Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(28)

Preacher had worked his web of New Orleans contacts and called Maureen back to vouch for the guy. It was Preacher who’d found out he was in the domestic terrorism unit. So it didn’t seem, as far as Preacher could tell, that Detillier was setting her up for a fall, or worse, looking to somehow use her against her fellow cops in the Gage murder case.

The FBI agent finished his phone call, tucked his phone in his jacket pocket, and headed for Maureen’s table, where an empty chair awaited him. He dusted it off with a handful of paper napkins before he sat. He extended his hand across the table.

“Clarence Detillier, FBI, New Orleans office,” he said. “Thanks for meeting me.”

Maureen shook his hand. It was cold and dry. “Maureen Coughlin, NOPD.” She turned toward Preacher, who sat silent and stone-faced, his hands spread on his thighs. “This is Sergeant Preacher Boyd.”

“From the union?” Detillier asked, his eyebrows raised. Maureen could tell he hadn’t expected her to have company. Good, she thought. She’d already thrown the FBI a curve.

“Sergeant Boyd is my current duty sergeant.”

“So you’re no longer suspended?” Detillier said. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” As if you didn’t already know, she thought.

“I’m here in an advisory capacity,” Preacher said, watching pigeons work a chunk of bagel in the gutter. Maureen heard protective muscle in his voice. He was advising her, and Detillier, too, that he had her back. “Moral support. Backup. Standard operating procedure.”

“You’ve had bad experiences with the federal government, Officer Coughlin?”

Preacher laughed out loud. “We’re sitting in New Orleans and you ask that?”

Detillier leaned over the table. “Hey, Sergeant Boyd, I’m as ‘from here’ as you are. Born and raised.”

Maureen straightened in her chair. “Fellas, fellas.” She turned to Detillier. “Let’s be straight about one thing. I know you said you’re bringing me an opportunity, and I’m not trying to sound ungrateful, but everyone here knows the NOPD is scared shitless of the feds these days. For reasons that have nothing to do with Katrina. Between y’all and the Department of Justice, we’re every one of us waiting to hear the ring of the blade in the air.”

Detillier folded his hands in his lap, leaned back in his seat. “Tell me your specific concerns.”

“As soon as I get my badge back,” Maureen said, “I’m talking to the FBI. The next day. How do you think that makes me look around the district, to other cops?”

“No one needed to know about this meeting except you and me,” Detillier said. His eyes shifted to Preacher. “You’re the one who brought a witness.”

Maureen laughed. “This would’ve stayed a secret? Because that would look so much better, a secret meeting with the FBI after I get my badge back. Please. Yeah, I brought a witness. So that when I’m back on the job and the rumors about me start I have an impeccable source to vouch for me. So y’all are watching us, but we’re watching y’all right back.”

“You agreed to this meeting,” Detillier said, “of your own free will.”

“We’re under a consent decree,” Maureen said. “Big Brother is watching. I’m a rookie. The only reason I’m not out on my ass already is because I’m a woman and I have dirt on the department.”

“Dirt on the NOPD,” Detillier said, “is not why I’m here. I’m interested in the future, Officer Coughlin, not the past. That’s not my department. And I think you already know that.”

“So what is it exactly about the Gage murder that interests you?” Maureen asked.

“Where he came from, for one.”

“LaPlace?”

“The Sovereign Citizens,” Detillier said. “And the Watchmen Brigade, specifically. They are of interest to us. You are of interest to them. You see where I’m headed with this.”

Preacher leaned forward in his chair, the plastic creaking under his shifting weight. “Interested in her? They tried to kill her.”

“We know that,” Detillier said. “It’s the reason we’re sitting here today.”

“You know something,” Maureen said. “What do you know?” Her heart rate doubled, tripping over itself in its effort to accelerate. “They’re going to try again. When? How?”

Detillier threw the quickest glance at Preacher before he spoke, his hands raised in a calming gesture. “We don’t really know anything. I have no knowledge of another planned attack. But we’re worried about it, an attack on you, or on another officer or officers. Losing the gunrunners Gage and Cooley from their own ranks, losing their local connection, the drug dealer named Scales, we don’t believe any of that has deterred the Watchmen from moving men and weapons into New Orleans. None of those three men were in charge. None of them made decisions. They were expendable.”

The agent leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, looking at his hands as he spoke. “The Sovereign Citizens, the larger, umbrella cause that the Watchmen align themselves with and claim to support, or represent, or whatever—it’s all very fluid—are a problem. They have been for some time. Until recently, they mostly confined their efforts to the courts—filing crazy lawsuits, clogging up the system with paperwork, suing townships and judges and anyone else, squatting in foreclosed houses and filing ownership claims—shit like that.”