“ It was Wardlaw who had done the crime-scene lab workup at the Surette murder investigation. He also did the apartment where Ben died since Jessica was in no condition for it. He was already unnerved and shaken by deYampert's death, and I blamed him for it. Told him he'd gotten Ben deYampert killed before Ben ever set foot in that apartment in the Quarter.
“ To hell with you,' “ he told me. Then he attempted to throw me out of his office, which resulted in him getting his lip cut. I then grabbed the good doctor and pushed him against his door, the glass partition shattering against the man's back. Raised my fist then and threatened him. 'Talk, you SOB, or your face is going to look like yesterday's pizza,' I assured him.”
“ Let me guess,” said Alex. “He only did what he was told, and even then the bastards tried to send him packing.”
“ I damn sure did a double take when he finally came clean.” Landry recalled how at first he'd been unable to decipher the words which accused Stephens and Meade. “How did they ever expect to get away with it?” Kim asked. “And then to bring in Jessica Coran and me. It seems crazy.”
“ They truly believed at the time of Surette's death that his murder was a one-time occurrence. Even after the other Hearts killings, even when they brought you on board, Dr. Desinor, they still believed there was no connection. Wardlaw was to cover up the Surette killing as much as possible, to shield it as much as possible from the public. Frank never knew why; he never wanted to know why. That's how it started, and that was supposed to be how it ended. Then Sincebaugh wouldn't let it go, coming back again and again to Surette even though Frank gave Alex nothing whatever to link that first killing with those that followed.”
“ Must be some psychic talent at work in you, Alex,” Kim commented.
Landry continued. “Everyone by then was of a mind that since there were so many other killings, we didn't all need to keep pecking over Surette's carcass to locate the killer, and when I suggested the psychic exhumation and autopsy, they almost lost everything in their pants right then and there. I recall how nervous they all got, including Frank.”
“ What the hell was Frank Wardlaw thinking from the beginning? Just following orders?” asked Jessica, disgusted with Wardlaw.
“ Meade had something on him, holding it over his head.”
“ Black mail?”
“ You never heard of a G-man who'd stoop to blackmail?”
“ Blackmail for what?” Jessica asked.
“ Frank had a wife and kids at the time of Surette's death; they've since left him, of course.”
“ I hadn't heard.”
“ Meade had him on a couple of things… gambling, skirtchasing… I never knew Meade could be so vicious, but for reasons of their own, he and Stephens wanted the Surette kid's death kept as John Doe as possible, you understand?”
“ Hell, was Meade sleeping with the guy?” Alex sneered.
Landry smirked, and then laughed full-blown, which eased the electrified air inside the car. “Both the P.C. and Meade have powerful connections. That's all Frank needed to know. He wasn't going to trust his fate to a grand jury investigation into his alleged wrongdoings. Now, he'll be facing one anyway.”
Alex nodded grimly. “So you've deduced from the amount of pressure put on Frank that whoever Stephens and Meade were out to protect, these people have position and wealth and power-like Susie Socks tried to tell Ben and me, Ben already knowing. People with old-money connections in the highest circles, the mayor's office, the governor's office.”
“ And we get squeezed by the mayor's office and the state to close out the Queen of Hearts killings so that Surette-with the same first name as Raveneaux's son-can be quietly forgotten as having had no relation to the crimes,” Carl concluded. Kim sat shaking her head in disbelief, fearful of the truth. “All nice and tidy for the people who took Surette's body, people who obviously don't give a damn about the whereabouts of either Surette's heart or his killer, or whom the butcher might choose next.”
“ Hey, wealth and position can do that to a person, you know that, Kim,” replied Alex with a warm look over his shoulder for her.
“ I guess we take this case to a higher level of inquiry then; we raise it out of the gutter and the gay ghetto of the French Quarter to here-a place the size of the governor's mansion?” Jessica said.
“ The home of retired general and senator George Maurice Raveneaux, a friend of the governor's,” Landry declared.
“ Now you tell me, Kim,” Alex said. “Are the missing hearts really at Raveneaux?”
“ I can't honestly say…”
Landry pushed on, saying, “I checked the senator out thoroughly. His wife's maiden name is Surette.”
“ Damn, and we put out a request for information if you recall,” Alex noted, “a televised plea for anyone who might know Surette to come forward, claim the body. All we got were a handful of his friends from the Quarter, all of whom have either disappeared or have themselves been killed by the Queen of Hearts killer. Some coincidences you can shirk off, but some cling to you like burrs on Velcro.” Alex's anger could not be checked.
Now they were pulling into the blacktopped drive at Raveneaux, and none of them knew whom they could trust any longer. The thought seemed to coalesce into a palpitating question that hung in the cab where they sat. Backup squad cars came careening along and pulling in behind them.
“ I guess all that we can trust is one another,” Alex said, voicing his thoughts. “Can we trust you, Dr. Coran?”
“ What?”
“ Well, you were called in by Stephens, right? And you do work under Lew Meade's direction.”
“ That's not entirely fair,” Kim declared. “I mean, just because she's FBI doesn't mean she agrees with or goes along with everything Lew Meade has to say, Alex.”
“ I'm glad to hear that, because a showdown with Meade and Stephens is inevitable. You up for it, Dr. Coran?”
Jessica produced a document. “If I were in Meade's pocket, would I have served the sheriff of Ascension Parish with a federal warrant to back you guys up? I have a few connections of my own.”
33
Steady of heart, and steady of hand.
The police party had arrived here at the plantation home of one of Louisiana's most honored and decorated citizens, having exhausted all other avenues, having moved the venue of their search from the squalor of the French Quarter's back-alley flophouses to this place of opulence and wealth; it seemed a contradiction, and nothing here spoke of murder or mayhem. The night air was fresh with the scent of blooming jasmine and old hickory trees that fluttered high above them in the wind, rows of them on either side of the long, expansive driveway ahead, just the other side of the huge, black gates.
Landry had halted the car at the gatekeeper's little watch booth, the gatekeeper long since replaced by electronic surveillance cameras and intercoms. Landry announced them, explaining their business and telling some butler or other servant at the other end to leave the gate open long enough for three trailing police units to follow him through.
“ We'll see you up at the house,” Landry finally said to the disembodied voice at the other end. “Now buzz us through.”
“ But this is so… highly irregular, sir. I must confer with the general, sir.”
“ The hell you do, hoss! All you have to do is press a goddamned button or be charged with obstruction of justice, you got that? Now which is it to be? You can confer with your boss afterwards.”
Landry held his badge up to the camera again.
