Monument to Murder - Margaret Truman [5]
“You’re looking good,” St. Pierre said as they shook hands and Brixton motioned for a waitress to take his drink order. St. Pierre’s usual concoction was already on the table, a sidecar made with Tuaca, a brandy-based orange-vanilla liqueur. It looked refreshing.
“Beefeater martini,” Brixton told the waitress, “cold and dry, shaken, with a twist.”
“So,” St. Pierre said, “tell me about this new client of yours.”
Brixton recounted for him what had transpired at his meeting with Louise Watkins’s mother. St. Pierre listened attentively, taking an occasional sip of his drink. When Brixton was through, St. Pierre raised his eyebrows and said, “Seems to me you’re chasin’ another Savannah ghost story.”
“Ghost, hell,” Brixton said. “The daughter was only too real. So were the bullets that killed her.”
St. Pierre shrugged.
“Metro termed it a drive-by shooting.”
“That’s right.”
“But from what I’ve read, she was alone on that street.”
“True. I refreshed my memory before comin’ here. That little girl was all alone.”
“Which says to me that she didn’t accidentally get in the way of a shooting meant for someone else. She was the target.”
“Nothing in the files to support that, Bobby.”
“But it makes sense, doesn’t it? And knock off the Bobby stuff.”
His grin was wide and mischievous. “I forgot that you’re sensitive to that name. My apologies.”
“For the sake of argument, Wayne, let’s say I’m right. Let’s say that she was the target. She’d just gotten out of prison, where she spent four years doing time for someone else, someone who’d paid her off. Maybe that person wanted to make sure that she didn’t change her story once she got out of the can and point a finger at him. Possible?”
“Everything’s possible, Robert. That’s what makes life so inherently fascinating.”
Brixton finished his drink and motioned for a refill. St. Pierre did the same.
“You said you refreshed your memory, Wayne. Does that include going back into the files on when she confessed to the stabbing at Augie’s and was sentenced?”
“What files?” he said. “There’s not much. I called Joe Cleland before I came here.”
“How is Joe?”
“As irascible as ever. He claims to be enjoying his retirement but I don’t believe him. Joe was the one who took her statement. Remember?”
Brixton nodded.
“He said she just walked into headquarters and told someone at the desk that she wanted to confess to the stabbing. Joe was summoned and took her into a room where she told him her story, said she’d been drinking at Augie’s and went outside with this guy, said he tried to rape her and so she stuck a knife in him like any upstanding young woman would do to preserve her virginity. Sweet little thing, wasn’t she, walkin’ around carrying a big ol’ knife like that? She had turned tricks as I recall. Maybe he got from her what he wanted but didn’t want to pay for it.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. She told her mother—who, by the way, is a very nice lady—that she’d been paid to admit to the stabbing but wouldn’t tell her who it was. That’s honorable. Sort of. She wanted her mother to know that she wasn’t a killer, but wasn’t going to betray this other person. You know what I think, Wayne?”
“Mind if we order first?”
“Not at all.”
Red beans and rice with andouille sausage for him; Brixton opted for a New York strip steak.
“So here’s how I see it. I believe the mother. Louise Watkins was paid