Part 19 (1/2)

Poor Jack. He'd been determined. He'd come down to the morgue with Sean. He'd lasted ten minutes before he'd gone off to throw up. As Pierre explained that the tear marks on the neck indicated the same method of dispatching the head that they had seen before, Jack returned. He was nearly as pasty as the corpse. But he stood beside Sean, listening to the series of mutilations, what Pierre did know, and what Pierre didn't know.

”Oh, man. We definitely have a big-time madman on our hands,” Jack said.

”Pure lunatic, I'd say-off the record, of course.”

Sean nodded, feeling ill himself. Monday, they'd enlarged the task force and had a two- hour meeting. He and the chief and his men had welcomed the addition of two FBI men, a profiler and a physical evidence man, but not even FBI prowess was helping them. All leads had simply been exhausted.

Even the Maggie Montgomery lead. Both FBI men had interviewed her-and every person in her employ. Polygraphs had been given. No one knew anything.

Now, with this new murder, the tenuous link with Montgomery Enterprises seemed to be fading. There were no known possible witnesses. They believed they knew the victim's ident.i.ty, though her fingerprints and dental records were still being checked. She was a prost.i.tute-with a child. Her neighbor had reported her missing when she hadn't come for her four-year-old boy by midnight last Friday, as planned.

Poor Bessie. At some time, she must have been an attractive woman with a heart full of dreams. According to the neighbor, yes, she had been in the business, but only with high- cla.s.s clientele. She had wanted to make money and get out to raise her son elsewhere. She had worked through someone, though the neighbor didn't know who. Bessie hadn't been a two-bit hooker but a hundred-dollar-a-shot call girl.

Right now, it didn't matter what she had charged her last John. She'd been the one to pay.

”What else can I tell you?” Pierre asked.

”Nothing, now. Cover her up, huh?” Pierre obliged. Once again, they'd be doing all matter of tissue and secretion samples. With any luck, despite the way the bodies had been destroyed, they could at least match sperm from the two female victims. Hopefully, they'd have a lot more.

As Pierre covered the corpse, Sean turned to Jack. ”Get the guys together. I want everyone out on the streets. We're going to keep this as controlled as possible, but there's no way to exclude the press. Everyone is to be very careful regarding what is said. I want meetings with the undercover guys in the French Quarter, I want the names of all known pimps and madams in the area, and I want the names of anyone even remotely suspected of supplying s.e.xual services or escorts on the side, all right?”

”Gotcha,” Jack said, only too glad to leave the morgue.

”So, what are you going to do now?” ”I'm going to head out and interview the neighbor myself,” Sean said. ”Maybe there's some little piece of information that was missed. And when I'm done there, I'm going to find any possible-remote!-infractions and start combing the underbelly of our fair city for those dealing in human flesh.”

”Have fun,” Pierre told him.

”Yeah, right.”

The dead girl's neighbor was a pretty, pet.i.te brunette, a fresh-faced young woman who admitted ”dabbling in the trade” herself. She had cried real tears for Bessie, Sean thought, and he felt an anguish he couldn't quite help for the poor dead girl when he met her little boy. Four years old, shy and hesitant, he told Sean solemnly that ”Auntie” Jeanne had told him Mommy had been called to heaven, and that she was safe and happy living with G.o.d.

She just couldn't be with him anymore. Auntie Jeanne Montaine then sent the little platinum-haired child into the den to watch a Disney video while she sat down with Sean, offering him coffee.

Jeanne smoked nervously and puffed on a cigarette. ”G.o.d, I wish I could help you! How can anyone do such things to other human beings? It's so horrible ... and poor Isaac! Oh, I know, lots of people will just think that Bessie was a wh.o.r.e and she deserved what she got, but... well, most of what she made, she put away. She dreamed of moving away from here one day. We used to lie around and try to think about the most remote place possible-a city big enough to blend in, small enough so that it was still rural America, you know?

Somewhere to lead a new life. She might have been what some folks call immoral you know, but good folk, bad folk, black folk, white folk, I've almost never seen anybody love somebody like Bessie loved her boy.”

”Miss Montaine, I'm afraid I didn't know Bessie, and I surely wouldn't presume to judge her. We all do what we've got to do in life.”

Jeanne brightened. She looked at him, sighing, and with her sigh, she lost some of her defensiveness.

”Yeah, we do. I want to keep her boy, you know.”

”If there's anything I can do to help, let me know.”

”I may make you keep your word on that,” Jeanne told him.

Sean folded his hands together, leaning seriously toward her. ”Jeanne, I don't judge Bessie, and I can't help her now, but if I can help her son, I promise I will. And I may be able to help some other poor girl. But I'm desperate. This horrible thing was done to her, and I've got just about nothing to go on. Can you think of anything, anything at all to tell me?”

Jeanne thought about it, then shook her head with frustration. ”I know she had a pimp ...

and that's it. I don't know where she was supposed to meet the John she had that night or anything. She just called me, told me she'd be late. I told her, sure, I never mind having Isaac. But when she didn't come home, I knew something was wrong. She just wouldn't have left her baby, you know?”

Sean nodded. ”Has anybody called you about Bessie or her son?”

”No.”

He produced his business card. ”Well, if you come up with anything at all, anything-you know the routine-please, call me. That's my direct line at the office, the other is my home- and there's my beeper number. If you don't get me at either phone, please leave a message, and I'll get back to you.”

Jeanne nodded. ”Of course. Of course. I'd do anything to help. Anything at all.”

”Thanks,” Sean told her. As he got up to leave, she let out a little squeal. ”Wait!”

”What?”

”It's nothing that big, I'm sorry!”

”Whatever it is-”

”Well, I was just thinking, maybe it is something. I think that her Johns were acquired for her through a woman. A woman who owns a restaurant.”

Sean's heart was thundering. Dear G.o.d, something! At long last, something!

”What makes you think so?”

”When she called about my keeping Isaac, she said something about a 'she' who had made arrangements. And Bessie had said she knew she'd be home by midnight, but she wasn't exactly sure how long she needed to be available because there were so many dishes clanking in the background when the arrangements were being made.”

Sean nodded. ”Good. Great. Miss Montaine, I could kiss you. I am going to kiss you.”

He drew her close, pressing his lips to her forehead. She was excited, flushed, pleased.

”Thanks!” he told her.

”Is it a good clue?”

”A great clue. I'll keep you posted.”

He hurried out to his car, and quickly radioed Jack.

Jack sounded frustrated. Combing the city was turning up too many pimps. ”It's like going through the hair for bugs in the head of a kid with lice,” Jack told him.

”Never mind. Get a car over to the Creole place, Le Bon Marche, on Prince Street.

Arrest Mamie Johnson.”

”All right,” Jack said slowly. ”Sean, I do need to have a specific reason to arrest her, you know.”