by Lisa Jackson
Who knew what kind of personal ax Abby Chastain had to grind?
Angry at himself, Montoya forced himself to decelerate. He switched off his lights. Hell! What had he been thinking?
As he drove into the Garden District, his police band crackled, the windshield wipers slapping time at the fitful rain. Checking his rearview mirror, he saw the irritation in the narrowing of his eyes. He didn’t think Abby had out-and-out lied. She seemed too smart for that. But she’d known more than she was saying. Even if he gave her a break for the shock of learning that her ex-husband was dead, she still hadn’t come clean. He could feel it.
And it bugged the hell out of him.
He slowed for a stoplight on St. Charles Avenue. Drumming the tips of his fingers on the steering wheel, he saw the raindrops reflect red from the signal, the only illumination in this gray, soggy afternoon. As he waited for the light to change, he watched as pedestrians with umbrellas and hats climbed off the street car and made a mad dash across the street to the cobblestoned, tree-lined sidewalks.
Students on their way to classes at Tulane and Loyola, two old universities resting side by side facing St. Charles Avenue, crossed in groups. Laughing, talking, carrying paper coffee cups and wearing backpacks, they hurried onto the paths and broad lawns of the universities that were within minutes of Courtney LaBelle’s home. If she’d decided to attend classes at Loyola, the red brick Catholic college with its turrets and crenels that resembled a medieval castle, would she be alive today? Set here in the Garden District, Loyola was within walking distance of her family. Of safety.
Seeing other young students blissfully unaware of what had happened to Courtney LaBelle, he ground his back teeth. Man, this case was a pisser.
What he needed was a smoke. Just to take the edge off his nerves. He considered stopping at the next convenience store for a pack of Marlboros. Shit, he’d love to draw in a lungful of nicotine about now. Quitting the habit was harder than he’d imagined and he remembered giving Bentz a hard time about giving up smoking a few years back. He’d accused him of being a wuss for leaning on gum or the patch or anything Montoya had considered a crutch.
Now, he understood.
Hell.
It was times like this, when he really wanted to think, to mull over his recent conversation with a witness, that he felt the urge to light up.
The traffic light turned green. The crosswalk was clear. He trod on the gas, water spraying from the Crown Vic’s tires as he hit puddles from the recent shower. His mind wandered to Abby Chastain again.
Seeing her had hit him hard.
Where it counted.
If she hadn’t been out-and-out lying, then she’d been holding something back. There was a mystery in her gold eyes, some kind of secret. She hadn’t been coy, seemed straightforward, but something was off. Or maybe he’d been distracted, surprised at how she’d affected him. He’d expected to walk up to her house, give her the bad news, watch her reaction, and find someone to stay with her, to help her get over the shock.
But that’s not what had happened.
The woman had gotten to him.
And he, blind-sided, had let her.
Petite, packed tight, curves in all the right places.
He flipped on the radio and told himself he had to stop thinking about Abby Chastain’s body. Jesus, hadn’t he learned anything in the last five years? His jaw tightened as he slowed for a corner. He’d always been accused of being a player and it was true enough that he enjoyed women, a variety of women. The one time he’d thought of settling down, the situation had gone from bad to worse.
His guts twisted as he thought of Marta again…God, she’d been beautiful, with a sharp tongue and flashing dark eyes that had held him captive.
He’d thought she was the one, if there was such a thing. He hadn’t believed it before and he didn’t believe it now, but for that one short period of his life, he’d been certain that he’d wanted Marta Vasquez for his bride.
“Son of a bitch!” he growled as a guy in a red Mazda RX7 cut in front of him. Montoya slammed on the brakes. As the driver glanced in his mirror and obviously realized he’d nearly collided with a cop car, he shifted down, slowing to the speed limit, and immediately became Mr. Good Citizen, the epitome of the perfect driver. “Yeah, right,” Montoya muttered. If he had any balls, he would pull the guy over and read him the riot act, maybe scare the bejeezus out of him by slamming him up against the side of the car and pulling out his cuffs before slapping him with a ticket and a fine that would make the guy’s eyes bulge.
Montoya smiled at the thought, then checked his watch as it began to rain again.
No time to spare.
“Next time, buddy,” Montoya said as the sports car turned into a bank parking lot.
With a sigh, he forced himself to concentrate on the task ahead: informing Mr. and Mrs. Clyde LaBelle that their daughter wasn’t ever coming home. “Damn it all to hell.”
This was the part of his job he detested the most.
“…I don’t know,” Sean Erwin said as he walked slowly through Abby’s house. Behind sleek black-framed glasses, his eyes darted from one side of the living room to the other as he and Abby walked toward the dining area. It was the third pass through and Sean, a tall, lean man with spiky hair, patrician nose, and thin black brows over expressive eyes, wasn’t happy. Yet he wasn’t going away. “I just don’t think this is big enough.” Tapping one long finger against his mouth, he frowned, pursing his lips as if he’d just sucked on a lemon. “I have a lot of oversized pieces. An armoire from my grandmother, an overstuffed couch, a small piano…and my bed is a king.” He strode quickly down the short hallway where the bathroom separated the two bedrooms. He poked his head into Abby’s room again. “No. Don’t think so. Your bedroom doesn’t look like it could accommodate my bed, the two night tables, and my dresser.” Sighing dramatically, he pulled a small tape measure from his pocket. “I’d better take some measurements.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” It was all Abby could do to keep her cool. While this art dealer from the city walked through her house as if he already owned it, and didn’t like what he saw, she was thinking of Luke’s murder. Somehow Sean Erwin’s furniture arrangement didn’t seem so important today. The couple who’d stopped by an hour earlier had wandered through for the second time, but hadn’t seemed all that interested either. They’d left without asking any more questions.
The phone rang and she picked up in the kitchen where Ansel was cowering under one of the chairs.
“Hello?”
“Oh my God. Tell me it’s not true!” Zoey’s voice shrilled through the wires. “Tell me Luke’s okay!”
“I can’t.”
“He was murdered? He and some girl?”
Abby nodded, though her sister couldn’t see her. “I found out, less than two hours ago. A detective from the police department came by.”
“Are you all right?”
“No, but then who would be?” Abby said, trying to keep her voice low as she heard Erwin in the bathroom, opening closet doors and closing them. “How did you find out?”
“I work in the news business, remember.”
“But you’re on the West Coast.”
“Seattle isn’t exactly Timbuktu and we do get feeds, you know, running streams of news from all over the world. I just happened to see information about a double homicide or maybe homicide-suicide in New Orleans and then…then I called a local station. They said the next of kin were just being notified, but someone at the station has a contact in the department. He let the identities out. Officially, the police aren’t releasing information about who was killed until the next of kin have been notified, but I figured that was you and Luke’s parents.” She exhaled shakily. “I just can’t believe it.”
“You and me both,” Abby said.
“So how’re you holding up?”
“Still in shock, but I’ll be okay.”
“You’re sur
e?” Zoey’s voice was filled with worry.
“Of course I am,” Abby said a little hotly. Her feelings for Luke were ambivalent, but to deny that she had any was ridiculous. She heard Erwin walk out of the bathroom and test the cupboard door in the hallway, the one that always squeaked. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got someone looking at the house right now. I’ll call you back.”
“You’d better give Dad a ring. He’ll want to know. He always liked Luke.”
One of the few in the family, Abby thought, gritting her teeth. “I will,” she promised just as Sean Erwin poked his gelled head into the kitchen. Tape measure at the ready, forehead creased, he eyed the doorway to the back porch. “You don’t have a pantry, do you?” he asked, oblivious to the fact that she was still on the phone.
“I’ll call you back,” she said to her sister and Erwin finally saw the receiver.
His head ducked back into his shoulders like a scared turtle. “Sorry,” he mouthed, but she was already hanging up.
“No problem.” Oh, Abby, you’re such a liar. She was irritated and couldn’t help saying, “And no, I don’t have a pantry. Nor a piano, so space for one isn’t really a concern for me and my smaller bed works out just fine.”
He blinked as if shocked, and she decided it was a good thing that she made her living in photography rather than by trying to sell real estate. But she was steamed and Erwin’s questions seemed not just curious but kind of pointedly snarky.
“I understand,” he said, stung, “but I’m just trying to work with what you’ve got here.”
“Then go for it. But there’s only so much space unless you want to add on, or connect the main house to the studio.” She walked to the back door and opened it. Ansel streaked outside like a shot. “It’s unlocked if you want to see it, just on the other side of this porch.”
“I will. Thanks.” He hurried out of the kitchen and Abby wished he’d just go away. As much as she wanted to sell the house, today was not the day.
“…oh, God, no. No! No! No! Not Mary. Please, please, you must be wrong!” Virginia LaBelle was trembling, her blue eyes wide, her head shaking violently from side to side as she stood next to her husband. Her face had turned white, her legs wobbled, and if not for the steady arm of her husband, she, no doubt, would have crumpled into a heap onto the glossy marble floor of her three-storied Victorian home. Tears rained from her eyes. “Not my baby,” she cried and Montoya’s guts twisted as he looked up the curved wooden staircase to the landing, where a huge gold-framed picture of a vibrant, beautiful girl had been hung. Bright blue eyes, gold hair that curled past her shoulders, dimples visible around a radiant smile. A beautiful girl. In his mind’s eye he saw the female victim with her bloated face and waxy complexion and felt sick.
“I’m sorry,” Montoya said and he meant it. This was the worst part of his job. The worst. Dealing with the dead was preferable to informing the living of the loss of a loved one. Especially a child. “Her identification said Courtney.”
“She goes by Mary. Has from the time she was old enough to decide, somewhere around the fourth or fifth grade, I think,” the father, Clyde, said. Tall, with a large frame, ruddy cheeks over a short-cropped silver beard that matched his thinning hair, Clyde LaBelle aged before Montoya’s eyes. His shoulders drooped beneath his tan sport coat, the color washed away from his skin, leaving his complexion pasty, and his blue eyes, behind gold-rimmed spectacles, seemed to fade.
“Third. She had Sister Penelope for a teacher,” Virginia said, still blinking against her tears, denial etched on her face.
“You’re certain this is our child?” Clyde asked softly.
“Yes, but I’ll need someone to identify the body.”
Another piercing wail from Courtney’s mother as she lost control of herself.
“There has to be a mistake.”
“I’ll do it.” A muscle tightened in Clyde’s jaw and Montoya witnessed him physically stiffening his spine.
“It can’t be, it just can’t be,” Virginia muttered.
“Shh…honey…shh.” He pressed his lips into her hair but he didn’t say the obvious lie of everything’s going to be all right.
Because it wouldn’t be. For the rest of their lives this well-to-do couple would mourn their daughter and nothing else would matter. Everything they’d worked for, dreamed of having—this stately old house, the tended grounds, the silver Cadillac parked in the driveway—would be meaningless.
“Perhaps you should lie down,” Clyde suggested to his wife, but she would have none of it.
Wiping at the bottoms of her eyes with a long, manicured finger, she whispered, “I want to hear what the officer has to say. It’s wrong, of course, but I need to hear it.”
“Ginny, Detective Montoya wouldn’t come here if he wasn’t certain—”
“But it has to be a mistake. We both know it.” She drew in a slow, shuddering breath and extracted herself from her husband’s grip. Her legs were unsteady but she managed to stay upright, her spine suddenly ramrod straight. “Please, give me a second.” Touching her hair as if realizing it had become mussed, she walked to what appeared to be a nearby bathroom, her gold sandals clicking across the veined marble floor.
“I’m a psychiatrist,” Clyde said. “I’ll prescribe something to calm her down.” He glanced nervously at the closed powder room door. “And I’ll call our parish priest. Father Michael has a way of soothing her.”
Montoya took note of the carved wooden cross mounted above the archway that led to the back of the house. A heavy leather-bound Bible rested prominently upon a small occasional table near the foot of the staircase. The ceiling of this entry hall rose two full stories, allowing the foyer to open to a gallery on the floor above where more pictures of the LaBelles’ only daughter had been artfully arranged.
The door to the powder room opened and Virginia LaBelle, her makeup restored, her frosted hair no longer mussed, managed a wan smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Please, Officer, if you would follow me into the parlor.” Her voice wobbled and for a second she seemed about to dissolve again, but she tugged on the hems of her sleeves, gathered her breath, and said, “We could discuss this matter further. I’m certain that there had been a vast, horrible mistake.”
Clyde sent Montoya a look but followed his wife into a cozy room filled with peach-colored chintz, ornate antique tables, and lamps that dripped with crystal. Flipping a switch, Virginia turned the fire on, though it had to be eighty degrees in the house, then she sat on the edge of a small settee. She folded her hands in her lap and tried like hell to appear composed, to slip back into the world of Southern gentility to which, Montoya guessed, she’d been born. “Would you like something to drink? I could have Ada get us some sweet tea.”
“I’m fine,” Montoya said.
As her husband joined her, Montoya took a quick survey of the room. Over the fireplace was another huge portrait of Courtney and upon the wide marble mantle was a gallery of pictures of the girl in various phases of her life: photos of her as a towheaded toddler, others in the awkward age when braces glinted in her mouth and small granny glasses covered her eyes, still other shots that were more recent, pictures of a young woman with a fresh face and placid smile.
“She’s going to be a nun,” Virginia said with a touch of pride as she fingered a diamond cross at her throat, so similar to the one found around her daughter’s neck.
A nun?
That was a curve ball Montoya hadn’t expected. Montoya eyed the mother carefully, wondering if she’d gone off her rocker. “She was going to join an order?”
“We know it’s not a common calling for a young woman these days and goodness knows her father and I tried to dissuade her.” She sent her husband a knowing glance. “We want grandchildren, you see…” Her voice drifted off again as she looked up at the mantel to the pictures of her only child. A single tear drizzled from the corner of her eye.
Montoya’s stomach soured. As gently as possible, he expla
ined what he knew, what he could tell them. About the cabin. About Gierman. About the gun that had been found in their daughter’s hand. About the wedding dress.
Throughout it all, Courtney Mary LaBelle’s parents listened. Raptly. Sadly. Without comment. Rain splashed against the tall paned windows and the gas logs hissed, but Clyde and Virginia huddled together on the tiny couch, holding hands, wedding rings catching the firelight, and didn’t say a word. It was almost as if he were talking to mannequins. Only when he mentioned the pistol did the father wince and blink, guilt stealing through his eyes.
“I gave her that gun for protection,” he whispered, his voice thick.
“I never thought…Oh Jesus.” He buried his face in one hand and his shoulders began to shake.
Surprisingly, his wife touched Clyde’s shoulder with her free hand, as if to offer him strength.
“I shouldn’t have done it. If I hadn’t, then she might be alive today,” he said.
“Shhh. No. Clyde. Whatever happened, it’s not your fault. You’ll see. This is a mistake.” She turned her sad eyes on Montoya again. “Mary doesn’t know Luke Gierman, I’m sure. He’s the man with that horrible program on the radio, isn’t he? The one who’s being banned everywhere?”
“He worked at WSLJ. Was known as their shock jock.”
“Well, there you go. Mary doesn’t know him. Wouldn’t. And she doesn’t own a wedding gown, believe me. You’ve got the wrong girl. Someone who just happened to have our daughter’s ID with her.”
“Have you talked to your daughter in the last two days?” Montoya asked and thought of the picture he was carrying, the one of the dead girl, but he couldn’t bring himself to take it from his pocket.
“Well, no.”
“The picture on her student ID and driver’s license is of the same woman we found.”
A small high-pitched sound of protest came from Virginia’s throat.
“I could call Father Michael for you,” Montoya offered, knowing that he would get nothing more from these tortured parents today.