Race with Death Read online

  When they reached Jackson Square, they found that Cafe du Monde was not crowded at that early hour. They sat down at one of the outside tables. They drank cafe au lait and munched on sweet rolls. Across the way, the twin peaks of St. Louis Cathedral scored the pale blue of the sky, and the clean, sweeping design seemed somehow, to Dani, to mock the pitiful human derelicts that passed beneath its facade.

  Sixkiller lounged in his chair, watching the scene before him, taking in the skinny black drug pusher who had set up not more than fifty yards away. “Little Willie’s getting pretty bold,” he remarked lazily. “Have to retire him pretty soon, I guess.”

  Dani looked at Sixkiller’s relaxed form. “I can see you’re all worked up over making a big arrest.”

  “Take Willie out and his replacement will be right in that spot the next day.” He took a bite of his roll, then asked, “You going to the FCA rally with me tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t think dragging a woman along to preach to a bunch of jocks is that great an idea.”

  “Then you don’t know much about jocks,” Luke grinned. “Taking a good-looking broad along is a great idea—one of my all-time best. Some of those guys have an attention span of maybe four minutes. But with you along, it’ll shoot up to five or six.”

  Dani smiled at the compliment, but was unconvinced. “Luke, what do you really think about all these ‘approaches’ to preaching the gospel? I mean, isn’t the simple thing just to give them the good news?”

  Sixkiller shrugged his broad shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know, Dani. It gets pretty silly sometimes.” He plucked his mug of café au lait from the table. It looked like a doll’s cup in his huge hand, and when he set it down, he added, “Everybody wants to tag the gospel with their hobby, like ‘Fellowship of Christian Athletes.’ There’s even one ‘ministry’ called ‘Karate for Christ.’” He scowled, his eyes glinting as he commented, “I guess they chop a guy down, then stick a tract between his teeth. Next thing it’ll be ‘Judo for Jesus’ or something just about as silly.”

  “Did you ever see that group of weightlifters who visit churches? They break bricks with their bare hands and blow up hot water bottles.” Dani put her chin on her hand, her eyes solemn with thought. “I think they give their testimonies afterward—but it seems odd to me. The best Christians I’ve met weren’t the heroic football players or the stars of the court. Why do we have to try to ‘improve’ on what the Bible says about preaching the gospel?”

  “It’s the times, I guess. If it works to have famous jocks advertise Jockey shorts, some half-baked assistant pastor thinks we can peddle Jesus the same way.” He looked disturbed, and said irritably, “Why do you bug me with these things, Ross? I’m just a brand-new Christian. People come to hear me give my testimony because I’m a hard-nosed New Orleans homicide detective. That’s glamorous work—or they think it is. If I sold shoes for a living how many would show up to listen to me?”

  “Paul was a tentmaker,” Dani challenged. “He didn’t do too badly, did he?”

  Sixkiller was gloomy. “I’ve thought of all this, but so far no answers.”

  Dani leaned forward and took one of his big hands between hers. “You’re doing a wonderful thing with your life, Luke. Not many men could go down into the Projects and tell that bunch about how Jesus can change their lives. God is blessing your testimony, so it’s good.”

  He looked down at her hand, picked it up, and smiled. “That makes me feel better. You know how to make a man feel important, Dani.” He tightened his grip on her hand, saying, “It could get to be a habit—”

  For one moment Dani thought Sixkiller intended to propose—and she quickly pulled her hand free with a short laugh. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Yeah—well, you’re probably wondering why I brought you here,” Sixkiller said. His dark eyes were fixed on her, and he seemed a little apprehensive. “You know about Eddie Prejean?”

  “Prejean?” Dani nodded. “I followed the trial in the papers.”

  “He wants to talk to you.”

  Dani stared at Sixkiller. Eddie Prejean had been convicted of murdering his girlfriend, and after a relatively short trial, was sentenced to die. Capital punishment was back in favor, and Louisiana was trying to make up for lost time.

  “What does he want with me?”

  Sixkiller said evasively, “Don’t know, but if you want to talk to him, it’ll have to be soon. He’s set to go in a week and a half.”

  “That soon?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Sixkiller’s eyes grew thoughtful. “I made the arrest, did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “No big deal. He was dead in the water, Dani. Didn’t put up a fight, and kept saying all along he was innocent. Well, they all say that, I guess. But something about the whole thing bothered me. Still does.”

  “The governor was involved, wasn’t he?”

  “Sure, but not in a big way. He’s a womanizer, which everybody knows. He was making a play for Prejean’s girl, and Prejean killed her in a jealous rage.”

  “The evidence was pretty strong, as I remember.”

  “Open and shut. The girl, Cory Louvier, was beaten to death with a flashlight. The flashlight was found in Prejean’s car, and samples of his skin and hair were found under the dead girl’s fingernails. Jury was back in thirty minutes.”

  Dani frowned. “It doesn’t seem long enough, Luke. I mean, the appeals take quite a while.”

  “That’s what bothers me, Dani. If Prejean had been from a minority, he’d have had half a dozen liberal groups fighting for him. But he had a lawyer who’d never argued before a jury—and none of the appeals went through. The judges who passed them by would have turned Hitler loose.”

  Dani stared at him. “You think something’s wrong?”

  “I got no evidence, Dani. But I’ve been to see Prejean twice.” The big policeman’s face was tense as he said slowly, “I think I know liars pretty well. I’ve listened to enough of them! All the evidence says Prejean’s guilty. But when I listen to him, something inside me says he’s not a liar.”

  “How’d he hear about me?”

  “Been reading your press clippings, I guess. And I told him a little. Anyway, I saw him yesterday, and when I left, he asked me to come and see you.” Luke hesitated, then said, “I’m afraid he’s got the idea you can work some magic for him, Dani. I tried to tell him it’s too late, but he asked me to do it. I—I figure I owe him a favor. Dead is a long time. And I was the one who picked him up.”

  Dani said at once, “I’ll do it, Luke. Can you fix it with the warden?”

  A look of relief came into Sixkiller’s dark eyes. “Already fixed. You can get into death row anytime you want to.”

  Dani smiled at him. “Pretty sure of me, weren’t you, Luke?”

  “Yeah, I was.” Sixkiller looked at the spires of the cathedral across the square, then back to her. “I’m not sure of much, kid, but you’re one I don’t ever doubt. Come on, I’ll walk you back to your office.”

  Dani followed the blacktop road through twenty miles of thick, almost impenetrable, scrub oak and pine until she surfaced in the open country and saw the low buildings that made up Angola Penitentiary. Rain had fallen in slanting lines all the way, and the plum-colored sky was adorned with limp, dingy clouds that looked like decayed, old lace.

  When she got to the front gate, she was admitted after a stony-faced guard gave her a short lecture on how to behave and a veiled threat of what would happen to her if she violated any of the regulations. He glanced then at his clipboard, saying reluctantly, “I got your name on my clipboard. I’ll ride with you up to the Block.”

  Smelling of stale tobacco and sweat, he got into the front seat of the Cougar. He had the flat green eyes and heavy facial bones of North Louisiana hill people. “You must have some clout,” he said, eyeing Dani carefully. “You a friend of the warden?”

  “No, I don’t know him.”

  The guard cocked
his eye and punched her with his elbow. “Hey, you must be Eddie’s main squeeze, right?”

  Dani tried to move away from his persistent elbow. “I don’t know him either.”

  That seemed to puzzle the guard, but he was the aggressive type, and as Dani followed his directions, she was engaged in avoiding him as he crowded closer, looking out at the huge, flat expanse of the prison farm at the same time. The main living area of the prison was a series of two-story, maximum-security dormitories contained within a wire fence and connected by breezeways and exercise yards. They were collectively called the Block, and they were as brilliantly lit as a football stadium in the rain. In the distance, she could see the surgically perfect fields of sugar cane and sweet potatoes and the crumbling ruins of the nineteenth-century camps silhouetted against the sun’s red afterglow. The willows bent in the breeze along the Mississippi levee, under which, Dani had heard, lay many a murdered convict, buried in unmarked graves.

  “You know the Red Hat House?”

  Dani had moved as far as possible away from the man, so she turned and looked him in the eye. “Get on your own side of this seat or I’ll report you to the warden.”

  “You don’t know him!”

  “We have a mutual friend named Layne Russell.”

  “Hey, no problem, lady!” The guard scooted back against the door on his own side at once and smiled nervously.

  “What’s the Red Hat House?”

  “It’s where they keep the chair,” he said quickly, anxious to make amends. “They used to work the worst offenders down by the river there, and they made them wear striped jumpers and red-painted straw hats. Made good targets for the guards, you see? Then at night, they body searched them, then ran them into the Red Hat House and threw their clothes in after them. Wasn’t no screens on the windows, so the mosquitoes would about eat them alive.”

  Dani parked the car, and the guard said quickly, “I’ll just go on back, lady. You go right in that door over there.”

  “Thank you,” Dani said evenly. She entered, after a guard inside cleared her by radio with the front gate, moved down a long brilliantly lit breezeway between the recreation yards, and passed through another set of hydraulic locks and a dead space where two guards were playing cards at a table. Overhead a sign read No guns beyond this point. She was checked for identification, then one of the guards took her into the rec and dining halls where the trustees were waxing the gleaming floors. She followed the guard up some spiral iron steps to a small maximum-security corner, where he turned her over to another guard. This one pulled a single lever that slid back the cell door. Inside, a youngish man was lying on a bunk, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Visitor for you, Prejean,” the guard grunted, and as Dani stepped into the small cell, the man lifted himself and sat looking at her as the guard shut the door.

  “You must be Dani Ross, I guess.”

  “Yes. Luke Sixkiller said you wanted to talk to me.”

  Prejean was a tall, wiry man of twenty-seven. He had black curly hair, brown eyes, and teeth that gleamed very white against his olive skin. He crushed the cigarette he had been smoking in the overflowing ashtray on the small table beside the bunk. “Didn’t think you’d come,” he said. His voice was soft and even, but his hands were unsteady. He motioned at the painted kitchen chair, saying, “Sit down, please.” When Dani sat down, he said, “I appreciate your coming here.”

  Dani felt ill at ease. The young man seemed so alive, so healthy—yet in a few days he would be dead. She asked carefully, “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Prejean?”

  “Call me Eddie.” Prejean pulled a battered package of Camels from his T-shirt pocket, stuck one between his lips, and lit it with a match. His movements were all quick and nervous, and when he tried to smile, he failed miserably. He puffed on the cigarette, then removed it with yellow-stained fingers. “I read about some of the cases you worked on,” he said. “That story in the magazine section of the Morning Advocate.”

  Dani shook her head decisively. “Most of that was hokum, Eddie. The woman needed a human interest story, so she thought an article about a woman private eye would do. She interviewed me, but I don’t think she heard much of what I said.” Dani smiled slightly, adding, “She read a lot of detective novels, and some of them got into her story. I’m not nearly so much of a hot dog as the story made me out to be.”

  Prejean listened carefully, then said, “Sixkiller thinks different.”

  “Oh—well, he’s a friend of mine,” Dani said lamely.

  “Sixkiller’s a pretty tough egg, and he don’t have a lot of good to say about private cops. But he said you could handle about anything.”

  Dani asked, “What is it you want done, Eddie?”

  Prejean stared at her, his dark eyes brooding, and there was a specter of fear over him. “I’m set to go in ten days, Miss Ross. And I didn’t kill Cory.” He rose from the bunk suddenly, turned, and faced the wall, leaning against it, pressing his head against his forearm.

  He’s scared to death—and too proud to let me see him cry, Dani thought. She waited until the tremors in his back ceased, then said gently, “I’d like to help you, Eddie, but this isn’t a detective novel. You had a trial, and it would take something very solid to get a stay of execution. The governor’s already turned you down, hasn’t he?”

  Prejean whirled and a streak of temper reddened his dark cheeks. “He’s laughing about it—laughing!” He clenched his fists until the knuckles turned white, and, at that moment, he appeared to be capable of any violence. Then he took a deep breath and sat down. “You know my job—when I was outside?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I worked for DEQ—Department of Environmental Quality. I did more to clean up the pollution in Louisiana than any other man in the department.” He allowed a grim smile to touch his lips. “And do you know who I had to fight tooth and nail to get that done?”

  “The chemical companies, I suspect.”

  “No, I could handle them. It was our fearless leader, Governor Layne Russell, who gave me the worst time.”

  “Why would he do that?” Dani asked.

  “Because the chemical people put him in office. Do you know how much they put into his campaign last election? Over a million dollars—and that’s not counting what they slipped him under the table. Russell knows that I’ve got almost enough stuff to get him out of office next election. And he was after my girl—who turned him down. So there won’t be any stay of execution, and no pardon.”

  Dani studied Prejean, trying to decide what she thought. She hated the idea of any human being dying in an electric chair, although she believed in capital punishment. The difficulty was, of course, that there was much unfairness and injustice in the process. “You can’t put a million dollars in the chair,” was a statement she’d heard, and she knew there was some bitter truth to it.

  Eddie Prejean saw the doubt on Dani’s face, and said slowly, “I got no right to ask you a favor, Miss Ross. Never even thought of it until Sixkiller came to see me and got to talking about you. He said if you’d been on my case, you’d have found some way to get at the truth. And he never told me to ask for help.” He dropped his head, and was silent for a long, painful moment. “Well, thanks for coming. That’s something most people wouldn’t have done.”

  He looked so young and vulnerable that Dani felt a sudden pang of grief. He’s not much older than my brother, she thought. If Rob were here in this place, facing a terrible death—I know what I’d do! She sat there struggling with her doubts, and could not get a clear direction. So deeply was she engaged in this inner struggle, she was not aware that Prejean was watching her with a faint gleam of hope in his dark eyes.

  She began to pray, silently, and for several moments the thoughts that flickered through her mind were so confused that she could not even voice them to God. This had happened before, but she had learned that if she waited and kept calling on the name of Jesus, the wild thoughts would fade. Fi
nally they did, and she asked simply, Lord, if you want me to help this man, you’ll have to give me some kind of assurance. I don’t know your will—but I want to do whatever that will is.

  Prejean watched, almost ceasing to breathe. He thought of Sixkiller’s words about Dani Ross, She’s smart and can be tough, Eddie. She’s also kind of a lady preacher—The policeman’s words had confused Prejean, but now as he watched the young woman struggle with her thoughts, he got a faint idea of what Sixkiller had been trying to say.

  Finally, Dani looked up, and there was a peace on her face, an air of having come to a decision. “I’ll help you all I can, Eddie,” she said quietly. “But you’d better understand that it’s going to take more than any human being can do to get you out of this. You’ll need God’s help.”

  Eddie nodded slowly. “I—I don’t know anything about God, Miss Ross. I’ll just have to trust you, I guess.”

  Dani smiled and nodded. “That will do for now. But I’m going to pray that you’ll find the One who can really unlock the prison for you.” Then she said briskly, “All right, tell it to me, Eddie—all of it. And remember, if you lie, you’re defeating your own chances. God has told me to help you, and I’ll do that no matter what you’ve done.” She paused, then held his eyes with a steady gaze. “Did you kill that girl?”

  Eddie Prejean blinked, and then tears came into his eyes. “I loved her more than my own life, Miss Ross. No, I didn’t kill her!”

  Dani Ross studied the lean face in front of her, then nodded. “All right, let’s find out who did.”

  3

  A Visit to Baton Rouge

  * * *

  Never had Dani been so conscious of the passing of time as during the day after her meeting with Eddie Prejean. Every clock seemed to be saying, “TIME IS PASSING! TIME IS PASSING!” She had dreamed that night about Eddie Prejean, seeing his thin tense face, and finally had awakened hours before dawn. She went over and over his story, trying to piece it together, to find some sort of angle that would change the focus.