Natalie's Revenge (14 page)

One night in April I was partying outside the Cheetah's employee entrance with three other dancers. They'd bought me a cake to celebrate my birthday. They thought I was twenty-two, but I'd just turned nineteen. Alexa, another dancer, brought a customer outside. Some men take the girls outside to ask them for extras. But I wasn't going to give blowjobs in an alley or get in some guy’s car, not even if he flashed fifties and hundreds. It's too dangerous.

That night, Alexia went with this customer. I don’t remember what he looked like. I never noticed what they looked like.

This wasn't about looks, it was about money.

The next day the cops found Alexia's body in the East River. Val called my cell that morning, hysterical, and warned me not to go back to Cheetahs. She said the cops would find out Alexia worked there and question all the dancers. She knew a club with better clientele. She told me to call the manager and say she’d recommended me. That’s how I wound up working at the Platinum Plus Gentlemen’s Club.

It was way better than Cheetahs. I worked the lunch crowd from eleven to two, took a long break and danced from seven to midnight. That was great. I got home earlier and got up earlier. During my break I worked out at a taekwondo studio to make sure I didn't lose any of my moves.

I also started looking for my father. He and Mom had met in New York so I thought he might still live here. One day I went to a community center in an area where many Asian-Americans lived and told a lady I was looking for a Vietnamese man named Thu Phan. She gave me directions to a church where a Korean group met. Useless. Some people think all Asians are alike.

I looked in the phone book and found four numbers listed for Phan. But no Thu Phan, not even a T. Phan. When I called the numbers, no one spoke English. I couldn’t think of another way to find my father so I stopped looking. That made me sad. I wondered if I would ever meet him.

But not knowing who murdered my mother made me feel even worse.

One day I found an ad in the Yellow Pages for Private Investigators. It said:
Discreet Inquiries
. I was hoping to hire a PI to go to New Orleans and find out if the police had any suspects. I dialed the number and right away this gruff voice said: "Scanlon Investigations, can I help you?"

Startled, I blurted, "I'm trying to find the person that murdered Jeannette Brixton."

After a pause the voice said, "When and where was she murdered?"

"New Orleans, in 1988. They never found the killer, but they must have had suspects and I need to find out who they were."

"And you want me to find them?"

"No. I don't want you to find them. I want you to find out their names." My heart was thumping like mad.

"Oh. Okay, I'll give it a shot, but it's gonna cost you."

"How much?"

"First off, there's my daily rate, which isn't cheap. I gotta fly to New Orleans and bribe a cop to get me the file. That might cost you a grand, maybe two. And I got my plane fare and living expenses ..."

As his voice droned on I started to feel sick.

"Bottom line," said the gruff voice, "it might cost you four or five grand. I'll need three grand up front."

Three thousand dollars. Most of my clients at Platinum Plus were stockbrokers and lawyers, and the tips were great, but living in New York was expensive. After working there three months I had saved four hundred dollars. It would take me years to save three thousand.

Tears filled my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I closed my cell and put my head down on the kitchen table and cried.

How could I avenge Mom if I didn't know who killed her?

I made myself a cup of green tea, but it didn't make me feel any better.

I got out Mom's picture and thought about the day I brought home my fourth-grade report card. I thought it was pretty good. All A's except for the B in math. But Mom said, "How come you got a B in Math?"

"It's the word problems. They're hard. Who cares where two cars meet up if one starts from Boston and the other one from San Francisco, and they tell you how fast they're going? It's stupid."

Mom gave me one of her stern looks, the kind that made her green eyes extra-green. "Natalie, you're a smart girl. Don't be a quitter. Bring the math workbooks home and I'll help you with them after school." So Mom helped me, and she was right. The word problems weren't really that hard.

On my next report card I got an A in Math, too. 

I kissed Mom's picture and decided I would never give up.

I wasn't a quitter. No matter what it took, no matter how long it took, I would find Mom's killer and punish him.

_____

The second week of December a distinguished-looking man in a charcoal pinstriped suit came in the club and asked me to sit at his table. “You are a wonderful dancer. Have you studied karate?”

I just about fell off my chair. Judging by his eyes, he was part Asian, but I couldn’t tell where his ancestors were from. When I told him about the taekwondo, he smiled. "I would like to hire you for my business. You are much too good to waste your talents in here. Compared to the other dancers, you stand out like a red flare against the night sky. What is your name?”

“Lorelei,” I said. That was my dancer name.

He shook his head. “No, what is your real name?"

I was afraid to tell him. Even Val and Darren didn't know my real name. Darren’s name was on the apartment lease and I paid cash for everything, including my new Social Security number and the fake ID I'd bought from the guy at the pay-as-you-go cell phone store. I didn't want anyone to be able to trace me through my tax returns and figure out where Natalie Brixton was.

“What’s
your
name?” I asked.

He smiled and gave me his card. “Just call me Lin. My last name is hard to pronounce.”

He was right. His last name was twelve letters long with only one vowel.

“Are you hiding from someone? Are you in trouble with the police?”

I thought about Randy. But the cops never charged me so that didn’t count. “No. I just don’t like to give my real name.”

“As you wish, Lorelei. But you are too intelligent for this mindless dancing. Most of these men would like to have sex with you. But what they really want is a girlfriend, someone to listen to their problems and make them feel important. And maybe have sex, maybe not. The men who patronize my business are quite wealthy. For one hour of your time they would pay me two-thousand dollars.”

My mouth fell open. $2,000 an hour? It took me a
month
to make that much. “My name is May Hargrove," I said. "How soon can I start?”

Lin laughed. He seemed cultured and intelligent, and my instinct said to trust him. I don’t know why. Sometimes I just went with my gut.

“Do you by chance speak any language besides English?” he asked.

“I speak French pretty well.”

His eyes went wide like he’d just won the Powerball.

"Wonderful. How would you like to go to Paris?”

CHAPTER 10

Tuesday, July 29, 2008   New Orleans  

“Natalie Brixton.” Frank set the Pecos High School yearbook on Vobitch's desk and pointed to a photograph. He'd already told Vobitch what he'd learned from Tex Conroy’s mother, Randy Brixton’s mother and sister, and Natalie Brixton’s friend Gabriel Rojas.

After studying the photo for several seconds, Vobitch nodded, smiling now. “I like it. Looks like we know who the woman in the security video is. Her cousin fell off a cliff, and she was the only witness. So. Did he fall or was he pushed?”

“The cops questioned her and let her go.”

“She knew Conroy, maybe she knew Peterson, too. Ballistics report says the bullets that killed Conroy and Peterson came from the same gun.”

“But that doesn’t prove she shot them. And don't forget the fire escape. Maybe the shooter got in the room while Peterson was in the bar.”

“And hid where? Don’t tell me the bathroom. Most guys have a drink in a bar, first thing they do when they get to the room is take a leak. Frank, Spiderman didn't climb up the fire escape to a room on the sixth floor."

"Maybe Spiderman was one floor down in Room 535.”

“Fuck!" Vobitch raked stubby fingers through his silvery hair. "The techs lifted prints off the window casing, some Peterson’s, some not. Coulda been the cleaning lady for all we know. I think the woman's the shooter, but we better find out who rented rooms with access to the fire escape that night.”

“If you think Natalie's the shooter, what’s her motive?”

"Looked like a hooker to me." Vobitch glanced at a 5-inch mini-TV on the file cabinet beside his desk. A commercial was on with the sound muted. "We already know Peterson couldn't keep his dick in his pants. Maybe she had a peashooter .38 Special in that fancy little purse she was carrying. Maybe Peterson asked her to do something she didn’t like, so she popped him.”

“That’s one possibility. But Peterson was in debt. Maybe he borrowed money from a loan shark and didn’t pay—”

“Frank. Be serious. He didn’t pay the vig, those guys wouldn’t send a woman to take him out.”

“Okay. But if you like the hit theory, we need motive.”

“Maybe she killed him at someone else's behest.”

“Behest,” he said, half-smiling.

Vobitch jutted his jaw. “Yeah,
behest
. You think I don’t know what it means?” Glaring at him. “You think I’m from Texas or some fuckin thing?”

They both cracked up. Vobitch often used sarcasm to burn off stress. And the media drumbeat was louder now than when he left for Pecos. 

“Okay,” he said, “but if the woman was a hired gun, who hired her?”

“I’d start with the wife. Nine times out of ten the spouse is the killer.”

“I can’t picture Corinne Peterson hiring a hitter. Hell, she wouldn’t know where to find one.”

Vobitch grinned. “I know a certain family in this town she could call . . .”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, knowing the
certain family
his boss referred to was Italian. Vobitch loved jiving him about his heritage. He dished it right back, busting Vobitch about Jewish guys who married beautiful black women, like his elegant ballet-dancer wife. 

The phone rang. Vobitch glanced at it and made a face. “Gotta take this one. I give the mucky-mucks my hotline number so I know to answer it. The rest get my regular number, have to leave a voicemail message.” He picked up, barked his name and listened silently.

Restless with energy, Frank rose and paced the room. It was half the size of the homicide office. The window behind the desk looked down on the area where the NOPD motorcycles parked. The desk and two visitor chairs took up half the space. File cabinets lined the pale green walls. Above a two-drawer cabinet was a framed photograph: Vobitch in his NYPD uniform shaking hands with the mayor of New York. Frank smiled, recalling the day they'd met five years ago.

“We’ll get along fine, Renzi," Vobitch had said. "I’m a New York Jew, you’re a Boston wop. The good ol' boys down here hate us Yankees. They're still fighting the Civil War. But we know who won.”

Since then they'd had a few disagreements, but two years ago when he'd shot and killed a deranged stalker, Vobitch had backed him to the hilt.

Vobitch slammed down the phone. “Fuckin asshole.”

He returned to his chair. “Who was it? Donald Trump?”

“Worse. The DA. Roger kiss-my-ass Demaris." Vobitch drew a finger across his throat. "While you were gone, Miller talked to Peterson's wife, asked if the name Tex Conroy rang any bells. She said no, but I’m not writing her off as a suspect. She's pissed at hubby, hired the woman to take care of it. These days you can get anything on the Internet, including a hitter.”

“Maybe she hired Conroy to set up the hit. The woman kills Peterson, gets worried that Tex will blab and pops him, too.”

“Frank, everything we got points to Natalie Brixton. She knew Conro
y
” Vobitch glanced at the TV, grabbed the clicker and sound blared from the TV set. The weather channel.

He’d forgotten about the hurricane churning into the Gulf, a common occurrence in the summer. Hurricane Gail had been upgraded to a Category 3 and it’s projected path included New Orleans. When the report ended, Vobitch hit the mute button and looked at him expectantly.

“Maybe she's Peterson's mistress," Frank said. "Maybe she asked him to get a divorce and he said no.”

“So why'd she kill Conroy? Frank, you hit the jackpot in Pecos. Natalie Brixton knew Conroy. The bullet that killed Conroy came from the same gun that killed Peterson. Why make it complicated?"

Was he? Maybe the woman in the video was Natalie Brixton. But for some reason he didn't want to believe it. She'd had a rough life, but why kill Arnold Peterson? Or Tex Conroy, for that matter?

"What about Fenwick Holt?" he said. "He wants Peterson’s job so he can make the big bucks.”

“Forget Holt. Why kill Peterson if he was gonna get fired because of his gambling problem. Frank, we need a plan. Right now all we got is the woman in the video. Gimme something to feed the fuckin media.”

“I’ll have an artist make a sketch from the Brixton yearbook picture, adjusted for age. You can send it to the newspapers and TV stations, say we’re looking for a person of interest, have 'em call the tip line.”

“I like it." Vobitch jotted notes on a yellow legal pad. "How about you talk to some of the helpful hookers around town, shake that tree for info.”

“Okay.” And after a beat, “Twenty years ago Natalie Brixton’s mother was murdered in New Orleans. October 1988. I checked the files. The case was never solved. Ring any bells?”

“What the fuck! Why didn't you tell me that before?"

Good question. Maybe because he didn't want to believe Natalie was the killer. But he sure did want to solve the case. Then he'd have more time to spend with Kelly. Their romp in the sack last Friday seemed like eons ago.

"Saving the best for last."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Tex Conroy's mother. She heard the mother was a prostitute."

"Murdered prostitutes don't make much of a splash in New Orleans. October of '88? That's before I got here. You think Peterson killed the mother and the daughter popped him for revenge?”

“That's what I thought at first, but Peterson was working in Chicago in 1988. His wife said they got married that year. I want to talk to the lead investigator on the case. Jane Fontenot. You know her?”

“Yeah. Good detective. She retired last year. I’ll give her a call, set up a meet. While you were gone, Miller talked to Conroy’s girlfriend." Vobitch grimaced. "All upset, don't know nothin.”

“Did he find anything in Conroy’s apartment?”

“Nothing helpful, but plenty of beer. Three cases of Bud stacked in the kitchen, a six-pack in the fridge, guy probably drank ‘em while he watched football. Kenyon said there were Dallas Cowboys posters taped to the walls and a foot-high stack of
Sports Illustrated
magazines in the living room.”

“Conroy doesn’t strike me as the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

“Frank, he was from
Texas
.”

But not all Texans were dumb, Frank thought. Gabe Rojas was smart enough to run a million-dollar videogame business. Savvy enough to hide whatever he knew about Natalie, including her whereabouts.

“Tex Conroy knew Natalie Brixton,” Vobitch said. “We need to find out if she knew Peterson.”

“Right,” he snapped, irritated. “When I find her, I’ll ask her.”

"Frank, the fuckin DA just threatened me. If we don't solve the Peterson case soon, he'll put someone else on it. I'm fifty-seven. You know what that means? Early retirement. And I'm not ready to retire. Find Natalie Brixton and get her in here." 

There was anger in Vobitch's eyes, but also a hint of melancholy. Vobitch lived for the job, and now his job was on the line. Hell, Demaris might be looking to get Frank Renzi fired too.

"I'll do my best," he said.

But he had no clue how to find Natalie Brixton. He still wasn't convinced she was the woman on the video. “Call me after you talk to Jane Fontenot. I’ll get an artist to do a sketch of Natalie."

“Do it quick,” Vobitch said. “They're hyping Hurricane Gail as the Next Big Blow. If the mayor decides to evacuate the city, forget about finding Peterson’s killer. We’ll all be pulling traffic duty.”

_____

Boston   2:30 p.m.

GIRL DIES IN MURDER BUST
said the bold front-page headline on a
Boston Globe
dated November 29, 2000, one of several she had requested from the librarian in the Boston Public Library periodicals room.

Yesterday on NOLA.com she'd read an article about a man found dead in City Park, identified by police as Lawrence “Tex” Conroy.
Hinting the cases might be related, it said NOPD Homicide Detective Frank Renzi was the lead investigator on the Conroy case and the Arnold Peterson murder.

She knew what that meant. The cops knew both men had been shot with the same gun. Then the article noted that Renzi had joined NOPD in 2002 after a twenty-year stint with Boston PD. Scary. She was living near Boston.

Renzi might be looking for her in New Orleans, but she had to be careful.
Know your enemy
. That's why she'd come to the library.

The only other researchers in the periodicals room, two college-age women, sat at a long wooden table four rows ahead of her. Antique lamps with green-glass shades and gold pull-chains stood on each table. She turned hers on and read the article.

Shortly before dawn Boston Police Detectives Franklin Sullivan Renzi and John Albert Warner had gone to a public housing project to execute a warrant for the arrest of Thaddeus “Whacko” Lewis, age 20. Lewis was wanted for the murder of a rival gang leader, Andre “Kingpin” Jackson, on July 4, 2000. Both men were African-American.

What happened next was in dispute.

According to Renzi and Warner, when they entered the apartment Lewis came out of a room at the end of a hallway brandishing an Uzi and began firing. Renzi and Warner returned fire. Investigators collected forty-five bullet casings. In the midst of the firefight, a girl came out of a room mid-way down the hall. Janelle Robinson, age 11, died. Lewis was wounded and taken to a hospital where he later died. Renzi and Warner were unhurt.

A front
page story in the next day’s
Globe
said Renzi and Warner had been put on paid administrative leave while the Boston PD Internal Affairs unit investigated the incident. A sidebar offered conflicting views. Several black ministers commended Boston police for trying to rid the project of drug dealers. Others questioned why more care wasn’t taken to capture a known criminal with a long police record.

The dead girl's mother was outraged.

“Them cops went in there guns blazing and killed my girl,” said Mrs. Robinson. "I'm gonna sue their ass."

She set the paper aside. Eight years ago Detective Frank Renzi had been embroiled in controversy. Was that why he moved to New Orleans?

She leaned back in her chair and gazed at the high arched ceiling. Thanks to her Devotion to Study, she loved libraries. The BPL, as Bostonians called it, had excellent research facilities. Conveniently located in Copley Square, it was near Copley Place, an upscale shopping center with a parking garage. New York had a great library, too. She'd been there many times. She loved the stone lions that guarded the entrance. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia had named them “Patience” and “Fortitude.”

For the last twenty years she had needed plenty of patience and fortitude.

She had chosen birds, not lions, to protect her. Unfortunately, her firebird pendant had betrayed her. But meeting Tex was a fluke. It would never happen again. No one in Pecos knew where she was, not even Gabe, though they’d stayed in touch over the years. She smiled, picturing his mischievous grin, dark-skinned face and almost-black eyes. What did he look like now? she wondered. Now he was married, with two kids.