Bayou Pirates Read online

  “What does that mean?” Holm asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

  “Well, a couple of people actually used the word ‘zombie,’ so that was the first tip-off,” Barrett said with a wry, humorless laugh. “Then I started looking into it more. The way these people looked and behaved, it was almost exactly as Diane described it. Like they were conscious, but still not in control of their actions.”

  “Did you follow up on those leads?” I asked, certain that he had.

  “Oh yeah,” Barrett said, shaking his head. “But nothing really came of it. There were only a handful of reports, all from people concerned about their neighbors or some guy they saw walking down the street. But we were never able to track any of the victims down and interviewing the callers didn’t help much. Just neighborhood busybodies who didn’t know much themselves, unfortunately.”

  “We know the type,” Holm chuckled. Everyone in law enforcement did. “Still, a lead’s a lead.”

  “True enough,” Barrett agreed with a nod to him. “And it got us thinking. Then we got a friend of mine to use those tests your lab techs sent over, and this morning it came up positive. It makes me wonder how many would’ve been positive before if we had them.”

  “If someone came into one of your hospitals overdosing, or even hopped up on this drug, you would know,” I assured him. “The effects are unparalleled.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Barrett said, a sickened look on his face now. “Diane described it to me. And this morning, well… let’s just say that I’ve seen it for myself. But that’s the thing about this city. You can never be sure of anything. It’s entirely possible that cases like this came through the ER and were pushed out because of overflow or marked down as regular old drug cases since these test positive for coke and heroin, too. Or just some unexplained death, for the more serious cases.”

  “That’s… strange,” I said, mulling this over. “Especially considering the severity of the unusual symptoms.”

  “There are a lot of strange things around here,” Barrett said with a shrug. “Besides, some doctors are in the pockets of the dealers, so even if they thought it was unusual, that might not mean much, officially.”

  “Diane said something about that,” I said, furrowing my brow in concern. “I’m sorry, we didn’t realize how rough things were down here.”

  Barrett gave me a sad smile.

  “It’s always been that way,” he said forlornly. “It’s even worse after Katrina. But it’s a great city, and those who stay, we stay because we love it here. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else or doing anything else.”

  “I know what you mean, in a way,” I said, thinking about my own job and how much I loved it despite how rough our cases had been on us lately. “And I appreciate your dedication.”

  “Thank you for that,” Barrett said, nodding to me in thanks. “And we appreciate all the appreciation we can get, all things considered.”

  “So, what led to the radio silence with the CIs?” Holm asked, bringing us back on track.

  “I wish I could tell you,” Barrett chuckled, shaking his head again. “All I can say is, it can’t be a coincidence that this happened at the same time as official cases showed up.”

  “It wasn’t an overdose case, though, right?” I asked, remembering how that pencil pusher Sheldon had tried to hold us back in Miami just because there hadn’t been a death yet. “All the overdose cases are fatal.”

  “Right,” Barrett confirmed with a curt nod. “It was a brutal case, though. The poor girl’s hanging on for her life in the ICU. Not because of the drug, but because she was beaten up so badly after it was given to her.”

  I winced. I didn’t even want to think about what that girl had to have been through, given the nature of the drug in question.

  “Have you been able to interview her?” Holm asked, his voice suddenly much quieter.

  “In bits and pieces,” Barrett said. “But we haven’t gotten much. When she is sort of conscious, she’s very disturbed.”

  “I can’t blame her for that,” I muttered, staring down at the table and clenching my fists as I listened to Barrett.

  “Yeah,” he said solemnly. “She was thrashing around as if she were reliving it. We’ve been able to get that she didn’t sign up for taking whatever it was, that’s for sure. She keeps saying that ‘he’ must’ve put something in her drink because it tasted funny.”

  “Any idea who this ‘he’ is?” Holm asked with a harsh edge to his voice.

  “No,” Barrett said, shaking his head. “We’ll have to wait for that until she’s more lucid if she gets to that point.”

  “If?” I repeated, raising my gaze to meet his now.

  “As I said, she’s in rough shape,” Barrett said, leaving it at that. “We were able to get a look at his car as he got away, using the ER security cameras.”

  “That’s right, Diane said that someone dropped her off in front of the hospital and made a run for it,” Holm remembered. “That’s something, at least. He could’ve left her for dead.”

  “It could’ve been someone else,” I pointed out. “We have no idea how many people were there or who she was with. You weren’t able to get a partial plate, were you?”

  “No,” Barrett said, shaking his head. “The camera only caught the side of the car. But it was enough to run through our database to see if there are any people in the system with a similar car. I have my partner and some officers checking on the hits now. There were only about a dozen in the city. It was an old car, bronze-colored, so not very common.”

  “A bronze-colored car,” Holm said, scrunching up his face in distaste. “That’s a criminal offense in and of itself.”

  Barrett laughed, and the lines around his blue eyes crinkled in a pleasant manner. He seemed like a good guy, tired and weary as he was from his line of work.

  “You’re not wrong,” he said. “But I’m grateful for the driver’s bad taste. Not many people share it. Shouldn’t be long until we track him down, whoever he is.”

  “So, where do you think we should head first?” I asked. “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Barrett, rising and grabbing his suit jacket off the back of his chair and putting it on. “I think we should go track down a CI of mine. He’s usually pretty forthcoming, not too wrapped up in the drug world anymore, so it’s particularly strange to me that he’s gone quiet.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, rising along with Holm and pushing my own chair back into the table. “We’re right behind you.”

  CHAPTER 13

  We followed in our rental car close behind Barrett’s beat-up old Volvo. He led us to a broken down apartment complex on the wrong side of town, tucked far away on the opposite side of the city from the French Quarter.

  “We’re not going to find any of the best restaurants over here,” Holm complained as we drove.

  “You have a one-track mind,” I scolded him. “Besides, in my experience, some of the best places are off the beaten path.”

  The apartment complex itself was just two stories high and looked like it was one bad storm away from tumbling to the ground.

  Barrett led us through the front door which was just sitting open, and back around the far corner of the building to a single apartment tucked away from the others. He knocked on the door loudly.

  “Open up, Evans,” he barked. “It’s Detective Barrett. We need to talk.”

  There was a long silence, and then some frantic rustling on the other side of the door. The distinct stench of marijuana wafted out into the hallway.

  Holm took a deep sniff.

  “Well, there’s probable cause,” he muttered.

  “My thoughts exactly,” I said.

  “This one’s always a safe bet for probable cause,” Barrett whispered before turning back to the door. “Come on, Tyler, you already know how this is gonna go, so why don’t you save us both some time?”

  Slowly, the pers
on behind the door shuffled toward it and then cracked it open, though not far enough for us to see through. There was a chain lock on the other side.

  “You’re going to get me killed,” a man’s voice hissed through the crack in the door. The marijuana smoke was now practically billowing out into the corridor.

  “Be that as it may, here I am,” Barrett said dryly. “And I bought some friends. They’re with the feds.”

  That did the trick. The guy, Tyler, practically yelped at this information.

  “The feds?” he repeated, his voice suddenly very high. “You brought the feds here?”

  “Yes, and there’s nothing to be done about it now,” Barrett said bluntly. “So you might as well let us in and have a chat.”

  The guy practically squeaked in response to this, but then he shut the door, opened the chain, and let us in.

  The apartment was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. The carpet was a brown color, though it was colored in such splotches that I got the sense that it used to be white. The walls were a similar story. There was a single old couch in the middle of the room with stuffing sticking out of it every which way, and a small kitchen in the back stocked full of dirty dishes. There was what looked like a small bedroom tucked back behind the radiator.

  The air was thick with marijuana smoke, and Barrett almost instinctively walked over to the small, grainy window above the radiator and popped it open. I got the sense that he’d done this before.

  “Alright, Evans,” he said when he was finished with this, turning back to the quivering form of the man before us. “Why don’t we sit down and talk this out?”

  It wasn’t really a question. The guy sunk down onto the couch, and Barrett propped himself up against the side of the windowsill.

  Tyler Evans wasn’t a young man, but he wasn’t old, either. I thought he must be around forty, maybe a little younger since it was clear that years of drug use had aged him. His eyes were sunken, his short brown hair greasy, and his skin patchy like a junkie’s. He was thin and short, with a geeky aura about him.

  He looked at Holm and me skeptically and fiddled his hands together in what looked to be some kind of nervous tick.

  “Are you with the FBI or something?” he asked, not meeting our eyes.

  “Or something,” Holm said dryly.

  We both stood there in the middle of that disgusting carpet since neither of us wanted to sit next to Tyler, and there wasn’t anywhere else to sit.

  “So, Evans,” Barrett said, crossing his arms as he peered down his nose at the man. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day.”

  “Oh? Have you?” Tyler asked. He looked around nervously, anywhere but at Barrett, Holm, and me, and continued to fiddle with his own fingers. “I’ve been busy.”

  I realized that this man was almost rat-like. It was kind of eerie but non-threatening.

  “Yes, I have,” Barrett said, raising his eyebrows at the man. “But then again, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I… I have no idea what you mean,” Tyler said, still avoiding Barrett’s eyes. He stared down at the carpet in front of him now, having run out of other places to look.

  “Let’s cut the crap, Evans,” Barrett barked. “I thought we agreed to do that a long time ago.”

  “Why don’t you tell us why you’ve been dodging Detective Barrett’s calls?” I asked, making it a point to sound kinder than the cop did. It was smart to adopt different tactics in situations like these.

  “I… I told you,” Tyler stammered, still staring at the floor. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy getting high, it seems,” Holm scoffed, choking on a particularly pungent waft of marijuana smoke as it wafted up to him. The smell was dissipating, though, now that the window was open.

  “Hey, I don’t do any of the hard stuff anymore,” Tyler protested, looking up at us for the first time. “Just this. It calms my nerves.”

  My gaze drifted back to the guy’s hands as he continued to pick at his own skin, and I had little trouble believing this explanation.

  “Alright, alright,” Barrett said, holding up his hands. “We’re not here to bust you. We’re here to figure out what’s going on with all the gang activity lately.”

  “Gang activity?” Tyler repeated, his voice going squeaky high again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Holm chuckled.

  “You’re going to have to work on your acting skills, my friend,” he said, shaking his head at the guy. “That wasn’t very convincing.”

  “I don’t really care if you believe me,” Tyler said, though he was staring at the floor again, and his hands were trembling as he continued to pick at his own skin.

  “Look, is somebody threatening you?” I asked, gesturing to him in what I hoped was a kind way. “We can help you if they are.”

  “Right now, it seems to me that you’re the ones threatening me,” he said, and to his credit, he managed to look straight at me for about half a second there, though he jerked his head away quickly, taking a sudden interest in a particularly large tear in the couch cushion next to him. There was an edge in his voice now, and it was lower, though it still shook.

  “Fair enough,” Barrett reasoned with a shrug. “But think of it this way, just like you have before. Who would you rather be in bed with? Us, or the gang?”

  There was a period of silence in which the only sound was the dull scratching of Tyler’s nervous tick as he scratched at his fingers.

  “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” he sighed at long last, not taking his eyes off the couch cushion.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”

  The guy sighed again and turned his eyes up in our direction now, though he looked past us at the wall instead of straight at us.

  “It means that even if I trust you more, you can’t protect me like they can,” he explained, his voice strangely emotionless now. “You know that.”

  His eyes darted in Barrett’s direction now, and it was the detective’s turn to look away. I realized that Barrett thought the guy was right. The police really were up against a lot in this town, it seemed, even more than they usually were in a major city.

  “Look, it’s not just the police department you’ll be working with now,” Holm said, taking a step toward the guy in a non-threatening manner, though that didn’t stop him from flinching at the sudden movement. “You can be a federal CI now, with federal protection.”

  It was probably to our benefit that he thought we were with one of the bigger agencies like the FBI, though I hated to admit it.

  His gaze flicked nervously between Holm and the wall now. This went on for several moments, but we gave him time to digest this. I got the sense that this was one who did not respond well to excess pressure, and he had more than enough of that going on already, it seemed.

  “What can you give me?” he asked finally.

  “In terms of payment?” I asked, not quite sure what he meant. Usually, CIs got some kind of compensation, whether it be monetary or through some kind of plea bargain that would downgrade their own offenses.

  “No, protection,” he corrected. Then, after a brief moment, “Though I wouldn’t say no to a raise.”

  His eyes shifted back to Barrett now. The detective let out a long sigh.

  “Fine,” he relented. “I can double your usual, at least for the time being. But nothing more than that, you understand? This is the beginning and end of your bargaining power.” He pointed down at the man to emphasize this point.

  “I can do that,” Tyler said nonchalantly, though I recognized the gleam of greed and triumph in his eyes immediately. “But you’re going to need to get me out of this place and into some protection program. And don’t just stuff me in some dingy hotel either, mind you, they’ll find me in no time.”

  I glanced at Barrett, and he nodded.

  “We can do that,” I pro
mised him. “And we’ll give you a protective detail.”

  Barrett gave another begrudging nod to confirm this.

  “Now,” the detective said, more than a hint of finality in his tone now. “How about you start talking? Why did all the CIs go quiet at once? Even the good ones like you, who aren’t wrapped up much in that world anymore, have stopped talking.”

  “I’m still wrapped up in it for your sake,” Tyler made sure to remind the detective. “I may have left using behind, but I still have to stay close enough to that world to report back to you.”

  “True,” Barrett relented with a small smirk. “Though I can’t exactly say that you’ve been feeding me prized information lately.”

  “Well, if I get too wrapped up in it, I’ll start using again,” Tyler shot back, a hint of anger in his voice now. “Is that what you want?”

  I realized with more than a hint of surprise that this guy actually wanted to stay clean. All the nervousness, the picking at his skin, even the smoking, were all substitutes for his older, more destructive habits. I had to have at least a little respect for him for that. He didn’t look like he had much of his life together, but at least he was clean now. Mostly, anyway.

  “No,” Barrett said coolly. “Of course not.”

  “Why don’t you just tell us all you know?” I asked, smiling at him kindly. “Anything that you think might be of help to us, even if you think it’s small.”

  “Oh, it’s not small,” Tyler said with a low, humorless laugh, shaking his head. “Nothing about this is small.”

  “We’re well aware of that,” Holm said. “But how do you know?”

  “Why would they give a damn about me if it wasn’t?” Tyler asked. “They don’t come knocking on my door for any old reason. I’m a very, very small fish in a very, very big pond.”

  “They came looking for you personally?” Barrett asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “They didn’t just send you a message of some kind?”

  “Oh, no, they made it very clear that they know where I live and who I am,” Tyler said. “I’m not sure how. Probably one of your dirty cops gave them the CI database, which is exactly what you promised me wouldn’t happen when I took on this job for you.”