Murder in the Rue Ursulines

by Greg Herren

  It wasn’t the first time this had happened to me. No matter how many times it happens, though, you never get used to it. You go through life always expecting things to be the same, or the changes to be small and gradual. You never think about all the horrible things that could happen to take the wind out of your sails and knock you off your feet. The first time my life had changed due to circumstances beyond my control was when Paul died. The second time was Hurricane Katrina, obviously. The evacuation, the destruction, the long time away, the return to a city that at the time seemed—and sometimes still seemed—broken beyond repair; the way of life that all of us who lived in New Orleans had known and loved and somehow taken for granted was gone forever. Again, I began dividing my life into before and after.

  But this wasn’t the same. My therapist was helping me deal with my feelings of guilt over Paul’s death, and I was coping with it a lot better. The two ordeals, barely a year apart, had forced me to reevaluate my life and myself—who I was, the kind of person I was and the kind of person I wanted to be for the rest of my life. My therapist helped a lot—I was doing a lot better than I had been, and I’d was a better boyfriend to Allen than I had been to Paul. I no longer felt as though I needed to be punished, and the truth was, I had started to realize that I had always felt that I needed to be punished, and this went back to my childhood. A sense that I didn’t deserve good things to happen to me, and anything good that came into my life was just a tease, a tantalizing glimpse of what happiness could be—something to be yanked away from me just as I was beginning to enjoy myself and my life again.

  I’d really had no choice in either of those situations—Paul wasn’t kidnapped and murdered to punish me; it had happened because he had made soft-core porn wrestling videos and had attracted the notice of someone who belonged in a mental hospital. And the hurricane? Well, I have no control or say over the forces of nature, and it would have been the height of self-absorption to think that an entire city had been destroyed to punish me for any sins I may have committed in my life.

  This was different. This time I had a choice, some control over what was going to happen. I realized this as I sat there in my car waiting for the windshield to clear. I could be proactive and take charge of the situation. Frillian was going to do what was best for them. They didn’t care what impact all of this might have on me, my career and my life. Why should they? They were trying to protect their own careers, the life they’d built together, the work they were doing to rebuild New Orleans.

  I needed to do the same thing. I had a good life. I’d rebuilt it after the hurricane. I’d taken control. I’d gone to a therapist to work through all of my own issues. I was doing better emotionally. My career was going well. My personal life might not be the greatest, but I was working on it.

  It was a very bad situation for me. But I could take this bad situation and turn it into an opportunity. It would come at a price, of course.

  Everything does. It’s a question of being willing to pay that price.

  I could feel the anxiety rising again, and I cleared my mind again.

  Can your life bear that kind of scrutiny?

  “Stop it,” I said out loud. “Just don’t go there, Chanse.”

  .After I graduated from LSU and went to work as a cop in New Orleans, I scrimped and saved every cent I could, worked every overtime hour I could get my hands on, so that I could leave the force and go out on my own as a private eye. I was a good cop, but I hated being accountable to superiors with their own agendas and ambitions. My career with the force had no blemishes—those two years could certainly bear scrutiny.

  My first client as an investigator was my landlady, who was so grateful for the job I did for her that she’d reduced my rent to $100 a month and gotten me the gig with her company, Crown Oil. There are undoubtedly many negative things people could say about Barbara Castlemaine, and most of them were true. But it was also true that she never forgot when someone did her a good turn, and she was incredibly loyal. I knew I could count on her not to turn her back on me. There was also Paige—and Venus and Blaine. They’d stand by me. The Maxwells would, too.

  Was there anything I’d done in my work that wouldn’t bear scrutiny? Well, I had killed two men—that could easily be twisted into making me look bad. But they were both murderers, and in either case the district attorney’s office had closed the file without pressing charges. They’d determined I’d acted in self-defense, and the matters were closed. Still, an enterprising reporter or a lawyer trying to make me look bad could make something of that..

  The windshield finally cleared enough for me to see through, so I pulled out into the street and headed home.

  While I was stopped at the light at Canal Street, I relived that moment on the Rue Ursulines over and over in my head. Loren had done a pretty good job of shaking my confidence in my memory, but I was pretty certain I’d seen Freddy Bliss. It was definitely Freddy I’d seen. Yes, eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable, but I was trained to observe and notice things. I didn’t just think it was Freddy, it was Freddy Bliss under the street light. As I sat there, listening to Rihanna sing about her umbrella, I wished any number of things—that I hadn’t parked where I had; that I’d walked another block up Burgundy before turning the corner; that I hadn’t returned Loren’s call that morning. The credibility issue was going to be crucial: who would be believed, me or Frillian? They were going to alibi each other, and I knew that was a lie. I generally don’t like it when my clients lie to me, but their first concern wasn’t so much the murder investigation but preserving their careers. Of course they would alibi each other, and they were actors; they’d be convincing. And me? Who was I but a nobody private eye in New Orleans—a gay one, at that—who’d shot and killed two people?

  “Have you ever killed anyone, Mr. MacLeod?” I asked aloud as I waited for the light to change. “Oh, you’ve killed two men. Did you ever stand trial? No? Oh, you’ve killed twice in self-defense? What a dangerous line of work you’re in, Mr. MacLeod.”

  I shivered.

  How much scrutiny would my life bear?

  “So, stop thinking about it. Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing you can do to change anything at this point anyway.” The light changed as I scolded myself. I hit the gas pedal and flew across Canal Street. I remembered something else my mother used to say: There’s no sense in worrying about things you can’t control. That’s just borrowing trouble, and life gives you enough without having to borrow extra.

  I turned into my driveway. While I waited for the electronic gate to open, I felt the panic starting up again. I parked in the lot alongside the house and got control of my breathing again.

  “I’ve had a hell of a day,” I said out loud, grabbing my stash box from under the couch. I loaded my pipe, and took a long drag, letting the marijuana start clouding my brain. I reached from the remote control and turned on the television. It was past ten. The statement from Frillian was going out over the wire services as I sat there. Remembering Loren’s warning, I got up and unplugged my land line. I sat back down and looked up at the framed print of Paul over my mantelpiece. It was a black and white view of him from behind, seated in a chair. I thought about calling his mother, Fee. She’d been like a mother to me ever since Paul died. Originally from County Cork, she had Paul’s sparkling green eyes and an Irish brogue I could listen to all day long.

  But what could I tell her?

  “Sorry to bother you, Fee, but I seem to be in a bit of trouble. I got mixed up with some movie stars and now one of them is dead, and you’re probably going to be hearing all kinds of crazy shit about me in the media. Yeah, I know. Just don’t believe what you hear, okay?”

  Fee wasn’t the kind of person to put up with self-pity though. She’d just give me a long distance bitch slap and tell me to put my chin up.

  I took another hit and started laughing. She’d be right, too.

  I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine.

  “On
e hell of a day,” I toasted Paul’s picture, and took another hit of the pot.

  I sat down at the computer and logged on to the Internet. As soon as the home page loaded, a headline screamed at me: GLYNIS PARRISH MURDERED. “Damn, that was quick.” I thought, clicking on the link.

  “Emmy Award-winning actress Glynis Parrish, 34, best known for her long running role on the hit series SPORTSDESK, was found brutally murdered in New Orleans. Parrish was in New Orleans making a movie. Her body was found by her personal assistant, Rosemary Shannon, earlier this evening.

  “Parrish became a star playing the role of Gwen Newberry on the long-running television series, SPORTSDESK. After the show went off the air, she turned her attention to films, appearing in several critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including MARRY ME, a romantic comedy co-starring Ben Stiller. She was divorced from the actor Freddy Bliss after his very public affair with Oscar winner Jillian Long became headline news around the world while they were filming THE ODYSSEY.

  “A statement from the New Orleans Police Department stated that Parrish was killed by a single blow to the head, and the police are following several leads. The police are also looking for a possible witness. This witness allegedly claims to have seen a man leaving Parrish’ home around the time the murder took place.”

  What? I stared at the computer screen. How the hell did that already leak out? The only people who knew about my being a witness were Loren and Frillian…

  They’d leaked it to the press.

  But why would they do such a thing? That made no sense at all. If anything, they’d want to hide that information. What kind of game were they playing? I read on:

  “Freddy Bliss’s publicist released the following statement: ‘Freddy and Jillian are deeply saddened by this senseless tragedy. Their hearts go out to her family, friends and her fans, and they pledge to do everything they can to help bring her killer to justice. They are offering a ten thousand dollar reward for any information that leads to the arrest and conviction of her killer.”

  I whistled. That was a nice move. I wondered if it was their idea. Jillian was a very smart woman—and her people were going into major damage control. Of course, it was going to piss off the police. Rewards always brought the cranks out—and ten thousand dollars was a nice sum. Every lunatic in New Orleans who wanted ten grand was going to be calling the hotline number mentioned in the article—and in a high-profile case like this, every single lead was going to have to be checked out. They couldn’t take the chance that a lead, no matter how unlikely, might turn out to be the right one in the end.

  I could hear Venus swearing right now, and couldn’t help myself. I grinned.

  The New Orleans police department had not exactly had the best reputation before the flood—and the conduct of some larcenous officers during the flood had further damaged their reputation. A huge number of them had deserted their posts and evacuated. The department hadn’t yet recovered from those blows—and the constant focus of the national media on the rising crime rate here was even more damaging. They were having a tough time recruiting, and the city was on shaky financial footing to begin with. The reward hotline was going to bury them in work, chasing down leads on the chance it might actually be something. Everyone at City Hall would be applying whatever pressure they could on the department—and interfering in the investigation.

  And that didn’t even take the media into consideration.

  I could sympathize with the cops, but at the same time this was a lucky stroke for me.

  They wouldn’t welcome my own investigation, and I’d have to walk very carefully—but if I kept my head down, it was possible I could move faster then they could. I didn’t have to deal with the city politics—and hopefully not with the media either.

  I sipped my wine and looked at the clock in the lower right hand corner of my computer screen. It was just after ten; probably too late to call anyone. I checked the voicemail on my business line. No messages; no one had called me back from Glynis’s list of staff.

  I took another hit off my pipe and leaned back in my chair. Okay, Chanse, think about it. Who had access to Glynis’s house? Obviously, her staff did. Rosemary Shannon would be the primary suspect, if you hadn’t seen Freddy coming out of the house. But what motive would Rosemary have for killing her boss?

  I got a new spiral notebook out from a drawer where I kept fresh supplies and opened it to the first page. Okay, assume for a moment that Freddy didn’t kill Glynis. Pretend you didn’t see what you did this evening. Who would want Glynis dead?

  I sighed. I didn’t know enough. It always seemed to come back to Freddy and Jillian.

  I grabbed the e-mail folder and started leafing through it. Whoever sent the e-mails knew something about Freddy—something they obviously didn’t want to become public knowledge. But the one person who knew Freddy better than Jillian could only be his ex-wife.

  But whatever she might have known hadn’t concerned him enough to keep his fly zipped when he met Jillian—and if it hadn’t come up during the divorce, why would she wait three years to start threatening him?

  Unless it was something she’d only recently found out—some big secret he’d managed to keep from her the four years they were married.

  Something Freddy was willing to kill to keep secret—willing to risk the scandal of a murder trial to hide.

  In all the articles I’d read about Freddy earlier that day, I hadn’t seen anything about his family or his life before he became famous. The background was all sketchy—I reached from some of the pieces I’d printed out. He was born and raised in Newton, Kansas—no mention of family or siblings. He’d gone to Emporia State for two years before dropping out and heading to Hollywood. He’d become a star in less than two years after arriving in Southern California—and his life was pretty well-documented from that point on.

  So, it had to be something from his past—from Kansas.

  The combination of pot, wine and Mardi Gras exhaustion was making me sleepy. I yawned and did a search on Glynis Parrish. Again, there were hundreds of thousands of mentions of her on the web. I found a bio of her on a movie-star site and read through it quickly. She’d been born on Long Island, the oldest of three daughters. Her mother had been a bit of a stage mom; trying to get her oldest daughter into show business. Glynis had started doing commercials as an early teen, got some bit parts in movies and television shows, and then had guested on an episode of Law and Order, which brought her to the attention of the casting director for Sportsdesk. Once the show aired its first episode, it had been an instant hit and she’d become a big star; the ‘it’ girl of that television season.

  The rest was Hollywood history.

  I clicked through the gossip sites, and found no pieces about her personal life before she started dating Freddy. She’d gone to openings and awards shows with her mother as her date. Of course, after she started dating the sexy superstar, there were plenty of pieces on them. Glynis’s Desperate Desire to Have a Child—and other invasive things.. Then, of course, came the heartbreak of Freddy leaving her for Jillian, the divorce, and her courage in rebuilding her life.

  I frowned. They made it seem like she was the first woman whose husband had cheated on her.

  Since the divorce, she’d dated some other actors, but nothing serious.

  I’m seeing someone now, we aren’t ready for it to go public…

  I made a note. Rosemary Shannon would probably know the identity of the latest man in her life.

  It was pretty standard when someone was killed to look at the people closest to them. It was always loved ones who seemed to kill the objects of their affection. If a child disappeared and turned up dead, it always seemed to be one or both of the parents. It was enough to make you not want to fall in love, get close to anyone—it certainly increased the likelihood someone would kill you someday.

  So, it stood to reason that after Freddy, the man in her life was the most likely suspect. It was just a matter of
finding him. Why wasn’t she ‘ready to go public’? Was he married?

  That opened up a whole new line of thought—but my brain was getting fuddled.

  I stood up and stretched with a jawbreaking yawn. I was bone tired. The day had been an emotional roller-coaster, and I’d been tired when Loren’s call had awakened me. My bed was calling to me. I reached down and unplugged the landline, remembering Loren’s admonition. My cell phone number was unpublished—granted, it wouldn’t be hard for some enterprising reporter to dig up the number, so I set it to vibrate and left it sitting on my desk. I took Storm Bradley’s card out of my wallet and set it on the keyboard. I’d call him first thing in the morning.d just reached the corner of Barracks when my cell phone rang. I grinned, pulling it out of my jacket pocket, assuming it was Paige.

  The caller ID read LOREN MCKEITHEN.

  I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “MacLeod.” I said, wondering what this could be about.

  “Chanse, it’s Loren. How quickly can you get over to Freddy and Jillian’s?” His voice was tense, and warning bells went off in my head.

  “I’m not far. Probably about ten minutes, max,” I replied. “What’s going on?” This couldn’t be about the e-mails—that wasn’t really all that urgent. I felt goose bumps come out on my arms.

  “Get here. Now. It’s important.” He hung up.

  That didn’t sound good.

  “So much for things going so well,” I said out loud. Something had happened—only I couldn’t imagine for the life of me what that could be.

  I started walking faster.

  And I couldn’t help but hear my mother’s voice saying, Don’t ever tempt fate by talking about how good things are. That’s just asking for trouble. Fate will be more than happy to let you know who the real boss is.

  I hated that she was right.

  Chapter Seven

  I’d known Venus Casanova for almost ten years.

  She was a striking woman, not beautiful, but with the kind of arresting looks that not only catch your attention but hold it. Her skin was dark and ageless—she looked like she could be anywhere from thirty to somewhere in her fifties. She had strong features and prominent cheekbones from native American blood somewhere in the distant past. She always wore her hair cropped close to the scalp, and was one of the few women I knew who could get away with it. She was about six-one or two, and her body was muscular and defined. Like me, she’d gone to LSU on an athletic scholarship (hers was for basketball, and she’d played on the national team) and had kept her body in shape since then. She was the first black woman to make detective grade in the New Orleans police department—a combination guaranteed to make her unpopular.