New Orleans: 5 June 6:10 P.M. Central time
Homicide detective William P. Ahearn stood at the water’s edge, his hands thrust into his pants pockets. The breeze fluttering up from the surface of the lake felt fresh against his face but the sun’s heat was still fierce.
The two murder victims probably hadn’t been dead for more than an hour or two, but already the sickly sweet stench of death filled the hot evening air. It would be easier being a cop someplace like Fargo, North Dakota, Ahearn found himself thinking. It might be damned cold, but at least the crime scenes wouldn’t smell so godawful.
“You say she’s a professor at Tulane?” he asked.
The uniformed cop, a guy by the name of Crouch, wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and squinted into the evening sun. “Yes, sir. Dr. Elizabeth Vu. She was in the math department.”
Ahearn stared down at the second body on the cruiser’s deck. Someone had shot out the man’s right eye. It wasn’t a pretty sight. “Who’s the guy?”
“According to his wallet, his name’s Ross. Stuart Ross. He’s from Texas.”
Ahearn grunted. New Orleans was full of Texans, most of them contractors and construction workers who’d arrived after the storm. Only this guy didn’t look like a construction worker.
“You want me to have the boat dusted for prints?” asked Sergeant Trish Pullman.
Ahearn glanced over at her. “What’s the point? We couldn’t process them even if there are any.” Katrina had essentially wiped out the NOPD facilities. All they had was a bunch of bodies lying all over the place.
“I’ll call it in,” said Trish. “This doesn’t look like another drug deal gone bad.”
Ahearn grunted again. “Didn’t someone in the psych department say something about Henry Youngblood working with a statistician from the math department?”
Trish squinted up at him. “You think the two murders are connected?”
“When was the last time we had two Tulane professors murdered in twenty-four hours? Of course they’re connected.” He squatted down to study the cruiser’s bow, where it had been driven hard into the sand. “We’ve got two bodies, two bullet holes, and one gun that’s fired one bullet. I’m guessing it’s a pretty good bet neither one of our two vics drove this boat up on this beach.” He pushed to his feet and heard his knees crack. “Any witnesses?”
“A jogger,” said the uniform. “He was too far away to see much, but he says one person got out of the boat after it rammed ashore.”
“Man or woman?”
“A woman. A young woman. He says she ran toward the campus.”
“What’s she look like?”
“He couldn’t say. The guy’s nearsighted.”
Ahearn stared off across the weed-grown sand toward the UNO campus. “All right. Let’s get some more people out here. I want them to talk to everyone they can find. Let’s see if we can get some kind of description of this girl.”