The Feds weren’t impressed or interested in his looks or his tongue. They watched his hands, which they concluded were in the pockets of every company doing business in the state.

“Screw the myth, it’s the man we want to pay for his crimes,” a determined FBI agent once said.

That agent got what he wanted, too. The federal prosecutors in New Orleans put his hands, adorned with their accessory bracelets, his glib tongue along with the rest of him in jail for eight years. I don’t think Jenkins ever got over it.

Sarah poured him a glass of Black Jack whiskey, two fingers, and put it in front of him. She knew exactly how to shut him up. He wasn’t a heavy drinker by New Orleans standards, but a couple of slugs of whiskey kept him on track. In the lull as he was guzzling it down, Sarah seized her opportunity.

“Let’s hear what Alex has to say,” she said, looking directly at me. Her voice was cool, calculating and calming. It reminded me of a cat purring. Soft and soothing.

Her confident manner calmed me down just like it always did. Sarah always looked out for me and I trusted her completely. There wasn’t a malicious or scheming bone in her body. She always wanted the best for me and everybody else. It’s like she possessed magic healing powers; she dispensed confidence like doctors wrote scripts. It worked too. Words catapulted from my mouth, aimed right at Mr. Jenkins. Dead on target.

“I called the Coast Guard and got a statement from Captain Richard Moore, the officer in charge of the accident investigation and the spill cleanup,” I said. “They will have it all contained later tonight. The estimates of how much crude leaked into the water will be downgraded tomorrow morning at their press conference. I spoke to Jess Johnson at the Times and gave her all the details. She should be speaking to the captain right about now confirming what I told her. She ran the spill story today because it was the biggest story of the day, but will run a follow-up tomorrow, downplaying the environmental threat. We will be off the front page by tomorrow morning. They’ve got the kind of story they love to put on the front page tomorrow. Seems they’ve found another body. The Quarter Killer has killed again. If it bleeds it leads, they say.”

“Oh, no,” Sarah gasped. “Not another one.