Watch Me Die (17 page)

“And he did last night?”

“Yes. And we had sex.” She lit another cigarette. “I enjoyed it.”

Bayle rolled her eyes, but Malone was able to resist the temptation. “Did Gallier’s wife know about you?” he asked.

“Me and the others. There’ve been lots of others. They had an agreement about it.”

“An agreement?” Malone asked. He could feel the dislike of this woman emanating from Bayle. He figured the same was rolling off of him, too.

“Like the army.” She smiled. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

He could tell by her expression that she was disappointed by their lack of response to her cleverness. He decided she was completely narcissistic.

“You don’t seem all that upset by this, Jaz.”

“By what?”

“Your boyfriend’s murder.”

“I’m devastated.” She brought a hand to her chest. “Absolutely.”

“Devastated? Really?” Spencer cocked his head. “Were you in love with him?”

“No. But I was in love with us.”

“Us?”

“Being together. Doing the things we did. We had fun, he bought me lots of nice things.”

Like the gold watch and diamond earrings she wore, he thought. Very nice things, indeed.

“Did he have any enemies that you knew of?”

“He was a peach. Everyone loved Anton.”

Malone found that very hard to believe. You didn’t achieve what Anton Gallier had without pissing off a lot of folks.

“Although,” she went on, “he said something about a fight with his daughter-in-law.”

Malone glanced at Bayle, who responded with a slight nod.

“Do you know when the fight occurred?”

She pursed her lips. “A day or two ago at his club. I wasn’t paying that much attention.”

“What’s the name of his club.”

“The Crescent City Club?”

“Is there anything else you can recall him saying about it?”

She shook her head. “He called her white trash and a gold digger. He
really
didn’t like her.” She leaned forward. “He blamed her for his son’s death.”

“May I see your hands, Jaz?”

She held them out and Spencer inspected them, looking for gunpowder residue. They were clean.

“We’re going to conduct a search of the premises. Also, may we have permission to search your things? If we can do that, you’re free to go.”

She immediately agreed. Her handbag and overnight bag were clean—no gun, anyway—and two minutes later she was exiting by way of the stairs.

After a cursory search of the apartment, leaving a more thorough search to the CSI team, they headed downstairs. When they reached the main floor, the coroner’s reps were carrying the body bag out of the elevator. The CSI guys took their place in the car. The doors slid shut.

Malone looked at Bayle. “After chatting with the unlikable Ms. Zurich, I’ve
got
to interview Gallier’s wife.”

“No joke.” She made a face. “Just think, he was escaping from his wife to be with
that.
”

The elevator door slid open behind them. “Detectives,” the CSI tech called, “I think you’d better come take a look at this.”

They did. On the inside of the door, the perp had written:
He cast out Seven Demons.

Bayle looked at Malone. “What the hell does
that
mean?”

“I’ll tell you what it means,” he said, frowning. “We’ve got a damn big problem on our hands.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Tuesday, August 16

10:50
A.M.

Malone and Bayle stepped out of the elevator just as Percy entered the lobby. He took one look at their expressions and said, “What? Did someone else die while I was gone?”

“Take a look.” Malone jerked his thumb toward the elevator. “Then we’ll talk.”

Percy stepped into the car; Spencer reached inside and pushed the button to close the door. A moment later, Spencer heard his brother swear. Not once but three times.

The door reopened, and Percy stepped off. “This pisses me off.”

Spencer moved his gaze between his brother and Bayle. “I think it’s safe to say at this point that we’ve got a serial on our hands.” He ticked them off. “Sisters of Mercy, Preacher and now Gallier. All connected by a biblical reference.”

“And Mira Gallier,” Bayle added.

Percy scratched his head. “‘He cast out Seven Demons.’ What the hell does that mean?”

“Specifically?” Spencer said. “Don’t know. How about you, Bayle?”

She shook her head. “My mother fancied herself a Buddhist. The closest I got to Western religion was when my grandmother dragged me to her Baptist church. But it has to be biblical, right?”

“Right.” Spencer frowned. “No doubt it refers to Christ’s works, so we’re talking New Testament.”

“I could call Mom,” Percy offered with a smirk. “Of course, then she’d know that we didn’t know and she’d have our asses in mass like this.” He snapped his fingers.

“That’s so not happening, bro. Besides, that’s what the Internet’s for. How about the folks over at the grocery? Anybody see anything this morning?”

“A kid making a delivery. That’s about it.”

“Delivering what?”

“Food, they thought. That’s what it looked like. Coffee tray, white bag.”

“Makes sense,” Spencer noted. “Anybody sees him in the lobby, he’s got an instant explanation.”

“The beauty of this kind of kill is how quick and clean it is,” Bayle said.

Malone agreed. “This perp is highly organized.”

“According to the cashier across the street, his hands were full.” Percy frowned in thought. “So how’d he accomplish it all?”

“He wrote the message
before
killing Gallier,” Bayle offered.

Percy nodded. “Gallier steps into the elevator, sees the message and assumes the building’s been vandalized.”

They returned to the elevator car and examined the writing. Unlike the message scrawled beside Preacher, this was definitely not written in blood.

“In my opinion, he would have had to put down the coffee tray to write this. The gun he could have fired with one hand,” Bayle said.

“Looks like marker. Black, wide tip.” Malone leaned close and sniffed. The slight ether scent lingered. “Permanent marker, not water based.”

“Maybe he didn’t take it with him?”

“And what about the coffee he was delivering? Once the deed was done, he would have wanted to cut out fast.”

Malone headed outside, the other two on his heels. Sure enough, a trash receptacle was located right around the corner. He peered inside.

Coffee carrier, two cups and a white bag.

Bayle and Percy came up behind him. Percy whistled. “Pay dirt.”

“Cups are definitely full.” Malone nudged the take-out bag with his pen. “Something’s in it.”

“Maybe we’re living right,” Percy said, “and the asshole tossed the gun? That’d be sweet.”

Implausible. But sweet
. “I’m more interested in what’s on the bag. It’s five thousand degrees out here, no way he was wearing gloves. Should have prints, DNA from sweat. Maybe other trace.”

“I’ll alert the CSI guys,” Bayle said, unclipping her phone.

“Cups and bag are generic, but we might be able to identify a business from the contents. What about the grocery’s surveillance cameras?”

“I already checked them out,” Percy said, “and they don’t look promising. The one outside the entrance is pointed in the wrong direction.”

“Let’s check it anyway.”

“Done.”

“How about the lobby and elevator?” Bayle suggested. “Cameras are fairly standard these days.”

“Let’s check it out, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”

A couple of the CSI techs tromped out of the building. Spencer gave them directions, then returned to his brother.

“Let’s get some uniforms to canvass the neighborhood. See if anyone saw or heard anything. Apparently Gallier recently argued publicly with his daughter-in-law. Percy, I want you to go to the Crescent City Club and interview anyone who witnessed their fight. Bayle and I will deliver the news to Gallier’s widow and see what she has to say. Whoever gets back first, set up an interview room. I’m hauling Mira Gallier in for questioning.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Tuesday, August 16

11:30
A.M.

Mira sat across from Dr. Jasper. The woman waited silently. Mira had called this morning and begged the therapist to fit her in. The woman had given up her lunch break in order to see her, but now Mira had no idea what to say.

She told her so and the woman’s perfectly shaped eyebrows arched. “We could sit here and stare at one another for an hour, but that seems a tragic waste of a perfectly good lunch hour.”

“It’s just that so much has happened in the past week, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Interesting. Throw some of the events out and see what happens.”

“I was attacked in my studio. The street corner preacher who did it was murdered the next night. My old friend Connor showed up after being missing since before Katrina. Someone broke into my house twice. I smelled Jeff’s aftershave in the middle of the night. I had a fight with my ex–father-in-law. Felt genuinely happy for the first time since Jeff died. Oh, and I got a dog.”

Dr. Jasper stared at her, her expression so classically dumbfounded that Mira laughed. “I’m sorry, but your face … you look so shocked.”

Dr. Jasper laughed, too. “When clients come in and tell me so much has happened, they’re usually talking about their feelings. Not the makings for a made-for-TV movie. Which makes me think we should start with your feelings. You only directly referenced them once.”

“I was happy?”

“Yes, that’s the one.” The therapist leaned back in her chair, looking comfortable as a cat. “Tell me about it.”

Mira clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “I was glad to be alive. For the first time since the storm I was glad I didn’t die with Jeff.”

She paused, guilt and shame rising up in her. She fought them off. “It doesn’t mean I’m glad Jeff’s dead, does it? Isn’t it okay to want to live?”

Without speaking, the therapist handed Mira the box of tissues she hadn’t even realized she needed. She plucked one from the box and blew her nose. “It was the most wonderful feeling. I don’t know if I can describe it.”

“Try.”

She searched for the right words. “It was like I’d been wearing this heavy, dark cloud. No,” she corrected herself, “a shroud, that’s what it was.” Mira stopped, allowing the aptness of her own description to sink in. “Like I’d been dead,” she murmured, “and at that moment had come back to life.”

“Like Christ?”

“No.” Mira looked at her and shook her head. “Like Lazarus.”

The therapist nodded. “If I remember my Sunday-morning lessons correctly, Jesus brought Lazarus back to life.”

“Yes. It was one of his miracles.”

“So who brought
you
back to life?”

The question smacked her in the face. Connor? Nola? Her fear? The circumstances?

All of the above?

“I’m not sure. Maybe it was just time?”

“It
was
time, but time wasn’t the catalyst. Tell me how it happened.”

Too antsy to sit, Mira stood, crossed to the window, then turned back to the therapist.

Mira told her first about Preacher and her necklace, the words coming out in a rush. Then about reconnecting with Connor and his bringing her the dog for protection. “I was so pissed at him. I didn’t want another dog. I wasn’t about to fall in love with her. So I left her in the courtyard for the night.

“Her barking woke me up. When I went to see what was wrong, I smelled Jeff’s aftershave.”

“Are you certain?”

“Ralph Lauren’s Polo Blue. He never wore anything else. For a moment, I was lost in memories and I almost imagined he was there, you know? Like I’d just awakened from a bad dream and it was … finally over.”

“Then what?”

“I heard the sound of a door shutting and I knew … I wasn’t alone. That someone had broken in, the way Preacher had.”

Dr. Jasper made a note, then met her eyes. “Go on.”

“I was terrified. I ran to get Nola. She was suddenly quiet and I was so afraid that I’d lost her, too.”

Mira’s voice cracked. “When I saw she was okay, something happened, like a switch flipping inside me. I was a deranged person. Laughing and crying, giddy and silly, even though just a moment before I’d been terrified.”

Dr. Jasper laid aside her pen and pad and leaned toward her. “As a therapist, my job’s not to draw conclusions for you, but to help you draw your own conclusions. If you were the therapist here, and I your client, how would you help me do that?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Everything you need is in the story. Let’s pretend for the moment that none of that really happened. It was all a dream, or a creation of your subconscious. What are the important elements of the story?”

“Smelling Jeff’s aftershave for sure. The way that made me feel.”

“And then?”

“The sound of the door closing, snapping me back to reality. The realization that I wasn’t alone.”

“Go on.”

“My fear of losing Nola. My joy to find her alive and unharmed.”

Alive. Unharmed.
Her overwhelming joy at being alive.

The therapist went on. “You say that nothing was taken, all the doors and windows were locked from the inside?”

“You’re suggesting no one was there? That it was my subconscious creating it all?” Mira shook her head. “Nola was barking.”

“Was she?”

“Yes! That’s what woke me. It is, I…” Her voice trailed off, she crossed over to the sofa and sank back onto it. When had she noticed Nola wasn’t barking anymore? The moment she climbed out of bed? When she reached the hall and smelled Jeff’s aftershave? Or when she heard the door click shut?

“Did you know that of all our sensory memories, those associated with the sense of smell are the strongest? A smell can bring us back to a place or time, inspire us to relive the feelings associated with that time, better than anything else.”

Mira shook her head and Dr. Jasper continued. “And what of the sound of a door closing? Other than the obvious, what could that mean?”