Murder in the Rue Ursulines (13 page)

The caller ID read LOREN MCKEITHEN.

I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“MacLeod.” I said, wondering what this could be about.

“Chanse, it’s Loren. How quickly can you get over to Freddy and Jillian’s?” His voice was tense, and warning bells went off in my head.

“I’m not far. Probably about ten minutes, max,” I replied. “What’s going on?” This couldn’t be about the e-mails—that wasn’t really all that urgent. I felt goose bumps come out on my arms.

“Get here. Now. It’s important.” He hung up.

That didn’t sound good.

“So much for things going so well,” I said out loud. Something had happened—only I couldn’t imagine for the life of me what that could be.

I started walking faster.

And I couldn’t help but hear my mother’s voice saying,
Don’t ever tempt fate by talking about how good things are. That’s just asking for trouble. Fate will be more than happy to let you know who the real boss is.

I hated that she was right.

I’d known Venus Casanova for almost ten years.

She was a striking woman, not beautiful, but with the kind of arresting looks that not only catch your attention but hold it. Her skin was dark and ageless—she looked like she could be anywhere from thirty to somewhere in her fifties. She had strong features and prominent cheekbones from native American blood somewhere in the distant past. She always wore her hair cropped close to the scalp, and was one of the few women I knew who could get away with it. She was about six-one or two, and her body was muscular and defined. Like me, she’d gone to LSU on an athletic scholarship (hers was for basketball, and she’d played on the national team) and had kept her body in shape since then. She was the first black woman to make detective grade in the New Orleans police department—a combination guaranteed to make her unpopular.

Whispers that she was a lesbian had abounded in the department when I’d been on the force, but no matter what her sexual preference (she was actually straight), Venus was a damned good cop. She was honest—a rare quality in the New Orleans police department—and committed to her job. She was proud of her rise in the department, and frequently spoke to high school students about the importance of education and working hard. I didn’t know her well until the flood, but I’d always respected her. She’d always dealt with me honestly and fairly, even when I intruded into one of her cases. When Paul had been kidnapped, she’d kept me in the loop of the investigation, which I appreciated.

After the flood, Venus and I had become closer. She’d lived in New Orleans East in the house she raised her two daughters in, and had lost everything.  I knew her partner on the force, Blaine Tujague, much better than I knew her. She’d moved into the carriage house behind Blaine’s house on Coliseum Square until she was been able to find an overpriced apartment in the Quarter—which she regularly griped about.  For months after we all came back, Paige and I had met her and Blaine every night for drinks,  at the Avenue Pub on St. Charles Avenue, and I’d grown to like her. She had an odd sense of humor, and was bluntly honest.

She’d considered taking her insurance settlement and retiring from the force, moving to Memphis to be closer to her daughters and their kids, but had decided to stay and be a part of the recovery. She could have taken the tests that would have improved her rank, but Venus wasn’t an administrator. “I’d rather stay where I am,” she always said, “where I can do some good for the people of this city. That’s why I became a cop, not to have to deal with all the bullshit that comes with a damned desk job.”

Her face was impassive when she walked into the interrogation room, shutting the door behind her. She nodded to me, and then inclined her head toward Storm Bradley, my attorney. “You think you need a lawyer?” She raised one of her eyebrows.

I’d called Storm after waking up and taking a shower. As soon I said who I was, he’d cut me off and insisted, to use his phrase, that I get my ass over to his office as soon as I could.  “And take a cab,” he said. “We’ll go see the cops immediately afterward.”

“All right,” he said, after he ushered me in, “tell me everything. I’m on the job now.”

I was taken aback by his assumption I’d already hired him. As I  sat and sipped  coffee this assistant brought, I took a good look at him. My first thought was that Loren hadn’t done me any favors, and maybe I should have found a lawyer on my own. He looked sloppy, for one thing. He was in his mid to late thirties, and was one of those guys who’d been athletic when young, but was going to seed as he got older. He was fleshy and his face was red—but he was good-looking in that former jock kind of way. He was losing his dirty blond hair, but to give him credit, he wasn’t trying to hide it with a comb-over. He was wearing a canary yellow dress shirt with a dove-gray suit, and his tie was bright red with yellow stripes the exact shade of his shirt. He had intelligent-looking eyes above thick cheeks, and as I told him my story—beginning with being hired to trace the e-mails, he sat and listened, occasionally jotting notes on a legal pad he balanced on his lap. When I finished, he stroked his chin, and I noticed a patch of hair he’d missed when shaving that morning. “So,” I asked, “what do I do now?”

“Let me think about this for a minute,” he replied, and finished his coffee.

I sat there, waiting for him to speak. The silence stretched uncomfortably. I was just about to say something when he finally spoke. “Well, one thing is for sure. We do need to go talk to the police--immediately. And you need to tell them everything you know.”

I was a little irritated. I needed to pay a lawyer to tell me something I already knew?

“Don’t tell them anything besides the absolute fact,” he went on. “Nothing extraneous, like your impressions or what you think—there’s no need for that. Just the facts—they hired you to trace these e-mails, you think you saw Freddy coming out of Glynis Parrish’s house, they want you to work on the case, and that the e-mails came from Glynis’s computer. Other than that, you don’t say a word.”

Well, duh.

 “You’re in a hell of a mess, but that’s why I’m here.” He beamed at me. “I’ll be with you when to talk to them—I’m pretty sure I know the detectives assigned to the case.” He barked out a short laugh. “They’re not exactly fond of me, but they’re honest and they can be trusted, and they know I won’t jerk them around.” He stared at me. “You’re pissed at me, aren’t you? You’re thinking,
Who is this asshole telling me what to do?
I’m the asshole who’s going to protect you, that’s who I am. I’m the person who is not going to let anyone chew you up and spit you out.” He put the legal pad back into his briefcase. “If I say don’t answer a question, you don’t answer it. You do not talk to the media. You do not talk to either the police or the district attorney’s office without me present; in fact, all meetings and talks with them must come through me. They are not to contact you without going through me.”

“Two of my best friends are cops, and my best friend is a reporter.” I replied. “So, until this is all cleared up, I shouldn’t talk to them?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Sure you can. Just not about this case—this is off limits. You can’t discuss this case with anyone but me from this moment on, am I clear?” He leaned forward. “I know that probably seems nuts to you, but
I am a lot more familiar with the law than you are.”
He waved me off as I started to talk and went on, “Yes, I know you have a degree in Criminology. I know you were a cop for two years and you’ve been a private eye ever since.” He shrugged. “I had my secretary dig up some information on you after Loren called me last night. I wanted to know what I was getting myself into. And Chanse, I will do everything I possibly can to protect you and look out for your interests.
I’m on your side, and no one else’s.
All I ask is that you do as I tell you and never lie to me about anything. I can’t help you if you lie to me. And the most important thing you have to do is stay as far away from this case as you possibly can.”

“But—“

 He cut me off, and gave me another hard look before shaking his head. “I can’t decide if you’re naïve or just plain stupid,” he said.

That was it. I was done with him. But before I could tell him, he went on, “I understand that you want to investigate—I get it, really, I do. But that’s just insane—“ he paused, implying, at the very least, that I was going to wind up losing my license--. “Do you really want to start a whole new career at this stage of your life?”

“Well, no.” I crossed my arms. He was getting me slightly worked up, despite the fact that I really can’t imagine what you’d have to do to lose a PI license in Louisiana. 

He sighed. “It’s bad enough that you took their money. That’s going to weaken your credibility as a witness.”

“But my testimony is damaging to Freddy Bliss. I’m the only person who can place him at the crime scene.”

“You said yourself that you were certain it was Freddy until you talked to them.” Storm shook his head. “Now, you’re not so sure.” He cleared his throat. “Mr. MacLeod, when you saw the man walking out of Glynis Parrish’s home, were you certain it was Freddy Bliss? And remember, you are under oath.”

“At the time, I was.” I answered, and immediately saw the trap. My heart began pounding in my ears.

“But now you’re not so certain?” He put a twist on his voice that clearly implied,
I don’t believe a word you’re saying.

“I’m relatively certain.” I replied. “But—“

He cut me off. “And how just much money did Freddy Bliss pay you for your services?”

“He and his wife paid me five thousand dollars…”

“And what is your going rate? And remember, Mr. MacLeod, you are under oath.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, all right?” I sighed. “But there’s no way they could have known when they paid me…” I stopped.

Storm folded his arms and looked at me. His eyebrows were raised. “You see now how it sounds? The one witness who saw Freddy Bliss come out of Glynis’s house just happens to have a ten thousand dollar check from Freddy’s lawyer. It smells to high heaven like a payoff.”

“But there’s no way in hell they could have known I’d
see
him coming out of Glynis Parrish’s house around the time of the murder. There’s no way they could have known I’d be there on Ursulines at the right time. No one could have known where I’d park the car. Only my friend Paige even knew I’d be in the Quarter last night.”

Storm stared at me long and hard before answering. “You still don’t get it, do you?
It doesn’t matter whether or not they could have known any of that beforehand.
The district attorney’s job is to convict Freddy Bliss—if it comes to that—and he is going to make sure of two things: That when you saw whoever it was, you
thought
it was Freddy. And then, after you talked to Freddy, you changed your mind and became unsure of who you saw. And their lawyer wrote you a check for ten thousand dollars, Chanse.
There is no time stamp on that check.
Even the date doesn’t matter; anyone can write whatever date they want on a check—you know that as well as I do.”

I was starting to agree with him. I
was
stupid.

“Please tell me you deposited the check yesterday afternoon,
before
the murder.”

I bit my lip. “Um, no. I haven’t been to the bank yet.”

“So now the district attorney could make it seem as though they bribed you last night to change your story.” He sighed. “Chanse, when you go in to talk to the police, you cannot tell them you were positive it was Freddy you saw and then changed your mind. You can’t. You saw someone coming out of the house you thought
resembled
Freddy, is all. You didn’t see his whole face, did you?”

“Well, no. Like I said, he was wearing a hoodie sweatshirt with the hood pulled down low over his face. All I really saw was from about the nose down. He did look a lot like Freddy.”

“And if Freddy’s arrested, the district attorney isn’t the only person you’re going to have to worry about, my friend.” He laughed. “You don’t think Freddy Bliss isn’t going to have the best team of criminal attorneys money can buy? He makes twenty million dollars for every movie he’s in. He has more money than he knows what to do with…and
his
lawyers are going to move heaven and earth to convince the jury you aren’t reputable. And it won’t be that hard. Freddy and Jillian aren’t just anyone. They’re fucking world famous movie stars, Chanse. The jury, no matter how much they try to be objective, won’t be—they’ve seen their movies, they know what they’re doing here in New Orleans, they’ve been all over the television news and the newspapers and magazines. People feel like they
know
them, like they’re friends or distant relatives. And with no offense intended, who are you?” He gave me a nasty smile. “Have you ever killed someone, Mr. MacLeod?”

I licked my lips. “Yes. In self-defense.”

“More than once?”

I squirmed a bit in my chair. “Twice.”

“Were you ever charged for these killings, Mr. MacLeod?”

“No, as I said, they were in self-defense.”

“You were a police officer, weren’t you, Mr. MacLeod?”

“Yes, for two years.”

“Are you acquainted with the investigating officers in this case, Venus Casanova and Blaine Tujague?”