quarterback,” he said quietly as they walked. “What did the kid do?”
“Thought one of the horses being ridden by a mounted patrol officer was making fun of him,” Larue said.
“And?”
“He punched the horse.”
“Horse okay?”
“Yeah, the kid will be, too. His parents are coming down.”
They went into Larue’s office. A man in uniform was sitting in front of Larue’s desk, his head in his hands. He glanced up when Quinn and Larue entered the room.
The cop was about forty and appeared to be in generally good health. Except that he looked haggard and drawn, as if he hadn’t slept for a week straight and had faced every demon in hell. Quinn thought he seemed familiar. He also looked as if he’d been in a fight; there were scuff marks on his clothing and a bruise under his eye that promised to become a massive shiner.
Larue sat on the corner of his desk. “Quinn, this is Officer Dan Petty. Dan’s been with the force for fifteen years. He’s received medals for his extraordinary valor in times of stress. He was here for the aftermath of Katrina and the summer of storms. Dan, Michael Quinn. You two might’ve met years ago. Quinn was with the force for a while.”
Dan Petty nodded at the introduction. He started to get up to meet Quinn, then fell back into the chair. As he watched Quinn, a certain expression came into his eyes—a spark of hope.
“Yeah, I remember you!” he said. “You’re that football hero who died and then became a cop!”
“I was a cop, and now I’m a private investigator,” Quinn responded.
“But you really died, huh?”
“I was resuscitated.”
“Yeah, but still...” To Petty, it was clearly a good thing. He might have been clinging to the hope that Quinn knew the secrets of the universe.
“Dan, do you want to tell Quinn what happened?” Larue suggested.
“There was something there...something in the evidence lockup. Something that wasn’t right,” Petty said. He swallowed. He’d probably tried to explain himself a few times now and hadn’t done well.
Petty grimaced. “It was coming at me... It was...well, you know how the fog sets over Lake Ponchartrain and it’s so damned misty you can’t see anything but shapes? The room was filled with the stuff...gray, with black shadows. It...it touched me. The gunk touched me and it was jerking me around and...I couldn’t stop it! I couldn’t stop it—I couldn’t control my own muscles, my own body—it was in me, do you understand? The damned gunk was in me. I started picking up confiscated knives and guns and then...”
“Then?” Quinn encouraged.
“I screamed. I was so damned scared and...then I felt that things were on me...trying to kill me.”
“His fellow officers, at that point.” Larue spoke in a low voice.
“They got me out eventually,” Petty said, looking at Larue. “I’m sorry. I hope those guys know...”
“They know,” Larue reassured him. He turned back to Quinn. “The other officers corroborate what Officer Petty just said. They swear there was some kind of fog in the evidence lockup.”
Quinn nodded. “So, did any of them stay behind?”
“There are men there now, three of them. The fog dissipated.”
“You saw it, too?” Quinn asked.
“Don’t know what it was, but I saw it, yes.”
“All right. I’ll talk to these guys, see what they have to say,” Quinn said. He patted Officer Petty on the knee. “Something bizarre happened in there. No need to feel like a crazy man. I’ll take a look and see if I can figure out what went on.”
“You’re not just, uh, patronizing me, are you?” Petty asked.
“I don’t patronize anyone,” Quinn told him. “Did you hear voices? Did you hear anyone speaking? Could you see anything in the fog?”
Petty shook his head. “No...just black within shadows, if that makes any sense. And—and I couldn’t stop myself. I’ve never had a stroke...I’m in great health. I don’t know...I just don’t know.”
Quinn glanced over at Larue. He wondered what his friend was thinking and quickly found out when Larue said, “I came in at the tail end when everything was pure chaos. But...”
“But?” Quinn prodded.
“But as I said, I saw it, too. Fog. Like the fog you get when the weather’s about to change and you know there might be a storm on the horizon. At first, although I couldn’t smell smoke, I thought there’d been a fire. It was a mess. Hell, maybe my mind’s going...except that if it was some hallucination, we were all affected.”
“Was anything missing?”
“The first assessment we made was on confiscated weapons,” Larue said. “All accounted for. The crew in there now is still checking.”
“I think I should see the evidence room,” Quinn said.
Larue nodded and then returned his attention to Officer Petty. “Dan, you know you’ll need to spend an evening in the...the hospital for assessment yourself, right?” Larue asked gently.
“A night in the loony bin,” Petty said. “I don’t care. Anywhere except the evidence lockup.”
Larue gestured at the doorway. There was a man in some kind of medical uniform waiting. Petty rose and shook Quinn’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you for listening. And you...you weren’t even here. You didn’t see. Thank you for believing.”
Quinn nodded gravely.
Petty left the room; one of Larue’s men was outside the office, too, ready to accompany the medical man and Officer Petty.
“What do you think?” Larue asked Quinn.
“I think you’re going to find something missing from your evidence room. We have to determine exactly what it is.”
“You mean someone was trying to break in?”
“Break in—or break out. I’m not sure which,” Quinn replied. But he immediately thought of the Garcia murders and the evidence that might have been taken from the house....
“Look for a little glass jar,” he said. “Like a vial.”
“What’s in it?” Larue asked.
“I don’t know, since it was empty—except for a trace of...something. Anyway, Grace and I felt it needed to be tested. But, whatever it was, I think the killer brought it to the house with him. And I’ll bet it’s gone.”
* * *
Danni returned to the shop, but she didn’t stay. She smiled cheerfully at Billie and Bo Ray and promised she’d be back—and they should plan for a nice dinner party. Billie just nodded. Bo Ray, relatively new to their team, still looked anxious.
She told them she was going to drop in on Father Ryan and invite him over for dinner. She could call him, of course, but this way, even if he couldn’t come that evening, she’d get a chance to see him.
Bo Ray, who’d gained a life thanks to the priest, seemed to like the fact that Father Ryan might be coming to visit.
They’d actually met Bo Ray because he’d been a suspect when people started dying during the Pietro Miro case. Sadly, he’d become caught up in it all, an alcoholic in the early stages of liver failure. Quinn had a good eye for people, just as Father Ryan did. They’d both seen that Bo Ray could be saved. He’d become a great asset to the store—and to their lives, Danni thought.
With