A Killer Like Me

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Friday, August 3, 9:20 AM

“TV has crushed us on this,” said Times-Picayune managing editor Milton Stanford. “It led this morning, it’ll lead at noon, and it’ll lead tonight at six and ten. Meanwhile, we’ve got nothing.”

“It’s on the Web,” Internet editor Harvey Banks said.

Stanford glared at Banks. “That’s great, Harvey, but it’s not in the paper yet, and last time I checked we were still a news- paper.”

Kirsten Sparks was one of a dozen editors and reporters crammed into the big conference room. Stanford stood at the head of the table. He had been on a tear for the last twenty minutes, railing against the speed and shallowness of TV news coverage, and also condemning the nickname some of his veteran reporters had given to the Red Door fire, the Big Weenie Roast.

The 8:00 AM emergency budget meeting was well into its second hour.

“I want a package for tomorrow with every imaginable detail about the Red Door fire and a historical sidebar on the 1973 fire,” Stanford said, his gaze sweeping the room. “I want reaction from the local gay community, a quote from some national gay-rights leader, the latest from the police and fire departments, victim profiles, and I want comparisons of this fire with other big fires around the country, like the Triangle Factory Fire.”

Stanford directed his gaze. “Kirsten, I want you to pump your police sources…”

Laughter broke out from the nearly all-male crowd.

Kirsten felt her face flush. She knew it was involuntary, an autonomic response, the result of her damn female hormones. She couldn’t care less about the guys’ sexual innuendos and wisecracks. Newsrooms were newsrooms, and no amount of time-wasting, expensive sensitivity training was going to change that. If you wanted to swim with sharks, you had to learn to bite.

Stanford’s face was red. “Kirsten, I didn’t say that intentionally as some sort of… I…” Stanford was a boss. In this era of political correctness, he had to be careful not to say anything that might offend anyone. One slip could cost him his career.

Kirsten threw him a lifeline. “Milton, please. No apologies are necessary. Truth is, I’ve seen a few of the dicks in this room and they’re worth a good laugh.” That wasn’t true. She hadn’t slept with any of the reporters or editors in the room, but they didn’t know that.

There was some uncomfortable chuckling but it died quickly.

Back to business. Kirsten arched her eyebrows. “What were you saying, Milton?”

“I want to know if the fire investigation, which the coroner says involves at least seventy homicides, is going to draw resources away from the serial-killer investigation.”

City editor Gene Michaels spoke up. “Could they be connected?”

“What do you mean?” Stanford said.

Kirsten knew that Gene had once been an investigative reporter for United Press International. He had a good nose for news.

Michaels laid his hands on the table and leaned back in his chair. “If we accept that the letter we received is legitimate, and given what accompanied it, I don’t think there’s any doubt, then the killer’s musings have a pseudoevangelical theme. For instance, he used the word harlot, he said he was doing the Lord’s work, and he called himself the Lamb of God.”

“What’s your point?” Stanford said.

“My point,” Michaels continued in his distinctive Southern drawl, “is that a lot of evangelicals have a problem with homosexuality, and I’m just wondering if this guy set that fire in order to fulfill the threat he made to kill a whole bunch of people if we didn’t publish his letter.”

“Wait just a damn minute,” Stanford said. “Are you suggesting that our decision not to publish this guy’s letter was enough to cause him to set a fire that killed seventy people?”

“He’s not a rational person,” Michaels said. “He’s a psychotic. And I’m not saying he did it. I’m just saying the possibility is worth-”

Stanford snapped his focus to Kirsten. “You’re our serial-killer expert. What do you think?”

She shrugged. “Like Gene was saying, it’s worth looking into. What are the odds that we have a prolific serial killer and the biggest mass murderer in the city’s history running around at the same time and they’re not connected?”

Stanford dropped into his chair and rubbed his chin. “That’s something I doubt TV will have.” He looked at Kirsten. “Get on it.”

At 5:30 PM, Murphy and Gaudet, along with the two detectives assigned to the new serial-killer task force-Joey Dagalotto and Danny Calumet-were seated at a table in the back of Felix’s Oyster House on Iberville at Bourbon, two blocks from the fire.

Close enough to smell the ashes.

The fried-oyster po’ boy Murphy had just eaten sat in his gut like a wet sleeping bag.

Murphy and Gaudet had spent fourteen hours at the fire scene. They had helped carry out seventy-three bodies wrapped in black rubber bags. Dr. Maynard had found two more victims in a bathroom.

“You think we’ll catch him?” Calumet said.

Despite his promise of a six-man task force, Captain Donovan had only given Murphy two extra detectives, both young, both inexperienced, both on loan from the burglary unit. Neither had ever worked a homicide before.

Murphy turned up his frosted mug and drained the last of his beer. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “They always get caught-eventually.”

Gaudet snapped his fingers. They were greasy from the pile of onion rings and fried shrimp he’d devoured, and barely made a sound. “That’s not what you told Donovan.”

Murphy looked across the table at his partner. “What do you mean?”

“When he said New Orleans had never had a serial killer, you told him there was a guy called the Axman who was never caught.”

Murphy shook his head. “I said, officially he was never caught. Unofficially, he got what was coming to him.”

“How do you know that?” Gaudet said. “Wasn’t that case like a hundred years ago?”

“Almost,” Murphy said. “My great-grandfather worked on it in 1919.”

“I knew your uncle was on the job,” Gaudet said, “but you never said nothing about your great-grandfather.”

Murphy stared at his empty mug as he swirled it in a puddle of condensation on the table. “He didn’t exactly have a stellar career with the department.”

Gaudet smiled. “Kind of like you?”

“Worse,” Murphy said. “He killed some city official. Then he either quit or got fired and became a private detective. Supposedly, a couple of years later he found the Axman in California and killed him.”

“So the case was solved,” Gaudet said.

Murphy shrugged. “A few years ago, I got curious if all that family history stuff I’d heard all my life was true, so I went to the library and did some research. Turns out my great-grandfather was mentioned in several newspaper articles as the lead detective in the Axman case. I also found an article from a couple of years later about him killing a guy in Los Angeles. But according to NOPD records, all the Axman murders are officially still open.”

“So he didn’t kill the right guy,” Gaudet said.

“There weren’t any more Axman killings,” Murphy said.

“Wow,” Danny Calumet said. “That’s a hell of a story.”

Gaudet signaled for the check. Everybody reached for their wallets.

“I got it,” Gaudet said. He pulled out a wad of bills that smelled like soot and looked damp when he dropped them on the Formica table.

Joey Dagalotto, the other neophyte detective, whom everyone called Joey Doggs, glanced around before asking, “Is that from… down the street?”

Gaudet nodded. “I figured the guy wasn’t going to need it anymore.”

Doggs and Calumet looked at Murphy, their eyes asking, “Are you cool with this?”

Murphy nodded.