Crescent City Connection

door. He was on his way to work.”
    “And then what?”
    “And then … it sounded like the end of the world.” Bernice started weeping again, remembering the peppering, drilling hailstorm of the fusillade.
    “Where were you?”
    “In the kitchen. I was still drinking coffee. Oh, baby … oh, Skip…”
    “What?”
    “I hardly even said good-bye. I was just reading the paper, and he came in to kiss me good-bye. I barely even looked up—I just kind of let him peck me.”
    “On the cheek?” It was an unprofessional question, but Skip wanted to make Mrs. Goodlett feel better.
    “Why, no. On the lips.”
    Skip had never seen a good-bye cheek-peck. “You see? He knew you loved him.”
    She thought of the familiarity of the scene—the husband leaving as he had a million times, coming in automatically for an automatic kiss, the two partners going through it almost like robots, they were so used to it. Yet underneath there was a vast canyon of feeling, this enormous pocket of love that the chief’s death had opened up. Skip felt her eyes fill again, in sympathy with the widow’s regret.
    “What did you do?’
    “I dropped my coffee. I just sat there staring into space for a minute and by the time I got up, the shooting had stopped. I went to the door and … everybody was there.”
    “Everybody?”
    “All the neighbors were coming out. And he was still in the car. Other people got there first. They told me not to go any closer and so I didn’t.” Her mouth crumpled up. “The last time I saw him was in here saying good-bye.”
    “Kissing you. Remember that, Bernice.”
    “The kids …”
    “Somebody went to get them?”
    She nodded. “They don’t even know yet.”
    “Bernice, I know this is hard, but please try to help me for a minute. Do you know anyone who’d want to kill him? Anyone who threatened him?”
    “No.” She said it as if the idea had never occurred to her. “Everyone loved him.”
    “He was a tough cop, Bernice. He must have had enemies.”
    She shrugged. “Racists. But everybody …” She stopped, apparently afraid of giving offense.
    Skip was silent.
    “I mean, there’s always the fear … when you achieve something.”
    When a black person achieves something. It was obvious what she meant.
    Skip said, “Anything specific?”
    Bernice shook her head. “Nothing. No.”
    Skip wondered if she had something here. Probably not, she thought. More likely some criminal he’d crossed, some gang who thought he was too good a cop, some crazy. Or the mob. If it was mob activity, things were about to come out that she didn’t even want to think about.
    She made her manners and went outside. Charlie Dilzell was racing toward her. “Langdon! We got a witness. Guy across the street saw the shooter.” He pointed at an upstairs window. “Guy went over to the window to tie his tie—checking out the weather, he said. Saw a white Chevy pickup parked in front of the chief’s house. Man got out, started shooting, got back in, and drove off.”
    “Did he get the plate number?” It was more or less a rhetorical question—they weren’t going to get that lucky.
    “Said the truck wasn’t in the right position. But he could see down into the bed of the truck. It was full of painting supplies.”
    “What’d the guy look like?”
    Dilzell shrugged. “White, he thinks, but he can’t be sure. Plain, light-colored pants, same kind of shirt—work clothes, maybe; something like khakis. Baseball cap.”
    “Did the cap say anything?”
    “It was turned the wrong way.”
    Skip drew in her breath and let it out too hard, in a sigh she hadn’t meant to make. They still had hardly anything. “Okay. Put out a bulletin, will you?”
    “With that?”
    “Yeah, with that. I don’t care if we have to stop every white Chevy pickup in the state of Louisiana. Let’s go with it.” She spoke more sharply than she intended. She was angry—not at Dilzell, but at the asshole who’d killed the chief, and the dude with the tie for failing to get the plate, and the chief for dying.
    “Charlie.”
    Dilzell turned around.
    “Was it this house?”
    Dilzell nodded and turned away, piqued at her for snapping.
    She rang the bell and identified herself. The witness’s name was Ezra Johnson. He was a light-skinned black in his early twenties, young to have such a nice house. She suspected he lived with his parents.
    Ezra, I hear you saw down into the bed of the truck. I wonder if you could tell me what