Too Far Gone Read Free Page B

superintendent of police. He told me to make sure this went right. You understand, nobody wants to involve the FBI unless it turns out to be an FBI matter—”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œWhich nobody thinks it is. I’m just…” Manseur hesitated.
    â€œCovering your bases.”
    â€œCovering my something. The LePointes give millions every year to all sorts of things, like schools, libraries, the zoo, museums, scholarships, after-school programs, homeless and battered women shelters, summer camps, and hospitals. They’ve donated firefighting equipment, ballistic vests, and service weapons to the police. The LePointes are extremely generous to New Orleans.”
    â€œI don’t suppose their generosity extends to political campaigns?” Alexa asked.
    â€œLocal, state, and national.”
    â€œSay no more,” Alexa said.

4
    The West house was a looming thunder-gray brick palatial structure with wood shutters and a steep slate roof. It was protected from prying eyes by a wall of impenetrable privets. The lower floor of the home was visible from the street only where the hedge ended on either side of the ornate wrought-iron-gated driveway and where a matching pedestrian gate protected the walkway. The cobblestone driveway was empty except for a sleek new Bentley.
    Manseur parked on the street at the end of a row of identical four-door sedans, each with cheaper-by-the-million hubcaps and short radio antennas centered on their trunks. There was not a single marked police car in evidence.
    Alexa followed Manseur through the gate and toward the covered front porch, which was thirty feet wide. Men in casual attire stood in a cluster off to one side, giving the impression of a wake in progress. Alexa had to suppress a smile when she recognized one of two men standing together on the opposite side of the porch from the larger group.
    â€œDagnabbit,” Manseur murmured as he opened the gate. “My superintendent is here.”
    Alexa wore khaki slacks, a button-down shirt under a navy blazer. Her .40-caliber Glock and a pair of loaded magazines resided in an armory section of her shoulder bag. As Alexa and Manseur closed on the porch, the men grew silent and watched intently. A couple of the plainclothes cops, both looking like deskbound administrators, nodded at Manseur as he led Alexa to the pair of men standing alone. Superintendent of Police Jackson Evans was a tall, distinguished-looking man whose skin was the color of maple syrup. The top cop’s intense nut-colored eyes slowly covered the distance between Alexa’s shoes and her eyes.
    The older man Evans was standing with reached into his coat pocket for his ringing cell phone, glanced carelessly at the readout, then stepped away for privacy.
    â€œSuperintendent Evans, may I introduce—”
    â€œAlexa,” Evans interrupted, smiling broadly. “Your presence here is quite an
unexpected
pleasure.”
    â€œWell, Jackson. I heard you had taken over down here. If you don’t slow down, you’re going to run out of distressed cities to rescue.” Alexa allowed her accent to slow and flow below the Mason-Dixon Line. Being a native of the Mississippi Delta, her accent had a distinctly Southern edge anyway, but she had worked hard to lessen its dominance. Even so, when she was around other Southern accents, hers came back to the fore in all of its glory. In truth, a slightly exaggerated drawl tended to disarm hostility among practitioners of that accent, and it made a lot of non-Southerners think they had the upper hand intellectually. She had said on more than a few occasions that while she might talk slow, she thought really fast.
    â€œI didn’t know you were coming,” Jackson said, turning his eyes on Manseur for a split second to let the detective know he was addressing his comment to him more than to Alexa. He obviously felt blindsided, and Jackson Evans had never appreciated being