And yet, he could already feel something building inside him—that curious mixture of dread, excitement and morbid fascination that signaled the onslaught of his peculiar obsession. Killers intrigued him. Killers were his raison d’être.
He climbed inside the car and wrinkled his nose at the rank odor coming from an unknown source. “Don’t they ever clean these things?”
Danny grinned as he slipped on his aviator-style sunglasses. “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”
“Smells like wet dog in here,” Sean muttered.
Danny took a whiff. “Nah, that ain’t it. Something’s gone bad. You root around underneath the seat, you’re apt to uncover somebody’s half-eaten muffuletta.”
Sean cracked a window, letting the cool air rush inside. “You didn’t notice the smell on the way over?”
“I did, Sean, but I figured it was a good way to desensitize my olfactory glands before I got to the morgue.”
“You might have warned me about it.”
“That’s a two-way street, partner.”
Sean turned. “What are you talking about?”
Danny shrugged, his gaze on a group of teenagers in blue athletic jackets hanging out on a street corner. He slowed the car and gave them a long, hard look as he drove by. “Cap bills to the left,” he said in disgust, noting the preference of a certain gang affiliation. “What do you wanna bet the oldest one’s not more than fourteen? And here they are out loitering on a school day. We oughta run ’em in, is what we oughta do.”
“They’d be back out on the street in an hour’s time,” Sean said.
“And that right there is a prime example of what’s wrong with this city. No discipline. No sense of purpose. Hell, we’re all just like those kids. Drifting along, biding our time until the next big one hits because we already know we’re f**ked. Seventeen feet below sea level in places and the lower we sink, the higher the gulf rises. And you can forget using the wetlands and barrier reefs as a buffer because they’re all but gone. So what do we do? We bump up the levees by a few inches and pray that the next storm hits elsewhere.”
“That’s life in the Big Easy,” Sean said with a shrug. “What else is new?”
“Not a damn thing, and that’s my point. We almost get wiped off the face of the earth and nothing changes. There’s something truly messed-up about this place, Sean. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother. What the hell are we still doing here?”
Sean had heard that argument before, especially since Katrina. And he had to admit, some days it seemed as if they were fighting a losing battle. The crime rate had skyrocketed. Over a hundred and fifty people had been murdered the previous year, but the D.A.’s office had managed to secure only three homicide convictions. The system had clearly broken down, and there were sections of the city that even cops didn’t dare enter. Lawlessness prevailed, the kind of mind-sick violence that left people on edge and afraid of their own shadows.
Sean wasn’t immune to the pressure, but for him, moving away wasn’t an option. He’d been born and raised in the city. New Orleans was in his blood. For better or for worse, he was here until the bitter end.
An ironic sentiment, he supposed, considering the state of his personal life.
“So what do you think?”
About the levees? About the rising water level in the gulf? Sean realized he didn’t have a clue what his partner had asked him. His mind had wandered off on its own tangent.
The lapse aggravated Danny. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you? What’s eating you this morning?”
“I guess my mind’s still back at the morgue.”
“That was some freaky shit. You ever see anything like those bruises?”
“No.” Sean stared out the window at the passing scenery, his focus zeroing in for a moment on an old woman waiting to cross the intersection. Their gazes met briefly before she quickly looked away, as if making eye contact with a stranger—any stranger—might somehow reveal her vulnerability.
“How did you figure that out about the tattoos?” Danny asked.
Sean watched the old woman in the rearview mirror. She was staring after their car. “Sarah told me.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before today?”
“I only found out late yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about it before now.”
“You saw Sarah yesterday?”
Sean turned. “Yeah. Why?”
“Nothing. But you could have called me at home about those tattoos.”
“I didn’t think it was necessary. Besides, I wanted to wait and hear what Canard had to say before I brought it up. You’re not really sore about it, are you?”
“Nah, forget it.” But Danny’s tone implied that something was bothering him.
“Look, if you’ve got something to say, just say it. Don’t sit there and sulk all day.”
Danny frowned at the road. “I don’t sulk.”
“Like hell you don’t. Just ask Kayla.”
“All right then, screw it. How long we been working together, Sean? Couple of years?”
“Almost.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you and Catherine split up? That’s a pretty big deal. Why didn’t you let me know what was going on?”
“Because I didn’t need you to hold my hand,” Sean said. “It was done. Why talk about it?”
“As easy as all that.”
Sean glanced back out the window. “How’d you find out anyway?”
“Cat showed up at the house last night looking for you. She said you packed a bag and took off a few days ago. You won’t take her calls, you won’t tell her where you’re staying. I guess us being friends and all, she thought I’d know how to reach you.”
“What did you tell her?”
Danny lifted a hand and rubbed the back of his neck. “I told her I’m as much in the dark about your living arrangements as she is.”
“She shouldn’t have come by your place like that,” Sean said in annoyance. “No point dragging anyone else into our shit.”
“Does that include Sarah?”
“Sarah has nothing to do with this.”
Danny turned his head slowly and looked at Sean over the rim of his sunglasses.
Sean frowned. “What?”
“You didn’t move back in with Sarah? That’s not why you don’t want your wife to find out where you’re staying?”
“Where the hell did you get a notion like that?”
“From Cat.”
Sean stared at him in shock. “What did she say?”
“She figured if you’re not staying with Kayla and me, you must be with Sarah. I got the feeling she was heading over there last night to have it out with her.”
“Shit.”
“You haven’t talked to Sarah this morning?”
Sean’s head was throbbing again. He took out two more aspirin and dry-swallowed them before he answered. “No, I haven’t talked to her. Why would I?”
“So you’re saying your separation has nothing to do with her?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Sean snapped. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“It is if it affects the way you perform your job.”
“It won’t.”
“Ice water in the veins, huh?” The car listed to the right as Danny made a sharp turn. “You’re so full of shit.”
“Pot meet kettle,” Sean muttered.
“Joke about it all you want, but you’ve got some serious issues, my brother.”
“Oh, boy, here we go.” Sean dropped his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes.
“Probably started when you were a kid. Your mother runs off with some guy, leaves you and your old man high and dry, and then a couple years later, he gets hit by a semi on his way home from work. Bam! You’re screwed again. You see what’s going on, don’t you? It’s what they call a pattern of behavior. You leave people before they get a chance to leave you.”
“Wow, that is f**king deep, man. I’m impressed. I hope you didn’t strain yourself figuring all that out.”
“I’ve always had a knack for reading people,” Danny said lightly. “I could probably be the next Dr. Phil if I set my mind to it.”
“Come to think of it, I do see a strong resemblance.” Sean sat up and studied Danny’s profile. “Yeah, you’re a dead ringer for the guy, especially around the hairline.”
For someone who ordinarily didn’t give a shit about his appearance, Danny had become overly sensitive about his thinning hair. He checked himself out in the mirror and then gave Sean a dirty look. “Here’s some more insight for you. You’re an a**hole. How’s that for deep?”
Chapter 11
Strange that Danny had brought up his mother, Sean thought a few moments later, as they neared the entrance to Louis Armstrong Park off North Rampart. Because Sean’s most vivid memory of her had happened inside the gates of that very park.
Shaded by live oaks and weeping willows, the lush enclave had once been a place where tourists could stop and catch their breath after the hustle and bustle of the crowds in the French Quarter. Named for the famed jazz musician, it was also known for Congo Square, an area where slaves had once been allowed to stroll on Sunday afternoons.
To Sean, though, the park would always be the place where, at twelve years old, he’d caught his mother with her lover.
That he had seen her at all that day was one of those coincidences he had looked back on later and wondered if some strange radar had led him to that exact place at that exact point in time.
Mostly, though, he’d blamed it on Donnie St. Germain. It had been Donnie’s idea that he and Sean skip the second day of the new school year because the classes and schedules were still so chaotic no one would miss them. Sean hadn’t exactly resisted the plan. In fact he’d thought it was a pretty damn good idea. He and Donnie hid out until after the first bell and then took off on their bikes for a day of forbidden adventure, ending up that afternoon in the French Quarter.
They’d sat in Jackson Square for the longest time, eating snow cones as they watched the street musicians perform for the tourists. And then tiring of the circuslike atmosphere, they’d begun an exploration of the Quarter’s alleyways, where the homeless and the drunk lay sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes in the sweltering heat.
Somewhere along the way, they found a half-empty pack of Marlboros and, cigarettes dangling from their lips, they pushed their bikes along the colonnaded sidewalks of Bourbon Street, gawking at the transvestites, peeking through the darkened doorways of the strip clubs, grinning because they thought they were a couple of badasses who’d pulled a fast one.
Eventually, they made their way to North Rampart where they spent some time watching a tattoo artist through a shop window. Sean had turned—he didn’t even know why—and caught a glimpse of his mother entering the park across the street. It never even occurred to him that he might be mistaken. He just knew it was her.
His first inclination was to slip inside the tattoo parlor before she saw him, but he didn’t have to worry about that. She was too preoccupied by the man who waited on the other side of the gate. He was tall, handsome and well-dressed. Not the kind of guy who worked in the refineries like Sean’s dad, but someone who probably had a cushy office job downtown.
When Sean’s mother walked up to him, the man put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. A moment later, they disappeared into the park.
Stunned, his heart hammering against his chest, Sean waited until Donnie went inside a store for a Coke and then he ditched him. Tearing across the street, he hid his bike in some bushes and then went through the gate.
He knew the park well enough, having been there the previous year on a school trip. He’d had a crush on his fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Chauvin, so he’d been uncharacteristically attentive that day as she’d guided them through the highlights. All that came back to Sean as he wandered past the famous statue and across the square to the far side of the park, where he finally found his mother in the arms of the stranger, kissing him in a way Sean had never seen her kiss his father.
As he stood watching them, a murderous rage had taken hold of him, a fury so deep and devastating he found himself trembling, his hands squeezed into tight balls at his sides. He wanted to step out of the shadows and confront them, scream at them. He wanted to punch someone so bad it was almost a physical ache.
Instead, he watched for a moment longer, then turned and raced out of the park. By the time he got home, his mother’s car was already in the drive, but he didn’t want to face her. He never wanted to see her again.
So he got back on his bike and rode to the deserted school playground, sat alone on the merry-go-round and smoked another cigarette, not caring who saw him. When he got home, long after dark, he caught hell from his father for causing his mother to worry, which Sean found so ironic he was sorely tempted to rat her out. He wasn’t sure why he kept silent. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to hurt his father, but more likely, he wanted to pretend that what he saw in the park hadn’t really happened. That everything in his life was still as normal as it had been that morning when his mother woke him up for school.
Two weeks later, she was gone.
It had taken Sean a long time to get over her betrayal. Of all the people in his life, he had loved her the most, but now she was nothing more to him than a distant memory.
And on the rare occasions when he found himself in Louis Armstrong Park, he didn’t view it through the eyes of the disillusioned kid he’d once been, but from the jaded perspective of a cop who had seen too much. And that was fitting, he supposed, because the park had changed, too. No longer a tribute to the city’s rich heritage, it was now a dangerous place where the naive or unarmed should never wander after dark.