City of Sins. Daniel Blake

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СКАЧАТЬ of his kitchen cupboards contained half an ounce of Acapulco Gold.

      And if they were looking for dealers, where better to start than with Luther Marcq?

      Thorndike might have released him, but he hadn’t banned Patrese and Selma from getting in touch with him again. Patrese suggested they pay Luther a visit later. Selma didn’t volunteer what she felt about this, and Patrese didn’t ask.

      The snake, mirror and axhead found at Rooster’s house were being compared to those from Cindy’s apartment, which were themselves still in the process of being matched to manufacturers, mailing lists, customs records and so on.

      When would they get a hit? Hours, days, weeks … take your pick. And even if they did get a manufacturer’s name, and a production code, that guaranteed nothing. Anything mass-produced would be sold in such volume as to make tracing the killer that way near on impossible.

      The media hadn’t yet made the connection, and long might it stay that way. A white woman had been killed in Louisiana, a black man in Mississippi. Even though that man was from New Orleans, the connection was still far from obvious: in fact, the very things that were making this case such a bitch were the ones that would hopefully keep the press at bay for a while yet.

      And sadly, murders in New Orleans were so commonplace that most of the time they were hardly news at all.

      Patrese was pondering all this when Thorndike rang.

      ‘You and Selma, get your butts over to the courthouse. We got a judge who’s going to give you a warrant for Varden.’

      The courthouse was right across the road from both police headquarters and Orleans Parish Prison; a geographical arrangement that was either admirably practical or depressingly cynical, depending on which way you looked at it.

      Judge Katash, who the previous week had been as astonished as everyone else when the jury had found Marie Laveau not guilty, had now considered Selma’s application for a warrant to impound Cindy’s computers.

      Katash knew that three other judges had already turned down this application, and he was sure that they’d had good reason to do so – ‘reason’ in this instance meaning ‘patronage’, of course, though he wasn’t vulgar enough to say so out loud – but things had changed since then. Specifically, there’d been another murder. Cindy’s death was therefore no longer an isolated tragedy; it was, Katash had to assume, connected to the ‘something terrible’ which she’d told Patrese about, and which had also clearly been responsible for taking Rooster’s life.

      In the circumstances, Katash understood that law enforcement needed all the information they could get, and therefore he had no hesitation in issuing the warrant, to cover not just Cindy’s computers but all her other work effects as well.

      Selma clutched it as though it were the winning ticket in the state lottery.

      ‘Let’s see how high and mighty Mr Varden is now,’ she said.

      Badges and warrant held high like talismans, they went into Varden’s office without waiting to be admitted, leaving sentinel security guards and scrambling secretaries in their wake.

      Varden was on the phone. ‘Remember what Joe Zee said,’ he was saying; and that was all Patrese caught before Varden turned toward them in astonishment.

      ‘I presume this is urgent,’ Varden said, ‘else you would have had the courtesy to knock first, no?’

      Patrese handed him the warrant. ‘You said we could come back when we had a warrant. Well, we do. So we have.’

      ‘I’ll call you back,’ Varden said into the phone. He replaced the receiver and scanned the text of the warrant. ‘Yes. That all seems in order. Cindy’s computers are outside, in the anteroom. I had them boxed up, to save you the trouble.’

      ‘And her personal items? The warrant covers them too.’

      ‘They’re there as well. Like I told you before: I have the highest regard for the law enforcement community. It’s my duty, and my pleasure, to give you all the assistance I can.’

      Patrese almost smiled. Varden had had plenty of time to wipe the disks and weed out anything incriminating from Cindy’s possessions. His elaborate courtesy was the magnanimity of the victor. Patrese and Selma knew that, and he knew they knew; but still he dared them to call him out on it. The old boy had some style, Patrese thought; but two could play that game.

      ‘And we appreciate your civic-mindedness, sir,’ Patrese said. ‘It’s an honor to protect and serve such illustrious citizens as yourself.’

      Varden acknowledged the comeback with a nod. He was enjoying this.

      ‘Do let me know if you find anything germane to your inquiries,’ he said. ‘You need any help, call on me, day or night. And I wish you the happiest of weekends.’

      Patrese’s cell phone rang when they were still in the elevator on the way down.

      It was one of the detectives on loan from Natchez, and they’d found something. That guy Rooster had mentioned in his tape, the doctor gone bad, Toomey Tegge; well, they’d got some stuff on him. He’d had a medical license from the state of Mississippi, but he’d been disbarred a few months back. Not because of anything he’d done in Mississippi; because of something he’d done in Iraq.

      Iraq?

      Tegge had been a reservist. He’d been called up, done his tour. Cut a long story short, he’d ended up at Abu Ghraib. After the whole prisoner abuse thing had come out, he’d been court-martialed. Failure to provide the expected standards of care to the prisoners. Collusion with the soldiers responsible for the abuse. Covering up the crimes while under direct investigation.

      Tegge had received a dishonorable discharge. He’d come back to Natchez, but then skipped town after being disbarred. No one had seen him since.

      Patrese ended the call and turned to Selma.

      ‘Let’s go see Luther.’

      It was less than three miles, as the crow flies, from Varden’s office to Luther’s house, but it might as well have been three thousand. Somewhere between the two places, First World seemed to slip into Third.

      They were on Lizardi, in the Lower Ninth. Marie Laveau’s turf. Luther’s place was a shotgun house well past its best, if indeed it had ever had one. The old Chevy on bricks in the front yard seemed to have fused itself with the undergrowth.

      Patrese and Selma got out of the car. ‘No point locking the doors,’ Patrese said. ‘If someone wants to break in, they’ll break in. Locking the doors is only going to piss them off.’

      ‘You being serious?’

      ‘Sort of.’

      Patrese rang the bell. A shuffling from inside, and Luther appeared at the door. He was wearing a purple-and-yellow Louisiana State singlet and khaki shorts which looked as they could do with a more frequent washing machine interface than was currently the case.

      ‘I thought y’all would come back,’ he said, looking neither particularly surprised nor particularly pleased to see them again. ‘What y’all want?’

      ‘We СКАЧАТЬ