The Dead Play On

by Heather Graham

  Dr. Hubert looked up from his work and cleared his throat. “Based on his ID, this gentleman indeed is—was—Lawrence Barrett, thirty-three, and according to his driver’s license, five foot eleven. I’d have to estimate his weight, too, but I’d say you’re right in the ballpark.”

  Just as Quinn considered Larue one of the best detectives in the city, in his mind Ron Hubert was the best ME—not just in the city, but one of the finest to be found anywhere. Of course, it was true that Quinn had a history of working with Hubert—even when Hubert had been personally involved in a bizarre case that had centered around a painting done by one of Hubert’s ancestors. The more he worked with the ME, the more he liked and respected him.

  Quinn turned to Larue. “How was he found? Anyone see the killer coming or going?”

  “Barrett has a girlfriend by the name of Lacey Cavanaugh. She doesn’t have a key, though. She came, couldn’t get in, looked through the window and freaked out. The owner of the building, Liana Ruby, lives in the other half of the building, heard her screaming and called the police,” Larue said. “Mrs. Ruby didn’t hear a thing. But then, she’s eighty-plus and was out at the hairdresser’s part of the day. Not to mention there’s special insulation between the walls, too—the former tenant was a drummer, who put it in to keep his practice sessions from disturbing the neighbors. She gave the responding officers the key, but she didn’t step foot inside the apartment. She says she never does—says Barrett has always been good, paid his rent early, was polite and courteous at all times.”

  “So where is Mrs. Ruby now?” Quinn asked.

  “Lying down next door. I told you, she’s over eighty.”

  “What about the girlfriend?” Quinn asked.

  “She’s at the hospital. She was with the officers when they opened the door, and when she got a good look at...she went hysterical and tripped down the steps,” Larue told him. “She was still here when I arrived, though, and I interviewed her. She said he didn’t have any enemies as far as he knew. He might have been a coke freak and a pothead—and even an alcoholic—but he was a nice guy who was great to her and tended to be overly generous with everyone.” Larue held his notepad, but he didn’t so much as glance at his notes. He could just about recite word for word anything he’d heard in the first hour or so after responding to a case.

  “Okay, so. A nice guy with no known enemies—and a street fortune of drugs still in front of him—was tortured and killed. Do we know what he did for a living?” Quinn asked.

  “Musician,” Larue told him. “Apparently he did so much studio work that money wasn’t an issue.”

  Quinn looked over at the body again, shaking his head. “No defensive wounds, right?” he asked Dr. Hubert.

  “No. I don’t think he even saw the first blow coming,” Hubert said. “Of course, I don’t like answering too many questions until I’ve completed the autopsy.”

  “For now, your best guesstimates are entirely appreciated,” Quinn said.

  “So?” Larue asked Quinn as the ME went back to examining the body.

  “Hmm,” Quinn murmured. “Even if he made a good living, a drug habit is expensive. I don’t know how far you’ve gotten with this. Do we know if he’d borrowed any money from the wrong people? Or, following a different track, did Lacey Cavanaugh have a jealous ex?”

  “She’s in surgery for a badly smashed kneecap at the moment. Those are steep steps, you might have noticed,” Larue said. “The hospital has informed me that we’ll be able to talk to her in a few hours.”

  “Good. That could be important information,” Quinn said.

  This murder was, beyond a doubt, brutal to the extreme. And while Quinn, like most of the world, wanted to believe that every human life was equal to every other human life, in the workings of any law-enforcement department there were always those that demanded different attention. Larue was usually brought in on high-profile cases, cases that involved multiple victims, and those that involved something...unusual.

  This murder, Quinn decided, was bizarre enough to warrant Larue’s interest.

  It struck Quinn then that he had missed something he should have seen straight off. He realized that the photos on the walls were all of the same man—undoubtedly the dead man—with different musicians and producers of note.

  What he didn’t see anywhere in the photos or the room was a musical instrument. Of course, it was possible Barrett kept his instrument in another room, but...

  “What did he play?” Quinn asked. “Do we know that?”

  “Half a dozen instruments. The man was multitalented.”

  Quinn was surprised to get his answer from above—the top of a narrow stairway on the left side of the room.

  He saw Grace Leon up there and knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. Jake Larue liked Ron Hubert’s work as an ME, and he liked Grace Leon’s unit of crime scene technicians. Grace was small, about forty, with hair that resembled a steel-wool pad. She was, however, energy in motion, and while detectives liked to do the questioning and theorizing, Grace had a knack for pointing out the piece of evidence that could cement a case—or put cracks the size of the Grand Canyon into a faulty theory. She was swift, thorough and efficient, and her people loved her. Larue had a knack for surrounding himself with the crews he wanted.

  “Hey, Grace,” he said. “Thanks. I take it you found a lot of instruments?”

  “There’s a room up here filled with them. But more than that—I’ve seen this guy play. He grew up in Houma. I’ve seen him at Jazz Fest—and I’ve seen him a few times on Frenchman Street. He played a mean harmonica, and I’ve seen him play keyboard, guitar, bass—even the drums.”

  “This is a competitive town, and he was obviously in demand, but why the hell kill a musician—and so violently?” Larue said thoughtfully.

  “Did anything appear to be missing up there?” Quinn asked Grace.

  “Not that I can tell,” she said. “But you’re welcome to come up here and look for yourself.”

  Quinn intended to.

  “He definitely played guitar,” Hubert noted. “I can see the calluses on his fingers.”

  “A musician. Tortured, brutally killed,” Quinn said. “Drugs everywhere. And nothing appears to be missing.”

  “It’s not the first such murder, either,” Larue said.

  “Oh?”

  “We had a murder last week—this one is too similar to be a coincidence. A man named Holton Morelli was tortured then bashed to death with one of his own amplifiers,” Larue said.

  “He was a musician, too, I take it?” Quinn asked.

  Larue nodded.

  “What did he play? Was his instrument found in his place?” Quinn asked.

  “He was like Barrett. Played all kinds of things. Piano, a couple of guitars, a ukulele—he had a whole studio in his place,” Larue said. “No surprise. This is a city that loves music. Half the people here sing or play at least one instrument.”

  Quinn was well aware of that. He loved what he did and considered it as much a calling as a job, but he loved music, too. He played the guitar, though certainly not half as well as most of the guitarists in the city. But whether he was playing or not, he loved living in New Orleans and being surrounded by music pretty much 24/7, from the big names who popped down for Jazz Fest to the performers who made their living playing on the streets.

  He forced his attention back to the case. Two musicians were dead, but nothing—including their instruments—appeared to be missing. But they’d both been tortured—which might mean that the killer wanted some kind of information from them before he finished them off. Or that the killer was a psycho who just liked inflicting pain.

  “I have a feeling something has to be missing,” Quinn said aloud.

  “But what?” Larue asked.

  “If not an instrument, maybe
a piece of music,” Quinn said. “Two musicians are dead, and there has to be a reason. I can’t believe anyone was so jealous of someone else’s talent that they resorted to murder. There has to be more going on here. If I’m right about something being missing, it’s crucial for us to figure out what.”

  Larue nodded. “In Holton Morelli’s case, it’s not going to be easy. He lived alone. He was fifty-six and just lost his wife to cancer. His one son is in the service. He was given leave to come home, but to the best of his knowledge, nothing was missing from the house, but of course he hasn’t been there for a while, so...”

  “Same area of the city?” Quinn asked.

  Larue shook his head. “Faubourg Marigny.”

  “Since I didn’t see the other crime scene,” Quinn said, “what else was similar?”

  “Enough to point to there being one killer,” Larue said. “Holton Morelli was bashed in the head after letting his murderer into his house. Then he was tied to a chair with electrical tape, tortured and beaten to a pulp with an amp.”

  “Tortured how?” Quinn asked.

  “Burns from a cigarette,” Dr. Hubert put in, nodding.

  “I’ll need to see his file,” Quinn said. “The killer tortured those men because he wanted something. I can’t imagine these guys weren’t willing to give it up. They would have been ready to do anything to save their lives.”

  “Once they were attacked, the murderer had to kill them if he wanted to escape being accused of the crime,” Larue pointed out. “Why not just give up the information before it got to that point?”

  “Maybe they didn’t know the information the killer wanted,” Quinn suggested.

  “Can we be sure the killer wanted something? Maybe he just enjoyed torture. There are sadists out there who do,” Larue reminded him.

  Quinn nodded. “That’s true. But I’d bet this killer wanted something.”

  “You’re probably right, and we’ll have to discover what it is.” Larue stared at Quinn assessingly. “I’m sure you’ll find out what it is. Why the hell do you think I called you in?” He smiled. “Not to mention you play the guitar and have at least a passing familiarity with the local music scene.”

  Quinn lowered his head, grinning. “Thanks.”

  “You coming on up?” Grace called down to Quinn.

  “Yep, right now.”

  He headed up the stairs. Larue didn’t follow him; he was still concentrating on the body and the surrounding area.

  “We’re examining everything in the place,” Grace said, “but there were no glasses out, no cigarette butts—I don’t believe there was any socializing before the killer made his move.”

  “I agree. The way I see it, Barrett let the killer in, a few words were exchanged and then the killer decked him,” Quinn said.

  “Based on the evidence, I agree. That splotch by the door could have come from a facial wound. My guess is, analysis will show it’s mixed with saliva,” Grace said. “I suspect he was stunned by the blow, which the killer delivered right inside the door, or even that he was knocked out stone-cold. We’re searching the place thoroughly. At some point the killer was probably in every room, looking for...whatever. Anyway, come in and check out the music room.”

  Quinn followed her through the first door on the upper level. A drum set took up most of one corner; two guitars and a bass sat in their stands nearby. A few tambourines lay in a basket, and a keyboard on a stand was pushed up against one wall. A tipped-over saxophone stand sat underneath the keyboard, but there was no sign of the sax itself or its case. There didn’t appear to be room for another instrument, but there was no way to know for sure without asking someone who’d been there before.

  “Sheet music? That type of thing?”

  “Next room—it’s an office. But it’s neat and organized. There are papers on the desk, including sheet music, but the piles are all neat and squared up. It doesn’t look like anything’s been disturbed,” Grace said.

  “Curious.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe the killer squared up all the piles when he was done to hide what he’d been looking for.”

  Quinn looked through the other rooms. A closet had been left open, but if the drawers had been opened and their contents searched, the killer had put everything back the way he’d found it.

  Judging by marks in the dust, the killer had definitely looked under the bed, though.

  So had the killer been looking for an object of a certain size?

  “Are we having the same idea?” Grace asked, interrupting his thoughts. “The guy was looking for something at least as big as a bread box.”

  “Looks like it. Well, I want to talk to the landlord. Thanks, Grace. And the usual, of course. Keep me posted, please.”

  She nodded. “You know I will.”

  “Your thoughts, as well as anything scientific,” he said.

  “You bet, Quinn.”

  He hurried back downstairs.

  Larue was waiting for him. He stepped outside, and Quinn followed.

  Larue turned to him. “We have a sadistic killer on our hands,” he said.

  “I think that’s obvious,” Quinn said.

  Larue met Quinn’s eyes, his own expression thoughtful. “The night of the first murder, there was a holdup in the street. A group of musicians was stopped at gunpoint late at night. All that was taken were their instruments—sax, guitar, harmonica, if I remember right. One fellow was hurt pretty badly, pistol-whipped.”

  “Did they give you a description of their attacker?”

  “They said he was medium build. They thought tall. He had a ‘plastic’ face. And they’re pretty sure he was wearing a wig.”

  “A plastic face?” Quinn asked. “Probably a mask. God knows you can buy any kind of mask around here.”

  “You have to admit, it does seem similar enough to hint at a connection, though. Assaulting a group of musicians in the street, and then two musicians murdered, the first the same night as the assault.”

  “Yes. Although as far as we know he left all the instruments behind in both murders.”

  “True. But it seems probable that it’s the same person—someone with a hate on for musicians—and he’s escalating.”

  “And at a fantastic degree. We’re going to have dead musicians lying across the entire city if we don’t get to the truth quickly.”

  “Okay, so we’ll have a visit with Mrs. Ruby then get to the hospital and talk to Lacey Cavanaugh,” Larue said grimly.

  * * *

  There was nothing like the sound of a sax.

  Danni Cafferty stood just outside La Porte Rouge and listened to the music spilling from the Bourbon Street pub. It was delightful.

  Somehow the addition of a sax seemed to make almost anything sound better—richer, deeper, truer.

  Wolf, at her side, barked, breaking her concentration. “Hey, boy,” she said, patting the hybrid’s head. “It’s okay, I’m coming. I just wasn’t expecting to be so enchanted. Beautiful, isn’t it? No, maybe cool or...mournful, in a way. There’s something deep and passionate about a sax, huh?”

  Wolf barked again as if in complete agreement and wagged his tail.

  She looked into the club. From the side door she could see the band. It was darker in the club than it was outside, and it took her a minute to see the sax player. He was tall, lean and striking. She thought instantly that he was a New Orleans boy, born and bred, the way he played his sax. And there was something special about him. He was a beautiful golden color, with close-cropped dark hair, and he leaned into his music as if he’d been born listening to it, born to play. He wasn’t playing alone, of course, but it seemed to her that he was amazing—even in a city filled with amazing musicians.

  She couldn’t listen all evening, she told herself. Quinn had called to tell her that
Jake—Detective Larue, his ex-partner from his days as a NOLA cop—was coming by to see them that night. She was carrying takeout from her friend’s new restaurant on St. Ann’s, and she’d actually meant to head down the block to Royal but had decided to walk along Bourbon for a few blocks first.

  She hadn’t meant to get so distracted.

  The song—something by Bruce Springsteen—ended. And then, despite the difference in the light inside and out, she realized that the sax player was staring at her. Well, she was standing in the bar’s doorway with a giant hybrid wolf–German shepherd at her side. She told herself it was Wolf. That the guy was staring at the dog by her side. People always stared at Wolf. They were either terrified, or they wanted to cuddle him.

  But the truth was, the man wasn’t looking at the dog, he was staring straight at her. As if he knew her.

  She frowned.

  Did she know him?

  She might. She’d gone to school here, along with a number of her high school classmates who had never moved away, and while they might all live in different areas now and do different things, they ran into one another now and then. The guy did seem familiar. He might have been one of the kids who, like her, ended up in a local private school after the storms had struck, since their own schools had been flooded.