The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) (22 page)

Michael had shone his flashlight over at the two posters, first on the one of the two women, then on the one of the suspicious-looking man, and had asked who they were. It took Rodger a few moments to remember, as the posters were in bad condition.

“Ah yes, the M and M Sisters,” Rodger had said. “They were a staple here. A pair of twin sisters with the kind of beauty about them that could melt men’s hearts. Their golden hair and sapphire blue eyes were contrasted by their deep red velvet dresses. It’s said that any man they looked at would lose their hearts, and their souls, to those sultry vixens.”

When he noticed Michael staring at him, Rodger had chuckled and said, “What can I say? I’m a sucker for blondes.”

Michael had smirked, shaken his head, and shone his light on the blue-eyed gentleman, asking who he was and why he looked suspiciously like Frank Sinatra.

“Oh yeah,” Rodger had said, shining his light on the other poster, especially on those unsettlingly beautiful blue eyes. He had a sudden venom in his voice. “Giorgio Marcello, grandson of Carlos Marcello, of the New Orleans Marcello family. They called him Blue-Eyed Marcello. The guy made himself out to be the South’s version of Old Blue-Eyes, but… ”

After Rodger’s voice trailed off, Michael had pressed him for further details. Taking the light off Giorgio, Rodger had walked around the room, absently focusing his beam of light on other places. “Giorgio was, to put it lightly, a serial rapist. The story was always the same: The women would be lured into his limousine with promises of expensive gifts and ‘a night they would never forget,’ were taken to an expensive hotel in the French Quarter, and not seen again for several days.”

When Michael had asked what had become of the victims, Rodger responded, grim-faced, “Well, the bastard would leave them in the hotel room he raped them in, tied to the bed, blindfolded and gagged. He’d pay for the room for three days, so the woman would only be found, usually lying in her own shit, by the hotel staff after the room’s occupancy had expired.”

The story had seemed to make Michael upset, as he scowled at Rodger and shook his head, a look of disgust on his face. He had asked, “When was Giorgio arrested?”

Rodger had shaken his head. “Apart from using a different associate with a different name to reserve the hotel room, using the back entrance, and threatening each woman’s life should they speak to the police, Giorgio was part of a very powerful and influential crime family who could throw money and violence around to get anything they wanted.”

That had ended the conversation for the moment, and both detectives had headed deeper inside, past the red velvet curtain that stank of twenty years of mildew, and into the main floor of the cabaret.

What they found, however, really sank their spirits into the ground.

Given the incident that had resulted in the Jean-Lafitte Theatre being closed down—the shooting up of the cabaret by a disgruntled ex-employee—even Rodger was surprised that the main floor of the building had been completely cleared out. As the flashlights swam around the two-story interior of the nightclub, shining from the wooden stage across the tiered floor to the balconies above, they could see that every piece of furniture was gone. Only the brass chandelier, thick with cobwebs and dust, remained of the once-great cabaret that was haunted by New Orleans’s upper echelon.

“This is insane,” Michael had remarked, disappointment and anxiety thick in his voice. Rodger, having agreed with his partner’s sentiment, had agreed that they needed to search the rest of the club anyway. The two spent approximately the next hour checking the side rooms, hallways, and offices.

From the private booths and rooms, where exclusive clientele did God knows what, to the dressing rooms, where talent would prepare to go on stage, to the offices, where money was counted and employees and police alike were paid—everything had been long since methodically removed. Only the front entryway remained decorated.

By the time both detectives had reached the manager’s office, their flashlight beams shining on the indentation where a safe must have been, it was painfully apparent what had happened.

Even as his partner seemed to tense up over what was rapidly becoming a red herring, Rodger had said, “After the place got closed down, Carlos Marcello must have had his men come in and clean the place out. They only left the front room, the chandelier, and the bullet holes behind.”

It was after that statement that Michael had left in disgust, although he barely showed it. As he followed his partner back outside and toward their car, Rodger thought to himself that Michael was taking the apparent dead end badly. Knowing that his partner almost never followed hunches unless they had facts to back them up, Rodger figured that Michael probably felt like he had detracted from the investigation.

As Rodger stood outside, finishing his cigarette, he decided that Michael just needed some encouragement. The senior detective headed back to the squad car, reminding himself that he had had his own fair share of bad hunches during his career.

As he got inside the car, Rodger said, “Hey, Michael, don’t let it get to you, all right? We all have false leads from time to time. Don’t beat yourself up over—”

“I’m fine,” said Michael as he finished scribbling in his notebook. “I think I just figured out why we needed to be here.”

For a moment, Rodger just stared at his partner, who had been making a real habit lately of interrupting him. Being a gentleman, if nothing else, Rodger refrained from punching his partner in the face, but the interruption did raise the senior detective’s blood pressure. Rodger sometimes had to remind himself that Michael was, after all, still just a kid compared to him.

He’ll learn to get along with others in time.

Brushing the rude behavior off, Rodger asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s obvious this was an exclusive nightclub,” Michael said, tapping the tip of his pen to his notes. “I’m assuming it was run by the Marcello family, given what you told me about Carlos Marcello being the one to clear this place out. Correct?”

“Correct, but that’s not a big surprise,” replied Rodger, not sure where his partner was going with this line of thought. “In the seventies, half this town was owned by the Marcello family. Even after his stroke in ninety-one, he was still the most powerful man in the city.”

“Right, but that’s just it, Rodger,” replied Michael, again tapping his pen to his notes. “This was an exclusive nightclub for the socially elite to congregate. Why on earth would a common offshore worker like Robert Fontenot be allowed in a place like the Jean-Lafitte Theater?”

Thinking about that for a moment, Rodger replied, “Could have been the chauffeur for a client here, for all we know. Mr. Fontenot wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details of his life, you know.”

“True,” replied Michael, who paused for a moment. “But if that were the case, why would he have met his mistress here? Under what pretense does a guy who has nigh a penny to his name not only get into an exclusive club, but also attract the attention of a woman here? Especially when you figure that any woman frequenting this place would only be attracted to a man with money, power, or both.”

Rodger looked at his partner and, for a moment, saw Edward sitting there, pointing to a similar notebook with similar notes. Shaking it off, Rodger admitted to himself that Michael, despite being a total ass, was brilliant. “It seems that Mr. Fontenot has played us, Michael. Either he’s lying about this place, or… ”

“… there’s more to him than he’s admitting,” said Michael.

For a moment, Rodger sat there with Michael, the synergy between the two buzzing like the arc of a Tesla coil.

“Well,” said Rodger at last, “we have to be extra-careful with this guy.” Starting up the car, and fighting again with the latch of his safety belt, he elaborated, “We got one free interview with him. Any follow-ups, especially after he made it clear just how much he ‘loves’ us, will just bring out his suspicion. And we don’t need to give this guy reason to vanish into the bayou for good.”

“Agreed,” replied Michael as Rodger finally pulled the car away. “We need to check up on Robert Fontenot. Find out everything we can about him. Who this man really was, what he did, and where he went when he wasn’t working on the river.”

Rodger nodded and pulled off Toulouse, heading to the interstate. “We should also check the civil records for Mr. Fontenot’s divorce, and see if we can’t find out the name of his mistress. If she’s still living, and still in Louisiana, she may know some things as well.”

“Good idea,” Michael said, giving a small smile to his partner. “Good to see you’re still in the game.”

“Shit,” Rodger replied with a smirk. “I wasn’t the one who was about to cry when he saw the club was empty.”

“Oh, piss off,” Michael said with an answering smirk. The tension previously felt was long gone.

Once on the interstate, Rodger headed toward New Orleans East, the part of the city between Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. New Orleans East was not known as the safest part of the city, although, like the Lower Ninth Ward, it was more due to a history of gang violence than anything else. Pulling off on Chef Menteur Highway, Rodger started to get his mind in the zone for his next objective.

“So, according to the system’s records,” Rodger said, “Mad Monty owns a warehouse not far from here, correct?”

Michael, who had already taken out a computer printout made at the precinct, nodded. “Yes, turn right at Old Gentilly Road, then again at Paris Road.” Those directions given, Michael turned to his partner. “Given what you’ve told me about Mad Monty, Rodger, will the two of us and Monty’s parole officer be enough?”

Rodger gritted his teeth, recalling his conversation with his partner on the way back from Bayou Lafitte. After talking over not only Mad Monty’s violent past, but his personal beef with Rodger, both detectives had agreed that going in alone would be foolish. They had contacted Commander Ouellette, who had gotten them in touch with Horace Blanchard, Mad Monty’s parole officer. A brief call with Horace, and the oddly nerdy-sounding officer had agreed to meet the two detectives outside of the warehouse that Mad Monty owned.

Rodger was torn, as part of him wanted to go in there with an entire posse, rounding up Mad Monty and any of his friends, like the lawmen of the Old West. The other part of him knew Monty and knew that if anything more than a single police car and his parole officer showed up, he’d be gone before they could stop their engines. And since Mad Monty was more of a witness in this situation than a suspect, anything more would look like the New Orleans police were deliberately antagonizing him.

Rodger thought, with a disgusted shake of his head, how much the
Times-Picayune
would love a story of the police abusing a suspect, especially an African American one, and especially after the Los Angeles riots earlier that year.

“Let Ouellette know we’re almost there, and that we’ll check in within thirty minutes,” Rodger said. “And if we don’t, to send in the cavalry.”

As Michael put in the call, Rodger thought to himself that while he didn’t plan on dying today, he didn’t plan on letting Monty walk away without answering his questions.

If that means I have to bring half the SWAT team out, so be it.

By the time Rodger pulled off Paris Road and into the old warehouse district, Michael had placed the call to Ouellette, who had once again expressed the need for extreme caution to both detectives. While Mad Monty had no official record of assaulting police officers, he was known to be a violent type. Having been arrested and tried on three counts of manslaughter, the only reason Mad Monty wasn’t still behind bars was because only enough evidence was gathered to convict him for one count.

Rodger was the person who had collected the evidence needed to convict Monty on that single count of manslaughter, sending him to Angola State Prison for ten years. The rage in Mad Monty’s voice on the date of his conviction—the venom with which he’d sworn he’d emasculate Rodger—had haunted the senior detective to that very day.

Those thoughts were still in Rodger’s mind as he pulled past the gateway into Mad Monty’s warehouse. A single hand-painted sign outside the gate, labeled “Monty’s Auto Detail,” looked rather fresh.

Otherwise, the entire property looked about as run-down as one would expect. The chain-link fence was overgrown with weeds, the siding on the warehouse was rusted and corroded with age and neglect, and the large sign above the entrance into the warehouse was so old it could barely be read.

“Metal works,” said Michael, reading the sign aloud with obvious effort.

“Yeah,” replied Rodger as he spotted a dark brown sedan with civil tags parked halfway between the gate and the warehouse. Pulling up behind the sedan, Rodger added, “Monty loves him some cars. I remember that. This warehouse used to be a factory where they made car bumpers. Back when they used to make bumpers out of real metal, not that crumple-shit they use now.” Rodger put the car in Park.

“Lovely,” said Michael as he peered through the windshield at the warehouse. “All sorts of lovely things inside a metal-works factory that can kill you.”

Rodger looked at his partner and contemplated a snarky comment, but settled on saying, “Thanks for settling my nerves about meeting this guy, Michael. I really appreciate the camaraderie here.”

Michael smirked. “You’re welcome.” He stepped out of the car.

“Ass.” Shaking his head, Rodger stepped out of the car as well.

As the detectives exited their car, the brown sedan’s door opened up, and out stepped a short, bald man wearing a tweed suit. He wore a pair of wire-frame spectacles on his pointed nose and carried a brown leather suitcase in his arms. The man’s nose was tilted up just enough to show that he had a rather sizable sense of self-importance.

Rodger was already annoyed with Horace. Not only did the man come across as a first-class nerd, but he seemed to have an unwarranted sense of self-importance. Those thoughts did nothing to make Rodger feel any less anxious, and with a look to his partner, he said, “Keep your piece ready, Michael,” as they approached the parole officer.