CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It took Toby the better part of an hour to finish his call and get back to town. Linda and I met him at Seabrook’s, and while we were ordering at the counter my cell phone buzzed. I listened for a couple of minutes, then said, “Thanks, my friend. I owe you a big one.”

“What was that?” Linda asked.

“You’re too damn snoopy,” I said.

“Come on, Bo. That call had you grinning like a possum, so what’s the story?”

“Icing on the cake. Let’s sit down and I’ll give you the whole story.”

We managed to get the back corner booth once again. “What’s cooking, boss?” Toby asked as soon as we were seated with our iced tea in hand.

“Arno’s off the hook on the Twiller murder.”

“How so?”

“The problem I’ve had all along with him as the killer was the way the body was dumped in public. That’s just not a mob hit, and Arno’s a mob guy. When they move a victim’s body, they take it out to a gravel pit or somewhere and bury it to make it less conspicuous, not more so. Yet we still had the fact that he was here and went to the trouble to try to establish an alibi. And now I know why. A little while ago I had a phone conversation with a Louisiana State Police organized crime investigator named Roland DeMour that Hotchkiss and I met yesterday down in Lake Charles. I asked him if it was likely that Arno would come all the way up here and do a hit for the kind of money Zorn could pay. He said not unless he was hurting for money pretty bad. He also said there was no reason for him to be hurting since he’s got a couple of rackets going in Lake Charles that are pretty lucrative.”

“If he didn’t do the Twiller killing, then why’s he here?” Toby asked.

“I don’t know why he’s staying around, but he came up here in the first place because he was after a bigger fish, one worth the risk.”

“Who?” they both asked.

“Lester Sipes.”

“I don’t get it,” Linda said.

“We’ve assumed all along that Arno was hired to lean on Sipes by the people down in South America. We thought that because we know he’s worked for them at least once in the past. But that wasn’t the case at all. Yesterday I remembered something that Parker Raynes said when I interviewed her at the Sawmill Club the day Amanda Twiller was killed. She told me that Doyle had mentioned to her the evening before that they were leaving the club early that night because Zorn was meeting his partner at midnight. That meant nothing to me at the time, largely because I was focused on Doyle. Then I understood. Charlie Morton has been working with Zorn on selling the Pak-a-Sak, and he’s seen all the paperwork on the place. Up until about six months ago, Sipes was half owner. So I figured he had to be the partner Doyle was talking about. With that in mind, I asked Hotchkiss to run down Zorn’s previous addresses, and guess what? For a couple of years before he moved up here to Sequoya he lived in New Orleans.”

“Which means he could have met Arno,” Toby said.

“He did meet Arno,” I said. “They were busted together in a gambling raid. Minor stuff. Hotch says some guy running a card parlor in the French Quarter got behind in his protection money and they gave him a rap on the knuckles. Eleven guys paid misdemeanor fines, and Zorn and Arno were both on the list.”

“But why was Arno going to whack Sipes?” Linda asked.

“Because he and Zorn were going to sell the coke to that drug dealer up in St. Louis and split almost a million dollars. Arno is a lot more likely than Zorn to have contacts like that, and I bet he was the one who got in touch with the St Louis people in the first place. If you’ll remember, Peet said it was some guy who knew both Zorn and his boss up north.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“Remember how much money we’re talking about here. That’s a half million apiece for each of them, but they knew it wasn’t going to be a good idea to screw Sipes that badly and leave him alive. He’s a little man with a long memory and a short fuse. I just talked to Sipes a little while ago, and he admitted that he’d been planning a trip to Sequoya that night, but something came up that kept him in Houston.”

“But who was that who called when we were standing in line?” Linda asked.

“Sergeant Wolf of the Dallas PD. He visited with a girl named Brandi Springer this morning. She was Arno’s girlfriend down in Lake Charles.”

“And?”

“This gal and her mother are in the process of opening a call girl operation in Dallas, and Wolf was concerned that Big Paul might be backing it financially. But it turns out that Brandi came home to Dallas to get away from the guy. He was trying to get her to marry him, but she was afraid of him and didn’t want any part of it. And he bragged to her a couple of weeks ago that he was working on a project that would bring him enough money to build her a big, fine house.”

“So all this means … what, exactly?” Linda asked.

“It means we’ve eliminated the prime suspect, and I’m happy with that because I never bought him for the Twiller murder anyway. Now we won’t be wasting any more time in that direction. And it means we have a clearer picture of what’s going on with these people. It also means we need to take a closer look at Emmet Zorn.”

“Good,” Linda said. “I don’t like the guy, anyway.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Has he been hitting on you?”

“No, but since he’s hit on every other woman in town under fifty, I think he could have made at least one pass at me just to be polite.”

“Probably the uniform puts him off,” Toby said. “I don’t make him for a cop groupie.”

“Don’t let it worry you,” I said. “You’re way too good for him.”

“Thanks, Bo. Any more compliments you want to throw my way while you’re in such a good mood?”

“You bet,” I said, laughing. “You’re a hell of a peace officer, and so is Toby. I’m proud to have you both on my force.”

“Well, well,” she said. “As long as you’re being so cooperative, I’d still like to know why you can get Gog and Magog to behave when nobody else can.”

“That story’s just not for your young and tender ears,” I said, and quickly moved my legs just as she kicked at my shins under the table.