“Sirens? Everything?”
“No, but step on it. We’ll meet you there.”
“We’re gone.”
Mrs. Pitre lives in a warren of streets just north of the runways of New Orleans’ Moisant International Airport. As Baxter, Lenz, John, and I roll past cookie-cutter houses, an inbound jet floats down like a massive bird and passes over our Crown Victoria with a ground-shaking roar.
“Lovely neighborhood,” remarks Baxter, who’s driving. “You could shoot somebody in the head while one of those planes flew over and nobody would hear it.”
“Something to think about,” says Lenz, who’s up front beside him.
Baxter looks over the seat at me. “Sorry, Jordan.”
“Don’t apologize for the truth.”
John slides his hand across the backseat and covers mine.
“There it is,” says Lenz, pointing. “Two-twenty-one.”
It’s a typical suburban tract house. When we pull into the driveway, I see the roof of a two-story garage behind it. The clapboard garage looks like it was added as an afterthought, and not by a master carpenter. The walls are out of plumb, and the roof overhung with branches from an elm that should have been cut before construction.
As Baxter kills the engine, a woman with a cigarette in her mouth walks out of the carport door, waving a set of keys in her hand. Though in her late fifties, she’s wearing a pink spandex tube top and blue shorts that reveal legs shot with varicose veins.
John reaches for the door handle. “Here we go.”
“Take your cane,” advises Baxter. “There’ll be stairs.”
“Screw the cane,” John replies, confirming my theory that male vanity is every bit as powerful as the female variety.
“You got here quick, I’ll say that,” Mrs. Pitre says in a smoke-parched voice pitched like a man’s. “I’ve been worried he’d come back before you got here.” She sticks out her right hand. “Carol Pitre, widowed four years since my husband got killed offshore.”
“Special Agent John Kaiser.” He shakes her hand. “Mr. Johnson won’t be coming back, ma’am.”
“How do you know? He gone on another business trip?”
“No.”
She cocks her head at John. “What’s he done, anyhow? Why you looking for him? The police said he was a federal fugitive, but that doesn’t tell me anything.”
“That’s all we can say at this point, ma’am.”
Mrs. Pitre bites her lip and takes John’s measure again. She decides not to push it. “What happened to your leg there?”
“skiing accident.”
“Waterskiing?”
The forensic unit’s Suburban pulls into the driveway with a roar and a squeal of brakes.
“Who’s that?” asks Mrs. Pitre, craning her neck. “They part of your bunch?”
“They’re evidence technicians, Mrs. Pitre.”
“Like the O.J. trial?”
“That’s right.”
“I hope they’re a damn sight better than the ones in Los Angeles.”
“They are. Mrs. Pitre, we-”
“I guess you want to go up now.”
As the doors of the Suburban slam, a second one pulls in behind it. The vehicles aren’t marked with FBI decals, but if you look closely at the grilles, you can see blue lights and a siren.
“Mrs. Pitre, did Mr. Johnson show you any identification when he moved in?”
“Hell, yes. I asked for it, didn’t I? Since Ray got killed in the mud tank, I can’t be too careful. World’s full of crazy people. Black or white don’t matter these days.”
John seems nonplussed by Mrs. Pitre’s hyperactive style. “What did he show you?”
“Voter registration card, for one thing.”
“A Louisiana card?”
“Nope. New York City. He had a New York driving license, too.”
“He showed you that?”
“How else would I know he had it?”
“Of course. Did it have his picture on it?”
“What good is it without one? He wasn’t a bad-lookin‘ man, either. A little hard in the face, but you live long enough, life makes you hard. Isn’t that right?”
“We would like to go up now, Mrs. Pitre. Is it just one room over the garage?”
“Two rooms and a bathroom. Ray built it for Joey after we give him that set of drums. Couldn’t stand having him in the house with that racket. I don’t know if he was any good, but he could wake the dead with them.”
“I see. Do you mind if we go up alone? We like to see things completely undisturbed.”
Mrs. Pitre isn’t overjoyed by this, but after a moment, she hands over the keys. “I want a receipt for anything you take.”
“You’ll get that.” John turns to me and pulls me aside. “I’m going up with Daniel and Lenz for a quick look. I’d like to take you up, but it wouldn’t fly with the forensic unit.”
“I’m okay. Go on.”
John confers with the head of the forensic unit, who hands him a sheaf of plastic evidence bags. Then he, Lenz, and Baxter climb the stairs inside the garage. Mrs. Pitre sidles my way as I watch, figuring a woman might give her more information, so I flee to the FBI sedan and lock myself in the front seat.
The roar of an outbound jet rattles the car and my bones, and I wonder why Mrs. Pitre isn’t as crazy as a road lizard rather than slightly addled. As I settle in for a wait, John limps down the bottom four steps.
“Is it your leg?” I call, getting out and hurrying toward him.
“No.” There’s an evidence bag in his hand. He waves to the chief of the forensic unit, and a platoon of technicians hurry toward the garage with their cases and bags.
“What is it? What did you find?”
“The UNSUB knew we were coming. The place was wiped clean, like the cell phone. All we found was a stash of junk food: Pop-Tarts, potato chips, Hostess Twinkies, and beef jerky. He must have worn gloves when he bought them. But waiting for us on the kitchen counter was a perfect row of photographs.”
A strange chill runs along my shoulders. “The victims?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Eleven. Not the woman from Dorignac’s grocery, and not Thalia.”
“So he didn’t take the Dorignac’s victim.” I realize John is still holding the evidence bag. “What’s in that?” I ask, my chest tightening.
John sighs and touches my arm. “Jane’s photo. If you’re up to it, I’d like you to see if you can tell me where it was taken.”
“Let’s see it.”
He hesitates, then opens the Ziploc and slides out the photo. It’s a black-and-white print, shot with a telephoto lens. The depth of field is so poor that I can’t distinguish the background, but Jane is clear. Wearing a sleeveless sweater and jeans, she’s looking toward the camera but not into it. She looks more intense than usual, her eyes narrowed in the way people tell me mine do when I’m concentrating. As I study the image, searching for some telling detail, anything that might yield a clue to her fate, my heart clenches like a fist and my skin goes cold.
“Are you okay?” he asks, taking hold of my shoulders. “I shouldn’t have showed that to you.”
When he touches me, I realize he’s shaking. His wounded leg is barely supporting his weight.
