Neal Rafferty New Orleans Mystery #1: The Killing Circle (A Neal Rafferty New Orleans Mystery) (5 page)

Everyone is sensitive about their air conditioning in the dead heat of August.

As I stepped inside she flexed her nose at the smell that was still clinging to me and gave me a peculiar look. I forged ahead quickly.

“What about the lady who works for Garber, have you seen her?”

She laughed a slithery laugh. “The kind of hours Lucy keeps, she's got to be balling him for her salary.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Oh, come on,” she said, “surely in this day and age you're not shocked.” The way she said it, I felt foolish for letting her see my amazement even if she had misinterpreted it. “Who are you anyway? Have I been indiscreet?”

Somehow this interview was going awry. Maybe it was because I was still shaken from seeing Garber's dead body. In my line of work, the last thing I wanted was for her to think she'd been indiscreet, but she hadn't asked like she was very worried. I thought instead that she had sensed my embarrassment at letting my face be read so easily and was amused. Well, it was her turn in the trenches now. I am, after all, a tough guy from the Channel.

I hit her with it. “I've just been next door and Stanley Garber is dead. Murdered.”

Her face registered nothing. A big zero. A cold fish. It irked me. I found the phone by myself and called the police. She had gone beyond the rack of costumes, to the far end of the room where there were two dressing tables, over them mirrors bordered by light bulbs. She was sitting on a stool in front of one of them, the shawl pulled close around her like she was very cold. She stared at the floor. I sat on the other stool, warming up for some third degree. She lifted her head and I could see I had called it wrong. The emotion stood out on her face. I felt like a jerk.

Her name was Eva Adams. She told me that as she'd walked up that Monday morning, Garber was speaking in low, rapid tones to the young man, striking the box he was holding for emphasis. She had heard his fingers thump the box but could not hear what he said. As she came into the carriageway, he had nodded to her and pulled the guy inside. This was just before ten o'clock. After that she had heard and seen nothing.

Lucy, she said, kept very irregular hours, so that Eva wasn't sure whether she'd been in the shop or not during the past week. That, the way she dressed, and her posses-siveness when she talked about Garber or the bookstore had led Eva to assume that they were having a sexual relationship. She said she did not speak to either of them very often and did not know them very well.

The NOPD was on the scene quickly. I was unlocking the door for the lab boys when Roderick Rankin lumbered up.

“I rushed right over when I heard you'd called in a homicide, Neal.” He went past me unhurriedly, straight back to Garber's office, elephantine in his light gray summer suit.

I waited in the carriageway and cursed my luck and a damn town where you can't go anywhere without running into someone you know. If I'd had to find Garber's body, why couldn't I have done it on his day off?

Rankin is no ordinary cop to me. He just happens to be one of the old man's best friends. The old man had been on the force a few years when he and Rankin were assigned to the same car. From then on he was Rankin's mentor, leading the way in rank until they ended up on Homicide together. Rankin had been in on many of our family discussions, and he had notably contributed to the idea that I was ruining my life trying to get the dope on Angelesi. He was the first to suggest that I resign from the police department before I was fired. I wondered if he was in on the old man's latest plan for my improvement.

He joined me in the carriageway. “What a way to start the week, huh, Neal?” His eyelids were heavy, dopey looking. He gazed at me from underneath them.

“You said it, Uncle Roddy.”

“You touch anything?”

“Uncle Roddy!”

He had a silent laugh, but you could tell he was amused because air rushed out of his nose and his jowls shook. “Just checking, just checking on you, Neal.” He waited for me to say something, but I just stood there trying to look like I appreciated his sense of humor. “Who gave you the key?”

I told him. His bushy eyebrows drew together.

“She your client?”

“She isn't paying me, if that's what you mean.”

“Why'd she give you the key, then?”

“She told me her father was missing and gave me the key.”

“He isn't on the missing persons list.”

I shrugged.

“So why'd she call you in?” he demanded.

“She did not call me in, Uncle Roddy.”

His eyelids got so heavy I thought he was going to sleep. “Okay, Neal, let's have the background on this.”

I took a deep breath. “Look, Uncle Roddy, I think I owe it to my client to talk to him first.”

He blew air out of his nose and shook his jowls. “Neal, Neal.” He put his fingertips on his chest. “This is me, your Uncle Roddy, Neal. You can tell me. Everything,” he added. “Now, who is your client?”

I didn't like the way he was trying to manipulate me. “I don't have to tell you that, Uncle Roddy.”

The slits he looked at me through got venomous. “That so? You forget this is murder. I can haul you in for withholding information.”

“Well, I really would like to consult with my client first.”

“Fine. We'll go consult with him together.” I shook my head. “Don't be a stubborn jackass, Neal.” Echoes of the old man. They must have talked already. Since they were calling me one, I decided to be a stubborn jackass.

“You know, Uncle Roddy, if there's one thing I learned from the New Orleans Police Department, it's that certain people in this city are untouchable. It has to do with politics and money. My client just happens to keep a lot of people's pockets heavy, which makes him a powerful man. He might not like it if you go barging in on him with no reason. He might get mad at you.”

His eyes opened as wide as they ever had. “You get this straight, Neal. I don't like no two-bit detective using scare tactics wit’ me. There ain't no one in this city who's above the law as far as I'm concerned.”

“Yeah. Like Angelesi.”

“He got his in the end.”

“Not for my two bits he didn't.”

“Being in love with a dead girl must not be very satisfying, if you get what I mean.”

“I get what you mean,” I said, tight-lipped. “I should have made an anonymous phone call.”

He rocked back on his heels, pleased with the dig. “Maybe you should have if you weren't going to cooperate. What you gotta realize is, even if you are John's son, I gotta treat you like everybody else.”

“That's all I ask, Uncle Roddy, just to be treated like everybody else. Forget you know me. Forget I'm John's son. And I'll forget you asked me to betray my client's confidence just because you're my old man's friend.”

I got a nasty gaze through reptilian slits. “Go easy, Neal. Go real easy. I'll get your license if you're withholding evidence.”

I forced myself to say that was fair enough.

He went over to Royal Theatrical Supplies. “Stay available,” he said and pushed the door open. I hoped he would have a long and satisfying conversation with Eva. Her assumptions about Lucy McDermott's sex life with the dead man would keep his mind off me for a while.

6

Hands Off

The stench of Garber's body had stayed with me. I needed to get rid of it so I headed in the direction of St. Charles Avenue to the Euclid Apartments which I now call home although for me home will always be the Irish Channel. Shortly after Myra's death I had left my parents’ house for good. The situation with the old man had become intolerable. He kept saying there was no good reason for Angelesi to kill the likes of Myra.

I took time to shave and hurried back out to the lake. I didn't expect my bad news to make me an immediate favorite of Catherine's, but somehow the fact that I had kissed her made me the man to tell her.

I parked in the same place in front of the lane and started for the house. There were lights on in the houses and among the trees. Nighttime made the place look more real.

I knocked softly and hoped Catherine would answer. She did. She had on the same dress, a close-fitting cream-colored dress with short sleeves. The soft material made a tight circle around her upper arms. The flesh under the circle was full and firm and a rich golden color. She had let her hair down. It brushed her shoulders. I wished there was nothing else to do that night but decide if she looked better with it off her face or down.

The icy blue had melted away and left a gray mistiness about her eyes, creating a strange and shadowy look that was hard to read.

“Did you find Fleming's books?” she asked, and stepped aside to let me in. Her voice was tired and bland.

I took her arm and guided her into the living room. “No, I didn't, but that doesn't matter. I'd like to ask you a few more questions.”

“Sure,” she said with a brief gesture of indifference that neatly disengaged her arm.

“How long has your father known Lucy McDermott?”

The mist vanished. “Look. If you're going to start with that again, you can leave.”

“Stop that,” I said softly. “That's not what I meant at all. She's worked for your father about a year?”

She nodded.

“Do you know where she's from?”

She thought a moment. “Maybe Florida.”

“Where in Florida?”

“I don't know,” she said irritably. “I'm not even sure she's from Florida. All I know is she had an aunt there who died and she took care of everything. I can't even remember when it happened. March, April; sometime after the first of the year.”

Maybe that was something and maybe it wasn't. I turned and walked across the room. “Did your father know her before he hired her?” I asked with my back to her.

There was a lot of silence. I turned to see her staring at me like she thought I'd lost my mind.

“Should he have? Is it written somewhere that you have to have a long-standing friendship with a woman before you employ her?”

I went back to where she stood and put my hand on her arm. “No, Catherine. Of course not. Hey, are you always so angry?”

She moved away from me and sat down heavily on the sofa. “No. No, I'm not.” Again, she drew her arms in close to her body, one folded across her middle, but she held up a hand like she wanted to keep me away from her. “It's just that you—you're making me angry. I don't even know why I'm talking to you—you work for Fleming.” The hand gestured at me. “What is it about you? What is the point of all this?”

“I'm sorry, Catherine. I don't want to make you angry. I want to—look, just tell me—” I thought about Lucy's salary and Eva saying she didn't keep regular hours. “I'm puzzled, that's all. He was paying her three hundred dollars a week. He must have thought a lot of her.”

She jumped up. “Damn you! You won't leave it alone, will you? You
want
to believe that he ran off with that woman. That makes it simple, doesn't it? I tell you, he didn't!” She was flushed, her fists clenched.

“I know, I know.” I took both of her full, firm arms. She was taut against me. “I know he didn't, Catherine.” And I told her how I knew. She just stared with the stare of a somnambulist, dreamy but trancelike. Then her eyes started to dilate. Very slowly the pupils enlarged until the gray-blue became almost all black. She was in shock, but there was an incredible depth in those eyes. The black was so deep that it was hard to tell if the light in the room was being reflected or if it had fallen in. I gripped her and moved her to the sofa. Her body was stiff and seemed to be trying to reject the movement. Once she was sitting, I rubbed her hands and then her face and tried her name out on her, but she was gone. I was getting worried. The only thing I could think of was a bottle of brandy I could see in the next room. I poured one, drank it and poured another, and brought it back to the sofa with me.

A few minutes later she startled me when she said, “My father did not run off with Lucy McDermott.”

“I know,” I managed, jolted. I picked up the glass of brandy. “Here, drink some of this.” She took a sip and asked for a cigarette. I gave her one which she puffed once, put in an ashtray, and forgot about.

We sat for a while in silence. I finally had to say it. “Catherine, do you remember what I told you?”

She looked pained. “I can't cry,” she said. I told her it was okay. She said she wished she could and wondered if everything would ever be alright again. I said it would. I stroked her hair and tried to give her some assurance. She closed her eyes and seemed to relax, but only briefly. Her eyes snapped open and she withdrew in panic.

“Mother.” Her voice was hoarse. “How am I going to tell Mother?”

We talked it over and decided that it would be best if Mrs. Garber's doctor were present with a sedative. Catherine accepted my offer to call him and told me that his number was written on the back of the telephone book by the hall phone.

When I returned her grief was evident and she seemed anxious for me to go. I thought she would have her cry once she was alone. I told her to expect a visit from the cops and she said that she could handle it. She saw me out with hardly a good-bye.

7

A Liar Will Steal, a Thief Will Murder

To a cop on the beat, the French Quarter at night is like a lunatic asylum. The streets are filled with mad drivers who think they have found either the local dragstrip or the scenic route through town. The first type are too busy chattering to their cohorts to look where they are going and the second group use their side windows as windshields. The sounds are yelling horns, shrieking tires, and general clatter. Those few who are using the narrow streets to get somewhere experience serious frustration and the fright of a driving instructor who finds out his student is blind. The side streets are dark and safe only for junkies and pimps. Bourbon Street is an impasse of pedestrians who are either drunk rabble-rousers or sightseers or both. From Burgundy to Decatur there are panhandlers looking for a handout for their next high, for condoms, or for their religious organizations. The latter are the worst. They want your money and your soul.