Murder in the Rue St. Ann (25 page)

“Here’s where you put your arms up in the air and say ‘whoooo’,” he’d demonstrate, a big grin on his face as he moved his feet back and forth with the bass line. We’d done Ecstasy together during Decadence. I hadn’t done it since the notorious summer after I left the force and every night seemed like a weekend.  Every Friday and Saturday night I took Ecstasy and walked around with a big stupid grin on my face. I called it the ‘summer of drugs.’

I’d never done it and gone dancing though. Dancing was never one of my favorite things to do. I always felt awkward and goofy on the dance floor, but Paul danced with such abandonment I enjoyed just kind of moving from side to side and watching him. “I can’t believe you’ve never danced on X before,” he said as we both took our pills and washed them down with water. “You’re going to have so much fun, baby!” He grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out into the midst of the packed dance floor. I stood still and watched him start moving. I started dancing too, feeling awkward, stupid and out of place, as I got bumped from opposite sides. We just kept dancing, until my awkwardness just dropped away. I began to sense the music, feel it in my soul and in my feet, and I started moving like I’d never moved before. It was fun; everything was fun…the music was incredible, like nothing I’d ever heard before, and then Paul had started tapping my chest, and it felt amazingly good. I tucked my water bottle into my back pocket— like Paul had— pulled my shirt off and tucked it through a belt loop, where it swung into my leg every once in a while as I moved.  Another song started, one I recognized and it was like they’d played it just for me.  and I felt the sound coming up and out of my mouth before I could even think about it. “Whooooo…” Paul just gave me a big grin and joined me. We grabbed each other’s hands and held them up over the crowd, waving them back and forth, grinning like morons at each other. We’d stood on the Oz dance floor, moving and dancing and grinning and touching and kissing, surrounded by wall to wall muscle men drenched in sweat having the time of their lives. I just followed Paul’s lead, moving my arms and dancing, sometimes just touching him because he was so damned pretty, everyone was pretty, the whole world was pretty…

That had been the only night in the past two months we’d gone out dancing, and the only reason we’d gone was because some friends of Paul’s came into town for the weekend. We were supposed to meet them that night at Oz, but we never did. Thinking back,  I smiled, remembering the joy on Paul’s face that night on the dance floor, how many times he had just grabbed me and held on to me with all his strength, and then would look up and say, “I love you, Chanse.”

I love you, Chanse.

My stomach growled just as I pulled into Waveland. It could have been any generic Southern city with a highway through it. The road was lined with fast food and chain stores of every type, gas stations, the obligatory mall and Wal-Mart. When I saw the golden arches, I put on my turn signal and slowed down.

When I got down to twenty miles per hour, the car began to hiccup and lurch. I immediately shifted into neutral, and the car stopped its gasping and rolled into the parking lot, barely making it up the slight incline and almost coming to a stop. I shifted back into drive but the car simply stalled. I put it back into neutral, restarted the car, revved the engine a few times, then put it into drive. The transmission groaned, then caught with a lurch and I guided the car into a parking lot.

I turned it off. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I berated myself. I should have borrowed Paige’s car. I should have taken Paul’s. I should have fucking rented one. I should have taken the fucking thing into the garage instead of putting it off. It would be my luck to have it break down completely out here in the middle of nowhere, stranding me in Mississippi of all places. It usually ran just fine, but whenever I had to go out on the highway, getting it up to a speed over fifty, it would have trouble downshifting when I was slowing down. Once it had stalled on the St. Charles exit ramp. It had taken me several minutes to get it started and going again with cars honking behind me, the ramp blocked up all the way back to the highway as we missed several light changes because of me.

I got out of the car and locked it. Pulling my cell phone out, I called Paige. “Tourneur.”

“Hey Paige—I may need your help. Are you tied up there all day?”

“I’ve got a zillion things to do, but since I’m wonderful, it shouldn’t be a problem getting it all done in a hurry if I need to.” She laughed. “I am so underpaid. What’s up?”

“I’m checking into this guy who was sending Paul the emails.”

“What did you find?”

She listened to my morning, and then exploded. “Jesus H. Christ, will you have a priest give that car the last rites and put a bullet through it’s engine already? Put it out of its misery! And me out of mine!

“Well, it’ll probably be okay—it usually is after it cools down a bit.”

“You’re fucking crazy. I can’t believe you—what if this guy is a wacko? No one would have known where you were. You’d just vanish, like Paul. Christ, I need a cigarette.” Paige had almost quit her job when the
Times-Picayune
had gone smoke free.

“I’ll be fine, Paige. I’ve got my gun this time.” Paige had ripped me up one side and down the other after I’d almost been killed. The main thing she’d harped on was I hadn’t even taken my gun with me. She claimed she never went anywhere without hers—although I seriously doubted she went on dates with it tucked into her purse next to her make-up and wallet. “And that’s why I’m calling—so someone does know where I am.”

“If you haven’t called me by five, I’m calling Venus. What’s this guy’s address?”

I read it to her off the directions I’d printed out. She repeated it as she wrote it down. “Oh, guess what?”

I hated when she did that. “What?”

“Did you know Ricky Dahlgren had applied for a private eye license?” Paige could get anyone to talk to her, tell her things they wouldn’t tell anyone else. None of Paige’s sources ever asked her for money. They just liked her so they helped her out. She could establish rapport with a stranger faster than anyone I’d ever seen in my life. If she’d been a cop, she’d solve every case thrown her way. She’d convince everyone to confess, and if they didn’t, they weren’t guilty most likely. I never questioned where she got her information. The most important thing about it was the information was always right. “He’d applied several times for a job with the FBI.”

“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.”