I let Borgo take over the conversation, as planned, and watch Gault carefully, not that I learn anything from his body language except he’s tense. Very tense. But he looks Borgo in the eye with each answer and looks at me, too, as he answers each question with no problem.
“What were you wearing on your jog?” Borgo asks.
He glances at Addams and shrugs as if we’re boring him and tells us USCG gray sweats and black running shoes.
“What brand?”
“Reeboks. And if I remember what color socks, I’ll call you.” He winks as if he’s joking, but the bite of his words tells me differently. Addams furrows his brow momentarily. Gault sighs, reaches back to rub the back of his head, and says, “Sorry to snap. My leg’s hurting.”
“Have you seen a doctor about it?” I ask.
“Naw,” he smiles. “It’s just a sprain. Ace bandage.”
As we stand to leave, I ask to see his dog tags. He hesitates a moment and Addams says, “I think it’s routine.”
Gault gives me a hard look, one I’m sure intimidates enlisted men, but has no effect on me, and I let him know with an expressionless stare back at him. He stands and reaches into his shirt and I see he has a V-neck white T-shirt under. He doesn’t take the tags off, making me come to look. I watch his eyes as I reach forward to examine the dog tag. I try not to react to Gault having AB-positive blood.
I ease around him toward the far wall to some sort of nautical instrument, a ship’s wheel encased in glass with a long glass tube extending beneath it, looking a little like a thermometer, and ask, “What’s this?”
“Barometer,” Addams says.
As I turn, I see Gault has backed toward a side wall, so I move that way to a wooden sailing ship atop a small bookcase. The name plate under the man-o-war tells me it’s the U.S.S. Constitution.
“Old Ironsides,” says Addams.
As I move between Gault and the bookcase, he shifts quickly and I look down at his injured left leg. He says, without prodding, “Need to work it out.”
“Any reason why you keep facing me?” I step around him and see a patch of white at the back of his neck. “Is that a bandage?”
“Yeah. When I tripped this morning, I fell in those bushes by the little bridge. Thorns stuck me.”
I nod as I ease over and shake Addams’s hand, then thank Gault and lead Borgo out. As we get into our car, I see Borgo can’t hold it in any longer and he asks, “How’d you know about the bandage behind his neck?”
“Well, she didn’t scratch his arms, and they were the same height.”
I get behind the wheel and Borgo shakes his head. “That’s it? That’s how you came up with it?”
“You have to be more observant, amigo.”
“It’s pisano. I’m Italian. So, where to now?”
“Bridge.”
It’s a rock and concrete bridge over the edge of a man-made pond at the far end of West End Park. As we examine the bushes, Borgo states the obvious. “Azalea bushes and that’s a camellia bush. No thorns here.” We check each bush carefully, not a branch bent or broken, not a leaf missing, and no human tissue scraped on thornless branches.
“So what now?” Borgo asks.
“Search warrants.”
We climb back into the Chevy and he asks, “Warrants? As in two?”
“We’ll need a description of his building and the exact location of his condo for the first warrant. You’ll search there for the jogging clothes he wore while I take him to Charity with the other warrant.” He keeps looking at me, so I explain. “Get his blood for typing and DNA testing and get a doctor to look at that thorn injury.”
As soon as we secure the warrants we call for a marked car to meet us at the Lake Marina Tower. Officer S. Panola, whose platoon switched around to the evening shift, meets us. Her regular partner, who also has cornrows, is male, six three, two-fifty, with a nameplate that reads E. HAWKINS, greets us as we park and goes in to find the manager so we don’t have to kick down Gault’s door.
I ask for another car to meet me at the USCG substation, and my buddy Sidney Tilghman is waiting for me outside the station.
“Well, well, this is fast work.”
I give him a quick rundown and ask that he put Gault in the back of his unit, in the cage, and follow me to Charity Hospital.
“Want I should ask him anything, slick like, you know? Maybe he’ll slip up and say something.”
Yeah. Right. So I tell him, “Sure. See if he’ll tell you he killed her.”
Tilghman pulls up his uniform pants as I lead the way into the substation. Addams isn’t there, but Gault is, and I step into his office, pull out my ID folder, and read him his Miranda rights before telling him, “We have a search warrant for blood and skin samples. You’ll have to come along with us.”
He takes his time getting up, and I see Tilghman is antsy as he eases around me and says, “Keep your hands where we can see them.”
Gault limps around his desk, eyes darting between the sergeant and me, but not meeting my eyes. I show him the warrant. His eyes don’t even blink.
“Show him your knife,” Tilghman urges me. When I don’t, he tells Gault he’s a lucky man, I usually slice some hair off when I nab a killer. “You behave now,” Tilghman continues, “and I won’t cuff you till we get out to the car. Get feisty and I’ll slap them on and march you out in front of all your men like that.” He pats Gault down.
I’m sure the enlisted men can see outside as Tilghman cuffs Gault behind his back before slipping him into the back of the marked police car.
“This isn’t necessary,” Gault says in a gravely voice.
“You ride in my car, you get cuffed.” Tilghman shuts the door.
The ER at Charity is crowded, as usual, and smells of alcohol wipes, Pine Sol, and body odor. We ease through the waiting room, and an Orleans Parish sheriff’s deputy comes around to escort Tilghman and his handcuffed prisoner to an alcove, where Tilghman takes off the cuffs, and I go hunt down the duty police surgeon.
Dr. Sam Martinez is short, young, and energetic and quickly takes two swabs from inside Gault’s mouth before securing a blood sample from his left arm. As the warrant instructs, the doctor examines the injury at the back of Gault’s neck and nods to me.
“The wound is consistent with fingernail scratches,” the doctor says after he dresses the wound in a fresh bandage and steps away. “Can’t be positive, but it’s consistent.”
“Says he fell in some bushes.”
“Possible,” says the doctor. “But unlikely.”
I thank him and Tilghman slips the cuffs back on Gault, and we leave for the Detective Bureau, where we uncuff Gault again before putting him into an interview room to simmer for a half hour.
“Coffee?” I ask Tilghman, who shakes his head.
“Hope you got the right guy, Cochise,” he says with a grin on his way out.
“Cochise was Apache,” I tell him, and he waves back over his shoulder.
After I turn over the swabs and blood sample to a crime lab tech, I take two coffees into the interview room, where Gault stands behind the small table in the room.
“Sit down,” I say. “Have some coffee.”
He folds his arms.
Gault won’t cop out, won’t even talk to me after I read him his rights again and have him put his initials on a waiver-of-rights form. He signs on the line that says he does not waive his rights and wants to speak with a lawyer before answering any questions. He folds his arms and leans back in the chair, ogling me for a long moment. Then he smiles.