guys locate him and bring him to us?”
“ Wardlaw?”
“ It's in connection with a sensitive matter.”
Malloy smiled appreciatively. “Ahhhh, and how're you and the sensitive Dr. Desinor getting along, Alex? Heard you got your hands on her last night.”
“ She's light as a feather, Grant, and we're doing pretty well, thanks. How 'bout finding Frank for us?”
“ Sure thing.”
When Alex returned to Interrogation, he found that Police Commissioner Stephens along with FBI Chief Lew Meade and Captain Carl Landry were on the inside with Gwinn and deYampert. When Ben saw Alex coming through the door, he pushed his partner back into the hallway, and the two of them were followed out by Landry, who informed Alex loudly, “Meade was notified about the situation by Dr. Coran and he's tearing to get at these boys. Says he'd like to scare shit out of 'em by placing them in FBI custody. Tampering with graves is a federal offense, he's telling them.”
“ What're you saying, Carl? That we just turn these yo-yos over to Meade after all the time we've already invested on this?”
Ben explained that the caretaker's assistants, like Gwinn, weren't giving anything up, at least not yet; it seemed that they were more concerned about what might happen to them if they talked than if they remained silent. “This'll give us a chance to pore over the caretaker's records. Somebody's got to do it. Besides, these guys are asking for lawyers now. Not any more we can get from them.”
Alex stared for a moment at Ben, wondering if his big partner had figured out all the angles, and maybe he had. He thought of the boxes of cemetery ledgers, bills, balance sheets and registers they'd only skimmed so far, not having had time to thoroughly digest them as yet. They'd confiscated all the paper along with the men, but so far nothing out of the ordinary had jumped out at them. Still, Alex reasoned aloud, “Who puts this kind of 'transaction' into billable hours, Ben?”
“ You kidding, partner? That guy Gwinn and his yak-yaks are certifiable idiots. Crime makes you stupid, remember?” Alex had earlier paused over the so-called record of internmerit on one Victor Surette, and he had noted the number on the crypt matching the time and date of internment as well as the location of the crypt on a cemetery map. It all fit. The grave they'd opened was, at least at one time, home to Victor Surette's remains.
“ Besides,” added Landry, “Coran's preliminary report shows no match on fingerprints or hair, and so she fully expects that DNA'll show the same when those results are in.”
“ Whataya saying, Cap, that just because you die your fingerprints don't change?” Alex's misplaced sarcasm made Landry heave a sigh. Alex continued in the same vein. “So, we get the records, the Feds get the caretakers? And what about Meade? Doesn't he want the goddamned records too? What's to say he won't yank them out of our hands too, Captain?”
“ Ever heard of judicial delay? There's been a court order delaying anyone from looking into those records, including us, but it's going to take us some time to turn those records over to Harry Livingston.”
“ Harry who?”
“ Attorney for the caretaker, Gwinn. He moved on this thing very quickly. Now, if you want time with those records, I suggest you two get to work. Leave the interrogation to Meade for now.”
“ Ben, you feel the same way?” asked Alex.
“ I think… I think maybe we ought not to waste more valuable time on those yo-yos than necessary. Let Meade have the headache. It'll keep him busy while we work on the real case at hand. You remember, the Queen of Hearts killer? The SOB is still out there.”
The unspoken element in Ben's speech beat a laser-like path through Alex's brain: Let's do so while there's still time before we're taken off the case completely.
He stared through the one-way window to see Lew Meade throwing his weight around inside, shouting at the cemetery caretaker while he pounded Dr. Coran's reports on the table-top. Alex switched on the intercom, and Meade's voice came through from inside. “Confound it, man! You're responsible for what goes on out there. You've got to know something. Now, you may's well save all of us a lot of time and start talking; it'll go easier on you if you cooperate.”
“ You got something to charge me with, then do it,” said the grimy man named Gwinn. “Otherwise, I know my rights, and you can't hold me without you got a charge.”
“ Now, Mr. Gwinn, you're interfering with an ongoing investigation, and the more you fuck with me, the better your chances you won't ever screw with anyone else ever again! You got that?”
“ Told you, I want my lawyer.”
Alex turned to Ben and Landry and asked, “How does this yo-yo afford a guy like Livingston?”
“ He must have a bankroll someplace,” Ben dryly replied “The detectives did read you your rights, didn't they?” asked Meade now. “Rights? What rights? I ain't so sure I remember any rights being read to me, no.”
“ Well, let me read them to you, now that you're going to be in FBI custody.” Meade began to read the man his Miranda rights.
Looking on at the one-way window, Alex said, “The little weasel is telling the chief of the FBI that we failed to Mi-randize him. You did Mirandize the creep, didn't you, Ben.”
“ Well… perfectly honest with you, Alex… no.”
“ What? You dumb ox! How could you miss a simple thing like that?”
“ We just brought him in for questioning. We didn't at that time arrest him, if you recall. We didn't have anything but the word of that psychic.”
“ Whom I thought you believed in at one time.”
“ You convinced me otherwise, pal, remember?”
“ Shit… shit…”
Landry grimaced at the two detectives and grunted, “You fools. Do you know what a lawyer can do with that?”
Landry stepped back into the interrogation room to stand and stare at the guilty man. From inside the interrogation room, Meade's raspy voice came over the intercom where the detectives stood watching. “You want to save yourself a lot of time and grief, Gwinn, give it up now. How did the body placed in that crypt a year ago get up and leave from that crypt?”
“ And no records kept,” Landry said, pressing the sallow-faced, skinny little caretaker.
“ Maybe the family showed up; maybe they just wanted to take him to another place.”
“ What family? According to record, no one claimed the body, ever,” said Landry.
“ Right move, Captain,” said Alex to himself. “Let the ferret sweat, knowing we're climbing all over those records.”
“ Let's get to it then, Sincy,” suggested Ben.
“ Right… right you are, Big. Let's get to it.”
“ Kinda too bad about the autopsy being broken up.”
“ Why's zat?”
“ Might've cleared up a lot; might've led us in the right direction.”
“ What's zat? I thought I just heard you say, Ben, that you don't believe in that woman's witchcraft anymore.”
“ Well, I don't, not completely… but I wish it was so, and I wish we'd have found a new direction on this thing.”
“ You and all of New Orleans, I guess. I'm still having trouble understanding why Landry asked Dr. Desinor in on the case to begin with.” Ben stopped him cold and angrily said, “Look, Alex, they were going to go ahead with Dr. Desinor's reading of one of the bodies anyway. Captain Landry, he pushed for going back as far as Surette, which, if you recall, was your idea, remember? So don't get down on Carl.”
With that Ben left Alex standing in the corridor. Ben had seemed not himself, as if something was eating at him, and maybe this was it. Maybe Ben was tired of bailing Alex out of one scrape with a higher official after another. He'd helped in the IAD matter, providing character props for Alex; he'd always backed Alex against Lew Meade's underhandedness, like the time Meade tried to exact information about Alex's so-called involvement with an underworld informant to the mob, inferring that Alex was on the take. Ben had always been a stand-up guy against such ridiculous allegations, and had in fact warned Alex about Meade early on.
