Down on the Pontchartrain Read online

  “Found it in the dirty clothes hamper with the sweat suit.” Borgo beams. “Did he cop?”

  “No. Wants to talk to his lawyer.”

  Borgo looks at the closed interview room door and shakes his head. “Like to know why, man. What brought it on. Did she rebuff him? Did he just pounce on her?” He looks back at me now. “Maybe he hates women with tattoos, nose piercings.”

  I shrug. “So long as we get the who right, it’s all that matters.”

  He’s bounces again. “Man what a thrill, finding that nail.”

  I nod again and have to say it. “Yep. The nail in the coffin.”

  “Man, that was fast work. Getting it in the first twenty-four hours, right?”

  “Good thing,” I tell him. “I start on vacation tomorrow.”

  He laughs. “Where ya’ goin’? Disneyworld. Get away from all this … funk?”

  “No.” I stretch out my back again, fighting off a yawn. “Putting Sad Lisa into dry down for maintenance. Heading for home.”

  “The Dakotas?”

  “Vermilion Bay.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “That where you go on vacation? Disneyworld.”

  “Naw. I’m a hurricane watcher. Take my vacation days piecemeal. Go where the big storms hit. Went to Florida three times last year.”

  The tiredness doesn’t hit me until we walk Gault over to Central Lock-up, alongside Police Headquarters on the stretch of cement we call ‘Hollywood Walk’ where three TV cameras follow us, Borgo leading the way.

  Borgo’s telling me about a new tropical depression that’ll probably end up in the Gulf of Mexico. “It’ll have a name starting with K,” he tells me, but I’m not listening.

  I haven’t slept for over twenty-four hours, and I smile wearily for the cameras, like my daddy used to smile after a good hunt in the swamp. Of course Borgo was right, the first twenty-four hours of a murder case are the most important.

  Thursday, 22 September 2005

  A month to the day after the murder, I stand beneath the live oak where Monique Lewis lost her life. There’s nothing to indicate anything happened here but everything else is different now. This is the only tree left standing in West End Park. Maxim’s Crab Claw Restaurant, where Monique worked, and all the other restaurants are gone, the boat yards mere shells of buildings, all destroyed by that K storm Borgo first alerted me to. Hurricane Katrina.

  Monique’s tree is the only living thing here, even the bushes are dead. A thick coat of gray-brown dirt covers the entire area, more like a moonscape than a park. A lingering odor of petroleum permeates the air, mixed with the stench of mildew and death – dead fish, dead cats, dead dogs, probably several humans we haven’t found yet in the wreckage.

  The park where Gault claimed he’d tripped is littered with abandoned cars and pick-ups, along with dozens of sail boats and other pleasure craft flung here, most of the boats in pieces. The sun looks the same as it sets over Lake Pontchartrain. But there are no pelicans gliding above the open water, no gulls dancing over the water beyond the restaurant pilings, no stray cats anywhere to be seen.

  I suck in a deep breath of sunbaked air and tell the tree, “We got the results of the DNA test today and it’s an exact match.” Thankfully the FBI lab is functioning better than NOPD. I look at the ground where Monique had lain in death. “Just wanted you to know.” I take in another deep breath before going on. “Wish I could tell you why, what brought on his rage. Maybe you already know that, maybe you don’t. But you’re the one who caught him you know, digging your nails fighting back, drawing blood and skin.” I keep looking at the spot where Monique died and wish there is more to say, but there never is.

  A scraping noise turns me around and it’s Borgo walking up behind me. Hadn’t seen him since the storm. We’ve been scattered around, trying to keep the city from dying from the inside after being blown apart from the outside. Borgo nods toward the tree then tells me the Coast Guard Station’s gone. Blown down.

  “I saw it.”

  “That other hurricane’s gonna hit us,” he says.

  “Rita? I thought she was headed for Houston.”

  “She’s a Category 5 now, got the third lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic basin and she’s huge, like Katrina, covers most of the state. We’re on the east side, the bad side. We’ll get the tidal surge again.

  Jesus, the words tidal surge ring like a funeral bell in my ears.

  “The levees won’t hold,” he adds and I turn away, wondering how the hell we’ll be able to weather the next blow.

  The End

  FOR Harley Pat Roberts

  “Down on the Pontchartrain” is a work of fiction. The incidents and characters described herein are a product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No portion of this story may be reproduced by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.

  The story originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Vol. 52, Nos. 7 & 8, July-August 2007 Issue.

  If you enjoyed “Down on the Pontchartrain” and would like to read more adventures of Detective John Raven Beau, you’ll want to read the award-winning novel JOHN RAVEN BEAU or the Beau short story collection NEW ORLEANS NOCTURNAL or the NEWEST Beau novel: CITY OF SECRETS.

  CITY OF SECRETS

  Two months AK - After Karina - the water is gone, along with most of the people. The mud is dried and much of the city is coated in a gray, brown film of silt and dirt. Pockets of the city have electricity and natural gas. The city lies prostrate, almost helpless, as people return to reclaim their lives. Others come to the deserted town, ruthless criminals moving in to stake their turf. Murder returns to New Orleans and the killers collide with a man who hunts murderers with methodical, calculating precision, innate in one who has the blood of the great plains warriors in his veins.

  JOHN RAVEN BEAU named BEST POLICE BOOK 2011 by policewriters.com

  Before Katrina – New Orleans is the murder capital of America and her troubled streets give rise to a cop who hunts killers with methodical, calculating precision, innate in a man half-Cajun and half-Sioux. While others lose their heads in the maddening hunt for a cop-killer, John Raven Beau focuses his instincts in the relentless pursuit of a murderer.

  John Raven Beau must be fearless, must be cunning, ruthless on occasion, but remembers he is part of the good earth. In the midst of this horrendous case, Beau, a loner, meets an alluring, young woman with aquamarine eyes and a mind as sharp as his, a woman who draws him to her.

  The story begins in the French Quarter and ends in a swamp, all within the city limits of America’s eternal city, a city that can never be destroyed – New Orleans.

  NEW ORLEANS NOCTURNAL

  A series of nine short stories featuring Detective John Raven Beau. Half-Cajun and Half-Sioux, Beau is a relentless pursuer, a man who will track a killer across miles of dark streets, through swamps, wastelands, over rivers and bayous. He will never give up. And he’s an excellent marksman who also carries an obsidian hunting knife. Claims that he’s scalped a few murderers is a persistent rumor.

  Nocturnal. Occurring at night. Darkness.

  Not all of these stories occur at night, but each explores the darkest places in the murder capital of America and the dark recesses of the human heart. Come spend some time with John Raven Beau. He’ll show you a few things.

  STORIES INCLUDE:

  “Love and Murder” • “Don’t Make Me Take Off My Sunglasses” • “Murder Most Sweet” • “When the Levees Break” • “Pretty Rita” and “The Bonnie and Clyde Caper” – runner-up for The Short Mystery Fiction Society’s 2009 DERRINGER AWARD for ‘Best Long Story’

  For more information about other books by the author, go to http://www.oneildenoux.net

  Twitter: ONeilDeNoux

  If you liked the story, pass the word a
round. De Noux’s short stories will remain at 99¢, while his novels and collections are an inexpensive $1.99 to $3.99 for eBooks. Trade Paperbacks also available.

  Send O’Neil an email, let him know what you think of the story at [email protected]

  That’s all folks. Thanks for coming.