Bone Cold (4 page)

The men hooted in amusement; the night progressed. And as it did, Terry's determination to score with the redhead grew. As did her determination that he not.

To Quentin it seemed as if the woman was making a game out of teasing Terry. Out of taunting him. She danced with every guy who asked her, sometimes two at a time—everyone but his partner. It was as if she wanted to see how far she could push him.

Not much farther, Quentin realized as his friend's mood shifted from cocky to angry and belligerent.

Quentin saw trouble ahead.

It came sooner than later.

“Excuse me?” the redhead said loudly, swinging to face Terry. “Do you have a problem?”

“Yeah, baby,” he slurred, “I have a problem. The guy you're dancing with is a stiff. Come on over here and get a taste of a real man.”

Quentin tensed as the other man flushed and curled his hands into fists. The woman laid a hand on her dance partner's arm and raked her gaze scathingly over Terry. “In your dreams, loser. Got that? Not now, not ever. Get lost.”

Terry's mouth curled into a sneer and Quentin muttered an oath. He nudged his brother Spencer, who was
in a conversation with Shannon. “We may have trouble. Get Percy.” He started for the dance floor.

“You heard the lady,” the woman's dance partner said, stepping forward. “She's not interested. Beat it.”

Terry ignored the man, his full attention—and fury—focused on the woman. “What did you call me?” he asked, loud enough to be heard across the bar. A ripple moved through the crowd.

“You heard me, cop.” She held up her right hand, shaping thumb and forefinger into an L. “Loser. With a capital L.”

Terry went berserk, lunging for the woman's dance partner. Quentin saw it coming and sprang forward, throwing himself between the two men.

Blinded by rage, Terry threw a punch; it clipped Quentin's shoulder. Percy and Spencer grabbed Terry. He fought them, cursing them for holding him back, taking a swing at Percy when he half freed himself.

In the end, it took all three Malones to drag Terry out to the alley behind the bar.

The frigid night air seemed to shock some sense into him and the fight drained out him. He slumped against the alley wall. Quentin motioned his brothers back inside.

Alone, Quentin faced his partner. “Get ahold of yourself, Terry. This is Shannon's place, for God's sake. You're a cop. What were you thinking?”

“I wasn't.” Terry dragged a hand across his face. “It was that chick. She really got under my skin.”

“That's no excuse, man. Forget her. She's not worth it.”

Terry's eyes became glassy and he quickly averted them. “In there, when she… I kept thinking about Penny.
About her kicking me out. She called me…she called me a lose—”

He choked the word back, then muttered an oath.

“It's tough, Terry. I know.” He laid a hand on his partner's shoulder. “What do you say we get out of here? Who needs it?”

“So I can do what?” he asked. “Go home? I don't have a home anymore. Remember? Penny took my home away from me. She took my kids.”

“Penny's not the enemy, Terry. And you're not going to get her back by treating her like she is. You do want her back, right?”

His partner looked at him. “What do you think? Of course I want her back. I love her.”

“Then show her. Try a little romance. Candy and flowers. Take her to dinner. Or some sappy chick flick. Pretend you like it. For her.”

“That's right,” Terry muttered, lips screwing into a sneer, “the mighty Malone knows everything about women. And now, it seems he knows everything about my woman.”

Quentin ignored the sarcasm, chalking it up to Terry's marital problems and his having had too much to drink. “Hardly. We're not talking rocket science here. Raging like a bull and calling names doesn't soften a woman's heart. Remember the song? Try a little tenderness.”

Terry's face twisted with bitterness. “What's going on here,
partner?
All those times my wife asked you over for dinner, what was that all about?” He leaned toward Quentin, eyes alight with fury. “While I was choking down her leftover meat loaf, what were you enjoying?”

Quentin hung on to his temper. “You're going to regret that comment in the morning,” he said softly,
tone deadly. “And because you're going through a hard time, I'll let it pass. This once. Do it again and I won't be so forgiving. You got that?”

Terry crumpled. “I'm a screwup, man. A total screwup. A loser, like that chick said. Like my old lady always told me I would be. A worthless nothing.”

“That's bullshit and you know it. You're drunk and feeling sorry for yourself. Just don't turn it on me, partner. I'm on your side.”

He pulled himself together. “I'm going back in there. I don't want that cocktease or anybody else to think she's won.”

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. The crowd grew bigger and rowdier, the redhead apparently grew bored and decided to take her goodies elsewhere and everyone seemed to forget the altercation between her and Terry. At the height of the night's revelry Quentin lost sight of Terry, not hooking up with him again until they closed the place at 2:00 a.m.

“Shannon,” Terry said, clapping the bartender on the back, “I'm sorry, man. I shouldn't have—” He weaved on his feet; Quentin grabbed his arm to steady him. “—shouldn't have started nothin' in your place.”

“It's okay, Ter.” The big man waved off his apologies. “You're going through a lot of crap right now. You just needed to let off a little steam.”

“No 'scuse, man. None.” He shrugged free of Quentin's grasp, swaying dangerously. He dipped his hand into a trouser pocket and pulled out a bill. He pressed it into Shannon's hand. “No ‘scuse. Take it, it's my 'pology.”

Quentin glanced at the bill in Shannon's hand, then looked at Terry in shock.
A fifty? Where the hell had Terry gotten that?

Shannon must have been wondering the same thing because his eyebrows shot up in question a moment before he stuffed the bill into his apron pocket.

Quentin turned to his brothers who had hung around to help him get Terry home. “What do you say we get soon-to-be Sleeping Beauty out of here?”

Terry could hardly walk. With his brothers' help, Quentin got him outside and poured into his Bronco. He handed Percy Terry's keys. “See you there.”

“Yeah. Quent?”

He met his youngest brother's vivid blue eyes. “That was a fifty Terry gave Shannon.”

Quentin frowned. “I saw.”

“That's a lot of money to be throwing around.”

“No joke.” Especially for a cop who was supporting a family—at two separate residences. Unless that cop was on the take.

Terry was not. Quentin would stake his life on it.

“Forget about it, Percy.” Quentin saw the question in his brother's eyes and turned away. “I'm beat, let's get this over with.”

 

The insistent scream of the phone dragged Quentin from a deep sleep. Muttering an oath, he answered it. “Malone here.”

“Rise and shine, sweetheart,” the desk officer drawled. “Time to go to work.”

Quentin muttered another oath. A call from the precinct this time of night meant only one thing. “Where?” he managed to say, voice thick with sleep.

“In the alley behind Shannon's Tavern.”

The response jump started his brain. He sat up. “Did you say Shannon's Tavern?”

“That I did. Female. Caucasian. Dead.”

Shit.
“You don't have to sound so damn cheerful about it. What are you, some sort of ghoul?”

“What can I say? I love my work.”

He glanced at his watch, calculating how long it would take him to get to the scene. “You call Landry yet?”

“He's next.”

“I'll take care of it.”

“Good luck.”

She had that right.
Quentin hung up and dialed his partner.

Friday, January 12
5:45 a.m.

T
he scene resembled dozens of others Quentin had worked over the years. The seasons changed, the location, the number dead and amount of blood. The aura of tragedy did not. The smell of death. The perverted destruction of life that screamed so loudly no amount of small talk or tasteless one-liners could block it out.

This one stood out only because its location struck so close to home. A homicide was definitely not the kind of publicity a bar owner needed. And it'd been a quiet night murder-wise in New Orleans; Quentin figured this stiff would be page-one news. Too bad for Shannon.

Quentin swung out of his Bronco. The pavement was wet. The air damp and cold. To-the-bone cold. Quentin glanced up at the black, starless sky and shrugged deeper into his jacket. A lot of the locals complained about August in New Orleans. As far as he was concerned, hellfire hot beat out cold and damp as the grave any day.

But then, he'd spent too much time around the dead.

He flashed his shield at the uniform guarding the perimeter, then ducked under the yellow tape.

“Damn cold night to die,” the officer said, huddling deeper into his coat, obviously miserable.

Quentin didn't comment. He crossed to the first officer, a rookie who hung out with his brother Percy. “Hey, Mitch.”

“Detective.” He shifted from his right foot to his left. “Man, it's cold.”

“As a witch's tit.” Quentin roamed his gaze over the area. “I'm the first.”

“Yup. Johnny on the spot.”

“Touch anything?”

“Nope. Checked her pulse and ID. Called it in.”

“Good. What've we got?”

“Female. Caucasian. According to her driver's license, name was Nancy Kent. Looks like he raped her first.”

Quentin looked at the rookie. “Medical examiner's on his way?”

Mitch nodded.

“Who found her?”

“Garbage collector.” Mitch jerked his thumb in the direction of the Dumpster. Two legs poked out from behind the far side of the Dumpster, which obscured the rest of the body. They were fish-belly white against the dark pavement. One foot was bare, the other encased in a strappy, high-heeled pump.

The hair on the back of Quentin's neck prickled.

“Got the driver's name and employee number,” Mitch continued. “He had to finish his route. Said he knew the drill, found a body once before. About ten years ago.”

“I'm going to take a look. My partner gets here, send him over.”

Quentin approached slowly, scanning the ground before him, left to right. Finally, with a sense of inevitability, he brought his gaze to the victim. She lay faceup on the pavement, eyes open, legs spread. Her black mini dress had been shoved up over her hips, her black G-string panties ripped half off. Her long red hair spread in a tangle around and over her face, partially covering her mouth, open to a silent scream.

The woman from the bar. The one who had refused Terry's advances.

“Damn.” He muttered the word on an expelled breath, a cloud forming behind it.

He turned at the sound of footsteps. Terry approached, his face as pale as the one at the pavement below. “Evidence team just pulled up.” He rubbed his hands together. “Could this creep have picked a crappier night to—”

“We have to talk. Now.”

Terry's gaze moved past Quentin's to the victim. A sound slipped past his lips; it reminded Quentin of one a small, trapped animal might make. He returned his gaze to Quentin's. “Oh, shit.”

“You've got that right, partner,” he said grimly. “And it's about to hit the fan.”

Friday, January 12
Seventh District Station

T
wo hours later, Quentin tapped on his captain's open office door. Captain O'Shay, a trim, sharp-eyed brunette, glanced up. She didn't look happy to see them so early in the morning. Beside him Terry shifted nervously. This meeting could go one of two ways: bad or worse. Captain O'Shay didn't approve of her detectives participating in drunken brawls—or of them having altercations with women who turned up dead hours later.

“Got a minute?” Quentin asked, flashing her a quick smile. If he had hoped to disarm her he saw immediately that he'd been wasting his energy. Patti O'Shay had fought her way up through the ranks of mostly male, sometimes misogynist and often chauvinist officers, earning rank of captain through brilliant police work, single-minded determination and the ability to go toe-to-toe with some of the best bullshitters around. There wasn't a captain on the force tougher than Patti O'Shay.

“We've got a potential situation,” Quentin said.

She frowned and waved them into her office. Her gaze flicked to Terry, then back to Quentin. “You two look like hell.”

Not quite the opening they were hoping for.
“We were at Shannon's last night.”

“Surprise, surprise.” She folded her hands on the desk in front of her. “That's where that girl was found.”

“Correct. In the alley behind the bar.”

“Fill me in.”

“Her name was Nancy Kent.” Terry cleared his throat. “Twenty-six years old. Recently divorced. A party girl. Had come into some serious cash with her divorce settlement. Apparently, she was flashing it around last night.”

Quentin took over. “M.E. places time of death somewhere between one-thirty and three.”

Captain O'Shay seemed to digest that piece of information. “That means Kent was killed either while the bar was still open or within an hour of closing. By that time of night the crowd should have thinned considerably.”

“Not last night, Captain,” Terry said. “At one-thirty the party was still in full swing. Shannon had to force the diehards out at two. Threatened to call the cops.”

She ignored his snicker—a third of those diehards had been cops—and turned to Quentin. “What about Shannon?” she asked.

“Questioned him,” Quentin answered. “He was pretty shaken up. Didn't hear or see anything. Same for Suki and Paula, the two waitresses who closed with him.”

“Any chance Shannon's our guy?”

“No way. Besides, he has an alibi. Until closing, he never got out from behind the bar. After closing, he was with Suki and Paula. They all walked out together.”

Terry chimed in. “Usually Shannon takes the trash to the Dumpster while the girls clean the bar, but last night each of the girls grabbed a bag, then they all walked out together.”

“What time was that?” she asked.

“Between 3:00 and 3:10 a.m.”

“And none of them saw anything?”

She sounded incredulous and Quentin stepped in. “The alley's poorly lit. The three were exhausted and anxious to get home and Suki and Paula were sniping at each other over some split tips. The vic was obscured behind and in the shadow of the Dumpster.”

Captain O'Shay hesitated, then nodded. “What about cause of death?”

“Pending a complete autopsy, M.E. called it suffocation.”

The captain's eyebrows shot up. “Suffocation? In an alley?”

“Yeah, unusual. She was definitely raped first. Signs of bruising and tearing on and around the labia. Bruises on her inner thighs as well.”

“The evidence team find anything?”

“A few hairs, some fiber. Scraped under her nails.”

Terry shifted in his seat. He looked ill.

“What about her ex?” The captain looked directly at Terry.

“An old guy,” Terry replied, voice shaky. “Broke down, blubbering like a baby when we told him. Still loved her, he said. Hoped she'd come back to him.”

“Sounds like he had motive.”

“But no opportunity.” Quentin shook his head. “When Terry said older, he meant
old.
An oxygen tank, wheelchair, full-time nurse. The whole deal.”

“Old but very rich,” Terry added. “Old Metairie
address. New Orleans country club. The whole bit. Bet it never occurred to her that she'd go first.”

Captain O'Shay glanced sharply at him. “Any boyfriends?”

“None that her ex knew of,” he answered quickly. “We'll keep asking around.”

“So what's this about a potential situation?”

She looked directly at Terry once more. He shifted uncomfortably under her direct gaze. “Like we said, we were there last night. At Shannon's. The vic was really carrying on, dancing in a real sexual way. Putting on a show, if you know what I mean?”

The captain's eyebrows shot up once more. “No, I'm not sure I do.”

Quentin glanced at his partner. Going down the “she asked for it” avenue was not going to work with Patti O'Shay. In fact, it would do little but piss her off.

Terry realized his mistake and quickly changed tack. He cleared his throat. “All I'm trying to say is that…I came on to her. More than once.”

“And she wasn't interested.”

“Yeah.” He flushed slightly. “I'd had a little too much to drink and…and—” He fumbled around for something that would paint him in a more sympathetic light.

When he came up blank, the captain filled the break. “And you didn't take no for an answer.”

“Like I said, I'd had a little too much to drink.”

Captain O'Shay stood and came around the desk. She perched on its edge, looking down at her detective, forcing him to look up at her. “And you think that makes bad behavior acceptable?”

He squirmed under her withering gaze. “No, Captain.”

“I'm glad we agree on that, Detective. What happened next?”

“I pushed too hard. Me and the vic exchanged words, the guy she was with and I almost came to blows.”

The captain didn't look happy. “Almost?”

“Malone saved my ass.”

She shifted her gaze to Quentin's. He nodded and she crossed to the window, looked out at the cold bright day. Without turning she said. “Write it up. All of it. Both of you.”

“Yes, Captain.”

She turned then. “I know you're having some trouble in your personal life, Detective Landry. Do you need a leave of absence until it's straightened out?”

He shot to his feet. “No way, Captain! I'd go crazy if I couldn't work.”

She hesitated a moment, then inclined her head. “All right. But I don't want to see a repeat of last night's behavior. I will not allow you to drag this department through the muck with you. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Good. One more item. I'm giving the case to Johnson and Walden.”

“Those disc jockey wanna-bes?”

“That's bullshit, Captain.”

Detectives Johnson and Walden took never-ending ribbing about the similarity of their names to New Orleans homegrown, premier radio personalities Walton and Johnson. The deejays were creative, innovative and funny as hell. The two detectives, on the other hand, were not only distinctly unfunny, but a couple of dull bulbs.

“Landry” she continued as if they hadn't spoken, “you're off. Malone, you'll assist.”

“Assist?” Quentin leaped to his feet. “Captain O'Shay, with all due respect—”

“Conflict of interest,” she said crisply, cutting him off. “Hours before Nancy Kent was raped and murdered one of my detectives had a heated argument with her. A very public argument. That makes him a suspect. Automatically.”

She looked from one man to the other. “How wise of me would it be to let that detective work the investigation? Or to let that detective's partner serve as lead man on the case? I think you'll agree, it wouldn't be wise at all.”

“And once Terry is cleared of all suspicion?” Quentin asked.

“Then, hopefully, the case will be solved. If not, we'll talk.”

But don't get your hopes up.
“Is that all?”

“Landry, you're excused. Malone, I need to speak with you privately.” When Terry had closed the door behind him, she met Quentin's eyes. “The way Landry said, that's the way it went down, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“And after the incident with the woman, what happened?”

“We partied. I drove him home just after 2:00 a.m.”

“He was unable to drive?”

“He was fall-down, stinking drunk.”

“And you're one hundred percent certain your partner is innocent of this crime?”

“Yes, dammit!” Quentin looked away, then back. “No way did Terry do this. Besides, Terry could hardly walk let alone overpower and murder a woman.”

She was quiet a moment, then she nodded. “I agree with your assessment, Malone, but I'll be watching him.
I'm not going to let one of my detectives fall apart on the job.”

“He's okay, Captain. He—”

“He's not okay,” she corrected, tone curt. “And you know it. Don't let him take you down with him, Malone.”

She returned to her desk, signaling that they were through. Quentin crossed to the door, stopping and looking back at her when he reached it. “Aunt Patti?” She looked up. “Tell Uncle Sammy I said hello.”

“Tell him yourself.” A smile touched her mouth, softening her face. “And call my sister. I hear from John Jr. that you've been neglecting her.”

With a chuckle and a small salute, Malone agreed.