Waterproof

By Jesse Wimberly

A week after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana attorney Jeb Stuart Johnston is asked to arrange bail for Dr. Rachel Favret, daughter of an influential New Orleans businessman. Jeb has no problem getting her out of jail, but when he discovers she’s a material witness to a police-involved shooting, things take a dark turn.

Rachel witnessed a confrontation between NOPD and a street gang which was really just a murder and robbery by the police. The tactical squad involved was already under investigation by internal affairs. Now, it’s suspected that they used the hurricane as a cover for the murder. Jeb and Rachel are forced to flee to Jeb’s ancestral home, rural Tensas Parish, when it becomes apparent these dirty cops are intent on eliminating all witnesses.

Back home at Promised Land, Jeb just wants to keep Rachel safe, but he can’t ignore the old issues of race and privilege that still simmer beneath the surface in his home parish. They may have fled the devastation and danger of New Orleans, but Jeb and Rachel are in no way safe yet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Aug 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480892330

Jesse Wimberly

Jesse Wimberly is the author of Body of Deceit, Waterproof, A Prayer for the Penitent, Broken Chains, Louisiana Ghost Stories-Tales of the Supernatural from the Bayou State, Louisiana Ghost Stories II--Lagniappe, and Louisiana Ghost Stories III-Trilogy. He resides in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, with his wife Alysha, a recording artist.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 Jesse Wimberly.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9232-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9231-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9233-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020912308

Archway Publishing rev. date: 08/12/2020

Contents

Chapter 1 It’s An Ill Wind That Blows No Good

Chapter 2 Catch And Release

Chapter 3 Rachel

Chapter 4 Wrong Place—Wrong Time

Chapter 5 The French Quarter

Chapter 6 On The Run

Chapter 7 A Trip Down Memory Lane Whether I Like It Or Not

Chapter 8 I Prepare Rachel

Chapter 9 You Can Go Home Again

Chapter 10 A Short History Of Her Life

Chapter 11 Plain Talk Among Friends

Chapter 12 Local Flavor

Chapter 13 The Burnt Moth

Chapter 14 Fears The Flame

Chapter 15 Limited Options

Chapter 16 All In

Chapter 17 Scylla And Charybdis

Chapter 18 Deus Ex Machina

Chapter 19 Noblesse Oblige

Chapter 20 Promises Are Made

Chapter 21 The Promised Land

Chapter 22 Harmony Or Hamartia

Chapter 23 Home

Chapter 24 Bought The Ticket

Dedication

This book is dedicated in loving memory

of Jesse IV—son, brother, uncle, lawyer,

sportsman, and God’s sublime gift to us.

I will see you on the other side

Waterproof

Tell me about the South

William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

Malcolm X

"A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t

become right, and evil doesn’t become good

just because it’s accepted by a majority."

Booker T. Washington

Buy the ticket. Take the Ride

Hunter S. Thompson

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born."

W.B Yeats The Second Coming

Foreword

Hurricane Katrina began as a tropical wave, then a depression over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005. When the monster storm made landfall in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana on Monday, August 29th, it was a category 5 hurricane packing winds up to 175 miles per hour. By the time it had blown itself out it had caused over $125 billion dollars in damages and taken 1,836 lives. Its devastation still lingers. The area will never be the same.

A large part of the damage to New Orleans and surrounding areas was due to the catastrophic failure of the levee system engineered and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps had been tasked with building and maintaining the levee system and had exclusive jurisdiction over the endeavor. They also ultimately had immunity from suit for these activities and the valiant efforts of the local attorneys to hold them accountable were rendered moot when the U.S Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the lawsuits filed against them citing the Sovereign Immunity Flood Control Act of 1928. This act was passed on the heels of the great Mississippi flood of 1927 which forever changed the politics of Louisiana and led to the Populist movement and the rise of Huey Long.

The electrical grid, communications, and most services were knocked out by the storm and were slow to return. Some areas had no power or phone service for over a month. The police force operated under great duress and for the most part did a heroic job under difficult circumstances. Unfortunately on September 4, 2005, in the aftermath of the chaos of the storm, members of the NOPD who were allegedly responding to a call of an officer under fire shot and killed two civilians: seventeen year old James Brissette and forty year old Ronald Madison. Four other civilians were wounded. All of the victims were African-American and it was never proven that they were armed or had committed any crime. This event became known as the Danziger Bridge case, so named for the bridge where the shootings occurred.

On August 5, 2011 a federal jury in New Orleans convicted five police officers on a myriad of charges related to the alleged cover up and deprivation of civil rights. The convictions were vacated September 17, 2013, because of prosecutorial misconduct and a new trial date was ordered. To avoid a retrial the five officers pleaded to various charges in relation to the shooting and in turn received reduced sentences. Three officers were white and two were African-American. Some say that the storm exposed and magnified the stark contrast between white and black New Orleans. Neither side felt that justice was done.

Danziger was bad enough, but there was more. Earlier, on September 2, 2005, a black man, Henry Glover, was wounded in a shooting behind a strip mall on the West bank of the Mississippi River in Algiers. An officer who was guarding the strip mall fired his rifle at a man perceived to be looting. Although the officer told investigators that he didn’t think he had wounded the suspect, the date and time of the incident matched the details of the shooting of one Henry Glover.

Mr. Glover was found on a nearby corner with a gunshot wound to his chest. A good samaritan named William Tanner and a friend picked up Mr. Glover and his brother in his Chevy Malibu and drove to a nearby elementary school because he knew police had set up a makeshift compound. Instead of offering aid, the police and members of SWAT handcuffed and interrogated the good samaritan, his friend, and Mr. Glover’s brother while Glover lay in the vehicle bleeding to death. Eventually an officer in a tactical uniform took Mr. Glover’s key chain, removed the key to his Chevrolet Malibu, and drove off with other officers following in a white truck.

Glover’s charred remains were recovered weeks later inside the Malibu which had been abandoned beside the levee.

Although Mr. Tanner made numerous appeals to the NOPD in the years after Katrina in an attempt to find out what had happened to his vehicle, he got nowhere. The car remained abandoned on the levee through February 2009.

Five members of the NOPD ultimately faced federal charges for crimes arising out of the Henry Glover incident. The first was David Warren, a rookie officer who was convicted and sentenced to 25 years for shooting and killing Glover. The sentencing judge told Warren Henry Glover was not at the strip mall to commit suicide. He was there to retrieve some baby clothing. You killed a man. Despite your tendentious arguments to he contrary, it was no mistake.

Officer Greg McRae was convicted of obstructing justice and received a seventeen year sentence. Lieutenants Dwayne Scheuermann and Robert Italiano were acquitted of assaulting civilians who came to Glover’s aid as well as obstructing a federal investigation by the burning of the Malibu with Glover’s body in it. Lieutenant Travis McCabe was found guilty of filing a false police report and lying to federal authorities. .

The federal court of appeals vacated the two felony convictions of Warren and two of the convictions related to McRae. Warren received a new trial in 2013 and was ultimately acquitted.

These were just two of eight active civil rights probes which were brought in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Chaos held the field.

Chapter 1

IT’S AN ILL WIND THAT

BLOWS NO GOOD

57329.png

T he center did not hold and anarchy was loosed. I just didn’t know yet it was loosed on me.

I awoke at six a.m. that Monday morning which was the one week anniversary of Katrina to the now unfamiliar ring tone of my cellphone. The landlines in both my office and home and all cellular service had been knocked out by the storm together with electricity and most of the other creature comforts we all took for granted. My house on the Tchefuncte River was being powered by two gas generators I had the foresight to have purchased. They would run until the gasoline ran out. I had no idea where I could get more.

I reached for my cell phone like an old friend and punched the green button to accept the call.

Hello, and God bless AT&T, I said out loud, happy to resume the love-hate relationship I had with the phone.

Jeb Johnston? asked a woman’s voice which had a crisp air of efficiency.

Yes, I replied.

Hold for Mr. Favret, she ordered. Not please hold for Mr. Favret, or will you be so kind as to hold for Mr. Favret, but simply do it. I was already annoyed but decided I’d play this one out since I didn’t have anything else to occupy my day. My law practice was on hold until the creature comforts were restored to St. Anselm Parish. Soon the obviously very important Mr. Favret took the line.

Mr. Johnston, I am Arlen Favret. Perhaps you have heard of me. I am an architect and engineer in the city. Right now I’m located in Baton Rouge until I can get my business up and running again. We took a major hit on our office in the city.

Yes, Mr. Favret, I have heard of you, I answered. If you read any newspaper or knew anything about New Orleans politics you couldn’t help but know who Arlen Favret was. He was a major political donor to all parties and candidates and his photo was taken at just about every construction project in the city because he had his hand in just about all of them. I knew his kind. The projects he didn’t get he let go for the sake of there being an arguably fair bidding process, which he and all his cronies knew was not the case. His contributions to political candidates were merely investments in the future projects he knew he would win the bid on. His ability to work the process was legendary and many, including myself, opined it was because he worked from inductive criteria and not deductive. I had no doubt he knew all of the inside information on the bids of his competitors and adjusted his winning proposals accordingly. There had been talk of federal investigations but nothing ever came of these rumors. His contributions didn’t stop at the local level and he was on a first name basis with every federal official and appointee in Louisiana as well as the two senators and six congressmen. I had no doubt if his private polling group said Charles Manson was a viable candidate, he would cut Charlie’s campaign a check.

I have a problem Mr. Johnston and I’d like to hire you to fix it, he stated bluntly.

Mr. Favret, I am sure you have connections with all of the major law firms in New Orleans. Why don’t you use one of them. I was already suspicious of why he had called me because I was sure he golfed with every pompous ass managing partner of every silk stocking firm in the city.

That is true Mr. Johnston. However this is a matter that these firms do not generally handle and because of logistics, I need someone on the north shore. I was given your name by more than one acquaintance who said you got things done. Do you get things done, Mr. Johnston? he asked.

I felt like I was being asked to justify my life to a man I had never met.

I suppose that depends on what needs to get done, I replied with I hope a tone of voice which signaled him I was no one’s bitch. Why don’t you tell me what it is you need and I will tell you if first I ‘can get it done’ and second if I will accept the case.

I heard him pause on the other line probably wondering if he wanted someone who didn’t kiss his ring when he entered a room. Evidently he either decided I would do, or he had no better option, so he continued with his call.

Fair enough. My daughter Rachel has been arrested by the NOPD. She has committed no crime and is being held as a material witness to something she allegedly saw. Due to the overcrowding of Orleans Parish Prison and the loss of power she was thankfully transferred to your parish of St. Anselm pending a resolution of this travesty of justice. I want you to get her out and arrange to have her brought to me here in Baton Rouge. Is that the kind of thing you can get done? he asked with what I thought was a bit of sarcasm. I could tell Arlen Favret was not the type of man to not end each encounter leaving no doubt who was the alpha male. I already detested him but I did feel for his daughter. Jail was a rough place for a criminal. I could only imagine what it must be like for an innocent witness and I thought this had to be some serious shit she saw or this material witness nonsense would never fly.

Mr. Favret, I know you are friendly with at least a dozen judges in Orleans. Why don’t you exercise some of your celebrated clout and make a few calls and get her out yourself?

I have. Unfortunately most of the Judges I know are not available and have fled the storm. In addition, the ones I have been able to reach have advised me that since she is now in the jurisdiction of St. Anselm, your parish, that I need an order from one of your judges to set her free.

All right, That makes more sense. I feel confident I can get her out but I believe the judge will require an appearance bond. I assume that money is no object? I asked knowing full well the answer.

None whatsoever, he replied. You name your price and I will put up whatever is required.

My price will be ten thousand dollars for me to drop everything and tend to this.

He didn’t miss a beat when he replied. Of course.

Also, it will be much faster if I can use the services of a bail bondsman. Trying to transfer cash from your accounts or posting a property bond will take time. I assume you want her out immediately.

Yes I do.

You realize that you will have to pay ten percent of the bond and it is non refundable.

That’s acceptable. Just get her out as quickly as you can. I am depending on you, he concluded with what I thought was perhaps a veiled threat.

I will have my bail bondsman call your office directly to make arrangements for payment. He will front the bond on your word, and you may do a wire transfer to my office or the bondsman when communications allow, I advised, trying for once to take the initiative with this bully.

Fine. I assume you will get on this immediately?

Yes I will, I replied once again annoyed that he had yet again finished on the alpha side of the equation.

So now I was going to spring one of the debutantes from jail. I bet her recent experience was a far cry from brunch at Commander’s Palace. I