“I don’t have time.”
Ray had expected that. “Landry, I just gave you the biggest arrest of your career. You’re on all the cable news channels doing the perp walk with Tony. You owe me a few minutes.”
They met in the bar at the Sheraton, across the street from the Doubletree. Ray didn’t want Landry to know where he was staying. Ray had a Jameson on the rocks. Landry had a glass of water with a slice of lemon.
“Does it bother you,” Ray said, “that Jimmy LaGrange is still a cop?”
Landry took a sip of his lemon water. When he put his glass down, he said, “Why, does it bother you?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe it bothers me, too,” Landry said.
“You said he had immunity.”
Landry nodded.
“What kind of immunity?” Ray asked.
“Anything he admitted to got written up and everyone signed off on it. No one can touch him for anything on the list, and it’s a long list.”
“That’s some deal.”
“He went way back,” Landry said. “Even before he was in Vice. When the feds tell you that if you admit to it, you can’t ever be prosecuted for it, it’s in your best interest to dig deep.”
Ray took a sip of whiskey. “How about murder, was that part of the deal?”
Landry’s eyes widened. “No, that wasn’t covered.”
“He strangled a girl in the Rose Motel.”
For several seconds, Landry didn’t say anything. Just stared across the bar at the rows of liquor bottles. “That must have been his favorite hangout.”
Ray nodded. “I pulled him out of there a few times.”
“When did it happen?”
“Two years before I got arrested.”
Landry sipped his water. “How do you know about it?”
“Jimmy told me.”
“That was seven years ago. Without a body you don’t have a case.”
“I know where she is.”
“What?”
“Saint Louis Number Three.”
The detective frowned. “You think a judge is going to let us exhume her on your word?”
“She’s never been buried. At least not officially.”
“I’m listening.”
“She’s in the Underwood family tomb, but she’s not an Underwood.”
“I think you better explain that.”
Ray slid more whiskey down his throat. “She’s right behind the Third District station.”
“I know where Saint Louis Number Three is,” Landry said, his impatience showing.
“No, I mean the tomb. The Underwoods are right behind the station, just across the fence from the back parking lot.”
“LaGrange told you right where he hid the body.”
Ray drained the rest of his drink in one gulp. To make this work, Ray had to be willing to go all the way. “No,” he said. “I helped him put her there.”
The detective pushed his glass away and sat up straight. “Then I’m going to have to advise you of your rights.”
Ray leaned close to Landry, his voice sharp. “Who do you want, Carl? An ex-cop and ex-con because I didn’t report it, or do you want an active-duty cop who strangled a teenage girl?”
Carl Landry shook his head. “Accessory after the fact is a felony that could violate your parole.”
Straight-arrow, by-the-book motherfucker. “Without me, you got nothing.”
“I can dig her up,” Landry said. “LaGrange will crack in ten minutes. He’ll probably put the whole thing on you. He’s done it before.”
“The deal Jimmy made with the feds sticks in your craw, doesn’t it? You had to watch your father go to prison while a piece of shit like Jimmy LaGrange went free and got to stay on the job.”
Landry’s face turned red. He grabbed the front of Ray’s shirt and pulled the two of them together. With their faces only inches apart, he said, “My father is none of your fucking business.” Spittle flew from the detective’s lips and struck Ray in the face. “You’re a fucking scumbag, and I’m not working any deals with you.”
So Landry wasn’t always in control. He had a dark side after all. Ray pushed the detective’s hands away. “After he killed her, he called me in a panic and I helped him get rid of the girl’s body.”
“So you’re admitting to being an accessory.”
Ray nodded. “But accessory after the fact carries a seven-year statute of limitations.”
Landry’s face hardened. His lips pressed together so tightly his mouth looked like a red line.
“You just can’t help it, can you?” Ray asked.
“Help what?”
“You’re so fucking straight you’d break if you tried to turn a corner.”
“The law is not a suggestion, Shane. You don’t get to bend it to suit your needs.”
“Bullshit,” Ray said. “Police work is a dirty business. Sometimes you have to look the other way.”
“I don’t work like that.”
“What do you call the deal you made with LaGrange? If that’s not looking the other way, I don’t know what is.”
“That wasn’t my decision.”
“But you went along with it, didn’t you?”
Landry turned away.
Ray stared at him for several seconds. “It’s been eating you up, hasn’t it? Five years, tearing your guts out. Thinking about your dad-”
“My father deserved to go to prison.”
“And so does Jimmy LaGrange.”
Carl Landry waved for the bartender. He ordered two drinks, a Jameson for Ray and a vodka and tonic for himself. After the drinks came, he looked at Shane. “Tell me about the girl.”
“Aren’t you going to read me my rights first?”
“Fuck you.”
Ray kicked back a slug of whiskey. “I don’t know what happened before I got there. He called me about midnight, out of his fucking mind, said he had to have my help. When I got there, the girl was dead. Jimmy said it was an accident.”
“An accident?”
Ray shrugged. “Jimmy was into weird stuff.”
“What kind of weird stuff?”
“Eroto-asphyxiation, bondage, S and M.”
“Who was she?”
“A runaway. A junkie. A whore. But she was only about fifteen.”
“You said he strangled her.”
“The only marks on her, other than the tracks on her arms, were bruises and some scratches around her neck. Jimmy was nuts, screaming about prison, threatening to kill himself. He grabbed his gun off the dresser and put it in his mouth. I had to take it away from him.”
Ray took another sip of whiskey. Thinking how different things might have been if he’d never gone to the Rose Motel that night. Thinking about the cleaning lady finding LaGrange with his brains blown out, next to a dead hooker. “I shouldn’t have stopped him.”
“What happened next?”
“He wanted to put her in my car. I told him there was no fucking way a dead prostitute was going in my car.”
