Alexa thought it convenient that Decell-who was, in cop lingo, DBRD, or dead beyond a reasonable doubt-couldn’t contradict his patron unless he did so through a medium. She wondered what LePointe would do if she whipped Fugate’s notebook out of her purse and waved it under his nose.
No, when she confronted William LePointe, she intended to have everything figured out, so no matter how much money he had, or how many friends in high places who might try to stop her, he’d answer for everything he was guilty of doing. Whatever it ended up costing her, he was not going to walk away from this without a few scars.
68
Leland Ticholet wasn’t thinking about what had happened at Doc’s little house. He was on cloud nine, now that he had finally earned the boat he was piloting through the familiar system of waterways, heading for his little home on the water. He hadn’t cut and run when that lady started shooting at Doc. He had actually helped Doc, who was shot up, get into the boat. If he’d had the ownership papers already, though, he wouldn’t have risked his ass waiting around for Doc. Anyway, the woman had just been trying to shoot Doc, who deserved it. Probably he’d promised the woman something he hadn’t given her too.
Leland’s attention shifted to the gas gauge and he frowned. The boat was useless without gas for the big outboard, so he headed to Moody’s dock to fill up the tanks so he could get an early start in the morning to run his traps and see if he’d caught any gators.
Thirty minutes later, Leland cut the motor and pulled into the dock near the gasoline pumps. He tied the boat up and looked at Doc, who was slumped in the rear seat, hugging his briefcase. Doc didn’t look good, and he was leaking his blood on the fiberglass deck. His skin was even whiter than usual. His gloves were smeared crimson and he was sort of shaking all over.
“What’re we doing here?” Doc asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Gassing up,” Leland answered.
“I need immediate medical attention,” Doc told him.
“They only got Band-Aids and alcohol here.”
“Please, Leland.”
“You want a soda, cheese nabs, something?”
“You have to bring a doctor to me. I can’t go to a hospital.”
“Where am I going to get one?”
Doc didn’t answer. His head fell forward, his chin coming to rest on his chest.
“Sit tight, I’ll be back directly,” Leland said. He stepped onto the dock, took out the pump, and, after opening the cap on the first tank, put the nozzle into the hole and locked it open. After both tanks were filled to capacity, Leland replaced the nozzle on the pump and loped inside to pay.
69
Grub had seen Leland’s fancy boat coming in and had hidden behind the live bait well. He didn’t know if Leland was still angry with him, but he didn’t want to get thrown into the water if he was. Of all the things Grub didn’t like, getting wet was high up on the list. When he heard the store door open and close, he peeked around the well and saw that Leland had left someone sitting in the boat. Curious, he darted from his hiding place and scooted down the pier. He cautiously approached the vessel and looked down at the man sitting behind the center console. The guy looked like he was sleeping. Grub squatted and stared at the man, at the belt tied around his leg, at the blood puddle by his feet. He was hugging a briefcase to his chest.
“Hey,” Grub said. “Was it Leland done that to your leg? He cut you or something? I wouldn’t doubt he done that.”
The man didn’t respond.
Grub picked up a piece of oyster shell and tossed it into the boat, watched for a reaction, ready to sprint off if the man looked up, but he didn’t move. Grub drew closer for a better look. The briefcase. Checking over his shoulder in case Leland was coming, he slipped quickly into the boat, squatted before the man, and studied the briefcase in his hands, reaching out to touch the holes. He wondered if they were from bullets.
“You alive?” Grub asked him.
The man’s head lolled, and his right eye opened slowly.
“Help…doctor.”
“I can call one. Five dollars,” Grub said, picking a nice number and holding out his grimy palm. “Cash.”
70
The streets around the hotel were teeming with people who appeared to be going about the business of partying, despite the fact that Katrina was barreling toward their playground with winds approaching 195 miles per hour.
At the Marriott, the lobby was crowded with people who finally understood that it was time to set aside their go-cups and get the hell out of Dodge. Of course, now all the flights were overfilled, all available rental cars had long since left the city, and unless they could find some transportation, the luckless bastards were going to be huddled in the Superdome bleachers along with the city’s poorest, sickest, and most unsavory citizens. For hard-core criminals, a city-destroying hurricane had to look like the career opportunity of a lifetime.
On her room’s television set, a satellite picture showed Hurricane Katrina as a one-eyed saw blade of white-cloud fury that seemed to cover the entire Gulf of Mexico. Katrina’s sustained winds were expected to rise to an unbelievable 210 miles per hour and, the newscaster said soberly, she was going to be the worst hurricane ever to make landfall on American soil.
Alexa, who considered herself beyond being surprised by anything, was stunned. Before, the hurricane had seemed like some abstraction, and she hadn’t allowed herself to believe the storm was really out there, because of the tempest she’d been involved with that was already there. She had heard that people died in natural disasters because their minds couldn’t grasp an approaching cataclysmic event-the fear zone in the human brain can simply refuse to consider something that seems impossible. People see a tidal wave in movies, but one unfolding before their eyes seems a film to be viewed with awe.
The weathercaster showed a graphic of the evacuation routes out of New Orleans and warned that anybody who was foolish enough to remain in the city might well be underwater when the levees-designed for a maximum category three hurricane-were breached by billions and billions of gallons of water pushed by two-hundred-mile-per-hour winds up the Mississippi River into Lake Pontchartrain and into the vast network of canals surrounding the city. This was the perfect storm the doomsday prophets had been warning residents about for the past forty years.
There were the now-stale scenes of store owners and residents covering glass with plywood or X’s made of duct tape. There was footage of bumper-to-bumper traffic, of a fistfight at a gas station that was running dry, shots of fishing fleets tied up in harbors, and of cheering drunks in the Quarter, just around the corner from Alexa’s hotel. The bleary-eyed, bald mayor of New Orleans was hoarse from issuing warnings. How many times could one man predict ten feet of water in the city without his words sounding like static?
Alexa turned her back on the video horror, sat on the bed, slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, and removed the folded notebook from her purse. It was just a typical spiral-bound notebook, like the ones sold to students. Alexa opened the cover and began reading.
ONE WOMAN’S LIFE
LIVED IN THE SERVICE OF GREATNESS
by Dorothy Mason Fugate, RN
The writing was in an almost adolescent cursive. The author dotted her i’s and j’s with tight circles.
I remember the day I first laid eyes on the most handsome young physician (never call him a doctor) I had ever seen. I had been an RN for less than two years at that point, and I was almost knocked off my feet when he spoke his first words to me. I have never considered myself beautiful, but when he looked at me, I felt like I was the most desirable woman on the planet. (He later swore I looked just like Marilyn Monroe.) I saw the desire in his handsome face and piercing blue eyes. His blood is noble, as I will explain, and the LePointe family goes all the way back to ancient France. We had our first sexual relations a few days later, and although I was not a virgin, it was like it was my first time. When my dear William completed his psychiatric residency, he and his wife (more about that relationship, if you can call it such, later) returned to New Orleans. Knowing how some doctors tell lies to us nurses to get what they want, I must admit that I sort of thought he might not do what he said he would, about bringing me down there, but shortly after he started working at River Run, he secured a nursing position for me in that mental hospital for the criminally insane, where he was starting to do very, very important work, even though he had a thriving private practice, listening to rich people whine. He wanted to deal with really sick people. Even though he was very, very wealthy, he always worked really hard, and as a result of his work many hundreds of sick people have been made better. And I’m talking very, very ill people. Few men are blessed with greatness, and he is one in a billion. From the day I met him, I was his in every way. I have no regrets whatsoever that I have given my adult life in service to him. By serving, I made a contribution that has value far beyond what most humans, aside from Mother Teresa, ever find.