“We pay homage to the past here; the past is our bread and butter; it's what brings in the tourists, the Old South in all her radiant splendor. The New Orleans port on the Mississippi was once second only to New York, but now it only supports an interest in the arcane and tourism.”
“ The past is a double-edged sword here. That's for sure,” she agreed.
“ Give me that old-time religion and that Old South drowsiness in the shade. Shame that the same mint-julep mentality which gives New Orleans its mystic flavor, old charms and her iron-lace balconies is also the same kind of thinking that has allowed poverty and homelessness to flourish at her core.”
“ But they got religion and Carnivale!”
“ Yeah, Carnival Season… begins shortly after Christmas and winds down with Mardi Gras.”
“ Fat Tuesday, I know, ends on Ash Wednesday.”
“ Then you haven't forgotten New Orleans altogether since leaving?''
“ Not at all. Laissez les bon temps rouler/” He translated for her. “Let the good times roll.”
“ One hundred and fifty years of tradition..”
“ Of spontaneous street parades and displays.”
They both knew the history well, that in 1857 a group of locals banded together to form the first Carnivale parading organization, the Mystick Krewe of Comus, and that after that other private clubs, picking up the notion, sprouted up, and the elaborateness of the balls which spilled out into the streets and became madcap parades had become a tradition. Kings and queens were still chosen from among the krewe membership, and in some Carnivale clubs, the balls still served as “coming out” parties for debutantes. It all culminated in floats, marching bands, enormous balloons, jazz bands and wildly decorated flatbed trucks. Souvenir doubloons, cups, saucers, painted coconuts and beaded necklaces were tossed to onlookers from the parading masses. All this while in the French Quarter there was the annual costume competition for the best-looking transvestites, who so colorfully and spectacularly jammed the corners of Burgandy and St. Ann Streets.
“ There's no other place like it on earth,” she said.
Alex nodded, checking his rearview as he pulled into a turn lane on the other side of the bridge. “Shame, isn't it, that such a place, known worldwide for its jazz funerals and tunes like “Didn't He Ramble” and “I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal,” and such legends as Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Joe 'King' Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, and… and gaiety-in every sense of the word-has such crime problems as well.”
She smiled at this, remembering aloud another song title. “ 'If You Ain't Gonna Shake It, What Did You Bring It For?' Goes back to what I was saying before about a victim for every four households, I guess.”
Alex turned the car into a gravel lot in front of a bright sign announcing “Leopold's on the Wharf.”
“ Shame of it is that in the most technologically advanced nation on earth, in the history of all mankind, almost every single person in America will be the victim of one crime or another in his lifetime.”
“ Yes,” she agreed, “and in spite of strides in forensic investigative techniques, electronic surveillance, colossal and complex fingerprint files and other modern means, the percentage of crimes solved by arrest has remained appreciably unchanged since, what, the early seventies?”
“ Hey, compared to other heavily populated areas of the country, the NOPD's doing a hell of a job.”
“ No need to get defensive, Lieutenant. But the fact remains that New Orleans, like Chicago, L.A., Miami, New York and Atlanta, has actually seen a decrease in arrests made in violent crimes.”
“ Maybe that's because-just-because, as they say.”
“ What's that? Southern-style philosophical equivocation and sophistry to avoid the issue?”
“ It helps when it helps.”
She laughed. “More of the same.”
His tone grew serious again. “There's been such an enormous increase in violent crime that it makes me weak to give it too much thought. If that's equivocating, then that's equivocating. I call it gettin' by.”
“ With drugs, child molestation, rape and murder on the rise, public anxiety about the effectiveness of both local and federal police agencies to serve the public has steadily grown, while manpower and monies haven't kept up,” she conceded.
“ That's why everyone's so ready to turn to psychics for help, and thanks in large measure to the media saturation of stories dealing with freaks like Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and the Queen of Hearts killer…”
“ You like to think you've got a ready answer for everything, Detective Sincebaugh, all life's problems, don't you?”
“ It helps, but no… not by a long shot do I have all the answers, but I have one for you. People latch onto your kind of magic and voodoo-”
“ What I do is not voodoo or magic!” She raised her voice for the first time.
“ People need you like they need Dear Abby, to tell them it's okay to believe in something that's not present, to hold onto something that's not there. So society appears to be going to hell. It has always appeared to be going to hell and it always will, but conjuring acts aren't going to change that.”
“ Most cops are superstitious, but not you, right?”
“ That's right.”
“ You worked Missing Persons for a long time, didn't you, before you got into Homicide?”
“ That's right, and I don't appreciate your going through my file.”
“ So, it was there you used psychics?”
“ It was never my idea to use a psychic on any case, no.”
“ But the Department did?”
“ That's right.”
“ So, you had a bad experience with a psychic, so you now judge all psychics by that one experience, and you say you're not superstitious?”
He fell silent, the verbal jousting taking its toll on him. After a moment, he said, “I thought we agreed to talk about things other than this bloody case.”
“ Sony, guess we did, but I'm also talking about stressful situations, a stressful job, like a cop's. It brings out a need to tidy up the world, to seek answers, find control amid the chaos, an explanation for the void. A psychic worth her salt wants the same thing, Alex.”
“ If it wasn't for missing-persons cases, your kind would be out of business. You're like bounty hunters, coming in on a case for the money it can afford you.”
“ That's bullshit.”
“ How much're they paying you? My year's salary? For your consulting fee?”
“ I get paid by the day, same as a P.I., and I don't collect the consultation fee if there're no direct results stemming from my participation.”
“ Stemming from your participation, sure…” He let it drop, not speaking his mind. She knew what he was thinking, however.
“ I'm no fool, Dr. Desinor. I know Stephens and Captain Landry aren't fools either, but we had strict guidelines we followed in Missing Persons when we dealt with psychic de-tectives called in on cases. From what I've seen and from what I've deduced, it's apparent to me that Meade, or someone, has provided you with far more than the type of crime, the name of the individuals involved, the dates and items lifted from the scene, like those beads. The sensitive, as we called him then, filed a report immediately on the basis of that scant information alone. You, you've been given access to all the police reports, all the coroner's reports, in essence my complete case file on the murders. Then you expect me to be dazzled when you come out with information you couldn't possibly know?”
“ The more information I have, the more I can learn from the psychometric evidence.”
“ You got that right. Well, you just go right on dazzling deYampert and the others, Doctor. Just don't expect me to fall in line, okay?”
“ Tell you what,” she said, “you're right.”
“ Right?”
“ About my coming in with full disclosure. I won't work a case without it and when… when Landry called me in on the case…”
“ Landry called you in on the case?”
“ He's in charge of it, isn't he?” Yeah, yeah… sure he is.”
