A Tale of Two Cities…
Total murders to date this year:
New Orleans, pop. 475, 000-184
Boston Mass., pop. 565, 000-34
January 1, 1995, thru May 28, 1995
(150 days)
The wire services had picked up the story and run photos of the freaking sign, and the soaring murder rate had placed Stephens's city into the dubious race for the “Nation's Murder Capital,” replacing the “Nation's Mardi Gras Capital” in the minds of many. Tourism and industry and the city's economy were at jeopardy. Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest and boozy Bourbon Street aside, there was an important billion-dollar deal in the works with the prospect of a government contract being offered to the city.
“ Christ,” Stephens said aloud. Zen and the art of politics. The Big Easy was now being called the Big Uneasy and entire neighborhoods were arming themselves, hiring private guard patrols; men and women alike were purchasing the new handbags and carryalls which allowed them to hold firmly to the trigger of a gun inside the bag at all times. It was a gun dealer's delight, and alarm companies were thriving as well.
A recent classified ad in the Times-Picayune had offered a New Orleans Murder Map, a tricolored, eleven-by-seventeen deal showing areas with highest crime rates, noting the most widely publicized and sensational cases-as with the Japanese exchange student who was blown away by a frightened home owner a few years back. Stephens had purchased copies of the damnable ugly map himself, had taken them down to each of his precinct captains, had blown it out their asses and had the bloody things posted in every freaking squad room in the city as a constant reminder of what every foot soldier and every sergeant, lieutenant and captain in this war had to remember. The battle lines were drawn and there was more than one front.
It was a national disgrace for New Orleans and its police force when people in New Jersey and Chicago were saying, “Everyone's heard that you can't raise children in New Orleans, that you all are murdering one another at top speed there.”
Stephens nervously stepped away from the window and paced the room. He'd been told in no uncertain terms by the governor himself that if the “Have-a-Heart” killer was not located and behind bars soon, then P.C. Stephens might as well turn in his shield, that he had no future in New Orleans. The city needed a show; the city needed a scapegoat, a diversion, even a three-ringed circus if it took that. He had to make the right choices from here on out, and to hell with what the detectives and the captains back home wanted.
He found the booze that had traveled with him all the way from New Orleans. He imagined himself in a new line of work, maybe that of a smuggler, getting the best from Bourbon Street, say, into Mexico or Canada, where they'd pay top dollar for the stuff. He laughed at the notion, but he had been thinking about going into another line of work when this was over, pulling up stakes, maybe retiring, who knows? Hell, he was nearing fifty-seven, a fine record up until recently… What did he have to lose? What did he have to gain? Maybe keep what hair he had left and hold back the wrinkles a bit longer, settle that bleeding ulcer…
He poured himself a half-tumbler of the bourbon over ice- a potion he had to have, despite doctor's orders. He stared momentarily into the deep, brown liquid as he swirled it around. It was difficult these days to take pleasure even in the simplest indulgence. God, how long had it been since he'd been with a woman? he silently asked himself.
New Orleans had had 389 homicides the past year, a fifty-eight-percent increase over the 246 in 1989. On a per-capita basis-and damn per-capita statistics anyway, he thought- that placed
his city ahead of Washington, D.C., and goddamned Detroit! As of May 28th, Washington had reported 146 homicides, while New Orleans had had 184.
Stephens was sick of hearing excuses from his captains, as when Carl Landry, defending his department and detectives, had said that the crime rate climbs significantly in the oppressive heat of a New Orleans summer. The year before thirty-one people were slain in June, forty-seven in July and forty-three in August. All Stephens knew was that, at the present rate, the city was headed for an all-time record in the neighborhood of five hundred homicides this year, and that averaged out at over one hundred victims per 100,000 citizens. Little wonder the higher-ups were concerned and skittish about their vital tourism and convention business, for although attacks on tourists were rare, and the French Quarter maintained the greatest concentration of police and boasted one of the lowest crime rates, soaring kill ratios and sensationalized stories-particularly about the “Heartthrob” killer who had killed in the French Quarter-had garnered nationwide attention.
“ Jesus H. Christ,” Stephens uttered between sips of his bourbon, taking a seat. Was it his fault or the fault of the police or the system when some 235 of those 389 people slain last year had been dispatched by someone they knew, mostly family members, and 131 of the killings had involved arguments, usually over trivial and stupid items? As of now ll0 remained unsolved, the victim-killer relationship as yet unknown, but only forty-nine of the victims were known to have been killed by strangers. And 174 of the victims were kids between fifteen and twenty-four. Kids killing kids. Kids without any values or sense of morality or sense of life's sanctity.
He lifted Jessica Coran's folder off the coffee table before him, and he again stared at her photo. She was a strikingly beautiful woman with eyes as hard as steel. He toyed with the idea of contacting her directly, perhaps to set up a breakfast meeting, get his wishes out in the open, see how she might respond, but he immediately thought better of the notion. After all, the FBI functioned as a paramilitary operation, and if Zanek got wind of his meeting alone with his agent, it could blow the whole deal.
Still, he had it on good authority that she had gotten the materials he'd forwarded, a thorough set of clippings and files that recounted the list of victims in New Orleans, and anything new was E-mailed to him on an hourly basis. He had worked through a fellow he'd met at the FBI laboratory only the day before, a Dr. John T. Thorpe, who had assured him that Jessica Coran would get the information. The younger man had even said that it was the kind of case Dr. Coran could get excited about.
“ Dear God, I hope so,” he said to the empty room, tossing Jessica's file back onto the table and going back to the disarray that was his bed, praying now he might get some sleep. Beside his bed, a second bottle of bourbon awaited his grasp. He poured a final nightcap, shut off the light and lay still, hopeful and anxious.
2
Her heart is like an ordered house
Good fairies harbor in.
Quantico, Virginia, FBI Headquarters
Young Tom Benton watched in awe while Dr. Kimberly Faith Desinor placed her thumb and index finger onto the ransom note as it was lifted from its cellophane sheath between tweezers held by Special Agent Neil Parlen of Georgia. Dr. Faith, as she was sometimes called by those who knew her well enough to joke, was now the only person to make human contact with the document since it had been handled by the kidnapper or kidnappers. She must touch the note, feel its weight, bond and weave, its every fiber. It was her job to manhandle the evidence.
Unlike most law-enforcement officials trained to keep their grubby, enzyme-secreting hands off, she was uniquely qualified for a hands-on experience with the incriminating evidence-once all traditional avenues of detection had failed. And failed they had, miserably.