Not Dead Enough Read online

  “You need to take care of yourself. Maybe that’s the way, maybe not.” It felt like she was saying what she thought I’d want to hear. The hustle of survival, give the right answer and you get a meal or shelter for the night. Thinking that I had already judged her. Maybe I had. I said I drank too much as a way of bonding, admitting we all make mistakes. But I had a career, a house, all the trappings of middle-class comfort. I hadn’t lost any of that to a bottle. And maybe I wasn’t any better, just luckier. I didn’t have the genes that sent me down into the addiction hell hole. It’s so easy to refuse a vice you’re not tempted by, then judge others because they are. In truth, there but for fortune.

  If I was going to use her, I should be honest about it. “I want you and Sharon to be okay, but I’m also working on an investigation that might involve the murder you witnessed.”

  “No, no, we didn’t see a murder. A car stopped. They put something big out. That’s all we saw.”

  “You saw enough that the two of you were given a bag of bad stuff. You weren’t meant to wake up.”

  “But…we didn’t see anyone.”

  “Do you know the man who gave you the drugs?”

  “Yeah, he’s a badass. Trouble from the sun to the moon.”

  “Trouble in what way?”

  “Vicious. Hurts people because he likes to. Some dealers are okay, businesspeople like. They sell you a product, at enough to make a profit. They don’t try to fuck with you. Not him. Saw him steal a hit from a guy desperate for it—going into withdrawal, then dangled a bag in front of him and made him pay everything he had, a special gold coin, his mother’s wedding ring, stuff he’d kept no matter how hard it was. Heard about him beating the crap out of an old man to show others they’d better pay him. Man hadn’t done anything to him, hadn’t bought nothing. Just in the wrong place.”

  “You buy from him?”

  “Not no more. Did a few times a long time ago. But he’d give you crap and charge too much. Most have learned to avoid him if they can.”

  “But he’s still dealing?”

  “New and stupid folks arrive all the time.”

  “Any idea why he might have given you the bad dope?”

  “He works for anyone who’ll pay him. He likes to hurt women.” She shuddered as she said it.

  “Has he hurt you? Or Sharon?”

  “No. Not till now. He took a young girl, small build, maybe sixteen, just out on the street. Dragged her behind an abandoned house. We could hear her screams.”

  “No one called the police?”

  “No phones to call. By the time they came, he was gone. We couldn’t help—at least that’s what people whispered—and it’d piss him off. She was too new to have friends, anyone who’d risk for her. Not pretty, but surviving out there isn’t pretty.”

  “Why’d you take the bag from him?”

  “Stupid. Thought he was going to hit us at first, but then he says he’s got new stuff, wants to get the word out. Giving out a few free samples. Send people to him. Too good to be true,” she said with a disgusted shake of her head. “We wanted to believe it, so we did. I thought Sharon would be okay, just once to get away from the heat and how her feet hurt and hunger. Just once, then we’d be good again.”

  She started to cry.

  I pulled into the parking garage at the hospital, the new one that had replaced Charity.

  “You still have your chance. You can still be good again. Take a day or so to recover. They should let you stay with her, claim you’re her sister.”

  “Cousin, but we grew up together.”

  That explained the bond. It didn’t feel sexual, but there was more of a connection than just the streets and a hard life. “That should do. Stay with her and you both get a few days off.”

  “Just being here in your cool car is nice,” she said.

  I didn’t think it was very cool, barely tepid, but at least not the blazing heat of an August afternoon. “Can you tell me what you saw? Every detail you can remember?” I nosed into a parking spot, then turned the AC up another notch.

  “Just what I said. Middle of the night. We heard the car go by. Usually no traffic back there even in the day, nothing at night. Watched it drive down the road. Then it stopped a ways away. Both doors opened, but the engine stayed on. They opened the back and took something big out, dumped it on the side of the road, then left.”

  “You told the police you thought they were women?”

  “One was tall but had long hair, the other was shorter. Guess we assumed long hair was a woman, and no man would be that much shorter than a woman, so it had to be another woman.”

  “Could it have been a man with long hair?”

  “Maybe…but they didn’t walk like men, you know what I mean? Or maybe we just assumed from the hair and saw everything that way. That one was tall, so probably not a woman.”

  “Taller than I am?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Just know one was taller than the other and that made him look tall.”

  “You called the vehicle a car?”

  “It was one of those boxy things.”

  “SUV?”

  “Yeah, that. The ones people buy to drive off-road, only they never do.”

  “The more off-road it looks, the slower they go over bumps in the street,” I groused.

  She laughed. With a smile she wasn’t bad looking, had good teeth, a wide, generous mouth.

  “More square or more rounded?” I asked.

  “Square, corners, no curvy lines.”

  “Really big and bulky? As big as they get? Or less so?”

  “Big, but I’ve seen bigger. Like them Army ones.”

  “A Jeep?”

  “Like that, I think. It was dark, we weren’t paying that much attention, not like we knew what they’d throw out.”

  “Just tell me what you can remember, what comes easy. If you can’t recall, that’s okay, say so. Sometimes asking questions helps you with details. Can you give me another five minutes?”

  “Sure, honey, you get all the time you want, if I can sit and be cool.”

  She was giving me what I wanted, but her foot was tapping. She wanted to check on her cousin.

  “On the street, that other man, big and tall, have you ever seen him before?”

  “Not often.”

  “But you’re seen him? Here in New Orleans?”

  “Yeah, here. Nowhere else to see him. Not like we vacation often.”

  “With the drug dealer? Or by himself?”

  “Yeah, together. Think they work sometimes. Druggie does stuff for him.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Street sense. See them together and someone gets a beating.”

  “Murder?”

  “Maybe. Maybe Druggie was the tall one. With a wig, since we know what he looks like.”

  “Would he dump a body there?”

  “Well, I guess not. Unless he wanted it to be found. He’d know a bunch of us were camping around there. We’d see it right soon.”

  Her fingers were now tapping.

  “Is there a way I can get in contact with you if I think of something else?”

  “Yeah, usually once a week, I go for group. People like me, working through it. Place on Claiborne and Elysian Fields. You can find me there. Or leave a message with my counselor. Name is Cindy Espinosa.” She dug a battered business card out of her bag and handed it to me. “She’s been real helpful, a kind soul.”

  I took a photo with my phone and handed it to her. She seemed relieved to have it back in her possession, as if a touchstone to her recovery.

  “Let’s go find Sharon,” I said.

  We got out of my car, into the blanket of heat, the garage and concrete holding it in.

  Once inside, we found our way to the emergency room.

  “We’re looking for Sharon…” I turned to Margaret for her last name.

  “Pas. Sharon Pas. I’m her cousin, first cousin, but more like sister, Margaret B
aughman. We lived together mostly growing up.”

  The woman just nodded, looked at her screen, then gave us directions to where she was.

  A woman in scrubs looked up as we entered.

  “Family,” I asserted, claiming our right to be there.

  “She okay?” Margaret asked.

  The woman, Dr. G. Rodger, I read on her tag, said, “She’ll be okay, but we’d like to keep her overnight, make sure she’s stabilized. Dehydrated, close to heat exhaustion, a bad blister that’s infected on one foot.”

  “Be okay if I stay with her?” Margaret asked. “She can get agitated in strange places.”

  The doctor nodded, deciding a calming presence was more important than any rules.

  “We’re going to move her to a room in a little bit,” Dr. Rodger said.

  I left the cousins holding hands, Sharon’s face relaxing once Margaret arrived. I went in search of food. Both for myself and for them.

  By the time I’d gotten a pile of things—a couple of sandwiches, chips, and a few healthy options like apples, bananas, and a carrot/humus combo—Sharon had been given a room.

  I dumped the pile on the bedside table.

  Margaret’s eyes lit up. “You didn’t need to do that.” But she was already unwrapping a sandwich.

  I felt guilty. It was so easy for me to walk into a grocery store, order a pizza to be delivered. “I was hungry,” I said, taking a sandwich for myself.

  I stayed long enough to eat and not be rude. I wanted to ask Sharon what she’d seen, compare it to Margaret, but now was not the time. She was tired and drained. Maybe I’d get a chance later. Maybe I wouldn’t.

  Maybe none of it mattered.

  I gave Margaret a twenty dollar bill as I left. Sharon would get fed, as a patient, but Margaret wouldn’t. A few more sandwiches.

  Except someone wanted these two women dead, and the only likely reason was what they had seen.

  None of it made sense. If Druggie had dumped the body there, he would have wanted it to be found quickly. Which was what happened. Unless he/they hadn’t planned on anyone seeing the actual dumping and were worried Margaret and Sharon might have noticed something that could lead back to them.

  And how were Druggie and Junior Boy involved? Had Ellis ordered the hit on the rebellious Brande women? Left Junior Boy to arrange it? And Junior Boy turned to Druggie, his pal? Maybe Ellis was surprised because the body wasn’t supposed to turn up. Junior Boy had fucked up again, by leaving a dead woman to end up in the morgue, attracting police attention.

  I sat in the parking lot, letting my car cool down. And trying to come up with a place to go.

  Junior Boy was still in town, and staying close enough to Rob’s bar, he could walk there. He didn’t strike me as the long walks to nowhere kind of guy.

  I-10 was a rush hour mess, so I took Airline Highway out to, you guessed it, the airport. There were a number of hotels out there, with rates far below those around the French Quarter—as well as free parking lots. No one would look for me there.

  Once checked in, I first took a shower—it had been a long, hot day—procrastination to avoid doing what I needed to do.

  Call Joanne.

  That Junior Boy was in town and involved with Druggie, who had a reputation as an enforcer, argued that Salve was telling the truth, she was trying to escape, with enough money to get well and far away, and the Brande men were trying to stop her.

  Joanne needed to know someone had tried to kill the two witnesses to the dumping of the woman. Maybe they knew something they hadn’t revealed to me. It was possible the police told them to keep some details back.

  She answered on the first ring.

  I recounted what had happened, the bad drugs, the overdose.

  She listened without interruption.

  “I’ll check with security at the hospital and let them know to be on the watch, although it would be beyond crazy to try anything there.”

  Nothing was beyond crazy in this mess, but she had a point. Too many people around and no quick escape to the street.

  She also said she’d ask Druggie to be picked up and held for as long as they could. And if they could, pick up Junior Boy, aka Elbert Brande, for questioning. I offered to press charges for his threats at my office.

  “Let’s hope we can take you up on that,” she said.

  I gave her the details of what Margaret had told me and asked if there was something more, something the police didn’t want released. A reason to kill them.

  Joanne said she’d look over the interview again, but she didn’t remember anything worth killing for. There was no ID, not even a good description of either the people or the vehicle.

  She asked where I was, and I told her.

  “Good,” was her response.

  I didn’t tell her about talking to Salve. I was more on the side of the Brande women than the letter of the law.

  We hung up.

  I stared at the bland hotel room. Between this and my Atlanta trip, I’d spent way too much time in hotels.

  What was I missing?

  If Karen and I hadn’t been pulled into this, I could walk away. But I was stuck in a hotel out by the airport, and somebody needed to pay. Even if not literally pay. If Salve kept her promise to send me money, maybe I could manage to come out ahead at the end of this whole mess.

  The hasty sandwich had been a while ago. I passed time by driving around, checking out the eating options out here—not a part of New Orleans I have explored for culinary purposes. A lot of fast food. I ended up with takeout from a Vietnamese place—and stopping at a daiquiri shop. Yes, you can buy them and drive away, although technically you’re not supposed to actually be sipping while steering.

  Back in my room, I ate, I drank, I tried not to obsess over the case, let things ferment in my brain with hopes the subconscious would perform a miracle. TV was boring. I tried to read, but nothing kept me engrossed enough. Next time I swing by home, I need to get workout gear, I told myself. A good session in the fitness room might help with the nervous energy.

  Shortly after ten, just as I was contemplating giving up and going to bed, my phone rang.

  An Atlanta number.

  “Hey, stranger on a train,” Anmar greeted me. “Is it too late?”

  “No, not at all. How are you?”

  “I should be polite and ask how you are as well, but as usual I’m calling because I can’t really call anyone else and I have to talk to someone.”

  “I’m fine, so consider the question asked. What do you need to talk about?”

  “How crazy everything is. Remember the hotel we met at for a drink? I’m staying there now. Escorted here by Donnie. For reasons I don’t understand, they wanted no one—especially any of the women—at the compound. But he called just now, demanding to know where I’d been, like he hadn’t just dumped me here in the late afternoon.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth—fortunately—that I was here the entire time, got room service for dinner. Told him he could check the GPS on my phone—the Ellis phone, not this one—to check.”

  “How often does this kind of thing happen?”

  “That’s just it. Never. I’ve never been sequestered like this. I’m wondering if they’re murdering someone there—or ‘making them talk’—and they wanted to make sure there were no witnesses. Except that kind of stuff doesn’t happen where we live.”

  “Where does it happen?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. Mostly because I don’t want to know. Yes, I’m a hypocrite, I live in a crime family and do my best to keep my eyes to the ground and my ears plugged. That way I can pretend it’s just harmless, victimless crimes, like gambling.”

  “Drugs, sex trafficking,” I pointed out.

  She sighed. Then took a wavering breath and said softly, “Yeah, I know. If I really thought about it, really knew what it takes to buy the big houses and fancy cars and expensive booze, I’d hate myself. So, I have conveniently walled of
f my conscience.”

  “What do you want to do about that?” I prompted.

  “Think about it tomorrow. Right now I’m trying to know if I can lay low here in the family-approved hotel or if I should hightail it to the airport and get on the first plane out.”

  “Do you think you’re in danger?”

  “Something is happening, and it’s big. Ellis is screaming at Donnie and Donnie is screaming at everyone he can scream at. Andrea has disappeared and I don’t know where she is. Before she left I could talk to her about this. And now…I can’t. Something must have happened to her. She was my twin…my almost me. At times we’d switch places and pretend to be each other. We lived on the same path. If something happened to her…it’ll happen to me.” She started to cry.

  “Anmar, you’re still here. If anything did happen to Andrea, it took place before all this. Horrific to say, but women get hurt and killed too often. That could have happened to her, it could have nothing to do with your family.”

  She sniffled and said, “That’s not much comfort.”

  I said gently, “Would you prefer that I tell you everything will be okay? That she’ll return any day now?”

  “No,” she sobbed. Then said, “Maybe. Maybe I need that fantasy for tonight. To think I’ll go to sleep and wake up and she’ll be back, brimming with stories of her adventures.”

  I wanted to tell her that Andrea might well be in the morgue. It would only help because it would give her the answer, finally let her start on her path of grief instead of the purgatory of hope. I didn’t. Maybe it was the right thing to do, or maybe I was a coward. Like her, I wasn’t going to look too closely at my choices.

  “I saw a woman here in New Orleans who looks a bit like you, although she appeared older,” I said. “At a distance. I snapped her picture. Can I send it to you and see what you think?”

  “Yes! You think it might be her?”

  “She doesn’t look quite like your twin, but I was struck by the resemblance.”

  “Send it.”

  I fumbled with the phone, trying to not hang up. I’m not a member of the multitasking generation. Finally I figured it out and sent the photo.

  Then waited.

  It was a full minute before she replied. “No, that’s not Andrea. It looks a lot like Sabrina or Salve, but why would either of them be in New Orleans?”