Black Water Rising (33 page)

“Nothing further, Your Honor,” Charlie says.

Jay steals another glance at the man in the charcoal suit.

He is still, at this moment, staring at Jay, who gets the distinct feeling that the man is no casual court observer. He wonders again if he's being followed. Jay swings back around in his seat. He closes his eyes and tries to recall every detail of the man's face. He wants to know if he's seen this man before.

The prosecutor is soon on her feet for the cross.

Detective Stone sits up in his chair, looking as if someone had just brought something to the dinner table that he might actually be able to stomach. He's careful not to go so far as to smile at the prosecutor. But everything in his posture says that this is the part of the process he's been waiting for.

“Detective, you and your partner, Detective Pete Smalls, interviewed the defendant in the days after Mr. Sweeney's body was found, is that right?”

“Yes, ma'am. We interviewed her twice. The day the body was found, we interviewed her at her home that evening. And then again a couple of days later, the following Tuesday, I believe.”

The prosecutor nods. “Can you tell us what led you to the defendant?”

“We found her fingerprints inside the vehicle in which the deceased, uh, Mr. Sweeney, was found. We were operating under the assumption that Ms. Linsey was possibly the last to see Mr. Sweeney alive.”

“I see,” the prosecutor says. “And what did Ms. Linsey tell you, Detective, in your initial interviews with her?”

Charlie makes no objection to the breadth of the question, no motion to stop this whole line of inquiry on the basis of relevance. Instead, he's set back in his chair, legs crossed comfortably, his demeanor completely unflappable.

“Ms. Linsey said, during both interviews, that she had had dinner with the deceased, at a Mexican restaurant in the Heights. She said they parted company around ten thirty that evening, and she went home.”

“How did she explain to you her fingerprints in the victim's car?”

“Ms. Linsey said that she and the deceased had met at a Church's Chicken parking lot and that she rode out to the Heights in his car. She claims Mr. Sweeney dropped her back off at her car when the date was over.”

“Did you ask her if she was with Mr. Sweeney on Clinton Road at any time on the night of August 1, 1981?”

“She maintained, repeatedly, to both me and Detective Smalls, that she was never at any time on Clinton Road or anywhere near the field in which Mr. Sweeney's body was found on the night of August First or any other night for that matter. She was real clear on that.” He looks across the courtroom at Elise.

Jay turns once more in his seat. The man in the charcoal suit is staring straight ahead now, watching the prosecutor's cross, his elbows resting casually on the seat back behind him. He's chew
ing a piece of gum, Jay can see, and more than once he glances at the headlines of an abandoned sports page resting beside him on the bench. He seems to have completely lost interest in Jay, and Jay wonders again if his mind is playing tricks on him. A moment ago, he was sure the guy was here because of him, another man with a gun on his tail. But the man in the gray suit hasn't so much as glanced back in Jay's direction.

“Okay, Detective,” the prosecutor says, quite courteously. She looks down at her desk, and from a mess of papers pulls a four-by-six-inch photograph. Elise sits up, nervous-like, in her chair. Charlie puts a reassuring hand on her forearm. The prosecutor asks the judge if she can approach the bench.

“What am I supposed to be looking at here?” the judge asks when she has the photo in hand. She squints at it, turning the picture this way and that.

Charlie stands. “You think I might get a look at that too?”

Judge Vroland waves Charlie to the bench, and Jay sees his chance. The judge, the prosecutor, and Elise's attorney are all huddled at the bench. The cop is watching them from the witness stand. Which leaves only the bailiff to worry about. Jay waits for a moment when the bailiff isn't looking toward the gallery. Charlie, at the bench, says something to the prosecutor. It's a mumble at this distance. Then Jay hears, quite clearly, “You can't even tell what this is.”

“Well, if we can let the man testify,” the prosecutor says.

Jay makes a leap forward, reaching out until his fingers almost touch the silky fabric across Elise's shoulders. He drops the tiny white slip of paper, watching, breathlessly, as it dribbles down her side, landing on her right thigh.

He waits for her to pick up the paper, to notice it even.

Only once does he look back over his shoulder, surprised to find the man in the gray suit watching him again. Jay holds per
fectly still, caught in the man's gaze.
He saw me,
Jay thinks.
He had to have seen me.
The man's cool eyes narrow slightly. Then, suddenly, inexplicably, he stands and walks out of the courtroom.

At the bench, the prosecutor asks to enter the photograph as “state's exhibit A,” and Charlie returns to his seat.

“Detective Stone,” the prosecutor asks. “Did you take that photograph?”

“No, it was a crime scene technician who took this one. But I was present at the time it was taken, yes. It was a few inches from the car at the crime scene. That spot of black right there,” he says, pointing to something in the photograph the rest of them can't see. “That's a piece of the tire wheel right there.”

“Why don't you tell the court what that is a picture of, in specific?”

“It's a footprint, ma'am, measured as a woman's size six and a half.” He points at the picture again. “That mark right here, that's the heel dug in the ground.”

Jay's note is still resting on Elise's thigh. At this point, it's likely that Charlie will notice it before Elise does.

“And what relevance did this footprint have for you at the time?”

“Well, we'd already deduced, from the condition of the body, that Mr. Sweeney was with a woman in the minutes or so leading up to his death.”

“The ‘condition of the body'?” the prosecutor asks.

“The man's pants were undone. He was parked in an out-of-the-way place, you know. Seemed like a lovers' lane type deal.”

“Which leads us to Ms. Linsey and the search of her town house on Oakwood Glen,” the prosecutor says. “Would you explain to the court why you and your partner believed Ms. Linsey's shoes to be relevant to the case?”

“Well, it was kind of a credibility issue, ma'am,” the cop says.
“I mean, here she is saying she wasn't at the crime scene, and we got a ladies' footprint size six and a half, and it turns out Ms. Linsey is a six and a half.”

“Did you believe the defendant was lying about being at the crime scene?”

“Well, she'd already admitted to being on a date with the man.”

“Yes or no, Detective?”

“Yes, I thought she was lying,” he says. “I mean, we found him with his
pants
down, a woman's footprints all around the scene of the crime, same exact shoe size as Elise Linsey…,” he says. “It just all added up.”

Charlie is on his feet in seconds. “Objection, Your Honor.”

“I have nothing further.” The prosecutor resumes her seat.

“Fine,” Judge Vroland says.

Charlie returns to the podium, jumping right in.

“Detective Stone, do you know if the deceased was a homosexual?”

“Pardon?”

As soon as Charlie's back is turned, Elise picks up the slip of paper in her lap. She glances at the note, but never once turns to look for its sender.

“Do you know if Mr. Sweeney was a homosexual?”

“Uh, no,” he says.

“Do you know if Mr. Sweeney had any medical issues with his prostate or his urinary tract? What might make him pull off the road from time to time to relieve himself?”

The cop purses his lips, answering in one terse syllable. “No.”

“Then you couldn't know for sure why that man's pants were down, isn't that right, sir?”

“Oh, I think I've got a pretty good idea.”

“You can't be
sure,
can you, Detective Stone?”

“No.”

“The county coroner put the time of death for Mr. Sweeney at around midnight, is that correct?” Charlie asks.

“Yes.”

“And your officers arrived on the scene the next day, was it?”

“August second, Sunday, yes. It was sometime after ten in the morning.”

“So between midnight and ten
A.M.
, how many people were at the crime scene?”

“I wouldn't know.”

“So, in theory, anybody could have walked all up and down that crime scene, thrown a party out there, between the time Mr. Sweeney was shot and when the police showed up the next day, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“So those footprints that you took such care to photograph, they could belong to anyone, is that it?”

Detective Stone answers with a smile. “Any woman wearing a size six and a half.”

“Or any person in possession of a woman's size six and a half shoe.”

The prosecutor raises her hand. “Is he making a statement or asking a question, Your Honor?”

“That's all right, Judge,” Charlie says. “I'm done.”

He resumes his seat next to Elise. She turns and whispers something in his ear. Out of the corner of her eye, she glances back at Jay for the first time. There is no outward reaction or acknowledgment of any kind. When the prosecutor returns to the podium, Elise lets her eyes fall away, as if she had been looking at only a stone or a tree, a thing with no meaning for her. It's so convincing that Jay almost believes she never saw him at all.

The only other witness is Detective Pete Smalls, Stone's partner, who essentially repeats the same exact information as the first witness. The whole thing is over in another fifteen minutes, Charlie taking a pass on cross.

It's nearly four o'clock when the judge calls for closing statements.

Charlie's argument is simple: if the cops had wanted every shoe in his client's closet, then they should have asked for it in the warrant, repeating, as many times as he can, what the police officers did
not
find—no gun, no bloody clothing, and no shoes that match the footprints at the crime scene.

The prosecution is left with a shouldn't-we-all-trust-the-instincts-of-law-enforcement argument, citing the detectives' homicide investigation experience, and summing up the reasons why the shoes in Elise's closet were relevant—enough for the cops to take them from the defendant's home “outside the legal protection of a warrant,” which is a fancy-pants way of admitting they took the shoes illegally. At a quarter to five, Judge Vroland wraps up the court's business for the day, announcing that she will make a ruling on the evidence shortly.

 

Jay waits for Elise by the pay phones, the ones by the ladies' washroom.

When she comes out of the courtroom, walking toward him, a leather clutch bag pinched under her arm, Jay sets the phone receiver on its cradle, hanging up on a call he was not actually making. He steps to the side, blocking her path in the hallway. She passes him with two little words, “Not here.”

A whisper, and then she's gone, slipping into the ladies' room.

He waits, keeping an eye over his shoulder, wondering how worried he ought to be about the man in the gray suit.

Finally, he smells her perfume behind him.

She presses something into his hand and tells him not to turn around. Then she's gone, walking past him down the hallway, which is quickly emptying at this hour. Jay ignores her instructions and turns around anyway. Just in time to see Charlie Luckman place a guiding hand on Elise's back, leading her toward the elevators. Mr. Luckman looks up briefly. His eyes lock on Jay's. There is a ten-, maybe fifteen-second, delay. Then an odd smile gathers on Charlie's face, as if he can't quite place Jay, but knows that his presence here is remarkable in some way. Charlie wrinkles his brow. But soon the elevator doors open, and the moment is over almost as soon as it happens. Mr. Luckman and his client slip through the sliding doors and are gone without another look in Jay's direction. He is left alone in the hallway with a janitor and the muffled sounds coming from the man's transistor radio. Jay looks down at the thing in his hand. It's the receipt from the taco place. His note to her has been scratched out, and over it, in a sharp, left-leaning print, a new message has been written expressly for him.

The Blue Bayou is a bar on the north edge of downtown.

Across the water on McKee, it sits on a rough corner out by the railroad tracks, between a uniform-supply house and a boarded-up storefront. The bright lights of downtown fade on this side of the bayou, where industry stops short and developers seem to have lost their imagination, or patience, with this raw urban landscape. The only bright light out here is the neon sign hanging at an angle in front of the bar. A blinking guitar, blue, with yellow strings.

The note said nine o'clock.

Jay was early. He's had a couple of beers and made two phone calls. He called his wife first, over to her mother and father's place. She asked if he'd heard word about the dockworkers' vote
on the settlement offer, saying her daddy was asking. He told her no, and to please stay out that way 'til he could come get her. Then he called Lon Philips. He told her about the phone records, the calls to D.C., the fact that Elise has been speaking with Thomas Cole almost daily since the shooting, and Jay's belief in her ignorance of his involvement.

Lonnie said she'd check on the D.C. phone number and offered some new information of her own, telling it with a reporter's finesse, starting the story back nearly thirty years—when Johnson Cole, family founder and oil industry pioneer, made his three sons and heirs, Thomas being the youngest, start work at the very bottom of the family empire. Every last one of the boys spent time working at the company's Deer Park refinery in their teenage years. And they'd all at one point taken part in a rigorous two-week training seminar for aspiring roughnecks, what some men have likened to boot camp for the marines. Some of the friendships formed in these training camps last a lifetime, she said. “The paper did a profile on Thomas Cole a few years back, when he was made CFO. We interviewed his former classmates, men in the same 1954 training class as him. You know, the whole ‘How has the big man changed?' kind of story. Well, one of the men interviewed for the story, you'll be interested to know, was a young Carlisle Minty, future vice president of the petrochemical workers' union.”

“No shit.”

“It's all here on file,” Lonnie said. “And you know who else was in that training seminar, way back in 1954, according to a caption under the class photo?”

Jay can hear the delight in her voice, the almost giddy sense of discovery.

“Who?”

“Dwight Sweeney.”

Jay is silent for a moment. “Sweeney worked for Cole Oil?”

He had thought of Sweeney only as a career criminal.

“I don't think he was a lifer at the plant or anything. He mighta put in a couple of years or a couple of months. I don't know. They're not too hot on handing out personnel records down at company headquarters,” she said. “But hell if the whole thing ain't interesting, you know, that Cole and Sweeney knew each other way back when. I mean, it's some goddamned coincidence.”

“Yeah,” Jay said.

“Somebody ought to tell that girl's lawyer,” Lonnie said. “If this stuff starts coming out in open court, it would be a hell of a lot easier for my editor to give a nod on a story. You know, like, ‘Look at what ol' Charlie Luckman said in court today,' as opposed to the newspaper reporting this kind of ‘coincidence' on its own, muddying up Thomas Cole's reputation and taking down Cole Oil, one of its biggest advertisers, in the process. You see what I'm getting at?” she said. “This shit gets put out in open court, though, and it's a different story.”

“Yeah, well,” Jay said offhandedly, thinking of the day's hearing and the weakness of the state's evidence. “She'd have to have a trial first. And Charlie Luckman is doing everything in his power to keep that from happening.”

“Well, I'll keep picking at things on my end,” Lonnie said.

They hung up saying they would talk sometime tomorrow.

Twenty minutes later, he's ordering his third beer at the bar.

When Elise comes in, Jay stands off his stool at once, more wobbly on his feet than he would like. He can't tell if it's the liquor or the sudden bout of nerves breaking out across his whole body. The words are already in his mind. But to tell her to her face, to tell a woman she's been lied to, that she's been betrayed, her life threatened—he does not relish being the bearer of such
news. He knows, personally, what a blow to the knees a betrayal can be, that after this moment she will never be the same.

Elise sees him and smiles, as if she were relieved he actually showed up. She walks at a clipped speed, her size six and a half high-heeled shoes clicking on the concrete floor underfoot. She seems in a hurry to get this over with.

The seat next to Jay is taken. He offers her his bar stool, standing to the left of her once she sits down. She's wearing the same clothes from the courthouse this afternoon, though her hair has fallen now, down around her shoulders. “Can't say that I expected to see you again,” she says, pulling a pack of cigarettes from her purse, a shoulder bag, he notices, larger than the one she was carrying earlier. “I was under the impression we had an agreement.”

“You're in a lot of trouble, Elise,” Jay says, cutting to it.

“You think?” she says, the smile on her face edged with something he may have earlier mistaken for nerves. On closer look, Jay thinks he sees something cagey in her expression, something hard in her brown eyes. When the bartender approaches, Elise orders a shot of tequila and a beer back. “I don't know,” she says to Jay. “I thought it went pretty well in there today.”

“I'm not talking about your case, Elise.”

“Aren't you though?” she says, laying a five-dollar bill on the bar top when the guy returns with her drinks. She downs the tequila shot and lights the cigarette in her hand. “Last we talked, I remember you mentioned something about money, so…you want to tell me what this is going to cost me and we can be done with it?”

“This isn't about money.”

She laughs then, a girlish trill at the back of her throat. She waves her cigarette in the air, almost wagging it like an extra finger, as if she were scolding a young boy for wasting her time.

“Listen to me, Elise,” he says.

“I'm not going down on this,” she says, cutting him off, her voice hard and cold as gunmetal. “Not for anything. You understand?”

“Then you ought to know,” Jay says, feeling a fire in his belly as the words come up through his throat, “that Thomas Cole
knew
Dwight Sweeney.”

The light in Elise's eyes dims dramatically as the words settle around her.

For a moment, Jay actually feels sorry for her, and his pity, it's clear, infuriates her. The skin around her neck, where she was once scratched and bruised, glows bright pink, the color climbing up her throat to the jawline. “I'm not sure I know what it is you're getting at,” she says.

“The man who tried to kill you? Thomas Cole
knew
him.”

Then, because she says nothing, he asks, “You understand what I'm saying?” Elise looks at him and smiles darkly. “Whatever you think you know about me and Thomas Cole, Mr. Porter,” she says, “trust me, you don't.”

“I know he had a very good reason to worry about you talking to the FTC.”

“Thomas knows I would never tell them anything,” she says.

“You so sure?”

“You know, I have to say I find your concern for me to be a bit uncalled for. Frankly, the details of my personal life are none of your fucking business.”

“This is not just about you,” he says, almost hissing at the girl. “Those men at Cole Oil have committed a crime on a massive scale, and you have helped them. Buying up that land out there, keeping their secrets. You cannot stay quiet about this unless you want to get yourself dug in deeper. You're already looking at serious jail time over some shit that didn't even start
with you. You could go to prison. You understand that, don't you?”

“Oh, that's not going to happen,” she says, rather confidently. “I told you, it was going good in there for me today.”

She has no idea what she's up against, he thinks. “What if you get subpoenaed by the federal government? Huh? What then?”

She shakes her head at the notion. “That investigation is taken care of.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Elise picks up her empty glass and motions for the bartender to refill it. “And anyway, Thomas and I have come to an understanding. He knows I won't say anything about his business dealings,” she says, taking a long drag on her cigarette. “And I know the line he won't cross…not ever again.”

On the bar in front of her, the bartender pours another shot of tequila. Jay watches Elise throw back the shot, swallowing the heat and the sting of it, a look of bitter resignation in the dim light that's left in her eyes.

“You knew,” he says, turning the words over and over, as if he were trying to get a better look at them, to get a better understanding. The one piece in this he had never really considered. “You knew it was him this whole time.”

Elise does not deny or confirm this.

She downs her beer without looking at him.

“Why are you protecting him?” he asks softly, as if he were afraid the strength of this sort of basic logic might break her in two.

“Thomas has done a lot for me,” she says unapologetically. “He paid for my real estate license, you know that? I wouldn't even have a job if it weren't for him, be back in a shit-hole club somewhere. And I am
not
going back there.”

“Elise, the man tried to have you killed.”

“And look how that turned out,” she says with a sharp, caustic smile. “I got a forty-five and a twelve gauge that says he won't try that shit again.”

Here she is. The girl from Galena Park.

The tough little pistol who's not taking shit from nobody.

“You're a fool,” he says.

“I told you, he and I have come to an understanding.”

“You really think Cole is going to protect
you
over his money? If you're the only thing that stands between him and a federal indictment, you really think you're the one who's gon' come out all right in the end?”

“Mr. Porter, I'm not the one who ought to be scared of Thomas Cole.”

If the scene were playing in a movie, in one of Jay's boyhood westerns, the timing wouldn't have been better. Out of the corner of his eye, Jay sees the door to the saloon open. Elise slides off her stool, leaving a few dollars on the bar. “I'm sorry,” she says, the very moment Jay makes out the face at the door:

A white male in his forties, with close-cropped hair.

One side of his body looks completely deflated, making his walk an exaggerated swagger. He wears a black glove over what's left of his right hand.

Jay feels his stomach drop, like a stone down a well.

“If you had asked for more money, I had it all here to give you.” She pats her oversize purse. “I told Thomas I didn't know a red-blooded American who couldn't be bought. I begged him not to hurt you,” she says, shaking her head at Jay, the look on her face one of disappointment. “But you seem bent on doing this the hard way.” She turns and looks at the man from the black Ford, who is by now walking directly toward Jay, at the bar. “I'm sorry, Jay,” she whispers.

The man from the black Ford never says a word, but the look
in his eyes terrifies. He raises his one good hand, and Jay sees the tiniest flash of light.

The glint off the barrel of a .45.

Jay turns and runs.

 

Behind the Blue Bayou, he covers the length of an alley, heading in a southerly direction. The gravel beneath his feet cuts through the soles of his cheap dress shoes. He feels every stone, every sharp edge. He never looks back.

The alley spills out on Providence, maybe twenty yards from his car. He's behind the wheel in a matter of seconds. He starts the engine, peeling the car away from the curb. At the intersection of Providence and McKee, he slows, looking to his right. The only two people standing in front of the Blue Bayou are a man and a woman he does not recognize at this distance. They appear to be arguing.

Jay turns left, heading for the bright lights of downtown. He peers into his rearview mirror, taking in the empty street behind him. He feels a sudden stab of relief, hitting him in the chest, thinking, for one grateful moment, that he's lost the man in the black Ford. But as he crosses a narrow bridge over Buffalo Bayou, heading to the south, a pair of headlights suddenly appears across his windshield, momentarily blinding him. Jay slams on his brakes, shielding his eyes. The driver never stops.

The car is coming straight at him.

Caught in the angry blast of white light, Jay thinks of death, the certainty of it, waiting for him on the pavement ahead, a few precious heartbeats away if he doesn't act fast. He slams on his brakes, churning up smoke. There's little room to maneuver on the bridge, so Jay throws his car into reverse. At nearly fifty miles an hour, he drives the Buick backward, weaving all over the
street. He drives some two or three hundred yards, forcing other cars to the side of the road, the same bright headlights pursuing him from the front, burning straight through his car. At Providence, Jay swings in a wide arc, switching the car into drive. He heads to the west, thinking he can meet up with Main Street.

In his rearview mirror, he sees a black Ford LTD make the same turn onto Providence, picking up speed on his heels. Jay takes it up to sixty, then nearly seventy miles an hour. He almost clips the bumper of a station wagon as he tries to pass it, pulling onto the wrong side of the road and dodging a city cab. The Ford inches up on the Buick's tail, tapping Jay's bumper.

Jay gets turned around in a tangle of streets by the railroad tracks and somehow ends up on San Jacinto instead of Main. Driving south, cutting across on Allen Street, he's fairly certain he hears police sirens in the distance. As he makes a left onto Main, the sirens sound so close they could be coming from his own car radio. He looks in the rearview mirror and sees not the white headlights of the Ford LTD, but the swirling blue and red of a squad car, fifty or sixty yards back. Jay slows to a decent, law-abiding speed, pulling off to the right, hoping that the squad car will pass, on its way to some other emergency. He wonders to himself where and when the Ford fell off.