Fat Tuesday (3 page)

Pinkie made much ado over Remy when she came downstairs.

Possessively taking her arm, he announced that the party could officially begin now that she had joined it. He guided her through the crowd, introducing her to the guests she didn't know, including the bedazzled Bardo trial jurors.

Many of the guests were infamous for their association with scandal, crime, or combinations thereof. Some were rumored to belong to the Metropolitan Crime Commission, but since the membership of that by-invitation-only group of blue bloods was secret, no one could be sure. The group's unlimited funds were exceeded only by their unlimited power.

Some of the guests were politicos who wielded self-serving influence over voters. There were movers and shakers among the nouveaux riches, while others hailed from established, old-monied families who exercised despotic control over local society. A few had connections with organized crime. All were Pinkie's friends, associates, and former clients. All had come to pay him homage Remy endured the fawning of her husband's guests for the same reason they fawned over her to remain in his good graces. The new pendant was admired and envied, and, to Remy's embarrassment, so was the chest on which it reposed. She was reluctant to be the center of so much attention, and hated being ogled by sly men whose sly wives scrutinized her with barely concealed disdain and jealousy.

Seemingly unaware of their insincerity, Pinkie put her on display like a living trophy. Remy sensed that behind their phony smiles, his friends were inspecting her for the first signs of tarnishing and asking themselves, Who would have thought such an unlikely pairing would have lasted this long?

Eventually the conversation turned to the trial and she was asked her opinion of the verdict."Pinkie gives one hundred percent to every trial," she replied."I wasn't in the least surprised that his client was acquitted."

"But you must admit, my dear, that this one was easy to predict."

The remark was tinged with condescension and came from a society maven whose turkey-wattle neck dripped diamonds.

Pinkie spoke for Remy, countering the woman's comment."The outcome of a trial is never predictable. This one could just as easily have gone the other way. Anytime you get a policeman on the witness stand, you'd better be on your toes."

"Please, Pinkie," one of the men in the group scoffed."A policeman's credibility in the courtroom was destroyed forever when Mark Fuhrrnan testified at the O. J. Simpson trial."

Pinkie shook his head in disagreement."Granted, Fuhrman did that prosecution more hamm than good. But Burke Basile is a different animal altogether. We searched his past for something that would discredit him.

His record was impeccable."

"Until the night he shot his own man," one of the guests chortled.

He whacked Pinkie on the shoulder."You really raked him over the coals on the witness stand."

"Too bad the judge refused to let the trial be televised," another guest remarked."The public would have seen live coverage of cop meltdown." Another said, "It wouldn't have surprised me if the jury had stopped the trial during Basile's testimony and asked if they couldn't close up shop and go home right then."

"We're talking about a man's death," Remy blurted. She considered their joking and laughter obscene."Regardless of the outcome of the trial, Mr. Stuart would not have been shot if Bardo hadn't used him as a human shield. Isn't that right?"

The laughter died a sudden death and all eyes turned to her.

"Technically, my dear, that's precisely right," Pinkie replied.

"We acknowledged in court that Mr. Bardo was holding the wounded officer against him when he was shot, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that Stuart was being used as a shield. What happened was a tragic accident, but that doesn't warrant sending an innocent man to prison."

Remy had never been invited to attend a trial and see Pinkie in action, but she was well acquainted with the facts of this case because she'd followed the media coverage. Narcotics officers Stuart and Basile had been the first of their unit to arrive at a warehouse where it was suspected that drugs were being manufactured and distributed.

Those inside the warehouse had been alerted that a raid was imminent.

When Stuart and Basile approached the building, they were fired upon.

Without waiting for backup, Stuart had charged into the warehouse, exchanging gunfire with and killing a man named Toot Jenkins.

Toot Jenkins lay dead, Stuart was badly wounded. His bullet-proof vest had deflected potentially fatal shots, but he'd been hit in the thigh, the bullet narrowly missing his femoral artery. Another bullet had shattered his ulna.

"The doctor testified at trial that Stuart was probably in shock, but that he would have recovered from those wounds," Remy said."They were serious, but not life threatening."

"But your husband destroyed the doctor's credibility."

Pinkie held up a hand as though to say that he didn't need anyone to come to his rescue, particularly since the one challenging him was his own wife."Put yourself in Mr. Bardo's place, darling," he said.

"One man lay dead, another was wounded and bleeding. Mr. Bardo reasoned correctly that he had inadvertently walked into a very dangerous situation.

"He thought that perhaps the men outside weren't police officers as they claimed, but were in fact Mr. Jenkins's business rivals impersonating officers. Toot Jenkins had been dealing with an Asian gang.

These gang members can be extremely clever, you know " "Officer Stuart was red-haired and freckled. He could hardiy be mistaken for an Asian." One of the guests chuckled and said, "Touche, Pinkie. Too bad for the D.A. Remy wasn't arguing his case."

Pinkie laughed along with the others at the mild put-down, but perhaps only Remy noticed that his laughter was forced. His eyes moved over her.

"Remy in a court of law? I hardly think so. Her talents lie elsewhere." As he said that, he ran his fingertip across her low neckline.

Everyone else laughed, but a hot flush of humiliation and anger surged through her."Excuse me. I haven't eaten anything yet." She turned away from the group.

She had an opinion on what had happened the night Stuart died but it wouldn't be prudent to air it in front of Pinkie and his friends.

They were celebrating his client's acquittal, not his innocence, which weren't necessarily one and the same.

She didn't believe for a moment that Wayne Bardo had been confused when gunfire erupted. He had known exactly what he was doing when he lifted the wounded policeman off the floor of the warehouse and used him as a shield when he went through the dark, open doorway, drawing fire from any other law enforcement agents who might have taken cover outside the building.

Unfortunately, Burke Basile had excellent reflexes, and he was an expert marksman. Believing he was firing at an assailant, he'd gone for a head shot, and his aim had been true. The jury's verdict had laid all the blame for Stuart's death at his feet.

Making good her lie about being hungry, she went into the formal dining room, where, as she had expected, the buffet was a gourmand's delight.

Sterling silver chafing dishes were brimming with steaming crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice, and barbecued shrimp steeping in a sauce so fiery that the aroma alone caused her eyes to tear.

Raw oysters on the half shell lay upon trays of ice. A chef was carving slices of ham and roast beef off enormous slabs of meat. There were deviled eggs and deviled crab, along with salads and side dishes and sausages, breads and desserts to suit every palate. The sight and smell of so much rich food didn't pique Remy's appetite, but rather made her slightly queasy.

Glancing around, she saw that Pinkie was now conversing with some of the recently dismissed jurors. They appeared to be enthralled by whatever he was saying, and he loved having an audience, so he wouldn't miss her for a while.

Unnoticed, she slipped through a French door into the relative quiet and seclusion of the backyard. The air was cold enough to make vapor of her breath, but the chill actually felt good against her exposed skin.

She moved along the pathway that led to the gazebo. The lacy wrought-iron structure with the onion-shaped dome roof was located in a far corner of the property. It was one of her favorite spots.

Whenever she desperately needed seclusion, or a semblance of it, she retreated to the gazebo.

Stepping into the circular structure, she leaned into one of the support posts, practically hugging it while resting her cheek against the cold metal. She was still embarrassed over what Pinkie had insinuated in front of his guests. Comments like that underscored what everyone already believed about her, that she was a pampered trophy wife, with limited intelligence and trivial opinions, whose only purpose in life was to accessorize her flamboyant husband in public and satisfy him in bed.

It also appeared they thought she had no feelings, that their subtle insults bounced off her without leaving a mark. They thought she was happy with the sheltered life she led and had everything her heart desired.

They were wrong.

Wild horses couldn't have kept him away.

Burke Basile acknowledged that being here was inadvisable.

Inadvisable, my ass, he thought. It was downright stupid that he was lurking in the shadows of a hedge of tall, dense azalea bushes, glaring malevolently at Pinkie Duvall's Garden District mansion.

The house was as fancy and white as a wedding cake, gaudy as hell in Basile s estimation. Golden light from the tall windows spilled onto the lawn, which was as perfectly tailored as a green carpet. Music and laughter wafted from the shimmering rooms.

Burke hugged his elbows to ward off the cool evening air. He hadn't even thought to wear a jacket. Autumn had come and gone. The holidays had passed virtually unnoticed. New Orleans' mild winter was on the wane, but the changing seasons and encroaching spring were the last things on Burke's mind.

Kev Stuart's death eight months ago had consumed him, immobilized him, and anesthetized him to his environment.

Barbara had been the first to notice his preoccupation, but then she would because she lived with him. When his grief evolved into obsession, she had lodged a legitimate complaint. And then another.

And another, until she exhausted herself with nagging. Her attitude of late had been indifference.

As Wayne Bardo's trial date approached, it became obvious to everyone within his division that Burke's heart was no longer in his work.

He couldn't concentrate on present cases because he was still hung up on the case that had taken him and Kev to that warehouse.

For more than a year prior to that night, they'd been shrinking the size of that particular operation, chipping away at it bit by bit by taking out key dealers one by one. But the really big players had continued to elude them, and were probably laughing their asses off at the bungling and self-defeating efforts of the authorities, local and federal.

To frustrate the division further, their success rate dwindled into nonexistence. Each time a raid was organized, it was foiled. No matter how tight the security, how secret the bust, the criminals were always tipped off beforehand. Drug labs were deserted with the chemicals still cooking. Huge inventories were abandoned moments before the squad arrived for the takedown. These were sacrifices the dealers could afford to make, they simply factored in the loss as a cost of doing business. The next day, they relocated to a new place of operation.

The sons of bitches scattered quicker than roaches when the lights went on. Cops were made to look like fools. After each failed raid, the division was forced back to square one, and the painstaking procedure of rooting out the suppliers started all over again.

Having worked Narcotics for years, Burke knew the drill. He knew to expect setbacks and delays. He knew it took months to build a case.

He knew the undercover guys had to cultivate relationships and that these matters took time and patience. He knew the odds against success were overwhelming, and that even when they did succeed, the rewards were few.

But knowing all that and accepting it were miles apart.

Patience wasn't one of Burke's virtues. Frankly, he didn't even look upon patience as a virtue. In his opinion, time equated failure.

Because for every day it took to do his job right and to collect enough solid evidence for the D.A. to build a case around, kids by the dozens were yielding to the allure of neighborhood dealers. Or a yuppie stoned on a designer drug plowed the hood of his BMW into a vanload of senior citizens on an excursion. Another few crack babies were born.

A teenager's heart burst from over use. Someone else OD'd and died a wretched death.

But because the only alternative was complete surrender, he and the officers in his division kept at it. Painstakingly they built their cases. But each time they thought they were there, each time they thought that the next bust would be the mother of all busts, each time they thought they'd catch the bastards red-handed and nail their asses good, something got fucked up.

There was a traitor within the Narcotics Division of the N.O.P.D.

Had to be. There was no other explanation for why the dealers were always a step ahead of them. It had happened too many times to be attributed to coincidence or karma or bad breaks or rotten luck or the devil's handiwork. Someone in the department was working on the side of the bad guys.

God help the bastard when Burke Basile discovered his identity, because it was that cop's betrayal that had turned Nancy Stuart into a widow and had left her two young boys fatherless.

Burke had begged Kev not to go barging in before the van got there with the rest of the squad, equipped with rams, gas masks, and automatic weapons. The two of them had arrived a few minutes ahead of it, the arrest warrants in Basile's pocket. But Kev, frustrated over yet another failed raid, had lost his Irish temper. He had charged the building through the open overhead door. Burke had heard a hail of gunfire, seen the flashes, smelled the gunpowder.