Where The Devil Won't Go: A Lucas Peyroux Novel (16 page)

“Oh, Sal. I’m sorry.” She inhaled until
her lungs filled and ached.

Her time as a free woman grew short, but
she balled her fists hard, remembering that the situation was still hers to
control. His neighbors had to have heard the shot, but hopefully just rolled
over, thinking it a dream. The burner cell Sal had mentioned sat near the lamp
on the end table. She pocketed it, already having the number, and then ran a
rag over the bathroom faucets, reminding her of the Titus clean up. Her
analytical approached scared her. All the death she had experienced in her life
had left her desensitized. She couldn’t worry about her prints anywhere else,
as an immediate exit was mandatory.

Chapter 24

Dobson’s call jolted me awake at 5:30
this morning. “Yeah?” I croaked into my cell. My dry mouth barely worked.

“You got a homicide in the Quarter.”
Dobson sounded sprite.

“A second case? Great.”

“Nope. It’s related to the Robicheaux
case. Got a pen?”

I rushed to the address where a uniform
stood guard at the door. He let me in where I met the CSU team already in
action. Salvador Santiago had killed an intruder, or so it seemed. At six in
the morning, the tenacious Forensics team worked nearby as I flipped through
four pictures of Cozy printed from one of those home printers. Her breasts were
on display, as if exploited by someone in the flesh trade. Her name and date
were scribbled on the back. Were these two deaths unrelated to the pictures? I
put the photos down and stood by the bodies.

Tara had told me to start without her,
but her raspy voice and delayed responses told me she might’ve had a date last
night, tied one on and gotten to bed very late. Good for her, she deserved it.
Actually, I imagined the guy to still be with her.

Dr. Jerry had pulled out the wallet of
the gunshot victim, one Vincent Dean. I reenacted the scene in my head,
considering there was no sign of break-in.

“Did Mr. Santiago open the door for Mr.
Dean?” I mused, thinking aloud, but internalized my thoughts when Dr. Jerry
glanced at me. The old man used to be a cop, so they could have known each
other. But he sported a Molly’s Girls shirt, which could have been bought as a
souvenir, but he’s big enough to be one of their bouncers. Would he be stupid
enough to try to rob someone’s house while identifying where he worked on his
shirt? Or, old Salvador could have been a patron and Vincent walked him home.
They argue, and Mr. Santiago gets in a scuffle he has no chance of winning.
When Vince thought the old guy was out of commission, he got shot and the
neighbor called the police.

I paced around the room, taking
it all in.

Another scenario – Cozy tracked her
sister to Molly’s Girls, which was ground zero for the trafficking ring.

I walked the possible path they took,
stopping by the recliner where Sal pulled the gun from the open drawer. Vince
probably thought he could move quicker than Sal and that was a fatal mistake.
Santiago shot him point blank, but what caused the old man’s death?

“Looks like cardiac arrest.” Dr. Jerry looked
up at me from his knees. “He was old. Went quick.”

“He shot him and then had a heart
attack,” I said, dismissing Cozy for a moment.

“Seems that way.”

Seems
would translate into
allegedly
in court of law. I hated that.

The spare bedroom looked to be used for
storage and the occasional sleepover, due to the mattress and blankets on the
floor. However the dust on the boxes and furniture had been disturbed. Mr.
Santiago had a recent guest—either Cozy or Vincent. The Viagra on the
coffee table came to mind and the pictures of Cozy would indicate that Sal
wasn’t homosexual. My biggest question was if the crime scene had been staged
by Cozy, or if she ran after the scene transpired.

I rejoined the crew and put on a pair of
latex gloves. “Jerry, can I get into his cell?”

He glanced at my gloved hands like an
afterthought. “Go ahead.”

The cell sat atop his wallet, a thick
leather tri-fold deal. A cell phone contained more info than a wallet ever
could. The Samsung Galaxy came to life without needing a password. I checked
his recent call history, but the last call was outgoing to his mother at two in
the afternoon yesterday for forty-three minutes… a momma’s boy. The picture
gallery contained many photos of women, some I would guess to be strippers, but
some were just headshots. I scrolled through, stopping at the sixth girl
– there she was. Haley Robicheaux.

#

Back at the station, Tara confirmed what
we had assumed. “Vince was a bouncer at Molly’s Girls.”
 
She put her cell down.

“Aponi claims Cozy still hasn’t come home,”
I said.

“You think her mother’s protecting her?
Hiding her?”

“I don’t think Aponi would do that. Cozy
has the same line of thinking we do. If her revenge stopped with Porter, she
wouldn’t have run.”

“Probably.”

“So, Cozy finds ex-cop Sal, who gives her
a mattress in return for some naked pictures. She tracks down Haley to Molly’s
Girls and hooks up with Bouncer Vince to see if he had anything to do with her
sister’s murder.” I jotted down quick notes.

“Why take him to Sal’s?” Tara stared at
me for answers.

“Good question.”

“So, once there, Sal doesn’t like that Cozy
brought home a boy, grabs his gun, and hilarity ensues.”

“And Cozy runs.”

“Yeah, but not because she’s guilty.
She’s still digging into Haley’s murder.”

Tara inspected her fingernails. “So, Cozy
found Molly’s Girls before we did.”

“We need to find a connection between
Harry Winslow and the owner of Molly’s Girls. We should go see the owner
tonight.” I hesitated, looking at my notepad. “One Raymond Corondelet.”

“I hate strip clubs. I always feel like I
need to shower when I leave.”

“I usually have to change my drawers.”

“I so feel for your wife.”

“Hey, you had your chance to object at
the wedding.”

Captain Dobson entered the floor with a
man and a woman wearing business attire. Each of them glanced at us before
heading into her office. Through the glass, we could see the seriousness of
their discussion. Dobson had trouble controlling her cool.

“Feds?” I asked.

Tara shrugged as Superintendent of Police
Gregory Thornberry burst onto the floor, dispensing with his normal greetings.
He too, gave Tara and me a once over before opening Dobson’s door and joining
the debate.

 
“Think Harry kept true on his threat?” Tara said.

I pulled at my ear. “It’s not far-fetched
that this is some kind of high profile, D.C. Madam-type shit. I have this bad
feeling Chance was right. We might have kicked a hornet’s nest.”

“Full of political wasps.” Tara’s wide
eyes volleyed to me.

“Looking to… Sting… Us worker bees.”

Tara frowned.

“What? Don’t get pissed at me if you
can’t keep the metaphor going.”

“Lord, do I feel sorry for your wife.”

The muted conversation lasted ten minutes
before the man and woman expedited out of the room. Dobson and the Super
remained, speaking in a more casual manner considering their body language.
Five minutes later, Thornberry left, however this time he acknowledged us with
a nod of his head.

Dobson waved us into her office, shutting
her door behind us.

“That looked intense, Cap.” I sat,
throwing my arm behind the chair.

“Feds?” Tara inquired.

Dobson eased into her chair. “Yes, Feds.
It would seem that your questioning of Harry Winslow is interfering with an
ongoing federal investigation.”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“Thornberry ordered me to cease and
desist in the questioning of any employees from Winning One about the
Robicheaux murder. Basically, anyone associated with the company.”

I faced Tara. “We must be close.”

“Cap, we’re on the cusp of exposing a
trafficking ring.” Tara looked ready to blast off into space.

Dobson picked up a tablet just to throw
it back down. “Maybe they are, too. They said once they’re through with their
case, they’ll share all their info.”

“That’s bullshit.” I thought of Cozy out
there alone. She was a scrapper, but she had to feel scared, out of her element.

“So, what do you really want us to do,
Cap?”

She didn’t answer. Then Dobson’s phone
rang, breaking the silence. “Captain Dobson here. Yes. Yes. Where? Isn’t
that…?”
She wrote something down and looked at both of us.
“They’re on their way.”

“What’s up?” Tara asked.

“A body was found in an abandoned house
in the East. The same house as Cozy Robicheaux’s abduction.”

“The same house?” I looked at Tara.
“Titus?”

“Could be.”

“That drug dealing punk?” Dobson asked.

“Sure.” I pinched my chin in thought. “He
was going to visit Haley and found Cozy instead?”

“But how did Cozy get the body to the
East?” Tara asked.

“Maybe Porter took him, knowing the house
was abandoned. One last act before they killed him.”

Tara’s eye shot to me. “Murder, now?”

“Maybe. They make it look like a suicide
because Cozy recognized him. Whether Cozy killed Titus or not, Titus’ body
would draw too much attention to their operation. My money’s on Porter
transporting the body.”

“I’ll have his car towed in,” Dobson
said, pointing at me. “So, this means that you would be investigating Titus’
murder, which would make Cozy Robicheaux or Edgar Porter the prime suspects,
right?”

“Right.” I agreed.

“And Cozy Robichaux didn’t kill her
sister, right?”

“Nowhere near a suspect.” I confirmed.

“So Cozy has nothing to do with the Feds,
correct?”

“That is correct, Cap.” I stood along
with Tara, not needing to look at the address she wrote down.

Dobson motioned for us to go. “I’ll have
a trooper see if Cozy returned to Manchac and pick her up if she did.”

Chapter 25

With Vince and Sal’s death, Cozy had a
hard time falling asleep, despite the Jack Daniels filtering through her liver.
She had sat in the lotus position on the Day’s Inn bed at three in the morning,
enveloped in darkness. Murder surpassed anything stimulants could do. In an
attempt to calm down, she imagined her happier childhood moments—the
teasing, the chasing, the laughing, that she had shared with her sister. And
her favorite memory, the camping trip when she and Haley both slid into the
same sleeping bag one chilly night. She had never felt so warm and safe and
loved, and being wrapped in that memory allowed her to finally drift off.

The pampered accommodations at the Day’s
Inn on Canal Street impressed her, despite only semi-sleeping for three hours,
dreaming she had become the Grim Reaper. She had figured Vince not to be
Haley’s killer, and yet he died anyway. He seemed the type to just hit women,
not rent them out. If anyone at that club had anything to do with Haley’s death,
it would be Ray or possibly Tabby, if only indirectly.

Maybe she had brought Vince to Sal’s place
with the more sinister motive of creating a confrontation. Did she expect Sal
to be calm about bringing that brute into his home? Vince deserved to be punished
with ass-rape in prison for his sins, probably, but not shot to death. And Sal
died as a result of poor decisions and chemistry. She would have to reconcile
those feelings at some point, but not now.

Cozy collected herself, needing to keep
busy before meeting Tabby for a drink later in the day. She consulted a map of
the Quarter taken from the lobby of the hotel, studying it to get intimately familiar
with the city grid. When things get hairy, she was going to need an escape
route. She thought about how well Ash had known the Quarter the few times he
took her to Dr. Claire. Did he have that good a memory? Was he that good a
navigator? No, not unless…

That
bastard
.

She pulled out the burner phone and
dialed a number she knew by memory.

“Hello,” her boyfriend’s familiar voice
answered.

She clenched her jaw, not bothering to
disguise herself. “Meet me on the front steps of Harrah’s at 3pm - today.”

“Cozy?” Ash said, off-pitch.

“Front steps of Harrah’s at 3pm” She hung
up, fighting the urge to whip the cell at the wall. When she glanced to her
right, her reflection in the mirror showed a sitting duck. She still looked too
much like her old self.

#

The warm breeze tickled the tops of the
Palm Trees that had been planted along the side of Harrah’s Casino. The low-key
exterior masked itself beautifully on the edge of the Central Business
District, not sticking out as much as one would think. Cozy approached from the
foot of Canal Street, keeping an eye out for Lucas, who always seemed to like
to appear at the worst times.

She rounded the corner to the front of
the casino to see Ash sitting on the second step, leaning against the railing
as if he had lost his savings at the blackjack table. He looked different, less
handsome then before she had left home. His hair was styled shorter than before
and his sunglasses made him seem arrogant. His charm no longer had any power.

He finally noticed her storming toward
him. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you knew where Haley was this whole time?”

He stood, but held onto the railing.
“Cozy, what did you do to your hair? Is that you behind all that makeup?”

“Don’t change the subject. How did you
find out?”

He fidgeted and couldn’t meet her eyes.
“She didn’t want me to tell you.”

Cozy hopped up onto the third step and
slapped his face. “She’s my sister.”

When she reared back for another, Ash
caught her wrist. “She made me promise not to tell you. I loved her. You don’t
think I felt a world of guilt keeping this from my best friend?”

“Best friend? I thought you loved me. You
were having sex with me while you were coming here to have sex with her? In
what world does that make you the good guy?”

“I’m a shit, all right? A dick. But, we
weren’t having sex. Haley didn’t want to be with me anymore. I
do
love you. But, Haley has my heart.
She always had. I didn’t want to let either of you down. You
are
my best friend.”

“I’d sure hate to be your enemy.” She
broke from his grasp and almost shoved him over the rail. The people walking by
had stopped to watch. “What exactly was she into? Give me something.”

“She danced at Molly’s Girls. That’s all
I know. She told me how that landlord was always watching her, too. I think
he
might’ve killed her.”

“Maybe you couldn’t handle her stripping
for other men. You got blind with jealousy and lost control, since she ‘has
your heart’ and all.”

He stepped to her. “Jesus, Cozy. You’re
accusing me? You’re crazy.”

“You have no idea what’s going on inside
my head.”

“I guess I don’t. But are you sure this
isn’t just a convenient way to get rid of me?”

Cozy palmed her head with both hands. “Get
rid of you? Convenient? Don’t pull that shit with me. What you did is a bigger
betrayal than the douche-bag trio raping me and don’t you dare say that’s a
gray area because they’re your friends.” She wiped her dripping nose. “I didn’t
ask for it. It’s not a gray area.”

“Hales made me promise. I kept my
promise. Either way, I guess someone would get betrayed.”

“You know things about her life that’re eating
away at me to know.”

“Hales wanted to get out of that
apartment and into a house. I thought if I kept helping her, she’d get back
with me. She wanted me to bring you here.”

It took a good ten seconds for her
breathing to relax while staring a hole through him. Then she spat, “I’m done
here.”

She pivoted to leave, but he grabbed her
arm. “I knew there would come a day when I couldn’t do any more for you. When
you didn’t need me around. Here it is.”

“You still haven’t apologized.”

He kept his mouth closed as his eyes broke
contact. She pushed him down the steps as pedestrians started pointing their
cameras. However, the scene didn’t escalate any further as Cozy rushed away
down Canal Street, hearing her name shouted several times.