The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,134
it’s why you didn’t explain it to me. And you can start by telling me—what in holy hell is that thing we brought here in the Zodiac?”
Bull met Charbou’s stare with complete calm. “What does she look like to you?”
Not put off for an instant, Bull’s partner stepped in close and spit out his reply. “Whatever the hell it is, there’s no name for it, and if there is one, I’m sure as hell not going to say it!”
Bull nodded. “Well, that’s exactly what she is.”
Charbou gave a phony laugh. “Are you trying to tell me that it’s a fuckin’ zombie?”
“I’m just saying that some things are exactly what they appear to be,” Bull replied, still entirely calm. “Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best.”
Amaia cut in. “What is Samedi?”
Bull pressed his lips together. “I can’t answer that. It’s part of the investigation Agent Dupree and I are conducting. I’d need his permission.”
Johnson spoke. “His permission? Agent Dupree just had a coronary! Maybe you missed that? He’s in there with his life dangling by a thread. I have seniority here, and that makes me the next in command. Tell us! That’s an order!”
“You can’t order me. I’m not FBI. My cooperation with Agent Dupree is entirely—”
Charbou grabbed him by the throat and pushed him against the wall. Bull didn’t even raise his hands to resist. “I went to your wedding! I’m your son’s godfather, and you’re treating me like this?”
Johnson and Amaia pulled Charbou back.
“Okay,” Bull gave in, closing his eyes. Charbou released him and stepped back. “Her name’s Médora, Médora Lirette. She was kidnapped ten years ago, right after her sixteenth birthday, during Hurricane Casilda.”
Johnson nodded. “Go on.”
“I was in the unit that dealt with human trafficking. Médora was the little sister of Jerome Jay Lirette, a drug dealer in Terrebonne, down in the swampland about an hour from here. Jerome had been dealing since he was a little kid, and he was smart. He was never arrested, and he became a medium-sized dealer with a lot of people working for him. He took care of his mother and grandma, and he was particularly protective of his little sister. The same night that Casilda rolled across the marshes, people broke into his house and carried Médora off. The descriptions of the abductors were like those of the people who took Jacob’s sisters last night. The intruders took her and two girlfriends who were there for a sleepover, all of them minors.”
“Médora was kidnapped ten years ago? Are you sure?”
“Her name was tattooed on the back of her neck, a birthday gift from Jerome. And it was an abduction, not a kidnapping. The perpetrators didn’t ask for ransom, because they had no intention of giving her back. Drug dealers usually take care of their own problems, but Lirette notified the police when Médora disappeared. And not in Terrebonne, where he lived; he came to police headquarters in downtown New Orleans with three lawyers. They wanted to talk to the New Orleans police chief and the district attorney.
“They were sent to me first. Jerome was beside himself. He obviously hadn’t been sleeping at all, and all that, that . . . whatever . . . was completely beyond him. He didn’t say a word at first.
“He told us someone had ‘abducted’ his sister. That’s the word he used. He didn’t say ‘kidnapped,’ he said ‘abducted.’ He claimed he knew who had her, and he was ready to swap information about his drug trafficking business in exchange for immunity and help from the police and FBI in finding his sister. You can imagine what we thought. Lirette kept his mouth shut after that, but his lawyers laid it out in black and white. Mr. Lirette understood the seriousness of the matter, they said, but he would give us the goods on important aspects of the drug trade: distribution, methods of bringing the drugs into the country, the names of port officials on the take, and where the merchandise was stored. We knew most of the junk came via the canals or across the swamps, but even so, we couldn’t turn down an offer of inside information about the port. They said it was all written down already, and they’d turn it over if we agreed to a deal. They huddled in the chief’s office and gave the DA fifteen seconds to leaf through a twenty-page single-spaced statement. It took him only ten seconds. They signed the agreement, handed over the document, and