.
He left the two dead officers’ phones behind so the police or another federal agency couldn’t track them, but he had grabbed their badges and wallets, which now lay on the van’s retractable table. Officers Tom Rayne and Keith Hendrick.
He matched Rayne to Connor’s code: “Slate.” Hendrick was a match for “Chestnut.” Connor had used off colors with the requisite number of letters. He tied both officers to trap houses in the Ninth and documented that they were part of the COPE unit.
As the sun neared the horizon, Walker called Belle and arranged to meet her at a pickup location about a mile from his current position.
As much as he hated to admit it, he needed a computer.
He then showered with sun-heated water from tanks replenished by the Mississippi and did his best to trim his hair and beard.
He changed into a set of fresh clothes, stuffed his dirty ones into a laundry sack, and locked the van.
With Paladin at his side and his Glock tucked in its holster, he walked over the train tracks to the position he had passed to Belle. The sun cast long shadows across the cracked pavement and gnats swarmed as Walker watched the sparse traffic on Almonaster Avenue. Nothing seemed out of place.
With the BMW possibly burned, Belle told him that she would borrow her grandmother’s car. When he asked what it was, she just said he would appreciate it.
Walker was watching a container truck bang along toward the city when a dark blue AMC Eagle wagon with wood paneling rolled to a stop on the shoulder.
Walker opened the rear passenger door and Paladin jumped inside, leaning forward to lick Belle’s cheek.
Walker slid into a cracked but still plush leather passenger seat.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“A Wagon Queen Family Truckster on steroids.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she said.
“Never mind. It’s an eighties classic. I can see Grandma has taste.”
“Her name’s Gloria,” Belle said as she merged back onto the road.
Rolling at sixty, pointed into the setting sun, Belle glanced sideways at him. “You clean up nice. I didn’t realize you had a neck under there.”
“I didn’t want to scare Gloria.”
Belle smiled. “She doesn’t scare easy.”
Gloria Travois lived in a weathered Creole cottage on Kerlerec Street, a half mile from the French Quarter.
The house, built in 1910, wore its age well.
Its white clapboard siding had faded to a soft gray, and the wrought-iron railings on the porch bore flecks of rust, but the windows were clean, the shutters freshly painted, and the flower beds were well tended.
Every third or fourth house on the street was run down.
One was boarded with vines crawling up the siding. Another had a tarp for a roof.
Belle parked the AMC on the cracked driveway.
“Where’s the Beamer?” Walker asked.
“Garage.”
They climbed the steps and Walker looked around while Belle worked the keys on the iron security door.
“Half the block’s gone to hell,” she said, noting Walker’s apprehension.
Inside, the floorboards groaned beneath their feet, the sound echoing faintly through the quiet house.
The walls were a gallery of distant worlds, decorated with sepia-toned portraits of tribal elders, close-ups of wild-eyed predators mid-hunt, and sweeping vistas of jungles shrouded in mist or deserts cracked and endless.
One photograph caught Walker’s attention: a tight shot of an alligator, its yellow eye sharp, the rest of its body submerged in dark water.
The image was intimate, almost confrontational, like the creature had been watching the photographer as much as the photographer had been watching it.
“Her work?” he asked, voice low.
“Every shot.”
Walker followed Belle to the kitchen, where Gloria was finishing rolling out a pie crust. She was small and wiry, her silver hair pulled into a bun. Coke-bottle glasses magnified her brown eyes. She wore a linen blouse and slacks. Her hands were dusted with flour.
“You must be Chris,” she said, extending a hand after wiping it on her apron.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s nice to meet you.”
“And this is Paladin,” Belle said. “He answers to Pal.”
Gloria bent down and stroked the dog behind his ears.
“Hope you brought your appetite.”
The dining room glowed with warm light, the kind that softened edges and made the world feel safe.
The table was set with mismatched china and cloth napkins, each piece looking worn but cherished.
In the center, a cast-iron pot of coq au vin steamed, its aroma rich with wine, garlic, and herbs.
A basket of fresh baguettes sat beside it, their crusts golden and crisp, still warm from the oven.
Walker sat across from Gloria, Belle to his right. Paladin lay under the table, tail thumping now and then, content in the way only a dog can be when surrounded by family.
Gloria bowed her head. Walker and Belle followed suit.
“Dear Lord,” she said. “Thank you for this food you have set before us. Please bless my granddaughter and her new friend Chris. Keep them safe on the road ahead, and I implore you, dear Lord, please impress upon my granddaughter the importance of a good, hearty meal. Amen.”
“Amen,” Walker said.
“Amen. That wasn’t embarrassing at all,” Belle said.
“Well, eat something, my dear.”
Belle rolled her eyes.
“So,” Walker said, breaking off a piece of bread, “you were a photographer?”
Gloria nodded. “For twenty years, before I settled down. I worked for Life and National Geographic. Traveled more than I stayed put.”
“The portfolio in the entry hall is impressive.”
She cut a piece of meat and chewed slowly. “Mementos,” she said. “I hold on to things.”
“So do I. Was it always wildlife?”
“No. I did some slice-of-life work here in the city. There were so many photographers back then. You had to find your own angle.”
“She’s being modest,” Belle jumped in. “Her work’s in galleries. She shot the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in the seventies.”
Gloria waved a hand. “That was luck. I happened to be there. My most popular photographs were of the Mississippi River; people on the boats, wildlife in the inlets and swamps.”
“I saw the alligator picture. And the blue heron.”
“Good eye,” she said. “Most people think it’s a crane. That was for a piece on the Bayou. New York sent me down for it, but it was easy with our place out there.”
“There’s a family place out on the water,” Belle explained.
“It’s not one where you’d ever want to swim, but my husband, God rest his soul, hunted and fished out there. I took photos. It’s rustic. No power, no plumbing. But peaceful.”
“Your husband sounds like my kind of guy.”
“We had some times out there, Alexandre and I. He ran a bakery on Royal Street. We sold it years ago, but I still bake. These baguettes were his recipe.”
Walker chewed slowly, savoring the crust. “Delicious.”
The conversation softened into the kind of respectful quiet that settles over a table when the meal is nearly done and the company is good.
How did he end up here? A retired military working dog, a goth girl, her grandmother, and a man who had spent most of his adult life looking over a gunsight, sharing a meal like family.
“You’ll stay with us tonight,” Gloria said.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Walker replied, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“You certainly can. Belle tells me you live in your van. You’ll stay in the room over the garage. Belle tells me you have some work you need to do together.”
“Belle tells you a lot,” Walker said, glaring at the young woman in black.
“She tells me everything,” Gloria said playfully.
“I do not, Grandma.”
“Did you or did you not ask me to fix his haircut?”
Belle dropped her head, face flushed red.
“This is mortifying,” she said.
“Then it’s settled. I used to cut Alexandre’s hair. I’ll fix you up. Then you and Belle can get to work.”
The room above the garage was small and smelled faintly of cedar, old paper, and the remnants of chemicals that contributed the sour tang of peroxide.
A table sat beneath a shelf of white ceramic jugs.
Neat, clean, and tidy, everything had its place.
It was warm, but a window AC unit tried its level best.
“She used to string sheets across the rafters to make a darkroom,” Belle said. “Connor and I would hang out up here.”
Walker examined the space, taking in the slanted ceiling, the single lamp, the twin bed with pillowcases still showing fold creases. A black Gibson electric guitar was on a stand, plugged into an amp.
“Want to play me some of that industrial punk?” he asked.
“My music drives Grandma a little batty. You are welcome to give it a strum.”
“Okay, no music.”
She crossed her arms. “You know, you look like a shorter, skinnier Thor with your new haircut, like after he gets cleaned up to be a gladiator in that one movie.”