Frankie’s night shift dragged until dispatch notified her of shots fired during a home invasion. Turned out the burglar was the homeowner’s soon-to-be ex-wife. After a girls’ night out, the drunken woman had made the mistake of returning to her old address. When her key didn’t fit, she crawled through the dog door. Her husband was waiting with an unlicensed Ruger .357.
Paramedics said the husband had only winged her. However, possession of the Ruger and the possibility that the man had seized an opportunity to shortcut an unhappy divorce put him in the back of Frankie’s squad car. She transported the husband, still in his pajamas, to the Glamour Slammer, better known as the Criminal Justice Complex at 201 Poplar.
After processing him, she’d checked in as off duty with dispatch and took the elevator to the tenth-floor burglary squad room. Her friend, Detective Wayne Dixon, had offered to take a break so she could use his computer to do a search on Davis and Lacy and have her findings available for her meeting with Billy Able.
She yawned over the keyboard. Must be a buildup of the tranquilizers she’d taken over the last couple of weeks plus the effect of the ewe. Normally she would go home after a ten-hour night shift, but this was her best opportunity to demonstrate to Able that she was good partner material. There was one opening coming available on the homicide squad for a new hire. If she impressed Able, maybe he’d go to bat for her with Middlebrook.
In three clicks she found twenty links to articles written by blues enthusiasts along with YouTube videos of club performances from Red’s and Little Man’s five-year-old European tour. Wikipedia listed four albums under Red’s name. In the eighties, two of his songs made it into the top twenty of the R and B charts plus one crossover hit, “Burning Tree Blues.” A few other artists covered Red’s songs, so there had be royalties coming from publishing unless someone had managed to swindle him on his original contracts. She copied names to track the payments. If Red had family, the royalties would belong to them.
The archives for the New Orleans Times-Picayune carried a six-year-old profile on Davis and Lacy in the entertainment section. They had been mainstays in the Frenchmen Street entertainment district for years and were listed as regular players at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the French Quarter Festival.
Searching further, she dug out an old crime-beat article that reported an aggravated assault charge naming Davis and Lacy as the victims. In addition to the assault, which had put both men in the hospital, there were charges of burglary and criminal damage to property that were brought against their assailant, William Cooley, aka Cool Willy. The notorious pimp had attacked Davis and Lacy in an alley outside a nightclub. He later entered their home, where he’d damaged property including their instruments.
Pulling up the name William Cooley on NCIC, the National Crime Information Center site, she found a history of arrests that began with shoplifting, assault, and solicitation of prostitution. Later he’d graduated to grand larceny and criminal assault. Yet Cooley’s activities had paid well enough to hire lawyers who’d limited his jail time.
Her bruised cheek tingled. She touched it. A few more keystrokes brought up an article dated a year after the original crime-beat report:
Orleans Parish prosecutors dismissed all charges against William Cooley, 27, accused of aggravated burglary and criminal damage to property in the beating case of Red Davis and Little Man Lacy. Instead of facing trial, Cooley, resident of Orleans Parish, was freed and the case closed at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. District Attorney Armand “Bat” Bourque’s office issued a statement that charges had been dropped because Davis and Lacy, two well-regarded musicians from the New Orleans area, had not appeared for trial. “Victims must make themselves available to the court in order for us to prosecute an aggravated assault case,” Bourque said.
Davis and Lacy had left New Orleans, probably out of fear of reprisal from the pimp. Now they were dead.
Frankie clicked print and was standing to retrieve her reports just as she heard Wayne Dixon’s voice coming down the hall.
“It’s at my desk, Coral,” Wayne said. “There are a few things you might want—photos of Brad hamming it up in the squad room, articles he clipped about cases he’d handled, and several commendation plaques.”
Frankie froze. Coral McDaniel, Brad’s wife, was here.
Wayne turned the corner with a sweet-faced woman of medium height walking behind him. She was thick through the waist with cushy upper arms exposed by her sleeveless blouse. Her drab skirt cut her off below the knees. An unhealthy pink stained the bridge of her nose and spread across her cheeks. She looked nothing like the woman Frankie had imagined Brad would marry.
Frankie glanced down at a cardboard box full of plaques that had been shoved under Wayne’s desk. When she looked up, Coral was standing across from her, wearing the mildly shell-shocked expression every family member of a victim gets.
Frankie thought she might black out from the guilt.
“All done?” Wayne asked.
“All what?” Frankie asked numbly.
“Did you find what you needed?” He looked puzzled, then glanced from her to Coral. “Oh, sorry. You haven’t met Coral McDaniel. This is Officer Frankie Malone, a coworker of Brad’s.”
Frankie had heard the rumors about Brad taking his wife to league ball games where he would introduce her to his “women friends.” Coral must have known what he was up to and been humiliated by the snickers and sidelong looks.
“We were all stunned by Brad’s passing,” Frankie said, gathering her copies.
The sweetness had drained from Coral’s face. “Your name used to come up on Brad’s phone. He called you one night during dinner, said you were working together on a case.”
Detectives don’t call patrol cops about a case. Not from home. Not during dinner. Frankie was mortified. “I’ll be out of your way in a sec,” she said, projecting a calm she didn’t feel.
“I have a daughter.” Coral glared at her.
“A daughter!” Wayne’s gaze darted from Coral to her. “I didn’t realize. Did you know that, Frankie?”
“Not until recently.”
“That’s no excuse,” Coral snapped.
Frankie gulped.
Wayne, a perceptive man, instantly got the picture. “Sorry, ladies. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”
Frankie gathered her files and hustled toward the bathroom, the pressure in her chest blooming to the point of cutting off her air. She felt like she was dying. Or maybe she just wanted to die. She pushed through the door and ducked inside a stall.
Breathe, she ordered herself and pawed through her purse for the bottle of tranquilizers. Two pills rolled onto her palm. She downed both and took several deep breaths. Thank God she had the bathroom to herself. She needed time to pull it together before meeting with Billy.
The door whooshed open and thumped closed. Frankie heard a gasp then the tortured sound of air rasping into lungs. From under the door, she could see Coral McDaniel’s flat shoes standing beside the sink. The sobbing stretched out. No one came through the door to comfort Coral, and Frankie had no right to do so. She stood there, soaked in Coral’s pain, replaying Brad’s death in her mind as she had done every hour of every day for the last two and a half weeks.
She had escaped Brad and the hotel parking lot, her Jeep merging with the heavy I-40 traffic. Her face hurt like hell, her cheek swelling where Brad’s ring had cracked against the bone. Grimly she observed there was one small gain from Brad’s assault—their affair had ended before it really heated up.
She’d checked her rearview mirror and seen Brad’s black SUV booming up behind her. He passed her on the left then whipped in front of her, the sun sparking off his rear window as he tried to cut her off. She hit the brakes. He switched back to the left lane and dropped even with her window. She saw his mouth twisting with ugly words. Yelling, he waved his phone at her. He was furious that she’d turned hers off. Apparently, his ego couldn’t stand a woman being the first to walk away.
They were doing ninety as they approached the overpass. Frankie remembered because she’d glanced at the speedometer and let up on the gas. Brad floored the SUV and moved ahead of her into the shadow of the overpass. He pulled the same stunt, swerving into her lane, trying to make her stop, only this time he overcorrected. The SUV tilted right and went into a clockwise spin. The front bumper clipped the last support. They flashed from beneath the overpass, the SUV in a flip with its passenger-side door smashing onto the asphalt. It rolled and righted itself on the shoulder. She thought it was over until she looked in her side mirror and realized momentum had continued to roll the SUV. She saw back wheels spinning in the air as it disappeared down an embankment.
Frankie slammed to a stop, called 911, and gave the mile marker. Then she was out of her Jeep, running, running.
In the bathroom she heard Coral blow her nose and the sink water running. The door opened and closed. She sucked in a shaky breath, aware that the meds were already filtering into her bloodstream. She felt detached, a little fuzzy headed. She’d never taken two pills at one time. Stupid thing to do. Billy was waiting for her call.
She stumbled out of the stall to the sink to splash water on her face. The woman who stared back at her in the mirror looked glassy eyed and unreliable. And unbruised.
Overnight, the bruise on her cheek had almost disappeared.