17

As Canterelle drove me back to my hotel, I asked him the reason for our soiree with Belle Sabatier.

“A personal introduction,” he said. “Unlike New York City, where y’all practiced law at freeway speeds, down here we are more pedestrian. We still practice the art of the personal. As my expert consultant, y’all needed to meet Belle. Now I agree, there is the foul smell of black magic rising from my cases. And perhaps in the slaying of that DOJ lawyer in your hotel room . . .”

“And the death of AUSA Jason Forester in Washington, DC.”

“Of course. So, patience, Mr. Black. Patience. It is a sublime virtue.”

“I agreed to work with you on your cases. But there’s still the matter of my daughter, Heather, who may be out on that forsaken bayou somewhere. On that, I’m all out of patience.”

“Y’all will be getting a call tomorrow on that matter of obtaining a trusted swamp guide who knows about that particular bayou. By close of business. It is a small, curious circle of us here in New Orleans who traverse what might be called the unsavory underbelly of Louisiana. Meanwhile, I am trusting y’all to get to the bottom of this horrid rash of child endangerments.”

Before we separated, I urged Canterelle to remember my voice mail request: that I wanted him to track down the ID of the woman lawyer seated next to Heather at the ABA. He assured me he was working on that too.

In my hotel room that evening, I put in another call to Heather’s cell and, maddeningly, once again listened to her familiar voice mail.

I dropped to my knees and pleaded with the God of heaven. I needed wisdom to figure out this tangled web, and power over the demonic powers that were surrounding me. I also had to consider the matter of endurance, because my gauge was nearing empty. But there was one shred of hope, and I was hanging on it. Even though I hadn’t heard from Turk Kavagian’s guy, Canterelle sounded rock-solid that within twenty-four hours I would be in touch with someone who could navigate me through the Louisiana swamps.

Then I thought about Vance Zaduck. Maybe he was different now. On the surface, at least, we should have a common interest: stopping this plague against the daughters of New Orleans. If he helped me with Canterelle’s cases, in return, I could offer whatever help I was able to give him in solving the deaths of Forester and Pullmen. Best of all, Canterelle would get me to the bayou and to my daughter. The circle seemed logical enough: all of us scratching each other’s backs.

But I was a realist. Before getting too close with my former nemesis, I’d better do my due diligence. I put in a call to Dick Valentine, thinking I would get his voice mail. Instead, he picked up.

I asked why he was taking a call from me rather than having a date night with his wife.

“Girls’ night out,” he said. “So I’m stuck home, clicking through eight hundred channels on satellite TV and learning more than I ever wanted to about cleaning products and solutions to male romance problems.”

I told him I needed some very quick intel about Vance Zaduck, US attorney for the District of Columbia. He asked how extensive.

“Anything and everything. Before asking for his help and getting too close, I want to know if I’m opening myself up to a left hook.”

Dick paused. “No problem. I know a guy.”

He sounded like William Shatner doing a TV ad about hotel bookings, so I managed a half chuckle.

But he said, “Hey, Trevor, this time I’m serious. A personal friend who does security clearances for DOJ and US attorneys. I can call him.”

They don’t make many friends like that. I dumped thanks on Dick Valentine to the point of embarrassment, until we finally said good night.

The next morning I woke up with a jolt, two hours before my wake-up call. I dropped to my knees again. More praying. More pleading.

Then I picked up the Bible that had been given to me by Elijah White, a former client and now a close friend. I was plowing my way through the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. Some of it was tough sledding.

As I fixed myself a cup of coffee in the one-cup coffeemaker in my hotel room, I had a thought. About that paper coffee cup. The one that showed up in the crime scene video of my hotel room when I watched it at the FBI headquarters. The coffee cup that didn’t belong there because I didn’t have any coffee in the room that morning when I was getting ready for the ABA convention. It must have been put there by someone else.

I needed to revisit that.

Then a call on my cell. From Dick Valentine. It was before ten in the morning, and he was already prepared to brief me on Vance Zaduck.

I mustered a bumbling joke. “With the blinding speed of your results, Dick, you must not be doing any actual police work.”

“Where you are in New Orleans, in some sections I’d be busier than I am up here in New York.”

Considering he was in homicide, that wasn’t comforting.

Dick said he had a chat with his federal contact and that this was very sensitive stuff and he wouldn’t be doing it for anybody but me. He said he was in a rush, so he gave me his intel in rapid fire.

According to Vance Zaduck’s security references, as a prosecutor and as a man, Zaduck was known for “keeping things close to the vest. Very careful. But very smart.”

Dick added, “Vance Zaduck has developed an extensive knowledge of cybercrime and Internet technology. He was married for a few years but is now divorced.” That last part, of course, checked out with what Zaduck told me himself.

I asked how Zaduck assigned cases to the AUSAs under him, like Forester.

“Zaduck assigned certain kinds of cases,” he explained, “like cases involving minors —endangerment, pornography, abduction, and child exploitation —to Jason Forester for day-to-day handling. Apparently had a lot of trust in him. Then Zaduck had those files supervised directly by the upper levels of the Department of Justice. By an assistant attorney general at DOJ.”

“Let me guess. The assistant AG was Paul Pullmen.”

“You got it,” Dick said. “The same guy who I heard met his very terrible, very messy end in your hotel room.”

“True,” I said. “But Zaduck just happened to be down here in New Orleans, and he helped to clear me.”

“I heard that too, so congratulations, I guess. Though I’m not sure that’s the right word to use, considering how it ended for that poor Pullmen fellow. What was he doing in your room anyway?”

“I didn’t invite him. My guess is somebody else did, posing as me. Then they waited for him to arrive.”

I thanked Dick for everything, but before I clicked off, I had one more request. “If you get a chance, I would love to find out more about those child abduction and pornography prosecutions that Jason Forester was working when he died.”