Gray didn’t much like the atmosphere around Nat’s office. When Gray had arrived, the chief stood in the doorway. As he left, his parting shot to Nat had been, “That’s not possible. You know it, I know it, and I don’t want to hear another word about it. I’m getting crawled all over and if you don’t want to be broken down to patrolman, you get me the answers I need.”
Chief Beauchamp had slammed the door with enough force to cause one of the mortally wounded window shades to fall down inside, then he bumped into Gray, apparently without either recognizing him or noticing he even existed.
The man’s oversize face glowed an intriguing shade of sweaty purple all the way to his retreating hairline.
On the other side of Nat’s door, the mood was just as grim. The grunt the detective aimed at Gray might have meant anything but the most likely interpretation was: “Fuck off and die.”
Gray cleared his throat and Nat paused his pacing to aim a glare at him.
“You asked me to come, Nat.”
Another glare.
Gray shrugged, used a foot to hook a chair against one wall and sat down. He crossed his arms.
“How come it’s always the fools who make it to the top?” Nat said, but Gray didn’t kid himself he was supposed to have an answer.
Nat pointed at Gray, then in the general direction Beauchamp had taken. “You and I know this case isn’t straightforward.”
Gray laughed.
“Don’t,” Nat said and his expression was tortured enough to wipe the smile off Gray’s face. “We also know we’ve found out a good deal. It just doesn’t want to fit together, is all.”
Gray cleared his throat. “Right.”
“That horse’s ass is believing his own opinion of himself.” He jabbed the air again, clearly referring to Beauchamp. “He thinks he’s God. He thinks he can make something so, just because he says it is.”
“Whoa,” Gray said. “Slow down, Nat. We have found out a lot—much more than I think we had even a day ago. Don’t tell me you tried to tell Beauchamp what happened at River Road.”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t talk about Marley and…you know?”
Nat sighed. “I probably should have. I’d be farther ahead—maybe.”
“Now I know things are bad,” Gray said. “I’ve got a couple of things to pass on, but you start.”
Nat mumbled and went to fall into the chair behind his desk.
“I missed that,” Gray said.
“Beauchamp can’t think outside the box.”
Gray got a sinking feeling. “What exactly did you tell him?”
“I was going to talk to you first, but he showed up here yellin’ about the public. All he thinks about is the public.”
“They do pay the salaries around here and they elect some, remember?”
Nat looked at Gray. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “That fool is going to have people crawling all over my investigation and I don’t think that’s going to help, do you?”
A clear, cool sheath settled over Gray. He understood where Nat was going and what that meant. And he felt the rush and crush of time sucked away. They had to run ahead of the chief and the rest of the posse he would bring in to safeguard his own position. A lot happened in this town and it could be pretty bizarre, but there were limits even here. Four women had gone—one of this second group found immediately, the other three just…gone. Pearl Brite was the latest and he knew the details of how not only the woman but her bike and everything to do with her had gone, too, had been leaked to the press.
And memories of the last and wider swath of disappearances that cut across the city had freshened and raised questions about connections.
In a city where voodoo was a tourist attraction, the natives were looking over their shoulders.
“They don’t know we’ve got the helmet?” Gray said.
Nat’s intelligent eyes bored into Gray’s. “No.”
“Good. Better to let them run around talking about alien abductions. That’s the last snippet I saw on the news.”
“Might as well be aliens,” Nat said. “I gotta settle down. Look, I think we could have something. Pipes Dupuis. I think she’s hiding something.”
Gray felt completely calm. It was as if he had expected Nat to talk about Pipes right out of the box. “Keep going.”
“She’s got a little girl. Five, I think—pretty little thing, anyway. Pipes said she took the kid to her mother because she was nervous having her here with all the business going on around singers.”
“I remember.” He had to be quiet and let Nat finish before spilling the encounter he’d just had with Pipes.
“If Pipes left New Orleans in the relevant period, we can’t find any record of it. We were thinking she must have gone by car, but Bucky Fist says she doesn’t have one. She and the girl lived in a room and they’ve got about nothing. Pipes doesn’t date and she usually takes Erin everywhere with her. She didn’t fly out of here or take a bus or train that we can find out. But Gray, more than that, we can’t find any family for Pipes Dupuis.”
Gray thought about that. “Including a grandmother for Erin?”
“You’ve got it. Pipes came to New Orleans from New York. She was pregnant with the girl. She had the baby here—apparently in the room where they live. The landlady is the only one worrying about either of them. She helped Pipes with the baby. No insurance, no nothing, but the landlady’s got a friend who came in, a midwife. They managed.”
“God,” Gray said with feeling. “How could that happen?”
“It probably happens every day—somewhere. We don’t have time to start some sort of movement right now. Gray, there is a kid. Her name is Erin. We don’t know where she is but we don’t think she went to some family member of Pipes’s.”
“Have you tried to talk to Pipes?”
“What do you think? She’s sticking to her story and says she doesn’t have to tell us exactly where Erin is and she won’t. She doesn’t know who could be watching to see what moves she makes and she thinks her daughter might be in danger. Pipes is still staying with Sidney Fournier.”
“I don’t get that. Why would Erin be in danger? This joker’s going after adult, female jazz singers, not little kids.”
“She told me she’s been threatened—Pipes, that is.”
Gray stood up. “When, when did she tell you?”
“A couple of hours ago. We waited for when she was leaving Scully’s. This time she said there was nothing to worry about with Erin. She’s safe and will stay safe if we leave her alone—both of them alone.”
“Nat, what she’s really saying is she’s been threatened. That means she’s had contact with our guy. Didn’t she give any idea who he is?”
“She doesn’t know. It was dark, she says, and late.”
Gray thought about it. “But someone threatened to kill Erin if Pipes said anything?”
“That’s not the way I read it. Pipes was personally threatened and she decided that meant Erin needs to be protected.”
“Okay,” Gray said slowly. “What was Pipes threatened with and why?”
Nat threw up his hands. He got up and went to pour two cups of coffee. One of these he gave to Gray. “She won’t say. All I can get out of her is that
“That’s it?”
Nat nodded.
“Listen to this,” Gray said. “I think we’ve got our link, but we’ll have to move carefully. I think that little girl is the key we’ve been looking for and I think Pipes knows a lot more than she told you.”
He explained to Nat, word-for-word, exactly what happened after Marley got out of the Volvo and went into J.
