Murder in the Rue St. Ann

by Greg Herren

  “Then who beat off on his bed?” She crossed her arms. “This email was weird, wasn’t it? This ‘wrestlejude’ thought it was weird, right? Why?”

  I gave her Jude’s reasons and shrugged. “So it’s different.”

  “Chanse.” Paige lit a cigarette. “I don’t think it’s weird that Paul would email this guy instead of you; if he went away to think about things, you’d be the last person he’d want to contact.” She held up her hand. “Don’t interrupt—I’m sorry, but you know I’m right. But why would Paul email this guy instead of ME?”

  “What?”

  “Chanse, I know you find this hard to believe, but Paul and I are friends.” Paige shrugged. “We’ve talked a lot, we’ve hung out and had fun together, even when you weren’t there. And you know if Paul is anything, he’s thorough. Almost obsessive.”

  “So?” I shrugged.

  “Suppose Paul wanted to let you know he was okay and just needed space—wouldn’t it make more sense for him to email me?” Paige rolled her eyes. “Come on—he gives the message to someone you’ve never met, have only talked to once? How did he know Jude would tell you?”

  “Maybe he trusts Jude?”

  “It’s just not Paul.” Paige walked over to me and knelt in front of me. “Look, honey, I know you want to believe he’s still alive. Trust me, I do too. I’m still holding out hope—but we can’t grasp at straws either. Paul might not have sent that email.”

  “Then who did?” I turned back to the computer and pulled up my email folder. The forwarded email from Jude was there. I opened it and read it quickly. It was exactly what Jude had read to me, and the time it was sent was in the upper right hand corner.

  “Paul never left Jeff.” Paige said after scanning it quickly. “Jude was right about that.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Paul and I talked about Jeff. They were still friends, you know.”

  I hadn’t known. “They still talked?”

  “About once a week.” Paige stared at the screen. “Paul told me part of the reason their relationship didn’t work was because they never fought. They just kept drifting apart until it was like they were just roommates. I wonder if Paul could have been trying to tell us something?”

  “I thought Paul didn’t send this.” I couldn’t keep the nasty note out of my voice.

  She glanced at me, then said through gritted teeth, “Operating on the assumption Paul sent this, maybe he was being coerced. So he was trying to get a message to us through Jude. Maybe it didn’t make sense to Jude because the message was meant for us, not him.”

  I looked at the screen. There it was at the bottom. Love, Paul. No x’s, no o’s. “Maybe he was trying to tell me he loved me—Jude would be sure to notice he signed it love.”

  She patted my leg. “Maybe. But this stuff about Jeff…I wonder…pull up the Dallas phone directory.” I obliged. She reached over me and typed Jeff’s name into the ‘search’ window. The listing popped up. She flipped open her phone and dialed. She tapped her foot while it rang. “Damn it, I’ve got the machine….um, hello, Jeff, this is Paige, a friend of Paul’s in New Orleans…would you mind giving me a call when you get this?” She left her number and hung up. “All right, I’m going to run. I’ve got some things to do before I call it a night.” She opened her purse and handed me a file folder. “I printed out everything I could find on Lexis-Nexus on Charles Wyatt. I couldn’t find anything on that Ed Smith.’”

  “Thanks.” I put the folder down on my desk and walked her out to her car.

  Before she left, she rolled the car window down. “Honey, I know you don’t want to hear this—but you have to prepare for the possibility—“

  “You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.”

  She started the car and drove off. I walked back into my apartment. No, as long as I refused to believe it, he was alive. It wasn’t rational, I knew that, but I believed it in my heart.

  My phone started ringing. I picked it up. “MacLeod.”

  “Mr. MacLeod, this is Lois Dahlgren. Do you have some free time tomorrow morning?” Her voice was soft. “I’d like to talk to you about my son.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  My appointment with Mrs. Dahlgren was for noon, so I set my alarm for eight and went to bed around midnight.

  She hadn’t been forthcoming with much information and had evaded all of my questions—“I prefer to discuss this in person, Mr. MacLeod” was all she would say. After I got off the phone with her, my mind was fried, so I smoked some more pot and idly watched television. I looked through the folder on Wyatt that Paige left, but all I got from it was the certainty he was, indeed, a mob lawyer.

  I did some meditation exercises to clear my mind, and release some of tension. I needed to relax, and somehow managed it. When I went to bed, at first I couldn’t get past its empty feel, and had to clear my mind. Eventually, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

  I woke a few minutes before the alarm, showered and made coffee before calling the mechanic. They hadn’t gotten to it yet, which figured. I made a rental car reservation and called a cab to go pick it up. A half hour later I was heading home in a nice metallic blue Toyota something or another with a CD player. I still had a few hours before I had to head out to Metairie, so I decided to hit the gym.

  I’d gotten so used to going with Paul, it felt strange walking through the doors of Bodytech by myself. Alan Gardner, who owns and runs the place, was working at the front desk as usual. He’s a good-looking guy with big front teeth that gives him a kind of chipmunk look, but it works for him. “Morning Chanse.” He said as I handed him my membership card. “Where’s Paul? Out of town?”

  “At his parents’.” I said without even thinking twice. Alan was a notorious gossip. Telephone, telegram, tell-Alan, was the joke around the gym.

  “Kind of a shock about Mark Williams, huh?”

  I had started to turn away from the counter, but turned back. “Did you know him?”

  “He used to work out here.” Alan leaned on the counter. “He asked me to pose for the cover of Attitude once.” He laughed. “Like Greg would have ever allowed me to do that!” Greg Buchmaier was his life partner.

  “I only met him once.” I replied. “Did you like him?”

  “Ah, he was okay.” Alan waved a hand dismissively, “He was nice, you know, but always kind of smarmy.”

  “Smarmy?”

  “Oily. Slick. The kind of guy who thinks everyone has to like him, so he’ll say what he thinks you want to hear. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.” Maybe Alan liked to gossip, but he was an excellent judge of character. He’d managed to sum up exactly how I’d felt about Mark after meeting him. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

  “When he started up that pr business, he was always after me to hire him.” Alan got himself a protein drink out of the cooler. “I just didn’t see how he could help me, and told him so, but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.” He twisted off the top and tossed it in a trashcan. “Guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Shame.”

  “Yeah.” I picked up my bag and headed for the locker room. There were about ten people working out, more women than men, which was typical for this time of day. The guy doing squats on the Smith machine looked slightly familiar. I tried to place where I saw him before as I put my bag into a locker. It’s a fun little exercise I play from time to time. You live in New Orleans long enough, you see people all the time that you’ve seen before, and I try to place them. Did he work at my favorite coffeeshop? Had I seen him in a bar sometime? Was he a waiter somewhere I’d eaten lately?

  When I walked out of the locker room he was standing by a machine, drinking out of a bottle of water. He was a little shorter than me and was wearing New Orleans Hornets basketball shorts that hung loosely to just past his knees. A white tank top fit snugly over a muscular tanned torso. His hair was short and dark. He nodded at me when he saw me looking. I nodded back and walked over to the curl
bars.

  I was halfway through my first set of preacher curls when I remembered where’d I’d seen him.

  Danny DeMarco. Zane’s dinner date the night Mark was killed.

  I finished my set and walked over to him. He let out a loud gasp as he finished his set, and stood there, panting for a moment. “Hey.” He finally said, reaching for his water bottle.

  “You’re Danny DeMarco, right?”

  He nodded, holding the bottle. “Yeah, so?”

  “I’m Chanse MacLeod, Have you got a minute?” I held out my hand, which he shook for a second. His hands were warm and sweaty.

  “Yeah, I’m done for today. What?” He looked at me warily. His eyes were large and brown. “I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “No.” He was in his early twenties. Why do guys that age always think people are hitting on them?

  “You had dinner with Zane Rathburn the other night.”

  “Yeah. So? You a cop?” He looked me up and down.

  “No, I’m a private eye.”

  He shrugged. “Look, I told the cops already—he met me at the Moon Wok around seven. We had dinner and he left around 9:30. I walked to my car and went home. I haven’t seen or talked to him since.”

  “Why did you have dinner with him?”

  “We’re friends.” He shrugged. “”I met him when I posed for the magazine cover. He was nice, so we had dinner a couple of times.”

  “Did you know Mark Williams?”

  “That’s who asked me to pose for the cover.” He wiped his forehead with a towel. “I said sure, went over to their office and posed. It took maybe an hour. I talked to Zane a little bit, and I was going to get something to eat, and he was hungry, so we went together. He called me and invited me to dinner another time—this was the third time we’d had dinner. No big.”

  “What did you think of Mark?”

  “Nice guy.” He made a face. “Not like some of the guys around here, you know what I mean? He was gay, but he knew I was straight and respected that. Nice. You wouldn’t believe some of the guys around here.” He shuddered. “I don’t mind if they look, you know, but it pisses me off when they follow me into the locker room, or watch me shower—stuff like that.” He took another swig of water.

  Nice. “What about Zane?”

  “Ah, Zane knew better than to try anything.” Danny grinned. “He was pretty cool. He just wanted some advice about working out, asked me about my girlfriend, how school was going—nice guy, like I said.”

  “You didn’t sense he had a crush or anything?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “If Zane had a crush on anyone, it was Mark.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “He was always watching him when he didn’t think anyone was watching.” Danny grinned. “Anything else? I need to get going or I’ll be late to class.”

  “Nah, Thanks.”

  I went back over to the preacher curl bench and launched into a second set and tried to put everything out of my mind but it kept wandering back to Paul. I finished and showered there. As I soaped up my body, the hot water coursing over me, I thought about what Danny’d said. It didn’t really make much of a difference if Zane had a crush on Mark—although it would explain why he didn’t like Ricky. I doubted it was enough to drive Zane to kill Mark. I’d already planned to stop by Zane’s after seeing Mrs. Dahlgren. Ricky, though, seemed to be the key to everything. Mark had taken $20,000 out of the bank and within a few hours was dead.

  Where was the money?

  Venus surely would have said something to me about it if the police had found it,

  The Dahlgrens lived in old Metairie. Old Metairie was one of the original suburbs of the city, until New Orleans had kept growing out in that direction, eventually surrounding it and absorbing it. There was a distinct difference between old Metairie and Metairie proper. Old Metairie had money; old houses and beautiful streets lined with swamp oaks. I got off the highway at the City Park exit and turned back under I-10, heading onto Old Metairie Road.

  The Dahlgren house was a replica of an old plantation house. The red brick house had a wide veranda supported by marble columns and a large expanse of perfectly coiffed emerald green grass in front. The only thing missing was a cotton field stretching into the distance behind it. I pulled into the driveway, noting that the three cars in front of mine were all Mercedes. I walked up the brick walk, climbed the steps and rang the bell next to the oak front door. I heard footsteps, then the door opened.

  “Mr. MacLeod?” It was a young black woman wearing a maid’s uniform, complete with white apron.

  “Yes.”

  She held the door open for me, then quickly shut it without a sound. “Mrs. Dahlgren is waiting for you in the breakfast room.” She indicated a door right off the hallway.

  I walked under a massive chandelier and past a wide hanging stair. A huge portrait of a woman dressed in eighteenth century costume hung on the yellow wall just above the curved stairway. I walked through the doorway and stepped back into time about a century.

  The small room was completely furnished with well polished antiques. A huge grandfather clock was pushed up against one wall. There was a small mahogany table with a lace tablecloth in the center of the room. Huge mirrors set in gilt frames hung opposite each other on the walls. The one window was deep inset with a blue velvet pillow covering the windowseat. It matched the curtains that hung on either side.

  The woman seated there set down her copy of Architectural Digest and stood, walking toward me with her arm outstretched. Lois Dahlgren was not tall, but her slender straight body gave the illusion of more height. She was wearing a white silk blouse with black slacks over matching pumps. The pearl necklace hanging around her neck matched the pearls at both ears. Her silvery hair was swept back into a French braid hanging down her back. Her make-up was perfectly applied, although the skin around her eyes looked a little too tight. The deep sockets of her bluish-gray eyes were a dead give away that she’d had her eyes done more than once. Still, she walked with the air of confidence only money and privilege can give someone. She extended her right hand to me and I could see a huge ruby inset with diamonds that dwarfed her ring finger. “Mr. MacLeod, thank you for joining me. Can I offer you tea? Coffee?” I shook her limp hand for a moment, just a quick pump. The skin felt delicate, hot and papery. Her nails were long, with French tips

  “Coffee.”

  She smiled, and walked over to the table. She poured me a cup of dark black coffee from a silver coffee pot. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Both, please.”

  “Ah.” She nodded, adding cream from a silver creamer and a couple of lumps of sugar into the delicate cup of bone china. She set it down, then poured a cup for herself. “Please, Mr. MacLeod, have a seat.” Her voice still retained its Mobile accent, and I noted little lines around the bright red lips.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down. She sat directly across the table from me. I smiled and took a sip of the coffee. I set it back down in its matching saucer. She was watching me, her eyes slightly narrowed. I cleared my throat. “Frankly, Mrs. Dahlgren, I don’t know why I’m here.”

  “Don’t you, Mr. MacLeod?” Ice dangled from each word.

  “No.”

  “You don’t know where my son is, do you?”

  “No.” I stared at her. What the hell?

  She stared back into my eyes for a minute, then sat back with a sigh, her face relaxing. She exhaled. “I didn’t think so.” She picked up her cup. I noticed her hand was shaking a bit. “It was a long shot, but—“ she trailed off. She reached for a silver cigarette case. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “No.”

  She lit one and inhaled deeply. She flicked ash into a crystal ashtray.

  “Mrs. Dahlgren, why am I here?”

  She took a deep breath. “My son is missing, Mr. MacLeod. We last heard from him on Friday morning.” Her free hand started toying with her pearls. “He was going to Hou
ston to visit a friend from college—and he never arrived.”

  “Why would you think I’d know where he was?” I took another drink of the jet-fuel strength coffee. “Besides, he was seen in the Quarter on Monday night.”

  “That’s a lie.” She said softly. She tugged on the pearls, twisting them around her hand. “If he were still in town, he would have called; or come home one night.”

  She sounded just like Mrs. Maxwell, talking about Paul. “No offense, Mrs. Dahlgren, but maybe—“

  “Oh, he thought he was keeping secrets from me, but I knew what he was up to.” She went on. “I knew all about his lover in the Quarter. New Orleans is a very small town, you know. Maybe I should have said something to him about it, but I thought he’d tell me when he was ready. And whenever he was staying down there, he always called and checked in. He knew how important it was to me.”

  “Why would you think I’d know anything?”

  “You’re a private eye, aren’t you? You’ve been nosing into things down there. I thought maybe you’d have heard something you hadn’t shared with the police.” She poured herself another cup of coffee. Some splashed out into the saucer. “You have to understand, Mr. MacLeod, what things have been like around here since this stupid trial fell onto my husband’s case load.” She sipped the coffee. “The threats, the phone calls—Ricky knew how important it was to me for him to check in. But not a word since he walked out of the house Friday morning.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Of course.” She looked at me like I was stupid. “And the marshals. And—nothing.” She rubbed her eyes. “I was hoping you might have—might have found something.”

  “Why are you so certain Ricky wasn’t in the Quarter on Monday night?”

  She paused for a moment, her throat working, no words coming out. “He wasn’t staying where he usually stayed when he didn’t come home.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “My husband might not have wanted marshals to protect us, but I did.” Her eyes flashed. “I called that U. S. Attorney myself. I told him since the Judge had said no, he couldn’t know about it. It’s all well and good for him to not want to ‘live in fear’ but I wasn’t about to risk my children’s lives of for his principles.”