Chapter Forty-One
THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S Office sat on South White Street, a squat, beige building with narrow windows and a faded seal above the door. It looked more like a DMV than the nerve center of Orleans Parish justice.
The conference room was tucked behind a frosted-glass door.
The walls were painted a cool, institutional gray, but Irene Isaacson had added a framed campaign poster from her first run for DA and a signed letter from a former U.S.
attorney general prominently displayed in a gold frame.
A flat-screen TV was mounted on one wall, muted, a national news channel running.
The table sat eight, with low-backed task chairs that had seen better days.
Icy looked down the length of the table, Jarrett Stanton and Augie Lloyd on one side, Lieutenant Cornelius Bates on the other.
She wore a cream pantsuit, her hair down, tapping a handcrafted NOLA pen made of reclaimed wood from the historic St. Charles streetcar on a yellow legal pad.
Bates sat under the clock, a thick case file open in front of him. He wore a tailored navy suit for the occasion, made of stretch fabric, athletic cut, tight at the shoulders.
“Let’s start with what we know,” the NOPD officer began, flipping a page in his thick file, one of two murder books he had brought with him in a silver aluminum briefcase.
“First scene: Garden District. Homeowner and victim is Leigh Ann Staub, a charge nurse at Tulane Medical Center. Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head, likely with a claw hammer that was used to torture her. Three unidentified Latin males also deceased, shot with nine-millimeter rounds. One additional deceased unidentified Latin male. Cause of death a combination of blunt force trauma to his head and sharp force trauma to his neck, likely from a shovel recovered next to the body. No signs of forced entry. No witnesses to the crime, but a neighbor reported a white male and a dog in the area at the time of the murders, and a Ring doorbell has a person of interest matching that description leaving in a blue VW camper van that was parked a few blocks away.”
He looked up, letting the silence settle.
Stanton sat with his back straight, hands folded, a manila folder in front of him on the table.
Lloyd leaned back in his chair, his expression appropriately somber.
Bates slid the first murder book aside and opened the second.
“Second scene. Ninth Ward. Two of my COPE unit officers were surveilling a suspected drug house.” He paused and looked up.
“Officers Rayne and Hendrick, killed by someone using a rifle chambered in .300 Blackout. Also found: one black female. Killed with a shot to the head from a .38-caliber revolver.”
“Were drugs recovered at the scene?” Icy asked. “Opioids?”
“The place was cleaned out.”
“You said it was a known drug house,” Stanton observed. “You must have records that suggest who the dealers were. And what they were dealing.”
“That’s exactly what Rayne and Hendrick were investigating,” Bates replied. He paused as if conducting a moment of silence for his fallen officers.
“Continue,” Icy said.
“Early read from ballistics is that we are dealing with one shooter.”
“One shooter? With a .300 Blackout and a .38? That doesn’t seem right.”
“The rounds extracted from my officers appear to have come from the same rifle. The .38 is anyone’s guess.”
“That could suggest another shooter,” Stanton offered.
“Anything’s possible in the Ninth.”
“And the killer?” Icy leaned forward, her fingers steepled. “You must have a theory, Lieutenant.”
Bates nodded. “We think this is a cartel war. The two crimes are linked by this single shooter and the drugs, the Staubs’ residence connection through Connor Staub, and the Ninth, well, we all know the Ninth.”
“I’m not buying the drug connection in the Garden District,” Icy said.
“Ma’am, the principal victim was Ann Staub.
Her son, Connor Staub, died a month ago of an OD.
That suggests a drug connection. Looks like the kid was doing more than using.
The amount of drugs found in his vehicle suggests he was dealing.
We think enforcers from a cartel were looking for money or drugs that Connor owed them when a hitter from a rival cartel showed up.
Gunfight ensues. The place was ransacked. They were looking for something.”
“And that led to the Ninth?”
“We caught a boot print. Size eleven Vibram sole boots. One set. Not the type of footwear usually associated with cartels. We found the same boot print at the shooting in the Ninth. And of course, there’s the shot placement.”
“What do you mean?” asked the DA.
“This guy knew what he was doing. He had training, experience, or both.”
“And no direct witnesses to the Ninth murders?” she asked.
Bates glanced across the table at the two FBI men.
“We canvassed the neighborhood, but you know how it is over there. Bureau had better luck. Agent Stanton,” Bates said.
“With the cross-border international drug trafficking connection to the murders, we opened an investigation,” Stanton said.
“Special Agent Jennifer Jimenez found a witness who had fled the scene in the Ninth, a homeless woman suffering from the effects of drug addiction. EMS took her to the hospital, where she offered information.”
“What kind?”
“She claims to have been present in the drug house at the time of the murders. Claims that the shooter also murdered her two friends she called ‘Gremlin’ and ‘Playboy.’ ”
“Did she get a good look at the shooter?”
“Special Agent Jimenez requested a Bureau sketch artist.” Stanton turned his folder so Isaacson could see the composite sketch. “The witness called the shooter ‘Cyclops.’ ”
Icy shook her head. “Is that a suspect or a hallucination?”
“That could be a monocular night vision device on the shooter’s head. The place had no power, so it was dark. The sketch and the witness’s description of the shooter as a cyclops makes sense in context.”
“But no good in court,” Icy said. “Any snot-nosed public defender in this building could get that testimony tossed.”
Stanton nodded.
“We agree, ma’am,” Bates interjected. “However, if the sketch is accurate, it illustrates the sophistication of the shooter. Based on the earlier point about this being rival cartels, we’re thinking this all might be the work of a sicario.”
“An assassin,” Icy said.
“Yes. These hits were likely part of a special mission in whatever cartel war is going on. Shooter was possibly trained by some of our ex?spec ops boys now selling their training and experience on the open market.”
“A specialist.”
“Could be a contract killer, former Special Forces, something like that. Cartels have been known to hire hitters with that type of background.”
Stanton cleared his throat. “Respectfully, Lieutenant, the DEA doesn’t support the cartel spillover theory.”
Bates swiveled to him. “Something I’m not aware of, Jarrett?”
“I caught up with Alvaro Mendez, DEA. He says there’s no credible cartel activity in New Orleans.”
“Mendez is DEA. Cartel involvement in the city would reflect poorly on him,” Icy observed.
Stanton didn’t flinch. “DEA has a high-level CI they are going to ping for us. Mendez will report back to me as the federal liaison on this case. But, for now, I don’t think we should zero in on the cartel spillover theory until we have tighter evidence. Might lead to confirmation bias.”
Lloyd interjected for the first time, his voice calm and reassuring.
“We need to remain open to all possibilities. But one of them, it seems to me, is that this is cartel spillover. DHS thinks they have the Gulf locked down. Border Patrol and ICE have stepped up enforcement on infiltrations from the south. But, like Lieutenant Bates said, this might be a contract killer. The shooter could have already been in the States.”
On edge, Stanton glanced at his boss. The narrative was forming. The facts were secondary. How many times had Alma told him that if he wanted to make SAC, he had to play the game? And here he was, witnessing Lloyd make everything fit the story Icy wanted to hear.
“Connor Staub was found with heroin in the trunk of his car. There’s our lead,” Bates said.
Lloyd shifted in his seat. “I agree. Sounds like the Staub family got in the way of a cartel. The mother was caught in the crossfire. Whatever ring the younger Staub was involved in was related to the activity in the Ninth.”
“Or that’s just a coincidence,” Stanton said.
Icy’s eyes narrowed at him. “Prosecutors don’t believe in coincidences. You don’t believe in them, do you, Special Agent Stanton?”
“It’s not a matter of belief, ma’am,” he said. “Sometimes facts just coincide. Correlation is not causation.”
“In other words, Post hoc ergo propter hoc,” she replied.
“Exactly,” Stanton said. “ ‘After this, therefore because of this.’ Logical fallacy. These are two events, not necessarily related.”
“Are you a lawyer?” Icy asked.
“Auburn Law.”
“All right, Counselor. Let’s review the facts.
We have a lone wolf killer who has come out of nowhere, offing people connected with a drug ring associated with Connor Staub.
We have a gunfight at the Staub home with four unidentified vics.
That puts the Staubs at the center of this thing.
Now, Agent Stanton, you’re the ASAC for the criminal. ”
Lloyd cut in. “Actually, Special Agent Stanton is filling multiple ASAC roles.” He cast Stanton an appraising glance.
“He’s running my criminal and national security branches, heading this investigation for the district precisely because of the dual roles.
He was on the task force that investigated foreign links after the New Year’s Day terror attack in the Quarter. ”
“Well, then,” Icy responded. “Sounds like you’re well equipped to check out foreign links here, Agent Stanton, and not just the narratives that the DEA might want to provide.”
Careful, Stanton thought, thinking of Alvaro Mendez’s take on Icy. Stick to the facts and data.
With his face neutral, he replied, “I will acknowledge it sounds like the work of a lone killer. But at this point, we don’t have enough indicators of a cartel infiltration. I’m on it, though, ma’am. And if that’s the case, we will liaise with DEA and NOPD to shut it down.”
“And you’ll keep this office informed,” she added. “This is sounding more and more like a federal case, but this office still has jurisdiction on the murders.”
Stanton nodded, realizing she had just maneuvered him into an accountability trap.
With a federal case he would either solve it or look incompetent.
If he made arrests, the narrative would be that it was done in partnership with the DA and NOPD.
If not, he would be hung out to dry. He could see Bates across the table, looking down, hiding a smirk.
“We know about the Staub son,” Lloyd offered, breaking the silence. “What’s the deal with the rest of that family. Father? Siblings?”
“Connor was an only child,” Bates reported, flipping through the files. “His father, John Staub, was killed in Afghanistan five years ago.”
“Was he in the Army or something?” Icy asked.
“Navy. SEAL Teams. Switched over to the CIA. Detective Gormley hit a wall looking any deeper into him.”
“Relevance?”
“It’s not beyond the realm of possibility for servicemen or contractors to smuggle drugs back into the U.S.
,” Bates replied. “Brits have the same issue. It’s almost always heroin.
Back when COPE was first cracking down on drug infiltration, we saw packages that originated from Afghanistan.
DEA confirmed it.” He glanced at Stanton.
“Did Mendez happen to mention the Central Asian angle?”
“No,” Stanton admitted.
“Well,” Bates continued, “could be that when Connor’s father was over there, he set up a drug ring.
That’s how the kid got the heroin. Could be he recruited some of his operator buddies to work for the cartel.
Maybe one of them is our sicario. Pays well enough, and God knows those boys got screwed working for Uncle Sam in that shithole.
I’m surprised we don’t see more of them going rogue. ”
Stanton looked at Bates in disbelief. “John Staub died in 2021.”
“Could be an associate. Why else would the killers at the Staub home have sacked the place the way they did? I’m just saying, seems like an angle FBI ought to pursue.
Like you said, Jarrett, keep all angles open.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.” He smiled. “I never heard that one before, but I wrote it down.”
“Worth looking into,” Icy agreed.
“We’re on it,” Lloyd said quickly. He turned from Icy to Stanton. “Dust off your CIA contacts and see what you can find.”
Alma’s voice rattled through Jarrett’s head. You need to learn to play the game.
“I’ll circle up with the Agency and check on the Afghanistan angle,” he said.
“Thank you, Agent Stanton,” Icy replied, with a pleasant smile. “That will help the parish a great deal. Please make sure the Bureau keeps Lieutenant Bates informed.”
You need to learn to play the game.