Pied Piper

CHAPTER 53

“Jesus, su-gar, what da hell dey got going up in Seattle we ain’t got down here? You ever consider yourself a transfer, how ’bout looking down our way?”

NOPD’s detectives division was a mismatch of gray metal government furniture, paddle fans and noisy, window-mounted air conditioners. Half the building had been remodeled, but they were working from the top down-from the chief to the garage-and the detectives division was low in the building and low on the list.

Daphne bristled at the man’s sexist attitude but played to him rather than make trouble. Priorities.

Detective Broole was white, thirty-five, modestly good looking, with acne scars and sleepy brown eyes. He wore his hair like a Las Vegas showman and talked with a Dixie drawl that she had to mentally replay to understand.

“He was in your medium lockup in ’95. He’s white, with an eagle tattoo on his left forearm. Six foot, maybe six-one. In for fraud or bunco-”

“A confidence artist?” Broole said, planting his swagger down in front of an outdated computer terminal. “Well, hell, if that don’t describe half the population, sugar.” He hooked another chair with his toe and pulled it close to him on its casters. He lit up a nonfilter and blew the smoke away from her. “Shitty habit,” he said, “but somebody’s got to die young.” He motioned for her to sit in the chair, but she remained standing.

“Maybe kiddie pornography. Stalking.” She couldn’t mention the abduction of children without risking connecting herself to the Pied Piper. “He may work with a female accomplice,” she said.

“We’d all like one of those,” he conceded, turning his sweaty face toward her.

“Maybe ran a telephone scam using nine-one-one,” she suggested.

“That dial-back scam?”

“Which one is that?” she asked, hanging on his every word.

“That one didn’t reach Seattle?” he asked. “Fella puts himself up as a cop. Was an embezzlement scam involving the elderly. To insure he really is a cop, he tells the mark to hang up and quickly call him back at the station using the nine-one-one line. Never mind that ain’t possible. The mark hangs up. The line stays open-it won’t go to dial tone on the receiving end. Did you know that? So the confidence man plays a recording of a dial tone into the phone; mark picks up the phone, hears the dial tone, dials nine-one-one. Trickster turns off the recording of the dial tone. Some of ’em use another voice, some an accomplice, but the line is answered something like, ‘Emergency Services,’” he said, feigning a woman’s voice. “The mark asks to speak to the cop; the con man comes on the line, and the mark is absolutely convinced from that moment on that she’s talking to a cop. And that’s all it takes. A person’ll do just about anything for a man carrying a badge.” He looked her body over a little too closely. “A woman carrying a badge too, I imagine.”

“Do we know who went down for that one?”

“Su-gar, we got so many damn scams crawling out of the swamp, we don’t hardly keep track. Holding down a job is the most common one we see. You know somebody’s crooked if they got a nine-to-five job.”

“Including cops?”

He smiled. He enjoyed his own company. “Last name? First name? You got anything more than nine-one-one for me?” He looked at her chest again and then lowered his eyes to her waist. “Anything at all?”

“I’ll take everyone serving time in ’95 for fraud and bunco. That’s a good place to start.”

“A better place to start is dinner at Commander’s Palace. Then maybe a ride up the river on a jazz barge and a nice long, lazy look at the stars from around the pool at a little bungalow I know just outside the parish. In too close to the city the sky is all lit up and glowing and you don’t see no stars at all. And let me tell you, there ain’t nothing as pleasing to the eye as the Louisiana night sky.” Having properly loaded his own statement, he added, “Excepting, that is, maybe you, su-gar. Seattle gotta be damn proud have you carrying their shield.”

“Alphabetized. Fraud and bunco. If there’s a way to isolate it to telephone scams-”

“There isn’t,” he fired back, the smoke peeling up his face and over his eyes. “This system is the Model T of networks. New system going on-line in another year or two. They’re calling it an intranet. Now ain’t that clever! We’re calling it late.” He confirmed that he was also the single greatest fan of his own jokes. “Give me overnight. You really ought to think about that dinner.”

“I can call you?” she asked.

“Anytime, su-gar. Though I’d prefer to call you.” He faked a smile for her. His teeth belonged to a heavy smoker.

She wasn’t giving this guy any way to find her.

“I have a feeling we work together on this, and it might speed things up,” he said. “Two heads are better than one.”

She suggested, “What about I drop by later and we see what, if any, progress you’ve made.”

“I just love incentive programs.”