“Yeah. He was wearing a white coat.”
That didn’t exactly make him a doctor. “Could you see what he was wearing under the white coat?”
Malika looked surprised at the question. “It was buttoned.”
“Yeah, but could you see a dress shirt, a tie, a sports coat, the kind of pants he was wearing? Could he have been an orderly? A male nurse?”
Malika thought about it but stayed silent.
“What about his ID? Did you see that?”
“No.”
“No ID or you didn’t see it?”
“No ID. The cop had no ID, and neither do you.”
Daveys would have a pass like hers. April pulled it out so Malika could see it. “One last question. Have you seen the guy with the ponytail before?”
“Yeah.”
“Many times before?”
“A few times.”
“When?”
“A while ago. Maybe a month, two months.”
“Was he wearing a white coat the other times you saw him?”
“No.”
“What was he wearing then?”
Malika pursed her lips with annoyance. “Street close.”
“What kind of street clothes?”
“The kinda close you wear on the street. Jacket, sweatshirt, pants.” Malika prolonged her skimpy description because April was jotting down what she said.
“Where did you see this guy with the ponytail, the jacket, the sweatshirt, and the pants?”
“Huh?”
“On the other occasions when you saw him. Where was he?”
“He and Gunn walking on the street. They drinking in a bar.”
“Which one?”
“This is more than one question.”
“You have more than one answer to give me, Malika. What bar?”
“French Quarter.”
April nodded. She knew where it was. “This guy, was he white, black, Hispanic, tall, short? Fat, thin?”
“He beige, and he big.”
Beige, now that was descriptive. “How big? Six foot? Hundred and seventy pounds, eighty pounds? Two hundred pounds?”
“Yeah.”
That was all Malika was prepared to say at the moment. The guy had a ponytail. He was light-skinned with mixed blood of some kind and wore street clothes when he was not wearing a white coat. That did not put him in the doctor class. And he drank in a less-than-upscale bar way west on Ninety-ninth Street. April took Gunn’s phone number and address, then headed to the lab to have the file dusted for prints.
fifty-eight
Gunn lived in a Gothic-style, highly decorated, four-story building with a heavy, curved stone staircase leading to a front door of leaded glass on the second floor. April shuddered when she saw it. The entrance to the apartments on the street level and below was hidden underneath the stairs, directly visible neither from the street nor the upstairs entrance. Arching over the sidewalk, the roof corner on each side restrained two attacking cement dogs with permanently gaping mouths and straining fangs. On the second and third stories three yawning bay windows with pointed vaults over dark stained-glass were faintly lighted from within. The house had a predatory look about it, almost as if it were alive and hungry. April parked her unmarked unit in a fire-hydrant space and hurried up the steps. She didn’t have a lot of time to get this thing with the file sorted out.
Inside the front door, a tiny lobby had been created a long time ago with an inner door that was locked. The intercom system was very old. Gunn lived on the top floor. April pressed the button by her name and almost immediately heard static.
“Gunn,” she said loudly into the intercom, “this is April Woo. Remember we talked on Friday?”
“Gunn, I need to talk to you. It’s very important.”
“Well, I’m sick. I can’t talk.”
“Listen, Gunn, this is urgent.”
“Really, I can’t—”
“Gunn, this is a homicide investigation. You don’t have a choice.”
There was a prolonged silence, then a click as the door lock was released. April let the door close behind her and trudged up a flight of creaking stairs that seemed to drag itself down as it turned the corner. Only one of the five bulbs glowed dimly in the ancient ceiling fixture high above. Gunn lived in the back apartment on the fourth floor. Her door cracked open as April rounded the corner at the top of the stairs.
“Hello, Gunn,” April said.
Reluctantly, Gunn opened the door enough for a thin person to enter. April slid through. Gunn scanned the hall before shutting the door.
The apartment consisted of two small, very cluttered rooms with a galley kitchen tucked into one corner of the front room. The bedroom was in the very back of the building. The front and back rooms were separated by two huge, sliding wooden doors that were open most of the way.
“What do you want?” Gunn’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, but she did not look sick. She was dressed in shiny black pull-on pants and several layers of tee shirts and sweaters. April could see the flickering light of the TV in the bedroom. She could tell that Gunn had not been lying on her bed watching it. The weepy-eyed little woman smelled as if she had spent the last few days on a diet that did not include any of the four food groups.
“Gunn, you lied to me about Bobbie Boudreau.”
Gunn reeled back, bumping into a floral-upholstered rocking chair with a white lace napkin thing draped over the top, vibrating her head in tiny arcs of palsied denial. “No, I don’t know anybody with that name.”
“Oh, come on, Gunn, sure you know Bobbie. He’s a drinking buddy of yours.”
“Who said so?” Gunn looked surprised, moved away from the rocking chair, and collapsed onto a floral loveseat.
“Gunn, you’ve been seen with him in the neighborhood, in the French Quarter, right around the corner and other places.… ” April paused to let her words sink in. “We know Bobbie lives right here in this building with you. We know everything.”
“What? You can’t.”
“What we don’t know this minute, we can find out by tomorrow.”
“How? How can you find out?”
“By asking questions, Gunn. By asking a lot of people a lot of questions. One way or another we’re going to find out, so you might as well tell me about you and Bobbie right now.” April cautiously moved to the back of the apartment, her hand on the gun in her waistband. “Is he here now?”
“No, I haven’t seen him since you people started hounding him,” Gunn said sullenly.
“Fine, then we can talk.”
“I didn’t tell that other guy and I’m not telling you.” Gunn shook her head. “Bobbie got a bum rap the last time. He has nothing to do with this. You can kill me if you want to.”
“Nobody’s going to kill you.”
“Well … good. Now you can go.”
“Gunn, you know I can’t go.”
“The other guy did.”
