She walked to the aquarium and stood near the entrance, watching people. She saw a mother and her daughter, hand in hand, vanish into the building. Taking off her backpack, Faith Ann found her mother's cell phone and dialed. When the familiar voice answered, “Hello?” she felt small and terrified and before she knew it she started crying.
“I… I… I. Rush…” she managed to say. “It's me, Faith Ann. Please… I need help.”
52
Winter and Adams took Winter's Stratus, and Nicky followed driving Adams's Chevrolet. They arrived outside the River Club and parked in the lot. Nicky stopped the Chevrolet thirty feet away from them.
“Okay, Nicky,” Winter said into his radio. “Adams and I'll rattle this buzzard's cage. I'll radio if we need you inside.”
As the pair walked off, Nicky's voice came over the radio. “Ten-four.”
Inside the foyer, the smiling hostess was bantering with a group of men, one of whom Winter recognized as the previous mayor of New Orleans, the son of another mayor long dead. As the local dignitaries were being led to a table, Winter and Adams waited for the hostess to return.
“Two?” she asked cheerfully. “Smoking or nonsmoking?”
Adams opened his badge case and showed it to her. “We need to speak to Mr. Bennett,” he said.
“I'll see if he's in,” she said, a pained smile freezing on her face. “Can I tell him what this is in reference to?”
“Shouldn't you see if he's in first?” Adams replied.
She lifted the telephone on the lectern and punched three digits. “Is the boss in?” she asked. After a short pause, she said, “There are two gentlemen to see Mr. Bennett. FBI agents.”
She listened and looked back up at Adams. “Might I say what this is in reference to?”
“We'll handle that,” Adams said flatly.
The hostess said, “Just go straight to the rear near the bathrooms. The iron gate will be open. His office is at the end.”
Winter and Adams walked toward the rear, skirting the dining tables. He caught sight of two people who fit Clara Hughes's description cut across the restaurant from the office area and exit through a side door. Winter keyed the radio. “Nicky, the couple in the Lincoln are exiting the far side of the building. Follow them.”
“I see them, and I'm so there,” Nicky's voice replied. “Leather lady and Stick climbed into a big bad black Lincoln, just like the neighbor lady said. ”
“Stick on them,” Winter said. “But don't get too close.”
Now they would find out who the couple were.
“Well, that's an interesting turn,” Adams said.
“Nicky, we're going in to see the guy. Radio silence unless there's an emergency.” Winter shut off his cell phone as they passed through the ornamental iron doors.
Jerry Bennett's secretary was a plump, orange-haired woman seated at a desk, blinking owlishly. Her face was as round as a pie tin, and her red lips were surrounded by thin lines, like metal fatigue cracks. Her irises were the color of mud, and her eyelids seemed to be trembling under the weight of green eyeshadow. “Can I help you?”
Adams flashed his badge. “Special Agent John Adams. Jerry Bennett, please.”
“He's expecting you,” she said. She got up, crossed to a tall, solid oak door, and held it open for them.
Jerry Bennett's office was spacious and elegantly modern. Illumination was provided by hidden light fixtures. The club owner approached the two men and extended his hand, which, since neither man moved to shake it, remained suspended before him until he lowered it and sat down behind the desk. The thick surface of the desk was granite, the edges rough as though something with very hard teeth had chewed on it.
“May I see your credentials?” he said, focusing first on Winter and then on Adams.
Adams held his ID inches from Bennett's eyes. Winter pulled out his badge case, and Bennett read it silently. If the presence of a marshal meant anything to him he didn't show it.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“We're looking into something, and a name came up that seems to be connected to you.”
“Please, sit,” Bennett said.
Adams and Winter sat in the two chairs across from the club owner. Adams opened a small notebook and stared at what Winter saw was a blank page. He took out a ballpoint, snapped its tip out, and positioned it over the page.
“Amber Lee,” Adams said after a few more seconds of silence.
“I didn't know that the FBI investigates murders.”
“Did I say we were investigating murders?”
Bennett reacted by shifting in his seat and smiling sickly. “No, I guess not.”
“That would be an NOPD matter,” Adams said. “Unless it somehow wasn't being handled legitimately.”
“Poor woman,” Bennett murmured.
“Yes,” Adams agreed. “Poor woman indeed.”
“Unfortunate, what happened,” Bennett said, lowering his eyes to the desktop.
“You filed charges against her,” Adams asked, snapping the ballpoint.
“I didn't want to. We go back a long way, Amber and I. At one time, we were very close. I've known… I knew her for over twenty years.”
“And yet she stole from you,” Adams said.
“That was…”
“Unfortunate?” Adams snapped the ballpoint on, made a note, clicked it off, and looked back up at Bennett.
Bennett nodded. “Very. I've thought about it a great deal. It's very painful, as you can imagine. Maybe she needed money and was embarrassed to ask. I can't understand it, because I paid her quite well.”
“How much?”
“I'm sorry?”
“How much did she steal?”
“I believe it was fifty thousand dollars.”
“Fifty even?”
“Yes.”
“Your bookkeeper caught it?”
“No, it was in my drawer.”
“Fifty thousand dollars… in cash?”
“Yes.” Bennett nodded.
Adams scribbled. Clicked the pen closed.
Bennett cleared his throat. “Of course, I had to file charges. My insurance requires I do that if they are going to pay on my loss-by-theft policy.”
“Insurance company?” Adams clicked the pen and poised it over the pad.
“I'm sorry?”
“You filed a claim. I need the name of the company and the claims agent. So I can check it. Routine procedure.”
“Well… I haven't filed a claim yet… I will. My insurance broker is Felix Argent at Argent Consolidated. I'm not sure which company he has that handles that coverage. He uses lots of underwriting companies.”
Click. “So, Felix Argent advised you to file charges.”
“A policeman did.”
“The policeman who investigated the theft? It was investigated?”
Bennett nodded. “Look, I knew she took it. It was in my safe, she was the only other one in here who had the combination, and she left and it was gone.” He held out his open hands. “I was actually advised to file charges by a policeman, a close friend of mine, who said I would need that to collect on that kind of policy. I'm not sure Felix and I have talked about it yet. I've been extremely busy.”
Scribble. Click. “And no doubt grieving,” Adams said.
Adams's delivery was so deadpan that he could have been reading the questions out of an instruction book. Winter didn't do anything other than watch in solemn silence. It was a technique like the way Adams clicked the pen to make Bennett nervous. A mysterious U.S. marshal and an annoying FBI agent.
Silence for fifteen seconds. Click. “The name of this policeman friend?”
“Suggs. Homicide Commander Captain Harvey Suggs.”
“I see,” Adams said, not writing the name at all. “That wouldn't be the same Captain Suggs who is overseeing the Porter/Lee murder cases?”
“Is he? I suppose he would be in charge of the detectives who are. You'd have to ask him.”