A Killer Like Me

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Saturday, August 4, 8:10 AM

“If I was you, I’d stay out of the office today,” Gaudet said. “With all the shit we got going on, I’m sure the captain is going to be there.”

Murphy and Gaudet were at the Coffee House on Canal Boulevard, sitting at a table in the back. A copy of that morning’s Times-Picayune lay between them, along with their breakfast bill. Murphy’s police radio was on top of the newspaper and the bill to keep the ceiling fan from blowing them off the table. Murphy shot another angry glance at the headline.

SERIAL KILLER SUSPECTED IN RED DOOR FIRE

“You figure Donovan is going to blame that on me?” Murphy asked.

Gaudet nodded as he shoveled a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. Between bites, he said, “Definitely.”

“I haven’t talked to Kirsten since Tuesday night on Freret Street, and even then the only thing I told her was that I didn’t have anything to say to her.”

Gaudet flicked the edge of the paper with his fingers. “There’s also a story about you in the metro section.”

“What!” Murphy lifted his radio and snatched the newspaper from the table. He flipped to the “B” section.

“It’s a very… how should I say it… flattering portrait of you,” Gaudet said, obviously pleased with his choice of words. “It talks about the Houma case, about the lifesaving medal you got for pulling that woman out of the river, about the shootout with the bank robbers. It makes you look like a goddamn saint.”

Murphy found the story at the top of page B-3, under a picture of him at the Freret crime scene. The headline read, DETECTIVE GOOD CHOICE TO HEAD SERIAL KILLER TASK FORCE.

“I didn’t know about any of this,” Murphy said.

“You don’t have to convince me.”

“But you believe me?”

Gaudet nodded. “We’re partners. We can lie to everybody else, but we can’t lie to each other.”

Murphy scanned the article, then dropped the newspaper back on the table, next to his plate of half-eaten eggs and grits.

Gaudet was right. Even though Donovan didn’t normally work weekends, this was no normal weekend, not with a serial killer on the loose and a mass murder headlining every news program in the country. Murphy looked at his watch. The captain was probably already in the office and had certainly seen the newspaper by now.

He needed to stay clear of Donovan.

Murphy’s coffee sat in front of him, untouched and growing cold. “I’m not Kirsten’s snitch, not on this story. She’ll tell Donovan, DeMarco, and PIB that herself.”

Gaudet scooped the last of his eggs onto a torn piece of white toast and shoved the whole thing into his mouth. When he finished chewing, he said, “The more she denies it, the less they’ll believe her. She’s a reporter. She’s supposed to protect her sources.”

Murphy banged his fist down on the newspaper hard enough to shake the table and make his coffee cup jump. “This is bullshit.”

“Take it easy,” Gaudet said. “I told you, I believe you.”

“This story doesn’t help the investigation. The last thing I want to do is let the killer know what we’re doing. I want him to keep thinking we’re stupid. I want him to think we missed his mark on the door.”

Gaudet shrugged and washed his breakfast down with a gulp of coffee. “You ain’t got to convince me, brother.”

“Have you heard from Doggs or Calumet?”

Gaudet shook his head.

Murphy picked up his radio and pressed the squelch button, making sure the radio was working and the volume was loud enough for him to hear a call. “Who are these guys, dumb and dumber? You think they know we’re up to our eyeballs in dead bodies?”

“They probably saw the paper and have enough sense to lay low.”

“Good point,” Murphy said. He took a sip of his coffee and realized he had forgotten to spike it with cream. It backed up in his throat like bile.

“You want me to call them and tell them to meet us?” Gaudet said.

Murphy shook his head. “They’ll turn up.” He slid his chair back. “I’m headed to the crime lab. Abramson owes me a favor. I got his daughter out of a DWI. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to find us a lead. Somewhere in all that stuff we picked up at the crime scenes, or somewhere on one of those bodies, the killer had to have left something behind.”

Murphy fished in his pocket for money.

Gaudet waved him off as he pulled out a wad of cash. “I got it.”

Murphy looked at the stack of bills. “Did you knock over a liquor store on the way here?”

“I do a little gigolo work on the side.”

Murphy was about to say something when his radio squawked.

“Command desk to the unit with Detective Sean Murphy.”

“Oh, shit,” Gaudet said. “Somebody’s looking for you.”

Murphy stared at his radio. He was afraid to answer it, certain it was an order to report to Captain Donovan’s office, or to the assistant chief, or to PIB.

“Command desk to the unit with Detective Sean Murphy.”

Murphy picked up the radio and thumbed the transmit button. “Twenty-five fifty-four to command desk, this is Detective Murphy.” He waited for the ax to fall.

“Command desk, twenty-five fifty-four, Fifth District rank requests task-force units respond to Forstall and Douglas, on the levee. Signal thirty.”

Murphy looked across the table at his partner.

“Not a-fuckin’-gain,” Gaudet said.

“Call dumb and dumber. Tell them to meet us there.”

Forstall Street dead-ends at Douglas Street. Douglas runs alongside the Mississippi River. Between the street and the river, the earthen levee rises gently to a height of twenty feet, then sweeps down to the edge of the muddy water. An asphalt exercise path runs along the top of the grass-covered levee. At roughly quarter-mile intervals along the path, wooden benches sit facing the water. Murphy’s junior- and senior-high-school alma mater, Holy Cross, sits a block to the west. He knew the area well.

The decapitated body of a white woman, wearing orange pajama shorts and a matching tank top, lay fifteen feet up the levee, partially hidden in the knee-high grass.

Murphy, Gaudet, and a Fifth District uniformed sergeant stood beside the body. Joey Doggs and Danny Calumet were working a neighborhood canvass. Murphy was staring at the grisly wound that had severed the woman’s neck.

“We still haven’t found her head,” the sergeant said.

“Any ID?” Gaudet asked.

“Not confirmed, but we have an idea.”

“Who?”

“Sandra Jackson… from the crime lab.”

“Our crime lab!” Gaudet said.

The sergeant nodded. “Her boyfriend, the guy she’s living with, is in the Fourth District narcotics task force. He reported her missing early this morning.”

“You think it could have been domestic?” Gaudet asked the sergeant.

“It’s not domestic,” Murphy said.

Gaudet looked at him. “How do you know?”

“A cop is not going to cut off his girlfriend’s head. He might shoot her, might stab her, might strangle her, but he’s not going to cut off her head. That takes a psychotic disposition that your average cop just doesn’t have.”

“An ex-husband then, or an old boyfriend,” Gaudet said.

Murphy shook his head. “This is our killer.”

“You think he left his… calling card?” Gaudet said.

“What calling card?” the sergeant asked.

Murphy shrugged. “When we roll her we’ll find out. But this is him.”

The sound of a racing car engine behind them made the detectives and the uniformed sergeant turn around. Two blocks down Forstall, flying toward them, was a black Ford Crown Vic.

“Got to be the boyfriend,” Gaudet said.

A marked patrol car sat crossways in the street a block from the levee. The black Ford shot through a gap between the back bumper of the patrol car and a utility pole. Two seconds later the driver braked to a hard stop at the end of the street. Murphy was pretty sure if there hadn’t been an overgrown ditch there, the driver would have driven straight up the levee.

Three uniformed cops converged on the Ford just as the driver’s door flew open and a muscular man in his midthirties with a shaved head jumped out. The man, who Murphy saw had a silver NOPD badge clipped to his belt and a pistol holstered on his right hip, sloughed off two of the three cops as they tried to hold him back. The third officer gave up and backed away.

The plainclothes cop jumped the ditch and ran toward the woman’s body. The Fifth District sergeant stepped forward, holding up both hands. “Stop right there, officer. This is a crime scene.” But the cop pushed past him.

Murphy stepped in the cop’s way and put both hands on his chest. “Hold it.”

The grieving officer knocked Murphy’s hands away and tried to step around him.

Murphy blocked his way again. When the cop tried to push him out of the way, Murphy reached out with his right hand and jabbed two fingers into the base of the cop’s throat. The man stumbled back, gasping as he clutched his throat.

“I told you to stop,” Murphy said. He could see the man had tears in his eyes, and they weren’t from the finger jab.

“Is that Sandra up there?” he croaked.

“We don’t know yet.”

The cop tried to walk around Murphy, but Gaudet stepped in to block him.

“Tell me if it’s her,” the cop shouted.

Gaudet laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “He said we don’t know, and that’s the truth, brother.”

“I’ll make the ID,” the cop said.

Murphy shook his head. “We can’t do that right now.”

“Why not? If you want to know if it’s her, let me see her face.”

Behind the man, the three uniformed officers he had slipped past were scrambling up the levee. Doggs and Calumet, drawn by the commotion, were trotting down Douglas Street from half a block away. Murphy caught Dagalotto’s eye and jerked his head in a “come here” motion. The two young detectives started climbing the levee.

Murphy held out his hand until the plainclothes cop shook it. “I’m Sean Murphy. I’m in charge of this investigation. If you want to help, go with these detectives and tell them everything you know about Sandra’s whereabouts during the last twenty-four hours.”

The fight had gone out of the man. He looked over his shoulder, saw Dagalotto and Calumet approaching. Then he turned around and walked down the levee to meet them.

Murphy looked at the uniformed sergeant. “Can you see if the command desk has a chaplain or a psychologist available, somebody who can talk to him?”

“Are you sure he wasn’t the one who killed her?” the sergeant said.

Murphy nodded. “Positive.”