even more suspicion on him. Eventually, the Rat Squad would get a search warrant and force him to give up a sample. When the DNA came back a match, what would he say?
I thought she might be the next victim, so I was staking out her house the same night someone broke in and murdered her. Then I found her in the bathroom and performed CPR.
What if when the serial killer was caught he decided not to talk? What would happen then? Eventually, the case would go to trial. In preparing for that trial, the DA’s office would pressure Murphy and the task force for every shred of evidence. The crime lab would certainly compare the suspect’s DNA to the DNA found in the cigarettes. The Wingate murder would be exposed as the work of a different killer, and the case would remain unsolved and open.
Because of the telltale “LOG” signature, someone might suspect that Marcy Edwards’s killer may have had inside information from the investigation. Maybe the killer was a cop.
New Orleans had a history of killers with badges. Antoinette Frank, Len Davis, Weldon Williams-all convicted of murder. Two of them handed death sentences. So how much of a stretch would it be to imagine the department ordering every cop who had worked the Wingate crime scene to provide a DNA sample? Just like in Jennings.
The killer, no matter how many times he was convicted and how many death sentences he got, would sit on death row at Angola through more than a decade of appeals, all the while holding on to a secret that could land Murphy in prison.
But what if he were killed instead of caught? Shot down like John Dillinger as the police closed in to arrest him. Then there would be no trial, thus no pressure to tie up every loose end, to dot every i and cross every t. As part of its standard operating procedure, the police department would issue a final report on the investigation and stamp it “closed.”
The Homicide Division, specifically, the task force, and even more specifically, Murphy himself, would be in charge of writing that final report. The Edwards murder could be added to the other serial-killer crimes as little more than a footnote.
I have to kill him.
But how? Dillinger at least had the decency to run when Melvin Purvis and his team of G-men tried to arrest him outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, back in the days when it was accepted practice to shoot fleeing felons in the back. Now, that was out of bounds. By today’s rules, Purvis would have ended up in prison, and Dillinger’s family would have gotten rich from a lawsuit against the government.
Serial killers don’t go down in a blaze of gunfire.
Bank robbers do. Matix and Platt killed two FBI agents and wounded five more in Miami in 1986 before being shot down. In North Hollywood, Phillips and Matasareanu shot ten cops and wounded seven civilians in 1997 before going down for the count.
Religious fanatics do. Jim Jones and his cult followers murdered a U.S. congressman and three reporters in Guyana in 1978 before Jones and nine hundred of his disciples killed themselves by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. In Waco, David Koresh, a Jesus wannabe, and his band of freaks killed four ATF agents and wounded a dozen more during a two-and-a-half-hour shootout in 1993 before burning themselves to death.
But not serial killers. Serial killers are cowards. When they get cornered, they don’t fight like lions. They lie down like lambs.
The idiot who called himself the Lamb of God would likely lie down the same way. And right now, Murphy’s two junior detectives, Calumet and Dagalotto, the two least likely to succeed, were probably closing in on him.
Somehow Murphy had to slow them down. He had to find the serial killer first and kill him. Maybe the storm would help.
Twenty hours ago, Murphy had been sitting on his sofa with a pistol in his mouth trying to work up the nerve to kill himself. Now, he was standing in his kitchen plotting to kill someone else.
He glanced down at the killer’s letter again and focused on the last line.
You are a killer like me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Monday, August 6, 5:30 AM
When Murphy pulled into the back parking lot of the police academy, Gaudet’s Caprice was already there. Gaudet stepped out of his car wearing his tactical uniform: dark blue utility pants and a matching blue T-shirt with POLICE in bright yellow letters stenciled on the back and the star and crescent NOPD badge on the left breast.
Murphy slipped his car into an open spot next to his partner and pressed the button to roll down his passenger window. Halfway down, the window jammed.
Gaudet stooped to talk through the open half. “What are you doing here so early?”
Murphy shut off the ignition. “I was going to ask you the same question.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Me either,” Murphy said, although he was sure he and his partner hadn’t spent the night worrying about the same thing.
“Which car do you want to work out of?” Gaudet asked.
“It’s got to be yours. My AC is shot.”
Gaudet nodded and stood up.
Murphy climbed out of his car. He was dressed in khaki pants, a button-down shirt with an open collar, and a sport coat. His storm gear, including his tactical uniform, was in a bag in the trunk. Donovan had said Homicide was going to be doing detective work, and Murphy wanted to look at least somewhat like a detective, not a SWAT ninja.
“I’ve got to see a friend of mine,” Gaudet said. “I’ll be back in about forty-five minutes.”
Murphy walked to the back of his car and opened the trunk. He grabbed the strap handles of his tactical bag and pulled it out. “Let me throw my gear in your car.”
Gaudet stared into Murphy’s trunk. “Are you gay?”
“What?”
“Man, only gay men keep their shit this neat.”
Inside Murphy’s trunk, everything was stored in four plastic crates. The crates themselves were lined up from side to side with military precision. The one thing that seemed out of place was a paper bag wedged over the right wheel well. The taped, chopped-down butt of a sawed-off shotgun stuck out from the top of the bag.
“Is that the gun we took off that little meth freak on Octavia Street?” Gaudet said.
Murphy nodded.
“Why didn’t you put it into evidence?”
“When I got transferred to CE amp;P,” Murphy said, “Donovan took my car away and I forgot about it.”
“It’s too late now. You may as well chuck it in the lake, since we didn’t charge him.”
“Just open your trunk and let me put my gear in,” Murphy said.
Gaudet leaned into his own car to press the trunk release. “Did you bring any food?”
“I didn’t have any.”
“No snacks at all?”
Murphy shook his head as he stepped toward Gaudet’s trunk. “Nothing.”
“Me either.” Gaudet walked to the back of his car. “What are we gonna eat?”
“I guess if the storm hits, we’ll have to scavenge,” Murphy said. “Just like last time.”
“Oh, it’s going to hit,” Gaudet said. He raised the trunk lid. The hinges didn’t have enough spring left in them to lift it on their own. “Did you watch the weather this morning? It looks like Katrina all over again. On my way back, I’ll stop and pick up some emergency-rations-type shit-chips, peanuts, Vienna sausages.”
“Want me to ride with you?”
Gaudet shook his head. “I’m running by my little honey’s house. Gonna make sure she’s okay for the storm.”
“That should take you what, two minutes?”
“Fuck you,” Gaudet said. “I’m good for at least three.”
