security camera was black-and-white, Murphy couldn’t tell the color, but SLIX listed the Camaro’s color as red.
The license plate came back registered to Jonathan Deshotels of New Orleans. Deshotels was a twenty- year-old scumbag with arrests for burglary, felony theft, and rape. In a rare moment of functionality, MONA actually showed the disposition of Deshotels’s rape charge. A year and a half ago, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of sexual battery. He got a suspended sentence and was placed on five years’ probation. A cush deal for a rapist.
As a convicted sex offender, young Deshotels had to keep local law enforcement apprised of his current address or risk having his probation revoked and being sent to prison, where he would likely be raped himself. He also had to stay away from schools, playgrounds, and other places where kids congregated.
Nothing in Deshotels’s record indicated he was a pedophile, but Louisiana’s sex-offender law, like those of most states, didn’t differentiate. All sex offenders got treated like child molesters.
At 9:00 PM, Murphy was parked down the street from Deshotels’s last known address, a small duplex uptown on Octavia Street. He had been watching the place for more than an hour. So far he had not seen the red Camaro.
The architectural design of the house Murphy was watching was known as a shotgun double. Local lore says the houses, which have a simple, rectangular floor plan, got their name because a person could fire a shotgun in the front door and out the back door without hitting anything in between.
Murphy wanted to know why Deshotels had been cruising the backstreets around the courthouse late Tuesday night.
Like most scumbags, Deshotels used several addresses. He had listed this one on Octavia Street as his home address when he was last arrested six months ago. The arrest had been for a probation violation, but the bust had not resulted in Deshotels’s probation being revoked. More than likely he had skipped a meeting, and his probation officer had had an arrest warrant issued just to throw a scare into him.
Murphy could only hope Deshotels hadn’t moved since then.
So he sat in his car, watching the right side of a shotgun double from half a block away, waiting for a red Camaro to drive up, a red Camaro that might never arrive. Surveillance was so much fun.
The handheld police radio lying on the seat beside Murphy squawked. “Twenty-five fifty-five to twenty-five fifty-four.”
It was Gaudet. Murphy picked up his portable radio and keyed the microphone. “Twenty-five fifty-four, go ahead.”
“What’s your twenty?”
Murphy gave him the address, then added, “It’s one way, lake bound. Come up from the river side.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Kill your lights before you turn onto the block.”
“Ten four.”
In his rearview mirror, Murphy saw Gaudet turn off his headlights a block away and slid his piece-of-shit Caprice in behind Murphy’s even-bigger-piece-of-shit Taurus.
Murphy watched as Gaudet slipped out of his car and crept up the right side of the Taurus. For a big man, Gaudet could move like a cat, sneaky when he wanted to be. He eased into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. “What’s up?”
“Did you win?”
“What?”
“The case,” Murphy said. “Did the good guys win?”
Gaudet shook his head. “Judge granted a continuance.”
Murphy nodded. It happened all the time. You spent two days in court waiting to testify, then the case was continued.
“What you got?” Gaudet asked.
Murphy pointed through the windshield. “The one with the porch light on. That’s the last known address of a guy who was cruising around the courthouse just before the victim was killed.”
“Who is he?”
“The car came back to a kid named Jonathan Deshotels. He took a fall on a rape charge two years ago.”
“Why isn’t he in prison?”
“He got probation.”
“For rape?”
“He pled to sexual battery.”
Gaudet’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Is his old man Charles Deshotels?”
Murphy shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”
“If so, his old man is a big-shot attorney.”
“I never heard of him.”
“He doesn’t do criminal work. He specializes in contracts. Right now he’s negotiating with the city for a bunch of Katrina contractors. Heavy-duty shit, like hundreds of millions in FEMA money.”
“So he knows people,” Murphy said. “So what?”
“He knows important people, and you can bet he called in all kinds of favors to get his shithead son off of a rape charge.”
Murphy shrugged again. “Fuck him and his dad.”
“What did his record look like before the rape?”
“Arrests for burglary and felony theft, but no convictions.”
“What’s the game plan?” Gaudet said.
“For now just a knock and talk. I want to find out why he was in that area at that time.”
“What if he cops an attitude?”
“We’ll take him to the office and sweat him.”
“He’ll call his old man quicker than shit, I bet.”
“Not if we don’t let him,” Murphy said.
They watched the house. An hour passed. Neither said a word. They were used to it.
Gaudet broke the silence. “You talk to Kirsten yet?”
“Not yet.”
“You going to?”
“I’ll give her a call tomorrow,” Murphy said. “Maybe I’ll go by her house.”
“You know she still hates you.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it,” Gaudet said. “You had sex with her best friend.”
“It wasn’t quite as simple as that.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Janet and I went out a few times before Kirsten and I ever started dating. It was Janet who introduced us.”
Gaudet laughed. “But you screwed Janet after that.”
“I was drunk.”
Kirsten was supposed to have met Murphy at a party at Tipitina’s on Napoleon Street. Janet was bringing a date and was going to join them there. Not long after Murphy showed up, Kirsten called and said she couldn’t make it. She was a reporter for the Times-Picayune and was going to have to work late on a big story for the next morning’s paper.
Even before he made it to Tipitina’s and got Kirsten’s call, Murphy had stopped at the Star amp; Crescent for a couple of beers with the boys. Someone bought a round of car bombs, a pint of Guinness with a shot glass of half-and-half Jameson’s and Bailey’s dropped into it. Murphy was hammered by the time he made it to the party.
Janet’s date had stood her up too. She and Murphy hung out together. Later, Janet said she was too drunk to drive and asked Murphy for a ride home. At her uptown apartment, not two miles from the house Murphy shared with Kirsten, Janet invited him in for coffee. Ten minutes later they were tangled up on the sofa, sweaty and naked.
Afterward, he felt like shit. He just hoped Janet would keep her mouth shut. She didn’t. A week later she
