Doing the Devil's Work (18 page)

Alone in the lobby, the deputy reassembled the pages of an abandoned newspaper that had been spread over the chairs.

“The cousin finally showed up,” she said, not looking at Maureen. “How much you wanna bet they never come back for that piece-of-shit car and leave the city to tow it and take care of it, try and chase ’em down for the bill?” She stood, folding the paper and tucking it under her arm. “No wonder I can’t get a damn raise.”

Maureen said nothing, oddly upset and disappointed that the family had solved their transportation troubles without her help. She felt pretty fucking useless, in general.

She turned and walked outside.

As she tossed the cables in the trunk of the cruiser, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She slammed the trunk closed and answered the call. “Coughlin.”

“Where are you?” Preacher asked. Maureen could tell he was unhappy. Lovely.

“Following up on something,” she said.

“I been trying to raise you on the radio for ten minutes,” Preacher said. “You need to tell dispatch if you’re gonna be out of service.”

“Took longer than I thought,” Maureen said, pulling open the car door. “I’m sorry. I’m back at the car right now. What’s going on?”

“Drayton is here,” Preacher said. “Looking for you.”

Maureen’s insides froze. She tried to keep her voice relaxed. “And what did he want?”

“You. He’s hot, Coughlin. Breathing fire.”

“I’m guessing this isn’t a social call.”

“Are you not hearing me? He’s at the district. He didn’t call. He came to our shop for no other reason than to talk to you. Don’t take it as a compliment, it’s not.”

Maureen sat on the bumper of her cruiser, phone at her ear, forehead in her hand. “Is it about the Gage case?”

“He didn’t specify,” Preacher said. “But I can’t imagine another reason he’d be looking for you, can you?”

“No, no, I can’t.” Maureen moved the phone away from her face. She let out a long breath before returning it to her ear. “So he’s waiting there for me?”

“Yes, indeed,” Preacher said. “He’s waiting for you in the break room. But before you talk to him, you’re gonna come see me. I’ll be waiting for you in the parking lot.”

14

Maureen parked the cruiser in the motor pool lot behind the Sixth District building, among several other dinged and dirty units along the chain-link fence topped with razor wire, the cars waiting for washing and maybe touch-up repairs. She spotted Preacher right away, standing over by the trash cans, off to the side of the garage and the building’s back entrance. He gave her a silent nod when she got close. He held a lit cigar between his fingers.

“Give me another minute,” Maureen said. “I gotta pee.”

Another nod, his eyes away from her. Maureen hated it when Preacher didn’t talk.

In the bathroom, she spent a couple of extra minutes on the toilet, elbows on her knees, face in her hands, hiding in the stall. She took long, slow, deep breaths, visualizing her rib cage expanding and contracting, and trying to map out in her head what she’d say to Preacher.

She needed to protect herself, starting right now, from Drayton and whatever he had planned for her, but from Quinn, too, and possibly from Preacher, which may have been what worried her most. And Preacher, Quinn, and Ruiz, they’d be expecting
her
to protect
them
from Drayton. She was the buffer between him and whatever it was they were up to. She feared Drayton had somehow found out that she and her coworkers had withheld information from him about Gage and Leary, though she didn’t know how that could be the case. The fuckups at the jail and the hospital meant no paper trail existed of her traffic stop the other night. A few standard radio calls no one would remember. The witnesses involved, on the NOPD and in the sheriff’s department, none of them wanted the truth coming out. Preacher’s possible questions for her bounced around in her skull. She couldn’t settle her mind on one. She thought of what Quinn had said, that they had known each other long before she had arrived. That she should be careful about crossing Preacher, especially.

She thought of advice she’d heard public defenders give their clients, and that prosecutors had given to her before she faced a cross: answer only the question you are asked, offer nothing, anticipate nothing. Simply react. Calmly. Thoughtfully. She wiped, flushed, and stood. She reassembled her uniform.

Before heading back outside to meet Preacher, she washed her hands, taking a moment to study herself in a mirror. She had bags under her eyes, tiny wrinkles had appeared at their corners. Her lips were pale and dry. The edges of her nostrils were bloodless and white, as always when she was upset. She recalled the couple of times she’d testified in court, staring into the mirror like she was doing now, what little makeup she owned scattered on the restroom sink, unsure if it was better for the city’s case that she look like a cop or a pretty girl. Juries these days trusted pretty girls, even average to moderately attractive ones with New York accents, more than they trusted the police. They trusted
anyone
more than they trusted the police. Even the police didn’t trust the police.

Tonight, she felt more like the defendant than a witness for the prosecution. She considered putting on some makeup for the meeting with Drayton, she kept the basics in her locker, but decided against it. Wasn’t worth the trip down the hall. Not for him. She would give him nothing. Show him nothing. She needed more than lipstick could do for her. And Preacher had waited outside long enough.

She tucked stray strands of hair back up under her NOPD ball cap. She dampened a rough brown paper towel under the faucet and used it to polish her round, silver badge, wiping away the dust and coffee stains. With the palms of her hands, she tried to press and smooth out the bags under her eyes. She tossed the paper towel in the wastebasket and pushed out through the bathroom door.

Preacher stood under the eaves of the building. A light rain had started to fall. He had a particularly smelly cigar going. For a moment, Maureen had confused its aroma with that of the trash cans a few yards away. Preacher looked tired, his hooded eyes narrow and creased at the corners. Maureen lit a cigarette and leaned against the building beside him.

“Is Drayton gonna be okay with this?” she asked.

“Okay with what?”

“With you briefing me before the interrogation.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Preacher said. “Briefing? You’re on duty. I’m your duty sergeant. I’m having a cigar out by the garage like I often do. Your rolling back through the district on police business. We’re shooting the shit about another night in the Big Sleazy. I don’t see what’s suspicious about that.”

“So Drayton’s unhappy with us. Do we know what about?”

Preacher turned his cigar between his teeth, speaking around it and puffing smoke. “There isn’t much ‘us’ to it. He’s pretty focused on
you
. Something about the integrity of his homicide investigation. He wouldn’t discuss it with me. So I wouldn’t discuss you with him. I left him stewing.
Integrity
. It’s a funny word for that man to be using. I bet any one of his ex-wives would get a kick out of it.” He shrugged, a small, sly smile on his face. “He doesn’t seem to trust me. It’s an insult to me.” He lowered his cigar, serious now. “Do you trust me, Coughlin?”

Maureen blew out her breath. “I do, Preach. You’ve never given me a reason not to.”

“Took you a minute to answer there.”

“It’s a serious question.”

Preacher leaned forward, spitting shreds of tobacco onto the pavement. “I want you aware of the stakes. This conversation, in some form or another, the one you’re about to have with Drayton, might end up being discussed in front of a federal judge. With the decree signed, Her Honor has access to whatever and whomever she wants, whenever she wants it.” He paused, shrugged. “The cases that go sideways, the ones that stand out for the wrong reasons, the
anomalies
, as you like to say, those are the ones the judge will look into. This case cannot go sideways, Coughlin. I’m not having my district, or my platoon, being the first lambs to the slaughter. Let that happen in someone else’s shop. I won’t be a disgrace to the department. Believe that.”

“I did not do anything to fuck up that crime scene,” Maureen said. “Or my paperwork. Same as with Cooley at Magnolia Street. I did nothing to screw up any arrest that Drayton might make, or charges he might bring. And neither did anyone else on the scene. I promise you, Preach. I’d take that to the judge right now, tonight.”

“But you were not first to arrive,” Preacher said.

“I was not. That was Quinn and Rue.” She thought of Quinn, of the note to meet Heath. Evidence he’d secreted away from the crime scene, a small and quiet act that had made criminals of both of them when she’d looked the other way. What else had he done before she’d arrived? Anything? How deep in it was Ruiz? She took a deep breath. Pretend that brief moment with Quinn hadn’t happened, she told herself. Pretend. Fake it. She’d done it her whole life. “I have complete confidence in how they handled the scene. I’d vouch for them. It looked like it should have when I got there.”

Preacher wouldn’t play coy with her about Quinn, Maureen thought. If he knew what Quinn had done with the note, he would’ve said so. He wasn’t asking about that. The less Preacher knew, Maureen thought, the more protected he’d be if that judge came calling. She kept the secret note to herself.

“Anyone who tells you we blew it,” Maureen said, “Drayton or anyone else, is either misinformed or a fucking liar. We did it right, me, Quinn, Ruiz, all of us.”

“I spoke to Quinn,” Preacher said. “He told me you mentioned your traffic stop to Drayton.”

“That was before I knew y’all had let Gage go,” Maureen said. “No one had caught me up yet. Had I known he’d never been arrested, I’d have kept quiet from the beginning.”

“What did Drayton say?”

Maureen chuckled. “Nothing. He ignored me. I don’t think he heard a word I said about it. It was then that Quinn pulled me aside and recommended I drop the subject.”

“And did you?”

She felt ashamed in front of Preacher. Not because she’d sided with Quinn, but because she’d done so out of fear of being rejected, of Quinn turning against her. Because she wanted even the burning-out, tainted cops to like her, to think of her as one of them. “I did. And I haven’t spoken to Drayton since.”

“And whatever happened to the woman?” Preacher asked. “The one who was in the pickup?”

“You told me to give that up.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Why am I not surprised? Well, then. Out with it.”

“Sheriff took her over to the hospital as a medical,” Maureen said. “She had some kind of breakdown or seizure while they were processing her at intake. She never even made it into the parish records. There’s no record of her. No paperwork, nothing in the computer. She’s gone, like a ghost, like she was never there to begin with.

“The sheriff’s deputy, a guy named Theriot, he lied to me about how Leary got over there. He told me she went in an ambulance, but I found out when I followed up on his story that he and another guy dropped her off in the waiting room on their own. Left her sitting there and didn’t even point her out to anyone. She recovered after they left, or she was acting the whole time, and she got up and walked out. A gunshot came in right on their backs. Leary disappeared in the chaos.”

“So this mystery person who Drayton might need,” Preacher said, “this direct connection to his dead guy, who he doesn’t know exists because nobody told him about her, she’s in the wind now, she’s gone. They fucked it up at the jail
and
the hospital. Incredible, even for this sheriff’s department.”

“That’s correct. Though I have to say, I don’t know how much of an asset she’d be to an investigation.”

“We tend to let the detectives decide who’s an asset to their case and who isn’t,” Preacher said. “Usually.” He wiped his hand down his face, blinked a few times. “And this follow-up visit to the hospital you made, that would be why I’m getting phone calls from security guards at LSU Public. It would be why I’m getting screamed at about rogue platoon officers threatening subpoenas and property seizures and such.”

Maureen said nothing.

“Wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know if
rogue
is the right word.”

“Holy shit, Coughlin. Do I sound concerned with semantics right now?”

“No, sir. Yes, sir. That visit by me would be why hospital security is calling you. He gave me a hard time about the security footage.”

“So we’re clear,” Preacher said, “there is a record of this Leary woman. Unofficial, but a traceable record that leads back to you. It’s the trail of people you’ve pissed off trying to keep track of her. People are much more likely to forget you if you’re nice to them. Feel free to use that knowledge in the future.”

“Theriot lied to me, sir, about custody of a prisoner. That’s illegal.”

“So the fuck what?” Preacher said. “What makes you so special that people gotta tell you the truth when you ask for it?
You
lied to
me
when it came to Leary. By omission, at least. You disobeyed my orders. I told you to forget about that woman, didn’t I? I told you not to play social worker. You told me you wouldn’t anymore.”

“They threw her away like trash,” Maureen said. “The deputies, they may as well have thrown her in the fucking gutter.”

“And we’re lucky they did,” Preacher said. “Face reality. She’s a missing link to the traffic stop that needs to stay missing.”

“Stray dogs get treated better than she did. And what about us? We let the guy who put her in that truck, who was taking her God knows where, we let him walk. All I asked of those guys is that they do their fucking jobs, so that I can do mine, like you asked of me outside the jail.”

“You gotta show more respect for people outside the department,” Preacher said. “I know it’s hard for you out there. You’re from out of town. You’re new. You’re female. It’s a ballbusting trifecta. But you can’t go around like you’re the varsity QB and everyone else who’s not a cop is the JV goddamn water boy. People resent it. People who resent you won’t help you. They look to get even, to fuck you, in fact, and not in the good way. Nobody likes a crusader. The moral high ground gets pretty fucking lonely. And as cops, we’re useless on our own. We need all the help we can get from other people. Understand?”