DIVA by Susan Fleet Page A

you care about your friend, you best tell him what you know about where she’s at.”
    He sat on the empty bed opposite hers. “Did you see Chantelle leave?”
    “Didn’t see nuthin, didn’t hear nuthin,” Ramona said, twisting the white bed-sheet with thin bony fingers.
    “Uh-huh. But I bet you got to know her a little bit, rooming with her for a few days. Did she talk to you? Tell you about her friends?”
    The girl shook her head, hugging her swollen belly with stick-thin arms, gazing at him. Tears filled her large dark eyes. “She gone.”
    “Did she say where she was going?”
    Ramona’s eyes overflowed and tears ran down her face.
    “She jus’ gone. Left me all alone.”
    ______
     
    At one-thirty Frank drove into Iberville and parked his unmarked Chevy Caprice in front of a three-story red-brick building. After Katrina many of New Orleans’ public housing projects had been scheduled for demolition. Not Iberville, a two-block collection of buildings grouped in around cement courtyards. It reminded him of the projects he’d worked as a Boston detective, except that here plywood covered many of the windows.
    About as charming as a sardine factory.
    He walked into a courtyard, absorbing the vibe, weeds peeping through cracked cement, security lights on poles with electric wires that carried no juice. At night the complex would be pitch dark. A scary place for a teenaged girl on her own. Now the midday sun baked weedy grass littered with empty beer cans, crumpled candy wrappers and fast-food containers. On the cement were spray-painted gang tags, Day-Glo squiggles marking their territory.
    A dilapidated swing-set stood in the center of the courtyard, no kids on the swings. No plywood on the windows facing the courtyard, either. Some were open, but the courtyard was eerily quiet. No babies crying, no kiddie voices, no music floating through the windows.
    A creepy sensation crawled down his neck. How many eyes were watching him through those windows? His SIG-Sauer was a reassuring weight in the holster strapped to his right ankle, but it wouldn’t help much if some banger decided to pop him from a second-floor window.
    Sudden motion caught his eye, jumping his heart rate.
    Two black kids emerged from between two buildings, shuffling along in their Nike’s or whatever footwear the ‘bangers favored these days, heads bobbing to sounds from the I-Pods plugged into their ears. Both wore loose T-shirts and baggy pants that hung off their skinny asses.
    Baggy enough to conceal a gun.
    They saw him but feigned disinterest, assuming slouched postures as he approached. He’d changed into scruffy jeans and an old T-shirt, but they knew he was a cop. A spiderweb tat covered the taller one’s neck. The other had tattoos on each forearm, ugly daggers dripping crimson blood.
    “Hey, guys, I’m looking for someone. Maybe you can help me out.”
    Got back dead-eyed stares. He showed them Chantelle’s mug shot, the full-face version with the height-chart background edited out.
    “Seen this girl around here lately?”
    “Uh-uh,” grunted the tall one, Spiderweb, avoiding his gaze.
    “How about you?” he said to Dagger. “She lived here before Katrina.”
    Dagger pointed, extending his forearm to display his bloody-dagger tat. “That her pitcher?”
    “Yes. Do you know her?”
    “Don’t know nuthin, Mr. Po-leece-man,” Spiderweb said. He jerked his head at Dagger and the pair sauntered away.
    After watching them swagger across the courtyard, he mounted the steps of the nearest building and entered a dark hallway that stank of every foul odor imaginable: stale cigarette smoke, spoiled food, vomit and urine.
    A swarm of gnats buzzed his head. He swatted them away.
    Halfway down the hall he came to an open door and stuck his head inside. The stench got worse. Two chrome kitchen chairs with torn plastic seats stood by a window, surrounded by mounds of trash that included a broken crack pipe. Stuck in a crevice