The Perfect Crime Read online

  “You know what else?”

  “What?”

  “Jack always kept a C-note in the drawer. For emergencies. You didn’t find one in the register, did you?”

  “No. We sure didn’t. Buncha change on the floor was all.”

  “I’m on my way down.” Before Marty could reply, Grady slammed the phone down and was out of his house sprinting for his car.

  ***

  “Marty!”

  “Hey, Grady. Man! You must have flown to get here this quick! I can’t fix any tickets you got, you know,” he said, chuckling.

  “Never mind the jokes. Tell me what you’ve got.”

  “Cool down. Come in here.”

  Marty motioned for him to follow him into a conference room. “Tactical Room” it said in big letters over the door. It was a room Grady was familiar with. Detective Sprague rummaged through some papers on the desk, extracted one from a pile and handed it to Grady. It was a rap sheet on one Charles Kincaid. No middle name. Under “Aliases” he only saw one: Reader.

  “Interesting nom de plume. You got any art?”

  “Yeah.” Sprague picked up a 5” by 7” black and white photo and pushed it across the desk to him. Grady studied the features. Black hair--guess Cheryl was right--husky build, as she’d said, but what struck him the most was the guy’s eyes. There was no expression in them. As if the guy was there, but he wasn’t. Kincaid was a double for the actor Charles Bronson, but Grady had seen movies in which Bronson smiled. Grady couldn’t imagine a smile on this creep. He took one more look at the photo and placed it in his jacket pocket. Marty started to say something and changed his mind, waving his hand as if to say go ahead and keep it.

  “We got something else. A dead hooker. We think he did her too. She was found stabbed. Don’t know if it was the same guy or her pimp or what, but she was done the same way as Jack. That’s what makes us think the same guy did both victims. Whoever did it twisted the knife in like he was drilling for oil. Like he was having fun and couldn’t bear to take the knife out. Got her in the stomach. I’m having the coroner compare the entry wounds from the hooker and from Jack’s wounds and see if it’s the same knife. I’m betting it is. If it is, I’ll let you know. Listen, I want this scumbag about as bad as you do. Nobody comes in my house and does this shit. I want this asshole.”

  He went on, after a slight hesitation. “Yeah, it looks like maybe this is our guy. We got a problem, though.”

  “What problem?” Grady’s brow knitted and his eyes narrowed.

  Marty sighed. “Even if this is the perp, we can’t do much. There’s not enough evidence to convict. We’ve notified the New Orleans P.D. and gave them what we had and they laughed at us.”

  “What!” The word exploded out of Grady’s mouth.

  “Calm down. They’right. All we’ve got is a set of partials that might be this guy’s. The prints weren’t that clear. They’re good enough we’re pretty sure this is the guy--at least we know he was in Dayton--but there’s not enough points to make it positive far as a court’s concerned. All we got is enough to make him a suspect. No court in the world is going to convict a perp on the little we have. The captain talked to the prosecutor. Jerome laughed him out of his office. Said to come back when they could give him something he could use. When we told him we figured Kincaid was gone, probably back to New Orleans, he laughed harder. Said there was no way they could get an extradition order with what little there was. Said to quit wasting his time.”

  Grady sat down heavily in the chair in front of Marty’s desk. He knew Marty was right. He’d dealt with Jerome Higgins, the prosecutor, before. The guy was the supreme conservative. Wouldn’t take on a case unless it was airtight. And of course, this wasn’t. Yet.

  “You got an address on this creep?” he asked.

  “Well, yeah. Probably not any good. Some apartment in a town called Algiers. I gather it’s across the river from New Orleans. It’s two years old though. Here.” He wrote on a piece of paper and gave it to Grady who looked at it for a second and stuck it in his coat pocket with the photo. “What you got in mind?”

  “I’m going to get him.”

  Grady stood and folded Charles Kincaid’s rap sheet into four squares and put it in his pocket with the other papers. “I’ll get all the proof you need.”

  “Wait.” Marty caught him halfway out the door, grabbing him by the shoulder. “You’re not on the force anymore. You can’t go off like some damned vigilante after this guy.”

  Grady turned, reached up and removed Marty’s hand from where it was gripping his shoulder. “Yes, I can, Marty. And I am. I’d appreciate your help, but without it I’m still going after this guy.”

  “Grady...” Marty started to say something and scratched the top of his scalp instead. “Hell, Grady. I’d do the same if I was you. Be careful, man. Tell you what--I’ve put in a request with the Feds for NCIC info in case they got anything else. I’ll see what the FCC and ATF might have too. Be cool, man. You don’t want to be the one ends up in jail.”

  “I won’t,” he said. “I’ll let you know where I’m at. You get anything more, you call me right away.”

  “New Orleans? That where you’re going?”

  “I’m halfway there,” Grady said, moving through the doorway.

  “Flying?”

  Grady turned around and saw Sprague shaking with silent laughter.

  “Fuck you, Sprague,” he said.

  ***

  The sun was creeping to the edge of the horizon when Grady threw the last pair of socks in his suitcase and closed it.

  He thought about Sprague’s earlier crack. Fly! Yeah, maybe he’d get the seat next to John Madden. They could white-knuckle it together. He wondered idly if the sports announcer’s phobia had the same roots as his own. If he’d been in a small plane crash when he was a kid. A crash in which his uncle had just taken off and suddenly the engine stalled and he set it down at the end of the runway. Even though no one had been hurt it was the last time he had been in a plane. It wasn’t even really a crash, strictly speaking. Just one of those semi-minor quirky close calls. He wondered if an experience like that had been behind Madden’s own well-known phobia? Naw, he decided. Madden was just naturally smart about things like that!

  He phoned Marty while he was on the road to give him the name of the Day’s Inn he’d be staying at in New Orleans. He called from a pay phone outside a Popeye’s Fried Chicken in Mississippi where a thermometer on the outside of the building read 970. Marty had some more information. He read him a list of names he’d gotten from NCIC, folks that might be interested in electronic gear, but it didn’t look as though it would be much help. The list consisted mostly of individuals belonging to political fringe groups and terrorist groups. Sounded pretty much like the same list of names he used to go over, back when he was on the bomb squad. Christ! Weren’t any of these crackpots caught and put away yet? No lone wolf bandits, except some safecrackers, but for some reason Grady couldn’t explain, he didn’t think this was a yegg. Grady asked him to fax the sheet to the Day’s Inn anyway and any other info he could get from the other agencies, though both men were sure Kincaid was the right guy. He didn’t want to eliminate any possibilities. He went into Popeye’s and picked up some red beans and rice before he got back in the car.

  He drove nonstop the rest of the way to New Orleans, going across the Pontchartrain Causeway in the middle of the night. After he checked in and showered, he walked over to the front desk and asked for messages. There was one fax from Marty. The knife used on the hooker was also the one used on Jack was all it said, not much else--good luck in catching this creep. They were looking up in Dayton in all the usual places, but Marty figured the same way Grady did. Kincaid was back in New Orleans.

  The car rental place he’d passed on the way into town proved very accommodating. They had not only rented him a car, but let him park his own on their back lot. For a small fee. At first, they tried to talk him into taking one of the flashy T-bi
rds out front, but he held out for the gray Dodge Dart four-door he’d spotted. It was a twin for his own. No sense in driving all over town in a car with Ohio plates. Who knows when or if he might run into Kincaid and if the guy was this smart, he’d tumble to him in a minute if he spotted plates from the state in which he’d just committed a crime.

  The motel clerk gave him directions on how to get to Algiers. At the Vallette Street address he’d gotten from Marty, he didn’t get much of anything useful. All he found was a retired black woman living there. No, she never heard of a Charles Kincaid, and no, she’d never seen the person in the photo Grady showed her. The person who lived there before her was a young black man who sold insurance. Before that, she didn’t know. Folks didn’t stay in these apartments long. She was moving out herself soon.

  Grady got in the car, drove to New Orleans and headed out to Kenner. He found Veterans Highway and looked for a gas station where he could buy a city map. Driving along Veterans, he had several near misses in traffic when cars pulled out without warning and crossed lanes inches in front of him. A traffic cop could have a field day, he thought. Half the drivers on the road appeared to be drinking something and he bet it wasn’t coffee. He wondered what the DUI stats looked like in this town.

  There were two guys working at the station, a teenager and an older guy. He waited until the older one walked out to the bays and went out to him and asked, “Where’s the best place in town to get a girl?”

  Grady wasn’t feeling horny; he figured if Kincaid liked hookers, this might be the best way to find him.

  “Hell, y’ain’t gotta go clear inta town,” the guy said, grinning. “Do what the preachers do--pick any joint on Airline Highway. They partial to tourists on Airline. Dontcha watch the news? Say, y’ain’t a preacher, are ya? I bet y’all got a TV show and everything, aintcha? They gonna love ya over t’Airline! Say, what channel are y’all on?” He guffawed and slapped his knee.

  “You might want to try and control yourself, Clyde,” Grady said to the man as he opened his car door. “You don’t want to end up with a heart attack while you’re having so much fun.”

  Grady made a point not to go back to that station.

  CHAPTER 11

  SARAH ST. IVES WAS on the phone, unaware that two men were watching her house from a car nearby.

  Bastard. Bastard, bastard, bastard. Bastard!

  “Thank you, Jane,” Sarah St. Ives said pleasantly, in a voice that belied what she was thinking. She hung up the phone with deliberate care.

  That was it. That was enough. Who did that bastard think he was? Didn’t he realize it was her bank, not his? Her grandfather’s present to her, her debutante surprise, her inheritance? Hers, not his, not that lying, philandering coonass son-of-a-bitch of a husband, who convinced everybody into thinking he came from quality. She knew what he was, where he came from. A long time ago, she helped him create the fiction everyone accepted. Knew all about his working in the cafeteria, when he was putting himself through Ole Miss. Knew all about those movie-star good looks that turned her head--her, cheerleader, summa cum laude head--so smart she fell for a low-life coonass with ambition. Smart, but dumb! Dumb little cheerleader with hot pants and a Phi Beta Kappa key.

  The ambition. That’s what turned her on to him. That and the looks. God! He was a killer back in those days, could have been in movies, in magazines, modeling underwear. Still was. That was the problem. Goddamn coonass movie star! And her. Look at her. Cursing like an Italian waiter or one of those Third-World Catholics, the ones who made her ashamed of her faith. He’d turned her into this coarse person. And what did she do? Only helped make him what he was, the ungrateful bastard. Figured out the lie herself, wrote it, lived it, played it to the hilt, got him in Who’s Who with a bio that made him look like one of the fucking Kennedys for Christ sakes, the ungrateful bastard.

  She’d had her suspicions for a long time. Mostly, she ignored them, put them away in a part of her mind she didn’t go to often. Not now. She couldn’t ignore the phone call earlier that day, as hard as she tried.

  “Mrs. St. Ives,” the voice said. “Your husband’s fucking my girlfriend. You gonna do anything about it?”

  You bet your ass I’m going to do something about it, she thought, the anonymous caller’s voice still echoing in her ear. The voice on the phone had refused to give his name, but he gave her plenty of other information. A name she recognized immediately as one of her husband’s employees. The address of C.J.’s love nest. Some intimate details.

  He was out with the fucking bimbo right now, no doubt. She listened to the bank’s chief teller, her voice calm but her eyes full of fury. “He’s away on business, Mrs. St. Ives. He did call in a few minutes ago and said something had come up. He’d run into a client who needed to talk to him about a loan. I think he said it was Mr. Bell. You know, Mr. Bell who has Bell Industries?” In that tone Jane used, that superior, nasal voice. That said, between you and me, we both know where he’s at, honey. That’s some husband you got there.

  Sarah St. Ives hung up the phone softly and then picked it up again. She daled information for the number of Bell Industries.

  “J.J.? How are you, J.J.? We don’t see much of you and Dorothy. We’ll have to have you over soon. Would next week be convenient? Listen, J.J., is my husband there by chance? He mentioned something about seeing you this week, today I thought. No? Well, it’s nothing important...”

  Lying bastard. That was it. She was finished. This was one time too much. Still...she’d give him one more chance. She went over to the sideboard for the decanter she kept the Crown Royal in and poured about two fingers in a glass. Reaching for the phone, she dialed the bank again and asked in a voice muffled by a handkerchief held over her mouth, “Is Miss Villere available?”

  When she hung up the phone, tears of anger welled up but she forced them back.

  Okay, Buster. That tears it. You asked for it. Let’s see how tough you really are, you piece of Bridge City trash. Now you get to play in the big leagues; see if you can hit the curve ball.

  What she did was go over to the CD player and put on Pavarotti. She remembered something she’d read about him one time. He owned horses. Wasn’t it funny how people of distinction possessed much the same interests? She listened to the opening strains of Quando Le Sere Al Placido and smiled, one long graceful finger on the pulse in her neck. It would be nice to see the horses again. Perhaps she’d have a ride. It had been weeks since she’d been on a horse. Blue Boy. She’d take out Blue Boy. Once more she dialed a number.

  “Hello? Grandfather? I want to come over and have a talk. I need your advice on something. I’ll tell you when I get there.”

  There. What should she wear? The blue suit, that’s the one. Grandfather says it makes my eyes bluer. And my jodhpurs. Better take some jodhpurs. Take Blue Boy out.

  She turned the volume as loud as it would go. Yes, she thought. La donna è mobile. Très mobile. Luciano Pavarotti’s voice filled the room as she busied herself packing.

  In a short while, she was walking out to the street where her car was parked. She failed to notice the two men sitting in the midnight-blue Caprice halfway down the block.

  ***

  Reader and Eddie sat in Reader’s car and watched the old man making his way up the street, stopping every so often to pick up a can or bottle and place in his shopping cart.

  “That’s--”

  “Yeah. I’ve never seen him over on Magazine. Closest he gets usually is maybe Tchoupitoulas. Mostly he’s up in the CBD. What’s with the cans? I’ve never seen him pick up cans. I thought he was a paper man.”

  Both of the men laughed. They were watching one of the New Orleans street people, a well-known figure seen mostly in the Central Business District.

  “I’ll tell you a story about this guy,” Reader said. “You know how he’s always going around to the trash bins and picking out newspapers and putting them in his goddamned cart...well, one day, Sunday, I was thinking...I got thi
s huge-ass bundle of the Times-Picayune I gotta pitch...I’ll throw it in the car and next time I see the old geezer I’ll give it to him.

  “Anyway, I got this crap in my car two, three days when I spot him up over on Carondolet. I pull over and yell at him, ‘Hey, old-timer. Here’s a drink for you. This’ll get y’all some good wine, what?’ And this creep...smells like you wouldn’t believe, like the underside of a board you find in a vacant lot...this asshole says, believe it or not, he says, ‘Keep your fucking charity!’ He’s screamin’, ‘Keep youucking charity, motherfucker! I don’t need your fucking handout! I’m working here, motherfucker!’ I couldn’t fucking believe it! To me, Reader, he says this with people standing all around listening to this shit.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “What’d I do? I got out of the goddamned car. I left the goddamned car in the middle of the street and walked over to him, ten pounds of Sunday papers in my mitts, of which five pounds is all about how come the Saints can’t win no way, and I stick ‘em in his goddamned shopping cart. That’s what I did.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Uh-huh? Uh-huh your ass! Fucking asshole starts throwing my papers outta his greasy cart! Throws ‘em all over the street. Fucking pollutin’ motherfucker, throwin’ my papers all over the goddamned place. I went over to this cocksucker, pulled my gun out and put it on his ear.”

  Eddie smirked.

  “I guess you didn’t shoot him, didja, Reader? I see him right there, half a block down.”

  Reader chortled. He felt the mad all over again for a minute, but it fell away and his shoulders shook with silent mirth.

  “I guess you’re right, Eddie. Naw, I didn’t shoot him. I was gonna, but fuck, I was on parole. Man, you talk about a scene! People all running to th’other side of the street, women screamin’, stuff like that. I’m fresh out on parole, don’t care nothin’ about that, but this guy, this bum, he’s got heart. I got the gun right up alongside his skull and he says t’me, ‘Take a hike. I want your help, I’ll call you on the phone. You don’t get no phone call, don’t be bringing me your charity bullshit. I’m working here.’ He says that. Don’t look at me the whole time. Keeps throwin’ papers outta the cart. You gotta admire that. So I didn’t shoot him. I tapped him with the gun butt. Not that hard. Knocked him down, shut him up. He’s an all-right dude.”