Cold Blood (33 page)

Lorraine waited as she dried her tears and then sat back.

“He was so kind, Mr. Caley, sat me down and asked if I was sick, if there was something wrong. He even gave me his handkerchief… and I just cried and cried because I couldn’t tell him what I was crying about. He sat with me until I stopped crying and said that if there was something worrying me it was always best to share, that if ever I wanted to talk to him then all I had to do was call. He was so worried, so kind and thoughtful, more like a friend …”

“Was Anna Louise sitting with you and Mr. Caley?”

“Er, no, she had gone into the pool house, said she was going to have a swim and …”

“And?”

Lorraine asked impatiently.

“Oh, Mr. Caley left. He gave me a real nice kiss on the cheek and said he had to go irrtb the office. Then she just flew at me.”

“Who did?”

“Anna Louise of course. She began hitting and kicking me, real crazy. She used her tennis racket and hit me real hard, and then she got me down on the ground and was clawing and scratching at my face and pulling out my hair. She was on top of me, pushing my head into the ground.”

“Did she think you had told her father about what had happened at the Viper Roomwas that why she attacked you?”

“Yes, she said she had seen me with her father. She wouldn’t listen to me she said she was gonna make me sorry. I hit her back and then she spat at me, right in my face, saying she would tell my parents, tell everybody that I was making a play for her father. I was so shocked … I was speechless.”

“But he was just being kind and fatherly, right?”

“Why, yes, of course, but she was crazy about him.”

“Wait, wait, what do you mean, crazy about him?”

Tilda had her hands clenched at her sides.

“She was obsessed by her daddy, she talked and talked about him, that no man ever lived up to him and that…”

Tilda turned away and up came the flush her cheeks burning bright red.

“Go on, Tilda, and what else?”

“She said they were lovers, that they werŤi love.”

Lorraine lost it for a moment, she was s^taken aback by what Tilda had said.

“She actually told you that she was having a sexual relationship with her father, Tilda?”

“Yes, yes, that is what she said.”

“Did you believe it?”

Tilda twisted her fingers, pulling at a ring.

“I just had to leave, Mrs. Page. I ran into the house and asked Phyllis to get me a ticket, I never wanted to see her again.”

Lorraine’s heart was thudding.

“You didn’t answer the question, Tilda, this is very serious. Were Robert Caley and his daughter lovers?”

Tilda licked her lips and turned away, her voice strained, hardly audible.

“I don’t know, but he was just friendly to me, really and truly, he never made any advances.”

“What about her other friends?”

“She only had me, I was her only true friend. She couldn’t tell anyone else about things, everybody thought she was so wonderful, they didn’t re-ally know her. And no one liked to stay at the house because of Mrs. Caley acting weird, you know, all boozed up and sometimes so out of it it was just plain embarrassing.”

Lorraine stayed for another half hour, carefully taking Tilda back over her entire statement to the police and the reasons why she had never before admitted the truth about her argument with Anna Louise that morning. It boiled down simply to her being afraid it would get out that she, like Anna Louise, used to go clubbing, stoned and drunk. Tilda did not seem to realize the importance of the question of whether Robert Caley’s relationship with his daughter had sexual overtones or not. When pressed by Lorraine for proof, she became agitated and tearful.

“Was Anna Louise just infatuated or do you believe there was more than a father-daughter relationship, Tilda? Did you ever see them together?”

Tilda refused to look at Lorraine, chewing at her lip. Lorraine patiently told her that if what she had said was true it could be the reason behind Anna Louise’s disappearance, the reason she might have just run away and might still be alive but afraid to return. What Tilda finally came out with made Lorraine feel wretched.

“She told rne they slept together, that he had put her on birth-control pills because he was afraid she would get pregnant.”

By the time Lorraine got back to her driver she had left Tilda Brown looking like a rag doll: her face was puffy from weeping, her nose red from wiping it, and even her little rosebud lips looked chapped and ugly. Lorraine instinctively believed Tilda’s reasons for not admitting what she and Anna Louise had argued about. She had also been given yet another reason why Robert Caley, even more than before, was their main suspect. Lorraine needed a drink, a real one, and she was afraid she’d stop and get one, so she ordered the driver to take her on to Lloyd Dulay’s mansion. Her initial shock on being told about Robert Caley and Anna Louise made her whirl through a spiral of emotions. Having slept with Caley the night before made her want not to believe it, but why would Tilda Brown lie? And gradually her feeling of betrayal and foolishness turned to burning anger. Robert Caley most certainly had a motive to get rid of his daughter, and she was going to prove it.

Nick swore. He knew he’d got off the streetcar a couple of stops too early, and he studied his own route map, ignoring the neat bundle of street maps and locations Rosie had given him with telephone numbers of restaurants, taxi companies,
etc.
He didn’t like carrying around anything more than he

needed, or anything that he couldn’t stuff into his back pocket. He was near the new Convention Center, on Lafayette, looking out for Francis X. Roper’s Investigation Agency. He had an old buddy who used to work for them; it was a long shot and he’d not seen or spoken to Leroy Able for over ten years, but worth a try.

Nick got the brush-off from Roper’s agency, a surprisingly smoothlooking place, when he eventually located it. The receptionist, a redhaired spitfire with green-rimmed glasses, gave him an appraising look that’d have stopped a streetcar dead in its tracks, never mind Nick, and she snapped that she did not know of any Leroy Ableshe made even the name sound distasteful. This was a high-class agency dealing with fraud cases and working closely with the police. She seemed to give a lot of weight to the word

“police.”

“You maybe got a forwarding address?”

“Check the telephone directory.”

“You got one?”

She pursed her lips and pushed a big yellow directory across her pristine desk. Nick thumbed through it, taking covert glances around him at all the posters and advertisements the company displayed missing persons, domestic undercover security work, installation of video cameras, surveillance work. Every case, a poster proclaimed, was the firm’s top priority. fc

“You busy?”

he asked, as he checked down the As.

She was about to reply when the telephone rang, and she snapped the name of the agency into the phone, listeninflfcith one eye on Nick and suddenly assuming a sweet voice for the potejpal client on the other end of the line.

“Yes, sir, we have a full-time staff of six investigators, all licensed and highly trained, and we have our own camera equipment, which includes a variety of long-range lenses and high-powered binoculars. Our teams also carry handheld radio communications and cellular telephones. I can make an appointment for you, just one moment, please.”

She reached for a large date book as Nick jotted down Leroy Abie’s address. Whether he was still in business was something he’d find out.

He thanked the woman with green-rimmed glasses, who appeared not to even notice his departure, and headed for Magazine Street in the warehouse district. When he found Abie’s address, he double-checked he was at the right place, as the ground floor seemed to be a boxing gymnasium.

Nick went up the stairs into the gym, peering through the double door.

“Anyone know a Leroy Able?”

“Top floor”

came a bellow from a stout boxer well into his fifties, slamming the hell out of a punching bag.

Leroy was thumbing in leisurely fashion through The Times-Picayune, a cup of coffee from which rose the unmistakable smell of New Orleans chicory in front of him, his feet up on his desk.

“Hi, Leroy Able around?”

Nick asked.

The paper was slowly lowered.

“Who wants him?”

“Old buddy, shit, it’s you, isn’t it? Leroy?”

Leroy slowly took his cowboy boots off the desk and stared hard at Nick.

“Nick Bartello, LA Drug Squad, last saw you ‘bout ten years ago, maybe more.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I don’t have a good memory for faceswhat you say your name was?”

“Shit, man, Nick, Nick Bartello.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, recall the name now. Siddown, want some coffee?”

Nick was a little fazed by Leroy; he didn’t show any recognition at all.

“I went to Francis X. Roper’s place, I reecalled you mentioned working for his agency.”

Leroy handed Nick a paper cup of black coffee and perched on the end of his desk.

“You know what I hate? People who start talking with a Southern accent ten minutes after they get to New Orleans. What’s this reecall crap, Bartello, you wop?”

Leroy cuffed Nick’s head and gave him a wide grin.

“You had me wondering there for a second, man, it’s the grisgris around your fucking neck.”

Nick fingered the leather thong and the bones.

“I dunno what the shit it is, was given to me last night down some cruddy bar.”

Leroy fingered the bones, raised his eyebrows.

“Well, you must have got well and truly loadedthis isn’t tourist shit, this is the real McCoy.”

Nick shrugged.

“So, how’s life?”

Leroy eased back into his swivel chair.

“Ah, not bad, making some dough, of late mostly for the dental board, you know, carrying out medicative investigations.”

Nick laughed as Leroy leaned back and let out a big loud bellow, showing his splendid white and gold-capped teeth.

“Yeah, man, long way from the LA Drug Squad, but at least I don’t have a leg full of lead. And I’m my own boss.”

“So you do know who I am,”

Nick said, reaching for his coffee.

“Yep, just was worried for a second I owed you dough. I don’t, do I?”

Nick shook his head, and looked around the office. Leroy’s joke about the dentist wasn’t right on the level. His office was in good repair and looked like the business was coming in.

w

“You want a job?”

Leroy asked, seeing Nick’s curious looks.

“Nope, I’m on one, that’s why I’m in New Orleans.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?”

“The Anna Louise Caley girl, she disappeared eleven months ago.”

Leroy nodded.

“Yeah, I know the one, lot of private eyes in on it, but me? I stayed clear: I stick mainly to salvage myself.”

“But you must have heard about it?”

“Sure, like I said, it was pistol-hot at one time, but as far as I know they all came up with zilch. Word was the girl must just have flown the coop they do down here, you know, especially around Mardi Gras. Kids flock here, get laid, get stoned and move on with some drifter. City draws them like a magnet.”

“This one’s different, she’s rich as hell.”

Leroy leaned on his elbows.

“Rich kids, Nick, are just like everybody else. They like to get stoned and laid, preferably with a little dash of danger thrown in, and then it’s back to Mama and Papa, who welcome them home with open arms.”

“But she’s been gone eleven months.”

“Then I’d say she’s dead.”

Nick got up and paced around the office.

“Yeah, I think so too. Question is who killed her, and if I find out I get a nice bonus.”

“Well, I’d like to help, man, but like I said I got this dental case.”

Nick smiled.

“So what’s putting you off, huh?”

Leroy hesitated, and suddenly became serious.

“You want it on the level?”

f

“Sure, I do, I want whatever you’ve got thJrd help.”

Leroy ran his hands through his iron-gray curls.

“Okay, the Caleys and the types you’re dealing with are high-powered money people. Elizabeth Caley is a big star around these parts, so you’d get a lot of people coming forward with bullshit just for the rewards they offered. I think it was twentyfive thousand bucks. I know that to date something like twenty people have said they seen her, and you chase it up and find it’s nothin’ and then …”

Leroy rocked in his chair.

“Money runs out and you find you spent half your fee gettin’ diddly-squat results. So for the time being I’m sticking to salvage and dental.”

Nick drained his coffee.

“What d’you know about an old black jazz player goes by the name of Fryer Jones?”

Leroy stared as Nick flicked the bones at his neck.

“He gave me these.”

“Fryer Jones did?”

“Yep, last night.”

“He’s famous where he hangs out, around the French Quarter and ward nine. All the young kids wanna hang out at his bar, play a few sets with him and the old guyshe used to be one mean trombone player. They drift there, score some dope, maybe play a few numbers. He uses kids like most use toilet paper, but the cops leave him well alone. If he’s not openly dealing on the main drag, he’s out of their hair, out of the main tourist routes, an’ that’s all this city cares about.”

Leroy rubbed his thumb and finger together to indicate money, then he leaned back.

“I’d say Fryer must be worth quite an amount by now. No kiddin’, he’s been running that bar for decades, got a string of little girls whoring for him, all in the name of jazz, brother! But if you want my honest opinion, he’s a piece of shit, because it’s not all singing the blues that holds them to that stinking barit’s what you got around your neck too.”

Nick touched his bones.

“What?”

Leroy shook his head.

“You don’t know, do you? Grisgris is supposed to ward off evil voodoo spells, and old Fryer used to have a few connections in that field. In fact, I think he may even be related to one of the Salina sisters.”