The poor bastards were kneeling down, lookin’ right at their killer. Looks like somebody evened up a score here, big time.”
“Looks like a drug deal gone bad to me, man,” Shelvin replied, searching Bons Temps’ fog-obscured face for unasked questions. “But you’re the detective.”
Another detective summoned Bons Temps aside; they spoke together and examined notebooks by flashlight as a train thundered by on tracks beyond the warehouses.
Shelvin removed his flashlight from his belt and joined other officers in the search for evidence.
Soon the assistant coroner rose from his uncomfortable crouch and directed his team to bag the bodies and put them in the “meat wagon.” Then he began a stumbling climb up the rocky bank, cursing the lateness of the hour and the discourtesy of the victims in getting murdered here.
Bons Temps found Shelvin a few minutes later. “We just got positive ID on the victims,” he said. “Kirk Dagget and Harvey Baspo. I thought maybe that’s who they were, but from what was left of ’em, I couldn’t be sure. Names ring a bell with you?”
Shelvin didn’t answer.
“Let me refresh your memory. These guys were on the force. Uniforms, like you. In their spare time for extra dough they did strong-arm work for Artemis Holdings. Like we all do a little security work to make ends meet, you know? But these guys were real bad apples. Made us all look dirty. They got busted about a year ago, after the Armiger woman died and that genealogist gave the powers-that-be the leads they needed. I wouldn’t think you’d have any trouble remembering ’em, seeing as how they sliced and diced you and your brother.”
“Yeah,” Shelvin said, watching the two coroner’s men heft a body bag up the rocks, “I didn’t recognize them either…you got a point, here, Bons Temps, or what?”
Shelvin had pronounced Gus’s nickname right–a rare thing for a rookie cop–losing most of the ending consonants. Bons Temps seemed flattered.
“Matter of fact, I do. Lotta guys on the force probably think the shooter did us a favor, getting rid of these creeps. They had plenty of enemies; hell, they even screwed me on a transaction or two. The Feds cut ’em a sweetheart deal to spill their guts about their former co-workers–us. They been under house arrest all these months. Nobody’s seen ’em for a couple of days.”
“I read the paper and watch TV,” Shelvin said.
“I realize I’m probably going over old ground with you here. What I’m sayin’ is, Balzar”–and here Bons Temps swiveled his tree-stump of a head to make sure no one was within earshot–“we all got certain little secrets best left unknown. Sometimes, the lines aren’t so clear, and we all crossed over ’em in our careers. You got to, to feed your family. Howya like that, them two pointin’ fingers, after what they done?” Bons Temps leaned forward to deliver these words, driving a fat index finger into Shelvin’s chest: “Least I never killed nobody for money, like them.”
Shelvin glanced down at the rubber-gloved finger and then up at the detective’s face. Something in Shelvin’s eyes made Bons Temps remove his finger and back off a few inches.
A new police superintendent had taken over in October 1994, with a mandate to clean up the notoriously corrupt department and end the city’s unwanted claim to the title of Murder Capital of America. At his Gallier Hall swearing-in celebration, the new chief received a briefing from an FBI agent on investigations and stings in progress to root out the vice rampaging within NOPD.
“Lotta things gonna change in the department, Balzar,” Bons Temps said, from a safer distance. “But one thing’ll always be the same: you need friends when the shit starts flyin’. I watch your back, you watch mine. That’s the way it works.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Shelvin said.
Bons Temps slapped Shelvin’s ox-like shoulders. “Good man. You a fast learner. They sure don’t grow ’em dumb up there in Natchitoches, do they?”
The detective removed a plastic bag of white powder from a pocket of his dark-blue, yellow-lettered rain parka and dropped it amid the rocks.
“Hey!” Bons Temps shouted to the others, “come look see what our Balzar done found!” He turned to Shelvin, a big grin on his face. “You right, Balzar. Sure does look like a drug deal gone sour. Guess it’s another cold case for the bottom drawer.”
*All excerpts from J. N. Herald, ed., The Diary of Ivanhoe Balzar: Mulatto Barber of Natchitoches
(New Orleans: Coldbread Press, 1997). The Plutarch Foundation in New Orleans possesses this extraordinary diary (Manuscript 895). Herald’s book has received awards and accolades from major genealogical societies and professional groups, and has been praised in academic and literary circles for outstanding scholarship.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31