Upside Down

86

When his cell phone rang, Harvey Suggs was walking away from the Verdict, a restaurant located around the corner from police headquarters, where he had explained to Tinnerino and Doyle what he expected from them. The captain's seriously shaken confidence had returned to normal. He had thought every angle through to its most likely conclusion. Everybody knew exactly what to do.

Peace of mind was going to cost Suggs a promotion each for Tinnerino and Doyle, and he'd toss the Spics a few thousand dollars. Tinnerino and Doyle would make sure that Manseur ended in such a way that he was discredited, so that whatever he had might have shared with the FBI agent and the private investigator could be more effectively denied. The Latinos were capable of the more difficult task of making the evidence vanish. They'd take care of the meddlesome Massey and the Porter kid. Without the evidence, no matter how loudly anybody howled, it would all fade away.

“Hello,” Suggs said, not recognizing the number spelled out on the caller I.D. He strode toward his car, parked a half block away. Tinnerino and Doyle sped by in separate cars, Tinnerino nodding once in greeting.

“Harold?” the somehow familiar voice said. “This is Parker Hurt.”

“Parker Hurt?”

“Governor Morton's assistant.”

“Sure, Parker. I knew your voice was familiar. It's been a while.” Hurt had been an assistant under Lucas Morton when he was the Orleans Parish district attorney.

“It has been a while.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, I just had an interesting call, and before I talk to the governor, I thought I should talk to you.”

Suggs's trouble antennae were fully erect. He stopped short of his car and fingered his keys. “Sure thing,” he said cordially, although his blood had turned to ice in his veins.

“I got a call from a Michael Manseur a few minutes ago. I believe he's one of your homicide detectives.”

“Well, he's presently one of my homicide investigators,” Suggs replied, his mind aflame with the implications. “Can you tell me why my detective called you?”

“Manseur wanted me to tell the governor that he was about to come into possession of evidence proving that Horace Pond is innocent.”

“So he wants to stop the execution.” Suggs added a tinge of sadness to his words. “You know…”

Suggs knew he had one chance to find the exact words that would nip this in the bud-and cover his own ass. And he realized that given the close gubernatorial race and Manseur's recent behavior, it was going to be a breeze.

Harvey Suggs finished his conversation with Parker Hurt, climbed into his car, and allowed himself a few moments to savor his masterful manipulation of the political animal Mr. Hurt.

If the evidence ever somehow found its way to the police or the press, Hurt wouldn't ever dare mention he took the call from a discredited, deceased cop-and failed to mention it to his boss.

As long as the evidence didn't surface, and Suggs knew it never would, Pond would just be another state-sponsored corpse. There would be nothing to connect Suggs to anything that happened, and everybody still living would resume life as usual. In two years, Suggs would retire and live out his life with his twin pensions. He'd also have the money Jerry Bennett had paid him over the years as filler for those little things a man appreciated. If by some miracle the Bennett negatives ever did surface, Suggs could blame his own dead partner-say Billy Putnam had gotten the location of the murder weapon from Pond when Suggs was out of the interrogation room. Ten years after the fact, who could prove differently? The fact that Billy had committed suicide would further support that the man had a guilty conscience.

And it wasn't like Bennett would be around to dispute anything. Suggs was meeting Bennett at the businessman's boathouse, supposedly to fill him in on the status and discuss future plans.

Suggs just hoped Bennett's cigarette racer had a nice heavy anchor on board.