Chapter 5 – Chapter 5

What a surprise Kavanagh got when he and Monroe entered Alba's apartment. Sitting there in his living room much the way the guy had been sitting in the parlor of the brothel was the blond late-twenties honey Madame Zena had told Kavanagh was an aide to one of her clients and was waiting for him to be done. The guy was sitting, looking both nervous and forlorn, and smoking a cigarette.

He looked up at Kavanagh and smiled wanly, his hand fluttering to his blond hair as if to check for stray strands so the detective wouldn't get a bad impression. His cheeks were wet like he'd been crying. There was interest in his face when he looked at Kavanagh, but no sign of recognition that the detective walked by him the previous night in the brothel.

He was good looking but too old for Kavanagh's interests. He would have been happy to fuck the guy ten years earlier—not that he'd throw him out of bed now. Kavanagh smiled back, but it wasn't a "let's connect" smile.

"This is Alba's law clerk, Paul Worth," Monroe said, gesturing to the young man. "He says he lives here. This here's Detective Mike Kavanagh, on loan from the NYPD. He's lead on this case."

"This case?" Worth asked. "Luca died in his sleep of a heart attack. It wasn't expected, but his doctors said that heart trouble was developing. He was under a lot of stress over an important appointment. The heart issue was causing him to consider dropping consideration for the appointment. I think it's the stress that did it." Turning to Kavanagh, he smiled and said, "Detective Kavanagh," in recognition of the introduction. It was a special smile—a special interest smile.

"Mr. Worth," Kavanagh responded. Was that a flutter of eyelashes he saw—and maybe just a bit too much information on Alba's condition?

"He's an important man. We just have to cover all of the bases," Monroe said. "Can you hold tight here to talk with Detective Kavanagh after we've checked out the justice's bedroom?"

"Certainly, detective," Worth answered. "I live here and my life was completely in service to the justice's. I have nowhere else I need to be."

Just how fully in service to Alba was Worth, Kavanagh wondered as he followed Monroe down the hall. They passed the door of an obviously inhabited bedroom en route, so at least it seemed that the two men had separate bedrooms.

When they got to Alba's bedroom, Kavanagh saw what Monroe meant about the justice not dying here. He'd already been told about the bra, which was under what must have passed in the dark as an undershirt but what turned out to be a camisole. And his sleeping pants had been put on him backwards. The rest of the room was immaculate, though. There was a dressing table, but no sign of any of the makeup the judge had been wearing. He was laying there, arms crossed on his chest, legs pulled together. Not really how the last minutes of a heart attack victim would go.

Without speaking, Monroe leaned over and brought Kavanagh attention to the dead man's hands. His fingernails were all broken and bloody. He fought being offed but had lost—and as neatly as the bed was made, that fight didn't happen here.

"This led me to call someone before bringing in the Medical Examiner." Monroe whispered to Kavanagh because the ME was still in the room, putting his tools back in his bag and looking none too happy. "The ME had to be put in line on what he'd put on the certificate no matter what he found. What he found was suffocation, probably by a pillow, but nothing like that is here—his nose bled and he had makeup on his face. There's nothing here that mirrors that. So . . ." and here Monroe raised his voice, ". . . we have a case of heart attack."

The ME snapped his bag shut, gave Monroe a dirty look, gave some instructions to one of the coroners' office technicians standing by to take the body away, and then abruptly turned and left the room. It was only then that Kavanagh honed in on one of the technicians being Manny Lopez, a sexy young Hispanic who Kavanagh had seen both on the job and at a gay bar. Manny was young and had been on the make for Kavanagh in the bar. But he wasn't blond, he didn't rent himself out, and Kavanagh had this rule about hooking up with guys from the office, the coroner's office being part of the police establishment. So, Kavanagh hadn't responded to Manny's signaling . . . until now. Now Kavanagh had the thought in the back of his mind that Lopez could be a source for information the detective sorely needed and was officially being denied.

"Good to see you, Manny," he said. He didn't need to get the young Hispanic's attention. Manny had been salivating over Kavanagh and posing for him since Kavanagh and Monroe had entered the room. "Been meaning to talk to you. You free for a drink and lunch today—maybe at Good Friends on Dauphine?"

"You bet," Manny asked, nearly panting like a puppy dog. "Would 1:30 be too late? I can't get off before that."

"That would be just fine. I have some fish to fry, so later is better than earlier." Kavanagh told Monroe he, indeed, had a lead or two to follow and Monroe said he'd get what Kavanagh asked for on Alba's background to him as soon as he could. Then Kavanagh left the room and went back to the living room, where the justice's aide was still sitting.

"Do you know where the justice spent the evening?" he asked.

"Right here," Worth answered, sitting up straight on the sofa and showing Kavanagh his best profile. "We went over some legal case files until he said he was tired and then he went to bed a little after midnight. I put the files in order and then I went to bed. The justice is an early riser. When he didn't come out of his room for coffee this morning, I went in and found he had passed away."

All the time Worth was saying this, he was showing mixed emotions. He clearly was nervous as hell—either overwhelmed by events or holding something back—but he also was signaling interest like mad to Kavanagh. To Kavanagh it came across as fishy as hell, though.

"So, you had a lot of legal files to work on?" He made show of looking around the room for said files.

"Yes, and I put them in order . . . in the justice's home office . . . before I went to bed."

"And you were with him all evening?"

"Yes. Here, working."

"Well, that's it for now, thank you. I'm very sorry for your loss. Looks like a simple heart attack."

"He was a great and brilliant man," Worth said, rising from the sofa. "The world will miss not having him on the Supreme Court."

Kavanagh had remained standing, indicating that the interview wouldn't be long. "Who will be making the arrangements for him?" he asked.

"The circuit court will do the detail work, I guess," Worth said. "He had no family . . . living . . . other than me. We worked so closely together that I guess you could consider me family. I'll shepherd the arrangements."

"And then what? What after he's taken care of?" Kavanagh asked.

"You mean what will I do?"

Kavanagh nodded.

"Well, I guess I'll have to find another position—law clerk for someone else, I guess," Worth said, appearing to be thinking of the matter for the first time. But there was something about him and the way he carefully presented himself that made Kavanagh think that the man had already considered all of the angles. It was certain that he was covering something else.

Kavanagh had seen him in the Frenchmen's Street brothel the previous night—most likely waiting for Alba, who was with one of the Sams—considering how close an aide he claimed to be to the justice. And Madame Zena had called Worth an aide to a client she wouldn't name as well. And Worth's scenario of the evening was a bunch of baloney. The ME estimated time of death for between 10:15 and 11:15 the previous night—near the time when Kavanagh saw Worth in the brothel, and not long before Kavanagh saw Worth and another man bundling something out of the brothel and into a black Escalade.

Kavanagh decided that Worth needed to be knocked off center. "You say you and Justice Alba were inseparable and that he had no family. The body in there has been wearing makeup and women's clothes. He was dressed for sex. Were you and Alba fucking?"

The bald question did, as expected, knock Worth off his pins, but he recovered quickly, having reviewed his options in a flash. To be a circuit court judge's law clerk, you had to be fast on your reflexes.

"Yes, Detective Kavanagh, I serviced Justice Alba in every way. I gave him whatever he wanted and expected. He was a very important and demanding man. And he didn't have time to take care of his needs himself. I gave him what he needed. Now, let me ask you something. Did you ask as part of the official investigation or because you want to fuck me too? Did you want to know what I was doing tonight rather than professionally, in the long term?"

It was Kavanagh's turn to be knocked for a loop, but he also recovered quickly and considered his options just as quickly.

"Perhaps both, but the official work takes precedence. Can I give you my card for you to contact me if anything else comes to mind that would help us . . . me."

Worth took the card, and they both permitted their hands to touch for longer than necessary on the exchange.

"Certainly. When I've done what has to be done with the arrangements for the justice, I certainly will call you," Worth said. They exchanged a meaningful look before Kavanagh withdrew.

When Kavanagh left the Garden District apartment, he didn't go straight to the police station. He walked, instead, across the French Quarter to Frenchmen's Street. Madame Zena was going to have to reveal to him who the client had been who was there with Worth the previous evening. Kavanagh bet it was Alba and also that Alba died in the brothel and Worth was helping someone cover that up.

He was out of luck when he got to the brothel, though. Sam 1 was there and apparently in charge for the moment.

"Madame Z and Sam 4 aren't here. They weren't here this morning. Her car is here, so they must have taken a taxi. But, no, that's not unusual for her to go off for a few days with one of the guys when she has the itch."

"I'll leave my card then," Kavanagh said. "It's important that she contact me. There may be some bad publicity coming her way that she'll need help tamping down."

"Thanks, I know she'll appreciate it," Sam 1 said, taking Kavanagh's card. The detective knew that, with what he'd said, Madame Zena indeed would get back to him as quickly as she could. Then he'd maybe get a two-fer: both vital information from Madame Z and, in her gratitude for the heads up, some free servicing from Sam 3.

From there he went back to the office and stewed. He didn't simmer for long, though. The information he'd requested on the recently known skeletons in Alba's closet was delivered to him and he poured over it. Reflected in the documents were some payments and perks in kind to the judge connected to rulings over the years and some contributions by him to politicians who might have helped him rise in the bench assignments. There were some questionable real estate deals, including for the St. Charles Avenue apartment, that would cause smiles but no real shock or surprise in New Orleans society. And then there were hints and more than hints of the sexual proclivities that Kavanagh had already seen firsthand. The more than hints dealt with a never-married justice and his closeness to his legal clerks. The lesser hints were attachments to other men, including another justice on the circuit court who once had been his law clerk.

As he was finishing absorbing this, Marco and Felix came into the squad room following what, as their mood and discussion indicated, was an unsuccessful morning of detection on the serial killing case.

After commiserating with them, Kavanagh asked a question that got all three of them going again. "Marco, yesterday Brent spent the afternoon couriering documents around to government offices, you said. Was one of them the building where the Fifth Circuit Court is located?"

"Sure. The Herbert Federal Building on Maestri Place. Why do you? . . . oh, shit."

"Shit is right," Kavanagh said. "That's your connection. All of the victims in your case have a connection with that building or the street in front of it."

All three detectives popped up out of their seats. Marco and Felix were off to Maestri Place.

"You coming with us, Mike?" Felix asked. "I thought the captain said you—"

"No, I've got a date with a stiff handler," Kavanagh said. "But I may have something to help you with when I get back."