Murder in the Rue St. Ann

by Greg Herren

  “No shit.” I leaned against my car and lit a cigarette. “Any idea why the Feds didn’t want him?”

  “None. He apparently just wasn’t Feeb material.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Isn’t it though? Okay, gotta get back to this work bullshit. If I haven’t heard from you by five—“

  “—you’re calling Venus. Got it.”

  “And if the car stalls—“

  “I’ll call.”

  “And if doesn’t, fucking take it into the shop!”

  “When I get back, I will.”

  “IF you make it back….” On that cheery note, she hung up.

  I went inside, ordered a Quarter Pounder with cheese meal and sat down. I decided not to try a cover story when I got to Fowler’s house. I’d just tell him enough of the truth and see how he’d react. It was one of those times I really missed the badge. Even as a cop, he didn’t have to talk to me, but the badge often intimidated people into talking. Part of our routine was to convince people that if they didn’t talk, they’d look guilty—had something to hide.

  The car started fine, and rode all the way into Bay St. Louis without a stutter. Even when I stopped at an intersection, it purred like new. I kept making turns, finding myself driving down beautiful streets lined with pine trees drenched in Spanish moss. The large Victorian style houses all had lush green lawns. All the driveways were long, and the fences were painted white. I made another turn and found myself on a more densely wooded street. The houses were almost invisible behind their screen of pine trees. I drove for a while, watching the mailboxes. The road curved to the right, and the plain black mailbox almost jumped out at me on the left, with white letters. FOWLER.

  I turned into the driveway. The massive yard was almost completely covered in brown pine needles, and massive pinecones. A once-white birdbath sat forlornly out in the center, surrounded by weed choked white gravel. I stopped the car about twenty yards from the garage door and shut the engine off. The house was one story and made of brick with a slate roof. There was a paved sidewalk leading from the driveway to the front porch, supported by brick columns. The flowerbeds were overgrown. The cement porch was bare, except for scattered browned pine needles. Blinds were closed on the louvered windows all along the front of the house. I slipped my gun into the holster and slid out of the car.

  The quiet bothered me. There was the usual sounds of crickets and other insects, despite it being late in the year, and a dog was barking somewhere in the distance. But there was silence from the house. Usually when you come up the walk you can hear the muted sounds of life inside. People always listened to either music or the television loud enough to be heard outside. But there was no noise coming from inside the house. If I’d come all this way and he wasn’t home…I looked at my watch. It never even dawned on me he could be at work.

  Well, if he’s at work, I can always get into the house and have a look around.

  Sure, it was breaking and entering, but I hadn’t seen another car or any sign of life since I’d turned onto Forest Road. There wasn’t a security sign in the window or planted in the flowerbeds, so I was probably safe there. And if he had a home security system, it was undoubtedly the kind that made noise—most people preferred to scare their burglars off rather than take the chance the cops will respond in time to a silent alarm. I rang the doorbell while looking around. Where would a spare key be hidden?

  To my surprise, I heard footsteps approaching and the door opened a crack. “What do you want?” a very soft masculine voice asked.

  “I’m looking for Chris Fowler.”

  “Why?”

  ”Are you Chris Fowler?”

  “Why are you looking for him?”

  I pulled my badge out of my back pocket and showed it to him. “My name is Chanse MacLeod. I’m a private investigator out of New Orleans, and I need to speak to Chris Fowler.”

  “What about?” The door opened wider, and I got a glimpse of a man wearing a white velour robe that dropped to his knees.

  “Are you Chris Fowler?”

  “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about Cody Dallas.”

  He was silent for a moment, and then he opened the door and walked back inside the house. “I’m Chris Fowler. Come in.”

  I stepped through the screen door into a darkened living room. The only light was coming through the closed blinds, which was enough to see the place was a pigsty. Empty soda cans, crumpled bags of chips, and greasy pizza boxes were scattered throughout the room, covering tables, chairs and the floor. Newspapers and magazines were liberally thrown into the mix. I saw a cat moving across the back of a couch, and another one sitting on top of the television. The entire place reeked of stale air and cat urine.

  He turned on a lamp next to the sofa and moved a pile of newspapers crowned by a Kentucky Fried chicken box off a chair. “Have a seat, Mr. Uh—uh—“

  “MacLeod.” I tried not to step on anything as I made my way over to the chair. The pale light from the bulb, glowing through a red shade, showed that everything was also covered with dust and cat hair. I sat down and looked at him, holding out my hand, “Chanse MacLeod.”

  He moved into the light and I suppressed a gasp, hoping my face stayed blank. Jude hadn’t been lying when he said Chris Fowler was white. I’d never seen anyone so white in my life. His milky skin was almost translucent. You could see all the little blue veins in his neck and on his face. His pale blue eyes were red around the edges, and the eyelids looked pale enough to see through. His lashes and eyebrows were also white, and his scalp showed pinkish beneath the parted white hair. He shook my hand with a strong grip. “Chris Fowler.” He sat down on the sofa, arranging the robe. His calves were the same white, covered with sparse white hairs. But they were thick, muscular and defined. “Now, what’s this about Cody Dallas? I don’t know if I can help you. I’ve never met him.”

  “But you know of him? And you’ve corresponded with him on-line?”

  “Well, yes.” He smiled. His gums were pink, his teeth a little yellowed. “I’m a big fan of his.” He gestured to the wall behind him. “As you can see.”

  I followed his hand and saw a full sized framed print, full color, of Paul. It was the same shot in the red bikini from his website. I swallowed and turned back to him. “Yes. But some of the emails were of a threatening nature—“

  He laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. It was high pitched, like a whinnying frightened horse. “You’re not a wrestler, are you?”

  “No, I’m not. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It has everything to do with it.” He laughed again, and I wished he’d stop. “Wrestling is a game boys play with each other. That’s all. It’s all about bravado and being butch. We threaten each other.”

  “I don’t follow.” Maybe he was crazy. “Threats made in fun?”

  “It’s all harmless fun. If you meet someone online you get along with, you threaten each other. It’s part of the getting to know someone.” He leaned forward. “You exchange emails with someone from a site, or you meet someone in a chat room. You talk about what kind of wrestling you like, what kind of scenarios you’re into, and if you both like the same thing, you talk about it…and hopefully someday you’ll actually get to meet the person and do it. Sometimes you never meet them. But you threaten each other—‘when we wrestle I’m gonna kick your ass’ –you know, stuff like that.” He waved his hand. “That’s all it was.”

  I remember Jude taunting me on the phone, you afraid you’re going to get your ass kicked? “Isn’t it possible to go too far?”

  “I suppose.” He frowned. “Has something happened to Cody? Is that why you’re here? And you think—“

  “I’m just following up on your emails, that’s all, Mr. Fowler.”

  “Chris. So something has happened to Cody?”

  “Have you ever met someone you felt might be dangerous?”

  “No.”

  “And your emails were all j
ust meant as fun?”

  “Yes.” He stood up. “I’m sorry, but I have to excuse myself. I have to be somewhere in a little bit. Are you going to tell me about Cody?”

  “It’s nothing serious, Chris. Just looking into a few things.”

  “Well, if there’s anything I can do, just let me know. Or if you think of any other questions—here.” He tore off a piece of a Burger King bag and scribbled his phone number on it. “Feel free to call anytime.”

  “I’ll do that. “ I shook his hand and walked out the door. I could feel him watching me all the way back to the car. Once I was safely inside, I looked back and waved. I put the car in reverse and backed down the driveway.

  He seemed okay, almost normal, I thought as I started down Forest Road, retracing my steps out of Bay St. Louis. I lit a cigarette. Maybe he’d seen the whole thing as a game; and Paul and Jude both just misconstrued his meaning. Maybe he was into pain—just because Jude wasn’t didn’t make him a crazed stalker. And it’s not like I knew Jude at all.

  But I still didn’t have the slightest idea of where Paul was..

  Chapter Fifteen

  The car ran perfectly all the way back to New Orleans, thank God. I stopped at my usual garage on Camp Street. They weren’t sure if they could get to it until the next day, as always. I could practically see the dollar signs in the mechanic’s eyes when I said “transmission trouble.”

  I flagged a cab and went down to the Quarter to meet Venus.

  I got there fifteen minutes early, but she was already there, toying with the straw her vodka tonic. There were only three or four other people in the bar, all clustered around one corner where the bartender talked to them. Venus had grabbed a table in the opposite corner. I got a Coke and walked back to her. “Hey Venus,” I said, pulling up a barstool. “What’s up?”

  She looked at the door, then back at me. “We never had this conversation, OK?”

  I stared at her. “What’s with the cloak and dagger bullshit?”

  She looked at me. Her eyes were bloodshot. She looked tired. Everything about her seemed to sag, as if took every bit of strength in her to remain erect. “I don’t feel comfortable talking in a place this public.”

  “Let’s go up to the balcony then.” I got up. She followed me up the stairs and down to a secluded bench in a far corner of the balcony on the Dauphine Street side. The bench was barely visible from the street.

  She took a big sip of her drink. “Chanse, I am talking to you as a friend here—not as a cop, OK? I’m trusting you as a friend. If anyone finds out I talked to you, I could lose my job.”

  Jesus Christ. “Venus, I won’t say anything to anyone.”

  “I must be crazy doing this.” She sighed, leaning back against the bench. “But I know you well enough to know you’ll keep bulldozing around, and I don’t think I could live with myself if I let you get killed.”

  That got my full attention. “What are you talking about?” I enunciated each syllable.The Quarter Pounder was no longer resting easy.

  “You need to back off from the Williams case.”

  I exhaled, and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it. “Venus, I don’t give a rat’s ass about who killed Williams. I just want to find my boyfriend—that’s all I care about.”

  “Give me one of those.” She grabbed the pack out of my hand and lit one.

  I stared at her as she exhaled. I’d never seen her smoke. “Since when—“

  “I quit ten years ago. Every now and again I have one. Sue me.” She glared at me as she took another slow sensual drag. “You have to stop looking for Paul.”

  “Look, Venus, I get that you don’t want me to—“

  She grabbed my arm so tight it hurt, the long nails digging into my skin. “Chanse, shut up for a minute and listen to me.” She took a third and final hit from the cigarette before tossing it over the railing into the street. “Nasty things, really.” She turned to me. “The Williams case isn’t mine anymore, just so you know.”

  “What?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as my mind tried to wrap itself around this.

  She nodded and whispered, “That’s right. Something stunk to high heaven on this one from the beginning. Everything was wrong, you know? The crime scene just didn’t feel right to me—you know what I mean?” She held up a hand to stop me from speaking. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s a feeling I had, an instinct, and my instincts are rarely wrong.” She smiled grimly. “I didn’t get to where I am today without having good instincts.”

  I knew what she meant. Training can only take you so far. The best cops always seemed to have this sixth sense about their work. “What seemed off to you?”

  She sighed. “I couldn’t put my finger on it, you know? I mean, first of all, Paul called it in—but it was the second call we got. A squad car was already on its way over when he called it in. That didn’t sit right with me, you know? The first phone call came from a pay phone, and it just reported a gunshot and gave the address, then the caller hung up.” She rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t think Paul shot Williams—but the evidence was strong. Fingerprints on the gun—but there were two sets. The second set didn’t match up to anything in the computer.”

  “Two sets of fingerprints.” My mind was racing. “So obviously, the other set belonged to the killer.”

  “Well, they didn’t belong to Judge Dahlgren. Once we knew who the gun was registered to, we checked on that.” Venus sighed. “I was against booking him, but my lieutenant overruled me.” She shrugged. “I mean, the evidence was strong—the powder residue, his fingerprints—but I thought Williams had been dead for a while before Paul showed up.”

  I got up and walked over to the railing, leaning against it. I was getting a little angry. It almost sounded like they’d been railroading Paul. “That’s bullshit, Venus. He shouldn’t have been charged.”

  “I know.” She wouldn’t look at me. “I argued with my lieutenant. McKeithen is a damned good lawyer—once he sunk his teeth into the evidence, none of it would have gotten past a motion to dismiss. Especially after I got a good look at the powder residue test results.” She exhaled. “I interrogated him…once I saw the residue was on his right hand, I knew he wasn’t the shooter.” She shook her head. “I’d noticed he was left-handed— because I am too. Sure, he could have been ambidextrous, but….”

  “So he spent the night in jail for nothing. That is such bullshit!”

  “I’m sorry, Chanse, it wasn’t my call.” She held her hands up. “Once I saw that, I called the DA….and while I’m on the phone trying to get him released, the U. S. Attorney and some Feds show up.”

  “Feds?” Oh Christ, oh Christ, oh Christ….

  “They take the case away from us completely, and they tell us Paul wasn’t the shooter. Well, I’d already figured that much already, right? They ask a bunch of questions about Ricky Dahlgren—“

  “Ricky Dahlgren?” I interrupted. “Him again.” I sat back down on the bench beside her. “Come on, Venus, I don’t give a fuck who his dad is, his name keeps popping up every fucking time I turn around.”

  “So, the marshalls ask all these questions about him, right? And the murder weapon belongs to his dad, right?” She shook her head. “I’m thinking they’re trying to pull some fast one, right? You know how things work around here.” She ran her hands over her hair. “I mean, we should be pulling him in for questioning—but when I bring it up, they clam up.”

  “They didn’t say anything else?”

  “Nothing. That was it. Wouldn’t answer any of my other questions—they just left, after warning me to keep my nose out of the case. So the ADA put together the paperwork to drop the charges against Paul.” She finished her drink and toasted me with the empty cup. “And then, a few hours later, Paul disappears.”

  “That’s why you showed up in a hurry when I called.” My heart was pounding.

  “I was afraid something might happen to him—another hunch, for what it’s worth.” She shook her hea
d.

  “What are you thinking?”

  She balled up her fists. “I don’t know. I was worried—and I didn’t know anything. Maybe we should have put him in protective custody, or at least assign a detail to keep an eye on him. My lieutenant refused, just based on a hunch.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry, Chanse.”

  “Where do you think he is?” My heart was pounding. It was a struggle to keep breathing normally.

  “Look, I don’t know anything for a fact, OK? But the Feds and the U.S. Attorney? That usually means the mob. Add in Ricky Dahlgren…and you’ve got the Santini crime family. No one has seen or heard from Ricky since Zane saw him going back to the slave quarter Monday night.”

  “He’s disappeared?”

  “The Santinis might have put out a hit on him, to teach Judge Dahlgren a lesson. Maybe Mark Williams got in the way. And then Paul—“

  “—walks into the middle of everything.” I finished for her. I felt sick. Lunch was going to come back up if I wasn’t careful. I sucked on an ice cube for a minute. “But what about Ricky’s body? If they hit him back there—“

  “Maybe they’re holding him, as leverage. I don’t know. But Paul didn’t know anything about it--anything. Talk about wrong place at the wrong time.” Venus patted my leg. “I interrogated him for hours. But it’s possible he did see something and didn’t realize it was important, I don’t know—you know how that goes. Then again, he might not have seen anything. But the killer didn’t know that….if it was the mob, he might been considered a—“ she swallowed, “—a loose end.”

  The world seemed to have stopped. The sun was still shining, the wind still blowing, but everything else was suspended in that moment. All I could hear was the beat of my heart in my ears, the sound of my lungs filling with air. I didn’t want to say it, but had to. “You think Paul’s dead, don’t you?”

  “They’d have no reason to leave him alive. I’m sorry, Chanse.” She took a deep breath. “I called his parents. They haven’t heard from him. I talked to his co-workers. Nothing. Do you know of anywhere else he might be?”