Page 148 of The Fourth Option
Walker watched as a yellow F-350 pickup with a brush bar drove up to a container. A man stepped out of the passenger seat and stood talking with Babineaux while a forklift entered the container, backed up, swiveled, and deposited a loaded pallet in the back of the pickup.
“Can we figure out who that guy is talking to Babineaux?”
“Way ahead of you.”
Belle paused the video.
“I went back and looked at the media reporting on the night of Leigh Ann’s murder. One of the police officers they interviewed was a Lieutenant Cornelius Bates of the NOPD.”
“Is that Bates talking with Babineaux?”
She moused to another browser tab.
“No.Thisis Bates talking to reporters.” She paused the video. “See the guy just behind him? That’s the same guy who stepped out of the yellow truck.”
“And let me guess. You have a name.”
She went to another tab that opened to the New Orleans Police Department COPE Unit.
“Meet Detective Howard Gormley. He’s in a bunch of other video cuts, driving up alone in a Dodge Charger.”
Walker’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment he was back on the banks of the Mississippi River watching a yellow F-350 disappear into the current.
“It begs the question,” Belle said, “why is a detective with the New Orleans Police Department picking up a pallet at Dorado Freight in the same truck that rammed you into the river last night?”
“There’s one way to find out,” Walker said.
“What’s that?”
“We ask him.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
BUILT IN THE1920s, the NOPD building on Royal Street had survived hurricanes, riots, and a thousand bad decisions. The walls were thick, the windows tall, and the floors were polished to a dull shine. It smelled faintly of dust and bureaucracy. The place had history. And Lieutenant Cornelius Bates liked history, especially when it made him look good.
He stood at the front of the basement briefing room, arms folded across his chest, the sleeves of his uniform rolled just enough to show off the forearms and biceps he had worked on that morning at the New Orleans Athletic Club. His shirt was crisp. His badge gleamed on his belt. His jaw was freshly shaved, and his head was shining.
The COPE squad sat in rows before him. Community Outreach through Police Engagement. He was proud of the acronym. He had come up with it after all. A dozen officers, handpicked, uniformed, sat before him. The room was cool, the air humming with the low buzz of fluorescent lights and the distant echo of Bourbon Street traffic. Even the AC was working.
Bates scanned the rows, his eyes sharp and calculating. He liked this part, the performance. The authority. He lived for it.
“It’s been a long week,” he said, voice smooth. “We’ve got heat in the Ninth. Gang activity’s up. Got a few new faces pushing product. Some of it looks like heroin, some of it might be worse, based on the national trends we sent out in the reports. I trust you’ve read them?”
Respectful nods.
“Good. We’re seeing movement near likely drug markets on Clouet. You know the drill. Stay frosty. I want particular attention here.”
He clicked the remote. A map of the Ninth Ward appeared on the screen behind him, dotted with red pins.
“Same players,” he continued. “Same turf. But there’s chatter abouta new supplier. We’re hearing Mexican cartels but that’s not confirmed. Keep your eyes open for cartel profiles—tattoos, accents, vehicles that don’t belong. Sergeant Strickland, you’ll take lead on the street where Rayne and Hendrick got hit.”
“On it, Lieutenant.”
“Hound, you back up leads any of these guys dig up related to the case.” Bates raised his eyes to the rows behind Gormley. “Y’all catch that? If you hear anything about the hit on our people, you funnel it through Detective Gormley. Clear?”
A hand went up near the back.
Officer Tasha Campbell. Mid-thirties, sharp-eyed, earnest. One of the few in the room who still believed in the job. Bates had recruited her for optics, but she’d turned out to be competent.
