Murder in the Rue St. Ann

by Greg Herren

  “You aren’t going to jail.” I said, almost to convince myself as well. I unlocked the car. “Come on, get in. Let’s get you out of here and get you something to eat.”

  “I just want to go home.” He said. He stared out the window as I turned onto Broad Street. “I’ll just make myself a sandwich.”

  “You doing okay?” I patted his leg. It seemed hopelessly inadequate. I suck in these kinds of situations. I’m just not a nurturing person. I never know what to say.

  He nodded. “It just doesn’t seem real.” He put his hand on top of mine and squeezed it. “Thanks for posting my bail.”

  “Yeah, well, just don’t jump bail.” I looked over at him. Even disheveled, he was handsome. I smiled at him. No, he couldn’t have killed anyone. How could I even think that?

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He sighed. “I’ll pay you back the money, Chanse. I swear.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  I pulled into a spot across the street from Paul’s apartment. He lived on the second floor of a Queen Anne style house on Valence Street between Prytania and Magazine. It was three stories, with an oxagonal tower in the left corner. The coolest thing about Paul’s apartment was his bedroom. It was in the tower— his bed was surrounded by windows. The owners of the house were in the process of repainting it. The outside was stripped down to the bare wood with ladders and a maze of scaffolding decorating the sides. We went to the side door and climbed the wooden steps to his apartment.

  Paul’s had three big rooms which were always immaculate. I never could figure out how he did it. New Orleans is a dusty city. I could dust my apartment in the morning and everything would be coated again by the afternoon—so I rarely tried. Paul’s hardwood floors always gleamed like he’d just waxed them. Everything was in its place—nothing was where it shouldn’t be. You’d never find a sock or a dirty pair of underwear underneath his couch.

  He walked into the kitchen and put some seven grain bread in the toaster. I headed into the living room and sat on the couch. The living room windows were made of stained glass— the morning sun gleamed through the painted panes and bathed his white leather couch in reds, blues and yellows.

  I never felt really comfortable in Paul’s apartment. It was too tidy, clean, neat. Unlike my own apartment, all his furniture matched. His end table gleamed. He always used coasters. It looked more like a show apartment than a place where someone actually lived—which was probably why we spent all of our time at my place.

  I sighed and looked up at the print over the fireplace mantel. It was a beautiful nude in black and white. The model’s head was turned away slightly from the camera and was in shadows. The model reclined on a divan with his legs stretched out in front of him. The muscles in his abs rippled, and his strong hairless marble-like legs stretched out leisurely.

  With a start, I realized it was Paul. Why had I never noticed that before?

  “You sure you don’t want anything?” Paul called from the kitchen.

  “Positive.” I got up and walked closer to the picture. Sure enough, it was him. His hair had been cut short-- buzzed Marine style—which brought out his cheekbones more prominently. His eyes were closed, his body was shaved smooth, and his muscles weren’t as big. I turned and looked at another framed print that hung on the wall beside the fireplace. It was a rear shot, in black and white. The model’s arms were up over his head, revealing the smooth definition in his shoulders and back.

  And there was Paul’s mole right above the right cheek. So much for my powers of observation—some detective I was.

  Paul sat in the reclining chair with a tuna sandwich on a plate. He placed his glass of ice water on a coaster of green marble and cork.

  “When did you pose for these?” I asked, gesturing at the two prints.

  “When I was 22.” He took a bite of his sandwich. “I met a photographer at the gym in Dallas. That’s how I got started modeling.”

  I didn’t say anything else until he finished eating. He seemed to come back into himself with each bite. He’d also combed his hair. “How come you never told me you’d modeled?” Nude, I added silently.

  He put the empty plate on the table and frowned at me. He pointed at the pictures. “Come on—I thought you knew! I mean, it’s pretty obvious those pictures are of me, isn’t it?”

  He had a point. It wasn’t his fault I was so fucking clueless. I’d seen them thousands of times, even commented on them. I’d envied him for owning them. Now, looking at them again, it was so obvious, I felt like an idiot.

  “I mean, my body is shaved and my hair is different, and I’m bigger—“ he gave a weak smile, “and of course I’m older, but you never recognized me?”

  “No.” Enough of this, I told myself. Let it go. He’s just a client—not your boyfriend—establishing his innocence is the most important thing. For now, at any rate. “You want to tell me what happened yesterday?”

  He shuddered again and his face paled. “I went to see Mark. I was going to tell him I wasn’t going to do the cover shoot—because it bothered you.” He flashed a smile at me, as if to say I’m such a good boyfriend.

  Whatever. “What time did you get there?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention to the time.” He frowned.

  “After you saw him earlier, after you left me, where did you go?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” He asked, eyebrows going up.

  “I need to know exactly where you went, what you did all day.”

  “Oh.” He thought for a minute. “After I saw you, I went back uptown to the grocery store. I guess it was around noon. I was there for a while, then went home and checked my email, and then I had some other errands to run.” He rubbed his forehead. “I picked up my dry cleaning, went to Garden District Bookstore to get something to read, and went to the coffee shop on Magazine, to read and think.”

  “Which coffee shop?”

  “The one by the A&P.”

  The Rue de la Course. I nodded. “And then?”

  “That’s when I decided to come back and tell Mark I wasn’t going to pose for the cover.”

  “Where did you park?”

  “On Burgundy between St. Ann and Dumaine.”

  “Did you see or talk to anyone between parking the car and when you got to his office?”

  “I don’t see how that matters.”

  I sighed. “Well, if you ran into someone and talked to them, and you seemed perfectly normal, it could be argued you weren’t on your way to commit a murder.”

  “Oh.” He said and scratched his head. “No, I don’t remember talking to anyone.”

  “Go on.”

  “He lived in the carriage house behind the main house, you know? Where the office is? That dread-locked girl, whatever her name is, told me to just go around there because that’s where he was. I walked around, the door was open, so I knocked and went in.” He shivered. “I tripped on something and almost fell. It was a gun. I bent down and picked it up, and it went off—and that’s, that’s wh-wh-when I saw him.” His breath became more labored. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. “I didn’t know what to do.” He winced, remembering. “The gun was so loud, but it didn’t sound real, you know? More like a firecracker or something, just louder. Not like on TV. Then the next thing I knew the police were there, asking me questions, putting me in the police car—“ he closed his eyes again.

  “Why didn’t you just call him?” I crossed my arms.

  His eyes opened. “What?”

  I crossed my arms. “You could have just called him, couldn’t you? Why was it so important that you had to go see him in person?”

  “I—I don’t know.” He was lying. It was easy to see. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes, and his body language had shifted.

  “Were you sleeping with him?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

  “WHAT?” He stared at me. “Is that what you think?”

  “I d
on’t know what to think, to be frank.” I sat down and took a deep breath. Client—not boyfriend— client. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “I wasn’t sleeping with Mark.” He swallowed and leaned forward. “You have to believe that, Chanse. We were involved, yes, but that was over three years ago, and it didn’t last very long.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday? Why did you pretend you barely knew him?”

  He looked away from me. “Because you’re so jealous.”

  “Jealous?” I stared at him. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Yes, Chanse, jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous!”

  “Oh, yeah, right.” He smirked at me. “Remember the last time we went to Oz?”

  “What about it?” Now I was getting defensive. I thought back. It had been about a month or so—we’d taken to staying home or going to movies instead of dancing. I remembered having a good time, and coming home about three in the morning and having intense sex.

  “Don’t you remember your hissy fit?” His voice sounded sad more than anything else.

  “You mean that guy who was flirting with you?” That I did remember.

  “I mean the guy that was talking to me.”

  We’d taken a break from dancing and I’d gone to get us both a drink. Paul was standing in the front corner by the dance floor. When I looked over from the bar, I noticed a guy in the middle of the dance floor moving in Paul’s direction. I watched as he walked up to Paul, put his hands on Paul’s chest and started talking to him. The guy was good-looking— in his early 20s with that slim, smooth boyish kind of body some guys are lucky enough to keep as adults. He was about my height, give or take. His beltless jeans hung low off his hips, and he wasn’t wearing underwear. I paid for our drinks and walked back over. I glared at him until he got the hint and left. “Come on, that guy wanted to sleep with you.” I said. “How could you think he wasn’t flirting with you?”

  “You think everyone wants to sleep with me.” Paul replied.

  I started to say “they do,” but stopped myself. I closed my mouth.

  “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it—it’s really flattering.” He continued. “But it’s also kind of hard to deal with. I mean, when we go out I’m always afraid someone is going to talk to me and you’re going to get pissed off. Do you have any idea how hard that is on me?”

  Hard on you? I thought. Has it ever occurred to you how hard it is to have everyone in the world want to fuck your boyfriend?

  I just stared at him. I struggled to get hold of myself. Client, not boyfriend. I took a deep breath. “Okay, okay, maybe I’m a little jealous. That’s not the issue here.” The real issue is a little thing called a first-degree murder charge. “You need to tell me the truth—everything, Paul. I can’t help you if you lie to me.”

  “The truth.” He looked at me and swallowed. “Chanse, I wasn’t exactly a saint before we met, you know.”

  “I didn’t think you were.” I just had no idea of the extent of your sins.

  “I met Mark on-line four years ago in a chatroom.” Paul rubbed his eyes. “He was living in Norfolk at the time. We traded pictures, and started talking a lot when we were both on-line. Then we started talking on the phone, and I decided to fly up and visit him.”

  “Weren’t you living with Jeff then?” Jeff was my predecessor— the doctor in Dallas.

  “Jeff and I had an open relationship.” He squirmed a bit in his chair. “I would have told you, but you never seemed to want to know anything about Jeff and me.”

  “Oh.” He had tried to bring up Jeff from time to time, but I never encouraged it. “And I know how you feel about open relationships—“ He shrugged.

  It’s no secret that I’ve never understood open relationships. My friend Blaine and his long-time lover had one. It never made much sense to me. Sex was such an intimate part of a relationship, I couldn’t grasp how you could allow someone you loved to have sex with someone else—whenever they wanted, whoever they wanted, as often as they wanted. That wasn’t what love was supposed to be like. “Go on.” I said.

  “Mark and I hit it off really well, so I went back up there a few times over the next year or so.” He shrugged. “Then it just kind of petered out for us. We stayed friends, talking on-line or by e-mail, and I visited him once in a while, but the physical part was over a couple of years ago.” He took a deep breath. “Mark is why I moved here, you know?”

  “What?”

  “I came here to visit him after he moved here last year and fell in love with New Orleans. That’s why I decided to move here when Jeff and I were breaking up.”

  Christ on the cross!

  “And then I met you.” He shrugged. “And here we are.”

  I took a deep breath. He’s a client, I told myself again, not your boyfriend. “And that’s all there was to it?” What about the wrestling career, buddy?

  “That’s all.”

  “You need to tell me the whole truth, Paul.” I said carefully, trying to keep my temper. Client, not boyfriend. Client. “If there’s anything else—trust me, the police are going to go through your life with a fine toothed comb. They don’t have a motive yet, but they’re going to be looking for one. Their case is pretty strong on the physical evidence, but….” I let my voice trail off.

  “That’s all.” He shifted in his seat and wouldn’t meet my eyes. He picked up part of his sandwich, looked at it, and put it back down again. He licked drops of mustard off a couple of fingers.

  I couldn’t look at him anymore. I turned my head and looked through the stained glass. Please tell me, I thought. Please, please tell me.

  His silence was deafening.

  “You’re sure?” I had to say something, and I felt my anger rising. I gripped the armrests and squeezed them. Stay calm, stay calm. Client, client, client.

  “Chanse, please.” He wouldn’t look at me.

  Damn it. “Do you think the police won’t find out about Cody Dallas?”

  His face drained of color. “Oh—my—God. How do you—how did you—oh my God.” He buried his face in his hands.

  “It’s a little hard for me to believe your story when you keep leaving out important details.” My voice was harsh. “If I found out about your little side career in videos, the police certainly will. Mark made videos too, didn’t he? In fact, your most recent match was against him, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, God.” He looked at me. “How—how did you find out?”

  “I did an internet search on you.” Deep breaths, easy now. Client—remember that, Chanse, don’t lose control. “Apparently, you did an interview with a website about your retirement from wrestling, and revealed your real name.”

  His eyes widened. He shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

  “I read it, Paul.” I ground my teeth, trying to keep my breathing measured.

  “I swear to you, Chanse, I didn’t do any interviews. Like anyone would care that I was quitting.” He gave a short laugh. “Besides, the last thing in the world I want is for people to know I’m Cody Dallas.” He stood up. “Come on.” He walked into the little room he’d set up as his office. His little white laptop sat in the center of it, hooked up to a disk drive and a printer. He turned it on, and logged onto the Internet. He typed in www.codydallas.net. I stood behind him as the site loaded. When it came up, there was the same picture of Paul, smiling in the low cut red speedo I’d seen on the other site. He pushed his chair back. “See?”

  I closed my eyes. Christ, he even had his own wrestling web-site. I counted to ten, struggling not to lose my temper. I opened my eyes and read the text. It was basically an announcement that he was shutting down the site and retiring.

  “When I started seeing you, I decided to retire.” He explained. “That match with Mark was my last one. I didn’t tell you about it—well, I didn’t think you’d understand.”

  “Well, you were right about that. I don’t understand.” I folded my arms and walked over to
the window. “I don’t understand why you never told me about this wrestling thing. I don’t understand why you never told me about modeling nude. I don’t understand a lot of things, Paul.”

  “You’re being unfair.” He folded his arms, veins bulging in his forearms. “There’s a lot I don’t know about your past—stuff you’ve never shared with me.”

  “I never posed nude or made porn videos.”

  He made a face. “It wasn’t porn.”

  “No, they were just videos for guys who are into wrestling to watch and enjoy, right?” Like I’d just fallen off the turnip truck or something. “Come on, Paul—they’re beat-off tapes.” Why couldn’t he just admit it?

  “You can be such an asshole.” He said bitterly.

  I bit my lip and closed my eyes. Get back on track, Chanse. “Okay. I’m sorry. But cut me some slack here, Paul—this is a lot to deal with.” I sat down on the window ledge. “But you’ve got to understand something, my friend. You’ve got to be honest with me and Loren—completely, 100 percent honest. These charges against you are serious. You could get the death penalty.’

  “But I didn’t kill Mark.”

  “I didn’t say you did. The police think so, though—and the evidence looks pretty bad. Now, why did you go over to see him in person instead of calling?”

  “Well, I did want to tell him that I wasn’t going to pose for the cover.” Paul leaned back in his chair. “But I’d gotten this weird email yesterday afternoon, and I wanted to talk to him about it.”

  “A weird email?”

  “From a fan of the videos.”

  “What was weird about it?”

  “Well, for one thing, it came to my private email account, not Cody’s.” He sighed. “On my website—“ he gestured to the computer screen, “—there was a link where fans could email me direct, you know? I had a standard email response I’d send them. It was weird someone contacted me direct—but you say some website posted my real name, right? That would explain it, I guess.”

  I walked over to the computer and typed in www.ilovetoprope.com. Once the page loaded, I clicked on the link to Cody Dallas Interview.