“You with me so far?” Preacher asked Maureen.
“Yes, sir,” Maureen said. “Maybe these beatings, maybe it’s something related to those attacks down in the Fifth District, on St. Claude? The Fifth abuts the Eighth. Those were random beatings. Every vic in those cases is a white male.”
“Or the kids with the bats on Esplanade,” Wilburn said. “The ones robbing the cyclists. Could be something like that.”
Preacher shook his head. “The kids with bats only go after bike riders, and the point of those attacks was robbery. And I think we caught those kids. Not that others won’t soon pick up the mantle. And the bats.” He looked at Maureen. “Anyway, the guys on St. Claude, the three of them live in that neighborhood, and they’re middle-aged. They were assaulted by a gang of kids who didn’t care if they were seen. Not one of the guys who took these other beatings got the slightest look at who attacked them. They had nothing to offer ID-wise. Nothing. That’s impressive work by the assailant. And it points to planning and forethought. To intent. That person doesn’t want anyone knowing who he is.
“One of the St. Claude guys named a kid from his art class as one of his attackers. Whole different thing. The guy dishing out these other beatings, he’s on a mission.”
He let his words hang in the air. Maureen thought she heard a hint of respect in Preacher’s voice. She was happy to hear the masculine pronouns. “This mission, this crusade, if it has come to the Sixth District, it ends here. Before it escalates, ’cause we know that’s next. I want no heroes dropping bodies in my district. Not for any reason. Believe.”
Maureen looked down into her coffee. Way ahead of you, Preacher, she thought.
13
“I want you to do something for me,” Preacher said. “About that store on Washington.”
They were parked on a short block of Magazine Street, outside a custom furniture shop, positioned in the middle of a stretch of bars and restaurants that stayed open late. Maureen, in the passenger seat of the parked cruiser, sat looking out the window. Her heel thumped on the floor. She chewed her thumbnail. She turned to Preacher, blinking. “What?”
“You okay?” Preacher asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s tough, you know, sitting here in the car after so much time off. I would’ve liked the grocery store gig. Talk to people. Move around some.”
Preacher said, “That’s what I’m asking you about. The grocery store. Believe me, I’m not leaving the whole thing up to Wilburn and Cordts.”
He resettled himself in his seat. Being parked for hours at a time wasn’t doing him any good, either, Maureen could tell. She knew his back hurt. He glanced at her, then returned to watching the street through the windshield.
“I know you’ve come back gung-ho,” Preacher said. “Which is why I thought you’d be better off easing back into it. That’s why you’re out here with me, instead of alone in a car of your own.”
“I figured it was something like that,” Maureen said. “So we’re babysitting Magazine Street, and you’re babysitting me. I get it. Making sure no frat boys get their asses kicked.”
Preacher sucked his teeth. “Not that I owe you an explanation for your orders, as your commanding officer and such.”
Maureen blew out her breath. She lowered her head in supplication. “I know, I know, I’m being an ungrateful bitch. Again. I’m working on, what’s the word for it, processing, what happened six weeks ago. It’s weird being back, in the car, in the uniform. More so than I thought it would be. Brings a lot of it back. It makes me edgy, the discomfort. Part of me feels like I never left, part of me feels like an impostor. I’m in a hurry to feel normal again, you know?”
“I do, believe me,” Preacher said. “I spent a few years, never mind weeks, after the storm trying to feel what you want to feel, but I don’t think there’s any way to speed up that process. If there is, I never found it.”
“It’s not just what happened here in New Orleans with Quinn and those guys,” Maureen said. She thought of Skinner’s admonitions. Who did she trust more than Preacher? “There’s things I brought with me here, things from home. From back in New York. This time of year, it makes me kind of squirrelly. Like people here get at the end of August.”
Preacher kept looking out the car window, distracted, watching the traffic. Maybe thinking, Maureen wondered, about late August six years ago. He shifted his hips again, trying to relieve the pressure on his low back. Maureen considered the pain pills at home in her medicine cabinet. Wouldn’t take but ten minutes, less than that, to pass by her house and get them. One for him, one for her. Did she want him asking, though, where she got them? He wouldn’t ask, she realized, he would just know.