Gumbo Justice Read online

  Gumbo Justice

  Holli Castillo

  Oak Tree Press Taylorville, IL

  GUMBO JUSTICE, Copyright 2009, by Holli Castillo, All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quo-tations used in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Oak Tree Press, 140 E. Palmer St., Taylorville, IL 62568.

  Oak Tree Press books may be purchased for educational, business or sales promo-tional purposes. Contact Publisher for quantity discounts

  First Edition, June 2009

  Cover by MickADesign.com

  ISBN 978-1-892343-51-2 SKU 1-892343-51-7

  LCCN: 2009927824

  This book is dedicated to my husband, Julio “Big Who” Castillo, and my two best friends, Sophia Louise and Hailey Cecelia.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are many people I have to thank for helping me turn a single what-if into a published novel. First, my thanks to my publisher, Billie Johnson at Oak Tree Publishing, who gave me this opportunity and who has always been most accommodating in answering my questions. Second, my family — my husband Julio, who is the inspiration for the character of Big Who, my children, who tolerated the hours I spent on the computer, my mother, who watched my children so I could write, my sister, who endured the endless torture of my request for comments on rewrites, and my aunt, Theresa Acosta, a nurse who answered a multitude of questions on ways to kill people. I also have to thank several friends for reading my work and offering feedback- Susan Talbot, Sherry Lozowski, Jane Beebe, Gwyn Brown, and my best friend, Lisa Fogarty, who not only read the novel in its various forms, but drove all over New Orleans with me, including through the dangerous St. Thomas Housing Development, to make sure I had the street names and geography correct. Last, but not least, I would also like to thank my boss, Jim Looney, who always supports his staff and never tells me when he thinks I’m crazy.

  FOREWORD

  Although I tried to keep everything in this novel as accurate as possible, I have taken artistic license with some things for the sake of simplicity. For instance, while the New Orleans Police Department is divided into eight districts, the makeup of the districts is a lot more complicated than what was necessary, or interesting, for me to detail in a novel. I also combined the two Uptown districts to create a single district for Ryan’s crime scene duty rather than unnecessarily complicate the storyline. So my apologies to the NOPD for playing around with the districts and organization of the police department. My intent was not to be inaccurate, but to write only as much as would entertain a reader.

  Criminal law changes nearly every legislative session in Louisiana, and both the Louisiana Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court constantly hear death penalty cases. It is possible the death penalty for rape of a child under twelve mentioned here may be invalidated by the time this book is being read.

  Finally, this story is set in pre-Katrina New Orleans and many things have obviously changed since that time. For instance, the D.A.’s Office building in this novel flooded during the storm and has yet to be repaired. The courthouse is open again, but there is talk of moving it to a new location. The streets and neighborhoods remain basically the same, however, Jazz Fest is still a huge success, and if you want a good shrimp po-boy, you’ll have no trouble finding one.

  Monday

  3:30 A.M.

  Does it hurt yet?

  The shrill peal of the phone penetrated Ryan’s dream, banishing the chilling voice and macabre image from her foggy mind. She glanced around the room in a panic until she finally caught sight of the clock on the dresser. The green neon numbers wavered until she blinked. Three-thirty a.m. Why couldn’t murderers and rapists wait until the daylight hours to commit their crimes? She exhaled slowly. At least the nightmare was over. For now, anyway.

  Ryan picked up the phone and groaned. “Yeah.” Her head was heavy, her mouth furry.

  “Thirty in the St. Thomas. Shep will pick you up in five.” That was the extent of the conversation, but she immediately knew that it was her brother, NOPD Detective Sean Murphy, calling to report a homicide in one of the city’s ten housing developments. Detective Anthony Chapetti — Shep — would be there in five minutes to drive her to the crime scene.

  She untangled her clammy legs from the rumpled sheet, and groaned again as she sat up. Even with the air conditioner blowing full blast, her hairline was damp. And it was only the end of April.

  Clad in a thin tank top and white cotton underwear, she rolled out of bed and stood in front of the window unit with her arms raised above her head, exposing her armpits directly to the cold blast of air for a minute. She didn’t want to think about how hot it would be by July.

  Reluctantly, she stumbled away from the air conditioner, averting her eyes from the mirror as she flipped on the light switch. If she looked at all like she felt, the mirror would only hurt her feelings.

  Making a cursory attempt to brush through the network of auburn tangles, she admitted defeat when the bristles made contact with a tender lump on the back of her head. A vague recollection surfaced of falling off of a bar stool last night, her head landing in something wet she hoped was beer. It had seemed hilarious then, when she was full of tequila, but now that she was painfully sober, not so much.

  Sighing, she rummaged on the floor and grabbed a pair of well-worn running shorts that she had borrowed from one of her four brothers years ago, and debated whether she really needed a bra. After all attention would be focused on the dead body, and nobody would be paying too much attention to her.

  But then again, her father, Sixth District Police Captain Kelly Murphy, would definitely notice and have quite a lot to say about it later. While the captain didn’t ordinarily put in an appearance at crime scenes, he had so far shown up at every one during Ryan’s week of crime scene duty.

  She resigned herself to wearing the bra, and then grabbed a black half-shirt from the dresser, knowing her father disapproved of the tight shirt, in part because it revealed her belly-ring. A pair of faded tennis shoes was the final touch. The other assistant district attorneys could wear expensive suits and fancy shoes to the filthy crime scenes if they wanted, but not Ryan.

  She thought back to her first night, last month, when she was called out to another crime scene in the St. Thomas. Dressed like a proper assistant, she had ruined a pair of $300 Ferragamo pumps, stepping in a pile of what she hoped was dog mess, but thought might possibly be of human origins. Never again. With what the D.A. paid his prosecutors, Ryan couldn’t afford to lose another pair of shoes.

  A horn honked. Ryan flipped the light on her porch twice to let Shep know she was on the way, and then hastily brushed her teeth. The horn honked again. Not bothering with makeup, she sprayed a shot of perfume on her neck and rolled deodorant into her armpits until it disappeared into her skin. While people might call her a bitch, Ryan wasn’t going to let anyone say she stunk.

  She finally ran out of the front door and was immediately assaulted by the pervasive heat. The air was thick with the smell of narcissus, although the nearest ones grew two houses away. Usually, the sticky sweetness of the small, white flowers was comforting, reminding Ryan of playing in her own backyard as a child. Right now the scent was too redolent, more reminiscent of a box of deodorant tampons, and made her stomach heave slightly. She tried to swallow the nausea as she slowed her step. The man waiting for her inside the Crown Vic was tapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel when she slid into the passenger seat.

  “About time,” he said, raising an eyebrow before gunning the car backwards out of the covered driveway. His gaze was intense, with coal lashes framing eyes the grayish-blu
e of the Gulf of Mexico. “I guess you had another late night.”

  Ryan reached over and clicked the A/C switch to high, determined not to let Shep’s perfect looks make her feel self-conscious. His dark hair stopped just at his shoulders, and even now, in the middle of the night, looked as if it had just been washed and blow dried. Although department regulations required all personnel to be clean-shaven, Ryan had never seen him without stubble, nearly camouflaging his high, chiseled cheekbones. The dark shadow added a hardness to his otherwise almost-pretty facial features.

  He made a U-turn in the middle of the street, ignored the stop sign on the corner and drove halfway across St. Charles Avenue, only pausing to let the streetcar pass. The conductor jangled the bell and gave a wave in passing.

  Ryan aimed the side air vent at her face, and then took a chance and glanced at herself in the passenger window. She had been wise to avoid the mirror at home. Her almond-shaped eyes were sunken-in without makeup, the purple crescents underneath them emphasizing her fatigue. The normal tan of her face was reduced to an unhealthy gray hue, the result of too much Cuervo Gold and not enough sleep.

  “I spent the day at Jazz Fest, and most of the night at the Hole,” she finally said, mentally cursing herself for feeling the urge to explain herself. If she had been in court, she would have ignored Shep’s comments. Of course, if she had been in court, she wouldn’t have looked like a cross between a swamp witch and Alice Cooper. “I forgot I was on death patrol tonight.”

  It wasn’t so much she had forgotten, but more that she hadn’t cared that it was her duty week that had kept her out so late. The Hole was a bar across Tulane Avenue from the D.A.’s Office, owned and run by Ryan’s oldest brother, Dominick, consequently making it a safe haven for her when she wanted to drink away the problems of her day. And she wasn’t about to miss the Jazz Fest for crime scene duty. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival came around only once a year. Crime scene duty came around every month. Just like her period.

  “And if it was up to me, I wouldn’t be going at all,” she added, covering her mouth as the sentence ended in a yawn.

  Shep activated his police light and ran the red, accelerating as he headed down the deserted St. Charles Avenue. “I still don’t understand why your boss thinks his attorneys are needed at crime scenes.”

  Ryan shrugged. “He does this every election year. The voters seem to like it.”

  Something dark scurried in front of the car and Shep veered sharply from the center of the lane in an apparent attempt to avoid it. There was a bump, and an armadillo waddled on stubby legs to the right side of the road.

  Ryan watched through the side mirror as the armadillo made it out of the street in one piece, knowing it would probably die anyway. The appearance of swamp creatures such as armadillos, nutria rats and even an occasional alligator in the city was one of the many paradoxes that New Orleanians accepted without question.

  Shep ignored the animal and pointed at Ryan. “And you, of all people, don’t mind being used as a prop for the D.A.’s commercials?”

  “If it gets me a promotion, Peter can use me as a footstool in his commercial. And, anyway, I looked really good on TV.” The commercial had featured six prosecutors in the background at a fake crime scene, with the D.A. standing in front of the camera emphatically expressing his concern about the crime rate. Ryan had thought she had stood out from the other prosecutors, if for no other reason than for the size of her boobs. Watching herself in the commercial on television for the first time had been an almost religious experience.

  Shep turned the A/C down a notch. “It’s still a waste of everyone’s time. Most of the attorneys are totally useless outside the courtroom.”

  Ryan didn’t mention that many of the attorneys were just as useless inside the courtroom as well. This was the second time Shep had voiced his feelings about the necessity of the assistants at the crime scene to Ryan, and while she wasn’t convinced it did anything other than bolster her boss’s campaign, she wasn’t going to let Shep minimize her job.

  She turned the air back to high. “Well, maybe if ya’ll actually caught a criminal now and then, the crime rate wouldn’t be so high and Peter wouldn’t feel the need to defend himself every time he’s up for re-election.”

  The car accelerated through the intersection as a yellow light changed to red. She waited for Shep’s obligatory defense of his department, but he changed the subject, an amused look on his face.

  “Nice belly-ring. Makes you look like a stripper.”

  Ryan weighed her words as the Crown Vic flew too quickly down the single lane of St. Charles Avenue, past the antebellum mansions and the lush magnolia and crepe myrtle trees that jealously guarded them.

  “Knowing how much you like strippers, I’m sure that’s supposed to be a compliment, but don’t get any ideas. I’m not really your type.” As if Shep had a type. If a woman had legs that opened on command, she was pretty much his type.

  “Have you been reading the bathroom walls at court again?” he asked. A deep dimple in each cheek was revealed by his slow-spreading smile. The smile was off-kilter, and made him resemble the cartoon alligator a local French Quarter artist painted on T-shirts to sell to tourists. The alligator, named Gilbert, pronounced in the French dialect, Gil-bear, had a mouthful of even, white teeth, and light lines that crinkled around his eyes. The T-shirts depicted Gilbert charming the shotgun away from a Cajun in a pirogue. Something Shep would probably have no trouble doing himself.

  “Yeah, and from what the girls are writing about you, you have nothing to brag about.” She glanced at his hard, athletic body in a way she hoped seemed disinterested, thinking Anthony Chapetti probably had quite a bit to brag about. His body was lean and cut beneath his black SID T-shirt. Her eyes wandered down, inadvertently ending at the bulge in his jeans. The thought trailed away as she realized Shep was watching her watching him, and she finally looked away, slightly embarrassed.

  Gilbert’s smile widened. “If I take you out for raw oysters at Acme, will you quit throwing yourself at me?”

  She resisted the urge to smack him. He was obviously trying to get a rise from her, and she refused to give him one. Instead, she dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “If you put as much energy into catching criminals as you do into trying to get laid, you might actually get an arrest credit now and then.”

  Gilbert’s smile gave way to Shep’s, and Ryan was satisfied that she had won the round. Shep had been best friends with her brother Sean since grade school, and Ryan had always had the same typically hostile relationship with Shep that she shared with her own brothers and had still not quite outgrown.

  He rounded the corner onto Felicity on two wheels, and continued speeding in silence toward the Mississippi River. Within a block, the lavish, imposing mansions gave way to shabby, impoverished shacks, revealing another New Orleans paradox, the filthy rich living spitting distance to the poverty-stricken destitute. The continued trek down Felicity brought them to Magazine Street, and the closer they got, the bleaker the neighborhood became. Just beyond Magazine Street, the St. Thomas Housing Development loomed ahead, like a brick and cement monster waiting for its prey.

  The silence was awkward, and when Shep finally slowed to make a right onto St. Thomas, one of the few streets that ran all of the way through the project, Ryan let out a barely audible sigh of relief. Shep’s eyes darted to her before he pulled to a stop between two marked units, their red and blue lights strobing frantically. The area was teeming with uniformed officers, one of who indicated to the second building from St. Thomas Street.

  This side of the development was bordered by Tchoupitoulas Street, but a massive brick wall kept it hidden like a bastard child from the main thoroughfare. The buildings here had been condemned years ago, and were supposedly going to be torn down at some point in the future. Some of the council members talked of tearing down the entire development and relocating all of the occupants, because several prominent companies were look
ing to invest in the area. While it would have been beneficial to the city to revitalize the crime-infested neighborhood, so far, the talk was just that — talk. The council didn’t seem to be in a hurry to pay for the mass relocation.

  The St. Thomas was one of the larger housing developments in New Orleans but, until recently, not one of the more dangerous. Then again, none of them was exactly Disneyworld. Ryan took a deep breath as she walked away from the Crown Vic a step behind Shep, trying to calm the wave of apprehension rolling through her stomach.

  “What do you have?” Shep asked a short, Hispanic patrolman.

  “Black male, approximately twenty years old, single gunshot wound to the head.”

  Ryan quickened her step to keep pace with Shep as they followed the officer to building 21, a three-story brick unit, with boarded windows and a set of cracked cement steps that were partially sunken into the soft Louisiana ground.

  “Watch your step,” Shep said, reaching for Ryan’s hand to help her over the foot-and-a-half gap between the steps and the building. She ignored him and stepped over without his assistance. He shook his head and continued into the apartment.

  “Have fun, kids. Your vic was also naked, bound and beaten.” The patrolman seemed relieved to be leaving the area, whistling as he walked away.

  The area was beginning to attract a crowd, despite the late hour and lack of lighting. Ryan stopped behind Shep in the dismal, unlit foyer, which smelled of urine and some other smell she thought was familiar but couldn’t quite make out. Her father stood near the open door of the first apartment, holding a flashlight. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but remained silent when he walked up, towering over her.

  The captain stood six-foot-four, 275 pounds, and Ryan, for all her twenty-eight years, barely five-feet tall and somewhere in the neighborhood of the 110 pounds she would admit to, looked like a child next to him. Her father’s lips were a thin line of disapproval as he looked her up and down.