Upside Down wm-2 Page 13

  35

  Faith Ann closed the bathroom door and walked down the dark hall toward the rear of the house. As she approached the den, she saw that the flickering light was from the television set. Faith Ann entered the room and saw that her mother was lying on the sofa. Kimberly was asleep, with her mouth hanging open. Faith Ann knelt and put her hand on her mother's cheek. Kimberly's eyes fluttered and opened and she smiled.

  Faith Ann awoke in the dark and to the reality of her situation. The deaths of her mother, her uncle, and her aunt slammed into her, and panic swept over her like a wave of stove-heated air. She listened intently for whatever had awakened her. She heard the sound of shoe soles on the concrete walkway, then on the steps, and then on the slab over her head. The door to the living room opened with a squeak of hinges and then closed. Faith Ann lay in the bunker atop her poncho listening to the sound of someone's shoes on the living room floor.

  They're back.

  She pulled the poncho around her and lay frozen in a fetal curl, safe in the bunker.

  36

  Marta didn't like Tinnerino and Doyle. The two cops were nothing but corrupt brutes with badges. People like them screwed everything up, and their bulldog, bulletproof mentalities made them a distinct liability.

  She decided that she needed to get one more look inside the Porter house, to see if they had missed anything during the initial search. After that, she would ask the detectives if she could sift through what they had collected.

  “Let's go in,” she said.

  “You think she's in there?”

  “We're going to see. I'll come in from the back, you the front.”

  Arturo stretched his arms and climbed from the car.

  Marta eased open the gate and closed it behind them, being careful that the steel lock didn't make any sound. While Arturo went slowly up the steps, she walked the length of the Porter house rapidly but quietly. At the door, she slipped off her boots then used her copy of the key to open the door. When she entered the den, she could see Arturo standing at the far end of the house.

  Sunlight streamed in through the windows. The living and dining rooms, where Arturo had entered, were really one open space with a brick fireplace open around both sides. Then came the kitchen, also open, and past that was the hallway to the bedrooms and the hall bathroom.

  Marta left the den, approached the mother's bedroom door, and eased it open. She scanned the disaster made by the detectives after she and Arturo had left. Hadn't she told them to be careful in their search-not to make a mess-in case the kid returned? Marta figured they'd done it because they resented her telling them how to do their jobs. Too late to worry about that now.

  The master bath was also a wreck, but no sign of the kid. Marta came out and shook her head at Arturo, who had positioned himself in the kitchen.

  Faith Ann's room was in the worst condition of all. The bed was overturned, the contents of the drawers and the closet strewn everywhere. The bastards had even shattered the mirror and broken the framed photographs.

  Marta, who had caught herself feeling jealous of the girl the day before-perhaps because her mother had taken such good care of her-felt a pang of pity for a motherless child who was friendless and frightened as she herself had once been. This changed things. If there was any way possible when the time came, Marta would end the poor child's life with as little physical pain as possible-providing the girl willingly handed over what she had.

  Marta moved down the hall to the other bathroom door and pushed it open. She turned on the overhead light and surveyed it. Her eyes ran over the counter and to the tub and the open closet door. She noticed that the toilet seat was up. That seemed more obscene of the cops than destroying things. This was a house of women. Good women caught up in something they had no way to prepare for. Marta squatted and picked up the hair clippers from the floor. She remembered seeing them during her search of the bathroom. They had been in their box then, which was now empty on the floor. As she studied the instrument, she thought that there was something different about it, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.

  “You should take those. You get tired of preaching to everybody, you can clip rich ladies' froufrou doggies,” Arturo said.

  “Let's go,” Marta told him. “She won't come back.”

  “You think she's been back since we left?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe we should burn this house down,” Arturo said. “If the tape is hidden here, it will be destroyed.”

  “If she has anything, she has it with her. Anyway, the fire department would just put it out and I'm sure someone has seen us. The neighbors must know about the lawyer and her daughter. I doubt Bennett's cops can protect us if there are a lot of questions.”

  “How do you know she was here again?”

  “I know it here.” Marta put her hand low on her stomach where she believed her instincts were centered. That was where she first perceived warnings-where she first knew when something wasn't right. She believed that, in men, instincts were housed in a lower region. Marta remembered vaguely that she had returned to the shack where her mother had been murdered and had hung around there because it was all she knew.

  After they went out the back door, Marta closed and locked it. As they rounded the corner, something caught her eye that she had somehow missed minutes earlier. The bottom of the last of the lattice panels was out of alignment. And in the flower bed, Marta saw impressions-the patterns left by a shoe and a hand-in the damp soil. Leaning down, she could see the sharp tips of the screws sticking through the wood where the panel was hinged to the sill on the inside. The hinges had been attached, for aesthetic reasons, between the panel and the support beam. If the panel hadn't gotten hung up as it closed, it would have been difficult to see that the panel was designed to give people a way to get under the house.

  Marta looked at Arturo, who smiled and nodded to her.

  She handed Arturo her cap before she slipped under the house.

  It was cool under there, and Marta could see all the way to the front; the light coming in through the lattice dimpled hundreds of white diamonds on the soil. She followed the scrapings and shoe prints she knew the child had left. The numerous support columns and the fireplace foundation blocked a complete view, so she crawled toward the front of the narrow house, checking the shadows. She could see Arturo's legs, in diamonds, as he walked slowly along. It was nice having a partner you didn't have to explain everything to-someone who protected your back because he loved you. She never doubted that Arturo loved her as much as she loved him, but the difference was that he depended on her. And she wanted it that way.

  She had just about decided that Faith Ann wasn't there when she spotted a dark square, which turned out to be an opening left when the concrete porch had been poured. With growing excitement, she moved over the soft dirt, her senses focused on the opening of what she knew was Faith Ann's hiding place. She crept up to the opening and saw a yellow poncho that was pulled over something three-dimensional. A sleeping child.

  “Don't be afraid,” Marta said soothingly. She slipped out her folding knife and slid inside the bunker. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

  Marta reached over, took a corner of the poncho, and lifted it. Then she cursed softly. Inside there was only a pillow and a flashlight. She turned it on and, looking around, saw the packaging for a Walkman and a plastic container with two of its original four batteries remaining. She lifted the sweat-damp pillow and put the slip case against her cheek, to her nose. The child had been there very recently. Marta couldn't help but smile. The kid was lucky-or something.

  Very soon now. Your luck can't last forever, Faith Ann Porter.

  37

  Faith Ann had felt secure in her hidden concrete annex. While she was in there she could almost convince herself that she was still in touch with her old life. She decided to remain there until the visitors upstairs left, and she would have done just that had an inner voice not ordered her to flee. H
er mother had always told her to listen to her feelings.

  So she grabbed her backpack and climbed out of the bunker. She crawled to the rear of the house and pushed out the panel. She remained crouched as she scurried to the back fence. She had to take off her backpack to get under, pulling it after her.

  Four neighborhood boys were playing basketball on the city-owned courts. Two of them glanced at her-but a skinny kid squirming under a hurricane fence was a whole lot less interesting than a Saturday-morning game. She put on her Audubon Zoo cap and lingered there near a group of loitering teenagers so she could watch her house.

  She saw the killer and the shorter woman from the day before as they came out of her back door. Both glanced at the basketball players; Faith Ann dropped her head hastily so the bill of the cap hid her eyes. Seconds later, she looked up and watched the pair turn the corner of her house. She watched in horror as the woman slipped under and the killer began to walk slowly up the side of her house. She knew the woman would find her hideout, and she knew that she was alive only because she had fled when hiding had seemed safer.

  She turned on her heel and strode off down the street toward the tennis club. When she got to the thick privets where she'd hidden her bicycle and helmet, all she found of them was the combination lock, its hasp cut cleanly in half.

  Now she was on foot.

  38

  Winter never judged people by their appearance, and Nicky Green had told him that Detective Manseur, despite his appearance, knew his business.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Winter said, shaking the policeman's clammy hand when he arrived at the hotel.

  “I'm sorry about your friends,” Manseur said sympathetically.

  “Come and let's us have a sit-down,” Nicky said. “Coffee? Water?”

  “No thank you,” Manseur said as he sat on the front edge of the chair across from Winter like he thought he might have to spring up and run. “I'm a little pressed for time. First off, let me say that I hope whatever I tell you remains between us. I'm sticking my neck way out already, and I like my occupation, which supports my family.”

  Winter nodded, accepting the detective's terms. “Nicky mentioned that you were taken off the Kimberly Porter case.”

  “Yes. In fact I caught the Trammel case later from the man who relieved me of the Porter/Lee homicides. Captain Harvey Suggs.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Because I didn't interpret the evidence so that it pointed to the captain's conclusion.”

  “Which was?”

  “That Faith Ann Porter murdered her mother and Amber Lee. Believe me, it didn't seem to point that way at the time, but it seems to be fitting nicely now. A bit too nicely.”

  Winter listened as Manseur went over the evidence that pointed toward Faith Ann's guilt. Manseur told the two men what he knew about Amber's connection to Jerry Bennett and what Bennett's value to the city administration and the police department was.

  “This Bennett a crook?” Nicky asked.

  “He is a slippery but tough businessman for sure, and a little eccentric-a virtue in New Orleans. I understand that he worked hard for everything he has. He built the Buddy's Fried Chicken franchise from scratch, sold it for a bundle, and he still gets a million dollars a year as a consultant for like twenty years, and he furnishes them the special sauces through another company.”

  “But do you think he might be involved in the killings?” Winter asked.

  “All I know is that Bennett accused Amber of embezzlement and swore out a warrant after she'd been his special friend for years.”

  “But why would Kimberly Porter handle a case of embezzlement?” Nicky asked.

  Winter said, “I thought her practice these days was strictly appeals for death penalty cases. That was her area of expertise.”

  “As far as I could tell from her papers, Porter was focusing strictly on capital cases. Her assistant told me that there was a woman who'd called the office and claimed to have proof that one of the men on death row was innocent. If Kimberly knew which inmate, she didn't tell her assistant. It is possible that Amber Lee had that information and that might be why they were both killed. Amber might have had information on any of the eleven guys on death row Porter represented.”

  “What did Suggs say when you told him that Kimberly was Millie Trammel's sister?”

  Manseur exhaled loudly. “I didn't tell him. I couldn't risk him handing the case to the detectives he already gave the Porter one to. I'm pretty sure he wants to control the Porter case, and if he believes they're connected he sure as hell won't want me running this one into that one.”

  “You think whoever killed Kimberly ran the Trammels over?”

  “Don't you?” Manseur asked bluntly.

  “Of course I do. But what I think isn't proof. Faith Ann telephoned my son the afternoon Kimberly was shot. She was trying to find Hank and Millie. Sean told her that they were staying at a guesthouse near Audubon Park, but not which one.”

  “She found it,” Manseur said grimly. “And the clerk there told her where they went to eat. I believe she saw the hit-and-run, because people saw her there. A doctor on the scene said she had on a yellow poncho and she seemed upset.” He looked at Nicky. “Did you see Faith Ann there?”

  “I saw a kid in a yellow slicker,” Nicky admitted. “It could have been her. Might be I just think it is, now that I've seen a picture of her.”

  “I am sure it was her,” Manseur said. “I put in my notes only that there was a child in a slicker who went to both the guesthouse and the scene of the hit-and-run, and perhaps she might be related to the Trammels. The doctor on the scene thought the child was male. The clerk swore it was a girl, but he didn't get her name.”

  “Where's your investigation now?” Winter asked.

  “A fisherman found the Rover, which was stolen from a long-term lot at the airport. There was a body in it that someone tried their best to burn. Fortunately they pushed it into a shallow bayou. I'm hoping they miscalculated how long or how hot the fire needed to be to completely destroy identifiable features. I'm betting it's either a hired killer, who was killed to make sure his employer never got identified, or the killer did in his accomplice for the same reason, or maybe so he wouldn't have to split the fee. I'm hoping the medical examiner can help me figure out whose body it is.”

  “You thinking Bennett might have hired it done?” Winter asked quietly.

  Manseur shrugged. “I have no reason to talk to Jerry Bennett on the Trammel case. But there's no reason you can't ask questions about either case. Bennett's office is at the River Club, and he's there most of the time. Lives in an apartment on the second floor, and also out on the lakefront in a luxury boathouse.”

  Winter said, “If I talked to this Bennett, he might tell someone on the force about it, and Suggs could have the connection between the two cases. Of course, if Suggs did make the connection through Bennett

  …”

  “Which I think is about the only way he could at this point,” Manseur said, smiling. “I can tell Captain Suggs it's all news to me,” he said. “And he can't prove any differently unless you tell him. If he takes me off the Trammel case, I'll know for sure he's dirty and that Bennett is calling the shots.”

  “In which case?” Winter said.

  “You could interest the media in both cases. Hand them the right questions to ask. I seriously doubt Bennett owns the media.”

  “They sure love to get into the mud,” Nicky said.

  Winter smiled. “I like the way you think, Detective. Nicky and I will try to find Faith Ann first. You know why she might be hiding from you?”

  Manseur shrugged. “If she has a reason, it might be due to something she saw or heard in the office. She was definitely there around the time her mother was killed. I think she saw it. Suggs thinks she did it. The murder weapon was found in a hamper with her clothes along with the four spent cases. I don't know how the weapon got there, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that it wa
s planted there by the real killer. I had a patrol unit at the Porter house as soon as I could get one there. Faith Ann was already gone. As far as I know the patrolmen were there until the detectives took over the scene. The detectives found the weapon.”

  “You think the detectives could have planted the gun?” Winter asked.

  “I suppose it's possible the killer beat us there and did it. Or maybe he dropped it at the crime scene, and the girl picked it up. It doesn't mean she used it. Who knows what a twelve-year-old thinks.”

  Manseur reached into his pocket and removed a clear plastic evidence bag. “One more thing that might be significant,” he said. “I found this in Hank Trammel's hatband. The hat was under a truck.”

  “What is it?” Winter said as he reached for the bag.

  “It's some sort of a spy bug,” Nicky said.

  “Looks like it.” Winter nodded. “Why would this be in Hank's hatband?”

  “I've seen some small ones,” Nicky said, “but that critter there sets a new record for compactness. I doubt it has much range.”

  “I'm going to have it looked at by a friend who's in the electronics business and see what it's capable of doing. Sometimes he lets me borrow sophisticated devices that the NOPD can't afford.”

  Manseur pocketed the plastic bag, stood abruptly, and started for the door.

  “I appreciate the information,” Winter said. “More than I can tell you.”

  “Based on your reputation as a man who isn't afraid of facing Goliaths, I believe that confiding in you is the right choice-perhaps Faith Ann Porter's only chance of getting cleared. Be careful, Massey. Whoever we're dealing with here won't hesitate to give me more work.”

  39

  When Captain Harvey Suggs's private line rang, he was clipping his fingernails. He let it ring three times because that was how long it took him to complete the work on his right hand. He lifted the receiver and grunted into it. “Uh-huh.”