Bayou Justice. Mallory Kane
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he said. He kissed her on the cheek. “Good to see you, and congratulations on the job.” He pulled back and looked her in the eye. “One last thing. How in hell does Hennessey, with his history, have the nerve to run for governor?”
Angel straightened her caramel-colored leather jacket and swiped a hand over the sleeked-back hair at her temple. Then she gave Ray an eloquent shrug and shook her head. “What can I say?” she remarked. “This is the Big Easy, cher.” She turned and walked toward the door. Ray threw some bills down on the table and followed her.
Outside, she turned to him with a knowing look. “By the way, remember Hennessey’s little sister, Molly?” she asked innocently.
Ray swallowed. He wouldn’t forget Molly Hennessey if he lived a million years, although he wasn’t going to say that to Angel. He’d been undercover as a law student doing an internship with the LDAT over the summer and Molly had been volunteering in her brother’s office during her summer vacation from Tulane Law School.
Ray had flirted with her and eventually taken her to bed. He’d gotten what he’d wanted—proof that Hennessey was skimming federal funds. Ray had set up a sting operation to catch Hennessey and several other LDAT officials who were involved, but he’d hurt Molly.
“Ray?” Angel said, snapping her fingers in front of his eyes.
“What? Yeah. Hennessey’s little sister,” he said flatly.
“Yeah. Martin Hennessey went to work as a real-estate lawyer after Katrina, working with a greasy character who’s made a fortune flipping houses and doing who knows what else. Molly took over her brother’s law practice when he decided to run for governor.”
“Who’s the greasy character?”
“Flannery Thrasher. How’s that for a ten-dollar name? Get this. He’s campaign manager for Hennessey. Word is, he’ll be secretary of state when Hennessey wins.”
Ray felt relieved. “So at least that means Molly’s not working for him.”
“That don’t mean a thing. Thrasher’s with Martin 24/7.”
“What are you saying?”
Angel shrugged. “I’m just saying Remy thought you might want to know about him, so I ran him. Turns out I couldn’t find a damn thing about Flannery Thrasher before 2005.”
Ray frowned. “That’s true of a lot of people, isn’t it? Weren’t hundreds of thousands of documents destroyed in the floods? I lost almost every piece of information I’d collected on the LDAT.”
“Sure. But New Orleans vital records for the year of Thrasher’s birth are intact, but there’s no record of anyone by that name.”
“And you did the searches yourself?”
“I damn sure did.”
“You mentioned Molly.”
Angel checked her watch again. “I met her a couple of times. She seemed like a very sweet girl. But she’s surrounded by corruption—her brother, Thrasher, who knows who else. She needs somebody to watch out for her, or she’s going to get hurt.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Ray sat in the restaurant of the Monteleone hotel looking at the newspaper. The front page had two huge headlines. Most prominent was Hennessey Receives Coveted Endorsement, accompanied by a smiling photo of him and the senior U.S. senator from Louisiana. Slightly smaller and positioned just to the right of Hennessey’s photo was the second headline. Does Corruption Extend Beyond Police Department and Mayor’s Office?
Ray chuckled, then reached around the paper to pick up his café au lait.
“I had a good laugh when I saw that this morning, too,” a familiar voice said from behind him. Remy Comeaux pulled out a chair with one hand and waved the waitress over with the other. He pointed at Ray’s mug. She nodded.
Ray set the paper aside. “Good to see you,” he said.
Remy eyed him. “Yeah, you, too. Surprised, though. What’s the occasion?”
“I just came off a deep undercover assignment and found out that you called the FBI offices looking for me a couple of months ago.”
“I wondered why you didn’t get back to me,” Remy replied. “How deep?”
Ray lifted his mug. “Four years.”
“Whoa.” Remy shook his head. “Hope it was worth it.”
“Yeah.” Ray made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “It’s over now. I guess you called about Barnaby?”
The waitress set a mug in front of Remy. He nodded his thanks. “That’s right. I thought you’d want to know that things had come to a head again after all this time. By the way, Angel said y’all talked yesterday.”
“She brought me up-to-date,” Ray said.
“I gotta say, it’s nice to know all I have to do is pick up the phone and you’ll come running,” Remy said wryly.
“Anything for you, sweetheart,” Ray drawled. “But I didn’t come down here because of your phone call—figured you’d already have your problem solved. Before I went undercover, I tried to keep up with what was going on down here, especially with our four friends from LDAT. So when the assignment was over and I got the message that you’d called, I started catching up on everything I’d missed. The first thing I saw was that Hennessey was running for governor.”
“Can you believe those bastards came out of Katrina smelling like roses? I was in Houston when I saw that Barnaby had gotten the chief of police position. All I could think was he’d have even more power. So I came back to stop him.”
“Good job,” Ray said simply. “Why’d you leave in the first place? New Orleans is in your blood.”
A shadow crossed Remy’s face. “Barnaby threw Mack and me into jail for ‘looting.’ But the flooding tripped the electronic locks and I just walked out. I went to find Carlotta, but she never showed up at the hospital where she worked. I searched for weeks, but you saw how it was down here, right? So I had to accept that she was gone, along with my job and my city, so I left.”
“Oh, man, I am so sorry—” Ray started, but Remy held up his hand, grinning.
“Don’t be. Coming back here was the best thing I ever did. I came back looking for Barnaby and I found Carlotta. We’re getting married.” Remy’s normally solemn face glowed.
Ray nodded. “That’s great, man. What about Mack?”
“Same song, second verse. He walked out of the jail, too, but I had no idea where he was. Turns out he thought his wife and new baby were dead, too, so he slunk back into the bayou to nurse his wounds. Only, he still got the newspaper, so when Barnaby went down, he contacted me. He was ready to clear our names. He was staking out a party by the local elite and who does he spot alive and well? His wife, Lily. And then he helped bring down more of the players.”
“So he ended up proving that Mayor Barrow was in on the government corruption with Barnaby,” Ray filled in. “Good job, both of you. Where’s Mack now?”
“He and Lily and their son are on a long, quiet vacation at the beach, getting to know each other again.”
Ray tapped a finger on the newspaper. “What do you know about Hennessey?”
Remy drained the last of his café au lait and pushed the mug aside. “You mean, can we bring him to the party?” he asked.
Ray nodded. “We had him dead to rights.” He held up his closed fist. “We even had a plea agreement with Flay.”
“Had is right,” Remy said with a shake of his head. “Teague Fortune, a detective here in the Sixth, ran Flay for me. There’s not a damn thing on him after the storm. No credit cards, no checks. Not even a driver’s