Polly Iyer - Diana Racine 03 - Backlash

by Polly Iyer

  Polly Iyer

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author. All names of characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination, including some references to New Orleans and surrounding areas. Though Pirates Alley is a real place, Kitty’s Kabaret is fictional as is Restview Cemetery and St. Catherine’s Living Center.

  I’ve also taken liberties with the New Orleans Police Department. Any detective working homicide would be part of the CID, Criminal Investigations Department, and work out of the main headquarters building on South Broad Street. However, I wanted Lieutenant Lucier in the French Quarter, District 8. So I put him there because it suited my purpose, and after all, this is fiction. I hope no one is offended by these liberties I’ve taken under artistic license.

  Cover design by Polly Iyer

  Greenville, SC

  Backlash

  Copyright © 2014 by Polly Iyer

  ASIN: B00N23JRTC

  Books by Polly Iyer

  Hooked

  InSight

  Murder Déjà Vu

  Threads

  The Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series

  Mind Games

  Goddess of the Moon

  Backlash

  Chapter One

  Some People Need Killing

  Denny Chenault stood in front of the bathroom mirror admiring his taut body. He flexed his right pectoral muscle, then his left, and flashed a broad grin.

  “Good-looking son of a gun.”

  Naked, he stepped into Keys Moran’s bedroom and let his gaze feast on his lover’s sleek, coffee-colored physique. Caught unawares, Moran jerked back and plopped hard against the pillows, rippling muscles tense in the dim light. He lifted his wineglass from the bedside table with a shaky hand.

  “What’s the matter?” Chenault asked. “You should be relaxed. Instead, you look ready to spring off the bed.”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter.”

  The unconvincing tone conflicted with Moran’s normally casual manner. Moving closer, Chenault noticed his phone buried in the folds of the rumpled sheet, on Moran’s side of the bed. Why would ― a bolt of panic shot through him, and Chenault snatched the phone away. “Message sent” flashed across the screen. He opened the email, saw the photo and who sent it. Alba, the dumbass. Chenault’s high from his romp of blissful sex turned to dread.

  Wiping all warmth from his voice, he said, “Who did you forward the email to?”

  Moran huffed out a long breath to match his shrug. “Me is all.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Just did.”

  “Sure you didn’t send it to anyone else?”

  Sweat glistened on Moran’s chest and forehead. “I said no.”

  “You should never answer anyone’s phone.”

  “I thought it might be important. You’re always saying how you don’t want to be caught slacking off. Should’ve erased the damn thing, but I didn’t have time. Didn’t mean to see anything private.”

  “Well, you did.”

  “What the hell is that, Denny?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “A dead body. Why’s someone sending you a picture of a dead man?”

  “Forget you saw it.”

  “How can I forget a man tied to a chair with a bullet hole in his forehead?”

  “Because I said to. Isn’t that enough?”

  Moran took his time answering. “I could say yes, but you’d know the truth.”

  “Don’t push this, friend. He was scum. A slithering piece of drug-pushing shit who raped an eleven-year old girl and got off because the judge said she was the predator. Can you imagine? An eleven-year-old girl a predator? After this guy put her in the hospital? The judge deserved the same.” He wasn’t about to confess the judge received his own special punishment.

  Moran paled at Chenault’s answer and sat as still as the corpse in the photo, except for the trembling hand jostling the wine inside the glass. “Who killed him? Did you?”

  “Don’t ask any more questions. Justice was served.” Chenault picked up his wineglass and downed a healthy slug. “And don’t get all moral on me. I know all about your computer work.”

  “I don’t murder people.”

  Of all the shitty timing. Chenault mulled over his options. Moran’s attitude left him no choice. Too much was at stake. He set his wine down and lifted the shirt draped over the back of a chair to remove his Glock from its holster. He turned around. “Why’d you have to answer it, dammit?”

  “I told you. I thought it might be an emergency, and I didn’t know how long you’d be in the can. The picture came up.” Moran stared at the gun. “You gonna shoot me too?”

  “I didn’t kill the man in the photo.”

  “But you know who did.”

  “Yes, I do. You’ve got me cornered, Keys. Others are involved. I can’t let you get in the way of justice. I’m truly sorry.” He scooped up a pillow to smother the shot, but Moran hurled his wine at Chenault’s face and pumped both feet into his stomach. Staggering backward, Chenault lost his hold on the gun and the pillow.

  Moran sprang off the bed and charged him, but Chenault recovered the weapon and catapulted to his feet. He jammed the gun into Moran’s belly and pulled the trigger. Moran slumped to the floor with an expression on his face that cut into Chenault’s heart. They’d been lovers. In his own way, he cared about Moran. But when Moran saw the photo, he’d signed his own death warrant. Leaving nothing to chance Chenault grabbed the pillow and put another round into his friend’s chest.

  “Shit, shit.” Heart thumping like stampeding wild horses, Chenault dashed to the window to check the street. Empty and quiet. With dawn a couple of hours away, darkness covered the area. Had the shots awakened a neighbor? He hoped not, because he had things to do before he left the house.

  He stared down at the motionless man. He didn’t kill good people, but sometimes good people needed killing for the greater cause. Chenault lamented that Moran had to be one of them.

  “Why’d you have to answer the goddamn phone, Keys?”

  He plucked a pair of latex gloves from the stash he always carried and went to work. He found the vacuum in the utility closet and sucked up everything from the bath and bedroom floors and even the bed. When he finished, he emptied the dust basket into a plastic grocery sack, knotted it, and stuffed it into his satchel. He wiped down the shower, sink, toilet, and bathroom floor with his damp towel, then flushed the toilet twice. A hair follicle, drop of urine, or partial fingerprint was all it took to get him the death penalty. He knew the ropes better than most.

  He dressed quickly, holstering his gun, and deleted the photo from his own phone bank before he forgot.

  Moran knew everything about phones and computers, so not surprisingly, both of his were password protected. Chenault knew what he’d do with the phone, but Moran’s computer was a fancy desktop model. He rummaged through the office for a laptop or tablet, but he didn’t see one. He knew enough about computers to extract the hard drive. He started to take it with him, then thought again. The last thing he needed was to get caught with the damn thing.

  He checked the time. Hurry up, Denny.

  The tool drawer produced a hammer. He wrapped the hard drive in a fresh towel and smashed it to pieces, dumping the remnants on Moran’s desk. After wiping down everything he’d touched, he threw the towel into another plastic bag and into his satchel, then he left Moran’s house.

  He’d done some sleazy things in his life, but murdering a friend ― no, more than a friend, a lover ― topped the list. Without wis
hing for a major disaster, he hoped work would take his mind off what he’d done.

  Keep to the same pattern. Don’t make changes.

  Chenault zipped into the same drive-thru he went to every morning, ordered coffee and a muffin, and pulled into a parking space. He wanted to kill Alba. The guy was a dim bulb. Chenault should never have vouched for him. Too late now. He unlocked the glove box for the burner phone and dialed Alba’s number. “Are you out of your freaking mind, sending me that picture on my personal phone? What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “I called, but you didn’t answer, because you keep that phone in your car. I wanted you to see the latest victim of our justice system before we got rid of the body. Why, what happened?”

  “Someone else answered the phone, that’s what happened.”

  “How the hell was I supposed to know?”

  “You don’t know, which is why you never do something so stupid. Now hear this: never, ever, put incriminating material where it can be accessed. We make these people disappear, not become stars on YouTube.”

  “Who saw it?”

  “Never mind. I took care of the situation.” People thought of Chenault as a womanizer, not a man who batted both sides of the plate. Only one member of the group knew.

  “I’m sorry, Denny. It won’t happen again.”

  “No names, remember?”

  “Sorry, De ― sorry.”

  Chenault broke the connection. He missed landlines. You slammed down a wired phone and it made a statement. Bang. You’ve been cut off. These phones were too damn quiet.

  Calm down. Stick to your routine. He’d wiped Moran’s place down good, scrubbed everything. Still, some miniscule connection and they’d be on him before he could say lethal injection.

  Wait a minute. So what if the world found out he and Moran were lovers as long as he had an alibi for tonight. That shouldn’t be a problem.

  Being outed as bisexual sure as hell beat everyone finding out he murdered his lover.

  Chapter Two

  The Cat Leaps Out of the Bag

  Diana Racine hated housework. She did it, but she hated it. This morning, she separated her laundry into whites and colors, then put the whites into the washing machine and turned it on. Now she could relax with her second cup of coffee as a mini-reward.

  Her new smartphone signaled a call from Lucier. Even after all these months, the sight of his name bumped her heart rate up a few notches. “Good morning. Since you left less than an hour ago, I assume you miss me already.”

  “I do, but that’s not why I’m calling. I have a situation here. Better I explain everything in person.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “Think Keys Moran, or should I say Donny Harwood? Be there in twenty.”

  She stood with the phone in her hand for a long minute. Lucier knew more than she thought, because Keys Moran and Donny Harwood were the same person.

  She’d known Keys as Donal “Donny” Harwood, his real name and the name he used when he hacked into the personal files of her credit-card-paying audience participants, a ruse her father dreamt up when he devised her psychic stage act. Donny adopted his mother’s maiden name, Moran, when he played the piano in New Orleans clubs after he left her employ. Keys was a natural nickname.

  She’d never mentioned Donny’s or Keys’s name to Lucier, though her company listed Donny as an employee on her tax returns. His job description cited many tasks, but hacking hadn’t been one of them. Lucier never probed about the details of her act, unless he’d done so privately, and none of her former employees could expose her without exposing themselves.

  Diana turned on the TV for local news, hoping she’d find out what was going on before Lucier arrived. Every station broadcast their version of morning talk shows.

  She hadn’t seen Donny in years, though they’d talked on the phone when she settled in New Orleans, promising to get together soon for a drink. That was months ago, and now she felt guilty for forgetting, especially if something had happened to him. When a cop said a situation was serious, you needn’t be psychic to read between the lines.

  She poured a third cup of coffee. Just what I need to calm my nerves, more caffeine.

  Lucier had a key to her house but always chimed his special ring before entering so she’d know it was him. This time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see him.

  He entered her kitchen, and she remembered the first time she saw him. She’d never thought of being attracted to a black man before, but Lucier, with his café au lait skin and topaz-colored eyes, set her heart aflutter at that moment, and she’d never lost the feeling.

  “Any coffee left for me?” he asked, entering the kitchen.

  “Sure.” She poured him a cup. “What’s up?”

  “Keys Moran, or as you knew him, Donal Harwood, is dead.”

  Diana put the cup on the counter and lowered herself into a kitchen chair. The coffee overload turned to acid in her stomach. “Dead? Tell me he died of natural causes, like a heart attack or drowning in his bathtub. Say he did, Ernie. Please.”

  “Sorry, hon, he was murdered. Shot. M.E. says he died sometime before dawn yesterday morning. Moran didn’t show up for his gig at Kitty’s Kabaret last night, so someone went to his house this morning to check.”

  She was too young for hot flashes, yet her whole body sizzled. “No one in the neighborhood heard or saw anything?”

  “Most people are still sleeping at that hour. The killer muffled one shot with a pillow, the other went straight into Moran’s chest. The crime scene techs are over there now.” He looked at her long and hard. “Captain told me Moran helped out Vice on occasion, doing what he did for you when he was Donny Harwood. That’s all hush-hush, because using him is probably close to crossing a legal boundary.”

  “How long have you known?” she asked. “Did you check me out from the beginning? What else, my taxes?”

  “Caution beforehand prevents problems after the fact, and that includes employing you as a consultant. So yeah, I checked. I also checked out Harwood and Jason, and a couple of guys before them.”

  “But you hired me anyway and never brought it up?”

  “What for? I knew you were the real deal. Saw it with my own eyes. I’d have done the same thing if I’d’ve been a kid in your position. Your father’s the one who should be behind bars, for more reasons than I care to mention.”

  “He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong,” she mumbled, ignoring Lucier’s raised brow.

  “Sure he did.”

  Both dropped the subject of Galen Racine, Diana’s con-man father. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “You seemed to want to keep that part of your act a secret. Labeling Harwood, AKA Moran, and Jason’s job description as publicity directors stretched the limit, though, don’t you think?”

  Diana hired computer tech Jason Connors after Keys left. Lucier knew about Jason, had even used his services a couple of times. No one mentioned the word “hacker.”

  “Your father was all the publicity director you needed. I added two and two a long time ago, and remember, Jason looked into a few things for me. I’m complicit right along with you.”

  Diana’s stomach rumbled. “So now you know I’ve been a cheat and a fraud for more than half my life.”

  He took her by the shoulders. “I never suggested you were either. You did what you had to do.”

  “Did I? I could have stopped the con any time, but I didn’t.”

  “Because you wanted your father to think you’d lost your psychic ability, so he couldn’t contract you out to every police department and relative searching for a missing person.” Lucier stopped, ran his hand through his close-cropped light brown hair. “Am I doing the same thing I hate your father for doing?”

  “I’m not fourteen anymore, Ernie. I can handle the murder scenes better now. Besides, I’m making up for years of scamming.” She stood and kissed him. “I’ll be all right, as long as that pesky reporter doesn’t get
on my case. One whiff of scandal about me and Moran, and not only will my reputation be ruined, but Jason’s too. He’d lose his job and probably wouldn’t be able to find another, that’s if he wasn’t arrested for hacking into credit card companies. He wouldn’t be alone. My father would be with him, and I’d be in the women’s prison.”

  “Jake Griffin? Don’t worry about him. When your association with Moran comes out, and it will, don’t deny it. Say he handled your online promos, website, and whatever else he did. Be upfront. No fudging, because you’re telling the truth.”

  “Yes, he did all those things,” Diana said. “Keys set up our show’s computer system, my personal computer too, including all the protection software. He devised the bookkeeping program, blogged, ran the website and Internet promos, and arranged the schedule. Everything went into an online backup system so we didn’t lose anything. He worked for us for five years, and when Jason took over, he said he couldn’t have done a better job. My father didn’t know how to turn on a computer, but he knew what he wanted both men to do, and they did it.”

  “I’m surprised your father hired Keys, considering he was black.”

  “And gay, but let’s not go there, okay? Galen hired Keys because he was good at what he did. They had very little to do with each other.”

  While he poured more coffee, Lucier mumbled, “No surprise there. I bet his heart broke when Moran quit.”

  “After one of our Mardi Gras performances, Keys decided to stop traveling and settle in New Orleans, his home town. Believe it or not, Galen was upset. Keys was good at what he did, and my father liked him.”

  She put her coffee cup in the sink. “Now let’s get down to business. You want me to go to Keys’s house with you, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do. I jumped the gun and checked with the captain, but if you don’t want to get involved, I’ll understand.”