City of Secrets Read online

  He unfastens her bra with one flick and she giggles. “Experienced with that I see.”

  She helps him get out of his clothes and he pulls off her panties. They check each other out a moment, his eyes moving from those full breasts to the trimmed mat of pubic hair, a shade darker than her hair.

  “Slowly,” she gasps as he caresses her left breast, his mouth moving to hers.

  “I know what I’m doing. I’m a Frenchman, remember?”

  •

  Every city has its secrets, stories whispered in dark corners, legends that grow as they are passed on. The catastrophe of Katrina forever changed every New Orleanian alive on August 29, 2005. But every New Orleanian knew the city would come back. Nothing, not even nature’s incredible fury, can kill an idea and New Orleans is the city we all live to love in.

  Sometimes, it takes someone like me to keep it that way.

  I’m John Raven Beau and this is my city.

  These are my secrets.

  The End of City of Secrets

  SNEAK PREVIEW FOLLOWS

  of the first John Raven Beau Novel

  which is set BK – Before Katrina

  The novel

  JOHN RAVEN BEAU

  Selected as

  2011 BEST POLICE BOOK

  by policewriters.com

  (organization of current, retired and former law enforcement officers of over 1,100 writers who have published over 2,300 books)

  Cover Photo © 2011 O’Neil De Noux

  John Raven Beau

  O’Neil De Noux

  Copyright © 2011 O’Neil De Noux

  Chapter 1

  They used to teach dueling here

  Just as the hard rain lets up, a loud beep tone blares on my portable police radio followed by an excited voice – “Headquarters - any unit. Signal 34-S on police. Officer down. Five hundred block, Chartres Street. Units respond.”

  I step from under the covered walkway in front of the old Cabildo and look up Chartres past yellow streetlights and hulking black balconies suspended over the narrow street. A blue police light flashes three blocks up. I switch the radio to my left hand and bolt up the street, leaping two rain puddles and dodging an oncoming minivan. Bouncing off a parked Chevy, I barely lose a step. The driver of the minivan leans on his horn behind me.

  That’s what I get for wearing blackout – a black tee-shirt with black jeans and black Reeboks. The dress shirt I wear over my tee-shirt is charcoal gray. Unbuttoned and un-tucked, it covers the star-and-crescent badge clipped to my belt above the front left pocket of my jeans as well as my nine-millimeter Glock model 19 in its black canvas holster on my right hip.

  Pumping hard, I cross Toulouse Street and the scene comes into view, a short block away. Inaudible voices yell on my radio. The blue light I’d spotted flashes atop one of the Yamaha motor-scooters used by the uniformed division to navigate the French Quarter. A small group of people are crowded next to the Yamaha in front of the Napoleon House Café, while two couples stand across Chartres at the rear of Royal Orleans Hotel. Tourists. The couples across the street have cameras around their necks, the men wearing mismatched shirts with baggy shorts. They stand mesmerized by the scene. Locals would have scattered by now.

  I run up on the banquette alongside the Napoleon House. A short, blond patrolman takes a step toward me and raises his hand. I open my shirt to show the badge and say, “Homicide.”

  The patrolman puts his hand down. I point across the street at the tourists.

  “Go over and get their IDs.”

  As I pass the patrolman, I add, “Now.”

  The front door of the Napoleon House faces the corner of Chartres and St. Louis Streets, separated from the corner by a ten foot slate banquette, known everywhere outside New Orleans as a sidewalk. Two feet from the open door lies police officer Cassandra Smith, her head propped in the arms of another officer. Andy Knight, his light blue police shirt covered with blood, looks up at me with red eyes. Motionless, Cassandra lies on her back, the front of her police shirt saturated with dark blood, her legs straight out, her arms opened wide. Even in the dim yellow light I can see she’s dead, her face glossy with the unmistakable waxen look of death. Her mahogany complexion is gray and ashen, the color of burned leaves. I feel my heart stammer in my chest.

  Leaning against the masonry wall of the three-story Napoleon House, perspiration rolling down the sides of my face, I try to catch my breath. I suck in hot, humid night air, thick with the odor of gunpowder and the sharp scent of blood. I spot a roach working its way up the wall next to my hand, up to where the masonry has fallen away to reveal the Creole brick-between-cypress log construction of the ancient building. I pull away and run my hands through my hair. It’s damp.

  Sirens echo down the narrow street, reverberating off the lacework balconies and masonry walls. Brakes squeal and a voice calls out, “Detective!” It’s the blond patrolman waving at me from across Chartres. An ambulance brakes sharply as it slides to a stop in the center of the intersection. Two marked police cars stop behind it along Chartres.

  I cross Chartres and the patrolman, whose name plate reads ‘S. Stone’, points to the heavy-set tourist in a yellow striped shirt and baggy plaid shorts.

  “He says a cop chased the killer that way.” Stone points his chin up Chartres.

  Turning up my radio, I put it to my ear, in case there is something audible on the air, but have to turn down the screaming voices immediately.

  I point the radio at the heavy-set tourist and say, “Describe the killer!”

  “He’s white. About six feet tall ...”

  I begin backpedaling up Chartres. “What’s he wearing?”

  “Oh, an orange shirt.” The man points up the street and says, “A cop ran after him!”

  Backing away quickly, I yell to Stone, “Keep them here. And get someone to write down the license plates of every car parked in a three block radius.”

  Stone nods as I turn and race up Chartres, past two more oncoming patrol cars. The Wildlife and Fisheries Building is on my right and I run along the six foot page fence surrounding it where the renovations continue to convert the old white marble building into the state supreme court. If the killer climbed this fence he could easily hide in the huge, white marble building. I dodge another oncoming patrol car, look across Chartres at the crowd lined up outside K-Paul’s Kitchen and yell to them, “See anyone wearing an orange shirt run this way?”

  Two sharp gunshots echo in front of me. I duck instinctively as two more shots ring out. Crouched, I shove my radio into the left rear pocket of my jeans and pull out the Glock. A heartbeat later, I run up to the corner just as three more shots echo from up Conti Street.

  I turned the corner and spot a uniformed officer leaning over the hood of a white car. Arms extended, the officer fires three shots into Exchange Alley, then ducks as his shots are returned, blowing out a window of the white car. The return fire echoes.

  Magnums.

  I cross Conti and approach the alley, the Glock cradled in both hands. I squeeze the rubber grips that feel tacky from my sweat. Perspiration drips from my chin. Stopping just before the alley, I call out to the cop behind the white car.

  “Homicide! You O.K.?”

  The cop doesn’t answer.

  “You hit?”

  “No.” He sounds pissed.

  I smell the burnt odor of cordite from the gunfire and flinch as two more shots slam into the white car from Exchange Alley. Louder now, it’s definitely a magnum. I move to the edge of the building at the entrance of the alley. I know the alley’s layout – a double wide sidewalk between rows of party-wall buildings pressed against one another in a long line. Tunnel-like with second story black lacework balconies, the alley runs for three blocks all the way to Canal Street.

  Three uniformed officers, two carrying shotguns, come running down the middle of Conti, probably from the Eighth District Station a half-block away. The two officers with shotguns are short and stocky and run with t
he shotguns raised.

  I wave to them and yell, “Homicide!” Pointing to Exchange Alley now. “He’s in the alley.”

  The cops with the shotguns are wearing black body armor and black army helmets and don’t even slow down when they reach the alley. Leveling the scatter-guns, they race headlong into the alley, blasting away.

  “Jesus!”

  The third uniformed officer, a lanky blond without a helmet or body armor and carrying a Steyr, one of those Austrian-made NATO machine guns usually carried by SWAT, follows the shot-gunners into the alley. I step in behind him.

  The two with shotguns are at either side of the alley, crouched and holding their fire while the machine-gunner sprays the alley, shattering glass windows, splintering two hundred year old doors, blowing up one of the old black wrought-iron streetlights that line the center of the alley.

  The gun jams and the cop tries to eject the magazine. The two shot-gunners step away from the walls to cover him just as another magnum round slams into the wall two feet from my head. Something sharp hits my left cheek and I go down on one knee. Instantly, the shot-gunners blast away at the shooter, who’s hiding behind a green dumpster. The dumpster bounces for several seconds. The shots stop simultaneously and both cops start reloading.

  Still on one knee, I take in a deep breath, let half of it out and carefully aim at the corner of the dumpster. The gunman sticks his arm and face out and I squeeze off three quick rounds and he falls straight down and doesn’t move. I walk slowly forward. Illuminated by the streetlights behind him, the man in the orange tee-shirt lies crumbled on his right side, a nickel-plated Colt Python .357 magnum next to his head, which rests in a pool of blood that looks as black as night.

  “He dead?” A voice calls out behind me. It’s the machine-gunner.

  I go down on my haunches a foot from the man I just shot, the Glock still pointed at him. I look at the unshaved face and unblinking light eyes and neat entry wound just above the man’s right eye. The exit wound at the back of the man’s head is matted with brain tissue and blood. I slip the Glock back into its holster and wipe the sweat away from my face with my left hand.

  “Damn,” the machine-gunner says as the two shot-gunners join us.

  I look at the three and snap. “Who the fuck are you guys?”

  The three blink in unison.

  I point back to the alley entrance. “And what the fuck was that? A banzai attack?”

  The machine-gunner takes a step back, his eyes wide. The two shot-gunners, light-skinned black officers with faces only slightly darker than my Cajun face, both look down at their feet. The one on the left chuckles nervously. Jesus, they’re young.

  Two years in Homicide, and barely thirty myself, I remember how crazy-brave I was at twenty-two. Although I was never that fuckin’ crazy.

  I let out a long breath. “At least y’all didn’t shoot each other.” I look around. “You only killed one fuckin’ streetlight, a dumpster, fourteen or fifteen windows and a handful of fuckin’ doors.”

  Pulling my radio from my back pocket, I tell them, “Y’all better check those doors and make sure no bodies are behind any.”

  The patrolman who had used the white car as a shield comes walking up. Moving slowly on stiff legs, a tired smile on his black face, Sam Batiste puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “I knew it was you.”

  All I can do is shake my head. Then I turn up my radio. I hear the machine-gunner asking Batiste who I am.

  “It’s Beau, man.” Batiste winks at me. “Detective John Raven Beau. Don’t tell me y’all never heard ’a him.”

  The three stare at me while pretending not to stare. I speak into the radio with the trade-mark Homicide Division’s flat radio-voice. “3124 – Headquarters.”

  Someone cuts me out and then another voice cuts in. So I try again, “3124 – Headquarters. Code four. Code four.”

  The high-pitched voice of the radio dispatcher responds. “Go ahead, Code four.”

  “3124 – Headquarters. We need a homicide supervisor at Exchange Alley and Conti. Perpetrator down.” A moment later I add, “We’ll also need the crime lab and the coroner.”

  “Do you need an ambulance?”

  “Naw. He’s 10-7.”

  Batiste moves toward the body and asks me, “You think it’s him?”

  I shrug and move to the side of the alley. Leaning my back against the wall, I fold my arms and close my eyes. Slowly, the thunder of my heartbeat fades from my ears.

  God, I hope it is him.

  I remember the previous victims, the crumpled bodies of two police officers gunned down in the line of duty, the horror of seeing their bodies on the autopsy table, watching morgue attendants cutting off NOPD blue uniforms.

  “If anybody was gonna get him,” Batiste says loud enough for me to hear, “I knew it’d be John Raven Beau.”

  Brakes squeal on Conti Street and footsteps approach as more voices arrive, but I keep my eyes closed. Someone mumbles the word ‘Sioux’ and I know they’re talking about me, about the half-Cajun, half-Sioux detective with a penchant for extreme violence. If they only knew how my stomach was churning now, how I wished one of the damn shot-gunners or even the machine-gunner would have taken the killer out, so I could do what homicide detectives are supposed to do – write a report. Instead I’m headed for another goddamn Grand Jury appearance.

  A voice says, “Look, he had a box of ammo.”

  Without opening my eyes, I call out, “Don’t fuck with the body!”

  The voices die down.

  A minute later someone moves up close and says, “All right. Talk to me.”

  I blink my eyes open and look at the sweaty, dark face of my commander, Lieutenant Dennis Merten. Two inches shorter than me, Merten stands an even six-feet but looks larger. A linebacker build, skin as dark as burned wood, Merten’s wide face carries a perpetual scowl, even when he smiles, which is as rare as snow uptown.

  I shrug. “I had no choice.”

  “That’s what you said the last time.”

  “And the time before that.” Immediately, I wish I hadn’t added that tidbit.

  Merten snarls and lowers his voice. “Just tell me what the fuck happened.”

  I leave out the sarcasm as I tell him about waiting out the rain under the Cabildo, hearing the broadcast, finding Cassandra, the witness, following the sound of gunshots and then following the banzai attack into the alley.

  “They shot and missed. He shot and missed. I didn’t.”

  Merten raises his right hand and touches my chin, turning my head aside. “What’s this blood?”

  Huh?

  “Your face is cut.”

  I touch my left cheek and it burns. “Probably brick from the wall.” I point across the alley. “One of his shots just missed my head.”

  “Lucky you.” Merten’s voice is still angry but I can see a hint of relief in my lieutenant’s eyes. Merten’s shoulders sink for a moment. He looks back at the body and says, “I sure hope it’s him.”

  “He’s a cop killer, all right. Don’t know if he’s the cop killer.”

  Merten rubs his eyes with knuckles the size of walnuts. “He’s got a magnum. A Colt fuckin’ Python to boot.”

  I nod, although I know there are almost as many Pythons in the city as rosaries. For a revolver, it’s one of the best. Before I switched to a semi-automatic, I carried a Python. Mine is stashed in a drawer at home now.

  A crime lab technician, burdened with a camera and two black cases, moves slowly down the alley toward the body. A white coroner’s van stops at the alley’s entrance. Two attendants climb out of the meat wagon and pull out a gurney and a black body bag.

  The blond banzai attacker steps around Merten and asks me, “How’d you get here so fast?”

  Merten takes him by the arm and leads him away. No way Homicide was explaining how their roving stake-outs in the Quarter did not stop the killing of another cop. I spot a streak of blonde hair to my left and watch Sergeant Jodie Kint
yre enter the alley, followed by her new partner. She walks straight for Merten.

  I watch Jodie, the woman who broke me in Homicide, as she steps in front of Merten, plants her right fist on her hip, her page-boy blonde hair glowing in the dark alley. She seems taller than five-seven because of her slim build and habit of wearing snug-fitting, dark clothes. That evening she wears a brown blouse with a slim black skirt, her weapon dangling beneath her left arm in a canvas shoulder rig. Commanding the other homicide platoon that evening, Jodie would have to handle another Beau shooting.

  I close my eyes again and let my hands fall to my sides. My arm pits are sweaty and my back, still pressed against the alley wall, is wet. A cool breeze filters into the alley, and I smell rain in the air again and know it’s coming back tonight. Jodie’s high heels claps as she approaches and I wait until she speaks to open my eyes.

  “You know the routine,” she says. “Not a word to anyone until we get to the Bureau.”

  I look into her hazel, wide-set eyes. Expressionless, Jodie’s cat eyes blink back as she points to the crime lab technician standing on her left.

  I know the routine. I withdraw the Glock, making and pass it to the tech who hands it to Jodie’s partner, Detective Mike Gonzales. A rookie, he goes by the numbers, holding the Glock for the tech to photograph, unloading it to show how many rounds were left in the magazine. He’ll have a time picking up the casings, especially the ones from the Steyr.

  Jodie takes a step back and waves to the front of the alley where a crowd has already gathered. “I need an EMT over here.”

  Merten’s standing across the alley. The big lieutenant’s looking at the wall where the bullet struck, the one that almost killed me. A white-jacketed emergency medical tech, carrying a gray metal case, hustles into the alley. Chubby and younger looking than the banzai attackers, the EMT asks Jodie to hold his flashlight as he quickly cleans the wound on my face.

  Merten sticks his angry face in and growls at Jodie, “The fuckin’ media’s here. Get him outta here.”