‘Wyndham.’ The man shook Phelps’ hand.
‘Ken. You know Franco Patrese?’
‘Not had the pleasure.’ He shook Patrese’s hand with a grip that was just a touch stronger than necessary. ‘Ken Thorndike. Deputy chief of police.’
Selma nodded at Patrese, and they all sat down.
‘We got coffee and beignets.’ Thorndike nodded toward the sideboard. ‘Just about the only inedible beignets in the city, but that’s budget cuts for you. Blame Nagin.’
Ray Nagin was the mayor, a black man who’d gotten twice as much of the white vote as he had the black. Only in New Orleans.
‘OK,’ Thorndike continued. ‘Won’t keep you long, ’cos there’s lots to do. First off, this is our case till otherwise proven. Clear?’
‘That depends what the deceased wanted to discuss with Agent Patrese,’ Phelps said. ‘It could be interstate, it could be international …’
‘Then you can go through the usual channels, when – if – that transpires.’ Thorndike made it sound as though the slower and more congested those channels were, the better he’d like it. ‘But till then, this is homicide, pure and simple. We don’t even know if her rendezvous with Agent Patrese and her death are related.’
‘Hell of a coincidence if they aren’t,’ Phelps said.
Thorndike glowered at Phelps, and Patrese realized what the two of them reminded him of: a corporate executive and a union boss, negotiating industrial action with ill-disguised antipathy. Phelps’ hair was swept back, and his cufflinks glittered even in the dull strip lighting; he was probably the only man in the entire city who wore long sleeves in the summer. In contrast, Thorndike’s hands were rough, and his nose sat slightly off-center; legacy of at least one break, possibly more.
‘Listen, Ken,’ Phelps said, and even to Patrese it sounded slightly – deliberately? – patronizing. ‘Varden’s her boss, her daddy’s a congressman. We have to tread carefully, we all know that.’
‘That don’t make them above the law. And I know Detective Fawcett is very keen on that.’
‘No one’s saying it makes them above the law. But this is different from dealing with a two-bit hooker out in Desire.’
‘Shouldn’t be,’ Selma said.
‘Maybe. But it is. And the Bureau can help you here.’
‘Yeah?’ Thorndike raised a skeptical eyebrow. ‘If it’s the kinda help you gave us with Marie Laveau, we’ll take a pass. Thanks anyway.’
‘Bring us in, and it shows those men – Varden, Rojciewicz – how seriously we’re taking it.’
‘We?’
‘We. Law enforcement, not any one agency. Strength in numbers. Shows them we’re doing everything we can to solve the case.’
There was an unspoken agenda here too, of course; unspoken because it was both delicate and blindingly obvious. Those closest to the deceased are always prime suspects. In Cindy’s case, that meant that either her boss or, God forbid, her father, might be involved; especially, perhaps, if they were part of whatever Cindy had wanted to tell Patrese about.
She’d chosen Patrese because he was an outsider. In contrast, you didn’t get much more inside than Varden or Rojciewicz. So if they were innocent, they’d be reassured that everything was being done to catch the killer. And if they weren’t, then they’d be worried: and worried people make mistakes, sooner or later.
Thorndike thought for a moment, and then turned. ‘Selma? This is your case. You want Bureau help, or not?’
She looked at Patrese a beat before answering.
‘Help, yes. Agent Patrese was a cop till not so long ago. He can’t have totally gone over to the dark side yet.’ She smiled, but Patrese knew she was serious. ‘Command, no. We work together, we share information, but my word goes. Yes or no?’
Growing up with two sisters had made Patrese a good judge of which battles were worth fighting and which weren’t. This was the latter, he knew. It wasn’t an opening gambit; it was a one-time offer. Better for him, and for the Bureau, to be inside the tent pissing out.
‘Yes,’ he said.
She stood up. ‘Good. Then let’s get to it. We’ve got an incident room already set up. There’s a spare desk in my office. You can use that.’
Phelps and Thorndike were also on their feet.
‘Can you give us a minute, Selma?’ Patrese said. ‘I’d like a word with Mr Phelps.’
‘Fine. I’ll be outside.’
‘What’s on your mind, Franco?’ Phelps said once Selma and Thorndike had left the room.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but …’
‘OK; now I know what you’re going to ask.’
‘You do?’
‘Yup. ’Cos in your position, I’d ask exactly the same thing. I go to Varden’s parties. I’m in contact with him. Heck, I might even be a friend, if people like him actually have friends. So: with all this, how can I be prepared to bring him down, if that’s what it takes? That’s what you were going to ask, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ Patrese held up his hands. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘Listen, Franco. Two things you should know. First, my job is more important to me than any personal ties. The law comes first. Has to. Second, this is New Orleans. It’s a corrupt place, everyone knows that. It’s a great place, don’t get me wrong, but here even plumb lines fall crooked. But there’s a flip side to that. Just because you accept someone’s hospitality doesn’t mean you’re blind to his faults. So if Varden’s guilty, let’s put him inside. Simple as that.’
If the foyer of police headquarters had been typically public sector utilitarian, that of Varden Industries wouldn’t have disgraced a five-star hotel. Patrese sat in a sofa that was almost ludicrously deep and comfortable, and wondered idly how much all the art on the walls had cost.
Selma flicked through a corporate brochure. Men hard of hat and determined of face laying pipelines, rig workers cheerily adjusting drill bits, painters touching up a classroom in Baghdad, white men bringing light, might and the American way to the natives’ darkness. Numbers picked out from the text in bold: employees worldwide, countries of operation, charitable donations.
Selma put her tongue against the back of her teeth, hissed, and batted the back of her hand against the brochure. ‘They should stock these things in Barnes & Noble. Fiction section.’
‘What did Thorndike mean?’
‘About what?’
‘About you being very keen on no one being above the law.’
‘I worked Internal Affairs before I moved to Homicide. Busted a lot of cops who were on the take. Thorndike tried to protect some of them, said they were good cops. I said no cop who was on the take was a good cop. Don’t matter what else they do or don’t do. A cop can’t be honest, he can’t be a cop. End of.’
‘And Thorndike resents you for this?’
‘Probably.’
‘You don’t sound like you care very much.’
‘I don’t. I don’t give a shit, and I don’t take any shit. I’m not in the shit business.’
A young woman approached, heels clacking as she walked across the marble floor. One of Cindy’s colleagues, Patrese thought; perhaps even her replacement already. Varden wouldn’t have got to where he was by wasting time on sentiment.
The young woman took them up