The Last Man to Die (The Micah Dunn Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  All of a sudden I found myself asking what Max Chantry would have done. Would he have drunk himself to sleep over some woman, or would he have fought for what he wanted? Katherine wasn’t an object to be wrestled over: She had a mind of her own.

  “But it’s no sin to help her make up her mind,” said Max.

  “How? Do you want me to sling her over my shoulder and carry her off kicking and screaming? You lived in another time. Things have changed.”

  “Have they?” Max asked.

  I took another slug of coffee: Things were bad when I was starting to hold silent conversations with myself.

  Madeline Gourrier lived in a white two-story with azaleas in front, and big pillars framing the open porch. There was no driveway and I couldn’t tell if any of the cars parked along the street belonged to the house.

  I pressed the button and heard chimes deep inside. Then there were footsteps and the door opened.

  “Yes?” The woman looking out at me was not more than twenty-five, with ash-blond hair gathered at the neck. She had good features, except that her chin was a little weak. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the rest of her, except that I thought I detected a certain nervousness. Maybe it was the sideways stance she took, or maybe it was just the way her eyes met mine, darted away, and came back to look over my shoulder as if they were part of a target-acquisition system.

  “My name is Dunlap,” I said, handing her my Universal Adjusters card. “I’m handling a claim on an accident and I was given the name of a Madeline Gourrier as one of the parties.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” she said quickly, and started to close the door; then she halted. “I’m Madeline Gourrier.”

  “I have a white ’eighty-four Mustang that hit your car,” I said.

  She shook her head. “No. That’s impossible. There’s nothing wrong with my car. No accident.”

  I pretended to consult my notebook.

  “What kind of car was it you said you had?”

  “A red ’ninety Firebird,” she said, nodding over my shoulder. “It’s there at the curb.”

  “I see. Well, maybe I can clear this up. It’s probably a computer glitch. Could I have your place of employment, Miss Gourrier?”

  “I …” She gave a little shake of the head. “I really have to go.”

  The door shut in my face and I waited a few seconds, then turned and walked back to the street.

  I hadn’t been able to see much over her shoulder, but I could smell, and the fragrance of incense still tickled my nose. And in the second or two I’d waited before turning around I thought I’d heard a man’s voice inside.

  No crime there, of course.

  I went past the Firebird, noted its plate number as a matter of habit, and got back into my car.

  Maybe, I thought, I should wait a little while and see if anything developed.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes later the front door opened, but it wasn’t Madeline Gourrier who came out. It was a man in a light blue sport shirt with crazy red lines. As he came down the walk I saw that he was wearing a mask, but by the time he reached the street I realized it wasn’t a mask at all, it was his face, pasty white as if somebody had sprinkled it with talcum. He headed for a brown Cutlass and almost pulled the door off, then slammed it hard enough to send echoes off the houses across the street. I didn’t like what I was feeling, and I opened my own door to get out as I heard his engine roar to life. His car started toward me before I was all the way out of my car and I yanked my door back onto myself as he shot by, dough-face turning just a fraction in my direction as he shot by.

  I watched him disappear at the first corner and then went back up the walk to the house.

  It was the design on his shirt that sent chills up my back and when I looked down at the doorknob I knew I was right: It was streaked with red, too.

  I shoved the door and it came open.

  That was when I should have backed off and called the cops.

  They’d come and cordon everything off and that would be that.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d decided not to do the right thing.

  I flipped on the light and gritted my teeth. The room looked like a cyclone had torn through it—furniture upended and pictures askew on the walls. A couple of red streaks on the wallpaper told me she’d put up a fight.

  I made my way through the living room, avoiding the wreckage, and went into the bedroom.

  She was lying face-up on the bed, buoyed by a crimson bedspread. There were other crimson smears on the bedside table, and the outline of a shoe on the rug.

  I bent over to touch her. She was still warm, but there was no carotid pulse.

  Her throat had been cut and there were slash marks on her arms where she had tried to ward off the knife. She was staring past me, at the ceiling, her lips parted as if for that last gasp of air. I turned away and looked for a phone.

  It was on the floor, the receiver off the hook. I picked the instrument up, using my handkerchief, and punched in Mancuso’s number with one finger. I’d rather deal with somebody I knew than take my chances with 911.

  It was my luck he was there.

  I told him what I had and hung up. That left me maybe five minutes more by myself.

  I scanned the room and saw what I was looking for: her purse, resting against the closet door. I tiptoed over, lifted it by a strap, and went to the other side of the room to examine its contents.

  The first thing I noticed was that Madeline Gourrier didn’t live here. Or, at least, she hadn’t when she’d applied for her last driver’s license, a year ago. At that time she’d lived in an apartment near the lake. I wrote down the number and the other data: That she was twenty-five had a Social Security number that made her a native of the state, and that she’d agreed to be an organ donor. Poor Madeline.

  I replaced the license and thumbed through the credit cards.

  Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Maison Blanche: Nothing unusual there. Over five hundred dollars in cash: That did surprise me.

  A packet of Trojans.

  A rent receipt issued by Gascoyne Enterprises, for the current address. The date was the day before yesterday.

  I was still contemplating the latter when I heard a siren. I closed the billfold and dropped it back into her purse, then replaced the purse where I had found it and threaded my way back out into the living room to await the law.

  CHAPTER 5

  “So you think this is connected with the Chantry thing?” Sal Mancuso asked as we stood outside under one of the oaks. Photos had been taken and the corpse had been removed. A yellow ribbon cordoned off the front yard from the curious, who had gathered in little knots along the street: People aren’t used to murders in the Garden District.

  “It’s just a hunch,” I told him. “But it sounds like somebody was trying to take the Busby girl out of circulation until Chantry got buried again.”

  “Then they changed their mind?”

  “I went to see Chantry’s widow. Maybe that scared somebody. Maybe they realized taking the Busby girl out of the picture wouldn’t do any good.”

  Mancuso shook his head.

  “I dunno. Madeline Gourrier was a joy girl. I ran her as soon as I got your call. Two busts for prostitution in the last two years. You know there’s nothing new about a whore getting her throat cut.” He chuckled grimly. “The only thing different is that she rented a mansion in the Garden District.”

  “I’d still like to have somebody put on Carol Busby.”

  The policeman blew out. “Like to, but we just don’t have the manpower. Look, I’ll ask the uniforms to swing by her place every so often, that’s the best I can do. Where does she live?”

  I realized then that I didn’t know.

  “I’ll find out,” I told him. “In the meantime, she and her partner have a business address on Green.” I gave him the street number.

  “Bad neighborhood,” Mancuso said. “They probably need a patrol
anyway.”

  “Any ideas about the killer?” I asked. “There can’t be too many around with a face like his.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.” Mancuso shrugged. “But we’ll have you look at the mug books.”

  I went downtown to sign a statement and look at photos, but by noon I hadn’t found anybody that fit the description of the man who’d come out of the house. When I was finished I drove over to Geofind but no one was there. I got a plate of red beans and rice at a neighborhood restaurant where you could load your plate for five dollars.

  Why would anybody kill to prevent some useless research? Had Carol been right in thinking the research was an attempt to keep her from digging into the Max Chantry affair? If so, who stood to lose from reopening a forty-three-year-old case? The widow? She clearly had loved her husband. All indications were that the Mob had killed Max, maybe with the help of some crooked politicians. A lady like Lydia Chantry Goodfather didn’t know mobsters. And I doubted she knew any crooked politicians.

  The son, Julius, was a possibility. But what would his motive be? He’d only been eight or nine when his father had vanished. None of it made sense.

  And maybe, I thought, that was the whole point: Often life doesn’t make sense, and people like Madeline Gourrier can be killed almost randomly. Maybe it wasn’t connected to anything.

  But my gut told me different.

  I found a phone book and looked up Gascoyne Enterprises. It would take the cops a while to sort things out, and the murder wouldn’t be on the news yet. I might just be able to ask a few questions before the first detective arrived. If I was lucky I might even be gone: They wouldn’t be happy to find me butting in.

  The Gascoyne office was just over the parish line, on that part of Airline Highway people called the Strip. It was a run-down brick building sandwiched between a no-tell motel and a liquor store. The other suites in the structure were taken up by a collection agency, something that called itself a PR firm, and a social worker in private practice. The cars outside varied from a pre-OPEC Cadillac, outside the collection agency, to a late-model Honda, in front of the social worker’s door. The space in front of the real estate office was vacant, but maybe they were parked on the street.

  The woman at the front desk was in her forties, and about fifty pounds overweight. She was eating a takeout salad, and she put down her fork when I walked in.

  I handed her my Creditnet card.

  “My name is Dunmore and I’m doing a credit check on a Madeline Gourrier.” So long as you came across confidently, most people accepted the phony business card at face value. It was one of my standard ploys.

  The woman wiped her mouth with a napkin and moved the Styrofoam container to the floor.

  “I’m sorry, I was taking a late lunch.”

  “No problem,” I said, and gave her the address. “She told us she rented from you folks.”

  The woman frowned. “The name sounds familiar. But I see so many checks and so many leases. Let me get the file. Or would you rather wait and talk to Mr. Lorio? He’s the manager.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine,” I reassured her. She seemed eager to please, and who could tell about the manager?

  She went to a filing cabinet and after a few seconds of confusion came up with a file.

  “Here it is,” she said triumphantly, setting it down on her desk amidst several flecks of lettuce left over from lunch. “Now I remember. It was just a couple of days ago. She gives National Bank of Commerce as a credit reference.”

  I fished my notebook out of my top left pocket and set it down on her desk, then copied the information with my pen as she watched.

  Realization slowly dawned:

  “Oh, you hurt your arm.”

  “Yeah.”

  “An accident?”

  “In the war. A long time ago.”

  An idea hit me, and I dropped my pen.

  “Damn.” I picked it up and tried to write with it again, but this time the notebook slid off.

  “I need a hand copier,” I muttered.

  The woman frowned. “Why don’t I just make a copy for you?”

  A minute later she’d handed me a duplicate file, and I thanked her. As I drove away I suffered one of my periodic bouts of self-doubt. It was a hell of a business to be in.

  Back at the office I started a new file. For a long time I stared at the folder, trying to decide what to call it. I finally scribbled “Chantry/Gourrier” at the top. Then I stapled the real estate file to it and read over it for the first time.

  Madeline Fay Gourrier gave her previous address as an apartment in the Quarter. She had made a $700 damage deposit, which the receipt copy listed as cash.

  It was the employment blank that interested me the most, though, along with the personal references. She worked at the Class Act Modeling Agency, whose address was a post office box on the west bank. Her personal references were a Mr. Joe Hunt, who was given as manager of said agency, and a Betty Ray Martello, with an address on Lowerline.

  I started to call Mancuso, to ask what the police had on the Class Act, but I knew my meddling would not be appreciated. I opted for the Better Business Bureau instead.

  They’d never heard of it.

  It was time I went down to the Voodoo shop.

  He called himself Henri LaVelle, and he ran a phony witchcraft emporium in the space just below my apartment. From Decatur, you could go straight into his lair, or turn right and up the steps to my office.

  His real name was David Erickson, but he didn’t like to hear it, especially not with tourists in the shop. And he had a couple of them when I walked in.

  They were a man and a woman, the man fat and balding with a camera around his neck, and the woman gray-haired and paunchy, in shorts that did her no good.

  All I could catch was that LaVelle was offering them a lock of Marie Laveau’s hair. He didn’t specify whether it was Marie mère or fille. Both had been Voodoo queens in the last century. In this case it didn’t matter: I knew what he was selling them was horsehair.

  He frowned as he saw me approach.

  I stood back and let him work. He wasn’t the best con artist I’d ever seen, but these weren’t the smartest people. They liked the idea that he kept the relic in a safe instead of under counter glass; the fact that he had to spin a dial to get to it must mean something.

  The man said he didn’t believe in Voodoo but he was a collector of historic objects. His wife reached out to touch the fake hair and then drew her hand back quickly.

  At first LaVelle said he couldn’t part with it, but he was showing it to them because they were interested. It was when he moved to put it back into the safe that the man made his offer.

  LaVelle told him fifty dollars was unthinkable.

  He finally parted with it for a hundred and the couple walked out, happy.

  LaVelle came out from behind the counter, his face wet with perspiration.

  “New York,” he said. “Can you believe they don’t know horsehair from what grows on your head?”

  I gave his spade-shaped beard a gentle tug. “You’d better start using the real thing or somebody’s going to catch on.”

  His hand shot up as if to assure himself that the beard was still there, and he relaxed slightly.

  “I couldn’t provide the genuine thing for the price of the article I just sold. So what’s going on, Micah? You never come down here except to ask a favor. What is it you want from me now?”

  I gave an elaborate shrug. “Nothing. I was just passing the time.”

  “Sure. What is it: You want me to introduce you to a practitioner of the black arts? Another banker’s little girl run away to a cult?”

  “That happened once,” I reminded him.

  “But I helped you, didn’t I? And the Spider Woman? I gave you everything you needed to wrap that one up, too.”

  I flinched at the thought of the bruises I’d suffered on a staircase, rescuing Katherine’s son, Scott.

  “But when I
asked you to store some gris-gris once, you threw ’em all away. Costing me thousands, I might add.”

  “Your charms were rotting monkey paws you were passing off as the hands of executed murderers,” I said. “You stuck the damn things in my refrigerator.”

  “They had to go somewhere,” he sniffed.

  “Look,” I said, tired of the sparring. “You ever heard of something called the Class Act Modeling Agency? It seems to be located on the west bank.”

  LaVelle’s dark brows furrowed, adding to his Mephistophelean look.

  “Can’t say I have. Why should I? I don’t have any use for models. Or were you thinking it was something else?”

  “The latter.”

  “Ahhh.”

  “What about the name Joe Hunt? Mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  I played my last card: “Ever heard of a small-timer with a face that looks like it got dunked in lye?” I described the man who’d left the Gourrier house. “Likes to use a knife.”

  LaVelle sighed. “I know some people who like to use whips. But not knives. I keep away from that kind.”

  “Well, do me a favor and ask around, okay?”

  “My God, what kind of company do you think I keep?”

  “Thanks, Henri.”

  His face perked up.

  “Good God, Micah, do you realize that’s the first time you’ve ever called me by my first name?”

  “Maybe so,” I said.

  “I’ll do what I can,” he promised. As I turned to go, his voice caught me: “By the way, when’s Katherine coming back? When she was home last month I barely got to see her. A wonderful lady. I hope you realize how very lucky you are.”

  I left him in his shop and went up the steps to my office. I took a seat behind my desk, listening to the muffled noise of traffic down on Decatur and thought how lucky I was.

  The breakup with Katherine had started a year ago, when her son had insisted on involving himself in one of my cases. She’d been against it from the start and I’d warned Scott off for her sake, but he’d gone ahead and damn near gotten himself killed. She’d never been able to shake the suspicion that I’d tacitly encouraged him.