Doing the Devil's Work (3 page)

“For our professional purposes,” Atkinson said, “he is a murder victim first and foremost. You don’t need to feel sorry for him, but that’s how you need to think of him. That belt buckle is a lead, maybe. We need to figure out what were
this
guy, and whoever he was with, doing on
this
block? It’s not like there’s
no
white people up this way, but to find this corner of the neighborhood, he’d need help.”

“It’s second line season,” Maureen said. “If he’s dead a week, there was a parade last Sunday, too. Either the killer or the dead guy could’ve scoped the house beforehand.”

“That would go a long way to explaining it,” Atkinson said. “A second line hookup goes wrong. An accidental meeting. A planned rendezvous. Either one works. Get the guy back to the house, pull a weapon, then the robbery goes wrong. Maybe the vic was the original aggressor, maybe he was thinking rape or robbery. Maybe the killer acted in self-defense. I could roll with the second line playing a part. As a place to start. That introduces lots of possibilities. That’s a good thought, Coughlin. Well done.”

“There would’ve been another block party that night, though,” Maureen said, “if there was a parade. Somebody might’ve seen something.”

“If that’s the case,” Atkinson said, “I’m wondering how our boy and whoever he was with made it through the party to the end of the block. Would the people on this block let him get to that house? Though if he and the killer came through late at night, they could’ve slipped on by. Depends on the parade route, too. Looks like this block went hard tonight. I don’t know if that happens two weeks in a row. Could’ve been quiet last week.”

She turned, looking over the large empty lot behind the fence. She rubbed her temples. “This murder happened a week ago. The trail is cold, cold, cold.”

“I sense you’re not optimistic,” Maureen said.

“He’s white,” Atkinson said, throwing her hands up. “That can excite people. But he’s poor white trash, at least at first look.” She crossed her forearms into an X. Held her arms up to Maureen. “The white and the poor, they cancel each other out. I’ll look at the body after the coroner’s cleaned him up and had a chance to poke around on him.” She shrugged. “Maybe someone from the block will come forward when their neighbors aren’t out watching who’s talking to the cops. Maybe someone’s been looking for him and we can get a name through Missing Persons. I’ll call in his description. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Finding out who he is makes finding out who killed him a lot easier.”

“Can someone tell me why I need to be here?”

Maureen and Atkinson turned. A man approached them, early thirties, a shade over six feet, slender but soft, flab jiggling under his gray polo shirt as he walked. He had thin, hairy wrists and doughy arms. His brown hair was swept straight back, thinning at the crown. His eyes were light, but dull, like old nickels. His cheeks were sunburned. He wore pressed jeans and alligator loafers with no socks.

Atkinson stepped forward. “That depends on who you are.”

“I’m Caleb Heath. I own this house. I own half this block. You know who I am. You called me. You demanded I be here.”

“I never demand anything,” Atkinson said.

“You told my father that—”

Atkinson raised a finger. “Ah, see. Your father demanded you be here. That’s between you and him. I simply asked him to put you in touch with me.”

He released a long sigh. “Whoever demanded it, why am I out here in the middle of the night?” He waved his hand behind him at the block. “I see the lights, the sirens, I’m sorry somebody got shot, but I’m not responsible for what these people do. I’m their landlord, not their babysitter.”

“Nobody got shot,” Atkinson said. “We’re here about the empty house.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. So I’m out here over a bunch of weeds?” He raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, I’m sorry about this. I don’t know who thought y’all needed to make this kind of fuss. Nobody likes their landlord, right? They’re trying to make me look bad. I’m in a dispute with the city over this property. Property taxes, back taxes. I won’t waste your time explaining it; it’s complicated. I can barely follow it myself. But I can’t touch the property until the dispute is adjudicated. That’s been explained to these people over and over again. I don’t have to tell you that nobody listens to what they don’t want to hear.” He gestured at the house. “You see how these people have vandalized my property. These signs. I should be the one calling you. I’m following the law.”

“Were you renting this place?” Atkinson asked.

“Excuse me? I said I own it.”

“Did you have a tenant at this location.”

“Does it look like I do?” Heath asked, laughing. “I understand. You have to ask.”

“Maybe you hired someone,” Atkinson said. “To hang around here, keep an eye on the place. Since you were so concerned about vandalism.”

“No, no, I didn’t,” Heath said. “Who would I hire to do that? Who would I know that would live in a place like this, on this block?”

“Did any of the complaints you got have to do with squatters or vagrants using the house?” Atkinson asked.

“I don’t know,” Heath said, holding up a hand as if to ward off more questions. “You’d have to ask my people. They handle the specifics. I run a big corporation. I don’t handle the minutiae.”

Maureen stepped to Atkinson’s side. She looked down at her notepad. “A Mrs. Hunter three doors up, a tenant of yours, of your big corporation, she said she called the management office three times this week about the awful smell coming from that house.”

“You lost me,” Heath said, his gaze fixed on Atkinson.

“We’re not here for the weeds,” Atkinson said. “Or for the signs. I’m Detective Sergeant Christine Atkinson. I’m a homicide detective. We’re pulling a dead body out of your house as we speak. It’s been in there at least a week. That’s why we’re here.”

Heath leaned back, his weight on his heels, looking over at the green cottage, his wet bottom lip curling down over his chin like a miniature of the fat roll hanging over his belt. “Oh, well, I certainly didn’t kill anyone. We can agree on that. Anyone in that house was trespassing.” He sounded amused, and relieved, Maureen noted, like he’d gotten the news that someone else’s dog had shit in the neighbor’s garden.

“So trespassing is a capital offense?” Maureen asked.

Heath looked at her for a long moment, as if she’d spoken to him in a language he’d never heard. He turned to Atkinson. “Can I go now?”

“Officer Coughlin,” Atkinson said. “You were first on the scene. You did a significant part of the canvass. Have you any questions for Mr. Heath?”

Maureen flipped through the pages of her notebook, just to delay Heath’s departure. “What’s the name of your company?”

“Heath Design and Construction.”

“No, that’s your daddy’s company,” Atkinson said. “What’s yours, the one that handles the rentals? Or do I need to go to your father for that?”

Heath said nothing. Maureen watched the red blotches surface on his throat. She couldn’t quite read if it was anger or humiliation. With men, it was hard to tell the difference. She wasn’t sure there was a difference. He would not look at either of the women.

“It does have a name,” Atkinson asked, “does it not? Or should I call your daddy for it?”

“CHR,” Heath replied. “Caleb Heath Residential. It’s part of my father’s company, a full part, an offshoot, they’re really the same company—”

“I’m sure it’s very complicated,” Atkinson said, waving away his explanation. “I’m sure we wouldn’t understand.” She turned to Maureen. “Anything else, Officer?”

“No,” Maureen said. “There’s nothing more I need from him. Thanks, Mr. Heath. You’ve been very helpful. Anything else we need, we’ll send for you again.”

Heath looked both women up and down, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “My tax dollars hard at work.”

He turned and walked away.

“You know that guy?” Maureen asked.

“Only by his reputation,” Atkinson said. “Which, of course, is lousy. His father’s the one everyone knows. He built the Harmony Oaks development, built the River Garden where the St. Thomas used to be. I’d bet anything, Heath Design and Construction is building at least a part of whatever will replace the Iberville projects by the Quarter. And they’re building the new jail. Anything that hooks into city, state, and federal construction dollars, Solomon Heath has his hands in it. He redefines mixed income. His income comes from a wide range of sources.” She shrugged. “Though, from what I hear about him, Solomon is a pretty decent human being.”

Atkinson lifted her chin in Caleb Heath’s direction. “I get the feeling the heir isn’t quite living up to the expectations of the king, in the business or any other way. He never has. I think managing these small properties is supposed to teach him something. Whatever it is, he’s not learning it.”

Maureen watched Caleb make his way up the block. She waited for another urine-laden missile to arc out of the darkness in his direction. Were it her on the rooftop, she thought, she would take the shot. But nobody did. None of the people on the block, Maureen noticed, paid any attention to Caleb Heath. It took her a moment to realize why. Nobody recognized him. No one on the block, not the people who paid him rent, not their neighbors had ever seen him in person. He was just another well-dressed white guy at the scene of a crime. Hell, Maureen thought, if they noticed him at all, they probably took him for a cop.

3

Later that same night, walking through the wash of blue light emanating from her patrol car’s light bar, Maureen approached a battered, dirty white pickup truck from behind. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. Three lanes of Claiborne Avenue traffic whooshed by her left shoulder, the cars running close and fast despite the late hour, ruffling her uniform sleeve. People drove with their windows down. Laughter, cigarette smoke, and hip-hop bass notes cascaded through the air around her. The citywide Saints party rolled on. Hangovers would abound in the morning.

In her left hand, she held a flashlight at shoulder height. Her right hand rested on her weapon. Her heart beat high in her rib cage, pulsing hard and steady against her breastbone like fists on a speed bag, adrenaline charging her blood. These were her favorite moments. She licked her lips. The approach, the anticipation, an energy throbbing inside her that she could only describe, were she ever to share the sensation, as carnal.

When she’d first spied the pickup, her heart had jumped into her throat and she’d hit the lights. She’d been parked on the concrete apron of a Claiborne Avenue gas station, keeping half an eye on the traffic as she updated her paperwork from the Magnolia Street incident on the cruiser’s laptop. The truck was the wrong vehicle on the wrong street at the wrong time of night. Obvious. She’d felt that right away, it was just so
wrong
, as wrong as the body she’d found earlier that night.
Always mind the anomaly
, Preacher, her training officer and current duty sergeant, had taught her. She’d pulled over the white pickup with this advice in mind. Of course,
anomaly
hadn’t been Preacher’s word, Maureen thought with a smile, closing in on the truck. He called it the
Sesame Street
rule: one of these things is not like the others. Her job was to find out why and decide what to do about it.

As she approached, she identified the motionless heads in the cab of the pickup truck as a man and a woman, the man driving. She’d run the plates from her patrol car. They’d come back registered to one of the more rural river parishes southwest of New Orleans. Not a common sight around town, but nothing suspicious about that fact, either.

Maureen watched the driver’s reflection in the truck’s side-view mirror. His eyes watched her. His hands gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, like the hands on a clock. He was a redhead, his hair cut military short, his hairline receded. He had a crooked nose several times broken, red cheeks, and small, angry dark eyes. A fat diamond stud glittered in his left ear.

“Wait on a Code Four,” Maureen said, calling in to the dispatch officer. “Show me on the twenty-one hundred block of Claiborne, near Jackson Avenue, lake side.”

Dispatch agreed. Maureen’s channel would stay open in case she needed to call for backup. For the moment, she felt she had the situation handled. No need to make it more than it was. The line between being smart and showing fear, it was so thin.

She played the flashlight beam over the Toyota pickup, the “Y” and the “O” colored in black paint on the rusted tailgate to highlight the
YO
. The dirty plate hung by one corner, the lightbulb above it broken or burned out. Faded Confederate battle flag stickers, one of which read,
These colors don’t run
, were pasted askew on the back bumper. She thought of the dead body in the Magnolia Street house and his belt buckle. But those colors do bleed, buddy, Maureen thought. In the bed of the pickup was a red ten-speed bike, a bell and a rusty basket on the handlebars, spots of rust peppering the frame like chicken pox scars. A cheap cable lock snaked around the frame. A plastic bag had been tied over the seat to protect it from rain.

She approached the driver’s side window and rapped on the glass with her knuckle. “Evening, sir.”

The driver hand-cranked the window down. His forehead was shiny with sweat. Red pimples dotted his hairline. He wore a top-of-the-line, custom gold Saints jersey, two sizes too big for him. A thick platinum chain draped over the front of the jersey. He reminded Maureen of a man in a costume, or a boy in his big brother’s clothes. He was a pale imitation, very pale, she realized, of the men who’d laughed at her on Magnolia Street.

The stale, acrid smell of discount cigarettes mingled with the tang of body odor floated from the cab. Maureen blinked at the funk, as if someone had blown smoke in her eyes. She surveyed the passenger, a skinny white woman with long greasy brown hair that curtained her face. She sat with her bony shoulders slumped and her hands squeezed between her knees. She wore loose black jeans and a plain blue T-shirt.