Pure Instinct

25

The morning found all of New Orleans in a silver veil of haze, fog and drizzle, an occasional groundswell of rumbling thunder electrifying the gravestones, reminding everyone of the approaching hurricane and the fragility of life as a handful of ghostly people walked amid the desolation of the city-maintained Cemetery #27 in the Uptown district. They'd gotten a late start due to the murder of Ed Sand, and the disruption it had caused both Dr. Coran and Dr. Desinor, but both women had steeled themselves to continue on with the manhunt for the Hearts killer. Unfortunately, there were people milling about the ancient cemetery and some would definitely notice the unpleasantries. It was nine A.M. and Alex Sincebaugh had long given up on anyone meeting him here, so he'd come and gone and come back again, learning belatedly of the goings-on at Kim's hotel room. He was kicking himself now at not having followed a strong desire to go to her hotel after their fight at the restaurant, but he and his partner had found a trail which smelled keen, so deYampert and he had pursued it hotly the night before. They had gone to a gay nightclub where Alex intended to shake some information from the patrons one way or another. Ben had had several off-color jokes in response to that, but Ben was also uneasy with traipsing through gay bars, and he'd registered his concern plainly enough, along with his concern that maybe the whole direction they were taking, hinging as it did on the words of a creep named Pigsty Gilreath and the Surette killing, might be leading them down the wrong path.

Surette had been one of the better-liked performers in the French Quarter shows; he'd played nightly at the Blue Heron just off Bourbon Street. Sincebaugh had never caught his act, but he'd heard that Surette had been impressive, that Horny Vicki Surette had had them on their knees-both male and female. And it was there that Davey Gilreath, otherwise known as Pigsty, had met Surette. This was old news, all gleaned on the first sweep of interrogrations and interviews with suspects in the wake of Surette's death. In the newspapers at the time, Surette had merited a two-inch column and an obit in the crowded pages of the Sunday Picyune.

Alex had been frustrated and stymied on the investigation after Gilreath had disappeared without a trace; no one, not even the streetwise, knew of Pigsty's whereabouts. It was as if he'd fallen into the Gulf.

As they pursued leads the night before, Alex had reminded Ben of all that they knew of Davey Gilreath, that he'd been raised on a farm somewhere in northern Louisiana, that he was an addict, a snitch and that he had once been Surette's lover.

“ Guys like that come and go with the wind, Alex. He could be in Alaska or Maine or on a merchant marine ship getting it on with all the boys there. I tell you, it's a dead end,” Ben assured him. “Besides, we ruled him out as a murderer long time ago.”

“ I don't suspect him of killing Surette.”

“ Well, then… why're you pursuing it?”

“ I'm uneasy with his disappearance. He seemed quite contented here before…”

“ Before people like him started getting bumped off daily? Hell, I see nothing strange in his getting out of New Orleans,” Ben countered, laughing. “What I find strange are the transies we've seen tonight who damned sure ought to've gotten out of this area till we catch this creep.”

Ben, always the voice of reason, did make sense. Alex still felt compelled to say, “Yeah, but what if the little bastard knew more than he was telling?”

Ben next breathed in a deep breath of night air and gave his best patience-in-action glare as he said, “Listen, Sincy, let me pose a slim but possible theory here, okay?”

“ Shoot! Be my guest.”

“ Supposing our dim-witted Pigsty-chosen, mind you, as a snitch for his fine propensities in ratting out his friends and selling his mother on the street-just supposing this piece of human filth got some sort of Phantom of the Opera syndrome, and with-”

Alex's laughter cut Ben off. “Phantom of the Opera syndrome? Is… is that something you got from Dr. Longette?''

Ignoring the interruption, Ben continued. “And with all of New Orleans his stage, Gilreath suddenly lashes out and strikes back at some festering cancer within him and-”

Again came Alex's laughter, turning to tears with a mental image of Pigsty in tights and cape.

It was then that Alex pulled the car to a stop across from the third gay nightclub they'd visited that night, The Warm Fuzzy.

Ben just kept rattling on as they stepped from car to bar. “Striking out at his own gayness, maybe… or the fact he was powerless, always the puny runt, pushed aside by life, people, siblings, always of no consequence, always sucking hind tit.”

“ You think he sucked hind tit with Vicki Surette?”

“ Last one on, last one in… I'd bet my last dollar on it.”

“ Maybe you've got something, there, Ben. But I'm having a hard time seeing Gilreath in the role of-”

“ Don't you get it? Maybe Gilreath decided to be of consequence for once in his miserable life, to prove a villain since he can't prove a hero, so to speak, another Lee Harvey Oswald, only his anger is directed toward those resembling him.”

“ You maybe ought to become a shrink, Ben.” Alex stepped through the doorway and into The Warm Fuzzy, his eyes instantly alert and searching. He was also instantly made as a cop along with his nervous, fidgeting partner beside him. But Alex also spotted a known male prostitute and sometime snitch known among his street friends as Ricky Aspen for his physical attributes. He was tall, slender and firm, but the aspen in Aspen was a mere willow at the moment. If anyone knew anything about Pigsty's whereabouts, it might be Ricky. Alex's thoughts were now brought to a jarring halt when finally the officiating grave-keepers started up the noisy back-hoe, which began to hungrily, greedily chew at the huge stone over the aboveground city plot paid for and maintained by the taxpayers. Here lay Victor Surette's body as it had rested since the year before.

Jessica Coran, holding together like a person bound in baling wire, no doubt had popped a Valium, Alex decided staring across at her. But she was tough, strong, even in her voice as she spoke to Landry.

“ Given the conditions of the cemetery and the fact he was buried by the state in a pine box inside a moldy old above-ground crypt with cracks about the seal,” Jessica began, “I wonder at the possible condition of the body.” She had obvious plans to run her own tests and make of this a chance to autopsy the man whom Sincebaugh had become convinced was the first victim of the Queen of Hearts killer.

The umbrellas were of little help, the rain slanting inward as if it consciously knew it must work around the obstacles to get at people. It beat a soft chorus against them. The crypt, thankfully, did not have to be pried from the earth as might be expected in most any other place, because in New Orleans the eternal rest for all souls was aboveground, due mainly to the fact that the water level was so close to the surface and the city itself was below sea level. Cremation was often the first choice in cases involving unclaimed bodies such as Surette's; however, for some unaccountable reason, the authorities had chosen burial instead in this case. When Jessica asked about this, no one seemed to know the reason why, until Alex Sincebaugh reminded them that Dr. Frank Wardlaw had suggested the arrangement in the unlikely event that an exhumation might become necessary should someone claim the body at a later date, or if further forensic review of the body became necessary-as coincidentally it had.

The crypt opening was, however, taking undue time, the graveyard attendants noticeably delaying. During this delay, Jessica Coran asked about the seal, which looked to have been broken before they had arrived.

“ We knew you were coming,” replied the chief caretaker, a wizened little man named Oliver Gwinn whose liking for the bottle was well illustrated in his complexion and nose. “So we started early.”

When finally Captain Landry blared a few obscenities into the man's ear, the lid was further pried loose by the backhoe, and a second cemetery caretaker signaled the man in the machine to shut it down. The two attendants worked with thick gloves, crowbars and a butane torch, which burned off the final remnants of the seal. Inside they found what the city of New Orleans called a coffin, a simple unfinished white pine box discolored by a grimy, green mildew on all sides, microscopic life having taken up residence on the wood long before it was sealed and now growing in complete darkness.

“ Pop the lid?” asked one of the attendants.

“ No, we'll take it to Morrison's nearby,” said Landry to the men. “Just load it in the van, okay?”

The two attendants, with Gwinn backing off and looking on, lowered thick, coiled ropes through metal brackets on each side of the coffin and worked the ropes below it with some difficulty. The problem was the lack of space between coffin and crypt sides. Soon, however, the box and body were up and straddling the crypt, and in the next few minutes loaded on the waiting van.

Alex's mind wandered again to the previous night. Could Ben have been right about Gilreath? Pigsty was the product of a dysfunctional home, his father ever ready with a belt and a backhand. Maybe something inside the weasel did snap. But Alex had pursued Aspen, who'd attempted to leave via a back door down a passageway. Alex caught the boot-licking, freckled creep just as he was about to exit, and he got rough with him, shoving him against a bathroom door and then into the room itself.

“ Whataya want from me? I ain't done nothing.”

“ Shut up and listen! I want you to tell me how to get in touch with Pigsty.”

“ Pigsty, hell, man, Sincebaugh! I ain't seen that mother and he owes me a hundred and-”

Alex lost his cool at that point, bodily picking Ricky up and ramming him into the wall, making him cry like a little girl. Ricky also lost it in his pants, and Alex was disgusted at the same time that he was taken aback. He let the other man ease down the wall, but he kept the pressure on by pulling out his. 38 and shoving it into Ricky's cheek.

“ Don't hurt me, please, man! Don't hurt me,” Ricky pleaded, his face a mask of fear now, wet all over.

“ Then tell me what I want to hear.”

“ I don't know where that fag is, man! I swear it on my mother's grave, God! God, I hate you! God, I swear, 1 don't know!” he pathetically blubbered.

Alex felt a moment's weakness and was about to relent, but instead screamed, “Then who the hell does know?”

“ I don't know!”

“ Give me a name now, Ricky, or I do your pretty face. You'll be marred for life.”

“ You… you can't threaten me like this. It's not right. I know my rights.”

“ In here you don't have any fucking rights, Ricky! They're all flushed down the toilet! Now give it up!”

“ Sue Socks, man… go see Sue.”

“ Where?”

“ She… she works at the Pink Anvil.”

“ Who is she to Gilreath?”

“ I don't know. They're… they're family or something… cousins, I think. Now, let me outta here.”

Alex let go of the man, who stank now of urine. Ricky wiped at his tears with his sleeves, speaking like a woman, saying, “I just hate you. I hate you.”

“ Here, take this for your troubles,” Alex replied, pushing a pair of twenty-dollar bills at him.

“ I don't want your fucking money.” Alex tossed the bills at him and watched them feather-fly toward the urinals. When he looked back, Ricky was snatching the bills from the floor. Alex found Ben outside, waiting in the car, talking to his wife on the radio, something about bringing home some groceries and a lottery ticket. Alex told Ben that he had a line on Gilreath, explained how Ricky Aspen had given up a cousin who worked at the Pink Anvil.

“ Let's go see this guy, then,” replied Ben.

Alex didn't correct Ben, but rather stared into his tired St. Bernard's face and saw the depth of the other man's fatigue like a mirror of his own. “Tell you what, partner. Tonight we go home, get some rest. We'll pursue this tomorrow.”

“ Yeah, but who's the guy?”

“ Tomorrow. Tonight, we get our minds off it.”

“ But Alex, you were so gung ho before and now-”

“ You were right, partner. It's most likely a blind alley anyway, and it's late, damned late, and you've got a family waiting on you. Go home, Ben.”

Now the rain-soaked, green and mildewed pine box was being carefully hoisted and loaded into the van here at Cemetery #27, and so much that had happened the previous night seemed a confused jumble. While Alex was pursuing a lead which likely would take him into another black hole to nowhere, he might've been with Kim in her time of need, and for this reason he'd been unable to speak to her or to meet her gaze today.

But now he did so, and his stare went across a wide gulf as though the moments they'd shared earlier meant nothing. Was it his imagination, or was she simply preoccupied with the business at hand? What did she think of him? Why was it so important to him? When did he fall in love with her? All questions he could not answer.

Jessica Coran waited for the others to look away while she examined the striations on the top edge of the crypt where the lid had been pried open and forced across it, initiated by machine and completed by hand. She also closely examined the area where the butane torch had burned away the last remnants of the seal. Something seemed awry and odd, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it just yet, and having had no sleep, she couldn't focus her attention on exactly what it was that bothered her about the damned seal. But there seemed an excessive number of striation marks, more than might have been caused here this morning, and this made her wonder about the type of stone used in the area as it seemed unduly brittle; she also wondered, perhaps foolishly, just how old the crypt was, and if it had had previous inhabitants in years past, and if the premium on graveyard space was so great here that a new form of body-snatching in the 1990s was carried on. She caught Kim Desinor's gaze and the two of them, still sharing the secret of Matisak's note, now shared a questioning look.

Alex's eyes went from Jessica to Kim again, making Jessica wonder what secrets the two of them harbored. Had Kim told Alex about the note, about her intention to go to Metairie Cemetery tonight? Or were the two of them simply feeling queasy and uneasy about this exhumation? Or was it simpler yet? Were the two of them sharing strong feelings for one another and struggling with those feelings? It was impossible for Jessica to know, but she had exacted another promise from Kim to stand back and stay out of the Matisak affair.

Alex Sincebaugh called to Kim and Jessica to join him in his car or be left stranded.

From Alex's perspective, Jessica surmised that it must seem that the two women had suddenly grown closer. Of course, shared trauma, such as their predawn experience with the death of Ed Sand and the hideous way in which Sand's killer had chosen to alert Jessica Coran to his presence, certainly was enough to bring the two women around to an emotional understanding of the need for one another-comrades in arms, woman to woman. Hell, the damnable monster now knew where Kim was staying; had followed Jessica to Kim's doorstep obviously; had stood inches away from Kim just outside Kim's door. It was enough to drive the two women apart if Kim Desinor were a weak person, or bring them into extremely close unity as it seemed to have done. It also had the NOPD rethinking the blood message left on the wall at 34 East Canal, but a handwriting expert with Meade's FBI unit had gotten samples of Matisak's handwriting and a comparison showed, no contest, that it was not Matisak's script.

Jessica and Kim joined Alex, who appeared to want to take them under his wing-quite a stark comparison to the first time they'd met. Now the procession out of the cemetery with Surette's body was filing through the gate and away to Morrison's, a nearby mortuary where they could work under lights in sanitary conditions.

Ben deYampert had remained uncharacteristically silent throughout the exhumation, this ghoulish business having an obvious and profound effect on him. Sincebaugh drove with Ben beside him. Kim and Alex sat silently in the backseat, like mourners off to a funeral but going the wrong way. Jessica realized that Kim was staring back over her shoulder in the direction of the open crypt, making Jessica also turn to see that the shabbily dressed cemetery caretaker, standing quite alone, was anxiously staring after the parade of officials. The man looked like a large, thin and hungry vulture at standstill, his wings shrouding him. Jessica thought she saw a worry shadow pass like a dark angel across Kim's brow. “Something about that man Gwinn I don't like,” Kim muttered. Their eyes met. Their secret was intact.

The slab room at Morrison's Funerary Services was commandeered for the occasion, much to the delight of old Enoch Samuel Morrison, who'd been wanting more police and city business for years. He made everything available to Dr. Coran, asking out of the side of his tobacco-stained mouth about the whereabouts of Dr. Wardlaw.

Jessica and the others now looked down upon the desiccated body of a young male, and she had started to cut away the clothing when suddenly Kim Desinor said, “This… this isn't Surette.”

“ What?” asked Landry. “That's nonsense.” Ben deYampert quickly agreed. “That's right, Dr. Desinor. Alex and me, we were here a year ago when they put Surette into that very crypt.”

“ Yeah, we were near about the sum total of his mourners. Wondered then where his gay buddies were, and Ben's right, it was the same crypt.”

“ Perhaps you're being too hasty, Dr. Desinor. Give it time,” suggested Landry.

“ I think she's right,” Jessica defended.

“ What do you mean?”

“ Did Surette have red hair?”

“ Strawberry-blond, he liked to say,” Alex corrected, “but that's pretty close to red, and it has been a year without a perm.” Ben chuckled alone at this.

“ It's got to be Surette. One way to be certain,” Jessica replied. “We'll see about matching the fingerprints, the hair, the DNA, but I gotta tell you, I think we're dealing with a not uncommon problem here with grave sites for the indigent.”

“ I get a sensation that this man's body has been… plundered, but this man was not… murdered,” added Kim. “Death by injury, accidental… automobile…”

“ Maybe the good doctor's having second thoughts about laying on of hands on a dead guy,” suggested Ben deYampert in Alex's ear, shrugging.

Alex nodded heartily to this, thinking that Ben had finally come to see the light as he had. “Hell, his chest is splayed open and caved in, and I'd be willing to bet that below those sutures his heart's gone. Go ahead, Dr. Coran, cut those sutures and check for a heart.”

Jessica nodded, agreeing this would be a simple test of whether they were indeed looking down at the remains of the first Queen of Hearts victim or not. She expertly slipped her scalpel below each suture, commenting that they were not at all tough or dried up but surprisingly supple.

She followed the familiar Y section of the autopsy's viscera cut. “He's obviously had an autopsy,” she commented. In a moment, her rubbered hands pulled back the dried thin shield of the chest and stomach, sending the flaps across each shoulder, and probing with forceps, she located the various organs, but found the heart missing.

“ I guess that little suspicion is cleared up,” said Landry. “Now, can we carry on with the physical autopsy, and once that is done and he's patched again, Dr. Desinor, you can carry on with your psychic autopsy.”

Alex momentarily wondered where P.C. Stephens and Lew Meade were; he'd imagined that both men wouldn't want to miss the show. He wondered why there weren't any camera crews to film it.

Dr. Desinor stuck to her guns. “I tell you this is not him.”

“ I'm inclined to agree.” Jessica said, shocking the men. “Based on what?” Landry was unable to believe what he was hearing. “The man's heart is gone, for God's sake!”

“ Based on the age of those sutures, based on the surgical neatness with which the heart muscle was removed, and based on my faith in Dr. Desinor. And if you want further proof, I'd be happy to compare DNA samples. Those of Surette are on file, I presume, at the lab.”

“ Who'd go to such lengths for such a hoax, Dr. Coran?” asked Ben. “That'd entail paying off a lot of people, and who is this guy if he's not Surette?” DeYampert waved his hands as he questioned her.

“ And who cut out this guy's heart to make him look like Surette? And who switched the bodies and why?” pressed Landry.

“ Gwinn! We better go have a talk with the caretaker,” Alex said to Landry.

“ You're buying into this, Alex?” asked a skeptical deYampert, confused at Alex's sudden turnabout. “Since when?”

Landry looked from the two women to his two detectives. “Go ask the man the hard questions. If the SOB's lying, you'll know it, and if so, haul his ass downtown and let's dig for the rest. Meanwhile, Doctors… you'd better be right about all this.”

“ All right, Captain, we'll go talk to the caretaker and his guys, but if you want my advice, you don't want this one getting around the stationhouse,” cautioned deYampert.

Alex agreed. “Yeah, Big's right about that, Carl.”

Big Ben looked apologetically down at his captain and rushed to keep pace with Alex.

“ What the hell goes on in your frigging cemetery at night when nobody's around! Where're your records on this crypt? Goddamnit, man, what kind of business are you running? Tu-lane University pay you for cadavers, what?” DeYampert's voice reverberated around the interrogation room. If he couldn't frighten a man with his NFL-lineman features, no one could.

“ I ain't done nothing like that, ever… ever, Detective. I'm telling you the truth. I wasn't nowhere near the place last night. I don't go out there much after dark. Gives me the willies…”

“ Just great,” wisecracked Alex Sincebaugh, coming off the wall where he'd been leaning. “A cemetery man who's afraid of the dark, and you got a guy taking up space in a plot, but he's in the wrong apartment, but you don't know jack-shit about how he got in there or what happened to the other guy before him. Now an expert's telling us that Victor Surette's body was removed and replaced, Mr. Gwinn… says she can prove it by the way the seal on the crypt was cut not once but twice in the last twenty-four hours. Now do you want to come clean?”

“ Do you really think you know more than the doctors do?” pressed Big.

“ We got your attendants next door, and they're going to give you up, Mr. Gwinn. So, maybe you'd best tell the truth,” added Alex. “Don't know nothing… saw nothing… can't help you with nothing…”

“ We're going to walk out of here, Mr. Gwinn… going to have a break, maybe a sandwich, some coffee, make a few phone calls. You want anything, Mr. Gwinn?”

“ I want to call my wife.”

“ Sure… we'll get a phone in here when we come back.”

“ Thank you.”

“ And maybe some Nautilus, a whirlpool, a juice bar,” added Alex.

Outside the interrogation room, Ben once more objected to what they were doing, reminding Alex that they still had to follow proper procedure, that Gwinn had asked for his phone call and earlier he'd asked about a lawyer, but that Alex had convinced him he didn't need a lawyer. “It doesn't do any good if we nail this guy for whatever the fuck he's done with that body, if it gets thrown out on one of those damned technicalities, pal, and you know it. Besides, at the moment, we got no definite proof that a crime's been committed by Gwinn, or anyone else for that matter. Whole thing could just be a foul-up. I mean, hell, they sure all seem adamant, Alex.”

“ Hey, man, I'm just following orders. This Gwinn character was shaking in his boots when we returned for him. He's hiding something. We both know that.”

“ Yeah, maybe he's renting out space for friends, but I don't think he's intentionally hiding Victor Surette's body from us. Come on, what motive would he have?”

“ You remember that rumor that always circulated about Surette, I mean before he was killed?”

“ Rumor…what rumor?”

“ That he came from a wealthy family, possibly an old-money New Orleans family?”

“ Okay, maybe I heard something about that, so?”

“ Money can buy anything or anybody, Ben. We've both seen it a thousand times in this life. And suppose money bought silence on Surette's killing.”

“ You mean from the beginning?”

“ From day one.”

DeYampert thought long and hard about this, going to the coffee urn, pouring himself a cup and then returning to Alex. “Whataya saying, Alex?”

“ I'm saying I think my instincts about Frank Wardlaw were right on from day one. No wonder he didn't put Surette's death down as a Queen of Hearts killing. He was gotten to.”

“ By whom, Alex?”

“ The family… the freaking family. They didn't necessarily want Victor's body back, but they damned sure wanted to keep the family name unblemished, so-”

“ Whoa, wait up, hoss… unblemished? This day and age, who gives a shit if you're nephew's a homo or if your niece's a lesbo? Get real, Alex.”

“ Surette was a 'showgirl,' remember? He was a headliner in the Quarter. He was no quiet, closet homosexual who picked his lovers out of magazines that came in a brown paper wrapper.”

“ So?”

“ So, they take the body a year after the fact because they hear of the amazing talents of a psychic detective named Desinor who could well blow the lid off their dirty little family secret.”

“ And future victims of the Queen of Hearts killer be damned in the bargain?”

“ Don't know about you, but the rich, the filthy rich I've had occasion to deal with, they don't care about our problems, Big.”

“ Christ, Alex, that's one hell of a leap from where we're at.”

“ Maybe… maybe not. Keep pressing Gwinn in there, and I'll see what I can shake loose from his employees.”

“ If we accept what Coran and Desinor are telling us about the body being snatched, Sincy… well then, somebody's been a busy boy.”

“ Someone with a lot of clout and influence had two bodies moved recently on the q.t. One from a recent fatal accident, likely a John Doe whose heart was used to save someone else.

The other a year-old corpse. Now tell me, Big, who do you know who has that kind of clout?”

“ You really think Frank Wardlaw is that bitter?”

“ Frank may be just the tip of the iceberg. Hell, whoever's behind this, Ben, our Mr. Gwinn in there is scared silly of. Don't need a psychic to tell me that much.”

“ But when and why and who, goddamnit, and what would it take to make such a move? That section of the cemetery is city property, filled mostly with John and Jane Does. At least with Surette, he had a name and records, so what gives? His own family consigns him to a John Doe's grave while some fresh new John Doe takes his place?”

“ Only after Frank Wardlaw makes the final cut, taking the heart. Did he really think he could get that past Dr. Coran? Wonder where Frank is now?”

“ If what you're saying is true, he might well be out of the country.”

“ I'll ask Malloy to run him down, see if Frank'd be willing to come in for questioning.”

“ Sure, do that, Alex. I'd better get back to our friend inside.”

“ See you later then, Ben.”

“ Guess that Kim Desinor really is psychic, huh, Sincy?”

“ Yeah, better watch out for her, pal. Can't hide much from that one.”

Ben's nervous laughter went with him back into the interrogation room, and Alex made a detour for the squad room. As he went, he thought of how great a partnership he and Big had. They seemed to complement one another perfectly, and Ben kept him on target, humble and laughing. They'd been through a lot together, but this body-snatching thing was something new, and it obviously gave Ben the jitters. They both sensed behind the snatching one big mother of a hand.

Alex looked around the squad room and found Grant Malloy, and asked him if he and his partner would do him a favor.

“ Sure, Alex. What's up?”

“ Seems Frank Wardlaw has disappeared. Can't locate him in or around his lab, the courthouse. Could you guys locate him and bring him to us?”

“ Wardlaw?”

“ It's in connection with a sensitive matter.”

Malloy smiled appreciatively. “Ahhhh, and how're you and the sensitive Dr. Desinor getting along, Alex? Heard you got your hands on her last night.”

“ She's light as a feather, Grant, and we're doing pretty well, thanks. How 'bout finding Frank for us?”

“ Sure thing.”

When Alex returned to Interrogation, he found that Police Commissioner Stephens along with FBI Chief Lew Meade and Captain Carl Landry were on the inside with Gwinn and deYampert. When Ben saw Alex coming through the door, he pushed his partner back into the hallway, and the two of them were followed out by Landry, who informed Alex loudly, “Meade was notified about the situation by Dr. Coran and he's tearing to get at these boys. Says he'd like to scare shit out of 'em by placing them in FBI custody. Tampering with graves is a federal offense, he's telling them.”

“ What're you saying, Carl? That we just turn these yo-yos over to Meade after all the time we've already invested on this?”

Ben explained that the caretaker's assistants, like Gwinn, weren't giving anything up, at least not yet; it seemed that they were more concerned about what might happen to them if they talked than if they remained silent. “This'll give us a chance to pore over the caretaker's records. Somebody's got to do it. Besides, these guys are asking for lawyers now. Not any more we can get from them.”

Alex stared for a moment at Ben, wondering if his big partner had figured out all the angles, and maybe he had. He thought of the boxes of cemetery ledgers, bills, balance sheets and registers they'd only skimmed so far, not having had time to thoroughly digest them as yet. They'd confiscated all the paper along with the men, but so far nothing out of the ordinary had jumped out at them. Still, Alex reasoned aloud, “Who puts this kind of 'transaction' into billable hours, Ben?”

“ You kidding, partner? That guy Gwinn and his yak-yaks are certifiable idiots. Crime makes you stupid, remember?” Alex had earlier paused over the so-called record of internmerit on one Victor Surette, and he had noted the number on the crypt matching the time and date of internment as well as the location of the crypt on a cemetery map. It all fit. The grave they'd opened was, at least at one time, home to Victor Surette's remains.

“ Besides,” added Landry, “Coran's preliminary report shows no match on fingerprints or hair, and so she fully expects that DNA'll show the same when those results are in.”

“ Whataya saying, Cap, that just because you die your fingerprints don't change?” Alex's misplaced sarcasm made Landry heave a sigh. Alex continued in the same vein. “So, we get the records, the Feds get the caretakers? And what about Meade? Doesn't he want the goddamned records too? What's to say he won't yank them out of our hands too, Captain?”

“ Ever heard of judicial delay? There's been a court order delaying anyone from looking into those records, including us, but it's going to take us some time to turn those records over to Harry Livingston.”

“ Harry who?”

“ Attorney for the caretaker, Gwinn. He moved on this thing very quickly. Now, if you want time with those records, I suggest you two get to work. Leave the interrogation to Meade for now.”

“ Ben, you feel the same way?” asked Alex.

“ I think… I think maybe we ought not to waste more valuable time on those yo-yos than necessary. Let Meade have the headache. It'll keep him busy while we work on the real case at hand. You remember, the Queen of Hearts killer? The SOB is still out there.”

The unspoken element in Ben's speech beat a laser-like path through Alex's brain: Let's do so while there's still time before we're taken off the case completely.

He stared through the one-way window to see Lew Meade throwing his weight around inside, shouting at the cemetery caretaker while he pounded Dr. Coran's reports on the table-top. Alex switched on the intercom, and Meade's voice came through from inside. “Confound it, man! You're responsible for what goes on out there. You've got to know something. Now, you may's well save all of us a lot of time and start talking; it'll go easier on you if you cooperate.”

“ You got something to charge me with, then do it,” said the grimy man named Gwinn. “Otherwise, I know my rights, and you can't hold me without you got a charge.”

“ Now, Mr. Gwinn, you're interfering with an ongoing investigation, and the more you fuck with me, the better your chances you won't ever screw with anyone else ever again! You got that?”

“ Told you, I want my lawyer.”

Alex turned to Ben and Landry and asked, “How does this yo-yo afford a guy like Livingston?”

“ He must have a bankroll someplace,” Ben dryly replied “The detectives did read you your rights, didn't they?” asked Meade now. “Rights? What rights? I ain't so sure I remember any rights being read to me, no.”

“ Well, let me read them to you, now that you're going to be in FBI custody.” Meade began to read the man his Miranda rights.

Looking on at the one-way window, Alex said, “The little weasel is telling the chief of the FBI that we failed to Mi-randize him. You did Mirandize the creep, didn't you, Ben.”

“ Well… perfectly honest with you, Alex… no.”

“ What? You dumb ox! How could you miss a simple thing like that?”

“ We just brought him in for questioning. We didn't at that time arrest him, if you recall. We didn't have anything but the word of that psychic.”

“ Whom I thought you believed in at one time.”

“ You convinced me otherwise, pal, remember?”

“ Shit… shit…”

Landry grimaced at the two detectives and grunted, “You fools. Do you know what a lawyer can do with that?”

Landry stepped back into the interrogation room to stand and stare at the guilty man. From inside the interrogation room, Meade's raspy voice came over the intercom where the detectives stood watching. “You want to save yourself a lot of time and grief, Gwinn, give it up now. How did the body placed in that crypt a year ago get up and leave from that crypt?”

“ And no records kept,” Landry said, pressing the sallow-faced, skinny little caretaker.

“ Maybe the family showed up; maybe they just wanted to take him to another place.”

“ What family? According to record, no one claimed the body, ever,” said Landry.

“ Right move, Captain,” said Alex to himself. “Let the ferret sweat, knowing we're climbing all over those records.”

“ Let's get to it then, Sincy,” suggested Ben.

“ Right… right you are, Big. Let's get to it.”

“ Kinda too bad about the autopsy being broken up.”

“ Why's zat?”

“ Might've cleared up a lot; might've led us in the right direction.”

“ What's zat? I thought I just heard you say, Ben, that you don't believe in that woman's witchcraft anymore.”

“ Well, I don't, not completely… but I wish it was so, and I wish we'd have found a new direction on this thing.”

“ You and all of New Orleans, I guess. I'm still having trouble understanding why Landry asked Dr. Desinor in on the case to begin with.” Ben stopped him cold and angrily said, “Look, Alex, they were going to go ahead with Dr. Desinor's reading of one of the bodies anyway. Captain Landry, he pushed for going back as far as Surette, which, if you recall, was your idea, remember? So don't get down on Carl.”

With that Ben left Alex standing in the corridor. Ben had seemed not himself, as if something was eating at him, and maybe this was it. Maybe Ben was tired of bailing Alex out of one scrape with a higher official after another. He'd helped in the IAD matter, providing character props for Alex; he'd always backed Alex against Lew Meade's underhandedness, like the time Meade tried to exact information about Alex's so-called involvement with an underworld informant to the mob, inferring that Alex was on the take. Ben had always been a stand-up guy against such ridiculous allegations, and had in fact warned Alex about Meade early on.

Now the big guy was standing up for Carl Landry. All in a day's work for the veteran, older officer deYampert, the heart and soul of the NOPD detective bureau.