Not Dead Enough

by J. M. Redmann

  I started my car and pulled out.

  I could just drive until it was all over, a cocoon of cool air. Until three, then four passed. I’d sent out the warning. It wasn’t my fault if no one listened.

  Not my fault if Karen was murdered by the Brandes because she was doing her job.

  I was heading back into the city.

  It was a little before two.

  Holly Farmer.

  Cousin Halley. Another Brande queer girl.

  What was her family name? I searched my memory, sliding onto the exit from I-10 that would take me to the Garden District.

  Not Brande. One of the Brande women had married. A man named Foster.

  Halley Foster.

  Holly Farmer.

  “Fuck,” I muttered out loud. A little family in-joke with the name, perhaps?

  Or was it just the coincidence of the two letters?

  That would explain the one thing that made no sense—involving me and Karen. Karen clearly had mentioned my name, told Holly about me. They needed a private eye—or decided one was useful—and bingo, I was part of this. A big puzzle piece slipped into place.

  Or was this too far-fetched, going into convoluted plot instead of what real crime was like, messy and stupid?

  I exited the freeway, speeding past cars that were clearly lost tourists.

  As soon as I could, I pulled over to the side of the road, then frantically looked through the security photos I’d sent myself from the cameras at Rob’s bar.

  I found the one of Holly, then sent it to Anmar. “Is this your cousin Halley? Important. Get back to me ASAP.”

  I pulled out again. It was just after two. I needed to catch Karen before she left. Her house was only a few minutes’ walk from the showing—although she’d drive to avoid a few blocks of sweat. She could leave at 2:25 and be there on time.

  I sped down MLK Drive, crossing St. Charles on a yellow light that was well on its way to red, then turned uptown to get to Karen’s place.

  The street was quiet, too hot for even wind to stir the leaves. I parked in the first available place, full sun, of course.

  Then scanned the street. A big navy SUV was a few houses down, in the shade. Behind it a silver Jeep.

  Holly got out of it, going to the back and putting a battered-looking briefcase in the locked compartment there. Social worker case notes with confidential information in them?

  Sharon and Margaret had seen a gray Jeep-like vehicle dump the body.

  I watched her go in, carrying a small suitcase and handbag with her, presumably from the beach trip she had been called away from. Called to where? Atlanta?

  But leaving the briefcase in her car.

  My phone pinged. A text.

  Anmar. Close. Or a twin and she doesn’t have one. How did you get a picture of her? Aunt Vera is trying on clothes so I have a few minutes.

  Long story, I typed back. Will update you soon.

  I got out, slinging my messenger bag over my shoulder.

  I called Joanne as I walked across Karen’s Garden District–sized lawn. Voice mail.

  “Micky. You’re going to be needed at Karen’s house ASAP,” was my message.

  Either to haul me away for being an idiot. Or to arrest the criminal Brandes.

  The door was slightly ajar. Holly hadn’t fully shut it. Careless? Or did she need to leave quickly? Karen wouldn’t notice since she would go out the back to her car.

  I heard voices in the back. They sounded like they were coming from her big sitting room.

  Karen. “You’re back! I wondered what took you so long. Your aunt arrived just after I got here.”

  Holly. “Sorry, things took longer than planned, and traffic was bad. I know you have to run. But I’ll be here when you get back.”

  I barged in. “No, she won’t.”

  Three people stared at me. They were in the large sitting room off the kitchen. Karen, sitting on a couch flanked by two matching armchairs. Holly was standing across the coffee table from her.

  Karen was first to speak. “Micky! What the hell are you doing in my house?”

  Holly was next. “What the fuck?”

  “Salve,” I said to the third woman, sitting in an arm chair. “How interesting to find you here.”

  Her face was stone, as if she was willing it to be blank, given away only by a deepening line in her brow. She’d had so many years of hiding her emotions, it might be automatic. But I couldn’t read her, and that worried me. She should be surprised or worried. Or even happy, if they were truly trying to get away.

  It didn’t look like she had any intention of meeting Ellis, though.

  Then from the near corner of the room, behind me and the door I’d come through, another voice. “Micky?”

  Cordelia.

  Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck. What are you doing here? This is the last place in New Orleans you should be. You’re in danger. Or about to see me make an utter fool of myself. I had called Joanne. Joanne had called Cordelia. Maybe she couldn’t get Karen on the phone and had come over. Who the fuck knew? She was here.

  I knew we’d run into each other eventually. This was as bad a place as any.

  “Told you she couldn’t keep away from you,” Holly said, her mouth settling into a sneer.

  “Holly Farmer—what a cute inside joke—social worker? Or Halley Foster, ambitious drug dealer?”

  Cordelia said, “What are you talking about?” She left her chair to stand, flanking me. We were a ragged circle around the room, Holly, Salve, and Karen closer to each other, unconsciously using the coffee table as a barrier.

  “She’s lying,” Holly said.

  “Is this the unbalanced private eye you mentioned?” Salve asked calmly, as if she’d never seen me before.

  “Why did you call her Salve?” Cordelia asked me.

  “Her name is Sabrina. She’s Holly’s Aunt Sabrina,” Karen said. “What is going on here?” Then she threw up her hands. “It doesn’t matter. I have to get to the showing.” To me, she added, “You need to leave.”

  “Don’t bother. The showing is a fake,” I told her. “Sabrina Brande. So it’s your twin, the real Salve, who’s in the morgue. Not the first time you’ve used her name.” She had used Salve’s name for the money laundering—and probably other times as well. If there was trouble, it would be Salve, not Sabrina, to take the fall. A cruel and ugly twist on Anmar and Andrea’s game of switching places.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Salve/Sabrina said. Too quickly. She gave the Brande men what they wanted to hear, not real emotions. If she really didn’t know what I was talking about, she’d be shocked at her twin sister being dead and in the local morgue. If she didn’t know, she’d want to know. But her expression didn’t change. She asked no questions.

  Cordelia did look shaken, looking around the room as if to read their faces, then at me as if she also sensed something not right here.

  “Look, this is crazy talk,” Holly/Halley said. “I told you she had a screw loose. Looks like a few more as well. What kind of fantasy hero are you trying to be?” She didn’t direct the question at me but at the audience she was playing to.

  “I’ve called Joanne; she’s on her way. She can sort it out,” I said.

  I was hasty in blurting that out. Until that moment I’d had lingering doubt, thinking I could be making all this up, conjecture on assumption on speculations and a few coincidences. If they were blasé, or even welcomed Joanne, I’d be wrong.

  The expressions—fleeting and controlled on Salve/Sabrina, less so on Halley—told me otherwise. Sly. Sinister. Desperate. They would not wait for Joanne.

  Holly put her hand into her bag. Going for a cell phone? Nervous habit? A syringe of fentanyl? A gun? Had we become expendable?

  A split second. She knew what she was going to do.

  I didn’t.

  Her hand was already in her bag. I could jam my hand into my bag and hope to come out with my gun before she did. If we started shoot
ing, the bullets could go anywhere. Hit anyone.

  Decide! There was no more time. Her hand was moving.

  I threw myself across the room at her.

  She turned at the sound, her hand almost free.

  My fist reared back and I punched her in the solar plexus as hard as I could.

  Then a quick blow with my other hand to her nose. I needed to hurt her, make the pain keep her hand away from whatever it was reaching for.

  If it was a cell phone, I’d face an assault charge.

  She went down hard, hitting the floor with a reverberating thud as she let out a strangled groan, blood pouring from her nose.

  “Holly!” Karen screamed, jumping over the coffee table to her. “What the fuck!” she screamed with the barest of looks at me, her gaze on the blood dripping down Holly’s chin.

  She was too transfixed to notice the gun Holly had pulled from her bag.

  Sabrina got up. I took my gun out and pointed it at her.

  “Don’t move,” I growled.

  She stopped but didn’t sit back down, her face trying to hide anger, then desperation and resignation.

  I kicked Holly’s gun to Cordelia. She didn’t like guns, but when we lived together I had insisted if we had one in the house, she needed to know how to use it. Reluctantly, she had agreed and we’d gone to the firing range several times. She was never happy about it. It was one of the fault lines between us—she was a doctor and saw the destruction guns did. On rare occasions I’ve had to pull the trigger in my line of work. A few times it saved a life.

  She picked it up. Looked at it like it was a snake, then held it properly, flicking the safety off. I almost wanted to say “good girl,” but knew she would not appreciate it.

  “These two women are killers,” I said. “Sabrina murdered her twin sister, Salve, to make it look like she was the one who had died. She killed Salve’s husband as well and tried to kill the two women who witnessed them dumping Salve’s body in an area of town that only looked deserted. They were sending Karen into a death trap to cover their escape. Do not let them move, hands, fingers, legs. Nothing.” Some of this was conjecture, but I needed Cordelia to know these women were dangerous and deadly.

  Cordelia looked grim, but nodded.

  Halley groaned, then pushed Karen away. She tried to sit up, but flopped back.

  “I won’t let her hurt you again,” Karen said, still kneeling at Holly’s side. She was in love with her. Couldn’t see that Holly didn’t exist.

  I took two steps until I was standing over her. I pointed the gun down at her, keeping Sabrina in the corner of my eye. “Do not move. Understand? I can shoot your knee out or you can cooperate.”

  “Cooperate,” she mumbled, her hand over her nose in an attempt to stop the blood.

  “Good. At this point it’s your best option. The police are almost here.”

  I moved away, backing toward the door.

  “You’re leaving?” Cordelia said to me.

  I nodded. “I have to. It’s not finished. Loose ends. Don’t let them move.”

  “Put the gun down and help her!” Karen demanded.

  “She’ll live,” I said. “Get Joanne and the police here first.” I looked at Cordelia, willing her to understand.

  She gave a bare nod. She hadn’t become a doctor to hold a gun on a bleeding woman. I had to trust she’d at least wait for Joanne. And knew enough to know a nosebleed usually looks worse than it is.

  I grabbed Holly’s purse and backed out of the room, keeping my gun pointed at them.

  I didn’t look at Cordelia again.

  A siren sounded in the distance.

  When they were out of my sight line, I spun around, running out of the house, thrusting my gun into my bag. As I ran down the steps and across the lawn, my fingers searched for Halley’s Jeep keys.

  Yes, a big honking key ring.

  Andrea Brande was not the woman in the morgue, and there were still a few Brande women I could save.

  I beeped her Jeep open, heading for the back. I had to fumble to get the key to the locked compartment, but it opened easily.

  The battered briefcase.

  I grabbed it and then ran back to my car. I paused just long enough to dial 9-1-1 and report a robbery in progress at Karen’s address. I needed to make sure the police got there as soon as possible. Likely they were the siren, but I couldn’t take the chance they weren’t.

  I started my car and drove away.

  The siren sounded closer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was back at the airport, pulling into short-term parking. More expensive than long-term, but I didn’t have time.

  Only then did I open the briefcase. A small pile of paper, a few manila envelopes with account passbooks in them. A quick riffle through them told me it was the Brande family secret accounts.

  I called Anmar.

  “Micky! Are you okay?”

  “Are you?” I asked.

  “Yes, although it’s gotten even crazier here. Aunt Vera abruptly dumped me back at the hotel. Told me…it was all over. And she had to get back to Uncle Billy to get away. She said I’d need to fend for myself.”

  “Do you have a passport?”

  “What?” Not the question she expected. “Yes.”

  “With you?”

  “Yes. Always. Just in case.”

  “Pack what you have. Check out. Meet me at the airport? International terminal.”

  “Yes…but…I have to buy a ticket to get in.”

  “Buy one. Anywhere. Late enough to give me time to get there.”

  “But what’s going on?”

  “No time, I’ll explain there.” I hung up on her.

  Flights from New Orleans to Atlanta happen about every hour. I booked myself on the next nonstop, coming back on the last flight of the evening, carrying only the briefcase and a few things from my messenger bag—like chocolate—that I might want. I left my gun locked in the trunk of my car.

  I was jammed in a middle seat as that was all that was left, but it was a short flight. Either no one was talkative or my scowl warned them off.

  As the plane landed, I texted Anmar to let her know I was here. There were a number of other messages on my phone, but I ignored them.

  She was in the food court in the international terminal. Few people at this time in the evening.

  She looked at me.

  Then saw the briefcase.

  It was nice to see real emotion on a Brande woman’s face. Surprise, shock. Wonder.

  “How did you…?”

  I took out my PI license and handed it to her. “I’ve lied to you. I’m sorry. But at the time I didn’t think I could be honest.”

  She took it from me, strong emotions still moving across her face—fear, disbelief. Curiosity.

  She handed it back to me.

  “Your aunt Sabrina came to New Orleans. She called herself Aimee Smyth. She claimed she wanted me to find her long-lost sister Sally Brand, no ‘e.’ She also went to a real estate broker and put money down on a house. All from a Brande account she got into.”

  Anmar stared at me, then a slow comprehension entered her eyes. “Sabrina and Halley, of course. Go on. Elbert comes down there to get a foothold, so if it’s New Orleans, Ellis might think he’s behind it.”

  “Probably. A lot of this is just guessing. Their plan was to focus Ellis here and make him think the accounts had been breached.”

  “Uncle Dominic, Hannah’s husband. He’s an accountant. Ellis would let him do the work, but he was always watched. He could never write anything down.”

  “But he might have memorized at least one account number.”

  “They had a miserable marriage. Perfect couple on the outside, hate on the inside. He was the kind of man who would let her take all the risk.”

  “That provoked Ellis to move the accounts. But he was stupid and clumsy about it.”

  “Sending us all away, so even Junior Boy would know something was going on.”

>   “Halley left Pensacola where she was with her girlfriend, went back to Atlanta, and organized an ambush on Ellis and grabbed the briefcase.”

  “But how did you get it?”

  “They couldn’t resist trying to prove they were smarter than we are. She named her sister Sally Brand. I did a lot of searching, discovered the Brande family from Atlanta, and the fictitious Aimee Smyth claimed to be from there. Then I found the name Salve. Probably turned into Sally as a nickname.”

  “Yes, we usually called her Aunt Sally. She’s not involved, is she? She’s…the kind one. So different from her twin. Sabrina is, well, always looking for her advantage. Sally was different, learned to be kind somewhere in that family. Too trusting, if anything. She was always happy to see us kids.”

  Anmar noticed my face.

  I hadn’t wanted to tell her, and now I had to. “I’m sorry, I think she’s dead. She overdosed, so she just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”

  Her face crumpled, then she said, “But she didn’t do drugs. Didn’t even drink.”

  “I think she was killed. Someone, mostly likely Sabrina and Halley, gave it to her.”

  Anmar wiped the tears from her face, “But why?” she said angrily.

  “I’m guessing, but the men can’t tell the twins apart. What better way for Sabrina to escape than to have people think she’s dead?”

  “Damn,” Anmar muttered. “Halley asked me how Andrea and I got away with going to the lesbian bars and having girlfriends. I told her how we fooled them since we looked so much alike. But Ellis would know Salve couldn’t be involved.”

  “Maybe. She might have gone along. Or been taken by someone who didn’t want to leave her with the Brande men. I think they messed up, not knowing New Orleans well enough. They left her body in a deserted location. A day or two in the heat…would make identification even harder. But there was a camp of homeless people there. I think they wanted the body found, but not as soon as it was. Sabrina claims to be Salve, and everyone thinks Sabrina is dead. But two homeless women prevented that.”