Free Doing the Devil's Work by Bill Loehfelm

wrangling with a work that eluded him, his hands in his pockets. His Bronco was parked a few spaces away. She was surprised to see him, and not in a good way. Twice in two days he’d arrived in her orbit unexpectedly. Not only was he on the streets, this time he had left the district. She felt like he’d caught her up to no good, and like he somehow knew her prisoner had gone haywire, despite the fact she had only just learned about it herself. Like it was her fault. What was worse, she knew he could tell at first sight how guilty she felt.
    As he turned to face her, hearing her boots on the wooden ramp, the ringing in her ears intensified, she felt light-headed again, and the bitter taste of her ill-gotten Percocets returned to her tongue. Like her body was trying to rat her out. Preacher could always tell, often before she could, what she was really after. She’d gotten the same “I see through you” vibe from the therapist she’d seen, the main reason she’d stopped going, no matter what she told Nat Waters.
    She felt being the first to speak was of vital importance. “What’s up, Preach?”
    Preacher frowned. “You’re listing to starboard. Your ankle acting up?”
    “It’s good,” Maureen said, convinced she was not favoring her injured foot. “Fine. Stiffens up now and again. What brings you out here?”
    “What’re you doing for it?”
    “Not much I can do,” Maureen said. “Rest, ice. It’s one of those things.” She smiled, pained by how fake she knew it was. “You got someone inside?”
    “I’m here for you, actually,” Preacher said. “I need to talk to you.”
    That didn’t help. “Anything fun?”
    “That body from Magnolia Street,” Preacher said. “We have an ID.”
    It was all she could do not to laugh out loud from relief at the change in subject. “That was quick. Do tell.”
    “Turns out, he was already in the system,” Preacher said. “Edgar Cooley. Twenty-six. From out of state, originally. Last known address was a West Virginia trailer park, but that was four years ago. Let’s say there are some gaps before and after in his résumé. And I don’t think he was in the Peace Corps during his downtime.”
    “Anything that points to his killer?” Maureen asked.
    “That’s for Atkinson to decide. You can get more from her. You’re gonna want to talk to her, if she doesn’t come looking for you first.”
    “I don’t like the sound of that.”
    “When I said this guy was in the system,” Preacher said, “I meant the federal system. He was a federal fugitive. The U.S. marshals are interested in him. The FBI, too. They’ll come looking for Atkinson since she caught the case. They might come looking for you since you found the body.”
    “Well, damn,” Maureen said. “Our boy was a celebrity. And I had him pegged for some two-bit trick. What did he do?”
    “He shot a bunch of cops.”
    “Holy shit.”
    “He lit up four locals in West Memphis three years ago in a traffic stop. He had some high-powered shit in his car. Military grade. Blew two units into complete junk. Left one guy in ICU for six months, another lost his left hand. Nobody died, thank the Lord. He was in a stolen car, waited until backup arrived to open fire.”
    “That motherfucker,” Maureen said. “Man, who gives a fuck who killed him? You know, Atkinson said he was a Nazi. He had a Heil Hitler belt buckle. I saw it. So you got this information about him from where?”
    “Around. I can remember hearing about the shit in Memphis some back then. We were worried about copycats here in New Orleans. It made national news when it happened.”
    “I wasn’t up on anybody’s news three years ago,” Maureen said. “Sorry.”
    “Be careful with the feds,” Preacher said. “That’s mostly what I wanted to tell you. With the consent decree being finalized, we got enough heat on this department. This loser, Cooley, there’s some other guys he ran with, at least back then. The feds are