“ And who cut out this guy's heart to make him look like Surette? And who switched the bodies and why?” pressed Landry.
“ Gwinn! We better go have a talk with the caretaker,” Alex said to Landry.
“ You're buying into this, Alex?” asked a skeptical deYampert, confused at Alex's sudden turnabout. “Since when?”
Landry looked from the two women to his two detectives. “Go ask the man the hard questions. If the SOB's lying, you'll know it, and if so, haul his ass downtown and let's dig for the rest. Meanwhile, Doctors… you'd better be right about all this.”
“ All right, Captain, we'll go talk to the caretaker and his guys, but if you want my advice, you don't want this one getting around the stationhouse,” cautioned deYampert.
Alex agreed. “Yeah, Big's right about that, Carl.”
Big Ben looked apologetically down at his captain and rushed to keep pace with Alex.
“ What the hell goes on in your frigging cemetery at night when nobody's around! Where're your records on this crypt? Goddamnit, man, what kind of business are you running? Tu-lane University pay you for cadavers, what?” DeYampert's voice reverberated around the interrogation room. If he couldn't frighten a man with his NFL-lineman features, no one could.
“ I ain't done nothing like that, ever… ever, Detective. I'm telling you the truth. I wasn't nowhere near the place last night. I don't go out there much after dark. Gives me the willies…”
“ Just great,” wisecracked Alex Sincebaugh, coming off the wall where he'd been leaning. “A cemetery man who's afraid of the dark, and you got a guy taking up space in a plot, but he's in the wrong apartment, but you don't know jack-shit about how he got in there or what happened to the other guy before him. Now an expert's telling us that Victor Surette's body was removed and replaced, Mr. Gwinn… says she can prove it by the way the seal on the crypt was cut not once but twice in the last twenty-four hours. Now do you want to come clean?”
“ Do you really think you know more than the doctors do?” pressed Big.
“ We got your attendants next door, and they're going to give you up, Mr. Gwinn. So, maybe you'd best tell the truth,” added Alex. “Don't know nothing… saw nothing… can't help you with nothing…”
“ We're going to walk out of here, Mr. Gwinn… going to have a break, maybe a sandwich, some coffee, make a few phone calls. You want anything, Mr. Gwinn?”
“ I want to call my wife.”
“ Sure… we'll get a phone in here when we come back.”
“ Thank you.”
“ And maybe some Nautilus, a whirlpool, a juice bar,” added Alex.
Outside the interrogation room, Ben once more objected to what they were doing, reminding Alex that they still had to follow proper procedure, that Gwinn had asked for his phone call and earlier he'd asked about a lawyer, but that Alex had convinced him he didn't need a lawyer. “It doesn't do any good if we nail this guy for whatever the fuck he's done with that body, if it gets thrown out on one of those damned technicalities, pal, and you know it. Besides, at the moment, we got no definite proof that a crime's been committed by Gwinn, or anyone else for that matter. Whole thing could just be a foul-up. I mean, hell, they sure all seem adamant, Alex.”
“ Hey, man, I'm just following orders. This Gwinn character was shaking in his boots when we returned for him. He's hiding something. We both know that.”
“ Yeah, maybe he's renting out space for friends, but I don't think he's intentionally hiding Victor Surette's body from us. Come on, what motive would he have?”
“ You remember that rumor that always circulated about Surette, I mean before he was killed?”
“ Rumor…what rumor?”
“ That he came from a wealthy family, possibly an old-money New Orleans family?”
“ Okay, maybe I heard something about that, so?”
“ Money can buy anything or anybody, Ben. We've both seen it a thousand times in this life. And suppose money bought silence on Surette's killing.”
“ You mean from the beginning?”
“ From day one.”
DeYampert thought long and hard about this, going to the coffee urn, pouring himself a cup and then returning to Alex. “Whataya saying, Alex?”
“ I'm saying I think my instincts about Frank Wardlaw were right on from day one. No wonder he didn't put Surette's death down as a Queen of Hearts killing. He was gotten to.”
“ By whom, Alex?”
“ The family… the freaking family. They didn't necessarily want Victor's body back, but they damned sure wanted to keep the family name unblemished, so-”
“ Whoa, wait up, hoss… unblemished? This day and age, who gives a shit if you're nephew's a homo or if your niece's a lesbo? Get real, Alex.”
“ Surette was a 'showgirl,' remember? He was a headliner in the Quarter. He was no quiet, closet homosexual who picked his lovers out of magazines that came in a brown paper wrapper.”
“ So?”
“ So, they take the body a year after the fact because they hear of the amazing talents of a psychic detective named Desinor who could well blow the lid off their dirty little family secret.”
“ And future victims of the Queen of Hearts killer be damned in the bargain?”
“ Don't know about you, but the rich, the filthy rich I've had occasion to deal with, they don't care about our problems, Big.”
“ Christ, Alex, that's one hell of a leap from where we're at.”
“ Maybe… maybe not. Keep pressing Gwinn in there, and I'll see what I can shake loose from his employees.”
“ If we accept what Coran and Desinor are telling us about the body being snatched, Sincy… well then, somebody's been a busy boy.”
“ Someone with a lot of clout and influence had two bodies moved recently on the q.t. One from a recent fatal accident, likely a John Doe whose heart was used to save someone else.
The other a year-old corpse. Now tell me, Big, who do you know who has that kind of clout?”
“ You really think Frank Wardlaw is that bitter?”
“ Frank may be just the tip of the iceberg. Hell, whoever's behind this, Ben, our Mr. Gwinn in there is scared silly of. Don't need a psychic to tell me that much.”
“ But when and why and who, goddamnit, and what would it take to make such a move? That section of the cemetery is city property, filled mostly with John and Jane Does. At least with Surette, he had a name and records, so what gives? His own family consigns him to a John Doe's grave while some fresh new John Doe takes his place?”
“ Only after Frank Wardlaw makes the final cut, taking the heart. Did he really think he could get that past Dr. Coran? Wonder where Frank is now?”
“ If what you're saying is true, he might well be out of the country.”
“ I'll ask Malloy to run him down, see if Frank'd be willing to come in for questioning.”
“ Sure, do that, Alex. I'd better get back to our friend inside.”
“ See you later then, Ben.”
“ Guess that Kim Desinor really is psychic, huh, Sincy?”
“ Yeah, better watch out for her, pal. Can't hide much from that one.”
Ben's nervous laughter went with him back into the interrogation room, and Alex made a detour for the squad room. As he went, he thought of how great a partnership he and Big had. They seemed to complement one another perfectly, and Ben kept him on target, humble and laughing. They'd been through a lot together, but this body- snatching thing was something new, and it obviously gave Ben the jitters. They both sensed behind the snatching one big mother of a hand.
Alex looked around the squad room and found Grant Malloy, and asked him if he and his partner would do him a favor.
“ Sure, Alex. What's up?”
“ Seems Frank Wardlaw has disappeared. Can't locate him in or around his lab, the courthouse. Could you
