Murphy looked at the left sleeve of the sergeant’s uniform shirt, folded and pinned just below his stripes. Five years ago, Shelby had lost his arm in a motorcycle crash. Had he been in a police car, he would have been eligible for a 75 percent disability pension for the rest of his life. Since he had been off duty, he was stuck in the property room for the rest of his career.
Murphy reached for the flask and choked down another swallow. He felt the warmth spread through his guts. Shelby was right. It did take the edge off.
Central Evidence and Property was the worst job in the police department. For Murphy, it was hell on earth.
Saturday night, he had shown up for his first graveyard shift at CE amp;P half in the bag, smelling like Moretti and Jameson. Sunday night, he reported for work after three hours at the Star amp; Crescent drinking his favorite energy drink-Budweiser. Last night, he showed up for his third shift sober, but that had been more or less an accident because he had slept until 10:00 PM. He strolled in fifteen minutes late, wearing a badly wrinkled uniform that was missing the collar pins, his name tag, and his commendation medals.
Shelby took one look at Murphy’s uniform and said, “You may have been a good cop on the outside, but in here you’re an absolute fuckup.”
A few hours later they started taking swigs off Shelby’s flask.
Vodka or no vodka, the work at CE amp;P was mind-numbingly tedious. Until at least three or four o’clock in the morning, a steady stream of street cops flowed into the property room, carrying evidence and personal property seized from arrestees that Murphy had to divide and catalog, then heat-seal in plastic bags. For each bag, Murphy had to type an evidence card listing its contents; the date and time the items were taken into custody; the seizing officers names, ranks, badge numbers, and assignments; and the report number under which all future paperwork would be filed. Since CE amp;P didn’t rate a computer, all that typing had to be done on a typewriter.
For Murphy, the worst part was seeing his former colleagues come in with evidence from fresh murder scenes. The homicide cops were constant reminders that Murphy was no longer part of the team, that he was an outsider. Truth was, he didn’t even feel like a cop anymore. Being in CE amp;P made him feel like he had been stripped of his badge and forced into a clerk’s job.
He hated it.
At 6:30 AM, a half hour before shift change, one of the civilian clerks from the day shift showed up carrying a grease-stained McDonald’s bag and a Times-Picayune. She was a heavyset black woman with a pockmarked complexion. “You made the paper again, Murphy,” she said. “You famous.”
Murphy felt the pit of his stomach drop. “What are you talking about?”
She handed him the folded newspaper. “Another story about you from that lady reporter. I think she’s sweet on you.”
Murphy’s stomach landed somewhere around his feet. Was it possible he would read about his own firing? He once knew a cop who read in the newspaper that a grand jury had indicted him. Sheriff’s deputies had been out to the cop’s house the night before to pick him up, but he hadn’t been home.
Murphy unfolded the newspaper and scanned the front page. He didn’t see anything about him.
The day-shift clerk had already spread her breakfast of a sausage and egg biscuit and a large soda on the counter. “It’s in the metro section,” she said through a mouthful of food.
Murphy flipped to the “B” section. There he was on the front page, this time below the fold.
NOPD TRANSFERS “SERIAL KILLER” DETECTIVE
By Kirsten Sparks, The Times-Picayune Still denying there is a serial killer prowling the streets of New Orleans and murdering young women, NOPD officials confirmed yesterday that they have transferred Detective Sean Murphy from the Homicide Division to an administrative post. “Officer Murphy is no longer with this division,” said Captain Michael Donovan, commander of the Homicide Division and Murphy’s former boss. “He is currently under investigation by the Public Integrity Bureau and he has been transferred.” Earlier this week Murphy made headlines when he claimed in an interview with the Times-Picayune that an unidentified serial killer had murdered at least eight women in New Orleans in the past year. Police officials have denied Murphy’s claim. They have also stripped him of his detective’s rank and reassigned him to the property room pending the outcome of an internal investigation. Murphy is accused of violating the department’s policy against unauthorized contact with the media, according to a source within the police department. “Murphy’s getting punished for telling the truth,” said the source, who asked not to be identified. Murphy is the only NOPD homicide detective with experience in serial-killer investigations. In addition to specialized training he received from the FBI, Murphy was part of the attorney general’s task force that captured Rudolph Dominique, who was later convicted of the rape and strangulation murder of 23 men in the Houma and Thibodaux area. Murphy is credited with linking evidence found at several crime scenes to Dominique and identifying him as the killer. In New Orleans, Murphy has worked several of the cases believed to be linked to the person some are already calling the French Quarter Killer. Police Chief Ralph Warren told the Times-Picayune earlier this week that there is no serial killer. “Those cases are not connected,” he said. “Those women were killed by different perpetrators.” Local radio talk-show hosts have picked up on the story and filled the airwaves with speculation and conspiracy theories. “The story won’t die,” said Bud McDougal, an afternoon host on WWL 870 AM. “It’s all people want to talk about. Half my callers think they’ve seen the killer. The other half want to know what Chief Warren was thinking when he got rid of the only detective smart enough to figure out we had a serial killer in the first place.” Police officials would not comment on who they assigned to Murphy’s former cases. “Murphy is a good detective,” the police department source said. “He had nothing to gain by going public with this. In fact-as is obvious now-he had a lot to lose. They’re not really going after him over his serial-killer theory. They’re going after him because of what happened before…”
The rest of the article was a rehash of the facts surrounding Murphy and Gaudet’s arrest four years earlier of the mayor’s brother. Murphy wondered who the anonymous NOPD source was, although he had a pretty good idea.
At eight o’clock in the morning, Murphy was at the Star amp; Crescent, sitting at the bar in his uniform pants and a white undershirt. He was halfway through a plate of scrambled eggs and sipping his second Budweiser, trying to ignore the country singer wailing from the jukebox.
His cell phone rang.
For a few seconds, a verse from Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” drowned out the pathetic whining of the country singer who had lost his girlfriend and screwed his dog. Thankful for the reprieve, Murphy was hesitant to answer the call, choosing instead to listen to his favorite dead rocker sing about a werewolf howling at the kitchen door and mutilating a little old lady in the middle of the night.
Angry over once again being named in the newspaper, and with half a buzz on, Murphy had distracted himself during the last half hour of his shift at CE amp;P by talking the civilian clerk into showing him how to download a song ringtone for his cell phone.
When Zevon started the same verse again, Murphy flipped his phone open. The caller ID flashed Restricted. A goddamn police number. He thought about hitting the ignore button. What in the hell could anyone in the department want with an off-duty property clerk? Unless it was someone from PIB. In that case, whoever was calling could go to hell.
Before Murphy could decide what to do, the phone went silent and the call went to voice mail. Murphy thumbed the phone closed and dropped it on the bar. He took a long sip of beer. The country idiot droned on. Probably fucking a sheep by now.