by Greg Herren
I looked at the screen and let out a gasp.
Lurleen Rutledge had been born Rebecca Lurleen Burleson and had married Dick Werner when she was nineteen.
Lurleen Rutledge was Marina’s mother.
“Frank! Colin!” I shouted, bringing them both on the run. “Lurleen Rutledge was Marina’s mother. Look!” I pointed at the computer screen.
“I’ll be damned.” Colin whistled.
“But why would she kill her daughter?” Frank made a face. “And Tara?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But we need to find out.”
An hour later, Colin and I said good-bye to Frank as he left for Biloxi. We waved as he drove the Jaguar out of the parking lot. “I wish he didn’t have to go,” I said wistfully. “It just doesn’t feel right investigating a case without him.”
Colin nodded, slipping his hand into mine and squeezing it. “Yeah, well, this is a chance for us to work together—so let’s make the most of it. Off to Lurleen’s?”
“Too early,” I replied. It was just past nine. “Let’s drop in at the Devil’s Weed and talk to Emily some more about her band mates—maybe she knows about a connection one of them has to Marina.”
“Sounds good,” he replied.
We walked out of the lot and headed for Royal Street. “Besides,” I said as we walked up Barracks Street, “Emily mentioned that Lurleen sometimes came in for coffee in the mornings, so it wouldn’t hurt to be there if she happens to stop by today.”
The morning was cold and damp, and I shivered as we walked. It started raining just as we got to the Devil’s Weed. I sighed in relief as we opened the door and stepped in. The warmth inside felt great. Emily was behind the counter reading Gambit Weekly, and there was no one else inside.
“Hey, guys—you’re out and about early this morning!” She smiled weakly at us. She turned away from the counter and poured us two large cups of dark roast. But when I got to the counter, I could see her eyes were puffy and red.
“Emily, are you okay?” I asked, worried.
She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. “I had a really rough day yesterday.” She sniffed again, her eyes welling with tears. She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “I got some bad news.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Colin said, and I took her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She bit her lower lip. “And I did something really, really stupid.” She wiped at her eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”
I said sternly, “Get some tea, sit down, and tell us what’s wrong.”
She poured some hot water into a large mug and stuck a tea bag in it. She came out from behind the counter and sat down with us at a table.
“I did something really stupid,” she said, looking down in her cup. “And now I think it’s—” She bit her lip again. “I think I’m going to be in a lot of trouble.”
“Emily, we’ll help you, no matter what it is,” I reassured her.
“I’m the one who took Mom’s gun,” she said in a half whisper.
Colin and I exchanged horrified glances.
“Emily,” I said slowly, “you were the one who took Mom’s gun Sunday night? You lied to me yesterday?”
She nodded and wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “Technically, I didn’t take it Sunday night, it was Monday morning. But yes, Scotty, it was me.” She took a deep breath. “But I didn’t mean to kill anyone! I didn’t kill anyone! That’s what I don’t understand.” Her voice shook and her eyes filled with tears. “When you asked me about it, you told me it was the gun used to kill Tara Bourgeois, and I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t kill her, Scotty. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t even know Tara Bourgeois. I don’t know how the gun got there. You have to believe me!”
“We believe you,” Colin said in his most reassuring voice, glancing at me. “But you have to tell us what happened.”
“I feel so stupid.” She wiped at her eyes again. “A couple of weeks ago, I met someone at our show at the Spotted Cat.”
The Spotted Cat was a music club on Frenchmen Street in the Marigny District. The place had been packed, Emily explained, and the band had never sounded better. “We were rocking.” A faint smile played at her lips. “And there was a woman in the audience. Every time I looked over at her, she was staring at me. And whenever our eyes met, she winked at me.
“I haven’t seen anyone, you know, since Mickey dumped me,” Emily went on. Mickey had been this rather large butch Emily had dated for a little under a year, and the relationship had abruptly ended the previous summer. “So, when we were done with the set I was kind of in the mood to be flirty, you know, so I went out to her table and introduced myself. She bought me a glass of wine, we talked, and one thing led to another…”
It was hard not to grin, but Emily wouldn’t have appreciated it. Emily, for a far-left almost socialist lesbian, had very old-fashioned opinions about sex. She didn’t judge other people for being sexually active, but for herself, well, she didn’t believe in falling into bed with someone she’d just met, or picking someone up in a bar. She had to be in love before she had sex with someone.
I didn’t trust myself to say anything, but Colin came to my rescue.
“That’s not like you, Emily.” He said.
“I know!” She started crying, enormous deep sobs that shook her entire body. She kept wiping at her face. “I’m…suh-suh-suh-sorry guys…I…I…”
I put my arm around her and she put her head down on my shoulder. Colin and I looked at each other helplessly. I patted her head until she finally got control of herself again.
“Sorry.” She blew her nose and gave me a grateful smile. “I know what you’re thinking. But no, we didn’t do anything but hold each other that first night. It felt so right, you know? She was so funny, and smart, and we finished each other’s sentences, and so we started seeing each other. We talked on the phone every day whenever we could steal a minute, and I fell in love.” She hung her head. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Colin soothed. “Everyone makes mistakes, Emily.”
“But I was beginning to wonder about things, you know.” She took a deep breath. “There were long stretches of time when I couldn’t talk to her, when she wouldn’t return my calls, you know? At first, I thought well, of course it must be her job.”
“Her job?”
“She told me she was an accountant.” Emily nodded. “But you know, it was weird—there were nights she wasn’t available to talk to me, and some weekdays when she was. I started getting suspicious, like thinking maybe she was married and had kids or something”—that very thing had happened to her a few years earlier—“but she always had an answer any time I’d ask her—you know, she always had the answer, the perfect response to my question.”
“Which of course only made you more suspicious,” I added, winking at Colin, who looked puzzled.
“So, Sunday morning she walked me to work before she went home,” Emily went on, her eyes welling up with tears. “She told me she was leaving town that day on business—some big audit or something in Dallas, and she’d be gone for ten days, but she promised to call me whenever she could.” She took a deep breath. “I was a little late that morning, and there was a customer waiting. When Reena saw the customer, she turned white and just said good-bye—no kiss or anything, just ran off down the street. It was weird.”
I closed my eyes. I knew exactly where this was going. “Was the customer Lurleen Rutledge, by any chance?”
Emily goggled at me. “How did you know that?”
Even Colin was staring at me. “Never mind, just finish your story.”
Emily swallowed. “Yes, it was Mrs. Rutledge, and she was a lot friendlier than she usually is—I really thought she’d read me the riot act for being late and making her wait, you know, but she didn’t, she was really nice. She even hung out and talked to me while I was brewing the coffee and getting the shop ready to open. It was strange.” She
gulped again. “And then, that night at the party, Mrs. Rutledge took me aside at halftime and started asking me all kinds of questions about Reena.”
Colin closed his eyes and tilted his head back. “Reena’s real name was Marina Werner.”
Emily bit her lower lip, but it didn’t work. She started sobbing again.
So Marina Werner was a closet lesbian, I thought. That probably explained why she’d never gotten married.
“She told me…” Emily snuffled and wiped her nose. “She told me the woman I was seeing was actually Marina Werner, the woman who was helping organize the Protect Marriage rally, the daughter of that horrible homophobic minister at Dove Ministry…”
Bet she didn’t tell you she was Marina’s mother, though.
“I was in shock. I didn’t believe her. But she pulled out her iPhone and went online, did a Google images search, and sure enough, there she was. My Reena, the woman who spent the whole night telling me how much she loved me and wanted me to move in with her, was that horrible woman.” She covered her face in her hands and started sobbing again.
I got up and got her some fresh tissues. By the time I got back she had managed to get hold of herself again. “I wasn’t thinking, Scotty, you have to believe that. I think I went out of my mind. The whole second half of the game all I could think of was how she’d used me, mocked me, the whole time we were together she was laughing at me behind my back…so when the game was over, I went into the kitchen and put Mom’s Glock in my bag, and I went home.”
“So how did—”
“The next morning I went over to her house.” Emily went on like I hadn’t said anything. “I was just going to get my stuff, you know, and leave her a note. Imagine my surprise to find her there! She hadn’t left town—I don’t know why I thought that wasn’t a lie, but it was, I’m so stupid—she couldn’t see me all week because she was going to be too busy with her fucking rally.” She gulped. “She was shocked to see me, of course, and we had a horrible argument. And of course, I had the stupid gun in my bag. I got so mad I took it out and shook it at her. She tried to take it from me and it went off!”
“Well,” Colin said, “it was an accident, Emily, you didn’t mean to—”
“I didn’t kill her.” She looked at him as though he were insane. “The bullet went into the mirror over the couch and broke it. I think we were both so shocked we just stood there for a minute…and all I wanted to do was get out of there, so I turned and ran out the front door, jumped in my car, and headed home.” She sighed. “It wasn’t until later that I realized I didn’t have the gun—I must have dropped it in her house. I didn’t know what to do. What if she pressed charges? What if she had me arrested? I didn’t know what to do, guys, I thought I was going to lose my mind. I didn’t know if I should call her, I didn’t know…” Her voice trailed off. “And then yesterday you came down here asking all those questions about the gun. I’m sorry I lied to you—but when you said the gun had been used to kill Tara Bourgeois…”
I closed my eyes and replayed our conversation. “You thought I was asking because you’d taken the gun to Marina’s.”
She nodded. “And when you said it had been used to kill Tara, I didn’t know what to think, other than somehow Marina had done it. I—I didn’t know what to do.” She grabbed my hands. “Scotty, I didn’t kill Marina. I didn’t kill Tara. I know it looks bad, but I never intended to kill Marina. I’d forgotten I even had the stupid gun, and then…oh God, I’ve made such a mess out of things.”
The bell over the front door rang, and we all turned.
It was Venus Casanova and Blaine Tujague, homicide detectives with the NOPD.
“Emily Hunter?” Venus asked as they walked toward the table.
“Yes?” Emily replied, standing up.
“We need you to come down to the precinct and answer some questions.” She nodded at Colin and me. “Colin, Scotty.”
Emily gave me a terrified look. “Scotty?”
“Don’t worry.” I already had my cell phone out and was dialing Storm. “I’ll have Storm meet you there. Don’t say a word until he gets there, okay?”
Chapter Ten
Five of Wands
Strife, legal troubles
“Right now, she’s pretty screwed,” Storm said with a sigh. “One of the neighbors heard a shot and saw Emily leaving—got her license plate number.”
“And didn’t call the police?” Mom asked. “Who hears a gunshot and doesn’t call the cops?” She rolled her eyes.
We were gathered around one of the bigger tables in the Devil’s Weed. Mom and Dad both looked tired—I’d run upstairs and woken them up hours before they usually got up. Despite the copious amounts of coffee they’d downed since then, they were still tired and grumpy. Once Storm arrived from the police station, they’d closed the shop.
“It was Kenner, Mom. She thought it was a car backfiring. People out there aren’t as familiar with gunfire as we are here in the city,” Storm answered. He shrugged. “Hard as it is to believe, most people wouldn’t recognize an actual gunshot if they heard one—they think it sounds like it does on television or in movies. It wasn’t until the police came snooping around that she remembered.”
“But she made a note of Emily’s license plate?” Dad frowned. “Why would you do that?”
Storm rolled his eyes. “She’s part of the neighborhood watch group.” He shrugged. “And no, the irony that she couldn’t recognize the sound of a gunshot didn’t escape me.”
“But she only heard the one shot?” I asked. “She didn’t hear another one?”
“Shortly after Emily left, she ran her morning errands.” He shook his head. “Like I said, Emily’s really screwed. But at least they found the bullet she admits to firing. Anyway, the bail hearing will most likely not happen until later today.”
“We’ll post her bail,” Dad said without a moment’s hesitation. “No matter how much it is, we’re good for it.”
“This is all my fault.” Mom slammed her fist down on the table, making our coffee mugs jump. Coffee sloshed onto the table. She ran her hands over her head. “If I’d just kept the damned gun locked up like I should have, she couldn’t have taken it. And maybe both those women would be alive. How could I be so irresponsible?”
“It’s not your fault, Mom,” Colin replied. “How were you supposed to know someone would take your gun? And use it?”
I shivered. “I don’t like the idea you can’t trust people who come into your home. Besides, the whole point of having a gun in the house is to protect yourself. It’s not like a burglar is going to just sit around waiting for you to unlock your gun case.”
“I suppose.” Mom didn’t look mollified. “It’s just so unlike Emily. I mean, she hates guns, absolutely hates them.”
“I can’t imagine how she must have felt.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I could have bitten my tongue off. I glanced over at Colin, who just gave me a sad smile.
Of course I knew exactly how she’d felt.
During the last Mardi Gras before the levees failed, we’d gotten involved in a murder investigation so complicated and involved I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it. At its conclusion, we’d all been led to believe Colin was the mastermind behind a massive criminal conspiracy that spanned several continents and left behind a stack of bodies. We’d eventually discovered he was innocent—several years later.
So, yes, I could relate to how Emily must have felt Sunday night when she found out the truth about Marina Werner.
“I am sick to death of these self-righteous homophobes turning out to be self-loathing closet cases,” Mom said angrily.
“The good news is they’re only charging her with Marina’s murder. But you can bet your ass they’re going to try to pin Tara’s on her, too.” Storm finished his coffee. “Her alibi is pretty solid, but they’re going to try to poke holes in it.” His face got grim. “I’m not worried—I’m pretty sure I can get the charges dismissed once the bail is set.”
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Fortunately for Emily, she’d been rehearsing with Huck Finn until around one in the morning, after which they’d gone to the Clover Grill for something to eat before hitting the pub for drinks until around four in the morning. All three of her band mates were willing to say so in court.
“The best-case scenario, in my opinion, would be if they did charge Emily with Tara’s murder,” he went on, his eyebrows coming together. “Two murders committed with the same gun in less than twenty-four hours, but they only try her for one because she’s got a solid alibi for the other? The district attorney would be insane to proceed in that case.” He got a smug look on his face. “I’d have the jury so confused they’d never convict.”
“The best-case scenario would be for us to find the real killer,” I replied. I glanced at Colin, and he gave me a slight nod. “Did any of you know that Lurleen Rutledge was Marina Werner’s mother?”
“What?” Mom spluttered, her eyes bulging. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. “It’s true. Lurleen was Dick Werner’s first wife.”
“I can’t believe it—she was married to that monster? You think you know someone—I’ve known Lurleen for, what? Fifteen, twenty years, maybe? I thought Philip was her only husband. And she never told me she had children—never mentioned it.” Mom turned to Dad. “Did you know, dear?”
Dad shook his head. “She never said anything about it to me.”
“Well, she was at the party Sunday night.” I leaned on the table. “I’d say she’s probably the only person there besides Emily who knew Marina—and where she lived.”
“How could any mother kill their child?” Mom replied, looking back and forth between Storm and me. “It’s so unnatural.”
“Unfortunately, it happens every day—not every mother has your maternal instinct, Mom.” Colin got up and took a bottle of water from the refrigerator next to the espresso machine. “Do you mind giving Lurleen a call, Mom? We’ve rung her buzzer a few times, but she doesn’t answer.”