Winter said, “All it takes to keep your record clean is being connected to the right people.”
“Around here, the art of back-scratching is a science,” Manseur said sadly.
72
Suggs looked down at the caller I.D. and shoved the unit into his desk drawer. Bennett!
Jerry Bennett had called Suggs while Massey and Adams were inside Canal Place, to see if the girl was in custody, but the nightclub owner hadn't bothered to mention that an FBI agent and a deputy U.S. marshal had been to his club minutes earlier. They had dropped that little bomb on him at Canal Place. Suggs had told Tin Man to get word to Bennett that he would get back to him when he could. It was bad enough that Bennett was in the Feds' sights, but that arrogant little bastard had implicated Suggs when there was no imaginable reason to have done so. God knows what that suicidal idiot said to them.
If they took Bennett down, that little prick would turn on Suggs, dragging in Tin Man, Doyle, and God knew who else up the ladder. Suggs had never liked Bennett, had never trusted him, but he had never before seen their mutually profitable arrangement as a threat to his freedom. Over the past twenty years Bennett had paid him a tax-free fortune, but not enough to go to prison over. In his career, Suggs had seen scores of his fellow police officers go to jail, and it wasn't going to happen to him.
Mike Manseur had control of both cases, and he would have to say that Suggs gave him everything he needed to solve them. Any evidence was open to interpretation, and he could justify taking the case from Manseur to his superiors.
Suggs had never killed anybody for Bennett-if you didn't count framing Horace Pond for two murders Bennett had committed. And Pond had been a nobody, human refuse, whose only accomplishment in life had been using his dick to add to the numbers of snot-nose nigger kids on the welfare rolls or populate the jails and prisons.
The only thing that Suggs had to do now was to make Bennett vanish so he could never talk. Suggs would have to do that deed himself, and in such a way that it would never point back to him.
That settled, Suggs felt the hollow burn in his stomach receding, cooled by the knowledge that all he needed was to calm down and devise a simple plan that would tie up the loose ends.
73
Thanks to Adams's amazingly efficient FBI computer hookup, which saved Manseur a couple of hours on his NOPD computer, Manseur knew that the woman in the Lincoln was Marta Ruiz. Now he needed to find out who her male partner was, which might explain how the pair had gained access to the investigation. They were clearly connected to Bennett and Tin Man and Doyle, but he needed to figure out exactly what that connection meant before he confronted Tin Man or Doyle. He had an idea on how he might discover who the man was, but his ringing phone interrupted him.
“Mike, Captain Suggs.”
“Yes sir?”
“Can you join Detectives Tinnerino and Doyle in the conference room?”
“Sure.”
The two detectives sat like surly schoolboys behind the boxes containing the assembled Porter/Lee evidence. Suggs sat at the head of the table and indicated that Manseur should sit opposite the other two-exactly where he belonged.
“Mike,” Suggs started, “I have just informed Tony and Clint that you are going to be the primary on both the Trammel and Porter/Lee cases. I've explained the connection between the two cases, and they have agreed to work with you to solve them. When will Larry Bond be back?”
“He's supposed to be back tonight. He might be back already. I was planning to call him.”
“Excellent,” Suggs said. “Whatever you need, I'll okay. Manpower, overtime, whatever. Just ask.”
Doyle's and Tin Man's resentful eyes bored into Manseur.
“First off,” Manseur said, “I have issued a new bulletin on Faith Ann Porter listing her as a material witness pickup, and I removed the armed-and-dangerous tag. I also took the liberty of changing the contact number to my own.”
Tin Man shook his head rigidly.
“Problem, Detective?” Manseur asked.
“Just that there's no evidence that she didn't clip her old lady and Lee.”
“Detective Doyle, do you agree with your partner?”
“Absolutely. She did it. Look at how she slipped out of Canal Place. She ain't like any twelve-year-old I ever saw.”
Manseur's phone rang. He looked at the I.D. and saw Massey's name and number. “I need to take this,” he said.
As he listened, the other three men talked about Faith Ann's escape from Canal Place. Manseur listened to Massey, let him know that he couldn't answer his questions, and told the deputy he'd have to call him back. What Massey had asked him had put a hot, hollow burn in his stomach.
“I think Mike is on track,” Suggs said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “We can charge the kid after we interrogate her, if it is warranted.” He rose. “Gentlemen, I'll leave it with you. Whatever you need, Mike. You're in complete charge.” With that, Suggs walked from the room.
“How do you explain the evidence we found?” Tinnerino demanded.
Manseur said, “Maybe it was planted there.”
“By who? Nobody else was there between when she was and we were.”
“I wasn't suggesting that you planted it, Detective. Might be that the killer, or killers, did. Maybe they came before you got there.”
Tinnerino clenched his jaw.
“Faith Ann Porter told a federal officer that a policeman killed her mother and Amber Lee. It will be interesting to learn how she came to believe that.”
“That evidence wasn't planted in that hamper,” Tinnerino argued.
“Then maybe she picked the gun and empty brass up, in shock, and took them with her. Unless one of you saw her put the evidence into that hamper, it is possible someone else did it. Hand me over the firearms files on the murder weapon.”
Tinnerino looked in the stack and pulled out the files. Manseur flipped through them, scanning them while the other detectives sat silently.
“The. 380's barrel is threaded on the inside. The M.E. found steel wool in the wounds. What does that say to you?”
No answer.
“The Taurus. 380 was one of twenty stolen from a dealer in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, nine months back. Two from that robbery have been picked up at crime scenes since. To me that indicates they were either sold by the dealer under the table or hijacked and sold to criminal types. That points to a professional. Not a twelve-year-old who merely witnessed the murders.”
“That's bullshit,” Tinnerino said.
“I say it isn't. And I am running this. If you want, I'll relieve you from the team. In light of the insinuation of there being police involvement in these homicides, it might be best to bring in all new people who have open minds.”
“No,” Tinnerino said, too quickly. “No, you're the primary. If that is how you want to read the evidence, that's cool with us. Right, Clint?”
“Sure,” Doyle agreed.
“If you say she was framed, she was framed,” Tinnerino said.
“Who ransacked the Porter house?” Manseur asked.
“Did what?” Tinnerino said. He and Doyle exchanged looks of surprise.
“You didn't?” Manseur asked.
“Of course not.” Tinnerino was indignant. “We searched. Who said it was ransacked?”
“Adams, the FBI agent,” Manseur said. “You met him at Canal Place.”
“Then I bet it was some of those porch chimps that hang out at that basketball court behind the house,” Doyle said.
Manseur ignored the slur. “I need to go over the evidence you've collected,” he said. “I'll need your notes and the report you've written so far.”
“We have a problem there,” Tinnerino said.
“We had a detailed report all typed up,” Doyle started. “But.. ”
“But what?” Manseur asked, bracing himself.
Manseur left the conference room bothered by Winter Massey's call. He had given Tin Man and Doyle busywork, and they would be at their desks retyping the missing report for some time.