Murder in the Garden District (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) (12 page)

I crawled on my stomach across the Oriental carpet between the couch and the coffee table. If I’d stood there a couple of seconds longer, I’d be dead now. I pushed the panic down as best I could. I had to get my gun. I had to get to my phone. I had to get help.

I managed to reach my desk. I opened the bottom drawer, retrieved the gun and willed my hands to stop shaking so I could make sure it was loaded. I switched the safety off and sat with my back to the desk. I had a clear view of the front door and a clear shot at anyone who approached it. I flipped open my cell phone and somehow hit speed dial.

“Casanova.”

“Venus, it’s Chanse.” I focused on controlling my breathing, fighting down the hysteria threatening to take over. “Someone just shot out the window in my front door.” I took another deep breath. “The bullet missed me by inches.”

She immediately went into cop mode. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“I’ll call for backup. We’re on our way.”

I closed the phone and let it drop to the floor. Both my arms were bleeding where the glass had nicked me. Splinters of glass embedded in my skin twinkled in the morning light. Now that I’d noticed them, they stung. I brushed at the splinters with my gun, stood up and leaned against the desk. I heard sirens, getting closer.

Why would someone shoot at me? Cordelia?

I remembered Loren’s warning: You don’t want to get on her bad side.

“That’s crazy,” I said aloud. So far, I hadn’t really turned up anything the police couldn’t have found. There was no reason for Cordelia to have me shot. Sure, Abby had talked to Carey, but Cordelia didn’t know Abby worked for me. Even if Carey said something to her, Abby’s cover as a friend of his sister’s should have worked, although Alais could have exposed the lie.

I dismissed that. Alais was depressed and on medication. Carey had told Abby she didn’t talk to anyone. He may have thought that if he mentioned it to her she would talk to him, but most likely it hadn’t gone any further than that. It had to be something—or someone—else.

Who had I pissed off enough to want me dead? You can’t be a private eye without making enemies. I ran through recent cases in my mind, but nothing, no one, came to me.

“You’re not thinking too clearly.”

I laughed when I realized I was talking out loud. I heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Chanse?” Venus called.

“I’m in here, Venus.”

I heard a couple of other cars drive up, car doors slamming. Venus gave instructions to other officers outside. I willed myself to walk to the door. Even with the police there, I wouldn’t stand in front of it. I just turned the key in the deadbolt, to unlock it.

“Come on in,” I said.

I breathed a sigh of relief as Venus and Blaine walked in, guns drawn. They stepped over the broken glass.

“You okay?” Blaine asked, giving me a once-over.

I raised my shaking arms. “Shook up, mostly. Some cuts from the glass. Nothing serious.”

Venus wore a gray pantsuit with a red silk blouse. Her face was all sharp angles made even more prominent by her hair cut close to the scalp. She glanced at the wall where the pocket doors between the living room and the kitchen area were stored, and went to a hole in the plaster to the left of the doorway. “Here’s the slug,” she said. She looked at me critically. “Go put some clothes on,” she directed.

I went to the bedroom and threw on a pair of black sweatpants, an LSU National Champions T-shirt and my house shoes. I brushed glass splinters off my arms in the bathroom, wincing a bit, and started the hot water running. Thin trails of blood webbed my forearms. I splashed water on my face and took a few deep breaths before washing off the blood. I put bandages on some of the bigger cuts and returned to the living room.

“From the trajectory of the bullet, whoever shot at you was shooting down,” Venus said as I stood next to her. She looked out the broken window. Someone had pulled up the blinds. Across the park, uniformed officers knocked on doors. A couple of other uniforms searched underneath one of the big live oaks where the mystery car had parked. Venus turned to me.

“Who the hell did you piss off?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said.

“You on a job?” Blaine asked.

“You know I can’t talk about my cases,” I replied.

“You will this time, bud. When people are taking potshots at you, I don’t want to hear that confidentiality bullshit. Start talking.”

I walked back into the kitchen and poured myself more coffee, resisting the urge to add whiskey. I poured cups for Venus and Blaine and handed them over the bar.

“Tuesday morning, Cordelia Spencer Sheehan hired me to look into her son’s death.”

Venus and Blaine exchanged glances I couldn’t read. In a low, neutral voice, Venus said, “You think maybe this has something to do with the case?”

I gulped down coffee. “Right now I don’t know what to think. But for the last two nights, I noticed a car parked out by that tree.” I pointed to where the officers were examining the ground. “Last night, I got Abby to spy on the guys in the car. She took photos of the license plate and the guy in the passenger seat. They’re on my computer.”

“You’ll need to print those up for us,” Venus said. “Blaine, you mind waiting outside for the lab guys?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but she shook her head slightly.

“You know we’re on the Sheehan murder,” Venus said when we were alone. She sat on the couch. I plopped down in the reclining chair. “Tell me what you’ve found.”

“Nothing, really.”

One of the most difficult parts of being a private eye is dealing with the police, especially when you’re working the same case. I personally wasn’t comfortable not coming clean with the cops if my client had broken the law. This wasn’t the first time one of Venus’s and my cases overlapped, but we’d come to an understanding in the past. Although she didn’t like me working her cases, a few times we’d shared information unofficially that eventually led to an arrest. As a private eye, I could cut some corners she couldn’t.

“I interviewed both Mrs. Sheehans, and found some interesting discrepancies in their stories,” I said.

“Imagine that. Go on.”

“I suppose it doesn’t mean anything, certainly not enough to have me killed. Witnesses’ stories are often contradictory.”

“This the only case you’re on now?”

I nodded. “Abby’s looking into an insurance fraud case, but that’s pretty cut-and-dried. Let me ask you a question.”

“Just tell me what happened this morning.”

I exhaled. “I woke up. I made coffee, did my usual morning routine, and came into the living room to work at my computer. I decided to check to see if the car was outside. I went to the window in the door and looked through the blinds. The car wasn’t there, and as I turned away the window exploded.”

“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

I closed my eyes and thought for a moment. “Sorry. All I was looking for was the car.”

“You didn’t see anyone in the park?”

I thought again. “There may have been people at the other end, but this end of the park was empty.”

How could the shooter have known you’d come to the window?”

“He couldn’t have. It wasn’t part of my routine. Come to think of it, I hardly ever look out that window.”

She kept watching my face. I could feel it color. I’d been a cop, so it wasn’t hard to figure out what she was thinking. Someone wanted to shoot me, and they just watched my apartment, waiting for me to move into the window? Wouldn’t it have been easier to wait for me to leave and follow me until they got a better shot? Why take this kind of a chance? Unless whoever it was
wanted
me to know I was being hunted.

“If I hadn’t turned away from the window I would have been shot,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I felt the bullet whiz by my head.”

“Obviously someone shot at you, Chanse,” she said calmly. “I’m just wondering why. And why they took such a risk.”

“And obviously, I don’t know the answer to that.”

I heard my voice rise, and took another deep breath.

“This car just showed up two nights ago?”

“I only noticed it two nights ago. I was out of town until Tuesday afternoon.”

Her face softened. “That’s right. I’m sorry, Chanse. How’s your mother?”

“She’s responding to the treatments. The doctors are cautiously optimistic.”

“Good.”

Blaine led a couple of men through the front door. “Here are the lab techs,” he said.

Venus stood up. “Chanse, print those pictures and we’ll continue this in your bedroom.”

I did as she ordered. Blaine and Venus followed me into the bedroom. Venus glanced at the pictures, then put them in her shoulder bag.

“I’ll trace the plates and see what we can find.”

She filled Blaine in on what I’d already told her.

“The bullet had to have been fired from a higher level,” he said. “But there are no shell casings or anything around the tree, and no signs that anyone had been in it. Is there anything you aren’t telling us, Chanse?”

“No,” I said, fighting the urge to scream at them. They were just doing their jobs, after all.

“What can you tell me about the house on the corner of Terpsichore and Coliseum?” Blaine asked.

“You probably know more about it than I do,” I snapped.

Blaine’s partner was a mover and shaker in the Coliseum Square Association.

“The house is empty,” Blaine told Venus. “My best guess, if the shooter wasn’t in the tree, he had to be on the second floor of that house.” He turned back to me. “The house has been empty since after Katrina, and no, I don’t know anything about it.”

I closed my eyes. An empty house on the other side of the park. There was no telling how long the shooter had been there, waiting for a chance at me. I thought of the last two nights. How many times had I been out there on the porch? When I’d watched Paige walk to her car. When I’d walked Loren to his BMW. When I’d walked with Abby. The shooter had a much better shot all three of those times than he’d had this morning. Why not shoot me then?

Because there had been other people around all three times, potential witnesses. He wanted me when I was alone.

I started to shake again. I mentioned my theory to Blaine and Venus.

“And those three times, was the mystery car there?” Venus asked. She was scribbling in her notepad and didn’t look up.

“Paige and Loren, yes. Not for Abby. After Abby pulled her little stunt, the car took off, so it wasn’t there when I let her out.”

I closed my eyes, remembering. Abby had hoisted her bike over her shoulder and carried it out the front door. I’d stood and watched as she carried it down the steps, and stayed there with the porch light shining directly on me, until she went through the gate and pedaled away down Camp Street.

I might as well have painted a bull’s-eye on my chest.

“I’m going to call for a search warrant,” Blaine said, and returned to the living room.

“Are you sure you can’t think of anyone who’d want you out of the way?” Venus asked gently.

“I swear I can’t.”

“Okay.” She looked out the bedroom door. “Looks like the techs are wrapping up. We’ll get a warrant and search that empty house. I’ll call you if we find anything.”

“Thanks.”

After they had cleared out, I poured myself another cup of coffee. I had to do something about the window. I called Gus, the handyman for Barbara’s properties. He told me he’d contact a glazier. I started sweeping up the broken glass. I’d pretty much finished when my cell phone rang.

“MacLeod.”

“Chanse, dear, this is Barbara.” Her voice was shaky. “Gus just called. He’s on his way to your apartment to board up the window and wait for the glazier. Are you all right?”

“A little shook up, a few cuts here and there from broken glass, but other than that, I’m okay.”

“Thank God. As soon as Gus gets there, would you mind coming over here? We need to have a chat.”

That sounded ominous.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

*

I changed into jeans and a Polo shirt, and washed my face again. When Gus arrived, I drove over to the Palmer House. Barbara was sitting in the drawing room in a wingback chair, in jeans and a T-shirt with a mimosa in her hand. She wasn’t wearing makeup. Her eyes were worried as she walked over and examined the bandages on my arms.

“Are you sure you’re all right, dear?”

I nodded.

“Would you like a drink?”

I shook my head.

“Thank God you’re all right, dear. You don’t think…” Her voice trailed off.

“I don’t know what to think.” I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “You wanted to talk to me?” She bit her lip.

“Would you mind explaining to me why exactly your assistant was talking to Archie Larousse yesterday morning?”

For a moment I couldn’t answer her, it came so far from left field. “How—” I finally spluttered.