Merten came back with the men and introduced them, a third pair of detectives who would work with them examining the bodies. From Philadelphia, these guys were older, both Italian-Americans, both grizzled veterans of the homicide wars. They asked for the midnight shift and Beau quickly gave it up to them. The Oregon guys wanted the evening watch, so Beau and Cruz would take the day watch.
Merten took Beau and Cruz aside. The big man’s eyes were red-rimmed. “It’s bad out there. People on roofs, starving dogs everywhere. Thirty people died in an old-folks home in St. Bernard. The employees left them to drown. We got a full-scale riot at the Convention Center but I gotta go over to the First District. We’re raiding the Iberville Projects in boats. Snipers been shooting at the district station since the storm.” He took in a long breath and let it out, wheezing in fatigue. He gave Beau a long look and said, “No. You know I need you here.”
“You want to hear what we’ve come up with?” asked Cruz.
“Not now.”
Beau went back to Copeland for details and got, “The body was right on top of the levee. Like I told you, South Shore Harbor.”
Beau put it in his notes.
Copeland also said, “It wasn’t Notre Dame that burned. It was the big place across the street.” Beau knew the area well. There were lots of big places but he wasn’t in the mood to ask.
Later, as their shift ended and Beau was in his portioned cubicle, Cruz stepped in from her shower with a towel wrapped around her head. She had on a terry-cloth robe and carried clothes in her hand.
“Why do we want to work the freakin’ day shift?” she asked, leaning her head forward to rub the towel through her hair. Her hair was shiny from the bright overhead light, traces of reddish brown mixed in with dark brown. Juanita was naturally pretty, looking younger now without makeup.
“I want to be free at night,” he said.
“Night? You found some action? Some nurse?”
He almost smiled.
“We’ve been sleeping through the steamiest part of the day, you silly Cajun. Why work in the heat?”
She dropped the towel on the small table next to Beau’s cot where he sat with his notepad. He’d finished consolidating his notes on the killings. Homicide cases were built with paperwork. He was closely examining a city map, checking out the South Shore Harbor area.
“What’s with the map?” Cruz asked. When he looked up, she dropped her robe and picked up a T-shirt. In her bra and panties, she was facing Beau, who blinked twice. She pulled on the T-shirt and climbed into a pair of lightweight gym shorts before looking back at him.
“What the hell is this?” Beau sat up stiffly on the cot.
“What?”
“The little bra-and-panty show. I’m your partner, not your sister.”
She huffed, narrowing her eyes. “Maybe I’m just trying to get your attention.”
Beau tried to keep from getting aroused, an automatic physical response. He glared at her, turning the excitement into anger. “You never fool around with your partner. You know that. A partner’s a partner. Closer than a friend. But not a freakin’ lover.” He stood and walked to the rear of his enclosure.
He turned back to her and she snapped, “I don’t know anything anymore.” She opened her arms. “Everything’s changed. Everything! The whole damn world’s changed!” She stormed out.
Beau went out a few minutes later with her towel and found the Oregon cops sitting next to the empty examining table. Al was reading a Spiderman comic. He dropped the damp towel in Al’s lap. “Go give this to Juanita.”
“Juanita?” Al stood up.
“Yeah. She could use some company.”
“Okay.” Al took off for Cruz’s room.
The other Oregon cop said, “I thought you were her partner.”
Beau gave him a deadpan look. “I said she needs company.”
The cop shrugged.
Beau left. Over his shoulder he said, “I thought y’all were from Oregon. Not Disneyland.”
The next morning, Beau located the Wildlife and Fisheries agent who’d lent him the pirogue to visit Cruz’s apartment and Sad Lisa and asked if he could use a pirogue that evening. The agent jotted Beau a note authorizing the use. The man’s name was Prejean and he hailed from Abbeville, parish seat of Vermilion Parish, where Beau grew up.
“Give this to the supervisor,” he said, passing the note to Beau.
Six more drowning victims came in that afternoon and one murder victim shot three times in the back. No ID. Body pulled out of the Industrial Canal. Beau took a nap after their shift ended, setting his alarm for eleven P.M., and was surprised when Cruz, decked out as he was in all black, came into his cubicle and asked, “Where we going?”
“Um, I’ve got something to check out.”
She pulled out her Beretta and checked its ammo. “You planning to go without me, Raven?”
“How’d you find out about this?”
“I’m a detective,” she said smugly, holstering her weapon. “We’re headed for South Shore Harbor, or what?”
Damn, he wanted to do this alone. Didn’t want her anywhere near this. Not because she was a woman or even a rookie. He worked better alone. But as he looked at her, he knew if he dumped her it would tear her down and she’d been torn down enough. A partner was a partner and they’d face the danger together.
He nodded and checked his weapon and ammo clips. They took radios, which didn’t work, and their cell phones, working about as well. Beau secured three large flashlights from two National Guardsmen from St. Louis and talked two other National Guardsmen into taking them with their Humvee to the Bonnabel Boat Launch in Metairie, where Wildlife and Fisheries was set up.
On the way, the guardsman riding shotgun kept looking back at Cruz. She tried discouraging him with a yawn but the guy asked question after question, about NOPD, the high crime rate, Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras. Beau read his nametag: Smith. The other was Jones. Jesus. Milquetoast Midwesterners.
“I seen it on the Internet,” he said. “Women showing their boobs for carnival beads. We don’t get that in South Dakota.”
Cruz gave Beau a smirk as she asked them, “Y’all from South Dakota?”
“Sioux Falls.”
She pointed a thumb at Beau. “He’s half Sioux. Oglala. His mother lives on the Pine Tree Reservation. That near Sioux Falls?”
Pine Ridge Reservation, thought Beau, but correcting her would only encourage the conversation.
Smith stared at Beau and answered, “It’s on the other side of the state.”
Jones turned around and said, “You look half Sioux.” There was no malice in his voice but Beau knew his people and the white-eyes of both Dakotas didn’t mix much.
“Show them your knife,” Cruz said.
Beau, who’d assumed a deadpan, blank expression as soon as he’d heard these guys were from Dakota, gave his partner an unresponsive look.
“It’s obsidian,” she went on, sitting up now, getting a kick out of it. “Sharp as a razor.”
Beau turned his gaze to Smith, who nodded and turned around, and thankfully, the questions stopped.
The Wildlife and Fisheries supervisor read the note authorizing Beau to use a pirogue and said, “Y’all sure about this?”
Beau nodded. The man shrugged and said, “We got no radio for y’all. All the towers are down.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“We’ll need it back before daybreak.”
“No problem.” Beau thanked the man and moved to the pirogue. This one was aluminum, the outboard looked new and started immediately.
“You got a full tank,” the supervisor called out as they pulled away from the boat launch into Lake Pontchartrain, heading east to ride along the big levee that had protected most of Jefferson Parish. The levee had been topped by Katrina in Kenner and parts of Metairie, but most of JP had escaped the flood. Beau had heard eighty percent of New Orleans was now under water.