The Dollmaker

Thirteen

Sunlight danced like perch off the muddy surface of the Mississippi River as Dave drove across the Huey Long Bridge late that afternoon. He was headed into New Orleans to see JoJo Barone, the owner of the strip joint on Bourbon Street where both Nina Losier and Renee Savaria had worked. When Dave walked into the Gold Medallion a little while later, the bartender glanced up and gave him a lazy salute. He was about Dave’s age, tall and lean, with bad teeth and dishwater-blond hair that fell in greasy hanks around his face.

At this time of day, the front of the bar was empty and the daylight that streamed in through the open doorway didn’t quite penetrate the darker recesses of the club, where a handful of customers sat grouped around the runway watching an early floor show.

Dave walked over to the bar and sat down. “Is JoJo around?”

The bartender tipped his head toward the back of the club. “He’s in his office.”

“Can you tell him Dave Creasy would like to see him?”

The man scratched the mushroom cloud on his Megadeth T-shirt. “Yeah, thing is, JoJo don’t like to be disturbed when he’s going over the books. He’ll probably be at it for another hour or two, so you might as well relax and enjoy the show. What can I get you to drink?”

“I’ll take a Coke.”

“You sure? It’ll cost the same with or without the bourbon.”

“Just the Coke.”

Dave glanced toward the back, where a group of middle-aged businessmen sat with loosened ties and smoldering cigarettes, watching a redhead in a green G-string pole-dance to the hip-hop beat blasting from the sound system. A mirrored ball rotating overhead threw prisms of light on the walls and ceiling, and reflected off the crystal in the dancer’s belly button. She curled a leg around the pole and slid slowly up and down the slick surface, eyes closed, head thrown back. Then, grasping the pole with both hands, she lifted herself until she hung suspended with her head only a few inches from the floor, and slowly opened her legs. A drunken college boy seated with his buddy at the end of the runway let out a loud rebel yell as he waved a fistful of bills at the dancer.

The bartender poured Dave a Coke and stuck in a spear of cherries. “No extra charge.” He grinned and slid the glass across the bar.

Dave took out the cherries and put them on the napkin.

The bartender was still grinning. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Should I?”

“Carver High School. Senior year. You split open my lip with your class ring. We both got suspended for fighting and almost didn’t graduate. I still got the scar, see?” He tapped a finger against his lower lip, where a thin, raised line snaked halfway down his chin.

Dave narrowed his eyes. “Bobby Ray Taubin, right?”

“I go by Robert these days.” He stuck his hand across the bar. “How the hell have you been?”

Dave shook his hand and shrugged. “So what were we fighting about?”

“Damned if I remember. Some lil ol’ girl, probably. Seems like you and me share the same taste in women.” He nodded toward the redhead on stage. “Not bad, huh? You want a piece of that action, I’m the guy who can hook you up.”

“Thanks. I’m just here to see JoJo.”

“Change your mind, let me know,” he said. His eyes were dark and beady, and they shifted back and forth as he talked.

Dave sipped his Coke. “How long have you worked for JoJo?”

The bartender grabbed up a dish towel and started wiping down the counter. “Off and on for a couple of years. Ever since I got out of Angola.” He threw the towel over his shoulder as he waited for Dave’s reaction.

“What were you in for?”

“Liquor store holdup. The guy behind the register tried to stop me. Dude looked like he’d been put through a sausage grinder when I got through with him, but he was still coming at me when the cops got there.” Taubin laughed and went back to polishing the bar. “I guess I almost killed the little bastard, but I wasn’t thinking too straight back then. Had too much glass in my system. I came out of the joint clean and sober, but you won’t find too many people willing to take a chance on a guy with a record like mine. JoJo was the only one who’d hire me, so I’ve got a soft spot for the old coot.”

“Meaning?”

The bartender stuck a toothpick in his mouth as he leaned an arm on the bar. His eyes darted back and forth as he stared Dave in the face. “JoJo’s got enough problems these days without the law breathing down his neck.”

“I’m not a cop,” Dave said.

“Then why are you here? You don’t drink, you don’t watch the show. I gotta think a man like you has an agenda.” He moved slightly so that Dave could see the baseball bat on the shelf behind him.

“I’m not here to start any trouble. I just want to ask JoJo a few questions.”

“About what?”

“That’s between him and me.”

“Is that right?” The bartender flicked the toothpick toward the trash. “Like I said, he’ll be out in a little while. He may give you a few minutes of his time and he may not. But a word of advice, chief. I’ll be right here the whole time just itching for a chance to even an old score.”

Dave threw some bills on the bar as he stood. “I tell you what, Bobby Ray. You just keep right on convincing yourself you’re ready to rock and roll, and when I come back, you let me know if you still want to even that score.”

To kill some time, Dave walked back to Decatur and picked up a muffuletta and an icy bottle of water from the Central Grocery. Then he carried his early dinner into the square and found an empty bench in the shade.

Angelette had suggested he drop by the Hotel Monteleone later that night to meet Graydon Losier, the murdered girl’s father, but Dave wanted a chance to talk to JoJo first. He’d gone over the case file several times and read through all the statements. Nina Losier had been brutally beaten, her body rolled out of a car onto the wide neutral ground on Esplanade Avenue, where she was found early the next morning.

The neighborhood had been canvassed for eyewitnesses, her friends, family and the people she worked with were interviewed, and her boyfriend, Jimmy Caisson, brought in for questioning. Caisson had a history of violence, particularly against women, but when he’d produced an alibi for the night of Nina’s murder, the investigation had hit a wall.

The only angle Dave could find that hadn’t been exhausted by the police was the possible connection to Renee Savaria’s murder. Both women had worked at the Gold Medallion, but the murders had occurred seven years apart. The lead was a slim one at best, and probably wouldn’t amount to anything more than wishful thinking on Dave’s part that he could finally put some closure to one of the darkest chapters of his life. The Savaria case was a black mark against a career he’d otherwise been proud of, and what he’d done in a time of desperation still ate at him.

It wasn’t that his record had been spotless before the Savaria case. Like a lot of other cops he knew, he’d taken some liberties in the name of justice. But he’d loved his job and believed in what he was doing. He’d never thought of himself as the type of cop who could be coerced or bribed, but Ruby’s kidnapping had changed everything. She’d been missing for nearly forty-eight hours when he got the first call.

“Don’t say anything, Detective Creasy, just listen. I know your place is crawling with cops, so if you want your daughter back in one piece, you’ll go someplace more private. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

Dave had been trembling by the time he hung up his cell phone, but somehow he’d managed to keep the fear from his face and voice as he muttered to Claire that he needed some air. He’d walked two blocks over from their apartment and sat down on the curb to wait for the call. It came exactly ten minutes after the first.

“Where are you, Detective?”

“Outside. No one can hear me.”

“For your daughter’s sake, I hope you’re being straight with me.”

Dave gripped the phone. “Where is she? Let me talk to her.”

“She’s asleep. You don’t want me to wake her up, do you? She’s had a rough couple of days.”

“You son of a bitch. If you’ve hurt her—”

“Save your threats, Detective. You’re never going to find me and we’re wasting valuable time, so let’s just get down to business. You have something I want.”

The pounding in Dave’s ears was so loud he couldn’t think straight. “What are you talking about?”

“The morning before your daughter disappeared, you had a meeting with Renee Savaria’s roommate. She gave you Renee’s diary. If you ever want to see your daughter again, you’ll do exactly as I say. One little deviation and she dies, is that clear?” The voice paused. “And that would be a real shame, too, because she’s such a pretty little thing.”

Dave had walked back home dripping with sweat as he tried to figure out what to do. As he’d approached the back gate, he saw a bloodstained hair ribbon draped through the latch, and he knew that it had been left there for him to find. The kidnapper had been close. He’d probably been watching the whole time.

Dave had turned, scoured the area, as terrible thoughts ran through his head. His little girl hurt, bleeding, needing him to come for her and him not having a clue where to look. Those thoughts had been his undoing, and by the time he received the next phone call, he’d been ready to deal. He’d gone to the evidence room, ripped out the last page of the diary and burned it, just as the caller had instructed. And then he’d waited for his daughter to come home.

A part of him suspected all along that he was being played. He was a cop. He should have known better. But he’d been so desperate and scared, so racked with guilt, that he was willing to try anything to bring Ruby safely home. But as days and then weeks went by with hope ever dwindling, he’d come to the terrible realization that Renee Savaria’s murderer had used his daughter’s kidnapping to manipulate him into destroying the evidence. The cases weren’t related at all. A cold-blooded killer had simply taken advantage of a heartbreaking situation.

Dave had never come clean about the missing diary page. He could have gone on with his career with no one the wiser, but he knew. And by the time he tendered his resignation at the request of his superiors, destroying evidence in a homicide investigation had been only one of a dozen transgressions that had made him unfit to be a cop.

Renee Savaria’s killer had never been caught and now another girl who’d worked at the Gold Medallion was dead. If Dave had done his job right seven years ago, Nina Losier might still be alive today.

Idly, he watched the sidewalk artists and fortune tellers lined up along Pirates Alley as he drank the cold water. Street musicians played Dixieland jazz from beneath the shade trees, while earnest young men in black pants and white shirts passed out pamphlets from a local mission. A breeze rippled through the banana trees, bringing the scent of the river and the whisper of memories, and Dave closed his eyes for a moment.

I like it here, Daddy. It’s like a big party!

I like it here, too, Ruby. I wish you were with me right now.

He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly against the brightness as he watched a family of tourists stroll by. One of the little girls clutched a yellow balloon in a chubby fist, while clinging to her mother’s hand with the other. She smiled shyly at Dave and turned her head to stare after him as she plodded along in her mom’s wake.

Dave glanced away, not wanting to be pulled back into that dangerous nostalgia. Not here, where temptation lurked on every street corner. He loved the Quarter, but it was a place where a guy like him could get into a lot of trouble if he wasn’t careful. The languid decadence that slithered along the narrow streets and beckoned from hidden courtyards spoke to a darkness that had resided in his soul for as long as he could remember.

He finished his sandwich and drink and threw the trash away, then headed back to Bourbon. The closed-off street teemed with tourists, some of whom seemed at once fascinated and repelled by what they glimpsed through the half-open doorways.

JoJo Barone waited for him in a back booth. He wore a beige linen jacket that hung limply from his stooped shoulders, and a black shirt open at the neck. An unfiltered Camel smoldered between his yellowed fingers as he stared up at Dave through the smoke.

One of Dave’s uncles had died of lung cancer a few years back, and when Dave had gone to visit him in the hospital, he’d been so shocked by the man’s appearance he’d barely been able to look at him. The uncle he remembered had been a big, burly man with a hearty appetite and a booming laugh, but the advanced stages of the disease had given him the skeletal face and emaciated body of a POW. JoJo Barone’s sunken eyes and sallow complexion reminded Dave of his uncle.

“My barkeep tells me you were in earlier to see me,” he rasped. “Do I know you?”

Dave slid onto the bench across from him. “We met seven years ago when NOPD fished one of your dancers out of the river. Her name was Renee Savaria. Ring any bells?” Before he could answer, Dave said, “Seems like your girls have a bad habit of turning up dead, JoJo.”

The man watched Dave through the curling smoke. “Now I remember you. Detective Creasy, right? Took me a minute to place you. You look different than you did back then.”

“A lot can happen to a guy in seven years.”

“I hear that.” Light sparked off a heavy gold ring on JoJo’s pinky as he tipped ashes into an overflowing ashtray at his elbow. “So what can I do for you, Detective?”

“You can forget the detective part. I left the department a few years ago.”

“What are you doing here, then? Something tells me you didn’t come in to see the floor show.”

“I’d like to ask you some questions about Nina Losier’s murder.”

“In what capacity? You just said you’re not a cop anymore.”

“Call me a friend of the family.”

“No offense, Detective—”

“Dave.”

“You don’t look like the type of guy Graydon Losier would hire to wipe his ass, let alone invite to a Saturday soiree.” JoJo took a long drag on his cigarette and turned his head to cough out the smoke. He put a handkerchief to his mouth until the hacking fit was over, and when he brought it away, Dave saw spots of blood on the white linen.

JoJo tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket and acted as if nothing had happened. “But let’s say you are working for her old man. I still don’t get what you’re doing here. The cops already know who killed Nina.”

“That’s news to me,” Dave said. “Last I heard, they hadn’t made an arrest yet.”

“Don’t mean they don’t know who killed her. You want a name, all you gotta do is pick up a phone and call one of your old buddies down at the station.”

“I’d rather you tell me.”

JoJo motioned to a passing waitress, and a few seconds later, she brought him over a drink and a fresh Coke for Dave. He could smell the whiskey in the glass and pushed it away.

“If something’s wrong with your drink, I’ll have my girl bring you something else.”

“The drink is fine. I’m just not thirsty.”

JoJo smiled for the first time. “Now that surprises me. I had you pegged for a drinking man.” He gestured with his cigarette. “Something about the eyes. They always give away a man’s vices.” He lit a fresh cigarette from the butt in his hand. “Let me ask you something, Dave. You ever wish you could go back in time? Maybe to just one specific moment when a decision you made changed the entire course of your life?”

“All the time,” Dave said.

“Lately, I find myself thinking about the summer of ’62. That’s when my older brother gave me my first smoke. I was eleven years old. He stood there laughing his ass off while I puked up my guts behind the smokehouse. So I decided to show him what a big man I was, and for the past forty-five years, I haven’t gone more than an hour or two at a time without a cigarette in my hand. Except maybe when I’m sleeping.”

“What is it? Lung cancer?”

JoJo’s gray eyes showed surprise. “Most people assume emphysema. How’d you know?”

“I had an uncle who had it. I recognize the symptoms.”

“Helluva a way to go, from what I hear.”

“I can think of a few worse,” Dave said. “At least you made it this far. That’s more of a shot than Nina Losier got.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that girl’s death. You’re wasting my time and yours if you think I did. Like I said, the cops already know who killed her.”

“And I’m still waiting for you to tell me.”

JoJo propped his elbows on the table and cupped one hand over the other. “Ever hear of a little cockroach named Jimmy Caisson?”

“Nina’s boyfriend?”

“He’s the kind of guy that likes to smack around his women. Puts a real tingle in his joystick, I reckon. You know the type. Beats the shit out of the old lady on Saturday night, then comes crawling back on hands and knees a couple days later begging for another chance. This time Jimmy got one too many chances.”

“There’s a problem with your theory, JoJo. Jimmy Caisson has an airtight alibi. At least a dozen witnesses can place him in a Biloxi casino on the night Nina was murdered.”

“Yeah, that’s what I hear. Interesting thing about that alibi, though. Jimmy has a cousin who looks enough like him to pass for his twin. They came in here together one night, I couldn’t tell the two assholes apart. And I’ve known Jimmy since he was knee-high to a piss ant. If those witnesses saw the cousin in that casino instead of Jimmy, it’d kind of blow a hole in his story, wouldn’t it?”

“You told the police about this cousin?”

“They know. What I still can’t figure out is why you’re here.”

Dave was starting to wonder the same thing himself. If the police were in the process of breaking Jimmy’s alibi, why would Graydon Losier feel the need to hire a P.I.? And why had Angelette brought the case to Dave?

Easy answer. She was after something.

“All right, let’s say Jimmy Caisson did kill Nina. Let’s say the police can eventually prove it,” Dave said. “That still leaves Renee Savaria.”

The cigarette continued to smolder in JoJo’s hand. “Ancient history.”

“Not to her family. Not to me, either.”

JoJo shrugged. “You got a guilty conscience about something, go talk to a priest. Leave me out of it.”

“Have you ever been to an AA meeting, JoJo?”

“No, why?”

“One of the steps to recovery is to admit to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Seven years ago, I destroyed evidence that may have allowed Renee Savaria’s killer to go free. You’re the only person I’ve ever admitted that to.”

“What am I supposed to do? Applaud or something?”

“No, you just get to sit there and hear me out. A couple of days before my daughter was kidnapped, Renee’s roommate gave me Renee’s diary. Some of the last notations were a set of initials and an address on Chef Menteur Highway. The location was one of your old massage parlors, JoJo. She went out there to meet someone, didn’t she?”

“Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Seven years is a long time, and my memory’s not what it used to be.”

“Think hard,” Dave said. “Because whoever Renee met that night turned out to be her killer. I’d put money on it. And then he used my daughter’s kidnapping to coerce me into destroying evidence that could have incriminated him.”

“You can’t prove any of that.”

“No, but I bet you can. I always suspected you were holding out on me, JoJo. I think you still are. You’ve been protecting Renee’s killer all these years, but a guy in your condition has to ask himself, what’s the point? Why not come clean while you still have the chance?”

“You think where I’m going one little confession is going to make any difference?”

Dave shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”

JoJo’s hands were steady and his eyes never flinched, but Dave could see a thin film of sweat glistening above his lip. “You really believe all that bullshit they teach in Sunday school?”

“Yeah, I do.”

JoJo took another long pull on his cigarette, then stabbed out the butt in the ashtray. He was silent for a moment as his gaze strayed to the runway, where a blonde who looked no more than eighteen danced in nothing but sequins and stilettos.

“There was this guy. He used to come in here a couple times a week. Big fucker with a scar all the way down the side of his face.” JoJo traced a finger along his jawline. “He had a thing for Renee. He used to set up these private parties for him and his friends, and he always made sure she was one of the girls I sent out.”

“What was his name?”

JoJo took out another cigarette, but didn’t light up. Instead he tapped the end against his hand. “You sure you want to take the lid off this crap hole? It may be old shit down there, but you start digging around, it’s still gonna stink. And nothing you do will bring that girl back.”

“It won’t bring her back, but maybe it’ll finally give her family some peace. They’ve had to live with the knowledge that Renee’s killer has gone free all these years. They need justice for their dead daughter and I need to make things right. I think you do, too.”

JoJo stared out at the crowd, then slowly ran his gaze back to Dave. “Does the name Clive Nettle mean anything to you?”

A memory clicked and a cold wave of dread washed over Dave. “He’s a cop.”

“Yeah, that’s right. They were all cops at those parties, and some of them wore some pretty heavy-metal brass on their chests. And for obvious reasons, they were mighty particular about who they let in.”

“Who are we talking about, JoJo? Give me some names.”

He took a sip of his drink. Condensation ran off the bottom of the glass and dripped onto the tabletop. “I can’t give you any names. Nettle was the only one I ever had any dealings with. He always made the arrangements, sometimes for cash, sometimes in exchange for looking the other way if my liquor license wasn’t exactly in order.”

“Where did these parties take place?”

“Motel rooms, mostly. One or two times at an old farmhouse off the highway. Somebody I used to know owned it.”

“What about your massage parlors?”

“If the money was right.”

“Was the money right the night Renee was murdered?”

JoJo licked his lips. “Put it this way. An offer was made I couldn’t refuse.”

“What happened?”

“Nettle wanted more than a lap dance that night and things got a little rough. When Renee fought back, he lost control. Most of the brass ran for the bushes when the screaming started, but a couple of the cops stayed behind to clean up the mess. They hustled me out of my own joint, and the next thing I know, Renee’s being fished out of the drink.”

“And you just kept your mouth shut.”

His eyes met Dave’s across the table. “What was I supposed to do? I open my trap, next thing I know some trigger-happy cop is outside my back door with a sawed-off shotgun pressed against my temple.” He gestured with the unlit cigarette. “Besides, those bastards had it all figured out. It’d be their word against mine. And anyway, who’d give a shit about a dead stripper? Girls like Renee are a dime a dozen in this town. In a week’s time, nobody would’ve even remembered her name. But then you got put on the case, and you didn’t go looking for the easy answer. You kept digging and digging until that diary turned up. If somebody hadn’t gone and snatched your little girl, they would’ve found another way to stop you.”

Dave’s hands clenched into fists underneath the table. “Was Nettle the one who made those calls to me?”

“He never struck me as the type of guy who could think too fast on his feet.”

“Then who did?”

JoJo shrugged. “I’ve told you everything I know. We’re squared now, right?”

“As far as I’m concerned we are.” Dave struck a match and lit JoJo’s cigarette, then shook out the flame. “But my absolution isn’t exactly the one you need to worry about, JoJo.”