She smiled at this, remembering aloud another song title. “ 'If You Ain't Gonna Shake It, What Did You Bring It For?' Goes back to what I was saying before about a victim for every four households, I guess.”
Alex turned the car into a gravel lot in front of a bright sign announcing “Leopold's on the Wharf.”
“ Shame of it is that in the most technologically advanced nation on earth, in the history of all mankind, almost every single person in America will be the victim of one crime or another in his lifetime.”
“ Yes,” she agreed, “and in spite of strides in forensic investigative techniques, electronic surveillance, colossal and complex fingerprint files and other modern means, the percentage of crimes solved by arrest has remained appreciably unchanged since, what, the early seventies?”
“ Hey, compared to other heavily populated areas of the country, the NOPD's doing a hell of a job.”
“ No need to get defensive, Lieutenant. But the fact remains that New Orleans, like Chicago, L.A., Miami, New York and Atlanta, has actually seen a decrease in arrests made in violent crimes.”
“ Maybe that's because-just-because, as they say.”
“ What's that? Southern-style philosophical equivocation and sophistry to avoid the issue?”
“ It helps when it helps.”
She laughed. “More of the same.”
His tone grew serious again. “There's been such an enormous increase in violent crime that it makes me weak to give it too much thought. If that's equivocating, then that's equivocating. I call it gettin' by.”
“ With drugs, child molestation, rape and murder on the rise, public anxiety about the effectiveness of both local and federal police agencies to serve the public has steadily grown, while manpower and monies haven't kept up,” she conceded.
“ That's why everyone's so ready to turn to psychics for help, and thanks in large measure to the media saturation of stories dealing with freaks like Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and the Queen of Hearts killer…”
“ You like to think you've got a ready answer for everything, Detective Sincebaugh, all life's problems, don't you?”
“ It helps, but no… not by a long shot do I have all the answers, but I have one for you. People latch onto your kind of magic and voodoo-”
“ What I do is not voodoo or magic!” She raised her voice for the first time.
“ People need you like they need Dear Abby, to tell them it's okay to believe in something that's not present, to hold onto something that's not there. So society appears to be going to hell. It has always appeared to be going to hell and it always will, but conjuring acts aren't going to change that.”
“ Most cops are superstitious, but not you, right?”
“ That's right.”
“ You worked Missing Persons for a long time, didn't you, before you got into Homicide?”
“ That's right, and I don't appreciate your going through my file.”
“ So, it was there you used psychics?”
“ It was never my idea to use a psychic on any case, no.”
“ But the Department did?”
“ That's right.”
“ So, you had a bad experience with a psychic, so you now judge all psychics by that one experience, and you say you're not superstitious?”
He fell silent, the verbal jousting taking its toll on him. After a moment, he said, “I thought we agreed to talk about things other than this bloody case.”
“ Sony, guess we did, but I'm also talking about stressful situations, a stressful job, like a cop's. It brings out a need to tidy up the world, to seek answers, find control amid the chaos, an explanation for the void. A psychic worth her salt wants the same thing, Alex.”
“ If it wasn't for missing-persons cases, your kind would be out of business. You're like bounty hunters, coming in on a case for the money it can afford you.”
“ That's bullshit.”
“ How much're they paying you? My year's salary? For your consulting fee?”
“ I get paid by the day, same as a P.I., and I don't collect the consultation fee if there're no direct results stemming from my participation.”
“ Stemming from your participation, sure…” He let it drop, not speaking his mind. She knew what he was thinking, however.
“ I'm no fool, Dr. Desinor. I know Stephens and Captain Landry aren't fools either, but we had strict guidelines we followed in Missing Persons when we dealt with psychic de-tectives called in on cases. From what I've seen and from what I've deduced, it's apparent to me that Meade, or someone, has provided you with far more than the type of crime, the name of the individuals involved, the dates and items lifted from the scene, like those beads. The sensitive, as we called him then, filed a report immediately on the basis of that scant information alone. You, you've been given access to all the police reports, all the coroner's reports, in essence my complete case file on the murders. Then you expect me to be dazzled when you come out with information you couldn't possibly know?”
“ The more information I have, the more I can learn from the psychometric evidence.”
“ You got that right. Well, you just go right on dazzling deYampert and the others, Doctor. Just don't expect me to fall in line, okay?”
“ Tell you what,” she said, “you're right.”
“ Right?”
“ About my coming in with full disclosure. I won't work a case without it and when… when Landry called me in on the case…”
“ Landry called you in on the case?”
“ He's in charge of it, isn't he?” Yeah, yeah… sure he is.”
“ When he called, I made it clear I wouldn't work blind, that the more I know, the more I can reveal.”
“ Exactly my point.”
“ The Harkness boy's case must've hurt you very deeply. I'm sorry for your pain, Alex, and I can easily sympa-”
“ That's got nothing to do with it.”
“ I can sympathize completely. I had my own such heart-wrenching cases, the Hughes case I told you about.”
“ I remember reading about it,” he admitted.
“ I wasn't much more than a rookie that year.”
“ Ever regret giving up being a cop?”
She hesitated before responding. Thus far, she'd not had to lie to him directly, and was able to excuse this necessary lie by omission since she was working for the FBI, for Meade. “Yeah, sure…sometimes I miss it, but I've learned I can do far more good as a sensitive.”
“ Let's eat,” he said, and got quickly out of the car.
She waited to see if he'd open her door, and she was pleased when he did.
Over dinner she said, “You hate my being here, don't you?”
“ What?”
“ And you're uneasy with yourself, your own intuition, if you wish?”
“ Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.”
She barreled forward. “You're a tough guy, a former Navy SEAL. You don't have a sensitive bone in your body, or so you want the world to think, but-”
“ Hey, I don't hafta sit here and take this kinda ridicule and verbal abuse, Doctor, and I don't hate your being here, no.”
“ I mean in New Orleans, on your case.”
He hesitated before answering. “Eat, stay healthy.”
“ You really do make quite a sparring partner.”
“ What's that suppose to mean?”
“ You're very good at deflecting direct questions, Lieutenant.”
“ I've had a good trainer.”
“ Your father.” It wasn't posed as a question.
“ What a surprising and fortuitous guess. How did you ever come up with him, of all people?” Sarcasm had seeped back into his voice. “What exactly are those lovely eyeballs made of anyway? Transylvanian crystal? Or are you just an ex-tremely lucky guesser, huh?”
“ All right, okay, so much of what I do is instinctive, but that doesn't lessen the fact I know what I'm doing. Lieutenant, I'm the best.”