The Dollmaker

Fourteen

Dave walked back to his truck, but instead of climbing in, he headed down Decatur to a little corner restaurant named Dessie’s.

Odessa Birdsong was known city-wide for her fried chicken, smothered pork chops and dirty rice, but it wasn’t the menu that drew Dave to her place that day. He and Dessie’s son, Titus, had once been partners, and Dave still remembered some of Titus’s old habits. Every day as soon as his watch ended, he’d stop by the restaurant to check on his aging mother. Sometimes he’d stick around and help out if she needed him; other days he’d take off after only a few minutes. But he never failed to go by and see her. Dave figured this would be a good time of day to catch him there, though the way their partnership had ended, he wasn’t so sure Titus would want to see him.

Someone had painted Dessie’s name in bright green letters across the plate glass window and replaced the apostrophe with a smiling red crawfish. As Dave pushed open the door, the scent of frying meat engulfed him. The place was small, with a wall of booths on one side and a few rickety tables jammed together in the center. Ancient wooden fans stirred a perpetual cloud of grease smoke that hovered near the tin ceiling, and Dave could hear a radio playing somewhere in the back.

He glanced around. At lunchtime the place always had a line out the door, but now the only patrons were two elderly black men seated in one of the booths eating catfish and hush puppies, and a younger man at a table by the window, with a bucket of crawfish and a layer of newspaper spread in front of him. They all glanced up when Dave walked in, then went right back to their meals.

The girl who stood behind the register looked to be about fifteen or sixteen. She was slim and beautiful, with a cloud of wiry curls brushing her shoulders and a complexion the color of milk chocolate. She’d been reading a magazine, but greeted Dave with a bored smile.

He didn’t recognize her at first. Last time he’d seen Titus’s youngest daughter, she’d been a little kid, only a year or so older than Ruby, and now here she was, all grown up. Dave’s chest tightened as he smiled back at her.

She tucked a bunch of stray curls behind one ear. “You want a table?”

“I was hoping I might catch your dad here. You’re Melaswane, aren’t you? Titus’s youngest?”

“Depends on who’s asking,” she drawled, and propped an elbow on the counter.

Dave couldn’t help smiling again. “You don’t remember me?”

“Nope.”

“I’m Dave. I used to work with your dad. We were partners once.”

She shrugged, as if the name meant less than nothing to her.

“Is Titus around?”

She traced a lazy pattern on the counter with her fingertip. “He’s in the kitchen pinching crawfish with Gran’ maman.”

“Do you think you could go back there and tell him I’m here to see him?”

“I guess.” She got up from the stool she’d been perched on, and as she pushed open the kitchen door, another cloud of smoke wafted out. “Daddy! There’s some man out here wants to see you.”

Dave could hear loud talking in the back and then Melaswane said petulantly, “I don’t know. Dave or somebody.”

The door closed behind her as she stepped into the kitchen, and a few moments later Titus came out, wiping his hands on the stained butcher’s apron he wore.

He paused with his shoulder against the door. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

At fifty-five, Titus Birdsong was still an impressive-looking man. He stood at least six-three, with broad shoulders, bulging forearms and fists the size of small hams. Ten years ago, when Dave moved into Homicide, Titus had already been a legend. One of only two black detectives in a division of twenty-four, he’d been about as welcome as a fur coat at a PETA rally in the early days of his career. He’d had to contend with slashed tires and racial slurs, and someone had even stuffed dog feces in his desk drawer one time. But eventually his outstanding arrest record got noticed by the brass, and he became one of the hottest detectives in the department to watch. In time, he’d even managed to win over most—but not all—of his colleagues with his old-fashioned courtesy and good humor.

By the time Dave came along, Titus had already burned himself out. His passion and drive for the job was a thing of the past, but Dave had never really minded his partner’s low-key approach to their investigations. Titus’s ego was also a thing of the past, and Dave had learned a lot from the older detective. But more than that, he liked and respected Titus as a person. Their amiable working relationship had forged a strong bond between the two men, and now Dave felt a twinge of guilt that he’d been the one to betray their friendship.

He walked over to the counter and sat down. “Long time no see.”

Titus let the door swing closed behind him. “You up and disappear for God knows how long and you got nuthin’ else to say for yourself?”

“The last few years have been pretty rough,” Dave said. “I wasn’t exactly in a sociable mood. And all that flack you caught from the crap I pulled before I left…I didn’t want to cause you any more grief.”

“Then why you come here now?”

“I need your help with something.”

Titus cocked his head. “Now, don’t that just beat all?” But in spite of the disdain dripping from his voice, a glint of curiosity appeared in his green eyes, and Dave knew he had him hooked.

“Have you got a few minutes? This won’t take long.”

“Grab yourself a cold drink and go on outside. It’s cooler out there than it is in here. I’ll be out directly, soon as I get the crawdad juice washed off my hands.”

He disappeared back into the kitchen, and Dave walked over to the old soft drink cooler near the register and took out an icy Coke. Then he went out the side door and down the steps to the patio, which was just a small pad of cracked concrete shaded by a live oak. The sun was starting to dip, and the light that drifted down through the branches shimmered like specks of gold across the tabletop. A breeze ruffled the elephant ears that grew along the wooden fence, and the scent of barbecuing meat hung heavy and succulent on the afternoon heat.

Dave sat down in the shade to wait for Titus. He came out a few minutes later with water droplets still clinging to his thick, graying hair. He’d put on a fresh shirt and the cotton looked as stiff as a cardboard box. His wife, Addie, had always had a thing about starch. Titus used to say his shirts were so rigid they were like wearing straitjackets. Dave always wondered if Titus’s laundry was somehow a metaphor for his marriage.

He sat down across from Dave at the picnic table, his gaze dropping to the Coke. “Got some longnecks over there in an ice chest.”

“I’m sticking with soda these days.”

Titus squinted against the splashes of sunlight. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Some days better than others,” Dave said.

“You mind if I have a cold one?”

“Knock yourself out.”

Titus got up and went over to the cooler at the bottom of the steps. The bottle he removed from the chipped ice looked cold and dark, and when he unscrewed the cap, a breath of frost rose up from the neck. “I still ain’t believing you’re here,” he said as he came back to the table. “I thought sure you’d be catfish bait by now.”

“You and me both,” Dave said. “I’m doing okay, though. I’ve still got my P.I. license and I’m working out of Morgan City nowadays. I do a lot of workmen’s comp claims for the oil and gas industry, and a couple of attorneys I know use me for surveillance and research, stuff like that. Not exactly stimulating work.”

“It keeps you in the game, though.” Titus took a thirsty swig of his beer.

“That’s about it.”

“You ever think about coming back to the show?”

“Too late for that, Titus. I burned too many bridges when I left.”

“You never can tell. We’re shorthanded these days. Somebody put in a good word for you, it might make a difference.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that. Besides, I’m not here about my old job. I want to talk to you about the Nina Losier case. I heard the investigation has hit a dead end and Graydon Losier is looking to hire a P.I.”

Titus flicked the beer cap toward a trash can at the bottom of the steps. “Who told you that?”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s just what I heard. Then I get to New Orleans and I find out that NOPD is about two seconds away from busting a guy named Jimmy Caisson for Nina’s murder. Now I don’t know what to think.”

“Sounds to me like somebody’s yanking your chain, kid. Who you been talking to?”

“I heard it from Angelette Lapierre.”

The beer bottle froze in midair, then came down with a hard thud against the table. “Oh, hell, no. Tell me you ain’t all up in that shit again. Dave, what’s the matter with you? That woman ain’t caused you enough grief by now?”

“I can’t lay my problems at Angelette’s doorstep, Titus. She never held a gun to my head.”

“Everything but. You’re only human and Angelette Lapierre is like a bitch in heat. Ain’t too many men I know who’d walk away from that kind of action.”

“It still doesn’t excuse my behavior. I did what I did and now I have to own it. But Angelette and me, we’re through. Whatever we had is finished.”

“Don’t sound that away to me.”

“It’s over, trust me.” Dave traced the scar above his left eye. “I hadn’t even seen her since I moved to Morgan City. Then she called me up the other day and wanted to meet at the Crescent City Bar over on Bourbon Street.”

“Jubal Roach’s place?”

Dave grinned at Titus’s expression. “Jubal was on his best behavior, even without you having my back.”

“Maybe he’s mellowed in his old age.”

“Or maybe I have. Anyway, that’s when Angelette told me that Graydon Losier was unhappy with the progress of the investigation and wanted to hire a P.I. She even said she mentioned my name to him.”

“And you believed her? Damn, boy, when you gonna catch a clue? Graydon Losier’s got more clout in Baton Rouge than Jesus Christ himself. If he had a problem with the investigation, he wouldn’t need to hire a P.I. He’d just call up one of his buddies in the statehouse to lean on the superintendent.”

“That’s the way I see it, too,” Dave said. “But what I can’t figure out is why Angelette came to me in the first place.”

“Maybe she wanted an excuse to see you.”

“I don’t think so. I think she has another agenda.” Dave paused, his gaze going to a set of tiny handprints at the edge of the concrete slab. “Titus, how well do you remember the Renee Savaria case?”

“Well enough that I don’t like where I think this conversation is headed.”

“Angelette made it out that the police were ignoring a possible connection between the Losier investigation and Renee Savaria’s murder.”

Titus shook his head. “You still don’t see it, do you? She’s playing you, Dave. She’s chumming the waters with all this Savaria mess, and now she’s got you chasing after her hook like a big ’ol suckerfish. If you really want shed of that trouble, do yourself a favor and haul ass out of N’ awlins tonight. Forget you ever heard of Angelette Lapierre.”

“I wish I could, but it’s not that simple.”

“It never is with you, kid.”

He tried not to wince at the older man’s tone. “I talked to JoJo Barone right before I came over here. He told me something I can’t walk away from.”

Titus put a matchstick in his mouth and sat back, as if trying to distance himself from Dave and his problems. “JoJo Barone is a low-life scumbag who’d sell his mama’s soul to cover his own ass. He ain’t exactly what I’d call a reliable source.”

“Did you know he’s got lung cancer?”

“I knew he had something. Looks like a walking corpse these days. I figured it was a bad case of the boogie-woogie flu, but whatever the hell he got, don’t expect me to get all choked up about it. You find yourself getting sentimental over a guy like that, maybe you need to stop and ask yourself how you’d feel if it was your daughter he been pimping out of the back room of that dump on Bourbon Street.”

Dave flinched and glanced away.

“Shit, man.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Titus sat slumped over the table, his expression contrite. “I hate like hell I said something like that to you.”

“Forget it. You’re right about JoJo. He is slime, but he’s also dying, and I think he was being straight with me this time. Titus…he told me a cop killed Renee Savaria.”

The older man’s gaze swept the yard and patio before coming back to rest on Dave. “I didn’t hear that.”

“Titus—”

“I’m serious. Don’t drag me into this shit, Dave, not this time. You need to believe a creep like JoJo Barone, that’s on you, but I don’t want no part of it.”

“You’re already in it, Titus. The Savaria case was ours, and you and me both dropped the ball. I know what happened to me after Ruby went missing, but where were you? What happened to Renee’s file once I resigned? You just shuffle it to the bottom of the pile and call it a day?”

Titus’s eyes sparked with anger. “You sure you want to start throwing around accusations like that? ’Cause if that’s the game you’re looking to play, let’s have at it.”

“I screwed up,” Dave said. “I admit that. It took me awhile, but I’m finally on the right track. And I’m trying to right some old wrongs that have been eating at me for too damn long. But it’s not just about me. That girl’s family needs justice, Titus. We owe them that.”

“Maybe what they need is a little peace. You ever stop and consider that?”

“Renee Savaria was killed at a private party by a cop named Clive Nettle.”

Titus started shaking his head, but Dave just kept right on talking.

“There were other cops at that party and they helped cover up what he did. And then I destroyed evidence that probably kept him out of prison.”

“Don’t say no more, Dave. I don’t need to hear this.”

“Yes, you do. We were partners. I should have been straight with you years ago about Renee Savaria’s diary.”

Titus put his hands on the table. His fingers were large and blunt and his nails were clipped almost down to the quick. “You don’t need to say anything more because I already know what you did.”

Dave stared at him in shock.

Titus nodded. “Like you said before, we were partners. I knew you better than you knew yourself back then.”

“But you never even looked at that diary. You weren’t interested. You thought it wouldn’t lead to anything.”

“But you did. And once you started looking like a man with a noose around his neck, I figured there had to be a reason why.”

“Why didn’t you ever let on?”

“You were a good cop, Dave. You had integrity and, for the most part, you played by the rules. I always respected that. If you tampered with evidence, I knew there had to be a damn good reason behind it.”

Dave glanced down at his own hands. His nails were short, too, but the ends had been chewed off instead of clipped. “They told me they had Ruby.”

“I figured it was something like that. What’d they say?”

“After she disappeared, I got some calls from someone claming to be her kidnapper. He told me if I didn’t destroy the last page of entries in Renee’s diary, he’d kill her. So I did what he said. I burned the evidence, because I wanted to believe Ruby was still alive and that, if I did what he said, he’d let her go. I was stupid and scared and I did something that went against everything I believed in as a cop.”

Titus’s voice softened. “You were trying to save your baby girl. Any father would have done the same thing in your place.”

“Maybe. But I wasn’t just a father, I was a cop. I should have known better.”

“You were out of your head with worry and grief.”

“I’m all out of excuses, Titus. Once I knew they didn’t have Ruby, I should have come clean about what I did. It wasn’t too late. I knew that diary page by heart. We could have leaned on JoJo Barone—”

“Wouldn’t have done any good and you know it. We didn’t have anything on him, and without leverage, no way in hell he would’ve talked. You’re not looking at this thing objectively, Dave. You’re too emotionally invested to see the big picture. Without JoJo’s cooperation, Renee’s diary didn’t mean shit and they knew it. A few initials with an address. Big deal. It wasn’t the diary they were worried about, it was you. They knew you’d keep digging, so they had to find a way to take you out of the equation. They turned you into a dirty cop. When you destroyed that evidence, your credibility was shot, and anything else you turned up against them would have been tainted.”

A dirty cop. Dave glanced away. “I can’t change what I did. The only thing I can do now is try to make amends. But I can’t do that without your help.”

Titus was silent for a moment. “I’m ten months shy of having my thirty years in. You’re asking me to get involved in something that could mess up my pension. That’s all me and Addie got to live on in our old age. We were born dirt poor and that ain’t the way I want us to die.”

“I swear your name won’t come into it. All I need is someone to help with the surveillance. As soon as I make some phone calls, I figure the rats will start crawling out of the sewers. I need you to keep an eye on Nettle. Tell me where he goes and who he sees. That’s it.”

Titus gazed off toward the fence. “You knew I’d do it when you came here, so I figure there ain’t no use in drawing this thing out. But I want you to be straight with me about your motives, and for once in your life, you need to be honest with yourself. Justice for a dead woman’s family is all well and good, but that ain’t why you’re doing this. You lost your little girl, and then your wife walked out on you. That’s a big dose of grief for any man to swallow, but for the past seven years, you numbed it with Jack Daniel’s. Now that you’re sober, all that guilt is rising back up from wherever you had it buried.”

He stared boldly into Dave’s face. “Everybody has to pay the piper, Dave. All you did was put it off. You think if you can find out who killed Renee Savaria and bring some peace to her family, maybe you’ll have earned a little karma for yourself. But it don’t work that way. Nothing you do is ever going to bring back your little girl.”

Dave looked over at the handprints in the concrete. Titus had told him once they were Melaswane’s, and it was hard for Dave to reconcile the tiny impressions with the teenager he’d seen behind the register earlier.

Ruby would have been fourteen years old last month, no longer a child, but a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Dave would never see her grow up. Never see her fall in love, walk her down the aisle or hold his and Claire’s grandchildren in his arms. And suddenly the loss of what he’d never even known was almost as painful as the memories of what he’d once had.

He glanced back at Titus, and the older man’s smile was sad. “I’m glad you stopped by, Dave. I had you on my mind just the other day and I wondered if I’d ever see you again. But I got to be honest with you. Having you back in N’ awlins feels a little like having a time bomb strapped to my chest.”

It was still too early to show up at the Hotel Monteleone, so Dave walked aimlessly through the Quarter, deciding if he wanted to wait and talk to Angelette or head back home. Ever since his conversation with Titus, he’d felt a strange apprehension creeping over him. As twilight settled across the city, the music and laughter blaring from the bars and clubs became the beckoning song of a very dangerous siren, and Dave knew better than to linger so close to temptation.

He walked back up St. Peters to the square and sat down to watch the sidewalk artists pack up their paints and easels for the night. The crowds of tourists had thinned, and Dave had a little corner of the park to himself. It was a pleasant evening, warm and fragrant. The pink glow on the horizon faded to gray and a breeze blew in off the water.

He sat for the longest time, trying to organize his thoughts into neat little compartments, but his mind was too jumbled. He was tired and depressed, and felt himself drifting into one of those black moods he’d been battling for as long as he could remember.

He wished he could blame all his problems on Angelette the way Titus had earlier, but the truth of the matter was he’d been his own worst enemy long before he’d ever laid eyes on Angelette Lapierre.

From the time his father had ended a four-day bender by running his car off the Atchafayla Basin Bridge when Dave was just fifteen, he’d had a tendency to self-destruct. To this day, he couldn’t say why he’d felt the need to escape his old man’s death by tying one on with his buddies after the funeral. It wasn’t as if he’d been racked with grief. He barely even knew his father.

But after a few snorts of whiskey chased by a couple of six-packs, Dave had discovered he didn’t give a shit about much of anything. Not school. Not work. Certainly not about a mother who, after a few weeks of hysterical weeping, spent the bulk of their life insurance check on a new wardrobe and a second-hand Cadillac that she drove out to a honky-tonk near the airport every night.

At first, she made a point of introducing the men she brought home, as if that somehow sanctified her behavior. But after Dave took a swing at one of her dates, she started making sure he wasn’t home when she entertained. Sometimes he’d go stay with Marsilius, but most of the time he hung out all night drinking and getting into fistfights with anyone who looked at him the wrong way.

And then Claire came into his life. They lived in the same neighborhood and had been friends as kids. But as they got older, Dave had started keeping his distance. Claire was the kind of girl who got noticed by a lot of guys, and Dave had considered her out of his league. Not in social standing, but because he never thought she’d look twice at someone with his reputation.

Then one night he’d stopped in for a burger and fries at the corner restaurant where she worked part-time. He’d looked up from the menu to find her smiling down at him, and that had been it for him.

Marrying Claire had been the best thing that ever happened to him. Because of her, he’d managed to turn his life around, and things had been good for a lot of years before the old restlessness stole back over him when he wasn’t looking. He’d started having a beer with lunch and a couple of drinks after work, just to take the edge off his day. For a long time he’d been able to keep his drinking under control, but then Ruby disappeared and he hadn’t bothered anymore. The beer with lunch became four or five, and he started keeping a bottle in a desk drawer at work.

After he was suspended, he would start drinking as soon as he got up, and keep going until well after dark. Then he’d take his gun and go out looking for Ruby. He’d walk up and down the street, knocking on doors, accusing their friends and neighbors, people he’d known for years, of keeping something from him. Everyone understood his desperation at first, but they eventually got fed up with the harassment, and a couple of times the police were called. The responding officers were always polite and sympathetic, and instead of running him in, would take him home and help Claire put him to bed.

When he got up the next day, the cycle would start all over again, until Claire finally had enough. He’d found a note propped against the sugar bowl one morning, saying she’d gone over to stay with her grandmother while he looked for another place to live because it was over between them.

He had packed his bags and moved out that same day, and he hadn’t seen Claire again until he’d gone down to sign the divorce papers in her attorney’s office. He hadn’t known what to say to her that day, how to tell her how sorry he was for all the hurt and humiliation he’d caused her, so he hadn’t said anything at all. When their gazes finally met, he’d smiled and shrugged and watched her eyes fill up with tears.

Afterward, she’d told him that she just couldn’t stand by and watch while he hit rock bottom. Dave had thought at the time it was a strange thing for her to say, because it should have been plain to anyone that he’d already bottomed out. He had nowhere to go but up.

But Claire knew him better than he knew himself. What came after the divorce were periods of sobriety followed by weeks and weeks of hard drinking, where one day faded into the next. Where he would wake up in a strange place, smelling of sweat and vomit and stale whiskey, and not knowing where he was or how he’d gotten there. He would promise himself each time that it was over. That was it. Rock bottom. But somehow there was always a greater depth of hell that he could plumb.

Finally, Marsilius had dragged him to an AA meeting. Dave never even knew his uncle drank, let alone had a problem, but evidently it was a Creasy family affliction. Marsilius had been lucky enough to get some help early on or else he would have been right there in the gutter alongside Dave, he’d said.

With his uncle’s support, Dave had been sober for eight months now, and before his last lapse, he’d had two years of sobriety. Most days lately he felt stronger and steadier than he had in a long time, but tonight, with the scent of magnolias heavy in the air and the echo of a trumpet drifting on the breeze, he knew he was heading into rough waters.