eventually talked to us. Unfortunately, no one told us anything revealing about Daniel and Charles, or their murderers.
It was an extraordinarily busy night at the precinct house. More than two dozen homicide detectives and FBI agents conducted reinterviews. We exchanged notes and bios of the suspects with highlighted inconsistencies. We went hard at the most obvious liars in the group. We also kept a list of the witnesses who seemed the most likely to break under pressure. We switched interviewers on them, sent them to the cells, then summoned them back before they could sleep; we doubled up on them.
‘All we need is a few rubber hoses,’ one of the New Orleans detectives said while we were waiting for Anne Elo to be fetched from her cell for the sixth time that night. His name was Mitchell Sams, and he was around fifty, a black man, hugely overweight, tough, effective, cynical as hell.
When Anne Elo was brought back into the interrogation room, she looked like a sleepwalker. Or a zombie. Her eye sockets were incredibly deep and dark. Her lips were chapped and caked with dried blood.
Sams went at her. ‘Good morning, glory. It’s nice to see your pasty-white face again. You look like total shit, babe. I’m being kind. Several of your friends, including your pathetic boyfriend, have broken down already tonight.’
The girl turned her vacant eyes toward a brick wall. ‘You must be mistaking me for somebody who gives a shit,’ she said. I decided to try an idea that had been weaving through my mind for the past hour or so. I had used it on a few of the others.’We know about the new Sire,’I told Anne Elo.’He’s gone back to California. He isn’t here for you. He can’t help you, or hurt you.’ Her face remained blank and unresponsive, but she folded her arms. She sagged a few inches in her chair. Her lips were bleeding again, possibly because she’d bitten into them. ‘Who gives a shit. Not me.’
Just then, a bleary-eyed NOPD detective opened the door to the interrogation room where Mitc
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