G.T. Herren - Paige Tourneur 01 - Fashion Victim

by G. T. Herren

  “Married men?”

  She nodded. “Or ones that were already seriously committed.” Her eyes sparkled maliciously. “Preferably the ones who were engaged to girls we went to McGehee with.”

  The cat, purring, was rubbing against my legs. I reached down and scratched between its ears. “And you?”

  “No, that was never my style.” She scratched her arm and looked away. “She always laughed at me, said it was my bourgeois upbringing. I just didn’t see the point in getting involved with men that I had no future with. But for Marigny, it was all about revenge.” She looked back at me. “Marigny was always about revenge.”

  “Is that why she was writing a book?”

  “Oh, it was finished.” She finished her drink and stood up. “Are you sure you don’t want anything? I’m going to have another.”

  I demurred, and she moved slowly back into the kitchen. I got up and walked over to the bookcase and looked at the candle.

  The name carved into it was ROME— but the candle had burned down some. There might have been other letters that had melted away.

  “Jerome.” She said, startling me.

  “I’m sorry—”

  She made a gesture with her hand as she sat back down in her chair, her fresh drink in her other hand. “It has nothing to do with Marigny. My ex, if you must know. I don’t believe in any of that, but it sure made me feel better.”

  I sat down again, and the cat leaped into my lap, curling up into a ball and closing his eyes. “Did Marigny get along with her ex-husbands?” I gestured toward the black candle. “Did she have any black candles in her house?”

  “She was friendly with all of them except the last— him she really hated.”

  “But why did her children use Mercereau as their last name? I figured they wouldn’t do that if…”

  “Marigny did that.” She cut me off. “After the marriages failed, Marigny legally changed their names. She felt that if she was going to be raising them they should have her name.”

  “Were their fathers okay with that?”

  “They didn’t stop her, did they?” She made a face. “Marigny was married to her business more than anything else. The husbands always took second place to the House of Mercereau, and men don’t like that.” She waved her hand wearily.

  “But you said she hated her last husband—”

  “Tony was a leech,” she interrupted me angrily. “A complete leech. But Marigny was crazy about him, wouldn’t hear anything against him.” Her eyes flashed. “That was her vanity talking, of course.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth a couple of times. “She was past sixty— well past sixty— and she refused to even consider the idea that a man in his mid-thirties would only be after her money.” She shook her head. “What else would a thirty-five-year old man want from a woman almost seventy, besides her money?”

  “What was his last name?”

  “Castiglione.” She waved a hand, her face twisted. “He was a yat— a good-looking one, I’ll give you that— but I told her he was a mistake. She wouldn’t listen to me, of course— called me a snob.” She wiped at her eyes with her hands. “We had a terrible fight about that— both said some things we shouldn’t have— things that could be forgiven but never forgotten.”

  I nodded, a little surprised. I’d always gotten the impression that Marigny was rather grand, and liked to put on airs. I couldn’t picture her dating a yat, let alone marrying one.

  I’ve dated yats, myself— the word isn’t really defined well, but it comes from a way of speaking— people who are yats say “Where y’at” for “how are you.” It’s a weird New Orleans accent— they say “kitchen zinc” and “terlet” and “erster” for oyster. I’ve been told it originated in the neighborhoods settled by German and Irish immigrants in the 1800’s— the downtown neighborhoods, in particular the 9th ward and the Irish Channel.

  Yats sound like they’re from Brooklyn or Queens— only they talk slower. The accent is associated with the working class… so of course anyone from Uptown would recoil from a friend who was dating one.

  Snobbery is alive and well in New Orleans.

  “Apparently she’d always resented me, for my family.” She turned her head and looked away from me. “All those years, that resentment about my family was brewing just below the surface. She called me a snob! Me!” She looked back at me, and polished off her second drink with a big gulp. “I’ve always thought the New Orleans caste system was horrible and unfair. Who cares how many fucking slaves your ancestors owned, or whether you’re French? But when Marigny got angry, there was no reasoning with her. She was convinced he was in love with her, and that was that.”

  “And she married him?”

  She nodded. “They lasted a little over a year. Her previous marriage lasted the longest— I guess her fourth? She was married to Roger for about eight years. None of the others lasted more than two— just long enough for her to have a kid and then poof, it was over. But Tony Castiglione was by far the worst. He destroyed her, broke her heart. And she was obsessed with him. She couldn’t let him go.” She barked out a harsh little laugh. “He had a mistress, you know. Marigny found pictures of them together— in Marigny’s bed.”

  “Oh my God.” I blurted out involuntarily. “That must have hurt.”

  “She was devastated— and then she got mad. And like I said, when Marigny was angry there was no talking to her, no reasoning with her. She wanted to get even.”

  “Did she?”

  She nodded. “She hired private eyes to follow him and find out who the girl was. She never told me who she was, mind you— and I didn’t ask. Marigny would confide in me from time to time, but she also kept a lot of stuff private. She’d agreed to co-sign a loan for him at the bank, so he could open his own training facility, and of course she backed out of that. He created quite a scene at the store— he threw a chair through one of the front windows and screamed at her— Jackson had to call the cops and have him taken away.”

  Sounds like a motive for murder to me, I thought. “So, there’s a police report on file?”

  “I would assume.” She narrowed her eyes. “But that was over two years ago— why would he wait till now…” her voice trailed off. “Come to think of it, she did tell me she’d seen him the other day.”

  “Where?”

  “She didn’t give me any details, just that she’d seen him and she hoped it would be the last time she ever did.” Her voice shook. “I guess she got her wish, didn’t she?” She buried her face in her hands.

  I said softly, “Thank you for talking to me, Audrey. I have another question for you— when Marigny went to Paris, did you stay in touch?”

  She left her hands where they were, and nodded.

  “Why did she go to Paris?”

  Her hands came down slowly. “Why would you ask me that?” Her face flushed a bit. “She went there to work for Chanel and get some training so she could start her own business here, of course.”

  “I’ve been told she didn’t work for Chanel— and the person who told me checked with Chanel.”

  “I think it’s time for you to leave.” A muscle in her jaw started twitching.

  “I—”

  “Get out!” she screamed at me.

  I turned off the recording function on my phone and dropped it into my purse as I stood up. “Thanks for your time, Audrey. I’ll see myself out.”

  Chapter Seven

  That was strange, I thought. Why would the Paris question spook her like that?

  I started walking back to my car. Clouds had come in while I was inside, and the temperature had dropped. The air felt damp and had that peculiar feel to it that meant rain was coming— and one of those horrible drenching rains that flooded low-lying streets.

  I just hoped I got back to my car before it started.

  I walked faster and managed to get into my car just as the first drops began pelting its roof. My phone started ringing, so I fished it out of my purse and saw my bes
t friend’s face smiling at me from the screen. I touched the screen to accept the call. “It’s about time you called me back.” I let my irritation show. “Where have you been?”

  “Believe it or not, I don’t spend all my time sitting around waiting for you to call,” my best friend Chanse MacLeod drawled. “What’s so damned urgent it’s bunched up your panties?”

  Chanse and I go way back— to when we were both undergrads at LSU, in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. We’ve seen each other through pretty much every conceivable tragedy imaginable. He lives about two blocks away from me, on the other side of Coliseum Square. He’s a private eye, about six feet four, and pretty good-looking. He’s originally from a small town in east Texas and went to LSU on a football scholarship. He still keeps himself in shape— his size is kind of intimidating at first glance, especially when he’s scowling— but he’s a big softie, really. When I worked at the Times-Picayune, I used to do favors for him all the time— looking things up in the archives— and he paid me back by helping me on stories whenever he could.

  “I need some help— I’m doing a story on Marigny Mercereau and—”

  “She was murdered this morning,” he interrupted me, sounding much more alert. “You sure you want to be messing in that?”

  I sighed. The last two times psychos had held a gun to my head, Chanse had rescued me. For the record, being rescued is galling. Granted, it beats being murdered by a psychotic, but I prefer to take care of myself, and having to be rescued like some stupid damsel in distress in a fairytale hardly fits into my self-image as a strong, independent woman who can take care of herself, thank you very much.

  To give him credit, he never brings that up.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted, as the rain started to come down harder. It was getting really dark outside the car. “We were doing a cover story on her, and we have to put the magazine to bed on Wednesday. It’s not like we can come up with something good for the cover at the last minute, so we’re just going to do an ‘in memoriam’ thing. But I need your help. And you never answered my question.”

  “If you must know, I spent the night at Rory’s.” Rory was Rory Delesdernier, the guy he’d been dating for just over a year. He happened to be my boss Rachel’s younger brother.

  New Orleans is nothing if not incestuous.

  Even stranger, he met Rory on his own, not through my connection to Rachel.

  “Are you home now?” I asked.

  “It sounds like you’re outside in the rain somewhere— where are you?”

  “I’m sitting in my car in the Quarter and it’s pouring.” It was; cars were driving past me at a crawl with their headlights on. I was planning on waiting the storm out before heading home— New Orleans drivers are terrible under the best conditions.

  “It’s just starting to sprinkle here,” he said. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to do some digging on Marigny,” I replied, wincing as an enormous truck drove past and splashed water heavily against my car window. “I know she was married five times, but I only have the name of her most recent husband— and I want you to definitely find out everything you can about him.” Quickly, I sketched out what Audrey had told me.

  Chanse whistled when I was finished. “Sounds like he has a motive. Why didn’t you get her to tell you about the other husbands, if she was so willing to talk?”

  “I asked something that pissed her off and she ordered me out of the house.” I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. “I asked her about Marigny working at Chanel— and that I’d heard she hadn’t. Worked there, I mean, and as soon as I did, she threw me out.”

  “Sounds like you hit a nerve,” he commented. “Okay, dig up dirt on her marriages and her time at Chanel. Got it.” He exhaled. “This is going to cost you dinner.”

  “Pizza from Café Roma?” Chanse, despite his slavish addiction to working out, was a sucker for unhealthy food. I’ve paid him for his assistance with greasy food for years. Usually, a shrimp po’boy would do the trick, but I was kind of in the mood for pizza.

  “Yeah. I’ll call you when I’m on my way over.”

  “You can bring Rory, too.”

  “No, we’re spending the evening apart. He’s got a work thing.” Rory worked for the NO/AIDS Task Force, and part of his job was running a social group for young gay men between the ages of 18 and 35. Whenever the group had one of their events, Chanse bowed out despite being technically still young enough to attend.

  “Okay. Talk to you later, and thanks.”

  “You be careful.” He hung up the phone.

  The rain was coming down harder now, and it was so dark I could barely see anything. My windshield was starting to fog up, so I started the car and checked my email— which I hadn’t done all day.

  I was deleting a ridiculous amount of spam when I saw an email, time-stamped 1:15 a.m., from Marigny. There was a rather large file attached to it.

  I clicked it open.

  Paige:

  I thought it might be helpful if I sent you a copy of my memoir. I’m really looking forward to our interview tomorrow.

  Marigny

  I sighed. Like I would have had time to read this whole thing before the interview. Really?

  I touched the download button— I generally don’t like to read anything on my phone other than email, but the rain wasn’t letting up soon, and I was bored. After a few moments the document opened on my screen, and I used two fingers to make the text bigger.

  I scanned the first page quickly. She opened with a prologue, an explanation of why she was writing her memoirs and what the reader could hope to gain from reading them.

  Certainly not how to write compelling, grammatically correct sentences, I thought.

  After reading a particularly poorly constructed one twice, I still wasn’t completely sure I’d gotten it. Reading this was going to be torture— but what better way, really, to get to know Marigny than reading her own words and perceptions about her own life?

  Assuming, of course, that the story she told was the truth.

  My years as a reporter had taught me that truth wasn’t an absolute— everyone has their own truth. Two people will see the exact same conversation completely differently, based on their own emotions, experiences, and perceptions. The first time I interviewed witnesses to a crime, I was stunned by how different their accounts were— if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought they’d witnessed different events.

  This also made me respect police officers who are good at their jobs more than ever. How they manage to sift out the truth is beyond me at times.

  In reading the prologue to Marigny’s memoirs, it soon became obvious that what Marigny really wanted to do was tell her side of her own story— under the guise of “getting the truth out there”— and get even with anyone who had ever done her wrong. Her claim of wanting to “inspire other women to be successful in life and love” was just a thinly veiled justification for trashing people she didn’t like. It promised to be the kind of juicy read everyone in New Orleans would denounce publicly— while reading every word privately and whispering about at the best cocktail parties.

  Unfortunately, her writing style was pedestrian. The paragraphs rambled, jumping around incoherently from topic to topic and then back to the original topic again. This was actually rather similar to the way talking to Marigny had been— her mind jumped around in a confusing way. But what you can get away with in a conversation doesn’t always translate to the written word.

  I sighed and looked up from my phone.

  The sun was starting to peek out from behind the dark clouds, and it looked like the rain was starting to lessen.

  It’s not like you haven’t read worse things than this, I reasoned with myself. You never know— the key to who killed her might be in here, and as far as you know, the cops don’t have this in their hot little hands yet.

  Moral dilemma: The manuscript could be evidence.

  Solution: I wouldn’t
know that until I read it, would I?

  With a smile, I put the car in gear and headed home.

  Chapter Eight

  When my buzzer rang, I glanced at the clock in the upper right hand corner of my computer screen. Seven-thirty?

  I yawned and stretched, my back popping, and rolled my chair back from my desk. I pushed the intercom buzzer. “Yes?”

  Chanse’s unmistakable voice drawled through the speaker. “Come let me in, I brought dinner.”

  I grabbed my keys off the hook just inside the front door and walked alongside the house to the front gate. My apartment was in the back of a huge old Greek revival style just off St. Charles Avenue. The gay couple that lived in the front apartment on my side fancied themselves to be amateur gardeners. Every weekend they were out there, shirtless and sweating and trimming and planting and mulching and fertilizing. It paid off; the flower beds along the stone fence separating our property from the one next door was filled with towering ferns and flowers and all kinds of fresh-smelling greenery. These, coupled with the towering crape myrtles on the other side of the stone fence made it seem like the slender cement sidewalk was a path through a jungle. I usually didn’t mind— I liked that all the towering flora shielded my windows from the house next door— but after a strong rain the plants and ferns and crape myrtles dripped steadily for hours.

  I swore as water dripped onto the back of my neck and went down my spine.

  Chanse was standing at the gate, a white pizza box in one hand and a manila envelope tucked between his arm and his chest. He was wearing a white tank top that stretched across his broad shoulders and showed off his muscular arms and his narrow waist. His khaki shorts hung loosely at his hips. He had lately started wearing baseball caps all the time, which I suspected had something to do with his hair starting to thin a bit in the front. Today’s cap was yellow with the LSU logo over a tiger head. He hadn’t shaved in a day or two, from the looks of the stubble on his face. His grayish-blue eyes were bloodshot, and his thick lips looked bruised. He was a handsome man, with thick eyebrows over his deep-set eyes and a strong nose jutting out from his heavy brow. He had long eyelashes any woman, including myself, would gladly sell her soul to have. He was actually in better shape now than when he’d played football for LSU— although sometimes I wondered if his slavish devotion to working out was an outward symptom of some kind of insecurity or pathology.