Free Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) by David Fulmer Page B

rarely spotted outside his habitat in the dark and shadowy bowels of the
Picayune
building. He had a house somewhere along the river that no one had ever seen. Most nights he slept on a cot or just dropped his head on his desk.
    Luckily for Valentin and a lot of other people, Kimball was such a diligent drunkard that he had ceased to function as a reporter. Otherwise, they would all lose an irreplaceable font of information, especially about business and political leaders and their respective scandals, of which there was never any lack.
    Valentin had last seen him a few days before he'd left town. In fact, if it wasn't for Kimball and the files that were stored in his basement cave, he might not have broken that last case at all.
    Now, tracking him through the first and second low-ceiling rooms that were crowded with boxes and files, the detective noted that in the eighteen months since he'd last been there, nothing had changed. It was the same mad clutter, the same trash heap of an office in back, the same desk lost under stacks of the paper, the same Joe Kimball in all his inebriated glory.
    Lurching into his office and the chair behind his desk, Kimball grunted and said, "What time is it?"
    "It's right about one," Valentin said.
    "
One?
Already?" The yell echoed along the low rafters. "Jesus Christ Almighty! I need a
drink!
"
    Valentin knew that whatever time he announced would have gotten the same response. Kimball went digging into his desk and produced a short bottle of his favored Raleigh Rye and two dirty glasses. He poured one finger in one and four in the other, handed the short glass to Valentin, and took its taller partner for himself. Valentin watched him down half of the whiskey in one long swallow, then lower the glass and let out a sigh of satisfaction. He licked a few drops from his mustache, and there were more golden drops that he missed gleaming in his beard. He smiled, his teeth as yellow as the orbs of his eyes.

    "You ain't drinkin'?"
    Valentin took an obligatory sip. The liquor was raw in his throat and he coughed. Kimball chortled.
    "Little early in the day for me, Joe," Valentin said, wiping his eyes. He put the glass down on the desk, then placed the sack he was carrying next to it. The newspaperman stared at the sack, wrinkling his broad red nose as if he was smelling something foul.
    "What's that?" he asked suspiciously.
    "I brought lunch."
    "Lunch. That's why you came by? To bring me lunch?" He took another sip of his whiskey and his eyes got sly. "Or is there something else on your mind?"
    "I've got a case," Valentin told him.
    "A case. Is that so? Are you getting back in the game?"
    Valentin gave him a small smile. "I'm just doing this one thing. Did you hear about the murder on Rampart Street last Sunday night?"
    Kimball frowned. "John Benedict. From, uh ... Esplanade Ridge?"
    "That's right."
    The newspaperman gave him a critical look. "That's not your territory."
    "I'm just doing a favor for Anderson. Who's doing a favor for someone else."

    Kimball drank the rest of the whiskey in the glass and put it down. "The man gets killed on Rampart Street," he mused. "You'd think the family would want it left alone."
    "You'd think so. They don't, though. So here I am."
    "And I suppose you need the word on poor Mr. Benedict."
    The detective nodded. "I'll wrap this up as quick as I can."
    Kimball poured four more fingers of whiskey in his glass. "Oh? And what if there's something more to it?"
    "Then I'll tell you first, Joe. Just like always."
    Kimball nodded, mollified. Information was his coin, and the more sordid, the more gilded. He picked up his glass, rolled it between his thick fingers, took a sip, closed his eyes, and began.
    "John Benedict was from one of those families that managed to hold on to their money after the war. They did very well. There were judgeships, state senators, one congressman. And they did especially well in business. Benedict was in shipping. He was in with Henry