Fat Tuesday Read online

  Fat Tuesday [067-011-066-4.9]

  By: Sandra Brown

  Synopsis:

  Precise details change with the ages, but you can bet that the first

  story ever written had something to do with revenge. Sandra Brown

  continues the tradition with her latest brick of a book, Fat Tuesday.

  After a gruff 'n' tuff New Orleans narc, Burke Basile, mistakenly blows

  a hole in his partner's noggin, he vows revenge--not only on the thug

  who was directly involved, but also on the sleazy kingpin behind it all.

  And in finest cop-drama tradition, he vows to do it outside the law. Fat

  Tuesday only begins to cook after Basile turns in his badge and--mixing

  charm and coercion--enlists various underworld elements in his cause.

  It's all a little B movie-ish at times, but for every hooker with a

  heart of gold, there's a fresher character like Gregory, the homosexual

  hustler who uses his drama degree to Basile's benefit. The villains are

  bad (can't go wrong with a lawyer), the heroine good, and the hero a

  big, wounded warrior looking for true love.

  Warner Vision;

  ISBN: 0446605581

  Copyright 1998

  Burke Basile extended the fingers of his right hand, then formed a tight

  fist. This flexing motion had recently become an involuntary

  habit."There's not a chance in hell they'll convict."

  Captain Douglas spat out, commander of Narcotics and Vice of the New

  Orleans Police Department, sighed discouragingly."Maybe."

  "Not maybe." He'll walk," Burke repeated with resolve.

  After a moment, Pat asked, "Why did Littrell assign this particular

  assistant to prosecute this case? He's a newcomer, been living down here

  only a few months, a transplant from up north. Wisconsin or someplace.

  He didn't understand the ... the nuances of this trial."

  Burke, who'd been staring out the window, turned back into the room.

  "Pinkie Duvall understood them well enough."

  "That golden-tongued son of a bitch. He loves nothing better than to

  hammer the N.O.P.D and make us all look incompetent."

  Although it pained him to compliment the defense lawyer, Burke said,

  "You gotta hand it to him, Doug, his closing argument was brilliant.

  It was blatantly anti-cop, but just as blatantly projustice. All twelve

  jurors were creaming on every word." He checked his wristwatch.

  "They've been out thirty minutes. I predict another ten or so ought to

  do it."

  "You really think it'll be that quick?"

  '"Yeah, I do." Burke took a seat in a scarred wooden armchair.

  "When you get right down to it, we never stood a prayer. No matter who

  in the D.A."s office tried the case, or how much fancy legal footwork

  was done on either side, the sad fact remains that Wayne Bardo did not

  pull the trigger. He did not fire the bullet that killed Kev."

  "I wish I had a nickel for every time Pinkie Duvall said that during the

  trial," Pat remarked sourly." My client did not fire the fatal bullet."

  He chanted it like a monk."

  "Unfortunately, it's the truth."

  They'd tramped this ground at least ten thousand times ruminating,

  speculating, but always returning to that one irreversible, unarguable,

  unpalatable certainty: The accused on trial, Wayne Bardo, technically

  had not shot to death Detective Sergeant Kevin Stuart.

  Burke Basile wearily massaged his shadowed eye sockets, pushed back his

  unkempt wavy hair, smoothed down his mustache, then restlessly rubbed

  his palms against the tops of his thighs. He flexed the fingers of his

  right hand. Finally, he set his elbows on his knees and stared vacantly

  at the floor, his shoulders dejectedly hunched forward.

  Pat observed him critically."You look like hell. Why don't you go out

  and have a cigarette?"

  Burke shook his head.

  "Coffee? I'll go get it for you, bring it back so you don't have to face

  the media."

  "No, but thanks."

  Pat sat down in the chair next to Burke's."Let's not write it off as a

  defeat yet. Juries are tricky. You think you've got some bastard nailed,

  he leaves the courthouse a free man. You're practically assured an

  acquittal, they bring in a guilty verdict, and the judge opts for the

  maximum sentence. You never can tell."

  "I can tell," Burke said with stubborn resignation."Bardo will walk."

  For a time, neither said anything to break the heavy silence. Then Pat

  said, "Today's the anniversary of the Constitution of Mexico."

  Burke looked up."Pardon?"

  "The Mexican Constitution. It was adopted on February 5. I noticed it on

  my desk calendar this morning."

  "Huh."

  "Didn't say how many years ago. Couple of hundred, I guess."

  "Huh."

  That conversation exhausted, they fell silent again, each lost in his

  thoughts. Burke was trying to figure out how he was going to handle

  himself the first few seconds after the verdict was read.

  From the start he'd known that there would be a trial. Pinkie Duvall

  wasn't about to plea-bargain what he considered to be a shoo-in

  acquittal for his client. Burke had also known what the outcome of the

  trial would be. Now that the moment of truth was if his prediction

  proved correct approaching, he geared himself up to combat the rage he

  knew he would experience when he watched Bardo leave the courthouse

  unscathed.

  God help him from killing the bastard with his bare hands.

  A large, noisy housefly, out of season and stoned on insecticide, had

  somehow found its way into this small room in the Orleans Parish

  courthouse, where countless other prosecutors and defendants had sweated

  anxiously while awaiting a jury's verdict. Desperate to escape, the fly

  was making suicidal little pflats against the windowpane. The poor dumb

  fly didn't know when he was beaten. He didn't realize he only looked a

  fool for his vain attempts, no matter how valiant they were.

  Burke snuffled a self-deprecating laugh. Because he could identify with

  the futility of a housefly, he knew he'd hit rock bottom.

  When the knock came, he and Pat glanced first at each other, then toward

  the door, which a bailiff opened. She poked her head inside.

  "They're back."

  As they moved toward the door, Pat checked the time, murmuring, "Son of

  a gun. Ten minutes." He looked at Burke."How'd you do that?"

  But Burke wasn't listening. His concentration was focused on the open

  doors of the courtroom at the end of the corridor. Spectators and media

  streamed through the portal with the excitement of Romans at the

  Colosseum about to witness the spectacle of martyrs being devoured by

  lions.

  Kevin Stuart, husband, father, damn good cop, and best friend, had been

  martyred. Like many martyrs throughout history, his death was the result

  of betrayal. Someone Kev trusted, someone who was supposed to be on his

  side, furthering his cause, backing him up, had turned traitor.

  Another cop had tip
ped the bad guys that the good guys were on the way.

  One secret phone call from someone within the division, and Kevin

  Stuart's fate had been sealed. True, he'd been killed in the line of

  duty, but that didn't make him any less dead. He'd died needlessly.

  He'd died bloody. This trial was merely the mopping up. This trial was

  the costly and time-consuming exercise a civilized society went through

  to put a good face on letting a scumbag go free after ending the life of

  a fine man.

  Jury selection had taken two weeks. From the outset, the prosecutor had

  been intimidated and outsmarted by the defense attorney, the flamboyant

  Pinkie Duvall, who had exercised all his preemptory challenges,

  handpicking a perfect jury for his client with hardly any argument from

  the opposition.

  The trial itself had lasted only four days. But its brevity was

  disproportionate to the interest in its outcome. There'd been no

  shortage of predictions.

  The morning following the fatal incident, the chief of police was quoted

  as saying, "Every officer on the force feels the loss and is taking it

  personally. Kevin Stuart was well respected and well liked among his

  fellow policemen. We're using all the resources available to us to

  conduct a complete and thorough investigation into the shooting death of

  this distinguished officer."

  "It should be an open-and-shut case," one pundit had editorialized in

  the Times Picayune the day the trial commenced."An egregious mistake on

  the part of the N.O.P.D has left one of its own dead. Tragic?

  Definitely.

  But justification to pin the blame on an innocent scapegoat? This writer

  thinks not."

  "The D.A. is squandering taxpayers' money by forcing an innocent citizen

  to stand trial for a trumped-up charge, one designed to spare the New

  Orleans Police Department the public humiliation that it deserves over

  this incident. Voters would do well to take into account this farce when

  District Attorney Littrell comes up for reelection."

  This quote was from Pinkie Duvall, whose "innocent citizen" client,

  Wayne Bardo, the Bardeaux, had a list of prior arrests as long as the

  Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

  Pinkie Duvall's involvement in any court case guaranteed extensive media

  coverage. Everyone in public service, every elected official, wanted to

  hitch a ride on the bandwagon of free publicity and had used the Bardo

  trial as a forum for his or her particular platform, whatever that might

  be. Unsolicited opinions were as lavishly strewn about as colored beads

  during Mardi Gras.

  By contrast, since the night of Kev Stuart's death, Lieutenant Burke

  Basile had maintained a stubborn, contemptuous silence. During the

  pretrial hearings, through all the motions filed with the court by both

  sides, amid the frenzied hype created by the media, nothing quotable had

  been attributed to the taciturn narcotics officer whose partner and best

  friend had died from a gunshot wound that night when a drug bust went

  awry.

  Now, as he tried to reenter the courtroom to hear the verdict, in

  response to the reporter who shoved a microphone into his face and asked

  if he had anything to say, Burke Basile's succinct reply was, "Yeah.

  Fuck off." l Captain Pat, recognized by reporters as someone in

  authority, was detained as he tried to follow Burke into the courtroom.

  Pat's statements were considerably more diplomatic than those of his

  subordinate, but he stated unequivocally that Wayne Bardo was

  responsible for Stuart's death and that justice would be served only if

  the jury returned a guilty verdict.

  Burke was already seated when Pat rejoined him."This can't be easy for

  Nancy," he remarked as he sat down.

  Kev Stuart's widow was seated in the same row as they, but across the

  center aisle. She was flanked by her parents. Leaning forward slightly,

  Burke caught her eye and gave her a nod of encouragement.

  Her return smile was weak, suggesting no more optimism than he felt.

  Pat waved to her in greeting."On the other hand, she's a trouper."

  "Yeah, when her husband's gunned down in cold blood, you can count on

  Nancy to rise to the occasion."

  Pat frowned at Basile's sarcasm."That was an unnecessary crack.

  You know what I meant." Burke said nothing. After a moment, with forced

  casualness, Pat asked, "Will Barbara be here?"

  "No."

  "I thought she might come to lend you moral support if this doesn't go

  our way."

  Burke didn't wish to expound on why his wife chose not to attend the

  proceedings. He said simply, "She told me to call her soon as I know."

  Vastly different moods emanated from the camps of the opposing sides.

  Burke shared Pat's estimation that the assistant D.A. had done a poor

  job of prosecuting the case. After lamely limping through it, he now was

  seated at his table, bouncing the eraser end of a pencil off a blank

  legal tablet on which was jotted not a single notation. He was nervously

  jiggling his left leg, and looking like he'd rather be doing just about

  anything else, including having a root canal.

  While at the defense table, Bardo and Duvall seemed to be sharing a

  whispered joke. Both were chuckling behind their hands. Burke would be

  hard pressed to say which he loathed more the career criminal or his

  equally criminal attorney.

  When Duvall was distracted by an assistant from his office and turned

  away to scan a sheaf of legal documents, Bardo leaned back in his chair,

  steepled his fingers beneath his chin, and gazed ceilingward.

  Burke seriously doubted the son of a bitch was praying.

  As though he'd been beckoned by Burke's hard stare, Bardo turned his

  head. Connecting with Burke's gaze were flinty dark eyes, which he

  doubted had ever flickered with a twinge of conscience. Lizardthin lips

  parted to form a chilling smile.

  Then Bardo dropped one eyelid in a wink.

  Burke would have come out of his chair and lunged toward Bardo if Pat,

  who'd witnessed the insolent gesture, hadn't grabbed Burke by the arm

  and restrained him.

  "For chrissake, don't do something stupid." In a tense undertone he

  said, "Fly off the handle, and you'll be playing right into the hands of

  those bastards. You'll lend truth to every negative allegation they made

  about you during this trial. Now if that's what you want, go ahead."

  Refusing to honor the reprimand even with a comeback, Burke yanked his

  arm free of his superior's grasp. Smug grin still in place, Bardo faced

  forward again. Seconds later, the court was called to order and the

  judge resumed the bench. In a voice as syrupy as the sap that dripped

  from summer honeysuckle, he admonished everyone to conduct himself in an

  orderly "maunnah" when the verdict was handed down, then he asked an

  aide to summon the jury.

  Seven men and five women filed into the jury box. Seven men and five

  women had voted unanimously that Wayne Bardo was not guilty of the

  shooting death of Detective Sergeant Kevin Stuart.

  It was what Burke Basile had expected, but it was harder to accept th
an

  he'd imagined, and he had imagined that it would be impossible.

  Despite the judge's instructions, spectators failed to restrain or

  conceal their reactions. Nancy Stuart uttered a sharp cry, then

  crumpled.

  Her parents shielded her from the lights of the video cameras and the

  rapacious reporters who swarmed her.

  The judge thanked the jury and dismissed them, then, as soon as court

  was loudly and formally adjourned, the ineffectual prosecutor quickly

  stuffed his blank legal pad into his new-looking attache case and walked

  up the center aisle as though it had just been announced that the

  building was on fire. He avoided making eye contact with Burke and Pat.

  Burke mentally captioned the expression on his face: It's not my fault.

  You win some, you lose some. No matter what, the paycheck comes on

  Friday, so get over it.

  "Asshole," Burke muttered.

  Predictably, there was jubilation at the defense table and the judge had

  given up trying to control it. Pinkie Duvall was waxing eloquent into

  the media microphones. Wayne Bardo was shifting from one Bally loafer to

  the other, looking complacently bored as he shot his cuffs.

  His stone-studded cuff links glittered in the TV lights.